BodyTalk practitioners believe that health is affected if body parts don't communicate, writes BRIAN O'CONNELL
A FEW weeks ago I met an old friend, in his 50s, who told me with some enthusiasm his new hobby was attending classes in contemporary dance. Now, this guy is no Fred Astaire or Rudolf Nureyev, so when I asked what exactly he got out of the classes, he explained: “It’s wonderful being conscious of how your feet connect with the ground again.”
I remembered our meeting as I lay on a massage table in the Yoga Loft studio near Blackrock in Cork, while Body-Talk practitioner Therese Tierney tried to listen to my body parts which were not communicating properly with each other. You see, the knee bone might well be connected to the leg bone, but unless they are told and reminded of that, you could be in trouble.
Tierney is one of Ireland’s leading BodyTalk practitioners and one of only 2,000 exponents of BodyTalk worldwide.
I had elected to be her somewhat sceptical alternative health guinea pig over the course of two sessions. The whole idea behind BodyTalk is about empowering the body to heal itself, and the system was developed by an Australian natural health professional called John Veltheim in 1995.
It is based on the assumption that each system, cell and atom in the body is in constant communication with each other at all times. BodyTalk practitioners believe these lines of communication can become compromised or disconnected, mostly through the stresses of everyday life, and this can have an adverse effect on health.
So the BodyTalk practitioner will evaluate which areas of the body are not communicating well and seek to redress the balance. There are definite nods to Chinese medicines, kinesiology and acupuncture, and a tapping motion is used by the practitioner to stimulate certain responses.
In my case, I had no health ailments in particular, except perhaps the odd migraine, which I figured was genetic as opposed to lifestyle related. Tierney began with a series of questions on general wellbeing and, working from a number of charts, focused on specific areas of my body, including stomach and liver. The first weakness she said she detected was around my liver. She said she could tell my liver was perhaps dominating my spleen, and that this could lead to the organs developing bad habits and, if untreated, lead to irritable bowel syndrome.
With a series of tapping movements on my head, Tierney attempted to get my brain to focus on this issue. She explained how it works: “Whenever you cut your finger you don’t stare at it and start saying to yourself, ‘well the white blood cells need to do this and so on’. The body has a natural intelligence to heal itself. We focus on areas where the body is not communicating effectively.”
Towards the end of the session, she made other observations about how I might carry competitiveness from work into my personal life (never, I swear!) and mentioned my right shoulder seemed out of sorts. I injured it trying to clobber a car (long story) and, according to Tierney, it was not healing properly and she needed to focus on this.
It all felt relaxing and somewhat novel to take time out and focus intently on your body parts. Tierney had a hard job getting me to relax and focus on what she was doing and possibly scheduling session mid-morning during a work cycle was not my best idea.
In terms of the actual healing element of the practice and the reasoning behind it, I’m still unsure, but there are far worse ways to spend 45 minutes than trying to get more in tune with your body. Perhaps if I’d crawled in the door with a back complaint and was on my feet after a few sessions, I’d have had a different reaction.
During the second and final session, we focused on adrenalin and getting the body to produce the right amount when needed but not to over produce. Tierney held my hand and gauged various responses to her moving it. Through this she sought to interpret different meanings.
She says she has had a diverse range of people call to her practice. “I’ve had everyone from babies not sleeping to people with sports injuries and those who suffer from anxiety and irritable bowel syndrome,” she said.
Some clients will have a session once a month while others may come several times in that period, depending on their ailments. Tierney says she has helped people with Parkinson’s disease to control their body better. A session costs about €70, and more and more people are being trained in the practice. When I asked how many people had been diagnosed or cured from ailments since the practice opened in Cork, Tierney was quick to plant my feet firmly on the ground. “It’s important to stress we don’t diagnose and we don’t take people off food or cut things out or anything like that,” she said. “We don’t treat as such. We’re more about balancing the body.”
