Filed under: The Value of Touch
by Elizabeth Rose
Elizabeth is a contemporary “Wisdom Keeper” not unlike matriarchal women of indigenous communities of the past. She has practiced and taught Massage for the Childbearing Year for 17 years. Elizabeth is a skilled and heartful teacher, acknowledged for her gentleness and support of women in their childbearing year. She teaches Pre-natal massage certification classes, Stages of Life: Essential Nurturing for the Childbearing Year, at Scherer Institute.
In 1985 I moved to Santa Fe from Ithaca, NY to embark on the next chapter of my unfolding career, or life’s calling – working with families and children. I came here to attend massage school, after an exhilarating and enlightening three years of working as a preschool teacher. After I graduated from Colorado State University in 1981 with a BS in Human Development & Family Studies, I moved to the northeast where I avidly took on bicycle touring and working on an organic vegetable farm for a year before pursuing my first, post-graduate professional job with the Head Start program.
In retrospect, I see now the divine orchestration of my fortuitous placement in both my college major and this extraordinary job; a grant funded project in which seven children from Head Start were integrated into a classroom with seven children who were mildly to severely handicapped, including two children who were hearing disabled. It was utter chaos at first, until both the Head Start children and I learned how to speak in sign language. This was a crucial bridge that created a means for the children and adults to effectively communicate. Sign language is an amazingly sensorial, expressive language which has a way of emphasizing intent, and enhancing comprehension. I found it to be an incredibly powerful teaching tool.
By December of the school year we were all relatively fluent in sign language, and interactions with hearing and non-hearing children alike were remarkably improved. Still, the Head Start children held onto taboos about the differently-abled children, and physical intimacy of any kind remained good grounds for the “cooties.” Then, a magical thing happened. A second and more profound bridge was built – HEALING TOUCH
While I was a preschool teacher, I received my first professional massage, an excellent one at that (not to mention the massage therapist was seven months pregnant and kept bopping me with her baby while she worked – early signs of my profession yet to come). I proceeded to take an eight week class in massage. So enthused was I that I began to offer friends free massages on their kitchen tables! Something BIG clicked inside me when I began receiving and giving massages.
Hence, it was only natural for me to incorporate massage into my work with the preschool children. Along with my team teacher Maria, (a down-to-earth, wise-woman who happened to step in mid-year to replace a rather stern, over controlling teacher who left to have her baby), we began to massage the children during nap time. Foot massages were the most popular and polarity treatments worked wonders on the kids who were touch sensitive. The kids loved it albeit getting into the lotion and oil was a big part of the fun!
Within days, not only were the children much calmer and more centered but also the chemistry of the classroom miraculously changed. Cooties no more! The children began to touch one another and enthusiastically gave each other foot or back rubs. The “normal” Head Start children began to experience their “not so normal” peers in brand new way. The taboos, the cooties and judgments began to rapidly dissolve and the success of the grant funded project aimed at doing such was met long before anyone could anticipate. By the end of the year, we were a tight knit, loving tribe and we communicated effortlessly with our hands via sign language and nurturing touch. The light bulbs were endlessly going off in my head and my crusader spirit to “change the world” knew that my next step in this deep passion to serve humanity was through TOUCH.
And so, two decades later I find myself specializing in prenatal, labor, post-partum, and infant massage. Funny how “Spirit” works! What I’ve come to realize over and over again in my twenty years as a professional working with women and children is how profound TOUCH truly is as a language and an art form which communicates our compassion and caring. Nurturing touch transcends fear and separation, and makes one feel valued and cared for. Massage for the whole family is a marvelous way to enhance bonding and create new avenues for seeing, listening, and responding to each other with greater sensitivity. Touch is the biggest MA of them all, and you don’t need to be a professional to do it well!
A couple of days ago at dawn I was called into a birth (I’m also a labor support Doula and have attended about 90 births, both home and hospital). Before I left, I kissed my daughter Maia, still in her angelic state of sleep. She woke when I kissed her. “Mommy has to go to a birth,” I said. In her half sleep she wrapped her arms around me, and in a long embrace gently patted me on my back, and smothered my face with tiny kisses. What a big MA in such a little body! When your children give back to you the kind of nurturing touch you have graced them with from the very start (even whilst in-utero), you begin to realize what a powerful impact touch has had on their lives. Your children learn gratitude, respect, and how to relax with touch that is laced with love and sensitivity.
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