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.

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.

End of the Road heralds a new start

Catherine

On reflection September seems to have been a time of change for me before I started curating the Healing Garden at End of the Road, yet this year seems more poignant than previous years. Many new avenues opening, although most this year have become cul de sacs, each turning point an opportunity to reflect.

Through a friend of the family I have been introduced to a gem of a location for a new clinic, set close to home yet far enough away from the bustle of the town, it’s an echo of what i’ve been looking for.

I will look to build clinics on days which are popular and with the support of colleagues will be able to design Natural Health Wellbeing Events from there too.

Our Seasonal Sessions have found a new home and the event on 19th November will be the first of many.

Thank you for all your support with the clinic in Arnside which will continue in the short term although Field Broughton with be my main location.