Trauma-informed bodywork · neurodivergent friendly · LGBTQIA/trans-affirming bodywork
Kyren is thoughtful, supportive and knowledgeable. I appreciate their approach and intentionality around the care they provide. I just had my first session, which exceeded expectations and I’m looking forward to continuing treatment with them.
Tracey Sept 2024
Kyren E. Epperson, PhD, LMT, AOBTA®-CP (they/them)
Lead practitioner, Co-owner, co-founder
Kyren’s Shiatsu Bodywork Philosophy: An Exuberant Experience That Works
Welcome to a transformative experience where bodywork becomes a journey toward healing and self-discovery. My approach centers on helping you find ease within your body, guiding you to unlock the relaxation and wellness that lies within.
In the practice of Zen Shiatsu, I apply just the right amount of pressure to support your body’s natural relaxation process. This method promotes healing by soothing the nervous system and enhancing circulation. Whether you prefer a light touch or deeper and firmer pressure, the focus of each session is entirely on supporting your body’s needs in the moment, ensuring you feel relaxed and empowered throughout the session.
At the heart of my practice lies a commitment to honoring your autonomy. Together, we’ll enhance your mind-body connection and explore your unique tension patterns. By gaining a deeper understanding of the relationship between your mental, emotional, and physical states, you’ll leave each session equipped with valuable insights and tools to continue your healing journey even beyond our time together.
Every session with me is a warm invitation to find solace, ease, and empowerment as we reconnect with your body and emotions. Every moment holds the potential for healing, growth, and meaningful connection.
Join me on this enriching path to wellness, where clinical expertise meets compassion and heartfelt dedication to your holistic healing. You are warmly welcomed here—let’s embark on this journey together!
Read more about my background and approach to practice on our Practitioners page.
Kyren is trained and certified in TCM approaches to cupping, guasha, and moxibustion. Kyren incorporates these modalities into their Shiatsu Bodywork sessions when clinically indicated.
Specialties
- Recovery from burnout and emotional stress and its affects on the body: sleep, digestion, immune, and nervous system
- Support for emotional overwhelm, especially for LGBTQIA+ and neurodivergent folks
- Relief from chronic tension and pain resulting from stress
- Digestive support for problems originating from chronic tress and tension
- Grief and loss support that honors the body
- Pain relief and tension management for active individuals living with chronic pain (athletes, martial artists, movement professionals, day-laborers, service industry professionals, and others who use their body for a living).
I also offer cupping, moxibustion, guasha, and East Asian Medicine lifestyle consultations as supplements to my Shiatsu practice. I always work collaboratively with each client to determine which modalit(ies) will best work for each client.
Other Modalities
Cupping is a highly effective treatment modality for certain kinds of musculoskeletal tension as well as an effective modality for stress-reduction. By increasing the flow of blood and lymph throughout the body, cupping facilitates the body’s natural healing processes. Cupping is especially beneficial for relief from chronic pain and tension resulting from previous injury to tissue and long-term recovery from surgery. Cupping has also shown to beneficial for digestion through activating the parasympathetic nervous system (rest & digest), which increases blood flow to the digestive system. Cupping therapy has numerous other benefits, especially when applied through the therapeutic lens of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
Guasha is modality that is highly effective at reducing muscular tension and increasing local circulation, which benefits the immune system, nervous system, and more. Guasha is a traditional Chinese and Japanese healing modality that involves using ceramic, metal, or stone tools to engage in a gentle scraping-like massage technique on the surface of the skin. This highly effective modality is what inspired the now-popular (and trademarked) Graston technique in massage therapy. This modality can be especially helpful for breaking up muscular adhesions scar tissue.
Moxibustion is a heat-based therapy that involves burning the herb mugwort over acupoints. Kyren uses micro sticks that adhere to the skin with a protective barrier allowing the heat-based technique to penetrate the fascia through the acupoint, allowing for minimal scent-impact. Kyren has found this therapy to be highly effective for supporting sleep and digestion, as well as increasing overall energy and relief from chronic pain, especially in the colder months of the year.
What have clients said about Shiatsu with Kyren?
