the both of those I have also enrolled in doing my Reiki, I’ll do that early next year. So that’ll be another little, you know, feather in the cap. Because I really love the whole Mind Body Soul combination. And because I do coaching as well, and NLP and I like to mix everything in all together. So, a client might come into me. And before we do anything, we’ll just do some breath work. You know, before we do anything, if a client comes into me, I’ve had clients coming in, you know, in the midst of a panic attack because they’ve forgotten the medication and just getting here was enough. Oh, you know, clients that I’ve seen before. I’ll say to them, we’re going to do we’re going to do some hypnotherapy right now you’re okay with that. And I’ll put them straight into hypnotherapy to take the edge off that panic attack and to get them out of their funk. So, the hypnotherapy and the Bowen therapy works so beautifully together. Because I mean, I know Bowen therapies designed to get you out of your fight and flight and back to your resting, relax, and repair. But hypnotherapy on top of that, like amplifies it, because they’re already resting their mind, they’re already in relaxation mode, mind and body before I even get them on the table. So even if I do a short, super short relaxation hypnotherapy session, I find that once they’re on the table, they’re already super relaxed. You don’t have that little chitchat that some people like to do while they’re on the table until that. I have her and, and to do the neck and head. That’s all gone. And they’re really asleep before you before you’ve even done sort of the brms. So that’s why I love, and you can feel, and you can feel it in their body as well how relaxed they are, you know, you don’t feel that tension when you’re not fighting with the tension, especially for someone that’s highly anxious, and especially as well.

 

Manon Bolliger  06:21

Interesting. Yeah, no, it’s fascinating because I like I was telling you earlier, but I, I was tempted that, you know, one point to try and mix the two, because I felt the way I had learned Bowen therapy was very, you know, mechanical, in the sense of its, it’s seen as a physical therapy, many other people are using it as a physical therapy. And I certainly did, you know, when I when I started my journey with Asean Alene Ranch, that’s who I started, who I learned from, but then I, all my background as a naturopathic doctor, I was like, I’m dealing with trauma, I’m dealing with, you know, a lot more going on. And I love this, I call it Bowen First because I do Bowen. But it’s the context of healing that I find important. So, I, I merged them the mind body aspect into the work the way that I’m currently teaching Bowen therapy out here, in Canada in the States. So, I found a need to contextualize, and I think Tom Bowen was aware of this. There’s no way that he didn’t see all of this. But I think that translators often, you know, you translate from the lenses that you see the world. That’s what we all do. So, if we have a chiropractic background, we see it like that, if we have an osteopathic background, we see it that way. If we have massage therapy, I think you’re, you’re always limited, not negatively, but you’re limited by the eyes, you look at the therapy, and that has the beauty of precision. But the other side of it is that if you look at things, like you were looking for something else, it was the same for me. I just like I feel like there’s more to make this beautiful, you know, it’s like yeah, I end on it, you know, so yeah, very interesting. Yeah, similar path, not hypnotherapy per se, that I have used. But so why explain to me why hypnotherapy and how you’ve seen a gel so beautifully.

 

