Services Offered

Types of Sessions

River of Light Massage & Healing Arts provides several services spanning across traditional massage, mind-body-somatics sessions, and trauma bodywork.  This document will help you understand these services.  

Together, we will identify the best approach for you to achieve your goals, and potentially the progression of sessions, that will support you to achieve your goals.  

Please review this document.  In our first session we will discuss this further.  Our goal is to create a plan that supports you.  Be it relaxation,  more involved resolution of stress and trauma held in your body, creativity, or a deeper soul journey.

If you have questions about these different session categories please email or call.  Or, we can discuss further in your first session.

Types of Sessions Offered

Because Daniel provides both simple and advanced massage and bodywork, for clients with simple stress to complex medical traumas, it is necessary to identify the category of session that you want

.

1. Standard: Massage- Somatics- Wellness
   1. The Foundation Session: pain relief, relaxation, melt, and let go.
   2. 90 to 120 minutes recommended.
2. Transformational Intensive Bodywork and Coaching Series
   1. Supports a variety of mental, emotional, physical, energetic, and spiritual transformational goals.
   2. Identify stress and trauma patterns and change them over a series of sessions.
   3. First Session 2.5 to 3.0 hours; additional 1.5 hour minimum
   4. Three to six  session series recomended. 
3. Health & Medical Related Massage
   1. Massage supports a wide range of health and medical issues.
   2. By consultation.
4. Silence and Stillness
   1. Body centered
   2. Low talk, low mind-body skills engagement.
   3. Deep connection with self, integration, dissipation of stress.
   4. Less intake forms
5. Training for Therapists, Counselors, Teachers & Healers of all Nature

1. Standard: Massage – Somatics – Wellness
   • 90 to 120 minutes recommended.

1. These standard sessions focus on the physical massage and bodywork components.They address:
   1. Common pain relief and relaxation.
   2. Simple resilience
   3. Just melt, relax, and let go of the stresses of the world.
   4. Reset and integrate from the stresses of the world
2. These session focus physical relaxation, and overall wellness, with a moderate amount of mind-body skills.  They do not focus on conversation or emotional processing.
3. You can be completely passive and receiving in these sessions – like in a typical massage.
4. To enhance your experience, these sessions invite/offer a simple style of an engaged, participatory massage, where during the course of the massage I verbally guide you into a relaxation process, and occasionally, encourage you to release stress with simple movements, breathing, and stress clearing skills.These are simple mind-body skills.  This approach is more effective to achieve the benefits of massage.  We can discuss this further in your first appointment.
5. They focus on the immediate session, and less focus on long term transformation.
6. These sessions are typically 90 to 120 minutes long.
   1. Exceptions: shorter sessions are available for unusual situations, such as concussions, by request.
7. These sessions can be your regular massage support - weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.

What is Somatics?

Somatics, is a general term used to describe processes of being, presence or internal awareness that are deeper in the body then cerebral thinking and feeling states.    Somatics can, in general, also be called ‘mind-body skills’.   Both ‘somatics’ and ‘mind-body skills’ involve internal awareness skills, such as meditation, movement, breathwork, emotional awareness, body scanning, state generation, and expression. These support your journey inside yourself.  These skills are often used to support relaxation, stress relief, self-awareness, or improved health

Progressing from a traditional massage session to ‘Massage- Somatics-Wellness session to a ‘Transformational-Trauma Bodywork’ session.

It is possible that in the process of a traditional massage that deeper stress issues and emotions can arise,   These might arise after the session as well.  This suggests that the traditional massage revealed an unexpected stress response with in you.

At times, clients can start off receiving a mind-body-somatic massage sessions.  And then trauma resolution within their sessions.

The sessions then progress into a 'transformational' theme.

 Transformational-Trauma Bodywork and Coaching: 

• - These session are designed for clients who have identified challneges in their life that they want to transform using a mind-body approach. 
• - These session invite deeper self-reflection, committment to study and practice skills, and to track your progress.
• - First Session 2.5 to 3.0 hours. 1.5 hour minimum for future sessions.
• - This approach builds results typically over 3 to 6 sessions, or longer.
• - This approach is designed as a journey of transformaiotn, not a single session expericne.

Do current stresses or past trauma effecting your life, relationship, job, health, sense of well being.  These sessions can help.

These sessions supports a variety of mental, emotional, physical, energetic, and spiritual transformational goals.  They are massage and somatic sessions and are consultative and skill based.  They are an opportunity for you to cultivate short and long term skills.  This approach includes a more detailed intake form to explore your goals and identify underlying issues to be transformed. These skills require commitment on your part to learn them and implement them.

