The Healer Within

🍂 Fall has officially arrived… which means Frankincense & Myrrh season has arrived at The Healer Within! 🍂

This is one of my favorite little seasonal changes in the massage room. As the weather gets cooler, I switch over to my Frankincense & Myrrh lotion — warm, earthy, comforting and perfect for this time of year. 🤎

There’s just something about this scent that makes a massage feel extra cozy and grounding. Add a warm table, and an hour to shut the world off… 😌🙌

Welcome to fall at The Healer Within. 🍁✨

No upcharge, no fancy add-on fee—just me getting excited that it’s Frankincense & Myrrh season again. 😂🍂

Who else LOVES the smell of Frankincense & Myrrh?

Oh how fun 🤩

“Love Takes Form” 🦢❤️

This painting definitely took me on a journey. At one point I was convinced I had completely messed it up 😂 I kept painting, covering things up, bringing colors back through, changing the wings, and learning to stop trying to make it perfect.

And somehow that feels pretty fitting for a painting about love.

Love isn’t always clean, perfect or easy. It changes shape. It gets messy. It asks us to keep showing up. And sometimes, somewhere in all those layers, something beautiful begins to take form.

I tucked a tiny red heart inside one of the spirals because, for me, love begins within. ❤️

Love Takes Form
Original painting by Brooke Hessenius ✨

✨ SENSORY REAWAKENING ✨
A massage experience for the body, mind & spirit.

While living in San Diego, California, I had the opportunity to learn Esalen-style massage, a beautiful approach to bodywork that has stayed with me throughout my career.

When I began teaching this style of massage here in the Midwest, I gave it a name that better reflected what I felt the work was truly about:

🌿 Sensory Reawakening 🌿

This isn’t just about working sore muscles.

Sensory Reawakening uses slow, flowing movements and long, connected massage strokes to create a sense of calm, connection, and awareness throughout the entire body. The intention is to help you quiet the outside noise, reconnect with yourself, and simply feel present in your body again.

I describe it as:

✨ A unique style of massage that reflects the inner you, bringing caring, emotional and energetic awareness into the massage experience.

For me, massage has never been just about muscles. After 20+ years of bodywork, I’ve learned how closely our physical bodies can be connected to stress, emotions, energy, and everything we carry through life.

Sometimes we don’t realize how disconnected we’ve become from our own bodies until we’re given the space to slow down and reconnect. 💗

That is what Sensory Reawakening is about.

🌿 Slow, flowing & nurturing
🌿 Deeply relaxing
🌿 Mind-body awareness
🌿 Intentional, connected bodywork
🌿 A chance to come back home to yourself

If you’ve been feeling stressed, disconnected, overwhelmed, or simply craving a different kind of massage experience, this may be exactly what your body has been asking for. ✨

📍 The Healer Within
💆‍♀️ Sensory Reawakening Massage
💌 Message me to schedule or ask questions

✨ OCTOBER WEEKEND MASSAGE AVAILABILITY ✨

Weekdays don’t work with your schedule? I’m opening up a few Saturday & Sunday appointments in October! 🙌💆‍♀️

🎃 October 10 & 11
🎃 October 24 & 25
⏰ 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM

Whether your body is asking for some serious muscle work, a little relaxation, or simply some time to slow down and reset — I’ve got you. 💕

Appointments are limited, so snag your spot before these weekend openings fill up!

📍 The Healer Within
💆‍♀️ Massage Therapy • Reiki • Cupping & more

📩 Message me to schedule your next massage or use my app:
https://thehealerwithin.as.me/

Come as you are. Leave feeling a little more like yourself. ✨

The Healer Within Schedule your appointment online The Healer Within

Something you may not know about me 💖

When I was 20 years old, I donated bone marrow to my brother, Joe.

Joe had been serving in Iraq when he started getting sick. Eventually, he was sent to Walter Reed, where they discovered he had leukemia. After chemo, he needed a bone marrow transplant—and I found out I was a match.

I remember being surprised that I was his match, but I didn’t have to think about whether I would do it. I said yes right away. He was my brother. I loved him. Of course I was going to do it.

There are funny little things I remember from the experience. Like nearly flipping the guy off putting the IV in my hand because it hurt 😂. After the procedure, I threw up like crazy from the anesthesia and walked like a penguin for a while.

