Why do you open up or close down in connection? What makes a certain touch feel good and another not? How can you interpret and learn to trust the perception of your hands? How do the tissues of your body like to be understood?
Maria discovered in 10 + experience with bodywork (with a background in myo-fascial release, cranio sacral work and visceral manipulation) that the tissues of the body speak their own 'language’. Although every body is a unique ‘book’ full of imprints, stories and inner spaces, there are certain common threads; subtle communications from our body tissues that give away information about what the eyes can't see, but still you can pick up upon.
For example:
The temperature rising or falling
How the nervous system responds (or not) with melting and opening, whether it responds slow or fast to touch
Vitality of the tissues - this can be manually picked up upon
The sensation and tone that the skin gives away about the tissue layers underneath
Tender places that pull internally at another place in the body, giving away internal relationships
Tissues or body parts that feel desensitised or have a lack of local communication
Some tissues feel spongy, fragile, others compact and start to feel 'tingly' if touched
Everything in the body is about mutual communication and about chemistry and cooperation between layers. You can't really separate the one from the other, although of course they vary greatly in shape and textures. It all works together in one big orchestration of fluids, rhythms, movements.
Exploring this, by how it responds to touch, is a way to find out whether there is enough hydration, communication, suppleness, ‘glidability’. When a body is being listened to to how it actually feels, without a need to change anything, something magic starts to happen.
Every body has different filters and ways to allow. Allow what? Oneself! Tapping in to the regenerative qualities of the body. This allowance happens on a physical level on the one hand, but on the other hand it has to do with someone's perception and attachment to their own body. This, in its turn, is influenced by their natural human physical needs, whether these were honoured or neglected, where someone's focus tends to be, what beliefs or past experiences there were, what level of surrender someone when actually being nourished.
A good quality touch forms an intimate entrance to connection with oneself and this can only happen in true space-holding. Bodies are hyper sensitive and will know when that space holding is present.
From this listening, with the right intention and just the right amount of pressure (different for each place, depending on what's going on), a response comes back from the tissues. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. E.g. a full body response, sudden liveliness, a current. Sometimes the body needs much more time for the movement to come from the inside.
How do you know what kind of touch or pressure or approach is needed? Does it need listening or a stronger touch, that releases the major pathways of the nervous system? Does it need a gentle stretching movement, and in what direction? What influence has the movement of the breath and the diaphragm? How to release the energy and potential stored in the tissues, joints and spinal chord? How do you work with respect for the architecture that the body has going on while also guiding it toward a reset?
By getting to know this ‘fascia’-language better on a physical level, you can also gain insights about attachment and bonding. Bonding with your physical existence and the interface between inside and outside.
The human body reacts hypersensitively to (one’s own and other people's) thoughts and words, and the body opens and closes accordingly. Its a sensitive matter. And that’s a good thing!
And yes... ‘touchability’ and vulnerability form the portal to the most fulfilling connection to Self and others. If you are interested to tune up the volume of your presence in your body, you might like to join a workshop!
