As we got more comfortable selling and creating products, the process has turned into a well oiled machine.

In 2022, as I mentioned in our Part 1 of this series, we really got used to shipping, made sure our labels were great and tweaked every recipe to products we are 100% confident in.

This blog post could be 6 posts long, but I’m going to try and summarize the best I can.

In the beginning of my career, I swore I would never get into energy work. I didn’t understand it and the people around me feared it a lot. But, life is a journey, and it changes you. Over the past 10 years as a massage therapist, I have changed, grown and developed a lot. One thing I can’t ignore anymore is my intuitive gifts, helping people feel better by allowing emotions and energy to release and sharing my experiences of what I’m feeling with them.

In this post, I hope to clear up fear around what energy work is, and explain it from my point of view. I would also love to describe how it shows up in my practice, how I’ve used it and what it can do for you! Stick with me, I believe this is important :)

I want to take a moment to go back in time a little bit- to when I felt the nudge to start offering products at Encompass. In the beginning, it was multifaceted. I wanted to offer a self care option for my clients that they could take home and use right away. Essential oils are great, but they require education on how and when to use them. A product that is infused with oils and ready to use for a specific purpose is a really easy way to get started without the overwhelm.

take our body for granted and wonder what happened when “all of the sudden” we tighten up, our back goes out or we start getting regular headaches. Of course, there can be many factors, but today, I want to talk about some major characteristics of healthy muscles. We’ll look at three components; strength, flexibility & function.

Massage can help knee pain? Short answer: YES! Blog complete. Haha, no I’m kidding. If you’re anything like me, you need to know how it can help!

This is an interesting deep dive. And I think it’s because, in general, clients complain of shoulder pain or headaches, but not usually of neck pain itself. With that being said, the neck is also the area that I work the most to relieve you of your shoulder pain or headaches! The referrals of the trigger points in the neck just refer up into the head or down to the shoulders. To be honest, the neck is one of my favorite areas to work- especially the anterior neck, because therapists can be scared of this area. But it’s so important to release, and often the missing link!

This week and last, we have been diving into TMJ Dysfunction and how massage can help. Yesterday, Nikki taught a self-massage technique that you can use at home to help yourself! You find that video on our YouTube channel, here. We have already had a few comments letting us know that the technique really helped and it benefiting those who try it. We recommend going check that out!

Arms and hands are interesting, because I don’t usually have clients with a ton of sore, deep pain, but more of the tingling, numbness and weakness. We use our hands for everything, and therefore our arms. The muscles that move our hands start in our elbow area. There are muscles in your hands as well, but they don’t do the major movements. Another common problem people complain of is carpal tunnel. So let’s dive into this and talk about what you can do for self-care, what other professionals could help, and how massage therapy can help you in your situation.

In the 5+ years that I’ve been practicing massage, I have had many, many clients with foot pain. A few conditions that come to mind especially are first and foremost, plantar facsiitis.

As we know, sleep is essential for anyone’s well being. Without sleep, patience wears thin quickly, a fog settles in, and decision making and simple chores can feel impossible. I can personally attest to this, as this past winter, Ethan (my now 10mo old) was a terrible sleeper. I had never felt that kind of fatigue, and I think that is what caused Baby Blues, I could hardly think straight some mornings. No sleep is rough, but what happens when you can’t fall asleep? Or you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep? Or you toss and turn all night? That is also harmful, and will contribute to fatigue and overall not performing at your best.

Have you ever experienced hip, butt (aka the gluts), or sciatic pain? If you have, you will probably be the first to say that it is not pleasant, and many times can be super debilitating. In the past few months, I have had many clients fighting with this, and two in particular whose daily life was completely restricted due to the pain, and they were desperate to fix it.

Remember this teaser from the last blog? “What is Point C? Point C is when you can go a month without pain. When you tell me that you have never been this pain free. When you are able to do activities you haven’t been able to do in years. Point C is why I do what I do. And when you get there, I am almost as elated as you are. It’s an amazing place to be. So keep going.“

So you’ve had pain for months, a year, maybe many years. That sucks, right? Well, maybe you saw my blog post a couple weeks ago about trying Trigger Point Therapy, when you’ve tried everything else. I’m here today to talk about taking this a bit further. I want you to understand that if you have been having pain that you consider chronic, that means it’s been there for a long time. This also means that because it’s been there for awhile does not mean that your pain will go away after one session with me. Although that would be amazing, it’s just not realistic.

Do you live in chronic pain? How long has it been? Some people say they’ve been living that way for months, some say a couple years, some say MANY years. And those that say years generally say that they have accepted the fact that this is the way they’ll feel forever. Forever! That’s a long time. And they say this because they have tried everything. Everything from pills, doctors, maybe surgery, physical therapy, massage. So they give up hope.