The Change: 9

 A Little Bit About AE
(This is an ongoing story. If you want to start at the beginning, click here.)

AE is tall and lean with soft blonde hair that hangs a little past her shoulders. She has long legs and an ample bosom and, at 59, could probably pass for 45. She’s a pretty ex-California girl who you could imagine being able to stop traffic when she was young.

When she wears a V-neck top, you can see part of the scar from one of her many heart surgeries. She was born with a congenital heart defect – a blue baby – and her mother was told that AE had about a 20 percent chance of surviving.

AE has been a bodyworker for 20 years and for 20 years before that she was a nurse. She discovered this particular type of bodywork through an injury of her own. While working as a massage therapist, she developed Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and could get no relief from any traditional medical approaches.  For years, she worked on people without having any sensation in her own hand.

I don’t know how AE found the practitioner who started doing this bodywork on her, but it was no instant fix.  She says a lot of things started feeling better – her whole life started feeling better – but her Carpal Tunnel Syndrome hung on for quite a while. And then, finally, it disappeared.

AE says that she and I are very similar (although not in the blonde bombshell way). We are both very sensitive and have a hard time enduring certain types of physical pain. She says both our bodies have endured long-standing trauma and that moving through that trauma is a slow process for both of us. She says that many people can receive a few treatments and all their issues are resolved, but that’s not how she and I roll.

This news was more than a little disheartening to me, since I am not a patient person. Although, it helps to know that she understands how I’m wired; that I’m not just a crybaby.

The one way we are not at all similar is that she is not a skeptic like I am. She seems  more apt to discover and embrace something new rather than questioning the verity of it every step of the way. 

She says of all her many clients, I am her biggest Doubting Thomas.  Though she delivers the news with a big sparkly smile in her eyes.

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