My Story
Welcome to Soul Integration!
When my life came to a significant spiritual shift, I experienced an internal pain and tension that I never knew existed. The deep exploration of healing my core issues brought me toward new tools to transform my dysautonomia, undermethylation, anemia, POTS, chemical & food sensitivities, digestive issues, brain fog, tinnitus, viral overload, metal toxicity, insomnia, circulation issues, joint pain - tendon tears - subluxations and dislocation with extreme fascial pain, postural issues with complex hypermobility leading to April 2022 diagnosis of HSD - Hypermobile Spectrum Disorder. Today, almost two years later, I have been pain-free for quite some time, I have regained my strength, healed many aspects of my HSD, and look forward to sharing how I transformed many of these complex conditions.
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I worked for 20 years developing my spiritual tools studying the deeper causes and conditions of many types of health conditions: stress, exhaustion, pain & injuries, sleep disorders, diabetes, arthritis, anger-anxiety-fear-worry-grief-loneliness-depression, ADD-ADHD-OCD, panic attacks, trauma, health crisis, and spiritual crisis. Specializing in helping families with pregnancy, birth, postpartum, preparation and the years after raising their families. Helping with the death process, transitions and healing families who have lost loved ones. Speaking to those who have crossed over and helping them come to peace. Offering psychic readings to those who had spiritual questions about their life overall.
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Imagine my growing frustration when I could not figure out what was causing my growing internal tension, pain, exhaustion. The invisible world was my domain, however, as many good healers will tell you, sometimes healing yourself isn't as easy. Many factors come into play: illusions, glamours, mayas, karmic / past conditions, (many refer to as healing the shadow side), the dark night of the Soul, and the natural process of being a human on this earth healing the past (including past lives), present, and future. My life experiences have always shown me the path toward health and wellness, and I am grateful to my Divine Mentors, Guides, and the Source of Life for showing me the way to my Truth.
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I created this website to help all those struggling with pain, injuries and many types of health crisis. There is a special section for those with hypermobility, HSD, hEDS as we are the ones carrying an invisible condition that often goes undiagnosed, untreated, spending thousands upon thousands of dollars trying to get out of pain, put joints back in place or doing fascial work to unglue the stuck adhesions & restrictions - only to be left feeling like a wet piece of spaghetti! It is so complex! There is a known connection to dysautonomia, food sensitivities, digestive issues, prolapses, neurodivergent connections and more. I struggled for most of my life unknowingly, no one seemed to understand me, no one saw my invisible pain and the root cause of it.
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I am sharing my wisdom of my years of healing clients, studying deeper invisible causes and conditions applying it toward hypermobility, HSD, hEDS and the complex comorbidities. I do not have all the answers! I have focused on this condition for the past two years by attending workshops, reading as many books as I can afford, speaking to those who also have HSD, hEDS, becoming certified with IMM - Integral Movement Method created by Jeannie DiBon. I have been asking my guides and looking at the invisible of the invisible condition and how to heal. I believe we can combine: breathwork, meditation, specialized energy healing for HSD/hEDS, postural-chakral analysis (as we are all unique), physical movement therapy with a modified Pilates combined with Block Therapy - fascial decompression or bodywork - together with a team of practitioners and doctors that are educated in HSD/hEDS.
Simplicity in healing - the key in my work and what I strive for. The complexity of life and health issues can be overwhelming. For all the complexity of my symptoms speaking with a variety of osteopaths, chiropractors, naturopaths, manual therapist, no one understood my pain. No one explained to me in simple terms what was happening.
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Deanna Hansen, Founder of Block Therapy, explained what was happening to my body, as well as most people: The collapse of the core!
Due to unconscious posture, working long hours on a laptop, cell phones, injuries, traumas, many of us begin to collapse forward. Some, like me, have been told we have "forward head" in part due to the collapse. At 50 years of age, my body was feeling the impact of 15 years of working as a healer 24/7 and sitting in long still meditations for 2-5 hours at a time, car accidents, physical exercise & injuries, and most of all my undiagnosed Hypermobile Spectrum Disorder. I was walking around in this body all wrong throughout my life and now... it was time to heal! I wasn't diagnosed until the age of 52! Being hypermobile, if I had strengthened my body properly, I may have been able to avoid the level of internal pain & tension I was experiencing.
Finding the simple methods to heal have always been the best path once you figure out the root causes. For those who struggle with the combination of laxity/weakness/tears/ in the connective tissues combined with tight short, overworked muscles, fascial adhesions, restrictions and negative fascial seals, Block Therapy & Soul Integration Healing Method bodywork may be a great place for you to start. Here we dive into learning about YOUR body, your fascia & connective tissues, ligaments, muscular-skeletal system all through feeling where the pain is coming from. When you dive into this unique form of bodywork, you will be able to discover how to unravel what's happening.
