Remembering Who We Are Beneath What Happened to Us – Interview With Lisa Tibando

Healing often begins with a single moment that changes the course of a life. In this interview, a Registered Massage Therapist shares how surviving profound loss, trauma, and adversity shaped her approach to healing, and why reconnecting with the body, breath, and nervous system can help people rediscover resilience, trust, and hope.

Lisa Tibando, Business Owner, RMT, Bioenergetics Facilitator

Looking back on your journey, what first made you believe your life could take a different direction?

It was death that made me see my life could take a new direction and change, first for the worse and then for the better. When I was 30, after nearly two decades of barely surviving, I was given a second chance. Following my third suicide attempt, my aunt invited me to live with her. She lovingly and toughly took on the responsibility of raising a 30-year-old who was emotionally still the 12-year-old who had lost her mother.

My incredible mother, who, with my father, adopted me at birth, lived with juvenile diabetes, born with a dysfunctional pancreas. She died when I was 12, and my life immediately took a new direction. My world unraveled instantly. I spiraled into self-destructive behaviours and was the victim of multiple incidents of emotional and physical abuse. I suffered from eating disorders, addictions, and toxic relationships. I attempted suicide in high school, college, and again a few years later. I was lost. I felt so alone and totally disconnected from myself. From the outside, I appeared to keep moving forward. Inside, I was disappearing.

Living with my aunt and uncle gave me the safe, stable foundation I hadn’t had since being in the care of my mom. I began intensive trauma therapy, a journey that continued for 15 years, and I still have my therapist today. Slowly, I found some hope to replace my despair. I immersed myself in spirituality, meditation, and daily self-care. I began learning about the connection between mind, body, and soul. With every self-care practice and every new healthy choice, I reclaimed another piece of myself. Through consistent commitment to my healing journey, I discovered that my past had shaped me, but it did not have to define my future.

I was 37 when my father announced he had cancer and 8 months to live. That sparked a drive inside me to change direction again. I decided to make a dream come true, take a leap of faith, and go back to school to become a Massage Therapist. My dad died in my first year of school, and I graduated with honours 2 years later.

New directions and healing taught me that even after unimaginable loss, hope can return, and a life once defined by mere survival can become one of service, purpose, resilience, and compassion.

You recently left everything behind to build a new life and business in a different province. What has that experience taught you about trusting yourself?

After years of rebuilding my life through my healing journey, I discovered I could trust myself again because I had learned to reconnect with myself. I learned to pay attention to those inner nudges of guidance and inner truth. This enhanced the courage and bravery within me.

Recently, I made the biggest leap I'd ever taken. I let go of nearly everything I owned, said goodbye to family, friends, routines, and the life I had built in Toronto. I then drove, on my own, for three days to begin again in rural Manitoba.

For a few years, I had been visiting Manitoba regularly. I was feeling a gentle nudge to move there, but my logical mind said I would be crazy to leave everything that I had built and gained since becoming a successful RMT in Toronto. Plus, all my support and healing were in Toronto.

But then, during one of those later trips to Manitoba, I felt an undeniable inner knowing. It's time. Your next chapter is here. Your work and your community are waiting for you here. Time to expand and grow some more. You can trust yourself. You can trust life to evolve into another chapter.

I experienced a split self for the next 3 months before my big move. Half of me was crippled with doubt and fear. The other part knew I couldn't ignore that inner voice I’d experienced. I had spent years learning that the greatest things in life lie on the other side of facing huge fears. So, I chose faith over familiarity. I knew fear would keep me stuck, and faith would create new freedom.

I released, donated, gifted, recycled, and got rid of almost everything I owned, including the last sentimental physical belongings of my late parents, even pictures. I started over completely, launching my own massage therapy practice, building a new community, and evolving into my next iteration. It wasn't just a move. It was an act of trust. A complete 180-degree shift in life from Toronto to rural Manitoba.

That experience taught me that I can always rise above fear. I will have fear, but I can dig deeper beneath the fear to a knowing. I can live this life to the fullest. My courage isn't an absence of fear. It's trusting myself enough to keep moving forward anyway. I can trust those nudges and guiding forces. When I am connected to myself, I find a faith I can count on. No matter what life asks of me, I now know I have the resilience, inner wisdom, and support to navigate whatever comes next.

