E18 - Physical Therapist Louise Lynch - "You have to move or rot."

In this episode of the Twisted Remedies podcast, Justin interviews Louise Lynch, a seasoned physical therapist and entrepreneur. Louise shares her journey into physical therapy, the challenges she faced in her education, and how her passion for helping others led her to create a proactive health business. The conversation delves into the importance of movement, the mindset required for healing, and the common injuries faced by first responders. Louise emphasizes the need for education in injury prevention and the significance of mental health in high-stress professions. In this conversation, Louise shares her insights on the journey of a police officer, the importance of therapy, and the mind-body connection in healing. She discusses the impact of emotional trauma on physical health and emphasizes the need for being present in the moment. Louise also explores various therapeutic modalities and offers practical tips for maintaining physical health. Finally, she introduces her new venture, L2 Hope, aimed at providing hope and solutions for those in need of healing.

https://l2hope.com/

Contact Louise - louise@l2hope.com

Thank you for listening.  Please don't hesitate to contact me at Twistedremedies.com

Take care of yourselves, and each other.

Transcript

Justin (00:02.566)
And welcome back everyone to Twisted Remedies podcast. We are here tonight with my guest Louise Lynch, is my, well, she was my physical therapist for a very long time and put Humpty Dumpty back together more than the Kingsmen could even imagine. Louise graduated from the UVM PT program in 86. Private practice, she started in 2003.

She's a certified ergonomic evaluator specialist and owner of L2 Hope and there's probably more initials after her name that relate to PT that I don't understand but Louise, thanks for coming on the show.

Louise (00:45.518)
Hey, I'm happy to be here. Yeah, the letters don't mean a lot.

Justin (00:53.735)
So what got you interested in becoming a physical therapist back in the day?

Louise (00:57.678)
Well, like seventh and eighth grade I was an athlete. I started out like cross-country running and gymnastics because my friends were doing it. But then I got really into running and gymnastics and track and I really loved watching the human body and how it works. I was very intrigued but I think there was two turning points that made me decide PT. One is

In biology class, we dissected a cat and everybody else thought it was gross and I thought it was amazingly cool. And so I started looking at what I could do. I was very social and liked to talk a lot, which I still do. And so I was meeting with my guidance counselor who was also my neighbor and saying, she was talking about the different healthcare positions you could go into and what I know is physical therapy. I said,

that sounds good, it's about exercise and you talk to people and she said, well, your grades aren't good enough to be a PT, basically. And I was one of these kids who was very rebellious and when someone told me I couldn't do it, I was gonna prove them wrong. And so that's what I did. That's how I actually applied in my senior year. They only had 50 slots, it was like over a thousand applicants, but Vermonters got the first priority.

Justin (02:02.25)
Wow.

Louise (02:21.29)
And so I was one of 50 in the class of all women, the first class of all women, super competitive. And yeah, I got in early admission, so I didn't have to worry after December like what I was going to do.

Justin (02:25.43)
Wow.

Justin (02:36.638)
And was this like a push that UVM was doing to like get more PTs or has this been going on for a while?

Louise (02:42.956)
No, were no, it's actually PT school, especially back then. It's very limited number of schools and very limited number of people who do it. So it's highly, highly competitive. And so once she told me she didn't think I would be able to get in, then I worked really hard and ended up getting really good grades. And again, I was an athlete all through all through high school. And so, you know, you just get that sports motivation. I could do anything kind of thing and got in and

PT school was incredibly, incredibly hard. And it was really competitive. I remember one semester I got a 3.8 and didn't make Dean's List in our class because the grades were really high and the women were really very, very smart. So I had to work really hard in school. There was no time to party downtown Burlington. was...

Justin (03:37.526)
You

Louise (03:38.944)
study all the time. Like I would study more for one credit class and kids who had three credit classes. So, but I was very motivated. I had to pay my own way through college and I didn't want to waste a cent of that money. And so I worked really hard.

Justin (03:53.268)
Yeah, I mean that makes sense.

Louise (03:55.618)
and loved it, especially junior year and senior year is when we actually got to go out and practice. We did an anatomy lab where we actually dissected human bodies, like four people to a human body. again, that was my favorite. Anatomy and neuroanatomy where we dissected the brain were amazing. And to this day, I feel like when I look at someone, I see inside them because we actually got to work on the inside of the body. Yeah, it's really...

Justin (04:04.981)
Wow.

Justin (04:24.438)
Wow. I mean, I would imagine that helps you really figure out how stuff ties together and how things move and work. I would think it's like a mechanic who can take apart a transmission and fix it. It's the same kind of thing.

Louise (04:43.276)
Yeah, yeah, that's why in my first business we used to call ourselves the body mechanics. But yeah, yeah, yeah, that's was our tagline. And when I started my business, are the body mechanics. We teach people how to fix their own aches and pains. So, you know, and going through college in the summer, I was a lifeguard, I was a swim instructor. So I was also very good at looking at even

Justin (04:47.798)
As I was saying that I remembered that I'm like

Louise (05:09.506)
teaching swimming lessons, I could watch how someone swim and make corrections based on how they were moving. part of it is what you learn in school, but part of it, I always had an eye for how things work. Also, because I broke a lot of things, I had to fix a lot of things. Before my father found out, I broke them. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Justin (05:20.906)
Right. Well, I mean, it's good perspective, I guess. You know what it feels like. So you mentioned the business. I knew you through, I I knew your husband, obviously, from the PD. But you started coming around the PD doing

kind of preventative maintenance on cops. I think you were doing it at the fire department too. And I know you went to like other businesses. A friend of mine was at GMP and I think you were going over there. what was the motivation behind that proactive approach of trying to get in and fix people before they're broken?

Louise (05:59.224)
Yes.

Louise (06:10.284)
That's a great story that ties into how I actually got into Barrington police. I get bored really easy and I don't like being in one place and my mind's always thinking, okay, what's a better way to do this? And so I felt like as I loved PT, you know, I started out, I worked in home health, I worked in nursing homes and I ended up in orthopedics, which I really liked. I thought I was going to look really edged toward neuro because in college,

Justin (06:19.894)
you

Louise (06:39.342)
And early in my career, I was doing a lot of stuff with people with strokes. And I really loved the neuro in terms of how the brain works, the body. But after working several years, so I graduated in 1986 in about probably the late nineties, was trying to, I was doing a lot of public speaking to industry, just on like bat classes and things like that through former employers. And.

I kept thinking to myself, gosh, it's such a waste that people come to me like for their shoulder and I say the same thing to like this person and then this person and then this person. When, if you could educate them why it happens in the first place, these people wouldn't get hurt. so, a woman that I actually had met in the city of Burlington, she was in HR, her name was Sue Traynor and was still a great friend of mine.

Justin (07:18.176)
Right.

