Holistic Massage Therapy
Get more comfortable in your skin with precise, comprehensive, and intuitive massage work.
All massage sessions are a thoughtful collaboration between you & Nicole. They are individually tailored to your body, goals, and wishes.
Appointment Pricing
Please note: These are the current prices. The intent is to sustain an honest practice that accurately accounts for value.
Linden maintains a flat hourly rate.
1 hour massage: $150
Tipping is not accepted— we believe it is Nicole’s responsibility as the owner to set a reasonable rate.
The rate reflects Nicole’s years of experience, successful client outcomes, and distinctive approach to bodywork.
Payment : cash, check, Zelle (if your bank participates), credit/debit card (3% fee to cover processing fees; apologies), HSA cards (please check your policies)
As you read our pricing and cancellation policies, thank you for understanding that Nicole is delighted and privileged to offer this focused, thoughtful, physical work. These policies make it possible to offer it in a stable and sustainable way.
When you reserve a therapeutic massage appointment, you are really reserving time. Nicole prepares for that time with thought, focus, and intention, and it’s in the mutual keeping of time and agreements that allows the practice to continue.
You may reschedule or cancel your appointment with no penalty if you give 48 hours+ notice before your scheduled appointment.
If you must cancel/reschedule with less than 48 hours’ notice, you are responsible for half the cost (50%) of the session.
If you miss you appointment as a “no call/ no show”, you are responsible for the full fee (100%) for the missed session.
You may send a family member or friend who is a current client in your place. (They must arrive, depart, & pay as you were scheduled).
My personal note: As a caring and reasonable person, it was always hard to settle on a policy for cancellations due to illness. On the one hand, if sickness visits you unexpectedly, I want you to rest, recover, receive what you need, and not experience undue burden—and I don’t want to get sick myself or be unable to work! However, over the years and especially during the winter, the cumulative impact of many clients’ last-minute cancellations—as reasonable as they may be—became consequential at scale, over time. In short, they add up, and I am often left “holding the bags,” —their last-minute nature makes them difficult and inefficient to fill. Therefore, appointments cancelled with less than 48 hours’ notice for whatever reason are still subject to a fee of half the cost of the session. Thank you for understanding this decision and the thought and experience that went into it.
Cancellation Policy
MEET YOUR THERAPIST
Hi there, I’m Nicole Brace, BA, LMT, BCTMB
I’m a nationally board-certified massage practitioner dedicated to holistic wellbeing, and as such, I respect the power of myofascial release to change bodies and lives.
My approach blends intellectual knowledge of science and anatomy with the hands-on, tacit knowledge of experience, and delivers it with quiet intuition to create attentive sessions full of real change. These sessions meet your body where it is, promote your pain relief, restore natural function, and hey— possibly even reignite some joy.
Learn more about my work, values and impact.
Beyond the office , I enjoy exploring shorelines—Maine, Michigan, California—museums, music of all kinds, art, and restaurants. I am an avid cook and lover of the outdoors. I live in Ann Arbor with my Swedish husband, my elementary-age stepdaughter, and our cat, Margo.
FAQS
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A massage at Linden is an opportunity for release, relief, reconnection, reorganization, and integration–a chance to feel better, function better, and become more aware of your body. Drinking a little extra water the day or morning before can create a more hospitable inner environment for fascial change. Taking a few momentsbefore or after your session to breathe comfortably, soak in some sunlight if the sun is out, or take a short walk around the building if the weather permits can help you shake the dust from the day and/or help your body integrate the changes that happened on the table. These simple practices create a bite-sized pause before you hop into your car and go on with your life, and often, it is those pauses– practiced habitually– that can change our relationship towards our bodies, time, and our lives. Also, the body is wonderfully adaptive, so if you can’t do these things, don’t worry! Nothing on the table is wasted. For tips on communicating your wishes for your massage and other helpful notes, please read The Linden Experience.
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Myofascial Release uses specific techniques to stretch, release, and facilitate repair (via increased blood flow and decreased adhesions) in the connective issue (fascia) that weaves between and around your muscles, bones, and organs. It helps your body heal properly from injuries, can restore range of motion, and improves ease of movement and posture. Nicole considers it one of the most comprehensive and sensitive modalities for increasing wellbeing.
At Linden, myofascial release will invite you into a more spacious, buoyant, comfortable, and connected relationship with your body. It takes in the body as a whole–think “global”— approach.
