Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Rydwansky.
Sarah, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
As a child and teen, I never had a clear indication of what I wanted to be when I grew up. In high school, a combination of things happened that allowed me to complete college courses while still attending regular school. This put me in line to graduate a year early and with no real feel for a direction so I took the first offer that came along and that was Culinary School. Johnson and Wales were piloting an early admission program and I reluctantly agreed. In culinary I was far more interested in nutrition than classical cooking and simultaneously I began going to the local South Shore YMCA to exercise. Being around immense amounts of decadent food, and being required to consume it regularly as part of the curriculum lit a fire under me to work out. Turns out that was the best thing that could have happened. At the Y, I met a trainer who befriended me and convinced me to train with him in the Ys new high-intensity nautilus program. This was also a pilot program taking the classic circuit training model and ramping it up to really high weights for low repetitions. I had never experienced anything quite like it and found I was naturally very strong. My friendship with the trainer grew and we became workout partners. He taught me all about bodybuilding and I fell in love with it. I had also started working on the fitness floor part-time as a nautilus trainer. I knew I wanted to continue my education beyond culinary and exercise really hit home. I found an exercise science program at Bridgewater State University and began taking classes. At the same time, I decided to go ahead and get my personal training certification and start working professionally in the industry while earning my degree. At this time the YMCA had just purchased the Mill Pond Tennis Club in Hanover, MA. There was one trainer working there and I thought it was a great opportunity for me to grow my business. Things on a professional level were really shaping up nicely. However, over this timespan, my personal health really started to decline. As much as I was working out and really concentrating on my nutrition and fitness, I was tired, bloated, putting weight on and really felt physically and mentally awful most of the time. I started falling asleep in my classes and really began dreading having to exert myself in any way. The last thing I wanted to do was put on spandex, get up in front of people and teach about exercise. For a few years, I tried to convince myself that it was all on my head. I thought I just wasn’t disciplined enough. I was 20 years old. I shouldn’t be tired or overweight. I was still lifting all of the time, teaching spin classes and boot camps, training clients and going to school full-time. I thought I should be able to handle it. Wrong. After reaching the end of my rope – which came through one last embarrassing bathroom related accident – I went to my doctor and explained what was going on. After many, many invasive tests I was diagnosed with an acute bacterial infection brought on by years of taking antibiotics for my acne. Thankfully my primary doctor at that time was a homeopathic specialist and immediately encouraged me to start taking probiotics that were a newly adopted treatment in the medical field at that time.
While I was relieved that I had a diagnosis and it wasn’t all in my head it took almost the next ten years to fully recover. Over those next ten years my life changed dramatically. I literally couldn’t do what I thought I wanted to do with my own body. I could train clients and get them into the best condition and shape of their lives but I couldn’t do it for myself. To say this was emotionally and mentally challenging would be an understatement. Those ten years introduced me to the concept of being gentle with the body and learning about the value of rest, recovery, and self – care. This way of viewing the body was totally foreign to me. I grew up in a household that only valued non – stop hard work until illness makes you rest and my education was based in increasing physical performance. I was accustomed to being known as the toughest trainer in the gym. This was a huge departure that forced me to shift my perspectives about the body and mind.
At that 10-year mark, I knew I needed to change the direction of my body-based work. I decided to enroll in massage therapy school, Cortiva Institute in Watertown, MA. I had no idea how to handle, treat or touch the body for healing purposes beyond stretching. More importantly, I needed guidance on how to change my thinking in regards to the body, performance and recovery. Massage school was the first real experience of alternative healing therapies that I had been exposed to. It broadened my knowledge of the human body in a way that basic biology, physiology, and kinesiology did not. Massage fit seamlessly with the training client base I had built and for the next three years, I practiced my skills on a physical level mixing it in with in-home training and massage. At this time my primary focus was still very hands-on, physical movement and tissue manipulation based. Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to experience next.
