I’m starting this post with this photo that shows Mya and I were obviously and clearly working during our annual work retreat at the Boulders resort just north of Scottsdale.  We actually accomplished quite a bit mapping out our schedule for the rest of the year and setting goals for 2015.

We’ve been blessed with what I would call perfect timing.  Mya and I first met when she was living and working in Phoenix as a PT and beginning her Myofascial Release training.  She got an opportunity of a lifetime as a therapist and was offered a job at the prestigious Therapy On the Rocks in Sedona–one of two nationwide John Barnes Myofascial Release clinics.  After spending a year working and developing there, she returned to Phoenix primarily because Sedona wasn’t the best place for her family and children to thrive.

Here’s the kicker though–she moved back right about the same time that I closed the largish clinic I’d been exhausting and draining myself managing for 18.5 years.  I had recently relocated to my current, solo, darling location which turned out was just a couple of miles away from the location she’d been given special dispensation from her non-compete agreement, to restart her practice.

In typical Mya fashion, she contacted me concerned she was “intruding” on my “territory”.  Immediately I felt and said “absolutely not, but we’re going to collaborate”.  And we did.  I was alone as a therapist for the first time in almost two decades and I needed professional support and connection.

sorry so blurry but I love the energy in this photo

It’s been over two years now and Mya and I have developed a seamless working relationship.  We co treat (which means two therapists treating the same person at the same time) one day a month, at least.  We’ve also developed what we call an “Accelerated Program” where people come for 3 sessions per day–2 individual sessions with each of us and 1 co treatment.

We’ve had people sign on for that program for 1 or 2 weeks and come from out of town just for treatment with us.  We designed this program to also flow with Therapy on the Rocks Intensive program and some have used it as a way to ease in or out of that more intense therapeutic experience. With no advertising and virtually no promotion we’ve flourished.  Simply word of mouth.  We don’t even have a handout for our collaborations which is one of the goals we discussed.

So, you see, among the cranberry sparklers and spa treatments and room service, we really did use this as our focused planning time.  And bonding time.  Which is also part of our professional connection!

Not to brag, but to appreciate, if I had an opportunity to be treated by Mya and I in a co treatment, I’d sign up every month.  We have this seamless connection, have never, not once, experienced a power struggle or ego dynamic. We both respect and trust each other equally and often we hear “I felt like one person was working on me with four hands” which is entirely descriptive of what it feels like on my end. 

We often train in MFR seminars to choose a leader for the multiple therapist treatment techniques but we’ve never done that.  The leadership shifts and morphs during the treatment.  It’s like a perfect improv dance.  If one gets an idea and says “what do you think about this?” in terms of the direction to go in the treatment, the other just flows right with it “great idea”.

I think I sometimes take this connection for granted because I do think it’s exceedingly rare.

Our friendship is very similar.  We both talk and we both listen.  We spent HOURS over this weekend sharing, long stories, deep stories, tears, laughter, covering every emotion on the spectrum.  I think it’s a pretty amazing friendship/professional relationship and one that is very very unusual and special to find.  I have never, not once, had a moment of conflict with Mya–on the inside or outside.  It’s astonishing really!

On our full Saturday there, we went for yoga class, a two hour workout in the gym then spa treatments.   I booked this Ayurvedic treatment I’d been wanting to try.  We’d decided we wanted to go later in the day and lo and behold they offered a 20% discount for all treatments after 3pm.  Perfect!

Here is the description of what I got: