Category: Podcasts

Yeah,
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>> I’m happy for you. I think it’s super cool that you have
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>> your own your own spot, which
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>> Thank you. Thank you.
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>> We’ll talk about more at the end, but Yeah. Yeah. How do you feel about it? Do
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you feel good?
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>> I feel Man, it feels just to be in control of your own space, to have your
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own energy there. No one else’s energy or issues being associated with you and
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your students and your your business is the best feeling. Yeah. Like
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>> I can’t believe how happy I am just to spend time there. You know, after class,
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my students hang out. you know, it’s tough to get people to leave. Like, it’s
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just a such a good positive spot to be at. And yeah, it’s different when
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you’re, you know, renting other people’s spot. It’s It’s different. It is
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different.
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>> Depends on who you’re renting from. I guess
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>> that’s makes a big difference.
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>> Yes. But it sounds like you got a good spot over there and
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>> it looks cool.
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>> Yeah, it does. We made it look cool.
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>> Is it all red?
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>> It’s all red. The walls are all red. Um, we’re hoping local blood members uh
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gravitate towards us. We
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>> Yes. All the Neighborville Blood. the Neighborville Blood chapter. Uh we
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apologize to the Neighborville [ __ ] chapter who might
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>> find issue with the color choice, but we we are uh not affiliated with any
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officially. Yes. There we go. Thank you for bringing that. Yes.
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>> Only red. Uh it’s all red, right? That the walls are all red and you have like
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>> the walls are red, the mats are black, so there’s some cool contrast there.
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Yeah. I can’t wait.
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>> You did that? Yeah. I’m going to go for it, man.
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>> You did that all with your students, you said?
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>> Me and my students, man. I have one student named Michael who, man, he took
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the lead on everything. He works. He’s like a handyman. He has a small business
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and
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>> he was like without him it would just be a mess. He really took the reign.
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>> It seems like he got it done super fast. Like I was looking Well, I was talking
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to you and then like the next week it was already all painted. I saw on
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Instagram. I was like whoa that was quick.
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>> Every day after training at our old location, him and I would go there and
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just paint for like 3 4 hours. On the weekends
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>> sometimes he would be there for like 10 12 hours. Like he’s the man. Like he did
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so
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>> much. Um, and he didn’t ask for anything. I had to offer, you know,
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stuff to
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>> reimburse him because he’s that good of a person. Like, he just wanted to help
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us build our academy. My students came and volunteered,
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>> you know, they I would buy them food and stuff and it still wasn’t even close to
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enough for how much.
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>> What’ you buy them? What kind of food?
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>> Every day I ordered, man, especially me and Michael, we were Uber eating like
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like pros. Every every night we’d get something different. And for me, I don’t
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usually eat out that much. I try to eat healthy. So, this was a nice excuse for
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me to pick out a little bit. Um,
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>> but yeah, man. My students wanted to come. They were painting. They were
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installing flooring. They changed the lights. Like they You saw what it looked
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like. It looked like a like a classroom maybe something. Yeah. Now it looks like
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>> like a real real gym. I don’t know how else to say it, but it looks like it’s
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professional. It looks clean. It looks like like your sanctuary.
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>> Yes. That’s what we wanted. We wanted it to be unique and represent us. We didn’t
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want it to be like cookie cutter and look like every other place. Like you
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never walk in someplace and like the walls are red and there’s cool like
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>> Yeah.
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>> I don’t know. You don’t see that that often. Um you see it more in the city in
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like cool neighborhoods, right? Where you have more unique businesses. Yes. In
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quotes.
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>> Cool. Chicago neighborhoods. Yeah.
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>> But in Neighborville, not so much, right? Usually they’re following some
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sort of formula or, you know, so we wanted to be a little bit different
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because we’re a different business. You know, we don’t want to look like LA
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Fitness, right? Yeah. We No, knock on LA Fitness to anyone here.
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LA
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>> anyone listening? Yeah. Old LA Fitness crowd watching today.
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>> Are they even still around?
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>> I think so. Yeah, I think so.
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>> I feel like they got bought out by something. I don’t know.
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>> You might be right. I think one of my students works out at LA Fitness. That’s
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the only reason I think there’s one in existence. Yeah, I think there’s one in
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Neapville.
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>> Neighborville. Yeah, we just keep calling out stuff in Neighborville. We
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love Neighborville.
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>> Yes, we do. Absolutely.
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>> Anyways, welcome back to the podcast. I’m Dr. Jerry. Coach Rammy is here and
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the theme for today that I wanted to talk about was mainly
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like overtraining, training too much, which I think is notorious for people
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who train combat sports, right? So, I want to ask you like up front, was
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there ever a time in your training where you just kept training too much and you
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knew you were, but you still kept doing it? You know what I mean?
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>> Yeah.
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>> Just couldn’t stop yourself, you know?
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>> Yeah. Great question. in uh let’s see, was it my
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in my second or uh the training leading up to my second or third pro fight, I
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remember I had a strength and conditioning coach who was just so
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overzealous, man. I remember the week of the fight, we were doing some super
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intense workouts to the point that I remember when I competed, I competed on
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a Saturday. I remember I was very sore when I competed, which is the worst
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thing. You want to be fresh, you want to be eager to
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>> go out there and perform. But I remember being like my calves were sore. You know
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when you’re so sore when you just walk up the stairs? And that’s how I felt
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going into a pro fight. And it’s because this guy had us doing incline sprints,
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you know, a few days all this.
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>> Yeah. What kind of stuff was he having you do? Now I’m curious like give me
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some specifics.
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>> So this was at the beginning where strength and conditioning became more
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prevalent in MMA. So we were doing, you know, all the
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>> at the time trendy exercises, flipping tires, battle ropes, sprinting on an
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incline treadmill. Yep. All of that cable, you know, punching with the
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cable, all the cool looking stuff that was trendy that you’d see in the behind
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the scenes UFC videos.
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>> Um, this guy, I believe, came from a CrossFit background.
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>> Take uh from that what you will. Um, and I think
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>> nothing. We take nothing from
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>> nothing. We have no issues with anyone. Yes. Um, and I think he was in a he was
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a in a weird spot because he didn’t train in combat sports. And I think he
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felt like he had to prove that his side of things was just as tough and intense
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as the combat side of things. So, it’s like, “Oh, you guys think you’re tough?”
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Which, no, I don’t. I never said that. Um, we’ll try this workout and let’s see
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how tough you are. That was kind of Now, looking back, I think that’s what it
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was.
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>> So, again, we’ve talked about people’s insecurities in the past. I think he’s
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projecting his insecurity. For some reason, he’s insecure that he is not a
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combat sports athlete and he wants to show combat sports athletes, listen, I
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am the end all be all. I am very tough. In fact, look at this brutal workout I’m
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going to put you through. Leading up to the fight, the workouts did not taper
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down so that we’d be fresh for the fight. It was still like, let’s go,
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let’s go. You can do never give up, never this, and
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>> I’m fighting for John Cena. Yeah,
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>> never give up.
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>> It’s horrible, man. It’s horrible. And it affected my performance. Thank
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goodness I was still able to uh find a way to win, but it was despite his
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methods, not because of them.
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>> So, you still won the fight?
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>> I still won. And to his credit, aesthetically, like I was very lean. I
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looked like I was in great shape, but
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>> I was still like tired after the first round. You know, it’s it wasn’t very
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functional. I looked like I was in much better shape than I was. Now, looking
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back, the training should have been more functional. I didn’t need to destroy my
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body during strength and conditioning. I was doing enough of that in sparring.
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right now. I needed strength and conditioning that would strengthen my
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body, increase my mobility, my flexibility, my agility, my reflexes.
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Yeah. Yeah. But instead, it was just the hammer. Everything just beating us down,
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>> beating yourself to the ground.
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>> Didn’t know any better, man.
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>> Yeah. And I think a lot of people equate a good workout. So, I’m just speaking
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more like generalities here, like Ramy’s going to talk about obviously more fight
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sports, combat training stuff. Um, I think a lot of people just with exercise
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in general, they feel like they have to be super sweaty after a workout. They
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have to be super sore after a workout. Like all that constitutes a great
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workout.
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>> When in reality, like, you know, if you think about it, just sweating is just a
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cooling mechanism. It’s just your body trying to cool off. Like a sauna, right?
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You’re in a sauna,
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>> you’re sweating like crazy. It’s not making you any stronger, more agile,
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more powerful, more, you know, explosive.
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>> Yeah.
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>> Um, so think about sweating that way. it’s not a a good indicator of a good
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workout. Uh same thing with soreness. Soreness is more so like a your body
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responding to novelty, something new, a new movement, right? That’s when people
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get more sore.
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>> When in reality, if you get more fit, you get less sore. Your body becomes
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more efficient and at repairing itself,
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>> right?
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>> So, I think a lot of times people want to be like, “Well, it wasn’t a good
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workout because I wasn’t like sweating like crazy at the end or I wasn’t super
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sore the next day.” When in reality, if you’re more fit, you’re going to be
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doing less of those things in a way. Also, if you’re always chasing soreness,
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you’re never really chasing mastery in certain movements. You keep changing
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your program. You know what I mean?
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>> Yes.
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>> And you’re never actually mastering like when you’re throwing jabs or something
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like first learning boxing, you throw a zillion jabs. You don’t go to something
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else right away.
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>> You have to master those things first,
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>> right?
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>> Um,
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>> so I think those two things are very important to talk about when talking
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about was it a good workout? You know what I mean? Like, did I sweat a lot?
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Was I super sore? Don’t worry about that so much. And we’ll kind of get into that
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a little bit more as we go. But, um,
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>> where do you think this came from, by the way, in your opinion? This
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mentality,
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>> dude. Yeah. I was going to ask you a similar question cuz I think
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>> they go hand in hand, right? I was going to ask you like, why is that a thing in
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fight training? Like, why do you have to be so like hardcore all the time? Same
