I Owe Some People An Apology

There are people I treated early in my career who I owe an apology to.

Not because I didn't care. Not because I wasn't trying. But because I was doing things I genuinely believed were helping them — and I'm not sure they were.

This episode is about the shift. The messy, frustrating, identity-shaking process of going from someone who thought they had it figured out to someone who had to admit they didn't. From the sports guy who believed deep pressure was the only way to make a difference — to a practitioner who had to question everything he was taught, everything he paid for, and everything his professional identity was built on.

If you've ever felt angry at the people asking questions — or stuck in the middle between what you were taught and what the evidence is telling you — this one's for you.

In this episode:

• Why I came out of school convinced I was going to be the "sports guy" — and why that identity cost some of my early patients
• The Facebook moment that made me furious — and what was really underneath that anger
• The patient I still think about who never came back
• The San Diego Pain Summit and the community that finally changed things for me
• The full circle moment — when I became the person making *other* therapists angry
• Why you're not dumb for not knowing this yet — you're just at a particular stage in your career

We're all just at different stages. And that's okay.

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If this episode resonated with you, the best thing you can do is follow the show and leave a review — it makes a real difference.

Transcript

0:00 — I want to tell you something I've never really said out loud on this podcast before.

0:05 — There are people I treated early in my career who I owe an apology to.

0:10 — Not because I didn't care, not because I wasn't trying, but because I was doing things I genuinely believed were helping them, and I'm not sure they were.

0:19 — And in some cases, I'm pretty sure they weren't.

0:22 — This episode is about the shift: that messy, frustrating, identity-shaking process of going from someone who thought they had it all figured out to someone who had to admit they didn't.

0:33 — And why I think that process is one of the most important things any of us can go through in this profession.

0:40 — [Intro Music] Hey there, I'm Jamie Johnston, and you're stepping into a new era of thriving as a massage therapist. We're embracing who you are, pursuing what you love, and confidently shaping your practice. We'll challenge industry norms, spark change, and discuss what truly matters—things like mental health, evidence-based practice, and some topics we've long avoided. Let's create better outcomes for our patients and happier, more fulfilling practices together. Welcome to The New Generation Massage Therapist Podcast. 

1:11 — When I came out of massage therapy school, I had a very clear picture of who I was going to be.

1:16 — I was going to be the sports guy.

1:19 — Heavy pressure, digging into tissues, getting in there and doing the work that other therapists weren't willing to do.

1:26 — I genuinely believed that deep pressure was the only way to make a real difference.

1:30 — That if I wasn't working hard enough, that the patient could feel it, I wasn't doing enough.

1:35 — That was my identity.

1:37 — That was how I understood what good massage therapy looked like. And honestly, I was proud of it.

1:43 — I came out of school having learned everything pretty much verbatim—from teachers, from textbooks, from tests.

1:50 — I trusted all of it completely.

1:52 — I mean, these people knew what they were talking about. They had spent their careers developing this curriculum. Why would they lie to me?

1:59 — Plus, I had just paid $30,000 in tuition. I had done the work. I knew what I knew.

2:06 — Or so I thought.

2:08 — It didn't start with a lightning bolt moment. It started quite simply with Facebook.

2:14 — There were practitioners in certain groups, people having conversations online about techniques, about how we work, and about the evidence behind what we do.

2:23 — And they were questioning things. Things I believed in.

2:26 — Things that were pretty central to how I practiced.

2:29 — And honestly, I was pretty furious.

2:32 — I remember sitting at my computer genuinely angry—not mildly annoyed, angry.

2:38 — Because these people were challenging everything I thought I knew, everything I had been taught, everything I had built my professional identity around.

2:48 — And funny enough, the technique that set me off was myofascial release.

2:53 — Which is also kind of funny because I still use it to this day; I just understand it completely differently now.

2:59 — But at the time, someone questioning myofascial release felt like a personal attack because it was how I started almost every treatment. It was how I introduced touch to the people on my table.

3:11 — And all I could think was, "So you're telling me I can't do that anymore? How am I supposed to help people without that?"

3:17 — And underneath that anger was something harder to admit: What if they were right?

3:24 — What if $30,000 of education had given me a set of beliefs that were, at least in part, not holding up to scrutiny?

3:31 — What if the things I was so confident about weren't as solid as I thought?

3:36 — That's a genuinely destabilizing thing to sit with.

3:40 — And here's what made it worse: some of the people posting these things were my friends.

3:45 — So now I wasn't just dealing with a professional identity crisis; I was dealing with a social one.

3:50 — How do I reject ideas that people I respect are putting forward?

3:54 — How do I question my education without feeling like I've been conned?

3:58 — How do I keep doing the things I thought I was supposed to be doing when the evidence underneath them is starting to look shaky?

4:04 — I felt completely stuck in the middle.

4:07 — And I remember one patient in particular from that time, someone who was dealing with plantar fasciitis.

