Meet Anise Wirth | Massage Therapist (LMT)

We had the good fortune of connecting with Anise Wirth and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Anise, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
Peak Recovery began as a leap of faith. I was working a dream job with a clinic in professional sports when an intuitive nudge kept coming to mind; that the company I was working with was not my end game. Long story short, I took an insane risk and put in my notice with no plan. 2 days after I put in my official notice, my husband received a job offer in Durango, CO that, I kid you not, was to start exactly one week after my last day at my job. If ever there were a louder sign…so we took it! And from there everything fell into place. Even our housing fell into our laps. The one thing that I couldn’t figure out was what angle I wanted to take my practice. With years of professional sports it would have been no problem finding a job at any of the countless spas or massage practices already established here in Durango, but something in me kept pushing me to create a secret dream I’d had for years; my own practice integrating the Western based knowledge of the sports world and incredible education I had access to combined with the intuitive nature of Eastern wellness. So when an opportunity to transform a space into a massage studio once again fell into my lap, Peak Recovery came to fruition.

Surrendering a dream career for a dream life was as terrifying as it sounds, it was not all sunshine and rainbows and continues to have its struggles, but anything worth our efforts does. And when I chose to listen to the thing within me that ever-so-quietly whispered to me and told me to do the thing – even without the end vision in sight – I would redo this over and over and over again because something within me knew what reward would be placed on this worthy risk.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Peak Recovery’s mission is to mold the replicable understanding of the Western view of our bodies with the deeply intuitive nature of being a human; a concept that is recognized more in Eastern modalities and ideologies. I believe that the more we understand about our bodies-both in function and internal experience- the better equipped we are to prioritize our wellness above all else. For when we show up for ourselves we can show up better for those we love, and we sure need more of that in the world. It’s so empowering to have worked with someone along a journey of understanding themselves; their training and injury rates improve, their sleep improves, the conversations they have with their kids and family reach new depths.

I worked for a sports-focused physical therapy clinic in San Diego, CA for most of my career as a massage therapist. Previous to massage I was coaching competitive gymnastics following my own career as a gymnast. I’ve been in the industry of bodies and keeping them functioning literally my entire life. I’ve seen, experienced, and helped rehabilitate many an injury. So when I had the privilege of continuing my education and specializing in the sports world, it was a shock to learn that women in any medical scenario are vastly underrepresented and underserved. Eating disorders among high school age female athletes are astronomical compared to males, injury rates of ACL tears among female soccer players are shockingly higher than males. women had been excluded form health studies until 1993 (with the average health study results taking around 17 years to then be put into practice)…I really could go on and on. So my interest in specializing in women’s wellness started to happen around the time I was intaking all of these staggering statistics. Why was this happening in such high volume to so many women? I have a theory and Peak Recovery is my answer. We just simply don’t know because we were never taught. We were never taught because we’ve never really thought to ask “why”.

My mission is to teach all humans with bodies how to take care of those precious bodies. How to make sure we’re getting the nutrients and recovery and tools to take care of ourselves. Peak Recovery is more than massage therapy, I work with a network of other providers and specialists in the community to ensure overall wellness is achieved. It’s human specific depending on the needs or desires of said human because no two of us are the same. It takes the sequence out of a spa massage and makes each session and conversation custom to what is needed both in the moment and long term.

I’m so proud to be serving Durango, it has been an incredible learning experience setting up a business for myself. I don’t think I’ll ever choose a big box store over my local community if I can help it, the quality of someone creating their dream is really worth investing in. Especially after experiencing the cost of quality and the time investment in every attention to detail. There is always room for growth and I’m so excited to see how this dream project grows to serve the community.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
In the winter months you have to ski at Purgatory! It’s the sweetest little resort. You’d obviously have to recover from your day on the mountain with a soak at Durango Hot springs; in the summer time they have live music a couple times a week and it’s such a lovely space to relax and enjoy the Southwestern Mesa Views. You’d have to hike part of the Colorado Trail up to at least Gudy’s Rest. And you have got to grab a bite to eat at El Moro and grab a beer at Ska Brewing. Main Street is full of amazing small businesses and shops, check out Studio 451 Jewelry- which is available in some of the shops on Main- for some beautiful, Southwest inspired and handmade jewelry.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would be nowhere in life without the support of my husband who is willing to see my nonsense ideas and just say, “sure”. He’s even let go of the skeptical tone (for the most part) and has learned to trust the process right along side of me. I also owe so very much of my success to the book Women Who Run With The Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes which taught me to tune into my intuitive nature and release the things that no longer propel us forward. I swear by her wisdom and think every human alive should read her work.

Website: peakrecoverydgo.com

Instagram: peakrecoverydgo

Image Credits
Lauryn Dushane