The Ker Acupressure Injury Release Technique

SUMMARY

You don’t need to know anything about the sciences of human anatomy or physiology, which is anatomy in action, to learn how to use this technique. You just need to know where it hurts. Over the years, some of your injuries may have become very attached to you. Others could have developed a certain shyness, or are unwilling to interrupt you to ask for help because they know how busy you are. Those days are over. They now know that they can receive your full attention and support at any convenient opportunity.

While you have been busy collecting and ignoring impact trauma injuries, your subconscious mind has been keeping a full and incriminating record of the evidence. It also knows exactly how to put them all back in the right place. All you have to do is to develop a working relationship between your conscious mind (the one that’s reading this), your subconscious mind (the one that’s also reading this, indirectly and with great interest) and your intuitive faculty (the stage prompt).

The conscious mind works in conjunction with the subconscious mind’s direction and its intuitive faculty to achieve a permanent, rather than only a palliative, resolution to both the nerve pain of the injury and the injury itself. The subconscious mind co-ordinates with the hands’ active and conscious release of the soft tissue injury along the pathway indicated by its nerve pain signals, while the intuitive faculty supports and guides the hands’ positioning. All three mental abilities combine to achieve remarkable results as you work through the to-do list of outstanding injury repairs – and some of them will be truly magnificent, particularly in their releases. The repair and regeneration of all soft cell tissue, including brain tissue, is a routine function of our subconscious mind, and its nightly tour of our injury repair checklist identifies all the damage it needs to try to repair as we sleep. However, involuntary repairs cannot happen for injuries which require our conscious physical intervention to, literally, do the heavy lifting.

An example of an injury which requires the conscious intervention of its owner in order to resolve is a minor jaw dislocation, indicated by teeth grinding during sleep. The subconscious brain can get as far as firing the jaw’s masseter muscles alternately while its owner is asleep to try to dislodge the injury by moving the jaw from side to side, but since it can’t also fire the smiling muscles and perform vocal release exercises at the same time, its efforts are doomed to failure. The next night, the repair checklist still includes the same injury, so the subconscious brain has another go at repairing it, with, predictably, the same result. Other than illustrating that the subconscious brain has no apparent learning curve where it comes to injury release strategies, this example highlights the need for a new approach to soft tissue injury release.

The technique is based on the premise that soft cell tissue injury can result from its entrapment of kinetic movement energy transmitted from a violent impact blow. The physical movement energy of violent contact does not always pass completely through and out of the body. The analogy is with that of a speeding bullet – if the bullet is moving with enough speed it will pass out of the body through an exit wound, but a slower-moving bullet can become lodged in the body. It is the slower moving kinetic energy enmeshed in soft tissue which is addressed by this technique.

Kinetic energy trapped in soft tissue physically distorts and compresses its cells, and also acts like glue. Once the cells have been pushed out of alignment and contorted by the trapped and stored kinetic energy of the impact, they stay in their new positions until the kinetic energy binding them in misalignment is released from them.

The injury release technique uses the concept of kinetic energy transmutation. It applies the principle that the metamorphosis of kinetic movement energy into heat can be achieved by gently warming and compressing its injured host soft tissue by hand until its transmutation flashpoint is triggered. The consequent heat release dissipates from the site of the injury into the bloodstream for onward dispatch, and the subsequent residual injury release process frees the physical compression and distortion of the soft tissue cells.

The nerve pain signals which flag the injury are turned off immediately following the physical release of all formerly compressed, distorted or internally injured nerve branches involved with the injury. Since nerves are also soft cell tissue, they can be damaged by physical distortion internally along their pathways as well as by being compressed and distorted by any surrounding injured soft tissue. The injury release may therefore divide into two stages – the first stage to release the injury in the nerve itself, and the second stage to release injuries in its surrounding soft tissue.

