• About Jill Kristin Berkana

Bodywork Art

~ exploring the mindful approach

Bodywork Art

Tag Archives: Jill Berkana

The Ethics of Claims: I wish I knew how to fix this.

18 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by Jill Berkana in Tidbits from the Massage Mamma

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Berkana Institute, Berkana Instiute of Massage Therapy, false claims in massage, Jill Berkana

hercules-hydraMassage Therapy in the United States, is in a state of accelerated change, conflict and chaos. Up until 2008 I had been living in a vacuum having a very definitive idea of what massage therapy was, and assumed everyone, for the most part, was approaching it the same way I was taught to, and had been. In the last few years, I’ve been blessed to share with high level massage therapy professionals from all over the United States and beyond… and I would like to share the information I have assimilated, along with my unique historical perspective, and my opinion.

Where I am coming from: I went to Massage Therapy School at the “Harvard of Massage Schools” the Boulder School of Massage Therapy in 1990. I studied there for 2 years. While I was there, I was taught a great deal of science, ethics, bodywork, theory and holistic principles. The school had an emphasis on holism, and taught us that what we were thinking or feeling as we touched our clients would impact the quality of our touch, and what our clients would feel. For example, if I was thinking of the meatloaf I was going to make for dinner during my session, the client would feel I was not present. If I was thinking that my client had cellulite, the client would pick up on my judgmental energy. If I was thinking my client was attractive and I wanted to date him, my client may have a feeling of being violated or aroused. Made sense to me so I became vigilant over my thoughts when I worked, and did my best to stay present.

I had some instructors who were wild dreamers. I had instructors who had trained with the source of traditional modalities. I was taught ancient ideas and concepts that had no scientific evidence, but had been practiced and been helping people deal with the many different types of pain in life for over 5000 years. I learned a bit about Ayurveda, Shiatsu, quite a bit about Neuromuscular Therapy, MyoFascial Release, Swedish, and Integrative Massage Therapy. We learned about Rolfing, Structural Integration, Trager, Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, Bindesewebsmassage, etc. We learned about transference, counter-transference, projection, and coping. We learned communication skills, body centered therapy, and talked about sexuality. We learned about the human potential movement and our lineage to that group of visionaries. We learned about human disease, how to run our business, how to communicate, and how to move our bodies when we worked. We learned about honor and we learned that since we wanted to touch people for a living, we had to be extremely careful with our boundaries and our own emotional/mental/physical health.

I had instructors who trained me to “ground” myself so I would not pick up my clients energy. I had instructors who told us not to massage pregnant mothers in the first trimester of their pregnancy. I had instructors teach me that massage released toxins and the drinking water after the massage would help flush those toxins out of the body. I had an instructor teach me that sound carries energy and events leave energetic residue that can be diffused by sound. The same therapist used to “sing” the spine, whereas she would make the sounds she could hear in her head when she touched the spine in order to diffuse and open up the energy in that area and create change.

Many of my fellow students were choosing to specialize in energy work. That work was so intense it spooked the hell out of me, so I focused on the body. It was not ALL mystical and magical, there was a ton of college level science too and I carved my path. I was fortunate to train with people I would not hesitate to call Masters. School was exciting, challenging and fun and I bought it all, as did the other 300 or so international graduates per year coming out of that system for 30 years. Naropa University was right down the street teaching Transpersonal Psychology, so we all had access to mental/emotional processing. We were all processing our baggage all the time, and using new and alternative methods to achieve a greater sense of holistic health and wellness.

During this time, my mom owned a new age book store in Boulder Colorado. Her store was an iconic new age hub of information where people could find books on anything and everything from Aliens to Astrology to Crop Circles. There was always a psychic of some kind sitting in the corner ready to tell you the mysteries of yourself. Boulder was extra special in these days. Not unusual to go to a hear a trance channeler speak, and follow that up with a community hot tub experience to watch the aliens land behind the mountains on a first date. It was an era, and I was young and quite gullible. I WANTED and NEEDED there to be magic in the universe because life had been pretty tough. I was not in this desire alone. Many need life to have something MORE…to give us hope. We craved ceremony and community ritual. We craved spirituality and answers to the deep mysteries of life, and we found them. It was an era… and times change.

Flash forward into reality: My dad is a physician. He triggered my desire to help others and to explore the human body. I LOVE science. My DAD helped me latch onto that which is real and can be proven. I went into massage practice and the years went by. I ended up doing an enormous amount of massage therapy and my client’s needs and pain dictated that I became a deep bodyworker. In 1995 I was in a car accident and found that the work I needed to receive was of a core or deeper nature and I sought out therapists who had the ability to touch and manipulate the holding in my deeper core tissues. This continued to develop my propensity toward core tissue manipulation as a therapist.

I have gone on to massage all types of people for 25 years. I have not just touched their body, I have touched their lives. I have listened to them. I have been compassionate. I have seen clients through the death of their grandparents, the birth of their babies, graduate school, their divorce, their second marriage, the birth of their first grandchild and breast cancer. I have been a massage therapist, a loving, compassionate, listening, caring, person who supports my client’s journey into a greater awareness of their relationship to their body and lives by providing touch, unconditional listening and care. I have supported them in finding relief from pain, by helping them discover what conditions are in effect that are leading to musculoskeletal dysfunction = pain, and helped them find ways to change behaviors that are putting those conditions into effect. For whatever reason, the manipulation of their muscular system using my approach provided relief and restoration for them. I have had a deeply rich therapeutic practice, and the work I have done with my clients has taught me 10,000% more than I learned at massage therapy school.

I have grown into a passionate massage therapy educator. Beyond the education I always provided for my clients, I have been training Massage Therapists for 10 years now. Massage Therapy is evolving so fast I’m trying to keep up for the benefit of my students. If I don’t keep up with the evolution and progression of massage therapy I am doing a disservice to my students and I should leave my career. I have tried to stay on top of things, and through the technology of the internet, I’ve been able to communicate with Massage Therapy professionals and experts across the globe. It’s been a real blessing. In the midst of running my school, I’m doing my best to pay close attention to the movement in the profession, and found myself exposed to some interesting dynamics in the U.S Massage Therapy Scene. Here is what I believe I have witnessed.

  1. Canada is, and has been approaching massage therapy as a health care profession. They have high standards for education and competencies for massage therapists. Canadian Massage Therapists are respected by the collective health care community, are reasonably compensated, and are able to serve patients with massage therapy similar to the way nurses and physical therapists are able to serve patients. We can learn a lot from the Canadians.
  1. Due to the sluggish regulation of massage therapy at the state level in the U.S. the varied educational approaches to massage therapy, and the lack of organization by our leadership organizations, Massage Therapy in the United States has evolved into a multi – headed monster. Those practicing come from MANY different schools of thought, MANY different qualities of education, and MANY massage therapists should not be practicing at all. Many who should not be practicing at all have been in practice for decades and are teaching a new generation of massage therapists who should not be practicing at all. From what I have witnessed online, we have 9 distinct groups of therapists. Here is my attempt to categorize and describe my impressions of the groups:
  1. The Incompetents: This is a group of massage therapists who took a 100 – 250 hour course. They did not learn anything about ethics, know nothing about pathology, anatomy or physiology, learned a few Swedish strokes and somehow fell through the cracks of the regulatory system and are in full blown practice making huge errors with their clients every single day. Many in this group have great intentions, but don’t know the first thing about universal precautions or hygiene etc. because they were never taught.
  1. The All Powerful Healers: These are those who claim to be doing some form of magical special healing that is associated with massage therapy or bodywork with the agenda to heal, and a claim that they can.  They have major ego issues, and a story. They have told the story about their magical special powers so many times that they believe it. They may have a certification or training. This usually involves the manipulation of what they call energy. They claim they can feel your energy from a distance and have the nerve to diagnose you from afar. They have beliefs that I would classify as religious or spiritual, but they have no boundaries with their clients and actually use their spiritual or religious beliefs to work with and manipulate clients. These people are dangerous. Clients who benefit from this type of work are probably benefiting from the placebo effect. They believe it and so on some level it works for them.
  1. The Scientists: This is a small but growing group of great minds that have good intentions to abandon the dark ages of bogus claims and woo woo in Massage Therapy. It is my impression that if you do not subscribe to exactly what they are declaring, you should be exiled from the world of Massage Therapy. I believe the Science group feels that if you are not of the science group you are a FREAK (see above). From what I gather (and I may be wrong) these folks want more of what Canada has. The science group believes nothing should be taught or practiced that has no bases in solid scientific evidence. Here is what I have gathered (from minimal exposure) are some of the reasons behind their goals.
  1. Indigent people cannot receive massage therapy through socialized programs, and they should have access.
  2. Many “therapists” are being unethical by making false claims.
  3. The public is hurt by the false claims.
  4. We (massage therapists) look ridiculous when associated with sooth sayers and snake oil salesmen.
  5. Other members of the health care profession do not take us seriously, and this prevents massage therapy from getting to those who need it the most.

My impression is also that they want Massage therapy to be a globally defined, standardized and consistent as a health care profession.

This is an extreme group, and they are making people aware of things that must change. Unfortunately, in the process, they are wanting to eradicate anything and everything that is not scientifically proven. This threatens a great percentage of the massage therapists who are practicing ethically and effectively today. I would love to see the science group build a remedial education bridge to ethical massage therapists who are making a positive impact on their client’s lives without trying to eliminate them completely. I believe that some of the massage therapists making false claims are doing so not because they are bad therapists, but because that is how they were taught. These people deserve patience and re-education.

When myths are debunked, and new evidence becomes available the masses of massage therapists in the US need to be reached and educated. I would like to think our leadership organizations would be able to pull that off. Schools need to be absolutely clear to teach the Ethics of False Claims, the importance of staying up to date, and Ethical Codes need to include some language stressing the importance of this. I hope the science group will realize that you can’t dig a big hole and throw everyone in it that is not 100% with them. As far as I’m concerned this is an Ethics, Scope and Boundary Issue. Some people need to be brought up to speed. Many others are doing incredible work right now that is not all based in evidence, but does not promote false claims.

