Meeting The Body Where The Back Is At
In this week’s episode of the Unreal Results podcast, join me as I talk about practical tips and insights for managing back pain. Some highlights from the episode include understanding the body’s protective response to pain, using pharmaceuticals for back pain relief, respecting the body’s natural protective mechanisms, and improving sensory information & reflexive core stability. These tips not only come from my professional experience but also my personal experience dealing with chronic back pain and eventually back surgery. I’m positive you’ll find valuable tips for treating back pain and the importance of meeting the body with kindness during flare-ups.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode
Episode 18: Lessons From My Back Surgery- Part 1
Episode 19: Lessons From My Back Surgery- Part 2
Episode 20: Reflexive Core Stability: Lessons From My Back Surgery - Part 3
Episode 23: Cranial Nerves- More Than Assessment For Concussions
Blog Post: Lessons I Learned From My Back Surgery
Blog Post: Prop It Like It's Hot- Why Props Should Be Your BFF
Blog Post: Rock Mats To Revitalize Your Sole
Upcoming In-Person LTAP™ Courses
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Considering the viscera as a source of musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction is a great way to ensure a more true whole body approach to care, however it can be a bit overwhelming on where to start, which is exactly why I created the Visceral Referral Cheat Sheet. This FREE download will help you to learn the most common visceral referral patterns affecting the musculoskeletal system. Download it at www.unrealresultspod.com
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Anna Hartman: Hey there, and welcome. I'm Anna Hartman, and this is Unreal Results, a podcast where I help you get better outcomes and gain the confidence that you can help anyone, even the most complex cases. Join me as I teach about the influence of the visceral organs and the nervous system on movement, pain, and injuries, all while shifting the paradigm of what whole body assessment and treatment really looks like.
I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in.
Hello, hello, welcome back to another episode of the Unreal Results podcast. I'm home! I'm finally home, and I say finally with those of you who follow me regularly or listen regularly. Um, it is not the first time I've been home this year, um, but it kind of feels like it. I've probably been home, like, cumulatively home with, like, I don't want to say not working because I'm kind of always working, but not working, working with patients forever.
So yeah, I was home in March for three weeks with my athlete that's doing long term rehab. So even though we were here, which I was so grateful for, I was still like very focused on him and very focused on his rehab and everything that entailed. And so though it was nice to be home, it didn't necessarily feel like, And then, um, I've been with him mostly the whole rest of the time with a week here and there, um, scattered in for little breaks.
Um, but they have been few and far between since his injury in around Christmas time. So, um, we're in the homestretch of his rehab, which is wonderful. Um, our goal was to get back by Olympic trials, which is for track and field, which is happening right now. So very sad, um, that we did not make that, but it was a very, very lofty goal.
I don't want to say it was impossible because We wouldn't have done it if we didn't think it was possible, but it was a very slim possibility and I think the hardest part is and we were Him and I were talking about this like the hardest part was like at some point like at the beginning We're like not possible and then we started going with the rehab and it was like oh this is possible and so You know when you really feel like it's possible then you get to the end and you realize it's not going to happen It's like a big letdown, but um, he's doing good.
I'm doing better Um, and we're just still grinding right? We still even though we didn't make the short term You Sort of short term goal we had. Um, the goal is still to get him 100 percent and back better than he was before injury. So, um, We're just still locked in. And um, but now he can be a little bit more independent.
Um, he needs less and less of me, um, which is great. That's always my goal with people. And, uh, so that means I'm home for a longer period of time, and then now when I go see him, it'll be more like our traditional. more maintenance type of, um, trips where I fly to him and like check in, recalibrate his program, like his strength program, rehab program, do some manual therapy, just make sure we're staying on the right track and he's getting everything that he needs and then, um, leave again.
So it'll be more of an in and out sort of thing. Uh, and yeah, I'm looking forward to a summer. In San Diego. It's been a couple of years since I, um, will be like, will have been around for the majority of the summer. And so I'm looking forward to that because I live where people vacation. And I love that and I love taking advantage of that.
And so I'm just super stoked for summertime fun and like getting back and like creating community and just taking care of myself. So it's always funny. Like people talk about work life balance and like, uh, I'm a big believer of like they're, It's balance is like a much like homeostasis in the body balance is not a flat line of like 50 percent take care of myself 50 percent take care of everybody else.
