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Kelley Rico, Founder

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A Good Idea for Treating Inflammation

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Monday, October 19, 2009

Inflammatory processes are at the root of many illnesses. Arthritis and Inflammatory Bowel Disease are two good examples, with which many are no doubt uncomfortably familiar.

An herb that is helpful for both of these types of conditions is Boswellia, common name Frankincense. Long used in Ayurvedic medicine, this plant can work wonders with inflammation of the mucus membrane from lung to intestine and is very well worth trying out in chronic situations, instead of using ibuprofen or some other drug. It is also indicated for both rheumatoid and osteo-arthritis; in fact, joint inflammation is currently the primary treatment use of Boswellia. Taken three times a day with a bit of food, you can see very quickly whether this herb will be useful in your given situation; it is reasonably priced and available at good health food stores.

When you consider the very helpful actions of this herb, in combination with the fact that it does not upset the stomach or have side effects, it is a fantastic helper and addition to your medicine cabinet. There are several different types of Boswellia, and serrata is the one you want for inflammation. It plays nicely with other medications, as well, which is important, as some of the other types of Boswellia can increase, for example, the action of antibiotics.

Kelley Rico is a trained aromatherapist and herbalist, and a certified Flower Essence and Jin Shin Jyutsu® practitioner.

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Living With Chronic Projects

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Saturday, September 19, 2009

In Jin Shin Jyutsu®, the word "project" is used to refer to what is commonly called a problem, a disease, or a syndrome. I myself like this wording, because it puts things in a larger perspective. It moves things out of the duality of sick/healthy, power/no power. It changes how one views the passage of time in a way, as well. A project is something that one works on consistently, over time, with eventual completion as well as results along the way. This manner of looking at things is especially crucial when one is dealing with something over a long time. Be it chronic pain, heart or other disease, PTSD, anxiety, anything that is one's constant companion can come to seem overwhelming and insurmountable.

For example, a client came to me last week. I commented on how well she looked, and she said, well, she wasn't 100%. My response was, what IS 100%? We don't know what that is, really. We know how things seemed before we were where we are now, how they seemed when we were at a bottom point. Why compare? She smiled at this, relaxed and lightened. The point is to accept, and if possible enjoy, where you are now. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, this can be referred to as "limitations". If you have a weak heart, you do not expect yourself to be a weight lifter, and you do not spend your time unproductively bemoaning the fact that you are not a weight lifter, which has as its' byproduct, further aggravation of the existing limitation. But, if you can go longer without pain medication, if you are less depressed, if you can take more walks than you could before, that is improvement. If you can go places and do things you couldn't before, that is improvement. This is expansion beyond at least a part of the limitation, without denying or resisting it. Improvement is always 100% in itself, in some ways, to my mind anyway. Often this 100% lies in seemingly small things, small activities. It takes quite some time, or some serious trauma, for a chronic condition to develop, and rationally we all know it isn't going to go away over night. But allopathic medicine and pharmaceuticals hold a promise of instant relief. Sometimes it is granted, more often not. Real progress lies in helping the body regain its' composure and balance, so it can heal itself as much as is possible. Certainly this is not easy. But pain and problems grow stronger as we resist them, instead of looking at them as, say, puzzles that we may solve. The puzzle engages us and we learn and move. The thing we resist and fear grows in power and keeps us stuck in one place.

Part of this composure lies in patience with ourselves. Part of it lies in not comparing. Not comparing how we were at 25, or before we "got sick" or x or y happened, with how we are now. Life can be a very challenging school, but it is easier if we can keep ourselves composed and in the present moment. Essential oils, flower essences, and energy body work are all powerful helpers in this work. They aid us in bringing together parts of ourselves that have been cast asunder, and in this lies healing. Healing is not the same thing as a cure, as I have said before. Not everything can be cured. But it can be healed, and if it can be healed it means we can proceed with our lives in greater harmony. Which is a good thing!

Kelley Rico is a trained herbalist and aromatherapist, and a Certified Flower Essence and Jin Shin Jyutsu® Practitioner.

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Bedwetting

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Saturday, September 19, 2009

Wetting the bed can be an upsetting issue for both parents and children. It is, however, and perhaps surprisingly, quite responsive to energetic and botanical treatments.

It is important to rule out any pathology as cause first, of course. Then, depending on the factors involved, such as, are nightmares part of the situation? Is it a matter of focus? Is something upsetting going on in the household? , essences can be administered orally, or in topical preparation, and room sprays can be used to clear the space and balance the external energies. Jin Shin Jyutsu® is helpful in balancing the bodily energies as well.

