We caught up with the brilliant and insightful La Bronaca Bradley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
La Bronaca, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.
I think we all have times where we thought our parents should have done this or that better, especially in black families. We often don’t realize until we either have children or have experienced enough to know they were doing the best they could. Growing up my parents didn’t always make it to my games when I played sports or to school plays, they were often busy working or trying to rest from working. They were working hard in order to provide and to afford me the opportunity to partake in activities. I give my parents, especially my mother credit for encouraging and allowing me to be active and exploratory as a child and also introducing me to things as a child that I now use as hobbies and self care as an adult. One thing I love to do is cook, for myself as well as others. It’s a love language of mine. I learned to cook from my mother teaching both me and brothers, although only one of them took onto it. Growing up we stayed in the kitchen helping my mother prepare holiday dinners or helping make meals when my mother was at work.
I also love plants and being a plant mom and sitting outside planting flowers is an absolute joy of mine and a huge part of my self care. This something that I grew up watching and doing with both my mother and father. Once spring would hit, we would be at the garden center buying flats of flowers to plant in the flower beds around our house. It’s one memory I love because it’s so nostalgic when I go now and plant my own flowers to grow, remembering being a little girl with a blossoming green thumb.
I also appreciate my parents putting me in activities such as piano lessons, allowing me to play sports and girl scouts. Each of these activities allowed me to grow, diversified me, as well as taught me work ethic. As an adult, I don’t think we often realize the importance of having hobbies and having a self care routine. All of this has helped mold me into the adult I am now and I am able to use each of those little seeds they placed in me to continue my path of growth and evolving.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a licensed massage therapist. I’ve been in practice and licensed for 7 years now. I own and operate a mobile massage business here in the DFW metroplex. I offer my service in home as well as in office for corporate wellness and events. I found my passion in massage therapy after losing my corporate job in 2015. Losing that job was a blessing because I was seriously burned out, depressed and dissatisfied. At that time I was also in graduate school for a masters in Healthcare management. I was working hard, obtaining degrees to only be mismanaged and overlooked for positions, underpaid and overworked. I used my unemployment to help pay for massage school, moved in with my brother and sister in law and their family in order to change paths and follow a new dream of being in control of my own livelihood and being self managed.
Me being an intuitive healer is what sets me apart from others who may offer massage therapy. I am an empath, and empaths feel differently. One of the extraordinary things that I have discovered is that I often feel what my clients feel. I am so in tuned that I can feel their aches and pains in my own body and treat the pain I feel by healing theirs. Once their pain is gone I no longer feel it, it’s a blessing and a curse. Discovering my empathic ways really pushed me into being a huge advocate for self care. We are all energy, we pick up and release energy, especially between one another, which becomes energy transfer. We can exchange positive and negative energy back and forth. I love to do energy work and heal through touch. It’s important to reset ourselves, ground ourselves so that we can continue radiating positive energy and being our best selves.
Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?
If I could go back I would choose the same profession because I really do love what I do and love helping others. I don’t believe I’d do anything differently even though I didn’t enjoy working in corporate, all of that experience helped prepare me for self employment. Although I don’t use my degree, that education helped prepare me to succeed in what I’m currently doing.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
A lesson I had to unlearn is that sometimes that ideal journey just isn’t meant for you. I was taught to go to college, get a degree and find a job working for someone. It’s not really taught to seek a trade and also get a degree. I believe young adults should learn and get certified in a trade in high school as a requirement, so that they have something to fall back on in case college is not a good fit or a desire. I actually saw self employment and entrepreneurship as an option after viewing entrepreneurs in my own family. I have an aunt and also a cousin who both own childcare establishments, my parents ran a janitorial service, so hard work has always been apart of my make up. I had to unlearn being fearful and self doubt and learn to put faith into myself.
Contact Info:
- Website: Sophisticatedbodywork.abmp.com
- Instagram: @sophisticatedbodywork
- Facebook: @sophisticatedbodywork