At 33, I had what I came to understand years later was, a spiritual awakening. The catalyst was a strange and tumultuous relationship I entered into with a man who exposed me to some teachings that rocked my world and pushed me mentally to reexamine what I thought I knew to be true. I literally felt my entire world had turned upside down. It wasn’t a gentle or uplifting experience as some might expect a spiritual awakening to be. It literally brought me to my knees repeatedly and led to me running away to California for a short time. Miraculously throughout this time, my client base stayed with me. I was able to train them from the west coast via face time and Skype and flew home a few times during my California whirlwind to massage and keep my business afloat.
Between 33 and 35 I entered into what I can describe as a self-directed study on anything and everything that would help me to understand what was happening to me. I read countless books and sought out spiritual teachers, psychics, psychologists, and shamans; anyone who I thought might shed some light on what was going on with my mind, body, emotions and spirit. Honestly, at the time I thought I was truly loosing my mind and I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to live in this internal upheaval for very long. I needed answers and reasons for what was happening to my mind and life.
Along with my mind, my body was failing me in all kinds of new ways. For three Januarys in a row, my hair fell out and grew back in grey. I had never been so physically ill in my life with flus and colds. I threw out my back, tore my shoulder and had a childhood knee injury flare so much it stopped me from working out altogether and made massage a serious challenge. I had a realization that what was happening in my mind and emotions were coming out through my body. This revelation opened up an entirely new avenue of looking at pain, illness and body function for me. It was the pathway to answers that I had been searching for.
The next phase and direction of my bodywork had presented. I started researching and studying the connection between the mind and emotions and how these play out in the body. What I found and continue to find takes the popularized mind-body or mindfulness movement and takes it to the next level. I came to understand more about the brain and how our stress responses wire into certain body postures and how they affect the function or dysfunction of the physical, mental and emotional bodies. I became certified in Postural Neurology and immediately began applying what I learned about the central nervous system, trapped trauma patterns and stress responses to physical training and massage. I personally had never experienced such profound real and positive internal and external changes and I wanted to share them with my clients. This is what Unbounded Body, Mind & Soul is founded on; freeing the body to be, move, look, and feel its authentic and unified best.
After years of fighting, searching, and questioning I have learned to more often give over to the process within that is always unfolding whether I initially understand and like it or not. I have found it is best to curiously cooperate rather than stubbornly rally against. Cognitive understanding usually follows and the physical results can be mind-blowing. Unbounded Body, Mind & Soul is a place for people to explore, recognize and work with their unique internal communication.
What I am constantly being taught in deeper and deeper ways is that to really understand freedom sometimes we must fully see and realize the cage we are in. Our bodies are talking to us and handing over the keys. If we learn how to listen and use those keys freedom is ours.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Unbounded Body, Mind & Soul – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
At Unbounded Body, Mind & Soul, I pick up where most leave off. I describe my techniques as experimental exercise, Postural rewiring, structural strength, explorative somatic massage and restorative myofascial release.
Most people who are walking through my door have “tried everything”. They don’t fit a mold and are deeply frustrated and dissatisfied with the lack of results from regular/popular exercise and diet routes or are chronically injured, in pain have given up on traditional physical therapy and will try almost anything to get some relief. Most people I meet are a combination of the two. I take a full spectrum approach and look holistically at the physical, mental and emotional landscape of each individual person. From there we work together to find movements patterns and bodywork techniques that help to rewire the communication between the brain and the body to a healthier, more functionally beneficial and pain-free state.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I love that the Boston area is primed for growth. We have been known as the puritanical granite grid on the east coast and I find that to be a great opportunity for change and expansion. To tap into a stuck place and facilitate growth is exciting stuff.
In the same vein, breaking through hundreds of years of cemented tradition can be tough. If one isn’t solidly grounded and internally confident, Boston can suck the open-minded life right out of you.
Pricing:
- $80 – 60 Minute Structural Strength Training Session
- $95 – 60 Minute Deep Tissue Somatic Massage
- $135 – 90 Minute Deep Tissue Somatic Massage
- $ 150 – 90 Minute Health Coaching Session
Contact Info:
- Address: 208 Broadway, Hanover MA 02339
- Website: www.unboundedbody.com
- Phone: 617-285-3030
- Email: sarah@unboundedbody.com
- Facebook: @unboundedbody
Getting in touch: BostonVoyager 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.
