A good massage affects you on all levels of your being.
Physically, its benefits include relaxing and toning your muscles; assisting
the venous flow of blood; soothing the nervous system; encouraging the
lymphatic flow; and stretching the connective tissue of joints
On a mental level, massage not only relieves stress and anxiety, it
also helps you to become more conscious of your body as a whole, of
the parts that you are in touch with and of those that feel "cut
off". Once you are aware of where your energy blocks lie, you can
begin to try and integrate your body and, in developing a more positive
self-image, take responsibility for your own happiness and health.
A caring massage creates feelings of well-being, trust and joy. It
can also release a great deal of energy hitherto wasted in tension and,
by transforming chronic habits of acting and reacting, effect profound
changes on both posture and facial expression. The emotional aspect
of massage is extremely important.
On a spiritual level, the benefits of massage are hard to describe,
for we are talking of something that is intrinsically indefinable -
the essence, the "life force", the whole that is more than
the sum of its parts. But it is not uncommon during a massage for both
giver and receiver to attain a state of heightened awareness, of "presence
in the moment", that is akin to the experience of meditation.
