Well, as as I said, you know, we’re each unique practitioners in the world. And one of my uniqueness is that I, I used to run a Montessori school. And if anybody’s ever studied Dr. Maria Montessori in education, she was this brilliant Italian woman Dr. Over 100 years ago that that studied observational science. And she, she was given all these children to look after. And she said, what, you know, what she ultimately figured out was, if you if you can create an environment, that’s so enticing for the human to develop themselves, then they don’t need a teacher that departs information, what they need, is they need a guide to set up this environment and then guide the child through to become the best version of themselves and could surpass the teacher, surpass the guide. [Yes]. And so I, I believe that very much in everything I do with Ortho-bionomy and my body work practice is that the what’s in our environment makes a difference, it affects our body. The other thing that that Dr. Montessori figured out was that up until age six, we walk around through the world taking, taking in everything like a unfiltered photograph, it all goes into our system. And age six, our cognitive brain comes in place and starts filtering a lot of it. But the thing that that we’ve learned, and particularly those of us who who’ve done a lot of post surgical work, is the body is still always taking in everything. Even though we have this filtering, you know, cognitive brain, and in place as we age, we’re still taking it all in. So being mindful of what’s in your environment, how you set your environment, who you’re spending time with, significantly affects your body. Just like you’re saying, being in the car’s, you know, your shoulders are coming up, you can feel the tension just being in the car, and being in a stressful state. Well, that’s part of your environment. So when you can, you can arrange your life in a way that you you can. And you know, it’s not that we’re again, the goal is not to that we live in a bubble, and we don’t ever have have stress, but the goal is that we’re being intentional in our life, that we’re being mindful of what is in our environment. And so and that’s, that’s mind body spirit, what are we feeding our mind? What are we watching? What are we listening to? Who are we spending time with? What are we putting into our bodies? I believe in intuitive eating. I don’t believe there’s a right like, you should eat this or should need that. But I teach people how to intuitively eat and be create the environment, that they have their best health. [Right]. So you know, what is I don’t believe in. So talking about that, like, if you if going to the gym like for exercise. I, again, this is a paradigm shift to many. It makes people think things a little bit differently. But I don’t, I really don’t encourage my clients to go to the gym, unless it brings them joy. Because what I hear most of all, is like, oh, I’ve got to go to the gym, I know I need to go to the gym. And I’m like ‘No! You’re kicking off so many bad chemicals in your body, so much of a stress response, that all the good you’re doing to go to the gym is not going to be helpful to you’. Now, if there’s something you love to do at the gym, like I love Zumba, and I love yoga, Go! like go enjoy that, like, have fun. Those are positive experiences. [Yeah], those are good movement options. But if you like to dance around, you know, while you’re doing the dishes or laundry, crank up the music, like whatever it needs to be for you let let movement into your life because we are meant to move. But it’s but but when you’re mindful of the you’re mindful of your environment, you’re going to have a lot more success of what that movement does to your body. Does that make sense?

It makes perfect sense to me. I guess it’s about awareness, and thinking about what you’re doing and kind of understanding what you’re doing rather than just doing what everyone else is doing or just going through the motions mindlessly about what can I maybe what you think you should do rather than actually what you want to do and what works for you.

It goes back to that chapter one of being tuned into yourself, right? And how do you when you once you learn to tune into yourself, you can also then the next step is tuning into your life being just been intentional in your life.

‘Intentional’ Yes, exactly. That one word expressed exactly what I was trying to say there.

Yeah, there’s a great, there’s a great book by john Maxwell called ‘intentional living’ that I read a couple years ago, I just loved that book, because it was so spot on on a lot of this.

Yeah.I mean, it’s easy to kind of just do what’s expected of you or what, you know, you think is expected of you. Rather than really thinking, you know, What’s this doing for me? Or is this is this thing that I’m considering doing in line with, where I want to go and what I want to achieve?

Absolutely. And when you get rid of, you know, you get rid of the shame, you get rid of the negative emotions and all that and again, not that we live, you know, I live a very joyful life. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t ever get sad or don’t get stressed or don’t get upset, but I try to be mindful and intentional, you know, from when I’m when I’m going to eat the cake. Last night, we were celebrating my my daughter just got to 4.0. And she’s super excited. And as you know, top grades in in her report card for the end of the year. And we’re really proud of her and we’re really excited. And she said, What do you want to do to celebrate tonight? And she is my child who absolutely loves sugar, despite all I did.

