FALL 2022

 Hello friends!

How have I enjoyed being in Finland and how will I enjoy coming back home in the near future. 

I have done some soul searching... ha ha, not really... actually I have had a few AWESOME treatments for myself and I feel like a newborn baby with only a minor shoulder issues. Sitting on a stol in front of the best healer made me realize a couple of things:

👊 I can not go without the REAL treatment for 3 years

👊 There is no better treatment, I have learned the best

👊 I simply can not stop doing this

👊 I need to go to Finland more often

        👊 I am so good at my work

👊but I will work only 2 days a week.

And not to mention how humble I am! 

I will be back at work  the most Mondays  and Thursdays 10 - 3. That's it!

My first day of work will be Thursday 9/8. 

There you go and Kata's Way it the Best, because I am Balanced!

P.S. I do have Finnish classes on Tue, Thu and weekends! But there are some flexibilities in my schedule if you want to learn Finnish. 

Covid-19 Diary / How can I grow into this?

We are all overwhelmed, anxious and exhausted in April 2020. We have this new non-normal called corona-virus surrounding our lives from every perspective, and we are forced to isolate ourselves from many things. Most of all, we need to isolate ourselves from our friends, daily routines and activities that require any kind of contact with other people. Touching won't be allowed for, at least, few more weeks.

And touching is my work.

I have been trying to give myself a lot of space to be able to feel where I am. How can I live my life in this limbo which doesn't have an ending date. What am I doing with my life? I certainly haven't been able to do what I love the most, and surprisingly, I have not been able to do what I love the second best: writing. 4 weeks ago (I saw my last clients May 14th) I had very clear picture in my mind, that included a lods of blogging, self-journaling and completed exercises for my creative writing class. Now that I'd have the time! None of those has happened. None!

Instead I have immersed myself in a lot of studying, starting from Spanish and US Governmental system (yeah, I might consider that naturalization process after all), relearning gastro-intestinal system and ending up to deepening my psychological understanding. I have also been immersing myself into Ortho-Bionomy through several web gatherings that includes self-reflection, support and deepening the various ways of treating my clients. So where all that takes me?

I have decided that I will come out from this crisis with more resilience and positivity towards myself. I want to keep helping my clients the best I can, and as my top 3 character strengths are love of learning, curiosity and creativity, I will use those strengths to evolve and overcome some of the less strong characteristics I tend to describe myself. I struggle with gratitude and appreciation of what I have, and most of all: self-regulation. The lack of self-regulation in my life does not look like too little training or unhealthy eating, it shows like doing too much, pushing too far and making excuses about self-healing.

This definitely is not a new revelation, but something I have been struggling all my life, but I feel like I have found a refreshing way of working with it. Being compassionate toward yourself is not something you either have or don't have. Compassion is something you can learn as a process, as a constant reminder throughout your days, like a muscle I have been ignoring, but am now reviving and strengthening. This definitely sounds like my language: I can strengthen my compassion muscle!

How do I do this? I simply use 3 times 3 exercising every day. I will think 3 positive thoughts about myself every day. Some days I do this more often than the others, but my goal is to catch whenever my thinking starts leaning towards 'oh well, I just have this neck ache, what I can do', and start finding out what I CAN DO about it. That actually is the second step: do 3 good things to yourself every day! (And of course my first good deed will always be that empht cup pf coffee.)

That sounds simple, right? But it isn't. I need to do 3 good things that nurture my body, my mind and also my emotions every day. Yes, I am damn good about treating my body with the ways I enjoy, but as I keep nagging to my clients, we need to re-educate our body (and the mind and the spirit) to do things that don't feel so natural at that moment. My weaknesses from this perspective are lack of aerobic exercising, mindfulness and something that I call STILLNESS.

I need to talk about stillness a bit more. It is a very strong principle in Ortho-Bionomy, maybe even the most important, and definitely the one that I have strong feelings about. I have used so many years of my life to learn how to do, how to stretch, how to push or pull and how to be a tool to a change in the body. If you think it, that is the whole western culture's point of view and that is definitely how we have achieved almost everything we actually have achieved. That is amazing. I am so thankful.

