A Pathway to Insight: Release Inner Tension with Emotion Freedom Therapy

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Well, hello to everyone joining us today on our podcast. You're listening to the Living to 100 Club, and I'm your host, Joe Casciani. If you're looking for inspiration about your future and staying positive when hit with setbacks, you're in the right place. We're here to help you get the best out of all the years we are given, regardless of what obstacles come our way. From my articles and podcasts to our club membership, I want to invite you to join our community and stay uplifted about aging and keep a positive mindset in all you do. Today we're talking with Anne Hintz. Our conversation takes us into the topic of Emotion Focused Therapy, a therapeutic method she adopted under her doctor's care, and we'll discuss this therapy process today. Living longer sometimes means dealing with unpleasant memories and releasing the tension and stress connected with these memories. Today, our guest shares her own experiences of overcoming trauma from early childhood events. First, a little background. When Anne was 19, she woke one morning to find her mother dead, face down in her bathroom. 20 years later, the tears from that trauma were still just under the surface. It took one 15-minute session with a strange technique to remove the charge from that event and be able to tell the story with no emotion. That one session set her on a journey to not only release the trauma from past memories, but to get beyond that into the subconscious mind, to release tension stored deep in her body simply using the power of her awareness. Much of the time, society tells us, and therefore we tell ourselves, that we shouldn't be feeling what we're feeling. Anne has found that seeking out our truth, what we truly feel, and accepting those feelings is the key to inner peace. Once we change our inside, our outside changes. Anne, welcome to our program today.

Thank you, it's lovely to be here.

Great, glad to have you with us. I'm looking forward to this conversation. I always like to begin our program by asking our guests to tell us a little bit about the journey that brought you to where you are today.

Okay, well, you, you touched on it right there. And when I was in my late 30s, I was a stay-at-home mother with two young boys, and I went to my doctor, and for some reason, he— I guess he picked up on some stress, and he asked me what my stress level was, and he was thinking it should be pretty low because I was a stay-at-home mom with two young kids, and it was an 8 out of 10. And I knew straight off that it was from finding my mother dead 2 decades earlier, and that stress was still there. So he used this technique with me. I walked out of his office about 15 minutes later and could tell the story to myself with no emotions coming up, and it felt like magic to me because I've been searching all along and done all sorts of different things to try and get some real relief, and this for the first time felt like it was real deep relief. So I learned how to use the technique myself. It's really easy to learn. You can learn it in 5 to 10 minutes. And I started doing it on myself with every, every trauma that I could remember from my childhood. I would go through one each night, and my mind started to become quiet. It was so nice. And it wasn't until I got to the point that my mind was quieter that I could look back and see that all the The judgments that I used to have about myself and about other people, they were actually my dad's voice or my dad's words replaying in my mind. And doing this work released that from my mind so that my mind became quiet. But I didn't want to stop there. It felt really good, and releasing all this tension felt good. And I was becoming aware of the feelings, the emotions that I had that I hadn't been aware of before. When someone would ask me how I was feeling, I would say, "I'm feeling fine. How are you feeling?" I would kind of just not think about it myself because I didn't know how I felt. So this was kind of getting me in touch with how I felt. And I started to become aware of the physical sensations underneath emotions because each emotion that you feel, like anger, for example, right, there's tension. In the abdomen. Maybe there's tension in the jaw, maybe in the fists. There are physical sensations underneath every emotion, and I was becoming aware of that. And then I would focus on those feelings and allow them to express themselves because I had been suppressing them for so long. And when I did that, they would release, and that was releasing deep inner tension. And I went on from there.

Wow. So allowing those old memories, those old traumatic experiences to surface were tied with certain emotions, of course, as you got in touch with those. But you're talking about getting in touch with other emotions beyond those, those suppressed or repressed memories, even current emotions that you didn't allow yourself to experience fully. Is that what you're saying?

