Ep 183 Holistic Healing: Bridging the Gap between Traditional and Westernized Practices with guest Reese Sabatini-Blake
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Sara Mayer: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Bold Goal Crusher Podcast. For anyone looking to stop letting life get in the way and start crushing bold goals. I'm your host, Sara Mayer, and I'm thrilled to navigate this journey with you because it's time to start boldly achieving without working double time. So let's dive in.
Sara Mayer: Hello, bold goal crushers. I am super excited about my guest today and our conversation. I think this is going to be one that you will truly enjoy. So before we get started, I want to introduce you to Reese. She's an indigenous medicine woman specializing in rehabilitative psychology, chronic pain management, and trauma recover psychology.
Sara Mayer: Bridging the gap between traditional and westernized practices to help people regain [00:01:00] their wellness. Wow. Reese. I am so excited about this conversation. Thank you for being on the show.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Thank you so much for having me. I am equally excited.
Sara Mayer: Awesome. We talk all things goals on this show, but we also know that there are so many things that get in the way.
Sara Mayer: From us achieving our goals. And one of those, I think you may be able to help with and that's regaining our wellness. So tell me, how did you get into this and what do you do?
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Honestly, I was really lucky that elders in my community decided to start my medicine woman training young, but it was more throughout that training when I was paralyzed as a teenager and told that I would never walk again, where I went from competing athlete in martial arts To hemiplegic on an operating [00:02:00] table overnight. Wow. And from there, I really had to specialize in the rehab physiology and learn everything I could about regaining movement in the body so that I could have my life back.
Sara Mayer: Wow. So what happened? Do you mind sharing?
Reese Sabatini-Blake: During a brain surgery, which was the second one as a revision to prevent epilepsy and seizures, which was actually misdiagnosed fibromyalgia I essentially had a stroke because there was too much blood thinners in my system when I was 16. Wow, how scary.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Incredibly I was horrified.
Sara Mayer: And so you went from the possibility of never walking again to finding healing
Reese Sabatini-Blake: from that. And yeah I was [00:03:00] fortunate enough to have this very stubborn personality that when told I will never be able to do something, I do it. I do it again, and then I go Nina, I did it.
Sara Mayer: I love it. I think we're cut from the same cloth. If you've listened to my show a long time, you'll know that I used to ride horses and I always wanted to be a world champion and I didn't have a horse and I didn't have money. And so people would tell me you can't ever achieve that goal.
Sara Mayer: And I showed them that it is possible just a different way.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Exactly. And I guess we are that cloth of, I will find a way.
Sara Mayer: So for you had help in finding your journey and now you're doing this for others. So talk a little bit about that. How did that go for you personally? And then how did you end up doing this for others now?
Reese Sabatini-Blake: And [00:04:00] the journey of segwaying through others, I even went through years of volunteering in high risk social work with that were always on the brink of jumping. Oh I have a long past of working with those who don't want to be here anymore. And that's why even though I'm trained in whole body wellness, I prefer to work.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: In high risk mental health, like whether it's fresh or whether someone has realized that these traumas have happened and they want to heal it years later, because it's not fresh and they think that they can actually work through it. Yeah, but half of that was not just the formal training, but the experiences of having to go.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: And cherry pick all of these methods and try them all because for years after the life that I've lived nothing helped. And it was only [00:05:00] very specific breathwork techniques for PTSD and trauma that actually helped me start releasing these things from not just my psyche, but my actual body.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Oh, wow. I began to finally heal the psychosomatic effects and now like on the PTSD side of things, I'm fine. And physically I'm still 98%.
Sara Mayer: Wow. Wow. And so you try and when you work with people, you're bridging the gap between traditional and Westernized practices. Can you talk a little bit about that? What does that look like if somebody were to experience
Reese Sabatini-Blake: that?
Reese Sabatini-Blake: That could be ranging anything from sitting there and doing talk therapy, if we get more traditional, bringing a calm cup of tea into it, and just letting the person express [00:06:00] themselves and not sound bored, but truly express themselves and be heard. And not be sitting there just looking for a response is as to following like a paper weighted program of these are your steps to recovery by in the more traditional methods we are looking specifically for that individuals recovery.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: And instead of. This is the way it has to be, and I've learned that, some people are ready for the intensive trauma therapies a month in, two weeks in, but some people aren't ready for six months to a year. Because it, it hit them that much harder, and that's not a bad thing. That's just because, even though we're all human, and hypothetically we're wired the same, we're not.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: We are all affected by different things differently. Someone's biggest [00:07:00] trauma might be their favorite person in the world dying. And that is still equivalent to assault, if that is your worst trauma, because I that losing someone can be that traumatic.
