Nurturing Wellness Through Jin Shin Jyutsu

In this episode of the Heart Mind Healing Podcast (S1 E2), Caitlyn interviews Cristina Eury, a practitioner of Jin Shin Jyutsu. Cristina shares her journey into this specific style of energy healing and emphasizes the importance of self-care and self-practice. They delve into the link between fingers and emotions, discussing techniques for managing worry and anxiety. Cristina's gentle and effective approach to healing is a testament to her expertise in the field. To learn more about Cristina's work, visit ancientflow.com and follow her on social media @ancientflowtherapy_.

You can watch on YouTube or listen on Spotify. The transcript is below! Caitlyn has bolded/underlined sections she found particularly interesting or helpful.

Caitlyn Adams: Hello. I'm Caitlyn, owner of Heart Mind Healing, and I am here today with one of my dear friends, Cristina Eury, And her practice is Ancient Flow Therapies. So hello, Cristina.

Cristina Eury: Thanks for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you, which is always fun.

Caitlyn: So, we're gonna talk about energy healing and a very specific style of Energy Healing. So Cristina is a practitioner of - I'm gonna let you say it so I don't butcher it.

Cristina: Yes. Jin Shin Jyutsu. So but I usually say that I'm an acupressure therapist. Simpler, easier to remember, and get a sense of what that actually means.

Caitlyn: Okay. So that's really helpful. You're right away, giving some people a little more context for that. How did you find out about Jin Shin Jyutsu?

Cristina: I was teaching, I was a kindergarten assistant at a Waldorf school in Phoenix, And my lead teacher happened to have the logo, the symbols of Jin Shin Jyutsu tattooed on the back of her And very odd story for sure from that perspective, but she invited a teacher to come to the School and teach a 3 hour self help class. And, I came away From that class, amazed and feeling so much better and realizing that that's what I Wanted to really pursue, learn more about, and be able to share that with others.

Caitlyn: Oh, that's so wonderful. I know it's it's always interesting how different modalities Come into our lives because when I first met you, the Jin Shin Jyutsu stuck out in my brain because in Pennsylvania, I had met a practitioner. And I had been thinking, oh, this looks really cool. Let me look into it. And then we move down here, And lo and behold, I find another practitioner, the only 2 people I have ever heard of.

Cristina: It is not common for sure. For North Central Florida, I am the only Jin Shin Jyutsu practitioner. There's only about a dozen of us in the state of Florida. It is rather uncommon here.

Caitlyn: Wow. That's that's really neat. Mhmm. So you mentioned your 1st exposure was with a self care class.

Cristina: Mhmm.

Caitlyn: So this is something that people can do for themselves.

Cristina: Yeah. That was something I really loved about Jin Shin Jyutsu, that the lady who brought Jin Shin Jyutsu to the US and and to the Western mind from Japan. Her big focus was really on how To do this for ourselves, to be our own testimony, to really, work within. And, and so that was much more of focus for her And then training practitioners.

Caitlyn: I love that. You know, I think we've discussed that's one of my favorite elements of Reiki as well, being able to learn the techniques for self practice because that's where the deepest healing can take place.

Cristina: Oh, for sure. I think Mary even said that 70% of the things that ail us can be handled by some simple things to do within Jin Shin Jyutsu.

Caitlyn: That's lovely.

Cristina: That's a huge number actually. And and when I think about it, it's like what we all have trials and tribulations, physical, emotional things, you know, all this and yet so much of it with a little bit of time, And awareness can help us bring us back to balance so we can be more resourced and resilient and be able to get back to our lives in a in a more wholesome way.

Caitlyn: Oh, I love that. Absolutely love that. And it's important to find that balance between the self practice as well as the deep healing that can take place being facilitated by somebody.

Cristina: For sure. No. And and that is what I tell my clients that come in to see me. This coming in to see me, it's a deeper practice. I'm doing much more detailed and and And, longer, more more specific kinds of work when I'm working with them. And them doing the Self care in between is what makes a huge difference in their trajectory of what they're wanting to achieve.

Caitlyn: Yes. They're they're helping to keep sort of at that level so that you can take them a little bit beyond versus dipping back to where they were at their 1st session.

Cristina: Yeah. A really great analogy is is Like, if you have a house cleaner come to the house. But you have racked up all the dishes all week and not done any dishes, not loaded the dishwasher. None none of that kind of stuff. And they only have an hour, but the first thing is to clear the sink. Then they're not gonna be able to do the detailed work of cleaning the bathrooms, changing the sheets, vacuuming, any of those kinds of things. So Definitely, I can do more for my clients when they're doing the self help, but then the other option is that they just need to come in more often. So there's always choice, and and you have ways of whatever navigates best for you.

