Wellness and Discovery through Mind Body Massage in Gilbert, AZ

What is Mind Body Massage? Imagine a retreat from the busy pace of the day to a place of nurturing inner stillness. Stress melts away with long flowing strokes, reminding you through touch of your wholeness. As your thoughts quiet, you find yourself returning to the richness of your senses. It is an experience of reawakening aliveness, a dive into yourself, bringing feelings of reconnection, renewal, and awe...

...and all this "ahhhhhh!" is research informed. Mind Body Massage draws from what we know about the wellness and healing benefits of touch, massage, and meditation. It's an approach to bodywork that I've developed over 17 years of practice and study as a massage therapist and healing arts practitioner, that offers massage as a deeply relaxing, wellness promoting, moving meditation. Inspired by the renowned massage of Esalen, this flowing, intuitive, contactful style of massage supports wellness, healing, and personal growth. 

Our wellness and thriving depends on touch, connection, and inner peace. We literally cannot live healthy lives without it. Research finds that massage increases relaxation hormones, such as oxytocin, and decreases stress hormones leaving us healthier and happier. Massage can boost immunity, lower blood pressure, and combat depression, anxiety, and stress. It can increase body awareness, confidence, and ability to connect with others.  Offering massage as a moving meditation holds increased wellness benefits. Harvard research found regular meditation to switch off genetic predisposition for some diseases. Mind Body Massage is informed by this research to support wellness of the whole person. 

Sessions in Mind Body Massage, available at Thrive Wellness,LLC, FromHealingToThriving.com, offer a place to unwind, renew, and reconnect with inner resources for healing and thriving. The experience naturally supports a more embodied, radiant health and deeper connection to your body, self, and life.

Massage is a powerful way to bring health to our whole selves; mind, body, spirit, and heart. What wonders will your path of wellness open for you?

Book your session with therapist Carrie Smith-Hardee, LMT, RM now at 480-452-3086.

Thrive Wellness, LLC

Carrie Smith-Hardee, LMT

4365 E Pecos Rd, Suite 141

Gilbert, AZ 85295

FromHealingToThriving.com

480-452-3086

The Empowering Element of Holistic Life Coaching

Have you ever found yourself waiting for a transformative moment? Holding out for a deep feeling of knowing what to do and how to do it? Ever put on the brakes until receiving an “Aha! Moment”?

Unplanned epiphanies can touch us in unexpected ways, and we are wise and living well in our hearts to be open to their illuminating spark when they happen upon us. In the meantime, however, waiting for an inspired moment rather than living, being, and acting can leave us feeling stuck. The notion that inspiration only strikes unplanned is a myth that can stagnate rather than empower.

This is just one area in which Life Coaching can transform lives. In my work with clients, my joy comes from helping them find and act on inspiration and insights fitted mindfully to their needs. I'm committed to providing tools of empowerment to my clients by helping them ask powerful questions of themselves, which solve their most pressing needs with solutions they handpick. 

The results oriented nature of coaching and mentorship is well proven. Find your right direction, work with a coach to keep your forward movement strong and to provide compassionate and objective support, and find the person you've always felt you were on the inside has become a shining reality on the outside!

What can Life Coaching help you do?

• Shift the ways that you've been thinking about challenges or areas of confusion.
• Develop the skills, confidence, and tools you need to liberate yourself from chronic frustration.
• Identify what truly brings you alive, in each moment of every day.
• Move forward in your life with enhanced engagement, vitality, and joy.

I specialize in Holistic Life Coaching for:

• Personal Empowerment/Reaching Goals
• Early Childhood Attachment and Thriving
• Diverse Family Structures
• Couples Communication and Intimacy
• Holistic Spirituality

Coaching sessions can take place over the phone, on Skype, or in person. I invite you to begin your journey today with a complimentary 20 minute phone session.  I’m happy to answer any questions you might have, discuss your goals, and make a plan for your forward movement. Let the joy of your first step happen now!

Thrive Wellness, LLC
Carrie Smith-Hardee, LMT, RM
Available By Appointment
480-452-3086

How Massage and Touch Support Wellness

Studies continue to roll in with more and more evidence that touch is vital to our wellbeing and that massage has real benefit to our wellness. Here are just some of the reasons massage and touch are so important to us.

Benefits of Massage:

-Offers drug-free humanistic support, based on the bodies natural ability to heal itself.

-Facilitates personal growth.

-Increases circulation, allowing the body to pump more oxygen and nutrients to tissues and vital organs.

-Provides healthy touch and nurturing.

-Stimulates the flow of lymph, the body's natural defense system, against toxic invaders.  For example, in breast cancer patients, massage has been shown to increase the cells that fight cancer.

-Enriches quality of life.

-Increased circulation of blood and lymph systems improves the condition of the body's largest organ- the skin.