Louise (07:35.126)
I went to her, she was working at Burton, she moved from the city of Burlington and then she moved to Burton. they were having a lot, I was seeing a lot of people from Burton who had rotator cuff injuries and carpal tunnel syndrome. The same thing, like over and over, different person. And so I went to her and I said, I'll tell you what, I will treat one of your people for free. And if I help them get better without treating them, just going on site and showing them how to use their body better, you have to let me.

put a clinic on site at Burton. And so I saw a woman who actually started out with Jake Burton, one of her first employees, older woman who had carpal tunnel and we worked on how to use whole body motions and how to recover when you go home, what sort of things you should eat and what kind of stretches and exercises you should do, which were opposite patterns from what she did all day. And also showing her different patterns to use at work. And she got better and they

I was working for someone else at the time and they let me put a clinic on site and what would happen is so I was actually treating I had a room with PT equipment and I was all their injured employees wouldn't have to leave the building so I would be there I can't remember like two days a week and what would happen is in between time I'd get knocks at my door saying hey this person said that you they had a knot here and you made it go away miraculously and they said that they hurt their

They had a strain in their back or something. You told them something to do. And so what happened is I started doing this for them. And then also with the employees, I'd go out on site to show them better ways to work. And I pretty much put myself out of business because the injuries went away. And so, they, that's where the body mechanic came up. I had an employee there who said, you are like the body mechanic. I can have an acre of pain. can tell you what it is.

Justin (09:15.578)
Right.

Louise (09:25.238)
You know what to do. You tell me what I can do. And then it goes away and I get better. And that was like the first light bulb that went off in my head is like, that would be a great business idea. And that's me. My dad owned a business. So that entrepreneurial side and also just the creativity stuff I had is just that's a gift that I have. And so I started still doing training, but I was working for work recovery and

there was a lot of issues working for that company, which I won't go into all the details, but basically I was supposed to become a partner of the woman who owned it and she kept putting me off, putting me off, putting me off. And, and so finally I was like, forget it. went to my husband who worked for Burlington police and I said to him, I said, look, I want to quit my job and start a business. had a three year old, three, four, five, six, an eight year old and a 13 year old at the time.

And he was working as a police officer and we had insurance, good insurance. And I said, I'll tell you what, I'll start it. Give me 90 days. If it doesn't work in 90 days, I'll go out and find another job. And so God bless Chris because he said to me, you know what? He goes, when I get on a plane, I look at the pilot and I say to myself, I hope the hell he knows what he's doing. And he goes, and I look at you and I think the same thing. And so I started this business out of my house.

with one of the employees that used to work with me. And we started this business just giving it a 90 day trial, like three weeks vacation, no money. And I got a contract, I won a contract with the state of Vermont. And then I knew I had a few good customers like Burton and a few others that I knew would follow with this idea.

Justin (11:03.092)
Right.

Louise (11:16.974)
because I had talked to them about it and it wasn't something my prior employer was doing at all. They didn't want to go in that direction. And so I did and that was April Fool's Day, 2003. We started Injury and Health Management Solutions, also known as IHMS. And by September, my husband kicked us out of the house because I would have patients who had seen me before who would call me and say, my back hurts. And I'd say, well, I'm not really doing that. I'm doing on-site stuff now.

but come on over and I'd, they'd have to walk through my kitchen down into the basement and my kids are upstairs screaming and my husband's like, you can't do this. So by September we moved to the Champlain mill and had, had like eight or nine employees, like within no time. It's that business took off faster than I could imagine. And I mean, it's, I sold it two years ago and it's still running big. And how I got into Burlington police is Sue trainer.

went from Burton back to the city of Burlington. And a lot of people think it was because my husband and got in there. had nothing to do with Chris. It had to do with going in there talking to the chief before Mike Sherling. Yeah, Trumbly. And convincing Trumbly to do a trial of it. The city would pay for it. Because you guys had a lot of injuries. And it was costing the city a lot of money. And so...

Justin (12:31.263)
I'm trembling.

Justin (12:40.415)
Right.

Louise (12:45.154)
That's how we got into Burlington police. And then we got into, because we did well with you, we got into fire. And basically the premise of that is people could sign up for aches and pains and we would do manual therapy, quick manual therapy. There were 15, 20 minute treatments. So you had to be quick on your feet, think problem solving and giving them things to do, things to do.

teaching the people about their body, how to take care of their body. So that was one piece we were on site at, you name the company in Burlington and Vermont, and we had the contract with them like Green Mountain Power, Keurig, Lane Press, Engelbert. was, can't even, we had a bunch in New York as well. Bombardier was one who made trains. That was a contract I was able to keep who wanted to do this as well. And so we did that.

Justin (13:25.738)
Yep.

Louise (13:38.574)
But then the reason we opened a clinic is we got all these people who still want to actually see us for physical therapy. we really focused on, our focus was always work rehab. Work rehab from prevention to treatment to if you're disabled, functionally testing you and testifying in the court system. almost a wide range. So a lot of people did parts of what we did. No one did everything from real prevention.

Justin (13:50.602)
Yep.

Louise (14:08.716)
real prevention to disability. It was fun, exciting.

Justin (14:08.798)
Right, right.

Justin (14:13.146)
I mean, remember, so I tweaked my back and like, I think my significant one that had me laid up was like 2005. And I did the usual, you know, the standard pattern of go to your doctor and the doctor was like, yep, go see whoever the specialist of the day was. And I did that and they were like, we want to do a cortisone injection. So I was like, okay, that sounds great. So they did that. That didn't do anything for me.

Louise (14:22.509)
Right?

Justin (14:40.182)
And then I go back for my follow up and they're like, now we want to do a radial nerve ablation and we want to burn the nerves so you don't feel the pain. And I remember you were, this was around the time that you were starting to come into the PD. So I was like, I'm going to go talk to Louise and see what happens. And I go in to see you and you made the same face as you just made when I said radial nerve ablation, you were like, dear God, no. And I obviously, I that

Louise (14:50.722)
That's the time we're starting at the city,

Justin (15:07.062)
sounded terrifying to me. I didn't want them burning nerve endings or whatever that was. So I gave PT a try. And you what you just described about like, here's the tools and here's the toolbox. And like, to this day, I didn't need back surgery, like they were like, you know, the next step after the radial nerve ablation might be surgery and all of these things. And to this day, like my back is in good shape because of all of the stuff that you

the tools that you gave me to fix it myself and to like recognize when I can't fix it myself and I have to come see somebody and and that like that is such a powerful thing to to not I don't know it was it struck me as like I almost went down this other path of like hey I'm gonna go and have them do this but I went and saw you and like it was it totally changed the course of like you know my the outlook for my health and and that was that was and I remember like

Louise (16:01.87)
Bye.

Justin (16:03.592)
It wasn't long after, because I used to like, would be like, Louise is here. Everybody go see Louise. Like, it worked so well for me. Well, I mean, it works so well for me. But then I remember there were times where I'm, you know, I would forget to sign up and I'd walk over there and there's like a line of people waiting, you know, like they're all lingering in the area, just like, am I next? Who's next? And it became such a useful thing. And so like that.

Louise (16:09.668)
I know you kept me busy. Right.

