VIP Café Show – Youngstown, Ohio – Local Guests with Amazing Impact to Our Community
Friendships begin based on numerous circumstances. Many are created because of similar interests and hobbies. For example, being part of the same sports team or maybe being a member of the same academic club. Other friendships are formed based on proximity or what neighborhood you grew up in. Whatever the reason, having a good solid friendship is a wonderful thing.We believe Podcasts are very similar to friendships. They are many times created by a few people who have common interests and share a similar vision. They are generally formed to help “inform” others about a variety of topics and subject matter. The question many Podcasters ask themselves is….why me/us? With so many options to choose from as a listener, what makes one Podcast better than another? We believe it all begins with….a good host or pair of hosts! That is exactly how The VIP Café Show came to fruition. Two friends, Greg Smith and Brian Blasko had a conversation while enjoying a cigar on a cool crisp January evening and the rest as they say…is history.The VIP Café Show was created to inform, educate and entertain listeners from the great city of Youngstown, OH. Although The VIP Café Show listeners reach far beyond the Youngstown area, the primary focus of the show is to highlight local “Youngstowners” and to hear their story. The Podcast also dives into a variety of fascinating topics besides Youngstown. Greg and Brian love discussing leadership, public speaking, customer care, team building, and life in general. They are always fascinated by what makes people tick and how people became (or are becoming) the person they are today! The VIP Café Show is a fun and informative program that engages the audience with every interview, conversation, and dialog that transpires.
VIP Café Show – Youngstown, Ohio – Local Guests with Amazing Impact to Our Community
E65 The VIP Café Show with Madison Orlando - Healing Through Touch: The Power of Massage Therapy
Madison Orlando of Massage Alchemist shares her journey from childhood abandonment to becoming a healer who helps clients transition from physical and emotional disharmony to balance and healing.
• Helping others transition from disharmony to harmony through massage therapy
• The importance of stillness in receiving divine guidance among today's information overload
• How emotional issues often manifest physically after being suppressed for years
• Madison's remarkable life story of being raised by her invalid grandmother after losing both parents
• The path from Northern Shaolin Kung Fu champion to finding her calling as a massage therapist
• The healing power of vulnerability and being truly heard by another person
• How witnessing acts of kindness triggers the same positive endorphins as performing them
Connect with Madison through the Massage Alchemist Facebook page to schedule a session and experience transformation through therapeutic massage.
Hey, hey, hey. It's the VIP Cafe Show and I'm coming to you live here at it's not live now, but it's live as we're doing it at the Havana House in Boardman, ohio. And I am here with a very special guest today and I'm going to just introduce her and we're going to get started Because Debbie, being the kind-hearted soul she is she my other co-host she decided to help a friend and take him to PA and then got stuck in traffic. So she is late and we're going to get started. If she joins us, great. If she doesn't, we'll just have to remember her. But here is our guest. We have Madison Orlando from the Massage Alchemist. So how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm well, how are you?
Speaker 1:I am just doing fine. So Massage Alchemy, tell me what archetype that is all about.
Speaker 2:For me, it's about assisting others from disharmony to harmony, having them realign, helping them realign and rebalance.
Speaker 1:You're busy these days. Very much Wow.
Speaker 2:Yes, and a lot of it too. Sometimes it's the unburdening. So sometimes when people come they just unburden a little bit before they get on the table and then they're ready to receive and that hour is kind of like eight hours sleep. Sometimes it just really, because sometimes people don't stop until they're in there. They're going giving all the time and when they can have that deposit so they can continue to give, because we have to all take care of ourself too yeah, and you know it's medicine and it's really interesting.
Speaker 1:It's really I haven't put my head around it yet why people refuse help or they refuse assistance or they don't want to be, and the truth of it is, the joy in life is helping another person. So if you stop that, if you block that, you're blocking you're robbing them you are, and you're also really not allowing humanity to do what it's supposed to do, which is love and support each other yes yeah, so what?
Speaker 1:so what do you think is going on these days with the? There's a lot of what they call the retrograde, or a lot of stuff's going on these days. Planets, it's planets, it's spirit. We had COVID, we had all these things going on. And now with social media, and then you have the media trying to get you all stirred up so they have a job, because they don't get paid if no one reads their papers.