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thing with just working out in general. Like,
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>> why do we have to be so hardcore? Like, I was going to ask you, you think it’s a
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ego thing? Yeah.
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>> And you could give me the same question. I think it is a lot of the times, you
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know what I mean? Like, so what do you think it is? And then I’ll kind of give
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you my response, too.
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>> I think as related to combat sports, I think it is a ego thing. Often times,
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I’m surprised. So, for example, at PSC, none of the coaches will be tell the
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class, hey, you guys are going to be real sore tomorrow. Get ready. It’s
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oftentimes the members who will before taking their first class be like, “Yeah,
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you know me, if I’m not sore and, you know, dead after, I don’t feel like I
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got a good work.” Like, that’s what they’re telling us they want. And I’m
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thinking like, I don’t know. That’s not really my objective is to beat you down
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your first class. It’s not my objective at all. In fact, my goal is to build
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you, not to destroy you. Right? But they have this mentality and sometimes
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they’re disappointed. They will tell us, you know, let’s say a technical class,
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they learn techniques, they sparred. Yes. Of, you know, they’re moving, their
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body gets hot, they sweat, of course, but they’re like, “Oh, no, you know, I
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wanted more of they wanted more intensity.” In their mind, intensity
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means like damage to their body, soreness. I don’t
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>> Do you get that a lot with potential clients? get that with mostly I
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unfortunately comes from a lot of men who were athletes before and maybe they
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were trained incorrectly or had those types of coaches
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>> um and they bring that mentality into combat sports not understanding that my
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job is to teach you the techniques of combat sports. That’s my priority,
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>> right?
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>> Not to make you do like a bunch of push-ups and you can go anywhere for
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that. You’re coming hopefully paying us a premium for our expertise, right? You
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want to learn how to throw a knee, how to pivot, how to do arm lock. Anyone
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could tell you, “Hey, do 100 push-ups, run around your building 20 times.”
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Like, I don’t for me, I think that’s a waste of their time and mine to just
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break their body down.
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>> Right. Right.
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>> Yeah.
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>> Like,
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>> have you had that recently with somebody? Like
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>> I have. I have.
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>> What did you tell them? Like, what what’s your conversation look like with
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them when they say those things? I tell them that the doing combat sports is
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going to be challenging for your body, especially if you don’t have a
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background in it. You know, if you do jiu-jitsu and you’re trying to
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somebody’s on top of you, you’re trying to, you know, push them off you, for
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example. It’s going to be tiring. It’s going to be physically challenging, but
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I don’t train in that way that you might be expecting. So, I tell them, I don’t
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want to I want to manage their expectations. I don’t want to lie. I
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don’t want to delude them. Again, I’m not a salesperson. So, I tell them, I’m
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like, “Hey, some of the classes will be challenging. You will get fit by
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practicing martial arts and combat sports, but that is not my goal is for
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you after your first class for you to be on the mat like unable to move and I
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have to peel you up off and that means it was a good training session.
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Sometimes a good training session is, oh, now I know how to throw that jab
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from this position. Now I know how to set up this takedown. That to me is a
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good training session. So
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>> yeah, I try to tell this isn’t that we’re not a boot camp. We’re not like
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this is a combat sports gym where your objective and your goal should be to
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learn combat sports.
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>> Yeah. And let’s I mean again we’re trying to answer the question like where
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does that mentality even come from?
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>> Um yeah it’s I guess maybe just working out
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in general is associated with like being hard and being hardcore all the time. I
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mean, fighting is the, you know, the most hardcore thing you could do that I
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could think of when it comes to like
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>> animalistic instincts or physical um getting physical in some way,
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>> right?
12:50
>> Um
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>> so maybe it’s from that.
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>> I know in wrestling it’s very prevalent. A lot of people come from a wrestling
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background.
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>> That’s where you’ll hear I hear wrestling coaches to this day saying
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overtraining is a myth. There is no such thing. And they’ll cite specific
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examples of people who, you know, perfor like someone like Dan Gable. When you
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read the stories of his training, it’s like he ripped his body to shreds, won a
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gold medal. So people think he won a gold medal because he ripped his body to
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shreds. It’s like he won a gold medal despite tearing his body to pieces,
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right?
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>> Yeah. The mental toughness of course is a huge uh asset in wrestling, but I
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don’t think you need to destroy your body to achieve that mental toughness.
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So, do you tell your students like to scale back a lot? You know what I
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mean? Like if they let’s say a group of them come up to you afterwards like,
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“Hey, that wasn’t a hard workout or something.” Like, do you just tell them
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like, “Hey, let’s Today’s objective was not to just kill you.”
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>> You know what I mean? Like, how do you tell them that?
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>> Yeah, that’s a it’s it’s tough. I luckily my my people my students who
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have been with me for a while, they know what to expect. They know that some
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class, for example, if you do a lot of sparring, you’re going to be pretty
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tired. Sparring is stressful. Therefore, it’s tiring, right? Your heart rate’s
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up, there’s you’re nervous, people are throwing strikes at you, it’s tiring.
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Um, but if you come to a uh technical kickboxing class or even an advanced
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kickboxing class, our goal is again not to tire you out. If that happens through
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the process of you learning the techniques and you enjoy the workout,
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wonderful. But that’s never our goal. I’ve never talked with
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>> our coaches and said, “Oh, today we’re really going to take it to them. We want
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everybody to feel like dead at the end.” We never say that. Mhm.
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>> So, I know some people are looking for that and I guess we’re not the right fit
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for them.
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>> Yes,
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>> that makes complete sense. I think this is I just thought of this right now, but
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like you know, working in physical therapy, people think
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>> physical therapy is just like me massaging them for an hour,
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>> right?
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>> When that could not be further from the truth.
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>> Uh physical therapy is called physical for a reason. You know what I mean? It’s
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exercise prescription for your specific pain or injury, right? You can’t get
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better just laying there doing nothing.
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>> Like I mean, equate it to anything. Like if you have back pain for example
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>> I mean if you do nothing will it go away maybe probably um are you fortifying the
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area your back getting it stronger building capacity so it won’t happen
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again no if you just sit there and do nothing happens there’s no adaptations
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in your body right so I think the flip side of that like in PT with me again
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people think it’s just like I’m going to massage their back it’s going to feel
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good that’s all we do when in reality real physical therapy is
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>> you know people start sweating. We do a lot of core exercises, a lot of hip
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mobility stuff, a lot of thoracic mobility stuff, whatever that person
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needs that I’ve assessed, whatever impairments that I find, you
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know, that’s how we um actually do the treatment plan and it’s a lot of
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exercise and they’re sweating. And then at the end they’re like, “Hey, Jerry,
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why was that? That was like a workout.” I was like, “Yeah, that’s real physical
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therapy,
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>> you know?” And if your physical therapist is not doing that with you,
15:49
please leave cuz they suck.
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>> Um but yes, that’s real PT. Um,
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>> where do people have why do people have that misconception that physical therapy
15:58
is somebody being massaged for like an hour for example? Where does it
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>> Oh, I I mean maybe because it was that in the beginning and research has
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shifted to active treatments. Active meaning the patient is actually moving.
16:11
>> Yeah.
16:11
>> You know what I mean? As opposed to passive treatments meaning the patient
16:14
is just laying on the table and you crack their backs or you massage them or
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you
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>> dry needle them which are fine. And I mean there’s nothing wrong with those
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things if it makes them feel better.
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>> But if you spend the whole session doing that and the person is not moving and
16:27
getting more functional and getting stronger, building capacity,
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>> they’re never going to learn the tools to stay painf free their whole life.
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>> I see.
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>> You know what I mean?
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>> Yes.
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>> And I don’t know why that’s still around. There’s plenty of PT clinics,
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other clinics that just have the person lay there and
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>> do a weird stretchy machine and, you know, do some other bull crap that does
16:48
nothing. M
16:49
>> um yet they still sell it as real physical therapy when it’s not.
16:53
>> I see. I see. Would you say most people in your profession that’s how they
16:58
approach the sessions is through this method that you feel is not?
17:01
>> Yeah. I mean Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think it’s definitely shifted but I think it
17:04
should still be more on the exercise prescription uh part of it. Got it.
17:09
>> Depending on the person mostly I would say more people need more movement than
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laying on a table getting their hands put on them by somebody.
17:17
>> Right. Makes sense. Um, and again like you know coming from corporate
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healthcare, corporate physical therapy, um, a lot of it is
17:26
I’m going to start going on a rant here. I don’t want to.
17:29
>> So I’m trying
17:29
>> We’ll come back to that.
17:30
>> We’ll come back to that at the end. Um, but I wanted to ask you more so about
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like
17:36
>> um the ego stuff, you know, and fighting.
17:40
Um,
17:41
>> do you think that’s a big part of it? like just like guys wanting to be like,
17:46
you know, macho guys and like I have to train it hard or else it wasn’t a good
17:49
workout. Is that like a a root cause of this in a way? You know what I mean?
17:54
>> I think so. I think um you know, every combat sports gym will say they’ll
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advertise and say, you know, we don’t allow egos in here. And of course,
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they’re all liars, right? You go the gyms that say we don’t have ego here are
18:08
the ones where you’re going to find the most ego. Um,
18:11
>> so yeah, it’s a big part of combat sports, unfortunately. And that’s
18:15
something where I was so tired of it that when I started PSSE, I’m like, I
18:21
don’t want to be repeating the same toxic nonsense that I’ve been a part of,
18:26
you know, as a student, as an athlete, as a fighter for decades now. So, I was
18:31
like, okay, in my own little world, we’re going to change this. And I
18:34
noticed
18:35
>> when we go to competitions, our our athletes, we’re very lucky. they do very
18:39
well. But it’s funny cuz we don’t walk around with the same kind of weird like
18:45
alpha male energy. And to me that’s exhausting. Um it’s super performative.
18:51
It comes from as we’ve talked about in the past from extreme insecurity and it
18:55
has nothing to do with a triangle choke or a butterfly sweep or a switch kick.
19:01
your ego and your weird, you know, self-d delusion and
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>> your insecurities have nothing to do with performing techniques correctly and
19:08
making good decisions, which is what leads to a a good fighter. So, yeah, ego
19:12
is a huge pro a huge problem in combat sports and it leads to things like
19:16
overtraining, training through injuries, uh students being led by their coaches,
19:21
and usually, of course, it’s always the coach’s fault, right? Everything’s from
19:24
the top down. You can the students might not know and say, “Hey, I want a good
19:28
workout. I want to be sweating. I want to feel dead tomorrow. It’s the coach
19:31
that should say, “Hey, that’s actually not the good thing that you think it is.
19:35
My job is to train you to be a skilled
19:37
>> uh combat sports athlete.” So, I think this is an issue from the the top down.
19:42
Like most issues, the the problem starts at the top. And
19:46
>> when we push this narrative, even when you see
19:50
>> and come and when you watch the behind the scenes stuff of like a UFC fighter,
19:52
you oh man, he’s the only seven days a week and this that’s nonsense, man. I
19:57
know these people. They’ve not trained seven days a week. They’re not trained
19:59
eight hours a day. They’re they’re overdoing it. They’re they’re
20:03
>> faking it because the story is very exciting. We’re influenced from
20:07
>> everything from Rocky movies to this where it’s like you always train
20:10
non-stop. It’s just not true, man. Your body can
20:14
only, as you know better than anyone, your body can only handle so much,
20:17
right? You have to be smart with that output. Y
20:20
>> when you overdo it, at a certain point, there’s definitely diminishing returns.
20:24
I’d rather somebody if you’re a skilled fighter, just my opinion, I’d rather you
