Stretch out your hands and wrists.
Do it now:
1. face your Dominant palm towards your face
2. Flatten and straiten your fingers together and make your palm and fingers flat as possible
3. Place your non-dominant hand on only the fingers and pull them down and away from your palm
In sort of an “arch-like” fashion.
4. hold and Breathe in the stretch for about 1-7 or more minutes. repeat for other hand.

Stretch thumb in similar manner with the goal of stretching the palm tight.

For the wrists:
1. put your palms together in front of your chest between your pecs
2. adjust your forearms till they are pointing strait into each other at the base of the palm
3. hold that, intensify it by lowering your hands (Don’t do this too much - it’s a tough angle for the wrist and you might over-stretch the ligaments holding the wrist joint together)

Disclaimer: try this stuff at your own risk and be responsible with your body - when you feel pain during a stretch, be smart about it and don’t keep holding the stretch. Assess why you might be feeling the pain, adjust your body and if the pain doesn’t go away get further information. If it’s simply a painful stretch - be with the pain of the stretch and get to know the difference between harmful pain with stretching and soreness that happens when a muscle is being stretched and squeezed in a healthy way. when in doubt - call a yoga center, talk to a buddy that does alot of yoga or some kind of expert. your body is smart - you will know when you’ve found the right answer to your body questions.

I think I might call it “cuppa spirit Joe” or some other buzzy sort of name.

I doubt I will settle for such a trite and off-cuff name but I think the final title will probably trite and cut-off-sounding.

I Study some kind of spiritual text every day. In the last month, the books I have referenced most have been these ones:

“My utmost for his Highest” - A daily Devotional from Oswald Chambers.

“The Jewel Tree of Tibet - the Enlightenment Engine of Tibetan Buddhism” - book by Robert Thurman (I like to read this one while I work out on the stair climber at the gym - it tends to trance me out with all the imagery)

“Circling the Sacred Mountain” - a story/journey-journal by Robert Thurman and Tad Wise.
This book is cool: it re-counts the true-story journey of how Robert Thurman leads a group of buddhists (I write buddhists for all intensive purposes - most of them were practicing westerners) into the Himalayas in order to circle the base of Sacred Mount Kailash. Thru the whole journey from Kathmandu to Mt. Kailash and back again - Robert enlightens and challenges them with “The Blade Wheel of Mind Reform.”

“The Journey Home - A Kryon Parable” Kryon as channelled thru Lee Carol
A Story about a man who was visited by and Angel and taken to the Spirit realms - just as the poor guy was ready to give up and chuck it all.

“Seeking Him - Experience the Joy of Personal Revival” - by Nancy Leigh DeMoss & Tim Grisson
I got this beauty from my uber-christian Grandma when I was in Texas earlier this month. It’s a workbook. What I like about this book is how it helps me study the bible better. It references passages that pertain to the messages about personal faith and revival of a relationship with God, written in the workbook. There’s questions and quizzes and ways to do it group-style. I’ve been having lots of fun with this. It helps to have something of a guide when studying the bible.

“The Artist’s Way - a Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity” - by Julia Cameron
I just signed a new contract for the next 12 weeks yesterday. This is another workbook-like thing but it’s obviously geared towards artists with blocks. In the book - Julia says everyone is an artist. I decided to commit to the 12 week process because at some point in my life, I would’ve liked to have gotten thru the whole program. Not to mention - I’m a bit blocked right now anyway - I’ve got some major choices to make and new roads to walk.

“Holy Bible - New Living Translation, 2nd Edition” Tyndale House Publishers
This bible is wonderfully easy to understand quickly. The translators took the ancient Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek text and did their best to translate accurately to contemporary readers.

I love daily wisdom booklets. I think it comes from my love of Far Side desk calendars.

On April 29th’s entry in the Oswald Daily Devotional - it talks about uncertainty.

Now, obviously, this is a primarily Christian God context but if you just let go of any petty bs you might have about how the christians have destroyed the world - you can get some good wisdom.

“We tend to be so mathematical and calculating that we tend to look on uncertainty as a bad thing” When the truth is - we don’t know anything about nothing that’s going to happen. All we have is the certainty of what we see in front of ourselves at this moment. All the rest is dust.

