Basmati’s mission is to help inform our community’s decisions for its healthiest, most aligned lifestyle. So, we’ve started a new series called five questions with a practitioner! Each month, we'll feature answers from a few different practitioners, helping you get to know each of them a little bit more, along with healing modalities they swear by. Enjoy!
KristaLove Louise Hagman
Describe yourself in three words:
Playful, adventurous, nurturing
What is the greatest challenge you have overcome/are overcoming?
Being human is a challenge in itself, albeit the most beautiful challenge. Navigating this multi-faceted life is like exploring the vast wilderness, added into it psychological stories, individual personalities and preferences, and the ebb and flow of emotions.
Overcoming is a daily practice, and I’ve found surrendering to the River of Life is my greatest tool for traversing the Mysterious waters. Breath is the sign post, always guiding me in the direction of my Highest Purpose.
What is unique to you about your work?
My offerings are unique in the level of human touch and connection that is emphasized. Although each person is unique and I focus on the individual’s needs, I recognize that healing together, purposefully adding human connection to the healing space, has a profound impact to re-create the story of safety in the body and mind, and thus to calm the system. I bring a nurturing perspective to the body. Many of us have had traumatic or dishonoring experiences with touch; my work is to create a space for the body to soften into its most tender form—loving that gentle place allows deep healing.
How do you guide clients into their own healing/inner freedom?
It is important to me to offer a lot of permission for personal exploration and expression. I will inspire clients with suggestions of what might feel good in their body, and ultimately creating an unconditionally accepting space means clients explore for themselves what they need. I simply hold the container, and then their natural cellular intelligence leads the path to healing and freedom.
What tools have you found least/most effective in your work?
Although I primarily work with the body, I’ve found creating a space for stories to be shared is hugely effective for the body-mind to release the narrative. Offering a space for exploration is also the most effective tool I incorporate into my offerings. I am not interested in humans replicating one another, but rather to explore their unique expression of the Divine and bring that forward to the world.
Karen Chapman
Describe yourself in 3 words:
Open, True, Grounded
What is the greatest challenge you have overcome/are overcoming?
In my practice, my greatest challenge is quieting down my own inner voices so that I can be a better listener to the person on my massage table or students in yoga class. My challenge has been to let the most loving and powerful energy of the universe flow through me, rather than listen to my own anxiety. That being said, it has been my own struggles with depression and anxiety that have made me empathic to others struggling with these issues. I never claim that I am a perfect person, but I am committed to myself, my friends, my family, and my clients to be a leader and authentically face my own challenges so that I can be a conduit of healing for those around me.
What is unique to you about your work?
The uniqueness of my work is shaped by my education. I attended the Acupressure Institute in Berkeley, CA, after I had already attended massage school and yoga trainings. The Acupressure Institute was the most influential training to my work. It shaped the way I looked at the world and the way I managed energy. Instead of looking at people from the outside and teaching from an outsider perspective, I learned how to look inside and teach from the inside out. For example, a yoga student’s arm is not just an arm, but part of the divine nature of the world, and I learned how to compassionately speak and touch people from this perspective. At the Acupressure Institute, I also learned the meridian and acupressure map of Chinese Medicine, which gave me a framework to channel my work through. When I hold acupressure points I can see more clearly who the person is in front of me than I can see with the visual abilities of my eye sight. This ability has come through years of practice and trusting my intuition. Although I’ve been doing this work for over a decade, I like to think of myself as young, and I have many more decades to live and hone my craft!
How do you guide clients into their own healing/inner freedom?
I listen through words and dialogue and through compassionate touch. My goal is always to be a good listener. Instead of thinking about what do I think I need to do for the client, what is the client telling me through their physical body and through their spirit? When I work with someone one-on-one, whether it is on my massage table or in yoga classes, I see us as people dancing together. Even though I am leading the session, I am following the client or students to see where they want to go; we work together.
What tools have you found least/most effective in your work?
My work includes teaching yoga, acupressure, and massage therapy. I got a great start to this career working for a yoga studio owner that gave me a lot of direction. I also mentored with my acupressure teachers and a lead massage therapist at the spa I worked at. I would recommend anyone starting a career in this field begin with a good support system of teachers, mentors, and community that encourages growth within a framework or structure. Even the great artists started with learning the basics and the form. Have you ever seen Picasso’s early work? It is nothing like the artistic abstract images that made him famous. But eventually the forms and structure held me back as a yoga teacher and bodyworker. The structure and forms were a great start to my career, but they eventually held me back as a yoga teacher and bodyworker. In the latest turn of my career, it has been trying to follow an old protocol or form that has been least effective. I think this is probably true for any artist or yogi; eventually the framework disappears because the intuitive voice is stronger, but that is because it has been developed over time. So, what is most effective is listening to my inner wisdom. I trust that whatever needs to be said in class or whatever chi needs to be moved in a session, will happen when I am plugged into something larger than myself.
Petra Loewen
Describe yourself in three words:
Passionate, wild spirit
What is the greatest challenge you have overcome/are overcoming?
Surviving various obstacles while keeping up humor and compassion
What is unique to you about your work?
I am just the “hollow bone” or the conduit
How do you guide clients into their own healing/inner freedom?
By scanning their energy and clearing away their obstacles
What tools have you found least/most effective in your work?
Most effective are:
A state of gratitude,
the drumbeat, sound and scent.
patience, listening skills and being open minded
