Jin Shin Jyutsu Self Help
Holding Fingers
Change how you physically feel (your level of wellness), how you mentally feel (your level of being able to think & do mental activities), how you emotionally feel (your ability to be happy & to let go of feeling “awful”!), how you spiritually feel (your level of a sense of wholeness within yourself). You can do any or all of the above simply by starting today with some very simple self-help. Maybe it’s too simple. Maybe you think it needs to be complicated, expensive or painful to change you & your life for the better. NOT SO! But you have to participate… Start now!
 Take hold of your thumb! Gently… Not so hard, not so tight! Just place the fingers of one hand around your thumb & take a few deep breaths, each time exhaling completely. Completely! Not just kind’a blowing some air out so you can breathe in again. Take time with the exhale. As you do, drop your shoulders. Settle into yourself. Let everything that is on your mind go for a minute. Don’t worry, you can always remember later what it was you were stewing about, if you really need to…
Now wait. You may feel nothing. Maybe you feel static. Maybe other things. What you are waiting for is a pulse. It may feel like a blood pulse, but it is really an energetic pulse. You are waiting for it to beat steadily. You might feel it in your thumb or in the hand you are holding with. It doesn’t make any difference. Either way is fine. Continue to exhale. Notice how inhaling happens automatically. We hold our breath as a way to cope. It isn’t effective, but that doesn’t keep us from doing it. So, by exhaling we have said, “I’m not holding my breath anymore! I have the right to breathe fully & I’m going to!” Our whole body responds…
 Now, when you are ready, let go of your thumb & move on to your index finger. Again wrap the fingers of the opposite hand gently around it & wait. Exhale, a long, sighing exhale. Let it all go & just be with your index finger. Pulse? No? So, wait. No rush, just wait.
What happens is you have waited forever. For lots of us, “forever” is about 10 seconds. I suggest you give it 2 minutes… Oh, okay, give it 1.5 minutes. After all, this is your first time to test drive the energies of your fingers. If “nothing is happening” & you are about to give up, move on to your middle finger.
 So, bigggggggggggggg exhale, all the way down to your toes & waiting, waiting patiently & without distress over having to wait. In this day of Fast Food, heaven forbid one has to wait for one’s body to take a break & learn to harmonize it’s self. But you know what, it can’t do it without you. Pulse? Buzzing? What’s happening? Nothing? Oh no, not nothing! Sometimes it takes a little bit of time for our bodies to trust us & know we are serious about giving ourselves a real opportunity to heal. Please give yourself the time you need. What if it takes 10 minutes to do all ten fingers? “Ten fingers?”, you say. Yeah, I forgot to tell you; we are doing both hands… Pulse? If not, can you wait just a bit longer? If not, move on to ring finger. If so, hang out. The next instructions will be right here waiting for you when you are ready for them.
 We are in the home stretch. Next to the last finger on this hand. Are you feeling a sense of settling down? Exhale like your life depended on it. And of course, wait as if you really cared about yourself & your future joyful, peaceful, healthy life. When you have a steady, rhythmic pulse, feel free to move on. Or just move on anyway, knowing there is always later today or tomorrow & tomorrow & tomorrow for the rest of your life. Ideally this would be an everyday practice, once or twice a day. You can do it as many times a day as you want. While you are waiting, or in a meeting, or watching TV & always when you are ready to go to sleep. The opportunities to assist yourself are endless. Pulse? Let’s hold little finger now.
 Breathing out & breathing in as if you had all day to breath out & breath in, because you do. And notice it is breathing out first; isn’t that weird. We never say it that way but try taking a big lung full of air when you already have one. Go ahead, I’ll wait while your try it. It simply doesn’t work. You simply have to make room for every new thing that comes into your life including air. So, make a huge space for the next incoming air & let go of everything else while you are doing it. Just be one with your finger. It’s like being one with the Force, Luke, only different. Or maybe it isn’t so different… What do you think? Pulse? Guess what now… Other hand. Start with your thumb, breathing out, as if your very life depended on it… |
