We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katie O’hearn a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Katie, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
My mission is to restore balance to the body through gentle touch and genuine connection in order to heal as we were designed to do.
In our culture we have grown so disconnected from our bodies and from each other. One of my goals is to help people become in-tune with their bodies again, and to realize that everything is connected! An achy knee is usually not isolated to the knee. It could be an injury to the knee, but also misalignment in one’s gate; it could also be stored emotions, or even referred pain from another area of the body.
While working in the healthcare system I found it interesting that the body was divided into specialties, parts separate from a whole. When in actuality everything is connected! And it often seemed that by keeping parts separate, it was very difficult to heal the whole body. The most pronounced example of this was hearing a provider tell a patient who had experienced a lifetime of trauma and almost a year of devastating medical trauma to “focus on gaining strength now so you can focus on the emotional healing once you’re home.” That patient never made it home. And I whole heartedly believe that despite making incredible physical progress during her last few months, not addressing the emotional and spiritual toll her experiences took on her kept her from recovering.
Now, that is definitely big example, however, I think that most of us carry around smaller examples of this everyday. So, in helping people turn inward, learning to listen to their body’s signals and releasing stored trauma and tension, they can come back into balance. And, once balanced their bodies can heal much more effectively-just as they were designed to do!
The way we restore balance is by using gentle touch. And, without geeking out about it here, some of my favorite things about the modality I utilize is that is is dynamic (usually lots of movement), gentle (deep tissue work with out the deep tissue pressure), and each person’s body is in control (I don’t move anyone’s body, but empower them to release what they are ready to let go of, and through a sense of safety in our connection they do!)
Every day I do this work I am overwhelmed with joy and excitement over just how incredibly amazing our bodies are! I have been deeply healed by this work myself, as well as my family, and I am so honored to help others find their way to balance and healing.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Absolutely!
Hi! My name is Katie O’Hearn. For the last 14 years I have been a child life specialist, supporting children and their families in the healthcare system cope with the stress of medical experiences. Throughout those years I had the opportunity to witness a wide variety of situations, from heartwarming, to miraculous, to heartbreaking. And all of those experiences reaffirmed my belief that our bodies are amazing!
However, there always seemed to be pieces missing from the care I saw in our healthcare systems. Little things that made me question what else can we be doing? Or what else could we add to truly help people heal, body, mind, and spirit? I took a wide variety of classes and certifications from M-Technique, to Mind-Body Solutions and Yoga Calm, and I read so many books searching for answers.
Flash forward twelve years into my career, I was in a chronic cycle of burnout. My own health was suffering, and each year I would have stints from a few days up to six weeks where I spent as much time in bed as out of it. Understaffed, under supported, overstressed and with poor boundaries (a fault of my own), I finally quit my job. I had no plan other than to figure it out.
Two months later I met my midwife who did bodywork on me throughout my pregnancy. It was a game changer for my postpartum experience especially, and as I look back for my overall healing as well. An even bigger impact came for my son born later that year. He had a lip and tongue tie which made it very difficult to nurse, and so much more. His body was so tight (even after a frenectomy) which made digesting, pooping, laying on his back, and sitting in a car seat so incredibly hard. We tried a wide variety of therapies. Every time we saw my midwife he would melt in her hands and have the longest lasting relief. I started to ask, “What can I be doing at home?” “What ELSE can I be doing at home?” and finally, “How can I learn how to do this??”
I spent the next year taking all five levels of Dr. Carol Phillips’ Dynamic Body Balancing courses- a unique combination of craniosacral therapy, myofasical unwinding, and biofield therapies. In between classes and beyond I practiced on my family, friends, neighbors, and anyone who wanted to come visit my backyard for some bodywork! (Yes, my neighbors thought I was crazy until they learned what I was doing, I asked!)
In February of this year I officially opened for business, renting a space in a classmate’s office. (Although I have to admit, my backyard is still my favorite place to practice!) I also do home visits for those who wouldn’t be able to make their way out to Bloomington, or simply because it’s easier for me to make my way to them and provide this service in the comfort of their own homes.
So who would benefit from Craniosacral Therapy? Well, most of my classmates, instructors, and I would agree: if you have a body, you could benefit from this modality! We all carry of our life experiences in our bodies (consciously and unconsciously). They are stored throughout our fascia (a connective tissue system that runs from our foreheads to our toes, wraps around every muscle and organ in the body, and gets thicker to create our tendons and ligaments). In a perfect world energy, information, and movement should glide easily through the fascia. However, in this world we have experience a lot of tension, trauma (a particular passion of mine after working a decade in Level 1 Trauma Centers), and toxins, which all create restriction throughout our bodies. With this gentle hands on approach, the body is encouraged to release those restrictions through movement and rebalancing.
From my own experiences I have a passion for those who have experienced trauma or are caregivers for those who experienced trauma (parents and families, or even medical and support staff!), pregnant women, anyone with chronic illness or lots of tension, children of all ages, and really anyone who is looking to restore their health. Our bodies are amazing and are designed to heal. With the right supports they can!