20:29
be slightly undertrained than slightly overtrained going into a competition.
20:34
That’s just me in my I could be wrong. Some people will be. But if you have the
20:38
skill, you have the aerobic base, you have the experience,
20:41
>> I’d rather you just go in there and be efficient, use technique, be smart,
20:44
breathe, be tactical, than to be overtrained going there with a weakened,
20:49
depleted body,
20:50
>> sore,
20:51
>> sore, cutting too much weight. Like we see that that it doesn’t help. Um we see
20:56
fighters in the tail end of their career drop like another weight class down
21:00
thinking this is going to be it for and now they’re getting knocked out cuz
21:03
they’re dehydrated and their brain’s getting rattled.
21:07
>> So it doesn’t help anyone. It’s um it’s it’s it’s negative. It’s negative to
21:11
have this mentality that we need to harm ourselves to become stronger.
21:15
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21:58
>> I think the a very old saying, but I think it’s still a good one, is the
22:02
whole like stimulate, don’t annihilate
22:04
>> uh saying.
22:05
>> I haven’t heard that. It’s new to me.
22:06
>> Um, it’s definitely again like exhaustion training, if you want to call
22:11
it that. You could apply it to any sport, you know what I mean? Not just
22:13
fighting. Um, I I work with people that, you know, Olympic weightlifterss, um,
22:20
people training for the high rocks. Everybody loves the high rocks nowadays.
22:23
>> Well, I hear about I don’t know what stuff is. I’ve heard I think I have a
22:26
student who has done it, too. Yeah. I don’t know what it is, though.
22:28
>> People getting injured left and right from the high rocks from pickle ball.
22:32
Um, but
22:33
>> high rocks is just like a competition, a bunch of different lifts and stuff and
22:36
like Yeah. Big fitness competition.
22:39
>> Got it. Got it. Um,
22:40
>> but like you know exhaustion training for those things like needing or having
22:45
to think you need to train super hard all the time.
22:47
>> You’re just annihilating yourself and you’re just digging a recovery hole that
22:51
you can’t get out of or you can but it takes a longer time than you think it
22:54
does,
22:55
>> right?
22:55
>> Um,
22:56
>> your body needs
22:58
>> to have stress put on it, right, in training. That’s what training and
23:01
exercise is. It’s stress, right?
23:03
>> But you need just enough to recover from efficiently and not too much to where,
23:07
like I said, you’re digging yourself into a hole. Yeah.
23:09
>> And then again, you feel like crap and then your training suffers and you’re
23:13
think, why is this happening to me? Well, cuz your training is not well
23:16
built. It’s not well progressed. It’s not planned out accordingly by a good
23:19
coach, a good trainer.
23:21
>> Um, so
23:23
>> yeah, I mean, I see it all the time still because I mean, the people I work
23:26
with now, they’re more so like higher level athletes. They’re active people.
23:29
They want to compete in a high rocks. They want to do a a weightlifting
23:32
competition. They want to do
23:34
>> jiu-jitsu competition. And you know, they have this
23:38
misconception of I need to be training hard all the time.
23:41
>> Yeah.
23:42
>> And it’s true in every sport, man. Most sports. Um, and again, it’s it’s it’s
23:49
hard to tell where that comes from in a way, but you know, part of my job is
23:54
telling them to, hey, like that’s not smart. And it’s part of your job, too,
23:57
like you said, right?
23:58
>> Um, and people don’t like to hear that sometimes, and they’re like, well, well,
24:02
why not? Like I need to be hardcore all the time. Then they get injured. to have
24:05
these weird aches and pains. I’m like, well, that’s why cuz you’re not
24:08
progressing accordingly.
24:10
>> Yes.
24:10
>> You need to have recovery days. You need to have appropriate rest days and like,
24:14
you know, D lo weeks, whatever you want to call them.
24:17
>> Um, and it still shocks me that people uh higher level athletes or people that
24:22
um are very fit don’t know this.
24:25
>> Yeah. And I have to kind of rewire their brain a lot when it is someone competing
24:29
in a high rocks or an avid marathon runner that I have who tweaked their
24:33
knee or a jiu-jitsu guy who has back pain forever because he can’t stop
24:39
training super hard.
24:40
>> Yes.
24:41
>> And is that like and again I talk to people like this all every every time
24:45
and it’s like it doesn’t click in them right away. They’re like what do you
24:48
mean? They’re like their brain blows up. Like do you see that too? like they it
24:52
can’t they can’t compute that for whatever reason
24:54
>> all the time, man. They think that this is just
24:58
>> your destiny as a combat sports athlete is to destroy your body. And that’s why
25:03
you see you don’t see a lot of 50, 60, 70 year olds doing jiu-jitsu. Yeah, they
25:08
you should you should be in theory you should be able to do jiu-jitsu at any
25:12
age, right? Or even boxing, kickboxing. You’ll see rare you’ll see outliers and
25:17
those are people who took care of their body, right? Um, I always tell people,
25:21
in my opinion, it’s not the age, it’s the mileage. Right? You could be 25 and
25:25
have a real, you know, two torn knees, a torn this, torn that, and you could be
25:29
done for. Or you could be 50 with no serious injuries or or physical trauma,
25:33
and you could keep training for another few decades.
25:36
>> Um, I know jiu-jitsu people who, you know, by the time they’re 45, they can’t
25:41
walk up the stairs, their fingers are all messed up, both knees are me, and
25:45
they think it’s normal. I’m like, this is not normal. The way you trained was
25:48
actually,
25:49
>> you know, people are going to make fun of me and say like I’m so The way they
25:52
trained was actually abusive. Literally, like you
25:55
>> were led, misled by irresponsible instructor. Usually they worship. So
26:00
it’s hard to tell them, hey,
26:02
>> your instructor might be a well-intentioned good guy. I’m not
26:05
saying they’re not, but he was wrong. The way you train was wrong, right? You
26:08
know, tearing your body up by the age of 30 or 35 is wrong. That means the
26:13
training was incorrect. means something was yes not
26:16
>> being performed uh or not being done correctly at your academy. Doesn’t mean
26:20
your coach is an evil person, but it means he didn’t know what he was doing
26:23
in terms of training people for longevity. My job isn’t to just let
26:27
people train during their prime so that they compete a few times when they’re
26:31
28.
26:31
>> I want people to train when they’re 50. I want people to train when they’re 60.
26:35
>> Yeah.
26:36
>> It’s depressing when you can’t perform the sport you love. I know people who
26:39
can’t do jiu-jitsu anymore. And you It’s depressing, man. they lose a part of
26:43
themselves.
26:44
>> So, it’s like why should we aim to destroy our body
26:47
>> by the earliest age possible to what? To have some war stories to prove
26:51
something.
26:52
>> You know, most of the time, even if you’re a jiu-jitsu world champion, most
26:55
of the time you’re paying to compete. You’re getting some plastic metal that
26:58
nobody cares about and you’re destroying your your health and your physical
27:02
wellbeing for this.
27:02
>> Isn’t it funny how like I mean that’s exercise, right? Exercise is for
27:06
longevity and feeling good, not beating yourself down. So, they’re kind of doing
27:10
the complete opposite. what they should be doing.
27:13
>> And again, like I told you, it’s hard to rewire somebody’s brain when they’ve
27:16
been,
27:17
>> you know, taught that or that thinking is embedded in them for for years.
27:21
>> And but the funny thing is when it does click in them
27:24
>> and you you know, I kind of get my point across to them, they’re like, “Oh,
27:28
>> I do feel better.”
27:29
>> Yeah.
27:30
>> Oh, you mean doing adding in some prehab work and mobility stuff and like scaling
27:34
back my training a little bit
27:35
>> and like getting better each week? Like, oh, that that actually works. I’m like,
27:39
“Yeah, magic, right? figure. Yeah.
27:41
>> Um, and the funny thing is like those guys that like you say like, you know,
27:44
that do jiu-jitsu and their, you know, their back is all messed up and their
27:49
shoulders all messed up, then they go to PT, they go to a crappy PT and they say,
27:54
“Oh, it doesn’t work.”
27:55
>> Well, because they saw a crappy physical therapist and they just massage them the
27:58
whole time or they did some weird stuff that does nothing.
28:00
>> Yeah.
28:01
>> They did some electrode stuff and red light therapy up there, you know, in
28:05
eyeballs or whatever.
28:06
>> Right. Right. um when they should be, you know, like I said, a lot of it is
28:10
lifestyle changes, you know, checking their programming, uh like I said,
28:14
lifestyle habits, um and active movement, moving and you know, getting
28:18
stronger for their respective sport.
28:21
>> Um but that’s a whole other topic. Again, we’ll come back to that as I keep
28:25
going on my PT rants here. I think a good a good mindset shift for people is
28:29
like
28:30
>> instead of like gauging how depleted you are after a workout, gauge how you
28:36
perform during the workout.
28:38
>> You know what I mean? Like don’t gauge the workout based on how
28:41
>> uh exhausted you feel afterwards. Base it how’s your performance during the
28:45
workout? Did you feel strong? Did you feel fit? Did you feel explosive,
28:49
>> agile? Was your footwork good? Whatever, right? as opposed to like um gauging it
28:54
off how depleted you feel after a workout. Um
28:58
>> and again, it’s it just it’s crazy how people don’t understand these things and
29:02
I have to
29:04
>> and again, you would think they’re they’re more wellversed in exercise. At
29:07
the same time, it’s it’s great. Like I love helping them and kind of doing my
29:10
best to rewire their brain, but um it takes a while, but once you kind of get
29:14
through to them, they’re like, “Oh, this does I do feel better now. My body is
29:18
not fighting me.”
29:19
>> Because it shouldn’t be. Like I said, like exercise supposed to make you feel
29:22
better, give you more energy, not make you feel run down all the time?
29:26
>> I agree, man.
29:27
>> So,
29:28
>> um, yeah. Was there ever a time when your training like you plateaued
29:32
>> and how did you get out of that training like feeling overtrained?
29:36
>> Yeah, I think, you know, for me it was I didn’t know at the time because I
29:41
trained at a very reputable, renowned uh academy for a long time.
29:45
>> Oh, you want to call them out? I’m just kidding.
29:48
>> They already hate me enough. So, I’ll
29:51
>> um
29:53
>> and I thought, you know, I joined this academy maybe when I was around 20 years
29:57
old. So there’s UFC fighters there and people I looked up to
30:01
>> and you know so I thought that because they had successful pros
30:06
>> um that they of course knew what they were doing and to some extent they did
30:09
in terms of teaching skill set they they did
30:12
>> but I remember as fighters would get closer and closer to 30 they’d be done
30:17
for and the coaches would even you know when I’d hear them talking about
30:20
fighters that and they didn’t know that anyone could hear like oh yeah that guy
30:23
he’s 28 he’s almost 30 like he’s going to be done
30:26
>> over the hill
30:26
>> and I’m like Wait a minute, that doesn’t make any sense. Um, and I realized it
30:30
was their training methods. The way that they trained, you are destined to be
30:34
done for by age 30. If you have 10 years of, you know, horrible training, um,
30:39
this was a gym where people would be knocked out regularly during sparring.
30:43
>> Um, it was no big deal. Like sparring was at 100%. You know, two, three times
30:48
a week at 100%. Leaving this environment is the best.
30:53
Whether it’s, you know, a fitness gym, a boot camp, whatever. Leaving this type
30:57
of environment is the number one way to extend your career and have longevity.
31:01
You have to leave
31:02
>> people who believe that this is the right way to train. Even if
31:06
>> yeah, they have a fighter who is this champion or this. Remember, these people
31:09
are doing well despite these training methods, not because of them. And it’s
31:13
hard when you’re in the thick of things to
31:14
>> Oh, yeah.
31:15
>> determine what’s what, right? Especially when you’re
31:18
>> young and you’re, you know, you don’t know. you think this is the way and I’m
31:21
just not tough enough.
31:22
>> And after a while you realize like I’m not gaining anything except a bunch of
31:26
lingering injuries and a bunch of
31:28
>> So you were feeling that.
31:29
>> I was feeling Yeah. Like you know man my el I can barely extend my arm. I can I’m
31:33
like in my you know early to mid20s and you know now I still have elbow pain in
31:38
both elbows from you know submissions being cranked like crazy in in jiu-jitsu
31:43
or MMA practice. And I remember the way people would spar there. It was
31:47
ridiculous. And I feel like it’s important to look at your training
31:51
environment objectively so you make you can make the best decision for yourself.
31:55
And unfortunately a lot of especially in combat sports, your training environment
31:59
becomes
32:00
>> almost like a second family, right? So you really feel like you’re a part of
32:04
this crew and it’s hard because you’re not only losing your academy, but you’re
32:08
losing a social circle.
32:10
>> And most gyms do operate unfortunately like cults where when you leave them
32:14
your persona nonrada, right? like, “Oh, you left like forever.” Yeah, it’s
32:18
>> it’s very weird, but this is very common, actually.
32:22
>> Still Oh, yeah. There are coaches now that I know of that will not allow their
32:26
students to train at other gyms. Allow. How do you tell a grown adult where they
32:30
can go and what they can do? Imagine having that control.
32:34
>> You can’t stop them, but they’re not allowed, right? So, you’re not going to
32:37
physically stop them, but you’ll be kicked out. It’s weird.
32:40
>> Yeah. I would have people visit PSC and they’d be like, “Hey, please don’t take
32:43
any pictures or any video.” Like if my coach sees this, you know, I’m going to
32:47
go
32:47
>> these are like grown men, you know, these are lawyers and engineers and
32:51
accountants, like people with careers and families, and they have to hide from
32:54
their jiu-jitsu coach.
32:56
>> It is very, this is way more prevalent. Uh people don’t talk about it. I don’t
33:00
know why
33:01
>> because I think most jiu-jitsu are like this to some extent. Most combat
33:05
sportsmies are like this to
33:06
>> around Neapville. Should we start
33:08
>> everywhere, man? Neapville and everywhere else. And if people are
33:12
watching and they train, they can at least think of if they have training and
33:15
they’ve trained at several gyms, I guarantee they can think of one gym
33:18
where they’re like, “Oh, yeah. This this definitely fits.” It’s
33:22
>> it’s common, man. Especially martial arts is weird cuz
33:25
>> it comes with that such a power imbalance from instructor and student,
33:29
right?
33:29
>> And that can create a really weird
33:32
>> place and a really weird environment for all types of abuse, right? So that’s why
33:37
it’s prevalent. And that’s why if you pay attention to combat sports, you see
33:40
more and more stories coming about instructors behaving inappropriately
33:44
with members, instructors grooming people, instructors abusing people,
33:48
harassing people. It is normal and um it shouldn’t be. It’s it’s horrible. But
33:54
this is the type of environment that combat sports and martial arts can
33:57
create.
33:58
>> Uh unfortunately, anytime there’s a severe power imbalance, you’re going to
34:01
find
34:01
>> like that weird power dynamic. Yeah.
34:03
>> Yeah. Unfortunately. So, like when you were training at that gym, like how did
34:07
you get out of all those aches and pains that you were having? You just kind of
34:11
stopped going there and you kind of just took a break from it or like what do you
34:14
think helped you the most get out of those many injuries?
34:17
>> I I didn’t. While I was there, I didn’t. I would what I would think is, okay,
34:22
when I’m in there and I’m warmed up, I’ll be okay. And yeah, it was true. I
34:25
was able to get through the sessions once I was warmed up and that injury I
34:29
can’t feel it and I have some adrenaline my body’s warm but then after I’m in the
34:32
car feeling like I got ran over by a truck all over again. So while I was
34:35
training there, I you know, some days I would skip sparring, for example, which
34:40
would which got earned me the ridicule of my coach, right? Who would say that I
34:45
was afraid of sparring or I didn’t want to? I mean, I I found out, you know,
34:50
through through uh reputable sources. And I’m think I’m like, I’ve been here
34:54
for years. I’m a pro fighter. I’ve spar I’ve got gotten knocked down from body
34:58
shots. I’ve gotten liver shots here. I can’t bre I think I’ve proven that I’m
35:02
tough. So, if I don’t want to get my brain rattled three times a week at 100%
35:06
power, mind you, by people who are sometimes 30, 40, 50 pounds bigger than
35:10
me. Yeah. Right. Isn’t that horrible on my end?
35:14
>> Um, so yeah, if you didn’t follow the protocol, you were seen as
35:18
>> somebody who didn’t buy into the program. And that is a threat to a
35:21
program that is running effectively as
35:24
>> a cult of sorts. It wasn’t a cult like we weren’t doing weird, you know,
35:28
ceremonies and stuff, but I think cultish behavior
35:32
>> it would be more interestingly I have better stories to tell. But
35:35
>> for me, cult behavior is when you just blindly follow whatever the leader is
35:39
saying. And in my case, it was show up to sparring no matter what. Show up to
35:42
training no matter what. Do this. The way we do things are right. Don’t train
35:46
anywhere else. Blah blah blah. To me, this is cultish behavior. It’s not a
35:50
normal academy behavior where I’m paying for a service and somebody’s supposed to
35:54
teach me something, right? Imagine you go to learn to play the violin and the
35:57
instructor’s like by the way if you ever go to any other violin teacher we will
36:00
find you and we will you know you’d be like okay yeah exact but at martial arts
36:05
that’s normal this this conversation will really happen as laughable as it is
36:09
right now with you and I but
36:11
>> I’m telling you man this is the norm and that’s why
36:14
>> just like you feel so strongly about your business and it being a response to
36:19
the normal ways of physical therapy I feel the same about PSSE this is a
36:23
>> PSC is here because it’s a response to the
36:27
horrible ways that people are being treated.
36:28
>> Same with art of PT like man like like you just said like
36:33
>> you know working with a client or a patient like it’s a collaboration. It’s
36:36
not like I say do this you do everything I say like if someone tells me something
36:41
>> I take you know inventory of it and we work together as a team. It’s not just
36:45
like
36:46
>> I’m the end all beall like uh you know those cultlike trainers you know what I
36:50
mean? It should be similar. Like if your student comes up to you like, “Hey, like
36:54
whatever.” They say something to you, you’re like, “Okay.” You listen to them
36:56
and you kind of adjust a little bit. You’re not like, “No, that’s the wrong
36:59
way of doing it.” That’s just weird. Like
37:02
>> it is strange, man.
37:03
>> I don’t get how. Yeah. But again, it’s a response. Like
37:06
>> your response to those bad cultish uh training uh gurus or whatever. My
37:11
response to bad PT is like
37:14
>> it’s a collaboration. It’s more um more active um on the patients part. But
37:20
again, it’s a it’s something that we both feel strongly about and yeah,
37:24
that’s why we’re here talking about all this and we’re gonna keep doing it. So,
37:27
>> absolutely.
