Your body is always talking to you. Today we explore the emotional and traumatic underpinnings of physical pain and what the body is attempting to show us with guest, Rachel Wittenberger.
Rachel is a physical therapist with an atypical approach to working with ailments and guiding you and your body back into harmony. With a holistic approach to treating pain and dis-ease Rachel and Kelly discuss factors contributing to physical discomfort and dysfunctional movement patterns.
Together we unwrap the profound links between our physical and emotional states. Chronic pain isn't just a signal of bodily distress; it's often a cry from unhealed traumas seeking attention.
With over two decades of experience as a physical therapist, Rachel reveals the critical role self-awareness plays in our health, advocating for a treatment approach that listens to the whispers of the body and treats the root causes of pain, rather than just the symptoms.
Rachel's expertise in functional physical therapy and osteopathic manipulation shines a spotlight on the significance of considering the whole kinetic chain. We consider how modern lifestyles, with their sedentary demands, can throw a wrench into our musculoskeletal system, while also touching on the environmental factors that leave imprints on our health.
Through personal anecdotes of healing and professional insights, this episode is an invitation to pursue a balanced narrative for your body and spirit and deepen your curiosity into the messages behind the discomfort.
To connect with Rachel visit www.mindfulmovementcenter.com
To connect with Kelly visit www.kellyhowe.co or follow @kellyhowecoaching on FB, IG or X.
Your body is always talking to you. Today we explore the emotional and traumatic underpinnings of physical pain and what the body is attempting to show us with guest, Rachel Wittenberger.
Rachel is a physical therapist with an atypical approach to working with ailments and guiding you and your body back into harmony. With a holistic approach to treating pain and dis-ease Rachel and Kelly discuss factors contributing to physical discomfort and dysfunctional movement patterns.
Together we unwrap the profound links between our physical and emotional states. Chronic pain isn't just a signal of bodily distress; it's often a cry from unhealed traumas seeking attention.
With over two decades of experience as a physical therapist, Rachel reveals the critical role self-awareness plays in our health, advocating for a treatment approach that listens to the whispers of the body and treats the root causes of pain, rather than just the symptoms.
Rachel's expertise in functional physical therapy and osteopathic manipulation shines a spotlight on the significance of considering the whole kinetic chain. We consider how modern lifestyles, with their sedentary demands, can throw a wrench into our musculoskeletal system, while also touching on the environmental factors that leave imprints on our health.
Through personal anecdotes of healing and professional insights, this episode is an invitation to pursue a balanced narrative for your body and spirit and deepen your curiosity into the messages behind the discomfort.
To connect with Rachel visit www.mindfulmovementcenter.com
To connect with Kelly visit www.kellyhowe.co or follow @kellyhowecoaching on FB, IG or X.
Welcome to the Manifestation Lab. This is your host, kelly Howe. From the grounded science to the mystical and unseen, we're investigating this big experiment we call life and finding what really works when it comes to manifesting a life that sets your heart and your soul on fire. Welcome to the lab and your soul on fire. Welcome to the lab, friends. The message of the day is this Listen up. Are you ready?
Speaker 1:Your body is always talking to you, always, in every second of every day. There is a feedback loop and your body is receiving information from the outside. It is giving you information about what's really going on on the inside, things that are happening now, things that have happened in the past. Your body is always talking to you. I know a lot about this. In fact, my body has been gradually, over time, getting louder and louder and begging me to make some changes in how I spend my time, where I focus my mind and some attention on old movement patterns, some very dysfunctional old movement patterns that have been influenced or likely even caused by past mental, physical and spiritual trauma. You see, our past is being reflected through our well-being all the time, particularly the unprocessed and unhealed past.
Speaker 1:The way that our body speaks to us, of course, is not with words, but with sensation and eventually pain. I know we all go through pain at some point in our life. Physical pain can be an indicator that, yes, perhaps there is an old injury or a new one, or perhaps there's some sort of functional imbalance. But it's always worth asking the question what is the deeper meaning and intended message of the pain that we are experiencing day in and day out? Is there an old injury with emotional pain asking to be released? In the work that I do, I see this all the time. There is absolutely some amount of emotional pain in every single physical pain, and when you process that emotional pain, a lot of times the physical pain goes with it or at least is greatly reduced. Unfortunately, my regular techniques and tactics haven't been working for the pain that I've been experiencing over the last couple of years, so I've been asking these same questions. Is there a habitual way of thinking or beating myself up that chronically triggers tension in some part of my body? Maybe you can relate to that. You're constantly hard on yourself. You have an inner critic that is ruthless, an inner perfectionist that is very stealthy and doesn't let anybody know that you're a perfectionist. But, man, that inner critic is really loud and that inner perfectionist can keep us really walking a line of constant questioning and self-doubt. Or is there a message inside of you desperately trying to be spoken? A lifetime perhaps, of holding back inner truth out of fear that leads to chronic tightness in your throat or in your stomach? These are all questions we should be asking ourselves, because our body is always speaking to us.
Speaker 1:Today we dive into the root cause of pain with physical therapist Rachel Wittenberger, whose approach to overcoming pain is truly a holistic approach. I wouldn't have worked with her if it wasn't you guys know that about me, but her work truly encompasses mind, body and spirit. In fact, on her website you'll find the quote that says this wellness is the complete integration of body, mind and spirit, the realization that everything we do think, feel and believe has an effect on our state of well-being. Rachel says that the prerequisite for realization of all things is making time and space for awareness. In a culture where busyness is the gold standard, self-care is often looked down upon. Where busyness is the gold standard, self-care is often looked down upon, forgotten about and even shunned. At Rachel's Mindful Movement Wellness Center, they believe that self-care is not only necessary to thrive, it is vital for prevention and healing.
Speaker 1:Rachel is a native to Kansas City, missouri, and she received her BHS and PT from the University of Missouri in 1999 and an MBA from the University of Iowa in 2003, which means that she's been doing this work for over 20 years. She graduated the top of her class and she began her pursuit of outpatient therapy with a strong interest in hands-on manual technique and, despite her training, she was struggling with her own SI dysfunction, low back pain and other issues, and so it pushed her career to evolve in further ways and in-depth studies of mechanics of the pelvis and spine. Her treatment techniques are strongly influenced by her continuing education in osteopathic manipulation, which is one of the things we really talk about in this conversation, because in my personal experience with her, that gentle osteopathic manipulation has made a world of difference. I'm talking like pain that has been in my back for I don't even know how long like over five years, maybe longer instantly just melts away. It is incredible.
