Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenna Swanson.
Jenna, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My path into this work has been anything but linear. I’ve always been deeply curious about the human body, healing, and the connection between our physical health, emotions, subconscious patterns, and the way we experience our lives.
I began my career in therapeutic massage, which eventually led me to discover BodyTalk and a completely different way of understanding health and healing. BodyTalk introduced me to the idea that the body isn’t simply a collection of separate parts, but an interconnected system constantly communicating and adapting. That perspective changed the trajectory of both my personal life and my professional work.
For five years, I had an in-person practice in downtown Lee’s Summit, where I worked closely with clients dealing with everything from chronic pain and stress to complex health concerns and emotional patterns. I was incredibly fortunate to build a loyal community there, and my practice was voted Best Massage in Lee’s Summit four consecutive years, from 2022 through 2025. Those awards meant a lot to me because they reflected the trust and relationships I had built with the people I served.
Over time, though, my work evolved far beyond massage. I became increasingly interested in consciousness-based healthcare and in understanding why someone can seemingly do “all the right things” and still struggle to feel well.
Eventually, I reached a point of burnout with the physical demands of therapeutic massage and made the difficult decision to close my office. At the time, it felt like I was stepping away from something I had spent years building, especially at a point when the practice was successful, but it ultimately pushed me to become much clearer about the work I actually wanted to be doing.
I transitioned my practice to focus primarily on BodyTalk and continued deepening my education in other advanced forms of applied kinesiology and muscle testing, including the Lebowitz Protocol, where I utilize herbs and homeopathic remedies as part of an individualized approach to supporting the body. This evolution has allowed me to continue exploring the intersection of the nervous system, subconscious mind, energy, consciousness, and physiology, while expanding the tools available to me for addressing the complex and often interconnected factors that can influence a person’s health and well-being.
While the majority of my work is now offered remotely, I still see a select number of clients in person at my own discretion, incorporating therapeutic massage, BodyTalk, applied kinesiology, and other supportive approaches when appropriate.
Today, my work is centered around helping people look at health through a wider lens, especially those who feel like they’ve tried everything or haven’t found the answers they’re looking for through conventional approaches alone. I’m passionate about making unconventional concepts around energy medicine and consciousness more practical, grounded, and understandable, while still honoring the complexity and intelligence of the human body.
Looking back, even the parts of my journey that felt like detours have shaped the way I practice today. My work continues to evolve, but the thread running through all of it has remained the same: a deep curiosity about what helps people heal, change, and reconnect with their own capacity for greater health and well-being.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No, definitely not. In the earliest years of building my business, I was also navigating some significant personal health challenges, including a pretty severe case of Lyme disease. At the same time, my son was elementary-aged, and as other parents know, those years can be incredibly demanding in their own right.
Building a business is already hard. You sacrifice free time, sleep, and family time to lay the groundwork and plant seeds that you hope and pray will come to fruition one day because you believe so deeply in what you’re building. Trying to do that while dealing with my own health struggles took the challenge to an entirely different level. There were times when I was trying to show up for my clients, my son, my business, and myself while having very little left in the tank.
At the same time, some of the most valuable things I’ve learned about the human body and the complexity of chronic illness have come through my own personal experience. I know what it feels like to search for answers, to try different approaches, and to have to become an active participant in understanding your own health. Much of what I’ve learned about supporting the body has been shaped not only by my professional education, but by what I’ve personally had to learn, explore, and apply during some of the most difficult periods of my own life.
In many ways, those challenges deepened my commitment to this work. They taught me resilience, but they also gave me a level of empathy and curiosity that I don’t think could have come from education alone. My own experience is a big part of why I’m so passionate about looking beyond the obvious, asking deeper questions, and continuing to explore what may be possible when someone feels like they’ve run out of answers.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
My practice is built around a simple idea: healing that goes deeper.
Whether someone is experiencing a new symptom that hasn’t resolved or a chronic condition they’ve lived with for years, my work is about helping them better understand what may be happening within their body and looking beyond the symptom itself. I specialize in working with people who feel like they’ve tried everything, are navigating complex or persistent health concerns, or simply sense that there is more to their health than what is showing up on the surface.
The foundation of my work is BodyTalk, a consciousness-based healthcare system that looks at the body as an interconnected whole rather than treating physical, mental, emotional, and energetic factors as completely separate from one another. I also incorporate advanced applied kinesiology and muscle testing, such as the Lebowitz Protocol as well as traditional Chinese Medicine, and herbs and homeopathic remedies when appropriate.
