It’s a privilege to share a bit of my story with you. My own discovery of healing through touch was one that took me completely by surprise. After 20+ years of searching for solutions for a worsening sense of disconnection, I felt I’d tried it all and consistently came up short. I was coping but not really living. Even the therapies I myself had studied to become a doctor didn’t really work for me. Many alternative approaches I subsequently tried—meditation, yoga, psychedelics, hypnotherapy—afforded deeper understanding, but I still couldn’t seem to translate anything into real life. I distinctly remember the moment when I finally admitted to myself that I was completely lost, while writing in my journal one morning. Feeling a bit defeated, I also gave myself a sort of consolation gift in that journal entry: “Maybe there are no lasting solutions, so for now, just indulge yourself with something simple that would make you feel better… but what…? Well, a massage always feels good.” So, I got one that day, and then another and another in the days and weeks that followed, at first as indulgences, but then as a practice. Even if only temporarily, I always felt better afterwards. Gradually, I also began experiencing something new and entirely unexpected – safety: to be present, to come “down out of my head” and into my body, and safe enough to embark upon real changes. I’d long searched for fixes for something broken. Instead, I came to experience healing as the safety to express who I was meant to be and what I was born to do.

I’m grateful for the journey with all its twists and turns and years of searching; it’s deepened my empathy for both those who seek, as well as those who endeavor to support others in health. My own path for healing and meaning first took me all the way through medical school, followed by a lengthy career as an epidemiologist, primarily working on HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. The formal academic degrees and public health profession indeed felt rewarding, just inauthentic. Learning massage and somatic-based coaching came after. While it is and has always been my calling to support others in health, I had to learn through lived experience that the sciences of medicine are no substitute for the art of wellness. It turns out I’m more artist than scientist!

Touch wasn’t a magic bullet that singularly resolved all of life’s challenges. Rather, bodywork bridges multiple techniques I continue to use, and remains the centerpiece for my own health regimen. My days also aren’t always filled with rainbows and unicorns. There are times my ego does its level-best to coax me back into the familiarity of the past, and periods when quiet solitude briefly gives way to sensations of loneliness, for instance. In these moments, I’m reminded that my body remains my gateway and my map to home, and that connection—with others and my own purpose—isn’t just possible, it’s a birthright. It’s a birthright we all share.