According to author and reflexologist Chris Stormer, we have become too focused on the physical, rather than the emotional and spiritual aspects, of disease, writes SYLVIA THOMPSON
THE COMPLEMENTARY therapy sector has become more and more regulated in the past decade. The aim of both national and international regulation is to weed out charlatans and poorly qualified practitioners from societies and associations of homeopaths, herbalists, acupuncturists and other complementary therapies.
Like other therapies, reflexology is becoming more regulated but what happens to those who were teaching and writing about therapies before the regulations were put in place?
This is a question that Chris Stormer, founder of the Reflexology Academy of Southern Africa, has had to confront as she gives seminars and workshops around the world.
“I did feel like a fake at one stage,” admits Stormer, nurse and midwife, reflexologist and author of several books on reflexology. “But, I realised what I was saying was important. I believed that the approach to reflexology had become too focused on the physical. Everyone was looking at how the organs were reflected in the feet and what we needed to do to fix these organs.
“But, I felt we had to embrace the emotional and spiritual aspects of disease. This was unpopular when I first starting talking about it in the early 1990s but then people began to listen.”
Stormer began to be invited to international conferences to explain her theories of how our emotions and thoughts are reflected in the feet as well as how all the internal organs and body structures are also reflected on the feet.
Soon it became apparent that she was capturing the zeitgeist and reflexologists themselves began to embrace this more holistic approach again.
“As reflexologists, we can’t heal people. We can only facilitate their healing. We know the questions to ask which allows people to find the answers themselves,” she says.
“People are having a lot of problems with their backs at the moment because we’ve lost touch with what we’re on this planet for,” she says. “Yet, these difficult times are allowing us to get back in touch with ourselves again at a deeper level and reminding us of our resourcefulness,” she says.
“I’ve been working in the area of reflexology for 22 years now and it’s absolutely amazing how reflexology can help people process buried memories, emotions and other aspects of their lives without talking,” she says.
Stormer has been giving workshops in Ireland for more than 10 years and is here again this month to give talks and seminars in various parts of the country. She is accompanied by Sally Teixeira, a Brazilian reflexologist who also promotes this broad approach to healing (www.reflexologyinrio.com).
Stormer’s central message nowadays is that our emotions are the root cause of all physical disease. She dares us to delve into our belief systems and memories to find the answers to our physical symptoms. While acknowledging that those suffering from illnesses such as cancer may find this view harsh and hurtful, she says, “It makes some people angry because it hits a nerve.
“The anger itself makes them recognise that something needs to be done. If you blame your illness on food, the environment and/or other people, it takes away the personal responsibility to help yourself,” she says.
On a broader level, Stormer promotes the idea that each generation is working through the issues of the previous generation. And while this concept resonates with some approaches to psychotherapy, Stormer puts it quite simply. “We don’t have inherited diseases but what we do have are inherited uneasiness which comes from our belief systems and our memories.
“It is our belief systems and memories that make us sick. I’ve learned all this through the language of the feet,” she says.
Stormer has had a chequered past herself and readily acknowledges that she has “abused people herself unknowingly”.
“I can be a complete bitch and an absolute angel. I used to be such a victim and complain about everything because it was more sensational. But, now I look for the best in people, not the worst and I put myself out there to experience the world,” she says.
She speaks about how as a child she felt lonely and unloved.
“I was a misfit. My parents were loving towards me but I was different. By the time I was 21, I was overweight, a manic-depressive and suicidal. I was working as an occupational health sister in a hospital but I needed to find my own life,” she explains.
Later married and divorced with two young sons, she turned to reflexology to find the way forward. “I have realised that we create our own realities and that we are the masters of our own destinies,” she says.
She married a South African management consultant in Las Vegas last year. “He understands my free spirit because he’s a free spirit too,” she says.
Originally from Kenya, Stormer now lives in South Africa where she runs a retreat centre and leads “soul safaris”. “I believe that Africa is the soul of the world. My inspiration comes from the African people because they make the most of everything in life,” she says.
“On the safaris, we take people to meet the local people, to see the wild animals, swim with wild dolphins and spend a day in an African spa,” she explains.