Tag Archives: MaryAnn Reynolds

Pay what you wish: how it works

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I’ve been offering pay-what-you-wish massage and bodywork off and on since 2011 for modalities I was getting certified in. This summer of 2014, I offered pay-what-you-wish for all my services at The Well during July and August.

It worked out well. I have had more people coming in to be worked on, new people (often via word of mouth) are coming in, and I am making ends meet, thanks to the generosity of my clients. It’s satisfying.

I am going to continue to offer it indefinitely. I like this way of working. It’s part of the gift economy. (If you’d like to learn more about it, read Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein, visit the website http://sacred-economics.com/, or watch the video below.)

The way I see it, bodywork and healing are what I do, and I’d like to stay busy doing it. I encourage you, if you’d like to receive regular or even occasional bodywork that you can afford to move your life to a higher level of well-being, to connect with me so we can talk about how we can work together, or just make an appointment.

Sometimes people are uncomfortable with this unorthodox concept of pay-what-you-wish, so here’s some thinking behind it, and I hope it will help you feel more comfortable deciding how much to pay for my services.

First of all, by offering pay-what-you-wish massage, it is not my intent to offer “cheap massage”. I work hard to improve my skills. I seek a lot of training, taking classes and workshops, reading, watching videos, and practicing with/on other massage therapists — way, way beyond what Texas law requires to maintain a license. Who knows? At some point in the future, I may be only offering some elite modality and charging top dollar. I’m not there now. I’m having a good time practicing and improving my skills.

Secondly, I want my practice to be full and thriving. If I hold out for top dollar, I will not be working as much. Since I learn so much from doing, making massage affordable gets people on my table more often, and the more I work, the better I get.

Thirdly, making a lot of money is not my top priority. I like money for what it can do for me, and my expenses and obligations are modest. I’m sharing this here because some readers may not be aware that there are real, regular people whose lives and decisions are not driven by the need to make as much money as possible by working at a job that is stressful. I too have had a mortgage, a child at home, a lot of debt, and stressful jobs. Not any more. My work now is driven by my desire to be of service and to take excellent care of myself while doing so.

Fourthly, in the so-called olden days, healers of all kinds – herbalists, hands-on healers, shamans – received support from their communities in many forms in exchange for their services. Entire villages could exist without money being exchanged because people traded and bartered for goods and services, and everyone did what they could to help the whole village thrive. If someone was poor and needed healing, the healers didn’t turn them away. If they could only pay with food or labor or kind deeds that benefited others in the community, that was acceptable.

Importantly, there would always be an exchange (because everyone has something to offer, and it’s crucial to recognize that), and if times were hard for the community, times were hard for the healers too.

Now we live in bigger communities in a society that uses money for most of its trade, but the good life is still about being connected and reciprocity.

Fifthly, if it’s not sustainable, it ends. I’ll change the way I do business or find another livelihood. This is what I wish to offer now, and so far I feel great about every single one of my pay-what-you-wish sessions and what I was offered in payment.

Here are some guidelines about how much to pay:

  • If you can afford full price, I gratefully accept. My full-price rate is $75 for an hour. For ninety minutes, full price is $105. (With the customary 20% gratuities, those amounts rise to $90 and $129 if you can afford it. Another great thing about pay-what-you-wish is that tipping is not accepted. Oh, I guess you could give me a tip about a good movie or restaurant, if you wish!)
  • If you are totally flush with money, and you totally loved your session, you can pay  more if you like!
  • If these are beyond your means at this time, here’s something to consider. As of late August 2014, two major “discount” massage chains in Austin offer a 50-60 minute massage for $44-60. Adding the gratuity expected at these establishments puts these massages in the range of $54-70. Scale up or down for 90 or 30 minute sessions. If these prices are what you can afford, please consider booking an appointment with me.
  • Here’s how I differ from a chain: I’m interested in getting to know your body, your tension patterns, your habitual postures, your tender points, so I can deliver relief and healing, so I take good notes and refer to them before your next visit. I want to work with you to reduce your overall stress and pain levels over time. I can advise you on how to prevent/relieve tension from working at a desk job. I can offer to teach you stretches, exercises, and self-care techniques you can do to enhance your quality of life. I can refer you to other good alternative health care practitioners and trainers. I give you the full time you pay for, if you are not running late. I offer better music, nature sounds, or silence if you prefer. I offer a variety of essential oil aromatherapy choices if you want it. I keep arnica on hand for your bruises and muscle pain. I’m more personal, less corporate.
  • If this is still beyond your means and you need bodywork, talk to me. I know incomes can fluctuate. Maybe you’re pursuing work you love, but the income isn’t there yet. Maybe you’re just not driven to earn a lot. Maybe you’ve had some misfortune. Maybe you feel stuck in a low-paying job. Maybe you’ve had some unexpectedly high expenses. You may even be stressed out about your situation, imagine that. I want to help you out, get you back on your feet, relieve your stress, change your energy for the better. Just ask what’s acceptable.
  • I am willing to trade or barter for services I need. Electrical work? Sign painting? Car detailing? Housekeeping? Gardening? Hauling? Delicious meals? Ask.
  • Also, if you would like to offer me a delightful non-monetary token of your esteem (some green or herbal tea, flowers or plants, a nice bottle of red wine, art, music, poetry, books, tickets, pickings from your garden, bone broth or other Paleo/WAPF diet food), please, just go right ahead and enchant me!

