“Your body is the river of life that sustains you, yet it does so humbly, without asking for recognition. If you sit and listen to it, you will find that a powerful intelligence dwells in and with you. It isn’t an intelligence of words, but compared to the millions of years of wisdom woven into one cell, the knowledge of words doesn’t seem so grand … You have to want to rejoin the flow of the body before you can learn from it, and that means you must be willing to open yourself to knowledge that was overlooked in your old way of seeing.”
- Deepak Chopra, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind

Have you ever come away from a massage wishing that there had been a greater impact? Or maybe even wishing that you could’ve taken matters into your own hands? If so, there’s good news!

There are three main ways that you, the client, can participate in creating for yourself a massage that maximizes your experience and meets your needs.

Intention

First, clarify your intention. What exactly do you want to achieve through a session of bodywork? What’s your purpose? Do you want a nice relaxing massage and some TLC? Or do you envision an elbow deeply smoothing out the tissue along either side of the spine? Is there a specific problem that needs to be addressed? Or, are you interested in bodywork as a way to balance your energies or support your spiritual path? From Reiki to Rolfing, there’s a massage technique for everyone, and a clearly stated intention will produce clearer and cleaner results.

Once you’ve clarified your goal, the next step is to contact therapists and ask questions until you’re satisfied that you’ve found someone who can meet your needs. Be sure to ask, “How long have you been in practice?”, “What is your specialty?”, and “What kind of success have you had in treating someone with my physical concerns?” Asking a few questions such as, “What inspired you to become a massage therapist?” and “How have you personally been impacted by massage?” will give you a deeper sense of who the person is and help you choose a therapist that’s right for you.

Awareness

Awareness is defined as ‘having or showing realization, perception or knowledge’. It is the first step in manifesting change in our bodies and in our lives, and it is, in fact, the very thing that makes change possible. When we stop long enough to pay attention to what actually is the case in any moment, insight and understanding become possible. And as understanding increases, so does our range of options.

In the context of bodywork, awareness means being present in the body, consciously observing what is arising and how we respond, moment to moment. It means allowing the experience of the current moment to be exactly what it is without judgment, and inviting the body to experience its aliveness to a greater and greater degree.

Author Henry Miller put it like this: “The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”

When is the last time you experienced yourself as mysterious, awesome, and indescribably magnificent?

Conscious attention is free and always already available. Making it a part of the massage session will deepen your experience without waiting for a therapist to do it for you. It will increase your understanding of how you participate in unconscious patterns of armoring, and how you can make a different choice.

Breath

The breath is such a powerful transformation tool that entire therapies have been developed, beginning with Rebirthing in the 1970’s, that deal solely with restoring and enhancing the breath mechanism.

Our first act as human beings is to breathe, and we average over 20,000 breaths a day. The autonomic nervous system provides the impulse to breathe, but breath function is easily influenced by tension, stress and emotion, and can be consciously overridden. By the time we reach adulthood, most of us have lapsed into a chronic pattern of shallow chest breathing. What we don’t know is that breathing incorrectly for three minutes is enough to decrease the amount of oxygen to the brain and heart by 30 percent.

Deepak Chopra calls breath “the subtlest connector of all parts of the mind-body system.” Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says: “Our breathing is the link between our body and our mind. Sometimes our mind is thinking one thing and our body is doing another, and mind and body are not unified. By concentrating on our breathing, we bring body and mind back together and become whole again. Conscious breathing is an important bridge.”

Incorporating conscious breath with massage has the capacity to transform our ideas about what is possible. As the body-mind connector, it facilitates integration between these two seemingly separate parts of ourselves, and reveals a world of new potential. As a matter of fact, the results can be downright ‘mysterious, awesome, and indescribably magnificent’.

Unity

Once you gain some practice in applying intention, awareness and breath individually during your massage, you may begin to notice the underlying relatedness of these three elements, and that when used together, their power to produce change is multiplied.

Awareness is primary and essential to the process of transformation.

Intention can be used in a broad sense to create a specific goal for the massage, and it can also be used at various times during the session in conjunction with awareness and breath to facilitate greater relaxation and release. For example, if you become aware that the therapist is working on an area that is painful, you can use your intention to expand into that area when you inhale, and to let go completely when you exhale. Even if you don’t feel your body responding, stay present and continue to send your breath into the painful area so that you can observe what happens in your tissue when movement is encouraged and allowed.

The breath is largely responsible for the charge and discharge of energy, and each individual breath is like an internal mini massage. On the inhale, let the air fill up the belly first and then the chest. Expand in all directions so that you’re just a little bit bigger than you thought you were. See if you can expand to be bigger than the pain. On the exhale, just let go. Consciously release any holding, both mental and physical, on every exhale all the way to the bottom. Breaths should be full and free but not necessarily fast. Again, observe what happens in your tissue when you take one conscious intentional breath.

The good news is that you can take matters into your own hands. Adopting a proactive approach to massage makes you an active participant rather than a passive receiver. It creates the space for you to receive exactly what you want. It takes massage from the realm of the mundane to the realm of the magical. And it has the capacity to impact all of your life.

Kathy Curry is a massage therapist working in St. Petersburg, Florida, with over 25 years of experience in an impressive array of modalities ranging from energetic work to deep tissue.

Contact Kathy: (727) 410-1429