The Resilient Entrepreneur: Thriving with Chronic Conditions with Dr. Alison McLean

0:00:00 - Speaker 1
What does business, chronic injuries, illness, tight muscles and physical therapy all have in common? Well, underlying them all, and how we respond to them all, is the nervous system. In this episode, we get to dive into all of these topics and look at how they intertwine with each other in such an amazing and powerful way. It was so much fun to get to sit down and talk to another physical therapist, turned entrepreneur and wellness coach, who also explores how all of these things really tie together and when we can optimize them and understand them. Our life has so much more ease and authenticity. 

Welcome, welcome, welcome to episode 83 of the Unweaving Chronic Pain Podcast. I'm your host, dr Andrea Moore, founder of the Wholeself Integration Method, and I am on a mission to help others decode their pain, to unlock radical alignment and authenticity in their lives, so they can live a life full out, not one where they are keeping themselves unintentionally small due to chronic pain. I use over a decade of experience, both clinically and personally, as a doctor of physical therapy. I combine it with the latest neuroscience, my training as a certified life coach, somatic practitioner and so much more, all focused on chronic pain and helping you alchemize your chronic pain into the key that unlocks a whole new life, better than you ever dreamed of. Today, I get to sit down with Dr Allison McClain, a physical therapist, yoga therapist, massage therapist and business and wellness coach, who brings a unique blend of expertise to guide other wellness entrepreneurs towards sustainable growth, increased revenue and a harmonious work-life balance. On top of the many lives Allison has lived for the last couple decades, she has guided hundreds of students in overcoming injuries, managing pain and achieving their health goals, as well as building a successful and profitable physical therapy and wellness clinic, while leading classes, workshops and yoga trainings. After going through a life-altering journey, from a diagnosis of Lynch syndrome, a genetic mutation associated with heightened risk of various cancers, she was led to what is now her true passion empowering fellow wellness entrepreneurs to grow their businesses sustainably, maximize profits and prioritize their own well-being while savoring life's joys. 

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. ["miracle of the World"]. Welcome, allison, I'm so excited to have you here. Yeah, thank you for having me. I feel like it has been I don't even know five, six years since we've seen each other face to face. I mean now zoom to zoom, because we've actually never met in person. 

0:03:01 - Speaker 2
but yeah, I was thinking that I was like did we? I know, no, it didn't, but we've known each other a while now. 

0:03:07 - Speaker 1
We have and it's just like one of those funny things about the internet where you just find your internet people and you kind of stalk their life journey from afar and I feel like that's what it was like for you and I kind of lost track of you for a few years and then you just came on my radar and I'm like man, you'll be so fun to talk to. Yay, similar background. So why don't you start by telling people where you started clinically and then kind of bring it into like where you are now and pull in anything else you want to have fun, don't? 

0:03:33 - Speaker 2
mention it. Yeah, I mean truthfully. Right now I'm helping wellness entrepreneurs grow a profitable wellness business and that journey for me started 20 plus years ago as a massage therapist. Actually, I got certified as a personal trainer and my undergraduate was health and exercise science. So I was always enamored and fascinated by learning about the body and all the ways to like, help it and challenge it and all the things. So it started with massage and I was practicing yoga and then eventually I figured out, when I was ahead of massage clientele and pretty much my own massage office, I was running a space in a spa that I was really only knew the tip of the iceberg and I wanted to learn more about the body, what is actually going on underneath my fingers. So I went into physical therapy school and came out and, truthfully, I never wanted to be a traditional therapist. My mindset was like, if I can make close to 100K and charge 150 for a massage with my certification, then if I have my doctorate, then I better be able to do better. I'm joking, you're off, yeah. 

0:04:45 - Speaker 1
If you wanted traditional PT, that is yeah, just not, sorry, no. 

0:04:50 - Speaker 2
No. So it was different and plus, I was always a yogi at heart and so I've been practicing yoga since 2000,. And yoga itself helped me out of a mentally or really dark place when I was in college. I had a bunch of injuries, I had a bunch of surgeries, I was division one diver and I couldn't dive anymore and kind of shook my whole identity and I was like who am I? What am I doing? That whole exploration and yoga really helped me both physically and mentally. So I knew when I graduated with my physical therapy degree I loved the knowledge and I loved my classmates. I was like finally thought like I was like, oh, I found my community, like I loved it all. 

