My training and experience as a Physical Therapist creates a grounded and scientific foundation for evaluating and addressing health concerns and goals. Experience has also taught me that addressing our physical health alone is only one aspect of the health and wellness of our entire being. Our body is an expression of our mind, our history, our spirit and our purpose in life. Addressing the body as a machine to be fixed, without listening to these other aspects of the self is an incomplete and fragmented approach to health. Similarly, addressing the mind or the spirit without listening to the body is also incomplete. Below, you can learn about the various approaches that I offer to support your whole health and well-being.
“Health is not simply the absence of illness.
Real health is the will to overcome every form of adversity and use even the worst of circumstances as a springboard for new growth and development.
Simply put, the essence of health is the constant renewal and rejuvenation of life”
— Daisaku Ikeda
Together, we will create a safe space for you to experience your mind, body and spirit in a way that feels supportive and makes sense to you.
We all need to feel seen, heard, safe and loved. Having a space to safely explore our own being is vital to our healing, transformation and well-being. The felt sense of safety and belonging helps our body-mind to quiet down our sympathetic, survivalistic, fight or flight mode, and shift into our peaceful and powerful parasympathetic mode of the autonomic nervous system. When we feel safe and cared for, we can start to see, honor and release old patterns of protection and confusion.
In this sacred container, we will also listen for the wisdom and vitality coming alive within you that knows how to help you heal and grow.
In this space, you can tell your stories, whether they are the silent stories of the body, or of spoken word. When our stories are held, honored and witnessed, they become woven back into our wholeness and are transformed. Here, we grow into new possibility.
Informed, safe and conscious touch supports your mind-body-spirit to shift from tension into relaxation, stiffness into ease, confusion into clarity, pain into possibility, and fragmentation into wholeness.
My foundational, primary forms of bodywork are the whole body, integrative practices of Zero Balancing and Neurovascular Integration. Gentle touch that meets you where you are at supports relaxation, healing, grounding, and coherence in your body. Safe input via conscious touch allows the body to relax and release tension and confusion. Here, the nervous system/brain, energy and body/structure can explore new ways of moving and being. I blend in soft tissue and joint mobilization, myofascial release, and my knowledge of Reiki and acupressure as needed to support your healing, transformation and wholeness.
I was certified in Zero Balancing in 2014.
Zero Balancing is a powerful body-mind therapy that uses skilled touch to address the relationship between energy and the structures of the body. Following a protocol, I utilize finger pressure and gentle traction on areas of tension in the bones, joins and soft tissue to create points of balance around which the body can relax and reorganize. Zero Balancing helps to clear blocks in the body’s energy flow, to amplify vitality and to support a felt sense of being more grounded in your body and in your life.
Zero balancing session are performed while fully clothed.
I have studied Neurovascular Integration with Cathy Holway, DPT since 2011.
Utilizing a profound neutral touch, we connect lightly with the skin to engage the autonomic nervous system and brain. This allows the nervous system to create pathways of safety from the brain to the body, which allows for relaxation and healing flow. In your own stillness, you discover this restorative place in the nervous system, where the stressful sympathetic system can find balance with the peaceful, yet powerful parasympathetic system. This supports neurochemical responses that allow you to “re-wire” the stress patterns in the brain and body to healthier, more positive patterns.
When we feel safe in our bodies, we can move safely in the world.
Neurovascular Integration sessions are performed while fully clothed.
Informed, safe and conscious touch supports our mind-body-spirit to shift from tension into relaxation, stiffness into ease, confusion into clarity, pain into possibility, and fragmentation into wholeness.
Mindfulness, meditation, and awareness practices can be very supportive to our well-being. Bringing these awareness practices to our bodies can open us up to an even deeper wisdom and well-being that can not be obtained through awareness of thought alone. Awareness of how we move and sense our bodies enhances our self-awareness. As we become aware of our internal experience and relate it to what we are experiencing in our external world, we engage in the process of making sense of the environment and how it pertains to us. This self-awareness helps us to be an active participant in our health, our thoughts and how we move in our lives.
Adding awareness practices to movement, such as exercise, yoga or daily activities, will help you shift from movement patterns that limit and constrict you, and to discover new movement patterns that support and enliven your well-being.
Stability and mobility are important aspects of healthy, easeful movement. Yet, if exercise or yoga is prescribed in a way where the body is approached as a machine, ie, stabilize this joint, or stretch this muscle, the results may be limited. Our movement potential can be greatly enhanced when we add practices such as body awareness, grounding and relaxation to how we move, whether that be during exercise, yoga or even how we move in our daily lives.
