Do you feel broken-hearted? Are you dealing with this feeling that is debilitating your life or are you just suppressing it? Have you ever considered dealing with it from a therapeutic reflexology point of view?
Let’s begin this article by having a look at what it means to be broken-hearted. Sometimes things happen in our lives due to our own choices or sometimes devastating things happen to us totally outside our control. That can lead to feelings of broken-heartedness.
Being broken-hearted means you feel unhappy, you have a lack of joy, you do not experience any happiness and you may actually walk around feeling sad and as if your heart has been broken due to the specific event. This is a very real emotion that can affect our bodies physically as well.
Take a couple that has been together for years. If something happens to the one, say the wife died, it is not uncommon for the husband to die a few months later as well. Why is that? It is because the husband misses his wife so much that he becomes broken-hearted due to her death and it literally affects him physically to the point that a couple of months down the road, he also dies. Often the family would say that the husband died of a broken-heart.
Broken-heartedness does not only affect you when a close family member or friend dies, but there are numerous life events that can lead to such an emotion. Sometimes a trauma is experienced that is so severe and devastating for the victim, that it leads to broken-heartedness. Divorce can have a similar effect. It is said that divorce is sometimes even worse than the death of a family member, because you lose the spouse, but still have to deal with that person with regards to the children and the children’s future. This can also lead to a feeling of broken-heartedness, not only because of the loss of a spouse, but also the loss of a family unit and the status quo of how the family has always been.
There are many things that can lead to a person feeling broken-hearted, but what makes it such a terrible state to be in, is the fact that it is usually accompanied by severe sadness, grief and a feeling of hopelessness.
We live in a society where people are not always used to talking about emotions like broken-heartedness and they are prone to keep it cropped up instead of speaking to a friend or a professional like a counsellor. Some people are totally against the help of a counsellor or a psychologist and would rather suffer through it all by themselves.
The problem with suppressing broken-heartedness can be found in one of the techniques used by therapeutic reflexologists that work from a holistic perspective; that is the technique of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Five Element Theory. This technique shows that if you do not deal with the emotion of broken-heartedness, it may worsen to the point where people feel totally overwhelmed and helpless emotionally, but it may eventually lead to physical symptoms like the lack of laughter (or no reason to laugh), a change in physical complexion, blood vessel problems and even excessive perspiration. It may further lead to conditions like malabsorption, fluid imbalance, Angina and heart disorders.
From this theory, it is not difficult to understand why a spouse who lost a loved one, may also die a few months later; it is due to the heart physically being affected by the emotion of broken-heartedness.
So, this can happen, but how do you deal with it?
Well, if you are open to it, it may be a good thing to speak to a professional like a registered psychological counsellor or a psychologist about the feeling of broken-heartedness. It may be that you are one of those people that totally refuses to speak about your emotions and are totally against speaking to a professional counsellor.
Why not try therapeutic reflexology as a very non-invasive way of dealing with the broken-heartedness? It is very non-invasive as therapeutic reflexology is all about stimulation of reflex points on your feet. You do not have to get undressed so you do not have to feel self-conscious. It is non-invasive as you do not even have to talk about your emotion of broken-heartedness or any other emotion. It is just a very relaxing treatment session where you can take an hour out of your day to spend on yourself; you can relax while the therapeutic reflexologist will work on your feet without you having to talk about your emotions at all if you do not want to.
So how does working on my feet deals with my broken-heartedness?
This is the very interesting aspect of therapeutic reflexology. The trained therapeutic reflexologist will be able to identify the imbalances in your body, merely by working on the reflexes on your feet. By stimulating those reflexes, the imbalances are addressed which helps the body to balance itself physically and emotionally to the point where you are able to better deal with the emotion of broken-heartedness. Therapeutic reflexology is a healthcare modality known for its benefits in preventative healthcare, thus it has the ability to help your body to more readily address the emotional imbalance leading to the body keeping itself strong and able to fight the physical symptoms that may be caused by the emotional stress.
I have been involved in offering reflexology to people since 2003 with a major focus on dealing with the emotional aspects that are suppressed and that may cause physical symptoms. I have done this in a private practice in Port Elizabeth while also performing it on patients admitted to a Netcare Hospital in Port Elizabeth. For the past couple of years, I have been practicing in Cape Town with tremendous success.
Each person reacts differently to emotions like heart-break while also reacting differently to therapeutic reflexology, but it is a healthcare modality that is definitely worth considering if you want to deal with some suppressed emotions (and perhaps some resulting physical symptoms) without necessarily wanting to talk about it.
Therapeutic reflexology is a healthcare modality and therefore I work on medical aid rates which makes the therapy not only affordable, but also accessible to many people, especially due to it being seen as a medical expense and therefore it is also deductible as such from your annual income tax return.
Are you heartbroken? Consider therapeutic reflexology to deal with it non-invasively and if the therapeutic reflexologist deems it necessary, a referral can be made to another professional for further treatment.
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Christo A. Scheepers: Therapeutic Reflexologist
Dip.T.R.(Cum Laude) [IARAMT]
AHPCSA: A11945
Pr. No.: 1080000737453
Tel. 072-800 7243