Transforming Lives through Conscious Movement with Paula James

Ever wondered how changing your movement habits can transform your life? Join me as we step into an enlightening conversation with Paula James, a movement specialist on a mission to help people live pain-free lives. Unveil how our unobserved habits can sometimes become our hamstrings and how tweaking these patterns can turn our lives around for the better. Paula's insightful guidance in restoring, preventing, and coaching is set to redefine your approach towards movement and interaction.

Paula likens our muscles to musical instruments that need meticulous fine-tuning. Unravel the truth about why stretching a muscle isn't always the silver bullet and the importance of understanding a muscle's true purpose for effective tuning. What if the secret to helping your muscles succeed lies in slackening and resetting them? Learn this and more as we delve into Paula's expert techniques to better manage our muscles. Discover how pain prevention forms a significant part of Paula's strategy. From pain's impact on life quality and relationships to how we can restore, transform, and maintain our bodies for comfort and less pain, Paula generously shares valuable insights in this space.

Dotted with practical strategies for a fulfilling vacation that balances relaxation and adventure, Paula's expertise spans from helping individuals with varying physical abilities to marathon runners. Her one-on-one coaching sessions are transformational, inspiring you to work on your body more mindfully and efficiently. Every moment is an opportunity for learning about our bodies and how best we can use them. And so, as we wrap up, remember, Paula's guidance is not just about improving movement and preventing injuries. It's about transforming lives and making everyday a little more comfortable. Tune in to learn, unlearn, and relearn the magic behind movement habits.

Stay in touch with Paula: 

Get your free gifts from Paula at resources.paulaflows.com

Stay tuned for Paula's upcoming events at: workshop.paulaflows.com

Chapters

• 0:02 The Power of Movement Habits
• 8:24 Restoring, Transforming, and Maintaining Muscles
• 16:22 Pain Prevention
• 25:17 Physical Wellness and Travel Workshops
• 30:22 Improve Habits, Prevent Injuries
• 40:39 Transforming Lives With Expert Guidance

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Overcome Yourself podcast, as you know, and, officially, our first video podcast. It will be available on YouTube, with us visible, so I'm so excited about that. And today I'm here with Ms Paula James, one of my clients, and she is a movement specialist and basically what that means is that she helps people be pain free. She is like a freaking wizard, a magician, like I cannot say enough good stuff about Paula. So, paula, welcome, tell us a little bit more about what you do and how you help your clients like me who have a lot of pain.

Speaker 2: 0:46

Thank you, nicole, I'm so glad to be here with you. So I have kind of three areas in which I work with people around. One of them is restore. So, if you have been, I'm going to interrupt myself and say I just love the idea of what you're doing with the podcast, with the overcome yourself, because what I find in working with people is that everybody has habits, right, which is a good thing.

Speaker 2: 1:14

You don't want to reinvent tying your shoes every day, right? You want to have some things that you do well enough, and they're on autopilot, and then you just go about your day. You can walk into a gum, you can have a conversation with a friend, you can think about where you're going while you tie your shoes. Fine, all of us have some habits that don't serve us as well as they could, and some of them actually cause irritation or aggravation, or they're just not very mechanically efficient, so they require more effort to do an activity than is necessary. And if I were to ask you if you were going car shopping, would you like to get a car that's more fuel efficient or less? You would probably want one that's more efficient. So a lot of us have movement habits that are not very efficient, and so it makes you more tired than you need to be just going through your day. And if you've already got pain, an area that has been injured or an arthritic joint, if you're moving less efficiently, you can get a shearing force going through that joint. So a shear right is if I have pressure coming in equally from two sides, then there's no trouble. But if the pressure is offset a little bit, if the pressure is coming in here on this side and it's coming in here on this side, then you get a shear. And you can get a tear if there's enough of that right. And so if you're not lining up, for example, your upper and lower leg bones when you stand up or climb stairs, you can get a shearing force in the knees Over time that can actually cause tears, tissue damage, all kinds of stuff.

Speaker 2: 2:59

But in the short term it'll just mean that, oh, my knees don't feel comfortable, or my knees hurt only when I'm doing that activity, but every time I do that activity. If you go into the doctor and you say my knees hurt when I'm going upstairs, then they might put you in a fancy machine, which is great, right, they have diagnostic tools that I don't have access to, and so I love that, so then they can check. And then the frustrating thing for my clients which I actually love is they come back and say well, the doctor did test and there's nothing wrong with my knee. I'm like, well, hallelujah, then there's no tissue damage, there's no tear, there's no arthritis. That's wonderful news. And they say, but I'd still hurt.

