I went to massage therapy school in my twenties. All through that period, I thought of myself as wounded and healing and, I hoped, helping others to heal from the wounds that pretty much everyone was carrying. I learned a lot in the process, about myself, about people, about the physical and energetic bodies.
Eventually I came across a group studying the book A Course In Miracles. Of the many lessons I took from ACIM, one was that we are eternal beings, one with the Divine, and as such, we cannot be harmed, any more than God can. (It’s okay if you don’t agree, or if you think that is preposterous. It took me a long time to accept the concept, too.) Trying on that worldview required me to rearrange some of my ideas about the nature of existence. I had to learn to identify with my large self, rather than my little, individual Rachel self. Not surprisingly, I spend most of my time in my little self, but when I find myself feeling wounded or fearful, I’ve learned that one of the best ways to manage those feelings is to widen my perspective, to see that the little me is only a tiny part of the big me, which can never be injured or diminished.
Even so, it was years before I quit calling myself a healer. After all, some clients come to me expecting healing. Most of the practitioners who do similar work to mine call themselves healers. What am I to say I do, if not heal?
I find I come back to where I began: I massage. Through the body, I help people to remember and discover their biggest, truest self; the one that is free and strong, always at peace, always loved and in a state of love. I help people to find within themselves the part of them that is perfect, whole, and Divine.
In the process, physical pain is relieved, problems diminish, difficulty becomes bearable. Not surprisingly, the physical pain is often what brings people to my table. But it is always my goal and intention, in the process, to remind us all of our Divinity.
Rachel Creager Ireland, LMT 