Latest / The MODERN YIN Podcast / Cooling Down With Reflexology!

Transcript

Cooling Down With Reflexology! · The MODERN YIN Podcast

• 0:01
  Hey, hey, Yinning at Life Gang. It's Kimberly Roberts of the
• 0:03
  Soulfully in Brand. I'm here to dish out all things
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  about traditional Chinese medicine, yin yoga, reflexology.
• 0:12
  And of course, I'm here to disrupt your mind.
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  So thanks so much for pressing play on today's episode.
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  Let's do this. I'm irritated, I'm frustrated,
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  I'm even feeling a little bit angry and this heat and humidity
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  is driving me a neness. This is what I'm talking about
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  today on the Internet Life podcast.
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  This heat and humidity and how reflexology is really a game
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  changer in helping you deal with it and more than just the
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  physical heat. So if you missed last week's
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  episode, I dove in deep about how to stay cool with yin yoga.
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  So today I want to, you know, bring the conversation a little
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  bit deeper by talking about how reflexology, and if you're not
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  aware of what reflexology is, it's a modality that works
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  primarily through the feet. It's also done through the
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  hands. It's even done through the ears.
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  And the idea is that there are reflexes in the feet.
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  There's actually over 72,000 reflexes in our feet, believe it
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  or not, and they all link up to something in our body.
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  And by applying specific pressure techniques on these
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  reflexes, we basically improve the function of the related
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  area. We also improve function overall
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  in the body. And we just feel a whole lot
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  better. And everything just works so
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  much better. So how can reflexology really
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  help you keep cool? Well, physically, it helps you
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  keep cool because it helps to regulate body temperature.
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  It's always about just bringing the body back into balance so
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  you know, if you're feeling overheated physically, if you're
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  feeling really tired or fatigued, or if you're just
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  feeling like kind of sluggish because the humidity is just
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  kind of like really setting in and it's just driving you
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  bananas. Reflexology will help you with
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  that. But what's even cooler, and this
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  is where people tend to not understand the power of
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  reflexology, is that it can also help you keep cool emotionally,
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  mentally. Now, how does it do that?
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  Well, because reflexology works on everything.
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  It works on the emotional level as well.
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  So it calms you down. And typically when I see a lot
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  of patients, especially if they're telling me that they
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  feel really angry or they feel irritated, then I work a lot on
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  the liver reflex point. And why?
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  Because in Chinese medicine, our liver is like the master emotion
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  that regulates all of our emotions.
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  But primarily it's big role is around anger, frustration, and
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  irritation. So by stimulating that reflex
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  point along with a few other tidbits of points that I press
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  on, I can really help somebody calm down.
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  Now here's the cool thing. You can do this on yourself too.
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  Like when you learn where the points are, then you can start
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  to do this on yourself. You can do this on your partner,
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  your kids, your friends, whoever.
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  You can make a party of it, a feat playing party of it.
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  This is why on the Soulful Yin app, I have included reflexology
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  practices. I've also included acupressure
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  practices as well. And this is all to help you come
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  into balance and to learn how to take care of yourself anytime,
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  anywhere, 365 days of the year, 24/7.
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  If you wake up in the middle of the night and you know you're
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  overheated, great. Well, you can learn some points
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  to calm down the hot flashes if that's what's causing the
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  overheating. Or you can just play with your
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  liver reflex point and a bunch of other points and just, you
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  know, calm down that way. But the point is, is that people
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  think that reflexology is really hard to do on yourself, and it's
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  not. It's actually really easy.
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  The challenging part is just knowing which points to press
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  and stimulate. And that's where I come in.
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  And This is why I love to share this information on my app
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  because I really, truly believe that everybody has the tools
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  within themselves to heal. They just sometimes need a
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  little extra tools and a little extra help.
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  So with reflexology, being able to calm you down physically and
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  emotionally, it can also help with other emotions that might
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  be coming up that could have been stored inside the body,
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  kind of just sitting there brewing but not really doing
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  anything. Things like sadness, grief,
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  worry, fear, shame, guilt, like all of this can be stored in the
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  body. And of course, this is where we
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  store our emotions as in our body and in our organs.
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  And by stimulating different organs, the reflex points on the
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  feet, you can literally start to help your body release emotions.
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  And if you've been following along with this podcast from the
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  beginning, you know that I'm all about the emotional release,
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  whether that's through yin yoga, whether that's through
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  reflexology, acupressure, breath work, meditation, maybe it's a
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  combination of all of that. But my jam is really to bring
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  you back into balance and to help you release emotions.
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  Because if you look at the word emotions and you break it down,
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  it's like E MO Shun. Well, here's the thing.
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  That means something's in motion.
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  Emotions. Emotions are meant to move
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  through us. We often feel a lot of shame or
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  a lot of guilt around feeling certain emotions.
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  Like, you know, I shouldn't be sad this long or I shouldn't be
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  this frustrated or I shouldn't be this scared or this worried.
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  Like what's wrong with me? There's nothing wrong with you.
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  There's absolutely nothing wrong with you.
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  We as human beings are meant to experience a broad spectrum of
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  emotions or meant to feel them, but we're meant to process them
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  and we're meant to the release them.
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  We're not meant to build a house in them.
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  And this is what I try to keep emphasizing on the Soulful Yin
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  app. It's your place where you can
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  pause in stillness, whether that's in a yin yoga practice,
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  whether that's in reflexology or acupressure, breath work or