37:28
>> Um,
37:28
>> so I think a few good things to remember about
37:32
>> knowing that you’re training too hard. Like a few signs that I came up with are
37:36
like
37:36
>> lingering soreness for more than 48 hours.
37:40
>> Okay.
37:40
>> Um, like after two days, it should stop to you should stop being so sore. If
37:44
you’re still sore for like a week, you’re probably training too hard. Uh
37:48
same with uh if your performance starts to drop week to week that means you’re
37:53
doing too much.
37:55
>> Also if motivation starts to drop also a sign you’re doing too much in your
37:59
training whatever training again for you combat sports high rocks training
38:03
crossfit Olympic weightlifting runners my runners are very are notorious for
38:08
running a lot and not stopping.
38:11
>> Like why do I have knee pain? I yeah you I keep running a zillion miles a day. I
38:14
don’t know what to do. Um, but I’m there to help you obviously. Um, you know,
38:19
small nagging aches and pains, like I said, that kind of stack up that you
38:22
you’re kind of ignoring throughout the week or week to week. Yeah.
38:25
>> Like, well, this isn’t going away. Well, you’re doing too much probably. That’s
38:28
why,
38:28
>> right?
38:29
>> Um,
38:30
>> also a big one I feel is or you know, I know is more so like, you
38:36
know, hopefully you warm up right before prior to training. Um, you’d be
38:40
surprised how many people don’t warm up still for anything, any sport, any
38:44
weightlifting activity. Um, runners, yeah,
38:47
>> runners don’t even they just start running.
38:49
>> That’s a good point.
38:50
>> Please warm up. And we’ll talk about that a different podcast, but like
38:53
>> if you’re doing your warmup and you already feel like crap,
38:57
>> you’re probably doing too much before all that. You know what I mean? Your
39:00
performance should be good during the warm-up to prep you for,
39:03
>> right,
39:04
>> uh, your sport.
39:04
>> Yes. Um, but if you’re doing your warm-up and you already just feel like
39:08
dump,
39:09
>> well, that’s a sign you probably been doing too much the past few weeks. So, I
39:12
think those five signs are a good way or a good barometer for people to kind of
39:16
like um think about like, hey, am I doing too much?
39:20
>> Yeah.
39:20
>> So, um, great five things right there that I I came up with. Um but um
39:27
again like I think a big thing is like that culture of exercise and fighting
39:33
like we have to do more.
39:35
>> Yeah.
39:36
>> Um so what do you think the best way is to
39:40
>> I guess rewire someone to not think that. What’s like a give me some
39:45
examples of like I don’t know phrases you use to somebody or how you tell them
39:49
to like not do that as much. Like say someone comes to you in one-on-one and
39:54
you’re like you try to tell them like hey scale it back a bit. How do you how
39:58
does that conversation look?
39:59
>> Yeah that’s a great question. Um I remember for us as a hobby you you know
40:04
GSP’s trainer amazing coach.
40:07
>> He said something interesting years ago. He said if you work out let’s say you
40:12
want to do pull-ups and your maximum is 10 pull-ups. He’s like, “When you do
40:17
that max, you’re going to be sore for so long.” And basically what he was saying
40:22
is somebody who does two or three pull-ups a day over the course of a year
40:26
will do far more pull-ups than the guy who does his max and then takes a week
40:30
to recover.
40:31
>> So I always try to instill in my students that it’s consistency over
40:36
intensity. A lot of people start and they come in and they’re
40:40
>> gung-ho, super intense. Coach, I want to fight. You know, usually anyone who
40:43
comes in saying they want to compete,
40:45
>> first of all, never ends up competing, right? It’s usually the students who
40:48
come in because they want a new hobby or they want to learn something. People
40:51
have more like humble goals at the beginning actually turn out to be the
40:56
most successful competitors. The people that come from day one, yeah, I want to
40:59
be a fighter. It’s, you know, something I’ve always wanted. But
41:02
>> I can’t even think of one example of somebody who came in saying they want to
41:05
be a fighter who ended up competing. Wow.
41:07
>> Yeah. Cuz the idea of fighting is way cooler than the reality, right? getting
41:11
your hand raised. Yeah. Looks think of all the work that gets that goes behind
41:16
that, right?
41:17
>> Um,
41:18
>> so yeah, I I try to always say consistency beats intensity. I’d rather
41:21
you be consistent than intense. I’d rather you come two or three times a
41:25
week for five years than to come seven days a week for three months and then
41:29
fizzle out. Your body’s done. You you hate the sport. You’re not looking
41:32
forward to it anymore.
41:34
>> Um,
41:35
>> and I like what you said that you should feel energized. Because you should feel
41:39
good after a workout. You should you should be like buzzing almost after a
41:43
good training session. You feel like, man, this feels great. I feel good. You
41:46
should feel confident, right?
41:48
>> You shouldn’t feel,
41:49
>> you know, depleted and done for and exhaust. Like, man, how am I I can’t
41:53
even drive home. I remember nights where I’d be sitting in the car, like too
41:56
tired to even start my car and drive home. Like, that’s that’s not good.
41:59
Something went wrong during that during that training session. So,
42:03
>> yeah, I tried to change the way they view their workouts, their training
42:08
sessions. Are you better today than you were one month ago? Are you getting
42:11
better with every class? Are you improving? Would you of today defeat the
42:16
U of three months ago or six months ago? And if the answer is yes, we’re on the
42:19
right track. You know, if you want to compete, yeah, there will be challenging
42:23
training sessions where you’re going to be fatigued and you’re going to be
42:25
pushed because you need to in order to be a competitor.
42:28
>> Um, but we’re not just going to
42:30
>> break your body down every day because you have some weird idea of what a
42:34
training session should look like. Yeah.
42:36
>> You know, I’m they’re coming to us. We are the experts, right?
42:41
>> We’re not going to I don’t really This sounds I don’t care much about like
42:45
feedback or their opinion or blah blah blah. Like I know what I’m doing. You’re
42:49
coming here. I’ve been doing martial arts for 34 years.
42:52
>> I will I will organize this.
42:54
>> Yeah. We want what’s best for them. You know, I’m not telling you this to like
42:57
why would I tell you this to make your training worse. Exactly. It’s not my job
43:01
to That’s just weird. Like why would I do that?
43:03
>> I’m trying to help you as you are trying to help your students. Uh, I think a big
43:07
a big kind of mindset shift too with people recently that I’ve had um is like
43:13
they always tell me like, “Well, I felt good that day, so I did more.”
43:17
>> Like my weightlifterss, my runners, they’re like, “Well, I felt great that
43:21
even though it’s not in their plan that I’ve given them.”
43:24
>> Yeah.
43:24
>> They’re like, “Well, I felt great that day, so I maxed out on my squat or my
43:28
overhead squat.”
43:29
>> And then the next day, they’re like, “Well, I feel like crap again.” I’m
43:31
like, “Well, that wasn’t in the plan. Just because you feel good doesn’t mean
43:35
you should do more. Stick to the plan.
43:37
>> Stick to being smart about your training.
43:39
>> And again, just be just because you feel great doesn’t mean you should be doing a
43:43
zillion more squats or a zillion more miles on the run, a zillion more
43:46
pull-ups, like you said,
43:48
>> a zillion more sparring sessions.
43:50
>> Right. Right.
43:51
>> Save that for later. Save that for your competition.
43:54
>> And again, that’s a big u mindset shift for people. And again, you can kind of
43:59
see that in in their heads when I tell them that. They’re like, “Wait, that’s
44:02
right.” but I don’t want to listen.
44:04
>> You know what I mean? But eventually they get it. And again, we want what’s
44:07
best for our clients. You know, we want them to succeed in fighting in getting
44:11
painfree with physical therapy.
44:13
>> Um so we’re not telling you this to like not make you be hardcore. You can still
44:19
be hardcore, you know?
44:20
>> Exactly. Exactly.
44:21
>> Um hardcore and smart.
44:23
>> Yes.
44:23
>> Um
44:24
>> but yeah, man. I mean, again, like you mentioned in the beginning, like overt
44:28
training is very hard to get to. Um, so I agree in that way, but the people I
44:33
work with, they’re such go-getters and um, they’re already like very good
44:37
athletes. So, I have to kind of tell them to kind of chill a bit,
44:40
>> add in some of this rehab stuff we’re doing, exercises, prehab stuff,
44:44
>> and then we’ll come back to that stuff. And again, in the beginning, it’s tough.
44:47
It’s a tough conversation,
44:49
>> but again, in the end, it they’ll feel better in the long run, and their
44:53
longevity will it’ll last.
44:57
>> That’s so true.
44:58
>> Their their bodies will last longer. um they’ll feel better, they’ll be more
45:02
energized. Um and again, that’s what exercise and training, any type of
45:06
training is for in reality is to to feel better, be more confident,
45:10
>> body and mind, all that stuff. Um but yeah, man.
45:15
>> No, you’re I like what you said. And I I also I want to clarify something I said
45:19
earlier. I said like, oh, like you know, for me feedback isn’t important. I
45:23
shouldn’t say feedback is important. What I should say is this that people
45:25
come to you or come to me because they are looking for expertise. Imagine if
45:30
people came in to you and you were like, “Hey, well, what do you think we should
45:33
do today?” They’d be like, “Where? Why did I come here?” Right? Some people
45:36
come to me and they’re like, “Hey, I want this.” And I’m like, it’s like,
45:39
“Cool. I understand that. That’s but
45:41
>> we have to we’re going to do things a certain way that I believe based on my
45:45
experience is the best thing that I could provide for you.”
45:48
>> So, it’s not like, “Oh, I ignore feedback because I’m a you know, I know
45:51
it all blah blah blah.” But when somebody comes in, it’s more likely that
45:55
I have a little bit more experience than them and it’s my responsibility to use
45:59
that experience to make sure they’re safe, that they progress, that they
46:03
learn new things. So that’s why I remember sometimes I’ll have coaches
46:06
that are new. They really will consider feedback too much. Student will come in,
46:11
hey coach, I want to do this today. And they’ll be like, okay, you got it. You
46:14
know, they want to and it comes from a good place. They want to make them
46:16
happy.
46:17
>> And I’ll tell them like, listen, yeah, some people, hey coach, can we work a
46:20
spinning back gentle balance? It’s okay. But hey, coach, today I want to be, you
46:24
know, I want to do 20 rounds of sparring. No, you don’t say, “Yeah, you
46:27
got it. Whatever you want.”
46:29
>> You are the expert. You are there to lead them, right? They don’t know
46:33
sometimes what they want. They think they want this, this, and that. They
46:36
really don’t. They might say they want to spar 20 rounds. Have them spar 20
46:39
rounds. They’re going to be going to the emergency room, right? So, you can’t
46:43
just listen to what people want. You have to be
46:46
>> confident enough to know that you have their best interest in mind, right? So,
46:50
>> and we do have the best intentions for people. Absolutely. Um, and we get that
46:52
a lot. I mean, I get that a lot. People, you know, they have this idea of, you
46:56
know, their their rehab. They know how to do this. They know how to rehab their
46:59
knee. Like, well, I saw on, you know, or chat GBT tell me this or like YouTube,
47:03
this YouTube guy told me this. I’m like, that’s great, but at the same time,
47:07
like, they didn’t actually assess you. And
47:09
>> that’s my job is to assess you first and see if
47:12
>> some of this stuff may or may not work.
47:14
>> Yeah.
47:14
>> Um, at the same time, again, the full assessment is key here. That’s why it’s
47:18
individualized. Like that’s how we are hands-on with our clients. You know what
47:22
I mean? Is like
47:23
>> just like you know well I have back pain chat GBT tell me what to do
47:27
>> right
47:28
>> and that’s when again people have this rigid thinking of like well this is my
47:32
pain
47:33
>> this is what I have to do
47:35
>> and you again I take that into account here and there because they they know
47:38
their pain they’ve had it for if it’s chronic pain they’ve had it for a long
47:41
time
47:42
>> so I can’t dismiss what they say. At the same time we have to input our expertise
47:46
that we’ve been doing for for years now.
47:48
>> Absolutely. Um, so, uh, but it’s fun, you know, I love helping people. Um,
47:54
it’s it’s definitely something that there’s an art to um, as you know, a
47:59
common theme with my stuff is art of everything. Art of PT, art of wellness.
48:04
>> Um, but again, that’s what that’s what comes with being individual with people
48:09
or having an individualized plan for them like you do with your students. I
48:13
do with their physical therapy plans. And again, I think people appreciate or
48:16
I hope they appreciate that personal touch of us receiving their feedback and
48:20
then giving our input and then in the end it’s a gentle balance of we’re
48:23
working together to make them a better fighter
48:26
>> or overcome their back pain.
48:28
>> Yeah.
48:28
>> Stuff like that.
48:30
>> Um so I think you have a big announcement here. I’m going to put you
48:34
on the spot right now.
48:37
>> But um yeah, you got a new space, a new spot in Neighborville. Yes.
48:40
>> That looks super cool.
48:42
>> Yes. Thank you, man. And it’s the official spot for PSSE now, right?
48:46
>> Yes, we do. After uh 10 years of operating out of other people’s
48:52
>> um spaces, we finally have our first storefront um in Neapville. I don’t know
48:57
how they let us in, but they did. And uh so yeah, we’re just so I saw it, too.
49:03
>> Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It was almost uh Dr. Derry spot.
49:06
>> We were working together on
49:07
>> That’s right. So yeah, we’re so excited.
49:09
>> We’ll still tag team it a little bit. Exactly. make some YouTube videos there
49:12
or something.
49:13
>> Yeah. Oh, that would be great. I would love that actually. It would look cool
49:15
for your for your content. I think that’d be awesome.
49:17
>> For both of our content, not just me.
49:19
>> Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I know. I got to get
49:22
better at that.
49:22
>> Post it on me. Yeah. Whatever.
49:24
>> Um but yeah, we’re so excited. Um we have our own Phoenix Sports Empire
49:29
location now. It’s at uh 32 Foxcraftoft, Sweet 108. So, anyone watching this,
49:35
come on down, check us out, and uh I’d love for you to come visit. It’s a
49:39
really cool spot. We made it look unique. We have classes seven days a
49:42
week. We have youth classes, classes in MMA, boxing, kickboxing, and jiu-jitsu.
49:47
So, uh it’s been a ton of fun and uh it’s like a dream come true to have our
49:50
own spot and to have it have our energy and our mentality, our approach to
49:56
combat sports. Um you know me, I’m kind of stubborn. I when how I want to
50:01
operate the business and now I get to fully operate the way that I think is
50:04
best for our members. And so far, we’re all so happy, man. So, we’re
50:08
>> What are your hours? Are they Are you there all the time? All day, every day?
50:12
>> We, you know, we do one-on-one lessons throughout the day, and then we usually
50:15
have group classes in the evening, during the week, and in the afternoon,
50:18
during the weekend. So,
50:20
>> you have the schedule on the
50:21
>> We have the schedule on our website. Yeah. Phoenix Sportsmpire.com.
50:24
>> Great website.
50:24
>> Yes. Please come check us out. And, uh, you could text us 331-481-6441.
50:30
Um, and we’ll get back. If you have any questions or any complaints or any
50:34
insults you want to throw at us, just text that number and we’ll get back to
50:38
you.
50:39
>> Yeah, man. We’re easy to find in Neighborville. We’re everywhere. We have
50:42
our websites. We have I mean, I’ll link it in the YouTube description, man.
50:45
Thank you so much. Your website, all that, which I think I have been doing
50:48
anyway. Hopefully, they have. I think so. I think they should be on there. If
50:51
not, not Instagram. We collaborate on I tag you and stuff all the time. Again,
50:54
we’re easy to find in April. So, like
50:57
>> art of PT, sports and performance PT. Uh, that’s my practice where I help
51:02
active people, athletes around Neapville. We’re, you know, we’re in
51:06
Neapville. We’re deep in it. So, if you guys are in the area, surrounding
51:09
suburbs, too. So, we’re there to help. If you want to learn some martial arts,
51:12
some com some boxing, jiu-jitsu, hit up Ramy. If you have back pain, neck pain,
51:16
shoulder pain,
51:17
>> whatever pain, postsurgical pain,
51:20
>> um, and you’re an active person or you’re an athlete, come check me out.
51:23
Again, I’m easy to find as well. Like, my website’s on here. You can contact me
51:26
through Instagram. Um, I’m on Threads, which I keep telling you to go on and
51:31
never use Right. You’re right.
51:33
>> You know, we gota tag team some of these combos. Um, follow me on there.
51:38
Instagram, like I said, apt drg. My website is www.artofpt.com.
51:46
Uh, what else do I have to plug? Uh, my newsletter, which is free every
51:50
Thursday. Every other Thursday. It’s free. Like I said, just sign up. It’s in
51:55
the description on the YouTube uh channel and in this video. Um it’s all
52:01
things sports medicine, rehab, um busting rehab myths, stuff like that.
52:06
It’s great. You’ll love it. It’s short. It’s not super long. Um I think that’s
52:11
it, man. Anything else you want to plug? Should we plug?
52:14
>> Uh I want to thank all my students and coaches who helped us get the new space
52:19
ready. Man, they were amazing. I am the least handy person on earth. I cannot
52:24
even like
52:25
>> hang up a picture, right? So, without my students, um, we wouldn’t have the So, I
52:30
want to I mentioned Michael who was at the forefront of everything, but
52:34
Michael, uh, Lisa for helping
52:36
>> cut mats so that they fit our space. Like, this is something I have no Yeah,
52:41
she’s brilliant. Lisa, Michael, um, Sophie for helping with painting. Coach
52:46
Brooks for helping with painting. Shout out to them.
52:48
>> Uh, Aaron for helping with painting. Danny, uh, Angel, uh, I hope I’m not
52:53
forgetting anyone. Pedro, uh, thank you to for everybody who came down to help
52:57
us get the new gym, um, ready. Emmer, for Coach Enrique, Coach Haimey, thank
53:03
you guys for everything you do for PSC. Um, I wouldn’t be here without our
53:09
members and our coaches. We’re just so lucky, so fortunate. So, thank you to
53:13
everybody. Thank you to all of our members, too, because
53:16
>> you are the only reason we can have our own space. So, thank you so much for
53:19
helping me, you know, make my my dream a reality. I’m I’m I’m grateful. I really
53:24
appreciate it.
53:24
>> That’s awesome, isn’t it? Isn’t it fun building this stuff?
53:26
>> Yes. Oh, and Asha for helping me run the business, which I have no idea how to
53:30
do. So, thank goodness she’s there. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Right, for helping
53:35
me run the business. Yeah. Thank you so much,
53:36
>> Awesome, dude. I I love that you have your own space. I’m super happy for you.
53:39
And again, I’ll be there uh whenever,
53:41
>> but we got to record some content there. We’ll do something.
53:44
>> I’d love to.
53:44
>> And we’ll get Brian involved back there.
53:46
>> Oh, that’d be awesome, man. That’d be awesome. But yeah, uh that’s it. We’ll
53:50
talk to you guys next time. Peace.

