Massage Is for EveryBody 2025 Week
ABMP received a number of passionate essays explaining the many ways in which practitioners work tirelessly to support the guiding principles behind Massage Is for EveryBody. We at ABMP are deeply grateful to you all for your healing, inclusive work. You make the world a better place. Congratulations to the following winners (essays below) whose work exemplifies the healing and inclusive values of the campaign:
- Offering Dignity, Comfort, and Support to Seniors by Cecilia Bagwell
- Using Massage to Reach At-Risk and Depressed Teens by Sarah A. Brewer
- Massage in the Wake of Trauma by Travis Fox-Bekina
- Affirming and Inclusive Care for LGBTQIA+ by Branch Gold
- How My Experience with Breast Cancer Made Me a Better MT by Amy Hartl
- Choosing Life: Lessons from Clients by Chris Kinkade
- From Veteran to Veteran: "I'm Here to Give Back" by Lee Miller
- Inclusive Mobile Clinic Ensures Healing Is Within Reach by Walter Murrah
- A Scar Is a Doorway: In Conversation with Trauma and Transformation by Abigail Pollock
- Husband-Wife Duo Serve Up Support for Veterans in Shreveport by Luemily Pugh
To see previous Massage Is for EveryBody winners, please visit the archives.
For last year's Massage Is for EveryBody winners, please visit this link.
Guiding Principles
Because Massage Is for EveryBody, we will:
- Serve as advocates for the powerful physical and emotional benefits of massage and bodywork.
- Support and advocate for efforts that bring massage and bodywork to underserved populations.
- Spread awareness of career options in the massage and bodywork profession.
- Honor the healing role practitioners play in our communities.
- Emphasize the importance of self-care, including receiving regular bodywork, for massage therapists and bodyworkers, and their clients.
Offering Dignity, Comfort, and Support to Seniors
By Cecilia Bagwell
Website: www.thethrivetouch.com
The vision for Thrive Geriatric Massage began over a decade ago when I discovered the significant gap in quality, accessible therapeutic care for seniors. I was shocked by how underserved this population was, especially those living with chronic conditions who needed compassionate, medically informed support. I knew something had to change. At the time, my children were young and building a business wasn't feasible, but the mission never left me.
Thirteen years later, I looked around and found that still, no one was doing what I had envisioned: a massage therapy company focused exclusively on seniors, meeting their unique physical, emotional, and medical needs. So, I launched Thrive Geriatric Massage to provide exactly that. Our therapists bring care directly into senior living communities, delivering personalized services that promote comfort, independence, and dignity. We meet seniors where they are—literally and emotionally—and support their journey toward improved quality of life.
But the vision doesn't stop there. I'm working on launching a nonprofit sister organization, The Thrive Institute of Therapeutic Touch Inc., after securing our 501(c)(3) status. This institute will carry our mission further by focusing on three critical pillars: research, education, and access. We aim to explore how therapeutic touch can support specific medical conditions such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and to deepen the understanding of how massage impacts emotional well-being during major life transitions, like moving into a care community.
Through this nonprofit, we'll provide education to therapists, conduct research on touch-based interventions, and most importantly, offer services to those who need them but cannot afford them. Seniors should not have to choose between their physical comfort and financial stability. With Thrive and the Institute working hand-in-hand, we're building a future where touch is not a luxury for the few but a fundamental part of whole-person care.
This work is not just a business, it's a calling. And I'm honored to bring this vision to life one client, one community, and one transformative session at a time.
Using Massage to Reach At-Risk and Depressed Teens
By Sarah A. Brewer
Website: mindfulwaymassage.com
Massage has opened my eyes to the power of touch and the relevance today of traditional healing practices. In spite of all the technological advances our society has made, we have stepped backward in our self-awareness and have lost focus on our personal health and well-being.
