Mind Switch

The oncology massage portion of my business has been picking up lately, which is wonderful.  I have spent many busy days feeling so deeply in my element that I forget what it feels like to doubt my skill.  Right place, right time, all the time.  Life is beautiful.

Last week, though, I got a little kick in the massage pants.  It was a quiet day, with two clients.  the first, straightforward manual lymphatic drainage to deal with complications from cancer treatment.  The second, a new client.  An athlete who came to me via a referral from a current client.  The first session was gentle, quiet and rhythmic.  There was snoring,  snd a report of reduced pain and swelling.

When my second client arrived, I was briefly thrown by her health history form.  No illnesses, chronic or past, no medications, no accidents, no surgeries.  I got a little tongue-tied.  What information do I need from this person?  I jump started with the question I used to make all my students ask ("What are you hoping for from your massage today?") and eventually got rolling.  Then, just before I stepped out to let her get on the table, she threw me again.  "I like pressure," she said.  "It's okay with me if it hurts a little." I gave her my standard response ("If you are holding your breath or tensing, the pressure is not therapeutic.")  She nodded doubtfully.

Her massage was an exercise in digging deep for my shelved sports massage skills and attentively monitoring any changes in breathing or body position.  I felt muscle tension in the places where I expected it, and, novel experience for me, I worked with it until the muscles released.

In short, I enjoyed the work.

It was a colossal mind switch for me.  Not only to switch from the gentle mindfulness of an oncology session to the more clinical mindfulness of a sports-based session, but also the realization that I kind of like the clinical work.  I know I don't want to do it all the time, or even half the time, but these little clinical breaks might be good for keeping me engaged with my career.

My heart and my best work is still with oncology massage, but it is nice to be reminded that my particular art of massage can take other forms, all of them effective.

Let It Go

I said to my family member: "You don't have to hold on to all the things."  I heard the echo in my own ears and, to be honest, it sounded just like irony.  I am getting better and better at the idea of letting go, but I still don't excel at it.  It's a practice, after all.

This week, I let go of something that I had held on to for just that little bit too long -- my teaching job.  For a little over 2 years, I taught in the general massage therapy program of the school where i learned massage.  Even though it was clear almost immediately that it was not the same school in philosophy, attitude, or almost anything I recalled, I hung on because I loved it.  I loved the teaching and the students.  I loved it so much I wrote about it, a lot.  I loved it so much that I stayed, even when going to the school made me physically ill, and I could watch myself being a straight-up jerk to my boss.

But I could keep it all together in class.  I could bring my best self for the students. That's what it was all about anyway.  Sure I could.  Until I couldn't.  This last term, every day was a struggle against entropy.  It took all my energy just to hold it together for the 4 hours I was in the classroom.  By the end, I stopped trying to engage students who were slipping away and managed to give just enough to keep the rest of the class afloat.

This was my last week of teaching at that school.  I got a colleague to cover my final class so I could sneak out quietly, avoiding the need to think too much about the finality of it. I wrote "So long, and thanks for all the fish" on the board and snuck out while everyone else was teaching.

I say I'll never go back there to teach, that my teaching outlet is now focused on Oncology Massage and other Continuing Education classes, but I can't be sure.  I can't be sure that I have really let it go.  For now, though, I feel like it's right to be away.  There is a space opening up for all the other things I want to do, and I am gathering the courage to trust fall into that space.

I can't fall, though, until I let it go.

Bearing Witness

I have a new client*.  She fills out her health history form with abundant detail, and takes me through it step by step, anticipating every question I have or clarification I need.  She walks me through her entire cancer journey, over 15 years in the making, procedure by procedure, chemo by chemo.  She often accompanies her narrative with information about her mental state at that time, or how that time impacts her current mental state.

"Just naming," she says.  Or -- "Just so you are aware."

A while back, I had some news that was difficult for me to handle, but which I felt should not be shared with my whole support network.  I chose one person to tell, and when I went through the whole thing I told her, "I just needed one other person to know what is going on."

