White and
glowing, the moon and stars, set on a blanket of midnight blue seemed to rest
gently on the peaks of the gigantic Rocky Mountains that first night I spent in
Colorado almost twenty years ago. College diploma crammed into the trunk of my
car along with everything I owned, I headed out west to find myself, my call,
or something profound, deep, and true. Excited as I was during the weeks
leading up to my great adventure, I felt lost and alone as I drove myself along
route 70 from Pennsylvania to Colorado. Tears of sadness filled my eyes and wet
my cheeks that night I arrived in Colorado and laid looking up at the night
sky. Deep inside my body something felt off; an awareness beyond the racing
thoughts and emotions that something about my adventure was not right.
Looking back, I
think that moment in Colorado was the beginning of my journey toward
mindfulness, the practice of being present. In that moment, I think my spirit,
through physical manifestation of queasiness and cold, was realizing that my
journey to truth not an external quest but rather an internal one.
Now, I’m a
do-er, so it took me a little over a decade to begin to understand what my
spirit knew that night in Colorado: that being present in the world is not
about what, how, when, how much, where one does in the world. Rather being
present in the world is about whom one is
in the world and the depth and quality of the relationships one is in with the world,
with other life in the world, and with the energy that transcends the world.
The last six years of my life have been the richest in my mindfulness journey
whereas the first ten years seemed to be more a mixture of stumbling,
backpedaling, falling, randomly choosing a route, and disconnected progress.
The most
profound difference between the first ten and the last six has been getting
help to unearth my truth. Becoming mindful involves getting to one’s truth and
living through that truth. (What a process – and I’m still in it!) I got
support for my spirituality, my emotional and mental health, and my physical
wellness. The body is how we experience the world; there is no being without a
body. Paying attention to my body affected my journey deeply. This significant
season of my journey inspired me to become a bodyworker, specializing in
therapeutic massage and bodywork with a focus in mindfulness. For me, bodywork
empowered me to find grounding in myself, to stand strong and still amid
sweeping emotions and thoughts that had previously sent me reeling, and to
begin to explore who I am truly, in the world. The emperor in the movie, Mulan,
looks with stillness into the eyes of the warrior ready to kill him and says,
“The mountain does not bend to the wind, no matter how it howls.” It is this
message that my spirit knew instinctively years ago as I looked up at the Rocky
Mountains: when I become mindful of who I am and live out of my truth
presently, I will not be blown around by the winds of the world. Mindfulness
Bodywork Therapy was born out of this experience.
Jennifer
Herfurth Ristine, MBA, NCTMB,
is a nationally certified massage
therapist who completed her massage training at Sanford Brown
Institute in 2007. She specializes in listening to clients and is able to
provide massage and range of motion stretching that fits the individual needs
of her clients. Jennifer’s training includes Swedish and deep tissue massage,
neuromuscular therapy, range of motion stretching, and pregnancy massage. She
is also a certified Reiki II practitioner and Trauma Touch (TM) Therapist. To
schedule an appointment or learn more about her work, contact jenristine1113@gmail.com
or 484-213-8239.
No comments:
Post a Comment