I just didn't want to work in the seeing three patients at a time, back to back to back, like not getting my hands on people for real, because being in the massage world and my cave for so long, I felt like these five minute STM type stuff was just not enough. Plus, I was noticing since I know you love the nervous system was when I was working in the PT, because I did my clinical rotation, I did work in a traditional setting for a couple of years is that I would look at the patients on the table and some of them are white, knuckling it through some of the manual mobilizations and tightening and grimacing. And like it. Some people that works and they love it. But for me personally, I've gone through a lot of physical trauma in my youth. If a therapist whether it be a physical therapist or a massage therapist or body worker if they're too fast, too aggressively, my nervous system goes on guard and that work is counterproductive and even it triggers old wounds and I just want to get off the table and it's not healing at all for me. And I realized there's not too many physical therapy settings that provide quote, unquote a safe space for people that maybe nervous systems are. Their threshold is different. Yeah, that's what I wanted to provide for my people. So that's what I did. 

When I finally got out of the traditional setting, I opened a brick and mortar clinic where I did massage, I did yoga, coaching. You walked in and people would tell me it felt more like a spa than a clinical setting. I had essential oils I still do Nice and a yoga wall and people are like what's that? Are you gonna hang me? I love it, it worked, I attracted my people. And not to say that the traditional setting is bad, of course, because there are people that do succeed in there and there's a lot of great therapists that work in the traditional setting. But for me, the work that I felt called to do and the people I knew, there was a group of people where that type of work they weren't getting their needs met and so it was a match here and my business really succeeded. 

0:07:30 - Speaker 1
Yes, I mean, I just want to be like that's just amazing that you were able to build that business and like have that vision. So I just want to be like celebrate the heck out of that Because it's so cool. 

0:07:40 - Speaker 2
Yeah, it's hard to celebrate, but I'm part of my growth journey of celebrating. 

0:07:44 - Speaker 1
Yes, it's no easy feat, but, man, I want to go back to what you said, because it was just so important. I feel like you talked about it so beautifully too, Like some nervous systems just need a different approach. Yeah, and this is where everyone I feel like we are so want to just latch onto something that we you know a quote that we read on Instagram, or oh, here's this thing that works for this person and therefore it should work for me, and it's like we are all such unique beings and what works for one person might be their truth as to what works for them. And that could be the super intense deep tissue Like I like a deep tissue massage, like I have some like that, and there are certain areas in my body, though, that I can't tolerate it. But, yeah, it's like, and I feel better after it. Right, it's like I can touch in with my system and it's like that that works for certain things, not for everything. It's like I even know what it will and won't work for, and then, but that doesn't mean it's gonna work for someone who has a different nervous system or a different type of pain. Like I have a very particular pain where it's like don't touch it, but touching it will make it worse. Yeah, I don't do deep tissue there. We so look to external of like what's working for them, or this therapist is saying this is what's supposed to work, versus being like, wow, what's going on in general? That's right, yeah, and I so feel you on the. 

I remember when I was in one clinic looking over at the PTA, who had he was a little bit of a mess with a hub of love from the world had set this patient up Like I just feel like he was not good at setting people up and like getting I got what was always about, like making sure it was cozy and comfortable, and like, yeah, supported, right, and like they were in a really good position. And this guy is literally he forgot to put the headrest on, oh no. And this guy is hanging off the table and just holding his neck up in mid air stick straight, like it looked like he had a headrest underneath him, but like he wouldn't say anything to the therapist. You know what I mean. Like I was just taking it and I like, oh, let's just waited like a good, like he had already been at it for a couple of minutes and I was just like is he going to say anything? 

And of course then I went over and was like, oh my God, please here. But it's amazing, right In a situation like it, gets so scared to say something. Speak up, yes. 

0:09:52 - Speaker 2
Yes, yes. 

0:09:52 - Speaker 1
This was like a middle aged man who couldn't speak up for himself. So, like I was a woman who has been, you know, shutting down her whole life going to speak up for herself. Yeah, I feel right for my nervous system. 

0:10:03 - Speaker 2
Well, I know I worked in a setting where I was the new grad, but you know, I had my over a decade of experience as a massage therapist and one of the staff members had brutally injured her ankle and the senior physical therapist was working on her and she was crying. And the next day I was talking to her and I was like you know, there's a different way to get the mobility, where it doesn't have to be so aggressive. I was like do you want to just feel it and see if that works better for you? And she was like sure, and she tried it and she's like and we got more movement and since her body was more relaxed, I was actually able to go pretty deep and I worked out a lot of swelling out for her. And she's like oh my God, I feel so great and I don't feel like I'm getting beat up. 

So the senior staff member came over to work on her again and she, like her nervous system went on guard. She was like I can't do it, she goes in a very nice way. She was like I think I'll just work with Allison and his ego, I think, took ahead and he got so mad, so mad at just the whole situation and a lot of anger was present, and I think that's sometimes why people don't speak up is because they're afraid of that. You know, gosh yes, absolutely. 

