What Happens When We Receive A Massage?
A description of the possible benefits of receiving massage can be found in any good book on the subject. This would probably mention benefits to the lymphatic system and the circulation of blood, improved digestion and elimination, hormone secretion and joint function. You may also find references to feelings of wellbeing, self-esteem and an ability to cope with stress more efficiently and to experience it less often. All of these are natural and secondary.
In the 13 years that I have been providing massage I have observed another benefit, the one that I consider to be the most important. I like to describe it as a process of integration.
Many of us come to the Holistic Health Practitioner or to the massage table with varying degrees of a lack of this process of integration. Many of us are actually living a daily process of dissociation and disintegration where we learn to “grin and bear it” and that “no pain, no gain”.
Sometimes we need help and we quickly find tools to help us. We learn how nice and easy it is to grin after a drink or two, or after indulging in other guilty pleasures. When it is not alcohol, it is our prescription meds for this and that, or we might self-medicate with dessert, or a good run or a nice smoke, or maybe even sex or aspirin. Anything that will help us to connect with something other than what we are trying to grin and bear at.
We learn how to stay medicated so efficiently that we cannot only ‘grin’ at, we can also ‘bear’ our lives. We have learned to keep our emotions in check, keep our opinions to ourselves, learned to do it and like it, and keep it all inside: if it doesn’t kill us, it will make us stronger. Right? The more we keep inside, the heavier the load we have to bear, and the more tired we become, and the more we hurt from the weight, and the more tings we have to grin and bear at, and the more meds we need and the more side effects.
By the time we come to massage table we don’t even know what hurts. It is common at the beginning of the Client Therapist relationship for many clients to indicate that they have no pain before their first massage. After that first massage that same client will proceed to tell the therapist about all the areas that don’t hurt now or that hurt less. Remember that they had no pain to begin with, so how can there be less pain now? Another common scenario is for the client not to be able to describe their discomfort or pain. When asked if what they feel is a burning, stabbing or numbing sensation they cannot tell. It can also be challenging to tell if the discomfort is in the lower, upper, front or back of the body, and whether it is felt at certain times of the day and not others, or if and when the sensation changes.
One of the many things that I love about doing massage is to see how these same clients change after several sessions. Clients develop the ability to tell us more as they integrate more.
There are parts of our bodies that we will never be able to see in three dimensions. We will never be able to see our face in three dimensions. Nor will we ever be able to see, in a three dimensional context, our back, the back of our head, our ears, or our eyes. These parts of our bodies may become disconnected and dissociated. This may lead to a belief that what happens in one part of our bodies has nothing to do with what happens in another since the parts are not connected.
Since I cannot connect these seemingly different parts to each other, I also cannot connect seemingly different parts of my life to each other. I may not be able to connect the burning in my stomach to the cup of coffee I have had EVERY morning on an EMPTY stomach instead of breakfast for the past several years.
Although I may connect the cup of coffee to what I believe to be regular bowel movements, I may not connect my need for the cup of coffee to keep me regular, with my habit of eating on the run, not chewing my food efficiently, pushing my food down with a gulp of ice water and the burning sensation behind my shoulder.
Massage has the potential to lessen the discomfort on the shoulder, however, as long as I continue to eat on the run I will also continue to swallow my food without chewing, I will be constipated, I will need the cup of coffee to keep me regular, the burning in my stomach will keep getting worse and the burning at the back of my shoulder will come back.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
The First Touch
There are people in the world that have had some form of massage every day of their lives. The day they were born, their first contact with mom was a warm loving soothing massage from her. From then on they receive a massage every day. As the baby grows and starts to move, its first movements are during a massage and what develops is a natural process as the baby starts to massage mom.
There are people in the world that will die without ever having had any form of massage. Without ever having had a loving touch. Some of these people have only known abusive touch, or disciplinary touch. Some have only known minimal touch. Some have known empty touch only, the kind that says one thing but the feelings behind that touch say something else. Remember that handshake or that hug that felt ‘empty’?