It's more of like a seasonality or like a um, you know an ebb and flow and um
so I realize there are times that I put my clients my athletes my business before You My needs that's sometimes, you know, quote unquote not the healthiest thing in the world But also it's a decision that I make and I do it fully knowing That if I do it for too long, my it will take the toll on my body and my emotional health but the beauty is is I always get to choose and I always then also get to I am the only one to blame when it gets to a point where I've, you know, sort of lost sight of taking time for myself.
And, and I say it's like an ebb and flow because that's just who I am. Like I'm, you know, 43 years old and I've been doing this my whole life. And now I have enough knowledge that I realize that when it happens and I recognize. Sort of how I start to feel in my body when I'm starting to, I don't want to say get out of balance because again, it's not like a balance thing, but when I'm starting to spend way more time.
On the side of taking care of other people and not myself And now i'm quicker to then make an adjustment to take the time off to um not reply to emails to not text people back to not call people back like you know to like totally go in shutoff mode and just like Spend time with myself, you know, pick up a book instead of opening my computer and like go to the beach and just be and so um Yeah, that's where i'm at right now with that said Uh last year last year.
I did this too. I took um about a month off in the summertime from the podcast uh to to Rest and just so many people sort of like are busy during the summer like You know or take some time off during the summer. So it's kind of just the vibe too Is people are like consuming less content often in the summers And so summertime is a great time to just take a little break And so this will be the last episode until probably the second week of august.
Um, i'll come back doing Um, new regular episodes in between now and then I want to, um, do actually short clips of all of the podcasts. And, um, there's definitely like a, a, a good, like eight episodes that have the most downloads, get a lot of play, which are great episodes. Um, But then there's a lot of other episodes that I think are awesome and that maybe haven't gotten a much, as much downloads for whatever reason.
Maybe the time or the title or you know, who knows why. And so over the next five or six weeks, I'm going to work on either me or my guy Joe. I'm going to have, do just short little Maybe not a teaser, but like pull out some really helpful pointers from some of my favorite podcast episodes. Um, and just to give you a little bit of like, um, for those of you who still want to listen throughout the summer, for you to have some review or even To be exposed to stuff that you missed from the beginning.
Maybe you haven't been listening from the beginning. And it's not like I have like 400 episodes like some people's podcasts, but, um, I think this will be episode number 67. So there's been a lot. And, um, I also know from teaching that, um, In order to really like integrate it into your work and integrate it in your practice, you need to hear it more than once.
And so I'm also going to take the opportunity to let you hear it more than once and, um, make it easier than having to go back in the archives. Um, if there's anything Instagram and, um, social has taught me that when you ask people to scroll back into the old content, they just don't do it. So I'm going to do that for you and pick out some of my favorite things and I hope you enjoy that.
Um, I'm going to make sure that none of those episodes 20, 25 minutes and, um, Yeah, so little little unreal results podcast snacks for the summer time and um, and then i'll see you on the flip side of um, The other side of july the other side of my birthday. So my birthday is august 1st. I always try to Take um some sort of vacation around that time.
Um, if even if it's just a staycation Uh to celebrate my birthday and like do things that bring me joy. And so You I'll be doing that and I'm sure I'll share all about that, um, when I'm back on the next new podcast episode. So, uh, without further ado, let's get into today's. So a few weeks ago on Instagram, one of this, one of these whale, um, tour guides that I follow, follow in, I think he actually works out of Africa, um, I forget what part of Africa, but, um, Maritas maybe?
And, uh, he had like put a story out and was like, Oh my gosh, I'm. My back hurts so bad. I can hardly move. Does anybody have any advice of what I should do? I like threw my back out and this is actually something that comes up quite a bit like a question that comes up quite a bit that people have and friends and family when their back doesn't feel good and and I wanted to sort of just share some of like the top things I would do if I were to wake up tomorrow with my back hurting, um, or my back being out or like, you know, pretty high level back pain.
Um, and this goes for sort of like any spine pain, it can be neck pain, it can be thoracic back pain, it can be lumbar back pain, SI joint pain, sort of anywhere along the spine. But, um, if you've experienced back pain, you know it is. Pretty debilitating and also, um, pretty depressing. There's a big, like, emotional piece that comes with the, um, your back not feeling great.
