This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran owned and operated performance optimization company that I introduced recently as a sponsor on this show.
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Welcome to the Pioneer Shield podcast. As always, my name is James Gearing, and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show movement therapist and the woman behind the six, Sonia McVeigh.
Now in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from her own childhood trauma, her journey into Pilates, working with Formula One drivers, the fatal Tubbs fire in 2017, working with the wildland community,
injury rehab, performance versus pain, mental health, and so much more.
Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment.
Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of almost a thousand episodes now. So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you Sonia McVeigh. Enjoy.
Well, Sonia, I want to start by saying thank you so much for taking the time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Thank you. I'm really happy to be here and excited. It's an honor.
So where on planet Earth are we finding you today?
I live in Santa Rosa, California, and that's also the location of my business.
Well, I'd love to start at the beginning of your timeline. So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings?
Yeah, we could actually spend three hours on that, but I won't. I'll spare you. I was born in San Francisco. I have two biologically drug addicted parents.
So my twin brother and I actually were born in San Francisco. I'm 40 years old. We stayed in the foster care system until we were five and then adopted by a pretty beautiful family who actually adopted four children and raised in the Sonoma County area, various towns here.
So it's funny, I just had a guest on Christina Dent, who was self described, how does she say it, a Christian conservative, homeschool Christian conservative.
And she had certain views about addiction that you hear more often in that group. And she was a foster parent.
And it was actually a young mother who was an addict that was really working to try and get her daughter back that she realized, oh, these are just people that are struggling.
It's not this certain kind of label that we slapped on some of them. So it's such an important conversation, especially when you talk about the break broken households that everyone refers to as the kind of underlying issue of a lot of problems.
So talk to me about that. Do you know the kind of origin story of your parents addiction and then walk me through the journey as a foster child?
Yeah, I do. What's what's been really incredible in my life is this tenacity to survive. And I have I have a lot to say about that in terms of me being the first in many generations to not be an addict and to not kind of go down that road.
My twin brother and I being adopted clearly was a huge part of that. And when you spend the formidable, formidable part of your childhood in a, you know, cold, hot situation, it's to me, unfortunately, and fortunately, because of who I am today, you decide how it's going to go.
Right. So there's just I'm going to champion through this. And I really believe that young children can adopt that mentality, even though it's not fair.
You know, or I'm going to sort of sink with a ship. So what I do know is that my grandparents on both sides biologically were also addicts, more or less the home that I was born in and went back and forth to where my birth mother resided, had uncles, aunts, cousins.
I could easily call it sort of a meth den. We were surrounded by drugs and, you know, and smoke and alcohol, hard drugs every time we went home.
My twin brother is the person I've known my whole life. And at that time, I really adopted this protective nature of him.
It was very abusive, both sexually and physically. And I know that now I have so much more grace for the illness of addiction.
Fortunately, I was able to find my birth father, who was two hours away my whole life about 10 years ago, who has been clean from hard drugs for about 15 to 17 years.
And that took an incredible amount of work to dive in and get committed to our relationship, which we're great friends now.
I got to watch my father, they raised me, embrace him. And it was one of the most powerful moments of my life, watching those two men hug and have mercy for each other.
Interestingly enough, I also grew up in a very fundamental Christian household, so I have a whole other kind of process about that.
I was just able to talk to my parents about it with my sister this last weekend.
So in terms of my head and how I was raised, I have a lot of thoughts. In terms of where I come from, it's very dark and there's many generations of it.
One of my drivers to support, I say people in a badge, people in the military, people that would stand up and protect those that they don't know, were the men and women that stood on my behalf as a child.
And the small reports that I've been able to read, why we got pulled from our home was because it was an abusive situation.
And it meant them going back in again and again and again. I definitely was stuck in a system for too long, as far as I'm concerned.
But that's the story that we hear repeatedly. So I actually met my mom and dad that adopted me when we were babies.
We were like 15 months, if I'm remembering the timeline perfectly. But it took years of going back into an abusive household many, many times, every time.
Every time we went back. So that's the story. And I've been able to confront and face many of my childhood demons, which is pretty remarkable.
You know, it's pretty remarkable that I got to stand in space and do that.
Including my father, he was 17 when he had my twin brother and I.
James, I've written so many people on Facebook and said, I think I'm your, to him, I think I'm your daughter.
I think I'm your sister. I think I'm your granddaughter. I think I'm your, you know, and I've been right most of the time.
And that journey, if I was going to write a separate book aside from my career, it's absolutely wild. It's just wild.
I found other siblings. One was three months younger than me working in San Francisco as a pathologist.
She's just brilliant. It's just, it's wild. It's an Oprah slash Jerry Springer story.
Well, this is why it's so important. Obviously, we're going to get to the physical side, you know, and the first responders in a little bit.
But it doesn't matter who it is, whether it's Navy SEALs and SAS or fire or police or, you know,
strength and conditioning coaches and ballet dancers. I mean, I've had so many different people on the show.
And almost everyone has certain levels of trauma and that trauma, you could lay it side by side and go, well, this is worse than this.
But it's not to that person at that time, whether they felt like they were an unloved middle child or whether they were exposed to sexual and narcotic abuse.
It's trauma, you know, and when we look back and we negate that and we bury it down and we say, boys, don't cry and excuse me and suck it up.
Then, you know, that's left to Germany. And as a phrase, I quote all the time, it was in my last book.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. And I love that.
Like you can push it down, but eventually it's going to grow. And so the hearing all, I mean, almost a thousand stories now and how many people have gone through things.
And they meet you face to face. And, you know, let's say it was as you were processing meeting your father and there was anger and emotion.
They meet you in a coffee shop and go, well, she's shitty.
It's like, well, there's an entire lifetime behind that.
So it's so beautiful to hear your biological father and the father that raised you embracing because you've got a man who needed help and a man who stood up and helped.
And I think that couldn't be more Christian, to be honest.
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, James, it was so interesting. So I this this doesn't matter. And it does. Right.
So I my my birth mother is half black and I have a black grandfather and that the parents that I had or excuse me, the relatives that I had met for in my childhood were black and brown people.
I'm obviously a little I've got a little color to me and my twin brother.
And then my family that raised me was very Irish. They're like short and Irish and white and southern.
They're very like we don't look like each other. And I never felt adopted.
I always felt a little wild, like I wanted to do climb trees and not do the church girl thing.
I'll say that. And when I when I met my birth father for the first time, coming from a really conservative background, he is like six, four, six, five.
He's got prison tattoos all over his arms. And he he writes a Harley.
And he it's this giant biker. And he looked like this huge clone of my twin brother.
But he was a big white guy. And I just I remember not being able to talk.
This part of me was like, oh, my gosh, I understand this this kind of wild hair that I've always had.
And I guess I remember just not being able to speak because the the mannerisms were so similar.
And I hadn't seen that in somebody that looked like him, looked like my brother so much.
And again, my twin brother is just the only person that I grew up with completely my whole life.
And I was just shell shocked watching how he moved his hands and and spoke and articulated.
And we did get in a we did get in an altercation because he wanted me to get on his bike.
And I said no. And I wanted to hop in my minivan.
The first time we met and he he wanted to go take shots of it was like tequila at a bar.
And I was this total church girl. It was just this meeting of the Titans.
And the you're absolutely right.
It's like there couldn't be two men that were different.
And what I love about who I am now is that they stood for each other from completely different backgrounds,
completely different lifestyles, you know, just in the current climate of the world today and of culture that people
people really won't let go of their microaggressions and their beliefs about their communities to be with each other,
let alone take a stand that says I'm going to I'm going to raise your children for you and then have the grace to not be in judgment when they met.
And I'm coming to my father that raised me saying I need to hear my story.
And a lot of it was to make peace with trauma that I had thought that I remembered, but I wasn't sure.
And when I heard the stories, they were 100 times worse than I thought.
I was trying to close loops of faint memories when I was a child.
And then I found out it was my grandmother. My biological father's story is way worse than mine.
It was horrible to hear.
And I know how lucky that I am that I got to hear it and speak into it.
I had a coach come in at one point and like, we're going to we're going to tussle this out and figure out how to have a family repair that has multiple generations of trauma.
That multi-generational story is, I think, so needed at the moment.
It's actually part of the book that I'm just finishing up that we discussed before I hit record.
But again, when you look back, oh, it's the broken households, it's this, this, this, you know, that you just see this cycle.
And if you dig into these guests, you know, their upbringing and if they're able to, the parents that bring just like you said, you realize these are falling dominoes.
And there's that phrase, you know, hurt people, hurt people, and they do a lot.
But what's beautiful in this kind of silo that I found myself is that hurt people help people when they can actually process their trauma.
And then that becomes, I argue, a superpower. I really do.
So with your own journey, what were some of the tools that you found along the way that able to process that?
Because I know, especially in kids that had on that were adopted or fostered or parent or both parents just left was why wasn't that good enough?
And that's something that seems to burn a lot in those children.
Yeah, yeah. I'm going to I don't remember who wrote this quote.
James, I'll have to I'll have to find out later, but I I'm obsessed with with quotes.
I'm actually writing a leadership quote book right now because I'd like to read one powerful thing and have it simmer and process it.
But I wrote a quote and it's I know it's a really powerful woman.
And I'm like, I can remember. But she more or less said that I've never not been terrified for a moment in my life.
And I did it anyways. And that's what I believe is very true about me.
I'm not a person in general that feels a large amount of safety or a large amount of internal peace.
I will fight for it until I die.
But I came to realize that I didn't have to feel safe before I completed mission, before I ran after a task.
Safety doesn't trump who I am to the world.
And I felt like especially in the in the Christian rhetoric that we're supposed to have this peace that passes all understanding.
And, you know, when you land at your mission or at your drive and when you understand who you are to the world,
it should feel a particular way. And I kept wrestling with myself and giving myself anxiety going, but I don't I don't feel that way.
I feel less and I feel scared and I feel anxious sometimes badly.
Sometimes I can't sleep. Sometimes I'm throwing myself into tachycardia.
Sometimes I have to coach myself to get out of bed. And there came a point,
I think it was really when I started having my my children where it was like, so what?
Like, plus nothing. So I don't look or reach for the absence of fear.
I look for the thing that makes me feel that thing bigger, if that makes sense.
It's like and the the thing that I've created, the mission in my life, which is serving people that serve strangers.
I feel bigger than anything in the world, aside from being a mother, you know, and aside from the family part of my life.
The the space of fear just doesn't matter.
I have to fight it a lot, but it's not something that I give power to.
And I feel like a lot of people that have experienced trauma, if if they would stop expecting the fear to leave and start finding something bigger,
they would find the hope that they're looking for.
Love it. Well, we're going to get into, you know, basically the body keeps the score element in a minute.
But speaking of physicality, when you were in the school ages, what were you doing and playing as far as sports and exercise?
All of them. This is oh, man, talk about talk about church culture.
So I grew up during the I Kissed, Dated and Goodbye era in church.
There's the the gentleman that wrote that book.
And I'll explain what that means if you're not from our the culture that I grew up in.
There was something called purity culture, which was, you know, nothing physical, nothing sexual.
I am going to I'm going to space out on this guy's name.
I'm horrible names, but he he wrote this book and it said basically you should wait until your first kiss until you're at the altar.
And we would go to these huge purity rallies. We had purity rings.
And we're going to wait to do anything physical. I'm going to I'm going to answer this.
It'll make sense. No, no, no. Take your time. Yeah.
And until you until you get married. And so it was especially that way for females, for women.
I loved every sport. I wanted to climb trees. I had a Nick.
My nickname now is Siege, like like under siege.
If you are around people that know me, it was my fighting name and my boxing name because I wanted gloves on.
I was fighting the boys. I was playing street hockey. I was playing football. All the things in my culture that I grew up in.
If you were physically in the space of a boy, which is who I wanted to play with, that was not appropriate.
And the first time that became a really big heartbreak for me, I was we had this physical fitness testing in the in the homeschool program I was in.
And I was removed from the testing and told that I had to do a sit up test by myself because my breasts were too large.
