Synergy Wellness

A Family Business Devoted to Health and Wellness

If you are a client of Synergy Wellness, a massage therapy and wellness studio in Shallotte (as I am), you understand how well named they have named this business.

The dictionary definition of synergy is “the interaction of two or more entities whose combined efforts result in something greater than would be achieved by the action of the work of the two entities acting individually.” Kasey and Josh Robinson, both licensed massage therapists, have created a business in which they can work together and that reaches out to other families in the area as well.  

Synergy Wellness provides clients with the benefits of this pair’s considerable talents in massage. And as their knowledge about well-being expands, their vision for the business expands to shares the fruits of those discoveries with clients. At present that includes promoting healthy eating (juicing and vegetable towers), teaching about the benefits of essential oils and elderberry syrup, and offering classes in yoga for children and adults.

The Robinsons’ purpose in all of this is not only to grow a business that supports their own family, which includes two sons, but also one that supports the overall health of clients.

“I’m thankful every day for the flexibility that owning your own business provides, even more so to be able to do it with my wife,” Josh says. “We are lucky to have always been on the same page about what we would like to see in our family and in our business.”

Kasey and Josh met while he was training to be a massage therapist. Kasey had already completed her training and was working in her own business in Shelby, North Carolina. She had agreed to The Whole You School of Massage, as an assistant teacher and then met Josh.

“From the moment we met there was an obvious energetic connection,” Kasey says. She adds that she had been praying to meet a man who would share her vision for the future. They met in October of 2008 and married in December of 2009. Kasey says, “In 10 years of marriage, joint massage practice and working with clients, Josh and I have learned so much about the body and how to enhance optimal well-being. We want to share that with others.”

Kasey credits her aunt, Aleta Worzella, with early-on encouragement of her career path and for being able to develop a larger vision for the future. “I told her to reach for what you want and encouraged her natural leadership abilities,” Worzella says. “We (Kasey’s family in Shelby) were all pleased to welcome Josh into the family and we love him as we do Kasey.”

After the birth of their first son, Tucker, the Robinsons left their Shelby to start over in Brunswick County, where Josh’s family has land. They first worked part-time jobs so they could spend more time with Tucker. They began to work together at Family First Chiropractic in Shallotte in 2011, when Kasey was pregnant with their second child, Eli. Dr. Megan Powell, who owned the practice then, shared Kasey and Josh’s vision for overall wellness work and encouraged them in it. Dr. William (Mac) McGowan and his wife, Dr. Monique (Moe) Weddle-McGowan now own the practice and continue in a close relationship with Josh and Kasey’s massage therapy.

However, after several years of working with the Family First, Josh and Kasey realized they needed to expand their space and create a team of massage therapists. Two years ago, the Robinsons found a place of their own — just down the road from Family First so joint clients still do not have to go far to find them.

Not long after that, Kasey was asked to teach at the Avalon School of Massage. One of their former clients, Kelli Billings, trained, became licensed and joined the team, giving the practice additional hours to serve clients. Billings says, “I came to them first as a client. I’ve been to many massage therapists over the years but I have found Josh and Kasey’s office to always have the warmest and most inviting practice of any. The have loving hearts and really care about the well-being of our community and beyond.”

In addition to rounding out the staffing needs with more therapists, the Robinsons have added bodywork therapies such as Thai massage and yoga for adults and children. They also offer myofascial release therapy, (a gentle hands-on approach I have found beneficial for migraine relief), hot stones, neuromuscular massage, prenatal massage and reflexology. More modalities are being added as they find the qualified, certified staff compatible with the practice.

“Moving well is also a key component to overall wellness,” Kasey says. “Keeping the body open and flexible and not stagnant is what we hope to achieve with yoga classes, private sessions and even yoga in the home.”

Brenda Ojala, a client, says, “Josh and Kasey are connected to you. They are not just clinicians. Once they put their hands on you, they know exactly what is bothering you and how to apply touch to relieve your pains. They are well-versed in natural healing in a broad scope of life, not just massage.”

Betsy Braddock, another client who alternates between Josh and Kasey on her visits, agrees that both Josh and Kasey have a healing touch and a natural instinct for assuaging pain. “You feel like you are a client of their broader practice when you go there, not just a massage patient” Braddock says. She has tried several of the complementary therapies offered, especially liking Thai massage, a healing practice that combines acupressure with assisted yoga forms.

Synergy has been in the new space for two years now. It has provided a lot of opportunities in addition to massage and movement classes. They now offer essential oils, herbal teas and herbal syrups (specifically elderberry) as well as aids for healthy eating such as the Tower Garden for growing vegetables. Their Facebook Page keeps clients up-to-date on events such as the Yoga and Tea Party, monthly Young Living™ Essential Oils classes and others, including Power of Elderberry syrup, produced locally from all-natural products. I have purchased the Power of Elderberry syrup and essential oil roll-ons (several are helpful with my migraines) when I go in for my massage.

Each year the Robinsons have been able to grow more and more of their own food and herbs on their land. “Food is an important part of overall wellness,” Kasey says.

Realizing that not everyone has the space for large outdoor gardens, the Robinsons have embraced the Tower Garden, a product of another one of their partners, Juice Plus. The Tower Garden looks like a large plastic tube with holes. Minimal set-up makes it a vertical garden in any sunny corner. “Its only limits are root crops such as carrots and potatoes, grapevines, bushes, and trees,” Kasey says. The product uses an advanced form of hydroponics to provide the environment for supporting crop growth, and the Robinsons keep one in the kitchen of their offices for their own use and as a demo for clients.

Expansion is on the mind of this young couple. They want to make the business larger to reach more people with their vision of healthy minds and bodies. From her earliest days, Kasey has felt that God wanted her to serve others. “I have always had big dreams,” she says. “Even before I met Josh, I attended a Focus on the Family Institute with James Dobson and there learned how prayer and trusting God would lead me into aligning my path with who I am.”

As Josh puts it, their vision for what they want to do in the community comes out of their vision for the well-being of their family. He is grateful that the business allows them to focus on what they find important in life, “like teaching our kids about the natural world, growing healthy foods and more. Being able to work together gives us a unique opportunity.”

At the heart of the business plan is the role that Kasey and Josh hope their practice will play in the individual lives of their clients, mirroring and broadening what they do for their own family.

Kasey articulates the vision she and Josh have in this way: “A larger Wellness Center to be a place where singles, couples and families can come to re-center themselves meet with nature for play and learning and more.” She goes on to describe it as a retreat center on a vast acreage of wooded land where people can come to a large building for conferences, meals at a café that serves whole, natural foods, and cabin accommodations on the grounds. Berry fields, gardens and more would abound.

Everything the Robinsons do now and what they plan to do for clients in the larger Wellness Center of their dreams would provide a place to help clients align with the fullness of themselves, connect with nature and teach improved health skills as well as offer various therapies.

In thinking about reaching these goals for the practice, Josh and Kasey plan to continue to partner with others in the community who share the same goals, such as the products they now carry and adding other therapists to bring about their vision of reaching more and more people with a plan to enhance their physical and spiritual well-being. Josh sums it up this way: “I’m excited to see what the future holds.”

Synergy Wellness
4530 White Street, Shallotte
(910) 754-6128
facebook.com/SynergyWellnessNC/