In the past, I have worked stressful office jobs and I’ve seen how stress can affect mental health. I had even tried pivoting to carpentry to try to reinvent myself, only to be surrounded by people who gave their bodies to their craft with bad backs, knees, and shoulders that would follow them long after their careers were over. The idea that no matter what I did for work, either my mind or body would suffer didn't sit well with me, and that was when I decided to go back to school.
I will always remember the night years ago in our student clinic when I was able to give my patient a high five. Over the course of the a month, I had seen them a handful of times. They had been coming to see me to try to regain movement in their arm because of a poor work-from-home setup during covid, and they had developed a case of frozen shoulder, which just like the name states, when we started she was unable to lift her arm past her hip. It was in this moment when their arm was well above their head and we shared that high-five that I found a profound sense of accomplishment and joy in being able to help someone with massage therapy. Still to this day I high-five patients when we achieve their goals.
I will always have a special interest in helping people who work in trades, those who suffer from chronic stress, or struggle with COPD and asthma, because those are things I have had personal experience with. I will help anyone who has an issue that can be fixed with massage therapy.