On bird wings

Spring is in full force.  All the trees now wearing their new leaves. As I worked in my garden, I found myself watching a pair of mockingbirds in courtship.  How their wings fluttered a certain way as they moved from tree to tree in some sort of dance.  I had not realized what a vast array of songs they could sing.  It was like listening to an old AM radio station. A throw back to when music was not played by any specific genre. Such an unexpected delight.

My corona anniversary date came and went without much ado or time for reflection.  What I did notice was that this past year has required an insane amount of flexibility.  Some days and months going from 100 mph to a complete stop and then back to 100 mph.  It has felt like whiplash to me.  My inbox became overflowed with appointment requests from folks who now feel safe after they have gotten their vaccines. I can honestly say, “I did not see this coming.”

So, as I revisited each client’s chart, I found it had been almost one year to the date since our last session. What a homecoming March turned out to be. A welcome back of so many to the bodywork table. It has also made me realize how different each of our pandemic fatigue looks like. How we all grieve for different things that we have lost over this past year.  How there are just so many days when it is hard to find any traction to get things done and some days you just have to root yourself down.

Here is a poem I return to in times when I just need to stop for a moment and take notice. It has truly helped me thru things I have not been able to process this year.  It is my hope it will offer something similar for you.

Birdwings
Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror
up to where you’re bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here’s the joyful face you’ve been longing to see.
Your hand opens and closes, and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open
you would be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence
is in every small contraction and expansion,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as bird wings.
–Rumi

As always, in gratitude to you for taking a moment to check in with me.

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In Gratitude and Health

It is difficult to believe a whole year has gone by since everything changed.  I am really grateful that so many of you have reached out to schedule bodywork after getting fully vaccinated.  Being a front-line worker, I too opted for the vaccine as soon as it was offered.  From what I have witnessed, I sure hope it can offer protection to us all and especially our most vulnerable populations.

I would love to say that things have gotten easier, but this virus is mean and nasty, and it loves to linger. In the past three months, my heart has broken more than in all my 30 years of this work.  From my vantage point, things might be starting to stabilize, yet we are still on lockdown wearing full protective gear.  The N95 mask often leaving marks on my face that last all day.  The complications from this invisible assailant seem endless.

With this said, I wish to clarify that Austin Body Therapeutic Center will continue to require face coverings for both practitioner and client.  The well-being of my clients and my community remain my top priority. 

“The disease has not abated; it is not done with us just because we are done with it.”―Dr. Erin Carlson

Seeing gratitude through Mary Oliver

When I am Among the Trees 
By Mary Oliver 

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust, 
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, 
they give off such hints of gladness. 
I would almost say that they save me, and daily. 

I am so distant from the hope of myself, 
in which I have goodness, and discernment, 
and never hurry through the world 
but walk slowly, and bow often. 

Around me the trees stir in their leaves 
and call out, “Stay awhile.” 
The light flows from their branches. 

And they call again, “It's simple,” they say, 
“and you too have come 
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled 
with light, and to shine.”

Time Flies

Happy Birthday ABTC!

You guessed it!  Austin Body Therapeutic Center has officially turned 21!  And we did a little table for two outdoor dinner celebration.  My first time to a restaurant since the pandemic.

Cheers!

The first signs of autumn have always inspired me.  Taking a glance back in time, fall has brought me a variety of new beginnings.  One of those happened twenty-one years ago.  And if I am honest, I just remember it being subtle and sweet.  I bought my first new home with the purpose of tucking a brand-new bodywork practice inside.  

I picked it for being the last house on a dead-end street.  Literally where the sidewalk ends.  Its entrance a covered courtyard with its only view from the massage room.  It felt like coming into a little hideaway from the city.  And though Austin has grown in leaps and bounds around us, this space still feels pretty much the same.  A safe haven. I know at the time, I didn’t even realize how important a safe haven really was.  How in order for a body to truly heal it has to feel safe.  To be truly present with another is the best gift you can offer.

So thank you all for the gift of having a practice that is still going strong because of you.  

Offering self-massage classes

Let me know if you would like your very own one-on one class or if you would like it for a small or medium sized group.  I can custom tailor any class to fit your needs.

My self-massage classes:  This is how they begin, with a room full of tools and books.  Starting with these basic questions:  What do we want to accomplish?  Which areas of the body will be most beneficial for this?  Which approaches will we take?  Which tools will we use?

Who knew that this is where things were headed when our massage doors closed?

Who knew that this would work to help folks recover from both old and new injuries?

Who knew that self-massage would become such a powerful self-care tool?

Come play!

Medical Massage now OPEN

Good news everyone! We have new orders that mean that my doors will be allowed to re-open (somewhat).  See the the stipulations listed below.   I will not need a written prescription, but a verbal okay from the healthcare practitioner who determined a massage was medically necessary.

See below for Clarification of Massage Therapy Services Allowed

APRIL 22, 2020 per Governor Abbott
A massage therapist may only provide massage services if it is medically necessary. This determination must be made by the client’s physician or chiropractor.

Massage therapists may not provide massage services for general wellness or other non-medical necessity reasons.

In order for each others safety, temperature checks will take place before getting on the table.  We will both wear masks over the nose and mouth, with the exception, if you would like to move it from your nose while positioned face down in the face cradle.  I have purchased double protection disposable face covers for additional precautions.

