We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sarah Elsie. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sarah below.
Sarah , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about how you went about setting up your own practice and if you have any advice for professionals who might be considering starting their own?
The studio quickly drew a devoted community of women. Powerful women. Artists, mothers, leaders, survivors. Women moving through grief, transformation, initiation, and becoming. The space functioned as more than a massage studio. It was an art gallery. A sanctuary. A temple to the primordial feminine. A place where people could arrive without performance.
Within that container, I created and developed The Grief Massage™, a modality born from listening carefully. Again and again, clients told me the same thing. They sought massage, but it left them hungry. No wellness clinic, medspa, or aesthetic setting could deliver what they were truly searching for.
They were not seeking escape or disassociation. They wanted to deepen into themselves.
They were seeking art, beauty, ritual.
While rooted in Knoxville, my work began to travel. I carried the practice throughout Southern Appalachia, down to the Gulf, into the Low Country of the Carolinas, as far south as Key West, across the Gulf Coast into Mobile and New Orleans, and west into Texas.
In September 2024, the direction shifted. Instead of touring outward from Knoxville, I relocated my children and my practice to Austin. We are now nestled in the Texas Hill Country, with upcoming tours returning east periodically and expanding westward, and eventually globally.
Those journeys shaped the studio as much as any physical space ever could. Strengthening my connection to practice over just atmosphere. This year I am bringing parts of myself out of exile, including the part who claims that I built a bridge toward love. I am in Texas because I chose to weave that crossing. This was not displacement. It was devotion.
Feral Mother Studio has never been about scale for its own sake. It has always been about building a container where touch is practiced with integrity. As relationship. As art. As care. Where the body is not treated as a problem to be solved, but as a wellspring of intelligence.
I would not change the path. Its unfolded exactly as it needs to. I am going to create whatever art I want to see in the world , in and across whatever industry, genre and modality that I want to and nothing is going to stop me. Therapeutic art innovation is just one. The world will have my paintings, my dance, my ritual art, and my music one day too.
What I do have are clear insights for professionals considering starting their own massage practice.
I will say this plainly to LMTs and bodyworkers, but this goes for all artists: try not to remain someone else’s employee for too long.
Short periods of employment can be valuable for learning systems and building confidence. But there is an extractive structure embedded in many medspa and clinic environments. Your labor becomes the product. Your body becomes the engine. Over time, this erodes agency, pacing, and longevity.
If you feel called to build your own practice, start small. Build slowly. Know your numbers. Protect your body. Trust the signal if something about the structure feels wrong. It usually is.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am an artist.
My work has never been about being a “massage therapist.”
This is therapeutic touch.
Nervous system–centered, sensorial art.
It meets the body where systems fail and where industry has caused harm.
I take massage out of the jaws of industry and return it to its essence: connection.
My art says you are allowed to feel good without complying, optimizing, fixing, or improving.
You are allowed care without being at war with your own body.
We are living through profound disconnection.
From one another.
From the divine.
From the land.
I see where systems fail people.
Fail women.
Fail children.
That is where I go first.
I touch death.
Grief.
Pain.
Loss.
Desire.
Rupture.
Injustice.
I touch what has been pushed into shadow and bring it closer to love.
This is why it works.
Because it is connected.
Because it is deeply human.
In an inhumane world.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
My management and entrepreneurial thinking has been shaped far less by traditional business literature and far more by depth psychology, somatic philosophy, animist cosmology, and critical sociology.
I study how perception is shaped, how authority is constructed, and how institutions condition bodies through things like labor expectations, wellness culture, and beauty conformity. In industries that often amplify body dysmorphia and then turn around and use insecurity as leverage and call it empowerment , understanding influence is not optional. It is ethical responsibility. Dismantling disembodied power and influence is a bloodsport for me. Building something for women to stand inside where we are both held and free is the remedy. That starts with embodied practice.
Somatic philosophy clarified something essential for me: the body is not simply responding to thought. It is shaping perception, memory, and decision-making in real time. That insight informs how I pace sessions, protect sustainability, and design a practice that does not extract from either myself or the people I serve.
Ancient philosophical traditions emphasizing self-governance and discernment have shaped my approach to leadership. Expansion and expression for its own sake does not interest me. Coherence does. I want a more excellent future, and the only future that exists is that which we are shaping today with how we choose to move through our lives with every choice.
Old Norse animist cosmology grounds my thinking in relationship rather than domination. It emphasizes cycles, thresholds, land, and consequence. That worldview informs how I approach stewardship, accountability, and longevity in both art and enterprise. What can I say? Im a born fate provocateur.
As a sociologist, I remain attentive to how power moves through culture, how authority is outsourced, and how extraction is normalized as success. That perspective has made me resistant to burnout-driven models and deeply committed to sovereignty and integrity.
I am not loyal to convention when convention distances me from integrity.
Rather than following prescriptive entrepreneurial frameworks, I build from these disciplines. My business is an extension of my worldview.
Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?
Beyond training and technical knowledge, what matters most is conscious decision making.
Decided. What are you are giving? What are you are taking? What are you building? What are you breaking? If you do not make these choices deliberately, the industry will make them for you.
In the health and beauty industries especially, there is constant pressure to be safe, palatable, and rewarded for compliance. You can choose that path. You can become a poster girl for the industry and be protected by it. Or you can choose to be a rebel. An architect. An embodiment of the kind of feminine power you want to see reshape the world.
That choice will shape everything. Your pricing. Your boundaries. Your clientele. Your longevity. Success, in my experience, is not about visibility or approval. It is about coherence. About being able to stand inside what you are building without betraying yourself.
For me, meaningful work requires courage, discernment, and a willingness to be misunderstood. The reward is sovereignty. And that is worth more than safety. Don’t let the bastards grind ya down, y’all.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://feralmotherstudio.glossgenius.com/?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/feralmotherstudio?igsh=aGVxbjd3Y2EyaWU3&utm_source=qr
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hesteria/?msgControlName=view_message_button&msgConversationId=2-MWUwNWVkZGEtNGU4MS00NTU0LWJhOWYtYzg5MTc4NzRmZjRiXzEwMA%3D%3D&msgOverlay=true
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/karlton-hester
- Other: The fastest and most direct way to get in touch with me is via Instagram or direct email. I read and respond personally and encourage genuine, thoughtful engagement.
Image Credits
All images are original