I went through four and a half years of Rosen Method training and internship to get my certification. Simultaneously I worked a year with Louise Barrie of Huma Bodywork, which is bodywork with a transpersonal orientation. My Rosen training and my work with Louise gave me the sensitivity to listen and connect with my clients through my hands as well as my heart. I learned to recognize my clients’ core issues, patterns of protection, distraction, mirror them back for their insight and understanding. I feel indebted to both Marion Rosen and Louise Barrie for their work.
But I feel my work has an added dimension, and so the name “Body-listening.” I recently had a client who has received Rosen bodywork for many years from a variety of practitioners say to me, “Sarah, you are doing more than Rosen.” If I were to define what that might be, I would say it is the result of four factors:
- my presence which comes from many years of meditation practice, understanding in my body how everything changes, what causes our suffering and having a sense of who I am beyond my ordinary experience of self,
- my 69 years of life experience, including a history of personal suffering, which has given me wisdom and compassion for the human condition,
- my work with my meditation teacher, Yvonne Rand, who strongly believes any habituated pattern can be transformed, and has given me techniques for observing and dismantling those patterns,
- my belief that along with feeling sensations of tension, discomfort, it is important for my clients to have a pleasurable experience of being in their body. I often use guided meditation as a means of facilitating this. Working with habituated patterns must be done with great kindness for oneself like holding a newborn child. I offer this tenderness to my clients.
To assist in a pathway to greater ease, freedom,
I offer suggested techniques for:
- relaxing the body, grounding, coming back into alignment, being centered
- having a greater capacity to handle feelings of fear, anger, being overwhelmed
- studying, training the mind, giving a greater sense of control
- cultivating a pleasurable experience of being present in your body