I love sugar, and my children love sugar. I think it’s it’s part of its part of the way we’re made, isn’t it? A lot of us?

Oh, it’s it’s like the most addictive drug drug out there. And I said, so what do you want to do? And she said, she said, I want to get a cake and have two different kinds of ice cream, and I want to watch a movie tonight. And I said ‘Great!’, so that was our celebration last night. Because we did it mindfully right? And in our world of, of multitasking our world of like communication in 10,000 different ways and our phones [Yeah]. It’s so I made sure that I was really present with her last night I was really there in the moment in present time enjoying every bite of that cake ever bit of that ice cream, you know, laughing at every part of the movie together like that, that, that brings a quality life that brings quality comfort in your body better function in your body when you when you have all when you’re doing it in that intentional way.

Because it’s kind of easy to just, you know, shovel a doughnut in, isn’t it and watch a film and then think, oh, I’ll have another one. And it’s kind of it’s, it’s so much better if you’re going to have the doughnut to really focus on that. And enjoy it and maybe just stop at one, isn’t it?

Yeah, will be one of my colleagues that I just absolutely love whenever he speaks he he’s one of his favorite things to say is he said, ‘Nobody chased you down and shove the doughnut in your mouth. You did that yourself’

Actually, that happened to me recently. No, not, really No. It was all me. All me and that donut.

Yeah, it’s all us. And it’s ownership of us. And it’s so much easier. We’re just easier just to be kind of robots in this world that go through and not think about these things. Let’s just shove the donut in let’s just, you know, not think about the core elements, our body needs, you know, drink drinking water, you can ask my children. My answer to everything. Every problem they bring to me is how much water did you have today? I get a lot of eye rolls with that one ‘Mom!’ Like, well, it’s it. They know, because they know a lot of time. That’s the answer. They didn’t have enough water. Yeah. Yeah, I actually lost a client once over the water thing. I his wife saw me regularly. And she brought her husband in. And I didn’t know that water was an issue in their relationship. And, and he got done. And I said, you know, a lot of the your back issues are because your kidneys were dehydrated, and your kidneys are referring muscle pain to your back and I explained that to him. And I said, ‘so how much water do you drink?’ And so we we talked through his, you know, two cups of coffee a day and a cup of tea. And that was it. And he said, I said ‘that’s all the fluid you have all during the day?’ and that was it. And and so I talked to him about the importance of getting half of your body weight of water. And he he left and she came back in for next appointment. And she said, my husband will never see you again. Because you you asked him about his water. And

I said, ‘Well, you could have given me a heads up. I didn’t have to talk to him about that. But it is true. He will do a lot better if he drinks more water’ She said ‘Oh, I know. I’ve nagged him for the last 30 years. And he won’t listen to me’. So I said, well, then he he’s going to have back pain.

Yeah, that kind of reminds me of something you’ve got in the very beginning of the book. So for the person looking to fully regain their whole life back, which is this some people, they’re just not ready to sort of take the journey to sort of take ownership of the problem and do what’s necessary to start going forwards. Does that make sense?

It’s absolutely and I want to honor everybody’s timing and journey. There’s a purpose. And not everybody wants to stop in in on this. But I do believe there’s a purpose to being sick. Sometimes. I grew up in, we’re in a household that I that was one of the few times I got attention was when I was sick. So I learned that as a kid, like, oh, being sick, meant you got attention. And I had migraines for eight years, every other week, three to five days. And I finally cleared it when I recognized. That’s what it was about. It was really about a need for attention. And when I recognized it, that the migraines went away. And I thought ‘wow!’ [that’s interesting]. Eight years of extreme pain. But you know, what happened is I get my migraine come in, and my family would all step up. [Yeah], They were amazing for that three to five days that mom was migrating. And you know, and I still drove the kids to school, I still would do the basics, but they knew they had to be quieter. And my husband would be nicer. And, you know, things. Like everybody was just a little bit more delicate around me because they knew that I had [Yeah], this migraine going on.

So that’s the reward right there, isn’t it? [Yeah,] yeah. Psychological, you can see how that mechanism would work. And it puts me in mind of course, that Dr. John Sarno I but a common word is called. But it’s all about this basically, isn’t it?

And so and so I never want to shame anybody for only for being in their journey at their time, right? That they need to be wherever they need to be right now. And so I’m at

sorry it’s interrupt. You weren’t faking that pain. You weren’t consciously thinking, ‘Okay, if I sort of lie in a darkened room, saying, I’ve got a terrible headache, everyone’s going to be nice to me’. It’s an unconscious mechanism. [Correct. Yeah,] that happens.

