Help Julius Create a Holistic Healing Sanctuary

My deepest thanks to everyone taking the time to read this. My name is Julius Reider and I present myself before everyone with a open heart and plea for aid. At 42 years old I have made the choice to live my fullest self and start my own small business. That being a Holistic Bodywork and Spiritual Healing Center. Some of you reading this know me, others not at all, so allow me to take a moment to tell my whole story, from childhood to now, so that who I am and what I am doing is clear to all. In the conclusion the business plan will follow.

I have always been different. An outsider. Being an Immigrant, Left Handed, high energy and overly imaginative,I was pathologized in school as learning disabled, just because I was different. My parents not really able to communicate English well enough to fight for me, I was separated from my class and put in groups for the "special" Kids. This made me feel bad and broken. Like I needed fixing. It is in these early years my Empathy for human suffering began. The understanding of what it is like to feel "Different". That was the mold that shaped me. As I grew and life went on all my interests seemed to turn to matters that described and dealt with the Human Condition somehow. Ancient Greek stories led to philosophy. Philosophy led to Buddhism, astrology, sociology, history, and many more esoteric subjects. I found my curiosity and capacity to learn was boundless. While others my age were engaged in normal teen activities like sports, I was reading. Alone.

After High School I made the choice to take a break for a year, to live life outside of books. A choice that changed everything.

It was at this time my sexuality matured. I was 18 and began to accept I was gay. I was also working 2 jobs and for the first time living a social life, but the event that would show me my life's work began not because of any of those things. You see, somewhere along the road, I injured my back. Though at the time all I felt was a dull ache in my butt. With no life experience to fall back on, I simply assumed I pulled a muscle and carried on. Weeks went by then months. The pain got worse. Then worse. Not going to school right away , allowed my parents insurance company to kick me off the family policy. So with no medical insurance or support from my family, I carried on. after a year and a half the pain got so bad that while sleeping, every hour or so I'd wake up feeling like a hot fire poker was stabbing me in my leg and butt area. My days were constant pain. Pain that never abated in anyway, but made worse due to a sneeze or getting out of a car. My nights offered no relief and even my sleep was taken from me. My thoughts wandered to dark places and depression. Pain my only company and anger my normal state.

Things changed when I met my first boyfriend. I fell in love and for the first time in my life someone truly cared about me. It changed my entire perspective. I had a reason to "want" to get better. I found a job that provided health care, I went to doctor after doctor in our convoluted medical system, till finally it culminated in my first back operation. You see had I been able to see a doctor early, a treatment other then being cut open might have been an option, but my lumbar disc was ruptured. My pain was do to the ruptured disc leaking spinal fluid into the spinal canal. Thant gunk and resulting swelling, pressed on my sciatic nerve. Going in and cleaning up the mess was my only choice. So at the age of 20 I went in for a discectomy. Maybe the most significant moment of my entire life happened now. Being pain free for the first time in 2 years and the time I had recovering, I found my purpose in life. I knew what I was going to do in this world. If there was anyone out there in pain like I was, I would try and help them. If there was a person in need of care and had non, I would offer it. I was here to help. My empathy, that was grown in the isolation of youth found it's meaning. The drive and energy I am naturally inclined to have, found expression. To help, to heal, to give comfort and space, and to listen. So that is what did.

After my healing and recovery period I went to study massage at CCMT. There in the Wellness program I learned much more than massage. I learned to connect the body mind and spirit as a whole and treat it as a whole. It opened my eyes to the complexity of the Human body and it reveled to me my capacity and interest in learning about it. Also I met like minded people and learned how to communicate in a more adult and less shy or "weird" way. It wasn't until after school ended that the next major life changer happened. The 3rd moment. A moment that again radically changed my life.

I feel like everyone one at some point in life asks the question, "what happens after we die?" Or "Is there more?" Being a "everyone" myself, I also had these thoughts. I had my beliefs, but nothing solid, no Truths. Little did I know I would soon learn my Truth. During school, I bonded with a teacher, Doctor Laura Munson. She was like a mentor to me and offered me a job working with her at her chiropractic office. On my very first day of work, on the day after I had just finished paying off my car loan and removing the full coverage insurance, I flipped it over the guardrail on interstate 84 during rush hour traffic. Words fail to describe the totality of what was going. If you have ever been in an accident as horrific as this, maybe you can understand? My best attempt to retell it is to say, as my car was spinning out of control, time slowed down. It happened all at once and frame by frame at the same time..... Each second like a flash that lasted an hour. I tried what I could to regain control but failed and there was nothing to be done. I knew I was going to hit the rail of the highway and I knew it was over. No words, thoughts, or actions would change anything now and I simply accepted it. I let go. In the moment I had accepted, in that very instant, a voice spoke to me. Not in my mind exactly but not from the external world either. Words without sound is how best try and describe it. I can hear the words and recall them as clearly now as I did all those years ago. "Relax, your fine. I've got you." I closed my eyes took my hands off the wheel and onto my seat belt, and went for the ride.

