Noticings

I learned the word "noticing" in massage school. It's kind of abstract and leaves itself open to individuals having their own interpretation.  For me it means something or someone reveals itself to me, and by revealing it/their self to me I am able to see things or people on a deeper level.

I'll give you some examples:

While I was hung up on the second sentence in this post, I had a noticing. I noticed that I was feeling constricted and decided it had to do with the fact that I was wearing a bra. After removing my bra I found I could breathe easier and my writing resumed.

My client had a very tight neck and her shoulder muscles were rigid when I palpated them. I had a noticing. Her scapulae were winged out. I decided to massage around her pecs and sternum to see if releasing these muscles could help relax the ones that were causing her pain.

 
Okay, maybe those aren't the best examples but by the end of this piece, I hope the meaning is revealed to you.

Today is Easter and it was highly unlikely that my family was going to get together this year, so I went ahead and booked a client for a 2 hour massage. I rationalized if we did visit it would be after church so this massage appointment was not going to keep me from anything important later. And as I predicted, there was too much life happening for us all to get together. So Manic Kim came to visit after my client left. Almost magically, or basically right after my coffee kicked in, I Marie Kondo'd the ever-loving shit out of my basement.  I bagged up the goodwill clothes that had been sitting in my papasan chair for many weeks. Then I decided I wanted to get rid of the tiles that had been sitting under my staircase for years, so I tossed them in the bag with the goodwill clothes, because I had a noticing. I took the goodwill donation out of the equation after I rationalized that it was easier to put this stuff out on the curb with the garbage (and let's face it, outside a pair of jeans this heaping pile of clothes was nothing special) and then I proceeded to toss all the downstairs junk into a heavy duty contractor's garbage bag with the clothes and tiles.  It felt so good to be cleaning on Easter. Renewal. Spring cleaning. Feeling joy. Then I had another noticing.  I noticed that big ole bag of my rejection was too stinking heavy for me to carry it to the curb. I noticed this when my back and arms and legs and neck all screamed AWW HELL NO!