Speaker 2: 3:38

I was like, yeah, because let's take a look then at your movement patterns. It could be that you're sending force through the joint in a way that is not efficient, that's not helpful, that's causing irritation. But that means we only have to change your movement habit. We don't also have to repair a tear or deal with the joint changes. Right, like it's at the area where I can really be of use to you, yes, go, go. So that's one of those. Oh, you have to overcome yourself, right? You have to say, oh, it's possible that the way that I've always done something is not as good as it could be, and maybe now I want to take a look at it and get somebody who knows more than me in to help me take a look at it and give some suggestions, and then I'll try something else, and then maybe I don't have to have that pain anymore.

Speaker 1: 4:33

Yeah, and so what I do for businesses is what you do for pain for our bodies, right, and so I absolutely love that. So talk to me about preventing, because you were talking about, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 2: 4:52

No, I just want to talk about you and coaching, because I had the great experience of having some coaching sessions with you and that was exactly it, with me saying, well, but I have this way that I'm going about things, and you're saying, yeah, but what if you did it this way? And I didn't know how to do it that way, and so then you stepped in to help me fill those skill gaps so that another way could become an option for me, and then I didn't have to go out and research a whole bunch of things or watch YouTube and Google videos to figure out how to do it. You could just walk me through step by step. Here's how to get this new possibility implemented into your business, and then I could just go on about growing my business and I didn't have to spend a lot of unpleasant time doing the research myself. So it can happen in many areas, right?

Speaker 2: 5:46

You can have habits about how you do your business. You can have habits about how you move. You can have habits about how you talk to other people, and those will serve you as well as they do, and it's possible that an upgrade could help a lot, and in order to get an upgrade, it might be helpful to get somebody who's outside to come take a look at you in the situation, because they'll see it differently and they'll not only have a different perspective, they'll also have a different skill set. And you don't just pull someone in off the street, right. You get recommendations, or you find someone you've been following online for a while that you like and you start interacting and see if there's suggestions, help. But it's a model that can apply to a lot of things. Well, what am I doing? How well is it working? If I'd like things to go better, what else could I do and who else might be able to help me get there?

Speaker 1: 6:39

Yes, and what I really love about working with you is that the results are instant. That's one thing about you. That working with someone who's in pain, sometimes it could take a while to see the growth in your audience or to see a growth in your income right, because we have to establish those things. But working with you, the things that you teach and I really want to get into this, because what you do is very counterculture right, when what you do is really like the opposite of what most everybody tells people to do, because when something hurts, everybody says stretch, oh, your neck hurts, stretch it out, your neck hurts, you need to stretch oh, your legs hurt, you need some yoga because you need to stretch. And then we stretch and stretch, and stretch and stretch and then everything hurts. And so I would love for you to touch a little bit on what it is that you teach and why it's so different and why people need to hire you versus everybody else, because you're literally the only person teaching them.

Speaker 2: 7:42

Thank you. So I just want to talk a little bit about stretching first, right, because people the common response is oh, if I have a tight muscle I need to stretch. But look, if you have a tight muscle and you stretch it, it actually gets even tighter. But if you take the end point to that muscle.

Speaker 1: 8:04

For the people that are listening, I just want you to imagine a rubber band, because that's what Paula is doing. She's just holding a rubber band with some tension right, and then she's imitating a muscle stretching which is pulling, so like. If you want the visual, grab a rubber band and pull along with it. Okay, sorry, I just wanted for the people that are listening.

Speaker 2: 8:23

Good, thank you. So if you've got a muscle that's tight and you stretch it, or a rubber band or anything that's tight, and you stretch it, you pull the two ends apart, away from each other. Now it gets even tighter and the trouble is muscles have three parts, so muscles were contained around a joint all of them, and all skeletal muscles. No-transcript. A muscle has three possible lengths in relation to its teammates. Around a joint, the muscle could be too short or too long, right, and so if one is too short, the partner on the opposite side of the joint will probably be too long or just right, and it's only the just right muscles that are supple and resilient and happy and good circulation. Both the too short and the too long muscles will be tight. So if you have a too tight muscle, all you know is that it's the wrong length. You don't know, do I need to stretch it or do I need to strengthen it? So you don't even have enough information yet to start taking action. All you know is well, this is out of balance, it's not the right length, and the important thing about that is, if you think about a musical instrument like a violin or a guitar, if the strings are not the right length. If some are too short, some are too long, then the instrument is out of tune. It doesn't matter how good the musician is, it doesn't matter how hard they try, how long they practice Anybody playing an out of tune instrument is going to make horrible sounds, right, it's going to sound out of tune. So what they need to do first is to tune up the instrument. So sometimes what I work with people on is this kind of tuning, because that's where the trouble is and that's where they'll get the biggest bang for their time investment, their effort investment. So what that can look like with muscle length is actually bringing the ends of the muscle a little bit closer to each other so that, if you're listening, if you have that rubber band that you've stretched tight, if you bring the end points of it closer together, then the rubber will both slack and you can do the same thing with your muscles. Bring the end points of the muscles closer together and if you hold that for 60 seconds, the spindle cells in the muscle reset and the muscles ready for a new idea. So that's another thing that I don't hear other people talk about so much is I was a literature major before I got into a bus accident and a lot of pain and changed my focus. So I tend to think of the muscles like characters in a story and they have their own motivation.

