Since the founding of mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) in 1979, by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, there has been steady acceptance of the importance of stress reduction for health, as well as the need for patients to take on…
Not permanence but change ~ its pace and its direction, is all that matters. ~ Freya Stark At Massage Therapy Center Palo Alto, we know that we all have an inherent ability to heal, given supportive conditions. The body-mind is a flowing process that changes…
Love has bridged the high-rises of despair we were about to fall between. Love has been a penlight in the blackest, bleakest nights. Love has been a wild animal, a poultice, a dinghy, a coat. Love is why we have hope. ~ Anne Lamott We…
The holiday season is filled with joy, and it’s also filled with food. Many people tend to over-indulge during this time, snacking on foods packed with sugars and drenched in salt, and this often leads to a little bulge around the middle. Overeating and putting on weight…
Healthy breathing involves the harmonious interplay of the rib muscles, abdominal muscles, and diaphragm, as well as various muscles throughout the body. Unnecessary tension in the muscles of our shoulders, chest, belly, back, or pelvis—whether it is caused by negative emotions, physical or psychological stress,…
The constrictions of the heart and mind cannot be measured like so many pounds of pressure— they simply are there to be worked with, to help us find our way to our true nature. ~ Phillip Moffitt As our days become shorter and the dark…
Stillness is the state from which all other states arise. It is always present and overlaid by movement, since body and all its cells are always in quiet motion. We are 70% water, and water is paradoxically still and moving at the same — a…
Breathe deeply into your body. Expand your consciousness. Join your body’s fluid spinal wave motion. Meet the longing of your cells and tissues to expand, release, and be wet with your very own innate body wisdom. Breathe deeply into your body. Lengthening, releasing, and melting…
I would like to spend the rest of my days in a place so silent, and working so slow, that I would be able to hear myself living. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert Massage Therapy Center Palo Alto is a healing, quiet space in this world of…
Shiatsu is an ancient Japanese bodywork that uses hand, knuckle, palm, elbow, and foot pressure on specific points located along energy meridians, in order to promote the free flow of ki energy, the circulating life force. Oriental Medicine maintains that disease occurs because of stagnation or blockage…