Clinical Mastery for Practitioners: Presence, Listening, and Patient Collaboration

In this conversation, physical therapist, educator and world-class presenter (presenting in the 2026 Birth Healing Summit), Susan Clinton shares lessons from decades of clinical experience and how true clinical mastery develops through presence, curiosity, and collaboration with clients. She discusses how clinicians often over-educate and over treat, when in reality meaningful change happens through listening deeply and simplifying care. 

This conversation highlights how small shifts – both for clinicians and patients – can create powerful outcomes over time. Susan emphasizes that empathy and self-awareness allow practitioners to build stronger therapeutic relationships and better results. 

✨ Key Takeaways for Practitioners

• Presence improves outcomes: Brief “micro-bliss” moments of mindfulness can improve clinician presence and nervous system regulation during patient care.
• Listen with curiosity: Asking questions like “What are you most worried about?” often reveals the real driver behind a patient’s symptoms or fears.
• Simplify education: Patients typically retain only about 10% of what they hear, so prioritize the most meaningful take-home message.
• Collaborate instead of prescribing: When patients help choose one realistic focus, adherence and progress improve.
• Small changes matter: Consistent 1% shifts in habits or behaviors can create significant long-term change for both clinicians and patients.

If you’ve ever felt pressure to have all the answers, this episode will challenge that mindset and offer a refreshing, practical approach to creating meaningful change in your clinical practice.

Have a comment or question about today’s episode? Message Lynn on Instagram or Facebook, or Email Lynn.

If you enjoyed today’s podcast and are interested in more topics to support your clinical practice and treating your clients, find us on your favorite podcast app and subscribe so you don’t miss an episode.

To learn more visit: InstituteforBirthHealing.com

About Today’s Speaker: 

Dr. Susan Clinton, PT, DScPT, OCS, WCS, FAAOMPT, is the founder of LTI Physio and a leader in helping healthcare providers and women beyond their reproductive years move beyond health concerns, self-doubt, and career challenges to create meaningful, inspired change.

With over four decades of clinical experience, she brings deep wisdom and practical insight to guiding people through complex transitions. Through Pinnacle Coaching, Dr. Clinton empowers women to embrace their health as the foundation for living with vitality and confidence during transformative life stages such as menopause. Through Pivotal Coaching, she mentors healthcare professionals to overcome burnout, navigate career stress, and cultivate sustainable, fulfilling practices.

Speaker’s Website: https://ltiphysio.com/

Visit Institute for Birth Healing to learn more about how to care for the pregnant and postpartum body: CLICK HERE

Transcript

Lynn Schulte, PT (lynnschultept@gmail.com)

Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode. And today I want to share with you just a clinical reminder. And if you've been following me for any...

Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode. I am delighted to have with me today Susan Clinton. And Susan is a physical therapist.

She's done everything. She's an educator, presenter all over the world. She is just a wealth of knowledge and has been on past Birth Healing Summit sharing her wisdom with us.

It has been so much fun. And today she's actually going to be with us again this year for the Birth Healing Summit.

In May 2nd and 3rd, and I have brought her on board to talk about her clinical mastery and her lessons learned along the way.

So welcome to this podcast, Susan. Thanks for being here. 

SUSAN: It is always my honor to be here with you, Lynn.

So much fun. I love, love interviewing you. I love everything that you have to share, Susan. So thank you.

And so knowing that our Birth Healing Summit this year is about the inner work to clinical mastery, I thought it would be kind of cool to hear your story because you are a clinical master.

You are a master in the clinical space, and you are currently sharing your wisdom with those that choose to join your, is it mentorship program that you have?

Mm-hmm. And so feel free to talk about that too, Susan, but tell us a little bit about your journey.

And... And how you got to be where you are today. 

SUSAN: Wow. Okay, great. And again, thank you for having me here.

I'm always honored and humbled by, you know, questions about how I got to where I got to. It's always interesting to do reflections in your personal and your professional life.

To me, you can't separate the two. You find a way to balance and enjoy all of the experiences versus wishing I had more of this and less of this.

That would probably be the first lesson learned is that it's not about separating, it's about balancing from within instead of I'm a work person here, I'm a mother here, I'm a wife here, I'm a this person here.

That it's all that it's, it's all a matter of flow and blending back, back and forth across what we do every stage of our life, every time of our life, brings in a spotlight to an area that we need to spend a little more time.

