Ethics Mindfulness & Loving Kindness- 6CE

“Healer Heal thyself” – Luke 4:23

 

Inherent in the practice of Metta is the realization that all healers must first heal themselves.  Furthermore, that they make a commitment to attain and sustain attitude of genuine, heartfelt, loving kindness.  Also, they acknowledge that the most difficult clients are the best teachers.  Therapists who are unhealthy are unlikely to effectively promote healing. It will be difficult to focus their attention on enhancing the wellbeing and quality-of-life of clients if they have not provided for their own basic well-being.   Therapists can work on themselves thru combination of breathing techniques, meditations and yoga poses.

 

The Buddhist teachings provide several techniques, such as the Noble Eight-Fold Path as well as the loving kindness meditation, to keep their physicians and healers moving toward loving kindness. One does not have to be a Buddhist to practice loving kindness in therapy, and the notion of "tender loving care" is spreading into western medicine and other therapeutic circles, including massage therapy.  

 

 

A colleague of mine shared a powerful story of the first time he gave a massage empowered with loving kindness.  He had actually been practicing massage for about six months in a group therapeutic practice when one day a man called to schedule an appointment. This man had been in a terrible accident and had shattered most of the bones from his waist down.  There were 6 therapists at this practice, and  no one felt qualified to massage him in his condition, but my friend stepped up to the plate, and said “I’ll do it”.  When the man came in for his appointment he was far worse than my colleague feared.  He started to have doubts on whether he was truly capable of performing this treatment. He was so nervous that as the client was getting on the table, he told the man he was unsure if he was qualified to give him the treatment he deserved.  The man stopped, placed his hand on my colleague’s shoulder and said, “I’m sure you’ll do just fine”.  During the course of the treatment my colleague was mindful of all of the pins and rods within the client’s legs and pelvis.  The techniques he was using.  Half way through the massage my colleague got a sense though assumed, that massage was not a regular occurrence with this man.  So he asked.  “How often do you get massaged?”  The man sat up slightly, looked him directly in the eye and said, “I’ve been cut open repetitively, needles injected into me, sawed on, drilled into, but I’ve never been touched before.” At this moment upon realization that a loving kind touch was all that was needed his mind went blank and his hands intuitively flowed over the clients body for the remainder of the session realizing that a blessing was being bestowed upon the both of them.