Episode 44: Grief, Fascia & the Nervous System: How Your Body Feels What You Don’t Say with Sue Hitzmann

Dr. Mary sits down with Sue Hitzmann—An internationally recognized educator in neurofascial science, manual therapist, exercise physiologist, and a New York Times Best Seller.

They dive into how fascia is more than just “connective tissue”—it's a sensory and structural system that holds the impact of stress, trauma, and unprocessed emotions. 

They also talk about grief: Sue shares what she learned after the loss of her husband, and Dr. Mary opens up about navigating the recent death of her brother. Together, they speak honestly about how they've found ways to keep living—and even experiencing joy—through it all.

In this episode, they discuss:

• The role of fascia in nervous system regulation, movement, and emotional processing
• How emotions like grief, anger, and fear can physically show up in the body
• What “self-care” really means
• The difference between pain and suffering—and how mindset, movement, and awareness shape both
• How to support your clients (and yourself) when emotions surface

Whether you're a healthcare provider, movement professional, or just someone trying to feel more at home in your body, this conversation blends science, story, and soul in a way that might just change how you approach pain, emotions, and healing.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview
00:20 Meet Sue Hitzmann: Her Journey and the MELT Method
01:21 Diving into Fascia: Understanding Its Importance
03:33 Sue's Personal Story: From Pain to Discovery
07:26 The Role of Fascia in Health and Longevity
09:03 Challenges in Medical Understanding of Fascia
12:56 The Nervous System and Its Impact on Health
23:24 Managing Stress and Emotional Health
32:08 The Broken Healthcare System and Insurance Issues
34:27 Advocating for Her Mother’s Care
35:13 Understanding the Healthcare System
35:47 The Reality of Suffering and Grief
36:20 Choosing Resilience Over Suffering
37:56 Sharing Personal Stories About Grief
39:17 Living in the Present Moment
49:11 Managing Stress and the Nervous System
52:31 Embracing Emotions and Healing
01:02:38 The Importance of Self-Care
01:03:38 Conclusion and Contact Information

You can learn more about Sue and her work at: https://meltmethod.com

If you are a health or movement professional and want to stay in touch with future episodes, webinars, courses, events and more. Subscribe to my email list here

I’ll see you in a week!

Episode Transcript

Audio Only - All Particip (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome back to TMI
Talk with Dr.
Mary.
I'm your host, Dr.
Mary.
In today's episode, we're goingto be diving into fascia,
looking at health from a widelens, understanding the nervous
system, emotions, and more.
Before I dive into what we'regoing to go into, I want to
introduce our special guest.

(00:20):
So our guest is Sue Hitzmann.
Sue is a New York timesbestselling author and
internationally recognizededucator, manual therapist, and
exercise physiologist.
She is the owner and developerof the melt method.
And her story is that when nodoctor could explain her pain,

(00:41):
she was just offered pills tohelp her pain.
And in this case, it was herplantar fasciitis.
She dove into researching whatcauses pain to become chronic,
especially in somebody that washealthy and fit.
And she also discovered how thiscompletely changed her life and
the understanding of longevityof health and well being.

(01:02):
She helped herself out of painand has helped others around the
world live a more active,healthy, and resilient life.
What started out as homework forher clients turned into the MELT
method, a simple self carepractice to address the missing
link to living a resilient life.
So in this episode, we dive intoa bunch of different things.
We dive into fascia and how it'sso much more than what we

(01:25):
thought it is and how it's oftenignored in our healthcare system
and in many aspects of healthand how the fascia interacts
with the lymphatic system andour nervous system.
We also jump into how emotionsand stress affect our body and
how stress there's so much onhow to de stress, but the
reality is, is we're going tohave stress in life and it's how

(01:47):
we recover from it.
And in that, we also discuss ourexperiences with grief.
She had lost her husband manyyears ago, and I recently lost
my brother, and in that, how weboth have chose to move through
those emotions and everythingsurrounding grief.
And despite all of the thingsthat happen in life, how we can

(02:10):
develop a mindset that allows usto be resilient to the constant,
ever flowing changes of lifethat can really help us reframe.
the way life happens and how wecan look at it as a beautiful
gift that has been given to usand how we can live our life to
its fullest and allow emotionsto occur and move through life

(02:32):
versus letting it control us.
So without further ado, we'lljump into our episode.
Ready to tackle the topics thatyou've been curious about but
never felt comfortable asking.
With a straightforward, nononsense perspective on life
blended with candid stories anda healthy dose of humor, Dr.
Mary Grinberg cuts through thefluff and addresses the
conversations we all need tohave on TMI talk where no

(02:55):
subject is to taboo our bodies,our minds, and everything in
between.
Now, here's your host, Dr.
Mary.

Audio Only - All Parti (03:05):
welcome, Sue, to the podcast.
Excited to have you on.
Thanks so much.
We're going to talk all thingsfascia.
I'm sure and more.
Yeah, you were one of the OGpeople too.
The whole fascia industry andhow it relates to health and
movement and pain.
And if you wanna dive in andreally kind of explain a little

(03:27):
bit about your story and whatled you to where you're at now.
I mean, mine's probably not auncommon story for most people
who get into healing arts oreven the fascial community.
When I talk to a lot of people,they have a very similar story.
Mine is, I started out when Iwas younger.

(03:48):
Uh, I had a great grandmotherwho was super spry and then All
of a sudden one year she wasthis lady in a, um, a
convalescent home.
And I don't think I reallyrealized what it was to age and
die until that moment.
And looking at all those oldpeople with my very, I was maybe
10 and my, my cousin was aboutfive and these old people

(04:09):
reaching out to her.
And I was like, Don't touch her,whatever that is that they have.
And, uh, my great grandmother,when we were with her, she
kissed me on the cheek and shesaid, never get old.
And when I left there, I said tomy aunt, what happened to great
grandma?
And she said, she just got old.
And I said, well, are you goingto get old?
She said, yeah, I said, am Igoing to get old?
She said, yes.
I said, well, how do you stopthat from happening?

(04:30):
And she said, you don't.
And I thought, well, there'sgotta be a way.
So my introduction to what Iperceived as being a way to
maintain longevity.
We're people like Jack LaLanneand Jane Fonda because I'm a
seventies kid.
And so I kind of bit into thisidea that if you ate right and
you exercise, you were going tolead a healthy, active.
Life.
So, I got into fitness when Iwas very young and my first

(04:52):
legitimate job was as a groupexercise instructor.
And I went on to studycollegiately in exercise science
and then I discoveredneuromuscular therapy and
cranial sacral therapy, visceralmanipulation, and I kind of had
a lot in my toolbox.
I was working on highperformance athletes, getting
them out on the field faster.
Thought I knew a lot in my mid20s as most 20 year olds do.

(05:15):
And then, uh, I woke up one dayand the bottom of my foot hurt
me and I thought I must havestepped on a piece of glass.
And what started out as thisfoot pain, it didn't get better
like a sprained ankle, right?
You know, like when you sprainyour ankle, it's really bad and
then it gets better over time.
Well, this got worse and worseand worse.
And it.
became this body wide ache andfatigue that I couldn't shake.

(05:35):
It affected everything.
It affected my sleep, my mood,my back, my jaw.
I just was a mess.
And like a lot of people, I wentdown the rabbit hole to try to
discover what the problem was.
And when I went to doctors, theyeither told me that it wasn't
unusual or I got diagnosed withplantar fasciitis.
I had one doctor do MRIs andbrain scans because he thought

(05:59):
it might be lupus.
And it was just, I was all overthe place.
I was frustrated.
I'm exhausted and nothing wasreally answering the question.
But the first diagnosis beingplantar fasciitis, I remember
sitting very clearly in myliving room thinking plantar
fasciitis, fasciitis, inflamedfascia.

