Starter Girlz Podcast
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Each episode features inspiring success stories from trailblazing women and extraordinary men, offering practical advice, mindset strategies, and real-world insight into the startup journey and beyond.
Whether you're launching your next venture, striving for personal growth, or simply looking for motivation to keep going, Starter Girlz is here to guide and energize you.
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Starter Girlz Podcast
How a Doctor Reclaimed Her Life After Burnout
In this powerful episode of the Starter Girlz Podcast, host Jennifer Loehding sits down with Dr. Mary Sanders, a medical intuitive and chiropractor with over 30 years of experience, to share her transformational journey through burnout and into radical self-healing.
After hitting rock bottom in her career, Dr. Sanders embarked on a global journey—from Vietnam to Bali—that completely shifted her approach to success, wellness, and the mind-body connection.
You’ll hear how she turned burnout into breakthrough and discovered the deep healing power of energy medicine, nervous system regulation, and epigenetics.
What you’ll learn:
- How high achievers often miss early burnout signs
- What energy healing is and why it matters
- How nervous system regulation supports long-term health and clarity
- The role of chakras and trauma in healing
- A simple box breathing technique to reset your body
- How self-healing impacts not just you, but future generations
This episode is a must-listen for entrepreneurs, high performers, and purpose-driven women who feel exhausted, stuck, or out of sync—despite outward success.
Dr. Sanders reminds us that burnout recovery isn’t just about rest—it’s a reawakening of your energy, purpose, and potential.
Connect with Dr. Mary Sanders:
drmarysanders.com
Learn more about Starter Girlz and subscribe:
startergirlz.com
So, very true, I think that the tools of energy medicine, from the sphere of where I come from and this is very similar to what you're just saying, jennifer, in that we want the information, the tools, to be incredibly applicable. If you can't manage your tools right and your regulation tools when you go to the grocery store, or when at Thanksgiving meal or making it through the holidays or being engaged in an intimate relationship, then we're missing the day-to-day activities that would be transformative, transformative in all the other facets of our world.
Jennifer Loehding:Welcome to the Starter Girlz podcast, your ultimate source of inspiration and empowerment, to the starter girls podcast, your ultimate source of inspiration and empowerment. We're here to help women succeed in every area of their lives career, money, relationships, and health and well-being while celebrating the remarkable journeys of individuals from all walks of life who've achieved amazing things. Whether you're looking to supercharge your career, build financial independence, nurture meaningful relationships or enhance your overall well-being, the Starter Girls Podcast is here to guide you. Join us as we explore the journeys of those who dare to dream big and achieve greatness. I'm your host, Jennifer Loehding, and welcome to this episode. Welcome to another episode of the Starter Girlz podcast. I am your host, jennifer Loehding, and wherever you are tuning in today, we are so glad to have you All right. So one of the things we talk about with Starter Girlz is that we're just not about career or titles, right, we're talking about fullness. Today, we believe thriving happens at the intersection of health, relationships, purpose and prosperity, and sometimes the biggest breakthroughs come when we pause, turn inward and ask am I truly aligned? In today's episode, we're going to be exploring what it means to pursue success from the inside out and how healing, embodiment and energy awareness can completely transform the way we show up in every area of our lives, and so I'm so excited about my guest today. This is going to be so much fun. I have a feeling we're just going to be like have a hard time getting off of here today. It's going to be great. But before we can get her on here, I do need to do a quick shout out to our sponsor.
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Jennifer Loehding:All right, and with that we do want to make a mention to head on over to startergirlz. com. And why do you want to go over there? Because I tell you this every week. A couple of reasons. One, if you've missed an episode, it's a great place to catch up and find them, and you can go all the way back to the beginning, when we started this show and catch some of those cheesy episodes. But also you can keep up with what's going on and sign up for our community newsletter so you'll know what's happening and who's coming up next on the show. Also, if you are an aspiring entrepreneur, or maybe you're already rocking the scene and you want to find out what your number one success block is that may be impacting your success, well, guess what? I designed a fun two-minute quiz over there that you can take for free, and it might let you know what might be stopping you from reaching that next level. So head on over to startergirlscom and do whatever you need to do over there.
Jennifer Loehding:All right, and with that, we are ready to bring the guest on today. So my guest today? Dr Mary Sanders, a medical intuitive chiropractor and host of the internationally acclaimed Energy Medicine podcast. With more than 35 years of experience, dr Mary blends energy medicine with positive psychology to help others release what no longer serves them and align with their true selves, from spiritual embodiment to nervous system regulation. She brings real, applicable wisdom for creating sustainable transformation in health, mindset and life. And so, dr Mary Sanders, we're so excited to have you here today. Welcome to the Start. A Girl show.
Dr. Mary Sanders:Well, thank you, jennifer. I really appreciate the introduction and everybody that's tuning in today. It is my honor, absolutely my honor, to hold space for you all today and to connect, so thank you for being here.
