Deeper Connections with your Baby during Pregnancy Sessions

Pregnancy Massage can enhance the overall health of mother and baby during and after pregnancy. The nurturing touch of massage can provide ease and comfort during this transformative time in a woman’s life. By reducing stress hormones massage can reduce birth complications, ease labor and improve infant health.  Massage assists with shorter labor for expectant mothers, reduces the need for medication, eases postpartum depression and anxiety, and contributes to a shorter hospital stay.

 

As a trained Birth Doula, Jessica holds sacred space for women to relax into a peaceful experience of pregnancy and birth.  During a prenatal massage, women often experience relief from stress and pain and a deeper connection with their babies.  Jessica welcomes the opportunity to assist you before, during and after the birth of your baby.

  

Additional Benefits of Prenatal Massage

 

Reduce insomnia

Relieve fatigue

Reduce headaches

Reduce back, joint & nerve pain

Help control blood pressure

Strengthen the immune system

Improve the circulatory system

 

Your Prenatal Massage Session

 

Prenatal massages are usually one hour in length. During your first session we will review your health history & intake form and discuss your goals and expectations. You should check with your health care provider before beginning any new therapy during your pregnancy. If you are experiencing health problems or have a high risk pregnancy, please bring written permission from your doctor. Please contact Jessica if you have any questions.

Bodywork treats more than the Physical

When I tell people I do massage and bodywork for a living I usually hear one of two things. “Oh, if only I could justify that kind of frivolous luxury”, or “I tried that once. It didn’t help!”  These comments usually stem from a lack of knowledge about the vastly different forms of bodywork available.  The bodywork I practice is a highly intuitive, integrative therapy that is very different from what is traditionally offered in a spa, clinic or massage chain. In addition to more typical requests to help relieve stress or treat a pulled hamstring, I often hear a call for help on the spiritual, emotional or energetic levels. 

Image by Asif Akbar

 The biggest turning point in my career was when a new client walked into my office and said, “I’m here for spiritual comfort.  I have pancreatic cancer and I only have two months left to live.”  This man’s confidence in the healing power of touch and presence inspired me to begin practicing in earnest a type of bodywork that integrates body, mind and spirit.   

Most often what I hear from new clients is something like, “I’m here because I feel a blockage in my lower back, and nothing I try to do to release it is working”.  During sessions, they often uncover fear, sadness or anger from early childhood or even before.  Sometimes they are surprised at what they find, and other times they have been working on this same issue for years and feel frustrated and hopeless with a seeming lack of progress.

For these clients, what seems to work best is a certain type of touch. Sometimes what is needed is a gentle, listening touch, and at other times it is a very deep, specific pressure.  This touch seems to provide clients the space to identify a spiritual or emotional issue they need to resolve. Oftentimes the issue lies buried beneath layers of muscles that have been contracted for months or even years, in which case traditional massage techniques are also used.  This intuitive touch, along with gentle coaching, guides clients towards a heightened sensory awareness that often results in a meditative state.   Along with this expanded state of awareness come deep relaxation, calm acceptance and a willingness to see and question limiting feelings and beliefs.

Our issues truly are in our tissues.   Studies have shown the negative effects of traumatic events on our bodies even when we have long since forgotten what happened.  For example, imagine that you are in a fairly serious car accident, and at the moment just before impact, your entire body tenses up and is flooded with fear and panic. You think, in fact, that you may be about to die. After the accident and the time it takes to recover from any acute injuries you’ve suffered, your brain may register that you are healed and safe, but your body tension does not relax.   You now feel an increased level of danger, unrest or anxiety and your body tension turns into chronic pain. It is not only the violence of traumatic accidents that gets lodged in the body.  The grief of a past or future loss, childhood memories of abuse or neglect, or even natural life transitions can become embedded in the body and manifest in various ways (e.g. pain, tightness).  

 The dear man who walked into my office with only a few months left to live put his faith in my hands. As we worked, his body relaxed layer by layer until his awareness was focused on the center of his being. What he was able to discover there was a deep well of inner peace, surrender and acceptance. His face was joyful as he told me he was ready to leave this world for whatever was next.  

There is an intricate connection between body mind and spirit, and bodywork can help integrate these seemingly disparate parts of us. The next time you notice pain in your body, breathe deeply and put your attention on the sensations of your body. Ask, “What is here for me to learn?”  You may be surprised by the wise answers you will receive from within.

Setting Limits

Throughout each day I think of many interesting and helpful things to blog about, but then as soon as I sit down at the computer my mind goes as blank as the page. Which explains why it's been over a year and a half since I've posted a blog (!!).  Today I decided I would write anyway. Even if it has nothing to do with bodywork or wellness or anything at all.

This morning it rained. The beautiful, blessed, drenching rain was a symphony for early morning drowsing. But yesterday, as the clouds gathered and humidity rose, I felt my muscles and joints gather tension and pain as if the moisture was gathering in my body too. I woke this morning aching and fuzzy, and as I looked at my schedule I realized I had a four hour chair massage fundraiser and 3 hours of bodywork on the books. 

Instead of berating myself for making such a poor choice (I am well aware that kind of day is overtaxing to my body, mind and spirit), and then forcing myself to do what I had agreed to do, I simply picked up the phone and cancelled my afternoon clients. 

I cannot begin to describe how good that felt. Instead of the all too familiar "tough love" approach, I was finally parenting myself with patience, care, and logical limits.

Unbelievably, before I finished the second text the aches and pains had completely disappeared from my body and my spirit soared. It was as if my body no longer had to try to set my limits for me, because I had finally taken on that role for myself.

I am left wondering how often do our bodies manifest symptoms to try to get us to slow down? What would have happened had I listened to that little voice that said, "Hey, that's a little too much work for one day!" If  we started listening to those voices, would our bodies stop creating so much pain and anguish?

I'm so grateful  for this beautiful rain today! I'm so happy for the opportunity to learn how to set better limits for myself. And I'm so excited to post a blog, even if it's not really about anything at all!

Image credit Michael Smolla