Healing Touch

It sounds nice. Felt nice too!

I went to a Mind Body Spirit Fair yesterday and had the opportunity to have a short Healing Touch session. It was really quite lovely.

From the University of Minnesota Healthy Lifesytle Pages:

Healing Touch is an “energy therapy” that uses gentle hand techniques thought to help re-pattern the patient’s energy field and accelerate healing of the body, mind, and spirit.

Healing Touch is based on the belief that human beings are fields of energy that are in constant interaction with others and the environment. The goal of Healing Touch is to purposefully use the energetic interaction between the Healing Touch practitioner and the patient to restore harmony to the patient’s energy system.

I don’t know about the effectiveness of this practice, but wow, it felt wonderful.

It’s That Time of Year

“Okay, now hold still, don’t move,” she said as she walked away from me.

Move? Ha. Yeah…um, I don’t think so. A significant part of me was currently painfully squished between the plates of the mammogram machine. I have one hand resting here, elbow out and up, another hanging down and twisted back, my shoulders are, um, ‘relaxed’. Moving sounded (and felt!) like a very bad idea. My eyes were averted, I really didn’t want to know what my breast looked like pressed out like that under plastic. There are some things best left unknown…unseen!!

I don’t dread my yearly screening mammogram, but I don’t love it either. As a woman with larger than normal breasts, it is just really really uncomfortable being handled like that, and then there is that underlying, slightly irrational, worry that parts of your breast just might fall off the far edge of the plate…it hasn’t happened…um, yet, but still…there are moving parts back there, I wouldn’t want things to get tangled up! Really. So, there is pain and there is humiliation. Good times.

Four x-ray’s and we are done. I give the girls a big apology hug “it’s for your own good…and I’m so sorry!!” Hopefully, it will be 12 more months before we have to do THAT again.

Check this post out…she has visuals!: Summer Squash

“Inside of Me” – Starlight Mints

I’m Listening

My head hurts today, and I am having difficulty putting words to “blog”, but this disturbing speech by Oklahoma Representative Sally Kern came to my attention this morning.

I wish that I had the words to express my outrage, my frustration, my sadness and more. Time to take action?

…and on to a different subject…or is it? Education, honesty, reality, isn’t it time to put ignorance behind us?

Starr called me this morning and (among other things) said that one of the girls in her hall has herpes. Sad that such personal information has reached the ears of all the students that this young woman interacts with daily. Coincidentally, I saw this news article just yesterday which states that:

At least one in four teenage girls nationwide has a sexually transmitted disease, or more than 3 million teens, according to the first study of its kind in this age group.

A virus that causes cervical cancer is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection in teen girls aged 14 to 19, while the highest overall prevalence is among black girls — nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD.

I believe in education, smart, real, honest, complete education. It won’t cure everything, we are human after all, but knowledge is not a handicap. Misinformation and ignorance surely can be.

The Headache

I call it “the headache”…not “them”, not “headaches”, but “it”.

It is always there, never ending, constant. I have had this headache for over 20 years, and it is getting worse. Some days the pain is worse than others, but it is never ever gone. I have been to many doctors with various specialties. I have taken numerous drugs and have even had surgery to no avail.

It is difficult to understand, I know. When visiting a pain specialist, I explained to him the nature of the pain. He nodded his head and then asked me “so, when a headache starts are you doing something specific? Do they start in the morning?” Resisting the urge to throw something at him, or run screaming out of the room, I explained once again…this time with tears, it is so frustrating. He wasn’t listening, he didn’t understand. The headache doesn’t “start” it just is. Always.

Difficult to think, often impossible to process. My creativity is impaired, my relationships suffer. Fun is often elusive.

I hate this headache.

So very much.

Emotional Freedom Technique

It is called EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique.

Can we learn to take control of our emotional issues and chronic pain by tapping on our bodies? At the mini-seminar that I attended this evening, several of the women reported immediate changes in the way they were feeling. It was a small group of nine women, all of which I know personally. The instructor worked with these two women individually on specific issues that each were having.

I am looking forward to continued feedback from these women tomorrow. In the mean time, I thought I would do a bit of research.

The following is a direct quote from Gary Craig’s Emotional Freedom Technique website:

What is EFT?

EFT is based on a new discovery that has provided thousands with relief from pain, diseases and emotional issues. Simply stated, it is an emotional version of acupuncture except needles aren’t necessary. Instead, you stimulate well established energy meridian points on your body by tapping on them with your fingertips. The process is easy to memorize and is portable so you can do it anywhere. It launches off the EFT Discovery Statement which says…

“The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body’s energy system.”

And because our physical pains and diseases are so obviously connected with our emotions the following statement has also proven to be true…

“Our unresolved negative emotions are major contributors to most physical pains and diseases.”

This common sense approach draws its power from (1) time-honored Eastern discoveries that have been around for over 5,000 years and (2) Albert Einstein, who told us back in the 1920′s that everything (including our bodies) is composed of energy. These ideas have been largely ignored by Western Healing Practices and that is why EFT often works where nothing else will. As you will clearly see, conventional healing methods have overlooked the obvious.

For proof, here is a sampling of our actual cases. They are written for you by everyday citizens, physicians and therapists: Pain Management, Addictions, Weight loss, Allergies, Children’s Issues, Animals, Vision, Headaches, Panic/Anxiety, Asthma, Trauma, PTSD, Abuse, Depression, Dyslexia, Carpal Tunnel, Anger, ADD-ADHD, Fears/phobias, Eating disorders, OCD, Blood Pressure, Diabetes, Neuropathy, Fear of Flying, Claustrophobia, Agoraphobia, Anorexia/Bulimia, Sports and other Performance

As I do some research and hear feedback, I will report my findings.