Jennifer Loehding:This is going to be so much fun. So you asked me, before we jumped on the show, where I'm calling in from. I would love to know where are you calling in from today?
Dr. Mary Sanders:You know, today I'm calling in from Boulder, Colorado.
Jennifer Loehding:Oh, where are you calling in from today? You know, today I'm calling in from Boulder, colorado. Oh, fun, awesome, I've been there. Are you there? Do you live there now? Are you originally from there or from elsewhere?
Dr. Mary Sanders:Well, that's a legitimate question. I am originally from the Midwest, and I came out to Colorado immediately after graduating chiropractic school, and so that is where I did the bulk of my business for 22 years in Colorado Springs. Then my husband and I had the fortunate pleasure of living internationally for a little over 10 years, and then, when we came back into the United States, we were still a little reluctant to be here, and so we were looking for a progressive, forward-thinking alternative town, and that's how we ended up in Boulder.
Jennifer Loehding:Ah, I gotcha, Colorado is such a great place too. I mean, you get such a—my husband's brother lives in the Colorado area and so, yeah, I haven't been there in a while, but I love going through there. They're originally from Montana, so sometimes we'll travel that way, sometimes we go the other direction, but I love Colorado.
Dr. Mary Sanders:It's a great place. Yeah, same here. Same here the sunshine helps and the mountains and the fresh air it's all good.
Jennifer Loehding:Yeah, I'm with you on that, so okay. So I want to talk about you. I want to talk about your journey and obviously I love that you got to. You know, live abroad for a while. I've never been.
Jennifer Loehding:It's funny because we went on a cruise and I say one. I've been on more than one cruise, but we always seem to go on these easy ones because we could drive down to Galveston, we could jump on a boat, we can go to Mexico, and I love it, and I can go to the same place. I don't care, but that's like the only places I've been abroad and so I have not gotten to see the world and travel all these things. So I love it when I get to hear people do this. But I wanna want to talk about your journey. I want to back up and tell us a little bit about what led to the work that you're doing today, because I love what you're doing Well for starters, I have to say that your alignment and the intention of holding space for people, for health and relationships, purpose and prosperity is so spot on.
Dr. Mary Sanders:If any of those one four quadrants is out of distortion, if any of those one four quadrants is out of distortion, whether it be an excess or deficiency, it will impact the entire being in the system that we live in here on this physical plane, and that happened to me. Honestly, I went through a professional burnout where I was not living a balanced life. It darn near cost me my mental well-being, my financial well-being and my physical well-being, and that's what prompted the journey to leave Colorado Springs, where I had multiple chiropractic offices, and we relocated literally to the other side of the world, and so, within probably 45 days, I found myself leaving all the earthly possessions that we had accumulated and ended up in Ho Chi Minh City, vietnam, and so that created an incredible crisis for me, meaning that if I didn't have my brick and mortar place where people showed up and referred to me as Dr Mary and people knew me at the grocery store, I didn't, you know. Obviously I was in a foreign land with foreign people not knowing how to speak the language, and I didn't know how to show up in a way which felt aligned with my purpose. So, jennifer, I did what any logical person would do I ran away from Ho Chi Minh City, vietnam, and I went down to Bali, indonesia, and the intention for doing that was to complete my YTT, my yoga teacher's training, and now I've been a practicing yogi since I was 21. So it had been a few years and I felt like I had a mature practice. But I was like I'm just going to go do something for myself and take some time, some well-deserved time, to kind of reconnect.
Dr. Mary Sanders:And it was during that time that I fell in love with meditation. And so then I started to explore the human body from a different perspective, jennifer. What ended up happening? Obviously, I felt like I really knew the human body incredibly well, from the neck on down. I knew the central nervous system, I understand you know the parasympathetics and the sympathetics and how the body is wired. But then, all of a sudden, jennifer, I was like, wow, what's really happening in the brain? What happened from a neuroscientific perspective when we meditate? What's happening in there? Kind of a researcher in this area. And it just sparked something in me, jennifer, to realize once again, we are more than our thoughts, right. We're more than our emotions. We're more than our physical body.
Dr. Mary Sanders:So, as time elapsed, another five years passed, I realized that you know what? There's one more layer to the human body that very few people are talking about and that is the subtle electromagnetic current that surrounds us and runs within us, and that's what prompted me to attend the Academy of Intuition Medicine with Dr Francesca McCartney in Sausalito, california, and it finally. Then I was given permission to kind of access, you know, some information that I had been developing over the years. And then finally, literally, jennifer, I was like this is it, this is the ticket, this is how I can show up in the world. That's in alignment with my purpose Number one. That was the missing ingredient that I have been striving for throughout my entire life, and I had glimpses of it in my professional journey. But I finally, finally, I was in alignment with my purpose, my intention, the knowledge base, the skill set, how I wanted to show up in this world. It clicked, and that's when I pulled everything together and started holding space as a medical intuitive.