Which means that when you're at home with young children, the spotlight is really more on that very young family, and work is still important, but there's a shift, you know, where the, you know, how is it as important to be achieving highly at work by chasing certificates and courses versus spending a little bit, you know, enriching that time at home with your kids and enjoying the work where you are.

Which brings me to like one of the themes that I think would be very good to kind of say here.

There isn't a perfect stage of life, and everywhere you are, that's exactly where you need to be. And it doesn't matter how much we know, it matters that we're present in the moment with our clients.

Wow, or our children, or our partner, or wherever we may be. friends, our community, all of those things. So it's our presence that matters.

And how do we maintain the resiliency to be present? And that's, I think, kind of, you know, everybody always wants to know, what courses did you take?

And which, you know, job did you do? And how did you work this in together? And how did you get to here?

And it was, you know, when I reflected, I looked back, it was like, there were different stages of my life where I could pursue certain things, and where I just didn't, didn't pursue certain things.

You know, so, and I think a lot of that was being, you know, life circumstances forced me to be more present, when I, you know, and to change and to grow and just maintain that growth mindset, versus, this is the way it always should be, and I need to keep trying to control it and make it this way.

Because if I don't do it this way, then I'm not good, or I'm not, you know, hitting the marks or being the achiever, or some of those things.

LYNN:  Well, Susan, you said the key word there, trying to control it. And I just want to let everybody know that Susan's topic for the summit this year is the illusion of control.

And so we will be diving into more of that when we are together in May 2nd and 3rd. So I love that topic, Susan, because I do find that so many, especially women, are just so trying to control everything.

And really what you talked about was being in the flow of the dynamic of our life, where we're at, who we're with, and that really you're saying presence is the most important piece to all that.

Is that right? 

SUSAN:  It absolutely is. There's so many things that happened around us so fast. And it all brings us back to that, you know, those colloquialisms we've learned from when we were children, from grandparents and great-grandparents and parents and friends and aunts and uncles and different people, readings that we did, you know, different things, and all of them are on, you know, just take a moment to stop and smoke.

How many times have you heard that and really thought, what does that really actually mean? You know, is that person just telling me to slow down or are they trying to give me a deeper meaning?

LYNN: Like there's, there's magic in that 10 second presence. Yeah. There's magic in that, that builds neural pathways. Yeah. And, and I think it's also important for us to recognize when we're not able to do that.

And then we need to dig deeper to figure out what's really going on for us. And I wanted to share really quickly, I had a hard time being present with my kids when they were younger.

And I remember like my, my youngest son and I, we would play, I have this entryway and we would play soccer or balloon volleyball with each other.

And I remember playing with him and my mind going, I should do this. Maybe I should do this. So I, you know, like this work option came in, you know, like getting all these thoughts.

Thoughts distracting me from being present with my child. And that was always a constant struggle for me. And I'm sure a lot of people listening in can relate to that.

SUSAN:  Or being present with a client or trying to be present with a client when you're thinking about all of these other different things that have to be done before I leave the work today.

And this has to happen. And I've got to be somewhere tonight at six o'clock. Right. All of the things that, you know, that's that blending that goes on.

So finding those those moments and I'll present them as 10 second moments as, you know, just that I like I had a client named them and I told her I'm shamelessly stealing this from you.

She goes, they're my micro bliss moments. Oh, one second, you know, and she actually times them, you know, to learn to do this because it was we were, you know, working on how she could work this into her day.

Yeah. And she said the one thing that worked for I hit the timer for 10 seconds, and I don't think about anything else, but I either breathe, or she does something sensory, rubbing her fingertips together, touching her hair, touching her desk, just for 10 seconds to just remove herself from the environmental challenges that she has going on.

And when you do that, it changes your brain. Yes. You know, and it makes it easier to do it in the future.

So when you're feeling triggered, or things aren't going quite so wonderful, or, you know, you've got that pit in your stomach, or something happens, you have that ability to kind of like back out and breathe.

And it's easier to do it because you've practiced it for so long. And I like to think about that like brushing your teeth.

Does anybody tell you in your adult life to brush your teeth? No, you just do it. No, do Why?

LYNN: Because you're conditioned to do it. What if we conditioned ourselves to do these 10-second mindfulness breaks throughout our day?

After time, it would become just things we just do that. We do them and then keep the intention on them to make them special.

I love this idea for even teaching our children to do this. As much as we instilled the reason we brush our teeth is because our parents instilled to brush our teeth all the time.

