Marcus Aurelius “You’re better off not giving the small things more time than they deserve.”

Feedback whether it is constructive or destructive stings. In my teens, I created my first song and recorded it. The response was generally well until one came in that said it's not bad BUT it's not as good as D’Angelo’s (Recording Artist who had a hit called How Does It Feel)………...this stopped my creative pursuit to attempt to finish the rest of the album. It got SCRAPPED because my ego felt like CRAP. Fully acknowledge the EGO bruised and stained, the wisdom comes later I create from a place of care and love of the process. I learned when I was young that I was trying to get the approval of one particular person which did not line up to my soulful purpose of doing GOOD and inherently down the narrow path of not so GOOD. The parallel to this is that as children we look for the approval of our peers or parents but fail to see the caring people that are on our peripherals that have been waiting for our craft to be released. The cycle continues as we look for validation as the person looking up at us is looking for our blessing. There has to be a better way of acknowledging and sharing our energy with those looking for what we are doing. Why do we play for one particular person or group? We need only a few to understand our work and look forward to what we are bringing to the table. Simply, bring your best version of yourself at that moment with consistency. This will yield to a high percentage of many seeing your true gift. You are the Gift.

What caused you to stop your creative work? Are you now ready to pursue it again?

If You Are Not Feeling It, Then You Are Not Feeling It - Chronicles From The Massage Table

Garnet Santicruz RMT, CMRP, CPTS

To be able to listen to the body, one must be present.

It’s not just a matter of knowing where parts are in the body but being able to acknowledge what must be treated first like a hierarchy of things. It’s been over a decade of working with bodies that needed to be soothed, relaxed, healed, and put back together and I can honestly say that it is still challenging to know what method to apply to get to the solution.

**'I find myself closing my eyes when my mind is trying to take over.'**

There is an art to working one on one with people through manual therapy but the real connection happens when you feel what is happening under the skin. In the beginning, my practice of massage was very technical and clinical. Every client was like taking my practical exam over and over again. Now a decade past, the technical and clinical overlap with intuition. Now I find myself closing my eyes when my mind is trying to take over. This method, borrowed from a blind man massaging in a local mall in the Philippines, enables me to feel this medium called the body. It's like putting your hands in water, where air and water are separated through a very thin line. A lot can be said about thin lines in the body and one example is how pain and pleasure travel down the same neuropathway. I find that my eyes shut allow my other senses to be heightened or at least less noisy. The blind man from the Philippines was able to tell a lot about my body. Just by touching my neck and shoulders without any formal training in Anatomy or Neurology, he was able to trace where my body was restricted. He also noticed that I was not breathing properly like I was stressed. Fast forward to now I would put myself in that exact situation by turning off a bias of judgment during treatment which is my eyes. It can be deceiving sometimes when we are always using our eyes to judge and as simple as quieting the mind my having fewer works for me. At this point, I can follow the rhythm of the body like listening to a song with its many changes of sound. The body has a rhythm whether you say, ' I have two left feet but still the body says 'I have rhythm just not on the dance floor.'

**'I have rhythm just not on the dance floor.'**

Understanding, that the body is rhythmical, like air going in and out of your lungs or the beats of your heart, timing is everything. To plug into the hardware is what it’s like to connect with someone’s body. Feeling and intuitiveness is of importance. The analysis of a disorganized body, which pain often presents itself, comes through a collaboration of the mind and what your connections (hands, arms, etc.) is giving you. The approach comes latter on what to do next. A plan on how to treat the body is a good start but the actual treating happens when total immersion occur and essentially you are able to feel every part of the body from head to toe.