Our bodies have various patterns of posture, stability and movement that are programmed into our nervous system based on life experience and history. Emotional, physical, mental and spiritual experiences all impact and program how our body learns to hold and move itself in this world. Some of these patterns are easeful and strong. Some patterns may be confusing, painful rigid or tension filled. If we start to exercise without bringing awareness of these patterns, we can tend to reinforce those patterns that result in pain, tension or stiffness. Through awareness, we link the nervous system and the musculoskeletal body to release habitual, painful patterns and create the possibility for new patterns of ease and strength to develop.
Together, we hold space for your sacred story. We listen and hold what needs to be heard, held and healed and what is coming alive within you.
Mind-Body medicine is starting to become more conventional wisdom in our approach to health. Yet, the importance of our embodied spiritual life remains quite silent, in both health, and even spiritual conversations.
Contemplation is considered “a long, loving look at the real”. Contemplation doesn’t have to always have to happen on a meditation cushion, or at a spiritual retreat. Contemplation occurs anytime we slow down to take a look at our lives, and listen to and compassionately hold what is present and alive within that moment. Health, well-being and life is ever changing and filled with challenges and beauty. Dis-ease, an aging or painful body, stress, grief, and life challenges are all part of the health journey. So are the joys of life celebrations, connections, belonging or feeling purpose. Contemplation and spirituality are important and real aspects of true healing, transformation, embodied wholeness and health and yet, are often rushed through or ignored in effort to quickly fix or heal our problems and pain.
For many, spirituality brings us to a deep space of the discovery of true self and belonging. It is about deep connection to ourselves, others, our world, and the ground of our being. When our sense of belonging, interconnection, purpose, and wholeness is felt and embodied, it deeply informs how we show up in our lives and our world.
Together, we will develop a wellness plan that supports and empowers you in your health journey. It will be grounded in knowledge, science and your personal experience, values and wisdom.
There is a lot to know about health and wellness, and I will not profess that I know everything about supporting your health. Therefore, I believe strongly in a team approach to your health. This may include physicians, other health care providers, therapists, personal trainers, and teachers. Together, we will work together to find supportive and caring professionals and practices to support your health.
I believe in the power of education and knowledge. The more you know and understand about how your body operates and how you can support your health and well-being, the more empowered you will feel to make the right decision to support and care for yourself. It is easy to get overwhelmed by all of the options and opinions that exist, and it is easy to lose yourself, your goals and needs in the deluge of information. Together, we will sort through the options, and develop a plan that serves you and your health in the best way possible.You are the central point person in your care. Knowledge, both gaining outside knowledge, and seeing your own experiential knowing, is a vital part of your self-care and wellness plan.
If you are interested in a wholistic approach to your health and well-being, life, and/or spirituality, you may benefit from working with Awareness in Motion. Who should try Awareness in Motion?
Since a more wholistic approach to health includes care of the mind, body and spirit, the benefits can be of a wide range and may include:
We will meet, and start where you are at. We will have time to share your story, your goals, your desires for health and well-being. We will listen to that “inner nudge” that is asking you to attend and take care of yourself. Based on your interests and desires, we will develop a plan that may include bodywork, movement, contemplative conversation, or guidance in a health plan. You will also develop a “tool kit” of practices that you can perform in your day to day life that will empower you in supporting your own health and well-being.
Sessions at Awareness in Motion are complimentary to your other health and wellness practices, such as traditional Healthcare and Physical Therapy, exercise programs, yoga, meditation or psychotherapy, acupuncture, energy work, etc.
Evidence Based Practice is based on: (1) Best Evidence (research); (2) Patient Values and; (3) Clinical Experience. I base my practice on these three aspects, which means I must be continually learning and listening, not only to science and research, but what my clients value and experience.
I have a passion for learning. I continue to take many classes, read, study and research to learn, not only what is being researched and discovered, but also the wisdom held in ancient practices. I believe in scientific rigor and research, yet also hold space for the mystery and potential of what is unknown or that we do not fully understand. My clients are continually teaching me through their experiences and wisdom. I am continually surprised and educated by the insight or healing that arises when the client values and needs lead the way. This all continues to keep my practice current, grounded and curious.
To help ensure the safety of clients, practitioner, and our families, the following CDC recommendations and best practices are being observed by Awareness in Motion, LLC.
Preparing for your visit:
Office Preparations and Procedures for your safety:
* Please call or email us immediately if you feel ill, have been in contact with someone who is ill, or find out someone you have been in contact with becomes diagnosed with COVID-19.
* Please have patience during this time as policies and situations could change on a daily basis.
* We are all figuring out the best way stay well while we move about the world during this time. If you have any questions about your care at Awareness in Motion, please do not hesitate to contact me via phone or email.
Shannon's work with clients is multi-dimensional and includes attention to body, mind and spirit. The particular value in this integration is the ability to see the body in a new way, enabling healing at a deeper level. Each session has been a dynamic combination of modalities that addresses underlying imbalances. She is deeply perceptive and seems to have a "sixth sense" about what is most needed in the moment. All of her work is interlaced with loving concern for her clients.
— Chris W.
