A few months ago, I wrote a blog defending the merits of working for a chain like Massage Envy. I got quite a few positive comments–more than I thought I would, actually–and one remarkably negative one. This last comment opined that nothing “therapeutic” could possibly happen in a 50 minute massage, and that to say so would be taking advantage of the poor, dumb therapists and clients who believe that. Well, lady, I don’t know who died and made you Goddess of Massage, but let me tell you this: I’ve got better things to do than sitting around with my thumb up my butt, going through the motions, and if I didn’t believe what I do for a living made a tangible difference in clients’ lives, I would have hung up my holster and gone home a long time ago. But the following I have, and the progress I’ve seen, keeps the fire burning under me.

As I’ve shared before, I have two jobs: one is at Massage Envy, the other is a private business I work at with a friend of mine. While I prefer the later, I appreciate the former (for reasons I stated in the previous blog.) Moreover, I don’t find that work to be absent of any therapeutic benefit, and I will explain why. First, all definitions of therapeutic include basically the following words: “of or relating to the treatment of disease or disorder by remedial agents or methods” and “providing or assisting in a cure.” And no matter where I do it–or whether it is accomplished in 50 or 60 minute sessions–I believe my massage always treats disease or disorder and assists in a cure.

Yes, I prefer to work in longer sessions. But does that mean I can’t accomplished anything in a shorter one? No. Do people usually have the time and money for the 3-4 hour sessions our hands tell us they need? Can we undo the affects of years of stress and over-work in an hour? No. That’s why people come back and follow treatment programs of multiple sessions.

Or, if for any reason, a client cannot afford an $85 session, does that mean the client does not deserve massage and should not seek touch through a $40 session? Uh, no, I hope not, because all our belief in touch would seem somewhat hypocritical and useless at that point. Do I have the right to say what is therapeutic for any individual person? No. I personally don’t get much out of light touch, but there are clients who seem to “take up their beds and walk” after getting little more than petting. Does that mean these super-sensitives are not experiencing healing? That the absence of pain and depression is only in their heads? Yes and no, because a lot of pain and dysfunction are LITERALLY IN OUR HEADS, meaning they derive from nerves and the brain’s processing of information.

I will say it again: there are good therapists, mediocre therapists, and poor therapists. I’ve seen poor ones making a lot of money per session, and good ones making little. And I’ve seen it the other way around. But when it comes to therapeutic benefit, even chair massages can be helpful, and that is really saying something in my opinion. So if you’re out there–anywhere–will powerful skill and pointed intention, you are working in some aspect in therapeutic massage. Don’t worry too much about the Goddess of Massage: I hear it’s a self-appointed position.

When I first came to work with my friend Sarah, she asked me if I had any thoughts on further decorating her already established office. I looked around and said, “I think we need some life energy in here. Something green or living or growing.” And so, we went off to the nursery for plants and to the pet store for fish.

When I was in massage school, I heard some pretty bad things about Massage Envy. Mostly, the talk involved a lot of insinuation about slave labor, low wages, and cookie-cutter massages. And yet, that’s the first place I went when I graduated and applied for a job. Why? Because Seattle is knee-deep in massage therapists, and I figured if I really wanted to learn to help people and become competitive, then I needed practice. And lots of it. Which is exactly what I got at Seattle’s Northgate Massage Envy, and I have never regretted it. At the end of my first year when I was ready to go out and try massage in other venues, I had around an 80% fill-rate and around a 70% request rate. I had wonderful clients, and a strong team of peers who specialized in many, many forms of massage. I had an average tip rate of $15 an hour, bringing my wage up to $30-31 per hour, and I also had full medical insurance and some awesome discounted continuing education hours in hot stone and pregnancy massage. All in all, not a bad deal for a first massage job.

Every week at the chiropractic clinic where I work, we have a clinic-wide meeting. And at one of these recent meetings, an interesting topic came up: What kind of plan did we have for snow days? Would the LMPs be willing to come in? Which ones? Would it be worth it even if many of the clients didn’t show up? And as the group discussed the issue up one side and down the other, I sat and listened and thought to myself that if irony were an alternative universe, I was right smack dab in the middle of it.

Do you have any idea of how many clients I treat for whiplash every week? How many people out there are on PIP claims because some genius out there rear-ended them while texting? Well, if you’re reading this, you’re probably an LMP, and thus you know these facts intimately. And as a related question, do you remember Christmas week two years ago when it snowed bucket- loads in Seattle, and the city government failed to do just about anything to clear the damn roads, and the whole area was a death-trap because ice ruts combined with snow-stupid drivers does not a fairy tale ending make? I remember it well, and shudder every time I do (I lived near and worked at Northgate Mall, an icy holiday hell).

And yet, I don’t know. Ironic it may be, but if my job was in jeopardy, would I risk my neck (or a lifetime of neck issues) for a $25 massage? Two of them? Sometimes I think we have enough irony in our work. Many of us are gifted healers, yet we ourselves do not get the help we need. Mostly self-employed or workers in small businesses we often do not have health benefits, unless we have them through a spouse or purchase a major medical policy that is virtually useless unless we are lying at death’s door. We care so much for clients that we are too exhausted to do regular trades on each other. Or we care so much for clients that all we want to do is get out and get home and clear our energy instead of staying and doing trades. Those of us who work for others rarely get to sit down and eat calmly for even 15 minutes between talking about after-care and flipping rooms.

And the list goes on and on. We are healers, and yet as creative and balanced as we work to be, help others work to be, it seems that our own healing always falls last. I don’t know the answer to the problem–finances, employers, and the economy dictate choices we don’t always want to make–but I know it’s wrong. We preach what we preach for a good reason. Isn’t the practice part of the equation supposed to be a virtue? Because if it isn’t, I’d really like someone out there to provide me with some of those padded bar thingys that hold serious drivers in place… and a big ole truck, preferably with a winch.