  1. The Cogs: These are the massage therapists who were recruited off of their couches by a television commercial at 3:00am to go to X, Y, or Z Corporate Massage School/Diploma Mill, got a huge student loan, made it through massage school, and got a job at a franchise. This “chew them up and spit em out” branch of massage therapy is all about the franchise and many of these therapists will have a shelf life of 3 years. It’s a sad state of affairs for this group. Luckily there are exceptions to the rule. Some of these MTs will escape the franchise and discover something deeper within themselves, connect with an amazing mentor or continuing education and jump the exploitation track to get a job that is worthy of them. Most of these graduates are not qualified at entry level to work with all demographics.
  1. The Ethical Linear Massage Therapists: This group of massage therapists were not taught about holistic principles, power of intention, bodywork as art, psychology, and seem to do beautiful work providing massage therapy without that knowledge. From my perspective, they simply come from a different school of thought, and help a lot of people by providing ethical and professional massage therapy. They do not make false claims. They are compassionate, supportive, knowledgeable and professional massage therapists. Holistic Massage Therapists and Linear Massage Therapists have difficulty collaborating and/or in peer review because their foundation, and what is critically important to them philosophically is completely different.
  1. The Ethical Holistic Massage Therapists: These are the massage therapists, like myself, most of my colleagues, and all of my students, who do not make false claims, and approach massage therapy as a holistic healing art. We integrate traditional and modern techniques to serve our clients ever changing needs. We would not have the audacity to assume or claim we understand the magnitude of what is happening when we touch another human being, nor would we limit it by trying to define it. WE understand that our intent is extremely important because we are interacting with human beings who have feelings, and who will be able to be more vulnerable when with someone they trust, and who they know cares for them. We know we must be knowledgeable and stay appraised of, and integrate new scientific evidence that is being introduced, and drop what we learned decades ago that has been proven to be mythological. We follow ethical codes at a high level, continue to learn, and study the human body, somantics, psycho/emotional phenomena, and we practice self-care to the point that we work with our own issues so they we don’t project those onto our clients experience. We honor a strict set of hygienic and record keeping practices. We represent the profession at an extremely high level whether we are in the treatment room or not. We are authentic in our compassion for the human condition. Emotional, psychological, mental and physical boundaries are honored at all times. We can adapt to practice work, spa work and a medical environment. Partnerships with mental/emotional health care teams are especially positive and productive.
  1. The Ethical Energy Workers and/or traditionalists: These are the energy workers who do not make false claims. They are using traditional or modern methods of energy focused bodywork and they inform their clients of the rich history, limitations, and unproven nature of the method. They often will share the benefits clients have experienced from receiving the work. They would never recommend treatment in lieu of medical treatment for medium to high risk conditions. There have been many scientific studies done on the manipulation of electromagnetic energy which are worthy of exploring. As far as I’m concerned, the jury is still out.
  1. The Medical Massage Therapists: These are our new cutting edge progressive pioneers who are carving our path to the medical environment. They are setting new standards for performing massage therapy in hospitals and other treatment facilities. They are helping us learn how to adapt our approach so that we can serve the patient population who can greatly benefit from massage therapy when their health requires medical intervention.
  1. The Revolutionary Inventors: These are the educators who have invented or developed something new that is going to change the face of bodywork and massage therapy forever. This is nothing new. We have a new 3 letter acronym titled modality and methodology show up every month or so for the last several years. I even have my own method that I teach to my students who want to know more about my approach. Students will gravitate toward the mentor and method that resonates with them the best, and specialize in it. They will attract clients and help them or not. The method works or it does not. In the end, it’s not likely that any one method is going to save or change the entire massage therapy world.

Regardless of what I think or how I am categorizing the groups I have encountered to try to make sense of it all, and regardless of how you feel about my opinionated opinion, one thing stands absolutely clear. If you are a massage therapist or bodyworker who is making false claims, YOU are the problem, and you will be the catalyst of a great transition that passionate stakeholders will continue to demand, that Massage Therapy in the United States is a respected health care profession that everyone has access to. Why would any of us who really care about people and know the benefits of massage therapy dare to stand in the way of that?

I know that as an educator, I am rapidly revamping my program to align with this new culture so that my students will be ready to serve at a level that I never have before.

If you are operating from an agenda to heal your clients with your magical special powers it is time that you do a personal and professional inventory, redo your literature, your website, even your business name and start to be vigilant over the claims you are making, and the words coming out of your mouth that can do incredible harm to your clients and to the profession of Massage Therapy. Time to get with the program, or get out.

Jill Kristin Berkana

Jill Kristin Berkana LMT Founder/Director Berkana Institute of Massage Therapy and Bodywork Passionista

Boundary Issues Online: A plea to all Massage Therapy Professionals to step up our game.

10 Monday Nov 2014

Posted by Jill Berkana in Tidbits from the Massage Mamma

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

Berkana Institute of Massage Therapy, Jill Berkana, Massage Therapy Boundaries

a_line_in_the_sand_by_raindropsonthewindow-d2ye4keI have spent quite a bit of time on the Massage Therapy Boards on Facebook in order to share, gather, and exchange information. It’s been incredible and awful. Before I dig into the “awful” which is what this blog post is about, I just want to take a moment to celebrate the good stuff.

I have learned so much about the massage therapy myths that I was taught, and continued to propagate with my students. I have been able to correct my own belief system, and share the new ideas with my current students and Alumni. I want to stay on the cutting edge as we evolve.  I’d like to call that a huge win!

I have been able to connect with other massage therapy school owners about the content of our programs, our challenges and victories with our schools. We have created a supportive network. I call that a HUGE win!

I have been able to have daily conversations with mentors I never dreamed I would ever meet. win, Win, WIN!

I’ve been able to stay on top of the many shifts and changes going on at the massage therapy organization/political level, and I’ve been able to call out injustices that I feel are hurting our profession. Working towards a WIN.

I have shared my opinions extensively which are based on my personal/professional experiences, and I hope I have been a positive influence in someone’s life. I call things as I see them, and sometimes I’m right, and sometimes I’m wrong. If I find out I’m wrong I’m willing to look at myself and try to grow. I’m also willing to say “I’m sorry”. Growth is not always an easy task… but in the end, why else are we here?

As I have been cruising and participating on the massage therapy interweb, I’ve come across a basic negative theme that I’d like to bring to light now. I’d like to talk about professional boundaries, or the lack thereof, online. What I’m going to share with you I’m not 100% clean with, myself. I have participated in some of the Boundary Infractions I am listing, and hope to be a better example starting now. Social Media is a new world, and we are learning.

When I went to massage school in 1990, on the first day of class we started to explore the world of boundaries. Since then, boundaries have been a huge part of my life. I try to understand where boundaries are… mine and others, and I try to honor other’s boundaries and have my boundaries respected. Teaching Boundaries at my school begins on day one and is a constant thread through the entire education.

Being able to perceive and understand (mindfulness) boundaries, and respecting them is the most basic form of actively practicing ethical behavior that we have. Frankly, if a massage therapist has not cultivated the critical skill of determining, understanding and honoring boundaries, they missed a vitally important developmental milestone.

So what is a Boundary? Merriam Webster defines a boundary in this way:

a line that marks the limits of an area; a dividing line.

a limit of a subject or sphere of activity.

synonyms: dividing line, divide, division, borderline, cutoff point

We start to learn about boundaries as toddlers, and we learn about boundaries in kindergarten. Our education in boundaries continues as we become adolescents and adults. Once we arrived at Massage Therapy School, BOUNDARIES should have become a critical topic from the beginning. From what I have experienced in the massage therapy community here online, I have grave concerns that many MANY massage therapists did NOT learn the basics of professional boundaries, and we may have a need for remedial training as our profession strives to improve.

Here are some boundary infractions that I have repeatedly witnessed online:

  • Massage Therapist’s public profile does not support the professional massage therapy image.
  • Massage Therapists treat each other with disrespect.
  • Massage Therapists make false claims.
  • Massage Therapists pushing products.
  • Massage Therapists breaking client confidentiality.
  • Massage Therapists diagnosing.
  • Massage Therapists judging and being cruel to one another.
  • Massage Therapists and other holistic health care professionals being passive aggressive with manipulative self-promotion.
  • Massage Therapists projecting.
  • Massage Therapists sharing stories describing that they were clearly out of scope of practice.
  • Massage Therapists sharing stories where they are clearly involved in counter-transference.
  • Massage Therapists sharing stories about their clients which demonstrate they are working with clients who they resent.
  • Massage Therapists and other health care professionals slandering other professional individuals.
  • Massage Therapists projecting their agenda and limited belief system about our profession onto everyone else in the profession.

In the broad examples I have stated above, not only are massage therapists crossing boundaries, but they are frequently breaking professional ethics. Here are some examples of the aforementioned boundary infractions and the potential damage caused to the public professional image of Massage Therapy, and the Public in general.

BOUNDARY INFRACTION: Massage Therapist’s public profile does not support the professional massage therapy image.

EXAMPLE: The massage therapist has not figured out how to separate professional from public communities on their Facebook page. They have friend, family, colleagues and clients all pooled into one friend list. They are making it known they are a Licensed Massage Therapist on their profile and have some professional posts and photos, right next to the photos of them pole dancing in Aruba wearing a bikini and having tequila sucked out of their belly buttons by ½ a dozen busboys.

HOW THIS HURTS OUR PROFESSION AND THE PUBLIC: This therapists is sending the wrong message to the public about how massage therapists behave. Clients will become confused and you may be spreading the sex/massage connection myth. If you wish to have content on your Facebook page that could be perceived as sexual, PLEASE do us all a favor and learn how to use your restricted list and share your Aruba photos only with your friends and family. As a side benefit, you will probably find that those clients that keep on trying to cross YOUR boundaries in practice will start to fade out.

BOUNDARY INFRACTION: Massage therapists treating each other with disrespect.

EXAMPLE: A Massage Therapist questions the integrity of another massage therapist publicly online.

HOW THIS HURTS OUR PROFESSION AND THE PUBLIC: The public is watching. The public will not trust us or feel safe with us if we are publicly abusive to one another.

BOUNDARY INFRACTION: Massage therapists making false claims.

EXAMPLE: A Massage Therapist claims that if you eat essential oils you will be protected from Ebola.

HOW THIS HURTS OUR PROFESSION AND THE PUBLIC: This is extremely dangerous and unethical. You make the rest of us look like reckless idiots, and you are doing harm to anyone who takes your unsubstantiated advice.

BOUNDARY INFRACTION: Massage therapists pushing products.

EXAMPLE: A Massage Therapist spams their entire friend list to sell blue-green algae AND they are making false claims about the benefit.

HOW THIS HURTS OUR PROFESSION AND THE PUBLIC: The public gets the idea that we are snake oil salesmen.

BOUNDARY INFRACTION: Massage therapist breaks client confidentiality.

EXAMPLE: The Therapist posts about their client who was just in a car accident, or their celebrity client.

HOW THIS HURTS OUR PROFESSION AND THE PUBLIC: Even if you have permission from the client or the client’s family to post such things, other massage therapists see this behavior and think it’s okay to brag or make drama at their clients expense. This also can have the effect of challenging the public’s impression of how we manage confidentiality. We lose respect as a profession from other health care providers. Please place your testimonials where they belong.

BOUNDARY INFRACTION: Massage therapists diagnosing and prescribing.

EXAMPLE: Telling another person that you can feel their energy and you think they are operating from a place of victimization and fear. You recommend Bach Flower Remedies.

HOW THIS HURTS OUR PROFESSION AND THE PUBLIC: Breaking our professional rules of engagement make massage therapy professionals appear to be flaky, unprofessional and unethical, as well as reckless with the public well-being. The public and other health care professionals are seeing this and deciding where Massage Therapy stands in the grand scheme of things.

This Massage Therapist is completely out of scope and can put individuals with particular pathological signs and symptoms at risk for believing the MT knows what they are talking about, and may follow their advice. Additionally, one can send someone who is more fragile into an emotional/psychological tailspin all for the therapists temporary and ungrounded power trip.

BOUNDARY INFRACTION: Massage therapists judging and being cruel to one another.

EXAMPLE: Massage Therapists don’t agree on the point, they take it personal and publicly argue.

HOW THIS HURTS OUR PROFESSION AND THE PUBLIC: The public is watching. This lack of self-control and inability to have civilized and respectful conversations reflects poorly on our profession.

BOUNDARY INFRACTION: Massage therapists and other holistic health care professionals being passive aggressive with self-promotion.

EXAMPLE: A Massage Therapy professional tries to make their interaction on the boards appear to be neutral, but their agenda is to sell a book, a workshop, a class, or a product.

