No Need to Always Go and Get It
In the Art of Contemporary Bodywork and Massage, the Holding Persuasion is as Therapeutically Effective as the Application and Releasing Persuasions.
I feel that there are three primary considerations which come into focus when determining the subject of ‘Intention’ during a Bodywork and Massage session.
These three primary intentions are:
- the intention to apply,
- the intention to hold
3. the intention to release.
In my opinion, to achieve true tranquility or Amrita during a treatment of Vedic Massage, it is fact that the holding pattern is as effective as the applying and releasing patterns.
Again, comparably as effective as the Application and Release persuasion, the Holding persuasion is also pure therapeutic accomplishment. The Holding state is a most desirable state to savor for any session.
However, the holding persuasion is frequently by-passed.
A practitioner will incorrectly feel that they are not entitled to this superb condition of simply pausing and holding. A practitioner will also incorrectly feel that this exquisite condition of simply holding and pausing falls into the therapeutic category of uselessness, laziness or ineffectiveness.
The Holding ‘sensation’ is considered, in my opinion as a teacher of massage, a most mature, professional and effective therapy and introduces tranquility into the assist or vinyasa due to its intended directionless-ness and deliberate non-deliberateness.
The Holding Pattern is also celebrated as The Conscientious Pause!
Questions
How can holding or pausing during a sequence be as therapeutically effective as applying intention or yielding and releasing from an application?
How is this so and what exactly is transpiring between the practitioner and the recipient during that distinct segment of time where the applying energy along with the releasing energy is gently displaced by the Holding and Pausing energy?
Hypothesis
During the ‘Holding’ aspect of a sequence, the intent is for there to be no obligations or expectations circulating within the psyche of either the receiver or the giver.
The Holding phase of a massage treatment is also the recouping phase, the repose phase and the relief phase. These phases naturally provide a very sweet and valuable infusion of ease and positivity into the session.
Yet on its own, this description here of the holding phase is not implying the full explanation or comprehension of what transpires between the giver and the receiver.
Such a description would necessitate including several other dimensions which would address the psychological bodies or koshas as well.
Yet simply described, when in its full expression, a therapeutic posture or personal asana is ultimately designed to be effortless and casual regardless of what challenge or size/weight proportions are being addressed. This is an ultimate truth for all athletics, dance, yoga and Bodywork.
In other words, as the practitioner repositions the receiver from an application or a release phase to assume the ‘Holding Intention,’ the bodies of both the giver and the receiver can refuel with a moment of non-obligation, no-requirement and a refreshing breath of affirmative thoughts and feelings etc.
The body of the practitioner will then again assume a natural posture of support for itself as well as for the recipient wherein no exertion is compulsory nor inelegance exhibited.
This sensation, The Conscientious Pause or The Holding Persuasion, will then transmit its expansive benefits fully, including into the receiver and the local space. The Holding Persuasion thus qualifies as a significant therapeutic method.
As a Practitioner -Therapist, We Don’t Have To Go and Get It!
Between the practitioner and the fortunate recipient, another superb quality can be accessed and delightfully exchanged when the body’s natural contours, such as, for example, the practitioner’s palm against the receiver’s plantar foot, dynamically interface like pieces of a puzzle.
The ‘Holding’ energy also affords us another delightful therapeutic surprise and realization!
With use of The Holding/Pausing Persuasion, the discouraging imbalances, the troubling tensions, the terrible aches and the challenging stresses, call the discomforts what you may, will effortlessly emerge to naturally greet the practitioner to be ultimately dissolved and remedied.
How is it possible that we can use the energy of being casual, being nonchalant and being passive to achieve a full therapeutic resolve?
ANSWER
The components that constitute our anatomical nature are all living functions of infinite intelligence.
The marmani, the chakras, the nadis, the koshas, the doshas, the DNA of the cells are all infinitely intelligent and integral living aspects of the soul.
In Therapy, when these constituents are acknowledged by the practitioner as living and infinitely intelligent, they then will exhibit their miracles and ease of release.
Simply explained, every cell in the body has been scientifically proven to display intelligence and possibly infinite intelligence. Like walking into a room full of conscientious people, the cells also become aware of the intention and ‘air’, so to speak, of the therapist’s energy.
Significantly also, Ayurvedic medicine describes the radiating auric sheaths surrounding the body as also intelligent and possibly infinitely intelligent.
Fortuitous Elegance
When a student signs up for a Vedic Bodywork class, they are also agreeing to the belief that there is an infinitely intelligent radiating sheath surroundings the body. This agreement would also indicate that as the student is effecting a therapeutic intent, that the targeted area, without yet being touched, would already ‘know’ of the therapists intention. This radiating sheath has also been scientifically photographed to evidence its true reality.
During a session of assisted asanas, yoga massage, or during a session of any other earth-oriented, folk healing art, Ayurvedic medicine describes that even previous to physical contact, the intelligence of these cellular and auric fields are sensitive to and ‘know’ of the therapeutic intentions.
I feel as a therapist, I don’t always have to go get the unfulfilled craving, the unnatural stress, the discomforting contraction or troubling weakness. I am aware that frequently it isn’t necessary at all to apply any effort in order to secure satisfaction for the receiver and from the assist.
Mature masters of bodywork and those masters involved in the martial arts, such as Aikido, T’ai Chi or Gung Fu, contribute a respectable explanation. They describe, for example, a ‘being with the energies’ instead of moving against the energies.
An experienced therapist can embody this wisdom of the holding/pausing inducement and surrender to this wisdom with confidence.
An experienced therapist knows that the security induced as a result of The Conscientious Pause, The Holding Intention, is a significant and positive contribution and effect to any professional or lay treatment.
An experienced therapist inherently knows that imbalances, when given the luxury of patient time and generous space, will naturally remedy and correct.
Manifesting ease in therapeutic intention is a highly cherished achievement for all healers and body-working aspirants.
Upon touching a receiver, an instantaneous message submits itself to intimate and full biological computation. The Holding Intention qualifies more as a ‘being’ than a ‘doing’ and thus also qualifies as a mysterious yet significant augmentation to the assisted session.
Substituting Intensity with Duration
The Holding Intention is also known as ‘Substituting Intensity with Duration’. When indicated, our treatments can displace all the requirements of the application’s usual dynamic intensity or ‘going after it’ with the ease and elegance of Holding’s successful duration and perpetuity.
Attestment
The myriad of Ayurvedic and Asiatic medical terms ascribed to the various anatomical areas include such names as The Gate of God, The Gushing Spring, The Meeting of the Mountains, The First Husband, Opening to the Creator, Dividing Stream, Extending Vessel, Labor Palace and Supreme Unity, to illustrate but a few.
The ancient sages and shamans who have ascribed such profound identifications and distinctive qualities to the various bodily areas are, in my opinion, confirming the meditative nature necessary in order to truly attune and effectively sensitize to the infinite intelligence alive within each anatomical area and every cell.
As therapists we can settle deeply and securely into the understanding that these infinitely intelligent cells, elements and forces are opportunities to therapeutically interact with coherent and cognitive spirits.
Medical systems, such as Ayurvedic Marmani therapy, even include the assurance that a Divinity, a Deity resides at each bodily and psychic location and that these domains accommodate other living perceptions such as dimensions, radiance, colors, fragrances, music and atmospheric gardens and palace qualities.
Fun
The Holding Intention is a successful truth, a inducing tarry, an interesting interlude and a lovely lingering.
Pray to have our treatments always be elegant, casual and joyful.
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