Week 2: Day 8 – Lesson
“You just start helping them from where they are and where their thinking is. The people who are most difficult to help are the ones who won’t talk.” Marjorie Barstow, Marion Miller journal, p.18
A few years ago I met a young boy and his mum. The boy was about 8 years old and mute. He really did not like wearing clothes or shoes whatever the weather. Fortunately he would wear jogging bottoms.
Initially his movements were stiff, agitated and heavy footed. He would suddenly jump up and zoom around the room without warning. I had never been trained to work with children, let alone a child who did not speak. But by this time I had been a mum for a few years, and I had been learning with my own son since he was a baby.
So I sat on the floor next to this boy and simply observed him while his mum told me about him.
I explored making a little eye contact, nothing demanding. This was not easy, but sometimes he would snatch a glance at me. I remember he was moving a toy this way and that. I asked him quietly if it was ok for me to touch him gently? I think he understood, as he neither moved away nor towards me. I placed my fingertips very lightly on his hands, wanting only to meet him and accompany his movements. Perhaps he thought I was about to take the toy away as snatched his hands back. I reassured him that I would not take the toy, that I only wanted to join him a little, if that was ok.
Again he seemed to understand. This time, when I touched his hands, I matched his movement and he let my hands stay a while. My touch did not resist or change what he was doing. I simply travelled with him. He paused for a moment. Something in him noticed something in me. He gave me a quick look, then carried on.
His mum stopped talking and watched, surprised. He stayed with me for a full ten minutes before he got up again. He moved the toy, I moved with him, I guided it a little and he followed. We had quite a movement and touch conversation.
When he got up, I got up too, following him gently, and whenever he paused, I joined him again. My touch was light, confident, slow, non‑demanding. Listening hands. Offering him a moment of rest inside his own movements. Sometimes my hands were on his back, or on a heel, up on his neck.
After a few weeks he would lie down. At first his mum would promise him a toy on the way home if he lay down for Miss Lucy. After a few weeks, he began to recognise this as something we did together, and he chose to lie down. I guess he liked something about it.
I would rest my hands around his head, joining him where his body was, listening to what his body was telling me and offering him an experience of his head, neck and back. No words. Just presence.
After about six weeks, he began to cry. Not a small cry, no sound except breathing gulps of air. Huge, wet tears rolling down his cheeks, over my thumbs, into his ears and onto my hands.
He lay there and cried and cried. I stayed with him, gently holding his head gently, cradling him, being with him as fully as I could. His mother had stopped breathing. I felt her stillness. I glanced at her and smiled. Her eyes were full of tears too. My eyes prickled with tears too, but I stayed there for him, and with him, keeping wide and full myself to welcome his big experience, and more. This little boy was really feeling his feelings. He was releasing something he had held for a long time in his body tension, in his cells. And he felt safe enough to let this energy of emotions move with my accompaniment..
Later his mum told me he went home and cried for three hours. Quiet, painful, big tears with his head on her lap. Then he slept all night, a long healing sleep. She told me her son had not been able to cry at all for the previous three years. Wow, what a wonder! She was delighted that he got to express himself and release those tears with me, that she got to witness his emotional self and see his relief. This was a relief for all the family as his nervous system calmed down and was a little more peaceful.
This boy probably taught me more than I taught him. He taught me that I do not need a client’s words to teach them. I do not need wordy explanations. I do not need to hear anything back. What matters is the quality of presence, the quality of touch, the connection and the intention to be with someone exactly where they are.
He taught me to trust the work to work. And whenever I get too busy with words and explanations, I remember those sessions. I close my mouth, stop talking and let my hands speak. I let their body speak, and I listen and respond as I accompany them in this silent communication.
Who do you know who would like to release some stress and stored emotions and perhaps have a good healing cry? I’d love to hear from you, this is part of the service I offer.
warm wishes
Lucy