nora on bodies as strongholds

this interview is part of the world we want to live in series.

What’s your name and how do you identify yourself in the world?

My name is Nora and I am a white, chronically ill, queer femme bodyworker.

What fills your days?

I’ve had a lot of solo time lately. In that time I’ve been trying to get outside more. I’ve been going to the Oakland Redwoods. I’ve been doing a lot of ‘woo’ stuff related to tarot, astrology, and learning about ancestor work and practices. I’ve been doing a lot of internal thinking and development work.

What does ancestor work mean to you?

I started listening to Bespoken Bones, this amazing podcast by a somatic sex therapist in San Francisco, Pavini Moray. It’s an exploration of how intergenerational trauma connects to the present, and how that connects to somatic and sexual wellness and capabilities. I’m thinking a lot about how I’m a white person from European ancestry and haven’t felt connected to family cultures or traditions. I need more history and context to anchor my work as a healer. I’m exploring this idea of acknowledging that I as a white person come from somewhere, and am connected to and must be accountable for things that have come before me. That idea feels powerful and important and like it’s going to become a bigger part of my life and practice.

I’m excited to hear how that progresses for you. What does being a healer look like in your life?

I am a massage therapist and bodyworker. That is my primary occupation and something I put a lot of time, love, and energy into learning about. The majority of my practice is working with queer and trans people, many of whom identify as being chronically ill, in chronic pain, disabled, or some combination of those things. I do a lot of work with bodies that are oftentimes ‘othered’ by society.

What do those bodies call for in bodywork?

Part of what I do is be open to meeting someone where they are, day to day and moment to moment. There’s been a great undoing of expectations in terms of what might constitute progress or a successful session according to the thinking I was taught originally, in a clinical framework.

A core idea of my practice is that it’s strongly consent-oriented. I’m not showing up to a session and imposing my preconceived agenda on someone’s body. We always start off by having a conversation and negotiating what’s going to feel good today. There is space for my guidance and connections I might make, but ultimately I do work that someone is feeling excited about and ready for on a given day. Communication and consent is an important part of that process.

I also love to be creative. I’m always studying something new because I’m a body nerd. Having a variety of tools to pull from means there’s a variety of ways I can meet someone’s needs. My work is rooted in the idea of starting wherever someone is, even if that doesn’t look like glamorous pain-free change, or if the shifts are more subtle to tune into.

When you feel a session has gone well, what is the ideal impact of your work?

Some of the most immediate feedback I might get from someone is both verbal and visual — maybe someone comes into a session carrying a certain amount of stress, anxiety, and pain. Maybe their nervous system is activated. The first and the biggest thing is asking, what can I do to help someone access a space of deep and intentional relaxation? From there, all other things may be possible.

What’s the importance of helping someone access that place of deep and intentional relaxation?

Feeling good and relaxing have so many important benefits, even just on a mental level. If you’re living with chronic pain or a chronic illness and carrying some baseline of discomfort or pain with you every day, feeling good in your body can seem so out of reach. Having the chance for your mind and body to re-shape the narrative of what’s possible for you in torlderms of sensation and pain, even for an hour of your day, is huge. On the scientific anatomy side, when you get to tap into your parasympathetic nervous system — the rest and digest part, the opposite of the fight or flight system, where we normally spend a lot of time in this world and in the day to day — that is where restore and repair happens on an emotional and cellular level.

Bodies are an amazing mystery. There should not be expectations or parameters for everyone to try to fit themselves into because different things are possible for different bodies at different times. That said, a reduction in pain is definitely possible in an acute musculoskeletal way, and pain reduction is possible in terms of degrees of intensity of chronic pain. Having a safe and nurturing space to be present in your body can be part of rewiring patterns associated with trauma. Sometimes I see greater access to range of motion or mobility.

I worked with a client today who has been suffering from chronic migraines and at this point in time is no longer experiencing them. That’s not entirely because of our work together though that’s certainly a part of it. But I think bodywork creates the opportunity for you to cultivate an inner awareness and also to internalize some of the feeling of: I am worthy of care, time, and attention. Which is huge! A lot of us don’t feel that on a regular basis. Feeling good in a session is often a starting point that leads to other kinds of intentional care being more possible in a person’s life.

That sounds really powerful. What it’s like for you to facilitate and witness that kind of transformational experience as a provider?

As a provider this work can be really exciting. It’s amazing that my job is getting to help people feel good and be more in touch with themselves. It’s a moment in my day of feeling uplifted and sometimes more connected to hope. Seeing things that have seemed impossible start to open to the possibility of change is something that’s very hopeful.

A lot of times it’s also really hard. I’m bearing witness to a lot of intense stories, a lot of people who are in very real and immediate pain, or who are dissatisfied with something about how their body is currently or permanently functioning. In addition to the hopefulness there is also sometimes a heaviness. A heaviness and an intensity because a lot of people have tried a lot of things to feel better or feel differently, and that can make it feel like the stakes are high. I have to figure out how to hold and sit with that, while acknowledging and helping to coach someone’s awareness that we’re gonna see what’s possible, but we don’t always know, and it’s definitely going to take time.

Does it ever feel like you’re taking on someone’s pain or trauma, either physically or emotionally?

It definitely did much more when I was first getting started. I’ve had to be intentional about the ways that I take care of myself and ground myself before and after sessions to avoid taking on things that aren’t mine.

For example, I do massage at a facility for adults who are navigating physical and mental disabilities, most of which affect motor system control. Some of the stories that get shared with me while I’m working are about really difficult life experiences. While I often end my day feeling better than when I started, and feeling more able to tap into hope, sometimes bearing witness to people’s stories echoes and amplifies the structural inequalities and oppressions in the world that oftentimes contribute to someone feeling they way they’re feeling and why they’re coming in for a session.