Curious about what a session with me looks like? I often describe it as a dance. With gentle touch I’ll encourage your body to unwind. As your body moves I follow along (the dance!) You may be standing, sitting, or lying down on a massage table. We can play soothing music, talk throughout, or keep it quiet. For kids we use toys and other forms of distraction and comfort (remember, I’m still a child life specialist!), and for babies we involve their mamas and other caregivers to keep them comfortable and feeling safe.
If you’d like to know more about my work and if it could help you or someone you love, please reach out! I’m excited for the opportunity to help restore balance, health and wellness back into your body, mind, and soul.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Rest is for the weak…
I have always been one to burn the candle at both ends. If there is something that needs to be done, or something I want to achieve, I will make it happen! And while a strong work ethic is important, taking time to rest and play as well as having solid boundaries are equally important. Something I learned at a cost.
When I entered the medical field, finding a job as a child life specialist in the Midwest was not an easy task. I was incredibly lucky to land two part-time positions and one casual position at three hospitals in the Twin Cities in 2012. Between all of these opportunities I worked 60-80 hours each week. I still remember the tiredness in my body after having a full day off after 27 straight days of working far too many hours. I also thought that if I jumped at every opportunity to pick up hours at these three hospitals it would prove my worth to my employers and I would get the highly sought after full-time position. Spoiler alert: no amount of shifts worked back to back with less than 5 hours at home to sleep and get back to work would prove that to my employers. They did not know and did not care. I very much now know that my worth does not come from what I accomplish, but as an eager and determined twenty-something it is not something I would have listened to at the time.
I also was taught that I can do anything for a short amount of time (growth happens in those spaces of discomfort!) And while I do still believe that, I wish I would have set boundaries from the beginning, and not held on quite as long as I did in multiple scenarios. Unfortunately, learning to set those boundaries so late in the game looked a lot like burning bridges.
The constant running in high stress environments for 12 years lead to multiple chronic illnesses for me. My body was tired, worn out and would often force me to rest because I wouldn’t preemptively do so. But, this lead me down a multitude of tracks that all have lead me to where I am now. I worked with a variety of practitioners-chiropractors, naturopathic doctors, nutritionists, and so many more-to find healing. I would not accept that I was “just going to feel like this” for the rest of my life. It turns out, that with rest, play (a tool I used all the time to help my patients cope in the hospital but rarely tapped into myself outside of work), and removing external stressors (quitting my high stress job), I not only have healed most of my symptoms, I also found a new path!
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
I have always been a life long learner, and always curious to learn more about everything! While I was still working in the hospitals, I dug into my internal question about what was missing from the care provided in our traditional healthcare setting. This often lead me to classes and books about our bodies and being more embodied.
Right off the bat I became certified in M-Technique-a gentle hands-on technique created by Jane Buckle to support the most fragile of patients, even before I became certified in child life! Bringing the care back into healthcare, M-Technique has been something I still utilize with patients who are highly anxious, having difficulty resting, or experiencing pain that is really sensitive to touch.
From there I took Yoga Calm classes where I learned how to teach youth yoga, mindfulness, and social emotional learning skills to kids in classroom or group settings. We also got a glimpse of TRE-Trauma Releasing Exercises, created by Dr. David Berceli, during this training.
At the same time as Yoga Calm, I dug into Bessel van der Kolk’s “The Body Keeps the Score.” This book was a game changer for me, first leading me into creating my own master’s degree at St. Mary’s University around the neurobiology of stress. (Due to my own health adventures, that degree ended very early on. However, at this point I have finished all of the work and more without the degree.) It also made me question inconsistencies I saw in healthcare, where children appeared to have somatic responses to different spaces and procedures in the hospital despite never being conscious in those areas or during those procedures (cellular memory is so cool!)
I also took courses by Mind-Body Solutions and Mathew Sanford, including adaptive yoga classes and learning how to bring movement into people’s bodies who were limited in doing so themselves. We also dug deeper into the mind, body, and spirit connection. Remember, everything is connected!
While learning as much as I could about embodied healing, I found The Embody Lab and took their Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy Certificate to learn about a wild variety of somatic therapies utilized to promote healing.
And in my own health journey I looked into a wide variety of modalities from chiropractic, barefoot shoes and the need for natural movement down to a cellular level (Katy Bowman’s book Move Your DNA!) acupuncture, nutrition, Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), and more. Each of these added more data points that eventually all connected during my Dynamic Body Balancing training!
Since then I have now leapt into energy, and energy healing. Great resources here include Barbara Brennan’s book “Hands of Light.” Once I finish that I hope to move on to all her other books. And maybe one day I will attend Barbara Brennan’s School of Healing? Eden Energy Medicine and Donna Eden also have an abundance of classes, resources, and certifications worth looking into.
Sometimes the fact that we have so much information at our fingertips can feel daunting. I am thankful for the opportunity to casually dip my toes in before diving in headfirst. And I am eternally grateful for the track this seemingly random collection of wanderings has lead me down. Our bodies are so amazing!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://hummingbirdhealingmn.com
- Instagram: hummingbirdhealingmn
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61556330783319
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-o-hearn/
