What’s a massage therapist doing in web design?

If you’ve been on my page, or following me for any amount of time, you’ve likely seen two different directions for my content.?

Health and wellness

And

Digital design

I started in the health space in 2007 as a CNA right out of high school, five years later I got into massage therapy. Then 8 years after that I obtained my BA in psychology.?

Since 2007 I’ve noticed something about healthcare as a whole; people feel like they don’t understand it.?

This misunderstanding comes from a few things, if I had to guess.?

• Over-bloated marketing schemes
• The idea that healthcare innately means people have your best interests at heart
• Money doesn’t impact care?
• And not understanding any alternatives

I’d like to unpack these a little bit.

Marketing schemes

I’m referring to are mainly revolving around medication. I’m sure you can think of 5 different brands who sell themselves as a silver bullet to disease.?

These marketing schemes also spend a shit ton of money to essentially hijack the logic centers of your brain and bank on you acting out of fear, paranoia, and otherwise illogically.

Slogans like “get ahead of the pain before it starts.” They basically just told you that you are gonna be in pain without this medication.?

This reduces the idea of pain to a singular cause.

If you’ve ever experienced pain, you know better than this, even if it’s very focused pain, it’s an extremely complex experience.?

I’ll give you some insight, most pain medication acts in one of two ways, either stopping the inflammatory response (which is one of your body's healing mechanisms) or flooding your system with feel-good chemicals that mute the pain. Neither of which addresses the underlying reason for the pain or why it’s become a chronic, and potentially debilitating experience.?

The belief that being in the healthcare business innately means that they have your best interests at heart.?

Being on the front lines of caregiving and wellness providing has shown me a lot about people's health and how the pursuit of it can send people bankrupt, spawn mental health issues, and otherwise destroy people.

Everything from getting a common cold through to developing cancer is a possibility for all of us to pay more money into the pharmaceutical machine.

Essentially, healthcare and wellness workers are in the business of you being unhealthy.

To zoom out on this a little bit, hospitals make a ridiculous amount of money by wrapping you up in diagnostic processes, length of stay, and overcharging you on medication.?

Granted, health is on an ever-changing continuum and diagnostics are important. People should also get paid for their work, knowledge and experience. But when a hospital charges you over $500 for a bag of salt water and over $100 to administer it; things stop adding up.

Inflation of price goes up from there, the more you look into things.

Pharmaceutical companies want you to be sick enough to keep paying them, but not so sick that they have to pay out thousands of dollars for you. This is where annual payout caps and other restrictions come into play.

Money doesn’t impact care.

I’m sorry but this is just false. Go to a low-income hospital and get treatment, then do it at a high-income hospital. You’ll have two vastly different experiences. Now there’s a lot at play for this, but it just shows how much money is directly tied to your care.

And quality of care is a point to get paid better, after all you are a better practitioner than the others.

The issues start when care is refused for people who don't have the funds. The more this unfolds (as it has been for decades) the worse things get. Other industries get money to funnel people into the healthcare system. The food industry, leveraging the media, controlling where the funding goes for research, controlling what subjects gain popularity, etc.

Not understanding the alternatives.

Now this is the area I want to focus on the most.

Long before hospitals became the norm, people treating themselves naturally by leveraging our innately developed bodies and various aspects of the Earth.

These treatments look like:

• Qigong
• Yoga
• Breathwork
• Exercise
• Self-regulation techniques
• Awareness practice
• Being in tune with your mind and body
• Knowing how your body responds in certain situations
• Understanding the impact of food on your system
• Understanding the impact of sleep on your system
• The impact of television
• The impact of sitting
• The impact of anger

The list goes on.

There are many different ways to care for yourself and avoid developing so many common ailments that our world suffers from.

As with all things in our society, refinement happened. For health, this refinement looked for individual causes and treating those causes.

Now a quick disclaimer: I’m not suggesting everyone give up health insurance, stop pursuing needed medical care, or quit any medications. I’m not a doctor and I don’t give prescriptions. The goal of this content is to empower you and show that you have power over your health and well-being.

Okay, back to the program.?

What’s all of this have to do with digital design?

The imbalance of understanding and knowledge access is a core driver for my move into the tech space.?

90+% of people are accessing content via their phone. So computers, news, books, podcasts, etc have quickly become secondary access points.?

Everyone is learning their knowledge via their phone, on the web.

It’s been a long-standing goal of mine to help people be more healthy as well as feeling more empowered to handle things like sickness, stress, and the ups and downs of life.

I believe with the right information, at the right time, miracles can happen.

My shift from being a provider to a facilitator of information comes from the same root.

What is a massage therapist doing in web design?

Leveling up my impact. I've collected a couple of overlapping bodies of knowledge that can help you better speak to your clients, understand the role of your digital presence in regards to business, as well as keep your morality in check.

I'm not here to tell you about all the horrible ways the industry has taken advantage of your ailments then turn around and leverage those for you. I'm here to help you move away from those tactics and provide true top-quality care, while still getting paid what you are worth.

Together, we can heal the world. One session at a time.