You Don't Need to Survive Your Massage

You don’t need to survive your massage
✧if the pressure is too deep
✧if the pace is too fast
✧if you feel panicky while you’re “supposed” to be relaxing

Your bodywork session is for YOU. To meet your needs. Your body, your nervous system. A massage isn’t something to survive or endure. There’s enough of that in the world.

So if you find yourself pushing through, your bodyworker might be pushing too hard. Or there might be anxiety or big feelings on top of the muscles and tissues (and we’ll get to this part soon, pinky promise). It’s okay to ask for a pause. Ask for less pressure. Ask for more pressure. Change positions. Ask your bodyworker to slow down. Take a moment and get in touch with your breath and what’s coming up for you.

Whatever. You. Need.

It’s okay. Truly. Because a massage is not something to survive.

Let's Talk Bodywork and Massage

Hi friends. I’m going to start sharing about trauma-informed b o d y w o r k, because it’s kind of my thing. Don’t worry, there will still be moody poems and memes because those are also my thing. We’ll get into what the heck trauma-informed bodywork is, how to begin when your body holds so much trauma you’ve avoided working with it, and we’ll explore massage myths.
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For now, let’s talk b o d y w o r k, which means: let’s talk massage because guess what they’re the same thing, basically.
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mirriam-webster says:
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mas·​sage, noun: manipulation of tissues (as by rubbing, kneading, or tapping) with the hand or an instrument for relaxation or therapeutic purposes
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bodywork, noun: therapeutic touching or manipulation of the body by using specialized techniques
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I like to use the word b o d y w o r k because it feels wider to me than what we think about when someone says massage. We might think about a relaxing swedish massage at a spa (fluffy robe, warm oil, long soothing strokes) or a sports/medical massage after an injury (deep tissue, trigger points, gentle stretching). But b o d y w o r k can be so very many things. It’s a wide world. It’s an ocean you can swim in. There are modalities that are relaxing, energizing, clearing (on energetic, physical, and emotional levels), and rehabilitative. There are modalities rooted in different places in the world. There is probably a modality out there that works for you even if you haven’t found it yet.
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In my integrative massage sessions, I love to blend modalities to meet the client’s needs. I’m often turning to swedish massage (those soothing strokes for tight muscles and a weary nervous system), craniosacral therapy (gentle holds, like a steady anchor the body and nervous system can move around), and fascial unwinding (witnessing and supporting the unwinding of body-held and tissue-held patterns). My hands are always holding energy, but I don’t identify as an energy worker. It’s just something that is always happening, and often an alchemy between myself and a client.
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I hope this helps clarify what the heck I mean when I say b o d y w o r k. This isn’t the end-all be-all definition, it’s just mine. What’s yours?

notes for when we're in it

I was talking to a friend the other day. Well, crying to a friend the other day. I was feeling a little bit ledgey. Emotional. Drastic. In a precarious place. She didn’t try to talk me out of it. She just got up on the metaphorical ledge with me. Stood next to me. Stayed with me until I was ready to come down.

This is what we all need I think. Not someone to fast forward us, or slap a silver lining on it, or remind us that it will get better and this is all happening for a reason. Part of us knows all of that, but perhaps the loudest (the neediest) part of us is on the ledge and we just want someone to sit there beside us. Maybe with a hand on our shoulder. We’re asking: just be in it with us. We’re already in it and that’s hard but harder still is to be alone in it. Please, don’t leave us alone in it.

It is a gift to have a friend who will climb up onto the ledge. It is a gift to be this friend. Ledgewalkers and edgewalkers, I️ see you. I’m with you. It’s scary and hard and you’re really high up there and really deep down in it. I’ll sit with you, limbs trembling and wind whipping all around us. I won’t try to fix it or talk you down or point out the beautiful view. I’ll just be here. With you. For as long as it takes. We don’t have to go anywhere til you’re ready.

if your body was trespassed

content warning: sexual assault. please take care of yourself before, during and after if you decide to read.

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If things have happened to you. If Bad Things have happened to you. If fingers went somewhere without first asking, if fingers stayed even if you asked them not to, if it was something that wasn’t a finger, which doesn’t make it better or worse- just different. If you were young, if you were 32, if you were in a relationship, if you were on a date, if you were the baby or child someone was supposed to be protecting. If you can’t remember but your body does. If you remember all of these details that keep coming back to you, hauntingly: your noodly body on the hood of the car by the side of the road on the mountain and he’s saying: there’s a car coming, look like you’re alive.

If there’s two cars coming. If you were moaning. If you were split in two pieces, one ghost of you beside yourself (is this where the expression comes from- beside yourself?) and you in your body enough to get through it. If part of you (seemed? was? acted?) into it and part of you felt trespassed. If you didn’t have time to feel anything because you were calculating How To Keep Yourself Safe. If Keeping Yourself Safe should never have been your job.

If when it’s over (except it’s never really over, it lingers like campfire smoke still on you) you are blaming yourself, wondering why you put yourself in that position. If you know you didn’t put yourself in that position, a Bad Thing happened To You, but the thoughts still keep coming. If you think, I’m too old for this, as if there’s an age at which it’s acceptable, because there is not. If you were still seeing the person who was sweet and not right for you but never would have raped you. If you were raped, or just violated. If “just” doesn’t exist in this scenario.

If you drank so much because he kept handing you the klean kanteen. If you being drunker than him was part of the plan. If you had said something stronger like “what the fuck are you doing? why are you doing this?” (those words never left the inside of you and you imagine them there- a scream in a room with no one to listen, a piece of tropical fruit, sickly-sweet-rotting) what would he have done. If he asks, did I do something wrong. If he says, should we call it a night. If you pushed him off the side of the mountain.

If you drive him home. If you count the miles on your maps app. If you make the appropriate amount of small talk. If you are shivering but not from the cold. If, for better or worse (worse, worse, worse), your body knows how to survive this. If he across-the-car hugs you goodbye and hopes you had a good time, did you have a good time. If he keeps asking unanswerable questions. If the dissonance just sits there like sweat coming off his skin.

If you sob into your sheets. If a shower washes nothing clean. If while you lather soap you remember his hands and your body freezes, wilts. If you got through it, and you’re tired of getting through things. If you tell your friend you felt relatively safe. If he assaulted you, so how safe were you really. If you let yourself cry for the places he touched, the deeper places this touches. If your friend asks, how did you survive the drive home. If it’s the same way you’ve survived everything else.

if things are dying, let them

If things are dying, let them. A hand in hand at the bedside and wounded wailing, let it. Grief that carves through you like a river with teeth, let it. A busy mind grasping to make sense of this wieldly liminal space, let it. Itchy old skin about to peel off, let it. Molasses middle and more questions than answers, let it. Drifting away from the wise center of you into the dark of despair and doom, let it.

Death finds everything. Eventually so does birth. Never on our timeline. Not without labor pains. And though it’s hard (so hard) and we are gritting all of our teeth: let it, let it, let it. 🌑🐍🥚

woo-woo washing

Let’s not do this, please and thank you. It’s dangerous and harmful and insulting and agenda-pushing and it’s n-o-t client-centered OR trauma-informed.
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Get outta here with your healing light unless I️ specifically requested healing light, basically.
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Get outta here with “my soul asked for this” or “your trauma is your greatest gift”.
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Get outta here St. Germain, who is probably lovely, but I️ also never (ever ever) find surprise visitors lovely. Text me first thx! And you too Archangel Gabriel.
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Get outta here with... what else would you add?
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Sound off below. 🗣🔥⚡️