Magda
Masseur, body worker and artist
My story in short is quite deep. My biological mother died after 30 years of no contact, I was 31 at the time. Next to mourning a life without her or her family, in 2014 I took my chance and opened the doors to a life with her in memory. Decided to move to the city she loved to live in as a homeless person, Amsterdam. A city that has room for both of us to be the most quirky, playful bird of paradise.
With in-depth therapy and retreats in bodywork and psychology such as massage therapy school, courses in social work, conceptual therapy psychotherapy, core energetics, mindfulness, mensendieck, hugging animals :p smiling in the mirror, patience and a lot of reading, I got to know my own body and trauma response in a different way. As a baby, my desire was to feel welcome and soulfully met and did whatever it took to gain that feeling. It wasn’t until years later that I realized that I had even learned to adopt some of my mother’s schizophrenic behavior as my own. Just to be met as a person and survive.
Now years later I am so much further than I could have ever dreamed. I have been able to create my own sense of home, in myself and in my environment, my foster family loves me dearly and I love them, I have friends who I admire. My fears of not being welcomed or being seen and understood have not disappeared and luckily the goal is not to be perfect either. However, my focus on how I deal with these situations has changed. As if with a turntable, every time the groove on the lp comes into view I give myself the chance to take the needle off the record to stay in tune with the music playing. With love, understanding and patience I now daily enjoy the gift that my survival mechanisms brought to the surface.
Delicately listening to someone or what my body wants to tell me. Dare to be extremely vulnerable. Patient. Being able to put myself completely in the other person’s shoes and return to my own core. Limitless creativity. Going left where the others lean to the right because my inner compass says so and my mind thinks it’s the right thing to do. Not realizing that you stand out and then realizing that you are applying self-regulation through your voice or movement and laughing about it. Take a moment to feel what you really want. A big chunk of guts to step outside the comfortzone to grow and learn from what is happening.
And I take all that knowledge with me in my massages and art.