What if we, as parents, instructed our kids to do these 10-second microbursts? 

SUSAN: I love that. I love that. what if we, as clinicians, providers, nurturers, wherever we are on the spectrum of helping or working with our clients, what if we ask the question instead of, oh, that didn't go so good today, or what do I need to do to get this?

What if we asked our question, like, what was really good about that today? What was really good about that today?

LYNN: I love the focus change on that. Yeah. 

SUSAN: So those are some of the pathways I have learned. If you want to talk about clinical mastery or personal mastery or whatever it may be, of course, we're always learning and always changing.

So my path as a my path as a PT started off back in a pandemic that was occurring in the 80s, which was the AIDS epidemic.

And I had finished PT school and I was working for a local hospital and assigned to the ICU. You know, in those days in acute care, you either were on the ortho ward or you were on the med surge ward and you were, you know, you know, you had the ICU rotation.

And so I spent a lot of time up there with a multidisciplinary team. you. So I learned very early on in my work that the best healthcare is provided by a team and one that communicates with each other.

So I learned from respiratory therapists. They had learned from nurses. We had physicians on our team. We had even the people who came to do the basics of things that were so necessary to change the trash, to bring the food, to clear the tables, to do the things.

We all had to be working in coordination for these people because nobody knew what to do. And we were figuring it out as we went.

And one of the things I learned from those early years was that my clients were my best teachers. Yes.

Always. I learned more from them and I learned more about life in those two years that I think I don't even, I'm sure I've had other moments like that, but those were the most impactful on me at that age.

Yeah. Yeah. So, Um, you I learned how fragile it was, but I also learned what deep meaning it had, and that working in concert with others, we were able to elevate care and provide support that wouldn't have been there otherwise.

So that had a large impact on me as I moved forward. I moved from acute care into the world of rehab back in those days, and into the early, you know, into the 90s and the late 80s, and the Glasgow scale had just come out, and we were looking at traumatic brain injuries in a much different way.

And again, team approach, systems approach, and neurological injuries and spinal cord injuries, and so I was always part of a team, always multidisciplinary within that team, and learned so much from that, not only the practitioners around me, but again, our clients, how much they, what they went through and how much they could change.

And if you followed their lead, they would tell you what you needed to know. 

LYNN: Oh. Oh. Stop right there, because that is, I want you to say that again, Susan, because that is true in every setting.

SUSAN:  100%. Your clients will help you understand what you need to know. Yes. And so our job there, the clinical mastery really comes in being able to listen to what our clients are saying.

Mm-hmm. Oh, I love that. So listening is huge, but active listening, you know, taking it in. 

LYNN:  Okay, so tell me the difference in your mind.

So passive listening is what you were talking about with playing volleyball, balloon volleyball with your children, right? You were passively there playing the game, smiling, laughing.

Part of you was there, but your intention was somewhere else. Right, active listening is to put everything that you have to the side and give that moment to cover program.

PHA, that you And then the second piece of that is asking questions, being curious, instead of telling them what's wrong.

Ask them what they think is wrong. Ask them what they want. Ask them simple things, you know, like, what are you worried about?

Because people are going to always, one thing I've learned through this whole thing is that people will give you the cursory answer first.

Hmm. I just want my pain to stop. Yeah. First thing, I just want this to be better. I, you know, I'm here to heal this up so I can move on.

What does move on mean? Move on to what? Yeah. But it's not happening. You know, people will give you the answer.

Oh, I can do everything. I just do it in pain. But would it be like to be able to do all of those things without the pain?

LYNN: Right. Right. So just being super curious as to their journey and figuring out what's What they want, what they know, and what they're really worried about.

SUSAN: Yeah. And those three questions can change the game for you, because research has taught us that humans will only take in about 10% of what they hear.

And I wish it was more, but it isn't. And every class that I took, I wanted to have all 100% of the stuff.

When I teach, I know students want everything that I have to say. And I also know that they're only going to come out with about 15% that day.

And by the end of the week, it's going to be 10%. So one of the things that I learned and changed through my clinical life as I left rehab and went into outpatient and eventually pelvic health, was I learned a couple of things.

Number one, stop over-educating people. Okay. And that's a big one for pelvic health because we were like, we can educate all of our patients.

They all this really good stuff, and they can't hear it. They just, it's too much. And so if they're going to only hear 10% of what I say, I want to simplify and make sure that that 10% is what they walk out the door with.