HOW THIS HURTS OUR PROFESSION AND THE PUBLIC: This is manipulation, and it just makes massage therapy professionals look tacky. It’s fairly easy for anyone but the manipulator to see through the thin veil of ulterior motive. If you want to sell something, find the appropriate marketplace and be honest and direct about your intention. If you have to trick someone to buy your product, your product is probably is not worth buying.

BOUNDARY INFRACTION: Massage Therapists projecting.

EXAMPLE: A Massage Therapist has not worked through their own issues with their own body and refuses to massage the abdomen of clients. Therapist makes a statement online that it is her prerogative not to address the abdomen and if her clients don’t like it they can find another therapist.

HOW THIS HURTS OUR PROFESSION AND THE PUBLIC: This just makes us look like a bunch of incompetent idiots in the face of the public, and other health care professionals. How this Therapist graduated from massage school… I’ll never know. This type of post propagates self-loathing and body issues, and fear of judgment with potential clients. This therapist needs to stop massaging and get into therapy to resolve this issue.

BOUNDARY INFRACTION: Massage Therapists sharing stories where they are clearly out of scope of practice.

EXAMPLE: The Therapist makes a diagnoses on-line of a sprained ankle.

HOW THIS HURTS OUR PROFESSION AND THE PUBLIC: The person reading the post may not seek a physician’s diagnoses, and thus receive the care needed to heal properly. Additionally, the public receives a confusing message regarding our scope of practice, and we as professionals appear to be unethical and flaky in the eyes of other health care professionals.

BOUNDARY INFRACTION: Massage Therapists sharing stories where they are clearly involved in Counter-transference.

EXAMPLE: The Massage Therapists posts how angry they are that their client is late again.

HOW THIS HURTS OUR PROFESSION AND THE PUBLIC: Personalizing the Therapeutic Relationship is always bad for the client. If you allow your client to cross your boundaries to the point of having anger and hurt feelings then the therapy should not continue. You should have professionally addressed the issue the first time and either have the behavior stop, or end the therapeutic relationship if the behavior continued. This post can confuse other therapists regarding their feelings for their clients, and the public can be exposed to a very unprofessional image of the profession.

BOUNDARY INFRACTION: Massage Therapists sharing stories about their clients which demonstrate they are working with clients who they resent.

EXAMPLE: Massage Therapist repeatedly posts how unhappy they are at work.

HOW THIS HURTS OUR PROFESSION AND THE PUBLIC: The public is exposed to the possibility that their massage therapist hates what they are doing when they massage them. This reflects poorly on all of us.

BOUNDARY INFRACTION: Massage Therapists and other health care professionals slandering other individuals.

EXAMPLE: Massage Therapist or other Health Care Professional names an individual in a post, stating a behavior that is negative and untrue.

HOW THIS HURTS OUR PROFESSION AND THE PUBLIC: This hurts the public perception of Massage Therapy as a peaceful and helpful profession, and makes us look like we are at odds, and aggressive toward one another. This is also potentially illegal and the Therapist could be found to be libel.

BOUNDARY INFRACTION: Massage Therapists projecting their agenda and limited belief system about our profession onto everyone else in the profession.

EXAMPLE: Educators treating each other with disrespect and lack of esteem, preaching their way is the ONLY way when their background is limited to their experience, region and education; and neither can fully comprehend the road the other educator has traveled or the depth and breadth of their experience, region, and education. There is a great deal of assumption going on here, and a power struggle ensues.

HOW THIS HURTS OUR PROFESSION AND THE PUBLIC: Educators arguing and debating on Facebook is just an embarrassment for all of us. This should not be a competition, but a respectful meeting of the minds with an honorable approach to accepting and sharing our differences with curiosity and appreciation. We should all be open to growing and learning from one another for the betterment of our profession.

In the end I want to encourage all of us to do our best to BRING our best. We need to be mindful of who we are as a collective profession, and step with care each and every time we post. We need to consider, WHO is reading this and how will this impact that individual. The moment we all became Massage Therapy Professionals is the moment we started to represent the profession.

If you got into this profession because you wanted the freedom to express yourself without reservation or limitations, I’m sorry to say you were wrong. If you wish to stand with pride next to all of the other amazing massage therapists in the world, you must walk your talk and mind the rules… inside the treatment room, outside the treatment room, and ONLINE!

Please, let’s all try to do better. I will! ❤

Jill Kristin Berkana LMT

Jill Kristin Berkana

Founder/Director Berkana Institute of Massage Therapy and Bodywork Passionista

 

 

 

The Cultivation of a Therapeutic Voice

27 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by Jill Berkana in Tidbits from the Massage Mamma

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Berkana Institute of Massage Therapy, Jill Berkana, Massage Mamma

soundWaveHave you ever known someone whose voice irritates you to your core? Have you heard a voice that was so suggestive you felt sexually stimulated? Can you recall when you heard a voice that was so soothing, it put you to sleep, or alternatively one that startled you to a state of attentiveness?

Human beings who have the ability to hear have heard and reacted to all types of voices and voice inflections. This article hopes to inspire you to consider how your own voice and voice inflection, including tonal quality and volume might be impacting your massage practice. If you have not considered this, now is the time. Your voice alone can sabotage or support your success in this profession, especially since our client’s senses are all heightened when they are receiving massage therapy.

YOUR MASSAGE THERAPY VOICE

You have a different voice you use with your mother, your child your employer and your lover. You have a different voice you use when you are yelling at the dog and lulling a baby to sleep. As a massage therapist, you must also use a correct voice for your massage therapy clients. This is another mindfulness practice. Here is a list of should-nots to help you find your way:

  • Your voice should not be irritating.
  • Your voice should not be too “breathy”, for lack of a better word.
  • Your voice should not be too loud.
  • Your voice should not be too soft.
  • Your voice should not be too sexual or sensual.
  • Your voice should not be coming out of your nose. Work with bringing your voice into your chest and engaging your diaphragm. If you need support with this, see a voice coach.
  • Avoid repeating trendy words or phrases like “gotcha”, “for sure”, “absolutely”, “totally” and “awesome”. This really belongs in an article on communication skills. I’ll leave it in nonetheless, because this can be a pet peeve for certain clients.

Work with the cultivation of your professional therapeutic voice and be sure to use that voice on your voice mail recording as well.

PUBLIC SPEAKING

At the Berkana Institute of Massage Therapy, I have included a great deal of student presentation in our classes. When the students present, the information presented is always educational for the audience, however, the real goal is for the presenter to have the opportunity to fine hone their presentation and public speaking skills.

I have repeatedly stated in my blog that as a massage therapist you are not just going to have clients magically appear on your massage table. YOU have to get them there. You will do this by either convincing someone to give you a job or a contract, or by recruiting clients to your very own practice. How is this done? We must present our story to our public. The “story” includes:

  • who I am
  • what I do
  • why you want what I do
  • how to get it from me

We must be adept, warm and friendly, confident and authentic in our presentation style. Here is a list of regular feedback I always give to my students when they speak publically.

  1. Do not read off of your notes.
  2. Make eye contact with your audience.
  3. Project your voice.
  4. Dress for success.
  5. Smile and have a relaxed but healthy posture.
  6. Do not fill every single moment of silence with Um, Uh or AND. The silent moments will keep your audience engaged, and remember this, music is beautiful because there are pauses between the notes.

These points of advice are standard in public speaking education.

SPEAKING IN QUESTIONS

There is one very big problem that I think many are not aware of. It is a use of rising intonation in speech that makes a person sound as if they lack intelligence and have no idea what they are talking about. It’s extremely common with young adults, and more so with women than with men. I call it “speaking in questions”.

I’m not quite sure where speaking in questions was born, but I suspect it came from the 80’s and from somewhere in California. Speaking in questions looks like this.

When one makes a factual statement such as “my name is Jill”, they make that statement with a question inflection. When one speaks in questions, their voice inflection will go up a few curved notes upon the end of the statement so it sounds like they are asking “my name is Jill?”

When this voice inflection is used at the end of a statement, it sounds like the person does not know what they are talking about.

Everyone has heard this before. Here is another example. “Hi? I charge $80 per hour? My office is at the corner of Vine and 17th? I’d really love to see you and give you a massage? I specialize in Trigger Point Therapy?”

Hmmm. I think I’ll find another therapist.

Please listen to yourself speak, and if you find you’re speaking in questions, please stop. I know this is hard, really I do. My 7 and 10 year old are working it out and you can too. It will be to your benefit to start to speak like you know what you are talking about.

I hope this advice helps you! May your voice be music to your client’s ever relaxing ears, and a great tool to add to your marketing toolbox!

OH! You SAY you are a Massage Therapist, EH?

17 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by Jill Berkana in Tidbits from the Massage Mamma

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Jill Berkana

I live to serve.Anyone who is a massage therapist knows this. There are times when you introduce yourself, or are introduced as a massage therapist, and the person’s reaction is to literally turn their back to you and in one way or another, lean into you and directly or indirectly indicate that you are going to work with them right there in that moment.

I’m not sure how other massage therapists respond to this, but my reaction is to have an internal secret moment of “HA HA HA HA HA! ummmm no.”  I then compose my internal dialogue with a deep breath and politely inform the person, “I can’t work with (not to be confused with on) you right now, however, if you would like to receive a professional massage therapy session with me you can call and we can schedule a session. I’d love to hear from you.” If you feel like it, you can go into “my specialty is _______ and my office is only a mile from here. If you have specific complaints we can address those when we meet for your appointment” I would say this while handing them my card. Now, in this modern day of smartphones, you could schedule them on the spot. Not my style, but may be yours.

If this is at a bar, and this does seem to be a potential client, I will most likely change my location to distance myself from them so they are not witness to any of my personal activities, or at least behave with a higher level of awareness of my professional representation.

Massage Therapists who will give a spontaneous massage at a party, or at a bar, or a neck rub at the beach etc. to strangers and potential REAL clients are doing a disservice to our profession. It may seem counter-intuitive to the massage therapist, but they are also sabotaging their own client recruitment. It’s one thing to work with your friend at the beach, or help your relative or close friend out in any location when they are in need, giving 5 or so minutes of specific treatment. That’s different.

When a massage therapist provides treatment for strangers in a non-professional environment, it hurts the profession. The therapist is indicating that we do this for free any chance we get, and whenever some-body turns their back to us we are ready to serve their needs. You don’t see dental hygienists pulling out their dental scaler, dental floss and a spit bowl at a bar, do you? Mortgage Brokers don’t whip out documents to be filled out and signed at the bar, beach or a concert or anywhere other than their desk. They don’t do this because they are professionals, and it would be a completely ridiculous thing to do.

We too are professionals, and when professional massage therapists demean our profession by performing massage therapy in a non-professional public place on the spot with potential clients it sends the wrong message to everyone about who we are, what we do, and how we value it. Furthermore, it is totally unethical because you do not do a thorough intake and you don’t know what contraindications, or medications the client presents with or are taking. If this is in a resort of bar setting we must avoid working with people who are intoxicated in any way, and chances are something has been ingested or smoked.

In closing, I will just add something completely random that unfortunately I feel compelled to say.  If you are at the Phish Show, one burrito is NOT a decent trade for a massage, however, if you have your massage chair at the phish show, and you receive 5 burritos, and the person trading the burritos is not tripping on psychedelics this may appear to be a decent trade for a 10 minute massage. I highly recommend before you enter negotiations on this barter situation, consider this:

  1. You are there to provide massage therapy and market yourself.
  2. Burrito guy is NOT regulated by the health department.
  3. You are going to eat onions and garlic.
  4. You might have to use the porta potty.

