At our first session, we begin with a conversation about your goals for bodywork so we can build a relationship in support of your wellbeing. I will ask specifically about any major health events and present conditions for which you are receiving care from other providers. I’ll also ask if you have any trauma you suspect may come up with bodywork, or areas of your body where you’d like specific sensitivity or attention. We’ll talk about what you do for work and what other activities you do regularly. From this conversation, we’ll create a plan for the session that supports your goals and the particular state of your body and being that day. Once on the massage table, it’s important to continue communicating anything that feels uncomfortable or relevant to your goal. We can always adjust the plan as needed. In following sessions, this talking time may be as short or in depth as is useful to you.

Each session unfolds with an intentional and organic progression. Beginning when you walk in the door, we create together the space that honors your needs that day. Therapeutic bodywork benefits from sequencing to support deep and long-lasting change. This means not going too fast, deep, or intense for your nervous system’s and your tissues’ capacity to integrate, and usually means setting up a schedule for ongoing appointments at a frequency that works for you. Each session has an initial tuning in together, then an exploration and treatment of a particular area of your body where you’re experiencing discomfort or dysfunction. We can determine together how involved you want to be with dialogue, conscious movement, and breathing during the session. I can work in silence as well as conversation and often sessions have both. The session concludes with a phase of integration, which may look like stilling, rocking, tuning back into the breath, traction or stretching, or walking around the room to notice shifts in posture and sensation.

I often begin a session by bringing attention to the quality of breath in your body. Our thoughts and schedules usually run much faster than our bodies’ systems. Slowing down is a practice, and healing in itself. Breathing with awareness can help switch the nervous system from a sympathetic, fight-or-flight state, to a parasympathetic, rest-and-digest state. Learning to breathe with the belly and diaphragm rebalances muscle tension to relieve neck and back pain, while also bringing in more oxygen to your lungs, which is crucial for optimal cellular function. I may offer specific breathing practices during or after the session. Working with the nervous system can be like a bridge between our experiences of the mind and body as separate. When our energetic state is calm, curious and present, healing tends to unfold.