Rosita Remarks
Journeys in Healing: Experiences of Arvigo Practitioners and their Clients

This is the third in a series of commentaries by Dr. Rosita Arvigo on the clinical practice outcomes presented in the recently published book Journeys in Healing: Experiences of Arvigo Practitioners and their Clients. To access an excerpt from the book that contains the case study chapter being discussed in this blog post, Angela~ Navigating Perimenopause, click here. For more information about the book that includes more than 30 additional case studies focusing on reproductive and digestive wellness practice- based outcomes with the Arvigo Techniques of Maya Abdominal Therapy, click here.

 

Rosita Remarks about: Angela ~ Navigating Perimenopause

Angelas journey pulled deeply at my heart. Many women have similar stories of traumatic events in early life that crop up in later life as pathology and pain. As women, we can understand how she felt so deeply about how her exhaustion, depression and pain affected her husband and children. That one week window during which she felt a full relief of symptoms was due to the drop of both estrogen and progesterone hormones and indicates to me that her body is highly sensitive to those cyclical hormone shifts. Experiencing such severe symptoms with ovulation is something we do not often hear about but is a clear indication of a progesterone imbalance.

Arvigo Therapy practitioners receive a good introductory knowledge of the life work of Dr. Wilhelm Reich, an Austrian psychotherapist and student of Freud who immigrated to the United States in the 1930s to escape Nazi ethnic cleansing of Jews in Europe. Although very misunderstood during his time, Dr. Reich was a gift to America and is recognized as the father of modern bodywork. He established the New School for Social Research in New York City and The Orgone Center in Bangor, Maine where he taught his ground-breaking concepts of applying direct pressure over abnormally tense muscle tissue to release emotional armoring caused by traumatic life events.

Angelas story of great loss and sexual trauma fit in perfectly with Dr. Reichs philosophy of healing. Losing your father during a pregnancy must have been very challenging for her. Blocked pelvic energy caused by this loss and sexual trauma in her early life were the initiating causes of her pain and dysfunction. Because the cause is more emotional than physical, most allopathic medical physicians are baffled. They simply have not been trained to ask about and to look for these emotional traumas that may be the foundation of physical symptoms like Angelas. Our mentor, Don Elijio Panti, would say, You suffer. You are in a lot of pain, but no machines will show the problem.

Arvigo practitioner Hilary Lewin made the right decision to go very gently on the first treatment and as we saw, that was sufficient to trigger those blocked memories. How brilliant of Angela that she recognized her teen-age self and was able to release her along with the painful emotions surrounding the sexual trauma. Always, the deep healing power of acknowledgment, gentle loving care and understanding of deeper issues held within astound us. These memories are thought forms that reside within our emotional bodies to block energy or chi in the physical body. The primary physical effect is to decrease the arterial and venous blood flow leading to poor uptake of hormones, minerals, and all vital elements of the red blood; stagnation of the venous blood that carries away normal toxemia and waste from the cells occurs in tandem. These two physical effects in combination with the blocked emotions caused Angelas severe symptoms. Natural healers know that if we find the cause and help remove the obstacles to optimum blood flow, symptoms abate. Given only half a chance, nature has a miracle in store for everyone.

It was indeed gratifying to read how Angela under Hilarys guidance took to the self-care component of our work. That she enjoyed it so much is a testament to her willingness to work toward her own healing. When clients are willing to do regular self-care at home, half of our work is already done when they return for follow-up visits.