Enduring Healing

A lot of my clients have said, "I've gone to massage therapists before, and it all feels good during the session, but the minute I walk out the door, my tension is back!"  Have you ever had that happen?  You want relief and go seek out the best thing possible, only to be disappointed at the temporary result?

I don't mean to get all Buddhist on you, but ask, in the greater spectrum, what really is everlasting?  OK, OK, so that wasn't helpful to you, who's probably sitting poorly in front your computer reading this.  I can only speak about my own experience, and I let each of my clients know that my treatments last up to four days.  "Four  days," I hear you saying, "that's it??"  Well, yes -- I'm not going to lie, and that's the report straight from my clients' mouths.  Four days of relief that came naturally, with no preservatives, or additives, or nasty side effects.  Four days of feeling more fluid in your body, more at ease, sleeping better, and moving with more energy.  What's the alternative?  Advil?  Wine?  Some hits from the bong?  

Which brings me to why I don't work like a typical massage therapist: I typically see clients on a weekly basis.  You might think this is extreme, time-consuming, and expensive.  It is (but so are the alternatives).  But here's the honest truth: given the shelf-life of my treatments, it's also about the time that you'll probably do something silly with your body, and hurt yourself somehow.  You might go and run harder than normal and pull a muscle.  Or you might go travelling and return a wreck from being crammed into an airplane's seat.  

I'm not saying those things to be a jerk (those examples are actual feedback from my clients!), but most of my clients are super active, highly productive people: they DO a lot.  My clients generally work long hours, love playing with their families, and they really love their sports activities.  And when you do a lot with your life, you're liable to mess up your body!  It's really about probability.  Which is why I work on-going with my clients, so as to offer a consistent system of rejuvenation.  Aside from getting progressively more limber, and feeling peace of mind, my clients tell me that having work done on their body on a consistent basis helps them recover faster.  

For example, I've experience working with golfers.  A really odd sport to be combined with Thai Yoga massage, you might say, right?  Truthfully, they sought me out, not the other way around (when this phenomenon started, I had never hit a golf ball, much less knew what a Birdie was. Now I do).  Golf is a game that relies upon flexibility first and foremost.  Before strength, and even before power...you must be flexible enough to torque yourself up in that weird twisted position, like a coiled spring, and unleash that energy to whack a tiny little ball, hoping to drive it into a really far away tiny hole.  Say what you will about golf as a non-sport, but I've tried it, and damn, it's hard!  Contorting your body over and over again into that weird position is not normal, and results in some serious wear 'n tear.

But I digress...back to my golfing clients: they are all pretty much fanatical about the game.  They love it with a passion that sends them out into the wee hours of the morning to tee off.  Golf gets them out of the house on the weekends, exasperates their spouses, and makes them spend ridiculous amounts on new equipment.  But I've yet to meet a golfer who liked to take time out to warm up and warm down with generous amounts of stretching.  It's just not built into the game (though a few drinks at the 19th hole is...go figure).  So the smart ones come and see me: they are so passionate about their game, they want to minimize their recovery time -- when the back's killing you, the feet hurt, and you're exhausted -- so they can go back the next day and do it all over again.  

So, long story short: I don't think there's anything that's permanent -- healing is a process.  The body is regenerating all the time, and you're trying to live in it the best you can.  But you get to choose, also, activities for your health: activities that are life-positive, and ones that are life-negative.  And like a lot of things in life, these activities, when repeated over time, compound.  You have the choice of compounding something that's inherently negative to your being, or positive.  Most of my clients find me because they've already tried the alternatives (and maybe had even a few operations too) to help boost their health.  Receiving Thai Yoga massage isn't for everyone, but unlike weed, alcohol, or Valium, I don't have anything else to offer except life-positive healing, in the form of compassionate touch.