A Massage With A Difference

Us brits can have a bit of thing about going for massages, we simply don't do it nearly as much as other cultures do.  Maybe our reserved reputation is getting the better of us, making us shy or uncomfortable about stripping down till we're in our pants only while a stranger kneads us for a good hour. And yet, it's funny as many think nothing of baring all while a beautician rips the hair from their nether-regions. It's almost as if we think that just because there are no immediate visible benefits, it's not worth spending the time or money on.

Having just had an amazing massage from one of our wellbeing experts Claire Farman I am wondering why I don't go for them more often. Claire is a gifted yoga and meditation teacher as well as a qualified homeopath. She has been studying many sacred arts of healing for over 20 years. Her own yoga and healing centre is in the aptly named Vale of Health, over looking a quiet green piece of Hamstead Heath. Full of light and energy, the treatment room is beautiful.

"So what's going on with you," asks Claire in a totally relaxed, completetly non-judgmental way. I immediately feel like I'm engaged in a heart-to-heart with a lifelong friend. After a ten minute chat, through which Claire intuits any problems or energy blocks that might need healing, the massage begins. Working her hands deep into my muscles, she covers me in skin softening shea butter. She is not always gentle, tugging on my limbs and pressing hard into my shoulder blades, with a strength that belies her slender frame. I do say 'oww' several times, but I also feel my muscles start to soften and relax. After this she places Tibetan healing bowls, each corresponding to different organs, on my body.  Each bowl is gonged in different ryhtms and patterns and I can feel my whole body vibrating pleasantly. Claire tells me the Tibetan healing bowls  use sound vibration to balance and realign the body's subtle energy systems.  

Turning me over, she asks me to pick a coloured vial (I pick pink) from a spectrum and then uses it to spray an aromatic mist of divine roses over me. It's 'gem medicine', she says, made of potentised gems and crystals such as amythyst and rose quartz.   She also gives me carefully selected homeopathic remedies that she says are to help clear emotional and pyshcial blockages.  

I leave feeling tired to my bones, it's been something of an emotional release. All I want to do is go home and go to sleep.  Which I do, and I'm out like a light.  It's a deep and delicious slumber, and the next morning when my alarm goes off I actually get out of bed with a spring in my step. Whether it's pyschological or phsycial, I certainly feel more energic and lighter- hearted. It makes me think that there is more to massaging than relaxing indulgance.