Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Bradford
Hi Emily, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Where do I start? Hi, I’m Emily Bradford and I am a native to Daytona Beach Florida. I started my massage career just a short 18 years ago. At the time, I was living in Fort Myers Florida and that is where I went to massage school. The school I attended was Florida Acadamy of Massage & Skin Care. I wish I could say this was something I always knew I was meant to do, but the truth is I was so confused and didn’t know what direction I was headed. I had worked in restaurants starting at 15 years old and worked my way up to be a restaurant manager. I did that for far too long and got to where I hated it. I always enjoyed getting a massage and would talk about “if I was a massage therapist” all the things I could do, I didn’t even realize I talked about this. Then one day a friend said to me “if you hate your job so much why don’t you go to massage school” I said “what?” they said “you always talk about it”, so I thought what do I have to lose? I made the decision right then to go and search out the massage school in the area. I owed it to myself to go talk to the school and give it a try and if I didn’t like it then at least it was a way out of the restaurant business. Now, here I am 18 years later and loving what I do. I am so glad that friend said that to me because I may have just stayed stuck in the restaurant business forever.
So, what is it that I do?
I am a Massage Therapist, and I specialize in bodywork for pain relief. It took me quite some time to figure out my exact niche. At first, I would try to be everything for everyone all of the time. I wish I could say I learned really fast that it wasn’t going to cut it for the long term, but better late than never. I slowly started taking different continuing education classes and would position myself in more of a chiropractic office setting over a spa. I always enjoyed working on people with specific issues. I remember the first most challenging situation I came across, which I believe helped shape me to be the therapist I am today and better therapist overall. I was about a year and a half into my career and had just relocated back to Daytona Beach, I was working at a day spa at the time and a client came in for a deep tissue massage. This client had had breast cancer, a double mastectomy and reconstruction surgery. When she came in she informed me she had pain in her shoulders and back and mainly where the reconstruction surgery had taken place. She had lots of scar tissue and muscle tightness in her back and shoulders. She was booked for a 90 min massage and wanted to focus on upper body only. At first I thought, what am I going to do on her upper body for 90 mins? Her back was like no one elses I have ever felt. You could feel the muscles all tangled up and lots of scar tissue. No wonder she was in so much pain. Together we would work, and she would communicate with me if she needed me to hold a spot for longer or if I needed to move over just a smidge. She helped guide me to what her body was needing, it was a team effort in her care. It was such an amazing feeling to feel the muscles actually melt underneath my fingers and for her to feel so much relief. It was hard work but so worth it to see how it was helping her. We worked together for years, and she is still in my life today. We even nicknamed the knot in her back “the monster” and we finally tamed him. I say we because she put in the work also. Massage Therapy is a partnership between the client and therapist. She showed up for treatment, she did whatever after care was necessary, she believed it would help her and it did. Mindset also plays an important part in a person’s journey of health. The most amazing thing was that I helped improve her quality of life. That was the beginning of me following the path to bodywork for pain relief. When clients come in and have limited range of motion due to pain and can move better when they leave, I know I’ve done my job. I truly get joy from helping people improve their quality of life.
A year ago I decided to take a leap of faith and go out on my own, something I’ve always talked myself out of and was too afraid to do, but I did it. I must say it was the best decision I ever made!!! I have grown so much and all of that came from just stepping out of my comfort zone. If you are thinking about going out on your own my best advice to you is Just Do It!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I would say it has been a bumpy road. Sometimes smooth and other days rocky. In the beginning of my career, I struggled with feeling confident in my capabilities. In school, you basically learn Swedish massage, everything else comes after. I mean in school we had a couple classes that taught us a very brief introduction to different modalities, and it is up to you to figure out which way you want to go. The struggle as a brand-new therapist was that I didn’t know exactly what I was doing other than what I learned in school. I wanted everyone to like me and love my massage. When you are first starting out it takes time to build your clientele, find the right clients, and really hone into your craft. That’s something they don’t really tell you in massage school. It took many years adjusting my technique and gaining experience to be the amazing therapist I am today.
In the past 18 years, the biggest obstacle was me and Imposter Syndrome. I could not see myself how my clients saw me. I didn’t believe that I was worthy enough to be successful. I’ve struggled with low self-esteem and self-doubt for as long as I can remember. I was struggling to get out of my own way. My counselor and I have been working on all of that and I’m proud to say that I am learning to love myself and acknowledging my self worth.
Imposter syndrome is weird. Like you do all these things and are successful at them and then you can’t be happy about what you achieved because you knock yourself down or pick yourself apart and then turn around and do it all over again. It’s a vicious cycle and that was a long run on sentence. However, you catch my drift. Imposter Syndrome will rob you from your best self. Don’t listen to the lies you tell yourself. You can do it, You are worthy and You will succeed.
