I will never forget my first experience with Tao Shiatsu. I had been suffering from lower back pain for many years and had been treated by an osteopath. One morning, my back seized up, I called my osteopath and was told I could be seen at the end of the following week. Needless to say, that this did not resonate well with me. A friend had told me about a great Tao Shiatsu practitioner, so I decided to call her. Her answer was, yes, yes, come this afternoon. When I got there, I was welcomed with a kind warm smile, we exchanged a few words and she proceeded with treatment.
Even though I was in agony, I felt relaxed right away, I really felt cared for, not only on the physical level, but as a human being who was suffering. After treatment I felt relief and had regained mobility. Within a few days, my lower back was pain free. This experience for me was the beginning of a healing journey. That was 2008. Now my neck, with severe osteoarthritis, is pain free. My knee that was operated on many times, also with severe osteoarthritis, is also pain free. I enjoy telemark skiing. My shoulder that had suffered a tear in the rotator cuff allows me to enjoy paddling my kayak again. I could go on and on….
Tao Shiatsu treatments have helped me a lot on a physical level, but also it has been beneficial on an emotional and spiritual level. At the time when I went for my first treatment, my heart was dark, lonely and I did not have much faith in anything. My main focus was to find ways to escape and bury my own pain, a lonely place where I could not see the pain of others, or when I did, I ran away from that too, because I did not know what to do. Those aspects were also treated with deep care, with no judgement. I felt that she never lost faith in me. Her wish for my emotional healing and my spiritual growth started to shift from my subconscious to my conscious life.
It is with deep gratitude to Tao Shiatsu that I can now connect to my own pain and come to the realisation that we are all connected. I now embrace a spiritual path, faith in the universal spirit and the wish for the spiritual development of all beings. I am now Buddhist and a Level 1 Tao Shiatsu practitioner and my deepest wish is to help others in the way that I was helped.