And I was I was I'm five, nine. I'm built like an Amazon. I had quads for days and I'm curvy.
And I remember being like what like having no idea.
You know, I started you have to wear shorts under your little Catholic schoolgirl skirt.
You can't play. You can't play ball anymore. And it absolutely broke my heart.
It apps. And I and I remember being like baffled, too, because I wasn't in a sexual space at all.
And yet in the culture we were in, it was like completely not acceptable to be like tackling.
And I'm like, I just want to crush everyone. That's what's happening for me.
I remember one time I beat one of our pastor's sons at a sprint and they made me do it repeatedly because they couldn't believe it.
It was like too. It was too big for them. And what's really cool,
it's a sad part of my story because I feel like it was just so inappropriate to a young girl.
But what's great is that my dad, after I was like not doing well in charm school and not I broke my foot in ballet.
Who does that? Right. My dad started allowing me to play sports where I started thriving.
So it was soccer, it was volleyball. And then I got really good at throwing the javelin,
which I was able to do for our local junior college out here.
And I did qualify for the Junior Olympics almost with no practice. I was just really good at throwing.
So, I mean, honestly, there's not a sport I can think of that I didn't play,
but I really had to vie for my spot to be able to play sports as a young girl and to love doing that.
I mean, it's a it's a joke in our family. I was running around with like shoes untied.
My hair was a mess. I would get in a screaming match with my mom every Sunday morning because I didn't want to put a dress on.
It was no, I was I have five brothers and they the beautiful thing about them is they're all like musicians.
They're beautiful men and they write. They have these huge hearts.
And I just wanted to conquer all of the sports.
And I it brought me you can see me smiling now. It was just so much joy.
And I got hurt constantly. I can tell you crutches and stitches or, you know, my dad,
we call that the hospital of my dad would be in the bathroom and he get the super glue out and the safety pins and fix it himself.
So, you know, ultimately, that's that's sports brought me joy.
And I had to fight for it because of the culture that we were in again.
So it's interesting because I just got to talk to my parents about what it was like for me feeling shame because I had had sexual assault as a child.
And then I'm a physical person wanting to play sports and then feeling shame again because it got seen sexually.
And I they were like, yeah, I don't really think we knew.
And I'm like, man, every all the Sunday school, all the youth group, you know, all the things.
And I'm a great speaker. So I was always in charge.
I was like speaking for the abstinence groups, which was ridiculous.
Now I'm like, oh, man, I'm sorry, every human.
I had never kissed a boy. Right. I'm like preaching abstinence.
And I was always on stages, always talking.
And I I hope that as my career grows, I would love to get back on those stages and speak from the wisdom I have now and say, hey,
this is really what I think that that God intended.
This is really what I think would be great.
You know, and I'm so sorry.
What would you say differently? Because, I mean, obviously, you know, there are so many upsides to waiting for the right person, you know,
the the healthy way that you have a physical relationship and, you know, obviously being mindful of pregnancy and diseases and all these other things.
What would your rhetoric be this time?
Yeah. Well, I have to have it now because I have teenagers now and I've been like on pins and needles in terms of.
If we were to talk about God and take and take like a quote Christian perspective, I would say that to me,
the the deepest part of sexuality is nonexistent when there's not the depth of intimacy and taking the time to grow in intimacy means the tussle and the friction of relationship.
And so in my opinion now, if you have not gone through the tussle and the friction in the work of agreeing and disagreeing and sharing ideas and sharing dreams and creating vision with a partner,
then you have no business sleeping with them.
And, you know, the reason for that for me with my children speak as a mom is so that they get to experience the fullness of what love really means.
And we can't pull sex away from that at all.
What I would say is certain is that there's not a shame in knowing who you are.
A physical body is very much a part of your mental body and your spiritual body.
And pulling them apart in any way, I don't think is healthy.
So you can't say this is only sex or this is only my mind or this is only my soul.
You know, we are trying beings at best.
I think everybody knows that.
And for me, when you try to pull them apart or you say that you can, I don't believe that that's true.
And so, you know, for me, for the first time in my life with my partner, I hope that I never sleep with another man again.
Like and this is the first time I felt like that at 40.
You know, I had to I had to figure it out and go like, man, I the the tussle that I've had spiritually and emotionally with him makes this the most present physically I've ever been.
And I think that that is worth fighting for.
And in the context of what marriage used to be, I totally believe in that in the context of what it is now.
I don't. So, yeah.
Yeah, it's really it's been interesting.
I got thrown into being single after my divorce when I was in the late 30s and fumbling around through dating.
There were some physical intimacies of people I'd just met and it was so unfulfilling.
I'm sure it was for them, too.
But, you know, and then I finally found my my wife now, we've been together for almost 12 years.
And it was that thing again.
And I never was never the person that was, you know, jealous when I was married the first time, wanting to be out with, you know, strange or whatever you want to phrase it.
But then you put into it and you're like, this is this is really shit.
Like on the films and all the kind of stories I heard in the firehouse, that's supposed to be amazing.
But I thought it was it was kind of crap.
So if you could put that into your mind, just how awkward it is having sex with a stranger that you have no connection with and you could magically implant that.
I think that would really give a lot of fire to what you're talking about.
Like the real passion, the real intimacy creates the sex that you actually enjoy.
The one that is worth coming back for another one.
Yeah. I mean, I think ultimately, as is with anything in life that's physical, it's like how how don't lie to yourself about how present you are.
Because I you know, this is this is the longest six months and this is the longest relationship I've been in in three years.
And which is good for me just to be like, yeah, no, I know what I'm after.
And for me, it would not be true if I said that I was present, you know, in the in the case of being physical and dating at all.
And I also would press in to people that say that it doesn't matter.
You know, choice is choice. And like people are cleared.
There's not a judgment for me, especially as somebody that's an assault survivor.
When I started recognizing that I was not mentally present, just saying like, yep, this is fun.
It was almost like, why am I giving permission for being disassociated?
Like, why am I choosing that? And, you know, you could you could say like, well, yes, it's fine to eat a whole cake or it's fine to, you know, I'm going to do this drug one last time.
And it really started just during a court when I started listening to how I was communicating and talking to myself.
This is fine. And I just I actually want to be present.
And the work of that was hard.
And I recognized even in my previous marriage that I wasn't present.
And I'm like, well, I'm going to have to talk about this with my partner and choose a partner that I can have this integrity with.
You know, I found that I had practices where I would like cover my face with a pillow and think it was fine.
And I'd say, well, I've got 80 days distracting. That was such that was not true.
It was like I'm actually just not mentally connecting and making it fine.
And it wasn't fine. So I think I mean, I could talk about this again for like three hours.
It also wasn't fine that I had a lot of shame from the way that I grew up.
And it wasn't fine that I thought sex was bad and that my physical desires were bad.
That's not true either. I think that it's really beautiful when two people are
solely in charge of each other's sexuality, because it's a big responsibility. Right.
Like, I like handcuffs. I don't. Right. Or whatever it is.
I'm talking to firefighters. You get it. It's like whatever it is.
Like, there's also not shame there.
But can you do that in the container where there's not judgment and it's not it's just who you are.
You know. So, yeah.
Absolutely. Well, that's shame. I was I was raised, you know, my dad, who has, you know, his stuff in the past, too.
But it was always like sex is dirty. Oh, don't talk about that.
You know, there was that shame. And I was the son of a vet, a veterinary surgeon.
So they could have easily explained, hey, humans have sex the same way the animals do.
And that would have been it done.
Instead, they told me that you pray to God and he puts a baby in your tummy.
And then I'm sitting in a classroom in high school and they're explaining how it actually happens.
And I'm like, you fucking lied to me.
So, you know, you've got that kind of.
That's the right way of saying it. You don't have the right information.
Then you've been layered on with the shame.
It does not sex set you up for a successful first sexual experience or relationship experience.
So that shame that obviously can sometimes come from religions is so toxic, I think.
As you said, owning your own body and being responsible and in charge, that is an essential element.
But adding shame and guilt to sex, I think is very detrimental.
Right. And it really, in my opinion, sexuality is an exact reflection of intimacy,
both that you have with yourself and that you have with your partner.
You know, and I also think that so is so is our physical performance in general.
It's again, this idea that is it really possible to pull apart your physical performance?
Period. The end. Right.
And orgasm is a fast switch muscle response inside your body.
So when I go like, OK, what affects that breath pattern?
What affects that nervous system? Right.
So there's this huge conversation where I know that if we are willing, if I am willing to do the work,
then I get to have something to me, I call it biblical sex, because I used to get told when I was a kid like,
and then you're going to have the best sex ever, just don't touch anything in sex bed.
It was so crazy because it was not my experience in my in my first marriage.
I did. I did wait until I was married and it was I had no business.
I just had no business. I feel like there's like I'm sorry, kids, dad.
And I seriously it was so it was so bad.
You know, I just had no knowledge. I had no knowledge.
And also intimacy with a man takes work, you know, and I'm I all people can do all things,
but I don't believe that men and women think entirely the same or function entirely the same.
And, you know, the the way that two people can come together and create mental intimacy,
particularly a man and woman, it just it's just not the same.
And I'm like, and there's this beautiful thing that I believe that that God created where physically we can just be
a picture of what that means. You know, and I'm like, yeah, people that have bad sex obviously,
like aren't having good talks. Go back to the war room and get a wipe wipe or and talk it out.
You know, if you're uncomfortable about your body, I spend a lot of time with men, most of my time with men.
And you know what I don't hear men say? You know what?
I don't want to be intimate with my wife because her legs are hairy.
It's like the things that we get hung up on as women are the things that I get hung up on.
I rarely hear men say that.
I'm just like, man, we're preaching abstinence where men are these like when I was a kid,
like these these sexual mongers. And I'm like, yeah, I just I just don't think that that's that's true.
I think when a man feels respected and seen and nurtured, which women are powerful at,
there is an intimacy that is just wild. And I think that it far surpasses a woman's physical perception of herself.
You know, and yet we just suffocate ourselves trying to be I know, because I did it.
I was not a tiny human, you know, some big, big biracial Amazon girl.
And I'm very proud of that now. But it took me a long time.
And I can tell you that when I was searching for what it meant sexually for me to be single,
I had this idea, well, I want to prove to everybody that I can get a hot guy.
And I did, you know, it was like, great. All the hottest men.
And it was so unfulfilling. It was so it was so unfulfilling.
God smiled down on me now because I have quite the partner.
I think he gave me a second chance.
It like wasn't the thing. I didn't need to prove anything.
I needed to accept who I was.
Yeah, couldn't agree more. Well, speaking of the physical side,
this walk through your journey into physical therapy then.
So from school, what were you dreaming of becoming?
And how did that take you into the PT road? Yeah. Yeah.
So I'm not a physical therapist. We'll talk about that.
I'm sorry. I'm massage therapist. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of.
I'll explain it. Well, you know what's what's wild, James,
is that I went to school to study practical ministry and theology.
I went to a tiny Bible college and I have a small degree from a school in San Francisco.
I don't even think exists anymore.
I was at this huge music festival.
My first love has always been music and singing.
I come from like the Vontrapp family singers.
And there was a table of small Christian accredited colleges.
And this I walked by.
I graduated high school early, took the California proficiency exam.
I was 16, 17 years old.
And this guy had his beard shaved into stars and dyed red.
And I was like, that's that's a church school.
And I dad, dad, I'm going to go there because I always felt, you know,
I had like a nose ring back in the day. That was a big deal.
And they were focused on serving the homeless community in the city
and focused on being in ministry.
And at the time, I had traveled to Africa
multiple times with one of my dear friends and mentors and done like AIDS relief work
and youth leadership. And I 100 percent was in.
And that's the school that I went to.
And I wanted to understand God and I wanted to serve people.
And what ended up happening from that, I graduated,
I got the job that I thought I wanted.
And then I learned quickly that as a 19, 20 year old woman in ministry,
I did not care for the politics.
