20 Massages in 2 Months - Massage #2 (continued)

Karen begins working on the muscles in the back of my neck, shoulders and upper back in much the way Richard did in Massage #1. She continues massaging knots out of my trapezius and scapula muscles beneath and the tension in my arm once again releases. Karen suggests that muscle tension is interfering with nerve transmission causing numbness. She moves to the muscles at the side of my neck and we discover a troubling feedback loop. As she begins massaging the sides of my neck I begin to tense up and the fear comes again. It is dawning on me that the numbness results from a conspiracy of tension in several muscles - including muscles at the side of my neck. Resolving this pattern requires working the tense muscles and all of them, yet at the slightest touch to the side of my neck I tense up and my tension in turn reduces the amount of work possible. “Is it too much?” she asks.

“It’s too much emotionally,”  I respond. It is a mysterious to me what causes this reaction and I hope to get to the bottom of it.

"Must be a trust issue," she says.

She lifts my right arm and massages the muscles in my armpit.  In response to more questions from me she begins discussing various muscles that I'm guessing converge there in the pit – something about subscapularus and pectorals minor. “What I’m getting in you on an emotional level is some kind of determination. A stubbornness in moving forward perhaps without your feminine side,” she intuits.

I’m rankling again so I know that she has hit on something. These are times of fast change for me. During the past 15 years of awakening and study I have kept my spirituality private and now I am being asked to make a 180 degree turn and take it in the other direction, to become more public and share my experience. This is exciting, inspiring and fearsome. Gifts notwithstanding there was grief  - and fear - associated with letting go of practicing law and letting go of my identity.

Spiritually, I know that the awakening was meant to serve humanity. I know also that in the face of the unknown -and at this moment my life is an unknown - it is best to rely on intuition. Yet, fear can make it challenging to hear intuition and can cause the rational mind – symbolized by activity on the right side of the body - to try to take over and control the process. As far as my numb arm is concerned it appears that emotionally I am between a rock and a hard place. Sooner or later, something's got to give. As Karen works, I listen to my feelings, the ones that move in response to the massage in my armpit. Within these feelings is a sense of not being able to let go of the old way. I tell her this.

“That’s what I’m getting,” she confirms.