Believe it or not, my massage career all started with Enya in the 1990’s (doesn’t that sound like the start to a great song?).

I can still see my childhood living room so clearly:

The frilly curtains that were so hip in the 90’s.
The beige couch with my great-grandma’s crocheted afghan atop.
The giant music console with a VCR, 6-CD player and shelves full of CDs all stacked on top of each other.
Candles glowing (which my parents had to light, because I was too young to light them myself).

Welcome to Vanessa’s Massage Parlour.

I don’t know how exactly (because up to that point I’d never received a professional massage), but somehow as a 9 year old, I knew I wanted to be a massage therapist.

I loved to rub my mom’s feet and back– so much so that I would hand-draw her gift certificates to “Vanessa’s Massage Parlour” for birthdays, Christmas and other special occasions.

While life would take me on many twists and turns before I actually became a Licensed Massage Therapist, that living room and that dream stuck with me.

Fast forward to 2013.

I had just returned to the United States after living in Madagascar for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I lived in a tiny fishing village that sat on the edge of the Indian Ocean, with white sand beaches, mango trees and sea turtles as the backdrop of my existence.

In 2013 however, I was living in cold and drizzly Portland, Oregon, and was extremely sick with Ulcerative Colitis.

I had been diagnosed many years earlier, but my return to the states marked the beginning of a four-year flareup of massive systemic inflammation that at times, kept me housebound and unable to walk, and at worst, sent me to the emergency room on multiple occasions.

If you’d like to read more about my time in the Peace Corps and/or my battle with Ulcerative Colitis, please visit my travel blog here.

Since I could barely work or leave the house, it gave me plenty of time to evaluate my life path and what I wanted to do moving forward.

Up to that point, I had spent most of my 20’s and 30’s working in outdoor professions: wildland firefighter, backcountry patrol ranger, Alaskan river guide, wilderness field guide.

But all the while, that 90’s living room stuck with me. At night, when I couldn’t sleep from pain and endless trips to the bathroom, I’d ask myself:

“How do I become a Licensed Massage Therapist?”

As luck would have it, Portland, Oregon is a hot spot for the healing arts, home to some of the top schools in the country and filled to the brim with massage therapists, acupuncturists, reiki practitioners and all sorts of other wellness practitioners.

I toured the well-renowned East West College of the Healing Arts and instantly knew I’d found my place.

I got financial aid together and enrolled in the full-time program starting in the fall of 2014.

Massage school was hard, surprisingly so.

It is a grueling process:

the long days of memorizing anatomical landmarks
learning all the kinesiology for every single muscle in the body backwards & forwards
studying the functions and intricacies of each of the body systems
practicing massage techniques day after day, week after week, even though your shoulders and forearms ache and constantly need to be iced
delving deep into complex pathologies
learning about the ethical grey areas that abound in the massage profession
wrapping your mind around small business management

… it’s a lot to cram into just one year.

But in 2015, I graduated with an 800-hour massage certificate, passed the MBLEX (the massage industry’s national licensing exam) and officially became a Licensed Massage Therapist!

Shortly after, I moved to Bend, Oregon and started working at a local spa while slowly starting to build my own practice.

I hated working at the spa, to be honest.

Though it was a very upscale spa, the type where clients enjoyed luxurious showers and steam rooms before their sessions, wore bathrobes and sipped on champagne or tea, the massage rooms themselves were in the basement, and what windows they had were covered over completely with dark black curtains.

I felt like I was working in a dungeon, especially given that the LMTs had to wear all black.

The worst part was how they managed the scheduling: they gave massage therapists only 15 minutes between sessions, which as anyone knows who works in the industry, means you’ve got no time at all!

You need to politely and kindly say goodbye to your last client, change over the table and sanitize the room, drink some water, go to the bathroom, maybe grab a snack, and start a load of laundry or fold linens (the spa required LMTs do all the laundry!) and be ready to meet your next client… all within 15 minutes?!

Ugh. No wonder I developed an overuse injury of my thumb within nine months of working there.

I was hustling hard that first year.

In addition to the spa, I was also working hard to build my own private practice. I knew no one in Bend, so I was starting from scratch on so many levels. My massage skills were pretty good, but definitely not mindblowing.

Luckily, I had a slow but steady stream of clients due to working in the same building as a yoga studio, where I was able to advertise a bit and be included on their yoga website.

But here’s a question for ya:

What’s the most important thing to focus on when starting a business?

Your website!!!

Repeat after me, building your website.

One of the first things I did when I opened my little baby massage business was start building a website. This was the first site I built and I was obsessed with it immediately.

I wanted to make it beautiful: to emote a feeling of relaxation, belonging, kindness, healing.

But I also wanted it to work well for me by attracting the right kind of clients and eventually, becoming home to a photo gallery, online scheduling platform and blog.

I knew I was a complete geek about my website when I’d realized that nearly half a day had gone by without me ever having taken a sip of water, stood up to stretch, or use the bathroom! I was in such a flow state working on every little detail of my site that it planted a seed:

Maybe I could be a web designer for massage therapists someday.

Throughout my massage career, I’ve focused on a single question:

“How can I help massage therapists be the best they can be?”

To me, that ultimately means having a website that truly represents the important work they offer the world.

So! If you’re still with me, whether you’re just getting through massage school or have owned a thriving practice for twenty years, I want to support you on your journey.

Check out my services today.

I’ll be with you every step of the way– whether Enya is playing in the background or not.

My massage journey