Carissa Shima Healing Bodywork

Carissa Shima Healing Bodywork Your body shouldn’t feel tight all the time. Root-cause bodywork for active wellness focused 40+ adults. Las Vegas. 20+ years experience. NVMT 11040.

Start with a Complementary Strategy Call: www.carissashima.com/carissa-shima-healing-bodywork/ I draw on my background in all healing and self growth modalities to provide a custom approach to your biggest challenges in life.

06/27/2026

The muscles of the jaw and mouth take up an enormous amount of real estate in the head — and when they're tight, that tension doesn't stay local.
It travels straight into the neck. The shoulders. The base of the skull. For many people it's the hidden driver behind headaches that keep coming back and tension that never fully releases no matter what they do.
Try this:
Lateral Pterygoid Release — 1-2 minutes per side:
Using your index finger on the opposite hand — so right index finger for the left side — find the area just under your cheekbone. Press gently straight back along that area and feel for a long band of tissue running vertically. It will feel like a connection between the upper and lower jaw.
Apply firm but gentle pressure along that band. Move slowly. Breathe.
This should never be painful. Firm pressure is fine — pain is not. If it's too intense, lighten your touch.
Stay with it for 30 seconds per side.
Then finish by placing both hands gently on the sides of your face — fingertips along the jaw muscles on each side. Just breathe and let your hands rest there with gentle, even pressure up and down. Let both sides settle together.
Most people feel an immediate softening through the jaw, neck, and shoulders.
I'm going to demonstrate this on video so you can see exactly where to find it — watch for that.
Try it and tell me in the comments — did you feel the release travel into your neck and shoulders?

06/26/2026

I recently had a session with Merina at No Limit Pilates here in Las Vegas — and it stopped me in my tracks.
After the injuries and surgeries I've been through over the last couple of years, patterns in my body had quietly shifted. Things had gotten out of sync in ways I hadn't fully recognized until I was on the reformer with someone who could see exactly what was happening.
The structural integration and craniosacral work I do on myself has helped those patterns improve significantly. But as I return to the activities I love — running, lifting, pilates — I'm having to bring a new level of conscious awareness to how I'm moving. Making sure everything is engaging properly. Making sure I'm moving the way my body is actually designed to move and not defaulting back to old compensations.
Merina helped me see exactly where that awareness needs to live right now.
Structural integration and craniosacral therapy open the structure and begin retraining how the body moves. That work — including the movement education I do with every client — is where the real change begins.
For me personally, adding pilates on top of that foundation right now has been one more layer of support as I rebuild.
When structure and movement awareness work together — that's when the body truly starts to feel like home again.
Have you ever combined two approaches and found they worked better together? Tell me in the comments.
nolimitpilates.com

06/26/2026

Ida Rolf said this decades ago.
It still stops me every time I read it.
Not that the practitioner heals the body.
Not that the technique fixes the problem.
That when the body gets working appropriately — when structure is restored and gravity can move through it the way it was designed to — the body heals itself.
That's the whole philosophy in one sentence.
The people I work with have often tried a lot of things. Good things. Things that helped temporarily. But the relief didn't last because the underlying structure — the way the body was organized in gravity — hadn't changed.
When it does change — when the pelvis, the ribcage, the shoulders find their relationship to each other and to the ground — something shifts that no amount of symptom treatment can create.
The body stops fighting gravity and starts working with it.
And then — as Rolf said — it begins to heal itself.
That's not magic. That's structure.
What would it feel like if your body finally stopped fighting and started flowing? Tell me in the comments.

06/25/2026

A few weeks into my myofunctional therapy with Minette at Exceptional Airways and something is becoming very clear.
The exercises she's given me aren't just about the jaw. They're about teaching my brain a new pattern.
Here's the analogy I keep coming back to:
Imagine a road that's been damaged for years. Finally you repair it. Fix the surface. Clear the debris. The structural work is done.
But you can't just open the road and expect everything to flow perfectly. The detours people have been taking for years don't disappear overnight. The brain still reaches for the old route. The nervous system still defaults to what it knows.
That's exactly what happens in the body after injury, surgery, or years of repetitive stress.
The tissue heals. The structure improves. But the nervous system has been running the same compensation pattern for so long it thinks that IS normal movement.
Structural work changes the tissue. Neural retraining changes the pattern.
Both have to happen. And both take time and the right kind of attention.
That's what I'm experiencing firsthand right now — and it's making me a better practitioner for every client who is somewhere in their own version of this journey.
More to come as this continues.
If you're working with Minette at Exceptional Airways or curious about the jaw-body connection — link in my bio.

06/25/2026

This one goes against everything most people have been told.
When you're in pain — rest. Don't move. Wait for it to settle.
And sometimes that's exactly right. Acute injury, post-surgical healing, significant inflammation — yes, rest is appropriate and necessary.
But chronic pain? Recurring tension? The tightness that never fully resolves?
Rest often makes it worse.
Here's why:
When the body stops moving, fascia — your body's connective tissue — begins to thicken and adhere. Circulation decreases. The nervous system, without the input of movement, has less information to work with and often defaults to more guarding, more bracing, more tension.
The body was designed to move. And gentle, appropriate, intentional movement is often one of the most powerful things you can do for chronic pain.
Not aggressive training. Not pushing through significant pain.
But the right kind of movement — informed by what's actually driving the pattern — signals safety to the nervous system, keeps tissue supple, and helps the body begin to find its way out of the cycle.
This is why I always incorporate movement education alongside hands-on work. The two together are far more powerful than either alone.
Has someone ever told you to just rest — and it didn't help? Tell me in the comments.
Link in bio. Las Vegas — Body Spa West.

