I won an award! Now I’m honored, humbled… and fired up 🔥
From the Sunday Self-Care Chronicles | 7/21/25
This week’s Sunday Self-Care Chronicles shares some big personal news—I just won a national award for my work supporting the breast cancer community through massage and self-care education! Inside, I reflect on what the recognition means, how it reinforces my mission, and why learning to use your own hands might be the most powerful act of healing after breast cancer.
This week’s issue touches on:
✨ What winning this award means (and what’s next)
✨ Why somatic, body-based healing matters more than ever
✨ A reminder that you can be the healer you’ve been waiting for
Read the full email below - and if something speaks to you please feel free to comment, share, or reach out!
Hello Lovely!
I know it's Monday but I intentionally waited to send this email because of an exciting announcement that I was asked to wait to reveal today…. I won an industry award!
Every year my professional association, Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals (ABMP), holds a campaign called Massage is for EveryBody Week." Here is the premise:
“Massage is not meant to be a luxury for just a lucky few—massage is for EveryBody. For 25+ years, Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals (ABMP) has focused on diversity and inclusion during our annual Massage Is for EveryBody Week, and throughout the year.”
With this campaign they hold a contest to recognize practitioners who are doing the following in our field:
Serve as advocates for the physical and emotional benefits of massage and bodywork.
Advocate for efforts that bring massage and bodywork to underserved populations.
Spread awareness of massage and bodywork career options.
Honor the healing role practitioners play in our communities.
Emphasize the importance of regular self-care for massage therapists, bodyworkers, and their clients.
I submitted my story and am one of 10 winners out of 430 entries to be recognized!
This award comes with recognition on their website, in their social media, and $1000 prize!
I am so honored and humbled and will be using the prize money to pay for a new continuing education class in August to enhance and broaden my hands-on skills as well as the way I teach self-care.
More than the actual award though is the fact that my story and the work I do resonated with those on the selection committee.
To know that other professionals see the value in serving a specific population like the breast cancer community validates not only my work but the healing that you deserve.
In my own survivorship and in the way I support others I am continually learning and growing in how I see what it really means to heal through and from breast cancer.
For me survivorship (now 8 years in…) has of course been about physical recovery, but more than that, it's been about establishing a partnership with my body.
What I suspected with my clients from the beginning has proven true in my own life and time and again now 13 years into this work:
A somatic (body-based) approach through practical, relevant self-care is one of the easiest entry points to active healing.
After a breast cancer diagnosis, your body might feel like unfamiliar territory — tense, disconnected, maybe even unsafe. But it’s still your home. The only one you actually have forever.
And you don’t need to move out. You need a way to move back in — with care, with support, and with tools that actually work for the life you’re living now.
This is where my work lives. At the intersection of physical relief, mental clarity, and emotional safety.
And as more and more people seek out my hands here in Buffalo (I'm so grateful!), my full schedule solidifies my belief that it's not just my hands that are important but what you can do for yourself at home.
Practitioners dedicated to cancer care are few and far between and many people don't have access to local integrative care, at least not options with the right training and experience.
And even for those who do have someone like me in their area, our schedules often book out limiting access (I'm fully booked until mid-September right now!) or the cost can be prohibitive.
THIS is why I am so passionate about helping you learn to understand, care for, and connect with your body, at home and on your terms.
This is why I've created resources like my e-book “Breast Cancer's Best Kept Secret: Your Complete Guide to Breast Cancer Related Lymphedema Risk” and workshop “Mastering Dry Brushing for Breast Cancer Self-Care”, because you deserve healing that doesn't depend entirely on someone else.
And these are truly just the beginning.
With more than 16 years of entrepreneurial efforts I've learned so many lessons from business that hold true in healing from a breast cancer diagnosis:
It really is about progress not perfection.
Time matters but it's only one piece of the puzzle.
No one is going to hand you the results you are seeking, you have to work for them.
There is no single resource that will solve all your problems so it's about layering the ones that are right for you.
There are many paths to success so don't listen to someone who tries to tell you their way is the only way.
Nothing is linear, there will be ups and downs, and steps forward and set backs. Keep going.
Honestly I could go on and on but you get the idea. So, I'm going to leave you with the following:
First, my gratitude for your support - whether it's as a client on my table or a regular reader who allows me into your inbox each week.
Second, I believe in you, just like others have believed in me. I believe you have the ability to do more for yourself than you realize - to be the healer that you have been seeking for so long.
And third, I'm going to invite you to do something for yourself today.
It took a lot of guts to nominate myself for this contest (I mean fear of rejection is real, yo) but the invitation was so clear and compelling that I couldn't not try.
So today I'm inviting you with a clear (and hopefully compelling!) offer to believe in yourself.
To take a step towards the healing you deserve, not by putting yourself in my hands, but by learning to use your own.
If you believe that you deserve more than you've been given by the medical industry when it comes to healing from your breast cancer experience than please check out my practical, relevant, on-demand breast cancer self-care resources:
My goal isn't to sell you on purchasing these but to simply give them a look and see if they feel like the right fit for you, right now.
If not, they'll be here when you're ready (or not).
Regardless, I'm eternally grateful for your encouragement and support, and like I say (and mean) every week, I'm always in this with you…
ps. If you liked this week's email please consider forwarding it to a friend or sharing the archives on your socials.
pps. If you're feeling extra generous please consider giving me and all of the other winners a shout out via email or your socials! We're kind of a big deal 😉