07.01.2024 Embarking.

Every thousand mile journey starts with a single step. Action is the foundation of inspiration and motivation. I often sit around waiting for a decent idea to hit me so I can start - whereas in fact it is better to simply start and see what starting brings. Because on every journey it is in the unexpected where we learn the most. Learning in fact is always unexpected - or the really good bits are anyway. If everything was expected we would already know it, and therefore not need to learn it. 

I was brought up being told that I was clever and that it was very important to be clever. I was also informed that it wasn’t good to be a ‘clever-clogs’ ‘know-it-all’ ‘show-off’ or (my favourite) a ‘smart-arse’. So which is it? The confusing message I received was that one should be very clever - but I shouldn’t try out my cleverness in conversation, else be admonished. 

There were many confusing messages delivered to me in childhood - and I count myself amongst the many millennials trying to unpick these core beliefs in order to improve my mental health and general functioning as both human being and professional.

I am working in a field that is without the comforting protection of a professionally recognised qualification. I chose this path (even though oftentimes it feels like it chose me) and after 6 years of practice I am starting to feel that I can take responsibility for that choice and stand up and talk about what it is I do without fear of being admonished. 

Trying to communicate what I do is incredibly challenging because it is so varied. My sessions respond to the needs and availability of the client at the exact time that they walk in the door - often deep work is simply not appropriate. If the client is flying to Australia tomorrow and they have a stiff neck from snowboarding then my diving into the somatic imprint of their trauma through deep fascial work would probably be incredibly destabilising. So instead this person has to receive a treatment that improves the current sore neck somewhat without diving into the depths of why they have had a recurring sore neck for 15 years. This is where massage and neurokinetic therapy (NKT) come to my rescue as a practitioner. 

Massage can improve symptoms for a little while - and it is a great business model because you are providing temporary relief. Massage is a wonderful modality that I enjoy myself and it helps alot of people in many ways not described here. There is no disputing this and I wouldn’t want to. Despite this I have always felt dissatisfied with providing temporary relief as my model. I owe a huge thank-you to David Weinstock for NKT and its unique ability to quickly describe which tight structures are overworking relative to the tight underworking functional opposites. In this way basic structural complaints can be addressed with some long-term results during a massage informed by NKT. 

Next we have the client who comes through the door searching for long-term answers to their unresolved pain. We perceive our familiar sore neck / tight lower back / weak glutes / dodgy knees as purely structural in origin because the symptoms appear structural. Sometimes a structural intervention works as the quick fix (that we all desire) but often the underlying reason for our familiar complaint lies in our behaviour - in our postural behaviours. Posture IS behaviour. Behaviour IS posture. 

In a Rolfing session I take a full history of what my client has been through with their body - paying particular attention to structural and emotional scars, injuries and surgeries and all the while assessing how well the client is able to regulate their nervous system during their history-telling. The nervous system tells a story all of its own and I read that story with my perception of their posture, breathing and subliminal cues and also by reading my physiological responses to them. For example, if a person comes in and I feel the familiar little constriction of fear in my throat then this helps me to understand that this person is held somewhere in a fear-state - even if they come in smiling.

I can now say (without fear of being admonished) that I know a great deal about nervous system regulation - firstly because mine has been so wildly dysregulated and secondly because I have studied, researched and personally experienced many modalities of traumatic release work. Not to mention the 52 self-improvement type books that sit on my shelf (I just counted them and can’t quite believe that). Despite feeling that I have learned much about this subject it is an endlessly complicated endeavour and it regularly takes surprising turns that I discover through each experience re-regulating my once traumatised system.

I take solace in my struggle to describe the somatic work that I offer in my practice from this quote from one of the bodywork bibles -  “there is no single treatment modality for re-empowering a traumatised person over the sensations of their body.”  (Bessel Van Der Kolk - The Body Keeps The Score). 

In Rolfing I work with the body and mind connection. I negotiate postural change to change habitual behaviour. I work with trauma that can manifest itself as anxiety, depression, ADHD, helplessness, rage, burnout... I work carefully and with permission. I work with my own curiosity and the curiosity of my clients looking for answers. I have been witness to many brave transformations that drive me to continue this work. I am learning and I often feel overwhelmed and I regularly feel like an impostor. Beneath the familiar fear is the emerging new core belief that I am capable of achieving important work. I also know that I have to be brave and start talking openly and vulnerably about it. Communication is the theme of 2024. Feels nice to have started, somewhere.