The word “Massage” is different in many cultures and it seems to imply something similar in most of them. In Spanish we have a word: apapachar. This word is used to describe a tender, loving, cuddling touch as in a loving hug from a mother to her child. Apapachar can also be used to describe a lover’s embrace. In this case the lover’s embrace reminds one of being held in the safe and loving arms of our mother as a child, maybe even the feeling of being in the womb.
According to some sources, ‘apapachar’ is derived from the Nahuatl ‘apapachtli’ meaning someone who touches with the intention and in such a way as to alleviate pain and discomfort, to touch someone consciously and therapeutically. According to these sources, ‘apapachtli’ was the nahuatl word for ‘massage therapist’ and from this we have the word apapachar.
Every time you cuddle up with someone, or embrace or shake hands and you feel that special feeling of comfort and connection you are experiencing the magick of apapacar. Maybe you know how nice it feels to get a really good hug, and also how it feels to receive an empty or fake hug. Maybe you also know how to give these and to whom. What is the difference between these two? The difference is in how you feel after.
Do you hug everyone, or no one? Do you hug some people and not others? Do you hug some one to let them know everything is O.K., or have you ever withheld a hug to show how upset you were?
One of my teachers told me that a Chinese language term popularly translated as ‘massage’ is more accurately taken to mean ‘to touch consciously, with intention and attention, to touch in a knowing way’.
When you look within yourself, you may find that every type of touch you have ever received left an impression in the fabric of your consciousness and in your life. It is like looking back and seeing the footprints in the sand. Some of the impressions are smooth and soft while others are deep and rough, and still others you may not even be aware of.
Massage, conscious touch, therapeutic touch…its all the same. It is touching someone in a way that feels good. And when it is done correctly it feels so good, to both the giver and the receiver that you don’t want it to end.
There are people in the world that have had some form of massage every day of their lives. The day they were born, their first contact with mom was a warm loving soothing massage from her. From then on they receive a massage every day. As the baby grows and starts to move, its first movements are during a massage and what develops is a natural process as the baby starts to massage mom.
There are people in the world that will die without ever having had any form of massage. Without ever having had a loving touch. Some of these people have only known abusive touch, or disciplinary touch. Some have only known minimal touch. Some have known empty touch only, the kind that says one thing but the feelings behind that touch say something else. Remember that handshake or that hug that felt ‘empty’?
The word “Massage” is different in many cultures and it seems to imply something similar in most of them. In Spanish we have a word: apapachar. This word is used to describe a tender, loving, cuddling touch as in a loving hug from a mother to her child. Apapachar can also be used to describe a lover’s embrace. In this case the lover’s embrace reminds one of being held in the safe and loving arms of our mother as a child, maybe even the feeling of being in the womb.
According to some sources, ‘apapachar’ is derived from the Nahuatl ‘apapachtli’ meaning someone who touches with the intention and in such a way as to alleviate pain and discomfort, to touch someone consciously and therapeutically. According to these sources, ‘apapachtli’ was the nahuatl word for ‘massage therapist’ and from this we have the word apapachar.
Every time you cuddle up with someone, or embrace or shake hands and you feel that special feeling of comfort and connection you are experiencing the magick of apapacar. Maybe you know how nice it feels to get a really good hug, and also how it feels to receive an empty or fake hug. Maybe you also know how to give these and to whom. What is the difference between these two? The difference is in how you feel after.
Do you hug everyone, or no one? Do you hug some people and not others? Do you hug some one to let them know everything is O.K., or have you ever withheld a hug to show how upset you were?
One of my teachers told me that a Chinese language term popularly translated as ‘massage’ is more accurately taken to mean ‘to touch consciously, with intention and attention, to touch in a knowing way’.
When you look within yourself, you may find that every type of touch you have ever received left an impression in the fabric of your consciousness and in your life. It is like looking back and seeing the footprints in the sand. Some of the impressions are smooth and soft while others are deep and rough, and still others you may not even be aware of.
Massage, conscious touch, therapeutic touch…its all the same. It is touching someone in a way that feels good. And when it is done correctly it feels so good, to both the giver and the receiver that you don’t want it to end.
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