Today we’d like to introduce you to Kate Simmons.
Hi Kate, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
As a teenager and young adult, I experienced first-hand the profound impact complementary therapies could have. Chiropractic care, myofascial release, and massage did great things for both my physical and emotional wellbeing. I considered a career in chiropractic care, but fell into Digital instead. After nearly two decades in corporate spaces, I felt that old longing coming back. I considered massage school, and even began a massage program, but something about it wasn’t exactly what I was seeking. Eventually I found energy medicine (Healing Touch, Reiki) and Craniosacral Therapy, and knew I was home. The interplay between the energetic body and the physical body is where the magic happens. This is where old patterns can be released, old injuries witnessed and remediated, nervous systems regulated, an evolving sense of safety and wellbeing established.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Because I’d taken such a long side-road through the corporate world, I was blessed to be able to afford training in just about anything I could get my hands on. The ironic challenge of having so much access is trying to keep it all straight! Healing Touch defines and routes energy in one way, Reiki another. Craniosacral Therapy has an entirely different vocabulary and is much more anatomically explained. By now I have a vast toolset to pull from, but because I trained in all three modalities simultaneously, it was a bit like altitude sickness trying to remember which was which.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Well & Flame LLC?
Clients who come to me find an inclusive, un-rushed, trauma-informed space to relax, release, and explore their own experience of both their physical and inner worlds. I’m the right practitioner for people who want a facilitator and partner in their own healing journey. It is a team effort: me, the client, the client’s body which has its own incredible intelligence. The work can be simple, such as addressing aches and pains for greater ease and wellbeing, and/or it can be quite deep, such as discovering and working with grief, limiting beliefs, etc.—which we carry in our bodies just as truly as we carry physical injuries.
I have some Irish heritage and a lot of love for Irish mythology and Celtic spirituality. Well & Flame is named after the Celtic goddess Brigid, who is known both sacred fire and for a multitude of healing wells. Fire and water may seem like they cancel each other out, but blacksmiths (of whom Brigid is the patron goddess and saint) need both the forge and the quench tank to turn raw metal into beautiful, purposeful things.
I wanted to curate a practice that could support both the well and the flame, both the soothing depths and fiery activation. I’ve accumulated a lot of credentials (Certified Craniosacral Therapist, Reiki Master, Healing Touch Program Apprentice, Ordained Minister), but all of it just serves this deeper vision. Obviously I provide individual healing sessions. I also lead story circles the help us process big themes in community. And I co-create life rites for folks who want an alternative to the traditional church-only options—which allowed me to perform the wedding of two dear friends under the trees and moon on Mt. Kurama in Japan earlier this year.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
I studied Craniosacral Therapy at Heartwood Institute of Integrative Medicine, a stellar and accessible program where I made many friends, some of whom I co-practice with today.
I studied Reiki with Twin Cities Reiki Master, where I not only learned Reiki but adjacent, complementary intuitive skills–and also made many life-long friends.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://wellandflamellc.com/
- Other: https://book.squareup.com/appointments/o3ytx5w61dc706/location/LJ1J5WEKPWSF8/services
