History of REFLEXOLOGY

[Music] welcome welcome this is Shanae your soul shine sista here with our second installment of our reflexology learning series and today's lesson is history of reflexology as you may remember from last week's time we spent together which I loved people commenting trying out some of the techniques on their own but remember we covered zone theory so our body is separated into different zones that are also linked to our feet remember one two three four five corresponding with our hands as well as our feet today I wanted to give you a little more background about reflexology because I know during this research phase I've learned a lot that I didn't know before one major thing is I thought it was all traditional Chinese medicine you know as a kid I always just like whoa Asian culture so cool they had like you know kungfu and they have cool herb had you acupuncture that but needles in you which those are all facts but i also always believed that reflexology came from china or traditional chinese medicine well what I'm here to reveal today is that's not quite accurate it's actually a little more here on the home front in America but I digress let's go ahead and see what is our closest link to reflexology throughout history well a big one comes from ancient Egypt now as you can see we have an image found in the physicians tomb in Egypt setting about 23 35 BC as you can tell you see two different physicians one whom is treating some of these hands very cozy treating hand and the other side when my son is there treating the patient's foot which corresponds with reflexology these reflexes that are found in our hands and our feet you can also tell that the physician treating the individual their feet is turning away this believed that it was seen as improper to face somebody while you're working on their feet like you're at a lower level so you would turn away hold their foot and work it out also in the Americas there is a lot of supporting evidence that the Cherokee Nation used foot massage and pressure techniques to heal people through their feet but also in South America the Incan civilization these are in black and white but you can kind of see there's a hand there holding a stone and this stone these stones can be found today and are used to specifically work with the feet so I know for some of you you're like I'm not feel anything in my feet perhaps some of our feet that it's very thick walking around barefoot or in sandals so so the Incas having a tool like that was ideal to get into those pesky tender spots but let's go ahead and go to the early 20th century so the early 1900s our first figure historical figure is William H Fitzgerald MD now he was an ear throat and nose doctor at Boston City Hospital in Connecticut and what he found I'll go ahead and came up on our board what he found is when he would apply pressure to the fingertips either using metal clamps or elastic bands wound tightly or we have right here this one looked like some safety pins or not safety pins excuse me clothes pins thank you personally excited message he found that once he held steady pressure the facial region would become numb and he was able to perform surgery without any anesthesia pretty intense so his whole thing was just holding on this is William H Fitzgerald he had them hold on or sometimes I have patients hold a comb pressing the teeth of the comb into their hand and they would find a numbing effect so we can perform these procedures now this was the formation of zone therapy and that is what we covered basically last week in our lesson so the idea that different areas of the body are aligned with specific zones and in the case of dr. Fitzgerald he used it to numb patients out and use it so he can perform surgery now there was a doctor who worked as I find him beside him named dr. Reilly who helped him develop zone therapy but it's this woman I don't have an ideal image yes reflexology was developed by this lovely lady her name is Eunice D Ingham and she wrote the book stories our feet tell and I'll go ahead and put a link of that now Eunice was a physical therapist that worked with dr. Reilly and dr. Fitzgerald the one with little clamps and she had working with hundreds and hundreds of there of patients and found that not only were the zones aligned but also that the feet were an exact reflection of the body with its various organs functions and structures so she found this after doing lots of research and through her experience was really the founder of reflexology as we know what today so this was dr. hood our physical therapist Oh who's Eunice Ingham so basically what she came to be to know through her years and years of research she had different people who came from Vancouver who learned under her that built Institute's but this is really the foundation of what we know as reflexology today and what she established through her research are a few different facts our first one is reflexes on the feet are a mirror image of all the glands organs and parts of the body the right foot contains all the reflexes of the right side of the body and the left contains and represents all the left side of the body so there are organs predominantly on your right side that are on your left and they would be able to be stimulated through your feet okay the next contribution Eunice brought to this wonderful field was the idea when there's a problem with a body part the corresponding reflexes in the feet will reveal a sensitivity when pressure is applied so if you're throwing around your foot you feel pressure then our sensitivity from that pressure there is some kind of problem or imbalance elsewhere in the body working through these reflexes brings changes in the body and reduction in symptoms so we'll go ahead and put this in okay and then our last note reflexology can be of great benefit in relieving all the stress related disorders in the modern world for people of all ages so this is a safe practice for people of all ages that there are some contraindications but overall a great healing modality for people everywhere especially in today's society so just a little recap we saw that and put our little guys on here our ancient Egyptian brethren and these physicians tomb left us imagery of their reflexology practices we found that in America dr. William H Fitzgerald MD throat nose and ear doctor developed this technique of clamping the ends of the fingers to have a numbing effect so he could perform surgery he was assisted by dr. Riley in developing what is known as zones their zone theory and then eunice our girl Eunice she is the one who really developed honed in our skills and honed in all her research to develop what we know today as reflexology reflexology is one of the most popular complementary healing modalities out there and for life folks they they don't really know hundred percent how it works why it works or whatever but time after time the research support has shown that there are significant changes that occur by stimulating these reflexes in the feet and having positive benefit to the rest of the body well I hope that you found value in this video feel free to share like maybe invite somebody into our Facebook group of holistic living with your soul shine system that way somebody who needs to see this information and hear it freely given may find exactly what they're looking for it was nice talking to you and I'll see you next week with our next installment of our reflexology series oh yeah shout out to my girl Lauryn Hill I'll be seeing you next Tuesday at Red Rock [Music]