Esalen Massage Certification trainings are an intense experience. I had the pleasure of guiding a new group of students through the first half of the training in Canada. Each time I encounter a new group I am reminded that undergoing this process is more than learning the fundamentals of massage. Touch is a beautiful and immensely complex interaction. Esalen Massage has a way of unifying the body, mind, and spirit – reaching each and weaving them back to the whole.
As practitioners we learn to hold the space for the recipient to experience the movement of this work. We learn to recognize the body’s holding patterns and at times suggests to breath into the sensation to allow a release. As many of you remember, in a workshop or certification program, you are both a practitioner and recipient of massage. In the 28day training especially, students are giving and receiving a huge amount of touch. It takes a special mindset to be both open and ready to move ahead through blockages – emotional, physical and spiritual. It’s an apportunity for transformation.
The body holds patterns of stress and tension that have developed as a response to living in the world. Touch facilitates a re-balancing and some degree of purification. As the tension patterns within muscles are given relief through massage, tight muscles that have been holding in response to emotional trauma simply melt away. This process of unwinding is profound. Massage returns the body to a state of relaxation and comfort – a pure, safe place, free from mental, emotional blockages that hold us back from becoming our truest selves; a spiritual being living within the temple of the physical body.
This kind of intentional bodywork, the kind that inspires us to look deeper into our being also has the glorious side effect of strengthening the bond between our body, mind and spirit.
This is the beauty of these certification trainings. Students come to learn the Esalen Massage Technique, and end up receiving so much more. The process of opening, diving into our own mental, emotional stopping points, and ultimately coming to know ourselves as a unified Being.
As always, I invite you to join me at workshops where we can intentionally participate in this unifying practice together,
Char
