By learning to breathing well, people can learn how to calm themselves and feel more energized.
Many people who often feel stressed or anxious are prone to holding their breath. When this becomes an unconscious pattern, the movement around the ribcage can become dehydrated and stuck. This is unhealthy because it can impair physiological functioning of the body. The good news is that this can change!
By bringing mindfulness to your breathing throughout the day, you might find yourself surprised as to how often you stop breathing. At the same time, by just bringing your awareness to the breath and how the chest moves, you can improve things by learning about yourself and how you are internally organized. So mindfulness is a great beginning to understand the relationship between breathing and stress.
If you want to further let go of any restrictions around the upper chest and diaphragm, then getting some good therapeutic myofascial therapy can do wonders. The web of fascia that surrounds your body and envelopes all the individual organs, muscles, bones and other parts of your body can be restored back to health. Specifically, the areas that need to be released in order to enhanced breathing health are the neck, thoracic diaphragm, intercostal back muscles, abdomen and chest. Lengthening and opening up these areas can help you to live with more ease.
Breath easier with Massage
Often when I work with my clients, I like to introduce them to a breathing meditation during the session. This has shown to be quite helpful in helping clients to relax, especially while working to let go of the adhesions or tight holding. Starting with helping broad areas to soften and release, and then, releasing ribs and bones-clients are amazed at how much more space they discover to breath. In addition, by working with SomatoEmotional Release techniques, clients will feel things like fear letting go as the parasympathetic system starts to bring more calm after the initial wave.
Get in touch with your body sense to heal. Your body knows what it needs and will show the way to any massage therapist who knows how to listen well.
Massage Therapy helps you to feel rather than think.
In the big picture, it doesn’t matter why something happened or to blame a circumstance for your unhappiness or difficulties. Reliving anxiety situations keeps your attention there. If you want to feel better, focus on getting into the flow of your life again by relaxing and feeling the pleasure of being here now.
One way to change things around is to find a good Massage Therapist who can help release any tension you feel in your body. It’s very difficult to be happy when you are feeling in pain or uncomfortable. When you find a massage therapist who had great contact and listens to your needs, almost nothing can feel better. Getting out of those vicious cycles of stress from work, relationships or whatever else is bothering you is key to finding your joy again!
massage therapy
If talking about things isn’t doing the trick, try a sensory approach. By working with the soft tissues, massage helps reduce stress hormones such as cortisol and increases endorphins. Endorphins help us to feel connected and at ease, even happy. Most clients walk away with a sense of wellbeing after a good massage.
Making massage a regular part of your Self-Care routine may do wonders for your mind, body and spirit. It’s much more than a luxury, it’s a proactive choice to bring you back to center.
My guess is that many Massage Therapists go to school and get into business because they love massage and it’s a great way to help people.
For me, massage is very healing and there are many ways to approach working with an individual. Massage Therapy is very creative and artistic in its own right. Over the last 17 years, I have studied different techniques, and then used the best where I felt there was overall improvement or enhanced my clients’ lives in an important way. As with most massage therapists, I have learned to integrate many different journeys into the moment. How a massage looks and feels is a dance that happens as therapist and client dialogue, whether it is in silence or whether it is through conversation. It’s the presence, the listening and contact which makes the session worthwhile or not.
A good Massage Therapist will visit other LMT’s and continue to get educated in their specialties and beyond. Often I enjoy going to therapists who do myofascial therapy, stretching and with whom I can feel a connection. Recently, I was down in Florida and I decided to visit a new Spa there, called Cloud 9. It was new and they just opened. Although I usually prefer the types of techniques I use, I was open. It’s important to grow in our work so that we can deepen within ourselves and better help our clients. That’s my thinking anyway. I took my massage with a therapist named James. He was quite good. With a combination of myofascial therapy and Thai massage, I felt pretty terrific after my hour. I was very pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed the session because I am rather picky as most massage therapists are. And then- I partook in the water flotation station there as an added treat.
Floatation tanks in Columbus aren’t well known. In fact, I think there is one or maybe two business there-and I am not sure how many people know about them. So I will explain to you what it’s like. The client enters the room and showers well. Next, the subject goes into the encapsulated vessel that is pitch blank to then lies down and floats in about a foot of epsom salt water that is very concentrated. In the water, which is matched to skin temperature, he/she floats for an hour in the dark. In that wonderful silence and lack of other stimulation, the body and the brain being to relax and let go of all the busyness in the world. The more often one goes, it gets easier and easier to just float in that dark empty void.
I have been in Columbus working about 2 years on/off. Sometimes in Florida, but I just closed my business there in order to stay more full time in Ohio. While I usually prefer the contact of a person for a session, this added avenue of experience presents clients with a whole new way of self-discovering deeper peace and relaxation. But I do have to say, that it was exponentially better in combination with a great massage.
I hope one day to meet some other therapists that have the same dreams as me to create a very sacred environment spa which is focused on feeling well, but specialize in therapy rather that fluff. And surprisingly, the flotation spa really helps release our locked up thinking. Although I don’t offer these at this time,I like to keep clients updated on the newest feel good therapies. So for now, if you get a chance to add a floatation spa to your hands-on massage treatment, try it out. My experience in Florida was spectacular and I went back.
