OMPTS turns 4!!

Today, 8/1/23 is the Sturgeon Full Moon, the first of 2 supermoons this month. On Sunday, August 6, 2023 OMPTS turns 4! A lot of transformation has taken place in the past 4 years and I want to take a moment to highlight some things.

I’d like to express my gratitude for Mike Boyle offering me a beautiful space within Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning and Movement as Medicine in 2019 when I decided that it was time for me to create my own practice. Thanks to my friend Caroline Kavanagh for creating my OMPTS logo which despite the practice's evolution still seems so fitting, and interestingly resembles this supermoon. Much gratitude to the patients who chose to follow me from what had been my home base in Wellesley Hills for a decade to a new office and trust in my ability to offer healing on my own. And thanks to those who have sent friends and family and have allowed me to continue to care for people over these past few wild years.

On March 10, 2020 I went into my new OMPTS office like a totally normal Tuesday. I treated patients and at the end of that day I left my linens in the bin and locked my office door having absolutely no idea that would be the last time I saw patients in that office ever again. It was that same week that COVID became a widespread concern and I temporarily closed to see how things played out. So much changed in that following year for our world; and for me personally, there was a lot of transition including adding our 3rd and final baby into the mix, a new home in a new town, new friendships and many many new challenges as we all navigated a global pandemic while trying our best to survive as our very busy lives slowed way down.

In a state of massive sleep deprivation, I found myself overwhelmed and angry at the world. I was drowning trying to homeschool, keep OMPTS alive and most importantly keep another small human alive with so little help and a huge loss of much needed social connection. I felt disempowered after a traumatic birth experience at arguably one of the best birthing hospitals in the world and I felt helpless as I watched the news report on hatred, bigotry and racism as our country became a place where my young daughters would be the first generation to have fewer rights over their own bodies and lives than their mothers.

A seemingly insignificant but pivotal moment was when I told my husband, Ezra, that as long as he was working from home, I needed him to find one hour every day where I could get out of our house alone. I didn't care when it was but it needed to be a non-negotiable. I found myself wandering sleepless in the nearby Wompatuck State Park or making my way to one of the many amazing Scituate beaches and slowly but surely I found my footing as I grounded myself in nature. This small ask was enough to come up for a few gulps of air.

On March 11, 2021 exactly a year from the day that I closed OMPTS I saw my first patients at my new office down here in Scituate. I had exactly 4 hours of childcare/week when I reopened, my oldest was in a very strange hybrid school model and my middle one was “homeschooling” with her baby sister (thanks Netflix, backyard mud and imaginary friends). My gulps of air were enough to survive but it did really feel like surviving, more than thriving at that point. By the new year of 2022, the pandemic was still a concern but with vaccines available for all and the algorithms of decision making constantly changing I started dreaming of travel and found a surf and yoga retreat on the magical island of Oahu. I was fortunate to have the support of my husband to leave him with 3 kids and take off for what would be a totally transformative trip. Staying mostly on East Coast time I spent hours alone under a full moon on the yoga deck and the space and permission to take care of my own needs was enough to transform my attitude from one of anger and sadness to one of motivation for positive change in our world, starting with myself. No longer would I sit by and offer the do as I say, not as I do advice to my patients. For the first time in a long time I was able to remember what it felt like to think about my own needs before that of so many others. I also sat with a lot of feelings of privilege and felt compelled to act in alignment with a strong desire to work for more social justice. I drafted the following business plan on my flight home. It was not something I could realistically pull off at this particular time in my life but this idea has remained with me as I made some critical choices in the next few years.

Permissions to FEEL GOOD.

The past two years I’ve been surrounded by wonderful thought leaders. Sarah Harmon and the school of Mothering Oneself Mindfully-teaching women and moms how to mother themselves with mindfulness and self compassion. Kate Graham and her Soulful Yoga Therapy approach to treating the entire being- she integrates yoga and more western based talk therapy to create a healing space addressing all the layers of the Kosha. Eve Rodsky author of Fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space- who is educating the world on the inequalities and forced oppression inherent in women's unpaid labor and giving women permission to make themselves unavailable. Karen Brody, author of daring to rest - who is imagining a world where mothers break the motherline cycle of exhaustion and take back rest.

