The Big Year 2023!

 My friends!

My life keeps evolving, changing and finding it's best ways. I love the change, movement and everything I have achieved. I am constantly in search of a balanced way of living and past 7 years I have put most of my energy to my work. I love that I have been able to help so many of you, I am in awe about how many wonderful clients I have met and how this part of my life came about: I made it work. I was good, I achieved my goals. I am super proud of me!

All this is about my work in healing business, as a massage therapist. In more recent years (yes, after the covid hit) many of you have learned that I am not only a bodyworker, I am also a Finnish teacher and I dream about getting my book published. Yes, I have 3 passions and I have been trying to find a balance between all three. Balanced is Painless - that is my slogan, so I should be really good at this. Am I? Am I balanced and even more respectfully: am I painless? 

I have made some pretty big decisions in my life, like to shift my professional life towards healing people and losing a steady income in educational field, or to move to US and start my life completely all over again. The first one I made out of love to myself, since being a teacher in ever more demanding world was getting harder and harder.  The second change happened out of love to my family, who wanted to experience the life in US. I made it, I created my own way and found my purpose for living here. 

Then, after covid, I found the teaching again. That I can keep teaching the subject that was first love of my life, Finnish Language, in my own terms, create my own curriculums and help my students to feel empowered, skillful and innovative in my own language. That I can be creative with my language in my second home. That I don't have to lose Finnish and my detour to bodywork and healing was the best detour ever, since it gave me a meaning and purpose in my second home country. 

That's life! You get what you give up. So, it is time to let something go, to make room for more balanced and painless life.  I am resilient, I am goal-oriented and I am moving forward in Kata's Way. It means that I will give up bodywork. I will not renew my massage license in 2024. 

This is my number 3 big decision in life. I need to be painless and balanced. I need to give up the work that is taking too big of a toll to my body and give time to be creative. From this point on, Kata's Way is more about Teaching Finnish than bodywork. I am flexible and able to make hard decisions. This is my decision. I still have a massage license for 2023, so if you are an old client, you may contact me, but I am not taking new clients for massage.

But I do take new students, so if you are interested in learning Finnish, I am your girl. Read more on top of the page or contact me via gmail (kataopettaja). 

Thank you and enjoy the Holiday Season! 

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. 

Hard decisions

 My dear friends and clients:

I have been privileged to able to treat you for 8 years. That is not in many ways a very long time period, but looking back, it feels like a half of my life. Maybe I feel that way because the other half of my life started when I moved to US. And that happened 2012. That is whole 10 years. I had no idea where my life would take me in the new country, but overall I think I did good. I feel very much at home in States at the moment although there will always be a longing back home - Finland. I am still more Finnish that American and we just have to accept that.

I have learned end experienced so much! I have evolved and being frustrated. I have powerfully pushed forward and achieved. I have been disappointed and what is the most important, I have learned to slow down and listen to, not only my clients bodies, but also my own. So, what it my body telling me (other than feeling so inadequate in written English)?

I have pains and aches like most probably all of us in this age. My back is doing pretty well, but my shoulders tho... they give me constant numbness, achiness and feeling of heaviness. Like, I really have no energy to lift my arms most of the mornings. Yes, I know my routines to help me get going, I know what to do and what to eat for a healthy lifestyle and definitely am not giving up on me. But then I am thinking that if any of my clients would describe the symptoms I am having, I would strongly suggest lessening the workload. At least finding a less strenuous job if nothing else. The question is: do I listen to my own advice?

I love what I do! There is no other way to say it. I feel deeply connected and such a pride of the fact that I am doing something good; that I am helping, and there is no better feeling than that. I want to keep working!

But I can not handle it anymore.

There it is. The sentence that has been lingering above my head for a long awhile. And of course I want to take it back. I don't need to publish this post... 

But hiding won't help me in any way. I already may have ruined my upper back and neck for life and the question is, is it worth it? I truly don't know. 

I don't know what will happen in the fall. 

As of now, my thinking is that I will see how my body adjusts to being work free for 6-8 weeks. I might feel like a new born and (over)book my calendar in September. I may find more Finnish classes to teach, so that I won't have time to treat clients. I may stay in Finland if the climate there suddenly changes to subtropical... I may feel overly energized and finally just use the modalities that are less strenuous to my body. I might truly start my third career and find a living in writing (in Finnish).

I am not able to make the terrifying, long lasting decision of quitting (that is truly how it feels), so I am doing something that is even more scary for me: I am gonna leave it open! 

If you are in my loop, I will text you in September and let you know. Most probably I will still work a day or two every week, but there is a big part of me who wants, finally, to be brave enough to make the bold move: to do something that is just best for me. Just me and nobody else.  

What truly is Kata's Way ponders Kata who has always had it her way. Balanced is Painless.

I am still here!

 We are getting to the end of this pretty interesting year. I feel incredibly lucky and blessed because I, and my family, am well and in good spirits. I won't take it for granted. 

I have been able to work pretty much through the whole year and so has my husband; again this is not granted in these circumstances. I have enhanced strict cleaning and disinfecting routines and so far I think it has helped me to stay free of the covid19. But there is never a certainty! I have been tested only once during the year, in the beginning of November, and got a negative test result. I am doing everything I can to keep the things the way they are. Here're my current protocols:

- I have at least 30 mins between clients so I have time to disinfect the surfaces, face rest and the bathroom between client

-I wash the sheets, towels, face rests and blankets after each and every use

-I disinfect doorknobs between clients

-I only see clients that I know; NOT TAKING NEW CLIENTS at the moment

-I allow even 1 hour cancellation policy if my clients get any symptoms

-I wear a mask all the time

-I check my temperature daily and isolate myself if I have any doubt or have met more that 10 people at the same time

-I do NOT normally visit anywhere else than grocery store, postal office or drive through coffee houses. 