Speaker 1:She's also taken a variety of classes, including things on functional movement, functional nutrition, postural restoration, and she's continually evolving her techniques and, like I said, she's been doing this for over 20 years. Her approach is holistic, it's effective and I would definitely say it is atypical. I've been to physical therapists before, and I am not meaning to put down physical therapists because you all do amazing work. It's not that. It's just that sometimes you get stuck and you need something more than just kind of the run of the mill approach, and so we're going to talk about the root cause of pain, some of the things that are underlying these physical dysfunctions, and, even if you're not a local person, I really want you to stick around for this conversation, because I think Rachel's going to touch on some points that everyone can relate to, and we talk about ways that you can find somebody, even if it's not her, doing hands-on work with you. We talk about ways that you can find somebody doing similar work in your area. I also know that she does functional nutrition consults over phone and over Zoom, so I know that we have listeners all over the world. Now I think we have listeners in 45 countries, which is amazing.
Speaker 1:Thank you guys so much for being here. It's so fun to be able to reach people all the way on the other side of the world, and maybe that's you. But even if you can't get in touch with her, be here in person. You may want to chat with her about some functional nutrition approaches and what she thinks that may do for some of your physical pain and discomfort and just overall well-being. So you all know, I love bringing you conversations with trailblazers, people that really push the boundaries, that are out there finding new ways to do things, making things more efficient, more effective and cutting through the BS that's out there that just doesn't work anymore, and today is no different. If you want to find out more about Rachel Wittenberger and her work, you can find her at mindful movement wellness centercom and you'll find ways to get in touch with her there. All right, sit back and enjoy.
Speaker 1:Well, I've obviously been really impressed with what you do in your practice as a physical therapist and it very much to me seems like it is not the run of the mill what you would expect from PT, which, to be honest with you, is why I have been putting off getting physical therapy for my hip and my back and my neck and all of it for all these years, because I've done it in the past and it feels very much to me like there's a system that you kind of get like run through and then either you feel better, you don't, but it's like, well, you went through the thing, you know the exercises, so we're kind of done with you from there, and that obviously is a big turnoff for me. So what I would love to start with is tell us a little bit about your physical therapy practice and what makes it different, what makes it new, unique. I think there's probably a lot of reasons that it's unique, but from your perspective, what is? What does that look like for you?
Speaker 2:Yes, well, it is my favorite thing to talk about, so I'm happy to answer that question. So when I first got out of school, that is what I was trained to do was what you your, what your experience has been with physical therapy. And you know, we learned the fundamentals of how the body is supposed to work. And then we learned you know how the body is supposed to work, and then we learned you know how the ankle is supposed to move and then how you treat the ankle, and then the knee is supposed to move and how you treat the knee, and it was very much the parts of the system instead of kind of looking at the whole system together. And so when I first got out of practice, I worked with a lady who was really good and trained in manipulation, using different methods to help restore joint movement, and kind of did that in a way that helped the whole system function better. And I was really drawn to that because her patients got better a lot faster than mine and the rationale behind it made a lot more sense. And so you know I've always wanted to do that. So I started taking classes in different types of manual therapy. That's what that's called when you learn how to manipulate joints, and none of them really just stuck very well. They were just methods that my body didn't like to do to other people different positions. I couldn't get stuck very well. They were just methods that my body didn't like to do to other people at different positions. I couldn't get in very well. I'm not a very big person and some of the things you have to do you have to move people a lot and I'm just not good at that.
Speaker 2:So I came across, I worked at a clinic in Jeff city and they did this form of manipulation called osteopathic manipulation, and part of working there entailed going to Michigan State University to take some continuing education to learn how to do osteopathic manipulation. Well, in doing that I felt a huge difference in my own body. I'd had issues really for a really long time with just some knee pain, some hip pain, and it was limiting my ability to do the stuff that I really love to do, and so I really I was sold when I learned it, and so I just I went to two one week courses there and and brought the textbook back and just decided this is I'm going to learn this new approach because it seems to be so much more effective. And it really was just sort of I was led there, I mean it fell into my lap, I was seeking it and it just I was so fortunate to kind of step into a practice that made me do it, and so I worked for other places for a little bit doing that kind of thing, and eventually I was able to step out on my own and really just make it what I wanted to make it.
Speaker 2:Um and so in my practice, um, what I try to do is use the osteopathic techniques, the manipulation, to help restore movement in the whole kinetic chain and the whole body and make it very functional. In um that I'm not just trying to get a joint to move better so that it can move better, but get it to move better so that the whole mechanical chain can move more efficiently. With everything that you do throughout your functional day, yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2:But in that also, I'm sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, go ahead. Well, and then?
Speaker 2:over the years then I've also realized how much other things influence the musculoskeletal system. Like I'm very passionate about functional nutrition, so I took some courses in that, couple certifications and it's incredible the impact our nutrition or our lack of ability to absorb our hormone imbalances our stress levels, our lack of sleep, our lack of hydration can influence our pain and muscle aching and therefore our propensity to have more joint restriction. So I study all that and so I try to incorporate that into my practice and asking about that and help guiding people not trying to play doctor, but just guide within my scope of practice. And maybe that means guiding to a doctor to get different lab tests done within my scope of practice, and maybe that means guiding to a doctor to get different lab tests done.
