Justin Pierre Glardon

In December 2012, while volunteering at the Mother Teresa Home in Kolkata, India, I was asked a simple question:
“What can you offer with your hands and heart?”

That question became my guide. The city was full of people in need, and it was a lot for my heart to take in. Rather than getting lost in the emotion of wanting to help everyone, I listened. The sisters there showed me that helping doesn’t always mean doing — sometimes it means simply being present. They taught me what I now call the Mother Teresa approach: to offer presence through my hands and heart, one person at a time.

When I arrived at the home to help those broken men, something deep inside me remembered being seven years old — lying in a hospital bed after being hit from behind by a car that had swerved off the road and struck our entire Little League team as we sat on the dugout bench, waiting to bat. It was May 1990, during a summer game in the western suburbs of Chicago. Three of my teammates died that day. I survived with crushed legs and scars I still carry.

Those memories remind me why I value gentleness — because I know what it means to be on the receiving end of care.

After nearly a year in casts, I discovered that healing isn’t just about getting better — it’s about finding joy again, even in the waiting.
At my birthday party that year, we held walker and wheelchair races for my friends who’d also been hurt. My dad, Chef Pierre François Glardon, catered the food and filled the room with laughter and the smell of something good cooking — he always brought joy through food. My mom was with me every step of the way, helping me find joy, cheering me on, and standing beside me as I learned to make the best of what was.

When the doctors changed my casts, I got to choose the colors, and that small bit of choice meant everything. One summer day, with a bright pink cast on my leg, I set up a lemonade stand in the front yard and shouted “Lemonade!” at the top of my lungs. I vividly remember men and woman on motorcycles pulling over to buy some. My mom watched, smiling, as the world met my spirit with kindness.

That memory came flooding back years later in India — the feeling of being cared for, of human hands bringing peace when words can’t.
It reminded me that healing doesn’t come from trying to fix; it comes from being fully present.

My path hasn’t been a straight line — more like the whole alphabet, over and over again. I’ve trained in yoga, worked in carpentry and painting, taken gig jobs, and left everything behind to follow love and life wherever they led.

For a time, I was one of the first rideshare Pioneer drivers in San Francisco — part of a small group who helped launch Lyft before Uber ever existed. I drove my old Volvo station wagon through the city, playing Bob Marley, explaining to each passenger what this new idea of “ridesharing” was. One Thousand people stepped into that car, many for their first ride ever. I gave over a thousand five-star rides, but what I really remember are the conversations — the laughter, the music, and the feeling of being part of something that connected people in a simple, human way.

Before bodywork, I studied motion picture film at the Brooks Institute of Photography. Film school taught me something unexpected — that a camera always places glass between you and the subject. When you remove the lens, you’re no longer observing; you’re present. That realization stayed with me. It showed me that true connection — in art or in healing — begins when nothing stands between you and the moment.Every return has brought me deeper into the same truth: this is the work I’m meant to do.

My understanding of healing has also grown through my own body. I was born with a broken collarbone and have broken more than twenty bones since birth — my tibia, fibula, ribs, both wrists, my shoulder, my elbow, ankle, even my spine. I’ve been stabbed through the hand, bitten in the face by a dog, fallen twenty feet, and dislocated my knees nine times. I know pain — in the body, in the mind, and in the heart.

And yet today, I live without medication. I move freely. I live fully.

Healing didn’t happen overnight. I often think of it like sitting on a stack of old phone books — thousands of pages high — and pulling out one page a day. Over time, with patience, the stack disappears, and one day you realize you’re sitting comfortably on the floor, cross-legged and pain-free. That’s the journey I began in 2002, and it continues every day.

My teachers have come from everywhere — bodyworkers, yogis, carpenters, friends, strangers, and life itself. I’m like Hansel and Gretel following the breadcrumbs of truth, collecting bits of wisdom from each person and experience along the way.
I don’t have one single lineage or certification; I have forty-two years of learning by living, by listening, and by showing up.

My work is rooted in compassion and equality. I don’t see color, status, or background — only the shared human experience beneath it all. I don’t take energy or give energy; I simply stay present, listen, and allow the body’s wisdom to lead.

I give my best to every person I touch. Whether it’s the first massage of the day or the ninth, my care doesn’t change. Some of my most memorable sessions have come at the end of long days, when a client leaves glowing.

Today, I’m bringing everything I’ve learned — from bodywork to yoga to the art of stillness — into something new. My intention is to create experiences that help people reconnect with themselves, whether through touch, sound, or shared space.

I’m not following anyone else’s path.
I’m creating my own — grounded in truth, shaped by every step it took to get here.