Well, I believe they're all connected. So the way I look at it is through the law of attraction. And a lot of us have heard about that through movies like The Secret and all sorts of things, but I think of it slightly differently. And this was a realization I had along the way, that we're actually emitting a signal every second of every day. The law of attraction is working all the time. It's not something that we try to implement. It's, it's just working. It's working all the time. So if that's true, and everything I'm getting back now is part— is because I've emitted that signal. So I think of our whole selves as being the signal that we are emitting. So it's not just our thoughts. A lot of people think of it as just our thoughts. It's not just our thoughts. It's our whole vibration that we're putting off. It's the size we are. It's the shape we are. It's what we eat. It's the stance we hold ourselves in. But the biggest part of it is that tension that's stored inside of ourselves from our childhood, where those first 7 years, everything goes straight into our subconscious mind. We often don't know how to let the feelings go. They just get stored inside of us. And so we re-experience that over and over again. We re-experience the same emotions, the same thought. The same physical sensations. We re-experience them over and over again until we become aware of what we're experiencing and feel them and let them go. And at that point, they're no longer a part of our signal, and we no longer attract them in the same way.

So the signals are being emitted as long as these tensions, these memories, these emotions are still stored. And once we acknowledge the emotions, maybe the anger or guilt or whatever is going on, once we acknowledge that and feel that, that allows the emotion to evaporate, the tension dissolves, and we're free of that. That's, that's what you're right.

Yes. Yeah. Now it's very subtle. Some people, when they hear that, they think, oh, I can express that emotion outside of myself, right? I can— it's okay to be angry with someone else. It's like, no, no, I'm not saying that. It's physical sensations and allowing them to be felt, which means putting your awareness on it. The first technique that I used that allowed me to become aware of this is called EFT. It's called Emotional Freedom Technique. It's where you tap on the ends of meridian systems. So you're tapping on 10 different places on the body as you're talking through the event that happened, or the memory, or the belief, or the feeling, whatever it is. You're tapping on these places in the body as you're talking about it, as you're bringing up the emotion. And somehow that allows the energy from the emotion to dissipate. Just allows it to let it go. So that's what we're doing. We're actually feeling the emotion, feeling the feeling, and allowing it to just be there, not suppressing it, but allowing it to be there. And when you allow it for long enough, it will dissipate and it will actually release out of the physical body.

So it's more than just verbalizing these feelings, it's also this tapping technique That helps with the awareness. It increases our sensitivity to that.

Right. The tapping technique really helped me to begin with because I said I didn't know how I felt. So I could say the words like, "My dad shouted at me," but I didn't know what the feeling, the emotion was around that. So tapping, using the words, "My dad shouted at me," it would bring it up in the body. And as I tapped, I might become aware, it's like, well, what was I feeling around my dad shouting at me, and then I might realize, oh, it was scary, right? I was scared when my dad was shouting at me. So it kind of allows that the layers of awareness to go deeper. So that's what helped me to begin with. Now I went beyond that, and some people who might have more awareness already could probably do the next step that I took, which was when I was actually aware of those physical sensations, then what I would do is I was standing at the kitchen sink is the way I started to do it. And I would just think my thoughts, and then I would catch a thought that had emotion attached to it. So maybe the emotion was fear. I lived in fear a lot. And when I noticed I was feeling fear, I would stop and actually hold on to that physical sensation. So where's the fear? It's probably sitting somewhere in my stomach. And then I would become like a statue. I'd actually hold my breath because I wanted to keep that sensation there in my stomach. And then I would kind of talk to it because I wanted to keep it there. It's like, hello, hello, fear. I can feel you sitting right there in my stomach. I'm just kind of using my words to hold that physical sensation there. And then at some point, I would feel the need to take a deep breath. And at that point, the sensation would shift. Something had let go. Then I would think the thought again and see if that fear was the same or if it had shifted. And then I would do the same thing. Okay, where is it now? Maybe it's moved. Maybe it's moved higher into my solar plexus. And then I would do the same thing. I would feel it. It's like, okay, I can feel it. There is this tension right there sitting in my solar plexus. I can feel it. Hello, tension. How are you doing? I'm just going to let you I'm going to let you exist. I'm going to let you experience that sensation. And then at some point, I would have to take a deep breath and it would shift. And I would keep doing that. I would keep thinking the same thought, bringing it back to mind. Okay, is the fear still there or has it shifted? And doing it over and over again, at some point you can think that thought and then there's no longer emotion attached to it. And at that point, you're free. Of that thought having an emotion or physical sensation in your body. And then from then on, if you think the same thoughts, you're no longer putting out that signal of fear. So then you're attracting something different back to you. And that's how life changes.

