TOUCHING HEAVEN WITH DEEP MASSAGE & ZERO BALANCING

Heaven, according to science, is not demonstrable. But we know, both as givers and receivers of high quality bodywork, that heaven often seems to make an appearance within the context of a session. Grace “descends” and our clients are often gifted with deep insights, visions, emotional breakthroughs, extraordinary energetic experiences and new levels of integration of body, mind and spirit. It is not necessarily, nor should it be, our intention to make people have extraordinary experiences. However, probably every therapist has had numerous moments when she and the client are filled with awe at the extraordinary power of this work. It is our privilege to be present and playing a midwife role to the birth of new experience. 

Not so long ago, I was nearing the end of a session with a psychotherapist who had been working long and hard on a major undertaking. I had framed the session to facilitate a sense of open space within. I had integrated pauses and a relaxed pace to convey a sense of having all the time in the world.

As I finished, she was quiet for a long time, breathing easily, but obviously still exploring deep within her experience.

Finally she said, “That was incredible.”

Then she was quiet for an even longer period of time. And it appeared she went much deeper into herself.

She then said, “That was more than incredible.”

Facilitating more-than-incredible experiences is one of, if not the, greatest thrills in being a bodywork practitioner. This article is a further step in our exploration of this fascinating realm of the more than incredible.

The Importance of the More-Than-Incredible

Why is the extraordinary impact of bodywork discussed so infrequently? Some possible reasons include the difficulty in putting the more-than-incredible into words — this is an experience that is mostly non-verbal. To some, it may sound silly or even overly sensual to describe how ecstatic the experience of Deep Massage or Zero Balancing can be. Also, some clients may be embarrassed or feel pretentious vocalizing the spiritual results of the work. On the other hand, practitioners may fear jeopardizing their mainstream, paramedical position. Insurance companies aren’t paying for the incredible. Ordinarily, there is not curricula in our schools that systematically explore the extra-ordinary. And it’s not socially supported as a conventional health goal.

Whatever the reason, we must overcome the difficulty and resistance to discussing and further developing the more-than-incredible results of our work. Its relevance to body therapy and to modern culture needs to be elaborated. I believe it is deeply related to the possibility of humankind making progress in frontiers beyond just technological. We need to make progress in the realms of mind, emotion, spirit and body as well.

“There is but one temple in the Universe … and that is the human body. Nothing is holier than that high form. We touch heaven, when we lay our hand upon the human body.”
—   Thomas Carlyle

Touch is Miraculous

Human touch is the most sophisticated physical tool in the known universe. We can not synthesize a material that functions like the skin of the hands, let alone something that operates with the sensitivity, intelligence and motor complexity of the human neuromuscular system through the hands.

Touch is also the only way to bring two energy systems into direct contact with one another. Michelangelo’s image of God’s and Adam’s hands approaching has the enduring power to remind us of the literal sharing of that spark of life.

Every time we lay our hand on the human body with pressure and with consciousness, we are uniting the worlds of structure and the worlds of energy in the only possible way for this to be done. Human touch is the only context in the known universe in which there is a simultaneous and conscious contact of both structure and energy.

Touch is Ecstatic

Touch therapy is the most ecstatic (from the Greek ek-, out of + histanai to place or stand) form of medicine and healing.  It takes our clients helpfully to a place outside the confines of their usual experiential standpoint, beyond our usual sense of self. A person can not change without new experience. Deep Massage and Zero Balancing by helping us let go of tensions we ourselves have not been able to relieve, open us up to new experience.

The great British psychotherapist Marion Milner said, “All real living must involve a relationship, recurrent moments of surrender to the not-self.” How clearly and dependably our sessions result in that relationship!

There is a deep unmet need for ecstasy in our culture. Unfortunately, we provide mostly debased forms, and many are addictive: drugs, alcohol, TV, food. Bodymind work is one of the only socially acceptable contexts in which people can experience deeply ecstatic states. It is our task and challenge not to let this remain under-explored. And it is our responsibility to let the ecstatic journey that our work often evokes not be merely a narcissistic “trip.” The ecstatic power of touch must be something for everyone to be delighted and educated in, something for us all to pick up, not just a few to carry.

