Carissa Shima Healing Bodywork

Your body was not designed for chairs.
Chairs — especially soft, cushioned, modern chairs — hold your body in a fixed position that reinforces compression and over time creates the exact patterns I spend my sessions helping people undo.
When you sit in a soft chair your pelvis rolls back. Your lower back flattens or rounds. Your hip flexors shorten. Your thoracic spine collapses. Your neck compensates forward.
And you stay there for hours.
Now multiply that by every day of your adult life.
The floor is different.
When you sit on the floor nothing is holding or restricting your body. It can release, relax outward, and find space naturally — in a way that a chair simply doesn't allow.
Cross legged. In a squat. On your knees. Against a wall. Each position gives your body the freedom and variety it was designed for.
If you missed last week's post about how to sit in a chair properly — go back and find it. That's your starting point for when you do need to sit.
But beyond that — I'm suggesting you spend some time every day on the floor. Even 10 minutes. Even while you're watching television or reading.
It might feel uncomfortable at first. That discomfort is information — it's showing you exactly where your body has been restricted by years of chair sitting.
Stay with it. It gets better. And your body will thank you.
How much time do you spend on the floor each day? Tell me in the comments.

Once you've found the feeling of your dragon tail in the floor exercise — take it with you into walking.
Everyone walks differently. Some people carry their weight forward. Some lead from the hips. Some from the shoulders. The pattern is unique to each person — shaped by years of habit, injury, compensation, and how the body has learned to move through space.
The dragon tail gives you a new reference point regardless of your pattern.
Dragon Tail Walking:
As you walk imagine that heavy dragon tail — your sacrum and tailbone — hanging down toward the ground. Weighted. Dropping. Not tucking under. Not gripping. Just hanging heavy.
From there let your legs and knees move out of the front of your pelvis. Your legs move. Your dragon tail stays down.
This simple image shifts how the whole body organizes itself in motion. The lower back decompresses. The hips start to move more freely. The whole gait pattern becomes more fluid and efficient.
Start with just a few minutes of intentional dragon tail walking. Down the hallway. Around the block. Before a round of golf or a run.
Notice what changes in how your whole body feels when you move this way.
Tell me in the comments — what did you notice when you tried this?

This is one of my favorite mobility exercises from Structural Integration — and one of the most freeing for the entire spine.
I learned this from Mary Bond — movement educator and author whose work on posture and body awareness has deeply influenced how I teach movement. You can find her at healyourposture.com.
The sacrum is the triangular shaped bone at the base of your spine — just above your tailbone. It connects to the pelvis through the sacroiliac joints — the SI joints — which are one of the most commonly troubled areas I see in active adults. When the sacrum is restricted or compressed that tension ripples upward through the entire spine and downward through the SI joints, the hips, and the pelvis.
Everything is connected. And when the sacrum begins to move freely — the tailbone, the SI joints, the pelvis, and the whole spine above it start to release with it.
Try this — Dragon Tail Mobility — slowly and deliberately:
Lie on your back on the floor. Place your feet flat on the wall with your knees just above your hips, knees bent at roughly 90 degrees.
Without engaging any muscles — as passively as possible — imagine your knees floating up toward the ceiling. Let that image bring your tailbone up first.
Then slowly roll the sacrum — that triangular bone — up like a pancake. Then roll up one vertebra at a time toward the ceiling. Only go as far as feels completely comfortable.
Then roll back down — one pearl of a string of pearls dropping at a time. Let the sacrum roll down slowly like a pancake. Then drop your tail down.
Now here's the image that brings it all together:
Imagine you have a dragon tail — heavy, long, and weighted — growing from your sacrum and tailbone. Let that dragon tail hang heavy down toward the floor.
Feel the release travel up through your spine. Through your SI joints. Through your pelvis. Through everything that's connected to it.
Do this slowly. Take your time. This is a mobility exercise — let the movement do the work.
Tell me in the comments — where did you feel the release travel?

I want to be clear about something important before I say this:
Sometimes surgery is absolutely the right answer. There are conditions that require surgical intervention and I would never suggest otherwise. I work alongside surgeons, physical therapists, and medical professionals — and I respect what each of them does.
But surgery is not always the only option. And too often people go under the knife without ever finding out what else might be possible first.
Ricky was told he needed surgery for a torn medial meniscus. He was active, motivated, and scared. He decided to try something different first.
Five sessions with me alongside physical therapy with Keith — and he ran six miles last weekend. No surgery. No pain.
His case isn't unique. I've seen this pattern many times.
Not because bodywork is magic. But because the body's capacity to heal — when given the right structural support, the right movement rehabilitation, and the right time — is consistently underestimated.
If you've been given a surgical recommendation for a non-emergency orthopedic issue — it's worth asking:
Have I addressed the structural compensation patterns around this area? Have I given the right combination of hands-on care and rehabilitation a real chance? Do I know what my body is actually capable of before making this decision?
You deserve the full picture before you decide.
Have you or someone you know avoided surgery through a different approach? Tell me in the comments.
Link in bio. Las Vegas — Body Spa West.

