People fall asleep on the massage table all the time. Most of them don’t intend to. They arrive determined to stay awake, to be polite, to “participate” in the session somehow. But the body has its own plans. Quite often, when someone drifts off, there will be a sudden little snort. That snort wakes them up immediately. Almost every single person — dainty female or beefy male alike — will then raise a hand and clear their throat as if to say, “Yes, that was intentional.” It’s a funny little human moment. I always pretend not to notice. Over the years, many clients have asked me something that genuinely puzzles them: “How is it possible that I fall asleep here, even when parts of the massage are uncomfortable, but I struggle so much to fall asleep at home?” It’s a good question. Part of the answer is chemistry. Massage helps release endorphins, and those are powerful little helpers. They quiet pain signals and invite the nervous system to settle. But I think there is something else happening too. When the body feels safe enough, it takes the opportunity to rest — sometimes quickly and without asking permission. I often tell clients that snoring is one of the highest compliments I receive. It means their body has decided, even if their mind hasn’t quite caught up yet, that it’s safe to let go. And when that happens, I simply keep working and let the body enjoy the moment. After all, it seems a shame to interrupt a good nap.

Today I want to offer a small noticing — not a lesson, not a correction. Over many years of work, I’ve learned that the body often chooses life long before the mind agrees it’s safe to do so. The body begins to sway. To rock. To shift its weight. To breathe a little deeper without being told. And often, the mind steps in quickly to say, “Stop that.” Or, “That’s silly.” Or, “You should be still.” But rocking is not restlessness. It is regulation. It is the nervous system whispering, “I’m trying to help us feel safe.” I’ve seen this same pattern emotionally. People circling old stories. Rehearsing criticisms from people who are not present. Trying to prove themselves to groups that are not offering welcome. All of that energy — circling, rehearsing, bracing — is often anger wearing armor. Not destructive anger, but protective anger that formed when something hurt and never quite stood down. That armor doesn’t mean we’re broken. It means we survived. But survival and life are not the same thing. Life asks something different of us. Life asks for presence. Life asks us to turn — sometimes very slowly — toward what is here, warm, breathing, and responsive. Rocking is one of the body’s first ways of doing that. A small, rhythmic yes to life. You don’t have to force yourself out of old patterns. You don’t have to rip off the armor. You don’t have to stop thinking the thoughts. You can simply notice where life is already trying to enter. A gentle sway. A deeper breath. A moment of softness you didn’t plan. If you feel your body choosing life before your mind is convinced, you’re not doing it wrong.

There are moments in the massage room that never leave you. One of mine came years ago, in an upscale hotel spa where I happened to be working at the time. An older woman arrived for her appointment—the first massage of her life. She was country and hard work to the bone. Her hands told stories before she ever opened her mouth. Callouses. Scars. A body shaped by decades of doing what needed to be done. Her son had arranged the whole trip. He had broken the mold—gone to college, built a successful business—and he wanted to do something beautiful for his mother. The hotel stay. The spa. The massage. All of it paid for. She told me about the room. Two full-size beds. Beautiful colors. Soft light. Friendly staff everywhere she turned. And then she said something that stopped me. She slept sitting upright, fully dressed, waiting for the other person she assumed the second bed was for. It never occurred to her that the space was meant entirely for her. When she came down to the spa, she apologized almost immediately—for her skin, her scars, her callouses. As if her body needed forgiveness before it could be touched. She enjoyed the first few minutes of the massage, and then every few minutes after that she would say gently, “That’s enough now.” “This must be hard on you.” “This is too much for an old country woman like me.” Each time, I reassured her. It was paid for. It was meant for her. She wasn’t taking anything away from anyone. And near the end—when the astonishment finally surfaced fully—she asked quietly, “Do people really do this for each other?” That question has stayed with me all these years. Not because she lacked gratitude—but because she lacked reference. She had lived a life where love was expressed through work, sacrifice, endurance, and usefulness. Love was something you did, not something you rested inside. Receiving without earning felt almost unthinkable. And suddenly, I see how much this mirrors our relationship with God.

I’ve been thinking a lot about anger lately — not the loud kind that shouts and slams doors, but the quieter kind that tightens the chest and keeps us braced. Anger, I’ve learned, often begins as protection. It shows up when something hurts, when something feels unjust, when we feel unseen or misunderstood. In that way, anger is not wrong. It is a signal. It is the body saying, “Something matters here.” But when anger stays too long, it often hardens into what I think of as armor. Armor does protect. But it also restricts movement. It limits breath. And eventually, it keeps life out along with danger. What I Saw Yesterday Yesterday in my office, I witnessed something that felt like anger armor turned inward. A woman sat in front of me, circling the same painful material again and again. She was rehearsing criticisms from people who do not know her. People who don’t like her. People who are not inviting her into their circle. She was frantic to prove herself to them anyway. The particular circle she was trying to break into was a genealogy group. She was digging relentlessly into her past — names, records, histories, long-dead people. Searching for something that might finally grant her legitimacy, belonging, or worth. As she spoke, I noticed something quietly alarming. Everything she was focused on was dead. Not metaphorically difficult. Not emotionally complex. But literally dead. The people she was researching were gone. The approval she was chasing was absent. The voices she was responding to were not present in the room — or in her real life. I said gently, “Do you notice that everything you’re giving your energy to right now is dead? None of this is life-giving. None of it is uplifting.” She paused. She teared up. Something landed. And then — just as quickly — she returned to the spiral. Back to the past. Back to the imagined criticisms. Back to proving herself to people who were not offering love. Anger Turned Inward

There are things I did not learn in school. I learned them in the massage room. I learned them from bodies that did not respond to words. From nervous systems that softened long before understanding arrived. From moments when no technique “worked,” yet something ancient did. Again and again, I watched bodies begin to rock. Sometimes it was barely noticeable—a subtle sway, a shift of weight, a gentle rhythm that seemed to arise on its own. Other times it was unmistakable. A rocking forward and back. Side to side. A quiet movement that required no instruction. And every time, I learned something. The body does not wait for permission to regulate itself. It remembers things we have forgotten. Rocking is not a habit to break. It is a language. One the nervous system speaks fluently. I began to notice that when rocking appeared, breath often followed. Heart rates softened. Muscles that had been guarding for years began to let go. Not dramatically. Not all at once. But enough. Enough to feel safer. This taught me something essential: calm does not arrive through force. Safety does not arrive through explanation. It arrives through rhythm. I realized that what I was witnessing was not something I was doing as a practitioner. It was something the body was remembering when it felt safe enough to lead. My role was not to interrupt it, correct it, or name it too quickly—but to honor it. Over time, I began to see rocking everywhere. In grief. In trauma. In deep prayer. In moments when words were no longer helpful. The body knows how to stay with itself when we stop asking it to perform. And then one day, I realized something else. I rock too. I always have. Massage itself has been a kind of moving meditation for me—slow, rhythmic, repetitive, grounding. My own nervous system has been regulating alongside the people on my table, learning safety through shared rhythm.