Through her hands and her customers’ feet, Teresa Donker is about relaxation.
Donker is a full-time practitioner of reflexology, a simple, effective natural form of healing.
Situated on the second floor above Anna’s Vitamin Plus on 27th Street, Donker’s Inspire Wellness Studio provides “a place that nurtures, encourages and supports well-being for each of her clients.”
“Profound relaxation combined with positive clear intentions promotes the flow of vital forces, creates harmony and assists to restore wellness on all levels,” said Donker, who has been practising reflexology full-time for the past four years, and part-time for the past 14 years while also raising two children.
Donker has a client fill out a questionnaire and information form – all of which is confidential – to start an hour-long session. She then takes the client to a room with a long, comfortable table, and has the client remove their shoes and socks.
“I work from the ankle down,” said Donker. “Some work from the leg down but I’m not a massage therapist. Once I get the client tucked, safe, cozy and warm, and we make it clear what it is the client wants, we start to work on peace and relaxation. Just really embracing that hour for them.”
As she gently massages a person’s feet, Donker is applying pressure to various reflexes and corresponding body parts that experience relief from tension and inflammation, helping improve circulation and regeneration.
With her soft touch, and soothing music piped in the room in the background, any trepidations a client may have had vanish as Donker’s reflexology session works almost immediately.
As she states in her Inspire Wellness Studio brochure, “the mind becomes quiet and the emotions are soothed. Well-being is restored and balanced on all levels.”
Donker’s client had one major concern before starting the session: being incredibly ticklish and sensitive to touch on the bottom of the feet.
Not to worry: during Donker’s hour-long session, the client only jumped once when she touched the bottom of the feet and that was when Donker was applying witch hazel, an herbal remedy liquid.
“Once I started working on the client, there wasn’t anything there in regards to being ticklish,” said Donker. “It’s purposeful pressure, gentle, not invasive. It’s safe and easy, it’s deep relaxation, co-operative, it brings the body into balance. Whatever a person is doing for health, reflexology complements and supports that.”
A full session includes working all reflexes, followed by an essential foot oil massage and is sealed with a Reiki blessing (Donker is also a master of Reiki, an ancient healing technique that supports the whole being on physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels).
Reflexology, according to the Reflexology Association of B.C., is an effective way of dealing with a number of ailments for all age groups, and is used in conjunction with chiropractic, therapeutic massage and physiotherapy programs of health care.
Donker offers hour-long, 90-minute and two-hour sessions at her 27th Street studio, and also offers Reiki classes.