You combine Registered Massage Therapy with bioenergetics and nervous system regulation. What inspired you to bring those approaches together?

My approach to healing wasn't learned from textbooks alone. It was born from living it. Long before becoming a Registered Massage Therapist, I had spent years in trauma therapy. I had been meditating, deep breathing, and rebuilding my relationship with my own body.

Massage school gave me the scientific education of anatomy and physiology, which only deepened what I had already experienced firsthand. The body remembers. The breath helps us reconnect. Growing wellness happens when the whole person is considered, Body, Mind, and Soul.

After years of working in my RMT practice with clients, I wanted to take my service to the next level. This was inspired both by my own drive to always be growing and evolving, as well as the knowledge that life can always take a new direction. Also, I was inspired by my clients' needs, desires, and goals.

As my RMT practice grew, I noticed a pattern. Many clients weren't breathing in a physiologically healthy way. It was obvious their muscle tension also came with emotional stress. They were seeking body pain relief while dealing with stressful struggles in their lives. My clients felt safe sharing. I listened with attention. I was making them feel understood and heard. They were connecting with themselves as they began to feel safe on my table, sharing the emotional burdens they’d been carrying. With guided breathing, body awareness, and therapeutic touch, I witnessed my clients experience emotional release alongside physical relief. Their pain diminished, their breathing deepened, and their bodies began to respond in remarkable, healing ways.

Those experiences confirmed what my own healing had taught me, that the mind, body, and nervous system are inseparable. That understanding inspired me to continue evolving how I educate, inform, and support my clients.

Incorporating self-care, therapeutic massage, and breath-work proved I could offer clients more than symptom relief. Deep-rooted release was available. My greatest privilege is helping people reconnect with themselves and discover that healing is possible.

You often describe healing as reconnecting with the body rather than simply treating symptoms. Why is that distinction so important?

Everything I teach begins with one simple truth, our body is the vehicle that carries us through life. I often ask clients, "Whose shoulder is that? Whose hand is that?" They answer, "Mine." That single word is powerful. If it's mine, then it’s not actually me, it just belongs to me. Like anything that belongs to us, if we value it and want it to last, it requires care, attention, and respect.

When we begin listening to our bodies instead of ignoring them, we invest in the most important relationship we'll ever have, the one with ourselves.

Awareness of the difference between "me" and "my body" also helps us recognize the difference between simply managing symptoms and understanding the deeper message behind pain, tension, and/or dis-ease.

We get to know ourselves intimately by doing self-care that reconnects us to our bodies. Understanding why our body is holding tension, pain, or discomfort allows us to better meet the need, resolve it, and heal. We can’t find the best solution until we know exactly what the root problem is. When we are paying attention and get intimate with our bodies’ needs, then we can practice better solutions.

My own healing taught me that the body is always communicating. It reflects our experiences, emotions, stress, and resilience. When we learn to listen with curiosity instead of judgment, we can address the root causes rather than endlessly chasing symptoms.

True healing begins with connection. The better we know and care for our bodies, the better equipped we are to support every part of ourselves, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

Holistic healing continues to gain attention, yet energy work is often misunderstood. What do you think people get wrong about it?

One of the biggest misconceptions about energy work is that the practitioner is somehow doing something to another person. My experience has been quite different.

I don't believe healing is something I give to my clients. My role is to create a calm, safe, deeply present, and attentive space where clients can reconnect with themselves. Through therapeutic touch, breath awareness, and gentle guidance, I invite clients to notice areas of their body that have been asking for attention, often for years. I demonstrate attention, and clients learn to pay attention as well. Where attention goes, energy flows. Energy is healing.

So many of us have never been taught how to listen to our bodies. Attention is so distracted these days. We spend our lives focused on our phones, responsibilities, deadlines, and often taking care of everyone else before ourselves. This contributes to us losing connection with ourselves and neglecting the attention our bodies need to be well.

When I offer my full attention and presence, clients often begin to do the same. As their awareness shifts inward, they notice their breathing, their tension, and the sensations within their own bodies. That awareness becomes healing attention and the beginning of change. Energetic change.

I don't believe I heal people. I believe every person has an innate capacity to heal within. We just need help and support to pay attention. We can learn to direct attention energy in a more productive way, a healing way.

