Hello radical massage therapist, and welcome to another episode of the radical massage therapist podcast. I'm your host, Krista, registered massage therapist and clinic owner in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Lucky for you. I am not the radical massage therapist, but you are. You want to learn more about the benefits of a massage career, such as freedom, flexibility, financial success and fun inside and outside your career. I hope these episodes will inspire you to create a really awesome life around a sustainable massage career. My guest today is Tanya Tomlinson, originally from Winnipeg. Tanya lives in beautiful Calgary, Alberta. Her formal education includes two bachelor's degrees in psychology from the University of Manitoba and economics from the University of Winnipeg. After a career working in both the nonprofit and corporate worlds, Tanya stepped away from paid work to raise her family. She began her studies at massage College in 2016 after working at a clinic for a few years, Tanya started a home based practice that focuses on clients experiencing grief and loss with considerable lived experience as a grieving person, a caregiver and a grief support provider, Tonya decided to build on that with a certificate in grief education from the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, which she completed in early 2023 she is a regular volunteer with A rejuvenation program at Ronald McDonald House Calgary as well. I hope you enjoy this episode with Tanya. Tanya, welcome to the radical massage therapist podcast. I really appreciate you being here.
Thank you for having me.
What's been the best part about being a massage therapist so far for you?
I mean, what's not great about being a massage therapist? It's all excellent. I love what do I love? I mean, I love working for myself. My I'm a great boss and and I'm a great employee, and I love working with clients. I mean, nobody hates going to the massage therapist. Everybody wants to come and see me. It's not like the dentist or something like that. It's all great. And I love that when people come in and see me, they feel really comfortable talking to me and and that they leave feeling better than they came in.
Okay, so you transitioned from a corporate career and raising a family into massage therapy. What really inspired you to take that leap, and why do you feel that it is one of the best decisions you've made?
So what inspired me? It really, honestly, it was, it was a few things. So even when I was working, you know, back in the day, when I worked for a nonprofit organization, and then I worked, I worked for an advertising and PR company on the account management side, and and while I was working in nonprofit and in the ad agency, I was getting professional massage regularly. It was kind of always a part of my life. And and then when I stepped away from paper to raise my kids, massage kind of became part of the bedtime routine with them. So we would have, you know, we would talk about our day, and we would read stories together, and we would sing songs together, and then I would rub their back because they were falling to sleep, falling asleep, and and they loved it. And they always said to me, Mom, you're so good at that you should be a massage therapist. And then, as they grew and were quite involved in extracurricular activities, both of them were dancers quite at quite a high level. So they danced 14 to 15 hours a week, and they were always sore because their muscles were working and they were growing, and that kind of leads to sore muscles as well. So I would give them massages even then as they were falling asleep, and they kept encouraging me and saying, Mommy, you should really become a massage therapist. And then the time came when, you know, they were grown enough that I was looking for something for myself to do. Didn't really want to go back to the corporate world, it just didn't fit in with my lifestyle. At the time. I needed a little bit more flexibility. Now that the kids were getting older, my parents are getting older as well, and so they you know, we're starting to rely on me a little bit more for things. So massage therapy kind of was the thing that spoke to me, and when I went to the school that I decided on and had my interview, I knew right then, and I knew, I think even more, within the first couple of weeks of massage school that it was, it was for me, great.
Were there any other considerations when you were looking at how you were like, what your next chapter looked like? Did you have any other considerations?
I did, yeah, yeah. I had actually thought of being a medical transcriptionist, okay? And I went and I, you know, did all the, there's a, you know, typing test and kind of, I think, general knowledge and a bunch of different tests. I went and did all those at. College, and, yeah, I just, I don't know, it just it wasn't for me. And I think that a friend had said to me, you know, just go to the massage school and check it out. So I did and and I signed up with them right away. I think I came home. I think it was that day, I think, I got home from the interview and from signing up at massage College, and my letter of acceptance was in the mail saying, you've been accepted to the medical transcriptionist program. And I had no regrets. I thought, that's that's fine. I don't I don't want this anyway.
That's a really neat life coincidence, for sure. Yeah, one thing that I heard you you say, and it's just something small, but I think it's important, is that you said you took time from paid work to raise your kids? Is that an like? I mean, being a mom and a caregiver at home, is is work like? Is that? Is that something that that you just kind of rolls off your tongue. Or did you learn that somewhere?
