Extra notes about Chapter 8: The Take-Allow Lesson
in the book, The Art of Receiving and Giving: The Wheel of Consent.
Other notes are found here.

The Taking Quadrant

A note for Bodyworkers

Taking is often elusive for bodyworkers. We bodyworkers are well practiced at opening the inflow of information, but our professionalism requires that we close the inflow of pleasure. This can be confusing, because most of us like what we do. It’s harder for us to stop giving, because it’s harder to notice we are giving. Body workers often say, “But I don’t know anything else to do!”

The solution is the same as everyone else, as described in the lesson and the lab. Body position, symmetry and look at your hands. If it looks like a massage, it probably is. Ignore the muscles and the “energy.” Feel the skin. Come back to tactile data and nothing else. Reverse the direction of giving entirely, so the gift moves toward you. Don’t give up until it clicks for you.

Poetry

“What is this?” he says. “I can’t get enough of you,”
She says, a woman who thinks of herself as not given
To cliche’. She runs her fingers across his chest,
Tentative touches, as if she were testing her wonder.
– Robert Hass

The Allowing Quadrant

This giving up is not a repenting,
It’s a deep honoring of yourself.
– Rumi

Healthy immune response involves all our cells and systems. Our bodies exist by saying Yes, No, Maybe and I changed my mind in an ongoing biophysical process of discernment. Ongoing choice protects us from what is harmful, welcomes what is beneficial, and lets go what no longer belongs… Some of us are well-trained in accommodation, appeasement and taking care. Feeling into who and how we are inside takes practice.
– Caffyn Jesse