Lessons learned as a Massage Therapist: When you are in a receptive state of mind things can be easily understood.
Over the last few of years practicing as a Massage Therapist, I’ve had the opportunity to interact with thousands of individuals within a very vulnerable setting. I suppose the vulnerability has been manufactured to some extent — people are coming in expecting to leave pain free and feeling more relaxed, so usually their guard is down.
This is good! Any good therapist knows that it’s important to prolong this window of vulnerability. Some of the best work happens during this time. People are able to breathe easier, their body is less tense. But this also means that the client themselves are hypersensitive to anything that isn’t in tune with their frequency!
Ever leave an event feeling elated, happy, or relaxed, only to walk into an awkward situation where the anxiety or tension is palpable? Well, in an enclosed room where the external stimulus is minimal, we are hypersensitive to anything that isn’t remotely close to how we feel at the time.
It’s in this type of setting I’ve learned the value of being in a constant state of receptivity. Where listening from a place of unconditional compassion is the ruler of my senses. The goal is to create a space where the other individual feels accepted for who they are.
Being an attentive listener has helped me with building trust, rapport, and maintaining a channel of openness for vulnerability. If you’re working with other people, developing the art of listening can go a long way. Here are three things I’ve noticed over the years that are tell tale signs that I’m not being receptive to listening.
1) You’re waiting for the other person to finish their thought so you can say what’s on your mind
Have you ever listened to somebody sharing their thoughts, and midway through they say something that triggers a series of your own thoughts? Now you want to interject and add your own voice to the dialogue. The other individual continues on with what they need to say, and as they progress, you might only pick up on details that add value to the thought that you want to share.
In this instance, you are no longer listening. Your mind has been taken over by your own thoughts — its no longer holding space to be receptive to the other person.
The feeling is literally palpable during a treatment. In one instance I’m completely in the zone — receptive to my client’s subtle reactions to the pressure that I’m applying. I’m able to trace muscles from attachment point to attachment point. All of a sudden a thought pops up and I get lost in a rabbit hole. I’m no longer paying attention to the subtleties of my client’s reactions.
It’s a bit ephemeral to describe: in the moment where you are completely attentive and then the attention is broken, there is almost a bit of a snap that happens to the flow of the conversation. You have to gather yourself to be attentive again. The other person you’re conversing with might need to repeat themselves a couple of times to get their point across.
2) You’ve made judgments about the other person before they’ve even spoken
I remember working with a client who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It was my first time meeting her. She was in her early 20’s and had just checked out of a mental health clinic. She was in dire need to relax, as she was struggling with a serious bout of anxiety.
For whatever reason I wasn’t in the headspace to shut down my prejudgments. I framed our interaction in a way that had me understanding her from a frenetic point of view. I wasn’t being receptive to her thoughts — everything she said, I thought was blown out of proportion.
My lack of receptivity didn’t allow me to truly connect with her. In turn, I was stopping myself from helping to facilitate her relaxation because I wasn’t relaxed. How can you be relaxed when you’re busy judging somebody else?
To maintain a subconscious stream of prejudice, your guard has to be up to a certain extent. Any information that goes against your perception of who the other person is will challenge your point of view.
It wasn’t until she started to open up about her family trauma and toxic relationships that I started cluing in that I wasn’t being compassionate at all.
There’s no room for preconceived judgments when it comes to listening. When you understand another person through a lens of what you think they are, you only hear what corroborates your understanding of them.
Listening is more than just hearing the words somebody speaks. It’s about getting a grasp behind the emotions that they give off as they speak their truth. When you are only listening for words just to fill in the gaps of who you think the other person is you’re missing out on the good stuff.
3) You are overwhelmed by your emotions and let it color your reality
Whether I’m having a good or a bad day, I have to leave it outside of the treatment room. The next one to two hours is not about me. When I allow my mood or emotions to become the background noise, it filters out the information I’m receiving.
In instances where I’m upset or have had a bad day, I have caught myself being hypersensitive to words or reactions from clients. I’ve made the mistake to perceive it as an attack on my skills.
When you are too attached to your emotions, what you hear will be colored by it. If your overall demeanor is ruled by anger, everything you hear might feel like an attack on you. Are you constantly in a protective state? Maybe your emotions have left you feeling like a victim of your circumstances.
Passing information through our emotions is like funneling it through a sieve of daily worries, desires, fears, and the like. We end up hearing some of what is coming in, understood through a lens colored by our own emotional noise. So what are we actually hearing? Are we really listening?
There is an art of listening. To be able to really listen, one should abandon or put aside all prejudices, pre-formulations and daily activities. When you are in a receptive state of mind things can be easily understood. You are listening when your real attention is given to something.
J. Krishnamurti
