Bodywork

Bodywork is a means of communicating with another being through the medium of Touch. The communication is happening within the neuro-muscular-fascial-fatty-lymphatic-vascularized sleeve of tissue that surrounds everything in the body down to bone, organs, & brain. 

The method of communication is through engaging this sleeve of tissue in an infinite number of ways. 

Through Bodywork we listen and feel what is “the truth” within the tissues as they present in a given moment. The body will communicate the truth of its structural stress, its compensations in its breath patterns, and its zones of natural uptake. If you listen with your hands the body will communicate so much more than a person’s answer to the question, “how does your body feel?”

The conversation happening in bodywork can go in many directions depending upon how we use touch. The dialogue I seek is to meet someone at the level where they can receive me. To be in a breath by breath interplay of feeling and releasing tension at the organic rate that is unique to each person. This gives someone control so they learn how to let go of control and feel what is beneath that, safely, without being overstimulated or put into defense mode.

It is at the “neural edge” that communication becomes fascinating. Every tissue has a neural edge to it, whether it is locked short or long or interwoven deeply between layers or especially if there is emotional reactivity laden in the tissues. If you press in too hard too fast, this communicates a threat even if your intentions to release the tissues are good. The response to a threat is to contract against it. This is a very confusing form of communication because it is nearly impossible to be in a state of release and defense simultaneously. 

When the entire neuro-muscular-fascial-fatty-lymphatic-vascularized sleeve is engaged in a way that its entirety feels good, than the deeper layers of adhesions, scars, and compensatory patterns show and release themselves with more ease. 

The most profound approach to communicating with the body is through the Caress. The Caress is the backbone of all touch techniques. It is best displayed in how Mom or Dad soothes with touch their young child, or how a dog and dog-lover communicate through play and petting. The medicine of the Caress comes through in how it communicates to the receiver that they are perfect as they are, they are worthy of being touched in a way that makes them feel good, and that they are safe, loved, and cared for. 

Without the Caress as a backbone most forms of bodywork tends toward being mechanistic. With the Caress, the body’s neuro-muscular-fascial-fatty-lymphatic-vascularized sleeve learns how to uptake pleasure and meet it’s own tension in ways that release and process out through the entire body.