Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Downing
Sarah, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
In my early 30s, I got really tired and couldn’t get out of bed. My weight also started to balloon, no matter how much I worked out or how little I ate. I was also struggling with a lot of stress in my job as a freelance translator with its endless deadlines and constant allnighters. Add to that the death of my beloved grandfather. A lot was going on. Around the same time, my mother informed me that hypothyoidism runs in our family. So I went to get a doctor’s checkup. Sure enough, I was diagnosed with this familial illness. Up until then, I had taken my body for granted, and hadn’t really read much at all about the body and how it works. But then things changed.
My doctor put me on thyroid medication, and I was initially elated at how much better I felt – my energy returned and I started to drop weight. However, when I complained about a return of symptoms, my doctor refused to up my dose. I later found out that this is very common because of the body’s feedback loop – in other words, your own hormones adjust once you start taking supplemental hormones, but often you must continue to adjust this dose of supplemental hormones until you achieve balance. Not every doctor understands the delicate titration of thyroid hormones, particularly as there are no commonly accepted standards about what is considered a normal or healthy thyroid. Not to mention that your bloodwork doesn’t always tell the full story. As I now know, functional medicine doctors don’t just want you to be in range, but want you to be in a functional (optimal) range for you to as much as possible eradicate your symptoms. Not only that, but they treat the root cause of what is causing your illness in the first place. Sometimes, this involves optimizing multiple physical functions.
Many American doctors like to throw a pill at whatever they claim is causing an issue, often hurting rather than healing the patient. Frequently, the patient seems all too happy to take this quick fix that they consider a magic bullet. This became so apparent to me when I relocated to the US after a 10-year stint of living in Germany, where illnesses are often treated with herbal teas, homeopathy or osteopathy. Not to say that conventional medicine isn’t available there too, but patients tend to at least be more educated about alternative – and sometimes equally or even more effective – options. All this to say that falling ill myself taught me A LOT about the importance of holistic medicine. What it also taught me is how unnecessarily cruel some medical practitioners are – yelling at patients diligently struggling to lose weight because of a metabolic/hormonal imbalance, and accusing them of being fat and lazy. I met some real pr##ks, but I also met some amazingly compassionate and knowledgeable holistic practitioners who were willing to look outside of the box.
Around the same time, I became a patient advocate. My experience as a professional writer really came in handy because I developed a talent for explaining complex medical details in laymen’s terms, so that exhausted and overwhelmed patients could understand what was going on with them and take charge of their health by becoming better self-advocates. I also came to realize that so many of these patients were so worn down by fighting to physically function, as well as to be taken seriously by their doctors, that many of them no longer had the words to tell their stories that deserved to be told. So, I decided to interview them and share their stories with others to let them know that they were not alone. Alongside this, I also told my own story many times over. I even interviewed holistic and functional doctors and other healthcare practitioners, learning so much along the way that I actually considered becoming a naturopathic doctor myself.
I ultimately decided against this, but I did decide to become a Licensed Massage Therapist with a view to helping others the way all those amazingly compassionate practitioners have helped me. So, when I say I’ve been there, I mean it. I’ve been in so much physical and mental pain that I no longer wanted to carry on, and I’ve also struggled with body dysmorphia for most of my life because of people’s cruel comments about my weight. I mention this here because many patients are afraid to get a massage as they are afraid of their body being judged. My massage room is a judgment-free zone because I want all of my clients to feel safe to be themselves around me. I personally believe that this kind of freedom facilitates the healing process.
As far as where I am today, I’ve taken so many classes with many amazing teachers, and I really strive to diversify my skills in order to offer my clients a wide array of different options. I have always liked to stand out from the crowd, and my massage modalities are no exception. I really enjoy specializing in modalities such as Thai and cupping, which aren’t always that easy to find, but are amazingly effective and total gamechangers for many clients. These days, I offer integrative massage, where I charge by time instead of by modality. I don’t believe in restricting people’s access to certain treatment options or modalities by nickeling and diming them with upcharges, and I find charging by time to be much fairer and much more transparent. It also enables me to create a more unique blend of modalities that is customized to each client and each session.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I have already mentioned some of these struggles in the previous question. However, it is my personal belief and experience that challenges push us to grow outside of our comfort zone and cause us to become more well rounded if we are open to it.
