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

Alright, Meredith thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How’s you first get into your field – what was your first job in this field?

My mom has a keen intuition and knows me well. She helped me discover my path as a massage therapist and healer. I am thankful that my mom, 25 years ago, saw that I had this unrecognized potential plus passion and offered to send me to massage school where I became open to alternative medicine and a whole new world of possibility. However, after earning my certificate as a Wellness Massage Therapist I hit a block within myself. For almost five years after going to massage school, I would work in customer service as a cashier only utilizing my newly earned skills on my family and friends.

I consider myself lucky because I landed my first job as a massage therapist at one of the most magical places on earth. In 2005 I began working at Gold Lake Mountain Resort and Spa nestled up at 9,000 feet in the mountains outside of Boulder Colorado. I felt lucky to have landed this position though I questioned why I would be awarded a position working at a healing spa with some of the most advanced and seasoned massage therapists in Boulder. I was in disbelief of my own self and capabilities. Much later upon reflecting on this feeling of luck, I realized it came from a place of not feeling good enough. That was really my train of thought back then.

At the time my potential was so far from my awareness. I lived my life in a place of fear and self-doubt. Experiences in my life left me feeling ashamed of who I was. My trauma and thought patterns kept me blocked from allowing abundance and joy into my life. At this point in my early twenties, I was content with settling in almost every way including in my job and relationships, not just because it was easy but because it was too painful to face the truth of my own shadow. This was cast out of my sight, not even consciously understandable.

In the initial interview for the first job, I was asked to give the spa director a massage. She mentioned areas of her body that she wanted addressed and that she liked deep tissue. All of a sudden my whole body tensed up and the scared, stuck, and frightened little girl inside of me was making her appearance. It was obvious to the director how anxious I was and she assured me to relax. At the end of her session, she hired me but let me know she almost didn’t because I didn’t do the deep tissue work she asked for. I was too scared that I might fail at the deep work so I ignored the request. This was a pattern for me that many times ended in self-sabotage. However, turns out I was the first person who ever relaxed her enough to fall asleep and she saw that as a value.

The beauty of giving a massage is that it’s like a dance. For me, it’s emotionally regulating and grounding. Though I was still feeling resistant about the deep tissue, the flow and movement of giving a massage carried me into a place of safety. Grounded and regulated, it’s a state of being and it’s a strong force that creates a safe container to work from. This is what relaxed her to the point that she felt safe in my presence. I use the wisdom of creating safety in myself to hold space for others, it’s the magic ingredient in my work. Today I’m much more attuned, conscious, and practiced in this aspect. Understanding these core principles of holding space and recognizing what was happening in myself during a massage, moving from a place of stress to safety has inspired my study and curiosity about the nervous system.

I worked at Gold Lake for about 4 years until the resort changed ownership and eventually transformed into something else. These first years in my field of work as a bodyworker were by far the hardest. Each day I was anxious to go to work and plagued by fear because of underlying beliefs. Over time I started to gain confidence as a therapist. I had happy clients, and positive feedback, and became known for my intuition and magical hands. After my Reiki sessions, I had clients sending me thank you cards and telling me stories of how the sessions changed their life. Eventually I had a full and thriving practice mostly focusing on deep tissue massage and reiki. As I began feeling safe within my field of work my goals and aspirations of trying to just survive the pain of my anxiety moved to a place of deep healing. This was now my work to understand this process.

Working at Gold Lake changed my life. The effects of this first job still ripple through my life with friendships I made while I was there. In fact, all of these beautiful women including my friend who nudged me to apply for the position helped me see my potential, worth, and value. They all modeled and reflected this to me. It’s led me to where I am now. I have healed and integrated that scared part of myself who struggled with confidence and the fear to face herself and the world. She still creeps in but today I am fully resourced within myself to face her and meet her needs.