Please help keep Massage Therapy Professional! Seriously.

What you COULD earn as a Massage Therapist. Another perspective…

30 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by Jill Berkana in Tidbits from the Massage Mamma

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Berkana Institute of Massage Therapy, Jill Berkana, Massage Therapy Income

New-PerspectiveSince I’m a massage therapy educator I try to keep my finger on the pulse of trends, reports, and articles that come out regarding the profession of massage therapy and bodywork. One thing I’ve been paying attention to are the polls that report the state of our industry, such as employment rates, how long someone stays in the industry and how much they are earning. Just recently I have seen some numbers come across that literally made my stomach hurt.

When I enter into a commitment with a student to provide an excellent training that will enhance the quality of their life, I take that to heart. I enter into an agreement with each and every one of my students to teach them to succeed. I am completely invested and attached to their success. My entire team is.

Recently,  some polls revealed that massage therapists were not making enough money to survive. I have also come in contact on Facebook with many massage therapists who are complaining about how little they are earning.  This has deeply troubled me, because I am trying to live with integrity. I could not stop thinking about the “fact” that I was selling this education with the promise of a dream that, according to these polls, was not going to come true. What was the most upsetting to me was the hourly wage the massage therapists were reportedly earning. This is not only having a negative impact on the Massage Therapist, but also on the public. If a Massage Therapist is earning sub-standard wages, the client is receiving sub-standard bodywork.

Here are some of those numbers that have crossed my desk:

  • Laura Allen’s Survey
  • AMTA Survey
  • ABMP Survey

The other day I had the realization that these polls did not represent my students and my program. None of my students had been surveyed. These surveys represented other school’s graduates, not mine. I considered the value of doing my own survey of my graduates, and that is what I’ve done.

Once the results were in, not only did I feel blameless, and validated, I also felt inspired to continuing doing exactly what I’m doing. Through this process, I have learned a lot about surveys and statistics. I’ve always been pretty good with numbers, but the science of statistics is a big world. While statistics are fascinating, it’s very difficult to get to what is real or “the truth”. I have found that in the case of my survey, there is no black and white, however, there is enough information to make an assessment. I have consulted with a brilliant advisor of mine, (I’m terrific at having plenty of those around) and I also spoke with a Statistical Consultant for half an hour. That is the extent of it.  I have put in this additional bit of effort because I know this survey is going to blow some minds. The numbers are looking fantastic from my perspective, especially compared to what has been reported recently thus far.

This is a simple survey and I have gotten out of it what I wanted to get out of it. If you want to look at it, please be my guest and you can make up your own mind what you think. Hopefully you will get some value out of it too. This survey is not intended to be an official anything. I don’t have time for that. It is a simple survey of my graduate’s experience. The most important information I received from them is that 100% of them are happy being a massage therapist. I am a very lucky woman to have been a part of their journey.

If you do want to look it over, please consider these precept or assumptions.

  1. Because some massage therapist will report tips and some will not, we are not adding tips to any of the numbers to inflate the hourly rate. Just know that the number may or may not include tips. This will keep the survey numbers on the conservative end, so we can have an “at least and maybe more” number.
  1. When they reported a range, for example they are doing 10-20 massages per week, we went exactly with the middle unless the middle was odd then we rounded down.
  1. We are assuming no overhead or taxes have been taken out, so these numbers are GROSS, and we assume that most Sole Proprietors, or Self-Employed Massage Therapists have overhead. (est. max 25% before taxes) You can probably pick out who the Sole Proprietors are just by looking at their earnings.
  1. We are going to assume that many participants will slightly exaggerate, because that has been proven to be a perpetual human condition in survey taking.
  1. We are going to assume that the people who are earning best are going be more willing to participate in a survey, and those who are not, will not be as enthusiastic to participate.
  1. The sample survey population is 83 of 213 or 38.5% of MY GRADUATES. I’m pretty happy about that. Thank you all for participating! I’m not including my current students because they are not in the field.
  1. Many of these massage therapists are working part time, with full time being considered to be 18-25 hours of hands on massage time, and many are part time which would be anything from 1-17. Several are raising a family, and/or have other career endeavors.
  1. Every price on this survey is PER HOUR OF MASSAGE WHAT THE THERAPIST SAID THEY ARE EARNING, (not charging) INCLUDING AVERAGE TIPS AND BEFORE TAXES AND OVERHEAD. We are posting EXACTLY what they said since many have a sliding scale and work in up to 3 different environments. (self employed, independent contractor, employee)
  1. Some massage therapists do a different amount of massage each month. For these numbers we have used an average.

With that, Here is the link to my survey: Berkana Alumni Survey

WHY THE CONTRAST?

I believe our graduates are succeeding at a high level for these reasons:

  1. We teach and stress self-care. “If you don’t care for yourself, you can’t care for others”.
  2. We teach them about “burn out”.
  3. The Program we offer is an Elite Apprenticeship Style Comprehensive Education. Tons of one on one time with some of the best instructors in the industry.
  4. The students are extremely serious and committed. They have to self fund because we don’t offer financial aid.
  5. We have a solid business program which teaches them to be entrepreneurs and provides a lot of strategy.
  6. We teach the value of massage.
  7. We don’t have job placement with an unethical under payer, and we screen potential employers for substandard wages. If they are offering substandard wages…they get a piece of my mind.
  8. We instill confidence!
  9. We make sure they are doing outstanding bodywork and massage so they will retain clients.
  10. We teach an extremely high level of professionalism, and they prove that during their time at the Institute.
  11. We teach them to make a living by diversification. Mix it up with other things!
  12. We teach them to have integrity with the profession by never ever accepting substandard wages for their work, thus driving the value of massage therapy down.
  13. We screen them for business aptitude and we equip them with reasonable expectations prior to enrollment.
  14. We teach them how to avoid being exploited.

STANDARD VS. SUBSTANDARD WAGES – IMO HOW TO DETERMINE

So what ARE standard or reasonable wages for a massage therapist to earn per hour for massage? Considering a variable cost of living index, I will use a percentage that is reasonable:

  1. SOLE PROPRIETOR WORKING FOR SELF WITH OVERHEAD: Find out what the high end is charging, and what the low end is charging and come in at the middle. Do NOT include special offers, Groupon on or LivingSocial prices in your determining calculations. Use THOSE numbers when you are going to launch your own sale event. Add on 15-20% for delivery (dependent on how far you travel). Most Sole Proprietors do not accept tips but charge what they intend to earn. Great idea to give Student, Senior Citizen, and Veteran standard discounts. Sell packages and build in a loyalty discount. If you want this to work, you must dig in roots, network, be assertive, do educational events and be patient. There are discerning clients who want to work with you. Don’t let the competition get you down. Focus on YOU!
  1. INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR WITH ESTABLISHMENT PAYING ALL OVERHEAD: If you are an independent contractor and the establishment is providing all equipment, marketing, materials, billing, and clients, you should earn 40% at a minimum, receive 100% tips allocated to you, and their price per hour of massage must start out reasonable ($60+). If they are doing some huge Groupon or LivingSocial thing to bring in clients, negotiate carefully and do NOT be a chump. You should not have to wait around for clients which drives your hourly income when you are actually doing massage way way down. READ YOUR CONTRACT, and be careful with Non-compete clauses and get advice from a mentor if you need some.
  1. EMPLOYEE: If you are an employee and the establishment is providing all equipment, marketing, materials, billing, and clients, you should earn 35% at a minimum, receive 100% tips allocated to you, and their price per hour of massage must start out in the mid-range of local prices. I would not factor in the prices the franchises are charging for massage because for the most part they are not reasonable. If they are doing some huge Groupon or LivingSocial thing to bring in clients, negotiate carefully and do NOT be a chump. You should not have to wait around for clients which drives your hourly income when you are actually doing massage way way down. Consider benefits carefully! Are the benefits for you? Or the company? If they intend for you to do more than 5 hours of massage a day, 5 days a week…walk out of the door. Your best bet is to work for a company that is owned by a massage therapist. They will be more understanding and appreciative of you from the start.

 However you end up earning as a massage therapist, expect business to be hard, even brutal at times. You will learn what works and what does not and it will become easier as you persevere. Being successful takes courage and risk. Why do you think so many executives read “The Art of War”? You can’t just sit there like a cream puff and expect to be served. Go Get Yours! If it was easy, everyone would do it.

BELIEF SYSTEMS YOU MAY WANT TO CHALLENGE:

  1. As soon as you graduate you will earn your entire living as a massage therapist and job placement will be your answer to this. This idea right here is how the Mcfranchise is surviving, and burning out thousands of massage therapists a year. We tell our students this, “when you graduate, clients are not going to fall into your lap, and you may not find a decent job or contract right away”. Everyone needs a safety net. A safety net is something else you can do to make money while you hold out for a decent offer, and/or build your own practice. It could be the thing you did before you did massage therapy such as:
  1. Cleaning houses
  2. Bar-tending
  3. Child care
  4. Accounting
  5. Being a coach
  6. Being a yoga instructor
  7. Food Server
  8. Website design

Get your hands on as many people as you can to demonstrate the quality of your work. Always give your best and you will get there!

  1. Overhead is 50%: If you are paying 50% for overhead, you have not been very creative…at all. Here is what we tell our students about overhead. Start out with mobile massage if you have no start up capital. Rent a space and share it with others. Why not get the lease yourself and rent it out to two others so that the 3 of you can carry the burden. If you’re really cleaver, the others can pay the entire rent since you are the one carrying the responsibility of the lease and the cleaning. Plan to buy new linens once a year. Even if you are doing 20 massages a week, you only need the space for 30 hours a week with your set up and cleaning times. I have never paid more than 25% for overhead, and none of my colleagues have ever paid more than that. For example; If you are earning a minimum of $50 per hour for 20 sessions, that is $1000 per week and $4000 per month. Who spends $2000 a month on linens, cream, hand sanitizer, utilities, rent, insurance and marketing? (Please note: Overhead does reasonably include taxes in other conversations. I’m not including those here, since an IC or an Employee with no overhead expenses as a massage therapist also has to pay taxes and “before taxes’’ is the constant for my survey. We need to remove the taxes from this discussion on overhead in order to be able to make a reasonable comparison to massage therapists earning as employees and Independent contractors.
  1. Some people just don’t have what it takes run their own business. This may be true, but one should still respect our profession by having reasonable boundaries, and massage schools need to teach this. If you are going to be a cog in someone’s machine, and you accept substandard wages then you are not honoring our profession and you are doing damage.

LESS IS MORE. WHY BEING AN ENTREPRENEUR IS WHERE IT’S AT!

If you want to hurt yourself and give up longevity in this profession, do 4-hour long massages for $15 or less each, and keep doing that! If you want to support our industry, and have the respect you deserve for this amazing work you do, do a 1-hour long massage for $60. It would be better for YOU and everyone who is a massage therapist if you had a part time job doing something else for $15 per hour, and had boundaries around what YOU earn when you do the skilful and specialized work of massage therapy. Your $60 massage, is going to be 4X better than your $15 massage. The customer does NOT get what they pay for when it comes to massage therapy, they GET what the therapist EARNS. I know this because I’ve given 18,000 massages. Quality VS quantity!

