by Kate Greenaway-Twist, Goonellabah NSW
Following on from True Physiotherapy – Part One:
Over the last 16 years I have transformed from a person driven by the goals of how things should be, how a patient should move or feel after a treatment, to a person far more at ease in myself, with a body that is far less tense. I am lighter and more fluid in all my movements and I am able to truly support my patients in their own natural healing process.
A big part of this transformation was due to me reconnecting to my natural gentleness, a quality within me that I had been disconnected from for a long time.
Gentleness
I have also learned over the last 16 years how important it is to reconnect to the natural gentle quality in me, that is in us all. I was inspired to give gentleness a go from the constant reflection of gentleness, love and true caring for others from Serge Benhayon, of Universal Medicine.
Gradually I became more gentle in my approach to myself and with everything I do, especially in how I am with my patients – how I touch them and treat them.
I learned also how fragmented I had been living; I was stepping into a role as a physiotherapist when I went to work, like putting a uniform on, but I was losing ‘Kate’ in all of that. I wonder how many of us lose ourselves in identifying with the role of being a Dentist, Nurse, Doctor, Cleaner and Mechanic etc. Through the development of this different quality in my body and how I was with patients, I slowly realised that physiotherapy needed to include the physiotherapist being true to themselves first – not acting out a role. Also that our lives cannot be compartmentalised, for it is all one life, so for me being more gentle in everything I did needed to be in all areas of my life – it wasn’t something I could just switch on when I was treating patients. So these days I am expressing me with the skills I have in physiotherapy and in the esoteric healing modalities, which I have studied and used with great benefits to my clients over the last 17 years.
In living more connected to myself and supporting my body with self-care and self-love, I have come to appreciate that I am already all I need to be – the quality I offer patients, how I connect with them, care for and love them as human beings and not see them as “just the next patient” is the foundation to support my patients, no matter what condition they have.
I have experienced burn-out in the past, much the same as many other physios in the profession, and in my learning I have come to know that this happened because of my ‘looking’ or ‘needing’ an outcome from a patient’s treatment. I have developed a deeper understanding to ‘work with’ the patient’s body and its natural ability to heal itself when supported in the true manner by the treatments I can provide.
I still give strength exercises and postural advice and specific connective tissue exercises but in a very different way, as it is not solely focused to achieve a fixed goal, but seen as a means to support the patient to appreciate their body and how moving gently opens their body to be more naturally balanced, flexible and strong. This approach helps them to connect to themselves and their bodies and often allows them to gain insights into their behaviours and movements that caused their problem or injury in the first place.
Thanks to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, I have learned that true physiotherapy is when a person, trained in physiotherapy is being true to themselves first and then use their physiotherapy skills in an unimposing gentle way to support a person’s natural healing process.
Read more:
Medicine and Serge Benhayon 
Gentleness, caring and self-love can lift up anyone regardless of profession. It’s never the job that we may say we hate that gets us down but actually how we do, how we are with ourselves in our job and elsewhere that is the real draining/stressing factor.
Combining physiotherapy with Esoteric Connective Tissue exercises can be hugely supportive for our bodies a much gentler way to reconnect to our bodies than the other types of physiotherapy treatment I have had in the past.
Learning to accept with grace my own innate gentleness I have settled much more in my body and no longer find that anxiousness rules my thoughts. When we are at ease with our innate qualities what we bring to others is far more enriched and healing.
Kate, this outcome for our patients is probably how most health care professionals work, we need to see them getting better, or fixed. It is a belief we all fall into and it is no wonder we become disillusioned with our positions or our selves become caught in a turmoil and want to leave our jobs or even look outside ourselves for the answers.
It’s always about us first before it is about the title. Having more degrees does not mean more privileges or entitlements, we still have the feelings we have to deal with. Strip away our credentials and what are we then? No different to a newborn who is born with pure love, we need to be working from there…
This is such a beautiful reminder that we are what we are before we become a role.
Movement is such an under-rated but valuable tool for healing.
Medicine is so laced with this outcome driven approach and it does put enormous pressure on health care staff to deliver something that if we consider the bigger picture of what is occurring energetically, is impossible to deliver.
It feels most healing is outcome driven. True healing can only occur, if the client plays their part in it too.
I’ve been on the receiving end of not playing my part and it got to a point where I couldn’t wait to see the practitioner to relieve what I was feeling, she was just fixing me. In some respect it was no different to going to seeing a drug dealer for my weekly fix! True healing for me began when I started to take responsibility for my own actions and emotions, it can’t get any plainer than that.
Shushila, I can so relate to your comment, I spent thousands of pounds going to see an osteopath to try to support me with my lower back pain. I would have the treatment, feel fine for 2 days or so then the back pain would be there nagging away like tooth ache. This went on for years with no improvement. Then through sessions with Universal Medicine practitioners I started to look at my responsibility for my own actions; only then did the real healing start to take place, and there is more to heal and let go of as I realise I have been carrying around old sadness and grief in my lower back for life times, not able to deal with the pain associated with the events that took place.
It’s across all walks of life, in Education which I can comment on as that’s my area of work, there is such a drive for attainment and results that the connection with the kids is often missed, and that’s what matters the most. Not to mention the detrimental effect to staff health and wellbeing living in constant drive, push and pressure to meet goals placed on them and the kids, long forgetting the people at the core.
Regarding your words on burnout, “I have come to know that this happened because of my ‘looking’ or ‘needing’ an outcome”, I feel the drive for outcomes in any part of life can lead to feeling drained, tired or exhausted, especially if we are repeatedly trying to get to a certain outcome/s. I can certainly see this in my own life, lots to ponder on, thank you Kate.
“I have learned that true physiotherapy is when a person, trained in physiotherapy is being true to themselves first and then use their physiotherapy skills in an unimposing gentle way to support a person’s natural healing process”. I would say that this is true for all professions.
From my observations in the clinic, it is fascinating to see how many physical issues and conditions appear to be caused by the repetitive patterns of how people are moving their bodies on a daily basis. So really considering the quality of these movements and how they may be changed is invaluable, not just from an intellectual basis but through actually experiencing this and experimenting with this ourselves as practitioners as you have done here Kate.
Supporting people in the way they move in their daily life is expanding on the topic of lifestyle choices, and how these impact our health and wellbeing. Considering we are all moving in some way all of the time (including the way we breathe) then this has such importance to the overall wellbeing of our body. I’ve also noticed that moving fluidly, with gentleness and love for my body and being more present with myself as I move reduces stress and anxiety. If I rush, push, or become rough and unaware of my movements it often is part of getting stressed, racy and anxious, and possibly later leading to feeling overwhelm. When I am care-full of my movements and the quality I move in I am more in tune with the natural harmony of my body and feel calm. I am less likely to leave it’s natural homeostasis.
It’s not just the repetition of physical movements that cause us to become unwell it’s also the repetitive movements that we make with our thoughts. So many of us go over the same old things in our minds, we re-live the things that have caused us pain, we go over things that we regret saying and doing, we obsess about certain things/people, we have repetitive thoughts containing self-doubt or self-hatred. Basically we repeat negative thoughts over and over again and this slowly corrodes our health.