A Posture Massage Christmas Carol
Many of you are quite familiar with Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. No matter your faith or denomination the story holds a lot of great lessons and metaphors on self awareness, healing, and growing into a better person. Put your bah humbugs aside and join me as I imagine the classic Christmas Carol characters through the lens of body and brain work!
Ebenezer Scrooge
In the beginning of Dickens’ tale, this miserly character sees the world through his own lens of judgment and stinginess. He lacks compassion to the world around him and is quite set in his ways.
I like to think of my own thoughts and judgments as being Ebenezer Scrooge to the rest of my body and brain. We are often the most uncompassionate to ourselves, to our own aches/pains, and often ignore or downplay our body and brain’s needs.
How many times do we tell ourselves “Bah humbug! Buck up and carry on!” Probably more often than is healthy. Our bodies and brains can be sending us messages and hints that they need some attention and we often dismiss it with excuses, pride, or laziness to engage and understand.
But just like Scrooge, if we keep leading our lives ignoring the needs of the rest of our world (our bodies and brains), we will soon find our time cut short by disease, misery, and hopelessness.
Bob Cratchit
This poor character is a diligent worker for Scrooge and does his best to meet his boss’ demands, trying to make due with very little in return. In my version of the story I like to imagine my organs, muscles, and internal systems. They work hard in spite of what we give them and are often silenced by our Scrooge self when they signal that they are lacking in something. Thanks to our bodies being amazingly resilient under a wide variety of circumstances and deprivations, we are able to continue functioning, even if we aren’t treating it very well.
Jacob Marley
Our brains and hearts play the dual role of being Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s former business partner who joined him in his depraved manners. Our brains and hearts are often on board for some of our more stingy moments against our emotions, thought patterns, and physical body’s needs. They are however, much like Jacob Marley after dying and returning as a ghost, a good conscience and forewarning for what is to come if we don’t grow and treat ourselves with more compassion and generosity.
Brains and hearts are very perceptive instruments in our bodies and give us a lot of information in the form of signals and feelings. We know when we have done something wrong by the way that our hearts and heads feel afterwards. Conversely we also immediately feel positive emotions and feelings after doing something great for ourselves or others.
We often call this combo our Inner Physician or Higher Self. Our bodies want to be healthy and strive to fix problems to increase our health. This energy of improving, healing, and positivity is tied into our higher self and our inner physician. How our hearts and minds are feeling can be a way that our bodies and brains communicate to us. We are basically the Scrooge observing (and unfortunately often ignoring) feelings and promptings that our inner physicians and higher selves are sending to us.
Just as Jacob Marley warns, act now and remove the burdensome chains we have allowed our bodies and brains to accumulate over time. Grow into a better person and work toward casting your own heavy burdens off!
Ghost of Christmas Past
Imagine yourself suddenly surprised by your own Ghost of Christmas Past appearing in your room. Unlike in A Christmas Carol, this ghost takes you to show you all of the physical injuries that you have sustained in your life, as well as the many emotional and psychologically tough times that you have experienced.
Sit back and ask your body and brain how it is doing. How experiencing those many things felt and feels today. If any of them trigger strong emotions (especially if they are negative) then sit with them, feel them, don’t turn away from facing the emotions tied to the bad things you have been through.
When we let our body and brains know that we see and acknowledge the feelings locked inside, those emotions, feelings, and pains are finally able to dissolve. Rewrite our stories to include the bad things that have happened. Allow reality to permeate your stories and recognize that who you are today is a reflection of what you have experienced in the past, both good and bad, positive and negative.
If you could sit down with your younger self when you were 5 years old, what would you tell yourself with compassion and love? How about when you were a teenager? How about when you were in your early 20’s? And on and on. Actually imagine having that conversation with your prior selves just as Scrooge tries to communicate with his prior selves. Pour love into the versions of you that came before now. It is all too easy to judge our former selves and to withhold compassion from them. In reality, our younger versions of us were usually doing their best given their experience, knowledge, and circumstances at that time.
