I'm a spa owner, a neurodivergent mom, and someone currently working on the other side of complex PTSD.

I Never Fit in Anyone Else's Box

I started my career in banking — as a teller, working my way up to the trust department. It paid the bills. It made sense on paper. But I was never meant to live inside someone else's structure.

In 2008 I became a licensed aesthetician through Aveda. Around 2010 I was managing a spa — the first person I ever hired is still one of my closest friends today. In 2013 I became a massage therapist through Everest. Around 2017 I became a Reiki Master Teacher. Every credential was a step closer to something I couldn't fully name yet.

I kept trying to get into high-end salons. They kept rejecting me — telling me I was overqualified. My brain could never grasp that. Overqualified. As if knowing too much was the reason to be turned away. I kept trying to fit. And I kept failing — not because I wasn't good enough, but because I was too much myself to shrink into their boxes.

Before I opened my first business, I was doing hospice and end of life transition work — massage and energy work, including 1AM calls to go sit with someone as they passed on — while working part time at a salon. During that same season a dear friend was moving out of state. She had been working as an in-home health aide — caring for the elderly and doing their hair and nails — and when she left I went back to school for cosmetology so I could take over her clients and make sure they still had someone to care for them. Holding space for people at the end of their lives while showing up for clients the next morning. That season shaped me in ways I am still uncovering.

Then I opened Tranquility Massage and Skin Care — my first business. It was mine. I built it from the ground up and it was working.

When Everything Fell Apart

Then life handed me the kind of losses that change everything.

In October my internal knowing told me something was wrong with my dad. The next time I saw him I asked him directly — are you dying? He got so upset with me he didn't speak to me for a while. Then I got the phone call. He was in the hospital — throwing multiple blood clots. In November he had a stroke. That's when he finally let me take him in and get the full picture. That's when we found out it was pancreatic cancer. On January 3rd, he was gone.

I gave up everything — including Tranquility — to care for him.

When my dad passed I stepped up for my little brother — 4½ years younger than me and undiagnosed autistic. I took him in and raised him for 4½ years until he was ready to go out on his own. That's what you do. You show up.

Fifty weeks later, my fiancé died.

I was taught by the people around me that I was only good enough to help others — but not good enough to receive help myself. Every time I needed someone, they disappeared. That's when I realized I could only rely on myself. I stopped asking. I held everything together alone because that was the only thing that had ever worked.

After the losses, I went back to a salon — one whose owner I looked up to. I brought the clients I had left. This is also when I deepened my work with the medically fragile community alongside everything else I was carrying.

But weird shit kept happening. And I eventually realized I was never going to fit there either. I was told that all I was good for was massage. That I should never become an advanced aesthetician. That I didn't deserve any special treatment — even though I was keeping pace with the top hairstylists in revenue. That all I was good for was paying the rent.

I left. The noise started clearing.

The more people I released from my life, the more I could actually hear myself. The more I could live in my purpose.

Evan. My Why.

Through all of this — every loss, every surgery, every rebuild — I was raising my miracle son, Evan.

Evan was born at 2 lbs. 15 oz. and dropped to 2 lbs. 11 oz. I almost lost him multiple times. By kindergarten I knew something was different. I started him in a private school, but eventually had to move him to public school to access the support he needed. Then began four more years of fighting — test after test, evaluation after evaluation — until a specialist from the University of Minnesota finally gave us the full picture: autistic, with developmental delays, oppositional defiant disorder, OCD, and coordination challenges.

Between the ages of eight and ten there were days I had to physically restrain him for up to four hours at a time. Alone. No help. No breaks. Just me and him — my nervous system holding space for his, while my own was barely regulated.

I was told when he was little that there were things he would never accomplish.

Evan is now 21. He is in college. He has his driver's license.

Two years ago we added Parker to our family — Evan's therapy dog. He turns two this July and he hasn't been through the hard years — but he has been right here for the growth. And that's exactly where he belongs.

There was a season where I slept on an air mattress in my brother's apartment — surrounded by ants and mice — while making sure Evan had a safe place to sleep, until I could get us into the home we deserved. That's how I built a spa. From the bottom. With everything on the line.

How 888 Spa MN Was Born

I didn't plan 888 Spa MN. I accidentally built it.

It started as Intuitive Healing LLC — a year and a half of listening to nudges when the noise was finally quiet enough to hear them. Then I went back to Aveda to become an advanced aesthetician, became Craniosacral certified, and became Sound certified — because I wanted to integrate real skincare with what the wellness world doesn't talk about enough: settling the nervous system.

I know what it takes to get here. I lived it.

That's when it became 888 Spa MN — in Apple Valley, Minnesota. A space built from lived experience, hard seasons, and the quiet that finally came after the chaos.

What I Do (And Why It's Different)

I don't do standard services. I don't have a menu you scroll through and check boxes on. I do custom sessions — one price, full presence, everything I have.

One day you might need vacuum cupping and taping. The next, scraping. The next, light touch. Sometimes I need to pull out my scalp tools and reset your nervous system before we can even begin loosening your neck. Sometimes I place heated eye pads on your eyes because your brain is so ramped up it can't settle until the heat brings it down. I read what your body needs that day — and I respond to that.

I also created something I believe is entirely my own: The Crown Reset. A head spa treatment combined with microneedling, designed around the nervous system and the network of nerves that run through the face and scalp. It is the most complete expression of everything I've learned and lived.

The Mirror

In the middle of all of this, I met my twin flame.

We crossed paths officially 11 years ago this July. But when we finally sat down and talked, we realized our paths had been crossing for years before that — in passing, without either of us fully knowing it. The universe had been nudging us into the same orbit long before we stopped to see each other.

