Connecting your Mind and Body. Resting and Receiving.

There is a different type of session that I can offer you. The typical session at Manual Therapy of Nashville is the session that is focused on diagnostic, analytical, clinical, and very specific structures in dysfunction and the cause and specific treatment.

However, there is another type of session that I offer that can facilitate your healing, which is focused on your mind and body connection. Stress is held in the body, and it is sometimes held very specifically in the body. We need stress when we are in situations where we need the fight or flight response. However, a lot of us live in chronic stress, and this has a significant effect on our bodies. This past year has been an entire year of individual, family, community, and world-wide stress. We have had to learn to function and adapt and to process a lot.

I have seen more people coming in to the clinic with effects of this stress on their bodies. It affects everyone, and certain people have had more stress than others. And certain people carry more and feel more.

So, let me describe the session for you and you can decide if it is something that your mind and body need. If so, I recommend signing up for a 90-minute session because you will get more out of it.

Preparing for your session.

The purpose of this session is to learn some new skills.

A lot of us have learned how to work hard. To strive. To accomplish things. We’ve learned that the harder we work for something, the more likely it is we will succeed. We’ve learned to jump through hoops. Study. Train.  We know how to give lots of effort to some task or goal. We know how to perform.

This is good. It’s a good skill.

However, there is a different skill that many of us have not learned.

We do not know how to rest. How to let go. How to receive. Some of us have been taught that our value is in our striving. In the effort. It is often taught to us at a very early age. Our parents and then our society teaches this.

For this session, we are going to go into an entirely different mode. Resting and receiving.

There are different ways to do this, and it will be based on what you are comfortable with and where you are starting from.

At the beginning of the session, I will ask you to remember a time when you have felt completely loved and accepted. It may be a memory with a person, or out in nature, or some time when you are alone. If you can, you will connect to this. It should be a safe emotional place for you. Complete love and acceptance and safety. Can you think of a time like this?

After this, I will gently work on different parts of your body. Feet, calves, head, chest, shoulders, low back, neck, upper back, arms, hands.

I will be present, but it is not really about what I am doing, not so much. I’m just a witness a helping you hear your body/mind. We are not trying to fix anything in this session. We are being present with your body and with what comes up. And, mostly, you are being present with yourself and your body, in a safe and loving connection. The safe connection that you already know. I will be there, but more as a facilitator or conduit to help you connect your body to yourself, and to love.

You can go into the session, just resting or receiving whatever comes up. No agenda.

Or,

Optional:

You can make a list of the areas of your body that have communicated to you currently, or at any time before, communicating pain or tension or tingling or weakness.

And, next to the body parts in this list, see if you can identify a memory and/or association with that body part. For example, my left big toe hurts sometimes because I injured it doing martial arts, and then I kept doing martial arts even though it was injured. This represents the fact that sometimes I do things that are not the best for me. Sometimes I make bad decisions.

And, as I work on that area in our session, you can practice letting go of the pain. You can practice resting and receiving. And, you can let go of the fact that “sometimes I make bad decisions.”

Book an appointment, and let me know ahead of time if this type of session is what you are wanting, so I can facilitate this time for you.