Jennifer Loehding:That's so awesome. Well, and I want to back up to what you said early on, when we're talking about the prosperity, all those things, and because I think you just kind of showed the example of how you brought all that together right, like you just kind of pulled all that together, but you are so right and that's why this show is set up the way that it is is because that's the work, that's my own journey, that's my journey, like yours, where you said you know, you have one of these crises. Right, mine was the health crisis and there were more crises, but that was the one that was extremely recognizable because it was causing the most amount of pain in my life. And so I firmly believe, like you, that if any of those pieces are out of whack, that you are not feeling, you're not feeling whole and you're just having a lot of chaos. And for me personally, I don't know if mine was, maybe it was a burnout, but I think mine was really. Personally, I don't know if mine was, maybe it was a burnout, but I think mine was really like I talk about a lot about crash and burn as a high achiever, because I grew up in a home where I felt that I needed to perform.
Jennifer Loehding:I needed like, literally, I was a dancer, I needed to perform. And I moved out of that and it became about my achievements and the things that I would do in school or in my work and everything. It took me a really long time. I'm in my fifties now and I think I finally have gotten to a place where now I do things because I want to do them, not necessarily because I feel the need to prove to somebody that I can do them Right, but I would. A lot of that I attributed to this crash and burn cycle where I would go full on hardcore and then I would crash and burn. Well, when I was younger, it was migraine headaches. That's what I would get. That was the only thing I ever dealt with. I'd get an awful migraine headache and I knew that when I get a migraine, that meant 24 to 48 hours downtime, right, because you're forced to. Well, oddly enough, those migraines changed and became the where I don't know. Somehow in my forties they changed and became like okay, you have aura, but no head pain, so you don't necessarily have to take the 24 to 48 hours to outside anymore, right? No, but what happened was right before I turned 40, I got diagnosed with this rare nerve condition and I believe that because I had that, that was kind of my wake-up call, that, jennifer, you can't continue to keep doing these crash and burn, so, like other people, have burnouts or whatever. That was kind of my burnout, that was my body burnout.
Jennifer Loehding:What's interesting is because of that, like you, this journey that you went on, where you started to get taken in all these information, I too, studied meditation, I studied nervous system stuff, started studying all these things because it wasn't that I was like I want to use them necessarily to help other people. They were really about healing me. It was really about my work how do I get better? And in the process, all these little things started coming together and I'm like, like you said, we're not just our thoughts, right, like this is a complex puzzle.
Jennifer Loehding:There are so many pieces to this. So it's really basic to say, well, just go get more sleep, right, because you need sleep, don't get me wrong, you need it. But it's not just about the sleep. There's a lot to this, right, and so that's why I love what you're doing, because I think it's really that investigative journey that we do on this level I don't know if it's a spiritual. Whatever this level is that we do, where we start putting all this together and we realize we're so much more than just getting up and running on autopilot every day and having a burnout session, you know, and so I love what you're doing.
Dr. Mary Sanders:You know, jennifer, I have to say you know, with the years that I've been holding space for people. Our story is not uncommon. There are so many listeners out there that possibly, just possibly, they may feel alone in their journey and that they feel, like you know, they're an isolated case. But, listeners, I'm here to tell you that what Jennifer and I are talking about is normal. It's more common right due to we are products of our environment, due to we are products of our environment and consequently, we have been wired neurologically to try to live up to everyone's expectations.
Dr. Mary Sanders:And then we come from a place of will, we come from a place of push and that determination and we think that we're in control of this journey. And when we set that stage, it's a recipe, a recipe for disaster, that somewhere, somehow, your physical body will be sending you signals. For Jennifer, it started off as migraines at a very, very young age. For me, I had other issues, physically and emotionally, that would show up consistently, and emotionally that would show up consistently, and the pattern was to go, go, go, go, go. Do not pay attention to those signals coming from the body. Override them with all of your will centers and push yourself through it, and then the body will speak up again with another message, and yet we still ignore it and it continues. That path or this behavior continues until the body says oh really, really, you're going to try to ignore me one more time. I have news for you, lady. It is not going to work for you anymore.
Dr. Mary Sanders:And then it shuts down, and then we wonder why we were betrayed by our physical body. The humor is not lost on me anymore.
Jennifer Loehding:It and that's the body is so, so, so intelligent yeah and well, and I think too because, like you know, we talk about it in these other areas. I mean, we don't do anything until crisis hits, right like. So, when you talk about missing the signs, we do. We miss them because we think that this over here is happening and that's not a big deal on this and the health obviously becomes a big deal for a lot of people because you know they have something happen where they're forced to have to make change. And so I think the big message here is really about paying attention, right, like you're teaching the self-awareness and the intuitiveness so that you can be self-aware and say you know what, like I'm so much more intuitive now, like it's so funny because I had somebody you know, like I do, um, I pet sit on the side. My daughter and I have a little pet sitting business and I do some on the side and I really do it just because I love pets. It's not, yeah, I can make good money at it, but it's not something that I go out and say I'm making a lot of engagement in a negative way when you're around an animal. So it's a very healing thing for me. But I had one client that somebody called me about somebody and this particular client, and they smoke in their house and so I don't like to be around cigarette smoke because I know that when I do that it impairs my body and I don't want the aftermath I don't want. I'm not around it, I choose that.
