Susan: Trust what your body knows.

In this episode, Kristin talks with Susan (she/her) who spent years building a successful career in the legal world before realizing that being good at something is not the same as feeling aligned with it. Together they explore the path from paralegal to massage therapist, what it meant to choose a more embodied and values-driven life, and how self-employment changed her relationship to work, stability, and success.

Together, they talk about right livelihood, the surprising ways stress lives in the body, the intimacy and healing of long-term client relationships, and why changing direction doesn’t mean starting over. Susan’s story is a reminder that nothing is wasted, your experience comes with you, and sometimes your body knows what your brain is still trying to figure out.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re off track, this conversation offers a gentler reframe: maybe you’re not lost. Maybe you’re just collecting information about what a more aligned life could be.

How to get in touch:

• susanlmt.com

Transcript

Kristin 0:03

Welcome to Everything Counts But Nothing Is Real, a podcast about careers, detours, and the absurdity of work. Here we explore the twists, the pivots, and the tiny choices that shape our work lives with humor, feminism, and honesty. I'm your host, Kristen. Let's get into it. Hello, and welcome to Everything Counts But Nothing Is Real. Today's guest is so special because she is Lauren's beloved aunt. She is someone who was instrumental in Lauren's career and life. She gets referenced in Lauren's episode, episode one. And she has been on her own wild career ride. And I'm really excited to dig in and learn more about her journey from law to healing. Susan, she her, is a paralegal turned massage therapist who spent years inside the legal world before choosing a radically different relationship to work, healing, and autonomy. She's now proudly self-employed, deeply embodied in her work, and living proof that you're allowed to change your mind more than once. Susan, welcome to the show. Thank you. Yay! I'm so excited you're here. Can you just tell us what you currently do for a living?

Susan 1:13

I'm a licensed massage therapist. I uh specialize in relaxation and deep tissue massage. I rent a room at a spa. So I work both for myself and also receive clients from the spa. And most of my clientele is over the age of 50. Probably most of my clients are over the age of 60. That just kind of happened organically. I'm not sure why, but it's great for me because it's a little bit less difficult for most of my clients. I have a few big, strong men that I have to really work hard on, but for the most part, it's a little bit easier than regular, than say a 41-year-old whose back is a rock.

Kristin 1:55

Yes.

Susan 1:56

Yeah. The stress of a person who is employed is markedly different than a retired person's. You can find that in the neck and shoulders and the base of the skull right away. Oh my gosh. That's actually fascinating.

Kristin 2:09

I want to come back to that idea that our bodies let go a little when we're not working. Yes. That's actually really beautiful. Can you tell me anything in your life and work right now that's lighting you up?

Susan 2:22

I have noticed that my calendar is spilling up. You know, it's like I don't work a lot of hours every day. I share a room with another person. And also the work is strenuous. So I um limit myself to three to four clients a day. But realistically, it averages out to about three clients, maybe five days a week, maybe a little less than that. And um, but here lately, uh the open spots on my calendar have been filling. And I feel like I just sort of put out there that I wasn't gonna be concerned about gaps in my client base or you know, scheduling issues and finding myself open for long stretches during the week when I felt like I should be working. And then that just sort of disappeared. Like one day I woke up and I was like, I don't have a lot of time to sit around the house anymore. Which is like a double-edged sword. Yeah, I was glad to know that, you know, it was really helpful. And I have a lot of really loyal clients, so I've started noticing that, seeing that I've had people for the whole 17 years I've been practicing. One person that I see now actually saw me when I was at student clinic and came to find me when I was over next door at Cedar Center, and then found me again after her husband was killed in a terrible accident and sought out weekly massage just as a healing modality. So I just I felt so honored that she remembered me all those years and came looking for me, you know. Wow, that's beautiful. Yeah.

Kristin 3:54

And I think because you've had such long-term clients, you probably really can speak to the long-term healing of massage.

