Body Ease Therapy
More about Rachel
My passion began with my own personal journey through chronic pain. After the birth of my second child I found that even the simplest of tasks were challenging due to not only pelvic and low back pain, but widespread body pain.
I went through the gamut of doctors, tests and therapists to find that nothing was helping or even giving me answers that could explain my symptoms. When I found myofascial release therapy as taught by John F. Barnes, PT, it was the first modality that actually provided some pain relief as well as insight as to why my body was having this pain experience.
More importantly it provided me with hope that I could get my life back and feel the way I wanted to feel. It was through this process that I started studying and eventually incorporating myofascial release into my occupational therapy practice.
Over the years I came to realize that I wanted to expand my services to help the women who came to me complaining of more specific pelvic health issues. These included issues like leaking urine, constipation, painful sex, pelvic organ prolapse, as well as joint and back pain. I saw women, who like me, had difficult recoveries for months to years after childbirth. I saw women who were having difficulty with pain during their pregnancy. I also saw women who gave birth years (or decades) ago, and were now noticing issues in their body that were catching up with them.
It was through working with women who were going through perimenopause and menopause that I began to realize that many of them were experiencing symptoms that they never had to deal with before, such as painful sex and incontinence, mood swings including anxiety/depression, as well as joint pain and difficulty exercising. Yet unlike their post-partum counterparts, it seemed like there was not much support in the community.
I wanted to find a way to be a resource for these women. This was the time for many where the responsibility of taking care of an infant and toddler were behind them. They were beginning a new and exciting phase of life where they could put themselves as a main focus, after being responsible for others for so long. These women also worked hard in their careers or jobs and many were at the point where they could take a step back and focus on other things besides just work.
Except that their bodies were now transitioning to a new phase and those that were looking for guidance seemed to be finding it harder to find than in previous times of their life.
I wanted to empower these women to transition into this stage of life with confidence and grace, with love and empowerment. This meant having an understanding of what was happening in their bodies, their role in what they can do to help themselves and resources within the professional and local communities to help make this the best time of their lives.
My passion is to find those women who want to enjoy their second half a life just as much if not more than the first half, and want to empower themselves with the resources to do so. I want to be able to help these women with issues (whether new or old) that they haven’t had a chance to focus on before due to all they were responsible for. I want these women to transition into this stage of life with confidence and knowledge. My work is focused on helping women develop a new or more in-depth relationship with their bodies in order to heal and thrive in midlife. Through taking a holistic approach to pelvic health, I can help women through pelvic floor therapy who are experiencing urinary or bowel issues, painful sex, joint and back pain as well as aspects of their mental wellbeing. I firmly believe in the mind body connection and use these principles to help decrease or eliminate pelvic floor symptoms.
I am an Occupational Therapist for over 23 years who owns and operates a private practice focused on women’s health and pelvic floor dysfunction, especially with those experiencing life transitions such as perimenopause and menopause.
It is my mission to use my skills to help and empower people to play an active role in their own healing in order to return to a pain free active lifestyle after pelvic floor and myofascial dysfunction occurs.