Working from my home clinic in the Perth Hills, I’ve been reflecting about what happens for clients on the table. The experience is quiet, profound, natural, and undramatic. At the heart of it all it really hard to put into words to do it justice. Bowen Therapy the technique it’s self is one of a series of movements that bring relief to pain and discomfort. This can be felt on all levels mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
I’m in recovery from knee surgery. The moves of Bowen over specific areas of my body have create a change has given me such relief. I feel I have fast tracked the success I’ve had. I’m months a head of schedule on my recovery and have movement, flexibility and postural correcting that keeps me pain free!
I wanted to share what the Bowen process actually looks and feels like. In a Bowen session, nothing is treated in isolation, and nothing is disturbed without a specific intention.
For example if you have a sore back, the surrounding muscles are supported – targeting the area and also the supports to that area. Using specific moves – this is what makes Bowen unique – it is a specific move that makes Bowen Therapy, Bowen Therapy.
If you’ve had a Bowen session, you may have felt it without knowing. Bowen moves are small, gentle pushes against a muscle, rolling over and then release.
There are pauses between these moves. Sometimes for 2 mins – sometimes more – this allows the body to receive and interpret the information and change created and then it has time to respond. This is a also a Bowen characteristic.
That pause-and-press is called what’s known in Bowen circles – the challenge. It’s a move.
Your muscles and tendons are wired with tiny little sensors constantly reporting back to your nervous system on how tense or relaxed they are
The challenge move speaks directly to those sensors, a brief pressure that disturbs the tissue just enough to get their attention. It creates a change and the body adjusts accordingly.
And if you are too tired, too overwhelmed, done, and in pain and desperate for a change – the sessions we do here create the space for you to also access what you need, inwardly. Accessing your inner world, or at least connecting to what’s going on within the mind and heart. This is why Bowen Therapy is so effective – it is holistic in nature and we gently work the entire system to give the relief needed.
For a moment, your nervous system will listen in a different way. This is how Bowen interrupts a habitual pattern of pain or tightness: the tension receives new information – in the form of the Bowen move, the challenge and then it responds to this rather than repeating the same old signal. The challenge brings the change.
This is also why Bowen treatments give so much relief. From back pain, neck pain, knee issue and for anxiety, stress and overwhelm. Clearing pain from migraines and gifting peace and also flexibility from joint stiffness and pain.
The fascia, this is the netting under the skin, encases your muscles, ligaments, and organs, it softens rather than resists, then comes the Bowen Challenge, the roll, slow, low-pressure, like a wheel passing gently over a rise in the ground.
None of this is forceful. The body decides how to respond, often in the quiet gaps between moves. That’s not a pause in the treatment. That’s the treatment.
It’s a strange kind of symmetry: in Bowen, nothing shifts until the tissue is challenged first.
Life tends to work the same way.
We rarely soften, loosen, or grow simply by drifting, it happens in the moment something presses against us, that tension gets our attention and asks us to respond differently. It asks us to change focus, change direction, change the environment,
The challenges you might be facing right now might not be obstacles in the way of your life or healing, they might be the very thing making room for it.
Not a force working against you, but maybe it’s waiting for some sort of response, maybe a question you’ve not asked yourself or an action yet to take?
The pressure or tension isn’t the problem. This is often what forces the change or instigates where the change begins, and that in itself can be a challenge – how much we need to change and resist it?
Bowen Therapy was created for this kind of inner tension. It gifts the relief in a way the body understands. It’s natural and gentle and through it’s movement and nature- any challenge brings with it some kind of relief.
If you would like to give Bowen Therapy a go, find relief to the issues you are experiencing – if you are in the Perth Hills, Lesmurdie – 10 mins from Kalamunda or 35 mins from Perth – or feel free to look for a Bowen Therapist near you – you can find one here.
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I’ve been treating in my garden clinic amongst the trees in Perth Hills for over 10 years and I’ve been very successful gifting people relief from pain and discomfort – I also blend flower essences within our treatments which makes my sessions truly unique. Calming the system and the mind using the nature and the natural healing mechanisms within the body
You can read more about Flower Essences here.