Susan 4:03

Yeah, like when we were talking about working people versus retired people, the differences in the body is noticeable, but also in people that get regular massage versus people. I have three clients that come every single week, and probably five clients that come every two weeks, and maybe four or five clients that come once a month, and maybe a couple of clients that come like every six or eight weeks. And the difference in the shoulders and neck, and just like I almost get bored on my weekly clients because you know, there's not a lot that needs to be fixed. Every now and then they'll come in and be like, oh my God, I was working in the yard and my back. But for the most part, it's just like, oh yeah, maintenance. But when people wait, you know, three, four, six weeks to get a massage, then it's really hard work to work on them.

Kristin 4:54

I mean, I've never this, I'm I'm just not realizing this is my first time having like a deep discussion about massage therapy itself. And I did not know, I mean, it makes sense, but I never really thought about how you could tell a difference. And how like sometimes when I go, because I don't go often enough, I'm like, when should I go back? Like, and I'm like, I'm good for the next two months. Um and so this is fascinating.

Susan 5:23

Yeah. I think it's great to stay on a regular schedule just for yourself, as far as taking care of yourself in a way that sets aside time that's specifically for you. That can be one of those things that you do, you know.

Kristin 5:35

I think that's amazing. And I'm gonna go get a massage as soon as I can. Now that we've had this conversation. I want to go back to the beginning and talk about your origins, your background, the things that gave you a foundation for who you are today. So I would love to hear any of your thoughts on birth order, astrology, your family, you know, anything about your background that you feel like really shaped you.

Susan 6:01

I think that I've always been kind of competitive because of being the youngest child. My sister is very talented and intelligent. And I come from a family of perfectionists. So I think that always having her out in front of me was a little bit of healthy competition. Like, you got to get out there and do a good job because look at her, you know. And so that probably did sort of point me in the direction of being more. Um, I was always pretty competitive as a paralegal, especially. And um, it seems like my family held me to a really high standard. They didn't necessarily expect me to have a career as a woman because my parents, you know, it would have been acceptable to them if I'd married someone and just had a bunch of babies. But my father, he wasn't necessarily excited about higher education. He actually didn't have a a good opinion about a four-year college degree, but he always thought that going to a trade school was a good idea to get yourself a trade. So as it turned out, I ended up doing, you know, exactly what he said. I know that's years later. I went to trade school. You did.

Kristin 7:14

Are you and your sister close in age? I actually don't know the answer to this.

Susan 7:18

I think that she was born six years before me. Um, not a full six years. It's like the September of the year before I was born. Or, you know, six years before I was born in February. So we're right at five years in part. Yeah.

Kristin 7:33

Yeah, that's I mean, that's a fascinating age gap because you know, you're close enough in age to be competitive, but you're not on top of each other.

Susan 7:41

Yes. I think it was a good because I felt like, you know, as we got older, you know, when we got over mostly her beating me up, but no, just kidding. But when we got over that kind of sibling rivalry that's can even be physical sometimes, when we grew up, we became really good friends, you know. And um, yeah, there was uh as children, you know, I think she was probably so over me, and I was always following her around and sneaking in her room when she had friends over and doing some really mean things, you know, very annoying little sister things. But um, when she uh grew up and got married, I spent a lot of time with her. And when the kids were small, we spent a lot of time together at the mall and at amusement parks and you know.

Kristin 8:29

Yeah. Um slightly tangent, but I've been reading on social media the impact that an aunt can have on kids, especially girls. And I didn't have that. I didn't have like a close aunt. So it's actually really hard for me to even imagine, but it is a role I'm attempting to play in in my nieces' lives.

Susan 8:50

Yeah.

Kristin 8:50

But then when I think about like, oh, this has played out in Lauren's life and it really was impactful.

Susan 8:58

Yeah, I I have to remind myself sometimes, like, they're not your kids, you know, because yeah, because I've tried so hard to keep them in my life as much as I can. There was a point when I moved away to Jacksonville for a while, and um we used to like trade them off, you know. Lauren was an adolescent at that point, and Ashley was probably in like sixth grade or whatever, fifth grade. And um, and I had was giving them back to their parents at like some midway part between Tallahassee and Jacksonville. And their dad, you know, like was putting them into the car, and then he kind of looked back at me to say goodbye, and I was just like, oh, he just couldn't control and he I remember the look on his face was like, wow, that's a lot of emotion for an hour and a half drive away.

