Massage & Bodywork

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023

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L i s te n to T h e A B M P Po d c a s t a t a b m p.co m /p o d c a s t s o r w h e reve r yo u a cce s s yo u r favo r i te p o d c a s t s 29 TL: Hopefully, yes. BM: It's very important that you don't go there because the client is extremely vulnerable in multiple ways. TL: Yes. That's describing the state that happens for the client of looking up physically in the room and seeing our wonderfulness because of the context. And then from the practitioner side, there's the trap of believing it. Or not just necessarily believing it, but of believing only that. Saying, "OK, so yeah, maybe I am pretty great," or whatever. BM: "Look at this cool stuff I'm doing to you. Aren't I cool?" TL: That's right. "Look how good you feel afterward." BM: I imagine most of us have been there. Fortunately, to some degree, our work is largely very pleasant. We enjoy our work. We love our work. So, it makes it easy to draw some satisfaction from our work. It's easy to eroticize that satisfaction a little bit. Hopefully, we don't do it. Hopefully, if it does happen, it's extremely rare. Schedule a relaxation massage regularly so your tank is full and you don't need your clients to fill up your tank of worthiness, of sensuality, of "I'm a good person," and "I deserve to live on the planet at this time." All those meanings that we draw from our work. I imagine many of your people can relate to this. If you don't work for a while, your hands get hungry. You are like, "Oh, I just want to get my hands on somebody, because it's just so satisfying and it feels so good and it's connecting." If you don't have a source of sensual enjoyment and physical enjoyment—not necessarily sexual, but just physical and sensual enjoyment—it's going to be very easy to drink that in with your clients. That doesn't work. TL: We have professional continuing education requirements. It would be the wrong thing to do, but it makes me think we also need professional pleasure requirements. BM: Yes. Right. TL: "How many hours of pleasure have you managed to accomplish this year?" BM: It's great that you're having a good time with your sweetie, but you need pleasure and enjoyment that is only for you. I learned this when I was in my chiropractic days. If I didn't get a massage every week or two, I was ragged emotionally—just ragged. It had nothing to do with sex. I needed an opportunity to be tended to and cared for the way I was caring for other people. Of course, we need that. If it's physical and sensory, all the better. TL: That resonates with me. For sure, we should get our intimacy needs met, but we should also ask ourselves, "Am I always touching for someone else's benefit?" There's lots of pleasure and benefit that I get from that . . . but it's so easy as a caregiver, as a helper, to be getting all our satisfaction from that giving act. BM: Yeah, it's not the same. I mean, it's great that it's satisfying. That's one of the joys of this work. In my chiropractic days, it was very satisfying work. It was great. But it's not the same. Get on the table. TL: As an ethical act. BM: As an ethical act, get on the table and put it in your calendar so that it happens regularly and you don't have to figure it out and make an appointment that's different all the time. TL: Nice. BM: Every Tuesday at 2:00 p.m., I am on the table. CLOSING THOUGHTS Although most all of us know we "should" receive more work, we bodywork-givers are notoriously infrequent bodywork-receivers. This is in line with research showing that others in helping professions practice far less self-care than the average population. 1 And, in the practitioner-credentialing program at Advanced-Trainings.com, receiving the requisite two sessions are frequently the last requirement candidates get around to fulfilling. But following Betty Martin's advice, let's see if it helps to think of getting some massage or bodywork as a way to keep our own tank of worthiness topped up and our own intimacy-quotient fulfilled. Note 1. Steven Reta. Stress in America Survey (Presentation). American Psychological Association. (Jan 11, 2012). www.slideshare. net/StevenReta/stress-in-america. Til Luchau is the author of Advanced Myofascial Techniques (Handspring Publishing), a Certifi ed Advanced Rolfer, and a member of the Advanced-Trainings. com faculty, which offers online learning and in-person seminars throughout the US and abroad. He and Whitney Lowe cohost the ABMP-sponsored Thinking Practitioner podcast. He invites questions or comments via info@advanced-trainings.com and Advanced-Trainings.com's Facebook page. Learn More • Episode 80 of The Thinking Practitioner podcast bit.ly/TTPEp80 • Betty Martin, The Art of Receiving and Giving, wheelofconsentbook.com • Betty Martin's trainings: School of Consent, schoolofconsent.org VIDEO: "AN EXCERPT OF A CONVERSATION WITH BETTY MARTIN AND TIL LUCHAU" 1. Open your camera 2. Scan the code 3. Tap on notification 4. Watch!

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