Preventative Health

Preventative health is the way of the future. Dr Rolf often commented on what society considered good posture. She said that this was usually what was normal, but not what she considered good. The same could be said of good health. What is normal is that if a person is in good health at 70 to 80 years of age this is considered excellent health. In reality if people looked after their health requirements in a preventative way the same comments could be made about people 90 to 100 years old.

The Rolfing process is an excellent way to enhance and maintain our good health. Our bodies are a representation of our life experiences. All the accidents, operations, illnesses, habits, emotional traumas and genetic expressions, are all a part of our makeup. They form the look of our bodies. A person with much sadness or anger will show this in their expression.The way they walk, the way they talk, their facial expression, the tension in and around their body.Their lives are being filtered through the physical tensions, emotional blocks and unresolved holding patterns that they carry with them every day.

The Rolfing process endeavours to unlock these patterns, and return us to a free moving and unrestricted person. For example when our shoulders are chronically tight and painful, it is like we are carrying a burden through life. Why are our shoulders tense? Maybe we have done a lot of heavy lifting. So much so, that when we stop lifting, our body keeps tense for the next lift. We can’t relax. Always ready for the next effort.

After a prolonged grief or sadness, we may feel defeated or overcome, and a little collapsed in the chest. Eventually life improves, but the unresolved sadness keeps our chest held tight, and maybe our breathing shallow. This needs to be released or we carry the sadness in our tissues. This is brought to every interaction of each day, with the constant reminder of it through our lack of energy, and conversations that reflect our held emotions.

Maybe someone made a comment to you that you took on board as the truth, when in reality it was an abusive or throw away inconsiderate view of theirs. When this happens we can hold ourselves in a protective mode, which in turn twists, hardens, over softens, or manipulates our body in some way that creates what we call a holding pattern.

Preventative health means that we are stopping problems before they are a concern.We can control mostly what we eat, what form of exercise we do, and to some extent our attitude to life, including spirituality and decisions that we make each day. However we are human, and things happen to us that are sometimes beyond our control. Also occasionally we can make decisions that are not in our best interest. Most times we hold onto this stuff, try to forget about it, and ignore it. Unless it is resolved it sits with us indefinitely. Trauma sits in the cells of our body. We carry this with us. The Rolfing process is an effective and proven way to address this.