Things She Wants

My new client, Ada*, was in the earliest stages of a degenerative illness which affected her short term memory and her ability to make decisions.  She moved just fine and had no physical symptoms other than what was normal for a woman of her age.  I met Ada as she was walking down the hallway and introduced myself.  I suggested we go into her room, and she squinted briefly -- "Where is that?" -- but relaxed when I showed her a doorway with her picture posted next to it.  

We walked into the room, and she wondered aloud where I wanted her to be for the massage.  I pointed to the closest of two beds.  Ada shook her head and said, "Oh honey.  That's not my bed.  I'm not going to get into someone else's bed . . . unless Brad Pitt is in there."  

We laughed together as I helped her to her actual bed, apologizing for the lack of Brad Pitt contained within.  I thought this was going to be fun -- like my other client who had to give up cigarettes, booze and sex.  

The thing about short term memory loss, though, is that each thought that comes across the mind has to be dealt with, immediately.  Shutting off the mind for deep relaxation requires concentration and focus.  At her current stage in the illness, she had neither of these things.  A devilish grin over her joke, quickly turned to skittish anxiety when she wondered how long she would be staying "in here."  Then that morphed into tear-streaked sadness at her lack of family and friends who could take her in.  In short, she was all over the place, and I couldn't redirect her for more than a few seconds at a time.  

I left her in the care of one of the life enrichment staff -- a gentle, patient woman who walked her down the hall towards a resident social hour.  Myself, I left feeling defeated.  I used to think it was my gift to be able to adapt to people as they are, to sit in their space and bring quiet to them.  I couldn't do it with her.  I fell for the easy, funny moment and forgot to look just underneath at all of her humanity.

*--name and identifying details have been changed

Butterflies, Google, Music and More

I have been thinking a lot about the things that draw clients back to me.  More and more, I am seeing the importance of the things that are not the actual massage.  Here are a few things that have come up lately:

Sheet Handling

A client said to me: "I feel so cared for.  And when you are moving the sheets, it feels like a team of soft butterflies working together.  Other massage therapists do all this pulling and tugging."  She comes back to me because, among other things, she feels like the draping is just as relaxing as the massage.

Internet Presence

A new client said: "I Googled your name and everything.  I know you used to work in senior care, and you started this career later in life.  I saw the YouTube video about oncology massage so I felt comfortable that you would know what you were doing."  She went on to apologize for "stalking" me before the appointment.  I assured her it wasn't stalking, it was smart research.  And I was glad that what she found created a sense of comfort.

Just Being Around

Another new client: "I have meetings close to here every week, so I can just come in for a massage right after." I am in the office when she has time.  It's that simple.

Amenities and Equipment

"Your table heater is always even.  I don't feel any cold spots on this table."  When your equipment is worn out or cheap, your clients can feel it.  I am realizing that I have to spend the money on the good stuff.

Music

My go-to music is a blend of classical pieces, but I started putting together a more varied library after a client told me the music made her tense because one of the pieces was something she had to practice often during her hated piano lessons.  

My knowledge and hands-on skills are still vital, but I am paying more attention to all the surrounding things as well.  Massage therapy is a science, an art, a business, a design project and a calling for me.

And When She Was Good, She Was Very Very Good

For a while, I had the absolute honor to be Lila's* massage therapist.  Lila, a retired musician, might be called "feisty" in some circles.  She has Lived, with a capital "L," and while her current life is not exactly what she hoped for, she still finds some way to grab every day by the ears, sniff in its face and say, "Hi there.  I'm Lila.  What do you have for me?"

Lila is an alcoholic who stopped drinking 30 years ago.  She was a multi-pack-per-day smoker who stopped about 5 years ago.  She was getting ready for surgery to correct a prolapsed bladder.  While I gently massaged around her sacrum, Lila said to me: "I don't drink anymore, I can't smoke, and my bladder is falling into my vagina so I can't have sex.  What vices are left anymore?"  I thought for a minute before responding, "I don't know.  Guns, maybe?"  Lila laughed her (ex)smoker's raspy laugh and relaxed into the massage.  

