Speaker 1: 1:25

Welcome to the show everybody. This is the Next Level Human podcast. I'm your host, dr JT, and I'm here with someone who's become a close friend of mine, a colleague and a peer, and this is Natalie Pendergrass. She is someone who I have dialogued with for quite some time on social media and we have become buds, and her story is a story that I really wanted to share with you all. In fact, natalie and I did this interview one time previously and had the file corrupted and we couldn't save it.

Speaker 1: 2:01

So we're back finally doing this again, and where I want to start, natalie is, as you know, part of the next level human work is really about this idea that, you know, we humans go through our own trials and tribulations and difficulties and suffering and learnings, and the idea is that, for many people, these things really beat us down and they degrade us to a degree where we become shells of our former selves.

Speaker 1: 2:32

And part of what I want to highlight is, obviously, being human is not easy. Going through life is can be incredibly difficult, but some people seem to go through this stuff and they have the same, you know, doubts and fears and pains, as as the rest of us, but they somehow, uh, use it to grow themselves and enrich, enrich others and evolve the world. And I feel like your story is one of these stories and I want to highlight these stories and, and you know also, I think the work that you do is incredibly interesting and I want you to also, you know, share your teachings. But why don't you get us started on wherever you want to start? I know we had this conversation once before, but once you get everyone started on sort of your background, sort of what you've been through in life and how you've gotten to where you are and the work that you do, Great.

Speaker 2: 3:33

Thank you, jade. I appreciate it. And you're right, I've had many people, when they do hear my story, look at me and say, wow, how are you still functioning, let alone serving others and smiling every day? And I'd have to say, part of that is, thankfully, just who I am. You know, I don't know how. Some of us are just fortunate to be born with like that desire to always push forward and do more where it seems some people just kind of lose that desire. But I hope to give that back to some Because, you know, I don't know about those listeners out there, but I'm wondering, you know, have you ever felt like your body was working against you?

Speaker 2: 4:12

You know, like, no matter what you've tried, pain and exhaustion were your constant companions, because for years I lived with chronic pain, injuries, the weight of trauma. It all seemed inescapable and there are many times that I thought my active life was over. But you know what if I told you there's a way to not only survive but thrive? You know, I have been working so hard and I feel like I finally found it and I am, at 50 years old, more active and feeling better than I ever have in my life. I feel like I finally resolved a lifetime of pain, because I can't remember a time, even from childhood, when I wasn't in pain.

Speaker 2: 4:52

So, yes, I'm Natalie Pendergrass and I have spent about the last 23 years helping others to learn to live better in their bodies, and it's also been a process for myself at the same time. So it all started with taking my first yoga class, which turned out to be extremely challenging in some ways, but also when it came to strength, but also super easy when it was in the areas of flexibility. I later became a massage therapist and continued to observe how my body was not the same as others and eventually became a student, I'm sorry and eventually, through the program, because I became a massage therapist, start teaching in the program and eventually, about eight years ago, a student that was also going through underneath me. She mentioned having hypermobility and said something about EDS. I had never heard about it until that point and when she said it I was like what was that? And she told me a little bit more about it. I began researching and went down that rabbit hole of learning and realized I think that's me.

Speaker 1: 5:54

Yeah, and tell me what that condition is again, just for the listener, so they can understand what that is.

Speaker 2: 5:59

Yeah, eds is an acronym for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. It's the name of two doctors, ehlers and Danlos, who basically finally put a name to it. What's interesting is Hippocrates had even written about hypermobility in people, but it's still really under-recognized, not only in our medical population here in the United States, but really worldwide. It's really just starting to be recognized. And not only is it just starting to be recognized, but really the widespread implications, because when you have it, you tend to have a lot of comorbidities. And so, starting to really put those pieces together and trying to educate individuals like you're not crazy, even if doctors are telling you this can't all be happening to you, you're too young for this, there's no way you could be experiencing these things. No, they really could be happening and we as individuals need more education. Families need more education in supporting their family members and the medical community needs to recognize that this is a real thing that people are really dealing with. Thankfully, it's starting to improve. More and more doctors are recognizing it, but it's still really a struggle in many ways.

