Okaaaay Paul...that is not all that you have been saying, but as proven AGAIN, you read and hear only what you want to hear. That I agreed with you on that one point of the MANY you were trying to convince...THAT is what you got out of what I wrote?!?! So if this helps, you were right the whole time about everything! Thank you for sharing your infinite and all encompassing wisdom. You were right the whole time. WOW! :confused:
Thank you Reiki Pixie and all the rest for your listening and courtesy of reading and considering of what was actually written. I have been in this field of therapy long enough and in my works and in my life to know when to stop conversing with those who run over someone else's thoughts and ideas with selective listening and communication skills. I apologize and have already crossed my own line of letting frustration get the best of me and expressing it. I've just dealt with this mentality of the "I am right no matter what" too many times. Apologies...and enjoy. Paul...you win.
Hi musicguy7
If you read back through the posts, then you will see that I have agreed with much that you have said, it was the understanding that there is no meaning behind being ticklish that I chose to share my understanding on, you did not agree with the points that I was making and chose to dismiss each one, so I added different things in the hope that would be able to perceive that occasionally there could actually be a reason.
It is not about being right or wrong, it is about dealing with what is, I am always happy to share my understanding with others, but how others choose to interpret or judge what I chose to share is entirely up to them. 🙂
Paul, I agree...and it was not what you posted, but "how" you responded to others as well as myself. I have had many discussions...long discussions with people on various topics both on the internet and in lectures, etc. And I will be the very first to admit that internet is a hotbed of misinterpreting intentions and emotions. So I may be totally and completely off-base, but you come across as...not saying you are and I am only limited by what I am seeing and carefully reading...as very arrogant. And I am referring to how you responded to offers even more than myself, as others had to correct the mis-assumptions and partial readings you have made. As I even re-read, it "comes across" as almost having to be right. My frustration, and I apologize again for letting it get the best of me, was not at all in what you said, but how it comes across. And if I have mis-judged you, I do apologize. As I said, I have run into this quite a bit in this field and I will say, I have also run into some who are very open...they are just far out-weighed by the "perfectly packaged tiny box" side.;)
Hi musicguy7
I suppose that I am self assured within the things that I have experienced, but written words will not portray that in the same way as listening to my voice would, it is one of the downsides to written communication, I can inject humor into my spoken words to help convey the meaning behind them, a smiley does not quite do the same job at all. 🙂
Over the many years that I have been a member of HP I have learned far more then I have contributed, I continue to do so as I read other members thoughts and experiences, sometimes I will challenge other members understanding to better understand how it has arisen and to check that I have not missed something, sometimes my own understanding is challenged, which makes me reevaluate and validate my own understandings, but that is the same in any field of expertise and HP has many diverse fields to explore. 🙂
I am still waiting to read that which you have come to share with us as I am sure other member are, but in your own time. 😉
I am ticklish all over 😀 ...
x daz x
Reiki Pixie I like you.
Anyway in answer to the original ticklishness question I love working with people with ticklish feet because I've found that once you've found a pressure they're happy with they are actually extremely responsive to reflexology and I think thats possibly due to the very fact that their feet ARE so sensitive!
Deep calm breathing on their part & firm gentle pressure on yours, you should be fine!
Wow, I like these discussions. I just found this thread because yesterday I went for a wonderful massage. However, like always, when she got to massaging my feet, I went ballistic. She said that in the five years she's done massages, she's never had anyone close to me as far as ticklish feet goes. I was squirming like a worm, but after a while I could calm down. She asked if she should stop massaging my feet, and I said to keep going because I want to get past this. It did however make me feel uncomfortable when she started asking if I was the youngest sibling in my family and if I was bullied or have some traumatic emotional issues of which I answered no to all of them. This stumped her.
So many cool angles from people trying to explain it here, whether it's physiological, emotional, or both.
I think she probably stepped outside her therapeutic boundaries by asking such probing questions - is she a psychologist? I would have felt uncomfortable too and told her as much!
I've been doing reflexology for 35+ years, and have only ever had two experiences of 'ticklishness' - and once the chaps (for chaps they were - both big lads, who were boxers!) had relaxed and I simply did relaxation massage on their feet, they both gave in and enjoyed the experience.
Agree with you there Jabba, she was essentially trying to make a diagnosis and even making suggestions about causes that could be inappropriate for the person being treated. That certainly isn't professional.
Thanks for the encouragement. It's not a big deal but it's like someone saying your earlobes are extraordinarily big, and I heard that people like you tend to get ear cancer more frequently.
I am also a big guy, 6'5" 240 lbs. I wonder if someone has come up with a scientific survey to see if there is at least one common thread with all people that have extremely ticklish feet. For instance I sweat profusely when I exercise, I blush easily, my ribs are very ticklish also.
Luke - I doubt that there are any surveys about this, scientific or otherwise. You are simply you - a unique individual with ticklish feet! I too could wring out my workout clothes and fill a sink - I blush for no reason (can't tell you how much I spent as a teenager, on special creams to apply to help me stop glowing like a neon light!!!) and now have to wear tenna lady due to problems with spontaneous laughter caused by bad jokes or flippant tickling! When you go for massage therapy, just enjoy it - don't read anything into sensations you may experience!
