Confessions of a Dictator – 20 Massages in 2 Months (Massage #19 continued)

As with previous massages, during Massage #19 I asked Avery to focus on muscles group and energy releases in the pelvic, lumbar and upper leg area including psoas, gluts, QL muscles, adductors and sit bones. 

As Avery worked my sit bones she relayed an intuitive message, “in your sit bones I am getting that a key to resolving issues with your inner attorney is to sit down and listen, not you, Ahnday, but you, your inner attorney, he needs to sit down and really listen.”

“That would make sense,” I replied, “I feel like I’m running on three cylinders instead of six. He can't stop fighting, arguing and protesting change.  Yet he is the emissary.  I need his energy, especially for writing, since it is the light of the loving masculine that makes articulate the deep knowing of the feminine."

As the massage progressed, I began to see my inner attorney in a new light. Subdued by his full-body cast (again, I am not certain how he got this way – honest!) he was able be more present with my inner dancer, the feminine, as well as with himself. He was able to really sit down and listen.

Restrained by his cast, he went into a kind of retreat, promising to emerge a more hopefuld an willing man.  He began confessing that in truth he did not like begin locked up in an office all day long researching the law, fighting with opposing counsel and writing legal briefs.  He admitted that he missed the outdoors and resented the fact that he just could not be as creative in his work as he wanted to be.  He divulged that he loathed neck ties and the feeling of constriction they created at his throat and that he was tired of being isolated in this profession of worry, control and always having to be right.  As he talked, he lightened up and began discussing with my inner-dancer what a life that was productive, healthy and enjoyable would look like.

“I think it’s the case that sometimes we need to be restrained, to be put in a full body cast or the equivalent in order to be willing to change,” commented Avery.

At the end of Massage #19 I felt good and not just physically.  The willingness of Avery and other therapists at the Well-Being Center for Health to explore the mysteries of the body, energy anatomy, and spiritual transformation, brought insight where once there was obscurity. 

For instance, through this massage marathon I learned that the numbness in my right arm resulted from the emotional and the physical and that my inner-attorney, who symbolized my lower ego during this time, was, in ways I had not recognized, still ruling my consciousness and my life.  I also learned that one key to getting my inner attorney to relinquish control and work in partnership with other aspect of self was to get him in the position – in a full-body cast if necessary - of listening to his own feelings and feelings of others.  Through this process of deep listening and feeling relationships heal, common ground is broached and peace is established.

I felt that during Massage #19 my discussion with Avery had helped bring issues explored during this massage marathon to fruition.  I was feeling confident in my new understanding. Though we had not exhausted the mysteries, we had, I thought, succeeded in gaining enough understanding to apply new concepts and principles in the future.  In fact, it was as if these spiritual issues were loose ends and we had managed to tie them into a neat bow.  

At the end of Massage #19 Avery loaned me a book on Jin Shin Do that explains, among other things, how to perform acupressure releases on the self. As I biked home I looked forward to Massage #20.  I believed this final treatment would simply repeat the insights of previous massages and be a gentle, relaxing and peaceful way to say goodbye to this massage odyssey.

I was wrong on several counts!