AFTERWORD

Bodywork Is about the Mother

MY MOTHER ALWAYS said to me, “Bodywork is about the mother.” When I repeat this to clients, they often look at me in dismay. “Mother” is obviously a loaded topic. Bodywork will bring up whatever one’s relationship to intimacy involves, which can be painful. Our relationship to intimacy, to touch, begins in the womb. The inside of our mother’s body is our first sensory experience of our own bodies and the body of another. Bodywork is an awakening of sensing one’s own body in new ways and opening up pathways that have been unfelt.

However damaged or healthy we may feel the mother relationship is, there is always opportunity for healing, as we are in a constant state of destruction and renewal. Whether we are conscious of it or not, we are engaged in a process of birthing ourselves, of regenerating our cells. In this way, we are our own mother. Bodywork gives us tools to do this consciously; otherwise we would continue to repeat old patterns and habits.

I had the good fortune of learning the practice of bodywork directly from my mother, in the ancient apprentice tradition. The process of writing this book was a part of that learning. My mother left it with me, for me to continue the work she had begun. There were many days that it felt like a burden. However, on reflection, it is the greatest gift she gave me. She left me with a method to take care of myself, to heal my own grief, and share the process with my clients. She left me with a mothering tool kit.

The Thompson Method of Bodywork is also “mother” in the sense that it is a source. A springboard to help propel you forward and learn more about yourself and to apply the ideas you have read to other modalities of healing and expression. I hope you enjoy incorporating Cathy Thompson’s philosophy into your life and work and perhaps even create more material from hers, developing and regenerating. And the cycle of birth continues.

TARA THOMPSON LEWIS