Things came around full circle and though I no longer focus my work on massage therapy, the body and energy work that I do today helps people actualize their fullest potential and heal themself from the inside out. The luck that I now feel around landing this very first job comes from a place of being truly blessed with love and support. It’s a completely different energy and feeling than believing in luck that just gets you through life because you feel like you’re not good enough.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi, I’m Meredith. I’m a Body, Mind, and Spirit Practitioner and Intuitive Healer. I’ve been working in the Holistic Health field for 25 years as a massage therapist. I have studied many different modalities over my career and have a multi-dimensional approach to how I work with clients. The foundation of my work has been built on my study of the body, nervous system, metaphysics, and psychology. Though I do not do traditional massage therapy anymore I specialize my work in craniosacral therapy, somatics, integrative trauma therapy, yoga, reiki, and shamanic healing. All of these modalities I use in my own life and trust them completely. They all have the ability to initiate and create change in one’s body, mind, and spirit.

I work with various clients who come to me for different reasons. Two commonalities across the board with the people I work with are that they are seeing me for something that is stress-related, for something that causes distress to them in their life, or they have experienced a traumatic event. Secondly, they are asking for some kind of change to happen whether that is through healing a health-related condition or seeking clarity on a situation. On a physical level, I help clients manage their pain from physical ailments caused by stress, illness, and physical injury. On an emotional level, I help guide clients inward, connect to their inner wisdom, and understand the messages that are coming through their bodies. On a spiritual level, I provide a space to connect with the spirit, help clients integrate fragmented parts of their souls, and bring light to their soul’s journey.

Many clients come to me after they have tried everything else from a Western medicine and clinical stance. They are open to trying something different. Most recently over the past few years, I’ve been working with more clients who need extra support through their human experience and the grief they are feeling about the state of the world. This feels like a calling to be of support and service for the difficulties and challenges that come from being human and living through these times on earth. Ever since I was a child I’ve had a soft spot for the human experience and a yearning to connect with others through the commonalities of this shared experience. I understand this sensitivity to what we are witnessing on earth right now because I feel it. I help clients find peace, clarity, grounding, and empowerment through pain and internal suffering that comes with being human. This truly is why I’m here.

I approach my work from a relational model. Many of my clients over the years have given me the same feedback over and over again about how safe they feel with me. I take this to heart and have realized that is what sets me apart from other practitioners. There is healing just in that feeling. Wounds are created from a rupture in a relationship with others and healing happens in a relationship.

My one-on-one craniosacral therapy sessions are very specific to the ailment and the intention my clients  show up with. CranioSacral Therapy is a manual therapy that addresses the central nervous system. These sessions are gentle and relaxing. A light touch is used to address restrictions in the fascia, and the structures of the craniosacral system including the cranium, sacrum, spine, and brain. It’s restorative to the nervous system. Clients including babies and children who have a wide variety of ailments related to the nervous system benefit from this work. I integrate reiki, somatics, and nervous system education in these sessions in cases where it might be valuable.

It absolutely blows my mind how powerful gentle touch can be. To be able to witness the body respond to the gentleness and self-correct is truly magnificent. I’ve learned so much in my own personal life about emotional well-being and my unique needs, plus how to approach life with less force, control, and surrender both from giving and receiving CranioSacral Therapy. I love this work!

In my Shamanic Healing/Soul Sessions which can be done in person or remotely, I connect with compassionate spirits to address whatever the client comes to me to heal. This often looks very different for each client depending on what is needed for healing. This work includes methods of Core Shamanism such as powering up the client with a power animal to restore energy, soul retrieval, psychopomp work, and divination. In-person sessions often include hands-on work if needed and with permission. I must say these sessions are powerful. Spirit opens one up to a whole unseen world full of resources, and healing, and delivers miracles in the most unusual ways.

Long-term work with me over a series of committed sessions and multi-modalities looks much different and initiates change and transformation at the foundational level. This might include practices towards self-love, inner resourcing, soul work, inner child work, reparenting parts, past life healing, heart-mind coherence, shadow work, resolution of trauma, and integration. All of this is restorative to the nervous system and alchemy is at the heart of it.