(06:20):
What is inflamed fascia and, andthere's no exercise to fix it.
Like, how do you fix inflamedfascia?
And what was the luck of thedraw for me was, uh, in the late
nineties, Google became a thing.
So the very first word I typedinto the internet was fascia.
And I discovered this emergingfield of neuroscience and
fascial researchers that wereactually looking at fascia on a

(06:40):
cellular level to try tounderstand not only its
relationship.
to pain, but it's relationshipto longevity and aging.
And I went down this rabbit holeand I just never came back the
same.
And, um, I started implementingthe research and tried to figure
out what was the way I couldtake the science and apply it to

(07:01):
my body.
And that's where I gotintroduced to some of the light
touch therapeutic techniqueslike cranial work and, um,
structural integration, a littleheavier into techniques.
It sort of sent me down thisroad.
to discovery.
And what got me out of pain, Istarted sharing with my clients.

(07:21):
And I went from working on highperformance athletes to just the
general population.
And when 9 11 happened andpeople had emotional trauma and
physical pain, and these lighttouch therapeutic techniques
were working, it really gave mea new understanding of a, aspect
of the body that I really didn'tlearn anything about

(07:43):
collegiately, which is fascia.
And I just always thought offascia as being that passive
packing material that youchucked in the bucket to get to
the good stuff when you weredoing anatomical study.
And I never really thought of itas being relevant.
And now, 20 years later, I'm afounding member of the Fascial
Research Society.
I've written a couple of bookson fascia and the nervous system

(08:06):
and its relationship to that.
I've got thousands ofinstructors worldwide who teach
this method called MELT.
And I'm out trying to explain topeople that there is a aspect of
the body that is Very, um,misunderstood, not learned about
enough.
It's not really talked aboutvery much.
And while it's popular, maybemore now than ever before.

(08:29):
I think that there's still a lotof research that's needed to
uncover all of the roles thatfascia plays in our overall
health and well being.
Oh, I mean, I, I agree.
It was between fascia and thelymphatic system and pelvic
floor dysfunction, those arethings that are just.
Related.
Yeah.

(08:49):
And then on top of it, they'renot talked about in the medical
field.
I mean, it's emerging right nowmore and you're like, Hey, I've
been doing this 20 years.
I've been, you know, I'm sureyou got down about it.
Yes.
Yes.
You're like, you guys listen,listen.
And I think it's been a hugedisservice because if you know,
there's this debate, even in thePT world, like, what are you

(09:10):
doing?
Why are you working on fascia orthis or that?
Do you, we literally did cadaverlab where we cut through fascia
and look, it was thick and youhave to like slowly kind of peel
it apart.
You can't just get straight tothe muscle and it's really
interesting to me that it'sjust, how can we just ignore

(09:32):
this like a massive.
piece of it.
And it's, it's, it's the mostabundant material in the entire
human system.
And it is the least researchedor studied.
And it really, and I know youcall me like a, you know, like a
trailblazer or whatever, but theresearchers and the scientists
that have really, you know, TomFindlay, who took me under his

(09:52):
wing in some ways of his.
of his science.
And every time I had a question,I would pose it to Tom and he
would just come back withresearch and be like, read these
research papers and then getback to me.
And it sent me down this reallyincredible road to understanding
that a lot of the researchthat's actually out there is
either misused or isn't clearenough to make a deep

(10:18):
understanding of Of all of theroles that fascia plays, but
you're right.
I mean, it is emerging more andmore and more people are talking
about it.
The problem is a lot of peopletalk about it and the, and what
they're saying is too big of aleap because they're taking
cellular science and, uh,microscopic research and trying

(10:39):
to spin it in a macro levelview, and there's a gap.
And I feel like I'm one of thosepeople trying to.
Fill the gap to explain how theyconnect because the small stuff
definitely explains the bigstuff like posture, alignment,
movement, et cetera.
So it is a field that I feelvery near and dear, but the
researchers that are out there,Robert Sleip, Tom Finley, who is

(11:02):
now gone, but so many of theseresearchers who are.
really trying to educate theworld so that more people can
live an abundant life.
I think that that's, um, apretty noble thing.
So I'm just more of a messenger.
I'm the messenger.
Don't shoot the messenger.
Well, I find that with just alot of the nervous system work.
Like, I, I like look at some ofthis research.

(11:22):
I'm like, Oh my gosh, some ofthese people have been doing
this for like, Uh, like someresearch has been like many
hundreds of years.
Yeah.
Even looking at certain thingsabout frequencies and how that
affects the body and howtreating with certain different
types of modalities in the, andhelping the nervous system and
the body and understanding howtrauma affects the body.

(11:45):
I'm like, these people have beenshouting this for decades.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And here I am taking on all thisthinking it's life changing, I'm
like, I can't imagine what it'sbeen like to just sit there and
just like watch the world justsuffer unnecessarily without
being able to kind of get itout, you know, and, and those
researchers, they were doingthis before YouTube and social
media and, and all that stuff.

(12:07):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, you can look in, inbooks where, I mean, Vesalius,
this is in the 1500s was lookingat fascia and writing about it.
But I think when technology cameout and when we really started
using microscopes and looking atcells, we got very focused about
what was going on inside thecells.
And we forgot about how cellscommunicate integrin to

(12:29):
integrin.
In the, you know, in the betweenthe cells and then in the
extracellular matrix, where'sthe inter intra extracellular
conversation happening?
And I think that that has been.
You know, both epiphanies on somuch of science to understand
how cells mutate and change andadapt the mitochondria, et

(12:51):
cetera.
Meta, you know, metabolism is ahuge conversation, hormones.
But if we're not looking atfascia and, and really looking
at it on the, on the microscopiclevel, like how Dr.
JC Comberto looks at fascia on acellular level and says, you
know, This is a system that iscommunicating, it's a

(13:13):
communication network, uh, and,and cells rely on a stable
environment to functionefficiently.
So if the environment, just likeour environment, if you're
living in a not so greatenvironment, you're not in great
relationships, you're not happywith your external environment,
how are you going to feel on theinside?
Well, that's kind of every cellin your body is like a mini you

(13:36):
living in an environment that'snot.
It's not, it's not, it's not,uh, stable and it's not, uh,
easy for cells to communicateand cells that don't
communicate.
It's kind of like arelationship.
If you stop communicating withyour partner, the relationship
ends.
And I think that this is why somany people get in a state of
suffering is that theirrelationship with themselves is

(13:58):
broken.
Oh, so much, so much.
And so much of health is, islike you were saying at the
beginning, like diet andexercise and all that stuff.
And people are like, Oh, well,I'm doing all those things.
And well, what's the environmentlike?
Like, are you stressed out fromwork?
Are you in a relationship?
That's just not going well.

(14:18):
Do you feel supported?
You know, and.
It's, it's just crazy to me thatit's 2025.
And I feel like we're, you know,you've, like I said, you've been
talking about it for a longtime.
And like, I just feel like we'rejust now talking about it.
And it was something that I waseven unaware of until I got
sick.
And it was like, Oh, this is alifestyle thing.
This isn't, I can eat glutenfree and dairy free all day.

