Today we’d like to introduce you to Miwa Robbins.
Hi Miwa, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
Sure! As a kid, I always wanted to be a healer of some sort. But some early life experiences also taught me that really no one else can “heal” you, except perhaps in the more acute medical emergency kinds of ways.
Understanding this and doing my best to embody the role of more just being support on one’s journey back to oneself has been a key part of me figuring out what kind of “healer” I want to be.
I spent the better part of my twenties finding myself through travel, spiritual practice, exploration, and just living. During this time an already existing respect for the Earth and it’s healing nourishing gifts grew profoundly deeper, as did my understanding of how important a connection to oneself was. I learned how to listen to my own intuition and, more specifically, to my own body. I am not going to claim it is always easy or straightforward, but I learned that if I listened, my body had a lot to say and would guide me, like a North Star, towards health, happiness, and inner peace.
When I started to move more directly towards the healing arts it was this body wisdom and self-knowing that I wanted to help people find, and I wanted to do that in a way that nourished me as well and fit my personal strengths and gifts. For a while, I didn’t know what that looked like, and I considered everything from becoming a nurse to a therapist to being a midwife.
But then one day I had a dream about doing Thai Massage, a practice I had come across briefly in my early twenties. And then I had the dream again! The second time I decided not to ignore it. I reached out to Ariela Grodner, the Thai massage teacher I had crossed paths with six or so years prior during some of my early twenties wanderings, and boom, everything just fell into place. For six months, I drove five hours once a month to Gainesville, Florida for a long weekend to study with her, staying at her house and soaking up all I could about the practice of Thai massage. The affirmations and synchronicities that affirmed for me that this was the right path started immediately.
After my first weekend, I had someone who wanted to trade Thai massage for her service as a coach, and soon I was massaging both her and her husband, By the time I was done with six months of studying Thai massage I had clients and I knew I had found what I wanted to do. But I technically wasn’t licensed, so my next step was massage school. Six months later, I finished massage school and I haven’t looked back.
Right out of massage school, I started building my own private practice while also working part-time at one of the best spas in downtown Charleston, Earthling Day Spa. Soon my private practice had grown to be able to support itself, and I am so grateful for all the clients who have affirmed for me along the way that I am on the right path. Now, I mostly work for myself, which was always my dream, and I offer bodywork services including Thai massage, traditional therapeutic table massage, and craniosacral work, all rooted in body awareness, mindfulness, and earth connection.
Being a bodyworker is beautiful, fulfilling work that I absolutely love, and am so grateful to have found my way to it. And it is a world that is broad enough that I am excited to continue to grow and explore within it for many years to come!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Most of my stumbling and obstacles happened before I became a massage therapist. I feel really lucky to be able to say that once I found myself in the world of bodywork it actually has been a pretty smooth road. The almost decade of wandering and trying things that I did before starting my Thai massage training was not always easy and full of some frustration and some dead ends. But the way massage came to me, first with the Thai massage and then massage school felt very organic and guided.
One piece of advice I have for those considering massage school, is do not rule out community college massage school programs. They are often far cheaper than private massage schools and just as good. And some even have generous scholarship programs. It is all about the teachers so ask to sit in on a few classes. And also know that a lot of the real learning will happen based on what kind of continuing education you choose to do. For me, my Thai massage training will always be my foundation, and that happened to come before massage school in my case, which I think served me well by giving me the confidence that many of my classmates in massage school still had to find and develop.
The other piece of advice I would give is to know your worth and don’t sell yourself short. I figured out I needed to make about $3000/month and didn’t feel my body could handle more than 15 hours of massage a week. Some simple math made it clear that I needed to make at least $50 an hour. In looking for employers and setting my own rates, I’ve always been crystal clear that I would not do massage for less than $50/hour of base pay. Being really clear on that and sticking to it has been a lifesaver and kept me from ending up in burnout massage mill jobs.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Flow State Healing?