Injury, postural patterns, and even longstanding emotional states can influence how our bodies respond to gravity, loads, tension, and activity– and myofascial release is an excellent and multifaceted first step towards balance and ease.
Neuromuscular /Trigger Point Therapy (NMT) is a precise modality developed by Dr. Janet Travell and Dr. David Simons in the 1960s to address the causes of acute muscle pain. It requires client participation & feedback to find the "trigger points" or painful contracted tissues, so the therapist can help the body release those knotted contractions. The client regains structural integrity, proper blood flow, better function, and pain relief.
At Linden, Neuromuscular Therapy is used in specific small muscle locales or “neighborhoods” of your body–rather than the “global” approach of myofascial release– when it seems that the main factors at play are these specific small (but powerful) restrictions. When a trigger point releases, immediate relief is felt.
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I work with varying levels of pressure individualized to each client, to suit the targeted tissue from superficial to deep—so pressures range from soft to moderate to firm.
However, those seeking a jarring, “no pain, no gain– just beat me up!” style of massage will likely be frustrated, and better suited elsewhere, because my deep approach is more like “slow, patient, and relentless” rather than loud and energetic.
There is no one right therapist for everyone, so I encourage you to try many. However, I’ll never be offended if my work isn’t for you!
I choose to take the “Goldilocks” approach: enough pressure for real, palpable, and significant change, but not so much pressure that your nervous system becomes overwhelmed, flooded, or braced against it.
Most clients find this approach deeply satisfying, and a common refrain afterwards is, “That was just what I needed.”
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An accessible description of doing trauma informed massage therapy can be found here. I gently urge any client addressing acute or complex trauma to do so within a team of truly skilled providers and, if possible, a supportive community in which you feel seen, cared for, loved, and encouraged.
Since childhood, and by nature, I have felt burdened by the challenges, pains, intrusions, injustices, injuries, indecencies, and traumas that humans have had to endure and to reckon with as part of surviving and thriving.
To be honest, that’s probably why I studied English literature and philosophy.
I’ve also lived enough now to know in my bones what it means to grieve, to cope, to heal, to hold on.
Given the state of the world, since 2015 I’ve felt compelled to learn how to best practice massage in light of these challenges.
Since 2015 I have completed self-study in a number of trauma-informed spaces, with teachers and authors such as Deb Dana, Dr. Daniel Seigal, Dr. Rick Hanson, Bessel Van der Kolk, Resmaa Manakem, and many courses through NICBM. In the summer of 2024 I traveled to Maine, USA, to learn about approaching traumas in the body from the renowned body worker and teacher, Tom Myers, of Anatomy Trains, an expert in the field of fascia and bodywork.
However, while I hold with great tenderness and strength the many challenges humans endure and heal from, appointments at Linden truly exist to address body tissues and issues–muscles, fascia, nerves– and to help the nervous system move into more regulation, ease, and connection… not for the explicit and careful processing of trauma on a verbal level.
If you are dealing with these sorts of deep challenges that need to find a voice and a narrative–and I have myself– I warmly encourage you to seek out practitioners such as psychotherapists, EMDR professionals, and other counselors who are effective and incredible at their work.
For directories, two places to start are here and here, and if you prefer personal reading, you might consider this or this or this book.
That being said, if emotions come up for you while you are on the table, that is completely common and not a problem–they can be a totally normal side effect to receiving bodywork which I am trained to facilitate.
We’ll hold that space together in a centered, grounded, trusting space, and you will remain at choice in how we proceed. Because the fascia holds the nerves of our bodies, some describe changes in fascial load and tension as changing old patterns of holding, guarding, and being “stuck”.
A common experience after getting off the table (that can happen for anyone, regardless of trauma) is a feeling of lightness, ease, connection, and clarity. It is my perspective that that state is your body reorganizing itself into different–and likely more-helpful-to-you– patterns.
How wonderful, right? You can rest easy knowing you needn’t censor or restrict the flow of energy in your body, that human warmth and empathy is always in full supply, and that your wise body is on your side.
Lastly, two of Linden’s primary values are “Freedom” and “Joy,” which in the context of trauma are what are known as “glimmers”-- the opposite of triggers. It is my hope that any bodywork you receive at Linden contributes, in some way, to your freedom and joy.
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Not at this time. The practice is currently for adults, age 18+.
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Unfortunately, the office building is outdated, and while my office is on the main floor, there are 3 steps to navigate internally, and external doors do not have automatic openers. Clients in wheelchairs without assistance will be challenged to access the office building easily.