Speaker 2: 11:03

So if you've been hunching at your desk or over your phone for a while, then the muscle in the front of the chest might have concluded that its mission is to keep the upper arm close to the center of the chest and so its job is to be short. Now if you go in right away and try and stretch it even though we would like this muscle to get longer you're going to get into a fight because you're asking the muscle to fail in its mission. So you can do that. You can go to the gym and fight with yourself, or you could help the muscle succeed in its mission. You could help bring. So if I take this hand and put it on the other side of the ribs and then pull that elbow in, give a little internal rotation, now I'm actually helping shorten this up and if I hold that short shape for 60 seconds, the muscle here will say, oh, my mission is getting accomplished and I'm not having to do all the work. I have help accomplishing the mission.

Speaker 2: 12:06

And then at the end of the minute when you release, the muscle will be more ready for a new mission and you could say oh well, now I'd like you to get longer. And that will be more effective if you also slacken the teammate in the back who has been long and say thank you for being long, which you would accomplish by slackening. And so you'd slacken those muscles in the upper back, bring the end points of the muscle closer together and then say I have a new idea for you. I'd like you to shorten up a little bit. I'd like the shoulder blades to be pulled a little closer to the spine, a little more down towards the pelvis. So instead of up and forward, we get a little bit back and down.

Speaker 2: 12:49

But instead of just trying to go right, to take the shoulders back and down, now you've got tension, fighting tension. Instead you do a little slackening, you give a reset and then, instead of pulling back, I love using just a little bit of. I think of it as a cascade, like dominoes, if you push one domino over and then the whole row goes down. And so, if we're just talking about the shoulder, if I rotate the arm internally, so the palm of the hand faces the wall behind me, that's going to bring my shoulders forward. If I just rotate, so the palm of the hand faces forward, that's going to take that shoulder back. So if I slacken and then just a little bit of external rotation of the upper arm bones in the shoulder joints, well now all of a sudden I'm going to find myself open in the front of the chest and able to maintain that.

Speaker 1: 13:46

I just want to mention I'm slackening right now as you're calling me. Yes, this side feels awesome, so I'm doing the other side.

Speaker 2: 13:56

Yes, so if you're going for a walk, if you have the palms of your hands facing your own legs rather than the wall behind you, your arms will swing better. And if you're going to be typing at your computer, start rotating the palms forward and then bend from the elbows, turn over from the elbows and you can still keep the shoulders back. So if I start with the palms behind me and bring my hands up, I'm probably going to crouch, but if I rotate and turn over, then my shoulders will be set to stay more open without me constantly micromanaging and pulling them back and down and doing a whole bunch of stuff.

Speaker 2: 14:40

I'll set that up just by rotating the arm.

Speaker 1: 14:43

I love that and that is exactly what you're talking about. That's what you mean when you talk about those little habits, like even those things like how do we sit in the car. Like what you taught me about sitting in the car changed my life. Like I have that thing behind my back and so it makes it more tolerable, and, like I will tell you, the first few days of doing that, my back was hurting, but it was because I had to readjust the position and once I got used to it, now I can't drive without something in my back, you know, and it's those habits that make a huge difference at the end of the day. Oh my God, I love it, yay.

Speaker 2: 15:18

So with my work, what I started to say at the beginning and then I thought, oh, we should probably talk a little more before I get into this is, I think, about restore, transform and maintain. So one of the restore pieces then would be slackening the muscles, right, like if you've got a set of habits, if you're sort of caught, well, let's get you unstuck, let's make some more things possible, let's get the muscles a little bit happier, a little bit like combing your hair, right, let's get you untangled to start out with and then transform. What if we get you some habits like rotating the arms, so that you're just set up for more ease in your regular activities? Oh, it won't take as much effort to do this. And then, with maintain, we look at some things like oh, maybe the car seat is not actually designed to support you, and so you'll want to improve the car seat so that it gives you a little bit of support, so that you can maintain a nice, upright, comfortable sitting position even in the car. And so if we do a little bit of restore, transform and maintain, then you are ready to go.

Speaker 2: 16:22

I work with a lot of fiber artists, so quilters and knitters, and if you can imagine. You know, a mass of tangled up yarn is not ready for you to create a sweater or a scarf or anything with it. You need to untangle it first. And so the restore is a little bit like well, let's get you into an untangled state so that you have more options. And then the transform is a little bit like well, now you take this untangled yarn and you turn it into something you can wear or give to somebody else as a gift, and then the maintain is OK. And then how are you going to maintain this new sweater, scarf or pair of mittens so that you get some nice youth out of it over time?

Speaker 1: 17:06

Yes, and that goes to being preventative, because you kind of touched on this in the beginning where working with you now, right, is gonna help me to not have more pain when I'm older, right, because you know, if you know my story, you know I heard myself. Well, when I was little I was in a boat accident and then I was in the server industry, in the restaurant industry, and then I heard my back carrying trays and when I was like 21, 22 years old, the doctor was like you have the back of an 80 year old, and so I had a lot of pain already, and so I was like what's gonna happen? Like, if I have this much pain now, what's gonna happen when I'm 40, when I'm 50, right, like that means I'm like the back of like 100 year old, right, so like I'm, I'm, I'm out for the count, like what am I going to do? And so learning these techniques has really changed things for me, because it didn't do what physical therapy did not do for me. You know, like the chiropractor. I still go to the chiropractor, but it's not the same, it's not the same support in between, because he doesn't teach me these habits. You know like he adjusts things, but then it's like, okay, you keep sitting, crap. And then like you'll come back and then I'll adjust you, but then you're just going to go back and get to the same position, right, and so just having your guidance is just absolutely I don't even, I don't even know how to put it like it's just so valuable having you in the corner. So even you know it doesn't matter what level you're at, even if, like, the pain is not quite there, but you feel uncomfortable. Now is the time to call Paula. So it doesn't get to that point.

Speaker 1: 18:45

And there's a lot of random, little other pains that I had, so like something in my knee. But once I worked with you and I worked on the alignment of my hip, oh, my God, magically the knee pain is gone, you know. And so, like you were saying, everything, everything is a team, everything works together and every piece like we can't ignore. Well, my feet hurt or my knees hurt, or like, oh, but it's only my feet or it's only my knees or it's only my hips, because all of those things trickle. Another thing that you mentioned is it's exhausting, pain is exhausting, and so you're not thinking clearly, you're not brainstorming like you could be, you are not spending time with your family like you could be.

Speaker 2: 19:28

If you're in pain, right it's also a huge impact on your own quality of life and the quality of your relationships, because I remember I, so I got into all of this. I made the transition from literature major to what I'm doing now, because I was in a minor vehicle accident. I had 10 years of low back and neck pain. I was often tired. I was often also often grumpy. I was also very often short on patience and like it was all I could do to get through my day and then somebody wanted to tell me something and think they were really cute and I was like all I know is you're making it take longer for me to go sit down or for me to get home and lay down, or whatever it might bring me a little bit of relief. You're all that's happening right now as you are delaying me getting into a more comfortable position. So it's so your sense of humor can take a hit, like a whole lot of things. You're just not as able to show up in reliably to find other people interesting or to find activities fun. Right, they might just be endurance events for you. So the more of those little things that you can take care of early then, the more you get to enjoy your life and I have worked with.

Speaker 2: 20:44

Up until the pandemic, I was teaching at a local recreation department where I had I taught 12 classes a week and I saw I had about 100 students each session and they arranged from an adaptive class that had people with multiple sclerosis and stroke survivors and hip replacement up to people who were running marathon several times a year, and so every week I got to work with 100 different people on that spectrum and I would often go in with a theme like the feet or the hips, or the hips or rotation of the spine, and get to see how 100 different people with different life histories, different illnesses, different challenges, how they all responded to those. And partly I worked with a lot of older people who had already gotten themselves into trouble and, well, how do we get them out of it? So what I'd like to say is I know what some of the typical challenges are that many people get into as they get older and if I can reverse them when they're already in there, I can certainly help you prevent, because I know what it was that helped them get into trouble and what got them out. So if you start implementing the the get out strategies now, you don't ever have to get stuck in there. It could either you get to pass it all together or you get to.

Speaker 2: 22:03

I was just thinking of Monopoly, right, where you would draw the card and say you know advanced to go. So you get to skip all the little minefields along the way and collect your $200 and start again. So a little bit you can, you can skip some of the troubles and have tools at hand so that when a little thing comes up you can say oh, I know how to get myself out of this. So you understand the framework of how I'm working and then you're able to implement on your own.

Speaker 1: 22:34

Yes, and like for everything, like when I'm working, when I'm on the computer, when I'm driving, when I'm on vacation, like you giving me tips for everything you know, and it's so like those little habits, and I'm really like even even my partner when Esther was standing in line the last time we were at Universal, she's like tell Paula that I'm slackening, right now. You know, it's just like a family thing now, like everybody's, like you're crumpled, All right, let's. Let's slacken some muscles and see how we feel. Yeah, so it's super helpful.