But. If we look at this from a perspective of HEALING, the picture becomes somewhat different. Healing the body is not something I (or anybody else for that matter) can do. Healing is a process of your body, mind and spirit. We don't know what is the whole complexity of the process of healing, but we do know that each individual body (with mind and spirit) has a huge capability of doing so. Ortho-Bionomy teaches me how to be a facilitator of that healing. Which brings me back to stillness.

When I touch you, I need to listen what your body is telling me, and let some kind of reaction to happen. For that (and for everything to grow) I need stillness, because that pause is actually a beginning of a conversation. If I can't pause myself, how can I help you to do so?

I have given some thought to the lack of stillness in my life. Yes, I tend to be pretty active person and that is definitely okay, I am not going to try and change that. But when I have a moment, I need to stop and be still. I need to feel what I feel. I need to let myself recognize my emotions, name them and let them go (there is a tool to do that too). If I do that three times a day to STRENGTHEN my 'emotional muscles', I will learn to do so with ease and compassion toward myself.  That will tremendously help me to be in stillness with my clients with  ease, and save my precious vitality. To keep working, to keep learning.

The growth is a mindset! The strength lies in a balance of our life's components: working, learning, making a living, seeing friends, spending time with a family and being alone. Laughing. Positivity is a tool I have chosen to help me with my life, and I am appreciating this long pause in my work, because it has forced me to dig in deeper to what makes my life more balanced. And as you know, that's what Kata's Way is all about: Balanced is Painless, and so is Kata's Way.

I acknowledge this discomfort in my life, because life is a journey. I am growing. I keep nurturing my spirit with some exercising, some stretching, some unhealthy eating, some stillness, some dancing, some shaking, some studying, some boredness, some excitement, lods of coffee and stillness. To be able to be.

In hopes of seeing you soon!

P.S. Zoom-classes/treatments are still available, text to set your time.

Gut-Brain -Connection

Did you know, that our gut is the largest immunological organ of the human body (320-430 square feet) which means that 80% of the immune system cells are located in the gut. The information between gut and brain is a 24 hour dialogue through gut-brain axis, that is, vagus nerve (with a help of the blood circulation). This connection is a big part of the autonomic nervous system and functions as a security alarm to inform us when something is wrong in our body. (If you eat something inappropriate or dangerous, your gut makes you throw up.)

Our gut is full of bacteria, viruses and other microbiota which produce neurotransmitters and metabolites. Those are the important substances that do the actual communication between gut and brain IF there isn't too many barriers to overcome: stress, harmful bacteria, inflammation or restrictions in blood flow. Can you see now why I am so interested in this? As a trained bodyworker I can definitely help you with the circulation AND reducing stress level, if I keep the bodywork  and pressure of my touch in the right level. What I am mostly interested at the moment is HOW ORTHO-BIONOMY CAN REORGANIZE AND EMPOWER THIS SYSTEM AND THE GUT-BRAIN AXIS.

This huge communication system has now a name: Enteric (nervous) system and a bunch of scientist are looking for the cure to ADHD, autism, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's with the new information about gut flora and our individual bacterial fingerprint. There is still so much unknown about the subject, but we do know that stress reduces the information flow by reducing the amount of  serotonin and dopamine. If our body in stressful situations (injury, cancer, depression etc.) does not secrete enough of these transmitters and the gut-brain axis is blocked, the situation gets even worse and our body's healing powers can't really kick in. The latter I can help you with Ortho-Bionomy!

Ortho-Bionomy is very light form of treatment, but it really helps in various conditions. For me it means tuning in deeper to really listen your body and it's messages, and if you already are my client, you have experienced some bits and pieces of it. It is a HUGE advantage in my tool box and next year I will hopefully have a certificate to show that. The best news here are, that with Ortho-Bionomy I can treat you in some situations that for safety reasons so far I have refused to touch you (acute or severe pain, right after surgery or osteoporosis to mention a few).

