Yeah, well as you, as you know, I interviewed your friend, Vienna Dunham Schmidt about three months ago, and she recommended that I speak to you, she obviously knew that you had a book coming out. And one of the one of the things that comes up quite a lot in your book, and we’ll get into the title of it shortly, is that all practitioners bring their own individual style and experience and personality, to the way they practice. And so I’m really looking forward to getting your unique perspective on the subjects of Ortho-Bionomy today.

Great, thank you very much. I look forward to having Ask away, I have all sorts of ideas to share. What do you want to talk about?

well, let’s get a bit of background first. So you have a clinic where you practice which is in Portland in Oregon.

Yeah, I’ve had the clinic for seven years now. So yes.

And you’ve just recently published a book, which is called reverse button and the tag line is ‘Learn what the doctors are telling you avoid back surgery and get your full life back’

Correct. I it was time that that the work got beyond just Portland, Oregon. And to be talking to you is very exciting to know, we’re going international now. I’ve had my first reader in Germany reach out a couple weeks ago. And that was very exciting that the work is getting getting beyond Oregon getting beyond the US.

Yeah, absolutely. And the book is out on Amazon. And I see it’s got some nice reviews so far.

Thank you. Yeah, the reviews are starting to come in on Amazon. And actually, if you go to Facebook, and you type in reverse button, I’m getting seem to be getting more through Facebook at the moment. If you want to know more about the book and what people are, are understanding and getting out of it. It’s been really nice reviews and nice conversation started in Facebook.

Yeah,

yeah. Okay, good. I’ll be sure to check that out. So, a little bit about about you, I guess. How, how did you become an ortho-bionomist? What, what kind of brought it all about?

Unknown Speaker
Well, um, I had, I had been in four car accidents in my life. And so I had had a lot of body work. But I, I had really never been a a person who like even gave my husband a neck massage when his neck hurt! So that wasn’t my my type of thing at all. I never saw myself as a body worker. But I appreciated all the body workers in my life very much. And my sister in law came home for a visit one day and said, Hey, I’m giving up my, my commercial Electrician Business, I’m going to be an ortho by optimist and Abby, you should too. And I said, ‘Oh, ortho, by what?’ What, I’ve never heard that word. And I’ve seen a lot of different body workers. And I said, ‘Tell me more’ and, and she told me about it. And I was in between careers. At the time, I had been a Montessori, school founder and administrator. And in 2008, my school had closed with the economy crash. And I was, you know, at home mom and helping out with the family companies. I wasn’t focusing, I was kind of I was open to the next thing, but I never thought it would be to touch people for a living. And so my youngest happen going to be into horses. And I’m a dutiful mom that was at the barn and fell in love with this horse that I wanted to be with. And so I started doing energetic groundwork classes to be with this horse. And my sister in law kept on going and kept on going. And she finally said, you know, there’s classes for horses and people, you could you could help that horse splash that you told me about. So I went and took a class to help a horse. And I found my at the end of that first class, I came home and I didn’t, I only remembered how to work her hoof. And in four sessions, this horse went from, could not be touched by hardly anybody to happily running in the field and just having like, showing you what joy and love was, you know, she just was happy all the time. And I thought, ‘wow, I don’t know what this stuff is. This is like magic. I think I gotta go learn’. And so I enrolled in a program in Colorado, and spent the next several years going deep into this practice learning, learning all the different elements of the work from the physical to the energetic work of of it all.

Wow, fantastic. So yeah, car accidents, it’s, it’s something that comes up quite often, people will have a car accident and end up with chronic back pain, which seems to just won’t go away.

When we get stuck, what happens in a in a car accident is we end up with a trauma, there’s a very traumatic moment that happens and your nervous system and the nervous system expert is what I consider myself at this point. And what happens with the nervous system is we get we get stuck on a, we take like a picture of our whole body of Okay, in this moment, how do we make sure we’re not bleeding to death, that we aren’t breaking any bones and that our eyes stay level and in that split second, the whole the whole of the system makes a decision and a track This is what I call my tracks and in the body, it makes a track of this is our best we can be in this very moment of this trauma, the car accident, and we can get stuck there. Until we have somebody who helps set the environment up that our body can go back to a better comfort and function track. Because it’s in there we have we have better options in there we’re just stuck looping. And and those that looping can last for years and decades. It’s it’s really, it’s, it’s so freeing when I see somebody come out of that, that trap onto a better track, which is why I call it reverse button, let’s let’s get you back on to a better track that it is inside of your body. You just need somebody to help set that up for you.