These two stories live together in my mind because for me they illustrate an important part of my job as a massage therapist.  The bearing witness.  Just being the person who hears a voice and says, "Yes.  I heard."  Just being the person who sees a face wince and says, "Yes.  I see that your pain is real."  The simple of act of allowing another human being to name, describe and acknowledge their experience with no fear of judgement or contradiction -- this is a powerful part of what we all do.

I looked up the definition of "to bear witness to" and found this:

"to show by your existence that something is true"  

This, for me, is the heart and soul of both of these stories.  By listening while someone speaks and names whatever pain or challenge they have faced, we show that it is true.  Let us never forget,  even with all of our training and all of our knowledge, our clients are still the authors of what is true in and for their bodies.  Let us remember to always bear witness.

*-- any identifying details have been changed

Reschedule

Monday morning I found myself with a lot of time on my hands.  The combination of early spring snow, public transportation, and recent cancer treatment led all my morning clients to reschedule.  I gathered my things to go into the office anyway -- it seemed like the perfect time to get some paperwork done.  I just couldn't make myself get out the door, though.

Do you know those times when the couch feels absolutely magnetic?  When putting on a coat and striding purposefully through the door feels like climbing out of a well with no rope?  This was one of those times.

As someone who has been at this massage thing for longer than five years, I am acutely aware of the symptoms of burn out.  I counsel my students about it, and I schedule regular days off to keep myself away from it.  But I'm not perfect, and I started to worry -- is this burn out?  Is this it, the beginning of the end of my career in this field?  It felt so much heavier than other days when I've been tired, or have chosen to do something besides paperwork.

I got a little bit panicked, and tried even harder to will myself up back up from my chair and out the door -- which only made me get more stuck.  So I paused for a minute and decided to re-view the whole thing.  Because that was not the beginning of the end, it was merely a little breathing space cleared out for me by circumstances and seized by that subconscious part of me that always knows better.

Like my clients, I took the opportunity to reschedule.  I spent the morning productively, but in a different part of my life.  By the time I met with my afternoon client, all thoughts of burn out were gone.  Just another moment to remind me -- sometimes you just need to reschedule.

Masajear la Cabeza

Another client story:

Deirdre* is young.  Barely out of childhood young.  She has a rare cancer, which, in her body, showed up in an even rarer form. This massage appointment is a gift from people who can't stop telling me how rare and remarkable she is.  She greats me at the door with a knit cap on her bald head, tape over her port, and the biggest, most open smile I have ever seen.  She hands me her completed intake form -- she is so close to school that she turns it in and asks for feedback as if it were something I was going to grade.

Deirdre tells me the story of her cancer so far.  Diagnosis received while out of town for vacation ("I thought I felt sick because of all the partying I was doing.") Confirmation that her cancer was a very rare presentation ("I guess I'm rare and special.") Description of how debilitating her first round of chemo was ("I was completely out of it, and it was my birthday.  But if I wasn't in the hospital, I would have gotten wasted on my birthday anyway, so it's alright.") She tells me this story with her big, open, gorgeous smile.  She apologizes for how much she sweats as a side effect of her treatment.
I talk to her about oncology massage, and I ask her if she wants me to massage her scalp.

She puts her hand to her knit cap.  "My scalp?  You can massage my scalp?"  I nod.  I didn't think it possible -- but her smile gets bigger as she pulls off her knit cap.  "I never thought I could have a scalp massage."

She settles into a comfortable position for the massage.  Deirdre's mother comes into the room and folds blankets around her.  Deirdre smiles at her mother and tells her, in the language they share, that she is going to have her head massaged.

Deirdre keeps her eyes open at first, taking mental notes like the good student she so recently was.  As soon as I cradle her head in my hands, though, she closes her eyes and breathes.  Her hand rests gently over her tumor site.  Without her knit cap, bald head exposed,  Deidre's features emerge in stark, gentle purity.  Her head radiates heat into my hands as I hold it.  

