don't talk let's TALK : family : meeting brenda pelser

Meeting Brenda Pelser
On Tuesday, 22 April 2008, I met Brenda Pelser. I had read about her in a newspaper. Brenda is a holistic masseuse. Holistic massage aims at getting into contact with your body, feelings and thoughts through different ways of touching the body. For example this can be done through pulsing (i.e. shaking the body) or other techniques so as to create awareness of inner reactions (feelings). After a Swedish example Brenda has developed a technique of child massage. This is a so-called chair massage where children massage each other within the comfortable setting of their school. The result is a class where children are more relaxed, more concentrated and can work together much better. What is more, there is less bullying among the children. Child massage has been introduced at all public schools in Sweden with the result that bullying has gone down from 15% to 1%. I wanted to meet Brenda because I was curious how she had managed to develop this activity in schools and how she was able to expand it. As with a lot of things in life, she said she had just started doing it. And one thing led to another. A newspaper got interested, and it spiraled from there. Now she organizes workshops where she teaches primary school teachers to do the same thing she started with, show them how they can teach children to touch each other through five simple techniques. On the whole we are no longer used to touching each other and so we have to learn to do so again. The results are astonishing and Brenda’s business is growing. TALK’s connection with Brenda lies in the field of awareness. Holistic massage improves the awareness of the body, where thoughts and experiences are captured inside that body. TALK is developing activities for children and their parents by using techniques to increase the awareness within the relationship. TALK would like to combine those different activities in one program. In June 2008 TALK will start with a survey on the relationship between children and their parents. If you would like to contribute to the survey just send me an email.

Meeting Brenda Pelser

On Tuesday, 22 April 2008, I met Brenda Pelser. I had read about her in a newspaper. Brenda is a holistic masseuse. Holistic massage aims at getting into contact with your body, feelings and thoughts through different ways of touching the body. For example this can be done through pulsing (i.e. shaking the body) or other techniques so as to create awareness of inner reactions (feelings).

After a Swedish example Brenda has developed a technique of child massage. This is a so-called chair massage where children massage each other within the comfortable setting of their school. The result is a class where children are more relaxed, more concentrated and can work together much better. What is more, there is less bullying among the children. Child massage has been introduced at all public schools in Sweden with the result that bullying has gone down from 15% to 1%. I wanted to meet Brenda because I was curious how she had managed to develop this activity in schools and how she was able to expand it.

As with a lot of things in life, she said she had just started doing it. And one thing led to another. A newspaper got interested, and it spiraled from there. Now she organizes workshops where she teaches primary school teachers to do the same thing she started with, show them how they can teach children to touch each other through five simple techniques. On the whole we are no longer used to touching each other and so we have to learn to do so again. The results are astonishing and Brenda’s business is growing.

TALK’s connection with Brenda lies in the field of awareness. Holistic massage improves the awareness of the body, where thoughts and experiences are captured inside that body. TALK is developing activities for children and their parents by using techniques to increase the awareness within the relationship. TALK would like to combine those different activities in one program.

In June 2008 TALK will start with a survey on the relationship between children and their parents. If you would like to contribute to the survey just send me an email.