Nirvanam Art of Healing

10/16/2025

The Weight We Hold

Sometimes, what brings people to our table isn’t just pain, it’s the quiet collapse that happens when holding it all becomes too heavy.

The body remembers every moment we sat at the edge of burnout, heartbreak, exhaustion... trying to stay strong while something inside quietly unraveled.

And in those moments, muscles tighten not just to protect, but to contain.

Massage isn’t just about easing that tension, it’s about reminding the body it’s safe to soften.

It’s where touch becomes translation, turning pain into presence, holding into healing.

Through fascia, breath, and stillness, the body finds its way back, not to who it was, but to who it’s becoming.

This is the art of healing, where anatomy meets empathy, and release becomes remembrance.

— The Body Artisans

10/15/2025

10/15/2025

“The Language Beneath the Skin

Every client arrives speaking a different dialect of tissue.

Some bodies whisper, others shout.

Some ask for deep, slow contact; others ask for silence.

Having a listening touch means allowing the tissue to lead the pace.

It’s the art of not pushing.

When we press too quickly, we interrupt the body’s sentence before it finishes.

But when we pause, when we allow the tissues to respond, we discover the truth of that ancient paradox:

The less we do, the more happens.

In that stillness, fascia begins to glide again.

Fluid redistributes.

Emotions rise and integrate.

The hands that listen are translators of truth.

Touch as Permission, Not Persuasion.

True healing cannot be forced.

It happens through invitation, through creating conditions where the body feels safe enough to release.

When we approach tissue with the mindset of “fixing,” the body braces.

When we approach it with curiosity, it opens.

Touch, in this sense, is sacred permission.

It tells the body:

“You can rest now. You can let go. You are safe.”

As practitioners, our hands are not just tools, they are instruments of regulation.

They carry intention, rhythm, and energy.
Every contact, every pause, every breath is communication.

When we learn to hold without agenda, we become conduits for the body’s own intelligence to express itself.”

- The Art of Emotional Release by Katie Bell
Coming 2026

12/03/2024

This is what I have been saying for years about bodywork and healing. As a Massage therapist I will not force myself into someone's tissue until it invites me in and as a yoga teacher I teach to slow down and move with feeling not force.We know that the nervous system governs our general state of being, yet the physical body is often neglected in the recovery process of trauma and chronic stress. 😰

Without internal safety, the mental & emotional components of recovery can destabilise the nervous system quickly and internal safety is almost impossible to find when you are chronically stressed or living with trauma. 🌪️

The scientific word for internal safety is homeostasis and one of the quickest ways to induce it is through physical touch with specific qualities. 👐

Deep in the layers of our tissue (fascial tissue), we have touch receptors (called mechanoreceptors) that when stimulated, can powerfully induce homeostasis by activating our parasympathetic nervous system. 🧬

The most recent scientific research tells us that the 4 qualities of touch that most effectively stimulate these touch receptors are slow, deep, wide & “shearing” (which we practically translate as oblique with “high-tack” contact, or in other words, pressure delivered on an angle with mild friction).

When the mind and nervous system is in overdrive with no off-switch or end in sight, bodywork and massage is a lifeline.

When used correctly, touch can be a powerful form of medicine. ❤️‍🩹 ~ Sarga Bodywork

12/16/2022

https://www.facebook.com/100064004944767/posts/522100006600160/?mibextid=Nif5oz

Dr Shah, a long-term student of Mr BKS Iyengar, uses this diagram to explain the surprising number of benefits of Pascimottanasana. He translates it as “Back Spine Stretching Pose”, highlighted by the light brown line along the entire spine. The asana works in many ways. The brown lines show the building of strength in the legs and feet, while the yellow lines show the reduction of fat. Mentally, the pose quietens the mind and calms you down. Other physical benefits that Dr Shah illustrates are below.

1. Massages abdominal and pelvic organs (A and P in his diagram).
2. Improves digestion.
3. Tones endocrine glands (AD for adrenals, I for Islets of Langerhans, and G for Go**ds (male & female).
4. Removes mental and physical fatigue.
5. Improves circulation to head and neck (red line).
6. Loosens all joints (blue circles).

Dr Shah says some conditions that are especially helped by this pose (or suitable variations of it), include backaches, arthritis, constipation, diabetes, asthma, menstrual issues, and stress disorders.

One useful way to learn this pose, and get even more from it, is to do restorative versions of it. For example, rest the head on a chair or bolsters.

There’s more on Restorative Yoga in the Classes tab of the Flametree Yoga site. You can reach it via the Learn More button on the Flametree page.

11/27/2022

https://iyengaryoga.org.uk/men-in-iyengar-yoga/

Conversations with Teachers and Students

11/19/2022

"Nataraja - The lord of the dance: The yogi believes in nivrtti-marga, the inward path of renunciation; the dancer believes in pravrtti-marga, the outward path of creation. Yoga is jnana-marga, a path of knowledge; dance is bhakti-marga, a path of love. The difference between yoga and dance is that yoga is a perfect art in action, whereas dance is a perfect art in motion. In dance there is external expression through movement, whereas in yoga, though there is an intense inner dynamism, to the observer it may appear static. The movement may be very slight, but the action is tremendous.

We are all caught up in the web of lust, anger, greed, infatuation, pride and jealousy. These are emotional upheavals that come to us in our day-to-day lives. The dancer uses these emotions and transforms them into artistic expression. The yogi works to conquer them as recommended by Patanjali: ‘Maitri karuna mudita upeksanam sukha duhkha punya apunya visayanam bhavanatah chittaprasadanam’ - to cultivate friendliness, compassion, joy, and indifference towards happiness and sorrow, virtue and vice, is conducive to mental peace (Yoga Sutras, I. 33).”

BKS Iyengar, The Tree of Yoga