Can you read your body?

 

This blog links with massage. It need not go over your head in incomprehensibility, nor be full of 8-syllable words like this! But a little of Einstein to start with. 

There is his E=MC2. My own ditty is A+C=M, this being Anabolism (building up) plus Catabolism (breaking down) equals Metabolism (the process of the balancing out of the building up and the breaking down).

There is an expression of ‘body literacy’ meaning, to quote a Collect/Prayers sometimes heard in church, to ‘read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest’. It refers in church to the Scriptures. Some of it can apply to our own bodies, though we don’t inwardly digest ourselves!

Not to flog the words ‘physiological’ and ‘psychological’ to death as pet words conspicuous by their presence, not by their absence, in several previous blogs, though your body may be ‘saying’ or requesting that it could do with a massage of some sort, Swedish, Sports, etc, or some other treatment such as a waxing, threading, or whatever.

We can listen to our bodies, though not get greedy, such as ‘replying’ to ourselves: ‘Not now, body; I’ve not the time nor the money for it; you only had a treatment last week’. But depending on your situation, time, finances, needs, etc, you may feel lead to book another session, or even a first session.

It will surely be anabolic for you, in building you up, giving you a feel-good factor, being a pleasant experience, and so on. See you soon maybe, or see you again soon, for your massage and/or other requirements.

 

No pressure - but why not have a massage?

 

Massage and other treatment will hopefully not be as long-winded (pun intended, see further on) as the name of a Dutch chemist and meteorologist, Christophorus Henricus Diedericus Buys Ballot (1817-1890).

The pun here is related to his Buys Ballot Law. This states that if one in the Northern Hemisphere, including the U.K., stands with their back to the wind the atmospheric pressure is low to their left, and high to their right. This is because in the Northern Hemisphere wind travels anti-clockwise around low pressure, and clockwise around high pressure.

 

You won’t be in a wind, or rather a draught, during a treatment of massage, waxing, or whatever you choose, as the room and surroundings will be made comfortable and pleasant. There will also be a positive atmosphere – another meteorological term!

This law helps in various matters of sailing. For real enthusiasts, or one can just dip into it, the USA has published a 47 volume set ‘Sailing Directions’. Maybe you would visit the masseur by boat or barge, entering by his back garden where part of the Basingstoke Canal passes by, if you felt so inclined.

The lows and highs of weather charts are to do with the atmospheric pressure. There are several ‘pressures’ in massage, such as lightly in Swedish massage, to heavier in sports massage. It depends on each person’s requirements. But come along for a massage without feeling pressurised! 

A final weather-wise couple of terms - have a clement experience, meaning mild, pleasant, etc, as opposed to inclement, meaning unpleasant, nasty, etc.

Taking time for a Massage

 

This blog begins on a tangent, though brings in some aspects that could apply to massage.

There is Parkinson’s ‘law’, which is more of an adage really. This is from Cyril Northcote Parkinson (1909-1983), a British naval historian, and says that ‘work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion’.  Which is worse – having too much to do, or too little to do? There are other similar sayings, some bringing in algebraic formulae. We won’t go into those here, you’ll be glad to know!

 

The masseur could be doing the ‘work’, and it could be that leisure, such as having a massage, waxing, liposuction, etc, will expand so as to fill the time available in your treatment session(s). Or if ‘time goes quickly when one is enjoying oneself’, it may seem as though the time goes faster than you think.

 

It’s good to leave enough time for things, even if it’s make time for things, whatever one’s daily matters may be. Some examples are: time in and out of part time or full time jobs; tending to family; getting children to and from school; going shopping; visiting relatives; and countless other things.

 

If not setting enough time, one may under-estimate the minutes or hours that some tasks may take. This can lead to stressful situations. We cannot really multi-task in the sense of doing one thing with one’s left hand while trying to do something else with one’s right hand at the same time.

It can be that we, as people, co-operate with time, though time is not a living entity. Neither can we go back or forward in time, unless one has a time-travelling machine or Tardis! Though a part of Horsell Common, by the Muslim Burial Ground, was the inspiration for ‘War of the Worlds’. It’s quite atmospheric and a bit spooky there.

 

Pass by that way if you wish, if you come along for a massage or other treatment. Aim to spend some time enjoyably, and based on what you are able to afford. One can capture each moment of it with hopefully pleasant experiences, and happy reflections or musings on it.

 

 

Massage And Hammers

 

This blog on massage starts out with some words I read, not by a masseur, but which could come under the DBO. That’s the Department of the Blooming Obvious, to moderate the ‘B’ of it. There was (or still is) such a column in a newspaper.

I read that to have a massage, an author choosing this as a random thing, one needs to have a physical body. This is true! It would seem flimsy and wispy if one was trying to massage a spirit or soul without there being a physical body present.

Yet having a bodily massage or other treatment, as mentioned in some previous blogs, can also have an effect for good on one’s spirit or soul, or both, though we cannot see spirits or souls as tangible things.

 

Abraham Maslow, pictured above, (1908-1970), an American psychologist, is known for ‘Maslow’s Hammer’, or it may be called ‘golden hammer’. This is phrased as ‘if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’. Some aspects of this won’t apply to massage of course. For example, you won’t be hammered or forced into any treatments.

Massage need not be as a hammer, in that it is not the only treatment available, though some may wish to have massage only. There is also waxing, threading, etc, and different types of massage – see the ‘Home’ web page.

 

At a church a Vicar said to someone at the end of a service, ‘Good to see you; not seen you for some time’. The person replied, ‘I’ve been with you all in spirit’. The Vicar replied, ‘That’s nice, but bring along your body more in future. That’s better than a lot of invisible spirits floating around’.

