Healthy Healing Relationships

My professional organization, Associated Massage and Bodywork Professionals (ABMP), puts out several wonderful publications. Their issue of Massage & Bodywork (Sept/Oct 2015) has a very important article in it. It is the story of how one woman became involved in an abusive, sexual relationship with a predatory body-worker, and I recommend anyone who gets therapy, of any kind, to read it. We have worked hard in Oregon and as a profession, to create systems for ensuring safety for our clients and ourselves. For example: we have a vigorous Massage Board to enforce laws, and therapists must display their license number with any form of advertising. 

 

That of course does not preclude all problems, and there are many wonderful modalities and practitioners that are not overseen by our Massage Board. Indeed, licensing itself does not protect anyone from unscrupulous nurses, doctors, or mechanics for that matter. But the healing relationship is special. And with the growing influence of alternative bodywork modalities, clients may have no clear idea of what is considered appropriate and usual. The Encyclopedia of Energy Medicine by Linnie Thomas lists well over 200 modalities, and whether they have credentialing or not, your safety rests in your hands, not the therapist's.

 

Whatever the therapy, or therapist, you have engaged to help you heal, you want to believe in it/them. You've entered this relationship with a problem you need fixed and a hope that this person holds some answer for you. This is the beginning of a power differential. The perceived authority of the therapist, the difference in clothed and unclothed, standing versus laying down, giving versus receiving, all add to the subtle power inequality in any bodywork session. To protect clients and therapists alike, a strong code of ethics and standards of care are critical.

At the outset, your therapist should do an intake with you. What are your goals for the session? What is the method that will be employed and how does it work. Is the practitioner credentialed? By whom? What can be expected. Will you be touched and where. All these questions and much more go into what's called informed consent.

 Let me reiterate this, there is no consent without information. I hear this from clients all the time: “you just do what you do.” Nonetheless, I continue to inquire throughout the session as to their comfort and needs, because consent is not given once. Sometimes when people are unclear where the appropriate boundary is, they defer to the therapist because “they know what they are doing.” Even if you're unsure why you're uncomfortable, stop the session and ask questions. Consent that is given can be revoked at any time.

 

There are small things too, of course, in a session that may make you uncomfortable. You can ask anytime to turn off/up/down the music, turn the heat up or down, open a window, ask for a blanket or adjust a bolster or face cradle.  Any good therapist will know that your absolute comfort is essential to your healing and the success of the session. There's a wonderful world of healers out there trained and able to help. To therapists and clients alike I say: go forth, have fun, heal well and be safe.

Penny Hill may be reached at 

RisingSunMassage.massagetherapy.com

         or

CalmHealthEase.com

Eyes In My Elbows?

I've been on Facebook mostly for awhile, but I hope to be  back to my blog now.  I've been talking about patterns a lot recently. Patterns of thought, of  movement, of reactions.

Some of the patterns serve us well, they are all the automatic motions and habits that get us up, dressed, get food on the table, drive or walk or bike to our daily activities.  We mostly don't have to think about them.

There are patterns in our movements as well.  We hunch over at the computer, we sit with one hip cocked at a funny angle in our favorite chair. Physical habits of movement and stillness that leave their mark in our tissues. Some areas are too tonic, others too flaccid.  This all leads to pain, and fewer options for freedom of movement. Uninterrupted, these patterns continue shape our bodies and it can become very difficult to change them.  

I recently watched a video from Heath and Nicole Reed (http://livingmetta.com/)  about this topic.  They had the following  exercise that I found wonderful:

Sit with your eyes closed and take a few relaxing breaths.  Start with one finger of one hand and start moving it around, flexing and extending it, think of every way you can move that finger.  Now, add the next finger and the next.  Now the whole hand and wrist.  Think of all the new ways you can move your fingers, hands and arm.  Imagine your elbow has eyes on it and it is looking all around.  Imagine eyes all over each body part, looking around and seeing from  new angles experiencing new ways  to move.  When you are done, assess how that arm feels in comparison to the other.  Did you find some surprising movements?  Or restrictions?

