Liminal Herbs & Bodywork LLC

06/30/2026

Here are the upcoming massage CE workshops from Ian Harvey. Click through to read more about the workshop, and to sign up online!

04/08/2026

04/08/2026

Scar tissue isn’t something you can “break up” with hands, tools, or pressure. It’s dense collagen integrated into the surrounding tissue, and trying to force change into it doesn’t physically alter its structure.

Manual therapy still has value—it can reduce sensitivity, improve circulation, and help tissues move more comfortably. That’s why people feel better after treatment, but that improvement isn’t because anything has been broken down.

If scar tissue changes, it does so over time through gradual loading and movement, not aggressive techniques.

If you’re dealing with pain, get it assessed. This is one explanation out of many, not a one-size-fits-all answer.

04/06/2026

Spring in the desert!

03/17/2026

Healing crisis, or time for a better explanation? 🤔

‘Healing crisis’ is one of those phrases that sounds wise until you stop and ask what it actually means.

Historically, pain was not always seen as something to ease. In older models of care, pain and irritation were sometimes taken as signs that illness was active and that the body was responding. Some practitioners even provoked painful reactions because they believed that a stronger reaction meant a stronger healing process. 🕰️

That old thinking still echoes in parts of complementary therapy. ‘Healing crisis’ is often used to explain why someone feels worse after treatment, especially later that day or the next morning. The idea is that the body is ‘processing’, ‘releasing’, ‘detoxing’, or somehow getting worse before it gets better. In some traditions, a temporary aggravation is even treated as proof that the treatment is working.

The problem is that the phrase carries baggage. It suggests that something was wrong, blocked, broken, dysfunctional, or in need of being fixed, and that the worsening somehow proves the therapist has found the problem. That is a big leap, and in many cases it is simply not justified.

Current evidence does not support that explanation. If a client feels worse after treatment, the answer is not to dress it up as healing. The answer is to understand it properly.

So what might actually be happening when someone feels stiff, sore, or more painful the day after a treatment that did not hurt at the time? 🧠

Usually, the simplest explanation is the best one. The treatment may have been a bit too much for that person, on that day, in that area, at that dose. Pressure, duration, stretching, repeated contact, and time spent on a sensitive spot can all lead to a short lived post treatment response. Research on manual therapy and massage shows that soreness, stiffness, tiredness, and increased pain are common mild reactions, often showing up within 24 hours and usually settling within 24 to 72 hours.

That is not a ‘healing crisis’. It is a response to treatment.
Pain science also helps here. Pain is not a simple readout from tissue. It is a personal experience shaped by the body, the brain, the situation, previous experience, stress, sleep, and expectation. So someone can feel fine during a massage, especially in a calm room where they feel safe and supported, then feel more sore later when the system reassesses the input. Add in existing sensitivity, worry, poor sleep, or the normal ups and downs of symptoms, and the next day response starts to make much more sense.

This also matters for therapists. A mild next day reaction does not automatically mean the therapist has done anything wrong. But it does mean something important has been learnt. The client is telling you the treatment was not as well tolerated as hoped, and that needs reflection, not spin. 👂

It is also not enough to protect yourself by casually saying, ‘You might feel a bit sore tomorrow’, then applying whatever pressure or technique you like and using next day pain as a convenient excuse. That is not thoughtful practice, and it is not good consent. ⛔️A warning does not make an excessive, poorly matched, or badly judged treatment appropriate.

Therapists cannot simply apply any technique with too much confidence, then hide behind the idea that soreness proves it was effective.

The real question is whether the treatment was suitable, well judged, and responsive to the person in front of you.

Was the pressure too much? Was the area already irritable? Did the client feel able to give feedback during the session? Were expectations discussed clearly and honestly? Does the next treatment need to be lighter, shorter, slower, or more tailored to that person’s current state?

That is the issue. Not blame, not mythology, but clinical reflection.

