Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/885423
being effective before she participated, it was more effective, and more specific, once she was involved in the process. THE THERAPIST'S FELT SENSE To palpate with accuracy, we must allow ourselves to be moved by the client's tissues. Otherwise, we are just feeling where their tissues meet our own restrictions. So we need to be very aware of our own body. We need to be able to notice where we may be holding tension or have discomfort, and how much presence we have in any one area. For example, when something does not feel good in our own body, it is easy to simply ignore that area and have no presence there at all. If we are distracted from our own body sensation or preoccupied with discomfort or effort, we will convey this through our touch. The equivalent would be putting on ear mufflers and babbling aloud when we are trying to listen to a certain sound someone is making. And sometimes, when we are learning a new skill or unsure of what we are feeling, we can have a tendency to put in too much effort, just with our intention. Even if we're employing very light touch, this can feel invasive to the client. So, we can see that it is not just light touch alone that is needed to be noninvasive; we also need to consider our sense of our own body, and our intention, as we work. The more awareness we have, and the more comfort and ease we can create in our own bodies, the more potential we create for clients to feel themselves. We are essentially being role models for them. Becoming the role models we want to be for our clients may involve unlearning a lot of the lessons we get around touch early in life. TOUCH AS FIRST LANGUAGE When we are born, we are unable to talk to communicate our needs. Fortunately, most of us can cry very loudly to get attention when we are distressed! Words spoken or sung to calm us can be helpful, but the real support comes from being held and touched in a way that meets our needs. Touch is our primary sense for well-being. Babies and toddlers respond to touch. When touch does not feel good to them, they communicate by recoiling. They respond to touch that meets them by meeting it in return, and often showing the person touching them just what they want (leaning in for a tighter hug, extending the spine to request a lift up, taking away one hand but leaving another in place). Touching a child noninvasively allows for more "conversation" to happen between caregiver and child. There is a respect for the child's boundaries and body integrity. Unfortunately, all too often, babies and young children are not respected in regard to touch. Children instead learn to "put up with" or submit to touch that does not feel good. This begins the process of being educated out of this innate understanding we are born with around the language of touch. We adults have, by and large, been taught to submit to discomfort "for our own good." We learn early that our bodies are not completely our own, and that we must ignore or override distressing sensations. This translates easily to the massage table, which can lead to poor communication and poor outcomes. You may feel this in sessions with your clients, when they tighten to resist your touch or go limp, "giving in" to pressure. One of our goals as bodyworkers is to ensure that coming generations don't have this hurdle (see sidebar on page 57). Imagine how much more effective your work will be 56 m a s s a g e & b o d y w o r k n o v e m b e r / d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 7 LEARN MORE Continuum Movement —www.continuummovement.com Healing From the Core —www.healingfromthecore.com Upledger Institute International —www.upledger.com noticing in the tissues deepens our skill level, because we need to think through the nuances of what we're feeling. Sometimes it's easy to feel through the client's body to each other's hands, and sometimes the connection between our hands is not so clear. This is one way to discover where the body is struggling, to focus on an area that is difficult to palpate through. Other times, we notice that while our hands are in the right place, it's the specificity of our touch that needs to change. Perhaps they're connected in with the tissue fairly globally, and honing in on a specific structure helps expedite the change the body wants. It can also be the other way around: sometimes one of us is too focused on a structure or tissue type, and a more global approach is better. If the client has good body awareness, they will often track all of this with us. Over the years, this type of questioning has become well ingrained in our practices, so that even when we may be touching with significant depth or pressure, our clients remain relaxed and receptive. We don't create a guarding response in our clients because we are not imposing ourselves, but rather responding accurately to their needs for that depth of pressure. Recently, a client asked why she could not feel much in an area where our hands were. Although we could feel change in the tissues, it was not something the client could track. By deepening the palpation by a couple of grams, and therefore applying a little more drag, the client was able to feel what was happening. And while our work showed signs of