Are Your Kidneys Your Weakest Link? by Peter TS Melnychuk Your Gut Feeling [This article is the third in a series summarizing information in French osteopath Jean Pierre Barral’s Understanding the Messages of Your Body (North Atlantic Books, 2007)] If you are like most Mosaic magazine readers, you are curious about what creates Illness and what creates Health. The 21st century has brought us a more inspired dialog around this topic and much of it is directed to the “body-mind connection.” In the Winter 2008 issue of Mosaic I wrote on JP Barral’s take on the body-mind connection – specifically the internal organs and their interaction with what he calls the Big Boss – the brain. He reveals that the brain, once overstressed, copes with

  IBS Relief through Chi Nei Tsang by Peter TS Melnychuk Many people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) feel like their gut is their enemy. They are often distracted by some degree of physical belly pain. But eight years of experience treating IBS sufferers has proved to me it is fruitless to be at war with your body. Beneath the inflammation in the IBS belly there is invariably some emotional discomfort and indigestion. The traditional oriental belly therapy of Chi Nei Tsang (CNT, pronounced chee-nayt-song) is superb at unwinding the emotional roots that lie hidden beneath physical pain symptoms. Chi Nei Tsang also addresses the digestive system physically through gentle abdominal massage. This makes it very effective therapy for those with IBS. IBS is an

Chi Nei Tsang Unwinds the Belly by Peter TS Melnychuk Every navel, open or closed, “outie’ or ‘innie’, button or slit, tells a very personal story. It is what remains of your initial lifeline, the portal to your mother, and later, the outside world.  It is a proof of birth and your first scar.  The navel is the seed of the belly that grows around it.  Its shape reflects the state of that which is held within your guts, your insides, your very core. While the benefits of conventional body massage are well known, the idea that health may be restored and improved through gentle ‘massage’ done on one’s belly – the navel, abdomen and the internal organs within – is quite new in the