I have been wrapped in diversity studies lately, and have been pondering the effects of culture, gender, race and class. I am learning that people are all unique in their interpretations of this; every experience paints an entirely new picture of what it means to be human. I think it is important to also remember that we are not just these bodies, and in this way are transcendent of culture. We are all beings of Spirit, fractal expressions of the Source in all of it's creative glory. This expresses the way in which we are One, and connected. People are so easily wrapped up in identity because that is what we use to experience existence. But there is a place where there is no you and no me and this is the place I want to remember, because it makes dealing gracefully with the ingrained habits and responses of ego much more possible.
I have been thinking a lot about the ideas of liberation that Paolo Freire discusses in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It seems to me that the only thing that can lead to our mutual salvation is the realization of each human potential. Only the individual really knows how to chart their own path; we can, however all be resources to each other to support, educate, and connect with others on their journeys. An important first step that I have been working on this quarter is the banishment of hierarchacal relationships in my life, where I can manage to effect this. One place where I can access this road to power is my professional life as a massage therapist. I currently work as an employee, where I rent out my labor to another for a fixed fee, while he charges whatever he can for my time. This bothers me on ethical grounds, and it interferes with my authentic relationship with my clientele. I admit that this road is easier in many ways; someone else is taking care of many details which are bothersome and boring. I don't have to worry much about advertising, and I can save thinking about work for the days I am in the office.
Yet I am constrained in what I do, and unmotivated by the lack of possible improvement of financial possibilities as an employee. I have effectively reached my earning limit, unless I choose to devote more hours of my life to a situation in which I feel constrained by my environment. If I choose, however, to devote myself to my practice as a way of serving and moving through my community, I know I will move to the next level of professionalism, process, and practice. I can negotiate each relationship using what I have learned from William Glasser's Choice Theory, and know that the arrangements I agree to are a result of my own efforts at authentic relationship and communication.
This is all as intimidating as it is exciting. Perhaps that is the same thing? I know that going into practice for myself is a new way of being present for my community, without the buffer of someone else to arrange the work. This is scary because I am a private person, and value the time when I am answerable to no one. This will change the scope of that, but I feel it is the only way to put the call out to the Universe that I am ready to dance the big dance, where we give and receive and twirl and sing and make experience for each other to savor.
The compost I am adding to the soil of my mental processes is the idea of fascia. Fascia: my favorite aspect of anatomy. There was a fascial conference in 2009 in which the very nature of anatomical perspective was shaken out of its reductionist roots. Thinking about muscles as isolated structures has no real meaning as they never act in isolation. The fascia, too, is a singular connected mesh of collagen and fluid that creates the shape of our flesh and the patterns of our movement. Thinking in this way informs my professional work in ways that create more lasting change. It is good to know that academia is supporting my approach to the work I do, which is something that I have sometimes struggled to express in more conventional assessment language.
Studying small business administration, education, diversity and somatics will make me a better asset to my community, increasing my ability to help others get from where they are to where they want to be.
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