Reflexology

The hidden world of pressure points

The Garden Room, Cambridge

There’s a point on the sole of your foot that acupuncturists and reflexologists call ‘the bubbling spring.’ It’s the lowest, most grounding acupressure point.

I’d close my treatments holding this point when I practiced as a massage therapist. The room would be still by then, filled with the calm energy that arrives when muscles relax and breathing deepens. I’d press my thumbs into the little nooks under the balls of their feet and hold them there. Sometimes, I’d close my own eyes, breathe in and out and take a moment, hoping that they’d re-enter the world feeling grounded.

Now, I’m in need of some grounding. December feels especially gruelling this year. And as Christmas looms, it throws an extra sprinkling of pressure over our personal lives.

Last year, I felt the pressure to do fun romantic couple things like ice skating and Instagramming my Christmas tree. This year, Christmas marks the end of the six-month slog of dismantling that relationship, selling the flat we owned and sorting through our jointly owned things. The Christmas decorations I’d excitedly chosen when we first lived together are still stuffed in boxes that I can’t face sorting through.

And now I feel the pressure to find somewhere new to slot in.

I’m part of a blended family so I’m used to an ever-changing combination of people and arrangements. It impacted me less when I had someone to discuss those with, someone who would decide with me which bits we’d partake in and which we’d sit out. This year, I’m already struggling to find my place in the arrangements. It’s the 5^th December and I feel the absence of the stability of those rituals we’d made for ourselves.

If nothing else, my hope for this year is that I can stay grounded. I want to feel the kindness that others show me by inviting me to share in their plans without being preoccupied by feeling lost, to deal with the grief that arrives but allow myself to laugh fully when I feel like it. 

While I’ve been pulling out all the grounding techniques I know, I booked in for some reflexology. 

It’s a dreary day in Cambridge. The icy wind is blowing up my wide leg jeans and raindrops are pooling on my coat when Clare opens the door. She tells me not to de-robe but to follow her out to her garden room. It’s just at the end of her garden but it feels like a secret hideaway, an escape. I step inside where the warm air is infused with essential oils. The rain’s making soothing sounds on the roof of her cosy shed. 

Coat, shoes and socks off, I nestle into the chair while she tucks a heated blanket around me.

Clare starts with slow, circular movements around my temples to ease my busy mind into the treatment. My thoughts slow down as I shut my eyes to inhale the orange blossom oil she’s using. I don’t open them again, not asleep but close. I read later that this is quite common when you respond well to reflexology as it induces activity in the brain that’s similar to a sleep state.

I feel how the gentle pressure she’s applying on specific points on the sole of my foot moves something elsewhere in my body. There’s a shift that’s overwhelmingly strong around my chest and lungs. Clare explains afterwards, what I’ve always suspected, that this is where I hold my stress. Others hold it in their stomach or gut. 

I broadly know how relaxation techniques like this work - by activating the parasympathetic nervous system in charge of reducing our heart rate and shifting our body into a resting state. I also learned in training to be a massage therapist that the skin on your feet and your hands are more sensitive and have more computing power. There are multiple pressure points and 7000 nerve endings on each of our feet. Work on them is powerful.

I’m interested to know why stressed people turn to reflexology. Clare describes how it can help people with ‘monkey brain’ – where anxious, urgent thoughts run the show – to come back to their bodies. When people struggle to relax as deeply as I had and stay alert throughout the treatment, she’ll engage mindfulness techniques, encouraging them to tune into what they can feel when she works a certain pressure point.

Clare tells me about the signs and signals she looks for to inform her reflexology treatment. Sometimes there are visible points on the sole of the foot that indicate there’s work needed, other times she can feel small crystals that she breaks down with gentle pressure. The specific points tell her what’s going on in the body and can feel tender to the person being treated.

The way our feet lean naturally helps her to read into what’s going on in our minds – she tells me that my feet are leaning in a way that suggests I’m looking to the future. I suppose somewhere in my mind, I am.

I left armed with two new points to press when I want to ground myself. One on the top of my big toe - at the centre of the whirl of my toe print – that taps into my adrenal glands.  And one on the inner edge of my foot, directly under my big toe on the upper arch of my foot. Clare explains that point will work with my pituitary glands. Both help reinstate balance.

I’m feeling a little more equipped now to face the festivities with my feet firmly on the ground.

My reflexology treatment was by Clare Ricci at The Garden Room, Cambridge