I ended up in the holistic health field after a car accident that left me borderline debilitated. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t focus. My relationships were negatively affected, to the point where I’m not even connected with many, many people that I used to consider close friends, because they weren’t able to support me or handle how big that experience left me feeling. They would say things like “it was just a car accident; they happen all the time; it wasn’t that bad,” blah blah blah.
It was pretty bad. I am incredibly lucky. The fact that I only came out of that with whiplash and PTSD is a miracle, and if one thing had gone wrong or differently, there is an incredibly high likelihood that I would not be here today.
That moment was the beginning of me eventually falling into the holistic healing world. It wasn’t initially; I had to go through pain and struggle and losing people, and I had to take a semester off of school. At the same time, I experienced the death of a loved one, a break up and more. I was not doing good by any means. And I met a new coworker, and I’m sure it was divine intervention in some way. She was a somatic yoga instructor, and we were coworkers at a restaurant (or a brewery, to be technical), and she offered me private one-on-one somatic yoga to address my trauma symptoms from the car accident.
I was also seeing a licensed clinical social worker at this time, and I was formally diagnosed with PTSD. [I was offered medication], but I declined it. I did not want antidepressants or any other form of medication, and that’s just my personal preference at that time.
[OPTIONAL: I feel like I might have ADHD that’s undiagnosed, and it runs in my family, so if I were to seek out a diagnosis (or rule it out; maybe I don’t have ADHD and it’s something else) and I did have ADHD, I think that I would take medication for it, because I understand the benefits. Antidepressants are a different ball game; harder to deal with, etc.]
I don’t want anyone to feel judged or less than if they need medication, or if they decide to take medication for their symptoms or their mental illness. My decision to not take antidepressants doesn’t have anything to do with what you need. You should always do what you need; you know your body best.
My first sound bath
So long story short, that’s how I got here today. I started working with my coworker doing somatic yoga, we did meditation, and she also gave me my very first sound bath. I think it was the sound bath specifically that made a really big difference for me.
Years after that first sound bath (a private one, with my friend, my coworker), I learned that when people with trauma experience a sound bath in a therapeutic setting for the very first time, their anxiety is reduced up to 72% [CHECK], which is significant; that’s incredible. I think I’m the statistic. Somebody like me had a sound bath for the first time; had never tried it before; had never heard of it. (My coworker was into crystal healing and stuff. Even to this day I’m not into crystal healing, but I’m trying to set the scene.) I myself had my anxiety related to PTSD symptoms reduced significantly. There’s really no way for me to tell you what the percentage of that was, but I fully and wholeheartedly believe that the statistic applied to me at that time.
The triangle zone
Now, separately in my life but at the same time (this is about 2018 or so [CHECK]), I started breaking out on my face in what we call the triangle zone: basically a triangle from the bottom of your chin up to the middle of your eyes, including your nose, your lips, the space between your upper lip and your nose, and the creases of your smile. I was getting all of these breakouts specifically around my mouth, and they looked kind of weird and suspicious, so I went to the dermatologist. (To be fair, the dermatologist was virtual, but her diagnosis was accurate.) She diagnosed me with perioral dermatitis.
I thought that I had these little zits, pus filled acne, around my mouth and my chin, when in reality it was not a pimple at all. It was a reaction caused by harsh chemicals. I was using a really strong topical for acne (tretinoin [CHECK]), and instead of treating my hormonal acne, or just acne in general, it caused a reaction on this part of my face. And this reaction looks like acne. It looks like a pimple, and you can pop it and this white fluid will come out, but it’s not pus; it’s distinctly different. And [the sensitivity] doesn’t go away; it’s just from having sensitive skin.
I tell my esthetician I have like every skin type: sensitive, dry, oily, combo, acne, like freaking all of it, because different areas of my face have different things going on. But this chin and mouth area specifically is a sensitive zone for me, and I learned from my dermatologist that I can’t put harsh chemicals on there.