The car went from the left side of the highway to the far right side rail, struck dead on so hard it flipped over, crushing the front end. The axle flew off, found over 1000 feet away. The car landing on its rear so hard, the back axle also broke off, it was found 500 feet away. The car, now just a cube, rolled 200 feet down a hill and landed upside down in a small stream, the passenger side underwater. I was upside down held in place by my seat belt in total shock. My ears were ringing my face had mud and glass thrown into it and I noticed I wasn't breathing. Not because I was hurt, but because I was holding my breath. That realization allowed me to breath again. Blowing mud out of my mouth and nose in the single greatest exhale I have ever done. I wasn't dead or even hurt, the feeling was more like ending a ride on a roller coaster. I was removed from my car with the help of a stranger who had stopped to help. The shock of seeing a living human walk out of the car moved the now gathered crowed along the highway to cheer and applaud. Everyone expected a mutilated body, not a walking man. The only injury being a tiny scratch on my left hand. My life was saved that day by an angle, or some being of love and kindness. Every moment I've had after I knew without doubt, there was more to "US" then just this life. More to "US" than just this. The details I do not know, but This Truth, coupled with my passion and life's mission gave me new confidence and sense of self. I was free from living with with fear and that freedom was life in it's purest form.

Time would go on and life does what it does as it always does. Change. I had changed because of the accident but the people around me had not. Once you begin to live free and act in line with that freedom, those around who knew you or worse, those who had an interest in you being chained, did not hold back their dissatisfaction at my new sense of self-worth. Even my relationship of nearly 6 years ended. At 26 years old, 2 back operations, 1 near death, and 1 broken heart later, alive and unafraid. I made the choice to uproot my life and get away. To get away from the people who thought they knew me, from the place I felt I had outgrown and from person I blamed for breaking my heart. I moved to Provincetown. There I found new excitement, new beginnings and a new sense of adventure. It was here that the ultimate lessons life had in store for me were waiting. The height of love and the very deepest lows of loss. The person I am today, in this moment, is culmination of my past with the experience of what was to come.

The year 2013 was the year my dog, Athena, came into my life. Having a puppy changes life in many ways. You learn much and grow much. Her companionship taught me what true love is. Her friendship a source of strength and her being an affirmation to life it's self. She does so to this very day. She was the second angle to save my life. You see a few months after getting Athena, the following March my mother made the choice to end her own life. Had I not had Athena, had I not had her to take care of, to force me out of bed. To force me to engange with the world. To make me HAVE TO LIVE, I to might be dead. I am alive because of faith. My mother's suicide was and still is the source of my deepest pain and loss. It has also transformed me into the person I am now. The person who wakes up with gratitude for each new day. A man who listens more and talks less. Who sees the pain hidden behind a person's smile. Their is a deeply personal story that can not be shared in a form like this, that has to do with the actual day of my mother's suicide. One that further solidified my thoughts on what happens to us after we die, but it is a story meant to be told in person. So you can see in my body and face the truth of it all, but it is a story I am willing to share. Because that is what I am. I am my stories and I am hear to tell my tale. To look people who are suffering in the eye. To hear their story and to feel their pain. Give them the space to be free of judgment, if only for a moment and to know that the person who is looking back at them not only cares and wants to help, but can do so because he has also been there. He has felt what they are feeling. Not learning that was found in a book, but experience found life. Rooted in truth. Grown in pain. Blooming in the colors of freedom, gratitude, and joy. That is the person I am. That is the person I choose to be. Now with your help I will finally do what I was meant to do. I will contribute to this wold through service to others. Simply put, it is what I am meant to do. Please join me.

In conclusion,

I find myself once again living change. After 16 years in Ptown, I was forced out due to the housing crisis. While not what I wanted it is what happened so I deal with life on life's terms. As I have so many times in the past, I make the choice to learn and grow. This mindest and the time I have had since moving to Chatham has been a blessing. The reality of who I am and the totality my life has come into clear focus. 12 years ago my dog came into my life and 12 years ago my mother left my life. In honor of these anniversaries and with your help I would like to bring My Center of Healing into this world to the benefit of all life. I know money is tight and that asking for you to donate to my goal is asking much. All I can offer is my deepest thank you and a promise that your gift will be used to help many others. The business model I have planned has been done so in a tiered way. Each month starting now till Nov. 5th, my mothers Birthday, will be fundraising months. With my first goal to be finishing construction and launch of my website at the end of the month of July. With luck and your help I hope to have raised $1,000 by August 1st. Then each month new goals, till my mother's Birthday on November 5th 2025. In total I hope to raise $10,000. Having excellent credit take those funds and seek a small business loan. My first goal this month is to finish and launch my Website. My next goal in August to begin working in the canvasing the communities here for contacts and find where and how I can help. September's goal is to be established enough with clients that I can at the least support my life enough live. October's goal is to expand and grow so that I can bring on team members with a wider skill set. Massage, Sound therapy, energy work, life coaching are all things I can do, but I also want to be able to offer grief counseling, human services outside my scope of practice. And I want to be able to pay my staff well, because doing work that is good, shouldn't make you live poor. November's goal is to have an actual site found and the capital in hand to try and get a loan and lease signed. Till then my home in Chatham will serve to offer Massage, Meditation, Yoga, Movement, and sanctuary to Clients. Once I have a site found I would like to name it the Ilona Reider center for Body Work Wellness and Life. A birthday gift to my mother. One I think would make her proud. Please help me make my dream come true. With your support with your financial donation and by spreading this message, I know in my heart I can succeed. Any amount and any effort, no matter how small, goes a long way to help my goals. Every moment of my life after this go fund me is active will be spent working. If you read this are in the area, need a massage, call me. If you are seeking to change parts of your life but for whatever reason find old habits or keeping you stuck, my life coaching practice can be done through video chat. Share my links on social media when you come up. Keep coming back to see updates. Any action you take to help is energy that will fuel success. Thank you all again for reading this and for being apart of this journey. Together Life Is Made Brighter.

Julius Reider,