The Elm Massage + Bodywork, LLC

Whether it's your first massage or your fiftieth, these are the questions most people never ask out loud. 👀

Most people just lie there and hope for the best. Your session should feel the way YOU want it to, and the only way we know is if you tell us.

Speaking up is never awkward here. It actually helps us do our job better.

📍Looking for massage in Palm Harbor or Trinity, FL?

📲Call/ Text 727-332-7072

Book through the link in our bio.

Send this to a friend who never speaks up on the table, or who's nervous to book their first massage.

This was a post shared by Katie to our continuing education, page. It’s such an important topic that I wanted it to be shared here as well.

Unpopular opinion, maybe: I really love working with men. Especially my 60+ guys.

And I know that can be complicated to say in the massage world.

There are absolutely men who have crossed lines, made therapists uncomfortable, and made female LMTs hesitant to work with male clients. I understand why. That’s real.....but it’s also a whole other conversation.

Because man.....there are some really wonderful men who walk into our treatment rooms.

Today, a longtime client shared the joy of becoming a grandfather for the first time.....and, in the same conversation, the grief of losing his first child many years ago.

I’ve listened as another navigated his father’s cancer diagnosis and eventual passing. I’ve heard stories from Vietnam. Stories about marriages, kids, careers, aging, loss, pride, fear and plenty of really funny stuff too.

Sometimes all while I’m just quietly working...

It reminds me of something my husband said after we had our first child. I was so wrapped up in my own recovery and becoming a new mom that I hadn’t realized how traumatic the experience had been for him too.

I remember looking at him with tears in his eyes when he said, “You know, husbands need support too.”

That has stuck with me.

We talk a lot about women needing support.....and we should. We talk about the harm crappy men can cause.....and we should.

But sometimes I think we forget that good men need care too.

They need places where they can be vulnerable. People who ask how they’re doing. Spaces where they don’t always have to be the strong one.

Especially for some of the older men I work with, I don’t think they’ve had many places where that was normalized.

Massage is not therapy. But the treatment room can still be a place where someone feels cared for, listened to and safe enough to soften a little.

And maybe if that kind of support and vulnerability were more normal for men, we’d have healthier men because of it.

Men need care too.

I adore this population. And when someone trusts me enough to share those pieces of his life after years of working together, I genuinely consider it a privilege.