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.

When you say ‘unravelling of the bodies holding patterns’ — are you talking about habits — like posture and habitual patterns of sitting, standing and movement?

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?