Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/1102144
Ta k e 5 a n d t r y A B M P F i v e - M i n u t e M u s c l e s a t w w w. a b m p . c o m / f i v e - m i n u t e - m u s c l e s . 63 and meaningful truth, but everything we're taught by society and business tells us that only suckers get surprised. The unprepared, the ignorant, the out of control—these are the people who get surprised. It's a Two-Way Street I read an article in the October 2018 issue of the Buddhist magazine Lion's Roar. It was called "Our Opportunity to Include All Genders in Buddhist Communities." The author of the article is a transgender person who reports that they have felt, and often still feel, isolated and unwelcome in the sangha (meditation community). As a gender-fl uid person who has spent a lot of time in the Buddhist community, I thought this would be a useful article for me to read. I thought, "Aw, man. I'm being disenfranchised and I didn't even realize it! I should read this and learn how to advocate for myself." (And, yes, I thought I could learn some things about how to "never get it wrong.") The author detailed fi ve specifi c areas of Buddhist practice and community that made them feel isolated and suggested that this sense of isolation was the fault of the teachers or even of the meditation community as a whole. As I read, I realized this article was not about transgender inclusion. It was about the sense of unique struggle we each feel as a result of our expectation for the whole world to never get it wrong. Each of us wants all of our needs to be met without ever having to share those needs out loud. We want to be seen, but we don't want to do the hard work of letting people see us. As a massage therapist, this is essential to understand. This is how humans are. All humans. It's not reasonable to expect our clients to show up in a vulnerable, sharing, open frame of mind. That's just not how people walk around, and it's certainly not how people in pain walk around. And yet, they are people. And people want you to "just know" that they're hurting in ways that have nothing to do with their IT band. It would be utterly impossible to specifi cally and directly account for all the ways each person wants to be seen and wants to feel in their body. It's on each of us to know ourselves and to know our own struggles and sore points so we can bring tenderness to that experience and, when it makes sense, educate others by example. We have to get much better at truly discovering what it's like for the person in front of us to be in their body, to be in their life, to be whoever it is they are. Nobody is "a cancer patient" or "a runner with patellofemoral syndrome" or "an MS sufferer." Everybody is inescapably themselves. The only expert on the person in front of you is the person in front of you. We will never, ever learn about this person right here from a class. We can (and we should!) learn categories of questions, common issues, and other useful information that can guide us in forming effective and kind inquiry, but at the end of the day, what's most essential is that we do all we can to elicit and integrate real information. We will always get it wrong unless we get really curious about ourselves and others. We have to really want to know. "What is it like to be you?" "Where do you hurt?" "How do you hurt?" "What makes you like your body?" "What makes you hate your body?" "How does it feel to be in your skin every day?" I am not offering you actual questions you should ask your clients and the people you meet. This is not a script. These questions are just the very beginning of a spirit that can guide meaningful intake with clients and patients and meaningful connection with all the humans you love. Lauren Cates is an educator, writer, and speaker on topics ranging from massage therapy in the hospital setting to end of life and massage therapy policy and regulation. A founding director of the Society for Oncology Massage from 2007–2014 and current executive director and founder of Healwell, Cates works within and beyond the massage therapy community to elevate the level of practice and integration of massage overall, and in health care specifi cally. Read This How Emotions are Made (Boston: Mariner Books, 2017) by Lisa Feldman Barrett.