Over the last 5 years I have been working on a book about what I do, and specifically about Dien Chan Facial Reflexology. Initially the goal was to integrate all that I've learnt and also to offer a simple guide to self-care massage for my clients. I had been slowly but steadily progressing with this when the pandemic started, and the downtime this provided helped me finish the book. The original goal was also expanded out to broader ambitions, it took on a life of its own!

The book is currently titled "Original Face: A New Look at Health & Healing", and is scheduled to be published by Inner Traditions in 2022. The title refers back to an old Zen koan: what was the original face you had before you were born? This raises the question of identity, authenticity, family, and also notions of 'non-duality'. This is a broad theme that runs through the book, and has been a running spiritual impulse in my life. However, the framework of the book lays out a more tangible investigation into the nature of emotions, from both the Western and Eastern perspective, the idea and history of stress and trauma, and provides self-care practices that draw from Dien Chan Facial Reflexology, Qigong, and meditation.

In this light, the book has been a way to integrate all the teachings I've learnt from Chinese Medicine, Dien Chan, Daoism and Buddhism, Tai Chi and Qigong, meditation, and also from more contemporary understandings of neuroscience, interpersonal neurobiology, and the field of trauma healing. I believe the book traces a fascinating connection between the modern understanding of the social nervous system, as described by Polyvagal Theory and similar practices, with the ancient healing practices of the East, such as Jin Dan (the Way of the Golden Elixir, otherwise known as internal alchemy).

As if this wasn't ambitious enough, I could not resist bringing my passion for the more esoteric aspects of mythology, embodiment, religion, and spirituality. This is because there are many connections between what indigenous cultures call 'spirit possession' or 'trance possession', and the common experience of dissociation that is so prevalent in traumatic history and our culture at large. At the crux of this are contrasting beliefs about the 'mind-body' connection, and more fundamentally, our beliefs surrounding consciousness and materialism. 

The ideas I explore around this topic are greatly influenced by such thinkers as Bernardo Kastrup, Iain McGilchrist, John Vervaeke, Ivan Illich, John Moriarty and Henry Corbin. They are also more practically informed by my personal time spent learning with the mythologist Martin Shaw, the embodiment specialist Philip Shepherd, the polymath healer Martín Prechtel, the Tai Chi teachers Sifu Yeung Ma Lee and Murray Douglas, and the meditation and qigong teachers Burgs and Michael Lomax.

This book therefore brings together so much of my learning and exploration from the last 20 years. The illustrated self-care practices, which draw from Dien Chan self-massage, meditation and qigong, are primarily designed to sooth and calm the mind and nervous system, allowing for a deeper sense of safety and rest within our body. There are also practices which help counter-act the effects of stress, trauma, and dissociation, and more broadly offer an effective preventative measure against poor health and disease. Lastly, the final chapters of the book explore the transformative and spiritual aspects of self-massage, which specifically look to clear and refresh our senses and shift our living perception towards a more holistic, relational, and renewing interaction with the world. This is akin to Moriarty's 'Silver Branch Perception'; I describe it as an 'orientation towards beauty'.

With luck, the book will be out for print by late Summer 2022, I cannot wait to share it with you! To keep up to date with the book and learn more about it I will be posting more regularly via my IG account: www.instagram.com/alexscrimgeour/

In Classical Chinese Medicine the corner stone of strong health is the trinity of breath, nutrition, and sleep. This is why the progression of the acupuncture channels begins with the Lung channel then transitions through the Stomach channel and thirdly to the Heart channel (which is most associated with sound sleep). So, self-care begins with attending to these aspects of life- learning about our breath, the art of cuisine and it's connection to the land, and how to optimise our sleep. For tips on this trinity look to my resources page HERE.

This trinity is akin to Maslow's heirarchy of needs, for our life is immediately dependant on oxygen, water, food, and sleep. After this trinity the most essential aspect of self-care is relationship. We are defined as people through our relationships. What would we be without our parents? Who would we be without the shaping our friendships and teachers have afforded us? For this reason, self-care is not simply about ourselves. It is about others too. By giving our attention and energy to our friends and family we are nourishing ourselves. By giving attention to our natural environment and to animals we are nourishing ourselves. By saying 'we are defined through our relationships' this means we are symbiotic creatures. We simply wouldn't exist without these relationships. 