Speaker 1:And you have everything going on and people are just overloaded and they spend so much time. I think the statistics are you get more information in one day than a person got in a lifetime in 1951.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's too much. We're not wired to have that much stimulation all day long, and I believe in the stillness is where you really get the information. When you're quiet, you can hear the whisper of God or the divine, and that's when you really get the downloads in the quiet, not when you're absorbing all this information all the time like constantly. You're always available.
Speaker 1:Did you see that? They asked the smartest man in the world I don't know his name, he's got a 210 IQ, it's higher than Isaac Neuf and they asked him what humanity is missing and he said accepting God. He said he's there, but if you ignore him, then your soul dies alone. But if you accept him, you become a part of his world and that's your choice and you know. That's what he offered humanity now Crazy.
Speaker 2:I believe all that. I believe we are all an extension of him. We all have, like he said anything I can do, you can do and more. We are his children.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And that's why I always say just get out of your own way, surrender, because people will say how do you know? And I'm like I don't, I'm just guided to put my hand here. Of course I have knowledge of anatomy, physiology and all those things, but when you really connect and you just be still and you listen, you're just guided in everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, truth. So what do you think when most of your patients come in or your clients, I should say, because this is more of a client relationship what do you find is the? Do you find things come in batches where people have similar issues, or is it always different for everyone? Or is it always? You know how? I guess? I remember when I used to go to church and the minister always nailed the sermon, like just nailed. He just knew what was going on. I said how do you always so good? He says, visit people. And I talked to people and usually the community has very similar issues. So I just address those issues. Do you find there's like waves of different issues or is it usually always different? I just I.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of it is emotional.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I believe that a lot of things start on an emotional component and by the time they show up physically, they've been going on a very long time a very long time, like whether it's repression or bitterness or unforgiveness or so a lot of stuff's buried emotions.
Speaker 1:I believe that yeah, yeah, I absolutely believe you're right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Believe it or not. I have a buddy that's in the NFL. He's a trainer in the NFL and he said you wouldn't believe these grown men that they have issues with their muscles because they've suppressed an emotion from childhood For so long we have to get an expert to come in and release that and they childhood and we have to get an expert to come in and release that and they're crying like babies.
Speaker 2:A lot of times. When you're holding like that, you don't even know it either, because it doesn't happen like that. You adapt and adapt. Like that saying if you put a frog in boiling water, he'll jump out If you just simmer him and that's how we are. People don't walk in like this. It starts here and they adapt here by the time they come in. I'm like you can relax. They're like oh, I'm good because that's their new normal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:And they don't even know. And then, once you help them release, they're like oh my God, I could take a deep breath. Yeah, I remember.
Speaker 1:That's so true, especially when you see somebody in an unhealthy relationship and they're like, oh, it's good, and you're like, really Like you're looking at like a horror movie when you're watching it, but they adapted, yeah, wow. So how did you get started with this? How did you? What's your origin story? Where did this all begin? That you were interested in helping people?
Speaker 2:Like I said, when I was a child, I really didn't have parents. My mom was a musical therapist and a world-renowned musician.
Speaker 1:How many languages does she know? Seven, she knew seven languages and she could play.
Speaker 2:Every instrument.
Speaker 1:Every instrument, every instrument.
Speaker 2:I have clippings of her from all over the world. They're pretty yellow right now. They're newspaper clippings. But Buddy Rich, gene Krupa, fred Astaire, the USO, she helped soldiers and taught the blind Braille and things like that, and my dad owned a gas station. They were both in their forties and November 4th my dad had a brain aneurysm and died instantly, and my mom, being fully pregnant with me, just checked out.
Speaker 2:She just, I'm sure she was pre-menopause because she was in her forties, she was post postnatal, which all the hormones were changing too, and lost her husband. So she was grieving postnatal, pre-menopause, which they had no idea 68 years ago, what to give or what to do, and she just never spoke. She didn't talk again, she just stared in a catatonic state really and I remember going.
Speaker 2:They took me to see her like maybe when I was I don't even know how old and she never really spoke. But the day I walked in she looked at me and she thought she was talking. She was like, and she said my name and that was it. That was the last time like she said my name and that was it. That was the last time, like she said, like Donna, like she thought she was talking, but like she knew.
