Body.Work: Resetting the body to prevent (and treat) pain

A special newsletter exclusively for paid subscribers: behind the scenes of medical/clinical massage training.

At the very end of last year, I wrote about KC Davis and her book, How to Keep House While Drowning: a gentle approach to cleaning and organizing.

She suggests rephrasing and reframing a lot of how we think about cleaning and self-care, to encourage self-compassion and remove the moral judgements that creep into those internal conversations. As a result, I've been thinking of "returning a room to functionality," or "resetting the room" instead of "cleaning."

Simply living in a space means we're disrupting it. A dish gets brought in, books are taken off the shelves, a dog leaves fur on the sofa, a wrapper put in the trash can, dust settles on the floor.

Resetting a room, making it functional again and ready for use, means undoing the things we've done to it--putting away what's been gotten out, removing what's been brought in, cleaning the dirt that's accumulated, emptying the trash can that's gotten filled.

Without this "undoing," things perpetually grow more disordered and messy. There's no escaping the need to regularly reset a room to take care of the detritus of life and living.

But restoration isn't just limited to housekeeping. Bodies need it too.