Like many massage therapists, I found my calling after receiving profound healing at the hands of another massage therapist. For me, that was 20 years ago at Triyoga in London with an incredible holistic therapist called Mika Simmons. With the lightest of touches, she did what the medical profession at the time couldn’t, and released me from the chronic pain of a traumatic neck injury. It felt like I had been touched by an angel and as the years went by, I decided that I would like to try to do the same to help others.
Since starting that massage journey, I’ve frequently pondered how a holistic massage was such a powerful medium for physical and emotional healing compared to a technical sports massage or visit to a physiotherapist? Now, after eight years of working as a holistic therapist, I can answer this question with greater clarity, although I have a feeling that I will be searching for more answers about the mysteries of this healing art for the years to come.
Holistic massage as we know it today is a deep melting pot of ancient healing traditions from all over the world. Little do fledgling therapists who are cramming for their Anatomy and Physiology exam know, that they are only just dipping their toe in the water. As training progresses, commonly accepted acupressure points, chakras, meridians and sen lines and terms like “bubbling spring”, “third eye” and “triple warmer” become a second language. We start to understand that we are using thousand-year-old natural medicine techniques that go back 5000 years to the Ayurveda of India and Taoists of China through to the Buddhist temples of Japan, the imperial palaces of Thailand, and the indigenous islands of the Pacific.
What these ancient traditions have in common, is the desire to enhance longevity, wellbeing and live well. More importantly, they share faith in intangible concepts of universal life-force, subtle energy fields, and the etheric body or spirit. There are many definitions of these energies such Qi, Ki, Prana and Mana, and exploration of these concepts leads us deeper and deeper into the understanding that our physical or emotional healing processes are inseparable from what we now generally call ‘energy healing’.
Meanwhile, in Europe, massage only truly emerged in the 18th Century with the development of Swedish massage by gymnastics instructors Per Henrik Ling and Johann Georg Mezger. Similarly in the 1930’s Danish doctors Emil and Estrid Vodder developed Manual Lymphatic Drainage Massage (MLD) which is still the gold standard for lymphedema and oncology treatments. Both Swedish and MLD massage are based on modern understanding of anatomy and physiology, and place an emphasis on clinical safety over and above intangible spiritual or energetic concepts. These two modalities form the bedrock of modern holistic massage therapy today. Once the student has mastered elements of this clinical foundation, they are free to explore the healing traditions of the world through their continuing professional development.
By fusing the elements of east and western systems shared across thousands of years between people and nations, holistic massage therapy offers us the opportunity to deliver diverse healing; whether that is to relieve stress and anxiety, aches and pains, trauma, grief or end of life care. It teaches us to listen to the body and its subtle energetic signals. It teaches us that we are more than just a tennis elbow, or a tight back. It teaches us that our bones, ligaments, muscles, fascia, nerves, thoughts and emotions are interlinked to the world around us. Holistic massage teaches us that we are part of the universal web of life. It teaches us, to strive to live, and love well, and to practise peace love and compassion for ourselves and for all living beings.
Holistic [ hoh-lis-tik ] incorporating the concept of holism, or the idea that the whole is more than merely the sum of its parts, in theory or practice.
Namaste
12/03/24
