The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

Alesha Faris, licensed massage therapist (LMT) has had a passion for helping people since she was a young girl, and she’s turned that passion into her own practice.

Faris was born and raised in Sisters, being a resident since 1995.

Faris became officially licensed to practice massage in 2014 after realizing she could make her lifelong passion a profession.

“I studied all areas of massage — Swedish, Thai, pregnancy massage — particularly therapeutic massage, and started working with athletes and body builders,” she said.

Faris got her license through classes at COCC and focused on classes dealing with chronic pain, hydrotherapy, and mobilization all within therapeutic massage. Most of her focus during sessions is helping to relieve chronic pain issues, as well as traumatic injuries.

“I try to just relieve the most amount of pain in certain areas,” she said. “I focus on the use of deep pressure which is different than deep tissue massage.”

Deep pressure massage is when the muscles of the area being worked don’t fight back and it is more muscle use on her part, with more direct pressure applied in a specific area.

“This kind of massage is specific to helping with injuries and chronic pain,” Faris said.

Faris’ decision to focus her passion for helping people on massage was multiplied because she experienced deep and chronic pain after being in a car accident in 2015.

“I understand what it’s like to be in that kind of pain after a traumatic event,” she said.

As a young girl she would do massage on her friends and family friends after sporting events. One of her family friends told her she should do this for a living.

“That next morning after she said that, I looked into what that would look like and I got signed up for classes that fall to become licensed in massage therapy,” she said.

Faris worked at Massage Envy in Bend.

“It was a good place to start in the massage therapy industry; you start to build up the muscles that are needed,” she said.

But Faris had always wanted to be able to work for herself and be home for her son, being a single mom. In 2017, she rented space from a chiropractor in Bend and began branching out on her own. She got her own space in 2019 in Bend and was there for around a year before the pandemic, when she shut down her practice.

“It was hard to keep working with the nature of my clientele, and it was so unknown, there were too many questions, so I decided to reassess and shut down,” she said.

The shutdown ended up being a silver lining for Faris, as she was able to look for a space closer to home in Sisters. Faris and her son live with her father, and he was instrumental in helping her find a space in Sisters.

Faris has her own office space for therapeutic massage in the Sisters Art Works building on Adams Avenue

“I got the space at the Art Works building in May and re-opened once vaccines were more rolled out,” she said.

Faris has a loyal following of clients that followed her from Bend to receive massage from her. Faris doesn’t have set hours for her practice; she just has clients text or call her when they need a massage and they schedule one.

“My goal is to make people that come in feel better, and I just want people to know that I am here,” she said. “I like going home knowing that I have helped someone.”

When Faris is not practicing massage, you can find her hiking with her son in the summertime.

To schedule a massage with Faris, call 541-306-9344. Her office is located at 204 W. Adams Ave., Ste. 103B.