Hellerwork

Smoothing Out the Rough Spots

Your husband is driving you nuts--not only because he won't hang up his shirts but because he acts like the entire bedroom floor is his personal laundry basket.

Yet you know, even when your pique has peaked, that it's not really his housekeeping skills (or the lack of them) that's making your blood pressure rise. What's really ticking you off is his lack of consideration.

Pain can be like that, too. What you think is causing pain--a sore neck, for example--might actually be a symptom of a problem somewhere else.

Take Laura Lindahl, a homemaker in Los Gatos, California. She hurt her back in a toboggan accident over 30 years ago. And for much of that time she was also plagued with neck and shoulder pain. But until she had a Hellerwork session several years ago, she never realized that the neck and shoulder pain and the earlier back injury were connected.

"I learned during my session that your whole body is interconnected," she says. "Everything affects everything else, and one problem can cause another one somewhere else."

Hellerwork is a program that uses bodywork, an important part of which is massage, to help uncover and straighten out structural imbalances in the body. According to Hellerwork practitioners, vigorous bodywork helps loosen areas of the body that have become tense, compressed or twisted--the body's way of compensating for a variety of physical and emotional hurts.

"The tension in the muscles is relieved and, when the session's done, you feel like a million bucks: relaxed, straightened, almost like they've ironed out your tissues. It's wonderful," Lindahl says. "They can look at your body and see what area needs to be unrotated or realigned. It's amazing."

HELP FOR BODY AND SOUL

Hellerwork was developed in 1978 by Joseph Heller, an aerospace engineer who had studied with Ida Rolf, founder of the form of deep tissue massage called Rolfing. Heller patterned his method on the ten-session Rolfing program. But whereas Rolfing focuses on the physical aspect of bodywork, Hellerwork also takes emotional stresses and strains into account.

The basic Hellerwork program consists of 11 sessions. Each 1 1/2-hour session focuses on a different area of the body. Bodywork plays a big part, of course, but so does talking--what practitioners call dialogue. In order to relieve the problem, it's essential that you understand what's going on emotionally that might be causing or contributing to it. So don't be surprised when you're asked a lot of questions and encouraged to share your experiences. It's all part of the process.

Suppose, for example, you frequently get backaches, says Don St. John, a certified Hellerworker and trainer in Seattle. It may be that you're frequently repressing anger, which causes the back muscles to tense up. Someone who's under constant stress may clench her jaw a lot, which could cause temporomandibular problems.

It's not uncommon for muscles to get increasingly tense over time. Since this occurs so slowly, however, you may not even realize that you've lost the ability to completely relax, says St. John. "It's like how water in a freezer gets real cold before it turns into ice. Your muscles tighten very gradually and get very tight before you're in agony. We attempt to relax them and to connect the client's awareness to her body," he explains.

A CONVERSATIONAL APPROACH

The verbal interplay between the Hellerworker and her client is a vital part of the program, especially for women, says Douglas Drucker, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and certified Hellerworker and trainer in Los Gatos.

Traditional health care, he says, revolves around an authority figure (the doctor) who tells you what to do. "Women have been very frustrated because they want to create a system based on participation, communication and relationships."

Hellerwork does just that. All Hellerwork practitioners are trained to listen carefully, says Donna Bajelis, a physical therapist and certified Hellerworker in Seattle.

"We ask people to look at the relationship between their attitudes and beliefs and the tension in their bodies," she says. "If you think life is hard, your body will look like it--all hunched over, your shoulders forward and down, like you're carrying a burden."

Indeed, teaching people how to use their bodies better is an essential aspect of Hellerwork, says Dr. Drucker. Each session includes movement education--teaching people to stand, walk, sit and bend to avoid putting unnecessary stress on their bodies.

"You can't put Band-Aids on the problem," says Dr. Drucker. "A cortisone shot in the back won't get to the pain. It blocks it out for a little while, but you're not getting to the cause. That's why people are so frustrated. They're looking for solutions and want to get to the root of it."

Generally, people seek out Hellerwork practitioners for relief of musculoskeletal problems: back, neck and shoulder pain, headaches, foot problems, arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome and fibromyalgia (painful "trigger points" in the muscles), says Dr. Drucker. He says Hellerwork has also been helpful for such physical and emotional problems as anxiety, depression, irritable bowel syndrome and weight gain.

