I saw recently that "Toy Story 3" is up for an Oscar. For those of you who have not seen this movie, and plan to do so, read no further. My daughter gave her dad the Toy Story Trio for the holiday, so we've seen it recently.

There is a scene toward the end of the movie where several of the toys have somehow ended up at the dump. This is a fear of all toys, that they will not be treasured any more and they are thrown away. After they arrive at the dump, they are poured into a heap that is slowly but inexorably moving downwards towards the fire that will destroy them all. You can see it on their faces: they know that although they have somehow squeaked through many other near-disasters, there is no escape this time. There is anguish... and then acceptance. And then... then one holds out his hand, and it is held. The second one holds out her hand, and it is held. On and on, till they are all holding hands on the way to destruction. And they continue to fall downwards towards the fire.

This scene reminded me of a story I heard at the UU Church some time back. We had a guest minister who talked about the concentration camps of WWII. There was a priest or minister who was found sheltering Jewish children and he was given a choice. He could be a prisoner, or he could go to his death with the children in the gas chamber. He chose the children. He must have worried about their fear, and he led them singing. Singing.

We all heard what happened in Tuscon, AZ a few weeks ago. I heard that when both Christina Taylor-Green and her friend, Suzi Hileman were both shot, they held hands.

There is something very powerful about connections, whether it's through touch, or voice, or a look.

Connect. It's a blessing.

Don't Shrug This Off

You remember those teenage years, the ones where the shrug meant volumes in communication, mostly with parents.

The shrugging muscle is called the levator scapula, and it runs from the top of the scapula (shoulder blade) up to the top of the neck, C-1 through C-4. It elevates the shoulder blade, hence the name, levator scapula.

This one muscle is the most chronically tight of all that I palpate when I give a massage with at least 90% of my clients. Why? Our lifestyle promotes it. Almost all of us work on computers, we drive, and at some point during the day, most of us find that our shoulders have crept up to our ears. My personal theory is that we are hardwired to do this when we are stressed. It's the old "I'm big, so don't mess with me," survival instinct that we still see in birds when they puff up their feathers, in cats when they fluff out their fur when they feel a threat. And our culture encourages stress. (Buy this, so your life will be easier, more enjoyable, more interesting, but then you have to work harder and longer to afford all these gizmos. And the gizmos have obsolescence planned into them so they won't last long and you'll need to buy another just to keep up. And don't get sick, or you'll insurance will cancel your policy, if you are fortunate enough to have insurance to start with... and the list goes on.)

So we are stressed. And our shoulders are around our ears. We consciously move them down into their relaxed position only to find they are back up at our ears again. What's a body to do?

This past week one of my clients shared a stretch that her PT has shown her. It's so easy, and it stretches out the fibers of the muscle, encouraging them to relax. This is how you do it.

Stand with your right arm behind your back. Bring your left hand to the back of your head, and pull your head towards your shoulder, so that your left ear is almost touching your left shoulder. Feel that stretch? I like Michael Young's approach to stretches, especially when it's therapeutic and to release a spasm, so keep the stretch to no more that two seconds long and repeat for about ten times. Then do the opposite side.

Do this when your ears feel crowded, and afterwards you can shrug the tension off!

Medical benefits of Massage

If you are on my newsletter list, you've heard about the proposed legislation taxing massage as a "pleasure service". We therapists are up in arms (or is it up in hands) over this, since we are listed under NC Law as "licensed health care providers". If we are taxed, we feel that ALL health care providers should be taxed, including doctors, chiropractors, physical therapists, etc. Of course, ultimately, we feel we should not be listed with "pleasure services", and that services with medical benefits should NOT be taxed. Let me expound on this.

While many types of massage are pleasurable, there are medical benefits even when the service takes place in a spa setting. "How?" you may ask? For one example, and one that has far reaching consequences, it helps to turn off the sympathetic nervous system.

