4. All About Getting the Most Out of Your Massage - With Kristen Russell

We discuss how to get the most out of your time on the massage table. We address some frequently asked questions, and go over resources I have available to continue learning about receiving and giving massage.

Intro to Partner Massage Course:
https://courses.massagefundamentals.com/

Sakalya Massage Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/sakalyamassage/

Massage Website:
https://www.sakalyamassage.com/

Transcript

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I'm Kristen Russell, and this is The Wholly Empowered Podcast, where we dive into all things holistic healing and open our minds, hearts, and paradigms to new ideas so we can live our most empowered, healthy, joyful lives. Hello. Hello. Welcome to Wholly Empowered. I'm really, really excited about this episode today because we're talking about my specialty. We're talking about massage. This is something I think about a lot. I do a lot. I have experienced a lot and I'm really stoked to talk to you guys. This episode is going to be everything that I want my clients to know about receiving a massage and getting the most benefit when you come in. So we're going to cover a lot of really, really good stuff. This is a very packed episode here we go. First of all, I wanted to, Just talk about my background a little bit and then we'll dive in. So I'm Kristen Russell and I'm a licensed massage therapist. I have been practicing since 2015. I did an apprenticeship. I was always kind of interested in massage for a long time. I ended up getting my bachelor's in something else and I came back to massage and it's been such a good fit. But, At the time that I started, I did an apprenticeship and I didn't know that was even an option. So, it's kind of a cool thing. I think the state of Utah is, which is where I did mine, is the last state or one of the only states that does that anymore. So, It was just, it was great. It's, we can, we can get into all the, you know, pros and cons of massage school versus an apprenticeship, but really enjoyed my apprenticeship. I learned a lot. I learned under Sharon Muir, who was on the board for a long time. She's great and that took a little over a year and Then I took the MBLEX, the exam, and passed, and been practicing ever since. So, that's kind of my, just my background. If you are interested in learning massage, and you ever want information about that, talk to me. I would love, love, love to talk to you. I just think that's fun. Mentoring's kind of fun for me, and I'd love to connect you with the right people and answer any questions you have. So, feel free to send me an email or send me a DM on Instagram or something, but that's a little bit about me and my history, but I want to dive right in to. All the things that are going to benefit you when you're coming in for a massage. So, first thing I want to go over is things you can ask for. I feel like a lot of times clients are so worried about bothering the massage therapist. People will always ask me like, is it okay if I talk to you or if I do this or if I do that? Anyway, so, I just wanted to go over some things you can always Always ask for it when you're getting a massage. So, more or less pressure. Always okay to ask for more or less pressure. And a nice way to put that is, I'd love more pressure if you're able. People are worried about phrasing sometimes, so, as long as it sounds polite, like, you're good. We just wanna know. We just wanna know what you want. massage therapists are so, we spend, our life's work is making sure that you are comfortable and happy in receiving what you are paying us to receive, you know, what you came in for. So communication is like, we love it when you communicate and tell us what you need and want. You can always ask for adjustments to the table. So that includes like bolstering. So the pillows that we put under your knees or under your ankles, you can always ask for adjustments there if you need to take one away or add more the face cradle. So where would you put your face when you're face down? You can always ask for that to be adjusted. Often, I feel like necks get cranked backward a little bit. So tilting it forward can be a more comfortable position sometimes, but you don't know what you don't know. Like If, if you're, sometimes it feels uncomfortable, but you don't even realize it's uncomfortable, or that it could be better. So, just something to be aware of. How does your neck feel when you're in the face cradle? It should just feel like a nice straight line, and just really comfy. So, you can always ask for help with that, and heat on the table. The temperature. If you're too hot or you're too cold, let us know. I have a table warmer on my table. We can always add more blankets. You can always turn the fan on. We just want to make sure that you're comfy. And you can always ask for a quiet massage with no talking. That's totally acceptable. If you need water, if you need tissues, you know, when you're on the table, you can't reach these things. So, we're happy to just take a pause, grab something for you if you need it. Totally fine. Extra bolstering. So, for example, if, this is a little tip for you, if you have low back pain when you're laying face down, ask for a bolster under your hips. And we can just give you a little pillow, you can put it right under your hips, and that often will relieve that low back pain. So if you feel uncomfortable or like you need more support. Support. Let us know, cause we usually have bolsters or pillows lying around. And we can use those to prop you or help you feel more comfortable. Whatever it is, whether it's like under your neck or. You need a little more. Support here or there just depending on positions you're in or different bodies, we all just need different things. Something else that you can ask for is. If your phone is going off or you forgot to turn off the ringer, you can ask me to. Grab it for you, if you want. I feel like people get really like, Agitated when their phone starts going off. And I think they're worried. It's bothering me sometimes. But it's really not bothering me. I think it's. Probably agitating