Questions about my life seem to come up at odd moments and in mysterious ways when the season turns and there’s a chill in the air. Where am I in my life? How are my clients, these people who live in warm human bodies that I help with my massage practice? Where am I in my mental, physical, and emotional bodies? How much exercise am I getting? Could my diet be healthier? Why am I not posting more blog posts? Hey, wait, I’m doing it now…writing something that will connect with others…since I can’t be the only one having these thoughts…

I’m busy with new and long-term clients and I’m glad. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I relocated my business this year, up in Greenwood, in a sweet little nest of a house. I’m passionate about what I do, and when I perform deep tissue massage for people, I like seeing how they come out of my space…feeling lighter and more flexible…and in less pain. And my rates may be slightly higher than what’s now considered “market rate” for a massage in Seattle, but there are many reasons why an experienced massage therapist charges what they do. Such as…experience, knowledge, and being able to help people in ways that someone just starting out isn’t capable of doing. No matter one does for a living, there’s a dollar sign attached to it, and we should all be getting our true worth for our services.

When you go to a traditional Western doctor or hospital, they tell you how much it’ll cost and you pay with your credit card or write a check, but you don’t complain about it. There would be no point, you think. Same should be true with non-traditional  healers. If through your own healing experiences, you’ve found out that regular massage and Eastern modalities (like acupuncture and herbs) help keep your body in tune and on track, you are grateful to be healthy and aware of it, and you’re willing to pay for what works with your body. So, life, healing, seasonal shifts…and money as a fact of life…everywhere in the world. I invite you to ask your own seasonal questions, and find out why you’re feeling in a dark place, or maybe in a lighter place than people around you. What’s weighing you down, or making you feel lighter? How are you taking care of yourself as we enter the busy Winter Season?

Greetings!

A hearty hello to all my loyal and wonderful clients, fabulous friends and great business contacts that regularly read my blog posts. I hope 2011 is treating you very well so far! And also a big hello to new people who may be finding me online for the first time at SierraFaye.com, whether you’re in Seattle or someplace further away. Portland, Cleveland, Walla Walla or Vancouver, B.C.?

Some of you already know there have been many big changes in my life, one of which is moving my massage practice to a wonderful new space in Greenwood, near Aurora and 90^th. 

Yes, Sierra Faye’s Massage practice has relocated to: 747 N. 90^th St, Seattle WA, 98103.

Some great improvements in my new massage space for clients:

v     You’ll always find ample free parking close-by.

v     Traffic sounds and intrusive noises are practically non-existent.

v     The people I share the space with are all healers with more than 30 years experience in their fields.

As a place for giving healing and therapeutic bodywork, my new space feels so much better.

Clients who visit me breathe easier and relax into their massage treatments, without being distracted by traffic sounds or nearby construction projects. Now I can attend to clients in a welcoming space—in a residential neighborhood, in a house that’s been converted into a healing center.

The atmosphere is much quieter than on Capitol Hill, and provides a more cozy massage environment.

People wanting therapeutic massage treatments in the north end of Seattle can get to me easier, and my long-term Capitol Hill clients have a perfect reason to come up to Greenwood and check out a neighborhood with so much going for it…great restaurants, cool art galleries, inviting coffee shops…and excellent massage practitioners.

What do so many of my friends and massage clients in Seattle have in common?

What one activity do they spend so many hours doing during the course of a day?

Sitting in the same position, and most likely in an uncomfortable office chair. Not just one day a week or sometimes, but day after day. And to be blunt, that shit accumulates in the mid-section of the body, as well as other areas such as shoulders, hands, upper arms.

You can feel it without even thinking about it all that much. Can’t you?

Over time, the body just holds onto this stress and strain, and one day an area in your back or hip gets pushed too far.

You go from uncomfortable to truly hurting, and you wonder how it happened.

Even if you just get up and do a few easy simple stretches, you can feel a difference in your energy level.

But having some deep tissue massage work done is more likely what is needed, especially when you’ve been ignoring those neck pains, shoulder twinges, and chronic lower back pain that just doesn’t seem to go away.

Daily tension gets ignored, and pushed down and held in places like the butt and pelvis area.