Kristin 9:50

I just I just adore it. Thanks for that side note. Um, I will say for the listeners that are curious, Susan is an Aquarius, which totally tracks for this like healing path that you've been on.

Susan 10:04

Yeah, it totally is my personality to be a massage therapist. It's funny because when I was a paralegal, um I had an office in a very stressful law firm, and I made it into this little palace of stress relief. And I had always had music at my work environment and even sometimes essential oils that I would use to make the room smell nice, and I used lamps instead of the overhead lights. And the lawyers from around the firm would just visit me to sit in my office. They had these huge, beautiful offices on the corner with windows and couches, and they would come and sit in my tiny little office chair that I had for a visitor just to soak up the ambience. So when I told the law firm I was working at that I was going to massage school, all of the lawyers were like, Yeah, of course you are. This makes so much sense. It didn't confuse them at all, you know.

Kristin 10:57

Love that. This is actually the perfect segue into how did you become a paralegal? Like, how did you follow that path?

Susan 11:05

I was going to college. And um, I was in a work study program at the time, like um learning keyboarding and typing and what have you. And um, the first law firm I worked for had posted a job there at the community college availability. And so I went there and spoke with a wonderful woman who is still my mentor to this day. And um she um talked with me and interviewed me and ended up hiring me part-time as a receptionist. And then I just eventually stopped going to school and started working full-time there as a legal secretary. And um, later she moved away and I took over her position as office manager, and then I just basically demanded that I be allowed to be something more than just legal secretary. I was bored with just transcribing, you know, the lawyer's documents, and I wanted to try things like uh legal research. And we actually had the pivotal case that established me as a person capable of being a paralegal. There was a case here locally where people who had um booths at the uh fair were arrested for gambling. It was a really odd behavior by the police department because the fair had been having those gaming booths for eons, you know, as long as I can remember. And for some reason, I don't know if it was a slow law enforcement day, they went into the fair and arrested some of the people with the gaming booth. And so I wasn't sensed. I was like, well, that's not fair, that's ridiculous. And it wasn't my job to research the case, but I made it my business to, you know, that was back when we had the paper books and the library, and went and grabbed a southern second and just was like, what? I'm just use a table of contents and look up cases and see. And I found in Florida statutes actually that there was a an exception to gambling laws specifically for county fairs in the winning of prizes, not money, and presented that to my boss, who was a criminal law attorney. And um, he was pretty impressed, you know, that I had taken it upon myself to do that. So, and then he allowed me to expand more into that. But I was always legal secretary/slash paralegal. But later I went and got certified as a paralegal and then had future jobs where I was only a paralegal working, doing originating documents, legal documents, and preparing lawyers for trials and summarizing depositions and all of that. So I just sort of grew into it.

Kristin 13:48

I have actually so many words because one, that's so cool. You sound like such a boss. It feels like what a lot of people my age grew up kind of dreaming about and also kind of assuming how our careers would work. And so to me, what you just described was like this kind of dream.

Susan 14:05

Yeah, I'm not even sure that's even available anymore. Like it feels like you really have to have the credentials and the education. You know, I don't know how easy it is to move up like that, but I was kind of aggressive in that way. I really wanted to do and be more and felt that I could. And it was nice to have an environment like that. That was very encouraging and it gave me a lot of self-confidence that I carried with me throughout my career.

Kristin 14:32

I'm sure. That's incredible. Um, I want to hear, I don't know, like the craziest thing that happened while you were like just tell me, tell me about it.

Susan 14:45

So back in the day, we didn't have windows. I know it's so crazy. It was called DOS. And we also had these big floppy disks, you know. And so we would format them before we put our documents onto them. We were frequently putting things onto floppy disks because there wasn't enough room on this big tower that we had under the desk to save all of the information. You had to format the disks before you put the information on them. So I put a disk in that was the A drive. We when we put our disk in, it was called the A drive. But the C drive is the hard drive of the computer. So for some reason, when I typed in the command to format in DOS, which is just like a little line blinking at you, you know, um, I typed in format C. And what happened was it formatted the C drive, which meant everything, including the working system, the programming, the everything that was on the computer went away. Oh no. And when it was done, I just had this little dash sign blinking at me.

