Dr. Sam Mishra (h.c): Turning Pain Into Purpose, and Healing Into a Lifelong Mission

December 6, 2025 - By erimu

Where Her Healing Journey Began

The story of Dr. Sam Mishra (h.c) is not one of straight lines — it is a story of circles, spirals, and the quiet courage to begin again.

Her first introduction to massage therapy came in 1997, after health issues forced her to step away from nursing training. What she believed would be a temporary detour soon revealed itself as the beginning of her life’s work.

She eventually returned to complete her nursing and midwifery qualifications, spending many years caring for women, families, and new lives coming into the world. But when motherhood called — especially caring for a disabled child — she stepped back once again, dedicating herself to family until life took a heartbreaking turn.

After the devastating loss of her children, and years of navigating chronic grief, complex PTSD, and physical health challenges, Sam found her way back to healing — slowly, intentionally, and bravely. When she began a sports therapy course, she saw for the first time how her medical expertise and holistic intuition could come together.

And from that point forward, her career grew organically, one person at a time, as clients recognized that Sam truly understood their bodies, their conditions, and their emotional landscapes.

A New Beginning in 2020: Building a Practice From Pain, Purpose, and Truth

Though her journey began decades earlier, Sam officially went self-employed in February 2020, choosing to create something that didn’t exist yet — a trauma-informed, medically-knowledgeable holistic practice built from experience, compassion, and science.

The four years leading up to that moment were some of the darkest of her life. Battling prolonged grief, PTSD, and depression, she withdrew almost completely from the world. But healing has a way of whispering when we least expect it.

When Sam finally stepped into her work again, she did so with clarity:

She would specialise in areas that the holistic industry often misunderstood, overlooked, or mishandled — especially trauma, domestic abuse, sexual assault, oncology support, lymphatic work, and nervous system regulation.

Today, she is not only a medical massage practitioner, but also an oncology specialist, lymphatic therapist, aromatherapist, Reiki practitioner, breathwork facilitator, trainer, podcaster, writer, and trauma workshop leader.

Her mission:

To create the kind of integrated, informed, safe healing space she never had herself.

A Deep Calling: Healing Traumas the Industry Didn’t Understand

Sam’s work is born from more than expertise — it is born from lived experience.

She entered the holistic field after realizing how dangerously uninformed many practitioners were. She saw therapists treating clients without understanding even basic physiology, trauma responses, or emotional triggers.

Coming from a background of domestic abuse, sexual assault, chronic pain, endometriosis, prolonged grief, PTSD, and childhood disability, she knew firsthand that unsafe therapy could do harm — and safe therapy could change a life.

Her inspiration?

To make sure others never felt as alone or unsupported as she once did.

She now works closely with charities, accepting referrals for domestic and sexual abuse survivors, individuals with mental health conditions, and clients navigating trauma-triggered physical symptoms.

Her aim is to educate, reform, and elevate the holistic industry so that no therapist works blindly, and no client is left misunderstood.

Bridging Gaps Others Don’t See

Sam’s work exists in the space between systems, filling gaps that have real human consequences.

She bridges the gap between:

• Medical and holistic care, offering rehabilitation after surgeries, especially mastectomy
• Clients and charities, ensuring vulnerable individuals can access support even with financial or social limitations
• Mind-based therapies and body-based healing, integrating nervous system work into trauma care
• Societal silence and necessary conversations, using her podcast to break taboos around trauma, mental health, abuse, and recovery
• Traditional physiotherapy and disability care, especially for children with cerebral palsy who benefit greatly from massage alongside physiotherapy

Her mission is not just to treat — it is to educate an industry, support communities, and shift cultural narratives.

What Makes Her Work Uniquely Powerful

It isn’t only her dual medical qualifications in nursing and midwifery that set Sam apart, nor her additional training across multiple therapeutic specialties.

What makes her truly unique is her honesty.

Her willingness to speak openly about:

• Depression
• PTSD
• Daily chronic pain
• Disability
• Domestic and sexual abuse
• Self-harm
• Grief

And the long, non-linear road to healing

This openness creates safety.

Clients trust her because she understands pain — not academically, but intimately.

Her business has never been about money; it has always been about people.

About community.

About creating a space where someone’s most fragile moments are held with skill, dignity, and compassion.

Following the Work Where It Needs to Go

Sam never chooses projects for the sake of novelty or business strategy.

She allows client needs to guide her evolution.

Every workshop, every qualification, every new service was created because someone needed something more — and she refused to let them go without it.

From trauma-based workshops to vagus nerve testing, from spiritual hypnotherapy to advanced breathwork, from transformation retreats to a growing podcast — her work expands because healing is multidimensional, and so is she.

The Heart Behind Her Motivation

What motivates Sam is simple:

People healing.

Seeing someone walk into her space burdened by trauma, pain, fear, or shame — and walk out with something shifted, softened, or strengthened — is the fuel that keeps her moving.

But she is also motivated by something deeper:

The knowledge that she has survived the unimaginable and built a life of meaning from it.

Her success is proof to herself — and to anyone who has been told they are worthless — that rebuilding is possible.

Success, Redefined From the Inside Out

For Sam, success is not financial.

Success is human.

It is measured by:

• How many people she supports
• How many feel less alone
• How many reclaim pieces of themselves
• How many learn, grow, or heal through her
• How she uses her pain to uplift others

To her, being a safe space for someone at their lowest is the greatest accomplishment of all.

Milestones That Still Feel Surreal

From a small sole-trader practice to global recognition, Sam’s milestones read like chapters of a story she once thought she’d never live to see:

• Writing for Brainz Magazine
• Being featured internationally
• Receiving regional and national awards
• Earning a Global Recognition Award for therapeutic innovation, leadership, and community service
• Receiving a CREA global award for contributions to mental health services
• Being honored with an Honorary Doctorate in Integrative Wellness and Social Impact

These achievements are more than accolades — they are symbols of a life rebuilt with courage.

Looking Ahead: Healing on a Larger Scale

Sam’s future is grounded in growth and service. She plans to:

• Continue writing for Brainz Magazine
• Expand her trauma podcast, MML Talks
• Launch transformational retreats
• Offer online workshops
• Judge national awards
• And further develop trauma services into new, innovative directions

2026 may be unknown, but her commitment remains unwavering:

• To heal.
• To educate.
• To advocate.
• To transform.

A Life That Turns Wounds Into Wisdom

Dr. Sam Mishra’s journey is a testament to the power of resilience — the kind that does not erase pain, but rises from it.

She is a healer who has walked through the fire herself.

A practitioner who bridges the worlds of medicine and holistic care.

A survivor who built a sanctuary for others.

A leader redefining what trauma-informed therapy can and should look like.

Her life is proof that purpose can grow from the darkest places — and that healing, when shared, becomes a legacy.