Integral Massage

The idea behind the name "Integral Massage" stems from the worldview of my foundation massage discipline, Esalen Massage. Esalen massage holds as essential the importance of addressing the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of the person receiving the massage. The human being is more than just clumps of muscle that should be kneaded into supplication. Yes there are tense muscles, but this muscular tension is an extension of who we are in every aspect of our human existence - a history of caving in our shoulders out of fear or self-doubt, a sore jaw because the only time that our frustration can be experienced is when we grind our teeth during fitfull and forgotten dreams at night, battered wrists due to the cultural belief that the body is just a dull tool to get us through the day at the office, or an entire body of oxygen starved cells, from a lifetime of shallow breathing, refecting an inability to relax, to breathe, and to simply just be.

And similarly, a compromised body compromises our effectiveness and vitality in the rest of our lives. Most likely, If you are interested in getting a massage, you don't need examples to know what I'm talking about. Unfortunately, it often takes a problem in our bodies before we can notice that there may be a problem in the rest of our lives. The word "integral" refers to parts being necessary aspects of the whole. This is one of the ideas behind Integral Massage: that each aspect of ourselves is integral to the functioning of the rest of our being.

The other idea behind Integral Massage is that all these various aspects of ourselves--our bodies, our emotions, our beliefs, and our connection to something 'Larger' or 'Deeper' than ourselves--need to be integrated in order to re-establish a wholeness of being and balance in our lives. Integral Massage endeavors to do just that.

Your First Session

Your first session includes a free 15 minute intake assessment and postural analysis. I'll ask you about your medical history and your lifestyle, including exercise, your work environment and other life contexts which impact the condition of your body. I then do a postural assessment, looking at how you normally hold yourself in your body to point out the possible connections between what you told me in the intake, and what I see in your body.

The Massage Itself

While I do customize each massage to the techniques and areas of your stated preference, I take the whole of what I now know about you, your lifestyle, emotional stresses, how you hold yourself physically, and allow myself to open up to a larger intelligence or intuition to allow me to be guided to how and where best to work with you.

On the table you'll receive gentle rocking, deep connective long strokes, an array of therapeutic stretches, as well as deeper work focused on trigger points, the epicenters of pain and tension in the body. In general, I start slowly and gently, so as to allow your body to acclimatize to being touched. As I zero in on those areas of holding, of knotting, and tension, I will begin to go deeper and sustain pressure waiting for those areas to melt and release. I may ask you at times to take deep relaxing breaths in order to help you release the holding of certain muscular groups and allow those muscles to be released so that I can go to even deeper levels of tension and holding. The same is true for when I do certain stretches. Breathing during these stretches allows your joints to open much further than otherwise. I systematically visit each part of the body, integrating the parts that I just worked on, reflecting the fact that each part of you is in continuity with the rest of you.

After the Massage

After the massage, I often suggest self-care practices from simple stretches to easy ergonomic adjustments to your working/living environments.

Being in the role of body worker, it is beyond my scope of practice to directly work on the emotional, psychological, and spiritual aspects of yourself. However, I will point out avenues of exploration, if you choose to pursue them.

One of the main goals of integral massage is to give you a felt sense of how each aspect of your being is integrally connected to every other aspect of you. It is my hope that with this knowlege, you treat every part of yourself with care and respect, leading to a sustainable and healthy way of being in the world.