Love with Mindful Contact is the Best Healer for Trauma
Trauma can start young. Children are naturally trusting and they have basic needs. They look to adults for acceptance, love, nourishment and so much more so that they can grow and thrive in this world.
Yet statistics say that child abuse is reported every 10 seconds.
In most cases, children adapt and survive many cases of abuse and trauma, but that doesn’t mean that the mind and body have processed the whole experience/s.
So as adults, often in a trusting massage relationship, emotions and sensations come up as the body eventually reveals old patterns that may have developed as a trauma defensive reaction. Traumas can include something like falling off a bike as a child, being scared by a loud argument, re-occurring abandonment situations or being terrorized by an event.
Most people have touched into some type of trauma whether small or life impacting and developed strategies to cope with life without being fully aware. But through a series of mindful Craniosacral Therapy or other types of bodywork- the body’s own intelligence can set the pace for healing. Not only in the body, but the sensory information is related to the brain as well to restore balance.
Opening the human heart through gentle contact to heal past trauma.
Craniosacral Therapy
Sharon Hartnett LMT, and Certified Advanced Craniosacral Therapist has trained to work with trauma at the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, the Hakomi Institute, and the Upledger Institute to understand how the body holds and can release trauma in a safe and comfortable environment. She has worked with soldiers, victims of rape, neglected children and adults who face physical challenges due to accidents in their childhood.
In the Craniosacral Therapy sessions, licensed counseling is not provided , but what does happens is that dialogue can help the process open up. As the younger “child consciousness” shows up organically, support and love are held without judgment. When the younger energy is acknowledged, accepted, cared for, and allowed to feel deeply in the body, often the process is able to complete and no longer circulates as anxiety and reactionary systems anymore.
Sometimes, when talk therapy doesn’t help with a physical challenge, going to a trained Craniosacral Therapist CST, who trained in ethics and in holding a compassionate container to support their clients in this process, will be the way through. When no other avenues have helped you to integrate, the body intelligence may be able to complete your healing through the mind, body, and spirit connection.
It’s important to say that this is more of a self educational type of session as Craniosacral Therapists are not necessarily licensed psychologists or such. The Craniosacral Sessions are one of Self-Discovery that has helped many to find inner peace and love.
All information shared during sessions is confidential.
For more information, contact Sharon Hartnett CST-d in Columbus, Ohio
Foot Pain: As we get older, we pick up certain habitual patterns that contribute to how we feel and move.
Personally I have had issues with my right foot for years from a childhood sprain and twisting. The best I felt was about 20 years ago after going through a Rolfing 10 series. After we finished, I remember feeling so great and actually standing taller that I decided to study Structural Integration (SI) myself. For years now, I have been doing SI work and I have seen miraculous changes with my clients. But since I have integrated Craniosacral Therapy, some Feldenkrais that I learned and a few basic tools into my daily practice and table work, I have shared these concepts in order to help others. I like to see people get better!
So here is what helps me and my clients:
Structural Integration helps the whole body come into alignment. Myofascial relationships shift and work more efficiently with gravity.
Craniosacral Therapy (CST) relieves dysfunctional issues in the cranium and brain, and also with the fascia. In addition, it helps to enhance fluidity around the joints and in the tissues and to support a nervous system that helps clients to feel balanced and more vitalized.
The below tools have helped me too and give me a sense of self-empowerment to change.
The roller, red ball and Yamuna foot fitness tools can be used daily to break up old patterns in the feet. But this goes way beyond just the foot. As the tension there begins to melt, the tissues going up the leg and trunk change too. You will start to feel your hips changing and your posture relaxing. Use your daily practice as medicine, and I invite you to go out on a limb and find some good bodyworkers to facilitate.
Good-Bye to Foot Pain!
Blessed day and blessed feet to you!
Sharon Hartnett LMT, CST, SI & Brennan Healing Practitioner
There are a number of different kinds of headaches that affect millions of people.
If you are one of those people who often gets headaches, your days may becoming difficult to face. It’s probably time to start researching your symptoms and take some positive actions to resolve your pain!
Headache Relief
Common symptoms of headaches you may experience are:
What could you do to help be proactive against headaches?
Apply Warm and Cold Compresses.
Check your diet and notice if there are any trigger foods.
Take a warm shower.
Meditate
Stretch
Rest your eyes periodically throughout the day
Apply some essential peppermint oil on a cotton ball and inhale
See your physician
A Professional Can Help You Too!
Craniosacral Therapy is deeply relaxing and it is very helpful in relieving fascial stress patterns that may contribute to headaches. The work actively engages the nervous system and helps tension to melt around the head in a way that brings about peacefulness and rejuvenation.
Often, for people experiencing profound pain, the tissues are taut and closely wrapped up adhering on both superficial and deep levels in the body. Certain structures within the head and body may be jammed up. Working with a seasoned Professional Craniosacral Therapist will most likely be very beneficial in releasing these patterns and allowing more freedom and movement in the body.