(14:42):
And like, if I am showing up ina toxic environment, it doesn't
matter.
You know, I feel like we'remissing, we're missing the
point.
You know, we're adding morestress, like, oh, dang it, I ate
gluten.
I shouldn't have, Hey, somepeople can't tolerate gluten.
That's fine.
But it's like, my point is moreof like, we're so focused on
these microscopic things, kindof like what you're describing

(15:03):
is like the cellular level.
It's like, we're looking at it.
So just isolated that, Hey,we're a huge, massive organ,
like, or like we are, we are,are multiple tens of thousands
of hundreds of thousands ofcells.
Right.
And we are directly affected bythe environments we are in.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(15:23):
There's a lot of stuff going onunder our skin, you know, and I
think that people really have abelief sometimes that they're in
control of their bodies.
And I'm like, are you really, isit true?
I don't know, because 98 percentof what is allowing you to live
is functioning on an autonomiclevel.

(15:44):
And it has nothing to do withyour voluntary control or
conscious awareness.
And we take that for granteduntil something goes wrong.
And then here's the big kick, isthat we seek outside of
ourselves a solution for aproblem that's going on inside
of our body that we haven't evenbothered to investigate in the
first place.
So you seek outside of yourselfa solution for something going
on inside you already.

(16:08):
It's like, do you go in and doyou think to yourself, well,
what am I really doing tomaintain my health, my
wellbeing, my resilience, myemotional agility?
What, what am I doing?
And a lot of people will belike, well, I eat gluten free.
I'm like, okay, there's a start.
There's so much more, right?
There's just so many things weneed to learn.

(16:29):
Well, that's what's taughtthough, you know, it's like, I
was unaware of this becauseyou're just like, oh, you go to
your doctor, the doctor'strained, they're supposed to
know, right, and evidence basedmedicine is you, the, the, the
practitioner, and then research,and so we're missing, like, one
of the biggest pieces, it's theperson that lives 24 7 inside
this body, they're, you can getthe information and, and

(16:53):
interpret it yourself, but theissue, I think, is when we go
external right away, Is that,hey, well, sitting with like,
what is it?
What do I think is going on?
And then kind of getting thesesecond, these opinions like,
okay, well, now I go to thespecialist.
Like, what are they saying?
Right.
Okay.
That aligns with what Ioriginally thought.
So that feels good.

(17:14):
There are so many times inmedicine where people are like,
I knew something was off, butthey kept telling me I'm fine.
I'm like, listen to that.
Listen to your body.
Well, and also, even when you goto a specialist, a specialist is
going to.
tell you from their specialistlens what your problem is.
But, and then they're going totell you from their specialist

(17:35):
lens how to fix it.
So if you want a surgery, go seea surgeon, because their answer
is a surgical procedure.
If you want.
medicine, go to a medicalpractitioner, go to your, go to
your general practitioner, andthey're going to give you a
pill.
But if what you want to do isreally uncover a, why you have a

(17:55):
problem, there is thisunderlying issue in fascia that
is.
Not seen on M.
R.
I.
's x rays in your blood tests oranything that plays a
significant role in painbecoming chronic.
And that was what I learned whenI, you know, again, I was fit

(18:16):
and healthy.
I was, you know.
I was as lean as you could be.
I was like 11 percent body fat.
I made the cover of magazines.
I had an international bootcampvideo.
I mean, I'm doing what ishealthy and fit.
I had a pristine diet.
Um, I slept well as far as Iknew, but, um, when my body

(18:37):
started breaking down.
It was, I mean, it was reallyperplexing to me, but it was
also extremely frustratingbecause you almost resented.
It's like, I shouldn't be theperson.
It's like somebody gettingcancer.
They say, why me?
And I'm like, why not you?
Right.
Why, why isn't, why is it?
But maybe what it is is for usto learn something because our,

(19:02):
our bodies, our minds, ourspirit, our souls need to.
Learned this thing so that wecan elevate the frequency of the
whole universe, which is whatthe whole purpose of life is all
about in the first place.
Right?
So fascia in and of itself, Imean, that's kind of what we
were talking about at thebeginning.
I mean, we can go down anyrabbit hole you want, but when I

(19:22):
saw fascia, when I firstunderstood it, I saw it just
like I said, is a packingmaterial.
It was just the stuff outside ofthe good stuff that supported,
protected and stabilized.
And that's what it is.
Fascia supports, protects, andstabilizes everything in your
body.
But it's not just your musclesand your bones.
Fascia, on a microscopic level,just like we said at the

(19:45):
beginning, it stabilizes cells.
It manages the stability of yournerves, your blood vessels.
It supports your lymphaticsystem, your digestive system,
your endocrine system.
I mean, fascia is, in a sense,one gigantic endocrine gland.
So it is part of the endocrinesystem.
And that means that it's part ofyour health.

(20:05):
It's part of your vitality.
It's part of what keeps youfeeling young and feeling
stable.
Uh, so if fascia is notoperating as a stable
environment, you know, again,everything breaks down and then
when things break down, likeyour gut is a bothering you, you
can't digest food anymore,you're exhausted all day.

(20:25):
You're constipated, you'reaggravated, you have depression,
you don't sleep well.
Well, now what you do is youtake a pill, a pill, a pill, a
pill, a pill for all thosethings.
But what we're missing isthere's this root cause of
fascia not acting as a tensioncompression management system.
It loses its efficiency.
And when fascia doesn't managetension and compression, that

(20:49):
means that stress Is damagingthe body and, and not just
physical stress, like I couldtie fascia to everything,
emotional stress, physicalstress, chemical stress,
neurological stress.
If stress is incoming, which isyour life, all incoming
information is stress.
There is a system that helps tostabilize that stress.

(21:10):
And fascia plays a leading roleand, and in one of the two
primary systems that it reallyhelps is your lymphatic system
and your nervous system.
And so when your nervous systemdeclines, or your lymphatic
system declines, you eithersuffer from neurological issues,
meaning sensory motor delay,your muscles become inhibited,
you get out of balance, youdon't feel good on a macroscopic

(21:33):
level, but on a lymphatic level,Now, you're not digesting food,
transporting it, utilizing it,or eliminating toxins and waste
efficiently.
Now, you become a cesspool ofstuck stress, is what I call
that, stuck stress.
And once stress is accumulating,you just need one little blow of
air and you tip over the edge.

(21:54):
And now you have a dis ease, ordisease, you have a problem.
So I really think that it's nota panacea, it's not like the The
one thing is like, if we couldjust understand fascia, like a
hundred percent, we would knowthe answers to everything.
And I don't think that that'strue.
I think that the nervous systemitself plays.

(22:18):
a primary role in our existenceand the autonomic nervous
system, the subset of the entirenervous system.
I try to explain that to people.
There's only one nervous system,but to understand it, we break
it down.
Central nervous system,peripheral somatosensory,
autonomic, sympathetic,parasympathetic, enteric.

(22:38):
Like we go down this rabbit holeof how many nervous systems we
have, but they're all under thatone umbrella.
That system and how it operatesand all of those subsets is
critical to aging well, tofeeling good, to keeping your
mindset positive, and living anabundant life.
Well, it's, yeah, the nervoussystem is the foundation.

(23:00):
It's, it's the communication.
It's how, and so, it's divinginto what you were just saying
before is so much of, It's, itdetermines like the state of our
life.
Like, how are we, why are wechronically dysregulated?
And the thing that's really hardis the environment that we live
in is like, dysregulation, itfeels normal.
So it's like, I'm fine.

