I came to Amsterdam from Italy with plans. For years I built something real, a career in photography, a city I had chosen, a life that looked exactly like what I'd wanted. Then the pandemic arrived. The magazine closed. My GP placed me on sick leave with burnout. I tried everything. And still I was stuck.
The exhaustion was heavy, like a coat that never came off. I was just waiting to come back. Not knowing if I would. One day I tried Thai Yoga Massage. I didn't expect much. The therapist worked slowly, with full presence. I cried. Something that had been clenched inside me for months let go like a fist, slowly opening. When I sat up, I felt something I hadn't felt in almost a year. Present. A quiet aliveness I had forgotten was possible. I went back. I enrolled in the ITM school not to become a therapist, just to understand what was happening in my body. And somewhere in that process, I didn't just recover. I healed. Fundamentally. It was the consistency of touch that did it. The body, repeatedly, being told: you are safe. You can rest. Less than a year later, I opened a small home salon. The people who came were young, depleted, disconnected many on sick leave, waiting months for support. They were me, eighteen months earlier. I kept asking: why are there so many of us? And why are we all trying to recover alone?
Here is something I've come to understand: massage has become a political act. When you are in pain when stress has narrowed your world to its edges you are not fully free. You cannot think clearly. You cannot choose with confidence. Vulnerability is something that can be exploited, and often is. We sit for hours something our bodies have only been asked to do for fifty years. We stare at screens. We are lonely. We have forgotten what it feels like to inhabit ourselves.
Regular touch doesn't just reduce stress; it restores us to our bodies, and to each other. At a time when governments cut healthcare to fund war, caring for our physical selves can no longer wait for the system's permission. We have to start doing it ourselves. Together.
Maria
A couple of years ago my life changed drastically. On my daily commute to the office I had a severe bike accident, resulting in a concussion and a long term recovery process. As a sustainability advisor and manager I had worked in several places: I worked as a sustainability manager in a corporation and as a policy advisor in a (Dutch) Ministry. A job and a cause that I deeply cared about, and that I wasn't able to do anymore.
After the accident, my life came to a full halt. I was at home, struggling with continuous overstimulation and a brain that responded to that overstimulation with pain sensations and exhaustion. Everything I tried to do seemed to be too much, even something like a simple phone call could make me feel bad. Eventually, I retreated more and more inside my home. My house and my mind, literally and figurally, became a very dark place to be.
I tried many different therapies, some regular and some alternative approaches, but the one that helped me to get out of that dark place the most was my discovery of Thai Yoga Massage. The practice helped me a lot in my healing process: I have never experienced a better way to relax my nervous system than giving and receiving regular massages. I was so happy to have found something that helped me to connect with my own body again in a positive way. A body that had been tired and in pain most for a long time.
Not only did it help me to regain physical health, but it also helped me to reconnect with others. Touch is such a powerful tool to connect with people. And after a while, slowly and step by step, the world became a little lighter again. This experience inspired me to dive deeper into the world of Thai Yoga Massage and to become a therapist to support others on their healing journeys.
Today, I work both as a business owner, therapist and as a (massage) teacher, sharing my passion for massage and holistic well-being. I am a certified Thai Yoga Massage therapist, mostly trained at ITM Thai Hand Amsterdam in a variety of techniques.
With my work, I hope to encourage people and organisations to have a more thoughtful and balanced way of living. In a way I still work on sustainability: though my main focus shifted from planet towards people. I hope to promote a life where people stand still sometimes. Where they take the time to connect with each other. And to create a lifestyle in which the body and the mind can flourish.
 Marjolein
