It's amazing what a good night's sleep can do to one's mental state. I had a good night's sleep Wednesday night and it helps to give me clarity of mind. I went to have a very gentle massage and this is helpful for so many reasons. My hips and sacrum are inflamed again and I'm experiencing more pain than I usually have. My body and mind has experienced more stress these days than I really want to endure. The bones of my pelvis feel sore to the touch and I rub them myself. Touch therapy, however, is so beneficial. I had my regular morning meditation but decided to have a mindful meditation session on the massage table.
As soon as I got onto the massage table, my mind and body immediately relaxed. I sighed and released a lot of tension even before the therapist put her hands on me. I listened to the music that was upbeat and pleasant. There were frog sounds and other nature sounds in the music. The massage therapist put some oil on her hands and began to gently scan down my body, feeling for areas of tension. She could feel the puffy inflammation in my low back and asked if it hurt. She applied gentle pressure to the piraformis muscles in my hips to ask them to release. She massaged my arms and legs and back and my body felt incredibly grateful. I turned over and she massaged my head and scalp. She also specializes in cranio-sacral work and she held my forehead and base of skull in her hands for a few minutes. She didn't say what she was doing but I was asking my body to release and relax. I had thoughts for my body saying it was safe and ok to heal and calm down. After an hour the body meditation was over.
I asked her why it is that I look better after a massage? She said something along the lines of giving the body loving attention and asking it to relax and be present is a great beauty treatment! It was pretty remarkable to me how I looked in the mirror before getting on the table and how I looked afterwards. I felt very pleasant and calm for the remainder of the day.
I had to go to a counseling meeting and meet up with Matt to go over some issues that came up in our last meeting and in our daily lives that needed addressing. I walked down to my car to get ready to go to the meeting and I had a new thought about what it was that I was needing and how I could best try to communicate this. It just came to me and I believe that was so because space was created in my mind and body in the relaxation process of massage that made this possible. When we hold ourselves so tightly, it is difficult to let anything new in.