Things that make you go "Ahhhhh."

When I was in school to become a massage therapist, I discovered there was a real stigma to combat around the legitimacy of the profession.

We were constantly trying to defend the power of therapeutic touch, and to position ourselves as healthcare workers instead of spa employees. That meant creating distance from anything that wasn't medically-oriented to focus solely on research and evidence-based practice.

#DoubleBlindOrBust

It wasn't to say that there isn't a place for relaxation massage ("fluff and buff" as we liked to call it) but we, the massage therapy students, low-key turned down our noses at anyone who didn't do a complete orthopaedic assessment and develop a treatment plan spanning 4-6 weeks.

It was as if the existence of relaxation as the goal, or the use of "woo" words like energy undermined our efforts to be taken seriously.

We acted as if unmanaged stress wasn't a core problem; it was just another symptom.

I felt like I had to choose a camp, and I chose the camp of medical objectivity; of trusting the measurements of a goniometer to tell me everything I needed to know about a client's inability to move their shoulder fully. I believed a range of motion test would provide the answers about why my client walked around with their shoulders hunched and their head down.

Narrator: It did not.

What I was working with was a system that gave me, the practitioner, the power to assess and recommend. To be the resource they needed to heal. And when all of the rehabilitation stars aligned and people saw progress...it felt so good.

My process looked something like this: A client comes in for a first treatment. They sit down, and tell me what brought them in that day. Based on that, I'd start to mentally list the assessments I wanted to complete. We'd do the tests, I'd propose a treatment, and afterwards we would debrief and make a plan for what's next.

"What's next" would usually include another treatment, as well as a list of home care exercises that they could do in between.

Now. There are people in the world who are religious about their home care.

They never missed a rep, came back with all the feedback, checked all the boxes. There were also a lot of people who would sheepishly own up to doing their exercises a couple times, which usually meant in the car or waiting room before coming in for treatment.

I used to get really frustrated because I put so much thought into creating those programs. They were essential links towards progress and healing based on the treatment plan I put together — and didn't people want to get better?!

Then I started to realize that there was a few problems with my process, and the problem wasn't people not wanting to get better.

What I knew was that the time between appointments was more important for recovery and healing than the time people spent on my table. They spent one hour with me at a time, and then spent every other hour of their lives doing anything but getting a massage.

I also knew that getting them on the table wasn't necessarily the hard part — most people like getting massages because even if there is some discomfort in the process, a really good massage makes it feel good to be in your body.


On the note of a good massage...I used to think that meant me, the therapist, forcefully reshaping muscle fibres and conforming them to my linear will. (Yes. People would have bruises. I'm sorry.) This was very in-line with that practitioner power-down approach — and like I said, it worked for some people.

But more often than not, I was left puzzled by why others weren't seeing the progress I was expecting. And more than that, why were people still feeling pain even after my objective assessments told me that everything was fine?

It turns out that the pain wasn't just about the injury — it was about the nervous system, and its reaction to the pain.

The body needs to relax in order to heal, because the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems can't fire at the same time. For many of us, our stress response (SNS) is often kicked into high gear at the cost of our relaxation (PNS) response. Sometimes, it's because a massage therapist is using bone-breaking pressure and it literally hurts a lot.

Other times, it's because the to-do lists are too long, the inputs are too much, the demands on our time, attention, and energy, are endless.

It can feel like we're trying to jump out of our own skin in response to all the pressure.

Going for a massage is one way to interrupt the external stress in favour of relaxation...as long as the whole session isn't spent tensing to handle the pain. Supportive touch can be so healing and when you trust the hands you're in; when your body finally feels physically safe enough to let go. It's like we have somebody else literally holding us together so that we can relax.

It's temporary support to activate the healing systems that are already wired into our bodies.

I came to realize that the power of the massage had much less to do with my "super human powers to access the deep tissues" and way more to do with the fact that I created an environment where my clients felt safe. Where they felt comfortable letting go of the stress they were holding onto because my hands were keeping them grounded. And in that space, they could reconnect with what felt good.

That kind of healing had nothing to do with objective assessments and predicted outcomes, and it turned out the "energy" mattered. A lot.

Once I made that connection, I realized that sending them back into the mayhem of life with another list of to-dos thanks to my home care recommendations was actually really counter-productive.

I wanted to help them heal, but the self-care system I'd been indoctrinated into was ultimately creating more stress and guilt.

So I stopped prescribing exercises, and started prescribing intuition.

This really stumped the high-achievers on my client roster. They wanted to be told what else they could do. They wanted to more their way out of the impending burn-out because of their chronic high stress levels — a pattern that I was enabling when I prescribed more to-do.

Instead of a list of reps and sets, I started telling my clients to tune in to what felt good in their bodies. They would give me a puzzled look, so I told them to pursue the feeling of "ahhhhhh," which is what massage helped them connect with.

When you're getting a massage, especially the first few times, it takes a couple minutes to settle into the touch. The more you trust your therapist, the less time it takes to settle — after a while, I had clients who would feel better just from walking in the door! — but there's usually a couple minutes of your body getting acclimated.

You settle into the pillows and find the right position in the face cradle (yes that's what the face hole is called). You adjust to the temperature of the room and the therapist works through that superficial tension. And then, you finally settle in and let go: Ahhhhh.

It feels like a brief moment of bliss.

That bliss is a cue that your relaxation response is engaged and your body is in a space to initiate healing, so I told my clients to chase that feeling and create as much of it as they could in their daily lives.

They didn't need me to heal them.

(And neither do you.)

The feeling when you crawl into sheets fresh from the dryer after a hot shower? Ahhhhh.

Standing with bare feet in warm sand, feeling the sun on your skin? Ahhhhh.

The smell of fresh coffee before you take your first sip? Ahhhhh.

The weight of your kid when they crawl on your lap and settle in for a real snug? Ahhhhh.

The full body calm that descends after a really good cry? Ahhhhh.

My clients didn't need more to do, they needed less to do so that they could do the things they actually wanted to do. My home care prescription was permission to do that. So here it is for you:

This is permission to listen to your body and nurture a relationship with it, instead of looking for someone else to provide the answers. This is permission to do less of what you don't want, and more of what makes you go Ahhhhh..

All of my tests and assessments and treatment plans were helpful because they provided information and were one way to track progress.

And.

When tending to your needs, your feelings matter, your pleasure matters and honouring your intuition matters.

The greatest healing comes when you learn how to listen to your Self.

So. Today, tomorrow, and every day forward, this is your prescription to make space to check-in with your Self. To ask where in the day you were able to feel ahhhhh so that you can do more of it. To honour your intuition, and to lean in to what feels good.

Your future Self will thank you.

(I want to say trust me, but really — trust you.)

Until next time,

J