Kristin 15:56

Oh my god, does your heart leave your body?

Susan 15:59

Oh my God, it was just catastrophic. You know, it felt like. But thank goodness that back in the day before the internet, we we were backing up our hard drives each night. Um, unfortunately, hadn't backed it up exactly the night before, but a couple of nights before I'd backed it up. So most of the information was retrievable, but it was a big deal. We had to call in the computer experts to fix it and everything, get it all loaded back on.

Kristin 16:26

Wow. Wow. That is a nightmare.

Susan 16:30

That was it was very stressful.

Kristin 16:33

What made you want to pivot into massage therapy? I mean, I'm sure there was lots of things, but like, was there something in the work environment specifically that felt like it had run its course for you?

Susan 16:46

I think that my personal interests started to interfere with my involvement in the type of law that I ended up falling into was personal injury on both sides, both for plaintiffs and for defense attorneys. And I started to feel like it wasn't contributing to the greater good that the lawsuit mill that I was kind of caught in was actually a difficulty for people, for insurance carriers raising rates and for lawyers making lots of money, but for plaintiffs making small amounts and spending it all and then going back and having another wreck. And I just I didn't feel good about what I was doing. And um I was also practicing as a Buddhist or trying to follow Buddhist precepts and principles. One of the precepts that they ask a Buddhist when they do their vows to join up with their group is to um practice a right livelihood. And um, I just didn't feel that the livelihood that I was doing was right, you know, it didn't feel right to me. And also I wasn't happy anymore doing it, mostly because of having to work for lawyers. You know, a lot of the lawyers I worked for were really difficult and not always particularly respectful of me. And um, I was ready to let go of it, you know, I was kind of tired.

Kristin 18:11

That's fair. I spent two-ish years when I first moved to New York being an assistant for some lawyers, and it's tough. It's a tough environment.

Susan 18:19

Yeah, it is. It's a very stressful environment.

Kristin 18:22

At the time, were you aware of like feeling any of that in your body? Was there an embodiment practice that led you into massage?

Susan 18:30

I don't know how bodily aware I was. I remember as a person who worked at a desk that I had constant neck and shoulder issues, and how surprised I was when I switched over to a physical work that literally requires me to be putting pressure into people's bodies. And it was actually better doing the work as a massage therapist for my body than what I was doing uh sitting at a desk, you know? Wild. That's really wild. Because I really expected now, honestly, at my age, I'll be 60 next year. At the end of the day, when I've done three or four massages, I'm really tired. Like my back is hurting and I can barely walk because my feet are so tired. But I have a feeling if I had been a paralegal for the last 30 years, that there would be a lot of issues too related to that. I think I'm in a lot better physical shape because of my choice to be a massage therapist later in life.

Kristin 19:33

So it makes so much sense and it really reframes, I think, a lot of thinking around like labor and what it does for our bodies. Okay, talk to me about the official pivot. Did you go to school on the side? How did you do it?

Susan 19:46

Yeah, so I was working full-time and going to school part-time, which meant it took me a year to get through massage school. And the law office where I worked allowed me to leave work, to do a daytime class here and there, but most of my classes were at night. But at a certain point, it became a problem because I was assigned a trial in time for my final exams at massage school by the managing partner. And I explained to her I just couldn't. It was an out-of-town trial, and it was a really large case. It wasn't a file, it was a room. And it was like a month away. And then it was also going to be out of town, so I wouldn't even be in town and be able to take my massage exams. So um I actually had to go over her head to another lawyer and explain to him my situation, and he had to speak with her. And it was really difficult to work there after that. Awkward, yeah. And so I ended up having to leave that job and um ended up working part-time as my last law office job with a friend that I'd worked for through the years on and off. And then eventually that particular law firm was hooked up with a chiropractor in Tallahassee. The funny thing is, I didn't end up transitioning into a necessarily completely different kind of livelihood because the massage therapy and all of the treatments rendered at the chiropractic office were for automobile accident victims with active lawsuits. So my first job was still in the lawsuit mill.

