Wisdom from Deep
Today I held the sacred space of healing for my client,
Tense shoulders and cranky low back ailed this remarkable human. I see ambition, fatigue, and they presented with sympathetic nervous system operating on guard. I can feel it as I lay my hand on their clothed shoulder. I know this, because in my 10 years of studying the body, I’ve learned that the sympathetic response engages the most superficial sensory nerves, almost like a shield that comes up to react to a threat. Keenly reacting to their environment, but there’s no threat here… so why is their body still stuck? Well, unless we intervene and guide our nervous system back to fullness and restoration, we can find ourselves stuck in a trauma response that heightens our sense of pain.
As I take all this in, I also listen to the story in the words used by the client, are they ready to shift gears to release stress? Or does this cortisol ensaturation still serve them? >>> Mmm, there it is, they want to relax, and they consent to shifting gears. Excellent.
Here I leave the room as they get comfortable under the blanket, When I return, I take count that their breath is short and still operating in the Sympathetic. The first step is engaging the Wisdom of their Autonomic Nervous System, breathe in and loooooong breath out, again, and again for 3 times. Their body senses the direction I am guiding them, and eagerly takes the plunge to letting go. I’m skillfully accessing the “switch” muscles that are so innervated by the nervous system it’s almost like accessing the mother board and adjusting the dials. The body begins to drop into a meditative breath, a healing breath.
I go about my work of listening, adjusting, measuring ankle lengths, checking the inner and outer rotation of the hip joint, I am working with my hands, eyes, and sense. Notice the breath catch a double inhale, a sign of the Vagal Nerve releasing recent trauma, music to my ears. I know how good that feels when your body rewrites her story, the bubble of holding the organs from the inside are easing and the breath gets easier and easier.
I’m not “massaging”. No, I’m crafting, I’m integrating structure, as lovingly passed down through the lineage of masters for 200 years.
13 min into the session and the Nervous System tells me that she trusts me, switching the cognitive brain off to slumber as the wisdom body, the subconscious, goes about repairing herself. We work as a team, the fascia releases under my finger tips and the femoral nerve unwinds from its cramped position occurred during driving. The vagus nerve weaves in and out of this story, and much like fishing, I keep my focus soft and present.
Each body unravels at their own speed, each custom with their own purpose. I can feel where the body feels their joy, in the arms, the extension of the heart for this person, and where it may be suffering with overuse and dehydration.
In two hours, I serve the body’s healing, months of fatigue rapidly processed, and a layer of subconscious holding is released in our short session. The sympathetic is releasing as the session proceeds, each area of the body I touch informs me of a struggle of relationship further up, or further down the line. The BODY is marvelous like the Rainforest, the ecosystem of water travelling through your fascia, rivers of your blood flow through and nourishes the banks of every cell in your body. I listen at the head, the cap stone and of the atlas, the tendrils of the Vagus Nerve emit a fatigue that gives witness to the load carried in the recent weeks.
As I watch this magic unfold, I remember the wisdom of my teachers, that as BodyWorkers, we are not here to impose our will upon the body, but rather to learn the will of the inherent healing force of the body, giving as much resource and aid to the body.
I am dancing with the nervous system, as I follow the intuitive pull of the fascia, and the nerves that feel heavy and exhausted, the tissues that feel rigid hold the nerves captive, and then the magic happens again as the body decides to let that tension go, too.
As I listen, I can feel the strain of tension like a mother feels when her child tugs at her dress from out of sight, it is a call of help, a tug that as I turn my attention to, begins to melt, and fill warmth a feeling of lightness as I progress to the next. I am not chasing symptoms, as we are taught in massage school, I am following the map of undoing, the fault lines of the body if you will, that when released tremor through the system from the head to the feet.
As I weave the releasing of anchors from the body, the spine, the ribcage, the arms, the legs, just moving through being guided by the body. And as I come to a close, the time having gone by quickly as it does when you are fully enraptured in what you're doing, the client comes to wake, and I check in.
“How are you feeling?”
They respond that they feel like they’ve done a workout, there is a plethora of amazing hormones released in the body and brain, they feel lighter, like they’ve lost weight all throughout their body.
As I come back to the room after washing up, the Human standing before me is confident in their footing, they stand taller, and their heart expands into the room. They smile, with a rosy hew in their cheeks, parting ways until next time.
You are a Holy Healer, a child of the Divine, a body whose wisdom tickles my curiosity and daily fills me with a sense of Wonder. This is my work, and I set my hands to the service of life, a regeneration that is deep to our cells and souls.
-Joy Nissi.
