Don’t Wait till it Hurts
Monday, December 21st, 2009 | Featured, Health, Massage | 3 Comments
I know better than most people how easy it is to put off receiving bodywork until my body hurts so bad I can’t move.
There’s a resistance most of us have in this society against taking care of ourselves.
We feel that we can solve our problems with our logic and intellect. Staying stuck in modes where thought is master and all our actions are based on what our minds want.
When in these “mind-modes” our body’s needs tend to be forgotten or at least
“tuned-out” in order to meet the needs of our minds.
Is there something wrong with this?
No and yes.
Your life is yours to live as you choose. My message is: usually when people start actually taking care of their body’s needs – they are dealing with damage that’s already been done, and pain becomes their motivation to heal.
There’s nothing “wrong” with this – unless you have a desire to live a better and more comfortable life.
Having a body that is pain-free only comes when you maintain your health in a way that addresses body tightness and structural misalignment before they turn into pain, injury or more debilitating maladies like fusions of joints or bone spurs.
Say you have a tight back. It feels tight and uncomfortable, but you keep working anyway. The tightness turns into pain once in a while. Then it gets more frequent. You keep working because you can “live with the pain” while working. You’ll find you can still work even though you’re in pain; it becomes habit. You keep working and pushing your pain aside, and think maybe you should get a massage but instead you think the money it takes to go to a good massage therapist isn’t worth it because you can still live and work relatively well through your daily pain. Years go by, and you’re doing little to nothing for your tight back and the pain that you have just gets a little worse everyday.
Then something happens.
You lift a heavy box and turn around to set it down and feel something “go out” in your back, or you slip and fall out of your chair while reaching for something at work. “All of a sudden” you have so much pain in your shoulder or low back that you can’t sit for more than 3 minutes without having distracting pain.
You finally decide to see someone about the pain because it’s so bad it’s got to be something serious. You get an x-ray that shows you have a slipped disk or fusion in your neck vertebrae.
Those types of serious spinal injuries happen due to “little accidents” or “slip-and-falls” (*note – this does not include injury from serious fall, crashes and extreme emergency life threatening situations) because your soft tissue was so tight. Your muscle tightness made your structure unstable. When an unstable, weak, misaligned and imbalanced body gets tipped, jostled or pushed into even a “small” accident – the likelihood of injury and chronic pain issues become huge.
Choosing to “live with” and ignore your pain will make it easier for you to get hurt in more painful and lasting ways.
As a health care practitioner, I meet many people who “live with their pain.” They argue for their ability to ignore their pain, saying things like “I don’t hurt that bad” “It’s just a little tight, I can still get by just fine” “I don’t have the time or money” “Massage is too expensive… and by the way you charge more than other massage practitioners so I can just go to Massage Envy and Pay forty bucks to get a massage, if I really needed it”
Not to bash my fellow heart-giving colleagues but employers like Massage Envy don’t pay their employee therapists nearly enough to care about your pain and injuries and be motivated to apply the effort and diligence it takes to truly address and correct their clients’ injuries and pain.
You can PREVENT injury with regular cheap massage.
But once you’re “feeling it” it’s too late. The damage has already been done.
For those pain and tightness patterns to be truly addressed – you need a therapist who has put their focus into really dedicating themselves to YOUR healing process.
Doing injury treatment work isn’t easy to give or receive and it’s not the kind of massage where the massage practitioner can just blissfully rub you and make you feel all warm and fuzzy the entire time.
Injury Treatment takes focus, study, practice and a shit-load of compassion to do it with skill or effectiveness.
You know why? Because people destroy themselves everyday. They hurt themselves. They do not see how they created their pain and injuries with their own choices and neglect.
A healer could really stand in judgment for the tragic results that neglect produces in their client’s bodies.
That’s one of the top reasons why the average career span for an LMP is about 2 years. (A few other top reasons: low cash-flow and injury while working.)
Most of the retired LMP’s I have met told me they couldn’t stand to see people destroy themselves anymore. They got to know what peoples’ lack of care for themselves looks, feels, smells and sounds like on an intimate level.
That’s pretty heavy shit, man!
Seriously. The ways people hurt really tugs at any healer’s heart. But even if someone is a so-called “accident prone person” we healers can clearly see what, in our clients, draws their injury.
I think a great healer recognizes the duality of all people wanting to both destroy and heal themselves and just loves people anyway. Let me say that again: we continue to love our clients anyway.
We see the organic naturalness of this consistent opposing dynamic between healing and destroying because all humans seem to have it in one form or another.
We can have compassion for our client’s situations without judgment. We can gently show them how to understand the ways they are hurting themselves, and kindly (sometimes sternly) how to reduce the “destroy-self” compulsions and increase the “heal-self” habits and motivations.
Really good healing work is often not particularly fun.
It makes sense why someone would avoid getting healing work because, on some level, they know it’s going to make them face their choices, selves and destructive habits and why they are in the place of being in pain.
