New Direction: Feets & Ankles! – 20 Massages in 2 Months (Massage #8)

My feet - bunions, overlapping toes and all!

I had Massage #8 with Jennifer at the Well-Being Center for Health in Monroe, WA. Before talking about this massage I should let you know that massages 1-7 brought unexpected progress to my neck and arms! While these parts will continue to benefit from a few minutes of attention in future massages, it’s time to put the main focus elsewhere.

I’m choosing to focus on feet and ankles because, frankly, I neglect them. I was born with bunions, overlapping toes and arches that are flatter than most. This means that I have trouble finding comfortable shoes and my feet can cramp painfully when swimming, running or oddly enough, when I’m dehydrated. I’m also a bit pigeon-toed with ankles that can feel weak. This affects the alignment in my hips. The long and short of it is that my feet and ankles are often sore.

On an emotional level, I already know that past life issues affect the comfort level and perhaps even the structure of my feet and ankles. In one lifetime, I had my feet bound. In another, I was a slave with a chain around my ankles. While people say they’ve seen worse bunions than mine (I’ve been able to avoid surgery through yoga, rolling a tennis ball under my feet and exercise) when I look at the shape of them they look as I imagine feet carrying the imprint of binding would look: the body of the foot is vaguely convex, has a lifeless feel to it and seems compressed into a tight space. The toes also curve downward and seem to huddle together. Because of flat arches, balance can be an issue!

My feet are also fragile, so having deep massage work on them could also be a challenge. According to my human anatomy coloring book (Kapit & Elson) there are 25 bones in the foot, including 3 in each toe, except the big toe which only has two. Not only this there are 3 arches (medial, lateral and transverse), a fistful of joints, an occasional sinus, an Achilles tendon, several ligaments, plus some fascia (connective tissue) - all of which help hold the whole thing together. (Compare this with the thigh which is easily 4-8 times as big as the foot and only has one bone – the femur!). Energetically, the feet have two main chakras, or energy points, that help keeps us grounded to the Earth and engaged in a healthy way with life. On a metaphysical level, the energy carried in the feet determines our ability to move forward in life, to be stable, motivated, balanced and self-supportive. 

I explained the situation to Jennifer and asked if she was comfortable working deeply on my feet and ankles. She said, “Yes.” She added that even though in a typical massage school curriculum feet are studied, they are not necessarily a huge focus. Nonetheless, any good massage therapist should be able to extend their training to focus effectively on most areas of the body including the feet. Jennifer is a good massage therapist so I expected good things. She also said that it is not unusual for a client to ask for a whole hour to be devoted to hands and feet.

She did some work on my upper body but focused mostly on ankles and lower legs. She used her thumb to loosen up fascia (connective tissue) that over time has become compressed into the muscle. The feeling of fascia loosening is for me a sort of itching, burning, hurts-so-good sensation. As she worked I notice one of Jennifer’s skills – she has the ability to find a muscle’s edge and stay on that edge. By this I mean, she has the uncanny ability to sense just how much pressure tissue needs. Any less pressure and no progress would be made in the body. Any more pressure would bring pain, clenching and an inability to relax, relaxation being one key to healing.

Emotionally, I noticed that in my ankles were defenses similar to those in my neck before the past life memory of drowning was liberated. While there was no fear in my ankles, there was the same dark energy of not wanting to be touched, of anger and of shouting (silently and inside of myself, of course) to “leave me alone!” and “stop trying to help!”

After my massage with Jennifer I felt balanced, refreshed and anxious to find out what lies within the complex system of tissue and energy called the feets and ankles!