Posture and emotions are linked with the thoughts that create our experiences. Hear how another blogger puts this.
All posts in category Uncategorized
Posture and Emotions
Posted by Integration Massage on July 28, 2014
https://integrationmassage.wordpress.com/2014/07/28/posture-and-emotions/
New Website! New Blogs!
Thank you to all of you who have been following my blogs. I have a new website and most of my new posts will show up there. I invite you to sign up for it: www.integrationmassage.com
Many of the blogs at the site you are reading will be taken down, as I repurpose it. Check out the following recent posts from my new website, if they are of interest to you:
http://integrationmassage.com/healing/you-can-heal-your-life-body-metaphors/
http://integrationmassage.com/healing/feedforward-in-technology-and-body-mind/
http://integrationmassage.com/massage/advocate-caregiver-friend-and-daughter-to-aging-parent-pt-1/
http://integrationmassage.com/massage/massage-mindfulness-neuroplasticity-and-parkinsons-disease/
And substantial revisions to the About Rosi page, the Welcome page and this older post:
http://integrationmassage.com/massage/preventing-falls-in-aging/
Let me know what you think! Thanks for hanging in there!
Posted by Integration Massage on July 7, 2013
https://integrationmassage.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/new-website-new-blogs/
Kale Chips Recipe
Kale Chips Credits: Inspiration from Sarah at Pacific NW Kale Chips. I use Gabriel Cousens’ idea of the five flavors for satisfying the palate in raw food recipes.
Equipment: it would be useful to have a Vita Mix for other high-speed blender; and an Excalibur or other temperature-controlled dehydrator. You may substitute a food processor for the Vita Mix, and your oven on the lowest setting with the door open for the dehydrator. However, it is hard to regulate the oven temp. Low temp (below 115° F) allows the chips to retain enzymes and other nutrients, and that’s what makes it a raw food.
All Organic Ingredients, please
Kale
2 1/2 – 3 gallons of well-washed kale, stems removed and cut in 1-2 inch strips. Can include other mild and tender brassica greens.
Sauce:
1. 3/4 cup raw brown sesame seeds, soaked 8 hours, drained, rinsed and allowed to barely sprout (with more rinsing) 24 hours at 64°F, 8 hours at 75° F, or 2 hours at 100° F. You should have about 1 1/2 cups soaked and barely sprouted sesame seeds.
2. 1 1/2 cups raw sunflower seeds, soaked 6 hours, drained, rinsed. Yields 3 cups.
3. 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar or fresh lemon juice, or lime; or more to taste
4. 3/4 cup golden flax seeds, soaked in 2 cups water for 4 hours.
5. 1 orange, peeled and seeded.
7. 1 cup nutritional yeast
8. 1 1/2 inches fresh ginger root (optional-may instead use 2T turmeric or cumin; or 2 T. thyme.)
9. 1/4 – 1/3 cup cold pressed olive oil
10. Enough water to keep your Vita-Mix from overheating while it grinds up and blends the sesame, sunflower and flax seeds
11. About 2-4 teaspoons Real Salt, or Himalayan salt or to taste.
12. 1/2 tsp celery seed
13. 1-2 T. dried or fresh rosemary
14. (completely optional) 3/4 cup dulse flakes
Recipe Instructions
Blend the sesame seeds, 1 1/2 cups of the soaked sunflower seeds, the orange, the rosemary, celery seed, and the ginger root (or alternate seasonings) with enough water. Blend very well until smooth and creamy. Add the rest of the sauce ingredients, and blend well with more water if necessary.
Pour over greens in a large bowl (I did it in 3 batches), toss until greens are well coated. (There may be some leftover sauce. Save for salad dressing.)
Let the sauced-up greens rest and absorb the flavors. Some folks like to massage the kale with your gloved hands to get the flavors absorbed well. Taste and see if you need to add more salt, lemon/vinegar or olive oil.
Toss in the rest of the sunflower seeds. Spread on sheets and dehydrate at 113°. After a few hours, remove the crunchiest ones from the top, and separate the remaining greens so they dehydrate well. Store in a tightly sealed container. Share with friends.**
Raw foods are anti-inflammatory, and a wonderful component of self-care along with a massage!
