My grandmother took me for my first massage when I was 15. I still remember the tension melting away… until the therapist began to work on my legs and I nearly jumped off the table, I was so ticklish!
Fast forward 25 years. This connection to renewal and healing and therapeutic touch lives on. I understand it as an integral part of our body’s natural renewal and recovery response. For our big and little stressors. Increasing circulation. Increasing our connection to our bodies.
Integrating regular massage helped me train and complete my first full marathon. And it also help me release the guilt, fear and sadness of being gone from my 2 year old, while hospitalized two months on bed-rest for pregnancy complications.
Bodywork has moved the negative energy and tension at so many points in my life, for which I’m forever grateful.
And of course it was a trip to the spa that inspired spa time living. Spa was an acronym: Self-care promotes ability. Ability to show up as our best selves.
This is my metric for reviewing a spa experience: how does the experience bring me fully present, and yet transcend that moment to bring long-term benefits?
I believe that spas can help spread the love and wisdom of daily practices and acts of self-care and compassion. They can bridge the gap on how we make room for this down time that we not only deserve, but need physiologically.
Have a favorite spa or practice that I must explore? Let me know here or leave a comment below to tell me what/where….and more importantly, why?!
