If you love someone, set them free.

Last week in our Advanced PetMassageTM for Dogs workshop, we had an exercise in which students practiced verbalizing, putting into words, the sometimes difficult to describe experiences of sensing subsurface movements in dogs bodies. The lyric of a Sting song surfaced. It was “If you love someone, set them free.” It was totally appropriate in these discussions because the dogs were releasing all sorts of things. There were stretches, yawns, twitches, shudders, burps and farts. In previous Helpful Hints we’ve discussed “releases,” what they are and what they might do. You can find all the past Hints on the website blog page: http://petmassage.com/?cat=25

I started musing about the phrase “If you love something, or someone, set them free.” Where did it come from and what are its implications?

The creator of this general saying is not known. Jess Lair helped to popularize one version starting in 1969. He was given the statement by an anonymous student. Peter Max helped to popularize another shorter version in 1972. He was sent the expression by Chantal Sicile.

Here’s an irreverent version from 1999:

But, if it just sits in your living room,
messes up your stuff, eats your food,
uses your telephone, takes your money,
and doesn’t appear to realize that you had set it free…..
You either married it or gave birth to it.

“If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they’re yours; if they don’t they never were” has also been attributed to Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, among others. Bach’s books made a big impression on this writer and helped me recognize and accept my personal sense of divinity.

“If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” was the first single released from Sting’s solo debut album The Dream of the Blue Turtles.

The earliest version of the sentiment was in the 1951 Esquire magazine, in a short story titled “The Tyranny of Love” by Harry Kronman. It contained a quotation that prefigured part of the saying http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/08/love-set-free/: This is what Kronman penned: “I mean, if you love something very much, you’ve got to go easy with it—give it some room to move around.”

There is a universal truth in these lines. From a massage and bodywork perspective, these lines prefigured the approaches of Orthobionomy, Cranial Sacral work, Rolfing, Alexander, Healing Touch, Reiki, and PetMassageTM Positional Release.

Let’s take a slightly different tack. “If you love yourself, set yourself free.” Muscle memory and emotional references can be healthful and freeing, and they can also be self-limiting and restrictive. Once you identify a restrictive imbalance you can correct it. If you have the habit of bending your arms during your back take-away in golf, until you recognize the error, and choose to relearn the takeaway with a straightened elbow, you’ll never have control over the shape of your swing or where the ball goes.

If you’re not aware that your shoulders are slumped, you don’t know that you have a choice to correct your posture. When you see it, you can know what needs to be set free. And with the correction, you discover that your entire life shifts. You stand straighter and taller. Your spine and resolution are stronger. Your breathing is easier, deeper, more healthful. Your sleep is easier, deeper, more restorative. Your movements are more coordinated, in balance, and comfortable.

Your effect on others is shifted as well. People and dogs, who both respond to their interpretations of your body language, see you as stronger, more vital, more confident, more knowledgeable, more worthy of their trust; and someone they can follow. http://petmassage.com/?product=dog-handling-in-canine-massage-yoga-consciousness-dvd

It is only when we become aware of how we are moving that we can do something about it. Only one’s objective self view, one’s seer, can let us know that corrections are needed to alter the shape and trajectory of our life.

When we touch an area of the dog’s body, such as the paw, or the hip, you become by extension, its seer. You provide the means for the dog to become more self-aware.

Your touch is felt and draws a response. Acceptance. Rejection. Annoyance. Play. Tickling. Distraction. Discomfort. Release of heat. Surfacing of a memory of a similar touch. The awareness of the experiencing of your touch takes the event to a new level; the dog becomes the observer. It now realizes that it has choices, intentional options. The support and direction you provide during a PetMassageTM is the component that dogs are unable to access on their own.

The issues that arise may be fragile and vulnerable. Often, we must touch and hold with the gentleness and delicateness of cradling an injured bird. If the dog’s body is in distress, confused, or panicky, too much pressure could injure it. Within the safety of your cradle of intention, PetMassageTM positioning helps the dog’s tissues move into their comfort zone, into freshly chosen rebalancement.

Rebalancement (if there is such a word) suggests that something is out of balance. In bodywork, “out of balance” infers that there is an unusual, inappropriate, and ultimately unhealthy flow of fluids and energy in the body. Too much or too little. Like the yin-yang symbol, the black and white drops are constantly moving, tending toward the goal of balance. Absolute balance, though, is stillness. Death. Movement is life. The activity is the journey. The means are the ends. The delicate tension between the two makes for perfect health.

Muscle spasms, cramps, and chronic flexion impact the activities of movement, digestion, respiration, sleep patterns, self awareness, and relationships with other dogs and people.

So, if you love yourself, release what is not working for you and set your healthy self free. If you love something, such as your dog, use the techniques of PetMassageTM positional release to set his/her imbalances free.

Learn more about how you can use PetMassageTM positional release with the book, “Art and Essence of Canine Massage: PetMassageTM for Dogs” http://petmassage.com/?product=art-and-essence-of-canine-massage-petmassagetm-for-dogs