I used to teach adolescents in a highly stressful environment; I introduced music, meditation, and breathing techniques to soothe my students and elevate their mood in class. In Nevada, suicide has become the second-leading cause of death for adolescents. I loved teaching, but I decided to pursue a health and wellness career. In 2011, I became a licensed MT and began working on the Las Vegas Strip. In addition, I volunteered with community groups, health centers, and veterans organizations. My personal journey changed dramatically, however, when my daughter began to suffer from depression. In order to help her, I delved deeper into holistic health and began volunteering with neurodivergent and depressed teens. I offered free therapy for a year to a group of adolescents as part of a research study to show how an integrative medicine approach can help alleviate depression. At the end of the study, all of the teens had improved their score on the Kutcher Adolescent Depression Scale (KAD-6), indicating an elevated mood and increased well-being.
Over the past 14 years, I have learned so much from my clients. Their lives and stories have become a part of my own story. Moreover, I have been mentored by some incredibly gifted therapists, who have become my most supportive friends. Being a massage therapist has transformed and enriched my life in so many ways. I have worked on such a diverse group of people with so many different needs, I can wholeheartedly say that massage is for everybody!
Massage in the Wake of Trauma
By Travis Fox-Bekina
Instagram handle: @travisfoxbekina_lmbt
When I was a child, I learned early on how touch could soothe the nervous system. It became a sacred gift. I began helping friends, family, coworkers, and partners heal physically, emotionally, and spiritually. In massage school, I became passionate about accessibility. For most of my life, massage wasn't available to me without a sliding scale. So, I created a business model to pay that forward.
My entire practice is sliding scale. Clients choose what they can afford. I encourage them to come as often as they need. I hold free spots for disabled clients who otherwise couldn't access bodywork. I've offered my shower to unhoused clients before sessions; my practice is based in my home.
As an autistic and ADHD practitioner, I volunteer monthly with Arms Around Autism, offering massage for neurodivergent individuals. I'm part of the LGBTQIA+ community and work monthly with Campaign for Southern Equality, offering free chair massage at a monthly community resource event.
When a devastating hurricane hit Asheville, North Carolina, I offered free massage, reduced my sliding-scale prices, and offered use of my shower for those without water. Many people had lost homes, jobs, and normalcy. To hold someone in the wake of that trauma, and to help ground them in their body, was profound. It often moved me to tears.
I've worked with people who dislike being touched, neurodivergent clients with specific sensory needs, and trauma survivors who needed me to narrate every step of the massage. I support clients navigating chronic pain, helping them find hope and resources.
Massage is for every body, every nervous system, and every soul deserves to be held.
Affirming and Inclusive Care for LGBTQIA+
By Branch Gold
In September 2024, I graduated from a two-year biodynamic craniosacral therapy program. Throughout the course, I provided 150 hours of free sessions while also working as a medical assistant in a health-care office that provides free care to anyone who needs it. When I started my craniosacral practice in December, I carried these values forward by offering a pay-what-you-can model to everyone and offering a number of free sessions to my LGBTQIA+ community.
I live and work in a rural, largely working-class community with a vibrant LGBTQIA+ community, where access to health care, bodywork, and affirming practitioners is often not accessible. In December, alongside launching my practice, I reached out to a number of LGBTQIA+ bodyworker colleagues to create a free monthly queer care clinic. Our clinic provides free bodywork for those within and in support of the LGBTQIA+ community, where we believe that inclusive and affirming care includes protecting, celebrating, and honoring gender, sexual, racial, and ethnic diversity. After six months of planning, building our practitioner network, and setting up our physical space, we are launching our first clinic! People will be able to receive massage, shiatsu, craniosacral therapy, acupuncture, and energy work sessions from LGBTQIA+ practitioners. Not only is this clinic offering affirming bodywork, but it is also a place that is bringing together a network of practitioners who are volunteering their skills and then can grow, learn, and be supported together.
For many, bodywork is an incredibly intimate service to receive, and for LGBTQIA+ people, having practitioners who affirm, welcome, and celebrate the whole of who they are is something that helps make the work profoundly more accessible. By grounding this work in my community, I am hoping to offer a long-term space that increases access to bodywork for everyone.
How My Experience with Breast Cancer Made Me a Better MT
By Amy Hartl
Website: www.amyhartl.com
I didn't plan on working with people affected by cancer. I went to massage school in my 30s, hoping to leave the corporate grind behind and find work that felt meaningful. I just didn't know yet how meaningful it would be.