Speaker 1: 7:10

Yeah, you know, I'm wondering. It just popped in my mind I can't remember Is it Marr fans or Ehlers-Danlos that President Lincoln supposedly had.

Speaker 2: 7:20

I forget. I think his was Marr fans. Yeah, yeah, they are very similar. Yeah, there's a lot of similarities, yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:30

But, marr fans, you tend to be tall and have really long arms.

Speaker 2: 7:31

That's right. Yeah, I'm thinking that was Lincoln.

Speaker 1: 7:34

Yeah, and so it's. You know I don't know where you want to start with this, but you know, just to kind of frame this up like you know to me, you know, I imagine you know you're coming up, you know you're saying you didn't have, you know, you know any any time. And I'm wondering when you were young you said you never really remembered not being in pain. So this, this condition was putting you in pain from, you know, a very young age. Interestingly enough, right then you find yourself, because you are hyper flexible, because that's partly what this condition does, you find your way into yoga and let's start now, and probably by no accident, but this began sort of your, you know, healing, I think, journey right.

Speaker 2: 8:17

It did. It did because, yeah, my childhood wasn't easy. I grew up in an abusive environment. Um, I had trauma so bad that I have CPTSD from my childhood and then other later things. Um, you know, and I, I I had a family of. I was one of six kids in the family but I was the only one that you know like.

Speaker 2: 8:35

I remember dropping from the monkey bars of school and being rushed to the nurse's office because I screamed in pain. It hurt so bad. I felt like it broke both ankles. By the time I get there, they moved just fine, they just weren't in place.

Speaker 2: 8:49

I used to dislocate my shoulders for the fun of it and just tell people like, ooh, you know, we can put your finger in here and they finger go in my shoulder to pop it back out, and I didn't know what I was doing. But it was entertaining and it was the one type of positive interaction I could get. You know, for my differences I would get abdominal pains and cramps and itchy, swollen lips and itchy mouth and everybody in my family and anyone around me would just be like you're weird, you're different, leave me alone, I don't want to hear about it. You're a drama queen, all that stuff. So it was very frustrating and so you know there was all of that stuff and then and my abuse involved a lot of head and neck trauma too, so I had a lot of pain from that Then yeah, let's stop there just for a minute.

Speaker 1: 9:37

So you know like physical abuse then is that you know, essentially, as a child you were beat physical abuse Like what was that really like? And you mentioned, you know CP, cp, chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, CPTSD right? So a lot of people think of PTSD. Chronic PTSD is you know where, you know you take it and it's like magnifying at times you know a thousand and people really can't function because everything in their environment is triggering them. So the fact that you were dealing with this means there's an awful lot of really traumatic things. You know capital T traumas and things like that in your life.

Speaker 2: 10:19

Yeah, exactly yeah, ptsd tends to be more of like a one-time thing happened, whereas the CPTSD is you can't get out of it. It's your daily life. Whereas the CPTSD is you can't get out of it, it's it's your daily life. And and yeah, it was my daily life, like from the moment I was born. I was not appreciated in my household, felt like I shouldn't have ever been there and, um, part of my punishment would be grabbed by the hair and shaken by the head. So, yes, lots of neck trauma. Um, eventually, because I couldn't get out of it and you know psychology, we tend to hear a fight or flight. Because I wasn't allowed to fight or to flee, I eventually started passing out and so I would pass out and, of course, knock my head more neck and head trauma and then just be yelled at to get up and go through it again. So, yeah, it was a lot and that was it went on most of my childhood life. So, yes, the chronic PTSD.

Speaker 1: 11:17

And one thing and sorry to interrupt you, natalie, keep interrupting you, but I just want to. I just want to frame this up for the listener and I know I know you get this. But part of this is this is part of my hypothesis for all you listening, and Natalie and I obviously sort of share some of this is this is part of my hypothesis for all you listening and natalie and I obviously sort of share some of this viewpoint. But from my perspective, one of the things that next level human is about is it's this idea that when these things are happening and when natalie's going through these events, it's almost like she's being conditioned in a sense, right, so she's having this historical, you know, sort of narrative that happens in her child development, her adolescent development, that's creating this sort of conditioning around you know her mental, emotional, wellness, and she also was born with this particular condition in her body.

