Part 2 and Revelations

To continue on with things that have happened over the last couple of weeks...

In my Bodywork classes, we did a lot of exercises with blindfolds. "What the heck would you use blondfolds for at massage school" you ask? To build trust and understanding of course! The first thing we did, was we paired off and did a blindfolded Trust Walk. We had to get our blindfolded parter to the beach, switch places, and then come back to campus. So Steve blindfolded me and took me to the beach. It was really scary for the first few minutes because of course you have no idea what's in front of you, but you also don't know where the final destination is (other than "the beach") and you don't know how you're getting there. And then of course you have to walk past cars and construction and dogs and whatnot, and you can't see the puddles you're stepping in or the rocks you're tripping on... all in all though, it was a really cool experience. Once I allowed myself to completely trust in Steve and his guidance, I was able to realize things that I didn't know before. For example, I became hypersensitive to shadows, sounds, and the texture of the ground under my feet. Even though my eyes were closed and I was blindfolded, I could sense even the slightest differentiation in the quality of light. I could hear everything around me - the people, the trees, doors opening...at one point, I knew I was by a pole or trunk of some kind, and I just stuck my hand out and touched it - sounds anti-climactic, but it was so cool to really KNOW where the pole was before I touched it. The texture of the ground was probably the coolest thing though. Even through my shoes, I could feel what kind of ground I was walking on - pavement, tile, beach, gravel...it seems simple writing it all out, but it was so incredible to actually experience it!
 We also used the blindfolds during bodywork classes, which was a trip all in itself. The first thing we did was 6 of us got on the table and blindfolded ourselves, and then there were 5 people acting as therapists who could see. No talking was allowed, and they had 3 minutes to complete a massage on a designated part of the body (example, 3 minutes for a leg). After the 3 minutes, the therapists went to the front of the room and the people on the table had to write down who they thought had just touched them. This exercise was mainly used to help us as therapists - if we can't portray who we are through our touch, then we have work to do. And if a bunch of people think that Christina massaged them when it was actually me, then I need to get a session from her ASAP, because that's the closest I'll ever get to feeling what my touch feels like. Does any of that make sense?
 The second thing we did with the blindfolds in Bodywork was the most amazing thing I've experienced here at CRSMT. We've gone through weeks of feeling what's going on in the body and we've been steadily building up what we can feel with our fingers and elbows, but you never realize how much you know or don't know until one of your senses is removed. For this exercise, we had our clients lying facedown, and we (the therapists) were blindfolded and had to give a full back-of-the-body massage complete with advanced techniques and draping. It was so scary to not be able to see how our client was reacting to our touch, or to not know quite where the drape was falling, or to not be able to find our jar of cream! But again, after you let the fear go, amazing things start to happen. Suddenly I was massaging and I could feel Larissa's individual muscle fibers. I could feel the muscles in her legs squeezing the blood back up to her heart. I could feel the perfect outline of her ribs under all the layers of muscle on her back. I learned more about the body in 30 minutes than I have in 2 months of study, and it was incredible. And because I couldn't use my sight, I had to be completely in tune with her body to pick up any responses that she would give me. God it was amazing. And afterward, she said that she'd really enjoyed the session and had felt really connected with me - so that's really cool too. When I was on the table and she was blindfolded, I could feel her exploring my muscles and it was just really really cool. Awesome experience.
 Another cool thing that happened recently is that a bunch of us girls decided that it would be fun to go on a 5 hour horseback riding tour into the mountains. It was $70, which is a little steep, but we needed a break and we love horses, so what the heck. So the 6 of us got to the meeting place, mounted our horses, and meandered down the beach and up a mountain. We had 1 guide who rode last the whole time, and her horse had a new foal that followed the entire way. It was cute, but seemed a little inhumane. Anyway, so we rode up and down and up and down hills and the horses weren't exactlly comfortable to ride, so by about an hour in to the trip, we were cursing this decision. We rode for about 2 hours, and then the guide came up front and started plowing off the road through the 6foot tall grasses into the woods. Of course we followed, and when the group came to a small stream, she made everyone dismount. We were all completely confused by what was going on, and then all of a sudden the guide motioned for us to follow her and she starts walking a barely discernable trail straight down the side of the mountain. Straight. Down. And the trail was muddy. So after numerous falls and bruises and bad words, we found ourselves at a river. We walked upriver a little ways and came around a bend and were met by the most beautiful waterfall I've ever seen (check out the Facebook pictures). It was a huge waterfall that cascaded out of the trees over rocks and everything was green and gorgeous... so of course we stripped down to our skivvies and went swimming! It was wonderful. And it made the whole hellish trip up there totally worth it. We would have stayed all afternoon if blood hadn't been drawn numerous times. Shaylee slipped on some rocks and slid about 8 feet down the waterfall and ran into a boulder that was really sharp and she cut her foot open really badly. Erica and I also both gashed our hands pretty good. Luckily, there were 3 people (Erica, Rachel, and myself) who were able to bandage things up. Mine and Erica's hand injuries were solved with bandaids, but Shaylee's foot had a really deep cut that needed more attention than we could give it. If we had had Superglue with us, it wouldn't have been a problem, but we didn't. We ended up putting bandaids on her foot, wrapping it with Rachel's belt to try and keep compression on to stop the bleeding, then we put 2 socks on it to hold everything in place. Of course she still had to climb up the mountain back to the horses, but it was done without incident. She did have to get 4 stitches when we got back, but she's fine, so don't worry. And she has a great story to tell.
 So the waterfall was AWESOME, and then on the way back down, we were trying to go faster so we could get Shaylee to the doctor, so naturally we galloped most of the way. Swimming in the msot beautiful waterfall ever and then galloping down the mountainside and across the beach makes for a pretty damn good day. Even though we were sore beyond belief for the next 3 days... totally worth it.
 