I have my own private practice, Flow State Healing, that I am now running mostly out of my home in North Charleston. This was always the dream and the pandemic was actually the push I needed to close my downtown office and just start practicing out of my home. I love having total freedom and ownership of my space and how I run my practice
My goal with my practice is to offer high-quality services at affordable rates, in a non pretentious, cozy, safe, and inclusive environment. I have three tenets of my practice: Body awareness, mindfulness, and earth connection. These three principles guide everything I do, I think that is part of what makes my client’s experience so powerful.
My goal when giving a massage is to listen closely to your body and thereby facilitate your listening to your body. I never want to cause discomfort in a way that makes you want to disassociate. I watch your breath and may bring your attention to your breath. I, energetically and literally wait for your tissues to let me in rather than forcing my way in, and I ask you to let me know if anything doesn’t feel right.
All of this connects to the second tenet of my practice; mindfulness. The mind and the body are very connected, and I tend to view the breath as one bridge between the two that we have relatively easy access to. I often ask my clients to take some extra deep breaths for me, or sometimes I remind them to breathe by taking some audible breaths myself. I also do my best to listen to their subtle energies and tissue messages and will often call a client’s attention either during a session or at the end of a session to something I am noticing, to see if they are aware of it as well. I am also mindful that I could be wrong, or what I say may not resonate with what the client feels, and in my mind, what the client feels and experiences is the truth that needs to be listened to at that moment.
The last tenet of my practice is earth connection. This has honestly been one that has at times felt a bit more abstract or subtle in terms of how my clients experience it. But moving my practice from downtown to my home has helped me bring this piece more to the forefront. For myself, my connection to the earth is of the utmost importance. It is what sustains me and allows me to have the energy and resilience to do what I do. Nature is where I go to recharge and find healing for myself.
Energetically, it is the Earth mama’s energy that I tap into at the beginning of every session to support me and guide me, and it is the elements of nature that I ask to take and transform anything that is not mine and does not serve myself or my client at the end of each session. This energetic boundary setting is something I gratefully learned primarily from my grandma, who is a healer and always spoke about the importance of grounding, and setting oneself aside to do healing work, and separating intentionally at the end of every session from the person you are working with. This practice has served me really well over the years and is something I am always refining.
I am also really excited to start bringing my clients closer to this earth connection piece with herbal oils that I am beginning to make myself! I think many people don’t realize how powerful nature is and how much support is available for us in nature. I am currently in the process of making Saint John’s wort infused oil, calendula infused oil, yarrow, lavender, and rose petal infused oil to name just a few. I hope these oils will be a tool to help my clients tap into their own plant and nature allies, and feel the possibilities of support available to them in the natural world.
In terms of modalities, Thai massage will I think always be my foundation, and its approach to seeing the body as both a physical body but also an energetic body is something I bring to all my modalities. Thai massage is a wonderful, clothes-on form of bodywork done on a mat on the floor. People who like or need stretching, need work on their hips and legs, or like a more active massage often love Thai massage. I also do love doing a good 90-minute therapeutic table massage.
For me, when I massage I often go into a bit of a meditative zone. I am not thinking but more just feeling, and trusting that my hands know what is needed. The last modality that I specialize in is craniosacral therapy. This is a light-touch modality done also with clothes on a table. Sometimes I mix some craniosacral work into the other modalities too, but a full craniosacral session is great for a particularly sensitive body, or one that has perhaps experienced some trauma, particularly if that trauma is neck, head, or spine-related.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
Listen to my body. Don’t push the river. Find where there is the ease of Flow and follow it.
Pricing:
- $70-100 for 60-minutes service
- $100-$150 for 90-minutes service
Contact Info:
- Email: miwarobbins@gmail.com
- Website: https://www.miwarobbins.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flowstatehealing/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FlowStateHealing
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuc8g86kbUbK5XVfSP4Ie3A
