When rest has stopped working
You know how to manage. You are the one who holds the room together, professionally or at home, and you have done it well for a long time. The exhaustion is private. From the outside, very little shows.
But the weekend off does not reach it anymore. The holiday helps for a day or two and then it is gone. This is not a willpower problem and not something to optimise. It is what happens when a body has been running on alertness for long enough that rest alone no longer repairs it.
The body kept a different account
The mind can decide to slow down. The body keeps its own record, and it does not clear just because the calendar did.
After a long season of holding, what the body has often had almost none of is the experience of being held itself. Of receiving without managing, explaining, or giving anything back. That is the specific input this work offers. Not more rest to schedule. Being met without having to manage anything. This is a description of the direction, not a promise of outcome.
What happens in a session
Before any touch, there is a conversation, over tea, without hurry. Many women arrive with the shoulders and jaw pulled in, the body still braced around something it has carried for longer than today. When you are ready, you move to the table, covered with soft linen. Your genitals stay covered throughout. The linen moves as the work does, always named before it happens. The touch is slow and follows your body. You can stop at any moment. As the work continues, the braced places tend to let go in their own order.
Sacred Touch is not a replacement for psychotherapy or medical care. If you are in an acute crisis, that support comes first.
Held without having to hold
Here there is nothing to manage. Nothing to hold together. Nothing asked of you except that you let yourself be present.
For many women who hold everything, receiving as its own kind of return is the harder and more important part. If what you most recognise is a nervous system that has been holding for years, start there. You can also read whether this space is for you.
Sessions and how to begin
Sessions are held in English or German.
You can see the three sessions and request a time directly. (Auf Deutsch lesen: zur deutschen Seite.)
Frequently Asked Questions
You undress, and you may keep your underwear on if you wish. Staying fully clothed is not possible, because it prevents the work. Your genitals stay covered for the whole session, always. Whether your breasts stay covered is your choice, and it is settled in the conversation before you undress, never on the table. Soft linen covers you, and it moves only as the bodywork requires, so what is not being worked on stays covered. You can cover up again at any point, and you can stop at any point, without giving a reason.
Sooner for some things than others. Noticing your own state earlier can happen inside a single session: catching that the shoulders are up before the neck starts aching. Reacting less to the week that used to take you over takes longer, and it is not on a schedule. Some women feel very little the first time and notice something days later. That is common, and it is not a sign the work failed.
### Can bodywork help with burnout?
Somatic bodywork can support recovery from burnout by giving a depleted nervous system the conditions to settle and the experience of being held without having to give anything back. It is not a treatment or a cure, and it does not replace rest, medical care, or therapy. It offers a different quality of input than rest alone.
No. Sacred Touch is somatic bodywork, not psychotherapy or medical care. Thomas is a somatic practitioner, not a therapist or doctor. If you are in an acute crisis, please seek medical or psychological support first.
No. It is not a sexual service in any form. The work is held in service of the nervous system settling and the body's capacity to receive. A session includes no contact with your breasts and no contact with your genitals. The scope of a session is settled before you arrive and does not change during the session.
Three sessions are available