About Me
My name is Nelly Bablumian. I am an Armenian immigrant, a neurospicy artist, a single mama, and a queer community member working to heal and restore balance in myself and others every day.
I write poetry, make jewelry, love to cook, create altars and rituals, build theatrical worlds, and craft two and three dimensional collages and sculptures. I love drawing out sacredness in spaces most of all. Prior to studying massage therapy, I worked as a director and writer of physical theatre and drama therapy, and produced ritual and poetic theatre in upstate New York and around the world.
How I Came into This Work
At a certain junction in my life, I realized that I am meant to use my hands to help unlock the healing powers of the incredible human body.
I was blessed to find The Finger Lakes School of Massage in Mt. Kisco, NY, where I participated in one of the most comprehensive massage therapy curriculums in the country (over 1000 hours of schooling). I have always loved working with my hands, as I strive towards making most of the things in my life hand crafted. I have also always been fascinated by the human body—in movement, in space, how it functions as its own universe. I believe that this work has the potential to create sacred experience; it is transformative and immensely powerful. As a therapist, I reach into a quiet space where the body I touch calls out its needs. I listen fiercely and without judgement. I do not force, do not “fix” or “heal”; I coax the body to relax so that it can finally have permission to heal itself.
From Theatre Director
to Pain Doula
Each session is uniquely crafted to the individual needs of the person on the table as I draw on modalities such as Swedish Massage, Shiatsu Japanese acupressure (based on Chinese Traditional Medicine), human physiology and kinesiology, Connective Tissue Therapy, CranioSacral Therapy, Reiki, and others. This knowledge is deepened by what I have come to call Energy Balancing, which developed organically over years of tuning into the energy bodies on the table under my hands. In time, I realized my creative background in Commedia dell'Arte, Butoh, and mask work deeply influences my work as a therapist. The connection between physical theatre and therapeutic touch has been surprising and powerfully strong.
As both a director/performer and as a therapist, I create a safe space cocooned from the outside world, where a body that is hurt can explore its pain and move through it.
A body that is stuck in a holding pattern can let go and see things in a new way, start moving in a new way. We are born with inherent healing mechanisms in our bodies that we forget how to listen to. Our bodies have what we need; they are each a whole universe in itself - abundant.