FLIHH to New Heights with Sherri Damon

Ever wondered how therapy could impact your day-to-day life, not just during the session, but long after? Our special guest, Sherri Damon, founder of Fly and a renowned psychotherapist, joins us to shed light on this critical aspect of therapeutic healing. We delve into her innovative Coper model, designed specifically to assist those combating eating disorders, and the transformative role of her wellness retreats in this journey of recovery.

In this episode, we take a deep dive into the correlation between our nervous systems and stress, exposing the hidden triggers of burnout. Sherri walks us through the often neglected connection between our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, and how understanding them can help us handle stress better. We also embark on an enlightening exploration of Sherri's innovative models: COPER and TheraFarm. These models hinge on connection, optimism, play, empowerment, and resilience as the cornerstones of health and healing.

Sherri’s commitment to making wellness accessible to all, regardless of income or insurance, is truly inspiring. We learn about the treatments, wellness retreats, workshops, and therapies available at Fly and Butterfly Farm, and how they are breaking barriers to make healing accessible. From the benefits of retreat spaces to the importance of work-life balance, we discuss it all. So tune in, learn and embark on a journey towards optimal health with us.

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http://www.stopshoulding.me
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🎵 Thank you to Karacter for allowing me to use Telepathy (2005) in my intro.
This is one of my favorite albums of all time.
👉 Check it out: https://karacter.bandcamp.com/album/karacter

Transcript

Minessa Konecky: 0:08

Hello, we are here for episode 70, something I'll check again. It's going to be episode 73. Hi everybody. Yeah, that was my Stop Shitting All Over Yourself podcast song. Don't think it's going to go to the top of the charts, but it kept you entertained for 30 seconds.

Minessa Konecky: 0:26

Hello, hello, I'm Vanessa Konnicki, your host of Stop Shitting All Over Yourself, and today I have an incredible person with me. I am so excited to share her thoughts. Today I have Sherri Damon with me and she is the founder of Fly. Now Fly is a. She actually does a lot. She's a psychotherapist, she is an advocate for work-life balance. She does so many things. I couldn't list them all here, but the key area why I wanted to invite her to the podcast was because she has this Coper philosophy, this model, not philosophy, it's a model of training and education to help people who have who. Mostly she focuses on people with eating disorders, but it is a therapeutic model that works with many, many other types of issues as well, and she talks all about it in this podcast. But the reason why I wanted to bring it to you was because traditional talk therapy is fabulous. I've been in therapy for years and years and years and I love it and it's made a huge difference in my life. But we talked about how, sometimes, traditional talk therapy isn't enough for people and that there are those of us who need other things either. It's techniques, tools, habits, support, resources. Whatever it is. We need additional work to be able to operationalize some of the work we do in therapy in our day-to-day lives so that we can actually start to see a change in our overall well-being.

Minessa Konecky: 2:07

And the reason why I thought this was so important, or I feel this is so important, is because for me, when I was about five so I talk about this a lot that April 2018 was when I began my true healing. So that was where I was, like I recognize. One of the key things that I recognized at that time was that I had been in therapy for 20-something years and I still felt like shit, and I was like I don't understand why I'm not feeling better. If therapy is, in fact, supposed to help me, why am I not moving forward? And I really spent a lot of time thinking about it and what I realized was is that I was doing a lot of talk therapy, but I would just check off the box and say I've gone to therapy. I've done my work, check I'm doing it right, and then I'd go home and do the exact same habits, behave the exact same way. I didn't. There was no operationalization of these ideas to figure out how do I re-approach my life with this new thing that I've learned in therapy? So I would learn it, but then it would go dormant.

Minessa Konecky: 3:01

And what she talks about in this podcast is operationalizing what you learn in therapy, and so for me, that was very powerful. I hired a coach. That's what a lot of people do is they'll have a therapist and a coach to help operationalize. She has created an entire retreat designed to help with this and literally when you hear about it, you're gonna be so blown away by all of the things that Fly offers to help somebody who is suffering from trauma or help someone who is trying to move into a space of wellness right To help them identify their challenges, really immerse themselves in a healing environment, learn how to operationalize these ideas when you get home and then have support to go with you as you are now transitioning into your home space. So it's a really fabulous space, and she actually is creating another one in California.

Minessa Konecky: 3:52

So this podcast was to bring this idea that you may be in talk therapy and you may be checking off the box and it may be doing great for you and if that's working, then, fab, keep doing that. Like, obviously right. But I wanted to shine a light on this other aspect that might resonate, in that you're like I'm going to therapy. I've been going to therapy for years and I think it's important and I don't want to stop, but I feel like there's something else I need to do to be able to really take what I'm learning in therapy and operationalize it into my day to day life. And so now I really I cannot wait for you to hear this because I'll tell you, the second I started operationalizing my therapy was when, I believe, my true healing began in April of 2018.

Minessa Konecky: 4:31

So, like that was sort of when the conversation began, but it wasn't until this click happened that I started to really practice my therapy work, that I really started to see the friends of school to sit in and see what she has to say. So you, by the way, are my very first South Shore special features. So I've been, I've created like a new little thing in the podcast for, like my South Shore specials and anyone who's from like this general area is going to be in the conference or part of the part of the South Shore business network. I want to sort of like highlight them and do the specials. So congratulations, my first by inaugural.