Speaker 2:Um, and then also um. I like to incorporate the impact that trauma may have had um on somebody and on their musculoskeletal system. Um, the, when the nervous system has been over activated for long periods of time, it shows up in the body. You can almost feel it in the tissue. The tissue gets really tense. People's demeanor is a little bit different. So really just even trying to get people to talk about that a little bit and so that I can refer appropriately to address that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, you're definitely speaking my language and that was one of my one of my questions. One of the things I wanted to touch on was how does trauma impact the work that you do and how does trauma impact these dysfunctional patterns that we accumulate through the years? And, for example, you know I've been working with you. I've I think I've had now four or five sessions with you and one of the first things, when you were doing your assessment, you said I had gotten used to my center of gravity being a little bit off to the right. And my question for you is I've been just kind of thinking about it and what do you think trauma might be? How might this be influencing that kind of like finding a different center?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I think it has a big impact because I mean, if you really follow it all the way upstream, trauma, when it over activates your nervous system. It sets off a whole cascade of chemical changes in the body and part of those chemical changes are going to influence how much inflammation you're holding in your system. It makes you produce more cortisol, which then that influences everything that your hypothalamus and your pituitary talk to, which is your thyroid and your gut and your sex hormones. And all of that when it increases your inflammation in the body. Inflammation takes up space and joints. And so if I, if I've ever fallen hard in my life and landed hard on my butt or landed hard on an extended leg or knee and things have been shifted a little bit mechanically, Somebody who hasn't had trauma, who whose gut works really well, who does all the things, gets good sleep, stays hydrated, they may be off a little bit, they might feel like a little bit of discomfort, but their body's real resilient and it can handle and adapt to it fairly well. But if somebody has been through a lot of trauma and they have more inflammation, that inflammation is going to take up space in vulnerable tissue first. And so if I'm a little bit off. The joints that are already restricted are not going to have any chance really to get into a better position because that inflammation is going to take up some space in that joint to prevent it from doing what it's supposed to do.
Speaker 2:But then I also I mean, this is way beyond my scope in a lot of ways. There are other people that can answer this a lot better than I could. But, um, you know, it just influences the way that you see the world as well, and so you know there's pretty, um, protective postures that you could, could fall into. You know your anxiety could be a little bit higher, and so, um, the position that the body goes into when it's in a state of fight or flight, your sympathetic nervous system is more extension. So, if you like, think back to biology class when you're dissecting a frog, like they're all just like in extension, like this, and their legs are all straight. So is that what I've?
Speaker 1:been doing, cause that's I mean I'm I'm totally open to talking about myself, by the way, yeah for sure that's.
Speaker 2:I mean that has been part of your issue is is too much extension, and you know also your your history of dance, um, so I don't know if you were drawn to that because you were so good at extension, but people who dance tend to be more into extension as well. But that extensor posture just lends itself to not being biomechanically efficient and causes compression, and then compression decreases the blood flow to tissue and a lack of oxygen to tissue is what causes pain, and so that's kind of how all that feeds into it.
Speaker 1:It's so fascinating, and one of the reasons I was drawn to you is that I know that you work mind, body and spirit.
Speaker 1:It's not separate, it's not these like compartmentalized, different pieces, it all flows together.
Speaker 1:And one of the first things that you asked me when you were assessing me and you were finding that my center of gravity I had gotten used to it being a little bit off to the side was if I had a stressful childhood, and the answer absolutely is yes, and so what I think and what I'm wondering is that these patterns have probably been there, I mean like probably my entire life, and specifically today we were really working on my posture.
Speaker 1:I mean like probably my entire life, and specifically today we were really working on my posture and pulling, like pulling my um, you'll say this better than I am but like really pulling my neck into alignment and like sort of pulling it back. And I very much think that that's probably a compensatory pattern that has to do with shutting down my voice and my throat chakra and my audience probably sick of me talking about how much work I've done on my throat chakra, but this is just another place that it's showing up, and when you had me do that wall exercise. She had me, like you know, get up next to a wall and kind of tuck my pelvis and pull my um my head back to the wall. I felt a stretch, not only the back of my neck but also in the front of my neck, right where my thyroid is like. On both sides it was so tight, and so I can't help but think that that's not somehow connected and has been just like an ancient pattern for me.
Speaker 2:I believe that a hundred percent, and I mean your body will tell you. I mean, we have so much innate wisdom. Some of the classes I've taken they say we have our innate physician or innate wisdom. I mean what you feel and what you associate that with is definitely your truth, and you know I've never had anybody talk about feeling it in their throat the way that you did. So that's really interesting. That's strange right, yeah, I mean, but it makes sense, it makes total sense to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and one of the other weird things that I feel and I've noticed a lot and nobody's been able to explain is that when I lay down and I'm completely relaxed, I get almost like the tension all goes right there to my throat, like no matter what I do, no matter how much I breathe into it, like when I lay down for massage, that's pretty much always there. So I think it has to be related.
Speaker 2:I a hundred percent believe that too, and especially when you lay down and are totally relaxed, the body will go into, it'll take the path of least resistance. So it goes into the pattern of tightness that that you've been in um for you know a long period of time and your neck does what your low back does. So when you lay down because of um, the tightness of the front of you and your anterior chain and how much extension your low back has been in, your low back goes like that and then your neck goes like that as well, except that your head is up against you know your length. It has contact on whatever you're lying on, and so you're just feeling the pull right there.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's so strange. Okay, so the dancers listen. Let's talk about dancers and how much dysfunction we have. So what I'm hearing you say, rachel, is that doing a toe touch and landing in the splits could have been a big factor, or doing a back handspring on the beam and landing on my crotch could have been part of this trauma, right?
Speaker 1:So talk to me about some of the dysfunction that dancers specifically deal with and we've already talked about it some. But because I think there's probably some listening that are like, oh wow, maybe that's me, yeah, so there's a lot.
Speaker 2:First of all, I think dance is an amazing art and it's beautiful and love all the people that do it. But, kind of like we talked about earlier today, there's a, you know, there's a spectrum between stability and mobility, and part of the art of dance is to have excessive mobility, excessive flexibility, which makes you not very good at being stable and holding your joints in a good position, and so that's and we can be incredibly strong in that dysfunctional way, very strong in that dysfunction.
Speaker 2:I mean, you right, that's what you strengthen in day after day, hour after hour, because that's another thing with dance is the amount of hours you guys put into your practice is insane, and especially from what I've seen in Columbia, is that they start so young and during all those formative and developmental years they're just stressing and stressing and stressing their tissue. And I've seen a lot of interesting things in the culture of the dance world but I'll speak to that maybe a little bit. But as far as the musculoskeletal stuff goes, I mean every dancer I have ever seen has too much low back extension, too much of an arch. When you throw your pelvis forward and arch your low back, then it causes your femurs, your thigh bones to sit more forward in the hip socket, and so a very common problem with with dancers is impingement in front of the hip, groin pain, labral tears, the labrum is.
