Hello,
My name is Isi. I am a Licensed Massage Therapist and a Yoga Instructor. My Uplyft Wellness journey ultimately began in 2016, and I know it’s not over yet.
January 2016 – I was a brand new student at Brigham Young University (BYU), and life was going well. I was excited for my classes and enjoyed my job. But life is never perfect, and I was soon overcome with a crippling combination of depression and anxiety. The high academic expectations I had placed on myself were shattered as I had to drop more than half of my credit load within a matter of weeks. It became harder and harder to maintain social relationships because I was emotionally numb. To deal with the emptiness and negative self talk, I began self harming and had thoughts of suicide. The strong, successful woman I had been was gone. I was hopeless and devastated. I felt more alone, lost, and afraid of myself than ever before. I was afraid that I would never come out of the suffocating darkness I felt enveloping me every day.
Through a Grace I can only attribute to a Divine God in Heaven, I found my way out. It was a painfully slow journey that still threatens to swallow me to this day, but I survived, and I owe it all to His Loving Grace and the Angels he sent to walk beside me.
One of the few classes I was able to keep while at BYU was an evening yoga class. It became my light in the dark each week. It became my safe haven. I was able to feel some of the emotions I had gone numb to. And it was the one place where I felt free from the fears of failure and the negative judgments that riddled my mind each day. I felt like I could be myself. I felt peace. And I knew, then, that I wanted to become a yoga instructor. My life had new purpose. It was still really hard, and I was still struggling, but I had something to look forward to. In August, a few months later, I completed my 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training with one of the local yoga studios in Provo, Utah, and by October, I was teaching yoga once a week at church.
In November of 2016, I met one of God’s Angels sent to earth to help me on my Uplyft Wellness Journey. I started dating a handsome young CNA at the senior living center where I worked. Shortly after Christmas, we both found new jobs. His new job was much more physically strenuous and being a good girlfriend, I would give him a massage every once in a while. During one such massage, I had a very clear thought come into my mind encouraging me to look into schooling to become a Massage Therapist. I told him about it, and together we talked to the admissions counselor at Cortiva Institute in Orem, Utah. We both came out of that interview feeling really good about the opportunities there, and I signed up for the full time October 2017 program.
I learned an incredible amount while I was in school. And it was there that I decided I wanted to marry my love of yoga, and my new found passion for massage therapy into one place. I felt the difference that receiving regular massages was making in my life. I was happier. I was more confident. My body felt better. My mind was clearer and more active even studying was easier than it had been in previous college endeavors. I knew this was a lifestyle pursuit that I wanted for myself, and I wanted the people around me to have it too. And so Uplyft Wellness was born.
Here we are now more than halfway through 2018, and this cute man has been by my side ever since we first met. He and I got married a month into the massage program. He encourages me to practice yoga, has taken many, many yoga photos, and received lots of practice massages while I was in school. Now he is supporting me in my dream to make Uplyft Wellness more than a personal journey as I work to make it a business where I can help others receive similar benefits from Yoga and Massage that I have.
Uplyft Wellness is a brand new baby business, but I have big plans for her in the future. And I’m excited to share this journey with my wonderful husband and all of you. Thank you for being a part my Uplyft Wellness journey. May my journey become your journey as we lift each other and the community together.