a little about me
Welcome, I'm Suzy
I have written many bios about myself. This was the hardest one to write because it is so deeply personal. It may even shock people who have known me for years because my stress, anxieties, traumas, burnout and depression have always been my secret shames that I worked tirelessly to hide and ignore.
I thought there was something wrong with me and didn't want anyone to know.
Sound familiar?
and this is
My Story
When I finally did seek help for my own nervous system disregulation, it didn't help, not really. So I had to figure out how to heal it on my own and I share my own story so others don't have to suffer (needlessly) like I did.
So I tried to ignore my anxiety and pacnic. When that didn't work, I tied to outrun, numb and medicate my "secret shames" throughout my life and yet here I am, putting it all out there for the world to know.
in my childhood. I had been anxious and nervous since I was a little kid. My mom has said I came out of the womb intense. I now know that means I was wired for stress. 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? How could I possibly be so sad or nervous when the world was my oyster? My nervous system felt otherwise.
It all started...
My first puppy
Snowy
**Third grade
first panic attack going out to dinner
TGI Fridays Huntington, NY
In a TGI Fridays. On a Friday. It was the summer between third and fourth grade and I was changing schools the following fall. TGI Fridays had just opened in our town and was THE new cool place to go to, in my thrid grade mind.
It was loud, crowded and FULL OF ENERGY. Waiters wore suspenders with whacky buttons. The walls were covered with old beer neon lights and funny, vintage posters. The table mats were made for kids, with games and puzzles and stuff to color with the crayons sitting at every table. The food was different than other restaurants and was meant to be FUN!
First panic attack...
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.
Out of nowhere, I felt nervous and panicky. My stomach seized like was going to throw up.
“Oh God”, I thought. “I’m going to throw up in the middle of a crowded restaurant. I can’t do that, I’ll be mortified. I need to get out of here.”
At the end of August, I remember putting on my dress for my brother’s birthday 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. But then something happened, which I only understand now. That afternoon, when all the kids at the party started playing soccer and I joined in (cause I loved me some soccer), my body and mind forgot the worry, forgot the nausea. I played which reset my disregulated nervous system and I got hungry enough to eat. Through play, exercise and social connection, my body rebounded. I got through my first day at my new school and I was back to being normal… sort of.
And then relief
So at the end of college, after a particular trauma, I started therapy.
And it was useful. I don't care who you are, we all have some deep issues that we need to work through in life and I was no different. 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. But for anxiety? Depression? Panic Attacks?
For that, doctors and therapists didn’t help nor did they explain what was going on (truth be told, I don't think at the time they knew). Their solution? Drugs with horrible side effects that didn’t work, on top of being horribly addictive.
I Did It!
So I had to learn how to heal myself. I had to figure out why my nervous system was out of whack and how to grapple with my head. It took many years of therapy, a bachelors in Psychology from UC Berkeley, hundreds of self help books, introspection, journaling, meditation, body work and an undeterred desire to feel better.
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?
Sometimes they stopped me in my tracks and sometimes I was able to trudge through them but they all made it impossible to enjoy my life.
That was the first time I remember my life being severely interrupted by panic but not the last. I’ve had various bouts with depression, anxiety and panic attacks. And they all interrupted my life.
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 was pursued my passion of performing as a professional actress and voice over artist. An actor’s instrument is their body and I had years of practice of both relaxing and connecting with my body with various techniques, such as breath work, 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 stared You can find it on our marketplace for wellness products, www.Feeliyo.com. and 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.
