Professional Impact: Timalee Lightfoot

As a multi-modal therapist, Timalee Lightfoot employs various techniques working with clients age one to fifty-two. Over her nine years at Majestic Oak Therapy, the practice has expanded from OT services focused on reflex integration into interdisciplinary care, including PT, across a team of skilled therapists. 

When she first heard about rhythmic movement therapy, Timalee was actually taking another workshop, for another modality focused on the body’s reflexes. She soon after found Thrive Therapy, which was the closest location to her Florida-based practice, for learning RMTi. She flew to Elmhurst for a workshop weekend. 

Previously, Timalee’s session technique required precise, time-intensive exercises. For some, learning the movements to apply in a home support setting proved difficult. She would see progress, followed by plateaus. Thrive Therapy’s workshop unlocked meaningful a-ha moments for her as a professional.

“We knew we needed a different way of working with the nervous system and the brain stem. Rhythmic movement was exactly what we needed,” said Timalee of unlocking a meaningful new approach. “It’s about meeting the person where they are, and understanding that less is more. We do not have to do more to help this body. We can do less, and that made a huge difference!We started seeing gains in some of those clients that had hit a plateau in their work.”

Just a few minutes of movement can be enough to make an impact. Timalee saw her clients find their voice in the sessions, and by using RMTi’s movement menu, demonstrate how choice in therapy is empowering. 

Timalee describes a case where she was asked to support a recent college graduate. She was a young woman who had pushed to perform at a high level for an extended period of time. Her family expressed concern for what appeared to be a significant mental breakdown. Her nervous system showed signs of fear, fatigue and overwhelm, and her daily motivation was all but stunted. 

Over the course of three months working with this young woman, Timalee channeled RMTi as the only modality in their session work together. The change was more impactful than the four years of talk therapy she’d taken while in college. 

“She went from non-functioning and barely getting through each day to starting her own business and living a life that most people would see as a high functioning adult,” said Timalee. “I have seen such growth in children and adults when they start to understand that they need to know what’s happening in their body. That connection is so important.”

Timalee has since taken three workshops through Thrive and recently revisited our meaningful Face the Fear workshop with her team. She has seen firsthand how movement may draw out her client’s trauma without words, leading them once again to a place of safety.

“With Face the Fear, you learn how to support someone so they feel safe enough to begin to explore what it feels like to be free again,” Timalee shares.  “They find freedom of movement, and with the ability to choose, freedom of thought.”