My name is Phet (/pet/, means diamond). I’m a Certified Thai Bodywork Practitioner 
who went through a rigorous professional training program at Thai Bodywork School of Thai Massage, now known as Coaching the Body . Thai Bodywork is one of the best and largest schools of its kind in the U.S. I’ve also studied with the late Mama Lek in Chiangmai Thailand for Nerve Touch as well as pre-natal and post-birth certification.
My healing philosophy is metta which means compassion or loving kindess in Lao and Thai. I listen to what my clients need not only with my ears but also with my eyes, my hands, and my heart. When my clients come to see me, my goal is to heal not only the physical pain that they have but also whatever pains that they bring with them (stress from daily life, emotional pain, loss of loved ones, etc).
I was born in Laos, across the Mekong River from Cambodia, to Vietnamese/Chinese parents before coming to America by way of the Phillipines when I was 9. I’ve lived and studied in Thailand as an adult, and speak English, Lao and Thai. After college, I meandered through small business and large corporate life, and was so thrilled to have found my passion not far from where I began: in the rich Southeast Asian tradition of traditional Thai Massage/Bodywork.
But maybe it was destined. After I began my career as a Thai bodywork therapist, my mother told me a story about her mom (my grandmother). Before I was born, and before the war, my grandmother was interested in becoming a healer in her village in Cambodia. But there was a problem – in Cambodia, the elders only taught the healing secrets to men. But, apparently my grandmother had a plan. She sent my grandfather (who ran a noodle shop selling handmade pho from their home) to learn the healing secrets from a very old and very highly esteemed healer from the village. She told my grandfather to sit by the window, and she would sit outside the bamboo house listening on the other side of the wall. Cambodian tradition is such that if you steal the secrets the healing practice is even more sacred than if it were learned directly.
So apparently, this sort of thing is in my blood. Except I didn’t have to steal the secrets–there was a nationally renown school of Thai Bodywork in Evanston, IL where I attained my formal training.
When I’m not pursuing what turns out to be my grandmother’s passion for healing, I am pursuing my grandfather’s passion for cooking. I cook for friends, family, and sometimes even clients. Where bodywork and cooking meet are in using your senses: In cooking, you smell and taste the food then add the sugar and spices to make it delicious. And in bodywork, you assess your client and respond according to their needs whether to help them release their tensions or relieve their pain among other things.