Give me a back rub any day. Knead my shoulders, neck, even my head. I also find deep, firm massaging of my hands and feet delightful. But the belly is a very different story. A private space, shy and vulnerable, my abdomen rarely gets touched by hands other than my own. It would take a leap of faith to allow a stranger to probe this tender region.

I took this leap some months back, though, after hearing about chi nei tsang ("chee nay song," or CNT), a traditional Chinese bodywork technique that focuses on the abdomen. A forgotten aspect of Taoist medicine, chi nei tsang is currently experiencing a rebirth in the West, with practitioners promoting it for conditions ranging from headaches to digestive complaints, as well as for strong immunity and overall well-being.

Like much of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the goal of chi nei tsang lies in harmonizing your internal systems, getting the life-force energy known as qi (or chi) flowing through them, and encouraging the body toward health from its core outward. As I would come to see, however, something else happens when you allow your long-neglected abdominal skin, tissues, and organs to be massaged. Surrendering to your vulnerability brings on a relaxation of the deepest kind. Scientists call this the parasympathetic state, and massage therapist and CNT practitioner Jamaica Galloway says it's "where healing takes place."

I turned to CNT with the usual complaints: mild but chronic problems with sleep, digestion, and fatigue. Galloway, who works in Occidental, California, explained that the technique detoxifies the body, releases long-stored tensions, and stimulates the circulatory, metabolic, and lymphatic processes. Furthermore, she told me, it can aid digestion on multiple levels -- easing intestinal troubles while helping you process "stuck" emotional and energetic issues.

It was this idea of digestion, both literal and metaphoric, that most attracted me. As someone whose stress tends to create stomachaches, I liked the idea of a massage that focuses directly on the tensed-up organs. At the same time, I appreciated how Galloway's former teacher, Gilles Marin, founder of the Chi Nei Tsang Institute in Oakland, California, explained the processing of feelings to me. "Like food, emotions need to be digested -- not figured out or understood, but literally digested," he says. "When we absorb what we need and get rid of what we don't, it helps us grow."

Because emotions are stored in the gut, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine, "working on the belly allows us to work directly on the feelings," says Marin. Profound emotional releases are not uncommon, and several clients I spoke with experienced tears, visions, or long-forgotten memories during their treatments.