Many people come to me with physical pain, usually upper/lower back. Before I start massaging, we talk – I ask about their overall physical condition, recent operations, injuries, diagnosis. Sometimes there is a clear diagnosis that – at least according to medical standards of western world – helps to explain this pain: spinal degeneration, trapped nerve, prolapsed intervertebral disc and many more. Sometimes the pain is caused by their lifestyle (sedentary lifestyle, heavy physical labour, chronic stress) or other factors.
But sometimes my clients tell me: nobody knows what it is. There was nothing on an x-ray, doctors don’t know the diagnosis, everything looks clear.
And then I massage them and feel their lower spine tensed to its limits, or an iron belt around their chest… and I think: well, you will not see fear on an x-ray, I guess. You will not see trauma so huge that the only thing the person could do was to push it away, hide it in the muscles. You will not see emotions on x-ray, you will not see loneliness, suffering, rejection, helplessness, abuse, loss of hope…
I am neither naive nor idealistic. I know that a disease, that any pain may be caused by endless factors, both external and internal. I am grateful for the western medicine and all it has to offer to ease the pain.
But not everything can be found under the microscope, not everything can be x-rayed, measured, named and cured with pills.
I hope – I know! – that one day all doctors will be prescribing holistic massage (not the one that is purely medical and goal-oriented, but the one that deals with the whole person on every level: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual) as well as meditation, conscious breathing, walks in the nature, creating art or listening to certain music as a cure to pain – as eagerly as they now prescribe pills. I just hope that I will not be too old by then to give all these prescribed massages!
Aloha,
Magdalena
