Aloha, Dear Human!
The post I am sharing with you today was originally sent as a newsletter to my Subscribers. If you would like to join my mailing list, click HERE – Subscribers are the first one to receive my posts, plus they always get a little bit extra that I don’t share on the blog 🙂
If you want to take the most of this text, I recommend to read it when you have plenty of time, to allow yourself to really digest the words and meditate on them, and to feel how they reflect in your life.
“I have never received lomi like this”
✨ The other day, I massaged my dear lomi lomi student and friend. He used to be my regular Client in the past and have received probably a hundred lomi from me. “I have never received lomi like this” – he said after our last session.
✨ Another regular Client told me after our last session: “You’ve changed. It’s like you got more power and I could feel the difference in the massage”.
✨ Another one, also a regular Client who knows my lomi very well, said: “I was never touched like this in my life before”.
To be honest, I probably would not have paid that much attention to these feedbacks if they didn’t come from my regular Clients, from lomi friends, from people who have been receiving lomi from me for months or even years. Their words inspired me to write this Honest Letter to you – not a letter about how great lomi is, of how good of a practitioner I am – but a letter about Change.
Yes, I feel I have changed, more so over the last few months than for last couple of years. It is not that simply my lomi has changed – it is that I have grown, evolved, went through ups and downs, got depressed, went through a breakup, quit Instagram, got into coaching and therapy, started a podcast, travelled, got pushed to my limits, changed my mind hundreds of times, taught lomi like I never did before, quit things and started over again, asked for help, got tired of pretending, trusted deeper than ever… and experienced hundreds of other events, big and small, conscious and unconscious – and all THIS is reflected in my lomi now.
I will keep saying it over and over again – practicing lomi lomi is not a job to me. This is my way of feeling and touching life, way of inviting people into heartfelt experiences. It is an embodied path and I grow on this path beyond my craziest expectations. Change, though sometimes uncomfortable and even scary, is just a part of the path – any path.
YOU-ness
✨✨✨ The path that you walk might sometimes feel winding, unclear or unpaved but essentially Life always invites you more and more into YOU-ness. I call it: unbecoming. Or, less pretty, unf**king myself. For example, un-learning to be a people pleaser, unraveling the beliefs and expectations that I put on myself (or that were put on me by family, society, culture) and instead following my truth, my urge and, most importantly, my BODY. ✨✨✨
So, yes – how I massage keeps changing, as a natural consequence of my practice and personal growth. How I understand and feel lomi – changes. How I talk about it – changes. How I teach it – changes.
I imagine Change simply as the path leading to me, more and more me in every moment. I truly feel more grounded, embodied, empowered than ever before. I am excited and grateful to share my lomi as it is NOW with people who want to receive it NOW.
Have you heard recently from people who know you that you have changed? Or, more importantly, have you felt it yourself? Here’s the thing that I firmly believe in: we are supposed to change. There is simply no other way, as life itself IS change. Some people will see how you’ve changed and will cheer you up. Others will not. And you know what? As Kahu Abraham Kawaii, native practitioner and founder of lomi lomi nui, said: what others think about you is none of your business!
Having written all this, I know one thing for sure: Change can feel scary, tiring and not fun 😉 Even though I feel empowered and practice trust, still everyday I find myself desperately trying to cling to the “old me”, to the well-known ways of living, making money, building relationships, showing up in my business and my life. And every day I need to remind myself to relax that tight squeeze, to take a breath, to feel my heart beat and to not panic or go back – because the path goes forward.
How do I support myself in the process of Change?
Well, I am a bodyworker and a massage therapist, so my answer will probably not come as a surprise to you. I believe in the body and its immense wisdom. I believe in supporting yourself by supporting your body on every level. And I mean simple things, but worth mentioning over and over again, because they WORK:
✨ drinking plenty of water and eating wholesome food
✨ having a lot of sleep and taking good care of sleep quality
✨ resting, allowing yourself to get bored, immersing in silence
✨ engaging yourself in seemingly “unproductive” activities (for me, it is the violin)
✨ taking time offline (I mean, real offline – phone completely turned off)
✨ taking time for embodied practices (walk in nature, intuitive movement, yoga, swimming pool)
✨ if needed, finding help through coaching, counselling, therapy or simply talking to a friend about the change you go through
✨ being extra compassionate towards yourself and mindful about hateful self-talk, diminishing yourself or comparing yourself to others
✨ and, last but not least, massage of course! Supportive, restorative and healing power of touch. Taking that time on the massage bench just for yourself, when you don’t need to do anything special, or be anybody special, when you can just receive everything that comes in the moment. I believe that such time deeply supports your nervous system in going through the time of change as well as integrating it (sealing change as your new reality).
Dear Human, if you are going through Change right now (and honestly, who doesn’t), I want to tell you: high five, me too! I feel the pain, the excitement, the fear, the joy, the doubt and the certainty, the push and pull, and everything in between and I am sending you lots of support!
If you would like to take time to experience yourself, deeply rest, regenerate and take care of your body, mind and heart, I invite you for lomi lomi with me: >>>> BOOOK IT HERE
With love,
Magdalena
PS. You might want to take a look at my Pinterest board about change and unbecoming for more inspirations 🙂
PPS. As a last thing today and a good summary of this letter, I would like to share with you this wholesome quote by L.R. Knost:
“Life is amazing. And then it’s awful. And then it’s amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it’s ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That’s just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it’s breathtakingly beautiful.”