(By Pablo Burgués)

Hello, my name is Nadia Manini and I am from a small village in the middle of the Italian Alps called Malé. I live in Ibiza and I am dedicated to the world of massage combined with alternative therapies. 

How does a Heidi from the Alps like you end up living in Ibiza? I came for the first time in 2009 to visit other Heidis and Pedros from my village who lived here. The truth is that it was not a destination that caught my attention as the image I had of the island was one of partying, partying and partying. However, I arrived in San Miguel, where my friends lived and I was amazed at the nature, the forest, the crystal clear water... Then I came back a couple more times, the last one in 2013 with the intention of spending 5 days of vacation and here I am 7 years later.

If there is something that people from Ibiza love (besides chis-pun, chis-pun, chis-pun music) it is alternative therapies. Did you start to get interested in them here or did it come from before? In Italy I worked in a spa giving massages and there I was already interested in alternative therapies. The problem is that in the middle of the mountains, in a valley of 15,000 people, access to training was very complicated. When I arrived in Ibiza, a world of possibilities opened up for me and it was here that I began to study Chinese medicine, Gestalt therapy and to become interested in other alternative therapies, quantum physics, etc. 

Whether it is yoga, meditation, acupuncture or Reiki, anything that is not "normal" medicine my mother calls "Spiritism". Can you explain to her what Chinese medicine is and how it differs from Western medicine? Chinese medicine looks at the patient and the disease as a whole, while Western medicine looks at only a part. You get a stomach ache! I give you a stomach pill and that's it. In Chinese medicine not only would treat your pain, but also try to find out where it can come from, both physically and energetically and emotionally.

I do not think my mother has understood absolutely nothing of what you said, so to provoke her a little more explain what chi is and why it is so important for you "the spiritualists". Chi is the essential energy that flows in all things and beings in the universe. That energy has a flow and a disease in your body is nothing more than the consequence of an inadequate flow of your chi. This is what acupuncture is all about, trying to open the points or doors that are obstructing the proper flow of your energy with needles.

In your sessions you combine Chinese medicine with massage techniques, Gestalt therapy, acupuncture... What kind of ailments do you treat?  People who come to me for the first time usually come for physical problems such as contractures and things like that. I treat those physical ailments through classic Western massage, but I also apply energy balancing techniques through Chinese medicine. I have also been studying Gestalt therapy for two years, which helps me to investigate the emotional aspects of an ailment. With all this I try to have a more open and global vision of each problem since all physical pain has an emotion behind it and the only way to heal is to be aware of it. One is not enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious.

So for you there are no purely mechanical pains? I mean, if playing a game of football an animal kicks me in the knee and breaks it, what emotion can there be behind it? Maybe the kick that that animal gave you wouldn't have broken your knee if it wasn't already weak or injured because of mismanagement of some of your emotions. 

I have back problems for several months and the pills that "normal" doctors like so much have not cured me. What kind of emotion should I work on to overcome that problem? The back is very large and depends on the area, but in general the back is the support of the body so your ailment could be due to a support reflex on an emotional level. Perhaps you feel that you don't have the support you need from others in your life.

Imagine that you are given one of those huge billboards at the exit of the airport, which is the first thing tourists see when they arrive in Ibiza. What would you put on it?  "Welcome to Ibiza, the capital of spiritualism."

Which Ibizan character would you like me to interview next time? Jesús de Miguel, he is a painter I met recently and he is one of the most pordinary characters I have seen in a long time.

 

 

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