Colloquialisms live in our bodies as well as in our language. From childhood we are taught to approach life from certain stances and attitudes. We are taught to ignore our instincts, the inherent wisdom that our bodies offer. The competitive spirit of our culture and times, athletics, careers, just the business of “stayin’ alive” encourage us to stop listening to the body’s signs and signals, resulting in failure to heed our wisdom and instincts. “If only I had listened to my gut...” often resounds too late.

As we shape our lives, our lives shape us. Our responses to life’s joys and challenges sculpt us. Our structures, contours and movements become a living map of who we are. As children we model our behavior and posture after our caregivers, creating stances and habits that identify yet often limit us. Unresolved trauma— accidents, injuries, threatening experiences, distort the body’s structure long after the trauma has passed.

In our busyness, we seldom consider how our habits are serving us. Frequently, it is the “gift” of pain and injury that brings our attention to these questions, offering the opportunity, at times the necessity to open and awaken new possibilities.

To be fully alive is to be responsive and aware, to have the capacity to learn and relearn. The body is an ever-changing expression of our aliveness, or lack of it. Being highly adaptive, the body receives positive input as an opportunity to evolve and grow regardless of age. One such positive input is Rolfing.

Where Rolfing Fits In
Rolfing is a bodywork technique, developed by Dr. Ida P. Rolf, PhD. It is a form of connective tissue manipulation and movement education based on the “plastic,” changeable nature of the human body. It became Rolf’s life work to investigate the impact of the gravitational field and to pioneer this profound bodywork process called Structural Integration, the focus of which is to integrate the body toward a more user-friendly relationship with gravity.

Gravity? What Gravity?
Gravity is dynamic. It either pulls us down or supports and uplifts us, yet we remain largely unaware of its presence. The body is at its greatest ease and functions most effectively when its major segments— head, shoulders, thorax, pelvis and legs— are aligned around a vertical line, allowing gravity to do its job of supporting rather than wearing us down.

The key word is fascia, the connective tissue that defines the contour and shape of the body. Fascia is somewhat like a full-body leotard. The elastic nature of fascia responds to stress by shortening and thickening, as the body’s attempt to protect against distortion and injury.

As the body rotates and shortens, the result is a feeling of misalignment or general discomfort. The misaligned body is at the mercy of gravity’s downward pull, increasing the effects and risks of aging, injury, stress and trauma.

The Rolfing Process
Structural Integration consists of a series of essentially 10 bodywork sessions. The Rolfer works and paces the series in collaboration with the client. Much like sculpting, the heat of the Rolfer’s hands utilizes the natural malleability of the fascia, following its flow and direction.

The Rolf series is guided by specific principles, carefully developed to systematically balance and integrate the body toward more effective alignment and function. Each session has an intention, and when one has completed the whole series, one has “been Rolfed.”

The Rolfer and client together work toward creating lift and length through the body’s center, balance between front/back and left/right sides, working toward supporting a pelvis that is horizontal, a stable trunk whose weight is supported directly over the pelvis, supporting the head above and easing the curves of the spine, and legs and feet that properly support the pelvis.

Benefits
The specific goals of the series encourage the body toward its optimum state of support and balance. When well supported, the whole body becomes more resilient, vital, and energetic, moving with ease and lightness.

Does Rolfing Hurt?
Yes, sometimes, momentarily. The Rolfer’s touch may meet pain that is held in the tissue. Working in the fascia allows pain to find a pathway through which to move, much like clearing a traffic jam. As the pathway clears, momentary discomfort subsides.

Who gets Rolfed?
People choose to get rolfed for many reasons: chronic physical conditions, such as headaches, backaches, joint pain results of accidents, injuries and surgeries. Some choose it for stress or emotional reasons. For some, a simple gut feeling tells them its the right thing to do.

Regardless of the reasons that bring folks to this work, they usually find it to be a beneficial and fascinating process.

“Children should be seen, not heard” “Haven’t got time for the pain” “Keep a stiff upper lip” “Shoulder your responsibilities”

Language references the body, revealing the role it plays in living our beliefs. From childhood we literally are shaped by messages tat surround us. Throughout life we are encouraged to ignore the information our bodies offer. We stop listening to its signals, failing to heed our inner wisdom and impulses. “If only I had listened to my gut...”

