Life & Work with Daphne Mosko of Boulder and Lone Tree

Today we’d like to introduce you to Daphne Mosko.

Hi Daphne , so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
When my parents split up when I was 5, my Buddhist father went to Japan for an extended retreat but stopped off for an adventure in Indonesia. While he was there, a palm reader told him that to fulfill his karma, he would need to learn to heal with his hands. He was a landscape architect, photographer and Zen monk already, but he followed through with that prophetic guidance.

He ended up becoming a Rolfer, where he met Tom Myers as his anatomy teacher. My father and Tom were both post divorce bachelors, and ended up becoming roommates while Tom wrote his celebrated book, Anatomy Trains. I was both guinea pig and student while they talked shop about gait, alignment, and developmental steps of movement from babies to adults. Some dad’s play catch with their kids, this is one of the ways my father spent time with me.

But it wasn’t until I was 22 and decided to go to massage school did I realize how much information I had embodied. I did the 1000 hr massage program while also doing a body centered psychotherapy course taught through the Hakomi Institute where we learned about developmental trauma and how it is expressed in our bodies, movements, beliefs and nervous system base lines.

I did another year of schooling through my massage school where we delved into joint mobilization, regional myofascial release and the structural integration 10 series. After learning it through the school, my father and I gave each other the series to learn more about it followed by opening a practice together. We had the best time doing 4 handed work together.

I took my first week long dissection with Tom Myers in 2009, and my whole world changed. I had no idea how different the anatomy was in real life compared to the anatomy books. This is something that has only proven more true over time. I followed this by attending Tom’s structural integration training, now called ATSI, then becoming his teaching assistant for his yearly dissection labs and I assisted him for his first advanced training,

Tom was the one who told me to go take classes with Christoph Sommers after asking too many questions about the organs. Christoph is also a Rolfter but had been studying and teaching the work of Jean Pierre Barral for the better portion of my life. Jean Pierre Barral is an innovator in the world of Osteopathy, teaching us how to treat organs, nerves, blood vessels and the cranium with a high level of specificity. He would study anatomy for 2 hours a day for his whole career, and it has been a blessing of my life to learn from him.

I took my first visceral class in the spring of 2012 and I felt it deep in my core that I needed learn this work. So when I could get into a class with Jean Pierre after only taking VM1, I jumped on the opportunity. It reminded me of a story my mom told me of when I was very young, and at the swimming pool with my floaties on. She looked a way for just a moment and the next thing she saw was me running and jumping into the deep end while ripping my floaties off. I was in way over my head in that class. But I kept coming back every year.

One of the things that is so unique about Jean Pierres work is “the listening.” He talks about it being similar to a sommelier’s ability to taste wine and tell you the region, the year and even the amount of rain fall that year. Jean Pierre teaches us how to feel where the body’s most significant issues is and how it relates to other structures.

Through out this time, I have continued to studying anatomy in the dissection lab with Gil Hedly and having the honor and opportunity to help him with his A-Z project, his Nerve Tour project and most recently, his The Heart and Sacred Sexuality project, on top of assisting him in class.

I live in Boulder where I have my practice and raise my son while working one day a week at the office of Gail Wetzler in Lone Tree. Gail has been the director of the Barral Institute for 25 years and is a titan among men, yet with the humility and grace of a master.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has not, but when has it ever been? I started to loose my spark in 2012 and I didn’t know what was happening. I couldn’t feel joy, and over time, I lost my physical and inner strength. When I got pregnant in 2015, I thought I had prepartum depression, followed by postpartum depression. I started my journey with Internal Family Systems in 2014, and continued that work until 2018.

I was in physical and emotional pain and I couldn’t find a way to feel energized. I had lost my light.

I learned that I had a very bad parasitic infection and it was impacting my mind, body and spirit. Mixed in with that, my son’s father was going through his own depression that he managed with alcohol and drugs making the early days of motherhood deeply challenging. I eventually fell into care giver burn out. I was working from home, seeing clients and taking care of my young son with minimal help. In 2021, I went to my first Joe Dispenza retreat, and my life has never been the same since.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
To be honest, it feels like I get to do magic every day. I have the opportunity to work with clients body, minds and spirits in ways no one has accessed before. My initial consultation, we track the normal things like gait, posture, injury history, but then we hold space for their nervous system’s and how it is impacting their posture and gait. I notice the health of their skin, their metabolic function, and help solve problems that they have seen doctors for years trying to understand. Sometimes, it’s a concussion that hasn’t been able to be solved because most folks don’t treat the blood vessels. Sometimes, it’s holding space for their inner child as it still doesn’t feel safe from their childhood home environment. As we hold space for these wounded inner parts, I am touching the nervous system, treating the vagus nerve and bringing light to where there has been darkness.

I had one client who at 28, stopped having her period for 3 years. She was eating healthy, living on a farm, taking all the herbs she could that were suggested for her from the wisdom of the internet, she could not get her cycle to start. When we felt into her neuroendocrine glands, the trauma from her childhood was deeply locked in her hypothalamus and pituitary. As we supported these glands in recovering motility, we had to also support her body in being in the present moment by touching the table with her finger tips, hearing the sounds in my office, and looking around to see there were no sabertooth tigers ready to jump on her. Her period started 2 days after our session.

I’m known for helping people find vitality in their bodies, and support their work in rewiring their nervous systems. I often see folks who have seen everyone else and can’t find answers. My clients are often folks who have done a lot of self work already and want to go deeper. But I also am passionate about working on babies and children. Supporting our children’s bodies to function optimally will give them such a leg up.

In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
I am concerned for my industry. The physical therapy schools and chiropractic schools are getting farther and farther away from learning how to feel. Learning to touch, and listen to the body with curiosity and presence is such a gift, one that many bodies are yearning for. Many veterans report that massage is the most helpful modality for managing their PTSD symptoms.

Many of the giants in my world are in their sun set years, and I am not seeing the new leaders stepping up just yet. We are in a chapter of history where more folks are learning that their bodies can heal if given the right resources and support.

Im concerned that the next generation of healers are so disconnected from their own bodies. Our culture has been raised on junk food and television taking us away from our own inner knowings and ability to listen.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://HealWithDaphne.com
• Instagram: @HealWithDaphne