Kristin 21:18

That though is like a true transition. You are like slowly moving out of it.

Susan 21:23

Yeah, well, they it was funny because they were actually eager to have me because I had knowledge of the legal field. And so they felt that I would also make a great massage therapist with that background.

Kristin 21:33

That is a real like breadcrumbs moment where everything just kind of adds up. Now you are self employed. Tell me about how it feels to be self employed, the good, the bad, the ugly.

Susan 21:46

I think that being self employed is uh stressful because of the way that we look at work. Like we think when we have a job, we can always depend on it being there for us. But if we're self employed, it might be Unpredictable. But it's actually the reverse is true because if you're self-employed, you can depend on yourself to be your employer for as long as you would like to remain employed. I mean, it's possible that you may not be able to find customers, clients, etc. But for the most part, that's not the difficulty. The difficulty is in making yourself available and having the mindset that what you need will come to you. When you have a job, it seems like, oh yeah, that paycheck's going to be there. All I got to do is show up and put in my time and I'll have my pension and my paycheck and my health insurance. So I think it's just looking at being self-employed a little differently that has helped me because sometimes I do kind of wake up and go, oh, you know, what if you don't have any clients today or tomorrow or the next day? What if it just completely dies one day and no one ever calls you for a massage again? You know, then what are you gonna do? That is kind of scary. But the same thing could happen if I'd gone into a law office one day and the firm was breaking up. Sorry, you don't have a job anymore, you have to leave.

Kristin 23:10

Yeah, I mean, that's such a good perspective because I would have that same anxiety. Like, oh my gosh, what if it just doesn't work? But it is true that if that happened, if clients stopped calling, you would have to figure something new out, which is exactly what you would have to do if you lost your job.

Susan 23:25

Right.

Kristin 23:26

And so it's it's not different.

Susan 23:29

Yeah. So maybe the stressful part is it depends more on you because you can depend on your boss to get out there and get work for you to do. He'll always be doing that. And uh it'll actually, much to your chagrin sometimes, like, oh my God, not another day working, doing this work that this person is always handing to me. But if you're working for yourself, you're out there trying to get the work for yourself and you really want it, you know? Yeah. And um, it kind of changes the way you feel about it. You're more grateful for it, you know, when you had to get it for yourself.

Kristin 24:02

I mean, yeah, you're like truly you're choosing it, you're passionate about it. I like that. Yeah. Can we talk about life? You know, life intersects with our careers, whether we like it or not. Were there any sort of like life moments that happened as you made some of these transitions?

Susan 24:22

One thing that happens to me is um I try to maintain professional boundaries with clients by not sharing too much about my personal self, but I'm a very not compartmentalized person. So sometimes it's hard to not share about family and stuff, especially with clients who are particularly inquisitive. So that is something that I work on sometimes because I feel a little weird that I have shared so much when people are interested in asking me about my family and almost like it's not mine anymore. Like I should have kept that for myself because it was mine and I just gave it away to a person that's my client, you know.

Kristin 25:09

I mean, that kind of goes to another question that I have around like navigating the intimacy of having these long-term clients where you're working on healing with them and there is a relationship there. Do you have reflections on that?

Susan 25:24

It is interesting. I mean, I've had clients share a lot of things with me, and that surprised me in the beginning when I first got started. Like it's not something that they tell you in massage school. One of my clients who I, you know, like we didn't see each other outside of massage at all, you know, it was a completely just a work relationship. But when her husband had an affair, she told me all about it, you know, and shared with me. And um, in a way, I can see why that would happen because they did talk to us in school about the way that clients feel about the massage therapist, you know, that sometimes they might come to think of you more as a friend or family member. It isn't even necessarily their conscious decision to do it, but when you massage them, they're releasing hormones and things like oxytocin that literally make them love you almost, you know. And I started to notice myself that in particular times when things were quiet and I was massaging someone and everything was just going along so nicely, I would just be filled with so much love for them, like, and but a very motherly kind of love. Like I just was wishing so much good for them in a really nice way. So um, it's a neat kind of career. You're being intimate with people every day, but in a way that is very nurturing, I think, if you're doing it right.