(23:21):
I feel okay.
And, and, and it's.
So interesting to be before andafter not like I'm at some
destination because life iscontinually lifing but in that
there is that like I can feelwhen I'm dysregulated now, and
then I know when I'm out and sooftentimes people are constantly

(23:42):
in the state of stress that thenan illness is what is Causes
them to kind of go deeper,right?
And that was something that wasin my case, too.
But it's easy to be angry aboutit.
And, and, and I know it'sincredibly frustrating.
And there was a period of timewhere I was like, man, you know,
I, why did my body fail me?
And what I'm learning is thebody is giving you messages

(24:04):
because it wants you to liveyour fullest life.
And then the spirituality andthe energetics come in, right?
Of like, hey, if we're feelingaligned and where we are.
And a lot of people don't even,uh, like in the medical field,
we don't even talk about energy.
And I'm like, no, I actuallyjust watched this YouTube, um,
video with a, uh, radio or aradiologist talking about like

(24:27):
the science behind energy andEEGs and EKGs.
We are literally using energyright now to study the brain and
the heart.
So if you want modern science,it's there and how your
frequency of how your body isemitting energy.
People can feel it up to likefour feet away from you too.
And so it's not woo, it'sliterally science.

(24:50):
We are literally made of cellsthat communicate and they
communicate through this.
And so if you're dysregulatedconstantly, it's hard to know
what's going on because we'rejust in this, you know, and
it's, it's worsening with.
Social like with a lot of thenews and like both both
political party is just likereally emphasizing and it's like

(25:12):
okay Well, what's the actualtruth like somebody break it
down for me, too And so if wedon't even know that that's
causing this regulation, tooIt's just it can be so many
aspects beyond what we think isgeneric health.
Yeah yeah, I think we also needto realize that you know when I
I was just talking on a podcastabout this that You know, you'll

(25:34):
see in magazines, things thattalk about de stressing or
abolish your stress, eliminatestressors, and really.
That's impossible.
Like, unless you're going todivorce your husbands and wives,
return your children to thehospitals and just bring them
back.
Uh, you know, forget about yourtaxes, stop driving your car,

(25:56):
like move to an island.
And the, you know, thing isyou're going to go ahead and
you're going to do that.
And there's going to be ahurricane.
So, you know, you're not goingto get around it.
So the thing is, our lives arestressed.
Being human is, is.
It's stressful, but we humansare not made to be so
comfortable.
I think when we get toocomfortable in life, that's

(26:18):
where problems tend to ariseWhen you, when you lose the
emotional agility to be able toknow how to manage stress.
That's the big deal is thatpeople forget.
That if, if stress is going tobe a part of life, how you deal
with it is really the mostimportant thing.
And, you know, I mean, we weretalking before we got on that,

(26:40):
you know, my mom broke her femurat the beginning of January.
I broke my foot.
There's all this stuff going onpolitically and energetically in
the world.
You know, everybody's like,yeah, but you just seem to just
kind of go with it.
I said, because I know how tomanage my stress levels.
I know to take time out.
I meditate.
I melt.
I breathe.

(27:01):
I write.
I, I don't get stressed out.
Even my mom said to me, you'reso patient.
And I said, what are we in arush for mom?
We're just here to get well.
Right.
And so I think it becomes amindset.
I think we get stressed out whenwe're not producing enough
money.
We don't have a greatrelationship.
We're lonely.
We're, we're sedentary, whateverit is.

(27:23):
You know, you get injured andyou get frustrated with life,
but I would say like frustrationis anger in a tuxedo.
It's you're saying you're angry.
And.
If you walk around angry all thetime, fascia reacts to your
anger.
Um, you know, when you're madand your shoulders come up and
your body tightens up, that'syour fascia adding more tension

(27:46):
so that it can manage the waythat your body is compressing.
Your, your world's gettingawfully small, right?
So I think that our ability tounderstand how to let go, how to
free ourselves up is I thinkit's missing.
We don't, we don't really knowhow to self care.
Most people are completelyignorant of self care.

(28:06):
They're like, you know what selfcare is?
At the end of the day, I'm goingto have a beer and I'm going to
turn on the television.
I'm going to relax.
Or I'm going to go to the gymand I'm going to take a spin
class.
And I'm like, yeah, but you'vebeen sitting all day and now
you're going to sit on a spinbike in a flex posture.
And you're wondering why yourback hurts you.
It's like, what are you doing?

(28:28):
Right?
So I don't think we sometimessee in ourselves that we are the
cause of it.
You, you said it a minute ago,Mary, you know, like, why is my
body failing me?
And it's like, no, our bodiesdidn't fit.
And I remember feeling that waytoo.
And my foot hurt me.
Why is my body failing me?
I work so hard.
I train so hard, but your bodyis.
You know, it's knocking on thedoor saying, Hey, Sue, I need

(28:49):
your help in here.
Hello.
And we're just not listening tothe messages.
And for anybody's listening, I'mgoing to give you a message that
your body has been giving youfor years, and you've probably
missed it a hundred percent ofthe time.
So fascia, it's a fluidarchitectural matrix that
supports, protects, andstabilizes you.

(29:09):
We've, we've mentioned this.
When you sit for long periods oftime.
And you get up and you feel likeyou've aged 40 years because
your joints don't work as wellwhen you first get up out of a
chair as they did when you satdown.
You're feeling the effects ofthis stiffening or this
dehydration and fascia, the lackof fluid perfusion.
And where we tend to lose it isaround our joints where fascia

(29:32):
is extra durable and supportive.
So that's why if you don't everdo anything about this
stiffness, like if you're wakingup feeling as stiff as a dried
out sponge left out overnight onyour kitchen sink.
Think of fascia like a sponge.
When a sponge is hydrated, youcould compress and pull on it.
You could cause tension to it.
And when you let it go, itbounces back to its original
shape.

(29:52):
But a sponge that's dehydrated,you compress or pull on it.
It stays in that same blackstate.
It doesn't absorb water very.
Efficiently.
And that's the same with ourtissues.
If our tissues are not in asupple, elastic, uh, stable
environment, it, we, it's, wejust collect toxins.
We, we don't move fluid throughthe matrix that slows down our

(30:16):
lymph system that decreases.
excretion that createsconstipation that creates
digestive issues.
And then once our gut is riddledwith inflammation, your brain
doesn't work well, right?
You're not creating serotoninproperly.
Now you're kind of have cloudyhead.
You can't think straight.
You're exhausted all day.
All of these are a root causethat.

(30:38):
originated long before you everhad a problem, and fascia is
playing that role in trying tostabilize you.
And when it, again, when itfails in its ability to
stabilize you emotionally,chemically, neurologically,
psychologically, you feel theeffects, you get a symptom.
But if you become like themedical industry and you focus

(30:58):
on your symptoms all of thetime, You're going to go down a
rabbit hole of medication andI've got clients who are on five
or six meds for a, for a causethat didn't need a medication to
begin with.
So, you know, you can believewhat your doctors say and
doctors are experts in theirsaid field and they just know
what they know, but by no means.
Do most doctors have much of anunderstanding of fascia?

(31:22):
Any new research?
Most of them don't read researchpapers.
They are stuck in theirbureaucratic world of copays and
signing papers and, you know,working with insurance.
They are exhausted.
Trying to do that part of theirjob.
They don't have time to read newresearch.
They spent 10 years in medicalschool and whatever they felt

(31:46):
they needed to know, theylearned it back then.
And their need for CEUs are alot less than you and me.
We have to keep ouraccreditation up.
Doctors can float for quite sometime before they need a lot of
CEUs to get re educated in whatthey do.
So a lot of them are, areworking on very outdated
material and, and, um, that is aproblem in our medical field.

(32:08):
But it's not at the fault ofdoctors.
It's a, it's at the fault ofthe, the way that we run
insurance.
And it exhausts doctors to haveto manage all the insurance.
Oh, a thousand percent.
I mean, like, you know, we stillLike there's like a basis of
understanding that we have totake accountability for and
understand and learn our body.

