I woke up one day, several months ago, to find my ring finger aching. For those of you familiar with your anatomy, it was the proximal interphalangeal joint, though I hardly know how that matters. It was aching so much that I couldn’t tolerate any touch on that area. As is my favorite way to select a flow nowadays, I pulled at random one of my 67 hand-made cards with JSJ flows and discovered it to be the Umbilicus Function Energy one.
For the harmonization of it, I chose the “halo” flow given in the 5-Day Basic Seminars. It shows up on page 31 of Mary Burmeister’s 5-Day Textbook II. Together with the Bladder Function Energy, it is one of only two self-help sequences given in that book. As I usually prefer to do only the first, anchor step of any sequence, so here is what I did.
Right Side
I placed my left hand on the right shoulder and the right hand on the left middle-of-the-neck area at SEL 12.
Left Side
I placed my right hand on the left shoulder and the left on the right middle-of-the-neck area at SEL 12.
Whenever I remembered, I favored the right side as that corresponds to the right ring finger that was aching. Frequently, however, I forgot which side was which and placed my hands at a whim.
It’s easy to see retroactively why Umbilicus is a good choice for such aching. According to Mary Burmeister, it helps with aching joints and stiffening ring fingers (Text 2, p. 30). Both symptoms however point at the culprit being either the 3rd or 4th Depth. For me, I am more inclined to think it is the 3rd Depth with its dis-harmonizing attitude of anger than the fears of the 4th Depth. I also noticed that if I went to sleep between 10 and 11 pm (the hour of Umbilicus FE is at peak) the aching was much less the next day compared to the nights when I went to bed past midnight (the hour of Gall Bladder Function Energy).
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