Jennifer Loehding:So my point to this is that I make the choices consciously every day Now to be one, listen to the signals, pay attention to what works for my body, what does it, and that's not just about, like, the food I eat or the sleep.
Jennifer Loehding:It's even the people that I put in my space, the material that I consume, the amount of energy I put into something Like I. Just the other day I put a little clip out from an episode where I was talking about interrupting bad thinking, bad patterns of thought, Like if I find myself going down a trail of negative thinking, meaning I'm starting to think worst case scenario, like I'm going to interrupt that. We'll totally interrupt that and I will start my mantra. You know, today is a great day to be brave. You might as well start now. You have the power to change your circumstances any day you decide to let today be that day. I will interrupt it because I am not going to continue to allow myself to keep doing that pattern of thought. So it's all these little things that we, that I feel like and you do the same and hopefully we're sending the messages is just being aware of what you're doing, but also listening for the signals.
Dr. Mary Sanders:Absolutely, absolutely the somatic wisdom that resides within all of us. Again, the intelligence is not lost on me holding space for others to literally slow down their brainwaves in a state of meditation. Literally slow down the brainwaves in a state of meditation to go away from the active overachieving over orchestrating, organizing, executing brain you know that manages 110 things at once and then to bring down the brainwaves so that we can, we can enter into this state in which we can access the subconscious and reprogram the subconscious brain to overcome whatever negative spiral, thinking that one was experiencing 10 minutes beforehand. And I do think that the condition of the environment is so fear-based, we are so fear-based that we really don't allow ourselves to decompress. And what I mean by that is to slow down long enough to meet and greet the frequency of Mother Earth, that healing, organic nurturing, saturating, ever-loving energy that's present to us 24-7, 365, and that's the earth energy that shimmers residence. So very few of us are tapping into a resource that's readily available to us.
Jennifer Loehding:Yeah, yeah, I love it. And you talk a lot about meditation, which I love. I studied transcendental meditation for a while, back when my oldest daughter was going through something, and we actually did it together. I won't tell you that she was too fond of it at the time because she was really young, but I think I did it mostly for me and I just I kept thinking in my mind I wanted it, you know, because she was also a high achiever, you know just to give her space to calm down. But I believe in the power of it.
Jennifer Loehding:And even now, sometimes I'll just go, you know, and I tell people, you know, like I'm a big fan.
Jennifer Loehding:I don't get to do it often, but I love my little 20 minute rest sessions where I will set my you know phone and I only do that so in case I fall asleep, so I don't oversleep, because then I don't want to get into that, but I just I'll be like I just, you're right, how do you do that?
Jennifer Loehding:I'm like I just close my eyes and I just pause and when I get up I feel so much better and I'm ready to go again and like I'm in it, in the zone again, cause I've just had that, even if it's not a full go to sleep, it's just a relaxing for me, just to go kind of inward.
Jennifer Loehding:And so I'm all with you about the pause and just, you know, and I was telling someone the other day, we were talking about, just from a level of emotional intelligence, right, because we're so on the go that we're always reacting right, like even in a personal space dealing with humans, we're always reacting to everything right, the stigma, the people, everything. And so we were talking about how do you, you know, ask the right questions of people and stuff, right? And I was talking about, yeah, how, like, I'm working on pausing, just pausing, even if you know, if we're not just talking about pausing for our health, but even in our reaction to how we deal with people, just pausing, giving ourselves permission to go inward for a moment and we don't have to react to every single thing that comes at us.
Dr. Mary Sanders:So very true. And again, that's reprogramming our autonomic nervous system. Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Loehding:I love it. So what does it look like when a client comes to you? You don't have to tell us everything, because we obviously want them to call you right, we want to give all the good deeds here. But when a client comes to you, what does this look like for them? Like, what are they going through, in a sense of what's the? I mean, obviously we've talked about the pausing and going intuitive and all of that, but what does this look like for them coming to you?
Dr. Mary Sanders:You know, I think that everybody has their own motivating factor. Okay, for you it was illness, for me it was. It could be mental disturbances, it could be financial disturbances, relationship disturbances or just not feeling fulfilled within life. But, as a medical intuitive, most people gravitate towards me with some kind of physical dysfunction, something dysregulated on some level. So I'd like to, because we've been talking about the overachieving mentality and talking about how we are cultivated in a world that's fear-based and it is so common that I hold space for people and one of the first things that I witnessed is the area of dysregulation for lack of better words within the first energy center located within the physical body and that's located deep within the pelvis. Now I'm going to shift the conversation from the physical, but in my world I can't just go. Physical is one level, mental is another, energetic is another, chemical is another. It's all intertwined, it's all integrative to me, but most people will come in with some kind of a fear-based whether and again from any of the facets of life that we were just talking about. Most of them are in sympathetic dominance, unable to regulate the central nervous system, looking to find their purpose, looking to find out how they're going to show up in the world and how they can deeply trust in the universe, that they will always be loved up in the world and how they can deeply trust in the universe that they will always be loved, cared for and nurtured. And so the energy system that I find are most dysregulated is the first energy center, located within the pelvic bowl, and so the energy centers that I'm talking about are known as chakras, and for some of the listeners you may be like, here she goes, she's off on the deep end again, but I'm here to share with all of you that I come from a very heavy scientific background, and so there is a foundation in which science is proving the validity of what it is that I'm about ready to discuss, and that an energy center known as the chakra. And for the sake of today's conversation, we're only going to talk about the major seven chakras and specifically in our conversation, the first one, located deep within the pelvic bowl.