(32:28):
And then there are certainthings that are outside of it,
right?
Like when I needed to go to anoncologist, like I, I wanted to
go to an, you know, anoncologist for that, right?
But I'm not going to them to belike, what's going on with, with
all these other things, right?
So like to, to know like Thebasis of it, right?
If your nervous system isdysregulated constantly and we
don't know how to manage stress,our body doesn't have the

(32:49):
ability to fight things that itwould normally fight.
And then that's when we see alot of this stuff kind of rise
up.
I do think like in thehealthcare industry, insurance
has really ruined so much of itbecause I know very wonderful
doctors in the industry thatcannot practice the way they
want to, because they are.
filing paperwork.
They are on the phone with theinsurance.

(33:10):
They're trying to justify thesethings.
Meanwhile, there is a wave of,of physicians that are going out
of network or they're figuringout ways to still stay on top of
research and do that.
But that is, that is not thenorm.
Unfortunately, and, and there'sa lot of people kind of stuck in
this environment.
So you're right.
Like they don't have the time todo it.

(33:31):
And so ultimately then thedoctors get shit on, and it's
really the higher up of thewhole industry of, Hey, the
insurance is really at this.
And then everybody's kind of attheir beck and call, but we're
getting to this breaking pointwhere people like we're fucking
done.
Yes.
So.
It's finally like reallyunraveling and people are, when
I started my practice sevenyears ago, people were resistant

(33:51):
to not pay because I don't takeinsurance.
Um, and so it was a bit more ofa little bit more of an uphill
battle.
And now people like I get it.
Cause even when I use it, thenthey get billed even more.
And so it's like this theorythat, Hey, actually my insurance
is going to cover it.
I'm like, are they?
Because I know I get billedlater.
So I actually go up when I do dothose things.
I'm like, what's your cash rate?

(34:12):
I'd rather just pay it and notget a bill like five years later
and deal with it.
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I think you're right.
Insurance has really corrupted.
quality healthcare in everywhich way.
I think that we're, I think it'sbackwards how we do a lot of it.
And, and again, watching what'sgoing on with my 84 year old
mother and, and, and realizingvery quickly, she is lucky that

(34:36):
she has an advocate because.
She would never walk again.
If, if I let them do what theywere doing with her and didn't
pull her out of that nursinghome and get her back on her
feet, she'll never walk again.
And I'm confident that we'll getmy mom walking simply because
we're caring and I don't careabout the insurance or this or

(34:58):
that, that I just want her toget the best quality care and
directly.
Figure out the why this ishappening and then find a
solution for it and not wait fordoctors and insurance to tell me
how to do it.
I'm just going to do it the waythat I know how to do it.
Well that's why I think it's soimportant for people, like
that's why I started thispodcast is to start helping

(35:19):
people understand their bodiesand like interpret what's going
on.
So that way when they do age,right, like say if you don't
have an advocate, but like youare aging, but you know these
things.
Right?
Because there's still a lot ofpeople that have, they're fine
cognitively and physically, butthey don't know the system.
They don't understand how itworks.

(35:39):
And even I'm in healthcare andit still confuses me and people
in healthcare are confused.
And so it's meant, it's meantfor that.
But I wanted to kind of go backto what you were saying before
about like so many things sayinglike, de stress this, de stress
that.
And I feel like it's, yeah, it'smissing the point.
I'm reading a book now called,um, When Things Fall Apart.

(36:01):
Because I just, I really likethis book from what I'm reading
so far and so much of what she'ssaying is she's like, life is
going to keep on going and thereis going to be suffering and
it's going to ebb and flow.
There's no end.
It's how, like what you'resaying, it's how we kind of
react to things.
I think suffering is a choice.
Yeah, we can, we can choose tosuffer or we can take a

(36:24):
different perspective and shiftout of it.
And you know, and I just speakfor myself when my husband died
and the shit hit the fan and youknow, his family's coming after
me and all of these like.
Just so much bullshit thathappened.
I could have sat there andburrowed myself in a hole and
said, I can't get out of bedbecause he's gone.

(36:45):
And this, that, and the otherthing.
And no, I'm going to write aboutit.
I'm going to talk about it.
And when they said, how dareyou, you know, talk about him
and death, that he was anaddict.
And I'm like, but he was.
He was and and you guys aremaking it sound shameful When
you don't listen and you don'tlet a person be who they are

(37:06):
They become in it.
They become not themselves Theythey they are in a state of fear
in suffering.
They drink alcohol They try tosuppress stuff because nobody is
listening or seeing them andyou're doing it just now they
made up a story that made itlook good.
And I mean, if that could enrageanybody and for sure it did me,

(37:28):
but suffering is what you getwhen you don't allow your mind
to express its emotions when youdon't.
Trust your intuition and youdon't talk about things.
You don't communicate and youjust bottle yourself up and you
think that your trauma is yoursand yours alone.

(37:52):
And the reality of it is whenthese things happen, we.
All learn from it when, when hedied and I shared my writing
with people, people chimed inand said, I had a similar
experience.
I can't believe how you dealwith grief.
I've never heard somebody talkabout grief the way that you do
it.
It sounds illuminating more thandecimated, right?

(38:15):
You know, you, you're, you'rebringing a different viewpoint
to it.
And I think that that is.
What we're here to do is to notsuffer.
We're not here to be in samsara.
We're not here to suffer for ourlifetime.
We're here to learn, even in theworst of times, how to rise up
from it and still live a joyfullife.

(38:38):
To find joy even in the hardesttimes.
I think that is I think that'slike something again, nobody's
taught to do.
We're just going to go throughthese stages of grief and we're
going to be bewildered and we'regoing to be angry.
We're going to be all thesethings, but in the end, if you
can find your joy and find yourpeace, I think that pain is less

(39:00):
suffering is less and in life ismore full of meaning.
And I.
I would like to see more peoplerealize that suffering is more
of a choice than it is amindset.
We can, we can change thatsimply by thinking ourselves
differently.
Yeah, I think just adding on tothat is, it's the expectation

(39:23):
that everything is justeventually going to be okay.
And it's like, it can be, butnot in the way that we think and
kind of what you're saying islike, how can I look at this.
So, for instance, my brotherpassing, you know, three weeks
ago, it was devastating.
Right.
But I sat with it.
I'm still moving through it.
I'm not You know, there are daysthat are harder than others.

(39:44):
It's not saying that therearen't these emotional things
that come up.
It's just not staying stuck inthem.
That I think staying stuck atthem and, and then ruminating, I
think that's suffering.
I think what I can do is thentake that and be like, okay,
what can I do with that?
And to your point.
I sat with it and one of myfriends was like, you should
write something about yourbrother and share it.

(40:06):
And I go, Oh my God, like,that's just no, like what?
And then I sat with it and I go,wait, that's literally my whole
brand.
It's being authentic and openand how this affects the body
and health.
And I wrote this thing on, onsocial media.
And I just talked about him andlike who he was and what I'm
feeling, I feel this anger thathe, he had to suffer in a body

(40:30):
that was failing him withmuscular dystrophy, and then I'm
happy that he's not sufferinganymore in that body and now
he's, You know, there's so manydifferent feelings and I posted
it and so many people were like,Oh my God, that was just such a
great tribute to him.
I just, you know, so many greatthings, like so many people were
like, Oh, it was just soheartfelt and you could feel it.

(40:51):
And I had one person who wasvery close to me, which we're
not close anymore.
It was kind of on the outsanyway.
She said to me that I used mybrother's death to promote my
business.
You know, I got that too.
When, when my husband died, itwas like, yeah, you're just
promoting your brand.
And I thought to myself, that islike the most absurd thing I've
ever heard somebody say, andshame on you for being an

(41:13):
unconsciously behaving person.
And that's.
That's the truth.
Because Mary, you said itearlier, you got into PT because
your brother had musculardystrophy.
Stop and think, if he didn't,maybe you had not have changed
so many people's lives.
So these things come to us sothat we can have this human
experience and we can look backon it and realize that, you

(41:35):
know, people like that.
actually exist to realize thatthose negative charges are there
because they are angry peoplewho are unconsciously behaving
and they have no idea how to behappy or to be kind and They
exist out there, but it'sbecause they're unhappy and

(41:57):
that's not my problem.
And that's not your problem.
They don't need to make theirunhappiness our problems, but
they like to, you know, when,when my husband died, some guy
who I didn't even know told mekarma is a bitch and I deserved
it.
Wow.
And I was like, I don't know whoyou are, but actually you're one
of the people why he's deadbecause you couldn't see through

(42:18):
his veil of whatever it is thathe would show people that what
was underlying that was a manwho was just fighting every day
to exist in the first place.
And if anybody saw him for whohe was.
It was me and I loved him for itand I lost, I lost him, but I
learned a great thing because ofit.

(42:38):
So, I think you're right.
I think that the world, andagain, like you're even talking
about that, suffering, stress,all of these things that we
Indoor is to challenge ourresilience, and you only get
resilience when you haveresistance, you can't be resist.
You can't have resiliencewithout resistance, right?

(42:59):
You, you need it.
Otherwise, you're, you'd be likean amoeba just blobbing around
the world and not reallyreacting or engaging with
anyone.
Um, we need stimulation.
We need challenge.
We need, um, Loss, because inloss, we learn what the meaning
of life is.
I think we, we become moreattuned to purpose and, um, and

(43:26):
love.
I think we, we learn to lovemore deeply because we realize
that life is impermanent.
Everything is impermanent.
There's nothing that's sopermanent except death and life.
Right.
You know what I mean?
Like that's.
Um, and I mean, I've had friendswho are paralyzed now and

(43:47):
they're living their best lifebecause of their paralysis,
magical, right?
That they show other people howto, how to live abundantly, even
without being able to walk.
Amazing.
Well, it was just, I remember mybrother Joey, who, um, that just
passed for muscular dystrophyyears ago.
He said, you know, Mary, likemaybe if I wasn't in this

(44:09):
wheelchair, I'd be a hugeasshole.
Like, you know, and honestly, ifthis is the, maybe this is to
teach me that, you know, and hestruggled with his, his journey
and like accepting that, right.
That's a process to come toaccepting something that is
outside of you and slowlydisabling you until you die.
But at the same time, it's like,like what you're saying is so

(44:31):
much of life is.
All of this shit's gonna happen.
People are going to die.
Somebody you know, if it hasn'talready, they're going to die.
Like, it is a fact.
And so, it is a fact.
And so, the thing about life is,it's, it's, Ever changing and if
we can release this feeling oflike stickiness of sticking to

(44:54):
this Mindset of I'm this personor this is this is me and this
is exactly what I do and lifehappens to me It's like no, it's
a flow It's an if we can detachthe way that I think about it is
like if we can kind of Detachany expectations of future and
past and be in the presentRight.

(45:14):
I didn't appreciate this moment.
And like, I remember, um, justbefore my ex father in law had
passed away, him and I were veryclose.
He was like a father to me andthat was pretty devastating.
But I remember knowing that hewas going to pass and just like
being so in the moment when Iwas talking to him, because I
was like, Oh, I'm going to missthese little weird quirks he has
in this story, the way that hetells and these different

(45:35):
things.
And so like, obviously when hedid pass, I still miss him.
But it's like, I savored thosemoments and grief causes you, or
it doesn't cause you, you canchoose to do different things
with it.
But the way I'm choosing to lookat this is like life is, is ever
changing and things are notguaranteed every second.
Is, is, is not a guarantee andif we can pull ourselves into

(46:00):
this moment right now, there'sno depression and there's no
anxiety when you're right inthis moment.
And this is somebody that I'vestruggled with, with both
because of my history with a lotof different things.
And I can choose to go down thisrabbit hole of feeling like a
victim.
Like, Hey, I was physically andemotionally abused most of my
life.
I can, I had cancer.
I lost.
All these different things I've,you know, and yeah, all of that

(46:23):
actually purged me into thisperson that I am today.
And if I sat and I didn't havethose experiences, I'd just be
an amoeba kind of, yeah, that'sit.
Yeah.
You know?
And so I do, I think it'simportant for people to like.
We were just saying expresstheir emotions.
So, and that's going to bevisceral to people, like the
people like that you and I haverun into.

(46:43):
And I had other people say dumbshit too.
And I'm like, Oh, you'reuncomfortable with expression.
Cause you don't know how toexpress.
There it is.
That's it.
You're scaring them.
You scare them because whatyou've done is you've spoken
your truth and you spoke, youspoke from your heart.
And so many of us are So, uh,we're so blocked and you know
the fascial tissue around ourheart is called the pericardium.

(47:04):
It's the heart protector.
And sometimes our heartprotector becomes a throat
protector, a voice protector.
If you're growing up in a familywhere you can't express
yourself, somebody says, stoptalking, stop this, stop that,
it, it really causes us to notexpress our feelings.
And that is why people all of asudden explode with fury, you

(47:26):
know, when like, you know,somebody just.
You know, passes you by in a, ina lane and suddenly you're It's
like, Whoa, you know, butyou're, you're hitting
something.
I hope people are listening tothis is that, you know, in the
past, whatever happens in thepast, we can ruminate on it,
which is very easy to do the, Iwish I shoulda coulda if I had,

(47:47):
right.
All those words.
And instead we reflect on it sothat it's like, you don't live
in the past, you're notanchoring in it.
And you're saying, how can Ilearn from that?
way that I was, the way that Idid it and, and come to this
place today where I can face thetruth and be better today

(48:07):
because of these past, whateverit is.
So you, you don't ruminate, youjust reflect on it.
And then you're not so worriedabout what you're going to do in
the future.
How can I pay my bills?
How can I do that?
It's like, well, what are youdoing?
Right now in the present momentand even with people who have
like they'll come to me withproblem problem problem They're
like this they these people didthis to me and then that

(48:29):
happened in this i'm like, okay,okay Okay, what's your problem
right now?
And they're like, well, I mean,I don't have a problem right
now.
I'm like, oh Well, then stay inthe present moment where we have
no problems.
Why do you keep going into thepast where you have all those
problems that you can't even fixbecause you can't fix the past?
And here in this present moment,we don't have any problems.
We're here together.
Everything's good.

(48:49):
How come you can't be here?
Well, yeah, but because they,I'm like that, that, that, that
you're going into the past againto stay right here.
And then you see them take a bigbreath and it's like a change in
their whole mindset because whenwe live presently, this is where
things can change.
This is the only place wherelife exists is right now.

