Continuing Education is an excuse for me to travel! Thailand, Mexico, Costa Rica, Esalen in Big Sur, Breitenbush, I love them all and there are so many more places to go! People touch different all over the world and I want to experience as much of it as I can.
Today while I was getting settled on the University bus I had the uncanny sensation that I had done this before.
If you know me then you know that’s not far from the truth since I graduated school 11 years ago. So in that way it is similar.
But today it felt distinctly like my time in Mexico, arriving for the first time in a foreign country, my backpack at my feet on the bus, 4 years of Spanish classes jumbled up in my head, heading down the road with a vague understanding of the lay of the land.
Going to a country I’ve never been to before is so exciting to me. I love it. New roads, new bus routes, new languages, new (to me) history. And the feel of a place is something that can’t be replicated. Sitting in the presence of the Jade Buddha, or Chichen Itza, or any place where hundreds of thousands of people come to show their respect is a feeling that chills my spine.
Sitting on the bus today, with my traveling backpack full of nursing books at my feet I had the same thrill. I’m not going to Mexico, Costa Rica, or Thailand this time. I’m a tourist in my own life. Destination: Nursing School.
I know where I want to go, and I have a general idea of what I want to do. I don’t know how it’s going to happen yet, but I know I’m gonna keep getting on that bus with my traveling pack at my feet.
Wendy Finn is the mother of 4 boys, owner of I.M. Spa, a Raw Food Enthusiast and educator, a world traveler in pursuit of superior massage education, a Master Massage Therapist of 20 plus years, a gardener, and a nursing student. She’s passionate about touching people and sharing health.
We had a staff meeting at I.M. Spa, my favorite workplace in the whole wide world, the Friday before I started classes at the University of Arkansas to study Nursing. In addition to talking about what we needed to do to pull together while I was time challenged (to say the least) with classes, we also talked about what we would do to celebrate when we made it through to the end of Final Exams in May. And no I won’t be completely finished then, I will still have 4 semesters to go. We’ll have to travel after every semester I think.
All of us I.M. Spa girls are going to all pile into my minivan for a road trip to Visit Dallas to steam it up at King Spa and whatever other cool spa like places and Raw Food Restaurants we can discover. I’m going to need some serious relaxation after working at the spa, being mom to my 4 boys, and going to school full time.
To make it more interesting though, we need suggestions for where to go on the way and while we’re there. So if you reply on the bottom of this blog postwith a great suggestion for where we can go and we’ll put your name in a drawing to win $100 worth of Spa Services at I.M. Spa, or, if the winner is not close to Fayetteville we’ll send them a $100 gift basket. We’re interested in–Spas, great independent bodywork places, hot springs, Farmer’s Markets, Raw Food restaurants, yoga studios, independent businesses that make Dallas unique, and must sees.
For instance our friend Alpha, who is like the sun shining so bright, mentioned an amazing foot massage place in Frisco. I’ve got to get with her to get the name of that place. Suggestions like that are gold to us.
So here’s the deal:
get together your favorite places in Dallas, or in between Dallas and Fayetteville. Spas, independent businesses, hot springs, yoga studios, raw food restaurants, or things that you’ve heard about but haven’t been to yet. Each one can be a separate entry.
post them in a reply at the bottom of this blog post
or post them on our Twitter Account. We’ll hashtag #itouchpeople on our trip so you can see what we’re up to.
we’ll draw for a winner when we SURVIVE Spring Semester at UofA and come back from Dallas!
look for our upcoming posts for pictures and a full report!
Wendy Finn is the mother of 4 boys, owner of I.M. Spa, a Raw Food Enthusiast and educator, a world traveler in pursuit of superior massage education, a Master Massage Therapist of 20 plus years, a gardener, and a nursing student. She’s passionate about touching people and sharing health.
For some reason the Arkansas State Board of Massage Therapy’s requirements for providers are so stringent that none of the internationally acclaimed, nationally certified teachers can navigate the paperwork.
Year after year I saw the same local teachers teaching the same material, and the same posts on group sites by massage therapists looking for cheap, convenient classes so that they could renew their licenses.
I discovered that if I wanted different, high quality continuing education, I was going to have to travel to get it. Bonus!
What my kids get to see while I’m in class in Boston. Bunker Hill.
I can cross the border into Missouri, Oklahoma, or Texas, take a class for continuing education, bring my certificate to ASBMT and get credit for it. I can go to Mexico, Thailand, or Costa Rica and get credit for it. But those same teachers can’t get clearance to teach in Arkansas. Too many hoops to jump through.
So this year I went to Boston for the Somato Emotional Release class with the Upledger Institute. Well, I also went to Santa Monica for the Raw Food Chef Certification that Ani Phyo taught, but that wasn’t really bodywork.
The Upledger class was amazing. It’s the 3rd in a series of CranioSacral classes. The first two classes were amazing too, but they were full of protocols. This third class took all the info from the first two classes, added dialogue work and the results were remarkable. I find it difficult to describe this work to people. It’s very physical, but also very intuitive. It’s technical, but relies on letting go of outcomes. It relies on the precept that ‘The Body is Self Healing.’
Of course it is. If a virus gets in my body, my body sends out an army of white blood cells to seek and destroy. If my body gets too hot, my body decides to sweat. My brain doesn’t tell my body to do these things. My body is most often smarter than my brain. I’m very glad that my brain doesn’t have to tell my heart to beat, or my lungs to breathe. I would most certainly die. Pretty quickly too cuz I have a short attention span.
To that end, with somatoemotional release, the job of the therapist is to facilitate healing, and to get out of the way, mentally, to let that healing happen.
It’s so cool to go to a workshop and have 4 therapists working on one body. Really amazing. One of the sessions we did, my ‘client’ went through the whole birth process. Just by doing positional release and following her body where it wanted to go, we held her in the fetal position, applied pressure on her head as she required it, and without presuppositions simulated her birth until she physically
emerged (we had to move her onto the floor).
My arms were trembling for 2 days after that. I had no idea that this subtle work could be so exhausting.
Not all sessions are so remarkable, obviously. Sometimes the work simply feels like floating. Sometimes revelatory, and sometimes just relaxing. The body on the table decides what direction it wants to go.
Why do I travel for continuing education? I want to learn from people who have studied their modality intensively. No, that kind of education is not available here in Arkansas. Do I have to pay more for it? Yessirreebob. But it’s worth every penny.
And besides, I get to go (and sometimes my family comes with me) to fabulous places. Like Boston.
Me in Boston in December. Yes it’s cold. Not my favorite.
