Massaging a new career

A move from retail to baby massage has helped Patricia Murphy balance her life better

THE DESIRE to spend more quality time with her husband and two young children was the spur for Patricia Murphy to leave behind the tough, long hours of the retail world and retrain in an area that has given her much more control over her life.

“Retail is very hard work and the hours are long, particularly when you are working full-time. I found myself sitting in traffic a lot. I had to get up at the crack of dawn to drop my first child to creche and often did not pick her up until after 6pm when it was time for supper and the bedtime routine.”

Like many working mothers, the Cork mum-of-two – “who had fallen into retail after failing to get into art college” – dreamed of finding a career that would allow her to enjoy a better work/life balance. She felt she had no control over her life and, consequently, the life of her family.

It was after having a number of reflexology sessions herself that Murphy initially began to develop an interest in the area of holistic therapy, but she believes karma played a role in what happened next.

“I was working in a silver jewellery shop in Cork city when I decided one day in autumn 1997 to train as a reflexologist. I mentioned it to a woman in a nearby Body Shop who happened to be running a course the following weekend and had one place left which I took straight away,” she explains.

Murphy started the diploma course with what was then the Association of Irish Reflexologists and by the end of the course, she had also qualified in Indian head massage and become a reiki master.

Reflexology involves the gentle and therapeutic massaging of the feet to encourage and activate the body’s innate ability to heal itself. Murphy explains that the principles of reflexology have been practised for thousands of years in India, China and Egypt.

“When I qualified I worked around retailing, treating clients in the evening and at weekends. Of course, this was pre-babies so was easier to manage! I was aware at the time that my true love was the holistic side because of the fantastic benefits to be gained by clients and the more people I treat, the more I’m amazed by people’s reactions to them, especially reflexology,” Murphy says.

While infant massage is an ancient tradition in many cultures, it had not been widely practised in the West until the 1980s largely due to the work of Vimala McClure in the US.

Vimala learned about the benefits of infant massage while she worked in India during the 1970s and, after she had her own children, she developed a massage sequence designed specifically for babies, based on the strokes she had observed in India, with the addition of elements of Swedish massage, reflexology and yoga.

In 1981 she and a group of instructors founded the International Association of Infant Massage (IAIM) in the US which now has instructors in more than 30 countries.

“Baby massage has only been in Ireland since 2002 but Irish mothers are really coming around to the benefits of massage and healthy touch for their children,” Murphy says. “Use of baby massage techniques can help with the relief of colic, constipation, trapped wind, teething pains and growing pains.

“On an emotional level, the parent/child bond is deepened allowing children to grow up with confidence.”

In 2005, Murphy qualified as an infant massage instructor but she admits that even she underestimated the incredible effect that massage can have, not only on the baby but the whole family, until the birth of her first baby, Jenny, three years ago. Her second daughter, Emma, was born a year ago eight weeks early and weighing just 1.6kg.

“I am so thrilled that I knew how to massage Emma because she started to gain weight and was released from the neonatal ward at Cork University Maternity Hospital after one month and has never looked back. I still massage both girls as often as possible and they are both happy, relaxed children.”

After much soul searching, Murphy decided not to go back to retail after Emma’s birth and, to her delight, her baby massage classes have really taken off. She now works three days a week teaching baby massage classes to parents in five venues around Co Cork as well as offering reflexology, Indian head massage and reiki in the homes of clients.

She recently became the Cork representative for Baby Massage Ireland, which is the Irish chapter of the IAIM. She has also just started father and baby massage classes in Cork (which are proving a big hit with dads) as well as guided meditation and relaxation classes.

While Murphy admits that even holistic therapists experience stress, she says her new career is extremely rewarding and offers fantastic job satisfaction.

“There’s no doubt that my life has changed for the better. I have more time with my husband Ray and children and can more or less decide my own routine. I work three full days a week and the occasional evening and feel I have control over my life.

“I get a different kind of satisfaction from different parts of the job. The most satisfying part of baby massage is seeing the babies and parents changing and becoming more content over the weeks of the course.

“With reflexology, I love watching people de-stress over the weeks because it’s a fantastic stress reliever. The best compliment for me is when clients re-book.”

On the days she is not working, Murphy spends most of her time with her children exploring the village of Blarney where they live, playing, gardening and cooking.

She also plans to get back to running, which she used to take great pleasure in, and to take up yoga as well.

The contact numbers for Baby Massage Ireland are: Munster 086- 1502136; Connacht 087-9200835; Leinster and Ulster 087-7557536