Having been a massage therapist since 2001, and spent countless hours working with people and their bodies, Emma’s work has evolved to respect her ever deepening understanding of how to work with body tissue.
It began with an internal knowing that everything is energy and therefore everything is be-cause of energy. Her studies into massage and the causative understanding of health had to start there. It was only later that she studied the science of massage and began to combine the understanding of both.
When massage is given from a felt-sense of understanding this continuum, it provides a gateway into a transformational experience that goes way beyond ‘just a massage’. This is where the magic begins!
Healing bodywork encompasses techniques that work alongside remedial massage, that have been learned and practiced over many years to support the body to let go more deeply, to learn to surrender the body for healing so that the nervous system, lymphatic, vascular and endocrine systems can re-harmonise as well as the muscular system, supporting lasting change.
Therapeutic Massage
Allows the body to soften and to feel more, which brings understanding to how your body has reached this state of contraction, and offers the space to release this gently and beautifully.
It works rhythmically to find the places of holding, along with the breath, so you can meet them, embrace them and then let them go. Often it is the feelings that were not acknowledged or expressed that become stored in the muscle tissue. Therapeutic massage combined with remedial massage can clear tension patterns that have been present often for many years or since childhood, because it clears the energetic configurations that hold the muscles in a state of contraction.
The experience of relaxation would only begin to describe it. Therapeutic Massage takes us into the stillness within us, where you can experience the simplicity and yet profoundness of simply being present with yourself. This is where the healing process is activated.
Stillness Healing
Through Emma’s dedication to understanding the nature of energy and healing, she has received many attunements to be able to hold space for another in stillness. It is in the stillness that the receiver has the opportunity to feel for themselves an amplified sense of what is really going on for them.
It is extremely rare in our daily lives that we find ourselves able to be still. If we were able to settle in stillness in our own time, we would have less physical and mental disturbance, and we would most certainly be more connected to what it is that we need in order to heal.
When we ask for a session, we are asking to be held in this still space that is healing by its very nature, because the patterns of movement that led us into erratic and irregular thought and behaviour begin to clear and realign with our soul’s essential purpose. Thus we are in connection with our body and this is when we are able to heal, learning to be present with ourselves.
Healing, therefore, is first and foremost a surrender to not knowing (not needing to know) and to be open to receive. Second it is allowing your body to let go of what it doesn’t need and what is getting in the way of one’s own connection to one’s heart. And third, it is a realignment to one’s fullness, that is feeling connected to and being able to feel the body and its subtle communication - our sensitivity.
Sensitivity is our Superpower
Consider what we might normally do when feeling tired, overwhelmed, anxious or stressed do we support ourselves or do we distract ourselves?
Do we exercise, call a friend, eat something sweet or salty, drink something that changes our state, watch TV, or find a way of avoiding or pretending we are okay?
Movement and exercise can be a great bridge to feeling better, but it can also be a distraction if we don’t let ourselves be with how we are feeling; if we are not honest with ourselves. And avoiding only leaves us heavy, by pushing our problems deeper into the body only to resurface later with much more force than necessary.
Healing sessions support us to reflect, adjust, develop and refine supportive habits and rituals so that we can learn to effectively re-parent ourselves with the wisdom of what is possible for us here and now. It supports us to be the observer of ourselves and bring honesty to what we are experiencing. This in turn supports us to choose supportive movements that we are forever curious about and learning from, so that we can feel settled, content, in flow in our lives and at ease. And this is the foundation of our natural power.
So rather than being a throw-away remark, that ‘you are too sensitive’, rather you begin to understand from your body that sensitivity is in fact what guides you in life, what gives you all the information you need to make wise choices and ultimately provides the basis of living in secure connection with yourself.
CONNECTIVE TISSUE THERAPY
Science is starting to more closely understand the nature of fascia. The work of Jean Claude Guimberteau has helped bodyworkers more closely understand what it is that they feel when working with the body through movement and touch. In his book ‘Architecture of Human Living Fascia’ first published in 2015 he shows through microscopic footage of living fascia that the fascia is a living, breathing, responsive system that exists between all structures in the body, literally connecting everything together and providing continuity. It provides the structural support, but equally it is fascinating to see the amount of space in between these delicate webs and networks.
Once described as the ‘packing tissue’ in the body, it is now being understood as much more than this. It is not just filling the empty spaces, but rather it is supporting the body to hold more space and to be sensitive to change. It supports the vascular and lymphatic systems to do their job effectively at transporting blood and nutrients, removing toxins and enhancing immunity; it cushions the bones to be strong yet flexible; it holds the organs, cradles the lungs and protects our central nervous system. So it is much more than just enhousing the muscular system.
And rather than being a glue-like substance, it is much more like an intelligent, supportive framework of liquid, crystalline sparkling fibres that shine like tiny mirrors under inspection.
Working with the connective tissue is key to assisting a client to feel, understand and release trauma from the body, for it is in the connective tissue where emotional memory is stored.
This may be recent or very old, as time doesn’t exist when it comes to tissues. Bringing the client into stillness and then working with conscious presence to access the fascial system, has profound and lasting effects when it comes to accessing memory, letting it go, resetting the nervous system response and retraining movement patterns.
Emma introduces connective tissue therapy in her remedial massage and healing bodywork sessions once the body is ready for it. It takes the receiver into an even deeper state of relaxation and yet it is not about falling asleep, but rather in feeling the lightness, space and freedom that is possible in the body as opposed to the density, contraction and hardness that can develop from not letting go of things, postural collapse and trauma.
Consider Connective Tissue Therapy for:
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Acute and chronic pain
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Chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia
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Muscular tightness, tension and injury
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Headache and migraine
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Neck and shoulder pain
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Lower back and hip pain
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Inflammation and joint pain
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Alongside and to consolidate lymphatic drainage work
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Support before and after medical procedures
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Assisted meditation - connecting mind and body
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Clearing trauma and held emotions
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Embodying change
Many of these states of dis-ease such as chronic pain, fibromyalgia, inflammation and held trauma respond beautifully to connective tissue therapy, if the client is equally willing to meet, feel and let go of the mental, emotional and energetic layers that have contributed to the chronic tissue changes, and to respond to a lighter, more sensitive body as a result of the treatment in their everyday lives.
FACIAL MASSAGE
A gentle, nurturing, healing-focussed facial massage designed to bring you back into your radiance. The facial muscles, just like in the rest of the body, hold onto emotions and unresolved states of repetitive thought. Equally, the jaw is quite often a storehouse of a lot of tension, excessive concentration or frustration. A facial massage is often incorporated in remedial massage and healing bodywork sessions, using a face cream for sensitive skin with essential oils of lavender, chamomile and arnica. If this is something that you would like to focus on in your session, please guide Emma accordingly to allow more time with the face. A facial massage also incorporates connective tissue releases for the jaw, forehead, scalp and cheeks, where needed.