Caitlyn: Definitely. And I mean, there's certainly seasons of life when doing the dishes is just an insurmountable task, and maybe that's what you need. Yeah. So it it depends and it ebbs and flows. I my morning client, we were having this exact conversation where, people sometimes think they should be able to do everything on their own. And, no, we need these practices. We need tools. We need other people as part of our wellness care circle.

Cristina: Oh, for sure. For sure. I I definitely am in that same realm of It's great to have the tools and it's great to have support because life is adventurous. I'll put it that way. And and we are meant to be in community.

Caitlyn: We really are. So taking us back to emotions. My understanding is that, the fingers are one of the tools that you use and that different fingers are linked to different emotions.

Cristina: I love teaching this, for sure. So each finger has a particularly a negative emotion associated with there's positive as well, but the negative one is easier for us to remember. And so the thumb is associated with worry. The index finger is associated with fear. This one is usually easier for most people to know what that's about, which is anger. The ring finger is about sadness and grief, and and the little finger is about that efforting, That trying to another an older word would be pretense, but always efforting kind of thing. So so yeah. Worry, fear, anger, sadness, trying to. So worry FAST is a way to kinda remember.

Caitlyn: I'm great at worrying fast.

Cristina: I think many of us could, You know, score an a on that. But, but yeah. So it's a and and it's a very easy thing to do, to help us make a little bit of a difference, for example, on worry, is to just hold our finger. Take a deep breath. Drop our shoulders and smile.

Caitlyn: I love that.

Cristina: I love doing this for a Couple of minutes. If I really wanna get detailed 36 breaths each each digit as I move along. I usually Start on the left and move to the right. But this is a great tool even though it sounds super simple

Caitlyn: and it's subtle too. So if you're If you're at, you know, a job or around people, it doesn't really look like you're doing anything. And for our audio only listeners, It's just wrapping the other hand around that finger. Just a very gentle grasp.

Cristina: Yeah. There's no need to like massage it or Or hold super tight. It's just a gentle grasp around that digit, and it's just such a wonderful thing. I mean, I've had clients I get so mad in traffic? Well, when you get to the red light, how about you hold that middle finger?

Caitlyn: Yes. Hold it instead of lifting it up. Yes. I love that.

Cristina: Yes. For sure. For sure.

Caitlyn: So Alright. That that's really helpful. So, worry, would that be anxiety? Because I know a lot of People really struggle with anxiety.

Cristina: Anxiety is definitely a theme. And and I think it's interesting because I realized that over time, I think people were less aware of it and definitely less able to say that that was a label that we identified with. And now I think there's so much more awareness around anxiety and identifying with it and being able to say I struggle with anxiety, which is great. And so knowing, of course, is the first step. But, within this tradition For anxiety, I feel like there is a layer of worry that comes with anxiety and so that would be the foam. There's also this layer underlying that of fear and so that would be the index finger. So for anxiety, I would be very Tempted to recommend to hold the thumb for 36 breaths and and then hold the index finger for another 36 breaths and see how that helps to to center and ground you.

Caitlyn: I love that. And even I mean, the benefits of taking 72 conscious breaths. Mhmm. I hope I did that math right. Just that, in addition is going to be bringing more healing benefits. Mhmm. Oh, I love it. Yeah.

Cristina: A great process. Yeah. Easy. You always have your fingers even if you don't physically Have your fingers energetically, they're still there. So if you happen to be an amputee or doesn't matter, hold the space around where that thumb would be.

Caitlyn: Oh, that's an interesting take on, like, the phantom limb discussion. Completely. Oh, I hadn't thought about that.

Cristina: Yeah.

Caitlyn: I love it. Uh-huh. Awesome. Well, Cristina, if people have questions, where can they go to get more information?

Cristina: Well, the easiest place to get a lot of information is to go to my website ancientflow.com But I'm also on a few of the socials on Instagram And Facebook as well as a little bit on LinkedIn, YouTube.

Caitlyn: And Cristina is actually going to be teaching a workshop at Heart Mind Healing. So the first one's going to be in, February of 2024. And depending on when you're listening to this, I'm sure this will be a regular offering. And if you have any questions for Cristina, Again, I wanna have Cristina here with me on the microphone fairly regularly. So, you can go ahead and drop those questions in the comments wherever you're watching or listening to this. [or email Caitlyn@heartmindgnv.com]

Caitlyn: Wonderful. Well, thank you for spending some time with the 2 of us today, and I know I enjoyed chatting with you, Cristina. Thank you.

Cristina: Always. Always. Always. I love our conversations. It's It's such a nourishing experience for me.