One of the most challenging parts of becoming a massage therapist is the way we think about doing massage or being a massage therapist. People come in to us with a pain, stress or injury and want our attention - want us to fix it. We are often taught in massage school to do just that with the techniques that we learn and the knowledge we acquire. All of this learning and knowing can go to a massage therapists head and make them start thinking that they are the ones’ that are doing the healing for the client. It is really confusing to figure out - Who does the healing?

I believe that our bodies are really just a messenger of something deeper that is needing attention. Figuring out what needs attending to is really the challenge. After receiving 4 years of Integrative Manual Therapy which addresses the internal workings of the body, I learned that there is much more to healing. My IMT practitioner would treat my internal organs such as my liver, spleen, intestines and it would relieve the pain in my neck and back. But even with that - who is doing the healing?

Our bodies really are a reflection of our thoughts and beliefs. Healing and changing on a deeper internal level is something only you can do for yourself - not any client.

The book “Zero Limits” by Joe Vitale takes it to the extremes. It is a book about a psychologist who healed a whole mental ward at a hospital by working on himself - a method called Ho’oponopono meaning ‘to make right’ or to ‘rectify’ that is practiced by ancient Hawaiians. He calls it cleaning - cleaning out all of those old thoughts and beliefs that keep you from living a connected inspired life. The memories we hold- conscious and more importantly the unconscious ones are just old programs that aren’t working any more. You can sometimes tell when you are running an old program by the way you feel. If you are feeling anything but love and joy- it is an old program. But it is also not a sure way of knowing as our feelings can come from other places too.

‘Zero Limits’ is the place where we are free of these old programs - “No memories. No Identity. Nothing but the Divine” he says in the book. Part of the problem is that we don’t ever really know if something is coming from our mind and past or the Divine.

Our intentions can also be confusing. We have the intention of building a massage practice but we struggle. When you are intending to do something you keep fighting what actually is which takes you out of the present moment. It blocks inspiration which is the true connection with our ‘zero limits’.

Most of what happens in our life is only a projection of our programs.

When we are faced with clients who are in pain he says the question to ask is “What’s going on inside of me that shows up as this person’s back pain?”

Thinking about this possibility makes my head hurt it is so mind boggling. I have thought about this in the past. If people are coming to us in pain are we really doing a service for them by ‘taking it away’ or trying to take it away with our massage techniques? It is taking total responsibility for everything in your life. These people are in your life to show you just that.

“You are acting from either memory or inspiration. Memory is thinking; inspiration is allowing. Most of us by far are living out of memories. We are unconscious to them because we are basically unconscious period.

The divine sends a message to you and if your memories are playing you won’t hear it.

From Divinity, you will receive inspiration. An inspiration is from the Divine, but a memory is a program in the collective unconscious of humankind. A program is like a belief, a programming that we share with others when we notice it in others. Our challenge is to clear all the programs so we are back to zero state, where inspiration can come.’

Basically all this guy (Dr Hew Len) did was say “I am sorry and I love you” to heal himself.

Our thinking that we can heal others with what we do is really the ego attempts to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. While there isn’t anything wrong with that for the most part because our egos are also showing us what parts of us need the most healing, there is much more to healing or being a healer. I actually dislike it when people call themselves a healer. I won’t go to anyone who thinks or says that about themselves.

Zero Limits: The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Peace, and More (Hardcover)
by Joe Vitale

The Science of Being Well - How our thoughts create everything in our life including our physical symptoms and health or lack of health.

Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling by Wayne W. Dyer-Inspiration, Dyer writes, is the opposite of motivation and goal-oriented thinking, the latter, “grabbing an idea and carrying it through to an acceptable conclusion.” Inspiration, on the other hand, is when “an idea has taken hold of us from the invisible reality of Spirit.” To Dyer, getting rid of ego in all its manifestations is the first step to connecting with the power of inspiration.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2007 at 9:53 am and is filed under Ethics, Recommended Reading, The Code of the Caretaker, The Wealthy Massage Therapist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.