Catherine musings from clinic, downloads from dog walking, doing patchwork, sitting practice – observations from life that might inspire

No fake teeth but a genuine smile

Catherine

These things come to me. That’s why i call this blog ‘Musings of a Masseur’. Sometimes they come to me inbetween things, walking the dog, changing the bedding on the couch in clinic or on waking. Do you get that? Almost like someone knocking on a door, they wake you in the middle of the night, and if not written down they wake you again. Although if you do get to go back to sleep, thinking ‘Wow, that’s a great one, i’m sure to remember, no need to get up and write’, and then in the morning you can’t, it can seep into your day. That sense of wanting, even needing, to remember and the longer you give to the yearning the worse those sensations are.

Yet this wasn’t one of those. Not a nightime musing, more of a day time one I remember that. It came when i saw someone with baring their unnaturally white teeth immediate before seeing someone with the sweetest of smiles. And those words from Charles Eisenstein once more came to mind – ‘the calculus of worth’ – what do we hold dear and how do we weight the judgement of it.

Whether you have all your own teeth or not, I’m sure it’s the generosity of your smile that warms hearts more.

How it takes time

Catherine
letter from consultant CEA blood test is normal

So it’s August 2025. It has been however many days since 26th Feburary 2023 and i still can’t imagine how i’ve come through. The recent letter from the Consultant stating that all is well. Recent blood test is showing ‘normal’. Grateful to all those who are looking out for me in this inbetween time, feeling like i have a target on my back and ringing in my ears of all those people who said it will come back.

How did I come through this? Why did i survive? Can i use this time to take scared and now scarred into making it sacred.

Recently, at Deershed Festival, an absolute riot of lovliness for a weekend, meeting up with friends, having annual chats and hugs, treating guests for the weekend, i managed to work 13 clinic hours. I’ve received some amazing feedback and relished seeing clients leave my tent more upright, smiling faces and brimming with joy.

How is that possible after everything i’ve been through? We will never know, never be able to pinpoint that which made the difference. Many may try, they’ll have their theories, they’ll produce supporting evidence with conviction. Those that embrace me as i am now, those that hold me in their thoughts, hold my gaze with eyes to see the wonder of the world, envelope me in their arms to feel our hearts beating, these are the folks i want to be around, those that have no words, no explanations, just love and kindness. Because that echoes where i am right now.

Words cannot truly explain the extraordinary journey I have walked through my life, most recently in the valley of potential death. Now embracing a life, not full of expectations to achieve, just each day unfurling, bringing joy and wonderment, finding the sacred in every day, in simple activities and achievements.

Emotional Evolution

Emotional Evolution

Catherine

Summer is for growth. And sometime not rapid extensive accumulating growth. Sometimes it’s the unseen growth that is more valuable and long lasting

options to succeed: plan, nurture, grow

You cannot rapidly evolve out of a crisis.
Time for assimilation. Of realisation of already knowns. The never is ever wasted life experiences

When drama bites, self realisation emerges triumphant, heralding adaptations, welcoming remembered behaviours abound

Travelling with Cancer

Travelling with Cancer

Catherine

The difference between branch line and locomotive train travel. The fear of not knowing

You stand waiting on a platform all alone. You have to travel alone, it’s happening to you, not them. Across from you are well wishers, shouting well meant platitudes, words of wisdom, caring, sharing lived experiences that bear no relation to where you stand yet are heartfelt.

Fear rising, you hope the train approaching isn’t for you. If it is, you at least hope you only travel a few short stops then be able to disembark. These are stories you ve been told. This is the story you imagine

And for a while you do. You recovery, you have time to recoup losses and look to return. Then you find yourself on a different platform, with fewer people standing opposite. Some familiar faces, some new to the crowd, smaller in number, distilled with experience.

But this time you re not so confident. Over the year you’re read about, heard on the news, been told of many who didn’t make it. And this time you can’t bring yourself to think the train fast approaching isn’t a branch line, it’s the intercity locomotive, fast paced and with stops you hadn’t anticipated, little time to consider forward plans. Can you take a break? Make time to catch the next one?