Speaker 1: 12:05

And from my perspective, there's what happens is when we blame, complain, distract, deny, avoid, attack, or we use these things that have happened to us or our conditions that essentially are sort of our authentic baggage to carry In a sense.

Speaker 1: 12:25

The solution, always, I have found, is to somehow try to integrate that in a way that makes sense for our lives. And so the reason I just want them to understand, the reason why I want them to get a sense of this whole history of you, is because I feel like the way that you have integrated this which, from my perspective, is to heal yourself and then to teach and pass that on to others which is essentially the full arc of a hero's journey, and so I just want them to sort of understand that somehow Natalie took all this stuff, integrated it in a way that helped her heal but also allowed her to begin healing others. And so let's begin to, you know, just continue with this thing. There's chronic PTSD, there's this traumatic childhood, there's this condition that you know dramatically impacts the connective tissue, causing joints to, you know, dislocate, causing pain, causing all these things, and then you uh, end up at yoga and this begins sort of this in this sort of path.

Speaker 2: 13:39

Yeah, and I want to add to that really quick too. So yeah, ehlers-danlos is a genetic disorder and I have had genetic testing done to show that it does run on my family as a recessive gene. So it's interesting as, yes, I'm one of six, I'm the only one who presents with it. So it's not a widespread belief, but neither is it with necessarily type one diabetes. But I believe the two function pretty similarly, where you can be born predisposed to potentially have it, but then sometimes it doesn't always show up until a trauma triggers it. And I think because I was the black sheep of the family and I took all of that where the others didn't, they were able to stay on the outskirts. That's why they don't present with it. So one little difference.

Speaker 2: 17:03

And you know some people have asked me. You know, you know how do you feel about that past abuse now. And yet you know it's really weird to say, but I'm kind of thankful for it because it made me who I am and I know that's got. It's so weird to say because when I was in it certainly wouldn't have been asking for it. I would have wanted to be where my siblings were. But looking back now, I'm so thankful of where I am and how I am helping people and I am healthy mental and emotionally and physically where my siblings tend to be alcoholic assholes. So that's okay, yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:42

Natalie, let me, let me just reinforce this, because you and I have talked about this before and this is the thing that seems so bizarre to me but seems to be the. What you just said seems to be the running golden theme in people who have healed. It's almost as if the most difficult things they somehow have become grateful for them. So what you said, right there is really what I have found that always blows my mind. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:14

Yeah, it's all in what you do with it. So I'm glad that I made the most of it. And yeah, so I had my first son. I found that I was now over 200 pounds. I, when I was pregnant with him, anytime I had morning sickness. I just had to eat to make it go away, so that wasn't helpful. With the end, weight gain. So, yeah, I've never been that weight and I was like I got to do something, and running is certainly not it, I'll break myself. So I was so happy and I found a yoga class, very first class I went to. I was actually invited to this private yoga class by an old high school friend and she was like, oh, it's intermediate level, but you'll be okay. And I was like, all right, it's my first time ever We'll see.

Speaker 2: 18:54

And three significant things happen in that class. First, when we were just sitting and I, you know, initially started with like, oh, my neck hurts, my neck hurts. And the teacher starts guiding us to, you know, adjust our rib cage in a certain way, to adjust the way we're holding our head, and all of a sudden I'm like I'm just in my head thinking, oh, my God, my neck doesn't hurt. Are you kidding me, like I can do this and my neck doesn't hurt. This is wild. I was so used to my neck constantly hurting. I'm like the simple move and my neck is relaxed. This is amazing. So there was that. Then, pretty shortly after, you went on to hands and knees and my arms were trembling and I'm like, oh, my goodness, I am so weak. I'm so weak I can't even hold myself on hands and knees. So that was the second thing. That was like ah, so there was a good thing, there was a negative.

