Touch Is the First Language We Ever Learn
I've been thinking a lot lately about touch.
Not massage techniques or muscles or anatomy, but touch itself.
It's funny because I spend every working day using my hands, yet I don't think most of us ever stop to consider just how important touch is until it's missing from our lives.
When we're born, nobody teaches us what touch means. We don't understand words, we don't recognise faces for long, and we certainly don't know what love looks like. But somehow, our bodies already know the feeling of being held. A baby doesn't need somebody to explain that they're safe; they simply need someone to pick them up. Long before language, before logic, before memory, touch is how we make sense of the world.
I sometimes wonder when that changes.
Somewhere between childhood and adulthood we become people who are always doing rather than receiving. We comfort everyone else, hug our children, hold our partners' hands, stroke the dog, help ageing parents, shake hands with strangers, yet many women go weeks, sometimes months, without anyone offering them caring touch that asks for absolutely nothing in return.
Perhaps that's why I've seen tears appear so many times during a treatment.
People often apologise when they cry. They tell me they don't know where it's come from, or they laugh because they're embarrassed. The truth is, I don't think it's always sadness. I think it's often relief. Relief that, for a little while, somebody else has taken over. Somebody else is paying attention. Somebody else is listening without expecting anything back.
When I first started searching for a different career, I spent a lot of time on treatment couches myself. Looking back, I don't think I was searching for massage at all. I was searching for that feeling of being met properly. I wanted someone to notice that I couldnt hold eye contact or I'd break and I was exhausted before I had to say it. I was sick of telling people I had anxiety and depression to be sidelined with looks that said ''hasn't everyone dear'. I wanted to leave feeling lighter in a way I couldn't quite explain. Sometimes I found it. Sometimes I didn't. But those experiences shaped everything I wanted óm holistic to become.
That's probably why I don't think of massage as something that simply works on muscles. Yes, bodies soften. Yes, breathing changes. Yes, shoulders drop. But underneath all of that is something much more human. For an hour or two, someone has your full attention. No distractions. No rushing. No pretending you're coping better than you are. Just two people in a room, one offering care and the other finally allowing themselves to receive it.
I think we've underestimated what that means in modern life. We live in a world that celebrates independence and productivity, yet we're wired for connection. We still need moments where we don't have to be the strong one, the organiser, the carer or the one holding everything together. We still need to know, in the quiet language our bodies have always understood, that we're safe enough to let go.
Maybe that's why touch has never felt like the treatment to me.
It's always felt like the beginning of something much deeper.
Touch was the first language you ever understood. Perhaps it's time to listen to it again.
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