Often when we have health problems, we tend to think of it as a kind of mechanical problem or a structural problem. An analogy that I like is instead of thinking of it as a hardware problem, think of it as more of a software problem.

Absolutely, absolutely. When I when I can help somebody and somebody recently come in the office that she had a lot of back and hip pain and and she she was so blown away she she actually came to a weekend intensive over the book that we we worked through the book together and she was coming for a follow up session afterwards. And she said, ‘the biggest thing that blows my mind is all these years of working through physically trying to get my back better trying to get a better trying to get it better. She said, You helped switch my mind you helped me find peace.’ And one of the things I say a lot with my clients is we acknowledge the body’s pain as its communication style. And it’s and we say ‘Yay, body!’ we make peace with it. And when by making peace with it also helps shift out of that that trauma loop. And she said ‘now every time I my hip or my back starts to starts to tighten up, I ask, I just calmly go, what’s going on here?’, instead of being like angry at it, and locking it. Instead, she just has she’s like, and it just goes away. It just can’t even like believe that it could just go away. And I’m like, absolutely, we’re not, we’re never going to live in a lifestyle. Where I mean, we don’t live in a bubble life still happens, we’re going to have those little moments where our body’s going to start to lock back up again. And if you have a moment in that moment, you could say, you can be angry with yourself and all those emotions come in and the body locks down trying to protect itself. Or you can Oh everything like what what’s this about and in come from curiosity and kindness and love and it’s amazing what unwind in the body and get you back on to a better track.

This I picked up on in the chapter and your book is is called my story. So which is kind of what we’re talking about now. And I think you were sort of fairly was some time ago, you massage therapists was working on you. And she noticed that you would become stressed and your shoulders would shrug up which is quite a common stress reaction. And we all have stresses in our in our lives don’t it’s not possible to have a life without stress. And so this this is a common stress reaction, the shoulders start, kind of shoot up towards the years. And as you say, just being aware of that and acknowledging Yeah, this happens is is kind of the first step in being able to let go of some of that tension.

Yeah, and if you think about one of the things I love to think about is so much of healthcare, you as you were saying is it either looks at it mechanically, or it looks at it individually like oh, I you know and that that story you’re talking about it was because I tore all the ligaments in my pelvis from sitting sideways in the car when the seatbelt came out. And you know, 10 years of dragging a leg and having problems with with my pelvis and this massage therapist finally said let’s stop focusing on your your pelvis let’s focus on your shoulders. Because you you know you you bring your shoulders up to your ears by the end of your day. And by just working on helping the mechanics of that come down, my my pelvis stabilized quite a bit we stopped focusing on it and stop telling it it was bad it’s like all of these different pieces and so she was the first person to open me up that sometimes it has to be somewhere you have to go work somewhere else. Not the place is and now we’re a holistic system. So yeah, we are there is mechanics there is where your bone sitting, your muscles are sitting the tubes of your body, your fluids, all of that. They all have their best structure I my, my work Ortho-Bionomy is based from an osteopath. So a British osteopath, so it it has a core of some of the work was very osteopathic, you know, very, very bone focused. And yet, in that awareness, the difference between osteopathy and Ortho-Bionomy is there’s the awareness of the whole rest of the systems in relationship to where that bone is sitting. [Yeah]. And so yeah, and that, because it, it can be it can be not i’m – not every ortho-bionomist can do this, but because I’ve studied so much, and I’ve worked so much I’ve made it so I can even work, I can work all those bones no matter where you’re at in the world. That [Wow], that’s been a part of the practice that really has evolved in the last couple years here. It has been incredible I, I can. Yeah, I do a lot of my work. Now just over zoom, we were talking about earlier.

Not over Skype then!

I haven’t used Skype for quite a few years. But, but I have I have clients all over the world that I can work with, completely remotely, and I can feel their their bones like I can support their bones, their muscles are fluid, everything in that holistic way, no matter where they’re at in the world.

Amazing. One of the things that you mentioned in your story is that as a child, you were labeled the klutz and you you weren’t sort of in touch with your body at all, you never seem to know where your body was at you say? So would you say that you’ve developed a kind of body awareness yourself?

