Well. That was Average.

I have certain expectations about this Population Spectrum class I teach.  I expect that some people will be frustrated and bored by the lack of "real massage."  I expect that multiple people will need to leave in the middle of the lecture on Trauma.  I expect that I will be frustrated that I don't have enough time for the lecture on Cancer.  Most of all, though, I expect to be surprised and impressed by the presentations of their final project.  

They are required to find a client who has some kind of unique challenge or massage-related need, to work with that client for five sessions, and to write a paper about the experience.  Every time I have taught this class, I have been impressed by the insight people show in their presentations, and about the thought they put into their work.  This term, I am teaching two sections of this class, so this week, when their presentations are due, I was looking forward to a boost from their work.  

The first group presented a couple of days ago.  It's not that they did a bad job, because they didn't.  And it's not that they didn't change and grow from the experience, because they did.  At least some of them did.  It's just that their talks were so, well, unsurprising.  I feel like a jerk for thinking this, and an even bigger jerk for writing it down, but I am truly baffled.  This is a group that has the whole formula for surprising work.  They are a close-knit group, serious about and excited by massage therapy.  They listen well and ask challenging questions.  

I suppose I shouldn't be baffled.  In all the "schooly" work they have done (written tests and the like,) they have been pretty lackluster.  Where they come alive is when they get to do hands-on work.  I have never seen a class, especially a night class, so ready and eager to do hands-on work.  Even when they walk into class looking like they can barely stand, as soon as we set up massage tables, they come alive.  

So, it seems, my expectations are based on a flawed understanding of this group of students.  I am failing to truly see and appreciate where they excel.  I am judging them based on past classes who have been inspired with this particular project.  Tonight, I am their instructor for a different class, where they have a practical exam -- hands-on work.  I am prepared for them to come alive and blow me away.

Creatives

This morning I had coffee with the Cabal.  For years, I have teased my friend about the regular group of artists, writers, weavers and other creative types which meets at the coffee shop down the street.  They are forever planning salons, gatherings, and movie discussion nights.  They have deep roots in our local community, and they are creatures of habit --at least when it comes to morning caffeine delivery.  Truth be told, I was always a little envious of this group, and wondered if I had the creative chops to ever join them.

Today, I did.  They were the warmest, most intelligent group of people I've ever shared an early morning with.  Briefly, we talked about my upcoming reading at one of their salons.  It was so friendly, I didn't think to feel inadequate.   After they all left to go to work, I had a bit of time, so I stuck around to do some writing.  In college, I thought that this would be my life.  Meeting bright, interesting  people for coffee, planning readings, writing writing writing.

By the time I got to school, I felt restless. It's the end of term, and the students demand attention, calm, and patience.  So much patience.  But my morning with the creatives opened up the gap between Have and Want, so I found it hard to focus on their needs.  I hope I was kind and thorough, and I hope I kept my resentments for when I was alone in the faculty lounge, entering their test scores into the computer.

I love my work.  Truly, I do.  The problem is it often consumes so much of my energy that I have nothing left to feed myself.   So, I fill myself with junk, literally and metaphorically.  These potato chips are not fueling my body for a long day ahead, and yet another game of Moxie on my phone is not fueling my mind for calm awareness.

I asked a student today what she was doing for self-care to handle an emotionally difficult time.  It is time, once again, to turn that question on myself.  Luckily, I learned this morning that I have the creative resources to figure it out.

Finding It, Losing It, Found.

About a week ago, I got back from a retreat in Costa Rica.  It was life-changing, as these things often are.  I gained valuable personal insight and all that jazz. (If you want to read about it, check out my other blog.)

I worried a bit about keeping the peace alive when I got back here to yet another polar vortex, an inch-thick stack of student papers and a worryingly empty book at my practice.  For a day or two. I had it all in hand. I meditated in my living room in the morning.  I approached my classes with retreat-learned lessons from The Little Book of Talent.  I even gave an earnest speech in my anatomy class about the beauty in variations of every human body, and how you should never apologize for your body.  I was new, fearless, calm.

Then, life.  Snarled traffic that made me late to class.  The still-empty book.  Three no-shows in one week.   The protective calm layer froze away, and I was left raw, once again holding up my outward calm with inward trembling.