0:11:19 - Speaker 1
That's awful, and I think what's just so interesting is I was like trying to rack my brain to remember the scientific term for this, and maybe you know it. I just whispered way too long. But away, your skin and your muscles react to force. Make it so, physiologically, the softer you go in and the gentler, the calmer you go in, you actually can go way deeper. Yeah, totally, if you just push do you know what I'm talking about? Right, it's like when you just like go in yeah, we have receptors that are. Or it's like if you just kind of like just dive in and try to go deep too fast, you'll literally feel your muscles spring back. It's almost like it shoots that you're hanging out. Yeah, that's a rebound effect. And versus, if you go in slower and softer, you can get in way deeper. And so it's just like physiologically it's supported that we don't just like ram on someone, but yet Because sometimes the injury itself is traumatic, like with a severe ankle sprain. 

0:12:15 - Speaker 2
Probably there was a fall involved or some type of accident and the body's already guarded and protected of that and the trauma of the accident might not have been processed all the way through yet. We're a surgery, right, and if you're going in hard, then it can trigger that. And I mean even for total needs, right, you need aggressive work there, because I taught a lot of massages like you can go in like an airplane, where you come in smoothly, right, but you can still use good force, and then you got to exit smoothly too. Yes, otherwise, the body, the unconscious mind, are nervous. Since we pick it up on that, it's always scanning. That amygdala is always scanning for danger. 

0:12:57 - Speaker 1
Yes, I have had multiple total needs that have another. I'm sorry, I hate referred people as like a body part. It's just such a clinic thing that's I can't believe. I just referred it back to that when, like I was working in a clinic that had like a lot of therapists where they were like pan, like she's stuck, and I'm just like just put them on my schedule, like I promise, like I can get the mobility. Yeah, I can see them like reaming into them and it's just like kind of like back way up. It's like the stuck drawer thing I don't know if you've got it Right, very little. Like if you have a spatula stuck in your drawer, no matter if you're ganking on, it is going to get it to open. It's like right, it's hoffing up. Yeah, I call it the blood or approach. Yes, my 12 year old boy brain is like that. So funny. Sorry, sorry for just ruining that for you. 

0:13:44 - Speaker 2
No, that's fine, but now I always think about it now. 

0:13:48 - Speaker 1
So sorry, you're welcome. It's just like to like be in people's minds in inappropriate ways. Illyria yeah, it's like a Chinese finger trap too. It's like another great one is just right. It's like you got to soften and like come out. Yeah, like, yeah. 

So anyways, and I think this is such an important conversation because I know so many listeners have been to so many PTs and massage therapists and things like that, and I do think what I'm always trying to qualify on a call, if I'm talking to someone, getting to know them, is like, did you have good PT? Like, did you have a good massage? Like, did it match your nervous system? It's not even like about the skill of a therapist, like I know some therapists who are so skilled in certain things which, like I, am not, like please, like you go and see this guy for this thing, don't see me. But like it's like, did it match what you need? Right, like, was that a good match? And I find that's getting harder and harder because of the way, unfortunately, the insurances and clinics are set up. It's just all fast paced like see as many people, there's no time with the therapist and it's important that people are getting the physical therapy they need, or getting the soft tissue work that they need, on top of then the deeper nervous system. 

0:14:56 - Speaker 2
Right, and some of the environments. Again, it just depends, it matches the needs. But some of the PT environments where three people on the same table, on the same plinth you know large plinth or people next to you working out doing their exercises with loud music blaring, that's good if you're in the strengthening portion of your rehabilitation or that's what you need at that moment, but if you need something else, it's not going to be a great match. It's not going to be a good fit. 

0:15:27 - Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like if you can feel your body kind of tense up when you walk in, like right, that's just a good sign. Yeah, if you're suffering from migraines. 

0:15:33 - Speaker 2
that's not going to work Exactly. 

0:15:35 - Speaker 1
Yeah, florescent, tons of fluorescent lighting right over you. It's not helpful for migraines. Yeah, sorry, yeah, yeah. So what are you up to now? 

0:15:45 - Speaker 2
Yeah, so I will have the brick and mortar. I do. It's a she shed, which I just love. I love working from home. So I hired a contractor and built a she shed in our yard and I just love it. 

So I continued on the non-traditional path and I have some really, really great patients that I've worked with for a number of years now and some of them, keeping their bodies healthy is part of their professional livelihood, whether they're division one athletes on full rides or professional golfers or professional Grand Prix riders, tennis players. I work with some really great people and some people where gardening is their profession and they just like to feel better in the body, or moms and professional homemakers. So I have a variety of really wonderful patients that have been working with me for a number of years and they keep coming and coming and coming. And during that time, when I had my brick and mortar, I started getting a lot of requests for business coaching because people would see like, oh, I love this non-traditional setting. Like, how did you get the courage to do something that was completely different? How did you make it work? How are you profitable? All the questions. 

