Is Touch Practice related to other forms of Body Work?
Since I’ve become more public about the work of Touch Practice, I’m met at least a dozen people, and become aware of many more, who are working in similar ways: using physical touch to bless and heal physical bodies.
Some of my closest cousins seem to be Reiki practitioners, with whom I have had rich exchanges of energy and touch. I also find a great deal in common with massage therapists who approach their work with the understanding that it can be a deeply spiritual, not just physical, experience for their clients. Fans of more eastern approaches to medicine and wellness seem to feel at home with Touch Practice, as do many people working with erotic and tantric practices in various forms.
Meeting my relatives is not always a happy occasion. Before I was more public about this practice than I am now, I would periodically run a Craigslist ad as a way to meet others interested in touch. The ad was long, detailed, and explicit; it’s distinctive. A few months ago, I had a message from someone in the west who knows my work, and the conversation went like this:
“Are you in Utah this week?”
“No–why?”
“Because your ad is running on Craigslist there…”
Turns out that someone else copied the ad, wholesale, put a couple of personalized twists into it, and ran with it. This has happened more than once.
Of course, my first reaction (from the ego) was a little outrage. I don’t think any of us appreciate someone else taking what we’ve written, carefully, and posting it as their own work without asking.
As I sat with this, however, I was brought back to important truths about what I have come to call Touch Practice. It’s not mine. I didn’t invent it; I discovered it in the course of my own searching and developed it for my own benefit, but this variety of healing touch existed long before I was born, and will not be the least bit impacted by my death. It has always been, and it will go on. It doesn’t belong to me. It isn’t a brand. It’s a personal practice, and it is shared, in countless variations, by many others. I carry it. I don’t own it.
People borrow parts of my writings that serve them to create their own practices, in their own cities, some of which have similar intentions to mine and some of which have very different intentions and very different end goals. Each of us is responsible for our own practice and our own integrity, not for others’.
I suppose the sinister view is that people heartlessly plagiarize each others’ work, but perhaps the friendlier view is that we inspire each other. We’re all related, and we influence each other; we have a connection. If someone found something that I wrote to be so accurate in describing what he himself was seeking, what complaint can I have, really, if I have been of service to him in helping him find what he needs?
Each of us is responsible for our own practice, including our intentions. We can never know what someone’s intentions are by looking from the outside; if we try to guess someone’s intentions, we end up with projection: “what might I be intending if I were in that situation.” The only one who really knows my intentions is me, but that doesn’t stop others from projecting theirs onto me. And, because I’m human, I constantly keep an eye out for my own projection bias, and try to be mindful and observant of it.
Some people look at my practice and see something beautiful; others look at it and see something sinister. Some perceive me as being helpful to the men I sit with; others see me as deceptive. Some see the way I have chosen to walk this out in the world as courageous and brave, and some see it as cowardly and surreptitious.
We are each subject to the projections of others, and there’s absolutely nothing we can do to avoid this. The energy we could put into dancing around projections by others is better redirected into fierce clarity about our intentions–what is my goal, what have I set out to do, what values and principles will I hold to as I do this?
No one can know your intentions but you. Know your intentions. Set the course for your boat. Once you set sail, the wind will change directions; you can bank on it. Hold your course. Where the boat ends up is determined by the person who steers it, not merely by the direction of the wind.
Have thoughts you’d like to share?
Touch Practice is a sacred practice for me, and part of that is keeping confidences sacred. While a name and e-mail address are required to post a comment, feel free to use just your first name, or a pseudonym if you wish. Your e-mail address will never be seen by or shared with anyone. It is used to prevent spam and inappropriate comments from appearing in the blog. I’d really like to hear from you!
Kevin – as always – right on the mark! I think that the challenge of our projections is always with us. It’s part of our humanity that we somehow always are able to see in others the things that we would like to avoid seeing in ourselves. To try and catch ourselves before speaking them or acting upon those projections is a great practice to get to. An old friend always used the example of pointing our fingers at another person – be careful, he said, there are four pointing back at you. Once, we have addressed that issue for ourselves, then possibly we could offer some insight to another about how we have handled that issue for ourselves.
I see so many connections for your work/gift to various practices – like Reiki, massage and others. All are connections to that spiritual reality that is within each of us and always around and among us in the world. Any of these modalities and all of them can only help us to become better grounded in ourselves and connected to each other and the world we share.
thanks again!
Barry, great comment. I agree with you that learning to work with our own projections can serve us as a kind of inner teacher and guide. And for myself, projections come in two different flavors. There’s the “finger pointing” variety you mention–ways in which I accuse or see my neighbor as “less than” because of my own projections onto them. But there’s also the opposite, which manifests in energy like infatuation, where I project onto someone and make them “more than.” That is an interesting form of projection too, and teaches me that just as there are parts of me I avoid seeing (and project) because they’re undesirable, there are equally parts of me I have difficulty accepting because they are so intensely beautiful. In some ways, that aspect of projection is the more mind-boggling one for me!
Reading this article, I am reminded of something akin to the wisdom Barry quotes (‘when you point your finger, there are four pointing back at you’): When you are projecting, you’re not doing your own work; indeed, projecting lets you *avoid* doing your own work.* I am inspired by the concept of ‘re-directing projection into fierce clarity’. That is, do your work – it’s the only work you have to do.
(*This might be Byron Katie – can’t rightly recall, but want to attempt proper attribution.)
I love this line of thinking, Chris. I often notice this force operational in group processes. It’s not unusual that a group will get together and try to change the world by talking about the people who aren’t in the room. It’s an extension of, “My life would be perfect if only so-and-so would be different that he/she is.” When groups start to talk about the people INSIDE the room, the world changes. We change the world by changing ourselves, not by adjusting others.