Speaker 2: 23:03

Now wait, I just love that, because a lot of the things that I have for people to do really are that portable. You can do it while you're standing in line or while you're I mean, I'm doing some of it now while I'm standing here at my. I'm standing at my desk talking to you and I'm slackening some of the muscles in my legs. So you can, you can build it in. It's not about carving more time out of your calendar, but building right into what you're doing.

Speaker 1: 23:27

Exactly Now. The next thing that I wanted to talk about I wanted to ease into here, because you mentioned that you had this class and then you had certain themes, and I happen to know you know backstage as your coach that you may or may not have an annual program going on, right? Now with some themes. So tell us about that. How can we join you for those? What are they and how can we join you?

Speaker 2: 23:53

So one of the ways that I have to work with people right now that I'm really enjoying, and the people are really enjoying too, is workshops. So there it's a focused theme, and we just had one on hands and wrists, because a lot of folks typing or working on their phone or if they're doing some kind of handwork jewelry or sewing, knitting, pottery they're using their hands a lot, musicians especially. So we looked at some restore techniques to get the hands more comfortable. And even if you're not in hand pain, you've got connective tissue that's like bubble wrap that goes all through your system. You tighten up your hands, type or holding something, and that goes right up into the neck and shoulders. So the more that we can get the hands relaxed, the calmer the whole body is actually the there are areas of the brain that deal with perception, sensory perception, and the deal with motor function and, wow, a lot of the cells in those areas are interested in the hands, because you use the hands for so much fine motor movement and also sensing whether something is hot or cold or wet or dry or what the texture is. So the hands get a lot of real estate in the brain. So anything you can do to make the hands more comfortable makes the whole brain say, okay, a lot of us must be doing just fine because the hands are in good shape.

Speaker 2: 25:17

So I have a series of workshops. There's one every other month and they're on focus topics. So the next one will be in March and that will be on the low back, and then I have another one that's going to look at knees, and another one for feet and ankles, and we've got one for neck and shoulders and for hips and a workshop on balance, and I'm completely open to expanding the list of workshops, but that's the plan right now for 2023. I've been taking requests for people for some other topics. We might look at headaches and we might also look at some pelvic diaphragm issues for incontinence and balance and pain in the low back or the pelvic region.

Speaker 2: 26:00

But that's those ones that I just listed are the plan for 2023. So it's just a focused 60 to 90 minute class and I'll give you some usually usually three topic areas and very often a restore, transform and maintain segment, and then you'll go away with some written notes that I'll provide so you have those as an easy reference and then you'll be able to implement on your own some things to help restore, transform and maintain that area so that you can just function comfortably.

Speaker 1: 26:38

Yes, and I love your workshops because, like you said, everything you provide is so in depth but also so practical, and so it's very hands-on and you're going to learn exactly how to do the things you need to do, and, and then the PDFs that you create, the workbooks are insane. They're so good, like I'm telling her she has to sell them on Amazon, so you will find them on Amazon pretty soon. I will talk her into it because they are just so, so, so good. Now that is a you have like a package right when they can buy three or an other six for the one year.

Speaker 2: 27:19

You can come in for a single workshop, and that's fine. And then also I have workshop packages so you can buy a three pack or a six pack and then you get a little discount in price and you just in and you get notifications when things come. And I just I'd like to toss this out, right Cause, why would you do something like that? So my next door neighbor went on a trip of a lifetime to Florence, italy, she and her husband, and they went with three other couples that they've known for decades, right, so they're retired, and I guess my question is well, what sort of vacation would you like to have and how would you like to feel on your vacation? And so if you even were to just close your eyes and think about where would you go and what would you do?

Speaker 2: 28:03

So they went to Florence and my neighbor said when she came back that three people each of the other three couples had one person who had some real physical challenges. One person had knee injuries and so he wasn't able to do stairs or cobblestone. Somebody else had arthritis in most of her joints and so just sort of everything hurt and she got tired. And somebody else had back pain. And so my next door neighbor and her husband. When they got to Rome, they actually, you know, wanted to go walk around and see things, and the people they were with were more needing to take a taxi to places and go back and take a nap in the afternoon before going out to dinner. So, you know, what sort of vacation would you like to be available for? And so my neighbor was telling me that they would spend time with their friends and then they would go off on their own and have an adventure. And then I had forgotten this. She started coming to my classes years ago because she had low back pain, and so she could easily have been the fourth person in the fourth couple that also had a big physical compromise, that wasn't able to climb stairs or do a full day of being outside scene.

Speaker 2: 29:16

And so there's sort of the well, how are you taking care of yourself? Period, but there's also well, when you have free time, what would you like to do with it? Do you wanna spend your free time recovering from your work day, or do you wanna spend your free time out and doing something fun and active and having some kind of adventure and just being confident in your own ability to manage your own body in an interesting environment. Do you wanna be able to handle stairs or cobblestones or going for a hike and being on rocks and tree roots and or even just go to a museum for a day and then out to lunch and know that you can handle being on your feet for a while and you can handle sitting comfortably in the restaurant chair for a while, and you don't get to take any of that for granted?

