Episode #42. The power of gentle movement & community: Sue Holly-Rodway & Suzy Bolt discuss living with long COVID
What happens when life as you know it comes crashing down? In this episode of the ‘Make Movement Matter’ podcast, Sue Holly-Rodway and Suzy Bolt, two extraordinary women redefine resilience in the face of long COVID. From devastating symptoms to the profound isolation of an invisible illness, they share their deeply personal journeys and the surprising tools that brought them back to life.
Discover how gentle movement, breathwork, and the magic of community can spark hope even in the darkest times.
This conversation shows us just how important it is to really listen to your body and that even through the hardest challenges you can reclaim your power. Whether you’re living with chronic illness or simply navigating life’s challenges, Sue and Suzy’s stories will leave you inspired to find joy, build strength, and it proves that progress is always possible.
This was a truly heartfelt discussion that I thoroughly enjoyed and hope you do too.
Chapters
00:00 Understanding Long COVID: Origins and Symptoms
02:59 Identifying Patterns: Who is Affected by Long COVID?
08:56 Personal Experiences: The Journey Through Long COVID
14:59 Navigating Treatment: The Search for Solutions
17:58 Building a Supportive Community
20:54 The Importance of Self-Care and Awareness
24:07 Exploring the Nervous System's Role in Recovery
27:07 Creating a Healing Environment: The Power of Connection
38:10 Understanding POTS and Dysautonomia
41:00 Advocating for Self-Understanding in Healthcare
43:08 The Rise of Holistic and Lifestyle Medicine
44:50 Listening to Your Body: A Lost Art
46:41 Managing Symptoms and Overcoming Fear
48:30 Gentle Movement: Starting from Zero
52:39 Connecting Mind and Body Through Movement
55:28 The Power of Community and Connection
01:00:12 Finding Joy and Hope in Healing
About this week’s guests:
Sue Holly-Rodway
I am a 63-year-old wife, mother, sister, daughter - previously very active, sporty, fit and previously had a long and fulfilling career as a business leader in the technology sector. In 2022 my world came ‘crashing’ down when - after a pretty undramatic Covid infection - I started to experience weird, frightening symptoms (‘brain fog’ doesn’t cut it) along with crushing fatigue. After four months of increasingly debilitating symptoms, feeling terrified and isolated, I eventually got a diagnosis of ‘post-covid syndrome’ – AKA Long Covid.
In 2023, having started to see real improvements, I caught Covid a second time, and this time Long Covid completely stopped me in my tracks. I eventually had to walk away from my career, from life as I knew it, and focus hard on finding some kind of path towards recovery, an often frustrating experience and a journey which I am still on. Over the last two years I have discovered two very powerful and positive communities, which have kept me sane, and have helped me start to find my way back to me – both of which involve careful, safe but enjoyable movement. And joy!
Firstly, the Bluetits Chill Swimmers, an amazingly inclusive and kind community of swimmers, dippers and ‘bobbers’! Due to the energy constraints of my illness, I pretty much only bob around in the water – even so, the act of getting into the water year-round, with like-minded strangers, and the gentle movement involved in bobbing and chatting, have had an incredibly positive and often euphoric impact, and being part of this joyful community has helped to mitigate the immense isolation that Long Covid (and so many other chronic illnesses) brings with it.
The second community - which has literally changed my life - is the Rest Repair Recover community founded by Suzy Bolt – both a community and a programme of specialist guidance, support, classes which support people with Long Covid and Chronic illnesses. The community ethos is all about finding joy in the smallest things, finding ways to really believe in feeling able to recover from these complex, frightening chronic conditions. Feeling connected with others who really ‘get it’ and ‘held’ by wonderful experts in the art of deep rest and gentle movement is a game changer. A big element of Rest, Repair, Recover is surprisingly a focus on moving: carefully, gently, safely, doing less, not more, but definitely moving.
Suzy Bolt
Founder of the Rest Repair Recover programme and the Fern programme, both designed to support those living with chronic health conditions. She is an NLP master coach, group facilitator, Yoga teacher and Polyvagal informed counsellor by training and she developed the programmes to meet a need she herself had when faced with CFS (following on from Glandular Fever) and then Long Covid. The thing she loves the most about her work is the fun the community have in the live sessions and watching the spread (around the world) of loving kindness her community offers to each other.
Connect here:
Email: suzy@suzybolt.co.uk
Instegram: https://www.instagram.com/suzy.bolt/
Website: https://www.suzybolt.com
Information:
The Dysautonomia Project - https://thedysautonomiaproject.org/
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More about your host, Wendy (Need coffee details)
Wendy (50) founded Reclaim Movement after a running injury at 40 turned into 4 years of chronic pain. In her search for answers and to reclaim her own movement again she discovered natural movement. The philosophy of training real life practical movements to be able to keep using them as we age, coupled with the benefit of using strengthening and mobilising whole-body movement patterns that are underused in today’s modern world made her realise she had found a way to move for life.
Wendy’s aim is to help people embrace a movement-rich life, at any age, to improve mobility, strength and confidence to keep moving well and doing the things they love for as long as they want.
MovNat Level 1 certified & Functional Range Conditioning certified, she coaches online group classes live & by replay in the Reclaim Movement membership as well as online and in-person private coaching in Oxford.
Find out more about Reclaim Movement:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/reclaim.movement
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@reclaim.movement
Facebook: https://facebook.com/reclaim.movement
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