Final Months

At the end of this summer I will move to Santa Cruz and continue my journey as a student and practitioner of the healing arts. I have been deeply nourished by my time in Oakland, both personally and as a massage therapist. Over the last four years I have had my studio and massage school less than a mile from my home, and I have sunk in with my neighborhood. I have only two months left to practice massage here and share with the community that has taught me so much, and it is with deep respect and joy that I am practicing here with you.

Thank you for a lovely ride, Oakland!

Sarah Eve

travel

I am on the craziest adventure I can think of: move out of a beautiful home we couldn't afford in Los Angeles into my husband's parents' house for free rent in a city I had never heard of before I met them. Nothing but a possibly impossible plan about where we'll be next, and when, and how we will finance our lives once we get there.

I am very nervous. Very excited. Looking to share my stories as I go and also worried about being too much of an online Diarist who shares too much of the intimate. Fear and worry are powerful things. I can be brave. I can be kind. I am strong.

more to come?

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!

relax

It takes a lot of work for us humans to get tension stuck in our bodies.  We have to hold ourselves in uncomfortable positions for hours at a time for weeks in a row in order to create a pattern of holding where our bodies feel like they can't relax or can't get rid of the pain on their own.  Same things with our lives.  We have to allow a pattern of making certain decisions or communicating in a certain way  or making certain mistakes to happen over and over until we feel like "this is just how I am" (or "...just how they are" or "...life is") and we don't see a possibility for anything to change it. 

So why don't we just stop?  Why don't we get unstuck?  What's so hard about just letting go? 

Relax.  

It sounds like it should be the easiest thing in the world.  Just don't clench your jaw when you sleep, just don't tighten your butt cheeks when you're angry, just don't hold up your shoulders when you type.  Just don't be in pain, just don't suffer anymore.

Relax.

The thing that I've found is that relaxing, and letting go, and getting unstuck all take a lot of work.  I have to really concentrate and listen to my body to even feel the muscle that I'm holding in the first place, and then I have to concentrate even more in order to consciously and actively let it go.  It's hard work, and the even harder part about it is that it's the opposite kind of work that got the tension in there in the first place.  Instead of forcing, I have to soften.  Instead of trying, I have to actively not try.  I have to trust my muscles to intuitively know where they are supposed to be in relation to my bones and organs.  I have to trust my body to put itself back together the way it's supposed to be.

Relax.

Trust.

Get unstuck.

It takes effort, and then it has to be effortless.

Maybe our lives are that way too: maybe if we listen for a pattern that causes misunderstanding and allow ourselves to avoid getting swept up in it just one time, maybe something will loosen up in our relationship or our job or our sense of self.  Maybe?

We can start with the body: make the effort, and relax.