Meet Leah
Leah started massaging at the age of 8, after getting her very first massage and loving it. This love of bodywork blossomed into a business after a frustrating whiplash injury and a realization that she could actually help people.
Leah loves learning about how our bodies work and how we can help them thrive. Not only does she treat bodies, she is also a modern dancer with years of experience taking care of her own body and learning from past injuries.
After getting whiplash from choreography in 2006, she had an epiphany. She was wasting her time as a bartender, and she finally woke up to her yearning to help people find their pathway to health. She immediately enrolled in The Swedish Institute in New York, and a year and a half later, received an Associates degree in Massage Therapy.
The Importance of Listening
Along her journey to heal her neck, she saw a physical therapist, a chiropractor, a massage therapist, and a craniosacral therapist. What she noticed was that it didn’t matter what kind of techniques were used to bring her back to health; what mattered was the practitioner.
She’s since seen many different wellness “experts”, and the ones that helped were always the ones who did not pidgeon-hole her into a pre-existing model of bodily perfection. They did not try to “fix” her. They allowed space and encouragement for her body to heal. This is how Leah approaches her clients- she listens to them, she learns about them and their history, and she works with them, planting seeds for them to heal themselves.
She allows her extensive knowledge of the body to help hone in on the root of an issue, and then her intuition guides her hands and her recommendations. She employs numerous massage techniques, energy work, and coaching (when appropriate), and she doesn’t follow any set choreography. Each person is profoundly different and should be treated as an individual, not a statistic.
“A beautiful thing happens when we start paying attention to each other. It is by participating more in your relationship that you breathe life into it.”
—Steve Maraboli
Nutrition Entered Leah’s Therapy
At this point, we can all agree that what goes into your body is important. Leah discovered that the hard way, after developing an overgrowth of candida a few years into her career as a massage therapist.
Leah had to quickly and drastically change her diet at the time, but she also realized a very important piece- how emotional stress contributed to the pain and gut imbalance. Leah was moving from NY to Salt Lake, but didn’t allow herself to fully grieve over that huge change. It wasn’t until she had some profound emotional releases while saying goodbye to NY, that her pain began to subside.
After learning more about food, she kept her habits around eating, and her health improved drastically- her lifelong allergies disappeared! she stopped getting so many colds and flus, and she was energized.
Obviously, her next studies took her to Nutrition and Coaching, and she studied with Dr. Klemer, Ron Wayman and the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.
Energy Healing and all the Woo
But of course the journey and discovery never ends! If you’ve read this far, be prepared for the juicy stuff…
Until 2015, Leah was somewhat coasting. She’d had a baby in 2013, took some time off her business to be a new mom, and generally felt good. To tell the truth, Leah was suffering on an emotional and energetic level.
Her marriage held a lot of pain and resentment (which we won’t get into here!), and her new Mom role was more challenging than she’d ever imagined. She was holding herself up by the boot-straps, so to speak, and felt she had to “do it all”. But isn’t that what people have to do?
From the constant low grade stress, her physical body got hit hard in 2016. One thing lead to another, and after excruciating abdominal pain, 2 antibiotics later (she loathes drugs but listened to 2 docs advice), and a scary 23 lb weight loss, she was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease.
She had 2 choices- either listen to the doctors and take immunosuppressant drugs, or find another way to heal. If you know Leah, you feel her passion and determination to heal. So how can you heal if you are suppressing your immune system? It didn’t make sense, and she had to follow her gut (no pun intended!).
I’m going to skip the knitty gritty of Leah’s healing process and transformational journey to get to the big, gigantuan, motherload of all points. She is grateful.
After all the debilitating pain, inability to digest, weakness, weight loss down to skin and bones, brain fog, lashing out anger, fear like she’s never felt before…. She would not be the fully embodied human she is now had she not been given the opportunity to heal on an energetic and emotional level. She would not have discovered her powerful ability to heal using energy, and she can finally pour from an overflowing cup.
Staring at the face of death is no joke. And I will not dumb down her situation. Yes, it was dire. Yes, she did consider suicide. And yes, she found times to enjoy her work and her family. But ultimately, she did the work.
And she continues to do the work of accepting her whole self, of releasing beliefs and thought patterns that aren’t serving her, and of reaching out to her healers cause support and self care are key.
And yes, there is still more! Leah is no longer in the physical pain she was in, she finds an abundance of joy in her life, and she knows that when a little pain or discomfort arises it’s an opportunity to go within– to ask the hard questions, cause something is ready to be let go of. Something within her no longer serves her and is calling to come out.
There will always be more, and that is life. Let’s agree to wholeheartedly to accept that and be grateful for it!
Lastly, within these past 4 years or so, homeopathy and energy healing (Higher Self Voice & Nova Lightwork) have been new additions to Leah’s healing modalities- because they were both major catalysts along her personal healing journey. She is done shying away from their power and potential in order to not be so “woowoo”.
Energy is the stuff of life. Who can deny that? If we haven’t yet “proved” how it works (quantum physics is starting to!), it doesn’t mean it is not worth trying. And clearly, something has to change in our sick-care system or we will continue to get sicker.
When not helping clients, Leah likes to garden, cook, play board games, dance around her kitchen, be a mom, do Contact Improvisation, perform, do puzzles, meditate, have date-night with her husband, listen to George Vithoulkas, read homeopathy books, and cuddle with her cat.
Massage Credentials
- Licensed Massage Therapist in UT
- Swedish Institute AOS in Massage Therapy, 2008
- Anatomy Trains Myofascial Meridians Workshop, 2010
- Trigger Point Therapy 1: Upper Extremity & Neck, 2008
- Trigger Point Therapy 3: Legs & Forearms, 2008
- Exploration: The Pelvis, 2009
- Structural Integration: Head & Neck, 2009
- The Lower Back Workshop, 2010
- BA in Dance from Barnard College, Columbia University, 2002
Energy Healing, Coaching, Homeopathy Credentials
- Nova Lightwork Certification, 2018
- Institute for Integrative Nutrition, 2017
- Good Gut, Bad Gut Homeopathy Workshop, 2018
- Nutritional Kinesiology Intensive, Dr Klemer, 2012
- Chakra Touch Workshop at ACNEK, 2013
- Nutrition and Detox Workshop at ACNEK, 2012
- Student at International Academy of Classical Homeopathy, 2019-2022
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