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hello and welcome
It is my joy to be a physical therapist. And now it is my joy to be practicing in the Gunnison and Crested Butte valley. As I grow my practice, my vision is to stay in touch with current and past patients and share what I am learning. I want to use this first email to give you more of my background, if you don't already know it.
I am passionate to help folks with a variety of issues and one of my main strengths as a therapist is to help you connect the dots in your past and present health story. I can and love to work with orthopedic (joint and muscle and fascia issues) and also specialize in treating persistent pain and dysfunction in the body by addressing the cranial, visceral, vascular systems and the nervous system in ways that could have been overlooked before.
My core beliefs include that every person has existing potential to heal and that the body is always striving to move toward health, accelerated by better knowledge of the way it works, the right conditions and activities, and a belief that things can improve. As a life long learner and eternal optimist, I believe that we can move you forward in your healing process by working together.
I started in this profession as a massage therapist in 2006, inspired by the bodywork of visceral and cranial therapy I stumbled upon when I was studying to be a botanist. I was so impressed by the power of these techniques that I changed my career path after my Masters in Botany in 2003 and went back to school for massage.
In 2011, I pursued further learning and tools by returning to school for physical therapy with the same goal of deepening my knowledge. During school, I was so fortunate to cross paths with the Institute of Physical Art, led by Gregg and Vicky Johnson, and I studied their paradigm for five years intensively after school and am honored to continue to learn from this community and my mentors. In 2019, I earned my CFMT (Certified Functional Manual Therapist), which included a rigorous testing program to deepen my understanding of a holistic way of seeing the healing process. This paradigm acknowledges the importance of release of restrictions in the body, the interconnectedness of many different parts of the body and different types of tissues, and the power of using the body's developmental patterns to return core activation and coordination (PNF), as well as to train the body to perform tasks in the most efficient way possible. I am so grateful to Gregg and Vicky and the many CFMT mentors I have had along the way, including Nancy Harrison, Brent Yamashita and Steve Warfel.
Functional Manual Therapy, along with osteopathic techniques learned from the Barral Institute to release restrictions in the viscera, vascular and neural tissues that I have been studying since 2008, allow me to help you find the sources of your challenges and see a path forward for us to return you to your full potential.
Most recently, I have fallen in love with the autonomic nervous system, our survival and safety portion of our nervous system. I have started to treat intersections in the nerves, nerve pathways, cranial nerves (including the infamous vagus nerve) and the brain with manual therapy. In 2024, I started a beautiful path of learning about working with sensation tracking to treat autonomic dysregulation using somatic therapy. I am a year into a three year program as a somatic experiencing student, studying the work of Peter Levine and Stephen Porges, guided by my teacher Lael Keen, who is an experienced teacher for the Rolf Institute and Somatic Experiencing Institute! What an incredible opportunity! Last year, I also began to learn more about sound healing using tuning forks and singing bowls to balance the nerves of the autonomic nervous system. I always work with my own system first when learning and this work has dramatically changed my body for the better, helping me to have more capacity for change and living in this charged world we live in with less pain and more freedom.
Let’s broaden our vision of therapy together! There are so many tools in our toolbox together! Most of us think of going to PT to either: get massage or to do exercise to get stronger. Physical therapy is the most effective when we work on fascia and strengthen, together with many ways to look at healing, tools in our tool box and rocks to look under for answers. I look forward to collaboration with the Gunnison/Crested Butte community!
If you aren't in need of therapy at this time, but know someone who would be, please consider forwarding this email to them!
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