The talking points, I want them, that we collaborate together on as the most important ones. So they see the relevance of what it is they're being, you know, whatever prescriptions we're giving them for movement or, you know, self-mobilization at home.

They have to have relevance for that. But also they need to know that they can do it easily. It's got to be safe.

And they get to determine what's safe, not us. Our clients determine what is safe for them. But when we do that and we start working at those talking points, you can do this in your own clinic.

And, and I challenge people to do this because it was a game changer for me. I started asking my clients at the end of the hour I spent with them.

Our 45 minutes that I spent with them, what their take home message was. And I can tell you that I, it was a very hard exercise to do.

You have to step out of judgment for yourself because they're telling you the truth. Right. And so don't be in that fixed mindset where it can't change and they're just wrong.

But look at that as like, oh, here's the challenge. Because the things that came out of their mouths, I was like, this is what you're walking out the door with.

After this hour that I have like poured my educational life into for you. Well, the door with this. It's like, oh, this has to change.

LYNN: Well, I love this. I love this because, well, as a practitioner, you have to be brave enough to ask that question and even braver to take the feedback of what they're saying and go, that is so not what I wanted you to walk away with.

So what needs. What to change than me to get a different answer from my client? Wow. Exactly. I love that.

SUSAN: That was hard to do, but it was also very interesting because if you could get out of your way and step back, it became kind of like a social experiment in a way.

And, you know, I started learning that, okay, so what we're doing together, these collaborations are more like experiment versus I'm the prescriptor and you're the getter, you know, you're the receiver, and you're going to go and do these things.

And then so people, you know, people talk a lot about, oh, I cancel rates and this and that. And it's like, because they don't see relevance in what it is happening.

They're being handed a list of exercises that you yourself can't possibly do in your busy day. Yeah. You know, so the collaboration that listening curiosity leads into collaboration.

And. . And... Out of these things we've talked about today, which are the most relevant to you, which one would you like to focus on?

They get to choose the focus. Well, I'll do everything. Well, we can't do everything. It'd be nice, right? Yeah.

So let's pick one, you know? Yeah. Allowing them to be able to say, oh, okay, I can't do everything, but I can do this thing.

It's like, this is the thing you want to go with. Let's go with it. And let's talk about why it's going to help you do that thing that you're expecting or hoping to get out of these sessions together.

So we're establishing relevance. establishing safety so that they can collaborate on what they want to do and how they can get it done.

And, you know, and if we have those two conditions there, they're more likely to be consistent with it and think about all the things in your life.

Even in the midst of everything that's crazy, you manage to brush your teeth. Right? Twice a day. Right. Some people three times a day, you know, so there's time, I don't have time to do this, it's like, hmm, let's time it, let's see how much time it actually takes, and then let's see where we can put it in, but you don't have time to do these exercises in that way during your busy week, could you do these at another time, oh, I could do these on a Saturday, great, so Saturday you do these, but what are you going to do during the week, which one can you fit in, how can you do it?

Collaboration is the key for helping people make changes, and it could be, you know, just as simple as drinking water, you know, we managed to brush our teeth twice a day, but do we manage to get in nice hydration, not over hydrating, not five liters of water, but maybe four glasses, are we really doing that, you know, we managed to get to bed at night, do we manage to get to bed in a way that's going to make our sleep a little bit more efficient, right?

So we're already going to bed. And what can we have it stacked onto bedtime for our clients and for ourselves, because we are our clients that can make their sleep more efficient, can make my sleep more efficient.

LYNN: Well, that's what I, you know, I so resonate with the occupational therapist, Susan, because my, you know, working with postpartum women, and I really got this from Katie Bowman.

And that, you know, 15, 20 minutes of exercise a day doesn't change what you're doing 95% of the day.

So let's change how we're doing each and everything we're doing throughout the day. And, you know, I'm really all about sit to stands, picking up babies, you know, like we're doing that already.

Let's incorporate that in. So make it functional, make it applicable to what they're doing throughout the day. Because we can either make relevant, making it relevant.

SUSAN: Yes, absolutely. relevance is the key, you know. And. And again, they're already doing it. You know, people talk, you know, about all kinds of, should we, should somebody with us, you know, that has a C-section be doing an exercise like this?

And it's like, have you looked at how they're getting in and out of bed and up and down and putting their clothes on and picking up the child?

There's where you need to be because this is what's important for them. And, you know, I, I, I'll just tell this story because I think it's super important.

When I asked, um, lovely lady who has a two-year-old son and was pregnant with her second child, and she's five months pregnant and having SI joint pain, so to speak, pubic ramus pain that everybody's mobilized her, everybody's manipulated her.

She's a PT assistant, by the way. And, you know, and she just couldn't figure out what was going on and really kind of stuck in a, I have to make it pop in order to feel better.

And just. I asked her a few questions, and the one question I asked her, said, in your heart of hearts, what are you seriously worried about?

What are you seriously worried about? She goes, I'm seriously worried about being on the stairs and dropping my son.

And I just sat there with her, and I said, tell me about that. And she said, I had a PT once who told me that, who was pregnant, that said, you know, be very careful because if you, you know, if your pelvis gives out and you're on the stairs, you could fall down and drop your son.

So you can imagine what we started working on from day one. Like, tell me about the stairs. Show me how you carry your son.

We needed to, if I didn't address that, it doesn't matter. All the mobilizing in the world isn't going to change the fear that's running this piece behind it.

So the whole, you know, talking about, you know, and of course I've worked with OTs. We were therapist and recreational therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists and neuropsychologists, and, you know, I love the multidisciplinary approach, but this person needed to really, and she, it was a game changer for her.

You know, as she walked out the door, I said, what are you going home with? goes, nobody has ever talked to me about how to do the stairs and take care of my two-year-old while I was pregnant.

Wow. She goes, you're the first person who did that, and it was like, actually, you did that because you were brave enough to tell me what you were worried about.

I was the first person to ask you. Right. 

LYNN: Well, two points to that story, Susan. Careful what we say to our clients, you know.

And then, you know, asking, being brave and willing to ask that question, what are you most concerned about? Wow.

That's impactful. I love that. Mm-hmm. 

SUSAN: And you learned so, and if that wasn't an issue for you. And then you get down into the real deep stuff of what's going on.

Everybody wants to stop leaking, but nobody's asking them really what they're worried about with it. And there are, you know, there are stories back there that when they feel safe enough and brave enough to be able to share those, it's such a release for them that then they can see the relevance of doing some simple exercises and making some changes here and why we stand on one leg when we're brushing our teeth because it's going to help your pelvic floor and hips get stronger, right?

You know, then it starts to make sense and pull it all together for them. So I would have to say my path to where I am today has led me into collaboration and coaching along with physical therapy services.

So I coach healthcare practitioners to, you know, find the peace and joy back in their life again, feel inspired again, take care.

While they take care of others, find that those values and guardrails so that they can have the passion in their personal life as well as their professional life.

And oftentimes people, because they embrace what's actually going on, they see clarity in it versus trying to control it, which eludes the progress.

So the one thing that we know in life that is inevitable is change. Yes. It's one thing we can count on.

LYNN: And it's the one thing we try to prevent at all costs. 

SUSAN: Yes. Yes. It's so true. talked earlier about the flow and the go.

Things are going to change. And the moment that you're feeling now is not the moment you're going to feel at the same time tomorrow.

You're going to be feeling something different. Yeah. So rather than running away from it, embrace it and feel it.

And then. Ask yourself, what's my gift and opportunity here to change this? I love that. And to expand it.

I want to bring the sunshine with me the rest of the week, you know, or whatever. 

LYNN: Well, and I would want people, what's coming to mind for me as you talk about that, Susan, is my personal reaction to change is I have an initial like, no, you know, like that's just like my initial is like, oh, no, I don't know.

So, but then I sit with it and then it's like, oh, okay, now I can make the change. So I just, I recognize that.

And, you know, I've talked to my team about that and just say, just so you know, like my initial reaction to most changes like, but yet I soften over time.

So like, just be aware of that. And I'm aware of that as my reaction. And so I really looking back, I don't remember having as big of a like to most things, but if I do, I just noticed that's my reaction.

SUSAN: And it's hardwired into every human system. It is hardwired in our sympathetic nervous system because that system absolutely 100% is there to protect us and to keep it.

And so it doesn't understand or want to change. It wants things to stay stable so that the heart beats and the breath comes.

It's its job, but it's a simplistic piece. It's a protective piece of our system. And we want to honor that.

Like, okay, why am I having this reaction? Because I'm so used to doing it this way. It feels so uncomfortable to make a difference, to make it, you know, to change it.

Standing on the edge of our comfort zone isn't comfortable. I want to crawl back into my comfort zone and be where, you know, kind of like the chair with the blanket and, you know, taking care of myself.

And it's like, okay, what is causing this? And so it's same thing when we're treating clients. Why are we getting so triggered, right?

If somebody isn't changing or they're not moving along the spectrum in a way that makes us feel better. And it's like, okay, so this isn't about me, it's about them.

And I need to be sure that I'm not co-regulating to my clients, that I want to co-regulate myself. And if they want to co-regulate with me, great, right?

But I do not need to go co-regulate with them. So that's going to help them. 

LYNN: Okay, so what you're talking about there is you going to them versus them coming to you, as far as like that regulation, that energetic resonance.

SUSAN: So like when somebody's angry. Oh, yeah. Right? Or they're upset. You know, and you get all triggered because of that.

Defensive. That's you co-regulating them. And so maintaining your center, your presence, taking care of yourself. It's what allows you to have the resilience to allow them to be triggered if they're triggered, but to also not play into it, right?

It takes two to tango. Yeah. It takes two to tango. 

LYNN: Yes. And being aware of where you are at and how you're reacting, right? And your inner state. And truly, everybody, that's what our focus is this year at the Birth Healing Summit, May 2nd and 3rd, is your inner work, the inner game to clinical mastery.

It's like we have got to work on that and focus on that. Susan, how much? So you're talking a lot about this resonance and your connection with your clients.

What did you notice in your clinical practice? Because what you're interviewing, those questions that you ask your clients, that's really going deep with them, right?

Like that's going into their psyche in a way, like what they're What did you notice in your outcomes when you started to go there versus just keeping it clinical and going, oh, your pelvis is rotated this way and you've got this lack of range of motion, your strength isn't good.

Do you know what I mean? Keeping it on that clinical level versus taking it deeper. And what was your experience with that?

SUSAN: Three things. One, I was much happier. Oh, because I was not the fixer anymore. And it wasn't on me to fix anybody.

It was on present with them and to collaborate and have empathy. You can't have empathy for others without empathy for yourself.

So I have to have self empathy is key to everything and it's key for the situation and it's key for empathy with others.

And I developed a better empathy for my, I had compassion for my patients, my clients, but I gained so much in the world of empathy to be able to sit with them in that.

don't, I didn't have to. I just asked them simple questions such as, what kind of support do you need, you know, as they would tell me whatever it was and, you know, how, you know, is this something that you want to address in our sessions to make sure this doesn't happen or this isn't your future or whatever you're imagining there and whatever they're worried about.

So those were two things. And then the third thing was that I, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't difficult to work with clients that were difficult.

You know, I learned that the more complex they were, the more simple my approach became because when you try to tackle complexity, you can't do it.

Back to the tooth brushing thing, right? What's the one thing that you do that you can do? Like, what is the one thing we can start changing?

And I talked to them about, if we can get the needle to move 1% in this direction, can you

Imagine if it moves 1% every day, what that's going to look like in two weeks. Yeah, yeah. And that's all we need to do is just a little bit.

I know you want the world, and I want the world with you. We're going to get there, though, by doing these simple things, because these are what's going to actually make the changes.

And a lot of times, many of the fears around the complexities and certain things changed. My clients were truly happier, I think.

They still are. They still, you know, and I have found that the power of just laying things out on a timeline and really listening to their story and collaborating with them and moving through things takes away so much of the barriers.

And they're just, you know, I have a client right now I'm working with that is working on, you know, her documentation.

She's just was so hijacked by it. It hasn't changed. She's she's changed a couple of little small things within it.

And she just feels like she just has so much. much. That's the power of doing like the simple things, pulling those simple things out and really helping people find that footing.

Because once we start changing in one small direction, guess what happens? Big changes happen. You know, things start changing all over the place.

You know, people respond differently. They do different things. People in the world respond differently. They do different things. Yeah, so that's what happened there.

LYNN: That's awesome. That's awesome. And I love you said, you know, the empathy came from within you to be able to have that for your clients first.

Like it came for you first to be able to have it for your clients. And I'm talking about the birth healing summit that we can't take a client down a path that we haven't walked ourself.

SUSAN: Mm hmm. You know, and so I don't have to have their pain, but I can't have empathy for them if I don't.

And that's generally in my writings and my things that comes up when I'm having a hard time and I, you know, this isn't going right, or I feel like I'm going to lose my stuff, you know, and it's like, whoa, Susan, where's this coming from?

Why are you having this anxiety again? Where are you overfunctioning? What's, where is this, you know, and it's like, oh, oh, okay.

So there's, I, I'm not practicing this and over here where I need to be practicing this. And it's building up over here.

Now, you know, I had enough to get through for a little bit, but it didn't work over time. I've got to keep it going over here to keep it going over here.

And I love my meditation practice, but I don't have to have it every day, but I do need to have that mindful work every day.

And so I choose to do it in the moment during my days, because that's what allows me to do that, as you said, that step back.

Oh no, I don't want this to happen. I have, you know, using that mindful tool that I use just really helps me kind of like, calm down, take a deep breath, you know, feel it.

It's okay. You know where this is coming from. It's okay to feel this. Like you don't have to run away from it.

LYNN: That's the key, right? Is being okay with our feelings. I feel a lot of issues that people are running away from is their feeling.

Exactly. Yeah. And, and really exploring what is that about for you? Like, how do you, like feelings weren't honored in my family growing up, like it was all swept underneath the carpet.

And so over the years, I've really had to become more comfortable with just being able to feel emotion in me.

And so, yeah, I, I encourage everybody listening in. How are feelings for you? How do you approach and how do you react to your own feelings that.

are Like Are wanting to come up and be known to you. So, oh my gosh, Susan, this has been incredible.

Is there any last tidbit that you would like the listeners to know? 

SUSAN: That where you are at this moment is exactly where you need to be.

You are perfect just the way you are right now. And you have choices in front of you. And there are always choices and possibilities.

And just make sure that the choices and possibilities you look at are ones that are going to get you to the path at which way you want to go.

Sometimes we make choices based on things that aren't going to get us there. And, you know, so sit with those.

They don't have to be decisions. You don't have to kill anything off. They're just choices. Play in the possibilities of what you want.

And make it tangible for yourself. 

LYNN: Yeah, oh, I love that. I love love That, oh my goodness, so much wisdom in this, I think, 40 minutes that we've been together, Susan.

That's a fun conversation. Right? Isn't it? It's neat to look back. And like you said, the choices I've made over the years in my career and how they all kind of helped to support me in working with postpartum women and being able to discover what I was discovering with them.

You know, you'd look back and go, oh, that was so perfect. So, yeah, it's just so fascinating and, yeah, we could continue on and on and on and we will.

We will have another amazing session at the Birth Healing Summit this year and you're talking. Do you want to just share real quickly what you're going to be tapping into during our time together?

SUSAN: Absolutely. We're going to have a nice, wonderful conversation about being a provider and the illusion of control. But not just so much the illusion of control, but what to do about it.

don't know. And then we're going to move into kind of a fun workshop of discovering kind of what your tendencies are.

I like to call them saboteurs from the positive intelligence world. And how you identify your values and behavior you want to change and just taking it through that piece.

So you can do that 1% thing that I just talked about. Where can you make that 1% to 2% change in something that you don't appreciate in your life, or you feel like it's holding you back, or a situation that you're in, or a distasteful piece that's happening that you have to do.

How can we reframe that, use the growth mindset, and bring that forward into a different possibility? 

LYNN: Wow. And so just so everybody's clear, this is not just you listening to information.

This is going to be an experiential session where you're going to be doing the work, Susan. So is going to be guiding you into doing your work to help you make the changes that you need to change to show up and help you to hopefully release that hold on control that you have in your life and whatever else might come up in your sessions.

But it's really a deep dive into yourself. And each session is going to be an opportunity for you to do your own work.

And you will be guided by these amazing, amazing speakers. And you've just heard from Susan, you'll know that it's going to be powerful.

And I am just super excited about this event. So thank you, Susan, so much for being a part of it.

I'm super excited for the value you're going to bring to our session. And it's going to be amazing, everybody.

And we'd love to have you join us. So please check out the sales page. It'll be in the link in the bio or the link of the show notes for this podcast.

Please check it out, and the early bird registration ends end of March, so you can get it at the greatest value in March, and we would love to have you join us.

So thank you, Susan. Thank you for your time here, and we will look forward to seeing you May 2nd and 3rd.

Thank you. Always my honor. I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Thanks, everybody, for listening in, and we will see you all in the next episode.

Take care. Bye-bye.