I think it just rolls off my tongue. That's interesting. Always saw myself as, I mean, I was, I always kept busy when the kids were young and when they were in school. I was, you know, volunteering at the right from the time they were in preschool and, and I think, you know, once, certainly, once they got into elementary school, one of the teachers used to bug me all the time and say, you know, we're going to have to start paying you, you're here so often, because I just I loved being there, I love volunteering, I love being busy, but I loved doing it at the school, because then I had that time to be with my kids. That was the priority, and at the time too. I mean, I was, I don't discount the fact that I was really fortunate to make that decision to stay home with my kids. That not everybody is, you know, able to have that option. But my husband was, you know, he was the breadwinner, obviously, and he spent a lot of time traveling with work, so he was gone a lot of times for two to three weeks at a time. And sometimes, you know, out of the city, sometimes out of the country, sometimes overseas and and we just decided that with at the time, we had no friends or family here, really, that we knew that could kind of pitch in with childcare, so it really was down to me. So hence why I kind of stepped away from paid work completely and but I never saw myself as someone who didn't work. I just didn't get paid. I used to say, get paid in hugs and kisses. I still work. Yeah, I just don't get a paycheck. Yeah, that's very sweet.
Can you give us the reason for the name of your business? I'm very curious of your practice. When
I was in massage school, I think it was in, it was, it was in first year, and one of my teachers was talking to us about, you know, just kind of your career path. Here are the different options. And she said to us, you know, what if you were to have your own clinic or your own, you know, home, whether it's you or whether you've got other people working for you, what think about what you would want it to look like, envision the space and what colors and all that kind of thing, and what would its name be? And so then we kind of took a break after that as a class, and one of my classmates said to me, what would the name of your massage business be? And without even giving it a thought, because I never had that, I opened my mouth, and the word vivid came out. And I don't know why. It's not a it's not a name that I had ever, you know, say, thought of, or, I don't know it's just really bizarre, but I knew that it was right. And then I went home and I Googled what the name meant, and it's a Scandinavian word that means a live life, place of refuge. And I thought, Well, isn't that perfect? That is exactly what I want my massage business to be named, because that's that kind of embodies the way that I think about it. Yeah, and
you didn't get to really, did you? Did you start off as vivid massage even though you were working in a clinic? So, like, did you? Did you get to implement it right away? Um, use the name? No,
I didn't. No, I was an employee when I was working at the clinic, okay? And so I didn't start using it until after I, after I opened up, kind of after the COVID pandemic and started working from home at that point. Okay, was
it the COVID pandemic that sort of drove you to work from home? It
did. Yeah, yeah. I Yeah. The Massage Studio, sorry. The clinic shut down, obviously, and it was shut down for about four months, and when everything kind of reopened and we went back to work, I just I wasn't comfortable with it, and my family wasn't comfortable with it. And we just kind of decided as a family that I was going to take a little bit more time, and we were going to think about how I was going to go back and what that was going to look like. And at that point, I just I didn't know whether I would go back to the clinic or what would happen, but I just said, No, I'm not ready. And I took a few more months, and I said to my family, what if I had a treatment space here in the house? And we talked about where it could go. And then my Renault guy, aka my husband, helped by my son, his assistant, and closely supervised by the boss, aka me, we got going on it, and I got a lovely, lovely space now, yeah,
that's excellent. So you're able to work, work from home, and and provide, you know, massage therapy. So you don't, you don't have to be in a clinic space, and that just is where you feel, feel more comfortable, yeah. And I think that ties in really nicely with sort of the next section of the podcast is that so so grief is a big component of your your practice. It's personal and often misunderstood, especially in North American culture. What drew you to specialize in grief informed massage.
I honestly was thinking about niching my practice, and wasn't really sure what direction I wanted to go in. And kind of thought about it for a while, and then it's, it's kind of like when you can't see the forest for the trees, and when I just looked at who was coming to see me and why they were coming to see me, I realized that I already had a niche. I just hadn't even recognized it yet. So that's that's kind of where I was. And if I think about it, when I when I was working as a second year practicum student at the clinic that I worked at, even back then, I saw a lot of clients who came to me and they were going through some, you know, some some losses, so either, you know, a bereavement or a divorce or job loss or that kind of thing. And they were, I think, some of the clients that I really enjoyed working with, I really felt like I made a difference in their lives. And I really feel like they they got a lot out of those sessions and felt a lot better, not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally and and a lot of them did express that to me. So I think I just, I think I was meant to do it. It just took me a while to realize it, sure,
but yeah, I think it's really valuable. When you look at your own practice and you see what, what are the reasons that that clients are coming to you consistently? Why are they referring their friends and family to you? And if you can really look at that, then that that can really help you. Why did you decide you wanted to niche.
There are a lot of different considerations that you might not have in a clinic. First of all, you know, I can't I can't be everything to everybody. I knew that, and I knew that I would rather create sort of a core of fewer loyal clients than have a whole bunch of new people coming to see me all the time, but nobody really coming back and becoming a regular client. And I knew that the easiest way to do that was to find a niche and be either, you know, the person who is really great with shoulders or the person who is, you know, really great with knees or something like that, and, and I think that's kind of, I think that's where it came from.
