Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicole Lerario.
Hi Nicole, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I received my first massage when I was 16 years old. From that moment, I knew that this was the work I wanted to do. But at age 16, I also wanted to go into theater and be on the stage, so I did that first. I’m glad I did, because the conservatory schooling I had at Theater School, combined with my previous experience in athletics, gave me an experience-based understanding of the body.
Shortly after 9/11, when I was living in NYC and enjoying my work as a theatrical director and producer, I knew it was time to get serious. People needed relief – physically and emotionally. It was time to return to school for Massage Therapy.
I saved some money and graduated from the Finger Lakes School of Massage in Ithaca, NY in 2007. I knew when I went to school that the goal was to work for myself. Right after school, I had the opportunity to move to the Jersey shore. I started networking, and within a year, I was full-time on my own, having started my own company, A Kneaded Vacation Massage.
I started off as an in-home massage service. A few years later, still building and networking, I was able to start sharing a part-time space to build an office-based clientele. It wasn’t until 2016 that I was fully in the office, having closed my in-home service. In 2019, I hired my first therapist.I currently have 2 therapists who have also been practicing as long (or longer) than myself and we have a reputation in the area for our therapeutic work.
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?
There are always challenges in every business. In 2020, we were not allowed to work for almost 4 months (though when we did, we were busier than ever). My office was flooded twice, and we’ve had to do renovations. Staffing is always an issue, especially when you maintain high standards for your staff, and people come and go for a variety of reasons. But we’ve met every challenge stronger because we know our goals and values.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
If you approach massage therapy in a purely mechanical way, then it’s going to feel mechanical. What I love about having an arts background (as do all of my staff) is that we approach the body and the sessions with curiosity. I think the baseline of any good therapeutic massage, besides having an understanding of the anatomy and how it works as a unit, not just as a lower back or a leg, is that you take everything you know, everything you feel, all the modalities you’ve learned, and you meld them all together to create a session. It is the very height of creativity because it allows for exploration and discovery and incorporates the client’s feedback and experience as part of the overall healing process. It was explained to me years ago that there’s an overlap between creative arts and healing arts – and it really is true. I feel all healers are creative types.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. You have to incorporate the energy of likeability and trust because we’re not just physical beings – everyone in the room has thoughts, emotions, and experiences they may or may not tell you about. So understanding the fuller realm of connection is vitally important to allowing the work to be received. Also, you have to know what you’re working on and why you’re working in the manner or modality you are using, which really becomes an integrative session every single time. You as a therapist get to lead your client into what they need, because most people don;t know and shouldn’t really, because the therapist is the one who keeps honing their skills, even 2 decades later.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.AKneadedVacation.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/akneadedvacation
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/akneadedvacationmassage
