I have always been fascinated by the power of touch.
From an early age, I found myself wanting to put my hands on people who were in pain. People repeatedly told me that when I touched them, their pain was lessened or went away. For years, I gave massages to friends and co-workers, and loved the experience, but did not really consider that I would pursue it as a career. I became an actor and an American Sign Language Interpreter. I was living the “fast life” of theatre, late night rehearsals, after-parties, drinking, smoking, then up early for classes or work. While I loved the theatre, I was not feeling healthy and whole. I was not taking very good care of my body. It became a healing crisis when the repetitive motion injury in my right shoulder flared up so much that I began to lose feeling in my hand and arm and was in almost constant pain. I had to really re-evaluate how I was living and what stresses I was placing on myself. This is when I began to practice yoga.
It was the first time since my childhood that I remember loving movement that much. I had always loved gymnastics as a child, but when it became competitive in my early teens, I withdrew because I did not have the coordination or bodytype to excell at it. Yoga gave me the opportunity to move my body in graceful, opening ways for the joy of it and not to win competitions. It also began to open my eyes to the power of movement to calm and center me.
After leaving the profession of Sign Language and moving to San Francisco to re-inspire myself, I re-discovered my love of the healing arts. I enrolled in The World School of Massage in San Francisco and began a healing journey that will probably continue my whole life. When I enrolled, I remember telling my teacher that I was already “a healer” and that I just wanted a fast program that would get me working soon. She tactfully told me that the school was committed to the students’ transformation and that the program would allow me time to integrate what I was learning. I had no idea how right she was. The year and a half that I spent in that program was immeasurably transformative for me. I began to feel how disconnected I had been from my body for years. Through their guidance, I became embodied in a way that I did not know was possible.
One of the greatest gifts I began to gain from that experience was presence. For perhaps the first time, I began to become present: body, mind, spirit, and emotions all together. I tasted that experience, and it nourished me. It has become my practice, and I can lose it so easily, but I almost always find it again on my mat, next to my futon, next to the table. I cherish these moments to come back to myself fully.
My focus for each session or class is to be simple and present and to listen. It is from this place of simplicity and presence that my clients and students receive the greatest benefit. Rather than focusing on “fixing” something that is wrong, I focus on being present to what is and allowing my client to become fully aware his or her own body. This experience of awareness is the first and perhaps the only step needed for profound healing to occur.
While the schools I attended were excellent, they did not focus much on Anatomy or Physiology. I found that although I was getting great responses from clients, I wanted to understand the body on more levels. That is why I re-entered school at the Providence Institute. I graduated from their Zen Shiatsu Program in 2005. My goal is to use these skills in coordination with my previous experience to offer a well-rounded Asian-Style transformative bodywork treatment to my clients.
I see my practice as service and an opportunity for me to become present and fully myself, and as such, I have deep gratitude for my clients who allow me to be of service to the whole of existence…
The Journey Continues: Updated September 2008
I believe that circulation in the key to life. All of my training from yoga and bodywork has supported me in expreiencing this. Though I have had many wonderful experiences with clients increasing their awareness and releiving pain, I have felt something incomplete in my understanding of bodies and especially pain. Recently, my ideas about pain and circulation have been blown open. In the last several months, have studied and began using a technique called Muscle Release Technique. It is a spectacular combination of massage and active stretching that releives pain, helps heal trauma and opens the whole being in ways I have never expreienced. It is remarkable work and I am thrilled to add it to my options for assisting people to live more fully and inhabit their bodies more comfortably.