Bowen Therapy is a bit like massage’s distant cousin. It offers that all-important healing touch with a healthy level of movement, but it’s also where physical therapy meets energy therapy. Since Tom Bowen’s day, there have been a few variations taught, but in essence we make a series of cross fibre moves followed by intentional pauses……………… creating vibrational release and allowing the body-mind to process each move. If we imagine twanging a guitar string, the vibrations travel as far as they can, and different tensions create different tones. This is similar to the Bowen move, only the vibrations can start to release tension or scar tissue, allowing all important energy (be that fluid or movement or heat) to bring healing and life to the distressed, injured or immobile tissue. And I find that the tone of the move coincides with the current life event, situation or experience. With this therapy, we are focusing on the fascia of the body, you may be more familiar with the label soft tissue or connective tissue, they are all the same thing. And you may recognise it as the silvery grey film across and in-between your steak or the slimy skin-like substance around your raw chicken breast. These are the most common forms of fascia we see, but in reality it does much more than hug our muscles, it supports our entire being by supporting the muscle structure, thickening to form tendons, it strengthens to form ligaments and continues on to morph into the periosteum, which is the sheath that wraps the bones. It forms the walls of lymph and blood vessels; it suspends our organs in their rightful place and becomes delicate and transparent to form the cornea of the eye.
Yes, it’s amazing stuff. Fascia is made up of something called ground substance, it is fair to say that the properties of ground substance can both paralyse and free us.
That may sound extreme, yet our bodies mould into the positions we hold them, and after many years, this is how they stay. Ground substance will become soft and even watery when warmed and moved and it can become hard and gel-like when cold or immobile for a period of time, this is one of the ways we can stiffen, ache and loose range of movement from sedentary lifestyles. In addition, it has also been found to hold cerebral fluid, the same stuff that is in your spinal cavity and around your brain. The cerebral fluid helps send messages back to brain about almost everything going on in the body, from pain to pleasure and everything in-between. So just imagine the healing possibilities when applying Bowen moves to the body, we may be communicating directly with your unconscious mind! This would explain some of the quite amazing results we see with Bowen Therapy.
Another system that we affect is the meridian system, the meridian was popularised by the introduction of Chinese Medicine to the West, it is the energetic highway that runs through our body and it is the same highway that is accessed during Acupuncture. Many Bowen Therapy moves are specifically located along these energy pathways, helping to clear blockages, increase flow and create balance.
I could go on and on and on, but I’ll stop there.
In a nutshell, it is difficult to do harm in a Bowen Therapy session but the chances of improved mobility, balanced energy systems and sense of well being are high. Seeking a Bowen Therapist for remedial work, maintenance or relaxations will be well worth the investment.