So at the same time that I’m getting this anxiety reducing sound bath to address my PTSD, I’m also learning about harsh chemicals and the damage that they can cause to some people, because it happened to me. I sought out care to understand why the acne medicine was making my acne worse, and like I said, I didn’t actually have acne; I had a reaction to [the medication] they were giving me. I had to change my entire routine after this. It’s not as bad as psoriasis, maybe, right? But it still affected my life. It’s like, damn, I can’t use my toothpaste anymore. I can’t use my cleanser. Literally every single product that I had had something in it that triggered this condition, so I had to change everything: my cleanser, my moisturizer, my toner, my acne treating products. I had to change my toothpaste, because fluoride can trigger perioral dermatitis [in some people].
I could’ve invented Yuka
The information the dermatologist gave me was priceless. She gave me a resource called CosDNA (cosdna.com). I looked up the products that I was using and learned about all the individual ingredients inside and how they were each specifically giving me problems, and I used it as a guide to find new products to replace my skin care routine with. I wasn’t in school, right? I had a lot of time on my hands, and even though the PTSD stuff had taken over my life, I still had an interest in getting better and taking care of myself. So, long story short, this led me down a huge rabbit hole about ingredients. I could’ve invented Yuka, haha.
From there, I switched everything. I actually started making my own shampoo and conditioner. I switched body soap, toothpaste, deodorant. And I think by default, a lot of the things that I had to switch to (to not trigger the skin condition) were marketed as all natural, natural based ingredients, holistic, stuff like that. I never really had an issue with holistic or natural stuff. I didn’t have an opinion on whether it worked better or not compared to a pharmaceutical; I just didn’t have any sort of knowledge or opinion on that at all. I felt like I just had to pivot into that category so that I could take care of my skin.
Hindsight is 20/20: both of these things happening at the same time is what eventually led to me becoming a holistic practitioner, promoting holistic life, blah blah blah. And since then I’ve learned about things like greenwashing; natural products probably aren’t actually all natural, and they probably can’t be, because then they wouldn’t be shelf stable. So there’s that.
Side quest
I have been a vegetarian for almost 15 years. I don’t think I’ve eaten beef once in that time. I’ve accidentally had a bite of food with meat in it here and there, and then spit it out or didn’t finish it, whatever. And I do eat fish occasionally. Some people might think that makes me a hypocrite, or maybe I’m technically a pescatarian, but I’m so picky with the fish that I eat, and half the time I don’t even really want it, so I just don’t feel like the pescatarian label belongs to me if I only eat three kinds of fish every once in a while.
I became vegetarian, long story short, because of PETA. I had no idea what factory farms were, and when I was at a festival, of course they had a booth, and they gave me a dollar to watch a video about it. I was a young, impressionable teen. I was ignorant of that topic entirely; I had literally no idea about it at all whatsoever. And I saw it, and I wasn’t OK with it. I went home, did more research on the family laptop, and was absolutely appalled, and I haven’t had meat since.
My reasoning at the time was animal activism, but it has since shifted into environmentalism, because [animal agriculture is a major driver of climate change (livestock accounts for somewhere around 11 to 20 percent of all human caused greenhouse gas emissions, depending on who’s measuring)], and factory farms are ruining our land, our ecosystems, our grasslands, and getting people sick, from the people that work there handling the animals to the consumers eating extremely low quality food. So that was like a year long change. I didn’t just go home the day after the festival and decide it was actually about factory farms, environmentalism, and climate change instead of animal rights; it really was animal rights for maybe a year or two, and I just kept learning.
It’s not a bad thing to be ignorant; it’s just to not know. It’s OK to not know. You don’t know what you don’t know. Maybe you grew up sheltered, with a protective family; maybe you grew up in a religious family; maybe you grew up poor, and the people around you didn’t necessarily have access to the education to be able to educate you on these things. There are just so many scenarios and possibilities out there in the world that it’s really not fair to belittle anybody for knowing or not knowing something.
It’s solidified in my mind and in my knowledge base that being vegan is [probably the single biggest thing one person can do to shrink their impact on the planet], and being vegetarian is second. Dairy upsets my stomach, so I don’t really eat a lot of it anyways; it might be pretty easy for me to be a vegan if I really wanted to, but I don’t. I enjoy eggs and pizza.
