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Mastery

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Working with a client yesterday it dawned on me the skill level I’ve attained. Doing Thai massage isn’t the same as receiving it. The only thing I’ve noticed is that I believe I’m occasionally a little heavy handed due to not receiving the work regularly but overall I’ve absorbed it. It’s in my cells, not something abstract I read in a book. When people tell me they have pain in one spot, I know to look at another. When they’re having pain I can discern the structural issue and often help.

Working with students in my last Thai massage class a chart was pulled out with sen lines, the energy lines in Thai massage. I glanced at it, something I’ve not looked at in what seems like years and just giggled internally. I feel them. Map? Model? Chart? I laughed realizing others don’t even know they’re there, I just sense them after years of working on people and myself. I no longer need the model.

I’ll probably always have moments of I’m not good enough, I think my perfectionist streak leads to that. In the end I realize I’ve devoted the past ten years of my life to healing. I heal myself, heal others and try to find new areas and ways to continue that path.

You can get a massage anywhere. Nothing beats experience. I often tell people these days I focus on chronic pain issues, working with athletes like dancers or yoga practitioners. I can work on anyone but my nuanced skill set means these niche groups seek me out.

When I got out of massage school I started to notice the patterns in peoples posture. Session after session I worked and ten years in I’m Really good at what I do. I’m good enough that I’m teaching others what I do without review, without advanced preparation and railing off on concepts related to energetics, physiology, anatomy and bodymind. This won’t lead to a puffed up I know it all attitude but it does lead to my charging what I’m worth, being confident in my skills and continuing to grow and develop.

It’s humbling to look back, remembering times when I’ve almost given up. I refused. I knew what I had worked it just took time to develop and marketing has never been my focal point. I can work on the marketing but how are healers created?

Heal yourself. Keep working on others and practice healing them. Then you can develop mastery in your chosen field.

Is suffering genetic?

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In looking at what I do for work and how I approach healing I find myself at odds with the status quo. Over time I just step aside, I certainly hold less resentment and anger but my compassion grows by leaps and bounds. As a friend and I had a discussion about our mutual love for healing work we admitted to each other that we’re good at what we do because we’ve been broken. A healer is good at working on something they themselves have overcome. In blues terms, “you gotta pay your dues to play the blues.”

My strong empathic sense of people, their emotions and mental states leaves me in places where I remind myself that client’s stuff is theirs. I need not take on their emotions, feelings and mental states to aid their healing process. The more I heal the more empathy and compassion I have for those who suffer. Some suffering is what life places on the doorstep but most comes from ignorance. Ignorance causes more suffering than anything else. It’s not what others do to us, it’s what we do to ourselves.

It’s one thing if someone tells us we’re fat as a kid, teases us. It’s another when you somehow take that on as a part of your sense of self, “I’m fat” you tell yourself. That person may have teased you once but you carry that burden with you, inflicting it on yourself 100’s of times beyond what that one person said. If you remove your part in the game, it’s just someone who made a mean comment. All that pain, all that suffering, vanquished. The veil of ignorance is removed.

Things happen. I’m not immune to suffering on the mental, psychological or physical plane. I no longer wish to believe that this is simply the best I deserve. What if instead of believing I’m a dumb, incompetent, worthless, fat, lowly massage therapist I begin the process of changing those beliefs? What if I slowly work on myself until I decide on a heart level that I’m a worthwhile, strong, inquisitive, upright man who’s capable of anything he sets his mind to? I’m taking the latter road. If I seem confusing this may be why. My path is other that what the predominant culture provides.

A long term friend passed recently and while looking at her glowing beautiful daughter I told my friend, “that baby is the winner of 6 billion years of evolution.” This young girl is the biological product of intelligence refining the same stuff that stars are made of to produce life, human beings and a central nervous system. This child can look up at the stars and one day ponder that the universe is hers from her vantage point in the milky way galaxy.

Once the Dalai Lama had to stop a talk and discussion because he didn’t know an English word that was used. He said, “Self esteem? What is this self esteem you mention?” After someone explained to him what it meant, he grasped the chasm between his culture and our own. In what I believe was a compassionate moment he said, “We do not have this word in our language. We believe everyone has Buddha nature. We’ve no need to convince people that they have worth because we teach them that the highest potential is already within them, the potential for enlightenment.”

You think your pain, your suffering is fate, is genetic? You think you are encased in genetic code, dna? To a point this is true, you do hold a physical form. I also listen to teachers, tricksters and holy men who tell me you are not your thoughts. You are not your body. You are not what you think you are. Meditate and ask “who am I?” Who am I without my skin? Without my bones? Without a body? Without a mind? If you continue to peel away the layers what is left?

This process of awakening is something I’ve only scratched the surface of. My compassion turns toward myself, my own pain, my own suffering and forgiving myself for my shortcomings. I implore you to quit finding yourself to be garbage underfoot and realize that you are the sunshine that dispels the darkness. You are the crack that can let all of the light in. God can be seen through you, through your actions and through loving your neighbor as yourself.

Suffering is no more encoded in genetics than enlightenment is. The choice is yours.

“All this pain is an illusion.”~Parabol by Tool

Are you a victim?

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I gave a talk recently at a local HEB. I was asked to speak about yoga and always relish the opportunity to discuss what I do and why. In yoga classes and bodywork sessions I can only talk so much so it’s an outlet of sorts to just verbally address what we’re working with.

A participant listened to me talk about my car accident, heard me talk about BKS Iyengar and at one point he said, “it sounds like you’re encouraging people to not be victims.” In maintaining a sense of supple softness to situations I found his words sank in. That’s exactly it. He hit the nail on the head.

Repeatedly I hear people saying, “I’m old. I was injured. I have this disease or physical malady. I grew up in an emotionally abusive home. I smoke. I’m not flexible or strong.” My response is always the same. “And?” Where you are has no impact on your ability to get better. If you think you’re too sick to do yoga you simply don’t know what yoga is. You are not trapped by your genetics to grow old and wither. You will age but that’s a natural process. Decay to the degree I see in people is unnecessary. You can age and live well. Do you want to be youthful, vibrant and full of vigor? Do you want to eat what you wish within reason? Do you want to avoid medications and surgery as much as possible? Yoga can help you do those.

I cannot promise you will never get sick. I can promise that with regular practice that sickness will not last as long and will not be as intense. That is a goal worth working towards. Yoga is active and empowering. It allows you to harness yourself with every fiber of your being to make a better life. Thai massage is the passive form, it allows you to have someone like me help you along the way. Both are wonderful and should be used to their potential.

Why am I adamant? Why do I increasingly become stern with a boisterous attitude? Unlike when I began I’ve ten years experience and vision. Your life can be better. It can be better than I can envision. If I sound like a broken record or preacher it’s because all around me I see and hear suffering, complaints and pain. People give various reasons for this. Wherever you are, it can get better. I know. I’ve done it and it continues to grow at a pace I find staggering.

Your pain is a form of ignorance, let’s remove it together. Bliss is waiting.