Yeah. So the emotions that are suppressed or repressed, we don't want to deal with the emotions. But what you're saying is they have a lot of control over us. They have a lot of influence over us. And you're saying we need to be aware of these emotions. We need to be aware not only how much they're limiting us or constricting us, but just the emotion itself, whatever that unpleasant sensation is or unpleasant feeling is. Why is that? Why do we have to be aware of these emotions?

Well, you don't. You only want to be aware of them if you want things to change. I really wanted things to change. And so I was listening to some of the spiritual teachers out there, and I kind of let go of my ego, which would kind of resist what they were saying. And I asked myself, okay, well, what if they're saying is right, then, and my life is not changing? So what is it I have to become aware of so that I can change what's happening in my life? So I knew they said things like, you have to— awareness, it's all about awareness, or, um, you're putting out this signal and you're getting things back. Well, the things I was getting back weren't things I wanted, so I knew I had to change my signal. So I went about finding about how to do it.

It's hard for some people to not only get in touch with their emotions but to describe them, to explain them, even to think about what that feeling is. It's hard for people to do. Any suggestion on how we can better kind of explain or describe how we're feeling?

It's hard to do because we have so much resistance. We have so— we have these traumas inside of us and we don't want to look at them, but that's the dis-ease in the body. Right. If we want to let go of dis-ease in the body, we actually need to address these things. So as I said, I had no idea how I was feeling. So that's where this technique of EFT helped me get in touch with it. And it can help anyone to do that. There are thousands and thousands of videos online, excuse me, about how to learn EFT and ways of doing it.

Sure.

Unfortunately, things have changed slightly over the, over the years it's been around. I think it's been around about 20 years or so now, or possibly more. And the power in EFT is addressing the negative. And a lot of people have used EFT these days as, as a positive thing, but it's— the positive is not stored in the body. We are by nature beautiful, perfect, positive. It's only the stuff that we store in ourselves from childhood that is the darkness, that's the negative, and that's what we want to let go of.

It kind of gets in the way of the positives.

Yes.

Can you describe that? I know on video I saw you just a minute ago doing the tapping. Can you describe for our listeners, because it's only an audio presentation, can you describe what you're doing as you're doing it?

Sure. I mean, the first thing we do is we work on what we're going to— we to find out what we're going to tap about. And if you're right in the middle of a crisis and the emotions are already there sitting in your body, all you have to do is tap on the points. You don't actually have to say anything. The words we're using are to bring the emotion back up in the body. So we start tapping on the side of our hand called the karate chop point, and we tap there as we're saying what it is we're going to work on. And there's different phrases that you can use at the beginning. I like to just accept what it is, so I would say something like, even though My dad shouted at me. That's my truth right now, and it's okay that I feel that way. And then you would repeat that 3 times. I'm not quite sure why that is necessary, but that's part of the original of EFT. And then we tap on the crown point of our heads as we just say some shortened version of what I said. So my dad shouted at me, and it's okay that I feel that way. And then we We go to the beginning of our eyebrows. My dad shouted at me. And then the bone on the edge of our eye. My dad shouted at me and it's okay, I feel this way. And then underneath the bone, underneath the eye. My dad shouted at me and it's okay that I feel this way. Then under my nose. My dad shouted at me. On the chin, the dimple between the lip and the chin. My dad shouted at me. And then the collarbone, just underneath the collarbone, kind of dimples there. My dad shouted at me. And then the last point is about 4 inches under the armpit where your bra strap goes across, if you have one. My dad shouted at me. And then you take a deep breath and let it out. And that is one round of EFT. And one of the great things about EFT is you can tell if it's working. There's several things that will happen. Perhaps you'll start crying, which is good. Perhaps you'll yawn. Some people burp. Some people sigh. You might just feel really relaxed or even really tired. And the way you're saying the words will change. So you might start out with like some anger in your voice, like, "My dad shouted at me." And by the time you're done and you've let go of the emotion, you'll just be just saying things calmly, "My dad shouted at me." Right? Then you can tell that the energy behind the phrase has disappeared.

