Unlocking Natural Healing: Pilates, Fascia & Nervous System Work with Kris Haley

Welcome to learning a powerful connection between physical movement, the fascial system, and the nervous system—and how tuning into your body’s subtle signals can help you release trauma, regulate your stress response, and reclaim your sense of safety. 

You’ll hear personal stories, learn from Kris Haley what the MELT Method actually is, and walk away with real tools—like conscious breathing and body scanning—you can start using right now. Whether you’re dealing with chronic pain, emotional overwhelm, or just trying to feel more balanced, this conversation is both validating and incredibly useful.

💡 This episode is especially impactful as a follow-up to our last one with Dr. Keean on the nervous system.

Resources Mentioned:

Kris Haley, Somatic Educator
Website: KrisHaley.com
Instagram: @MeltedPilatesWithKris

Mandi Pratt, Resilience Speaker
Website: AwareAndPrepared.life (See How You Score on the Intuition Quiz)
LinkedIn: Mandi Pratt
Instagram: @WomenAwareAndPrepared

Transcript

 Hey, brave one. Welcome to the Aware and Prepared Podcast. I'm your host, Mandi Pratt, trauma-informed, resilient speaker, domestic violence victim advocate, and narcissistic abuse survivor. Here we keep it real with real world strategies to prevent emotional and physical harm. My guests and I share a mix of insight and survivor grit, all to help you feel safer.

Trust yourself more deeply and live with greater peace and power. Let's trade fear for freedom and step into the peace that you deserve.  

well welcome back to the Aware and Prepared Podcast everybody. This is where we discuss ways to feel safer with more peace. I talk about basically two different things. Prevention and making sure that we stay safer

but then we also talk about healing. So lately I have been talking more about the healing aspect. Our last podcast episode was with Dr. Keean and he was talking about the nervous system. We had a great conversation, so. Today I have a very special guest with me who I felt would be a perfect follow up to that last conversation.

So Kris, thank you so much for being here, and I'm just gonna tell everybody a little bit more about you and then we will dig into this. So Kris Haley is a mind body educator with over 25 years of experience leading groups to achieve their personal transformation. She has a master's degree in communication studies and has taught public speaking at LA Area Community colleges since 2000.

She earned her Pilates certification in 2005, and Chris began teaching the melt method in 2012. Is an Advanced Milk Method instructor, which she's going to explain to us in just a moment. After living with chronic hip and low back pain for 18 years, Kris immersed herself in physical fitness and therapy trainings, learning how to rehabilitate and stabilize her body.

In addition, she focused on understanding how the body's natural healing system worked and what we can do to regulate our nervous system and re. Store our vitality. As a result, feeling a sense of empowerment to overcome chronic pain on her own and age with ease became her passion. It is her mission to share the tools that will help others discover their own empowerment to age, proof their body, and live an active pain-free life.

So welcome Kris for being here. Hi, Mandi. It's wonderful to be here and to be able to talk about this subject with you. I think it's so interesting the way our two, businesses and our experience in life kind of, uh, piggyback and, and dovetail with each other.

So I'm very happy to be sharing all of this with your audience. Yeah. Thank you. So let's first of all learn more about, um, your own experience. How did you come to be familiar with the cognitive behavioral aspect of overcoming trauma? Well, I. Um, as you mentioned in my bio, I've been, I have a master's degree in communication studies, so along with teaching public speaking, which is one of the core classes of that degree.

Interpersonal communication is also another core class in that degree, so I've been teaching that class as well for the past 25 years. And that class, the foundation of it is built on research coming out of. The, the field of psychology generally because. Teaching about interpersonal communication is all about relationships, and we start with how we form our identity and our family, and then how we learn about, you know, the idea of perception as we go out into the world and how our senses take in information.

And then we also talk about emotions, how we experience them and how we deal with conflict. So all of that is part of that class. And so having taught that. For 25 years and learning all of the, the psychological research that went into helping us understand, you know, how we deal with our emotions and how we experience them and um, how we communicate in a more effective way.

