I received this chain email today from one of the people I have wide shoulders for:

 

Each one of us is given unique God given gifts, but all too often these gifts are put aside, like a prize you won as a child and kept in the closet. Gifts not used are gifts wasted. And a wasted gift is the greatest shame. So go in the closet, blow the dust off and get them out. You have been given these gifts, so you could use them, as they were given to you to help you with your mission in this world.

Some gifts are clear, while others are hidden and need to be uncovered. But when they become clear, one has an obligation to make the most of his or her gifts; whether they be in teaching, learning, speaking, leadership, writing, music, scholarship, sports, business, professional, cooking, entertaining or in any one of a thousand other fields.

You see when we use our gifts, our soul starts to become happy and wants to do more, this is contentment. Not satisfaction that a job is completed, because it never is, but contentment that you are on the path that you have been given, using the gifts that you have been given you. And this includes material wealth. If you are blessed with talents to generate wealth, then it is not only proper to use them. You are wasting your gifts if you do not as long as you have proper intentions with your work and with the proceeds of your successes.

Go find that gift that you have buried and better the world with your talents and make your soul happy in the process.

 

And of course my first thought was yeah, yeah I know I need to start doing more massages again.

 

You see I happen to know, and upon occasion have it reaffirmed that I have a great gift in my ability to touch.  At one point in my life when I felt like I had no real future and had one of those moments where I had to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.  I was still a bit lost and confused in my life (as if that has ever really changed *grin*) and went into one of those deep introspective moments to try and discern what I was good at and what would make me happy (since obviously engineering and the technological world was interesting but not nourishing my soul).

As I stumbled and dragged myself through the mental wringer trying to think of something that I felt I was honestly good at, that I had talent in, that I didn't feel like a complete hack at...  My moment of realization and memory was thinking back to a time in high school where I would essentially just walk into my math class and wait until one of the females indicated that they would like me to sit behind them.  I would then sit on the top of the desk behind them with my hands working on their neck, shoulders, and back while my conscious attention was focused on paying attention to the board.  I never took any notes, hell never really cracked open the math book very often, passed the classes (though admittedly not without perfect scores, but why put out effort when you don't need to and still maintain a high B average), and the math instructor never said a word.  (I had a conversation with her years later and the topic came up, she never said anything because I was passing my tests and she realized that she was mostly jealous *wicked grin*)  And all of this was with having the self esteem of a pretzel.  I would never even have begun to have the courage to approach any of these young ladies with any real attempt of romantic interest would have turned me into a little pile of goo from just considering it.  But I was not afraid of putting my hands on these girls' backs and having absolute faith in my ability to make them feel better.

 

Which can lead into traps.  As I would learn some of the lessons about boundary issues the hard way...  Upon reflection I had already run into some of these things, but my perspective was not such that I had understanding until much later.

 

Fast forward a bit to massage school (And there were a number of trials and tribulations, miscommunications and drama that flavored the path that finally led me to massage school... some of which I am only just know remembering...  Someone remind me that I need to talk about my massage table)

 

Young and naive (even after all the things I been through and done...  what a surprise to me)

 

- - -

 

*sigh* the rate of distractions around me increase with the difficulty to discuss sensitive subjects (and no comments about carts and horses from the peanut gallery, its still intertwined enough that I can't say which way it goes...  chicken and the egg conundrum)

 

So on to a specific example that occurred in massage school.

 

Pieces of the context (to paint a full tapestry would take more time than I have available at the moment... Be rest assured though that elements will play part in later messages)

 

First day of class one of the students arrived a little bit late, so of course attention was drawn as she entered the class.  I was very much entranced, she was not a supermodel or necessarily any of society's accepted standards of beauty, but she was definitely noticeable to me.  There were things about her mannerisms and how she carried herself that spoke volumes to me about the person hiding behind the masks.  I was quite definitely attracted to her.

