Bodywork, Coaching, and Advocacy

Our work together will focus on these principles and strategies--whatever works best given your location, preferences, and needs:

• My work is highly individualized, solution-oriented, and assistive.

Given the context of my work in a number of areas where not even the forefront of medicine has a lot to offer yet, it's sensible to be cautious, curious, developmental, and measured in our work together, whether through bodywork or in advocacy and learning aout your body. While as a massage therapist with only a year of initial training I can't diagnose or treat any illness nor prescribe any solution, I offer close observation, a decade's experience working hands-on, and a great deal of personal experience and research to help you identify what may be worth further investigation with your healthcare team. We discover tools for your particular case as we go.

• We will work to reduce your chronic pain as efficiently and as far as possible with hands-on techniques if you're near, self-care if you're at a distance, while letting observation inform our overall plan.

I like to work in a highly individualized way, acknowledging the basic biomechanical and physiological principles as they specifically play out in your case. Observing your own body and how it responds to movement, balance, pressure, stretch, and strain, we'll identify a targeted collection of techniques to use in bodywork or coaching sessions together to efficiently reduce mechanical factors in your pain. We'll work to free your body to develop a healthier posture and ease of movement. Although my main bodywork tools include trigger point therapy, a whole-structural focus, and tailored deep tissue massage that safely meets the body on the table, sessions can be wholly different from person to person. To the degree that it is useful and desired I like to explain what I'm feeling and seeing in the body as we work and how that information adapts our work; understanding and coming to know their own bodies better often helps my clients to better work with their pain as well as seek additional care more effectively.

• As we study your body's unique characteristics and needs we will rebuild your habits and self-care strategies to help you maintain better health, greater ease, and more energy for what you love. Deciding what works best for you and dropping what doesn't makes room for our best results--we'll focus on the areas where we can find success by adapting our approach to you as you are, as your life is right now.

People in chronic pain are often moving mountains every single day just to show up, and prioritization is inevitable for everybody. Taking the opportunity to adjust habits and your day-to-day is key to making lasting physical change--but I'm not here to help you overwhelm yourself. Whatever energy and intention you've got in this moment, let's put it to work in small or large ways that fit well with your needs and lifestyle. Our goal is ultimately to help you keep experimenting and finding tools that fit so smoothly into your life that it's all easier and better when they're in use. When we find those right changes, they last.

• As we come to understand the signs that bodywork provides about your health, I will connect you with any other practitioners I believe may be helpful in making further progress.

Through bodywork we can observe signs like adhesion, inflammation, constitutional traits, muscle imbalance, and many more. Your health story gives us far more still to work with in understanding how to get to the right people to help solve further elements of your mystery and how to communicate what is going on for you. I keep a list of quality local practitioners whom I know can work well to investigate as needed and treat at levels that work, focusing on resolving root causes as much as possible. When needed, we can also search together for appropriate healthcare practitioners outside of my current network, information, and other resources.

Let's try working together if you've been looking for this approach. Be in touch to schedule a free fifteen-minute interview, bodywork sessions (rates and insurance billing info are here), or to request any of the classes that I list.

Accessibility

Making my services as accessible as possible is a core value. You'll notice yet that my regular prices are on the high side; Santa Fe is a high cost of living area and at present the best means I have to offer lower cost care amidst all the increased costs of living and working here myself is to ask that those with the means to do so participate in care at a rate equivalent to what they'd pay for the luxury goods and services we're surrounded by, to whatever extent they find the freedom to live other parts of their lives at that level. For those who need it I'm happy to reduce my rates as much as I'm able--please ask if you need that support.

My slant comes in particular from the perspective that I've seen by now so many people who--like me--lost decades of their financial lives (not to mention quality of the rest) trying to figure out how to function with chronic illness or perhaps the more solitary, generally unexplainable frustration of a series of unidentifiable health challenges. Those who are in that latter position almost inevitably arrive feeling very alone in the world.

But just as important is this: while hands-on bodywork is a great aid in the physical care of the body, it offers far more potential than what we can do together in an hour here and there. I see my most important role as that of a mirror on your physical structure, my second most important role as a teacher. How rare is the opportunity to work with someone who will reflect back in detail what they observe about the body and make that knowledge accessible so that we can turn it into the methods we need at home throughout the day to take care of ourselves well? Those are the resources I've found ultimately most potent in caring for myself and I aim to be one for you.

It is not just finances that limit the accessibility of bodywork. Some can't take an hour off work. Some are at home caregiving. Others are culturally excluded from thinking that this is a reasonable option. I am sad to see a proud fellow limping along on what might likely be a degraded or injured hip and recognize given what I can see how low are the odds that he makes it in for conventional care let alone preventive and maintenance care.

It's easy to admit that I can't always manage to make it anywhere for bodywork myself given various current constraints on my time and the urgency of making up financially for fifteen very unwell years--but I have wide arrays of tools and practices that find their way in small ways into every day, and I know where to go for help with a reset when all my other efforts are not doing enough to maintain against the strains of life. Getting to that point of independence, tool-rich and understanding how to address pain as needed primarily at home, has for me been the greatest value of bodywork.

The classes, coaching and advocacy services I provide are to help make those benefits of bodywork more accessible as well as to engage the benefits of context, comparison, and self-recognition. Many of the things that I've learned from working with many hundreds of bodies over a decade are generally decently represented even among the bodies who show up for a small class. Training your eyes to see difference is a great way to grow some love for your own uniqueness, which people often struggle with even while embracing it in others. We can often best see ourselves when we take a moment to look around and understand where we fall within the rainbow of human traits.

