A simple, powerful model helps you navigate your healing bodywork journey. A structured approach to resolving physical and emotional trauma. An invaluable tool to orient and direct your healing efforts meaningfully…

Seven stages of bodywork evolution

Your healing journey does not start when you begin to seek medical, counselling, or therapeutic assistance.

Step 1 – Manifestation

The first step of typical healing journey is usually initiated when we become aware of the things that change within or about us. By nature, we do not like surprises – except, of course, those we experience on our birthdays and during festive seasons. Although we may not like it we largely accept that we change daily as a consequence of aging. Aging is continuous, and therefore – to a large degree – predictable. We are generally ok with continuous change because it keeps like reasonably predictable, and thus manageable.

We are less comfortable with discontinuous change – or, in other words, unexpected changes.

The simplest example may be when we injure ourselves. We may cut ourselves when we prepare a meal, or experience a sudden flu or cold during autumn and winter months. We may twist our ankle, burn ourselves on a heated oven, and may hurt our foot when something heavy falls on it. Clearly, there literally are hundreds of things that can go wrong during our daily life, each a source of hurt, discomfort, and injury. Of course, none of these events are planned.

Manifestation refers to our physical, physiological, and mental response to such events. Some manifestations are plainly noticeable when they present as cuts, bruises, or abnormal headaches for example. In many cases, they occur as expected. We know that cuts will bleed, and that the bleeding of small ones can be stemmed with a band-aid. If we can find a reasonable cause for our headache we know that an aspirin and the consumption of water can help. Most of us will also know when medical assistance is required, which usually is when we do not have the expertise, ability, or materials that are required to provide proper aid.

Manifestation is essentially about awareness.

Step 2 – Acknowledgement

Acknowledgement is about recognising the changes that happen within or to us. Our ability to recognise a change is dependent on our familiarity with our body and our sensitivity to change.

Years of bodywork practice taught me that some people are simply unaware of what is going on inside them. They do not notice how their body responds to my techniques and methods, even when it causes it to shake in response to a myofascial release. When asked, they can wriggle their hands and toes, and can feel my hand on their skin. Some struggle to explain where a 4 inch bruise on one of their legs comes from, even though it is obvious that it is not new. Too many

 

A good example is how our relationship with mirrors change throughout our lives. It seems that many of us find it hard to see the effects of aging reflected in our selves. But our difficulty with acknowledging our changes can be more pervasive, often to our own detriment. It can be hard to finally realise that our capability for remembering may fade as time goes by. No one celebrates their loss of a youthful appearance.

Step 3 – Reflection

Depending on how aware we are of the undesired changes that happen within us we then

Step 4 – Impetus

At this stage we are asked to make a decision. Will we act on the changes now, or later, or will we simply ignore them?

Step 5 – Commitment

During this stage we must decide how committed we are to resolving the issues we are facing with our selves. Many of us