Chinese Reflexology
Lesson 1. Some of the most common points where people experience energy blocks:
#5 - Temporal Area
#8 - Eye
#11 - Lung
#14 - Stomach
#18 - Kidney
#22 - Spleen (left sole only)
Do your best to locate these points on your feet. While it is a little tricky figuring out which point is which, don't be discouraged. These reflexology charts are based on my feet, which happen to be short and wide, so if you don't have stubby flippers too, the location of your reflexology points may be slightly different.
Starting with the temporal area point on your left foot, press your thumb firmly on the point for ONE second or less. Because you're pressing to test the sensitivity of the point, it is not necessary to press longer than a second. Doing so at this time may be too much reflexology at once, so please keep it short!
Continue moving across and down your feet, pressing the eye, lung, stomach, kidney, and spleen points.
Repeat for your other sole. As there isn't a spleen point on the right foot, you can skip this point for this foot.
What to look for:
As you press your foot, you'll want to look for areas that are sensitive to your touch. Is it a little ouchy or a big YOWZA?
Rate the intensity of feeling from 1 to 10, where 1 is hardly noticeable and 10 is like passing kidney stones or childbirth.
Also, take note of any areas that feel like a "callous." It's not a skin callous, but instead it feels like it's BELOW the skin. With light touch, it will feel numb, almost less sensitive. Paradoxically, if you press hard, it will be more sensitive.
Lesson 2. How to clear energy blocks
Lesson 3. The Key to longevity: the kidney point
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the kidneys are considered the “Root of Life” and when Chinese Medicine refers to an organ, it’s not just the physical organs themselves, but the entire Kidney meridian or energy channel. Think of your Kidney channel as the mega-bank for your life savings. In this case, your life savings are your life force or qi.
When you’re born, your parents make a deposit into your energy savings account based on how much energy they have to give. If your parents are healthy and full of life, you’ll get a bigger deposit than someone whose parents are sickly or lacking in spirit.
You also receive energy from what you eat and drink. Think of this as your petty cash. In order to live a long and healthy life, the most important thing you can do is to preserve the energy that you were born with as the petty cash ain’t going to pay the rent.
As you live your life, you either make deposits or withdrawals from your energy bank account. When you’re stressed, pushing yourself and living an unhealthy lifestyle, you are withdrawing from your main energy savings account because there simply isn’t enough stored in the petty cash to maintain your current lifestyle. If you look after yourself, eat well, and sleep well, you minimize the size of the withdrawals you make.
In Chinese Medicine, there are two camps on whether you can refill your core energy bank account. Some say you can and some say you can’t. I say that whatever you believe is your truth. I believe that joyful living, love, meditation and opening your connection to the universe can not only replenish your energy bank account, but fill it to overflowing, like winning the lottery :).
When you balance the flow of energy in your Kidney channel, you open yourself up to receive the unlimited energy of the universe. If that’s too much for you to believe, at the very least, you eliminate all those pesky service charges that banks tend to hit you with.
A Western Perspective
I know when I first started studying Chinese Medicine, it seemed really strange to me that my kidneys were critical to my life force. Didn’t they just filter blood and excrete waste through the urine? What did that have to do with life force? When I started learning Anatomy and Physiology, it suddenly all made perfect sense. Kidneys produce the hormone, Erythropoietin (EPO) which stimulates the production of red blood cells in the bone marrow. When I pondered this, I realized that in essence, even from a Western perspective the kidneys are the root of life. Here was my thought process:
What is the one thing that your body can not live without? Oxygen
And what transports oxygen throughout your body? Red blood cells
And what does your body need oxygen for at the cellular level? Respiration
And respiration is the release of energy
And energy is the root of life
The Kidney Reflexology Point
Chinese Reflexology is amazingly powerful, but it can’t work miracles in getting someone to eat well or make healthy choices in life. It can however, direct energy to the kidneys as well as ensure a smooth flow of energy in the Kidney meridian. The Kidney point is a rectangular shaped area located on the soles of both of your feet. The left sole is for your left kidney and the right sole is for the right kidney.