So I just started accepting business coaching clients and, in fact, my pricing and my programs were exactly the same as my PT rates. I just kept everything the same. I'm like, okay, it's a package of 12. It's this rate. We're either going to do business coaching or we're going to do PT work. I'll just. That's started my journey, and so now the packages are different now for PT and business coaching. 

But my business coaching side of things has really exploded and now primarily, I do that and I have do it both one to one and I have a group mastermind and I just love that, because we were talking about this before we hopped on. Hit record is that I teach strategy, because that's often needed. But often what we end up working on, once the strategy is implemented and in place, what a lot of my entrepreneurs find out is oh, it wasn't a lack of strategy. That was the problem. They actually had a hint of a marketing plan or were doing like really good marketing was actually holding them back was their own nervous system or their own thoughts, and that was leading them to kind of self sabotage in certain ways. So we do a lot of that work, which is a lot of fun. I really enjoy that, both personally, learning more about that for myself and then helping my clients with that as well. 

0:18:17 - Speaker 1
Oh, that's so awesome and they're just so lucky to have someone who has such a breath of knowledge around that and experience, because it really is, I mean, just like we were talking about. Right, it's like what does your nervous system need right now? Is it action, is it strategy, or is it like hold on, let's create safety in the nervous system? Yeah, exactly, mind set. You're holding that protective response that. Yeah, I have so many entrepreneur clients that have chronic pain, and chronic pain is like you mentioned so many of your PT clients. They're professional athletes and it's like their bodies are their business. But it's like, even if you're running you yourself, right, it's like your body is always your greatest asset. 

0:18:59 - Speaker 2
Yeah, like if you're in pain and suffering, because I remember part of what opened my eyes to the coaching world and when I first stepped into it was because I was healing from a lot of surgeries and health stuff myself and I realized, oh my goodness, when I was 100% in my brick and mortar and teaching a lot of yoga classes and leading trainings and everything, my body was the biggest limit because I don't have energy. If I'm having to recover from a surgery, like I can't show up, that's it. 

0:19:26 - Speaker 1
Yeah, no, not at all. It's like how are you going to serve someone if your own cup isn't full? Yeah, another thing that I find for a lot of the women especially but honestly it applies to the men just as much is that I find that their nervous systems are actually holding onto this. It's almost like this fear of success or this like threat in success, especially for women, right, who are like now, all of a sudden, they're in a business or they're a coach themselves or helping other women, and at what point in history has that been safe for them? 

0:19:56 - Speaker 2
Yes, exactly, I was gonna say that's like a lineage thing. Yes, right, so we found generations Exactly. 

0:20:04 - Speaker 1
And the way I always put it is like what's the best way to stop you from doing that pain? It's really good at stopping you, right, it's to me, and protective. It's like, oh, don't do that, this is dangerous. Yeah, this could literally get you killed, and so they're going to feel like stuck and just totally paralyzed in their business. And what do you do? The nervous system work and help to find the safety and reprogram all that. It's just amazing, then, the effect that they get to have on the world. Yeah, I'm using their voice. 

0:20:34 - Speaker 2
I experienced that myself. I remember with consultations, with the brick and mortar I could get by because I was so differentiated in my community. I was getting referrals from other PTs because no one did the work that I was doing, and so I had a lot of people show up to my consultations. They already bought in. They just wanted to know the details and the price and work out the budget and the timing of things. But they already bought in. So I kind of got around it and bypassed that. 

But when I moved more into the coaching and the online world, I was finding myself on Zoom on these consultations, like literally freezing. Like people were saying words on the other side of the Zoom screen and I was like a deer in headlights and then the words that would come out of my mouth would be like yeah, okay, I understand and hang up. And I realized I was having like a total nervous system response. And so I hired my own coach and we do to process a lot of the trauma and what I was feeling in my nervous system and create that safety. And for me it's a capacity to handle more discomfort, for me to steal a broader span of emotions anywhere from like fear or doubt or just any kind of uncomfortable feelings in my body and know that the floor is not going to drop out from underneath me. I am safe. It's okay to feel this. I can breathe through it and calm myself down to show up for the other person so I can be curious and in a place of service for that other person to help them. 

Ever since I've moved through that, I have a huge respect and I see it in my clients now. 

When they show up and they're like, oh yeah, I went to this event and I tried to do this or I tried to do that and this is what happened. 

I'm like, oh no, no, no, don't gloss over this. Tell me exactly what you said, what did you feel in the moment, and that will really drive the actions that they took. And so we just back it up and we work through whatever that is, whether it be tapping or breath movement or just breaking down the thoughts and for a lot of entrepreneurs sometimes like marketing consistently, it's a lack of belief that they don't feel safe enough or believe that their business will work for them in the way that they visualize. Or maybe they're so busy, like you said, and they're successful, they're afraid of that success, like will they burn out, will they be able to support their clients enough? There's a lot of sometimes unconscious fears and underneath all that, and sometimes if you just bring it to the surface and acknowledge it and that's enough, or when we can plan through it or we tap through it or whatever kind of somatic type processing works for that person. 

