We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Claira Young. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Claira below.

Claira, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.

My defining moment came before I chose to go down my career path as a LMT (Licensed Massage Therapist). I was going to receive my first massage post intensive surgery, a week in the ICU, and multiple medical diagnostic tests. I was struggling to find normalcy in my body and was looking for help managing my different pain presentations. From the initial touch of the therapist I was clued into how dissociated, tight, and out of balance I was in my body.

It was less about the techniques the therapist employed for my soft tissue and more about the presence they brought and cultivated in the treatment space. My nervous system and tissues needed safe and light touch after the harsh nature of the life saving and diagnostic tests I went through the months prior. The safety of the experience allowed my nervous system to settle and remember a tone that was alert and restful at the same time. It was medically necessary touch that I stumbled into out of recommendation from a friend. When it should have been a referral from a medical doctor. This led me down a deep dive into the world of professional touch for rehabilitation and initiating different healing processes in the body. Now I am three years into my career where I have specialized my private bodywork practice to support and help the rehabilitation process in people post surgery and especially for people who are still experiencing pain post all the life saving medical intervention their body has received.

Claira, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I got into my career because I saw a huge disconnect between our advances in surgical procedures and lack of long term care for people around post surgical pain and rehabilitation. Where we are over treating pain presentations as pathologies instead of seeing the persistent pain presentations as the body being thrown out of homeostasis that needs safe touch, education, and guidance on how to regulate and normalize itself post intervention.

My business is named “Your Body Works”. this phrasing is at the ethos of my brand and offerings.

I hope to find this bridge between some of the most foundational forms of healthcare that humans have developed, massage and bodywork with the rigor and lens of the scientific process. I come at both forms of thought with a cautious lens. For one the scientific process and our medical system, specifically in the United States is full of biases and works under the priorities of capitalism that has funneled resources into profit driven areas of research. While the wellness industrial complex is largely unregulated and markets on the vulnerability of people who simply want to feel better in their body. That balancing act informs how I empower the person to make choices based on the unique needs of their healing journey. Leaning heavily on the idea that education is power. I strive to teach, facilitate, and inform the healing process in a persons life. Looking inward with safety and understanding is when a person is able to discern what will actually be effective for their therapeutic needs. They can steer the direction of their medical care, to actually see change and health return to their lived experience. A process that I feel grateful to help facilitate day in a and day out for countless of individuals.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I come from a very direct western education from the public schools system to a state university, where I was focused on a S.T.E.M foundation of understanding. I have had to critically unlearn and acknowledge the deep harm that the United States education system has enforced on traditional knowledge ways of the Americans and globally through imperialism. Which has set the framework of our current medical models, theories, and understandings of the body and health. This is ongoing work that I hope we are all participating in as knowledge is more accessible and discussions are starting to become more inclusive.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

A deep presence and active listening with each individual. In my profession time is a luxury that many in the medical field do not have. A session with a person is at minimum 60 minutes. In this time I am able to build a depth of trust that I can discern more about the whole picture of why someone is struggling to not live in pain. I can address and talk about the fluid aspects of pain from the bio-psycho-social-patho lens. To help tease a part what are the main drivers of ones pain and refer them to the proper care or empower them to make changes in their life to shift how dominate a persons pain is day to day.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.clairayoung.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yourbodyworkz/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairayoung/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@yourbodyworkz