We have two areas of the nervous system: sympathetic and parasympathetic. Now, the parasympathetic system allows our bodies to function the way it's supposed to during normal activity. We get blood to our extremities, we digest, we repair damaged cells... The sympathetic system is our survivor system. This is often referred to as fight, flight, or freeze. When we hear the rattlesnake rattle, we freeze. When we sense danger, we are ready to make our stand or run to fight another day. And it is this system that has kept our species alive. However...

In our modern everyday lives, most of us don't have life threatening events take place on a regular basis. We do have insidious events that happen to which our bodies react as if it is life threatening. We overhear the boss talking about lay-offs, and we wonder if we are next. We hear on the news that pollution is at an all time high, and we wonder if that's why our children have asthma. We drive, and someone cuts us off, making us hit the brakes. These types of events turn on the sympathetic system.

What happens when the sympathetic system gets turned on? The body sends out additional noradrenaline (norepinephrine) and adds adrenaline along with that. Noradrenaline by itself is short lived in the body, even a double dose. But when the body adds adrenaline, that will persist in the bloodstream for hours. Hormones, particularly cortisol, increase organ sensitivity to both noradrenaline and adrenaline, which means it's easier for us to feel panic when this happens frequently. This means that our blood vessels constrict, especially at the extremities, keeping the core of our bodies safe. Our digestion slows. Our pupils constrict. This can lead to rapid heart beat and migraine headaches, among other disorders. (see http://stressdirections.com/content/view/46/68/ for more information)

How does massage counter this? We relax when we receive massage. We breathe more deeply, which relaxes us farther. Blood flows more fluently to our extremities. Our minds can become quiet, and we enter a meditative state. These reactions can turn off the sympathetic system, and allow the parasympathetic system to do its job.

So, do yourself a favor. Contact your legislator to vote no on taxing massage. And make an appointment with your massage therapist today!

Summer's Lavendar

I have some growing in my small home garden. It feels so good. I love to rub my hands through it and then smell my hands… ahhh…

Lavender as an aromatherapy blends with so many different aromas, it can be used widely. In addition to its versatility and calming odor, did you know that it is also an analgesic, antidepressant, antiseptic, antiviral, cytophylactic (stimulates growth of healthy new skin cells), decongestant, hypotensive, nervine, and sedative?

Last month I was in the woods and was bit by an insect and noticed that in addition to the itch, it was inflamed and the tissue was hard. I asked Aliya Boozari, a massage student and also a clinical herbalist, if she could recommend something for this. She said lavender, witch hazel, and aloe. I had some lavender with me, so I used that, and within two minutes the itch was gone. By the time my class was over it was no longer inflamed. By the next day it was no longer hard. Wow. I never had to use the witch hazel or aloe. After this incident another student told me that her youngest child had poison ivy. She applied lavender. It cleared the rash right up.
A client told me that a friend of hers has been using lavender on her face since she was in high school. It helps with acne.

We grew up thinking that if a medicine was good for us, it had to be aesthetically displeasing. This is the exception to that rule!

Eulogy for Bart

Bart died early this morning. He was one of our neighborhood cats who adopted us as family (though I'm sure he had others, too).

When he came inside the house, he'd climb into your lap, up into your arms, and flop over, so he'd be held like a baby. And frequently he'd meow at my bedroom door in the middle of the night just so someone would pet him while he ate.

Outside, he had a different story. He acted like he didn't know us if we came together then, like the teenage boy who doesn't want to acknowledge the grownups, 'cause he has his reputation to consider.

Yesterday Art found him lying by the car. Bart didn't move, so we put him in the house. Art kept an eye on him during the day, and Bart seemed to move between in front of the couch and behind the couch, walking just a few feet before falling down. Our daughter left us a note this morning, saying that everytime she'd turned off the light, Bart cried, so she ended up just leaving it on.

I do feel honored that Bart came to us, that he felt safe enough with us. And that he didn't have to die in the dark. We will miss him.

New Office found because of Grace's love for Tim

I was giving a massage a couple of days ago and was asked how I found my new digs. I have to tell you, I LOVE my new space. It's me, it reflects more of who I am and how I operate. Mark was great to share his space with me, but our personalities in space were opposite. He looked at empty counter space and thought something like: zen: peaceful. I looked at empty counter space and thought, hmmm, what would look good on this? So being back with all my STUFF makes me happy, content, and busy.