0:23:19 - Speaker 1
Oh, I love that. I really, really like that. You touched on the increasing the tolerance for discomfort. I feel like that is so key and that is so much of my work is about, and when I've had to work through myself massively because I think for so long when I got into the personal development world, I thought that feeling an uncomfortable feeling, meant something had gone wrong. That's exactly, or it's like what must mean. I can think back that having just so believing in a feeling like I read stuff to support this, where if you're totally aligned then it should feel so easy Like that's the biggest truck of shit, it feels terrible. You just know it's right. 

0:24:05 - Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly yeah. I had a coach. She said once to me like with the decision, I was in the place to be able to feel and to lean into the discomfort of this harder decision. And she's like Alson, this is the right decision for you. It's just not the easiest but it's the right. And I was like 100% and that's why it felt so uncomfortable and my body like wanted to move away from that discomfort and go down the easy path, which to me felt like you could even say like my intuition was saying the other path was the right path, because it just felt natural and I could have flow and all the things. But it wasn't the right path for me. And how do I know? Because I went down that harder path and now I'm where I want to be. If I had went the other way, that would have been a distraction actually. 

And maybe I would have gotten to where I am, but I think it would have been a more labor intensive route. 

0:24:56 - Speaker 1
Yeah, so longer room different scenic journey. Yeah, scenics right, because we all are going to do that, sometimes Absolutely, but yeah, and I think that is where the so much nuance comes in right. It's like I'm all about listening to your body, but it doesn't mean you do what your body says. 

0:25:13 - Speaker 2
Yeah right, we donate all the time, yeah. 

0:25:17 - Speaker 1
I would, yeah for sure. And it's how. What part of our body are we listening to? I don't know if you like go into part, like do parts work at all, but it's a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, is this your six year old part that's terrified of that decision, that's right now trying to make this decision? Then, like, of course it's gonna feel wrong and terrible versus when you tap into yourself, energy or your true self or your authentic selves. It's still gonna feel really hard and uncomfortable and all those thoughts and feelings in your six-year-old part's gonna be shouting at you. We can let you're like. I know this is right. 

Yeah, and I think we've all had that moment where we are making a decision, where people are telling us that it's the wrong decision or like what are you thinking, what are you doing? And it's just like the voice is like, it's like they don't even matter. You're like I just know, this is right. Yeah, it's solid. Yes, solid is such a good word, but it doesn't mean, it doesn't feel terrible, it's still funny. 

0:26:05 - Speaker 2
It can go edgy. Yeah, solid and edgy at the same time. 

0:26:10 - Speaker 1
Yes, yes. And I think the other big point of clarification because I think this is the worst I know so many people get stuck in myself. It's like, okay, but how do I know what's right, how do I not use that against me? When I'm in a PT office and you're digging eyes off tissue and it's like what, if I'm feeling too fierce here that I should just point, knuckle through right? It's like, well, no, not metxinaria, right, like how do you tell the difference? And I think a lot of times we can make the decision from that really solid grounded place and then you commit to it and then you know that the actual individual actions that you're gonna have to take are gonna probably feel really crappy. But it's like just remembering, okay, but I already committed to this. 

0:26:48 - Speaker 2
Yeah, you gotta see it through. Then you find out, oh, actually that kind of worked, but not really. You know, you gotta just assess afterwards and be like you take the parts of it that did work and you're like, okay, I'm gonna repeat those parts for a therapist, yeah, that clinic setting actually worked, but the therapist and I we didn't. So maybe I go to the same clinic, try a different therapist. You know, you take the parts that work and then you learn from the parts that don't work and you repeat it again. So you're not always abandoning everything and recreating the wheel. 

Or I find a lot of entrepreneurs like beat themselves up during that and you know, like I failed. But that trial and error and the erroring side, the failure side, it's part of being a human being. We're gonna fail, we're gonna get it wrong and again that's like the ability to handle that failure. It's uncomfortable and sometimes we try to avoid that failure at all costs that we end up setting ourselves up for the failure in the end. Or we're just feeling the effects of the failure before we even failed, because we're like holding that failure in our body. 

0:27:55 - Speaker 1
Oh my gosh, yes, that's like what anxiety is right there. Right, it's like you're already just living the future moment of failure. That hasn't even happened yet. Oh, it's your first time. And I laugh only because I can relate so much. I've been there. I knew we'd try to rap. You're gonna sing this, right, it has to. Oh, true, and that willingness to take a step. There's so many perfectionists who are listening to this. Right, it's like you're like, but I just wanna make the right decision. Like let me try to think ahead. And it's like you cannot see what the next step is until you've taken a step. Like you can't assess how it went for you without doing the thing. You can't assess if that modality worked for you unless you go and try that modality. 

