Self Love: An I-Love-My-Body Story

Peggy Horan remembers the Esalen of the late '60s and the birth of the Healing Arts Department, when the institute’s language for somatics and bodywork was first developed. This was the time Esalen massage was being imagined, and they set the groundwork for our alternative services to expand the relationship between healing energies and touch. 

"We were exploring that it's okay to be touched. It's okay to have a body," she recalls. That need for touch, connections, and bodily sensation may seem like a self-love/self-care given today, but that was certainly not always true. "This was a pretty new concept after the '50s. That was a tight time in our culture," says Peggy, who has now been teaching massage for over five decades. "We were divorced from the body: The body was a dead end." 

James Fadiman, who led Esalen's first workshop with a psychedelic weekend in 1961, remembers that same pervasive, puritanical chill — when visitors at the baths could become overwhelmed by the sight of unclothed bodies out in nature: "They just had enormous emotional rushes at what they had just experienced. Not only seeing other people nude, but being one of them…seeing a bunch of people naked was culturally quite radical."

Loving the body you have and accepting the healing power of touch and movement are concepts and practices that developed holistically for Western curiosity at Esalen. "The idea of celebrating the body and pleasure supported by the freedom of the '60s and '70s became central," says Peggy. "We were at a pivotal point in our culture where inhibitions were dropped, freedom expressed." The liberation of embodied self-love is as crucial today as it was sixty years ago.

What so uniquely distinguishes Esalen Massage® is that it "recognizes that the body releases into pleasurable sensation." Deliberately slow, the bodywork is paced "to set the stage for our natural healing process to emerge.” The style is a melding of Swedish massage and sensory awareness work that invites the receiver into the process. Esalen Massage® addresses the whole person and the whole body, accepting that we move, function, and dance as one unit. 

“My shoulder is connected to the tilt of my head, my flexed gluteals, my injured foot,” says Brita Ostrom, a founding member of the massage school. “The result is a sense of overall relaxation that allows us to connect with our larger natural state of mind. We hook up with nature and gain perspective on our problems. The end result could be termed an altered state of consciousness.”

Esalen Massage begins with an opening interview to build trust and rapport. Then, long flowing strokes are employed to elicit awareness and focus on the whole body. The massage approaches tight muscle groups respectfully, following rather than leading the receiver’s relaxation response. “You listen to what is felt as well as what is said,” adds Brita. “The newcomer to Esalen Massage is often surprised that the practitioner doesn’t force their muscles to relax. Instead, the practitioner both verbally and nonverbally invites the client to actively engage in the process of letting go.” 

As Esalen attracted practitioners from around the world, different ideas around touch and healing shaped various modalities. "Esalen massage has a rich history and [is an] amalgamation of so many techniques," says Director of Healing Arts Douglas Drummond. This includes the influence of Charlotte Selver and her teachings of sensory awareness, which helped set the unhurried pace. "It became a sensual experience," says Peggy, who also credits Tai Chi, meditation, and Gestalt for the development of today's style.

"We introduced movement of the body, influenced by Feldenkrais and Milton Trager," Peggy adds. "Yoga practice, the energy work of Randolf Stone, reflexology, and, most important, breathwork. [It] all enriched our practice." That evolution continues today; the Healing Arts department, along with its community of guests and leading-edge faculty, is ever-evolving, continually on a quest for innovating healing techniques and ideas — new ways of working with the body. However, one core value always remains.

"We believe loving touch is what heals," says Peggy. "It is about presence, connection, quality of touch; our intention is to help the central nervous system to return to its parasympathetic state. Our flowing rhythmic style, with the ocean soundtrack behind us, and the quality of our loving touch is our true signature. We enter the relationship with our clients with respect, meeting them where they are with no agenda to fix them."

The work, the touch is always about that connection — a relationship. "We are 'working with' not 'on' or 'for' a person,” says Douglas. Inside that dynamic, practitioners can find deep and meaningful reciprocity.

"The work is soulful and feeds us deeply on a spiritual level,” says Peggy. “It is heartful and gratifying to have work that makes people feel better! We receive as we give."

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Explore the next few months of Esalen’s Healing Arts and Massage workshops. Then, check out this short video about first-time experiences at the baths to discover what to expect when entering the healing waters. Slip in!