I spent hours in continuing ed talking and learning about geriatric massage.  We spent a lot of time talking about the person, work with the person, the person comes first, be person-centered.  But, in truth, nothing we talked about allowed for a person like Lila.  A woman: white of hair, stooped of spine, wrinkled of face, and alive with humor, wit and sensuality.  We still have trouble, in our person-centered hearts, giving up the "age-appropriate" trap.  More Lilas are needed, stat.

*--Name and identifying details have been changed.

Defense Against the Dark Arts

In my professional life, I do a really good job of keeping it together.  I can check my baggage at the door, and while I have bad days like everyone else, I can be mindful about keeping other stuff out of my work, my teaching.  

False.

Yesterday I kicked a student out of my class for using the F-word.  It was the third time I've confronted that student about some disruptive behavior (not that I'm counting.)  I went on with class, engaging with the working students, as the student I asked to leave took her sweet time picking up her stuff and shuffling out of the room, grumbling the whole time.  After class ended, three students came up to me to apologize for the way class ended.  Initially I was touched, but as I thought more about it, I realized that my cracks are showing.

This particular class challenges my patience and creativity in ways which are exhausting.  They are noisy, disjointed, and they don't like each other very much.  They are like a particularly smart virus.  Every time I find some strategy that calms them, they mutate and reform into a chaotic mess.  Many of them have significant personal challenges which they lack the emotional strength to handle.  Yesterday was not the first time I have stopped class to cajole or lecture or discipline someone.  I hate doing it every time.  I have even said to them that I am not interested in managing their childishness.  After all of these moments, yesterday was the first time that any one of them came up to me after class to apologize.  Something was different, and that something was me.  

After the class, I went directly to the Education Director's office to relay what had happened.  As we talked, I found my lost compassion and tried to consider what that student was going through.  We talked over the incident, neutrally, with humor.  Then, the ED leaned across her desk towards me.  "Are you okay?" she said, "You seem a little overwhelmed this week."

Cracks. Opening.  I am overwhelmed.  Usually by midterm, I can find some source of delight in every group, even the ones who challenge me.  I have lost the delight.  The first three words I can think of to describe my students this term are: "blood sucking vampires."

And that, of course, is what happens when self-care gets neglected.  I have had some adjustments to my personal life that have left me a little raw.  I thought I could manage the baggage, because I have before, but clearly I am not taking care of myself very well.  It is a teachable moment, and the first student to benefit from it is myself.

Reaching Out

Last night my colleague and I got the chance to talk to the members of Gilda's Club about oncology massage.  Our dear friend, and oncology massage educator, was going to do the talk, but her class was cancelled, so she didn't make the trip to Chicago.  My colleague and I spent time preparing, putting together a slide show, discussing points of interest, and generally trying to calm each other down.  

I rushed to Gilda's from school, trying to shake off the nerves and student frustration as I went.  We arrived early, prepared and ready to speak.  Although we only had an audience of three people, we both felt the evening went well.  We had a long, intense conversation among the five of us, going off script and improvising -- which only seems appropriate in a venue named for Gilda Radner.

All three of our attendees had vastly different stories of their cancer experience. What surprised us (but shouldn't have) was how freely they all shared their experiences.  They all seemed to want to talk, compare and weave in their own experience even as they learned from us.  It made the whole thing much more powerful to be able to give them the space and time to use their own lives to integrate what we were telling them.  

At the end of the presentation I told them, "I learned more today than I taught."  They gave me a richer insight into living with and beyond cancer, beyond what I learned my professional and personal experience.  It strikes me that this is all part of the joy of being a massage therapist.  We give people space and time to be themselves, and share themselves.  We are open to hearing whatever a person brings to us, without judgement.  I am eternally grateful to Greet the Day for trusting me and my colleague with this moment.

Appropriate Responses to Frustrating Moments

Tests make me nervous.  not taking tests -- I've always been a "school-head," and found taking written tests to be pretty neutral.  It's giving tests to my students that makes me nervous.  Did I teach them well enough?  Did they study at all?  How much are they going to argue with me when I mark their wrong answers wrong?

