What I Do When Anxiety Infects My Favorite Relaxation Tool   

I was on my belly, my cheeks snug against the massage table’s doughnut pillow, my muscles getting nudged this way and that, when the gal doing the magic asked this question.  Jean was short, shorter than me even. Round cheeks and a stocky build, conservative shoes and black clothes. Maybe fifty years old. Just minutes earlier, when I arrived at the quaint, creaky little massage studio desperate for relief both from my two toddler children and a bad case of winter cabin fever, she greeted me with a soft smile that made me want to curl up inside it and stay.  But once the massage started, I was distressed to learn her sweet-smiling mouth could get audible. And I wasn’t counting on a massage with words. “Where you go, you know, in your mind?” She repeated, drawing out the final word. Stumbling, I said, “I… I don’t have a place I go. You mean like visualization?”  “Yes, yes. You must have a place you go. A place that brings you peace.” Jean was like what would happen if Miyagi and Yoda could somehow produce a stout, magic-fingered, middle-aged Chinese woman. She went on to say that I was holding a lot of negative energy and, “Why you do this to yourself? Why you so stressed? This energy… it not good.”  Unlike Yoda, Jean didn’t hide her exasperation with her student. And I couldn’t help but notice that there was a new sound: between broad sweeps of pressure across my back, her hands would pause off of my skin in what sounded like an intermission ...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Anxiety Mindfulness Personal Stories Massage negative energy Relaxation Stress Reduction Source Type: news