I consider it a great privilege to create the conditions where that process can begin and evolve. My philosophy is that healing isn't something another person does to us, it's something that emerges when we're given the conditions to reconnect with ourselves.

When someone feels disconnected from their body because of stress or past experiences, where do you encourage them to begin?

Everything begins with the breath. I think the Power of Breath is very underestimated. Breath is a guiding force. We enter this world with an inhale and leave it with an exhale. Every breath in between tells a story of how we are feeling. When we're stressed, frightened, or overwhelmed, our breathing often becomes shallow. When we feel safe, it naturally, organically softens and deepens.

Learning to notice our breath is often the first step toward noticing ourselves and where we are in our minds. In my work, I encourage clients to use the breath as an anchor. The body speaks with pain. Resisting it makes it worse. Leaning into pain with breath creates a space for release, emotionally and physically. Attention to breath anchors us back into our bodies, where attention is desperately needed. I recognized in my own experience that thoughts create feelings, and feelings lead to beliefs. When we are captured by our thinking and beliefs, we disconnect from the body and the breath.

When we start connecting with our breath, we slow down the mental chatter. As the mind begins to settle, awareness returns to the body. We become more present, more curious, and more able to recognize what we've been carrying, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Stress.

I encourage empowerment by getting present with breath and connecting to the body to release stress. I've found that when we come back to the present moment, something shifts. Even in the midst of challenge, we can often discover that, right here and right now, we have the capacity to breathe, to choose our next step, and to begin again.

This isn't a quick fix. It's a lifelong practice of returning to ourselves with commitment, patience, and compassion. In a world that constantly pulls our attention outward, choosing to pause and breathe is a powerful act of self-care.

What is one simple practice that helps people regulate their nervous system and reconnect with themselves?

Just 5 minutes of deep breathing. It can be done in nature, in a comfy space at home, or even with your eyes closed, taking your imagination to a beautiful scene and focusing on it. Just keep bringing the focus back to the breath. It’s almost too simple for people to trust it. Just commit to giving it a try. Just try 5 days with a 5-minute deep breathing exercise. It takes some practice. But simple, simple breath helps regulate us. Start with just 5 minutes a day and experience a reconnection happen, along with the development of a nervous system regulation skill.

Your own experiences have shaped both your life and your work. What has your healing journey taught you that no formal training ever could?

If my life has taught me anything, it's that I am far more resilient than I ever believed. For years, I thought I was fundamentally broken. What I eventually discovered was that I was carrying pain I hadn't yet learned how to feel, let alone deal with or heal. There is a profound difference between carrying pain and being broken.

Some lessons can't be taught through books, advice, or even the best intentions. They have to be lived. I couldn't think my way into healing. I had to experience it. I had to walk through grief, trauma, fear, and uncertainty to discover what was waiting on the other side.

In many ways, I've been my own lifelong experiment. Every practice I share with others is something I've first explored within myself. I've learned that understanding healing isn't enough, we have to embody it. We have to feel it.

Today, I trust my own capacity to move through life's challenges because I've done it before. That doesn't mean life is easy. It means I know I can meet it with courage, curiosity, and compassion, and that confidence can only come from lived experience and learning to trust ourselves by being deeply, intimately connected to ourselves.

If someone feels stuck in their past and wonders whether change is possible, what would you want them to hear?

If someone feels stuck and doesn't think change is possible, my first gift of help would be to have them hear my story. Simple.

If I can change, get unstuck, and have a 180-degree shift in myself and life, then anyone can. I thought I was fundamentally no good, damaged goods. A lie proven so wrong.

Also, the following is a simple list to apply to life for positive change:

• Find time, a place, an event, a safe place, a moment every single day to rediscover yourself. Make your self-care a priority.

  
  

• Find and stay connected to at least one supportive, understanding person. When we feel supported and understood, we can learn to trust ourselves again. Be connected.

  
  

• Commit to just 5 mins of self-care practice daily. Breath brings people back to connection with themselves. Connection leads to trust. When we trust ourselves, we can overcome fear rooted in our past. Change then becomes possible through faith in the unknown, and we can start to discover the goodness that life has to offer.

  
  

• Remember who we are beneath what happened to us.

  
  

• Healing isn't something another person does to us, it's something that emerges when we're given the right, healthy conditions to reconnect with ourselves.

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