I spent my teens in pretty awful back pain, to the point where by the time I was 15, I could not stand long enough to wash dishes or go shopping, and was starting to have a lot of pain sitting. Medical doctors offered only surgery (lumbar vertebrae fusions), which they admitted would only partly cure my pain and would lead to other painful consequences down the road. Luckily, my parents and I knew I had other options, and I began acupuncture three times a week instead. After three months, I could move with less pain and more ease, which allowed me to go to college and begin to live a more normal life. My pain continued to improve, though it never went away, until my early thirties, when the cumulative effects of receiving Rolfing Structural Integration, other bodywork, naturopathic care, walking my path in life (bodywork), finding my soulmate, exercising regularly, having a meditation and breathing practice, and overall being a happy person gradually created an ease and strength in my body that I had never known. I felt the joy in being alive that wasn't possible when I was in pain and unable to stand for more than five minutes without agony. 

I went to massage school in 1987 when I was 21 and still in a lot of pain but seeing light at the end of the tunnel. I had become inspired to change the world, help it be a better place. I tried politics and social work, and those were not a good fit. As I kept searching for my path, it came to me that touching people in a nurturing, therapeutic fashion might be a fabulous way to do this. Turns out I was right! I’ve loved doing bodywork ever since and have learned, more deeply as time has gone on, that we are, at all times, a whole being, with no actual separation between our body parts, between our hearts and our minds, between our guts and our brain. When we remember that, and make decisions about our healthcare and our lives from that lived experience of holism, we’re happier, suffer less, and find greater joy along our path in life. Bodywork that supports that integration is felt throughout our entire Being, giving us the potential to thrive in a way that we could only imagine when we were living with more restrictions, pain, unease, and contractions. 

This is what I hope to offer you … the possibility of ease in your body, heart, and mind that comes from transformation, so that you are walking your path in life with fewer musculoskeletal strains, with new ways to breathe and move and relate to yourself and to the world around you.