Being a therapeutic massage and bodywork practitioner is a unique career path due to its intimate nature. When I use the word intimate, I’m referring to the proximity in which we work with our clients. We touch their bodies, hear their stories, become aware of their daily habits and routines, and present an attitude of teamwork toward our clients’ goals. Naturally, an affinity is born, which, from an ethical perspective, must remain a one-way street. In other words, while we do the touching, listening, observing, and encouraging, it’s not our clients’ responsibility to reciprocate (nor is it appropriate).
The potential problem is that over time—especially with frequent, repeat clients—this professional line can blur. Like you care about your clients, some clients will care about you. Clients will ask how you are doing, especially if they sense that something is wrong. In the best-case scenario, you show up to work every day feeling energized, joyful, and ready to be of service. But life doesn’t always deliver the best-case scenario. Some days you might feel mentally, emotionally, or physically depleted. While it might be tempting to share your woes, it is essential to the quality of the MT-client relationship to not lean on your clients for support.
We don’t want to avoid our problems. Instead, we want to train ourselves to address them at the right time.
Here are some tried-and-true ways to leave your personal stuff at the treatment room door and regulate challenging emotions so they don’t infiltrate your work.
Identify Your Mood
Before your work shift, tune in to how you feel. If you need support, do an online search for “list of emotions” and take note of any that resonate with you. Sometimes, identifying and acknowledging what you are feeling can shift the energy of that emotion. At the very least, you will clearly know what emotion you are working with that day. Additionally, tune in to what you want to be feeling. Then, imagine feeling that way. It might help to remember a time when you felt joyful, motivated, service-oriented, confident, or energized. Our minds are very powerful, so when we cultivate an emotion from memory, we begin to experience it! This isn’t an attempt to deny our emotions but rather to transform the energy of the emotion into something more productive for the present.
Engage in a Grounding Practice
Grounding yourself means to stabilize yourself. As bodyworkers, we know that the best way to get out of our heads is to get into our bodies. Here are three grounding practices you can engage in before your work sessions. These can also be done between sessions.
Breathe Slowly and Consciously
Find a quiet place to sit or lie down. Start by noticing your breath and body in its current state. Then, create a rhythm by inhaling to a count of four and exhaling to a count of four. After a few rounds, add a brief pause between each inhale and exhale. Do this for at least five rounds.
Tune In to Your Feet
Draw your attention to your feet. It doesn’t matter if you are sitting or standing. Notice how they feel making contact with the floor. Be present with all sensations, such as the fabric of socks against your skin, if they are warm or cold, if they are itchy or sore, restless. Stay with this for 3–5 minutes.
Visualize a Box at the Door
Find a quiet place to close your eyes and visualize a box at the treatment room door. Then, create a picture, symbol, or other visual representation of your concern, your mood, or the life event on your mind. See yourself placing it in the box and promise yourself you will pick it back up after your work shift.
If you find yourself cast back into the concern or emotion while in session, visualize yourself placing it back in the box again. Sometimes your concern will try to follow you. You can do this in any given moment without taking away from what you are currently doing. Then, pick your box contents back up at the end of your day. Attend to it through journaling, meditation, exercise, or talking with a friend. Taking it back out of the box and attending to it is an essential component of this practice. We don’t want to avoid our problems. Instead, we want to train ourselves to address them at the right time, in the right place, and with the right people (a.k.a. not with our clients!).
Construct Emotional Hygiene
Hygiene isn’t limited to physical cleanliness. It’s also related to our mental and emotional cleanliness. Emotional hygiene involves being mindful of our emotional health and building brief daily habits of observation and regulation. When we practice emotional hygiene each day, we prevent emotional buildup that could spiral out of control, making it harder to separate from our professional lives. I highly recommend making this practice, or a similar one, part of your routine before every workday, regardless of whether it’s a great day or a not-so-great day.
While there are some circumstances when you might choose to engage in a dual relationship with a client (either by taking on an existing friend as a client or choosing to build a new friendship with a client), the boundaries within the therapeutic session need to be clear and consistently protected. The friendship must remain separate from the treatment room.
Use these tools to take action toward safeguarding the therapeutic relationship and providing a professional massage or bodywork experience that is strictly client-centered. They are paying you to take care of them, not the other way around.
