Pray Massage

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The last two weeks I've been writing about massage from an "Eat, Pray, Love" point of view. Today I want to cover the spiritual and mental aspect. By spiritual I don't mean religious, but rather a way of thinking that searches for awareness, personal growth and development, becoming a better person and understanding one's own role in life, sometimes including religious practices such as prayer, ceremony and rituals. One aim of spirituality is to achieve enlightened balance and happiness.

For the purpose of this article, anyone who're interested in understanding themselves better, change and grow as a person are spiritual.

Massage can become a spiritual journey. Some massage forms in particular works with a body, mind, spirit approach, where the aim it to balance all three aspects. Some, like LaStone can include ceremonial and spiritual practices, while others like Shiatsu focuses on the energetic principles for balance. 

Even "ordinary" massage can help you find clarity and understanding.

A massage brings about deep relaxation, which can be compared to a meditative state. By focusing on the touch and your breath, you are emptying the mind of thoughts, which is the first step in meditation. From there, inspiration can flow and give you insights and ideas. When the noise of daily life has been removed, there's room for deeper thought and understanding.

I have experienced deep insights and bright flashes of inspiration while receiving a massage. Sometimes the idea bounces so much around in my head that I barely can lie still on the table and wait until the end.

By paying attention to how you react to touch, you can find clues to where emotional blockages might be stored. Sometimes a touch will make you laugh or cry, perhaps even without you knowing why. A trained therapist can help you identify the underlying emotions. The therapist then helps you work with these emotions and release them.


Depending on your beliefs and the skills of your therapist, spiritual practices can be included in the massage. Energy work, removing blocked "Qi-energy", invoking deities and asking for the aid from the Universe

No matter if you seek a better understanding of yourself, want to address certain issues, or want to grow spiritually, massage can become a step in your path towards enlightenment. Don't be afraid to ask your massage therapist about her beliefs, skills and methods. Know that no good therapist will ever enforce their own personal beliefs on you and they will always respect you if you say no.


What are your experiences? I'd love to hear what insights and inspirations you've had while receiving a massage. Did a massage give you spiritual enlightenment?

Eat Massage

Last week I wrote "Eat, Love & Pray Massage", an article inspired by the book Eat, Pray, Love and how that relates to massage. This week I would like speak about the importance of senses.

Massage awakens the senses
The physical aspect of massage, especially wellness and holistic massage, is not only about "fixing what's wrong", but just as much about awakening your senses to touch and stimulation. Sure, many of us only have a massage when we feel sores and pains in our body. That is a shame. Our bodies need a nourishing touch and it has great impact upon our physical and mental health.

Getting regular massages, allowing yourself to enjoy the touch of another, allowing your senses to awaken and dive into them and how they make you feel, is a great healing process. Much research has been done, eg. by the Touch Research Institute, about how important touch is to our emotional, physical and mental health. The last touch-research article I came across, showed the importance of skin-to-skin contact between mother and baby especially for the mother's health.

Listen to your senses
It is essential to listen to your senses. They tell us a lot about how we're feeling and what troubles us. A muscle tensing when we speak to a person can tell us that we're angry, stressed or uncomfortable with the situation. The stomach fluttering lets us know that we're nervous or excited, our heart beating faster can indicate fear, attraction and anxiety and so on. Our senses allow us to identify the underlying issues.

By listening to our body, we gain much insight and understanding. We can catch arising issues before they become problems and we can deal with stress-factors before they start to stress us.

Appreciate life with sensing
Sensing isn't just about our body though. By paying attention to our other senses, we can develop an appreciation for life and what is in it. Opening up our mind to our sensations helps us see and experience the joys in life, to see the beauty and how amazing it is.

Allow yourself to dive into your senses. Find a quiet moment and take the time to truly sense something. The softness of silk, the beauty and scent of a flower, the feeling and taste of a ripe fruit. Just sit in silence, focus completely on the sense and observe how it makes you feel. The moment can be truly magical and so much more stimulating than what we often indulge ourselves in.

Senses help and protect us
Lastly, our senses also serve as our guardians. They warn us when something is wrong. Noticing the scent of smoke from dinner burning, the bad smell of food rotting, seeing the car coming or the child about to fall down the tree, hearing a call of distress or a neighbour in trouble, that a person has fever or it's too cold outside. I'm sure you can come up with plenty of examples where our senses serve as warning signals and are important to our lives.

Unfortunately we live in a society where we're taught to repress and ignore what we experience. We shouldn't enjoy the chocolate too much, we can't feel too much desire, we should ignore the ache in our back, we dress our children warmly even if they say they're warm enough and so on.

By suppressing the signals our senses send us, we essentially tell them they're unimportant and do not have true value. We get into the habit of doing things without truly knowing if it is what we need. We overindulge in chocolate, we have problems sexually, our back-ache becomes an injury and our children might get sick.

Connect with your senses
Take the time every day to connect with your senses and practice working with them. Just small steps at a time. Do something that you enjoy and focus on the experience exclusively. Don't let television, computer, other people or the telephone disturb you. Take five minutes out of the day where you stand still and just feel your senses.

Sense the weather, feel the wind, smell a flower, feel the texture of food in your mouth, touch different surfaces, taste things, breathe deeply and feel the air in your lungs, focus on all the aspects of your morning shower, notice the brush through your hair...