Justin (16:29.68)
who however you got to that idea is amazing because it was, you know, catching us, especially for the people who like I was already injured. But there were other times later in my career where I was like, I got an ache my neck sore and I'd go in there and you would be like, well, you're doing this and your computers over here and you're, know, you need to spend some time. You just had the answer or whoever was there like you had other people coming in. It was just fascinating to me that, you know, that you mentioned that

you had to think on your feet because you don't know what somebody's coming to see you for. So that was, for me, that was really, really impressive that you could just go in there and be like, I got an ache in my neck and whoever was in there would figure it out and you would leave in better shape than you got there.

Louise (17:02.274)
Right.

Louise (17:14.488)
Right. You know, my early philosophy always was that the body's self-healing. But most of the time we don't always know like, what are the ingredients that I need to do to allow my body to heal and how am I in the way? And part of it for me is I've had so many injuries myself. Just, you know, I ride horses, I did gymnastics, did, I was athletic. And when you're young, you can really push yourself and you can get hurt and you bounce really back. But

You think you're bouncing back, you're creating layers of traumas in your body and connective tissue changes. so even just working, understanding my own body, like when you would say you have a kink, I'd be like, yeah, I know what that feels like. Or are you back? I know what that feels like. And I always knew, like even to this day, I always know who to go to. I can't fix myself all the time. I know who to go to and when to go through. I mean, you know, even in the last several years, I've had some pretty severe injuries.

Justin (17:58.439)
Right.

Louise (18:13.344)
Another piece that people make the mistake they're like, my MRI shows, blah, blah. If you saw my MRI in CAT scans, I have severe degeneration in my neck. I had a chiropractor when I was in my early 40s who said I'd be, no, I was in my probably late 20s, early 30s saying I'd be in a wheelchair and crippled by the time I was 40. And I was like, screw you. Like that's not going to happen. No, it's not. And so.

I love to go back to them these days and say see And you know that you know that guidance counselor told me I wasn't smart enough to get into PT school years later I cheated I was working on her neck and I was like you remember when you told me I wasn't smart enough to get into PT school. She's like But anyway, don't slip exactly so so just healing from my own injuries is one piece of that thought of

Justin (18:52.832)
Ha

Justin (18:59.092)
Don't slip, don't slip.

Louise (19:11.502)
how the body heals itself. But the other is knowing what it feels like and knowing that things can get better. And I was also gifted with the ability to look at people and see malfunction, see symmetry. I think in patterns. I'm a pattern person. Like my husband and I, whenever we're going places, I know where to go. If we've been there before, I know the pattern. He always says, I'm a tanker.

I know where we're going. We're going this one. was like, no, I know the pattern. We're going this way. But that's huge. And in starting this business, probably the hardest part for me was training staff. mean, it would take two years to get a staff person to the level of being able to look at someone, talk to them, figure out what's wrong, and treat them in a 15 to 20 minute time frame. And so I always had this kind of philosophy. Well, you don't want to

Justin (19:58.122)
Right. Yeah.

Louise (20:05.44)
Strengthen someone until you until you fix faulty alignment and you don't want to fix faulty alignment until you know what the patterns are that cause that alignment issue otherwise it just keeps it just keeps coming back and so that the hardest part about starting my business was I Have a certain level of feel like I can put my hands on body I can feel thing you can't teach that like there's certain things you can't teach you can't intuition you can teach skills

Justin (20:27.7)
Right, yeah.

Louise (20:33.346)
But the ability to use those skills in a way that will be able to problem solve is difficult. And I feel like we did a good, we figured out like the pattern at IIT Mass where we could get people to the right level, but it would take about two years to fully get them to where they needed to be.

Justin (20:51.752)
I remember one of the things that you said to me in many of the many times I went to see you and I think it was early on and I said I have quoted I have probably quoted you with this one phrase over a thousand times anytime somebody is you know we're talking about aches and pains you said to me you were like it's pretty simple move or rot yeah I have I have

Louise (21:15.352)
Yeah, that's my tagline.

Justin (21:19.304)
stolen that and used that and told so many people that as I tell them like you know go to PT like take care of your body and all of these things and but that was such a profound thing for me because it's like yeah that makes sense like if if I'm just sitting around all the time and you know you have to bet you have to overcome that with movement

Louise (21:37.55)
Well, the hard part about that is when it hurts, the inclination is to not move. And I'll give you a great example of that recently. My mother is 86. She has a knee that's like curved in the wrong direction and has been complaining of knee pain. I've been working with her for 10 years, giving her exercise and stuff. And she's gone 10 years with this really crooked knee that I can't get back straight. as long as she, I convinced her, I said, you need to walk every day.

Justin (21:42.559)
Right.

Louise (22:06.914)
whether it hurts or not, start walking. You don't have to walk far, but every day you need to get out of that chair and you need to move that knee. And so for 10 years she did that. So the other day we finally, finally I went to her doctor and doctor's like, you know what, she needs an x-ray and she needs to go to ortho to figure out whether she needs a new knee. And we went to, we went to ortho the other day and my mother's knee would like lock. If she sat too long or crossed her leg, it would lock. She couldn't even straighten it. And they did an x-ray and

Justin (22:09.952)
Right.

Louise (22:35.072)
she's totally bone on bone on the outside part of her leg bone on bone no cartilage zero left and she's been functioning with that for a long time but everyday that woman would go out with her cane or walker and walk for half an hour and say and every time i walk my knee feels better and so and the doctor was like kind of amazed that she could do that and so he gave her option to keep doing what she was doing to get an injection or to put in a new knee and

My mother usually can't make a decision if her life depends on it and she looked over at me and I said look mom You can do whatever you want. But if you don't do an injection or knee replacement, I don't want to hear about your knee ever again And so she got a knee injection and I told the next day was gonna hurt and she called me she goes My knee feels brand new like she still has bone on bone But it just allows her now to move easier with less pain. And so that's another example of

Justin (23:13.654)
Right.

Louise (23:31.746)
Just because your x-ray shows something doesn't mean that you have to not move or that you're going to be disabled from that. Disability comes from the mind more than the body. It's our beliefs.

Justin (23:42.794)
you totally just, you just read my mind because as you were telling the story about your mother and this whole, the whole mover rot kind of concept and like a lot of that is the mindset of not just saying, okay, well, I guess I'm injured and I guess I have to accept this. And I mean, I think you have to do it with like, know, within reason and not, you can take it to an extreme, but I think there is a mindset component to that where it's like,

Louise (24:08.492)
Right.

Justin (24:11.516)
I'm not just gonna sit here and go, okay, well, you know, got a bad, I got a bad, like, I easily could have been like, I have a bad back, I'm just gonna lay on the couch and hope it gets better. And I wouldn't have gotten better. So there is a lot of mindset built into that whole, attacking the injury or the disability or whatever it is, and trying to move through it.

Louise (24:31.053)
Right.

