Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and we're going to be addressing a topic that we've addressed before, but not with this method. So, on the show, we'd like to talk about, you know, healings that aren't pharmaceutical or medicinal based, in the sense that, You have to take a lot of pills or you end up taking a lot of pills because they're symptom treating rather than root cause treating.And today we are presenting another way of natural healing. We've done biology with hormone testing and chemical testing. We've done, you know, patches that turn light into energy. We've done a lot of different things, but today's is very interesting. It's how touching. Heals all and we have a reflexologist here today to talk about that and what exactly it means for those of us Who have never heard of that myself included?So Ms. Njadika Olatunde Welcome to the show. I'm, so glad you reached out to me to Come on and present this topic because it's definitely something I want to get out to people so that they can stop living this life where they're Using medicine as a day to day crutch and can't they're limiting themselves But you can help us break free from that cycle and to find new healing.So would you please tell us a little bit about yourself? First of all, I want to say thank you for inviting me. I'm looking forward to sharing and helping to people to know that they do have the power within themselves to heal themselves from pain using the power of touch. Who am I, I am a. Uh, naturopathic health care practitioner and my expertise is in relieving chronic pain using reflexology as the therapy to relieve pain without medication.Um, overall, my background is, um, I've spent a lot of time, uh, researching. And studying the various ways that touch can relieve pain and so I focus on moving from a private practice as a reflexologist to an instructor teaching others how to do it to writing a book reflexology today, a family affair as a self help guide for people to learn how to use reflexology.Moving more now into research and looking at how we can take back control of our lives from pain with some basic techniques that's in the power of our hands. So I mentioned, and you mentioned the word reflexologist and reflexology. For those of us who have no idea what that is, or are probably thinking a number of things, who knows what is that and how did you discover it?Reflexology, believe it or not, is over 5, 000 plus years old. Reflexology is the art and science of working specific reflex nerve ending points that are found on your feet, hands, and ears that correlate to the various systems and body organs inside your body and way to explain that. If you ever look at a chart of the anatomy and look specifically at the nervous system, you'll see how all the nerve endings they begin in your head and run straight through your body, ending in your hands and feet.So it's like the electrical system that's inside your body that connects with the brain. to relieve pain using the body's natural healing process. So that's what reflexology is. And to add to it, tell you a little something that everybody, everybody has done reflexology. But they don't know that they've done it.Okay. And let me, let me share you an example. You're probably too young to know about this, but there's a little exercise called This Little Piggy. And everybody used to do that on the baby's toes, saying, This Little Piggy. When they were doing that, what they were doing was activating the nerve endings inside the head that relaxed the body.And then the little, the child will either feel happy or they'll eventually calm down and go to sleep. You've just activated nerve ending doing this little piggy. I want everyone know that. Parents still do that. I know what that is. I've had it done to me. Um, but that's really interesting that, that you mentioned that as an example.I think that's a very universal example and. I think this is great for those of y'all listening who are more of the science users and the scientific kind of mindsets. This is basic science. I mean, you're using basically open channels where they start and end to access the body. I mean, it makes perfect logical sense.And so, how did you come about, like, where did you discover this? Was it from a doctor or someone taught you or just online? How did you discover this? Well, I'll lead up to it and give you a little bit of my background. Uh, I grew up with, uh, home remedies and natural resources. So growing up in that environment, for me specifically, back then, doctors, I saw, when I was a child, I thought doctors were healers.I saw them as being healers. They used to come and do home visits and all this kind of stuff, and I saw them do some wonderful things in terms of helping people get well. So I said, Oh, when I grow up, I want to be a doctor. So what happened was when I got to college, I got a rude awakening because The doctor that I had perceived to be a doctor was not the doctor and I said, Oh, no, this is not going to work.So then I went and became a social worker. But while as a social worker, my clients that I worked with were always going to the emergency room as their doctor and I said, well, what happened to prevention? You know, where's the prevention piece? And then it finally came a time when natural alternative healing practices were opening up.So then I went back to school and became a naturopathic practitioner. And as a practitioner, I wanted to add. A modality and that modality became well, before I get to that, what happened was my Native American. I have Native American ancestry. So I was studying that and in studying that I was told by the elders.I need to do something in the healing arts with my hands. And I thought that that meant massage therapy and I didn't like massage, but I liked reflexology and that's where the journey began in terms of me studying, um, nationally, locally in my area and internationally being able to study reflexology.And so I've spent a good number of years In the modality of reflexology. So that's how I really got my start and seeing that here. We're talking about an age old technique. That goes all the way back and you'll even find this in the Bible. It goes all the way back about the power of touch and healing based on using reflexology.So for those of us listening and you know, we want to know what exactly does it look like? You know, who's going to use, so what kind of things