So naively, but with my foot down, I actually chose to move to Romania
for about a year and a half, way up into the Ticuć mountains.
I had been there before with a not Christian organization on purpose.
It was called the Global Volunteer Network
and sort of have this quote, come to Jesus moment.
And I'm like, I don't I don't think this is it for me,
but I had thought that my whole life.
And luckily for me, the I get there and I kid you not,
this couple from Texas had watched a 60 minute documentary on orphans
in Romania and had moved everything to build houses to rehome orphans
that had been put in this horrible communist area and basically left for dead.
And a lot of the kids were you could rehab them from trauma,
but they didn't have enough workers.
So they sort of moved and moved to the mountains and hired Irish builders
and built three houses to rehab these kids.
And I got there by train by myself through the mountains.
And this woman with a huge white beehive and a giant t-shirt
with a sparkly puff painted American flag came out and she said
in a crazy accent, I believe in the Bible and shit,
but don't be getting caught up on that.
And then she said, you're going to go into the house that we don't put people in.
I think you can do it.
So I go into this house where we were supposed to serve.
They were on a farm with severely disabled children.
Nobody spoke English.
We did not have the right equipment.
The kids were would have like autism and cerebral palsy, you know, plus, plus, plus.
And we had like a room that was tiled where we would bathe the kids.
We would work on the farm.
And that was kind of it.
I got tasked with creating a choir with a bunch of disabled children.
This is such a great story.
That's like what we had to do.
And I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to do that, because I told them that I was a singer.
And we would we wheeled the kids out and I was just trying to get them to clap like this.
And I'm like, does anybody know a song because some of the children could speak.
And they brought out an old like radio with a cassette
and they started playing like a virgin by Madonna.
No way.
And I think I think we sang like Jesus Loves Me, you know, over and over again.
And that was the claim to fame.
Was that on the B side?
Yeah.
The bigger claim to fame was that I absolutely, absolutely fell in love with children.
And there was it was mostly nonverbal.
The women that worked, their abuse was rampant in their in their culture.
They would come in with like black eyes, alcoholism was rampant.
And then they would work hours and hours and hours and hours,
bathing these children that they became theirs.
Like makes me emotional.
It was just absolutely powerful.
And there would be these I think it was like once a week or twice a week.
I don't know if this guy was a PT or not, but we would wheel the kids out side
anytime something exciting happened, which was him coming and he would do joint mobility with the kids.
And again, like these kids were stuck in their wheelchairs for the most part.
And their whole spirits would just lift.
And I sorry, this is just such a this was my moment.
I remember feeling so lost when I got there because I thought I was going to do this thing my whole life.
And there was this little boy named Alex, I think I don't think he was super young.
I think he was a teenager.
And he was they basically had to tie him down because he would hurt himself.
He had C.P. and he tried to move and he'd hurt his hands.
And he would just scream and he was happy and he would cry and immediately piece of wash over him
when somebody was just being with him, touching his body, moving him.
And I knew at that moment, I don't know what they're doing.
I have a degree in ministry and theology.
I need to do that thing.
And suddenly, like the joy of sports from when I was a kid and the power of,
I believe, like human touch to restore such brokenness and such pain just shook me.
And I'm like, I need to do that thing.
And that was for me, I think the first time I can say that I like audibly and violently felt God in my whole body.
And I knew why I was on the planet.
More so than that, as I was on that journey, I'd always had this huge desire to serve veterans, which is where I started.
And I came home and I enrolled to be a Pilates teacher because I had had some rehab done from sports as a kid.
And I sat in this room with all these women that were ballerinas, again, I'm me.
And there was women that had one woman had a double master's in kinesiology, people that have been trainers and in this line of work for years.
And they said, what do you do?
And I'm like, I lead worship and I have a degree from a Bible school.
And it was there you go.
And at the time, I had no interest in knowing anatomy.
I'm incredibly dyslexic and I hate school.
I had every interest in laying hands on people that were hurting and rocking the world and changing their lives.
And I can say now I'm a total anatomy nerd.
But I didn't start this journey because I cared at all about it.
I didn't. I not at all.
I just wanted to love people that way.
And I wanted to champion people that way.
And I wanted that when and I wanted to like selfishly be the person that was like running alongside, you know, when when my when my patient has that moment of like, I did it.
I wanted to just soak up that like, oh, yes, like be right there when you realize your full potential.
And that that's what did it for me.
That's what started the whole the whole journey.
And I had to start my life like completely from scratch.
Luckily, I was pretty young.
Yeah, beautiful. I'm so glad that we found ourselves there.
What about the the path?
We didn't do a traditional PT or empty track.
Talk to me about that, because it's funny how many people, myself included, were in ex of ex fears or some of these other degree programs.
And really, it was the two day workshops and diving into people's techniques that actually were the real toolbox that they formed.
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, the thing that I knew about myself is was like, I'm dyslexic.
I have these things. And what's great is I'm not a person.
Right. I talked about this earlier where that's going to stop me.
I'm like, wow, I feel this, but that's not going to stop me.
We got to figure this out.
So the first thing I did was become a Pilates teacher.
And I was really, really good at it. I was young.
I had these math classes in the owner of the studio I was at.
Her name was Monica Anderson, would have to come in and help actually support me teaching class,
because these normal classes were 15 people and I would pack it out.
There'd be like 50 people. I was packing the whole shop out.
And I tell stories and be crazy and have fun. I just loved it. I just loved it.
It was electric in that room. And then I kept going and getting educated.
So I got Pilates like a mat certification and there's all the equipment.
And after a couple of years of that, I was teaching full time. It was crazy.
I was driving around as a trainer, more or less.
I was actually pregnant. I got married and pregnant early.
So I was 23 when I had my first daughter. I kept trudging along.
And Alice and Monica, they own this studio.
Monica said, OK, you got to pick a specialty. Like, what are you doing now?
You need to keep going.
And I was like, I don't know. Specialty is people. I don't care.
And I kept on brushing her off. No, I don't do this.
And finally, I thought about it.
I started teaching teachers and I'm like, I want to help people fix their backs.
I'm going to choose spine pathologies and special populations.
So that meant people that had hip replacements, osteoarthritis, arthritis, things like that.
People that are injured and not moving well.
And so I would get like scoliosis specific.
There's a woman named Karina Thaik lineback that I followed.
Then I went to her course. And then I got crazy for courses.
I started getting obsessed with taking courses.
And then I realized, wait, this is the path to that to that thing that I had happened in Romania.
So years and years and I had taken probably 20 or so of those two or three courses in Pilates.
At that point, I was considered a master trainer because I had over 10000 hours of time in,
which is I did fast. And I decided to take a RT, which is called it's active release techniques.
I was not a massage therapist. I am not a chiropractor.
I had not gone to school for that.
I had just had a child again and I got told I was crazy.
I called and they're like, well, you can't actually you can cut.
We'll take your money, but you can't actually touch people because you're not a massage therapist.
And you're also you haven't mostly chiropractors do this chiropractors and osteopaths and PTs.
And I was like, OK, so I can come.
And they said yes. And I went to this course passing as a 90 and I got an 84.
And this course, I the person that tested me was the soft tissue doctor for Nike Pro,
like highly, highly trained people of this thing.
It was manual therapy.
But what I kept hearing over and over again was you have magic hands.
And I'm like, that's great. And people were shocked that they had no school.
Like I'd never gotten educated on touch at all ever.
And I'm like, awesome. And I'll tell you what I failed anterior tibialis,
which is like the easiest muscle on the planet.
It's a front of the shin. I remember I had a rash.
I was sweating or shaking. I thought I was going to throw up.
And I air he's complicated fiber direction is all kinds of stuff.
But I knew that the coach wanted the win for me.
And I just stood there and cried.
I couldn't remember. But 90 was passing.
84 was so close.
And I went back and got 100 percent every other time.
Until I got a full body credential and I got nicknamed there.
They called me the Pilates wedge.
People were not understanding how I was passing.
And I could see things. The beautiful thing about A.R.T.
for me was I had been moving bodies as a coach very specifically for many, many years.
So it was really my hands understanding what I had been coaching people to do.
I'm like, yeah, I can see this when there's when there's movement that's not correct.
I can see this when there's an efficiency. This is me feeling it.
And then I went back and I got in California at the time, it was a massage practitioner.
It was like 100 hours so I could get insured to practice A.R.T.
And in that school, they were like, wait, you're A.R.T. certified.
Do A.R.T. fix my ankle.
So I actually got permission to test out of that early, which I did.
And then I found something called NKT because at this time I had started working with veterans,
which is neuro kinetic therapy.
I took all of their highest courses on that.
I earned another nickname because people were like, you're not a doctor.
You don't have the right school.
And I was really, really good at it.
And I'm like, yeah, I'm just good at it.
But also, I studied my ass off.
I was there the first I was a first person in the morning.
I was the last person at night.
I remember pictures. Words get really flip flopped for me.
And I would find anybody that would work with me and say, like, let me let me let me see your toe.
Let me see your finger. Let me see your elbow so I could touch it.
And and find my way. And I did.
And that was I took probably about a year and a half to do that.
And then people were taking notice and I got to go do Ironman for A.R.T.
I had a really great experience getting invited to go work on some of the Ferrari racing teams on Aston Martin.
People started bringing all these high level athletes in and I it was just a high.
It was like the greatest. It was the greatest, greatest thing.
Yeah, I mean, I can tell you in there really kind of starts the veteran first responder journey.
But I spent a decent amount of time getting what is called continuing education.
That's really built for osteopaths and for physical therapists and for chiropractors.
I did that as a master trainer and got in church is what I did.
And then I had to do the work and prove it. You know, I had to prove it.
And that, especially with the population that we're in now, that's just grit.
You know, and I'd come. Luckily, I had come from everyone telling me that I was nuts.
You know, like you're not going to pass. And it was just more fuel for the fire.
And like I get that nothing makes sense, but my whole life doesn't make sense.
Like you're not saying something new.
And there's that again, I'm going to keep throwing out like if fear is the biggest thing,
then of course it doesn't make sense. But I'm not taking a knee because I'm afraid I'm going to do it anyways.
And if I sit there and cry, if I throw up a fact, I explain myself 800 times.
I'd rather go through the humiliation of my own human condition than died, not trying.
Yeah, absolutely. And it's something that I've been a kind of reoccurring theme recently.
People paralyzed by fear, even in positions of responsibility.
I mean, I've said this, you know, if you are, for example,
the fire chief of a department that's had multiple suicides or cancer losses or whatever,
you know, then you need to be courageous. You need to search the corners of the world,
looking for solutions for your people.
You know, if you're the president of a country that's 70 percent overweight and obese and is crippling opioid epidemic,
you need the courage to step up and say it's not working me to change it.
But I feel like, again, masculinity used to be the word courage has been distorted.
And you can do some symbolic gesture and all of a sudden the world loses their mind over it.
But that's not courage. That's just, you know, it's again, it's a moment.
But courage is actually doing what's unpopular and something that you might not reap the benefits from.
Courage is selfless.
Yeah, you're totally right. And I mean, masculinity and femininity, it took me a while,
especially as the company grew, not to not to lead with masculinity, because that's easy for me.
Right. I've been in men's sports. I work with mostly men. I've got five brothers.
And I found that when I was masculine forward, I'm entering into competition versus partnership.
And what's natural for me and I like I'm a strong I'm a I'm a badass woman, 100 percent.
And my natural most powerful state is the kind of care that the world dreams about is hard and heavy nurturing.
It's like I will stand by you and hold you through fire, you know, on every mountain.
If you're committed, I'm committed. And when I started leading that way,
doors started opening that would not have opened because I was presenting in my early years in a way that said
I can match your energy instead of I can partner with your energy.
You mentioned working with high level sports teams, you know, Nike and the Formula One drivers.
Walk me through first the veteran community. How did you find yourself immersed within them?
Yeah, this is cool. Again, it's just like it's an unconventional story, but I love it. It's mine, right?
I I I remember being a kid when I was early teaching Pilates and I started to really get clear about my vision.