Speaker 2: 19:40

But then we get all the way to the end of the class and we're in bridge pose. You know, we're on your back, knees bent, feet on the floor and we do the bridge pose. But then the teacher says well, for those of you that wheel is in your practice, go ahead into wheel. And I didn't know what she was talking about, but she gave the instructor said you know, take your hands up toward the sky, bring them back toward your shoulders and press up. And I did. It was my first day of yoga. Most people have been practicing seven years, couldn't do it. And the teacher walks over and stands by me, says and how long have you been practicing? And I said today, and how long have you been practicing?

Speaker 1: 20:15

And I said today I love this story so much.

Speaker 2: 20:18

She was like okay. So we both knew that was a little bit different and I continued through yoga with her and I loved it. It was, it was incredible. There were also a couple of downsides, being that I didn't understand what was happening with my body and let alone my teacher didn't understand. So we both enjoyed it.

Speaker 2: 20:39

There were times where you know she would stop the class, and I mean she was a very traditionally trained teacher. She worked directly with Swami Rama of the Himalayan Institute. You know he was studied by scientists when he came here. Very traditional, so she would even say she's like yoga is not about showing off. But I'd like everyone to just look and see what Natalie can do, because I've never seen this in my entire time doing yoga in person. And that was when I was in diamond pose, which is you're kneeling and you go into a backbend and I had my head between my feet from a backbend. So everybody look. And so there was that.

Speaker 2: 21:15

And eventually I worked toward headstand and I love doing headstand. I actually still do them, even though I have bulging disc, a fracture in my neck and multiple things. I know how to do them well and safely. My neck doesn't bother me with them, but I was doing headstands and my back was so flexible that one day she said you know, there's this other thing we do around the world. And so I dropped my legs back into a backbend from headstand and then the idea is to walk your feet all the way around. Well, I got to. When you get halfway you have to flip your pelvis. As soon as I flipped my pelvis, I felt a pop in my back and I just crumbled to the floor and she you could tell she was panicked. We were both like. But again I got up and I'm like, I think I'm fine. It hurt a lot at the moment, but I think I'm fine. That may have been the moment. I fractured my low back, unfortunately, so I do have, um, uh, spondylolisthesis in my cervical spine and lumbar spine, where the vertebrae aren't lined up anymore. But whatever, I survived.

Speaker 2: 22:15

So, yeah, I went from yoga to continuing to race bike. Oh, I got into bike riding and then racing, because I, as a child, that was my one escape. And so, as an adult, when I was like, okay, what else can I do outside of yoga? I wanted something, you know, just to get outdoors. And I thought I love bikes so I started riding bikes, began racing bikes.

Speaker 2: 22:37

One of my very first training rides unfortunately had a bit of an accident and not only lost a lot of skin that was really obvious. But as soon as we got back on the bikes I felt something in my left thigh that just brought my hand right down onto it and I was like what is this? It felt like I had a piece of slate stone underneath my bike shorts. Eventually the swelling and bruising went away and I ended up with what to me I just thought of as a dent. I'm like how do I have a dent? Well, that happened in geez. It's been over 10 years. It's been probably 13 years since that happened.

Speaker 2: 23:11

Just yesterday I saw another orthopedic surgeon and I told him unfortunately I recently again ruptured my quad again. It turns out that's what I had done and it was never imaged or anything. And just yesterday, because I have ongoing knee and hip issues due to all these injuries, he actually just barely touched and he looked at me his eyes wide open. He said oh, that you've never had imaging of that. We need to image that. So I have a 90 minute MRI of my thigh coming up. I didn't realize an MRI could last that long, but we'll finally know how much quad I have left.

Speaker 1: 23:43

Yeah, and the interesting thing about this is, you know, like, the way that I see this is, I don't I can't tell you how many people have I and this is me too you and I have talked about this like just have body pains, like you know, just aching. You know this hurts, that hurts oh, now my hip's hurting this and that you have essentially done work, you know, because obviously you're in a case where these things are constantly happening to you and you've learned and practiced a way to deal with this stuff, right. So I'm curious if you can walk us through what it is you have discovered and what it is that you help people do, given all your, your challenges, like what, ultimately, if we had to shortchange this and say, OK, these are the things that I learned for you, people who have, who do not have, hypermobility and don't aren't going to get all the things that I've had, but are still walking around. You know, for me, I'm like Rockman, like I'm the opposite of you. I couldn't. I could barely bend over and touch my, my toes.

