Energetic Massage

[qos]

Yesterday at work we had a Safety and Health Fair -- which included a fair number of alternative providers. One of them offered a 15 minute energetic massage given by three women working together.

I signed up, anticipating an experience that would leave me "energized." I expected tingles, a feeling of energy moving in my body, a feeling of being cleansed and grounded. That's not what happened.

One woman began giving me a foot massage that I'm sure included very specific stimulation of reflexology or energy points. That felt very good.

But the sensations were very different elsewhere in my body. A very short time into the massage I began to feel pressure and constriction around my heart and chest. I tried to relax and breathe deeply, but what I felt was a desire to resist and defend.

I told the practitioner what I was feeling. She said, "I know. Just keep breathing."

It never got all that much better.

When it was over, and I sat up slowly, I asked the woman who had been working over my chest what *that* had been about. She basically turned the question back on myself, suggesting that I consider my relationships -- or what it is within myself that keeps me from having them. She suggested that I look at issues of guilt and forgiveness.

Hmmmm. . .

The woman who was working over my head said, "You are very sensitive to energy" -- which made me smile because for so long I felt like I had no ability in this area.

I felt out-of-sorts for a couple of hours afterward, with some lingering soreness around my chest, and a feeling of vague being on edge. Finally I thought to do some deliberate grounding, which helped.

A most unusual experience.

Comments

Re: Grr.

[qos.livejournal.com]

I've been going back and forth on that. Part of me agrees with you, but part of me is quite aware that her comments about what might be going in around my heart chakra were right on. I've had some muscle massage that wasn't particularly comfortable but was exactly what my body needed. I don't know if energetics work the same way or not.

But I definitely could have used some better up-front orientation about what might happen, and some suggestions about how to handle what came after.

Re: Grr.

[aerden.livejournal.com]

That could be, but I still tend to think that if a massage makes you feel ill, then it was a badly-done massage. You could have been having a heart attack for all she knew, but it sounds to me as if this woman wasn't really listening to a word you said. My suspicion is, she doesn't know how to massage correctly, and her customers frequently feel the same discomfort you did--which she admitted to. But instead of questioning her own technique, she questions her customers.

I'm very relieved that you're feeling better now.

Chantal

Re: Grr.

[iswari.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know what you mean. I guess it's a question of whether or not it was good discomfort or bad discomfort. Healing isn't always comfortable. Do you feel like what you were feeling was physical or energetic? Do it seem clear between you that it was about your chakras and emotional issues rather than that you were, say, having a heart attack or something? Resistance is a tricky thing. Sometimes you can't go at it head on, like that. Sometimes, you have to join with it, in order to dispell it. I'm a little surprised she worked so intensively with you in that context....