Transmisson...

Nope--not talking about my car...although that is something I had checked last week! :)

One of the fascinating things about Somatic work is the concept of transmission/resonance. I think different theorists call it by different names,  but it is the experience of the Bodyworker's emotional (or energetic) state being picked up by the client by means of contact with the therapist. In other words, my own grounding and centered-ness as a Bodyworker can be transmitted to a client through my touch. Of course, in everyday life we do this when we put our hand on the shoulder of a friend who is upset. Our groundedness (peace) can be transferred to them by this contact. Bodywork amplifies this and focuses this experience. Particularly for someone who is anxious or upset.

Conversely--and many of you may have already made this connection--my other emotions can also be transferred to a client....Anxiety for example. If I am anxious before a session--my client may pick this up. Obviously, not a therapeutic session! This is why self-care for bodyworkers is so important--your client will pick up your stuff. Work on your stuff--less stuff for you and client. Very Important!

What this has meant for me as a practitioner is that I have found my own grounded-ness emotionally (energetically) functions like a lightning rod. My clients come in--and their emotional static (energy in the form of anxiety, stress, depression, etc) gets grounded and released by connecting with me through the bodywork. Fascinating Stuff. Hard to explain--but very real.

Change--How does it happen?

Well...have had a few days that were less "scheduled" due to inclement weather (about 8 to 10 inches of snowfall) so I have had time to catch up on some reading I have been wanting to do. I am taking a reading course on Somatic Psychology...and ran across this quote from an article by Ian Grand:

"In working somatically, one of the things one is trying to do is to allow the tissue state of a person to reorganize itself, learn different responses, and grow and form itself in a different way....It is generally recognized that to build a state of muscle with which one can lift several hundred pounds, or the cardiovascular and muscular ability to run 20 miles, requires a training that actually changes the tissue state. Alterations in muscle fiber, metabolism, capacity for oxygenation, liquid flow and hormonalization are required to permit these kinds of performances. The same thing is true emotionally. It is quite easy for someone to want to be more tender or more assertive or able to tolerate anger without violence or collapse; but to actually enact these changes requires an organismic learning so that the tissue itself can tolerate the different streams of sensation and feeling and project them into the world."

 WOW.  This explains a bit more about "How does it (bodywork) work?" which I have explored a bit before  (Part One here). Change does not just magically happen. Awareness that change is needed is usually the first step--even if one does not know what it is exactly--one just knows something needs to be different. What is the AA definition of insanity? "Doing the same thing the same way and hoping for different results." yeah. Doesn't happen. So change requires us to recognize, hopefully with either some degree of humility and hope--that something different needs to occur.

One of the gifts of Bodywork as a therapy is to introduce more options somatically (through touch, movement, breathing, etc) which then translates emotionally into a person's experience! Is that cool or what? This is good news--for it means there are several ways to introduce change into our lives. A change in one part of the system will impact the others. You can work directly to solve a problem--or go through a back door--but it will work. So, the Dove Chocolate quote of, "Change your mind--Change your Body" could just as easily be written "Change your Body--Change your Mind." (Yes--I love Dove Chocolates :)

Therapists of all stripes introduce new ways of doing things. Problem is with most of us, is we either are afraid to do new things (due to a negative experience) or don't think we can do new things (we reason--we would already be doing them if we could). Ah--but not so...we only THINK or FEEL we cannot do them....and that is where counseling, bodywork, personal training, tutoring, etc. comes in. Someone who is a few steps ahead of us on their journey helps us take the next few steps.

Bodyworkers are therapists--they introduce new ways of doing things.

For example, when a person is emotionally depressed, they often feel they have no more options (things will always be the same and they will never get better.) This feeling of hopelessness causes a person to "shut down" to conserve energy in what feels to be a "closed system." Somatically, a person who is depressed is also often "shut down" or kind of "curled in" on themselves--to save energy and to shield and protect oneself from others who are perceived to be dangerous. Only problem is that this kind of "shut down" prevents a person from at least 2 things:
1.seeing the other options that may be available
2. being open to receive good/nurture from those who are safe

So, a Bodyworker will help them to:
1. discover and work through what the original fear was that caused the "shut down" 
2. become more open to life and receive now that danger has passed
3. experience new options that are available.

