This year, I wanted to start the new year by opening up the energy for my life with a tongue-tie release, having begun myofunctional therapy in July along with the accompanying soul work that “coincidentally” started then as well, as part of my healing journey that began just over a year ago.
Twenty years ago I had a nine-hour orthognathic surgery that went well, besides needing a blood transfusion, that I’d planned for. After having my jaws clamped for eight weeks, looking at my beautiful bite and teeth, someone, a nurse perhaps, somehow knew to tell me to put my tongue up when swallowing. But I didn’t know what she meant until last July.
For my entire life up, I had no idea that there’s a default position for the tongue that normal people around the world all knew, until six months ago when I first heard the word “myofunctional.” Since then, the importance of the tongue, and proper movement and placement, continues to be eye-opening.
In my journey to healing and hopefully to help close an open bite that has formed in recent years, I was hoping to qualify for a frenectomy for the new year, and for my birthday, that would also open up the energy for a new chapter. A frenectomy is a release of a “tongue-tie,” the thread, the frenum, below the tongue. For some, this release is powerful – they feel their throats open up, they breathe better, they can turn their heads more, and their neck tightness goes away.
The tongue is an organ with eight muscles, with fascia going down as far as the feet. The book “Tongue-Tied,” by Richard Baxter, explains that frenectomies were popular as far back as the 1600s and that Louis XIII, the King of France had the procedure, when he had trouble nursing as a baby.
I’m lucky to have a wonderful team on this journey, with my myofunctional therapist, Joy Moeller and Harvard-Stanford trained Dr. Soroush Zaghi of the Breathe Institute. Though decades apart, they’re pioneers in their fields, both studying and focusing on the important role of the tongue in the body. Both have clients who fly across the world to seek help for issues including snoring, sleep apnea, open bites, and TMJ. Myofunctional therapy is especially big in other countries like Brazil and Australia. Hopefully, one day it will be a standard for those of us who’ve had jaw surgery, or as a first option to prevent it, or for those who have sleep apnea, who snore, who didn’t breast feed, or relied on a pacifier as a baby.
In the last six months on this healing journey of meeting like-minded functional medicine healers, a light bulb has switched on for what I thought was tangential therapy initially for something else.
Hopefully, one day this will be recognized as mainstream, as is much of functional medicine, but for now, this therapy is unfortunately still a luxury, since it’s not covered by insurance and the cost isn’t cheap, depending on the professional chosen. It’s a major out of pocket cash commitment like so many in functional medicine now. But those of us lucky to find a way to be in this privileged world of people passionate about the tongue, know important secrets I wish others knew and that I wished I had been taught years ago. Some of these secrets I get to know now, include taping one’s mouth at night, which also helps those who snore, since the tongue stays in position and doesn’t flop around. I am only now learning the proper way to breathe, and for the first time, I’m conscious of my breathing (which I think was mostly through my mouth up till now), and I try to close my mouth, which still takes work. I recall my mother smiling and saying lovingly, “Close your mouth,” in the years I was preparing for my jaw surgery. Recently, a friend said on a hike, “You’re posture is awful!” And I thought I was standing up straight. Those who get frenectomies often report having improved posture without effort, and they close their mouths with ease for the first time. I hoped I would be one of them for this new year energy.
In a recent presentation at UCLA, one of Joy’s slides showed the benefits of a tongue-tie release, as I joked that it seemed to solve all of life’s problems, with the proper tongue placement in the center of the slide as the answer. I was excited to qualify. But for me, when I saw powerful testimonials of how the rest of people’s bodies changed, their forward head sat back on the center of their body and they felt a comfort in their body they hadn’t felt before, they felt a mysterious physical release, I was in.
Where the tongue resides is the throat chakra, the energy center where we give and receive communication. But on a higher level, a spiritual level, this is also the important question of “What do I want to say while I’m here?”
Each living person takes up precious real estate while here. We may drive cars that strive for zero emissions, but the fact is, each of us is a carbon-emitting machine. We don’t give back to the Earth while we are living, in fact, our human bodies are takers, we suck up valuable depleting natural resources on this planet, while polluting it just by our existence. So, what do we want to do with our lives to make it count? What do we truly want to say while we are here? It’s about the voice of our true selves.
One of the most common physical manifestations of a closed chakra that I see when I give readings in my spiritual work, is when someone comes through with heart issues, such as a heart attack. It’s often that their heart chakra was blocked. The heart chakra is about the ability to give and receive love. Physical issues often are manifestations of what’s going on in our auras, our energy. A blocked chakra, or energy center will find it’s way to the physical plane.
So it’s not surprising some people have profound results that almost sound spiritual when they have a tongue-tie release – they cry and feel a greater release beyond the tongue, they feel like their body is a different, more tuned-in body. The human plane, the physical, are mirrors of the important spiritual plane that is underlying. Sometimes we need a little help physically to remove a blockage because we weren’t spiritually aware of that energy blockage.
Since doing the intense soul work that started last July with my physical issues, my spirit guides have shown me synchronicities, signs that are now anvils from the universe that give me validation that I am “dialed in” to my Higher Self, that I’m in the correct groove for my life path right now. It can come when I see time on the clock with numbers in alignment, a song, or even initials on license plates of those special to me.
Today I was back in the upbeat, inviting waiting room that I was in last year, when I left feeling sad that I didn’t qualify for the frenectomy, since I had really liked the energy of this office. As I sat down and prepared to hopefully get a frenectomy to help open up my energy for the new year on a higher level, as well as help my medical issues, I looked up at what was an Edith Piaf streaming channel in front of me.
There was an image of a lady with a black bob whose back was turned, but she, and her flapper dress, looked like a doppelganger in a recent past life regression that was the most profound, which also taught me that to my surprise, people can live almost right up to their birth in this life. Next to that image was the Eiffel Tower, another sign just for me. It was so huge, I had to ask them to rewind the screen so I could see the woman again. I had to share it with two people who knew about this profound past life, as well as the office director who said she also “got chills.” More than chills, these personal signs aimed at me now make me at once smile and feel giddy that my team on the Other Side is with me in real time, the universe is supporting me, just as I have a wonderful team of functional medicine healers here that I was meant to meet since this healing journey began. That everything has meaning and purpose. Nothing is for naught in the universe.
Minutes later, I sat in the chair and got unexpected news that I didn’t qualify as I had hoped today, but that I’ll be able to revisit this in two months and every two months to see if the frenum changes, after more myofunctional therapy.
Though I was disappointed, as I drove home, it occurred to me the synchronicity, this sign that was so huge – to see a reflection of one’s most profound past life – that this anvil from the universe which took my breath away just a few minutes earlier, was there to announce that I was in the correct groove, ahead of what the guides knew would be disappointing news for me. And that I was on the correct path on a higher level no matter what humanly happens.
Yes, it was disappointing I didn’t qualify today for a physical tongue release and the symbolic assist of spiritually opening up my throat chakra energy for the new year, but for now, in addition to the physical work I’ve been given for my tongue, I also have more spiritual homework to do to establish what I want to say while I’m here in this precious journey called life.
And perhaps the next visit to this lovely upbeat, supportive office for those with breathing, sleep, and tongue issues, will garner another delightful sign from the universe that I’m on the right path, no matter what the human outcomes are.