When it comes to our mental well-being and our physical health it can be so easy to look outspide ourselves for answers. Ellen Friedman takes a different approach; she guides her clients inward to connect with the innate wisdom and wellness that is already there.

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Ellen Friedman guides people home to the sacred space within, where they shift their relationship with themselves, their health, and others. She partners with people who are curious to explore a simple path to wholeness through the inside out nature of life.

In addition to having a Master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology with an emphasis in Consciousness Health and Healing, Ellen has a Certificate in Soul-Centered Professional Coaching, and she shares the Three Principles understanding. Her journey has been blessed coaching nearly 1000 divine beings using a human experience to remember who they truly are.

You can find Ellen Friedman at HealingHouseCalls.com.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.

Show Notes

• Seeing the whole person when it comes to healing





• Noticing how health improves when our nervous system is downregulated





• Ellen’s personal discoveries experiencing chronic fatigue





• How mental busyness affects our physical health





• How fatigue can be a signal that there is pressure on our mental system





• Are you the source of your energy?





• How our feelings are a barometer for what’s going on within us

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• Mavis Karn’s book It’s That Simple





• Mavis Karn’s Unbroken podcast episode





• Azul Leguizamon’s Unbroken podcast episode

Transcript of Interview with Ellen Friedman

Alexandra: Ellen Friedman, welcome to Unbroken.

Ellen: I’m so happy to be here with you, Alexandra.

Alexandra: I’m so happy to have you here. 

Tell our audience a little bit about yourself and your background and how you got interested in the three principles.

Ellen: I’m always amused where that story begins every time. I was happily minding my own business, enjoying my career as a physical therapist, when the knock on the door to coach came in 2011. And I was like but I love what I do. I thought you had to be miserable to do something else. 

Then I started feeling miserable by not following that. I got in my car one day after seeing a patient and I was like, almost without logic, and I said, Okay, I heard you, I’m coming back. So I began coaching in 2011. 

Then, in 2013, in a coach training program, one of the instructors introduced a video on the inside out understanding of stress. At that time, it was a really old video. And I remember the feeling inside me, I can like, remember the chair I was sitting in. I remember the feeling. And then I also remember my personal mind going, Oh, but we’ve got techniques and tools and things to do with people.

Alexandra: Moving forward from there was it difficult to get your head around the idea of no tools and techniques?

Ellen: I’m not sure because what was more difficult was trying to intellectually figure out what this understanding was. I spent a long time reasoning with what I was learning, comparing it to what I had already known. Seeing where it fit in, seeing where things didn’t fit in. And at that time, at that time, there were so many free opportunities to learn. I mean, there are today, but there were so many opportunities, and you and I could participate in almost all of them. And, there were also many wonderful paid opportunities and workshops and trainings. And, and you didn’t have to choose because there weren’t the abundance that there is today.

Alexandra: So this was around 2011 or 2012?

Ellen: 2013 was when I first heard that, and then it stayed on the back burner until 2016. But Alexandra, I am so clear that it doesn’t matter how many years you’ve been looking in this direction or exploring the principles because we we all see what we see when we see it. And don’t you love it with when clients just see something that you don’t see? I mean, it’s so fun.

Alexandra: Absolutely. Insight doesn’t really have a timeline, does it? I mean, it can happen anytime. 

You mentioned being a physiotherapist. 

You had an interest in healing, and helping people. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And where that began to if you know.

Ellen: Where was the interest in physical therapy health?

Alexandra: Well, yeah, healing and those kinds of things.

Ellen: I didn’t have any exposure to physical therapy, personally or for family members. So I don’t remember exactly how I landed on it other than healthcare seemed kind of interesting. But nursing didn’t and going to medical school I had no drawn to.

The allied health professions sounded fun and interesting and had a couple of opportunities to work as an aide and, and I was like, Okay, I’m going to do this. And so I went to physical therapy school. And different circumstances in school led me down the path of wanting to work with people who had chronic neurologic or new neurologic conditions. So that was a specialty for me right out right out the gates. 

What I really loved about that is, you kind of had to look at the whole person; when someone has an injured back or an injured wrist or an injured knee or have had surgery, it can be very easy to be focused on the body part or the joint. But looking back, I was interested in the whole person. And I remember right out of physical therapy school, I had two patients, both of them had very similar strokes, their MRIs looked similar. And they had completely different outcomes. And I was so fascinated by that.

Alexandra: Oh, that is really interesting. Wow, that is so cool. So transitioning then, I noticed on your blog, you have a post about rest and its importance. I think our culture is so not wired that way. Rest is almost a four letter word. 

Can you talk about rest and its importance, and why you recommend it to your clients.

Ellen: I recommend it because it works. Well, there’s so many different things that come to come to mind now. I literally was witnessing miracles or what looked like miracles in the people that I was working with, who had multiple sclerosis, ALS, stroke, brain injury, I worked with a lot of people who survived traumatic brain injury. 

When their nervous system was downregulated, they did better, they had less pain, they had less more mobility. And so it just began to make sense to explore that with people and let them figure out what works for them. I worked with a lot of people with MS because I actually trained in a hospital where every patient in the hospital had multiple sclerosis; it was wild that that even existed. 

This was before there were any medications to help people with their symptoms. I would notice that almost every one of my patients would be busy doing everything they could before they hit the wall of fatigue, and then they say things like, that’s all I can do for the day or, or I’m okay till noon around them okay till two o’clock. 

I won’t get into the details of story, but I’m happy to share it with anyone who who inquires, a patient suddenly went from requiring rest at four hours after she woke up to eight hours. Increasing endurance from four to eight hours seemed impossible. People were taking medications to try and do that. And that wasn’t happening to them while helping. 

I noticed that she and what a big part of her treatment program was, was relaxation exercises, and what I call down regulating the nervous system. Rest is the simplest form. Well, maybe not this one of the simple forms of of down regulating the nervous system. I think taking a long, deep exhale is also a very simple way and learning to rest before full exhaustion is so important for all of us neurologic condition or not.

Alexandra: Do you meet resistance when you suggest this now to clients?

Ellen: Well, I’m just going to explore your question a little bit more because I don’t really think that I suggest it to people. I explore with them what happens when they do. What happens when they don’t? I share stories and then they kind of come up with Well, maybe I could try that. 

Now, as a physical therapist, I did recall having resistance. No, I can’t, I have to get everything done before noon, because I’m not good after that. And this other clients, she was like, Oh, I’m good to one now. Oh, I’m good till a couple of weeks later, oh, I’m good till two o’clock, oh, I’m good till three o’clock. 

She goes, oh, I never have energy after four. And I said, Really, even after what’s happened? O