If I Could Wave a Magic Wand...

I was recently asked, “if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing for your industry, what would it be?” That question hits home to something so deep within me as a practitioner and educator that I will do my best to sum it up in one word before I elaborate.

That word is Clarity.

I really wish that all of us (yes, I’m including myself in here too, I’m swimming in this bowl of spaghetti with all y’all!) would gain clarity in what it is we actually do as bodyworkers.

Here’s the detail: I see it so many times that a bodyworker adopts a method or modality, makes it their own, and doesn’t see the potential for other methods or modalities to be as equally effective. In essence, we all think we are right and everyone else is wrong.

I appreciate the need to do this. A bodyworker may invest a lot of time and money to learn a certain modality and they don’t want to see their world ripped apart by some instructor who is teaching a workshop detailing a wholly different way and getting great results. Why mess with a good thing, they might think? I can understand how making yourself open to new ideas can make you feel super vulnerable and possibly shake your confidence in what you’re doing. I’m here to say it doesn’t have to be that way.

For example, most recently, I posted an article talking about how it’s not all about fascia. Most people privately praised the article but one person in particular publicly attacked me and questioned my intelligence for questioning his modality (he is a ‘fascia manipulator’). In my article, I didn’t claim the Morales Method® is the perfect method. In fact, I’m here to tell you I probably developed the shakiest most imperfect method, on purpose!

I actually talk to my students about, ‘living in the question’ and I encourage them to constantly question their work. I feel this is absolutely necessary because here’s the kicker: We really don’t know what it is that we’re actually doing. And, there’s power in this place, in living in the question.

There’s a bit more, but that’s pretty much it in a nutshell. This is the clarity I’m talking about. We need to be clear about the fact that the waters we are swimming in are muddy, lol.

If we gain clarity there, then I believe people will be more accepting of other modalities and ourselves as an industry. If we understand that we don’t personally hold all the answers to the bodywork universe, we might actually be curious, keep researching, grow as a community and possibly have a breakthrough or discovery that might lead us onto an amazing path.

This is what I would love for the industry and the bodywork community as a whole.