I am having my ortho massage once a month now.
Yesterday pm. I knew I am seriously armored up: in the armor suit. I describe what put me there. My ortho massage guy stops. I describe my reaction. Armor snaps in place, hard, and act immediately, but in a very very mild way. That is, the armor is mostly to hide how I am feeling. Frozen inside. And inside that, deep hurt.
OrthoM says, "Wow. My first response was is the other person alive? The person did that in the den of the lioness?"
Which makes me laugh.
BUT....mostly the armor suit is not that bad. Yes, I snapped it on, even though I tried not to. An intense instant muscular reaction to armor and hide my emotional response. I learned this as a small child because the adults were so frightening and I was so afraid that they would abandon me AGAIN. They didn't physically but addiction means that people are emotionally checked out. The addict doesn't make sense when they are drunk or high and the enabler lies, a scintillating act to entertain and cover up. Both are confusing as hell to a child who lives in this.
The armor clicks off fairly quickly. OrthoM says, "You need to kick more." I laugh again. "I've been doing kick dancing." "Kick dancing? I haven't heard of that." "That's cuz I made it up." I danced in the kitchen yesterday and did kicks and punches as part of it. I plan to move my heavy bag into the house but I ain't done it yet. "Oh. I see."
The armor clicks off until my neck. The hyoid muscles and muscles around the voice box. "Wow," says OrthoM, "Your screamers are off the scale tight." Holy shit, yes. "You need to scream more too." "Well, I certainly wanted to. I'll add that to the kick dancing." One set of throat muscles is so tight that holding them tighter hurt to where I nearly rise off the table. "OWWW!"
We talk about the intensity of emotional response. I am very aware of mine. I am trying to learn not to put that response into my muscles, not to armor up, to let the energy go. So this was actually better. "Today felt like deeper stuff was unlocked." "Yes," says OrthoM, "Even though you armored, it was lightly so the surface stuff let go fast and it did go deeper." "Ha," I say, "I am learning." Like a god damned snail, but patience....
"Why do the buddhist senseis laugh?" I ask. "How do they deal with the energy?"
"I think of them as being so bright that the energy doesn't even penetrate."
"Hmmm." I think. "What about dark?"
"Ok, both."
"I think about it as the energy goes through and tickles. And they laugh with joy because the intense student, the angry student, the wanting student has the energy. They just have to learn how to connect with the Beloved, with the universe. They want so badly to know how from the sensei, but they each have to figure it out and make their own connection. It is in them, not in the teacher."
"Interesting."
"At least I am making progress in armoring less when I feel intense emotion." I have patients with chronic pain who don't feel the emotion at all -- it goes straight to muscle. Increased pain. Imagine releasing that pain. Can't all at once. Slow, slow, slow....