Minessa Konecky: 5:03

So I you know, I know you, but I'd like for my listeners to catch up a little bit, so tell us a little bit, you know. Hello everybody, I'm here with Sherri Damon. I always forget to start the podcast that way because I just want to dive right in and start talking. Yeah, I met Sherri through the South Shore women's business network and we had a conversation as part of her onboarding and I just really we connected so strongly. I really enjoyed our conversation and I wanted everybody else to get to know her because of all the amazing things you do. So, thank you, please tell my listeners a little bit about yourself, sure.

Sherri Damon: 5:38

So I'm a licensed mental health counselor, licensed in a few different states, and a wellness teacher and meditation teacher and sound bath healing certified practitioner, and I've been in practice for well over 30 years as a you know doing those things and then, about six years ago, realized that I needed I was developing this coper model, which I'm sure we'll talk about this morning.

Sherri Damon: 6:05

But as I was developing the model I realized I needed to have a place where people could experience and learn the strategies, because just sort of hour after hour talking about them in a, you know, sterile therapy office, all the ideas sounded great and then people would leave and then go home and kind of not know how to implement them and then come back the next week with the same thing going on. And so I developed this model and then I built this tiny little therapeutic farm to start practicing using the strategies in the model and develop my whole TheraFarm model. And then from there it's just blown up. We have nine therapists and four dietitians and wellness teachers and yoga teachers and time massage and we have so many different things that we offer and we really have a very strong specialty in eating disorders, but we work with a lot of different health and mental health issues.

Minessa Konecky: 7:02

Oh my God, like seriously, not everybody knows why I want to do on here because, like just in that, like whatever, however long that took, I've got like so many things I want to talk about. So I actually want to talk about the part that impacts me the most to start with, because that's just, oh, the light, because you didn't move right, did it just turn off because of the lack of?

Sherri Damon: 7:23

You got to switch it to the non motion detecting light. You know this is I always call fly and butterfly farm a perfectly imperfect space. That's like how I think of it. It's like if it's going to go wrong, it's probably going to go wrong, but we're going to be okay, we're going to make our way through it.

Minessa Konecky: 7:38

Absolutely. So I want to see you know part of the part of the. Actually the joy is the making your way through it, like solving the problem. When you come out at the end of it, you're like, yeah, I did that. It feels good. Okay, so the selfish part of you is going to talk about the part that that, like, resonates the most with me and then we'll move on. So the part that resonates the most with me in there is about five years ago I started.

Minessa Konecky: 7:59

I've been going to therapy since I was a child. I come from trauma, you know I have a lot of things in my life, so therapy is not a stranger to me. Off and on over the years, but I think I've been going consistently for at least 20, and about five years ago I had this realization. I was like, okay, you know what? I've been going to therapy for years. Why do I feel like I'm still dealing with the same shit or I keep coming back to the same place?

Minessa Konecky: 8:23

And I realized exactly what you said that, and so I'd like to ask the question about that. That what would happen is is I talk in therapy and I would really literally just check off the box in my mind that I was doing the things that needed to be done. It actually never occurred to me that there were other actions and other steps I needed to take and that those were the things. And I don't blame my therapist because, like, I don't know that this is something, that conversation that like they say this is what are you going to do and how are you going to implement this. But I don't think the translation is hitting because it definitely didn't translate for me.

Minessa Konecky: 8:57

Then, when it finally did, and I was like I understand what you're saying. It's not just me sitting and telling you about my problems. Habits have to change, behaviors have to change. I'm curious, as a therapist where do you think that disconnect is? Because a lot of people do talk therapy and for a lot of people that's enough to help them and that's fabulous, but for some people there is that extra layer of work that is needed. What do you think that disconnect is?

Sherri Damon: 9:25

Yeah, obviously, I think therapy is amazing and it's an incredibly powerful tool, but for so many people, what I talk about is mind, body, spirit, environment, health and healing that there are different aspects of us. We can cognitively process something, we can sit and we can talk about it and we can come up with like aha moments, or yeah, those behaviors lead to this, or I understand these triggers. Or if I just do this a little bit differently and we learn to stop shooting on ourselves, like a whole component of my model under the optimism piece and the COPER model is to really change how you're talking to yourself. But sometimes that's not enough to get your feet moving in the right direction. So something like learning how to use play and recognizing that those strategies feel different in the body.

Sherri Damon: 10:18

Do it using the strategy of empowerment, which is the E in the COPER model, and like going out and helping to. So, for example here, like with the TheraFarm model, going out and helping feed the goats or plant some seeds, or dig in the dirt or walk on the labyrinth or do different things where your feet are literally connecting with the activity that you're learning and then you're reflecting on it and being able to process oh, that feels different, or I thought about things differently. I always describe to people that like when you're stuck if you think of sort of traditional CBT, you know thinking, feeling and behaving in like a triangle right, and when you're stuck in one place, I keep thinking about this, I keep talking negatively to myself. It's all thought-based. The most effective thing to do is kind of come out of that right and do a behavior or shift to a feeling, and that's hard to do on your own.

Sherri Damon: 11:09

It can make sense when you're sitting there talking about it with somebody one-on-one. But then when you go into your life and there's all those same stimuli or those same triggers and, let's face it, our world is very overstimulating, like there's just a lot that our brain has to take in and I teach people a lot about. Oh, I could go on on this for hours, but I teach people a lot about how we live, so much in our sympathetic nervous system because we are so overstimulated and then our processing doesn't work the same way that it would if we could kind of come out as sympathetic and into parasympathetic and our body is able to rest and digest and process and plan on all those things.

