Show Notes
During the conversation with Victoria (a licensed clinical massage therapist), we discuss how her going through difficulties has molded her to be kind, generous and compassionate. Victoria explains the steps she has taken to learn to tap into gratitude and continues to take on a daily basis. “It takes dedication and day by day as life and challenges pass. It’s like sand on the rocks of the river, ever smoothing their surface.” The redeeming take away from this episode is to be grateful at the very least around the holidays.
For more information about Victoria Hackworth, visit her Wellistic profile or her website.
Transcription
Eddie: [00:00:00] I was wondering if you could speak about your craft, explain that to our listeners. what exactly is clinical massage therapy?
Victoria: [00:01:46] Well, clinical massage therapy, or as I thought, clinical body work, is applying therapeutic touch through a thorough medical understanding with intention, of integrating the whole system.
To support and resolve the root cause of the concerns such as pains, range of motion, hindrances, or lack of sleep and etc like that. So I work, she relieved the reason for pain rather than what is felt.
Eddie: [00:02:21] So somebody will typically have some sort of a, an ailment that they’re dealing with and your deal with really the underlying cause of what’s making that person feel a certain kind of way?
Victoria: [00:02:33] Yes. Within my scope of practice.
Eddie: [00:02:36] Gotcha. And so you’ve studied a advanced neural reset therapy. Motor point stimulation therapy and could you touch base on some of the specialties that you are experienced with?
Victoria: [00:02:49] So neural reset therapy is quite a fascinating thing. There’s a lot of science in it, which I really like that.
Neural reset therapy is all about resetting the muscle back to its resting before it had discomfort or lessening the discomfort quite a bit, and that’s a very useful technique. When the faschia is open and it’s able to move, the fascia isn’t able to move. I like to use fascial reconnection, which is a slow sliding and gliding. Type of treatment. That really enables the engagement of the fascist system so that it can open so that people can have this amazing sometimes right then, but other times it takes time. If you don’t feel pain, suddenly it’s because of an cumulative affect the faschia then opens up and can can feel so much more range of motion and actually help with breathing, which makes sense. Cause if there’s often a compression or tightness, breathing can be hard thing.
Eddie: [00:03:55] When you mentioned fascia, just for our listeners, they might not be aware of what that is?
Victoria: [00:04:00] Fascia is a amazing connecting tissue and so right. For another The texture of it that I can think of is like a span of a spiderweb, so it’s able to ebb and flow and move and something that encases our entire body out with the inside of our skin our organs, our muscles, our bones, everything.
Eddie: [00:04:25] So if you were to give an example of what Fascia would be, who would you say, this is an odd example, but with a hot dog or with some kind of processed meat, it would be the lining that holds that in?
Victoria: [00:04:38] Yes. In a weird way of saying yes, that would be it.
Eddie: [00:04:43] So how does your background differ from the general massage therapist?
Victoria: [00:04:49] My practice differs from that. Others. day one, then I dedicated my life to this field, I really delve deep into advanced seminars and tuition. You understand the body as a whole too be able to touch the body with understanding and compassion of its complexities is to stir, the guts within it and to release tides of uncharted waters. In time that can aid clients with emotional and mental and psychological pains. Not to mention the relief of the physical. Simply for them to be them, I suppose what differs is. That extensive education to truly understand every part that I can so that the treatment can be, well, we customizable each person. That doesn’t mean that it’s the same person because everyone’s different but so that they can, have hope, that they can feel their best again one day.
Eddie: [00:05:57] And with your craft and you mentioning the mental aspect, is that something you also deal with as well?
Victoria: [00:06:04] I think so. The mind is an amazing network it’s just how, okay. Let’s take from this its it in the emotional stand point. If someone holds onto an emotion for a long time, eventually it lives in the body somewhere. It’s sort of like people saying, my shoulders really hurt because I’m stressed a lot. That’s where I’m carrying my stress. Similarly, that can be and is a mental aspect.
What you think is what you become. So what you think of your body, it’s what your body becomes. So part of what I do is work with the muscles and work with that aspect, but if I don’t also, help people to reporgram or to understand the mental aspect, they probably won’t get as much benefits or treatments because there they wont they’re minds won’t allow themselves to feel it.
Eddie: [00:07:10] Yeah. It really does. you know, the mind, obviously controlling the body in the body, being a feedback system, I’m sure that works into play someplace. You’ve talked about the journey you’ve taken and to be able to help people with learning so much about, massage therapy as well as, like I had mentioned previously, the motor point stimulation therapy. What inspired you to take the journey that you have?
Victoria: [00:07:39] Well that all started with my mumzie, my mom was, wasn’t in an accident or anything like that but she had some pain and really extensive pain and we didn’t really know why. We went to doctors and the doctors claimed that it was, they didn’t know what it was. it was incurable, except for long term medications or surgery or holistic people. We don’t really, we tried to do other things, so it’s very sweet friend of ours, a trusted medical doctor.
