My First SER

While I was attending UCMT one of the first things they taught was SER's aka Somato Emotional Release OR in simple terms its an emotional trigger from receiving a massage on your muscles or knots that causes a person to have a reaction of laughing or crying. I had that today. I finally went and received a massage from a therapist that I work with, I massaged him first for 90 min & then it was my turn. Everything was going great, the massage felt good, he had great pressure & technique. I felt relaxed but also had some Trigger Points aka knots all over my body, on my neck, back, arms. Yeah, I'm a bit messed up. Anyways, the therapist was working on my back & doing some awesome massage strokes up my back & all of a sudden he hit a knot, which obviously hurt in a painful & good way but it was also an emotional trigger. I just started crying. A flood of emotion just filled my heart & head which I was trying so hard for the past few weeks to ignore & not let it affect me. The therapist was really nice & let me have a moment to compose myself.

I've always tried to help my family during struggling times, especially when there are disputes within my family. I've been known as the peacemaker of my siblings, so when a 'fall out' occurred recently regarding money & family. I tried to give my opinion on the matter, oh boy! was it thrown back in my face, so I've kept my mouth shut & minded my own business.

I don't like DRAMA, QUARRELS, ARGUMENTS, BICKERING, SQUABBLES, ETC. I've heard it almost all my life growing up between my parents & other family members. My siblings & i have always been pretty close. It helps that we are close in age & have had to go through 'growing up' faster than other people because of my parents divorce. I've learned the hard way that shutting down & giving the silent treatment to try & resolve a problem is a HUGE "no-no." Because in the end, NOTHING gets resolved. Just more contention, grudges, and possibly even getting that previous problem getting thrown back in the face & causing even a bigger blowout.

That has happened to me, one particular incident was while I was serving my mission. I was constantly around my mission companion, like 24/7 & we're never out of site from each other (except to use the bathroom). Lets just say that certain things were annoying the both of us that we were doing to each other but neither of us talked about it. We both assumed that the other would talk about it. But you know what assuming does right? Makes an @$$ out of you & me. so DON'T ASSUME! Anyways the contention just grew & grew until we just exploded at each other. I couldn't give her the silent treatment or run away from the problem, that wasn't going to resolve anything. I had to face the problem with my mission companion & talk about it. Since then i just try to communicate how I feel as soon as a problem happens & i try not to assume but try to get the facts straight.

Anyways, this family dispute was really affecting my body in a way that I never understood until now. I could try to hide my feelings, thoughts, opinions & try hold them in, but my body will let me know that its still there. Oh its crazy how the human body can do that! The therapist told me that the only way that the knot will go away is if i just talk about it, which I did with my mom & sister last night & cried for 10 min. I feel completely sore & bruised but I feel a lot better. SER's are not very common with people when they receive massages. I haven't had a client have one yet & like I said this was my first one & I've received LOTS of massaged the last 2 years.