The Two Keys To Wellbeing

“Wellbeing” is a word which has become increasingly used in recent times, but that can also leave some of us a bit confused. I take it to literally mean, ‘being well’. So, the aim here is to explain the 2 phases of being well. Simple as that…

I’m not going to give any lists of ‘things you should do’ or prescribe any ways to find happiness, though. Those things are for the reader to decide themselves; they're your needs. What I am going to do is to explain the two phases which need to be completed, as I see it; I’m giving an outline, you add the colour.

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Step One: Notice Your Needs

We can never meet a need unless we first notice its existence. When someone comes for a Thai massage / bodywork session, I explain that tension cannot be forced out of their body; it has to be eased out. This means pain is not useful; you are not at ease and in pain at the same time!

I often ask people to tell me if the pressure I am applying is ’enough’, because once we get to ‘too much’, we’re allowing external factors (the pressure) to override the internal experience (accepting pain). If this happens, the person laying on the mat is not noticing their needs (or maybe they’re deciding their needs are not important enough to act on– see Step Two!).

The problem we often have is that humans are very adaptable, and we learn to cope with difficult situations. In some situations, resilience and toughness are valuable traits to exhibit, but when it comes to noticing our needs, they are not.

The messages from our body are often quiet compared to the loud and brash signals coming from our phones, our families, our job, our heads, etc. But we need to tune in and notice. If we cannot notice, the message will often go away, but it will come back louder and the symptoms associated with it’s expression will be more severe.

You must notice your issues in order to have a chance of addressing them. Sitting with yourself, tuning in your sensitivity, however you can do that, will give you time and space to notice yourself.

Step Two: Attend To Your Needs

So, you’ve noticed a need. Now what? Well, we must attend to it. Occasional headaches? Maybe drink more water, sleep more, get a massage. Easy to say, right? Not always easy to do. Maybe you can’t sleep more, have no time to get a massage and the drinking water thing didn’t help…

At this point, is becomes a question of priorities. Where does your wellbeing come in your list of priorities?

An example I like is one I have seen a few times with clients. Mothers of babies can often get sore shoulders and necks from holding their infant repeatedly on the same side. Nurturing their child is vitally important and all parents must make sacrifices.

So, whilst holding the baby, there’s a twinge in the shoulder, a shooting pain, and a grimace. What the mother should do in this moment for the best of her shoulder, is to drop the weight she is carrying. Clearly, this is not an option, so the next best would be to put the baby down and attend to the pain in the shoulder (maybe a bit of self-massage, some rotations or stretching, whatever will help to ease off the pain).

However, the shoulder pain often doesn’t prevent the mother from carrying on the things she was doing, so she does carry on. By time she has a moment to herself, she’s so exhausted and relieved, she has forgotten about the shoulder pain. This pattern repeats and as the frequency increases, the suppressed symptoms increase in severity until they overwhelm the mother’s senses and express themselves at a high level – meaning a big problem!

If we can notice and attend to our needs earlier, the accumulated symptoms will be less and when they express themselves, there will be less to express. This is really what we need; a regular discharge or expression of any symptoms we have building up to help prevent small problems becoming big ones.

As an example, male ducks shake their feathers as they swim away from a confrontation. This is figuratively what we should do for our wellbeing; something stress-inducing happens, we process what we can as it’s happening, but we’re left with excess stress/trauma after the event. As soon as we can somehow discharge this trauma, the less we will carry forward with us. The less issues will accumulate and the better we will feel.

Summary

The more sensitive we can be to noticing our needs, the better we will know ourselves. Making time (prioritising our own wellbeing) to attend to our needs will bring its own reward (less tension, more clarity).

On the massage mat, my message to my clients is clear; notice your needs (eg. I need less pressure, I need more pressure, I need some attention given to my arm, I feel cold etc.), and attend to your needs (communicate those things). Use the time during a treatment to cultivate your awareness of your needs and then to act with boldness in communicating those needs.

Outside the controlled conditions of a massage studio, this process can be more difficult, but you will find the more attention you give to this process, the easier both aspects will become.

Notice and Attend; the two keys to wellbeing.

Neill.

Dec 5th 2021.