Announcing a new massage modality: Craniosacral therapy for jaw problems

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Many people have problems with their temporomandibular joints (TMJ), such as:

  • pain in the jaw, neck, ear, and/or head
  • jaw tightness or stuckness
  • limited ability to open the mouth
  • clicking or popping noises or a grating feeling when opening and/or closing the jaw

TMJ issues are often accompanied by behaviors of clenching the jaw or grinding the teeth, sometimes in one’s sleep. Eating and even talking may become difficult. There isn’t a clear cause, although stress or injury probably bear some responsibility. Continue reading →

Incorporating NLP into bodywork sessions: two stories

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I want to share a couple of stories about how I’ve used my NLP training (practitioner, master practitioner, advanced techniques) to help my bodywork clients with issues in their lives.

One client, a creative musician and jewelry maker who comes in for Ashiatsu and occasionally Swedish, mentioned that she had been plagued by an inner voice that sounded just like the voice of her father, a critical man who had belittled her up until his death. She felt depressed and stuck, unable to move forward with her creative projects. His voice still haunted her long after his death. (What a sad legacy to leave.) Continue reading →

Beautiful movements: murmuration, Northern lights, primary respiration

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When birds move like this, it’s called a murmuration, and it’s a wonder of nature.

Love this beautiful video of the Northern lights.

In craniosacral biodynamics sessions, we are in touch with movements like these within and around the human body — yours and mine. Called primary respiration, the tide, or the breath of life, these movements of the fluid and energy body maintaining and healing itself is called the inherent treatment plan or the inherent healing process.

It’s your body healing itself, and it arises from stillness and silence.

Experiencing this in your body is a mysterious, beautiful miracle of nature. I’m deeply grateful to get to do what I do. 

How to drink water with lemon and preserve your tooth enamel

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Update, July 2021: If you are interested in having a healthy mouth, you may want to read this: Swishing with salt water reduces gum disease. I also want to mention the toothpaste I now use that strengthens tooth enamel, Boka Natural Toothpaste.

I recently became aware that one of my healthy habits was having a deleterious effect on my teeth, so I did some online research and am posting this to help others make healthier choices.

Benefits of drinking water with lemon

Drinking water with fresh lemon juice squeezed into it is touted as a very beneficial health practice. I googled “water with lemon” and found these top links (and many more):

Screen Shot 2016-06-26 at 10.53.21 AMIn short, water with lemon aids digestion, provides nutrients (Vitamin C, citric acid, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, and pectin), boosts your immune system, strengthens liver functions, dissolves gallstones, provides antioxidants that nourish the skin, reduces inflammation, reduces hunger cravings, freshens breath, flushes toxins by increasing urination, reduces mucus, maintains a healthy alkaline pH once metabolized, is anti-bacterial to pathogens, reduces joint pain, and more. Continue reading →

An invitation: What a biodynamic craniosacral session is like

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This post is about biodynamic craniosacral therapy (BCST): what a session might be like. I’ve been seriously immersed in studying, training, and practicing this since early 2013— and I’m still learning.

Practicing it brings me much joy. It was a sudden passion: I learned of it and three days later, I was in a four-day training.

I imagine growing old doing this. I love that it’s a form of bodywork I’ll be able to do into my 80s, if God is willing.

Here’s how a session goes: You set up an appointment with me and come to my downtown office (and outcalls may be possible – contact to inquire). We greet each other in the waiting room, and I show you to my studio.

I like to know a little about what’s going on in your life, and I may take a few notes. I explain that I will gently put my hands on your body while you lie on your back. You remain clothed for your session (minus shoes, belt, and anything constricting).  You can choose to lie under the covers and to have the table warmer on, as you wish. I offer bolsters or pillows to help you feel comfortable.

Unless silence is preferred, I play a recording of ocean waves softly in the background to help you relax and also to help mask distracting outside sounds. I may occasionally check in with what you’re experiencing, and you may want to relate things to me during the session, or wait until after.

Other than that, we’re mostly silent. Continue reading →

He said, “Why aren’t you a craniosacral therapist?”

