Come and sit a spell
Let's talk about how things are, how things could be,
and the state of life in general
and the state of life in general
Everyone should have a list of their favorite quotes. Those sayings that lift you up when you are down, push you on when you are slowing down or just make you laugh.
Well here are some of my favorites - I hope that some of them either are or become yours. Life isn't about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself. George Bernard Shaw Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler. Henry David Thoreau Don't look back, you're not going that way. Unknown If you think you can, you can, if you think you can't, you're right. Henry Ford Not all who wander are lost. J.R.R. Tolkein All that you are is a result of what you have thought. Buddha Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine. Ralph Waldo Emerson You can, you should and if you're brace enough to start, you will. Stephen King When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Wayne Dyer Life doens't happen to you, it happens for you. Jim Carrey Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened. Dr. Seuss Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. Oscar Wilde A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetsone, if it is to keep its edge. Tyrion Lannister No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Eleanor Roosevelt Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results. Unknown Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn! Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind Hope spings eternal. Alexander Pope There's no place like home. Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz More is not better, it's just more. ME! Not being a follower does not make you a leader. ME! Tomorrow is another day. Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind Don't take life too seriously, you won't get out alive. Elbert Hubbard And no wishing for more wishes. Genie in Alladin And I'm sure there are more that I use on an almost daily basis, but those are the only ones I could think of right now. Those little blurbs that you see every day, the ones on fortune cookies, the ones from movies, the ones that just stick in your head from whatever source, they are the ones that have meaning to you for whatever reason. Whatever they are you keep them and use them all the time. Just remember to get rid of the negative ones and stick with the positive ones!
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What is it that is really important to you? Why?
So I spent 10 hours yesterday attending a class that I originally signed up for because I needed the Continuing Education hours to renew my Massage license and because my daughter works with Autistic children everyday. What I came home with is a new understanding of the word Autism and the feeling that what I felt was important in life was nothing compared to what the instructor of the class KNEW was important in her life. I am a little humbled and feeling exceptionally blessed to have the two children that I have knowing that the issues and concerns dealt with when raising them were nothing compared to this mother's struggles raising her autistic child. During the class we learned of her struggles to help her child and the politics of our healthcare and education systems in this country that seemed determined to keep her from getting the correct diagnosis and subsequent help in dealing with her child's condition. But most importantly learned that people in my profession, massage therapy, can have a profound effect on the Autism community through the use of touch therapies and most specifically Craniosacral Therapy (CST). CST works through the Neurological System, the brain, which is where the disorder originates. It is a developmental disorder that most often appear between the ages or 2 and 3 according to the website autismspeaks.org. Since this is Autism Awareness month it is therefore appropriate to speak about it. According to the website Autism affect 1 in 68 American children with is a 10-fold increase over the past 40 years. Someone you know most likely has a child with some form of the Autism spectrum. Do the research and you will find that there are as many sides to Autism as there are children and now adults with the disorder. And as many variations of what is believed to cause it. That is not for my discussion here. My thoughts are more on the line of "How can I help", "How lucky am I to have the children that I have" and "How important really are my minor life problems"? When I compare the now small problems I had raising my daughters to the issues that parents of Autistic children face everyday I am humbled in comparison. Each and every Autistic child is unique, interesting in how there mind works differently from ours and mysterious for the same reasons. I don't really think that we know how the "normal" mind works so unraveling the Autistic mind is even more mysterious. But by spending the time and effort to work with these children and young adults can have a very profound effect. On them and on us. As a body worker I look forward to the honor of working with some of them. Moving forward I want to look at my priorities in my massage practice and spend some time reviewing my CST training and give some time to those children my daughter currently works with to see if we can indeed make a change in their lives. What really is important to you? No, I don't do infant massage but the look on this baby's face reminded me of the 3 happy clients I had this morning. What is it that we need to do to make all of our clients this pleased with their massages? Let me tell you about the ones I had this morning. My first client this morning is a regular client who started coming in to me about 4-5 months ago. What makes her a happy massage client? The fact that I listened to her from the first time she contacted me. Frozen shoulder is not pretty and the treatment plan is not one that many massage clients would enjoy. There is pain, there are trigger points and there are "stuck" muscles that don't want to do what they were meant to do any more. I have done some NAT training and I have had frozen shoulder, medically called adhesive capsulitis, so I am familiar with the symptoms, the pain and the long, slow process of healing. This client knows that I understand and that I care about her getting better and back to being able to use her arms. We have been working at this a long time - every week! What made this morning different was that I have one client today who had scheduled at hot stone massage. Without knowing it that one client made each of my other clients massages different today. In order to help my first client to loosen up a little faster this morning, I got out a couple hot stones and used them on her back. Her comment was, "Wow, how are your hands so warm this morning!" She hadn't realized that I had gone to get the stones. When I told her what I had done she said how good that felt. I know that the warmth helped her muscles relax just a bit faster this morning. My second client this morning was also a regular who had just come in for what we call a Stress Buster