Yeah, I think that it is really important in our profession to consider a niche, because all for all of the reasons that you've said, and if you're niching in grief, I mean, I really what you did sort of touch on was a further question, but we can jump on it now, when grief is not just a death, like a, you know, a loss of a loved one. But can you explain a little bit more about what you know, what other types of like reasons, why other people would grieve because, because of loss? Essentially, sure,
yeah. I mean, it's we do think of it typically as a death, right? And and not just that, but we, we give the most space for people to grieve who have lost someone really, really close to them, so a family member, we don't typically think of say, if you lose a colleague, you can grieve over that, but often we don't give those people the same space. It's kind of like we have a hierarchy of who's allowed to grieve. And you know what? The family of this person is allowed to grieve, but their colleagues, they don't have to grieve so much. Um. But not only do we grieve the loss of a person, but we can grieve any, any loss that we have so that can include, you know, the loss of a home, people who you know have to move to a different place because of work or because of, you know, for safety of let's say, if they're leaving, you know, a war torn area of the world, and move into an area to get more safety. You can grieve the loss of a job or a career. You can grieve the loss of your health. We can even grieve people. Or we can grieve something, a situation that is happening. So let's we call that anticipatory grief. Let's say you've got someone who has a terminal illness, they're still alive. But we can grieve the fact that that person is we know going to leave us. We can grieve people who are away from us in body, but they're still there, but they're they're away from us. So, for example, someone who's incarcerated, right? They're not in our life on an everyday basis like they normally are. They're away, but we can grieve their loss, even though they're still alive. Or another form of grief is if, let's say, a person is suffering from dementia, we can grieve the loss of that person, physically, they're still there, and we can visit them, and we can see them, but the person that they were, the person that we remember and the person that we love, is no longer in that body. And so we can grieve their loss, even though, physically, they're still alive. So a lot of different types of losses that people don't, you know, recognize, yeah,
and so I appreciate that you you can share those, those differentiations, because those are all things that I think everybody at a certain point can relate to. But we don't take that time or that space, as you're saying, to to experience that, that grief and and for that transition and and change that needs to happen as well. So you've mentioned that it's a natural and normal response to loss. Can you explain how grief massage then supports a client physically and emotionally, and how if that differs from therapeutic massage.
Yeah, you know, grief massage is actually done different ways by different people. So there's a lovely, wonderful person named Amy Joy Taylor that I follow, and she runs a group called the Institute for grief massage. And her grief massages do kind of follow a typical pattern, I guess, or a sequence. So that differs to the way that I work with my clients. Really, a grief massage is no different from a regular massage. I'm going to use the same sorts of techniques I'm not going to get in there, you know, and try and work that muscle out, because that's not really the intent. Typically, when someone is coming in for great massage, they're more looking to have a space to feel safe, reconnecting with their physical, body during a time that they're mentally and emotionally kind of stepped away from, that they're really in their head, they're really in their heart, but they're not in their body. They're kind of ignoring what's going on. So what I really do is just kind of give them an hour to collapse on the table and just reconnect with the physical. Did I even answer that question? I'm sorry, yeah, no, that's, that's
how, that's, that's wonderful. Yeah, it's just like, how, how do you support them, you know, during that time, and if there is any different differentiation to the massage, but it doesn't sound like it is. And of course, every individual is going to be different. And so then how do you create based because you are in your home practice, and I think that that was a really important distinction and really an opening for you to create this niche around grief massage. So how do you provide that safe, welcoming environment for clients who may be overwhelmed with emotion and when they come to see you? Yeah,
that's a great question. There's quite a few things actually, that I've kind of incorporated, and I I really encourage massage therapists to incorporate a lot of these practices into what they do, regardless of whether they're working with grieving clients or not. Just because people are different and we absorb information in different ways, Grief can really affect our cognitive function. We can kind of people who are grieving, especially in the very early stages of grief, they can forget entire chunks of time. Time. Sometimes they can forget, you know, meetings they work in, they were at, they can forget emails that they had sent. They can forget things that they did or people that they talked to. And, you know, there's evidence that all this stuff happened, they just don't remember it. So, an example that I often give when I'm talking to people about grief and teaching them a little bit about it, is I have a cousin who I'm very close to, and she lost her husband about six weeks before my wedding, and she doesn't remember my wedding. She was there, but you know to this day, 30 years later, she has no no memory of it, because she was still in those early stages of grief, and her mind was just kind of protecting her by not remembering things that she didn't have to, you know? Yeah, so, so one of the things that I do is I make sure that clients get all of the information that they need, and I try and