Welcome To Patty’s Place

SPEAKER_01

0:09

Welcome to Patty's Place, a place where we will talk about grief, dementia, and caregiving. I named this podcast in honor of my mom, Pat, who passed away from dementia about two years ago. So I want this to be a place where everyone knows they're not alone and they can share all their feelings with all of all of these issues that go on. So please grab a cup of tea, a cup of coffee, or if you're having a really bad day, your glass of wine, and let's get talking today. So today our guest is Kelly Edmondson. She is the founder and CEO of timelypresence.com. You're also, she's also a former trauma nurse who has put her compassion into actions with timely presence. Welcome, Kelly, to Patty's place.

SPEAKER_00

0:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

0:57

So tell me how did Timely Presence come about?

Why Grief Starts After Goodbye

SPEAKER_00

1:01

Yes. So as you referenced, I have spent my career, I've been a nurse for 25 years. I started out in trauma ICU and in emergency departments, and very quickly was introduced to tough moments, difficult conversations in death. My maiden name is Thomas, and I kind of developed a knack for supporting people at end of life. And so they nicknamed me Trauma Thomas. And it kind of became what I did. I thought I was really quite gifted at that work. Over time I became a leader, a healthcare leader. And one of the things that you learn in leadership is that there's a lot of counseling you do in that, right? Your employees, your patients, their families. People are grieving all over. And so that work expanded even further. But in 2023, um I um lost my oldest son. He had epilepsy and um had a seizure in his sleep and aspirated. And so despite 20 years of caring for people in their most vulnerable moments, I learned that I really didn't understand grief at all. And so I really set out on a journey to better understand the process, um, what I was going through, what the people I had cared for and will care for go through. Um, I became a certified grief counselor, and I have really leaned into the work. And so timely presence is a result of 25 years of nursing experience, um becoming a grief counselor, and then my experiences as a bereaved mother.

SPEAKER_01

2:58

So let's talk a little bit about the website. So what if somebody goes to the website, which is uh it's thetimelypresence.com, correct? What will they find out there?

SPEAKER_00

3:10

Yeah. So what what I learned is that um grief doesn't end with the funeral.

SPEAKER_01

3:16

Very true. Very, very true.

SPEAKER_00

3:18

Right? In fact, in fact, much of the process begins there.

SPEAKER_01

3:22

That's exactly how I felt. Somebody asked me that like the day after my mom's service, and they were like, How are you? And I go, I feel like it's all just beginning now. Once all that's over. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

3:33

Because you're so busy, right? There's so much planning, there's so much work, and then it is um, what do I do with the rest of my life? Exactly. You cared for your mom, you were very intimately involved, and now you have all this time. Yes. Well, I experienced the same as a bereaved mother, and so what we built really leans into that space. We show up after the funeral through the first anniversary of death. Okay, and we bring heirloom quality memorial gifts on all the milestone events. So you lost your mother, you understand this. The for her first birthday.

SPEAKER_01

4:17

Well, the funny story with that is her very first birthday was the day of her service. Oh, because she she died 10 days before her birthday, and it just worked out that way. So we ended up having a cake and everything for her. So it was really technically her second birthday where I was like, Oh, okay, what do I do with this?

SPEAKER_00

4:39

That's right. That's right. Um, and so you know, we show up on that day, and um we show up on Mother's Day. Yes. We show up on during the holiday season, right? Whatever holiday you celebrate, it's different without someone that you love.

SPEAKER_01

4:59

It is. Um Mother's Day is is um it is difficult. And but I I laugh in a sense because my mom used to always tell me my whole life, uh, first she would say she didn't care because her mom passed away when she was in her early 30s. So she was like, she didn't care. And then she used to tell me, I should be nice to her all year long, not just on Mother's Day. And then she would say, and you are, so you know, I mean, I always got her a gift and we always ate whatever she wanted, but then she should be like, Well, she should be nice to me all year long. I'm like, okay. Noted, noted, right? But I I understand now what she meant when she said that you know her mom wasn't here anymore, and it is just different, you know. It's different. It it is, you know, when you see all the commercials and all that stuff, it's just there's just something missing. Same thing with birthdays or Christmas or all the different holidays with it. So how so you do this? I noticed you said on the website, and there were people don't know what to say to somebody who's grieving, you know, and they're like, if you need something, let me know. And people would say that to me, and I'd be like, I don't know what I need.

SPEAKER_00

6:15

Yeah, yeah. I I I mean if you're asking me what I need what I want, I want my mom back, right? Right, yeah. Um, and and I can't do that. And so um, it is, it's very uncomfortable. You know that we are not a society that's comfortable with facing mortality, with with bringing it up. People don't know, they know it's Mother's Day. People don't even think, oh, this Mother's Day is different for Lisa Pads gone, it's different. They they don't even think that, not because they're not caring, but right because life goes on.

Dates, Collections, And Automatic Support

SPEAKER_01

6:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it does. And uh, and and I noticed too, like people will do it the first, like the the first Mother's Day. Well, the first Mother's Day I was actually in Ireland, which that helped a lot. But everybody everybody texted me that day, but then sometimes it's like like last year, then it was like, okay, how do I feel? Like I just didn't really even acknowledge it because that's just how I could deal with it um with it. But I saw so you have different collections then on here that people can do. So do you like does can somebody like put in those dates that are important for it?

SPEAKER_00

7:28

So the this is what we do. We we we've we've started out with what I'll say um the most common relationships. So we have one for parents and children, right? We have one for spouses and significant others. Okay. Um, we have a general one for friends and family, and then we did one for what I call kind of the silent grievers, um, women that have a miscarriage or a still murder. Yeah, it's such a vulnerable place because nobody remembers a child they never met.

SPEAKER_01

8:02

Very true.

SPEAKER_00

8:03

That is very true. Yeah. And so we've created a package for them. But but throughout our process, as a gift giver, is trying to figure out how do I support this person I care for? How do I give ongoing support? Um, we collect a few pieces of information. You tell us the relationship they had to the departed, and then we ask for a couple of dates, and then the gifts just automatically come. There's nothing else for you to do. We send you an email that says, hey, just remember Lisa's mom's birthday is next week. The wind chime is on its way. Um, and Lisa gets a note from you. Um, and uh a wind chime with just um a note about memory, staying alive. People love the wind chime, it's interactive. Uh, it feels like someone's talking to you. And we do this all year long on all those events. The gift will arrive that just says, You're not alone. We're still thinking of you, and you know, your mom's your mom mattered.

SPEAKER_01

9:06

Um I I did see the wind chime on there, and then you have some other like they're very beautiful gifts. They're are you said they're handmade, like there's a a memory box and like a crystal cube, is it with the person's picture?

SPEAKER_00

9:21

Yeah, you know, we were so thoughtful on on these gifts. So I I actually unfortunately people die every day.

SPEAKER_01

9:31

Yes, that's very true.

Memorial Gifts That Don’t Feel Sad

SPEAKER_00

9:33

So after my son, after my son passed, and this idea came to me, I just began um thinking about the gifts that I like the m the best, but I began buying gifts for people and seeing how they responded to them, what resonated, what was super impactful. And so we've tried to build gifts that aren't sad, right? They're they're not, you don't look at them and think, oh, this is, you know, a sad thing. But the the memory box, I'm so glad you brought that up. It's the first gift you receive. Okay. It's an engraved memory box. And we did it because after the funeral, you have so many things. There's an obituary. Yeah, there's photos, there's there's there may be a flower or something from the service. Where do you put them?

SPEAKER_01

10:27

I still have some of those flowers that I dried out. I I I had I took some of them. There was a convent close by, and they took the petals and they made them into different like jewelry or bookmarks and stuff like that. So I got a lot of those made, you know, not just for myself, but for family. But I still have other dried flowers and I'm like, I want to do something with this, but I don't know what to do with it.

SPEAKER_00

10:50

And people don't know what people have told me they have them in cardboard boxes, shoe boxes, they're just all around. And so I wanted to make something that was beautiful and um personalized where you could just collect those things until you figured out what's next, or if there's a what next. Sometimes you just go through. I have cards in mind, right? So I may look through and and read a note. Um, my son had written a song for me, and I actually transcribed it, and I just open it and read the song lyrics sometimes. So it's just a place to center around your loved one.

SPEAKER_01

11:30

Yeah, because I do. I still have like uh the sign-in book and and and cards, and I still have the little um I don't know what the actual word is for it, but the little memorial cards you get, sometimes it's services. So I have those. Yeah, to put them in something like that memory box or anything else would is nice for that. Because yeah, you don't know what to do with it. You don't want to throw it out, but you don't know where to put it. That's right. You're like, okay, yeah. For that. So you get the memory box first with the one collection, and then um then you can get like the wind chimes and the other, like the they look like they're crystal for that.

SPEAKER_00

12:14

Yes. So you get the wind chime for the birthday for the holiday season. We tried to think of I wanted something people would use. So I was speaking to someone last week. We don't do an ornament, and she said, I'm so glad you don't do an ornament because I wasn't ready to put up a tree. Right? That's true. For first few years, I wasn't ready for a tree. And my son's birthday is actually Christmas Day.

SPEAKER_01

12:40

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00

12:42

We don't mean it's really tough, and he died on January 3rd, so the whole holiday season's different.

SPEAKER_01

12:50

No, I understand because uh my mom died on January 6th, and and her birthday's January 16th, and her like last week star it was on New Year's Eve. So from that whole the whole holiday, I totally understand. Like it's just different now. It's just different.

SPEAKER_00

13:09

So what we do is we take a trip at Christmas now. We I take some, we had him cremated, so I take some of his ashes with us, and he's traveling the world. That's that's our that's our new um way of doing it. But I didn't want to do an ornament for that reason. So what we do is a beautiful crystal votive candle holder. Okay. And it's engraved, but it's it's really a way to share light, right? And so um we use we give it at Christmas because people like to light candles, or someone at Hanukkah may want candles, you know, it's just what we do at that time of year, but it's beautiful, it can be in your office or anywhere at any time, and it doesn't look like death, right? Um and it it also doesn't look like Christmas, it's just a um a beautiful gift, and then the gift that comes um on the anniversary of death is a um 3D photo keepscape that's engraved in a crystal block, and they are stunning, they're stunning. It looks like your loved one is in the room with you. Um it's everyone's favorite. Um, it's memorable, and it's just a way to keep their, it's a way of saying, may the legacy of your loved one go forward with you.

