Leaving the workshop with a friend, I confined this awareness of how disconnected I had become from my body.  I relayed how much my body hurt and received a referral to a massage therapist (RMT).  I called the massage therapist immediately and got an appointment for a week later.  In the meantime I struggled to do the meditation on a daily basis. I managed 5 minutes instead of the suggested 10 minutes.  I told myself it was something better than nothing.

 My first appointment with the RMT – let’s call him J – was another eye opener of how much stress I was carrying in my body… and how much denial I was in about it.  His hands met nothing but resistance in my muscles. I was solid as a rock and not in a good way. My shoulder blades had so many knots in the overlaying muscles that they felt as bumpy as my spine.  He spent the entire hour just trying to get my back to release.  He recommended weekly appointments to just try and get the muscles to a state where they were not in a state of constant knots. A recommendation for meditation and yoga was also made.

I love a deep tissue massage and myofascial release. I can tolerate a great deal of pressure and it might have something to do with the fact that I am often so disconnected from my body.  I am also a predominantly a kinesthetic learner.  I believe it is because I am a kinesthetic learner, I hold emotions tightly in the tissues of my body – joy, sorrow, grief, laughter.  With all the tension I had been holding in my body – an accumulation of years of grief, loss, stress, uncertainty – the myofascial release during the massage released a torrent of grief into my consciousness.  All I wanted when I got home from the massage was a hot shower.

As soon as that water hit my skin, I burst into great body wrenching tears. I sobbed under that hot steaming water for almost half an hour.  I cried for a lost relationship from two years ago that I had been holding on to in some way. I cried out my frustration of everything that I was struggling with at work. I cried out the exhaustion of being a single 24/7 parent to a child with significant learning disabilities and some mild mental health struggles.  I cried until there was nothing less and climbed out of the shower.

I slept that night better than I had in months and months.  And I returned the following week for more massage.  I was learning to connect my body, my heart and my brain together again.  They had been out of synch for so long.