And I veterans were just something that was in my heart. I don't have a bigger or better story.
I just knew I want to help these guys. I do remember as a child in fantasy about who my father was,
he was always a vet or a firefighter or police officer or Batman or Spider-Man.
Some somebody with a badge or some kind of a superhero in my fantasy.
I had a photo of him that I used to sleep with and my father that raised me is a complete hero.
And he's not the badge guy. He's he's a pharmacist and he's very gentle.
You know, this kind of hippie guy. For me, I always had this like, you know, hulk of a badge wearing man in my head.
And the rescue that I felt and that I acknowledge, you know, in terms of being able to be adopted,
really holds a place in my heart that's not beatable.
And I think that that's where that call to veterans came from, because there's to me, I think, as a kid,
nothing bigger that I could think of like going to war. Right.
I'm going to go to I'm going to go to war for people that I don't know.
And I I remember telling the business owners that I was working with and I worked there for many, many years.
And they're like, yeah, well, you're not a vet. You don't know any vets.
You're crazy. I heard that a lot. And I by the time I opened my first shop, it was tiny.
It was like 300 square feet. I was renting a room. It was blocks away from the VA.
And I work up the courage and I walked into the VA and there's the admin desk.
And I said, hi, I had just come from my weekend with Ferrari.
So I thought it was super cool. And I said, hi, I'm not sure if you know who I am or not.
But I want to volunteer in your physical therapy clinic.
I thought I could do a R.T. on their vets. And that's what I want to do.
And I got told I could lick stamps. This is a true story.
They said, no, but you could you could probably lick stamps.
And I, you know what? I'm not going to lick stamps.
And I very defeated sat in the waiting room and I looked around.
There was a guy on my left and there's a guy on my right, older gentleman.
And this gentleman said, what are you doing here?
And I'm like, well, I'm trying to volunteer. And I told him my story and who I was.
And he said, great. Can you look at my wrist? Yeah.
So I look at his wrist and he was a Vietnam veteran and he had all kinds of scarring from an explosive on his wrist.
And I'm like, can I work on it? So we sat in the waiting room and I worked on his wrist.
And he's like, this is this feels way better. I did a R.T. on his wrist.
And A.R.T. is an amazing therapy. And I invited him and the gentleman next to him to come to my office, which is really close.
And I began the journey of treating veterans for free for many, many, many years and their families.
And I had I had no idea what I was getting myself into at all.
But what happened is I fell in love again with a people that had been completely ostracized, completely poorly treated, not had the right medicine.
And because I had had my background and because I understand trauma and it was able to enter in because because it was different trauma, honestly.
Right. And like, well, I haven't been in war, but I know what it feels like to be ostracized and I know what pain feels like.
I started going we can't use the same pain mechanisms for people going through behavioral crisis and traumatic exposure that we can for the civilian space.
It doesn't make any sense because your nervous system doesn't respond the same.
You know, I was finding like, well, I'm triggering somebody because of where my table is in relationship to the door.
The windows closed. I'm sitting behind their bodies and they would get like all upset and be crying.
And, you know, these are these are tough, tough people.
And then when I started to figure out what was going on and ask questions and they were like just so kind to share what was happening in their bodies,
I then ended up going to take that the neurokinesiology I told you about to understand more about how is this physiologically responding differently and how do I dive into this?
And then magic started happening and people started getting better.
And sometimes it was just because I understood that I needed to treat them physically in a different space.
Sometimes it was because I knew they needed their partner with them.
Sometimes it was because and then largely it started to be because I knew the right questions to ask.
You know, the is your pain one to ten doesn't make sense for a population who got trained for their pain scale to be zero to dead.
You know, it it doesn't make sense to talk about social anxiety when somebody doesn't have somebody next to them that's that's willing to die for them.
Right. When your mentality is a sandbox, then you go home and your brother is not with you and you feel anxious all the time.
I started to go, well, I understand that I know how that feels.
And I had this extreme level of compassion that I wanted to meet what I knew about sports.
And I don't know, man, it was like on that thing, I found that unceasing thing that bypassed what I was scared of.
And I knew I was a civilian. I knew I didn't come from anything that made sense, but I knew that I wasn't going to stop.
And then we didn't. And I mean, I didn't want to be a huge business owner ever.
I never wanted to do that. I wanted that Romanian experience.
But this time it was like with people that I had a passion for.
And, you know, from there, after spending years and years, I started inviting their families to come.
I started slowly getting bigger and bigger spaces, which I never I'm like, I don't want to do this.
And I didn't I wasn't willing to turn anyone away.
And we at one point hit a sweet spot where I was probably treating like 50 vets for free,
plus all my civilian clients that were paying for it.
And I just I just paid for it. I just I just paid for it.
I felt like my family was taking care of and they became my family.
And, you know, there's been many times in my career where I I remember like praying, going, I really want to stop now.
I feel like I'm in a good flow. And it was like this challenge to take on more.
And ultimately, that population started to turn into firefighters and police officers.
And again, I would stop and go like, oh, I don't know if I can do more.
And every time I would I would was able to enter in firefighters were first.
I got an invitation and I said no a couple of times.
He's now the deputy chief and I my great friend, he's seen I am like, no, I don't want to take I don't want to take that on.
I also feel very strongly about saying you're proficient in sports when you're not.
So for me, like, I don't know fire the fire service proficiently enough to say that I'm an expert here to bring my team and to bring myself in.
And we sat I got asked, but he asked if I would go to lunch with him and we sat and it's always Mexican.
We sat and had I think margaritas and I drank margaritas.
He did not edit at a taco place across from where my shop was.
And he started telling me the story of a fire.
He's a great man and a great brother and a great he's a great fighter, too.
And then when 2017 happened, I'd already really started working in those populations.
But I was in fire camp at the front lines with many, many, many departments.
And my heart broke. And I said, why does this sound like the VA?
I knew the VA already because I had been working with veterans for many years at this point.
But I didn't know that it was so comparable.
And I even now, even today, like it makes me sick.
And I think perhaps it's 10 percent better.
You know, I can't honestly say I know.
But when I was sitting with firefighters from all over the state and even outside of the states in my own town, I was outside of my own house.
I didn't know if it had burned down or not. You know, when we lost friends, we lost family, people lost their homes.
And our firefighters who were putting their lives in the line had no equipment and really ill equipment,
like no equipment as in not enough engines, no equipment as in we don't have water, no equipment as in we don't have jackets,
no equipment as in there's not bandages, no like no equipment.
I just couldn't understand how that was happening in my backyard.
But I don't get it. Where's spot the dog and the really clean turnouts?
That's what I thought as a civilian, you know, coming into that space.
Right. Where's the firefighter calendar? That's what these guys do.
Right. And it was just heart wrenching.
I just stood and I went, this is such a lie.
This is how how do I think this?
How do I think this?
And then I'm like, all right, rock and roll.
So I started serving firefighters at our local stations.
And again, 2019, another fire got a call.
And it's interesting because in each of those instances, the public would come in and think that they were helping and they would stay for a day or two.
I would be there for weeks. I would always end up by myself.
And at one point in armory, there's fire and there's military.
One of the gentlemen in charge there, he ended up he was a doctor and he's like, I don't understand what you think.
This is soft tissue. I don't do this.
And I ended up finding people that had broken backs.
I would call friends that were chiropractors and say, hey, a great friend, can you X-ray this hip?
Can you X-ray this back? Can you?
And he just started getting his pat out and doing what I told him to do.
And then we were making sure people that had their hands on our guys were certified.
And there's there's a couple of nonprofits that have sprung out from there.
But again, like I had these huge radical experiences with international emergencies where the the lack of equipment,
the lack of behavioral health, because that started to pop in, was dauntingly like the fail of the of the VA.
And so it goes and then the police department followed.
And those guys were my hardest for sure.
The fire department, I think, has politics that are that are that kick my butt the most. But,
you know, it it's so interesting because in my life, I'm about 20 years and I'm 10 years hard into this.
I many, many people want to say that they work with firefighters specifically because I think it's sexy.
You know, like they want the stamp on their business that says they serve firefighters.
No, you don't. No, they don't.
And, you know, and I it just makes me sick.
So, again, it was a moment in my life where I'm like, oh, do I want to grow again?
And me me being here has cost me my life over and over and over and over.
You know, when I moved into the facility I'm in now, my husband at the time had an affair with my best friend.
And then covid hit and the politics got huge.
Also, the civil unrest from BLM happened. Right.
I'm biracial. All of this stuff happened at one time.
We dumped 60 percent of our revenue. I lost a really big contract.
I was out over six figures for sure.
Going through horrific time at home.
My husband was a veteran at the time. He is a veteran and going through horrific PTSD.
It was violent at home. And I stood here and stood here and stood here and stood here.
And that's not accolades for me. It's just pointing out that like for this population, it's there is this 100 percent admiration.
That's beautiful. But the underbelly is dark.
It's the underbelly is dark. And for me, when when I meet people that say that they work with the fire service or the police department or veterans,
I know if they've sat in the underbelly or not. You know, and it's like it's where I'm cutting.
I'm like, if you haven't been there and stayed standing, if you haven't been there, I don't want to talk to you because it's cute for six months until it's not tell you lose your first guy.
Right. Or until politics happen or until life life gets to you.
And that's where, again, there's this part where you just choose to stay standing or not.
And my my firefighters don't have a choice.
You know, it's like feed my family or go down.
And I'm like, OK, again, like my commitment is to stand with you. And so here I am.
And we've got great, great things happening now.
But there was years where I was like, oh, my gosh, you know, this is this is kicking my butt a little bit.
But for all of those years, there's 100 or plus, you know, magical moments that have also happened.
Well, you mentioned about the VA.
Well, I think what's sad is when people are working in the fire service at that moment, they have at least health insurance.
But the moment you retire, you're fired, you know, whatever happened, there is no VA for the first responders.
It's just out the back door Cobra for a year, which no one can afford.
And then see you, you know, with all the accumulation of mental and physical injuries of a career.
You mentioned that your dad was a pharmacist.
You have obviously come through a very holistic path.
When I hear a lot of the veterans on the show talking about the VA, one of the biggest things is that they throw pills at them.
Obviously, things like, you know, Walter Reed, excuse me, phenomenal things are happening in the VA as well.
So it depends on which umbrella and which group you particularly are part of.
But the health care system as a whole is very broken.
I mean, you know, we have a profit based system, which, as we talked about earlier with addiction, you get people hooked and you want them to be a lifeline addict.
So whether it's, you know, blood pressure meds or, you know, diabetes meds, whatever it is, there's not a conversation about prevention or reversal of diseases.
It's just take these meds and shut up.
So what have been the conversations you've had with your dad coming from a pharmaceutical background with you following the holistic path?
Yeah. Well, what's what's cool about my dad is that my dad is Jesus plus nothing.
He's a diehard, you know, Jesus fan.
He's got all those albums.
Yeah. So so what's great about how I grew up with him being a pharmacist is that it was really I think he's a science nerd, you know, more than anything else, because we we did not go to the hospital.
We didn't we did not do pills.
Like, I mean, there there was times where I'm like, yeah, we dad, we really should have gone to the hospital.
But his first was he'd be like, all right, we're going to pray for you.
And he'd lay on lay the hands on your foot or whatever was broken.
And I had asthma my whole life from being a preemie.
My mother was on drugs and she had us. Right.
So it was like even in the times I was the sickest and growing up sick, it was always we're going to pray for you first.
And he would invite friends. There'd be like 15 people praying for me before there was ever any medical intervention.
And it it's this kind of crazy thing where there there's arguments for both sides.
Right. Like, no, like I never had medication for dyslexia.
In fact, we went to the eye doctor and they said they told me that my brain was farting.
Nobody mentioned dyslexia until I was in college.
And I I knew I'm like, wow, my eyes must be really bad.
That's what I thought. And finally, a doctor was like, your your eyes are not that bad.
You have extreme adult dyslexia, both with numbers and letters.
But what happened from me not having meds for things like ADD, dyslexia, anxiety, is that I had to create a resilience that is pretty profound.
