The Realization

Today I had a wonderful massage from my massage therapist. To many of you, this sounds like a great way to spend a Saturday and I couldn't agree more. I have been going to massage therapy for about three years now, mainly focusing on the pain in my shoulder. It had never dawned on me as to why exactly I was going, other than pain. This visit was different. My chiropractor had sent me with a short list of areas he wanted the therapist to focus on massaging. So I passed along the message and as usual my therapist did an amazing job but it was there while I was lying on the table, that I realized the reason I was going was for pain, but it was pain from old injuries. The trauma had followed me all these years. I had worked on coping with the emotional aspects of abuse through counseling a few years prior. I have never fully dealt with the physical scars until now. It's now that I am coming to understand how much damage had been done. I kept the tears from falling from my eyes, but my massage therapist knows the story and why my shoulder is always the main focus of treatment. During my hour long treatment I began to relax and rest. This is the best my shoulder has felt in years probably. I know it won't last and some pain will return in a few short hours but for now, I am enjoying the relief and forgetting the past. I focus on it enough as I work to rehabilitate my body, so for now it doesn't exist. Let me have this moment of denial since I've had the realization of why I started attending massage therapy in the first place.