Feet of Metal: What’s weighing you down? [Guest Post]
“Fuck, everything hurts.”
For a few days in a row, I woke up feeling like someone steamrolled my body. It had been an intense four days of dancing –practicing, teaching, and taking advanced classes.
I needed relief! It came in the form of a professional massage, my first in over a year.
My masseuse immediately went to work on my various aches and pains.. I tried to relax, but couldn’t turn my mind off. My habit of constantly thinking is like computer software taking up precious RAM, always running in the background, maintaining updates and refreshing itself. Until it freezes and crashes the system.
My masseuse gently told me to breathe and let go as she relieved my muscle tension. Slowly, my mind calmed, and I unwound into this act of self-care. At the end of quite possibly the best massage I’ve ever received, she told me that she wished she had more time to work on my feet. “They were like metal.”
As a No.1, I’ve been wired to think about everyone and everything else before considering myself. Over time, my feet have taken the brunt of that stress. I could feel the tension I’d been storing in my body and how challenging it was to let go of. Why was it so hard for me to relax and just revel in my own pleasure.
The decision to pause and take care of my body was a reminder to integrate intentional moments of self-love in my life. How can you do the same?
This guest post is by Leslie Cao of the No.1 Immigrant Daughter Team. She enjoys snuggling with her cat Jubilee, baking her famous browned-butter chocolate chip toffee cookies, and of course, dancing.