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October 14, 2004
Whew, end of the week (class-wise)
Conversation of the day... Staff: "I'm not really a healer." Me: "Oh? Have you ever had a cold?"
I suppose when a client says that I can start to pack up and let them know that I'm not going to waste their money giving a session that won't have any effect, right? ;-) It's nice to be reminded by someone else's lapse that we are all healers, just to varying degrees of consciousness, and that it is the client that does the healing, not the therapist.
I got up pretty early, which was nice. I wore Desmond's devil duckie pants today... I got sooo many compliments on them :-)
Breakfast was normal, which is to say I didn't get enough food. But I seem to always be hungry this week, unable to wait for the next meal, and stuffing myself but never really feeling stuffed.
Someone was telling me that people who are really Vata (as I am) often don't get enough energy out of greens and vegetables, not enough to make it worth the energy expenditure necessary to digest them. I've been addicted to tuna fish salad lately.
Shiatsu was fantastic. Everyone talked about their 5 Element projects today. The best, to me, by far, was Nishkama's. She crocheted 5 little medicine pouches, in representative colors with yarns from around the world. Each creation process was a meditation on the particular element being symbolized, and they looked so sacred.
They seem to have such potential, too. One could slowly accumulate power objects for each Element to store in the bags, choose a particular one to wear for a particular day, and incorporate them into one's shiatsu treatments. The creation process could also be done with even more ritual and infusion of power.
Everyone's projects could be taken farther, it seemed. My poster certainly could
I really enjoyed, as you can see, the people who took the project some place different than the standard poster or banner. There are others worth mentioning, but I'm tired and have more subjects to cover.
Such as the discussion we had with Erica about work and different kinds of bodywork jobs. She recommends that everyone work in the Caribbean at some point :-) She worked at the Golden Door in Puerto Rico, and it sounds really nice. She got to experience what it's like to be the minority (la gringa), made tons of money to pay off her student loans, got to soak up local culture and experiences, hung out on the beach and could afford healthy food and practices.
I'm letting some energy out into the Universe to create that for myself and Des. It would be so nice to find a way to be able to do that for 6 months or a year. It doesn't have to be Puerto Rico... lots of islands in this world :-)
At lunch we had a planning meeting for the Redwoods Marathon, which is on Sunday. A group of us are volunteering to do 10 minute massages for the athletes as they complete their run.
At first I was having a serious lack of confidence over the whole thing, but they did a brief demo during the meeting, and then later I got Soyka and Kristen to talk and demo more with me. I'm feeling better, and just want to get up to speed on a few particular point locations before the event.
Other than that, it should be an awesome learning experience, and we get tips, too :-)
The whole thing has me thinking of Michele, Des' sister, because she organizes this Tin Man event every year in the Adirondacks. Might be fun to visit during that time one year (her invite is open, I believe) and participate, do some massage, etc.
Musculoskeletal Anatomy class brought up some issues for me. Just old patterns of giving up, the kind of sad and pouty lack of interest I move into when thing aren't going right, when I'm not "getting it" fast enough. Heh. "Fast enough."
No, ok, I can't feel the direction of the rhomboid fibers. I have very little idea how to direct someone's actions to help isolate muscles and feel them contract and expand. It really sucked. And the environment was not what I needed to support me in the learning process, all grouped up and stressed for time.
Small victory toward the end... I asked Soyka if she would show me something, and asked her to repeat a demo I saw her doing at another table. Basically, I didn't know how to tell when I was at the edge of the trapezius in order to find levator scapulae. Well, she walked me through it and I did it. Not only did I feel the levator, I felt the superior angle of his scapula.
And then... it gets better. I showed another table how to do it, and they felt it, and one of the people palpating told me I did a very good demo.
Important note... I could hear the caring in Soyka's voice... she said, "Of course I'll show you something. What would you like me to show you?" OH my god. When I work with her one-on-one I feel so completely different than how I experience her in class, groups, etc. Loved, basically. And that feeling cuts through all my static and correct learning just flows.
I'm thinking it would be well worth the cost to hire some private tutoring from her.
After class, I did a session. Jeebus, I've done a session each day for the past three days, and my back hurts! How am I ever going to do this for a living? I know I'm working up to it by doing all this bodywork, but I think I need to look up back strengthening exercises online. Quads, too.
