If you want to detox naturally, reflexology offers a gentle and effective way to support your body’s innate ability to cleanse and heal itself. This ancient practice connects specific points on the feet to the whole body, revealing surprising insights into how we can nurture health beyond conventional approaches.
Recently, I came across a brief article about reflexology, including a colorful chart showing reflex points on the foot. The article asked: What area would you treat for someone who suffers from respiratory problems?
At first glance, the lung reflexes would seem to be the obvious answer. However, to the holistic reflexologist, the obvious answer may not offer the proper solution.
The assumption that one would only stimulate the lung reflex points gives the impression that holistic reflexology functions similarly to conventional medicine, which treats different organ systems separately and doesn’t consider the whole human being.
Holistic reflexology always aims at finding the root cause for a physical manifestation, and therefore every healing process begins with the intention to detoxify naturally, both the mind and body.
How Holistic Reflexology Helps You Detox Naturally
Throughout the first sessions, the holistic reflexologist stimulates the cleansing organ systems, which include the urinary, digestive, and lymphatic systems. Blood circulation, metabolism, and the removal of toxins are activated.
As this cleansing process unfolds, clients may notice increased urination or changes in body odor-signs that the body is releasing what it no longer needs.
During this process, metaphysical questions are addressed to involve the client in their own healing journey. We look at fears, worldview, and the ability to deal with problems.
In holistic medicine, the kidneys are related to the emotion of fear, the bladder to emotional pressure, and the lymphatic system to one’s worldview. The digestive organs show us how we are able to digest what is happening in our world.
Only after several holistic reflexology appointments do we fully stimulate the liver reflexes, as this may release toxins and a flood of emotions. The liver is the chemical laboratory of the body, fulfilling more than 500 vital functions, and holistically holds the emotion of anger.
The first cleansing sessions promote the body’s readiness to release, let go, and shift into self-healing mode.
With regards to the respiratory system, we need to understand the deeper meaning.
The respiratory organs represent the rhythm of life as well as contact and relationships. Breathing represents the law of polarity, the two different poles: breathing in-tension; breathing out-relaxation-which forms a steady rhythm. The one does not exist without the other. If the rhythm is not kept, an imbalance occurs.
The alveoli of the lungs have a surface of approximately 230 square feet, in contrast to the skin, which has a surface of 6.5 square feet. The skin forms the border to the outside world, and it is up to a person’s will if they want contact.
The contact of the lungs with the world is indirect and not up to a person’s ego. We are unable to decide with whom we want to share a space or not. We need to breathe, wherever we are.
Issues with the respiratory organs show issues with contact and relationships. In addition, the lungs are paired organs, like the kidneys, ovaries, and testes.
The lungs, together with the heart, belong to the heart chakra, which deals with love, self-love, and the balance of giving and receiving, as well as grief.
For the holistic reflexologist, everything is connected, and we bow to the mystery and the wisdom of the human body.
We also look at the sensitivities of the right side of the body and the left side of the body, and the discrepancies between them.
If both feet show a harmonious equality, then the person tends to experience harmony within and ease of going with the flow of life.
If this is not the case, and there are more sensitivities on one foot than the other, then the person tends to struggle with their own self, they are not at peace with themselves, and thus not at peace with the world.
Metaphysically, the left side of the body represents the relationship to the mother, or a significant female person in one’s life, as well as the more introspective part of the personality. Whereas the right side of the body represents the outgoing aspect of the person and their relationship with their father or a dominant male person.
An experienced holistic reflexologist is able to read the subtle imbalances in a human being by touching the corresponding reflex points in their client’s feet.
Over the course of my 30-year career, I have witnessed many case studies that cannot be explained with the regular model of conventional medicine, and only the holistic approach can offer a deeper explanation for physical and emotional symptoms.
Client Case: Releasing Summer Trauma Through Reflexology
When I started my career in the US in 1999 at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center on the team of Dr. David Servan-Schreiber, I saw a client who showed severe stress-related symptoms only during a specific time of year.
During the summer months of July and August, she suffered from shortness of breath, heart palpitations, depression, and anxiety. Winter and fall were her favorite seasons, and she was symptom-free. Her case was a mystery.
I saw her weekly, and during each holistic reflexology session, I stimulated the trauma and lung points and the corresponding balancing points.
During session three, while I worked on the lung-heart healing reflex, the client started crying silently. Her breathing felt interrupted, and I pulsated between the lung-heart healing reflex and the diaphragm reflex to bring her breathing cycle back to a normal, relaxed rhythm. Eventually, she calmed down and entered deeply relaxed states of mind.
After the session, my client shared the following:
“I never connected the dots, but during reflexology when I felt like drifting off, I recalled a childhood memory. I was a little girl and on summer vacation with my family at the beach. A wave pulled me into the ocean, and I lost consciousness. My dad saved me.”
Her lifelong fear of swimming was not mentioned in her medical questionnaire, but now it all made sense. Her childhood trauma occurred in July, and since then, my client had re-lived it every year, and her body had experienced unexplainable symptoms.
I worked on the trauma release reflexes with holistic reflexology and also created guided mental imagery for her to restore feelings of safety when entering water. By the end of the summer, she was able to swim comfortably in swimming pools, which she had been afraid of her entire life.
She happily reported that the symptoms never occurred again in the subsequent years.
Her good health had been restored completely-physically, mentally, and emotionally. The detoxification with holistic reflexology helped her to release the trauma and the symptoms.
Covid and Long Covid: Reflexology’s Role in Recovery
Twenty years later, after seeing my client at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, following the pandemic, I made an astounding discovery.
The specific lung-heart healing reflex that had helped my client at UPMC in overcoming her drowning trauma was extremely painful to the touch for every Long Covid patient and every patient who had suffered from Covid.
The fact that the reflex points showed equal pain on the left and right foot for every client indicated the profound physical trauma.
Regular stimulation with holistic reflexology has proven to be instrumental for my clients in alleviating symptoms, including shortness of breath, muscle pain, and physical and mental exhaustion, resulting in the restoration of good health and well-being after a Long Covid diagnosis.
Embracing the Journey
To detox naturally with reflexology is to honor the interconnectedness of body, mind, and spirit. Reflexology offers a gentle, holistic path to release what no longer serves us—physically and emotionally—so we may breathe more freely, live more fully, and embrace the wisdom within.
If you are seeking a gentle, holistic path to detox naturally and restore harmony in your life, reflexology offers a time-honored gateway to healing on every level.