So, what happens when we isolate ourselves? Simply put, we start to go a little crazy. Or rather, our craziness and self-delusion starts to reveal itself. This is why traditional meditation requires retreating into isolation, both physically and cutting off from the sense portals- this brings us face to face with delusion and the natural human tendency for craziness. However, we as a community have not entered lockdown for any spiritual pursuit. And so I believe there will be lasting mental-health problems arising from the enforced isolation, particularly with those who do not have strong social networks or are living alone.

My recommendation is not only to invest extra time and energy into reaching out to friends and family, but to use the video apps that are readily available, as we know that being face-to-face with one another is very important for co-regulation. By looking into and responding to other faces we literally are regulating each others physiology. Having a good conversation is like sustenance for the soul, it should be thought of as part of our nutritional intake.

Technology has unfortunately been a double-edged sword in this regard, for we live in what some call a 'polluted information ecology.' For this reason, I've found it very helpful to do a regular 'digital detox'. This means setting an intention to turn off all phones, computers, screens, wifi for a whole day, or at the least a half-day. By releasing ourselves from the grip of technological addiction, you will notice your whole being breathes a sigh of relief. It's a remarkable thing how we become gradually so unaware of the effect technology, social media and news has on us. This is a major cause of anxiety, restlessness, impoverished attention, and stress. By 'de-technofying' ourselves we renew our sense of awe and appreciation at simple everyday things. Try it.

To summarise, self-care begins with attending to our body by freeing up our breath, nourishing ourselves, and giving ourselves proper rest. It is greatly enhanced through friendship and keeping our sense of wellbeing unaffected by smartphones and tech. Lastly, finding an enjoyable way to exercise and move the body completes the picture. I recommend checking out my online qigong tuition is you're interested in learning an excellent way to address all of these self-care practices together. 

  The Wim Hof Method (WHM) has exploded in popularity over the last decade, partly due to the uniqueness and charisma of it’s founder and partly due to its powerful ability to help people’s lives. In a nutshell it is composed of 3 elements- breathwork, cold-water exposure, and mind training. The breathwork technique involves taking 20-30 swift big breaths, then exhaling and holding the breath out whilst relaxing the body. This initially boosts oxygen throughout the body and the breath-hold then increases the base level of CO2 in the blood, which in turn makes more oxygen and energy available to the body. The over-all effect is one of feel light, relaxed and energized in the body and calm and clear in the mind. The cold-water exposure progresses from finishing your shower with 30 seconds of cold, to having purely cold showers and then to cold-water swimming and ice-baths. This invigorates the body and has a potent effect on many aspects of our health, from reducing inflammation and clearing out toxins from the body, to helping with pain and greatly boosting blood circulation. Wim Hof himself has drawn heavily from Eastern practices and through experimentation he has innovated to create this simple system that aims to transform people’s physical and mental health.
 
   If we look at the WHM through the lens of Chinese medicine, we can uncover some useful knowledge about how it is best utilized and gain a different angle on how it affects our health.
 
   The first thing that stands out to people familiar which Chinese medicine is the question of exposure to the cold- is it beneficial or detrimental to our health? From the traditional perspective exposure to cold is seen as playing a definite part in many illnesses. It is thought that when the cold ‘gets into your bones’ it can lodge there and freeze up our blood circulation and general health. This plays a role in the common cold and flu but also significantly in women’s health and digestive health in general.  In Chinese medicine all the metabolic processes are envisioned as types of fire in the body, like a digestive fire or a fire in the heart. Maintaining a healthy fire that is not raging but not too low is key to regulating many aspects of our health. As a rule of thumb, unless someone is constitutionally very strong in this area we advise to always keep the feet and waist warm in cold weather and to avoid drinking iced drinks, especially after meals. So, how could having an ice cold shower in the middle of winter be any help at all? Well, we need to look in more detail about our own temperature regulation to understand this.
 
