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rosen method
bodywork & movement
What if un-binding the tension in your body can unbind the tension in your life?
Why Rosen Method?
I work with the chronic tension in the body because our chronic tension is actually our most deeply held coping strategy.
This tension is something that we put into our bodies ourselves at some point because we needed it to survive. Initially, it arose as a way to protect the self from experiences that were too overwhelming; It’s important to know this so that we understand this tension isn’t “bad”, but rather, arose as an impulse of self-care and even self-love.
Sometimes however this chronic tension becomes an uncomfortable habit; You may not need it to survive anymore. This is when people usually start looking for ways that they can live without the grip in the body which can cause things like physical pain and discomfort, limitations in mobility, and difficulty breathing.
Rosen Method is a partnership between practitioner and client because it is rooted in helping people to become more embodied and aware. I work to invite ease in the body by working with my hands and also with verbal dialogue with the client in order to allow that tension to let go.
I help people stick with the hard stuff so that they can feel those places where they hide the most and have the experience of being accepted in those places. The hard places are where we hide ourselves because we feel unacceptable or unlovable in those places. When you have the experience through touch that someone is right there with you without recoiling, then you experience being accepted and lovable even in those places that are so hard to show. It gives people permission to be who they are. Because when we accept ourselves, everything changes.
About Meg
I began my Rosen Method Bodywork training in 1994, took two years of course work through Rosen Method – the Berkeley Center (1995-1997) and started seeing clients in my internship in 1998. I became a Certified Rosen Method Bodywork Practitioner in 2001.
I found Rosen in 1994 when I was feeling a little desperate. I had tried a lot of things: I had quit drinking and had gone to psychotherapy for a long time but things weren’t changing in my life in the ways I had hoped for them to change. I knew there was something in me that was keeping me from moving forward, I just didn’t know what it was.
By the time I was 8 I had lost 8 caregivers. While becoming sober and going to psychotherapy had helped me to cognitively understand how my history was affecting me, still my past traumas were holding on. I had such a fear of abandonment and had grown up in a household where vulnerability wasn’t allowed and was considered bad.
What I discovered with Rosen Method Bodywork is that I needed the physical contact to feel whether someone was going to stick with me or not. The element of touch really helped me feel someone being present and sticking with me. My Rosen practitioners were skilled enough that it gave me enough safety to share some of the things that would have gotten me left in my family of origin.
With that, things actually started changing in my life. My life got more spacious, and I began to have more intimacy in my relationships which had eluded me in the past. I met my husband… I got to have the experience that as my body became unstuck, my life also became unstuck and began to move forward in the ways I had hoped that it would for so many years.
I’m grateful to be able to provide the healing work that helped me so much to others.
Two ways to work together
Rosen Method
bodywork
Rosen Method Bodywork combines touch and verbal dialogue to deepen awareness of our client's inner experience and to explore the connections between the body, mind, and emotions.
Rosen Method bodywork is rooted in the anatomical function of the muscles themselves. This is because all people use their musculature to express their emotions. And when emotions are not accepted, feelings are not allowed or are too big to metabolize in the moment, we also use our musculature to repress or contain the feelings.
Rosen Method Practitioners work with the habitual tension in our clients. We listen with our hands to our client's body, and use verbal dialogue to assist our clients to drop into pure awareness where the unfelt feelings can arise.
Rosen Method Movement classes connect us with the joy of being in our bodies and moving with each other in community.
The movements themselves are based on Marion Rosen's physical therapy practice and emerged out of giving her clients movements they could do in-between sessions to warm up the body, facilitate moving with ease, and help to keep them from getting re-injured.
This gentle and fun movement modality is suitable for everyone: whether they are athletic or more sedentary, a seasoned "mover" or someone newly exploring feeling better in their body.
Rosen Method
movement
When we work on people they remind me of flowers who have not yet bloomed. A flower bud looks very different before the first bud appears. So it is in a person’s body that is closed, and does not reveal anything about its life and beauty. The muscle tension presents a picture of no aliveness and as we put our hands on those tense parts, the body slowly begins to open. This is like a blossom that opens into beauty and color. The person begins to emerge before us.
You cannot hurry a flower to open to its full bloom. It opens when it is ready to open. The same with our treatments. We may believe there is a beautiful person under our hands, but all we can do is patiently wait while we put our hands on the held muscles. Our joy is to witness this process, and to slowly bring it into the awareness of the person of the person we are working with. What we may see first is pain, sadness, fear or anger. As the person is allowed to be with themselves without any judgement they allow all the other emotions that also had been buried.
Marion Rosen PT
I am so grateful for the work that I have received from Meg. Before I came in for a Rosen Method session, I was struggling with severe anxiety and stress. I was disconnected from myself, and I was very overwhelmed. I was not sleeping, and I was struggling with many physical symptoms.
I booked a session with Meg, because I felt so disconnected from myself. It took me some time to unwind my thoughts. Meg approached me with kindness and gentleness while she worked with my body and helping me get in touch with myself. I felt like we were both listening to my body to reveal places where I was stuck. By the time I left, I felt reunited with myself. I was able to step back into compassion and acceptance for myself and the results were lasting. I still feel more in touch with what is really happening for me and less closed to the world and to those I love most.
Angela T.
Early Childhood Teacher, Santa Barbara