Feelization. It’s the word everyone is talking about. Except not really. Because I just made it up. But think about it for a second. Have you ever had one of those moments when you felt something so deeply it made you realize an eye-opening truth about life? Like, the first time you worked out really hard and understood what a love-hate relationship meant. That’s feelization—a feeling that leads to a realization, otherwise known as an emothought, but with a much better ring to it.

As a massage therapist, you probably learned at one point or another that if you are really present when you work, if you are really there in the moment, you will notice things that are happening under the skin and your work will be worlds better. But being present isn’t the easiest thing to do, even though it sounds simple enough.

Be Present

Be present. It’s just two words. It can’t be that hard to be in the moment, right? Well, it turns out that being present is about as easy as riding a unicycle on a tightrope while juggling, texting, hula-hooping, and playing the harmonica. It makes tapping your head while rubbing your belly look like child’s play! That said, there are some amazing tricks to letting go of all the thought clutter so you can truly be present in a session. Meditation and grounding exercises are probably two of the most popular, which some of us were lucky enough to have learned as a part of our curriculum in school. (But, then again, most of us struggle with implementing a lot of what we learned. I mean, I have meditated thousands of times in my life and yet I still find myself questioning where all that deep peace resides in my brain when it feels like the cacophony of irritation and frustration drowns everything else out.)

So how do we get more feelization moments with our clients? How do we put the chaos of the chatter aside and stay truly present with a muscle? Peaceful walks, more moments with some tea, and a good book are helpful, but I suspect there’s another approach. What if we come at being present from a different perspective? What if we imagine that a muscle might have the same quandary of being present that we do? The insights we gain might just start to sink a little deeper into our own selves.

The Piriformis, For Example

Flanked by a tight peer group (the deep six lateral rotators), buried by a blanket of brawn (the gluteus maximus), and triggered by the largest livewire in the body (the sciatic nerve), the piriformis is constantly sitting in high-stress conditions. After years of playing an important role among the team, this powerful little hip mover might suddenly find itself being pushed beyond its normal limits. Maybe this piriformis’s human decided to try a new sport, don a new pair of running shoes, or start a new job with a significant commute. Or maybe the human is just getting up there in years and played one too many games of tennis in a day. Whatever the case, the piriformis stops and realizes, “Hey, wait a minute. If I keep working this hard, I am going to snap!” The piriformis has had a feelization.

With your client on the table, instead of envisioning where this muscle is and what dysfunction it might hold, try to put yourself in the piriformis’s shoes. You are grasping tightly onto the sacrum with one hand and the greater trochanter with the other. You are being asked to pull at that greater trochanter in all sorts of directions and working really hard to make that happen, all the while doing your best to avoid slamming into the sciatic nerve. Then, after a good couple of hours of your myosin grabbing on to your actin and working up a good sweat, you get smashed into a car seat and can’t get a good breath in for the 30-minute commute home. And, after all that, the only thing you want is to stretch out and loosen your grip on those bones, but you don’t even get that luxury. You still have to keep things stable, hold everything in place, and try to not lose your temper. I would spasm, too, if I were you, Mr. Piriformis.

The ability to be present with a muscle, and “feel” what it is feeling, isn’t easy. Sometimes, though, that just means it’s time to try something different. If we push ourselves out of our natural element for just a bit, we might experience new thoughts, reflections, and perhaps a feelization. Doing a physical activity your client does, adapting a different food plan for a day, or possibly wearing a different pair of shoes (or even the proverbial different hat) may enlighten you with new context for what your client is experiencing. Tune out the usual noise and drop a little deeper into the present moment. Your clients’ soft tissue has a lot to say.

Allison Denney is a certified massage therapist and certified YouTuber. You can find her massage tutorials at YouTube.com/RebelMassage. She is also passionate about creating products that are kind, simple, and productive for therapists to use in their practices. Her products, along with access to her blog and CE opportunities, can be found at rebelmassage.com.