Key Point

• Practicing mindfulness encourages intention and connection between practitioner and client—and prevents boredom.

Any therapeutic relationship is an interaction between the client’s needs and goals and the practitioner’s healing facilitation. While we can’t predict or control how our clients show up, we can be intentional about how we show up for them. Being fully present and attentive to our clients throughout a session is an essential skill for massage therapists, whether your practice is relaxation-based or clinical.

While this may seem obvious, I felt a need to address this subject after coming across several posts in massage therapist social media groups where members argued for the advantage of wearing earbuds and listening to podcasts or daydreaming during a session to avoid falling into a boring routine. Common sense and experience tell us that any activity perceived as tedious or boring does little to invite our most creative selves. I would hold that this perception, and any action taken to support it, not only depletes practitioners of energy, but also hinders human connectivity and its healing potential. Rather than escaping into an alternate world, why not enter more fully and deeply into the moment and be present to its riches? 

Focusing Bridges a Connection to Your Clients 

It is natural, especially in the context of whole-body sessions, to establish a routine, one based on our understanding of human anatomy and kinesiology, time-tested technique, and good timing. After all, with few exceptions, anatomy is consistent across individuals, and as we progress in our practice, it becomes clear that certain conditions and symptoms tend to be shared by large portions of the population. So, we find our way of addressing these, and when we master our routine—the way we work—it’s what keeps our clients coming back. However, we also know that variations within the anatomical consistency are nothing short of astonishing, as are the reasons and circumstances that bring our clients to see us. Add to this the mental and emotional tenor of each client, and our practice becomes rich in nuances and imbued with creativity. 

By cultivating focused attention, we pick up the particulars unique to each client. This benefits our work doubly by increasing the specificity and effectiveness for our clients and by making it much more interesting, stimulating, and rewarding for ourselves. It behooves us to avoid falling into an automatic, mechanical mode, not only for the reasons stated, but also because clients can tell the difference between a practitioner who works by rote and one who is fully engaged and present.

Two Types of Attention

I see attention in the context of our work as being of two types: outward-facing and inward-facing. Each plays an important role in the work we do. 

Outward-Facing Attention

The first type of attention is outward-facing—the attention we give to our clients. It is perceptual. Ideally, we want to pay attention in a way that allows us to perceive what and who is truly there. This requires open attention, described by Klaartje Klaver and Andries Baart as “a kind of waiting; a process of learning; a process of letting something come to you.”¹ This kind of attention is receptive and a quiet, mental state that allows us to actively listen and take in, as much as possible, the whole of the individual before us. It doesn’t do it in a conclusive way, but rather in a kind of empathic resonance that recognizes the client’s full humanity, their joys and sorrows, and their unlimited potential for growth and healing.

There are several ways to practice this type of attention. When meeting our clients and gathering information, we stay fully focused on them, their tone of voice, their body language, their eye contact (or lack thereof), their level of tension or relaxation, etc. We avoid referencing ourselves and our experiences (except to answer questions about our expertise in a particular area). We are there for them. Our initial interview needs to elicit trust and inspire confidence. Our attentive, nonjudgmental listening will go a long way to accomplish this.

While the client is on the table, we continue to look, listen, and pay full attention to what is under our hands—all the variations of form, tension, and texture, as well as the client’s breathing, level of responsiveness or resistance, and any verbal or nonverbal cues they might offer. This kind of attention pays enormous dividends. It allows us to gather critical information, give useful feedback, and modulate our treatment as the session progresses. It also allows us to come into an intimate relationship with the human body, its mysteries, intricacies, and capacity for adaptation and change. Anything truly interesting happens in the present, when we are fully there to absorb it, to integrate any new information into our knowledge base, and to discern a particular course of action. 

Inward-Facing Attention

The second type of attention is inward-facing—the attention we bring to our body and mind; to the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that circulate within us as we meet, interview, and work on a client. It is introspective and proprioceptive. While I am sensing the client’s body, I am also aware of my body, including my posture, breathing, and mechanics. I am aware of the part of my hand or arm that is touching the client and the quality of that touch. There is the surface being touched and the surface doing the touching, and both are arising to consciousness simultaneously, skin to skin, nervous system to nervous system. What an intimate connection! 

In that space, there is an opportunity to cultivate what we might call a meditative state of mind—one that promotes “creative, spontaneous, clear, and serene thinking.”² This can lead to greater empathy and even a sense of oneness with the other, and with this, a greater satisfaction and sense of purpose in our work. Some authors have proposed that the complementary medicine movement, of which massage and bodywork are components, inherently includes an understanding of the importance of cultivating this kind of self-transcending, or nondual, awareness.³ One way I’ve explored this as I work on a client is to ask myself, “If this were my body, how would I want to be touched?”

Be Mindful, Be More Alive

The two types of attention are integral aspects of the practice of mindfulness. While the concept has become ubiquitous and has been co-opted by commercial endeavors, its practice can not only enhance the effectiveness of our work but also keep us energized and curious. In other words, it keeps us loving what we do year after year. 

So, what is mindfulness? I like Jack Kornfield’s succinct definition: “Mindfulness is an innate human capacity to deliberately pay full attention to where we are, to our actual experience, and to learn from it.”⁴ A more comprehensive definition appears in a clinical psychology journal: “Mindfulness begins by bringing awareness to current experience—observing and attending to the changing field of thoughts, feelings, and sensations from moment to moment—by regulating the focus of attention. This leads to a feeling of being very alert to what is occurring in the here and now. It is often described as a feeling of being fully present and alive in the moment.”⁵ I, for one, am for anything that makes me feel more alive.

There are many mindfulness training programs available to anyone wanting to explore their benefits, from formal mediation instruction and retreats to breathwork and movement modalities. I would venture that a bodywork practice offers an ideal medium within which to cultivate this capacity for presence. While the scientific jury is still out as to the effects of mindfulness practice on attention (as it often is in matters concerning awareness and other nonphysical phenomena), a comprehensive review of the literature found that “mindfulness training presents a promising tool with which to alert, orient, and guide on-task behavior through improved attention.”⁶

Given the prospect of being more intentionally connected with our clients and of feeling more alive in the moment, I would advocate for the inclusion of mindfulness training in entry-level programs. Bringing a mindful or meditative quality to our work can go a long way in keeping it inspired and joyful, and that translates into a greater quality of care for our clients. 

Notes

1. Klaartje Klaver and Andries Baart, “How Can Attending Physicians Be More Attentive? On Being Attentive Versus Producing Attentiveness,” Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 19 (March 2016): 351–9, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-015-9669-y. 

2. Eric Van Lente and Michael J. Hogan, “Understanding the Nature of Oneness Experience in Meditators Using Collective Intelligence Methods,” Frontiers in Psychology 11 (September 2020): 2092, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02092.

3. Paul J. Mills et al., “Nondual Awareness and the Whole Person,” Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health 9 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1177/2164956120914600.

4. Ruchika Shaurya Prakash et al., “Mindfulness and Attention: Current State-of-Affairs and Future Considerations,” Journal of Cognitive Enhancement 4 (January 2020): 340–67, https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-019-00144-5.

5. Scott R. Bishop et al., “Mindfulness: A Proposed Operational Definition,” Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 11, no. 3 (2004): 230–41, https://doi.org/10.1093/clipsy.bph077.

6. Prakash et al., “Mindfulness and Attention: Current State-of-Affairs and Future Considerations.”