What does it look like to practice self-care and ground yourself?

It’s a work in progress. Over the last year I’ve had to get realistic about how much work I’m physically able to do given my own chronic conditions. I would like to strengthen connections to community. Especially when I’m mainly working in private practice, I develop strong one-on-one connections with the people coming to see me, but there can be isolation from other practitioners and other things going on. I definitely feel this sometimes.

I get bodywork myself; that’s important. I’m trying to find foods that make me feel good and nourish me. The big thing I’m working on right now is how to incorporate more movement into my life, because movement is something that feels good but isn’t always accessible with my fatigue levels. The physical, mental, emotional, spiritual — all the things need tending to. I have to think about it as part of my job.

What does the world you want to live in look like?

It’s hard for me to dream and connect into a longer-term vision of what the magical future might look like. I don’t let myself go there very often and get stuck in the day-to-day. For myself, I would love to work with a team of informed practitioners who actually give a shit about providing intentional care, and who are working together to holistically support people in their goals, in an integrated health center where people can access services for free.

A life where we’re more connected to the land and the earth is important. I would like to live in a world where people and bodies aren’t marginalized due to physical or mental ability, and where we know we’re not disposable because we’re not able to do copious amounts of work. I would like to live in a world that enacts networks of mutual aid and mutual care for each other.

What do you see as your role and work in the current world we’re living in?

I struggle with that question a lot. I want to be doing more and I am figuring out how I might. At the same time, the work I’m doing one-on-one with people is really valuable. I have internalized the tendency to devalue femme and healing labor. I have to remind myself I make a lot of efforts to make my services accessible to whoever needs them. The people I’m working with are teachers, social workers, activists, artists — other people who are working for change in serious ways. I’m part of their care teams, and that’s a job; that’s important! The world needs people at protests, and also people cooking food and holding decompression space after protests. That’s how I feel connected on a smaller level. I would like to figure out a way to better leverage my skills and resources for change on a bigger, systemic level. I’m working on that.

What are the people or frameworks helping you push against internalized bullshit and expectations of doing copious amounts of work, toward something that feels more holistic and healing?

A big resource for that is the disability justice movement, especially Sins Invalid’s work. Mia Mingus’s writings have been especially helpful. Sins Invalid has a wonderful disability justice primer and lots of articles. That feels like a political home for me. I will be in a lifelong struggle of undoing internalized ableism. Connecting with these ideas that are anti-disposability of all people are really powerful.

I feel inspired by people who are doing creative work to envision alternate futures. The work and writing of adrienne maree brown is really exciting — I’m reading Emergent Strategy right now! Some of her visions and the Octavia Butler-inspired framework she works from speaks to my sci-fi nerd, future-imagining self.

What are the things in your life support and sustain you, and what are the barriers to making this work truly sustainable?

I feel supported by my friends, by my partner, by therapy. Most of the time I’ve been working I’ve also been taking classes, and I have a few teachers who I connect with. Having support from people who have been doing this work for a long time feels really helpful. The evils of the internet are real, but in a way I feel supported getting to read and connect with ideas of other kinds of healers. That feels like a more broad sense of community. I’m experiencing some some challenges right now with my physical body that can affect the presence that I can show up with to this work and how much I can do it. And I’m still figuring out the financial piece of things.

What’s importance of caring for our bodies, both for people who are experiencing consistent and frequent pain, and for those of us who aren’t in a place where we’ve chosen or been able to pay much attention to our bodies? How do our bodies connect to our lives beyond being the thing that we use to eat and sleep and breathe?

Everything’s connected. It’s really true. I see that it’s common for people who hold one or more marginalized identities in the world to exist in a state of partial or total disassociation from their bodies. It makes a lot of sense when you learn about trauma. Disassociation is a survival mechanism that helps you move through the world and stay as safe as you can. It’s scary to go into that place of: Oh, I can feel emotions. What is this feeling? What’s going on in my body?

Something I appreciate about bodywork is that we can move at whatever pace an individual needs to move. Even if we’re working with something that’s deeply held or is chronic and not going anywhere, shifts can happen in terms of how we relate to our bodies and the range of emotional and physical sensations we have access to. I believe and continue to study different theories about trauma for this purpose. The more in touch we are with what’s going on for us on a bodily level as far as where and how emotions are showing up, the better resourced we will be to deal with all of the other stimulation that’s coming in from the world.

Your body is your stronghold. Bodies are so wise, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. Our bodies are taking us through the world, and pain and dysfunction, or things being weird or “off” are often a body trying to let you know that something needs attention. There’s techniques and frameworks that work with trauma healing, not through talk therapy, but through neural pathways in the body. The body can be a site of profound movement and healing. It’s hard, scary, and slow work. Ultimately, working to become embodied is part of our individual and collective wellness. As we’re navigating the current socio-political landscape in America, I believe it’s going to become more and more important to devote some resources to the idea of being embodied because it’s one of the things that will give us strength to continue in other kinds of work.

A big part of the reason I do this work is because it feeds me too. I learn so much from and am so inspired by the people I work with. Functioning as the container for the experience of a session pushes me to grow as a person and take a hard look at my own trauma and how I’m continually growing and relating to my experiences. It makes doing that personal transformation work necessary, not optional. I receive a lot of nourishment from doing this work! It’s an exchange. Money is part of the exchange, and the exchange of energy and space is supportive and inspiring for me.