Speaker 2: 30:05

I have spoken with very young people who've had carpal tunnel surgery on both wrists because once the pandemic kicked in, they worked from home. Nobody told them about setting up a workstation that worked for them, and so they created irritation in their wrists by spending hours on their laptop. So you want to get a little bit of an upgrade to some of your habits, of how you use yourself, as early as you can, so that you just get to sail on through and be one of those people who goes on an adventurous vacation and gets to have an adventure instead of seeing it all from a tour bus window.

Speaker 1: 30:46

I love that example and you really, like I mentioned, you helped me have better vacations, like getting to 35,000 steps and being like, okay, now is when I wanna go sit down. The first time that I went, we took a bunch of stuff and it was so much recovery. Go back to the room, take a nap, da-da-da, and then after working with you, it's like, okay, let's take a break and let's do some of these exercises. Let me put my feet like this, Let me relax my lower back and we're back at it. And so it really is. It changes everything for you because you get to have fun. You're not stuck in the room sleeping or like why don't?

Speaker 1: 31:27

you go pay so much money to go take a nap, yeah right.

Speaker 2: 31:31

I am one of my students who I found this so interesting. So she runs Marathon several times a year and I haven't never run one in, so I didn't know this. She said well, you know, towards the end, for the last five or six miles, your muscles cramp. I was like, oh, I didn't know. And so what she has found is now she'll run those 18, 19, 20 miles and then just slow down at one of the water stations and go through some of the movements that I've shown her. She's one of my regular weekly class participants, so she'll go through some of the movements that we've done in class, give herself a little reset and then she's right back up and she can finish the race with no cramps in her muscles. So you know, having an idea of how to work with yourself so that when things start to get a little bit of difficult, you just turn it around and get back to what you were doing or what you'd like to do next.

Speaker 1: 32:25

I'm proof. I know this was saying is true. Now you also have a way to work with you one-on-one Most powerful. That's the most effective way to work with you. Tell me a little bit about that. So what? I?

Speaker 2: 32:38

love about the Working One-on-One is everybody has puzzles to solve, and the thing is that you need to solve your puzzles. So in the group classes, right, I can tell you some general good things about hands and wrists or low back, but that's not necessarily the area. That is where you're caught, and so in the One-on-One program we can go right into well, what's working for you and what would you like to do. That's a little bit out of reach right now, and what is it that makes that out of reach, or what is it that you're able to do and you'd like to continue doing so? You don't want to be wearing yourself out. I want to interrupt here and say watch this really cool video on Netflix. I can give you the link for the show notes or the title for the show notes.

Speaker 2: 33:23

There was a baseball pitcher who usually only pitched, but when they played in one place, it was a requirement that he actually batted as well, and so he did, and then he injured his foot when he was running around the bases. Before his foot had fully healed, he was back to pitching, and so then he injured his shoulder because his mechanics were out, because the foot injury wasn't fully healed. So now he has a shoulder injury and he's a pitcher. Well, that's not working. But then when he went to one specific rehab program, they took his whole style of pitching apart to give it an upgrade and put it back together so that he could get back to the speed that he'd had before. And so what I think was interesting about that was, well, even though he was a good pitcher before, he wasn't as biomechanically efficient as he could have been, and so the injury actually gave him an opportunity to learn much more about how his body could be used better doing that activity, and it was somebody looking at him very individually. What do you need to do next? So the individual program. I'm not necessarily working with baseball pitchers, but it was such an interesting example of it was the foot injury that led to the shoulder injury, because he continued to use the shoulder without the whole team of muscles working well. Okay.

Speaker 2: 34:48

So in the individual program, I'll help you identify and solve the puzzles that you have, and that might be more hands and wrists, that might be more back, that might be more how you stand up when you get up from a chair, how you use yourself at your desk, whatever it is. We'll take a look together and then from my 20 years I've been working as a movement specialist. So from my background of training and having seen lots of bodies and people, I'll give you some insights. And the way that we work with that is to have a long conversation in the beginning an hour and I'll mostly listen and ask some questions. And then we meet for short bits like 15, 20 minutes online so that I'll just give you one or two things to do and you get to go away and just work with and integrate those, and you can reach me through Messenger or through email and let me know how it's going and if there are any troubles.

Speaker 2: 35:47

And then the next time that you come back for another short segment, we might tweak that one and we'll give you one more thing to do, so that you're gonna have support from me over time for these lots of these little check-ins and little adjustments and they'll start to snowball and build up and then you'll be doing great.

