Self-care and Grief

Managing Consultant and massage therapist Maureen Abson reflects on what happens when those clients with whom we have formed meaningful relationships pass on.

We spend our whole careers looking after other people and helping them achieve their journey to well-being and pain reduction. We all know we need to get treatments regularly and even if we sometimes fail at that, not quite practising what we preach, we are quickly reminded when something starts hurting and it becomes really necessary! Hopefully we live and learn on that one and keep striving to look after ourselves better.

What I wanted to address here is looking after our mental health and dealing with grief. I’ve been massaging almost 20 years now and am fortunate that I have a significant number of clients who have been with me for much of that time. Particularly perhaps with remedial massage people like to chat during a treatment, remedial and deep tissue work isn’t geared towards falling asleep on the table but as we are working to release tension people often talk about what it was that caused that tension. Over the course of 20 years, you learn a huge amount about people’s lives and clients become friends. From the pregnancy massages of 20 years ago you then see and hear about those children growing up, starting school, transitioning to High School and now going off to university. The clients whose children were stroppy teenagers when I first started seeing them now have children who have grown through their teens into independent adults and I have shared that journey into grandparenthood with many. Over the years sharing becomes mutual.

Sometimes the lives that you are journeying through with become complex, health concerns become more difficult and I have had the privilege to journey with clients through their cancer journeys and for many out the other side of that into wellness. Sadly, not everyone gets better and, very recently, one of those very long-term clients, now friends, lost that battle and the cancer that ravaged his body won. I was fortunate that he had given my number in anticipation of this to his partner and when he could no longer let me know how he was, she kept me updated. His death was a hard one. Too young, too nice a person, too quick an illness.

I had heard for 20 years all about the people in his life, his partner, brothers, his best friend he played sports with, his grandchildren, nieces and nephews. I knew lots of details about their lives and their various highs and lows as the years had gone by. But I’d never met them, nor they me. This was a client who drove two hours in each direction to see me every five weeks so his funeral wasn’t local. But it was healing. The service was lovely and filled in gaps in my knowledge of his childhood, it was also hard as friends and family grieved for someone gone too soon. The wake afterwards was filled with stories and laughter. I sought out specific people that he had talked about and introduced myself. I found I too was part of a picture, the missing piece in their memories of why someone would travel for four hours for a two hour massage so we laughed together sharing memories and stories.

Sometimes of course we don’t get to hear of a client’s death, they just don’t turn up for a planned treatment, don’t respond to messages and we don’t know, we might find out weeks or months later that the person has died so attending a funeral isn’t possible. In those times I have just taken some time out to remember them, to thank them for allowing me to be part of their journey, to light a candle, throw some wild seeds into a verge – anything but send a balloon up for wildlife to eat! But that act of remembering is important and a point of closure for us in our work.

As therapists, we need to take that time to look after ourselves mentally as well as physically. We hear of people’s stories, of their joys and sorrows, their loves, the abuses they have suffered and as they unburden themselves as their body releases the traumas, sorrows and difficulties it has held onto we need to be careful that we don’t take that on ourselves. We will all have our own ways of doing that; be it smudging, using specific oils, meditation etc. I consciously work as close to barefoot as the climate allows as that helps me to stay grounded, I have decent breaks between clients so that I have time to process and acknowledge when I am still carrying the burdens of someone else and I know during a treatment that if my nose and cheeks start to tingle that I am picking up someone else’s energy, so I will take steps to flick that off and protect myself. Whatever works for you, make sure you utilise those techniques and if you are finding that your treatments are exhausting and draining you then you are probably picking up other people’s ‘stuff’ and not letting it go. It’s this that you need to address.

As practitioners, we best help others when we best look after ourselves, be that physically or mentally. Take the time to make sure you are looking after yourself and if you need to clear energy between clients, then make sure you schedule treatments to allow that. If you need a physical break, again plan accordingly. If you find all your appointments are evenings and weekends and you have no balance in your life, take some time back. You will find that many clients who can ‘only do an evening or weekend’ actually will be able to take time out during a day to fit a treatment in when that is your only appointment available. Don’t sacrifice yourself and your well-being for someone else’s.

Fight for that balance in your life, you will find it, it’s out there. And when you need to grieve a client who has died, honour both themselves and yourself by giving yourself the time for that. It’s a testimony to how great that person was but is also testament to how your work was an important part of their life and of that, you should be proud.

Now when can I book in for a massage…