If the past five years of giving and receiving Shiatsu have taught me anything, it’s the potential for Shiatsu to bring about a change.
It is within this change that we find healing by returning to balance through the gentle pressure and rotations of this most powerful bodywork.
Balance is a state in which our whole system (because it is a whole complex marvellous thing) can become more present and live.
By treating the root cause rather than the symptons, we might see our symptoms eased. Applying pressure to acupressure points and meridians, we can find the balance that helps resolve your eczema, insomnia, sluggish digestion or an inability to relax.
And in these winter months, Shiatsu can be the spark that warms our heart. It’s a warmth that reminds us of the promise of light, like the beams of golden sunflowers.
I gazed at the most spectacular blooms and their hues walking through London recently. The sunflowers reminded me of the Spring Equinox and the balance that we find in the equal hours of day and night. Warmer times await and the upward movement of Ki (energy) is already starting to express itself as spring growth.
it’s a sense that we might experience if we were to bring a sunflowers to the heart, holding their strong stems while absorbing their delicate fragrance and feeling brightened by their sunshine yellow petals.
If we have rested well over the winter time, we’ll be ready to burst forth and beam our light out to all as brightly as the sunflowers.
If we haven’t got enough rest, if we feel worn down, weary and a bit missing our spark, perhaps it’s time for a Shiatsu session?!
If you cannot visit a Practitioner, there is always the opportunity to place your own hands on, to spark a change in which your healing opportunity may be found.
Coming home
Returning to the UK after two years in India (and a steady 30 degrees) was so many emotions. I’ve felt them all, happily and sadly. The joy of the heart-to-heart connection with old friends when it feels like you’ve barely been apart (certainly not two years).
And the sense of coming home in the safety and familiarity of your family circles.
Receiving Shiatsu for the first time in over two years (didn’t find any Practitioners in my corner of Goa!) was a kind of remembrance. Lying on the futon being held by a talented Practitioner friend Hana, I could truly put down the many things I’d been carrying, and open up to whatever may arise.
In this opening lies the opportunity for change, and therein lies healing, the kind of profound transformations in which remarkable yet subtle things happen.
Hana rotated my stiff hips, dispersed stagnation in my middle back and the Wood channels that run along my stiff legs, nourished the weakness in my Stomach meridian and encouraged the flow of Ki through my Fire channels by bringing balance between Fire and Water meridians.
The outcome?
A kind of deep relaxation in which I returned to myself. In re-connection to self, I was reminded of my physical body – my existence as more than a brain taxi.
My mind quietened. My body felt immensely grateful for the skilled, compassionate physical contact, and the Ki started to hum through areas that felt empty. I came home to myself.
Sound good?
BOOK your Shiatsu session – to feel lighter, brighter and as if flooded with the sunny rays of an armful of sunflowers.
Don’t underestimate the power of light in these dark times.