Speaker 1:And that, like, does that go along with that hip snapping Cause I know that's a common dance thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, All of that and and so there's all of that. So as your low back becomes more extended, the brain really wants to get you in the most ideal position to breathe. And so if my low back goes in excessive extension, then what it does is it makes my ribs up here rotate this way to better place my rib cage over my pelvis so that when I take a deep breath in, my diaphragm can descend without any resistance. And this is an easy thing to try in your own body. If you sit really really tall and arch your back and let your rib cage kind of pop and then try to take a really deep breath, and then you put it in a better position, a stacked position kind of like we've been working on, and you try to take a deep breath, you can feel the difference. You can feel how much better expansion you get in your rib cage, both front to back and up and down.
Speaker 2:And so dancers with a big arch in their low back and their rib cage kind of popped forward, like that, the ribs higher up will start internally rotating to create a better position for the diaphragm.
Speaker 2:But then at the neck what happens is I will end up doing this so that I'm not following my ribs and just looking at the ground when I'm walking, and so that becomes a problem. But then the other problem is that if I'm, my rib cage is popped in front of my pelvis when I take a deep breath, because I don't get good. In front of my pelvis when I take a deep breath, because I don't get good, um, dissension of the diaphragm with the deep breath. What I ended up doing is reinforcing that arch with every breath that I take, and so when I'm doing that, I'm also getting more elevation of my shoulders, which feeds into more sympathetic dominance. So more of the fight or flight, more of the anxiety and then dancing itself psychologically is it's full of anxiety and you're performing, the spotlight is on you and you know. I've also noticed that teachers can be pretty strict in the dance world, especially ballet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah, and so and a lot of times I've seen ballet specifically like they try to push their students through the pain because a lot of the teachers were taught old school and that's how it used to be from what I understand is that you know, oh yeah, don't be weak, get out there, perform anyway, tape it up or do whatever and just perform right. And I mean, and that's the whole, that feeds into a whole. You know, psychological issue changes your paradigm as you go through life. You know, if it's not something that I feel like you address, you know, later on.
Speaker 1:I do, yeah, I do think there's an interesting culture to dance and obviously I'm coming from that world. I love it, like it brings me so much joy to move my body in that way. But I do think it's like a lot of athletes where there is this sort of dysfunctional relationship that we form with our body in that space of learning to push through the pain and there's a gift in it right.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you just have to.
Speaker 1:And we want to learn that resilience and we want to learn that kind of strength and that grit even. But when it becomes a chronic way of looking at the world and moving your body and never pausing and slowing down and doing the self-care and doing the rest and digest and really taking care of the true functional problems, it can really become a psychological pattern that's difficult to break when you get older and I've been, I've been working on that for years, for sure, I feel like I have seen that, and I'm not trying to put down the dance world by any means.
Speaker 2:I mean it's awesome art and I support it. It's just there's definitely some consequences if there isn't some very intentional balancing to go along with it. And I also think, kind of to speak to that is, since you are in the spotlight. I feel like there's a lot of eating disorder culture in dance as well, just because you're sort of defined by how you look on stage and and what you're doing, and so I've just seen a lot of that too, which then you know that just feeds into your tissue being less stable, like everything just becomes more fragile when you're not getting the nutrients that you need as well. So there's a lot there.
Speaker 1:And I'm sure that there's no like hard science behind that. But it really hit home with me that I was like, yeah, I could see how those negative thoughts create that inflammation and could really destroy our gut over time. And then, you know, you get into the more woo-woo side where it's like how much the energy of our thoughts affects our environment, affects what's around us, and thinking about our gut microbiome and how that might affect, you know, the shifts in balance in our microbiome. So it's all really fascinating how the psychology, you know, plays into the physical function or dysfunction and how that plays out over time.
Speaker 1:And I want to go back to kind of that, that idea of finding our center again, because that was one of the first things we talked about and you kind of got on a roll about talking about how important it is to be in center. And you know, for me, like I said, like you put me back in center and I was like this feels really weird. You're like, yeah, because you've been off, you know your body's been compensating for a really long time. So talk to me about the importance of finding that center again and also about working with somebody, because I'm sort of a DIY queen and I love to learn about this stuff also and I have watched a million videos trying to figure out how to balance muscles and fix my posture and this, that and the other, and it's not working, just to be honest with you, as you may have noticed. But because I do love that DIY space, it is so important right To have somebody look at you, because we've learned these dysfunctional patterns and we can't feel it.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. Your brain will lie to you because it it, it. Well, it's amazing. Our bodies are so amazing and so resilient and they just adapt and they figure out a way to survive and to move, despite all the restrictions that we have and inflammation that we have. But, yeah, but it just then it skews your reality of what true center is so having somebody look at you and evaluate you is so incredibly helpful and to call you out when you're not in the right position.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's. I mean, I've seen it happen over and over again Like you tell somebody okay, well, you're tilted to the right and I'm like no, I'm not no-transcript, because we've been doing that for so long it feels so normal, that norm, where we're supposed to be in that true center, just feels completely off balance. So in helping somebody, you know, find their center again, you have to be, you have to work with somebody who's willing to be curious about finding that new center too, because, you know, not everybody's open to that, because it's so much deeper than just a mechanical thing, you know.
Speaker 2:But the cool thing about the body is that we are hardwired for perfection when it comes to the biomechanics of, and probably for a lot of things.
Speaker 2:But specifically to speak to that, and when we have become restricted and imbalanced in our muscles and our center of gravity shifts a little bit, really, all we need to do is just sort of remind the body and nudge the body back to where it's supposed to be and as soon as we create the space again for things to move the right way around the correct center, the brain just completely organizes around it because it's like oh yeah, I know how to do this.
Speaker 2:I mean, I know how to do this, and so it's one of those things where you don't have to consciously think about every step you're taking and how everything is going to move when you're walking, because unconsciously the body's already neurologically organizing around the new information that you're giving it with the corrective exercises and with all the joints moving the right way. That's what's so great about this work is that it doesn't take forever. I mean, you know, you see somebody a handful of times and they're walking completely differently than they were the first time that they came in, and it's not because of any magic I've done or any magic in the exercise that they've done, necessarily, except that we just kind of nudged it back the right way and then it took over because the body's brilliant.
