The Power of Gentle

One day, in 2018, I was looking for a place to book a massage appointment. I had been traveling quite a bit, and the decades-long persistent shoulder pain was out in full force. 

Having had a lot of experience with this pain, it wasn’t my first time at the massage rodeo. Over the years, I had routinely sought out the deepest of deep tissue massages as a remedy to my aches. 

My theory was - the more painful, the better. I was already in so much pain in the first place. At least if the person was digging their whole body weight into the area that felt tight, I knew that something was happening. Something felt different.

Anyways, back to 2018. I had one day off and was desperate to see someone to relieve the pain. However, the massage place nearby only had one appointment available, and it was for something called the Bowen technique. I had never heard of this Bowen technique before, and even a google search didn’t help me understand it that much better. 

But I was in pain. And there was an appointment. So I took it. 

What I experienced was unlike anything I had ever experienced before, and have ever experienced since.

The Pain Gains Misconception

In my 20s, I once read an article about Bikram yoga. The founder stated that when he brought the practice to America, he made the room unbearably hot for one reason. 

No, it wasn’t to assist the muscles - that occurred at 30 degrees cooler. No, it wasn’t for ‘detox’ - that was happening as a part of the practice naturally. No, it wasn’t to burn extra calories - metabolism isn’t a linear hack like that.

The reason the founder insisted on raising the temperature of his rooms to a somewhat dangerous degree was because he realized Americans were gluttons for punishment - especially in areas they wanted to improve. He heard the mantra - No Pain, No Gain - and saw that the ego’s desire to prove itself and prove its strength was so strong in our society.

So, he made it extra painful. And it worked.

Bikram yoga swept Hollywood and then America. Despite scientific reports to the contrary, despite the yoga world speaking up to the contrary, despite the founder’s problematic behavior and past that showcase a lot of lies and deception - there are still Bikram studios all over the world with followers who insist that this form of exercise is superior to other forms due to the outrageous heat.

Sometimes I wonder if this same tendency towards pain as proof of improvement is why hyper-aggressive, hyper-intense, and hyper-confrontative speakers and seminars became the American self-help origin story.

In some ways, it’s super appealing to think that all of your problems in life are caused by the fact that you just didn’t try hard enough or you weren’t willing to endure enough pain to be good enough. At least it’s clear. And if we know anything, we know how much the human brain likes clarity and facade of certainty.

It can feel much more difficult for many people to consider that nothing was ever so wrong with them in the first place. It can feel much more difficult to consider that we all fall down from time to time but it’s the ease and grace with which we get up which can make all the difference until, yes, we fall down again (as we will). It can feel much less exciting to maintain a steadfast focus on the things we can control internally while also accepting that ultimately nothing is certain and nothing external is actually in our control.

No, that’s not fun.

It must be that we are simply broken - because then there is a chance that someone can come along and fix us.

We have all given into this temptation before, and many of us will again and again. When I say it’s alluring, I mean it’s alluring. So please hear me when I say there is no shame in seeing yourself in this. Because honestly, it’s all of us.

A Light Touch

I’ll be honest - if I had known what the Bowen technique really was before I signed up, I wouldn’t have consciously chosen to spend any time or money on it. But I’m so glad I did. 

The whole premise of the Bowen method is that our bodies have a great capacity to self heal, they just need a little direction in the moments they get knocked off course. It consists of short intervals of extremely light, extremely precise touch with long spans of time to integrate. About 40 minutes of our 60 minute session were spent with me alone in the dark.

To say I was skeptical was an understatement.

But as the practitioner lightly poked at me, she explained her own journey with the technique. She spoke to things about my body and emotional state that nobody had ever noticed before. And she was unwaveringly confident in the power that this gentle technique could have in helping my body find its way back to health.

When the appointment was over, the practitioner told me to drink a lot of water and that I might have pain and emotions pop up over the next couple of days. A deep tissue massage veteran, I scoffed at the idea that this experience could even begin to have any impact on me. I was so strong I wasn’t even that sore after deep tissue massages - let alone emotional.

And then, for the next two days, I proceeded to be immobilized by muscles so fatigued they had simply given up and tears that wouldn’t stop falling out of my eyes no matter how much I tried to make them stop. 

On day three, I woke up with no pain in my shoulder - an experience that, at that point, I had only ever felt one other time over ten years prior. 

It worked. This gentle approach wasn’t weak. It had proven itself powerful. 

And something started to change in my thought process, too. Even though it would be years for me to fully understand, I was starting to question whether or not the painful route was always the most advantageous route.

Maybe there was something to this gentleness thing.

You’re doing just fine

As I’ve built my coaching practice and skills, I’ve thrown myself into different techniques, styles, and perspectives to try to expand my tool box. 

For example, there was a period of time where I really pushed myself to say the honest thing in as direct a way as possible.There was then a period of time where I committed to explaining the depth behind every simple statement. I’ve practiced showing up purely heart-forward. I’ve practiced showing up purely mind-forward.

But there is a question and a practice I find myself constantly coming back to - over and over again.

How gentle could this whole transformation thing possibly be?

My experience is again that most of us are tempted to believe that something is broken within us so that someone else can come along and fix it. And sometimes that belief can be incredibly helpful in sparking change. But at what cost?

And what could we retain with a gentle approach instead of a heavy handed one?

I suspect that a lot of what we have come to assume are simply routine battle wounds on the path to self development are in fact manufactured symptoms of an unnecessarily created problem.

I also have a working theory that when we can gently point, bump, and guide our inner process - rather than slam, shove, and push it around - change happens. It simply happens.

And then we can go ahead and get on with living our lives.