0:28:33 - Speaker 2
Yeah, or the combination, the create your own thing, like I did. Like I didn't get it perfectly right out of the gate. I had to kind of fumble around and figure it out, cause when I was doing yoga and more massage than nutritional work, yeah, I was bringing strengthening and stuff in, but I'm very hyper mobile and so I had a lot of PTs tell me like what are you doing? Yoga injures people. And this was 10, 15 years ago, so there wasn't the research on it. So I had to go against like the grain. But I just trusted myself, cause first of all, I had evidence like it helped my own healing journey recover from the surgeries when I was discharged from PT and they said, oh, that's as good as you're gonna get, and I was like, no, I refuse to believe that. I think I was a little rebellious at the time, but oh no that was B2 with my after I had my concussion. 

0:29:22 - Speaker 1
They're like well, that sucks, that's grab to learn to live with it. And it's just like no thanks. 

0:29:27 - Speaker 2
Yeah, no, I'm not gonna accept that. So there was more. I had three surgeries on my wrist and now I do a handstand I don't have a problem At. My surgeon told me if I chose a career with my hands, I'd have arthritis by the time I was 25. And this was when I was 19. And what did I do? In rolling massage school, love it Head side. I could have been with my hands for 20 plus years. You don't have arthritis you know. 

0:29:49 - Speaker 1
Yes, repeat that, because I think again there's a lot of listeners who have things right, that they've been told stuff like this oh, but I have this injury, I can't do XYZ, and it's like, of course there's gonna be, like, certain situations where there are certain limits there are limits. But like, yeah, man, the amount of stuff that no offense surgeons that they say, or you know, doctors say that it's just they might not know the whole truth. 

0:30:10 - Speaker 2
No, yeah, buddy, or your body, yeah, and then he had come to the limits of what he could do, like he did three surgeries. I had plates in and pins in and all kinds of things and he said it was such compassion. He's like I'm so sorry, I tried my best. It was a really extensive injury. I wouldn't choose a career with your hands. I'm like I can't take off the gas thing. I can't move my hand that sideways. Oh my God, I'm like I can't fill my cup with gas. I always have to have a passenger. I'm sorry and I'm like no, this is unacceptable. But I didn't know what I was gonna do. I just stumbled into a yoga class, fortunately, and started working just when every week I couldn't do any of the stuff. I would just kind of make my own variations and try. But I kept going and eventually it healed and I felt a lot better in my mind and I was like huh, it must be something to this. 

0:31:01 - Speaker 1
Yeah right, no kidding, I just really wanna highlight the incredibleness of that, of your willingness to show up in yoga, of all things, which is insanely wrist heavy, and be there and still show up and just modify the moods. I'd be willing to look different from everyone, right, cause I think that's such a barrier, is like I can't do that thing yet, right. But if you don't start doing anything, like the reality is you'll never be able to do it. Yeah, like it's not, like you're gonna wake up one day and all of a sudden be able to do the move that you wanna do. I just take it step by step. Yeah, it's like where can you meet yourself exactly where you are and just be willing to show up for yourself exactly as you are? 

0:31:43 - Speaker 2
Yeah, and sometimes it's like the popcorn effect, where you put the popcorn bag into the microwave and the first minute, minute 50, nothing happens and all of a sudden you start to see the results of the microwave. For me and that experience I remember I went for a good three months or six months before I really started to see more movement in my wrist. But I kept going because I never had, because this was back in the late 90s or so. And so Tony Robbins and that type of like Deepak Chakra they were just starting to come on the scenes and I had just never heard anyone and I'm in California from New York, you know, from the East Coast I had never heard anyone speak this way. 

Yeah, oh, my gosh, yeah, it was like such hope A lot of the times to hear her message. I just felt it was like so inspiring, it gave me such hope when I didn't realize that I was lacking in hope. So I brought all that into that brick and mortar clinic and it felt really scary at times to be doing that type of work, because here I am like coaching and talking about Deepak Chakra and Anthony Robbins and Gilgott and it just wasn't done like that back then, yes, oh my gosh, I feel like something that just like endlessly fascinates me is, you know, it's like what made you get into that? 

