My Jin Shin Jyutsu journey:
I have been a classroom teacher for thirty plus years. When I came to Jin Shin Jyutsu (JSJ) I was looking for a way to help children with learning challenges in an alternative way (not with medication). I was already trained in Therapeutic Touch and Reiki, and I wanted to find something that would be non-invasive and
welcoming to children.

At the time of my first Jin Shin Jyutsu training (2002), I had a frozen shoulder for the past year. I went through six months of physical therapy and received a cortisone shot. I went to my first class not knowing the incredible impact that this art form would have on my own life. At the training, I had 90% mobility in my left shoulder. After two JSJ treatments, I had complete mobility, and not only that… the “glitchy, uncomfortable sensation” in my left shoulder was gone. Both shoulders felt the same for the first time in a year. This got my attention.

After that, I experimented more. I was still skeptical about JSJ. I did not quite believe that it could really help me with my “medical projects”, and I had many. I came to JSJ looking for a way to help others, and I left finding a profound way to help myself. Daily, I held a few Self-help “hands-on applications” as I commuted on the train to work. I did not know exactly what I was treating, since when you hold your thumb you are treating a myriad of symptoms. Five months later, I had my routine check up and my doctor informed me that my cholesterol numbers were “beautiful”, whereas before they were high enough that medication was being considered. Was I surprised! I also had arrhythmia, which is an irregular heartbeat. I would routinely receive EKG’s in the doctor’s office during my health exams. Five years later, the arrhythmia is gone. I continue to have EKG’s at my yearly check-up, and they are fine.

In time, I also learned the incredible way that it could help the animal friends in my life. My dog, Emerson, had a tangerine size tumor on the right side of his neck that was diagnosed as “very concerning”. After three weeks of daily 10 minute JSJ treatments, it was gone and remains a memory. He had developed a bone spur on the inside of his knee that prevented him from using that leg fully. After JSJ treatments he is “gazelling” through the woods, and the spur has greatly dimminished.

I keep getting validation after validation as to the incredible power of this Art. I still work on my personal “projects”, as they come up. They change as I respond to daily stressors, and the like. It has been a journey of self-discovery that I never expected. I laugh, because I started out with the intention of finding the “cure” for children with learning challenges, and it became a journey about how I can help myself, bringing myself into a healthy balance, and find a way to ease my own physical (and emotional) pain. It was not what I expected, and what a gift it has been!

Julianne Dow is a certified Jin Shin Jyutsu practitioner who sees people and animal patients in New York City, Riverdale and Saugerties, N.Y.