Many of you ask me where exactly the castor oil pack should be applied. The confusion comes from online suggestions to apply it on your liver (meaning on your right side, just below your ribcage).
Convincing as these suggestions may be, you are not always sure if you should listen to the net or choose a different area of your body for the castor application to maximize the benefits…
Picture by Amit Shlagman
Before sharing my opinion, I would like to take a moment to review what all the fuss about castor oil is. Castor oil, a very thick oil derived from the castor (Ricinus communis) seed, has been praised for decades for its numerous benefits. Among them:
Easing various conditions as uterine fibroids, ovarian cysts, endometriosis, headaches, migraines, constipation, intestinal disorders, gallbladder/liver conditions…
Improving digestion and elimination of toxic substances
Increasing circulation of blood and lymph and Decreasing inflammation
Enhancing fertility along with liver and immune function
Lubricating ligaments and Decreasing pain
Promoting tissue healing
Even though it’s long and includes many benefits, this list might be leaving out the most beneficial act of the castor oil: Whole-Body Activation by relaxing your nervous system.
Picture by Amit Shlagman
The term castor oil pack is a fancy label to application of the oil on the skin, covering with a cotton towel or a flannel cloth and topping with a hot water bottle or a heating pad.
And yes! You can apply your pack on your liver, on your chest, on any sore joint and basically anywhere on your body including your belly button, with one caveat – the understanding that this will provide local lubrication of the treated tissue and nothing beyond! This lubrication will stimulate the applied tissue and encourage it to become engaged in its own healing, which is truly wonderful, and I do it all the time.
BUT…
What if castor oil packs can do more than local engagement? What if they can benefit you more than the described above?
What if Castor oil packs can provide a Whole-Body Activation by relaxing your nervous system, allowing your whole body to heal itself?
Picture by Amit Shlagman
What is a Whole-Body Activation by relaxing your nervous system? This is a mechanism where your whole body becomes involved in its own healing, starting from shifting your autonomic nervous system into its parasympathetic deep relaxed state, and following through with a systemic transformation in every cell of your body.
How can you get this benefit?
Simple!!!
This activation will take place when you apply the castor oil pack on your entire belly – in the area from the edge of your ribcage to the pubic hair.
Picture by Anat Shlagman
When applying the castor oil pack on the belly, the oil lubricates and stimulates all the tissues, organs and systems in this region. Along with that, the heat draws the blood vessels up closer to the skin as they vasodilate, and oil is being absorbed into the blood circulation as well, thus distributed through the whole body.
Lubricating and stimulating organs as the small intestine, bladder, colon, liver, uterus, which are part of systems that are inhibited when your body is under stress (when your autonomic nervous system functions at its sympathetic / fight-or-flight state), signals the nervous system to shift to the deep relaxed state – parasympathetic state.
Picture by Amit Shlagman
Surprisingly enough, internal processes are very similar to the external world. You can think of the autonomic nervous system as expressing itself in one of two possible responses: War or Peace.
War response relates to the sympathetic state of your autonomic nervous system or the fight-or-flight state. When in war, your body is concerned with only one thing – survival. Every action it takes is meant to keep you standing on your own two feet. Nothing else, regardless to how much your body needs to compromise to accommodate it!! Your body may not even know that something is wrong, simply because it doesn’t have the energetic budget to check what is happening.
Peace response relates to the parasympathetic state of your autonomic nervous system or the rest-and-digest state. When in peace, the energetic budget opens, providing the means to detect and correct what needs your attention.
Bringing your nervous system to the parasympathetic state provides a Whole-Body Activation, which will create the environment for your body to start healing itself, no matter what conditions you are suffering from.
In my personal opinion, a Whole-Body Activation is the most important benefit of the castor oil packs. I have witnessed and experienced so many miraculous healings just from applying the castor packs on the entire belly.
Picture by Amit Shlagman
Now sit back and imagine how wonderful it would be to combine it all – apply a castor pack on your belly for a Whole-Body Activation and add as many other castor packs as you wish on any area that needs your attention, for local engagement of the tissue to heal.
