Thursday, October 23, 2014

My Lessons When Someone Else Bares It All

When I'm away from massage on my few days off I feel a little strange coming back into it. Touching mostly nude people with MY hands. These hands that use to type 30 plus emails a day and answer phones at my old job now know something more therapeutic. I have to reassure myself this is happening and I know what to do. I can help melt knots and tight muscles, aide in a person's health and healing if they allow it.

With this job I have to deal with many personality types, like in life, but here I have learned to put up my protective shield to stop the unwanted energy/responsibility. I had one client who complained of a constant headache from a bad eye surgery. The first half we were talking about many ways she had tried to fix the pain but with no relief and how no doctor wanted to get involved. I found myself feeling ill with empathy from her dead end situation. I needed to put up the wall and do my work. I just tried to use the information to lead my hands. I felt relief when I let myself be o.k. with no responsibility to fix her but I did offer her some avenues for her journey.

In this business I could take a class on techniques every week for five years and still have not learned everything. I am an infant in massage. That's why now when I get a client who is picky, angry, or judgmental I handle it better than I did in the past. I used to battle intimidation by these types but in massage I'm more relaxed. I'm aware that I can't be anything other than who I currently am. I offer good intention and all the tools that I have. One can choose to receive that or not I can only do my part. One client told me at the end of a massage that it was "beautiful...like a blessing". That made me so happy because she received my message/massage :).

Therapists can take it personally when a client doesn't relax. I am getting great at separating someone else's STUFF from mine. I had a client whom I could tell was very protective and untrusting when she would scarcely fill out the intake form. On the table she was stiff and kept her bra on, her arms clutched under her chest, her eyes open, she wouldn't use the headrest and she had her phone with her on the table like a Teddy Bear. She lay on the table contorted. This was a massage I was tempted to stop because I felt like we were wasting our time. She was not even relaxing so what was the point. But I kept on and told myself, "this is her massage it's not about me". I figured out her fear came in with her as we just met. It's never from me. I wondered what experiences she might have had that made her so uncomfortable. When I lifted the sheet to massage her leg her purse lay there under the sheet with her. I had to laugh to myself. I began to empathize and figured this was probably a big step in trust for her so I was glad to be a part of it. She was finicky during the massage; don't touch this or that and can you put the lotion on this way. I obliged her requests because I felt like she wanted me to give up on her. She really put up a fight when someone was being nice to her and I doubt many people had stuck it out with her. She even said the massage was good when we ended. Wow, you just never know what someone has been through!

Peace!

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