For now

Austin Body Therapeutic Center brick and mortar and hands on health
under temporary closure due to Covid-19.

Telehealth is now available.
Please email me @austinbtc@gmail.com for details.
Let’s stay well together!

Fascial Movement Taping

     Level 1 Certification Complete

10 Amazing Lessons My Clients Have Taught Me

1. Listen to your client. They are telling you their truth and in it is how to help them. 2. If a client cannot tell me what makes them better or what makes them worse, we will not make a very good team. 3. Pain is a the body’s indicator. It doesn’t necessarily tell us where or what. More like a check engine light. Get to the shop now. 4. Structure and symmetry are important, if not more than I thought in the beginning. 5. If you find something that works- stick with it. 6. If something doesn’t work, throw it out for now. But remember to add it back into your life as soon as you can. 7. Function for each person means something completely different. That is ultimately the goal- to move freely doing the things you love. 8. It takes a village. We need lots of good practitioners in our life to keep us moving at our best. 9. I still love an eclectic approach. Sometimes a solution really needs a different tool. 10. Find what you need to heal and put it in place. As we reflect on this past year, I extend my gratitude to all of my clients and mentors for their teachings.  Remember to celebrate your own body daily! And listen to it’s messages.

Happy Birthday TBTC!

As I approach my bodywork practice’s 15th birthday, reflection seems inevitable.

Does it always take an ‘aha’ moment and a detour in your path to make a big life change? At the time I began massage school, I had been practicing orthopaedic physical therapy with a hands-on approach for almost a decade. Healthcare was in an updated version of managed care, and we were being asked to see double the number of patients of only one year ago. Combating this chaos, I choose to race my bike at the highest level I could.

Aha moment
The Tour of the Gila, a five day stage race in the mountains of southern New Mexico, was calling my name. In order to make this happen, I knew I had to improve my descending skills if I was to stand a chance against an elite women’s field. To hone my skills, I signed up for the Carpenter/Phinney bike camp in Frisco, Colorado. It was the opportunity of a lifetime to be a kid all over again. Under the skilled reins of, Olympic gold medalist Connie Carpenter, and Team 7-Eleven sprinter extraordinaire Davis Phinney, I got the skills I needed, and of course so much more.

On day 2 of bike camp, we set off to summit and descend Vail pass. My task was to stay with my ride leader so that I could get some one-on-one pointers on the tricky downhill. It was a magical day as I witnessed, a 7-Eleven teammate, Ron Keifel literally dance down the tight, steep switchbacks of the narrow descent. As we flew down the long downhill into town, my descending skills were forever changed. The rest of our group was still behind us, and as they went down this fast hill, a few riders connected wheels and hit the road. One of them happened to be my roommate, Erin. She had a huge red and purple hematoma on her outer hip to show for her unplanned dismount.

As luck would have it, the camp guest that evening was the Team 7-Eleven soigneur from their days of racing the grand tours in Europe. Soigneur is the French word for the ‘one who provides care.’ Her livelihood had been to take care of the riders’ bodies, during those long 21 day stage races, with proper food, gear and massage. Crash or no crash, she had to make sure those cyclists were in their best form possible every day. I know this was no easy feat.

That evening, my roommate was still willing to get the massage she had signed up for before her crash. As she headed out, she spoke confidently that they wouldn’t be working on her injured area anyway. Afterwards, Erin told me in complete awe, that her hip was just about the only area that the 7-Eleven soigneur spent time on. She remarked that it had hurt a bit while she worked on it, but it already felt better. With the word, ARNICA, carefully written on a scrap piece of paper, we were off on a mission to get something neither one of us had ever heard of. After all this was a small, quirky Colorado town that did have a health food store. Sure enough, we found the arnica formulated cream that she would apply directly to her bruised area. Both of us expressed our doubts that Erin would be riding the following day, as we each had experienced just how bad you feel the day after a crash.

The next morning, reporting just a little stiffness, Erin was up, dressed and ready to roll with her group. The physical therapist and the cyclist in me were absolutely amazed. One glance at her hip, and it was clear that the work the soigneur had done had changed the bruising and the swelling in less than one day. By the end of the week, there were almost no visible signs that Erin had ever crashed. How did she do that? Without any real awareness on my part, I know that this woman’s ‘art of healing’ got stored in with my ‘aha’ moments.

Detour in the path
While I was away at bike camp, President Clinton signed the ‘Balance the Budget Act’. On my arrival back in Austin, the upheaval in the physical therapy jobs in nursing homes and home health settings was huge. Losing their jobs, these P.T.’s were scrambling for work anywhere they could get it. Our hourly rates took a 10 dollar an hour hit. How could this happen, I wondered to myself? I had gotten my first taste of the volatility that exists in our health care system.

Big life change
I answered back by enrolling in massage school, and opened my own practice immediately after graduation.  September 24, 2014 will mark fifteen years. Every day, I am still astounded by the ability of the human body and spirit to heal. Each client along the way has taught me something. In the past five years of doing this work exclusively, the lessons have been exponential. I wish to express my gratitude to each and every one of you who has helped shape this amazing path.     Namaste- I appreciate the spark within each of you.

“What you seek, is seeking you.”- Rumi