The formation of Positive Being was inspired by my own experience with the AIDS epidemic. After several close calls with death and the loss of much of my sight from an HIV drug trial, I found myself very isolated. While the emotional and practical support of family, friends and local agencies helped me manage a difficult day to day existence, even on the best of days I felt as though I were barely surviving and not really living.

Touch changed all that. I started seeing a massage therapist regularly and the very fact that someone was willing to touch me with loving and healing hands made a huge difference in my outlook. As soon as I was well enough, I began taking massage classes, receiving certifications in massage therapy and deep tissue, as well as exploring other powerful modalities such as Sacred Intimacy. In the years since I started Positive Being, I have seen others who were isolated and depressed make progress by crossing the “touch threshold,” eventually becoming more out-going, comfortable with their bodies and lighter in spirit.

I believe that this comes not just from the therapeutic effects of massage (which are many) but from the loving human contact itself. My own sense of self-worth improved with the willing touch of others and helped me to engage in the world in a way that seemed impossible before. Our goal at Positive Being goes beyond nurturing a client’s sense of integration with his own body, mind and spirit, but also with others.

Miguel Pagan, CMT

Miguel Pagan is a CMT providing therapeutic touch since 1989. After moving to the Bay Area in the fall of 2004, Miguel studied massage with Chester Mainard. Miguel, inspired by Chester, became a volunteer with Positive Being, offering Swedish and Lymphatic massage as well as crystal therapy to all clients in need of touch. Miguel joined the Positive Being board in November of 2007.

Mike Wonders

Treasurer

Mike is an active member of the HIV Community. He is the coordinator for the Yoga of the Breath for People Living with HIV course, a member of the AIDS Treatment Activist Coalition, and works at Quan Yin Healing Arts Center as Director of Volunteer Services.
He's been involved with other AIDS service oraganixations including Positive Resource Center, Project Open Hand, Desert AIDS Project, Wisconsin AIDS Network and the NMAC.

He loves getting massage!

William Stern, PhD., CMT

Director

Bill Stern founded Positive Being in 1999 to improve the quality of life for those with HIV through touch. After nearly dying of AIDS in 1996, Bill's difficult and on-going struggle with HIV demonstrated the importance of touch as a healing tool. After suffering a loss of vision in an HIV drug trial, Bill became even more focused on touch, training as a Certified Massage Therapist in 1998. A year later he began forming Positive Being, whose first program, a low-cost massage clinic for people with AIDS, opened in January of 2001. Bill mobilizes and manages a volunteer staff of Certified Massage Therapists from the Bay Area who give their time to keep the clinic running and hopes to implement new programs as funding becomes available.

Click here to read the 2005 BAR article "Nonprofit massages HIVers back to health"