To locate the Kidney point in Chinese Reflexology, you’ll need to imagine a line dividing your foot in half horizontally. Measure from the tip of your big toe to the base of your heel and note the halfway point on the soul of your foot. Next, you’ll imagine a second line dividing your foot in half vertically. The crossing of these two line creates four quadrants.
On your left foot, the top left quadrant is what you’ll use to locate your Kidney point.
Imagine another horizontal line drawn on the bottom of the ball of your foot. The Kidney point is located below this line and above the halfway horizontal line. The point is approximately the width of your thumb. Place your thumb on the vertical line, with two thirds of the thumb in the top left quadrant and one third in the top right quadrant of your left sole. Congratulations, you’ve found your Kidney reflexology point.
IMPORTANT: This point is located quite close to the acupuncture point, Kidney 1 Yongquan (English translation: Gushing Spring). Kidney 1 is one of the acupuncture points used to induce labour in a pregnant woman who is past her due date. Thus, do not massage this point if you are pregnant.
Massaging the Kidney Point
As with all the reflexology points in this system of Chinese Reflexology, you can use your fingers, thumbs or knuckles to massage the reflex areas on your feet. For the Kidney point, you can press in with your thumb and massage in small circles. Alternately, you can use your knuckles to rub in an up and down motion. If you’re just starting out with reflexology, I would recommend massaging this point for 30 seconds once a day.
Because of our modern lifestyles (too much sitting, too much stress, too much junky food, etc.), most people have sensitive Kidney points. The only person I ever encountered that didn’t feel a thing no matter how hard I pressed with the reflexology stick was a 20-year old vegan student. Not only was he young and living a stress-free life, he also ran barefoot regularly. Barefoot running on rocky trails is like a reflexology session on the soles of your feet. For the rest of us, this point is going to hurt like a bitch, so don’t feel bad if this point is sore. And if you don’t feel anything, it’s likely that you’re not pressing with enough concentrated force in the right spot. Fingers, thumbs and knuckles are broad surfaces and it’s hard to get enough leverage to press deeply to find the extra-sensitive spots.
In order to experience the full benefits of balancing the energy flow in your kidneys, you really need to massage this point with a reflexology stick. The stick allows you to press much harder with much less effort so that you can feel for small granules of uric acid that have formed in the feet. This is a little too advanced for me to cover in an online article, but I am currently creating a distance learning course so that I can show students exactly how to massage the point and offer tweaks and corrections if necessary. Even if you are just using your fingers, thumbs or knuckles to massage this point, it’s a great way to begin balancing the flow of energy in the Kidneys. Plus, if you do take my distance learning class, (when I finally find the time to create the videos for it), you’ll have cleared some of the energy congestion and your feet won’t hurt as much when you try a reflexology stick!
How to Reverse Age-Related Vision Problems and Start Seeing Clearly Again
Here’s my article on how to use Chinese Reflexology to reverse age-related vision problems and start seeing clearly again. While I can’t promise 20/20 vision, I can promise that if you invest 8 minutes to read this article while being fully present, you will begin to shift the energy that holds you in a perspective of not being able to see clearly. And as you shift things from an energy perspective, you open up the possibility of physical healing. This is my story on how I used Chinese Reflexology to reverse early stage macular degeneration, heal my eyes and improve my vision.
Let’s begin with the initial diagnosis…
I had begun experiencing problems with my vision, strange attacks where I would suddenly be unable to see. They would come on suddenly and it would be like a camera flash going off in my eyes. Normally, you can blink and the sensation of flashing lights dissipates. However, for me, the lights kept on flashing. I couldn’t read, I couldn’t focus and when I closed my eyes, the disorienting light show would continue. These attacks would last for 20 to 30 minutes and afterwards, I’d be exhausted. They were increasing in frequency and intensity. I’d be at work, staring at the computer monitor when the words on the screen started dancing. Then BAM! Everything would start flashing and go out of focus. It was really scary.
I booked an appointment with my optometrist. When I described my symptoms, Dr. W told me that I was experiencing ocular migraines. There was no known cure and no one knew what caused them other than there were certain triggers. The triggers included bright lights, fluorescent lighting, sunlight and computer screens, all of which were very prominent in my life. While I was in his office, Dr. W examined my eyes very carefully. During the exam, he told me that he saw signs of early stage macular degeneration. He explained that people with age-related macular degeneration lost their center field of vision over time.
Fortunately, I was too stupid (or smart, depending on your perspective) to pay much attention to his diagnosis. I was still quite shaken by being told that there was nothing that could be done for my ocular migraines and I simply couldn’t take in any more information. However, there was something else going on, something that I believe saved my eyesight. It was my inner voice. Despite hearing Dr. W’s grim prognosis, I shrugged it off because I thought to myself, “Yeah whatever, I can fix that.”
To this day, I am so glad that I listened to my inner voice, even if it was so dismissive and flippant. Had I followed the energy of Dr. W’s diagnosis, I would have learned that age-related macular degeneration is a degenerative eye disease usually seen in people much older than I was at the time. Had I known that I was 30 years “ahead” of the curve in vision deterioration, I would have completely freaked out. I would have also learned that macular degeneration is considered irreversible by the medical experts. I would have learned that the best I could hope for was to slow down the deterioration of my vision. Fear would have blinded me to a cure. Thankfully, I was blissfully unaware of all of this.
Fast forward several years and my life was completely different. I had walked away from a decade long career that I wasn’t passionate about and I finally gave myself permission to do what I wanted to in life. I had always compromised in terms of work and school. Now, I was free. I also gave birth to an amazing baby boy who challenged me to shift my way of seeing things. I stopped worrying so much about the future and was forced to bring my attention to the present moment. My son taught me that my preoccupation with the future, multitasking and getting one more thing done, was really causing me to miss the joy of the moment. When my son was several months old, I booked an eye appointment to replace my worn and scratched 5-year old glasses. I hadn’t seen Dr. W in years and scheduled an appointment for a couple of months later.
My Chinese Reflexology teacher, a wise and gifted Sifu, once told me that if I wanted to get rid of my glasses, I needed to rub my Chinese Reflexology eye points for 10 minutes a day for two years. Of course, I had never done that. While I had been practicing Chinese Reflexology for years, I didn’t spend much time massaging my eye points because they hurt like hell. However with an appointment scheduled for several weeks later, I decided to begin intensely massaging the reflexology points for eyes. Every day, while I was sitting on the floor playing with my baby son, I rubbed the reflexology eye points. Sometimes I’d use a reflexology stick and other times I’d press with my thumbs. I massaged every nook and cranny for at least 5 to 10 minutes a day.
When I first started to massage the eye reflexology points, they were excruciatingly painful. It felt like I was pressing razor blades into my toes as I massaged them. Some days, I also felt sluggish and irritable because there was so much stuck energy and toxins held in my eyes. The massage was causing the energy to move and the toxins were being released into my body. I kept this practice up every day and was gentler on days where my body felt like it needed a breather to process the toxins. And slowly, very slowly, I noticed that the hardness in my toes began to soften and loosen. As the pain lessened, I started to feel more sensitivity in my toes. It was as if there were callouses made of stone under the skin and now that they were breaking up, I could once again feel my toes.
Finally, it was time to see the optometrist. Here’s what happened…
While Dr. W had all sorts of high tech equipment, he ironically used old-fashioned pen and paper to take notes on his patients. As he pulled out my file, I saw my entire history was scribbled in a haphazard chicken scratch on a large index card with some coloured papers stapled to the back. Dr. W ran me through the standard tests and then gave me my prescription and pronounced, “Everything looks good here.” To my chagrin, my myopia prescription had not budged at all. However, I remembered his previous diagnosis of early stage macular degeneration and wondered why he didn’t mention it. I glanced over at his chicken scratch notes, and pondered, “Should I say something?”