Louise (24:34.662)
But there's also where you have to be careful because you move or rot but if you move too much in the wrong way you wear out and so I mean sometimes Ignoring the pain or I mean one other thing I'm gifted with is I don't really feel a lot of pain I mean it has to be pretty significant for me to feel pain and so I just got as you know, I got bucked off a horse in May

And I had a safety vest on, but I was riding a young horse who's already bucked me off and broke my back. And I fell off and I fell onto this, I fell onto this wooded bridge and I felt something crack. And so I knew I had broken a rib. And so after 15 minutes getting my wind back, I get up and I'm doing range of motion with my arm and my friends are putting essential oils on it. And they're like, do you want to go to the hospital? And I was like, nope.

I think I broke a rib and there's nothing they can do, so I'm just going to let it heal. And so I took off three days of work. I thought that was pretty good and moved a little bit and took some ibuprofen, you know, alternated. It's not that I don't take medicine at all. And I went back to work and I started paddle boarding and riding my other horse. And for eight weeks I did that. And every day I would come home and I did a criss and I didn't have pain unless I like lied right on my back.

And I said to Chris, I am so tired and my chest is like swollen. I'm getting like pains in my chest. And so I went to my doctor and she was like, you don't have any lung sounds. You have no breast sounds. I was like, she goes, you need to get a CAT scan. And it took like four weeks to convince the insurance company to go out of network so I could get a CAT scan. But the CAT scan showed that I had nine fractured ribs on that side and the bottom four were double.

broken and what happened is they crushed my lung and caused a collapsed lung and so I had one really good lung so I wasn't I But I didn't even know it I wasn't at a breath Do know I mean I wasn't in a lot of pain unless I muscle tested somebody like ooh but I thought it was a broke just a broken rib and which also goes to show everybody's different and just in terms of

Justin (26:31.454)
You were putting that lung through the paces.

Louise (26:49.022)
they deal with pain. I'm not a person who can take any narcotics. It makes me hallucinate. It makes me sweat. And so I always would do alternating between ibuprofen and Aleve and just alternate between those and then stop taking anything and, you know, ice. lot of ice. I iced this a lot. And so, but that's also an extreme. Like, I should have been checked out much earlier than that because

Justin (27:06.795)
Yep.

Louise (27:18.146)
Then the treatment after that was worse than falling off the horse where they had to suck fluid out of my lungs and I had a reaction and I was in the hospital. So you don't want to just suck it up and tough it out. There's a piece where I can look at other people and I would have told you to do something very different than I did myself. But there are also people who are extreme and can be extreme, but there's a price to pay for that.

Justin (27:39.286)
Right, right, right.

Louise (27:47.79)
There's a price to pay in terms of it took away pretty much my whole summer and fall, like not being able, I can't ride now until December, even though I have squeezed a few rides in on my safe horse. you can also, I also know people who push to the point of damage too, that you then have to adapt to. It's not recoverable, it's just that you have to learn to adapt. And then some people do adapt, but.

I also in the court systems treat people who have entered their selves to the point where they're completely disabled. And so, do know what I mean? There's a balance in between there. And I feel like I teach other people the balance only because I've learned the hard way in a lot of ways with injuries that I've had.

Justin (28:35.52)
Right. Well, mean, in anything, it's always hard to follow your own advice. So I think we all have fallen into that at some point. So I'm curious, all the time you spent working with first responders, whether it's cops, firefighters, whoever, is there like a pattern of things, like a pattern of ailments, injuries, aches and pains?

Louise (28:42.222)
That's for sure!

Justin (29:04.662)
that go with those professions? Or is it just across the board?

Louise (29:07.555)
Yeah.

Rotator cuff was big and back. Back is probably, if you look at the city of Burlington and stuff in terms of cost for them and disability, cops who then can't go back to work, back is number one. And then the other is rotator cuff. And part of both of those are related to a few things. One, you go from sitting all the time in a vehicle, which shortens your hip flexors, and a high-stretch job, shortens your hip flexors.

the fight or flight muscles that hook onto your back. And so they get chronically tight and chronically overactive, and it just ends up leading to deterioration of the back. And then when they added computers into the cruisers, that was, I don't know, in terms of firefighting, it's a little bit different because they're just lifting people in awkward positions. But for, I remember when...

when Chris, my husband, a police, first a police officer, and they would go into the station and they'd do all their notes. And when they put computers in the car, he was like, I'm not doing that. Well, first of all, my husband's terrible at computers. So that was the first thing. Do you remember that? he's awful. there you go. And so I said, they, he said to him, I'm not doing that. I'm going to, it's going to injure my back. And so they gave him this like flexible keyboard and they said he could put it up on the steering wheel. He's like, nope.

Justin (30:16.99)
I remember that. He was my FTO.

Louise (30:31.182)
My wife's a PT. She told me I'm going to get carpal tunnel if I do that. So he used to not do his, he never wanted to do his paperwork. He never did his paperwork in the vehicle. He always went inside it. I have to say Chris worked for Burlington police for 21 years. He had one injury and he came to me right away and I fixed it and I didn't charge the city. yeah, it was very, so if you think about 21 years, not one injury, that's.

Justin (30:52.278)
That was nice of you.

Louise (30:58.638)
pretty impressive and that's because I would whip his tail making sure he got out and exercise and stayed in shape and would treat things at home that he had and so back's a big one and the other was rotator cuff because of the equipment you wear on your belt it keeps your arms away from your body your elbows away from your body which shortens your rotator cuff and then you're doing things like this and the last big piece for both you and the firefighters too is you go from doing nothing

to going full force fast. And so you're going from a sedentary position to a highly active position. It's just a recipe for injuries. Although I have to

Justin (31:30.176)
Yep. Yep.

Justin (31:40.512)
Yeah, well, the cortisol, obviously, all the stress hormones that come from all of that stuff isn't helping anybody either.

Louise (31:45.208)
Absolutely.

It helps you in the moment, but having it continue on your body wears your body and prevents healing. so yeah, that whole piece, you know, my husband, feel like he was really good at when he got home. I didn't allow that stuff to get into our house. was like, nope, you take all that stuff off at the door and you leave it there. I don't want to hear about people getting axes in the head and all the different things that...

Justin (31:49.822)
Right, right.

Justin (31:57.184)
Yeah.

Justin (32:14.772)
Right, right.

Louise (32:17.312)
And he was really good. Like police work for him was a job. It wasn't his lifelong passion or whatever. And I feel like in a lot of ways that that kept him mentally sane because he was able to detach from that. And also because he joked around a lot. He was kind of a jokester. Yeah.

Justin (32:36.266)
he definitely did. Yeah, he sure was. I mean, that's a skill in and of itself because, you know, like a lot of the episodes I've gotten into like my own kind of story through the job and all the trauma that comes with it and how it just almost ate me alive. And then I think about guys like Chris who it's like, they're good, you know, it just rolls off. I'm sure he was doing things to, you know, along. I'm sure you were keeping him.

Louise (32:49.304)
Right.

Louise (32:58.53)
Right. I mean.