anticipate kind of all of the questions that they might ask ahead of time. So before they come to my clinic for the first time, they've got information on, you know, where it is, a description of the house, so that they can, you know, it's got a number on it, but it's just easy for them if they know that it's, you know, the brown house with the big wooden deck and the red door. And they've got information on where to park. They've got information on, you know what time to come to the door, five minutes early. They've got information on, you know what they're going to do when they get inside the door. And just all of the information that I can kind of provide ahead of time to make them feel a little bit more comfortable. Another thing that I do is I have a phone consultation with new clients before they even come to my house. And I do that for a few reasons. One of them, one of the main reasons, is that, especially if they're grieving, it's really difficult to go to a place that is unfamiliar. I think you know, when you add on to that, that it's not just an unfamiliar place, it's somebody else's house, and that can just feel a little bit strange or disconcerting, maybe. So I want to make sure that I have a bit of a rapport with them, and that they feel really comfortable and kind of learn how I work over the phone, and then, you know, have a chance to ask me any questions before they come. So I've kind of talked to them and given them all the information, told them about the parking and all that kind of thing, and then I send it to them in an email, so that they've got all that information again. And then when they come to my house, I do, you know, I repeat a lot of that again, when once we get into the treatment space, and we go over kind of the housekeeping stuff. So I do like to give information a lot of different ways, because even then, sometimes they need me to tell them, you know, another time things like home care, I will explain it at the end of our session. I'll go over the exercises or stretches or whatever I'm giving them, and then I always follow that up with an email, because chances are, you know, even if they didn't have massage brain, they also have grief brain, so they probably have forgotten what I've shown them by the time they get to their car. So I'm going to make sure that I follow up with an email with, you know, not only written instructions, but also a link to a video that's showing them how to do the stretch or the exercise, because people learn in different ways, and I just want to make sure that I provide them with the support and the resources that is going to that are going to speak to them. Yeah, that's a couple things that I
do. Yeah. That's really helpful, and it is a nice reminder that everybody receives information in different ways, whether somebody is grieving or not. So that is really important. So all the ways that you're providing that information, but then also taking into consideration that, like, cognitively, like, it's difficult for clients to to remember, or, you know, like, what's happening. So what specific training did you take in grief theory and the grieving process and like, how has that enhanced your ability to serve grieving clients be because the massages is one thing, and I do want to revisit the physical aspect of grief, so please remind me, but, but, yeah, what? What like you took additional training in in this area, and so how is, how has that enhanced your practice?
Oh, it's been amazing. So I, when I decided that I wanted to kind of niche down to working with grieving clients, I thought to myself, Oh, grief massage. I don't even think that's a thing. And I Googled it, and I found Amy Joy Taylor from the Institute for Greek massage and and I took a couple of her courses online. So this was, I think it was still kind of during the pandemic. She wasn't offering anything live at the time. And then I wanted to do a little bit more, kind of delving into that topic. And I discovered. That the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, which is affiliated with the University of Toronto, they offer a certificate in grief education. And it just it's when I read the course descriptions, it sounded super interesting to me, and I reached out to them and just asked, you know, is this? Is this appropriate? And the people who typically take their certificate would be people who it's designed for people who work with Grievers, but are not grief therapists. They're not psychologists. So typically, these would be people like teachers who have you know students who are grieving different things, whether it's the loss of someone that they love, or whether you know they're, they've moved from a war torn country and they're, you know, new to Canada. So grieving different things, nurses, chaplains, people who work in grief support groups. So not professional therapists, but maybe people who have gone through a loss themselves and are now helping to facilitate a grief support group, and we can talk about the difference between grief therapy and grief support a little bit later, if you'd like, because that's a really important distinction to make absolutely anyway, when I talked to the people at OISE, they said that I would be the first RMT to be doing the program, and they were pretty excited to have me. And it was, it was wonderful. I had some great teachers, met some wonderful colleagues, and I think that was it just bolstered my confidence and gave me some more tools to be able to work with this population more effectively and more sensitively.
Yeah, absolutely, I don't. I didn't mention this at the beginning, but my dad's a funeral director. Wow. So, yeah, it's it. And having resources like this early in his career was was strangely not available. So he's really done a lot of of, you know, they owe his own, you know, work to to to be supportive in those environments where people are are grieving. You're right, right in it. So, yeah, that's really wonderful to hear about that. And perfect timing, like, please share what is the difference between grief therapy and grief support. And you know, obviously how you're staying within your scope of practice as a massage therapist as well, right?