What can seem like an insurmountable and frightening problem can be managed. Another important part of this sort of approach is that whatever the cause of the bedwetting is, it does not need to become an entrenched feature of the child's life and health picture. Botanicals and energetic medicine can help the child deal with whatever internal forces are at work, master them in their own way, and move on. This provides not only a healing experience in terms of the bedwetting, but also a sense of freedom and mastery for the child. The energies that are not moving properly can be balanced and harmonized, and problems later in life can be either avoided altogether or substantially lessened. Please contact us for consultations.

Kelley Rico is a trained herbalist and aromatherapist, and a Certified Flower Essence and Jin Shin Jyutsu® Practitioner.

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Kindness

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Thursday, September 03, 2009

The Dalai Lama once said, in response to a question about what the average person could do about suffering in the world, "Smile".

As we go through our days we have no idea what other people are experiencing, and how much simple civility can help in any situation. Be kind. Take a breath. Expand your focus to what is around you and pay some attention to it. This is basic good practice to keep yourself happy and in balance. But it is important for the health and balance of the energies all around you as well. Listen. Be courteous and civil. Don't add to the burdens others are carrying, and that energetically the earth is carrying, by being unnecessarily curt or rude, or unloading your irritability on someone else. Every act of balance and harmony we can participate in creates just that much more balance and harmony over all. And we all need that. We are here together; we are here to grow and help each other as much as is reasonably possible. So, remember to take those long breaths, stay on the horse, and be part of the solution for yourself and for others. Take the time to pay attention to how you are actually feeling, so that you can do something effective for yourself if it is needed. All those negative and angry feelings can get stuck in the body, even when you are releasing them onto other people, and they will make you sick. Paying attention to how you really feel can be the most important thing you do.

Kelley Rico is a trained herbalist and aromatherapist, and a Certified Flower Essence and Jin Shin Jyutsu Practitioner.

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How We Heal

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Tuesday, August 25, 2009

A colleague of mine who I respect HUGELY remarked the other day that I must be a very optimistic person, given the types of people I work with and the small increments of improvement that generally occur in such cases. Part of what gives me room for that perhaps, is the fact that I do not work in a setting where I have to use clinical standards to measure "progress" or lack thereof. I don't think of my approach as optimistic, but I do know there is a dynamic process in nature and accompanying movement of energies. I also know that what is meaningful to a person and gives them the strength to go on is not always definable or measurable in a way that western medicine acknowledges, or has time for in most settings.

My teachers often said that true listening is healing. This I firmly believe. The placebo effect researchers see when people have symptomatic improvement just from visiting the doctor is a small part of this. If our medical provision included more actual listening, the placebo effect might be seen to ultimately turn into healing. We all need a witness, in other words. Someone to be in the now with us, hear us, not intervene in that moment but just listen. And, someone to touch us with gentleness; someone to hold our hand for a moment, and, I suppose, accept us as we are in that moment.

We can see how this works, perhaps, in our own daily experiences. Suppose we have a pain somewhere. If we resist that pain, go against it, it worsens. If we can take the time to slow down and listen to it, sometimes it dissipates just from that attention. More often of course we just get a better sense of what would help and we can do that, which in addition to making us feel better in terms of the pain is also kind of empowering (although that word is overused), because it gives us some space and some room inside, and in that space change can occur and pain can be relieved.

Another element of this is giving up judging things. We can't say, for example, well, you've made SOME progress but not enough and we don't have any more time for this. As a practitioner I really can't know which small thing will make a tremendous difference for a client. I just know that such things are possible. For someone who has a chronic, serious condition, attention to those possibilities can make progress happen. Patience has to be an element in every treatment. Everyone can feel better, even if their presenting situation may not be amenable to complete change.

Kelley Rico is a trained herbalist and aromatherapist, and a Certified Flower Essence and Jin Shin Jyutsu® Practitioner.

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Resonance

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Tuesday, August 18, 2009

I guess I was out of synch the first time I wrote this today: The whole thing disappeared in a Server Snafu. But resonance, the primal sound, the basic energetic force of the universe, is something we are all part of, and something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. A concept that has been with us since the beginning, contemporary physics is investigating resonance and primal source energy as well, with fascinating results about cellular makeup, activity, and interaction with the all the surrounding energies.