Louise (33:04.782)
Right.

Justin (33:04.838)
healthy along the way and I wish I had figured that out way sooner.

Louise (33:09.472)
Yeah, we I have to stay like when we first got married and he'd been working there I mean I don't a few years and he was on the night shift all the time and he was getting like zingers down his arms like he was under such stress and and and I wanted him to get therapy and he's like no I'm not going to therapy I say great you have a choice you go to therapy or I'm divorcing you and I'm taking our kid with me like that's the that's your only choice and so he got therapy early on and learned strategies

early on in his career. And I think that made a a difference. A huge difference.

Justin (33:44.395)
That is such a profound point you just made. I have touched on, like I said, I was like 18, 19 years into my career before I figured out, I need to go handle all of this stuff in my head. And the fact that you had him do that early and he took those steps early and was that resilient through his career, I think

speaks volumes to like the right way to do that because so many of us did not did not do it that way and You know ended up going through the grinder

Louise (34:23.362)
Right. Yeah, Chris just came at it from a different thing. mean, his plan never was to be a police officer. He did it as a temporary career till he got a teaching job, which he then never got because he got into be officer friendly and he's super immature. And do you know what I There's a there's a piece of being immature and having a sense of humor about things.

Justin (34:36.138)
Right.

Louise (34:45.878)
And you know when he would see bad things we would talk about I mean he was one of the first people on scene with that Laura Winterbottom who was raped and murdered he was like one of the first people like he was one of the people who was in the North and in the the Vietnamese guys were like hacking each other with knives and he gets there and the guy has a the guy has a a cleaver in his head or whatever like it's not that he didn't see bad things but he we were able to talk about it and when he needed their help and therapy

Justin (35:02.364)
yeah.

Louise (35:16.078)
Like he never had therapy. I mean, I was having therapy since I was 18. So that therapy for me was like, yep, that's what you do to deal with your stuff. Yeah, exactly. And so it did it. You're right. I can't imagine going into it, especially if you're gung ho and you go in knowing you want to be a police officer to help people and stuff. And then you see all the shit that you guys see and deal with all the stuff. And I mean, Chris would always say it. I think the hardest part of that job, he's like,

Justin (35:21.566)
Yeah, walk in the park.

Louise (35:43.67)
I'm not afraid who's going to shoot me. I'm afraid of person who's going to stab me in the back from the administration or, that was, do you know what I mean? Like you're dealing with, yeah, you're dealing with city hall. You're dealing with the public. You're dealing with your direct supervisors that you're getting. The officers are getting stressed from a lot of different directions. And I think having a husband as a police officer, when I worked at Burlington, they, the officers trusted me. Like they trusted that I.

Justin (35:47.648)
Yeah right. Yeah that's a whole different stressor. Yeah that's a that's a real but yeah.

Louise (36:12.782)
when they said stuff that I understood. I believe me, I did more than treat their physical pain. I heard a lot of stuff from people and not that I am a therapist or whatever, but when you're doing body work, a lot of trauma gets released and being able to help direct people to what to do with that trauma, like telling them, telling them about my husband going to therapy. I feel like helped other officers make some good decisions about what could, what could help them.

Justin (36:42.73)
So you segue beautifully into kind of where I wanted to go with that. what is the connection in your experience between getting the body healthy or fixing the body and that mind-body connection? How have you seen that play out? what is the importance of working on the body to keep your mind healthy?

Louise (37:12.054)
It works both ways. feel like 70 % of the injuries I see are emotional that manifest themselves physically because people feel better about saying, it's my arm or it's this and not dealing with the real issues. A lot of back issues have to do with both physical and emotional trauma. You can mentally be on, let's say you're

You're at a scene and stuff is happening and you're on all that cortisol is going to your muscles to get them ready to do something and then when you're done you think that was some of the stuff Chris and I used to talk about when you're done. It's like, okay, that call is done move on to the next thing and your body's still like amped up and so, you know, you look at an animal that gets cornered and they're ready to fight and they go into that fight when they're done. They shake it off. You watch an animal that's

that stress after a fight and they'll shake off that stress and we as evolved human beings don't do that and instead it comes out to cause deterioration. Cortisol is good short term, it's bad long term. It's not just cortisol, there's lots of other chemicals that are in there that helps protect you that cause disease. You know, even your spine out of alignment, your joints out of alignment impacts all your organs.

Justin (38:18.774)
you

Louise (38:40.246)
the combination of the mechanical stress combined with the emotional stress, can't break them apart. They work together. And I'll tell you, for myself, getting treated, I have a few people that I treat with, and one of them does a lot of trauma work. Sometimes I don't like to talk about stuff over and over. It seems like a waste of time for me. So I have fired lots of therapists over the years, because I'm like, OK, I already know that. That's not helpful.

Justin (39:06.294)
you

Louise (39:09.934)
But one of the most helpful person I've worked with is someone and I do this work with people too is you work with them physically, but you're also talking to them about what they're feeling and allow certain emotions to come to the surface so they can be dealt with. Because if you don't do that, you're you're just fixing the top layer. You're not you're not getting to the level of you're not getting to the level that that someone might need to fully heal and not.

cause dis-ease or disuse disease is from a combination of the emotional that transfers and we wear it on our body. You can look at a person and tell if they're depressed or they're happy or they're energetic or do you know what I mean? You can't separate, that's a part of who we are. So you see a lot of therapists doing both like EMDR or somatic therapists. It's very closely entwined.

Justin (39:58.858)
Yeah, I mean, I...

Justin (40:07.528)
I I I used to carry a lot of tension in my back and then we fixed that. And it's now I'm like, I have like my neck super tight all the time. So I'm doing, always doing things to, to, but it's because I know like when I can feel when I'm tense, I'm like, I got to stop doing that. Cause I'm like, I can feel it in my neck. I also, you you talked about like how all of that emotional stuff can affect your body. Like I still, there's no way to know this, but I,

would love to go somehow do a study and find out if me getting cancer shortly after I retired had anything to do with years of, know, years of that. And there's no way to like, you know, obviously there's no way to to probably show that but that I think there's definitely something to that.

Louise (40:46.094)
Huge. Absolutely.

Louise (40:55.864)
How ironic. Do you know what I mean? If you're carrying it around, it has to go somewhere. The body has an immune system, but then we shut down our own immune system by what we eat and how we think and how we even think about ourselves. One thing that I've noticed, I've been doing a lot, I have this.

Justin (40:57.748)
Yeah. Yeah.

Louise (41:21.262)
The that bucked me off as a rescue horse came out of the kilpens. Super sweet horse. Everybody tells me I should get rid of it. This horse has taught me so much. And one of the things, I went to a class with it. It was called Sacred Spaces and it was about breathing and how horses only breathe through their nose. And so I'm a mouth breather and so that connection between me and him. And we took this weekend course and I was shocked.

even a person who teaches people to breathe, how many times I hold my breath and don't breathe, waiting to exhale.

Justin (41:59.723)
Yeah.