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Here's my example of what was happening in my body:
I had a broken sacrum, tailbone, dislocated hip, two foot surgeries, two serious car accidents all before the age of 22. While raising my babies, I experienced extreme fatigue. I wondered why other moms seemed to have much more energy than myself. My back was often going "out", network chiropractic seemed to help for short term. I experience pelvic weakness but had no idea why. Due to the car accidents, I had chronic back and neck pain that would come and go.
I had spent 20 years using advanced breathing methods, meditation, martial arts-yoga and energy healing not realizing how much internal tension I was holding - just to stand upright! I was "willing" my body to perform, to stand, sit, move with an internal force and pattern. Standing like a gymnast with locked hyperextended knees, anterior pelvis, hyperextended "braced" ribcage, bracing stiff shoulders and neck.
When I say "braced", this means holding my body still, strong, tight, in order to find stability.
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Deanna Hansen, Found of Block Therapy, gave the simplest explanation to my symptoms with a method to free myself of this internal pain. She demonstrated what happens to most of us living on earth, over time we slowly develop unconscious posture and a collapse of the core. We fall forward at the diaphragm, our shoulders start to roll inward, we can develop "forward head" due to the collapse. This was me! My hypermobility was the underlying cause of the collapse. Due to overall laxity in the connective tissues/fascia, I was collapsing forward while using all my will power to hold myself together, created an internal intense pain.
I was aware of the degree of my hypermobility and the underlying dynamics. It wasn't until I started my Pilates teacher training that I began to see why I had low back pain, how to strengthen the smaller muscles for stability rather than using the bigger muscles. I loved learning the anatomy of movement and studying body types, postural conditions and how to unwind the fascia with MET - Muscle-Energy Technique, Kinesiology and Movement Therapy. Looking energetically, you can see the energetic causes and conditions impacting the chakral system as well.
As I learned about my body, how to create stability, I was very frustrated that my body seemed to be stuck in this hypermobile pattern. Finding neutral pelvis, my thoracic spine was braced, hyperextended - and it seemed stuck that way! I asked my teacher if she could just put me in panini press! While working to find stability, I was able to heal my pelvic instability and gain strength. All the manual therapy seemed to have healed my pelvis and low back, yet my thoracic bracing caused increased internal pain to my upper body - neck and head. What I didn't know: I needed to slow down, unwind the nervous system, heal the collapse of the core: the internal pain and tension was from negative fascial seals. These negative fascial seals can hold you out of alignment with a force of 2,000 pounds per square inch! This is why as I tried to find stability and strength, my pain increased. I was strengthening the negative alignment creating more and more tension and pain.
I needed to melt the negative fascial seal, the source of the fascial restrictions, create more space - my fascia was incredibly tight and restricting flow. How can you pull straps on a reformer if your fascia is like tight taffy and your shoulders are hypermobile? Your body will compensate, or you will just have pain! I was the later. I have read that many of us hypermobile people have hypermobility as well as hypomobility thus the complexity. We can have hypermobile shoulder joints with hypomobility around the shoulder dynamic. We can have laxity in the tissue with tears and fascial damage along with stuck, tight, adhesions and restrictions causing limitations and pain.
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In order to practice any type of physical therapy or movement method, I first needed to release my tight, adhered fascia! Then I could rebuild with strength in greater alignment.
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This is part of the underlying pain in my body. The other part is the complexity of HSD.
A note about HSD / hEDS: This rare connective tissue condition often goes undiagnosed and misdiagnosed.
They say, "if you cannot find the issues, look to the connective tissues." I have been hypermobile my whole life. At a young age I could easily wrap my legs around my neck and swing from my hands. I practiced dance, gymnastics, cheerleading, ice skating and later on martial arts-yoga. Throughout the years, I knew I had instability in my pelvis yet didn't know how to prevent injuries or use my body correctly. The combination of life's events all came to a breaking point where I would need to stop and figure out what the root cause was for me.
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When you are hypermobile, your able to move joints beyond typical ranges of motion. This can result in pain, injury, joint instability: subluxations & dislocations, muscle strain, postural compensation leading to increased fatigue/tension/pain, and other musculoskeletal complications. Knowing this information did not explain to anyone trying to help me, why my pain was increasing. My Pilates teacher was unable to understand why I could not use my arms in straps, or why my shoulders and neck were getting worse.