Anissa Young  08:49

I think because my hypnotherapist teacher said you know, once you find your therapy that works for you, you don’t need anything else. You know, you don’t need to look for…if hypnotherapy works for you, you do hypnotherapy. If Bowen therapy works for you do Bowen therapy. If you know chiropractic works for you, you do you go and take chiropractor. And I sort of thought well, but why aren’t we mixing things? Like yeah, one thing can work for you 100% one thing can work for you. But what about if we if we did multiple things and we and we integrated them? You know how amazing would that be? And because you can do hypnotherapy, you know sitting standing laying, you can do you know conversational hypnotherapy. I thought, well, why can’t I combine the two together for relaxation, not only for relaxation, but to take people that are particularly I saw it to start with just from anxiety stress level point of view, and because of COVID everyone was coming in stressed everyone was anxious. And in between where we’re in between lockdown to Lord as well. We’re in lockdown our lockdown. So senior with kids particularly that, you know, anxious about going back to school, anxious, you know, some people, their house is their safe place. For some people it’s a pure nightmare. So, you know, in and out of lockdown, I was seeing people that were coming in that were just anxious about life. So, I thought, well, if I do some hypnotherapy, it’s going to take the edge off, they come out of hypnotherapy, completely relaxed, yeah, either going to hypnotherapy and the level of eight out of 10, nine out of 10 stress levels, they come out at three or four. That’s all what if I then coming out three and four stress level? What if I then bumped it on with some Bowen as well, because a lot of them, they’re coming to see me because they’ve got a physical issue. They might not necessarily tell me they’ve got anxiety, or they might necessarily tell me, tell me that there’s some emotional turbulence or some trauma that’s been in their life, you know, since they were two, they’re not going to tell me that straightaway, because I’m not a counselor. But if I can recognize that it exists. And you can usually recognize when someone is quite flighty and quite anxious, and you know, I, I’m that person. So, I’m busy, busy, busy, never stop. So, if I know I can take the edge off myself from doing some hypnosis by doing some now even some breath work, some, you know, some Vegas exercises, any of those things that can take the edge off. I feel like well, if I can show my clients how to do that, they can’t do Bowen on themselves, necessarily. But they can leave the room and they can go and do some breath work, they can do some introduction to hypnotherapy and put themselves into a light trance, they can do a Vegas exercise and take the edge off. And I felt like that that was where I needed to go.

 

Manon Bolliger  12:04

And did you find that then, because I’d been everyone’s experience with Bowen therapy is different. But I have found that and maybe it’s because of my, you know, we attract certain people. In our practice, I’ve been doing, you know, Bowen for 30 years now. And seeing lots of people about 150 a week, like, it’s been a huge part of my practice and a huge part of my passion. But I found that the body work in the context, in a bigger context, not just here, we’re going to fix your shoulder, but actually allowing for the journey to happen in a in a bigger way. A lot of, of traumas get released through the body. And people tap into the body as the know what it like as if it holds on to the unconscious. And so, it’s because I’ve seen it over and over again. I’ve talked about this, and I’ve said to other Bowen therapists trained more on a physical structural level, and what do you have people releasing all their trauma and bringing this to surface even like odors, tastes all kinds of things coming up, you know? And they are going no, no, no, it’s, you know, I don’t see that. Right. So, I’m curious, I’m assuming with hypnotherapy when you when people are in a slightly trance level, and therefore in already parasympathetic, if this would happen more often, where they can release or tap into, you know, fundamental issues that might be at this at the origin of some of the physical manifestations. Is that your experience or?

 

Anissa Young  13:58

Well definitely. So, and that’s something that I’m trying, you know. I’m working even more on tapping into and helping the client to understand because half the time they don’t understand that that’s happening. And that could be what’s happening. And that could be where, you know, it could be grief, it could be trauma, it could be physical trauma, it could be emotional trauma, and, and it’s trapped in the body. It’s been there for a long time, they’ve had this ongoing injury. And or, you know, or there, I had a client come to me last week and said, do you think do you think because my wife died four months ago, do you think I’m harboring the troller in my body? And I was so happy that he had made note like, yes, your wife died. That’s so sad, but I was really happy that he made that connection that could be the trauma and the grief, that’s actually he’s feeling and harboring you know, physically. So, I definitely, I try and tell my clients that as much as possible and a lot of clients acknowledge that. And a lot of clients particularly, I find it particularly when my fibromyalgia clients.

 

Manon Bolliger  15:18

Yes, yes.

 

Anissa Young  15:19

Because there’s such a huge link between fibromyalgia and trauma of the body, whether it’s, you know, physical trauma or emotional trauma. And I find they are the most sensitive as well, to feeling those effects, I think, because we have, we go so slowly with them, you know, we do longer whites with them, we’re even lighter to the touch. I feel like they definitely feel that they feel that relief. And quite often, they will feel the sensations they will, they will hear things they will have flashbacks. But I will say colors. There’s definitely more of that mind body connection that I’ve found, probably more so than anybody else. There’s obviously sensitive clients that do. But quite often, it’s those Fibro clients that really have a real connection between the mind body and that relief, the trauma.