Yes.

And then you can use that for all sorts of things. You can use it for current-day events, right? If you had a really stressful day, you can just talk it through as you're tapping and let that emotion go. But if you want to go further, then you can ask yourself, "Okay, what did that event remind me of in childhood or years ago?" Because there's probably a similar event down that neural pathway, there's probably something that's very similar that is what triggered your emotions or your reaction to this event.

Yeah, that's fascinating. Now, what makes these parts of the body so necessary? Are these meridians, uh, like energy pathways in the body?

Yes, these are the ends of specific energy meridians in the pathway. So based on Chinese medicine, What I've realized over the years is that it's working through the connective tissue of the body, which is where we hold these emotions that we have stored.

So what kind of changes have you noticed in yourself? You touched on them a few minutes ago.

Yeah, well, the biggest change was a quiet mind, which was— inner peace was my goal, because I would see other parents at school, other, other mothers especially, who looked so calm. And I so wanted to be that calm mother. So, um, a few years later, another mother came up to me and said the same thing to me, so I knew I had done— or at least I'd done part of that. But I, I just kept going. So at this point, I could put my awareness inside my body, inside my skull, and hold my awareness on the connective tissue inside there. And I can hear and feel the release of the tension deep inside, and Just a few weeks ago, I had a new X-ray of my skull taken, and I have totally changed the orientation of my skull, my jawbones, my neck, and it blew me away to actually see the physical changes.

Wow. Yeah, so in terms of these signals that we're emitting, can we change the signals that we receive as a result of this process? Can we attract other signals once we're free of these stresses and tensions?

Absolutely. Once we're emitting a different signal, and I believe that we change our signal every time we do some of this tapping with EFT, and as soon as we changed our signal, we attract something different back. I had one lady in one of my tapping groups a while back. She was a first-time in the group, and she, she came back the following week and she said, Does this change like other people? Because she had gone back that night and her husband was totally different than when she had left him before the group. So she was just— she was a different signal and she was attracting a different version of her husband.

That's great. Perfect example. Yeah. So you wrote a book, A Pathway to Insight. I'm sure that you captured a lot of these experiences in your book and What's the central message, would you say, for the reader?

My book was basically my story. I wanted to get down the steps that I had taken to get to the point I am. So the first part of the book, I talk about what I believe is the law of attraction, how our signal is made up, because there's so many aspects to it, right? We can change our signal by changing our hair, right? By changing the clothes we wear, by changing the stance we're holding. But to me, the biggest change is changing this inner tension that we hold from childhood. And then I go into the steps that I, that I went through. The, the, um, the EFT, which is the biggest step, made such a difference to me. And then the feeling the feelings, and then actually getting into putting awareness inside the body, which to me is the original meaning of the word insight.

That's a beautiful story. So once you can change the signals that you're emitting based on the results or the effects of this process, then your whole orientation shifts, and there's that calmness and quiet mind as you describe, and that allows you to receive other signals that may not be so oppressive or, or negative. It allows for a positive sensation, positive experience.

Absolutely. That is where I start— when I started to experience different thoughts, thoughts that I had never experienced before. That was really, really fun.

Yeah. So you opened up new doors.

I did. And my, my vibration changed totally. And then just fun things started happening. Just amazing. What you would call magical things, what I would call magical things, things that had just never happened before.

I know when we talked on the phone earlier, you had mentioned the whole notion of positive thinking and that we try to encourage ourselves to stay positive and, you know, forget about the past and just, just look at the positives. And you, you sharply disagree with that basic principle, don't you? Tell me about that.

I do. I spent probably a couple of years trying to do the positive thinking thing and nothing really changed. So I— and it never felt good. It never felt right. So what I've realized now that I have this deeper awareness, what I've realized is when we try and think a positive thought, it means that the thought we're thinking now, we're thinking is not good enough. We're not accepting it. We are actually suppressing it. By thinking a positive thought, we are suppressing the existing thought. And what we really need to do to have deep change is to notice the thought we're feeling that we don't like and to let that pass through our body, to let the feelings of that pass through so that it's actually gone, not suppressed, because when it's suppressed, it's still in the body. We want to change it so it's gone. So catching that thought and accepting it, maybe tapping on it, whatever allows it to be gone. And at that point, your signal has changed, and you actually might just come up with another positive thought at that point, right? Because as we said, positive, positive, we are positive underneath all this history. So I don't believe trying to think positive is beneficial.

Yeah, because it doesn't allow the reality of that sensation, that fear, or that negative feeling Especially with something—

we're often told that we shouldn't feel hate, right? As children, that's one of the things a lot of people are told. Oh, you shouldn't hate that. You shouldn't hate that person. You shouldn't hate the thing. But if you're feeling hate, then express it. Like, allow it to pass through the body and be gone so that hate is not inside of you anymore. It's much more beneficial to have it gone.

Sure. Let me ask you about, let's say, a hypothetical experience. The person has a negative thought or experience following a medical setback, maybe a fall or maybe a stroke or some, some medical event. So how do we deal with that? I mean, we can't just experience the fear because it might, might continue. It might persist, that fear of maybe not walking again. How do we deal with that? What's— you're saying accept the negative, but that allows—

to begin with, I would use this tapping technique, this EFT, if that's what you want to do. There's also the other stage, but, um, I would tap on the experience of what happens, right? I would talk through as I'm tapping through these different points, I would talk through what exactly happened. Oh, I like, I fell. I didn't see that step there and I fell and I landed on my elbow and I landed on my backside and oh my goodness, it hurt. It hurts so much, right? At that point, I've, there's some emotions there, right? It hurt. There's some feelings. It really hurts. So then I would keep tapping on How much it hurt. It really, really hurts. I would tap on that until the feelings, the emotions around the hurt has subsided somewhat. And at that point, something else might come up, right? At that point, you might realize, oh, I'm so embarrassed. I'm so embarrassed that I fell in front of these other people, right? So you kind of work yourself through the emotions as they come up because there's always layers. You can't always see below. You can't see below the layer that you're on. So you tap out what you're currently thinking or feeling about this, and then you do tap on the fear. It's like if you're afraid of something happening, "I am so afraid of what's going to happen," and then you go into it. What are you afraid that you're going to have— is going to happen, right? "I'm afraid that I'm never going to be able to walk again. I'm afraid that I'm never going to be able to walk away again, and it's okay that I feel this fear. It's okay that I feel this fear. It's living inside of me, and it's okay that I feel it. And you want to get to the point that you can just relax into it, right? Relax into the fact that you're feeling this fear. It's okay. And that's where the shift happens. When you really put your focus on it and you allow it to be, it shifts. Now you don't want to go into this, it's like, I'm doing this because I want it to shift, because that is not accepting it. You actually have to come to acceptance and then it will shift.

Okay, so the motivation isn't to get past it as quickly as possible. The motivation— I mean, the reason is to experience it.

Yes, right. You have to let it come out through the body. You have to let your body experience those those feelings, those emotions, and they will pass through. Sometimes it's scary when you start out this process and you've got some really deep, dark traumas in there. It's scary to experience it, but really the freedom is on the other side.

And you can't see what's below until you deal with the top surface. You deal with that, then you get below that, and then you get the third or fourth layer, and you have to deal with each one, and they will surface, they will bubble up.

They will. Yeah, one of my examples from my mother's death, I had to tap through all the big stuff around finding her in the bathroom, and then a little bit further down, actually quite a long way further down, my brother had been at his girlfriend's house. I had to— I didn't know who she was, I didn't know where he was, and got him home and he brought her with him, with him, and she made me a black— a cup of black tea. Coffee, and I didn't like coffee. And if I did have coffee, it needed to have milk and sugar. And I was angry with her, I was annoyed with her because it was such a stressful event and there was this disgusting drink that she was handing me. And it seems so silly now, but at the time when I was working through these emotions, it, it was, you know, it wasn't a big deal, it was a, a small deal, but I had to get through the big stuff first before that memory came back to mind.

