Murphy
With Thanksgiving just recently, we’re hearing a lot about being grateful and thankful, but not much about what it takes to be mindful of those things every day, not just during the holiday season.
There’s one local business in Murphy hoping to help with that practice of mindfulness, or being present and bringing healing into every moment of our lives.
Stressful environments
Te’Lor Savannah Allen has a head for business and hands for healing, reminiscent of a line from classic the 1980s movie Working Girl.
In opening the newest massage studio in Murphy, her TSav Magical is a clever twist of her first and middle names and how she wants to make her clients feel as they enter and exit her establishment.
With a background in business analytics and supply chain management, Allen found while studying at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville that she had the knowledge and skill, but she was lacking passion.
“It was kind of mindless, being stationary, all the stress from a 9-to-5 work environment,” she says of her time spent working in her field.
Allen says that while she was already enrolled for graduate school to pursue a Master’s of Business Administration something just kept her unsettled about her chosen career field. “I would’ve only had a month off and then that was another two years of school. Something had to give.”
Modalities
The concept of modalities entered Allen’s life by her studies of transportation management, but also through her mother’s visit to a massage therapist.
“When I talked to my mom about not going to graduate school or continuing to work in the field she was like ‘Oh, well then don’t do it’ making it sound so easy.”
“You could say it was an ‘epiphany’ moment in my own mindfulness journey, when I got ‘the call’ to return home to Murphy. Although it didn’t happen immediately, I knew I was going to come home at some point. With the complete support of my family, I knew I could come back after deferring the graduate program.”
“Luckily I made a lot of good contacts and networked well at UTK, so a lot of people in the MBA program said if I ever wanted to come back I was certainly welcome.”
Allen’s mother’s visit to the therapist included a conversation about her daughter and how she’d always been interested in crystal healing, medicinal herbs and self -healing as energy concepts, learning the term in massage and therapeutic circles is also modalities, and the therapist suggested that Te’Lor may do well in a massage therapy school program.
“And just like that, they were offering a program and I was already in Knoxville and at first I was waitlisted at Arbor College School of Massage and then they called and I was in within a week.”
Even with this fast-paced change, Allen says it was an easy transition to massage school. “Everything fell into place, financially, emotionally, just everything and I was in. So, it was magical. Like the modalities of therapeutics, which bring healing.”
Coming home
After her studies at Arbor College, she was looking for a home in Knoxville.
While no one was willing to help her as a first-time home buyer in a tough real estate market, she spoke with her grandmother in Murphy and was offered the chance to purchase her home.
“That was it, the true call to come home, even though I hadn’t planned on moving back to Murphy so soon, or even at all.”
Allen realized she also wanted to own her own practice, to create a Black female-owned business in her hometown and to not be in a more corporate salon or conventional spa environment.
“Here I can select my clientele with freedom and intentionality or even recommend another massage therapist who may specialize in something different from what I do or better suit the clients’ needs or even expectations. Here, it’s not like a regular spa or salon environment which can be very stuffy or even unwelcoming. Here, I’m free to create the space and shape the experiences.”
“So all that time studying business, my love of numbers and crunching them hasn’t been lost. Now I’ve got the best of both worlds applying my mind to the business side of things and my hands to the healing side.”
“Then, I found this space and I’ve tried to create a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere where clients are made to feel welcome.”
‘Full-body relaxation’
That space, at 30 Willow St. downtown, gets excellent afternoon sun which beams inside the warm wood interiors making the glow felt within as tensions begin to melt from your mind and shoulders.
Allen also offers several handmade items for sale in her shop from local artisans and crafters ranging from soaps and candles to essential oils and diffusers.
Allen has several spaces in separate rooms set up for both massage and also crystal light therapy, which helps to pin-point different places on the body which need intensive light therapy for healing issues as diverse as arthritis to stress-induced pain.
“My goal is to make my clients enjoy a full-body relaxation and that does begin with the mind. Certain smells and aromas from candles and essential oils can set the mood for the visit.”
Those visits can include a traditional Swedish massage, which is centered on therapeutic relaxation of the body, to a deep-tissue massage, which doesn’t rely on pressure contrary to popular belief.
“The deep-tissue massage is slower and more focused on different areas of the body to ensure that tension in the body, which can bring pain also, is lessened, to help reach deeper levels of body tissue, allowing better lymphatic drainage which is key to a systemic healing.”
For the mindfulness TSav also focuses on offering reflexology and Reiki. For those unfamiliar with these concepts they focus on an almost meditative state to help the body’s energy flows for healing, which Allen adds “often begins in the mind.”
Conversations with self
Allen is also a believer in providing a holistic approach to healing the mind and the body.
“Offering recommendations to clients about healthy diets, the importance drinking water and its effects on our bodies. Most people say ‘Just go get a massage and you’ll feel better’ but I’m more concerned with the individual and all our components, all the ways we can heal the mind, looking deeper into our subconscious or the different levels of our bodies. Those pathologies that can keep us from being or becoming whole again. Those physiologies that need to be addressed for the whole person to heal. One level at a time.”
That first level of the mind is again what Allen wants to focus upon first.
Making sure each client receives undivided attention from the moment they walk in, asking about certain aroma proclivities or restrictions and what each client expects from their visit.
“I want people even to just stop in and say hello and feel that this can be a community space, a place to feel safe. A real destination of inclusion.”
“I try to be mindful of not pushing my personality onto someone, but having conversations is so important to understanding what others and even ourselves are truly thinking and why we’re feeling particular ways about events in our lives or in the world.”
Allen also said “grace is important in the trinity of each person as we are mind, body and soul. But often one is overlooked, so we have to be able to nurture all of them.
“Grace is how nice and good our bodies are to us so that even though sometimes we can only give the 15 percent, grace will provide us with the other 85.”
Local mindset change
Allen hopes every client who wants to experience relaxation first of the mind so that the body will follow, will be interested in other specialties she wants to offer in the future. Looking to collaborate early on and support other local residents, Allen has already partnered with another newly established Murphy business, Narrative Books & Records, for a monthly book club.
Too, Allen is offering gift cards for purchase and looking to find a local maker of teas and other refreshments she can offer to clients to provide a more inviting atmosphere with their initial experience at TSav Magical.
Looking to the future, Allen also envisions offering classes from local instructors, such as offering instruction from doulas, including a meeting space for various community groups.
Details: Call 828-557-7821 or visit facebook.com/tsav.magical and https://tsavmagical.com.