So...are you ready to try something new in order to experience change? As the chocolate says:
"Change your Body...Change your Mind."

Faith...Can ya feel it?

Hmmm. A feeling faith. What do you think?

I cannot count the number of times I have heard people say, "You know, faith is not what you feel, it is what you believe." The suggestion in this statement is that what we feel is not to be trusted, while what we think/believe is to be trusted. As a psychologist, I can tell you people think a lot of things that are just plain not true. So, thinking our brains are somehow less impacted by the fall is poor theology. But in the West, we have elevated the mind to a point where we do tend to trust our minds more than our feelings. And I am not sure about the wisdom of that.

John Wesley may have had a similar conviction. Wesley believed that we should feel our faith. Faith is not just a mental assent or a cognition--faith should be experienced...i.e., FELT. A historian, Amanda Porterfield writes about Wesley's conviction:

“Wesley’s investment in religious experience complemented this interest in health and healing. His   understanding of religious conversion affirmed the presence of bodily sensation in that spiritual transformation…Wesley expected grace to stimulate feeling…In spite of his dectractors, Wesley’s openness to bodily sensation as a natural part of Christian life proved enormously popular both in Britain and in North America. His promotion of religious experience and encouragement of sensory and emotional feeling as part of that experience contributed to revivals on both sides of the Atlantic. By the 19^th century, these revivals made the Methodist church the fastest growing denomination in North America.”  p.164-65  Healing in the History of Christianity (2005).

Why was his view so embraced by the people? BECAUSE PEOPLE FEEL! :) In our everyday lives, we experience feelings and sensations. Why should we expect our faith to be any different? Every other relationship in this world causes us to feel things...we have feelings about our pets, homes, spouses, loved ones, children, etc...and Evangelical Christianity, by definition cultivates a personal relationship with God. Should we not realize that our feelings are just as much a part of our faith as our beliefs? I believe and feel (with great conviction) the answer is a resounding YES.

What this all has to do with Bodywork is that one of the goals of bodywork is to help people get in touch with how they feel. In general, people's awareness of their feelings increases as they receive bodywork. Some come in with locked muscles so tight--they don't feel anything in an area and usually they also can't move it. Get some focused bodywork and I will make a bet that not only can they start to feel--but the first thing they feel is pain. But the good thing is they usually can also start to move. And better yet--after it loosens up--they don't feel the pain, they begin to feel the good!

Back to faith. I think this is why people are seeking "spiritual experiences." Whether it be in a church, weekend retreat, chanting, yoga, etc....people want to feel their faith--we intuitively know that faith should be an Experience..an Encounter. We should feel something. Just believing is not enough. We want to know with our hearts not just our heads. And part of bodywork--and faith--is awakening to the feeling of the movement of the Spirit.

So...Faith...Can ya feel it?

Untouchable...

 Have you ever felt "untouchable?" There is a HUGE difference between not wanting to be touched (e.g., when you have a migraine headache, have experienced trauma, or are angry at someone) versus feeling no one wants to touch you. The latter emotional experience that some people have of feeling “untouchable” is of particular interest to me—both as a psychologist and now also as a massage therapist/bodyworker.

You may be familiar with the Indian social caste system, which assigned the “lowest status” to that of the Dalits, also called the “Untouchables.” The resource, Wikipedia, states the following about the “Untouchables:”

  

“ [they have been] historically associated with occupations regarded as ritually impure, such as any involving leatherwork, butchering, or removal of rubbish, animal carcasses, and waste. Dalits worked as manual labourers cleaning streets, latrines, and sewers. Engaging in these activities was considered to be polluting to the individual, and this pollution was considered contagious. As a result, Dalits werecommonly segregated, and banned from full participation in Hindu social life. For example, they could not enter a temple nor a school, and were required to stay outside the village.”

