About RTBW
Raise the Bar Wellness, LLC is a small company owned by a mom of two boys in Tucson, AZ since 2003. RTBW offers massage therapy, self-care coaching, wellness coaching, and supplements sales.
Why are we called “Raise the Bar” Wellness?
…Because we believe there’s a whole new level of health and happiness available to us when we make powerful, conscious choices for self-care. Wellness is not simply taking vitamins or medications or getting a massage once in a while. The actions alone are not always enough to improve our physical or mental health in the long term.
True wellness takes bravery and self-honesty. When something we’re doing (or not doing!) isn’t helping us, we need to ask ourselves what we need to change. The owner of RTBW takes great care to provide her clients with powerful action plans to address their physical comfort challenges. This is not just a business for the sake of income. It’s a business with a purpose, and that is to raise the bar on what people expect from their bodies, and from their life.
RTBW’s intention is to empower people to embody their own power, pride, and self-love through conscious self-care and self-awareness.
RTBW is built on the belief that to make the world a better place, we must each learn to take good care of ourselves first.
We are a safe space
We believe in equality. We accept, love, and support people of all religions, cultures, skin tones, and sexualities. We are all equal. We are all human. We are all one community.
About the owner…
Melissa believes that being active consistently, in one way or another, is important for physical and mental wellness.
Melissa became a Licensed Massage Therapist (LMT) in 2003, and a Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) in 2017. She is truly an expert in the field, having worked with thousands of clients of all ages, from 8 to 95, and completing almost 17,000 hours of hands-on massage! For the first few years of her career, she worked with both terminal and recovering cancer patients and their families, which is where she gained an incredible capacity for empathy, as well as an understanding of scar tissue and its role in tension and pain. Following that, she began working with high-level competitive athletes, and people with injuries and surgery scars. She has extensive experience as a Sports Massage Therapist, Lymphatic Drainage Therapist, and more recently became a Certified Health Coach and Behavior Change Specialist. Most of her sessions are given in her office in Tucson, though she has done quite a bit of traveling to work on clients at various sports competitions in the U.S.
Many of her clients lovingly call her a surgeon, miracle worker, or muscle whisperer because of her attention to detail and ability to find hard-to-find tense or sticking tissues within the body. She often says of herself that she’s stubborn and curious, which helps her continue searching for solutions where others may give up. She has an extensive understanding of anatomy and physiology, muscle compensation patterns and fascial tension patterns. Melissa uses a combination of deep tissue massage, myofascial release, lymphatic drainage, facilitated stretches, scraping, cupping, and scar tissue mobilization.
Outside of work, being a mom to her two amazing teenagers, being outdoors, weight lifting, reading, eating decadent food, and traveling are a few of her favorite pasttimes.
More about what drives Melissa and what makes her a truly unique therapist…
Melissa believes we find our greatest personal empowerment through our beliefs and choices. Our internal environment is where our wellness is either blocked or empowered.
Many times, clients come to Melissa after seeing various professionals in the medical system or alternative healthcare system, and finding little to no relief. She has worked with many, many people who practically ran out of hope before they found her through word of mouth.
Clients often find renewed belief in their ability to heal by seeing the results that Melissa creates in their bodies. Through her hands and intuitive awareness, she reads the lymphatic system, bone alignment, fascia, organs, ligaments, tendons, scar tissue, and muscle tissue to discern what layers and physiological systems might be stuck. Based on what she finds, she and her client form a plan that will help create true change. Once the client understands that their issues have layers that can be dealt with one by one through consistent action and empowered choices, they start to find hope within themselves and believe that they can finally improve. Belief and expectation are the forces that swing the pendulum of change!
Melissa also believes that self-care is non-negotiable for physical and mental health. She helps her clients create a doable self-care practice that changes and flows as their body progresses on the spectrum of wellness. True self-care is informed, supported and… flexible!
“Once we BELIEVE we can improve, choose a powerful health support team, and commit to a consistent self-care practice, we can move mountains!”