are being healed through reflexology and kind of what does that treatment so to call it look like? Excellent question. Reflexology deals specifically with pain.And as a naturopathic practitioner, one of the things that I discovered When you think about it, the one thing a person or one reason a person goes to a doctor is because they are in pain. Right. And what's the one thing a person wants when they go to the doctor is relief from pain. But what happens is when you go to the doctor and you tell the doctor you're in pain, and the doctor's going to like, you know, say, And then he say, well, you know, we got to do some tests to find out, you know, what your problem is.But in the meantime, here's a prescription for you to take supposedly for your pain. But remember now, we don't even know what your pain is, but we've given you a prescription for your pain. So what I did in my practice, what I put together was I call pain relief therapy. First, before treatment, and what that is, is spending time doing the one thing that a person in pain wants more than anything is somebody to listen to them.And so when you listen to them, all you're doing is, You're, you're, at that particular time, you're understanding what's going on with them and their body. And what people don't realize is that when you're talking about pain, you're talking about the stress pain connection. and pain go hand in hand. And so when you look at it from that perspective, I'm listening to my clients slash patients talking to me about their pain.I'm also listening to hear what was going on right before the pain started because pain, does not just happen. It's a process. It's been going on for a while. And when you connect the pain to the stress factor, you'll be able to see how it involved to what is now has affected and turn into what is diagnosed as an illness.Because all illnesses result from stress. That means something outside the body that's happening that you bring inside. And when you bring it inside, it starts causing health problems. So, from that perspective, When a reflexologist is working on a client's hands or feet, we're what we're doing is something like this where you take your thumb and you're walking the nerve ending to the corresponding area.So, as you walk that nerve ending, 1 of the things that we're looking for, is there a stress point there? If there's a stress point, we're reflexing that nerve ending to open up that channel. So, then the message goes to the brain. Stress in whatever the area is, we need to now send the body's natural pain relievers to that area to relieve pain.And that's how you get the process started in terms of using reflexology to relieve pain. And then we move to looking at putting together a treatment plan that addresses what's causing the pain. And if you, if you alleviate a client's pain first, they are more than likely willing to work with you in the treatment modality, because you address the pain.The number one concern that they have is the pain, right? So you're, you're almost a therapist in a sense, you know, you're trying to find out the stress causes, these external factors, which like I had hinted at in the beginning is what you do compared to a lot of the big medicinal and pharmaceutical companies is that you attack the root cause, not the symptoms, you know, uh, I like what you talked about is.They kind of don't cure your pain, they numb your pain. Which is a different thing because you still have the pain and you still have what's causing it and a lot of times that can be bad and get worse and then you just need to numb it even more. So I completely agree. Now you mentioned the hands and the feet, but let's say I'm someone with shoulder pain, back pain, you know, upper thigh and leg pain.Is this, because all the nerves are connected, is this something that will be able to cure those pain points as well? Remember what the, what, what the way to kind of bring that clear in terms of, let me use this example. Say your electricity goes off, right?And back in the old days, we used to have something called a fuse box. And so we'd screw a fuse into there to bring the electricity on. Now we have what's called a circuit breaker and you just flip the switch. Well, look at that concept as the same when you're doing reflexology. So if I'm talking about back pain or shoulder pain, I'm going to look for where that nerve ending is located on the hands and feet.Because what we have now is a disconnect, which means that message is not moving through that nerve ending to the brain in order to release.So I've got to find that first, open that way up so now we can put the energy system in place so that pain can be relieved using by activating the reflex point on the hands, feet, and ears for the back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, joint pain, wherever you're having pain in the body, we find that first.Nerve ending point on the hands and feet. And that's what we do. But the difference is we don't just like an allopathic medicine. They go straight for what is the pain. They disconnect the body. We have to look at the whole body going from head to toe area because the area that is causing the area that you are experiencing the pain.It's not the cause area of the symptoms all the time, so you have to look at the whole body. And that's why we call it the electrical system in terms of the nerve ending, which is the, which is the communication center with the brain for the body. And it sends it and that's the whole concept of how reflex.You're communicating, it's the communication system. Right. And what, and just like you talked about how. Medication numbs and when medication numbs. In other words, you make it hard on the nervous system along with your defense mechanism systems in healing the body because the body is designed to heal itself.Right, right. And like you said, it's all one big interconnected system of many systems. So I completely agree. So I feel like we've got a pretty good concept of what reflexology is, how it works, and what it does, so where does your book play a role in all of this? Okay, what happened was, I had the opportunity to study reflexology in China.And right before I left to go to China, I had published the book. This, the book that I'm introducing to your audience now is the second edition. My first book was published back in 1987. And when that book was published, that's when I was on my way to