4th Life: Creative Practitioner
in no particular order:
Musician, Artist, Writer, (eventual Author)
Energetically sensitive human with energy healing abilities.
3rd Life:
Transitioning out of Bodywork/Massage (2004 to present).
2nd Life:
Former database geek and stellar QA goddess (1989-2006).
Michelle C. Basey
The C became more and more important as life went on.
When I found out my middle names means “Song Of Joy” and noticed I had named my first company LovePeaceLight For Joy, and later still learned that I am an Internal Enjoyer, it just feels right to shine that little C there in the center as a centerpiece shining.
More True Me.
And please keep becoming More True You!
Fuller Resume
Body and Energy work background presently resides here:
LovePeaceLight For Joy is where you can find all things bodywork, energywork, and booking in person sessions. (West Seattle, WA)
Back Story
((Please note the rest of this page was second edited at a later date without reading what I initially wrote and I just noticed I liked my blah blah so much I wrote it twice so … woopsie! Anyhow, Final Edit is forthcoming so, Enjoy Or No, whatever be your pleasure this fine and glorious day.))
GenX – I want my solar powered flying car! Ok, not “really”, I’m super attached to my glorious view of the clouds and if I had one, everyone would want one and I’d be staring at the underbelly of noisy machines obstructing the stars.
ISNTFP – the N and the F came more online later in life. Still strong I though, and P will always unrule the “rules”.
WA much of my life.
I love space photos! Our planets are so incredible. Did you know we left the solar system?!?! I heard the recording that was sent to us from Voyager. How freaking cool is that?!?!!? Did you see Scott Kelly’s Space Flower?! First flower grown in Space! Zero G baby, up on the ISS.
ISS. The International Space Station. HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!?! Countries working in harmony to conduct space research. Love love love!!
I guess this is more of a random ADHD stream of consciousness word salad than a back story, but did you “really” want to hear about my life as a toddler? Yeh, I thought so.
I was adorable, by the way. Toddlers always are. They’re clumsy and learning to use their voices. When they sit you down to tell you an animated story using their pile of non-word sounds, it’s pure delight!
In High School we passed hand written notes. A friend and I ended up in a writing competition to see who could write the most pages. Technically she probably won, because she was writing things that actually made sense. But I was an expert at pages and pages of:
Hey How’s it going? go go going, gone, what is wrong?! I can’t sing this song when are we going to the zoo because after the decades long struggle with her hamburger she finally got all the catsup to go the freak away away anchors away my boys, anchor’s a weight just a darn tootin minute there missy, since when do we are the world, we are the children, we are the ones who can’t stop blowing on pretty dandelions to make more pretty pretty poop on a stick oh you thought I was above poop on a stick, we’ll I’ll have you know that poop on a stick is PRECISELY how you get it off my lawn chair folded when I tried to sit on it and OUCH that wasn’t fun in a bun on the run in the sun omg we’re back to hamburgers and I just didn’t want to go there cuz I want ice cream!!! love & hugs & slimy slugs – Michelle
yeh, no one locked me up
go figure!
AnyWHO …. no no you did NOT just say that …. wow, blast from the past new TOpic please!
I’m supposed to be telling you my marketing hook story to win you heart, woo your spirit, and make you want to be my fan for life, but … clearly I’d rather just goof around than do “work”!
because ….
I’m an Internal Enjoyer!!
What’s that? I’m glad you asked. I wrote all about it in an article I haven’t written yet but will have by the time your read this so nanny nanny poopoo!
It’s kind of like partier, but … all in my own head.
And … it makes me want that for you too. It’s ok if you don’t want it. You may be a builder joyfully building all the live long day but … HA! gotcha! you’re enjoying yourself!
Ken Wilber
Dude has some great ideas, but he kind of went down this sort-of-like-a-cult route. Anyway, he says people like me can’t exist.
Yet, here I am. So … I can only play along with it as a “useful tool” rather than “my life’s forever paradigm”. Sorry, Ken. You’re awesome, but, I totally exist dude!
Claire W Graves
Now there’s a genius for ya. The man figured out that the childhood stages of development NEVER STOP! We keep developing! Well, some of us do. You’re free to stop and hangout wherever you like … so long as you’re not making things unbearably miserable for the rest of us. Therein lies the tricky part. In all the Tier 1 stages, we’re kinda all like “my way or the highway”, “I’m right and you’re a stupidhead”, “I know I was full on in that belief last week, but now I’m not so it’s totally wrong.”
Tier 2.
Thankfully, people keep growing as people and eventually get to this “biggest paradigm shift of all” when they start going “huh, I can see your point of view. I don’t agree, but I can see how in your world-view that makes total sense.” Ken Wilber likes to say “nobody is smart enough to be wrong 100% of the time”. There is truth and nonsense in every point of view.
Yeh, we’re back to Ken. Claire passed away. Ken & …. some dude sorry I can’t remember you name and I’m too lazy to look it up … they continued his research and published a version of his work.
