SWIHA Blog

Healing Ourselves

We are all looking for “a quick fix,” and most of the time it doesn’t go as planned. When we seek to master our health, quick fixes rarely work. We can heal if we are willing to dig deep, hold ourselves accountable, and explore!

Humans have evolved and this progression has led us from the caves to creating exquisite communities. We are still hard-wired with primal instinct and this instinct is vital for survival. Now, we are using this same wiring for our current reality, which is working overtime. As humans progress, we no longer need our primal brain to protect us from animal predators, however, it is still in use in the modern era triggered by different stimuli. We still face the predator, yet it may be a car with an inattentive driver or someone running out before you. After severe enough events, there can be everlasting scars left.

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Shortly after SWIHA was founded, a guest massage instructor came to our modest campus to offer training on a technique known as “positional release therapy.” In this type of therapy, the body is positioned in strategic ways so as to release the muscles and tension stored from past injuries, accidents, and traumas. Within the first few hours of the workshop, one of the students had a reaction to the position in which her body had been placed. She began to cry and then shake; finally, her left hand involuntarily contorted into a claw-like cramp. The guest instructor (who had over 20 years of experience) stood by in confusion, looking as if he had never seen an emotional release before. Immediately stepping up to the table, I offered the student a guided visualization, taking her to a “safe place” and instructing her to concentrate on slowing her breath to calm her mind.

As the guest instructor look on incredulously, he commented, “In all my years, I have never had THAT happen on my table!” Luckily, I had the grace to not say what I was thinking, which was: “And you never will… because you don’t know how to ‘hold space’ for others!” Even if I had shared what I was thinking, this instructor probably wouldn’t have understood what I was talking about.

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