Louise (42:01.87)
Even now, have to, even talking to you, have to stop myself and kinda slow down, cause I get excited and that excitement is still a cortisol level. And slowing down, it's really hard for me, cause I'm a person who goes, as my husband says, I go from, what is that? I have a sign here somewhere. It says I go to stare at a bitch in 2.5 seconds or something. But I am a fast person.

And Chris is a slower person. So I'm always like, let's go chop, chop, chop. but this horse has taught me a lot about the, the benefits of slowing down, of being grounded, of staying in your space, of having high energy and then reversing it with low energy to get back to a balance point. You know, you think I would know that after this many years of the health provider, but it's so, it, I just find it so intriguing.

Justin (42:51.2)
You know.

Justin (43:00.367)
You talked about that mind-body connection and that's a thing that has come up on several episodes where, because obviously there's a Jujitsu component to a lot of this with a lot of my guests. Jujitsu was a huge part of my trauma recovery and I've really never, I mean kind of generally understand why, but I think a lot of it is that mind-body, like you're just.

Louise (43:10.755)
Right.

Justin (43:27.838)
there's such a connection when you're in the moment doing jujitsu that and I think it ties into what you were just talking about and and I Yeah

Louise (43:34.924)
It's just being in the moment. most of us don't, know, depression is about living in the past and dealing with your past and anxiety is about fear of your future. So if you're always living in the past or the future, you either have anxiety, depression, or you're moving between the two rather than being present. Something like riding a horse. I have to be present. And if I'm not, that's when I go flying. Like both times I got bucked off this horse is when I was super angry at somebody.

Justin (43:54.763)
Yes.

Justin (43:58.144)
Right.

Louise (44:03.656)
Just said screw it. I'm getting on and I'm just gonna ride it out and I got hurt Because I didn't listen. I didn't listen to my body I didn't I didn't I wasn't present for the whores and he's like well and he's he is trauma himself and so that you combine those two traumas and that creates an explosion and so like you're saying and you just The things you have to do that make you right there in the present, which is really hard for human beings

is what's going to save us in the long run.

Justin (44:34.73)
Yeah, yeah, well said.

Louise (44:36.568)
Yeah, that's why I ride. It's only thing that makes me present. Exactly. Exactly.

Justin (44:39.338)
That's why I roll around with people in pajamas. It's the same idea. So of all the like, I kind of think about, so I had Beth, my therapist on, I did EMDR with her, and I found EMDR to be incredibly powerful and useful. But it's just one of many modalities with therapy.

I there's, kind of equate that to what you do with all the different types of like PT that you can do. Like I went to PT today because my knees are acting funky and I was doing a lot of PRI stuff and some strengthening. And so there's two different kind of, you know, paths to take or two different modalities. And are there, are there modalities that you

rely on more than others in PT that you think are like the EMDR, like for me EMDR is like this is the way to go for trauma. But is there a modality in PT that you lean on more than others or do you just feel it when they, like when you, we were talking about when you're reading somebody's situation.

Louise (45:50.03)
You know There are some therapists that are McKenzie therapists and there's therapists that are pri therapist There's a lot of different ways to look at a problem and address it By the therapy I like to use is I've learned all these tools. I don't want to be any kind of therapist I want to be a therapist that says listens to the person sees a problem and then

chooses the tools that are going to work for that person. And sometimes it's PRI and sometimes I mean, I tend to go more, I'm kind of lazy in a lot of ways. And I mean it like this is I don't like to expend a lot of energy. So I use techniques that are more manual based, that are more like osteopathic based that change patterns because I can stretch out your hamstring or I can release your hamstring and retrain it to then allow it to stretch to the right length. And for me, I don't want to spend

a bunch of time massaging your hamstring and stretching out your hamstring when I can just reprogram your brain using a counter strain technique and then retraining it with neuromuscular reeducation. all therapists have different, as PT's we have a wide variety of tools to choose from. And there are some therapists who would say some of the stuff that I do like craniosacral and some of that stuff is woo woo and they don't understand them.

mechanics behind it and sometimes I don't even understand what the mechanics are behind but I don't care because it works and it works with that person's it works that part I'm not doing things that are like Not at least somewhat research-based or come from a practical standpoint like I'm not a person who does Reiki because I don't want to I don't want to do energy work and and there are plenty of people who can do that it's just a direction that I don't choose to go in with

with what I believe in in terms of my religion and stuff like that. So there's lots of tools, but I gravitate to what can I do that easy and is gonna let the person teach the person to do it so they can actually put me out of business. That was always my goal.

Justin (47:56.438)
Right. Well, I mean, I think I fit that profile because you literally gave me all of this stuff. And it's funny, I was looking back through my memories on Facebook came up today and in like 2012 or something, I was laid out and my back was all messed up. And I was I was thinking like the more time went on that I had gone to see you from my back, the more tools I acquired.

and the more. Right. And but you you like and even and you you talked about like retraining how like I remember when I first went to see you, I was I was kyphotic and I you know, I was like I had one shoulder down and I was, know, and by the time I was done. You know, you said something because you were noticing it, but even people that like I saw every day were like it. You're you're walking there like I was walking different and it that all of that impacted.

Louise (48:26.51)
Because you can't get them all at once.

Louise (48:38.242)
Right. Right.

Justin (48:55.87)
my back and all sorts of other things. That retraining piece, think that is, you're right, does probably put, has people stop coming to see you at some point. Yeah.

Louise (49:07.654)
Which is fine. There's plenty of people, you know, the other thing too is not everyone not all patients are like you I have I would have people that would come in that just want me to fix them like sorry I'm not I'm not gonna fix you if you're not willing to Input in your own health and I'm not the therapist for you go see someone who will shake and bake you or someone who will give you Stretch you out and do specific exercises. There has to be a certain level of commitment to self

You know, I have a son, my oldest son worked for me for years. I don't know if you remember him. used to be right at the front desk. He did all the typing. He was really fast. And he went to UVM as an athletic trainer. And when he got out, I offered him a job. said, look, you can, I'll give you a job. I'll pay this much, which is really good for you getting out of school. And eventually you can own this business. And he said, mom, I don't want to spend that much time with people. And he went to chiropractic school and now he's a chiropractor. owns a chiropractic clinic and he sees

Justin (49:42.176)
Yep. Yep.

Louise (50:03.702)
Every five minutes he sees a person because he doesn't really have to talk to me just crack some and in his mind it fixes them I mean he knows my passion he saw how I work but he works he works different It's not to say his way is bad. There are some people that that's what they want They want to go and pay money every week to go have him crack their back or whatever this other stuff that he does in it And do I think aligning the spine helps their organs? Absolutely. I do but I'm not against car practice. I think car practice has its place but

Justin (50:07.53)
Moves on,

Louise (50:33.76)
If that's all you're doing and you're not taking responsibility for your body, you'll just pay for the rest of your life. I want people not to pay.

Justin (50:40.308)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a foreign concept for a lot of providers, but that's refreshing.

