Tag Archives: massage therapy

“Surviving Weightlessness”

 

This is how I feel right now. 

This concept I picked from up the book “The Surrendered Wife” by Laura Doyle. 

It very aptly describes the emotional vertigo and, therefore, anxiety that many of us face in transitional phases of our lives when we give up control and leap into the unknown. 

Choosing to move from a situation that wasn’t working and now moving on because, instead of staying and trying to unsuccessfully “make it work” (which I have an extensive history of), I am moving on without knowing exactly where I am going. 

This time, I am listening to my intuition… as scary and crazy as it seems, I opted for change having no vision of what to do, but knowing I’m on my right path.  It is freeing and feels “ weightless”.  I don’t know what my bearings are.  I just know “that” wasn’t “it”.

Growing up, I came from a home where the dichotomy between extreme scientific evaluation and intuitive hunches were valued and followed.  This leaves me with a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde approach to figuring things out when faced with new personal territory, which I think many people can relate to. 

(It’s the whole “Should I? /Shouldn’t I?” that shows up in life ever so often.)

I find this true in people’s bodies. 

The healthy person responds to stress (change) with adaptability, being able to do things in a different way than has been normal.  The body always follows the emotions, but mentally, the mind choses to be rigid (or “ being right”) in its approach. 

We massage therapists call this “not being in one’s body”.  I feel this is one of the most important values of massage/touch therapy.  The body is holding vital information, but it is being devalued by the mind as “unsafe”. 

So war wages between the mind and body over the way to handle things.  Both the mind and body suffer because there is not communication and unison in their actions and functions. 

Bringing peace, harmony and balance to the whole is how one gets back to some sense of wholeness.  Touch therapy helps you align back up with what makes you, you and to face changes and adapt.   

I will be trying to get in a massage or some kind of personal therapy this week.  How about you?

 : – )

(By the way, check out the book.  Here’s her link:  http://lauradoyle.org/   It has some excellent tips for negotiating all kinds of relationships, whatever they may be.)

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Let it be…

… Sorry, guys. I have been loafing on the writing, but I’m not really apologizing.

It’s spring. I have been working too hard. There are lots of activities this time of year. Without sufficient air conditioning, I wasn’t been sleeping. And maybe it was the powerful full moon… but last week it all hit critical shutdown. Lights out. Done!

I spent most of last week either staring blankly or pushing myself through what had to be done. I had been running on fumes.

… As a massage therapist, I went to a continuing education class called medical massage. And even though the teacher was nationally known, they rambled and were unorganized, and I wasn’t getting a lot out of the class.

(I have learned that there are content/skill classes, and then there are those I come home with an overall thought that grows and gives my practice a whole new light on things.)

That weekend the thought I came away with was that the primary focus for massage should be so the client can rest, because sleep is where the body heals itself.

All the critical catching up in the body happens while we are not pouring all our energy into “being brilliant” as one of my Theatre professors used to say, going at “Mach 1”.

The downshifting of gears allows for the body to clean up the crazy mess left from going all day. There are metabolic waste garbage routes that need to be cleared, nerves need to reboot, and the blood “train” moves things around, bringing supplies where they need to be for the next day.

I have heard a well-known fitness trainer say that the most ignored part of physical fitness is insufficient recovery time.

When the body is facing a health crisis, it is even more imperative for this slower speed, and better nutrition. But many people reach for things to keep them going when they think they can’t stop, and sometimes life does demand this of us. … You probably aren’t going to ignore the 2 a.m. babies cries, even though you have to go to work in the morning. But 2 years of this will be a problem! – And you will be a wreck…

I think that life should have ebbs and flows, even though I am still working on it!

Take a moment to chill just to enjoy the sun and not going. You might feel even better when you get back into the thick of things. : – )

Breathing…

Breathing… Even though it keeps you alive for 5 more minutes there is so much more to it! 

As a massage therapist, I was trained to scan a clients’ torso to see if they are breathing (or not) for a couple of reasons. 

One is, that if the pressure is too hard, they are flinching, which is counter-productive to easing muscle tension.  Two, the act of breathing (or not) is a reflection of whether the “fight or flight” sympathetic nervous system is still on high alert with stressors, or whether they are starting to relax and gear down. 

If I notice that someone is not breathing, I ask about the pressure.  And if the answer is “fine”, I might move into a little guided imagery for body awareness.  One that I suggest is relaxing in a certain area, like the front of the throat, the “belly”, the lap, the armpits, the face, the feet. Sometimes we slowly walk awareness through the body together from feet to head, “turning out the lights”. 

Then I will move on to asking them to breathe in spots that seem constricted, even if they are not directly related to the diaphragm.  You can breathe in your face, lap or feet, didn’t you know?

I like to give the analogy of breathing from the lap to the chin.  Think about your torso as an air mattress.  Before you start to fill an air mattress, it is flat and folded.  As air is pumped in, it starts to expand, filling out the shape of the rectangle and push out the corners.  By the time it is filled up, the air pressure has made the mattress firm.

Our hips and shoulders are “the corners” of this internal air mattress of our lungs.  Without sufficient pressure the whole torso is weak, just like an air mattress that goes flat by the morning.  No wonder our shoulders and legs bother us!  We don’t have sufficient air pressure to keep us afloat! 

“Breathe!  –  Because you get to!”  (You are still living, right?)

Fill up your air mattress!