144. The Massage Table

This submission comes from a family therapist who sees a massage therapist to feel okay after a long work week.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

INTRO MUSIC

 I’m Nora McInerny and it’s going to be okay, this is a podcast and it’s also a group project. 

And we take okay things often from our listeners and we bring them to the rest of our listeners, which means we tell you, email us, record a voice memo and email us. Call us and leave us a voicemail. By the way, all the details for that are in our show description. 

But when we got this submission, there were a few red flags. The subject line was, uh, massage table. And then there was a video to download. If we had an IT department aside for myself. The IT department would say, don’t you download that video, but we did immediately. And it turns out. It wasn’t a phishing scam. It wasn’t a trick. It was just an okay thing. From Susan. 

Okay Listener:  Hi Nora and everything is going to be okayers. So I’m on the massage table and the massage therapist is digging her elbows into my upper back trying to get my shoulders to release. I’m thinking about a week’s worth of clients. I’m a marriage and family therapist at a low income clinic. All of my clients have serious long term physical and mental health conditions.

Some of them are homeless. All of them have so much trauma, so, so much trauma. The massage therapist presses her elbow deep into a pressure point, and I exhale sharply from the sweet pain, and something gives. Something releases. I imagine letting go of my client’s trauma. Their stories I have bore witness to have on some level physically absorbed.

All week long, despite trying to keep good boundaries, it’s almost impossible to not take on some of the horrible, some of the hurt in the room. How exactly do you just shake off a client telling you that he shot and killed an innocent woman? when he was 17 and served 41 years in prison for it. Or another client telling you that they can never get a vein in her arms at the hospital because she did so many intravenous drugs when she was younger and then joking.

In this arm I have a Porsche in it and on the other there’s a Lamborghini. That’s how much money I spent on drugs. I love and respect my clients. I laugh with them. Sometimes I shed a tear or two. By the end of the week, I feel like I’ve run an emotional marathon. I have to do things like get regular massages.

and go on long, long, long walks and get enough sleep and talk to my own therapist and have fun with friends and family. Back on the massage table, my breathing has slowed and I’m nearly asleep. Trauma, abuse, poverty, addiction, discrimination, none of those things are okay. But if I continue to take care of others and everything is going to be. Okay.

Are we calling ourselves? This is the outro, by the way, are we calling ourselves okay. Errors? Is that the thing? I’m not opposed to it. I’m just throwing it out there. No one has floated. Another name for us. 

I’m Nora McInerny. It is going to be okay. 

OUTRO MUSIC

CREDITS