Michelle Giambra writes: “My Dad, ALS, and Jin Shin Jyutsu” in The Main Central Jin Shin Jyutsu Newsletter, issue Number 80, Spring 2013:

In 1996 my dad, John C. Knoch, was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. During the course of this fatal disease, the motor neurons that send messages to the muscles in the body die, resulting in paralysis. The mind is not affected. There is no known cause or cure.

Initially Dad experienced difficulty using his right hand and arm. The disease then progressed to the other arm and both legs. Eventually, his speech and breathing became impaired. He was using a bi-pap machine to assist in his breathing.

It was a couple of years into his diagnosis that I discovered Jin Shin Jyutsu. Dad was one of my first willing “guinea pigs”. One day, I was giving him a session when the Hospice nurse came to examine him. Upon checking his blood pressure, she became very surprised: his blood pressure was the lowest it had ever been. (His blood pressure was typically high.) My stepmother suggested that maybe it’s the Jin Shin Jyutsu, to which Dad nodded as emphatically as he could saying, “Yes!” He was able to feel the Jin Shin Jyutsu relaxing him.

In November of 1998, my father was faced with perhaps the most difficult decision of his life. The bi-pap breathing machine was no longer providing ample breathing assistance.

Basically, Dad had to decide whether he wanted to have a tracheostomy and live the rest of his days on life support, or pass on. After several grueling days in the ICU at the Cleveland Clinic, he decided to have the surgery.

When he returned to ICU after the surgery, I sat beside him to share Jin Shin Jyutsu. He was really out of it and not consciously aware that I was there. As I slipped my hand under his left shoulder blade (to begin harmonizing the Mediator Flow), I felt his whole body relax. It was as if his entire being exhaled a big sigh of relief. It was amazing!

Dad then lived at home, a quadriplegic confined to a hospital bed and unable to speak. His mind was as sharp as a tack. He maintained a commanding presence, communicating and directing us through eye blinks. When asked if he would like to receive Jin Shin Jyutsu, he would always blink twice, indicating “Yes”. His entire family, including his grandchildren, participated in helping to harmonize the imbalances he experienced: lung congestion, constipation, UTIs, anxiety, depression; the list goes on. Since he was in a hospital bed, we used easy-to-reach applications: holding his 1s, palming his calves, holding his 7s, holding his 4s, the Thumb Function Energy, the Little Finger Function Energy and Opposite Fingers and Toes. We kept it simple.

Over the years I had explained to Dad what some of the flows are. And if I asked him what flow he wanted, he usually requested the “10 Flow” because he knew it is the “Abundance Flow”. If nothing else, I held his fingers, because simply holding the fingers, one at a time for a few minutes each, can harmonize the entire being!

Dad passed away in May 2009. He lived many years beyond the “average life expectancy” of someone diagnosed with ALS. He is a true hero in my eyes. I am grateful that we a had Jin Shin Jyutsu as a tool to help us during this time.

Thank you, Michelle.

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.

Connie White, San Antonio, TX writes: “In the Beginning” in The Main Central Jin Shin Jyutsu Newsletter, issue Number 80, Spring 2013:

This is a story about the usefulness of the Art of Jin Shin Jyutsu in remarkable situations. I’m remembering “The Farm”, isolated, deep in the heart of Texas Hill Country, a Sufi community who encourages natural childbirth utilizing midwives, homeopathic remedies and a women’s prayer circle during the birth process itself. In this tradition the Spirit (“Ruh”) stirs (enters) the fetus at the fourth month of pregnancy and emerges from the womb as a human being. Birth becomes a joyous yet profound religious event.

I can recall Mary saying that holding the hi-ones would be of great benefit for a woman during childbirth, and I had several occasions while in this community to apply this prescription. During labor Jin Shin Jyutsu is of tremendous benefit not only with respect to the comfort of the mother but helps to provide a focus to the spiritual vibration of the natural childbirth experience. Most of the women I helped through labor were not comfortable with complete flow patterns, but they loved having their hi-ones held tightly. There is a human tendency when there is discomfort to pull away from the pain. During childbirth this only compounds problems and intensifies the pain. Grab those hi-ones, and a laboring woman connects with the ground of all being and can then focus that the baby needs to come down.

Safety Energy Lock 1 is often called “The Prime Mover…where it all starts.” Wayne Hackett describes Safety Energy Lock 1 as “the place from which all activity, all movement, begins, and so it’s the initiation of the process of spirit as matter” and as “Movement. In the beginning.” (The Main Central Volume 1 Number 3) For a woman in labor, the number One is like an anchor. It keeps her from running away. Attention and focus are single purpose at the beginning. This leads to the realization that the only way out is through, and the only way through is dealing with the moment.

The spirit-mind-body connections of Jin Shin Jyutsu were quickly recognized at The Farm, and I was kept busy giving treatments and teaching people how to help themselves. I had attended many births in this community of Muslims, and so I was not surprised when Aisha (eye-ee-sha) asked me to be present at the birth of her second child. I got a call early one evening. Aisha asked me to come to her apartment; the midwife was already on her way. We arrived at about the same time; the midwife took out her stethoscope to listen to the baby’s heart. She could not find a heartbeat. Aisha recalled then that the baby had stopped moving a few days before. After many attempts to find a heartbeat, the midwife announced that the baby was in fact dead. Her strong and concerned recommendation was that Aisha have the delivery in the hospital.