Speaker 1: 24:45

Yeah, right, and so what is it that? If you had to teach us? What is it that you have learned about? You know the way this all works. What can you share with us?

Speaker 2: 25:02

Sure. Well, let me just add. So the way it kind of evolved was so I started incorporating all that I learned in yoga throughout my everyday life. Because you know, like doing dishes used to make me cry because it would hurt my neck so much, I started realizing, okay, if I tuck my chin, I'll get the dish, but not look down the whole time when I'm vacuuming. It would hurt my lower back. So okay, what if I'm in warrior pose and use my whole body, things like that. So after I went through my yoga teacher training, I went into massage school On the very first day of our work. At the table the teacher came over and said what are you doing? And I was like at first my thought was am I doing it wrong? And she's like I. At first my thought was am I, am I doing it wrong? And she's like no, what you're doing, though no one does on day one Like, how are you moving your body? Like that? And I looked at what I was doing. I was like I was moving in warrior pose.

Speaker 1: 25:43

So to keep you out of pain, right yeah exactly.

Speaker 2: 25:46

I had learned that when I move in this way I don't hurt. So I was naturally doing that with my massage day one, without even being told to do that. So she was impressed and she said we need that every day, we need that for every class. So basically, my second day or first day of class, whatever it was I was hired for the rest of the program after that. So when the next program started I was there for 45 minutes a week helping students their body mechanics, and so I've been doing that for over 23 years and I've developed this program where, yeah, we start with some mindfulness, um, and then we move into.

Speaker 2: 26:19

It's not only just mindfulness, but really getting familiar with your body. So we go inside and really feel how your body is positioned and what that feels like to change your body position and we go through um. The three main components are head position, the um, rib, rib cage and torso position, and then also the pelvis. So those are the three main foundations for everything else to work from. We get into core engagement and unfortunately in so many classes you know people think they know how to engage their core. They're on their back, they're flattening their back to the floor. That's not a good way to go because you flatten your lumbar spine. You can't walk around like that. That's not a way to function. So I teach how to engage your core and you can still breathe diaphragmatically and you can still move, because all three parts are important together. And so I help people with breathing, because breathing a lot of people don't realize how significant the way you breathe is. So significant that let me backtrack a bit.

Speaker 2: 27:17

In 21, I was in a rollover car accident. So prior to that I was great at breathing, so I'd been doing yoga. Well, when I fractured my lower ribs, I couldn't breathe diaphragmatically anymore because it hurt to move those ribs. So I became a chest breather. Well, about two years after that car accident, and all this time it took forever to recover because of the hypermobility and all this stuff. But anyhow, I started developing thoracic outlet syndrome. All of a sudden I've got nerve pain down my left arm and I'm like. So I saw my chiropractor, I saw my pain specialist, I went to PT, I had trigger point injections, I had an epidural injection. Nothing was changing it. And what changed it?

Speaker 2: 27:58

This is kind of funny, but it was a TikTok video about diaphragmatic breathing where, unfortunately, the doctor described how to diaphragmatically breathe completely wrong. He's saying put a belly on or, I'm sorry, a pillow on your belly and push it out, which is not at all diaphragmatic breathing. I want everyone to know that that's not how you learn how to diaphragmatically breathe. But it was like, oh, I haven't been diaphragmatically breathing because I fractured my ribs. The moment I went back to diaphragmatically breathing, like that nerve pain was gone and it took me a few days of repracticing.

Speaker 2: 28:28

You know, as soon as the nerve pain was back though, I'm like, oh, I'm chest breathing, go back to the diaphragmatic breathing. Because when we chest breathe which is the way we will naturally breathe when we're in, when we are anxious, we're dealing with stress, what happens to our neck muscles? We have scalenes muscles and anterior, middle and posterior scalenes that will be recruited. They start lifting the rib cage up and then they compress the ribs against the clavicles or the collarbone and that can pinch off the nerves itself. And honestly, it's been so frustrating to see in different EDS groups how many people, due to thoracic outlet syndrome, have had either their their sternal I mean an SCM removed, a scalenes removed or a clavicle or upper ribs removed to alleviate the thoracic outlet syndrome and I'm like All you may have needed was to learn how to breathe properly.