As living beings, we continually and creatively adapt to our environment. Our nature is to be fluid and flexible, yet we establish set attitudes about ourselves, becoming limited to habitual, automatic behaviors. “That’s the way I am”, “You can’t trust anyone” , “What’s done is done” ... indicate limiting beliefs that shape us. Beliefs are not just constructs of mind, but are accompanied by physical postures, tensions, emotional patterns, images and feelings. The bodily sense of aliveness becomes impaired, minimizing our ability to live fully and creatively.

Hakomi Therapy endeavors another option: to become aware of our belief heritage and to transform our relationship with the body to one of respect and trust, to reclaim our wisdom. When we learn the body’s language, it becomes one of our greatest allies.

Hakomi emphasizes relating to the body as a living source of information, intelligence and change. It is a gentle, direct and educational approach to accessing limiting beliefs and patterns while developing new and empowering resources.

Hakomi Therapy, founded by Ron Kurtz in the 1970s, is rooted in Taosim, Reichian and Bioenergetic therapies, and Systems Theory. The origin of the work is Hopi: “How do you stand in relation to these many realms?” Hakomi has evolved into a graceful, gentle means for clients to explore “how they stand in relation to” their issues, beliefs, bodies, relationships, and how they would like to relate to these now.

Kurtz developed Hakomi’s original techniques as a means of “supporting” peoples defenses, finding that defenses yield more easily when they are unopposed: tension is “supported” rather than asked to “relax” before it’s ready. As an “information based” therapy, a premise of Hakomi is that living organisms will mature appropriately when provided appropriate input.

Hakomi is based on five principles:
Unity: everything is part of a greater whole
Organicity: each organism has its own nature and integrity
Mind-Body-Spirit Wholism: each of these reflects the other
Mindfulness: a cultivated state of self reflection
Non-Violence: change without force

In the early 1980s, Hakomi took root at the forefront of the body-psychology movement. A colleague, Pat Ogden, had been intrigued by tendencies in clients to disassociate from the body. Most body therapies remained separate from psychotherapy. Together Kurtz and Ogden forged a new path, blending the two approaches into an effective tool for healing mind/body disassociation. By including the body in the therapeutic process and re-educating client’s sensitivity to sensation, the healing process became more integrated and long lasting. The synthesis of Hakomi and bodywork gained it international acclaim in its twenty years. “Hakomi is the cutting edge in modern psychotherapy.” John Bradshaw.

A Typical Session
Hakomi work explores rather then analyses, guides rather than demands, and connects rather than confronts.

A session begins by the client and practitioner talking, deciding the direction to work. The client then is assisted in accessing a “mindful” state of awareness, observing and describing facets of their inner experience: body patterns, emotions, memories, thoughts. Attitudes, previously unconscious, begin to emerge: “I’m not good enough” , “I have to do it all alone” , “I am not safe”.

“Experiments” are used to deepen the experience. The client may be invited to “notice what happens when...” the practitioner incorporates touch, movement or awareness toward body sensations: such as feelings of sadness arising with a memory of being alone as a child. The client may notice an exaggeration of a familiar physical pattern (collapsed shoulders). The “collapse” being supported, can free a new insight into this habitual posture and discovery of a deeper meaning (“I’m not good enough”) that has influenced his/her experience since childhood.

The practitioner works in partnership with the client to facilitate an empowering, educational experience. Identifying and supporting client resources (strengths) is emphasized, especially in the resolution of trauma, where helplessness is predominate. Natural creativity leads to new possibilities. “I can ask for support” may be felt through the lengthening of the spine, for example. The transformational shift is physical and psychological simultaneously. Physical structure often shifts to new ease and use; the psychological state emerges more creative and hopeful.

Difficulty in recovering from accidents, ongoing stresses from childhood, fatigue, relationship issues, unresolved trauma, or a desire to be more “in tune” bring people to this work.

Effects of Hakomi Therapy
Effects include reduction of pain and post traumatic stress symptoms, increased physical alignment and awareness, capacity for intimacy and overall feelings of being more alive. The work can enhance physical, psychological and spiritual well being. Work with the body-mind often reveals information that remains unconscious in conventional therapy. Hakomi’s focus toward the body lends it an effective adjunct to traditional psychotherapy.

“We are really seeking... the rapture of being alive in our bodies.”
Joseph Campbell