**Re: sharing with friends: There’s nothing quite like arriving a little late at a potluck with a large container of your freshly made raw foods, getting mobbed by, “What did Rosi bring? I want some!” And having your hands be completely empty by the time you get to the serving table. 🙂
Rosi Goldsmith, LMT
www.integrationmassage.com
http://www.facebook.com/IntegrationBodyworkMassage
Posted by Integration Massage on September 3, 2012
https://integrationmassage.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/kale-chips-recipe/
Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional
The Buddhist phrase, “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional,” has set me to thinking. Events will just happen, they are part of “what is”. There will be pain, so long as we are in the body. Suffering comes from our reaction to our pain.
We can choose to be at peace, whatever comes. This takes training and discipline. We can react to untoward events with anger, frustration, sadness, discontent, disconnection, despair, apathy, resignation. Or we can choose the attitude of “whatever happens to me, it is what it is.” This is not always easy. Even with many years of practice, it may not be the automatic reaction to unexpected news.
Cheri Huber has written Suffering is Optional, with exercises for increasing self-awareness so we can interrupt how we create our suffering. “Something happens, and we tense in an effort to keep the same thing from happening again. You’ve probably noticed that doesn’t work. The same thing never happens again…” She notes that the key to diminishing suffering is mindfulness of how we create a state of non-acceptance, and to examine our beliefs and recognize they are not real, they are based on the past.
As bodyworkers, we see this all the time. The tension, the guarding in the neck, shoulders, or back, is to prevent pain. It becomes a contracted shape to prevent something from the past, which isn’t happening now. It reinforces fear of it happening again, making a habit of suffering. The structure of the turtle shell upholds the illusion that it is your fault, that you did something wrong, and if you hide in a rigid body, you can be safe. This might be one these negative beliefs you have embodied since childhood, or perhaps you hold other tensions as body armor. When you come into the present, no longer have the past dragging you back, give yourself love and compassion, and allow your body to release out of pain, you may be empowered to let go of your suffering. May it be so now.
Rosi Goldsmith, LMT
www.integrationmassage.com
www.facebook.com/IntegrationBodyworkMassage
Posted by Integration Massage on August 31, 2012
https://integrationmassage.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/pain-is-inevitable-suffering-is-optional/
Massage: touch, emotions, relationship, healing Q’s, part 2
this post, #14, continues with questions from post #13:
What is massage about?
Is massage about building a relationship that can be felt by both participants? How do experience, knowledge, intuition, trained perceptions, skills and awakening of the inherent healing capacity of the individual relate to the moment of touch?
What does it mean to build a relationship?
I ought to qualify this here—a relationship of trust that is a container for awakening the potential to heal. What does trust require? It’s not the same person to person, not a cookie cutter. You as a client needs to feel met, noticed and acknowledged as an individual and safe. This can be done by touch, by the relief of pain, by asking for and honoring choices, by empowering you to speak up and ask for what you want.
Knowledge, intuition, trained perceptions, skills?
There is so much variation from one therapist to another. More years into this bring more sensitive touch, more trainings bring frameworks to interpret touch: am I working an acupressure meridian point, a trigger point, a tender point, a myofascial knot, a window to your unwinding, your awakening? Do I see you energetically, visually, in terms of a homeopathic remedy symptom picture, a functional neurological imbalance, or as a heart coming to me to be met? Do I see a person plagued by cancer as someone with contraindications, sites of endangerment, or my sister crying out for wholeness?
Your capacity to heal or am I “the therapist”?
Many therapists like to see themselves as the doer, and massage is usually seen as something I do to you. What about non-doing, the non-dual? Ortho-Bionomy®, acupressure, and homeopathy recognize the inherent healing capacity, the divinity that is both latent and manifest within an individual. Latent because not acted on. Manifest because the symptom picture points to the truth within. People express their symptoms, but that may not be what brings you. I must ask, listen, and offer not only my hands, but also my heart, as you release tension, soften the layers that were blocking your healing.
Rosi Goldsmith, LMT
www.integrationmassage.com
www.facebook.com/IntegrationBodyworkMassage
Posted by Integration Massage on August 24, 2012
https://integrationmassage.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/massage-touch-emotions-relationship-healing-qs-part-2/
Massage: touch, emotions, relationship, healing Q’s, part 1
Is massage only about the body?