Healing old wounds can energize our present lives and lead to more fulfilling futures.
Ghost of Christmas Present
The next ghost to visit Scrooge was the Ghost of Christmas Present. The focus with this ghost is to realize the reality of the present, both the bad things that exist but also all the good things that surround us, often unseen by us.
In my version I invite each of you to sit down and assess your present. How is your body doing? What are you grateful for? What do you wish was different? After checking in with all of your body parts, are there parts of you that you realize you have been neglecting or could do better to support or strengthen?
I also suggest checking in with your thoughts and emotions. Are you presently at peace? Do you feel unsettled by any emotions? If yes, what is causing those emotions? Can you work through those emotions/feelings to dissolve them, or is it going to take effort and some communication to clear the air?
By honestly looking at our present situations we are able to see where we are blessed and maybe where we are lacking. Most of our lives in the present have many elements that were only dreams and goals of our past. Have you honored those and expressed your gratitude for where you are presently?
The more honest we can be with ourselves about our presents, the better able we are to adjust our courses for the future or feel peace and contentment with the progress we currently enjoy.
Tiny Tim
While with the Ghost of Christmas Present, Scrooge realizes the existence of Tiny Tim, son of Bob Cratchit. He is a crippled child with many hardships. Scrooge is shocked to see how positive Tiny Tim is despite having so many struggles. We all have parts of us that are quite frail which we may be ignoring or dismissing. Our Tiny Tims can be an issue in the tissue, a problem we are working on, a disease or injury that we are coping with, or even thoughts and anxieties that challenge us daily.
Recognizing what our Tiny Tims are and then having more compassion and love for them can go a long way to help heal them into our futures.
What part or parts of you are more frail than you give them credit? Are there ways that you can improve those Tiny Tims’ situations? Are you putting off doing something that would fix your Tiny Tims or make life easier?
Ghost of Christmas Future
The final spirit to appear to Scrooge was the Ghost of Christmas Future, whose job is to show him what his future will look like if he remains stuck in his ways.
In my version I invite you to imagine what your life will be like if you stay the same. Will your health be improving or declining based on your current dietary, exercise, and mental health habits? Are there things that you know you should be improving that you have been putting off? Are there relationships in your life that you assume you will fix or improve in the future? What is keeping you from fixing them or making changes now?
Are you listening to what your inner physician and higher self are telling you? Most of us know some very specific things which would improve our situations and our health. We assume tomorrow is granted and that we have plenty of time to change. Today is the only part of our life in which we have the power to change and adjust our paths for future journeys.
Sitting with ourselves and asking what we fear most for our futures is a good exercise to see where we may want to focus our present efforts. Scared of dying from poor health or disease? Then it may be time to set some goals focused on our eating and exercise habits. Worried about your future finances? Why not meet with a financial advisor and see what you can do to have a more certain future? Feel like you don’t have enough quality friends or relationships? Why not change things up and work to meet new people who can share in your future joys?
Reconciliation and Renewal
Thanks to becoming acquainted with so many ghosts and the messages they share, Scrooge realizes the power of ‘now’ and is inspired to make the rest of his life better and more fruitful. He wakes from his final spirit’s visit excited to be alive and to have the option of doing better and helping others. He immediately pushes to become the version of himself that he wants to become.
I encourage all of us to be better at listening to our bodies and brains. I hope we can all find more joy and less stress in our present so that our future is more inspiring and peaceful. If you pinpointed some areas for improvement, write down goals and strategies that you want to implement to get there. Let go of the things from your past that are no longer serving you. Don’t be stubbornly tied to a former version of yourself.
Be compassionate with you! Be generous with you! And don’t let the bah humbugs leach into your soul!
From Posture Massage to all of you, please have a happy and healthy holiday season! Give yourself and all your hard working parts a big hug!