Picture by Amit Shlagman
If you’d like, you can always follow my instructions or come in for a session to learn and experience how easy and amazing castor oil is….
Anat Shlagman is a Traditional Naturopath and founder of Traditionally Empowered Healing LLC (Trad Em). With a practice established in 2012, Anat developed a unique session to relax the autonomic nervous system, creating the right environment for the body to heal itself. Her work dives deep into the root causes of physical, emotional, and mental conditions.
Her unique session, Trad Em®, is combined of Castor oil packs on abdomen and chest, Reflexology, Lymphatic massage on areas covered with castor oil and embedded in Trance Mediumship Healing Energy and is designed to bring the autonomic nervous system to its parasympathetic state (peace response). Following her belief that, when body reaches this very deep state of relaxation it can start healing itself, this session shows great benefits to those who suffer from digestive issues, depression, anxiety, any type of feet pain/issues, joints issues, autoimmune issues and any other condition that cannot be resolved by the medical establishment.
When realizing that castor oil packs have an amazing impact when applied on the abdomen and complimented with herbal infused oils, Anat has developed a longer session (Special Condition Session), successfully targeting more conditions, as frozen shoulder, arthritis, depression, autoimmune, digestive, soft tissue injuries, pain, sciatic issues, nerve injuries and more. While each case is individual and each person responds to the session differently, improvements have shown with many patients after the first session.
Anat’s sessions delve deep into the root cause of any condition – may it be physical, emotional or mental. A profound change is being manifested through the session and is clearly felt by the person on the table. This change generates the beginning of whole healing.
In 2023, Anat started implementing in her sessions Trance Mediumship Healing, as she is continuously learning from Chris Ratter, Psychic Surgeon. This type of Energy Healing created a very unique combination of Energy guided touch which tremendously enhanced her sessions.
Born in Romania, Anat’s family has moved to Israel when she was 5. In 1990 Anat graduated high school and joined the Israeli mandatory military service for 2 year. She has achieved her BA in Health Services Management in 1997 and her MBA in Business Management in 2002, both from Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva Israel. Moving to Michigan in 2004, Anat quit her 6-year job as a project manager in Ramat-Gan municipality, overseeing the computers’ hardware and software in the municipality public schools, becoming a full-time mom and wife. In 2005, Anat has become a Reiki master and a holistic practitioner, employing energy healing among her family and friends. In 2014 she graduated as a Traditional Naturopath from the Naturopathic School of the Healing Arts in Ann Arbor, completing a 3-year Diploma Program.
Adopting the Traditional Naturopathy approach, Anat and her family went through many lifestyle changes seeking a healthier way of living. This included eating real foods rather than processed, utilizing ways to relax mind and body, introducing herbs as food and medicine and much more. These changes brought Anat’s family to a whole new level of health, including weight loss, increased energy levels and clarity of the mind. Experiencing these amazing shifts, Anat became passionate in helping families and individuals go through changes, which sometimes regarded impossible, to support higher levels of health.
In 2014, Anat conducted a 6-month research, with a group of 7 women, showing that improving digestive issues will improve many other conditions in the body, as skin conditions, depression, aches and more. These women have gone through a major transformation. While stabilizing their eating habits, these women’s digestion system has improved, and many other changes occurred – Inflammation decreased, weight lost, relaxation occurred, cravings lessened, aches disappeared, and many more.
In 2016, Anat took Lindera – Herbalist Jim Mcdonald’s Herbal intensive – enriching her understanding of herbs, and their assistance with healing our body.
In 2017, Anat accomplished 800 hours of massage and advanced medical massage training at Flint School of Therapeutic massage, achieving her license to touch.
Since then, Anat kept developing her sessions, and in 2023 she started learning with Chris Ratter, Psychic Surgeon , deepening her understanding of Spirit Energy healing.
As a mother of three, Anat realized that in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle it is more productive being Relaxed rather than being Perfect. Therefore, she designed her sessions, her workshops and her herbal remedies to fit each person’s individual situation, working to Encourage minor (almost invisible) changes in one’s life, which have been showing an amazing long-lasting healing effect with many.
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Traditionally Empowered Healing LLC 