What sets my work apart is that I’m not interested in applying the exact same formula to every person. Two people can walk through the door with the same symptom and have very different root cause factors as to why that symptom is occurring. My approach is highly individualized and guided by the understanding that the body is an incredibly complex, dynamic system. Rather than looking only at where a symptom is showing up, I’m interested in the relationships between the nervous system, immune system, emotions, subconscious patterns, environment, lifestyle, physiology, and other factors that may be influencing the whole.
I’m also passionate about bridging the gap between concepts that are often considered unconventional; such as energy medicine, consciousness, and the mind-body connection, and grounded conversations about health. I don’t believe we have to choose between appreciating modern medicine and remaining curious about what exists beyond the boundaries of our current understanding. There is tremendous value in both.
Most of my BodyTalk work can be done remotely, which allows me to work with people regardless of where they live. I also see a select number of clients in person at my own discretion, where I may incorporate BodyTalk, applied kinesiology, hands-on bodywork, and other supportive approaches depending on the individual.
What I’m most proud of is that my brand has evolved alongside me. I’m not trying to fit my work neatly into one category or follow whatever happens to be trending in wellness. I’ve built my practice around curiosity, integrity, continued education, and a genuine desire to help people better understand themselves and their bodies.
I’ve created a practice that encourages curiosity and self-empowerment. My goal isn’t for clients to feel like I hold all the answers about their bodies. It’s to help them become more connected to themselves, more aware of what influences their health, and better equipped to make choices that support them.
More than anything, I want people to know that my work is for those who are willing to be curious. You don’t have to understand natural health, energy medicine, or BodyTalk before working with me. You simply have to be open to the possibility that the human body may be more interconnected and more intelligent than we have been taught to believe.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I am definitely a risk-taker. Some might even call me a thrill seeker, my mom certainly would. I’ve always been drawn to experiences that push me outside of what feels completely safe or predictable, and looking back, that may be part of what drew me to entrepreneurship in the first place. There’s something exciting to me about creating something from nothing, trusting an idea before you know exactly how it will turn out, and building a career around work that is somewhat unconventional to begin with. It’s like a real life rollercoaster ride.
Entrepreneurship itself is a risk. There’s no guarantee that the time, money, energy, and sacrifices you make will ever turn into what you envision. At some point, you have to believe in what you’re building before there’s much evidence that anyone else will.
One of the biggest risks I’ve taken was actually walking away from something that was working. I had spent five years building a successful in-person practice in downtown Lee’s Summit, had an incredible client base, and had won multiple awards. From the outside, closing that practice probably didn’t make much sense. But I knew I was burned out from the physical demands of what I was doing, and I also knew my work was evolving in a different direction. Staying would have been the safer choice from the outside looking in, but it would have meant ignoring what I knew internally.
Closing my office meant giving up a level of predictability and essentially asking myself, “If I’m no longer willing to build my business around the thing I’m already known for, what comes next?” That was uncomfortable, I grieved for a good year, and in some ways, I still am. But it forced me to redefine my work around BodyTalk, consciousness-based healthcare, applied kinesiology, and the areas of health I felt increasingly drawn to explore.
I’ve learned that there are different kinds of risk. Sometimes the risk is starting something new, investing money, putting yourself out there, or doing something before you feel completely ready. But sometimes the bigger risk is letting go of something successful because you know it no longer fits who you’re becoming.
As much as I naturally gravitate toward risk, I don’t think taking risks means being reckless. I think it means learning to distinguish between fear that is genuinely warning you and fear that simply comes from stepping into uncertainty. I try to make thoughtful decisions, pay attention to what I know practically, and also trust my intuition when something consistently feels right—or wrong, even when I can’t see exactly how everything is going to work out yet.
Entrepreneurship has taught me that certainty is rarely available before a big decision. Sometimes you have to take the next step, trust what you’ve built within yourself, and be willing to adjust along the way. Some risks work out exactly as you hoped, some don’t, but almost all of them teach you something you couldn’t have learned by staying comfortable. In many ways, I think that willingness to venture outside of what is conventional, both in business and in healthcare, is a big part of how I ended up doing the work I do today.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.rootandriverwellness.com
- Instagram: @womanbeflow
- Other: https://substack.com/@womanbeflow
