I
saw three clients and what struck me most about each of them was how they used
their work with me as a new PERMISSION in their lives. Those of you who have
learned how to use my Fairy Tale Process™
to change things in your life will know all about the power of PERMISSION. For
those who have not attended, let me explain it.
INJUNCTIONS
Deep
down in the psyche - in the murky world of our UNCONSCIOUS in fact - lies our
SCRIPT and this is the reason why we find ourselves in situations we really
don’t want to be in over and over again. Perhaps it is something to do with our
relationships, or our health, or our work and money situation.
At
the roots of our SCRIPT lie our INJUNCTIONS, which generally begin with the
word “Don’t”. Some examples would be:
- Don’t Be
- Don’t Feel
- Don’t Make it
- Don’t Be Close
THE ANTITDOTE
The
antidote to the poison of our INJUNCTIONS is in fact PERMISSION. This means
that we begin the sentence “It’s OK to:
“Be” or “Feel” or “Make it” or “Be Close”. However the great myth of
psychotherapy is that by becoming AWARE of our INJUNCTIONS and giving ourselves
new permissions as grown ups, we will be ‘sorted out’.
Not
a bit of it! Awareness is but the first step. SCRIPT lives and thrives deep in
the sea of our UNCONSCIOUS so the odd word or thought is but a drop in this
vast ocean. What needs to happen for a person’s life to be healed of this toxic
belief is to reconfigure the SCRIPT itself right
in the place where it lives.
Trying
to change this script in a grown up way is simply fiddling with the icing on a
cake - no wonder so many of our resolutions to make changes only last a short
while. How many New Year’s resolutions are dead and buried by lunch the next
day?
The analogy would be to be sitting in a boat
out in the deep ocean and being rather confused as to why my control of a
goldfish in its goldfish bowl was making no difference to the great big whale
swimming a mile underneath!
LOCATING SCRIPT
Which
brings us to the question, where exactly in the UNCONSCIOUS does our script
actually live? If you really want to get an idea of the immensity of the
UNCONSCIOUS then watch the film INCEPTION. In this film Leonardo Di Caprio is trying
to find his colleague in the vast ocean of a person’s mind and it certainly
conveys how like a “needle in a haystack” finding SCRIPT could be.
Except
that Eric Berne did that! He located the script deep in the CHILD EGO STATE and
positioned it in the very early formation of that part of our Psyche - right in
the part where we would ‘somatise’ our thoughts and feelings directly through
the body. This is the part where we would have a tummy ache because we were
experiencing difficulty in leaving home for school. It comes from that golden
age when thoughts and feelings were utterly inseparable from the body. We felt
happy, we thought happy and we just danced. There was no need to explain to
either ourselves or to others that “I feel happy”, we just laughed and giggled
and danced. Instant holistic living!
THE SOMATIC CHILD
This
is why BERNE named this part as THE SOMATIC CHILD because of the unified
physicality of this stage of our life. Now this has some serious implications
for those of us involved in Massage therapy....
Now
you are probably beginning to see the connection between our psychological
state and MASSAGE. My own view is simple. If psychotherapists actually
understood what script really was and where it lived, then they would all
become MASSAGE THERAPISTS!
Here
is the place where we soothe anxiety with the reassuring touch of THE OCTOPUS.
Here is the place where we offer release from the trauma of “DON’T EXIST”. With
our touch we give endless PERMISSION solidly for a whole hour.
What
could be more healing?
And
we don’t even have to know that we are doing it!
So
back to my three clients. Although anonymous, you should know that each client
has discussed this article with me and has given their consent to me writing
about their session in this way.
CLIENT ONE:
My
first client shared with me how she needed to ‘Speak out’ in her life and speak
her truth.
If
her life was a Fairy tale it looked to me a bit like SNOW WHITE, hiding away
deep in the forest, keeping her life a secret. Living a small life with small
people.
It
was clear to me that if this client started to speak her truth she would have a
MASSIVE HEALING IMPACT on the world. What injunction might have been lurking
around deep in her UNCONSCIOUS? Well, if you don’t believe it is OK to speak
your truth then you are probably running a “DON’T
BE YOU” - what do you think?
So
this client was seeking a new permission, one that she wanted to anchor deep in
her SOMATIC CHILD. Do you think Massage is an effective way to say:
“It’s OK to be You. You are you and there is
only one of you. You are brilliant, eternal, a child of God and UTTERLY UNIQUE.