And so I just want to provide this as kind of like a resource for you and your patients, um, on, like, where to start. And it's gonna be more of, like, where to start for the patient as opposed to like where to start for the clinician when the patient comes in. Um, but hopefully this get, this provides you as, as the clinician, this provides you even some talking points with some of your patients on how they can manage their back pain, because you know, the, the studies are pretty strong in the fact that everyone will experience back pain once in their life.
At least and then also once you do experience back pain, the recurrence rate is very high. So, um, that's like almost like the one thing that you can guarantee if you've had a back injury, if you have had debilitating back pain that it will probably come back. And the best thing that you can do for when it comes back is to be prepared with a plan of like what to do.
And, um, that's what I hope. This episode sort of helps is some like practical like what to do when you're in a flare up and um If you're new here, or if you don't remember, um Previously on the podcast. I actually have three episodes dedicated to my back pain journey my back surgery journey So I think there's like it was like a part one part two and part three like lessons from my back surgery and um So I'm also, like, speaking to this from a very, like, I've been there standpoint, and I've tried everything standpoint.
And so, um, on top of, like, from a, I have a clinical mind for it as well. So it's like, I've been the patient and the practitioner on this side of back pain, and I think sometimes from a practitioner standpoint when you haven't experienced this kind of thing. Um, you don't quite appreciate how affecting it is on like every aspect of your life.
So, um, you know, to as simple as like, like the, the best thing I can explain is like, when you're, when you're having a back pain, Um, one of the things that happens is like, you can't, you can't move around very fast. And I don't mean like, you know, moving from like, One end of the clinic to the other like from the car to your house that yes, but also like even like in the morning like getting ready like if I have back pain and I have like a short window like if I normally if it normally takes me like 45 minutes to an hour to get ready to leave the house for whatever during the day you know whatever appointment or whatever errands I have to run or if I have a patient coming in um when I'm in a when my back hurts it's gonna take Almost double that amount of time to be honest.
It is like everything you do is just you are moving more gingerly and you Also, the pain itself is exhausting and so it's like, it just takes more out of you and you have to go slower with things. And like, realizing that and giving yourself grace to do that, I think is important. And then, so like I'm saying, like as a provider, you don't even like realize like that's a thing that maybe your patients are going through.
And so, little things like that, which I, you know, I If I could go back in time and not have that experience, I would love it. But also, like, having been through that experience, it just is so valuable, um, It's so valuable to share. So anyways, um, I'll link, I'll have Joe link those three episodes in the podcast notes too, so if you haven't listened, you can go back.
Um, that's really like a more all inclusive of like the whole spectrum of back pain. Um, whereas this episode is just going to be more of like, okay, so you have a flare up, like what now sort of thing. And, um, I'm going to lead this off, this whole like either flare up or new back pain even too. And some people are not going to like what I have to say, and I know this for a fact because one, I've said it on the social medias before and gotten a whole lot of flack from other practitioners about it.
And then two, um, It doesn't feel like, well, sometimes, especially in this world that I am in of like blending osteopathic medicine in with traditional medicine, um, you can get in this world of like natural medicine and, um, Pharmaceuticals are bad and the pharmaceutical industry is like terrible and all these things and I agree with some of that But also I am very grateful for pharmaceuticals um There is a time and a place for pharmaceuticals and for me in my experience the risk of an anti inflammatory or painkiller being detrimental detrimental in the long run To the prognosis or the outcome of my back pain is worth, is worth it to me to have the alleviation, the quick alleviation of pain and disability.
In the short term now your body your choice. Um, you don't have to but I am like when my back hurts I am very quick to grab Tylenol or Advil or a combination of the two to feel better and the the thing is is Especially in a recurrent situation where I know what's happening in my back like I've got disc herniations It's very clear when it is a very disky thing for me, but even when it's not, like, if it is debilitating, if it's slowing me down, like I explained, in the getting ready in the morning, like if it's significantly impacting my quality of life.
With activities of daily living, I am quick to use some over the counter pharmaceuticals within reason. I'm not taking them forever, um, every day, but if I'm having some pain, I might try something simple first, but I am fairly quick to go with the medicine. Um, with the pharmaceuticals, and one of the best ways I can also explain this is if we take the disc, for example, one of the things that creates such high levels of the pain is the disc material that comes out of the disc when you have a herniation, um, is chemotoxic?