You can notice how you feel when listening to music, to someone speaking, to the wind or the ocean. The resonance, the sound, interacts with our own resonance and creates either harmony or dissonance. Our resonance can be measured in our electromagnetic levels, and these shift up and down according to our state of health and balance. When we are in pain or have an injury, the energy- resonance- of the hurt area is lower than the surrounding areas, and this contributes to the feelings of pain we experience. This phenomenon occurs on emotional levels as well as physical ones. Many of us have experienced being in situations, as well, where we do not feel comfortable and eventually we leave. We are out of synch, out of resonance with the prevailing energy.

Plant and energy medicines can help us stay in tune, so to speak. Herbal treatments work on keeping the body in balance so it can properly assimilate and distribute the incoming and outgoing energies. Essential oils act directly on the electromagnetic energies themselves, raising or lowering as needed, and flower essences help us clean our fields so we can stay in balance and at the right levels. Energetic bodywork also helps maintain harmony with the overall resonance. Recent items in the news have discussed the improvement Tai Chi can bring in diabetes, for example. Surgical and treatment outcomes can be improved by the use of energetic treatments as well. As our bodies come into energetic balance, we can find our thought processes become clearer and our emotions are harmonized as well. The energies that flow around us and through us are balanced with our own bodily energies, so we are "in the flow".

Staying in balance with the universal flow is an essential component of health maintenance, and it is not an abstract, "airy fairy" endeavor. It is, in fact, quite real and tangible, and something anyone can do, by availing themselves of the help plant and energy medicines can provide. As always, I am happy to answer any questions you may have, so please don't hesitate to contact me! Thanks for reading.

Kelley Rico is a trained herbalist and aromatherapist, and a Certified Flower Essence and Jin Shin Jyutsu Practitioner.

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Cooperation and Exploration

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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

I've been thinking alot lately about how important it is to have sharing and cooperation between all the practitioners working on a given case. A physician, while perhaps reluctant to acknowledge improvement due to energy medicine work, can still appreciate changes in status and ultimately everyone benefits from having more knowledge about the situation at hand. Two people in the same basic field can collaborate on client work importantly too. Different approaches and insights can provide valuable tools in almost any case.

Another adjunct to this thought is timing of treatment. In some cases an individual may need to gain strength before a protocol will be effective. It is important not to give up on something that isn't working at the beginning; it may be that the person isn't in a place where it can in that moment. My theory on this has always been to begin at a point of basic strengthening and harmonizing, and move on from there. Once you gain some "structural integrity", so to speak, you have a lot better chance of moving forward with treatment successfully. It is at that point when something that didn't "work" in the beginning has a chance, because the person is stronger than they were at the very beginning.

The challenge of energy medicine work in an allopathic context is that often it can seem that "nothing" is happening. Allopathic medicine targets symptoms, attacks germs, cuts out offending items, medicates with single point formulas. While this can, and often does, provide symptomatic relief that progresses to healing, often it does not. Energy medicine has to work a bit longer in these instances since it has to balance out not only the basic disharmony in the body, but the extra "load" provided by the treatment itself. Each individual also has a physical limit within which they operate, and places beyond which they cannot go. There are always progressions, times of improvement, and times of falling back. This is a theater of operations that requires patience and an open mind. Therefore, while chronic pain, physical conditions such as CFS and Fibromyalgia, functional disorders such as IBS, and conditions such as lupus, MS or Lyme Disease can all be aided by energy work and botanicals, it is a question of cooperation between practitioners and willingness of everyone to keep trying various modalities. The goal is always to have the individual experience longer and longer periods without disharmony, and a persistent, gentle approach can bring that about.

Kelley Rico is a trained herbalist and aromatherapist, and a Certified Flower Essence and Jin Shin Jyutsu® Practitioner.

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Shaping Reality

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Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Research indicates that the viewer has an effect on what is being viewed, which is to say, the act of looking at something influences how it "is". Just by looking, not anything above and beyond simple eye contact. This has some interesting aspects when you think about "reality". We all think we know what reality is, and often we find ourselves surprised when things happen we didn't expect to be in a particular reality. Maybe the only thing we really can control is our perception of what is going on, what reality is, and how we respond to that perception. This could be one source for that charming or irritating phrase, depending on where you are when you hear it: "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade".

In practical terms, what does this really mean? The late Mary Burmeister, revered Jin Shin Jyutsu® teacher, said, "Go to the harmony, not the dirty dishes." Any reality, be it a skinned knee, rash, headache, or anything else, operates on a range of energetic frequencies, magnetic and electrical. If we keep our minds clear by remembering to breathe, we can put our energies in synch with the most harmonious frequency in our situation in a given moment, and experience whatever balance is available in that moment. It doesn't mean things won't hurt or be disappointing or exciting; it just means that WE will have taken steps to insure our own balance with what is around us, and stay in tune with the dance of life that is going on all around. This in turn allows for a give and take in the situation, helps prevent constriction (which translates into pain on a physical level), and keeps things dynamic.