Powerful words….impure… polluting…considered contagious… segregated… banned…outside the village…Hmmm. People can feel psychologically like this. They may feel shame about their actual Self….feel impure, polluted, ...that there is something wrong with them—something toxic about themselves. And as a result, they may shy away from personal contact—actual physical contact, and even social contact in general, for fear that they are in some way “contagious” to others.

As you can imagine, bodywork by a gentle, sensitive practitioner is a powerful intervention to “dilute” and reverse this sense of toxicity that people may carry with them. In bodywork, you have the opportunity to change someone’s thoughts (in this case particularly negative ones) by working on their person. Touch the surface…you touch the depths. And physiologically, one reason this occurs, is because the brain and the skin are part of the same sensory/perception system.

When someone who experiences themselves as "untouchable" experiences loving, nurturing, caring touch--it has the potential to reverse the negative messages about the self—and one can begin to experience themselves instead as Touchable, Lovable, Pure, Clean, and Whole. Touch the surface...touch the depths.

How Does it Work???

Bodywork....how does it work? How does it cause or facilitate change? Truth is, a lot of it is Mystery--beyond our cognition--that is part of its gift. In the West, we practically worship our brains. Now don't get me wrong--I'm all for the brain. I would not have gone to school as much as I have if I didn't believe we can learn by use of our brain. But in our society (and even the Church at times...) we treat our minds as if it is the only portal to learning. WRONG!!!!

Deanne Juhan writes:

    "When the conceptions of reality that we maintain do not square with the things we are experiencing insert.... thinking, feeling, sensing, etc] it is not because we are flawed or because our experiences are wrong, but because our conceptions cannot contain all the facts as we perceive them. And there is no constructive way out of this crisis but to enlarge our sense of reality to include our actual experiences." (from Job's Body: A Handbook for Bodywork).

So what I experience shapes reality? Of course it does! This is known as subjective experience. The "hard" sciences have traditionally "poo-pooed" subjective experience--as being biased (read: flawed). But that does not discount it at all! One's experience, in fact--is the "meat and potatoes" of psychological work, spiritual growth and personal awareness. Hence the of quoted question of counselors, "How do you feel?"

Not only do we often limit our awareness and learning to only what our brains take in, it is more insidious than that. There is a tendency in human nature to only take in what already agrees with what we know or believe--and do discredit, discount, deny any input that does not already square with what I already 'know." In some way, it is so we can feel more secure or in control of our lives and "destiny." We are so stubborn sometimes!

What does this have to do with Bodywork? Oh boy---hang on!

Deane Juhan shares:

      "No matter how much I move myself around, my strongest tendency is to move in the same ways I  have always moved, guided by the same deeply seated postural habits, sensory cues, and mental images of my  body; but if I can succeed in surrendering to the movements that another person [bodyworker] imposes on my body, without my own system of cues and responses interfering, it is possible to treat my mind to a flood of sensations that are novel in important ways...this moment of surrender and new sensation can demonstrate to me that I am not permanently obliged to continue acting out a habitual compulsion. I can see that the habit is a habit...And if I can drop a compulsive behavior or attitude for a moment without causing a crisis, then perhaps I can dispense with it altogether."  (Juhan, p. xxvi).

So one powerful opportunity that bodywork affords is the opportunity to experience myself in ways that are different than my own self-generated limitations--and physical often translates into emotional and spiritual realms. Bodywork, like psychotherapy, offers the support and experience of an Other--that has the potential to expand my own being into more abundant life.

Bring on the growth! Bring on the Bodywork!  :)

The Body as Gift

One of the main goals of therapeutic bodywork  is to facilitate the experience of "the body as gift." This is in contrast to our culture's view of "the body as object." An object (like a rock) does not have feelings. But Bodies have feelings. Bodies FEEL. We feel. If we don't feel, it may be that we are actually "cut off" from our body's ability to perceive and process. The body learns, the body remembers. As one of my friends is very fond of saying, "The body does not lie."

