The phrase self-care has accumulated a lot of noise. It gets used to sell bath bombs and journalling prompts and subscription boxes. It has become, in some circles, a way of describing things that are pleasant rather than things that are genuinely sustaining. I want to talk about self-care in a more practical sense, the kind that involves actually attending to what your body needs, rather than what provides momentary relief. And I want to be specific about where regular massa

Of all the things I do in a Shiatsu session, Hara work is the one that surprises people most. They come in expecting the back, the shoulders, the neck — the obvious places where they are holding tension. And we do get there. But every session at Enso begins with the Hara: a period of quiet assessment and work on the abdomen, which in Japanese medicine is understood as the body's energetic centre and diagnostic map. Most people have never had their abdomen worked on therapeuti