Confronted with this crushing reality Aisha had to quickly, yet deliberately, consider her choice. There were many miles to the hospital and not much time. Recalling her first childbirth, she did not want to go to the hospital. She had faith that what had happened was God’s will, trusted the circle of her Sufi friends and wanted the prayers and support of her community. She also realized that they could only give the baby a proper ritual washing and Muslim burial if the birth took place at The Farm. Aisha decided despite the circumstances that she wanted to deliver naturally and asked for our help. We gathered several more women and another midwife. We felt that Aisha needed all the support we could muster. A prayer circle formed, and several women began singing Arabic from the Koran. As labor intensified she pleaded for her hi-ones to be held unceasingly. It kept her from going off in her head about the reality of what she was going through – so much discomfort with no baby at the end of the process.

I was connected to Aisha through my fingers. Attached to her ones, I felt no separation from her or events as they unfolded. Connecting with a woman in labor in this context is like hooking into the sea. As physical contractions raised in intensity, the waves of labor – waves of energy – waves of emotion – waves of prayer – washed through the room – primal, intense, life changing. Birth and death together, I was hooked in with her, sharing her agony, grounding her to help her get on with the labor at hand. Connecting in that circumstance with a mother’s grief, we held on through the night. At dawn Aisha delivered the stillborn perfect beautiful boy. Even though the child had died in the womb, there was a strong presence in the room. Perhaps the spirit conceived needed to be born in order to be released. A few days earlier he had tangled his foot in his umbilical cord and strangled himself. Aisha held him and wept from a totally broken heart. Presently her husband came to wash, wrap and bury the boy according to traditional Muslim custom…a terrible but beautiful story. I feel so privileged to have been there and was able through the Art of Jin Shin Jyutsu to assist this courageous woman through her challenge. I really could share in her pain, and in that sharing relieved a great deal of it.

Thank you, Connie.

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 Pasquinelli writes: “Dancing the Unknown” in The Main Central Jin Shin Jyutsu Newsletter, issue Number 80, Spring 2013:

Jin Shin Jyutsu has been a part of my life for 31 years now, pretty much most of my adult life. It has accompanied me in health and in illness, through good times and hard times, and has been the constant in my life. Every once in a while I pause to reflect on where I am in the process, the living of Jin Shin Jyutsu and the meaning and understanding it brings me to.

Actually, in all honesty it’s more mysterious than ever. It seems when I think I’ve really come to understand something, the clouds part and there’s an “aha” moment in which something is revealed, and I can discern the bigger picture…much bigger. And inevitably that moment fades…slips away…and I’m left with how little I really know or can grasp. Instead, I’m left with a sense of awe and wonderment and the illumination of another question. It’s humbling to say the least.

What I do know is that only by being in the present can I truly know anything at all. It has to do with a deep listening and a trust in what I hear, which translates to being in communion with the Creator. As Mary said, “When listening to the pulses the first thing you hear is the voice of the Creator. everything after that is your mind.” Part of this is getting our of our own way, putting our ideas aside so we can truly hear what is being spoken. Mary said after every treatment I had with her, “Thank you, God.”

Things move in mysterious ways, and everyone is different and always changing. We study, take classes, experience hands-on, experiment, and develop a deep practice with Jin Shin Jyutsu. And yet there’s something else, something invisible, unknown. This is, I think, what I love the most about Jin Shin Jyutsu.

A client I’m seeing now has a life-threatening illness and has shared with me that life hasn’t been so easy for her. It’s been a struggle to be here on earth, and she feels like she never quite fully came into this world. Now that she’s facing death, she realizes she wants a little more time. There are still things she wants to experience and do. She is a doctor and has just had a re-occurrence. She said to me, “This is an amazing journey. I don’t expect a miracle, but I’m open to one.” Her ability to accept “what is” and to remain open to not knowing is remarkable. And she has the courage to follow her heart in the midst of all this.

She recently went to Yellowstone National Park because she felt drawn to the wolves. She followed a pack of wolves, and on the last day as she was leaving, she found herself staring across the road into the eyes of a black wolf. In the way she described it to me, it was as though she had received darshan. This week she went to Baja to watch the whale migration. She was able to touch them as they came right up to the boat. She listened to their sounds throughout the night as she camped. She was filled with the spirit of whale when she came back. She said, “Life was so complete, so whole, I could have died right then, and it would have been o.k. They’re in my cells!” I have no doubt that part of her medicine is connecting with these animals. They are there, waiting for her, calling her. She experienced a sense of the eternal, where past, present and future all come together in a moment. There was no separation, just connection, beyond time and space and life and death.

It’s all alchemy. Anything can spark and initiate the movement into the process of transformation and healing…a word, a touch, a relationship, music, a bird, even our last breath. What heals us doesn’t have to do with life or death, or the body for that matter. It’s so far beyond that, it seems to me, much larger than we can grasp. but it requires that same listening that Mary was referencing. Whether it’s nature, chemotherapy, vitamins, Jin Shin Jyutsu antidepressants, homeopathy, whales, art, surgery, chocolate, eagles flowers, meditation or wolves that brings us there, it’s the work of our soul and spirit, that which is indestructible within us, that transforms us.

As practitioners we simply facilitate “what is”, whether it’s life or death. There is no better way, or more advanced way. I no longer feel one thing is better than another. Instead I see it as our discovery of what moves us, what has meaning. Therein is the magic in all this. We study and observe and participate, which leads us to discover and be our own destiny. To me this is Now Know Myself. Being in the moment, being true is what informs our ability to make the choices we do, whether it’s which flows to use, to take or not take medicine, to be in nature, but surely to dance all of this into our unique expression.

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.