A Point for Easy, Complete Bowel Movements: Landscape of Your Body #17
A self-acupressure point for when bowel movements aren't as easy, as complete, or happening as often as they should (aka… constipation)
👉🏼 Self-massage here, on both legs, for 1-2 minutes every day, can be a powerful complement to whatever food choices, supplements, acupuncture, or other gut-healing practices you're using.
This point is called Shang Ju Xu ("Upper Great Hollow"), or Stomach 37 in English. It's on the river of qi flowing through the landscape of your body known as the Yangming Stomach Channel.
You'll find it about 8 finger-widths below your kneecap, about 1 finger-width away from your shinbone, on the pinky-toe side. (See the video for help locating it.)
Feel free to press around the area - try a little closer to your knee, then a little closer to your ankle - and find the most sensitive spot. Does it feel sore?? This point communicates directly with the Large Intestine organ. When there's disharmony in the Large Intestine, that's usually reflected by some tenderness at this point.
🤯 A little something for the mind-body-emotion connection lovers: Elimination is associated with the Metal element, the emotion of grief, and the capacity of discernment. Inquiries to sit with: How might I bring my awareness to any grief I'm carrying, and find ways to let it move? Am I clear on what's a "yes" and what's a "no" for me?
🌎 And through Deep Ecology eyes: This point is on an Earth channel. Just as the Earth is the round center that all of Life moves around, the Earth organs are our bodily centers, around which everything else turns. Just as soil produces nourishment and transforms waste, our Earth network transforms our food into flesh and energy, and moves waste downward, for its next transformation. We are more "process" than "thing." Each of us is the body of Earth becoming our self, continuously, and also continuously exhaling air and letting go of waste material that will soon transform again.
👉 Treat this point by massaging in small circles, holding a steady pressure, or pressing and releasing.
Want to learn how to massage self-acupressure points once you find them? Learn how to do self-acupressure here.