So grief therapy is more reconstructive. It's very in depth. It involves processing the emotions and the feelings around a loss. And it would be done usually one on one, but sometimes it can be done in a small group, like, let's say a family can go to grief therapy together for a shared loss, and it's always done with a professional, either a trained psychologist or a social worker with a master's degree. So it's done with somebody who's got that training to help someone work through the emotions surrounding the loss, grief. Support, on the other hand, is something that can be offered by anybody. It can be offered by colleagues, friends, family members, lay people and massage therapists. And what that involves is just more like allowing the person to have that space, to grieve, to not feel awkward about it, to feel that they've got that they are safe expressing their feelings and emotions or telling stories and it it doesn't involve processing of emotions. So let's say I've got a client on the table who just wants to talk about their loved one. Because to, you know, when we're grieving, the only way to, I don't even want to say, Get through grief, because it doesn't ever really end, but the only way to live with it is to feel all the big feelings and to allow yourself to, you know, talk about your loss or your loved one. So if I've got somebody on my table who is having a date or they they just want to talk about their loved one, I can encourage that. I can say, hey, tell me about that time that you and your dad went fishing and he fell into the water. That just makes me laugh every time. Or I can say, you know, what was the what was the place that you and your sister loved to vacation the most. So I can encourage that if they're in a talking mood, so it's just allowing space for them to talk about their loved one, if they seem to want to process emotions around that loss, or if they ask me advice about how to handle certain certain situations, that's where, you know, I can refer them to a trained professional. And I've got a few people that I do refer clients to that are trained in, you know, grief therapy and counseling. So that's kind of how I stay within my scope. But basically, you know, allowing the person to you. Uh, to feel free to talk about their loss is a great way that we can offer grief support. I know that sometimes people are afraid of, you know, mentioning the person, sure the lost person, because they don't want to re traumatize the Griever. And that's a really valid concern. But I would counter that by saying, if we don't talk about them, then we're pretending almost like they didn't exist. And if we talk about them, we're reminding the person that, or we're allowing the person to remember that they lived. Right? You're never going to forget someone that you loved that died so by mentioning them by or by mentioning them by saying, you know, to a friend, for example, Hey, listen, I know it was your sister's birthday yesterday, and I've been thinking about you. Or I know your wedding anniversary is coming up. Are you, you know, are you doing okay? Can I do you want to get together that day? Do you want me to give you a call that day? Do you want to be left alone that day? What would you like? What would make you feel supported? What would How would you like to spend that time? I think that those kinds of questions and that kind of support goes a long way. Yeah,
so when a client is coming to you, then they're looking for a massage therapist. I mean, is it just a happy coincidence that they kind of do come if they are going through grief, and they do come across you that has all of this wonderful knowledge about grief and how you can support them in a massage. Like, do you find that people are obviously coming to you for the physical discomfort that might come along with and maybe they don't realize that it is grief that it that? But I'm just going to talk about, like, physically, they're coming to you for like, a reason that they're in discomfort, and that's sort of where things start off for them to you know, on their journey with you, is that, is that correct?
Yes, and I think sometimes people seek me out because they're grieving, and the massage is kind of a nice how benefit, sure. I guess they're looking for someone that that feels comfortable working with grieving people, because we as a western society, we're not right. We death isn't something that we want to talk about, and I have a whole kind of a philosophy around that, but we just we kind of unless it's in a movie or a TV or it's in a book or it's unless it's fake. Basically, we just want to ignore it and pretend that it doesn't exist. And so we feel awkward around people who are grieving. And so what do we do when we feel awkward? We just kind of ignore it. We don't ask them how they're doing. We stop, you know, offering support after the funeral or the celebration of life, typically, because we don't want to talk about it because we feel uncomfortable. And so what that does to the grieving person is they have to, they feel that they have to put on a social mask and hide their true feelings, and they have to pretend that they're fine. So, you know, they go into work, you know, say, three weeks after their loss or whatever, and a co worker says, Hey, how you doing? Like nothing happened, and they have to say, I'm fine, because they can't say, you know, terrible. I'm doing terrible. You know, I lost my loved one three weeks ago. I'm I'm doing really poorly, because they know that the support wouldn't come from that person. Does that make sense? So what I offer is a space where people can talk about it and they can be authentic. Because if when we're having a massage, we have to be able to relax completely, how can we do that if we're putting on a social mask and pretending the