The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and Amazon.com.

I spoke to Mitch the diner. He said you can start on Thursday. He won't give you a hard time. I'm not great at taking care of myself. Gets easier. Takes practice, and that's from Buffy. And are you good at taking care of yourself, of nurturing yourself, of getting the right amount of sleep? And what about all that tension that you hold in your muscles? Do you ever consider just going in for a wonderful massage and/or muscular therapy, or just relaxing for an hour with me to discuss massage and sensuality and stress reduction?

Is Gretchen Blaker Mason, who is a member of the Center for Sexual Health. She's on the team there at Psychological Centers, and she's a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor specializing in sexual and relational health, and she's been a licensed massage therapist for 15 years. And Gretchen also teaches human sexuality at the University of Rhode Island. So Gretchen, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Alan. Many people just lose touch with themselves. You know, they're busy. They get wrapped up in the day-to-day messiness of life, and they don't know how to take a little time out to nurture themselves, how to relax and to value their body. Taking care of your body also helps you take care of your mind. So in what ways, you know, you've been a massage therapist for 15 years, in what ways does a massage allow you to get back in touch with yourself?

Well, taking the time to receive a massage, even just taking that time, is a real gift and allowing oneself to be in that really, truly receptive state, to tune into the subtleties of information in the body. Unless we really pause and stop to access that information, we miss out on a lot. So there's a lot of the experience of massage, in some ways, can be like an inch-by-inch awareness of pleasure, or tuning into where things are tight, and it can be a very therapeutic environment because it's safe. It's a safe environment to let go.

So it's really a gift to yourself. It's like you're learning about a different aspect of yourself. I do something very similar. It's the Alexander Technique, but I also go for massage therapy. Once, with the Alexander Technique, I was wondering, why my face? You know, how do you release tension in your face? In so much of us, we carry it there. When we started to work on that and just to release the muscles to think about relaxing the forehead and the cheekbones and the rest, I immediately had a psychological connection to, oh my god, I have family members who take tons of pictures, and I'm one of them too, but I always had to smile for pictures. That fake smile came from always saying, "Look at the camera. Smile," and I wasn't feeling happy, and so I forced this fake smile. That was a psychological breakthrough, where through something like massage, so interesting.

Yeah, it was very, very, and I've heard that you must see it. If you've been doing this for 15 years, that you hit a certain part of the body where people are holding a lot of tension. And it's not just muscular tension, honey.

No, it's not. Now there's, it's really our emotions and memories are in our muscles.

Yeah, not literally, but that's right, what we've adapted, we've held them that way, right?

Well, even there are neurochemicals that are released in the brain, but they flow throughout the body, right? And there are receptors. The most dense receptors are around the abdominal area. So sometimes, if you know, for a nervous or excited or you know that, or we get a gut feeling, you know that we have, you know, kind of terminology to describe the sensation around our belly. The field of psychoneuroimmunology has provided information and understanding about how, you know, how we're integrated and how everything is really connected.

So if we think about, you know, identifying ourselves as kind of, you know, just being in our brain, you know, we kind of miss out on tuning into that information, right, and the rest of ourselves.

Right. And people see that. I mean, in therapy, when somebody hits a really important, really deep-down topic, sometimes the leg shakes a mile a minute, and it wasn't, you know, a moment before they were talking about that. Our bodies do speak to us, and we need to learn how to listen to them.

I'm wondering, you know, as a massage therapist, how do you create a relaxing environment?

Hey, I got to interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw? Here it is: The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it at Amazon.com. Hmm. The Selfish Path to Romance. That is interesting.

As a massage therapist, how do you create a relaxing environment?

Well, safety is number one; that's priority because there's really no letting go or relaxation without safety. So that would start with a conversation, you know, with a client about their needs and really being attuned and responsive to what a client is needing.

Also, in terms of a physical environment, I've done some traveling over the years and have visited different, you know, spas or massage clinics. I kind of take something from each place, for example, about what was important in my experience to me, and I try to create it in the space that I have.

So, for example, I've been to spas in Europe, in Germany, Austria, Sweden, and there were different things that I can't bring into this environment. For example, in Germany, what I remember about that experience is that the spa was, you know, it wasn't just an hour or two; it was a half-day experience. There were a group of older women sitting in the steam room talking about recipes and talking about what they're going to plan for, you know, for dinner. So it was different in a way that people experience a spa in American culture, where it's very individual and people don't talk to one another. There is, it's social, and they connect with others, and they're meeting their social needs.

So that was interesting. In a spa in an Irish castle that I stayed at, they gave out these decadent fruits and little smoothies and just the little things about having a little, you know, nourishment, you know, healthy nourishment, right?

Can help help you relax. So, how could someone use the same methods at home, you know, creating a relaxing environment to reduce their own stress, some small steps, sure?

So, creating a space that, you know, isn't cluttered and turning the TV off, or the computer, and thinking about what kind of environment is relaxing, you know, what kind of music, or, you know, of course, the lighting, thinking about what's soothing to the senses.

So, having a favorite aroma or essential oil or smell, it's amazing how that can affect a whole, like, right? And even if you took 10 minutes or five minutes out of your day and just listened to the music, just sat and listened in a chair that you like, or relaxed, or put on some hand creams or something, you're nurturing yourself.

So listen, now I want to go out and get a massage. How could people get in touch with you? I'm speaking with Gretchen Blaker Mason if they're interested.

Sure, I have a website, healthofsome therapy.com. Okay, it's a Swedish word meaning healthy living.

H-A-L-S-O-S-A-M.com. Thank you so much for joining us today, Gretchen. I think that is so fascinating to be able to go to spas around the world, in Germany and in Ireland, and just to see how other cultures, other countries, treat sensuality or just focusing on the body.

How do you nurture yourself? And for any of you listening, ask yourself today, what could I give myself? What could I do? Would I like a different aroma in my house? Would I like music? Would I like to clean up some clutter someplace and make my home environment a little more welcoming?

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com.

And please listen to this. NAD.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Alan Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke.

Spending leisure time together in compatible activities is a wonderful way to strengthen your love, whether it's dining out, reading in bed together, going to the movies, attending concerts, playing sports, listening to music, or going on vacations. Taking time to deliberately bask in the enjoyment of one another's company is ultimately one of the most rewarding things you can both do, even if you have different tastes. There are ways to make both of you happy. Some activities you can do with friends, but it is important that you and your partner do not routinely go your separate ways.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at Amazon.com.