Here at Brand Genie, our favorite day of the week is website launch day!
Finally putting your website out into the world, sharing your voice and your passion on your very own platform — it’s an exciting milestone for any business owner.
We recently shared this big day with our client, Kathryn Hansman-Spice of Pausibility.
A coach and healer, Kathryn offers body-based coaching sessions, teaching her clients a mindful way to manage stress and pain using body awareness.
In our latest Spotlight, we sat down with Kathryn to learn more about her work, and her experience creating her website with Brand Genie.
BG: Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.
KHS: I’ve been an educator all my life, focusing mostly on early childhood education and helping kids in the inner city and in poverty programs. But with the lack of support for kids and families in this country, I ended up burning out in my 30s.
Like many people I was focused outward — on what I had to do, how I could do it well, and how I could save the world — all while being a woman, a mother, and a wife.
I wound up with chronic back pain and didn’t really understand the relationship between stress and my body. Finding relief and learning how to manage pain led me on a path to complementary medicine. I became a massage therapist, and through massage therapy, I was introduced to Trager work and created Pausibility.
BG: For those who aren’t familiar with it, can you tell us a little about what Trager is, and what Pausibility is?
KHS: Trager is a way of supporting the nervous system — giving you the experience of peace, flexibility, ease and alertness — and the feeling of being grounded in yourself.
It became my pathway, and an anchor for my self-care. I needed to learn how to listen to myself and my body for my own self care, first. Otherwise, I would burn out.
That profound shift in my own journey and my own awareness became the vehicle through which I help people learn how to do that in their own bodies and how to bring that back in their daily lives.
Pausibility became a more recent manifestation of that as I began to understand how neuroscience helps us understand the ways patterns are formed in the body — the way we move, think, and feel in our bodies is learned over a lifetime — and you can change those patterns.
So I created Pausability as a broader coaching system to integrate neuroscience and help people understand how their system works and how their brain works to help them connect to their own self care.
BG: What made you choose Brand Genie?
KHS: Well, I had a whole professional life without a website — just by being in the community. I was known and appreciated, and people wanted to come to me. When I moved here to Portland to be more of a grandma, I didn’t have that. And I found that with this new world, I really needed a presence on the web.
I tried different things on my own — I tried to do WordPress and even tried to do Weebly — but life intervenes.
Finally I asked a professional I go to for cranialsacral work. I found that she — and the acupuncturist next door to her (who I had also gone to!) had both used Brand Genie for their websites. So I thought “well, great, if it works for you two women, I’ll just try that!”
BG: How would you describe your experience with Brand Genie?
KHS: Overall, I’m just thrilled.
I felt relieved to have a clear structure for thinking things through, and someone to touch base with and offer support throughout the process. Though I still probably spent too much time trying to get it right on my own, before I let go of it!
I’ve looked online at other business models and they always felt too complicated. But this feels like a support that meets me where I am, and the kind of business that I have, with a style and approach that’s very personal.
Brand Genie seems perfect for someone like me, women with smaller businesses, who want a platform for their voice and their passion.
Brand Genie seems perfect for someone like me, women with smaller businesses, who want a platform for their voice and their passion.
BG: Now that it’s up, what kinds of comments have you heard about your site?
KHS: When I first launched it, I shared it on my Facebook. The comment that I really love came from another person who practices Trager:
“Inviting, informative, inspiring.”
That made me feel great.
And a client who I’d worked with years ago said:
“Thank you for opening the possibility of my body being a place to rest and be at peace. You changed my perspective on my body. The possibility equals the Pausibility.”
So the website seemed to anchor for her a personal experience she had with me and with Trager and she thought the website reflected that beautifully.
On a personal level, I feel like I didn’t get the idea of having a platform, having a place for my voice. Now I have a place to write my blog and I’ve got all kinds of things that I want to say. And I think the blog is the place to do that.
BG: Do you have any advice that you would offer other solopreneurs?
I think the most important thing is not to be a soloprenuer!
I don’t mean that structurally. What I mean is — reach out. It’s when I ask people, other small businesses that I respect — that I have found community. It’s how I found Brand Genie!
BG: Thank you, Kathryn for sharing your thoughts with us! Visit Kathryn’s website to learn more about her work at Pausibility.
If you’re ready to share your voice on your own platform, book your free brand consultation today. We’d love to work with you!
Would you like to be featured in a future Solopreneur Spotlight? Send us an email and let’s chat.