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Dear Soul Arcanum:
I have had a number of massages in my life, but yesterday I had a very unusual experience. I was getting a deep tissue massage from a new therapist when suddenly I was overcome with feelings of profound grief and sorrow. I also experienced tremendous physical pain where she was touching my back beneath my left shoulder blade. Much to my embarrassment, I started to writhe in pain and sob. It was so intense I had to stop her and end the session. I could not wait to get out of that office. I felt very bad about this for many reasons. I’m now wondering if maybe I picked up on the feelings of the therapist or if she somehow touched off a “nerve” in me. I have never had anything like this happen before. What do you think?
R.
Dear R.:
What you describe is very common; in fact, I’ve experienced something like it myself. I too was seeing a new massage therapist when this occurred. He employed an electric blanket to prevent me from getting chilled, and everything was going fine until he covered my upper torso with the blanket so he could work on my legs. Suddenly I was overcome with feelings of panic. I felt like I was suffocating and being crushed; like the blanket weighed hundreds of pounds. Instead of succumbing to panic, I decided to try to relax into those feelings and see what may be behind them.
Immediately I began to remember a past life in India, and I knew that I was at the moment of my death. I was at a sacred temple where thousands of people had traveled on pilgrimage on a holy day. The crowd was pushing forward, trying to get to where they could touch a sacred statue and leave an offering. We were on top of each other when the crowd pushed forward in a fervor and I felt myself being crushed. I felt as panic-stricken as if I were actually there and being crushed to death. This was so physically and emotionally intense that I too nearly had to end the session.
It is very common to have strong emotions come up during body work. Most seasoned massage therapists have seen this so many times that nothing surprises them anymore, while other body workers purposefully seek to help clients achieve emotional healing and release. Of course, not all massage therapists are created equal; those who are especially spiritual may spark this sort of healing, while those who are more physically oriented may focus wholly on the muscles beneath their hands. Further, strong reactions tend to be sparked when an area of the body that is holding pain or tension is touched.
As for why psychic insights, past life memories, and repressed emotions tend to surface during body, for work most people, receiving a massage is the deepest trance state they ever experience. As soon as they slip into this altered state of consciousness, whatever has been just beneath the surface of their awareness tends to come up. Big vibrational shifts toward an unsual state of peace and relaxation also tend to produce energetic tension. It’s a bit like being in a hot air balloon: we may be hovering a few feet above the ground when suddenly someone stokes up the fire. If we have sand bags on board to keep us grounded, this creates tension: we are being pulled skyward but we have all of this baggage weighing us down. In order to soar, we may have to drop some of that weight. This is a natural process; our subconscious minds seize the opportunity to bring up whatever is heaviest or most needs to be released when an opportunity to go higher arises.
There are all sorts of theories about how we hold old energy in our bodies and auras. As I don’t have room to go into detail here, you may want to explore the work of pioneers in this field like Wilhelm Reich, Fritz Perls and Stanislav Grof. The main thing to understand is that we tend to hold wounds from childhood and even past lives in our bodies. For example, someone who was raped in a past life may experience pain on intercourse; someone whose head was bashed in may experience migraines; someone who was suffocated may experience asthma or panic attacks during which they feel they can’t breathe. It’s interesting that you experienced the reaction you did when your therapist touched a certain spot underneath your left shoulder blade, which of course is directly in line with your heart. The important thing to keep in mind is that these are not problems to be feared and rejected; they are helpful symptoms that tell us that healing is needed.
As for how and why we store trauma in the body, basically we have a natural tendency to try to distance ourselves from painful experiences. If we have repressed trauma on an emotional or mental level, then when we shed our physical bodies, we will carry that trauma with us in our subtle bodies. When we then incarnate in a new body, the subtle bodies <q>inform</q> the new physical body, which naturally integrates that energy and information. Mind/body medicine has clearly established that our thoughts and feelings affect our physical well-being. It is also true that the body can affect our feelings and thoughts; for example, to calm yourself emotionally, you have only to breathe in a slow, calm way. A change on any level affects the whole being, so for lasting change to occur, healing must take place on all levels. If we view our mental, emotional and physical bodies as a team in a six-legged race, it’s easy to see how a problem in one body will affect the whole.
We might compare these different levels of energy to water. If energy becomes frozen in the energy field (locked in the body), it is something we can run into or trip over and it is very hard to manipulate. If we raise its vibration to water (the level of emotion), we can still slip on it but it is easier to work with. If we raise it again to the level of steam by bringing the buried thoughts behind it into our conscious awareness, then it will naturally begin to evaporate and dissipate. It sounds like in your case, some old trauma was brought up to the level of emotion, and that energy began to be released. The awakening of that intense energy caused the same reaction of panic and avoidance that caused it to get stuck in the first place. Until you face it and work with it, it will remain with you. If instead, you allow that energy to lead you to new awareness, it will begin to evaporate and be released. This is the power of catharsis; anything that evokes a strong reaction is a signal that there is tension that needs healing.
One reason hypnotherapy is so effective is because it works at the causative level of the mind; it quickly brings frozen issues up into our conscious awareness so that they can be processed, healed and released. Since it is important to address all levels of one’s being, however, several different modalities may prove helpful. It is important to honor what works best for you. For example, someone who is highly kinesthetic may respond best to body work, whereas someone highly visual may respond best to hypnotherapy. There are many different modalities for spiritual and emotional healing; the important thing is to honor your own nature and trust that emotional catharsis will prove helpful and healing in the long run.