Louise (50:48.074)
It is it is it is Especially when you run a business like I ran a business. I we needed to make money. I had payroll to me, but We we fixed people but we also in doing that got so much more bit other business and we're able to impact like so many more people We never went a business because when let's say PT was down

our stuff in business was up or function capacity was up so there was always a balance because of all the different things that we did.

Justin (51:20.47)
Yeah. What are some just basic things that anybody can do? I think I've heard walking, obviously, is important.

Louise (51:32.718)
Yeah, but walk with a purpose. Walking doesn't mean like strolling down your street with your friend and having a chit chat. Like, and I tell my husband that because we walk on this property and it's 15 acres and we walk around and I'm always like, chop, chop. Like, except when I got hurt, he was beating me. But now I'm back on like when I walk, I and same with my mother, she's 86. We walk with a purpose. Like we walk to get our cardiovascular up and

Justin (51:41.705)
Right. Right.

Justin (51:50.601)
you

Louise (52:02.508)
move our arms and it's not just strolling. It's, it's w you have to walk at a moderate level that gets your, your heart rate up. But walking is probably, especially as you get older, is probably one of the best things that you can, best things that you can do. Walking, breathing.

Justin (52:17.554)
Any other similar things like that that breathing is helpful? Yeah.

Louise (52:22.796)
Like, and there are lots of different classes you can take online for breathe, like breathing exercises, meditation, finding, finding activities that are fun. There's another thing like you probably love jujitsu. It's really fun for you. I love to ride, to ride horses. That's like finding some joy in your life will help prevent and that gets you out and active. I just got a puppy. She's 14 weeks. She's a little Australian cattle dog and I got her after I got injured.

Justin (52:49.642)
I saw the pictures online.

Louise (52:52.812)
because my other dogs are old, I need a dog that can hike with that I feel safe being out hiking by myself as a woman. So believe me, having a puppy, we're out a lot walking because that dog has a lot of energy.

Justin (53:00.479)
Yep.

Justin (53:07.748)
Well, and that's a that's a drive dog too like they they're very motivated to be on the go so yeah

Louise (53:13.846)
Yeah, she's awesome. She moves so fast. And we're doing like agility stuff. even if you go to, have you ever seen dog agility? As the owner of a dog agility, you have to move. Like you have to be able to move. So finding something that's active and fun, because if it's not fun, you're not going to follow through with it. Fun, that's important. Breathing, exercise, fun. Yeah.

Justin (53:24.043)
Yeah.

Justin (53:37.792)
So another kind of goal of this show is obviously to help people find their way, navigate their way out of trauma. But another piece of it is to encourage them, whether it's jujitsu or some other physical thing where they can have that mind-body connection. Let's say somebody is following my advice and they're like, you know what, want to start. We'll say some martial art, something you know.

CrossFit, something that's going to require a lot of more movement than they're used to. What can they do to prepare before they start? Or is there something they should do to prepare before they start to get their body ready for that kind of change in impact?

Louise (54:22.114)
They should definitely they yeah, I mean I feel like a lot of people I see I've seen a lot of people get injured starting to work out like some pretty severe injuries from people even lifting weights or starting CrossFit and stuff because they don't They don't prep their body like you have to make sure that you're stretching every day and you're going out like stuff to get ready to do Those pieces like when you're doing jujitsu. I did

karate for years with Freddie Lepian. I don't know if you know him. He was in Barry and stuff and my kid wanted to do karate and he wanted to do Power Ranger karate and I was like, okay, there's no such thing as Power Ranger karate, but if you want to do karate, so I took him to this class and then he didn't do it, but I ended up doing it. You have to be mentally and physically prepared to be able to do that. you know, being able to stretch, making sure you have good.

depending on the type, know the activity that you do and know what level of flexibility do you need. Know what level of coordination you need. Be able to stand on one leg, be able to use opposite, there's lots of different pieces. And then whatever activity you do, talk to the person who's running it and figure out how you start it slowly. Because most people go in gung ho and that's when they get hurt. And also listening to their body.

And when say listen to your body, it doesn't mean be a wimp and don't push yourself because in order to get better you have to push yourself. But there's a fine line from pushing yourself to the point where you're going to be sore for the next two days. But if you're sore for three or four days, you did too much. So usually my time frame is if you do an activity, you don't feel anything the next day or two days later, you didn't do enough. So up your game a little bit. Increase your weight.

Justin (55:59.872)
Right.

Louise (56:15.298)
the activity. If you go two days, even to three days and you're sore, you did a good job. That's about the level you should stay at. When you stop feeling that is the time you start pushing yourself up again. And because the way the body and the mind gets stronger and better is you have to go to the point of being uncomfortable. And people who aren't willing to be uncomfortable never make gains. OK. And so knowing the difference between being uncomfortable and then feeling a

Justin (56:38.485)
Right.

Louise (56:44.8)
and working so hard. one of your keys, if you have to hold your breath and grunt and groan to get it done, it's probably too hard. So you should be able to keep breathing through the activity. You should be pushing it to the level where it feels hard, like you want to quit and then you keep going. But then after that point of feeling like quitting, keep going is probably the point where you stop. then part of it is trial and error, knowing what you're doing and how hard you're doing.

The big thing is this, you should feel it for two to three days after if you have to hold your breath and grunt and grunt is too much, push yourself to a level that you think you can't do and then back off. Because one thing I learned in PT school that has helped me in so many ways is this, is when you're doing an activity and it feels really hard and all of a sudden it feels really easy, that's right before failure. So if you take a muscle and you stretch it and it's tight, it's tight, it's tight and then all of a sudden,

It feels like it's really stretching. A lot of people will keep going with that. That's when failure happens. So push to the point where it's hard. And when it starts in that activity, it starts to feel like it's getting easier, back off. Or if it go to the point and you have to hold your breath, that's the point to stop. Those are my words of wisdom just through trial and error and seeing people get injured.

Justin (58:01.418)
Yeah, that's why I...

Justin (58:06.998)
That sounds great. I train average of four days a week, so I'm always in a state of sore, so I don't have to know any of the things. I'm just sore all the time, it's my baseline, but it's a good sore. Like I know why I'm sore, instead of I'm sore from laying on the couch.

Louise (58:16.706)
right?

Louise (58:20.214)
Right. Well, there's a sore, that's because you've had severe pain and there's a difference from being sore and injury. it's the level of, I don't even know how to describe it. It's the, sore is, sore feels better when you start moving and walking. Injury, you'll feel worse when you're moving after. That's injured and we don't want to get to that. So if you're just sore and if you are sore,

Justin (58:31.199)
Right, right.

Justin (58:41.076)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Louise (58:49.996)
you should be doing things that allow those muscles to recover from that, which means not doing every single day and giving yourself rest where you're not overworking the same patterns and the same muscles day after day. It's like driving your car, especially if it's out of alignment, eventually the wheels are gonna wear in a certain way and they have to be replaced. And so the body's the same way. You have to change up your patterns of how you're doing things.