No, it is you Yeah, it is an irritant to the nerve root itself, and that, in itself, creates a lot of pain. So, That is a chemical reaction happening. It's a very chemical reaction happening when that is the driver of the pain. And so there often is not a ton of mechanical or movement interventions that you can do to change it.
It either needs time to run its course or Another chemical to come in and cut it off at its tracks. And so that's how I sort of see the role of the anti inflammatory or the role of the painkiller is like, it's a chemical issue often in the first place. So I want to have a chemical to fight it because that is very easy to do.
And I know that if I can get the pain a little lower, then I can do some of the more mechanical and movement interventions that it's going to set me up to keep it that way. Um, so I'm like, I'm a big Advil fan. I do a prescription dose of Advil, which is 800 milligrams. every eight hours and you know those those kind of meds They take like a few days to build up in your system for the actual anti inflammatory response so, you know, I am diligent about doing it every eight hours if that's the reason why I'm taking it If I just want to go from a painkiller standpoint and then acetaminophen Tylenol is just fine and And or I can use both if it's really bad.
So there are two different drugs so you can take them together. I'm not your doctor. Don't take my word for it. Obviously, make sure that you can tolerate things like that. But in general, those two over the counter medicines are pretty helpful for me. And that is, like I said, this is where some people get irritated.
That, that is my advice. But I'm also like, yeah, I've been there and um, whatever effect it has on tissue healing, I'm like, I'll take the risk because the pain and the debilitation in the short term is like unbearable sometimes and like very inconvenient. Um, so there's that. The next thing that I, that is important is to, um, Meet your body where it's at and try to not force it out of positions that it's trying to put you in to protect things.
And so, um, one of these things is like, um, for example, like a lateral shift that sometimes occurs or even as simple as the, the back muscles, the paraspinal muscles tightening up in response to the pain. I welcome those adjustments that my body makes, that my musculoskeletal system makes, because my body is smarter than I am.
It's doing it for a reason, and it's doing it for a protective reason. And so who am I to go force it out of that protection pattern? And so what happens a lot of times when you see people force themselves out of these protection patterns? Um, you know, they're back hurts. So they go to a massage therapist or they, you know, get the massage ball out and they start, um, doing deep tissue on the pair of spinals until it lets go.
What happens is for a moment they feel better, but then they often feel worse because now you've, Shut up, you've shunted the protection response. And so now whatever those muscles were tight and protecting is not protected. And so like every movement you do has the tendency to be re provocative to the pain.
And so my best advice for people is do not, whatever you do, do not Treat the tight muscles around your spine when your back hurts. They're like that for a reason. Let them reflexively change their stiffness in response to how much protection you need. So that's a really important thing. That is what I mean by meeting your body where it's at.
Find Another part of meeting your body is that is find a position of comfort. That may be on your back, that may be on your side with pillows or props, that may be standing, that may be sitting, that may be lying on your stomach. Um, in the moment, finding which position feels the best can be painful in itself, but Be creative and take your time.
You don't have to rapidly go through all of them and what you might find is each position feels good for a little bit but then it starts to not feel so good and that's just your body asking to move. So, you support it as you need to. You use pillows and towel rolls and props. However you need to support your body where it's at and not force it where it needs to go.
So if you, let's say you do have a lateral shift and when you sit down, it sort of tends to go away and your back hurts more. So put a pad under one hip and bring yourself back into that lateral shift. And again, that's meeting your body where you're at and it's going to feel safer and better as opposed to trying to force yourself out of it.
Eventually, as things calm down, your musculoskeletal system will respond and not be in such dramatic protection patterns.
The third thing is to improve your sensory information. However you can, in whatever position you can be in, you can work on improving sensory information into the other parts of your body. Your hands, your feet, your eyes, your ears, your smell, your mouth and tongue. Let me write that, that would be taste.
When we can facilitate More information through those sensory organs, our pain will start to come down. Um, there's an episode that I'll have Joe link that I did with my friend, Missy Bunch. And it was like all about this, how tapping into improving your sensory information can decrease our pain because there's an actual area of our brainstem that's responsible for pain inhibition.
And it is shared with our cranial nerves. And so really simple things like face massage, eye circles, pencil push ups, scalp massage, ear rubbing, humming, gargling, um, working on your hearing, um, smelling aromatherapy type oils. nostrils, like testing one nostril over other, um, all of these things, they seem so simple, but yeah, actually can be very good at taking your pain down.