Kristin 26:48

Well, I mean, it's it's a true energy exchange. And so it is nice of you to be willing to share so that they can like feel like they're not the only one being vulnerable. Are there still parts of paralegal life that you're still using when you're keeping your books or marketing yourself? Like, are there pieces of that old life that come back?

Susan 27:09

Yes. I call myself like a type A massage therapist because I do the scheduling for myself the way that I did when I was paralegal. You know, I have two calendars and I check it every morning. I'm very precise about things that a lot of massage therapists are not focused on, making sure that I had a website available and all of that. Like I knew that was important and advertising, you know, I had the ability to do that. But I could see that I had a maybe a bit of an advantage to just like a standard person that graduated from massage school, maybe both because of my age and because I was a paralegal, that I had the ability to think more logically about how to make it work, not just to like show up with my table and my oil and hope that somebody would be there from me to massage.

Kristin 28:03

It's kind of like whenever we as a society joke that everyone should have the experience of like working in food service. Similarly, like having that office experience helped you run a better business. Yes. Yes. Okay, let's do the lightning round. Okay. You ready? I'm ready. These are the same questions that I ask all guests, and you don't have to overthink it. We'll just go through them. Anyway, what was the very first job you ever had, and what did it teach you about work?

Susan 28:31

I was working for a health plan here, and this was before computers were widely available. I was uh 16 years old. My job was to take all of these paper payments, like the little stuffs off of people's checks, and there was this gigantic book, and um I would open it up and I would find the person's name in the book and write down the amount of the payment that they made. And that was my job every day, all day, or however many hours I was there, two or three hours a day. So yeah, and that that taught me how very boring that work can be. How like never-ending.

Kristin 29:15

That was incredibly boring. That's fair. What is the best or worst piece of advice you've ever gotten?

Susan 29:23

Well, I think my dad actually the what popped into my head was my dad because when I had that particular job, I think I told him that it was really boring. And also I didn't have time to do things with my friends, and I wasn't having as much fun as I was hoping to have as a 16-year-old. And he said to me, Well, this is the uh predicament you'll find yourself in as an adult. If you don't work, then you won't have any money to have fun with your friends. And if you do work, you might not have any time to have fun with your friends. And I was and so I've thought about that many times since then. I was like, that makes a lot of sense.

Kristin 30:03

It's a real um trap that we fall into. That's really good. Okay. Do you have a most embarrassing work story? Did one come to you?

Susan 30:13

Well, I will say that for some reason I really think it's necessary to work in this story. I'm not sure how I was I was more angry, but also very embarrassed. Um, when I was a paralegal in a particular law firm, I had made it known that I was working on a breast implant litigation that was widely known, you know, in the 90s against all kinds of various medical suppliers. We were representing one of the defendants, and I was required to bill a portion of my time as a paralegal, but the other portion I worked as a legal secretary. So I was really doing the job of a legal secretary, but just also working in time to do billable hours as a paralegal. And this law firm decided they were going to hire a full-time paralegal to work on this case in addition to me. And I made it known to them that I would like that job as a full-time paralegal. They decided instead to hire a person who had never worked in a law office who actually had a degree in music, a cello player, to be the full-time paralegal for the firm. And obviously, I was consumed by bitterness as a 30, you know, probably 28 to 30-ish person at that time. And I know I behaved very poorly, but also proved my capability by uh greatly excelling this cellist that they hired to be a paralegal in all senses of the word, in that she was basically shamed in in many staff meetings when discussions were about the case and she was incapable of communicating effectively about it. And I stepped in many times to expound on things that she had been asked about very well. Wow. Wow. So I'm kind of embarrassed about that because I was really mean to her. That's a that's fair. But what was the result of that? Did you get the job eventually? No, I never did. I actually ended up leaving that law office to get a job. Um I actually, that's when I moved to Jacksonville. And when I moved back, the next job that I got was a paralegal job, but she ended up leaving shortly thereafter. I'm sure. Not thriving. What is your socially acceptable work vice? I think my chattiness is a little bit of a vice, you know. So I have to uh ever be on my guard to uh not chat out my clients and um I've actually become really good at it. But unfortunately, some of my clients are chatting themselves, and so when they open the Pandora, unfortunately, a lot of stuff comes out. So I'm working on that. That is advice because, like I say, I overshare sometimes, and I would really like to have a little bit better boundaries.