Right. For for somebody that has my story.
And I had to create a willingness to lean in before I went there.
And so now I think I have a really healthy relationship with pharma.
I also have a very large idea of how gross it is.
And I think a lot of that is because I see and know what's available before we intervene with drugs like that.
You know, because stress really is a thing. Trauma really is a thing.
Anxiety really is a thing. Drinking enough water really is a thing.
You know, there's there's so much to do before.
And my dad, if you ask my dad right now what the answer is, for the most part, he'll say, did you pray for them first?
And did you invite them to dinner? Did you break bread with them?
And if we zoom out and we talk about the psychology of that, did you create community?
And if you really zoom out and you look scientifically at what, you know, quote, treats trauma exposure, it's community hands down.
And in his words, perhaps he would say it differently, but that's what was happening.
And you're going to hear me say every time I interview and talk about this, I tried to create my mom's living room because healing happened there.
And there was like always banana bread and spaghetti and she just feed like troughs of people.
But the table was always set and the table was always open.
And again, there were people that would look at somebody like my bio father and embrace them.
And, you know, we've forgotten that that we are each other's medicine.
You know, we become so hypocritical and so polarizing and people want to have all their microaggressions come out.
People think they're oppressed because of disagreement.
And there's really not the kind of community that we used to have.
And that is medicine.
If you ask what a firefighter craves, especially when they have to leave and nobody calls them right over and over, going to hear that story.
I went out, nobody called me and their heart is broken because they miss their brothers.
They miss their sisters. It's like I just lost my family.
It's like going through this huge divorce after you've put your whole entire life into it.
And that to me, that doesn't necessarily require meds.
That requires me sharing that one of the most important things I tell young people in badges now is don't make this your whole life.
Because when you leave, you need to walk into a family, you know, so you don't have that huge crash, that huge disassociation.
So, I mean, that's what I think the magic of my family was.
And I've got obviously a huge amount to say about Workers' Comp in the VA.
Veterans do have the VA, but many, many people in my experience that I've met in the veteran community that actually saw some pretty intense war don't even have a rating.
And many of those people then and they become a firefighter or a police officer and they don't have anything to do with it.
So and it's interesting, because departments and hiring, I've talked to many local departments about this.
They want a veteran, but there's no like extra screening at all.
So they haven't actually had the conversation. Hey, what was your exposure like in war?
They just move them right along through.
So I've seen people come home from war and go right into the fire service or right into the police academy with nothing and then have that job.
And then go into comp and then and later we're trying to catch up.
So now we're five years in, we're 10 years in.
Do you have a rating? No. Why not? Well, I didn't want to lose my job.
You know, there's all that. I see that quite a bit.
With the first responder, you talked about the calendars and the caricature of a firefighter, for example.
And we are expected to be very physical.
I mean, I love the term tactical athletes because we are.
When you actually had these responders in front of you, though, were there any physical or mental elements that surprised you,
you know, contrary to the kind of facade that you had prior?
Yeah, yeah, James, all of them.
I was trying to condense so many thoughts into one, and I do think that the glaring one is the difference between the actuality of a firefighter's career experience and the public perception.
I think that they are night and day.
You know, and I think the biggest thing with behavioral health really leans into what I was just saying,
and that is that the mental resiliency that it takes to adopt a job and perform a job well that is a life and death job
and lean into the people on your team and lean into your partners that way and then completely adopt
a different perspective when you go home is incredibly mentally and spiritual taxing.
It takes I call it mental fitness and the public and medicine not acknowledging the exhaustion of that by itself is a huge fail, in my opinion.
You know, it's doing that every day, right, doing that every day for 28 years.
And I think it takes a really special person to do that.
I also think that we would lose way less firefighters if we acknowledge out loud that there is a warrior class that chooses to adopt that career.
And there isn't anything wrong with you.
It's hard, you know, like there's nothing wrong.
There's nothing wrong.
I mean, when I listen, I'm like, so you I, you know, after somebody's had a hot call and like, so you're telling me that you're human,
that it was hard, that that thing you saw was hard and you can't sleep.
You're not a bad firefighter.
You're a human and you're an extraordinary human.
So for me, I don't like this rhetoric of you need all these pills.
We need to go to therapy and that there's not anything wrong with therapy.
But what I'm more passionate about is coaching people into how do I close the gap?
How do I kind of stop the cycle of spinning from the firehouse to home and how to create a life worth living in both?
You know, how do I get intimate with my partner and with my family about mentally the jujitsu that I have to do every day?
And I think that keeps being the biggest thing.
And I could go into like micro stories about why I think that.
But I really believe and speak this out any time I'm able to be with people from the fire service or from the law enforcement,
that if we just spoke that truth, a lot of things would change.
You work with some of the most high performing sportspeople, F1 and some of the other ones.
And I've had many people on that either were that person or they were coaching that person.
And we dive into their rest and recovery.
One of the things that I think is pure insanity and is a large chunk of this pie of this problem that we have is the lack of rest and recovery that our first responders get.
And the fire service specifically, if you talk in municipal, are working 56 hours a week, certainly in California, a lot of places where I used to work.
And then you have this recruitment crisis, and now you've got responders working 80 plus hours a week, sometimes even more.
What were you observing as far as the impact of shifts?
Because to me, it's insanity.
We've just we've just never evolved to the level of calls.
But what were you seeing having this kind of one lens on high performance in the sporting world and the I'm assuming contrast in the men and women whose literally their lives are in their hands?
Yeah, I mean, a high level athlete needs to perform for a season or for a weekend.
So you talk about a football season, a baseball season.
So at high capacity, I'm not suggesting they don't have to train.
But in terms of, hey, game on, I need to show up.
This is this is go time.
You know, in the case of a race at best, it's going to be 24 hours.
Right. And a race car is that a lot?
And yeah, that's it. That's a shit ton.
But it's for 24 hours.
So, I mean, really, it's like not that hard to answer.
I'm like, well, you have three months of a football season versus 28 years.
And the other thing that that is huge is that any time I've ever gotten the privilege of working with high level athletes, I'm always on a team.
It's not just me. I'm the A.R.T. person.
I'm the Pilates person. Right.
I'm the I'm one person in a team of multiple people all towards that athlete or all if the athletes, you know, incredibly high level.
But even just with a team like there's multiple people supporting the global health of that team or of that athlete.
And any other thing that you hit on that's huge is prevention.
So there's no rest and recovery.
But also, you know, we we are in the middle of a tidal wave right now.
It's not like coming and we can fix it.
We're we're drowning.
It's like, you know, and still I'm still having to sit and prove it.
And it's really interesting.
I'll say it like this.
When I'm in a department that has a huge percentage of their responders out on on workers comp, right, or a huge percentage that have had injury, right, like multiple suicides, cancers are high out on workers comp.
And I go and I say, hi, I have thirty five thousand hours of sports medicine time with your department and there's pushback.
That's insane to me.
It's insane that you'd say you have you have more than a failing grade and we're fighting like, why aren't you running to pay me to fix this?
I mean, like that's not unheard of.
An athlete, a high level athlete.
Hi, you know what?
You threw that ball four miles less an hour.
The shift is what can I do to get you to train me?
It's a totally different mentality, you know, and there's their coaches running out to find the best people to coach them.
You know, their their team like that, that's that's a whole that's a whole character and level of accountability that just I mean, honestly, I don't even think is that encouraged.
It's it's just it is crazy making. I have to talk myself out of frustration before I go into meetings a lot because I know I'm going to walk into that.
And I'm like, this is this is nuts.
Yeah, and it was really hard, honestly, when I started shifting over more and more to doing this full time, I was used to people begging me to treat them.
You know, like and I was young and it felt really good, but it was like, oh, you got Sonia to no way you got under schedule.
Like, you know, like it was crazy.
Like I got flown to Daytona.
Like, please come and work on our people.
And then here, you know, what departments that are drowning.
It's like nuts. It's it's nuts.
It was great for my personal character development.
And I guess I'm not that cool looking on the bright side.
Yeah, it was it was really.
And it was like, again, am I going to let that fear take me over when people are like or just me getting bypassed because I don't look right.
I don't speak right. I don't write like I'm not a veteran.
I'm not. I've gotten that a lot. I'm not a first responder.
I never said that I was. I just do know that I know who I am and I'm certain about who I am.
And I'm certain that in the country, nobody has the experience that I do.
I know that there are some really, really amazing practitioners out there and amazing programs.
It's not the same. I know it's not.
So when I sit there and I have to explain myself to people that are losing firefighters,
you know, left and right, I it it it blows my mind.
That's that's really the difference is I'm sitting there trying to convince people that they need me versus like,
heck, yeah, please come train our team.
So it's been crazy just just looking at it, because I mean, one of the things I get a lot is all of these kids today,
you know, they don't want to be firefighters.
I'm like, that's bullshit because I've had just as many people, good leaders talking about all the,
you know, the great things that come with this younger generation.
But what has obviously happened coming from a firefighter that got hired 20 years ago
when I was competing against, you know, my case, a thousand that were actually at the written test.
I mean, these spots were coveted and arguably you weren't just filling seats.
You were filling seats with the top whatever percentage that you wanted to take.
So in out of a thousand, there were 30 spots when I tested.
So that's a pretty high percentage.
The problem is, is that back then, when I researched what's it like to be a firefighter, I just got, you know, backdraft and that of 49.
It's all rah rah rah, you might die in a fire, but apart from that, everything's great.
20 years on, people are now researching what's it like to be a firefighter,
seeing all the great things that the actual job is about because it is a phenomenal calling.
But they also see the other stuff, the suicides, the cancers, the heart disease, the obesity, the divorces, you know, the addiction.
They're all there, you know, warts and all they're available as well.
And then you add in mandatory overtime and an already shitty work week and a pretty crappy pay.
These people are going, this doesn't look very good.
And who would blame them? You know, who would blame them?
So the the leaders in the fire service have the power to fix this.
But as I was talking to Tulsi Gabbard a little while ago, even nationally,
there's this false economy that just keeps going over and over and over again.
And these self-serving, whether they are politicians, chiefs, union members, whatever they are, they want to they want to bolster their career.
They want to look good this budget year or this election cycle.
And so there's complete cowardice.
And as we said earlier, with with courage, we need people courageous enough to say what we did is not working and we need to change it.
And I might not even be here to see the benefits, but I know it's the right thing to do.
Yep. Yeah, you're absolutely correct.
I think I mean, I think that this the the city or county politics are even an issue well above the chiefs and the managers of our departments now.
I think it starts there. You know, and I can say that I've seen great leaders go countless times to city councils and county councils and just get berated.
And I do believe exactly what you're saying about false economy.
Right. Firefighters already make too much money.
I hear that all the time. Right. Well, it's not fair.
And I when I look at it and I'm like, you hold on, this guy just pulled one hundred and twenty hours.
Right. It again, it's like not hard science.
So sometimes I like question myself, am I am I am I crazy right now?
I think we have the economy completely backwards.
And I think that it is a courageous thing.
It's it's been I discontinued being a nonprofit because the politics were not something I was interested in.
And it became not that's something I wasn't expecting at all.
Honestly, I'm like, oh, I'm going to I'm going to help this town.
This is great, especially because I was around before our major fires.
Right. So to me, I was in a perfectly poised position to come in,
speak what we saw after thousands and thousands of hours with our local departments.
And it ended up.
In a political space, I'll say that, and I was like, I'm just going to I'm going to stay down here in the weeds with my guys.
Ultimately is what I chose. And I'm going to do things like this.
I'm going to I'm going to speak differently. And I did a couple of major media outlets.
I think in like 2019, I talked to the Today Show and a couple of other bigger sort of spaces just to go above the politics that I was in.
And I still will. I've talked to many senators. I've talked to the state.
And my mind, I'm like, well, that's ridiculous. I'm going to go above your head.
This doesn't this doesn't make any sense.
And it's sort of where where we're at now. And it took me I had to rewind my process because in my head,
I thought that nonprofit was the way to go. And quickly into that, I learned and I had a I had a pretty stellar board.