Yet how can you when the voices now holler different tones, diverse and contradictory. And if you choose to stand back from it all, unhearing, it feels too confusing to comprehend

I want to be able to choose. Maybe travel to the next station on foot, after a break to assess, pick up another form of transport, choose the most radical of all, no forward travel for now.

art therapy, colours and figure

Stone or Ripple

Catherine

On reflections. Finding notes written over the years and sharing as a way of further explaining the wonders of being mindful to the how we are being well.

Thoughts come freely when my mind is like a millpond. The profundity all encompassing. I saw a stone and the ripples it created as it sank into the still water of my mind. One suggestion, many outcomes, shorelines of resistance. 

Whether we are aware or not, cause and effect is all around us and to becoming aware as a process is part of a medical model millennia old.

Do I need double blind studies? They help in establishing empirical evidence to classify the results to form categories, from which medical models can be set, protocols agreed and referred to. 

Do I need to create a new model to bring to my wider community in returning to practice? We could call it something like the Holistic Effect Learning Programme, see what I did there with the acronym.

Or do I, as this morning on a walk with Tess, into the woods, allow the sounds and scents of nature ease me back to my mental millpond. Will I take the learning from my reactions to maintain good relationships, neither reactive stone causing chaos or the passive ripple merely getting out of the way. 

And to bring these learnings into each day, to remember the lessons from lockdowns. I didn’t learn a language, perfect fire breathing or now an expert on identifying mushrooms. What I have done is polished off my inner bullshit detector and laughed at when it’s pointing at me.

Passive or Active? What do our bodies need…

Passive or Active? What do our bodies need…

Catherine

I wouldn’t have been their first choice.

To be fair the first client had never had a massage before. I joke and say ‘nice one, I can make it up then’ and joking aside, in a way I always do and that’s part of of the beauty of it all.

The second client wanted it ‘harder the better, I’m used to being beaten up’ – so I smiled and with the greatest respect informed him ‘within my level of professionalism I’ll give you as much elbow as I can’

And the third client of the weekend who had a fundamental shift said they were used to feeling as if they had come out of a car wash, that their body needed that level of physical touch and treatment in order to be effective.

And then this email arrived and now I’m truly humbled…

“Just now sat in the lounge of the b&b we are staying in feeling totally chilled and relaxed enjoying a nice big brew – your treatment was a perfect way to end my much longed for weekend away … and I have to say other than my Mum and Dad spending the day with us yesterday, you have been the best part of my 3 days”

After each session I could see a change in all 3 of them for different reasons. After each session they all said how they felt deeply aware of themselves and how it wasn’t what they thought the treatment was going to be.

And after each session, my heart was lifted to know that ‘holding space’ for such changes to occur is truly a gift I offer to the world, and to help others to find what they are great at too.

And after each clinic, whether that is a full day, a home visit or a weekend retreat, I return to knowing ‘i am’ the therapist i am, I might not seem to be the first choice for many ‘conditions’ are bodies display, yet if as a client you are curious to sink deeper, many marvels can be revealed

It took till now

Catherine

Watching the shadows from the early sunshine creep across the golden wicker ottoman, it’s golden studs glistening, our dog softly breathing herself back to sleep, I feel as if this day will be etched in my mind. As did that day in February 2023. It has taken till now to feel like this. There have been other highlights, and many more lows than i could have expected. To be able to celebrate feeling as i am today is truly a tribute to many factors; family, friends, colleagues, consultants and even those people i will never see again, those that have been so very hateful and those that have been wonderfully kind hearted.

Image drawn in 2006, words added 2010, photo taken 2023…sometimes things take the time they take

And now, some two hours later, after searching for a specific image that i wanted to add, many files lighter now deleted and laptop tidied up I return to reflecting. I didn’t find the image I wanted, i know it’s there somewhere but in choosing another and allowing the process of ‘flow’ to remind me to return often to what is most important.

I had plans for today but maybe they will change now. All those things in my mind that made it to the list, will fall into place and be achieved in time. A day of following the flow. A day to celebrate being able to.