I never intended to be a massage therapist.  It was the work of Spirit.  This is my story.

I was educated to be a schoolteacher.  I had my teaching credential and several years experience before I married in 1970.  Seven years later, I found myself single.  When I looked into returning to my profession it had changed so much I did not want to go back to teaching.  If I wasn't going to teach, what was I going to do?

I asked myself that question for three years.  I had a list of all the jobs I did not want to do.  I had an empty sheet of paper for the jobs I did want to do.  I worried and fretted about what to do for six months and then my money ran out.  I truly expected something to show up and land in my lap, but it didn't.  Finally, I signed up as a substitute teacher in several nearby school districts.  I do not recommend six months of doing nothing.  If I knew then what I know now, I would have told myself I was on vacation and enjoyed myself for six months.  The wisdom of hindsight!

Before I went back to work, I signed up for a personal development workshop at Wellsprings in the mountains of Santa Cruz.  It was a week long. I had a great time.  The instructor/creator would have us draw, meditate, write, exercise and massage to classical music to stimulate our inner feelings.  I learned a lot about myself and released much of the pain I was still holding onto from my divorce. 

My favorite was the massage she taught us to do to classical music.  She would have someone lie on a massage table. We would place our hands on their body and let them move in rhythm to the music. With my dance background,  I was a natural.  My hands danced to the music and the person on the table relaxed and let go.  It was in that class that I met Joy.  She and I would get together every week to massage each other  to the classical music.  After a year of practice, she announced she was going to start charging money for her sessions.  She showed me her new business cards.  "Oh, my!  If you can do it, so can I", I thought.  And so I did.

I named my business The Silk Touch.  I began with one client and then another, and within a year, I had enough clients to give up the substitute teaching job entirely.  Yeah!  Being a massage therapist was great.  I worked in a quiet, peaceful environment. I was my own boss. I enjoyed the people I met.

When I began doing massage in the early 1980's people thought of it as a luxury item— something you did on your birthday or when you went on a cruise.  Through writing articles published in magazines and lecturing, I educated people to the idea that massage was a tool for reducing stress, as important as an exercise program.  And guess what?  When I retired from masssage twenty-five years later, the idea had caught on.  I like to think I had a hand in changing the collective consciousness.

What started out as a short-term job until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life, turned out to be a 25 year career.  That amazes me.  But it taught me, when I just let go and let Spirit, I cannot do it wrong.  I found myself in the right place doing the right thing with the right people in spite of myself! 

Sylvia Silk, D.D. Director of the Institute For Balanced Living, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Doctor of Divinity, Spiritual Coach, Reconnective Healing Practitioner, Writer
silk@spruce.net   www.sylviasilk.com