Your $60 massage CAN be an amazing marketing event (word of mouth) and those 3 hours you save are time for your marketing efforts. Would you rather do 5 massages for $60 per hour per week and 10 or so hours of marketing? Or would you rather do 20 massages for $15 per week? You are still going to earn $300 per week.

Personally, as a client, I don’t want your $15 massage. Whether you are an IC or Employee or Self Employed, I want your $60 massage, especially if I’m paying $60 either way.

You will see from my poll that this “LESS IS MORE” philosophy and approach is the one my graduates are using.

We are not a masseuses! We are a Massage Therapists, not technicians. We are providing therapy and we deserve to earn a decent living for our investment in learning this art/science, our skill, and our courage to compassionately and professionally touch people’s lives.

finally…CHEERS AND HUGE APPRECIATION TO ETHICAL AND FAIR EMPLOYERS AND THOSE OFFERING DECENT CONTRACTS FOR MASSAGE THERAPISTS!

Jill Kristin Berkana, LMT

Jill Kristin Berkana

Founder/Director Berkana Institute of Massage Therapy and Bodywork Passionista

WHO opens the door?

20 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by Jill Berkana in Tidbits from the Massage Mamma

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Berkana Institute of Massage Therapy, cultivating a massage practice, Denver Massage School, Jill Berkana, massage therapy professionalism

LA7328-001The way the public perceives you will, without a doubt, impact your massage therapy career. We want to explore and maximize every possible angle we can as we are trying to attract clients, hoping to be offered an awesome independent contract or applying for the great job. The intention of this post is to encourage you to explore if you are utilizing every bit of your number one marketing tool, which I believe is your appearance and charisma. Once you get your client on the table, you can wow them with your mad massage therapy skills. This is about how to get them there.

Of course, if you have been doing consistently beautiful work, your reputation will precede you, and positive word of mouth is extremely powerful. Still, we must consider how we represent as professional massage therapists.

I’m not a superficial and judgmental person. Of course I struggle with those human shortcomings as we all do, but this is not about that. This post is intended to provide tools for greater professional prosperity. Over the 24 years I have been an industry professional and educator, I’ve connected with many massage therapists who complain about their lack of business or how hard the business is for them. Many also demonstrate some type of professional self sabotaging behavior.  Often there is something about their appearance, (which could easily be improved) and/or lack of business charisma that is getting in their way.

Now, let me be clear. I am not implying that you have to be some classic beauty, be perfectly symmetrical or completely lean and toned to be a successful massage therapist. How boring anyway, right? People want massages from human beings, and if you had that magazine cover, photo shopped, unrealistic “perfect” shape and face, many people would not feel comfortable getting under your hands. Everyone has potential untapped beauty that comes from inner confidence, kindness, warmth, humility, a dash of humor and compassion. I’ve always told my students this, “Guess what, your clients have to like you!”

If you feel stifled in the area of personal confidence and expressing yourself, you might want to look into a public speaking class. If you lack personal confidence at a deeper level, you might consider working through things with a life coach or therapist. There is no shame in this. I believe we ALL should spend some time in introspective self discovery with a professional neutral party if we want to touch people for a living. Massage Therapists must have a strong personal constitution to work with the vulnerability our clients show up with.

Now let’s examine your number ONE marketing tool from the external perspective. Consider this scenario:

You have been given a massage therapy gift certificate for your birthday. You have called and made the appointment, you walk up to the door and ring the doorbell.

WHO opens the door? What qualities do they possess that make you feel comfortable enough to give them permission to touch you for an hour or more?

Of course, the actual gift certificate was their first professional impression of you, and the way you managed the phone call was their second impression, but what happens now?

Here are some qualities that id like to experience: warmth, smile, welcoming, friendly…but let’s face it, the massage therapist is going to be judged at the superficial level as well.

We can enjoy more success attracting and retaining awesome clients by paying attention to and working with the following details:

  • Being yourself with all types of clients: Lucky massage therapists! We get to be ourselves and express our individuality in so many ways! Authenticity is a very attractive quality and Independent Massage Therapists have this special freedom to explore the full spectrum of style from freaky to conservative. My advice to you is this, if you want to be on the funky end of the spectrum, go with clean, cool, artistic, bohemian and ditch smelly un-kept hippy with holey clothes. The more you can adapt your style to create rapport with all types of clients, the more success you will have making a living.
  • Hair: Your hair must be clean and you will want to pull it back if it is getting on your clients.  Please do have a trade with a hairdresser for color (if you do that) and cuts so you look professional. If you are a man and you want to have facial hair, don’t look like you just came out of the forest. Please carve that into something more along the lines of a renaissance man.
  • Teeth: There are many people out there in the world who are going to judge you by the health of your teeth. If you need some cosmetic work done, find a dentist to trade with you! If you need a lot done, take my advice and go to Thailand! I had about $15,000 worth of work done in Thailand for $1,700. They did a perfect job…and I got to go to Thailand!
  • Breath: If you want to never see a client again, have foul breath. If you want to keep your clients floss and brush your teeth, have your teeth cleaned regularly. Why not do a trade? Brush and scrape your tongue, and if you are a mouth breather, look into why that is going on. It could be that you have an allergy to dairy, or a deviated septum. Either way, breathing out of your mouth can make pervy sounds when you are working and forces your breath on the client’s body in unacceptable ways that cross the comfort zone. Also, avoid onions and garlic for the several hours prior to your appointments, and use breath spray. Don’t use mints or gum during a session. This will bother a client with a gum smacking pet peeve.
  • Skin: If you have skin issues, you might want to see a dermatologist, esthetician or a nutritionist. So much of this challenge is genetic disposition, but you may be able to improve the quality of your skin with the assistance of a skin care professional. Why not do a trade!
  • Eyes: Your eyes should be clear and sparkly! Make sure you are getting enough sleep.
  • Voice: We all have the voice that we have, but it is changeable! For example, the voice you use in the bedroom with your lover is not the same voice you use to talk to your Great Aunt. Explore and cultivate your therapeutic voice. This should not be too sensual, sexual, too soft or too loud, don’t whisper, and avoid using the voice up in your head that has a nasally high pitched tone. Speak more from your throat and chest. If this is confusing or an issue for you, take a class with a voice teacher. Why not do a trade!
  • Posture: Who wants to get a massage from a massage therapist with crappy posture? C’mon…really? Start with postural awareness and police yourself! You may find it helpful to have a mirror in the massage room so you can watch yourself while you work. Please don’t have that at the foot or the head of the table. If posture continues to be an issue, find an Alexander Technique Teacher. Why not do a trade!
  • Wardrobe: The clothes you choose to wear should be non-revealing, non-wrinkled, fit correctly, be clean, and not have holes in them, or any offensive symbols or language. Your wardrobe should be stylish and not cross the comfort zone. Your clothes should also be free of the smell of detergent. Make sure when you lean over your blouse does not reveal your breasts or cleavage, and wear a bra or a camisole under your shirt. Also avoid jingling jewelry. If you dress provocatively expect to have aroused clients, and attract clients with sexual intentions. If this happens to you regularly, I highly recomend that you do a personal inventory and explore everything about how you are holding yourself, dressing, speaking, your intake procedure and policies, marketing etc. and CHANGE whatever you suspect might be sending your clients the wrong message. That’s NOT supposed to be happening.
  • Nails and cuticles: I’m sure you learned this in massage school, however being scratched is one of the number one client complaints.  Don’t fool yourself, you may NOT have a French manicure, and you must cut those nails off and file them each and every day. Make hard fists in each of your hands. If you are leaving fingernail marks in your palms, your nails are too long. If you ever leave a scratch on a client, this should be a big wake-up call for you. Keep trying till you get that manicure right! It’s better to err on the side of caution. We all cut our nails too short at some point. This is especially important if you do deeper work or any work under the body. If your cuticles are dry and cracking, use cuticle cream to improve the texture.
  • Odors: Please avoid all neurotoxins! Many clients are allergic to them and will get an instant headache and/or be nauseous by being in a small room with you. Some neurotoxins are found in hair spray, chemical colognes, perfumes, some deodorants, and body creams. They are also found in memory foam. Please use natural products and ones that have very little smell if any at all. You want to avoid aphrodisiacs such as rose, sandalwood, patchouli, and vanilla, and really keep things as neutral as possible especially if you are working with someone who has asthma as strong smells can trigger an attack. If you are providing aroma therapy, be sure this is what your client wants, and make sure you have cross ventilation so you can clear the space in between your clients. Aromatherapy should not be assumed.
  • Smoking: If you are a smoker and a massage therapist, this most likely is impacting your practice. For me, going to a massage therapist who smokes is like going to a dentist with rotten teeth. As a former smoker, I know how hard it is to quit. It’s horrid, but if you want to be a health mentor for your clients (which is essentially what a massage therapist SHOULD be) please walk your talk and give up the cancer sticks. There are ways this can be done. Try switching to Organic American Spirit brand cigarettes which will initially get you off of the addiction to all of the additives, then you might try going to the e cigarettes as a bridge to your freedom.
  • Fitness level: The size and shape of your body or body type does not matter unless you are obese. If that is the case you are certainly aware that this is not good for you, and if you want to live, and live without pain, you must seek change.  If you are a personal trainer or a nutritionist, your fitness level might be more important to attracting clients. Regardless, there are many people who will judge a massage therapist for their body shape and level of fitness. There are people who will judge a massage therapist’s ability to give depth if they are petite or assume depth from a stronger looking therapist. However we are built, we can all improve our fitness level by drinking plenty of water, eating normal quantities of healthy food, getting plenty of rest, being outside and doing at least one half hour of exercise every day. Continue to reach for health and you will have it! You can always trade with a personal trainer, and/or nutritionist if you need support to get things on track.

I hope this post provides some ideas for you. One of my favorite business role models Madonna reinvented herself a couple of hundred times. We can do it too, and as you revamp yourself you will see improvement in the cultivation of your practice.

 

 

Mindful Hugging

25 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by Jill Berkana in Tidbits from the Massage Mamma

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Berkana Institute of Massage Therapy, hugging clients, Jill Berkana

meerkat-huggingHugging is good medicine, and like all medicine it needs to be taken in doses and not assumed to be good for everyone all the time.

A hug. Such a nice thing. We wrap our arms around one another, and squeeze. Informing the relationship that we both care and want to be close. So nice. Who wouldn’t want a hug? This blog post is going to be about boundaries with hugging. This should is especially relevant for Massage Therapists.

Are you a Hug Person? A person who likes to hug anyone and everyone because you feel free with your ability to hug the whole world? That’s great! Not everyone is on board with you. Different cultures, life history, the way the person feels for you and the way the person is feeling in general is going to determine how comfortable one is with being hugged or hugging.