Many massage therapists are taught that emotional issues are to be referred out to psychologists. However, research indicates that massage releases pent-up emotions, relieves symptoms of anxiety, depression, and agitation. For example, Tiffany Fields of the Touch Research Institute has documented relief of agitation for people with Alzheimer’s disease and children. Another multiple-session study showed that massage provided the same benefit as psychotherapy in relieving symptoms of anxiety. A large part of this benefit might be the development of a relationship of trust.
Is massage just a mechanical process that can be measured and applied with equal force, counting strokes to measure outcomes in double blind testing? Or is it about resonance, or empathy or a new view of what it means to be human?
What about empathy?
How is empathy accomplished? Do both therapist and receiver participate or does it only go one way? How is it different from sympathy? What are the physiological changes that accompany perceived empathy—changes in breathing, respiration, nervous system relaxation, calming the agitations of the mind? How do people express their need for an empathic listener or touch–to be understood, acknowledged, validated, held, noticed?
What is the heart’s resonance?
Cranial sacral therapists rely on the cranial pulse and following it. It is an experience of being deeply met. Stephen Harrod Buhner—could we apply his premise from The Heart as an Organ of Perception? He was writing it about the capacity to understand nature and the qualities of plants through our hearts. Why not each other? Physics taught about pendulum clocks on the same wall going into rhythm entrainment. The biology of rhythm entrainment is when organisms match the oscillations of another. People do this with brainwaves. Heart rhythms can be synchronous, what happens then? In communication it is called heart to heart. How is this part of the massage experience? How is this not?
to be continued–see next post for questions about therapeutic relationship: role of skills, intuition, knowledge, and your capacity as a client to heal yourself.
#13: 31 posts in 31 days challenge
Rosi Goldsmith, LMT
www.integrationmassage.com
www.facebook.com/IntegrationBodyworkMassage
Posted by Integration Massage on August 23, 2012
https://integrationmassage.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/massage-touch-emotions-relationship-healing-qs-part-1/
Tight Muscles, Relaxation, and Ortho-Bionomy®
When a muscle is in a state of chronic contraction, it is unavailable or less available for use. Muscles move joints. A fluidly moving joint allows for normal range of motion. Stiffness or pain can limit the range of motion of the joint, and you may find yourself limited from achieving your optimum in sports or from doing ordinary daily activities.
Muscles are associated with other agonist muscles that work together to move the joint. For most joints, there are also antagonists: they oppose the movement of the joint in a particular direction. For one muscle or group of muscles to contract, the antagonist muscles must relax or lengthen. If the antagonist muscles are tight, they don’t lengthen, the joint doesn’t move much, and the agonist muscles cannot work. If you continue to attempt to move joints when the agonist and antagonist muscles are fighting each other, you can injure tendons, or cause inflammation.
How do muscles get tight? Overuse, strain, repetitive injury, underuse, lack of exercise, inadequate nutrients, maintaining distorted posture, ignoring pain signals, or ignoring the need to stretch. Stretching by itself cannot always release tight muscles, especially if there are postural habits that prevent the muscle from returning to a normal resting length, or if the antagonist muscles are in pain.
Ortho-Bionomy® is one approach that positions the body in a direction of ease or comfort, usually around a tender point. This sends a signal to the nervous system that stimulates the self-corrective reflexes of the body. This is especially helpful to neck, shoulders, hands, elbows, feet, knees, back and ribs. Sometimes an Ortho-Bionomy® session follows your own unwinding, with a rhythm and timing that allows you to access and release more subtle aspects of your patterns of holding and letting go.
Call me for an Ortho-Bionomy® session, or if you are interested in taking a class from Sara Sunstein, Advanced Ortho-Bionomy® Instructor, who will be teaching workshops in Portland in September, as well offering private sessions. 503-708-2911.
Posted by Integration Massage on August 18, 2012
https://integrationmassage.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/tight-muscles-and-ortho-bionomy/
Massage Therapy: Mild Frontal TBI
There has been some progress recently in strategies to aid recovery from mild Traumatic Brain Injury, TBI. Damage to the frontal cortex is one of the most challenging to overcome. In a frontal brain injury, it may be hard for the person to regulate their emotional states, make good decisions, notice details, or speak clearly. Challenges with memory, social skills, planning and reasoning deficits make it hard to act appropriately or accomplish goals. However, regulating emotional states has been identified as the single largest issue in quality of life with TBI focus groups.