Minessa Konecky: 11:48

God. Okay, let's go back to that sympathetic thing, because you're flipping some switches that are very important to me, because one of the things that I found because many of so, almost every person I've ever worked with is in some stage of burnout. Either they're already so far gone, they've already been in the hospital and now they've realized that they have to change the way they're dealing with their lives, or they know they're overworked and burned out. But they're in that space and this is where I loved here a little bit more oh, so delicious when they're like. It's almost like when you say I'm totally overwhelmed and you say to me okay, I'll take some more carpet plate. No, you can't, I have to. Like nobody else can do this. Or well, no, I can't do this. And like, even though they're overwhelmed there, any action that you offer for help is rejected because I can't, I can't, I can't, and I've been in that space myself.

Minessa Konecky: 12:35

So this is not coming from a place of judgment, it's coming from a place of empathy, where you literally feel like you are trapped in constant stimulation and I think of it as my brain almost being on fire. Right, it feels like it's on fire, like there's 8,000 things running around in there and I don't know, and in those moments I'm trying to do what you're explaining, which is like you forget you even have those tools from therapy at that moment because you're in such chaos, can you? When I started to understand that this relationship the parasympathetic and the sympathetic was, when I began to understand why I wasn't able to calm down. So could you spend a little bit of time on that and explain, sort of like when I was in that heightened state and I was just like and honestly I felt probably just thinking about it because it's so hard, right, what? How do we tell me about those spaces, how they impact us and why it's so important to move to that parasympathetic state?

Sherri Damon: 13:27

Yeah, well, okay, so why? The why is kind of straightforward and simple, and I always use a caveman analogy for this, right, if we are thinking about how our body sort of organically functions when we are in danger, when we're under threat, caveman wakes up one morning, rolls the rock away from the cave and there's a saber tooth tiger and he, like everything in his body, activates to fight or flee, right. So there's no like, hmm, what would be the best way to handle this situation? What am I going to do afterwards to take care of myself and engage in self-care? The caveman's not doing that, it's like fight or flee. And so the body becomes highly activated heart pump, lungs, pump, you know, muscles, and we fight or flee, right. And then after doing that, after interacting with that saber tooth tiger, the body goes into parasympathetic because we sort of burnt off all that adrenaline, all that cortisol, and caveman can lay back down in his cave and have his snack and, you know, just kind of chill out because his body kind of shifted automatically by burning it all off.

Sherri Damon: 14:30

When I was saying our world is so overstimulating, what I see is that, between technology and all of the things that are going on in the world around us and worries and family life. I mean, walk through a grocery store aisle, right? If I want to go to the pasta aisle in the grocery store, there's 50 different versions of pasta in colors and lights, and you know what I mean. So it's like everything we have our brains are still like in caveman mode and that it's like this is very overwhelming, and so we're constantly lighting up that sympathetic, but we're not, you know, running away from a saber tooth tiger at, you know, 20 million miles an hour, so we're not burning it back off. And so I try to help people understand that in the moment of super high stress, super high anxiety, it's kind of like, you know, on the south shore we go swimming at the ocean right, and every once in a while that great big wave will come up and it's I can't get away from it, right, I can't swim fast enough to get away from it and I can't stop it like no, no ocean, I don't want this big wave. So I hold my breath, go under and let it pass over me, and then, once that happens, I kind of figure out how I can get to shore right. And so, in a moment of super high stress or high anxiety.

Sherri Damon: 15:39

What I help people kind of work on is what are your soothing and coping strategies just for that moment, just to get through the really stressed out moment, because that's not when we can change behavior, that's when we just need to take good care of ourselves, you know, calm and cope as much as we can. Then afterwards we can kind of reflect on that and say, well, where, where did this come from, or what was going on. And that's when we can start to learn the skills and strategies of mind, body, spirit, environment and figure out how to do things preventatively as much as possible. So I work with people a lot on understanding that you can't heal if you don't know what healthy looks like right. So learning skills and strategies of how to promote your overall health is actually the same tools you can use when you start to have a hard time and then over time what happens is oh, I'm noticing my heart is racing, my palms are sweating, I'm getting a little stressed. Let me stop here and engage with those strategies so that that big moment doesn't happen.

Sherri Damon: 16:40

But if the big moment happens, I know I also have tools on board to just kind of calm and soothe and get through it and then I can look at it afterwards and say, all right, what did I learn from that? What can I do differently next time? So it's not that we can ever. You know, I always say I wish I had my therapeutic magic wand and I could just be like poof, you no longer gonna have stressors, poof, you're no longer like I don't, right. So we in reality is in life, we're going to have really stressful times, hard times, painful times. But the more we start to learn the skills of self care and how we can take care of ourselves in those situations, the better and better we manage them and they don't knock us around quite so much. That wave analogy, right?

