Shawn’s Massage Philosophy

The focus of massage should be to ease the Central Nervous System. When I perform a massage, my goal is to bring peace to your central nervous system. The reason is because all pain starts from within your brain.

Before moving forward, I want to say that I do not believe you can flip a switch to tell your pain to cease. As a man who has known absolute ten-level pain for long periods of time, I know this is not possible. When my right lung was removed, I went without any painkiller for two hours within the first fourteen hours of my surgery. It was a pain beyond screams, and if there was a switch to flip, I would have found it.

I mention this because a lot of people belittle the pain experiences of others, because they mistake their ability to soldier through minor pain, or even high pain as a sign they are a master of their own mind. As a result, they convince themselves that if they can overcome the pain challenges they faced, so can others. Unfortunately, their advice can be frustrating to hear and can even be perceived as belittling commentary or a disbelief in the level of discomfort you feel.

With that said, your pain is real, and there is hope. Through my cancer journey I have learned a lot about pain, and this knowledge is one of the reasons I have excelled as a massage therapist. When I see someone hurting, I want to help them. If I am out and about and someone is rubbing their neck in discomfort, I will offer to help them (free of charge), because I know how it feels to hurt, and I deeply care about people, even if I don’t know them.

One of the first things I will ask them is how they tend to massage themselves when they are hurting. Most people stick their fingers into their flesh like ice picks. While this may feel good at first, it often crosses the threshold of hurts so good, into ouch that really hurts. As a consequence, they bruise themselves and upregulate their sympathetic nervous system. This is the fight or flight response of your autonomic nervous system, which is the opposite of what you want if you are trying to reduce your pain levels. If your body thinks it is being attack it will cause them to contract. Your body does this to create an armor so it can protect you.

My goal when performing a massage is to downregulate your sympathetic nervous system, so we may upregulate your parasympathetic nervous system. This is the rest and digest component of your autonomic nervous system. I believe that when we focus the operating system of your existence, known as your central nervous system, it maximizes the results of your massage.

Experience the ease, comfort and serenity you need at Jennifer Brand Spa.  Feel the outside world float away as your senses are soothed, replenished and revitalized.  Discover how it feels to be the center of the universe, to live with harmony, and embrace peace.