If a client reports more pain the next day, the therapist should listen, document it, explain it honestly, and adjust the plan. If the reaction is strong, unusual, or lasts beyond a couple of days, it needs proper reassessment rather than being brushed off as a positive sign. ✅

Changing the language changes the practice. ‘Healing crisis’ makes worsening sound meaningful by default. ‘Post treatment response’ asks us to pay attention, adjust the dose, and take the client’s experience seriously.

Less mythology, more honesty. Better for clients, better for therapists, better for the profession.

03/16/2026

Had so much fun teaching an oil/salve making class yesterday!

03/11/2026

Come hang out with me & the plants. Learn about our native edible & medicinal plants. Hosted by at .

03/09/2026

Calendula oil is swoon-worthy!

02/18/2026

🧠 The ‘Pain Nerves’ Story, and why it keeps therapists stuck

Most of us were trained in a simple storyline 🧩. Something is wrong in the tissues, that problem irritates ‘pain nerves’, then a pain message travels to the brain, and pain is the conscious experience of that message.

From there the logic feels obvious 🙌. If pain is coming from the tissues, the job is to change the tissues. Stretch, release, mobilise, melt the restriction, remove the knot, and you change the input, so the pain stops. Some trainings even imply pain is 'trapped' in tissue, and skilled hands can release it.

That belief makes sense because it fits what you see in clinic 👀. People point to a specific spot. Symptoms can change during touch. One therapy session can reduce pain. If your training told you that means you changed the tissue problem, you will naturally assume you changed the pain source.

Here is the issue 🔍. There are no ‘pain nerves’ that carry pain. What we actually have are nociceptors, specialised sensory endings in tissues that respond when conditions suggest potential tissue threat, such as strong mechanical loading, extremes of temperature, or chemical irritation linked with inflammation. When nociceptors activate, they send nociceptive input, meaning incoming information about potential threat, not pain itself.

Pain is different ⚠️. Pain is a protective experience the brain constructs when it judges protection is needed. Nociceptive input can influence that judgement, especially in acute injury, but it is not the same thing as pain. This is why the idea of ‘releasing pain from tissue’ is not accurate. You cannot extract pain like a substance, because pain is not stored in fascia, stuck in scar tissue or trapped in muscle.

If the brain worked like a simple receiver 📥, it would need to process vast amounts of raw information from the body and the outside world, every moment, then build perception from scratch. It would need much more capacity than we have. The brain is also metabolically expensive. It is a small part of body weight, yet it uses a large portion of the body’s energy at rest. That cost only makes sense if the brain is doing something efficient.

This is where predictive processing comes in 🧠➡️. The brain is not a simple receiver, it is predicting the future. It continually generates best guesses about what is happening and what is likely to happen next, then checks incoming sensory information to update. It does not run one prediction only. It runs multiple predictions at once, then settles on the one that it judges as the best guess estimate with the least energy cost. That is efficient, and efficiency is survival.

Now link that back to pain 🔁. If the brain predicts threat, it will often shift the body towards protection. That can include guarded movement, increased muscle tone, changed breathing, increased attention to sensations, and yes, pain. This is why pain can change fast. When the brain updates threat level, the protective response can change fast too.

So what does this mean for hands on therapy 👐. Touch can still help, but the explanation changes. We do not ‘fix’ tissues in the way we were taught, as if we are correcting a fault and removing pain from a structure. Touch is information delivered in a context. When that context supports safety and control, the nervous system may lower threat prediction, and protection can soften. That is not ‘melting' or 'releasing' tissue to remove pain’. It is shifting the brain’s best guess about danger.

Feet on the ground conclusion ✅. Pain is real. Bodies are real. Nociceptive input is real. But pain is not trapped in tissue waiting for release. Pain is a protective experience constructed by a predictive brain, and good therapy supports safer predictions, not tissue mythology.

02/01/2026

Been experimenting w/ new kombucha flavors. This is apple cinnamon…smells fab!