I walk into my first Esoteric Breast Massage session, butterflies in my tummy, unsure of what is going to happen and how I’ll feel. We talk for a short while then it is time to begin the bodywork part of the treatment. As I undress, gently and deliberately folding my clothes, my bra sits atop the small pile as the last piece to come off taking with it my cover, my protection – or so I thought.
For a moment I stand there exposed and yet strangely detached. I have shut out any feelings of embarrassment by putting on my “I can deal with anything” front. Even though the practitioner has encouraged me to allow fragility and express myself so that I am comfortable throughout each part, I have auto-piloted myself into the same disguise I wear when I have a smear test i.e. I lie back with my legs in the air and check out from my body for a while, I grin and bear it.
I hadn’t even noticed I had been given a beautifully warm towel to cover myself with so when this is passed to me I realise how vulnerable and exposed I am actually feeling. As I bring the towel and warmth to my chest I start to feel that perhaps there is something precious here that needs my care and attention.
I move to the treatment table, lie down onto what I can only describe as a cloud that is supporting my every muscle and cell, and I start to let go and allow myself to sink in. As I do this the female practitioner begins to massage my upper chest.
I have never felt a touch so tender and unimposing. I do not touch myself in this way and in the realisation of this I feel a sadness come to the surface that has been lurking in the cells of my body – hard and unyielding. I let go some more. I become aware of my breasts – or more accurately, I become aware of where I think my breasts are, but I have the strangest feeling – they are not there?
I have large breasts which I have always either tried to hide so I didn’t get unwanted sexual attention, or that I have used to receive wanted sexual attention. The contradiction of this does not escape me and in this treatment I start to consider what the relationship I have with my breasts is, especially as I cannot feel them even though they are the focus of the session I am in. It’s shocking to feel the empty space, like a numbness, where I know my breasts are.
My chest feels hard – it’s like I am wearing a metal breast-plate from a suit of armour. But as I allow myself to feel this protection, more tears flow and what I’ve been bottling up starts to arise.
I talk. I talk about how I feel about my breasts – possibly with more honesty than I’ve ever brought to the subject before – the shame and the loathing I feel towards them is not something I need to hide anymore. I talk about how I find it nigh on impossible to look at them in any way other than disgust and that when I touch them it is as little as possible and purely for functional things like putting on my bra or washing them in the shower. I talk about my breasts as if they are not part of me, as if they are separate to me and the rest of my body, they’re only for the pleasure or use of others. It is difficult to express but as I do I feel some of the layers weighing down my breasts lift off and I have a feeling that there is something there after all.
I notice a warmth spreading across my chest – it is coming from deep within my body and spreading out into my entire breast area. I am a little surprised at how quickly I have been able to feel more connected when only a short while ago I would have sworn on my life that I couldn’t feel a thing.
Though what grabs my attention the most at this point of the treatment is the wonderment of the delicateness and fragility I am feeling. I realise I had thought this was something for others and not for me – that I was not worthy of feeling the exquisiteness of my vulnerability and the beauty of me as a woman. Not so.
I get dressed with the care and tenderness I have been inspired to bring to myself from the quality of care I have been given by my Esoteric Breast Massage practitioner. I have never put on my bra with so much honouring of what I now feel to be such a precious part of me and my body.
The experience of the Esoteric Breast Massage reminded me that my breasts are so much more than the ‘flesh’ that gets considerable attention in the world we have created. I feel the flutterings of reigniting the nurturing pulse that is the natural expression of my breasts – of me – and I step out onto the London street for the first time free of my breast-plate of protection, feeling the fragility that has just emerged, but also the depths of the incredible power that lies beneath.
By Lucy, UK
You may also Enjoy:
Nurture a woman’s connection with her inner essence and you’ll discover a woman naturally motivated to breast care … Foundational Breast Care
Discovering me through the EBM – For most of my life, I didn’t consider that my breasts were even part of my body …
Learning to love myself through my breasts … discovering my Breasts were a map of Myself!
Women in Livingness Blog 
I recently had a Esoteric Breast Massage and the healing I felt from it was beyond this world.
I love Esoteric breast massage i have found it to be deeply healing.