Speaker 1:I think it is some of your magic.
Speaker 1:I'll just say that for you and I get what you're saying the body, you know, the body knows what to do when we give it the tools and we allow and create space for it. But I will tell you, I I mean, I have tried a million things and everything has helped. You know, it's like I feel like I've been taking steps and it's been improving. But the first time I worked with you, I felt, after you did that osteopathic technique that you use, I literally got up and I was like, oh my God, the tension in my middle, the middle of my back, is gone, like it just felt completely different, and so I would love for you to talk more about what exactly are you doing with that? What? What when you're like feeling around on my spine and pushing my shoulders, like what is happening with that?
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, it's like it's such a gift to be able to do this work, because it can be life-changing just to have everything kind of move the right way for the first time and many times.
Speaker 1:I felt it right away, rachel. I mean, I was like this is amazing.
Speaker 2:Well, and that feeling, that you feel that sort of like release and that just freedom of the movement, is your nervous system saying like taking a big breath and just saying thank you, I don't have to work so hard anymore to figure out how to move through space, you know? Um. So the reason I love osteopathic manipulation and there are different forms of it. There are more like high velocity techniques that you can do and stuff like that. But, um, I'm trained in very gentle muscle energy techniques, so it's very, very subtle. Um, but what I have found, so subtle, like, so subtle.
Speaker 1:I almost was like is she doing anything back there? Like it felt nice, but I yeah.
Speaker 2:Almost everybody feels that way, and then I'll tell them like you might be sore and they'll be like no way. And then they'll come back and like kind of felt like I hit by, got hit by a Mack truck, you know.
Speaker 1:Two days after, yeah, and I'm talking you guys like so gentle, like it feels so wonderfully relaxing, but also it's so gentle you almost don't even notice it.
Speaker 2:Well, um, I kind of wish I had a model of the spine here, but I don't, I'm at home, um. But so as far as what I'm doing is, I'm just assessing how well your pelvis is moving through all the different planes of motion and then how well your spine is moving through the different planes of motion and, um, but I'm also feeling not only for bones and how they move, but also the tissue tension on top. To give me an idea, if something isn't moving the right way, if it's a little stuck, you can feel it in the tissue uh, pretty easily because it's guarding to protect a joint that's not in the right place. So in the pelvis, the, you have two bones in your pelvis on each side. They're called your ilium and they should move forward and backward. And when we walk, one side moves a little more than the other and then like this back and forth, and then in between those ilium, in the back is a bone called your sacrum and that should sort of move back and forth on a diagonal as we're walking.
Speaker 2:Well, almost everybody walking around out there has a little bit of restriction in their pelvis because anytime you do any kind of like repetitive sport or anytime you've ever fallen on your butt, even as a kid, and taken some significant. You know falling off your bike, like falling on concrete, falling on skates. Or you know jumping off a swing and landing on your butt. Or you know jumping off a swing and landing on your butt. Anything that happens like that can kind of shift that a little bit. But when that happens, when we're younger and our tissue is just basically made of rubber, your body's like, hey, man, I can adapt to that, no problem, I'm going to compensate, I'll just move somewhere else for a while. And then, as we get older, those compensatory patterns that we've developed they start saying you know what, I wasn't designed to move this way and I'm gonna start telling you about it. And so you start hurting a little bit, you get a little bit more painful. It's the body sort of maxing out all its different possibilities of compensation. And that's when you start getting these little messages like oh, my knee kind of tweaks every time I go up and down the stairs or my hip is popping every time. You know, I go for a walk.
Speaker 2:And so you can evaluate how well the pelvis is moving through its mechanics and then through the spine. The reason our spine can move is because of something called facet joints. So each vertebra sits on top of each other and then at the very top on each side of the vertebra like you have that little bony part in your spine. On either side of that, on the top of one vertebra is a joint and then on the bottom part of the top one is a joint and where they come together is called the facet joint and I can round my back because those facet joints kind of glide open on each other and I can sit tall because they closed down. And so what I'm feeling for as I take you through flexion extension is how well those joints are moving together and then, depending on if it's stuck kind of in an open position or in a closed position, I can just barely induce a tiny little bit of motion to make it go the other way. And then you can resist me and we can use the muscles that attach directly to those facet joints to either close down a joint that's stuck open or open a joint that's stuck close.
Speaker 2:But you know people always say like how does it work? Cause you're barely moving me? If you actually look at the anatomy of those facet joints that they're so small in the range of motion of those facet joints that they're so small and the range of motion of those individual joints are so small. We can move a lot because collectively it allows a lot of movement, but each, if you isolate the level the right way, you barely have to induce any movement at all and just give it a little nudge to activate those really, really deep muscles. Because if you go harder you blow right past that barrier. The bigger muscles kick in and you really can't get anywhere.
Speaker 2:So one of the things I love about the work is that the body responds so well to gentle and people have forgotten what gentle is. They have forgotten what small is. Because our world is so extra, everything you know, supersized everything and got to have like the best of everything. And you you know you can't just go run a mile. You got to run a half marathon, I mean all these different things. And so as you help people get back into their bodies a little bit and you help them understand the mechanics of everything and they feel the difference, the dramatic difference in their bodies by these small movements, it helps them remember. I feel like it helps me remember that sometimes less is more and it's so much more productive and I think it is so impactful.
Speaker 1:I just thought that was so fascinating how quickly I could feel that work. And that's obviously not something you're going to get if you go to probably just I hate to say normal but like a normal physical therapist.
Speaker 2:they're not going to do that kind of correction up front learn any of this in PT school and, honestly, the methods that I have kind of started I wouldn't say developed, because the foundation of it has been around forever and ever, but, like my personal way of doing these things has definitely changed over the years to be less and less and less I touch, my touch is lighter, the movement is lighter because it's just I've just learned that that less is more and that I can get better results if everything is a little bit quieter. But yeah, no, I didn't learn any of that. But once I learned some of the stuff from Michigan State, that's really what changed everything.