Speaker 1:Maybe I don't know, that's just so. That obviously motivated you to make sure nobody ever goes through that.
Speaker 2:That's how I felt. My grandmother, her mother, was an invalid. She couldn't walk, she was in a wheelchair, but mentally she was extremely capable and smart and compassionate, and so, again, they didn't have child welfare or Dyfus then, I guess. So they let her keep me and she would put me in the playpen and pick me up, like with her neck, like my arms wrapped around, and she raised me. I didn't really have any family or anything. I didn't know any of my relatives, or they didn't know. I never heard of any of my relatives, or they didn't know. I never heard of any of them. So I did feel very abandoned. All my friends in the neighborhood had mother and father, sunday dinner cars and our house was falling down because we were. We had her baby grand piano in our living room but our walls were like rain-stained because there was no it just was.
Speaker 2:My grandmother was an invalid. She couldn't even cut the grass and I was a baby, a child like six by then and and everybody just wanted to tear the place down. And I remember thinking like why wouldn't they want to help a child, why wouldn't they want to help an invalid? It'd be so easy to have one of their kids come over and cut the grass. But I remember they were just scared, like I was, like we were making their places look bad and their properties be less, and oh, she can't hang around with her, she's poor, dirty and has no mother. But I was the one that didn't do any drugs, didn't drink, didn't because I was always afraid to be out of control, because for me I had to survive. I didn't want to not know what was going on. You know, I didn't ever suppress it or numb it, I just was hypervigilant.
Speaker 1:So really you knew what it was like not to be helped. Yeah, so you never want anybody to feel that way.
Speaker 2:Never want to.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's power. Yeah, that's amazing. So tell me, how does somebody work with you? How do they, what do they do to reach out and work?
Speaker 2:with you. I have a business page on Facebook. Most of my clients are referral. I don't really have walk-ins or anything like that. My clients either tell oh my.
Speaker 1:This is a referral, so they go to Massage Alchemist On.
Speaker 2:Facebook and they just private message me there and then I'll text with them or they'll, and they can make an appointment.
Speaker 1:I see, all right. How long do your sessions last?
Speaker 2:The session itself is usually about an hour, unless it's someone who wants 90 minutes because they might be 6'4 or something. They need a little more time to be effective, but I'd say they're usually two hours by the time I talk with them. So, they decompress, then we get on and we do the work and afterwards I let them gather themselves. By the time they get out the door it's probably two hours.
Speaker 1:You know it's interesting, I do vocal coaching and you learn real quick. You have to get that person in a somewhat of alignment with their mental, their heart and their body and get a goal of where they want to go before you start, because if they don't have that, it's like hitting a moving target.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So same thing with everything, really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a personal service.
Speaker 1:You have to be comfortable there has to be a level of trust Right.
Speaker 2:And they want to be open, like when you're coaching. I'm sure too.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, but I'm saying it's the same thing.
Speaker 2:Once you get seasoned a little bit, you understand that taking care of the person is more important than the skill it's not getting in, getting out, Nothing like that In the skill it's not getting in getting out nothing like that it is about serving. It's a process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not an event. No, awesome. So tell me, how do you see this extending out? You've seen how your clients react, and how can this be a lesson to, I'm sure, what you do is? You seem to me like somebody. When you work with somebody, you change their trajectory. So how do you see that you feeding in and helping others?
Speaker 2:How do you see your contribution? Again, I think when they come, they feel heard and they feel known. They're not just a number or, like you said, it's like the paycheck or something yeah and they.
Speaker 2:The vulnerability is so healing to them because they allow themselves to share what's going on or how they feel, or whatever, and and it's a good exchange yeah yeah, because for me, like you said, it's just as wonderful to make someone feel like they've transformed something or they've at least heard even one thing that might start to start the ball rolling, and I just feel like I want them to know how valuable they are, how much they're loved by God or divine or whatever people want to say. For me it's God or Jesus, but I just want them to feel like they were cared for, not just pampered.