entire time. That's not allowing ourselves to be authentic, right? So when I talk to my clients in the initial phone consultation, I'll let them know that all sorts of emotions can come out in this room, and they all stay in this room, and that's okay. It's kind of like Las Vegas, only without the show curls and the booze and the gambling. But what happens in my treatment space, stays in my treatment space. And if that's, you know, anger, if it's sadness, if it's love, if it's joy, if it's happiness, all of these things, all of these emotions can happen along with grief. So grief. Doesn't look just a certain way. It doesn't look just like sadness, it doesn't look just like despair. Grief can have joy. Grief can have laughter. Grief can have a whole range of emotions, and they are all appropriate, and so I'm going to allow those emotions to come out as they will on that day. But we don't, yeah, we don't get over grief. We just, we learn to live with it, and we kind of grow around it, but it is always there, and emotions can surface at any time. So, you know, we have, I mean, I know for myself, I've got, you know, losses that I had 20 or 30 years ago, that most of the time I'm able to talk about that person very easily. But you know what, some days, for some weird reason, I'll start talking about them and I'll start crying. It just,
there's no explaining. No. It's, I mean, one of my curiosities about when you say you have this niche of grief massage. And as like, Okay, well, then when they're done grieving, then how does that keep a sustainable business? But you have explained that grief is not something that you get over. It is something that you live with. So now I'm sort of understanding how these clients can feel incredibly comfortable with you on a good day or a bad day. And you know, there could be a physical need for the massage that day, but as you're saying, sometimes it could just be a place of support where they can, they can talk about about what they're feeling that day, and it's a supportive environment. So yeah, thank you, exactly,
yeah. And that's one of the things that I make sure that I let them know too in the initial phone calls conversation, is that there is no need to present that social mask to me, so if they're having a bad day, they don't have to sit in their car outside my house until they can collect themselves enough to come to the door. If they're a puddle of tears when they arrive, that's perfectly fine. If they're having a great day, and they arrive and they're, you know, just full of joy, that's wonderful, too. All of those emotions are valid and all of them are accepted and welcomed in this treatment space.
Yeah, wonderful with the emotional toll that grief work can take on both the client and the practitioner. How do you maintain your own physical, mental and emotional health?
I don't have an issue with taking on people's grief. To me, that's not that's not my job. I can't make them better, right, right? There's nothing that I can say or do that's going to make them suddenly be free of their grief. So it's not it's not mine to carry. And I guess when I approach it from that standpoint, it takes a lot of pressure off me, right? There's I don't have to fix them because they can't be fixed. That grief isn't something that's fixable. All I can do, the only way that I can or the best way that I can support them, is to just hold space for them. And and how I think about that is, so do you know Heather Plett? She's an author. She wrote a book called The Art of holding space. She's from Winnipeg, which I'm from Winnipeg, so yay. She's awesome. She has this wonderful analogy about what holding space does. And actually, if I can, I got a little course, yes, please. So if I can just quote her and then tell you about this little analogy. So she says, What does it mean to hold space for another person? It means that we are willing to walk alongside another person in whatever journey they're on without judging them, making them feel inadequate, trying to fix them or trying to impact the outcome. When we hold space for people, we open our hearts, offer unconditional support and let go of judgment and control. So that's basically what I try and do in my massage treatment space. And she has this wonderful analogy about what it means to hold space for someone who's going through a difficult time. So she says, imagine you've got, you know, a beautiful something that you've made out of Lego, whatever it is, a castle or whatever, some sort of sculpture that you've made out of Lego, and that Lego gets knocked off the table, and it breaks and shatters into all of its pieces. That's the analogy of a person feeling whole, and then they've suffered their loss, and they just feel shattered into 1000 pieces. We are the person who picks up the. Pieces and puts them in a bowl, and we're the bowl. We're holding the pieces. The pieces aren't anything right now, but they have the potential to be something, and we're just allowing them to be until that Lego Creator comes along and make something out of those pieces. So that's what we do when we hold space, is we're just allowing that person to be where they are and giving them that space until they move to the next phase. Yeah, that
is a great analogy. And you know, as you said, you're just picking up the pieces and putting them into a bowl, versus picking up pieces and trying to, like, put them back together.
We're not doing that. We're not trying to create anything. We're not trying to fix anything. We are just holding that space.
And you know, you noted earlier that our culture is often uncomfortable with grieving people being around grieving people. And you know, maybe this is for another conversation. But how do you see the role of massage therapists in helping shift that perspective, even in small ways?