Energy medicine is, of course, wonderful for maintaining optimum balance. Flower essences can help clear the debris from our energetic systems, and regular body work such as Jin Shin Jyutsu® keeps the energy flowing in the correct channels in the body. In conjunction with these modalities, keeping one's actual physical and emotional parameters in mind is crucial as well. Don't push farther than you can really go, don't hang back when you could stretch a bit more. Get enough sleep, consider your own personal history and consciously evaluate what you and your body are capable of performing. So often we look outside ourselves not only for rewards but for instruction on how to function. Listening to yourself and acting on that awareness, keeping yourself energetically in balance with energy work, and taking the time to respond to things rather than react, can really help you shape your own reality so that the harmony and the dirty dishes are in synch!

Kelley Rico is a trained herbalist and aromatherapist, and a Certified Flower Essence and Jin Shin Jyutsu® Practitioner.

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Laughing: It's Good for You

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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

It has been said that laughter washes our hearts. This is worth paying attention to, don't you think? Watching a kitten prowl through the universe of a dining room, or a small child playing in a bucket of water, we can feel ourselves relax, let go and breathe, forgetting whatever is on our minds and just laughing. Laughter puts us in the now, gives us some air and gets us grounded all at once. Sometimes we can forget to laugh, perhaps, and that is when a well-timed comedy comes in very handy!

A fair amount of research has been done which shows that laughter is very healing for individuals with serious health problems. I have found that to be true in my own practice. Even silly jokes can ultimately get someone to loosen up and over time, relax, which aids healing and just generally improves how a person feels. You can put things in perspective with humor.

In Jin Shin Jyutsu®, there is a specific flow (a sequence of placing hands on energetic focus areas) that often makes people laugh. It is useful for any problems with legs or feet, as well as vascular conditions. If you think about it, this seems to indicate that laughing "gives you legs", and obviously it helps your heart. Laughing gets you back into the flow of life.

While a discussion of herbs that may make you laugh is perhaps beyond the purview of this particular article, there are herbs that help relax the nerves and contribute to a relaxed alertness as well. They help you "get the joke". These are often referred to as tonic herbs, or adaptogens. Ginseng is one example, rhodiola another. Peppermint is also good for this purpose, as is rosemary. Both these herbs help your circulation which in turn helps the flow of air through the body, which helps focus and clarity. Nervines, which focus on relaxation, are plants such as valerian and passion flower. Flower essences such as dill and nasturtium can also aid in calm focus, clarity, and an openness to being amused by what one sees instead of rushing by it. Definitely worth a look!

Kelley Rico is a trained herbalist and aromatherapist, and a Certified Flower Essence and Jin Shin Jyutsu® Practitioner

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Dog and Cat Case Study Followups

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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Recently, as readers of this blog know, I have been working with a dog and a cat using flower essences.

The dog, about whom I have written before, received another set of essences. The shift in her has been quite dramatic and immediate. The whining, which had started again in earnest after finishing her last bottle, stopped almost immediately after beginning the new drops.

The cat had an adjustment problem with a new kitten being introduced into her home. One week she looked completely distraught, matted fur and tense shoulders. The next, after a few days of essences, sleek and queenly and playing with the new kitten.

My thought is that these two animals represent places on a spectrum that humans also inhabit. The cat had an immediate adjustment issue, which was addressed with essences that were about letting go of reactive patterns. The dog had more of an ongoing, post traumatic stress kind of issue, which has taken longer to uncover, required more patience to work with, and may still require more time to resolve. The dog has to take care of everybody in order to feel "ok", on some level, and this is what has to be gently addressed and allowed to manifest in a positive way. I have observed that dogs can often have these kinds of stress issues without any immediately apparent "reason", so it is important to be open to this sort of possible causation for misbehavior.

If you take the time to pay attention to the entire organism and its' situation, you can often have a really positive result using essences. They can help entrenched, as well as situational, feeling states to loosen up and harmonize. We are so used to expecting an immediate result that the patience called for is not available, and people give up on things too soon. Flower essences are a safe and powerful resource for anyone, young, old, two or four footed, and I encourage you to explore them!

Kelley Rico is a trained herbalist and aromatherapist, and a Certified Flower Essence and Jin Shin Jyutsu® Practitioner.

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