Doctors used to believe that adults could not regenerate neurons or brain cells. Recent research has suggested that adult brains are capable of far greater adaptive capacity, or neuroplasticity, than once believed. Targeted body-based therapies, are an emerging element. How can I, as a massage therapist help? Massage and exercises that are designed to gently stimulate affected or related brain structures without fatiguing or overloading the nervous system, will help the person rewire their brain circuits, which then strengthens their ability to regulate emotions, improve memory and feel more balanced.
By accident, I found some techniques I had used in my own recovery from TBI were helpful with a client. I enrolled in a year-long course: Functional Neurology for Bodyworkers, taught by Dr. Paul Thomas, http://www.knowthebrain.com. He is a board-certified chiropractic neurologist and graduate of the Carrick Institute. I learned mini-neurological assessments and adapt the modalities I use with other clients: massage, Ortho-Bionomy®, Reiki, body-mind-emotional integration, and neuromuscular techniques. I monitor when a person’s nervous system is getting fatigued, using a pulse/oximeter, and modify techniques, pace, depth, or area of the body to achieve greater benefit.
There are now many resources for people struggling with adapting to a new life after TBI. I am grateful to be among them. You may make an appointment with me online: http://www.integrationmassage.com/ I will refer you to others if what you need is beyond my scope of practice.
Thank you.
Posted by Integration Massage on August 15, 2012
https://integrationmassage.wordpress.com/2012/08/15/massage-therapy-for-mild-tbi/
Chapman’s Reflexes with Sara Sunstein, April 20-21
Sara Sunstein will be teaching Organs and Glands, Using Chapman’s Reflexes: A Gentle, Hands-On Approach in Portland, Oregon, April 20-21, 2013 (Sat.-Sun.) 9:00 a.m.- 6:00 p.m.
Contact Oregon School of Massage to register. Discounts for those taking Phase 4 Ortho-Bionomy® previous week and for SOBI members repeating class.
Sara Sunstein, M.A., Registered Instructor of Ortho-Bionomy®, is praised for her warmth, expertise, and clarity. She practices in Berkeley, CA, specializing in the resolution of pain and trauma, the interplay of emotions and body, and befriending the body.
Chapman’s Reflexes were identified by Osteopathic Physician Frank Chapman in the 1920s, to stimulate nerve and lymph flow to individual organs and glands. Working with the reflex points, we support the body’s coming into balance, and improve its function and self-regulating abilities. We can address different systems in the body by grouping specific points together. Being lymphatic reflexes, the points are just under the skin and do not require deep pressure to be awakened. The hands-on contact is gentle for the receiver and requires attention, not force, from the practitioner.
Who can benefit from attending this training? Body- and health-oriented professionals or lay persons who want to learn more about self-healing or helping others. No prerequisites: it is open to all with a willingness to compassionately engage, through gentle contact, with another human being.
In this 16-hour seminar, you will learn and practice:
* location, identification and palpation of Chapman’s Reflex points
* gentle methods to stimulate and release the points and corresponding organs and glands
* groups of reflexes to address:
- endocrine and reproductive systems
- gastrointestinal function
- immune system, allergies, congestion
* interconnections between structure and reflexes
* common applications of reflex points during a hands-on session
* basic Ortho-Bionomy® concepts and release techniques for the pelvis
Suggested Text: available for purchase in class, $25: An Endocrine Interpretation of Chapman’s Reflexes,
by Charles Owens, DO
For more information or to register:
Rosi Goldsmith, LMT
503.708.2911 deva@integrationbodywork.com
Posted by Integration Massage on August 14, 2012
https://integrationmassage.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/chapmans-reflexes-with-sara-sunstein/
Studying in Santa Fe
Hello, friends,
I have been studying Ortho-Bionomy® in Santa Fe for the last three weeks. I will be very excited to add this modality to my repertoire, once I get my Associate Practitioner certification. Until then, you can have very low cost sessions so I can get more practice. You can still have my other offerings: Reflexology, body-mind integration, emotional tone scale, Senior Sovereignty™ and Body Mapping, posture release.
Sara Sunstein, M.A. will be coming to Portland Nov. 19 & 20 to teach a Phase 5 Ortho-Bionomy® workshop, and I am coordinating it. Call or write for more info.
Posted by Integration Massage on October 5, 2011
https://integrationmassage.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/studying-in-santa-fe/
Schedule appointment
integrationmassage 