-Offers holistic approach to wellness and thriving; mind, body, and spirit.

-Can enhance body image and self-esteem.

-Has a balancing effect on hormones; decreasing stress hormones and increasing relaxation hormones, thereby having contributing to overall wellness.

-Relaxes and softens injured and overused muscles.

-Reduces spasms and cramping.

-Encourages sound sleep.

-Increases joint flexibility.

-Assists with shorter labor for woman, shorter hospital stays, and decreased medication.

-Reduces recovery time, helps prepare for strenuous workouts and eliminates pains of the athlete at any level.

-Releases endorphins - the body's natural painkiller - and is being used in chronic illness, injury, and recovery from surgery to control and relieve pain.

-Reduces post-surgery adhesions and edema and can be used to reduce and realign scar tissue after healing has occurred.

-Improves range-of motion and decreases discomfort for patients with low back pain.

-Relieves pain for migraine sufferers and decreases the need for medication.

-Increases physical performance.

-Provides exercise and stretching for atrophied muscles and reduces shortening of the muscles for those with restricted range of motion.

-Reduces occurrence of injuries.

-Helps people live longer and feel better.

Benefits of Touch:

Simply having touch in our lives has innumerable and amazing benefits. And you don't need to be a professional to give and receive this life enhancing gift. In a nut shell, know that science and human experience have found volumes of reasons why touch is not just wonderfully enhancing to life, but vital to it. Beyond massage and body therapies, and perhaps more importantly, are the powerful and affirming everyday types of touch. The brush of a hand as you receive your change at the market. A friendly pat on the shoulder. Holding a child. Giving a "high-five". Petting your dog. A warm-hearted, "bear"  hug (one of my favorites). Holding hands with a loved one. Touch simply, easily, and often.  Enjoy!

More inspiring findings about touch:

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/wellness/health-benefits-of-touch

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/touching.makes.you.healthier.health/index.html

http://www.beliefnet.com/healthandhealing/getcontent.aspx?cid=13623

Thrive Wellness, LLC
Carrie Smith-Hardee, LMT, RM
Available By Appointment
480-452-3086

Nurtured by the Nature All Around Us

Here is an invitation for you to take a moment to just be. Right now. Ever so briefly. A moment to commune with nature. Even if you're in an office, twenty floors up, with no window, the nurturing touch of the natural world is there for you.

Close your eyes and feel the air on your skin. Feel your aliveness just for this moment. Notice the sensations your skin takes in all around you. 

Now bring your awareness to the rise and fall of your chest. Feel your breath fill lungs and belly like a wave. When you're ready, let your breath out fully, engaging the belly a little allow yourself to be completely empty just for a moment. When it feels right, take in the new breath, and continue breathing, fully, in....   then out...  in a way that feels good to you.  

As you sit, let your face feel relaxed and open. Let your checks soften, your jaw be loose, your forehead be smooth, your scalp let go, your ears, eyes, neck... and continue to let your breaths come and go with fullness and ease.   

Ahhh...

So often when we think of retreating to a healing spot in nature, idyllic images of waterfalls or beaches come to mind. Perhaps we play recordings of nature sounds like crashing waves or exotic birds tweeting. Or imagine ourselves in a far away Eden as a means to unwind. These can all be restorative for sure. But when we also remember to connect with the nature that is around us everyday, something wonderful happens. It allows the world we spend the most time in to become something that can offer soothing and reassurance, calm and restoration everyday.

During a healing arts treatment, imagining a peaceful natural place can be an empowering tool for unwinding and promoting wellness. 

Our breath and sense of touch are perhaps the most basic elements of nature we always have wherever we go. Like a forest of sensation and potential, our ability to feel can be an affirming reminder of the nature that is always right there for us, with the ability to empower healing. 

In addition to through body and breath, you may find connection with the natural world by thinking of what the sky looks like where you live; an inspiring sunset, a vast blue canvas. Beneath your feet recall the feel and sound of the stones you regularly enjoy. The cool curl of a breeze that greets an opening door may invite serenity. Here in the Sonoran Desert, even in the heart of the city, one can often smell the pungent freshness of the Creosote Bush when it rains. 

Bringing to mind the the sights, sensations, and fragrances of local nature can be profoundly effective when we are visualizing a peaceful place during a massage, meditation, or simply when we are taking a moment for ourselves.

Why? Because if what surrounds us is part of what we imagine when we are relaxing and restoring ourselves, our day to day environments can become a  healing force in our lives. Instead of only some far off paradise coming to mind when we think of letting go of stress, the sky that we walk under everyday, the sun that shines down, the trees that we pass on the way to the mail can become tangible reminders each day to relax, be present, and feel cared for. Reminders of the nature and healing all around. Reminders of abundance that is available to us all.

Thrive Wellness, LLC
Carrie Smith-Hardee, LMT, RM
Available By Appointment
480-452-3086