It is not healthy to view our Self as separate from our Body. This is the wonder of being human. We are embodied spiritual beings, which differentiates us from angels (spirits). In the movie, City of Angels (1998) there is an interesting conversation about how angels are puzzled and intrigued by the human experience of being embodied. Because we have bodies, we can feel what it is like to run a marathon, hug a friend, feel the sun on your face, let a snowflake melt on your tongue, taste strawberry pie, smell a rose, enjoy sexual intimacy. You have to have a body to experience these things.

So, therapeutic bodywork helps people experience their body as Gift, i.e., as Good. This translates into themselves being a gift, and good. This may be quite a revolution/revelation. Some people may have experienced terrible things in their body (trauma)--or have experienced nothing at all (neglect/deprivation). Both experiences tend to cause the body to be forgotten, or in some instances, even punished as if it had done something wrong.And then people begin to believe that they themselves are wrong/bad.

Sensitive and caring bodywork can facilitate a "coming home" to one's body--where we can truly embrace our body as our friend, our Home. The Christian faith is one of the few faith systems where the body is not left behind--but is itself restored and redeemed. Our body is the dwelling our own spirit....and of God's Spirit. When the Bible talks about our body being the temple of the Holy Spirit....this is what it means. God can and does LIVE IN US. That should blow our socks off! Our body, our Gift, our Home.

Why the Incarnation?

There are of course many important reasons that Christ came in the flesh, theologically known as The Incarnation. But from a bodywork perspective, the Incarnation holds unique importance. It is a common maxim in bodywork that "People hold their issues in their tissues." What this means in its basic sense is that we are not just creatures of our minds, but are truly embodied. Most people identify with the fact that they hold "stress" in various places in their bodies. But the fact is, we hold all of our emotions in our bodies. Sometimes we may hold anxiety in our gut, anger in our throat,grief in our heart, or confusion in our heads. The list could go on. But one of the aims of bodywork is to help people release the issues in their tissues--to release the emotions and pain that have been stored there and have been preventing them from living an abundant life.

By coming in the flesh, the Incarnation, Christ Jesus redeemed our bodies. He desires to free us from the brokenness in our bodies...and is why in the great Eucharistic Prayer, He says, "This is my Body, Broken for You."

Self Care 101

You may ask yourself, what does a cat have to do with bodywork? A lot actually. Sasha, my cat, is my self-care icon. From the fact that she sleeps more than 14 hours a day (rough life!) and stretches EVERY TIME she moves from a prone position, she has the self-care thing down pretty good. She faithfully takes a bath every day, eats her kitty crunchies, and does not overdo it on sweets (yeah, I could learn a lot from her). She drinks only water (no wonder her skin is so young looking under all that fur!). Anyway--Sasha reminds me daily to take life at an appropriate pace. She is also very affectionate, at 4:30am visiting hour--which is not so fun. Her only flaw given that I am a non-morning person. Anyway, as a counselor, I am convinced that self-care is a priority--and as a bodyworker--I am doubly convinced. If I take care of myself well--I am able to be fully present for my clients. And that is my reasonable act of service. Thank you Sasha! See the video below to see Simon's Cat, a "cousin" of Sasha.....

Half-Way Done!

Well--not really half-way done. How do I know? I am however, half-way done with my LMT training program at the New School of Massage, Bodywork & Healing, in downtown Chicago. It has been mentally challenging--but also incredibly stimulating to my thoughts about integration of theology, psychology and somatic awareness. I am starting this blog as a way to begin recording my musings as I begin to work with people in the Bodywork field--and how I change as a result. So far in clinic--people are either relaxed after I have worked on them--or unabashedly fall asleep--with snoring included. Let me tell you--I count a good snorer as a very high compliment in bodywork--not so much in psychotherapy! Ha! What a great journey this is!