you more than it's ever going to bother me. So I am happy to grab your phone for ya or put it on silent or whatever you need me to do. I might have slightly greasy fingers. I can wipe my hands off. Do my best, not to. Get grease on your phone and to get coconut oil on your phone. But happy to do that. That's. Not a big deal. so those are just some. Some things that feel free, feel free to ask. This is your massage. We're here to take care of you. So, all right, I'm going to kind of get into the meat of this and then I'll go over some questions. Anytime I do an episode on massage, we'll probably go over frequently asked questions. I found over the years, over my nine years of doing this, that I get asked the same questions a lot. And on my Instagram the other day, I asked the followers on there, what are some questions you're too embarrassed to ask your massage therapist? I got a lot of different responses. So I'm going to go over a couple of those that are applicable to what we're talking about. So we'll go over questions, but this, this is what I, This is what I really want you guys to know. So, when you come in for a massage, when you're on the table, receiving, you just want to be floppy. for the most part, just let yourself be dead weight. A lot of the time, I think we have, and I do this too, when I get a massage, where I don't even realize I'm helping my massage therapist, but we like, want to help them when they're lifting our arm, or they're doing something, or they're like, moving our body around, or moving our neck. And, it's actually it's so much easier to work on someone who's just dead weight. The only exception to that, I would say, is the legs. Like, I don't mind if someone is not dead weight when I'm draping their legs. So when I take the sheet and I kind of tuck it underneath the leg, don't mind not, I really, you don't need to like do anything other than just not be dead weight, but also it's fine if you are, I'm just saying that's the only exception where I'm like, I'll allow it I know, anyway, so just be floppy and I want to talk about, so I want to talk about breath, you guys. So your breathing is so helpful. It's really key, honestly, to getting the most out of your massage. It's so helpful. So when you're on the table and I'm working on you, sometimes When we're getting a massage, we find ourselves having a hard time really relaxing and getting the most out of what we're being given. So if you're someone who just has a hard time really just relaxing, just receiving when you're on the table. If you're feeling tense, if you've got a lot on your mind, if maybe some people have a little trauma and it's just hard to let go. We all struggle with this a little bit. Sometimes I have to consciously let go. So taking slow, deep breaths. And a good rule of thumb is inhale through your nose. If you can, I know face down, that's hard. Sometimes inhale through your nose, into your abdomen. And then when you exhale through your mouth, make it twice as long as your inhale. That activates your vagus nerve, and your vagus nerve is responsible for fight or flight, or rest and digest. So when you do that kind of an inhale exhale, it puts you into parasympathetic, a parasympathetic state, and activates your rest and digest. Gets you out of fight or flight. So, If you just take these really slow, deep breaths while I'm working on you, it will help your body naturally calm down. It will also get oxygen into all of the muscles when we breathe. it gets more oxygen into our blood, therefore gets it into our muscle tissue, which is really good for your muscles. And, so as far as breath goes, as, as I'm working on you you can really feel the benefit of these deep breaths when I'm working around your lungs or in between your shoulder blades or on your neck, these areas that are a little closer to your lungs. And it feels really good. Like you can really breathe through, especially when I am, we're working through kind of a good hurt, you know, when it's just like getting through a, a tighter area and it's a little bit un uncomfy or. kind of have that good hurt feeling going on. Breathing through that is super, super helpful. And you feel it a lot when it's in those areas I just mentioned that are kind of upper body. And it's, it's very, it can be very relieving, but even if I'm working on your calf or your, you know, whatever, your hand or something, if it's feeling like a good hurt, like we're really getting in there and it's tight, Do some deep breathing. Like it's, it helps throughout the whole massage. So, just keep that in mind if you're someone who holds your breath a lot or gets kind of tense, focus on your breathing and also kind of along that line, visualization, oh man, our minds are so powerful and what we tell our bodies or what we tell ourselves, our body will manifest it. It's. crazy. So as you're getting a massage, especially if you find it hard to detach from your day or your stresses, telling your body it's safe is one thing you can do. Sometimes our body's trying to protect us and it holds onto things and it, it thinks it has to be in this like heightened state to keep us safe. And. Honestly the threat is gone, whatever it was, it's gone. In this moment, you're getting your massage, you're safe. So sometimes I like to just say, oh like, thank my body, be like, okay, thank you for taking such good care of me, you can let go now it's safe to let go. Sometimes I'll say that if I notice I'm protecting a lot when I'm getting a massage and I'm resisting what the massage therapist is doing. So, Telling, man, the words we use are so important. Your body really, really responds. So be mindful of that and just thinking calming thoughts and just kind of like consciously saying, okay, we're, we're choosing into letting go now. But visualizing is super powerful as well. If you, you can kind of do this with your breath. If you can visualize breathing in. Whatever you need, positivity, light, whatever it is, peace and then breathing out on your exhale, the stresses, the things that have been haunting you all day or whatever, you know, just visualizing that or visualizing just a relaxing scene or like nature. Anything that puts you