 Alright, so in my last post, I told you guys that I'd made some personal discoveries, so here they are.
About a week and a half ago I was walking down the beach and i suddenly realized that I cannot follow the path I thought I was destined for. When I originally decided to attend Massage school, I was determined to learn how to help people so that I could pass on that knowledge. I wanted to help victims of domestic abuse learn how to trust in 'good touch' again. I was going to help Katie open a clinic and I was going to teach victims that touch didn't have to be painful and that it could heal. That was my plan. So while walking on the beach, it was a huge shock to realize that I was unable to follow that path. I don't necessarily mean that I will never work with victims of domestic abuse, but right now - where I'm at in my life at this present moment - I cannot do that work. There are a couple of different reasons for this. Firstly, I'm still healing from my personal experiences with domestic abuse, and don't feel that I'm ready to deal with the emotions of other victims on a daily basis. Secondly, I am afraid of being drawn into their low energy vibrations and experiencing flashbacks or emotions that would unground me or even hurt me. But thirdly and most importantly, I have not healed myself enough to be able to heal other people in that aspect. I have not found enough compassion and forgiveness in my heart for Blake and for Jahongir and until I find that compassion and until I am able to truly forgive them, I will never be able to completely heal myself. If I tried to go into that path of healing the hurts of other abused women, I wouldn't be in it to heal them - the truth of the matter is that I would be attempting to heal myself through them, and that's not fair to anybody. So until I can really and truly heal myself, I will be unable to follow that path that I had been so readily set upon. Perhaps in a few years I can re-evaluate where I am on my journey, but right now, I'm just not there yet.
 So I don't know what I'm going to be headed into (other than Massage Therapy), but I know that I'll be doing good and that I'll be helping people - just not necessarily the people I'd originally thought I would be helping. Yeah.

Oh and for anyone who hasn't heard yet, I was officially offered a job at Carnahan Chiropractic in Pullman, WA! So after school here and after the holiday season I'll be headed back to Washington to build my business and my clientel and learn what massage in the real world is all about! It's official! Yay!

