Day 25

Occurred March 3, 2009

Today's favor was about service. I received a request asking me to donate a Pilates session to someone who could use my expertise but could not afford a private session. The request came from a woman who lives outside of LA and who I admire greatly and it touched me that she felt my time given to another would be a "gift." I thought carefully about how to approach this favor and decided to let someone else choose who would receive the session. I asked friends and family if they knew someone in the LA area who would be interested in receiving a free private Pilates session. I read off the list of potential candidates to one of my long-term clients and asked her to choose one recipient. She picked a woman who has suffered from Fibromyalgia for several years and recently lost her job due to the recession. I contacted our recipient and arranged for her to come into my studio for a complimentary session.

The day of our session arrived and the woman entered my studio nervously at our scheduled time. I outstretched my hand and welcomed her into the space. After filling out some paperwork, she asked me hesitantly, "Will this hurt?" I paused briefly before answering and then said, "Not one bit. You have had more than enough pain in your body, let's see if we can give you a new experience for it to remember." Her face softened and she announced enthusiastically, "OK, let's do it!" During the next 50 minutes I learned about the years of frustration she suffered at the hands of well-meaning medical professionals who believed telling her the pain she felt was "just in her head," would lessen rather than augment her concerns. By them denying her experience, they made it more fearful and real and therefore more painful. I told her she never needed to deny her pain around me and that my goal was to have her feel empowered rather than victimized by her body. For instance, I demonstrated how to move her arm in a very small range of motion with absolute precision thereby preventing her trapezius muscle from taking over and causing pain in her shoulder (a constant source of discomfort for her and many other Fibromyalgia sufferers). This simple exercise gave her confidence, something she had felt void of since the onset of her first symptoms. She smiled widely and told me "Thank you, thank you so much." I told her, the thanks should be directed towards her self, not me, she had done the work and been open to shift the way she saw her body serving her. While our single session did not "cure" her disease, it did offer her a gentle reminder that she had more say in what happened to her body than she previously thought. This was one of my favorite favors to date; it reflected to me the power of choice when we choose to take action regarding how our experiences either serve or hinder our development and ultimately our life's journey.