Choosing to go to massage school was one of the best choices I made in my life and it all started through a little bit faith and a whole lot of trust that led me on a journey from Oregon to Colombia and back to embark on a hero’s journey to leave my home, friends and community and to travel 3,000 miles to a place I have never been and knew practically no one to study massage.
I was at the lowest point of my life, broken in heart, body, mind and soul. I was without a single dollar to my name, I had dissolved a relationship with a woman that I’d thought would be my wife and mother to my children, and I was living in a 200 sq ft yurt in the middle of winter with no heating, electricity and limited access to water. Determined to lift myself out of a deadly case of depression, I began to meditate and open to new possibilities for myself. I was able to get a job working for an amazing couple delivering organic biodynamic vegetables. This required a lot of determination because of the early rise and long day the job required. I would go to my meditation circle on Fridays at 7:00pm, sleep at the farm from 10:00 pm to 2:00 am and start work at 3:00. I was also able to pick up various jobs through the week and began to build a sense of wealth once again.
I was making what I saw as impossible before becoming possible. I did all this with enthusiasm because I was able to take the means provided and create an outcome to meet an ends that was needed. In a way the ends and the means to uplift my situation were no longer separate. The rekindling of my spiritual practices led me to a Sufi camp that was a crux on my journey. It was here I met a man from Colombia and a woman from Ecuador. Their invitation to Colombia at first seemed a bit of a joke to me. I had never left the country before, I didn’t know any Spanish, I had just enough money to feed myself and little hope of the possibility of traveling to Colombia. But in the same thread of trust and determination and even losing my job at the farm I received job after job that earned me over 5,000 dollars for a trip to last three month in a land that I would grow to love and cherish.
So low and behold, I found myself in Colombia that winter at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. My time in Colombia was a spiritual journey. I was looking for sign and signals of how to continue my life when or if I returned home. I spent time with Hare Krishnas, Sufis, and Indigenous elders. I participated in ceremonies, sweat lodges and a vision quest. All of the experiences were graced and guided for me to meet new friends and learn a little of what how the people of Colombia had suffered in their 50 year “civil” war. My new friends from Argentina (fellow travelers) offered a simple self-massage class at a yoga Ecovillage we were staying at and something clicked for me. I’d always seen being a massage therapist as a short-term career that did not always pay off for the amount of time it took to develop within the profession, and I’d met many trained therapists who were no longer working in the field. My Argentinian friend being one of them. I wanted something for myself that could be a sustainable way of life. I wanted something I could devote myself to for not only the betterment of myself and but for the betterment of the whole. I was not able to see that in the career of massage therapy. But still, the idea appealed to me. Massage therapists are able to work directly with people to help alleviate people’s pain and suffering. Because of my new found trust to listen to my inner calling and guidance I began to put those doubts aside. In my last month in Colombia I participated in assisting in a vision quest and took a tour through indigenous land and participated in sacred ceremonies. At the end of the tour I was ask if I would return to school and to study what. I knew in my heart that I was going to study massage. When I returned to the Oregon, I attended a Dances of Universal Peace circle led by a couple from Santa Fe. This was another sign. So after building up some resources and getting closure on some affairs I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico to begin my career as massage therapist.
Massage is no doubt different things for different people. For some it may just be the physical manipulation of soft tissue. However, for others it can be an opportunity to reconnect to the embodied experience of our interconnected being, an opportunity to feel and release worries and woes, stress and pains, and allow oneself to relax into the moment. Massage therapy school has opened my eyes to what makes up the body in terms of structures, bones, muscles and nerves, etc., but also how the body functions to maintain homeostasis and create what consciousness calls a state of well-being. I have also studied a variety of diseases that can affect the body and how massage can help in the alleviation of those diseases. My studies have helped grow my understanding of the power of massage in its ability to aid the body in coming back into greater alignment, balance and harmony with itself and the environment that we live in on multiple levels of existence. Many people are plagued by traumatic events in their life or suffer from a general lack of touch. The capacity to offer compassion and understanding for our fellow humans (and animals) is an essential, and often overlooked, part of the role that a massage therapist plays in society today.
During my training to be a massage therapist I had learn not only about the body and its functions, but about what it means to be a professional, honoring ethical boundaries. I am developing the capacity to see and meet my clients where they are at in their lives and states of being while encouraging them to develop their own capacities for greater senses of wholeness in their lives. The practice of developing compassion and understanding is helping me grow as a person and create an authentic experience between me and my clients. It helps me understand my choice of how I show up in my work and in the world. This is a brave journey and opportunity for all thinking of attending massage school, an opportunity to not only better the lives of others but to also better themselves, each action rippling out for the betterment of the world.
Our muscles allow us as humans to move in the world, to take in information and create change. We as massage therapist manipulate those muscles to lengthen what has become constricted and allow for relief for what has been overstretched bringing nourishment to the whole body. We seek to bring balance without harm to the body not just in the physical, but also in the emotional, mental and spiritual planes. I am extremely grateful to have found the courage to hear the call of becoming a massage therapist and embark on this journey to create a more relaxed and balanced world, one body at a time.