But one of my favorite memories was waking up and being able to watch Joe in the other hospital bed receiving my bone marrow. 💖 There was something incredibly cool and beautiful about actually seeing a part of me being given to my brother.

Unfortunately, his leukemia returned.

In 2007, I was able to donate to him again—this time my stem cells. That was a completely different experience. I sat in a chair for about four hours with a needle in each arm. Blood came out of one arm, went through a machine that collected what they needed, and then went back into my other arm. I couldn’t just get up and take a bathroom break either—if we stopped, I might have had to come back and try again another day. 😂 So I stayed put. Whenever I got cold, they’d pile warm blankets on me, and apparently that was all I needed to sneak in a few naps.

At the time, people would tell me how brave I was or how amazing it was that I did that for my brother.

And I genuinely didn’t understand it.

I remember thinking, Wouldn’t anyone do this for their family? Wouldn’t you do it for someone you love?

Joe was my big brother, and I loved him. I still miss his jokes, hearing him sing karaoke, and getting rides to school in his green 1950 Buick(The Green Pickle lol). Those are some of the little memories that still make me smile. 💖

Joe ultimately lost his battle with leukemia on December 20, 2009.

It’s taken getting older for me to look back at that 20-year-old girl differently. Back then, I didn’t think what I was doing was brave. I didn’t think of it as a sacrifice. I was simply doing something for my brother because I had something his body needed and I could give it to him.

Today, I can recognize that maybe it was a pretty big thing.

But if I could go back and ask that 20-year-old girl to do it again?

She wouldn’t hesitate. And neither would I. 💖

💖

Yesterday marked 4 YEARS since I opened The Healer Within ✨💝 and 3 YEARS since my business found its home alongside my beautiful friends, Molly & Kim Mama!

Four years ago, I took a leap and created The Healer Within. I don’t think I could have known then everything these four years would bring—the growth, the healing, the amazing people who have walked through my door, and how much I would grow right alongside my business.

And for the last three years, I’ve been lucky enough to do it beside two women I absolutely adore. 💕 Molly & Kim, thank you for the friendship, support, encouragement, laughs, listening ears, and for creating a space where I can completely be myself.

There’s something really special about going to work every day and being surrounded by friends who feel like family. 🥰

4 years of The Healer Within.
3 years together.
20+ years of doing what I love. 💆‍♀️✨

I’m incredibly grateful for every client who has trusted me, supported my little business, referred someone to me, shared a post, voted for me, or simply walked through my door. You are the reason I get to keep doing what I love.

And I’m pretty damn proud of how far The Healer Within has come. 💝

Here’s to everything still to come! ✨

🔥 LET’S TALK FIRE CUPPING! 🔥

It may look a little intense…but fire cupping can feel AMAZING. 🙌🏻

Fire cupping is a traditional technique where heat is briefly used inside a glass cup to create suction before the cup is placed on the skin. The flame never touches you. The suction gently lifts the tissue rather than pressing down into it like traditional massage.

✨ Fire cupping may help:

• Ease tight, achy muscles
• Encourage blood flow to the area
• Create space and movement within the tissue
• Support relaxation and recovery
• Give those stubborn areas a different kind of attention when massage alone just isn’t cutting it

And yes…those famous cupping circles can happen! They’re caused by the suction and can range from light pink to darker red or purple depending on the person and area. They typically fade on their own.

One thing I love about cupping is that more color does NOT mean “more toxins.” The marks are a response to the suction and changes in blood flow beneath the skin—not toxins being pulled out of the body.

🔥 And don’t worry—the fire is used to create the suction inside the cup and is removed BEFORE the cup touches your skin.

If you’ve ever been curious about fire cupping, ask me about adding it to your next session!

🔥🔥 Who’s brave enough to try it? 😏

60 minutes $80
90 minutes $110
2 hour $160
6/ 60 minute massage packet $420
6/ 90 minute massage packet $600

💖💕💖💕💖💕💖

When I taught massage, I used to give my students an assignment called “Who Am I?”

It sounded like a simple question.

It wasn’t.

I wanted them to look beyond their name, their job, their relationships, and all the titles they carried. I wanted them to look inward and ask themselves who they really were.

So, after all these years, I thought maybe it was time I did the assignment again for myself.

Who am I?

I’m Brooke.