In my final term, I learned about oncology massage and everything clicked. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 12, and I had witnessed the long-lasting physical, mental, and emotional toll even after her hair grew back and her scars faded. At 23, I started my own screenings because I am BRCA1 positive.
For years I trained to be the kind of therapist I wish my mom had. And then, at 41, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I didn't know if I would keep doing this work. It felt too close. But it turns out my lived experience has made me a more compassionate and trusted therapist. My clients know I get it. Now, I've dedicated my practice to supporting people through every phase of a breast cancer experience: from diagnosis to treatment and post-surgical care, survivorship, and living with metastatic disease. I help people find comfort and reconnect with their bodies when they feel foreign or fractured.
Because I believe massage is for every body, I mentor local therapists in oncology massage and lymphatic drainage therapy, helping expand our community's access to skilled support. I also created a Pay It Forward fund, where I donate all of my tips to offset the cost and ease the financial burden for clients who need it.
What once felt like a curse has become a calling. I'm humbled by the healing that happens, not just for my clients but for me too, every time someone allows me to hold space for their story, their scars, and their strength.
Choosing Life: Lessons from Clients
By Chris Kinkade
Website: www.LAMassagePro.com
About 15 years ago, I was asked by a client if I would be willing to work on his sister-in-law. He was flying her in from San Diego where she was recovering from having her legs amputated just below the knee and her fingers on both hands due to having suddenly contracted meningococcal septicemia. The onset of the disease was swift, as was the decision to amputate to save her life.
Of course, I agreed to see her. I have been in private practice for 35 years and thought I had seen it all as far as client health concerns go, but I had no reference for this; I just knew I wanted to help. I asked a few colleagues of mine for advice, and one of the soundest pieces of advice I got was to massage the limbs "as if they were still there." This made a lot of sense to me in terms of "phantom limb" scenarios.
When I met her, I was affected by the severity of her situation. She was in her early 30s, healthy and athletic, and at the very beginning of her recovery. I remained centered and calm, and after a short conversation with her, I went about my process of therapeutically massaging her traumatized body. In my head, I was dealing with the solemn gravity of her dilemma. I couldn't help but wonder how she was coping or even how I myself would cope with such a sudden and transformative change.
She was amazingly calm. I couldn't help but be impressed by her inner strength. My long strokes on her legs included the areas below the knees that had been severed. I could sense that she picked up on that and approved. As I went to drape her arm down the front of the table, I sat on the floor facing the table to work on her arm, my head right next to hers, which was face down on my table. I was mindful of doing my strokes as if her hand was still intact. As if she heard the thoughts in my head, she softly said to me, "In spite of all of this, I am so happy to be alive."
Those powerful words affected me in ways that reverberate in me to this day. Here was this beautiful person in the bloom of life, given a sudden life-changing obstacle, and the grace with which she accepted it and the gratitude she felt to still be alive humbled me to the core.
So many times, I have reflected on that moment over the years when another client of mine, or even when I myself, have been faced with dire health circumstances. In September 2022, I had to undergo open-heart surgery to replace my ascending aorta, which was about to explode due to an aneurysm. I had a rough go of it and flatlined the day after surgery. While I was in the cardiac ICU at Ronald Reagan Hospital in UCLA, I used that moment I experienced with the lovely lady from San Diego as a touchstone to keep holding on with grace and gratitude, and just like her, I am so happy to be alive.
I saw a picture of her recently with her sisters, and she is doing great. She is a remarkable person. I learned something valuable from working with her, and I honor it every day in my practice and in my life.
From Veteran to Veteran: "I'm Here to Give Back"
By Lee Miller
Instagram handle: @restandresetmassage
Business Facebook page: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573558675178
Website: www.restandresetmassage.com
In 2011, I joined the US Army. I was a 17-year-old kid living in an adult world. I had a few offers to play football, but my girlfriend, soon to be my wife, was already pregnant with our first child. I was looking for a way to provide. I've always had a helping spirit, but as a young buck, I didn't fully understand how to live that out. I was just trying my best to survive.