Fascia is the key for me! Once I learned through practicing block therapy, where my body was stuck, glued, thick with toxins and released them, I began to understand the source of my pain. My shoulders were not just extremely hypermobile with abnormally small labrums as shown in an MRI, one was subluxed and glued that way! I couldn't use my left arm. Without joint stability and strength of the shoulder joint, I was using my arm subluxed, in a forward/anterior rotation while performing every day tasks. Writing, washing dishes, carrying babies, puppies, food preparation, energy healing sessions (using repetitive shoulder rotations) - for years - all outside of the joint. This resulted in extremely tight pec/upper trap/levator scapulae muscles & tendons. My shoulder was stuck with fascial adhesions pulling the joint outside the socket! No manual therapist, osteopath, chiropractor noticed this! I saw 7 manual therapist, 4 osteopaths, 2 chiropractors yet no one explained this to me. In 2017, I searched for answers when I was struggling with intense pain in my neck going into my head seemingly stemming from my left arm weakness. By the fall of 2020, I had such incredible internal pain going into my head that I had to stop and find someone who could help. In December of 2020 I reached out to a friend and functional doctor who said to me "Stop doing Pilates"! Your fascia is extremely tight! She recommended Block Therapy and I will forever be grateful!
When I would use my arm subluxed in an anterior rotation, the upper traps and neck muscles were working overtime causing pain in my neck and head. Adding to the complication, I fell hiking and tore my right shoulder labrum. The PT rotator cuff therapy, laser therapy, manual therapy and energy healing all helped avoid a complex surgery that was an overshadowing fear if I did not strengthen my shoulder. During this time, undiagnosed, I worried about the compensations and increased tension and pain elsewhere.
No amount of energy healing, IMT myofascial work was going to correct this condition, at least within my lifetime. I did three manual therapy sessions a week for a month, down to weekly, then monthly from 2017 to 2020. I spent thousands of dollars trying to get to the source of my left arm issue, shoulder, neck, low back and overall inner pain and tension. The process of IMT was very beneficial for many areas of my condition, however, manual therapy does not melt down thick glued fascia.
Block therapy's bamboo block, has the same density as bone, it will slowly melt down and through those adhesions and create space. Once I began Block Therapy my tension and pain was rapidly melting for the first time in years! I signed up to become a certified instructor after one month of bodwork practice. Deanna's wisdom was enlightening, I was empowered by working on my own, in my home, searching and discovering for myself what the cause sites were for my overall body tension and pain.
My shoulder finally went back into place. I still have work do to, I spent a lifetime not knowing I had HSD and how to use my body correctly, thus, I have more adhesions to work through.
Slowly, I incorporated all my energy healing techniques into my Block Therapy practice and saw a powerful transformation beginning!
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Life can be painfully enlightening when you are on the spiritual path.
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This is how I have grown. I am fearless. I will search deeply for solutions to what ails me. I am strongly determined, dedicated, Soulfully willful, consistent in my efforts to heal myself, my family, my clients.
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In Block Therapy Deanna wisely teaches to "search for the pain". In all my work as a Healer, this is how we look for hidden causes and conditions energetically that impact our current state of health. We "search for the pain" because it is there knowingly or unknowingly. Visable or Invisible. Either screaming at us to give some love and attention to our bodies and find some kind of solution or lingering ready and waiting for a crisis to alert us to change. It can show up as a nagging pain, little hints that something is starting to be "off". The more we ignore it, push through it, it can persist until we stop and take action. Or for those who were born with great pain and difficulty, my heart goes out to you. I hope that there is something here for you to lower your pain and impact of HSD/hEDS. Explore the meditation and energy healing as a way to heal on the level available to you - without Block Therapy or Movement Therapy is this is not an option for you.
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A note about HSD/hEDS fears of Block Therapy bodywork:
We are all unique.
This may or may not be the best therapy for your body.
My concerns of connective tissue laxity and melting down the fascia disappeared as I saw the strength return in my hypermobile shoulders.
I have thought through how to offer guidance for those with HSD/hEDS and spoke to as many professionals I could to see how to safely offer Block Therapy.
I am offering free consultations to anyone with HSD/hEDS who is concerned yet interested in trying Block Therapy. The best advice is to begin slowly with a soft rolled towel and see how your body responds. For me, Block Therapy has been a powerful tool to release the source of my inner pain, allowing me to begin to find stability and strenght with proper alignment.
I have videos showing you how to begin:
1) Diaphragmatic Breathing / Meditation / Energy Healing
2) Start with a rolled towel or other soft prop
3) Where to begin working on your fascia safely
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My path to healing the complex structural issues, hypermobility, HSD was very very very difficult. I did not know how to overcome and like those who have these complexities know, it is a full time job!