Speaker 1:Yes, Awesome. Yeah, it was interesting. I was in a discussion with some friends and they had a. There was a family where one of the family members had an issue with an addiction and the whole family was yelling at him and yelling at him and yelling at him and yelling at him. Especially the daughter who he adored was yelling at him. And my friend went up and he said listen, honey, that you're all your dad's got. He can't afford to help outside of this. And if he loses you, what's he living for? I said you're it and's. There's so much of this that we forget. We only think about how you're inconveniencing me. But the truth of it is when you help another and you love another, just like you. The reason you're here today is because somebody loved you.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so many like without my grandmother. Again, I was 15 when she had to go into a nursing home and I remember lying about my age, getting a waitress job because you had to be 16 to get working papers. We had a lot of diners and I remember going in by the time they'd go up, I don't know and I'd leave and go to another diner and start working there until I turned 16. But I had no car until I was 30. I had a daughter at 16 and I really wasn't someone who was promiscuous, I just wanted to have a family. I didn't know I had a boyfriend but we were so young and but I wanted my daughter to have everything I didn't. So I worked two jobs, I walked her to school, picked her up, did everything. But it's just interesting how my granddaughter is 17 and I can't imagine her raising a child right now like being emotionally capable and stuff.
Speaker 1:But again, there's a lot of 21 year olds. We can't picture raising a kid right now. I'm sorry. The world's changed a little bit. It's different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think that because of all the distractions and everything I think you really do and just now, when you teach, you learn, oh, and so when I'm maybe sharing with someone, they might be going through the same kind of things that I went through in a different way and just hearing one thing that I might say, they feel like, oh my God, I'm not alone, I'm just you're just like me.
Speaker 2:And sometimes people feel, oh my god, I know everything. And they make me like not a real person. And I'm like, I'm a real person, like this. I'm not higher than you, I've gone through those things and I'm telling you you can make it, you can get through it. Yeah, yeah and there's always someone you never get through alone. There's always someone.
Speaker 1:That we're built, we're wired that way.
Speaker 2:Everything.
Speaker 1:Like I mentioned before, is there was. There's a room in Germany. You go in that room. The longest somebody's ever lasted is 45 minutes. There's no sound. You can hear your when you blink your eyes.
Speaker 1:So you know you are not wired to be alone. We're wired. That's why we have mirror neurons, that's why we can, when somebody smiles, us smile. When they wave, we wave even though we don't even know them, because we're built that way. That's how a baby mimics and learns to speak and learns how to smile and learns how to be. We need each other and we forget that sometimes.
Speaker 2:We forget that sometimes, especially, do you know that you, when you see someone helping someone across the street, your body gets the same endorphins? Just by watching it not doing it even not doing the act just by seeing someone being kind and someone caring. True, it's just as powerful, and that gives you permission to do the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a. I've mentioned this several times on the show, but the truth is there's a there's. I have a friend named Scott Mann who's a Green Beret, and he says human beings are a mess. M-e-s-s-s. It means we're meaning, seeking emotional, social storytelling, suffering creatures. We always look for meaning. We're very emotional. We are storytellers. Everything's a narrative. You will run through the narrative in your brain and you've got to be in control of that narrative. What do you tell yourself about yourself? That's the most important story you tell. And we're social, we need each other and we're also— story you tell yeah, and we're social, we need each other, and we're also.
Speaker 1:Everybody suffers, everybody, some of them some people have a better way of coping, and some people they break a nail and it's the end of the world. Other people you should probably get some stitches in that 30-inch cut on your leg. Other people don't feel it.
Speaker 2:And that's why like for Tom.
Speaker 1:Tom is my husband. Just go, tom, over there, the toothpaste guy.
Speaker 2:When he, when I've learned the seven habits from him and stuff it really is about changing the way you see it.
Speaker 2:But I remember, even as a young kid, there was just something in me Like I just knew that I, I had god watched, it was helping me some way. I don't know how, I didn't understand how, I just knew. I knew that was not my path to be, to stay being a victimhood or anything, because that wasn't going to do it for me. I had to. I knew that I was built for more, whatever that more is, whether it was for just I didn't even think about massage.
Speaker 1:I was a waitress till I was How'd you get into massage? How'd that happen?
Speaker 2:It's so interesting I was 40 and I was. My daughter was in college for nursing school and I was just all alone. I had nobody. I was a national champion in Northern Shaolin Kung Fu, which, and I got into that?
Speaker 1:They don't know that.
