Healing Hands

By AMY SATTERWHITE / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

In addition to offering clients the relaxing benefits of massage, licensed massage therapist Nicki Lawrence Hopkins offers natural health advice. Healing Hands, which is located in the Plaza Shopping Center, can be reached by calling 473-9220.

Americans are more stressed out and have more unhealthy eating habits than ever.

That is licensed massage therapist Nicki Lawrence-Hopkins’ assessment after spending the past six years helping to allay the stressful aspects of modern life.

Lawrence-Hopkins, who owns Healing Hands in the Plaza Shopping Center, opened her businesses working as a massage therapist six years ago at that location. She sees first hand the toll that working too much and eating too many of the wrong things can have on the human body and is keenly aware that many people simply are not educated when it comes to proper nutrition.

And when the massage therapist says she noticed the effects of working too hard, not only on others, but on her own body, she added natural health training to her repertoire.

She began a three-year journey to become a doctor of naturopathy so that could help others more effectively in conjunction with massage therapy. She is expecting to complete that program, which deals with healing the body in natural ways, in a few weeks.

It’s something she says works for her, and which has given her the ability to pass on the knowledge with confidence.

“Once I started trying those things – eating more fruits, vegetables, drinking water – I started feeling better. It made a major difference in my body and how I felt, mentally, physically and spiritually. And now, when my clients come in, I can help them,” she said of the impact of natural health on her life.

From offering massages to recommending some clients take Yoga classes, her goal in some cases is to help people become active participants in their own health.

“I can give them all this information and they can follow it if they want to,” she added.

As a college graduate who studied psychology, she said was always interested in the health field and decided massage was her way to go. And massage is still what it was to her when she began six years ago, a way to help others.

After taking 500 hours of education and hands-on training and completing a test, she was licensed, although she was careful to say she does not diagnose illnesses but can work with those who are already under a physician’s care.

“It’s rewarding,” she said of massage therapy. “People call me and say that I help them feel good, so it’s rewarding.”