Ego? Lucifer? One in the Same. – 20 Massages in 2 Months (Massage #19)

 

I received Massage #19 from Avery at the Well-Being Center for Health in Monroe, WA. Click here to read more about Avery’s practice.

I appreciate Avery’s massage work because she is very skilled and because she is keeping up on this blog. Her regular reading means that it is much easier for me to answer the question that each therapist asks at the beginning of each massage, “So, what’s going on with you today?”  Likewise, Avery is not only dedicated to client well-being. She is committed to delving into and polishing her practice of healing modalities like massage and Jin Shin Do.

In this massage marathon I initially set out to resolve numbness in my right arm and shoulder as well fear stored in the neck area.  Massages #1-#7 were so successful in meeting these goals that in Massage #8 the focus changed to chronically sore and recently swollen-feeling feet and ankles.

Originally, I believe that as with my neck past or alternative life memories - including a lifetime of foot-binding and another in which I, as a slave, wore ankle chains – were responsible for this discomfort. 

Yet, no such memories have surface in the foot area. Instead, therapists were drawn to work not only on feet and ankles but gluts, psoas and QL muscles as well.  Within in a few massages, it became clear that pain in feet and ankles was relieved through work in the hip (root chakra) area.  I concluded that feet and ankle symptoms were caused at least in part by energy blockages in the hip area that forced energy to stagnate in the lower limbs.

Avery had a treatment plan in mind when I arrived for the massage. She suggested a Jin Shin Do shoulder release as well as well as side-lying somatics to get at energy and tension in the psoas muscles, muscle winding through the pelvic girdle from lower spine to femur (thigh bone). I also asked Avery to work in the sits bone area as this maneuver created a lot of release in Massage #11.

Avery came to the massage with insights about the psychology of working with my inner attorney (or inner-dictator, as the case may be) to unseat him from his position of power and make room for change for the better.

As Avery held the positions for the Jin Shin Do shoulder release she said, “I see your inner-attorney as ego.  I see the ego as trying to edge out God.”

I could not agree more.  Avery's comment reminded me that - whether the ego takes the form of a character like my inner attorney or like Gadhafi - its nature is the same.  Through a need to control and an unwillingness or inability to feel and therefore comprehend the impact of its action, the ego inflicts gross levels of needless suffering. 

“I know that some people who identify as spiritual object to the term ‘Lucifer’,” I said, “but Lucifer is real and its equivalent is ego.”  

(The gripes of some of my peers notwithstanding, I use both words, ‘Lucifer’ and ‘ego.’ I like the term 'Lucifer' for its dramatic essence and the way it evokes instinctive awareness of denials fueled by fear - or what is sometimes called 'evil.'  I like the term “ego” for its intelligence and the way it empowers the mind to develop a relationship with the ego that ultimately undermines the ego’s power.)

“It’s like you are trying to get rid of this inner-attorney, when the truth is he is a part of you.  In other blogs you talked more about integrating him,” Avery continued. 

Avery had touched on a central conundrum as I see it:  How to create a peaceful and therefore safe revolution, whether personal or social, in the face of a dictator who refuses to step down?  How to understand the role of force or violence in such a process?  She also touched on another enduring question:  How best to relate to this ego, this dictator - to forces which control through poverty, fear-mongering, exploitation, economic manipulation, violence, slavery, judgment, negativity, enforced disconnection from the Divine and conditions that compromise health – when such degradation and unhappiness can no longer be tolerated?

(for more, see next post)