Lomi Lomi is more than a massage technique, it aligns the body and opens the heart. 

People want to learn Lomi Lomi for many reasons.

Recently, I had student who wanted to bring in another tool into his toolbox to work on people. However, lomi lomi Hawaiian massage techniques barely scratched the surface of what he experienced and learned while he was here.

This man is an experienced, therapeutic body worker. He has been doing body work for almost two decades. In the zodiac, he is an air sign; a person who really is mental in their way of piecing the world together. Logical. Structured.

He was the person in class who was asked the most questions. Detailed, intricate questions about the anatomy, physiology, kinesiology of all the body parts.

I had to really be focused and recall from my physical therapy days, that information about origins and insertions and actions of muscles. The ‘why’ we do every move that we do.

He has a brilliant and unique mind.

The Sharing Circle

We usually begin day of class in a circle and have some time to talk story. That first day, I shared about my experience with ancestors, my experiences working with spirit and allowing spirit to move through my hands in Lomi Lomi.

Afterwards, he came up to me and he said,

“I just want you to know I’m not a spiritual person but I’m okay if someone believes something different than I do. I respect you for what you do, but I have a different belief system. And that’s okay. I’m just here to learn this new skill.”

So I waited I watched and over time.

Lomi Lomi works like this…we go deep to the bones. Your bones are a store house for all your soul stories. They contain your family history.

Hawaiians believe that all that Mana, your spiritual life force and essence, is held within the bones.

In Lomi Lomi, when we go deep and hold space for someone, they are able to go deeper within themselves. And we start to open also.

Anything we are maybe stuffing down or things about ourselves we haven’t wanted examine, start bubbling up to the surface.

Therefore, it was really interesting the further that we got into the retreat, this student started sharing more and more during our talk story about the different emotions that were coming up for him.

He noticed it even more because his roommate would tell him on a daily basis, “brother, just breathe, just breathe.” This man expressed how much he appreciated the reminder.

One day, he was driving up the hill trying to get to class thinking, “I’m behind someone and they’re going slow and I don’t know if they’re a tourist but I’m finding this frustration welling up in me”. Almost like he just took a cocktail of anger hormones that are raging.

He told the class in our sharing circle that day, “but I’m learning day by day to just calm that down and just to be with the emotions that I’m having and breathe more and more”.

Every day he would say, “Oh, this is so great. It’s so nice that I’m just learning these new tools.” But I could see that he was transforming on a much deeper level in the heart space.

Then, the Magic Happened…

Align the Body

Our class held an outreach in a Hawaiian community. It’s our way of giving back to the native Hawaiian people who have generously shared this ancient wisdom with us and we do it at every Lomi Lomi training.

Elders, children and people with all different kinds of things going on in their bodies came to the event. It is a wonderful experience for students to work on real people outside of the classroom.

One of the uncles had just had a stroke and I knew exactly who would be the perfect person to take care of him. My experienced, logical, brilliant-minded, detail-oriented bodyworker.

It was amazing because in his mind, he was going through the sequence of what I had taught him in class. Except the body model in class on hadn’t had a stroke.

My student was able to challenge himself, by getting outside of the structure.

The next person to lay down on his table was an uncle who was blind. So really challenged him to get out of the formula, the sequence, and expand himself to work with all different kinds of people.

During our sharing circle at the end of the day, he saw in himself how much he’s changed. That it wasn’t just about doing the technique, it was really just about holding this sacred space for someone.

Open the Heart

It wasn’t about gaining this new tool and using it right now, to see the end result of alignment afterwards in the physical body.

It was about how he felt like his heart opened and he witnessed other people’s heart opening as well to the work that he was doing with them.

One of the uncles had tears in his eyes when he got off the table and thanked my student. He was finally able to see how he could touch someone’s heart with just a 30-minute Lomi and that touched his heart.

The big takeaways from the community outreach:

1. Practicing Lomi Lomi massage technique
2. How to hold space for someone else
3. The importance of holding space for himself as he is working on people
4. Strategies to take responsibility for his own emotions, anger and frustration. To bring it back to the breath and the Aloha we receive through the breath
5. The gift of heart opening and introspection

I know he’s going back to do amazing work on his community and I know he’s going back changed.

Lomi Lomi is a lifestyle, not just a massage technique.

Lomi Lomi is not just about pushing muscle. It is not about fixing someone or getting them into alignment.

Hawaiian healing is about connecting heart-to-heart.

As practitioners, our goal is connecting soul-to-soul and opening ourselves to allow that Aloha to pour through.

We transform lives, transform people’s experiences and most importantly, transform people’s hearts.

If this resonates with you and you’re thinking about coming to a Lomi Lomi class check out our 2020 calendar of training events.

The next retreat that we’re opening up is the Lomi Lomi Spring Intensive in April. We begin with Lomi Lomi Fundamentals and then move into advanced training.

I have more to share with you about the wisdom of the bones – how our emotional and spiritual body, when it gets out of alignment, shows up in our physical body – and how as therapists we can hold space for that as well.

Do you have a question about Lomi Lomi or the Wisdom of the Bones?

Ask me in the comments below so I can include it in a future post.

With aloha,