That's the way those neural connections are set up. We can't explain it, but the synapses connect to millions and billions of other synapses, and you do have to go through— even though it may not seem like it's connected, there is something else there, right?

And that, that phrase that we hear a lot is something along the lines of, God doesn't give you the things until you're ready to deal with them, right? He doesn't give you more than you can deal with at a time. And I've noticed that as I go deeper and deeper into the body, um, that's just the case, right? You're only given the current layer to work on at any particular time. So when I started to go inside my body, I came across this huge amount of pain and tension in my left cheek that I had No idea was there before I started this work. No idea whatsoever. And it's taken— I'm still working on it. But you don't— you're not given that to work on until you're ready.

Well, I really like that explanation about how to experience these events because I'm always one to talk about, you know, be careful how we explain or label or interpret something bad that happens to us. Don't be so quick to run away from it, right? And we have to experience it, and then we can be free of it. I mean, more or less free of it, free of the, um, kind of unnecessary worry. I mean, the reality is still there, but there's a lot of unnecessary worry and obsessing about potential problems. So we experience that, and as you describe it, experience the, uh, the fears and what our imagination can lead us to, and then we can be free of that, and it's not going to tie us up so much. Is that what you're saying? Yes, yeah.

And I, I'd say that is what the— what true forgiveness is. So if you've been working on someone that has done something to you and you want to forgive them, doing this work so that then the thought of this person, when it comes into your mind, it has no emotion attached to it that is true forgiveness. Because then that, that person, that memory is not affecting your life anymore because it's not putting off a signal. So you can say the same thing about events too, right? If you let go of the emotional charge around an event, then it's not— you've forgiven it. It's, it's not affecting your signal and it's not affecting your future anymore.

So another piece of our conversation was about meditation and your thoughts about meditation. Are there any benefits? And you say that you don't meditate. Why don't you do it?

I never wanted to meditate. To me, it seems really boring. And I like to— I really wanted to continuously work on my signal. And I've known meditate— people have been meditating for 20 years and their minds are still so busy. And mind quieted within a few years. So I knew my path was better for me than meditating. Now, I do think there are benefits to meditating, because when you think of the signal, we're emitting a signal every second of every day. So if you go into meditation and you're quieting your mind, then in that moment you are putting off a quiet, peaceful signal, and then you're attracting quiet, peaceful events into your future. So in that moment, it's definitely beneficial. I wanted to go deeper than that. I wanted to change my base signal so that I would really get big changes. And so I feel this work, because it's going into the physical body, it's making a bigger difference.

Yeah, yeah. And of course, ultimately meditation can get us to that same place. But you found being more active and doing this tapping and the Emotion Freedom Technique to be really suited, suited for you, better suited for you.

I have. And I, these days where I'm going inside and feeling the tension in the connective tissue, if someone was watching me, they would probably think that I am meditating, but I am actually, I'm not in my thinking mind. I'm in my feeling mind and I'm feeling and I'm, I'm putting my awareness inside, holding it there, releasing it. So I'm actually quite busy on the inside, even though it might look like I'm meditating on the outside.

A different road to the same place.

Yes.

Yeah, good. So you think we can change the world with this work?

I do think we can change the world with this work because it's all about emotions. There are so many emotions around these days. We're so separated. And it doesn't matter what side of any issue you're on, you're feeling emotions. If you're on one side or another, you're feeling emotions, and those emotions can be felt and let go. And once we feel them and let go, then we can come together in the middle in peace. It's just a question of becoming aware, not getting so attached into the emotion that you can't stand back and see that you're feeling emotion, right? Some topics are so— people get so caught up in them that you can't pull them back. You can't pull them back to say, look at how you're feeling, right? You're feeling angry or fearful or whatever. So if you can pull yourself back to notice how you're feeling and feel those feelings and let them go, then then we can come together in the middle.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. To be free of the emotions and not be controlled by the emotions, because when they take over, you know, our logical thinking doesn't always work so well. So to be free of the emotions allows us to be at the same place the person we're talking with is at, right?

