Melting More Than Muscles

Melting More Than Muscles

 

Melting Challenges in Life and the World

 

 

"…four effects may be ascribed to love… Of these the first is melting, which is opposed to freezing. For things that are frozen, are closely bound together, so as to be hard to pierce. …melting denotes a softening of the heart, whereby the heart shows itself to be ready for the entrance of the beloved."

 

--Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, question XXVIII

 

"Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate."

-- Albert Schweitzer

 

 

On the first day of massage school in 1993, forty students sat in a circle on the floor. Each of us was asked, "How do you want to be different a year from now, when you have graduated?"

 

When my turn came I said, "I want to be practicing the world's most effective methods to reduce others' suffering." In later years, I was a little embarrassed by what I had said--I wondered if it sounded self-important or pompous. My answer reflected a vow I had taken in connection with the Dalai Lama's visit to Seattle. Now, nineteen years later, I see how much that vow has guided my career.

 

By 1996 I had adequately mastered three techniques that Osteopathic Doctors had developed. But I did not feel I was really making a difference. I observed my teachers practice often and I noticed people changed more in sessions with my teachers than they did with me. And yet I was doing the techniques exactly as they had taught me. It finally dawned on me; it was not because of what my teachers were doing, but because of what they were being. So in 1997 I began intensely studying personal qualities (like presence, compassion, patience, and curiosity) and the equal therapeutic relationship. I began to feel I was making a difference, and more people were coming for ongoing sessions.

 

In 2001 I attended training for Reiki natural healing energy. The next day after the attunement I was massaging the back of somebody's leg when I had an amazing experience. I felt the hamstring muscles melting. The muscle was literally sinking and softening under my hands. At the same moment I had an aha experience—I suddenly knew how and why muscles melt. That evening I began writing down the method. A few days later I titled the article, Melting Muscles, and sent it off to Massage&Bodywork magazine. The published article launched my career teaching therapists how to melt muscles. It came to me as a gift, along with a responsibility, to share Melting Muscles with the world.

 

It's been ten years now. I had a new person come for a massage this morning and I still used Melting Muscles for most of the session. I still shorten each muscle the same way I did in 2001, palpate each muscle the same way, and it still melts. Melting Muscles will always work, as long as brains control muscle contraction. And since it is so easy to perform, I may still be Melting Muscles when I'm 100.

 

But Melting Muscles is so much more than a technique. It is a way of being—being present, patient, compassionate, curious, and nonjudgmental. It is an equal partnership that serves the recipient well. It serves the giver too, and the world.

Being in the moment of melting:

 

N  activates seven qualities for both the giver and the recipient, including presence, nonjudgment, patience and curiosity

N  provides an ongoing demonstration of equal partnership

N  balances the brain hemispheres, multiplying creative intelligence

N  trains the recipient to have more influence to relax her own muscles at will

N  increases the recipient's body-awareness and body-acceptance

N  queries metaphysical wonder--whose brain is relaxing the recipient's muscle? ..whose brain is guiding the giver's hands?  

N  optimizes conditions for intuition, energy, discovery, healing, resolution, and transformation

N  an experience of unity

N  releases any toxins and memories "stored" in the muscle

N  rather than reversing symptoms and pain, embraces them

N  rather than fighting tension, makes peace 

N  muscles feel they are being "heard"

 

Muscles are like dogs—they speak a different language that most humans don't understand. The Melting Muscles practitioner has been trained in muscle language. The moment the muscles realize someone speaks their language, they feel at ease.

 

At least once in each session the practitioner will say, "This muscle is beginning to melt. Can you feel it sinking?" 

 

"Maybe," the recipient often replies.

 

"That means whatever your brain was tense about, is now resolving. Your brain is turning down the level of contraction as we speak."

 

The recipient ponders this as she feels her muscles continue to melt, like a flow. She still may not understand why and how her brain made her muscles tense in the first place, but she feels with certainty that her brain is now making the opposite choice. Sixty minutes of melting leaves her with a sense of freedom, balance, and optimistic awareness--more evidence that her life is changing.

 

 

Melting Benefits the World

 

þ People who give or receive Melting Muscles are more cooperative.

þ People who have experienced equal partnerships in the massage room, create more equal relationships with others outside.

þ Discovering alternatives to force in the massage room, gives people alternatives to force in politics, business and the environment.

þ People who have been heard become better listeners.

þ Resolving, and embracing muscle tension empowers people to do the same with all their life challenges. 

þ Muscles compete with other muscles and cells have conflict with other cells. If muscles can resolve their conflict within one person, people can resolve their conflict within the whole world.

 

 

 

 

Patrick Moore LMT BA provides coaching, tutoring, workshops, and melting muscles therapy. www.meltingmuscles.com 520-334-8950