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Years before I went to massage school, I received monthly craniosacral therapy sessions from Nina Davis for about 3 years. I didn’t know what craniosacral therapy was, exactly, but I figured that between trauma, head injuries, sacrum injuries, and scoliosis in my spine, that any kind of bodywork that focused on the cranium, sacrum, and points in between was going to be good for me.

I asked who was good. Nina was recommended.

And it was really good for me! Continue reading →

13 reasons for learning peripheral awareness, peripheral walking, and night walking

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I did my 10 minute presentation on peripheral awareness yesterday. I wish we’d had  more time! I’m learning how to teach this by teaching it, and one attendee asked me a great question:

What would someone get out of learning this?

Thanks, Xtevan. That seems worthy of a blog post! So here are my top reasons for learning peripheral awareness, peripheral walking, and night walking.

  1. Using more of your human capabilities, which means you have more resources. You could have a choice about how to see.
  2. Better mood. The neurology of peripheral vision affects your state. When you’re doing it, it’s impossible to feel anxious or depressed. Your center of gravity drops, and your breathing slows. You feel more relaxed.
  3. Shifting attention away from minor pains and discomfort.
  4. Ecstatic states. Feeling joy, feeling euphoric, feeling very “in your body” and connected to the planet. Feeling really, really alive. Feeling one with everything.
  5. Altered states of consciousness! You may experience trippy effects such as “eating the trail,” a feeling of levitation and of being still while the scenery moves past you (while you’re actually walking). And more!
  6. Trust in your unconscious mind. The wiring used in peripheral walking and night walking bypasses your conscious mind. Thus, you step over a rock before your conscious mind perceives it’s there. It’s uncanny and takes some getting used to.
  7. No thought, stopping the world, shushing the internal dialog.
  8. The ability to see in nearly complete darkness. It takes about 20 minutes for the eyes to adjust to the dark, of course. With practice, you could do night walking in a remote place over uneven terrain on moonless or cloudy nights with no problem. You would be much more aware of nocturnal creatures and their activities.
  9. An advantage in activities where seeing more of your surroundings is key. Great basketball players know where the other players are and where the ball is while moving quickly around the court. Martial artists, gymnasts, dancers, other team sports players, long-distance runners and more can all benefit.
  10. Enhancement of other senses. Hearing and proprioception become sharper.
  11. You could also have more resources in unsafe situations, such as being where sneaky predators of any kind are, whether urban or rural jungle.
  12. When night walking, you can see the energy of some plants, which appears as a moving bioluminescence.
  13. The world you’ve always known becomes new.

Some of these benefits don’t happen right away. The originator, Nelson Zink, said it takes 15-20 hours of using a peripheral training device for the eyes to become trained not to switch to focused vision and for the eyes to consistently focus where they’ve been trained to gaze without a device. (He said they always took them with them, though.)

Oh, and walking in public wearing a peripheral vision training device definitely helps keep Austin weird! That’s another good reason to do it!

No wonder the great Japanese sword fighter Musashino said in The Book of Five Rings:

It is necessary in strategy to be able to look to both sides without moving the eyeballs. You cannot master this ability quickly. Learn what is written here: use this gaze in everyday life and do not vary it whatever happens.

If you find this interesting and are in the Austin, TX, area, I teach peripheral awareness/walking for 1-3 people at a time. We walk on city trails. This is required before night walking, which can be arranged when demand is sufficient.

Seeing differently, peripheral awareness, Carlos Castaneda, joy, lessons

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This post is to let you know that I’m doing a short presentation entitled “Seeing Differently” at Austin’s first Free Day of NLP tomorrow. The event will take place at Soma Vida, 1210 Rosewood in East Austin from 9 am until 4 pm. You can come and go as you desire.

I’m on at 2 pm. If you’re on Facebook and want an invitation or to see the whole schedule, send me a message!

Because I only have 10 minutes, we’ll do some exercises so attendees can experience seeing differently rather than go into the science and history of it. Afterwards, I’ll be available for questions and insights.

The basic premises are:

  1. Although we humans have two ways of seeing, foveally (focused) and peripherally, our peripheral visual capabilities are underused and can be developed.
  2. These two ways of seeing have different neurological wiring and create different states/experiences of awareness. Thus using peripheral vision creates peripheral awareness.
  3. Developing peripheral awareness can result in natural altered states of consciousness in which we experience less anxiety and more joy.
  4. Practicing peripheral awareness gives us more resources in life, whether it’s seeing a bigger picture than customary, feeling more centered/grounded/solid in your body, enhancing your other senses, being better at sports and martial arts, and finding your way around in the dark!

I believe this is what Carlos Castaneda was getting at with the following quotes:

Everybody falls prey to the mistake that seeing is done with the eyes. Seeing is not a matter of the eyes. Seeing is alignment and perception is alignment. Seeing is learned by seeing.

