Today we’d like to introduce you to Stacey Ramsower.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I began the process of becoming a healer over twenty years ago with a VHS tape. My first experience with yoga was simple and innocent and also very profound. It was a hobby for me, something that very few of my peers were interested in or aware of, and so to seek out time and solitude to practice breathing and moving my body in a sensitive way felt really sacred. I never lost that, and I ardently defend the sacred nature of the practice because of this experience.
My first real yoga teacher introduced me to a technique called Somatic Experiencing which directly impacted my personal experience with an eating disorder. She imparted this incredible tool that wasn’t athletic or cerebral, but visceral. Suddenly I had a vocabulary to share with others WHY moving and breathing consciously were healing practices and HOW to use those practices specifically.
After fifteen years of teaching and experimenting with my own healing journey (moving through patterns of addiction and co-dependency, numerous physical injuries) I shifted focus from teaching yoga asana classes to mentoring women and training yoga teachers. In 2016, I became a birth doula and saw the deep need for healing in our culture around sexuality, physical and emotional intimacy, and partnership.
I now have a business built around the healing system of Ayurveda, which asserts that food, sleep, and sex are the keys to total wellness. This allows me to offer and curate practical healing strategies to most people, but particularly folks who are seeking more intimacy in their life and are willing to confront long-standing patterns of perfectionism and pain on a physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual level.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The road is never smooth if you’re paving your own way. There are huge rocks to move out of the way, and that’s how you become an expert. I’m learning this big time in my marriage! Commitment means you stay and figure out how to get that rock out of the way. I’m indebted to my teachers and collaborators for shining light on this fact, for being examples of healthy relationship and collaboration. It can be really hard to stay the course when you try to go it alone. You have to have others reflecting back the progress, the growth – both obvious and subtle – that come with persistence. As someone who teaches from a deeply personal place, whose “offering” is my empathy, the biggest struggle has been setting healthy boundaries – protecting the integrity of my work. As a culture, we praise effort over ease and also treat sensitive leaders like doormats. I think women are very often taken advantage of because of an emotional capacity, and the human need for real connection that gets confused in a “productivity” based economy. It’s a struggle to stay open-hearted and say no to those you sense have ulterior motives. This is a little vague, but I think any person creating from a personal, love-based place will know exactly what I mean.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into your business story. Tell us more about the business.
In the truest sense, I am a doula: I work in service of deep healing through transformation. I support women and couples through transitions. That looks like attending births and postpartum healing, as well as curating protocols for people struggling with addiction, chronic pain, exhaustion and overwhelm or finding pleasure in sex. I specialize in somatic experiencing, not the codified technique created by Peter Levine, but the process of bridging the gap between what the mind perceives and what the body actually knows. This disconnect is the root of most disease and certainly our emotional hang-ups. It’s not as easy as going to yoga class until you can get your foot behind your head, because the physical body has instinctive, primal needs that our ego tries to override. I’m an expert in calling bullshit on avoidance behavior and simultaneously lending a compassionate ear. As a doula, I am most proud of the fact that my clients refer to me as a safe space, because I think that’s what we’re all looking for at the end of the day. I’m not afraid to be woo woo. I think that a lack of the woo is the reason most people aren’t healing, honestly, why we’re struggling as a society in a real way; we’re not willing to give up a little control and concede that there are mystical forces at work. It’s taken me a while to feel really confident in that piece of my work, but this IS my work – honoring the body as something sacred so that we can feel better, live better, be better.
Do you have a lesson or advice you’d like to share with young women just starting out?
Girl, TRUST yourself. Tune into that part of you that wants to taste everything, in a literal and figurative sense. Eat real food, go to bed at 10 pm, and move your body every day. Learn the rhythms of your body and do not try to keep pace with anybody else. Look at the moon and sync up with that magnificent wisdom – you are not a machine. The cyclical nature of your body, mind, and desires is the key to getting what you want and creating something you can truly sustain. Life is an ebb and flow, and when you have a sense of trust in that, you will also have a sense of structure and stability within yourself. It’s when we fight ourselves that we feel out of balance. When we honor the fact that at certain times of the month we need more sleep and other times of the month we need more exercise, when we surround ourselves with people who respect that biological reality, life flows. Trusting yourself means trusting nature – she’s brilliant. It’s the ultimate form of feminism.
Pricing:
- Private Yoga Instruction – $100
- Somatic Sessions – $125
- Birth + Postpartum Doula Services – $750-$900
Contact Info:
- Website: www.staceymoves.com
- Email: staceymoves@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/staceymoves
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/staceymoves
Image Credit:
Anthony Rodriguez – AR Expressions
Getting in touch: VoyageHouston is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