He recommended massage therapy at the time. Massage therapy, we knew that as fluff, massage or Swedish, the light stuff, the things that only add circulation to the skin, but my mom in a lot of pain and I could see it in her eyes, that twinkle, that was her. Everything that she loved to do, it started to go dim because she was realizing she couldn’t be herself anymore because she couldn’t walk, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t sleep very well. It was just, that was hard. So we took her to the recommended bodyworker. I had an take my mom by her shoulder from by her arm and help her and she couldn’t walk very well. Got her on the table, got everything ready and wait out in the lobby.
And after the treatment, my mom was able to walk herself to the car when she got off of medications for pain, but after being able to see that happen, my mom was, even if that light back, she was still able to be herself, that her pain wasn’t in control of her life, but that she was. It was amazing, and I was only thinking to myself, I have no idea about this before this happened.
How many other people are like that too? And all they have to do is surgery any long term medication. That really takes over people’s lives. This is something that is affordable and you don’t have to use insurance for this, and it’s an alternative care. Something that before can enjoy life through because getting a massage is very nice, but also that keeps everything moving. That’s when I decided that this is what I wanted to dedicate my life to.
Eddie: [00:10:31] I appreciate you sharing that personal experience with us. You know, we’ve spoke many times and I’ve always been curious in where that genuine appreciation for being able to help, clients has come from. And I. I certainly can understand that now what you have gone through with your mother and being able to offer relief two individuals seeing it firsthand work.
You brought up an interesting point with medication and there’s obviously a big problem with over prescribing of pain medication in this country. What would you say to listeners out there that are currently dealing with pain?
Victoria: [00:11:51] My advice with that, with taking medication for a long period of time, whether it is something that is recommended or that is needed for that particular situation. Medications treats the surface. At least that’s how I think of it.
Most medication goes toward a side of medicine that a, rarely does it ever help the cause. If it It helped the cause then you wouldn’t be taking medication all the time because it you would be complete. For those that are taking medication, I would urge them to find something Naturopathic Doctor or someone the thinks in the whole aspect. Thinks in a little bit of medical. Thinks in nutritional. Maybe it’s part of diet. Maybe it’s a part of how much exercise or lack thereof. In there life that, they need because found that, it’s another just one piece. It’s typically a whole bunch of things and they accumulate.
Eddie: [00:13:00] So many things tie in together. There’s so many things that affect us. I can understand how it wouldn’t just be one problem, one fix, that it would be multiple issues and maybe needing to work through layers of those issues to get to, what the root cause was to bring on the piling up, if you will, of problems.
So. The reason that I had been inspired to sit down with you here is I was actually scrolling through social media and I had saw an interesting post from you, and it was an excerpt from the Velveteen rabbit. So for our listeners, let me go ahead and read that for them. So they’re up to speed.
You become, it takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen to people who break easily or have sharp edges or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off and your eyes drop out and you get loosened your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all because once you are real, you can’t be ugly except to people who don’t understand.
Can you explain to our listeners what that means to you?
Victoria: [00:14:13] This is my favorite thing to read. I guess you could say that I read it on a regular basis simply because I just, each time I read it, I understand something about myself differently because as time passes, I change. I’m never the same because of life circumstances or what I choose, and I love that each time I read it, it’s something different. So as I’m thinking and deciding that I reread it, I’ve found that to be my authentic self, I have to be bold because I’m me. I’m not like any other person, and I may be different from others. However, I can’t let that be my bar of success. Competing with other people. Is quite silly because my goal is to be better than myself, than I was yesterday.
Life has meaning and meaning takes a long time to understand. It takes hard work. It takes dedication and day by day as life and challenges pass. It’s like sand on the rocks of the river, ever smoothing their surface. If I’m to be 100% me each day for there are people that I love to work with and I love to meet, it is fine. If some of them don’t want to take time to understand what I do or how I do because there are others that are looking for someone who is authentically real and that’s more than good enough.
Eddie: [00:16:11] The profound level of logic and emotion that you have is, is truly remarkable and, it’s rare to have someone with such a level balance of being logical and emotional. Typically, one will override the other. What do you think has allowed you to balance both of those?
Victoria: [00:16:30] I tell you the story because that’s the best way that I can think about answering this. I’m going to do so with the best of my ability without getting too emotional about it. So what’s really helped me? with balancing these two things. A theme, emotional, but like being compassionate toward other people but it’s also illogical. Is I’ve always loved to honor people because of their time they spent with me, which means, which has made me who I am today. Recently, I’ve had to take these two pieces and put them together. To sustain, pretty much everything.
