Prelude to Massage #14 – Unexpected Developments

Sample of journal entry from February 10, 2011describing a dream.  At the top is the usual left-handed and backward writing (yes - like Leonardo Da Vinci) and below this - less neat with more cross-outs - is the new right-handed & backward writing.  Who knew massage - and spiritual awakening - could bring changes of this magnitude!

 

I received massage #14 from Richard Oliver.  Before talking about the massage, to recap, as a New’s Year’s Resolution I am doing 20 massages in 2 months with therapists from the Well-Being Center for Health on Hill Street in Monroe,Washington.

I am an alternative healer focusing on natural, intuitive and shamanistic modalities. In this massage marathon I am looking to ease physical symptoms in my own body and explore massage.  In doing so I am also testing a theory of life, disease and change that says that all physical symptoms as well as life circumstances have stagnant emotional energy as a foundation.

I have had some luck applying this theory to self-healing in the past.  For instance, I was able to heal a life-long allergy to cats this way.  In a similar vein, the results of this massage marathon continue to surpass expectations.  Originally, massages focused on chronic numbness in the right arm. It also focused on my neck and the fact that since childhood I have cringed and/or yelped in fear when being touched on the front or sides of the neck.  Unbelievably, after only 7 massages the transformation in neck and shoulders was so complete I moved on to another problem area – feet and ankles -- where fatigue from bunions and flat arches as well as sore, achy ankles are the norm. 

Emotional patterns underlying discomfort in neck, shoulder, and arm were fairly easy to decipher.  A past life memory of drowning after driving off a bridge was responsible for fear in the neck.  This was released in massage #6 with the help of cranial-sacral therapy. Arm numbness resulted from an inability to let go and trust the spiritual process, especially when it came to writing.

I will admit that emotions in the feet and legs are harder to decipher.  They are impressionistic, a stream of emotions and images with no clear connection, at least one my conscious mind can make.  I have discovered no past life memories in the lower limbs as I had originally anticipated. 

Nonetheless, work on the feet and ankles is bringing dramatic changes.  For those of you who know me or read the stand alone page “The Writing” above, a few years back I developed the ability to right left-handed & backward (yes, like Leonardo DaVinci).  Up until this time I was right-handed and could not do anything with my left hand, let alone write backward.  Now, when I write long-hand I mostly write backward with my left hand – by now I have journals full of the stuff!  (See photo above from a journal entry recording a dream sequence!).

Now something new has happened.  Before now I could either right-handed & forward or left-handed & backward. Even though I tried, I could not write right-handed & backward or left-handed & forward.

Then the other night, after I had been writing left-handed & backward for a couple of hours, my hand was getting tired.  I grabbed the pen with my right hand and began to write. To my surprise, I continued the backward writing but this time with my right hand!  Writing this way it was challenging to keep “a’s” oriented in the right direction!

I don’t understand what, exactly, brings these changes in writing although it seems probable that the awakening process, supported by all this massage and energy work, has created changes in brain function, changes responsible for the DaVinci factor and other activities, like shamanistic journeying and healing work.  I can't think of another explanation - can you?

I predict that more changes are ahead, driven at least in part by the somewhat experimental cranial-sacral work done by Richard Oliver in Massage #14.