The Body Artisans

11/08/2025

Which Activity Would You Like To Experience?

When you come to one of our Body Artisan CE classes or retreats, it’s never just about learning. It’s about slowing down, reconnecting with yourself, and remembering how good life can feel. These experiences are designed to fill your cup while deepening your craft, a space where education and restoration flow together.

Here are a few of the local experiences we’re dreaming up for you:

🐮 Cuddling the sweetest Highland cows
🕯️ Candlelight Hot Yin Yoga
💃 Pole Dancing
💦 Aqua Yoga Boarding and Aqua Fitness
🎶 Aerial Sound Bath
🍎 Apple Cider Slushies and fresh produce at our local Red Barn
🔥 Tin Foil Dinners up the canyon
🛶 Kayaking
🚵 Electric Bikes to a Waterfall
🏔️ Snow Tubing
🎢 Alpine Mountain Coaster
🧗 Rock Climbing
🍺 Strap Tank Brewery hangouts
🍕 Pizza and Movie Night

So tell me, if you came to learn, play, and recharge with us, which of these experiences would you look forward to the most?l

11/07/2025

Tucked against the mountains in a peaceful Utah farm town, our Body Artisan Education Studio is a space where the pace slows, the air feels cleaner, and learning becomes something you feel with your whole being. This isn’t just a classroom, it’s a retreat for the bodyworker’s body, a place to breathe deeply, rest entirely, and rediscover the joy of healing.

Every detail was created with care. The massage tables are electric, heated, and memory foam, draped in soft, luxurious sheets with neck pillows that cradle you in comfort.

You’ll have access to hot towel cabbies, nod pods for your eyes, and all the little touches that make long training days feel nurturing instead of draining.

Between classes, you can relax in our cozy theater room, complete with reclining chairs and a large screen projector, perfect for watching learning videos or evening movies. Step out onto the porch to watch the light shift across the mountains, or share laughter over a game of pool. Our kitchen is always open, and warm meals can be included for those who need them. Laundry is also available for extended stays.

We’ve filled the space with tools to restore your own body while you learn to care for others, including an infrared sauna blanket, a vibroacoustic sound therapy table, a massage chair, a chi machine, a vibration plate, and a full gym for both movement and strength. Aerial hammocks invite balance, stretch, and gentle play. The spa bathroom features a hydrotherapy shower and deep soaking tub for the ultimate unwind after class.

For those traveling from out of town, we offer full lodging and accommodations, quiet rooms, cozy beds, and even airport pickup if needed. It’s all part of the experience we want you to have here: ease, care, and connection.

Because this work asks so much of us as healers, and we believe you deserve to receive the same level of care you give.

11/06/2025

Trauma Therapy Bodywork

I often get asked how I found my way into trauma therapy work. The truth is, it found me.

For two years, I lived inside the walls of Walter Reed Hospital. My spouse, a soldier, had suffered a traumatic brain injury while serving overseas. Those were years filled with courage, heartbreak, and healing. I watched him relearn how to walk, to talk, and to navigate the most basic rhythms of daily life.

In the middle of all that pain, something extraordinary happened: he found his voice again through music. Even when words failed him, his heart remembered the melody. And as I listened, surrounded by other soldiers and their own battles, I began to see the language of trauma in new ways; the small ticks, the subtle patterns, the body’s quiet attempts to protect itself.

The doctors and therapists there were incredible. I absorbed everything I could; how touch, tone, and safety could help someone reconnect to their body. That experience changed the entire trajectory of my life. It taught me that healing is never just physical; it’s emotional, spiritual, and profoundly human.

That is where The Body Artisans was born. From the rawness of trauma. From love. From learning to listen when the body speaks what words cannot.

Andrew Bell has made me a believer in Music Therapy. In February he was on a run with his unit in Vicenza Italy when a car ran a red light and hit him in the...

11/05/2025

The Diaphragm - Inhale The Rising Sun

The diaphragm is the threshold between worlds, a soft muscular horizon where breath becomes emotion, where instinct meets awareness, where the body decides whether it will open or guard, rise or collapse, receive or brace.

