Shiatsu works at different levels - the physical, emotional and energetic - and it brings these three things into interrelation with each other. I say more about each of these below. Our work together would usually involve all three aspects but we may emphasise a specific one if this is needed.

Physical

At the physical level, shiatsu helps you to get to know the landscape and felt sense of your body – the tensions, discomfort, sensations, textures, postural habits, tired-out parts, and interconnections between parts of your body. This can provide insights into how you could use and hold your body differently. The contact also has an affect deep in the fibres of your body and brings change in the quality, character and feel of your body, especially engendering a sense of fluidity, ease, vibrancy, and rejuvenation.

Emotional

At the emotional level, shiatsu supports embodied feeling. This means feeling and sensing your body for a fuller, integrated experience and understanding of yourself, especially to get awareness and insight into emotions, reactions, impulses and needs. Embodied feeling is valuable because it can help you to better recognise and respond to stress, manage pain, deal with overwhelming feelings, and understand what physical symptoms may be a response to.

Body energy

At the level of body energy (‘Qi’ or bio-electricity), Shiatsu connects you to your natural capacity for self-healing and innate body intelligence. It helps to mobilise and build life force energy to give the potential for change. In this context, Shiatsu uses the map of the body provided by the meridians of the Chinese healing system (patterns of life force energy). Meridians structure the inner landscape of our body, and how energies flow through them shapes how we feel in life.