But when I thought back through the process of how I found my new space, I realized it was because of Gracie's love for Tim. You see, Tim came to Asheville to teach in the new massage program here at AB Tech, and the game plan was that he and Grace would sell their house and within a year she would move up here. And then there was the house market slump... so the house never sold. The year became a year and a half, and Tim realized how his absence was affecting the one he loves, and the choice I think was ultimately easy, not to mention inevitable. He chose to go back to live full time with Gracie and gave up his job here at AB Tech.

When Tim left (after giving a month's notice), Marek and I took over teaching Tim's classes to finish out the semester as our schedules allowed. However, due to this change I knew I needed to refer one of my regular clients to another massage therapist because I could no longer accommodate her schedule. When I called around, one therapist told me that she was in the process of moving to this great new place, which was actually a rather old building, and the rent was the best she had seen. I kept this in mind, and when I was ready to move, I checked it out, and the rest is herstory.

It's amazing to me how the threads of our lives intermingle. Tugging on one thread brings another downstage, front and center. We never know when our actions will have an effect on someone else, or what those effects will be. Some are easier to see than others, "if I left sooner/later I would not have been in this accident", "if I had not married I would not have my daughter". The others are more subtle and take thought to backtrack through. Look at the Iraq war. I can see back to the Russian/Afghanistan war, but it probably goes father than that. All this to say that I read a great quote earlier this morning. It's from the Male Herbal by James Green. He says, "We live what we think." So let's think good thoughts, great thoughts, hard and challenging thoughts, thoughts that bring us together to solve our global and local problems. Instead of saying, "This won't work because..." we need to be saying, "how can we make this work?" And lets see how our threads fall. After all, it was love that got me my new office.

Technology : Not just a good idea!

I'm trying to keep up, really, I am. All technology, all electronic, 24/7. I'm fortunate I have a daughter who understands these things, and friends who take the time to help me create a site like this (thanks, Johanna!, thanks, Kate!)

The thing is, I thought I was in the know, back in the 80's, when I was in the office setting and the work we did required computers. I worked for a company called Tele-Log, which later changed to TV Data. We published television listings for newspapers, shopper guides, cable companies... and used a computer service called Graphic Data. This was in Atlanta, GA, where the mainframe took up an entire office, and was linked to terminals in our office. Which meant we both had to be in the same building, at least at first. Each tv program had its own code, which had to be typed into the right time slot. It was detail oriented, and fun to talk to tv stations all across the county to find out the latest changes in their schedules...

And then we got a computer for things like: writing letters, doing spreadsheets. The only company around was Xerox, and when the computer came on it was all DOS. Remember DOS? And the floppy disks were, well, floppy. We had to be careful when we put it in the disk drive so the information would not be corrupted. And it was sooo cooool. We could type and see an error and not have to use white out, and not have to get the type to go just right without looking too sloppy with the IBM type balls. You may remember, having to scrunch letters together into a small space when you found an error?

And then there was the Commodore. We had one at home, a home computer! The text didn't wrap around, but hey, we had a Star Trek interactive game that worked on the Commodore!

When we moved to North Carolina I worked at the Asheville Police Department, transcribing Detective reports for their files. At first this was done on.... an IBM typewriter. Then they sent me to a class at City Hall where we learned Word! (and solitaire!) And that just opened everything up.

After seven years, I became a massage therapist, and was no longer in an office setting. I didn't realize at first, but the technology kept changing! And I was getting farther and farther behind the curve. I wasn't keeping up. It was little things at first: my daughter had to program the tv, she knew which cables went where. And then it was setting up the new computer. Accessing the internet, websites... and I started teaching massage at AB Tech.

So now I'm catching up. I'm told that the internet is not the future of marketing, it's the present of marketing, having a presence with marketing. So I have to learn how to drive the big car, or get out of the road. I'm learning to drive. (Not to be confused with driver, which I understand is part of a computer...) I just hope I can figure out all the signals without getting into a head-on collision on this information highway!