When you see, there are no longer familiar features in the world. Everything is new. Everything has never happened before. The world is incredible!

To perceive the energetic essence of things means that you perceive energy directly. By separating the social part of perception, you’ll perceive the essence of everything. Whatever we are perceiving is energy, but since we can’t directly perceive energy, we process our perception to fit a mold. This mold is the social part of perception, which you have to separate.

I first encountered peripheral awareness in my evolutionary NLP training with teacher Tom Best, who learned it from the master, Nelson Zink. Katie Raver (creator of Free Day of NLP) and I co-ran a meet-up in Austin a few years ago in which we taught people to do peripheral walking.

The way I teach it, there are three parts: peripheral awareness, peripheral walking, and night walking.

Massaging levator scapula

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I’m a massage therapist making sense of what I discover working on clients — the most common issues I encounter, why people have these problems, and what to do about them (massage-wise and making minor but meaningful lifestyle changes that result in more well-being).

Recently I posted about massaging the upper trapezius muscles. In that same shoulder/neck area, another muscle, levator scapula, gives some people a lot of problems.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, the upper trap issues seem to be from working with the hands out in front of the body, such as using a keyboard, cutting hair, chopping vegetables, operating a cash register, and so on.

If the bulk of your time is spent with  your arms just hanging down, surrendered to gravity, you wouldn’t have issues with your upper traps.

I don’t think there are many jobs like that! Irish dancer, perhaps?

Levator scapula (sometimes called just levator) attaches to the upper inner corner of the shoulder blade and to the transverse processes of the top four neck vertebrae (the bony parts that stick out on the sides of your neck under your ears). Levator lies underneath the upper trap and other muscles.

250px-Muscle_élévateur_de_la_scapula

250px-Levator_scapulae

I notice that some folks just have upper trap issues, and some have both upper trap and levator scapula issues. Trap issues come from working with the hands out in front. Levator issues come from raising the shoulders up toward the ears. In fact, levator scapula means “elevating the shoulder blade”. This is often accompanied by the “head-forward” posture.

If you rub across the top of your shoulder between your neck and shoulder joint and feel your fingers crossing over a tight but tender lump of a muscle, it’s your levator.

People who have pain in levator are raising their shoulders toward their ears, and they are most likely unaware they are doing this. They just notice the pain.

Sometimes it’s one-sided pain. The cause is often cradling a telephone receiver between the ear and shoulder to have the hands free while talking on the phone. If you work in an office and talk on the phone for much of the day, you can avoid levator pain by using speakerphone or a device that sits on your shoulder and holds the phone receiver up to your ear….

When it’s two-sided pain, the cause is usually an unconscious, habitual tension, a response to stressors of raising the shoulders toward the ears (“turtling”).

As a stress response, this would protect the vulnerable neck area, but since our modern stressors are usually not predators out to have us for dinner, the solution is to start catching yourself doing it and consciously retrain yourself to lower your shoulders. Your body will eventually catch on, and lowered shoulders will become your new habitual posture! (Also practice moving your head slightly back, if you have the “forward head” posture.)

You can lengthen the levitator muscle by standing and letting your shoulders drop downward, surrendering to gravity. You can hold a light weight — 1 or 2 pounds, or a can of soup — to help pull your arms and shoulders down and let the levator lengthen.

It also feels good to make forward and backward circles with the shoulders. Spend more time where it does the most good.

You can also stand and lower your ear to your shoulder, alternating sides. I think slow is good.

Another good practice is letting the head float up, as if it were a helium balloon. You can release all kinds of neck tension this way.

For massaging the levator, it usually feels awesome to press on the end of the muscle that attaches to the top of the shoulder blade. This is a magical point on almost every body that feels terrific to have pressed!

If you have a hard time finding that corner of the shoulder blade, put the client’s hand behind their back to make the shoulder blade pop out. You will feel that upper corner more easily. Static pressure and rubbing the corner area both feel great.

Because levator is deep to the upper trap and neck muscles, it’s difficult to knead the way you can knead the upper trap. I like to work my fingers around the inner part and bottom corner of the shoulder blade. Then, standing at the head of the table, I pull on the edge of the triangle that’s opposite that upper inner corner, leaning back and pulling it toward me. (You can also push this edge toward the head when standing at the client’s side.)

This allows levator to go slack and shorten, taking the pressure off it. I usually hold this for about 15-30 seconds.

Then I do the opposite. Standing at the head, I place both thumbs on that upper inner corner of the shoulder blade and lean into it. This gives levator a nice stretch. I hold this for 15-30 seconds too. The entire shoulder blade will have more mobility.

And yes, I can shorten and lengthen levator scapula during Ashiatsu barefoot massage sessions, using my feet!