Speaker 2: 29:20

And people think I'm crazy because you know their doctor's not telling them that their doctor tells them they need surgery. Well, you know what trips me out?

Speaker 1: 29:26

about that whole thing. It's like the fact that people still think an MD and even like someone like me, an MD knows anything, literally anything about how the body moves, is crazy to me. Actually, literally yesterday I had this conversation with my mom who's having hip pain, and she's like, yeah, I'm going to the doctor and I'm going to have my hip looked at. And I'm like, mom, what'd you say? And she goes oh well, I guess I shouldn't go right. She's like remembering, I'm like they're not going to, they don't have tools for you, you know, they simply do not, and you know, because they're not trained that way. So it's really interesting. I agree with you. You see this kind of stuff all of the time. Just briefly, natalie, how would you, just briefly, since you brought it up, how would you tell us to breathe through our diaphragm? How does that work?

Speaker 2: 30:19

Sure, a couple of easy ways to check if you are and to kind of get that deeper breath. One thing I like to do is what I call a low self hug, so if you hug yourself, but with your hands down around your lower ribs around, the sides.

Speaker 1: 30:34

I'm doing it right now.

Speaker 2: 30:35

Yeah, and then there, that's where you want to feel your inhalations come in. So as you exhale, those ribs move together, as you inhale, they push out. Yeah, you feel that.

Speaker 1: 30:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:50

Yeah. And so when it comes to you know doctors saying put a pillow on your belly, yeah, try pushing your belly out to take a deep breath and like it's actually not really what you're after.

Speaker 1: 31:01

You want to hear the rib, you want to feel those ribs expand. The lower rib expand, not the lower belly expand.

Speaker 2: 31:06

Exactly. It's like when you push the belly out you're creating a little bit of the vacuum that the diaphragm done it does, but it still feels like a very shallow short breath. When you get the diaphragm going it's like, oh, now I can breathe. In fact, when I learned how to breathe diaphragmatically through yoga prior to that I had exercise induced asthma and always had to use an inhaler, even for, like, a fast walk or running. I use an inhaler maybe once every five years now, like if I have a bad cold or it's really cold outside and I'm working on I might need one. But otherwise breathing diaphragmatically takes me past that, because a lot of that again is the upper chest tightens up but the diaphragm can still move. So we, if we can take our breath past the upper chest, expand that diaphragm. I find that I'm still able to breathe.

Speaker 1: 34:56

I'm not saying that that's true for all asthmatics, but I think for a lot of asthmatics it could make a big difference well, and here's another thing that, uh, this, what natalie's teaching us right now, for all of you listening, is that for those of you with anxiety, very similar Oftentimes, people who have chronic anxiety or go into anxiety attacks will be breathing from the chest, which is triggering this, these anxiety attacks, and learning this diaphragmatic breathing, as well as prolonged exhales, can really help with that as well. So it's just, you know, incredibly powerful stuff. And what's crazy about your story, natalie, is that it's like, it's almost like and I know you must just be like Jade I'm so tired of having to learn these lessons through, you know, being in a rollover car accident or falling off my bike, or getting my head shook as a child. It's almost as if it's like life goes okay, we're going to hit you upside the head, punch you in the gut, break your arm so that you learn all of these things. But it's really interesting what you've essentially done, and I just want to point this out to people because it's so incredibly powerful. Most of us, when we get wounded and hurt and I even will make this about the emotional pains as well what we do is we sit in it and we just resolve ourselves. Okay, I am wounded now and now.