The hypermobility meetup listed below represents one area of service to those who are chronically, mysteriously ill. I'd like to continue to develop social and advocacy resources for those who are not wholly fits for that group but do similarly struggle with the decades-long search for insightful care. Do be in touch if that's you. As other projects settle I'll be able to figure out how to give that branch more effort.

My new space, available this fall, is fully ADA accessible. Lighting can be adjusted to your needs. I'll be finding out whether the other practitioners keep a no-fragrance policy, but expect that this area won't be a problem for most people in this space--it's a very gentle space. Be in touch if you need to know about any other areas of concern.

Headache and Migraine Project

I managed my migraines off and on for two decades before receiving the diagnosis that helped end them. I learned a lot both as a bodyworker and by all of my efforts to keep the pain and disability at bay. While I am still susceptible without adequate cautions, I rarely now deal with the formerly constant threats and regular migraines.

My goal is to help shorten your path to relief through learning more about the specific triggers that may be most relevant for you and may currently be missed in your care plan, then getting you back to your doctors or specialists to further investigate those factors. We can do this through bodywork and/or coaching and group classes.

I am also working on a book summarizing what I've learned about navigating chronic migraines. It is scheduled to be available in December--probably downloadable on a donation basis so that you can check it out with no risk at all but your time. It focuses on self-care, prevention, and navigating medical care effectively to find any missing keys to your condition. I'll cover rescue techniques and strategies to the best of my ability in a second book somewhere down the road.

The Experience of Head Injury

It's a new world after head injury. Who knows what it's going to be like? Others who have been through head injury have some idea, but the information can be hard to find in meaningful breadth. And head injuries are really different for everyone. But there are commonalities to be learned from. This project is to help people suffering the impacts of head injury, their loved ones, and their providers to understand what it's like to be in a body after head injury, and to identify the areas in which bodywork may be able to help.

Santa Fe Hypermobility Advocacy & Resource Network

This group is part of The Ehlers-Danlos Society's Global Affiliates Program--you can see our listing here and my personal listing as a bodyworker here. Our group is new and small but has ambitions for important work to aid in making diagnosis and treatment better available locally for the many "medical mystery" neighbors, clients, and friends who appear to belong to various categories of the hypermobility spectrum. 

Mild hypermobility is extremely common--at least one in ten are "double-jointed" or a little loose. It's a benefit and a point of pride for athletes such as dancers, gymnasts, and yogis to move easily and deeply.

Some people are so hypermobile that it's a serious problem, however. It can cause chronic dislocations of the neck, shoulder, hips... any joint in the body. Usually many joints are problematic in the same person at least from time to time, sometimes cyclically, sometimes chronically.

The name hypermobility is a poor fit for the breadth of its import, as joint hypermobility itself is often the least problematic concern--and sometimes not really an issue at all, while other tissues than joints are still affected. Collagen deficiency syndromes occur as a result of a vast variety of gene mutations, which singly or in combination can affect one or more different types of body tissue--not just joints. Issues that regularly co-occur include:

• a sensitive gut

• chronic muscle tension

• chronic fatigue

• chronic headaches or migraines

• endometriosis

• autoimmune conditions

• immune challenges such as mast cell activation syndrome, histamine intolerance, food and drug reactions, or environmental sensitivity

• neurovascular compression syndromes such as Median Arcuate Ligament Syndrome (MALS)

• gastroparesis or other gut motility issues, frequently causing chronic constipation

• dysautonomia, POTS, dizziness, or undiagnosed fainting spells

• anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges

• reduced or increased reactions to anesthetics

• uncommon challenges in healing from wounds or after surgeries

• ... the list goes on.

This is not your average person's list of symptoms. Many are not well known. For those who are affected with only one let alone a collection of the above it can be very hard to find effective treatment. Few have had the package neatly tied up with a diagnosis such as Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome that helps to explain why any number of uncommon complaints chase them through life while others seem to live so much more comfortably.

Although estimates posted by the NHS on prevalence of problematic levels of hypermobility remain as low as one in five thousand people, in research circles estimates continue to grow. The numbers vary so widely I'll have to leave you to do your own research if you're curious. What I believe strongly by now is that the full spectrum is so wide, prevalence so high, and physiomechanical impacts so significant that we will only be able to optimize health for the individual when we've understood how to deeply incorporate the offerings of this lens into healthcare, prevention, and wellness plans.

In my practice over the past decade I've seen many, many clients affected by these issues. They describe themselves as "medical mysteries," as having "given up hope" or "having to be their own doctors." The coincidence of any degree of hypermobility and heavy burdens within those categories I list seems to me not just chance. Now through having affiliated with the EDS Society, I've worked with and talked with many diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome or Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder. I'm all the more confirmed in my opinion that the facet of health represented by collagen structure and function is vastly applicable. I've also meanwhile explored the research and the advocacy literature a great deal and have information to share with undiagnosed "medical mystery" clients that may with luck be useful in finding the right medical care to receive diagnoses and effective treatment. (See some of my favorite information resources listed here.)

Contact me to be put on the email list for group meetups (free!) and classes (generally donation based or sliding-scale): sarah@lightspiritstudio.com.

I'd like ultimately to help provide resources for those in other medical mystery categories, and this group may grow into that. The tradeoffs of focus and fit and the limitations on what I'll be able to pointedly offer myself are important to consider, but over time I'd like to be linked with others who have knowledge and passion in other specialties. That might offer another route to creating a wider service. Be in touch if this is relevant for you and you want a chance to speak on how it might develop.

Why reference zebras? Here you go.

The Yes Cookbook

It can be hard to change a diet permanently, whether you need to drop a single favorite food or dozens of items. The Yes Cookbook is designed to reinspire your diet with variety and positive options.