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Helping the Female Body Remember How to Heal. Part 2
Part one of this two part series dealing with women’s issues included the Chest procedure (taught for self use as cancer prevention), menstrual cycles, conception, and pregnancy.
For first time readers a quick Bowen description follows.
Bowen is neuromuscular and connective tissue modality that affects every system of the body. It is done with the client clothed using a specific series of gentle rolling motions of the thumbs or fingers by the therapist. Each series of 2 to 8 movements is followed by “quiet working periods” that allow the brain, body, and mind to integrate each stage of the work. Bowenwork™ is distinguished by its effectiveness over a very short number of sessions. It is painless and can bring permanent relief rapidly.
“Is it hot in here or is it just me”? Menopausal and premenopausal symptoms respond equally well as other life changes. Bowen has a powerful emotional harmonizing effect in conjunction with its hormonal balancing capability. Mood swings will level out and hot flashes will reduce intensity and frequency. When the response to the Bowen moves washes through, your system will stabilize and make “the change” more effortlessly. The occasional tune-up will keep it on track and serve as a preventative to unsurfaced problems. Bowen is about resetting patterns that the body uses in response to normal and extraordinary conditions that arise. Once the correct patterns are established there is no need to keep pouring it on for good measure. “Less is more” is the basic tenant of the Bowen process, and what woman doesn’t know the power of “the look” vs. hours of badgering?
Beyond menopause. Aging does not have to mean the loss of vitality or mobility or even mental alertness. Joint stiffness and specifically arthritis responds by reducing inflammation, pain and increasing mobility. Postural releases that open up breathing capacities can have a profound effect on every other function. Divirticulosis, constipation, incontinence, IBS are all responsive to the gentle suggestions that are given. Renewed energy to do those activities of everyday living can be a new lease on life. Bowen is ideal for anybody with mobility problems, only requiring a client to lie on a soft table or bed and relax. It is also adaptable to clients in wheel chairs. Cases after case proves that you are never to old to reorganize your internal self to work better. Hold off on that extra lap rug and get that valued senior something that will change their quality of life in a dramatic way.
Falls and hip fractures kill more women than breast, cervix, and uterus cancer combined. Too often they signal the beginning of the end. This is a huge Bowen prevention issue as well as one that can benefit from work after the fact. Bowen procedures are valuable in improving structural variables created by hip deviations (rotations and obliquities), correcting weight distribution problems and reestablishing the center of gravity. Another factor in creating falls is dizziness or vertigo, both of which are effectively dealt with by procedures in the upper body. Falls also come from proprioceptive skill failure. Proprioceptors are the nervous system sensors that tell use about our position in space and time. Pour a few cocktails over them and you can’t find your nose with your eyes closed. Your body knowing where it is is key to regaining balance when that throw rug jumps up and grabs your toe. One of the theories of Bowen’s amazing results is based on how it resets these position and timing sensors system wide. When we are chronically injured or structurally challenged we often, consciously or not, send those “bad” parts off to play by themselves and they lose integration with the whole system and are not ready to respond when needed in the emergency. Clients often say they feel a new sense of awareness, feel taller and over there feet again. This prevents many falls.
In the event of a concussion from a fall (also known as mild traumatic brain injury) medical science has absolutely no cure but to wait it out. In an ongoing study by Bowen therapist Craig Mattimoe in San Francisco over a nine-year period, 31 of 33 cases have had virtually spontaneous recoveries by using the same procedures that I use on a daily basis. Additional findings are verifying that subsequent concussions than heal much faster because the body has perfected a better healing pattern than the often lingering symptomatic one that accompanies the scrambling of the neural network.
Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue are unique immune system issues although they have features that overlap in many cases. They share symptoms of muscle and/or joint pain that migrate around the body with no perceivable pattern. Fatigue that robs you of your very ability to function. Irritable bowel syndrome and chronic headaches and migraines are not uncommon. For these autoimmune system problems there are several procedure at the core of getting satisfactory results. A 1997 report indicated that 75 percent of FMS patients have varying degrees of TMJD (temporal mandibular joint dysfunction). The Bowen procedure with the same name is one of the most profound of all. (The only restriction to its use is when a client has had major dental accommodation to the jaw or teeth. Because when the jaw goes back to its original position the teeth may not fit again.) Sleep associated problems are evidence of neural activity that is functioning with an incorrect pattern. What better to deal with these syndromes than a systemic approach? An approach that works with the brains control mechanism, resetting feedback loops in the endocrine and the nervous system. Treatments are also directed at AOC (area of concern) to specifically address problems that are currently flared. A body that is under this much stress will need several sessions to settle it down so that new patterns can be established. Plan on five once a week sessions, then periodic touch ups to stay on top of issues that may arise. Bowen therapy addresses every symptom including the depression which some say is not part of the syndrome but only a result of the condition.
What about cancer, leukemia, MS, strokes, lupus, Alzheimer, osteoporosis, and the many other serious maladies? An underlying premise with Bowen is that the body will always work first on its highest priority of need for survival. Remember Bowen does not interfere with any drug therapies. It effectively reminds the body how to work correctly. There are times when it may not be capable of doing so without outside intervention. It is at these times more than ever that Bowen is valuable in focusing and accelerating the healing process. Degenerative muscle and nerve diseases require the body’s full attention to work with remaining capabilities. The result is reduced severity of symptoms, reduced side effects from chemotherapy, the rebuilding and resetting of neural pathways, chemical production and assimilation that is so important to Alzheimer, osteoporosis and stroke recovery patients. A heart surgeon in New Zealand uses a Bowen procedure with patients before every surgery because it dramatically reduces edema and bruising and speeds recovery. What better time to access the original blueprint of health than when our systems are running amuck?
There are 120 items on a simple checklist on my intake form. The average number checked is 14. If one of those items becomes unbearable or scary we go to the doctor. Imagine walking in with all 14 and asking for something that would improve or eliminate most of them over the next month or two, that did not involve any drugs, pain or surgery and costs about as much as 17 minutes worth of an overnight stay in the hospital. This is what Bowen does everyday and there is a ground swell of clients telling friends and relatives that their lives have been changed. They can walk pain free again, sleep better and wake energized, menstrual cycles even out, pregnancy symptoms are controlled, PMS symptoms abate, “the change” is bearable, immune system problems are dramatically improved. Our perfect bodies are being tugged at by stresses and injuries all of the time but when given a clear mission they respond with incredible speed and ability.
If you read this and get a sense that as a medical practitioner I have fallen off the edge, only to embrace some whimsical panacea of health and that I am not taking into account all the intricacies of biological technology. Then you are beginning to get the point. For over a decade as an elite sports therapist I tried to outwit the body and deduct which fibers could be manipulated how much in which direction. Now the truth is that I don’t need to know, and the results have never been so fast, complete, and enduring. But there is nothing whimsical about someone walking into my office with a lights flashing, gut wrenching migraine and leaving with only a dull headache that then disappeared on the way home. With Bowen I now have access to the most powerful tool in healthcare. YOU. Only your body really knows what it has done to itself and what needs to be undone to right the ship. The new parameters are based on balancing the system, assessment of primary issues and compensations, and a history of injury or disease that leads to a choice of which procedures will have the most profound effect. The choices are often obvious for a single issue but the network of compensations may also need to be unwound. Clients may present with a myriad of problems requiring a layered approach or as we say, “casting a bigger net”. The real beauty of it is that a single procedure will accomplish so many things and will do no harm if not needed.
Recently the minister in my church spoke to the fact that there is mounting evidence that our bodies are being desensitized to their ability to produce seritonon (the chemical that leads to an elevated state of bliss or the lacking of which can lead to depression) because of the constant bombardment of stimuli we are exposed to in this society. His point was that the treasures of life are buried in the ability to find and associate with simplicity. Bowen is simple. Ask the body nicely, don’t interrupt it and wonderful things will happen.
I started this two-part article posing the question. “What does a man know about a woman’s body”? For this man the answer is this. It has within it the most incredible self-healing power imaginable that is just waiting to be liberated.
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