What is Acupressure?

Energy healing for body mind and soul

Acupressure is a gentle, yet extremely powerful form of bodywork.

It works with the energy systems of the body, which profoundly affect our physical health, our emotional state, and our spiritual wellbeing. By creating flow and harmony at the energy level, acupressure also brings deep relaxation and healing to our bodies, our emotions and our spirit.

It does all this purely through sensitive, skilled finger pressure at various points on our body.

These points are located along the energy channels, or meridians, and are the same as those used in acupuncture. The finger pressure allows blocked energy to flow, and harmony to return to our body’s energy system. This in turn allows healing of our physical symptoms, and understanding and healing of the related emotions we may have been holding. As balance returns, we usually feel immediate relief of our pain or discomfort, and long term healing is also initiated.

Your Acupressure Session

During a session, you usually lie on a massage table fully clothed. The practitioner will ask you about your symptoms, and also take your pulses – acupressure recognises twelve different pulses at the wrists. Using all this information, the practitioner then creates a treatment that is uniquely crafted to the particular energy imbalances that are related to your symptoms.

Acupressure points are held in pairs until the blocked energy in the points is released, which usually takes two or three minutes. The finger pressure is adjusted from gentle to strong, and the length of time varies, depending on what’s needed to release the energy, and the practitioner only moves on as it flows in each point. Energy moves from areas of excess to areas of deficiency, creating balance in the whole system and allowing it to be available where needed. While you may or may not feel the actual energy flows, you will usually feel both refreshed and deeply relaxed as the treatment progresses.

As your energy field changes, so will your symptoms and feelings, and the practitioner continually incorporate these responses into the treatment so that it is always sensitive to your particular healing needs. Treatment becomes a dynamic flow.

When our imbalances are relatively recent, then treatment can usually restore balance quite quickly. But when our imbalances have lasted for a long time, and we find ourselves with chronic illness, then treatment can take longer to restore health. Yet even with chronic conditions, we usually notice improvements after as few as one or two sessions.

As we can see, while acupressure is called bodywork, the body is merely the place where we begin. As energy begins to balance and harmonise, all levels of being are impacted, not just the body, but also emotions, mind and spirit. All these aspects are intimately intertwined, and all find health through the magic of acupressure.

Five Element Acupressure

Five Element Acupressure has its roots in the ancient cultures of both China and Japan, but it has also been influenced by western culture. Modern psychology has provided deep insights and understandings of the emotions and the mind, and this knowledge has been woven into the practise of Five Element Acupressure. Traditionally, there was understanding of the way certain energy blocks relate to certain symptoms and illnesses. Now, we also understand in much greater depth the emotional patterns that are related to both.

In ancient times it was noticed that the energy meridians and their associated physical and mental states seemed to arise in five broad groups, and these groupings were found to relate to each other in predictable, systematic ways. Each grouping seemed to have qualities similar to a particular element occurring in the natural world, and so the five groupings, or Five Elements became Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal. This became the foundation of Five Element Acupressure.

The Elements are constantly alive within us, dynamically interacting with one another. When the harmony of this system is disrupted, some Elements have too much energy and others too little. It is this disharmony which creates ill health. At the heart of Five element Acupressure is the balancing of the Five Elements, in other words, the balancing of the whole physical, mental and spiritual organism.

Getting to the Core

We all have one Element that becomes the fundamental orientation of our life. This is called our Constitutional Element, and is the lens through which we see, hear, smell, taste and touch the world. When we are in balance, it is our gift, but when we are out of balance, it becomes our struggle.

Five Element Acupressure can identify and treat our Constitutional Element, and not simply our symptoms, and the healing effects can go deep to the core of who we are. When our core Element is balanced and happy, then all the Elements begin to move into harmony.

Knowing Yourself

Five Element Acupressure does not just treat our imbalances, but helps us uncover and understand the underlying patterns that are causing our ill health. Understanding allows our symptoms to lessen and loosen their hold on us. A fundamental premise of this work is that self understanding and self awareness are the keys to long lasting change. Thus Five Element Acupressure is a powerful support for the journey of inner exploration, understanding and ultimate healing.