Minessa Konecky: 17:19

They don't knock us around. I love that because it's almost like you describe my healing journey as you were talking, because, like the realization came first and my therapist so I've had two since then and like when we, she and I, started talking about the you know, hey, I'm noticing this she was like all right, let's, let's do it right, she's fabulous. And so we kind of worked in that direction. And then when I moved to the South Shore, I actually switched therapist to deal specifically with, because my therapist was closing her practice. She's running a practice now and not really seeing patients, so my new therapist is really all about play and so she kept telling me to go to the swings, go swing in the swings because I just because I'm really into the air and that kind of thing, so she should go to swinging and and like every time, did you go swimming?

Sherri Damon: 18:02

did you go swinging? And she never gave me shit about it.

Minessa Konecky: 18:03

She just asked and like I knew, and so I went swinging and, honestly, just the act of swinging changed such a huge like, and so now I try to go swinging whenever I can because it really does make that difference. And what ended up happening, as you say, exactly as you described I it was almost like a ramp off of high stress, because I find that like so I was living in this very heightened state for such a long time and couldn't get off. And I was it's funny because you said you don't want to try to solve the problems or do anything when you're in that state, you want to just sit. But that's the state I find it which we're so desperate to take action, right, like. And I have my sister and my friends who call me in a height of panic in a moment in their lives and they're like oh my God, I need to do something. I'm like, actually you don't, you need to literally do nothing because you don't want to make decisions about anything in your life when you're literally at your lowest point, when you're at like, why would you make a decision against you from your highest self when you were at your lowest right? And so my general rule of thumb became don't contradict decisions that you made as your highest self when you were feeling your lowest self. And it's served me pretty well.

Minessa Konecky: 19:12

And I think that, like, the other thing about what you said that resonated because so many things did was that it gets easier, right?

Minessa Konecky: 19:18

So, like I think that at the beginning you feel like I'm going to feel this way forever and I'm going to have to use these coping techniques this way forever. But what we don't realize is that we've become conditioned to this feel, at this level of burning right Of constant, and that you actually our actual state is much calmer and it doesn't need to be that way. And, like you said, when you notice it happening, you can kind of be like, oh, that's happening now and very gently kind of redirect yourself rather than letting it get, because I've been there where I get to that, even now sometimes that happens, but like I know my tools right, I'm like it's easier for me to grab them, whereas before it was really hard. So thank you for sharing all that, because I really I love those analogies. That's amazing and they resonated so much with me. I simply had to share that. You literally outlined my whole last five years of journey. So thank you.

Sherri Damon: 20:05

Thank you very much.

Minessa Konecky: 20:07

So here's. So tell me about your model, because, like I really love this model and I'd also, will the farm come up as part of the model, or is that? Will we come to that later?

Sherri Damon: 20:14

Really it's two models that I have designed and trademarked and all that kind of fun stuff. So the COPER model is the principles of connection, optimism, play, empowerment and resilience and kind of working those five pillars for health and healing, and I can explain that in more detail. And then out of that I really developed this experiential learning process that I do and this TheraFarm model and using the connection with nature and the environment and all of the different elements of the environment that impact our health from toxins to not being outside enough, to not playing enough, to all those kinds of things and so I designed this entire TheraFarm model and do a TheraFarm practitioner certification with it and all of that kind of stuff so people can continue to use those tools. But that came out of where I was with the COPER model and teaching people that illness is fueled by isolation. So connection is a really really important tool. But not everybody has positive human connections or maybe doesn't want human connections right this moment, and so in order to step out of the illness is fueled in isolation, sometimes we have to connect with animals, nature, activities that fill us up and then through those connections other connections emerge and we're not sitting in isolation. So connection is a really important piece. I teach people a lot about mirror neurons and so we do a lot of support groups and retreats and workshops and those kinds of things. Because when we're in community with other people and learning things and seeing people's reactions and mirroring some of that, then our body heals. So connection, huge healing tool.

Sherri Damon: 22:04

Optimism is the stop shooting on yourself, changing how you think about things, how you talk to yourself, not worrying forward, not worrying back, but learning how to kind of observe, notice just everything we've been talking about so far this morning, right. So optimism is really that thinking component of it and really examining things without judgment and understanding that there's an impermanence to everything that we experience kind of that Buddhist philosophy, and understanding that I have within me the ability to start to think about this differently. But I might need supports, I might need education, I might need experiences to help shift that thinking and then play we kind of talked about that already that our body shifts and changes when we experience comfort, joy. If I wanna get my brain out of that thinking that I was just talking about, one of the most powerful tools I have is my senses right, that sensory processing in my brain is so powerful. So I'm stressed and anxious and that wave is coming.

Sherri Damon: 23:10

I might just be able to sit and smell my favorite candle, or I might be able to. We make really cool candles. I might be able to get my favorite chapstick, my favorite hand lotion, sort of soothe by touch or soothe by smell or soothe by sight. Looking at pictures of my dog that I can use my senses in a playful way. Or again observing or noticing oh my gosh, look at those kids swing on the swings. I might swing on the swings. I love water. Waters are really soothing force, and so floating in the water, swimming in the water, putting your toes in the water, holding an ice cold glass of water. So there's a million like I could go on and on right.

Sherri Damon: 23:49

A million play strategies and then empowerment, which is the E in the COPER model. We all heal by doing good in the world and then we feel good. So it's that feel good, do good. Circular phenomena, right. So empowerment is another strategy that I use when somebody's stuck themselves. Stepping outside of yourself and doing something for somebody else gets you that bright, shiny face effect right.