I’m a Mindful Hugger and I’m sure I still get it wrong on occasion. Hugging is a risk that not many people consider. I like to hug some people at some times.  I may want to hug Person A, and I may NOT want to hug Person B. I may not want to hug Person B for a variety of reasons such as:

  • They are wearing a bunch of AXE, or hairspray, or patchouli or amber oil or some other neurotoxin or natural smell including body odor and once I hug them I’m going to smell like them all day. I don’t want to hug them let alone stand next to them because I’m going to get a migraine.
  • Maybe I just don’t feel like being that close to Person B due to the level of intimacy we have shared to date, or the role they are playing in my life.
  • The timing is bad because my bladder is full, I have a sunburn, I just got a parking ticket, or someone is going to witness the hug that I don’t want to witness the hug. Perhaps a later time for the hug is better for me.
  • I’ve got a feeling that Person B has sexual or needy energy and I’m not willing to feed that.
  • Perhaps I want a professional relationship with Person B and that much physical intimacy is not working for the relationship that I want to have and the boundaries that describe that type of relationship for me.
  • Maybe I hugged Person B before, and they held on too long, or pressed their crotch against me.
  • I’m pissed off at Person B for some reason.
  • I don’t have a reason, I just don’t want to.

As you can see there can be a multitude of reasons that I don’t want to hug Person B. I hope that person B does not judge me for not wanting this exchange, but chances are if they came in for the hug, and I somehow managed to refuse it, confusion and judgement is going to happen. Too bad. This is a good reason to look into MINDFUL HUGGING.

What about Person A? I WANT to hug Person A, and I don’t see any obstacles to hugging Person A, but does Person A want to hug me? This is where Mindfulness comes in. Does Person A have a multitude of reasons NOT to want to hug me? Maybe! Who am I to assume Person A wants to hug me back? I’m not in Person A’s head.

I’m not trying to be a wet diaper here and squash your desire to hug and show affection to the people that you care about. I am suggesting a more mindful approach. If you want to be a Mindful Hugger, this deserves some thought, awareness, and requires on the spot adaptability to the present opportunity for the hug.

Have you ever received a hug that you did not want to receive before? There is not much worse than an unwanted hug. It’s icky. It can even feel violating. As children, many of us were taught that we have to hug people our parents want us to, such as a Great Aunt who you had never met before.  We were told to do it so, we grit our teeth, turned our heads and gave the reluctant hug. I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to hug anyone you don’t want to ever again.

I believe a hug should really include 2 consenting huggers. If you determine that a hug is appropriate and wanted from both of the people, then bring on the hugging bliss!

How do you know if the other person is wanting the hug? If you have never hugged the person before, you may want to say “ are you comfortable with a hug”? I know that sounds weird, so come up with your own way of communicating and getting consent. If you are open for the hug and the person initiates the hug…awesome! Hugging is ON! Read body language and facial expression. If you are paying attention at all (being mindful), you are going to get the signal that the hug is ON or the hug is not on. I just caution you that if you are the hugging, touchy feely type, you can become numb to the subtle signals due to your hugging agenda and hugging lifestyle. Pay attention, and try not to assume.

The not let go: This hug is icky. It’s the one where you have the two consenting huggers, and then one does not let go. LET GO ALREADY!

The pat pat pat: The pat pat pat on the back is a great way to indicate that the hug is over. Be sure this does not turn into a slap slap slap.

The long never ending sway: This is for lovers my friends. If you hold on and sway this is not a hug. It’s a dance.

The crotch rub or press hug: This is such a drag. Someone comes in for the hug and they press their crotch against you. This is now a sexual exchange, and if both people are into it…yay you! If both people are not into it and you do it, you have just alienated a person from your life.  Please control your “stuff”.

Should Massage Therapists Hug Clients, and if so HOW?

Massage Therapists will often hug their clients. We are sharing a very special professional intimacy that often warrants a hug. Here are the guidelines that we teach at my school The Berkana Institute of Massage Therapy that you are welcome to consider, as follows:

  1. A hug at the initial meeting prior to bodywork is rarely appropriate. If the client initiates it and you are okay with it, a brief professional type hug is okay.
  2. Never Never NEVER hug the client when they are on the table, and they are not wearing clothes.
  3. Once the client is dressed, standing up, and they initiate the hug, this would be an appropriate time to exchange a professional type of hug.
  4. When you hug, turn your pelvis to the side and do not engage in any long swaying, never let go hugs. Brief with the pat pat on the back is appropriate.

I hope you have enjoyed my opinion on hugging. Remember, everyone is coming from a different history and culture, even if they come from the same home town, were born the same year as you, and went to the same church. We all should be vigilant in our efforts to avoid assumption and be respectful at all times with all people. Mindfulness is the key.

Popping MY Space Bubble!

25 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by Jill Berkana in Tidbits from the Massage Mamma

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Berkana Institute, Boundaries, Jill Berkana, Massage Therapy, Social Media

00-popping-the-bubbleAs a massage therapy educator, and retired Massage Therapist I am no stranger to the study of  Boundaries and Assumptions.  The other day, my two little step-daughters reminded me why awareness of our behavior around these concepts is a very important inclusion in our efforts to get along and share life with others.

In a frantic pace of wrapping Christmas presents I ran out of tape and I assumed that since my step-daughter regularly borrows items from our office supply kitchen drawer that she had the tape. I went into her bedroom and opened her night stand to see the tape which I grabbed, used, and failed to return. Not okay, but seemingly harmless.

That evening, she was having a sad conversation with my husband regarding the missing tape. He came to me and asked, “Did you borrow Kate’s tape?” I replied “yeah” in a what’s the big deal tone. He informed me that the tape I borrowed was her special tape, which she bought herself.

The conversation he had with her, which he shared with me, had revealed that she was feeling out of control and disrespected because many of her friends were borrowing her things and not returning them or returning them damaged or dirty and it was really annoying her. The tape incident was the last straw. (Please note; I have Kate’s permission to share the tape story with my blog readers.)

A few days later my husband and I came home to the room we are sharing with Kate at my In-Laws for the holidays to find it had been completely organized and cleaned. My initial reaction to this was one of discomfort and not of appreciation. Why? Because I did not want people messing around with my stuff. I have dirty clothes I don’t want mingled with my clean clothes, and there are Christmas presents hidden.  I was not really upset, I just noticed the feeling of my boundaries being crossed. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to speak to my step-daughters about boundaries and assumptions.

I brought the kids into the bedroom and we had the conversation. Explaining boundaries and assumptions to a 7 and 10 year old is not much different than teaching these important interpersonal concepts to adult students at massage school. We first explored definitions of the terms. I was clear to let them know that this is something you don’t just learn and understand, but that these are lessons that we must practice and we have to pay attention to throughout our lives in order to get along with the different people we interact with. I talked about the tape and the cleaning incidents, specifically using the “sandwich method”:

  1. Bread: “I know you had loving intentions to help me, and I appreciate that”
  2. Meat: “You assumed or guessed that I would like you to fold all of my clothes and put them away for me. In the future I would prefer if you did not do that because that makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable. I’d like you to ask me first before doing anything with my things.”
  3. Bread: You did a really good job, and I love you. Do you understand my boundary with my things?” They said “yes”

I explained to them how people come from different cultures, lifestyles and experiences that make them have different boundaries, and that we should not assume (or guess) that because we like something, want something or are comfortable with something that other people feel the same way.

I provided an analogy of a girl growing up in another country. The story was about a girl living in a small house with a large family of 12. The girl slept in a bed with 5 other kids. I asked the girls if they thought this girl might grow up to be more comfortable with less personal space then they are used to due to their different life experiences growing up. They said “yes”. I then asked them to consider the possibility that the girl may grow up to want more personal space then they do, due to feeling crowded as a child. I explained to them that it is not up to us to know just by assuming or guessing. That we would only know if the girl told us.

I explained to them that we have different boundaries with almost every person we meet. I said to them “you see me hug and kiss Daddy but you don’t see me hugging and kissing other men or women. Your mom might kiss your boo boo, but you might not want your dentist to do that.  You might be okay sharing your special doll with your sister, but you may not want to share it with the kid down the street. If someone were to come into your room and read your private journal you probably would not like it” They got it. In fact later that night, Ce Ce discretely came over to me at dinner and whispered “Jilly, can you help me? Kate is popping my space bubble.” It’s easy to love them.

I have always taught my students that if you want to learn, TEACH! Going through this process with my step-daughters has me thinking and reflecting about my personal responsibility to the ongoing work of honoring the boundaries of others and not assuming or projecting my likes and/or dislikes onto others.

We should not project our likes and dislikes onto others and assume everyone is just like us if we want to have a deeper understanding of people.  As a massage therapist for example, you may not want to have your abdomen addressed in a session and that’s fine. What is not okay is for you the therapist to project your preference onto your clients and assume not to address this important region when you work.

Due to my career choices, I have had to get very close to others boundaries. My jobs require that I consistently ride the edge of personal and professional boundaries to be effective. At times I have had to cross a boundary to understand where it is. I have helped many people in different ways explore where their boundaries are, and broaden their believed limitations through the experiences we have shared.

As a massage therapist, my responsibility is to have a positive impact on the quality of my client’s life by providing massage therapy which encourages holistic healing. This is done in a way that (hopefully) meets them where they want to be met, while honoring their boundaries, and exploring those with them with full consent and ease of communication. In addition to a multitude of benefits, massage can help our clients expand into a higher awareness of their relationship to themselves.

Clients have different boundaries. For example, the depth they wish to receive, and what kind of draping is appropriate. We are sharing a professional form of touch intimacy in order to create meaningful and effective bodywork, from a place of respect for the both the giver and the receiver, which honors the ethical and professional standards of the work.

Every client has different boundaries and it is the therapists job to determine where those are, whether the client verbalizes these or not. Sometimes a boundary will be communicated by a change in breathing or a furled brow. This feedback helps us adjust what we are doing in order to better meet the clients needs. A client may ask for extremely deep work which the massage therapist knows for whatever reason is contraindicated, or the client may ask for a session with no drape. In situations like this, a therapist will need to diplomatically communicate their boundaries to the client, educate the client, and hold integrity with the professional boundaries in order to continue in the session.

I am essentially retired from my massage practice and spend most of my time directing, encouraging and advising Students, Mentees, and Instructors. A big part of my job is to hold people accountable to our agreements. As a leader interested in growth for everyone, I also deliberately push people to explore the edge of their comfort zone and to reach beyond it. This is dangerous behavior in the realm of personal dynamics and I have not met this work without occasionally and unintentionally hurting others by making assumptions and crossing boundaries. When this happens I will apologize if I made a mistake, other times I do not apologize because I am keeping my agreement to hold people accountable. I find it perplexing when people tend to think they can break agreements and not be held accountable, or take offense to being held accountable…but this is quite common.

There have been several occasions where it has been years before someone I have mentored with a loving shove of accountability calls or writes me to let me know it WAS the best thing for them to experience and it did help them grow, even though they were not happy with me in the moment. Similar but different, there have been many times I have not understood my own mistakes until years after an event occurred. I needed time to mature as a result of my own life experiences.

One great mentor of mine told me that as a teacher, you should not care if the students like you. You are there to impart knowledge, not win a popularity contest. Every day I wake up and I ask myself the question “who am I and what am I doing again?” In the next moment, I remind myself what I do, who I am, and I am overcome with the blended feeling of humility, courage and anxiety. I take a deep breath and hope to get my ego out of the way, be compassionate, and prove worthy.

Honoring Boundaries, and Managing Assumptions is Mindful Self-Development Interpersonal WORK. It is a practice. More than stuff, money, and power; personal relationships and the harmony, support, and intimacy you can inspire and share in relationships is what will deliver peace and contentment in life. We must always do our best to honor one another while maintaining integrity in our relationships to ourselves.

And then came FACEBOOK…

Somehow the work and practice I’ve done in the realm of honoring boundaries and managing the impulse to assume has not transferred very well for me in the Social Media realm. I strongly suspect I’m not alone. I’m not assuming, but I’ve seen some really bad behavior.

