laughter is truly the best medicine

A client came in tonight and was just super tense. I knew I was going to have my work cut out for me. Work had been crazy. Lots of stress. Knots galore. 

Normally this client falls asleep pretty quickly, but tonight we got to talking. And now don't call PETA on me, I swear I'm not actually an animal torturer, but we got to joking about ways to torture squirrels. I have nothing against squirrels (as long as they are outside where they belong and not in my walls) but knowing many bird lovers, I can commiserate with how big of pests squirrels can be when they are eating all of the food out of your bird feeders. 

I mentioned how my best friend was considering greasing the little dome under the bird feeder so that the squirrels would slide off. I suggested coating it with Nair and then laughing in revenge at the bald squirrels running around. 

There is a window right next to one of my client's bird feeders where my client was contemplating setting up shop and shooting the squirrel in the ass every time it tried to eat from the feeder. The squirrel would hopefully start having a negative association with eating from the feeders and stop. But then we worried that the squirrel might have S&M tendencies and actually like it and keep coming back especially for that. Which of course, led us (in our slap happy state) to imagine the squirrels running around with little leather studded collars on! 

It's probably one of those things where you had to be there to find it really funny, but that's not the point of my story. We found it funny and we were laughing a good, deep belly laugh. The effect the laughter had on my client was visible. Sure, my client still had knots but the tension that they were holding in their neck and shoulders was gone. My client felt a million times better. 

Which got me thinking about the other massages I give. I try not to talk too much during the massages so that my clients can relax, but my favorite clients and the ones who keep regularly coming back tend to be the ones that I laugh with. 

Maybe spas have it all wrong. Screw the candles and the quiet rooms... what they should be surrounding the clients with is jokes and comedy.