Tamra Holder, LMT

12/10/2025

PAUSE TO INTEGRATE CUZ CHANGE KEEPS A COM’N

I’m standing in the kitchen and I'm drawing a knife blade through red leathery skin. It’s the red leathery skin of a softball-sized pomegranate. The first of its size this season.

GETTING IT REAL RATHER THAN RIGHT
I know if I took more time and drew the blade a little more slowly, I could, if I wanted, precisely cut through the thickness of the skin only and protect each and every juice filled jewel. But, I don’t because encountering this fruit’s treasure and allowing some of it’s blood-red juice to spritz the counter top and the white brick wall, and trickle along the knife blade onto my hand is pure ritual.

ORDINARY PLEASURE AS GIFT
And the time it takes to excavate all the little juice packets with my fingers; separate them from their membranes and free them from their pith…well, it’s a luxury, an exquisite gift I give myself, give to my senses. It is an ordinary pleasure that is sacred too. And in this, I know I belong.

PAUSING FOR INTEGRATION IS A PATH TO WISDOM
If you’ve felt anxious, worried about the future, overwhelmed by disheartening events, the chaotic nature of it all, the intensity and the speed of change this year, you’re likely not up for more change work. I get it! That’s why I’m welcoming you to a nurturing, integrative massage session.

FROM FRACTURED TO WHOLENESS
I invite you to sink a little deeper into your body through the power of touch. Integration is a vital part of growth and transformation. It helps you digest and anchor life's experiences and lessons with previous one’s and receive new insights that can become integrated wisdom, rather than exist as isolated events. Integration also helps unify your physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions helping you move from fractured states into wholeness (presence).

Click here to get $15 OFF Integrative Massage
https://www.massagebook.com/TamraHolderLMT/massage/deals/-15-OFF-Integrative-Massage/190520

I know this year has been a rough one, so please accept my gift to you of $15 off an Integrative Massage. This offer will only be available through December 31, 2025, so do not wait—I know how busy things can get this time of year. If this speaks to you, I encourage you to purchase now and schedule it for a time that will work for you in the next couple of months. Do this for yourself, it's highly unlikely that you'll regret it.

I look forward to assisting you soon so you can begin the new year in a more relaxed state and better resourced for cultivating wisdom.

Make Every Day Sacred.

In Gratitude,
Tamra Holder, LMT
Aston Kinetics Practitioner (TM)
[Photo: Zvika Shmaya, Pexels]

10/01/2025

FEELING LIKE YOUR BODY HAS FAILED YOU?

Maybe there was a time when your body worked so well you didn’t give it much thought. You were able to do what you wanted, when you wanted, but then…life happened.

As we move through sessions and make contact with the tissues that are stiff, lacking full mobility, or are painful to the touch or are painful with certain motions, your relevant history does tend to surface. You may remember the time you fell from a horse, or sprained your ankle really badly, or were hit by a car while riding a bicycle.

Experiences leave impressions, some more significantly than others. As humans when we get through these experiences, we move on and those experiences drift into the past. The impressions, though, can be quite physical, can remain in the tissues and can go unnoticed for years or even decades due to the body's incredible ability to adapt and compensate. And now, they're adding up, and you're feeling it!

In bodywork sessions, we can discover these compensation patterns, address them—release what’s held too tightly and tone up areas that have been underutilized, giving you the opportunity to reclaim, heal, and re-pattern your movement for improved function. Many clients report positively life changing results, exclaiming that they haven't felt so good or been able to move so well in years.

GET THE BODYWORK
and live the active life you want to live.

Schedule an appointment:
https://www.massagebook.com/biz/TamraHolderLMT

I'm looking forward to seeing you and helping you reclaim your active lifestyle.

Photo Credit: pexels-kindelmedia-7298631

02/08/2025

I do not authorize META, Facebook or any entity associated with Facebook to use my photos, information, messages or posts, past or future.
With this statement, I notify Facebook that it is strictly prohibited to disclose, copy, distribute or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents. Violation of privacy may be punishable by law.
Here's how to do If you are thinking of getting off FB because of the volume of sales ads and trash stuff. So hold your finger anywhere in this post and click ′copy’. Go to your page where it says ‘What's on your mind?’ Tap your finger anywhere in the blank field. Click paste. This upgrades the system.
Hello new and old friends!

The violation of privacy can be punished by law.
I HEREBY DECLARE THAT I DO NOT GIVE MY PERMISSION TO USE ANY OF MY PERSONAL DATA.

10/31/2024

Are you feeling the tension mount in yourself, in others and on the air waves? But we know that getting tied up in knots cuts us off from our higher reasoning and our ability to respond wisely. Pain and discomfort can intensify amplifying the vibration of fear in the world (think butterfly wings and the ripple effect).

So, I'm initiating a ripple of care and generosity!

Be the VERY FIRST person to purchase this gift certificate ($15 off regular price), and I will give you a cash refund at the time of your service. Then, you know how it works, you pay it forward by sending the gift certificate you purchased to someone else, and then they purchase a gift certificate and send it to someone they care about, and so on, and so on.