  When we are hot our bodies adapt and self-cool, the pores open and we sweat. When we are cold our body adapts and retains heat in the trunk so our vital organs don’t freeze up. These two extremes can be thought of as reflections of Yin and Yang, with Yang being heat and Yin being cold. The nature of Yin and Yang is that they balance each other, support each other, and also transform into each other. So, when we experience extreme cold, there is a tipping point where our coldness transforms to heat. It’s as if the initial retention of heat in the trunk bounces back and flushes warmth throughout the whole body. If you have ever jumped into cold water you may have experienced this- often people come out with bright pink skin and after the initial drop in temperature the body alights and becomes very warm. Rather than just contracting against the cold this actually opens the blood vessels and boosts circulation. This is also the reason why steam sauna’s are so popular in hot countries, like Thailand or Turkey- after getting very hot, the body releases so much heat that everything feels very cool and clear afterwards. There is a caveat here though in that to initiate this transformation in temperature our body needs a certain kind of strength and energy. If you are too weak, jumping into ice water will just shock the body and give you hypothermia. You actually need to feel this bounce-back of heat rather than just feeling cold after exposure. So, a gradual process of acclimatization is needed.
 
   In Chinese medicine, this aspect of our health, which controls temperature regulation and transformation, is called the San Jiao, which translates as the Triple Burner. Although it is considered an organ, it’s quite unusual in that it is described as having no physical form. Rather it is a process of transformation that occurs throughout the body and in particular between the upper, middle, and lower aspects of the trunk of the body. Closely related to metabolism, it is sometimes thought of as the bodies’ ‘shock-absorber’ and is known to be sensitive to sudden changes in temperature.
 
   This is an important key to understanding the WHM- the goal is not to shock the body, but for the body to slowly acclimatize to colder and colder temperatures. Experientially, this means that when you turn the shower to cold, you don’t flinch and yelp, but allow your body to be non-reactive and contained, and this only works if you find the right temperature threshold where this is possible- not too cold too quick in other words. Gradually this will have an effect of strengthening the San Jiao and help us deal with shock with more resilience. This is where the mind-training aspect comes in- rather than flinching from the cold, both our body and mind become fortified to it, which entirely changes the experience.
 
   Whereas in the West the mind is thought of as being distinct from the body, in the East the mind and body are intertwined at every level. It is said that our mind is rooted to the body not only in our brain, but more significantly in our blood. The experience of feeling our blood flowing through our body and our heart’s ceaseless beating, this is a foundation of not just our physicality but also our mentality. It gives us an underlying sense of our embodiment; feeling our heart beating makes us feel alive much more so than any sensation in the head. And so, when we hear the WHM as exercising and strengthening the opening and closing of all the micro-vessels and blood circulation in the body, we can see this process as flushing open our minds too and unblocking ‘psycho-sclerosis’. This accounts for people’s reports for WHM helping them with all manner of depression, anxiety and trauma. The feeling of invigoration breaks down any divide between mind and body.
 
   In many schools of thought in Chinese medicine, ‘blood stagnation’ is considered the single most detrimental factor in our health. A simple way of understanding this is to compare the blood circulation of a newly born baby with that of a 90-year-old. It is very rare to see a bruise on a baby, even though they are always falling over and knocking themselves- their blood circulation is so good that they heal incredibly quickly. But if you look at the hands and feet of a 90-year-old they constantly look all blue and bruised.
  
   As we grow older our blood circulation gradually slows and becomes stagnant, leading to all manner of poor health and disease. Therefore, a major protocol in Chinese medicine is to ‘move blood’, to get things flowing, warm, and well circulated. For this reason, in acute injury, we only advise icing the injury if there is significant swelling and inflammation, and only at short intervals. For this same reason, many Chinese medicine practitioners might be skeptical of WHM. However, if it is done sensibly in a gradual manner and if we consider it’s potent effect on blood circulation, we will see that it actually works under the same premise of clearing blood stagnation and strengthening the body’s inner fire.
 
    Lastly, let us consider the breathwork. In WHM the technique is known to have been adapted from certain Indian and Tibetan pranayama techniques. In Chinese medicine breathing is considered perhaps the most significant thing that we can change to improve our health. Chinese medicine has five branches, and breathing techniques fall under the branch of ‘qigong’, which is a type of therapeutic exercise used for daily maintenance of health and for healing. Although there are hundreds of styles of qigong, the most common feature in all qigong breathing though is that there tends to be more emphasis on breath structure rather than rhythm and volume. Whereas in WHM the instructions are fairly basic and focus simply on breathing fairly quickly and not straining the body, in qigong more attention is given to gently opening the postural habits and constrictions that hamper a naturally full breath. This means working with the natural expansion of the breath to stretch and release tension in the rib-cage, armpits, abdomen, spine, neck and shoulders. It also means switching from ‘top-down’ breathing to ‘bottom-up’ breathing.
 
