I first came to be aware of the bodywork world by fluke. A series of challenging life events in my mid 20’s led me to massage school. I enrolled on a gut feeling, without ever experiencing an actual massage, never once doubting my decision. On the first day of anatomy class, listening to an instructor gifted in the language and soul of the body, I was hooked and knew I had finally started my chosen career.
Ten years later, I owned my own practice and specialized in trigger point therapy and myofascial release for injury and restriction. It was deep, strenuous work and it was rewarding when clients improved and maintained their improvement. However, I was beginning to notice that a percentage of my regular clients would feel great when they left but would return a month, two weeks, even sometimes one week later with the same complaint…”It’s back.” I researched alternative modalities and methods to address their pain and discomfort and the same pattern would present…”It’s back.”
Simultaneously, I began to feel a disconnect with the deep work I was doing with clients, work I had previously loved. I no longer felt good about sinking so deeply into their tissue, invading their space, creating more inflammation and disrupting their nervous system. I didn’t like causing discomfort in the name of healing when I was becoming aware that we all have a built-in ability to self-heal. I was beginning to disbelieve the saying, “no pain, no gain.”
Thus, began the inkling that there must be a better way to create lasting change.
But I’m a slow learner and though I’m real good at picking up on signs from the universe, sometimes I’m really slow at making the changes I know I’m supposed to make. Sometimes I need a little Wake Up Call. And so, I got sick and I got injured. At the same time.
After blood tests and ultrasounds came back clean, medications didn’t work and my pocketbook couldn’t tolerate any more unsuccessful bodywork explorations, I gave up. I thought I’d have to quit massage and feel unwell forever.
And then I remembered a bodywork method mentioned casually by a friend seven months earlier. Bowenwork. For some reason, I couldn’t get it out of my head and decided to dedicate some more money and time for one last ditch effort at wellness and booked an appointment.
So there I was, on the massage table, fully clothed, while a practitioner did these little rolling movements over certain muscles and kept leaving the room… and I thought, “Oh my god, this is doing NOTHING. And why does she keep going away?” Fully at her mercy, I just decided to let go, relax and enjoy lying down during daylight hours. It wasn’t until I got home that day that I realized the migraine that had plagued me for six weeks, 24 hours a day, was gone.
Eight weeks and six sessions later, I was almost symptom free. What’s more, I felt grounded, balanced and sure of myself for the first time in eight years. I felt “settled”. I didn’t know that my nervous system was out of whack, that I had been in the fight or flight response for so long that it was taking a toll on my health and wellbeing. But it was. And Bowenwork stimulated my own self-healing response to rebalance and restore.
I was hooked again. I knew this was what I was looking for...my clients, my family and myself.