The Covid19 pandemic was another obstacle. It was unknown territory, and I caught the infamous bug in March of 2020 before they knew much about it. I got pretty sick and was out of work for six weeks. I went to the doctor, and they wouldn’t test me for Covid because I didn’t have a high fever or shortness of breath, at the time that was all the were checking for. If you read the list of symptoms now, I had a bunch of them. I developed hives, had extreme fatigue and uncontrolled blood pressure. When I went back to work after the six weeks it was now May of 2020, I was no longer ill, but I didn’t feel like myself. I was stressed, I had extreme fatigue, I would get hives all over for no apparent reason, and I would feel like my body was burning from the inside. I literally thought I may spontaneously combust at any moment. I would cry at the drop of a hat, and I just felt crappy. However, I needed to work so I did. My first day back to work my schedule filled up for the entire month in 1 day. That was great except I didn’t have enough breaks scheduled and I’m an empath and didn’t want to cancel on anyone because I knew they needed the massage as bad as I needed to rest. With being in a career of helping people I would tend to put myself last, really, I did that in all aspects of my life and didn’t have healthy work boundaries in place. I had a hard time saying no, when someone was in need. Boundaries were something I didn’t know how to put in place until I was forced to. Circle back to my introduction of being everything to everyone all of the time.
Eventually, in October of 2020 everything came to a head. I had gone to work and still all these months later not feeling the greatest but pushing through. I left work and went home before I needed to run some errands, and my life literally flashed before my eyes. My heart rate spiked to 170bpm in a like 1 min, thanks to my Fitbit I knew what my reading was, my face went numb, and I literally said out loud, this is it, this is how I die. Thankfully I did not! I called my husband, and he came home and took me to the ER. There they said I had had a panic attack and that my blood pressure was a little high. They gave me something to relax me and sent me home. From then I had so many different doctor appointments and scans and everything was coming back normal, but I didn’t feel normal. Covid19 attacked my body and ramped up my inflammation and my body hasn’t been the same since.
I didn’t feel like myself for over 2 years, and even today I still have lingering symptoms. I’m what you would classify as a person who has long haulers also know as long covid. Even though I still have lingering symptoms I am doing much better now. I have learned that I have to keep boundaries in place to not get burned out and I know my limit on how many people I can see in a day. I have learned to give myself grace and I am much more in tune with my own body. A dear friend encouraged me to write a book about my experience, so I did, and it is available on Amazon, Restoring My Mind & Body, My Journey with Covid19. My thoughts on writing the book were that even if I could help one person not feel alone in what they were experiencing, then it was worth it to write.
These few challenges were in fact a challenge because I am a giver and my heart is always with the client first, but I can’t help them if I am running on empty. This is still a challenge for me at times, but my body reminds me to slow down and that I am just one person. I must take care of myself first, so I can continue to take care of my clients. If you are struggling with this, please make sure to check in with yourself and have good boundaries in place. Oh, and make sure to enforce them.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I own Restore & Rejuvenate Massage Therapy. I specialize in bodywork for pain relief. What does that mean, well it means if you are experiencing pain in your body whether it be from pregnancy, post op cosmetic surgery, sports injury, or bursitis, I can help you. I offer Manual Lymphatic Drainage, Sports Massage, Deep Tissue Massage, Prenatal Massage and a treatment called RAPID Neurofascial Reset. I also offer traditional Swedish massage for those who want to just relax. I would say I am known for giving one of the best deep tissue massages.
Rapid NFR is a newer treatment that I offer, and I am getting amazing result. The best part is you don’t have to get undressed for the treatment. Rapid NFR is an advanced manual therapy that stimulates the nervous system to alleviate pain, tension and restrictions in muscles, tendons, ligaments and fascia. My greatest achievement to date is helping a client restore mobility in her shoulder after she couldn’t raise her hand for 6 months due to pain. Another is helping an 89-year-old client with her bursitis pain in her hip. It is so rewarding to help people get out of pain or have less of it. I am still learning and taking more Rapid NFR classes. I haven’t been this excited about a new service in a long time. I’m also the only therapist in Daytona Beach who offers this service at this at this time.
I am most proud of my latest achievements. My business won the 2024 Daytona Beach Choice Awards for Best Massage Therapy. My business also won the 2024 Best of Florida Awards for Massage Therapists. I am so honored and blessed. Seriously, can you pinch me?!
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
I would say being humble, honest and kind. While I think it is important to know your worth and know you are good at what you do, there’s a right and wrong way to go about it. By having a modest and respectful attitude, you can go so much further with clients and business. Really just with life in general. I am not afraid to say if I need to look something up or need to refer out to another therapist. I have experienced other massage therapists get caught up with wanting to be the best and wanting to keep clients to themselves, that they forget about helping the client. If you are truly in the profession to help people, then you should do just that. Your client will respect you more for it. There is room for all of us in this industry and there are plenty of clients for all of us. I truly believe that there is enough in this world for all of us to succeed. It’s not a competition.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.massagesouthdaytona.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/restoreandrejuvenatellc?igsh=MTV1YzlwbWNjMGVtZA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/RestoreandRejuvenate2021?mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Other: https://g.co/kgs/XtCLcTB
