I am, admittedly, somewhat of a luddite. I prefer my paper calendar to the bright iPhone screen, as my clients can attest to. I removed myself from Facebook and all other social media several years ago. Yet here I am, embracing 2020 with a revised attitude and my first blog post.
What has inspired such change? I have been feeling a desire to share The Cotu Method of bodywork on a different level, to teach others about the body~mind connection as best I can.
Today’s post is actually inspired by my father, who is living his last days. I have been reading him Ram Dass’ book, “I’m Still Here”, a follow up to “Conscious Aging”. Ram Dass suggests that most humans are afraid to die, and we are afraid to die because we are so attached to our ego & to the physical vessels housing our souls. We identify so greatly with our bodies that it becomes nearly impossible to let those skin suitcases go.
To begin to see oneself as a spirit having a human experience, now that is where the work begins. You may find yourself on my massage table soon enough, working through all the stuck emotions and feelings that took up residence in your tissues. As you begin to mentally separate the physical body from the spirit therein, it is easier to understand you also have an emotional body. You are actually made up of four distinct parts: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Can you visualize these layers on your person? The emotional body acts as a bridge between the physical and mental parts of you; it is where you interpret external stimuli, how you interact with others and the world around you. It is subjective. It is said to be correlated to hormonal balance or lack thereof. key point: The physical body responds to the emotional body. I developed The Cotu Method specifically to address this marriage in a systematic and measured way. It is based on the research of Wilhelm Reich, (stay tuned for further blog posts about him) a contemporary of Sigmund Freud. Reich mapped the body in terms of which structural muscles hold which emotions. I have found, over the past 15 years as a bodyworker, that his work is extremely accurate. I have seen my clients undergo what can only be described as remarkable change and release. Release of feelings & release of corresponding physical pain triggered by held past trauma.
I got the chance to gift my father a session last spring, when he was still able to receive one. It was a tremendously powerful experience for us both. My advice to you, dear reader, is this: don’t wait! Don’t wait to explore the concept that you are so much more than your physical shell. Don’t wait to get in touch with the anger, grief, guilt, or shame. Don’t bury those emotions. Give them a voice and a way to get out. Your body is, at this very moment, responding to a lifetime of hurt and traumas both big and small. When you work with One Healing, you lay on the table and allow yourself to be vulnerable and to reconnect with sometimes painful parts of yourself, all with one goal in mind: sweet release. How much more living can you fit into your schedule? How much more room in your heart can be made by the power of forgiveness & the ecstasy of emotional release? How much better will your physical body feel when you can breathe again, I mean really truly chest expansive breathing? Some people take their pain to the grave. To you I implore: don’t wait.
ONE HEALING 