Contact me about your unique situation and we can plan accordingly! If, and this is a big if, we decide that your treatment plan is to have plain Ortho-Bionomy Sessions, I will give my special student pricing for 2020 (25% off of packages 5 or more).

I love learning and helping you in your individual path of healing! I'm so proud to tell you that this is Kata's Way and it means that Balanced is Painless, but also because Balanced Gut means Better Functioning Brain, and Empowering your Immune System makes all the difference.

Next step

2019 has been a great year after all! I'm back on working 4 days a week, because I just need to. First of all, I have plenty of clients who I love, and there seems to be more waiting to get in. How great is that. Secondly, I am so exited about learning new stuff that I want to practice every day!

As I have mentioned earlier, I'm in a learning process of a new style called Ortho-Bionomy. It has deepened my understanding of human body; it's structure, function and how all different systems intervene and connect to each others. I kind of already knew most of the stuff from my school in Finland, and because I have been working as a massage therapist over 10 year now, but Ortho-Bionomy has opened my eyes to feel and understand the connections in a new level. There is so much to learn!

Human body is not just muscles and bones, as we know, so we can't treat just those layers. We have plenty of knowledge about lymphatic drainage and myofascial release techniques as well as how cellular tissue or nervous impulses operate, and my training has always tried to get deeper into all this information. Now I feel like Ortho-Bionomy is truly giving me practical tools to do this! All I need to do, is learn to listen.

At the moment I feel like everything is about how to meet my clients' body, and then decide what level of that body to work with. It feels like I have finally grown not only eyes, but also ears on my fingertips, so that I can detect what is needed. And as you know, it's not always what your brain want, sometimes we need to work in a completely different level to release the tension on an effected area. I can always keep pushing the tissue and force the trigger point to open, but in that case we have simply over-ruled the nervous system and compromised the healing process. Healing happens in certain order that is individual, and who am I to decide how your body heals?

I am swimming in the deep waters of learning how Enteric nervous system functions and more importantly: how we can help it! Of course I knew the importance of Vagus Nerve, but only in past couple of months I have UNDERSTOOD the significance. Think that we can support our nerves by creating order in digestive system or that opening brain-gut-axis can affect how we feel and support the hormonal balance. For me this is truly amazing and eye-opening!

I am sure you will be hearing me explain these new discoveries and also my frustration with so much new stuff to learn to! I am so happy to keep learning and being inspired by this. My professional framework stays the same, but my understanding of this line of work has already deepened my skills a lot and shift is happening: I won't have any idea about what's going to happen in each and every session, but this works in so many ways. My goal is to be worth it and be the best supporter to Your health in your current situation!

That is, has been, and will be Kata's Way, and that my friends, is Balanced and Painless, but only if I can stay Balanced and Painless. There will be more time off 2020, but also so much deeper understanding of the world we live in. There are so many possibilities, alleys and paths to dig into. For me, this is the only way and I am honored to share it with you!

Check my pricing for 2020 on upper right corner.

I want to wish you Merry Christmas and a Very Special Year 2020. The new decade.

What if?

Mitä jos

Juuresi tunkeutuisivat niin kiinteästi maahan

että voisit:

kuulla auringonpaisteen,

nähdä meren kohinan ja

haistaa lapsuutesi.

Kun suussasi kaikuu menestyksen väistämättömyys

kurota taivaaseen ja vajoa mereen,

josta kasvaa sielusi veljeys.

Ole.  

What if

Your roots were grounded

so deep that you could:

Hear the shining Sun,

See the Sound of an Ocean,

Smell your Childhood Dream.

The Echoing Taste of Inevitability.

To Reach to the Sky is

to Sink into the Sea of Kinship.

To Be.

Neuropathy

Hello my friends!

It's August and the beginning of a new season is on the door. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to buy new calendar, some notebooks and binders because the fall is calling. Maybe it's because I have been a teacher for such a long time, that in August I start preparing for a new (school) year?

Well, I don't need a new calendar at the moment, nor have I purchased new gadgets, but I am full of excitement after a couple more lazy months. Today I want to talk you about Neuropathy!