   A simple way to do this, which can greatly enhance the WHM, is to physically relax and release the perineum when you inhale. The pelvic floor is considered the base of the body and when our awareness is anchored there it shifts us into a more present state of being, similar to a ‘flow state’. The easiest way to engage this area is to gently squeeze and bring you attention to the perineum at the end of your exhale. When you successfully release the perineum, this will encourage the breath to release throughout the abdomen and fully through the body, which in turn will increase blood-flow and circulation. In qigong parlance the perineum is sometimes referred to as the ‘Stone Gate’, as fully relaxing it is easier said than done. But by simply dropping our awareness to the pelvic floor we will signal our body to reflect inwards, shifting us towards calmness. This will help still the mind during any type of breathing, but particularly in breath retention. It more generally will increase ‘vagal tone’.
 
   When we exhale, and when we pause at the end of the exhale, we shift into a Yin state, where everything becomes very relaxed and restive. This is concordant with our modern understanding of physiology- the exhale slows our heart rate and increases the enervation of the parasympathetic nerve, the Vagus, known as the ‘rest and digest’ nerve or the ‘anti-anxiety’ nerve. This nerve runs from our face down through the front of our body, through all the internal organs. The primary Yin meridian in the body, the Ren Mai, runs down this exact pathway, from the tongue straight down the centre of the body to the perineum. If we mentally trace down the Ren Mai when we exhale we will support this process of shifting towards a Yin state. The most common characteristic of Yin is receptivity. So when we are in this kind of state we are more attuned to our gut instincts, and also have a greater ability to listen to others and integrate all that our senses perceive. This is exactly the same as what is termed ‘vagal tone’. It not only has a huge benefit on many aspects of our health, but actually can make us more effective in everything we do.
 
   A great study which illustrates this is made by John Coates, a stock-broker turned neuro-scientist. He discovered that traders who were more aware of their bodies were across-the-board more successful in gauging the markets. In other words, people who are able to listen to their bodies open themselves to a much greater degree of sensitivity that lies below the conscious mind.
 
   The Wim Hof Method can be approached and used in many different ways; it is a basic but powerful technique that can positively impact your health. However, the way in which you do it is key, as everyone has different constitutions and therefore will respond differently to its techniques. It also acts as a great spring-board for becoming more attuned to your own body and as an introduction to the subtler arts of meditation, yoga, and qigong.
 
    The connections between WHM and Chinese medicine could be elaborated and explored much further, but to keep things practical I will summarize what I recommend in light of these observations:
 
1. Breathwork

• explore feeling down into your body as you breathe, feeling the heart, feeling the belly, etc. If you keep your mind in a state of settling downwards this will keep you present, stop you dissociating, and drop you further into stillness. It will also help you keep calm when taking the swift breaths in (if you feel anxious/panicky when are breathing in, slow down! Fill out your breathing).

• Before, after, and in-between the breathing cycles, spend some time with 6-second breathing (known as coherent breathing) This will help balance the nervous system, it can be easily explored on my RESOURCES page.

 
2. Cold Showers

• If you know you are sensitive to the cold, start very gently with warm to cool water, and gradually lower the temperature rather than quickly switching it.

• Learn to distinguish between the feelings and degrees of shock- a little flinch is natural but I would advise listening to what feels bearable and acclimatizing yourself slowly. Part of this acclimitisation is desensitatizing your mind from being fearful of the cold, and developing a steely, courageous, and gleeful non-reactivity to the cold. After a short time the cold will begin to feel really good and you won’t flinch at all. This is when you should start exploring colder temperatures.

 

• Be very careful or stop taking cold showers/swims if you’re fending off cold/flu. Generally speaking, if you’re health is poor, discuss WHM with experts and be cautious and safe in your exploration.