And I think that they were great. But I think that the politics were hard.
And I pulled back from that pretty quickly and realized I'm going to keep serving and I'm going to try and create a company.
That's that's forward for people that doesn't have to adhere to the politics.
So and you'll hear me sort of tiptoeing around my words now.
I'm like, you know, because it was just I didn't think that I needed to convince people with the way things were going, that we needed help.
And it was like I'd say the word prevention and it was like blank stares.
And I'm like, OK, well, I'm going to keep going.
You know, and I can't wait. I can't wait for for all this to come full circle.
It's starting to now. But I know that my I say my guys, I know that there's girls.
Women in the fire service don't seem to mind for the most part.
I can't wait to keep being a bigger gift to my local departments.
And, you know, they've they've watched me stand and go like, all right, we're going to I'm not going to go anywhere.
And I remember early on, you know, my firefighters, you know, you're never going to get the city.
You're never going to do this. You're never going to do that.
And I'm like, I don't know how, but I'm not going anywhere.
And if it's not through this avenue, it's going to be through a different avenue.
And I'm like right at the finish line.
So I don't care how I get the help to them, but I will. I will.
That concept of social business seems to be a such better model than the nonprofit a lot of times.
I know some of my friends that have nonprofits, I mean, they're constantly begging people for donations.
And I know other people that have their own companies making whatever it is,
but X amount, however many percent always goes to the nonprofit arm.
Transcend and transcend foundations, a good example.
So I think that really is the future.
I mean, you know, to have to rely on other people and like you said,
convincing people that more often than not don't care.
You're just, you know, in their folio of nonprofits so they can look good for the tax man rather than,
you know, having in your case a for-profit therapy center, but also having a nonprofit arm to that.
Yeah. And we, I mean, that it's just, I think being an entrepreneur,
especially with a service minded space, especially for this one, I've had to let go of a lot, too.
I was convinced that I was kind of convince other people to hop on and that not so much.
And but the people that are convinced and I have a much bigger business now and I'm really excited about it.
It I've had to die to the fantasy of how I thought this was going to go due to politics many times.
And I'm still here, you know, and I what makes me excited is as we grow,
picking up other people that are as passionate that didn't survive the business part,
but that have the experience in the heart because I'm I'm certain that there are a lot of even like retired firefighters
that have huge gifts to bring that don't have the business container.
And now that I do, I'm like, I want to pick up all of those black sheep that, you know,
that kind of got caught in the weeds and create an army to come and help.
And, you know, because because we can now I'm like, I have such an interesting crew on my team.
One of my champions is a is a retired firefighter that did 28 years,
and it took almost three years for him to get a new hip.
He's still not getting paid. It's in a total tangle with workers comp.
It's the whole story, James. You've heard it.
He walked in here years ago and said, I can't be alone.
I had no idea who he was sat on the couch.
And I'm like, OK, great. So I got my you know, my wheel going.
He then turned around and saved my life from an acute asthma attack.
And now he's like running my office because he's like, I need something to do.
And, you know, watching him after he was in so much pain, this man, I like spasming pain every day for years
to try and get the medical attention he needed and the behavioral attention that he needed
and to watch him like I can see the fireman's back, just just running order around the office.
And he works alongside I call her my work wife, a veteran of 26 years, and her and him run it.
And there's the gift that he is to the firefighters that come in here when they see a brother
and the gift that he is to keeping a ship tight in terms of the program has been really, really amazing.
And those are the people that I'm after where I'm like, you like we will chase your healing down.
You know, he was getting treated weekly in here before he came in and we threw every program we had at him.
And I got a brother out of it. Everyone's you know, it's family in here.
And I know the difference that he's going to make.
And when I when I go send people out to departments now, I'm like, you're the first one that's going to go out because, you know,
and that feels really good. And I know that there's a lot of those people that got lost in the weights and I'm I'm going to go get them out.
Love it. Well, I in my career, I had a back injury that actually used foundation training,
chiropractic and then exercise to get back without any surgery, any meds.
But then I had a jug handle tears a buck handle test.
I forget what which which one is called on both meniscus.
Obviously, I had to have that snip. So that was surgery and rehab as well.
But what I realized locally here and I live in central Florida was a lot of the physical therapy places that I was sent to with,
you know, they were all with the best intentions.
They were used to dealing with 78 year olds.
So as long as I can stand up and get off the toilet, then I'm good to go.
And obviously, my first call when I get back to the fire station might be 100 pounds a gear, 20 stories up before I even go to work.
So slightly different bar.
What are you what were you seeing as far as the prescribed PT of these first responders that you were trying to get back to work versus what you were doing within your own walls?
Yeah, dude, it was so bad.
I mean, and I don't I know that there's great pts.
I don't want to sound like I'm horrible.
But in general, let's just start with the fact that it was taking months like and I quote months to get an appointment.
And especially like I'm coming off of covid and and still there's like you can have a video appointment for a tear 14 weeks later.
And that was like classic, classic.
I had female firefighters doing postnatal on Zoom.
Just mind blowing.
And I sit there and look and I get this look.
I know where I lean in and I'm like.
Huh, OK, well, the wait time, first of all, is a problem.
I'll just say hands down like the wait time is unacceptable.
Period. The end unacceptable.
I've seen things like people getting a QR code to scan with their phone to take them to a YouTube channel for their PT.
I love technology and I use it, but that was like it.
And we're talking about high the job of a firefighter.
Right. Just like mind blown.
And the other thing, aside from all that shenanigans, was that I was not and did not see any fire service specific rehab.
So if you look at the job of a firefighter, we're looking at oftentimes something that is a very unilateral physical demand, meaning one hand has an axe, one hand has a hold of this body that I'm trying to move its dead weight.
There's one foot coming up into an engine.
Somebody really requires cross training for that so that you don't end up with something like a shoulder tear, like sciatica, like rotated hips all the time.
It takes counter training and it also takes being able to hold stability unilaterally with both sides equally.
Well, what if your right arm is not available, but you never really train your left arm to be an extension?
And when you get into an injury space like that, oftentimes we see closed chain and very acute exercises only for that part of the body.
Not for the larger physicality of what a firefighter has to do.
On a baseline level, stepping in and out of an engine multiple times, even if you're in a department where you're going to get five calls instead of 30 on a tour, you still chronically are creating instability and disjointedness in your SI, for instance.
So things like that really, really affect physical therapy and rehab, in my opinion.
And I was not seeing anything specific to that at all, which is why I wrote it and changed how we do it.
I think that all rehab should be job specific.
This is including like, you know, me as a mom.
What is your what are your daily tasks take?
And you're totally right in the O.T. space.
Getting off a toilet is great.
But what about getting a human off the toilet three stories up that weighs 400 pounds?
Because that's your job. Medical calls are something a lot of the public, I find, don't realize that the fire service does so much of.
It's a huge amount of the job that you are tasked with.
And it's I tell my people all the time, your job is a lot of strength and a very awkward space.
So you talk about like a structure fire on top of all the gear that you have on or even a wildland.
You're not we don't need to go to the gym and train like a bro and make sure your biceps work.
Working out is great. It's better than not working out.
But in terms of injury prevention and what we see over time, it's really not supporting your sport.
So I I actually can say I have not seen any fire specific rehab ever outside of the six.
I haven't seen it. I know people do yoga.
I know there's a lot of really great programs.
A lot of those seem to be only somatics, which is great.
Breath patterns for firefighters is a huge deal.
Right. It's a it's a huge deal in terms of I got to put my two masks on once I have that seal up.
Am I stable? Am I not stable? I hear that talked about never.
I do hear about sleep hygiene and stress.
I'm not interested in only talking about that.
I I've said out loud, I don't care about your feelings.
I do care about your feelings, but I want all of it.
I selfishly want all of that. You are you are a whole person.
It's not like only behavioral health.
So, you know, I think that what I've seen a lot in the fire service is much more behavioral support.
You know, I think there's been a lot of work there in terms of like stress, injury and exposure.
I think there's some some try there. It's more than zero.
But I haven't seen a lot of fire programs do this, which is I understand that if your sleep is poor,
then you're going to have hormone imbalance.
You know, then you're going to have poor muscle response.
And I certainly haven't seen any movement that's specific to fire.
Absolutely not. Well, speaking of the trauma side, obviously, the book, The Body Keeps the Score,
is really a great read as far as how our emotions can be reflected in our actual physicality.
I just had a guest on from FDNY, one of their wellness guys, talking about TRE,
Trauma Release Exercises, which I've never heard before.
So talk to me about all the areas that you do in the six as far as actually being able to release some of that nervous element.
Yeah, that's so cool that they do that. That's cool.
Right. These bigger departments, they're starting to get it.
They have a lot of money, too, those guys.
Yeah. So we have here basically, first and foremost, all of our sports therapists are clinically trained and then there are six trained.
So, hey, this is what to expect.
The reason for that is that if somebody's nervous system starts to get hot, which you can you notice via breath pattern for the most part,
we need to stop what we're doing and address that first.
So if somebody starts to go into shock because I shoved my finger in a shoulder injury that happened during a hot call,
I need to be aware that that's happening and address that first.
So that's our first line of defense.
And again, like we're treating in firehouses now.
So people are at work. They're like awake. It's a different thing.
We pay attention to heart rate.
So one of our coaches does HRV, it's heart rate variability and something called heart math,
which I think is going to be a big deal pretty soon here in departments.
It's easy enough to read, but it'll really give somebody an idea of how am I responding right now?
What's happening right now? A lot of people confuse it with blood pressure.
It's not the same thing. It's, you know, basically giving you a nice picture into how you're responding in a space.
So oftentimes responders have really, really low HRVs.
Your body sort of starts to play dead and you can compartmentalize away as a whole for your health.
That's not a great thing. Sometimes people come in and it's super, super high, you know,
which is that hypervigilant space all the time.
And again, sometimes it'll read differently if somebody's at the station versus not at the station.
So we use a lot of that. The coaching component has been huge.
And in fact, we have live coaches here that have only worked with responders,
pretty high level coaches. We have a coach here who works for a company called Novus Global,
which is one of the biggest personal coaching businesses in the country.
High, high level performers. But she also was a chaplain here for first responders for 15 years
and has done a lot of global leadership work.
When somebody comes in hot, I always refer to coaching.
So much so that in terms of the background part of our tech,
my partner is building a coaching platform that's responder specific.
And that is not to take the place of therapy, like I said,
but it's because that I believe we need to train people how to close the,
I'm at work, I need to close that loop the best that I can and then go home,
you know, and make that transition less hard. How do I do that?
I always say one of the biggest gifts that responders have is being a hope bringer,
right? You run into situations where it's often feels hopeless and you're there, right?
And that's the beautiful part that I love about the public perception. That's true.
You do represent hope and that can be heavy, right?
So it's like coaching around that and understanding what that is and also being proud of it.
So coaching again is a huge part of what we do. HRV is a huge part of what we do.
Acupuncture, there's, she's also an herbalist and Chinese medicine is a huge part of what I do.
Nutrition is a huge part. I believe teaching people about their bodies,
especially in the trauma space is a huge part of what we do.
How is your nervous system responding? What exactly does that mean for you physically is a
huge part. We have yoga practitioners here. Breath practice is a huge part of what we do here.
Cranial sacral is a huge part of what we do here. But more than that, I think in the big picture,
we teach about why is there a sports medicine implication to traumatic exposure?
And then we coach all of our performance around that. And here's all of your rehab. Here's what's
happening to your body. Did you know that? I really want to come to a space where I'm empowering people
to be their best. It's funny when you talked about down regulation, I've had the CEO of a
company called Newcom probably a couple of years ago now, I don't know if you ever heard of it,
N-U-C-A-L-M, but it's incredible technology. You put it on in your headphones and you wear an eye
mask, but it's the only one that's actually got this technology patented. There's a lot of, you
know, audible soundtracks that you can listen on Spotify, but this actually has like a gigs worth
of data in each of these songs. And underneath the music, there's this kind of undulation
that literally stimulates your brain to go from sympathetic down to parasympathetic.
