We recently connected with Rose Hinsz and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Rose, thanks for joining us today. What was your school or training experience like? Share an anecdote or two that you feel illustrate important aspects or the overall nature of your schooling/training experience.

“Everything is Connected” This theme from Massage Therapy school changed my understanding of Life in so many ways.
It finally tied together all the other “practical” lessons I had collected from studying Linguistics & pursuing an MBA. Everything felt flat, like a puzzle without an answer, or a game where someone keeps changing the rules. The corporate world had left me jaded and I found no relief in other wings of the service industries.
Learning about the human body changed everything for me.
Everything…. thoughts & habits, input, output, temperature, hydration, genetics, personal & ancestral history, hopes & dreams… absolutely Everything. This concept of being more than just my physical imprint took awhile to digest, but as it did my own challenges began to unwind in a new way.
I finally stopped letting others tell me what my limits would be. I am Everything.
As a soul called to Service, I started to feel like a thread in the fabric of life instead of a cog in some machine. I am Connected.
Whether outside of my Self or within Community, this sentiment shifted a few of my own foundational understandings.
Sure, the shin bone’s connected to the thigh bone… the thigh bone’s connected to the hip bone… but it’s so much more than that! I learned a limitless method of understanding, in this simple three word statement.
Now, in Self Care practices, we expand this sentiment to pursue homeostasis. Every individual is unique, their path winds in many ways, but we focus on where and how we feel authentically.
By supporting our Self, we become a stronger thread. We weave, with more ease, into Everything.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Sometimes, things start before You even realize what’s going on. I grew up watching my mom give away so much of her life to a job she did not enjoy, a job that took more from her than she wanted to give, partnered with a dad who could do nothing less than pursue his passion, who could and would not let a job interfere with his creative dreams. Now, I can see that the perpetuating lifestyle I’ve created for myself is a path in-between, but that was never at the forefront of my reasoning. That was never the “plan” When I look at my resume, it generally makes me laugh. I did so much to please others and achieve what was expected of me before finally listening to the voice in my own heart & head.
Today, I am a Self Care Advocate.
Today, I help people help themselves.
Today, I feel successful, balanced, and healthy.
But I’ve had plenty of Yesterdays that came nowhere close.
While I won’t bore You with the resume details for the years I gave away (excuse me… spent learning my needs and boundaries), the main shift in my experience was Pain. Not just physical, although that was the final motivating factor, but mental, emotional, and even soulful discomfort as I forced myself to live a life I did not find fulfilling, nurturing, and at some points was downright hostile.
I can trace some of my success back to a post-it note. I was brave enough, one of many lunch hours spent at my desk, to scribble down a dream. (I want to get paid to work out – and now I teach/enjoy multiple floor and aerial hammock movement classes each week) I can find links to my approach to healing weaved into my childhood just as much through accidental encounters on road trips and other adventures. There is no real origin story or spark, it’s all blossomed as I dedicate my life to living as Me.
One choice at a time, always with the willingness to dream.
But there is one chapter that has made me quite indignant about Self Care.
My biggest cheerleader has always been Mom. She taught me that we make our own Happiness. When she was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor, I was grateful the career I had been concocting supported me supporting her.
Her diagnosis is how she finally left a long and trying career… Her retirement was no longer what she dreamed about, it’s in a different plane of existence. We spent two years in what felt like a different world, full of treatments and what-ifs, and this is where I met the healing powers of Cannabis. I had a front-row seat to the amazing relief a simple plant could deliver. Since she had no prior experience, my brother and I dove in to help. He worked at a local dispensary (in Illinois) and I became a Certified Cannabis Wellness Coach. Working with her team at The Mayo Clinic, we supported her quality of life until the very last week.
Then, a different relationship with grief began for me… right as COVID hit the scene.
Pain is a daily part of my experience. My physical body is genetically hypermobile, so while being bendy can seem better than stiff, it’s not just a fun party trick. Grief and the rollercoaster that comes along with it just escalates everything.
So, I put myself through my own Self Care coaching program, again. And again. And I will again as many times as I need the practice. As long as I have the privilege of Living.
With each choice I make to honor myself, a new door opens. Sometimes that looks like interesting destinations for sessions, sharing the magic of celery juice, hosting quiet nights to encourage rest or getting loud with some living room dancing!
I believe in what I offer because I’ve seen authentic healing. I’ve seen happiness and I won’t back down.
Working with me looks different for every soul called to Self Care. The journey is full of remembering just as much as discovery.
We all deserve to feel good expressing what it feels like to be “Me”
We all deserve someone on our team that believes.
Everything is Connected.
We can be happy.
Advocate Self Care!

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Honesty & transparency have been my most effective strategies. As a Projector (Human Design nudge for those who want to dive deeper), I have found the best connections happen when I am recognized & invited into sharing time with another being.
Connecting with my own inner well of desire is the foundation for most things. When I want to adventure out into the world or attend gatherings that get me excited without questioning, I am rewarded with some of the most divine connections.
I do not market traditionally. I generally work with referrals or through direct shared experiences. Those souls who find themselves reflected in a way they enjoy, through interaction and exploration with me, have become my dearest and most personally successful clients.
Success in Self Care is individual. There is no one-size-fits-anything.
By being my own unapologetic Self, the door to more keeps opening.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Life is most definitely a bumpy ride, but that’s how You know you’re still on it, right? If everything was smooth and comfy, we would have no need for ingenuity, no push to try something different. Working my way through school was never easy, but it showed me just how well I can manage my resources.
Giving away my work when feeling undervalued or taken advantage of helped me recognize those feelings faster each time. Now I can even speak up for myself when I experience a situation where I feel tapped out instead of engaged.
Experiencing anxiety, fear surrounding money/abundance, questioning my value, holding deep sadness through loss, overwhelm, adrenal fatigue… these felt like societal norms. I discredited myself because everyone feels these things, all the time… right?
Wrong.
We all deserve a baseline of self love. We all deserve to feel safe in our own skin.
When I made the decision to leave the hustle of Business, to throw my collegiate degrees to the wind and enroll in Massage Therapy school I felt many things.
My body responded with both fear & relief. I hadn’t realized just how much I had been suffocating.
The day after enrollment, all of the skin on the back half of my body began peeling, like a chemical burn from the inside. I saw western & eastern health practitioners for an answer, considered every item at home from laundry detergent to lotion, but the only change was my Decision.
I wanted to be Free and this systemic reaction reflected just how much I had been holding in that was eating away at me.
The skin is the body’s biggest organ. This reaction taught me just how much this body had been holding on to for me.
It was the moment I finally started to take the relationship between my Self and my surrounding experiences seriously.
I learned that underneath it all, my biggest struggle is with Myself. The voices in my head that say mean things, in my own voice but not with words I would ever speak. Swallowing my self expression, or being my own enemy in the nightmares I kept reliving.
My choices shape my reality.
Every day I am just trying to be a friend to Me.

Contact Info:

• Website: AdvocateSelfCare.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/Advocate.Self.Care
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RosieMarieLMT
• Other: Patreon.com/AdvocateSelfCare

Image Credits
Erica Fritz, Moon Mist Retreats