 

Commercial Break  16:27

Hi, I’m Dr. Manon, Bolliger. And I wanted to take a moment to thank you for watching these podcasts. If you haven’t subscribed, please do. Also, feel free to leave comments and like it. This way more people get to find out about this work and about other choices for health. So, I think it’s really important that we all share this information, I have a free gift to you. It’s a seven sequence email that has tips for every day, and a little insight about how to live your life when it comes to health. And it’s very much built on how I managed to overcome stage four cancer and what it took. So, I would love you to have this. And thank you once again, for listening to these podcasts.

 

Manon Bolliger  17:29

Yeah, no, I think, and you know, it’s funny, I agree with you completely. And, and I think with fibromyalgia because it was such a misunderstood clinical diagnosis for so long. And they were told it’s all in their head. Which of course we know, it’s not but the thing is, I think it did. It did encourage more people to be open, who have it to maybe there’s more going on, and it’s not that oh, the head is the cause? No, is that we are truly mind body. Right, there is no way around it. So yeah, I’ve often wondered why that is. But I think given that you’ve experienced the similar.

 

Anissa Young  18:19

Sorry, sorry, I also think that because they have been through quite often, I mean, here in Australia, this steel, the steel that well we haven’t found anything else wrong with you. So therefore you must have fibromyalgia, you know, the dual the other tests that all of the other scans, they look for everything else, it’s kind of like IDs, well, if you don’t have parents and you don’t have diverticulitis then you must have you just you just saw the IDS can’t find anything else. So, I find that the same sort of thing with fiber and because they’ve been through so many different scans and so many different steps and there’s so many other things that they’re being tested for that they’re really looking for some form of relief or looking for anything anywhere that they can get. So, by time that and quite often you know I don’t know how you find it, but I find that quite often they come to me and they’re like your my last hope. I’ve been to see everybody else I’ve done so many other things and on are still finding Australia even though Tom Bowen was Australian. And it was you know, done and it’s been done in Australia for a long time. There’s still people I talk to daily that don’t know what Bowen therapy I know. I know how beneficial it is. And I’ve never heard of it before, and I get people hang up on me because they just want a massage. And when you when you do the description of well, it is it is hands on but it’s not just a massage. It’s a massage unlike anything that you would that you would imagine or that you recognize. Some people are frightened that

 

Manon Bolliger  19:56

Yeah.

 

Anissa Young  19:57

In the community may not my clients might call coming back, and they’re loving it. And they loving the combination of everything else that we do. But I find in the greatest sense of the community, there’s still there’s still a little bit of astigmatism about I don’t know what this is. So therefore, it must be a bit woo woo

 

Manon Bolliger  20:20

Yeah, I think I mean, that’s going to take I’m sure it’s going to take time, you know, but, but those who have been healed through it, yeah, there’s no, there is nothing like it.

 

Anissa Young  20:33

Exactly. And especially the clients that keep coming back as long as they’re coming back, then then you know, you’re doing the right thing for them.

 

Manon Bolliger  20:40

Yeah, absolutely. And I was going to say, coming back, because I wanted to just address that, because that is also one of those things that people often misunderstand is that I, at least in my experience, with Bowen therapy, we can, we’re not allowed to use the word cure, so I won’t use it. But we can bring a person in a fairly short time to complete resolution of what they came in with. And so, when we say we have clients that love coming back, it’s because at least that’s what I found, because life happens, and now they have a ski injury, or now they have a snowboard injury, or now they have something else. Or some of them, it’s like, the, the feeling left in their body connects them so much to themselves, and to really being embodied that they want that. And so, I’ve been asking, you know, like, you have no more pain at the beginning of my practice, I was so busy that I said, no, I only see people in pain. You know, if you don’t have pain, I can help you. And then I thought this is such a ridiculous position. So, so I changed I said, yes, yeah, sure, we can, we can do other release work something else because, well, I hadn’t experienced it on that level, right? I was just fixing things. Until I got into the deeper work. I had no clue that it could help so profoundly so many levels of what’s in our unconscious, right.