 Deep Massage and Zero Balancing - Art and Science

In so far as we interact with the world of structure, we are engaged in an applied science and require the knowledge and respect for the world of anatomy and physiology. In so far as we engage inspiringly with the world of energy as well, we need knowledge and respect for the world of psyche, spirit and the mysterious.

“Haptic” is the term given to the kinesthetic sensing of reality — it involves our direct experience of the world through pressure, temperature, proprioception and balance. We are used to thinking of art as being something we see or hear. But ultimately art is a bodily-felt experience manifesting in chills up our spines, in the heart-lifting effects of melody, the inspiration and exhilaration of a beautiful sentence. Bodyworkers have the great privilege of working directly with the human mind, body and spirit — not paints, not tones, not turns of speech.

We are artists and our medium is the greatest living organism in the known universe. A case can accordingly be made for Deep Massage, Zero Balancing, and other sophisticated bodyworks being among the highest of all art forms.
 

The Art of Manual Evolution

The acupuncturist J. R. Worsley described healthcare as addressing three realms: disease, disposition and destiny.

As healthcare practitioners we work amelioratively with anatomic and physiological disease. We impact as well the challenges of disposition. For instance, we can help re-set the autonomic set point of the “Type-A” personality. We can take a puffed-up personality and help them establish a more grounded sense of self. We can help a person — with compassion, touch and the right timing — heal the chronically broken heart.

Finally, we can be the midwives to destiny.  Who is it that your client at their most healthy will become? Each therapist hopes their client will not only feel better but will have the restraining forces to their self-fulfillment removed.

Destiny is collective as well as individual. As each person becomes more fulfilled they also become naturally less self-centered. In this way, the spread of health begins to result not just in individual health but in the growing health of the community. Curing disease depends on immunity. But fulfilling destinies calls for and amplifies community.

It is the destiny of humankind to use the gift of embodied consciousness to evolve. We are still fighting our way through a difficult pre-history. May we use the gift of conscious touch to help people evolve their societies into prioritizing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness over the desire for profit and material gain. Zero Balancing and Deep Massage remind us again and again that joy lives at interface, in truly meeting, not in consuming.  This evolution of relationship is part and parcel of the highest role of bodywork.

What Can We Do?

We need to overcome the separation of energy work from structural work. It is neither in the structural realm nor in the energetic that the real power, the evolutionary leverage, of bodywork lies. It is precisely in their union. Let’s share our stories about more-than-incredible experiences of both givers and receivers with one another. The struggle of new experience to find its way into language and into collective consciousness is an important one.

Being self-critical will also be an asset. We will not be good scientists until we are willing to defend energy work from the overly wishful thinking of some of its devotees. Correspondingly we can restrain the clinically minded from allowing our scope of practice to be defined by insurance companies.

We can develop energy curricula based in Western psychology, science and the wisdom traditions of the East. For instance, the chakras have tangible correlates with basic existential functions. For instance, no one should be graduating from massage school without classes in the role of heart in healing.

Finally, we can resist the tendency to identify health as a property of the individual. Let us combat the somewhat narcissistic, vitamin-pushing orientation of the so-called health magazines. Health is behavior, and it largely depends on how we treat one another, as well as how we treat ourselves. We need to take the necessary steps to make this a healthy world.

 The Biology of Heaven on Earth

We are a dream that matter has had throughout eternity. With the miracle of human touch we effect the union of art and science, the integration of energy and structure in touch, and the conscious experience of ecstasy.  It is our responsibility to know the heavenly and earthly dreams that touch holds for us. And it is our job to make these dreams come true.

As William Blake said, “Art and science can not exist but in minutely organized particulars.” I hope that this essay acts as a call to action for all of us to even more imaginatively and systematically contribute to the art and science of being a human.

References

Field, Joanna. “An Experiment in Leisure”. New York: St. Martins Press, 1937.

Johnson, Robert. “Ecstasy: Understanding the Psychology of Joy”. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987.

Lauterstein, David. “The Deep Massage Book,” Taos, NM: Complementary Medicine Press, 2012.

Smith, Fritz. “Inner Bridges”.  Lake Worth, Fla.: Humanics Press, 1987.

segment of collage by Julie Lauterstein