I personally have insulted, attacked, offended, defended, insinuated, implied, and wielded my ego in the most unattractive way in the social media world like no one’s business. I’m passionate, emotional and opinionated. I know this sounds like a winning combo but this way of being can occasionally get one into trouble.

I have often said that we will have a completely new branch of psychotherapy devoted entirely to the psychological/emotional challenges/issues that social media interactions bring up or reveal in ourselves. I am not making as many mistakes now as I did in the beginning as I have learned…but I still screw up when I get triggered.

Here are my new personal mantras when I am interacting with people who I have never met outside of Facebook and the thread is heated, or involves opposing views in industry, religion, lifestyle or politics:

  • You don’t know who the hell you are talking to. Stop typing.
  • You don’t know what this person has accomplished in their lives and anything about their experiences. Stop typing.
  • These people can’t hear your voice inflections or see your facial expressions. Stop typing.
  • Everyone here is coming from different schools of thought. Everyone has value. Stop typing.
  • You would never say this to this person’s face. Stop typing.
  • That is a human being there…not just black words on a white screen with a small thumbnail. Stop typing.
  • This environment is not appropriate for an important debate. Stop typing.
  • Your audience has different religious, spiritual, physical, and mental conditioning. Stop typing.
  • You might be typing something that is going to hurt someone who you care about, or who might someday be important to you. Stop typing.

I am making a New Year’s resolution to reel/real myself in on the Social Media Boards. I will still be interacting, but I hope to demonstrate to those I am interacting with a reverence for all. I hope this blog will inspire others to reflect on the conversations they are choosing to have including the images, videos, ideas, and posts people are sharing on Facebook. Words and images affect others in many different ways and the fallout will impact ones personal and professional image. NOT ASSUMING ANYTHING HERE… I’m not saying give up your controversial stance if that is what you do… I’m  only suggesting a heightened awareness as if we are dealing with real people, which we are.

As for being a practicing massage therapist on Facebook, I highly recommend that you consider having a business page for your clients and privatizing your personal page if you intend to post photos of yourself drunk on tequila, dancing on a bar in Mexico in an ill fitting bikini. yeah…. I saw that post. 😉

The Cultivation of Mindfulness and Presence in the Practice of Massage Therapy

07 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by Jill Berkana in Tidbits from the Massage Mamma

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Berkana Instiute of Massage Therapy, Jill Berkana, Massage, Meditation, Mindful Expressionism, Mindfulness

The intention of this article is to help massage therapists understand Mindfulness, and to encourage the cultivation of Mindfulness in order to improve their relationships to themselves, their clients, and subsequently enjoy more success in their massage therapy practice.

I recently shared “(more than) 100 Reasons to Ditch your Massage Therapist” and many massage therapists responded that I was implying that to be a successful massage therapist you must be as close to flawless in the delivery of the work as possible. That is EXACTLY what I was suggesting. The response to the article dictated the impulse for this one. Mindfulness and presence during your massage will naturally eliminate the lion’s share of the complaints on that list. Practicing proper hygiene will take care of the rest.

When introducing and discussing Mindfulness, we have to turn to the nature of the brain. This organ is essentially running your life, and many don’t realize that if you try, you can have limited control over the behavior of the mind, and by doing this improve every aspect of your life.

To gain the most from this article, I feel it is important that you understand my background.  I am not a psychologist, psychoanalyst, psychotherapist, or even a counselor. I have no university education in anything psychology based. I have been a practicing massage therapist for 23 years. I am the Founder and Director of the Berkana Institute of Massage Therapy, and curriculum designer. I also mentor a few hundred bodyworkers.

I have been deliberately paying attention to, and trying to change the nature of my own mind since I was 16 years old. I have dabbled in many different types of meditation sporadically, and with varying discipline and results. I’m not an expert on the deeply complex potentialities in the realm of mind-body medicine, mindfulness and meditation. At this point, 30+ years into my curiosity, I am positive I have very little control over my mind. I believe this is normal, and that all of us are at least a little bit crazy due to the unbridled nature of the brain at this stage in our evolution and how chemically unstable we are. I believe I have had very brief encounters with total Mindfulness or “empty mind”.

I have explored many different types of meditation including the 10 day/100 hours of sitting meditation Vipasanna Retreat. The only experiences in my life which topped that would be falling in love with my husband and having a baby. I also describe that retreat as Meditation Prison because it was extremely challenging, and forced me to stretch far beyond my limited beliefs and explore my perception of reality. I highly recommend it!

Another non-meditative experience that puts me in a position to have some deeper knowledge of my brain is the fact that I have been living with a traumatic brain injury since 1995. This experience has profoundly enriched my life and my understanding of the nature of my own mind, and my work as a massage therapist, entrepreneur and educator.

I now teach a form of deep tissue massage called Mindful Expressionism to my advanced students which is simply the cultivation of mindfulness, the use of fluid body mechanics, and fearless creative self-expression to produce the exquisite execution of whatever type of bodywork will best serve the client, from moment to moment, from the lightest to the deepest work.

The students and I observe the nature of the mind a lot through a meditation practice so we can understand that the chaos is there, and we work specifically with examining conditioned and limiting thought patterns that are holding us back from meeting our potential. We do exercises to try to break those patterns that are not serving our personal or professional goals.  We do this by watching our mind, and exploring beyond our comfort zone in order to challenge the limited and conditioned beliefs we have about ourselves, the value of our work, and our technique. We examine how limited beliefs determine where growth stops for us as human beings, who happen to be Massage Therapists.

Meditation is, on a fundamental level, complete focus in the moment known as NOW, on any specific thing that holds your attention in the ever-moving NOW. I’ve been unintentionally meditating since I was 4 years old when I was placed on a piano bench to learn how to play classical music. If you believe you have never meditated before, I am here to challenge that belief and inform you that you have been dabbling in meditation for your entire life. When you played music, decorated a cookie, or built with logos’.  With intentional redundancy, Meditation is, on a fundamental level, complete focus in the moment known as NOW on any specific thing that holds your attention in the ever-moving NOW. If my definition is spot-on, then it is my opinion that every massage can be a meditation for the therapist. Mindfulness is the result of successful meditation.

WHAT IS MINDFULNESS?

Any of these definitions work…pick the one you like best!

  • Observing the nature of the mind
  • Attempting to be conscious of the minds behavior
  • Watching your thoughts and ultimately cultivating the ability to select your thoughts
  • Being as vigilant as possible over the chaos of the mind.

I learned at Vipassa from Mr. S. N. Goenka that “the mind is like a herd of wild elephants”. I have also heard the nature of the mind described as “monkey mind” which a monk attributed to the mind being like a bunch of monkeys screeching and throwing poop at you. When you start to watch the nature of your mind, you will see that both of these analogies are frequently true. I have taught my students that if the mind was a super computer, it’s been downloading every moment of every day of your life since you were born for good and for bad. We download great knowledge, Information, and memories as well as “viruses” which plague the functionality of our lives, and effect our relationships to ourselves and our perception of the world outside of us. When I say “virus”, what I am alluding to is negative and limiting beliefs about oneself and the world around them.

We have negative beliefs in our mind which have an adverse impact on our quality of life, much like our musculoskeletal system has holding patterns in soft tissue, which result in holistic (mental-physical-emotional) pain and dysfunction. It is also clear, that if one is not practicing mindfulness, unconscious ways of thinking lead to unconscious ways of behaving which can have a negative impact on the way we are responding to life.

What does ANY of this have to do with Massage Therapy and your success? It’s rather simple. If you are giving a massage and thinking about the ingredients for the meatloaf you are going to make tonight, or how your boyfriend and you are not getting along, you will make mistakes. I don’t know why this is so, but your client CAN feel when you are not present. I know this because I have been that client more times than I want to count. I’m sure there are some research scientists who can help us out with some evidence to back this up.

WHY DO WE CHECK OUT?

Why are we not truly present?

  • Trauma: History of emotional, mental or physical trauma can make it too painful to be present.
  • Coping: Seeking to minimize or tolerate stress or conflict.
  • Sensory Overload: One or more of the body’s senses experiences over-stimulation from the environment.
  • Normal Stress of life
  • Exhaustion
  • Compromised Health resulting in weakness, discomfort or pain
  • Mental or Emotional Dis-Ease
  • Dissatisfaction with the present situation, and fantasy about the future.
  • Guilt or resentment from the past.

SHOWING UP!

How can we cultivate Mindfulness and presence to improve the quality of our lives?

  • Meditation – Here are some different ways to meditate that resonate with all different personality types.
    • Walking meditation – use the experience of walking as your focus.
    • Gardening
    • Animal Husbandry
    • Taking a Bath with candles and essential oils – quiet the mind and focus on your breath
    • Getting a Massage – quiet the mind and focus on the touch.
    • Creating Art – pottery, painting, drawing, candy making
    • Being in Nature – go breathe and listen to the birds.
    • Playing or listening intently to Music
    • Quiet Meditations – sitting and breathing while dismissing the chatter of the mind.
    • Guided Meditation – Listening to a guided visualization
    • Chanting Meditation – the rhythmic speaking or singing of words or sounds
    • Singing
    • Yoga

There is an incredible amount of information available on the internet regarding meditation and the cultivation of mindfulness. Try some!

  • The Basket – This basket is an imaginary basket that I use to teach my student. It sits outside of the massage room where the therapist dumps any and all of their problems, worry and drama before entering the treatment room.
  • Centering, Focus and Grounding – Another method I teach my students. Before a therapist touches anyone they ground their body through visualization, check in on how they are feeling emotionally, and make sure their mental attention is ready for the work.  The therapist should be in total alignment with the intention of the massage which is to successfully provide compassionate professional touch in whatever way will best serve the client’s needs.
  • Examining Prejudices – This is an important exercise to do before you ever become a massage therapist. Do an inventory of your prejudices (we all have them), and do whatever is necessary to reconcile these, even if that requires professional help.
  • Examining your relationship to your own body – This is an important journey you must go through before you become a massage therapist. Do a personal inventory regarding your feelings for your own physical body, and do whatever is necessary to get through and over any issues you have, even if that requires professional support.
  • Reconciling Trauma – This is an important journey a person must go through before they become a massage therapist. Do a historical inventory of your life, and do whatever is necessary to reconcile yourself to your story of the trauma you have experienced, even if this requires professional assistance. We must not leave any stones unturned that could end up in projection or counter-transference with our clients.

A HEALTHY BRAIN LEADS TO A HAPPY LIFE! 

Mindful thinking is but one way to improve your relationship to life through the brain.

Everything listed below (and more) will determine the healthy functioning of your brain, which will determine how you respond to life.

  • Chemistry Management from the dietary perspective: Yeast, Sugar, Alcohol, Caffeine, Allergens, Preservatives, Pollutants and Pesticides built up or out of balance in your system can impact your chemistry and determine how you are reacting to life. If anyone has been around kids at Halloween, Christmas or a birthday party…you know what I’m talking about. See a nutritionist if you feel emotional/mental imbalances could be a result of your reaction to certain foods/substances.
  • Hormone imbalance: See an expert.
  • Exercise: People who exercise daily are happier, and sleep better.
  • Breathe: Breathing oxygenates your blood and serves all organ function. Shallow breathing can have a very negative impact on a person’s overall well-being.
  • Water:  Hydration is critical to proper organ function. It has been estimated that 75% of adults living in the USA are chronically dehydrated. Drink Water Now.
  • Life Balance: Being a workaholic and/or perfectionist takes its toll, and can lead to increased stress and exhaustion which can result in mental and emotional dysfunction and physical disease.
  • Sleep: The brain needs to rest and the body needs to recharge.