And there's a 20 minute one called Power Nap that I think is imperative for first responders before
they go home. And then you mentioned the HRV, that's such an incredible tool, even though a lot of
wearables, some of the things they claim are just bullshit. They can't tell you if you were in REM
sleep, for example, it's fucking lies. But what they're great at for is HRV. So now you have a
barometer, like is this a good day for me to do Murph? Or is this a better day for me to go for a
swim? Yep. Yeah, totally. It was cool. I got to practice this myself. I just went free diving
with my boyfriend and I made it down to 90 feet. It was really cool. Wow. Four days in, right? I
think I'm good at this. And everyone's like, what the hell? You had to do that your fourth day in.
And I'm like, you know what? I've been practicing shutting down kind of those anxiety receptors for
my whole life. And it was this really sweet experience. It's something called the breathe up
where you're waiting in the water before you hold your breath and you dive down. And your job is to
literally relax your entire body because it relaxes your eustachian tubes, like the whole system. And
I'm laying there and of course I'm like, I got to take my firefighters and do this because it was so
great. But every time I go now that first dive, it's like great feedback because I can feel myself
almost like vibrating in the water, not relaxed. And for me, because I'm competitive, I want to get
down and I want to have a good dive experience. And there's something towards, it's really a
breath practice and a relaxation practice. And most people breathe up top, they do shallow breathing
up in the chest and up in the throat. Most people do not get a full 360 degree breath in. And that,
I mean that, we can talk about spine stability, we can talk about lack of rotation, all of that's
from breath. But what's exciting for me is going, that directly impacts that trauma response and it
makes you a badass. If you can get 360 degrees of breath, your sports performance is through the
roof. And then all of a sudden you're sleeping better. And then all of a sudden your anxiety
goes down. And then all of a sudden you're not as angry. So it's really the marriage of the two that
is exciting for me to share. Well, I want to hit one more area and then go to some closing questions.
We've talked about post-injury, we've talked about the mental-physical connection.
What about kind of maintenance for the first responder? I mean, there's all the things out
there from foam rolling and lacrosse balls to ice baths. What are some of the common areas where you
find that we are tight and therefore kind of heading towards, whether just a lack of relaxation
or injury? And then what are some of the therapies that you find work on this population?
Yeah. So I'll tell you what I, my baby right now and what I wrote is called the Fire Service
Performance Assessment. And what I did, and it's like any sort of therapy assessment that you see,
I just, there wasn't one for fire. So I wrote it. We've got a series of eight exercises that are
based on how I asserted a firefighter needs to perform. Rotation's a huge one. And based on how
you perform, the exercises are scored. They double as homework. And underneath every exercise, I'm
like, here's your 4850 implication. Here's the injuries that I see. Things that are ignored a
lot in terms of the injury space for firefighters is I see a lot of wrist, hand, and fingers.
That's from dropping things. I slammed my hand, you know, I reached into a car. It's interesting
that that doesn't get talked about a lot because I see it a lot. Shoulder injuries are huge. In
terms of the kinesiology chain, I believe that most people are going to be single footed in terms
of when they step in and out of the engine, it creates a functional sort of a scoliosis. So
you're going to have one shoulder sort of in compression and one in decompression, the same
as the spine. And you'll see a lot of, you know, decomposition, if you will, in the joint itself.
So I see a lot of supraspinatus tears. A lot of those bucket handle tears happen pretty often.
Head and neck injuries, I see a lot at C1 and C2. That's going to be, you know, helmet injury.
Oftentimes people don't think about small repetitive hits. For instance, if you had to get in full gear
and then hop in the engine, even if you didn't have to go fire, usually you're getting small taps
repetitiously, which over time gives you some, you know, shortness and some forward head carriage.
So I see a lot of that, a lot of sciatica, a ton of sciatica actually, and that's again sort of a
decompressed versus compressed joint space in the SI. To me, this screen has to happen so that you
know, like, hey, this is what I'm at risk for. If somebody, for instance, experiences pain in a
particular area, I'm like, well, here's the service implication. Here's why you need to be able to do
this. Repeatedly do this until you do it well, unless there's pain. If there's pain, we'll address
it. In terms of the primary exercise that I think is huge, 360 degree breath is a big deal. So are
you getting breath all the way into your belly, all the way into your lumbar spine? For a female, if
you look at your pelvic health, that's going to give you a really good picture of how your breath
pattern is going. So if you're struggling with something like incontinence, you see it in men
too, but primarily in women, chances are your lumbar spine is pretty unstable. The head will
usually mirror that. So breath for men and women is huge. I rotation all day long. So thoracic
rotation, unless that upper back is a really, really big deal. And I say, you know, like even simply
go into upper back rotation in both directions and figure out where you're tight and loosen the screw.
That's what I tell you. You know, so there's ways I think you can do that the best. Usually I don't
like to have to have a lot of equipment because I want people to be able to use their bodies in the
wall. So there's a lot of really basic exercises that I could say are the best. But if I was going
to pick one, it's that thoracic rotation is huge. It'll travel down the chain. It opens up, right,
all of this tightness in the upper body. And then secondarily, if you can do it in a way that's
going to open your hips up, that's a big deal. So thoracic rotation with like a psoas opener would
be my favorite one. Hips get really tight, as you know, and bilaterally when hips get tight and that
psoas gets tight, it messes with that breath pattern, it gets really short and hard to move.
So if you have a body that can healthily and strongly rotate as a firefighter, you're doing
pretty good. You're doing pretty good. Yeah,
Be Shakira. That's what I always say.
I have quoted Beyonce a lot. I'm like, give me some Beyonce and everyone cracks up. They're like,
what did you just say to that firefighter? It's not wrong. Mobility, it's interesting because I
don't want to worship mobility. You also have to be stable. So, you know, a lot of times I hear
this sort of over glorification of mobility. Yes, you need to be mobile. But there's a lot of
yogis that can't stand on one foot. You know, so it's like, there's really have to have this
clean line between, we've heard this a million times, stability and mobility. But can you do
that under load? So something I love to do with a firefighter is can I have two different weights of
kettlebell and carry them over my head? Right? And then I'll say, hey, hey, look at me. And can you
look over your shoulder without losing your body? And oftentimes it's no, it's a hard exercise to do,
but I also don't believe in babying a first responder. I'm like, dude, your, your job is,
is badass. You need to be sweat. This shouldn't be comfortable. I am not committed to your comfort.
I'm committed to you winning. And I don't want to coddle people because their job is hard. I'm like,
I want it to be hard so that when you're confronted, you know, with that call, when you
confronted with that fire, you are certain that you're going to dominate and you're not concerned
is my body going to make this? Because the minute you get concerned that is my body going to perform,
now you're a nervous wreck. And guess what? It's not. You just shut your own shit down.
So if I can coach you in a way where I have partnered with you to the brink of your like peak
performance and that car comes along and that call comes along and that fire comes along and you're
like, I know I can do this. That's where we stop injuries, you know? And then you get to pick up
the phone and say, you know, Sonya or somebody at the six, I just, I just scraped a kid off the
ground. And I'm like, you come right now. I got you. There's that community piece where it's,
it's holistic. And I, you know, I'm sick of pussy footing around. I know it's a terrible word,
but I'm like, I, you don't need to do only yoga. You need to be a strong badass so you can be
healthy and fulfilled when you walk out of that station. 100%. I've actually switched my
programming for about a year, just over a year ago now to a Wolf Brigade. And that's a lot of
Macy's single alarm, kale bells. And it's a, I did CrossFit for years and loved it. And it served me
well as a firefighter, but there were imbalances that just got worse and worse. And it just wasn't
helping the way, you know, all the programming that I followed, but what's been beautiful about
this is like you said, it's rotational. It's putting my shoulders back into positions they need
to be. I'm doing, you know, um, hinging with the mace on my back. So it's keeping that back straight
and it's just, it's different. It's just different. And I think what's nice about that is cause you
don't have that red line element that CrossFit does so often, which is important for us physically
and mentally. It takes away some of the fear to simply move, you know, and I loved CrossFit with
the broke climbs and the handstands because it was play as well. But sometimes when you're in the
grinder and your HRV is shit and you went in, you know, to a, a wad that leaves you puking and,
you know, outside that might, that's actually not the best fit. And for someone who has just been
through something horrible, maybe just swinging like mace, you know, and doing some of the other
things that you're going to put them through is what's going to help flush that out a little bit.
Yeah. Yeah. It's hard. And you know, it's like to bring it full circle in terms of the,
the pro athlete. It's like most of their time is spent in the gym. It's not at the game.
It's like their whole lifestyle is about their fitness and about their mental health. I mean,
these people have coaches and therapists, they have all, all of that. And so I'm like, you,
what I'm saying is not new science. It's not odd. You want peak performance, then make your life
about performing. It's, it's not, it's not like anything new. The amount of experience I have is
different, but what I'm preaching is, is not new. We've been doing it for, for pro athletes for
years. It's, it's not, it's not like groundbreaking to spend your life taking care of your body.
Should you have a high performance demand? And that's again, like where I just go like, man,
are you kidding me? Why, why am I explaining this right now? This is silly.
Well, I think the environment too, I mean, yeah, it's up to us to have ownership and understand
that lives depend on us and train accordingly, but you also need that environment for us to
rest, recover and thrive. Now that's the big missing piece. You know, if you look at the football
locker room or, you know, UFC fire, it takes a lot of damage. There's a huge rest and recovery
element. The sleep is so important. So both of us, all of us, this is a problem with the fire
service. You know, we didn't, we did a shitty job of telling people what we do. We walk around
bragging about how our shifts are amazing when they're not. It was a complete fallacy that we,
even we believe. So now we've got to reprogram our ownership of the job. And then we've also got to
fight for an environment of rest and recovery that allows us to perform the same way as a Formula
One driver or a baseball player. Yeah. I think that it's human to
share about the fantasy of your life versus the reality, you know? And I think that in many ways,
with many different careers, we sort of capture the fantasy of what could be instead of adopting
the humanity of what is. And I think that that's made the quote, cape of the firefighter really
heavy. It's like, you know, proving the fantasy is much harder than inviting other people into
your humanity. And the disappointing part about that is that there's where you lose the possibility
for intimacy and community, because many people are craving permission to be human. And if we can
do that, if we can ask a city and ask a county and ask management to allow their first responders
to be human, then we'll have a different department. But right now, like the city wants to perpetuate
the fantasy too, right? The county wants to perpetuate the fantasy. The country wants to
perpetuate the fantasy. Because for some reason, there's this fear of, you know, what happens when
we articulate the brokenness of the fire service. And in my mind, what happens is healing, because
everybody again gets to be human. But maybe the calendars will all have a bunch of guys with torn
rotator cuffs and a belly. You know, and like, for me, though, like, I'm like, that's my dad,
that's my brother, like that body, that person, that that woman that made it all the way to be
in management. That's the person that like you can relate to, right? That's the person that's
going to be like, Hey, I need to come sit on your couch. And, and then we just stop this crash,
you know, our whole country is really backwards, in terms of how we expect people to perform. And
unfortunately, because there's, you know, badge wearing people that are doing this high performance
work, it's like you got the worst of it. And, and all I know is in my own experience, every time I'm
willing to stand in my brokenness, I have immense amount of healing from the community that I need,
because I admitted that I needed it. And, like, all of a sudden, all the walls come down, right?
It's like, okay, you know, it's okay. And again, it's like that that big fear picture, James, where
it's like, are you going to let this dictate your life or not? And, you know, fantasy doesn't heal
fear. Amen to that. That's beautiful. Well, I want to go to some closing questions that could
be mindful of your time. The first one I like to ask, is there a book or are there books that you
love to recommend? It can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated.
Yeah, I want to make sure I get this name right, because I always shorten it.
So my mentor of probably like 30 years, her name is Jean Marie Job,
Jean Marie Jobs. She wrote a book called The Art of Feeding Heroes, Leading from the Inside Out.