Sara Mayer: Yeah, I think that's really interesting you bring up that point to that what is maybe.
Sara Mayer: The most traumatic thing to one person may be different for another. Our lives all take different journeys and we're exposed to different things. And so I think that it's so important to not be, I guess it would be trauma comparing because it's all traumatic and. If somebody were to work with you and they're trying to really overcome that trauma or recover from that trauma, how do you identify?
Sara Mayer: What actually may be traumatic for them. Maybe they don't even know.[00:08:00]
Reese Sabatini-Blake: First you, you build the rapport and you start very gently peeling back the layers as they're ready, like getting as much of a person's backstory as they're willing to tell you. And if they're presenting with let's say traumatized behaviors and they don't think that they have anything, that's when I really suggest like the mindfulness techniques that are built for trauma, because from there, when they're ready, we can dig it out.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: I. I myself didn't actually remember my first traumatic experience because your brain, if it is too traumatic, will block it out. And
Sara Mayer: you mentioned, sorry, go ahead.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Go for it.
Sara Mayer: You mentioned presenting with traumatic behaviors. What would be some of those behaviors? That you
Reese Sabatini-Blake: may see [00:09:00] if a person has a depressive or anxious cycle that they can't break, no matter all of the techniques or medications that they've tried.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: If they are experiencing night terrors or vivid nightmares that are too realistic that they don't know where they came from. A person often does, but sometimes they don't, if it was too early in their own development. Also, like acting in high risk behaviors. Acting recklessly increased substance use that's out of the norm cutting themselves off from friends people don't realize these are all attributes of trauma.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: And whether that's big T trauma or little T trauma even losing a job you enjoyed can affect you for years if you didn't know how to process that. Yeah. Yeah.
Sara Mayer: And [00:10:00] I think. The whole world with COVID has gone through a trauma as well.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Yes. Yes. That was not a good one. Yeah.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And I think that's something that a lot of people have played down because everybody went through it, but everybody experienced that differently.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: And everyone's nervous system is a little bit. Screwed up after that, unfortunately, most of us don't have the time or the resources to just go and fix it. Yeah.
Sara Mayer: Or, some people have played it down.
Sara Mayer: So one of the things that you really specialize in is chronic pain management, and many people are out there living with chronic pain. How do you go about helping them live through
Reese Sabatini-Blake: that? First you, you start with basic mental health because there are [00:11:00] often some ties there that after time have become part of the sequence.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: And you can rewire chronic pain partially through the mind, but then we're going to look at the person's habits and their diet, like what they're actually eating, not in a sense of wanting them to lose weight or anything, but to see if any of those things are causing unnecessary inflammation. And then safely and slowly beta testing their diet, if need be, because sometimes it's as easy as you're consuming too much gluten.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: And specifically gluten is a really bad one for inflammation and it is overused over here in North America. Like even I myself had a few years where I couldn't consume gluten at all because my body just began to reject it. [00:12:00] Wow.
Sara Mayer: So one of the things that I like about your approach is it's not just, assert like we're going to talk about trauma.
Sara Mayer: We're going to talk about this only you, you seem to use a more holistic approach and hit all the different
Reese Sabatini-Blake: things. I truly try to work in every category of a person's life because. It's never just one, if there's your spiritual, your emotional, your mental, your physical, and you could break it down even further than that if you wanted to, but I try to keep it with just the basic four.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Yeah.
Sara Mayer: So you said. Spiritual, emotional. What were
Reese Sabatini-Blake: the other ones? Mental and physical.
Sara Mayer: Mental and physical. All right. Now, many times when people have a goal, they don't move forward with the goal. They, life gets in the way. They have too many emails. They don't have time, but they [00:13:00] truly have these big goals and dreams.
Sara Mayer: Yet they don't seem to get those things into action. Given your experience, what would you suggest to our listeners if they feel stuck and not moving forward?
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Whatever you want to work towards, no matter how busy your day is, start with 10 minutes, but put a timer on your phone. Start that small and you will gradually begin to take more time for your goals day by day because you'll realize that how positively it impacts you to actually work towards your goals instead of exist in this frustrating stagnance.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Yeah.