To make a long story short (and a long post longer) there are two ways you can be in relationship to god:
1. you can have your beliefs about God
2. you can relate to God as a living, evolving and uncertain presence in all things/times

This little book urges it’s reader that if you have a real, alive relating to God/Divinity, then while that uncertainty is still present, the way life plays out becomes more gracious, more miraculous.

Regardless of what you believe - uncertainty is the truth of life. No matter how many numbers you crunch - there can always be cosmic curve balls.

In this little book - the advice is to have excitement around this uncertainty! Don’t bemoan uncertainty!

Based on simple Law of Attraction study and personal experience - spirit, god, and what you need or don’t need will show up - based on how you are FEELING about what MIGHT come.
IN other words - KEEP A POSITIVE ATTITUDE, YO!

I am the worst at getting caught in circles of my own negativity and fear. Guess what!? I totally attract more life circumstances that make me feel justified in that fear. When I’ve been happy and expectant - more often than not, my results have been awesome and beautiful.

Don’t fear uncertainty! (if I have to do this - then you might as well too!)
Embrace it! Love that uncertainty and you might just get “gracious uncertainty!”

The massage space is beautiful, it’s mostly purple and dark with nice lighting.
Deep tissue and injury treatment therapists are who I’m looking for.  I would love to share my space with a female or male and my preference would be to have another female therapist sharing the space with me. 

You’ll have to really really dig broadway street.  It’s a bit on the boisterous side!  
Translation: it’s very quiet for Broadway but it’s not super-duper quite like a nice secluded house.  So if you’re noise sensitive - I wouldn’t suggest trying to work in the space for a long period of time.

Linens, oils, fridge, storage, water service hot and cold, music stuff and the internet are all available for you to use.  Not having to do laundry rocks!

Communication that is open, honest, compassionate and effective are highly desired.  Having your own clientele and source of client flow is a must.  I will send lots of referrals but you must have a confident client base for yourself.  Just as long as you pay the rent every month - I don’t care how many people you see.  

I have a flat rate for rent - and to be honest - it makes me just slightly uncomfortable to publish that amount in the post so I’ll just say you’ll have to contact me and ask me directly if you want to know.  

I would suggest phone over email.  So there you go!  Contact me if you feel moved to do so. :) I should also mention that I want a long-term commitment:  at least 6 months.  Whole days are available only: right now - if you want to start RIght NOw:  Wednesdays and Sundays are up for grabs.  Fridays and Saturdays will be up for grabs about a month out - depending on how far out I’ve got myself booked for those days.  Mondays and Tuesdays are my favorite days - with Thrusday being a second favorite of mine. 

So why am I saying I’m talking about God now? Very simple - and I’ll get to it.

I’ve been doing injury treatment massage for the last 7 years. I have averaged somewhere around 10 hours of intensive massage a week over the course of that 7 years.

Back when I was working at Monroe Therapeutic massage clinic in Totem Lake, Washington, I would do as many as 25 to 30 hours a week of problem-solving, bodily-demanding massage.

I saw everything: I saw lots of people who’d suffered from car wrecks, stress injuries, work falls and injuries, recovery from surguries, foot issues, airplane crashe victims, people who’d fallen from 5-story buildings, leg/hip and sciatic issues, carpal tunnel, thoracic outlet syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and whiplash - to name a few.

I was a workhorse. I thought I would always want to work like that. In my youthful idealistic and naive thinking, I thought “I want to do this for the rest of my life! Surely I will want to work this many hours for the rest of my life too!”

yeah….

NOT TRUE!

So as I mentioned in my previous post; I realized just about 2 weeks ago, that I was tired of working that many massage hours in a week. It was difficult to admit that to myself since I had equated the desire to work lots of massage hours in a week to my passion and love for massage.

I thought that admitting that I didn’t want to work so many hours meant that I didn’t love massage anymore.

Of course, this is not true. I very much love massage but I admit that working more than 10 hours/ appointments of Deep tissue every week is not what I want to do anymore. My body isn’t feeling up to it and my mind seems to have a limit to how long it can be in that deep tissue/injury treatment state.

I had an identity crisis - not to mention - a good lot of fear around how to make money and pay the bills when I my ideal massage hours would not pay for my office, my home, my car and my life.

