How Chi Nei Tsang Massage Save My Life and Health

It all started when I was in my twenties, with a small pain in the abdomen. I made an appointment with my doctor. While examining the pelvis, he found that merely touching that area was enough to produce pain, so we agree to proceed with non-invasive testing. Over the course of a year, the pain spread.

My abdomen slowly swelled until I was in a constant state of discomforting distention. My doctor suggested we try exploratory surgery. What better way to know what was going on than to look directly into the body.

After surgery, my doctor revealed, “Every organ from your stomach to your colon is in crisis.” He then took a quarter out of his pocket. “Your liver and small intestine are the worst. I could flip this quarter to determine which organ will shut down first, but most likely you are going to die from either the liver or small intestine shutting down, and I do not know why.”

I had for the most part accepted the terminal diagnosis, but as long as I was still alive, I wanted to try and minimize the ever-present, excruciating pain. I heard about a rare Chinese form of internal organ massage called Chi Nei Tsang, I decided to try it. Fortuitously, I stumbled into the office of Gilles Marin, the foremost master in this technique.

He worked on me for about ten minutes, and then said, “Okay, I am going to tell you what is wrong with you.” Gilles explained that breathing is how we digest our emotions, thoughts and experiences, as well as supply oxygen to the body. “You have absorbed as much fear as a person can, and still be alive… but just barely alive. Your liver is hanging on by a thread right now, because your diaphragm has choked off the flow of energy. Incorrect breathing and lack of emotional digestion cause this. The result is the liver and the liver meridian are swollen and in crisis. When you learn how to breathe correctly and bring the diaphragm back down, the flow of energy will be restored to your liver, and it will come right back. There is nothing wrong with your liver. Your doctors were right about one thing: you will die if you do not change how you breathe. But you do not have to die; there is still time. You can reverse this.” And I did! My situation was not a quick fix. All in all it took me somewhere between seven and ten years to make a complete recovery. I am much healthier now than most people you will ever meet.

Chi Nei Tsang Massage is designed to be self-administered. It is about purging the body of negative emotions and bringing consciousness back to the core of the body. The heart of the internal organ massage is the navel. That is the window to the health of the body. The ideal navel should be round, symmetrical and flat, with a well defined rim, walls and a floor. Any distortions in this ideal round shape are due to stresses and toxins in the internal organs as well as poor or incorrect breathing patterns. The best way to get a good clear reading on the navel is to lie on the back, knees bent and the pelvis tilted slightly forward. Then, with the head resting flat, use a mirror to see what the navel looks like in this “at rest” position. If the head is lifted to see what the abdomen looks like, it will pull on the navel and the reading will not be accurate.

When starting the massage, the hands should rest right around the rim of the navel. Slowly and gently the fingers begin to make a sinking, spiraling motion downwards, with the stroke always ending towards the center of the navel. It does not matter if you massage in a clockwise or counter clockwise direction. Both directions are beneficial. The idea is to move the tension felt by the fingers into the navel, so that the body can access it and recycle the energy into something more useful. Very gradually, the massaging motion is expanded to an area of about an inch to an inch and a half around the navel. On the inhale hold the fingers firmly and breath into them, and then on the exhale, tilt the pelvis up a bit more and press into the abdomen. Always start as close to the rim of the navel as possible and move whatever tension you feel into the recycling center. Then slowly move outward, sweeping towards the center of the navel.

The best way to see, feel and become aware of how much undigested life you carry around is to do the navel massage. When lying on your back, with the knees bent and the pelvis tilted slightly forward, place your palms directly over the navel. Everything under your hands, between the floating ribs and hip bones, is soft tissue. The only bone is the spine in the back. When massaged, soft tissue should just move gently out of the way. If you are rubbing your navel around the rim, or in the inch to inch and a half zone directly around the rim, and you come in contact with something hard, constrictive, or resistant, it is not the organs or anything you ate. Organs are soft tissue, and by the time food gets into the lower digestive system, it is a liquid. So what is it? It is undigested life. It is undigested thoughts, feelings, emotions and perceptions.

Knowledge of how to manage the human experience is invaluable information regardless of your present health situation. My prayer for you would be that you are never faced with overcoming a terminal diagnosis in your lifetime. But if that does find you or a loved one, know you are powerful beyond measure, and there is a vast wealth of life saving wisdom out there for you to discover. In the meantime, be sure to keep your hands where they belong… in your navel.

Vaishali is the author of Wisdom Rising (Purple Haze Press 2008) and You Are What You Love (Purple Haze Press 2006). She is also national health & wellness speaker and is a certified practitioner of Chinese Medicine and East Indian Ayurveda medicine. Vaishali is a faculty member of The Omega Institute. Visit www.purplev.com or email v@purplev.com