by Lucy Dahill

I have received many Esoteric Breast Massages (EBMs) in the last few years. At first I went because I had been educated in the benefits of breast massage from a physiological point of view, though what I came to feel was so much bigger than that. The support I have received from the EBMs, the practitioners and subsequently the Esoteric Women’s Presentations has been incredible.

When I came to feel a connection with my breasts, emotional issues that I had forgotten or thought were past and finished with started to come into my thoughts during the sessions. The practitioner kept everything very simple and supported me to understand my own body, in that the emotion I was experiencing was simply energy moving in the body.  My breasts have fed three children and they were quite ’empty’ physically but also they felt drained… It took a long while to reconnect with them, to not feel let down by their size, to not feel ashamed of their emptiness. After each EBM I would feel the size they truly were, they did not physically grow but I could get a sense of their true size. I had been having quite a few issues with cysts, the doctor had said there was nothing I could do, he said it was something I would have to live with for the rest of my fertile life and I would have to take great care during menopause. The woman who did my ultrasound said one of the earlier clients that day had chosen to keep her cyst because it gave her a larger cup size. I was not ok with this being ‘normal’ and if I had been distracted by size I would be denying what my body was sharing with me in the first place. It isn’t normal to have a lump in your breast. It is your body’s way of saying – hey, I am having trouble keeping the flow going.

For me it was my early warning sign and I felt to approach my healing plan no differently to if I had a cancerous tumour. I decided to massage myself as well as have regular Esoteric Breast Massages and to introduce more gentle and nurturing routines for myself. To be open to seeing if there were perhaps things that I did that were not as nurturing to myself as they could be. I found that there were and as I chose to make more nurturing choices part of my day to day living, each month the lumps reduced in size. I continue to have regular scans and was told I could now go to annual checks again. I still have a few lumps and I feel them as a communication from my body that something is out of balance, rather than something to avoid or be scared of. I love that my body is always talking to me.

I may not know what the next step in self-nurturing is, but I didn’t know what the first step was not so long ago, so I just choose to be open to feeling, and I know my body will find a way to show me.