Speaker 2:And I'm so drawn to functional medicine, functional nutrition, and I really would describe this type of PT as functional physical therapy, because you're trying to get to the root cause of why somebody is hurting. And that's not always just like if my shoulder hurts nine and a half times out of 10, it's not because of my shoulder, it's coming because it's my. Maybe my right foot isn't pushing off well enough or maybe I'm not getting enough rotation over my right hip. I mean, it's almost never that unless there was like an acute injury, you know, I overstretched a muscle doing something or, you know, landed on it or something and had an injury to it that way. But mechanically, when you feel pain at a joint minus an acute injury, it's just means that that's the biomechanical place of strain in the body. That's just the place that your body said I can't take it anymore here.
Speaker 1:But it's not necessarily where it started so if somebody has, like a knee or a hip where it has been strained for so long that it actually has like the cartilage, cartilage is broken down or the bone is starting to change, is it still the same thing? Where it's like, it's just the tension has been held there for so long that, like, the blood has been constricted and not able to flow. Is that what's going on?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's essentially that's it. You know, the mechanics of it have been altered and dysfunctional for so long that it's caused damage to the joint and to the tissue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's still not necessarily the the root cause of what that is.
Speaker 2:No, not necessarily at all. No, I mean the knee maybe has been in a dysfunctional position because the right hip wasn't able to drop down during gait, I mean. But over and over and over for years, and that person just happened to work in a factory on concrete, day in and day out, or you know, it's just sort of become. Whatever their environmental circumstances have been and their lifestyle, like what activities they do repetitively or what postures they take repetitively, they just have contributed to, you know, causing more dysfunction and exacerbating the dysfunction that they have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we haven't even gotten into things like sitting at a computer all day and what that does to our posture.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it keeps me in business, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would imagine that you've probably saved a lot of people from surgeries.
Speaker 2:I mean, I really hope so. You know, in an ideal world I feel like, um, this work would be done at every doctor's office and every orthopedic office, and and really, I mean I thought about this so many times but if there was a way to implement you know how they used to, I think they might still do it the screening process for scoliosis in grade school, if there was. There is not, there is a way actually to kind of screen it. But if we could implement a screening for musculoskeletal dysfunction, maybe we tied it into, you know, sports or somehow in the schools we could catch so many things and, preventatively, um, so many people like I even had one patient come in who she had an x-ray from her pediatrician and she had I can't remember the degrees, but it was a pretty significant curvature in her upper T-spine and they had had the x-ray quite a few months before and just hadn't hadn't made the appointment to come in.
Speaker 2:So she came in and I treated her Well, they had just happened to have a follow-up appointment with their pediatrician for another x-ray and her curvature was reduced so significantly because, of course, if my pelvis is offset, everything else is going to shift to accommodate it, and so you know these kiddos who were born with a little bit of a structural curve in their back. It gets exacerbated when they fall off their bike and their hips get restricted, but it doesn't get treated out the right way. And so then that just leads them down a horrible road because you know, the more curvature I have, structural curvature I have in my spine, it changes the position of my shoulders, my hormones and the shoulder joints and my hip bones and the hip sockets and then that just leads to breakdown and pain and all the things. So I mean our country doesn't do prevention well, but in an ideal world we would use this preventatively for sure.
Speaker 1:That's why we need people like you to continue doing what you're doing and teaching people how to do it, because it does feel drastically different to, to start with, just that assessment of where are these dysfunctions and the correction that you did so beautifully and so quickly I could. I mean, when I left after that first time, I was like every massage therapist, every chiropractor, every doctor, like everybody, should know how to do at least that part of it and then send them to a physical therapist that can help build the muscles and help them. You know like, but I'm like I feel like that piece of it, all of it, has been so impactful, but that piece of it. I was just thinking, like you, like every, every physical therapist needs to be learning that.
Speaker 1:Why is that not taught in school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's sort of like you know why, why aren't a lot of things happening? Um, yeah, I think just in the traditional psychology or the traditional methods of healthcare in general, you know, um, people just kind of they've lost their curiosity. I mean, cause, like now, if you go to, if you go to a traditional doctor for high blood pressure, you know the chances of them just giving you medicine for your high blood pressure. And I'm so grateful for traditional doctors. They are so good at so many things.
Speaker 2:Everybody is bringing something to the table, for sure, but we can all get better and instead you know they give the pill instead of trying to go further upstream and finding out okay, what's the root cause of your high blood pressure here? Is it just genetics, or is there something going on with you know your gut? Or you know imbalances somewhere else, physiologically and in in the physical therapy world as well? Our curriculum is just very traditional. Looking at the parts and not the whole, I feel like there's a trend toward functional everything, but it is. I mean, we are battling. It is an uphill paddle because we have the pharma industry.
Speaker 1:I mean that's mean it's so hard to overcome and the generation of they don't make money when we feel better, let's just call it what it is you know what?
Speaker 2:I just read this book by a functional doctor and she had a, I think if she was in Cleveland Ohio and she was implementing functional stuff, and they had this big meeting and they were reprimanding her because her patients weren't in hospital beds long enough, they were losing money, and so I mean she left town, set up her own shop in Boulder, colorado, and now she has her own exact.
Speaker 2:You know she has established exactly what she wants and and I feel like that's what it's taking is it's taking traditional doctors as far as the functional medicine stuff goes, the more traditional doctors who are being failed by the traditional system. It's motivating them personally to be more curious and to look further into learning about how everything is connected and then and that's what's really motivating change but yeah, I mean, you know it's, it's, unfortunately, it just seems to be always be about money in the big problem.
Speaker 1:It is a big problem and I think more and more people are seeing it, though it feels like it feels like a lot more people are at least open to that conversation around like maybe maybe the model is built on big business that, you know, doesn't actually benefit from us healing these issues long-term, because they make more money if we stay on a pill for the rest of our life, and that includes something like blood pressure medicine, which some people need.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm totally, totally on board for that.
Speaker 1:But but yeah, that, that curiosity and that investigation. I would even say that I have been met with a lot of resistance inside the Western medicine model when I do try to get curious about it and I feel like I very much annoy people inside that system, like just shut up, kelly, and just take the fucking pill, you know, and I'm like no.
