I was so delighted to read this next quote. It really resonates with my intentions and backs-up my belief.
“A point worth remembering here is that in this educational experience it is not the bodyworker who is “fixing” the client. The bodyworker is not attacking a localised problem with specialised tool, confident of achieving certain results. Instead, he or she is carefully generating a flow of sensory information to the mind of the client, information that is not being generated by the client’s own limited repertoire of movements — new information that the mind can use to fill in the gaps and missing links in its appraisal if the body’s tissues and physiological processes. It is then the mind of he client that does the “fixing” — the appropriate adjustment of posture, the more efficient and judicious distribution of fluids and gases, the fuller and more flexible relationship between neural and muscular responses.
The bodyworker is not an interventionist; he is a facilitator, a diplomatic intermediary between a physiological processes that have lost track of one another’s proper functions and goals, between a mind that has forgotten what is needs to know in order to exert harmonious control and a body politic which increasingly utilises disruptive demonstrations, terrorist tactics, and even the threat of all-out civil was to regain its governor’s attention. Touching hands are not like pharmaceuticals or scalpels. They are like flashlights in a darkened room. The medicine they administer is self awareness. And for many of our painful conditions, this is the aid that is most urgently needed.”
Deane Juhan – Job’s Body (Introduction xxix)
Tags: bodywork, books, quotes, touch
Hmm… I hadn’t heard it put like this before — I had assumed that there was at least some intentional intervention going on with physical/massage/manipulation stuff — loosening, stretching, etc… Presumably there’s a balance between the two, ideally?
I won’t lie Duncan; I have had to think about this quite hard to try to find the right words. But you know how I like a challenge!
I think it’s important to keep in mind here that we are referring to bodyworkers, which for me is different to remedial forms of work. These are people, like myself, who treat slowly and with mind, body, spirit integrity. People who work with intuition or as they say at Esalen are ‘dedicated to exploring the far reaches of human potentiality”.
Yes, there is definitely intentional intervention as you say. In fact, when we are working, we should always be questioning ourselves: ‘what is the intention of what I am doing at this point’. And I think that’s key word in what you’ve said: intension.
I think D.J. means that, as bodyworkers, we don’t ‘get in there’ with the intention that we are going to ‘get rid of that knot’. We work with the intention of suggestion to remind the brain/body what it is capable of. We work with the client rather than on the client. The focus of a bodywork session is quite different to that of a remedial treatment or a treatment with a routine. The focus is to be led by intuition to awaken the clients self awareness which is the beginning of the unravelling of the bodies holding patterns.
Does that unravell it further?
Yes, that does help — making a distinction between a more general, holistic, bodywork session and a remedial treatment makes sense.
When you say ‘unravelling of the bodies holding patterns’ — are you talking about habits — like posture and habitual patterns of sitting, standing and movement?
Great! Glad that makes more sense now.
Yes, by ‘holding patterns’ I mean habits, but not only those related to movement or stillness of the body. In holistic massage, as work with a person as a whole, we can unravel emotional patterns too.
Bodywork can be an extremely emotional process resulting in not only the letting go of muscles, but the understanding and letting go of emotions that do not serve us in a positive light anymore. It is said that the muscles hold our past emotions…
“When the brain interprets this incident as pain, the brain sends messages through its nerve fibres to the muscles and fascia (thin membrane surrounding the muscles, organs, nerves, lymph channels and blood vessels) in order to have the body’s defence mechanism protect itself. Increase pressure and volume around the nerves, muscles, fascia and organs further weaken the muscles and consequently, the spinal nerves and body acupuncture meridians develop into a visceral somatic subluxation and consequent chronic recurrent pain and disorders. The pain intensifies and mental depression and stress usually will follow.“
Read more of this article to understand further how our body’s hold our emotions.»
Hence, by working with the body we can effect our emotions.
Hypothetical example: someone with a poor self image can unlock their responses to comments they might have received when they were a child about their looks and appearance. Through massage and bodywork this person can ‘unravel the bodies holding patterns’, release the stored emotions and develop self awareness resulting in learning to love themselves and appreciate their form.