The Power of the Finger

As long as I can remember, I have had this problem. A need to do things the "right" way, a fear of screwing up, of not being capable of what I was attempting. This problem was affecting my life in many ways, but never so strongly as when other people were involved. I'm sure part of this was the fear of looking stupid in front of others, and I think everyone has this fear to some degree. For me, it went much beyond that.

Last year I went to a week long Shamanic healing class where, on the last few days, the students were asked to perform some healings on each other. I felt completely inadequate to do this. Even though we were all there to learn, I was incredibly concerned about the quality of healing that my "client" would receive. Each morning I would have a sense of dread and panic over the upcoming healing I would have to perform, and each evening I had a great feeling of relief that I had survived the day. On several mornings, I came very close to just getting in the car and driving away...escaping from the overwhelming feelings. I didn't leave, I stayed to the end and I actually think the class was worthwhile...on the last day, I even had one of my clients tell me that he thought I had a real talent for this healing work. Deep inside of me though, I knew that my problem still lurked.

This past December, I started attending massage therapy school. I go to school four days a week for seven months. Each of those days, I spend half the day in lecture and half the day in bodywork. This means that I am giving (and receiving, which is definitely a perk) a full body massage to another student four days of each week. When I first started, all was well. We were told exactly what to do to practice the various strokes and stances involved. After two weeks though, I started to have a problem. Each day, we were supposed to pair up with someone and give a full body massage...no instructions...no rules to follow...just give a massage. Soon, my feelings of fear and panic were in full bloom. I doubted myself, terrified that I would do something wrong. Every day was torture for me...I actually started feeling nauseous each day as the time for me to give a massage came closer. I was told by the teacher and by the other students that I had good hands, gave a smooth massage, and was a calming presence. Didn't matter...each day of school was still torture for me. Let me say, for the record, this is no way to live...something had to be done.

I went to see my mentor...that's right, I have a mentor and I still get jazzed when I say it...who is an incredible man. He is a practicing clinical social worker, energy worker, and an amazing human being. Usually when I go to see him, we talk about things like intuition, chakras, energy, and the power of not knowing. This time however, after I explained my problem, he said that what I wanted was therapy. He thought (more likely, tuned in to guidance) for a moment, and then said that he thought EMDR was what would help. For more information on EMDR you can go here, but for my purposes I will just explain that you sit and follow the therapist's fingers with your eyes as they move back and forth in front of your face, all the while thinking of the issue that you are trying to resolve. Before we started, I was asked to close my eyes and imagine giving a massage. As I did, my stomach knotted up and my hands felt shaky, cold, and clammy. As the treatment progressed, I was asked to go back to when I first had these feelings. Out of nowhere, a memory popped up. A memory that I didn't even realize I had until EMDR pulled it out of my head...

My father was always big into ham radio and electronics. He was a fan of a company called Heathkit that made kits that allowed you to build electronic equipment. The majority of the work involved in these kits was soldering the various electronic components onto a circuit board. When I was a young child, my dad ordered one of these kits for me. I believe the idea was that we could build it together, that way we would have some fun time together and I could learn about electronics. This part of the memory is unclear, but I think that, because my dad didn't have a lot of free time, I must have begun assembling this kit on my own. What I do remember very clearly is that I soldered the wrong resistor into the wrong place on the circuit board (hmm...question of the day...is that the same as putting the wrong thing in the right place? or the right thing in the wrong place?). I don't remember my dad's reaction when he found out other than that he was upset. Knowing my dad, I assume there was a lot of very loud yelling, both in general and at me specifically. In any case, his reaction isn't important, what is important is my perception of his reaction. Apparently, what I took from this was that I had done something WRONG and when you do things the WRONG way, people you love get very angry with you (and perhaps love you less?).

I was amazed that this memory had been dredged up and even more amazed that such a small thing when I was a child could have such dire consequences for my life. After explaining this memory to my mentor, the treatment continued but with a difference. At first, the treatment seemed to intensify my feelings of anxiety, but now I was starting to feel calm and almost peaceful. I will spare you the rest of the gory details of the treatment other than the final outcome. After all the finger waving was over, I was again asked to close my eyes and imagine giving a massage. As I did so, a happy feeling came over me and the statement "I'm good at this!" came blurting out of my mouth (it actually kind of embarassed me, but there you have it).

I don't know if I am, in fact, good at giving a massage. I don't know if I do anything wrong when I am giving a massage. What I do know is that, ever since the EMDR session, I don't have any of the fear, nervousness, or anxiety that used to plague me. I go into the bodywork room happy to have the opportunity to learn and practice something that I enjoy.