My father passed away last year. And it’s been difficult to say the least. My dad was a very compassionate and amazing man, always caring about other people slow to speak and quick to listen because he loved to hear about, what other people love to do. He would rarely ever say anything about himself. That is because he had this saying and he lived by the saying, he would always say.” Love people and use things.” In the world and time that we live in right now. People often use people get things, but as I’ve learned since my father’s passing. Things accumulate and they stay around, some of them forever. It seems that people have due dates and it’s important to spend time, the time that you have during your life, which is not guaranteed there is a tomorrow, but to love like there isn’t so that there is no regretting each day. So through work and realizing the future is the future is good that’s a balance live in the moment is not sustainable. You have to do both. Otherwise you will have so much regret later it wasn’t time spent. With the ones that were here at one time. That’s how I’ve come to balance that logic. Truly be present for each person that I’m with because I’m giving them part of my life that I’ll never get back and they’re giving me part of their life that they’ll never get back and that is more valuable than any amount of money that can be given.
Eddie: [00:19:52] That’s insightful to tie this in with the holidays that we’re coming up on. let me preface this question by saying in this point in time, since you alluded to the idea that we are always changing, whether it’s something we’re learning or experiences that we’re going through. So in this moment with your authentic self.
How does that translate into gratitude and the idea that it’s the holidays and we all, I believe, have something to be grateful for?
Victoria: [00:20:26] Oh. For me, if I’m able to be me, that means that I trust me. And trust is a big part. What makes each of us, each of us. And without that, the self cannot be. So to be able be true to me means that I can also be true to others, which means that I would want to do. Because they deserve it is I respect them for it. Even if someone has never met before, I respect them to a certain degree and I want to make sure that they know how much they’re valued. I want to, I do this regularly, not just around the holidays. I’m grateful all the time. He likes all of that. If I wasn’t grateful all the time that I’d be wasting part of my life. And there’s no fun in bath regrets and not fun.
Eddie: [00:21:25] And when you say that you’re grateful all the time, or you practice that, I’m not sure if would, would you say you practice being grateful or is it something that is natural for you?
Victoria: [00:21:37] At one time it was something that I practiced and now it’s become a habit and I just do so regularly.
Eddie: [00:21:43] And so really it isn’t just a period of the year, but it is. The idea that you were practicing something and it became a habit after a point in time, and what kinds of things would you practice being grateful for? How would you go about, practicing gratitude?
Victoria: [00:22:04] Something that I think about and that I do regularly. When I wake up in the morning? I think about my top five people that I’m grateful for. How do they done something for me or they’re just, really good friends, or I really liked how they responded to a certain action that I was just impressed by them. I think about them and I wonder if, what are those things that I really appreciate about them? And if they’re available. Two out of the five people or if I’m feeling really good that day, I do all five. That’s what happened. I called him up where I send them a message about exactly what I was thinking about, what I appreciate about them cause everyone, I can’t speak for everyone. I can only speak for me.
So for me, if someone wants to send me something really kind something completely out of the blue about what they liked about me, that would make my day, it would probably just move me to tears. Some days because I am not expecting it. The another way to really green gratitude forward. Is to think of ways that I can show gratefulness to another person, so that’d be wishing up in the morning. I want to make breakfast for my husband, so he knows that I care about him eating in the morning so you don’t have to do that he can go on. Check his emails or whatever he needs to do that day, where I can go ahead and make coffee or mom, that’s a regular thing. We make coffee every day like clockwork, so I can do it sometimes. And then that’ll mean being grateful to be grateful that it’s not the right word for me. I am grateful for the people, but the action that I’m taking towards him, I want to honor them because the time that they took in my life, it made such an, it made me who I am today and I’m trying to be my best 100% every day.
Eddie: [00:24:48] And as we wind down this episode of holistic doses, what’s something that you have recently learned and how did you learn about it
Victoria: [00:24:57] Recently, I picked up a book and I’ve been learning about color and how it enhances people’s environments. So my goal here with this book to dress myself in a way the makes people happy like an enjoy type of sense, like the color red. It expresses boldness, dedication, eagerness, and compassion. And black represents sophistication and , Oh, we will with sophistication and so if I’m able to impact my environment, people with what I wear, or with what I bring with me to treatment won’t that make the treatment even better.
Eddie: [00:25:54] You would think so, and the idea that you would be able to assess and take, the steps toward learning, that sort of detail, I think shows your true caring of the people that you work with.
Victoria: [00:26:10] They’re very important to me, I treat them like they are my own family.
Eddie: [00:26:15] For my final question here, how do you deal with stress?
Victoria: [00:26:20] Wow. I was thinking about that but baking chicken, it’s very good for stress. You have to tenderize the chicken was that steel mallet, which is so much fun. You gotta make sure you put clear wrap down. Otherwise the spatters everywhere and then it’s a mess.
But all joking aside, even though you should try that, it’s real fun.
Eddie: [00:26:43] I might have to give that a shot.
Victoria: [00:26:49] what do I do for stress? I find myself really attracted to relaxing music, that of which I would use during my treatments with my clients, and to just sit there and meditate on what I’m grateful for is if I’m grateful than stress can’t be there because I’m just too happy.
And also. Take time. Who remember or to learn something new by reading. Or to get to draw a picture, which is an extension of myself.
Eddie: [00:27:28] Victoria, thank you for being here with me today and sharing such personal information.
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