“Had my first shiatsu session with Kyren and it was magical. The attention to detail is outstanding, and I couldn’t have been happier with how I felt by the end. Highly recommend!” Jill (Jan 2024)
“I always feel taken care of, and I always feel better after a treatment with Kyren.” Karen (Nov 2023)
“This was my first experience with Shiatsu and it was excellent. Kyren took the time to explain it all to me, check in with me, and still had lots of time for bodywork, which was fantastic.” Karri (Oct 2023)
“Kyren has such attention to detail, and is so in tune with my body. Kyren is intentional with their care, and my mental and physical health has been improving with each session.” – Renee (June 2023)
“Kyren is a great practitioner. I’m one of those people that sometimes has challenges with receiving bodywork, and Kyren makes me feel really safe.” – Amy J (Jan 2024)
Shiatsu Bodywork can also be good for folks looking for a “massage alternative.”
People who—due to trauma, gender dysphoria, or body shame—don’t feel safe being unclothed.
Shiatsu is performed over clothing, which makes it more accessible for many folks who struggle with dysphoria or body shame, as well as sexual assault survivors and others healing from trauma. Kyren, as a nonbinary transperson and trauma survivor, understands that it can be difficult for some folks to feel safe in a therapeutic context. Their shiatsu practice centers consent and client autonomy.
People who are touch-sensitive, ticklish, highly sensitive, or easily overwhelmed by sensation, including many neurodivergent folks.
Shiatsu can be as gentle or as firm as needed, which allows greater capacity for either deep pressure, or more gentle, but still highly effective therapeutic touch. If you have ever been told you’re “too sensitive” (either emotionally or physically), if you’ve ever received a form of massage or bodywork, or acupuncture and felt it too stimulating, or even painful, then Shiatsu might be the right modality for you.
Kyren’s journey to Zen Shiatsu Bodywork
Three months into my karate training–through a combination of inflammation from stress and overuse of joints–I developed debilitating osteoarthritic pain in both of my knees. After months of rigorous Physical therapy, my healing plateaued. I couldn’t imagine a life without karate, and so I started seeing both a chiropractor and massage therapist. In addition to healing my knees–16 years later I remain pain-free 95% of the time–receiving bodywork opened up to me a world of depth of knowledge about my body and the connections between stress, pain, freedom of movement, and tension in the body. In particular, the relationship between emotional trauma and the body became a deep part of my awareness.
In 2019, Amy and I decided to start Culture of Safety. The vision was to empower folks to discover their own healing in body, voice, and mind through self-defense, martial arts and other embodied services. My experience receiving massage came to mind and I realized that now was the time to start pursuing this path. And yet, I intuitively knew that traditional massage therapy was not a good fit for me. My experience practicing and teaching trauma-informed and inclusive approaches to martial arts and meditation had shown me that I needed to practice a form of bodywork that allowed me to more deeply explore and engage my intuitive and sensitive side. As a then-recently out nonbinary trans person, a life embodying authenticity was essential for my next career steps. Some Google searching brought me to a list of continuing education courses offered at Zen Shiatsu Chicago.
The more I read about Zen Shiatsu, the more I realized this was the form of bodywork that was most authentic for me. As a practice that is both highly intuitive and deeply rooted in Chinese medicine, Western physiology, and personal psychology, Zen Shiatsu blends and integrates the best qualities of scientific and intuitive modes of knowing. I found Zen Shiatsu a practice that allowed me to utilize my deep academic roots while deepening my capacity for intuitive work and connection with others.
Along the way, I was pleasantly surprised to realize that my own capacities for self-healing had increased. The program skillfully enables (forces?) each student to explore not only the theory and practice of Zen Shiatsu as applied to your future clients, but the also apply that theory and practice to ourselves, and to begin to recognize our own imbalances and blocks to healing. The program was not only transformative to me professionally, it was transformative to me personally. I’ve been a licensed massage therapist and practitioner of Zen Shiatsu since 2022. As a practitioner, I’m constantly learning new things about myself and others and am thrilled to be able to use this modality to support others on their health and healing journeys.
Read more about my approach to bodywork practice on our Practitioners page.