Massage
Massage is perhaps one of the oldest healing tradition and therapies in the world. Many ancient civilisations, including The Ancient Greek, Egyptian, Chinese and Indian, were convinced of the therapeutic properties of massage and used it to treat a variety of ailments and concerns.
The term 'massage therapy' is used to describe a wide variety of techniques that vary in touch, pressure and intensity.
There are many benefits to having a professional massage, regularly. Here are some of the physical benefits of massage:
Reduced muscle tension and pain
Can create a feeling of deep relaxation and calm
Reduction of stress
Improved circulation
Improves wellbeing
Relaxation in the body and the mind
Stimulation of the lymphatic system
Improved recovery of soft tissue injuries
Increased joint mobility and flexibility
Better skin tone
Reduces anxiety and depression
Heightened mental alterness
Improves the Immune system
Balances hormones
Improves sleep
Improves posture
And so much more...
As you can see massage can give you many positive physical benefits and as a professional and qualified expert in massage therapy, I am used to the wide range of reactions and emotions I get from clients post-treatment.
Most are relaxed to the point of being dazed and very happy! I’ve had clients say they’ve never felt better, that they’re “walking on air”, many have said they feel “high”. However, one reaction I get from clients on a regular basis is enough to surprise you, is emotional tears. That’s right, here at Pure Bliss Holistic Therapies in Henley-On-Thames and I make people cry.
What are you doing to them?! Actually… nothing bad, at all.
For as long as records date back, massage has been used as a medicine to cure illnesses, a spiritual way to heal & connect to one’s body, an indulgent luxury to society’s wealthy and of course, relaxation. In today’s world many use massage as a way to escape their busy lifestyles, relax and take a moment just for themselves.
But what is it about massage that brings out the emotions in us?
Why do we feel emotional after a massage?
Having an emotional release is a pretty normal response to massage. If you have ever become emotional on the massage bed or when you are at home several hours after your massage, you should know that you are not alone. You may find yourself feeling sensitive, weepy or emotionally drained, or even angry.
It's no uncommon to have an emotional release after a bodywork treatment.
It appears when we cleanse our bodies of unreleased stress and allow ourselves to fully enjoy the relaxation that comes from massage, it can unlock something, in some way.
It All Come Down To Touch
Touch is an important part of living and when it comes to most emotions and situations, touch in some way will be related. We seem to store the emotion related to the touch not only in our minds, but in our muscles.
Overall the scientific explanations of why massage releases emotions and therefore tears isn’t particularly sound. In general, many studies and articles note that emotions are indeed released during massage, but often conveniently skip over exactly how this occurs. What we do seem to know, is this…
It all comes down to tissue memory. It’s largely undisputed that this exists due to research which shows how muscles hold memory. Muscle memory is linked to motor learning which secures a particular motion in memory through repetition, sending a message to the brain along neural pathways. Examples include; typing on a keyboard, using a knife and fork, playing an instrument and martial arts.
It has been suggested that in the same way muscles store this kind of movement through encoding along neural pathways, muscles can store emotion.
As emotions are designed to move through your body, issues arise when this is prevented. For example, if you feel happy, you smile, if somebody tells a joke, you laugh. There is a reaction to the emotion felt and your body responds.
“Imbalances often occur when we resist an emotion and its natural path through the body. Resistance can cause an emotion to lock into body tissue, eventually leading to physical ailments.”
However when a negative emotion is felt, pain and/or discomfort is recognised by your body and quickly repressed by your brain, meaning it never moves through your body giving an outcome. This goes some way to explaining why people use terms such as “don’t bottle things up” as when you feel a negative emotion, the tension felt was about to make its way through your body.
Fighting this encourages your brain to send signals to the rest of your body, meaning the emotion stops and becomes stationary in one place i.e. the tissue memory in one specific place or muscle.
The energy of pain or trauma is stored in our bodies tissues (primarily our muscles, connected tissue and fascia) until it can be released. It can also be stored in and around our organs, which can eventually cause degeneration and diseases if not released or dealt with.
When considering the vastness of our body's intelligence, it is no wonder that our muscles and fascia are capable of holding and storing memories.
Ways To Unlock Stored Trauma and Memories Within The Body:
Certain bodywork styles can effectively reduce stress and tension within the body and the mind, which helps to make room and space for the body to release and let go of the stored trauma within their muscles. By initiating relaxation, unlocking the frozen components of the nervous system and relaxing the entire body. Such shifts mark the reconnection of the brain with the tissue using the trauma and the memory, allowing transformation and healing to happen naturally.
This high-tech, modern world that we live in has conditioned us to overload our senses, overwork our minds, overextended our bodies, and push ourselves past our limits. Physiologically, all this overload taxes and drains our energies, zaps our ability to fully de-stress on a regular basis.
Being unable to de-stress can potentially numb us to some of our emotions.
As a therapist who works hands-on with clients daily, I regularly see cases in which traditional medicine has been ineffective in providing relief from common impairments. Trapped emotions often are the underlying cause to clients problems.
My goal as a therapist is to assist the body in its own natural self-corrective capabilities so that it can regain its full health and functioning naturally.
My Intuitive Meridian Massage includes ancient oriental healing style practices and therapies to help the body, mind and spirit to encompass peace and harmony from the stresses and strain of everyday life. It can also help to release these emotions that are blocked within the tissue memory in one specific place, or muscle in the body. Good health depends on the free flow of life-force energy, chi, and emotional energy also throughout the entire body. The accumulation of tensions in the muscles and tendons as well as the stagnation of negative energy and emotions can lead to blockages in the body's energy channels, resulting in pain, stiffness, tension, low energy or illness.
