Choice 17
Body Work 101: Massage and Beyond

There are many healthy and enjoyable body-centered choices that you can make every day to practice emotional discipline. In this chapter I will share some body work possibilities that involve receiving therapeutic “manipulative” treatments, such as massage, from trained professionals. In the next chapter I will address body work via healthful forms of physical movement such as Tai Chi.142

It had been a long day and Alicia felt tight and tense as she drove out of the parking lot. She was not going directly home today; instead she had scheduled one of her favorite self-renewing activities. Soon she found herself relaxing face down on a padded table as her masseuse began to work on her neck and shoulders with a firm kneading technique. This was Alicia’s favorite part. She focused on every relaxing and pleasurable sensation, vividly logging the experience into her memory for future use when stress would strike again. And as she drifted into deeper and deeper levels of relaxation, she could feel her muscles completely let go as the stress seemed to drain out of her entire body.

A few months earlier, when Alicia had her first session, she had been a little uncomfortable about the idea of having a massage, but now she made it a point to schedule one twice a month. In fact, massage had become an important priority to her no matter how busy her schedule seemed to be.

She found massage to be like a reset button for her that helped her to be more relaxed, renewed, reinvigorated, better balanced, and more effective in her work and life. When she felt especially stressed, whether during a tense meeting or while flying through a turbulent thunderstorm on a plane, she found that she could calm herself by reconnecting, through her imagination, with the relaxed feeling she experienced during a massage.143

Massage is one of the most basic and effective forms of body work. It can be an important choice for applying emotional discipline in a practical way. The key, as with the other emotional discipline strategies in this book, is to make the choice and act on it. Ask colleagues and friends for recommendations of a competent masseuse, and then pick up the phone and schedule an appointment. After you give massage a fair try (perhaps two or three appointments), if you verify that it does bring significant benefits, you can choose to make it a priority in your life, build the cost into your budget, and schedule regular appointments.

My own experience with massage has been that it is very beneficial for reducing excess stress, muscle tension, and creating an overall sense of well-being. And it can be a catalyst for emotional release. Typically, I have received a combination of mild to moderate muscle massage combined with some acupressure. Acupressure is a technique (usually associated with Chinese medicine) that “involves pressing points on the body with fingers or hands to alter the internal flow of a supposed vital force or energy called chi, strengthening it, calming it, or removing a blockage of the flow.”⁷⁴144

Stronger treatments related to massage therapy are available for those who are comfortable with more invasive body work. For example, shiatsu, a Japanese healing art that is similar in some ways to acupressure, involves firm finger pressure (that can seem uncomfortable at first) applied to points of the body to balance energy. It is intended to help eliminate pain and promote healing benefits. Rolfing is an invasive and more intense form of body work that focuses on the connective tissue that covers the muscles (fascia), with the intent of bringing the body back into correct alignment. While massage generally has the capacity to unleash some of the stored emotional tension held in our bodies, this is particularly true of rolfing. I personally went through a series of rolfing sessions and found the process to be uncomfortable some of the time during the treatment, but it seemed to produce more lasting feelings of healthy release than regular massage.

Within the variety of massage alternatives, many are considerably less expensive and less physically demanding, and can be self-applied. These include electronic massagers that can be easily researched on the Internet or even tried out in many of the stores that carry them. Some send rhythmic vibrations or provide therapeutic thumping sensations into your back and shoulders, and others have deep kneading nodules that provide a more intense massage on targeted muscle groups.

It is also fairly simple to learn and work with the various acupressure points on the body to address your symptoms directly.⁷⁵ For example, if you feel anxious, one point to work with is called Pericardium 6. You may experience relief by gently but firmly pressing your thumb in the center of your inner wrist two finger widths from the crease in your wrist and between your two forearm bones. Continue pressure for one minute, three to five times, and then repeat on the other wrist.⁷⁶145

An important part of emotional discipline involves discovering and choosing to apply treatments that promote positive health and feelings of well-being in your body. Through experimentation, your body will give you the feedback you need to help you decide what is right for you. Finding alternatives that provide the results you seek, whether they be relaxing or invigorating benefits, and then choosing them as an important part of your emotional discipline practices, is well worth the effort and search.