Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/77424
STAYING GROUNDED If you apply yourself well to your work, the somatic contagion imprints itself on that healthier pattern that, because of its higher integrity, can better tolerate it. The poignant fact is that people, being used to being themselves, are unaware of their gaps or deficiencies of kinesthetic awareness. They don't know that they don't know. With their coordination, it's the same thing: unconscious habit, by tendency, rules. Therapists' abilities to calibrate themselves to the self-organizing process of their client falls in the same category. Ultimately, therapists' habit patterns infiltrate and shape their work. If you work in a state of physical strain due to awkward positioning, held working positions, or poor balance (your own subconscious, habitual action patterns), whatever somatic contagion you experience gets imprinted on those holding patterns and intensifies them. To the degree that you impose on your client, there is reflexive resistance, which you feel. In addition to your client's toxicity, you are experiencing a magnification of your own toxicity. If you apply yourself well to your work, the somatic contagion imprints itself on that healthier pattern that, because of its higher integrity, can better tolerate it. In effect, the somatic contagion reinforces the healthy pattern and you can eliminate the contagion better and faster. To apply yourself well to your work is not something that can be established in an afternoon. You can learn certain things, but integration of those things is something that must be developed, practically speaking, over time. DISPERSE THE ACCUMULATED EFFECTS OF YOUR WORK Every occupation has its hazards— most commonly the accumulation of the effects of repetitive actions. We form tension patterns by repetition. The problems you accumulate from your work aren't only the toxicity of your clients; they're also your own unresolved, subconscious problems (i.e., habit patterns). They're grist for your mill. Your clients' toxicity, experienced as somatic contagion, dissipates; what doesn't dissipate is your own. You must groom yourself of those effects or you may encounter a burnout crisis sometime down the line. Such grooming may involve getting work from someone else, somatic exercises, a meditation practice, brain-wave training, or some direct way of releasing what you accumulate from the level at which you've accumulated it. If you've accumulated habitual muscular tensions, visualization isn't going to do it; it's too superficial. You need a conscious movement discipline (and possibly clinical somatic education) to reach the core of tension habits. If you experience somatic contagion at the emotional level (and have your own issues at the emotional level), a movement discipline isn't going to do it in the long run (even though muscular tension patterns may temporarily relax). It will help, but you need to address the emotional issues on their own terms. earn CE hours at your convenience: abmp's online education center, www.abmp.com 49