Alpha Dog
I had just begun to recover from being called greedy and then I was called an alpha dog. I had to look that one up. I have heard it referenced before but was not sure of the true meaning. I don’t think this title truly captures what the person was trying to say.
You see Elliott bought me a gift certificate for a 1 hour massage at Massage Envy for my birthday. I went for my massage last week, my first ever full hour, I have only been for 30 min massages before. I haven’t had a massage since moving except for my about monthly pedicure which sometimes includes the shiatsu chair massage which I am not sure if it actually helps or not, last time it shook me so violently during parts of the rotation that I was giggling because I was bouncing around in the chair. Anyway, first massage in months. With work and wedding planning I am a little tense.
I undressed laid down on the table underneath the blanket – which no one wants to talk about, but it reminds me of my yearly check up. You go in the room, the massage therapist (or doctor) meets you while you are dressed tries to make it not so weird that you are about to strip down and slip under a blanket. Fortunately the blanket at the massage place is much better than the paper thing at the doctor’s office that opens in the front – ok sorry I have gone too far with this analogy, but I thought about this before my massage, probably leading to additional tension.
So I lay down, the lady knocks on the door and says, all ready in there – sound familiar ladies… She comes in, warms her hands by rubbing them together and then uses the lotion fanny pack she wears before starting in on my back. Well first time she touches me I arch my back and almost jump off the table, unlike me to be so jumpy.
We had discussed doing a deep tissue massage which I have also never had, and was a little nervous about because Krista didn’t drink enough water after a deep tissue massage and I think she got really sick. But the lady promised me I would be fine. She stretched my legs a bit to help loosen my lower back. When she was moving around my lower leg I could not relax, I kept trying to anticipate where she was going and moving my leg instead of letting her move it. She kept shaking my foot, saying relax. Finally I laughed and said, I am sorry I lead when I am dancing too. That is when she labeled me with the title of my blog. I understood what she meant in that I prefer to be in control – true. I subsequently worked the rest of the massage to relax.
One tip I learned years ago while at a chiropractor is to direct my attention to my toes. After a car accident in high school I went to a chiropractor a few times. One time he wanted to crack my neck but I sat with every muscle flexed staring him in the eyes when he said wiggle your toes. For a split second I forgot my task at hand, keeping this crazy man from twisting my head violently and I sent all of my thought to my toes, at which point he twisted my head to the right, left and then back before my big toe even made a full frequency of movement.
During my massage I wiggled my toes a lot. I thought of my happy place, which is a sunset I painted as a child, with a mountain landscape, setting sun beaming from all sides, and a river running from the mountains to the bottom of the page and into infinity. That is where I go when I need solstice, when I can’t sleep, or after a nightmare. I used my happy place the other night when I saw huge 6″+ spiders dropping from the ceiling in my sleep. This leads to me gasping for an exterminator and running out of the bedroom – literally. This used to happen every few weeks or so when Elliott and I lived in Deb and Carie’s old apartment on Tierra Verde. I don’t think it happened much in our house on Satellite, and the other night was the first time this nightmare made an appearance in California. Apparently Elliott wasn’t fazed because he waited in bed for me to come back after I came to my senses that it was a dream. The first time I had this nightmare it took a while for him to convince me that the bedroom was safe. Anyway I find it funny admitting that as a adult I have a happy place – a vision which is the same place I envisioned as a child, but I do and I refuse to be embarrassed of it!
I did eventually calm down and even relax a little during my massage. At one point the lady told me something that I had always wanted to hear. You always hear about people having knots in their back, well my back hurts often so I always thought I must have knots but in my few massages I never heard this diagnosis. Funny thing is when I finally heard it I decided the lady was full of crap. Because she said you have a few knots. Then she did her work and at the end she said, I got them the knots are gone. I think that is just a little too scripted, but I thanked her none the less. So who knows if “knots” are true; to me it’s like grey hairs, they seem cool until you get one and then it loses its luster.
Since my massage I have made a resolution to work on relaxing. Elliott has agreed to listen to a meditation cd that I bought a year ago when I realized back then that I needed to relax. We listened to it the other night before bed, the exercise was simple, but worked wonders on clearing my head before bed – I didn’t go to bed with the typical stream of thoughts that I have to write down or email to myself and that I ponder for an hour before finally falling asleep. I think I fell asleep almost instantaneously upon laying down. I am excited to continue practicing meditation. It is something that I have been very interested in for awhile but have never committed to doing. 2008 is my year to make it happen.