0:32:59 - Speaker 1
and like, stick with it. I was like trying to remember I try to think back all the time of like why did I get into what I do? Like I didn't have some like defining moment in my life, it was just, it just made sense. Yeah, like I remember just starting to research, I had been on ADHD meds my whole life and I was in college and I was just like there's gotta be something else. And like I had been to so many doctors and they're like nope, like the meds were causing all types of side effects and I couldn't exercise because my heart it would spike to like over 200 and they're like that sucks. It was just like such a hot mess and I was just like this just doesn't make sense. So I just started researching and finding out that like, oh, maybe drinking six diet cokes a day is not a good idea, or eating like an entire tub of Ben and Jerry's for dinner is also not a good idea. But Nina was like oh, fairly, what you put in your body matters. Like no one's told me this, yeah, but I'm mind blowing. 

But it's so funny because you know it's like there's people who will never question it. Yeah, yeah, it's just like it did. What like makes some? I don't know, it's like always that's an unanswerable question, but it's like what makes that tick? What makes someone think to dive into something further versus just be like okay, because I'm sure there's a million things in my life where I don't question. As I had a six year old who has taught me about all kinds of electronics things and asked me questions about why certain things work. I know that there's a lot that I don't question. Yeah, because I've never thought about why or how the railroad lights start blinking when a train comes. You know what I mean. It's just like there's totally so just fascinating of like what makes people just question certain things. I'm like I need to learn more about that. Yeah, totally Keep doing this thing that I don't even know if it's going to work, but I'm just going to keep doing it for six months We'll see about that. 

0:34:42 - Speaker 2
No, it just well. And at that time I felt like I had tried everything and it was like so different than anything that the way my family talked, the way the other practitioners talked, I was what's there to lose? Just keep going and trying, providing hope. And you know, when I started doing embodying that work for myself, like as the practitioner, there was times I called myself, I was in the Yogi closet, or even when I was in the yoga world and I had a mentor and she was like helping guide, combining physical therapy and yoga, I was in such the shadow because I was afraid to use my voice and really speak out and trust my expertise and my opinion. 

So there was times like where I really had to learn how to be uncomfortable and back my opinion up and what invoiced my opinion. In fact, that's one of the first things I learned when I started recording a podcast. So I was like if I couldn't predict how vulnerable that felt to like you know, like share your voice and your opinion, I thought I was ready for that. But working through all that previous work, that was another level. 

0:35:47 - Speaker 1
Oh my gosh. Yes, like having your own business. I think we've already said this having your own business is like the fastest like ramp to self development, of like let's bring up every old wound and trauma and block and limitation. If you want to know what's lying underneath to start a business, it's a great way to do it. Totally. 

0:36:04 - Speaker 2
Which is why you can never compare your business to someone else's business, because you just have no idea where they're starting from, and everything from tangible financial resources to audience size, to your own nervous system, work and growth without any judgment or criticism. It's just how it is, like we all start from different places, so we're going to grow at different speeds. 

0:36:27 - Speaker 1
Yes, and that is something that I need to remind myself of all the time, because when I first started even just posting a picture of food on Instagram because I am an nutritional therapist as well so that was like, kind of where I started dabbling into the side thing, I would get intense pangs of I'm going to get thrown in jail. Yes, I was terrified like thrown in jail, and I wasn't even saying anything. 

0:36:51 - Speaker 2
I was like drink water and I'm like oh, I don't want to kill me, if it's like the PT thing and if you step outside. I literally thought when I'd post about yoga, when I first started doing it, like I was going to get witch hunted by a bunch of PTs, like they were faceless, like no one in particular, but just PTs were going to hunt me down and tell me what I was doing was wrong. 

0:37:13 - Speaker 1
Totally, oh my gosh, absolutely. And you know what I found out later and I found this all out after the fact, like after I had done massive amounts of healing Like I only found this out last year I think that my grandpa on one side was jailed for having a business and my great grandpa on the other side was jailed for having a business Last year. I wonder, that's a mention just like. Like he said, like the witch hunt, right, like I feel like that's, I don't know, because it's like again you're a woman talking about being embodied Like there were witch hunts for that. Yeah, our system remembers. Yeah, and it's like we all get to decide, right, like what's the hard, that's worth it, and I don't know, somehow I keep choosing, but it's and it doesn't feel like there's another option, yeah, right, it's just like. Yeah, it's like no, I yellow cycles. 

0:38:00 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I remember after one of my surgeries I was healing back from cancer and I was having a serious talk with my husband and he's like now are you sure you want to go back to your business? Because it didn't sit on your taking and at the time I was overworking so I had to retrain myself out of that. But I considered going back into the traditional PT role and working for someone else and like no, can't do it. Yeah, that's the way it was Me either. 

0:38:28 - Speaker 1
There's right, it's just listening to your body of like. No, this is just so much more aligned, and so I'm so curious, Like you have had, yeah, like you said, like multiple chronic injuries, surgeries, and like yet you're here today Like what is, I don't know. So if you had to bring it down not that it is ever one thing at all, because that is like so dishonoring of your journey and everything you've been through, but I think it's my path. 

