The Story Your Body Tells
About 5 years into my massage practice, I had a client whose back felt like cement. She was what I termed a “high-maintenance” client because she had high expectations and a general air of superiority about her. With that said, she was also kind and very involved with her family. She was married with an only son, a daughter-in-law and her baby grandson. She adored them all. She’d always be one of my later-in-the-day clients and every session the table warmer was on, the blanket was ready and the room was a good 78 degrees. We’d spend about 15 minutes on the small talk and pleasantries and then she would melt into the table. She truly was one of my favorite clients. She loved her sessions.
Each time I worked on her, I couldn’t understand how someone who was seemingly so happy and at peace in her world had a back like concrete and a neck that didn’t know what rotation really meant. But I did my work, what my training taught me and she kept coming back.
Fast forward to about a year later. I hadn’t seen her in some time. I knew she lived quite a distance away so had not given it too much thought. When she came in for another session it was as if there had been no lapse in time. The routine didn’t vary, and we had the same 15 minutes of pleasantry and she began to melt into the table. This time though, her back was slightly more malleable. Slightly. It was around this time I was reading Caroline Myss' The Anatomy of the Spirit. For a body worker, it was gold. I was introduced to the chakra system, that we are both matter and spirit at once and that our health lies in the convergence of these two interactions. By the time I got to Energy Anatomy, a chart that created the parallels between the chakras, the organs and the mental and emotional issues and the physical manifestation, the light bulb went on. I was working on the physical, but the emotional was what I was actually feeling.
With this new information and going back to her session, it was roughly 25 minutes in and she suddenly says to me, “I’m sorry I haven’t been around lately. I’ve been going to counseling. I had to learn to use safe words because my husband is verbally abusive.”
I was floored.
Not only had she NEVER shared anything that personal, it was a validating moment for me that became a pivotal point for my body work. To my dismay, I never saw her again. I’ll never know how she fared or if any of what I was learning would have been helpful.
Not long after that, I had a client in on a gift certificate. She was deaf so there was no conversation during the session, but her partner had explained that she had been going through a very rough time personally. I can’t remember what the situation was, but I set my intention to relax her at a level she’d never known as she’d never had a massage before. With my new-found understanding of the chakras and the energetic nature of the body I silently talked to the body as I worked. I started her face down on the table and began. I thanked the back for its support over the years, for its protection and stability. When I got to the arms, I thanked them for their agility and their ability to give and receive hugs. When I got to the legs I was in the process of thanking them for their movement when she raised her head, and in tears said, “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’ve never felt so much love as I do right now.” Once again, I was blown away. I’d never said one word out loud.
It was only a few years later that I was introduced to Louise Hay. She wrote a book called You Can Heal Your Life. Her story is fascinating on its own, but her work seemed to be the interlocking puzzle piece I didn’t even know I was missing. Going a slightly different route, she aligned diseases and pain in the body to structures and organs and even thought patterns. I truly felt like I was home, as though every cell in me just clicked. Not only that, as though the people I interacted with made sense. On some level, it was a though I could ‘see’ them in a deeper way and hear past their words.
This created a foundation for my work. Back then though, energy work and this kind of thinking was almost always equated with some sort of esoteric work and my clients weren’t always open to the concepts and ideas. I even had one client tell me that he could no longer allow himself or his family to see me, that I was messing with things that went against God. Not only was I taken by surprise, it really cut me off at the knees. He and his family knew me and my family well. Really well. It hurt. And followed me a heck of a lot longer than it should have.
In my 20+ years of being in business, these stories have formed a path for me, leading me to open LillyBelle and create a sacred space for healing. There is a saying that feelings buried alive never die.There is even a book by the same name. Science is beginning to validate what healers for centuries have intuitively known. A healer is not someone that you go to FOR healing. A healer is someone that triggers within you, your own ability to heal yourself.
Beauty from the inside out. That's why we're here. Helping you re-discover your own, the beauty that has always been there, the beauty that makes you whole.
#beauty #healing #energywork #healingtouch #massage #bodysugaring