Sherri Damon: 24:15

You walk into the room and I have people who, like volunteer at the animal shelter and you walk in and the staff is like thank God it's you.

Sherri Damon: 24:23

It's a different feeling in your body than maybe what you were thinking about yourself before you walked through the door, right, and then they all kind of come together to help your body strengthen. And when I talk about resilience, I don't talk about resilience as a like you have it to get better, just like try harder kind of thing. It's not. That's not what I mean by resilience. When I talk about resilience, I talk about those things that strengthen you, and looking for those things that help you heal and that help you feel healthy and that strengthen you, not your strengths in the way we traditionally think about them, like what you're good at. I'm good at cleaning toilets, but I don't list it as one of my strengths, right? So it's like really looking at like, what are those things that fill me up? Because when I'm filled up I take good care of myself and then I'm able to manage those really hard situations.

Minessa Konecky: 25:13

Oh, my God, you know it's so interesting you say that about strengthening because I think that, like, are you given voice to something that I'm like it's the way? So I hate the way resilience is usually used. I'm really glad you use it the way you do and I knew that you did use it that way, so, like I would never have said anything but because I know how you use it right. But, like, when people are like you know how it is, we're like oh you're sick and you're so resilient, don't worry, you can do this.

Minessa Konecky: 25:35

Just keep going. Just like dude, I am an agony all day. It is just, you know, it's all I can take to like just get up. But I love how you talk about it in terms of the things that strengthen you, because when I think about my community is the chronically ill. We're neurodivergent, you know, we've suffered enormous trauma, but I think that there's this belief that we, it's one or the other.

Minessa Konecky: 25:55

You know you're chronically ill or you're happy, or you're in pain, or you're happy, or content, or joyful or whatever, right, and I think that what's happened and I believed that for years and I felt I was very jaded. I felt like I was very jaded and I often joke that I didn't finish going through adolescence until I was 37, because, like I was so jaded until that time really, and I think I started to come out of it then, but the healing actually began about five years ago, but it was through that. I think that that process of recognizing that trauma, pain, challenges, difficulty, all of those things can exist in the exact same space as joy, happiness and peace, which seems like what are you even talking about right now? Right, like that doesn't make any sense, but they do. They do I, you know, individual human beings are able to demonstrate that contradiction and say I live in that contradiction and it is that I love that you teach on that.

Minessa Konecky: 26:54

I'm so curious. I actually know. Before I go to the curiosity part, I actually wanted to. I love that you said you were talking about I have it in me to do this. You have it in you to do this, which I think is such a powerful thing, because in my work as a coach and it actually is why I stopped coaching was because I realized that the people that I tend to I'm not qualified, I think, to help I people need therapists as well as a coach. If they're going to work with me, you have to have them both, because they all have gone through trauma and if they don't have the therapist as well as the coach, then they can start looking to the coach to become the therapist.

Minessa Konecky: 27:35

And that was something that I started to observe and that made me really nervous and I was like you know, I don't really think I am the right fit for this, because I think I can help in a better way by connecting people To therapists and connecting people like so I would rather do that than create the illusion that I can help you with some of these very difficult, like I can help you with your business. I can help you solve your marketing problems. That's easy as pie. But if there's underlying issues that make you feel like you don't have it in you to do this, I can't help with that, right, there's nothing I can do to help with that. So I really love how you really prioritize the you can do this the empowerment, the resilience, because it sounds like every single piece of this is really built around. So strengthening the core within us already, right, as opposed to saying I'm going to help you, right, which in the end still puts people attached to you. That's the other part of coaching that I like was.

Minessa Konecky: 28:32

Coaching typically is people say things like I can help you, I can solve this problem, I think can solve this problem. And the more I coach, the more I realize that the difference between the people who succeeded in my work and the people who didn't was them, it wasn't me. If they did the work, they succeeded. If they didn't do the work, they did not or it wasn't the right fit for them and they needed to find something else that was a better fit for them, you know, based on how their minds were. But I think that so much of our healing work is focused on almost keeping people stuck in the healing journey. You know so that they're constantly healing and I feel like, and some of us are. But how do you think about that? The idea that, like there's a lot of, there's an industry based off of keeping people in the state where they're healing themselves and not actually going to quote unquote healed, you know, I mean it's such an interesting comment.

Sherri Damon: 29:25

It's something that's been so on my mind lately. I'm also embarking on building this eco sanctuary in California where people can really immerse in the process even bigger than they do this little piece in Massachusetts, and the main reason why I'm developing it is because I want to really teach wellness, as, like I said, you can't heal from an illness if you don't know what healthy looks like, and I think our, our resources and everything are driven towards treating symptoms. So I think our brains and our bodies have been programmed towards go see this doctor for this thing and treat this symptom, go see this therapist, this thing, and so I think you're right, like we do tend to lean on this, and you know whether it's I only want to use insurance or or that mentality of I just have to keep healing, versus wait a second, let me look at what healthy looks like, and maybe I actually already have some of that and I just have to keep loading that and then, oh, by the way, I actually feel better. Right, like so it's, so we're. I feel like we're doing it backwards. We're always going in trying to quote, unquote, fix the problems, versus saying let's work on strengthening our overall mind, body, spirit, environment, health. If we're living in an environment that isn't healthy, it's also going to affect our mind, our body, our spirit. So it's really those four elements and, holistically, most places talk about mind, body, spirit and what I've added through my models is mind, body, spirit, environment.

