I often have clients come to me telling me to ‘go for it’ ‘get in there’ or that they need some really hard pressure and deep massage to work out the tension and pain in their body.
My response is no. I will not do this. (I usually communicate this in a gentler way ha and explain how I work and why)..
Tension in the body is built up over time, out of protection and holding patterns; neuro-physiological pathways that have developed over months and in most people's cases, years (and years). Pathways that run through the nervous system and myofascial matrix into the tissues tendons and muscles, that affect our alignment and posture. That affect how we hold and express ourselves, move and engage with everything around us. The tension may express itself very loudly all of a sudden when it is triggered through an activity or event, but in most cases, the pattern will have been there long before that.
If you are in a stressed, heightened state most of the time and your nervous system is wired, this needs to be released and unwound (which in itself usually relieves a lot of pain) before the tissues can soften. The myofascial matrix (connective tissue) that weaves itself around and through and all over your muscles, tendons and body, needs to be engaged with and released too. This is gentle work.
These patterns of protection and holding begin at an energetic level, and move down through the mental, emotional to the physical. When I describe my work as Holistic - this is what I mean - all of these layers need to be honoured and engaged with.
When these patterns of tension have been held and expressed in the body through certain pathways for so long, even if they are out of alignment, the brain eventually dis-engages, stops taking notice, and just accepts them as the status-quo so it can get on with everything else it needs to. My work is to invite your body to reconnect and remember - ‘oh, I don’t have to hold here like this’, ‘I can let go here’. I go slowly so that the brain can re-engage with these places it has disconnected from, and reform it’s neuro-physiological pathways of harmony, connection and cohesion with the whole.
Your body is an entire system, not just parts, and is an expression of you and your life and all you have experienced - my work is to honour, meet and work with all of this. With all of you.
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