Dr. Mary Sanders:The chakra has three primary functions. Number one to receive information from our environment. What is our environment? People, places, things, items that influence our central nervous system, so everything that's outside of us. The second thing that happens this information from the body or from the environment comes in through the subtle energetic body that surrounds our physical body. It makes impact with the energy center, the energy center. Then third step is to assimilate this information and express it out into the environment. So you receive, assimilate and then express and a lot happens chemically, neurologically, chemically, neurologically, emotionally, hormonally, in all of that, in that entire cycle.
Dr. Mary Sanders:So as we receive energy or information from our environment and we pick it up deep within the pelvic bowl, the adrenal systems will be triggered. And the adrenals you know we're not going to get into a big physiology, you know anatomy 101, but basically the adrenals are responsible hormonally for producing things that make you, things that want to speed you up. So your adrenaline, your epinephrine, your norepinephrine, your DHEA, those things are all designed to pick up hormonally for a fight or flight situation. So what ends up happening is that there are chemicals that are produced when you are processing the information energetically from the environment. The hormones will be then picked up within the circulatory system, it goes up into the brain, it goes in and it gets processed with neuropeptide and then all of this information surges back down from the physical body and then you express yourself out into the universe, okay, or out into the environment.
Dr. Mary Sanders:And so, when it comes to wanting to work through any dysfunction, to lean into more trust more trust that you are in the right place at the right time with the right people, and if you're not, then you get to trust that that circumstance or that situation does exist for you, does exist for you. So it's knowing that you're surrounded by the right people, knowing that you will always be cared for, regardless how much money you make or whether or not you're in alignment with your purpose. Prosperity. All of that shows up within the first energy center, and that's the most common energy center that I start with when I'm holding space, when a new patient or a new client comes into my practice.
Jennifer Loehding:Sure, it's interesting, yeah, and I've heard that. I haven't heard it quite as detailed as you put it. So thank you for sharing all of that, because it definitely makes sense. I mean, I get it. There was something else.
Jennifer Loehding:Oh well, when you were talking about people coming to you for health reasons, because people will ask me all the time like, what do people like people when I'm out networking, I'll say you know, what do clients come to you for? And it's funny because you know I have starter girls kind of set up as the business side of things. It's like it's geared for, obviously, the female entrepreneur. How do we help them be holistically well so that they can operate their businesses right? But the premise here is mostly on the business side, whereas the work that I do on Jennifer Loading is a lot more wellness-based, because that's the stuff that I breathe, that's the stuff I wake up thinking about, go to bed thinking about right. And it's so funny because I'm thinking about your work and it's like these people will come to me because a lot of times they're wanting to work on their business right and I can't go to them in the beginning and say, okay, well, I know how we're going to solve that. But we got to do all this first because they're going to look at me and be like right, because I don't have a health crisis going on, so I have to, subliminally. I always tell them.
Jennifer Loehding:What ends up happening is we're teaming all that. But usually what happens is somewhere around the fifth or sixth week. I call it sort of the like coming to Jesus moment. It's where we realize that I have talked a lot and they still haven't made a move. And you know why? It's because we need to work on a lot of this stuff you're talking about. We need to get back to working on some things over here, and so I've gotten with the last client that I took on.
Jennifer Loehding:I immediately I you know one of the things I told her right up front. As I said, we're going to be working on the nervous system like from the very beginning, because when we work on this, it makes it you're going to be more receptive to what we're talking about over here. You're going to come from a different place than if you're all high, strong over here. We're trying to implement, put things into your space. You're not even going to want to be receiving that information, so it's not quite as advanced as what you're talking about, but it's coming from that same space of you know, I believe. Yes, we've got to work on these pieces over here for us so that the information that I'm talking about from a business perspective is receptive. And I tell people that you know, like when they go to like their financial planner or to their marriage counselor or to any of those places, my job is to hopefully give them the ability to receive that information.
Dr. Mary Sanders:You know and it'll stick.
Jennifer Loehding:Hopefully it's going to stick, instead of, like you, go to the gym in January and lead by February mindset where we take something on but we're not really ready to receive it, you know so.