at ease, a safe place somewhere that like, I grew up going to the Oregon coast and that's like,, if I imagine I'm on the Oregon coast, it's like, Oh, my body goes, okay, we can, we're safe. We can let go. This is wonderful. So putting scenes in your head like that are, it's really, really helpful to help you get the most out of that massage. So. Moving on to questions frequently asked questions. I had someone write, am I supposed to communicate with you while I'm getting the massage? How can I tell you what I like? Don't like yes, please, please, please communicate with us when we're trying to give you a massage. It's so helpful. Feedback is so helpful. Oh man. Just, and I want to like talk about communication as well as we're answering this question because it's so important and it's so helpful. Again, your massage therapist just wants you to get everything out of it that you can possibly get. When you're able to communicate with us and we can communicate with you, especially, and sometimes people come in and they just want to relax and just space out and that's what they need. And that's totally fine. And if you come to me, you know, we have like a relaxation massage option and a fix it massage option. So basically if you come to, me with an issue that you specifically want worked out. That's when communication is crucial. If you just want to relax, I'll check in with you a little bit and, make sure you're comfy and we're doing good. But if you really, if you want to get the most out of fixing a specific issue, and we don't always have to talk a ton, but sometimes it's really, really helpful. So, Definitely, please tell us if the pressure's too much, if it's too little, if something's hurting, please tell us if it's hurting or if it's uncomfortable or if you're triggered by something. That's the last thing we want to do is do something that makes you feel unsafe or uncomfortable. So that kind of defeats the purpose of a massage. You want to feel safe and comfortable. So, giving feedback like I said, as long as, I think as long as it's just polite, which isn't hard to do, we're just so, we're just happy to, happy to have some feedback about how you're feeling. We want to know how your body is feeling, What you're experiencing during the massage. And I don't want to put pressure on anyone to talk a bunch during their massage. But if you have thoughts about, well that, that wasn't quite right. Or that didn't feel like the right approach. Ideally a massage is this really beautiful, synergistic, trusting your own body, trusting your massage therapist. And we're working as a team where I can do the therapy. You can let me know how that's working for you and I can adjust and we can just make it something that's really, really beautiful, honestly, really healing and beautiful. so I had a client last night where we just had the best flowy communicative massage and she, I feel like she got so much out of that and walked away so satisfied and feeling so much better. And we used a really gentle technique that I don't always use on everybody because you have to kind of be in tune with your body to feel that it's working and you have to be kind of in a lot of pain to know like, Oh yeah, that worked I could feel that adjustment, you know, Adjustment quote unquote, but Anyway, that's so ideal and it was so great to work with her and just she's Spent a lot of time getting to know her body and how everything's feeling. And so that helps, that just comes with time and experience getting to know gosh, like even where your boundaries are with that didn't feel right, or that didn't, that was too much or, you know, it, it takes time. So the first time you come in, I feel like I ask people how's everything feeling? They're like great. I don't know. And rightly so, you know, it's, it's hard to know how things are supposed to feel on your first, your first session. But she's taken a lot of time to really get to know her body and, and it's, it's so helpful for me to get that feedback from her. And then I'm able to, Give her what she needs. So that communication is the best. It's so great. So, I really try to create an environment where you feel safe talking to me. And you also don't feel talked at. I try to let the client lead the conversation. So, hopefully you're getting that, hopefully that if you're a client of mine, that's how you feel but. I just always want it to be clear that it's, it's safe to talk during your massage and, and voice how you're feeling or what you, your needs are. I wanted to touch on knowing if it's too much or not. And this is an interesting, it's an interesting balance when you're giving a massage and receiving knowing what's too much, what's not enough. I try to err on the side of going gentle because when you're getting a massage, we're trying to teach your nervous system that it's safe to calm down. So even if we do really deep, structural work where it's supposed to be a little painful, I want to ease in and start out where it feels safe for your nervous system to let go., We're trying to gain trust there. So I try to err on the side in general of just doing a little bit more gentle work. And it's such a intuitive, like with each person, it's different with each, each person has different, there's different body types, there's different pain tolerance, there's different just preferences. So it's just getting to know each of those. And So, just know, it should never hurt, like massage should never hurt unless we are doing really deep structural work and we've talked about it, and you're down. If I am working on you and you feel Like, it's too painful, or it's too much, let me know so I can adjust because we never want, never want it to be painful. You don't want to be tightening up because it's so deep. So if it ever feels like your body's reacting, try to breathe through it, but if you can't breathe through it, if it's too, way too much, just tell me, I'll back off. And if you're not sure and you want to try to breathe through it, try that. But if you're still just kind of tensing up or holding your breath or something and it's too, it's just too much, let me know. Because when you get so much pressure that you are tensing, that kind of defeats the purpose. Except in certain situations, but for most people, that kind of defeats the purpose. And it's hard for me to tell, because sometimes I can tell if you're tensing up. But some people have really high pain tolerance, and it's really painful. But they're like,, seem like they're fine. And so it just shouldn't, in my opinion, it just shouldn't be painful. 99 percent of the time. So Oh, I wanted to touch on something else really quick and then we'll wrap up. So somebody asked me as well, they were like underwear or not. And then another person asked what if, what if I don't want to be naked? What if I'm embarrassed or something? Again, the whole point is that you're comfortable. So, This is my opinion as far as massage goes. the type of massage I give, I'm using oil on your skin. So the more skin you have available, the better. I think the better, especially if we're working on your hips or low back or anywhere from, you know, the leg, upper leg to the low back. It's better to not wear underwear, like just to be completely undressed under the sheet. You're always covered, right? But, if you're uncomfortable, You're not going to be able to relax, you know? So totally fine. And a lot of my clients wear underwear and it's totally fine. Like I don't even, you don't even think about it. So sometimes it feels like a big deal, especially when you're going in for the first time or the first few times, like, Oh, are they going to think that's weird or, is this not okay or is being naked, you know, not okay. I don't know. So. Most of my clients aren't, they're just completely undressed under the sheet. Some of them are not, and that's great. Like, totally up to you. So I feel like you do get a slightly, slightly more out of your massage if you have more skin available. But, you got to make that judgment for yourself if you're not gonna be able to relax. Totally wear something and you can bring whatever you need to your massage. So, a lot of my clients they'll bring compression shorts or, you know, whatever, whatever they need. So, that's just another area where there's no black or white answer exactly. So it just depends on you and what you're comfortable with. And I just have to say, if you are self-conscious about your body. know, that your massage therapist has seen every scar, every dimple. Everybody type. We've seen it all as far as. Perceived imperfections or just differences in bodies. And they're not really a big deal. We're not focused on that when we're massaging you. We're not really looking at it or. Caring. About how anybody looks. So we're more focused on the muscles and. Strategizing and how things are working together and how you're feeling. And. It's not even really a thought. So. So, you know that you're not shocking. You're not an inconvenience and we've worked on all kinds of body types. And. It's just not a big deal. And. Like you're. Okay. So just to have to throw that out there. Okay. And I, as far as the receiving a massage and getting more experience with touch, like it comes, it comes with time. The more massages you get, the more You just get better at receiving, which is kind of cool. But also I have a course that I created and it's called intro to partner massage. And my goal with creating this course was to give people who don't have a license in massage or any training the basics around how to give a really quality intuitive massage where you're tuned in to the person you're working with And teaches you how to give and how to receive because those are obviously two different skills that you have to hone In order to Give a really good massage and Again, the more you practice that, like, the more you receive, the better you're going to be at giving. So I wanted to create something where people can learn from home. You don't have to have a massage table. It's fully clothed. It's partner massage for a reason. I didn't make it couples because I just wanted it to be very inclusive of if your grandma has a problem and you want to help her like this, the course to get, or if you have a roommate or, you know, it doesn't have to be like a romantic partner or something. It's very it's very accessible. We just use a chair and pillows and a mattress on the floor, whatever you have, you can totally do this if you have a massage table, but you won't see a massage table in its course. It's just geared toward people who just want to learn and they have some pillows at home and a couch or, you know, something. So I just feel really passionately that Everyone should be able to take care of their body and the bodies of those around them. You know, like we should all be able to take care of ourselves. And when I went to massage school, I had so many eyeopening moments where I was like, Oh, we all have a body. We all have to take care of it. And there's so much that most of us don't think about or aren't aware of, or it just wasn't part of our education. And. It's so important just knowing a few basic things can really help you feel empowered about taking care of yourself and helping the people that you love. So, I just go over a lot of basics, it's basically kind of a full body massage, just through the clothes. I think it's pretty uh, user friendly. I have anatomy included in it, I really want to explain things well, but I go in deeper into the receiving and the giving and everything and I just think it's a great tool if you're into that. So, that's something that I'll put, I'll put a link, it's the website's courses. massagefundamentals. com, I'll put a link to that and maybe my Instagram, if you're wanting to follow me there, we'll put a link for that. I give tips on there and if somebody cancels, I'll put it on there. So we'll probably just end it there, but hopefully this was helpful for you and next time you come in for a massage, you'll be feeling super ready and ready to relax and get the most out of it. So anyway. Thanks so much, and we'll talk to you next time. Thank you so much for listening. If you are enjoying wholly empowered, share it with that friend or on your socials, you can also hit the follow button. If you want to keep up with the latest episodes until next time, stay empowered.