What is Sacred Bodywork?
Sacred bodywork involves the simple acknowledgement that we are spiritual beings living an embodied experience. When we are authentically present in the body and more conscious of the way that experiences, beliefs and systems somatise into the body, we can become more responsive to our own needs, more empathic to the needs of others and more connected to the world and our place in it. We also become freer and contribute to the freedom of others.
As women, moving from a deep connection with the sacredness of the wombspace, brings an authentic expression to life in alignment with one's deep purpose and sense of self. Western culture in particular has precluded, prohibited and demonised this connection and surplanted it with a definition of the feminine with greater predisposition to minimisation of our innate power.
Healing from this perspective can occur through reflective practices like meditation and somatic awareness, through massage and energy healing, through embodied movement and dance, through plant medicines and through ceremony and symbolic practices. I offer these to the women I am honoured to work with, uniquely and intuitively tailored to each person's needs. It is a truly transformative way to bring about authenticity and deep healing on the journeys we undertake in the bodies we inhabit.
My journey with sacred bodywork began as a response to experiences of trauma in childhood and the use of dance as a form of self-expression and healing and by spending time in nature observing the rhythms and responses of the natural world. My discovery of yoga and engagement with different forms of energy medicine deepened my somatic literacy and began to inform my therapeutic relationship with clients. During a ceremonial exploration of embodied presence and breathwork, I had a profound 'meeting' with ancestral members of my female lineage and a strong connection to and reverence for my genetic legacy where dance as a mode of healing is fully integrated into life. This has formed the basis of my exploration of movement and touch as a method of deep healing both for myself and the people I work with.
Our bodies hold onto emotional trauma and painful, unconscious and inter-generational patterns. They also hold within them the hierarchies and impressions of societal control. When we come into right relationship with our embodied experience -and each other - these patterns can be dissolved and released. It is my belief that much of the illness, sadness and numbness experienced in a western cultural context would benefit from a rediscovery of the intuitive embodied approaches which once belonged to all cultures, but has been largely erased in the west. Its absence is part of the psychological, social, ecological and spiritual crisis that many of us perceive in modern culture and which forms the basis of our deep yearning to return to meaning and sacredness.
It is deeply fullfilling to work with intuitive embodied presence, somatic awareness, sacred bodywork and natural medicine as tools to help women connect with their innate knowledge and self-healing including - but not exclusively - during the pregnancy and motherhood journey. Available as single sessions or ongoing deeper work.
In deep respect and gratitude for my teachers and influences in this area: Uma Dinsmore Tuli, Rae Johnson, Richard Strozzi-Heckler, Francoise Freedman and Rocio Alarcon.