Jennifer Holmes tells us about Jin Shin Jyutsu and the Art of Gratitude in The Main Central Jin Shin Jyutsu Newsletter, issue Number 58, Fall 2007:

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When I was asked to write a short article on the Visionary Living Show, where a group of practitioners from the New Zealand Association of Jin Shin Jyutsu had a stand to bring more awareness of Jin Shin Jyutsu to the public, my immediate response was, “Sure, I’ll write about how I experienced gratitude.” I experienced this in two ways: first, as an observer of those receiving sessions and second, as a practitioner for sessions! However, I was to be surprised.

With two practitioners per table, two tables in our little space, we waited for our first clients. Little did we know we would be working continually from 10 a.m. until closure at 5 p.m. without more than a 10-minute break for lunch. Many people arrived who looked tired or tense – and some a little apprehensive. After all, this was a new experience for most. But a double Mediator Universal Harmonizing Energy Flow worked its magic as we quietly practiced in pairs, 20 minutes each session. the noise around receded, and we created a little space of stillness in the large hall filled with hundreds of visitors. After receiving the flow, clients would get up, without exception commenting on how relaxing it had been…and how “I went into another space and don’t want to come back.” Later I noticed how the same people went past smiling or laughing. Transformation had occurred.

The gratitude became infectious, and as a the day passed, we practitioners became more energized. Instead of feeling tired, the opposite was happening. This brought me to feelings of gratitude, which I experienced both from those receiving and those giving. So I started to think about this feeling of gratitude and the part it plays in our lives and health.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary says: Gratitude. n. Being thankful, appreciation of and inclination to return kindness. From Late Latin “gratitudo” (gratus = thankful…)

I started to look at my attitude and how often I felt or expressed gratitude. When I was a child, it was a formalized part of the day with grace before meals and prayers in the evening. Now I believe we need to look within and feel gratitude from the heart. So I focused on gratitude and found that as I consciously turned my awareness to the multitude of friends and events in my life where I felt thankful, life began to lighten up. It was a though the energy around me intensified, and I began to feel much happier. It was similar to how I feel after a Jin Shin Jyutsu session, where I experience a coming home to myself.

A wonderful example of someone who practices gratitude in her every thought and comment is Pat Meador, Mary’s friend who gave me a session in the Scottsdale office. My recollection of her is as a radiant woman with lightness of being, who lives what she practices – the Art of Jin Shin Jyutsu. My one session with Pat left me with a profound impression.

To be continued…

Jill Holden tells us about The Italian Job in The Main Central Jin Shin Jyutsu Newsletter, issue Number 58, Fall 2007:

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continued…

There seemed to be some commotion in the kitchen. The women had left the table. There was a growing pitch of excitement and shouting, and somewhere in the middle of this cacophony there was the soft cry of a child barely audible. My brother got up and went into the kitchen. He returned to tell us that Francesca, who was eight, had stopped a soccer ball with her nose which was bleeding profusely. Alan looked at me and said, “Do you think you could help her?”

I went into the kitchen. It was quite a scene. There were about ten hysterical women standing around Francesca, all talking in raised voices at the same time, trying to decide what to do. One of them took her over to the sink and held her head over as she splashed her face with cold water, then tipped her head back to stop the bleeding. Francesca was sobbing. The women took turns wiping her bloody nose. I was truly amazed at this scene. Alan spoke to them in Italian, and all at once they turned and looked at me, and parted making room for me to be with Francesca. I knelt down and gently slipped my hand onto her 10 area with one hand, close to the spine, and held her index finger with the other. I slowly made my way down the tight cord along her spine. The bleeding stopped immediately, and the room was still and the quiet deafening. Soon Francesca took a deep breath and her cheeks grew rosy. My brother looked at me and said, “You’re walking on the water now, sis.” I laughed. The women were watching me without a word. There was a feeling of peace now.

A few seconds later the loud siren of an ambulance drew my attention. It seemed to be getting closer. There were blinking lights as it pulled up outside. I looked at Alan as he was frowning and talking to the women who were getting stirred up again and talking among themselves. A few of them walked outside to greet the two doctors who had arrived in bright orange jumpsuits. My brother informed me that they had called the ambulance earlier. A beautiful Italian man entered, his hair tied in a long ponytail, an earring in one ear, and close behind him was an older looking woman looking very official. I watched in amazement as the man rolled up tissue into a long narrow shape and pushed it up Francesca’s nose. The woman held her head back as her nose started bleeding again, and placed an ice pack on her 4s. The chorus of women was in full swing again, resuming the dance of choreographed chaos.

My brother shook his head, rolled his eyes and returned to the table where dinner was still going on. I looked back at Francesca who had started crying again, and returned to my seat. The evening went on, more food, two more chairs broke, and after a while the women, Francesca, and the two doctors joined us.

We continued our conversation, mostly through administering Jin Shin Jyutsu, and showing Self-Help. Not speaking the language didn’t matter. We were together in a deeper ancient universal language; we didn’t need words at this point. As we shared dessert, not much was said. There was just this feeling of contentment, connection and well-being. I thought, “Life doesn’t get better than this.”

Footnote: The next day, my relatives insisted that we return with the books.

Thank you, Jill.

Thank you, Mary.

Thank you, David.

Gassho, Namaste, Blessings

All issues of The Main Central Jin Shin Jyutsu Newsletter are available at http://www.jsjinc.net.

Jill Holden tells us about The Italian Job in The Main Central Jin Shin Jyutsu Newsletter, issue Number 58, Fall 2007:

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I find myself thinking of Italy often since my father took the entire family to Italy to reconnect with our family who lives outside of Lucca in a little town called Orentano a year ago in June. So, my sister Lisa and her family, my brother Alan and his wife, my father Aldo and his wife Carol, and Lonner, Olivia, Emily and I met in San Francisco to embark on this pilgrimage.