And once again, my inner wisdom prevailed. vIt was like my body froze and wouldn’t let me mouth the words. I simply knew that if I brought it up, Dr. W would re-examine my eyes and do his best to find the macular degeneration. I knew he couldn’t allow the contradiction to exist. Even if my eyes were perfectly fine, he would proclaim that there was deterioration. I believe that Dr. W would have felt that his professional credibility was being challenged because reversing macular degeneration was not possible within his realm of belief.
His only two choices were to: Say he misdiagnosed me previously (imagine loud buzzer sound here, Eiiiinnnn! That ain’t happening) Or to tell me I had a problem. Wisely, I kept my mouth shut. But inside, I marveled that the Chinese Reflexology had worked its magic—that all those weeks of excruciatingly painful massage had healed my vision. I pondered this for many years and I must admit that there was still a 0.00001% part of myself that wondered if I still had macular degeneration. I didn’t to go back to Dr. W, but I did want to know. So, if you’ve read all my previous articles on vision improvement, you would know that I found an eye doctor who supported me in improving my vision.
Dr. B was kind, supportive, encouraging and when he checked my eyes after I had come up with my own journey to improve my nearsightedness, he found my eyesight had improved. I didn’t need as strong a prescription. Woohoo! I trusted Dr. B. After he checked my eyes and proclaimed that my eyes were healthy, I told him about Dr. W’s diagnosis of early stage macular degeneration and asked if he could double-check my eyes. Dr. B was happy to do so. He carefully examined my eyes and pronounced, “There is no sign of macular degeneration. Your eyes are very healthy.”
Takeaways
So how can you improve your vision? How can you reverse age-related vision problems? In a nutshell, it’s both simple and complicated. You just need the right physical stimuli AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, the mental, emotional and spiritual shifts to heal your vision. If I can do it, anyone can. When you shift the energy, you manifest in physical reality.
Chinese Reflexology Points for Eyes and Vision Improvement
Locating the Eye Points
There are eye reflexology points located on both of your feet. They’re on the undersides of the feet, beneath the second and third toes. Think of it as a U-shaped area below your toe pads. Interestingly (and confusingly) the energy meridians in your body cross over each other at your neck. Thus, the reflexology point for your LEFT eye is on your RIGHT foot. And conversely, the point for your right eye is on your left foot.
Massaging the Eye Points
A reflexology stick enabled me to feel microscopic points of sensitivity on my toes and it also let me strongly massage areas that felt like peppercorn-sized rocks along the edges of my toes. It was excruciating, but very efficient in terms of clearing decades of blocked energy. I generally advocate that people NOT use reflexology sticks unless they’ve been trained in how to use them properly. However, you can press and massage your eye reflexology points with your thumbs to clear stuck Qi.
Press and rub the U-shaped area on both feet in an up and down motion. Go slowly, press deeply especially on areas that feel hard to the touch and/or are excruciatingly sensitive. Massage with the intention of softening these areas.I’d recommend starting out with 15 to 30 seconds at a time (per foot), a few times a day for a maximum of 1 minute a day. Then, rest a day or two and notice how your body feels. If you’re generally healthy and exercise regularly, most likely your body can handle the added load of toxins being released.
These toxins have been “stuck” in your eyes for years, maybe even decades. When they start to shift, it’s going to feel like how you might feel after a deep tissue massage, where you feel really tired and a bit under the weather. If after a day or two, you feel fine, continue, gradually increasing your pressure, duration and frequency up to a maximum of 5 to 10 minutes per day in total (that’s 2.5 to 5 mins per foot).