It is almost a sacred tradition that at least one student in every class will argue with the test, and with my marking of their test.  I hate confrontation, so I dread this moment.  I also dread this moment because I recognize how painfully strange the wording is for some of the test questions.  I feel guilty for not taking the initiative to change it.  But, in most cases, there is a correct answer, and I can find a way to explain to a student why their marked-wrong answer is not correct.  When this works, it is a moment where making and correcting the mistake start to insulate the brain circuitry and real learning happens.  (Read The Talent Code for more on this.)  When it doesn't work, people sometimes drop their pants.

In one of my classes, I have a student, clearly (over)educated, who has a reputation for getting into intense circular arguments with all of his instructors.  He has been known to say things like "I can see you don't like your job" or "Why are you so angry with your situation?" during these arguments -- infuriating, unanswerable, ridiculous statements which are best handled by redirecting to the topic at hand or just ending the conversation.  During my class, he spent most of every lecture sitting quietly at his desk, reading some kind of philosophical tome.  (The Prince is the latest one.)  I largely ignored him because he wasn't disturbing anyone else, and because I felt that he was trying to provoke one of his signature arguments.

I gave my first test to the class, and when I returned them, he had a question bout something I marked wrong.  I tried to explain it, but he wasn't accepting anything I said.  He continued to ask about other questions, eventually devolving into statements along the lines of, "Well, isn't it all relative anyway?  How can you be sure my answer isn't just as correct as what's in the book?"  I tried to remain calm and neutral, but I know I didn't.  As we talked, I noticed his upper lip was sweating, the more sweat, the more pointed his disagreements.  Eventually it was clear that he would continue for as much time as I had, and that we would get nowhere, so I cut off the conversation.

I continued to go over the test with the rest of the class.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that he had grabbed his bag and retreated to a corner of the room.  I thought he was going to walk out or read his book, or something.  When I glanced over again, I saw a flash of red, which I realized was his underwear.  He was changing his pants, right there in the room, not even bothering to walk ten feet over to the curtains we have set up for just that purpose.

I told the story to a my colleagues, who all found it both hilarious, and unsurprising.  When I told the story to a friend who is also a teacher, he said, "What is he, three?"  Yes, apparently, I had just experienced the 20-something's version of a toddler picking her nose and wiping it on me.  Frustration, and responses to it, are shockingly varied.  Nothing to do but drop your pants over it.

Fussy Massage

I started doing some independent contractor work for a place that calls itself a wellness center.  They call their treatments "wellness" while they rub pumpkin spice scented cream into people's hands and have them rest their head on a fancy, unsanitary pillow which throws their neck into forward flexion.  It is good and necessary to pay attention to the hands as a function of overall wellness, but not necessarily with scented cream or a goopy green masque that makes the whole massage room smell like a commercially cleaned bathroom.

I am confused about why businesses think we need to make massage so fussy.  Adding scrubs here, moisturizing "treatments" there, oils that smell like seasonal foods (and leave me with a raging headache.) Massage alone is powerful, with proven benefits.  Why do we need all this frou-frou?

I offered a little extra to my clients in my last email blast, but I tried to keep it simple and directly connected to massage.  Clients could choose to use extra time to address their body's need: sore feet from months spent in snow boots, or congested sinuses from spending so much time indoors.  They could choose a treatment that would materially affect their quality of life.  I doubt anyone woke up this morning feeling like their mood, productivity, or overall physical comfort could only be improved if they smelled a little pumpkin spice latte hand cream.  

Businesses that try to both join the health and wellness approach and offer these fussy little spa treatments frustrate me.  If you aspire to be a spa, just be a spa.  It's confusing to clients when you try to be both.  Last time I went in to do some work for them, a client asked me, "What is this place? Can you explain it to me?"  I tried to say the words the business owner said to me, about wellness focus and helping people move to optimal health, but the words got stuck.  I was shockingly inarticulate, and I think the client could tell I didn't really believe what I was saying.  She won't be back.

But she was a Groupon client anyway.