  Body workers say that people store emotions in their bodies, sometimes for years, and that when the body is ready to release, these emotions are released as well. Last night I experienced this. Kimberly, my massage therapist, doesn’t look like your typical crunchy granolahead massage maven. If you saw her on the street, your first guess would be that she’s a waitress at a diner in Jersey (“You want coffee with that, Hon?”).
She’s kinda tough, crusty, and carries herself like a New Yorker, but she’s proof that looks can be deceiving. I’ve been working with her for a few weeks to unknot the mess that is my upper back. Kimberly uses multiple techniques in a session including deep tissue, myofacial, and Reiki, but her natural gift is an intuitive sense of how to get muscle fibers to release.
With each session, I progressively feel the muscles melt and give up their tension. Last night was no exception. Kimberly spent almost the entire session working on my upper back, and as I was getting even more release than I usually do, I asked her to continue on the upper back and ignore the rest. She was happy to do so, worked on that area exclusively, and almost at the end of the session, my upper back released completely.
So what’s the big deal? The big deal is that when my back finally gave up holding the tension it felt like I was being born. The first sensation was that I had instantly lost forty pounds of shit. I felt lighter, happier, and more awake and aware than I’ve ever been in my entire life, and I realized that this was the first time I can remember not feeling tension and muscle spasm. I had been holding on to this pain my entire life. I was storing it in my body. I’m not sure what emotions were released, but my first impression was that it I was storing a bottomless well of fear and mistrust, a perpetual sense of waiting for something bad to happen.
With that burden gone, I thanked Kimberly profusely, and walked out of her office glowing like a newly born sun. As I walked home, colors were more vibrant, images were clearer and crisper, and sounds and smells were more acute. The closest analogy is the feeling one has after skydiving. It’s that sense of how wonderful it is to be alive. Adrenaline-driven Enlightenment. The second thing I noticed walking home was my own attitude.
I felt self-confident, focused, and whole. I felt like I was my true self without all the crap that has held me back my entire life. The core human being was at the helm instead of an accretion of shit that was not me. New Age woo-woo philosophy? Maybe. But I don’t care what the actual explanation is. What I care about are results, and the results from last night’s session were truly amazing. I feel fearless, confident, and in complete control of my life. It’s very good to be me right now. 