Dr. Mary Sanders:So, very true, I think that the tools of energy medicine, from the sphere of where I come from and this is very similar to what you're just saying, jennifer, in that we want the information, the tools, to be incredibly applicable. If you can't manage your tools right and your regulation tools when you go to the grocery store or when you're at Thanksgiving meal or making it through the holidays or being engaged in an intimate relationship, then we're missing the day-to-day activities that would be transformative transformative in all the other facets of our world, transformative in all the other facets of our world. And so when you're teaching them how to regulate their autonomic nervous system or to down-regulate, you know, if they're too sympathetic, dominant, how do you do that? Can you do it with your simple breathing techniques, can you do it with simple body movement, can you do it through meditation or taking your silent, you know, 20 minutes in the afternoon. Those are beautiful, beautiful tools that we can use and resources that we should lean into in order to see bigger transformative shifts.
Jennifer Loehding:Yeah, yeah, I gotcha. We got frozen there for a minute. Both of us were frozen, so hopefully, hopefully, the recording caught that We'll have to like clip a little bit in here to get us caught up today. Yeah, no, I agree with you on everything. I think it's good stuff and I think the energy stuff is.
Jennifer Loehding:You know, I had a gal come on here a long time ago and her work I can't remember what it was she was doing, but it was a lot talking about how energy comes from a lot of the past things that we experience, which is a lot of what I talk about, maybe not as much from the energy perspective, but how we hang on to belief systems and things that we went through as young children and they manifest in these very different ways in the habits and patterns of behavior that we use.
Jennifer Loehding:But she was specifically talking about how the energy is tied to that and it will show up in our organs and stuff like that, like we harbor it, we hang on to it, right, like it stays in there. You know like if you have like we're talking about with these conditions that come up, you know like there's this talk now where they're. You know they're saying that, like children who grew up like in high stress homes and stuff, how they have like chronic conditions later on, like hello this, welcome to my world. I feel like let's not have a lot of stress when we're little because you pay for it later. You know it does show up in your health. So a lot of good stuff here, mary. I love it.
Dr. Mary Sanders:Yeah, you know, jennifer though I'm going to take it one step further because I do think that people are ready to start looking at this and that is Jennifer. You learned this conditioned response from somewhere. Ok, and, and again, you know, maybe you learned it from your mother, maybe you learned it from your father, but if you learned it from your mother, the same question applies to her when does she learn it? And then it could be just a familial thing, ancestral, or it could be something that was culturally embedded within the makeup. And so what we find is that and the field of epigenetics is so strong that we, literally, genetically, we inherit right, our DNA is made up of all of our ancestors, and so we, as beautiful humans residing within our beautiful spirits, residing within our human home, have the ability to have a genetic expression, maybe something you know that we don't want to align with, a conditioned response that's been within our families for generations.
Dr. Mary Sanders:We don't have to express that gene. We can learn how to align to a different genetic makeup that's within us as well, and so you can make those changes, you can do the healing which you have been, and that's going to affect your daughter and that's going to affect your daughter's daughter and your daughter's and it just goes down. So healing is not linear as far as time is concerned. So that's so powerful when you think about it from a quantum perspective. And that's really where quantum science whether it be quantum neurology, quantum biology, that is what it is telling us is that we have more ability, we can empower ourselves to take control of our own healing journey and how we choose to genetically show up.
Jennifer Loehding:Yeah, yeah, it's good stuff. I love that. Yeah, I think I it's funny how, when you guys talk, I have guests come on. So I start thinking about other guests and the conversations that they came on here because we had talked to. I had somebody come on here one time.
Jennifer Loehding:Another story talked about money and we were talking about how money beliefs are generational, like they're in your DNA and you and you carry out these patterns and behaviors wrapped around money, and it's really in alignment with what you're talking about and so I think there's it goes deeper than us saying like great generational curses. Right, it's such a deep level, right, when we talk about this, because it's not just about recognizing something that you didn't like, it's really about you healing because it has such a bigger impact on down right, like intuitively and stuff. And so, yeah, I hope I always say you know, my kids are adults now, but I hope that, you know, when I had my oldest she's now gonna be 29. And I wasn't this way, obviously, when they were all born, but I hope that as they have been growing, they've been watching this journey and picking up on some of that in their own processes and in their journey as well, and I'm sure you would defy all natural laws for them not to be recognizing the healing and the transformation that's happening within you.
Jennifer Loehding:Yeah, and I love the work that you're doing because I think it's important and I think it's fun when we get, you know, have these conversations on Starter Girls, because we spend a lot of time, you know, talking about leadership and entrepreneurship and how to succeed at life. But really, this is a foundation. This is if you want to truly succeed in life. Climbing a corporate ladder or your own ladder, whatever is not going to fulfill you, it's not going to be that it may temporarily get you to happiness, but to truly, in my mind, feel successful and feel really good. It's a whole approach, it's not just one thing, it's this whole approach and it really starts with us. It starts with us going inward and being intuitive and pause. And I love the big thing here we talked about like really just pausing, making space for this, going inward, because there's something really I love.
