Caring for your Caregivers (February 2nd) …
February 02 – Caring for your Caregivers: Massage each of your own hands for 10 minutes each … This evening, do the same for your feet.
All right, what in the world does this one have to do with selfless service? Indeed, a very good question. Essentially, in order to fully give to others selflessly, it helps to have experienced receiving. It is also intended to “wake up” the four parts of your body that are most often in contact with the Earth (your two feet) and with others (your two hands) while you are engaged in future acts of service.
Note that this activity will not be effective if done just to “feel good” or “love yourself” – both of which are traps the ego uses to keep us from actively caring for another. No, it is crucial while engaging any Self-Loving activity that we continue to remind ourselves that our purpose for doing so is selfless – either to energize the body that it might better serve others thereafter, &/or to “re-charge” that body from previous acts of service.
With this in mind, it might be helpful to have a few tips as to how we can most effectively engage these two types of self-massage.
As far as massaging the hands is concerned, doing so consciously is intensely beneficial for body & Spirit. There is a vast network of pressure points found in the human hand, and massaging on & around those points can relieve tension & stress in a number of other parts of the body.
One option for a self-performed hand massage:
- *Begin by gently pulling each of your fingers with the thumb and fingers of your opposite hand.
*Gently stroke each finger as you go, applying firm but gentle pressure to any sore or tender areas.
*To work out your palm, loosely clasp your hands together by intertwining your fingers.
*Touch the thumb of your massaging hand to the area just below the opposite thumb and apply direct pressure for several seconds.
*Keep moving your massaging thumb around in a spiral, applying short bursts of pressure, until your thumb ends up in the center of your palm.
*Finish by stroking your thumb up and down into your palm. Then work the other hand.
As far as massaging the feet is concerned, there are more than 7000 nerves in the feet, making a foot massage as beneficial as it is pleasurable (there was even a study performed on heart-surgery patients where foot massages were shown to decrease the stress levels of those patients – significantly aiding their recoveries). And yet how to best go about doing so by myself?
I knew that it was possible to roll my foot gently-yet-firmly over either a golf ball or a tennis ball, and yet I had neither of these on hand (pun unintended).
So here is one option for a self-performed foot massage:
- *Put one hand on the top of your foot and the other under the sole. Stroke smoothly from your toes to your ankles. Glide your hands back to your toes and repeat.
*Support your foot with one hand and work on each toe individually. Squeeze each toe firmly, and gently stretch with a gentle pull.
*With one thumb on top of the other, do a line of firm pressures down the center of the sole and lines on either side. Then, with one thumb, do circular pressures on the arch and ball.
*Support your foot with one hand and make the other into a loose fist. Do knuckling movements all over the sole by rippling your fingers around in small circular movements.
*Still holding your foot with one hand, hack the sole with your other hand. Flick your hand away the moment you touch the foot, so that the effect is light and springy.
*Stroke around the ankle with your fingertips, as you stroke up toward the leg and gently as you glide back. Finish by stroking the foot as you did at the beginning.
See You when I see you …
… and until then, Be Now!
Scaughdt
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