The Shiatsu experience

Adam Hellinger performing Shiatsu

Shiatsu comes from an esoteric tradition which promotes itself as a tool for healing through the manipulation of energy. Due to its abstract nature it can be a notoriously difficult practice to find words for, so enjoying a challenge, I thought I'd see if I could find some.

I was recommended Shiatsu through another alternative practice: Qi gong. I was initially drawn to Qi gong when I was told that it was excellent for not only self defence, but for health. The concepts in Qi gong form some of the fundamental pillars of Chinese philosophy. The aim of the practice is to harness the energy one takes from food, air or movement into potential and prosperity in the mind, spirit and body. To the average Joe it may seem difficult to conceive how this works. Yet the simple answer about any esoteric practice, is that they are impossible to explain intellectually without experience.

The western scientific method works on rigid intellectual principles with clear guidelines for the measurement of health benefits. It is focused on a “One size fits all” approach to medicine and only accepts results that can be predicted consistently. As many Eastern medicinal treatments are designed to be flexible to each individual western practitioners have traditionally viewed these approaches with suspicion. After practising Qi Gong I felt benefits to my energy levels and state of mind. Something I had never gained from western medicine. The benefit from the limited experience of a few weeks sessions were evident in anything from my posture, confidence, sleep and positivity. Using my body in a way that benefited my health was a thrill, to know that I was in effect healing myself rather than being treated. I received Shiatsu hoping to recapture the same experience.

My Qiao Gong teacher Adam also practised Shiatsu and offered me the opportunity. Before the first session Adam and I discussed what I hoped to achieve from the experience. I wished for greater health with my digestion. I then declared that I wanted to lose my anxieties and inhibitions and get more in touch with who I wanted to be. Nothing like a modest ambition.

Shiatsu works through subtle massages and manipulation on the body, that like Qi Gong focuses on the release of Qi (energy). My Qi gong classes emphasised that relaxation is key to energy flow, enabling human beings to reach their physical, mental and spiritual potential. Letting go in your body is conducive to Shiatsu, as our bodies are maps for emotional trauma. Therefore the holistic description of released energy can be interpreted as the letting go of emotional dams. As we have become more aware of how stress is destructive to both the mind and body, practices like Shiatsu which promise to focus on the wholeness of an individual, rather than exclusively on the body, have become increasingly popular.

Adam practising Qi Gong

Shiatsu is received lying on a futon on the floor. It is performed with sensitivity, and I found my practitioner to be respectful with my personal space. I closed my eyes through the treatment which carried me to a dream-world free of anxieties that reminded me of meditation.

Like meditation Shiatsu gave me that sensation of disappearing into some sense of “the whole”. I felt unity and connection between all the parts of my body and I'd found tensions where I'd never even considered. Furthermore my mind wasn't clogged with worries about my digestion. Adam asked “How does your body feel?” I felt alive! Colours seemed richer and sounds seemed sharper. I had both a feeling of connection with everything around me whilst also feeling powerful and capable of anything internally. Events and objects in the external world now seemed less like an environment in which I needed to survive, and more like close relations under one umbrella. When I'm in this state it reminds me of how we try to manipulate our brain chemistry through different drugs to gain a brighter lens and a fuller perspective. Well you can reach that feeling naturally through really liberating your health, if only more people could experience the good news!

After the first session I was aware that my stomach had been the focal point of much of my attention again. Yet this time whenever I felt any degree of passion, be that lust, anger, pain or pure joy I felt it as a rising heat from my stomach. I was now fully aware that this was the origin of my intense emotions. Some would baulk at my descriptions as over sensitive, perhaps even deliberately imaginative, but such a practice increases your awareness and sensitivity. A useful analogy is that if you lived inside a cardboard box you would struggle to describe the world outside it. This was what I experienced, a sensation of the bigger picture, which I gained through the feeling of reconnection in my own body.

Shaolin Monk performing Qi Gong

Before the second session we talked over how I'd responded since the last. I told him that the release of this energy and passion felt difficult because it forced me to confront contained emotion. I told Adam that my intention was to cast off any shackles that I was increasingly aware I was holding in certain parts of my body. At the end of the second session I found myself becoming emotional. Quite randomly, when it had not been in my thoughts for a long long time, I was reminded of an intense emotional connection I'd felt with an old partner. I didn't so much hold any mourning or grief for something lost, but was struck more by a sense of shock at how I'd been transported back to the exact emotion that I'd felt in a particular moment of time. It stuck me at how a profound emotional deja vu had been directly linked to the tensions I was holding physically.

I wrote this article with a naked vulnerability that I carried through from my experiences of Shiatsu. I like many before me, struggle to define and measure the way “energy” feels manipulated and liberated through the process. But I hope I have given you an insight into the emotional richness that I felt through the experience, as it was the emotional essence of opening up and letting go, that is, as I understand it, fundamental to the physical healing benefits of a Shiatsu massage. Therefore separating the feeling of connection that I had between mind, body and soul from my emotional perspective would be to miss the point. In the future I hope we all continue to embrace new experience, rather than judging, predicting and theorising it, as this is the only we can truly understand anything. I invite you to gain a better understanding of your inner potential, as I truly believe that it is through being sensitive to the world within, that we will best find the solutions to the problems of the world outside.