Meet Susan Powell

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Susan Powell a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Susan, so excited to have you with us today and we are really interested in hearing your thoughts about how folks can develop their empathy? In our experience, most folks want to be empathic towards others, but in a world where we are often only surrounded by people who are very similar to us, it can sometimes be a challenge to develop empathy for others who might not be as similar to us. Any thoughts or advice?
I have always been curious about empathy. I remember that one of my first romantic relationships was with a man who had Cerebral Palsy that affected his low back, hips and knees. This condition had left him unable to walk unassisted and he was full time on crutches for his mobility. He used to tell me stories of what it was like growing up learning to walk using a walker and being a young kid who was so different and as I leaned into this man and his story and – to be honest – his pain, I had the distinct sensations of being able to actually FEEL his pain, in my own being and body.

He was adamant that this was not possible, that there was no one who could feel what he felt, unless they could walk a mile in his shoes. And that got me very curious. As a philosophy major in college, I was used to being curious and asking the big questions. So one question I began to ask was “Is empathy actually possible?” Can we Feel what another person is Feeling, or are we just imagining their situation, never able to truly know another’s perspective?

Fast forward a number of years and I’m 25 years old and in massage school and we are doing a partner trade. I’m working together with my friend Jaime and she is on the table face up while I practice the facial massage techniques we had just learned. When I brought my finger pads around her temples and rested them gently in the tiny divot of bone just on the inside of her eyebrows, I paused. I could feel a pulsing energy in my finger pads, and it was like I wasn’t just feeling it in my fingers, I was feeling it in my body. What is this strange pulsing? And what is this mechanism of perception that my hands are receiving? The questions only grew.

Since that time I have been building and growing my own practice, Connected Body Therapy, and one of my primary tools of evaluation with my clients is my own internal kinesthetic awareness. This developed gradually over time, and now I have learned how to use it and how to not hold onto it in a way that can be harmful to me. For example, if I have a client who is coming to see me due to digestive complaints and I am working in the structures of her abdomen and I suddenly get a pinging sensation in my left temple, I might notice it and say to myself….hmmmm, wonder what that is? I am not a headache type of person, so I check it out. To the client I will say, hey I know you’re here about your digestive complaint, but do you have any history of head injury or do you get headaches regularly? And invariably, there will be a history with prime complaints on the left side in the temple.

My current understanding of these phenomena center in the rich information contained in and moving through the human biofield, the electrical and magnetic fields of energy that are the basic building blocks of all that is. Current science fully supports this view, and it is seamless with ancient spiritual traditions as well. These field are interacting with the environment and the fields of other people all the time and we are constantly receiving data and interpreting it and acting upon it, even when we are not aware that is where it is coming from. It is the attractive force. It is the repellant force. It is that which makes you light up when one person walks in the room and the feel heavy and cloudy when another person arrives. It’s the butterflies in your stomach when you have to give a presentation, it is that nagging feeling that says you should go a different way home today, or cross the street now, or not get on the elevator alone with this person. It is the source of our emotional expression as well as the fuel for our body’s functionality as well as the mechanism of intuition. It is also the manner in which one can fully experience Empathy, and in fact Feel what another person is holding in their field/body.

Many many times I am working with clients and when I put my hands on their body I become deeply aware of aching grief, pulsating fear, primordial anger that is being held in the tissues and organs of the body. The body is a natural container for these emotions, and when feelings are chronically repressed, held back, shamed, not accepted, they become concretized in the tissues and will eventually cause pain and dysfunction.

By having access to this empathetic state, I can direct the clients attention into their own being in order for them to safely feel and release the emotional wave form thus freeing up their tissues to be in better relationship with neighboring structures. This in kind creates a more stable and expansive physical body that can devote the needed resources to resolving chronic pain patterns and resolving old dysfunctions.