That was one path that kind of led me to being where I am. Plus I spent two years in therapy, so, you know, that was a wonderful education, just learning, unlearning for myself, learning and unlearning exactly the, the family dynamics, Uhhuh that I came from and how, how I became who I am, um, right.

Yeah, exactly. I highly recommend that for everybody. Just yes. Oh my gosh. For your own wellbeing. Yes. It's so good to reach out for help when you need it. Right. And. Um, I think we've done a, a better job, I hope, at, um, diminishing that stigma of, of getting help for that. I, there's also a, a, like a little bit of a, of a, um, disconnect because people think, well, I'm fine, you know, I don't need help, but I think.

If you look at maybe where the areas in your life are not, you're not as satisfied with relationships, that's a, that's a red flag that, you know, you're the common denominator. So the more you can understand yourself and why you respond to and are attracted to the people that you're attracted to that aren't working out for you.

You can make better choices and be happier so you don't have to be in, into that dire place to reach out for help, just even wanting something better for your life. Um, mm-hmm. Yeah. And that takes work too. 'cause a lot of times we're so programmed like that and like we're gonna discuss a lot of the times, you know, our body and our mind are so integrated and so.

Um, a lot of times we need to do body work in order to, you know, calm that nervous system and be able to have the capacity for working through our emotions and all of that. So I'm excited to talk about that with you. Yeah, so true. Very true. Yeah. So, um, you mentioned that you're a somatic educator. What exactly does that mean?

I know in this podcast I touched, but for those who haven't heard the past episodes, okay, so the word soma comes from the Greek and it really just means pertaining or of the body, and so. I have through my, Pilates training and the melt method training, and also coming from a dance background.

So just my, my natural, um, aptitude and orientation to the world is to to be more in my body and to express myself more in that physical realm as opposed to coming. My head and, and, yeah. Yeah. I had to kind of learn later in life how to express myself verbally because of my family dynamics. I kind of shut down.

It wasn't safe in my family to express myself verbally. Mm-hmm. So, my orientation growing up was much more to lean into that physical part of my body. And of course with my education of in the Pilates and then the milk. Um, so it really just means the somatic educator just means helping people to, giving them some tools that they can then tap into the subtle, the subtle messages that are always there, that your body is sending you those signals, um, because they're not always.

You know, or hit in the head. They're really subtle sometimes, and it might just be a little tightening in your gut sometimes that, that you just ignore. You think, oh, I'm, you know, that's nothing. But, uh, so it's helping people to kind of recognize and giving them some tools that they can, um, be a little bit more aware and prepared for how they move through the world in a way that is more satisfying for them.

Mm-hmm. In my practice I do focus a bit more on helping people overcome physical pain, but the word trauma is really, it refers to either emotional or physical. Uh, a physical injury is a trauma to the body. Mm-hmm, sure. Yeah. Trauma to the body. Unless you were in an accident.

I'm talking about kind of normal, repetitive habits that we all have that end up being a chronic situation. Mm-hmm. There were signals along the way that we missed, that we, we ignored that ended in us being in a more chronic situation, which is what happened to me. So, um, like, okay, what, what were some of the things that I kind of missed and how can I pay more attention to them and, and catch them earlier so that I don't get myself in a situation that is going to require a lot of time and money outside of my life to get a, a professional in to help me because.

We can, we can manage a lot of this. There's a lot of DIY stuff that we can do for that to tap into that natural healing response. Hmm. Cool. And you mentioned, uh, the melt method. What exactly is that? I hadn't heard of that before I met you. Well, so tapping into the body's natural healing response, you can do that through the breath, and that's one of the things that I use and that's part of the melt method.

And then another, um, way to tap into the. The natural healing response is to pay attention, do like a body scan, and that's another tool that I use. And I've also, that is also part of the melt method. So the melt method came about as a tool, a DIY tool to help people, um, overcome chronic pain and common aches and pains that we experience just as in human life.

