Stagnation
Posted in Blog, Featured on Feb 13, 2012
Once upon a time, in the far distant lands of US Soap Operas was a series called “Dallas”. I know that most of you have heard of it, but do you remember, tucked away beneath the Stetsons and shoulder pads the diminutive character of Cliff Barnes? He represented the unfortunate, luckless, seemingly oppressed kind of human being who keeps on trying to move his life forwards against the odds. However, fate and his own inability to reflect on his past mistakes kept him in a place of relative immobility.
He also had a wonderful phrase which perfectly sums up Stagnation, and his own inability to progress his life forwards happily.
“Have you ever had a day when you can’t hit the ground with your hat!”
I feel like that at the moment. So many things to do, so many constraints, especially the bad weather today! Frustrated, irritable, tired, awareness of low back discomfort, impotent to move; in short STAGNATED!! Even gravity seems to be saying :- Go on, have another go with your hat, but you won’t win!!!
How often do you listen to clients stories ,feel their bodies and KNOW that, although they are generally fit and well,what they are presenting is stuckness and stagnation.
How do we deal with this situation as body workers?…
Movement has to be induced, but at which level? Mental, emotional, physical and in their morale.
Look at their presenting symptoms to discover the organ personality which is manifesting at the physical level.
Remember,the lower burner is the source of ALL creativity and movement, so how do the presented symptoms relate to it’s functioning.
Is it HOT from control,inability to release,irritation,lack of nourishment on all energetic levels?
Painful from the Pain in the Butt which may be the “parasite” of work/family /friends/worry etc.etc.? Are they unable to Move from conditioning , i.e.Obligation, finance, children. FEAR…
Is it COLD from lack of energy?
Too many sandwiches stooped over a computer?
A cold relationship?
Too much giving,and not much receiving?
What is missing in their lives?
I usually find a definite lack of JOY and pleasure to be the cause. Unfortunately most forms of pleasure come with a price tag, and they have to accept that price, on some level or other, before they will be able to really move.
The other side of Cliff Barnes was that despite all his setbacks ,and enforced stagnations, he NEVER stayed stuck for too long (a good lower burner here I suspect).
What part of the Liver function of SMOOTH FLOW is missing in the life of your client? Are they avoiding their anger?
“Anger can be a great creative force…”
AHA!! The rain has stopped,the sun is peeping through. I’m feeling better already !
I know a couple of people that I think are in exactly this position, and I find it very difficult to know how to break them out of their often downward spiral… I thought I may have turned a corner with one of them a few weeks ago, but unfortunately she’s been laid low with another attack of depression again over the last week and a half. This particular person does have a lot of problems in the lower burner – sore all around the sacrum and coccyx, a ‘bearing down’ sensation suggestive of Spleen Qi sinking, and knee problems. I’ve done a lot of work on the area, which seems to help temporarily, but haven’t been able to get to the bottom of things yet. No pun intended.
The Cliff Barnes quote about the hat put me in mind of the great Douglas Adams and the description of learning to fly in his book “So Long and Thanks for all the Fish”: There is an art, it [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day, it suggests, and try it.
So maybe the trick with these people is in getting them to throw themselves at the ground and miss instead of their hat!
Hi Alison,
In TCM the majority of knee pain and problems is due to Kidney Yang deficiency. So check for signs of kidney Yin Deficiency initially. Look at supporting foods, with a view to increasing them and more importantly negative foods and try to reduce them. Look at lifestyle and try to encourage more joyful rest i.e watching a funny film and appropriate gentle exercise.
I love the Douglas Adams quote!
Dan
Hi Dan
Your latest email struck a chord with me this week. I had a client who had come to me for a few sessions. She is a young lawyer who has just moved here from Australia. She was feeling like her shoulders and lower back were very tense from work and was getting “pressure headaches”. She said after the first session that it was less intense than other bodywork she had had in the past but that she felt very relaxed and stretched “like after a yoga class”.
