Girl Disrupted: Interview With Gerrae Simons Miller, Founder and Owner of Mellow Massage & Yoga

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What Was the Inspiration Behind your Massage Boutique?

There are a lot of inspirations. The first being to provide me with a fiscal activity that would also allow time with my family. I started out and spent 11 yrs. in Corporate. Though okay for some, for me it didn’t feel right. Spending 40 hrs. each day away from my family didn’t make sense for me. The journey to Mellow began as I noticed the enormous amounts of stress that everyone is under. As a college student, I worked for a massage therapist, for 2-3 months I was a receptionist. During that short time, I completely fell in love with alternative health and wellness. I was amazed at how through touch, safe and without medication, we could heal people. I was completely inspired by that.

What was the Journey in Getting Mellow off The Ground?

Well, it’s still getting off the ground. For some reason the beginning was very easy. Things fell into place. Throughout the years we’ve had challenges with staff, finances, clients, you name it.

If you’re willing to look at it as a journey instead of a goal, then you’ll become better with the ups and downs. It’s been exciting, challenging, and it’s demanded my growth as a person.

How Do You Make Sure Mellow is A Safe Space for All, Including Yourself?

So, from the beginning I demanded that Mellow be for everyone. Despite of color, religion, gender etc. No matter who you are or who you identify as, you deserve to feel good and you don’t have to walk around stressed out over anything. You can be free. I was very particular about who I hired and who was allowed into this space.

My massage therapist’s safety is one of my number one concerns. Massage is an industry where we’ll still teaching people how to act safe. We always have inappropriate people. I take harassment very seriously and jump on it right away. We’re friendly, fun and we relax people but we’re serious about our work. Not having any grey lines makes it easier to create a safe space.

The harassment claims I receive usually come from women because men aren’t as often victimized in this industry. If an employee comes to me and says a client made them feel unsafe, I personally bar them from Mellow. Babies can’t survive without touch. Then as we grow older and we just stop touching each other.

People get creeped out over hugs. As an industry, we must make clients feel safe being touched with nothing but a towel on, and the therapist should feel comfortable touching these clients. In such a vulnerable state, the client may misinterpret what’s happening. Though diverse, most of my staff contains women of color and I make sure they don’t feel alone and that any concerns are dealt with firmly and diligently.

Do you Believe with Enough Representation and Re-Education that their will ever be a day when black people truly love themselves?

That’s such a great question! I have a 2-yr. old named Max and am constantly aware of the images he’s seeing. Because I understand that even at two, they influence him. There’s nothing I can do with his favorite book having a white teacher at the end. I also refuse to not read it to him at night because of that. There are many things that try to tell us how beautiful and amazing we are. Once we walk outside, and only see people who don’t look like us flourishing it becomes undone. I believe it will take the work of many different people coming together and working on the common goal of building up people of color. I could sit here all day and tell you’re beautiful, but if everything else tells you otherwise, then you’re working against these two messages where one is ultimately going to cancel out.

My message for everyone, especially women of color is that they are someone and that they deserve great things. Because of that strong message a good portion of our clientele are Black women. They’re jumping in the rooms trying yoga and different things they otherwise wouldn’t have felt welcome doing. I’m always backing them and trying to cancel out that insecurity that tells them they can’t. One of the benefits of owning this parlor is being able to jump into people’s spaces and encourage them.

I once had a woman of color walk in from the street and she looked as though a truck had just run her over. She haplessly sat down and began asking questions. I sat down next to her and questioned her on how we could assist her. Her story was the same as everyone else’s. She was overworked without making ends meet, relationship issues, trying to meet everyone’s expectations and ultimately feeling like a failure. She wanted to be perfect. We spoke for a while. I recommended that she go home and if nothing else give herself 20 minutes to breathe. To do this daily. That if she wants to fly around being Super Woman for everyone else she can, but if she doesn’t take care of herself it means nothing.

What was Your Journey into Self-Love?

Man, you’re killing me with these questions! I grew up with parents and a sister who were always present. I grew up far from a broken home. I had all I needed, and a ton of love. With all that I somehow still received the message that I wasn’t good enough. I was always trying to get straight A’s, and wanting to impress my parents. A lot of my 20’s was spent pushing myself way too hard in the effort to become perfect. My stretch into self-love was understanding that perfection does not exist. I had Mellow, my corporate career and teaching piano 2 nights a week.

I ended up burning out and walking out of my job like a crazy person. I didn’t know how I would pay my mortgage but I knew going back there wasn’t an option. I had a mental breakdown and from there began the journey into loving myself for all that I am, exactly how I am. I had to understand that my pure existence is valuable. If I do nothing else today, I’m still awesome. For example, if I only eat 85% of a pie, that’s still a lot. With this new mindset, I’ve accomplished so much more than before. We’ve got so many images telling us we aren’t good enough, and that no matter how hard we try, we still won’t be. We’ve got to fight that, because we’re more than enough.

What is Your advice to women of color who are redefining what is means to exist in America?

My advice would be to always, always, always be yourself. If you’re pretending to be someone else, then you can never be successful. You can never be who you’re meant to be because your mind is over here trying to be someone else. When you’re yourself things fall into place. Coming together is always important. But regardless of what people think and say, as long as you can be safe, I think it’s important to always be yourself. I know what it’s like to go around pretending to be something you’re not. You get stuck in your head, and there’s no freedom if you’re trapped within your thoughts all day. Don’t go a day without doing something for you.

#Massage #Touch #Perfect