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Bodywork as a Contemplative Practice

Bodywork can be a contemplative space in which we can literally bring a thought, issue, question, or quiet mind to the table and use the session as a vehicle for healing of body/mind/spirit. It is not necessary to verbalize what you are focusing on in order for it to be processed.

 

Bodywork brings one home to their core, or deepest self.  Perhaps it is the quiet space in conjunction with touch, allowing one to be in a space of simply receiving rather than giving, it could be the nervous system unwinding through the assistance of someone else’s help (a message reminiscent of the unconditional loving care we may have received from a parent holding us when we were infants), or the act of being still and listening to self in a manner that we often don’t give to ourselves in a world filled with excess stimulation.

 

Using bodywork as a contemplative space can come in many forms.  You can have something in mind that you want to work with and keep the intention to work with it during your session.  This does not mean you have to keep your mind active and think about this issue.  Quite the opposite.  What can be done is to set the session around the issue with intention, take in the bodywork, and on an unconscious and conscious level, the issue is being examined, cooked, felt, observed, and honored simply by the act of awareness.  When truth is met, there is no thinking about it.  It simply is what is, and this conclusion is reached based on being present.

 

If you would like to do something concrete, you can voice what you are working with, share it aloud, or simply write it down and put it on the table with you where you are lying. Many of our answers are right in front of us, but we do not slow down to quiet the mind to get the chance to hear them.  One can also enter the session with the mindset of “empty space.”  There doesn’t have to be anything to focus on but what is being presented:  the touch and what it evokes.  That alone is a rich practice, one that can make you feel as if you are doing a round the world travel in the lush and multi-faceted landscape of your being.

 

I invite you to come to the table to explore.  I am honored to be there with you in this act of listening and witnessing what is living inside.

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