Be Your Own Therapist
	Self treatment can help you get the pain relief you need in between treatments and give you time to practice softening into your tightness and pain. Then when you do get treated you can let go faster and get the best and quickest results possible. The basics: Get on on the therapy tools, find an appropriate level of  challenge, soften into the pain. If you are clenching against the pain on a therapy tool you will not be able to soften and get the pain relief you need.  If you can soften even though it hurts, that’s perfect.  If you cannot soften, take the tool to a softer surface like your bed or use a softer, smaller tool. If a tool doesn’t challenge you then you need a tougher or larger one. More advanced: Once you’ve mastered softening over the therapy tools, the next step is to really pay attention to what you are feeling during your self treatment. If you are using your therapy tools or treating someone else, what you are thinking about while you are treating is important. Can you pay attention to what you feel despite the pain/fear/anxiety/rage/etc., it might bring up instead of distracting yourself, watching TV, texting, and never really giving your body your full attention? Focusing your attention on what you can feel in your body is an important part of healing. Being disconnected from your body while doing self-therapy, getting treated or treating someone else will seriously lessen the effectiveness of the treatment. Self treatment practice can grow your healing abilities for yourself or for helping others. To heal, you have to go through everything your body is holding on to and decide to keep it or let it go. With a therapy tool or an MFR therapists’ help, you feel what hurts. If you can soften into the pain and feel it, that’s how you let it go. If you cannot find a way to soften and feel, that’s how you hold on to that pain and tightness. Are you ready to feel the pain and let it go? Or do you want to keep it?