Over the last few months in classes and conversations with other bodyworkers a common theme has come forward several times. Trying to put a name to it, it might be called "That Which Arises."
In bodywork we have deep tissue, in Chinese medicine there is sha, and in other modalities there is also a sense of bringing that which is deep up to the surface, up to conscious awareness. In Deep Tissue massage the focus of the work is not really deep pressure but attention to a particular tissue in the body called fascia. Fascia in large part is responsible for our particular shape, our unique twists and curves. That shape is a result of our daily habits, and to a large degree our thoughts and feelings, mostly the subconscious ones. One aspect of that shape is reachable by touching, but the mind and feelings may need a "deeper" tool.
In the bodyworker's tool kit is the cup. Familiar to those who visit a doctor trained in Chinese medicine, and now being more widely used by massage therapists as well, the cup creates a local vacuum on the skin which pulls skin and underlying tissues up. This does several beneficial things, among which is what one of my teachers described as "bringing up deep stagnation to the surface where the body can more easily disperse it."
This idea or observation has itself arisen in many contexts recently. As bodyworkers we touch both the body and that which is in the body: the mind, the emotions, and the history of that person. What does "I don't deserve love" or "I'm a bad person" look like in the tissues? It varies of course from person to person, but imagine how those statements feel, what would they look like after a lifetime of living and believing them? What would "I am a great person" and "I deserve all the love in the world" look like. You probably had a picture pop into your head, or perhaps a feeling, and you're probably right. These are common paradigms we all are confronted with, that we embrace or flee, both the good and the bad.
Bodyworkers have always known that memories can be triggered by massage and other modalities. We are trained to stay by our clients side, and essentially make soothing sounds and "be" with the person, not trying to help in any way other than being present. (What that really means is a bit fuzzy, but my profession has a certain comfort level with fuzzy.) But the power of being in the presence of powerful emotions, and just "being" without an agenda can have quite a powerful positive effect.
Me, being who I am, prefer to do. Sometimes nothing is the right thing to "do." But now we have EFT. Using the power of tapping, now when long buried emotions and beliefs arise that are not helpful for who we want to be, we can disperse them from our body's energy system and be done with them. Beliefs and feelings that kept us stagnant and stuck can now be freed and doing so now frees up energy, ease, mobility, breathing, or flexibility.
My massage practice newsletter has always been called "Arising in Health" and I like the name now more than ever.
namaste
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Greetings upon my return, Hebb's law and how to (actually) let it go
Well, wow. Last year was a year of big expansion, and re-evaluation of the whole social media arm of my business. Facebook changed faster than I could keep up with and for business pages it became less and less useful. I was basically talking to myself. The whole thing became un-fun.
So, at long last I've settled on this plan. I'll do all of my writing here, and try to expand that, while just posting to Facebook that I've made entries here. So, if you have found me, Welcome!
After 25 years of massage I got to a crossroads of how to continue my practice. A change was in order, but what? Over the last several years my interests and personal practices have centered on the influence of the subconscious on our health; brainwave states and healing; and how our beliefs shape not only our lives and choices but our very bodies.
Two contenders for my attention emerged: Body Talk and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). While I am an enthusiastic, fascinated and grateful client of Body Talk, in the end I chose to pursue certification in EFT.
EFT has a long pedigree which I won't get into here, but has been developed and implemented for about twenty years (I'm using aproximate numbers here) by the founder Gary Craig. You can look up and learn the technique from him at his website emofree.com or at another trusted site EFTuniverse.com. Gary Craig developed the technique continuing to build on the work of others who had been using and developing tapping techniques since at least the 1960's.
EFT works on several levels but the two main ways are cognitive exposure and tapping. Thinking of a problem and actually tapping on your body's acupuncture meridians (in specific places) to clear the meridians and the emotional responses that may be causing problems. There is of course a lot more to say about that but let's move on to Hebb's Law.
