Do You “Deserve” A Massage?
Recently I had the opportunity to close up shop a day early and head into the Smokies for a weekend retreat. Two nights and three days of meditation and community—it’s amazing how much can shift in such a short amount of time. Since I’ve been back, I’ve felt an extra layer of tenderness for all of us.
It isn’t easy to be a person! And it’s even harder to be human. It’s the task of a lifetime.
I’ve been sitting with what being human looks like in my own life. For me, right now, sometimes it looks like lighting a candle and journaling at night when it might be easier to watch TV. Sometimes it looks like having all the feelings, and sometimes like finally cleaning out my car. Like glancing sideways at the vastness of my own smallness. Like praying and opening my heart, creaky as it is.
What does being human look like for you these days? Many of you are teachers in some way—in your workplaces, as parents. And so we’re not just learning for ourselves, we’re modeling it as we go.
One thought that I’ve been returning to is that being really deeply okay with our flaws, our limitations, and our mistakes is an important part of being human. This relates to the Reiki precept that instructs us to “Show compassion to ourselves and others.” If we’re trying to be perfect, we’re fighting ourselves. And if we’re fighting ourselves, we’re fighting the world.
Another way to say this is to say that maybe being okay with how we’ve messed up and how we’re messing up expands our capacity for love. Our capacity to see the humanness in someone else even when they disappoint us or hurt us or make mistakes. And isn’t that one of the most important things we humans do?
This takes us to the concept of “deserving.” When we frame care as something that we deserve, something that we’ve earned, we risk rejecting the parts of ourselves that are struggling, the parts that might most need tending. Wouldn’t it be nicer to create space for care in our lives because we understand that we’re inherently worth it, rather than to feel that we need to earn it through working extra hard or achieving at ever higher levels?
If you’ve been short with your spouse, if your garden is neglected, if you dropped the ball at work, if you’ve been feeling flat-out mean, maybe this is a good time for a massage. Maybe it can nudge you just a bit closer to yourself, to quiet and self-acceptance that can soften some hard edges. But you don’t even need to hold that intention. Sometimes just holding something as simple as “things have been rough and I’m doing this for myself” is a powerful place to begin.