The Holistic Centre
So many of us use our bodies in everyday life without recognising the interaction and wholeness between body and mind. Most often, we only truly connect with our bodies when dealing with an illness or accident. By being more at one with our bodies, we can find a peace and centre that can often seem elusive as we go about our busy lives.
Massage brings us back to ourselves, releasing physical, emotional and spiritual tension.
Treatments offered:
Holistic Body Therapy
Swedish massage
Aromatherapy massage
Deep Tissue massage
No Hands massage
Foot Reflexology
Hawaiian Pulsing
Indian Head massage
Hot Stones Therapy
In addition to these specialist treatments, you can relax with a shower and steam bath prior to or after treatment. This is highly recommended before a treatment to relax and prepare both body and mind for massage. (However, please note that we do not recommend a shower immediately after an aromatherapy treatment).
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Your therapist
Shirley Turner has long held an interest in bodywork and the body/mind connection. She specialises in creating a safe place to come and be yourself. Whether you're looking to relax your tense muscles at the end of a long day at work, want to express long held emotion through gentle touch, or simply want lie back and be pampered, Shirley offers sensitive and creative treatments tailored to your needs.
A fully qualified ITEC (International Therapy Examination Council) massage therapist, Shirley has also undertaken extensive training with Gerry Pyves, to become a qualified Advanced No-Hands Practitioner
www.nohandsmassage.com
She has studied with Charles Muir in Hawaii, at Source School of Tantra Yoga, www.sourcetantra.com for two years, which has resulted in a strong spiritual practice and approach to her work. Over the past two years she has also studied Hawaiian Pulsing with Silke Ziehl www.entelia.com
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The treatments
Holistic Body Therapy
This is a completely individual treatment, bringing together knowledge, experience and intuition. An integration of many different massage techniques is offered with dedication and presence for whatever your needs are in the moment. This treatment draws from both East and West massage traditions, which all aim to bring you deeply into your own body.
You can feel nurtured and safe no matter if you are deeply relaxing or releasing. You are encouraged to experience deep freedom in your body, which in turn is deeply healing. Your body knows best, and that wisdom is what dictates the flow of the treatment. You are free to experience yourself. Elements of all the treatments below, and more, are combined in synergy - and the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.
Swedish massage
This treatment is the most well known massage in the West. It is generally attributed to the Swedish doctor, poet and educator, Per Henrik Ling, and includes the classic strokes:
Effleurage - gliding
Petrissage - kneading
Friction - rubbing
Tapotement - pounding
Vibration - shaking
Deep tissue massage
If you require a deeper massage, this technique releases tension in the deeper layers of muscle in the body. Through a combination of deep and gentler strokes it relaxes and lengthens tight, tired muscles, increases oxygen flow and detoxifies through the stimulation of lymph flow.
Aromatherapy massage
This massage incorporates specific essential oils for your needs in the moment. For this reason each massage is individual and no two treatments are alike. Essential oils are absorbed directly through the skin and enter the bloodstream, continuing their effect for several hours. They smell delightful and are potent aids to health.
No hands massage
The 'gentle giant of massage', was created by Gerry Pyves, and is both powerful and gentle. Warming and softening the muscles using the weight of the practitioner (deep) through the soft front of their forearms (gentle) creates a platform for the client to deeply release tension and for the body to return to its natural state. It can affect every system, from structural re-alignment to stimulation and balancing of the colon and digestion. This is often the massage of choice for therapists themselves.
Foot reflexology
Reflexology is an ancient art of massage - even found in drawings in Egyptian tombs. It consists of pressure techniques on the feet that work along the energy lines, or meridians of the body, allowing blockages to be dissolved and the body's natural health and balance to be restored. It is a powerful treatment that can be received while fully clothed.
Hawaiian Pulsing
This form of bodywork originated in the Pacific, and consists of rhythmic rocking of all parts of the body. It is deeply relaxing, and connects us to all the rhythms within ourselves - the beating of the heart, movement of peristalsis, cerebrospinal fluid and the breath all interconnecting within. This treatment can harmonise and integrate the in and out flow of energy that we constantly experience - consciously and subconsciously. It encourages a lengthening throughout our frame and a letting go into the moment. This treatment can be received with or without clothing.
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How to get the most from your treatment
There are things you can do to optimise the effects and experience of your massage. The most important of all is breathing. The conscious use of the breath has been known for thousands of years. It is extensively documented in the literature of yoga. But you don't have to be an advanced yoga practitioner to benefit. It all starts with a simple inhalation through the nose and exhalation through either nose or mouth. To be conscious is the key. To notice the breath as it enters the nose and exits either through nose or mouth. This brings your thinking mind to a pause as we focus on the movement of the air. Whenever you notice your mind wandering into thinking, you can gently bring it back to the breath. The aim is to quiet the thinking mind and activate the mind's ability to deeply feel what is going on in our body. |
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Another key is often missed in traditional western massage - movement of the body. We do not have to be completely passive when receiving a massage. Your body knows where, when and how it wants to receive touch. If you like a particular move you can literally enjoy it by moving as you feel it. Imagine you are stroking a cat or dog's head. It will often lift its head towards you, making the most of your touch. Or think of a baby - babies love to be touched and love to move! It can be delightful to let go so completely into the therapist's hands that we have no desire to move around. But there is also the possibility to move if we want to. This can be very helpful if a massage is releasing an emotion in our bodies. To use movement helps express whatever that emotion is. This can be a very simple action, but profoundly affect the release.
Another overlooked aspect of massage is making sounds. These can range from a contented sigh to a full expression of strong emotion. All are welcomed. Often we are forced to swallow words and feelings without expressing them. Unsurprisingly this results in storing them in our body's cellular memory. Using sounds or words helps enormously in the release of this stored tension.
Breath, movement and sound. These three keys can be challenging to us when we first try to use them. But they can be of great help and support. You can start, if only for a moment, by simply becoming aware of your breath.
Massage helps us practice knowing ourselves on the physical level
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Our biography becomes our biology
Caroline Myss
From the moment we are born, and perhaps before we are born, we are affected by events that happen to us. If we do not process these events fully at the time, our bodies have the fantastic ability to store the effects of these events on the cellular level. The idea that our bodies become a storehouse of emotional memory on the cellular level was put forward in the 1930s by the Austrian Psychoanalyst, and pioneer of deep bodywork, Wilhelm Reich.
He described body armouring - that we construct physical armouring in our own bodies to protect ourselves both from the outside world and from our own inner emotions. His students, such as Alexander Lowen and Dr Jack Painter, have gone on to greatly develop his work. |
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The idea of the body holding emotion was subsequently given great scientific credibility by the neuroscientist Candace Pert, who discovered a clear cellular link between body and mind, described in her book Molecules of Emotion.
We can, of course, go through life holding our past in our bodies but we also have the choice to open ourselves to the possibility of making space for more joy, more presence and more energy by releasing some of the grip our bodies hold. This is always done at your own pace, in ways that are comfortable for you, and it can happen subtly and gradually as we develop and grow in our lives. And it begins with your own awareness, as you bring your consciousness and attention inward, and feel the simple touch of a massage.
The Holistic Centre is based in central Hammersmith, 5 minutes away from the busy shopping centre and tube. Click here for a map.
Holistic Centre
Basement Studio
95 Iffley Road
Hammersmith
W6 0PD
Click Here to View Our Apartments and make a booking |
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