She talks about like utilizing neuroscience and marrying that into leadership. And it's really
like flushes out those like blind spots I was talking about. And if you read it, you'll probably
likely hear her in my voice and how I speak. She's an absolute brilliant thinker and speaker.
She's one of our coaches here now. She's a globally renowned speaker and coach, and she gives
her time to our responders here. This would be a person James read, be like, you should let me
hook you up. She's just a brilliant leader and somebody that I admire greatly. But I've read
that many times. Well, one of my questions is suggesting a guess. So let's assume it is answered.
So yeah, let's make it happen. Yeah. Yeah. And we didn't even talk about my whole team. I have
this whole like incredible tech team right now and business partner that I'm working with. But
yeah, in terms of like brilliant people, Jean Marie Jobs is definitely, she's definitely my hero for
sure. Beautiful. Well, that was books. What about documentary and films? Any of those that you love?
Oh my gosh, I just cry. So I honestly as a young woman, my favorite documentary is the story of
Diana Nyad. So she's a speaker now. And she's amazing. So she swam from the Bahamas to Florida.
And she was not young. And so there's a there's a documentary with her and it's a
there's a documentary with her and it shows her like getting stung by box fish and just like,
I think it took her six or seven times. And I just cry any documentary like that where people are
overcoming, you know, anything I, I just have to watch 800,000 times. I just watched Hillbilly
Elegy too, which is JD Vance's story. He's the vice president, vice presidential candidate from
Donald Trump. I knew who he was before because I was familiar with the film and then I just re-watched
it. And I have no I'm not making any political statement here, but I am saying that his story
is just incredible. So he comes from generations of drug addicts from Appalachia and it's,
it's intense to watch. It's not an easy watch, especially because I can relate with some of it.
But his sort of coming up story was just amazing.
That's the man that he chose for VP?
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. He was currently speaking. But in terms of like, for me, in terms of a
Republican candidate, he's one of the most well-spoken, actually intelligent politicians
that I've heard in a long time. We need someone like that. Oh my God. Yeah. He's, he's, he's just
brilliant. And his story, if I was going to choose what it meant to be American, he has an incredible
story. And I really admire people that just come up from, from nothing. So I just re-watched it.
I didn't realize quite how intense it was. He had his mom there. He's been clean for 10 years
at the committee he was speaking on, which I certainly didn't watch all of that, but I wanted to
see that dynamic. And it was, it was pretty real, which I appreciate. Again, like I'm pushing up
against that fantasy. Okay. But what actually happened? And in the story of like Diana and I
added, she just gets her ass handed to her over and over and over and over. And I'm like, all right,
I can do this. I got this. Yeah. My friend, Jean Marie just beat breast cancer like a year and a
half ago. Her and my sister actually both almost passed away in the last couple of years at the
same time. And Jean, Jean with, while she was in cancer treatment was still coaching leadership
seminars, like in the middle of it and talking about it. She's an incredible person. Yeah. I,
I like to surround myself with people that against all odds, I call them the, the, the black sheep
world changers where, you know, we don't, we're not quite, quite the perfect package. And yet here we
are. I think, I think we're the people that are going to change the world. That's like, cause you
have to have that courage not to lean into the bullshit, you know, you got to just do it anyways
and not look pretty. And I think the more that we, that we speak and the more that we're human,
we'll let other people do the same thing. Absolutely. Yeah. I love that too. And the
disruptors, you know, you're not doing it mindlessly to just cause trouble. You're just,
you know, holding a mirror up to people. I think that's what Southpaw says so well. You're holding
a mirror up to what's wrong with the world and be like, look, we can change it. Here's, let me also
show you the solution. This is what this podcast is all about. Yeah. Yeah. It's so Brian Muse,
someone put his name in here really quick. So Brian Muse is my new business partner. So this,
this six went through this huge transition and he comes from a world that I don't come from. So big,
big tech people. And he had this radical experience with coaching where he like had his life changed
via coaching, went through some really intense trauma with business partners and people that
were close to him and then realized he had access at an executive level to coaching that, that
people would never have access to and that we didn't need pharma. Right. He's like, wait,
you don't need all this stuff. You don't have to pay a therapist a thousand dollars an hour. Right.
And it radically changed his life. And so in terms of the coaching protocol that we're writing for
our tech right now, he's, he's lead in that. It's the first time I've partnered with anybody
and to speak to an executive of his level, they're like these big, you know, big deals,
big Amazon and Microsoft and Silicon Valley guys. It's hilarious. Cause I'm in there.
Ruh, ruh, ruh, ruh. But his, his conviction about getting behavioral health to
people that need it without having to wade through all of the workers cop nonsense and
without all the VA nonsense is just admirable. And I like, yeah, let's, you know, business wise,
let's get married. And it was, I, I have partnered myself with people that people told me I was crazy
about many times. And it's been really great. So that, that's the journey we're on now. Cause
I'm like, again, let's, let's get this, let's get this out to our people. It's like, I disruptors
usually aren't popular, you know, okay, let's do it. Yeah, exactly. And the thing is someone's just
got to say things that are, you know, are gonna ruffle feathers. You're not doing it to ruffle
feathers, but every time I point out that there's 330 million people in this country,
and I've never heard anyone recommend a leadership book from Donald Trump or Joe Biden.
There's a problem there. But when they're shackled to again, that facade, as we talked about before,
then yeah, when you, you, you really kick the beehive, but it needs to be kicked, you know,
when, when there's just this repetitive issue going on over and over again, and whether it's
the presidency or whether it's a fire chief or a union leader of whatever it is, if you've been
doing the same thing over and over again, and it's just not fucking working, then it's an
uncomfortable truth, but something has to change. It's just, right. Well, fighting for a pretend
life always causes tension with authenticity. So, I mean, for me, like the disruption is to, is to,
is to pull those two things apart. It's like, well, we want that tension, because again,
we want the closeness and we want the change, but that's not popular either. It's, it's interesting
to live in a time where we would rather convince everybody that our life is Disneyland,
than have sustenance and a life worth value. And I think that people that choose the job
of a firefighter, uh, innately want a life of value. That's a very service, you know, oriented
choice to do every single day. And I want to give those people permission to not pretend.
Absolutely. Well, one more question before we make sure everyone knows where to find the six
and you online. What do you do to decompress? Um, diving has been a huge thing. This is, this is new.
It's, it's really great. Um, I'm loving it a lot. I really want to go spearfishing too, but that
breathe up, um, this has been one of the first times where I can shut off and get myself to a
space mentally, uh, that makes me experience safety. So that's been a really powerful thing for me.
Um, I also write quite a bit. I do sing and write all the time, but writing music is a big part of
my life. Um, and like first and foremost, I am utterly obsessed with my children. I have three
kids. I just, um, got to spend some time with them over the weekend and took them out. And I,
many people are surprised when I, when they go to my home and I'm Betty Crocker and I'm a mom,
but you know, I'll say this, um, about decompressing. And I think this is really
important as a female, uh, executive. I, um, do not subscribe to the fact that I don't need softness
and femininity in my life. It is mentally and spiritually really very challenging and exhausting,
um, for me to be in a male dominated space and meet that I absolutely can. And I'm really good at it.
But, uh, when I am able, like this is, I'm just going to say this because it's true.
I will have a 10 or 12 hour work day. And the first thing I want to do is come home and cook
my boyfriend dinner or take my kids out. And is it more work? Yes. But what it does is it allows me
to enter into a space where I just feel soft and I get to be held, I get to hold, and I get to serve
in a capacity where I'm creating community. Um, and that is the best feeling in the whole world.
And, um, it's not for everybody because it's, it's again, like, you know, when I was talking about
switching things on and off, I've had to practice doing that. But the more that I engage in serving
my family, um, and honestly, one of the best things about my relationship now is I feel like
this total exhale, uh, when I get to cook dinner, it's like, and he's like, what? And I'm like, let
me feed you. So yeah, I grew up very Southern like that. So, I mean, any, any time I get to
experience that community of family, it's really, really priceless to me. And, um, I love the gift
of men and women. And I love when I get to swim in that I don't do that at work because when my
guys come in, I'm not, my girl hats not on. I'm like, you know, we, we go in and we're all in,
they know I'm a girl, but it's like, I don't have that energy. So when I get to be in my feminine,
it's like the fucking best feeling. And this wasn't a cool thing to say. I'm from the boss
bitch era, right? Like I'm, I'm supposed to do everything the same. And I'm like, no, no. But
what I do get to do is have people like James next to me and do it together in the fullness of who
we are. So, I mean, that's a hugely relaxing part of me. And I know I'm not supposed to publicly say
that, but it's true. I love being a mom. I love being a nurturer. Uh, diving has been great. I do
practice Jiu-Jitsu. I've been doing a little bit more of that and I love the violence of that.
Yeah. Yeah.
Brilliant. Yeah. I love Jiu-Jitsu too. And it's, it's interesting when you're talking about,
you know, having the masculine energy at work and then the feminine energy at home.
Um, it's something that I've talked about with, with us in uniform, you know, a lot of my
generation, I'm 50 now we're raised with the Schwarzenegger Rambo boys don't cry, rub some
dirt in it. And they forget the fact that it was their feminine side, the soft, kind, compassionate
element that led them into service usually, you know, and then you get in and you're a few years
in and you're beat down with seed deprivation and maybe your organization isn't quite as supportive
as you originally thought. And now you become this white circle. I am a firefighter. I am a Marine.
And they forget the other side and they get transitioned out, whatever that looks like,
retirement or injury. And some of them find themselves as this white circle on their own
and they're not able to give themselves that feminine element, that outlet, that compassion
and empathy. So I think from either gender, it's such an important conversation to just identify
that you were, and you always will be the yin and the yang. And if you, if you're not able to tap
into one or the other, if you're just a crying mess all day, every day, then you need to tap
into your masculinity. But more often than not, the people listening, it's the opposite. And you
need to give yourself that same forgiveness and compassion that you give others. Yeah, 100%. And
it's not, I mean, I have very dear people to me and members of my family that identify all different
ways. And I think that like globally, what's true is what I keep saying. It's like, get clear about
who you are and get clear about who you really are. And I do think you have to choose. It's like the,
if you don't choose, then you're, then you're nobody, right? It's like, you got to, you got to
pick like what's happening and get committed. And I think there's where intimacy happens, you know,
where there's no commitment, how can you possibly grow? Like courage only comes from commitment.
It doesn't come from anywhere else. And I do tell people that all the time too. You cannot possibly
be brave if you're not sure. I don't buy that, you know, all these people that claim courage and
bravery because they went on a march or because they, you know, because I said something on the
internet, I'm like, you don't even know who you are. That, that, that doesn't land. That's not
going to stick. You just, you know, you just threw slime out a window. Absolutely. Well, I'm sure
people listening would love to learn more about you and the six. So where are the best places to
find the six online? And then what about yourself as far as social media? Yeah. So the right now,
we are in the middle of building a brand new website. It should be out in a couple of weeks,
but what you can't, where you can't find us like today is the T H E S I X of the six and then the
full word foundation.com. And what will the new site be called? Cause by the time this goes out,
that might be live. Yeah. Right now, probably just the six. But I would love to be reached personally
too, if anybody needs help or has a question. So my personal one is Sonya S O N Y A J McVay,
M C V A Y. And there's probably the most up to date. I definitely post about the shop a lot. I
call it the shop a lot. And then, you know, we'll, we will likely sort of reintegrate, reintegrate,
excuse me, you know, Instagrams and, and all that, as well as when the website comes up. So I'm really
excited where the, our app will come out and that's just called the six at the same time that
the websites will come out and we'll have all of that waitlisted and, and up in the next couple
months. It's, it's pretty, I'm pretty excited. Amazing. Well, Sonya, I want to thank you so much.
We've gone all over the place from, you know, faith and addiction through the laboral tears
and everything in between. But, uh, I want to thank you so, so much for being so generous with
your time today and coming on the behind the shield podcast. Yeah. Thank you for having me, James.