Today was a rough day at the massage office. I had 4 appointments scheduled and all 4 were kind of tough cases. One is just in a tough part of their treatment but the others I feel like I kind of failed. One guy left saying he felt like he had just taken a beating, I don’t think he was upsets about it. Which in a way is good and normal but it was the first time he saw me and I worry if I go too intense on the first visit they will not come back. However, I did feel like I did some good work and accomplished a lot. A loft of release happened in his massage, he also requested me to only work on his back for the whole hour and that is a lot for the first visit!
On client stumped me, kind of, maybe took me off guard is a better way to explain it. He warned me that he had spent the two hours in a routine that finally relieved his back pain and was worried the massage would make it worse again. He has had 2 prior massages and hated them both. The Doc I work for convinced this patient to come in this week with me because he (Doc) would be gone and he could try to get relief from me since he can’t see Doc. However, he (the client) was never really into it. He probably just should have stayed home. I think I could have been the second coming and he would still be worried that he would be in pain and just give up, it was like he never gave it a chance. I got into the massage and he was uncomfortable so I tried my positioning tricks to take pressure off, a bolster here pillow there kind of thing and still not even 5 minutes later he said he was done. When he left he said he felt worse than when he got there; but he did say it was not personal and I believed him. It just made me sad, but I have to remember to not take it personal. This was a first for me. I have had a lot clients not like massage and not want to continue coming in for a massage but this was the first time the client could not last or did not give the full appointment a chance. I have always won them over for at least that one visit. I kind of feel like I had lost him before he even got on the table. He was guarded and maybe rightfully so since he has been in pain for so long and has been told the only thing that will really help is surgery. He has a routine right now so he doesn’t want to push it by doing anything differently, so hopefully he could go home and redo his routine and get back to where he was before he walked into my office.
Pain and stress will do a Duesy on you! Just dealing with the pain sucks and that is not even considering the pain. Your life is like a water glass there is only so much you can put in there. Most of us live a life that requires a full glass and if you add pain it is like starting to fill your glass when it already half full. Something is going to overflow! You can help it with many different techniques but you have to be willing to sacrifice something. Sometimes that is your pride, allowing someone else to help or take care of you. Sometimes it ends up being your patience or your niceness. If you let someone else help you, you give up a part of you but what you gain can reset your glass so that you have a full glass of good stuff not an over full glass with the bad stuff at the bottom! (did you follow that analogy?)
Anyway today was not a feel good day for me. Every client left me feeling like I should have done more but the reality is that my job is not to fix them. It is to work on them to help them get better or feel better, one massage at a time and sometimes the getting and feeling better happen a day or two after the massage and sometime a few treatments in. I like to think I am a superhero with a bottle of oil as my cape but days like today remind me my job is not done in one treatment. It is a labor of love and commitment both for me and my clients they have to commit to their care too. I do love my job but the grind it out days like today are hard to get through. It is not all FooFoo and Relaxing it is work and sometime “growing Pains” or as I want to say “healing pains.”
#Everyday2015
