Born with built in radar for distress, albeit physical, emotional, mental or spiritual, I have been watching, helping and listening to people since I was a young girl.
At the heart of my childhood there was illness, and just about every one of our relatives made the pilgrimage to our home in Minnesota to get their “treatments” at the famous Mayo Clinic. Each aunt, uncle and cousin presented another opportunity for me, the little girl with the gift of healing in her hands, to get some more practice.
Waiting in the lobby of the Mayo Clinic for one of our kinfolk, Mama would have me try to figure out what was bothering the folks we were sitting with. She had me looking at the way shoes wore out and how people walked or sat down or even tilted their head to the side. She thought it all mattered.
My parents died when I was a teenager and I struggled to come to grips. I found myself by working with cancer patients. As doctors rushed from patient to patient with hardly enough time to listen, I could ease some of their distress by holding their hands and listening to their stories.
As far back as I can see there are my hands. The little hands of a five-year-old struggling to open a Mason jar of Mama’s famous Cherokee Wild Cat Juice to rub into her sore back. Massaging Grandma Susie’s stiff hands so she could continue to weave her baskets and make pretty necklaces out of beads. And there I am as an eight year old massaging my daddy’s chest and back trying to help him breathe a little easier.
And now I am a fully trained and certified massage therapist. I live to piece together the puzzle of mind, body and spirit. My mission is to take everything I was born knowing and everything I have learned and put it to use in the world to help people interpret what their bodies are saying. I want to help people transform their pains into pathways, their diseases into doorways, and their wellness into a way of life.