Speaker 2:I got into that Again. I was a young mom and I was by myself and stuff and it just flowed for me. And when I got out of it, so much as far as training I think it stays with you, you know, but I didn't train all the time for it or compete. And then when I went to massage school I was like I'm just doing martial arts, I'm like moving lymph, I'm moving energy.
Speaker 2:I'm helping people and I just started doing that. And then I went to see a counselor because I started to feel down I wouldn't say maybe a low-grade depression and she said if there was anything you would want to do, what would it be? And I remember being in the waiting room Every time we had a break. People would go could you rub my neck? When I'd help someone, they'd go oh, and then I just thought my grandmother.
Speaker 2:Like I wish I could have known how to help her because she couldn't walk and her legs were so in pain and I guess she must have had rheumatoid arthritis back then, but they didn't know that and all she had was an anacin you probably don't even know what that is, but it was just like a Tylenol, not even, and she never complained. She never, ever complained. She was just so wonderful. And she said what would you want to do? And I said I'd like to be a massage therapist. And but the school was in Philadelphia, lived in Pennsylvania, wilkes-barre, didn't have a car, certainly didn't have the finances. And she said I can get you funding for that Maybe a grant or a student loan or something.
Speaker 2:I said really and she helped me and it changed my life, changed my life. She was just a kind person that helped me fill out the stuff and helped me apply and I got in and when I was in school I was awful.
Speaker 2:I had no, not massage school like high school. I failed so much, I just didn't have the skills in that way. But when I went to massage school it was like God was just working through me, 100 plus everything. I loved it and it was just so effortless for me in that way. And then I graduated and I was able to make the kind of money to take care of myself better and make my own hours and really care about people. Wow.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So Massage Alchemy right On Facebook if they want to reach out to you.
Speaker 2:Madison Massage Alchemist Okay.
Speaker 1:Madison Massage.
Speaker 2:Alchemist. Okay, that's what it is.
Speaker 1:Yes, Madison Massage Alchemist Okay, we got that. That's what it is. Madison Massage Alchemist Okay, we got that. You know what? It's time for something we call rapid fire.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:Yes. So my question is do you like Coke or Pepsi, or neither?
Speaker 2:I say neither.
Speaker 1:Neither, so what's your favorite beverage?
Speaker 2:I like juices, like seltzer, with a little juice in it. Okay, that's fair.
Speaker 1:Let's see. Would it be a papaya or grapefruit, or mango, probably papaya.
Speaker 2:I like that. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:All right. So you like chocolate, love chocolate. Okay, dark Milk chocolate, milk, chocolate, any particular brand.
Speaker 2:I like, dove I like? Is it Giardelli, giardelli? Okay, yes, I love that. Okay, diva.
Speaker 1:You ever been to one of their places with ice cream?
Speaker 2:I have been to the one in.
Speaker 1:Chicago I see Tom smiling over there too.
Speaker 2:The one in Chicago was the best hot chocolate you've ever had in your life, I know.
Speaker 1:I go to the one in Orlando all the time. I no, I go to the one in Orlando all the time. I can't. I got to make sure I'm starving when I go past it because I've got to get a sundae. All right, let's see.
Speaker 2:Will you like mountains or ocean? Oh, that's tough.
Speaker 1:We lived at both. We lived right by the mountains and the ocean. God comes down and says you can live, okay, mountains.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm definitely trees.
Speaker 1:Trees.
Speaker 2:I love trees.
Speaker 1:Have you ever been to?
Speaker 2:Muir Woods.
Speaker 1:Muir Woods. I like Muir Woods.
Speaker 2:Love it too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so does Spielberg.
Speaker 2:Really the Redwoods.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's where he lives.
Speaker 2:Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he lives out there.
Speaker 2:Everybody? No, I don't. I just read a lot of trivia.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh up, let me see what else. Okay, favorite, favorite restaurant in the area. What do you really like if you're going to go out and eat?
Speaker 2:I'd say Aquapazzo.
Speaker 1:Aquapazzo.
Speaker 2:I do love it there.
Speaker 1:Buttercake.
Speaker 2:Buttercake. I love their Caesar salad. They have great risotto balls. Yeah, they do, yeah, they do so good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they do All right, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much I really appreciate your time. You as well, thank you.
Speaker 1:You have a good one.