I can so relate to your experience of your first Esoteric Breast Massage Lucy, I too can remember the feelings that arose in my body, including the awareness that where my breasts were supposed to be, I was “wearing a metal breast-plate from a suit of armour.” I didn’t realise I had been wearing this breast plate for such a long time, and that it had become so familiar I didn’t question the heavy feeling across my chest. It was only when it began to dissolve in the first, and subsequent massages, that I realised how it had weighed me down while disconnecting me from not only my breasts, but from the beautiful woman I am.
The autopilot we go into as women when we have anything unwanted ‘done to us’ is a real and very common problem. I found this came out again recently when I lay there like a good patient but actually felt quite traumatised. We have trained ourselves from young to compromise and put up with things that just don’t feel right. In so doing we abandon our body and self.
Reading this about your EBM session is a beautiful reminder of the many EBM sessions I have had that support me in feeling the essence of who I am as a woman.
The tenderness and delicacy that can be felt in our breast when we connect with them is very excuisite and beautiful.
What is it to be truly unimposing? To know your connection to God, that you are full of Love and move free from emotional poison.
Lovely to read how you enjoyed your delicateness with the support of this modality, ‘the wonderment of the delicateness and fragility I am feeling.’
Considering I have met you before Lucy and know you to be a very beauty-full woman, like every woman and man for that matter, it serves as a sad indictment on society that you have not only not been honoured for the amazing woman you truly are, but equally that you have been allowed to think of yourself as less than that also.
Our whole bodies are so much more than just skin and bone, we treat ourselves so rough and dismiss our femaleness, we are born sensitive and tender and we can come back to that way of being through choice and care.
I felt the same thing Lucy during my first Esoteric Breast Massage (EBM), the touch and care was so honouring and tender it brought up for me that not only am I worth that treatment but that I hadn’t been giving to myself – it’s like it opened a doorway for me to realise I could also treat myself in that same tender and precious way. The EBM is a truly transformational treatment, it is not just the technique of the modality but very much the way the practitioner is (and lives) and how she applies that quality she lives to the clients body. A very amazing experience.
What a beautiful experience and understanding, ‘ free of my breast-plate of protection, feeling the fragility that has just emerged, but also the depths of the incredible power that lies beneath. ‘
A gorgeous sharing Lucy, one that I can relate to very well, the amazing delicate tender touch of the practitioner I remember so well at an EBM session as the bars of the cage that held my breasts began to melt away and I came to feel the exquisite feeling of myself as a woman.
Yes, I too can remember that first ‘amazing delicate tender touch of the practitioner’, a touch which I had never experienced in my life, and definitely not a touch that I offered myself. And it was the healing power of that tender touch which came to inspire me to begin to touch myself in a very different and much more honouring way and in the process, step by step, reconnected me to my beautiful woman’s body.
It is so sad to hear how much you disliked your breasts and equally beautiful to hear how healing it was to be able to express that and let it go.
“I feel the flutterings of reigniting the nurturing pulse that is the natural expression of my breasts – of me” Like a butterfly spreading its wings in the sunshine.
That tender, unimposing touch shows how we can be with ourselves. I too cried as I’d never given myself such grace and it can be challenging to accept that I am worthy of such in a session if not confirming such in my every day life. I don’t have many of these (once a year maybe) but each one is beautiful.
So great to read this Lucy, I too are great at grinning and bearing it, it is super protective and not at all helpful for developing relationships with myself or others. What is offered in Esoteric Healing modalities is absolutely exquisite and life changing, should you let yourself lose the protective armour.
I have felt this and with this such. sense of power…”Though what grabs my attention the most at this point of the treatment is the wonderment of the delicateness and fragility I am feeling.” I have grasped that living with power is being all of myself with gentleness, no push or try. Love what you shared here.
This is a beautiful account Lucy of the Esoteric Breast Massage modality as how incredibly powerful and healing it is for all women. I had an EBM last week, and it deeply touched me and supported me to accept my vulnerability and not to fight it.
I love your description of how you felt after the session: ‘free of my breast-plate of protection, feeling the fragility that has just emerged, but also the depths of the incredible power that lies beneath.’ Such a strong combination feeling fragile and super powerful, with a connection straight to heaven and divinity.
Yes I loved this comment too, we don’t realise that we have a plate of protection on our breasts until you feel what it feels like to not have it there and then it is like ‘kapow’. Such a freedom to know it doesn’t have to be there any more.