Speaker 1: 36:16

This will be a limitation, and what I want you all to see, that's so powerful about Natalie's story that I think she sometimes misses even in herself because she's in her own body and in her own story is every time I hear her speak about her story there seems to be this nature in you, natalie that is like I am going to find a way around this. There is a solution, I will find it. And it's almost as if that's what you do. And these stories are really interesting after the fact, because listen to what Natalie was telling us two years to recover from this car accident, basically right. And in that time that's going to imagine the mindset of all of us sitting in pain and trying to recover from a rollover car accident. Many of us, most of us, the vast majority of people, will simply have those limitations from that moment forward. And I just want to point out what Natalie's doing is she's taking these things already having severe limitations in her body from a genetic condition and already having a lot of this stuff. That adds on that we know emotional traumas and physical traumas on top of that, and at each stage, learning somehow to find a solution that works for her and then, more importantly, going and teaching others to actually understand what she's learned.

Speaker 1: 37:42

This, to me, is the epitome of the next level human process. So let's go ahead and begin to wrap up, because you know I got another call coming up, but I want you to sort of just anything that you want to say about that or share with us in terms of maybe you know and we'll just do this intuitively Maybe you want to share about you know more of the physical things you've learned, to make sure you complete the story. Or maybe you want to talk about the mindset, emotional stuff. I want you to kind of just walk us through, if you had to leave individuals who are struggling through emotional pain and or physical pain, which I feel like you integrate so well, where should they begin? What should they do? How should they approach this?

Speaker 2: 38:28

Yeah, one of the main, most important things, I think, is mental health. A lot of people don't realize how much our mental health plays into the inflammation in our body and it's the inflammation in our body that causes us more pain. And it's kind of like a vicious cycle the inflammation level goes up, we have pain, so then we just kind of get in that vicious cycle of this is where I'm going to live, you know, just in this pain. So when we can change our mindset to more of an acceptance of where we're at which is where the mindfulness comes in and start to see those subtle like okay, I do have some control over my life through those subtle adjustments, it makes a huge difference. So, yeah, I focus on those things as well as well, and I want to touch on how you said that I, you know, unfortunately, like I said, I keep having these big things that seem to smack me in the face to have me make a change, and one of those was the car accident and I had autoimmune hepatitis that I'm now in remission from, but really big things that helped me to realize too that there were people in my life I had to cut out. You know there are a lot of family members, which is hard for a lot of people, because society tells us how important it is to keep your family around. We grew up with, I know, in my family it was like there's nothing more important than your family. Your family will always be there for you. It's like my family's never been there for me. My family has been like the worst thing for me. So learning that through these processes and taking out those pieces that don't serve me has been huge. Learning how to live on an anti-inflammatory diet has been a huge part and again, so a lot of it is just about reducing inflammation.

Speaker 2: 40:15

And then the other big component that a lot of people get wrong is so many people, when they're in pain, their muscles hurt, they want to stretch them, and for some people, in some situations, that's a good thing. Almost always. For somebody with hypermobility, stretching is not the right thing. Almost always it's going to be strengthening. It's so funny since learning that how you know, I would have neck pain and I used to go to stretching it and it would never get better. If anything, it would get worse neck pain. You'll find me doing kettlebell swings or kettlebell carries. I'll be doing side planks, things to strengthen and engage the muscles in appropriate form and shape, of course, and then the neck pain goes away because now the muscles are able to do the work that they need to do.

Speaker 2: 41:02

So, for hypermobile people we need to do a lot of strengthening, but we have to be very careful in how we do it, and so that's what I focus on is how do you move in a safe way for your body that you don't end up in more pain after the exercise too? Because, unfortunately for me, I've even seen many PTs that made me worse because they didn't even get it. They don't understand how my body moves. They just say just go and do it and just move. Well, if I'm not precisely right, I'll be in worse pain later.

Speaker 2: 41:27

So, yeah, my goal is to help people to understand, in everything that they do, how to move better, how to keep their mental state in a good place, to watch their, their diet, you know these outside things that are coming into them and how those affect their inflammation, so that, yeah, they can go in and like I do. I mountain bike, I paddleboard, I ride a Harley, I am I'm almost never in pain at this point where before I was, at the point where I was almost never with without pain. I mean I used to live before the car accident at about a five to seven and then after the car accident it was like a nine to ten on a scale of 10, with maybe I would get lucky if I had a couple minutes a day that didn't have pain. And now I mean when I have pain I'm maybe at a five and that happens maybe a couple of times a week as opposed to every day.

