About Esalen Massage
To be fully grounded in life, to manifest our full potential, we need to be fully present and balanced within our body. To support this process in our clients, Esalen massage practitioners work through the vehicle of the physical body with intentional touch.
Esalen® Massage is set apart as a unique style because it reflects an attitude about touching that goes beyond physical manipulation. Practitioners of Esalen Massage think holistically and acknowledge the intimate relationship of the physical body with our thoughts, emotions, and spirit, and additionally, to our connection with the world around us.
At the heart of this method is compassion and gratitude; the intention is to facilitate the individual in restoring a sense of harmony and reverence and to awaken inner resources for healing.
Touch has been shown to be a very basic human need. Skin hunger is as real as stomach hunger, yet it is so restricted by society and primarily equated with sexual contact. People feel inhibited to reach out and have forgotten the ability to nurture through touch. The attitude of Esalen Massage is that the expression of compassion and caring for others through the language of touch is not only healing but an innate ability and easily remembered.
Some of the key elements that make Esalen Massage unique are, attention to the breath and working from an open, meditative state of non-judgment, which supports the practitioner’s sensitivity, and responsiveness to the body’s feedback. A loop of nonverbal communication takes place from the practitioner’s heart and hands to the receiver and back. Often habitual tension patterns break free and old emotions are released.
In Esalen Massage there is no prescribed sequence. Long flowing strokes help to create the feeling of wholeness, connection and harmony with all things. Often referred to as the Tai Chi of massage, the pace is slow, rhythmic and wave-like in order to soothe and relax, engaging the parasympathetic nervous system in physiological healing. Gentle traction is used to lengthen and create space within the spine, limbs and joints. Pausing at times, moments of stillness allow the mind to integrate and process the sensory motor information and the changes that are occurring.
Esalen Massage is an approach of listening, responding, flowing and pausing that makes the experience different than other methods. It’s not unusual to hear from clients and professional body workers, “That was the most amazing massage I’ve ever received.”
Char teaches all levels of Esalen Massage from introductory to professional trainings.