Erin Usher

Her Work: Operating Owner of Whole Health Studio

“I feel like practicing with natural light is really important to me. I’ve done yoga practices or exercise in spaces where you can’t see outside and it diminishes my energy and my enthusiasm for the work, so it’s super important.”

The room where students practice yoga has walls filled with large windows and though we are in the city I can see leaves and flowers on the trees just beyond the glass.

Ms. Usher says that in contrast, the rooms where the practitioners of acupuncture, massage, reflexology, and organic skin care, are like “little cozy nurturing nooks so they’re more womb-like, so it seems like the right balance.”

“This building was fairly new when we moved into it so we were the first tenants in the space so we got to be involved.” She tells me her old business partner worked with an architect to design the layout of the space. Ms. Usher says “there are definitely some things I would change about the flow now that I’ve had it for 6 years but mostly I really love it and people think that it’s a beautiful space to practice in. They really enjoy how much nature you get to sort of experience for being in the middle of an urban center. The upstairs space looks out over all of downtown Fremont and the back of Queen Anne and Aurora Bridge and the water a little bit, you just get a ton of windows and a ton of light.” She still teaches yoga and Pilates and was teaching about 30 hours a week. She tells me “when I was up there working with clients, if I have to be in a dark room where I wasn’t interacting with day light that much it would just make me go crazy.”

I ask Erin Usher if she likes her workspace and how she feels working here and she tells me “I do I love my workspace.” “I love my workspace, I love what I do.” “I love being here, it makes me feel happy to be here. The colors make me happy. The people make me happy. Mostly it’s the people that I work with, and people enjoy the space and whenever people say that they love coming here or that they think it’s pretty— that makes me feel happy too.”

As far as the social work environment Ms. Usher tells me “most of the people here come and go. There’s no one working here 40 hours a week.” People come in for a couple of classes to teach and she says “it’s a bunch of small businesses within mine. I’m the meta-business and then there are all these little micro-businesses. So just naturally by the setup of what we have here it kind of allows people to have that ownership over what they’re doing. I’m not telling anyone how to teach their yoga class. When I first hire them I might give them some guidelines” just to keep spirituality and physical rigor on the same level within the business. She tells me “I try to be super understanding with people as far as I try to provide people with as much flexibility as I get to have. Even though I count on them to be here I don’t want it to be on the back of them.” Erin Usher says that she as very positive relationships with the employees and that because she tries to allow flexibility that the relationships are very dedicated and loyal and that often times the people just go above and beyond with their work. “But I feel like you can create that relationship through communication and through flexibility.”

She tells me her path towards whole health. She went to college and studied cultural psychology and got into social work. Her thesis was on eating disorders, particularly with men and she has worked with things like body image in failure to thrive children. She says “I want to help people.” “I got really interested in the power of touch on people’s relationship with their bodies their development etc. I just kind of completely switched gears and went to massage school.” “I totally want to help people I just want to do it in a different way.”

When talking about whole health she says “I believe in it 100%.” “Our culture is sick and I feel like our culture needs to be healed. People need to be more efficient and work less and they can be more efficient if they were healthier. I feel like we have these ridiculously long work weeks and I understand that productivity is important being competitive in a capitalistic market etc but if people were healthier and had better self care and were not stressed out and fighting this ever present resistant battle with their jobs they could be more efficient work less and get as much done and have more fulfilling lives.”

Putting her experience with her work into a few words, she says “challenging but rewarding. Always surprising. It’s been nurturing. I’ve been able to nurture and be nurtured by my job, be needed and also learn to take care of myself in the process of creating a work environment that takes care of the people who work here.” After a moment to pause she adds “joyful” to the things she feels about her work.