“There is deep wisdom within our very flesh, if we can only come to our senses and feel it.”  Elizabeth A. Behnke

I invite an awareness that things don’t have to hurt in order to help you.  In fact, if it’s hurting, it probably isn’t helping.

This is a bold statement, rarely believed and less often embodied.  It comes from many experiences in my life, but most directly from my encounters with Ortho-Bionomy®.

Ortho-Bionomy® is a form of bodywork I first discovered in 2007, and it’s been a source of a great deal of trouble in my life.

The reason is it’s gentle.  The body creates holding patterns as a way of processing trauma.  An Ortho-Bionomy® Practitioner will exaggerate these patterns to communicate them to the proprioceptors within the muscles. This allows the nervous system to gain conscious awareness of your body’s unconscious actions, and allows for profound healing in the form of self-correction.

Using the tenet “if it hurts, don’t do it”, an Ortho-Bionomy® session is a constant practice of moving toward ease.  If any part of the body finds an action uncomfortable, it is immediately dropped in order to find and hold the position of maximum comfort.

I learned about this technique two years into my work as a massage therapist, and it immediately complicated my life.  People believe bodywork has to hurt in order to help them, and are very resistant to the idea that gentle techniques can be effective.

I ended up being fired because clients didn’t believe I was helping them, even if they experienced physical improvement.  We are conditioned to assume that without pain there is no gain, but this is simply not true.

We do our best healing when we relax, when we open, and when we accept what arises within us.

If you pull a string apart it becomes tight, if you shorten it it slackens.  The same is true with muscles.  You can practice at home.  Bring your awareness to your body, and find how it naturally wants to move.  Notice how you feel as you do, and what it’s like to give yourself permission to raise your shoulders if they want to go up, or bring your leg in if it wants to shorten.  What’s it like when you give your body permission to move as it asks to?

I am a student member of the Society of Ortho-Bionomy®International.  I am not yet a certified practitioner, though I am happy to offer referrals to ones in the Portland area.

The philosophy of it informs every aspect of my work with clients, applying the principles of acceptance and non-resistance to mental as well as physical patterns.

The greatest love in the world feels like nothing at all.  It is the art of acceptance, allowing things to be as they are, and though it is profoundly powerful, it serves by yielding.  These are the principles of Taoism, embodied.

In the words of a bumper sticker, “Ortho-Bionomists® do nothing better.”