I found my book!

Oh yes!

I have been intellectually hungry for a book or teacher that could address my physical yoga practice while also acknowledging my spiritual lineage and academic passion. The Heart of Yoga by T.K.V. Desikachar rocked my world today. So rewarding to read the work of a man who devoted his life to intellectual study and physical practice, and acknowledges that these things can be used as a tool to bring our lives closer to God every day.

Not only that, but coming from a background in Literature, I crave gracefully written words as the medium for the information that is coming across. This book lovingly and thoughtfully explains a personal path and body of knowledge, transmitting it smoothly through well-written prose. I am smitten, and inspired, and thirsty for more.

Thank you T.K.V. Desikachar!

integrating

I am aware of many blessings: I am practicing a blend of shiatsu and Thai massage in my beautiful home studio in Santa Cruz, I am studying the human body from a Western perspective in Biology and Health Science classes, and I am preparing for graduate school in Public Health.

It feels like the wildly divergent aspects of my life are coming together. Things that always made sense to me as part of a balance life manifested themselves in disjointed workweeks: a couple of days each in massage therapy, low-income public education, and farmers' markets. Now I get to research and write about how large-scale cultural trends in diet, behavior, and the spread of ideas manifest themselves along a spectrum of health and dis-ease among populations. In that time I will keep practicing bodywork, and then have the privilege of sharing the information that my education has given me: living it with a lifelong self-care practice, and spreading it via education and written works about how to live our best possible life. It's all coming together!

I will move from speaking from what has worked in my own life and experience to a position of what has worked to promote health in bigger groups. I am aware of what a shift like that might mean: that for a minute there I may begin to say, "now EVERYONE needs to do this or that." I am also trusting that the amount of time I spend checking in with my intuition and my body to make the right choices in my life (see what do you want?, make a joyful noise, and pretty much anything else I wrote in 2008) is going to pay off in being able to move through that phase into one that says, "statistically, a community should be doing X, and how can you see if that is a good choice for you personally?" I will constantly approach new bridges and find new options for synergy in my own life and philosophy, as well as opportunities to try on divergent mindsets for different occasions until I see how and when to employ one or the other.

Integration. Education, purpose, renewal. These are the words that are coming in to my mind as I sink in to Fall, and continue on my path.

how to get what you want

After writing about all the wonderful things that getting a massage can do for you, I want to add more about how to help receive those benefits.  For some of us it is difficult to fully appreciate a massage because we don't have a lot of practice in how to relax: and letting go is always a practice.   

Safety and Comfort:

The one and only way to activate that "rest and digest" mode of operating in our body, the only way to let our muscles release pain and tension, and the only way to feel that increase of creativity is to be in an environment where we feel safe and comfortable.  Some therapists are wonderful at creating that environment while others are not, and some clients are wonderful at getting into that state very easily while the rest of us need more support.

Make sure your body is comfortable

We can always wiggle and move when receiving massage.  If our arm or leg or neck is in a funny position, we should move it until we are in a position where we can rest completely and allow the table to hold us up instead of feeling like we need to use our muscles to hold ourselves perfectly still.  The more we can relax into the table, the easier the therapist's job is, and the more healing work we can receive.  Even if we are receiving very high pressure, deep work, we need to be able to relax completely to let it in and get the benefit of the release.  

It sounds obvious to make sure our body is comfortable during a massage but I can't tell you how many times during the first several massages of my life I used to wonder to myself something like, "can I move my arm yet?" but not do it because I thought I was supposed to be perfectly still the whole time.  Not true!  Move until you are comfortable, and then let go.

Ask for what you want

A massage therapist is working on you because they want you to feel good.  So if you are distracted by the light, the music, the angle of the headrest, or even by the way the therapist is working, please, on behalf to all therapists let me beg you to say something!  A wonderful therapist on their best day will ask you all those things, and keep checking in with you, but sometimes we get so deep into our rhythm that we forget.  Ask!  We want you to be comfortable at least as much as you do, and even though as a client you may not want to muster that initial energy to say something, the result will be a more pleasant and relaxing experience for everyone.

That is especially true about asking a therapist to change the way they are working.  Feedback like, "Could you work lighter there?" "I feel like that area has had enough" "My right calf needs some more work" or whatever you want to ask for is only going to make the therapist's job easier in creating a relaxing environment for you.

Very rarely a therapist can be defensive: "Well I know it hurts but you've got to get that tension out of there."  In that case, it is the client who is right and therapist who is wrong.  Nothing in a massage should hurt in a way that makes you want the sensation to stop.  There's the therapeutic pain of, "Wow, that's a lot; I really needed that," but if something feels too deep or too fast to the recipient, then it is, no matter what the therapist might think.  In the rare case that a therapist doesn't want to respond to your feedback, feel free to calmly and lovingly end the massage.  Any spa or massage professional I have ever met will gladly refund your money and/or reschedule you with another therapist who will be a better fit for you.  That way you can get into that safe, comfortable mode and receive the full mind/body/spirit benefits of having a massage.

Make all the noise you want

If you need to laugh or heave a deep sigh of relief on a massage table, or even shout in surprise or burst into tears of emotion, just go on ahead and do it.  The energy we spend by holding back those noises just helps keep the tension in place in our body instead of letting it go.  By making the noise, we allow ourselves the chance to heal, and we give our therapist a better understanding of the healing that is taking place.

Take the deep sigh, for example.  That often seems to me to be the very sound of tension as it leaves the body.  So by making that sigh, we are encouraging the muscle to release as well as sending a reminder to our conscious mind that something important is happening, which will allow the muscle to maintain that relaxed state longer.  Another thing sighing does is send a message to the therapist about when, where and how we let go of tension.  This communication allows the therapist that their work is effective as well as giving them clues of how to keep working on you most efficiently.

Any noise you make helps the body release and heal and also sends feedback to the the therapist about what is working in the session.  Give it a try.

Even if you have to fart!  It's honestly better to just do it than to hold it back.  What happens when we get on a massage table and start to relax is our digestive system starts to work more properly than it did before, so that's why so many people feel they have to hold back gas.  If it helps you to giggle or mention it to the therapist, go ahead, but trust me, they've experienced it before, and they know how to deal with it.  Once you're not clenching the cheeks of your glute muscles, you'll be able to get a better massage and the therapist won't have to spend the whole session wondering, "I wonder why I just can't get this client to relax."  I know it sounds silly, but it's better than spending an entire ninety minute session in agony.

Move and get comfortable, ask for what you want, and make all the noise you need.  Then let go, and let your body heal you from the inside out!