So we can do so for massage or other treatments. Come along in person, compos mentis, being ‘all there’. If not having been for some time, masseur may say, ‘Great to see you, you’ve changed a bit’. You may reply, ‘Well, it’s still me; it was the same me when I last looked in the mirror anyway!’

Beneficial Massage

 

The fees that are charged for massage or other treatments by masseurs are one type of capital. This also appears in accounting records.

There is social capital, which is a type of capital relating to society, interactions between people, etc, of a beneficial nature. We may be practising it without even knowing of the term. 

It is shown in examples such as opening a door for someone; returning a lost item to someone; giving someone directions; loaning something, not necessarily always financially, without a contract. 

These and many other things may be between people we may or may not know. If the term sounds a bit business-like, we could say it means being kind, helpful, loving one another, even in the simplest ways.

 

The ‘capital’ part, in a simplified and informal way, though dated, can be in saying ‘That’s splendid. Capital!’ That may sound a bit high-brow, or as an alternative to ‘How jolly’ or ‘How spiffing!’ It is used to express approval, satisfaction, or delight, all of which you will hopefully experience in a massage.

Massage can contribute to social capital, and our response to it, or to other treatments such as waxing, threading, liposuction, etc, may not be of upper-class expression, such as ‘spiffing’ or ‘top-hole’, but of ‘excellent’, ‘first-rate’, etc, which are equivalent meanings.

 

One could expand on the ‘language’ of capital, such as investing time and money in massage or other treatment, and of reaping rewards such as having positive experiences.

The masseur will be interested in the financial type of capital but will promote social capital also. You won’t be just clients from whom a business wishes to take money, though of course a massage service is a business.

There will be the ‘people-person’ aspect also, of any worthwhile masseur. You will get your ‘money’s worth’ and will hopefully benefit holistically in areas of body, soul, and spirit – a somewhat frequent claim in recent blogs, but true. Not that masseurs and therapists claim this is so with no back-up, as there are testimonials from clients which show and comment on the positive benefits.

 

Come along sometime, or for another visit, to see for yourself, and have a massage or whatever you may wish to socially capitalise on, i.e. take the chance to gain advantage or benefit from.

Therapeutic Times for Masage

 

A massage therapist is able to offer, as the name suggests, massage as therapy, plus other therapies such as waxing, hot stones, threading, etc.

We need not be put off by the thought of ‘therapy’ though, and have probably heard descriptions, or experienced ourselves of being, for example, ‘in therapy’, or ‘having therapy’, or ‘getting an area of one’s life sorted out’, and so on. The English word ‘therapy’ comes via the Latin ‘therapia’ which is from the Greek, and literally means ‘curing’ or ‘healing’.

There is a broad range of therapies, a massive range in fact, relating to body, soul, and spirit. Some of these can overlap, or even include all three aspects in holistic (whole-listic) treatments. People can sift through therapies that are available. They may range from seemingly cranky or hocus-pocus, to middling and maybe of some use, to positive and helpful therapies. The latter may start as ‘I will give that a try’ and may go on to become ‘It’s just what I need (or needed)’.

It may not be that massage can actually cure ailments, such as physical diseases, nor whether it actually can heal completely, though that could sometimes happen. But hopefully one will find relief in some measure from aches and pains, stresses, etc, and experience healing of some sort, whether in small, medium, or large ways.

In coming for a massage or other treatment, it is possible for it to be ‘all good stuff’, as when one says to their friend ‘I was just talking about you’, and the friend replies ‘All good stuff I hope!’ Clients may (or will) experience an overall sense of sessions being conducive to their well-being. And again, as in holistic types of treatments, somehow an atmosphere or influence – call it what you will – of wholeness will pervade and be sensed.

In this blog, it may seem as if it is elevating massage to great heights, or new heights, though clients do find treatments beneficial. One may wish to publicise and promote one’s own ‘trade’ positively, though there is something in it for clients personally. It can also be that they are enabled to relate more easily or freely to others in some ways, such as when some ache, pain, tension, etc, has been lessened, or even removed altogether. Though masseurs don’t have magic wands that they wave!

See you soon maybe, for a massage or whatever treatment you wish.

 

To massage or not to massage?

That is the question re massage, to open on a Shakespearean note. But no, not a blog on his works. In fact, this blog may seem a lot of umm-ing and ahh-ing of whether to have a massage or other treatment or not. In the end one decides yes or no.

But in aiming to explain, as a layman, how one arrives at yes or no, without hopefully being too long-winded, or higgledy-piggledy, and without it turning into a psychology lesson, there are filtering processes, which can apply to making decisions in any matter in life.

 

In a learning experience, this begins with a stage of going through a beliefs and attitudes filter. In this filter, one may reject a matter, or may go on to the next stage of a context filter, where one considers the context of a matter, i.e. some things in life can appear odd when considered out of context.

It may be that one bypasses the beliefs and attitudes filter if going by ‘seeing is believing’, e.g. one sees videos, demonstrations, etc of massage and then believes it will be good to have this, though does not as yet arrange any treatment. In this case one would jump straight to the context filter.

At the context filter stage, one may reject the matter, or pass to the next stage of a reflective loop. Here one is reflecting in one’s thinking, and may reject the matter and not have any treatment for now. Or one may adapt and experiment, e.g. arrange a certain treatment of massage, waxing, threading, etc, maybe for a first time, or try various different treatments. Or one may adopt the matter one is considering, so one might say, e.g. ‘I enjoyed that treatment; I think I will have more of it’.

So at any stage there is a choice to reject. But we hope you will wish to have treatment experiences that you will find pleasant and profitable, and that you will arrive at a ‘yes’ for massage or whatever treatment you wish. There is no compulsion of course, as we know one person cannot make up another person’s mind for them anyway.