We often think of breath as something automatic. Yet, the diaphragm is a sacred participant in every inhale, every release, every moment the body whispers, “I am safe enough to expand” or “I must hold the world together.”

This dome of tissue and fascia is not just a respiratory muscle; it is the emotional gatekeeper of the human story, tethered to the psoas, the heart, the ribs, the liver, the vagus nerve, and the ancient protective patterns carved into our fascia over a lifetime.

For the bodyworker, the diaphragm is a holy landscape to approach with reverence. When we place our hands below the ribs and listen with our palms, we are not simply working a muscle; we are meeting the place where grief hides in shallow breath, where tension wraps itself around the solar plexus, where unspoken fear clings to the underside of the heart, and where the body curls inward as if protecting a flame.

Gentle myofascial release here is an invitation: an unwinding of the emotional armor, a softening of the bracing, a return to the natural wave that breath once was before stress taught the body to shrink. To free the diaphragm is to free the lungs, to free the heart, to let the gut exhale, and to restore movement in the rivers of lymph and energy that pass through this center of being.

In this space, healing is not a force; it is permission. We lengthen the fascia that has learned to hold too tightly. We melt the tension that once kept someone alive through trauma. We remind the body that expansion is safe, that breath is nourishment, and that the softest place can also be the strongest.

Beneath our hands, the diaphragm remembers its original purpose: to rise like a sunrise and fall like a tide, to give rhythm to life, and to make space for emotion without being overwhelmed by it.

In that gentle release, the body returns to itself, breath deepens, the heart loosens, and a quiet, powerful truth emerges: healing begins the moment we remember how to breathe again.

11/05/2025

There is a warrior living inside each of us, the one who rose when we needed protection, who clenched the jaw, tightened the fascia, filled the breath with urgency, and carried us through the moments our nervous system had to choose survival.

She is the sympathetic spark that once kept us alive. But there comes a time in healing when we learn to step outside ourselves and look in, to see not only the strength that fought, but the softness still waiting beneath. In that shift, we move toward the parasympathetic, toward breath, toward release, toward trust.

We honor the warrior not by silencing her, but by letting her rest. For she once held our body in battle, and now we hold it in peace. That is the alchemy, not losing who we were, but learning to live as who we have become.

- The Body Artisan

11/04/2025

The Spine: Our Inner Tree of Life

There is a sacred tree at the center of the human body. A living axis. A trunk of intelligence. A riverbed for electricity and emotion. It roots into the earth through the sacrum, rises with intention through each vertebra, and blooms into the branches of our nervous system, carrying thoughts, instincts, memories, and breath to every corner of our existence.

The spine is not just bone. It is a guardian of the nervous system, the bridge between stillness and motion, safety and vigilance, survival and surrender. Around it, fascia spirals like living silk, wrapping each vertebra, whispering signals from muscle to organ to mind. Within it, the spinal cord carries a galaxy of information, messages traveling faster than thought, shaping how we feel, how we stand, how we heal.

When tension gathers here, it is rarely only physical—stress pools in the thoracic spine, where breath forgets to expand. Grief hides between the ribs. Fear coils low in the lumbar curve. Old bracing patterns linger from times we had to be strong to survive. The nervous system remembers, and the body holds those memories like fallen leaves woven into roots.

As bodyworkers, we are not simply touching muscles; we are tending to this internal tree. We create space where compression once lived. We melt fascial armor that formed when life demanded resilience. We support the spine in remembering its natural rhythm, helping breath return, energy flow again, and the parasympathetic system rise like morning light after a long night. With each intentional stroke, we allow the nervous system to shift from a state of defense to one of trust, from a state of bracing to one of softening, from a state of vigilance to one of peace.

Myofascial work along the spine invites the tissues to unwind and the nerves to exhale. Gentle traction lengthens this sacred column, allowing cerebrospinal fluid to flow like a quiet stream, nourishing both the brain and body. Slow decompression at the sacrum reminds the system that grounding is safety, not weight. Subtle mobilizations along the neck release the pathways through which thought, voice, and emotion travel. And when breath synchronizes with touch, the body remembers how to relax into its original intelligence, not because we forced it, but because we offered it permission.