 

Anissa Young  22:27

Yeah, exactly. And, it’s that tune up that our body needs, you know, after you know, three or four months, depending on your age, depending on your on your activities that you do that you need that tune up, your body has gotten out of its alignment, you know, I have clients that you know, really work hard in the gym, and they come back for they’re just under three months, because I have a few clients say if I hit that three months, I do an injury. So but they’re coming back for that prevention, you know, there’s certainly coming back because they can feel it can feel that little twinge and sciatica might be coming back they just that first little sign of it there straighten up on the table because they know that it’s going to calm everything down so that they can go about their the CrossFit or their weight so whatever it is that they’re doing to prevent the injury from coming. So that’s what I love about it as well it’s not just come and see me when you’re broken come and see me when something hurts it is come and see me to prevent anything from happening to keep that alignment indicate we have everything all in place so that you can keep going and be at your optimal you know, you can be your prime

 

Manon Bolliger  23:46

Exactly. I was going to ask you of your time and practice so far has there been without names obviously since we have to protect that and protect any medical information but what has surprised you the most what story or patient or turn around?

 

Anissa Young  24:10

Um, look, I think I think the biggest thing that actually surprised me was during lockdown I had on our on our Australian Bowen therapists support page we had therapists saying Has anyone tried distance Bowen before? And most people like No, how do you do that? That’s how do you do that? And I, I sort of had a bit of a read of the feed. And I thought well, I’m going to give this a try. I’m going to I’m going to try this. And I think the biggest surprise that I had was that it was just as effective via distance via zoom via you and me talking in here, and then you’re going to lie down, and then me practicing on my pillow person or my teddy bear in my clinic and doing all the moves as if I would normally do them. And I was having clients saying to me, oh, I’ve got a really cold left foot. And I’ve literally just lifted the blanket on their left foot. Or I’ve got tingles in my kneecap. And I’ve just hit the left note. So, I found that, and I wasn’t telling them what I was doing. And I actually switched my camera off once they got on the bed. So, we were just having, we were just having audio. So, they couldn’t see what I was doing. But yet, they were still having sensations. Some of those clients, two of which were my two Fibromyalgia clients, I did four trials. So, I did four sessions at sorry, I did four clients, three sessions, ah, over the time, because I wanted to see I, how it would work in the first instance, but I also wanted to see what the reactions were afterwards, and what the feeling and what their body felt afterwards as well. And all of them had exactly the same sensations and exactly the same recovery and exactly the same everything as if they had been in the clinic. So that led me to think, well, how much of it is purely our intention? You know, how much of it is? How specific and how, you know, how we hold our hands? And how much pressure and how much we do that in the exact precise spot, you know, on one centimeter above, or one centimeter below? And how much of it is purely the clients belief in us? And how much of that is energetic work? So, I’m still toying with that. I’m still questioning that. And that’s why I think even more so that I believe that that mind body connection, and that is huge, is beyond, you know, beyond some of our understanding, and that’s an that’s big, in the sense of, I was getting clients that were having the same sort of body ache after a session the next day, as if they wouldn’t, if they came into the clinic, I was having clients that were saying, my hip actually doesn’t hurt what like, how does that work? And we were both pilots looking at each other. I don’t know. Like, I don’t know how that works. But take it does. I mean, I do definitely think it’s not something that is for everybody. And the people that I obviously tried to get the clients and friends and people that have that have been almost like my guinea pigs since my logbook hours when I was when I first started. There were people that trusted me and that I trust them. It’s not certainly not something that I’m going to get my foot, you know, a first client to say, Yeah, let’s do some distance Bowen. But I was pleasantly surprised. completely surprised at the reaction. So, without unwanted them without any hands on. I don’t know how it works, but it does.