Massage. It is a 40 minute head, neck shoulders, back and arms massage mainly for those folks who sit in front of a computer all day. But she had also been to the dentist before her massage and has trouble relaxing on my table normally. When she was having trouble letting go for me to work on her neck, she made the comment that she must really be uptight since she didn't even realize that she wasn't relaxing and even mentioned that the dentist had to tell her to relax her tongue earlier. My comment was "I think I can fix that!" So again to the stone roaster and 2 more stones came out! She loved it! Used those two on her neck and then 2 more on her back before I ended her massage. And guest what, before she left I verified the date and time of her next appointment and she said, "Could we make that a hot stone?" Absolutely! Another happy client! So my third and last client of the morning had actually scheduled the hot stone massage because he wanted to be a little more relaxed before traveling later today. So it was his first hot stone massage and didn't know what to expect. He normally has a Deep Tissue Massage with lots of Sports Massage type stretches since he swims every day at the gym. He was concerned that the stone massage would be able to address his normal issues and help him relax. As I started working on the backs of his legs he commented that he hoped the stones and heat would relax his back as well as it was doing on his legs. I assured him that it would! He was quite pleased with his first time stone massage and left the office with that "stoned" look that many client get after their first Hot Stone Massage. The third happy client. So how do you make your massage clients love you? Listen to them, be responsive to what is going on with them during the massage and give them what they have asked for that is therapeutic and meets there rehabilitative needs. I believe with massage and my clients as I do with all things in the Golden Rule. Do as you would have done to you. Okay, so it's been a while since I talked about Infinite Possibilities. Have I given up on IP and Thoughts becoming Things? Absolutely not! The things have just started happening that have been in my thoughts. But more about that in another post. The third Lesson in Infinite Possibilities Training deals with your Emotions. If you got through Lesson 2 about Beliefs then you are really ready for this lesson. But to recap, it is your "learned" beliefs that can sometimes get in the way of where you want to be. If you really took a look at those things I mentioned - Life, Money, Love, Success - were the beliefs you have about them yours through experience or did someone tell you that is what they were like? Remember that nothing else affects your thoughts more than your beliefs about certain things. If you think life is hard, then it becomes hard because you have convinced yourself, through your belief system, that it is hard. So the first thing you have to change are your beliefs for it is these beliefs that influence our thoughts and then our action (or lack of action). SO in order to change our thoughts we need to change our beliefs and the way to do that is to give up on negative thoughts. AND guess what? We DO get to chose what we think and believe in order to build a life based on what you want. So by starting to think and speak what you want to believe you being to create new beliefs about how your life can be. As I have stated before, thoughts build ideas, ideas stir emotions, emotions create action, actions are the physical manifestation of the original thought. Tada! Thoughts become things! So we are past the thoughts build ideas and now are ready for the emotions that come with those thoughts. Sometimes when it seems that things are falling apart, they are actually falling into place. I don't know where I saw that quote but it so often seems to fit perfectly with what goes on in life. We feel like things are falling apart and then all of a sudden we realize that they have fallen into place regardless of the emotional upheaval we may have been in. Emotion - One of life's greatest gifts and also one of our greatest enemies it seems. The definition of emotion is "our perception of a person or event". It is a feeling or reaction to an event in life, whether happy, sad, angry, depressed or elated. Emotions are a product of our beliefs and perceptions. They are a feedback system so to speak of what has just happened, is happening or that we anticipate happening. Sometimes the unpleasant or negative emotions that we have can point to limited beliefs about the situation that we are experiencing. Take a look back of the last week and try to sort out the emotions that you have had. Frustration, excitement, fulfillment, happiness, sadness. What were the causes of these emotions? Emotions are always based on our perspective about a situation and they arise from our beliefs. The ones you thought about when I asked above are indirectly related to the causes, but they are directly related to your underlying beliefs and perceptions about those causes. Our beliefs shape our perceptions and then create our emotions. SO beliefs give rise to our thoughts and also to our emotions. So our beliefs (and our thoughts about them) lead to the experience and the perceptions of the experience leads to our emotions (which is how we respond, react or feel about the experience) which then becomes our memory of the experience. EXAMPLEs: Belief - People are loving and generous; they want to be helpful Perception - I can trust my family and friends; I live in a safe and giving world Typical Emotion - Carefree, happy Belief - People cannot be trusted; they will take advantage of you if given the chance. Perception - I will not trust others. I could become a victim if I'm not careful. Life is not easy Typical Emotion - Scared, defensive. Our emotions and how we respond to situations in life not only reveal where we have been but also where we are going. If we always respond with a negative emotion then that negativity will shape our future. We need to come to terms with the unpleasant and negative thoughts that we may have so that we will not continue to have unpleasant recurring experiences in the future. We need to change what we choose to think. It takes practice and persistence and the first step is to examine your beliefs and perceptions. Take some time to look back at the emotions that you have had during the last few days and begin to try to imagine a way that you could have changed those emotions and the belief system that was attached to them. Changing your beliefs about the things that happen around you can help you to change the emotion that becomes attached to that experience and by changing an emotion about an experience will help you process that experience in the future. Remember that the emotion attached to an experience go back again to your beliefs about that experience. Change your beliefs and change the outcome of an experience. |
Paula J Kaprocki, LMT
I am a Licensed Massage Therapist with thoughts, aspirations and opinions - much like any other person on the planet! Archives
March 2021
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