And then there is the soft medicine, oils that glide down the paraspinals like liquid intention. Essential oils chosen with purpose to calm, open, or awaken. Lavender to soothe the parasympathetic pathways. Frankincense to evoke grounding and spiritual stillness. Peppermint to enliven circulation and bring clarity. Each drop becomes part of the conversation between the therapist, tissue, and nervous system. These oils don’t fix the body; they remind it of what it already knows.

We do not command healing. We midwife it. We hold space for shifting. We guide breath like wind through autumn branches. We restore the spine its fluidity, its courage, and its ability to stand tall, not from tension, but from alignment with life itself.

The spine is the pillar that carries our story. When we honor it, we honor the nervous system, the breath, the memory of resilience, and the possibility of renewal. In our hands, clients learn that they do not have to brace themselves through the world; they can unfold. They can soften. They can rise again, rooted and radiant, like a tree touched by light.

This is the work.
And it is nothing less than sacred.

- The Body Artisan

11/04/2025

The Stomach: A Story of Fascia and Feeling

There is a place beneath our ribs where emotions settle when they have nowhere else to go. The stomach becomes a keeper of our quiet battles, digesting not only food but the moments we could not speak, the fears we could not share, the nights we tried to hold ourselves together with trembling breath. It is here that anxiety curls itself into knots, where doubt twists the fascia tight, and where the sympathetic nervous system rises like a storm, urging the body to prepare, protect, endure.

So many of us learned early how to stay composed. We tucked our discomfort into our bellies, braced our cores, and held our breath when life felt sharp. The stomach remembers those times. It remembers every moment we forced ourselves to be strong instead of honest, every “I’m fine” whispered when our insides were breaking open. It remembers because the fascia here does not forget. It tightens around unprocessed emotion, drawing the tissue inward, holding us in vigilance long after danger has passed.

And the mind remembers too, because the gut and brain are not separate storytellers. They are one conversation, one nervous system, one emotional river moving in two directions. The stomach is home to the enteric nervous system, our “second brain,” a complex network of nerves and neurotransmitters that communicate directly with the central nervous system. When the stomach is inflamed, overwhelmed, or exhausted, the brain feels it. Sleep slips away, anxiety hums louder, and rest becomes a place we cannot quite reach. Nearly all of our serotonin, the hormone that softens us into sleep and safety, is made here. Therefore, when the stomach is unsettled, the parasympathetic system struggles to function, making it harder to attain peace.

This is not weakness. It is physiology wrapped in memory.

It is the way the body protects what the heart has not yet processed.

But the stomach is not broken. It is loyal. It is the organ that tried to shield us by processing feelings we never gave ourselves permission to feel. It churned through heartbreak and fear, handled shame like acid, and turned hope over and over until exhaustion set in. And yet it never stopped working for us, even when we abandoned ourselves to survive the moment.

Healing begins when we return to this sacred center with tenderness instead of discipline. When we place a hand on the soft space beneath our ribs and remind our body that strength does not always mean holding tight. The diaphragm, once armored with shallow breaths, slowly learns to lower itself with trust. The fascia begins to melt, fiber by fiber. The vagus nerve, soothed by gentle touch and deep exhalation, remembers safety again. And the stomach sets down the burden it carried for years without praise.

As bodyworkers, when we touch this area, we are not only supporting digestion; we are also touching emotional digestion. We are meeting anxiety that never had language, self-worth that once wavered in silence, and the nervous system that chose survival when softness felt too risky. Our hands are not there to force release. They are there to witness, to welcome, to remind the body that letting go is not weakness but wisdom. We give space for trembling to become breath, for tightness to become warmth, for vigilance to become trust.

The stomach teaches us that healing is not about pushing emotions away, but finally allowing them to move. It teaches us that to soften is not to fail, that to rest is not to surrender, and that to feel again is the bravest thing a nervous system can do after years of holding back the flood. In this tender alchemy, the belly that once clenched to protect us becomes the belly that expands to receive life again.

So we breathe here. We soften here. We honor the stomach not as a place of dysfunction, but as a testament to everything we endured. And in doing so, we whisper to our own body, “You do not have to carry this alone anymore. I am here now.”

