Acupressure massage: - The Portugal News

[massage]

By Paula Martins, in Lifestyle · 08-01-2021 01:00:00 · 0 Comments

“My role is to help people”


Acupressure massage is a holistic therapy that helps in the flow of energy, helping to heal psychology and physical issues, such as headaches, digestive and menstrual issues, anxiety, stress and so on. Using this approach, Becca Spooner fulfills her role of helping others.

Initially we can think about a massage as a way to relax, or even as a leisure activity, but it is when someone tells us that a massage helps them to really feel better, physically and psychologically, that curiosity increases and we want to try it too.

When we try it, we almost always feel the difference, you feel happier, healthier with more energy and more willingness to face the day to day and consciousness to make decisions. However, sometimes it’s hard to understand, how a “simple” massage can have all these effects on our body and mind? It’s a difficult question, so I went to talk to Becca Spooner, acupressure massage therapist and yoga teacher, to understand more about how this works.

“My job is to combine all the things Ihave learnt from acupuncture, tribe communities, shiatsu, yoga and regular massage. Supporting people’s health is what I do”, Becca Spooner told The Portugal News.

To clarify she explained what shiatsu is. “Shiatsu is not an energy healing method, such as reiki. I use the same system as acupuncture; use the meridians which are the channels where energy flows into the body. Sometimes the energy is blocked,so doesn’t flow. What I do is activate these channels, so the energy can flow”.

During the treatment, Becca makes pressure with her fingers in specific points, using the same knowledge of acupuncture but with her fingers instead of needles, which is better for those who feel terrified when they even think about needles in their skin. These points, called meridians have an extraordinary relationship with our body. Although it is not scientifically prooven, the results can be seen.

“There are certain points that I can press to help with the flow. For example, if the person comes to me suffering from a lot of headaches, I will probably press a point on the hand that helps the energy flow. There are points on the feet, legs, etc. So it is important for us to talk before to understand how the person feels”, she said.

At the beginning of the session they talk to find out what’s going on with the client. “Actually, sometimes people really want to talk, and we spend 45 minutes in this first step”, she said. “I don’t need to give them advice about their own lives, people have the answers inside them”, she explained, but sometimes people need to talk to a stranger who doesn’t judge them. At this time during quarantine, many people who live alone have become extremely isolated which has led to many people to need to have a simple conversation.

A holistic approach
“In eastern medicine I have to treat the symptom, but I also need to treat the cause. It’s the difference between medicine in the east and west (that only treats the symptom). You have to treat the cause, otherwise, nothing changes in long term”, she said, stating that “If you are working 15 hour days a week, never sleep, are drinking coffee all day, then you will feel very tired, maybe you have to do some lifestyles changes. This is what holistic treatment is, it’s not only pressure on the points”, the client also has to support the process.

Becca also explained to me that lots of her clients have something in common: they feel very stressed and anxious. “They feel tired; they have headaches, digestive or menstrual issues. However, often people only realise that their mental health is not very good when the physical self starts being affected, when something hurts”, she told us.

Regular Massage v acupressure massage
What’s the difference between usual massage and acupressure? Becca`s response: “I use Traditional Chinese Medicine and yoga in my treatment; I use pressure points that have great effect. My treatment heals the mental and physical at the same time”.

For many years, Becca studied Shiatsu, traditional Chinese medicine, and brought together all the incredible life experience she acquired in her previous work, to bring it all together today and bring people her best in order to help others. As she says, “I always wanted to help others”.
Life Experience with isolated tribes
For this reason, Becca Spooner, who has been in Portugal since March 2019, has an amazing experience of life working with different types of isolated tribes, without any outside contact. “I worked for an indigenous rights organisation for seven years. I worked with tribes in Colombia, Peru, Paraguay and Ecuador, also in South Africa. My work was basically campaigning for their rights. Putting their voices in international newspapers”.

However, there was a day when Becca decided to change the course of her life. During a less positive period in her life, she met a tribe leader who helped her to overcome the bad experience she had. “In tribes they heal themselves, only with medicinal plants, contact with spirits and healers”. After a year of this experience, Becca left her job and decided that she wanted to work with people and help them working with health.

Since then, she strives to improve her treatment technique in order to be able to do what she really loves and always wants to do, help others. In her words: “my role is to help people”.
For further information about Becca, please visit:
www.holisticallybecca.com