If you would rank your health and fitness as less than 100%, your body may not be as efficient in clearing toxins. Go gently. Go slowly and only do as much as you feel your body can handle. Your body will tell you. You’ll feel tired or under the weather if you try to do too much massage at once. Don’t try to rush through and do as much massage as you can thinking that the more you do, the more you’ll improve. That’s part of the reason you’ve got vision problems in the first place! LOL! Trust that a little each day will over time, result in a clearing of the energy.
Important Points
Drink LOTS of water to flush toxins out of your system after you massage your eye reflexology points. Eat well, like a healthy spa diet. No alcohol, junk food, processed sugar or heavy fatty meats/meals. If you need help clearing toxins, massage theKidney reflexology points before you massage the eye reflexology points. Practicing reflexology is not advised if you are pregnant or have an acute heart condition. If you’re not sure whether it is safe for you to massage your feet, consult with your medical doctor first.
Changing Your Life to See Clearly Again
If improving your eyesight really was as simple as just rubbing your feet, a whole lot of people would be doing it and casting away their bifocals and contact lenses for good. So, why is this not happening? Well, I’ve discovered the real secret to seeing clearly is not just in the physical body. It’s an emotional and spiritual journey too. The reason why you have vision problems today is because there is something that you don’t want to see in your life, either in the present or the past. For me, when I had ocular migraines and macular degeneration, I didn’t want to see the life path I had chosen for myself. I didn’t want to see that I was not doing what I was meant to do. I didn’t want to see how small and limited my life had become. I thrived on adventure, but most of my hours were spent in an office cubicle. I was making a lot of money, but it didn’t satisfy my soul. I literally could not stand to see what was right before my eyes. I could not look at the computer screen and say my heart was filled with joy. It was filled with sorrow, unrealized potential, boredom, resentment and anger.
When I began to shift and make changes to really see my life, to be seen as who I really am (not a facade that I presented at work), but to be open and vulnerable, that is when I began to see clearly again. In order to improve my vision, I had to change my life.
It’s a journey that is scary and sometimes difficult to choose, but I promise it’s one that is immensely satisfying and the rewards are more than you could ever imagine. This is not about ditching your glasses, it’s about being seen and appreciated for who you really are, by YOU.
My next article will go much more in depth into the spiritual and emotional issues related to age-related vision problems, nearsightedness, farsightedness and any general eye condition that limits our ability to see. I invite you to walk this journey with me. If you haven’t yet joined my mailing list, please sign up below to receive my free monthly Amazing Feet newsletter. You’ll get notified of new articles as they’re posted and also receive complimentary lessons on Chinese Reflexology. Until I write again, adieu!
Metta, Holly
Tips to Reduce Myopia (Nearsightedness) in Children — And Adults Too!
At my husband’s workplace, they have a newsgroup for parents. Recently, my husband forwarded me a post from a father who was concerned that his 10-year old son’s prescription kept increasing by 1.00 diopter every year. The father was worried about how high the prescription would be when his son grew up. The eye doctor told him to EXPECT it to continue getting stronger each year until his son stopped growing. When my husband forwarded me the replies to this father’s message, my normally calm and cheery disposition was seriously ruffled. I was upset because every diopter of vision a child loses is a literal and metaphorical closing in of that child’s world. And it’s completely unnecessary. Most of the parents told the father not to worry and that it was normal for his son’s prescription to continue increasing. I’m here to tell you that worsening vision is not normal. Healthy eyes are normal. Many other parents suggested that once the son was a teenager, he could get contact lenses. Some parents suggested that he could also get laser surgery when he was 25. To me, that is akin to telling someone whose child has early signs of type 2 diabetes to continue with his current diet and lifestyle, but then get insulin shots when necessary and eventually resort to dialysis when his kidneys fail.
