Mystique of Massage

What is the mystique of massage?

If you were getting a massage, the mystique would be the intangible emotional aspects of the experience. These emotional experiences are shaped by three points in the mystique triangle: ambiance, journey, and harmony.

• Ambiance: This is how your massage environment appears and the emotions you want visitors to experience while in your space. 
• The Journey: This is how your client moves through the ambiance, how they feel as they receive their massage, and how wonderful they feel when they leave.
• Harmony: This is how the entire experience came together. Did it feel interwoven and purposeful?

Ambiance

When you are receiving a massage, your perception of the environment is just as important as the manual therapy. It feels good to be in a space that is soft and serene, organized and clean. These feelings promote a sense of safety, encourage ease, and help you experience peace.  

When performing a massage, ambiance is how you set the stage. It is more than compiling a bunch of cool-looking stuff. To set the stage, think about how you want someone to feel when they enter your treatment room. 

Decorating is akin to writing a story. If the items in your treatment room don’t support the emotional narrative you want to inspire in your client, then the object needs to go.

When selecting objects, ask yourself, how does this enhance my client’s experience? If you think it does, ask how you can improve its presentation. Then ask, what does this decoration say about me as a provider and a person? 

Remember to have fun, and look for ways to create a space you and your clients will love. 

The Journey

When receiving a massage, there is more to the experience than a snapshot of the five senses. Your observations and judgments are active every step of the way, from the moment you open your car door to walk into the spa, till the moment you close your car door to leave. 

A massage isn’t an everyday experience; you want and expect it to be special. From the moment you arrive till the moment you leave, you want to feel like you are at the center of someone’s undivided attention and care. 

You want to be immersed in goodness, considerateness, and kindness, because being on the receiving end of these actions is replenishing. 

As a practitioner, if the ambiance is the emotional polaroid of your workspace. the journey is the movie. Think about how you want to immerse your client into your cultivated world of peace and pleasure. What are the steps you need to create to maximize their happiness, ease, and joy?

Harmony

Blissful is a massage that feels right, the kind that is orderly but not too rigid, has variety, but isn’t chaotic. It is a session that feels strategic, yet adaptable to your needs. A harmonious massage transitions smoothly from technique to technique, anticipates and adjusts to deliver your perfect pressure, and feels like a poetically penned story or an artful masterpiece.

Harmony is how everything comes together. This includes the techniques used, the arrangement of the ambiance, and how the client moves through their spa experience. Its name isn’t the same as balance; everything doesn’t have to be the same, but instead perfectly interconnected.

When a spa experience is harmonious, the presentation matches the experience, creating a seamless immersion that promotes trust, safety, and joy.

The Result

A question you may ask yourself at the end of a massage is, did it noticeably and immediately improve your quality of life? This is a deciding factor of whether you would ever consider doing it again. 

Knowing what influences your decision as to whether you would get another massage will help you understand why someone else would or wouldn’t.

If it is something you would do again, did the massage therapist create an experience that can be accomplished for less?

Why would you pay more for something that can be provided at a lower rate? As a massage therapist, think about what makes your services special, and what makes them the same. Search for ways to enrich every experience, cultivate an adventure that inspires others to live their best life, and helps them feel magnificently alive.