And since this is such a core area that affects your whole body’s movement, sooner or later, muscle and joint tension builds up and creates problems.

Sometimes when people say things like “That really gives me a pain in the ass.” they are being more literal than they think.

Please pay attention to your body throughout the day.

Listen to what it’s telling you.

Maybe it wants to stretch, and if you take five minutes to unplug from the wired world we live in and listen to the inner world of your own body’s rhythms, you’ll get rewarded with a deeper connection to your own life energy.

And won’t that feel great?

Let’s face it, we all want to feel better. As a massage practitioner I know this fact in a deep way. Clients come to me with a long list of stresses, strains, pains, aches, and just plain old built up body tension.

No only do I understand this, but the bodyworkers I often network with know this as well. People want to feel better, in every part of their body. Even in certain areas it might be difficult for them to talk about. Pain that comes up when they stretch or move a certain way that shouldn’t be so painful.

One thing that I’ve been discussing with my fellow healing profession workers is my shift in focus to groin and pelvic injury treatment.

Since this is a delicate subject, even talking about it with other massage practitioners can be like opening a can of worms that either calls for a lengthy discussion or becomes a conversation stopper.

You never know.

In our society, the genital region is taboo and working around this highly charged area is something most massage practitioners and bodyworkers just do not do. And I get it. I completely understand why groin and pelvic work isn’t all that popular with my fellow massage practitioners.

Let me put this out there: People truly need this type of elemental and integrative body work. So much of our culture’s stresses and long-term pains are held onto in the pelvic region.

Who knows if it began with the repressed way we’ve held things inside for generations, and it may date back to the whole formation of this great big crazy body of a country (the body inside our own minds, the body politic, the bodies of all these humans around us we come into contact with), but healing and release needs to happen more often.

Most healers and body-workers I have met through the years have hearts so big and generous – they want to give their healing skills to everyone.

They know they can benefit anyone they touch.

But what is best for my client? What does any perspective client REALLY need?

Some times it is clear: they want to heal their low back pain, for example.

Sometimes is is very unclear what needs to be healed. I find that most people, however – when they seek healing – will be often naturally guided to find the healing modality and practitioner(s) that will be of the HIGHEST GAIN to their healing paths.

Another way of saying this is: when you find the correct practitioner and modality FOR YOU – you will leap and bound into greater expressions of good health in a relatively short period of time with regular treatments or even just one treatment.

Good and lasting healing is often something of an investment in time and money.

Sometimes something like chronic low back pain takes a year or two of consistent injury treatment sessions to completely heal the pain so that it hardly comes back. (I ask you this: how long did it take for the pain to get there?… a lifetime, perhaps?)

The point of that ramble is: because clients often have specific needs – it would only make sense that practitioners of healing arts SPECIALIZE in one or two things – aka- they create a niche for themselves so that those searching clients find exactly what they are looking for in a healer.

I found out, years ago, that my passion for massage was invigorated by the assessing and treating of pain and injury in the groin and pelvic regions.

My motivation for improving my skills in treating the hip and groin made me feel “in” the “student mind.” Like being in massage school, I was so excited and fascinated to learn and practice bodywork.

Because of my personal interest in this aspect of massage, I have become adept at treating trauma, pain and injury in the groin, pelvis, low back and hips.

I helped heal physical trauma in the pelvic region, as well as the psychological, mental, and emotional trauma that is so often associated with the pelvic region.

To wrap this all up – it seems wise to choose your practitioner with care.

If you know what you need – find and go to a specialist.

If you know you want to improve the quality of your life and you know you need healing but you don’t know where to look: try energy healers, talking therapies, movement therapies, mystical therapies or things you would not have tried otherwise as well as socially accepted modalities.

Sometimes finding your perfect healing match is part of your healing path. Sometimes finding a practitioner who can help deeply heal you is like stepping out of your box and out of your comfort zone.

I would say too, that a healing practitioner – finding their niche can be a part of their healing path as well.

For my fellow practitioners: get specific, if you aren’t already.

We are not in competition. We are working together to save and improve the lives of the people on this planet.

Niche yourself!