Being a midwife and sometimes a fertility counselor and having studied reproductive anatomy—especially female reproductive anatomy—extensively, I expected to enjoy creating this section. I did, but it was difficult deciding what to include and what to leave out. I did not want a bunch of questionable pictures, either male or female, and I didn’t want to bore you all to death or, as one of my sons remarked years ago, ‘give you more information than you wanted to know ’. I sometimes did that sort of thing at the breakfast table after a night attending an intense labor and birth!
I finally decided to aim for the coverage of very basic anatomy and place major emphasis on wellness details that you may not be aware of, and to provide suggestions and possible solutions from years of experience and study.
A phrase from a childhood book/video/something just popped into my mind. I can’t remember where from?! “Can we fix it? Yes, we can!” I truly believe that! I have seen herbs, essential oils, homeopathics, and a bit of knowledge work miracles so many times. But, of course, I forgot to keep it short in some (most) places, as I usually do! Sorry. The anatomy and possible solution sections of my Foot Zone Course run to many, many pages! Am I willing to share it all? If you are interested, quite possibly.
The employees I have tasked with picking topics for newsletters and blogs chose this topic, Companion Modalities, and made 4 suggestions in their instructions, followed by ‘etc.’ Wow! I believe they just gave this ‘wordy teacher’ permission to have lots of fun! I immediately ‘Googled’ alternative therapies for any ‘modalities’ I might have forgotten! What did I find? I found a great many modalities and healing methods that I have never experienced and know very little about! I can see from this search that the rest of my life will NOT be long enough to learn all that I wish I could find time for!
By the time I got done making a list of things I wanted to discuss with you, the suggestion was made that I divide my proposed topics into two articles instead of one and, perhaps, leave one or two (or more) for another time altogether. So, that is what I have decided to do. For these two articles, I will limit myself (for the most part) to things that we use and love in our home, teach about through Butterfly Expressions, LLC, and remedies that are provided to customers through Butterfly Express, LLC.
This month, instead of a few specific products being available on sale to my Foot Zone Focus readers, Butterfly Express is offering a coupon code for 10% off ALL non-sale items. All you need to do is enter the code FOOTZONEFOCUS when you check out to receive your discount!
Wow! The topic picked for this month is HUGE!
The body is such a complicated and mind boggling creation! There is such an amazing interplay between the various organs and systems of the body. Perhaps that is why I love the study of anatomy and physiology so much! I love trying to understand, as once expressed by Einstein, what God was thinking during the creation process. The study of the body, its organs and systems, and how they work together has consumed a great deal of my life, and almost every bit of knowledge and understanding has been a blessing in my life!
The liver is responsible for, to the best of my knowledge, over 500 different functions in the body. (No, I won’t be attempting to describe each one of them here! Rather, I will group them together a bit and try to highlight the most important ones. Most important? Eh.) The most important one, obviously, is the one that is creating havoc in your own life or in the life of someone you love.
What is the Immune System?
The immune system is a complex network of tissues and organs that defend the body against foreign invaders as well as changes within our bodies, such as cancer or other destructive issues.
Throughout my life, it has become apparent that when I am healthy and happy, my hair and, certainly, my finger and toe nails, have reflected this positive state by being healthy and happy also. If I become vitamin or mineral deficient or when my heart or kidneys—my two weak spots during some phases of my life—were struggling, these states quickly became reflected in the health and strength of my hair and, very quickly, in the health and strength of my nails! I eventually came to believe/realize that if my emotions were in a whirl for any length of time at all, this unsettled state of mine would impact my hair and nails as well.
Of course, being the curious person that I am, I began research to see if thoughts along these lines were my imagination or a real phenomenon! Guess what I very quickly learned! And then, being me and being involved in a ‘health care and improvement’ world, I began to research herbs, essential oils, homeopathics, supplements, and the connection between general nutrition and optimum health as reflected in my hair and nails.
There is absolutely no question that the condition of our hair and nails often (always?) serves as an outward indicator of our internal health. The condition of the hair and nails can be (No, is!) a reliable signaling system for conditions ranging from nutrient deficiencies to hormonal imbalances and can even be an early indicator of a chronic illness.
The Spleen
A Vital Organ in the Human Body
After a bit of pondering, I chose to discuss the spleen for this month’s Foot Zone Focus. I did this for several reasons. First, I wonder how much the majority of us, including foot zone therapists, people in general, and even medical doctors, really ‘know’ about the spleen. By ‘know’ I mean understand both how important this small organ is to good health, and how much trouble it can cause if it should rupture.
