Diana Cooper, one of my favourite lightworkers, says of this time: ‘Many people are having heart problems right now. Higher vibrations are coming through and our physical bodies are not catching up quickly enough.’

This really does make sense to me on one level. The good news is that Jin Shin Jyutsu helps increase your vibration by working with your energies, and there is much you can do to calm your beating heart:

Hildegard of Bingen is my favourite mystic healer from the 12th century. She was able to ’see’ (with intuitive vision) the effects of food, drink and more on the body. So here follows some of her advice for the heart:

Gemstone JASPER: It is the pacemaker for the suffering heart, especially in cases of arrythmic episodes, heart pain, fluttering or violent rheumatic attacks. Press the cool jasper firmly over the heart, directly on the skin and take it away after a few minutes when it’s hot. After it cools, put it on again and repeat the process three to five times or as often as necessary.

Hildegard’s Parsley-honeywine heart tonic – helps strengthen and protect the heart: Take 8 to 10 parsley leaves with stems. Boil in one quart of natural red wine or white wine with two tablespoons of wine vinegar for five minutes. Add three quarters cup honey and heat up again for five minutes. Skim off foam, strain and rebottle the wine. It doesn’t matter if you use red or white wine but it should be natural wine without additives. ‘Take one to three tablespoons daily and all gripping, shooting heart pain will disappear’.

Hildegard says: ‘Whoever has heart pain and is weak in the heart should instantly eat enough Galangal and he or she will be well again’. Galangal, a root, is similar in appearance to ginger. Galangal has bioflavonoids, essential oils, and hot tasting ingredients that have spasmolytic and carminative (cleansing) and pain killing properties.

As for Self help holds – there are many for the heart. But let’s start with a few simple ones:

For heart discomforts: Place your right fingers in your left armpit with fingers facing upwards towards your arm. Place the back of your left wrist on your forehead. Reverse hands for the other side.

For heart palpitations: Place your right hand over your left shoulder (like a coat hanger) and place your left fingers on the base of your left thumb (make a loose fist). This is also the hold to balance acidity in the body.

For rapid heart beat and general heart: Hold the little finger. With your right hand, grab your left little finger. Reverse the hands for the other side.

What’s a Big Label?

My simple way of putting it is: anything that we are told we have that causes us FEAR. A headache is a ’small label’ – which we can ‘fix’ quite quickly in most cases. But cancer for instance,  is a ‘big label’ which generates a lot of FEAR. And there are many, many labels that have the same effect.

‘Labels’ are the effects of our mind and body being in disharmony (over a short, read: acute or long, read: chronic) period of time. There is no right or wrong with this. It is just the way IT IS. We do the best we can with the awareness we have at the time.

And that is where the awareness of this ancient art comes into its own. As we become more aware of our body, what we put into it and how we treat it – we become aware that disharmony is not necessarily a permanent state of being.

Disharmony can be changed to harmony.

If you suffer from insomnia, hold your left or right THUMB for a few minutes. Do it whenever you have your hands free during the day, and when you lie in bed at night.

Apart from INSOMNIA, holding the THUMB also helps the following:

* Digestion
* Headaches (especially the base of the thumb)
* Stress and nerves
* Skin surface
* Stomach and spleen energy
* When have to SIT a lot
Note: Sitting overloads the stomach & spleen energy. Results in bloating and heaviness in the abdominal area

Also helps to:
* Ground and calm
* Nurture
Note: especially for MOTHERS who give, give, give and need to receive a bit of nurturing themselves!

Time after time, I have tried and tested these holds and it is absolutely amazing how my whole world can change in 20 minutes – purely because I have been able to energise myself. And if I can, you can too with this simple exercise.

The Spleen energy governs our energy levels and this exercise is very powerful for vitality and calm (one needs energy to stay calm, believe it or not!) – 20 minutes minimum every day.

The Spleen is the biggest lymphatic organ in the body and if kept happy, helps all the other organs.

In Jin Shin Jyutsu, a sequence of HOLDS is referred to as a FLOW. The following self-help flow can be used to revitalise and re-energise the whole system, and to be ‘happy and content where ever you are’. Use it to regulate the body’s temperature (to warm the body when it’s cold, to cool the body when it’s hot), and to balance the nervous system (to calm).