I’m a wife. A mom. A massage therapist. A Reiki Master. An intuitive. An artist. A teacher. A friend. And a woman who has lived enough life to understand that healing doesn’t always look the way we expect it to.

I’m someone who feels things deeply.

I’m curious about people—not just where they hurt, but why they hurt. I want to understand the story the body is carrying, the emotions underneath it, and the person underneath all of that.

I’ve spent more than 20 years putting my hands on people’s shoulders, backs, feet and tired bodies. But somewhere along the way, I realized people don’t only come through my door carrying tight muscles.

They carry stress. Grief. Change. Fear. Hope. Exhaustion. Sometimes they simply need an hour where nobody needs anything from them.

And I get the privilege of holding space for that.

I’m also still figuring myself out.

I’m still growing. Still healing. Still learning when to hold on and when to let go. Still learning to trust myself. Still finding pieces of myself I didn’t know I’d lost.

I love deeply. I laugh loudly. I create things when words aren’t enough. I believe there’s more to us than what we can see, and I believe our bodies have an incredible way of telling us when something needs our attention.

At home, I’m surrounded by my husband, our two kids, two dogs, two cats, and plenty of chaos. 😂 And apparently Moon has decided he deserves a place in my professional headshot.

So who am I?

I don’t think I’m just one thing.

I’m a healer who is still healing.
A teacher who is still learning.
An intuitive who is still learning to trust herself.
An artist who sometimes says through color what she can’t say out loud.
And a human being trying to leave people feeling a little more seen than they did before they met me.

That’s the woman behind The Healer Within.

And maybe that’s why I chose that name all those years ago.

Because ultimately, I don’t believe I’m the healer.

I believe the healer is already within you. 🤍

So now I’m giving you the assignment: without telling me what you do for a living… who are you?

When I taught massage, I used to give my students an assignment called “Who Am I?”

It sounded like a simple question.

It wasn’t.

I wanted them to look beyond their name, their job, their relationships, and all the titles they carried. I wanted them to look inward and ask themselves who they really were.

So, after all these years, I thought maybe it was time I did the assignment again for myself.

Who am I?

I’m Brooke.

I’m a wife. A mom. A massage therapist. A Reiki Master. An intuitive. An artist. A teacher. A friend. And a woman who has lived enough life to understand that healing doesn’t always look the way we expect it to.

I’m someone who feels things deeply.

I’m curious about people—not just where they hurt, but why they hurt. I want to understand the story the body is carrying, the emotions underneath it, and the person underneath all of that.

I’ve spent more than 20 years putting my hands on people’s shoulders, backs, feet and tired bodies. But somewhere along the way, I realized people don’t only come through my door carrying tight muscles.

They carry stress. Grief. Change. Fear. Hope. Exhaustion. Sometimes they simply need an hour where nobody needs anything from them.

And I get the privilege of holding space for that.

I’m also still figuring myself out.

I’m still growing. Still healing. Still learning when to hold on and when to let go. Still learning to trust myself. Still finding pieces of myself I didn’t know I’d lost.

I love deeply. I laugh loudly. I create things when words aren’t enough. I believe there’s more to us than what we can see, and I believe our bodies have an incredible way of telling us when something needs our attention.

At home, I’m surrounded by my husband, our two kids, two dogs, two cats, and plenty of chaos. 😂 And apparently Moon has decided he deserves a place in my professional headshot.

So who am I?

I don’t think I’m just one thing.

I’m a healer who is still healing.
A teacher who is still learning.
An intuitive who is still learning to trust herself.
An artist who sometimes says through color what she can’t say out loud.
And a human being trying to leave people feeling a little more seen than they did before they met me.

That’s the woman behind The Healer Within.

And maybe that’s why I chose that name all those years ago.

Because ultimately, I don’t believe I’m the healer.

I believe the healer is already within you. 🤍

So now I’m giving you the assignment: without telling me what you do for a living… who are you?

Weekend Massages!!!!

✨ I’ll be in the studio on the following Saturdays & Sundays from 9:00 AM–3:00 PM:

☀️Saturday, September 12
☀️Sunday, September 13
☀️Saturday, September 26
☀️Sunday, September 27

If you’ve been meaning to book a massage, Reiki session, or intuitive healing session, now’s a great time to reserve your spot.

Message me @ 712-541-0194 or use my app to schedule your appointment. I can’t wait to see you!

The Healer Within Schedule your appointment online The Healer Within