But the foundation of the method is grounded in the fascial system, and that fascial system is this, um, 3D matrix underneath our skin. And, and if you've ever cooked raw chicken and you've pulled off that little filmy, translucent layer, yeah, I hate cooking that stuff. That is what that and, and every living being, we all have it.

This fascial system is in constant communication with our nervous system. The fascial system is full of sensory nerves, and it basically helps us navigate the world. It helps us, you know, interacts with how we feel and how we move and, and react to the world around us. Hmm. And when we experience a trauma, whether it's emotional or whether it's physical pain and, and an an accident or some kind, um, this system can get tight and dehydrated.

So now the signals that need to be going back and forth between the fascial system and the um, nervous system are interrupted. So the melt method is a tool that helps kind of keep that fascial system in optimum form and nurture it, keep it working at optimum levels and, and so that it doesn't get.

Gunked up. It's, it's, think of it like a river that's flowing underneath your skin. It's one continuous piece of tissue that wraps around your head to your toes, and it's full of all these signals. We can tap into it with the tools that this creator. So we hitman developed with a soft roller and some balls.

There's four different balls that we used on our hands and our feet. Then by tapping into that, that can help regulate the nervous system because again, this fascial system is in communication with the nervous system. Interesting. So we use the tools and we use breath work and we use body scan and we use all of that to help.

Um, and you can learn to do this on your own. Mm-hmm. That's cool. And I'll be sure to share the.

Share everybody. They could see there's like a video on there of them using the, like the ball under your feet and um, on hands and different things like that. So I.

That's cool. Yeah. And the mount method is extensive because it's for your whole body, head to toe. Um, but there's a, a particular move in there called the rebalance sequence, which is very directly, uh, ta tied to helping rebalance our nervous system and letting our system shift out of that fight and flight.

Mode, sympathetic mode into the parasympathetic, the healing and restore mode. So even though you're in, even all of the, whatever you're doing with the Mount method, you are indirectly affecting the nervous system, but you can be a little bit more intentional with this one particular move that we do. Cool.

And before I ask you more about that, um, is the. How is that tied in with Pilates? Because I know that you teach Pilates too. Pilates is, um, a, a strength method, an exercise method.

That's really all about tapping into and finding and you strengthening the core muscles and that being a really good foundation for a stable body. On a physical level, you know, we can move efficiently, which the human body's designed, but we also can move inefficiently when this fascial system is tight and makes restrictions around a certain joint.

So if you go to lift your arm up and. All of a sudden you can only get halfway there in the normal range, but in order to get all the way up to reach something, now your trapezius muscle gets involved because your range of motion is restricted there. Got it. So in helping clients with strengthening, I can't strengthen a body that is restricted.

Sure. So if I, if I want to have a nice, efficient working body, I have to kind of release some of these areas first. So at the tool for the melt method has been really helpful, because everybody has compensation patterns. That's just part of being human. And so, um. Yeah. To gain more stability, you've gotta kinda undo some of the bad patterns.

Sure. And that's where the melt method comes in. And then I can help you make better patterns. Mm-hmm. With, with the strengthening and the Pilates. I merged them together so that, um, you know, people can feel like they're making progress, but I, it also minimizes. The chance of injury. Mm, yeah. That makes sense.

Your, yeah, your, your body is prepared. Mm-hmm. Your body is prepared to move in more effective ways. So the melt method kind of preps everything and gets it loosened up. And then with the Pilates you can help people strengthen their muscles and then that kind of works through everything. Yep, that's exactly right.

Mm-hmm. That's cool. And it's also a wonderful active recovery tool as well. After you've had a very physical day and or a stressful day, again, I will get on the roller, on my spine and do this rebalance sequence. You know, when I've put out, one fire after another, whatever that may be for your life, and you're just, you're just stressed and worn out.

It will help. Because you can get into that kind of, um, a stuck place, right? Yeah. Where the body is stuck, the nervous system is stuck in that fight or flight, and so helping it shift so that when you go to sleep, then your body can actually, you know, really sink into that repair. So it can be used. I mostly use it for my clients to prep them, but I use it for myself as both a prep before I perform something, and then active recovery after.

