Bodymind Therapy : Achieving Harmony By Behroz Khajotia & Gagori Mitra

Behroz Khajotia and Gagori Mitra have been studying bodymind therapy or holistic massage with Dr. Paula Horan for the past 18 months and are now establishing their own practices in Mumbai and Pune where they are working with great success at relieving the stress in their clients. They particularly enjoy the independence their work grants them and the satisfaction they derive from the sharing involved in a genuine approach to healing body and mind through the hands-on loosening-up of the body.

In our practice, we find constant verification every day that Bodymind Therapy is one of the most skillful approaches for dissolving "body armor". Wilhelm Reich, a student of Sigmund Freud coined the term "body armor" to describe the chronic muscular tension held in the body wherever unprocessed stress and/or suppressed unpleasant memories or emotions are stored. Stress, depression and the very common lack of physical energy or "inner fire" are in most cases the obvious results of chronic muscular tension caused by the unconscious suppression of unwanted feelings. Bodywork helps to release all of the above, through pressure applied in a feelingful manner to chronically tense muscles and by stimulating certain release points. This release frees the psyche. Bodywork is thus a form of therapy that benefits both the body and the mind, achieving harmony for both. In fact, it treats them as one fluid continuum and feedback system. Using the uninterrupted feedback loop between body and mind, bodymind therapy offers us a whole variety of tools to be authentic, healthy, happy and grounded in the reality of our own lives. This is also why the term "bodymind therapy" is actually a little more appropriate and characterizes our own work more accurately than the simpler word "bodywork" - which we like for another reason, namely its simplicity. Bodywork: your body is being worked on, and if this is done well, it is a totally pleasant encounter - even when it involves experiencing the bit of pain that is being released in the process.

For us, bodywork or massage therapy is a wonderful way of conveying caring, love and healing through the ultra sensitive medium of touch. It is a drugless therapy and a saner, healthier alternative to the mindless and often dangerous dumping of chemicals and toxins in the body through indiscriminate use of over-the-counter and prescription medications and painkillers. Often these drugs only suppress the pain that our body sends us as a warning signal to tell us, "Hey buddy, take a good look! Something is out of whack in your life. Better attend to it." In the beginning stages of discomfort that are so familiar to most of us, when pain is not yet indicating a serious pathology, it can actually be revealed as the capstone to underlying bliss, by simply feeling through it. Yes, believe it or not: pain is a gateway to bliss, when skillfully handled and transformed. We have seen it happen in our clients so many times. And we have rejoiced with them in their freedom and release. It feels great when you can truly make another feel better and you sense their gratitude, which they convey to you in their own personal manner.

Benefits, Benefits, and More Benefits...
A full body treatment at the hands of a skilled bodymind therapist is very different and far more effective than what your untrained "bai" can do for you. A good massage therapist gives you more than a pleasant "body rub". Thoroughly trained in anatomy, he or she can work precisely from the origin of a muscle where it is attached to the bone to its insertion. Such precision can be used to correct sport's injuries or to find a specific emotional release point. Most of all, a properly trained therapist facilitates your awareness of your own bodymind. Our clients are often amazed and delighted how, inspired by the touch of our hands, they begin to openly feel their own deeper selves.

Bodymind therapy is beneficial for a wide range of conditions including arthritis, muscle spasms, hypertension and back problems. It even supports well-being in AIDS and cancer treatment. Massage by a trained bodyworker increases circulation, improves lymphatic drainage, and grants pain relief. For example, through the increased blood supply to the brain, migraine headaches may fade into the background or even simply be dissolved.

Sound Training Is the Secret to Success
A certified residential bodymind therapy course has been conducted in India regularly over the past two years by internationally renowned author and bodymind therapist Dr. Paula Horan. Mostly known for her books on Reiki and non-duality, it is not so well known that as a part of her own curriculum towards her Doctorate in Psychology, she studied and later taught at the Institute of Psycho-Structural Balancing (IPSB), in San Diego, California. Later, after two years in her own highly successful practice, she worked as Director of the Health Spa aboard the "Rhapsody", a French cruise liner.

The course that we have taken from her comprises of four modules, which start with the basic human anatomy and step by step then trains you in different modalities of bodymind therapy. The first module starts with Swedish and Esalen massage, the second focuses on Ayurvedic massage and the Ayurvedic principles, followed by joint mobilization. The third module trains the participants in more advanced techniques in muscle sculpting and deep tissue therapies. The fourth and last module is exclusively dedicated to Rebirthing, combined with the Gates Method of emotional release work, which helps process and release long withheld memories stored in the cells of the body, resulting in a fuller, more joyous participation in life.

It is our experience that the time for bodywork has arrived, in this country as much as anywhere on the planet, because it helps people relax and feel human again, in a world that is turning more robotic and inhuman by the day. The growing popularity of health spa speaks to the current need to return to a healthier and more wholesome lifestyle, free of rigid ideology and superimposed religious rules.

Both of us gained tremendously by our training in bodymind therapy: through acquiring very practical skills, through honing our sensitivity, and through shedding useless mental and emotional baggage. Most of all, we discovered what it really means to be present with ourselves or whomever we are with, even if what is present is uncomfortable. Through receiving bodywork as well as learning to facilitate others, we have truly learned that the other side of pain is bliss. As Paula so aptly states in the training, "you can only take others as far, as you are willing to go yourself." It is a great joy now to help convey the same relaxation and bliss to others that we have received. This is accomplished by simply supporting them in the discovery and the feeling of what has always already been there, but may not have been noticed - the oasis of peace and harmony in their very own heart in the midst of everyday life.

"Touching hands are not like pharmaceuticals or scalpels. They are like flashlights in a darkened room. The medicine they administer is self-awareness. And for many of our painful conditions, this is the aid that is most urgently needed." Deane Juhan