I think we are ideally positioned to be a great source of support to our grieving clients. And let's face it, everybody is grieving. Everybody has suffered some sort of a loss, and especially, you know, over these last few years, even just the loss of opportunity to have social interaction with people, that's a loss, right? That's something that a lot of people really feel to more extent than another. I, you know, I personally loved it. I love being at home reading my books and having my cats and my coffee. Other people really missed social interaction. So we have all suffered losses. So we're we're the person that people talk to, right? They talk to hairdressers and they talk to us. How many times have you had someone on your table that just they want to vent about their week, right? Whatever happened at work or with their kids or whatever is going on, and they're not asking you to solve all of their problems. They just want to get it off their chest. They just want to vent and get it out there. And then they leave your room and they're like, Oh, I feel like 10 pounds lighter because they've had a great massage, and so physically, they're feeling really good, but they've also just kind of got all this trouble, just sometimes venting, it is all you need to do. You don't need to solve a problem, right? Yeah, there's something that, you know, I a lot I'll often ask people, you know, say, if a friend is kind of venting at me, I'll say to them, are you looking for a solution, or are you just looking to vent? Because then I'll know, like, how to approach this. I'll know whether I need to kind of come up with an idea for you to solve your problem, or whether you just need to get it off your chest, in which case, all I need to do is hold space for that. So, you know, we are like hairdressers, the people that the person that people kind of vent to and and so I think we're just, we have that full hour or more with our client to work with them on a physical level and to allow them the space to just express any emotions or issues that they're going through right now without having to solve that problem, but just to allow them the space To express that, and sometimes just the expression of it is kind of half of the solution, right there.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and what you haven't mentioned yet, and maybe there's a different take on it, when we finally talk to somebody who works in grief massage, is I feel like we've all had the experience of releasing something physical in the body and the tissues and having an emotional response. So Is that also something that that ties into to grief massage, and now you're just more equipped to handle it in the in, like you said, to hold space.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have seen it happen, but I'll be honest, I don't see that happen a lot, and that's one of the things that I talk about clients with when I'm having that phone conversation with because one of the things that I want to make sure is that their expectations are managed. I I'm really careful to explain to them that I'm not here to solve their the problem of their grief, because grief is not a problem that needs to be solved. It's something that we live with, and we just need to learn to live with it. There I there is nothing that I can magically do to make their grief heal or go away. So it's not like I'm going to move their shoulder in this way, or I'm going to, you know, stretch their hamstring like this and poof, their grief is gone. It doesn't work that way. And so I'm really careful to explain to people that sometimes what we're doing on the table can have an effect where, you know, you have an emotional release, but not always. And it's certainly not my intent right to go seeking out the areas that are going to cause that. If it happens, it happens, but it it doesn't always happen, and in fact, most of the time it doesn't happen. Yeah,
I appreciate you saying that it's, it's not a it's not like gonna be. I wouldn't put it in the myth category, but I almost feel like you're right. Like in school, we were told that it could happen, you know, quite frequently, but I appreciate you, you know, reassuring us, like, even as someone who's in who works with clients on a daily basis, going through grief, that it's not always the physical, like the way that you're working on the physically that releases the emotion. I think that just holding that space is probably the big differentiator, and how they they trust you, and whether they they know that that is a safe place to to relax. And as you said, if they're not relaxed in the treatment, then physical, mental, emotional, like they're not going to take much away from that, that hour that they they had with you. So I appreciate you you saying that
wonderful. Yeah, it's most beneficial if they can be authentic, if they can feel comfortable where they're at that day or that hour or that minute, because sometimes it changes, yeah, often, right, yeah,
wonderful. I understand you volunteer with the Ronald McDonald House on the rejuvenation team. What does that mean and and how did that that come about for you? And what does that look like?
I love it. So what I do as a member of the rejuvenation team here at Ronald McDonald House Calgary is I volunteer four shifts a month. I go in and offer free massages to the caregivers of the children who are staying at the house. So just for anyone who doesn't know, Ronald McDonald House is in quite a few major cities. So here in Alberta, we have four, we have Edmonton, Calgary, Medicine Hat and red deer, and it's a place where people can stay with their children who are undergoing procedures in the hospital that are, you know, kind of extensive, and where they're not in patients, but they're from out of town, so they need a place to stay in hotels, as we know, are very expensive. So if you are, you know, if your child, for example, is undergoing cancer treatment on an outpatient basis, they might need to be, you know, seeing or going to the hospital regularly for, you know, a month or three months or four months or more staying in a hotel if you're living in a rural area, and having to come into a larger center for that kind of treatment, it's very expensive, so Ronald McDonald House offers an extremely affordable and wonderful place for people to be able to stay, whether it's short term or long term, while they're While their children are undergoing treatment. So these caregivers, obviously are under a lot of stress. They're very worried about their children, and it's kind of getting a little emotional right now. It's just such an honor and such a privilege to be able to offer them an hour of comfort.
