Patterns

Today's post marks the one year point since I started this blog. This week a year ago I had no idea what I would write about, only that I wanted a place to share my professional opinions. Today I am just as uncertain as to what I will continue to write about, but the process still holds a fascination for me. There are so many subjects I wish to explore and re-explore. This week though I want to try to sum up whatever meta-narrative I created so far.

If I had to sum up a year's worth of writing in one word then “patterns” would be my word of choice. As a bodyworker, I deal with patterns. Out of the many reasons why people receive massage, pain management is one of the most common. Much of our pain is the result of patterns that we are in that need to change. While the patterns we hold may not be the catalyst for the pain we experience our patterns do greatly determine whether our body increases or decreases the pain volume as to provide us with proper warning to whatever harmful habits we are engaging in. When we are practicing harmful patterns, pain is the bodies way of raising our consciousness of those patterns, making us aware of the toll certain patterns are taking on our bodies. Massage is a great tool for increasing our pattern awareness without increasing our pain.

What massage is not so great at is fostering those new healthier patterns that will be easier on the body into our everyday life. That takes time, effort and diligence on your part. If we continue to do the same thing that overstressed our body then massage becomes a bandaid which isn't a bad thing, but massage can be so much more than a bandaid. I was inspired over the last year to write so many blogs on movement because of its role in the healing process. To get the full value out of massage we need to take a moment after the massage to see what is different in us. We need to take a moment to feel how we now stand, how we walk, how we move. We need to observe how we are now free to move as opposed to before the massage. We can then use that knowledge to edit our neuromuscular patterns into something that will agree with our bodies more.

So because of this, I have been writing about movement, hopefully giving whoever is reading this some new concepts they can employ in whatever movement practice they engage in. But I do feel that is only half the journey. That other half of the journey takes place in the realm of our perception. No matter how healthy we are we will always feel pain if we spend too much time in a problem seeking thought pattern. There will always be something less than perfect with our bodies. If all we focus on is our flaws then that is all we will be able to feel, no matter how otherwise healthy we are.

So along with writing about the movement, I spent a lot of time writing about the language we use. We fall into linguistic patterns just as easily as we fall into physical patterns. Those linguistic patterns become our thought patterns. Those thought patterns become our perceived slice of reality. So I have been cautious in my practice to do my best to avoid language that could put a bad thought pattern into someone's thought process. This does not mean we should ignore our problems, but that we should take the time to frame any issues in a way that empowers us. For example “ having tight shoulders", vs “ my shoulders get tight when I have too much stress". In the first framing, our symptom becomes our identity, while the other framing describes the same phenomenon where we are separated from our pain symptoms. Being separated from our pain symptoms gives us a choice in how we negotiate with it rather than just it being an intrinsic part of our identity. In this more detached way of thinking, we are free to shed our pain without losing any core facet of what makes us us.

Ultimately we are all some combination of our thoughts and actions. Both our thoughts and actions will be influenced by our previous patterns. Conversely, our present thoughts and actions will influence our future patterns. Since we can't escape our patterns we should we aware of them so we can steer them in beneficial directions. So as a bodyworker and a writer that what I will continue to try to do. Create better patterns.

Anthony Bruni