0:38:52 - Speaker 2
I think it's the deck of cards I was given in life. I think I'm here to help inspire others. It's so funny like people, occasionally I'll get a new referral from one of my current patients and they'll come in and, as they're describing a lot of things, I've experienced One of my old time yoga students. She's been with me for over a decade or more. She's like feel like you've lived the life of nine people before you were even 40 years old. And I was like, yeah, I think it's just part of my journey to show people that you can persevere, you can get through it and nothing's gone wrong. Nothing's gone wrong and it's just a new level of evolution that you're going to work through. And part of my work, too, is I remember I was working with one of my practitioners and she's like maybe, maybe we can teach your nervous system and your unconscious mind that there's softer and more gentle ways to learn the lessons. What? 

0:39:48 - Speaker 1
What about baby? And I'm happy. Yes, it's like what I always tell people. I was like well, when you start listening to your body, doesn't you just scream quite so loud and start to hint at you a little sooner? Yeah, hello. 

0:40:01 - Speaker 2
I have been, though you know, in terms of my own house, I think I have been trying to do that because I've never felt better in my body. I have the genetic mutation it's called Lynch syndrome, so I go for a lot of cancer screenings, but they're always clear. So everything's been really really good and I feel really confident, like if something were to pop up, because I am more aware, I do move slower, I take better care of myself, that If, worst case, something were to pop up, there's no reason to shame myself like I did before, because can't always get it perfect and right. But if something were to happen, I get it taken care of, it'll be fine. I really feel that way, it'll all be fine. So I'm not really concerned about any of that anymore. 

0:40:44 - Speaker 1
Really, oh, yeah, I think that is such a powerful place to be because it's like we can predict what's going to happen. There's no way to predict it, there's no way to know. You could do everything right and write in quotes Right, like can we even know what that means? No, and just shit happens, things happen. And so I think it's so much more empowering to have that knowing of no matter what is put in my past that I can figure out, like I don't need to even know how to deal with it or what I would do, or have a five-step plan at all. It's just trust. But in front of me it means that I'm going to figure out my way through or, I guess, literally die trying, because what else is there to do? I'm not even right, but it's like there can be this solidness where it's very freeing. Yeah, you can worry about everything. 

0:41:32 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, because that is like you'll figure it out or you'll find the people, the resources to help you through. 

0:41:39 - Speaker 1
Oh, thank you for saying that. I think that when I say you'll figure it out, or like even in my own head, when I'm saying that to myself because it's like an unselfish thing, yeah, it doesn't mean I have to figure it out myself alone. It means even trusting that I will be. The correct resources will just be put and come into my life as they need, or I will be able to find them as I need, because there's no way that we can do any of this alone. No, that's part of the healing often is bringing in another nervous system to help our nervous system. That's important. Yes, alison, I want to be respectful of your time. This has been such an amazing conversation and you have been so inspiring me, watching you kind of from afar just running your business and doing things I do too, you too? 

Thank you for this. 

0:42:29 - Speaker 2
Where can people find you? Oh, it's igniteyourwellnesscom and yours you are. So it's igniteyourwellnesscom. Many things to do there. 

0:42:39 - Speaker 1
Amazing. I love it, and I'll put it all in the show notes as well. If there's any last words you have, feel free to say them otherwise. Thank you so, so much for being on here, I know thank you. 

0:42:48 - Speaker 2
And if you have like a dream or a goal or a vision, like just keep going, take it one step at a time. 

0:42:55 - Speaker 1
Be at home. Amazing words to end on. Thank you so much, alison. Thank you. I will always have such a special place in my heart for other entrepreneurs, coaches or people that are just carving their own way in this world. 

It was funny after this episode. It got me thinking of how much I really love getting to witness people that are building their own business as well to put their message out there, and it made me realize that over 80% of my clients are entrepreneurs and I don't think I had ever realized how high that percentage was. Obviously, I love working with every single one of my clients, but there's just something so cool to see someone who is willing to put themselves out there in a way that is just so visible, so vulnerable and so authentic. I'm not sure there's anything that really calls for that like entrepreneurship does. 

Now, not everyone is going to be an entrepreneur or feels called, and of course, that's totally fine, but I just wanted to say that if you are an entrepreneur or someone who strives to be one and you're facing chronic pain, I just want you to know you are not alone and, in fact, inside my pain to power community, you will find many other entrepreneurs that are on this journey in a powerful way, putting themselves out there, and because they are connecting deep with their own body's wisdom, they are finding so much more success, so much more ease in their business and so much more radical alignment that is giving them more time, freedom and reaching more clients and having a bigger impact. It is so cool to witness and if you want to learn more about that, jump on an energy up level, call with me. It is in the show notes and I cannot wait to dive deeper with you. See you next time. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page