Not to mention – purely on the mechanical level – injury treatment massage can hurt. Knots and tightness tend to hurt when they are massaged and released.
Seasoned receivers of massage will talk about “good-pain” that comes when tight muscles or “knots” get massaged into less painful or tense states.
So it’s your choice to live your life as you desire. I honor all paths whether they lead you to my door or not.
I trust that you know what’s best for you to have a life that fulfills you. And I’ll support your healing in whatever way I am allowed.
I am allowed to voice my opinions and give advice based on the interests of healing my clients and operating my business:
Please don’t wait.
Please get bodywork soon and choose to heal before it hurts and especially before the pain you have right now turns into something worse that may never heal to ideal standards again.
Do yourself a favor: Don’t ignore your body.
Spend the time, money, effort and attention it takes to live a better and more comfortable life. Think about doing it soon.
Your body is your vehicle.
Maintain your healthy body – and you’ll be able to live longer with less pain and more vibrancy and freedom.
Overeating is a habit overcome…
Friday, December 4th, 2009 | nutrition | No Comments
Overeating is a habit overcome best by awareness and discipline. I notice food stops tasting as good after my hunger is satisfied.
join me Thu Dec 3, 2009 at th…
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 | Business, networking | No Comments
join me Thu Dec 3, 2009 at this Biznik event Invite Someone Dangerous to Tea – http://bit.ly/4CCdxe
join me Tue Dec 1, 2009 at th…
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join me Tue Dec 1, 2009 at this Biznik event Sierra’s Salon – The Only Place to be On Capitol Hill – http://bit.ly/2rzjgr
Just remember to relax and tak…
Friday, November 27th, 2009 | health tips | No Comments
Just remember to relax and take deep breaths. Really deep breaths. A few of them. Right now, maybe.
*Stretching* is always a good …
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 | stretching | No Comments
*Stretching* is always a good idea… well unless you have an acute injury… then well – it’s STILL a good idea – just VEEeeeery gently
Niche Marketting – A Healer’s Best Friend and Greatest Challenge.
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 | Business, Featured, Massage, Seattle | 2 Comments
With a title like that I should write volumes.
Most healers and body-workers I have met through the years have hearts so big and generous – they want to give their healing skills to everyone.
They know they can benefit anyone they touch.
But what is best for my client? What does any perspective client REALLY need?
Some times it is clear: they want to heal their low back pain, for example.
Sometimes is is very unclear what needs to be healed. I find that most people, however – when they seek healing – will be often naturally guided to find the healing modality and practitioner(s) that will be of the HIGHEST GAIN to their healing paths.
Another way of saying this is: when you find the correct practitioner and modality FOR YOU – you will leap and bound into greater expressions of good health in a relatively short period of time with regular treatments or even just one treatment.
Good and lasting healing is often something of an investment in time and money.
Sometimes something like chronic low back pain takes a year or two of consistent injury treatment sessions to completely heal the pain so that it hardly comes back. (I ask you this: how long did it take for the pain to get there?… a lifetime, perhaps?)
The point of that ramble is: because clients often have specific needs – it would only make sense that practitioners of healing arts SPECIALIZE in one or two things – aka- they create a niche for themselves so that those searching clients find exactly what they are looking for in a healer.
I found out, years ago, that my passion for massage was invigorated by the assessing and treating of pain and injury in the groin and pelvic regions.
My motivation for improving my skills in treating the hip and groin made me feel “in” the “student mind.” Like being in massage school, I was so excited and fascinated to learn and practice bodywork.
Because of my personal interest in this aspect of massage, I have become adept at treating trauma, pain and injury in the groin, pelvis, low back and hips.
I helped heal physical trauma in the pelvic region, as well as the psychological, mental, and emotional trauma that is so often associated with the pelvic region.
To wrap this all up – it seems wise to choose your practitioner with care.
If you know what you need – find and go to a specialist.
If you know you want to improve the quality of your life and you know you need healing but you don’t know where to look: try energy healers, talking therapies, movement therapies, mystical therapies or things you would not have tried otherwise as well as socially accepted modalities.
Sometimes finding your perfect healing match is part of your healing path. Sometimes finding a practitioner who can help deeply heal you is like stepping out of your box and out of your comfort zone.
I would say too, that a healing practitioner – finding their niche can be a part of their healing path as well.
For my fellow practitioners: get specific, if you aren’t already.
We are not in competition. We are working together to save and improve the lives of the people on this planet.
Niche yourself!
A visionary is someone who tru…
Saturday, November 21st, 2009 | Craniosacral Therapy | No Comments
A visionary is someone who trusts what they perceive outside and what they sense inside, and values both equally. ~ Hugh Milne
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drink water!
Friday, November 13th, 2009 | Health, health tips, nutrition, Uncategorized | No Comments
drink water!
