I’m thinking about you…
I’m thinking about you as I prepare for your next massage.
Before you arrive for your massage, I’m already preparing for you. I like to look ahead at my day and bring to mind each of the clients on my schedule for that day. I might call to mind your face, hear the sound of your voice, or imagine you walking toward me, smiling. Then I challenge myself to remember a few specific details pertinent to my role in your life. What was our area of focus during your last massage? What current events in your life did you recently share with me? Do you usually pay by cash, check, or card? Do we already have our next appointment scheduled, or do we need to do that today? How many clients have you referred to me that I see regularly? I try to run through this kind of inquiry mentally, even before I check my notes from our last session, just to honor what stayed with me. But thank goodness I do take notes, because each of my clients are so different!
I’m thinking about my first client when I put a clean pillow-case on a pillow before I lay it on the table, because laying on her stomach without it makes her low back ache. Later, I’m thinking about another client when I set the table warmer to high, add an extra blanket for warmth, and make sure the neck-wrap is already hot before I put it in the hot cabinet. I’m thinking about a specific person when I fold the sheet over the blanket at both ends of the table, revealing the top and bottom of the fitted sheet, because I know he doesn’t like the weight of the covers pressing on his toes. I’m thinking about someone’s recent surgery when I tab the page of a reference book I was reading, because I’d like to show them the detailed drawing of the shoulder muscle they had repaired. I’m thinking of another individual when I make sure I have a few five dollar bills to make change. Preparing in these ways is just the start of me showing individualized care, presence, and attention to the various needs of the bodies and personalities that come to me each day.
The time I spend thinking about you doesn’t begin or end with the massage. I ask my new clients to complete a thorough intake form when we first meet, so that I can I can better understand how to apply my skills to their particular situation. And I read through these forms and discuss them with my client before our first session. I take a few moments to check in with my clients before we begin each new session to gather updates and design a treatment plan specific to the needs they show up with on that day. And when I step out of the room to allow them to get comfortable on the table, I take those few moments to reflect on details I’m curious about, what I expect to find, and how I plan to pace the massage so that we can cover the plan we discussed. Then, when our massage time is complete, I jot down a few notes so that I can check back in with them at a later date about how they felt afterward.
If I limited my attention and concern for you to the number of minutes you reserved on my schedule, I’m not sure I would have built the trusting relationships I have with my clients, nor had the success in helping them find relief from their specific patterns of pain, tension, and limitations. So when I say, “I’ll be thinking of you,” I mean it, because as a wise person once told me, “It doesn’t cost anything to be thoughtful.”
Written by Lisa Mullaney, MA Ed, LMT, RYT-200