Ken kept going, integrating in other paradigms, and … well continues to do so to this day.
Let’s see, what else have you been waiting to know this whole entire page?
I don’t know but I’m going to tell you about this instead:
Integrated Human. That’s what I call it when we explore our “masculine” qualities, and our “feminine” qualities (in whatever order you want) and THEN be like “wow! I gots mad skillz all OVER that spectrum! I’m gonna rock this into the most awesomest version of me the world has ever seen!”
oh oh oh! I know! I know what you’ve been waiting to know!
You want to know about how I went from shoe store to software to massage to whatever the heck it is I’m doing now.
I was on the bus. Heading to my temp job. Me & Barb were the awesomest shoe store people ever. That place was tip top. We’d get 8hrs of work done in 4, use the other 4 to organize and inventory the overstock, spiff up the back room, that place was perfect. One day our manager asked us why we were just standing around. He went down the list and we were like ‘done, done, done, done’.
A few days later we got told he was going to have to “break up the goodness” and “one of us” was going to have to transfer to the “store that needed help”. Barb was like “not it” before he could even finish the sentence.
Well, needless to say, stores are often messed up because the manager is messed up. Found out later she’d been embezzling. Anyway, she’s in the backroom literally eating bonbons with a jam packed store and me out there by myself. I don’t remember my breaking point, but when it became obvious this store was not fixable until the manager was removed, I quit.
I was on the bus, headed to my temp job. One of my camp counselor’s was on that same bus. He was engaged and enjoying a great social group. Invited me to join. A few months later he was BEGGING me to apply for a job. I resisted, argued, but finally relented.
The interview was hilarious. The boss was like “well, it’s kind of hard, there’s alot of repetitive tasks”
no problem, I’m really good at repetitive tasks, I kind of enjoy them
he’s like “and it requires strong attention to detail”
no worries, I totally rock at that
and then the kicker “it’s a small company so we can’t hold your hand, you’ll be doing things, you’ll probably have alot of questions, but no one has time to answer them,we’ll just need you to do the best you can. If you get really stuck, let me know, I’ll get you with the right person”
omg that sounds like HEAVEN
I was talking myself into a job I didn’t want! (this was 1989, who knows my exact words, obviously I was being professional about it)
And it was heaven.
“Here, figure this out, if you have any questions, go ask a genius. But be quick about it, and don’t ask the same too many times in a row.”
My perfect learning environment!
Quality Assurance. People would ask me what I do, I’d say “I break things and complain about it!”
Years later … well you read about the paradigm shifts! I just wasn’t diggin on the negative side of the street anymore.
I had ZERO intention of going into massage therapy. ZERO. Yuck. Humans? For an HOUR?!?! That’s insanity.
Yet, that’s where I landed for 14 years.
Health said “hi, we’re going on a magic carpet ride that isn’t going to feel very magical”. Stupid 3rd dimension!! SO many rules. Cells, Gravity, sub-atomic particles, endocrine systems that require all the kids playing nice together …stupid stupid 3d dimension!
But …. it’s the only way I get to internally enjoy! It’s the only way to have cool experiences. It’s the only way to take all that “stuff in my brain” and realize it as an experience, so …. it’s not really a stupid dimension.
Body taught me some really cool stuff about who I am and what’s “actually” important to my “I wanna do and be everything!” brain.
So, here I am. Typing an About page.
Hanging out in 4th life.
The baby chick still a bit disoriented but mammabird just pushed her out the nest so she’s flap flap flapping her baby wings!
Oh look! She can fly!
Resumé-esque
HS to 1988
shoes!
Barb and I were rock stars. That store was in tip top shape. Our manager Mark was also the District Manager. One day, the store was empty and she and I were standing at the register yapping. Mark emerges from the backroom and starts questioning our lollygagging. “There’s nothing to do.” Barb says.
He begins the “what about ___” list. We’d done all of it. I started listing all the things that weren’t on his list that we’d done, just because we were both the kind of people who could find things that needed to be done and get them done.
It was the beginning of the end. A day or so later he was talking with us trying to decide which one of us he was going to send down to the “messed up” store down south. She had seniority, it was pretty much decided before the conversation began.
I’d been at that store before, but the current manager was lazy. As in eating bonbon’s in the back room level of lazy. No hyperbole. I lasted as long as I could. Mark had been my first manager at my very first job with the company. He was a great manager and I wanted to help him out with the store. I don’t recall how things came to a head, but I couldn’t take any more and I quit.
It turns out she was under investigation for embezzlement and they finally had enough evidence to fire her. He had been hoping I would complete the Assistant Manager training program and be ready to be a stop-gap when they got rid of her and groomed in a new manager. Crazy!
Back then there were temp agencies where you could do office or factory work to bring in some money while seeking a full time job. I did a few and found one that was working out. Filing. 8 hours a day filing. She was super impressed and let me try 10-key.
