03/10/2019
Enlightening words from a fellow Therapist
As a therapist I will sometimes feel that clients expect me to fix them and will want all the bells and whistles in their massage. I’ll feel the need to use every available stroke I know of that might help the particular issue they’ve come with. I worry that I might let them down, not be effective, not be good enough.
However, if I remove my own limiting beliefs and remember the many days of training I do every year, I know that less is more. Using fewer strokes so that I do more of just a few is actually more powerful than throwing in the whole shebang. Our brains can switch off with the security of the repetition of rhythmic, soothing massage strokes.
Yesterday I went to my massage therapist for one of my twice monthly massages. It’s often hard for us to switch off our therapist heads and go in with a client mindset. However, with the knowledge I have I was able to confidently say I wanted less. I wanted some deeper work on my spine to realign and lighter work everywhere else, I wanted it to be slow. I love to feel strong, tall, capable, effortless, graceful.... like a ballerina, after my massage.
Having said that I wanted ‘less is more’, because I know that is usually the best way to get my brain to switch off and go into that magical place between awake and sleep, I did worry slightly that I wouldn’t get there.
Well, I focused on my breathing, I thought about my positive outcome, I lingered on how the touch felt, I got swept along by the music and disappeared into the never world. My mind was empty. No cares. No stresses.
How could I have ever doubted the magic of repetitive, rhythmical, soothing, flowing touch? I don’t really remember it all but I know my NO HANDS Massage Therapist used just a few strokes and yes, less is most definitely more!
Once dressed I walked around the room noticing what felt different. I was walking easily, smoothly, effortlessly. I felt calm and confident. Tall and straight. It’s not that she did anything in particular to ‘fix’ me. I mean, she only used a few strokes out of the toolbox. What she did was give me space to let go, to release. And so I could set down the stress of modern life and walk out feeling recharged, reset, rejuvenated.
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