Speaker 2: 36:05

Then we'll do an exit interview at the end just to take a look at well, what have we covered? And also, what is it you really like to do, like if you wanna go bike riding or you wanna do CrossFit, or you wanna go to yoga or gym workouts. Well, what things have we learned about you in this spell of working together that you want to be implementing, going forward, so you don't cause yourself trouble in the next round of fun activities that you want? So those individual sessions are a chance to really look at what goals, what dreams do you have, and then how can we together most effectively set you on track for having an enjoyable life, right For doing the things that you enjoy for a long time, so you're not, you know, destroying yourself in the process.

Speaker 1: 36:55

Yes, yes, and you know what it's so important like for me working with you, like not just one off, but like where we had our sessions. You know, because when you solved one problem and you want to rose, like you know, like there was this pain that I was having here and it was like a really strong pain and we worked on that pain. But now I realize that there's actually a pain down here and it was kind of numb because this one was like more painful. But now that this one's soft, now this one hurts and like these are not related, and you're like, actually let me show you how these are related. And this was actually a symptom of the other one. And so it's really really, really important to have that accountability and like to remember to do the exercises, because I'm guilty, I've got it off the call with you. And then I'm like, what did she say? And so you know we do another call. And you're like, did you do this? And then you're like, oh, yes, okay, now I remember.

Speaker 1: 37:48

And so having that accountability is so important.

Speaker 2: 37:51

And what we can do too in those individual sessions and is record those short sessions. So then you don't so much have to have the oh, what did we just cover? But there also is that phenomenon a friend of mine who retired out of being a PT so she thinks about it like cafeteria trays, like when you go to the cafeteria you take the tray that's on top and then another tray comes up. So a little bit with these things, right, you solve one problem and then another one comes up. And it's not that there's an endless set of problems, it's just you addressed the one that was available to be worked on and then oh, something else now is ready to be addressed. And once you get through enough of those and you get the system working as enough of a whole right.

Speaker 2: 38:39

So I have a tensegrity model here. And if enough of the strings are well adjusted, then you've got something that pretty well holds its shape, no matter what direction it's in, and can stand up on its own. But if you have, if the strings are not well enough adjusted, then you've got something that can't balance so well on fewer points and might change entirely its shape depending on how it's moved around. And so that just tuning this, it's just gonna be a process of adjusting the string length a little bit at a time until you have something just like a string instrument, until you have something that's more or less in tune and can hold its own and can handle a little pressure from the outside, so that you can take on fun and challenging activities.

Speaker 1: 39:31

I love that. So, paula, how can we connect with you online? So where do you hang out? Like, do you have a group? Are you on Instagram? Like where on the world's wide?

Speaker 2: 39:40

web are. I am primarily on Facebook and LinkedIn, and I have two groups on Facebook. One is just sort of a general how to move and have a happy life, and then another one is called create with comfort, and I'm more there looking at people who use their hands to do things that are skillful and creative, and so that could be sewing, that could be jewelry, that could be a lot of different there. It's a really neat group right Cause there are people who are skillful and are interested in learning new skills and creating beautiful things. And then there's also a mighty networks group that's called so connected online and is serving that same group of creatives just exploring an off Facebook place.

Speaker 1: 40:30

Love it and so I'll make sure that we'll make sure that all those links are gonna be in the show notes so they are available, so you can connect with Paula. I highly highly encourage you to book your call with her so you can set up work with her, get to know her in those workshops and really just upgrade and work with her one-on-one, because your life will change. Your life is gonna be different when there's no pain. I know, I know she's had such a big smile, but it's so true because I really couldn't do what I do if it wasn't for you.

Speaker 2: 41:03

Paula Thank you.

Speaker 2: 41:04

Well, you know, when I tell folks that I, if I'm at a networking event or anything, and I mentioned that I work with people who are in pain, a lot of folks are kind of like, oh, almost like it's contagious or I wouldn't want to be, or it must be depressing to be around those people. But what I love is that I get to be part of turning it around right, like, well, what if we get you out of that hole so that you could start to have a little more breathing room, a little more freedom, a little more pleasure in your life? So I don't, because I've been there, I know what it can be like and I know that any little thing that gets a little easier can start making a big difference, and I've got lots of those. So I've just find it a really exciting field to be in because I get to be part of lots of those little transformations and turn around.

Speaker 1: 41:58

Yes, I love it. So any last minute tips that you want to share with us before we sign off here.

Speaker 2: 42:08

In terms of practical things I would say just be careful of your wrist, because a lot of folks have their keyboard set up to where they're bent back at the wrist, and you want to keep this much more a straight line, ideally with your keyboard down a little bit. So as you are driving your car or working at your keyboard or using your phone, try to have your wrist in kind of a neutral shape and look for some opportunities in your day. We did this in the hands and wrist workshop a lot to have your hand flat so you can rest it on the table or a pillow, a book, a clipboard, so that the thumb is in the same plane as the fingers right instead of drooping off the side and you're just giving all the tissues here a chance to be open and not tense. So if you have your hand gripping a lot like the steering wheel or your phone or your knitting needles to just be open, and certainly when you go to sleep right, a really easy time to do that is when you go to sleep, position your hands with pillows or blankets or on the mattress so that the hands are just open, yes, yes. And also if you're looking to grow your business.