I used several of your techniques: the hara work, the hamstring stretch for the lower back and the trapezius stretch. She said her neck felt “20%” better so I suggested she have a couple of sessions to really change it.
Lung, bladder and heart came up in that session.
The next time I worked on gall bladder to further relax the shoulders but I noticed that they were quite loose, though a little tighter on the right side, Gall Bladder 21 on the right side felt sensitive to touch. Kidney also came up and I showed her a twisting gall bladder stretch to do before bed to help her relax and stretch before going to sleep.
She said she had felt enlivened after the first session, slept well, felt relaxed and very thirsty for the first 24 hours. The effects wore off after a few days though.
3rd session was quite strange: She had postponed her session for a week due to a surprise visit from her family. She was feeling very tense around the shoulders again “my shoulders tense up as soon as I start working”.
I could feel nothing in the hara. I was tuning into her breathing but no diagnostic area stood out for me. I just went on instinct and worked on liver and stomach in the legs both of which felt kyo particular stomach 34 in the left leg but there was no change in the breathing even after working for some time. Kidney was again very depleted in the back and legs and gall bladder on the right side of the neck. She said she had been sleeping better for doing the stretches before bed (I showed her the makkaho bladder/kidney stretch. Again she compared sessions to “being like a yoga class were the exercise is done for you rather than by you.”
then she came again this week feeling her shoulders and back were very tense. Spleen, kidney and heart came up in the hara diagnosis. her legs were very open when placed in spleen position when working in prone. the kidney seemed depleted and again gall bladder jitsu on the right side of the neck.
she then said she didn’t feel very refreshed by the session and gently said that she thought shiatsu was more of a long term healing form and that she really wanted a quick fix for the shoulders. she is going to try deep tissue massage for a while and see how she gets on.
Sorry to present you with all the background but after that session I felt a little like Cliff Barnes. This is a pattern which has occurred a few times in the last couple of years: a client comes and after a few good sessions seems to get stuck, feels nothing is improving and stops coming for sessions. Beat myself up a bit after that day: I didn’t feel I had Made A Difference, lost an opportunity to help someone and reached a dead end.
Feeling a little stuck myself
Over the years I have had many communications from practitioners and students who have expressed similar situations to that which you describe.
The sense of “failure” with a client who goes away leaving you with the feeling that you have failed is,at the least, disheartening and ultimately can discourage the practitioner completely.
I believe the problem rests not with the practitioner, per se, but with the “system” by which they have been taught.
There are too many “thou must not”, “shalt not”, or, but “that’s not shiatsu” dictats” Too many having to stick to formats or believing that working on a meridian will create the change needed.
As a teacher,I am very aware that students need to have clear guidelines and processes, but I am a firm advocate of getting students,once they have mastered a technique, to explore it and see in how many situations it can be used.
As a student, I was told by my teachers that “we’ll give you thousands of techniques but we won’t tell you when to use them.” This encouraged us to explore the possibilities. It requires courage to do something which you have not been told you can do. However, discovering that for you, as an individual practitioner a technique has a particular effect because of your own energetic input, is something that I believe is not encouraged.
Therefore, find the courage to step outside the boundaries of what you have been TOLD you can do and remember always that every client who comes to you with a “problem” is looking for a quick fix.
The quick fix syndrome is endemic in our society and it’s not going away any time soon. Consequently, many of the concepts of shiatsu as it was practised have to be dumped and we need to look on the processes of bodywork/shiatsu in the light of modern day requirements.
Now for a shameless plug. If you really want to fix Necks and Shoulders I’m running a course on June 16th and 17th at the B.S.S.-Do in London called Necks, Shoulders and Knees, A practitioners field guide. The course was oversubscribed in December, so we’ve decided to run a second course. It gives you exactly what you need to make progress with your clients.
Hi Dan thanks for your feedback and reserve me a place on that workshop! I remember it last year and wanted to come but was unable to make it.
Alison, I love that quote, Douglas Adams was a genius.
cheers
Tony
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