The next day she contacted me in hyper mode relating how dangerous it is to be involved in a massage career, hence she no longer wanted to do the course. Interesting. For two months this young lady has been calling to remind me to keep a ‘space’ in the new class for her as she wanted to do massage a long time ago and has finally gotten her finance coordinated to facilitate such.
I expected that her decision had something to do with not wanting to massage men’s groin, or not being able to get insurance. But apparently after she went home there was some degree of screening and the wiser heads decided that the information in the hand-out contradicted their teachings/beliefs so she was now trying to explain to me how threatened her life would be if she had energy exchanges with clients.
The level of fear she was displaying was irrational to me. I pointed out that living with family members, going to the supermarket and joining a line of customers, or even working in an office with several persons all facilitate exchange of energies multiplied several times over as compared to working with one client at a time. Besides, how could exchanges be all negative when the presence of positive helps us to determine negative? She said that she understood what I was saying, but insisted that she cannot continue because of the many things that could rub off on her and from clients, and I realised that her fear was being generate by whoever is the figure of authority in her life rather than the principles of energy exchange.
After our exchange I shared the experience with a past student who is also a Muslim and this was part of her response:
It is so funny you should say that because I know exactly how that girl feels because I was once there myself. The Muslim religion in our country for the most part thrives on frightening people about jinns, entities and anything we cannot see. Ironically, those same Muslims openly go to the muftis who are equivalent to shamans who openly communicate with these other beings. And it's not even the religion, it's the people who are oppressive. Because of this inbuilt fear it has taken me a long time and is still taking me a long time to realize my own natural healing gifts.
When my friends who are highly intuitive kept telling me I too have similar gifts it bothered me to the point that I know things are there for me but I can’t access them. So I started to pray for about a month to find and use what is my right. I don't know by what force made me google massage --that would have been the very last thing on my mind. Then the day before the first class starts I find your page. I don't even have male friends, much more to touch people in such a personal level. Even at the first class I was very uncomfortable seeing all these faces, I didn’t know what to think, I had never done anything like this before, yet; it felt sooo good, I knew I had to follow through with it. I am in the mindset now to start doing things that scare me the most. For me, one of those things was touching people physically.
I suppose my point is, a lot of people in Trinidad are not ready to think independently. A lot has to do with the upbringing. It's only as we get older we realize the only happiness in this life is what we create for ourselves. Don’t be surprised if sometime in the future that girl comes back. Massage is like Reiki and I think with any healing work, we are called to it. So in a couple years she may get restless again and be drawn to it once again. Thank you for sharing the story...it put my own in perspective.
For me this was another humbling experience that has created a deeper appreciation for every student who has journeyed with me to the end of the programme. Obstacles have arisen that made many consider dropping out, some were discussed, others remained private, but perseverance prevailed. The only dead student is Nathaniel and that was as a result of a vehicular accident, not while doing massages. I only hope that among ourselves we find strength in the determination we had in the beginning, and forge forward to attain the goals we set for ourselves. Goals, I would want to believe, that were not associated with pain induction in the name of therapy. Within the physical context of injury management we understand that some massage techniques stretch the skeletal muscles significantly, like friction (circular, transverse/cross fibre), and the athlete would experience some degree of discomfort. However, going into a session with the intention to induce pain takes us back to the psychological aspect of things where the Therapist is indirectly/subconsciously sending messages to the client which are being received and processed; and because of the incredible influence of the mind/body – psychosomatic – process, the pain can in fact become exaggerated, triggering tears.
We can also consider that some injured athletes might suffer from emotional problems if their self-esteem is based solely on their ability to perform and thus may cry more easily if additional pain is added to the fact that they can no longer participate as desired. Some personality types are less prone to the negative suggestions of Therapists, but the subconscious is remarkably clever and it knows what is considered to be the physical cause of pain, and it takes advantage the real structural weaknesses and creates realistic and convincing pain symptoms that can even become chronic. I cannot imagine why we would want to deliberately induce this.
If healing/therapy takes place through the exchange of human energies, why don’t we channel therapy through our massage? There are other ways to get people to cry us a river. No need to impose such on an athlete who merely wants to get back into the game. Seeking help from a Therapist is a dis-empowered state because the athlete is basically saying: you know what is best for me. Let us use Massage as a motivational tool, as a means of support geared at helping the athlete to regain some measure of control, and as an education for a better life through greater self-understanding. The body is predisposed towards health, and it is our role to facilitate this.
The end of Pain Induction