Yeah, it’s absolutely it’s a survival track that’s in my body. And now I’ve learned how to you know, like, again, I set my environment up. So intentionally I’ve done all this work, to help me that I when I start to get to that point, or that need, I now know how to get get that without be in still stay in my comfort and function. Like that’s, that’s the key of reverse button is, is when you when your body can go ‘Oh, yeah, maybe we should have a migraine right now!’ It’s not conscious. I didn’t, I never decided, like, I want to have extreme pain, where I think my head’s gonna explode, and I’d be nauseous. It’s never anything I’d choose by any means consciously. But now, so much of what’s happening in our bodies is unconscious. Right? So it’s, it’s this brilliance that we’re searching through all these different neurological tracks. And so my body could go, ‘Oh, yeah, well, here’s an opportunity, we have a choice, we’re at the crossroads’ You think about railroad tracks, we can go, you know, A or B, A, we do a migraine, and that’s going to help you know, that’s going to give us this. And B, will give us these other options. And what I did with the work that I’ve done, and what I help people with, is I teach them that B we strengthen the track on B so they don’t need A anymore. They don’t have to go, their body doesn’t have to choose anymore, it’s not the body’s best choice anymore. And, and yeah, and it’s absolutely, everybody’s journey, and everybody’s right to their timing of that journey. Because I think we have so much if I would never have gone through that I would never have learned so much of the things that I’ve learned, I learned to be a self advocate. For my own health issues, I learned to be a self advocate, I learned all these other things that the doctors won’t tell you, I learned that you don’t end up you know, that, that doctors are a true gift in our world. And that their their primary tools are pharmacy and, and surgery. That’s, that’s what they study. And we need that in our world. But we also need all these other options. And I that’s, you know, that’s where the gift of my personal health issues, and my family’s health issues and my clients health issues, they they develop this very, very large tool bag that can look at our unique such each of our unique situations in a different way.

Sure, I’m going to ask you, if we can take a short break of just a few seconds, so I can put a new battery in my voice recorder? I’ll be I’ll be right back. Brilliant, yep.

Right, I’m back. Are you there?

I am here! I have a fresh cup of water, All is good.

I have a I got a glass of water as well, I thought I join you in in some rehydration. And yeah, a nice new battery in the voice recorder. So I’m all good to go. So you mentioned that when you speak to a client, and get them to tell you what’s going on with them. You don’t take notes. And this surprises them sometimes.

Yeah, I, I believe that it goes back to the being present thing. And the stories, the tracks that are in our body. I every time a client comes in are in talking with a client, I don’t want to get stuck in their story, I don’t want to get stuck in their trauma loop. And I I get frustrated when I see practitioners who do this to me, you know, like I’ll I’ll go in, and they’ll say, you know, like I my chiropractor that I saw for years, for example, he he had this, this little body chart that you know, you’d walk in and you mark down like, okay, I still have a problem here, you know, like it would it would walk you through like all the places you’ve said you’ve had a problem where it’s at now, do you still or is it, you know, what’s your level around this now?

And I understand why he’s doing it that way. But it was it was locking me into those problems. Yeah, you know, it’s Same thing with, you know, traditional therapy that I you know, I did 20 years of therapy, traditional therapy, grateful for all the therapists I ever saw. But every time I’d go back, they’d say, you know, well, life is like an onion, and we’re unpeeling, and we’re having to talk about the same traumas over and over and over again from my childhood. And I, I now know, I’m like, No, you’re just reinforcing the neurological trauma in my body. So my body’s continuing to choose to react that way. Like, let’s give it another option. Right? So yeah, I like to I like to go broader.

I don’t want to take notes. I don’t want to lock people in I want to I mean, I, I don’t keep a huge clientele list at a time. Because I like to, you know, I know my clients, I know their stories. And, and, you know, my, backgorund….

It’s kind of all, it’s all in your mind, I suppose?

Well, it is.

But again, . Right? So you know that they’ve been in a car accident, and you know, they had cancer or they just had a knee replacement, you know that those big things just stick. But I also want to know is when I go? Like they’re telling me their story. I’m listening to where they’re where they’re at in the moment. [Yeah.] Because what will happen is the story will change as the trauma loop or the trauma track there on changes. [Yeah,] So I’m listening for that shift. And then also the body I learned this from the horse work that I did, is that the body just like the horses will rise up the higher priority if we don’t, if we don’t force a priority. Does that make sense?