Meet Ricky.
Active. A runner. A golfer. A lifter. The kind of person who has always invested in staying that way.
Then came the diagnosis. Torn medial meniscus. Surgery recommended.
This is what he said — in his own words:
"It went from me really thinking worst case scenario to just doing the work and coming in. There is nothing I would do differently because I didn't have to go under the knife."
"The biggest thing I noticed — just getting out of bed. Making a lateral movement with my legs would hurt my medial meniscus. Running became really painful. Any sort of squatting became really painful. It gradually got worse."
"I wanted to look for alternatives because a lot of people told me that since it's not a mechanical issue there should be a way to fix it. And with Carissa's expertise that was proven truthful."
"I've been golfing at least once a week for the last three weeks. No pain. I did a full leg day two weeks ago. I went for a six mile run this past weekend. Sometimes I even look for the pain — jiggling my leg — and there's nothing there."
"It's not a regular massage. This is actual medical bodywork. Avoiding the knife versus a little bit of discomfort once every three and a half weeks — well worth it."
"You have to make a commitment. But if you make a commitment — Carissa will deliver."
Five sessions. Three and a half months. Working alongside physical therapist Keith. No surgery.
If you or someone you know is facing a similar decision — please share this.
Tell me in the comments — have you ever been told surgery was your only option?
Link in bio. Las Vegas — Body Spa West.

After 21 years and thousands of sessions I know a few things with complete certainty.
The body wants to heal. Given the right support it moves toward resolution — always.
Most people who have been told their situation is permanent haven't actually found out what their body is capable of yet.
And the gap between where someone is and where they want to be is almost always smaller than they think — once the right layer gets addressed.
This is what the first session is for.
Not to fix everything. Not to make promises about outcomes.
To finally find out what your body is actually carrying. What it's been organizing itself around. What it needs to start moving in a different direction.
A full assessment. Hands-on work that begins in the same visit. And a clear picture of what comes next.
You leave knowing more about your body than you did when you walked in.
After 21 years — that first session still matters to me as much as it ever did.
Because it's where everything begins.
New Client Sessions available now. Link in bio. Las Vegas — Body Spa West.
What's been stopping you from booking that first session? Tell me in the comments — I genuinely want to know.

Think about that for a moment.
Every experience you've ever had — your body was there.
Every hard season. Every milestone. Every loss. Every triumph.
It absorbed all of it. Adapted to all of it. Kept you moving through all of it.
And most of us spend the majority of our lives looking outward — at our careers, our relationships, our goals — while our body quietly does its best to keep up.
Until one day it asks for attention in the only language it has.
Pain. Tension. Fatigue. That feeling of being slightly off that you can't quite name.
The body isn't failing you when that happens.
It's finally loud enough to be heard.
The wellness-focused, active people I work with are already paying more attention than most. They're invested. They're proactive. They care.
But even the most body-aware person can lose touch with what their body is actually carrying — until someone who knows how to listen helps them find it.
That's what I do.
What has your body been saying lately that you haven't fully stopped to hear? Tell me in the comments.
Link in bio. Las Vegas — Body Spa West.

Loki is doing well.
For those who haven't met him — Loki is my eight year old dog who spent his first two years in and out of a shelter. He was bitten and bullied by other dogs. His nervous system learned early to stay ready. To guard. To protect.
He still gets craniosacral work. He still has his moments. But he's come a long way.
What I've been noticing lately is how much his progress mirrors what I see in my human clients.
The changes aren't dramatic. They're incremental. Some weeks he's more settled. Some weeks something triggers the old pattern and he's back on high alert.
That's not failure. That's how nervous systems heal.
Not in a straight line. Not all at once. In layers — each one building on the last until the settled state becomes more familiar than the guarded one.
I think about this when clients get frustrated that the pattern came back after a few sessions of feeling great.
It came back because the nervous system is still learning. Still deciding which state is home.
Keep going. The work is cumulative even when it doesn't feel like it.
Loki is proof of that. He's more himself every month.
Has your body ever felt like it took two steps forward and one step back in a healing process? Tell me in the comments.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately.
We talk about pain relief. About moving better. About recovering from injury and surgery.
And all of that matters deeply.
But there's something beyond the physical that I don't think gets talked about enough.
When your body feels good — really good — you get access to more of yourself.
Your creativity comes back. The ideas that went quiet when you were managing discomfort start showing up again.
Your patience expands. The low grade irritability that chronic tension creates — the kind you barely notice until it's gone — lifts.
Your presence deepens. You stop being half somewhere else managing how your body feels and start being fully in the room with the people you love.
Your ambition returns. The things you stopped reaching for because your body made them feel too hard — they start feeling possible again.
This is what I mean when I talk about living your life fully.
Not just less pain.
More of you.
The body is the vehicle for everything. When it works well — everything you're here to do, feel, create, and experience becomes more available.
That's worth investing in.
What part of yourself do you feel like your body has been keeping you from fully accessing? Tell me in the comments.
Link in bio. Las Vegas — Body Spa West.

Place one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly. Take a normal breath.
Which hand moved first?
If it was the hand on your chest — your breathing pattern is worth paying attention to.
Paradoxical breathing is when the chest rises first and the belly barely moves — or actually draws inward — on the inhale. It's the opposite of how the body was designed to breathe.
And it's extremely common. Especially in people who carry chronic tension, have been through significant stress, or have had surgery or injury that changed how their body organizes itself.
Here's why it matters:
When you breathe paradoxically your diaphragm isn't doing its job. The accessory breathing muscles in your neck and upper back take over. Your nervous system registers the shallow, effortful breathing as a signal that something is wrong.
And a nervous system that thinks something is wrong stays guarded.
Muscles stay tight. Tissue doesn't repair the way it should. No amount of soft tissue work fully holds — because the nervous system keeps reaching for the braced, guarded state that paradoxical breathing reinforces.
This is one of the first things I look for with new clients. Because until the breathing pattern changes the nervous system can't fully settle — and the body can't fully heal.
The good news: breathing patterns respond remarkably well to the right kind of attention.
Check in right now — which hand moved first? Tell me in the comments.