Stop Apologising to Your Massage Therapist

Please. 


Before we continue: yes, that is me kneeling on a massage table in a bikini in the North Sea. No, this is not standard treatment-room procedure. And yes, there are questions about the Belgian flag too. But since we're already looking at bodies, we might as well talk about something that has been bothering me for years.

Why are you all apologising to me for yours? 😔

Years ago, a new client walked into my treatment room, undressed, came towards the massage table and looked at me with the expression of a child who had accidentally broken something. “I'm sorry for how I look.” I still remember it. Not what her body looked like exactly. THAT I have mostly forgotten. I remember the apology.

I remember looking at this woman and thinking how incredibly BEAUTIFUL she was. And I don't mean beautiful in the irritating everyone is beautiful in their own way kind of way. I mean there was something about her. She was warm and funny and open. She had this energy that filled the room before she'd even properly said anything. And yet there she was, standing in front of me, apologising. For her BODY. As though she'd brought the wrong one. (Original post)

That was six years ago, and after many, MANY more bodies, I regret to inform you that you are all STILL APOLOGISING.

“Sorry, I didn't shave my legs. Sorry about my feet. Sorry, I've gained weight. Sorry about my belly. Sorry about the cellulite. Sorry about the scar. Sorry about my stretch marks."

I AM SORRY too. But not for the things you are naming.

I'm sorry that at some point we were made to feel that these things required an apology. That instead of simply taking your clothes off and getting onto a massage table, you first feel the need to warn me about the body that's about to get onto it.

Because I cannot adequately express how little I care whether you shaved your legs. Unless your leg hair has developed the ability to grab my wrist and physically prevent me from massaging you, I think we're going to be fine. 😁

Your underwear does not need to match either. Actually, I would be slightly concerned if you bought special coordinated underwear for your massage appointment with me. 😏
And your feet? They're feet. I have met those before.

But here is the thing: saying that I “don't care” about your body isn't actually quite true. I DO - care and see your body.

I see the scar, the stretch marks, that one shoulder sitting higher. I notice where you're soft and where you're strong, where you're tense and where you're holding on for dear life. I notice how you move, when you protect an area before I've even touched it, when your breathing changes, when you finally let the weight of your arm fall into my hands. I see all that. I just don't attach the same story to those things that you do.

You see: my bloated stomach. I see: a stomach in a cortisol cycle. You see: my horrible legs. I see: legs that take you forward every day. You see the scar you've been strategically hiding for twelve years. I'm probably wondering how the tissue around it moves - or, more often, how it does not. You see cellulite. I see a body that is working.

We are looking at the same body. We are just not SEEING the same thing. And I so often wish you could see yourself through my eyes.

Working with bodies for so many years has definitely changed the way I look at them. When you see bodies in real life - not posed, not filtered, not sucked in, not standing in good lighting with one hip slightly back because that's where we're all supposed to put it - you realise very quickly how incredibly NORMAL all the things we call “flaws” actually are.

Bodies fold. Bodies wobble. Bodies have scars and hairs and veins and moles and stretch marks and soft bits and bony bits and one boob that has made slightly different life choices from the other one. Bodies change. Thank God, really. Because WE change, our lives change, and so does the FUNCTION of the body.

And before this starts sounding like wisdom delivered from the mountaintop by a woman who has transcended body insecurity - please look at the photograph again. I am a woman in a bikini on a massage table in the North Sea. Clearly, nobody here has transcended anything.

I've been thinner than I am now. I've been heavier. I've been skinny, fat, chubby, fit, less fit and various things in between. I've liked my body. I've disliked my body. I've stood in front of mirrors pulling things in, pushing things around and inspecting myself. I KNOW THE GAME.

And the game is particularly clever because the finish line keeps moving. Lose the weight. Build the muscle. Flatten the stomach. Lift the bum. Smooth the skin. Remove the hair. Grow the hair. Have curves, but only in the officially approved locations. Age gracefully, but for God's sake don't LOOK like you're ageing. And then, after completing all these tasks, please LOVE YOUR BODY. Immediately. Preferably while wearing matching beige underwear and drinking something green.

It's a lot.

And this is where my thinking has changed since that woman stood in front of me all those years ago. At the time, I wanted her to know that she was BEAUTIFUL. Now I think there is something even more important.

Maybe you don't need to believe your body is beautiful. Not all the time. 

Because “LOVE YOUR BODY!” can become another bloody assignment, can't it? What if today you don't today? What if there are parts you don't like? What if you don't feel sexy or radiant or empowered? What if you look in the mirror and think meh? Do we now have to feel bad about feeling bad about our bodies? That seems inefficient.

Maybe we can start somewhere considerably less ambitious: stop apologising for it.

You do not have to adore every centimetre of yourself every single day. But your body does not owe me an apology for existing in the shape it exists in today. It doesn't need shaved legs, a flat stomach, matching underwear or an ACCEPTABLE LEVEL OF FITNESS before you're allowed to lie down on my table.

And this is one of the nicest things my work has taught me: when you spend enough time this close to people, beauty becomes much less tidy and much less perfect.

The people I remember aren't necessarily the people with the bodies we're taught to call pretty. I remember the woman who laughs so hard that the whole table moves. The person who tells me something completely unexpected halfway through the treatment. The client who has been coming for years and whose life I have somehow watched unfold in ninety-minute chapters. The person who arrives carrying the entire world somewhere between their shoulders and leaves looking slightly surprised that their neck can turn again.

People become beautiful to you through WHO THEY ARE. Through warmth. Humour. Kindness. Vulnerability. Mischief. The way they talk about someone they love. The way their whole face changes when they laugh.

A body is just a little PART of a person. It is not our admission ticket.

So next time you come for a massage, you really don't have to tell me you gained three kilos on holidays. I am not keeping records. You don't have to apologise because you didn't shave. I will survive. You don't need to warn me about your cellulite. I have seen cellulite before. I may even have brought some of my own to work today. 😊 And you don't need to suck your stomach in while walking from your clothes to the table. I'm going to see it in approximately eight seconds anyway. Please breathe.

Come as you are. Get on the table. TAKE UP THE SPACE. Let me have the weight.

And, while we're here, you STILL don't have to help me lift your leg. We talked about this last week. YOU still - BE. ME still - DO. 🦴

Your body has carried you all the way here. You don't have to apologise for bringing it with you.