Hello!

I wanted to talk about my first experience with bodywork. I was a very stressed out legal secretary in L.A. Working lots of weekends and overtime for a big labor law firm. A friend mentioned a woman to me, Iona Marsaa Teegarden, who practiced Jin Shin Do Acupressure. I trusted my friend, so I went to her, because I had developed large, hard, golfball sized lumps under each armpit. For whatever reason, that is where I stored my stress. Her gentle demeanor and spirit, the quiet and peaceful music, and her amazing hands began to melt away the hardness of the culture I was in 40+ hours a week. I had never experienced that kind of "down time" or deep relaxation, ever. I did have to endure some pain though. These sessions consisted of sustained pressure with her finger tips on the under arm golf ball - for an hour! In order for me to keep from jumping off the massage table, she taught me how to put my attention on my breath and so I would breath in and breath out, like an ocean surf, coming to the edge of the shoreline, and then sucking back up into the center of the ocean, back and forth. It was the ONLY way THROUGH this intense release of energy that was simultaneously happening while she kept her fingers glued to my armpits. She also gave me permission to squirm and move my legs in and out to also help expel the stress that was overwhelming me from the pressure point work.

So, 30+ years later, I continue to use that form of bodywork in my work. Sometimes people squirm, sometimes, because I've learned how to start the pressure very lightly, we can easily go in to deeper tissue layers without the intensity I first experienced. This type of "pressure point" work, I also use on the small bones in the wrists, fingers, knees, ankles, and all the bones in the feet. I'll talk more about that kind of pain relief in my next blog.

Until then, keep breathing ...