As you already know me, I won't give you a complete picture of the ugly and very, very uncomfortable disorder, that's your doctor's job, but I will tell how I have been able to help my clients who suffer this condition. Neuropathy can be not only painful, but also very disturbing with numbness, tingling, cramping, twitching, over-heated or restless legs and feet. It can be all of those at the same time.

There is nothing I can do to help with inflammation of the nerves or your (pre)diabetes, or other causes of this condition, nor can I promise to make your feet painless. But I do promise to:
- bring flexibility back to your tendons and muscles on your feet,
- help your ankle to function in it's best
- open up your peroneal, tibialis, gastros and soleus (meaning calves) muscles
- make sure that flexors and extensors of the feet are equally strong
- open up each and every joint, muscle, tendon and ligament connected to metatarsals and
- make your feet feel good!

When all this is done, many of my clients have been able to stay painless 5-15 days in a row! 

So, neuropathy is one of the rare cases when I need you to come see me weekly at least for 6-8 weeks and pretty frequently even after that, because we need to keep peripheral blood flow going and help the lymph climb up towards the heart manually. Clients with neuropathy also need to keep seeing me frequently; some clients stay symptomless with monthly treatment, others need the 30-45 minutes treatment every 2 to 3 weeks.

I hope that you are not suffering from neuropathy, but if you are, don't hesitate to contact me and get same help! We can figure out together if Kata's Way can help you. And Kata's Way is painless, very relaxing and effective. 

How am I doing this?

That is the question that I have to make myself every once and a while, and it's also a question my clients ask me, when they are worried about my fingers handling this job. My fingers and hands are doing really well, what sometimes bothers me, is actually my lower back. And that, my dear clients and friends, is the reason why I started my career as a bodyworker in the first place.

Let's put it this way: when I no longer have any low back (hip issues actually) trouble, I'll probably be dead. Because the truth is that all amazing bodyworkers' and therapist' have (had) some issues, so they are able to relate how it feels to be in pain and frustration. On our path of growing to a healer, you need to face different bodies, different issues and different situations, because you need to learn! You need to learn from books, from others, at school, in different situations and learn to make connections! That's actually my main thing: how different things connect to each others and what my role, as a facilitator for healing, in that process is. So, I am, actually, happy, that I need to face my own issues.

I also believe that everything we have experienced in this world, is stored in our body. The tension of the body, in it's simplest way, can be described as a guarding mechanism from pain. That is actually the most important function for muscles (together with moving the bones). Simply to keep a pain away. Sounds simple enough, but get s a bit trickier, when emotional and psychological pain is taking into consideration. An that is something I have tried to avoid for the longest time. I have always profiled myself as a healer of the physiological body. Recently I am getting to understand that you really can't separate the different parts of our being.

And that is the biggest lesson to learn. Don't get me wrong, I am, and will always be, the healer of the physiological body, but I also need to see the bigger picture: tho whole body and how it works. I, and you, need to respect the body's own ability to heal. When I will be a brilliant 88 years old grand old lady with all the knowledge and information about human body, I can still only be a facilitator for healing! That has been a big step to comprehend and some days I am still uncertain about my role as a BODYworker. 

So back to my body: I have these layers and layers of past experiences stored in me and everything seems (at this point) to linger around my (left) hip. It's like an onion (yes, it makes me cry) that I need to recognize and peel off, to get to the innermost. And I needed to learn all I have learned so far, to get to this point, and, I needed to leave my country to be able to see things more clearly. There is so much left to learn, but what I know now is the factual respect to our own bodies: nothing is left to undiscovered nor without consideration. My body knows the (different) truth (than my brains).

The wisdom lies not in the brain, but in the body. And that's why I need to do what I do! But I would never be where I am without this great network of mine. Because I'm so Finnish and modest, I won't list any names here. But you all who gathered to my house, live in my house, or who I met or messaged during past few days, are essential for me to keep developing in my path.

This is Kata's Way and that's Balanced just because Balanced is Painless! 

P.S. Our First Workshop this Fall is right on the Corner!