We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Heather Hundhausen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Heather , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.

I was learning how to market a parenting class I had taken that was so effective. When I was in the 3 day speak and sell marketing training, I realized that what I truly wanted to teach people was that their pain in their body is from their trapped emotions and flawed mental thinking and beliefs.

I presented a speech to the class on my findings and beliefs, and half of the class enrolled to come see me as a body- mind therapist that week!!

My business started with a boom that day, and instead of teaching the parenting workshops, I instead got to help people do emotional shadow work and reparent their own inner child 🙏 which was much better received and much more effective 🥰

Heather , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Heather Hundhausen, and I began this journey in 1999 as a licensed massage therapist doing neuromuscular and trigger point release work. I saw the body as a machine that needed to be fixed, and soon discovered that humans are very proficient in continuing to do habits and behaviors that are in effective to their highest functioning.

I went back to grad school to get my master’s in marriage and family, because I was massaging families and couples in their homes, and I could see how they were all influencing each other’s stress levels and body pain.

I instead ended up married with a family lol 😂 and got my master’s in Mental health with an education specialist degree. All of my coursework is in systems and marriage and family.

I discovered quickly, as a failing parent, that I was not adequately set up for parenting, even with a master’s degree in marriage and family (how ironic), so I took this amazing parenting course that changed my life.

In the process of learning how to teach and market that course, I discovered that my true passion had always been to help people release their physical pain, which was just an expression of their stuck, repressed, blocked, guarded emotional pain, and bad mental and psychological habits.

I learned craniosacral therapy and somatoemotional release work from the Upledger institute, and was so grateful to have a NAME for what I was doing. John Upledger also discovered what I discovered. He just had a better name for it, and a lot of science to back it up.

So now I help clients with all kinds of issues. I see a lot of repressed therapists lol (that’s our word for it), I see people with sexual pain and repressed sexual issues. I see sisters and couples and parents and kids for relationship communication. I see many clients with low grade anxiety. But most of my clients are normal people who know they can be great and are excited about reaching their full potential!

I truly believe that if we all could live in our total, free power, unrestricted by our belief systems, by our habits, by our attachments and by what we believe other people are thinking about us, we would experience pure freedom and autonomy. If that happened, there would be no need to take from others because we would be self sufficient, empowered, fulfilled and free. If that could happen, we would have world peace.

I’m proud that I get to show people how to live peaceful, happy, free, powerful, fulfilling lives. We then model that for our children and the next generation. And pretty soon we will start to see peace on this planet.

I offer one on one coaching services, and occasionally have a workshop that I’m teaching on empowerment, or whatever the universe tells me is a good idea 😂. I like to stay in the flow, and for now, I love working one on one 💕

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

I am definitely a very big believer in training, because of my answer to this question.

I think the very most important piece of having a successful business is believing in yourself, being confident, and overcoming imposter syndrome.

I had a master’s degree in mental health with all of my coursework in marriage and family. I had been a massage therapist for over 10 years at the time. I had a full book of clients working for someone else because I was so good/ consistent/ had amazing results. I had done two years of volunteering for a personal development training every 6 weeks, I had taken a 5 month in depth personal development course, and then been a coach for the same course, and I still didn’t feel good enough. The people I was volunteering with were trying to pay me. My massage clients were trying to convince me to start my own business. I was so resistant!

Overcoming imposter syndrome for me happened when I took the leap, started my business, and people started referring me like crazy. I still felt insecure about being able to support myself financially, so I took tens of thousands of dollars more of BUSINESS training, marketing, enrollment, sales lol.

What I learned through all of that is that the most important thing about selling anything (myself, a service, a product) is that I needed to make the conversation be all about THEM.

Once I got out of my own way with enrollment and sales, I started having so much success.

Then I learned to get out of my own way in my massage practice. In my coaching practice. And then it started transferring to my interpersonal relationships, my lovers, friends, family. Which then translated to thriving and BEING the model for how to actually thrive in life.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson I had to unlearn is that making money is hard, and that life is hard.

I had one parent who was raised in a blue collar, middle American 2 bedroom home with 4 children and two parents. There was never enough, hardly enough food, and the oldest sibling, who was the role model, died when my parent was an early teen. The messages I received from this parent are: life is hard. Making money is hard.

It was reinforced by this parent being married to my other parent who was raised with a silver spoon.in their mouth. This parent had horses and acres of land on country club grounds, and an orthopedic doctor father in the 50s/60s before insurance. They were rolling in money. Money was easy, but intimacy was unavailable.

You can imagine the fighting that happened between these two in terms of finances. They never saw eye to eye. One thought that they should have everything they wanted, and the other always thought there was never enough.

The result was, I picked up beliefs like:
You have to do everything alone.
No one wants to support you.
Work very hard to achieve and then you’ll be loved. Achievement is your only value.
Life is hard.
Making money is hard
You have to hoard all you can get.

Obviously, those mindsets do NOT work when building a business.

Unlearning them was definitely a challenge. But luckily, I was in the field of psychology, hypnosis, subconscious reprogramming, and personal development, so I knew that the brain and the beliefs were malleable and temporary.

Gratefully, I hired some coaches to whip me into shape. I took many training subconscious reprogramming, and had the opportunity for others to help reprogram my mind.

One of my favorite sessions was with Santa Claus when I was 4 years old. Inner child work is profoundly effective.

My inner child remembered telling Santa she wanted a truck. (Santa gave her a doll, because in the early 80’s there was no gender equality yet.) The beliefs were, “even Santa doesn’t think I’m worthy of getting what I want.” And “I don’t deserve to get what I want. I’m not worth it.”

We did the reprogram and she got the truck, and drove it all around and had so much fun, messed up her little stupid lacy dress, and was allowed to be totally free.

When she was asked if she felt worthy of receiving the truck, she looked dumbfounded. As if the thought never even crossed her mind!

That next year I made an extra $30 thousand dollars.

Our mental game, and our belief systems absolutely create our reality. I had to unlearn that life is hard, and that making money is hard, and that I have to do everything alone.

It’s more fun with a team. Life is so much fun. And making money is just energy. It comes and goes and never ends.

Contact Info:

• Website: heatherhundhausen.com
• Instagram: @hleighhund
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heather.leigh.969
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/heather-hundhausen/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@HeatherhundhausenMindBody?si=_AMIhOfoLLfTrDIE
• Other: https://maps.app.goo.gl/3H6ox3Pad2XjjWbq5

Image Credits
Dani DiTerlizzi https://www.instagram.com/createanomaly?igsh=MXFyb3BmMXRxYmozbg==