SPEAKER_01

14:33

And so that's beautiful. I I saw on the well your website too, it says your purpose is where love, loss, and light come together.

SPEAKER_00

14:41

That's right.

Saying The Name Without Awkwardness

SPEAKER_01

14:43

That's right. Cause it is it's lost, but there is still that love, and you you are dark feeling in that dark spot, but you still want some light to come in. It's like finding that balance is so hard uh with it. Uh and I see you have several different, you have like different collections that people can do uh for that. Um depending on what what they feel is right for their loved one or their their friend or that for it. Um with that. But I think it's such a nice thing because yeah, people don't know what to say and they don't know what to do, and then they feel weird about bringing it up, and this way it's like they feel so weird about Yeah, they're like, should I bring it up? Should I not bring it up? You know, and then this way you're supporting your person without, you know, because I think what most people forget about grief is that the griever will if you if you hold that space for them, they'll tell you what they need. But it it's hard for the person on the other side to to to know what to do.

SPEAKER_00

15:49

That's right. Yeah, you know, people say to me, I I don't want to make them remember. And you know, I I I my answer's always the same. I I wish there were a day I could forget my son's dead.

SPEAKER_01

16:07

Right. Right, yeah. Yeah. And I always told everybody, I tell everybody that I find comfort in talking about my mom. That's right. I I do because it it makes me feel you know, I like telling stories about her because sometimes I realize, man, she was kind, she really was funny at times. The stuff that she came out with, you know. And I'm like, and I'm not making it up. She would tell me these things all the time, you know. Um, but I find comfort. Like she's, you know, she's still here uh with it. Um, but it makes the other person more uncomfortable, I think, than the griever.

SPEAKER_00

16:41

That's right. That's that's how they're that's how they live on. They live on in the stories, in the memories, in the laughter, right? That just just like you said, she was funny, or you think that I remember that time she got so mad about this, and it it makes you chuckle thinking about how she got over it quickly, or just you know, yeah. I love to talk of he's my person. I love to hear his name.

SPEAKER_01

17:11

Yeah, yeah, with it. Well, how old was your son? He was 28. Oh, that's young, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

17:20

And um, you know, just really starting to get his groove in life. He had gotten diagnosed with seizures at 18, which is a really tough time to get a chronic disease diagnosis.

SPEAKER_01

17:34

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Grief Brain, Work, And Real Symptoms

SPEAKER_00

17:36

Where you can't drive, you have to take medicine every day. The medicine makes you lethargic, a little confused. So, you know, it took him a few years to work through all that. Um, so he was a little later graduating college, but he was done and working in his career and really um had just bought a house and was just really um doing all the things that he wanted to do. Um, and you know, if there's any peace that comes, he died happy.

SPEAKER_01

18:11

Well that's happy. That's that's a good thing. I mean, not you know, that he was happy at least for that. I uh I also noticed too on your website you have a blog on there and you have a lot of different articles for the griever. Uh I noticed the one, uh I think it's your most recent one about the quiet months after a loss can feel so hard. And it kind of lists all the different things that grief can look like that people don't realize. Like you you're really tired and you have low motivation for that. And I think a lot of times people don't understand that. They can get mad sometimes. Um, or you have trouble focusing and you forget. Like you're like, what'd I come in this room for? You know? Like that's awful, right?

SPEAKER_00

18:57

For me, that was probably the worst thing. Uh right. I've just what I it was very difficult. I had to take time off work because I couldn't, I just couldn't concentrate, right?

SPEAKER_01

19:09

I and I think that that's hard too, because you know, you like you you go back to work because you're like, okay, you want this somewhat of a normal schedule, but yeah, you have a hard time concentrating. And then I think the workplace doesn't know how to handle it either.

SPEAKER_00

19:24

3.5 days. That's the average breathing time.

unknown

19:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

19:28

3.5 days.

SPEAKER_01

19:29

Otherwise, you gotta take you have to take family leave, which is what I had to do with my mom, you know, uh, which was fine, I got it. But yeah, then you come back and you're like, I I I I don't know what's going on. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_00

19:43

And I'm a different me, right? The things that were the most important now may be different.

SPEAKER_01

19:50

Mm-hmm. Yeah, you are a different person. You know, you can't always explain how you're different, but but you are with that. Uh or like you're irritable or you just feel numb, or you just don't you withdraw from plans. You just like, I just don't want to do it, you know, with it.

SPEAKER_00

20:07

And you hope you have people that understand that, right? I'm not anti-social, I'm just grieving. And so I don't want to go to dinner tonight. I uh, you know, count me out.

SPEAKER_01

20:19

Um yeah, it is people just don't always uh completely understand that, or they are like, oh, they should be over it. And it's like you're not over it.

unknown

20:29

That's right.

SPEAKER_00

20:30

That's right.

SPEAKER_01

20:30

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, like I know some people, what do you say to some people might be like, oh, this is kind of morbid to give these types of gifts, you know, because some people might feel really uncomfortable with it.

SPEAKER_00

20:41

You know, what I say is as a society, we have to learn how to care more about one another than around the discomfort that facing something brings us, right? And so if if you care for someone who's grieving, then there's two realities you have to realize. One is you don't understand it, right? Um, every loss is different and every relationship is different. So the the lot the pain you felt, the loss of losing your mom is different than the loss of do losing my son. And so right, it's just different, which is different than the loss of my neighbor losing her husband. Everybody grieves differently. It there is no playbook, so you have to understand that. And number two is it's not about you. So if you care about them, then the goal is to give them what they need to help get through this, and so it's about not, it's a I was gonna say too, and somet a lot of times the griever doesn't know what they need.

SPEAKER_01

21:45

And like I said earlier, like if you can be that safe split safe place for the person, or even be able to say to that person, you know, when they're complaining about what they're feeling, or you know, like, I don't know why I'm tired or whatever, to be able to say it. grief you know to acknowledge that and say and that's okay that it is you know and and you know for me that the first year the sixth of every month was just so difficult you know because you know i it just it was a trigger for me that first you know the first year another month another month yeah it's been three it's right you know um but I I tried to to know that and so some days I looked ahead and I took the day off of work because I knew I didn't know how it was gonna be you know and I thought if I want to cry all day I will you know or do something that's so important Lisa that kind of planning around what I call new rituals creating new rituals um I think is so important I think it's so important yeah because I I I'd be like I don't know and some some months I did cry all day and other months I I was not that I was okay but you know or I did something that reminded me of my mom or something like that uh for it but to be able to say that to people and and and say it's you know and it's okay you know but think about it or you know Mother's Day or you know whatever day it was for me uh also the Fourth of July is a bit of a like trigger for me because it was the last holiday I celebrated with my mom at at my house before she had to go into memory care and she didn't know she was going into memory care. So it was the 4th of July I think it was a Saturday and she wanted we brought her to memory care on that Monday the sixth. So like I it just makes me think of all of that you know for it.

SPEAKER_00

23:56

So I'm like eh I'll see a little fireworks and then I'll just you know yeah tender moments right so how do you plan for that now? So July will be here before we know it. What will you do this year?

Cards, Customization, And Avoiding Harm

SPEAKER_01

24:09

Uh usually what's neat is uh I live in a townhouse and so I have a really nice patio and where my patio is is I can see a lot of different suburbs uh fireworks plus the neighbors uh you know close by in the other subdivisions and so usually myself and my neighbor a couple other neighbors we can sit out on the patio and we just relax and we can watch all the fireworks and then that you know that's always a nice way to celebrate it you know with it um for that nice right so again it's about people supporting you and just being there right so if somebody is interested then in go they can go to your website and then do you help somebody like figure out what would be the best like collection for them or how would they do that?

Pet Loss And The Loud Absence

SPEAKER_00

25:02

Yeah we kind of guide them um just based on relationships. So for friends and and close family there's one for spouses and significant others one for grieving parents and then one for people with pregnancy loss. That's our rec kind just our kind of recommendations. Okay. But as people play around in the site you may find that um the package that's for parents really works for an adult child that's lost a parent right because we celebrate Mother's Day Father's Day or Mother's Day and Father's Day depending so um you know we we try to guide by who the gift recipient is that that's our goal. The holidays have already been planned out so there's no additional work to do there for any kind and the gifts have been a match to them. So there's opportunity to customize cards but if people don't want to do because again people don't know what to say right we have um very um evidence based um cards that go out with every gift that kind of reference the holiday that they're celebrating or the milestone event that they're recognizing that we would hand sign from the gift giver. So we've we've tried to make it very easy for people because in general they just don't know what to do they don't know what to say and we certainly don't want anyone to do or say the wrong thing because there's wrong things to say. Oh very true yeah very true yeah that then and we've we faced that so we don't want to cause more harm um and so we've made it easy for people to to say do the right thing easily will you ever do one for pets for pet loss I you are maybe the 103rd person who's asked that so we are looking and working on you know why because the loss is real right people say all the time I lost my very best friend last night right and so yes um we're looking at a way to do that um in a way that is meaningful and valuable because I think um it it's it's it's a super unique relationship um that's long term um and as you know as a caregiver these are relationships where you've cared for you you've cared for this pet for a very long time and and that um when when a pet's gone the absence of having the work to care for someone something is so loud the absence of that is so loud yeah and it doesn't matter how little or how big the pet was it's like when they're not there to greet you you know you hear the little pitter patter uh uh with that and just their own you unique personalities as well you're just like oh I remember when they did this or that and um for me my mom my parents had a dog but she was really like my mom's dog and I ended up taking care of her and so you know there was this part of me that when I had to put her to sleep and and she had you know it was time I felt like I was losing part of my mom before I lost my mom you know oh yeah yeah with it because I was like you know she was so you know she she would tell my dad if it's between you and the dog the dog is winning she would tell so it was like you know um you know this little 14 pound dog was very important to her so was your mom in memory care already when you had to put the dog down yes okay yeah yeah so I was able to bring uh Annie was the dog and I was able to bring Annie to see her uh and she was very good with my mom which was surprising because she had quite the feisty attitude for a little 14 pound that she was uh but yeah you know and sometimes it is with pets you know there's a different type of relationship with that so yeah I think that would be very popular um on top of everything else. I think so too.

Where To Find Timely Presence

SPEAKER_01

29:14

Oh yeah well thank you so much for joining us today this has been very very insightful so if someone is interested the website is the timelypresence dot com and they can go to that and find some good gifts to give to the griever with that yes we try to make it we try to make it beautiful and easy so the timelypresence dot com we'd be happy to serve. Yes yes and I have been on the website and is really user friendly so no great thank you so thank you for joining us today thank you like so hopefully you have enjoyed our conversation today uh so please leave us a review join our subscribe to our YouTube channel and hopefully you enjoyed your cup of tea your cup of coffee or if you're having that really bad day a glass of wine and join us for another episode of Patty's Place

Welcome And Why This Show

SPEAKER_01

0:10

Welcome to Patty's Place, a place where we will talk about grief, dementia, and caregiving. I named this podcast Patty in honor of my mom who passed away from dementia about two years ago. I'm your host, Lisa. So I wanted to create a place where people know that they are not alone when they are going through all of these difficult times. So grab your cup of tea, your cup of coffee, or if you're having a really bad day, a glass of wine, and let's get going to talking about our guest today. Our guest today is Victoria Volk. She is a certified grief specialist. Uh, you're also an author, uh, your creator and podcast host of Grieving Voices, you're uh Reiki Heatmaster and a certified biofield tuning practitioner and a UMAP certification coach and end-of-life doula. So welcome.

SPEAKER_00

0:56

Thank you for having me.

What An End Of Life Doula Is

SPEAKER_01

0:58

Yes, I'm very excited. There are so many things to talk about with you. So let's start with what is an end-of-life doula?

SPEAKER_00

1:07

An end-of-life doula is the person that bridges the gap between the caregiver and the care team and the individual who is receiving hospice care or you know, the patient.

SPEAKER_01

1:23

So you come in um towards the end, or do you how does that work?

SPEAKER_00

1:29

Well, so in an instance like where someone is in hospice, I'll use that as the example. Um oftentimes people enter hospice at the very end. Um but what people don't understand or realize maybe is that you can actually be on hospice even a year before you get close to passing.

SPEAKER_01

1:50

Yeah, I didn't realize that either because when my mom had hospice and uh at the time my dad and I weren't sure if she would be ready for it, but they told us that they take they can be accepted into six months up to two years or longer for hospice.

SPEAKER_00

2:06

Yes. It's it I think the misinformation is that you have to be like close to actively dying before you are in hospice, and that's that's not the case.

SPEAKER_01

2:15

No, it's not. And they are just I can't I cannot talk highly more highly enough for hospice. They they are just wonderful for everything that they do for it. So then in end of life, Adula will kind of come in and help the actual patient with it.

SPEAKER_00

2:31

They're yeah, they are the advocate for the patient first and foremost. Okay. But then also can bridge the gap between, you know, the family and their questions and things like that when the care team is unavailable or or to explain things maybe in a different way. Um but more so than anything, it's to bring understanding to what is happening, to be an advocate for the patient as far as their wishes. Um really my training actually, so my my father actually passed away of cancer when I was a child, and he passed away in a nursing home.

SPEAKER_02

3:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

3:09

Uh, there wasn't, this was, you know, late 80s, there wasn't hospice wasn't what it is today, and resources, very rural community as well. Um, and so that what the training in in uh enlightened me in is that um it is possible to have like a dying wish, right? It's like your dying wishes. Like, do you do you want to be bathed when you die? Do you want your family to bathe you? Do you want um soft lighting? Do you want what kind of music do you want to be playing? Um who do you not want to see? Um, so an end-of-life doula can also be a gatekeeper to visitors. Um, you know, being because it would be difficult, right, for family to say, I'm sorry, but they do not wish to see you, right? It's a little bit easier for an end-of-life doula to be the advocate for the patient.

SPEAKER_01

4:11

And then you create even more drama hit with that. Right.

SPEAKER_00

4:15

So yeah, like I said, they're like the buffer and the the the bridge and kind of all of those things.

A Definition Of Grief That Fits

SPEAKER_01

4:22

Um, I like how you said about the music because um I I ended up being with my mom the well, I was with my mom all the time, but that last week uh I spent the night with her. She was in memory care. And pretty much almost every night I would play her favorite music. You know, just she had picked out the music she wanted for her service. I would play that, but then I also just played all the different music I knew she loved through the years because I thought, well, I know she could still hear me and I would talk to her, but I thought she loved her music. So I thought that would give her peace too with it for that. Um, I think that's really cool. Actually, uh, I when you when you were describing the end of life doula, I just remembered, I don't know if you ever watched the show The Pit on HBO. I have not. I haven't yet. They actually in the season two, a couple episodes ago, they had um uh they portrayed it end of life doula with a woman who had had cancer. Yeah, so it was uh with that. So I I think that is important to help, you know, with the patient and the family at the time. What would you say is the definition of grief that most people likely have never heard before?

SPEAKER_00

5:30

Grief is the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations. It is anything that you wish would be or could be different, better, or more. I like that definition because yeah, it's it's a lot of things. It is a lot more than just about death.

SPEAKER_01

5:46

Yeah, it's all those secondary losses and things like being able to pick up the phone and call that person or go shopping or or anything, watch TV with them, with that.

SPEAKER_00

5:56

Or a loss of health or a dream or finances. Yeah. Um moving.

SPEAKER_01

6:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

6:05

Different job, losing your job.

Grief Recovery And Emotional Completion

SPEAKER_01

6:08

Yeah, there's a lot to it with that. So what would you say is grief recovery?

SPEAKER_00

6:15

Grief recovery is a method, an evidence-based method to recover from the emotional pain of loss of any kind. Okay. And so I'm a advanced certified grief recovery specialist. And it's kind of a mouthful. But the advanced part means is that I can work with individuals online. Um, but with this method, we walk through a process that um takes people through their most difficult relationships. Um they don't have to be dead, right? Like that's grief, no one has to die for us to grieve. So it can and often my clients and even myself, I've worked through relationships with people living in my life. Because it's difficult to have the emotional honesty sometimes with people who I mean, have you ever tried to have a deep emotional be to be emotionally honest with someone who's unhealed in their own heart? Yes, yes, it's very difficult. It is very difficult, yes. Yeah, you probably get a lot of defensiveness or reaction reactivity instead of responding, and it's really difficult to listen to hear. And so this work is really about sweeping your own doorstep, it's clearing the energetic muck that you are carrying around from the past, from your relationships, and through apologies and forgiveness and all of these emotional things that we hold on to that add layer upon layer to our grief. Um, that's what we work through. And I had a client that went through the program with me, and she said, you know, people say you have to do the work. This is the work. I know what it means now. Uh so it's it's really deep, it's not easy. It's, you know, people are more apt to spend a couple grand on a vacation for a week than emotional freedom, and I get why. Oh, yeah. Truly, I get why. Yeah. Um, we resist the hard things. And my the question I would pose to people is you've already gone through the worst thing. What you know, it's the suffering can either take us down with it, or it can be a gateway to expanse expansion and growth in our lives. And I'm not saying that we have to have loss in order to grow, but my life experience has taught me and the countless people I've talked to on my podcast over five years, and just people I've worked with that um when you get to the other side of that through deep introspection and reflection and bringing those things to your awareness, um, you disarm the it's almost like you are able to you really essentially process the pain versus all the ways that we avoid it, distract ourselves and push it down. So that is the work. It's it's truly sitting with what's happened in the past so that it no longer dictates the present or your future.

SPEAKER_01

9:36

And that probably helps you too when you know that you'll probably never maybe get an apology from a person or that, but yeah, you're able to work through your own feelings with it. With those right.

SPEAKER_00

9:46

And have and have you tried to forgive somebody who thought that they didn't do anything wrong? Yeah. You know, if it's I forgive you. Well, uh, what did I do wrong? Right. You're stuck in emotional jail. So the beautiful thing about this work is you don't have to confront the other person. It it really is an internal responsibility. It is, it is, it is the individual's responsibility. No one else can heal you.

SPEAKER_01

10:17

It is that's very true. And I I tend to say that I think illness and death brings out the worst in people. Because it is such an emotional um experience. So all of those feelings come into play, you know, the sadness, the anger, like you don't think about all that, but it does, and now you're dealing with all these people and stuff, and it's it's just very difficult to navigate.

SPEAKER_00

10:45

But and I would challenge that and say, but it doesn't have to.

SPEAKER_01

10:48

No, it doesn't.

SPEAKER_00

10:50

You know, and that's the that's the piece I want to bring to this conversation is that um it doesn't have to bring out the worst in you. It can actually bring out the compassion in you. It can bring out the potential in you. Um, you know, I carried 30 plus years of grief and trauma in my body and in my in my life that impacted how I parented my kids um up until 2019 when I went early 2019 when I went through grief recovery myself. And I was not the same person after that. Um, that that experience transformed me. And um, you know, I had a lot of anger in my body and rage that came out in a flood of tears. I didn't think I could cry anymore. Um and you know, when you lose a parent as a child, um, when you're molested, when you have a an emotionally unavailable living parent, um, you know, it's going to change you. And it did, and not for a good way in my early 20s. And so I I had a lot of work to do. I and but it took me 30 years to get to a place where I was where I surrendered to the fact that I can't do this on my own because I'm quite stubborn and I'm quite the skeptic. And and uh I question a lot. And and but one of the things was was I started to question I asked myself bigger questions. How should I put this? When I started to question ask myself the bigger questions, instead of turning those questions onto other people, and I started to ask myself those questions, that's when the ball started rolling for me in the area of personal development. You know, because I thought I was pretty screwed up. I thought, oh my gosh, like I am my life as one meant to be just one of suffering. Like this, is this all there is to life is just to suffer? Like, is this why we're here? You know, and I that question, like, or that that feeling, I guess I should say, um, you know, along with all that anger and having another loss, um, it was actually my father's uncle, or excuse me, my father's brother, my uncle, um, who, you know, when my father died, I also lost that entire side of the family. They were no longer in our lives. And there was this family, this story that was passed down. And um, you know, I was the youngest of four. My brother was five years older, my six, my sister was nine years older than me. So I was essentially like an only child when all this happened and kind of had to raise myself through it. But um my uncle was diagnosed with a with a with brain cancer, and I went to see him, having not seen him 30 years since my father's funeral. Um, and that was in the process of um, I was in the editing phase of my book, and that really uh is what opened me up to the fact that grief is my issue here. And and it actually took me another almost two years before I went to Google to find something to help me, because you know, it like I said, I get the resistance, I get the the like I said, you know, we we've already gone through the hard stuff. Like what what do you have to lose? So um I'm I'm so glad I did that because everything I've accomplished or everything I've didn't gotten done because of that or after that has been because I went through and just became emotionally complete with a lot of relationships that were causing a lot of suffering in my life.

When Avoidance Shows Up As Symptoms

SPEAKER_01

15:00

I I don't think people realize that grief does affect your body. You know, a lot of people they just think, oh, grief, you're you're sad. They they just don't realize the levels of it and how it can be stored in your body and and how one loss can bring up other losses. So what do you say to those people who believe they don't have to dig up the past to heal?

SPEAKER_00

15:23

Well, how is that working for you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

15:26

There you go.

SPEAKER_00

15:27

Yeah, how does that work fast? Like how how are you? Yeah, how are you doing? Like, really, like, you know, because if you are projectile vomiting your emotional dis-ease over the people around you, okay, so it's manifesting in that way. If you are like a tea kettle, we are like tea kettles. We either implode or we explode. So either you're having physical manifestations or you are outwardly expressing it with gambling, shopping, relationships, um, anger, um, pornography. I mean, anything that makes you feel better for a short period of time. Even exercise can be a way that people cope. And yes, exercise is healthy, but is it are you doing it to negate or avoid what's really going on emotionally? So I think that um again, it comes back to asking ourselves those questions. We we we kind of live life on autopilot, I think sometimes we get, you know, in the motions of life, and um we we just do not ask ourselves the deeper questions. Because it's hard, you know. It is it is hard because once you once you know you know the answer, right? It's like acknowledging it. Well, now you gotta do something about it, and even not doing something about it is a choice.

SPEAKER_01

16:50

Yeah, I think it makes me think of my mom because uh my mom had a lot of traumas in her life. Uh she was sick as a child three times, and she lost um her cousin when she was 11, and they were more like sisters. And this was back in the 50s where you know, nobody talked about it. And so she always felt she really had that survivor's guilt because people would look at her and then start crying for her cousins. So she almost felt like, you know, and then she had other people through her life um pass away. Uh, you know, her both her parents, my grandparents died young. And, you know, just she tended it because she I think what she did is she took a lot of her grief and she wanted to care for people. So she tended to, whether it was friends or co-workers or whatever, they tended to come to her and she really tried to give people peace and healing. I think probably because she didn't feel that as a child when her cousin died. And that was just because that was the 50s. We just don't talk about it. We move forward, you know, with it. So she tried to always, especially with illness and in that, she really wanted people to to feel some peace and to heal. And like she was there for people to talk about it. She was very open about talking about illness and things like that with it.

SPEAKER_00

18:02

It sounds like she was a light worker in her own time.

SPEAKER_01

18:06

She probably was, although she probably didn't know it. Yeah. An empath. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah. She felt things very, very deeply uh with that. And I think that's why for me, she taught me a lot of that. You know, she used to always say with people with cancer, it used to drive her crazy when people would say, they're just not fighting hard enough. They're giving up. And my mom would always say, People, their body gives out, they don't give up. There is a difference. You know, they used to she would get so angry about that. She's like, Stop saying that.

Hospice Denial And Hard Conversations

SPEAKER_00

18:37

She would be like, uh well, and who's saying that, right? The families or the loved ones who don't who can who cannot comprehend their life without that person. Yes. We are taught how to acquire things and people, not what to do when we lose them. And so I think that's the biggest reason why people resist going into hospice earlier is because the family can is in denial. Yeah. The family, I don't think I know this is my this was my training. The family is in denial of what is happening. And when you can get past your own emotional stuff and and it and come to not it's not even acceptance, but embracing what is happening with your loved one, that's when you can have deep and rich conversations. And, you know, we and at end of life, so many people spend so much wasted time talking about the logistics, like the bills, and you know, you have all this the the the stuff, the financial stuff that you have to address. And all so look at all that wasted time. You know, if all of that could be settled, and this is I, you know, estate planning people like an end of life doulas, we, you know, we get this because it's kind of like you're we're partners in partners in um helping people understand that getting your affairs in order early is a gift to your family, to your loved ones, to your It really is.

SPEAKER_01

20:10

I was very grateful that my parents did have the powers of attorney and all that. And they did it because of a um because of something that happened with one of our family members and that made them go, oh, wait a minute. They didn't, and I because I'm an only child, this is they're like, we don't want you to be in this situation we wanna and they told me all about it. I knew where everything was and stuff. Uh so I was grateful for that. And I don't think too, getting circling back to hospice, I don't think people realize how much hospice does for the caregivers and how much they help and make it easier. Like I had no idea, you know, that they were able to, like they brought in the power recliner from my mom. They brought in the hospital bed. You know, some so many people think it's like boom, it's right there when right before you're dying. And it isn't. And they don't take away their medicine, they make them comfortable. And it made it very easy for me and my dad because we knew what my mom's wishes were, you know, like when they, you know, and it is hard. They're asking, you know, do you want a DNR? Do you want a feeding tube? And all this. And we were like, no, because we knew that's what she wanted with it. I mean, it's a hard conversation, but I am grateful that my my mom and my dad have had those conversations with me.

SPEAKER_00

21:25

And do you in in recognizing how important that is, because knowing that that was her wish, you had to accept that, right? Yes. You you were forced to accept that, that this was gonna happen and this was going to be the process that was going to be followed rather than I can't see you go. I don't want to lose you. So let's do everything possible to keep you alive, regardless of you know how you may feel about it, right? Right. And I think that's that's the and that's the that's the importance of having those conversations. Hard conversations, right?

SPEAKER_01

22:01

Yeah. And then it always comes back to that quantity of life versus quality of life. And I and it is hard to look at it when you're you're in that situation to be like, this is not a quality of life. This is not what this person would have wanted. You know, are they really living? You know, and even with my mom's dementia, I could see how she progressed more and more and more. We're like she just, you know, things that happened, I was like, oh, she would never want, like the fact that, you know, she was having accidents, you know, like she she would never have wanted that to happen. You know, so in some ways I was glad that she didn't realize it because that's just not what she would have done with it. And I think in in hospice too, like I said, they bring in so many, there's like social workers and there's chaplains, and in my mom, they brought in the music therapist for her and so many things. And then I had grief counseling available to me, even with the anticipatory grief. Uh, with that, it it just I wish people. I wish people would uh be able to do that more, but it there's so much resistance from people because it it is hard. I you know, I I didn't want my mom to die. I didn't want my mom to have dementia, but here we are uh with it. So what would you say is the one thing people need to know about grief?