Jennifer Loehding:I you know it's hard because we get so busy and we, you know, and I like the other day I was talking to a client and she's like, oh my gosh, I'm so far behind. And I'm like, listen, if you do anything, give yourself just a few minutes. Like it will make all the difference just to take a few minutes and do like I have tools and techniques that she's working on. But just if it's just five minutes, take that time because it will make all the difference in what you're trying to do for the rest of the day. And I know for me, and I'm sure you're the same way, that just those little minutes that I allow for myself every day, I mean it can transform my entire day.
Dr. Mary Sanders:You know, I agree, my meditation practice was my most favorite part of the day.
Jennifer Loehding:Yeah, yeah, I love that, I love that. So for somebody maybe we've been talking about pausing and going intuitive and you've said so many great things. I mean, what is something we could give, something, you know something we can lean into somebody to say how can they start today, maybe just a little something they can do for themselves, to maybe hold space for themselves?
Dr. Mary Sanders:Yeah, you know when, when you ask that question, there are several different polyvagal exercises that I think are just really so simple, so easy and accessible for people. I really do. I find the power of box breathing to be incredibly powerful and it's simple. It's so simple and for those listeners who are not familiar with box breathing, just think about your typical square. You know each side is equal in length, and so you do the same thing with your breath.
Dr. Mary Sanders:And so if you do an inhalation for a count of six, then you hold your breath for a count of six, and then you exhale for a count of six, then you hold your breath for a count of six, and so then you would go through. Let's say, you know six seems to be the magic number, and so then you would go through. Let's say you know six seems to be the magic number, you would go through a cycle of six boxes and then you, where you're going to be more engaged in better understanding and coming from a more regulated state, which is, you know, everybody listening would agree that that's 10 times more healthy, 10 times more productive. It's all those things that we want it to be. So just a simple exercise such as box. Breathing will shift the neurology.
Jennifer Loehding:And I will attest to the box breathing because I use it for myself sometimes. And yes, it's hard when you first start to do it because you're so used to just breathing and now all of a sudden you're thinking about your breathing. Right, it's a different thing. But once you kind of get in and you do it, it's like I remember I did some. I haven't done it recently, but I did one not too long ago. And it's like I remember I did some. I haven't done it recently, but I did one not too long ago. And it was pretty intense at the beginning. It was like I was really, and then I could feel myself just slowly, as I'm doing it, calm, you know, coming down, coming down, coming down, so a lot of like I told you the nervous system training. I studied that I was in the kind of in the middle of coming out of this second condition, but I was right in the heat of it and it was in the thing.
Jennifer Loehding:When you're dealing with a chronic condition, as you know, because you're dealing with patients like that, when you're not getting better, there's anxiety because you're not getting better. So it's like that vicious cycle, that it's a loop you get caught in which messes your nervous system up completely, because you're caught in this fight or flight loop and you can't get out. So, as you're not getting better, you're panicking because you're not getting better. Well, you're not getting better. Because you're panicking, you're not getting better, and so and I am not one to play victim very well, I don't like being sick, and so if I'm sick, I'm really sick, like I'm sick.
Jennifer Loehding:And there was a while there I spent when, right after I got diagnosed, they did a procedure and I spent 18 months pretty much struggling. I couldn't eat, I was having a hard time and this my, my anxiety was really high Turned out that I also, in the middle of that, found out I had low iron and had to do iron infusion, so I had a lot going on. So I was having panic attacks because my iron was messed up and then I was having this anxiety, and so that's when I really leaned into um, that's when I ended up getting certified for the nervous system, because I went into that as a means to really just help try to calm myself down during this time. And that box breathing was instrumental during that period because it really like I would feel myself getting ready to have that panic attack and I'm like, ok, we're going to go do some box breathing. Today, you know, thankfully I'm not having, we're much calmer now.
Jennifer Loehding:So about having those panic attacks and where health is doing a lot better, but it is it's a vicious cycle. You get into the loop, and so I think what you're doing is so important, because it is about how do we break that cycle and get out of that so that we can calm down and you just show up, like we've talked about in this whole episode. You just show up differently. I know it's helped me tremendously.
Dr. Mary Sanders:Yeah, just show up differently. I know it's helped me tremendously. Yeah, I think the main takeaway for today's conversation is to empower the listeners. You really do have greater control than what we may have been conditionally taught. So, jennifer's, your body is adaptable it is. Your brain can mold and create new neuronal pathways. Hormonally, you can regulate, you can shift your central nervous system. I mean, we are. So. Our physical bodies are the most amazingly engineered organism out there, and I've been studying the human body for over 35 years and let me tell you something there isn't a day in which the body doesn't cease to amaze me.
Jennifer Loehding:It's amazing, Amazing. Well, you're doing good work. I love it and I'm glad we got to have this conversation. I never know where these are going to go. It's so funny because I love the health and wellness space, I love talking and I think our stories are testaments. I think they really help other people know that, like you mentioned, they're not alone.
