From Japan to healing
身 (mi): Holistic Healing
Twenty years ago I was in Japan for my postgraduate research and dissertation. I travelled across Japan learning and teaching about the body, emotions, touch, intimacy, embodiment, sexual health and much more.
Touch, as it's conventionally conceived, appeared to be lacking in everyday Japanese relationships. I was fascinated by the subtle and indirect forms of communication which were juxtaposed with highly tactile practices (i.e. co-bathing and co-sleeping) and cultural discourses highlighting the importance of intimacy through touch (skinship), skin-to-skin contact (hada to hada no fureai) and naked association (hadaka no tsukiai).
My time in Japan challenged many assumptions about what constitutes intimacy and closeness, and I was able to develop a theory of touch and the body which is applied daily in my clinic.
The etymology of the character 身 (mi) that you see on my logo and on my shirt when you come to see me literally means body. However, theoretically, it provides us with multi-layered meanings which include an infinite space that is all-encompassing and connecting. It reveals an ontology that includes body, heart, mind, self, spirit, whole existence...this is crucial when we speak about holistic health. We cannot look at ourselves as 'bits' or 'parts' making up a whole. We cannot think of the body and mind (and heart) as separate entities.
What does this mean, you may ask? And what does this have to do with healing and illness and disease?
Whilst there has been a move to integrate more holistic ways of thinking into Western medicine, conventional practices of medicine still typically look at the body as comprising of a sum of parts, and don’t always take into account the connection between these parts and the impact that one may have on the other. Symptoms are often what is addressed; rarely the underlying cause or connection to the mind or whole body is taken into account.
Many of you ask why you feel better after a treatment. Whilst I do not go into the details of my theory of touch, the body or 身(mi), I do often mention the heart - there is a concept in Japanese called anshinkan (meaning, feelings of a peaceful heart). You will know what I am talking about if you have come for a treatment. That beautiful feeling when you turn over on the massage table, when you have moved away from that state of fight-flight and have accessed your parasympathetic nervous system (or relaxation response). It is in that state that we can access all those happy healing hormones. It is in that state where fear and sadness and anxiety do not exist. It is in that state that we have all the infinite possibilities for healing.
Take some time this week to work out what helps you find that state of contentment, those feelings of peace (anshinkan).