Pressure Points

When I was in High School, I use to run the 800m relay. I never was an amazing track star but I worked hard and gave it 110%. I remember having to attend a track meet, while "The Curse of Eve", overtook my body. Even with my heavy dosage of extra strength Tylenol I still could not rid myself of that pain.

I told my coach, I wouldn't be able to run. Strangely, he asked for my foot and began to press firlmy on a spot near my ankle. At first the pressure was painful, but after a few minutes I felt all of my pain begin to subside, and by the time he released it, I wasn't in pain at all. I got up and ran one of my best 800m times. No warm-up, no extra medication, just a painful, pressure point.

For those of you who aren't familiar with this medical terminology, pressure points are sensitive parts of the body that can either be used for healing or pain.

As I reflect on this concept, I think about all of the "sensitive parts" of our lives. That person who wronged you as a child, those feelings of loneliness that overtake you at night, or that feeling of abandonment that is continually reaffirmed. Those are all sensitive parts. Oddly enough the pressure point that can produce pain and healing, can be in areas that seem unrelated. How a nerve in my ankle could affect the pain in my stomach is still a mystery to me. Our lives sometimes have a similar system. Pain affecting our marriage, could be connected to unresolved pain as a child. Struggles with addiction, can be tied to an identity crisis. Basically the point of pain will not always line up with the point of pressure

Another thing that baffles me about pressure points, are how they lie on the surface, so openly exposed. Even with our clothes covering those points, our sensitive parts can still be touched.

In Star Trek, Spock applied the “Vulcan nerve pinch” on the base of a person’s neck to knock them unconscious ( I'm a nerd I know, blame my father). This is an extreme and fictitious example, but the illustration is powerful.

Everyday we interact with people who have the access to knock us unconscious. Our hopes, hurts, and hearts, are constantly being put at risk with every encounter. It seems, the closer you allow a person to become, the more you risk being knocked unconscious.

On the other side, there is an aspect of healing that can come from a pressure point. When my coach first pressed on my ankle it was painful, I questioned the reasoning, and my reflex reaction was to pull away. The only thing that kept me from moving was that I trusted him.

I think the biggest question for me is, how do you know the difference between the "Vulcan pinch" and the "healing pressure". My only rationale is through the process. The pinch, although harmful, renders you unconscious. Meaning, the things that will harm you often come easy, and put you in a state of complacency or unconsciousness. This also translates into lack of conviction.

II Corinthians 7:9-10 says, "As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death."

Healing pressure, will likely be painful and difficult to deal with, but in the end, will give us the ability, to run our best race.