Speaker 1: 42:17

So the formula that you gave to like, when I think about the formula, just gave, first of all, acceptance. The second thing is clearing, which I think is like and and I want you all to just hear what natalie's saying there, right, like it's like. First, it's like you gotta accept what has happened to you, like most people just will not. They'll blame, complain, whimper, whine, distract and I, by the way, I do it too like no judgment here, this, but but accepting that. Okay, this is where I'm at now, this is what I need to do. And then this, this really interesting thing, natalie, that you're bringing up about clearing the energetic vibe of the people around you. You mentioned to me I actually here's how I see family, and I think you and I will see it the same. I think family is the most important thing that we have given to us as humans. But because of the lessons they teach, and sometimes that lesson is about, I will not tolerate this behavior and I will up level, and sometimes that means I will not be stuck in this vibe. And I agree with you. Some people just miss that. They allow their family to trap them instead of allowing their family to elevate them. So to me, I would say there's got to be gratitude for the family too, because they taught you I don't need you, I can't deal with you.

Speaker 1: 43:32

But then there's this final thing that I actually think mentally and emotionally and physically strengthening and building resilience. You know, I think a lot of people don't understand that strength exercise is a is a stretch with a contract, a contract with a relaxation. It is the way the body's supposed to move. And so I oftentimes think now, when I'm always strengthening, always strengthening, always strengthening that yes, I need to go through full ranges of motion and when I do that I don't actually need to stretch. When I'm just doing resistance training, slowly and controlled, through full ranges of motion and balancing out the different body parts, I tend to do much better than when I just stretch. And of course, I'm learning a ton now about fascia and all that kind of stuff, which I know, you, you know all about as well, and we should probably have another conversation about that. But I just really love that sort of three part piece, because you did it with your physical body but I also think with your mental, emotional body. It's like acceptance. Clearing, strengthening, slash, building resilience seems to be the Natalie formula.

Speaker 2: 44:40

Yeah, yeah, thank you for summarizing that for me. Yes, you're really good at that. That for me. Yes, you're really good at that. I appreciate that and yeah, yeah. So what I want to do now is help people with hypermobility disorders, chronic pain, past trauma, you know move through that. I want to teach them how to move safely, strengthen their body, manage that pain long term and help them to figure out how to have more stability in their body, gain that confidence to be able to go and do the things that they want to do. The ability to stay active, because, you know, I've always said I don't think I'll ever retire, because when you look at people who say they retire, they sit on the couch and do nothing. My retirement will be continuing to teach, continuing to mountain bike, continuing to adventure, because I don't want life to end until I am actually in the grave.

Speaker 1: 45:29

I've never understood the idea of retirement, I just haven't. But then again, you and I have done things that we love and are very purpose-oriented in what we do, and I do wish that for everyone. And, if you'll allow me, as we end, natalie, I just want to. You're incredibly humble, incredibly knowledgeable and I just want to, I want to pitch you to everybody, right, like I kind of just want to pitch Natalie to all of you.

Speaker 1: 45:52

If you are someone who's dealing with body pain and you have this, your story resonates, her story resonates with you. Where there's this confluence of mental, emotional, deep mental emotional abuse and trauma, as well as physical issues and body pains, I think Natalie is your person, she's your teacher, she's your healer. I think you, I think you want to. There's not an accident that you're sitting here listening to this interview right now. Please check her out, and I'm so glad we got to do this again. Natalie, you know you're incredibly gifted in what you do. You're incredibly gifted in what you do and I just appreciate you so much. Before we go, why don't you tell them where they can find you if they want and need help or want to get some of your teachings?

Speaker 2: 46:36

Sure. On Instagram you can find me at hyperstrong underscore method and on Facebook you can find me at Sacred Spirit Body Works so Sacred.

Speaker 1: 46:53

Spirit Body Works or Hyper Strong Method. Yeah Well, thank you so much, my friend. I got to run but go ahead and stay on the line real quick, so you and I will say a quick goodbye because I want to make sure this all uploads. But for all of you, thank you for hanging out with Natalie and I on the podcast and we will see you at the next episode.

Speaker 2: 47:08

Thank you.