It is safe to let your light shine.”
I
am amazed at the number of my clients and students who do just that after their experience of the power of NO HANDS - they go out and let their
light shine in the world.
CLIENT TWO:
My
second client complained of a tight neck and shoulder and when I asked what
might have caused this, she had no answer. For me there was a sense of the
answer lying hidden in the room but now was not the time to probe. So I got on
with the (structural) Massage and it was a privilege to work with her as she
was such an awesome client. Each breath was an opening and a release. If God
got on the table, I do not believe he would do a better job. Which of course he
was... on the table I mean.
Anyway,
after I had given God a Massage, my client came back at the end and said “You
know the reason I am so tight is because I haven’t had a Massage in four months
- since I last saw you, in fact. That’s really silly isn’t it?”
I
have to say I agreed with her.
“It’s like I need your permission to go and see another Massage therapist.”
BINGO!
If
this client were in a Fairy Tale she sounded rather like RAPUNZEL who was not
allowed out of the witch’s tower and would get punished for forming attachments
to other people.
The
injunction that may be going on here is possibly a variant of “Don’t Be Close” - in this case “Don’t
Be Close to anyone else except me”. I also had a sense that it was “OK” for
this client to be sad - even when so much in her life was actually going really
well. After all, if you are imprisoned in a tower it is very hard to be happy
so I suspect this client also had a “Don’t
be Happy” injunction.
Can you see how MASSAGE provides an awesome PERMISSION to “Be Happy” with all those ENDORPHINS flooding the body from the smorgasbord of touch that a NO HANDS Massage provides?
Because
the issue of her feeling ‘disloyal’ (to the witch and me) only emerged at the
end of the session I asked her if she would actually like my permission to see
someone else (bear in mind this is a part of her that is probably only 3 years
old) and she nodded (non verbal, somatic) so I told her that she MUST see other
Massage therapists and I ANCHORED this by pressing her leg as I said it - to
make sure it went into the SOMATIC CHILD.
Most
important of all, however, was the fact that the treatment had given her
permission to be Happy so she could talk about what made her unhappy. How many
of our clients really open up AFTER the treatment? This is because of the power
of PERMISSION.
CLIENT THREE
My
last client of the day arrived having overcome phenomenal obstacles to
travelling from London to Morecambe - all the west coast Virgin trains were
cancelled for the day! When she arrived after this Herculean journey she said
quite simply “I want to be connected to
my body and to the human race”. Now this particular client has had an
incredible history of illness - which clearly stopped her being fully alive and
a part of society. She was forever having to ‘retire’ from life due to her
illness. After a lot of personal work over many years she reported that she was
‘well’ and so she wanted to really let herself ‘get stuck in’ to life.
If
this client was in a Fairy Tale we both thought this sounded a bit like
CINDERELLA finally getting out the house and GOING TO THE BALL!
I
am not sure what INJUNCTION she was running - it could have been any one of a
thousand! The major feeling was of her ‘rejoining the human race”. Berne called
this “taking out your subscription to the human race”. It really was about
getting connected. Connected to her body, connected to the Earth and connected
with another human being. My gut feeling was that she had a “Don’t be Here” injunction which is
about as much of a “Don’t Be” as you can get. There were also strong
indications for a “Don’t Belong”.
So
this was a lovely slow and deep Massage in the connecting style that I teach on Mastery. At the end of the Massage
she was surprised at how open she felt in her upper body and how much taller
she was walking. It was as if she was taking her space in the world physically.
She also talked about feeling wider and bigger and she looked amazing. She also
described how feminine she felt in her hips which made me wonder about a “Don’t
be a Woman” injunction as well.
Whatever
the injunction, this client walked out demonstrating in her body movements that
she had taken PERMISSION to be alive to be herself and to take her place in the
human race. She looked like she really was going to the ball - instead of to
the train station for an uncertain journey back!!!
SUMMARY
Three clients, three permissions, three life scripts all undergoing fantastic cure.
All
through the powerful permissions
given to THE SOMATIC CHILD through the immense
healing power of touch.
If you want to learn more about this - and
its enormous relevance to Massage - you can attend my PSYCHOLOGY OF CHANGE
weekend which is where I now teach all of this ‘script’ this material. If you want to find out more before committing to a full weekend, I am also running POWER OF THE UNCONSCIOUS evenings around the UK - click here for more information.