I would like to also admit that I really struggled in massage school to the point where my teacher’s teaching style simply wasn’t jiving with my own learning style. She asked me if I had a learning disability, which makes me laugh looking back because I was always someone who was top of many of my classes at school, and I speak three languages fluently. But I do learn things differently, and that is good to know. To her credit, once we realized what I wasn’t understanding, she was able to explain it to me in a way that I did understand, so that I was able to integrate it in my brain. Around the same time, there were two very unkind girls at my massage school who seemed to enjoy bullying me and one other girl. It all became too much, and I seriously considered giving up. Ultimately, I – and I’m guessing some of my clients – am glad that I didn’t. My confidence about my massage skills has improved in leaps and bounds, not least thanks to the people who did believe in me and encouraged me to carry on.
Other struggles include the burnout of being a self-employed entrepreneur – you have to do everything, from scheduling to marketing to client relationship management. That said, I’ve learned a valuable lesson: to outsource certain tasks I don’t enjoy or excel at, as well as tasks that are just too time-consuming. Time is money, after all. The other thing is that I care deeply about all of my clients, but I’ve learned I have to put my own oxygen mask on first, and continue to practice healthy boundaries. I am a giver and always have been, but first and foremost I must give to myself.
Other things I struggle with are people’s perceptions of massage – I’m about to move to Brookhaven, part of metro Atlanta, but since I moved south to Savannah, GA, I have been accosted by way too many male clients with inappropriate requests. This is an uncomfortable topic, but it needs to be said that massage is a time-honored and licensed medical profession that deserves respect. Furthermore, both male and female therapists deserve to feel safe in their own massage room without clients making inappropriate advances. Luckily, this is not a super common occurrence, but the fact that it happens at all is as unacceptable and sad as the stories you hear about massage therapists overstepping clients’ boundaries. Everybody deserves to feel safe in the massage room: both the massage therapist and the client. Overall, though, I am blessed with amazing clients with whom I enjoy collaborating. Healing is, after all, a collaboration.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
One of the first things people notice when they see my website and branding is how very colorful it is. I’m artsy and creative at heart, and this transfers over to my representation of my massage brand. What it also means is that I strive to be very accepting of people from all different cultures and all walks of life. Having lived in three different countries, England, Germany and the US, and worked in many different fields (tour guide, translator, journalist, massage therapist …), I’ve met many different people, and it’s really broadened my horizons. I think I also make people laugh, and I really enjoy doing so. Laughter in itself can be very healing.
Those who have had a massage from me often tell me they’ve never had a massage quite like it. I think it’s partly because I work very intuitively, but also because I am insanely strong and can really perform an excellent deep tissue massage which, as my clients tell me, isn’t always that easy to find. But it doesn’t stop there: I also love incorporating other techniques such as Thai massage (I even went to Thailand to further my training in this), cupping, sports massage, scar work, Reiki and more. One client commented that he loved how I am always taking new training courses to help both myself and my clients. We need 24 hours of continuing education to renew our massage license every two years, but generally my continuing education hours have far exceeded this thanks to my access to many unique offerings.
How do you define success?
What a brilliant question, especially because I’m going to have to have a long, hard think about this one. Obviously, success is different for everyone. I think part of the issue is that way too many people judge their success based on other people’s perceptions of them and what they should be, which are not always realistic or desirable. Only you really know what you want from life, and it is up to you to set your goals and intentions. Success is many different things. It can be overcoming a difficult situation without giving up, it can be not reacting to a trigger because you have learned to recognize that trigger by uncomfortably delving into your trauma, it can be admitting that you were wrong and renavigating or changing your strategy, it can be giving up on what you thought was success because it is no longer healthy for you to seek to achieve this. Overall, though, for me success is our ability and efforts to continue to learn and grow no matter what. You are allowed to have downtimes. You are allowed to feel frustrated, angry and heartbroken, but you owe it to yourself to eventually pick yourself back up and move forward, so that you don’t remain stuck in a situation or place that no longer serves you or perhaps never really served you except to teach you a valuable lesson you can implement by doing things differently going forward.
Pricing:
- 60-minute integrative massage: $140
- 90-minute integrative massage: $210
- 120-minute integrative massage: $280
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.limegreenlotus.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/limegreenlotus_sjd/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/limegreenlotus
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/lime-green-lotus-savannah
- Other: https://goo.gl/maps/iHKpikGRYbxfgoat6
Image Credits
Anne Vogt Photography
Orion Pace
