Some Unusual Aspects of Facework
Written by: Jack Blackburn, Licensed Massage Practitioner, Counselor, Teacher
Face Sensitivity: I have been working as a bodyworker since 1986 and I have given thousands of sessions and taught hundreds of classes since then. I was not originally taught how to work on clients’ faces. At that time the face was considered too sensitive and many bodyworkers were afraid they might cause problems for their clients. Eyes, ears, mouth, and nose are highly enervated and often clients were highly defensive when those body parts were touched. After receiving a session of esthetic massage from a Japanese practitioner in Hawaii, I started to question why I was not touching the face. Her touch was not gentle at all… I was surprised that she touched facial muscles with the same kinds of pressure that one would use for arms and legs. She then used stimulating touch to tighten certain areas of my face.
Soft and Gentle: After that session I decided to start experimenting with a much softer and gentler kind of touch and generating movement for the upper body, using the facial muscles and soft tissues as handles for the movement. It was quite successful and felt very good to my clients. I developed these approaches over the years, while learning as much about the face, neck, and jaw as I could. When I started teaching my own bodywork classes in 1995, I included some of my learned facial approaches in those classes. In 1998 I started experimenting with positional release techniques for facial muscles, temporal mandibular joint, and fascia. I also discovered that if client were taught to feel into the parts of their face that were being touched, they would let go of discomforts and extreme pain caused by facial surgery, jaw dislocations, toothache, earache and tight muscles in the neck and base of the skull. Practicing with these methods over the years has given me some unusual insights about face work.
Relaxation: I discovered that when facial muscles relax, especially the muscles related to chewing: masseters, pterygoids, temporalis, and sub-linguals there is a dramatic softening of all facial tissue, reversing many wrinkles and areas of sagging. I realized also that these changes were highly pleasurable to my clients overall body sense and feelings of beauty and confidence. It was as if their faces started to reflect a different state of awareness and involvement in life. I couldn’t understand these changes until I started to realize that faces are unique in comparison to other parts of the body. These unique features can lead us towards much more joy in our lives.
Reflection: We never see our own face. Mirrors reverse our faces and when we look in the mirror we see a projection of our own thoughts and self-judgments. We are very fixated on the image that we see in our mirrors and yet the face we look at is only a surface covering that is 5mm thick! We make up our faces to conform to our desired appearance… that appearance becomes a mask, what the Greeks called a persona. The interesting thing is that we are also aware of an inner mask or persona that conveys our inner thoughts and feelings about ourselves. It is very unusual when the inner and outer masks are the same; this seems to be true for children who are not trying to hide their thoughts and for adults who have worked through many of their inner conflicts. What we see in the mirror is often the conflict between inner and outer masks. When the client feels the effects of her own participation in facial muscles, it is as if she is releasing inner and outer face from conflict and self-judgment. The face is then free to become a mirror for others. Anyone experiencing this effect in the client’s face will feel attracted to what they see.
Mirroring Others: We are all mirrors for one another. What we see in another’s face reflects aspects of ourselves. We can see our own judgments and lack of self-acceptance reflected in others’ faces. When we change our own way of mirroring others, we start seeing ourselves differently. The center of the altar on a Shinto shrine is a mirror. When I first saw this mirror I was startled! Does this mean that I am the center of my own spiritual practice? I soon came to realize that the mirror means something quite different. The mirror on the altar is reflecting the true person. In the past Chinese bronze mirrors were used; the shiny bronze reflects quite differently from modern silvered glass. Bronze mirrors required regular shining because the surface was not protected by glass. The mirror in Shinto also means that we have to face ourselves and how we are living our lives. I realized that our faces can become like bronze mirrors for others when we learn to become present inside. Just like the bronze mirrors we can reflect the true self of other persons, gently and with compassion. A daily practice of somatic awareness and presencing is our way of cleansing and shining our mirror so that we become bronze mirrors for our clients and others. When we bring touch to our clients faces with this understanding, we can introduce them to their own true face. And then when our clients see and feel their face in the mirror, they reflect themselves differently.
Bodywork and Esthetics: In my experience bodywork is very helpful in aiding clients to experience themselves differently. There is a big difference between clients who are self-aware and have learned to participate in their own internal changes and those who are still trying to maintain an external mask that is not in harmony with what they feel inside. Both bodyworkers and estheticians can help their clients feel their own internal beauty.