That's cool. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. It keeps me, uh, pain-free for the most part. Wow, that would be amazing. And then you said that the, um, the fascial system is connected to the nervous system. So getting back into like how that is connected with the nervous system and feeling safer and all of that, how do those things work together?

So, um, with the fascial system, again, it's full of sensory nerves. And the sensory nerves are the things. They're like little satellites. They're like, you know, sending signals throughout the body interfacing with the nervous system. And so all of that is helping us navigate the world around us.

So. Um, if you wanna do a little breathing demo, uh, the tapping into, and so even though our body breathes without our conscious awareness, right, we don't have to try to do anything, it, it'll automatically do that. And we on average breathe about 22,000 times a day. But when we consciously. Breathe with an intention, we can actually then tap into that nervous system, which is also part of the vagus nerve, is a huge, uh, pathway for your immune system and, and your nervous system.

So breath is one of the easiest ways to tap into that. Mm-hmm. So breathing consciously. Mm-hmm. And if you breathe, you can do it either just sitting in a chair or lying down. You can do it lying on the melt roller or just without, you know, you'll still get some benefits. Mm-hmm. Having this roller, uh, touching your spine, because right around our joints is where all those sensory nerves are more active.

Right. They're plentiful. Mm-hmm. That will give you a little bit of an added, um, recovery. Sure. You can just sit in a chair and, and take that moment to breathe consciously. Mm-hmm. Slowing down the exhale and trying to slow down the inhale. Mm-hmm.

And there's other kinds of different types of breathing that people utilize. But for the most part, if you just consciously think of counting to a five or six as you inhale. Yeah. And then slowly counting to that five or six as you exhale. Mm-hmm. And. The single nostril breathing is also mm-hmm.

Quite helpful because breathing through the left side only, so you just close off the right side. Yeah. Breathe through the left side that goes directly to the parasympathetic. Yeah. So that's cool. I had never heard that before. I had mentioned breathing exercises before in a past podcast episode and just shared that, you know, my favorite.

Uh, breathing in, like say breathing in for four seconds and then breathing out for eight. Mm-hmm. Because I know too, there's box breathing where you, you know, breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four and wait for four. But for me, you know, everybody's different. And so like, that just felt more doable.

So I was like, okay, let's keep it super simple for me. Yeah. Good. I mean, there are options for the different types of breathing, what they all share is the fact that you are consciously slowing down that mm-hmm. Exhale is really the most important. The inhale is important too, but really it's that exhale that helps to regulate, um, the vagus nerve and the. Nervous system response. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So whatever works for you. Yeah, yeah. Totally. Is, is gonna do, is gonna be the breath. Mm-hmm.

Depending on what kind of day you're having and depending on how, um, heightened. Yeah, exactly. Your, yeah. Your res trauma response. You know how stuck it is in that high gear. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you can even set a little timer on your phone. Some people do that to just sit for a minute or two.

That's the key is feeling doable. And I just wanted to mention something else too, I just wanted to mention, you know, some people offer breath work. Mm-hmm. And I had never experienced that until I went to a retreat and I, somebody was leading us in breath work and it actually made me feel worse. Mm. And I think that's because I didn't feel safe, or it just wasn't a good match.

So. I appreciate now, um, when I've heard other breath work instructors, um, how they start out and they make sure that you feel safe. They ask you if you want to, you know, X, y, z, blah, blah, blah. Um, but that also showed me that, oh, I still have a bit of trauma in my body. Um, so that was an interesting kind of telltale.

Situation, I think. Um, but I just found that so interesting and I wanted to mention to other people, you know, if that had happened to them and they had tried breath work and not had a good experience, um, that, you know, that does happen. And, um, that it's very interesting and it's kind of telling. I think to me, so that's a great observation.