Today,  though, I tutored L.  L. failed her muscular anatomy test (one of the papers in that inch-high stack.) Her face showed disappointment, but with an outward calm I could see was supported by inward trembling.  We broke down the spots that tripped her up.   The difference between bilateral and unilateral actions.  How to tell which attachment is the origin and which is the insertion. What the heck the levator scapula does, other than elevate the scapula.  For over an hour, she focused intently on my questions and explanations.  Answers came slowly at first, with hesitation, but she soon got more confident, and came up with a plan to study more at home.

Then, L. just started talking to me.  She told me about how she felt embarrassed to ask questions sometimes, because other people might think she was stupid.  She talked about watching her classmates get tests back with A's while she would get an F.  She talked about wanting this, knowing that she was meant to do this work, and she would do all the work it took to get there.

Somehow, through the force of her trust and determination,  it all came back.  The calm, new, fearless person I found on retreat.  The person who knew - no, LIVED - what was important.  I felt that person drape over me, and I settled into the warmth. I found the fearless place in my heart that got opened up, and I tried to guide L. to that place on her own heart.  I saw a glimmer of it, and I trust that L. will protect that glimmer.  She gave me a hug before she left, and smiled with something like joy.

And I took my new self into the world,  ready to try again.

Palimpsest

Every Tuesday evening, I work at a nursing home.  My room is just down the hall from the chapel, with a beautiful grand piano.  Most of the time, the automatic player function on the piano is on, and I catch snatches of "Sunrise, Sunset" as I walk down the hall.

Around 5pm, though, a woman in her 60s wheels her mother into the chapel, turns off the automatic player, and sits down at the piano.  She asks, "What do want to hear, mom?" Her mother responds, "Just play."

For the next hour or so, the woman sits at the piano, playing through hymns and simple classical pieces.  She has perfect posture, and she sometimes squints a little at her hands.  Her mother sits quietly in the wheelchair, positioned at the side of the piano bench.  At some point, the mother nods off a little, while the daughter continues to play.

When I see them, I can almost see their younger selves just underneath, like a palimpsest. There is the little girl, legs not long enough to reach the pedals, struggling through her first scales.  There is the young mother, sitting next to her daughter on the piano bench, patiently encouraging and teaching.  The young mother has perfect posture, and she sometimes squints a little at her daughter's hands.

I have this habit I picked up from my mother: when I am with a good friend or close family member, I find myself looking at them with focused attention.  It can be disconcerting, as it seems like I'm staring.  What I'm doing, though, and what I think my mother is doing, is looking for the palimpsest.  If I focus enough, I can start to see the layers of younger selves, different lives, years lived.  This reminds me that a person carries with them all that they were and all that they are.  

As the grown daughter continues to play for her elderly mother, my last client of the night arrives.  She moves with a shuffling, Parkinson's gait.  Her speech is slow and stilted.  She requires help to lie down on the table.  But as I look at her, I see the artist she was, the young woman with an unusual independent streak, the compassionate free spirit raising a daughter on music, art and books.  She is all these things, and it is a joy to see.

Two Words

There's this photo-quote going around Facebook which asks what advice you might give your younger self, in just two words.  I usually take a look at these little micro self-help bits, think about it for a minute and move on.  This one caught my eye, though, and I decided to share it along with my own two words.  Exercises like this force us to distill the random jumble of our thoughts to their shining, diamond essence.  We can extract what is truly precious and valuable and leave the rest behind.  Here are my diamonds:

Say yes.

For as long as I can remember, my first response to most things is "No." This changes over time, of course, but almost everything has to pass through this negative space first.  This is why 12 years passed between my first interest in massage therapy and my finally going to school for it.  Everything that has happened in my massage career shows me that this is my happy place, that I belong here.  My only regret about this career is (and will always be) those 12 years.  

Believe it.

Sometimes people say nice things to me, or write nice things on evaluations.  Sometimes I believe these things, but not always.  I am wasting time waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I don't think striving to improve always is a problem, but when I am giving someone a massage and thinking more about what I am lacking than what I am doing, I am not giving my best work.  I tell my students, "Be confident in what say, even if what you say is 'I don't know.'"  Like most advice we give out, I follow this sometimes.  When I teach, I take time to coach people on grounding themselves, bringing focus to their client and what that client needs today.  I need to add in focus on the therapist knowing and believing in their own skills.  If we know and believe our skills, we can apply them more effectively, and know better when something is beyond our scope of practice.  