Speaker 1:I want to know why, like, why did this happen? And maybe I'll decide to take the pill, you know, but but I just I find that there can be so much dogma and resistance that, um, usually it does take. You know, those of us that have our own issues and we are met with failure to be honest with you, and disappointment, and, um, then we have to go seek outside sources and get really curious and we don't have any other choice because we're not feeling better. And it's either a get curious and try new things, and usually get woo-woo eventually, or you stay stuck in the system and you don't get better.
Speaker 2:That's right. And another reason I feel like there's more and more curiosity about this is because I just think people were getting sicker and sicker because we've been on medications for so long. That, and not only that, but our environmental toxin exposure. You know, our food is terrible, I mean all the things. It's just you know, obviously, the food that my, my children, are eating is so different than the food that I ate growing up, and we all know that. But I just think that the more sick we get as a nation, the more people will be falling through the cracks and be seeking, seeking other methods.
Speaker 2:But the also the most incredible thing about the information age is that we have this is what kills me about traditional ways of thinking, not being curious about other ways is that at the touch of my fingertips, I have access to millions of podcasts, thousands of podcasts on whatever subject. I'm curious about learning from a more functional perspective. I mean, anybody, any person can do it, and and you can learn about it. And then you can you know you kind of have to be your own advocate. You can go to the doctor and say, well, I learned about this, I read about this. Can you help me understand this connection, and and that's what we just need to keep doing is being an advocate and asking our providers to look deeper, Absolutely, Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I think you're you're talking to the right people that listen to this podcast. I don't think you end up listening if you haven't had to go down that path of curiosity and being like I'm going to think outside the box because I don't have any other option. You know, it's like I'm either being led by my soul or I'm being pushed by my pain. Either way, or maybe both.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Um, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I am very, very much, yeah, I'm really hopeful, though, you know, I think, I think that I see, especially over the last few years, I see just a lot of progress and I see more and more functional nutritionists, functional physical therapists. Now, I love throwing that in that category too.
Speaker 1:It's so perfect. I did want to back up because you talked about something a few minutes ago and you were talking about you know how in childhood we're very resilient and like we fall off our bike and you know things sort of correct themselves pretty easily. But I wanted to kind of tie in just to like highlight for people to listen to, and that is the fact that, going back to what you said even before, that is, that if you're under a lot of stress in childhood, then your body isn't even when you're a kid. You're not going to be as resilient as maybe the kid next to you who's in a loving, warm, supportive environment. And just thinking about the chakras and how stress really causes the root chakra to contract and right there down in that pelvis, if we've been under a lot of stress and that and all those muscles have been contracted chronically because you haven't really felt safe, you're going to be more prone towards holding onto these dysfunctional patterns. Am I right? I a hundred percent agree.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I just wanted to make sure I like kind of brought that all together because I think you know, most of us, we do a lot of work and we become very conscious of our, our mental patterns and and sometimes it just needs, you know, we need to go back far enough in our body and sometimes it goes back farther than we can remember, right. So I think doing things like the work you're doing is probably correcting patterns in people and myself that have been there for so, so so long that it's like consciously, it's very, very difficult to access.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know that is an absolutely great point because I feel like a big part of of the work that I do is helping people get in their bodies again, because you just start disassociating and you have, you know, you don't, you're not aware at all of where you are in space and how you're carrying yourself through the world, because there were so many other things that you had to be concerned about just surviving. You know, at some point in your life and that's one of the reasons I named it mindful movement is because you know, the more aware we are of how we're holding ourself and moving ourself in the world, the better chance we have of being able to stay regulated and, you know, maintaining our center and and anyway. So that's a really good point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I did want to ask you we kind of already touched on this as well but do you think that it's possible like that? Somebody has a trauma and and that is part of I'm going to see if I can say this right. So, like, what I've wondered for myself is that if I had a traumatic experience and that sort of made being in center feel unsafe, do you ever think that's possible? Like I almost wonder if, if, like, being directly in center, if my, if my whole being correlates that to maybe a car accident that I had when I was a kid or something else, where it's like there's a part of me that's so deeply resistant to that coming back into that pattern, even though it's functionally right. I just wonder if there's a part of my psychology that is resistant to it.
Speaker 2:I 100% believe that could be the case Absolutely, and so that can resistant to it. Oh, I a hundred percent believe that could be the case Absolutely, and so that can cause a shift. And then, you know, depending on how it shifts, the body will always need to find its center before it can move. And so that's kind of how, if it's shifted to the right, then your body mechanically is going to move more that way to find it before it can progress forward. And so, yeah, I think absolutely that impacts it. There's so, there's so much that goes into it way more than I understand, way more than I will ever learn in this lifetime.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I definitely think that's part of it.
Speaker 1:It's just so fascinating and you were talking about in your office, about how, how just you know, being in center is just so energy efficient and hearing you talk about that. I was like that just lands so deeply. Like I've just been like not efficiently using my energy for a very long time and you can feel that like in that rest in my, in my back. As soon as you get it kind of corrected, it's like I feel mentally like there's more hope and just later just after that, one little piece.
Speaker 1:I think that's so interesting and I just I love it. So one of the things we haven't touched on we did a little bit, I guess is that usually we're pushed by our own pain, right? So you mentioned that you were having low back pain and like some issues with physical therapy. That, before you found the techniques that you use now, was was that a place where you were like feeling really frustrated with the system, or was it? Or is it kind of like a gradual easy, like most of us get to this point where we're like at this like I can't do this anymore, I've got to find something else, cause this isn't working.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it wasn't because I was young enough. Um, so mine started, um, I've always done athletics and stuff my whole life and it started. I started having some knee pain when I was in college, just running recreationally, and it limited me from doing that. And then it started when I was biking. And so before I was in PT school I went to a chiropractor and they took an x-ray of my back and it showed that my hips were really off, and so they determined I had a shorter leg than the other and so they put a heel lift in my shorter leg and and I just did that and I then I ended up with steroid shot in my knee because it kept swelling and blah, blah, blah, and I just kind of I, my body was, over time, able to accommodate it for the most part. Um, you know, I was pretty healthy otherwise, and so, um, I didn't you don't know what you don't know and I didn't know, and I I couldn't remember what it felt like to move efficiently. I just knew that that was my norm and that I could function pretty much the way that I needed to, until I found this type of work and realized I did not have a leg length discrepancy, that my leg looked functionally shorter because of the way my hips were off and that I had been jamming my joints on that side, making my ups level worse with every mile that I ran and every step that I took. And so then it was just sort of this stepping into an enlightenment like, oh, that makes sense now. So fortunately I was young enough in this work, enough that I was able to manage it, I think, with all the stuff that I knew from traditional PT to keep me functioning.