The learning curve associated with the development of personal self-healing abilities using this technique will be tentative at first. There is a preliminary phase where both conscious and subconscious minds learn how to coordinate during an injury release, and the intuitive faculty also becomes involved as soon as it realises what is going on and quickly decides to join the most interesting party in town. Once you have all introduced yourselves and are comfortable in each others’ company, the learning curve becomes logarithmic and you can achieve a natural ease with the technique relatively quickly.

The foundations for a richly rewarding lifetime partnership are now in place.

Let us beguine.

INTRODUCTION

Muscles exist in a binary state and only understand two nerve-impulse-induced commands – start contracting and stop contracting. They cannot push, which is where we, as their responsible owners, usefully come in. Now that your subconscious knows that you are freely available to push, it can gleefully work out its necessary muscle contractions to free each injury, whilst taking account of the conscious interventions it needs to encourage you to contribute by either pushing supportively into the injury or by tensioning its soft tissue antagonistically. It can do this by using your intuitive faculty to autosuggest your hand placements, if your conscious mind doesn’t quite get it right first time whilst following nerve pain signals.

Your subconscious mind interacts with your conscious motor movements as it leads you intuitively through its map of your injury release by using nerve pain signals. It responds to your physical movements by constantly recalculating its optimal injury release strategy, depending on where and how you make these movements as the injury release develops to completion. It is silently supported by its ability to autosuggest intuitively the progression of your hand placements, as you put them in positions which feel comfortable or ‘right’.

A major advantage of this technique is that since you are the only person who can know how much pain feels tolerable, you are the person in sole charge of when to stop pressing. Additionally, since you own the autonomic nervous system which is signalling the pain and can read its GPS coordinates exactly, you can identify precisely where the injury is by touching it, at least superficially. A single point of pain can indicate an injury of any size, from a small patch of soft muscle tissue injured by a minor blow to a whole muscle in contraction or a full sheet of connective tissue, such as the pelvic floor or diaphragm, held taut in trauma from a larger impact such as a fall to the ground.

Another fundamental aspect of this injury release technique is that it invokes the subconscious brain’s ability to turn off its own pain receptor signals while it is controlling its injury releases, including those of larger nerves. For example, if you are working on releasing compressed muscle tissue in the sole of your foot, the pain receptors of the main sciatic nerve pathway which runs through the injury should be temporarily disabled for the duration of the injury release, after which their pain alerts should stop automatically because there is no remaining injury to flag.

Sensitivity of touch is a subtle learned physical ability, and is similar to the skill of reading Braille. Start lightly and practice understanding the information you receive through the touchpads on your fingers to distinguish between injured and healthy subcutaneous soft tissue. For injuries near the skin surface, you could develop this skill by imagining touching different types of fabric. You could practice palpably distinguishing between uninjured soft tissue, which feels like soft smooth silk, and injured tissue, which feels more like lumpy coarse polyurethane webbing. Those of us endowed with a little more soft tissue than we would like need not be concerned about it – soft tissue trauma can be identified through any depth of fatty tissue, and heat will always penetrate these extra layers of insulation as well.

The palpable sensation of a superficial soft tissue injury is similar to the raised line of a vein on the back of the hand, or a wider raised pad of flat compressed tissue under your fingertips which feels like a solid blister. You may feel tiny pin-head lumps of soft tissue congestion, or slightly larger pea-like nodules of raised skin over compressed nerves. Deeper soft tissue injuries can feel like an immobile lump or block of rock-like material, for example around the perimeter of the pelvic floor sheet of connective tissue where it attaches to the base edge of the pelvic bone. Basically, all soft tissue is supposed to be supple to some extent, so anything that isn’t is a potential candidate for an injury release.

You may feel a heat release coming from the site of the injury before you start warming it. This is an indication that the injury is keen to release, as the escaping heat might be the release of a significant overload of trapped kinetic energy in a major injury changing into heat spontaneously. Alternatively, it could be an indication of the bottleneck in the blood supply to the injured tissue, where the blood supply is backed up because of the soft tissue compression of the injury and is releasing some of its own heat as a safety measure.

If the injury is deep, extensive or persistent and does not respond to simple warmth and gentle compression, the injury release can be developed with an extra movement which resembles the unbuckling of a lap seat-belt. In analogy, the buckle joint is grasped firmly with both hands and slightly compressed inwards to give enough space for the buckle mechanism to disengage as the top flap of the buckle joint is lifted upwards, resulting in the separation of the two parts of the buckle clip. This is the idea described in the Upledger method of craniosacral therapy (1) of a ‘touch-latch’ manoeuvre, as it resembles the release of a touch-latch door catch on a hinged loft hatch door. The loft door is pushed away from you to trigger the release of its catch before it can swing open, back towards you. The slight inward compression of the release can be modified to either a ‘nudge’ or a ‘bounce’ movement, to encourage the tipping point of the injury into release mode.

Releases can also be enhanced using the principles of opposition and diagonality. Every violent impact injury has an entry point and an anchor point, where the body braces itself in response by tensing opposition muscles to counter the physical impact of the blow. Consequently, it can help the injury release process if one hand warms and compresses the injury entry point of nerve pain while the other hand physically supports the opposite side of the limb at the anchor point of the injury, warming and compressing the antagonistic soft tissue. These hand positions can be either level or diagonally aligned.

At the beginning, your injury may be as uncertain as you about whether it is going to release or not. It has not done this kind of thing before, and it may be cautious about going off a cliff edge without what it considers to be a parachute, so don’t worry if it has a tentative attempt at its run-up before releasing. You will both be overjoyed when it finally plucks up the courage to jump. If there is any uncertainty about the time a release is taking, have a tea-break, try a different injury or leave it until next time.

As you practice the technique, you will learn to trust your developing intuition regarding more advanced and subtle directional release of injuries, where the angle, placement and intensity of your hands’ pressure changes as the injury releases.

You may also find that, as its confidence increases, your subconscious mind may become a little opportunistic. It can tension any muscles it wants to in order to draw your attention to the existence of an injury it has prioritised for release. It can also trigger the spontaneous release of part of an injury while you are conscious, which is what it normally does while you are asleep. You may actively contribute to this release if you would like, since your attention to this injury has been invited. The spontaneous release of an injury will only happen when you are safe, warm and comfortable, possibly just before going to sleep. This development only reflects the level of trust your subconscious mind has in your developing injury release abilities, and it is truly the start of a three-way internal and unspoken healing dialogue.

After all, once you have consciously introduced yourself to your subconscious brain as a prospective healing partner, who better to understand even your most complex healing needs than, literally, your significant other half?

METHOD

CONTRAINDICATIONS TO USE

PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS TECHNIQUE IF YOU ARE OR MAY BE HAEMOPHILIAC OR DIABETIC, OR HAVE DELICATE BLOOD VESSELS FOR ANY OTHER REASON. The technique involves the decompression of previously distorted capillary blood vessels, and if these are too delicate to withstand hand pressure, or have been ruptured by the injury rather than simply compressed by it, there will be a risk of internal bleeding. If you come into this category but would still like to try to use the technique, please discuss this with your medical professional before you come to a decision.

If the soft tissue trauma lies underneath an open or healing skin wound, the wound must be given time to heal in full before pressure can be applied to it, otherwise using hand pressure on the underlying injury could risk opening the superficial wound again.

CAVEATS FOR USE

It would be a precaution to have your phone, a bottle of water and some biscuits or fruit beside you as you work through these releases. The champagne in the fridge can wait for later.

The rider for alcohol intake while releasing impact trauma is that it dehydrates brain tissue, and since you are engaging three different abilities of your brain simultaneously to achieve these releases, it would probably help to keep other challenges to your cognitive faculties to a minimum while you are doing so. The exception to this is that if you are planning to finish your working day by having a go at a nail injury release, you could take a small anaesthetic brandy before you do so. Drinking copious but comfortable amounts of water while you are working on your injury releases will help to flush out the toxic oxidants which will be excreted from your cell tissue as part of the process, and this point is especially important when working on the release of brain tissue impact trauma.

