Disentangling
Just a little something for you to think about
I notice a few of you like to comment and share your thoughts. With that in mind, can I get your thoughts on massage, and on counselling? And I’ll share mine.
I notice they are things men don’t traditionally make the time for, and I’m wondering why that is. I can make educated guesses, but what is your experience?
When I was escorting, I seemed to provide both of those skills as part of my service. Not to everyone, all the time, but most days there would be someone needing to just vent to me, as I was a neutral person, disconnected from the rest of their lives.
Or I’d end up massaging people, mostly because I can’t sit still and it was something to do that was beneficial.
What I’m wondering is why a large proportion of guys associate massages with happy endings? Or why they feel they can’t open up to someone unless they are naked?
Without a sexual aspect, are these therapies not ‘masculine’ enough? Is this actually an example of efficient multitasking and my assumptions are all wrong?
Are you not listened to elsewhere in your life? Is it not the done thing to talk about your emotions? Would you talk to someone differently depending on their gender?
I had a lovely little realisation a few months ago, about how similar the two practices are.
In massage, there are trigger points. They’re the tight little knots that form in muscle and we all have them.
They form in places where we’ve injured ourselves, and they try to stop us from repeating the movement we did to cause the injury in the first place. I say injured, it can be from excess repetitions and/or poor posture. Part of what I do with the sports massage, is essentially ‘prod’ these trigger points. I’m aiming to get them gone. They might have helped in the short term, but they’ve long outstayed the time in which they were useful. They’re just hanging around, getting in the way, stopping you moving freely and making other parts of your body work harder to compensate.
And in counselling, that is ultimately very similar to what I’m learning to do for people’s thought processes. We all pick up beliefs and behaviours as we go along in life. Some for the better, some for the worse. They can be so ingrained in our way of being, that we don’t consciously notice they are there, until someone points it out for us. We might go out of our way to accommodate (or compensate for) these beliefs, despite the niggling feeling something isn’t quite right.
We can’t remember where most of them originated, but we can’t imagine life without them, until of course, we get stuck and they seem to block us from moving freely.
You might not even notice these impediments are there, but they’re slowly impacting you more and more until you think ‘I don’t want to feel like this anymore, I need to make some changes’. You might go along to a masseuse, or a therapist for some help. The first few sessions, things are likely to hurt, and there will be bits you aren’t ready to work on yet, but if you keep it up, your muscles or your mind begin to heal. You find new ways of doing and being.
Be it a counsellor, or a masseuse, you’ll find they make the same recommendations on things like diet, exercise, sleep and stress. Gentle encouragement to look after yourself, and to look around at how you’re living life and see if simple changes can make you feel a bit better.
I was always very sceptical of the crystals & meditation side of life, and really I still am, but I’m starting to see how it benefits people. They might be taking a path less trodden, but they Are looking after themselves, and it shows.
I still think ‘self-care’ sounds like a poor innuendo. I’ve had to google what in the heck a ‘sound bath’ was this week just gone, and I admit to gently mocking a friend who went to a class on breathing, but if they find benefit in these things, then I’m all in support of it.
I’m not here to nag you, although I could do that very well. This blog is just another gentle nudge from me, asking you to reflect on what you’re doing and why you do it?
Why do we keep doing what we’re doing if it’s not making us happy? Could there be small, realistic adjustments?
If we’re in physical or mental pain, why do we leave it until it really hurts and stops us in our tracks, before we do something about it?
I’ll end with this, as part of research I’ve been doing lately, I re-read the ‘Body Keeps The Score’. I get that some of it is scientifically controversial, and even more of it is quite heavy reading. But there is so much in there about disconnect between mind and body, I’d recommend taking a look at it if you haven’t before.
I get that, in this day and age it’s difficult to find to find time to do the bare minimum, let alone all the things we’re ‘supposed’ to do on top of that.
But a little, is better than none, is it not? Trade out an hour of doom-scrolling for 55 mins of scrolling and 5 mins of journaling?
If you’re inclined to sit in front of the telly every night, could you instead do some yoga or stretches on the floor whilst watching TV?
If you don’t like the sound of these, ask yourself why that might be…
K xx
For me, I am at that age when a good massage helps my back keep loose. The problem I have, I need a gentle relaxing massage, if I see a Male Masseuse, they go Alpha Male on my back, causing me more problems. So I try to see female Masseuse, as they might be more gentle with the Massage? This is not always the case, saw a female Masseuse in December and went full heavy-duty Sport Massage on my back. I had to see my Osteopath for a couple of sessions to correct the problem the female Masseuse had caused.
The problem with Female Masseuse, a lot of them only see Female clients, which I understand. If I say to anything to my Male work colleagues about going for a massage, you get the silly comments about do I get any extras? For me, its hard to find a good Female Masseuse, that will see male clients and understands the words gentle massage.
I have seen Counsellors, after bereavements in my life, I do it to save my friendship with my best mates. As they think they have to give me a solution, when I all I want to do is vent off a lot of frustration and my feelings. As with Masseuse, its finding a good Counsellor that suits your needs. I had one Counsellor, didn't want to listen to what I wanted to say, just wanted to teach me breathing exercises. I stopped going, but I was told by a Manager at work, I need to go back to see a Counsellor as it was effecting my work. Thankfully I did, but I got a different Counsellor, this one wanted to listen to me, managed to vent off my frustration and talked about how I missed the person in my life.
You come across as someone who is a great listener, if you had clients from your former job, happy just to chat to you. I think you could be an excellent Counsellor. The Masseuse job, I liked want you said in your last Blog, you want to help people's mental health, as well as their the physical health. I hope that's helpful for your research?
I'm glad to hear that you welcome us sharing our thoughts in the comments. Everyone is different, but as someone who sees escorts and who regularly goes for deep tissue massages, they are two totally different things for me - massages for me are non-sexual, and I've never felt aroused when having one (even though some of the masseuses have inevitably been attractive young women!), they are strictly remedial for me. I've also never had a massage from an escort - it's not how I want to spend my time with them. As far counselling... I know in my heart that you are completely right about the benefits, and it's something that my GP has encouraged me to pursue since the medication I'm taking for anxiety is helping me cope, but obviously not getting to the root causes. It might sound crazy, but I just don't have the energy for counselling and to face my issues head on just yet. One final thought, and maybe this was a throwaway comment from you, but "meditation and crystals" didn't sit right with me... meditation is full of benefits, it's not new-age hippie nonsense! Crystals on the other hand...