Protecting your boundaries with off the body touch
Did you know that you are more than your physical body? You have a protective space surrounding you and shiatsu touch can help you access its power. See if you can feel it around your body now. Take a moment to touch your heart and feel its warmth and its rhythm. Now move your hands gently away and see if you can still sense it. How far away from your body can you still sense it?
In my last blog I talked about how shiatsu is unconditional, loving touch, like a warm hug. Yet shiatsu can also be the complete opposite, a form of touch that works in the space around you, helping you to access your own protection. This kind of touch helps you feel how you are more than your physical body and how you can create strong protective boundaries around your body.
You might think this sounds a bit weird and dismiss it, but it is tangible. It is the memory of your amniotic sac. Even before you have created your amniotic sac you are cells bathed in fluid. Your amniotic sac emerges from a space at your back around two weeks and from eight weeks it surrounds and protects you. This sac was created out of the fertilised egg which became you. Indeed many embryologists talk about your inner cell mass or body (embryoblast) and your outer cell mass or body (trophoblast). Your outer body includes all of your support structures: not only your amniotic sac, but also your placenta, your umbilical cord and protective membranes.
It’s helpful to be aware of your borders and know how much you can expand them or when you need to draw them in more closely around you like a protective cloak. These boundaries protect you and keep you safe, especially if you are in situations where there are lots of people, or you are having to confront an angry neighbour or colleague.
Shiatsu touch helps you expand your awareness of your protective space around your body. Sometimes people call this our aura, or energy field and Reiki, another form of healing uses a lot of off the body touch.
You can explore the space around different organs. In some areas you may have more protection and in others less. Around your reproductive organs, possibly your most intimate organs, your ‘Palaces’, you probably have more protection than for example around your feet or hands. This space is fairly tangible for most people. One exercise I like to give is to sit back to back with someone and physically feel the support of their back. Link arms and do some circling movements together. One of you can lean forwards and the other backwards. After this you probably feel warmth in your back. Then if you separate a few centimetres you can probably still feel the warmth of the other person’s back.
When I am giving a shiatsu I focus first on the space around my client’s body. It gives me an idea of where they feel more comfortable touching them. If they have experienced trauma somewhere I may even stay working off their body for a while and if I touch it may be a light touch. If they have recent, or even sometimes, older scars, the first few times I work with them, I might work off their body and then encourage them to touch and work their scar physically first, especially if it was a Caesarean scar.
I also like to teach my clients how they can work themselves. One of my favourite exercises for all eight extraordinary vessels is a Qi Gung exercise. Like Qi Gong, this works in the space around our body.
If you like this video and want to discover more about my work with shiatsu, which includes working with the memory of previous cycles of your life, please visit this page of my website for a free download on Cycles of Life
https://www.wellmother.uk/discover-the-cycles-of-life-and-the-8-extraordinary-vessels/