I was studying Italian, since I had taken French in high school and college, I think mostly to spite my father. Italian was the language spoken whenever local relatives came for holidays, and whenever my grandparents were around. I figured having been exposed to it throughout my childhood I would at least be able to pick up some of it. Both Lisa and Alan lived in Italy, so they were fluent. Relatives of both of my grandparents still live in Orentano, and none of them speak English.

We arrived in Lucca, and the first evening was the first of three consecutive dinners with the relatives. Each dinner would be at a different relative’s house. The first dinner was to be at the house where my nonni (grandmother), Lilia was born and raised. Before we left for this gathering, my father and I were walking around Lucca. He asked me if I had thought of a gift to bring to the relatives. I happily said I did, and I decided on the Self-Help Books and a copy of The Touch of Healing. I thought they would be able to understand through pictures, and someone could interpret them easily. My father sighed with a look of disappointment. He shook his head slightly and said, “Honey, they aren’t going to be interested in that kind of thing. They’re simple people, they just don’t think like that. They won’t understand it either.” I explained how simple the books were, and that I was intending to show them the books myself. I thought it would be a nice way to connect with them. My father suggested that I buy a cake. I left the books in our hotel room.

We arrived in the late afternoon. A long table had been set, and the food started coming right away. There were seven children (including mine) playing soccer outside in the street. So, the adults sat around eating a variety of antipasti, drinking wine that was as smooth as velvet, the language dancing through the air around us. I was truly happy, it didn’t matter that I didn’t understand much of what was being said. There were lots of smiles and hugs and praises that I couldn’t understand, other than everyone thought I looked like my grandmother, Lilia.

After several hours there was a loud cracking sound at the end of the table. We looked to see one of the cousins, Alejandro, on the floor. There were a few white plastic chairs that had been brought in from outside, since there weren’t enough wooden chairs to go around. A leg from the plastic chair had just snapped out from Alejandro, and he had landed on his elbow on the marble floor. He was holding his elbow, it obviously really hurt. Lonner immediately got up and went over and started applying some Jin Shin Jyutsu. The conversation turned to the topic of Jin Shin Jyutsu. They all wanted to know what we did, how it worked, what kinds of things we treated, our experiences, and why was this not being taught or practiced in Italy?

My brother was interpreting as we were rapidly answering questions, and demonstrating and showing Self-Help. Alejandro was amazed at how much better he felt. And as he showed off his elbow – there was no swelling, bruising, or any kind of mark. The relatives grew more curious, each one asking about their particular project. The conversation continued in tandem, more food arrived; I glanced over at my father and smiled. He shrugged and said, “It’s a surprise to me, honey.”

To be continued…

Christina Burawa shares her experience in the article, Christ Consciousness and the 13 Flow, published in The Main Central Jin Shin Jyutsu Newsletter, issue Number 57, Summer 2007:

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I don’t think of myself as a Christian. Raised on the farthest fringes of the Church, I have been gradually developing a practice in Zen Buddhism for the past nine years. Many years ago, my Buddhist teacher led Zen retreats for Trappist Christian monks. He told them: “If you want to know Jesus, get on the Cross.” In Buddhist terms, to “get on the Cross” is to completely drop your “I am” self in order to experience union with the Source, and indeed, union with all that is. In Jin Shin Jyutsu terms, perhaps, one can “get on the Cross” through the 13 Flow, which of course, expresses itself through a cruciform pattern, and through which we can move toward harmonizing our relationship with the Source.

During her first session, a new client told me how she, like many of  us, was in the process of healing deep wounds from her childhood. She said she had been going through a personal transformation in the last year, a “Big Change”. She felt as if she were in the process of being reborn. Her pulses and the heaviness of her bustline on the table confirmed my suspicions that she had grief and hurt buried in her 13s. The nurturing 13 Flow, the 13 of transformation, seemed a good choice for our session.

Following the session, my client told me she was not especially religious, however, lying on the treatment table, she suddenly had thoughts of Jesus and the Garden of Gethsemane. These thoughts had popped into her mind when the 13 Flow pattern came to her hi 19s.

I searched the web the next day and learned that the Garden of Gethsemane was where Jesus prayed the night before his crucifixion. According to the Bible, Jesus agonized over the painful death that awaited him, yet trusting in God completely, he dropped his “I am” self and fully submitted himself to God’s will. He had absolute faith in his unbreakable connection with God. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane serves as an illustration of 13 in harmony, for our 13s enhance our sense of connection with the Source.

It is fascinating that the form of the Cross is energetically embedded in our bodies. It must have always been so. Perhaps it functions within us as a kind of energetic Jungian archetype waiting to be activated by the appropriate circumstances. If in fact the Cross is manifest in our bodies as an archetype, then it makes sense that it would have always been with us, even pre-dating the historical Jesus.  The Christian faith clearly has recognized both the symbolic power and the active, directly transformational power of the Cross.

I find it equally fascinating that Jesus in the Garden popped into my client’s mind as she received the 13 Flow. Perhaps, in addition to holding a more universal expression of the Cross in our bodies, we also have the potential to trigger an activation of the energy of Christ Consciousness when we harmonize Safety Energy Lock 13 through the cruciform pattern of the 13 Flow.

Of course, engagement with the 13 Flow pattern affects both the client and the practitioner. There have been times, beginning the Flow with clients, when I have suddenly been filled with sweet compassion for the person on my treatment table. It feels like deep tenderness; Loving Mother, Jesus.

Thank you, Christina.

Thank you, Mary.

Thank you, David.

Gassho, Namaste, Blessings

All issues of The Main Central Jin Shin Jyutsu Newsletter are available at http://www.jsjinc.net.