Moving Through Discomfort

Change can be scary sometimes.  Even when we are unhappy or in pain, change can seem rather uncomfortable or even a tad overwhelming.  As they say, the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. But what if the devil you don’t know is actually an angel in disguise?

Life can be oh so complicated, and sometimes it can just seem safer to stay in our respective comfort zones.  Maybe we have these huge areas of tension in our shoulders, but they’ve always been there, and after a while they may even start to feel a little familiar.  We know where they are, they’re reliable, they know us. However, this kind of comfort is actually a far cry from true comfort. These balls of tension may give us the illusion of comfort, but really we know deep down that we’d be better off without them keeping our muscles literally stuck to each other.  

This is where massage comes in.  While we are doing our best to bring YOU into a relaxing state of comfort, we are not trying to make life easy for your knots of tension.  We want them out of there! While the kneading of your knots can sometimes be somewhat uncomfortable, maybe even painful, this is what we like to refer to as therapeutic pain.  This is the type of pain that hurts so good, because you can tell that it’s making your knots of tension uncomfortable. It’s the type of pain that feels worth it, because you can also feel how it is a (sometimes major) change to your musculature.  

In this way, you may have to venture out and leave behind your illusion of comfort, (what’s holding you back and keeping you stuck), in order to reach a true sense of much deeper comfort.  There is nothing quite like the feeling of release, when you can literally feel your muscles letting go of long-held tension.  This may even be coupled with an emotional release. (BTW it is totally ok to cry on the massage table if you happen to feel a sudden rush of emotion!).  We promise we won’t tell.

This may all be taking place on a rather subconscious level.  We may not even realize consciously what we are holding onto, or how tightly or for how long we have been holding onto it.  All of that is revealed to us only when we are able to finally fully release the muscle, and just let it all go. Taking a long, slow, deep breath is a great way signal to yourself and to the universe that you are letting go of something that no longer serves you.  In the end the therapeutic pain of the massage, while seeming downright devilish, may have actually been an angel in disguise.