Welcome to the Wellness Sanctuary, a place where profound healing and transformation await. In this post, we’ll delve into the range of services offered by Johanna Schwarzbeck, a seasoned wellness practitioner with over 25 years of experience, and explore the inner workings of Swedish Massage, Shiatsu Therapy, and the enlightening world of Core Energetics.

What services do you provide at the Wellness Sanctuary?

I offer Swedish Massage and Shiatsu Therapy, also Core Energetics sessions for individuals, couples and group sessions for women only. All are body-centered and transformational modalities, which for many are also a spiritual journey. My intention is to bring a new and profound awareness to my clients. To help them experience living with a deeper sense of embodiment and an open heart by increasing their sense of authenticity, self-knowledge, groundedness and personal empowerment.

What should clients expect during a treatmen?

There is a comprehensive intake for those who want Swedish massage with questions about posture and musculature. The Shiatsu intake is more meridian-based with questions about color and taste preferences, energy peaks and lows. For clients who want to work more deeply with Core Energetics we access their energy. Is it split, blocked or leaking? Where are they overcharged or undercharged? Core Energetics works on four levels. First we work to penetrate the mask, or how we want the world to see us, then transform the lower self or root chakra to healing the original wound; followed by centering the high self to open the heart and affirm aspirations and ideals; finally finding a universal life plan, what do we want to do with our lives and are we at peace with that?

What are some of the benefits?

Core Energetics bodywork involves the release of feelings from chronically armored muscles. At times, this requires the use of touch. For example, through pressure or massage to a muscle or muscle group. The touch is non-sexual in nature and used to bring awareness to an area – sometimes as support and at other times applied to encourage movement or energy flow through the blocked area. Touch may elicit many feelings, which I encourage clients to talk about as part of the process. Core Energetics is a talk therapy that involves physical work to deepen contact with a client’s life force. This access to deeper levels of feeling through the opening of areas of blocked/or held energy in the body opens the client to a fuller more heartfelt experience of their emotional truth.

It can help with depression, lack of motivation and energy by implementing bioenergetic exercises, which are a combination of body movement and breathing techniques.

What do you love about Core Energetics? What first drew you to it?

I’ve always been drawn to look at the deeper meaning of life’s purpose. And curious about our human potentiality, such as deep listening and embodied authentic pleasure, and returning to our innate body wisdom and opening the conversations needed today about connection, sex, consent, and intimacy. I’m especially concerned with the feminine, women in relationships, gender-fluidity, same gender relations, and inter-connectivity, all of which are essential for me as ways to experience a fuller emotional truth. What better way is there than to look at the language of the body to heal the problems of the mind? The more alive the body is, the more you are in the world.

Johanna Schwarzbeck, a COI-certified Ohashiatsu Instructor, LMT; NY State Licensed Massage Therapist, Usui Reiki Master, IYI-certified Yoga Teacher, has been a Wellness Practitioner for more than 25 years and has a broad range of training and expertise. She is currently a second-year student of Core Energetics, a four-year program, which offers training in body-centered therapy focusing on unifying mind, body, emotions, sexuality, and spirit. Johanna has also studied directly with some of the most renowned teachers in body-aware therapies and healing, including Dr. Barbara Brennan, David Deida, Caroline Mure, (Tantra Goddess), Michaela Boehm, Carlos Velasquez (HPD – the Human Potential Development), and the Institute of Core Energetics, developed by Dr. John Pierrakos. As a long-time Zen meditator Johanna brings calmness, an intuitive approach, and array of skills to her sessions, ensuring enhanced creativity and joy.