Speaker 2:But I see people all the time who definitely get to that point and are just like you know, I don't know what else to do. And then they're in pain management and they're doing you know, shots and pills and some people need that, and no judgment at all. But if there's another way, if you know, if there's a way to help you get out of that to where you don't need that, then then that's great. But no, I just I feel like everything in my career and really my life has just been like the universe has just laid down the stepping stone for me. I didn't know what was going to happen and then, like when I needed to know, the stepping stone was there and I took it and then I like dove into all the stuff that that brought with it. And then the next one, and that's how it was with the osteopathic stuff, that's how it was with opening my own business. That's how it's been with the functional nutrition and then learning about the trauma.
Speaker 2:Like the right people came into my life to make me curious about that and and everything that has ever happened to me or for me in my life has been to help me learn something, to help somebody else better in the clinic, because it's it never fails. If I have something that's hurting on me or something that's not going right in my physiology, within the next week or two somebody walks through the door and I'm like I think I know how we can address that better now because and I wouldn't have known that three weeks ago but because it's helped, because I went through this and and because I wanted to know why I can help you. And you know that's not me, that's I'm just being. I feel like my whole career has just been being led, like we're just going to go this way and I don't know how it's going to work. Oh, my business had no idea, had no idea and it was ridiculous how amazing it was.
Speaker 2:I mean so affirming?
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I love it, I love it. I find that in my practice too, it's like that magnetic mirror that shows up, and sometimes I don't even realize that I'm working through that kind of issue. And then somebody shows up and as I'm working with them, I'm like, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I'm healing, I'm helping them heal and I'm healing myself. This is so cool.
Speaker 2:It's so fun, it's so cool that people trust you to help them. But really they're helping you. I mean you're. They're paying me to teach me is what I feel like. I mean, it's such an honor.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's so beautiful that you've allowed yourself to just follow that, because so many people resist it, like they're led, and then they get in their head and they're like, no, no, no, I'm not going to do that, you know. But you've continued to follow those stepping stones and so then they appear for you so, so beautifully and with grace, because you're willing to follow them.
Speaker 2:I really think that comes from. I grew up in kind of a cult church. Yeah, I was, um. It was a very strict religious um background and very fear-based religion where we were the only religion going to heaven. Um, everything was, everything, was very much. Everything was judgment. I mean, my view of God or the divine was like this big being with a whip just waiting to punish me when I did the wrong thing. And you know that was.
Speaker 2:You know there's two sides to that, because I've had a lot of therapy to sort of overcome that mindset, especially as a gay person coming out later in life. But one of the things that I'm so grateful for in that childhood is is my faith, and you know my faith has changed and what that looks like has significantly changed over the years. But that connection to my higher power has been so strong since I was a really young child and in all the struggles and stuff that I've gone through in my life because of that, the one thing that's been unwavering is staying centered in my connection to my higher power, and so I feel like that's why I know what I'm doing is what I'm supposed to be doing, because I can hear and I'm guided so well in my career path and I just feel like that's because I'm listening and I trust that I'm going to be taken where I need to be taken.
Speaker 1:It's beautiful and people are getting better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so fun I feel better, I have the best job on the planet. Yeah, it's great yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that. Oh my gosh, rachel, this has been so good. If people like, obviously we have local people that could reach out to you, how would they get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:So if you just I don't even know our phone number, off the top of my head, mindful Movement Wellness Center is the name of my practice and if you Google Mindful Movement Wellness Center, it'll have our phone number and address and everything, and just calling or texting that number. Shelly is my office manager and she will be happy to schedule you or answer any questions you might have.
Speaker 1:Do you do a consultation process for some people if they're not sure if they're ready to jump?
Speaker 2:in. Yeah, absolutely, I do free 15 minute consultations for anybody who just wants to see if this is the right thing for them. And I'm totally honest, if I, I'll put my hands on you and just say, yeah, I think it's something I can help you with, and if not, then I'll try to give you some names for referrals for somebody who can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, cool. And then, for those of you know the audience, that is much farther away, I think we're listened to in like 32 countries now, which is so cool. That's awesome, listened to in like 32 countries now, which is so cool, yeah. So if somebody was like, okay, I want to find a functional physical therapist, obviously I would love to clone you. How you know. How would somebody go about like could they look up that osteopathic technique?
Speaker 2:Like, how would somebody find somebody? Yeah, yeah, and so the you know the. The way that I treat and the type of stuff that I use the osteopathic manipulation for is just kind of a unique thing. That's not like a program you can go to, it's just a. It's just a result of taking lots of classes over the years and kind of putting together my own recipe of things, but as far as like really trying to get your mechanics back and your joints moving the right way, if you just Google osteopathic manipulation providers and then start there and it could be a physical therapy person, a physical therapist, or it could be an osteopathic doctor, a DO. Typically, the only place that you learn how to do this is in DO school, but so many DOs who are getting out of school now are getting into practices who practice more like allopathic medicine doctors, mds, because of the insurance model.
Speaker 2:And so you know they have to see like six people in 15 minutes or something crazy there. I mean, they're just pushed so hard and they just don't have the time to do it and really develop the practice of it and so there's fewer and fewer people doing it, which is why Michigan State University developed their continuing education program and allow they allow PTs, mds, dos and dentists into their program so you could also go to Michigan State University's website and they might have. It was not a certification program when I went through it and so I just did two weeks of the classes and just kind of developed it and I have no desire to go back and get the certification, but they probably have some kind of a list or resource place that you can get resources for people who have been trained in that way. But almost everybody that has moved out of Missouri patients of mine who have gone to other states if they can find a DO that does some osteopathic manipulation.
Speaker 1:Something similar.
Speaker 2:Okay, so good, and I'm planning on training an army of people on how to do this? Like my vision is to like have clinics all over the country and have people learning how to do all this. So that's the next stepping stone I'm waiting for.