If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Intention is everything in massage therapy and any of the energy healing modalities.
I just finished reading The Reconnection by Dr. Eric Pearl and found it very similar to what Dr. Richard Bartlett teaches with Matrix Energetics and The Physics of Miracles.
Basically, it goes like this:
- Set an intention for something to happen
- Distract your left brain by giving it something to do
- Allow a miracle to happen
In Matrix Energetics, Dr. Bartlett pretty much describes it in those steps and he teaches various techniques to distract your left brain. The main technique is called a two-point, but once you get good at them you don’t really need the techniques anymore.
Dr. Pearl didn’t process Reconnective Healing down to that level, but that is essentially the way I see it. He describes allowing your hands to move over the body until you find something “interesting” then “play” with it. That gives the left brain something to do and gets it out of the way to let in a miracle.
The same thing goes for massage therapy. I used to get so annoyed during massage school because they focus so much on technique. Now I get a kick out of watching the massage groups on LinkedIn as the therapists get all hung up on what technique is best for a particular situation. The technique really doesn’t matter and once they stop worrying about techniques and just do it with a strong intention for something positive to happen, their effectiveness will multiply. I don’t have a technique for massage, and in school I only bothered to learn them enough to get the grade.
Most clients don’t care about technique. They just want to feel better. When you set an intention for a session, don’t focus on a specific outcome. That is all about you. Simply set an intention for something beneficial to happen and be OK with however that might manifest.
My wife and I were talking about this yesterday before she went to do a massage. So she set an open intention for something to happen and came home with probably the biggest tip she ever received.
The same thing goes for a lot of the other areas in our lives. Set an intention tomorrow morning that something great is going to happen. Don’t force it as you go about your day and be open to receiving whatever may come. Come back here and leave me a comment about what happened. Share this with your followers on the social networks and let them intend a great day too.
Wayne Woodworth
Hello,
I’m so happy I found your post, Wayne. My training in massage therapy was equal focused on technique and intention (plus other 10 principles which I had to keep during the treatment like breathing, flow, precision etc). I read few things on this subject, probably the best book I came across is The intention experiment, Lynne McTaggart.
However, over the years I became somehow a bit more careful when it comes to the subject of my intention onto the client, during the treatment. Atmara’s comment is somehow similar with what I do during my treatments. It’s a bit of combination of allowing the client to “just be” and I’m open to whatever the outcome the clients have, creating that space for them.
I came to this attitude after I studied Metamorphic Technique with Gaston St Pierre and also Rosen Method, both very gentle therapies in which the therapist is using awareness of the tiniest change/shift in client’s body and allowing and conducting those feelings and outcome to manifest whenever the client is ready. In metamorphic language, “the life force of the person having a treatment knows best” and we, therapists are there just as a channel to help them reach their true potential in this life (the transformation of caterpillar into butterfly).
The way I feel now about the subject of intention, is that the fact we are therapists we already have an “in build” system of good intention of helping people, however “a named, specific intention” of ours over the person (as simple as I want to help with this tension in the shoulders) may be more inferior and not needed if that person is not ready to reach that level. Being aware that their on in-build system of healing is working and we, therapists are there to enhance that force when needed is more effective in the way I practice.
Thank you for posting!
Thanks for the comment Iuliana. I agree with you. When I wrote this post a little more than a year ago I was reading a lot of posts on massage forums. The massage therapists writing the posts were all focusing on specific conditions and techniques. I was never a “technique” or “routine” person. In massage school I only did the technique while the instructor was paying attention and the rest of time my intent was to focus on the person I was working with. I believe that the therapist needs to focus on their client and less on their technique, and that is what I mean by intent. Now, a year later, I still believe that intent is more important than technique, only the intent has changed a little bit. Now the intent is like you and Atmara said, to create the space for something, or nothing, to happen and that whatever happens is exactly right for that person at this time.
I’m a Reconnective healing practitioner. While I understand how you have interpreted Eric’s book, I think it would be safe to say he would never set any intention. It is truly a “let go and let God” kind of work. What the Universe intends for any session can’t be guessed. Miracle do happen, but many sessions are so subtle you have no idea what has happened. I think it more accurate to say you simply get “used” by the Universe. Any expectation that you will even know how you are used or ever know the true result of a session is beyond what can be said. We were taught 3 words to use over and over in this work and they were, “I don’t know.” This is a modality of true surrender, something beyond the idea of intention. Something great may not happen in a session, to hold even that intention is to impose on the Universe an outcome that it may not intend. One can only surrender to what is.
Atmara recently posted..How to Create a WordPress Site and Avoid the Mistakes I Made- Part 4
Thank you very much for your comment. I think I understand what you are saying. I was suggesting that you go in with the intent for something good to happen, nothing specific, just something good. You are saying that you go in without any intent at all and letting God use you as a channel to allow something to happen, or not happen if that is what is best for the client. Thank you for taking my understanding to the next level.
Thanks Wayne for a special insight on how to look at the power of intention. We do tend to over think things too much instead of just letting it happen.
Thanks for the comment Becky. Yes, we do have a tendency to get in our own way a lot.