That’s why when my husband sent me the newsgroup thread, I had to respond because I knew there was no reason why these children had to get stronger glasses. It is possible to stop and even reverse the progression of nearsightedness. I know this because I started wearing glasses when I was 11. Those were the days when even a mild prescription would result in coke bottle lens glasses because ultra-thin lenses and contact lenses weren’t readily available. My vision got worse with each visit to the eye doctor and it progressed to the point where I was extremely nearsighted with severe astigmatism. Three years ago, I ditched my contact lenses and made the decision to try naturally restoring my vision. It’s working! I’ve reduced my prescription by 80% and soon I will no longer need glasses for computer work. I expect to be able to focus in the range of 20/20 in ideal lighting conditions within a year. Considering I wore glasses for over 30 years, I’d have to say that I’m definitely pleased with my progress. It’s such a joy to see my world come into focus—to see my vision literally and metaphorically expand. I gave the newsgroup parents FIVE suggestions, but for you, my dear reader :), I’m including a bonus 6th item. It was too complicated to write instructions on practicing Chinese Reflexology in a newsgroup email, but it fits in perfectly with my blog :).
My prescription was as high as -6.75 with severe astigmatism, but I have reduced it by 40% and it continues to go down by approximately 0.25 diopters every 4 to 6 weeks. [Note: This number was based on a prescription that was measured 9 months prior to replying to the newsgroup. Since then, I’ve had my annual eye exam and my new prescription is an 80% reduction.] Eye doctors have told me this is impossible. People tell me it must be psychological or that it’s because of presbyopia (when people get older and need bifocals: for nearsighted people, this causes them to not need glasses for close work). However, this is not the case for me. I have physical evidence that my eyesight is improving. I kept all of my eye prescriptions for the past 20 years, but I started wearing glasses when I was 11, so I’m missing the prescriptions from my teenage years. However, I remember them because my parents made a big deal about my nearsightedness.
I started at -2.00, hit -3.50 at 13, then -4.50 at 16 and -5.25 in my late teens. Sometime in my early 20s was when I reached -6.25/-6.75. That was a momentous day because I had surpassed my father’s prescription which was -6.00 and that had been my greatest fear.
My optometrist confirms that my vision improvement is not due to presbyopia. My eyesight is improving because I actively do things to heal my vision. I have not had surgery nor have I worn Ortho K lenses. I’ve tried vision therapy, but only went for two sessions. I do more than simply practice eye exercises. I take a holistic and natural approach to improving my eyesight. I don’t have to set aside any extra time for this because I’ve made vision improvement a way of living.
Nearsightedness occurs when the muscles in and around the eyes are tense and strained. Over time, this stretches the eyeball into an elongated shapewhich causes light rays entering the eye to focus in front of the retina instead of on the retina. This results in blurry vision, aka nearsightedness. At the energy level, the muscle tension disrupts the smooth flow of Qi (energy) through the eyes.
Over time, this results in a decrease of blood flowing to the area. The muscles and tendons become tight and “dry” when they are not nourished with an adequate supply of blood. This then perpetuates the worsening of vision. As well, the eyes and surrounding nerves do not get enough nourishment which also causes vision to deteriorate.
When you massage the Chinese Reflexology point for the eyes, you increase the flow of Qi and blood to the eyes. This helps the eyes receive adequate nourishment and the muscles and tendons to become “softer” and more flexible. As a result, it becomes easier for them to relax and over time, the eyeballs can return to their normal shape.
RECALL: Tom Bisio's note (Qi is constantly coalescing and transforming into blood and then blood transforms into Qi. They are like two sides of the same coin.)
Don’t try to rush things thinking that the more time you put in, the better the results. What’s more important is that your child look forward to having their feet rubbed. That’s because Chinese Reflexology works best when it is practiced consistently over time. Change can be gradual and the longer a condition has been present, the longer it takes for the body to return to balance. Sometimes you don’t even notice the improvement until months later because that’s when you finally realize an absence of the symptoms. Kids however tend to respond to energy healing really fast. So be persistent, practice Chinese Reflexology regularly and incorporate the other 5 tips to help halt the progression of your child’s myopia.