A healing arts practice in Sedona, AZ, focusing on Eden Energy Medicine, Holistic Massage and Soul Services.
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| Courtesy Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals |
As we breathe, so do we live. How we breathe is how we relax, how we begin and complete tasks, how we absorb and digest information, how we cope with strong feelings and the unfamiliar. It is how we access whole-brain function and balanced brainwave cycles.
Nearly every intangible we value in life is mediated and quality-controlled by our respiration: physical vitality, emotional and mental clarity, nurturing rest, relief from past trauma, connectedness to others, openness to new experiences, and joy, to name a few. Through these and other gifts, breath invites us to live each moment fully and freely.
Breath is more than fuel. It is also a force - mechanical, electro-magnetic and hydraulic - moving constantly through the body. It provides an outlet for toxins, an internal massage for organs and tissue, and diffusion for unexpressed emotions. It is the switch for the body's relaxation response and the gateway to slow-wave brain states.
A fluid flow of abundant breath is what our bodies, psyches and spirits are meant to have. If we are stingy with our breath, we lessen our quality of life. Yet all of us at times restrict or interrupt healthy breathing as we react to stress, fear, sadness, fatigue, injury or other cues.
A guided breath session can help restore us to balance. With safe support we readily recognize and dissolve habits of suppression, avoidance, "upside-down" breathing, and any other impediment to fluid breathing mechanics. Each session brings greater awareness and easier, fuller flow. Vivid trans-personal and spiritual experiences may occur during states of deep, breath-induced relaxation. [Read more...]
How to get the most out of your massage
Being on the other side of a massage today, as I received my weekly session, gave me an opportunity to ponder this question from the client's point of view.
Awareness
Stay present throughout the session. This means staying present in your body, not zoning out or drifting off. Why? Change happens with awareness. Staying present and fine tuning your awareness gives both you and your therapist valuable information about what's going on.
Practice tuning in to the area being touched and learn to describe the sensations. Notice other areas of your body that are affected. In what way? Are you subtly tightening another area? Do you feel tingling or pain somewhere else?
Notice your thought process. Are old memories being released as the tissue unwinds? Or are you thinking about something non-related to avoid uncomfortable feelings or sensations?
Breath
A good therapist will remind you to breathe during your session and will have you work with focused breath during certain procedures. That doesn't however let you off the hook the rest of the time. Your breath is what keeps you present during a session and can help in bringing your awareness to the area being worked.
Does this mean you have to do deep breathing throughout the massage? No. There's no need to change your breathing, for the most part. Being aware of your breath and how you're breathing is the key. When tightness or discomfort is experienced as an area is being worked, sending deep, relaxed breath to that area can help tension dissolve and the tissue let go.
Active Involvement
Many people rate their massage by how quickly they can relax and fall asleep. I don't encourage falling asleep, (unless you're really sleep deprived and that's really the healing your body needs). With certain techniques, you may enter an altered state where you are deeply relaxed, but the key once again is staying present as much as possible.
Certain types of massage may require more active participation on your part than others. Your therapist may ask you to resist against a stretch, or move your body in a certain way to assist a release. Even if they don't, you can still stay involved by giving feedback from time to time of what you're experiencing. By this I mean, let them know when you feel something releasing. Do you notice a difference in an area of the body they have just finished working on? Express that. Apart from providing valuable information to your therapist, this also helps you own the changes that are happening in your body.
At the end of the session, take a moment or two to notice how you feel. Is it different than when you lay down at the beginning of the session? How? Do you feel taller? Lighter? Free from worries?
Stay in that space when you stand up and dress, noticing how you are moving and what has changed in your body. This will give you an opportunity to maintain any new ways of movement. Old patterns persist when we are on automatic and even though much may have shifted during a session, if you don't notice or stay aware of what has changed, the body will simply go back to the old ways it knows.
"Awareness is the beginning of all transformation." Osho, Hammer on the Rock
If you live in Sedona, you've probably received a Shop Local card in your mailbox and are just itching to get out there and use it! I didn't waste any time in getting a deal posted on the Shop in Sedona website (click the image above to have a look), which offers a $25 discount to locals on our hour and longer sessions. I've also put all the details up on a special page on my website. You can even pay by credit card right on the website.
Shop Local is all about stimulating the economy and keeping our dollars in Sedona, so it made sense to me to offer a discount that would really have an impact.
It's so easy to talk yourself out of buying "non-essentials" when money gets a little tight. But your health and well being should stay right there at the top of your list of what's truly important. Donna Eden, renowned healer and pioneer in the field of energy medicine, maintains that there is a stress component in all modern illness and disease. It's a fact of the way we live life today in the western world that our bodies are under some degree of stress a lot of the time. Having a way of reducing the impact of stress is essential in maintaining health and being happy.