Vestibular work, so just like focusing on a target and moving your head or, you know, there's a lot of things that you can do there. And honestly too, it doesn't even have to be that scientific. Like literally, like all the things I mentioned, just try them out. The other things hands and feet so our hands our feet are two powerful sensory organs So this is where the rock mats come in really handy a low back pain, especially Rock mat can be so helpful because it improves sensory information to the areas of our body Who the sensory nerves come from the nerve roots?
That also control the motor control around your lumbopelvic, um, area. And so it can have a direct effect on like the stability and function of the lumbar spine. Um, and then also it causes us to shift our weight forward and untuck our pelvis, which often can be a driver of some of our low back pain or a side joint pain, which is super powerful.
Uh, so two reasons there. Um, But again, kind of like the cranial nerves, improving sensory information in general tends to change our output and our output is going to be movement and our output is going to be pain. So the better sensory information we have from the whole body, the less chance we have pain.
So another really good way to improve sensory information is move all of your joints. And so here in this scenario with having a back pain thing, instead of moving your spine or moving, let's say your pain is in your lumbar spine. So instead of going directly to the lumbar spine, I'm going to move all the joints and all the rest of my body first before I try to move in the lumbar spine.
So again, this kind of goes back to the thing I said about meeting your body where it's at. Trying to force movement in the area of the body that's hurting and probably in a Like a frozen sort of like protective state, you're going to do ankle circles, toe waves, knee circles, hip circles. You're going to skip the lumbar spine, you're going to do like rib mobility, maybe some thoracic motion, maybe, um, scapular mobility, shoulder mobility, wrist and elbow mobility, neck and head mobility, right?
Or vice versa, if it's your neck, you're going to do all the other parts besides your neck. So again, our joints are very rich in proprioceptor, so That tell our body where we are in space. The better our body knows where we are in space, the better it can organize itself around the universe. What's going on as well as the chance of decreasing pain in improving movement?
So the last thing I would recommend is doing something that requires reflexive activation of your core control So a good example of this is this one time my back flared up I was going to a golf tournament and Luckily, I wasn't golfing in the golf tournament. It was a charity golf tournament I was just going to like hang out and like volunteer like kind of like help out.
Um, but I, you know, for whatever reason that day I woke up and my back was flared up. So I took, step one, took medicine. Step two, didn't force myself out of the little bit of the lateral shift I was in. I was in a weird like little lateral shift and then like this sway back position. I didn't force myself out of those positions.
But then I found, I've kind of played around with, I had to carry something. And I found that if I carried it, On the back of my body, not happy. Made things worse. Side of my body, made things worse. Other side of my body, made things worse. But actually, if I carried something in front of me, I was able to feel some reflexive activation of my trunk, um, from a stability standpoint, and that actually made me feel very good.
And I was able to walk a little quicker, walk a little freer. And so what did I do then? I made sure that for a good part of the day, I was holding something in front of my body to find that reflexive stability because I knew that was helping to unload whatever was bothering me, or at least unloading what add to the stiffness and protection that my body was trying to do with the shift.
And so over time, as I was walking with that anterior load, um, I started coming out of that shift and out of that sway back position. And I felt so much better. And so the easiest way to feel that reflexive core activation is to carry something, lift something on the, I don't want to say super heavy, heavy is relative, especially when you're in a flare up, heavy is very relative, but it should be heavy enough to elicit, elicit that reflexive core control.
And you'll feel it, right? Like, you'll feel your abs, like, click on. Different than consciously trying to get them to click on. Cause you can't hold that the whole time. It's not the same. Um, conscious, conscious. Contraction of a muscle usually only is concentric. And so reflexive, contraction of the muscle is all the types, isometric, concentric, and eccentric.
And it's as much activation is needed, but as little as possible to create stiffness. And so it's a very different quality of movement. So. Might seem silly, but that's, that, that was a really helpful way of meeting my body where it was at and providing some reflexive stability that was able to support this stiffness that my musculoskeletal system was trying to do to put me in a protection pattern.
Um, and the other, so those are like the main things, right? Like meet the body where it's at. Well, take, take medicine. Don't be afraid to take medicine. Meet the body where it's at. Don't force it out of its protection pattern. Improve sensory information and create some reflexive trunk stability. Easy. If I were to add in some things, I might add in like things to address your lymphatic system and your ankle mobility, which they go hand in hand, too.
