Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Howe.
Hi Matthew, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
At my darkest moment, life felt hopeless. After a car accident that left me with broken forearms and the lingering grief of losing my Dad to cancer, I was adrift. Seeking a change, I randomly chose Florida on a map and moved there six weeks later.
Initially, my physical and emotional states were shattered. A roommate suggested I try Reiki, and I naively accepted, unaware of how transformative it would be. During the session, my practitioner confidently told me, “Your arms won’t hurt anymore.” Skeptical but desperate, I surrendered to the moment. Afterward, I could feel my left hand—something I couldn’t do before. It felt miraculous. That was when I decided to delve into the healing arts.
I searched online, found a massage school, and immediately felt at home upon my first visit to the Central Florida School of Massage Therapy. My orthopedic doctor, supportive of my new path, recognized my athletic background as a key to healing. He encouraged me to heal myself as I knew how to push my body through a life in sport.
Starting school reinvigorated my spirit, but everything changed when I met Nicole, my best friend and soulmate. Despite initially noticing my follicular abundance, we connected deeply, which further transformed my life.
From my early days of doing outcalls to working in luxury resort spas, I soaked up knowledge like a sponge. Observing other therapists during sessions ignited my passion for touch and education, birthing the idea of Touch Education from a casual conversation on a restaurant placemat.
The duality of my massage career has taken me around our vast country and internationally. As a licensed massage therapist, I have helped thousands of people in the treatment room since the turn of the century. My teaching career dawned in 2003 at the suggestion of my mentor. I have taught spa classes, craniosacral therapy, hydrotherapy, and pathology. My proudest moments are when I get to share what I have cultivated as a method for treating trauma and PTSD through massage therapy, knowing the impact now reaches beyond my individual touch.
My wife and I moved to Cincinnati in 2021, partly to move home but also to become a resource for a new community. We created Massage Cincy as a ‘bridge to better,’ feeling better, getting better, and being better.
Driven by a desire to learn and share, I embraced life’s lessons: everyone has a story worth telling. My journey from despair to a thriving career as a licensed massage therapist—built on passion and connection—has been nothing short of divine irony.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
9/11 hit several months into my massage career while my yet-to-be wife was pregnant. The tourism industry in Orlando was bleak, and so were my paychecks. People weren’t traveling or getting massages at the resort I worked at. We rallied out of it and began to build our lives together.
I struggled with the need to do more while supporting my family. My wife supported my move from hospitality and luxury resort employment into teaching my workshops. This is where Bodywork for PTSD came from and Touch Education launched. The content and techniques of that class are the foundation of what Massage Cincy has become.
As you know, we’re big fans of Massage Cincy. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Massage Cincy is the culmination of two decades in the massage therapy field. The thousands of individual sessions my wife and I’ve performed shape how we treat our patients, with respect, hope, and honesty. Our toolbox has the Swedish massage, deep tissue, and stone massage skills. We provide those services. However, that is not what drives us. Our mission is simple:
Massage Cincy is a therapeutic place where humans come to human better in a safe, relaxing, and respectful environment.
We strive to provide professional massage therapy and bodywork that meets our patrons where they are and helps them take their next steps toward better physical, mental, and emotional health.
Massage Cincy utilizes our team’s individual skills and collective wisdom to foster an environment of hope, healing, and integrity.
We’ve built a company and culture that provides massage therapy informed by current research and facilitated by therapists with a heart to help and outcome-focused skills. We specialize in the treatment of headaches, low back pain, and trauma/stress overload. Our outcomes and our ability to educate our patients separate us from other providers.
I am most proud of the people we’ve helped. Our two locations serve a large workers’ compensation population suffering from chronic pain. We use an innovative bio-psycho-social approach to pain and stress that addresses the whole person, not just their injury. We are different on purpose.
Your readers should know that massage is therapy, and we can help them through our two Cincinnati clinics. We’ll meet them where they are. All they have to do is reach out and tell us if they want to feel better, get better, or be better. We are their bridge to better.
Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
My favorite childhood memory is playing catch with my Dad. He would come home after work, and we would throw for hours. We also played wiffle ball, for which he installed lights so we could play late into the evenings. One particular play is a golden memory for me. We had been practicing throwing a baseball into a 5-gallon bucket from increasing distances from infield range to deep outfield. A ball was hit on a line towards me in left field, and on the bounce, I came up throwing to get the runner coming in from third base. The catcher didn’t have to move his glove an inch and was waiting for the runner to tag him out. That play ended the inning. As I ran, my Dad, also my coach, had this huge smile on his face. All I said was, ‘The bucket works. ‘ That was a moment where I learned that how you practice is how you play.
Pricing:
- 60 minute sessions – $110
- 90 minute sessions -$155
- Packages and memberships available
- Private Yoga available in-person or online
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.massagecincy.com
- Instagram: instagram/massagecincy
- Facebook: facebook/massagecincy
- Twitter: twitter/massagecincy