Their goal is to:

1. Enhance your transformation – mentally, emotionally, physical, energetically.
2. This program is designed for multiple, regular sessions over the course of time: weekly, monthly, etc.
3. This program is curriculum based and invites you to learn and implement skills.And, to track your progress over time to help achieve your goals.
4. Transformational-Trauma bodywork requires a more full relationship between you and I, and involves a more elaborate and deeper quality of trust between us.
5. These sessions help to identify stress and emotions held in the body.  The sessions  focus on positive cultivation of energy, catharsis and transformation facilitated by mind-body-somatic skills and experiences can include:

• Face to face conversation  to build an alliance and learn about your story.
• Meditation, guided awareness, progressive relaxation
• Guided energy cultivation, Chi Gong and Energy Work
• Voice, Sound, Singing and Breath 
• Mind-body Integration Skills and Affirmation (Energetic and Verbalization) 
• Guided Visualization and Imagery, 
• Posture, Presence and Being
• Movement
• Memory recall and reframing
• Implementation and coaching
• And more!

1. The approach uses several tactics to help you become aware of the layers of, thinking, emotions, and sensations within yourself.
2. Elements of the session can be conducted sitting and discussing, sitting in Internal awareness and meditation, standing in a posture, standing and moving, or on the massage table receiving a range of touch and massage methods, including,light touch, Swedish massage, or deep internal organ massage.   The guided awareness process, expression and discussion can also occur during the course of the massage, to understand and express the emotions or sensations that arise.

1. At the end of the session there is an integration component to help integrate your experience and implement new awareness, behavior and skill.
2. If desired the entire session can be conducted completely clothing on. Hands on physical massage is not necessary.Disrobing for a massage is not necessary.  You can receive a table massage and remain fully clothed.
3. Invite you to participate in your transformation and wellness by cultivating a broad range of mind-body-somatic skills before, during, and after your sessions.And then, to integrate these skills into your daily and weekly wellness and fitness routine.  Thus, a Transformational Coaching experience to support you to achieve your goals.
4. Identify the areas of your life and the related mind-body components that you desire to transform to achieve improved wellness, energy, relationship, and goals in life.
5. Cultivate your regular routine to achieve these goals.Each session adds skills and trains your routine to progress over the course of your regular sessions.  
6. Identify underlying mind-body, stressors, health and trauma conditions that hold you back from experiencing life as you want.These are trauma bodywork sessions.  Trauma  body includes discussion, inner emotional and felt sense experience, expression, and resolution.  Trauma bodywork includes a deeper journey of self-awareness, integration  and express then do the process of ‘mind-body-somatics’ described above.   A central goal of trauma body work is to help you understand and transform internal stress-related sensations, beliefs, memories, behaviors and physical response to achieve better self-awareness, integration, coherence, positive emotions, calm and relaxation, improved health, recovery from physical accidents, to gain insight, and to support expression.   The central tactic of trauma bodywork is to help you be aware of your internal state, to regulate that state,  expression and catharsis. and to generate your desired internal state, and to achieve resolution.

1. These sessions develop and support broad, and deep integration of mind-body skills and principles, addressing deeper expression, resilience, stress and trauma dissipation.They incorporate sophisticated principles and skill, based upon detailed anatomy and physiology.
2. Include homework assignments, and intermittent text messages to check in on your progress.
3. Transformational sessions include more time in mind-body-somatic practices to integrate with the massage and bodywork table time.
4. To achieve your goals, sessions can occur several times a week, weekly, monthly.Whatever dose and frequency supports you.
5. Include homework assignments to support your transformation.
6. We will discuss what amount of time is supportive for you.If you have a challenging health of life issue and feel that shorter sessions are what you need, please reach out and discuss this.
9. 3. Health and Medical Related Massage

Do you have a health or medical  condition where stress or trauma may be a co-factor.  These session can help.

These session support a wide range of health and medical conditions.  From pre and post surgery, to specific illness condition. Massage is a universal complimentary therapy for wellness.

Silence and Stillness

1. Body centered
2. Low talk, low mind-body skills engagement.
3. Deep connection with self, integration, dissipation of stress.
4. Less intake forms
5. Just come in,  Just a little up front conversation.  Get on the table, chill, zone out, regenerate.

4. 5.  Intensives

Some people find profound benefit from these sessions and choose to dive deep fast into the skills.  Often they have been struggling with some issue, such as pain, relationship distress, health condition.  This transformational experience, for some, can provide relief – sometime quick and sustained.

Some clients who are either local, or travel from farther distances, choose to engage in an intensive, such as:.  

• Zoom session in advance of their in-person session.Plus zoom follow up session.
• Weekend intensive, such as:
  1. Schedule an in -person session for Friday afternoon.
  2. Enjoy the weekend in Marin
  3. Conduct a second session on Sunday Afternoon.
  4. Engage in follow up zoom and in-person session accordingly.
• Week-long: Multiples session (2 to 3) during the course of a week.
• Custom Intensives – what is supportive for you?Multiple hours in one day?