Judy has a B.A. in Psychology and a
Master's Degree from Five Branches. Judy was one of the
first nationally certified massage therapists in
Judy's Experience
with the Tao Te
"And the time came when the pain it took to remain
tight in the bud was
greater than the pain it took to blossom...."
I
guess the rosebud has to die to become the rose ...
Discovering Tao
Te Bodywork has changed everything about my life ... and it changed
nothing. Looking back, each step along the way seems so
natural and clear. It certainly did not always feel that
way as I experienced my own life which began with a chaotic
childhood in a home without feelings of love or support.
For
most of my life, I searched for ways to heal my self and others.
I majored in Psychology and minored in Philosophy, hoping that books
and/or professors held answers. I left college with a B.A.
in 1973, feeling no wiser than when I began. I turned away from humans
and healing to focus on machines.
I learned to find joy in making
computers do what I wanted them to do. The joy did not last.
Although I generated income within the corporate world as a technologist,
my heart was not happy. And still I felt my own yearning for
robust good health of body, mind and spirit.
By age 40, I was
seeing a psychologist weekly and enrolled in a massage school.
Although nationally certified as a massage therapist in 1996, I stayed
feeling stuck in the corporate world. Then the psychologist
I had been seeing for a few years told me there was no more she could
do for me; that what I needed to do was to find my connection to "god",
whatever that might look like for me.
After five years
of longer vacations and shorter hours, all the while searching
for something that I could not define and did not understand, I
found Five Branches Institute and began studying Chinese Medicine
in 2001. I enrolled not so much to become an acupuncturist as
to move forward with my own healing.
I began receiving different
sorts of therapy (acupuncture, Hakomi, medical qi gong, taoist energetic
practices, subtle energetics) for the seeming different aspects of
my self (body, mind, spirit). It seemed to be working.
At some point in school, I was exposed to yin tuina as a modality
for treating Parkinson's Disease. I was fascinated and read
the available books. Yet I still had not experienced yin tuina,
so truly I did not know anything about it. And then came graduation
in 2005. Now what?
Ask and it is answered. Fate brought
me to my first session of yin tuina with Jade a few weeks after graduation.
It seems cliché to say that it changed my life. It is true anyway.
From that first session I knew that I had the opportunity - in this
lifetime - to shift and clear. It has only been in the last
few months that I have noticed that I now seem to be in the eye
of my own storm.
In addition to being a student of Tao Te Bodywork,
I am also pursing a DAOM (Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine).
Two days a week I do chair massage at a beauty salon. Other
days I see private clients in a massage practice that embraces the
yin/yang continuum of massage; allowing each client to choose
the style of massage to be received.
While I have theories
and stories about "Yin Tuina" (or "Tao Te Bodywork"), truly it is
an experience different for each of us that experiences it.
For me, it is the hour each week in which I am touched (or not) with
acceptance and respect in a way that creates a space for transformational
life experiences.
I know that I used to feel dark and
alone and fearful quite often. In this moment I can remember
feeling that way but I cannot recreate the feelings. It is as
if I read about the pain happening to some other character in a book
some long time ago.
I can remember times when I
could not walk. I can remember being tired for a very long time.
But I do forget. Maybe this is because the experience of
the sessions is more like a clearing of older memories rather
than a storing of new ones. Unlike talk therapy where the goal
is to understand, this process is about honoring the wisdom of the
self to heal on its own. Nothing is broken, nothing needs to
be fixed, and there is nothing that we need to try to understand.
Amusingly, understanding often shows up once a given process
is complete. Understanding is the point at which there
is clarity. You can't get there by wanting to understand or
by trying to figure it out, but instead you get there by being there.
So
now I am blessed to have this opportunity to be the giver of this
bodywork. I am so grateful for this opportunity and for
the volunteers willing to receive. The traditional full body
massage I have been giving for years seems to be getting slower and
softer, too. As if every aspect of me wants to back off, do
less, and honor more.