And my goal to #takebackfun

As a physical therapist with 15 years of clinical experience and the beneficiary of an intense 1 on 1 mentorship with expert manual physical therapist, Dan Dyrek, PT, DPT I will bring together groups of like minded women overburdened by the desire to make the world a better place. These intimate, small groups of women will come together for 7 days on the magical island of Oahu. Together, surrounded by the beauty and healing power of mother nature, we will heal ourselves so that we may return home to heal our families and our world.

Your week will start with a 2 hour 1 on 1 session with Dr. Jillian Rockoff, PT, DPT. We will discuss all areas of the physical body that are currently holding you back. With a thorough clinical exam and discussion together we will plan your week of therapy which will include manual therapy every other day that may include DN, STM, JM and guided therapeutic exercise using verbal and tactile cues. You will feel empowered to take back control of your physical body and you will have the time and space to pursue your own healing.

I am partnering with an amazing woman and mom who has spent her life on Oahu who will guide you in your journey to finding peace in one of the most magical places on earth.

Come find your Aloha.

You will leave with a connectedness to the beauty of the earth and an intimate connection with 3 other women who can offer lifelong support and connection.

Please consider joining for a truly transformative week on Oahu.

Vegetarian Breakfast and dinner provided

Daily mindfulness meditation/group Pranayama

Daily guided yoga Nidra as a group

Optional add-ons:

Surf lessons

Guided hikes

Aesthetics for cancer survivors

Tattoo for scars

Art classes

A break from Social Media and as much minimizing of screens as possible while you embrace island life will be encouraged.

I flew home from Hawaii on February 19, 2022. After my host dropped me off at the airport she took a photograph of a magnificent sun halo over the kiteboarding beach near the home she hosted me on Oahu. For whatever reason she texted this photograph to me on March 4. The very next morning I had been planning to meet a friend who went through “invisible breast cancer” while I had an “invisible pregnancy” during covid. She lived over an hour away but had planned to wake very early and drive down to Scituate for the early morning low tide for a walk from Minot to Egypt Beach, a beautiful walk that only works around the low tide. Unfortunately the night before she wasn't feeling well so we decided in our new post covid world, we’d walk virtually. She near her home and me at the beach, and we’d chat on the phone. At the end of my walk as I hung up the phone I looked up and noticed my very first sun halo. This noticing changed my life. It became very apparent that for the past many many years I was so focused on doing that I had no time for being. I’m sure I’d been standing under many a beautiful sun halo but I just had not been present enough in the moment to notice. This is the essence of mindfulness meditation. We have to work to get out of our mind and into the present moment, with awareness and non-judgment.

On May 22, 2022 intrigued by my next door neighbor who was co-teaching an Astrology and Yoga workshop at the new Scituate Salt Cave, I attended my first in person yoga class in over a decade. There I met Amber Gregory, a seasoned yoga teacher and a young breast cancer survivor. She offered up a yoga practice that started with Nadi Shodhana breathing to balance the right and left hemispheres of the brain and to calm our nervous systems. She then took us through a series of yoga poses targeting feminine energy and culminating in Eagle pose.

She read a reading by an unknown author called:

Freedom

Oh, soar my friend

Like the mighty eagle.

Surrendering your fears

One by one and

As you soar higher and higher

Into the oneness,

Which all truly are,

Know as you do so, that

Each fear shed,

Is the start of a new beginning

And that each new door

Opens up to a new you,

With a new potential future,

Allowing your dream,

Whatever it may be

To come that bit closer

To its realization.

After connecting with Amber, her yoga practice, and her message, she suggested I might consider her upcoming 200 hr yoga teacher training. I was intrigued but it didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense; however, I kept feeling a push towards this training. Ultimately I decided that life would always be too busy unless I made it happen, and there had to have been a reason that I kept thinking about this training despite all the reasons it wasn't the right time. This training, combined with my own personal postpartum advocacy for myself and the health of my pelvic floor led me on a deep dive into the anatomy of breath. It’s taken me the past couple of years but I now know very clearly how I plan to integrate all of this personal and professional work.