Sara Mayer: I think it also shows you that it's possible. Sometimes a lot of people don't actually think it's possible for them.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: And even I myself there were times in [00:14:00] recovery where it had been years of the doing the same thing and seeing minimal results until one day it clicked. And ultimately with neuroplasticity, even in your own goals.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: It's creating the pattern and sticking with it until your brain acknowledges, okay, this is the way now. We do this. But that's also when we fall out of a habit, it's really easy to fall out of it accidentally for a year and a half or more, because one day you stopped and you let something else take that time.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Yeah.
Sara Mayer: And it can be as simple. I was talking to someone and they're like, I just stopped wearing my retainers just one night, stopped doing it. And then it was, Oh. I should probably put those back in, but they didn't feel so great. And then months later, she was like, I, here I am not wearing my retainer. So habits are really an [00:15:00] interesting thing to fall into and fall out of.
Sara Mayer: And somebody said it's like 12 weeks. I don't know. I think sometimes it's a little more than that to make those habits stick.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: And on a psychological level it should only hypothetically take 21 days. Yeah. But realistically give it at least a few months to six months to really ingrain a habit.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Yeah. I used to play guitar for an hour every day for years, and after experiencing some guitar finger where two fingers would only move for the key of D, or note of D, I had to stop playing. And have I got back into it two years later? No. No. No.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. Sometimes easier said than done, huh?
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Exactly. And at the end of the day, we're all human and I don't want you to sit there and beat yourself up [00:16:00] if one day you just don't have it in you for a while. We do have emotions and other needs than just pounding out our goals. Like we're robots. Yeah.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And you talked about the four different ways that you work with people and one of them was mental. So how do you prepare yourself to mentally be able to do all the things that life requires, but also the big things that you truly desire?
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Honestly it's a lot of genuine self care and not pop culture self care.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Yeah. Absolutely. It's not romantic south bubble baths and a glass of wine every night. No, it's making sure that I work out as often as I can, usually once a day, sometimes twice. Trying to fit in something creative to experience like both the [00:17:00] emotional and the spiritual release of anything I might be feeling.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Making sure that I'm properly. bed. Like my body is experiencing the right nutrition to achieve my goals. Cool. Go ahead. And also sleep, like you really need to be sleeping if you want to be achieving in life.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And sometimes sleep is the one thing that has a lot of variables I've noticed. Is it too loud?
Sara Mayer: Is it too bright? Is it, you're not going to bed at the same time? There's a lot that you can do to really refine your sleep habits.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: So much. And yet, with capitalism, it's so hard because there's so much demanded of us that year by year, if you're not watching it, you will get less and less sleep until one day you're not getting any break.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. [00:18:00] Yeah. So we have talked on this show about burnout and I feel like that would be a topic that you've probably addressed with your clients and maybe yourself. How would you determine if someone or maybe even yourself is on the brink of burnout?
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Either on the brink or already experiencing, I would say that in their downtime, the number one is that they have no motivation or desire to do anything.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: They're just being a potato, and they feel very guilty for that, but they just, they do not have it in them to even clean or do anything outside of what's absolutely necessary. And that's when you genuinely try to convince a person to just take a step back. Take take one thing off your plate and spend a little bit of time with yourself each day so that you don't feel.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Like you [00:19:00] are spread thinner than a crepe.
Sara Mayer: Yeah, I think so many times it's the we're on, we're working on certain things that we're passionate about yet. We have so many things on our plate that we actually can't enjoy the things that we have on our plate that we should be excited about because we're just churning so many things at one time.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: And I have to agree because we're all in hustle mode trying to get to a point where we don't have to hustle anymore, but we're forgetting that if life passes us and we didn't enjoy it, we're going to be really sad on our deathbeds. Yeah.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And you brought up that hustle word. What are your thoughts on the hustle culture?
Reese Sabatini-Blake: I contribute and I hate it.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Like I, [00:20:00] I moved in the last year. I'm rebuilding my practice and everything around it. I've written and published a new book this year. I'm working about 60 hour weeks. Just in. The premise that this will all pay off one day. Yeah. When yet at that time, I would also tell my own clients to sit down, be kinder to themselves and stop doing so much, but I'm busy and I can't say no to the projects I have on my plate at this time.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Yeah. It's resting and working out and eating right. And hopefully once or twice a week I get to see a friend or two to actually have some downtime.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And one of the things that you said, which I think is really interesting is that you're working really hard right now [00:21:00] so that at one point you won't have to hustle or it will pay off at some point.