It’s a privilege
And factory farms and climate change are political. Having access to education about food, or just education about anything in general, is political. Having the ability to decide that you’re not going to eat something is a privilege. I am in an extremely privileged position to be able to choose not to eat something; there are millions of people in the world that cannot do that. Therefore, my diet is inherently political.
If I had never been introduced to my coworker, I probably would have never found somatic yoga, because before the car accident and before I met her, I was not somebody that was interested in those things. I actually had a really short but strong phase in my life where I was a Christian; I was going to church and was very religious. I’m not anymore, and I wasn’t when the car accident happened either (that phase was in high school, and I was already in college when the accident happened). But if I had never met somebody that did somatic yoga and was into crystal healing and yoga and hippie stuff in general (whatever you want to call it), I don’t know if I ever would’ve ended up here today.
And through my (how do I want to say it?) stereotypical health insurance, I only had access to a cognitive behavioral therapist. Granted, [medication was on the table], but I opted to not do that. The point I’m trying to make is that I was very much not in the world of holistic health and healing, and having access to those things (what we call today, over 10 years later [CHECK], wellness) is political, because there are scientifically or evidence supported modalities like massage, chiropractic care, and acupuncture that are invaluable to people’s healing journeys, or to just keeping them healthy as they live their lives.
After my parents got divorced, both parents experienced a loss of income, and there was significant downsizing, or moving around a lot because we couldn’t afford to stay in each place after the lease went up. I am lucky to have even had access to a therapist at all to begin with. That is political.
I prefer to eat organic when I can, but it feels like a con, because the planes dropping pesticides on the organic and non-organic farms right next to each other don’t really care about property lines. And it’s cheaper to go through the drive-through and get a premade, processed, very bad for you meal from a fast food restaurant or a coffee place than it is to go to the grocery store, when people are working one job overtime, or two jobs, or three jobs. I was actually working three jobs at the time that I got into the car accident, while going to school full time.
So having access to healthy food is political. Having access to wellness (how we call it today) is political. Being able to go to the doctor is political. And it requires a level of privilege to pick and choose between any of these things; it’s a privilege to be able to say “no, I’m actually going to try to do this without medication first.”
Not the stereotypical holistic health girly
So when people unfollow me for posting or reposting political content, I have to remember that they don’t know me. They don’t know that I’ve always been political. They don’t know that I’ve always cared in some way or another, and they don’t care that my life experience and my education have led me to create a specific and nuanced point of view on the world.
Because I’m not the stereotypical holistic health girly. Like I said, I don’t believe in crystal healing. I have had a meditation practice, but I don’t right now. I don’t only eat whole foods or raw foods. I do go through a drive-through coffee shop when I’m running late to work, and it makes me feel like shit about myself because I know better, but that’s not the point of this post. Oh yeah, and homeopathy (I think that’s like a water tablet thing): I don’t practice that or believe in that. That’s something else that makes me kind of niche, because a homeopath and a holistic person and a hippie lady are all kind of thrown into the same category, when they’re distinctly different to me. I look at the definitions of these things and I’m like, well, if we’re going to use different words to describe these different labels, then they’re not the same thing.
What I’m actually interested in
The point is that for people who are maybe seeing me for the first time, reading this for the first time, or maybe found my Instagram and then found the blog: the work that I offer is inherently political. And that’s not to say that when you come into my studio it’s going to be stressful and there’s going to be propaganda everywhere, or I’m going to try to tell you who to vote for or whatever. I’m not interested in any of that.
I’m interested in all human beings on earth having access to clean food; clean soil to grow the food (or to grow the food that will go to the animals that you end up eating); clean water, for everyone and the animals; and access to healthcare, whether that’s medication, pharmaceuticals, psychiatry, therapy, or just a primary care physician. I believe that everybody should be able to access that if and when they need it, and that nobody deserves to suffer from a solvable problem.
PTSD is not necessarily a solvable problem. [It affects the brain, and for me it hasn’t gone away.] But I can drive now. There was a point in my life after the accident where I literally could not drive, and I still get driving anxiety here and there; like I said, it [hasn’t gone away for me]. But I can sleep, and the nights that I have a hard time sleeping don’t have anything to do with the car accident; it has to do with me staying up too late or something.