I was totally freaking out, man.

I looked for the answers in teachings I had studied for the last 10 or so years. Wayne Dyer had said in one of his talks that when you find your “heart’s passion” or “that thing that inspires you without fail” that it will get you up in the morning, fulfill your needs, make you prosperous, attract the perfect people and situations to you…

I had secretly been wanting that “heart’s desire” experience for years. Underneath my obvious love for massage, I was looking at my practice thinking “I really love this - I’ll always want it in my life - I’ll always be practicing massage - but… this is not my passion - it doesn’t do that thing he talks about - I’m getting tired of it (oh crap!)”

The first step was admitting I had a problem.

The next step, for me at least, was opening myself up to the answers for what to do besides massage. My pre-requisets were:
1. do something that requires my mind and not my physical exertion so much
2. do something that I can do NOW - as apposed to going back to school.
3. do something that, every morning when I wake up, I’m excited about the activities I am doing.
4. it has to be fun
5. it has to make me money.

In order to make this more short and less long and drawn-out: I talked to lots of people, meditated, prayed and cried and screamed.

What came to me was very interesting. The first few ideas were pretty easy to do but will take some leg work.

Here they are:
1. get deep tissue LMP subletters for the Broadway Massage Freek office
2. Hold classes on: how to give good massage, care for carpal tunnels, couple’s massage and other workshops all about educating the general population on massage and how to care for themselves in a bodywork type of way
3. Consultation for new LMP’s: inform them on the industry, what’s available, how to make a long career in massage and how to get their needs met over a long period of time as an active LMP

It was a good start. I had a conversation with a good friend of mine, Barry Hurd, who, if you do not know, is something of a jack of all trades. He has had jobs and hobbies that include everything from computer fixing and marketing to sword making and night-club management.

He told me I needed to do something totally different from massage. Just get out of the field and expand my experience and my mind. It scared me. I was attached to massage. For the last 7 years - that’s all I’ve been up to. But I took the advice and stayed open.

About 2 weeks ago - I went to Texas to visit my Grandmother in Texas. It was a trip I’d planned 3 months or more before. It was interesting timing as I was in the thick of my fear and wondering what I was ever going to do. Funny thing: my Grandma is a republican Christian right-wing 89 year old living-in-Texas-for-40-plus-years sort of gal. Her “walk with God” is amazing to me.

NOw! before you run screaming - just remember, I am not a christian or a republican, nor has my grandmother converted me to a Baptist. (tho I did take the Lord Jesus Christ as my persoanl saviour… again… for like the 8th time in my life)

She and I have an interesting relationship. I don’t tell her that I hang out with polyamorous, swinging kinky people - not a chance - but I do talk about God with her.

I have been “into” new age, buddhism, philosophy and the study of Law of attraction (etc.) for the last 9 or so years. It all started with a little well-known book called “Conversations with God.” That book got me started down a path of study that I will always be interested in.

Getting back to my Grandmother in Texas: I had a change of environment. I spent time with this super-godly woman, we prayed a lot and I just laid it out for her that I was scared and didn’t know what I was going to do for career or cash. Often she just laughed as if she knew something and wasn’t letting me in on the joke.

Then a most amazing thing happened. We visited a dress shop in my grandma’s small town of Cleburne - she owns the building in which the dress shop is located. I was inspired as I looked thru the selection of wedding gowns, ball gowns and formal dresses realized there was a work of art on every hanger - even the sale rack.

My mind started buzzing and I started talking to the son of the shop lady - I talked to him about 1 hour strait on how the shop had national potential and I rattled off ideas on how to get nation-wide interest and sales.

Then his mother (the shop owner) came back from where ever she was and they listened to me, raptly, for the next 2 hours as I talked about blogs, consultation, networking, buyers, magazine coverage, strategies and tactics on how to make their business boom.

My Grandma and I walked out of that store and for sure, we knew that INSPIRATION had occurred! Praise God - a sign had been given!

That experience opened the floodgates up for me. After that - I knew that I would find my answers. I knew that I could totally do some sort of work that was fun and inspiring to me.

