When I discovered the spa world, something clicked. Here was an entire environment dedicated to gentle lighting, calming smells, soft voices, predictable routines, and safe, intentional touch. It felt like I could really thrive.
But not all touch feels safe.
A little fact about me is I absolutely hate shaking people’s hands. I find it to be like the physical equivalent of small talk: awkward, unnecessary, and deeply uncomfortable. What’s worse is how much weight society places on this strange little ritual. People make snap judgments about your character, your confidence, even your worth based entirely on the firmness, moisture level, and duration of your handshake.
For the record? I have what they call a “princess handshake.” That’s when you extend your hand like you’re expecting it to be kissed (delicate, palm slightly down) and the other person ends up just shaking your four fingers instead of grasping your full hand. It’s light, unassertive by traditional standards, and oh yes, deeply judged in the professional world.
Fitting, though, since my name is Sara, which is derived from the Hebrew word for “princess.”
It used to make me feel self-conscious, like I had failed some unspoken test of professionalism. Now, I see it differently. I wasn’t weak, I was simply trying to protect my nervous system.
I can massage the entire naked body of a stranger with loving intention, but Lord, help me, don’t make me shake hands.
The Importance of Intentional Touch
For me, it’s about the energy exchange. I describe myself as an empath, meaning I’m deeply sensitive to other people’s emotions and often absorb them as my own. That absorption happens most intensely through physical touch. Preserving opportunities for intentional touch is one of the energetic boundaries I’ve had to build in adulthood.
If you’re familiar with Rogue from the Marvel Universe, you’ll understand. Her powers include absorbing the abilities and energy of others through skin-to-skin contact. She wears gloves not to isolate herself, but to protect her energy until she chooses to connect. That’s exactly what intentional touch means to me: consensual, conscious, and energetically safe; touch must be chosen and expected.
Touch doesn’t just soothe. It speaks. It regulates. It reminds us that we are allowed to feel safe in our bodies. And for those of us who’ve spent years feeling “too much” or “not enough,” this can be the beginning of profound healing.
Touch Became My Translator
There was a time where I didn’t have the right words and I could feel everything: emotions, tension, the energy in a room, even the unspoken things people carried in their eyes or shoulders. But when it came to explaining my needs, expressing my overwhelm, or asking for gentleness, the words would crumble before they reached my lips.
Touch became my translator.
In those quiet, sacred spaces: the hush of a massage room, the warmth of a heated towel, the rhythmic pressure of strong hands, I learned to speak and be spoken to in a language I had always understood.
Touch is a language I became fluent in, especially when words would often fail.
Finding My Calling
I didn’t always know I was neurodivergent. I just knew I moved through the world a little differently; more attuned, more easily overstimulated, more exhausted from trying to be normal in places that didn’t feel safe. Like many late-diagnosed women, I had become a master of masking. Smiling through discomfort, shrinking my needs, and holding my breath emotionally, just to belong.
But the spa was different.
It was the first place I felt I could exhale, where the lights were soft, the instructions were clear, and my sensitivity wasn’t a liability, but a gift.
What began as a sanctuary for my nervous system became a mirror for my truth. I realized I didn’t just want to receive care, I wanted to create it. To provide an opportunity where others could drop the mask, soften the armor, and feel for the first time that their body was a safe place to live in.
The spa was my calling. Not just because of the treatments or the ambiance, but because it offered a way to communicate with fewer words, to hold space without judgment, and to translate feeling into healing. It was a way for people to finally see me and understand my intentions.
For those of us who live loud inner lives behind quiet exteriors, touch speaks what words often cannot. And in that language, I found my true home.
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