MINDFULNESS AND YOUR MASSAGE THERAPY PRACTICE

How will the cultivation of mindfulness improve your massage therapy practice?

When you “show up” to do the work of massage therapy from a clear and present perspective, you can easily build strong rapport and tune into what the client wants, and regularly adjust your work to professionally meet the client’s needs from moment to moment.

For example:

  • If you are going too deep, and the client has a wrinkled brow, tenses or begins to breathe more heavily, if you are present, you will be aware of this, and respond by checking in with them on depth.
  • If you are aware of and work through your prejudices, you will be less likely to judge the client based on how they look, their body, or what culture or religion, sexual orientation they come from, and thus will not project your prejudices into your work which the client may sense.
  • If you have reconciled your trauma from your past, you will not unconsciously project your trauma into your session with your client.  e.g. working with a client who wears the same cologne as your mean alcoholic uncle which could unconsciously trigger you.
  • If you are aware of any issues you have with your own body and have reconciled those, you will not avoid working on those areas with your clients. e.g. Avoiding working on the hips or the abdomen region because you don’t enjoy receiving work there. This is the projection of your preferences onto your client.
  • If you are present and aware, you will not inadvertently do a sloppy drape, drag your hair across the clients back, and forget to use hand sanitizer after you sneeze.
  • If you are being mindful during your massage, you can dismiss negative thoughts like “I’m not doing my best work right now”, “I’m nervous”, “I don’t have enough time” etc. which for whatever reason can be picked up by the client as lack of confidence or being rushed.
  • If you leave your troubles of the past and the future out of the room, and are mindful of the massage, then you can focus intently on the work and pick up on more subtle deviations in texture of soft tissue and hone in on areas that can use more attention which will make the client very happy.

In the end, being present/mindful, and coming from a clear and healthy mental and emotional place can enhance and improve the quality of the work you are doing exponentially, resulting in happy clients who are loyal and return to you time and time again.

What could be better than that?

(more than) 100 Reasons to Ditch Your Massage Therapist

01 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Jill Berkana in Tidbits from the Massage Mamma

≈ 42 Comments

Tags

Berkana Institute, Berkana Institute of Massage Therapy, Denver Massage School, Hygiene, Jill Berkana, Massage, massage therapist, Massage Therapy, Massage Therapy and Bodywork, Self Care

???????????????????????????????In my practice from 1990 to 2008, I served hundreds of clients, thousands of massages. Every new client I saw completed an intake form and I conducted an interview in order to know how best to serve them. This intake process should be a standard practice for every legitimate massage therapist. One of the questions on my intake form states “when was your last massage”. During the interview, I often asked my clients “would you be willing to share with me why it did not work out with your last therapist so I can be sure not to duplicate that experience?”  This list is a compilation of what I have heard over the years.

Everything on this list either happened to a client of mine, a student of mine, or to me. Some of the infractions are extremely rare and completely awful, even resulting in therapists being reported. Some of the infractions I have heard dozens of times and are of a more subtle nature. Still, no matter what you think about the individual items on this list, these are reasons people have continued to look for another massage therapist to replace the one they worked with before. As an educator, a massage therapy expert and passionista, I know and I teach that when a client is on a table, all of their senses are cranked up to a much higher level of sensitivity.  This is what makes some of these minor mistakes more upsetting to the client. When a client makes themselves completely vulnerable by offering the therapist the privilege to work with them, we, the therapists, must be on our A-Game at all times, providing nurturing, ethical, therapeutic and professional touch.  Being sloppy is not rewarded with the loyalty of repeat clients.

On the first day of my program at the Berkana Institute of Massage Therapy in the Self Care and Hygiene class that I teach, I present this list. The students are always amazed, and the list usually grows from the conversations that the list provokes. My commitment to my students is that if they apply the principles we are teaching in technique, ethics, mindfulness and proven business practices they will be successful in this field.  If a massage therapist manages to get someone on their table, the key to success is retention.  Now, we are all born with an innate ability to provide nurturing compassionate touch to one another, and no one can teach this natural ability, but I can help my students figure out what conditioning from their life is getting in the way of their delivery of this normal skill, and I can teach them what NOT to do, and how to approach the beauty of compassionate and nurturing touch with industry professionalism and artistic grace.

With that…here is THE LIST:

  • There was no interview or paperwork.
  • She/he did not listen to me.
  • She/he seemed rushed.
  • The room was too cold.
  • The room was too warm.
  • The music was not relaxing.
  • The music was too loud.
  • The music was too provocative.
  • She/he talked too much.
  • She/he did not tell me what to expect.
  • She/he did not explain to me what they were doing.
  • She/he told me everything they were doing. I wanted to relax not have a play by play.
  • She/he talked about themselves.
  • She/he was arrogant and acted like they were better than me.
  • She/he tried to sell me products.
  • She/he used too much oil or cream and I felt greasy following the session.
  • She/he used too little oil or cream and it pulled my skin and hair.
  • She/he got cream in my hair and I had to go back to work.
  • She/he pulled my hair repeatedly.
  • She/he did not work on the areas I asked them to.
  • She/he worked on areas I told them not to.
  • By the time she/he got to my areas of concern, there was not enough time.
  • The way she/he draped did not make me feel safe. I felt exposed and could not relax.
  • The draping was too conservative to address my areas of concern.
  • I felt she/he was too sensual, almost sexual with me.
  • They did not seem competent with neck, and that is where my issues are.
  • I felt she/he was not present with me. She/he felt distracted.
  • Her/his approach felt like a recipe, it is always the same, like I’m a number.
  • They leaned on me.
  • I felt her/his breath on me.
  • She/he had very bad breath.
  • The massage oil was really smelly and I smelled for hours following the massage.
  • I felt the fabric of her clothes touch me over and over.
  • She/he did not go deep enough.
  • She/he went way too deep and hurt me.
  • The pressure was not consistent from body part to body part.
  • She/he sniffled the whole time.
  • She/he smelled like cigarettes.
  • She/he smelled like onions and garlic.
  • She/he smelled like a hippie.
  • I’m an athlete and I want to work with someone who can help me with stretches.
  • She/he wore some kind of smelly perfume or hair spray that gave me a headache.
  • The pace was too fast.
  • She/he wasted a lot of time with draping.
  • They sweat on me. It was as if they were massaging me with their sweat.
  • She/he said negative things about my body.
  • I felt his/her cuticle scratch me over and over.
  • I felt his/her nail.
  • They scratched me.
  • Their hands were rough.
  • I saw a cut on their hand.
  • They massaged over bones.
  • The work was redundant and mechanical.
  • Their toes were disgusting and dirty.
  • They were not dressed professionally. He/she seemed to take no care of their personal appearance.
  • I told them I had an injury and they forgot and started to work on it and now I’m screwed up.
  • His/her teeth were not taken care of, and I thought if they can’t take care of their own teeth, how can they take care of me?
  • She dragged her hair on me.
  • She dressed too provocatively.
  • I felt her breast on me.
  • I felt him/her press his/her crotch on me.
  • I think they were texting at one point.
  • He massaged me with one hand a lot. I was wondering where his other hand was.
  • He/she breathed heavy out of their mouth making a perverted sound.
  • His/her pelvis kept running into my head when they massaged my back.
  • They sneezed and did not wash their hands.
  • They left the massage to do something.
  • They passed gas.
  • They answered the phone during the session.
  • Something wet dropped on me.
  • They had on bells which jingled the whole time.
  • She cried on me. I asked her what was wrong and she told me she had just broken up with her boyfriend.
  • The moves were too extreme and now I’m injured.
  • When they came in the room they did not announce themselves.
  • She/he did not check in on the depth.
  • When I told her to go deeper, she did not.
  • When I told her to go lighter, she did not.
  • His hands trembled.
  • The work felt tentative like they did not know what they were doing.
  • The work felt erratic like they did not know what they were doing.
  • The work did not feel complete.
  • They made sloshy sounds with the cream.
  • They made noise all around the room.
  • Their voice was very irritating.
  • He/she was late to start.
  • They ended the work early and I sat there waiting for my husband to come out of his massage for 5 minutes!
  • They ended my massage late and I had to pick up my daughter from kindergarten. Ruined my relaxed feeling.
  • The location was not great for my commute.
  • There were signs everywhere pressuring me to tip.
  • There was no parking.
  • Her available hours were impossible for my schedule.
  • She was coughing/sneezing. I think she was sick
  • The techniques felt creepy.
  • The work felt abrupt and rough.
  • The office was noisy.
  • They did not protect my confidentiality and talked about me to my friend who is also their client.
  • They got cream in my eyes.
  • Before they tapoted me, he said “have you been a good girl or a bad girl”.
  • The light was in my eyes.
  • They put a drape over my eyes and it made me feel vulnerable.
  • The face cradle was at the wrong angle and it hurt my neck.
  • When I shook their hand it was like a limp noodle.
  • Their voice was too loud.
  • I had to walk though their house/personal space to get to the massage room.
  • She put the drape into my butt crack.
  • The office decorations had religious art that made me feel uncomfortable.
  • There were too many stairs to go up and down, and in the winter there was ice on the stairs.
  • The bathroom was dirty.
  • They did not offer to massage my abdomen.
  • I don’t think the sheets were clean. The whole office felt dirty.
  • When I asked what the honey was for (Russian spa treatment) he said it’s to make you sweeter.
  • I wore my underwear and he told me the massage would not be effective and I must remove them.
  • They did not offer to massage my face.
  • I have issues in my hips and I told them that. She/he never worked there.
  • She said a prayer with my head in her hands.
  • She “invoked” my spirit guides???
  • She made me drink some kind of special water infused with crystal energy.
  • He/she groaned and repeated my name when he/she worked.
  • There was a mirror at the foot/head of the table.
  • They cranked my neck to the side when they worked on it knowing I have a whiplash injury.
  • They put their fingers in my belly button when they massaged my abdomen.
  • They touched my nipples when they massaged my chest (male client)
  • When I flipped over, the head rest was not set up.
  • They dropped the lotion jar and it hit the floor.
  • They had a big glob of massage cream on their arm that they dipped into throughout the session.
  • They repeated the same stroke over and over again. It started to hurt.
  • They found some sensitive areas but did not adjust their depth.
  • It felt like I just paid $80 to have lotion applied to my body. It was not effective.
  • The company tried to get me to sign an ongoing contract.
  • They flirted with me and asked me if I wanted to hang out.
  • I fell asleep and when I woke up the session was over. That was a really expensive nap. I wished they had woken me up.
  • He/she was not warm and friendly, like you would expect a massage therapist to be.
  • He/she hugged me, and I was not into it.
  • She said “oh, you have so much cellulite on your thighs, I can help you with that.
  • I felt like she was checking me out when I was flipping over.
  • She were flaky…consistently rescheduling to accommodate her world travels.
  • He stood me up!
Newer posts →

Blogroll

  • Discuss
  • Get Inspired
  • Get Polling

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Bodywork Art
    • Join 117 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Bodywork Art
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...