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MASSAGE AS A SPIRITUAL PATH
By Dawn J. Lipthrott, LCSW

While massage can be a great way just to relax tired, tense, or sore muscles, it can also be a path to personal growth. Personal growth, for me, includes emotional, spiritual, physical, intellectual aspects of our being. And it involves nurturing and deepening our relationship with ourselves, with the core of our being.

Massage can refocus and redistribute energy, relax the body so that all aspects of our being flow more easily, inform us about ourselves, and be an opportunity in and of itself for profound spiritual experience.

Return to Balance of Our Energy

We are basically energy. Our thoughts, feelings, sensations, attention, physical being are expressions of that energy. According to both licensed professionals I consulted, Elizabeth Cohen, LMT of Winter Park, Florida and Maggie Kerrigan LMT, much of our attention is focused outward, and the pace of our lives and the output required of us is out of sync with our natural balance. Depletion or constriction of that energy affects us on every level. Massage, especially when combined with energy work, helps realign that energy.

I have found that it is easy for me to be so involved in projects, thinking, or activities, that I come to massage feeling somewhat 'scattered'. Massage seems to gather that scattered energy and align it in a way that feels like a column of pulsating energy straight down the center of my being. I feel centered, focused, and clear.

Emotional Constriction Held in Body

Both Elizabeth and Maggie also spoke of the way emotional constriction becomes held in the body. Maggie pointed out that every time we feel emotion, some muscle tightens, and that often a holding pattern develops in the body which can be cleared or shifted through massage. Unexamined beliefs, memories, threats, are all stored physically and can be unlocked through a process of working through massage. Dis-ease within the body's energy effects all aspects of our being. One can gradually learn to notice and 'read' ones body to discover what in us needs loving attention. That, in itself, can become a powerful tool for healing and growth.

Nurturing Touch

Elizabeth said that beginning in the womb, touch is perhaps the primary way we are nurtured, comforted, and made to feel safe. Sadly, some people are also wounded through inappropriate touch. The loving safe touch of the massage therapist can nurture us and help us experience safety.

Reconnection with Experience

More and more theorists from a variety of disciplines are recognizing that our inherent state is one of 'relaxed being'. As we re-create that place of relaxed being, we reconnect with our essence, our core being, that exists within Pure Being.

In my experiences over the years, I have found that massage draws me fully into my body and my experience of it. I, like many, live much of my life in my head, and tend to 'translate' experience -- noticing if something is 'soft, hard, good, pleasing, ugly, round, green'. I live in world of words that describe, rather than fully experience my world. Massage helps me turn off my 'translation center' and brings me into full and direct experience, and therefore, more fully into myself. In that full experience of relaxed being, I often experience a sense of expansion of being. I believe that our essence is an expression of Divine Essence, and the sense of 'separation' we experience from God, others, ourselves, nature, is an illusion that we maintain and sometimes get lost in. Massage helps me touch my truest self that knows its experience of deepest connection.

Suggestions from Elizabeth Cohen, LMT for getting the most out of your massage:

Interview and try licensed massage therapists. Find one you feel completely safe with, and who seems centered in his/her own being /body.

Come with a willingness to actively receive. Talk to your therapist about ways to stop thinking about your 'to do' list throughout the massage!

Bring your awareness to the part of your body being touched and the feeling of relaxation. If the touch is not comfortable, tell your therapist.

Increase your willingness to fully take in what feels good.

Be clear with yourself and your therapist as to what you want out of a session.

Allow yourself plenty of time, including time afterward to do whatever you need to do to fully integrate the massage.

(Elizabeth Cohen is a Licensed Massage Therapist in Winter Park (Orlando), Florida)

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