Compassion is the heart of wellness.
What if the motivation to feel great in your body and your mind is not for your own sake, but so that you can more skillfully help others soften the distractions of pain, sickness, and self-absorption?
We want to light the fire of compassion in your heart. Once that fire is burning, the opportunity to help others in practical and meaningful ways may become the most valuable thing in your world.
When our basic motivation becomes compassion, the whole reason for self-care changes. Motivated by compassion, we take care of ourselves in order to increase our capacity to be of service to others.
Our Mission
The mission of Middleway Network is to foster the creation of new, free wellness training and educational resources for all people, giving special attention to underserved populations.
Our Vision
The vision of Middleway Network is to inspire a cultural shift in the wellness and healthcare industry by focusing and sharing the power of creative expression. We support the individuals and organizations in our network to build their own micro-cultures of mutual aid.
Our Founders
Jenny DeDecker
Middleway Method Mentor and Co-Director
Full Moon Rising Wellness Center, Vulcan, MI
Jenny is a Michigan and Wisconsin Licensed and Nationally Certified Massage Therapist and Bodyworker. She has double B.A. in Human Biology and Anthropology and a Minor Certificate in Religious Studies.
In 2007, Jenny completed the Therapeutic Massage and Somatic Bodywork program at the Arcata School of Massage with Middleway Method Co-creators Shari Sunshine and Tobin McKee.
Jenny is a Certified Birth Doula through DONA International. She is also the chair and co-founder of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan Lactation Coalition, UPMILC, striving to promote, protect and support breastfeeding in the U.P. In 2016, Jenny founded the Full Moon Doulas, a collective of birth doulas, coming together to support and empower childbearing women and their families.
Jenny is the Owner and Director of Full Moon Rising Wellness Center, a Middleway Method-based organization.
Tobin McKee
Middleway Method Mentor and Co-Director
Tobin has been immersed in a life of health education from birth. They began their training in Somatic Education as an apprentice to their mother, Shari Sunshine in 1996. They co-founded Syntropy International, offering Somatic Education training in the US and Europe. Tobin studied Lomi Lomi Traditional Hawaiian Massage and Ashtanga Yoga in formal apprenticeships, and spent several seasons in Thailand, India, and Nepal studying Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy in traditional settings.
In 2004, Tobin opened Arcata School of Massage, where they spent 14 years as Co-Director and Principal Instructor. It was during that time that they developed Middleway Method in order to better meet the needs of people seeking to take responsibility for their own wellbeing. They now serve as a Middleway Method Somatic Educator, the Co-Director of the Middleway Network non-profit wellness education program, and as a Program Administrator at Cooperation Humboldt.
Shari Sunshine
Middleway Method Mentor and Co-Director
When Shari went to massage school in 1978 she promised her teacher that she would learn something new every year, and she has. This journey has taken her literally all over the world to learn from some of the finest masters of healing. Her work is a synthesis of this learning, which includes but is not limited to the work of Moshe Felenkrais, Ortho-Bionomy®, Polarity Therapy, Thai Massage, Craniosacral Therapy, Hypnosis, and Healing Qi Gong. She has a Masters Degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine.
She works in a very gentle yet profoundly deep way that touches body, mind, and spirit.
Shari has been a dedicated student of Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy for more than 40 years, and regularly spends time in Thailand, India, and Nepal studying and working as a volunteer in clinics serving the local populations.
Shari co-founded the Jerusalem Center for the Healing Arts, Ashland Massage Institute, Syntropy International, and Middleway Method.
Why is it free?
While health care is prohibitively expensive and profoundly inaccessible for most people, wellness in its most fundamental sense is free. Not only do underserved populations have limited access to the resources offered by the profit-driven wellness industry, but also most wellness and educational products are framed in contexts and formats of privilege. By fostering diverse creative expression and working with underserved populations, Middleway Network supports individuals and organizations as they develop their own materials, appropriate and accessible to those whom they serve.
In the wellness industry, new products are constantly created for consumers, and because of the laws of capitalism, those products must be tailored toward profit. This naturally excludes the underserved. We seek to replace the capitalist model of wellness profiteering with an artistic and altruistic model of mutual aid. The resources that are born from this process are more accessible and more appropriate to the people who need them the most.