Yes, we can discuss things if we don't get too emotional about it, right? We can actually have a reasonable conversation with someone.

Yeah, I can see that. I mean, the emotions get— we have to respect the emotions, but they do get in the way eventually. At some point, we need to get beyond the emotions. I agree. So what can I and my audience do right now to change our future and the future of our planet? A light question for you.

Start becoming aware. Just become aware. Throughout the day, you know, ask yourself, how am I feeling right now? One of the key moments for me was realizing the every second, right, that we're putting off a signal every second of every day. So then I would ask myself, okay, how am I feeling right now? Right? Because this signal that I'm emitting right now, I'm going to get back to me. So do I want it? Do I want to feel this way again? And if I don't, then I need to let it go. So then I would tap, right? So if people can notice throughout the day, how are they feeling, right? Are you feeling frustrated? Are you feeling angry? Are you feeling fearful? Just notice, become aware, because you're putting off that signal and you're getting it back.

I love that. That's great. That's great, because it's not just the awareness, but it's the signals that we're emitting that influence other people. Yeah, that's great. Any, uh, one bit of advice? I mean, you did mention already to be aware, but anything else you'd like our listeners to take away from our conversation?

Well, since this podcast is about living longer, maybe I could address that. Yes, that I feel as we get older, we tend to get tighter. We tend to get stiffer. And I believe that is the tension that we're holding in our connective tissue for longer and longer periods of time. And when we start addressing it, we start to loosen up in, in multiple ways, right? If we're loosening up the connective tissue in the body, we're actually loosening up our perspective as well, because when we can move around we're actually able to see different perspectives. So I do believe that this work can actually allow you to live longer because it actually— and this is going into a little bit of the spiritual stuff, but I believe that this work is loosening up the soul inside of the body, which is held in place by the tension held in our connective tissue. And when the soul is more comfortable in the body happy to stay here for longer.

I do like that. I do like that. And this is explained in your book, uh, some of this, I'm sure. A Pathway to Insight. It's available on Amazon, I take it?

It is, yes. I've also got a YouTube channel, and there's a— in each description of the videos is a link to the book in Amazon as well.

Wow. Well, That was a great conversation, and it looks like we're out of time though. Before we wrap up, I just want to remind our listeners about a few items. I'm pleased to announce a co-sponsor for our podcast, A Mighty Good Time. Are you looking for ways to engage and stay active? Check out amightygoodtime.com. Mighty Good Time is a one-stop shop for events and activities for those 50 and over. It's free to search and it's free to post. Amightygoodtime.com. Also, be sure to visit my website and see the option to work with Dr. Joe— that's me— for one-on-one conversations about managing setbacks, overcoming a negative outlook, and getting back to feeling engaged and motivated again. Visit the Work with Dr. Joe page on the website and see the options available. You can also pick up a copy of my book on Amazon, Living Longer Is the New Normal. I think that whatever age you're at, inspiration and a positive mindset can be put to good use. That's my message in the book. And be sure to sign up for our email list for announcements and newsletters with reliable information and resources about moving forward. And while you're there, download a free copy of my 9 Tips For Living Longer. It's loaded with practical and useful strategies for successful aging and staying positive. livingto100.club. So, Ann, thanks again for being a part of our program. For those who might want to contact you, how can they do that?

They can contact me through my webpage, which is annhintz.com, or you can write a comment on one of my YouTube videos.

Perfect, that's great. And hints.com. Thanks so much again for being a guest on our program today, and thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. I hope to see you next time.

It's time to rethink, renew, and reimagine retirement. Hey everybody, Jared Sylvester here, host of Retire Repurposed. Now this podcast is about the non-financial parts of retirement, which many times can be even more challenging than the financial. We believe retirement is not the end, rather the beginning of what could be the most impactful, purposeful, and fulfilling season of a person's life. So don't Retire. Become repurposed. To listen now, search Retire Repurposed on your favorite podcast platform, Senior Resource, or Life Audio.