Sara Mayer: I relate to that. I think so many people do relate to that as well. If I work really hard in this season, next season will be different. Or once I get to this point, then I'll be able to take a break and relax. But in reality, that doesn't seem to happen when we achieve our goals, at least. In my experience, I achieve it as like, all right, onto the next thing.
Sara Mayer: And I'm not sure that's healthy.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: No, I, and frankly, I am very similar. I okay. Big goal. What's the next big goal? What's the big goal after that? I don't break unless medically my body says, okay, you need time off. Yeah. And it is toxic, and I'm working on it, like I, I actually take two days off a week now.[00:22:00]
Reese Sabatini-Blake: It might mean that I'm working more on the days that I do work, but at least I have two days where I don't look at emails, I'm not working on content, and I'm not meeting clients. That's okay, so we're starting to learn to have boundaries. Yeah.
Sara Mayer: And that boundary is hard to set too, because everybody has their own boundaries.
Sara Mayer: So I always talk about my one client who was like, I'm going to set a boundary. I'm not going to communicate via text. Which was great. And she was running a business and that was her boundary. And then she onboarded a client who said, I don't do anything via email. I do everything via text and it was like, okay, so now she had competing boundaries with somebody else.
Sara Mayer: And I thought that was really interesting because I was like, why did you take that client? She's we didn't have that conversation up front. So how do you communicate
Reese Sabatini-Blake: [00:23:00] boundaries? Honestly I try to do it as gently as I can, but I'm still learning to do it before I'm at the point of, I can't take this anymore.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Yeah, where it's okay. Okay. I'm trying to say this kindly but I'm also trying not to snap, because I've been over crossed here and it's my own fault. Yeah, we're not begging. Okay, this is a limit for me. Like I, I suddenly had to end a client relationship with someone who outside of our hour would message me every 20 minutes, 24 7.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Wow. This thought and that thought and this thought. I was experiencing information overload without even dealing with this person. And I'm like okay. This. Not okay. And I, they [00:24:00] were very apologetic and honestly handled it well, but I still felt horrible because I should have stated that, but I didn't know I needed to.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: I didn't know it was a boundary that outside of sessions I had to say don't text me incessantly.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. That's interesting you bring that up is that sometimes boundaries are created in the moment or you don't realize that you had that boundary until it's already crossed.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: And that's the thing that we're not taught about boundaries is no you don't know the boundaries there until it's been crossed.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Yeah. We're not raised in school to have boundaries of, no, I need time for myself. No, go home, do 17 hours of homework. Sleep when you're dead, train that so that you're a good workout horse and you don't go to university when you're fresh out of high school and you're the [00:25:00] cycle of capitalism. Yeah.
Sara Mayer: Interesting. So I've really enjoyed this conversation. I think you bring up some really great things for people to think about on their own, but also if somebody wanted to work with you to move past. Some of their trauma or chronic pain and really bridge that gap. How might they work with you and what might they expect?
Reese Sabatini-Blake: You can find me on both Instagram and Twitter at rehab underscore Reese, or on my Facebook page is Reese Sabatini Blake. I'm very searchable, as well as my website being the SabatiniBlakeWellness. ca. And honestly, usually I end up working with clients from about six months to a year, as quickly or as [00:26:00] slowly as they would like to.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: And in our first session we plan out your roadmap. What you're experiencing, what you want to overcome, and a rough plan from our brief talk in that first session of how we're going to do that. And from there, I, we embark on this little road trip of your return to recovery.
Sara Mayer: I love that how it's very customized.
Sara Mayer: It's not like we will do this on this day or that day. It's customized to what they're experiencing.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: I try not to be too much of a stickler because I know rules in healing are often a larger barrier than a
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Sorry. Yeah.
Sara Mayer: All right. I appreciate you being on the show today. I think that you have shared some really good nuggets about taking care of yourself on your journey to [00:27:00] crushing your goals. And I hope everyone reaches out to Reese. I think it'd be a great experience and really different than maybe other.
Sara Mayer: Other things that maybe you've tried in trying to crush your goals. So thank you Reese so much for being on the show. It's been lovely speaking with you.
Reese Sabatini-Blake: Thank you so much for having me, Sarah.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. All right, everyone. It's time to crush your goals and everything that gets in the way. Because you do not have to work double time.
Sara Mayer: So let's get to it.
Sara Mayer: Thank you for tuning into the bold goal crusher podcast where we crush goals and everything that gets in the way. I always love to support my community. Thanks for tuning in.