 

Manon Bolliger  28:33

But I think there’s, you know, it’s beautiful to, to try, like that’s what, you know, we need to be open because the more we understand, the more we realize how much we don’t understand everything. Yeah, you know, and I think it really comes to question the importance of understanding the healing relationship in the first place. And in one of my books, A Healer in Every Household, like I talked about placebo, nocebo. And also, all of its negative connotations, that really, it’s not, it’s based on a pharmacological model, but truly healing, it requires what I decided to call the positivo effect. It’s the desire that first of all the that both people are willing to work together that there’s a level of trust, and that they really want to heal. And then you’re like one’s body everyone’s body is programmed to heal, it just wants to heal. So, we may not understand all parts like you know, to some people who are used to heavy duty work, and then they get a Bowen therapy session, and they go what did you do, you didn’t touch me and you’re out of the room half the time and give me my money. wouldn’t do anything you know, and then wait till they get better. And then like, oh, what happened? So that’s like that was that takes also a leap of logic and trust because like, why is that working? Now with all the information on fascia, we actually understand why the brakes make sense. And we understand a lot more right and understanding meridian lines and fascial lines and is like, oh, okay, okay, now there’s science kind of, has come to explain what really seemed like a peculiar phenomenon, right. So, if we project forward, I think it’s the same thing. What we don’t understand about distance healing is becoming more and more, you know, we’ll have the reasons we’ll have the understanding, it’s just that it’s not yet there. But you can’t deny reality.

 

Anissa Young  30:55

Yeah, exactly. And that the thing that blows my mind is, the more I do, not only just the Bowen on its own the Bowen by distance, the Bowen with the hypnotherapy the Bowen with some NLP, once you once you flip, and also, once you can flip someone’s the switch of the negative to the positive, you know, I get clients in all the time. And the first thing I say is, I can barely walk, and I flip it and go, but you better than last week. Now, as soon as you can get them to acknowledge me, instead of looking at the negative for this month, as soon as you can get them to look at that positive. And instead of saying, um, I can, I need to have, you know, I need some medication for him get out of bed in the morning, if you can get them to have their own little mantra. That is, for today, I’m feeling stronger and fitter than I was yesterday. And even if they make any sense, actually, physically not, the more that they’re going to say that the more they’re going to believe it and, you know, Positivity breeds positivity, the same way that negativity breeds negativity. So, if you can also get clients to flip that switch, I find I have a faster reaction, right, as well. Because they’re mentally, you know, they’re mentally feeling like they’re better, even though they’re actually physically not there yet. I think that’s that mind body, you know, great as well, that that connection that is so important, because you know, we all have clients that, well, I have clients, and I have friends that say to me, Well the Bowen didn’t work for me? The Bowen didn’t work for me. Now I have people that will ring up and say I want a remedial massage. And I say, well, that’s not me. I’m not I do Bowen therapy had Bowen therapy before, or no, that didn’t work for me. And I often say to them, yeah, but you haven’t been to me. I also think there is that connection, you know, there’s a connection between client and between practitioner. But not only that, there is there is that, that belief that you’ve got to have in your head, and there is that positivity, that I am going to get better. And some people just don’t feel like they’re going to get better. And there’s always something wrong with them. Right? I have a friend, I have a friend, and she always has something wrong with it. And I’ve done Bowen therapy on her in my very early days. But because she won’t get up, you know, I say you can’t get over yourself. You know, as soon as you can get over yourself that help you, you know, it’s going to help you mentally but it’s also going to help them physically.

 

Manon Bolliger  33:34

Yeah. And I think too, like you’re alluding to, but people have misconceptions about things that keep them also limited like Well, it can’t be another way because oh, it only works if you push really hard or if you know and all of that. But let’s I’m looking at our time and we’re like it’s over. Our conversation has almost come to an end. But I just want to say thank you so much for Well, I love the sharing of enthusiasm for that there. There is hope for people and also talking about Bowen therapy very dear to my heart, and then just being open as therapists to see what comes to us and, and being curious, you know, without curiosity, nothing changes.

 

Anissa Young  34:25

Definitely. It was lovely to virtually meet you.

 

Manon Bolliger  34:28

Likewise, thank you for being here.

 

Anissa Young  34:31

Thank you so much for having me.

 

 

Dr M (Manon Bolliger), ND (retired*)

Thank you for joining us. For more information, go to DrManonBolliger.com.