Want to get more from your next massage?
Hello beautiful friends,
Massage is a fabulous way to Unleash your JOY. I love to give and receive massage. It’s a unique place of physical, emotional and mental healing, self-love and connection. I use a lot of it in my Physio treatments and I’ve also been doing Full Body Massage for almost two decades. I developed my own technique and style after completing further training in Acupressure and Shiatsu massage 15 years ago and when you read of the gifts, the benefits of massage, that I outline here, you’ll understand why massage stands proudly on it’s own tall pedestal as a powerful treatment modality.
“I LOVE Kara’s massages! With her years of expertise in Physio and her Counselling background, Kara’s gifts of intuition, empathy and understanding can really support me on every level. I always leave Kara’s massages feeling like I’ve been put back together again! Thanks Kara.” Janet McGeever Counsellor, Journey Therapist, Couples Counselling, “The Being Love Retreats”. www.theconsciousheart.com
So I’d like to share with you the Three Layers of Gifts that I believe massage can bring to you, to help you to receive even greater benefit from your next session.
By now you’re probably getting the gist that I’ve discovered that my true calling is to help you to find, enhance and create more JOY in your life. I want YOU to be happy and massage is a great way to nurture and develop all the essential ingredients that make up the mosaic of JOY within you…. ‘mosaic’, because it is a multi-faceted jewel.
You see, JOY doesn’t necessarily arise easily or spontaneously. It can take a bit of seeking, hunting and nurturing to grow your JOY. We know that food affects our health and mood either positively or negatively and that our attitude is the another part of the JOY mosaic. With attitude, we can use the power of our thoughts and choose to find the JOY in any given moment, anytime.
However, for JOY to be present spontaneously, as a continuous state of being I’ve found that there are several key qualities of spirit, mind/emotions and body that are essential for you to grow your JOY.
They are Self-Awareness, Inner Peace and Physical Aliveness. Self-awareness helps us to know ourselves better, to find our own unique way of being in the world and to be more comfortable in our own skin. And we can’t just paste joy over our inner turmoil and expect it to stick. Developing a sense of peace within ourselves and with life itself is important for happiness. Then at a physical level we just can’t experience true JOY if our bodies are weak, rigid and diseased. The physical equivalent of joy is a sparklingly, healthy alive, body.
So here’s the best news. These three special keys to JOY are also the same three qualities that massage can help to bestow upon you with your conscious cooperation. It’s always a choice.
1. Massage fosters Self-Awareness
2. Massage creates Peace of Mind.
3. Massage enhances your Health, Energy & Aliveness.
1. Self-awareness…
knowing oneself, having choice, being empowered, inner strength and feeling centred in one’s truth.
Massage provides the space for you to increase your self-awareness by increasing your mind-body connection. As you lay in silence and your attention is brought to your body with every touch and stroke, you have the opportunity to increase your ability to be present with yourself, to observe your thinking and to enhance your capacity to feel.
To be present, to know what you’re thinking and to feel your body’s responses moment by moment, is to know yourself. As your self knowledge grows it gives you greater freedom to actually choose how you think, feel and behave, rather than being a slave to your habitual responses. Then as you learn to tune into and to follow your natural instincts and what feels right for you, more of the time, a sense of empowerment, inner strength and centeredness ensues.
Thus the practice of self-awareness can ultimately free you from the bondages of past conditioning and the influence of others. With self awareness your reference point becomes ‘you’. It is from this firm foundation of being comfortably present within yourself that your enJOYment of life begins to strengthen and flourish…..
So the next time you have a massage, be still, be silent, be the observer of yourself, watch your thoughts, feel your body, follow the massage, getting to know yourself from the inside out. Simply breathe it all in, censoring nothing, judging nothing and resisting nothing. Just be with yourself with loving awareness. And notice how you feel afterwards. Can you feel some difference today? … a little calmer, more at peace, a little lighter, more joy in your heart? What’s emerges from within you, when you shine the light of your awareness on yourself and allow more of you to live, lovingly?
In silence and stillness Self-awareness grows
“I shut my eyes in order to see”. Paul Gauguin, a leading Post-Impressionist painter.
2. Inner Peace…
It’s common knowledge today (hooray) in the scientific community that the mind and body are one (Candace Pert- “The Molecules of Emotion”). As we think, our body responds immediately with the release of fluids, which is it’s way of communicating from one part of the body to another. These fluids produce a wave or a type of vibrational dance within us, a different dance for every thought. And that dance is commonly known as an emotion, ‘energy-in-motion’.
This is going on inside of us every millisecond, much of it below the surface of our conscious awareness.
So what does all this mean? It means that there is a vast body of emotional information being expressed within us all the time that we are unaware of but which contributes to our sense of well-being….. or not.
In the silence and stillness of massage we have the opportunity to increase our sensitivity and receptivity to this information as well as to allow unconscious emotional tension held in our body, such as hurt, anger, fear etc to be released, by relaxing and letting go. Yes massage can be a place of profound emotional healing. The more we practice being aware and the more we can relax on the massage table, tuning into and feeling the dance of e-motion within us, the more aware, peaceful and alive we will emerge.
So with your next massage, practice being aware of the sensations in your physical body and continuously relax throughout the massage. The best way to do this is to remain connected with your breath and to consciously breathe smoothly and steadily. Every time you become aware that you’ve gone off somewhere in your thoughts, gently guide yourself back to your breath, feel the sensations in your body and allow yourself to relax fully and let go.
“Get out of your head and get into your heart. Think less, feel more.” Osho, a 20th century mystic and spiritual teacher.
3. Physical Aliveness…
This one is no secret. We all probably know of some of the physical effects of massage. It releases tension throughout the body, increases blood flow, relieves pain, promotes healing, increases oxygenation of the tissues, balances muscular tensions, helps to mobilise and re-align joints, enhances sports performance and leaves us with a feeling of general well-being. No surprises here.
Did you also know that the most recent scientific research completely supports the interrelationship of our mind and body through it’s findings that massage :-
* increases your alertness
* boosts your brain power
* lowers blood pressure
* decreases your stress by lowering levels of cortisol
* evokes the relaxation response in your body
* increases your happiness by increasing levels of serotonin, the feel-good hormone
* decreases depression, anxiety and pain
* evokes feelings of safety, support and connection
Here’s what another happy client has to say:-
“After I had my three kids I became so preoccupied with their care I ignored my own health… my shoulders and back became so painful it was limiting the healthy and active life I wanted to lead with my family. You, Kara, have become such a key person in my “support network”. When I feel myself starting to struggle physically I know it is time to book in. I now realize, the financial “indulgence” of a massage, I once struggled with, is actually a massive investment in my current and future physical well being, for both me and my kids. Your massages allow me to switch off completely and I always leave feeling relaxed and energised and know you have targeted the areas of my body most in need of attention.” Clare Derrington, Mother, Wife & Physiotherapist
So give yourself the gift of time to come ‘home’ to yourself, to know yourself at a deeper level, to let go of a layer of mental and emotional stress, to enhance your happiness, allow healing to occur at all levels, to relax deeply and to soothe your physical body back to that perfect balance…….. relaxed yet energised simultaneously.
I love my monthly massages, no exceptions. It’s right up there with one of life’s top JOYs for me. Join me- once a month. You won’t regret it.
JOY, love life… live it,
Karakrista
Holistic Wellness Mentor