06/24/2026

I watch Azi and Casper every single day.
They're eight years old. They stretch, jump, curl, and move through space with a fluidity that stops me every time.
No stiffness. No compensation. No bracing around an old injury. Just a spine moving exactly the way a spine was designed to move — freely, fully, without thinking about it.
They haven't had injuries or surgeries. No trauma held in the tissue. No years of repetitive stress patterns quietly loading one side more than the other.
Their bodies are simply in balance. And it shows in every single movement they make.
I think about this with every client I work with.
Because that quality of movement — fluid, easy, effortless — isn't just for cats. It's what the human body is capable of too. Most of us have just accumulated enough history that we've forgotten it was ever possible.
The work I do doesn't erase that history. But it addresses what that history left behind. The compensation patterns. The tissue that's still holding something it no longer needs to hold. The nervous system still bracing around something that healed a long time ago.
And when those things release — people describe something that sounds a lot like what I watch Azi and Casper do every morning.
Moving without thinking about it.
That's the goal.
What does feeling at home in your body look like to you? Tell me in the comments.

06/24/2026

Did you know that fascia — your body's continuous web of connective tissue — responds to emotional stress the same way it responds to physical injury?
Here's what that means:
When you experience physical trauma — a fall, a surgery, a repetitive strain injury — the fascia tightens and thickens around the affected area to protect it. That's appropriate and intelligent biology.
But fascia responds to emotional and psychological stress the same way.
A period of prolonged anxiety. A season of grief. Years of high pressure and chronic overload.
The fascia reads all of it as a threat. And it responds the same way it always does — by tightening. By bracing. By organizing the body around the perceived danger.
This is why people who have been through significant stress — even without any physical injury — often carry tension that feels structural. Because it is structural. The stress has literally changed the tissue.
And this is why addressing fascia through precise hands-on work can release things that talk therapy, meditation, and lifestyle changes alone sometimes can't fully reach.
The body keeps the record. And the fascia is where a significant part of that record lives.
Have you ever noticed tension in your body that seemed connected to a stressful period in your life? Tell me in the comments.

06/23/2026

This is one of my favorite releases — and most people have never heard of it.
The muscles that move your eyes connect directly into the deep muscles of the neck and base of the skull. When those eye muscles are chronically tight — from screens, close focus work, or simply the way we move through our days — that tension travels.
It shows up as neck tightness. Shoulder tension. That heavy feeling at the base of the skull that won't fully release no matter what you do.
Try this tonight:
Eye Movement Release — 2 rounds each direction:
Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat. Place your hands gently on your ribcage. Close your eyes and let them soften completely.
With your eyes still closed, slowly trace a gentle figure eight. Move slowly — this is not an exercise, it's a release. Continue for 15-20 seconds.
Then stop. Let your eyes rest completely. Notice what you feel at the back of your head, your neck, your shoulders.
Then trace the figure eight in the opposite direction for 15-20 seconds. Stop again and rest.
Important: Never push or force your eyes. This should never feel uncomfortable or painful in any way. If it does — stop immediately. Less is always more here.
Most people feel a softening at the base of the skull and through the neck and shoulders within the first round.
Try it tonight and tell me in the comments — where did you feel the release?

06/23/2026

If you've been stretching the same tight area for months or years with no lasting change — this is for you.
Stretching works beautifully for muscles that are short and need to lengthen.
But most chronic tightness isn't about short muscles.
It's about muscles that are overworking because something else in the structure isn't doing its job. Muscles that are bracing to stabilize a joint that isn't supported. Muscles that are compensating for an imbalance somewhere else in the chain entirely.
When you stretch a muscle that is tight because it's compensating — you get temporary relief. Maybe a few hours. Maybe a day. And then it's right back.
Because you didn't change the reason it was tight in the first place.
This is one of the most common patterns I see in wellness-focused, active people 40+ who have been diligently doing all the right things and still can't get lasting change.
The answer isn't more stretching.
It's finding what the muscle is actually compensating for — and addressing that.
That's root cause work. That's what makes results last.
Have you been stretching something for years with no lasting change? Tell me in the comments.
Link in bio. Las Vegas — Body Spa West.

06/22/2026

I went to learn. And I went to receive.
A 4-day craniosacral therapy workshop through the Milne Institute in Ashland, Oregon — immersed in the work I've been passionate about for over 20 years.
Craniosacral therapy is some of the most profound work I do — and one of the most underestimated.
It's for the person whose pain keeps coming back no matter what they try. The person whose body won't fully relax no matter how much they stretch, meditate, or rest. The person who feels wired, guarded, and stuck — and can't figure out why.
This work reaches a layer that most approaches never touch. And when it does — pain that has been present for years begins to shift. Tension that felt permanent starts to release. People describe feeling lighter, clearer, and more like themselves than they have in a long time.
I spent 4 days receiving significant hands-on work myself. Going deeper into the precision and philosophy behind it. Unplugging completely.
I came back different.
I ask my clients to invest in their health consistently. I hold myself to the same standard.
This is what that looks like for me.
What's the last thing you did that truly allowed you to unplug and reset? Tell me in the comments.

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