Luke - I doubt that there are any surveys about this, scientific or otherwise. You are simply you - a unique individual with ticklish feet! I too could wring out my workout clothes and fill a sink - I blush for no reason (can't tell you how much I spent as a teenager, on special creams to apply to help me stop glowing like a neon light!!!) and now have to wear tenna lady due to problems with spontaneous laughter caused by bad jokes or flippant tickling! When you go for massage therapy, just enjoy it - don't read anything into sensations you may experience!
I will. Thanks for the encouraging response!
MusicGuy7 Alright, please do forgive me, and correct me if I am wrong in this little translation of mine, but my interpretation of all of your messages in this thread ultimately boil down to this one summary: In order for an individual to be deemed worthy of being labeled "Open Minded" in your book, that individual HAS to be into, and enjoy being tickled. If that individual is not into, and does not enjoy being tickled or perhaps even hates being tickled for whatever reason, then there is something wrong with them, and that individual should just suck it up, and surrender to the sensation, and experience, and learn to like it, simply because tickling is natural, healthy, and for their own good. If that individual is not willing to do exactly that, then that individual in your book is therefore, automatically close minded, narrow minded, and/or even psychologically unhealthy. Did I about nail that on the head? Now if my interpretation of your messages in this thread are inaccurate, then GREAT! However, if my interpretation is indeed accurate, and that is what you are seriously trying to actually insinuate, and imply in your messages in this thread, then that is totally asinine, and wrong, and I would REALLY hope that you could someday learn to respect, and accept other people's dislike, or hatred for being tickled as being equally valid, and just as OK as someone who loves being tickled, rather than judging them, and placing your own biased labels on them.
I seriously doubt you will get a response from MusicGuy who hasn't been on the community in over 4 years.
However, I think you may need to re-read the thread.
MusicGuy hasn't labelled anyone as anything and has even stated that tickling is not for everyone; but has certainly not labelled people who don't like tickling as not being open minded.
The point of MusicGuys posts is simply that therapists are taught to believe that tickling is something that should be avoided i.e. massage courses teach therapists to use "firm pressure" or "use a flat hand" etc. especially when touching feet, to "avoid tickling" the client; and that can be considered a negative perception when tickling itself can be a form of therapy.
I seriously doubt you will get a response from MusicGuy who hasn't been on the community in over 4 years.
However, I think you may need to re-read the thread.
MusicGuy hasn't labelled anyone as anything and has even stated that tickling is not for everyone; but has certainly not labelled people who don't like tickling as not being open minded.
The point of MusicGuys posts is simply that therapists are taught to believe that tickling is something that should be avoided i.e. massage courses teach therapists to use "firm pressure" or "use a flat hand" etc. especially when touching feet, to "avoid tickling" the client; and that can be considered a negative perception when tickling itself can be a form of therapy.
Actually, he kind of was calling people close minded for not allowing others to tickle them. He literally said in his beginning posts that anyone calling themselves open minded should try this out. He then said that a lot of people who call themselves open minded actually aren't. What this says is that if someone isn't into tickling, then calling them self open minded is somehow almost a lie, or something. He even said how sad and tragic it was to not be into tickling, and even stated that he was disappointed with most of the people, and responses in this thread. And then he assumes that anyone, and everyone who is adverse to tickling pretty much has to be a learned behavior. As if not liking to be tickled is always nurture, rather than nature. It's as if he's saying that since tickling is natural then every person in the planet should technically enjoy being tickled, and that the only reason that some don't is because they were "artificially" made that way through a traumatic tickle abuse event in their life, and I don't completely agree with that. Sure, abusive events like that most likely will make someone adverse to tickling later on in their life, but I don't believe that every person who doesn't like being tickled necessarily has to boil down to some event in their past. And I don't agree that people not liking to be tickled is always "taught" as he put it in his posts. I just can't stand the mentality that a lot of people have where there always has to be some secret root cause, and /or hidden meaning buried deep down inside that explains why someone doesn't like something. I've spoken to people who hate being tickled who said they were never tickle abused and just don't like how it feels. Some said that they had a tickle phobia, but said it was not due to abuse and that no one knows why they have the phobia. Others have said that they just have over sensitive skin, and that tickling actually feels painful to them, and that it makes them panic, and feel nauseous, and every second of it is torture to them, and that some of them don't like the feeling of being out of control and don't like being vulnerable to anybody, or sometimes even being touched at all by anybody. Some people don't like being tickled simply because they don't like being tickled, and just leave it at that. I don't personally find anything wrong with any of those examples I listed above, and I don't feel that they should have to go and get it fixed because that insinuates that something is broken inside of them when that simply isn't the case. They own their own body, and thus have the right to decide who touches it, and what is done to it, etc, regardless of whether anyone else agrees with their choices, or not. But you see none of that is what truly bothered me enough to make my first post towards MusicGuy7. What really got under my skin was when he said that even if people are uncomfortable with the feeling of being tickled, that they should just surrender to the sensation, and experience, and not fight it, or resist it. What that pretty much translates to is that even if the person truly does not like being tickled that they should just get over it, and do it anyway, because it is for their own good. He even admitted that other modalities can have the same great benefit that tickling provides, but then turns around, and says that we shouldn't be limiting ourselves. It's not limiting yourself if you truly don't like it, and would rather use a different modality. He should be encouraging people to do what THEY'RE comfortable with, not what HE thinks is best.