a little about me
Welcome, I'm Suzy
This was the hardest bio I have ever written because it is so deeply personal. My stress, anxieties, traumas, and depression have always been my secret shames that I worked very hard to hide from others and ignore inside.
Honestly I thought there was
something wrong with me and
I didn't want anyone to know.
Sound familiar?
and this is
My Story
So you don't have to
When I finally did seek professional help for nervous system disregulation, it didn't solve my suffering. There were medications with side effects, therapists that kept me stuck.
I had to figure out how to heal myself.
When ignoring my anxiey, panic and depression didn't work, I tried to outrun, numb and medicate it all away.
I walked through the fire
I remember often feeling guarded and nervous. Most people probably couldn’t tell as I was a high achiever, a happy and polite little girl with a loving family, good friends and a good life.
What could I possibly have to worry about? The nervousness, worry and anxiety were often accompanied by shame.
It all started...
My first puppy
Snowy
In my childhood
Friday night. TGI Fridays in Huntington, Long Island. It was the summer between third and fourth grade and I was changing schools the next fall. (anxiety!) But that one night that my parents took my brother and I out to eat, I was told something that terrified me right before we left:
First panic attack
Off we went to TGI Fridays which had just opened in our town. It was loud, crowded and FULL OF CHAOTIC ENERGY. Waiters wore red and white striped polos with suspenders and whacky buttons. The walls were covered with old neon beer lights and funny, vintage posters. The table mats were made for kids, with games and puzzles and crayons at every table. The food was fun! The energy was fun! So why was I not having FUN? It was this juxtaposition of internal terror at the thought that my parents would split in this crazy busy place that sent me spinning.
Summer '85
My parents might get divorced. Notice I say might (because they never did).
Out of nowhere, I felt panicky and nauseous.
“Oh God”, I thought. “I’m going to throw up in the middle of a crowded restaurant. I’ll be mortified. I need to get out of here.”
Yup, my fight or flight response was activated and I was a runner. My parents didn't know what was wrong but they let me lay down in the car. Even though I was starving, my sympathetic nervous system was activated and it was not a time to eat. My body was acting like my life was in danger. That was in May. I barely ate that entire summer.
My brother's birthday was at the end of August. I remember putting on my dress for his party and when I pulled my belt to where I normally wore it, it just kept going and going. I looked down. I had lost A LOT of weight.
Later that day, something magical happened, which I only understand now. That afternoon, when all the kids at the party started playing soccer in our backyard and I joined in (cause I loved playing soccer), my body and mind forgot the worry, forgot the nausea. I played and moved my body while having fun which reset my disregulated nervous system from fight or flight to rest and digest. I got hungry and I felt normal again. I felt safe. Through play, exercise and social connection, my body rebounded. The following week, I got through my first day at my new school and all was right in my world… for the time being.
Saved by play
It affected my confidence, my work, my dating life. It touched every part of my life. and it wasn't until my senior year of college, after a particular trauma that triggerd more panic attacks and hypervigilance that I started psycho therapy. And it helped.
Sometimes my nervous system disregulation stopped me in my tracks and sometimes I was able to trudge through it but it always lurked, making it impossible to enjoy my life.
That was the first time I remember my life being severely interrupted by my disregulated nervous system It was certainly not the last.
You name it, I've experienced it:
anxiety, depression, PTSD, panic attacks and burnout.
The First
But not the last
Therapy is like looking under the hood of your car to make sure the system is working well. It is so you can understand yourself better and clean up the cobwebs of the past.
I had to learn how to heal myself. It took many years of therapy, a bachelors in Psychology from UC Berkeley, hundreds of self help books, psychotropics, introspection, journaling, meditation, nutrition, body work and an undeterred desire to feel better.
Doctors and therapists didn’t help. Their solution? Drugs with horrible side effects that didn’t work, on top of being horribly addictive. Nor did they explain what was really going on with my nervous system.
But for anxiety?
It didn't help
(truth be told, I don't think at the time they knew
and we know A LOT more now).
There are ways to get back to balance and feel happy and calm, despite the cyclone of chaos that may be whirling around you. So I decided to teach what I know and became a stress and anxiety coach. Because not only did I get an early and intense education into the land of a disregulated nervous system, I also happen to have had unique experiences along the way that unknowingly at the time, made me uniquely qualified to do this work.
I had always thought my sensitive reactions to the world was a curse. I certainly felt cursed in the past. But really it has been one of my gifts. I am not alone in being an anxious stressball or a sad princess, which is what my grandmother called me. Life in this day and age is more intense and stressful than ever before and there are reasons that our bodies are responding this way. It is not just our genes, as modern medicine would have us think, easily swept under the rug by a pill.
I have a bachelors degree in Psychology from UC Berkeley. After graduation, I pursued my passion of performing as a professional actress and voice over artist.
An actor’s body is their instrument and I had years of practice of both relaxing and connecting with my body with various techniques: dance, breath work, Fitzmaurice Voicework, Alexander Technique, yoga and vocal training. Relaxation is a must for an actor.
Always the entrepreneur, while pursuing acting professionally, I became a licensed massage therapist and energy healer. When in school, I received hundreds of hours of bodywork. We were told that because of all the bodywork we would be receiving, some of us may have emotional releases aka some of us may bawl our eyes out. I was the first to win that race and it became plainly obvious to me that there is no separation between the body and the mind.
I started my own private massage practice and worked with hundreds of clients over 12 years.
During that time I also had a blast co-hosting the Food Heals Podcast:
In addition to supportive nutrition, I have earned tools, techniques, and even some technology that calmed my body mind, stopped my negative and fearful thinking and gave me resiliency in order to live the life a happy life.
Sounds pretty great, right?
What worked for me was a mind, body and spirit approach.
And now I teach this approach to others so they too can live their best lives.
I look forward to helping you on your zen journey!
I married another entrepreneur, my husband Michael. Together, we started a hemp CBD brand, CBD Fountain, which I started to help heal my friends, family and pets. You can find it on our marketplace for wellness products, www.Feeliyo.com. Our focus was to create organic, vegan hemp CBD products to help people’s bodies heal naturally.
Everything I created was to help either myself, friends, family or pets relieve anxiety, pain and inflammation.
Now, I'm putting it all together
we talked about natural health and wellness, mind body connection and entrepreneurism.
I currently live in Los Angeles with my gorgeous husband Mike and two snuggly sheepadoodles:
Ernie and Rosie.
XOXO
Suzy
My Mission
To teach people how to naturally regulate their nervous system disregulation with the same tools, techniques and tech I used myself to do the same so that NO ONE suffers needlessly with anxiety, panic attacks and burnout.
I had such shame at the THOUGHT of throwing up in public that I had to get out of there. My sympathetic nervous system (the Fight or Flight, Feign or Freeze mechnaism to protect you from harm) had been activated and I needed to get out of there!
My parents didn’t know what to do but let me go to the car to lay down while they finished eating. I was starving but my body had taken over and I just felt PANIC. And I couldn't eat. Over what, at the time I had no idea. This was supposed to be a fun night out with my family. My brother was fine, I had left him at the table happily coloring. So what was wrong with me?
I just knew I couldn’t eat as the thought of food made me want to throw up. That lasted the ENTIRE SUMMER, where everytime I thought about food, I felt nauseous and just couldn’t eat. I was a nervous mess.
It has been my personal life’s work to wrestle with my body and mind and find ways to tame the anxiety, uplift the depression, change my mindset and not react to the stressors that happen to come with everyone’s life. And you know what?