Opening up to your senses doesn't need to be big, mystical and elaborate. The easiest is just to focus on small things in your daily life and be conscious about it.

Once you become sensuous, you'll find so much more pleasure and enjoyment in everything you do. Just think of the cat stretching and purring as you pet it. They appreciate their senses and understand how to connect with them.

Eat, Pray & Love Massage

Like so many others, I read "Eat, Pray, Love" and was touched by the story and the author's insights and discoveries. Now as the hype, around the book and coming film, is growing, I began thinking about it again and in my mind the word massage kept popping up. A clear request from my subconsciousness to look at the messages from the book  and relate them to massage.

There are three parts to the book; Eat, Pray and Love - representing different aspects of living and being.

Eat ties into the senses and the physical life. The message is to celebrate the joys of physical life, to dive into the senses and sensuous world, explore what feels good. In the book this is represented by food.

Massage in particular awakens our senses, and I think if the author could just as well have spent a couple of months getting daily massages. During massage touch, smell and hearing are stimulated. Enjoying food brings pleasure and fills you with good feelings. Massage certainly does too. At least you're not "hungry" again for a massage as quickly as with food, nor will you gain any weight.

Pray is the spiritual aspect of life. By spiritual I don't necessarily mean any religion, but rather the knowledge of where you belong in life and what your life purpose or goal is. The spiritual helps you to remove the clutter in your mind and see what is truly important to you. It helps you become more positive and appreciative of your life and experiences.

For most people, massage is deep relaxation, almost a meditation, that helps you remove the mental noise and helps you to let go of worrying and negative thoughts. If you work actively on it, massage can be a path to finding your true values in life, as you release old patterns and discover what you truly want.

Love is love. Love is not just about finding a life partner, to marry and have children with, love is so much more. Love is about healing old hurts, loving  yourself and with an open mind meet other people. In the book the author not only finds unconditional love and acceptance from those she meets, she also heals her heart and frees herself from old beliefs about love. The process allows her to recognize and accept the true love she encounters.

Love exists in massage. When a massage therapist works with you, love is the underlying feeling that guides him or her. Compassion, empathy, deep caring, presence, attention, gentleness and a strong desire to make you feel good. It is a love that connects you to the therapist during the massage and a love that strongly aids the healing process, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Eat, Pray, Love is an interesting idea, and fortunately you don't need to travel the world to experience the healing and growth that the author embraces. Staying home, taking your time and using your network and surroundings can bring you the same results. Massage in particular is a powerful tool on this journey.

Massage at home?

There are reasons to choose to have a massage in your own home, and there are reasons not to. When it comes to it, it all comes down to your temperament and what you value important in regards to relaxation.

If you're in doubt if having a massage at home is for you, look at the list below and see what weighs the most in your mind.

Here are some benefits to having a massage in your own home:

• Easy access - No chance of getting lost and in most cases, no struggle on either public transport or finding parking.
• Time-efficient - You avoid spending your precious time on transport to and back from the clinic or spa, making it less intrusive to your busy schedule.
• Bathing facilities - while most spas and clinics have bathing facilities, at home you have your own products and can spend a long time taking care of yourself afterwards.
• Low stress - already being at home, you don't need to go out into traffic and busy streets right after the massage, but can take the time to just relax and enjoy the afterglow.
• Privacy - in your own home you control who will be there and see you fully.
• Exclusivity - the therapist is there only for you and your needs and won't be disturbed by other clients or colleagues wanting her time and attention.
• Childcare - for parents you can avoid the need for a babysitter, or in case of breast-feeding mothers, avoid the need to pump. Larger children play on their own while the massage lasts. A baby can be fed and changed and put to nap just before the massage, giving the mother a much needed break. As you don't need to spend time travelling forth and back, it is much easier to have a spouse look after the children for an hour, than half an afternoon.
• Flexibility - often a massage in your home can be outside of normal opening hours for a spa or clinic. The therapist can come to you during the morning, evening or week-ends if that suits your schedule best.
• Environment - at home you can prepare the massage room to suit your wishes and wants. Do you want special candles or scents? Decorative items or music? You're in full control of your massage environment.

There are also disadvantages, which can include:

• Space - do you have the space to set up a massage table and do you need to tidy your home before the therapist visits?
• Peace and quiet - are you home alone or is there a spouse or children who create noise and disturbances?
• Temperature - can you heat the room so it's warm enough for the massage and your comfort?
• Telephone - can you turn of the telephones so they won't disturb you during the massage?
• Sheets and towels - do you have to provide these, and thereby do laundry or does the therapist bring them?
• Sauna/Hamam - many spas have special facilities that you can use after the massage, making it a larger experience, do you want these?
• Letting go - can you let go of worries, duties and stress as easily in your own home as if you visit a spa or clinic?
• Mood - can you create a relaxing mood in your own home, considering clutter, decoration and so on? Spas and clinics often have spent lots of time ensuring that the décor encourages relaxation and wellness.
• Special treatments - some massages and treatments require special equipment, such as Geothermal Therapy, that the therapist can't easily transport to your home. 

There are more advantages and disadvantages, depending on your priorities and situation. Only you can tell if a home visit or going to a spa is what will give you most wellness and the best relaxation.

What things are important for you when you receive a massage? Please share your thoughts and comments below.