Tensions are rising, so there's no time to waste. Let's get you in a more relaxed state and ripple out the care and generosity. Let's create the world where we want to live.

Bodywork to neutralize the many consequences from injuries, the effects of stress on the body and to help you move through each day with more physical ease and emotional balance.

03/12/2024

IS BODYWORK FOR GRIEF? Yes. Absolutely! This is a photo of me several days into the horrendous wild fires and smoke of September 2020. My throat hurt, my heart ached, it was difficult to wrap my head around what was happening and my body was contracted and holding tension in many places. I kept working, but I too needed to pause, acknowledge, witness and feel my grief. I did some seated arcing as a way to self-massage and process my feelings utilizing movement until I felt I had a little more space to breathe and a little more capacity to be with and show up for my clients.

In February 2024 three different clients sought my help to relieve tension and ease the strains they were experiencing associated with grief and the loss of loved ones.

GRIEF ON THE PHYSICAL LEVEL
If you have ever lived with grief or seen someone close to you go through this, you might know the toll it can take on your whole system—body, mind and heart. Grief can really weigh you down. There’s a heaviness and a general tendency to carry yourself in a bit of a flexed spinal position. This position of rounded upper back and shoulders slightly rolled forward helps protect your heart which of course is affected deeply. It is tender and vulnerable and needs to be shielded from both feeling the full intensity of your own vital energy and the onslaught of everyday life in our western culture with its fast pace and high energy.

At the same time this body position limits full breathing and your neck and upper back can feel tense, painful and stiff. Since the vibrational energy of grief is low, you may not feel like moving or exercising as much and your strength and flexibility can wane, leading to muscle imbalances.

THE STRAINS OF GRIEF DON'T END AT THE PHYSICAL LEVEL
Grief can feel like an unwanted house guest that stays overly long, placing strains on every aspect of your body-being and your life. Every emotion sends a unique chemical formula into your bloodstream and because grief tends to take up residence for an extended period of time, we are vulnerable to becoming physiologically out of balance contributing to problems with sleep, depression, digestion, eating too little or too much, reaching for heavier or sweeter foods, all of which can move your system further out of balance and cause or contribute to other health issues.

Mentally, previously clear thinking can become fuzzy, unfocused. It can be difficult to concentrate or you might spacey.

HOW BODYWORK CAN SUPPORT YOU THROUGHOUT YOUR GRIEVING PROCESS
Human beings were never meant to grieve alone and it is also useful to help the body adapt throughout this process. In the absence of a present empathic other, we tend to hold and contract around difficult experiences. One of the goals of bodywork for a grieving client is to help them find the ease in their body THAT IS available and workable for now. Another is to facilitate being intentional and responding dynamically to grief as it tends to come in waves. When we work with grief rather than against it or get stuck in it, we can allow it to work it’s alchemical magic and carry us to previously unimaginable ways of being in our body and in the world.

Whatever the catalyst for grief, it has the capacity to change us on every level, but we are not meant to grieve alone. Aston Patterning is designed to help integrate all dimensions of our body-being and help us adapt to change, letting go of patterns that no longer serve and discovering new ones that allow us to tap into and express more of who we are.

So often a death, a diagnosis, a big, sudden life change challenges the perceptions we hold of ourselves and the way we see the world which is also held in the body. When we gently work with the body in a container of care that supports the process for change that wants to happen, we can safely explore new options and possibilities in small ways with no agenda or requirement to take them up. In this way we support our body-being to be exactly where it is, and to discover the way; to sort things out and choose new options in the timing that feels right.

If you or someone you know would benefit from this work while grieving or going through a life change, I am happy to support them in their process.
Connect with me here:
www.tamraholder.com/contact

02/12/2024

Now Accepting Applications for a Case Study Participant. If you’re the right person, you can receive my help for physical pain or movement dysfunction and 50% off a 4-session series. You’ll be helping me complete requirements for an advanced bodywork training. Click here to read more and see if this is for you.

A special opportunity to receive four bodywork sessions with Tamra Holder, LMT that can help you move toward resolving a physical issue or help you improve you’re ability to adapt to a physical limitation while helping Tamra complete requirements for an advanced bodywork training.

12/14/2023

My Compassionate Perspective on Posture

POSTURE IS VALUABLE AND IT CAN BE VULNERABLE
If you have had a session with me, I have probably asked your permission to view your posture as part of the information gathering process for an Aston Kinetics® bodywork session. For this type of structural work, posture offers valuable information and clues for how a client's current condition may be improved and provides a baseline for comparison after receiving this kind of bodywork that can make profound changes. And, I know how truly vulnerable it can feel to be in this spot.

Initially, many clients make a self-deprecating comment about their posture, like “I know my posture is so bad.” I see this as a way of discharging and deflecting some of the vulnerability they are likely feeling in this situation. I understand it as a fairly normal reaction and I do my best to simply be present without judgement. Today, though, I want to take one step further and share with you my compassionate perspective on posture.

