Massage Therapy

» Angela England - Massages, more than 'body work"..start to wholeness.

I've been a massage therapist for years and while most of that time was spent in a very clinical setting, mostly working under a doctors supervision with specific treatment plans and such for acute cases, car accidents, rehab patients, etc. I did find a few clients who had an emotional experience. Sometimes it was in the form of tears, sometimes they would laugh "for no reason", or just sign periodically. Often times I had to educate clients how to RELAX. They would say "I'm relaxing" but until I pointed out a specific muscle and how they were holding it tight they didn't understand how to truly surrender that tension.

And I think that's a huge part of it: surrender. Because in a massage situation there IS a sense of giving up some control of yourself and allowing someone else to work on you and that, in and of itself, can bring up unique and strange emotions.

I often found clients became more and more aware of their own bodies as they continued coming. Instead of saying "I just am here becuase the doctor said to come" they would have real insights into how they were hurting, and why. "My sister and I got into a fight on the phone two nights ago and I've had this tension headache ever since."

Usually I just handed them a tissue and asked them if they were comfortable with me continuing the massage and just went on. Most clients didn't feel like talking about what prompted the tears - and always thanked me afterwards.

One time it was a client who was a hairstylist. She said later that she had seen that with two different clients of her own in the ten years she'd been styling hair. She said "I never understood why they had done that but now I do". :-)

Angela, RMT