Speaker 2: 43:27

You know Nicole is doing so very much for entrepreneurs. What I'm doing with people's bodies, it's just helping you see where you're caught and where you'd like to go. And then what are the easy next steps that get you actually meaningfully moving in the direction of where you want to go, so that it's not big and scary and it's not a lot of research work of how to get the skills. But just, oh, here, why don't you, why don't you take this shortcut over here so that you can be moving?

Speaker 1: 44:01

Yes, yes, no, it's so true. It's so true and really we do what we do, we help people get those quantum leaps because really, like, the work that you do is just, you know, I didn't know that it could, I could be pain free so fast, you know, and it's something they have to do over and over right, because, like you said, when we're driving, when we're typing, when we're texting on our phones, like when we're doing all of these things, you know, we tend to get into these little habits and so it's important to be like to check in with ourselves. You know, and it's the same thing with business. You know, when you get those few things right, you simplify those systems, you put those habits in place. It's just quantum leaps, like you, just, you know leaps and bounds forward and you're like the other thing I'd like to say about both you and me is you can feel stuck.

Speaker 2: 44:50

nothing's working. You need to start getting enough little things working and then it can start going much more quickly. And so if you've been working on your own or with some individuals for help and you feel like you're not, you're not really getting anywhere, then you might want to look for somebody else to help from a different angle, a different perspective, right like from a different, a different field, so that you get really different input and then give yourself a chance to see how that goes, because it like, if you're you know, if you're going to go from this to this, you've got to get enough things in place that you kind of have lift off, and so working with somebody who knows what they're doing can shorten the time quite a bit, yeah, focusing the resources in certain areas and just like putting you know, putting everything into the areas that make sense, where the energy is going to be best used, right, so you can create, like you were saying, those cascades.

Speaker 1: 46:03

It's not about having to do the work of all those dominoes, it's okay. Which one is the big domino? Someone who understands one of the most, and I want to write a post about this. One of the most important things I think that I've learned from you is that the victims cry out, not the perpetrators. That's in terms of our muscles, right. So sometimes a certain muscle hurts, but it's not that muscle that is the problem, it's the teammate that's attached to it. And the teammate is like help me, and this was like help. And then you know we're like, oh my god, this one hurts, and then it's not that. So, finding a coach who can see past, who's crying out, and be like, all right, what's actually happening here? And I think that's one of the most important things that you've taught me, because I'm like, hey, my wrist hurts, and like let's look at your shoulder, you know. And you're like, wait, it's not that I didn't hear you.

Speaker 2: 46:54

It's that I want to go. I want to go to the reason the wrist is hurting, Not just pay attention to the wrist, it's just.

Speaker 1: 47:01

I just want to point out that it's just that you, you have the experience, you have that where you have that bird's eye view, and you, you just know, like, you just have the experience that you're just so wonderful and you understand, you know where it comes from and then how, how to fix it at the root. We're not just covering up symptoms here. This is about really like getting to the root of it and actually fixing the problem that's bothering you. You know, not just medication, not just like go exercise, just go for a walk, time heals off. No, this is like let's find this.

Speaker 2: 47:34

It's not about trying harder. I just hate that piece of advice. So, anything that can be done, anything that can be done with effort, can be done more skillfully with less effort, right? So if you, instead of trying harder, trying longer, well, what if you try differently? What if you find a better, more efficient way to work?

Speaker 1: 47:56

And that's what you do. That's what we do with our clients.

Speaker 2: 47:59

I love that, yeah, so what a pleasure to spend time with you.

Speaker 1: 48:03

Yes, this has been absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for being here, paula. So all the links that we mentioned are going to be available down in the show notes. If you want to reach out to me, you're interested in working on your business and growing your brand. Your audience, your income hit me up. If you're ready to be pain free, to make sure that when you get older you're pain free, and you want to attack that now. If you just want to see how you can work better, you're working online all the time.

Speaker 2: 48:33

Enjoy your life more.

Speaker 1: 48:35

Enjoy your life more. Yes, I want you to reach out to Paula. She's absolutely wonderful and seriously get one of the workshops. I probably have an affiliate link for her workshop. I'll throw that in the in the show notes too, and you guys can grab that yearly package, because you got to be at all of them. You can't just go to one, you got to go to all, okay. So thank you again for being here, paula. This has been wonderful. We will catch you on the next episode, guys. Thanks, bye, thank you.