Healing Cedar Wellness

As our society becomes more digitally linked, many businesses nevertheless profess they offer their clientele a personal touch. However, no one embodies this philosophy more authentically than Shannon Halpin and long-time friend and business partner Clara Cohen, founders and co-owners of Port Moody's Healing Cedars Wellness, where the personal touch takes on the literal form.

Connectedness and relationship building, for this business duo, is at the heart of their award-winning wellness clinic (established in 2012), which aims to restore balance within the body and offers natural health for the entire family. Shannon, a registered massage therapist, embraces a special passion for pre- and postnatal massage (she's also a trained and experienced doula), while Clara, a registered acupuncturist (schooled in traditional Chinese medicine), focuses mainly in gynecology and mental health.

Having grown up in Port Moody, the natural surroundings intuitively drew Shannon to an active and healthy lifestyle. A keen involvement in school sports was an obvious path, and seeking refuge from the repercussions of athletics, more or less by default, was her introduction to massage therapy.

"I always knew I wanted to work with people in an intimate, one-on-one basis," says Shannon. "Massage therapy seemed like a good fit, and personally I reaped huge benefits from sports massage; for me it worked more so than physio and chiropractors, so I found a lot of value in it."