It does, yeah.

Okay. So for example, for when I was working with horses first, I used to bring a horse in from the field, put them in the cross ties. And, you know, us humans would make the decision of what needed to be worked with on this horse first. [Yeah], one day I said, I wonder what’d happen if I just walked out into the field. And what happens is the herd will line up in who needs the most work the most the first they make that decision. And at the you know, when you may be working on something and then like pause for a moment with a question of like, Are we done or do we just integrate for a moment, and I just have to think the thought and the horses will walk away, and if they’re done, they don’t come back, there’s no emotional attachment. If they just needed to integrate, they’ll walk they’ll make a big circle and they’ll come back. And the coolest thing is, whatever is the right next best thing so either they come back and I work more or they go away and the next horse that needs it will be right there waiting, like..

so do you use. sorry to interrupt, do you use the same technique on a horse as you would on a human being.

Absolutely. All beings. I’ve worked on cows on cats, and horses and people dogs I do a lot with dogs.

You take dogs into your sessions with with your human clients, don’t you?

I do. And I and I have a dog that’s trained to actually track a body along with me. So yeah, I I went to school with a man who was studying he was blind and he was studying to be an instructor in Ortho-Bionomy. I was so fascinated with his ability to work with the dog and how he just tuned in at a different level than the rest of the people that I worked with. Again, we all are unique practitioners, right. And so I was so fascinated by him, that when I did my advanced study in Ortho-Bionomy, you got to pick a project and that’s what I picked was the interrelationships between nervous systems between a human and a dog is what I started started it with, and and unfolded with all of our nervous systems being the social nervous system and how we all interrelate with each other. But it’s, it’s, it’s all beings are ultimately we’re all energy. We’re all we’re all we all are affected the same way. You know, I, I talked about the reflexes and I consider reflexes are universal language that I, I talk, you know, I’ve learned and in Ortho-Bionomy I was taught seven reflexes, I since believe that there’s hundreds of reflexes. It’s like music, I can actually hear it, like a unique song. And each each being that I’m working with, and it’s it’s reflexive` movements, tones, vibrations that are happening. And like when I work with groups of people at a time, I love working with groups, because somebody may be saying, ‘My back hurts’. And I’m working on their their neck and shoulders and their their upper back, and somebody else will go ‘Oh my gosh, my look, the fluid in my leg just went away,’ or ‘my knee doesn’t hurt anymore.’ And then they happened to be in the room at the same time because their body needed that same vibrational reflex that I was working on this other person. And their body went, ‘Oh, wait a minute, that helps me too’ again, it totally unconscious. We’re not doing this consciously. But the body because we’re nervous systems we read off of each other. The body goes, ‘wait, no, that one helps me too.’ And so I can, the whole room could be affected in different ways, because of these different vibrational reflexes that I use.

So as you say, in the book, when, with the word reflexes, most people think about, you know, being hit on the knee with a little rubber hammer, and the and the leg kind of flying up. And there are other reflexes that we’re used to. But you obviously take that to mean much, much more what other reflexes are there?

In Ortho-Bionomy we learn like our very first basic one we learn is is rebound and recoil like you push into something and it pushes back. right? That’s that’s a reflexive experience that the body does. [Yeah]. But there’s there’s other ones that I did a full week retreat on spirals with Ortho-Bionomy. Where we learn we went out with we were in Moab, Utah, like did a hike and studied the spirals in nature and then felt for the spirals within the body. There’s energetic vibrational spirals that will happen as the body is unwinding patterns where it’s trying to get back to its best track. And we can influence those, or we can observe those both.

And so t `here’s, there’s, there’s many of them, that that happen, that again, we can be influencing them, bringing them into the environment for the person by for a body to go, ‘Oh, thank you, like, I forgot that we could do that’. Or it can be a witness, like I’m witnessing the body release and as it’s releasing into that, that spiral for say, then another body goes ‘Oh, thank you, I forgot that we could spiral and release this’ like and we read again, we read off of each other so i i mean, i don’t i don’t really believe that we can heal ourselves fully. As tuned in to my own body as I am I still have a team of healthcare practitioners I work with because I can’t see my if I’m in my own trauma loop. I can’t see it. I just need somebody impart the environment so I can know ‘Oh, wait a minute. There’s there’s another option there’. Right? Again, my body needs to have those reminders every once in a while to to get back on its best track.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai