In our Santa Fe course we had a man who did not like to have his feet touched. He had quite a bit of stored trauma in his feet. The courses we taught in Santa Fe were SMRT: Thigh & Knee and SMRT: Lower Leg & Foot. He took both.
We use the foot quite a bit for positioning of the thigh and lower leg, so touching the feet is something we do continuously in this 3 days of courses. On the third day, he became very heightened, refused to lay back on the table, and wanted to show his partner how to touch his feet. This did not work. Eventually, I had my TA lay down on the table so his partner could practice.
My intention was to have them both work on her, but this added to his agitation and he left the class, coming back about an hour later. That afternoon we had a plan. I did the demonstration for the feet, we had a tandem table, my TA walked around and taught and I worked with him directly. He laid back on the table, I touched his feet, he jumped periodically, he cried, and finally he was calm.
He thanked me and told me that he had been kicked out of several classes and schools because he could not get beyond the touching of his feet. Upon hearing this at dinner that night, my TA asked, “So he just goes around taking classes on the feet hoping to find someone like you to eventually fix him.” I said, “yes, probably, we are all attracted to what will alleviate our own pain.”
I have been thinking about this for several days, and it is so true. How many times have I had students come to courses on the very part of the body that they hold the most trauma in. How many times have I myself been in pain and suddenly every client wants that area of the body worked on. Be it physical or emotional pain we somehow find ourselves face to face with it, hoping that by some miracle it will be broken loose or opened up or removed entirely or simply understood at last. The work we do with SMRT can be very slow and small, but the effects are enormously powerful. https://efullcircle.com/
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