China. And what happened was when I was in China, the doctors in China spend at least anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half.with their patients before they even think about what's going to be the treatment plan. And they do this for one, for two reasons. One, they want to find out like what we were talking about, the social connection, the stress factor with the pain, but they also want to be able to find how they can teach the family members how to address this particular pain problem from a prevention standpoint.And so when I saw that, that gave me a confirmation because my book was written for the same purpose, because I believed that every family member, there should have been at least one family member that knows how to use. Reflexology to relieve pain and stress, and that's how the book came into play as a self health guide and being able to use reflexology for any type of pain problem for any stress related problem mentally, physically and emotionally.So that's how the book is broken down to be able to address. What you need in terms of finding the reflex points, showing you how to do the reflex points. So that way, it's your guide. So if somebody in the family has pain or you have pain, where do I go? Where do I find the neck area? And how can I start doing this to bring about pain?And that way it becomes my whole concept was creating a family healing network. So all the healing begins with the family working together collectively and cooperatively to relieve pain. Yeah, I think that's great. Like you said, I think every family should have one person who is educated in that and it's great for a at home guide to do that.But for people looking for that full on professional help, we're going to have your website in the description below. Where you do have a tap to call you so that people can get in contact with you and your expertise and your contacts as well. And, as far as the, the future goes, I know you want to continue helping people through touching and healing and, you know, continuing to guest.Uh, do you feel like you have another book or guide in you at all, or do you think this is going to be it? Um, You never know. I can tell you that you never know. For me right now, um, I do, I work virtually. And I'm working virtually for the sole reason that those who are interested in wanting to really get really deeply involved in how to relieve pain using the power of touch.That's one of the things I do. I work with pain caregivers as well, because they are a neglected population because they care for people with pain, but how do we help them? And so what I do is I put together programs that deal specifically with using reflexology related to your specific health problem, and we design a program together so that way you can use it as a pain relief that's integrated with conventional medicine.I do that as well. How do we integrate? non pharmaceutical ways to relieve pain with conventional medicine. Because the one thing that conventional medicine does best is diagnosis. It's not good at treatment, but it does diagnosis. So when you have a diagnosis, now we talk about how do we address the system that is in stress by doing the one thing that doctors don't understand.And as We as alternative practitioners understand is we assist. the body in the healing practice and process and family members can also learn how to assist the body in the healing process. Right. So you've kind of shifted from directly healing to teaching and educating so that more people can heal others.But at the same time, would you say you're still a student in the sense that you're always learning more about reflexology as time passes and you continue to study more materials? Most definitely, because for me, the bottom line, when you ask about where we're headed future for me, what I want to do is pass the baton on to the next generation.So, they can, I give them some tools to work with, and then they take it and evolve it in terms of what will fit their generation, but they'll have the preventive and wellness approach tools that they can use develop and grow. That's the future. And when I look at it, if I have to say what it is I want to do, I just want to be the one to be, to be the messenger that the next generation can come to for guidance when they need it and be supportive of them doing what's needed to take preventive health care to the next level.That's the word we don't talk about a lot, but we've got, and specifically with the younger generation. We need to help them understand prevention first before treatment. Right. And when they understand prevention, now you have the tools to having your birthright to be healthy and well all the way through your years.And that's what I see, you know, my role in the future as it relates to dealing with health and wellness. And that's exactly what you're doing. That's why we're here talking right now. And we've had a great conversation. And so. I encourage everyone listening to go to the description below to check out your website where they can find your social medias and contact, more information, as well as some blogs and sign up for other stuff and information and resources to continue to learn about this And most importantly, where they can find your book, Reflexology Today, A Family Affair, so that every family and household can be equipped to deal with pain.So Ms. Olatunde, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been a great conversation. I certainly learned a lot, and I hope everyone listening learned something new as well, in that they will, as you're doing now, go out and teach others about it so that they can continue to spread this healing and this knowledge.I also want to share one little one more little tidbit for your as I as I thank you, um, in the African tradition, we have a, a philosophy in terms of when you visit someone's home for the first time, you give them a gift. It's a thank you gift. And I have a thank you gift for your listening audience. And that gift is.medication and addiction free pain relief stress poster that they can download. And it's about how to deal with medication free. Uh, pain relief, stress and pain, and they go to touchologyreflexology. com and download the poster. This gives them some start off points in terms of what you can start doing.And that's my gift to your listening audience as well as my saying, thank you for having me on your show today.
