Freedom, Healing, and Discovery

MORE THOUGHTS ON A CAREER IN MASSAGE THERAPY.

I opened Balance Massage Therapy back in 2012 with the simple goal of helping people find healing through bodywork and massage. But I have found over the years that my most meaningful work has taken place when true mind-body-emotion-spirit healing is initiated by the power of touch. This is the whole-person philosophy of my approach with others in both my work with clients and with students in the classroom.

Our clients come to us for a variety of reasons: some are looking for relief from an injury or chronic pain; others received a gift certificate from a friend or caring spouse. But so many of them come back to see us because their experience on the table turned out to be more than just relief from their aches and pains. They come back because something inside of them was “touched” in a way that opened their heart to the possibility of healing on a deeper scale.

I have met so many wonderful people who’ve spent years in some type of discomfort or pain or tension pattern. As our clients experience in their hearts the joys and traumas of life, their bodies experience them too. Often times, without their even knowing, their bodies recede from a painful experience. Their shoulders curl forward. Their posture begins to slump. And their heart is more protected as the rest of their body envelops it to keep it safe. They develop a pattern of movement that allows them to hold this shape of protection. But this pattern is not natural to their alignment and their muscles have to work harder. The constant state of muscle contraction (tonic contraction) requires more energy, restricts blood vessels, and shuts down the flow of oxygen and nutrients to the tissue. This process stimulates their pain receptors and causes their bodies to hurt. Physical pain from emotional pain.

Massage therapy can work wonders with chronically tight tissue that causes pain. However, the real work happens when it is done through the mind-body-emotion-spirit approach to healing. Getting to the root cause of why they are in pain is the key.

As massage therapists, we have been given a precious and sacred gift: the privilege of accompanying someone on their journey of healing; and of holding them in a place of safety and love while they process – maybe for the very first time – the feelings and emotions they’ve been carrying around inside of them all their lives. I have witnessed incredible healing, both physically and emotionally, in these moments; and I have seen time and again the healing of a physical injury, spasm, or tension pattern, when a person has found the courage – through the power of touch - to venture along this path.

In the world of massage therapy, this is a profoundly beautiful moment. Because as the light of understanding filters through the walls of shame and fear they have built for protection, our clients begin to see the hurt or drama that has held them in this prison for what it is; and with that new understanding, they have a hope of finally finding their way out. As we (literally) hold them in our hands, we allow them precious moments of release from the stress and tension and unknowing with which they struggle every day. We open up a place inside of them where the physical and the emotional and the spiritual all come together; where essential and lasting healing can take place; and where freedom, forgiveness, and restoration become possible.

In our journey as massage therapists, we discover in these moments that we are not only conduits of healing and energy, but also of safety and love and empowerment. It is a beautiful journey, and we are grateful to be doing this beautiful work.

I want to close with an excerpt from a letter I received recently from a client so moved by the power of touch that he wrote to share his experience with me. As I read his words, I am humbled by his gratitude, and I am reminded once again why I have chosen this sacred profession.

“Dear Steph…I wish I were better at expressing what has happened inside of me since we began our work together. I feel so much more aware and accepting of myself. So much more at peace. I am less critical and more forgiving…not only of others, but also of myself. And all of this from the simplicity, love, and kindness embedded in your touch.

Your intuitive and healing touch has somehow given me back access to my original, authentic self. For so long now, I’ve been living with this need to please people…to be what and who they expect me to be. And that has meant constantly having to hide my true feelings and emotions, which, in turn, has only reinforced my feelings of weakness, shame, and loneliness. It has become a circle I repeat in practically every relationship. But in the work we’ve done together, you have somehow brought me back to a place where I was less afraid or ashamed of who I am. I was starting to think that place was only a dream…and the funny thing is...maybe it was. But what I had lost over the years was the ability to believe in that dream; to believe that someday, I wouldn’t have to live up to anyone else’s dream of what I should be. In that dream, I am striking in my plainness; I am intriguing in my simplicity; I am profoundly unique in the millions of things I share with everyone I know.

Your touch, your presence, and your thoughtful words have helped me realize that I am worthy of being loved for who I am. And that has helped me not only love and forgive myself, but also the people who were supposed to be there for me – including those who projected on me something I never was. It just never occurred to me that those people may have been pretty broken themselves. Our work together has freed me to see myself, and others, in a whole new light. And for that, I offer you my deepest gratitude…”

It has been my unique privilege to accompany this client on his journey to freedom, healing, and new discovery.

With Love,
Steph Haddox