Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Johnson.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Over a decade ago, I first learned about Lymphatic Massage from my pathology professor. She was a nurse turned massage therapist and one of the most brilliant critical thinkers I’ve had the pleasure of working with. I had been managing a holistic-health clinic here in Austin and somehow, I had never learned anything about the lymphatic system. I started taking every continuing education course I could on lymphatic drainage. I was hooked and have been obsessed ever since.
One of the things that attracted me to this particular modality was the gentle nature of the work. Oddly enough, bodywork techniques are generally very masculine. We are taught all about deep tissue massage and the “no-pain-no-gain” approach. It’s never felt right to me to hurt someone while you’re trying to make them feel better. Why would you ever introduce more pain into the nervous system that’s already overloaded!?? I understand there’s a time and a place for deep work, and we do use it when appropriate, but from personal experience, I knew that there were many people suffering out there whose systems simply can’t handle inflammatory massage. I love that we can offer a more nurturing and feminine approach to bodywork and make a huge difference.
As it turns out, people loved this gentle approach and my practice quickly grew. It’s incredibly hard to tell someone who is in pain that you can’t see them for 3-4 weeks. I was overworked and getting burned out. I knew I needed to get my teaching license and to recruit others to join me. After years of effort, I was able to create a reproducible system for training up the Lymph focused practitioners that are now the dream team at Austin Lymphatic.
This has allowed my passion to shift from working hands-on with clients to relentlessly trying to spread the word and educate more people of the benefits of supporting your lymphatic system, as well as to help raise the standard of care in our field by providing the needed academic and hands on instruction that was so desperately needed.
I truly believe the training and techniques we have created could change the field of lymphatic care and we aim to expand our influence to the national level within the next few years.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Ha! Definitely not. Running my own business is never something I saw myself doing. I still can’t believe that life has taken me here. I never had that internal drive to be “successful”. I think what drives me instead is an urgent feeling that if I don’t do this right and help to set a better standard of care, then lymphatic care will not have as meaningful impact in the overall field of healthcare as it could/should.
In the beginning, I didn’t understand why the lymphatic system was never talked about in the medical world and knew this to be a great disservice to an underserved population in need of this important form of care.
Over the years, I’ve seen Lymphatic Drainage have a phenomenal shift in both medical and public awareness. There has been a major uptick on social media platforms and lifestyle magazines on the subject, but I have to say, I’m not sure this is necessarily a good thing. There is A LOT of misinformation out there so we end up needing to reeducate folks when they come in with misconceptions.
My biggest concern is that lymphatic massage will only be thought of in terms of its aesthetic benefits and that it won’t be taken seriously as something that can assist our bodies’ overall health and wellness. The reason it works so well for aesthetics is because it cleanses your body from the inside out! There are SO many people with autoimmune conditions, are recovering from cancer, or have a plethora of general health issues that would greatly benefit from this technique. We just gotta get the word out.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Austin Lymphatic?
At Austin Lymphatic, we truly pride ourselves on the high standard of care we provide. We genuinely care about our clients and it shows. Most of the clients who come through the door recently had cosmetic or orthopedic surgery of some kind. It’s so fun working with these extreme cases and we love taking on new challenges. It’s incredibly gratifying to help someone recover to their full potential!
The education and training we provide for our practitioners is far beyond any other practice that I am aware of in our field. We do monthly workshops and review case studies together on the regular and are constantly seeking out or creating continuing education courses. Lymphatic drainage can be a lonely path because there are not a lot of people who are out there actually doing it all-day every-day. It’s nice to have a collaborative approach to handle some tricky cases that come our way.
I’m so very proud of our growing team. We employ Physical Therapists, Massage Therapists, Occupational Therapists and Registered Nurses. With different backgrounds and specializations, all our practitioners saw a need in their personal practice to implement lymphatic therapies to their clients and saw the benefit it was having. Each one of our practitioners wanted to truly focus on lymph and that’s why they ended up here – to learn more and get more experience.
And to spice things up, because there is a time and place for deep tissue massage, several of our therapists also do Ashiatsu massage (where they use their feet!). This is the best application for deep work that I’ve come across because you’re able to get incredibly deep into the tissue without causing pain or tissue damage due to the broadness of the tool being used (the foot). It feels soooooo good.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
Covid continues to be a challenging situation for us. Because we often work with people who have parts of their immune systems removed and folks who are immunocompromised, we have to be extremely careful both in and out of the office. I’m incredibly proud of the way we have handled COVID so far but as guidelines become more and more unclear, it becomes harder and harder to implement and enforce these things without making someone mad. It’s tricky to find the balance. I also know that it’s important for our mental health to try to get back to a somewhat normal existence. There’s something missing from the human-connection standpoint when two people are wearing a mask. In some cases, that’s absolutely worth letting go of to make sure we stay safe, but in other cases – maybe not. I’ve learned that no matter how hard you try, you can’t make everyone happy so you have to do what feels right by you. We continue to try our best.
Pricing:
- Lymphatic Drainage Massage $125
- Physical Therapy $150
- Ashiatsu Massage $150
- All sessions are 1 Hour hands-on.
Contact Info:
- Email: AustinLymph@gmail.com
- Website: www.AustinLymph.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/austinlymph/
- Other: Phone: 512.751.8146
