Tilling the Soil: Inside Erica Weiland's Renew and Let Go Facial

In the third workshop of our Quanta Perspectives 2026 series, Erica Weiland taught what she calls the Renew and Let Go Facial: a 45 to 60 minute Dien Chan session built around two reflex zones, the lungs and the large intestine. Our earlier post covered the premise. This recap is about what Erica actually taught: how she maps the zones, how she reads the skin, and the hands-on sequence she uses with her multireflex tools.

The skin as a garden

Erica opened with the metaphor that runs through her facial reflexology teaching: the skin is a garden, and the deeper layers are the soil. When the soil is rich and loose, everything growing in it looks healthy. When it is clumpy, rocky or dry underneath, surface work will not hold. "Tilling the soil" means reaching those deeper layers with the tools without irritating what is on top.

The lungs and large intestine belong to the metal element, which in the Chinese medicine framework governs the skin as a whole. Erica also described them as two of the body's elimination organs, alongside the kidneys and the skin itself. So rather than chasing every blemish where it appears, she works these two reflexes thoroughly: they are traditionally associated with the skin everywhere on the body, and they happen to take up a large share of the face.

Landmarking the two zones

Much of the workshop was spent making sure students could find the zones on a real face rather than a flat diagram. Erica divides the face into thirds (hairline to eyebrows, eyebrows to nose tip, nose tip to chin), then splits each third into quarters to locate the midline and the outer edges.

The lung reflex is far larger than most diagrams suggest. As Erica maps it, it includes the entire eyebrow, reaches up toward the hairline, wraps the whole orbit bone (including over the closed eyelid), runs down the bony part of the nasal ridge, and extends to the bottom of the cheekbone and underneath it. Only the soft cartilage of the nose sits outside it. She had students press firmly with their fingers, feeling for tender spots, sand-like deposits, small lumps, and the common asymmetry where one cheek feels thick while the other glides.

The large intestine reflex looks like a thin line around the mouth and across the forehead on the chart, but Erica teaches it as a broad zone. It begins on the client's right side, out from the chin line and below the pupil, where she places the ileocecal valve and appendix. From there the ascending colon runs up to the bottom of the cheekbone, the transverse colon crosses the tip of the nose and nostrils, the descending colon comes down the left cheek, and the sigmoid colon mirrors the starting point. She widens the zone out to the outer corner of the eye, smile lines included, and brings in the forehead. Her advice was to "draw outside the line": every body is different, and a wider zone communicates more clearly to the brain.

Reading the skin as yin and yang

Before choosing a tool, Erica reads what the skin is showing. Within her framework, dullness suggests the lungs are not exchanging oxygen well; enlarged pores are the skin wanting to breathe; puffiness and congestion (blackheads, gritty bumps) represent a "stalled letting go" in elimination; and redness or changes in pigment relate to heat.

She then sorts these into yin and yang signs. Eye bags, under-eye puffiness, dull or pale skin, sagging and oiliness are yin signs and call for a yang tool. Tight hyperpigmented skin and wrinkles, which she links to hydration and the large intestine reflex, are yang signs and call for yin work. The principle is simple: add the opposite of what you see, the way you add cold water to a bath that is too hot.

The sequence Erica teaches

The Renew and Let Go Facial has three phases: prepare, till, and flush.

• Prepare the zone. With irritated or red skin, Erica cools first with a yin tool, moving top to bottom and midline outward, lifting the tool rather than going back and forth. For dull, sagging skin or large pores, she reverses it: a yang tool, starting at the outer edges of the reflex and moving toward the centre, bottom to top.
• Till the soil. Her favourites for the deep work are the nº252 Small brush and the nº373 Ova bar. Around the orbit bone she uses a slow, straight compression against the bone followed by a kneading-off motion, then the same press-and-knead under the cheekbone and around the chin. On a tender spot or lump she presses and holds for 15 seconds to a minute, adding small pulses or a gentle vibration while the tool stays anchored. She also holds the skin taut, sinks the tool in slightly and glides; where it sticks, the soil needs more work. The yin side of the nº128 Little yin yang hammer can break up deeper lumps without disturbing the surface.
• Flush and finish. After roughly a minute of deep work she flips the tool and sweeps the yin side outward to move heat away, then returns. Deep work, yin work, deep work, yin work. A remaining hard spot gets the nº103 yang detector, held over taut skin until the area warms and softens; a puffy or gristly spot gets the nº133 Comet detector, pressed and held or pulled through the skin. On the nose, she holds the skin taut on the same side as the nostril so the client can still breathe.

"There's never supposed to be pain with reflexology, but sometimes there can be sensation."

Erica talks clients through the deeper work, touches an area with her fingers before bringing in a tool, and reassures students that light tracks after tilling are the soil responding.

Adapting for skin type, and taking it into practice

She closed with three adjustments. Oily skin: cool it first, then move into yang. Dry skin: energize with the Ova bar first. Combination skin: follow the sequence as taught. Spend a few minutes on what you see, then work the two zones deeply until they feel smooth, supple and coherent with the rest of the face.

For estheticians, this is a complete service you can offer, and a routine you can teach clients to practise on themselves once a week. The full recording is available as part of the Quanta Perspectives 2026 series on reflexology.school. If you want to learn the whole Dien Chan method in depth, have a look at the Dien Chan Clinician program.