A Visit from Barbara

 Throughout this whole trip we have sat and listened about all the healing practices our family uses. They are very found of homeopathy, and our aunt uses a lot of different things to "balance her energy" as she says. Everything from numbers to colors; they have also showed us some reflexology and ways to open our chakras, very interesting to say the least. One evening during a massage lesson (yes those occur in our household) my aunt noticed my really slight scoliosis in my lower back. Ever since that day she researched methods and exercises I could do to help it and constantly asked about it. She even told me she would examine it when I got back from our two week excurtion to make sure I had been doing the stretches every day. Then she asked if Chanel and I would be interested in having a session with their friend Barbara, a Jin Chen Jystsu healing practitioner. Being open minded and appreciative of their concern we decided to try it out.  

Just as our host mom and host aunt Barbara had a big personality about her. From what I understood Jin Chen Jystsu was all about connecting the energy through all the cells of the body. Barbara would place her hands on two different places on my body and explain that herr hands merely worked as "cables", only transfering the energy we already contained, not adding or taking away any energy. I'd get scared when she'd make questionable noises about what my energy felt like. Things like "hmmmm" or "ohhhh". Whether it was good or bad I have no idea. A lot of the hand placements she taught us can be done on ones self, which is why Barbara said it was great because you could do it on the bus or while talking to someone and no one would know you were treating your body. She talked about the correlation of certain placements with organs or body parts and how the body has everything it needs to heal itself. Sometimes different regions of our body lose communication with each other and how putting them back in touch with each other can fix so many problems. 

I think the thing I appreciated most about Barbara was she realized her practice was something that could seem a little out there. Especially someone used to western medicine. She constantly told us that it was okay if we didn't believe in it like her. If we were willing to try it every once and a while then that was great and if we just gained knowlegde of the subject and never planned on using it that was okay too. 

Overall it was a really cool experience. I love meeting people like Barbara. There's nothing quite like company of people with extreme passions, even if it isn't mutual.