In the more in-depth sessions that happen over time, the client usually comes to me because they are ready to heal themself or they have worked with me for a while and are ready to go deep. They are asking for change in their life and in their sense of being. They are committed to the work and that’s how they transform. I am just a mentor and guide providing the space for them to access the healer within themself. It’s amazing the difference that happens in healing when there is a full commitment to healing and the time and space are created in the container to allow for a process to unravel. It’s rewarding to witness self-development and growth and to be trusted to be part of one’s inner journey towards healing.

I love yoga personally for my well-being and teaching yoga to my clients. I incorporate yoga postures into homework to support the body if the clients want this support. It’s an added benefit when working with me. I don’t have any ongoing classes happening at this time but offer pop-up classes in the community in which I live that incorporate trauma-informed principles and polyvagal theory into them.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Back in 2018, I received a message that I must go backward to move forward. I had been committed to a healing path and peeling through the layers of myself for many years to release chronic stress and the physical ailments related to it. This path ultimately led me to connect to and strengthen my intuition. I felt that I couldn’t ignore this message as it was coming from a deep wisdom inside myself. This wasn’t a normal ailment that I would seek out therapy for. It felt more like a spiritual quest so I sought out a teacher in Core Shamanism. This was something that I was familiar with and had also been learning about and studying with under my Reiki Teacher for over a decade so I had a natural inclination to know this might be helpful in this quest that was calling me. I fully immersed myself in a two-year study with a Core Shamanic teacher and within a group container. Core Shamanism is about building relationships with helping spirits and returning to a place of power (empowerment). I was an excited student and the practice was so intriguing. To dive fully into the mystery and unknown felt right. This excitement and study very quickly initiated an unraveling within my foundation. This foundation that I speak about is how one relates to and interacts with the world. This foundation is built on our earliest experiences, also influenced by culture, systems, the generations before, and past life experiences. Spirit guided me to the depths of my soul and into the darkest parts of myself. It wasn’t easy work to unlearn conditioning, thought patterns, and ways that were keeping me stuck in a state of suffering and oppression. There were many times when I wanted to turn away and give up but what I retrieved within myself has been the most valuable piece to making change in my life. The rebuilding of my foundation and unlearning some of the conditioning and patterns that weren’t serving me has given me agency and discernment, two gifts that I value as some of the most important aspects of inner peace. Unlearning some of my deepest beliefs has helped me move forward in my life in a way that feels true to myself. Now I am able to live in a place that feels in alignment with my values and my unique and individual needs. This has opened up so many new doors, pathways, opportunities, and experiences for me.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Oh, this question is a big one. Isn’t life always asking us to pivot? Change is the only constant in the universe. I’m always pivoting from moment to moment, especially in the work I’m doing with preschoolers right now in one of my other jobs within my community. They are fast to change their minds, and their attention, and we very quickly move on to plan B. I love that about them. It keeps life new and exciting.

2012 was the first real big pivot I made in my life and in my career. Or at least it’s the one that has made a lasting imprint. That was the year I went through a painful divorce. Suffering from the loss of my marriage, my husband, the life I had as a mother, my dreams, my identity, my security, and my stability sent me on a journey into grief. I became immersed in grief, death, and dying. This experience led me to new studies and develop specialties in the work I do with clients around change. It woke me up to a deeper understanding of how trauma and adverse life experiences affect the body. Where I used to only focus my work on the physical ailments I began to gain more experience in the deeper complexities underneath the physical ailments. It was a complete pivot  in how I work with clients. That’s when I began studying craniosacral therapy and viewing the body through a new lens and it’s been an incredible journey since.

Contact Info:

• Website: pathintotheheart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pathintotheheart/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100047749074823

Image Credits
McGlone Photography Aspen Eyes Media