Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/81195
RESEARCH CHANGES HOW EVERYONE VIEWS WHAT YOU DO When we feel underpaid, we're likely to blame our direct employer, or the local market, or we just blame ourselves. How about looking at the overall valuation of massage therapy? What about the fact that almost none of the benefi ts you see on a daily basis have been meaningfully studied in research literature? Massage is a seriously unstable career for many people, partially because they have no leverage to charge on par with the benefi t they provide. I don't know how quickly or completely the research world can elevate our earnings, but I can tell you this: no one else but you and me are going to drive that reality into being. 2. Grace You're working too hard. You know it. Have you ever written a long email to a curious client, when you could have linked them to a research study? Have you ever felt like you're doing the same massage 10 times in a row? Have you ever tried to defend an insurance claim, or educate an unruly client, or connect with a doctor, and felt at a loss for words? Each of these could be much easier with a healthy relationship to research. Find one good massage research study. Read it on your lunch break. I guarantee that your afternoon massages will start looking different. Your hands will be smarter even when your brain is confused. The charting language will fl ow more easily, and the professional referrals will spring up from mutual interests instead of desperate ploys. You will be surprised that you are not alone in your ideas, and that the path of professional growth is laid with treasure if you would only look to the ground. 3. Beauty Bodywork is a deeply beautiful practice, full of rich traditions, lifelong learning, rewarding apprenticeships, and long hours of delving into mysterious patterns. Science has these same beauties, and— believe it or not—many scientists have similar motivations as massage therapists. They want to do work that helps people. They are curious, insightful, and artistic in their ministrations. When I sink my fi ngers into a dense whirlpool of fascia, or when I fl oat my hand on the rib cage as a wave of breath rises and falls, or when I feel the aliveness of taut bands twitching, I feel the exact same quiet precision, the same moments of contemplation, and the same respect for a well-asked question. Science transforms the body from a hunk of meat to a humming orchestra or a hushed landscape. Beauty in bodywork happens in those moments when I let go of what I think it should be and observe what it is. 4. Progress Admit it—aren't you tired of having the same conversations? Or the same dumb turf wars between health-care professions, or between bodywork specialties? Are you cool with the fact that in 2012 you (or your colleagues) are still getting sexual solicitation? What if nothing changed in 10 years' time? "One of the most remarkable of man's characteristics is his capacity for becoming used to conditions of almost any kind, whether good or bad, both in the self and in the environment, and once he has become used to such conditions they seem to him both right and natural." F.M. Alexander, creator, Alexander Technique 62 massage & bodywork march/april 2012