Time management. Yesterday was great, my session went exactly the length of time allotted, I accomplished everything I needed to do within that timeframe, and I got the client out the door at exactly the time I had intended.
Then this morning during chair massage trade I was the only one who watched the clock and finished my session at the correct time.
And then today. Wow. It took me TWO and a HALF HOURS to do a 75 minute session. There was just so much, outside of the bodywork, that I felt needed to be done.
I notice that personal investment has a lot to do with it. And I intend to work mostly with people I can have some investment in, that is to say, people I can see regularly and watch grow and change through our sessions. So this is exactly what I need to be working with and learning how to manage.
I did have more success being conscious with my movements. I think it worked out well. No negative feedback about my touch, and kudos on my confidence and honesty (about things I didn't know, where I'm at in my learning process, etc.) I also taught the client EFT and gave them the website address. I need to get a handout made up to give in these cases so they can continue at home more easily.
I need to do that anyway because I still want to do my first EFT workshop before the quarter is up.
Anyway, despite the horrible lack of time management, I'm really excited to hear back from this person to find out what continued effects, if any, they experienced, and hoping to see them each week and see how far we can go. Next time I'm going to ask permission to share some particular observations, and perhaps go deeper.
Dessert! Wonderful chocolate cake tonight. I had the non-vegan frosting. It was a going away dessert for Lucia, Paul's daughter. She was only here for summer break.
Afterward was Movement Magic I. I got to go to the first MMI, toward the beginning of the quarter, and didn't get to go to MMII, which I was really disappointed about. So I'm so pleased to be able to go tomorrow morning.
It's so fun and productive. Tonight's processing highlight was during an exercise in which we spent time moving as various characters (e.g. super heroes, old people, our inner victim, drama queens) and he directed us to move as our father. Well I never knew my dad, so I went and hid behind a big banner.
As I stood there, trying to be him, outside of it all, cut off, I started to get the impression that he might care about me. Or not. So I spent some time wondering, does he care? Does he ever think about me? What does it mean to him that he has a son that he doesn't even know? I have a half sister my own age, if that tells you anything, who I also don't know... and I wonder if he knows her. I wondered what it would be like to meet her. "Uhh, hi, I'm your half brother." "Yeah I'm your half sister." "Uhhhh." Yeah, great. Right, cheers, thanks a lot.
Anyway, it did help deepen my forgiveness process. I put my arms around myself, some kind of weird me-loving-my-dad/my-dad-loving-my-dad thing of acceptance.
Something else that came up... we were directed to move in a certain way, something about a lazy afternoon, just hanging on the porch, etc. And I had to go back to childhood to recall any such feelings. It feels sooo long since I could spend hours leisurely without something in the back of my mind gnawing at me. I certainly never do that here. I have periods of decompression, but there's always that awareness that I'm just killing time until the next thing, and the real reason I'm doing "nothing" is because I know that I would just be wasting my energy to try to do "something" at the time.
Bah, Paul Pitchford: "We say tai chi is the art of doing nothing well."
My roommate has been building a hovel in the woods. And sleeping in it most every night. I really want to spend the night there sometime, but I just don't know when! Not tonight, I have to be up for Movement Magic. Not Saturday, I have to be up for the Redwoods. Maybe tomorrow night?
So tomorrow! Yay. I'm doing chair massage in the welcome center on incoming intensive students. That should be rockin'. Wish me luck.
Posted by Josh A. at October 14, 2004 10:56 PM
Comments
Wow, great entry. Its nice to hear things are going well. Seems like theres a lot of learning going on. Cant wait to hear more about it all.
Posted by: Desmond at October 15, 2004 05:27 AM
You wrote, "I've been addicted to tuna fish salad lately." FYI, recent studies have shown that the levels of mercury and other toxic substances in the overfished tuna have reached such levels that any health benefits derived from eating them (Omega 3's, protein, you name it) is outweighed by the health risk of heavy metal poisoning.
Posted by: Ari Moore at October 15, 2004 06:10 AM
Thanks folks. :-)
Posted by: Josh A. at October 15, 2004 07:22 AM