Kristin 33:07

The extrovert in you just can't help herself. Yes, yes. What's something about your job that sounds impressive but isn't actually that glamorous?

Susan 33:17

I don't know if anybody ever thinks of massage therapy as glamorous, like they seem to think of it as a thing that collects sort of hippy-dippy kind of super chill people who wear long flowy dresses and lots of beautiful crystal jewelry or something, you know? But um, I don't really know if there's anything that necessarily brings it down from its high pedestal. I'm just not sure anybody sets it up there.

Kristin 33:50

Well, I guess then the opposite of the question is like, what's something that's actually really professional and impressive about the job that people might underestimate?

Susan 33:59

I think a lot of people think that massage is just, you know, a little optional thing that you can add to your routine and that it might help you use relax from stress. So people are continually impressed with how helpful it is with various bodily complaints. One of my clients has neuropathy in his feet and just giving him a really vigorous massage of his feet, problem that no doctor has been able to help him with. And he's tried medications and he's tried this and that. And a massage caused him to go without any of that pain for a couple of days. And um I think he was really excited about that. And I don't think many people realize just how helpful that kind of work can be for your body. You know, they think it's just something that helps you relax at the end of a stressful week. I do have a client who is a doctor that doesn't accept health plans, who requires a monthly fee of all her patients. And she comes to us for a massage and she refers her patients for massage because she believes in it and knows that it's helpful. But standard like orthopedics and other kinds of doctors don't always, they even like sometimes when I go to the orthopedic and tell him I'm a massage therapist, I kind of get a little bit of an eye roll. It's not taken seriously. We have a license from the Department of Health. Okay.

Kristin 35:21

Final lightning round question is do you fix typos in casual communication?

Susan 35:26

Yes, absolutely. I'm laughing at myself because I was I wasn't sure what we were going to talk about or whatever. But I wanted to be sure that if we ever discussed non-binary persons that I knew when you said they, would you also use a plural verb or would you use a singular verb? And so I looked it up on Merriam-Webster and read a really nice description in the dictionary, so much so that I want everyone to read what Merriam-Webster has to say about subject verb agreement in the non-binary expression because it was really nice. It's like sometimes you use you as a group, and that's okay because you're used to it, you know, and explained why you shouldn't feel awkward in that language. So yeah, I did look that up because I wanted to be precise and be sure I didn't make that mistake. But I mean, even in just like a casual text, I think I sent you a text earlier that didn't have a period in it, and I was a little bit worried that I didn't put a period, but I was in a hurry, so I went ahead and set. Well, I didn't notice.

Kristin 36:29

I'm way too like ADHD to notice those. Um, but I appreciate the precision. I love that you looked that up. If I remember correctly, several years ago, Miriam Webster said that they them was the word of the year several years ago. Really? I think it was they them in the context. So that's so cool that they had that article.

Susan 36:55

Yeah, I'll send it to you if you want to see it. I mean, I thought it was really great. I was thinking about sharing just the dictionary description on Facebook because people who are grammar police are sometimes feel awkward in use of that language. And I think it would help somebody go, oh, okay, well, then it is all right to do that, you know? Exactly. Exactly.

Kristin 37:12

Uh it's just a matter of, you know, redoing your brain a little. And then it's natural. What would your advice be to someone who feels off track right now?

