scars — inside or outside
Nine years ago, I began studying massage. I was surprised to find two of my core parenting beliefs in this practice: the importance of touch and comfort in mutual growth and trust, and the innate nature of expanding the possibilities of who we are through movement, which eventually becomes the story of who we are.
In watching my children grow, I was delighted by their desire to move and play. Constantly learning, repeating a task hundreds of times in order to master it, sometimes frustrated and often laughing at their own mistakes. Most of my rules for them revolved around getting them outside to be outdoors and connect with friends.
When I was three months into my massage training, I was delighted at how much I enjoyed the work, surprised by the reminder of the power of constant touch, nurturing and empowering touch. It was a powerful reminder of the need to keep this sense alive in our lives. As adults we still need the healing power of safe and nurturing touch just like our children!
Before I attended massage school, my only experience with the practice was receiving Shiatsu massage, a modality that doesn’t require the client undressing. My body is super flexible and Shiatsu was the only modality I encountered that would provide me relief for early degeneration in my neck, caused by a car accident in my early twenties.
When I began studying massage I hardly knew anything about anatomy, physiology, and certainly nothing about energy work. My knowledge was limited to what I had learned from the writings of Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, a physician whose wisdom I relied deeply on, as I was navigating what was then called Complementary Care for my children’s allergies, constantly reminded by her writings to trust my own observations in my children’s health. Dr. Remen is a beloved physician and a forerunner of change in how we educate young men and women in our medical schools with a deeply humanistic approach to meeting a patient by “generous listening.” I was also beginning to practice a daily meditation of Taoist wisdom, which at the time was highlighting being present in every moment with my children without judgement__perhaps the beginning of the hardest practice in my life.
About six months into my program I met a client who was an Iraq War veteran. This woman was another therapist’s client but was reassigned to me when he called in sick that day. I was fulfilling my program’s requirements for practical training at a clinic in a Minneapolis suburb that provided a quiet and safe space for students to both learn and receive feedback from their instructors. Our clients were generous in trusting their bodies to students, and aware that we were in the learning process. When my supervisor handed me this new client’s file, I felt paralyzed in a most unexpected manner. Being a young student of massage I always had my usual anxiety but this time my past rushed through my mind and made me painfully aware that this individual might identify me as an enemy__a label I’d lived with all of my life, not necessarily from the people in my immediate life, but certainly in the larger US rhetorics, in almost every institution we participated in. I didn’t ever expect such feelings to pop up, and today it seems like a ridiculous thought. However, today I know that it’s often impossible to recognize internal scars within ourselves which we so painstakingly bury into our bodies, until something brings it up….and awakens the sleeping monster within us! Even when we attempt to deal with them over time, parts of them still exist in our deepest tissues. Some cannot be worked out. However, many have the possibility of healing when the right circumstance breaks the original violation. This was the one for me.
I read this woman’s file for fifteen torturous minutes, unable to process much other than the possibility that she would leave as soon as she saw me or heard my name. I walked into the room with a heart pounding that felt was going to break out of my ribs and jump out of my skin. After I did my intake with her, I formulated a plan on how to address her physical pain. To my relief, she didn’t object to me and didn’t want to leave. So, I began my work. People respond differently during sessions. Some enjoy talking throughout. Others prefer to be silent, and that was the case with my client that day. It was dead silent in there, which under most circumstances I love, but not that day. By the end of the session I was certain she knew I was from the Middle East as well as that she hated my work but would keep that to herself. When my work was done, she thanked me and left.
I saw two other clients that day. When our days wrapped up, we’d always receive our client’s comments and feedback about the massage they’d received that day. I generally had encouraging and complimentary ones, but that day I was dreading looking at them. I tucked the half sheets of commentaries into my folder and didn’t read anything until I was back at school. When I started reading her comments, I was stunned. Not only did she love the massage I gave her, she also had requested me for her remaining three sessions. She wrote that she had been uncomfortable with the bodywork she’d received from her previous therapist. Despite his excellent techniques, she was unable to relax around him and as a result felt no benefits. I was shocked that she wanted me to replace him.