Improve your technique and your style of how you do it so that you don't wear cause wear on the body if you don't know how to do that yourself then get yourself in with a good therapist who can look at you and and Help you decide that we're a good trainer like there are some trainers that are really good and there are some trains that are really bad and I've seen people who've gotten injured when they work with a trainer who pushed them too hard and so I don't know trust your trust your gut just your gut

because it usually tells you the right thing.

Justin (59:49.13)
So tell me about L2 Hope.

Louise (59:51.83)
So here's the really funny thing. L2 stands for Louise Lynch, it stands for Live and Learn. hope is that that's one thing I feel like I give people. I see all sorts of people. I see people who are significantly disabled and they're in the court system and their attorney sends them to me. And I feel like that's what I do as a therapist is

Justin (59:57.204)
Yep.

Louise (01:00:21.312)
I give people hope that there's solutions to what their problem is and that they can figure out where they're at now doesn't necessarily mean where they need to be. also the hope of don't believe everything medical people tell you because we practice medicine. Okay. There's a lot of trial and error. We don't know everything as medical providers. So don't take it with a hundred percent. Do your research. So that's how L2 Hope started is

When I retired from IHMS, my plan was to start treating people here and then providing stuff through doing telemedicine and ergonomics just on my own. But I have to be really honest. I sold my business. I see certain people. I see people who know me and people who get referred to me. And after six months of being retired,

I got really bored and my husband was taking naps every afternoon. was like, my God, you are so old. I don't want to do it this way. And so I actually, I actually took a job with Central Mont Hospital as a PT for a year to peer DM. And I worked with athletes at Norwich, Norwich athletes that got hurt or Norwich cadets who got hurt to 80 year old women getting knee replacements. And it was really good for my brain. But after I got hurt, I stopped that for a while.

And so I'm going back to L2 Hope, my plan of L2 Hope. feel like I'm reinvigorated for, actually plan on doing some podcast, and not even podcast, but more like YouTube stuff where I'm making videos. If you have this ache and pain, this is what you should try. So that's what L2 Hope is about. It's about anything to see anyone who needs hope to get better.

It's not physical therapy. It's physical therapy, but it's more than physical therapy because we do I lead people in exercise classes or individual classes online I can do and it's whatever somebody needs and it's not insurance based. It's cash based and I barter like if you have a good skill, my husband says I have all these boyfriends who I treat and then they teach him how to like they teach him how to fix the tractor and

Louise (01:02:43.692)
Like when my horse died, my horse just, one of my horses just died, I have a friend who, who did, built my arena. He runs back, the backhoe and stuff. And I called him and he was here an hour to bury my horse. But I started with him because he was building my arena and he got out of his excavator or whatever that digger thing is called. And he was like all kinked up and I was like, what is wrong with you? And he's like, he goes, I got this.

Justin (01:03:06.816)
You're like, I can fix that.

Louise (01:03:09.72)
pain in my neck and I've been going to this chiropractor who's been just like touching me with this machine. I pay him a hundred bucks and I said, I'll tell you what, when you're done, I'll set up a table in my kitchen and I'll work on you. And I did and it was amazing. My arena got bigger and bigger and yeah. And so he brings me sand when I need it. So if, if there are people out there that have a skill or you just want to pay cash, it's on a, it's on a

Even for people who can't afford it, I treat a lot of different people just to be able to help them as well. yeah, this is my passion. I love, it's not work.

Justin (01:03:50.432)
How does somebody reach you if they're one of those people that you're talking about?

Louise (01:03:54.502)
My website is l2hope.com or l2hope.com. And then my email is Louise, L-O-U-I-S-E, which is my name, at l2hope.com. Or they ask you.

Justin (01:04:11.702)
Perfect. Or yeah, I'll put a link in the show notes too so they can just click on it right from there.

Louise (01:04:16.942)
Okay, I can send you. Yeah, most most of the people who see me come by referral because I'm treating I have a office above my garage. So people are coming on to my property. I'm also one of the things I'm gonna be doing. L2HOPE is just a way to like put money away and then I have to to pay taxes and Uncle Sam and stuff. But I'm also what's going to with the with the horses. One of my ideas is actually work with veterans and first responders and stuff because horses are really

Healing and they have big heart energy and I think there's a way to combine Combine the two so I'm I'm still working on that and figuring figure I've worked with a few people already And it's pretty big. In fact, I found an EMDR therapist by starting with you listening to Beth and talking to Beth who does EMDR and horse stuff together But but she's really busy right now. I'm on her waiting list. So

Justin (01:05:11.756)
that's awesome.

Louise (01:05:16.803)
think horses are amazing healers and they can injure you really bad.

Justin (01:05:20.436)
Yeah. Yeah, well, there's a there's I think it's worth the risk.

Justin (01:05:30.442)
Well, Louise, this has been amazing. Anything else you want to throw out, plug, anything coming up that people should know about?

Louise (01:05:39.16)
that I know of. I'm retired. I don't know what's going on in the world. I'm enjoying retirement. But I do, again, I'm semi retired because I still, I do treat people and I'll never stop. I'll never stop working with people. I have people I see probably every week. Some of them pay, some of them don't. Do you know what I mean? I see a lot of friends come to my house. So.

Justin (01:05:44.776)
Yeah.

Justin (01:06:00.745)
Yeah.

Well, as one of the people that has benefited over the over many years of I mean, I remember a time where I called you. It was I think it was a weekend and I think I texted you and you were you like I came to your house in Colchester and you you fixed me in like your entryway or something like it's.

Louise (01:06:19.05)
Mm-hmm. I remember that.

Louise (01:06:27.874)
I know. Like all the police officers had my phone number. They still do. I still get police from Burlington police that live all over who still come see me.

Justin (01:06:32.406)
Yeah. Yeah. mean.

Justin (01:06:39.944)
Yeah, I mean, that is that is such a valuable toolbox that you have and and skill that you have to just be able to look at somebody and, you know, kind of help them figure out what's going on. And and, you know, again, we talked about this earlier. I love the part that it's not you're not just like, well, let me just, you know, fix this muscle and, you know, like work the kinks out. It's you look deeper than that. And it's more about like

Louise (01:06:50.008)
Thank you.

Justin (01:07:08.712)
Okay, well this is happening because of this. Let's fix that or you work on fixing that and then you don't have to come see me. That's

Louise (01:07:12.194)
Right. Right. It's finding the real crux of the problem. Yeah. That's a gift, though. Like, I feel like God, God granted me the gift of service and healing. And so it's a gift you have to share. You can't keep for yourself. Or stop doing it. Like, I can't stop.

Justin (01:07:16.606)
Yeah, that is such a, it's magic. Yes, yeah.

Justin (01:07:31.828)
Right, right, well.

Well, I'm glad you're sharing it because a lot of people I know, including myself, have benefited from it. So thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been awesome. And it was good to have you on.

Louise (01:07:43.96)
You're welcome.

Louise (01:07:48.127)
All right, thank you.