And I believe that people should have access to the education required to be informed about these things, so that people can decide what’s best for them; whether that’s education that there shouldn’t be a stigma against medication if you need to take it, or education that there’s even something else to try to begin with. A lot of people don’t know that sound baths [have been shown in clinical studies to reduce anxiety (the research is still early, but it’s promising)]. People don’t know that with Reiki, even though we don’t necessarily understand what it is from a scientific point of view, we can study people who claim they’re doing real Reiki against people doing a sham Reiki (just doing the hand poses without actually channeling Reiki), and [the real Reiki has done better than the sham for some mental health symptoms]. Access to education, or good education, is inherently political, and it’s kind of the inspiration for my podcast: sharing things that I know with the world so that people listening can take in all of the information and try to make the choice that is best for them.
If you’ve seen my political content
So for people who are wondering, “Why are you reposting human rights stuff? Why are you posting political content? I don’t want to think about this when I’m getting a massage, and now I’m not going to book with you”: I mean, I would love for you to reconsider booking with me, but it’s fine. I’m not going to force it, or force anybody, and I can’t take it personally, because I can’t help but be passionate. The fact that I care about anything at all means that I have to be informed on it, and even though it’s a cheesy statement, knowledge really is power. Being informed empowers you to do what you think is right or best, and hopefully, in this setting, it will lead to a better life, or a higher quality of life.
In my studio
Now, if you come into my studio talking about politics, sure, I’m probably going to respond. I am the type of massage therapist that if you’re going to talk to me, I’m going to talk back. That doesn’t mean that I’m starting conversations and super chitchatting; it’s that if you are chitchatting with me, I’m going to be chitchatting with you, and if you’re going to be quiet and in the zone, then I’m going to be quiet in the zone with you. I think it’s important to be adaptive, and I don’t want anybody to feel uncomfortable because it has to be silent or something; that’s just not the case. Other therapists are different. Other people need their massage room to be absolutely quiet and don’t want their clients to talk, and that’s why it’s incredible to have so many different practitioners and modalities out there: you can find who and what works best for you.
So if you don’t want to talk about politics with me, you don’t have to, and to be honest, I don’t really want to talk politics with you. I’ve already used my education (my college education) to discern and comb through information and decipher on my own what I believe, so it’s not really about that. It’s about being a safe space. It’s not that if you disagree with me, I don’t want to see you; that’s not the case at all. In fact, I almost want to encourage people who disagree with me to come and see me more, because you probably feel the way that you do because of the trauma that you’ve been through [CHECK], and my job as a trauma healer is to help you heal through that. And it doesn’t necessarily make me feel exploited, because I think that I’m making a difference.
I don’t want anyone to be uncomfortable, or to feel like I’m not going to be able to help them relax because I’m stressed out about the current state of the world. In fact, massaging other people really helps me regulate myself. I’m doing it for so many reasons, and I don’t even think I would list this as one of them, but having something else to focus on (a tangible problem that I know what to do with and how to actually solve) feels good. It’s distracting, and most of the time massages go by really fast for me because I’m enjoying myself while it’s happening.
Rooted in love
So I hope that this can inform you as the reader of this post. If you have seen any of my political content online recently, know that one, yes, I mean it; two, if you disagree with me, it’s OK (to a certain extent, because, you know, basically human rights); and three, I can’t separate myself and the work that I do from politics, because everything is intersectional, and it’s all related to climate change.
I have known and cared about climate change my entire life. In fact, I have never been alive during a time when there was not climate change. I used to want to be an environmental lawyer, and I even considered being a lobbyist for a very brief moment in time, before I ended up switching gears to child development and eventually switching gears again to massage and holistic health.
I need people to understand that my views on the world are rooted in love. I want everyone to have their community, to have their religion, to have their family and their friends, to have their health, and to have access to whatever they need to keep these things, protect these things, and thrive within their communities. Which, again, comes down to clean air, clean food, clean water, education, and medical care; and all of those things are controlled by the top 1% of the world.