Voices of Reflexology - Sue Ricks and Sam Belyea

hi so Sigma X here with some belly a who's speaking to me from Florida and I'm super excited to have Sam with us on the voice of reflexology for his first visit on to the voice and joining his esteemed colleagues so very big welcome Sam from Florida hmm thanks sue here this just seems to be quite a remarkable thing you and I have spoken over times because we have a joint love of foot reading and I've seen you exploding onto the scenes and doing such great things with foot reading and maybe we'll come to that in a minute because I know that it actually all started with reflexology can I start off just by asking that incredibly simple question of you know why reflexology what got you interested in it and why do you love it so much so elegy was something that I actually did not want to do it was something that I thought didn't work and I didn't have a lot of kind of knowledge of him so when I took my first course I had fully intended to not do reflexology and only needed my continuing ed for the year for my massage therapy license so what I instead found was the miracle that is the ability to manipulate every system of the body through the feet I had a client who was struggling with terrible IBS and could not have regular massage because we could not lay her on her stomach and so we did reflexology for the hour and she called me the next week and she said you know whatever you did I want to do that every week you know for the rest of my life and it was just stories like that just kept piling up and really I just synchronicity after synchronicity and I I say to my students that it's the power of the feet that really comes through the work and I describe it as well as falling down the rabbit hole just once you get started it's just those amazing mind-blowing experiences start to pile and then there's nothing that you can do to stay away from it you just have to learn more and you have to practice and keep going and it's just remarkable Apple reflexology it takes on a life of its own and I think that that's why I like it so much just because it seems to be a modality that's very alive I could not agree more I think the energy that's actually around in reflexology at the moment is astonishing I think it's absolutely brilliant to know that I think there probably is something is a little bit of a common theme is that people end up by coming into reflexology by quite a circuitous route but then it sort of literally grabs them by the feet and people are launched into career they probably haven't expected and it sounds a little bit as if you hadn't anticipated that at all but here you are it's so funny because on the podcast I interviewed I think we're on like episode number 14 you know as of are talking right now and every single person says the exact same thing like I didn't want to do it I heard about it through a family friend it wasn't something that you know I had planned to do it was just kind of it took over do you want to tell people how to find your podcast sites I really enjoyed my session with you would you like to tell people how to find your podcasts yeah sure it's available on iTunes all you need to do is search for reflexology and we pop up or one of the only reflexology podcasts out there and then also if you wanted to go to my website folks come there's a link on the home page or the actual podcast website if you don't want to download the podcast right away you can just listen by and listen to the website okay and I think that our connection just crackled a tiny bit then say that's foot Whisperer dot-com yes excellent we just need to make sure that people know how to get in touch with you so tell me some how did it and manifest for you just wandering off and finding out and becoming so involved in foot whispering as in foot reading what happened there so what the foot was for her name actually started as a joke I started to get really good at the reflexology and started to feel the reflexes really really deeply around here for practicing just you know seeing five flights a day six days a week like you get really good at you know something when you get thrown into the fire and so I had two dependent clients who are totally different call me the boat whisperer like want the same week is very interesting and so the joke and it became the brands and as I started to get known for like assessing the feet I started to look for information like who else is teaching this who else's has done this who else is starting to look at the feet not just as a manual therapy but as a kind of an assessment protocol and there was nothing I I could find no books on like foot assessment reflex assessment until I found foot reading and I stumbled across Jane and it promptly devoured everything that she had and this is Jane Shannon yeah James yeah and I found you and I found Chris and in Reese book and I was just like really grasping at straws but everything that I touched gonna have me do more and so as I started to work with clients on a consultation basis not even just the manual therapy but just talking to them one-on-one about what I'm seeing in their feet the content started to just evolve and I started to incorporate that my certification program from reflexology and it's just really taken on this life of its own which culminated in in the book that I wrote book reading a reflexology primer on foot assessment and I think that it all stems from this idea that I think reflexology community although it's very small it's over populated with the manual work and I think that we need to be evolving in the direction of both the manual and the assessment because I think that's what distinguishes us as practitioners is not just the ability to press buttons but the ability to interpret and feel and palpate those buttons to really give voice to what the feet are trying to say via the body and that's really kind of how it has evolved is very much like reflexology didn't intend to get into it it just kind of happened that way but it's been a wild ride ever since fantastic and has it changed your life son Oh 100% I cannot cannot get into a group of friends without somebody taking off their shoes that cannot go into a public place without being teased by those same friends about looking down instead of up and looking at people as they're walking and it's very much like once you once you know you can't unknown and so it's just it's changed the way that I see people and see the world as truly interconnected as opposed to these kind of separate bags of tissue walking around like everything physical mental emotional is always linked together this is very very exciting isn't it and I know that you have got some plans ahead where you're hoping to come over to the UK so when do you want to just tell me a tiny bit about that sure so we'll be making our first trip over to the UK we're jokingly calling at the the UK book tour for me it's my first trip over to outside of the world I'm super excited so don't be in September of this year and we were just absolutely thrilled to be making this jump because so many people buy in the UK are interested in but reading I didn't expect that when I started the launch the online content excellent this is really many good news and I'm very pleased to hear that you're coming over to the UK and this will be heard by people all over the place so I'm sure you've got plans to go to other parts of the world as well as to here in the UK for which we're very very grateful so so I want to ask you I'll be closed off if you've got if you could think of somebody just coming in to reflexology what little gem or nugget would you like to offer to those people who are coming into reflexology what do you think really might help them I think when I hear when I contemplate this question which I love so much I think of the look of frustration on my students faces when they first tried to do reflexology or foot reading for the first time and the one thing that I always remind them to do is to relax and listen because a lot of times they try to take their work too seriously either the manual work they're trying too hard or the book reading they're trying to logic themselves into a proper foot assessment and if they if just take a breath take a moment and let the feet speak to you instead of trying to force your will on on the feet I think that it would produce a much more high quality product and it would make you a better practitioner I just could not agree with you absolutely I couldn't agree with you more it's completely absolutely where I come from so it's fantastic to hear you're saying that Sam and I want to say really big thank you to you and thank you for taking the time out to share your wisdom with our listeners and thank you for contributing to the voice of reflexology we're very glad to have you as as part of the happy band and so while I just find my little office which I want to say a huge thank you very very much so thank you very much Sam thank you sir I really really appreciate being considered part of the voice of reflexology it's a great pleasure you