So, Oftentimes, um, our lymph or clogged up lymph play a big role in back pain. Those lymph drainage points are like right along our spine. And so when we are like congested, we tend to have back pain. Um, I would say for all parts of the spine, there's always some sort of visceral connection. And so, you know,
decreasing, like. inflammatory foods, um, doing like gentle gut massages. Um, these are all things that can be helpful. Though also like at the beginning stage, um, Besides the lymph thing, like getting your lymph to drain, that's a big one. So compression socks, sometimes when I have a back flare up, like putting a pair of compression socks on really makes a big difference.
Um, but, uh, these are sometimes more long, longer term solutions or longer term things to investigate than short term, like what to do in the moment. So hopefully this was helpful. Um, It's no fun. I, I, I think that's kind of my parting words is it sucks. It sucks. And it makes you slow down and it makes you be patient.
And the most important thing too, is to not like, to not be like, what did I do wrong? What did I do to create this? Like, There are so many factors that lead to back pain. It's like hard to pinpoint just one thing you did or did not do that puts you in this situation. And so the more that you can learn how to One, recognize your body is working for you, not against you.
The protection patterns that we often think are the problem in back pain are just that they're protecting us and dealing with the pain. If we can like lean into like literally figuratively lean into that a little bit more, um, we usually get through. The beginning parts better. We get through the flare up better and easier.
And so oftentimes what takes a long time is people trying to force themselves out of these protection patterns in the first place. So, um, don't be so hard on yourself and remember to meet your body with some kindness. And then the other one too is like walking, um, walking. is really good for back health.
I think honestly, the studies that show this, I think honestly, it goes back to the lymphatic piece to be 100 percent honest, is when we can get our fluid moving, we tend to feel better. Now, here's the thing. Sometimes when we have a back flare up, Walking is painful. And so you have to be creative. Kind of like I talked about with the golf tournament and me holding something in front of my body.
That was the only way I felt really comfortable walking. And so you gotta be creative. If walking doesn't feel that great. Um, try holding something in front of your body, back of your body or sides of your body and see if that changes it. And. And then, and then if that doesn't work, try backwards walking safely, right?
Like, you know, make sure you have the space that you can walk backwards without falling down. Um, and then also, um, unweighted walking, right? So if you can't, if none of those full body weight scenarios feel good, get in a pool if you can. And Unweight yourself a little bit and walk and see how that works.
Um,
all very powerful tools. So yeah, like I said, hopefully this was helpful for you for your patients. Um, maybe this sort of was some good reminders. I think the biggest like overarching reminder is like, Don't force the body.
Listen to it. Meet it's where it's at with some kindness and Gently Navigate what feels most supportive. It might be not moving. It might be moving It might be moving with some load. It might be moving without load. It might be Supporting yourself with bolsters in different positions, or it might be just doing some joint mobility.
It might be taking it easy. It might be taking medicine, but those are all options. I think sometimes patients, people, when their back flares up, they like are in so much pain and then they're like, I have no idea what to do. So know that there is probably many things that you can try that all have the potential for significantly decreasing your pain and improving your ability.
That's all I got. Hopefully. We all have some long extended times without back pain. I will say that, you know, my back surgery was when I was 29 in 2009. I started probably having back pain in 2007, um, on and off. And, um, it took me a good, amount of time after my back surgery to get over the hump of not having back pain and not having a lot of recurrent back pain episodes.
And now, however many years ago that was, way too many for me to count anymore, like 13, 14 years ago, it's actually coming up on the anniversary of my back surgery and my loss of dorsiflexion. Um, yeah, what was that? So 2009, it's 2024. So, 2029 would be 20 years, so we're 15 years out from when I lost dorsiflexion and when I had back surgery and, um, Nowadays, I'd say that maybe I have, like, in a year, maybe, truly, two episodes of pretty, debilitating back pain.
Here and there, a little bouts of back pain, but for the most part, like, I am free of it. And not only am I free of it, I can navigate it really well. But it took a while of getting to know my body and getting to know what works and, like, figuring it out. So this is also, like, a journey. Happy to share.
Hopefully it's helpful. And we'll see you after vacation!