(49:10):
It's not tomorrow.
It's not last week It's what'shappening in this in this minute
right now And and I think thatthat's hard when you have pain
when you've lost somebodybecause it all just seems so
Catastrophic and I guess thatthat's I think that's the
difference between even how Itry to teach people how to

(49:31):
manage stress Is to realize thatin your autonomic nervous
system, you have these three,these three regulators, stress
repair, and digestion.
So you have the sympatheticparasympathetic and enteric
nervous system.
And that sympathetic andparasympathetic is like a
seesaw.
It should do this.
All day long stress comes in andthen once the stress leaves the

(49:54):
body repairs, right?
My boss comes into my room andthen they leave, right?
So as simple as that is, here'sthe teeter totter.
The problem is, is that from themoment people wake up.
They turn on the television andthey're watching the news and
then they're in their car andthey're trying to get their kids
to work and, or to, to schooland then they've got to go to
work and then it's about payingbills and it's like the cup

(50:15):
runneth over.
And the thing about the nervoussystem is it is anticipating how
you are going to do thingsbecause of how you've done them
before.
But after a while you're justliving in a tip scale.
All the time.
And so your nervous systemthinks that this is as good as
it's going to get.
And what happens is we actuallydamage our, our parasympathetic

(50:37):
potential, our ability to restand repair.
Now you're exhausted all day,but for as exhausted as you are
in the daytime, you can't fallasleep.
Right?
You're not staying asleep,you're getting not a restful
night's sleep, you have no deepsleep in your cycle, your
hormones are dysregulated, yourdigestion stinks, and you just

(50:59):
don't feel good.
And that is a catastrophiceffect that's happening to a lot
of people that increasesoxidative stress, it decreases
your body's energy.
own cellular repair.
We are designed to repair.
But if you stress out the systemthat is supposed to knock you
back into balance and you nevergive it its time to regulate,

(51:21):
you're going to get sick.
You're going to be sick.
And And it comes down to stressmanagement and, and how you
perceive and react to thestressful situations in your
life.
Our reaction is the key thing.
When somebody is being a jerk toyou, you could turn around and
freaking zap them real hard.

(51:43):
Or you could say, I'm sorry,could you say that again?
I, I didn't, I'm not sure Iheard you correctly and make
them say their offense again.
And then, cause I'm not reallysure why you're saying that.
And then all of a sudden you seethem like short circuiting in
front of you because they'rerealizing that they've just been

(52:04):
condescending and rude.
They've said something that'slike, I don't even know why you
said that.
That's just really, I'm going tolet that go, but that's really
weird.
Right.
But I think that these are waysthat we.
I don't know.
Change our way of supporting ourbodies so that our bodies can

(52:24):
then react to the world in apositive way.
I mean, that's really what it'sall about.
Yeah, I think, I mean, it.
Here's the thing too, it's likewe still have to process the
emotions, so it's not like I canjust say, like, for instance,
with the grief that I wasexperiencing, it's not like I
can just say, like, oh, the waythat I've looked at it is this,
okay, like, I miss my brother, Ihave a lot of different feelings

(52:46):
around it, right?
Yeah, why wouldn't you be ingrief?
Yeah.
What's that?
Why wouldn't you be grieving?
It's your brother.
You loved him.
He was your friend.
He was your person.
He was a person in your world.
And no matter what therelationship was, he's a part of
your DNA and losing him.
It's like, why wouldn't you, whywouldn't you be sad?
Why wouldn't you be distraught?
Of course you would.
Yes.

(53:07):
And so it's like, the way thatI'm moving through it is like,
I'm like, Oh my gosh, this issomething just even honoring my
emotions.
Like, Hey, I am feeling sadright now.
Well, letting myself be sad.
Okay.
And then it's like, once youlike let yourself do that, it
like kind of moves through you.
Right.
And I'm like, wait, I feelbetter.
And so it's so much of, I heard,Oh my gosh, I was so annoyed

(53:28):
when I heard this at aconference, I heard, um, uh, a
person say, you should never bein fight or flight.
And I was like, what?
Okay.
It's not about not beingstressed.
It's about coming back out ofit.
That's it.
Rebalancing.
So it's like, yeah, I'm a smallbusiness owner and single income

(53:49):
household.
There's going to be weeks whereI'm working a little bit more
than I need to, but then Ipadded on the evenings like,
Hey, how can I recover?
How can I bring friendships backin or these, these different
things?
But.
I think we're just sodisconnected from emotions and
the human experience becausethat's, I don't know at what

(54:09):
point it's kind of happened thatway.
I think it's, and so I guess mypoint is more of all of this is
that like, yeah, there's goingto be times where you're really
sad and you're moving throughthe emotions and you're
experiencing grief.
And then there's also going tobe joy and happiness and, and
all emotions are fleeting.
They're all fleeting.
That's it.
They change.

(54:29):
Yeah.
I'm not going to feel like thisall the time.
Yeah.
You're freaking angry.
Just wait five minutes.
Just sit down and just breathe.
And calm yourself down, and thenthink through why you're so
angry.
And I think that's the thingthat people don't do, is they
don't pause and really realizethat half of the time, we're
actually angry about somethingbecause it's triggered an old

(54:53):
emotion.
Yeah.
An old something or other,right?
You know, it, you know, likeyou're going into your boss
saying, I need a raise, I needthis and that.
It's like, why are you going inwith fists?
Oh, because I grew up with a dadwho anytime I asked if I could
do something, the answer was no.
Yeah.
And I was being grounded.
So why wouldn't I be in the samereaction to any authority figure
who was a man who came in frontof me?

(55:15):
Once you awaken to that, youhave so much more control over
your life and your emotions.
We're greater than our emotions.
I think we give into ouremotions too hard.
I think we let our emotionscontrol us when we're more than
our emotions.
We, so much.
We, yeah, we have the ability tojust pause and in that moment

(55:38):
when somebody's saying somethingand you're getting angry that
even in your mind, if you justpause and go, wow, this person's
really making me angry.
Why are they making me so angry?
Oh, it's because I'm beingjudged right now.
Well, why would I be mad ifsomebody was judging me?
And then you sit and you thinkabout that.
And now what you are is anobserver in the process of

(55:59):
observation in that which isobserved.
And you separate yourself fromit enough to maintain control.
And that is powerful.
That derails, that derails thepeople that are getting at you.
I mean, like, uh, it's like aJedi mind trick.
It really is.
Uh, and it, and it will, it canreally change you when you want

(56:20):
to have a conversation withsomebody, especially somebody
that you're angry with, is tofirst get your emotions out of
the equation and then have aconversation and, and be a
question asker rather than astatement maker.
I think that that maintainsstress levels better than
anything else that people canlearn how to do.
No, I, I agree.
I think so much of it is.

(56:41):
Yeah.
Questioning those things.
Well, what about this is makingme so angry?
Why, why am I, why is this?
Cause then you give your powerover when you do that.
Right.
And I like to think about this.
The thing that's been superhelpful to me is thinking about
it again, from the energeticlevel, when people are low,
cranky, angry, want to sit intheir shit and they don't want
to express their emotions andit's everybody else's fault.

(57:02):
They're low frequency people.
And then you get people that.
Or higher frequency and it'sthat are, wait, what did you
say?
Can you repeat that?
Or hey, I'm in a, I'm not, youknow, I'm taking the time to
reflect.
I'm looking into this.
I'm not just staying in thisangry state.
I'm actively trying to do betterand be better and just be

(57:23):
happier.
And there's a visceral reactionlike magnets, like the opposite.
You know, when you turn a magnetthe other way, like pushes away,
you.
feel it.
And that helped me so much withthe people pleasing aspect and
like moving through that.
Cause I was, it's still, it'sstill there, but it's like, no,
it doesn't cripple me like itdid before.
Cause I'm like, Oh, this isenergetic.

(57:43):
Cause you are.
We are literally just like,energetic beings passing in the
night and like, just bouncingoff and being like, no, no, we
do not align, you can say, whywould somebody say those things,
you know, I had somebody saylike, you should go home and
apologize to your family.
I'm like, what did I do?
You don't know my family, youknow, and you're just like, I
don't know.