Hold each step for a few minutes or until you feel you want to move to the next position. Tip: put on a chill out CD and when the track changes, move the hands to the next position… The music can add a wonderful dimension to the session…

GENERAL ENERGY REVITALISING FLOW (Spleen Flow)
(Right energy pattern)
Step 1
Place Left hand on base of spine (coccyx)
Place Right hand on right inside of heel
Step 2
Move Right hand and place on left base of rib cage and hold
Step 3
Move Left hand and place on right above breast area
Step 4
Move Left hand and place on left center of collar bone

So to summarise: the Spleen flow helps beat fatigue, insomnia, headaches, anxiety and much more. It stimulates the immune system, helps the digestive system, helps regulate our body temperature (you can use it to warm and to cool the body – isn’t that great?) – this flow also helps the skin, helps beat the attitude of WORRY and well, it’s just a great general all round wonder flow – use it with HUMILITY AND GRATITUDE!

I have not taken any pharmaceutical drugs for over ten years, not even aspirin. I look to natural remedies and self help holds to help my body heal itself, and this it has proved to me, intelligent that it is, to be able to do over and over again – given a chance.

There is another thing I am passionate about. And that’s showing others how to do the same. Hence, this website.

It is absolutely wonderful to get emails with questions from all over the world asking for help and advice. There are so many medical labels out there – and yes, it is scary to be given a label (often they are unpronounceable to boot).

However, I want to clarify that I in NO WAY encourage that these self help holds be used as a substitute for medical advice, treatment or diagnosis. That’s not to say that the self help holds can’t act as a day-to-day support.

For instance: studies in New York hospitals have concluded that people living with cancer got great relief from nausea by holding their thumb during the chemotherapy treatments (I would suggest holding it before and after as well!). And of course, I would suggest the Main Central exercise every day.

Many people who are new to all this energy work ask me: ‘So how do I best do these exercises?’ So here goes:

When I do the Main Central exercise, I like to lie down and prop my arms up with pillows (especially the right arm because the right hand is going to remain on top of the head for a while). I also like to put on a chill out CD so that I don’t have to look at the clock every time I need to move on to the next position. Every time the track changes, I move to the next position.

You might fall asleep in one position. Don’t worry about it. Enjoy it. Sometimes I get ’stuck’ in position 1 or 2 or 3 for a whole hour because it FEELS SO GOOD! So be it. That’s what you need at the time.

Sometimes, there will be involuntary jerking movements as the energy gets moving. Don’t worry about it. That’s normal. Sometimes there can be a shooting pain when you hold a position. That’s also normal – as long as it dissipates pretty quickly. If it doesn’t,  stop what you’re doing and concentrate on some deep breathing for a few minutes.

Many times, the stomach will make rumbling sounds when the energy gets moving. For me, those sounds are music to my ears. There’s a great release of tension when that happens.

So please have fun with this powerful exercise. 40 minutes to an hour every day would be ideal, especially if there are any special stress projects.

The main thing is to experiment and ENJOY this wonderful exercise for STRESS RELIEF.

These self help holds that I talk about in Flows for Life help relieve the tensions of stress. It’s about managing stresses that cause long term discomforts and pains. Anxiety, worry, fatigue, and a compromised immune system are just some of the effects of our modern day stresses that can lead to big label illnesses and conditions over a period of time.

The list of stress symptoms is vast and there is a hold, or Jin Shin Jyutsu exercise to help alleviate each one of them. At this point, a good all around de- stressing exercise is the Main Central Source of Life

Pay special attention to the position where the right hand is on the top of the head and the left fingers are placed between the breasts on the sternum. This position deepens the breathing – and encourages the exhale breath to clean ‘dirt, dust, grease and grime’ as Master Mary Burmeister used to say.

Well, imagine being up on stage in front of hundreds of people and you get severe cramp, not just in one leg but in both!

This actually happened to someone recently at a seminar I attended.

The poor guy had to get off the stage and sit down – he was in extreme pain and looked very distressed. Immediately, a whole lot of people gathered around him, trying to ‘help’.

I managed to cut through the group, quietly knelt down and put my fingers at the back of his knees and held on . Meanwhile it was complete chaos around him. All sorts of well meaning people asking if he was okay and offering all sorts of advice. At the same time, people shouting at me: ‘Are you a doctor? Are you a doctor?!?!?!’

I reply: ‘No, I’m a  Jin Shin Jyutsu practitioner.’ And kept holding the backs of his knees.

After a few minutes he calmed down, then I asked if the pain had gone. He said that yes, it had – so I quietly got up and left him. I don’t think he even realised what had happened. And that’s the way it should be – so quick, so easy, that you don’t even have time to wonder about it. It just IS – PAIN GONE.