25 Mar Love my body. Love your body. Massage helps body image
I hear song words differently.
Like this one:
“Luck in love, lucky in love, What else matters when you are lucky in love”
A seemingly silly little tune I picked up from my sisters’ performance in a musical play in college called “Good News”
Ever since training in expressive dance movement my music listening skills and appreciation has changed. Ever since my heart was shown as a reflection to me, my music listening skills have improved allowing me to shift my perspective on how I hear and see things.
In the past, I might have understood these words as “lucky to be in love with someone else”. Today when I hear the word love being used in the traditional sense, as for another, I am the “another”
I am in “love with myself”, love myself first and always.
Try it with the next song about love and experience the difference for yourself.
I am lucky to be in love with myself.
If I love myself, my body, what else matters, I will be happy.
In expressive dance we listened, rather moved, to all kinds of different music.
Under the guidance of the dance leader, the body opened up differently than it would to a structured beat you might hear while social dancing.
Expressive movement allowed for the body and mind to connect on a very concrete level; the shapes and image of your body in space and how it was moving to the sounds or guided into new movements (that your body may have been unfamiliar with) allowed us to feel like the best dancer in the room!
Why?
Because we use our mind, our imagination.
We used our imagination to see it as moving flawlessly and in synch with every beat even if we may have looked like The Elaine Dance.
We felt great.
Perfect even.
A phrase my mom said to me once, following her receiving massage, has always stuck with me: “Everything feels perfect when you massage me”. This is the same body and mind connection that occurs while imagining to be the best dancer in the room.
We are able to imagine and appreciate your bodies as perfect as they truly are…flaws, cellulite, scars and all. And no matter what, you feel better. In those moments that the therapists hands sweep over your body you feel perfect. You imagine we smooth away wrinkles, we push away cellulite and imperfections… on the table, we begin to rewire how we think about ourselves.
It has been suggested that body image is a product of our imagination and therefore can be changed using the imagination. Dr. Marcia Hutchinson has described an exercise of “imaginal massage” – this can only be what my Mom was trying to describe; seeing and feeling the hands of the massage therapist helps to heal and create acceptance of the body; feeling that her body is perfect.
We can really know how now massage changes body image. The body and mind connection is undeniable. “Numerous studies have verified that one’s subjective evaluation of their own appearance can have a powerful impact on a person’s development and psychosocial experiences”
As we are continually bombarded with messages from the media about body image, “Massage can be a vehicle to have a positive experience the body could potentially break through these negative body image attitudes.”
We may feel the desire to give up or abandon ourselves at times of struggle or hardship or when we just can’t see ourselves as good enough or imperfect standing in front of the mirror [have you done the naked test for today? even looked at yourself today and taken a moment to give thanks to all that you are, but in the words of Raimundo A Sobrinho, “Damned is the man who abandons himself…never, ever should a man consider it lost”.
We can un-condition ourselves, rewire our brains to accepts our bodies, have faith in the extraordinary and lift our spirits and know that we are perfect.
Yes, massage does all that, and more.
Lucky in love.
So lucky to be in love.
What else matters when you are lucky in love, with yourself.