Over my time in the military, I endured many sleepless nights—from sleeping on the ground to long ruck marches and strenuous daily activities. As a military police officer, I wore heavy gear daily and spent long hours sitting in a patrol car. My back hurt constantly. I would lean in the seat to compensate for the pain in my hips. My calves burned during marches, and my feet ached from the constant wear of combat boots. My body screamed at me daily. But in the military, there's no such thing as taking a break for yourself. There's no real education on meditation or the benefits of massage. The information exists, but it's buried; you must find it through Reddit or word of mouth. It's not openly shared.
In 2014, I had a major life event. I had a parachute malfunction and slammed into the ground. I suffered a concussion, bruised ribs, and lifelong body issues. Looking back, there was no physical therapy or massage offered. I was pressured to return to jump status within a few months and was even threatened with being processed for malingering. I didn't process it then, but my mental health declined after that. My body was never the same. I had to sleep with a pregnancy pillow for comfort. I gained weight, began drinking heavily, and started to spiral. After 8 years and 11 months, I medically retired.
My wife (of 13 years now) and I had two more children during that time. I could barely hold them without pain. This sparked my spiritual journey. One day, after praying, I found an email in my spam folder from Kneaded Energy School of Massage in Greensboro, North Carolina. That moment in 2023 changed my life.
I now own Rest and Reset Massage. With my National Provider Identifier number, I partner with the Department of Veterans Affairs to serve veterans. I massage staff and faculty at Elon University as an independent contractor through Alamance Therapeutic Massage & Yoga. I will continue to find veteran support groups to offer massage services to and continue spreading awareness that massage is beneficial, and I make it affordable.
I'm here to give back.
Inclusive Mobile Clinic Ensures Healing Is Within Reach
By Walter Murrah
Instagram: @tipitforward
Website: www.tipitforward.org
Tip It Forward is a nonprofit based in Louisville, Kentucky, on a mission to provide equitable, trauma-informed, transformative, integrative health services to underserved individuals, families, and neighborhoods.
Tip It Forward elevates the transformative power of therapeutic touch to support the healing capacity and well-being of underserved communities.
Utilizing "The Plus Bus," Tip It Forward's mobile wellness clinic, along with a crew of credentialed clinicians, Tip It Forward operates in collaboration with various neighborhoods and local nonprofits to provide dynamic access to a model of care that actively engages individuals in the healing of trauma and the practice of self-care. Clinic offerings include massage and bodywork, movement therapy, health education, holistic care kits, and more.
Walter Murrah: I'm Walter Murrah, CEO of Tip It Forward, and we believe massage isn't a luxury, it's a lifeline.
Kammaleathahh Livingstone: I'm Kammaleathahh, Chief Clinical Officer and Founder of Tip It Forward. In 2014, I met many people battling pain, trauma, and illness who couldn't afford massage therapy. I started using tips from paying clients to help cover sessions for those who couldn't. That act formed Tip It Forward. Today, we are a heart-led nonprofit with a global footprint and a mobile-wellness clinic. We bring care and healing into communities that need it most.
Walter Murrah: What we do isn't just massage, it's a sacred pause, a moment for someone who's been holding it all together to finally let it go.
Kammaleathahh Livingstone: The stressed-out teacher, the grieving parent, the frontline worker, the overlooked neighbor—they deserve to feel safe, seen, and restored. We carry healing to people because everybody deserves to feel whole again.
Walter Murrah: One of our clients looked at us after a session and said, "I feel better looking in the mirror." Imagine that. Feeling worthy again. Like you're seen. Feeling beautiful again."
Kammaleathahh Livingstone: We serve people who carry grief, anxiety, trauma, people who've spent years disconnected from their own bodies just to survive. We bring care to them: no barriers, no judgment, just love and skilled touch.
Walter Murrah: We meet people where they are, literally. Parks, churches, shelters, corner stores . . . because healing should never be out of reach.
Kammaleathahh Livingstone: That's why we do this, because healing isn't just physical. It's emotional, it's spiritual, it's ancestral. When we say massage is for everybody, we mean everybody.
Walter Murrah: Every background, every story, every soul. In the communities we serve, access to healing touch is often the difference between surviving and truly living. Our goal is to bring that kind of transformation to communities across the country, because when healing is accessible, everything changes for the better. This is health equity in action. This is what it means to tip it forward.
