Allan Drew's Monthly Updates
Please check back with this site and my book in progress, The Reason You're Hurting.
This website will include monthly updates as I write. I'm hoping for publication and distribution in 2007.
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Monthly Update for January 2011
The Unseen
In recent years it has become acceptable to acknowledge the unseen into our reality. I’m a pragmatist; I believe what I can see; which is why I do what I do. The practical suits me well. If you have a sore knee I can see with my fingers the corded, knotted muscle fibers that are creating your pain. What I couldn’t see came to me one day in the form of Judy, a woman in her fifties with a frozen shoulder. She had been in continues pain for some time. I was aware that at times emotional pain accompanied injuries. When I questioned her I asked if she was dealing with any difficult emotional problems. She answered, “Yes, I’ve only recently began dealing with issues I’ve had with my father”. We began working the muscles in a gentle way. Before long I heard her softly crying. I asked if the pressure was too much. She said, “No”. Shortly the soft tears became racking sobs. I asked if the pain was physical or emotional. She replied, “I don’t know I can’t tell the difference”. For me that was a powerful moment. Where does one start and the other end? Any healing that is to take place has to be from a safe place. Both in the physical environment and the emotion environment, we can not have one without the other. What is the difference between, “I was touched by your story” and being touched by your massage therapist? How is one different from the other? We are both physical and emotional beings. If you wish to become well you can not ignore one for the other. Acknowledge both.Judy was mostly free of her physical pain after three or four visits. I saw her in a local restaurant about a year later. She said her Range Of Motion came back slowly. I asked if she had dealt with her issues with her father? She said she had and the ROM and the issues she had dealt with concerning her father concluded at the same time. Was this coincidence or is this the way it really works?
Yours in Wellness,
Allan Drew
Monthly Update for December 2010
Seasons Greetings
A technician is tuning my piano. It’s been a while since it was last tuned, so I can hear the notes become truer as she progresses. Writing this Christmas letter each year is my tune-up. Thinking and writing about the past year allows me to see what I’ve done – right or wrong - and become more in tune with who I wish to be.
Looking back over my life I have to say ‘it’s been quite a trip.’ I’ve worked at a multitude of jobs, lived in many places, been happy, content, sad and on occasion down right miserable. I wished I had, wished I hadn’t and just wished. The road I thought I’d taken often turned out to be different than I’d expected. What criteria do we use to make those choices? Our experience! When we’re young there is little of that, but as we age the pool of knowledge increases. I reluctantly have to admit some of my choices ignored experience. Each of us is a product of our cumulative experiences, so individual ‘bad’ discussions are not necessarily bad because they lead to who we become. And at this time of my life I like who I’ve become.
Ellie and I spent the summer converting our land into a farm. We’ve cleared 6 acres and planted the fields in grass and wildflowers and built a barn. Hopefully the house will be built next year. Although clearing land and building a barn and stone walls might be considered a young person’s task, we did very well. There is joy in building, in creating. We had to find the balance between what Ellie had in her mind and what I had in mine. We did a good job.
Once again the theme of my life is love; my love of life and living, friends, family (old and new) and Ellie. Robert Frost wrote: Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistible desired. For me that is the reason for living, the gift that keeps on giving. It’s the only thing that we can give away and find we have more after the give-away.
We’re living in a difficult time. It’s been said that every action taken by human beings is based on either love or fear. There seems to be more fear than love at the moment. It’s my hope I can respond to that fear with love and not anger. How should we like it / were stars to burn / With a passion for us we / could not return / If equal affection there cannot be / Let the more loving one be me. – W.H. Auden
May you acknowledge the love around you and wrap yourself in it. May you find joy in living. May you find that giving love becomes easier with age. May you know my life is better because you’re in it. May you have a very merry holiday and a happy new year.
Monthly Update for November 2010
Pain from Satins medications
If you’re enduring chronic pain and are taking cholesterol lowering drugs listen to what Mayo Clinic Cardiologist Thomas Behrenbeck, MD says, “If you have muscles aches or other troubling symptoms after taking statin medications, talk to your doctor as soon as possible.” One of the drugs side effects is muscular pain.
Monthly Update for October 2010
What is tendonitis?
Tendonitis is the inflammation of tendons. In most of the cases I see, it is relieved by reducing the tightness of the muscle. A number of years ago I was buying a pair of running shoes. The young woman assisting me had a wrist brace on. I'm always interested in other's injuries, and asked if it was CTS (carpal tunnel syndrome). She said the doctor diagnosed it as tendonitis. She took off the brace and I could see the swelling above the tendons where they intersect the wrist. (If you hold your hand palm up and flex the muscles of your hand the tendons pop up.) It was the most dramatic case of tendonitis I had ever seen. I explained that I was a massage therapist and asked if I could work the muscles in her forearm. She said yes. After a few minutes of working on loosening the muscles she said, "Oh my God!" I thought,"Oh shit, what have I done." She held out her hand, "The swelling is gone!" It had diminished substantially. She had to bend her wrist back in order to see any swelling at all. That was the moment I realized how powerful massage could be in helping tendonitis. By relaxing the muscles, the tendons' swelling was reduced.
Yours in Wellness,
Allan Drew
Monthly Update for October 2010
Relief of low back pain
The majority of low back pain is caused by tight and or an imbalance of core muscles known as the illiopsoas. On occasion the hamstrings or one of the quads can be involved. But most of the time the psoas are the culprits. Once the psoas are relaxed and in balance (one side not tighter than the other) any pain should diminish over a period of a few days. At this time peripheral muscle soreness can be addressed.
A Book in Progress... Self-healing through evaluation, massage and stretching.