I’d always imagined people in the military to be outspoken and fearless in asking for what they wanted. So I was really confused as to why she’d tolerated three or four sessions with a therapist that made her uncomfortable. I took my questions to my favorite instructor who had a deep sense of care for people, one of the wisest women I knew with years of practice, and a genuine love for the human body. She explained that often people who’re no longer in the military still view interactions as a civilian similar to their time in training and on the field — receiving and following orders.
After our second session we began to interact. When her sessions ended she was saddened to no longer have this outlet of support and relief. With my instructor’s approval I was able to offer her massage free of charge as a student for the next eight months while I studied. I got to know her better over this time period, her struggles as a civilian dealing with the many forms of trauma she’d endured, causing her mostly sleepless nights and much physical pain. When I graduated and opened my own practice I reached out to her. She’d come in for massage once every month or two pro bono. I was astounded by how much she and I shared in common__a quiet knowing. Neither of us wanted to address our pain — mine from being labeled by many as the ‘enemy’ in this country and her dealing with the physical and psychological strain of her time in the military, much that I didn’t ever ask about and she most likely couldn’t really describe without reliving so much of it.
What we shared was a deep knowing, that was all. Through our connection, I was able to let go of so much pain that was often thoughtlessly or humorously thrown at me with words. I knew she was so appreciative of my work and certainly didn’t expect anything back, but when she discovered how much I enjoy cooking at home and great food, she brought me jars of canned pickles and vegetables from her parent’s farm. Here was another deep human connection, a love of the land and lovingly preserved food.
We had a most unexpected and ultimately such a supportive, redemptive, and loving friendship. I never told her the gift she’d given me.
Three years ago, at a training for care providers at the Buddhist Contemplative Care Symposium in New York, I listened to a most articulate, caring and thoughtful young palliative care physician named B.J. Miller. He discussed his journey into healthcare and how the accident that took away three of his limbs, right away affects others’ perceptions about him. He said that he’d learned not to fall victim to letting others feel sorry for him based on the outside scars on his body that sometimes define who he is by others. He also talked about his knowing this wisdom because of growing up with a mother who lived with a progressive disability as he was growing up. So he’d learned early in life not to ask ‘why me?’ as he knew bad things happen to all kinds of people. He also learned not to limit himself because of his “dis-ability.” A phrase that we might want to reexamine and perhaps change.
At that symposium I had wished someone like my client had walked into my life much sooner and had taken that outside label of being an outsider away from me in order for my inner scars to heal. Today, I write to share my life experience and learnings for many who’re put into boxes that confine and silence their voices.
As I had hidden much of my wounds inside, I tried not to allow my children to feel like an outsider by pushing myself to show up in every part of their interactions in the world__ a place where many new immigrant parents because of the outsider labels won’t show up! It is deeply heartwarming to see my children, now young adults, navigate their world without the inner wounds of being an outsider, no more than the person next to them. After all, we are all in our journey to become our whole selves. Our otherness is only made up in our own minds, often imposed on us by others and then ourselves. Our job is often to grow despite the limitations put upon us and trust that in time we can decipher the chaos in our lives.
Safe and nurturing touch created a bond for two unlikely adults. Knowing nothing about each other’s values, political stance, or history; we came to see each other as human beings and not the other. A space to hold each other with kindness without judgement. In the same way children’s bodies’ muscle memory develops through movement in how to take their first steps__falling down so many times in the process__our emotional memory can also be affected when a radical interaction breaks old emotions and patterns that society thrusts towards us based on our looks, abilities, heritage, religion, sexual orientation or political views. Connection, the most powerful antidote to otherness.
Today I’m grateful to a most unlikely friendship with a most generous veteran who gave so much of herself for a country whose values she believes in, and whose friendship set me free of years of imposition by others.
edited by Armeen Shahriar
