Crystal McLain stands in her Bristol massage studio. McLain provides creative care for the mind, body, and soul using her skills as a massage therapist, personal self-care coach, blogger, artist, and podcast host. (Photo courtesy Crystal McLain)
Bristol resident Crystal McLain has been on a journey helping people using love and positivity her entire life and has built a diverse career out of this passion here locally.
Her business, Crystal McLain Creative, provides “creative care for the mind, body, and soul,” she said during a phone interview on Tuesday, Jan. 10, with McLain using her multi-faceted skills as a massage therapist, personal self-care coach, blogger, artist, and podcast host.
“It’s about building a support system for community care so we can encourage and help one another with more of a global sense of wellness while we individually work on our own sense of wellness,” McLain said.
After a lifetime of unique experiences and more than 30 different jobs, McLain has settled into a homespun career, providing various resources for self-care on her slickly designed website, crystalmclaincreative.com.
“We’ve sampled it all,” McLain said with her infectious, staccato laugh.
McLain was born in Walpole and attended South Bristol School and Lincoln Academy.
One formative experience for McLain when she was young was helping her little sister who had cancer stay positive throughout and accompanying her on numerous hospital visits.
“There was a good chunk of time when we were in and out of the hospital,” McLain said.
Her positivity and playfulness spilled over onto the pediatric floor at the hospital in Portland where her sister was being treated.
“It was a really impactful time in my life because I saw that despite trauma and illness and all of these crazy things in life, there can still be joy and playfulness and light,” McLain said. “I’ve kind of carried that with me my whole life.”
While working at Yellowfront Grocery, now Main Street Grocery, in Damariscotta after high school, McLain was approached by former South Bristol School Principal Pam Sperry about an opening for an educational technician job at the school.
McLain started the job, like many of her others, with zero experience, and learned by working through it and doing it.
“There’s a lot of hard and fast learning in my life,” McLain said.
She was responsible for helping a student with muscular dystrophy who used a wheelchair. She said the relationship was rocky at first, because no one wants to feel different and her constant presence with him at school contributed to that feeling for him, she believes.
“It was an electric wheelchair, he tried running me over with it,” McLain said.
Eventually, the student came around and the pair got along famously.
“We learned so much from each other,” she said.
McLain then moved, on a whim, to Baranof Island in the city of Sitka, Alaska for a period of time in her 20s. She said she was well received and cared for by the local community.
“I started meeting people in the community who really took care of me when I literally was homeless and had nothing,” McLain said. “That generosity and kindness to a complete stranger was another thing that made a huge impact on me.”
She started working at a flower shop, then a coffee shop, before eventually being hired as a behavioral analyst at a youth advocate agency working with troubled youth, which was “another hard and fast course,” she said.
“I learned how to observe behaviors and find patterns in those behaviors and write programs for kids to help them gain a little more self-control and self-esteem,” McLain said.
After moving back to the area from Alaska, McLain owned and operated the Bristol Diner with her husband at the time, Doug Comstock, from about 2004 to 2009.
In 2009, McLain graduated from the Downeast School of Massage in Waldoboro, learning massage and holistic techniques for treating stress and tension. Since then, she has been practicing massage therapy.
McLain had a neck injury in seventh grade that left her without full range of motion. Massage therapy she received in her early 20s was the only thing that worked to give her full movement in her neck again.
“I’ve lived with chronic pain, I’ve lived with all this trauma, I’ve had all these crazy life experiences,” McLain said. She said these experiences have informed her life and provides her a unique perspective for helping others going through similar issues.
Her massage therapy uses a holistic approach, looking at the emotional health and lifestyle habits of a person, rather than just focusing on physical symptoms.
“You can also have tension in your body from stress … or old trauma,” McLain said. “You can have tension in your body for all sorts of reasons.”
“I want to empower you to take good care of yourself and not just get a massage,” McLain said.
When the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns hit in 2020, she had to rethink her approach to find other sources of income, since physical distancing requirements meant to curb the virus put a temporary pause on all massage therapy.
McLain had the thought to continue to help people achieve wellness, but in a remote way. She was mentored by her friend and popular life coach, Lorrie Hellcat Bamford, and began accepting her own clients.
To make life coaching more accessible, since it is an expensive and time-intensive endeavor, McLain conceived of providing education, coaching, and empowerment content online for free and receiving income through memberships on the online platform Patreon.
“That is one of the biggest problems I see with our society — with our whole structure, our whole system — is that if you have plenty of resources, you’re going to be OK because you can afford the services to be well,” McLain said.
She said she “needs to get this information out to the people so they can become empowered and learn all these amazing skills she’s learned over the years.”
“I love myself,” McLain said. “I’m healthy now.”
People can subscribe to support McLain’s work for as low as $3 per month, even though she continues to provide all her empowerment content for free. Subscription comes with benefits, however, like a self-care basket being sent to members periodically that sometimes includes McLain’s original artwork and other goodies. Patreon members can also join an online support group on Facebook.
Her goal is to reach 100 subscribers so her content becomes self-sustaining and she can support herself while creating. Once 100 subscribers are reached, McLain will begin donating 20% of all membership fees to local grassroots organizations like the Portland-based Maine Needs, which helps with asylum seekers, victims of domestic violence, or any other individuals who are experiencing homelessness.
(Do you have a suggestion for a “Characters of the County” subject? Email info@lcnme.com with the subject line “Characters of the County.”)
