04/13/2026
I’m going to tell you how this place actually came to exist👀
In 2020 I opened my first studio. Invested everything. Every penny, every card, every ounce of belief I had.
Then Covid hit. And it didn’t work out.
I had to close, pick up other work, and spend the next couple of years digging myself out of the financial hole that dream left behind. That was humbling in ways I’m still processing.
I ended up in sales. Then I found a job that blended massage and sales together — and for a while, the money was good.
But I was giving massages in a draining and toxic environment.
And I realized pretty quickly — most people there weren’t trying to heal. They weren’t looking for what I had to offer. I felt like another form of escape. Another vice. They weren’t taking the depth of this work seriously, and I could feel it.
Every shift I clocked in, something in me braced.
Then one day my mom asked me to meet her at an old building in a transitioning neighborhood in DC, and told me she was turning it into a wellness center.
I was skeptical. Exhausted. Scared to fail again.
But I couldn’t help but see it.
As each room was transformed, each wall was painted and each brick was laid — I felt something wake back up in me.
As the excitement grew, the misalignment with my job grew faster, and louder.
Eventually, they fired me.😅
And, honestly? I felt relief.
And so The Zen Den was reawakened. And bigger than that — the Wellness Oasis on Kennedy was born.
It has been hard. I’ve yelled. I’ve cried. I’ve felt powerless and overwhelmed and completely drained. And somehow we keep showing up.
We’re not trying to do this fast. We’re not trying to do this big.
We’re doing it slow. Intentional. Authentic. True to our roots.
And every single day we’re learning how to build something healing — in a way that doesn’t break us in the process.
Thank you to my mom for seeing it first. ❤️
The Wellness Oasis on Kennedy is more than just a wellness center. It’s a familial legacy.
