The Mind Brain & The Second Brain (and how one massage practice can relieve both)

When you think of your brain, most people just think of their mind brain – the center for logic, conscious thinking and your opinions on religion, politics or philosophy. But the second brain, your intestines, has more than 100 million neurons of its own, which is more than the spinal cord or the nervous system surrounding the mind brain. This means the gut brain can have responses and functions independent of the mind brain and can store feelings and habits.

Your “gut feeling” or “gut reaction” are not just phrases without truth. These sayings are referring to the emotions, feelings, habits and intuition that are felt in your second brain.

In my last blog post, I explained how the vagus nerve connects our gut to our brain and constricts with stress and negative emotions, and how necessary Taoist meditations are to transform negative into positive, learn to let go and calm the brains.

Now, I want to focus on Chi Nei Tsang abdominal detox massage and how we are able to help ourselves and others to achieve a higher state of wellbeing.

With Chi Nei Tsang, we go deeper into the unconscious mind and work to release knots, tension and pain that could be stored in the body for a very long time. This therapy can help to relieve many physical ailments, even serious and chronic conditions, with increased circulation, blood flow, release of toxins and movement of chi around our vital organs. But, one of the most important results is the relief or resolution that we can feel from our emotions.

Often times, people who receive a lot of CNT massage therapy will have some memories, often painful or negative, that will come up. Sometimes they haven’t even thought of this memory in years. Their mind brain had long forgotten but their second brain remembers this trauma or negative experience very well and stored it in a knot that we must relieve using CNT massage techniques.

Each part of the intestines is affected by a different emotion beginning at the navel and expanding into the large intestine. Fear affects the lower deeper side while sadness affects the lower lateral side. Anger contracts the right side while anxiety affects the top part of the intestine and worry affects the upper left side.

The second brain can affect the mind brain and the mind brain can affect the second brain. When you look at your organs, the brain and intestines physically look a lot of like, so it’s really no surprise that these two brains are connected and can function in similar ways.

The lower brain has more connection to the universe with more knowledge and wisdom if you train it, and this is our challenge because we are always in our mind brain, especially with today’s fast-paced way of life. With CNT, we can work through the physical tension and illness in order to allow you to evolve in the emotional.

Although learning Chi Nei Tsang is very beneficial if you are already a massage therapist, acupuncturist or other natural healer, the knowledge of how your own body has been storing emotions, pain and tension is also really a profound healing tool along your own journey of self-healing and to achieve a higher state of wellbeing for yourself. Watch the videos below to learn how you can practice basic Chi Nei Tsang techniques on yourself.

I invite you to join me at one of my upcoming Chi Nei Tsang retreats at the Tao Garden in Thailand or workshops abroad. In Fall 2016, I’ll be in many cities in Europe teaching Chi Nei Tsang I, II and III, and I also have Chi Nei Tsang I and II retreats in November at Tao Garden. Find all the dates of my upcoming events and registration information here. You can also learn a little more about Chi Nei Tsang and what I teach in each course here.

Video of basic Chi Nei Tsang Self-Massage:

Video of Chi Nei Tsang self-massage for digestive detox and to cure constipation: