In the early days of my training in aquatic bodywork (Watsu and more), much of my learning came from receiving. Since I find writing a valuable way of uncovering and expressing experiences, I often recorded those sessions. Later, I encouraged clients to do this, whether in writing or artwork (whatever right-brain method was best for them).
Here are two accounts illustrating contrasting experiences for the same receiver, in this case myself. I hope they will provide insight into the power of this work and into the creative potential there is in recording the process and following up in whatever ways seem appropriate and helpful.
The first account, written immediately after a session, records a process that repeated itself through many subsequent sessions until it finally resolved, and along with it the body memories it was releasing in me.
Our bodies are repositories of our experiences and they benefit from free-flowing expression of that.
The release of my left arm and accompanying pain in the left breast/heart area (the left side of the body corresponds to the right brain which is associated with intuitive as opposed to rational thinking) seemed to be urgently demanded.
I came to understand that my body-mind was moving towards a more personal manifestation of its creative and loving self after years of emotional inhibition and rigorous scientific training. Before this could happen, there needed to be a letting go of an old loss and grief which I was later able to associate with my birth.
The account also shows how the receiver's perception of the practitioner plays a significant part. A great deal of trust is placed in the practitioner, who must be able to remain personally detached and non-judgmental, taking the roles of witness or guide, as needed. Training in body psychotherapy is very helpful for such work.
These account were written almost ten years ago, and during that decade I received less aquatic bodywork and gave more. My own needs were put to aside, which is common but unwise. New personal wounds and betrayals of trust have meant that I now need to return to the healing arms of the water and to receive again.
How beautiful my own hands had seemed then, not holding on to form, not grasping at anything. Flowing like water; empty-handed like a mountain pool that cannot restrain that liquid energy. But I had also noticed how my shoulders were unbalanced, taking their responsibilities unevenly.
The left arm, denied its power, had broken itself at the elbow (aged eight or so) - my mother did not recognize my pain and it remained broken for a week. Does it matter? How did X know that my left arm needed it's freedom back?
Again and again he let it unravel itself until the nausea in that shoulder joint was almost more than I could stand. Sickness rising where it always does, in my solar plexus. And suddenly X folds me up there, cramps the pain in until it just has to explode out.
Stretched open on the surface of water, no need to wonder any more about the courage it takes to leap. Leap into water. Jumping over the edge into the rush of a steep fall of water. How many times did we repeat that unleashing?
The relieving moments when he let me spin into the delicious curves and swirls. Realizing that this is not, for me, a return to the watery confines of the womb but rather to long before then - an aquatic inheritance that is pure unadulterated joy.
So there is no adulteration when at last all I want is to press my chest against his and hope that he can receive the almost painful rush of light through my heart. It's all I can give back today. But all is everything.
The water has dismembered me and yet today here I am, still flesh and blood.
(Sara, March 1999)
Not all sessions deal with painful emotion; just as often there is sheer joy as the next account of an underwater aquatic bodywork session (Waterdance) shows. Many people enjoy the sensations of flying and dancing that three-dimensional (underwater) aquatic bodywork enables.
X and I blending with the water, enhancing its flavor, stirring ourselves into an elixir of power. I think he must be inside me flashing down the spirals too. How else would he know where I’m going? This is not surrender but partnership. I am thanking him, thanking us, thanking the oneness, all the way down.
One breath seems to be lasting forever, so that when I break the surface there is no urgency to come out of the pause. Then I exhale and inhale: a punctuation of that long, easy pause. I want to go down again; I want to stay down it seems. Endlessly repatterning myself.
I wonder what it would be like to see what I am feeling now. Breath begins to deepen in rhythm and I can hear it move through me like the spirit of song and dance. On an exhale my body merges with the surface, no interface, just a continuum of breath. Down, down to the bottom of the breath - sounding its bubble song.
I do not notice whether I inhale air or water because I am so surrendered to the cosmic sea. Nothing confronts my entrance or exit because there is no interface, just a soup of motile molecules. Life is shape-changing and I am life.
(Sara, June 2000)
(The practioner from whom I received the above sessions was my ex-partner and husband, Ralph Pitt.)
If you have received aquatic bodywork and written about that, I would love to read your account , and perhaps share it here if you are willing. You can add a comment below or email me first.
