What a second session taught me about safety, softening and beginning again.
A gentle continuation of the themes explored in my earlier blog, When the Body Begins to Soften.
A little while ago, I wrote about a client who came to see me with persistent shoulder pain.
During that first session, I found myself drawn not just to her shoulder, but to her hands. There was so much gripping and tension there, continuing through her forearm and towards her shoulder.
That session became the inspiration for my blog, When the Body Begins to Soften.
Recently, she came back for a second session.
And this time, something felt different almost immediately.
At the beginning of the session, I placed one hand gently around hers and my other hand over her heart, allowing the energy work to begin.
Very quickly, she seemed to drop into a deep state of rest.
She told me that she felt safe in her body and was perfectly happy for us to continue without music.
I loved that.
There was no need to fill the quiet.
We simply allowed the session to unfold.
I spent much of our time working very gently from her hand and wrist, through her lower arm and elbow, into her upper arm, shoulder and neck, eventually working at the crown of her head.
There was no forcing or trying to make something happen. My attention kept returning to the arm, following what I was feeling and allowing time for her body to respond in its own way.
At the end, I moved to her feet to ground and gently close the session.
Afterwards, she told me how deep the session had felt.
Then she described something that immediately caught my attention.
At one point she had experienced a strange sensation in her lower arm. She described it as feeling almost like a spider crawling through it.
Of course, sensations can arise during deep relaxation and body-based work for all sorts of reasons, and I don’t try to give every sensation a meaning.
But the word spider stayed with me.
And with it came an image of a spider’s web.
I thought about what happens when a web is damaged.
A spider doesn’t look at a broken web and decide it has failed. It simply begins to weave again.
That felt like such a beautiful metaphor for life.
Because life doesn’t always unfold in the way we imagined it would.
Plans change.
Relationships change.
Our bodies change.
Careers end or take a different direction.
Families grow and change.
Sometimes the life we thought we were going to have looks quite different from the life we’re actually standing in.
And perhaps healing isn’t always about getting everything back to exactly how it was.
Sometimes it is about discovering that we can begin weaving again.
During the session, I also used an image with my client to describe what I was sensing as I worked with her hand and arm.
Imagine taking lots and lots of elastic bands and winding them together into one tight ball.
That was the image that came to me for all that holding and tension.
Rather than trying to pull that ball apart, I imagined our work as something much gentler – slowly allowing some of those tightly wound layers to soften and unravel.
I wasn’t suggesting that energy work was literally unweaving her fascia. It was simply an image that helped us make sense of the experience of moving from gripping towards a little more ease.
And perhaps that’s an important distinction.
The person on the treatment table is very much part of the process.
The touch is gentle, and alongside the energy work there is an invitation to notice what is happening within.
They are noticing.
Feeling.
Becoming curious about sensations.
Recognising patterns.
Learning what safety feels like in their own body.
And sometimes exploring the life experiences, emotions and beliefs that may sit alongside those patterns of holding.
The energy work is happening within that much wider conversation with the body.
I think we can sometimes approach healing as though we need to find the knot and pull at it until it comes undone.
But bodies don’t necessarily respond well to being forced.
Sometimes something much quieter happens when we stop pulling.
A hand softens.
An arm feels different.
The breath settles.
A sensation moves through the body.
A person discovers that silence feels safe.
None of these things needs to be turned into proof of anything.
We can simply notice them.
Because perhaps the work isn’t always about returning to who we were before pain, difficulty or life changed us.
Perhaps, like the spider, we learn that when the old web no longer looks the way we expected it to…
we can begin to weave again.
Where science meets spirit.
If you’re living with persistent pain or symptoms and would like to explore whether my approach could support you, you’re warmly invited to book a free discovery call. I offer private sessions in Aberdeen and online.
Or, if you’d prefer to begin gently in your own time, you can download my free Safe in the Body guided recording – created to help you slow down, reconnect with your body and explore a greater sense of safety.