Very much. So I’m so tuned in to know where what things are going on. And and yeah, I think I think what what happened to me as a child happens to so much of us and what I was taught was to not pay attention to my body, right, I was taught to that pain is you know, pain is gain, push through it, ignore those messages. And now if I run into a wall, you know, if I’m going through a door, and I hit my shoulder on the door, Jim, I stopped and I go, Wait a minute, what was that? I’m not in present time and space with my own self right now? Yeah, I need to do and there’s an exercise in the book that I share of how to do that. How do you find yourself in time and space, so that you You’re so present, you can walk through a room without getting hurt? So you, you can you can manage your stress? Because stress is always going to be happening? Yeah, you can learn how to be in that same environment, the totally different experience because you’re so in your present in your body, you so know about yourself, I, I get just as excited when a client comes in and says, says Well, I I booked this appointment, because this weekend, I was mowing the lawn and I tripped in this hole and I hurt myself and so I called you I I got online and made an appointment with you. But it’s been three days and like I’m better, like everything just reset itself. And I’m I’m just as excited that the body reset itself as I am that the client had awareness around the process of what happened. Yeah. Because so many years back to that massage therapist that I saw. I’d walk into her office and she’d say, how are you doing? And I’d say fine. And at that point, I was running a Montessori school. I was working 80 hours a week. I was so so intense. It was a mom, you know, I had a household to run. Yeah, it was so such a intense time in my life. I get on the table. I’m really honestly thought I was fine until she would touch me somewhere. And I go Oh, except for there and there everywhere. And I had no clue. Yeah. Now I’m I’m very tuned in I

totally understand what you’re saying that complete lack of awareness.

Yeah, we’re in our culture, I think it’s taught very much in at least in the US culture. I know that it’s it’s very, you’re not taught to tune in, you’re not taught that as a child, not most families aren’t taught that is the child. I definitely wasn’t. And I’m really grateful it’s a skill, though I think everybody can develop and I want to support more people to develop that for sure.

Yeah, I think well, children, I’m, yeah, I grew up in the 70s and 80s. And you know, especially for boys, you were not supposed to kind of acknowledge pain really you were supposed to suck it up, really. And then of course, as you say, training in the fitness industry at that time, it was all about as you say, No pain, no gain, pushing through the pain, which I think is a disastrous idea. It really is.

Yeah, I tell people, I’m the same age as you and I’m in that same range. And so I tell people instead of like if you’re, if you feel like your shoulders tight, instead of doing what we we were all taught to do, like reach your arm back and stretch it and stretch it and like just, it’ll some point let go right is what we’re told. I’m like, instead, give yourself a hug, roll that shoulder in, soften the joint, soften the muscles in there, and wait for a moment, give the body a second to figure itself out. And then you’re going to elongate way more because you’re not fighting against your body, there’s actually a stretch reflex in there that that keeps you from, from correct self when you’re fighting against yourself. It’s just it’s such a difference. It’s a paradigm shift of thinking. For sure.

Yeah, I mean, I did a lot of training in Tai Chi and Qi Gong. And one thing that the main takeaway for me from that was if you feel sort of tightness, instead of trying to pull against that, that tightness, just bring your mind to that area. And just let go, that tension, that it relax, and as you say, it’s just a completely different way of thinking about it. And boy, what a difference that that’s made to my life to be able to do that.

The man who developed Ortho-Bionomy originally he he studied judo. And so that’s where they go with the flow of the energy, the with the energy, and he studied homeopathy. So we also believe very much that less is more like, my job isn’t to come in and do a bunch of things with you, my job is to come in and like create the environment, start the process, and then let your body figure out what it’s supposed to do next, because it will remember it way more than if I override all of your systems. So I think that’s it’s, you know, I haven’t studied Tai Chi yet, but I, I feel like from those that I know that have it’s, it’s, it’s very honoring, just just I mean, they all fall into that very honoring the intelligence is inside of you. Set the body up for it to do its best work because it’s in there. And that’s the need to do instead of overriding and pushing past and ignore ignoring the messages.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So you mentioned five, in the book, you mentioned five holistic components to living in comfort, comfort, and function. I think we just kind of touched on that. There, didn’t we? So the first one is that as an Ortho-Bionomy practitioner, it’s your your role to to help your client or your patient understand more about their own body.

There’s so much that happens through just self awareness of your own your own system. Absolutely. Like I said, there’s some exercises I share in there. And then also, I have a option in the book that you can you can email me for additional videos and things like that, that if you’re a more visual person, and you want to learn like how do you how do I run my dimensions? How do I? How do I feel into my own body and bring my awareness up? Like what was going on here? And so yeah, I think that’s, that’s such an important place to start. Because then we can we can get so much farther when we just have that awareness piece there.