(58:03):
Oh, that's their shit.
Right.
That used to be a reflection.
Then I'd see that before and I'dbe like, oh my god, why does
everybody hate me?
Everybody hates me.
Oh, my family.
Yeah.
They did this to me.
And it's like, you sit in thatenough and you're like, okay,
I'm not special becauseeverybody else is shit too.
How can I, how can I look atgrief as a portal to like my

(58:24):
next experience?
Yeah.
Grow from it.
Make it, you know, like theysay, you know, I think it was
Thich Nhat Hanh who said, uh, alotus flower needs the mud.
It needs the mud.
Without the mud and the sun andthe rain, a lotus flower would
never grow.
So, a lotus flower grows in themud and so do we.
We sometimes have to get stuckin the mud a little bit so that

(58:45):
we push ourselves out and riseup to the sunshine and become
the people that we're supposedto be, you know.
And not letting other peoplestop us because Sometimes people
want to stop other people fromgrowing because it makes them
feel like they're being leftbehind.
And sometimes we say things thatmakes other people reflect about
their own lives that they don'tlike to see in themselves.

(59:07):
And those are things that, youknow, I always say, just don't
take things so personal.
And I think.
our whole frequency will bebetter for it.
And, you know, we are energybodies.
We are, we are spirits occupyingbodies and utilizing minds to
have a human experience.
In my personal opinion, otherpeople will say otherwise, but

(59:27):
if I agree, yeah, I produced mybrain three weeks into my.
On a development to organizemyself so that I can become a
body, you know, but what aphenomenon it is that we even
get to be human beings and existon a planet and smell roses and
walk on grass and hug oneanother and tell people we love

(59:50):
each other.
And I think that.
We should do that more.
I think people hold grudges toolong.
I think we resent too long.
And I think that it hurts usmore than it hurts anything
else.
And realizing that fear and hateare not opposites and they are
opposites, but we can break freeof it.
If we realize that love and hatearen't.

(01:00:13):
aren't the opposites.
It is the fear that slows thingsdown when we're afraid of what
other people say.
We're afraid of what we'redoing.
We fear and we don't realize it.
I think that's what reallymesses life up.
If you act in a state of love,things flow.
And that's, that's why theBeatles were right.
Love is all you need.

(01:00:34):
Yeah.
Well, it's, it's just, it'sexactly that.
And it's like, when you can getinto that state, things just
kind of flow, like things just,things just start happening.
And I'm like, Oh my gosh, Ididn't even understand that this
type of stuff was possible.
You know, then you can get intothe energetics of how you
attract certain things and, youknow, being in that higher
frequency and looking at thosethings.

(01:00:55):
But I will say too, like whensomebody says something hateful
to you or mean, like, think ofit like this.
You know, think of it as alittle child because when
they're reacting in that way,it's an old wound for them that
they have not addressed and it'slikely sometime in childhood or
something years and years ago,and they got stunted in that age
with that wound and like, forinstance, I, if the person that

(01:01:18):
said to me, it's probably, youknow, a five year old self that
was, I just needed some love andI wouldn't be upset if it was a
five year old saying that.
I'd be like, oh, it's a fiveyear old, but we see a grown
human saying that.
And so if we can think of itlike that as like, why is that
person like, you know, a hugeasshole?
Like, oh, oh, fuck.
That's like.

(01:01:39):
That's sad.
Like, and so I think for me,it's so much about looking at it
less of anger and more of like,oh, how sad do you have to be to
be in that state?
Just say that to me when I'm inactive grief, when you grew up,
like you knew my brother orlike, you know, or anybody that
has said something likeridiculous.
And even through my cancertreatment, I was told not to eat

(01:01:59):
sugar.
It's like, I'm going to eat.
sugar.
Like, I'm sorry.
Like, if I want a piece of cakeon my birthday, I'm going to
have a piece of cake.
I didn't eat sugar a bunch.
I didn't get cancer from that.
I wasn't even eating sugar atthe time.
It was the stress that I wasunder because of people like
you, you know, it's like, yeah,not you.
I'm just saying like, no, no,not me.
I don't understand.
I don't think that was me.
I was like, I didn't know youback then, but maybe I did.

(01:02:23):
It's true.
I think everything we're sayingis like, I mean, I, I think that
these are things that mostpeople don't ever think about or
ponder on or talk about.
And, um, I think if we do, weget better relationships and
we'll be better for it.
Yeah.
And then all of this kind ofcircles back to how this affects
the nervous system, whichaffects the fascia, which
affects our bodies and ourhealth.

(01:02:45):
And so it's not a pill.
It's not just, Doing one thing.
It's, it's what truly brings youjoy and what does that even
mean?
And if you don't know, thinkabout what you did when you were
a kid.
Think about the things that you,like, Oh, I want to do that, but
I don't have time for.
What is that?
You know?
And that's kind of where I'm attoo, is like, I'll lose it.

(01:03:06):
I'll get so focused on work orwhatever.
I'm like, Oh shit, I gotta goback.
Like, You know, I'm about tostart up stand up again.
Cause I'm like, I got a bunch ofgrief jokes.
Cause I love that.
I've told, I've had people sayto me, if you lose your day job,
you should become a comedian.
Even my mom's like, you shouldhave been on Saturday night live
when you were a kid.
I was like, yeah, you shouldhave been on Saturday night
live.
That'd have been fun.

(01:03:27):
But no, I now I'm 54 and thattime has passed.
So what can I do now to.
You can still be on SaturdayNight Live.
I can still keep people alive,right?
Yeah, yeah.
Uh, well, so great chatting withyou.
In summary, a lot of what wewere talking about is how fascia
doesn't get the representationthat it needs for how much it

(01:03:48):
does and how it affects theentire body, how stress affects
that, how then that translatesinto expressing our emotions and
moving through them, and howunderstanding that life, there's
gonna be a bunch of stuff thrownat us.
It's how we react to it.
And then, yeah, like, honing itinto all of that will affect our
body and our nervous system andour fascia.

(01:04:08):
And so in that, how can peoplereach you and how can they learn
about your programs?
Yeah.
Uh, so you can, uh, find me on,uh, the, on the internet on melt
method, melt method.
com.
You can find, yeah, you can findme at.
Sue Hitzmann.
com.
Uh, I'm pretty active on socialmedia, uh, through melt method

(01:04:30):
and my Sue Hitzmann pages.
And, um, yeah, I mean, I doretreats and I've got a Greece
retreat coming up and a selfcare immersion coming up here in
Naples, Florida in thesummertime.
I've got a Costa Rica eventcoming up in November.
of 2025.
And we've got thousands of MELTinstructors worldwide who really

(01:04:54):
pass along a very similarmessage of just focusing on
oneself will help everybody elsearound you more than anything
else.
Just like they tell you to puton an oxygen mask before you put
on everybody else's.
So if you're curious aboutengaging in a self care practice
that can really transform yourlife, I would tell you to go to
MELT Method and learn a littlebit about what we do.

(01:05:16):
Um, And, yeah, I mean, just likeyou said it, fascia plays a role
in all aspects of stability.
So learning a little bit moreabout it, especially if you're
not feeling stable on any level,I think it's a good message for
anybody to come and seek me outand learn more.
It pulls you into your body andyou get to focus on that.
And that's, that's a wholeother, you know, way to help

(01:05:39):
heal.
So thank you so much, Sue.
Thank you.
You've been listening to TMItalk with your host, Dr.
Mary Grinberg.
Make sure to subscribe whereveryou get your podcasts.
To learn more about Dr.
Mary, head on over to dr marygrinberg.com and make sure to
follow Dr.
Mary at Dr.
Mary PT on all social channels.

(01:06:01):
To learn more about Dr.
Mary's integrative practice forpain relief in Austin, Texas,
head on over to resilientrx.com.
Thanks for listening.