If you know me, you also know that avoiding coffee houses is definitely the hardest thing for me. But I have been strong!

All the above means that I am seeing less clients than normal, but don't worry, I am also teaching more Finnish. That means that I have made commitments to keep teaching on 2021. Which means that most weeks I am available for massaging only 3 days a week.  And that means restricted hours for you. Please look ahead and make your appointments early if possible. 

My goals for 2021 are to stay healthy, keep working and reach the first step of credentials in Ortho-Bionomy. I appreciate each and everyone of you, especially at these times of unknown.

Let's stay focused and balanced: balanced in painless and that is Kata's Way.

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.

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.

Some changes that happened 2018

Most of you know, that last summer I was forced to move out of my office pretty suddenly. Since I had no time to search for a new, reasonable priced space, it was an easy decision to move back to my home office located behind Blakeney Shopping Center. I am honored to keep working with all of you at my house and the space is all ready and comfortable! I still have my Chi-machine for your convenience and on 'cold' winter time I will be also offering an Infra Red Heating Pad as a part of your treatment.

My work hours are Tuesdays 9-4, Wednesdays and Thursdays 9-6. Yes, that means that I will NOT be working on Mondays any more. This wasn't an easy decision, but it was necessary. 2019 I will most probably bring some Mondays back to my schedule, but that's still depending.

I have also started new studies in Happy Body that is located in Asheville. I'm constantly working on making my life, and work, easier, so this is part of that. I will be posting more about Ortho-Bionomy, when I learn a bit more.

For some of you it has come as a surprise that I also teach my language, Finnish! That is actually my original profession and I am so pleased  to keep up with that too. At the moment I have 5 eager students who I meet weekly, so freeing Monday is giving me another weekly day off. Which I need.

I wish you all a wonderful Holiday Season! I will be working until 12/20/2018 and then again 1/2/2019. On Christmas time me and my family will be enjoying a staycation with books like How Brain Works, What is Neuropathy, Movements of the Skeleton and A Practical Manual to Ortho-Bionomy ... sounds fun!

Remember that it's still Kata's Way and that means that Life needs to be Balanced because only Balanced is Painless.

Out of town 3/26 - 3/30

I am pleased to tell you that I have been busy in my new office and I just love working there! I have already learned new things and gotten wonderful, caring and helpful new colleagues.

Also our Pilates classes on Tuesday afternoons are going well (if you are interested ask me more, we can accommodate 1-2 more health enthusiasts to our semi private classes) and I’m beyond happy to work at the place where there is The Infrared Sauna for me and my clients to use (it has NOTHING to do with the REAL thing, but it’ll keep you warm nonetheless).

I’m fortunate to have some more spots for new clients, but next couple of weeks are pretty much booked, because I will take some vacation time before Eastern. I’m counting the days for my best friend from Finland to come for a visit and we’ll make a girls’ trip to St. Augustine and Savannah the last week of March.

My next openings are the first week of April, but if you really need some balancing before that, shoot me a text and I will let you know if there’s a cancellation. I’m waiting for a spring to get here since that’s my favorite time of the year! Hope to see you soon and remember that this is Kata’s Way and that is Painless because the Balanced is Painless. Enjoy your time!

Change of my Location

Some of you already know that our lease in the current office will expire at the end of the June. It means that I need to find a new office close to Ballantyne as soon as possible. I have 3 choices to choose from: 1) Stay with Dr. Snipes (most probably at Carmel) 2) find a place of my own (everything is pretty expensive around here, but I have done some research and there might be something interesting) or 3) work at my house for awhile.

Well, like you all know, we have to think these big changes from several different perspectives one of them being a financial situation. It's simple to think that working at my house would save me the rent (my biggest monthly expense for sure), but we would also lose some privacy even if I would restrict my hours between 9 and 5. I also like going out of my house for work, so working at my home would cost me more money spent in coffee houses...

One really important part for me in this decision is who to work with. My goal still is to be surrounded by people whom I can learn from, and working by myself would keep me at the current level of skills (well, I do need to take some continuing education classes, but everyday learning in a contact with other professionals is a completely different thing). On the other hand, my treatment is so special and different, that maybe I should actually be teaching others. Another big decision for the future to make.

The third, and the most important thing in my life at the moment, is to work the way I really want and am able to handle. To help others in their healing process is pretty demanding job, and although I have already done changes in my schedule, I will need to monitor my own capability to work even more carefully. I do have aches and pains, and sometimes 3 day weekend is not enough to compensate my work load and recover physically. No, I'm not getting old, I'm just giving more thought to the important aspects of life and, I really love what I do, so I want to keep doing this for years to come!

After all this being said, I really hope to find a perfect office space for next fall! Meanwhile, I will work at Ballantyne Village until the end of May and enjoy a bit longer  summer mainly in Finland (from  June 13th until July 9th). I know that it's a long time (5 weeks altogether) to be away, and the rest of the July I might still have restricted hours. But I do have some new ideas for the fall to serve you better in facilitating your health. What is manageable depend also a bit about the size and location of the new office.

I am so excited about this vacation and new possibilities to explore next fall! I will be back with a burst of energy and new things, so stay tuned. Kata's Way will be stronger, because Kata will be more balanced and as you already know: Balanced is Painless and that is Kata's Way!