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Over the course of a year, I had been using Block Therapy every day, sometimes for 2-4 hours! I was addicted to the release that built up over a lifetime. It felt so good to let go of all the built up tension and pain. I was feeling where I was holding all those restrictions. I was amazing! My head pain was finally gone!
I had released quite a bit of fascial tension and negative fascial seals holding me out of alignment. The difficulty in a hypermobile body, the more you release, the more you realize the dysfunction that remains. Once you get past the surface levels you get to deeper layers of fascial restrictions - the core of the negative fascial seal. As I went deeper the "laxity" began to grow.
As with most hypermobile people, I needed to learn how to pace. I prefer to go fast with my healing process and have had to work diligently to pace myself. The underlying HSD was growing, and I now was buying as many braces as I could for my whole body. I purchased the Body Braid, braces: wrist, shoulder, neck, lumbar, knee, ankle, arch! Now I was experiencing a very different type of collapse - in the whole body. This was a temporary condition that needed proper alignment, movement therapy and strengthening. Yet, I did not know that!
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I could no longer sit up for long periods of time due to spinal laxity, my head pain was gone but cervical instability grew, I couldn't walk long due to the fallen arch and foot numbness, my nerve damage numbness was stronger, hypermobile SIJ, hip, knee pain was bringing up old injuries. I was a mess! I had brought everything-all-at-once to the surface!
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After one year of Block Therapy, I gained the wisdom of my fascia, the complexity of hypermobility, and my HSD diagnoses finally came in April of 2022 in hopes to get better help with osteopaths, manual therapist and OT/PT if needed and insurance reimbursement. Even though I my tension and pain was now minimal, I had no idea how to strengthen. My Pilates exercises were too strong for where I needed to begin. Basic physical therapy exercises were not working, my body was still overcompensating and needed to retrain.
I knew I needed daily support to strengthen my hypermobility from an expert in the field. Through researching on the Ehlers Danlos Society website, I found Jeannie DiBon's online program TheZebra.Club. At $17 a month, I joined her online program that offers tremendous support through speaking with fellow hypermobility/HSD/hEDS people all around the world, Doctors, PT/OT who specialize in HSD/hEDS offer lectures as well as Jeannie's Integral Movement Method program and classes that are a form of modified Pilates customized for those of us with these complexities - including POTS.
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I spent the next year studying deeper the complexity HSD with combining two key modalities: Block Therapy and IMM - Integral Movement Method along with my own energetic healing strategies. By the summer of 2023, I became certified in both Block Therapy and IMM.
Throughout 2023 my strength and stability has grown leaps and bounds. I am working hard daily to continue the process and learn all that I can. I am now combining my own Soul Integration Healing Method, Block Therapy, IMM, and Movement Therapy into a powerful integrated program customized for hypermobility complexities.
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My main focus is developing a program to repeat the process for all others with hypermobility, HSD, hEDS in a safe supportive program together with your team of practitioners: OT/PT, Manual Therapist, Chiropractor, Osteopath, Functional, Naturopathic or traditional MD.
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As my way of giving back, I am offering the foundational Block Therapy courses combined with Soul Integration Healing Method tailored to Hypermobility/HSD/hEDS in 30-minute sessions complimentary. My hope is that this will give those of you who are able to practice on your own, a path forward toward your next level of healing. For anyone who has questions or concerns about this modality, I am happy to speak with you privately for a free consultation.
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Block Therapy begins with three key classes: Core & Ribcage, Pelvis & Legs, Head, Neck & Arms
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We always start with the Core class and Diaphragmatic Breathing to make sure you are heating up your whole body efficiently. All the details will be included in each class to set you on your way to "searching for the pain" and releasing the pain that you are already experiencing.
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The Goal: Become your own Healer, Fascia Master, learning the invisible patterns, negative fascial seals holding you in unconscious posture and pain.
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Beginning January 2024 - Soul Integration "Inner Core Light Activation" Foundation courses will introduce you to a new method of Energy Healing. From beginner to advanced methods will be introduced to:
help you to learn how to breathe diaphragmatically while releasing your stress & tension - the sources of restriction in your breath. From here we will move into combining breathwork, meditation, visualizations, movement, energy healing, bodywork to heal on whatever levels we can.
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Reach out for any questions, concerns, free consults or private sessions.
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I thank you for reading this long story of my path toward wellness and I wish all of you success on your journey! Once again, Welcome to Soul Integration!
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Mel
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Contact
Mel Gurry, Healer, Block Therapy Instructor, Movement Therapist & Hypermobility Specialist, Nutritional Herbalist
860-205-8780