During that weekend and ever since then - I have come to realize that my heart’s desire - the thing I’m always passionate about was right under my nose the whole time - I love talking about god.

No matter what state of rest or unrest I am in, no matter where I’m “at” - I love to talk about, study, practice, and teach faith, god and religions.

I do not have an assigned or self-proclaimed religion. I do not see the point.

I study and practice a few of them. I even enjoy talking about faith with those who are agnostic or atheist. There’s validity in all the ways that humans have sought to understand life, God and the obvious intelligence and organization of this planet and universe.

This is a really long post. I wonder if anyone will get thru it. ha!

It doesn’t really matter to me anymore. I’m so tired of worrying about losing clients or reputation points because of this blog. I have been so stuck as to what I should write when everything in me says, “Write in it like it’s your LiveJournal - only don’t make it about love and boys… make it about business, society, massage, your own experience and all you’re raw, real opinions and views on those things - just make it a touch more professional.”

My rough plan for this blog is to write in it more often without so many fears and filters. I might just post some poetry or short random quotes. I need to do anything that just gets me off this fear of being visible.

I will post updates on how my massage practice is changing: rates hours and such. I will also be posting about classes, salons, workshops and support groups I will be having. I’ll get going on some experience stories in injury treatment so I can inform the public of what massage can do for injuries. Client education has always been a big deal to me.

After this - I shall have to talk to the SEO gurus and see how to get rankings in the things that I want to be found for. I’m not too pushy on that one. I figure things are still forming and I’m not entirely sure what searches will benefit my new-found career outlets.

In conclusion - I am truly pleased and excited for the future even though I do not know what will come or take shape. I do know, however, that I need not worry. The answers will come - sometimes it’s just ding the question to ask and then asking the question that can be difficult.

Please contact me with any questions. Leave comments telling me what you think because I am interested. Call me for massage - I’m really quite good, you should give me a try. And please, give me a message or call about your thoughts on God. I want to talk to people about faith. I would love to hear people’s stories and histories around god, wether its pretty or painful.

OH! and do know - I will NEVER try and make you believe in a religion or way of thinking that I like or practice. You’re life and your path is perfect for you. I just want to hear about it!

There’s lots of space between posts this time.

I “shouldn’t” go this long without posting.  need that constantly updated material, right?  keep up with the Jones’s, or something like that.

I tend to go long periods of time off-line because of, well, a good many reasons.  Many of them are “not serving me” as one could say.

Consistently updated and RELEVANT material.

Like new classes I’ve cooked up on teaching the general public how to give a good massage.

I interface with the web much like I interface with most of my life: on a rather intimate level. 

I’ve tried many times to just “let her rip” and share all my random thoughts and interests, opinions, rants, advice as well as great notes on my massage injury treatment experience and my adventures in Cranio-sacral.  I want to share what I’m up to but i have to admit - it scares me.

I’ve talked of this in previous posts.  I have been trying to give an impression of my self and my business that “Really counts” or perhaps pulls a great many to my doorstep.    I want to look good and sort of “tell” people what to think about me.

I think all that’s come across is that I get great reviews and need to post more often.

I know a ton about massage and injury treatment.  I know a great deal about intimacy, god, sex and drugs.  I know about how these things form the body over 10, 20, 30, 70 years.  I get really random.

This sort of salad-tossed thinking really stops me from getting posts out on this bloody blog.  Besides that… I don’t think I get SEO ratings for shit, so why try.  I should make this post include the words massage, seattle, capital hill and fucking nuts on top of it all.

And now I’m going to start talking about God.  I’ve been talking about kink all this time.  At least on a private level as far as discussion groups, friend or client conversations,,, at tea here and there.  It’s a part of my life as I am deeply immersed in the dark sub-culture worlds of kink, polyamory, swing, bdsm, fetish, goth and burner communities.  

Seems appropriate to just choose more and more taboo subjects to razz people and myself with.

This all came from my own process of having to admit to myself that I need to do more than give massage all the time.  OH no!  I was a bit scared and that was 2 weeks ago.

Since then I’ve chosen to dig deep and look at myself.  I want to be happy with my job!  I want to have fun, I want to use my brain more than my body… what is there for me to do?  counseling, directing and consulting with newly-grad LMP’s…