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  meditation. And you can start to process
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  your emotions and let them go because when emotions stay in
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  the body, they can potentially create dis ease as in like more,
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  you know, more emotional disruptions and brewings and
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  disturbances. But it can also start to create
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  disease, like actual disease in the body.
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  And if you are a fan of traditional Chinese medicine
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  like I am, you know that in traditional Chinese medicine, or
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  I call it TCM, the root of every disease in the body comes from
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  some sort of emotional disturbance, imbalance that's
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  not being resolved and that just keeps coming back and back.
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  And The thing is, the body is always communicating with you
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  and it's always trying to tell you different signs, clues,
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  indicators that, hey, you need to address this.
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  And if we're just running around on autopilot day-to-day, just
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  moving through this thing called life without taking time to
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  pause, then guess what? We don't even know how we feel.
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  I sometimes will ask some of my patients when they're on my
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  massage table, how do you feel? And they're like, or how have
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  you been feeling recently? And they'll tell me like,
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  physically how they're, oh, I'm tired, I'm not sleeping.
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  Well, you know, maybe sometimes somebody might say, yeah, I'm
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  irritated, I'm frustrated. But a lot of the times,
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  especially with the emotional stuff, they won't.
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  They just don't. They're like, I don't know.
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  I'm like, how do you not know? I don't know how I feel.
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  Well, you're telling me how you feel physically, but how do you
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  feel emotionally? I don't know.
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  Well, to me, that is a massive indicator to pause because the
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  pause is so powerful. That is what creates awareness,
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  and the moment that we have awareness of how we're feeling
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  is the moment that we have the opportunity to shift.
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  And I say this all the time in my classes.
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  You cannot change what you're not aware of.
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  If you're literally living with a light bulb over your head on
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  the off position, you got to turn it on.
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  And you know what, again, I want to reiterate that it's OK if you
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  feel guilty or you feel grief or sadness or worry or anger.
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  These are emotions we're meant to feel.
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  The emotions just don't keep building your foundation of the
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  beautiful thing called life on it.
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  That's all. And with reflexology, because it
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  really targets the nervous system, OK, because we're
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  working through the nerves in the body and all the nerves in
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  the body feed into the central nervous system.
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  And because we're working at that level more than the
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  musculoskeletal level, this is what allows your nervous system
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  to shift from sympathetic, so flight or fright into
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  parasympathetic rest and digest or rest and repair.
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  When we're in that state, that rest and digesting, this is
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  where healing takes place. It does not take place in flight
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  or fright. Flight or fright is literally
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  survival mode. And we spend way too much time
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  there. So whether you play with your
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  own feet or whether someone else does it, whether you come to see
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  me for a treatment, if you're in Ottawa, whether you find a
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  reflexology therapist wherever you live, just know that
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  hopefully their primary goal, especially if you're seeing a
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  therapist, is to help them shift you into parasympathetic state.
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  You can totally do it on your own, but there's a little bit
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  more awareness of how you're feeling and what you're sensing
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  versus when you're just lying on a massage table and someone else
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  is doing the work right. But I don't want to dissuade you
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  from exploring reflexology on yourself because if you're not,
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  you're truly missing out here. Major FOMO if you're not playing
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  with your own feet. And it also starts to give you
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  indicators of what might be out of balance, especially if you
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  start feeling the same things over and over again on the same
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  point that you keep pressing. You'd be like, huh, I'm always
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  angry, I'm always irritated, I'm always pissed off.
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  And every time I, you know, stimulate the liver reflex
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  point, like, I feel even worse. Like I get even more irritated.
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  I get even more pissed off. And then the point starts to
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  feel more tender and sensitive. And sometimes it even feels a
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  little bit painful. Well, to me, that's a pretty
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  good indicator to realize that, you know what, something's got
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  to shift. And when you process your
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  emotions, we always have this sort of drama around it.
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  Like it's going to take so long. Like I'm going to be like this,
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  like for like weeks and weeks. Well, to be honest with you,
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  when you get really deliberate about tuning in and noticing how
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  you feel, guess what? It doesn't last as long as you
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  think. Sometimes it's literally like a
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  couple of minutes. I've even shifted in less than a
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  minute because I know now that it doesn't take as long as we
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  always think. That's just our ego mind that's
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  trying to create all the drama around it of like, Oh yeah,
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  let's just stay in this comfortable zone because this is
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  what we know. And we're used to feeling angry
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  and irritated and frustrated. We don't know what it's like to
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  feel joy and happiness and peace.
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  So let's stay over in the angry zone.
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  But where does that serve us? It doesn't serve us at all.
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  And it certainly doesn't serve the people around you.
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  And it certainly doesn't, you know, serve the collective, the
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  universe, the world as a whole. So bottom line, reflexology,
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  yes, it'll help improve function of organs and systems in your
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  body, but it's also going to help you get into a deep
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  parasympathetic state where you're going to heal.
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  And in that state, you can start to shift into becoming the
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  extraordinary person that you're meant to be and also living an
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  extraordinary life that you're meant to live.
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  So thank you so much for pressing play on today's
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  episode. I'm going to see you in about a
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  month. I'm taking a little bit of time
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  off here in July just to have a little bit of vacation, but I
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  will see you back in August. So have an awesome day and make
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  sure you play with those feet.