I Couldn't Remember A Thing About The Massage - 20 Massages in 2 Months (Massage #16)

I received Massage #16 of 20 from Tasha Enochs at the Well-Being Center for Health in Monroe, WA. Click here to see a picture of Tasha. 

Massage #16 took place on a rare sunny day in February.  At the end of a sunny day I am often left with an impression – the sense memory of brilliant light, warm air on my neck as I coast on my bicycle, and freedom.  I don’t necessarily recall the details, for instance, whether I was at the bakery or the river at three o’clock or the number of clouds in the Northern quadrant of the sky at noon.  Massage #16 mimicked the day.  As I sat down to write about the massage I discovered that I could not remember the details!  The sensory impression of hands, oil, and conversation alone stayed with me.  In fact, I had to text Tasha and ask her jog my memory.

She reminded me that we had worked on hips and feet, and that over all there was not as much fear in my neck as there had been in the past.  This was true.  During the massage Tasha worked vigorously the front and sides of my neck.  As mentioned, up until Massage #6 with Richard Oliver this would not have been possible as my fear response would have been too strong to allow the massage work to continue.  However, even though much of the fear in my neck has been resolved, in this massage with Tasha, another layer surfaced. This time, I saw flashes of myself hung in a noose, a rope held tight around my neck by a white knuckled hand and the face of an angry man.  These images flooded my mind until they became a collage reflecting back to me the nature of my hidden fears.  Unlike the past life memory of drowning released in Massage #6, in Massage #16 I was unable to pinpoint one clear past or present life memory behind the images.

Tasha consistently brings strong intuitive skills to her massage practice and Massage #16 was no exception.  Though I did not mention my intensifying fear or pull away from Tasha, as my discomfort peaked, she removed her hands from my neck. “Is this okay,” she asked, “I was feeling some resistance?”

I let her know that the fear was there and that it was okay because I wanted to work through it. 

At another point in the massage Tasha pressed her hand into the muscle at the far right of my upper chest near the armpit.  As the muscle relaxed it released a wave of psychic pain that I felt both within my heart and behind my eyes.  Though I could not connect this pain to any particular life situation, once it passed my heart opened and become warm with happiness.

“That’s funny,” Tasha said.

“What’s funny?”  I asked. I had not mentioned the wave of psychic pain.

“Pain,” she said, “How we always think of it as something physical when that’s not always the case.”

I thought about the number of times in these massages - even though my body is strong and flexible - when I had been touch gently and yet experienced strong discomfort. “Yes, I am in some psychic pain,” I replied.

And yet, even as fear creeps into my neck and pain releases from my heart, the deepest and most intense parts of this massage marathon seem to be drawing to a close.  Although I did not foresee it, this experiment of 20 massages in 2 months has double as spiritual initiation bringing expanded consciousness, deeper self-awareness and new gifts.

As Tasha wrote in a text message describing Massage #16, “My perception was that you may be over the most emotional releases…that you are over the hump.”

I think she may be right.