MAKING THE PIECES FIT

Just as the shinbone's connected to the knee bone and the knee bone's connected to the thighbone, the sessions in Hellerwork progress from one body part to another. The connections aren't just physical, either. Hellerworkers believe that each area of your body connects with a specific emotion or problem in your life.

Here's a quick rundown of what each session includes.

Session 1. The emphasis is on breathing, says Bajelis. Bodywork targets your rib cage, and you could be asked to describe what inspires you and to make connections between your emotions and how you breathe. Practitioners say that this session could help asthma, allergies, depression and grief.

Session 2. Bodywork focuses on your legs, and the dialogue focuses around support systems such as your family or networks of friends. This session could help with knee problems, osteoarthritis, muscle strains and ligament pulls, says Bajelis.

Session 3. Bodywork focuses on your arms, legs, shoulders and sides of your rib cage. The theme of the session is reaching out in life. The discussion will concentrate on how you give and receive in life and also on issues of anger and self-esteem. This session helps with tension in your shoulders, neck and arms, says Bajelis.

Session 4. Bodywork focuses on the insides of your legs and your pelvic-floor muscles. The dialogue focuses on themes of control and surrender, shame and guilt. According to practitioners, this session could help you with incontinence, constipation, hemorrhoids, distended colon and sexual dysfunctions.

Session 5. Bodywork focuses on your abdominal muscles. You will talk about intuition, gut feelings and how you express emotion. This session could help you with lower-back problems, constipation and restricted breathing, practitioners say.

Session 6. Bodywork focuses on your back, all the way from your buttocks to the back of your neck. You will talk about how you are repressed or afraid of expressing feelings in your life. This session could help you with back problems, says Bajelis.

Session 7. Bodywork focuses on your neck, face and mouth. You will discuss how you communicate, how well you talk about emotions and how well you speak your mind. This session helps with temporomandibular (jaw) pain, says Bajelis. It's also used to help relieve sinus infections, with the Hellerworker using a gloved pinkie finger to work on loosening up the nasal passage, she adds.

Sessions 8 to 11. These are open sessions, in which bodywork and dialogue are targeted to those parts of the body that need additional attention. The themes focus on integration of the masculine and feminine parts of your personality.

While each session in the Hellerwork program is sequential--practitioners advise completing all 11 sessions--you can go back and repeat sessions as often as necessary, Bajelis says.

Hellerwork can improve posture and bearing in just about everyone, says St. John. "The common assumption is that after age 25, it's downhill physically," he says. "Or that you get more stiff and hunched over with age. But it doesn't have to be that way. I'm finding at age 54 that my body is more aligned than at 25."

Indeed, the treatments have been known to add a quarter-inch or so of height to folks whose muscles have had the kinks ironed out, notes Dr. Drucker.

BRINGING YOURSELF IN LINE

Although you need to see a certified Hellerworker to get the full benefits of the program, they also teach and empower you to do things for yourself to help bring your body back into alignment.

Let it hang out. When walking or standing, it's a natural tendency to pull back your pelvis and hold in your stomach to make it flat. Unfortunately, this can put your body out of balance and lead to back pain, Bajelis says. "It makes you hold your breath and your energy gets held in. The best body stance is to have your weight evenly distributed over both whole feet."

Let your head go down. When bending to pick something up, don't force your head to stay up, says St. John. "With your head up, you contract the back of your neck muscles instead of allowing the head to drop down and the spine to lengthen, which is much healthier," he says.

Let 'em swing. When walking, allow your arms to hang down and don't hold your shoulders up, says St. John. "You're always told to keep your shoulders up, but we teach you to sense the weight of your arms being down along the sides of your rib cage. This helps your shoulders stay down," he says.

The Right Way to Sit Sit forward on your pelvis so that you are sitting on top of your "sit bones." Using a pillow to raise your sit bones above your knees may make it easier to sit correctly. Your back is in an uncurved, natural position.
The Right Way to Stand Whether standing or walking, the best way to position your body is to shift yourself so that your weight is balanced over the spot where your heel and arch meet. As if joined by an imaginary line, your ear, shoulder, hip and the middle of your knee and ankle should be aligned. Look down at your ankles. If you can see them and your weight is still distributed over the juncture of your heel and arch, you're probably in good alignment.
The Wrong Way to Bend Even if you remember to bend your knees to pick up a small object off the floor, forcing your head to stay up and look straight ahead will needlessly tense the back of your neck.
The Right Way to Bend The healthy way to bend is to lengthen your spine. Let your head drop down and look toward the object as you bend. You may want to use one hand to balance yourself on your knee.