Please ponder for a moment what is causing stress in your life. What in your life is ‘stressful’ to you? And, please, consider for a moment that our bodies and our minds are simply not equipped to handle long-term, chronic stress without suffering serious consequences, big and small.
Some people – I wish I were one of them – respond to most situations calmly. They simply handle stress well, with little or no ill effects on their bodies or minds. For these people, stress is not all bad. In small doses and handled properly, stress can even help us accomplish tasks quickly and well.
Can alternative health products such as essential oils, herbal remedies, and Blessed Water/Homeopathic remedies really help us reset our thinking and handle stress more appropriately? I certainly do believe that they can! Some of those remedies are featured in this month’s newsletter. Let’s begin today, however, with a little bit of information about the effects of stress on us physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Why am I taking up time and space to point out to you the long-term effects of stress and to discuss the things that might be stressing each of us out? Because, as I said in the first paragraph, I am hoping you will ponder the stress in your life and take steps to minimize the effects of stress on your health and happiness.
Lymph Care Using Foot Zone Techniques
The lymphatic system is a vital part of our circulatory and immune systems. It consists of a network of lymphatic vessels, lymph nodes, and lymphatic organs, including your spleen and tonsils.
How do I adequately describe the lymphatic system without needing as many pages as I print up when teaching about this body-wide system during the Foot Zone therapy classes that I teach?
Let’s begin today by imagining a team inside your body that is constantly working to keep everything—and I do mean everything!— in balance. That is our lymphatic system!
I find the chosen title of this article, those big bold words above, to be educational all by themselves. WOW! Caring for our lymphatic systems is precisely what we are doing during a ‘cleanse’, even if that cleanse is meant to target the intestinal tract specifically. Every alternative method of eliminating allergies that works recognizes this and works to cleanse and strengthen this vital system.
Energy and Energy Protection
‘Energy and Energy Protection’. What an interesting and fitting topic to discuss with Foot Zone Therapists. Why do I say this? I want to tell three short—very short—stories to explain.
First story: For a short time during my childhood, my mother experienced some very difficult health issues. The severe anemia she suffered, as well as the pain she endured with repeated miscarriages and surgeries, resulted in stress, tension, and—sometimes—irritability and impatience. It didn’t take much self-awareness, even as a child, to realize that tension in the home had a profound effect on the other members of my family! I even asked my father once why I had to behave ‘like an adult’ when my mother didn’t have to. I will always remember his words to me. “Dear daughter,” he said, “Because you can and, right now, with your mother’s health as it is, she cannot.”
What does this first story have to do with energy protection and zoning feet? People come to us seeking answers for health issues they are having. Many times, those issues come with emotional baggage connected to or resulting from the stress they are creating in their lives. As a young zone therapist, I didn’t expect that. I didn’t even recognize, at first, that it was happening. My husband, most helpfully, pointed it out to me!
My dear, patient husband explained to me one day that when he saw a certain car pull into the driveway carrying a young couple for zones, he absolutely avoided coming home until I had finished up with them and they had been gone for some time. That astonished me, especially when he explained that, after this couple left, I was extraordinarily critical of him, discontented, and difficult to live with for a time! They had always seemed so polite to each other to me. I had not recognized the ‘politeness’ for the underlying stress and contention that later led to their not-amicable-in-the-least divorce.
A short while later, my husband pointed out something else to me that I had not recognized or considered either.
My husband pointed out to me that if a client came with a headache (or a cough or just about anything else), they left without it at the end of the Zone session, but that I struggled with it, sometimes even for several days. I realized that he was absolutely right about that a great deal of the time.
I was already playing with (my name for blending) essential oils when I learned to zone feet. I immediately set out to make a blend using essential oils whose aromas were described, around the world, as having ‘energy protecting or ‘repelling’ properties. The Butterfly Express essential oil blend I called LeBenediction was the result. It took several attempts at blending to finally come up with this powerfully effective blend! Why the name LeBenediction? Because, previously, prayer for protection and healing was the way I was coping with whatever I picked up from a zone. (And more than a bit of prayer went into figuring out the proper oils and proportions of those oils for this blend!)
In this article, I will give a description of LeBenediction and of the newer blend, created by a very talented employee, LeGuardian. At the end of the article, I will try to contrast and explain when it might be best to use one or the other of these two blends.