You must be warm, relaxed and at least seated at all times whilst working on these releases, so good times to work on your injury releases could be first thing in the morning in bed after waking or after a hot shower. However, it is not recommended to work on soft tissue injury releases in uncomfortably warm weather, as the capillaries of your blood transport system will already be dilated to help with the release of internal body heat as the air temperature rises, and it would be unwise to physically challenge their cell walls further.

You can achieve injury releases through clothing, and in fact it is a better idea to do so if you are addressing vintage injuries, as you will not want their waste products to come into direct contact with your hands. The most useful outfit is warm, loose and comfortable, with the additional proviso that going commando is a good idea if you don’t want to spend time trying to release the seamline on your underwear by mistake.

You can stop an injury release at any time. Muscles can become overworked, and since they always need a recovery period after any kind of exertion, overdoing a soft tissue release can become counter-productive. Patience, persistence and endurance are the keys to this technique, but please develop your use of it comfortably and don’t try to overdo the injury releases in any one session. Initially, one injury release at a time will be more than enough of an achievement, and then you can slowly build up both your expertise and your repertoire of releases, but on no account do more than about an hour at a time in an injury release session while you are learning the technique. You may feel that your thumbs could achieve further releases, but your subconscious brain is also attending to the other end of the nerve injury pathway in your brain tissue as you work, and if you overdo it you will just end up feeling dizzy and nauseous.

Please also never try to force an injury to release, because the simple answer is that it won’t respond to this tactic. Your only achievement from this approach will be soft tissue bruising.

Your body will never do anything to hurt or harm you, so if you feel disorientated at any time during the release you are working on, please stop immediately. Your subconscious brain is actively monitoring proceedings in the background at all times, and this is its signal to stop your conscious contribution to the proceedings. Relax, concentrate on your breathing and call a halt to your injury releases, because your subconscious mind is telling you that it has probably has enough for the time being and needs to rest. This is vitally important with head and neck injury releases, since injury releases in brain tissue may be physically much smaller but will have much more of a conscious impact than those in limb injury releases. You can also refocus yourself by reading, watching television or otherwise actively distracting your conscious mind, if you feel the need to do so.

Please also bear in mind the concept of referred pain, where the rare and devious mirage of a preliminary point of pain is only indicative of a source injury concealed further down the neural pathway. The initial point of pain could be simply an ‘invitation to treat’ – in both senses – and the real cause of the pain is just being temporarily coy. After enough preliminary investigation and negotiation, the true point of pain will reveal itself.

THE INJURY RELEASE PROCESS

Moving To Flashpoint – Building The Injury Release

The release of the soft tissue injury is achieved by applying hand contact to the injury and warming and compressing its soft cell tissue. The process can be slow, so be prepared to wait patiently as the trapped kinetic energy in the soft tissue under your hands starts to warm up. The kinetic energy has to become warm enough to reach the flashpoint at which it changes from static trapped movement energy to heat. The longest wait on record for this to happen to date is twenty minutes, so make yourself comfortable before you start and hold the release until you feel the injury respond.

The warm-up period can be viewed as the time your subconscious brain needs to calculate its optimal injury release strategy. Consequently, it helps during the waiting game to minimise fidgeting and noise distraction and to close your eyes, so that the motor, auditory and visual parts of your brain can quieten down and let your subconscious mind concentrate on its applied mathematics.

