Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/1315831
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 73 greater sense of quiet and stillness. If we can find the stillness now, we owe it to ourselves to continue to find it—and create it—in the future, when our greatest burden is not a global pandemic but an overbooked calendar. Presence Is Paramount We massage therapists like fancy techniques and advanced certifications. And yet, I worry that the more we know, the more we are blind to the most basic of truths. We train in ever more elaborate, scientifically reasoned massage techniques. We justify our work with ever more complex physiological mechanisms—this technique facilitates the thixotropic response of fascia; that technique exploits the post- isometric relaxation response. All these efforts are good and useful—and even necessary. We must continue to push our understanding forward, to experiment and study and deepen our sense of what is actually happening when we touch another body. More scientific knowledge, if used with heart, is always a good thing. And yet, our obsession with complexity can cause us to overlook what is really at the center of our work. Our presence. From the way we massage therapists tout the benefits of getting massage, you would think the world would have fallen apart by now. After all, think about all the things we say massage can do. We tell our clients craniosacral can get rid of migraines, and this new proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) technique I just learned will make your hamstrings longer, and if only I use the right amount of cross- fiber friction, I can make that knot in your upper traps disappear, and you should really get a massage every week . . . COVID has provided an involuntary case study of how massage impacts the body. Much of the world stopped massaging for a surprisingly long time; for many of us, that stoppage continues. And what happened? As best I can tell, our bodies have not fallen apart. There are, I'm sure, a lot of people who hunger for their favorite therapist and a lot of bodies that are more stiff, more tense, or more achy than they otherwise would have been. And yes, there are likely a number of people reckoning with significant physical changes—be they cancer treatment, a particularly rough first pregnancy, or rehab from shoulder surgery—whose experiences would have been markedly improved by regular massage. And yet, for many, many people, life continued on, and the world kept on doing what it needed to do, even without honest about all the things we don't know and aren't certain of. That sincere uncertainty can be a powerful tool for each client's own healing. When we share what we know and what we don't, and when we acknowledge that what works for one client might not work for another, we empower each person we contact to deepen their unfolding understanding of their own body. That combination of knowledge and compassion and experience—of head and heart and hand—is a powerful thing that can manifest in so many different ways, whether you are seeing clients again, writing books or blog posts, conducting scientific research, or teaching self-massage over Zoom. Stillness Soothes Us My life before March 13 was busy. My wife and I were proud of that busyness. We wore it like a badge. We took our son to ballet class four days a week. Our freelance lives were a constant juggle of who would be where and when in order to fulfill the day's obligations. I scheduled clients until 10:00 p.m. at night just because I could. And then I got up at 5:00 a.m. the next morning so I could do it all over again. And then, over the course of two days, everything stopped. I shuttered my practice and New York City closed its schools. Our calendars emptied by the end of that weekend. All that busyness was replaced by shock, grief, and fear. But then, slowly, cautiously, something else emerged. Stillness. The busyness didn't end. If anything, our lives are busier now. My wife is finishing her current novel and thinking about the next one. I am fortunate to also work as a book editor, a carryover from my first career in publishing almost two decades ago. There is always work that needs to get done. The kids still have needs (and now we are surrounded by those needs every hour of the day). And yet, amid all this busyness, there has grown a stillness in the center of our lives. We realize that the only thing we need is right here in front of us, in this moment. We don't need to be always racing to the next thing. What is right here is enough. This moment is rich. We just need to notice it. I know, at some point, I will reopen my practice. My days will get busy again, my calendar will fill. Finding that stillness will be harder. But that eventuality is precisely why this moment is such a learning tool. We are reckoning with a pandemic that has upended daily life around the globe, exacerbated the already numerous divisions within the human community, and infused many of us with a daily unease, if not outright panic. And yet, at the same time, amid this shocking degree of tumult, in our daily lives there is—if we look hard enough—a