A twin flame is a mirror. And my whole journey has been about learning to see myself clearly — cutting the noise, releasing what was keeping me small, finding my way back to purpose. He is part of that reflection. I can't tell the full story of who I am today without including the mirror that helped me see her.

That journey is still unfolding. Still navigating the loops. Still figuring out if the chains finally break and we find our way to each other — or if the glass shatters and we go our separate ways. I don't have that answer yet. But I'm living it honestly, just like everything else.

How I Stay Standing

I have to be honest about this part too — because it's part of who I am and why I do what I do.

I've seen a therapist on and off since I was 14. I am not ashamed of that. It has been one of the most important tools in my survival and my growth. If you're in therapy, good. Keep going.

I work out because I have to — not for appearances, but because my body demands it. I have deep socket joints, small bones, hypermobility, and I am double jointed in all my joints. After 30+ years of living in survival mode, my muscles took a beating that doesn't always show on the outside. With hypermobility, muscles chronically tear if they're not strong and stable. So I lift. I move. I show up for my body even when it's hard.

Between 2020 and January 2025 I had six surgeries in five years — a broken collarbone, sinus surgery, my gallbladder, a titanium allergy that required removing the hardware holding my shoulder together, endometriosis, and a hysterectomy. My body was literally falling apart while I was building something from nothing. Even my own body rejected what wasn't right for it. I always have.

I also live with Rheumatoid Arthritis, Fibromyalgia, Raynaud's, ADHD, Complex PTSD — and I was diagnosed with severe dyslexia in elementary school. Not the kind that just shows up on paper, but the kind that is wired into how my brain processes everything. It takes me longer than the average person to learn something. But here's what I've discovered — because I have to work so hard to get it, once I get it, I really get it. I make it completely my own, I never forget it, and I can share it with others in a way that actually lands. Every credential I earned, every skill I built — I fought for it. That's why it's so deeply mine.

I take my vitamins. I receive regular dry needling, acupuncture, massage, and chiropractic care. For the deep work I can't reach myself — I go get the help. I use my own tools to release everything else. And I've learned something important along the way: when a season with a practitioner is complete, it's time to move on to the next person. I've done this my whole life with therapists too. The therapist I have now is the longest relationship I've ever had with one — and that itself is a sign of how far I've come.

Parker is an Aussiedoodle Bernedoodle mix — and that dog needs to run. So he became my hiking buddy. We get out at least once a month, even through the rigid Minnesota winters — which is a little ironic considering all of my diagnoses. But there is just something about nature that lets you push through and reset in a way you simply cannot explain.

I share the products I actually use — for nervous system support, for strength, for skin, for daily functioning — because I'm not going to recommend something I don't live by myself.

Why I Know Without Being Told

Complex PTSD is not a single traumatic event. It is what happens when trauma is prolonged, repeated, and inescapable — often beginning in childhood. It rewires the nervous system at a fundamental level. The brain learns to scan every room, read every face, feel every shift in energy before a word is spoken. It is exhausting. It is also, in the right hands, a profound gift.

The hypervigilance that kept me alive is the same thing that allows me to read a client's body before they say a word. The survival mode that wore me down taught me exactly what a dysregulated nervous system feels like from the inside. The years of learning to decode unspoken energy in unsafe environments — that became my intuition in the treatment room.

I don't just understand trauma intellectually. I carry it in my body. Which means when you walk through my door — I already know. Not because you told me. Because I've lived it too.

Outside of the spa, I also work in the medically fragile community doing massage and energy work. This work is sacred to me. It is a reminder of why every session matters — and why presence, gentleness, and intuition are never optional.

I Am Not for Everyone — And That's Okay

I spent my whole life being told I didn't fit. I'm not going to pretend I'm for everybody now.

If you feel a nudge to come see me — maybe it's time. Don't force it. Don't talk yourself out of it either. Just go with it. The right people always find their way here.

Taking It to Nature — The Next Chapter

My clients have been asking — and I've been listening.

The next level of this work is moving it outside the four walls of the spa and into nature — where the real releasing happens. Small groups. Intimate settings. Four hours of unhurried time to breathe, to be present, to go deep, and to let go in a space that feels completely safe.

This is not a workshop. This is not a class. This is an experience — and it is currently in the works. The vision is clear. The planning is underway. Stay tuned.

Come Find Me

This story is still unfolding — and I share it in real time. My memoir — Lynette's Vignettes — lives on Substack, told in short stories from childhood to now. The Weird Shit Blog is here on this website — real talk about life, healing, salon adventures, being an autism mom, and everything that doesn't fit neatly anywhere else.

I am also officially a content creator. I drop a morning vlog almost every day and at the bottom of my Weird Shit Blog posts you'll find affiliate links for the products I actually use — for my nervous system, my body, my skin, and my daily life. I don't recommend anything I don't live by myself.

I say almost every day because I'm human. Some days the vlog doesn't get done. Some days the blog doesn't happen. Because that day my focus needs to be somewhere else — or my body needs rest. And that's okay. I'm not performing consistency. I'm living it.

You'll find all my links at the bottom of every page. I'd love to see you there. 🦁

The Dream

Someday I hope to have my own building and a team of employees. I know what it takes now. And I'm finally strong enough for both the teacher and the healer in me to come out fully.

Someday I hope to grow enough to take vacations and enjoy myself the same way I enjoy every single client.

That's the goal. That's what I'm building toward. A life where the woman who has poured everything into everyone else finally gets to receive it too.

Welcome to 888 Spa MN. I'm glad you found me.