That's all for now - part 2 and personal revleations. A lot to think about, but all for the better.

Ok folks...

K so I haven't written in ages and I have a ton to write about and there's no way I can do that all in one blog and still keep ya'll interested, so i'm going to have to break it down into a couple in order to keep all of us sane.
 As usual, alot has happened since the last time I wrote. I really need to get better at blogging, but I feel like there just aren't enough hours in the day!
 Ok so the Second Quarter of CRSMT is over. I'm pretty confident that my grades will be similar to what they were last quarter, but I won't know until monday, so I'll have to keep you updated. I just finished finals at about 3:00 this afternoon, and I think they went pretty well. Today I had a final in Hydrotherapy and in Bodywork Experiential. The one for Hydrotherapy was just a basic written test - the class was only 2 days long, so it was pretty easy. Bodywork was a totally different story. Just like with my Swedish Massage class last term, I had to give a massage to my instructor as my final exam. This time, we had 20 minutes to complete abdominal massage, flip our client over, do an advanced Shiatsu hip stretch, and bilaterally perform a deep elbow stroke. It was terrifying. I didn't stop shaking until about halfway through my massage. I chose to do my deep work on Hillari's back, so luckily she didn't have to see me freaking out. After my 20 minutes was over, she gave me some feedback. It wasn't quite as good as Jill's feedback last time, but it was alright. She told me to speak a little louder and slow down my abdominal strokes a little. The worst part was that she said she felt a fingernail for a split second - that one thing can fail me. I don't think it did, but it was still horrifying to have her tell me that. She said that my connection and my quality of touch was awesome and that my depth has increased exponentially since the beginning of term, so that was good. Overall I think it went well, but again, we'll see on Monday.
  In other news, a really cool thing happened in Clinic last week. That one guy didn't come back to me, which is totally cool. But I was assigned 3 women who were all fantastic. The first woman had NEVER had a massage before. This simple fact puts an INCREDIBLE amount of stress on the therapist because what the client thinks of their first massage is what they'll think about massage for the rest of their lives. No pressure. So this woman came in terrified and clutching her purse like it was a lifeline. I got her on the table and she was so tense that her head wasn't even on the table and she was holding her arms for me, etc. I put a ton of positive healing intentions into my hands while I worked, and by the time I got to the front of her legs, she was finally relaxing her body, but she was blinking nonstop, so I knew she wasn't quite there yet. As I kept working I watched her eyes slowly slow down, and by the time I was working on her back, she was snoring. It was so AMAZING to be able to be a part of this woman's transition from terrified and tense beyond belief to asleep on my table! I relaxed her THAT much! It was so cool. I talked to Hillari after the massage and she said that the woman totally loved the massage and would definitely be coming back to me. So that's awesome as well.
 My 2nd lady is an accepted student at CRSMT for the January term, so she asked all kinds of questions, and it was really cool to have her on the table and be like "want to feel something cool" (crazy stretch or awesome elbow work) "you'll be able to do that in 4 months!" and we just talked about school and classes and "is it really as hard as they say" and stuff like that. It was fun.
 My 3rd client didn't speak a single word of English, but luckily she's had tons of massage before, so she knew what to do, which made things easier. But it was tough to figure out if my depth was what she wanted or to ask if she wanted water before she flipped... all in all, an interesting night. But the first client was by far the best experience in Clinic I've had so far.
  I have lots more to say, but I'm going to have to sign off and let it wait. I've had a lot of recent personal discoveries that will take some time to scribe, but unfortunately I'm going out with the gang for a celebratory "we're done with 2nd Quarter" dinner, and then tomorrow morning we leave for Nicaragua! So in my next entry I'll tell you the rest of things and I'll also update you guys on Nicaragua, which I'm sure will be amazing!

I love you guys!