I encourage you to move in new ways. It keeps your mind and body flexible! Babies are born very flexible, and in large part our restrictions are learned.  I wrote another blog on this subject but with a slant toward EFT/tapping and the unconscious beliefs that support our patterns.  It expands the subject a great deal,. You can view it here: https://tapintoyourbrilliance.blogspot.com/

Many blessings of good health and freedom

Penny

I Have to Relax My Tongue? Really?

I love using the body's own mechanisms for stress reduction. Turns out there are several keys that should be in the owner's manual that we never got. This is something that I learned on my own, and now there's a scientific explanation.

Here is a tidbit from our EFT Universe director, Dawson Church: A large nerve called the hypoglossal nerve connects your tongue to the medulla oblongata, the part of your brain that regulates heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure. Relax your tongue, and that nerve sends a signal to your medulla that calms your heart.

How simple is that? I've previously written about smiling and looking up to change your feeling state. Also, of the effect of 'power poses' to strengthen your aura and change your hormone profile immediately to one that will give you a boost of energy and confidence. So here's another even simpler trick to immediatly reduce stress.

So there you go. Go forth and relax any time you need to. If you'd like to read more about a meditation Dawson includes in one of his programs you can find the info here:

http://www.eftuniverse.com/…/7-steps-for-whole-energy-lifes…

I'm still here

Hi
I've been away for awhile while I worked on my certification in EFT.  I'll try to get back here from time to time, but the new blog: https://tapintoyourbrilliance.blogspot.com/ may be my new baby for awhile.  I'm still finishing up my certification and I'm aiming for the end of June at the latest.  Keep a good thought for me.

Peace
Penny

The writing on the Walls, part the second

     I've titled myself into a corner, because this is such a big topic and there's no way I can bring it full round in two parts.  So forgive me my hubris.  So, from the previous entry a small recap: as children, when adults talk to us or we hear their conversations, we are given opinions that in our young brains are registered as facts, such as "you can't have that toy because you're bad."  You are bad  may get written on our wall in big letters and thick ink or it may be barely legible, depending on a variety of factors. This then may become one of the filters through which we see the world and use to interpret all new information coming into our consciousness.
     We also write on our walls.  When confronted with a situation we make decisions about what it means. Some of the writing of course is there to keep us safe.  Touching a hot stove will burn you, not all people are trustworthy. But, if we are chased by a dog and are frightened, we may write on our own walls that all dogs, or all brown dogs, or all dogs wearing collars, are dangerous.  Some of the connections may make no sense to us as adults, and seeing as they were made by a two year old, how could they?  But, there they are, confounding us and perhaps limiting us in our adult lives.
     Let's use the first illustration, and say "I'm bad" is written on your walls. This could play out in your life as a string of bad choices in partners, because after all why would a good person want to be with a bad one?  Or, you make enough money but can't keep it, because you are bad and can't have what you want.  The list is endless, but you get the drift.  So a process like EFT can be useful to make life work better for us by erasing some or all of the unhelpful writing on the wall that may be unconsciously, or subconsciously, affecting all the choices we are making now.
     Spelunking anyone?  The way to a more harmonious life may lie in along a road of self discovery and "erasing" some of that writing that is informing our decisions and even our health.



smile, breathe, and know you are meant to be here
peace.