My mentor Dan Dyrek, PT, DPT is an expert in the field. People would fly in from all over the world to work with him. As I began my own journey into mindfulness I remember at one point someone suggested that a stress reduction workbook might be appropriate for managing my intermittent neck tension and tension headaches. I can recall very clearly thinking “no Fing way is stress reduction going to solve this, I need Dan to correct my upper cervical rotational derangement and the longstanding soft tissue contractures from an old ice hockey injury but I dont have the time or the $ for this.” Fast forward through my yoga journey and my deep dive into the anatomy of breath including study of the diaphragm and the relationship to the pelvic floor and I wholeheartedly believe that I can in fact breathe tension out of my neck! As the yogis would say, “where the attention goes, the energy flows”. I do now buy into the idea of being in control of our life force energy and directing it thoughtfully. But even more mind blowing has been really coming to understand breathing mechanics and how most humans are doing it all wrong. We see paradoxical breathing patterns which means you are literally breathing backwards. Even if you don't have it all upside down and backwards, according to James Nestor’s research in the highly recommended book Breath: “a typical adult engages as little as 10% of the range of the diaphragm when breathing, which overburdens the heart, elevates blood pressure, and causes a rash of circulatory problems.” I have seen for years working with elite athletes how good humans are at cheating, and it often takes guidance to undo compensatory patterns.

Humans evolved with 3 anatomically distinct divisions of our autonomic nervous system. The Sympathetic (fight, flight, freeze), Parasympathetic (rest, digest, reproduce) and Enteric (gut brain). The beauty of the design was to allow us to spend much of our time in a baseline Parasympathetic state but have a readily accessible ability to tap into our Sympathetic State in order to survive. The problem is that in our modern world we are being constantly inundated with stimuli from news media, to texts and emails, social media…we are basically trying to function in a chronic state of sympathetic hyperarousal and it's taking a toll on our immune systems, our physical and our mental health. Many people can relate to this as we see Dis-ease on the rise in the form of increased incidence of high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and auto-immne disease but so many don't know how to break free from this cycle. Fortunately, very slowly but surely, Western Medicine is beginning to study practices the yogis and other contemplatives have been practicing for thousands of years.

Just this year Cell Reports Medicine published a study out of Stanford highlighting that daily 5-minute breathwork and mindfulness meditation improve mood and reduce anxiety, that breathwork improves mood and physiologic arousal more than mindfulness meditation, and that cyclic sighing is most effective at improving mood and reducing respiratory rate.

So what does this mean for the future of OMPTS as we celebrate its 4th birthday?! I will continue to offer one on one individualized sessions with the goal of diagnosing and treating physical impairments; however, I will continue to integrate a holistic approach to the entire being presenting in my office. I am also offering private and semi-private restorative yoga and breathwork sessions helping patients access a gateway to mindfulness practice. I am also offering workshops teaching anatomy of breath and restorative yoga. Please reach out if you are interested in discussing hosting a small or large group workshop for friends, family or offices. 3 years ago an attempt to sit in silent meditation would take me very close to the point of panic. Today with a better understanding of how to harness the power of my breath and a markedly improved ability to breathe diaphragmatically I have found myself not just sitting in stillness and meditation but enjoying it and experiencing tapping into an entirely new way of being.

We are facing a major mental health crisis in our country. I am not suggesting things are now easy or that I don't struggle at times or slip back into old patterns, but I can confidently say that I now truly believe in the transformative power of empowering oneself with the tools to be the change we want to see in the world. OMPTS strives to arm all beings, but particularly women, with the tools to empower themselves to find true healing on a physical, mental and soul level. Only from personal healing can we heal our world. I hope this inspires you to ask for what you need and prioritize your own self-care as needed. We truly can't fill from an empty cup and the world needs more light and love right now.

“Moonlight refreshes the soul, purchasing promises of calm and harmony from our anxious existence.” -Franklin K Sylvia