An apparently overly popular song from last year was Let It Go. Oh, but if we could! Who doesn't have something they just can't get out of their minds? Why is it so hard to just not let things bother us anymore? Enter Hebb's Law, which states that "neurons that fire together, wire together." I can't make it any better than this, so I'll quote from my training manual (author unknown): "A neuron fires when we think a thought. Each time we think that same thought, especially a traumatic one that has emotion connected with it, a new neuron binds to that initial neuron. Each time we send that thought pulse down that neural bundle, it gets thicker and thicker. So when you've had a traumatic event causing you distress over many years, you've built a large bundle over that experience."
It's not a matter of will power but grey matter that determines what you can let go. The more intense the emotion associated with the thought or memory the more "bundling" occurs. In massage we work under the maxim that "every sensation is translated into a muscular response of some kind" (author, Deane Juhan), and we watch for emotional responses to our work. But many levels of holding or storage are beyond the reach of our hands, and therefore, problems, pain and imbalances can continue to return or resist resolution at all. This is where the modern tapping techniques, and I think EFT primary among them, can help. Tapping interrupts the cycle that reinforces the "bad" bundle and actually deactivates it by stopping the usual response to the thought or emotion.
So after years of chasing down pain, I'm ready help people "root out" the hidden sources of many of their pains, physical and emotional. I'm excited about the journey ahead and hope you will be interested enough to join me as I learn and grow!
Cheers and Happy New Year
So, at long last I've settled on this plan. I'll do all of my writing here, and try to expand that, while just posting to Facebook that I've made entries here. So, if you have found me, Welcome!
After 25 years of massage I got to a crossroads of how to continue my practice. A change was in order, but what? Over the last several years my interests and personal practices have centered on the influence of the subconscious on our health; brainwave states and healing; and how our beliefs shape not only our lives and choices but our very bodies.
Two contenders for my attention emerged: Body Talk and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). While I am an enthusiastic, fascinated and grateful client of Body Talk, in the end I chose to pursue certification in EFT.
EFT has a long pedigree which I won't get into here, but has been developed and implemented for about twenty years (I'm using aproximate numbers here) by the founder Gary Craig. You can look up and learn the technique from him at his website emofree.com or at another trusted site EFTuniverse.com. Gary Craig developed the technique continuing to build on the work of others who had been using and developing tapping techniques since at least the 1960's.
EFT works on several levels but the two main ways are cognitive exposure and tapping. Thinking of a problem and actually tapping on your body's acupuncture meridians (in specific places) to clear the meridians and the emotional responses that may be causing problems. There is of course a lot more to say about that but let's move on to Hebb's Law.
An apparently overly popular song from last year was Let It Go. Oh, but if we could! Who doesn't have something they just can't get out of their minds? Why is it so hard to just not let things bother us anymore? Enter Hebb's Law, which states that "neurons that fire together, wire together." I can't make it any better than this, so I'll quote from my training manual (author unknown): "A neuron fires when we think a thought. Each time we think that same thought, especially a traumatic one that has emotion connected with it, a new neuron binds to that initial neuron. Each time we send that thought pulse down that neural bundle, it gets thicker and thicker. So when you've had a traumatic event causing you distress over many years, you've built a large bundle over that experience."
It's not a matter of will power but grey matter that determines what you can let go. The more intense the emotion associated with the thought or memory the more "bundling" occurs. In massage we work under the maxim that "every sensation is translated into a muscular response of some kind" (author, Deane Juhan), and we watch for emotional responses to our work. But many levels of holding or storage are beyond the reach of our hands, and therefore, problems, pain and imbalances can continue to return or resist resolution at all. This is where the modern tapping techniques, and I think EFT primary among them, can help. Tapping interrupts the cycle that reinforces the "bad" bundle and actually deactivates it by stopping the usual response to the thought or emotion.
So after years of chasing down pain, I'm ready help people "root out" the hidden sources of many of their pains, physical and emotional. I'm excited about the journey ahead and hope you will be interested enough to join me as I learn and grow!
Cheers and Happy New Year
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