Yeah? Well, I think it was a stressful time. Yeah, absolutely. I think that would be wonderful. And obviously, having that skill set that you have can can make a big difference on the the quality or how they're approaching that you know, that caregiver who's going through such a difficult time, yeah, and I would encourage you to be authentic and and don't, don't put out a social facade. It is. It is not, definitely, we don't, you know, it's all audio for for most, so it's all good. So yeah, if you need to take that time, that's all good. But it is a wonderful, wonderful thing that you do. And the Ronald McDonald House is, is excellent. We have one here in Ottawa. I've volunteered, not in the capacity as a massage therapist, but wherever I could help out. So it was like meal prep. I've cleaned I'm just, you know, it's a great a great organization. So, so that's really wonderful. And what advice would you give to other massage therapists considering specializing in grief massage or or maybe any other niche in body work?
Hmm. I mean, if you're looking if you'd like to work in grief massage, specifically, I would say, you know, make sure. I think the best piece of advice that I can offer is be comfortable with your own beliefs and feelings about death and dying and loss they you know, May. May not be the same as your clients, and that's okay. It doesn't matter, but as long as you are comfortable in what you believe, I think that really helps you be more comfortable with the idea of loss and grief after loss. Yeah,
that's the question, yeah, with that, I'm asking your, your opinion on it, and I think that that's, that's great, yeah, that's probably
the biggest, the biggest one, and another one maybe, is just make sure that you've got some really good boundaries. So you need to know, you know, where the line is between grief support and someone who needs grief therapy, and make sure that you've got that network network in place so that you can refer them to somebody who's more equipped to to work with them about, you know, working through the emotions, if that's something that that client needs, yeah,
absolutely, that's wonderful. So where can listeners learn more about your practice, especially if they are interested in going into grief informed massage themselves.
I would love for people to contact me. They can. They can contact me by email at Vivica massage@gmail.com so that's v i, V, E, C, A massage@gmail.com they can also go to my website, which is vivid massage.com and I'm also on Instagram at vivid massage, and I have a Facebook page. As I've got two Facebook pages, actually, one is for vivid massage, and then the other one is just me. It's Tanya Tomlinson, RMT, and they're welcome to add me as a friend if they want to. I'm working on a course to teach people how to work with people who are grieving. Sure, yeah,
that's great. Okay, so, and that'll all be coming down like the if they want to fall, make sure that they get that information. That'll be to follow you and and, you know, absolutely, yeah,
and I will absolutely be posting about it happily when it's all ready to go to Ready to roll out.
Excellent, wonderful. You know, is there anything that we've we haven't touched on that you feel is important to the conversation today, before we we close out?
I think maybe the one topic that I just wanted to talk about that we didn't really touch on, was the difference between pain in grief and suffering. And I like to kind of separate those two. And this kind of goes back to, you know, our societal awkwardness around grief and loss. So to me, I just like people to know that there is pain inherently associated with a loss. So when you've lost a person, for example, you love that person, and this person is no longer in your life. So there is inherent pain that comes with that, and then there are loss reminders. So let's say, you know the loss of a, you know a partner. Let's say that partner always did the cooking or the grocery shopping, and now we've got to do it ourselves. So every time we have to do that, it's a reminder that our person is gone. Or, let's say this person always mowed the lawn. Now we've got to mow the lawn, or we've got to, you know, find someone that we can pay to mow the lawn, because this person is not there. So we've got all these little reminders. Sometimes we're walking through the grocery store and we see their favorite tea or their favorite ice cream, and that can just kind of cause us to break down. So these are all the pain that's associated with the loss, there's also suffering, and I think of suffering as what's put upon us by those around us who are either unwilling or unequipped or unable to support us through that loss. So the people who you know, offer platitudes like, Oh, she's in a better place. Or, you know, look on the bright side. Guess what? There is no bright side. So the toxic positivity and the people who kind of make us feel like we need to wear that social mask that makes the Griever feel really uncomfortable. So we're we're causing them to suffer when the pain is already bad enough. So if we allowed them to truly feel all the feelings, if we just made space for all of that and allow that everything, all of their feelings are valid. Basically, whether it's anger, whether it's you know, happiness, whether it's wistfulness, there's you know, all of those different emotions are completely valid. So I think that's probably what I would want to say, is that the pain is going to come with the. Loss, but what we can do as people who want to support that person is to avoid causing them to suffer. Excellent. I
think that was a really great closing place as well. That's wonderful. I'm very happy with with what you've shared, and I know it's just going to be a very valuable episode for for massage therapists. And I think that it's helpful for clients to listen to as well, if they're curious about finding a massage therapist that is grief informed and what to to consider. Your website is very well outlined. I love how many like favorite asked questions and like policies and procedures you have in place, just to make everything very, very clear. So it is a great, great resource to check out as well. But thank you so much for your time today, Tanya. I'm grateful that you know they were in different time zones, not too, not too bad for for you, but I do appreciate you making the the effort, and I think this is really, really valuable.
Thank you so much, Krista for having me. It was a joy to meet you, and it was really lovely to be here. You.
