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Not wanting to massage Brother in laws girlfriend

I am not one for turning down clients, but in this situation I am having a difficult time. My BIL said recently that he would like to purchase a massage for his girlfriend. Ordinarily this wouldn't be problem. This time I am conflicted. The problem is, I don't like her. She is difficult and incredible arrogant. I am having a terrible time trying to figure out how I should handle the situation. Advice appreciated!

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Permalink Reply by Therese Schwartz on March 7, 2012 at 11:45am

Barbara, that is so insightful! Words really do have power and meaning, and we need to choose them well in what we say to ourselves and to other people! My husband and I have resolved conflicts by asking each other to define the words we were using; many times the same word had different meanings for each of us. Once we understood what the other was trying to say, there was no conflict any more.

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Permalink Reply by Linda LePelley, RN, NMT on March 14, 2012 at 4:46pm

This is a great question and what wonderful comments! I just want to share what I have found over the years. Although it comes up only rarely, I used to never massage a person I didn't like, I thought that it would be unethical, believing I would be unable to give my best to a person I had some sort of bias against. It came to pass that a person I did not like had a lot of pain and asked me for massage, knowing I'd helped others with the same condition. It was too awkward to refuse at that point, so I did give the massage. I was able to relieve her pain, and after having done so, her attitude towards me improved dramatically, which makes sense in light of the fact that she felt so much better. However, before the massage was even halfway through, I found that MY negative feelings towards her had just dissolved. I'm not going to speculate on the possible reasons for this other than to mention Newton's Third Law, "One cannot touch without being touched". Since then, it has happened a couple of other times, as well. I think it is one of the benefits of doing massage that just can't be experienced in many other occupations.