I love that because yes, everybody's experience will be different. And I also have to, um, wonder, I'm not saying conclusively with your experience, but because you're breathing and getting all that oxygen that you're not used to. That can also trigger a detoxing kind of response in the body.

Yeah. So drinking lots of water to help flush things out because, uh, the lymph system is also part of the fascial. So anyway, all the, that, that could be another reason why you had that. Um, along with whatever emotional. Yeah. Others were there. Yep, yep. I am typically pretty dehydrated working on that, so anyway.

But yeah, thank you for sharing that. So, you mentioned that maybe we could do a little demo yeah.

So, we'll do a little body scan and, um. So this is a companion piece to the breathing that I will do with I'm what if I'm with a client. But, um, but it's another way of, if you're gonna do breath work. If you're in a group situation, you may want to do this before for yourself.

To see if you are feeling a little uncomfortable, and then do what you need to do to take care of yourself before you go to the place of, you know, feeling really out of body and, you know, nauseous and or whatever else. Um, yeah, I said, and my experience, I had started to feel kind of like panicky. Yeah.

Yeah. So there may have been some signals that your body was sending you that you were not paying attention to because you were focused on trying to be a good student, right? Um, but yeah. So let's just take a moment. So if you're sitting in a chair, great.

If you can, if you're in a place where you can lie on the floor, that is also, um, gonna give you a little bit more information. But the body scan really just, uh, means that you're gonna close your eyes and you're gonna go inward. Think of if you have one of those, things that you would put on your head with a light if you were going into a dark cave and then a headlamp.

Yeah. Headlamp. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You're gonna shine that light and you're gonna start with right behind that shoulder blade area. And if you're lying on the floor, that's gonna give you a lot of information. If you think about the way the shoulder blades, if you're sitting in a chair, you may not be able to feel the shoulder blades, um, depending on what kind of chair it is.

But on the floor, you can feel the way the edges of the blades. Are touching the floor. And so it's real subtle, but one side of the shoulder blades might feel completely different than the other. And that's a good piece of information. So something is going on in in one side that you want to pay attention to.

It's off. And then if you're sitting in a chair, you're sitting up, we're gonna just gently turn our head from right to left and notice any restriction that you feel. Where does your neck kind of stop from one side to the other? Then as you come back, let's just bring that awareness like to your buttocks.

So how you're sitting in the chair. Do you feel like you're evenly weighted, your butt? Cheeks are evenly weighted because sometimes we have our own, um, habits. Again, you're sitting heavier on one side or the other, and over long periods of time, that's going to cause imbalances in that pelvis and low back area.

So even these subtle little things to help you sit better, when you're at the computer. So if we do that, and then right now we're gonna just take a few breaths, so. As you breathe, take your hands and place them on your rib cage. So imagine that that rib cage is like an accordion, um, uh, instrument. As you inhale, you wanna try to fill the, the ribs into your hands so they expand out right and left.

And then as you exhale, you're gonna just gently let that exhale out another. Tool that I like to use on the exhale that helps to slow the exhale down is to use a sound like an Sh

and that really will help to slow down that exhale and. Take another big, full breath and just notice how that diaphragm moves. First of all, you might feel like there's, it doesn't move very easily. It gets tight, and so that would be another little piece of information that we would pay attention to.

There might be against some tension there and or some emotional or physical tension. So those are gonna be the, the body scan kind of clues that can help you either determine, okay, if you were to interact with that piece, that body part, you might find that, oh, that's where I'm feeling unsafe. That's where that feeling lies for me, and, and you would have to make that interpretation for yourself, but.

But being able to understand, oh, is my neck just tight because I didn't sleep well? Or is there something else emotionally that is, um, connected to that, that stiffness in my neck or in my diaphragm? So then you kind of try to interact on a mental level with that area and determine is there an emotional thing here, or is it, anger, grief, rage, scared fear. Or is it just, I didn't sleep, you know, I didn't have a good pillow the other night and it, it was a physical thing. So yeah. That's gonna be your kind of investigating after you've identified some of those places that have restrictions, then you wanna investigate for yourself.

