Zenska has already shared her story about breaking up with the father of her three small children. Today she tells us her new adventure, an unexpected one, that happened to her in her new profession: massaging. Life never stops surprising us! Our physical body stores and memorizes all our experience for years back. Usually we don’t even realize it. Zenska learned that in a bit shocking, unexpected, also painful way when she found herself on the massage table being massaged instead of playing a role of a professional masseur that she had expected!
She came to show her skills and suddenly she was on the table feeling like a little girl who wants a hug. How the heck can roles switch so quickly? 🙂
So Much For a Massage!
My head is too full! Body is vibrating, soul is trying to tell me something, energy body is awakened to the point of wanting to leave physical body for it to rest a while. To rest and remember the simplicity of being in peace, of being connected to family, to the universe.
A week ago my partner’s mother (let us call her mother in law) arranged a meeting for me. I was to meet her friend, a professional masseur Bernarda, and demonstrate my massaging skills to her. I couldn’t wait to meet her and get a feedback from a professional! My mother in law talks about her only in superlatives.
The night before our meeting I couldn’t resist checking her webpage and see how she looks like. (After that I regretted it a bit – for not listening to my intuition, not letting things take their natural course. I felt like crossing the line letting my inner “voyeur” out.)
Next day I arrived to her saloon. She came – self-confident, sexy, a bit tinier than I had imagined her after seeing her photos online. She brought us tea. One that is good for hormones. She was observing me and I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. I got the feeling she was just a little tiny bit nervous, tense, restless. I felt good, I was calm (I couldn’t help asking myself – old habit – if I made her nervous). I wanted to show her my skills, what I was made of! So we got down to business.
While massaging her she gave me a few useful tips. She told me not to be afraid. (WTF?! – I am not afraid!) “I am not afraid! Really, I am not!” She smiled back at me with a smile saying: “Hmmm, of course, you are not afraid, yeah…”
And my inner wounded child woke up.
I keep on massaging.
She monitors my posture. “Girl, you have a terrible posture, look at these cervical muscles and your back! You are all tightened up!” (She starts naming my muscles with Latin names so that the whole thing sounds even scarier). Red alert activates itself in my brains, I start feeling small and more and more tightened up.
Then she (while being massaged!) reaches towards me (her masseur!) from the massage table and presses hard on my neck. Auch! When she releases her grip I feel relief and instantly I feel the difference: my muscles are much more relaxed.
In the mean time my ego takes on strategic defensive position. It is alertly anticipating another “attack”. It doesn’t have to wait long. “Are you hot?” “Yes, a little, does it show?” “Yes, it is obvious. Take a towel and wipe yourself, it is not nice when clients can see you are sweating.”
Uuuff, that was it! The end! Attack on my looks. I feel smaller and smaller, uglier and uglier, incompetent. I suck. From neck down and all over my back I must be wearing an armour by now! My abdominal muscles harden, my breathing is shallow, my belly is being pulled inwards. I feel like a turtle!
Despite all that I finish with my massage and I feel exactly what my “colleague” sees. I – the one that came an hour ago – is gone. Instead, a little girl is standing next to the table. A little girl, who is waiting to be hugged.
“Oh, you are all wet. Take off your shirt and lie on the table!” Little girl obeys with relief. She feels Bernarda’s hands on her back and blissful feeling floods her all over her body. Then pain in the neck again. It hurts, it hurts a lot! She can take it for now, she thinks and hopes – she doesn’t want to be exposed.
“Since when have you had back pain?” Bernarda asks.
“What?” (Oh no, back pain!… my kids… since first delivery. I love my kids! No, I will not tell her! She won’t get me! I don’t want to cry, I don’t want to tell my story again. For once I want to get on with my life in peace, without fear, without my treacherous emotions giving me away rendering my body readable like an open book. I am not pathetic!!)
“My back? … well… since not so long.” I can’t take it anymore, tears start pouring, I am crying. I fell her hands warming my lower back, slowly moving upwards – she stops between my spine and left shoulder blade. She presses hard. It hurts! It really really hurts me! It hurts so much that I cry from pain! I am thinking: “Has anything ever hurt me this much??”
I sob and shake and breathe through pain and I am grateful to feel all that. I am grateful for Bernarda’s words: “Cry! All this has to go out once, these are old emotions, piled up from years and years ago. Toss them away like old clothes! Girl, you carry so much pain in you! And fear…”
I know, I know! I know all this, but why? And how can I get rid of this burden? Tired. Angry.
And I don’t even know exactly what is wrong. “You know, you just don’t see it yet. We all get to see it once, so will you!”
She gives me a hug at the door, blinks to me and warns me: “You will probably cry the whole day today!”
I go home with mixed feelings. I feel manipulated, vulnerable, deserted. I have my life path and in my life such “massages” occur over and over again – roles switch in a blink of an eye.
It is not a coincidence that just a few days later I watched movie “Black Swan” with Natalie Portman. Most of you probably know the plot. A ballerina gets lead role of the black swan in Swan Lake ballet by P. I. Tchaikovsky. She tries so hard to be perfect at it that her fears become reality for her in her world. Thin line between reality and illusion fades. One sentence from the movie hit me hard: “You are your own worst enemy.”
I keep telling myself that I have accepted it all, that all my lessons have been given to me to learn and surpass them. I keep telling myself I am grateful for all my experience. But something is missing.
Self-acceptance.
How?
I’ll start by observing my body. It is giving me clear messages of what is right and wrong for me. I am grateful to it for that. It has never let me down, therefore as I am writing this, I respect it and love it.
It’s a good start, right? 😉