Touching ourselves may be one of the most charged topics on the planet. That being said, do you know that you can participate in your healthcare by touching places on your body?  Here, try this:  wrap the fingers of your right hand around the thumb of your left hand, like in the picture.

Pay attention to the feeling in your thumb, and wait to feel a pulse come up in that thumb.  Now sit straight so your breath moves freely up your back on the in-breath and down the front of your body on the out-breath.  Notice anything?  That pulsing is your life force, and is coming through from energy fields within and around your body.

Energy Health

As I pursue good health in my senior years, I know from the deepest part of my being that energy affects health and wellbeing above all else. While Western medicine often focuses solely on what can be Xrayed, MRI’d, or otherwise mechanically accessed, many holistic health practitioners are treating an invisible, intelligent energy within and around the human body. That energy can be accessed by touching predetermined points on the body – points that directly affect the energy system of the
body, mind and spirit. These points are used in acupuncture as well.

The fact is that keeping energy clear and circulating is the basis of all good health.
Even so, no one escapes energy congestion.  Who can avoid the effects of lifestyle, heredity, the environment, and attitudes like worry, fear, anger and sadness?  Those factors and more contribute to blocked energy.  And then it’s like water trying to flow through a clogged streambed – congestion dams up the flow.  For example, I had a lump of anger and depression stuck in my chest for years, especially affecting relationship to myself and others.  Although little pieces of it would fall away as I tried counseling, nutritional changes, yoga and meditation, the weight and bulk of it would not move.  My chest felt like an abandoned railroad track cluttered with trash from recurrent garbage dumping.  However, three months after I started practicing the Art of Jin Shin  — using daily self-help and weekly sessions with a practitioner — the weight lifted.  It felt like my soul slowly, gradually exhaled from a tensely held in-breath.  The anger and depression moved out, and my response to life situations took a major shift.

The Art of Jin Shin  

The Japanese words ‘Jin Shin Jyutsu’ (pronounced “Jin Shin Jit-su”) translate loosely as “Art of the Creator through compassionate man.”  For easier allusion, the Art of Jin Shin offers a way of Be-ing to help oneself and others know Cosmic Oneness – in other words, integration of body with spirit. Like ACUPRESSURE, Jin Shin teaches you to touch designated points (called Safety Energy Locations) on the body.  With daily practice, not only can physical and emotional conditions clear, but the soul gets nourished, and the body deeply relaxes.

What is now the Art of Jin Shin is the life work of Jiro Murai and his student, Mary Burmeister.   In the 1960’s, Mary Burmeister began training others in this profoundly healing art using notes on onion skin drawings from her studies with Jiro Murai.  A brochure put out by a Jin Shin headquarters in Scottsdale, AZ states: “For anyone addressing stress or health disharmonies, or for those simply wishing to participate actively in maintaining health, harmony and well-being, the Art of JSJ is a simple and powerful tool, applied as self-help or by a trained practitioner.  It does not involve massage, manipulation of muscles, or use of drugs or substances.  It is a gentle art, practiced by placing the fingertips over clothing on designated areas called Safety Energy Locations, to harmonize and restore energy flow.”

Although not a substitute for medical examination, diagnosis or treatment, Jin Shin complements other modes of treatment by addressing the deeper emotional and energetic aspects of living and dying. Unlike most traditional healthcare where only the doctor holds the power to heal, Jin Shin offers a self-help aspect that empowers you to participate in your own health program. This is useful not only for challenges like back aches, poor digestion, anxiety, mental confusion, heart, kidney or any other organ conditions, but it also addresses those situations where conventional medicine finds nothing to treat. For example, Karen, a
middle-aged marketing representative who spends a lot of time at her computer, received Jin Shin treatments for pain in her knee.  Even after several treatments from a chiropractor, the pain persisted.  However, after several Jin Shin sessions from a practitioner and her participation in self-help, the pain at first eased and then disappeared.  Karen says, “It’s like a miracle how just touching myself and getting some Jin Shin treatments brought my body back into balance.  Not just my knee, but my whole system feels more in harmony.”

Likewise, Jin Shin is used successfully in hospital settings such as at Morristown Memorial Hospital in Morristown, NJ (study conducted Sept-Oct 2000), where patients recovering in the Cardiac Stepdown Unit received Jin Shin as part of their rehabilitation, enhancing the recovery process.

Most significantly for the aging population that I belong to, Jin Shin can calm the mind and prepare the system to let go of the body with ease and well-being.  We all must leave this body, and Jin Shin provides tools for dying as well as living.  As we touch ourselves in prescribed sequences, our energy harmonizes with the Universal pulse, and we can face the health challenges of living fully, aging gracefully and dying more peacefully – even passionately. Louisa May Alcott said it well, “I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning to sail my ship.”