1989 – 2006
“I break things, and complain about it.”
Software QA (Quality Assurance), passion for databases,
Mythical Man Month scheduling goddess, management of a small team.
I was riding the bus to an interview. I didn’t own a car yet. I came upon a camp counselor who had also been a family friend. He invited me to a gathering to meet his fiance and his music-oriented friends. They met regularly and I became a part of it. A few months later he was BEGGING me to go to a job interview several cities away. I resisted. He persisted. I went grudgingly. I didn’t know anything about computers.
Apparently I knew more than I thought I knew. The manager was trying to tell me about all the terrible things about the job and I kept saying things like “Oh, I like that sort of thing”,”that comes easily to me”, “I have a high tollerance for __”. I became aware that I was talking myself in to a job I didn’t even want!
Well, they offered me a job. At the same time the Filing job was offering me a job. At the same time Mark was calling me & telling me about he firing and offering me a job.
3 career paths
The one with the greatest financial opportunity over time was computers, so off I went down the crazy path of software start-ups. I’ve sat at the same desk doing the exact same job and my business cards changed 3 times because we kept getting bought. Crazy!
My friend who had begged me to apply? He concealed his nefarious plan. He had been Lead QA and was planning to leave and was bringing me in as his replacement! 3 months later the other two QA people moved on and I was Lead QA by default.
And that’s the magic of start-ups. You get to step up. Everyone’s busy. Something comes up, if you’re less busy, you get to dive in to something new.
It was my PERFECT learning environment. Surrounded by geniuses (yes, many of them were actual geniuses). “Here, go figure this out. If you get stuck, ask a genius. But don’t ask the same person too often. Spread it around. We’re all trying to get things done. Their time is valuable. Minimize the interruptions as much as possible.” They’d answer me in whiteboard drawings. It was SO COOL! I was in heaven.
Until I wasn’t. I was starting to feel stagnant. So I took a few coding courses to get up to speed on the common languages. Toward the end, I found myself in management.
2002 – present
Energy Healing
Have you ever done parts work? It’s a process of imaginary dialog’s with different parts of yourself. Well, mine started without me.
One morning I awoke to a giant blue genie sitting on my chest. His name was Bernie and he wasn’t going to let me up unless I listened to him. I managed to trick him and got out of bed but he was following me around. I told him I needed to be somewhere and promised to talk to him later that evening.
Oh you bet I was on the phone looking for a shrink! I thought for sure hallucinations was going to land me on lithuim in a padded cell. But clearly I was insane and probably needed to be locked up anyway.
Luckily, the second therapist I encountered was the perfect fit. She knew about parts like Bernie and taught me how to work with them. She was an Energy Healer herself and became my accidental mentor. I’d sit in her office emoting “it’s a curse!”. She’d counter softly and neutrally “it’s a gift”. Back and forth until one day I was able to call it both all on my own. And even dropped the curse part along the way.
By 2002 I immersed in Hawaiian-based energy healing modalities and completed a Mastery program.
But … also by 2002 I was unemployed staring down the “no college” problem. Resumés were sorted by hand back then. An HR Manager staring down 200 of them took the college / no college as a first pass to get the pile manageable. The people who would have loved and hired me weren’t ever going to see my name.
It was a different time back then. A single gal in her 20’s, however innocent, just wasn’t going to stay friends with married male colleages in their 30’s/40’s, even if she knew their wives. The whole “call people you know!” thing didn’t apply. I didn’t have their contact information – and the ones that were listed on my References had been laid off right alongside me. I was an outsider.
I didn’t know it at the time, but this was my transition from 2nd life to 3rd life. The all of who I knew as me was morphing into someone I didn’t yet know very well.
A year later I landed a 7 month gig that let me know for absolute certainty I was done done done. The industry was going places I did not like at all. It was over.
2004 – present
Massage Therapy, Medical Treatment Massage, Bowenwork
I had no idea what I was going to do next. I’d been studying Energy Work. People hadn’t heard of Reiki, and Energy Work was very much on the wacko-bean fringes of common-place sanity. I was considering getting my SQL DBA and doing software in a different capacity.
It turns out it was a mis-understanding of the law, but what I’d been told was that Hands Off energy work was the only thing I could do without a “license to touch”. Therapists couldn’t touch their clients beyond a handshake / formal greeting type of thing. It had to be a nurse, or a doctor, or a P.T., O.T., massage therapist type of credential.
I thought the whole thing was ridiculous, but I get it – protecting the public from … well I’ve heard stories so the laws don’t really do squat for those intent on ill-behavior’s … but with the law it’s easier to prosecute, so I get it AnyWay!
I found a short Massage program with a free intro class, so I went to check it out. Perhaps one day I’ll get my license to touch so I’m not restricted to hands-off.
Well,
2018 – present
Creative Practitioner