So for me, at this point, I am certain that Empathy is actually possible. It is also a deeply useful therapeutic clinical tool that I can use to help my clients. The conditions that allowed me to develop this skill were (number one) Curiosity! And (number two) the courage to feel my own feelings. At one point in my life, I leaned so deeply into the pain of others, all the way into the pain of the world, that I got a bit lost. I was drowning in my awareness of all the pain. I had no good filter for it. I learned that this hyper-focus on the pain of others was a long held strategy to not have to confront and come to terms with my own pain. When I learned how to feel, I began to heal. And now I help others do the same.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
While I was trained as a Massage Therapist, my current work doesn’t resemble your traditional massage much at all. I have focused on learning Osteopathic manual techniques, such as Cranio-Sacral Therapy, Visceral Manipulation, and Myofascial Release. Recently I have added Classical Homeopathy to the mix as well. I also work quite extensively within the realm of the human Biofield, where emotional and energetic patterns are held, causing all kinds of pains and dysfunctions. I know all of these are most likely foreign terms to most folks, so I’ll let you know more about each, and importantly how they fit together for an overall therapeutic approach.

The basic ground substance of my work is the connective tissues of the body…hence, Connected Body Therapy.  These tissues are the most abundant and diverse type of tissues that we have. Everything from your blood, skin, bones, tendons, cartilage, ligaments, etc., are specialized types of connective tissue. My work really dials in on the fascia, which is connective tissue that exists at all layers of the body and has so many vital functions. Connective tissues of the nervous system, brain and spinal cord are the focus of Cranio-sacral therapy. Connective tissues of the organ systems are addressed through Visceral (organ) Manipulation, and the Connective tissues of the muscles and joints are addressed through the technique of Myofascial release. A combination of these three modalities with a robust assessment system to help me really “listen” to what the body needs at that time is the backbone of my practice. You can’t work with fascia the same way your work with muscles…it’s a different tissue and obeys different rules. Gentle sustained pressure is what is effective to help these tissues release, which means the work is GENTLE and utilizes longer holds that massage. Clients are often so surprised that the light touch and subtle techniques produce such profound changes.

Homeopathy, my oldest love and newest clinical addition, is a type of holistic, natural medicine that takes the time to look at the Whole Person and when properly applied works in ways that are nothing short of miraculous. That “properly applied” part though…whew! There is a lot to learn about this 200 year old art/science that I am excited to continue my growth in. I am in fact heading out this weekend to the New England School of Homeopathy, where I have received 4+ years of training, for a Clinical Weekend to continue my learning and sharpen my skills!

Studying Homeopathy has really encouraged my deep dive into the world of Energy Medicine. Almost everything I know about the human biofield (the electrical and magnetic fields of energy that surround and support our bodies) I have learned from my two decades of working with clients. Recently, I have become drawn into the research and scholarly worlds that are studying this phenomenon through the lens of science. I spend my time listening to physics lectures out of Stanford and reading books by physicians who are all validating the world view that I have gained through my twin interests in Bodywork/Healing and Spiritual Cultivation. It’s truly an exciting time.

The long story short of all this is that the fundamental building blocks of all that is…. are fields of wavelike energy that permeate the entire universe. This is scientific fact. These fields follow rules that are different from what we understand in our material world, but they are the very fields that give rise to our physical reality. It is therapeutically short-sighted to ignore these fields as a source of healing in the body.

One of the things that I am most excited about in my professional world right now is that I am developing a curriculum to teach other manual therapists what I have learned about these fields. How to detect and work with them, how to influence them by attending to our own biofield, and how to strengthen our own fields so that our work becomes easier and more effective all while preventing burnout in the sensitive and empathic therapist. It’s a topic that I’m passionate about, and I believe deeply that the world needs more therapists who understand this type of work and are ready to assist folks in healing at this level. I have seen more and more clients lately coming in ready to heal from their past traumas, limiting beliefs, and held back emotional expression. When we combine this level of work at the field with the work on connective tissues, the results are remarkable.

As my practice has gotten busier, I am now looking to train some new therapists to join the Connected Body team so that we can serve more of the community. I am developing a training program that incorporates some reduced price sessions for community members who need this work but can’t afford it. Look, bodywork, therapy, healing modalities are expensive! They cost a lot for a good reason… as a therapist, I must attend to my own therapy and my own emotional, mental and physical health to a high degree. I want to make a decent living. I want my therapists to thrive, but let me be clear, this kind of healing should not just be a privilege for those who have the means. More to come on this as it is in its infancy of development. I am envisioning community reduced price clinic days that I will utilize to support community members in need as well as to train the new therapists coming into my practice.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ConnectedBodyTherapy.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ConnectedBodyTherapy
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/connected-body-therapy-atlanta

Image Credits
Pitter Goughnor