I had a client recently who talked for the entire session. Not about anything related to their body. Not about the pain in their shoulder or what had changed since last time. They talked about their week, their neighbour, something they had seen on television, a conversation they had replayed in their mind, things they were planning, things they were worried about. A continuous, warm, well-intentioned stream and they left saying the session had not really done much. I was not

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that rest does not fix. You sleep, and you wake up tired. You take a weekend off, and by Monday you are back where you started. The tank refills slowly, or not at all. The body feels heavy in a way that is hard to describe — not painful exactly, just depleted. Like something that should be running is running on the wrong fuel. This is the presentation that restorative massage is designed for. And it is more common than people realise —