The Woman Before the Treatment

People often ask me what my favourite treatment is to give. It's a lovely question, but I never quite know how to answer it, because I don't really think in treatments. I think in people.

By the time you've walked through the door, you've already lived a whole day before I've even said hello. You might have spent the morning in meetings, dropped the children at school, argued with your partner, cared for an ageing parent, worried about money or simply carried that invisible mental list that so many women seem to wake up with before their feet have even touched the floor. None of that disappears because you've booked a massage.

That's why I've never believed that the treatment begins when you lie on the couch. It begins the moment I meet you. I'm listening before we've properly started talking. I'm noticing how you might hold onto the handle of your handbag, whether your shoulders are sitting high or low, whether you're making eye contact or apologising for being two minutes late. I'm not analysing you and I'm certainly not judging you, but your body often tells me far more than your consultation form ever could.

Sometimes a woman arrives convinced she needs a deep massage because she's carrying tension in her shoulders, but within a few minutes it's obvious that what she's really craving is permission to soften. And I will talk about that on a later blog, becuase I find it fascinating that deep tissue therapsits often poo' poo' holistic therapsits.

Other times she books a facial because she thinks her skin looks tired, yet what she's actually carrying is months of poor sleep, relentless responsibility and a nervous system that hasn't had a chance to settle for longer than she can remember.

The booking menu is important because it gives us somewhere to begin, but it's never where the work ends.

I often think we've become so used to being asked, "What do you want?" that we've stopped asking a much more useful question.

"What do you need?"

They're rarely the same thing.

I've learnt over the years that women are incredibly good at looking after everyone around them and remarkably poor at noticing themselves. They'll tell me their neck has been sore for weeks but brush over the fact they're sleeping four hours a night. They'll apologise for talking too much before realising it's the first uninterrupted conversation they've had in months. They'll say, "I don't know why I'm emotional today," when the truth is they've been holding everything together for so long that their body has simply decided it can't carry it alone anymore.

Those moments are never awkward to me. They're part of the work.

Because before you're someone having a massage, you're a woman living a life.

You're somebody's daughter, partner, friend, colleague or mother. You've celebrated things, lost things, worried about things and carried things that I'll probably never know about. All of that walks through the door with you, whether either of us mentions it or not.

That's why I've never wanted óm to feel like somewhere you come to have a treatment.

I love to call them rituals, if youve been to see me at the Bothy you'll know why.

I've always wanted it to feel like somewhere you come to be met.

Not fixed.

Not analysed.

Not transformed into somebody else.

Simply met, exactly as you are that day.

Perhaps that's the real meaning of holistic care. Not candles or essential oils or beautiful rooms, although I love all of those things. It's the decision to see the woman before the treatment, because once she feels seen, the treatment has somewhere meaningful to begin.

Every ritual begins with a treatment. The best ones begin with a person.

Reserve your ritual here →