Sherri Damon: 31:00

That there's really four pieces of our overall health and wellness, and I think always kind of treat, treating the problem keeps us stuck in that constant process of healing. Are there people who stuff has gone on for them or stuff is currently going on for them? Where do they just have to focus on healing 100%? I treat a ton of people with eating disorders, a ton of people with, you know, relationship issues or whatever trauma. Right now, healing does have to be their priority. But I'm always trying to convince them to also come and learn about healing healthy, like let's let's do some wellness retreats, let's do some workshops so you can learn those skills, so that you can then go. Wait a second, I'm actually doing that. That's actually something that's a strength of mine.

Minessa Konecky: 31:45

You know, it's actually so interesting, as you're saying, I think this is a problem bigger than only therapy and like healing, because, like, as you're saying this, I'm thinking of all of, because I so one of the things that I did as a consultant, as a crisis manager who works with people whose grants have gone into crisis and they need to, like, get them all organized and sorted out, but not right. And usually this is something that's happened because of years of systems that are antiquated, things not working and they just pile on each other over time, right, and now there's just a lot of fires and they need to put out systems and they need to be fixed. Things like that, right. And so whenever I go in, everybody wants to deal with the immediate fires that are there, and I'm like, okay, yeah, you're right, we do have to deal with those fires, but the truth is, you wouldn't have gotten here if the infrastructure itself had been designed to promote a healthy workspace where it is efficient and their systems and so on. So we have to do them both at the same time, but there is very little appetite in corporate America for that kind of thinking like really very little appetite. It's always an uphill battle to be like you know, and my answer is always look, one way or another, you're gonna do this. Either you're gonna do it now with me, or in six years you're gonna do it with somebody else. But one or another this is gonna happen, and so that makes perfect sense that we would do the same thing.

Minessa Konecky: 33:02

And when I think about again my last five years which is what I consider my main healing journey, like intentional and really I'm gonna say it's your model, like as you're talking about it, the environment is the key one. I had to set up an environment that supported the healthy life that I wanted, right, so like if my environment wasn't conducive to sleeping, let's say, and I have to go to bed at a certain time and wake up at a certain time for my body to not be in agony, then that environment is going to set me up to succeed or fail, you know, depending on how I have that set up. So if I have a really tense environment where there's a bright light outside that's shining in front of me and there's, you know, we fight every night before bed that I'm probably not going to have. It's not an environment that's going to allow me to feel healthy in the morning. I'm gonna feel like shit every morning and wonder why I feel bad every morning, and then I'm gonna go to the doctor to get Xanax or to get you know something which I've done in the past. Right, and again I got to that point where I was like I feel like I'm just doing the same thing over and over and over again, like it's and it's never changing. Your model is for this environment area is like so brilliant, so I'm curious.

Minessa Konecky: 34:10

Okay, so now we're going to the curious question, because you're in, okay, so you're in Massachusetts and you're creating something more intense, bigger, out in California. So let's talk Massachusetts right now, because this is already sort of up and running. What, if do? Is this like a? How would a person who's like, oh my God, this is something I'm really interested in, how would they get involved? You know, as a let's start, as a patient for somebody who needs help, right, how would they reach out to you? Is this something that you only have? Is it only a retreat type thing, or do you guys do like hour long seminars, like what kinds of things do you offer and for whom?

Sherri Damon: 34:45

Yeah, that's why I've really curated what I've curated right, like I have this amazing team of people that have all been sort of trained in my model, work really closely with me so you can come into fly and butterfly farm. From a treatment perspective, I need a therapist, I need a dietitian, I need meal support, I need to be in support groups. So I need treatment. So you can come into fly for treatment. We take a lot of insurances. We do sliding scale. I've been working on developing a nonprofit so we can do equity pricing for people. That's just launched so we still have to do fundraising for it. But we're trying to do that because we're trying to ensure that anyone who needs health and mental health support doesn't have to rely on a place that only takes their insurance or they don't have enough funds or whatever. So therefore, they can get the right services. So, yes, you can come into fly and you can get treatment. You can come into fly and you can do wellness retreats, wellness workshops, therapeutic yoga, reiki, sound bath. You can do like these wellness learning lessons individually or in small groups. You can also have fly staff. Myself or one of my other speakers come into your place of work or work with a group of people. If you have like a. I have a whole women's group in our HOA and we want to. You know, whatever, we can come in and do workshops with you. That way we very often will throw up free things, like a January, february, march and April I did all kinds of different free workshops and then for the month of May we did mindful Mondays, which were free. So we try to give some free stuff away too.

Sherri Damon: 36:23

But as a business, obviously you have to bring an income too. So we can tailor make speaking engagements, workshops, trainings for large groups, small groups, individuals. I have a life coach who works for me so she can really take a lot of what you might be doing in therapy and then figure out how do we enact that into moving your life forward. So, exactly like you were saying, I know my lane right, I know what I can teach about, I know what I can treat, and then when it's like ongoing coaching, they can see Ariana. Ariana is working with somebody who really needs therapy, so we have the therapist. I'm working with somebody who really needs some guidance around meals and how they're fueling their body, so they can see they're one of my dieticians. So we have this very close team approach so we can target what's gonna help you keep moving your bar forward or what workshop does your group need, and then we can tailor for you around the health and healing journey.

