Beyond “Safe Touch”
The body remembers.
It holds the echoes of past experiences, the weight of old tensions, the quiet hum of emotions we have yet to name. For those of us living with complex trauma, anxiety, depression, chronic pain, chronic illness, and the list goes on… our bodies and lives can sometimes feel like a cage. Site of loneliness, fear and hurt. We shrink ourselves down to fit inside and try not to touch the edges.
Trauma-informed massage therapy is not about “fixing” the body or erasing its history.
It is about listening. It is about restoring relationship. And, most importantly, it is about returning choice to where
it was once taken away.
The dominant conversation around trauma-informed bodywork often centers on making clients feel “safe,” using gentle techniques and carefully chosen words to avoid triggering discomfort. Obviously, this is true—but, partial. Real safety is not about cushioning experience. It is about creating a space where you are able to connect and engage with your own body on your own terms. Where you are not merely comforted in your pain, but empowered to expand beyond it.
Emphasizing Autonomy Over Comfort in Trauma-Informed Massage Therapy
AUTONOMY IS THE HEART OF HEALING
Trauma leaves an imprint, not only in the nervous system, but in the way we relate to our own sensations. We may avoid discomfort in daily lives, rigidly resisting it; or, we may become so familiar with overwhelm that we hardly recognize what ease actually feels like to us. Healing can’t happen when we are told what to feel. We must feel safe enough to explore our sensations and make meaning for ourselves, without judgment.
This means that in the massage treatment room, you are not just a body—a passive receiver of touch. Rather, you are an active participant in your own unfolding.
CHOICE AS A SACRED PRACTICE
Every moment in a session is an opportunity to reclaim agency. Rather than asking, “Is this pressure okay?” I might ask, “Would you like more pressure, less pressure, or something different?” Subtle shifts in language carry power. They reframe the experience from one of compliance to one of conscious choice.
Your body sets the pace. We go at the speed of your nervous system. You can pause or stop the session at any time. And, saying “no” will be honored and celebrated as a sign of your growing self-awareness and self-advocacy.
DISCOMFORT AS MESSENGER
In our culture, discomfort is often treated as something to fix—right now, usually with the click of a “Buy Now” button. But in our healing work, experiencing discomfort can actually be an invitation to presence. It can be the place where our deepening begins. (Not because we dissociate or power through, but because we begin to learn new ways to meet discomfort with curiosity and compassion.)
Not all discomfort is the same, of course. There is the sting, the burn, the sharp edge of pain that warns us to step back… and, there is the ache of something shifting, unraveling, releasing in us. Learning to differentiate between the two is part of our practice.
I might ask you, “Would you like to stay with this sensation a little longer… or move away from it for now?”
Your choice, always.
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TOUCH & AWARENESS
Trauma-informed massage can be so much more than just a massage. I view it as a conversation. Between you and me, yes; but, much more importantly, between you and your body.
A breath drawn into an area of tension. A subtle rocking movement to remind the body of its own fluidity. An invitation to notice, rather than to fix. A non-judgmental wondering about the image you visualized or thought that popped into your head when your lower back was touched.
This is how you practice re-learning to pay attention and honor the subtleties of your experience. This is how you heal: as a continuous unfolding, an opportunity, again and again, to meet yourself where you are, in this moment.
INTEGRATION BEYOND THE MASSAGE TABLE
What happens in a massage session is where it begins, but the deeper work is in how you carry this awareness into the world. What might it be like to listen to your body with the same attentiveness outside of this space? What might it mean to honor your own limits, not as weaknesses, but as wisdom? To know when discomfort is tolerable and maybe even growing, and when it is unsustainable and serves no positive purpose? To listen to body and be able to discern what it needs? To live whole, well and free to choose what’s for you and not for you?
…
Trauma teaches us that the body is something to endure. Healing teaches us that the body is something to belong to.
By treating your body as a source of wisdom rather than just a site of symptoms, trauma-informed massage therapy helps shift from a passive relationship with physical sensations to one of curiosity, choice, and empowerment.
This work is not about returning to who you were before trauma. It is about reclaiming who you are now, with all the depth, resilience, and self-knowing that has been hard-won along the way.
