I have a friend that sent me an article on stress. It pointed out that stressed spelled backwards was desserts. Now if I had just known that the way to beat stress was to eat dessert, then I wouldn’t have almost jumped off the abyss last week. That’s right, I said abyss. But I guess I should start at the beginning...
It seems that I have talked about stress a lot lately. Maybe that is because there is so much of it in my life right now, and I expect it to go on until the end of May.
At work, we are trying to get annual invoices out to our customers. (Keep in mind, my job is a high stress position in the first place.) This task was supposed to be done by the end of December. The problem is that the way we do them is changing (which it does every year), but this time it is happening at the last minute, and what ‘the powers that be’ are doing is so out in left field it is making it very hard. What makes it worse is they keep changing their minds every hour. Now, that is stress level 1.
What brought about stress level 2 is the schedule at school. We were supposed to start Clinicals last week. (Clinicals is where the students start working on people off the street. People come in, pay $30, and get an hour-long Swedish massage by a student.) The original schedule had us doing our Clinicals during our class hours from 6:00pm to 10:00 pm. The problem is that with their massage center open, there are not enough people wanting bodywork in the evening to fill those hours. The school has appointment times starting at 9:00am, and then every hour and 15 minutes until the last one at 8:15pm. Realistically, no one comes after the 7:00 slot.
To complicate matters, we were told that they want us to sign up for whole shifts rather than just the times we want. That doesn’t work for me because the last shift starts at 4:30. I managed to move my hours (again) so that I can make the 5:45 slot, but there is no way I can be there earlier. That left me with only being able to fill my requirements on Saturdays. (I have to do 60 hours at the school by the end of May.) It took a very angry exchange, and waiting over night for them to let me just come for specific times. And one more complication is that I may be there, signed up for those times, and have there be no customers. (Since the tragedy on September 11th, people have not been making appointments in advance. They have been calling up and wanting a massage today.)
The last piece of stress came when I had signed up for hours over the MLK holiday weekend, and then my company telling us we had to work those days. That later got rescinded, but at the time it happened, I about fell over the edge.
Ok, now we know what causes stress. And I was under a lot. I got depressed, and morose. (Some will tell you I’m morose all the time, but they’re just kidding… at least I think they are.) I reached a point that I was ready to quit school, and stop healing. I was ready to just work my job, and be dead in five years (which if I stay there, that is exactly what will happen). I figured that once I was dead, everything would be fine. The bad thing was that I was alright with this. I had accepted it. I really wanted to give up everything I loved, and throw in the towel. I was standing at the edge of a very deep dark abyss, and I was ready to jump into it.
Then something miraculous happened...
I came in to the school last night to do my first Clinicals. Unlike many of my classmates, working on people off the street did not make me nervous. I have been through enough psychic fairs to have gotten over that. I was signed up for three slots, but there were no customers yet. As I was setting up my room, I was told I would be working. For preparation, I did a cleansing exercise, followed by chakra opening and shielding exercises. I then grounded and centered. I also shielded the room I was working in, cleansed it, and filled it with love.
When I was done, I went out and met my client. She wanted a massage, and was having problems turning her head to the left. In fact, she couldn’t. I worked on her for an hour.
During the massage, I was nothing more than a body of movement for healing. There was no planning, no stray thoughts, no hesitation. I was just what I needed to be. I simply flowed into my work. The energy that was moving through me was spectacular. If you could just imagine pure love energy pouring out of someone and into another, that is what I was doing. Love just flowed from me into this person I had just met, and I flowed with it. I was tuned in perfectly, doing a lot of the bodywork with my eyes closed, just tuned into the music, and the energies. It was so very amazing. Hell, it was stunning. It was beautiful.
One of my teachers told me of a therapist that cries when he does massage. We all thought it strange at the time, but I can understand that now. I wanted to cry as well. I wanted to cry tears of joy.
A couple of times, I would stop moving, and hold my hands over specific problem areas. Once, she commented how warm my hands got when I did that. J I was not about to tell her that I was adding Reiki for extra healing.
When I finished, my client could turn her head normally. It still hurt a little to go to the left, but she had normal movement. She was very happy. Since this was my first time doing clinicals, I was unfamiliar with the procedure. I thought the receptionist was supposed the give the client an evaluation form. I found out later that I was supposed to do this. So, because she never got a form, I don’t know how she would have rated me.
When I was done, I felt so wonderful, and so alive. All the stress had left me. I was filled with love and happiness.
Now, I know why I want to do healing.
What happened was such a beautiful thing. It was a pure healing. No energy was spent on anything else. My eyes have been opened (again). I feel like God smacked me in the head and told me “Knock it off. This is what healing is, and can be. You’ll have to wade through some crap for a while, but once you have, this is what you will always have.” So this is what peace and contentment are. I like it.
As someone recently said to me, “We get back what we give.” We are children of the light. Darkness can not harm us because darkness can not approach light. But sometimes, we close our eyes. We refuse to see the light. We bury ourselves in the shadows, in the garbage that gets dumped on us, and in our stress. It is not always easy to see the light, but it is always there. One thing is for sure, we have to open our eyes.
From one child of the light to another, may peace and contentment be with you. Take care.