Minessa Konecky: 37:25

Wow. So you know, like I'm listening and it's almost like okay. So you know how, like back in the day, actually they do it now too. We hear about it all the time. The rich folk, you know they go to like these retreat places where somebody waits on them hand and foot and does this, and like they get to reset their lives and come out with Botox, right, or whatever it is that they do in the retreat. I don't know, but it almost feels like you've put together that kind of concierge, almost like full round, 360 person human healing organization that typically I would only expect rich people to be able to afford, right, like that's so, but this is something that is accessible to like a normal human being like me. Right, that is incredible. What a wonderful, wonderful idea.

Sherri Damon: 38:10

And I will say that's exactly what I'm building. I'm gonna try to build. I've got the land and now I'm gonna get there Building California is that like that blending of that? I'm in this glamping, gorgeous, beautiful environment and people are taking care of me, but I'm also learning all these skills and strategies and there's a nonprofit that can send people there from an equity pricing standpoint, so it doesn't reserve that really good self-care, learning, immersive environment, working with the animals, planting, growing the food on the property, green roof, eco-conscious Like. That's not only for the wealthy, that's for all of us, because that's all how all of us can be healthy, because I am not wealthy, so I know what that's like.

Minessa Konecky: 38:55

So amazing, right, it's because I love you never know what kind of the ingenuity of people who are like wanna solve a problem and they're like I wanna solve a problem. For this group of people Like it's, I think it's almost easy to solve problem for rich people because they have the money and they're like they can throw the money at the problem and because either it's time, money or like working around systems, but like one of those things is gonna be the price. So I really I love this. So I'm curious then, if we pull back a little bit and let's say that somebody right now isn't quite ready, like or maybe they live in like Minnesota and there is no, you know, I mean there's nothing. I mean I'm not saying that Minnesota doesn't have these, I just don't know somebody there. What if someone is right now?

Minessa Konecky: 39:35

Because you mentioned on your LinkedIn profile, as I was talking at earlier today, you said that like you strive for work-life balance. So I actually wanted to ask you something about that is. You know, you are doing something monumental and it takes a lot of not just time and effort but also soul, like your heart is in this, and so that's a different type of energy altogether. So I'm curious to know how is it going with the work-life balance? And like how do you, how do you maintain your well-being in the face of the challenges that come with doing what you're doing?

Sherri Damon: 40:08

Yeah, it's such a great question because when you're trying to like, launch and set up and promote like huge things all at once, you feel like it takes every ounce of your energy, starting at 5 am and then dropping at you know 7 pm, kind of thing. And so I will say, just like every other human, I have times where I get caught up in that and then I'm done, I'm burnt out and I'm recognizing. So I try to do a lot of observation when are you, how do you feel and what do you need? Right is something that I say often and I try to hold myself to it to and say, okay, I need to get back on track. You've been getting up in 5 o'clock in the morning Go, go, go, go, go. And you're not starting your day with yoga and meditation, you're not fueling your body in a healthy way because you're just like cramming stuff in as you're running through your day and you're working with people and teaching them what, how important that balance is. Okay, you know, message to self, we need to do that. So do I get caught up in times where I'm not doing it either? Of course, because I'm a human being and I'm going to, you know, sort of fall victim to old habits or I'm going to, you know, get off track just like every other person does, and then you try to, just like you were saying, kind of notice it. Oh okay, here's where we're off. What do we need?

Sherri Damon: 41:25

And so I love vacations. I'm a certified travel addict. But if you only take care of yourself on vacation, that means you spend a lot of your life not taking care of yourself. So I try to work on little ways to kind of build it in throughout my day. Huge Red Sox fans, so I go to Red Sox games. I love the water, so I try to go to water whenever I can. I start my day with yoga and meditation. I try to fuel my body healthy. I spend time with my family and, like I said, there's times where that all gets out of whack and you have to kind of bring it back into balance. But I think balance is about homeostasis, not about equality. Like I spend this much time on self care. Yeah, it's like it's not going to work. Like that it might be. I spend this much time on all of this work and now I'm going to kind of start to do this so that it balances out.

Minessa Konecky: 42:14

I like the thing more of like integration, like work life integration, just because it's like I feel like balance creates this. It's almost impossible to achieve, right, because sometimes I'm just going to be more tired and I'm just going to, and especially, as you know, women, or as people with estrogen and progesterone, like our cycles move through. We're cyclical, right, we're not linear, which is the way most of the world is set up. You know, it's set up in for a very masculine, testosterone based world and we are cyclical and so we're going to find ourselves in, like at one end of our cycle or another end of a cycle where, you know, so we can't always have that balance. Like three months out of the three days out of the month, I just say, well, I'm done, I'm just going to sit here and just wait for these three days to pass and really enjoy my life, because I'm certainly not going to be working, because everything I look at I hate, so it's like forget that. So okay, so I want to actually.

Minessa Konecky: 43:10

So I was talking to so as a member of the South Shore Women's Business Network and I believe, I think you were on our call the other day and I thought it thought of you because at the same time on the call there was somebody else who was on the call who has a cancer, who runs a retreat for people who are going through cancer treatment yes, and then one of my friends that I, that I, that I know is also starting a retreat, and so, like I'm, and these are people, the people who I know, who have, and it's like I've never known anyone who had retreats before.