‘Qigong’ is a cover-all name given to a myriad of Eastern health-related exercises and practices. There are literally thousands of different styles and approaches, and they tend to be much more diverse comparably than the different styles of yoga. Finding the most suitable practice is a matter of exploration and being open-minded.

A good starting place is to first identify your needs- are you primarily seeking the health benefits of qigong? Are you looking for a practice that can bring more peace to your life? Are you looking to feel more energized? Are you looking to be free of your achy shoulders and back? To get better sleep? To have more libido? To have more efficient movement or better control and balance over your body?
Once you have an idea of what you need it makes it easier to match with the right practice. If, for example, you have a lot of tension in the body and restlessness in your mind, a qigong practice that has a lot of movement, stretching and shaking can feel wonderful. If however you are very low-energy and weak or recovering from an illness, this may not be so good- a strengthening practice could be much more beneficial.

All types of qigong are orientated toward particular goals and purposes. Often these goals are shared by different traditions but their way of going about it differs. Out of the thousands of styles of qigong, some come from traditions of martial arts, some come from medical traditions, and some come from spiritual or religious traditions. Accordingly, their goals might range from having extraordinary sensitivity and skill in fighting and self-defense, to being in vibrant health through all the years of one’s life, or for using qigong as an entry point to meditation and spiritual wisdom. All share in a few fundamental principles, but beyond this they can appear quite different.

In general, qigong that derives from systems of martial arts are most appropriate for the young and fit, where-as a certain kind of maturity is needed to engage with spiritual qigong. Some qigong is very much engaged with working on the physical level, with the bones, tendons, and muscles. This type of qigong uses plenty of stretching, specific postural awareness exercises, and self-massage. It is sometimes referred to as Dao-Yin, and is often used as a precursor to more subtle exercises, somewhat like Hatha Yoga. It is fantastic for working with posture, physical injuries, aches and pains, and is most systematically taught within the ‘internal’ martial arts such as Tai-Chi-Chuan or Ba-Gua-Zhang.

Other types of qigong engage more with the mental-emotional bodies. These often use specific sounds to vibrate and visualisations to hone awareness through the body. These types of exercises can be a powerful adjunct in the healing of more deep-seated illnesses. They can also be used to enhance health and rejuvenate both body and mind (this is something that is better felt rather than understood through words).

When it comes to healing forms of qigong, it good to know that a huge amount of experiential research has emerged over the last 40 years in China, with millions practicing qigong, and many hospitals developing specialist wings dedicated to using qigong for healing. Specific approaches for healing cancer, heart disease, and many other illnesses have been developed, and so if you are looking to engage in a healing practice it can be very beneficial to tailor your qigong to your personal circumstances.

Lastly, what I’ve termed spiritual qigong is also referred to as Nei-Gong, Shen-Gong, or sometimes ‘internal alchemy’. Often these are rooted in Daoist or Buddhist traditions, and as such place stronger emphasis on meditation, the cultivation of virtue and extending ones practice throughout day-to-day life and social interaction. These traditions seek to engage with the very essence and meaning of life. They can be very powerful.

When it comes to actually learning qigong, much of the fundamentals can be learnt from books or youtube but finding a good teacher will take it to another level. Qigong is a personal practice, so it is important that you resonate with a teacher, that you like him or her. Make sure to listen to your gut instincts and your heart when seeking a teacher.

It should also be known that there are two types of approach taken by teachers. One approach is to convey the teaching through demonstration and explanation. The other is to convey the teaching through transmission. This is a subtle but important difference, as the student-teacher dynamic is quite different from one to the other. Qigong systems that teach through transmission tend to originate from very old lineages, and rely on the power of this accumulated experience. Qigong systems that teach through example focus more on self-reliance. Both ways are wonderful, it is a matter of personal taste as to which suits you.
Qigong is a skill that shows its wonders and benefits most if practiced regularly. A daily practice will reap the most rewards, but a session a few times a week will also be of great benefit. Regardless of what style of qigong you practice, the more you put in the more you will get out. Once you have found what you like, dedicating a regular amount of time to the practice is key.
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This journey into qigong can be stimulating both physically and intellectually, at times it can be challenging, but if you find the right way to practice it is hugely rewarding, joyful and fun. 

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