A Scar Is a Doorway: In Conversation with Trauma and Transformation
By Abigail Pollock
Instagram handle: @cloudhousebaltimore
Website: cloudhousebodywork.com
I serve on the Cancer Resource team at the Johns Hopkins Howard County Medical Center. A licensed massage therapist since 2020, I am also the founder of a Baltimore studio based on principles of disability justice and access for all bodies. As a lived-experience practitioner running an interdisciplinary collective, our clients exist at intersections of chronic illness and disability, global majority, neurodivergence, poverty, queer and trans identity; representing a profoundly expansive wealth of human experience, pushing ourselves up against constructed barriers meant to keep us out of society, touch, and medicine.
A young lesbian managing blood cancer recurrence following stem cell transplant; a trans woman with capsular contracture and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome; a park ranger with decades-old burn scars; and a recent breast cancer diagnosis: as my training in hospital-based and oncology massage deepened, so has my scope of care.
In both cancer center and studio, clients receive no-cost sessions to dissolve financial barriers. In both practices, my clients manage excisions and reconstructions, the responses and too-often disappearance of friends and family, interruption of life, questions of identity, and, of course, the scars. I am often the first person allowed to touch those scars. Through patience and education, we build trust and approach the body. We discuss the nuance of memory and emotion that lives in these sites of pain, grief, renewal, trauma, reprieve, and transformation. Six weeks ago, it was my turn: bilateral mastectomy. These years of conversations and lessons collected alongside clients and colleagues have informed my own healing process, a reminder that a wound can also be a doorway.
Husband-Wife Duo Serve Up Support for Veterans in Shreveport
By Luemily Pugh
Instagram handle: @therapeutickneadsllc
Facebook Business page: www.facebook.com/therapeutickneadsllc
Lu Pugh: Hello everyone, my name is Luemily Pugh. I've been a massage therapist since 1996 . . . and so that's been 29 years, next year will make our 30 years in practice.
Text on screen: Lu and her husband, Mark, have been in practice together for almost 30 years. Making history as Shreveport's first Black licensed massage therapists.
Lu Pugh: So, how do we how do we even get started in this thing? Well, I had adopted a son. I decided that I would quit my job so I can stay at home with him. My husband was in school, plus he was working, um, 40, 50, 60-hour weeks. When he passed his boards, we went to Arkansas to celebrate. En route back from Arkansas, he got a massage, because most places we go we get massages. I didn't want to go and work for anyone anymore. I want to be able to be at home with my son, raise my son. He said, "You know I've been praying too. I know I just finished respiratory school, but I've been praying for something too so I can have my own business as well." And at that moment—at that moment!—we heard God speak: "Go to massage therapy school."
Text on screen: When they arrived back home, they found that the nearest massage therapy school was three hours away in Dallas. Mark, being the husband that he is, suggested that she go first and he would follow after she finished. Waiting on divine timing, Lu felt they should wait. Three months later, her sister informed her that a new school was opening up in Shreveport, Louisiana. After eight months, they graduated, and soon after, right around the corner, they found the perfect place to open their massage therapy business.
Lu Pugh: Everything just, just fell in place for us, and maybe after five years we connected with a chiropractor.
Text on screen: Finding the right chiropractor allowed them to treat personal injury cases, opening more of the world to massage therapy and its benefits.
Lu Pugh: We were getting a lot of veterans that would come into our office, and they wanted a massage.
Text on screen: At the time, there was no coverage for veterans to get massage therapy. For 15 years, Mark and Lu would try to help change that for the countless veterans who would show up, asking about it.
You know, we would always try to call the office of community care and some of the other places that could assist us with that, but no one seemed to know; you know the doctors at that time was not giving prescriptions! Three years ago, we got a notice, Veterans Administration, they were asking for people to work for veterans, and that was so amazing because it's something we had prayed about!
Text on screen: Mark & Lu Pugh opened Therapeutic Kneads, LLC, in 1996, and since then they have found ways to bring awareness to massage therapy and share its benefits to the world, one body at a time. For the past 29 years, they've given free massages, held workshops, shared knowledge, and more, including being the personal massage therapists for Journey on their tour stop in Shreveport. They have written two books, "Miracles" and "Kneaded Touch," as well.