The Writing On The Wall, Part the First

     I have been privileged to have a career where I could touch human beings. Not just human bodies, but all that makes us up.  When I touch your body I am aware that there is a physical body, a spiritual body, and an emotional body all rolled into one entity. You are a history book.  More and more I am drawn to work that acknowledges the impact and active participation of the subconsciousness level.  We think with our conscious minds many grand and astounding thoughts, but we are really passengers in our own vehicle while the subconscious drives the bus.   
     Switching metaphors, the (original) developer of EFT, Gary Craig, uses the term "the writing on the walls" as a metaphor for all the "programming" or scripts we use to shape our lives. We get this information when we are very young. Younger than about 6-7 years of age, we are almost always in theta brain waves. This is a highly creative state. Also one in which as children we absorb all the information coming to us as fact. The old expression "little pitchers have big ears" acknowledges that little ones are lurking and listening to adult conversation.  Of course we were, how else were we supposed  to learn how to be a grown up?  But there are many other bits of information kids are picking up besides a few salacious tid-bits of gossip. And in the end these shape much of our lives.
     Aside from the whispered conversations about topics too adult for little ears are the direct instructions we  are given as children.  How many of these sound familiar?  "You're not smart enough," "Our family doesn't believe that," "No one in our family goes to college," "All rich people are greedy," "all poor people are lazy'" "All the women in our family get cancer," "All the men in our family die of heart attacks in their 50's," "all the men in our family are lawyers," "You're too tall of a woman to get a man."  A short list of entries on  the "this is how we are so this is how you are" list. We listen and watch, we absorb the conversations adults are having around us to learn how to survive in the world and our place in it. Depending on our luck and temperament we live in a world of possibilities where we are loved and capable beings, or in a world of lack where we are victims of powerful forces that don't care for us. For the most part we are a collection of parts that believe many different things to be true about ourselves, some positive and some not so much.
     We all know stories of people who are really successful in one area of life, not so much in others.  Indeed, I'd wager most of us would see ourselves in that description.  A really great CEO, who can't control his eating.  A wonderful loving person who is constantly in debt.  A person who has no trouble earning lots of money, yet struggles to succeed in marriage after marriage.  It all comes back to the writing on the wall, the map the driver of the bus is following.
     All those stories and truths we heard and were told as children about who we are is the script we come back to repeatedly to build our world, and our place in it. To a large degree this also helps shape our bodies and our health. A lot of it is subconscious so we have no idea the influence it is having on us. But, there is a way to access it and re-write it.

Next time:  bringing it all together.
  

That Which Arises

     Over the last few months in classes and conversations with other bodyworkers a common theme has come forward several times. Trying to put a name to it, it might be called  "That Which Arises."  
     In bodywork we have deep tissue, in Chinese medicine there is sha, and in other modalities there is also a sense of bringing that which is deep up to the surface, up to conscious awareness.  In Deep Tissue massage the focus of the work is not really deep pressure but attention to a particular tissue in the body called fascia. Fascia in large part is responsible for our particular shape, our unique twists and curves. That shape is a result of our daily habits, and to a large degree our thoughts and feelings, mostly the subconscious ones.  One aspect of that shape is reachable by touching, but the mind and feelings may need a "deeper" tool.
     In the bodyworker's tool kit is the cup.  Familiar to those who visit a doctor trained in Chinese medicine, and now being more widely used by massage therapists as well, the cup creates a local vacuum on the skin which pulls  skin and underlying tissues up.  This does several beneficial things, among which is what one of my teachers described as "bringing up deep stagnation to the surface where the body can more easily disperse it."
     This idea or observation has itself arisen in many contexts recently. As bodyworkers we touch both the body and that which is in the body: the mind, the emotions, and the history of that person. What does "I don't deserve love" or "I'm a bad person" look like in the tissues?  It varies of course from person to person, but imagine how those statements feel, what would they look like after a lifetime of living and believing them? What would  "I am a great person" and  "I deserve all the love in the world"  look like.  You probably had a picture pop into your head, or perhaps a feeling, and you're probably right.  These are common paradigms we all are confronted with, that we embrace or flee,  both the good and the bad.
     Bodyworkers have  always known that memories can be triggered by massage and other modalities.  We are trained to stay by our clients side, and essentially make soothing sounds and "be" with the person, not trying to help in any way other than being present.  (What that really means is a bit fuzzy, but my profession has a certain comfort level with fuzzy.)  But the power of being in the presence of powerful emotions, and just "being" without an agenda can have quite a powerful positive effect.  
     Me, being who I am,  prefer to do.  Sometimes nothing is the right thing to "do."  But now we have EFT.  Using the power of tapping, now when long buried emotions and beliefs arise that are not helpful for who we want to be, we can disperse them from our body's energy system and be done with them. Beliefs  and feelings that kept us stagnant and stuck can now be freed and doing so now frees up energy, ease, mobility, breathing, or flexibility.
     My massage practice newsletter has always been called "Arising in Health"  and I like the name now more than ever.

namaste