Within the first week or so, this lady was being used as the class model for some techniques that the instructor was showing us.  The nearest I can establish the moment of my mistake, or where I crossed her boundary issues was after the instruction was over I reached out and brushed her hair off of her forehead.  I was so focused on my desire to reach out to her and so unaware of the possibility that a simple touch could be so catastrophic.  I smiled down at her and went about the rest of my day.

The atmosphere at the school definitely went rather south, though I was unaware of it at first.  I became a social outcast and was avoided by "the cool kids" which I didn't notice any deliberateness at first because I was so used to that role from my grade school and high school years.  Then came a day that the instructor was trying to impress on the class that we would all have to work with every single person in the class by the end of the training and that we would become almost a family (I know in my heart of hearts that even though I was clueless that my instructor was a very wise and observant woman who was already aware of the social dynamics) where upon this feisty raven haired individual announced to the room "There is someone here who will never be apart of my family"

Despite my total blindness to the vagaries of social interaction at a very deep level I knew that this pronouncement was about me.  I made no reaction, showed no sign that I understood that I was the target of this vitriol.  Over the next couple months the environment became ever more uncomfortable (and this is supposed to be massage school, where we are supposed to learn to help other people relax and to heal body issues)  It became harder and harder for me to get to class on time in the morning, between the oppressive atmosphere and a number of "interesting" things that were happening in my life outside of class (definitely will be discussed more later) it eventually became too much for me and I ended up transferring to the night class (which would mean I would be graduating later than originally planned but then I wasn't as focused on getting my certification quickly, I was focused more on gaining more knowledge and understanding of bodywork.  A piece of paper wasn't necessary to tell me that I knew how to touch people.  The evening class was almost a completely different atmosphere, much warmer and accepting of me.

I did maintain contact for the longest time with one of my classmates from the day class, an older lady who was taking the classes in order to gain a further understanding of the bodywork to help her along in the process of dealing with her trigger points and other various issues that was affecting her.  We would frequently trade massages as there were elements to our massage techniques and patterns that really reached out to each other and helped us gain a better understanding of our craft and ourselves.  One day when I was being worked upon, I let bubble up to the surface some of my confusion and pain surrounding the day class.  That was when she told me that the raven haired woman had been telling everyone who would listen that I was gay.

*blink blink*

 

It was another of those moments where everything made a little more sense even though I couldn't fathom the cause and effect of it.

 

Minor moment of mirth.  Another one of the habits of the lady in question was to always be extremely negative about the city we were in.  She frequently (very frequently) would talk about how she couldn't wait to finish up school so that she could go back to a certain windy city that she was from.  One day when I was working on some make up hours after the official end of classes (we still couldn't get our piece of paper until our number of hours was complete, so missed days or time had to be made up later) she showed up at the school to do the same thing (and the day class ended at least three months before the night class, maybe more but I'm not paying attention to some of the exact details anymore) and I couldn't help but wonder why she was still in town if she hated it here so much...  Wouldn't that have been incentive to wrap it up as quickly as possible?  I thought all of this not in anger or ironic glee but actual sadness, by that point I had at least realized that if she was so twisted up inside that she couldn't deal with me on a straightforward level without making assumptions instead of actually talking to me then there was nothing I would be able to do for her.  She had made her own bed, so to speak (maybe one day I will talk about the sexual tension between her and another of our classmates from the day class.  Everyone with a lick of sensitivity knew the day after they had consummated their tension and obviously it hadn't gone well...  The two of them were forever slightly cold to each other after that.)

 

Why did all of this come up for me?  Because this and with some minor variations other moments of strangeness in my life has made me very hesitant to reach out and touch and especially tied into some of the reasons why I stopped being a therapist and what I feel I will have to have settled within myself before I ever do it again especially professionally...  (ugh... I'm not even sure I can parse that sentence when I re-read it)  Let me sum up... I'm afraid to reach out and touch, but my touch is one of the few things I've ever been confident in.

 

here's a few more chips of ice to throw on the water...