Why Touch through Massage Therapy is Crucial to Healing Your Mind, Body and Spirit
Written by johnsonchong on March 1, 2018
We were cradled and caressed by our mothers when we came out of the womb. As we grew up, touch fell out of our vocabulary for a variety of reasons: social conditioning, religious or dogmatic rules about sex, shame, fear, etc. As we moved away from touch, we hardened and became hard people inside and out. Touch is the language of the heart in our physical bodies, and has the ability to communicate our intentions and emotions.
In Asia, the cultural phobia of touch is directly related to people’s inability to express themselves creatively and emotionally. To say and speak our truth in a free and unencumbered manner requires loving connection from one human being to another: skin to skin. In a study done by psychologists, “participants communicated eight distinct emotions – anger, fear, disgust, love, gratitude, sympathy, happiness and sadness with accuracy rates as high as 78 percent.” (https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201303/the-power-touch)
Beginning in March, Sagehouse will partner with Pepperminted, a premium massage therapy service based in Singapore to deliver healing touch experiences. Their therapists are trained in a multitude of techniques from Swedish, Deep Tissue, Balinese, Sports Massage, Lymphatic, etc. However, the most important thing is that they are taught to connect on an intuitive level to serve what is needed as opposed to completing a robotic routine.
We challenge you to explore how you use touch in your day to day interactions with your co-workers, friends and loved ones. Start by simply observing how you touch others, and how often you express yourself through touch. Then, make the conscious effort to be in connection with those with whom you surround yourself. Hopefully, when regular massage therapy is scheduled into your bi-weekly or monthly routine, you will understand the power of softening not only physically, but emotionally as well.