Minessa Konecky: 43:43

But lately I have met a few and I feel like it's really is about the people that I'm meeting, because I really, like I'm more into the local scene and so I'm getting to meet a different set of people and one of the things that I love more than anything in the world is connecting people doing similar things so they can like brainstorm together. Well, as part of these conversations, I learned about and I'm curious to know if you know about this organization. I wanted to bring it up for you if you didn't know about them, but if you did know about them for other people who may have retreats that don't know about them. And this is an organization I don't know what they're called, but they are basically the New England organization for people who have retreats.

Sherri Damon: 44:20

Oh, wow, no, I don't know about this group. Okay, I don't know about this group either.

Minessa Konecky: 44:24

So I'm going to, then so anyone? Okay, so now this is what's going to happen. People are going to listen to the podcast, some people are going to know about it, some people aren't. Guys, just message a message, sherry, because she's going to know about it soon. So I really, really love this idea. So I wanted to ask, because it does the people that I'm talking about, you and the other, the other women that I know who, who are having retreats there. They're very, you are all very. What's the word I'm looking for? Intentional and very well, I guess you have to be, because you're talking about buying land to do something. You've really got to be intentional about what you're doing right.

Minessa Konecky: 45:17

You know I'm just going to buy that land and we'll see what happens. But you're very intentional about the what you're doing and about doing it in a space. So I like to know what you think is. Where do you think the main benefit is? Because I mean, I can feel the benefit but I'd like to hear it was sort of articulated of actually taking yourself out of your space and going into a retreat type space like what is the? What does that get somebody that you really can't get like in your own house or like you know somewhere else?

Sherri Damon: 45:49

It's such a great question because I'm of two minds about it. One, you know, what fly has developed over the past six years is how to immerse your day to day life in your health and healing journey, because the reality is you live there day to day. So I know they remove you from it and you can't figure out how to put it back in place. That could be problematic. So somebody goes into the hospital, you know, recover or get stabilized and then they come home and it starts all over again and so then they go back. We try to like, help you learn the strategies that can be integrated into your day to day life, and that will always continue, which is why I like what we've created, because we always have that too. But sometimes we have to kind of leave that. Remember all that stimulation I was talking about that grocery store aisle and stop lights and all that kind of stuff. Sometimes we have to literally free our bodies, minds, spirits and change our environment Right. So those four elements that I was talking about and get our feet moving in the right direction.

Sherri Damon: 46:54

I have to be able to wake up in the morning and do yoga and meditation to feel the benefit of it. I have to fuel my body healthy. I have to sit and look at the stars at night and just breathe. I have to listen to the sounds around me, feel the dirt under my feet on a mindful walk. I have to immerse in a. We're getting this eco-friendly hot tub that's wood fired so it doesn't use any electricity and it's really off grid. It's so cool and developing these stock tank plunge pools because it's hot in the some in the desert area of California and so you can just kind of sit in the cold water and look at the mountains around you and breathe deeply, right, so that has this amazing healing property and then you can take those images.

Sherri Damon: 47:40

Literally, you can take pictures of them or take those images of the experience home and, if you want, you could stay with fly and we can keep talking about that and we can keep looking at, like, how did you feel, how does that work? How do you re establish that at home? You know, do you stick your feet in a little cold bucket of water? And so you know I mean so like, once you've experienced how your body reset, mind, body, spirit, environment reset, then you can enact it in your life and if you need ongoing help and support. You keep going with that as well. But I think sometimes we have to literally get our feet moving in the right direction, and we it's great we can do it here in Massachusetts, for you know a 53 minute hour, but it would be really great if I could have people like eat, sleep and breathe it for a few days and then they really kind of go oh, I've got this, now I can take this home and keep doing this.

Minessa Konecky: 48:33

That makes perfect sense. I love that, god. I just love what you do so much. Thank you, so much, thank you. So I mean thank you just so much for everything you do. It's what a fabulous resource to be in our, in our community. Thank you so much for your time today. I love talking with you. Is there anything that I didn't ask, anything that you'd like to share, that that I, that I didn't touch upon?

Sherri Damon: 48:53

I don't think so. I think we did a great job, kind of touching on everything that I do and everything that I'm building, and you know I love, I love to. I guess maybe one thing I did want to say because you started to bring it up is I so believe that we all get healthier by connecting, by sharing resources, by supporting and and holding each other up. But it's not about cutthroat competition and those kinds of things. So I love to hear from people who want to pick my brain about something. I love to pick other people's brains about things. You know, just connecting with community and allowing people to share ideas and support each other and promote each other and build each other up, I think is so important. So I would love if people reach out to me and and want to volunteer with us, want to see what we do, want to copy what we do, want to learn the Therophare model. I love, I love teaching and connecting with people. Oh my.

Minessa Konecky: 49:42

God, this is exactly why you're amazing for the podcast. Our philosophies are so aligned. I love so much that you offered that to everyone. Guys, take advantage of it, because I mean, you never know when, like you never know what connection is going to completely change your life. I'm constantly, constantly surprised by connections that do that. So, sherry, thank you so much for your time and I look forward to seeing you at the next South Shore Women's Business Network meeting. Take care, absolutely.

Sherri Damon: 50:06

Thank you so much.

Minessa Konecky: 50:27

Bye, bye.