SPEAKER_00

23:31

No one escapes it. That's very true. And we all grieve at a hundred percent. And no two people you know, I would I was gonna say no two people grieve the same, but that's not necessarily true because there are myths of grief that we all actually kind of succumb to, and because it's when when grief strikes, right, it we resort to what we know. And what we know is what we learned by watching our parents generally, the people in our environment, the you know, the caregivers and caretakers who shaped us, because we learn 75% of how to resp by the age of three, we've learned how to respond to life by 75% of how to respond to life by age three. The remaining comes by age 15. So by the age 15, we're pretty we've been shaped into how to respond to life. And for most people, I mean it's starting to change now with I think COVID helped to catapult a lot of these conversations, but um again, we resort to what we know and what we know and what we're taught is usually unhelpful and hurtful. So you know, when a child loses a pi a pet, often that's one of the first losses for a child is a pet. Um, well, don't worry. We can get another dog. We'll just replace the loss. Don't feel bad, we'll replace the loss. So one of the myths is don't feel bad. Another one is replace the loss. There's two. Or so then the child learns that, well, I can't talk about my dog or my, you know, because it my parent you you see the response in the parents, right? They don't know how to handle it, and so the child learns to grieve alone then. That's another myth, grieve alone. Yeah, and we all have heard the the phrase time heals all wounds, right? Yeah, that's another myth, right? And we also know that many people tend to keep busy.

SPEAKER_02

25:37

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

25:39

Right? To distract themselves. That's another myth. Keep busy. And another one, be strong. Oh, I hate that one. Gotta be strong.

SPEAKER_01

25:48

I because I I said this, I I asked my grief counselor so many times. I'm like, what does that even mean? Be strong. Like, I want to say, I I guess I had a choice, but it really didn't have a choice. I'm like, what does it even mean? That's people are like, oh, you're so strong. I'm like, okay, like you can be strong or you can be human.

SPEAKER_00

26:08

Oh, I like that. Yeah. Yeah. But these are the myths of grief. So when I wanted to say, like I was about to say, people grieve differently, but really we don't. We all succumb to these myths of grief that these are the things that we've learned. These are the patterns that repeat. This is the education we've received about grief. And so that's why I'm so passionate on the educational piece. And the grief recovery method is very much educational. Um, I I recommend anyone to pick up the book, The Grief Recovery Handbook. You will learn more about grief than you've ever learned. Okay. And that is the book that we use to facilitate the program, the grief recovery method. You can't do it alone. I tried. Um, I did. I, you know, I signed up for the training and I thought this is what's going to help me, and I can help other people. And it was going to be a five-hour drive, and then it was canceled. And I thought, oh my goodness, like, and then it was like the universe asking me, How bad do you want this? So I signed up for the training in Austin, Texas, and I invested way more than I would have needed to. But um, I just felt like this was going to be this was the answer for my heart and what I was looking for. And it truly ended up being that way. And um, you know, I you gotta follow the nudge. If something is nudging you and it keeps noodling at you, um follow those breadcrumbs, you know. And when that initial training was canceled, my husband said, you know, you've taught yourself so many things. Just just get the book, teach yourself. Like you don't need anyone to train you. And so I got the book and I read it. And I should I should have grabbed my copy because it's full of doggy ears and highlighting and um post-it notes. It's like we cannot heal on an island, and that's why on my podcast, Grieving Voices, it's me on an island with a megaphone. That's how you feel, right? Yeah, that's how you feel.

SPEAKER_02

28:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

28:08

And you know, just you just want to scream out to the ether and you feel like you're alone. Yeah. But it is the one thing that unites us all. We're no one's escaping it.

Finding Support Books And Programs

SPEAKER_01

28:19

No, no, we're not. And I typically am not like a support group type of person, but like I do go to uh the hospice that I my my mom was with, they started a parent support group, and I look forward to it every month that I go to it because I don't feel so alone. I so many things are so similar. All of our stories are different, but yet there's so many things and so many feelings, and I just feel for that hour and a half or that I do feel supported, and sometimes I don't even have to say anything, but sometimes I feel that comfort because it's like you're not alone with it, you know, and and you also hit know that you have other people that understand how you're feeling, and you can talk to them about it as well for that. I on your website, I love this, it says, Welcome, friend, from the fog of loss to clarity of peace. I love that saying uh with it. Thank you. Um and your website is theunleashedheart.com, correct? Um and I saw when I was on your website, I saw you have on here it's called Unleashed Letters. What is that?

SPEAKER_00

29:29

That's my newsletter.

SPEAKER_01

29:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

29:31

So bi-weekly newsletter.

SPEAKER_01

29:33

Okay, uh, with that. And then you also have something on there that's spank sessions? Spark. Spark, sorry. I can't read my own writing. Okay. Yeah, I can't read my own writing. Spark sessions. What is that?

SPEAKER_00

29:45

Spark session is really it's um people who are a little bit maybe further along in their journey. They're kind of on the other side of the grief, and it's like I've worked through all this stuff, and I there's something that there's something noodling at me that I really want to do, and I just I want to brainstorm with someone, I want um some encouragement or I need some insight. Um, yeah, it's it's like I'm a co-creator with someone that is just looking for their spark. And um, yeah, I consider myself if someone wants to be pushed off the metaphorical cliff to get something accomplished or to set out to do something, I can be the pusher. I tend to push people off cliffs. So that's not always you're not on your way down. It's okay. It's you don't need you're not gonna have certainty and and embrace the uncertainty of life.

SPEAKER_01

30:38

Well, that's not always a bad thing. You have a lot of meditations on your website too, I saw that people can create meditations, yeah. Uh with that. And then your book is The Guided Heart Moving Through Grief and Finding Spiritual Solace.

SPEAKER_00

30:52

Yes. So um that was before grief recovery.

SPEAKER_01

30:56

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00

30:57

I would write a very different book now. Okay. I actually mentioned um the stages of grief. And yeah, there are no stages. It's um I actually had Ken Ross, the son of Elizabeth Kubler Ross, whose work is yes, so Ken Ross was on my podcast and we talked about that actually. And um, her work was about with people on hospice and terminal illness, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

31:23

Yeah, I didn't realize that either till I went to hospice and they explained it that that was actually she wrote it as the stages of people who are dying, but somehow it just all became, oh, this is your stage of grief. And it's like, no.

SPEAKER_00

31:39

Everywhere. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

31:40

Even the Simpsons.

unknown

31:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

31:43

Uh so why do you think boundaries are important while you're grieving?

SPEAKER_00

31:50

Well, what I would say about boundaries, me personally, is I didn't know a boundary if it slapped me in the face. Okay. Most people wouldn't know a boundary if it slapped them in the face. And most people, when they're confronted with a boundary by someone else, they tend to get defensive and not like it, right? Yes. And people who get defensive and not like the boundaries of other people probably don't have their own.

SPEAKER_02

32:14

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00

32:15

You know, when we are like for me personally, um, my boundaries were were basically non-existent because, you know, I was violated as a child, and there was, you know, no privacy, my privacy was violated in many different ways. And I didn't understand, I didn't know what boundaries were. Like I wasn't taught what were boundaries. And um, and that I think that's how a lot of people are raised. We don't, we really don't understand how they can provide boundaries, they can provide safety, they can provide a sense of security within yourself and your body. Um, they can be, but they can also be walls, right? Like true. There can be, they can be emotional walls that we build in order to keep ourselves on an island because of fear or uncertainty, right? Like boundaries can be unhealthy. They they very much can be. But I highly recommend the book Boundaries. Okay. Um, Dr. Townsend, and there's another doctor. Um, that's generally the book that I recommend to for people to read after they've gone through grief recovery. Um, it's excellent, excellent book on boundaries of all types, of all kinds of different boundaries. Uh did I answer your question? I feel like I didn't, but I kind of went on a tangent.

SPEAKER_01

33:38

Oh no, I think it is because uh I think bound boundaries are hard. I I know I have a hard time like being able to sometimes it's just like to say no and not feel guilty. You know, it I the people pleasing. Yeah, I think it is. I think it's important. I think it's it is hard while you're grieving, or even when you're taking care of your loved one, sometimes you you have to, and then it it's it can be very difficult, you know, to be able to say, no, I I I can't do this, or no, I'm I'm gonna do this today, or like they always uh one of the things when hospice a lot of times will talk about that to have your plan B, especially like it during holidays or special occasions, where those events can be really hard when your loved one's not there, and that it's okay if you tell someone, I'm gonna drive myself, and if you leave earlier than expect it, you know, to be able to do that because not everybody will understand that, but it it can be hard to to say, no, I'm gonna do this bound, you know, I'm trying to put boundaries up, you know.

SPEAKER_00

34:42

Well, and I think a a big part of it too is, and this is I'm I'm navigating this in the last few years too, as I I learned more about myself, the importance of informing people. Um, informing doesn't mean asking for permission. That's true. You know, if you would say to someone, you know, someone asks, invites you to something, and you're not, you know, you can say, if you're not sure how you're gonna feel, like it's not the events, not for like two weeks. Well, I'm unsure today, but ask me three days before, a few days before, and I'll see how I feel. That's honest. You're not saying yes, you're not saying no. It gets closer to the event, some they ask you again, and you can respond with however you're feeling. No, I'm I'm really not feeling comfortable with going at this time. Or, you know, you know what, that sounds really nice to be out with people and things like that. I'll come, but I'm just gonna make sure I drive myself or, you know, just know that I might leave early if I'm feeling like I need to rest. You know, it's just being emotionally honest with compassion and with informing without asking for permission.

SPEAKER_01

35:49

It is, and it is a it sounds so easy and yet it does. I know.

SPEAKER_00

35:55

And then you let's and then you have the dynamic too. Let's say it is your parent and you are the caregiver. That's where boundaries can be really difficult, right? Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01

36:05

Yeah, you know, yeah, with that and uh and with my dad still now too. So yeah, it's that fine line you walk uh with it.

SPEAKER_00

36:14

If you didn't have those things established growing up, it's it's like adulthood becomes the training ground. Crisis becomes the training ground often for people. And and that's like and that's like the worst time when everybody's emotionally amped up, right?

SPEAKER_01

36:30

Right. Yeah, it is. It can be very, very difficult. And then also, too, you learn how people handle crisis. Um, I I I I joke about myself, like I'm one of those people that in the crisis, I'm fine. You know, I'm I am thinking three steps ahead. We need to do this, this, or this. But then like it could be weeks, months, whatever later on, and something really simple, like my TV or the internet's not working, and I just completely fall apart. I I'm just like, don't mess with that little stuff. The big stuff I handle, but um, you know, but then other people are different where they completely fall apart in the middle when it's happening, you know, and that can be hard.

SPEAKER_00

37:09

It's like dying by a machete versus a thousand paper cuts.

SPEAKER_01

37:12

Right, yeah, you know, and that's hard to navigate to, you know, when you're with all this what going through.

SPEAKER_00

37:18

That was probably a very bad analogy, but it's you know, right? It's just it's that like eventually the same result is gonna happen, right?

Pet Loss And Replacing The Loss

SPEAKER_01

37:26

It's exactly collapse. Yeah, yeah, that's what I said. I go I I can handle that, but don't mess with my TV. I literally fall apart. I'm like, I get, you know, I'm like, oh my god, this is insane. But that's you know, but everybody's different, you know, with that as well. And uh the circle back when you were talking about pets and things like that too. I think it's important. Yeah, you can't replace the pet. Like you can get another dog or cat, but that particular one that passed will always be in your heart because they're all different, you know. And they're very, they they also can help with healing too, I think. They're very, they're very therapeutic, those puppy dogs.

SPEAKER_00

38:06

Oh, I I replaced the loss when my youngest started kindergarten. Um, you know, I I was actually closing my business I had at the time. I that's when I started to blog and write and things like that. And I was, you know, I had my identity wrapped up in being a parent and being a photographer at the time. And so like those things ending, I didn't know how to cope with that. And I thought, I need a dog. Like I said to my husband, I think I need a dog. And I did all this, you know, and and I know now it was just like this, it was a way for me to distract myself, give me something else to focus on and to feel better. Um, so yeah, I I replaced the loss. Well, and we still have him today. He's 12 years old and he's a fantastic dog because I'd, you know, poured hours and hours into research and how to choose a dog and all this stuff. And yeah, I mean, there is no replacing him. He is like the perfect exactly the perfect dog, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

39:07

Yeah, yes. I always say the whole world can turn against you, but your dog will always be there for you. That's true.

SPEAKER_00

39:14

That's my and that's and that's why it's it is a devastating loss. It is a loss of a family member, a companion. And I do have a program for that. It's on my website.

SPEAKER_01

39:24

Yes, so your website is the unleashedheart.com. And so you have many different programs that people can go to and and and work with you as well, correct? I can meet you where you're at. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

39:36

A variety of different things, lots of free stuff too.

SPEAKER_01

39:39

Oh, free stuff is always good. We like that.

SPEAKER_00

39:41

So ebooks. Yeah, there's a free um energy quiz, there's a grief quiz, there's um the grief quiz kind of matches you with where you're kind of at with the service I offer, kind of as a matchmaker in that way. Like where are you in your grief? Um, but yeah, there's something for everybody there. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

40:01

Well, thank you so much for joining us. This has been a very I I've I've learned a lot in this conversation. So I hope I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00

40:08

I'm glad. I hope I I I really just want to leave people with the fact that suffering is um sometimes of our own doing, and it doesn't have to be that way. And I just want people to understand that um the worst has already happened and to hold on to the hope that there can be the sun, the regardless if we can see it or not, the sun is shining.

SPEAKER_01

40:33

That's very true. Yes, that's very true. Well, thank you so much. Uh and we will have the website information um on our website as well, too, so people can check out all your all of your services that they can work with you for. So thank you so much for having me. So hopefully you've enjoyed your cup of tea, your cup of coffee, or your glass of wine if it was a really bad day. And hopefully you've learned a lot today, and you know, most importantly, you are not alone in all of this. And please join us for now another episode of Patty's Place.