This is where strength transforms. This is where survival becomes healing. This is where the body remembers how to trust, how to digest emotion as gently as breath, and how to feel safe enough to soften again. And one quiet night, when the nervous system believes us, sleep will return, peace will return, and the stomach will rest knowing it no longer has to hold the world by itself.

- The Body Artisan

11/04/2025

Unbroken By The Dark

Many of us did not step into healing work because life was easy; we found our way here because, at some point, we had to learn how to hold ourselves through what we didn’t yet have words for. Not all wounds were loud; some settled quietly into breath, into fascia, into the soft parts of us that simply held on.

And so we learned to create safety, to listen deeply, to soften where we once braced. Not because trauma made us healers, but because healing ourselves taught us how to walk gently in the world, and now we offer to others what we once needed most: presence, compassion, and a place where the body can finally exhale.

11/03/2025

There comes a moment when we press our palm to the canvas of our own life, the art of who we have become, and feel the presence of who we once were reaching back. The part of us that held pain so we could continue. The version that kept breathing through heartbreak, who stood steady when the world shook, who loved even while grieving. She is not weak. She is not broken. She is the reason we are still here.

And when she reaches out, when grief lifts her hand toward our present self with soft eyes and unfallen tears, it is not to pull us into the past. It is to be seen, honored, and held at last. She does not ask for saving. She asks for a witness.

This is the somatic truth of wholeness:
We do not transcend our grief; we integrate her. We do not silence her; we sit beside her. We do not shame her for aching; we thank her for carrying us until we could carry ourselves again.

And in that moment, palm to palm with the woman we once were, the body does what it has been waiting to do. It exhales. The fascia unwinds. The breath expands. The heart opens without collapsing. The river inside us begins to move again.

As healers, our most significant transformation is not the work we do on others; it is the courage to touch the places in ourselves that once felt untouchable. To approach our own ache with the same compassion, curiosity, and reverence we bring into our treatment rooms.

That is where grace lives. That is where the body becomes art and the heart becomes landscape, and every quiet hurt we ever swallowed finally finds breath.

- The Body Artisan

11/03/2025

Becoming The River - Somatic Rebirth

There comes a point in life when the river rises. Not to punish us or drown us, but because the current we’ve been resisting is the very one meant to carry us somewhere new.

Yet we cling to the rocks we’ve outgrown, bracing against the current, believing stillness means safety and struggle implies strength. We paddle against life with everything we have, not realizing the exhaustion isn’t from the water, it’s from resisting where it’s asking us to go.

Eventually, we tire. Not because we are weak, but because we were never meant to swim upstream forever. There’s a sacred moment, quiet and terrifying and holy, when the body understands what the mind has been too afraid to admit: it is not the river that wears us down, it is our resistance to it.

The moment we stop fighting, we don’t sink. We finally float. We don’t lose control, we begin to move differently, guided instead of driven, carried instead of churned by effort.

Our bodies understand this long before we do. Fascia speaks in currents and tides, in the tight places and the stuck places, in the areas that have become dams within us.

These aren’t signs of failure; they are signals of holding, the body whispering, “I am tired of gripping. Let me move.” When we soften and breathe, the river doesn’t crash through us; it releases us. Flow returns. Breath returns. Life returns. We return.

As bodyworkers, we see this truth in our hands every day. We do not force tissue open; we meet it. We wait for the moment when it feels safe enough to let the current move again.

Fascia sighs, ribs open like a shoreline exhaling, and the nervous system remembers it does not need to fight to survive. Healing isn’t about pushing the body somewhere. It’s about giving it permission to stop pushing. It’s the art of undamming, restoring movement where life stopped flowing.

So if you are in a season where the waters feel wild and the current is strong, consider this: maybe it isn’t chaos. Perhaps it’s transition. Maybe the river is not here to take you under, but to take you forward. Let yourself float. Let the water hold you. Let your breath return your body to itself.

You are not giving up; you are giving in to a wiser, older current within you. The river is not your enemy. The resistance is. Release, and rise with the flow that has been waiting to carry you home.