Okay, running dimensions, and learning to be very present was something that I picked up on in the book, and you just mentioned it. What does that mean?

What does that mean? Well, it’s something that you can take, you know, if you’ve ever done any sort of meditation, you know, meditation could be something that that’s, you know, an hour, you know, or weekend retreat, or it can be something in 10 seconds, right, it’s, it’s going inside in getting quiet. And when you run dimensions, I use utilize both the reflexes, reflexes, which I consider a universal language. reflex is in awareness of deep inside of yourself in this quiet inside of yourself. When you bring all of that together, what happens is you find true time and space. When when I talk about it in the book, we we go through this process where you first checking in from your head to your feet. And that’s your connection to the universal into the earth. Then we go left to right, and that’s your connection to yourself. And then we go front to back. And that’s your connection to your your future and your past. And to give you an example, when I first learned how to do this, I could not find I could not feel anything behind me at all. I had no awareness of my back energy. And it dawned on me, like a couple days after I learned how to do this, I went oh my gosh, do you think that’s why I’ve been in so many car accidents, because every car accident I’ve been in was being rear ended. And I thought, wow. And so I actually started playing with it. And once I got really clean and clear of how to be so in present time and be aware of what my energetic body was doing as well as my physical body, I could actually start to play with that. And now when a car comes up behind me quickly, I can actually, like lean into my back energy and I will watch them just move behind they just back up. And it’s very empowering after having so many car accidents and feeling so you know, in you know, I like out of control and out of power. It brought so much power back into my life that I am I can be I can be strong wherever I’m at, I can be aware and and it’s not. It doesn’t take effort it takes. It’s so automatic at this point, because I do it so much throughout my day. It helps me I’m an empath. So I used to not be able to go like going to a mall, we just exhausted me because I could feel everybody and I would be exhausted by the end of the day. being present in your own time, protects you from a lot of that it protects you gives you strength within yourself and awareness of self that you don’t have you don’t merge with everybody else’s stuff that’s out there. It’s very, very powerful.

I, I sometimes find driving quite stressful, and it is it is exactly that kind of situation that you described, where someone’s getting too close behind you. And I can feel that sort of concern of Okay, this this car’s too close. You know, maybe there’s gonna be an accident. And that translates to like a physical tension for me. Yeah.

I mean, I, I also talked about

so I’m, I have a couple other exercises in there ones ones how to drain your adrenals and in situations like that, which will calm a lot down. Just driving along, you know, I live I live in Portland and Portland is is a city that’s for the last 20 years has been growing in population by 20%. Every year. It’s just massive. People everywhere. Absolutely. Yeah. So when I drive, and for quite a few years, I drove a very big vehicle and I’m down to a little car now. But I would have to drive into downtown. You know, I would be so stressed. Like, I would be like worried that it would hit you know, there’s the pedestrians, the people on the bikes. Now we have people on scooters, we have all these cars. And it’s an older city that does not have this not made for a lot of cars to come through. And yeah, and so it was very, it’s always very stressful for me. And now I’ll find my whole my kids would say Mom, why are you so angry? And I’m like, I’m not angry. But I had you know what they call my 11s my in between my eyebrows would be get so so

Elevens – brilliant! I can picture that. Was it your kids who called them 11s?

No, I heard that from somebody in the beauty industry. She I didn’t know that before. She’s like, oh, you’re Eleven’s needs some work? I thought what is that?

This is like two vertical lines in between the in between your eyebrows?

Yes, I have I have. I have stuff for that now.

They actually make all kinds of things that makes those go away. But I can do that. Actually, I can teach people how to do that. Just physically how to help it all calm down. So you don’t end up with the lines in your face that you don’t you know, [that sounds better to me] get tension in the shoulders and the neck tightening up and then you end up with a headache. You know, all of those things that physically happen when we get tense driving? Yeah, so. So yeah, there’s a there’s several different examples in the book of how to either drain your adrenals or you can come there’s a beautiful one, that’s a master point for your fascia for all of your head, neck and your shoulders. And I do that one probably the most when I’m when I’m driving in those situations, I’ll just check in when I start to feel that tension coming in. And I’ll check my forehead and say, Oh, wait, where am I at? And I can I can physically adjust all of the fascia in my my head, neck and shoulders. And so that I can drive with with better comfort and function. And that’s the whole goal, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

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