Once the injury is hand-warm, start to interrogate it by applying gentle and controlled fingertip, thumb-tip or flat hand pressure to it, depending on the size of the injury. The nerve pain of very small injuries can be targeted by gently applying the top edge of a fingernail to it. You will need to mould your hands around and into any injury which isn’t lying flat, for example an injury in the soft tissue behind the knee. Increase the pressure in small stages, bearing in mind that gentle pressure may need to be increased to moderate or even vigorous pressure for larger and thicker muscles such as buttock or thigh muscles. Pause after each increase in pressure, keeping the new level of compression steady. This gives the underlying kinetic energy time to absorb and respond to the heat you are directing towards it, and the injury’s soft tissue time to respond to its minute change of position as you compress it.

Repeat this ‘warm, compress and wait’ sequence of movements until the injury is warm and compressed enough to trigger the transmution flashpoint of its kinetic energy. You may sense a slight feeling of anticipation as the injury poises to release. After the flashpoint has passed, adapt your hand positions to accommodate the movement of the soft tissue as its release process develops.

With enough practice you can develop your injury release technique into simply placing your hot hands over a painful area and waiting for it to absorb the heat and release its injuries by itself. This modification, used particularly for indirect injury releases, is also useful for deep abdominal injuries, where you are dealing with delicate, sensitive and possibly injured soft tissue organs wrapped up in injured soft tissue muscle layers.

From Flashpoint Onwards – The Injury Release Process

The flashpoint moment of injury release should develop into the following process, as the liberated soft tissue releases its hostage nerve filaments and lets them wriggle free. The process induces a sensation of relief as the soft tissue relaxes from trauma and settles back into its original position and dimensions. Involuntary sighing and yawning are also good indications that the release process has succeeded, as you luxuriate in the blissful relief of the pain and discomfort of your eliminated injury.

The injury release process has two stages.

The first stage can include the release of a nerve impulse trapped inside an injured nerve in either electron or neurotransmitter molecule form, depending on the nature of the injury. The nerve’s pathway is already compressed and distorted by its surrounding damaged soft tissue, but its own internal distortion and compression could be preventing the relay of a nerve impulse through the chain of neuron cells which forms its pathway. Warm hand pressure through the outer injury in the nerve’s surrounding soft tissue may be enough to release the cellular distortion in the nerve’s own soft tissue. If not, a minute additional inward ‘touch-latch’ or ‘bounce’ compression of the injured nerve should be enough to release its internal injury. The double injury release will take longer than a single injury release because of the additional time needed for both soft tissue layers of the injury to warm up. The nerve’s internal injury release will trigger the resumption of its ‘domino effect’ transmission of the freed nerve impulse, and any following nerve impulses, along its neuron cell pathway.

This stage is described as the first physical sensation of the injury release process in the first point below.

The second stage of the injury release follows on as the decompression of the distorted soft cell tissue around a compressed but internally uninjured nerve branch or filament. Since the nerve is still being compressed and distorted externally by its surrounding injured soft tissue, it continues to report pain signals. As the nerve’s surrounding soft tissue frees from physical compression and distortion after the release of its trapped kinetic energy, the pain signals from the whole injury should now stop. The physical sensations of this stage of the injury release process are described from the second point onwards, below.

The physical sensations you are waiting for at and after the release flashpoint are:

Head injury releases observe the general principles of kinetic energy transmutation, but they follow a different application pathway because they are indirect injury releases. They are described separately on the technique applications page.

FINALE

And there will be tears. Many, many tears. Every injury is unhappy while it is silently waiting and hoping for release, but the larger ones may also still be in shock from the physical and emotional impact which your body has absorbed and stored. The emotional release which results from turning off pain and releasing injuries which may have upset you for decades cannot be overstated. A release of tears is not only a way of eliminating cellular toxins released from brain tissue. It also signifies unconditional relief at the end of an ordeal.

This part of the injury release is arguably the most significant, as it is the beginning of an improved sense of self-esteem and well-being which should make your journey of self-healing more than worthwhile.

Footnote:  (1)  Craniosacral Therapy – John E. Upledger, D.O., F.A.A.O. & Jon D. Vredevoogd M.F.A.   Eastland Press, Seattle, Washington 98199  ISBN 0-9396616-01-7

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