My name is Elaine Clark and I have been a massage therapist since 2007. I attended Ashmead College in Everett, WA. I use many techniques, both with hands-on work and verbally guided work, to encourage a person to relieve anxiety, stress, pain, lack of mobility or lack of sleep. Most of my experience is in clinical, therapeutic massage.
"Whole Healing for the Whole You" means I always consider the body as one piece. And I don't mean that our bodies' systems work as one piece or the "mind-body" connection.
In allopathic medicine, we discuss ourselves in pieces; my arm, my back, my head, my left, my right, etc. This mostly comes from necessity as a highly effective way to communicate about our current experience. "My head hurts, I broke my ankle." In many cases, this is sufficient. It works for most people, most of the time. If you broke your ankle, the ankle break needs to be addressed; maybe braced, plenty of rest, some ice, perhaps some anti-inflammatories for a few days. But in many people's case, the ailment is not so obvious. If a headache has been pervasive for 15 years, it's often tough to say exactly what causes it. Nearly everyday someone says to me, "Do you think I have pain because I (X, Y and Z)? Or maybe because of that old surgery? Or because of that football injury in college? Maybe the left is compensating for the right? Well I guess it's all connected."
"It's all connected."
This is an idea that people, especially those trying to avoid medication or surgery, are really starting to grab onto; the idea that we are many complex parts functioning as one unit. Everything effects everything. In an age where many doctors are quick to prescriptions and people have trouble, for whatever reason, making real, lasting change in their lives, this is a profound shift. It means that you can effect one system of the body by improving a seemingly unrelated one. I would like to take it a step further though and promote the idea that we are not pieces working together as a whole.
Yes, in the obvious sense of the word we work as one piece. But consider this: the language we use is important, hugely important to be accurate in what you mean. When we say "mind-body connection" we are perpetuating the concept that we are a mind and a body that work together. That reinforces the imagery of 2 working as 1. When we say "the left shoulder is compensating for the right one", that's not wholly accurate. To use this verbage it implies that the body chooses to compensate. That if it didn't want to, it could just leave the right shoulder to be injured and leave the left out of it. That our body conceptualizes itself. However in reality, it does no such thing. It only predicts and behaves. In my experience, "the bodies' parts" aren't a thing. "Parts" are a concept we've come up with to understand ourselves and each other. Fully useful for what it can describe and accurate, but not precise at all when it comes to understanding ourselves. I believe both concepts are important to be aware of in order to fully sense how our bodies really work. A more precise concept of ourselves leads to greater understanding of ourselves, which leads to greater compassion for ourselves, as well as those around us.
I invite people to entertain the idea of a complete person, one human being. Not the idea of many parts working together or the mind-body connection or compensating parts, but simply one organism. It is an infinitely complex organism, I'll give you that. But I have found it helpful to me and my clients to see a person as a complete person. A Self. One human Self.