by Cinnamon Cranston
Certified Rosen Method Bodywork Practitioner
“The body is the mirror where the secret world of the soul comes to expression. The body is a sacred threshold; and it deserves to be respected, minded, and understood in its spiritual nature.” – John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom (Harper Collins, 1997).
I believe we come to this earth so that our souls can have the experience of awakening in form. Inevitably, most of us have experiences that stop our souls from becoming the fully self-aware and empowered people we deeply long to be.
Life in three dimensions is not without its trials and traumas and unfortunately we have understood very little about how the body/mind connection works and the innate capacity we have to heal. As a result, many of us go about our lives feeling disconnected from our bodies to some degree, and suffering from various forms of non-wellness.
In Rosen Method Bodywork we refer to spirit as core essence and as practitioners we work with people to help them to deepen their connection to their essence within their bodies and let go of whatever has been holding it back.
While the Rosen Method has evidence-based scientific research to back it up (Relaxation, Awareness, Resilience: The Science and Practice of Rosen Method, by Ivy Green (Fast Pencil, 2016), it also holds a space for the spiritual aspects of physical experience.
Marion Rosen, the founder of Rosen Method Bodywork and Movement and author of Rosen Method Bodywork: Accessing the Unconscious Through Touch (North Atlantic, 2003), discovered that when she was working with habitual tension in a person’s body she was meeting the place where the person’s experience had been stopped or repressed. She knew that the tension was stuck there in a long forgotten neuromuscular habit that was once needed to stop an experience from being felt. These experiences, ranging from feelings or needs to actions or impulses, often happen as we are growing up and for whatever reasons were not allowed at the time of their happening. They are the parts of our story that got stopped and have now become non-conscious to us.
Tension is the effort our bodies make to stop these parts of our story from being told and experienced. Left unresolved, these stuck places end up stopping our capacity to be the fully alive, self-actualized people we are meant to be. This habit of stopping the feeling or sensation stops us from the possibility of picking up new sensory information in the moment, therefore limiting our capacity for wellbeing. Thankfully, things can change within our bodies if we give ourselves sensory space. Deep relaxation, like the kind experienced through Rosen Method Bodywork and Movement, allows us the optimum capacity for being present in the moment.
Rosen Method Bodywork practitioners work with the body in a way that the person becomes aware of their non-conscious holding while also feeling held and supported physically, emotionally and spiritually by the practitioner, thereby undoing the original circumstances that created the need to repress their experiences. In this way the non-conscious becomes conscious and can be let go. As tensions are released there is more room for essence to flow in the body.
People often feel like they are melting from the inside out or filling themselves up from within. This experience can have profound effects on a person’s quality of life, their capacity to “feel and deal” or respond rather than react to life increases, and they feel empowered to co-create the life they want to live. Rosen Method helps people to access the spiritual dream of what wants to emerge and birth through us.
Cinnamon is a Certified Rosen Method Bodywork Practitioner and the Co-owner of the Rosen Method Institute Canada. Contact her at cinnamon@rosenmethod.ca or 780-203-5159.
Note: This information is for educational purposes only. It’s intended to supplement your current health program, not to replace the care of a licensed medical doctor. Thoroughly research all topics for yourself.
Originally Published in Mosaic Magazine, February 2017 issue and reprinted here with permission.