Getting regular massages, bodywork and energy work should be top priority for all of us. There simply is no substitute for human touch. Really. A massage chair (as in one of those that vibrates up and down your back) just doesn't provide the energetic connection of another human's hands on your body, to say nothing of all the nurturing and love we receive in a massage.
I really miss my massages when I'm not getting one every couple of weeks. Come to think of it, I could do with one right about now. How about you?
To book your discount session (Massage, Energy or Chakra Balancing, Transformational Breath, Soul Reading), go to the website. Offer valid until October 31st, 2009, so hurry!
Here's a heartwarming story that was on Yahoo's UK site today. What an amazing lady!
Today's self-care massage and energy tip is a follow on from the Crown Pull. Clearing the head so that we can think straight and allow energy to move through the crown chakra goes hand in hand with making sure we stay grounded.
A hug can be the best medicine when we're feeling down or lonely. Stroking a pet brings joy to the heart and a smile to the face. We intuitively clasp a hand to our forehead in times of stress, and the desire to reach out and cuddle a crying infant is an inbuilt human response. No other form of connection is as powerful and universal as touch.
Since 1982, the Touch Research Institute in Miami, Florida has been devoted to better defining touch as it promotes health and contributes to the treatment of disease. These, and studies by other bodies worldwide, consistently show that touch therapy has numerous beneficial effects on the health and wellbeing of all humans.
There is something almost indefinable that happens when one sentient being touches another: an energetic connection that cannot be replicated by machines or massage tools. An electronic shiatsu chair may feel good and provide some relief to sore muscles, but receiving a treatment from a trained bodyworker offers something a non-human tool can't provide. More than simply working out a physical tension, a therapist trained in touch therapies (massage, shiatsu, rolfing), is also initiating a connection with the less-definable aspects of ourselves.
Whether we call it soul, spirit or energy, it adds another dimension to the physical act of touch, opening a doorway to healing that goes beyond the mere alleviation of symptoms. This level of healing not only releases muscular tension, but also nurtures the soul, and provides solace at mental and emotional levels. Touch is a language we use instinctively, and is the first of all the senses to develop. In our society, being deprived of contact with our fellow human beings by being placed in solitary confinement, is one of the worst punishments. Touch means contact and reminds us we are not alone.
Both the giving and receiving of touch is as essential to human survival as food or water. When we are without adequate human touch, our quality of life rapidly diminishes. We become susceptible to depression and illness, and our ability to thrive under stress is severely diminished. There are times in our lives when we may lack touch on a daily basis: following a divorce, when away from friends and loved ones for extended periods, in later life. At these times, turning to the services of a professional bodyworker can help to bring us back into contact with touch and ultimately, with ourselves.
"That was very different from any massage I've ever had! What were you doing?" I've heard this many times during my years of practice. I have to answer that it's not so much about what I'm doing as what I'm not doing. Now that sounds like a bit of a contradiction, so let me explain. There are all kinds of massage techniques, from Swedish to Trigger Point, Neuromuscular Therapy to Myofascial Release and many therapists rely on a particular specialty. By far the best massages I have received have been when the therapist was present, no matter what techniques were used.
Imagine, you come for a massage, with high expectations of a deeply relaxing experience. No matter how hard you try to relax, your mind races as you think about everything, from the movie you watched last night, to what you're going to have for dinner. Suddenly, your 60 minute massage is over, but it feels more like 15 minutes. Chances are, if this happens during your massage, your therapist is not present either. Instead of being in the moment with you, she is off in another world, thinking about the fight she had with her boyfriend this morning, whether she made the bank deposit... meanwhile she is performing a standard sequence of techniques on your body. Sound familiar?
Now imagine, you receive a massage where you sink deeply into relaxation, fully aware of the therapist's hands communicating with your body, of your breath and the stillness of the moment. You fall into profound silence. It feels like 60 minutes has stretched into the longest massage you've ever had. If you meditate, you may recognize this experience: presence, awareness, being in the moment. When your massage therapist is present, your being responds by finding that same place within.
Being present with clients means each massage is unique. It's a journey I take with the individual on my table, into whatever is happening from one moment to the next throughout the session. The less I think, the more I can simply BE and the more freely the dance between our two energies unfolds on its own.
If you would like to experience the Magic of Massage, call 928-282-7614, or email me to set up your appointment.
Doing?
Forget it.
Being.
Aaahh!
Massage?
Call me.
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