4:12 — And I was working on their calf with my elbow, really digging in—the way I'd been taught, the way I believed was necessary to make a difference.

4:21 — And I could actually see them wincing on the table.

4:24 — And, not surprisingly, that person never came back to see me.

4:28 — And I didn't know what to do with that at the time.

4:30 — I probably just told myself that they didn't want to do the work, that real treatment was supposed to be uncomfortable, that they weren't committed enough to their own recovery.

4:39 — That's not what was happening.

4:41 — And somewhere underneath all of that professional confidence, I think I kind of knew it.

4:47 — It took me about a year just to start opening up to the idea that something needed to change.

4:52 — And then it took a few more years of courses, reading, and genuinely uncomfortable learning to actually make that change in my practice.

5:00 — The thing that tipped it over for me was going down to the San Diego Pain Summit.

5:04 — I went for the first time not entirely sure what I was walking into.

5:08 — And what I found there wasn't one big talk that changed everything; it was the community.

5:14 — Massage therapists, physiotherapists, chiropractors, mental health professionals, patient advocates—all in the same room.

5:22 — And after the sessions, the speakers didn't disappear. They stayed, they sat with people, they had conversations.

5:29 — They shared what they knew, and they wanted to hear what you knew.

5:32 — And everyone there—everyone—had come from somewhere similar to where I was.

5:38 — They had all been through some version of the same transition.

5:41 — They weren't people who had always known better; they were people who had been where I was, had been willing to sit with the discomfort of being wrong about something, and had come out the other side with a different way and a better way of practicing.

5:54 — That community changed things for me.

5:56 — Not just the science—though the science was quite compelling—but the experience of being around people who understood the profession the way I was starting to understand it, who took the biopsychosocial model seriously, who understood that what was happening in someone's life—their beliefs, their fears, their psychology—that all of it was as clinically relevant as anything in their tissue.

6:19 — I started to see that understanding people was more important than understanding tissues.

6:24 — And I went and apologized to a few of those friends I'd been quietly furious at, but they had no idea I'd had a problem with them, which made it both easier and, honestly, a bit more humbling.

6:34 — And here's the part that I didn't see coming: I started blogging, I started podcasting, I started talking about evidence-based practice, questioning some of what we'd been taught, pointing out where the research wasn't supporting what we were doing in our treatment rooms.

6:49 — And then, I started getting messages. Angry messages.

6:53 — People coming on and sending me emails saying things like, "How dare you question this instructor?"

6:58 — And others saying things like, "Who do you think you are, challenging what we were taught?"

7:03 — And others saying, "You're just going to confuse new graduates."

7:06 — Any of that sound familiar?

7:09 — Well, I had become the person on the other side of those Facebook posts. I had become the one making people angry.

7:15 — And I understood it completely because I had been there. I had been them.

7:20 — I knew exactly what they were feeling because I had felt it.

7:24 — Now, some of them came around eventually, some of them still haven't, and I don't hold that against anyone.

7:29 — Because this process is not comfortable. It's not fast.

7:33 — And it asks you to do something genuinely difficult: to look at something you worked hard to learn, something you paid for, something your professional identity was built on, and be willing to say, "Maybe there's a bit more to this."

7:46 — So if you're stuck in that place right now, if you're the one sitting at the computer feeling angry at the people asking questions, I want you to know something: that anger is normal.

7:56 — And it's almost always a sign that something important is being challenged.

8:00 — And the fact that it's uncomfortable doesn't mean that you're behind; it means you're paying attention.

8:05 — You're not dumb for not knowing this yet. You're not failing.

8:08 — You're just at a particular stage in your career, and every single person who is practicing with an evidence-informed lens today was once where you are now.

8:17 — My practice looks completely different than it did when I came out of school.

8:20 — The deep pressure, the digging in, the belief that working harder on someone's tissue was the same thing as helping them more—I've left all of that behind.

8:29 — And I genuinely believe that the people I work with now get better outcomes because of it.

8:33 — But I also think about the people from the early days, the ones who winced on the table, the ones who didn't come back.

8:39 — And I think—I hope—that wherever they are, they found someone who understood a bit more about what they actually needed.

8:46 — That's the thing that keeps me going: not being right, not having figured it out, but staying curious enough to keep learning, and being honest enough to admit when something needs to change.

8:58 — We're all just at different stages in our careers, and that's okay.

9:01 — That's the episode. It was a bit of a different one—more personal, less clinical—but I think these conversations matter, because the profession doesn't get better if practitioners don't have permission to evolve.

9:12 — If something in this resonated with you, if you're in the middle of your own version of that shift, I'd genuinely love to hear about it.

9:19 — Hit reply on the email, send me a message, find me on Instagram. These conversations are worth having.

9:24 — And if you're finding value in The New Generation Massage Therapist Podcast, the best thing you can do is follow the show and leave a review if you have two minutes. It makes a real difference.

9:33 — Keep moving forward.