Healing herself and others: Griselle Quinones builds a business rooted in wholeness

For Griselle Quiñones, healing is a long journey she has started – and she’s helping others start theirs, too. As a kid, she had to grow up fast. Raised by a single mother, Griselle took on adult responsibilities early, helping care for her siblings and her sister's children by the time she was twelve. She also experienced chronic pain starting around that time, which has stayed with her.  

That early experience, paired with years of navigating anxiety, depression and eventually substance abuse in her twenties, became the unlikely foundation for her business.  

"The healing part just came naturally as the next step," she says.  

What began as her own path toward recovery through massage therapy opened the door to a much larger calling. 

From personal healing to holistic practice 

Today, Griselle owns and operates Inner G Restorative and Holistic Care, a wellness studio in Chicago. Her business, which celebrated its eighth anniversary this year, offers far more than a traditional massage. 

A licensed massage therapist, certified personal trainer, corrective exercise specialist and certified nutrition coach, Griselle has built a team that reflects her whole-person philosophy. Her staff of therapists bring specialized backgrounds, offering modalities like Shiatsu alongside more conventional bodywork. New hires go through an in-house mentorship process focused less on technique and more on presence: learning to slow down, listen and read what a client's body is communicating beyond words. 

"We're not just looking at the body," Griselle explains. "We're looking at the whole person." 

Business ownership as its own healing journey 

Becoming an entrepreneur brought its own reckoning. A year after opening, Griselle realized she had more to learn as an entrepreneur and leader – a gap she closed through a string of accelerator programs, including the BreedLove Accelerator, a program with which BMO works through the YWCA. 

These programs taught her the mechanics of running a business. But they also gave her something less tangible: community with other women navigating the same uncertainty. "We're all here trying to figure it out together," she says. "And sometimes figuring it out together, you still have to figure it out alone." 

A banking relationship built on people, not buildings  

Griselle credits much of her growth to the relationships she's built along the way, including with BMO. She met several women business owners through the BreedLove program's connections to BMO, and describes being struck when a BMO representative reached out proactively, offering to bring financial literacy workshops to her staff. 

For Griselle, that kind of outreach reframed what a bank could be. "I don't see it as a bank," she says. "I see the relationship." In a banking world that can feel intimidating to first-time business owners, she says having people actively championing her, rather than just processing transactions, has made a lasting difference. 

Learn more about how BMO helps small businesses.