THE BODY AS A LIVING RECORD
Through time, practice and personal healing experiences I have come to see the body as a living record, an expression of all that has been experienced to date. What is being expressed through posture could be compensatory holding patterns from using crutches for 8-weeks when you were in the second grade. Or that tension at the base of the skull may be from reaching the head forward toward a computer screen. Postural patterns can be created by holding a toddler on one hip while working with the other hand. Interestingly, this has consequences for the toddler's posture as well.

EXPERIENCES LEAVE IMPRESSIONS
Experiences leave impressions both subtle and gross. From this perspective, posture is a snapshot of this moment in time and reflects the un-neutralized effects from experiences that this body is currently negotiating. Since bodies have the amazing quality of plasticity, they can change.

NEUTRALIZING THE NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES
Applying the Aston methods we can rehydrate tissues that have been over working or are overly stable and we can tone areas that have been under utilized or have become overly mobile to achieve a more uniform tone throughout the body. This is one way of understanding what it means to neutralize the negative consequences of experiences and assist the body to come into better alignment which improves function.

BODY AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR EXPRESSION
In my view, you are not your body, I am not my body. The body is a vehicle, an instrument for the soul's experience and it has done an amazing job to get you and me here. Now, let's see how we may work together to help you and your unique expression shine through.

Photo: blaz-erzetic, Unsplash with excerpt from THE PONDS by Mary Oliver

05/05/2023

Is this EMOTIONAL ALCHEMY WORKSHOP, TAMING FEAR: OUT OF ANXIETY AND INTO COURAGEOUS PRESENCE for you? Changing the pattern of anxiety involves a change at every level of your body-mind system. Learn how this works within a single practice. Would someone you know be interested? If so, please share. Details and Registration here: http://tamraholder.hubspotpagebuilder.com/ea-may-workshop

05/03/2023

July’s FREE Emotional Alchemy Workshop: Establishing an Internal Secure Base So You Can Respond Rather Than React

Tamra Holder, LMT, Aston Kinetics Practitioner™ and Yoga Teacher will guide you in a practice for embodied presence and emotional transformation, leading to a peaceful heart, deeper connection and more satisfying relationships.

It happens! Something triggers you and in the blink of an eye an emotion floods your system, you say or do something that in hindsight you recognize wasn’t useful and didn’t bring about the result you truly desire, or worse, embroiled you deeper into conflict. So much happens so quickly, automatically! How is it possible to prevent, intercept, or even imagine taking a different pathway or making a new choice in that split second before it all unfolds?

For more information and to register Click this link.
https://mailchi.mp/81342491eb1c/july-2023-ea-land-page

In this 90-minute Free online workshop, we’ll create a context for cultivating an internal, secure base of support—a foundation for choosing to respond rather than react.

If you have the experience of:
• Emotional triggering that rocks you off your center.
• Losing your sense of your adult self and falling into an old childhood pattern.
• The recognition that your reaction doesn’t really match the current situation.
• Your reaction as a defensive one, or a kind of collapse or a shutting down.
• Feeling a sense that your reaction comes from a place of powerlessness and you feel powerless to change it.

You are not alone! Our conditioning comes right along with us into adulthood and can be triggered until we become conscious of what is happening and take the steps required to deactivate these landmines within us.

In this workshop you will experience a short practice that can
• Offer a way to safely ground more deeply in the body to establish a felt sense of greater support and stability, physically, mentally and psycho-emotionally.
• Help strengthen your capacity to “be with” the type of experiences that threaten to throw you off balance.
• Help to expand that split second gap before the automatic reaction pattern plays out and strengthen your capacity to hit “pause” on the automatic pattern that has been triggered.
• Create the conditions for the potential experience of the part of you that is most wise and compassionate to lead your system— a powerful tool for cultivating an internal, secure base.

Click the link below for more information and to register.
https://mailchi.mp/81342491eb1c/july-2023-ea-land-page

12/27/2022

Give yourself the gift of new possibilities in 2023.
www.tamraholder.com

Is there a goal or two you would like to achieve in 2023? An integrative bodywork session could be the perfect incentive or reward and celebration of a milestone along the way to achieving your goal.

Many times achieving a goal involves some level of change and growth. It may require a new perspective, or a new capacity may be called for, or the way we have been organized or oriented needs realignment, or a limiting belief must be reckoned with, challenged and let go.

The body is a kind of storehouse of all our previous experiences. These experiences have informed and shaped us, quite literally. Many have likely shaped us in ways that serve us and that we appreciate, while some other experiences may still be held in the tissues and literally binding us to old patterns, perceptions and beliefs. The great news is, our tissues are malleable, we can change!

To help you get off to a great start in the New Year, I offer you six dimensions that may be useful to consider as you determine what you would like to manifest and what you may need to successfully achieve your goal.

1.) Clarity of intention
2.) A viable plan
3.) Consistency, regular attention and actions
4.) Getting needed support for learning and growth
5.) Accountability and time commitment
6.) Manifestation

I hope you’ll think of me as a partner and a resource for achieving your goals and I look forward to serving you in 2023.

Wishing you a Happy New Year!
Warmly,
Tamra Holder, LMT
Visit www.tamraholder.com and click “Book Now” button > Purple Mountains Book Now Button > Gift Certificates (4) > Gift Certificate Promotions > 2022 Year End Savings.