Okay. Is that, is that a physical, uh, reason for that, or is that an emotional. And then you can make your choice of how you would respond to that after you've determined, you know, is it physical? Well then maybe it's heat that I put, if it's emotional, maybe I journal or maybe I do some more breathing into it.

Um, or maybe I do some talking with a friend, somebody that I feel safe with. So how will I release that? Hmm. Got it. Thank you for guiding us through that. Is that kind of what you're talking about, the rebalance sequence? Yes. Yes. And again, that, that body scanning and the breathing and then if you have the tool, if people don't have the, the actual roller, the melt roller, I have them.

Take a bath towel and, and roll it up nice and tight and then lay their spine on that. 'cause that can also be a, a way to tap a little more deeply into and a more quickly into the nervous system because again, you've got that feedback coming into your spine, right? Where there is a lot of sensory nerves.

Um, totally. And of course, if you have. Serious back issue. Don't just do this on your own. Yeah, no. You're gonna need some props yes, you'll, you'll need to prop your body up in a way where you can get comfortable enough to do that. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I would recommend getting Chris's help or somebody else who's local to you.

Chris, do you offer, um, zoom sessions, or is it just in person? I do offer Zoom sessions, um, and I do have a studio in the Glendale area. Mm-hmm. So anybody who's near there, you know, you can reach out to me and do one-on-one, but I do also zoom as well, so. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And Glendale is right next to Pasadena, right?

Yeah, in southern California, Pasadena and Burbank. Awesome.

Anything else that you wanted to add about that or even about your own experience? Just that, I really hope people, what they take away is that there are tools to help that they can use, simple tools that they can use to help themselves in the moment.

And the reason why you wanna do this in the moment is because that that trauma, whether it's emotional or physical, left unattended, does tend to build and will wreak more damage on your body. Physically, you know, we know that emotions can, you know, holding your breath can cause people to have, well, my mom's a great example.

She has something called cardiomyopathy, which because of pretty much improper breathing, so. Yeah. You, you don't wanna leave these things unattended over a long period of time because the bind and the body are connected and what the brain is thinking the body is feeling. Getting it, moving it, keeping it moving out and not storing it in your body is gonna be the most, uh, beneficial.

Yeah. Responding earlier rather than later. True. Thank you so much for sharing, just kind of an introduction to the melt method and how that's connected to the fascial system and how that's connected to the nervous system. Because as we were saying, trauma gets stored in the body, how do we get that out and how do we make sure that we're properly taking care of ourself so we can have the capacity to, live safer with more peace?

If people wanted to meet you or follow you along on social media, how would they do that? I am on Instagram, melted Pilates with Kris, and then I have a website, Krishaley.com and it's Kris with a k. Krishaley.com and so on my website, you can contact me through that.

Happy to set up a phone conversation, to just see if what I do would be right for you. I, I never want people to just come and have a session without knowing kind of what your goals are yeah. Mm-hmm. Cool. Um, and then your last name is H-A-L-E-Y? That's correct, yes.

Yeah. And of course I'll drop all the links in the show notes, so when people click on the episode, they can see the actual link. So they can click right to your website and your Instagram. Okay. Um, and then I know that you're having a retreat coming up here in Southern California. When is that? Yeah, so this coming November, I am leading a retreat in Desert Hot Springs with a co-host and she's an executive coach. So we're gonna be blending, doing a nice, really, uh, it's gonna be playful, it's gonna be self-reflection, there's gonna be, um, a sound bath. So Restoring Mind, body, spirit Weekend for Women Desert Hot Springs, November 7th through ninth. And that information is also on my website.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. We appreciate your time and your many years of expertise. That's so amazing. Oh, this has been wonderful. I really appreciate you having me.

 Thanks for being here on the Aware and Prepared Podcast. Don't forget to hit, follow that little plus sign in your app in the top right, ensures you never miss an episode. Curious how tuned in your intuition really is. Take the free quiz at aware and prepared. Life and get your score. See how sharp your inner guide is.

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