I try to be neutral about my clients' prognoses.  They are with me to experience what it feels like to have a comfortable present.  That respite, that moment out of time, is my honor to provide.  Deirdre, though, with her face too young for lines and smile too open for tragedy -- she makes me hope.  Maybe, just this one time, a rare and difficult cancer could end in a rare and special cure.


*--name and identifying details have been changed

Sweetness in the Belly

I started this blog because so many lovely and amazing things happened with my clients that I found myself just wanting to tell stories whenever I got together with friends.  And also because some of those things were very emotional, and writing has always been a place where I could untangle emotional things.  I had a couple of new client experiences recently that are making me glad I started this blog.

This one came out in the form of my first writing love, poetry:

I kneel at her side, my two hands cradling her one,

catch sight of the book on her nightstand —

Sweetness in the Belly —

a bookmark tucked about 100 pages in.

Pages left unread that her eyes will never see.

I’ve seen skin like this before.  

Papery, tinged with yellow, fading bruises in a path from foot to head.

I’ve seen eyes like this before.

Sunken back into dark sockets, withdrawn and piercing in their largeness,

no eyelashes soften the steady gaze.

Animals know.  

The dog curled at her head, still as breath,

looks up and right at me.  

He dips his head, raises it, settles back to sleep —

This is good.  What I am doing is good.  

Her almost-adult daughter plays with attitudes.

Looks over my head —“Does the massage therapist know not to go in there yet?”  

Avoids eye contact, moves like she’s wearing a chain maille helmet.  

Later I hear her voice, muffled, to her father:

“I can’t do this.  I can’t put up with this any more.”

Her husband rides up in the elevator with me.  

“She’s not exactly, you know, compos mentis right now.”

He takes another asthmatic breath.

“We are nearing the end of the road, you see.”  

Yes.  I do.  

Between a Smoke Shop and a Cemetery

This was the location of the wellness center where we were teaching the oncology massage workshop -- smack dab between a smoke shop and a cemetery.  The business itself was impressive -- a well-organized staff, therapists always busy, a personal trainer and chiropractor both seeing clients in fully-equipped spaces.  All this built and managed by a powerhouse of a woman.  I was impressed and inspired and I told her so.

My co-teacher and I looked forward to three days of open exchanges and a great workshop experience that only happens when the participants are already comfortable with each other.  Within the first hour, though, it was clear that this would be different.  Every time we asked a question, everyone in the room looked at the owner before they answered.  On every break, the owner spent time shifting and arranging the room, or telling her therapists about tasks they needed to do once the workshop was over.

My co-teacher and I knew -- what we had here was the biggest control lover we had ever seen.  And she had assembled a staff who mostly thought, worked and acted just as she wanted them to.  Usually, when we teach this workshop, there is a moment of pure sweetness or deep understanding for most students.  There are times when the whole room swells with compassion and kindness so palpable it feels like a  warm hand on your shoulder.  We kept waiting for, hoping for, trying to create those moments -- but they never happened.  Not even close.

The driving emotion for the therapists in the room was caution.  How do we limit our liability?  How do we make sure no one sues us?  And, unspoken but there, how do we not piss off the owner who is sitting in class watching us like a hawk?

We gave all the energy we had, but not more than we could spare, to that room.  We left hoping for the best, trying to focus on the heartfelt thank you letter we received from one of the volunteer clients.  (I found it very telling that the letter was slipped into my hand at a moment when no one else could see it happening.)  We shrugged our shoulders and said, "Well, I hope some of that sank in."

On the drive home, a colleague sent me a text message to ask how it went.  This was my response:  "We showed that video that makes everyone cry.  Nobody cried."

This remains one of my most unsatisfying teaching experiences.  I don't think it's necessary for someone to cry to demonstrate compassion, but I do think it is necessary to step out from behind caution, control, and the need to be in charge and expose just a little of your vulnerable, beating heart.  Sometimes life puts you in a hard place -- between a smoke shop and a cemetery in a gray midwestern town -- and the only thing that keeps you going is just a touch of softness.