Susan 37:23

For me, focusing on the dollar amount causes me to get trapped in something that I don't necessarily enjoy, that's not fun for me. And sometimes people get off track pursuing goals that are very rigid, and that it's helpful to give yourself a little bit of space from your goals and just know that it's okay to just be and to actually enjoy your life and maybe even to make a choice in a career that's not the highest dollar amount, but is very fulfilling to you, you know, because as a massage therapist, you've never regretted making that choice. There were some rocky times in the beginning where I was having a hard time changing the way that my brain was constantly needing facts and figures and that kind of stimulation to what's required to just put your hands on somebody and be strong and organize yourself in that way. I was having a little bit of difficulty there. But when I realized how wonderful it is to do something that I really love, I started to fall into my career and have a lot of comfort and a lot less stress than what I was experiencing. When I was trying to make myself fit in a box just because there was a certain dollar amount in my head that I wanted to make, I was very unhappy there. But when I let that go and decided that maybe I would just live a simpler life. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. Maybe I'd move into a camper or whatever. But I would be doing something every day that I really loved, that helped me get back on track.

Kristin 39:04

I love that. That's incredible advice. Thank you. Thank you. The final question is how can people find you? I am at SusanLnt.com. Love it. Thank you. It's a brand new, newly updated website. And I will include it in the show notes so that everyone can find it. Susan, it has been so fun. Thank you for doing this with me. Thank you. I've enjoyed it very much. Yay. There's this idea running through this conversation that your life doesn't fall apart when you change direction. It actually starts to make more sense. And frankly, what is more everything counts coded than that? One thing that's really stayed with me about this conversation is the idea that your body knows before your brain really admits it. I think that's applicable across the board in ways that we simply don't have time for. But it does make me think about several times in my life when I was experiencing high stress and would have these like health symptoms, like mysterious hive outbreaks or like really intense heartburn. That was something that happened to me a lot in college. And it turned out that in both of those cases, they were anxiety and they were stress, and both were reduced when I reduced my stress and my anxiety. And we know, we know that our bodies are always talking to us and our bodies are telling us when we need to make a change, but it's so easy to ignore. And so I hope that Susan's story is like one tiny reminder that, like, it's cool. Your body does know and you can listen to it. You should listen to it. It's also fine if it takes a little bit of time. Sometimes we don't always get the message at the right time or in our own perception of the right time. We spend so much time trying to think about the way that our career is right. Is that what we want to be doing? Is that how we want to be paid? What is the path? How does it look? How does it feel? And then when we start to look at another path, we start thinking, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't make me, don't make me change. I've invested so much in this path. I don't know what's to come. But again, in her case, nothing was wasted. Her many, many years of working in law helped her build the foundation of her own career, that her own business. A lot of the things that she learned while working in law apply directly to owning her business in a way that people without that experience won't have those same skills. So think about what your body and your subconscious are telling you on a daily basis and like the tiny ways that you can start to address it. Maybe if you're like me, I'm probably not going to switch career directions at this point. Currently, never know. But what I do really and truly feel like, she just gave me so much permission to take care of my body. She just gave me so much permission to take a massage seriously, take any of our embodiment practices seriously because it's all tied together. And I think that if you've heard it once, you're gonna hear it a thousand times. But the reframe is that you're not off track. You're simply collecting information when something feels off. What's a tiny change we can make to feel like we're getting closer to alignment and closer to our own authenticity? Oftentimes, our body has the answer. That was so serious. I just feel particularly, I don't know, I feel particularly serious. I feel particularly embodied when I think about this interview. Um, and as a Capricorn stylum and a 12th house styllium, if you know, you know, I struggle with being embodied. But this really got me thinking about the ways in which we need to be looking at our lives and our well-being so holistically and again embracing every step of the way. So thank you. Thank you as always for being here. Thank you for listening. Please, as always, come find us on any of the platforms. Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It actually is so helpful for our algorithm and our reach. And I want to continue to share these stories so widely. I think again, they're the foundation of how we embrace our humanity during a time that feels particularly hard to be human. So again, thank you. I'm so honored, and see you next week. Thanks for listening to everything counts, but nothing is real. Remember, even when nothing feels real, everything you do counts. Capitalism may be absurd, but so are we. And on that note, well, it's been real. Don't forget to subscribe. I'm Kristen. I'll see you next time.