For all our responsibilities as the professional in the massage room, for all our education, for all our years in practice, for all our expertise we are still only a visitor to our client's bodies. Only a guest. We don't own the body on the table, live in it, or go home with it.
Why am I thinking of this? A medical appointment. The nurse practitioner was, in a word, condescending. She expected me to have brought things with me that no one in her office had ever asked for. She told me information was available to me when it wasn't. She advised me to take steps I was already taking. Best of all, she told me that my lived experience was incorrect. What I noticed about how my body reacted to certain stimuli was incorrect because the research she's seen says it doesn't happen like that.
I've had massage therapists do this to me as well. I've been lectured to about stretching and water consumption, despite the fact that I was stretching and was drinking enough water! I've had therapists ignore my pleas to adjust their pressure because, apparently, they know better than me. I've been told certain experiences are "normal for my age" when they aren't.
What's this go to do with the business of massage? There are two parts to people becoming repeat clients -- delivering the results they seek and treating them at every point along the way with respect and hospitality. You can't get by with just one or the other. You have to deliver both.