Jennifer Loehding:These are common threads Anxiety, this push to need for hustle, culture all of this stuff is out there and you know, the big thing is, yeah, pay attention, you don't want to have. You know. I would say that I feel like I've been given these things for a reason, because one, it's taught me empathy and compassion, right For others, and but it also, I think, it gave me a voice. I think it's allowed me to be able to do this and to have these conversations with people like you, but also to be able to impart this stuff on others and say, hey, look, you don't have to wait till you have a major crisis in your life to to be into it, to ever to take that time. Do it so you don't have to. Right, Like, hopefully you don't have to, you know, because I always say I never wish these things on anybody, but I do feel grateful that that uh one.
Jennifer Loehding:They've taught me things and they've given me a voice to share and help other people in the in the journey. So I admire your work. I'm glad that you figured out your calling and your purpose and your passion and you lined all the things so that you could talk about it and share with the world what you need to share.
Dr. Mary Sanders:Thank you, Thank you. My purpose is that if I can share my knowledge and wisdom to you know, spare somebody else to School of Hard Knocks, then that's half the battle, right.
Jennifer Loehding:Yeah, school of hard knocks, right, right, I know I want my kids. You know they're all young adults now and I watch them and it's so crazy how we talk about those generational things and I'll be like, how are they doing that thing that I did at that age, when I'm not even doing that thing anymore? It's like is it in the D? It's in the DNA, and I'm watching him and I'm like anymore, it's like is it in the D, it's in the DNA, and I'm watching him and I'm like, and I'm talking like we're stubbornness, just pure stubbornness, and having to do things the hard way. And I'm just like all three of them, all three of them, and I'm like you know, we really don't need to make life hard.
Jennifer Loehding:Okay, like, just don't follow my lead, we don't need to do all this, because I promise you that if you continue down that path, you're going to wake up one day and you might be in my shoes. You don't? Let's just not do this, let's not. You know, that's part of my other part is like how can I just keep imparting this into there? And hopefully, you know, they listen to these episodes sometimes and they listen to the clips and they like them every now and then and I keep thinking they're going to, they're picking up on it, you know. So I think it's, it's good conversation and hopefully we're making a difference in the world. So Absolutely.
Jennifer Loehding:So, mary, yeah, if our audience wants to get in touch with you cause I'm hopeful that somebody listening to this today may say you know what, like I want to I want to follow Dr Mary Sanders. I want to get in touch with her. I want to learn more about her work, or maybe they need some help. Where do we want to send them?
Dr. Mary Sanders:You know, I would like to send everybody who may be just curious to my website, and that is wwwdrmarysandercom. It's a living breathing organism, I kid you not. It stays current with all my offerings, whether it be my somatic healing, my group environment or one-on-ones, or the podcast, or upcoming classes, my toolbox classes or international retreats. All that information is on the website. But I think the thing that I like about the website the most is that it gives you an opportunity to create a discovery call, and that is just an opportunity for you to decide one way or another. If there is a resonance, a frequency in which you know, you feel that you're safe, you're heard and you feel understood, then that might be a conducive environment for healing. So take advantage of the discovery calls.
Jennifer Loehding:Yeah, and real quick, tell our listeners a little bit about your podcast so they know, because they may want to plug in and listen to that.
Dr. Mary Sanders:The podcast name is Energy Medicine. We talk about all things that align the mind, body and spirit, and so, for the most part, we have practitioners credential practitioners who come in. We're holding the space for you know the hardcore science that has been proven, and then we also know that there are sciences that have yet to be proven in the healing world, and that we know that, as a practitioner, there's a big old pregnant pause. You know that the patients respond to our modalities or our techniques, but we may not be able to scientifically say, yes, this has been proven to be effective. So I'm holding space for people to understand that healing, the empowerment, comes from within, and to educate people about various different modalities.
Jennifer Loehding:I love it. I have to tune in and check it out. I love it. So you're doing amazing things and I admire your work and I want to you know, I guess say to you congratulations on finding you know your space and wish you continued success in what you're doing.
Dr. Mary Sanders:Thank, you and Jennifer. The same goes to you. I feel the positive intent in which you're holding space for others and I just think that that's just remarkable. So applying all of your life, learn lessons and sharing it so openly with others, I think, is the big deal.
Jennifer Loehding:Thank you so much, appreciate that. Well, of course, what we'll do here is we'll make sure that when we get these show notes put together, we will get your website in there and, you know, of course, get you tagged in all the right places so that our people can find you. And I do want to say to the listeners of course we appreciate you and are grateful for you every day and of course I hope you found this episode both inspiring and informative. Reach out to Dr Mary Sanders if you need her help or just want some guidance, or to follow her podcast, whatever you feel you need to do, and then, on our end, you know what to do. All the things like share, subscribe, comment, so we can keep sharing all this fabulous content with you. And, as I always say, in order to live the extraordinary, you must start, and every start begins with a decision. You guys, take care, be safe, be kind to one another and we will see you next time. Thank you.
