Emotional Release in Bodywork

Since most bodyworkers are not licensed psychotherapists or medical doctors, when strong emotions arise in a bodywork session, the most important thing that we can do for our clients is to be present. Can we listen to the needs of our clients with all our sensitivities or do we need to shut down and attend to our own needs stimulated by our client’s behaviors? In new, unusual situations when a client’s emotions are unleashed, where the ground seems to slipping from beneath our feet, how do we stay present and centered where we can continue to develop the trust that is already being conferred upon us as helping professionals?

By entering into a deeper understanding of ourselves, we can forestall our unconscious complexes upstaging our conscious commitment to human service. Doing our own work with our emotional processes so that we are clear and grounded is the answer. What experiential understanding is required to remain calm and available when emotions storm? Self-understanding and fearlessness comes to us when we open ourselves to our deepest fears and master them. How can we engage in such a confrontation and emerge the victor?

Reflex-response to free patterns

Reflex-response to free and balance neuromuscular movement patterns:

In a session, when a particular muscle area seems to impede or freeze movement, using reflex-response stimulation on the opposing muscle-set awakens a nerve response that de-couples the nervous pattern in the impeded or frozen muscle area.

Both reflex signals cannot be maintained simultaneously -- because the patterned primary response is a paired-muscle action -- one muscle set is stimulated and chronically contracted and the other, is relaxed and allowed to lengthen in rest. Now the reflex-response toning of the muscle set opposite the chronically contracted muscles induces a relaxation of the chronic tension –- sometimes briefly, but perhaps long enough to give a sense of change and possibility that can be re-enforced and made available as a new pattern of freedom and balance in movement in what was chronically dysfunctional muscle tension.

Rebirthing - the Feeling of the Experience

Rebirthing - the Feeling of the Experience - from a June 20, 1981 journal entry

Rebirthing -- a lilttle death - a little birth. The fear of losing something, the fear of the unknown. The breathing intensifies in fear. Old pains and old fears re-surface — escape but where, the only avenue of escape is breathing — but this is not avoidance — it is breathing through the experience, the experience of no-exit, fear, pain, avoidance, escape — into a new space — a feeling space of oneness of energy and being — a new peace, a deep peace that is not separate from flows of energy and life. The breath changes from the intensity of fear and panic to barely moving — yet finely connectd to all — inner and outer experience. Breathing is feft as a refining, purifying process. The old breath and limiting habit patterns are transformed in the new life — rebirth.