It is a blend of rhythmic manipulation and pressure of soft tissue along the meridians of the body.
These could include: Acupressure, Ayurvedic Massage, Thai Massage, Tui Na Massage, Reflexology Foot massage and Indian Head Massage to name but a few.
Helping to create the ultimate massage for all of your body, mind and spiritual needs from the physical aches and pains to the emotional and mental aspects as well as the spiritual.
Every Intuitive Meridian Massage works with your own energy channels, which in the east are called "Chi"
Tui Na is an ancient form of meridian massage developed over 2,000 years ago in China.
Tui Na Meridian Massage is comprised of several massage techniques performed along the Meridians of the body to build and balance Chi flow, or the bio-electrical currents of the body. The Chinese have taught us that tension or pain in the body is the physical manifestation of blocked or stagnant Chi. Chinese Meridian Massage techniques increase the flow of Chi through the channels, clearing blocked energy, what we may refer to as tension, pain or soreness.
Tui Na goes beyond the muscles, bones and joints to work with the body on a deeper, energetic level.
The powerful results often include:
Improved body functioning
Loss of pain
Greater mobility
More enjoyment in life
The most important tip I give clients who feel emotions, or feelings that come up either during or after a massage, is to not fight it, to listen to it, and allow it to express itself fully as it needs to, whatever that may be. Doing this will improve your health and wellbeing immensely.
What Is Intuitive Tui Na - Meridian Massage Good for?:
Helping to treat neck pain and stiffness, shoulder pain, back pain, sciatica and tennis elbow. It can also help with headaches, constipation, premenstrual symptoms and some emotional problems also.
It can and should be used as a preventative form of treatment to maintain health and the accumulation of stress and injury.
It helps speed up the bodies ability to heal itself.
Benefits Of A Intuitive Tui Na - Meridian Massage:
Stimulates the related points, channels and muscles of the body
Improves blood circulation and metabolism
Reduces neck pain and lower back pain
Helps depression
Helps insomnia
Helps ease headaches and migraines
Helps IBS - irritable bowel syndrome
Helps PMS - Pre-menstrual tension
Helps with emotional problems
Regulates the flow of the Qi
Removes stagnation and toxins
Balances internal organs
Recovers the functions of the tendons, bones and joints
Eliminates tiredness and fatigue
Helps to strengthen the body
Helps to ease pain
Alleviates stress and anxiety
To read more of what to expect from a treatment session please click here...
This treatment not only works on your meridians of the body but also the Fascia, which is the web of connective tissue found in all areas of the body from not only muscles but bones, arteries, nerves and organs. It sits beneath the skin’s surface and is actually pretty important as it stabilises, encloses, attaches and separates different parts of the body. So, if this becomes worn and torn through holding the tension originally designed to move through your body, it is no wonder you are feeling uptight or stressed.
As massage puts pressure on specific muscles and areas and acts as a natural pump for the toxins held in muscles, if the tension felt from a particular emotion is stationary within the tissues, as with waste which has not been correctly dispersed around your body, it will also push these through.
Meaning that the anger you felt about your partner cheating on you, the stress you felt from losing a large contract at work or the sadness you felt about a sick relative two weeks or even two years earlier, eventually finds its way out of the tissue and along the path it was designed to go.
The body is a map of every experience we ever had. As we bridge the mind body and spirit together we can better understand the connection between trapped emotions and physical ailments that are causing us suffering.
We can often go through years if not decades without realising that we have trapped emotions and feelings that we wind up holding onto which causes blocked energy and manifests into physical pain, knots and tension over time.
Any chronic stress, anxiety, fear, frustrations, guilt, sadness, disappointment, anger or grief which can contribute to many health conditions and illnesses such as fibromyalgia, digestive disorders, mental illnesses and even cancer's.
Other treatments that can also help with bringing balance back to the body is:
But What About The Other Aspects Of Massage Which Can Cause People To Feel Emotional?
In my experience, many of my clients come to me not only for an amazing treatment which benefits them physically, but they genuinely value the care they receive from their therapist.
When you come for a treatment, it’s entirely 100% you time. For that 1 hour (or more!) you are the most important person in your world and to me also. It’s a set amount of time where you’re in a safe space, perfectly designed for your comfort, with one person solely dedicated to making you feel better.
Massage allows you to let go of stress and be at one with your body, feeling cared for in a non-judgemental relaxing environment. So, it’s no wonder that emotions you may have been choosing to ignore would come to the surface. The experience of such emotions does not mean you are going crazy, but simply is a form of body memory arising as emotion.
It’s not dissimilar to when you’re feeling down and just about holding it together. Often when we feel like this, we can go about our day and block the negative emotions out. However, as soon as somebody hugs you, what happens? We cry.
In some ways, massage therapy is the hug you’ve been avoiding.
What we can safely say, is that I love my clients and hey, I don’t mind if you cry or get emotional. With over 24 years of being a professional massage therapist and massaging thousands of different clients and bodies over the years, I'm pretty used to it and it turns out, it’s totally normal and healthy.
If you would like to experience the healing benefits of a professional massage, whether it be my Intuitive Tui Na - Meridian Massage or whichever massage that you choose, please contact me here to book a relaxing hour, or more session with me or to discuss your reasons for wanting to release any stress and tension within. I would be happy to help...
Happy Relaxing Everyone!
Best Wishes as always
Kelly
x
From Pure Bliss Holistic Therapies in Henley-on-Thames
P.S. Have YOU ever had an emotional response to massage or bodywork?
What happened?
How did you deal with those feelings?
I'd love to hear your story in the comments below!
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