What are your two words? 

Evaluated

Yesterday I got my course evaluations from last term.  They came bundled together in four neatly stapled stacks, one for each course.  Even though the Education Director told me they were "lovely," I was apprehensive as I started to read them.  It was a fragile week, with my tutoring hours being cut and the true realization that I needed to do something to build my practice, or face difficult financial decisions.  I didn't trust the positive feedback.  Long habits of waiting for the bite after the compliment die hard.

As I read through page after page of comments, I realized that no bite was coming.  The worst I could expect was a push -- a loving push in the direction of being a better instructor.  I laughed out loud often, and found myself touching my heart to say "thank you," as I do often in class.  Each neatly stapled stack had its own personality.  I could which class it was without looking at the labels on the forms.

My girls, who I've written about before, used words like "compassion" and "caring" and "patient." I read in their comments references to our heart to heart talk.  I saw that their experience of that day was exactly what I hoped.

For two classes, I had the same group.  A lively, funny, almost ideal community who embraced the whole shared experience part of massage school.  Their comments were hilarious.  They referenced some of the my quirks and invented rituals -- like the Story Time Chair (for sharing my experiences) and Massage Therapy Theatre (not role play.  Because we're classy.)

The largest group was also my biggest challenge.  They were young and rowdy, unused to self-discipline.  I ran a tight ship in that class, too tight even for me at times.  Many of their comments showed that they liked the strict discipline.  My favorite was the student who wrote that the favorite thing about me as an instructor was my "bossiness."

After I read through all of them, I went to teach that night's Ethics class.  A new group for me.  I hadn't met any of the students before the term started a couple weeks ago.  I am still learning how to work best with them.  Teaching them that night felt like walking through mud pits.  Just one more step.  Then one more.  Somehow we would get through.  And we did -- barely.  I walked to my train in the bitter cold, exhausted from a roller coaster day.  I had a stack of lovely comments from former students back at work, but I knew my focus should be forward, with this new group who still aren't sure what they think of me.  We have things to learn and material to cover.  Now, the evaluations go back in a drawer for a quieter day.

His Eye is on the Sparrow

The Ethics class I teach involves a project and a final presentation.  It seems easy enough -- the students just have to stand us and tell us about how they took care of themselves this term.  My last group made it even easier on each other by being one of the most supportive and cohesive classes I've had in a while.

Their presentations were on the last night of the term, five days before Christmas.  The feeling in the room was anxious, leaning forward into their much-needed break.  One by one, they got up and told us about their self care.  They were funny, sincere, engaging and touching.  I was leaning forward into my upcoming time off, too, so I struggled to stay with them.  They brought me back again and again -- the student who praise danced for us, the one who showed us how she wraps her hair at night, the one who made us all do jumping jacks, the one who broke down telling us about her abusive relationships and ended her presentation in a hug-pile with her classmates.

The last student got up, speaking softly but clearly as she always did.  She kept her eyes to the floor and told us she was inspired by everyone.  She had changed her mind while watching everyone else, and decided she wanted to sing for us -- a song she would sing to herself to lift her spirits.  As I looked around, I could see my feelings reflected on the students' faces.  This is so brave, such a gift.  What do we do if she can't carry a tune?

Still looking at the floor, the last student started singing "His Eye is on the Sparrow."  Her voice was clear, strong -- it felt like someone you love singing you the perfect lullaby.  We sat silent as her voice grew stronger, as she closed her eyes and lifted her face.  We leaned forward. We were still.  I saw tears in some eyes.  With her face lifted and her eyes closed, she sang us through to the end of the song.  We exhaled, then stood and applauded her as she smiled and sat down, once again looking at the floor.

I wonder if she knows what she gave everyone.  She gave her class a memory to hold them together.  I am certain that for a long time, whenever they meet, one of them will only have to say, "Re,beer that time she sang?" and they will once again be connected, part of a loving community.