When I was eight years old, my parents got a divorce. Everyone in my family started running that year. We used it as an outlet for all the anger, sadness, and confusion we were trying to contain beneath the surface. Something about the blur of the dirt road beneath my feet, the thud of my pounding heart, and the burning in my lungs helped to numb the emotional pain… at least for a while.

I started having pain in my right shoulder not long after that. Oddly enough, I remember it first appearing while I was running. I couldn’t figure out why my shoulder hurt so much when I wasn’t even using it, just swinging it back and forth.

The shoulder pain was just the beginning. When I started running competitively in school I was plagued with constant aches, pains, and injuries. After my senior season was cut short by a stress fracture in my lower leg, I decided to give up running altogether.

I thought these injuries were caused by weakness, so I decided to try lifting weights. I spent hours researching and obsessing over how to create the perfect workout routine, but lifting weights was just as problematic as running. Even though I got stronger, I perpetually sprained my shoulders and strained my neck and back.

I was frustrated. I wanted to know why I had these issues and how to feel better. I wanted to experience the joy of movement that I had felt when I was a little kid climbing trees and chasing fireflies. The main reason I became a physical therapist was to figure out what the hell was wrong with my own body.

Becoming a Therapist and Going to Therapy

In physical therapy school I learned how to mobilize joints, strengthen weak muscles, and stretch tight areas. Yet even as I was supposedly learning the solution to my problems, my neck and back pain got worse instead of better.

PT school was traumatic in many ways. A third of my class was kicked out of the program within the first year, and every semester felt like a fight to survive. I became depressed and anxious, lost 20 pounds, and started withdrawing from everything and everyone.

I am so grateful to my wife, Charlie, for helping me through this time. She found a local therapist and convinced me to begin sessions despite my hesitation, fear, and denial.

In therapy, I started to peel back the layers of tension that had built up in my mind over the years. Through mindfulness, I learned to build awareness of my inner self and sit with discomfort rather than bury it. I was given the space to process past trauma, and was able to let go of things I didn’t know I was still carrying. 

Disillusion and Revelations

This is when I made the connection between my anxiety and my pain. The more tense I was mentally, the more I tensed physically as well. In PT school we had talked about how physical injuries can cause mental distress, but we never learned how mental distress can lead to physical injuries. 

When I started clinical rotations, it seemed like most clinicians were too focused on taking an index of muscle and joint problems to consider why those issues were arising in the first place. As I listened to people’s stories, I was convinced that stress and overall well-being were major factors contributing to the pain and injuries people experienced. More importantly, I knew that addressing these factors would require something more integrative than stretches and trivial exercises alone.

When I got my first job after school, I was introduced to an approach to physical therapy called “postural restoration.” This nontraditional method uses exercises centered around breathing to restore balance to your body’s movement capabilities. I didn’t even realize how much tension I was carrying in my body until I felt it melt away for the first time while practicing these exercises.

A Turning Point

Through targeted breathing exercises, I am able to direct my focus to the real problem - stress management. My body felt “off” since childhood because I was stuck in a physical stress response state, triggered by a lack of feeling safe and connected within myself and the world around me. It became ingrained in how I moved, breathed and postured myself day and night. 

When I started addressing breathing with patients, I found it opened the door to important conversations about stress management, mindfulness, and overall wellness. I was able to share about my own journey, and being able to talk about these things helped me show up as a fellow human rather than a “professional.” 

When I taught patients to move and breathe with ease, they automatically had more mobility, greater strength, and less pain. It felt like magic. I became obsessed with learning everything I could about the science behind this method, and over time developed my own unique approach integrating the concepts I found most valuable and effective. 

Becoming the Resource I Always Wanted

My desire is to be the resource for you that I never had and always wanted. I will provide you with an understanding of why your body feels like something is “off,” and help you discover your deeper purpose for cultivating physical wellness. I will guide you on the journey of releasing tension accumulated from past stressors, and help you restore your body’s natural mobility and strength.

I have found that the more I keep myself healthy physically, the better I feel mentally and emotionally as well. It is not about becoming as strong and fit as possible, it is about providing balance and wellness to your whole self – body, mind and spirit.