Mindfulness in Massage

Massage starts with mindfulness.

For the client, this means bringing awareness to the body as a living, breathing, amazing organism. The first step to almost any problem is simple acknowledgement. “My feet hurt.” Now that my client knows her feet hurt, they can stretch before bed or roll their feet over a frozen water bottle to soothe aches. Less pain in the body means they will rest better and will start off more capable of tackling the day tomorrow. I don’t think I have ever gotten a massage where I didn’t have at least one part of my body pushed on that I hadn’t even realized was sore. I am prone to shoving my pain to the back of my brain, where it turns chronic over time and makes me more and more exhausted. I didn’t start feeling better (after many years of doctor visits, holistic approaches of all kinds, exercise, dietary adjustments, etc) until I started getting regular massage. Just because I wasn’t paying attention to the pain doesn’t mean my body wasn’t being taxed by it. So many years of ignoring my body had trained me to do a really good job of it!

I was baffled that massage helped so much. After all, I was continuing to do all those things that made my muscles tense, and they would be sore again the day after my massage. But over time, the pain was manageable. If my neck was sore, I would put a heat pack on it. I would manage it. If my back was cramped up, I would use a massage ball or one of my dog’s tennis balls to release the knots. My pain was so non-specific and full-body previously that it had just gotten out of control until it turned into chronic migraines, back pain, and joint pain.

It took a few years for me to realize that massage was not fixing me by some miracle. It was just soothing me temporarily and bringing my awareness back to myself. The temporary relief allowed me to notice “this is how it is supposed to feel”. My therapist poking her elbow into my lower back let me know that maybe that muscle was supposed to feel less like a rock.

I slowly began to implement more self-care related to my body and its maintenance. Before I knew it, I didn’t just want to look better and smell good to other people. I wanted to take care of this respected body of mine that has carried me nimbly through everything I have endured. If my muscles are covered in a layer of adipose tissue, that is fine. What I now worried about was how I actually felt. I started doing self massage and taking hot baths, using tiger balm when I was sore, and doing strength training when I felt my joints were unstable. This is the kind of respect I hope to massage into all of my clients.

Mindfulness is important as a therapist as well.

I have always tried to stay absolutely present during the massages I give. I think this is the reason that my clients continue to return. I am listening to their bodies, their breathing, the way their skin and fascia feels. If a therapist only listens to the words that the client says, they are missing a huge part of human communication (although the words should never be ignored either).

This is important in all modalities, but perhaps the most important in “deep tissue” massage. I put “deep tissue” in quotations because everyone seems to use this phrase differently. Some people want me to jab my elbow as deep as I can, while others are fearful that it will hurt. The phrase actually means only that the tissues I work on are deeper muscles within the body. This doesn’t require a lot of pressure, and should never be painful.

I’m not saying my pressure is always light, only that very strong pressure is not necessarily required to treat deep muscles. Most of my clients want medium-firm strength and what I call the “productive feeling” pressure that causes muscles to release. There is a fine line between that productive feeling and “ouch!”, and I try to hone in on the client’s signals of discomfort in order to avoid any pain at all.

I used to be a die-hard “deep tissue” only client and therapist.

One time I was in a ton of pain and went to get a massage at a spa chain because they were the only people with last minute booking available that day. I ended up with a guy who only did what I consider to be the lightest possible pressure. The front desk warned me ahead of time, and I was in so much pain I said anything was better than nothing. I got a generic and relaxing light-pressure Swedish massage and left feeling twenty times better. I am not really sure a deep tissue massage would have been any better. I was flabbergasted, but so happy as a therapist to have had this experience. I still don’t know the reason why it was so effective. Did I have a lymphatic issue? Did I just need to relax mentally? Was he really just bringing awareness and gently soothing every muscle?

I still usually prefer a firmer touch, but there are days where I can tell my nervous system is already overwhelmed, and this experience taught me to listen to it and ask for my therapist to take it a little gentler. Even the gentlest touch brings awareness in a way I am only starting to understand.