Pura Vida Massage Therapy

11/30/2024

Home sweet home for the holidays!

26 months after our 🔥 we are finally home 🏡

Use code BLACKFRIDAY to buy massages for yourself & your loved ones this week & get 30% off!

Everyone loves a massage so get your holiday shopping done from the comfort of your couch today & support a woman owned small business!

Link to website in bio! Enter BLACKFRIDAY at checkout to receive the discount.

11/03/2023

Emotional regulation

Everyone is talking about emotional regulation these days but I don't think most people really get it.

Being emotionally regulated doesn't mean you're calm all the time. It doesn't mean you put out your inner fire.

On the contrary, being emotionally regulated means you harness the power within, the fire within & alchemize it for your own healing.

Our feelings have immense power & when we shame ourselves & stuff them down, they get stuck & fester.

There is a better way though...

We can train ourselves to notice the feeling, let it move through us & breathe.

When we breathe into our emotions & give them space to exist, we are retraining our bodies, our subconscious minds toward safety.

We are saying to ourselves that it is safe to be ourselves...even when we feel mad or resentful or sad or any of the other emotions we were taught were shameful.

There is so much power in that small moment of self-acceptance & each moment builds on the last until eventually feeling your feelings & breathing into your discomfort becomes your habit & shame can take the backseat for once.

11/02/2023

Do you suffer from "just one more cup of coffee syndrome"?

Meaning do you have a hard time saying no?

Do you just power through by any means necessary...just one more cup of coffee?

Many of us learned to abandon parts of ourselves to stay connected to our caregivers as kids. We learned that saying "yes" got us praise & attention. While saying "no" caused endless problems.

So as grown ups we take on too much.

We're good at it. We've managed this heavy load for most of our lives. We just power through.

Until we can't.

My invitation is to learn to set down some of your burden BEFORE you get to your next breaking point.

I've been where you are & I developed a program to help folks just like you & me.

It's time to stop self-abandoning & instead start asking what you can do to take care of yourself.

If your heart feels called to my message, DM me so we can chat more.

10/31/2023

10/26/2023

So many of us didn't get our needs met as kids, & then we grown up & struggle with intimacy.

To fix it we go to therapy & talk & talk & gain so much great insight BUT the struggle continues.

It's frustrating & heartbreaking.

The missing link is training your BODY to feel safe.

Your mind is brilliant but it can't heal you on it's own.

As a kid, your body learned that expecting to get your needs met by others leads to hurt so you developed subconscious coping mechanisms to keep your safe from harm.

These coping mechanisms are running the show...your subconscious-aka your body-not your conscious mind.

The good news is when you know how to cultivate inner safety, you can stop self-sabotaging & truly learn to cultivate the relationships you dream of.

I teach my clients to connect with themselves & their loved ones so they can live their best lives now.

Follow my page for more insights & reach out when you are ready.

10/25/2023

Do you ever feel like you're just pretending to be an adult?

Sometimes, we have to act too grown up as a kid...maybe your grown-ups were going through their own s**t & relied on you as a friend or a co-parent...maybe you just overheard your parents fighting all the time & decided it was your job to "fix" the problems.

So as kids we learn to act like grown ups but then we grow up & wonder, is it STILL an act?

Whatever YOUR root cause is, many of us felt we had to BE grown up waaaaay before we were emotionally capable of processing what was actually happening.

When that is your story, the memory lives on in your body & throws off your self-trust as an adult.

You can end up feeling like you're not actually the capable adult you truly are.

So how do we cultivate that self-trust?

We learn to listen to our bodies:
-What is happening in your body when that self-doubt/imposter syndrome BS rears it's ugly head?
ex: does your stomach get butterflies? is your
jaw clenching? are you feeling pressure in
your throat?
-Find some tools to help you move that energy in your body (hint: a good coach can help you with this)
-Get comfortable with imperfection. This won't happen overnight. If you had to grow up too early, you are likely still shouldering more responsibility than is your due & you probably feel obligated to do everything just so. But we want to bit by bit learn to see the magic in the mistakes, the creativity born from imperfection, the connection created through asking for help.

If this resonated, drop a comment below about your biggest take-away.

10/25/2023

10/24/2023

Learn to lean into that body wisdom with me & unlock inner peace & inner resolve!

09/27/2023

Yesterday was the anniversary of our house burning down.

I took this picture of the finished foundation a few days ago.

Today they started framing & soon we’ll see a lot of recognizable progress.

I’ve been really emotional this week.

It’s taken a lot of work to get here.

The external work of getting the plans right & navigating all the ins & outs of decision making, communication, & aligning budget with desire.

And the internal work of processing the trauma of the fire, navigating fears, deciding what’s necessary our family in our new home & advocating for that & letting go of things we want but can’t afford right now.

Building a house is a pretty great metaphor for the healing process.

The bulk of the work goes into the planning & foundation: creating safety in your nervous system as your baseline day to day state of being & finding tools to bring you back to center, back to safety when life tries to knock you on your ass.

Once you get that set there’s rapid progress that’s obvious to anyone who’s paying attention.

And then things slow down a bit as more work goes on inside.

Until eventually, your custom design- your body mind & soul- is actually a comfortable home.

This is the process I take clients through in my coaching program. We customize a plan for you built on the strong foundation of my 25 years of work, study & personal experience in nervous system regulation, befriending the body, & trauma processing.

My newest program is my best work yet & for a limited time it’s my most affordable ever:

$444 for 12 weeks of bespoke coaching, education & support to take you from stressed & overwhelmed to grounded & empowered to take on life’s challenges like the badass we both know you already are!

Normally when I run 12 week programs, they are 4xs as much!

I believe so strongly in this work that I want to offer it now at this deep discount so I can gather testimonials, refine the details & really expand my impact.

DM for more info.

Happy healing!

09/21/2023

I've been in a bit of a hibernation so I figured it was time to say hello again & share who I am, where I'm at, & how I can help you.

For those of you who are new here, I lost basically everything I own, including my home to an electrical fire last year at roughly this time.

Initially I sprung into action & took care of business, securing our future as best I could. I got s**t done. I asked for & received a lot of community help.

But once the dust settled, I realized that my get everything done attitude had become a trauma response. The urgency had passed but my nervous system was still acting as if it was under threat. My inner child was driving my actions, not my adult self which is totally normal in trauma.

I had to step back, give myself permission to feel & focus on my own healing & it's been really fruitful!

I've taken what I've learned from my own trauma-big & small, & 25 years as a Somatic Therapist, Massage Therapist, Hypnotherapist, Energy Healer & Meditation Teacher & am developing an amazing body based coaching program to help us all shepherd the scared little child within into a deeply grounded sense of safety because our unconscious mind (our nervous system) is running the show most of the time & things turn out better when we truly feel safe deep within.

Bad things happen. It's no one's fault BUT we can learn, we can heal & we can begin to show up to our traumas- large & small- as the capable adults we are now.

As children we learned to cope with our struggles in the best way we knew how but that's usually not the best way to handle our struggles today. My go to is to hyper function & do do do but that requires shelfing my feelings & I'm no longer okay with that. Your coping strategy may be different but trust me, it's your default when you're not paying attention & life is lifing real hard.🙃

So if you're looking to pay closer attention to how you manage stress, find healthier ways of coping when life gets hard, or if you're simply in the thick of something hard & want some help, DM me for more info.

In the coming weeks, I'll be sharing more & shifting the focus of this page towards my coaching practice so stay tuned!

XO- Amy

06/10/2023

You get to do what feels good to you.

Find your peace where you can.

Freedom is sacred.

Give yourself the grace & space to find your own way.