EPISODE 35
October 6, 2022
Introduction
My guest in this episode is Belgian, Suzanne Vanden Schrieck. I met Suzanne the summer of 2015 at a social gathering of international women in Lisbon and I was curious to learn that she’d trained as an osteopath in Belgium, ultimately practicing cranial sacral therapy. Around the time of her 30th birthday, she relocated to Portugal from Kathmandu in Nepal, where she’d been volunteering as a cranial sacral therapist, working with traumatized exploited women, orphaned street children, and young performers with Circus Kathmandu. Prior to Nepal, Suzanne and her Dutch boyfriend were living in the Czech Republic, very close to the Polish border. However, there she had trouble attracting clients because Suzanne was practicing an unfamiliar therapy that people were not open to receiving from a foreigner. Now, after eight years living in Portugal, she has a thriving private practice treating both internationals and Portuguese, and for Suzanne, the logistics of setting up her business was a relatively bureaucratic-free and simple exercise.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Louise: Welcome to Women Who WaIk. I’m Louise Ross, writer and author of Women Who Walk the book, the inspiration for this podcast. And just as I did for the book here, I’ll be interviewing and unpacking the journeys of impressive, intrepid women who’ve made multiple international moves for work, for adventure, for love, for freedom – reminding us that women can do extraordinary things. You can find a transcript, with pictures, to each episode, and my books on my website, LouiseRoss.com.
[00:00:47] Louise: Hello, listeners. Welcome to Episode 35 of Women Who Walk.
[00:00:52] Louise: This episode is the fifth in a series of interviews that I’ve been doing with women who’ve moved to Portugal, women who are self-employed in the healing arts as holistic, alternative, or non-medical practitioner. There will be one final episode in this series airing toward the end of October, and that will be with British-Australian, Georgia Marnham, an Iyengar yoga instructor.
[00:01:24] Louise: And now to today’s guest, Suzanne Vanden Schrieck. Suzanne is from a small village in Belgium. She’s Flemish, though she identifies as bicultural because her mother is Dutch and her father Belgium, two quite different cultures, Suzanne explains, by virtue of the way their languages are communicated.
[00:01:50] Louise: I met Suzanne the summer of 2015 at a social gathering of international women in Lisbon. This was about a year after she’d moved to Portugal. I was curious to learn that she’d trained as an osteopath in Belgium. However, what she actually practices is cranial osteopathy or cranial sacral therapy.
[00:02:14] Louise: Her relocation to Portugal was around the time of her 30th birthday, and from Kathmandu in Nepal, where she’d been volunteering as a cranial sacral therapist, working with traumatized exploited women, orphaned street children, and young performers with Circus Kathmandu. According to its website, CircusKathmandu.com is an “all human circus combining theater, dance, and cutting edge art forms” and it was created by survivors of child trafficking. Tragically, thousands of Nepalese children are trafficked to India each year to perform in illegal circuses.
[00:03:05] Louise: Prior to Nepal, Suzanne and her Dutch boyfriend were living in the Czech Republic, very close to the Polish border. However, there she had trouble attracting clients because Suzanne was practicing an unfamiliar therapy that people were not open to receiving from a foreigner.
[00:03:26] Louise: Now, after eight years living in Portugal, Suzanne has a thriving private practice treating both internationals and Portuguese, particularly since her Portuguese language skills have evolved to encompass discussions about health related matters. And for Suzanne, the logistics of setting up her business in two different locations, one in Lisbon, and one in Cascais, 30-minutes outside of Lisbon was a relatively bureaucratic-free and simple exercise.
[00:04:14] Louise: Welcome Suzanne. Thanks for being a guest on Women Who Walk today.
[00:04:18] Suzanne: Hello Louise. Good morning. Thanks for having me.
[00:04:21] Louise: Oh, you’re welcome. So as we get started, my first question is about your background and you’re Belgium, but are you from the Flemish or French part of Belgium?
[00:04:33] Suzanne: I’m from the Flemish part. So my native language is Flemish. But actually, well, my father is Flemish, but my mother is from Holland. So she’s Dutch. People think, uh, Flemish part of Belgium or Belgium and Holland, it’s really close together, you’re speaking the same language, kind of the same language, but it’s a very different culture.
[00:04:56] Suzanne: The Dutch culture is very different than the Belgium culture and it’s not so easy or not so obvious for a Dutch person to integrate in the Flemish culture. I grew up in Belgium being Flemish and I was already confronted with two different cultures and how can they blend into each other. In the Flemish culture, I was sometimes too Dutch and when I was with my Dutch family, sometimes I was too Flemish. And so I always fell in between those two.
[00:05:29] Louise: Suzanne, I’ve got a question about that already. Can you tell me what does that mean to be too Flemish or too Dutch?
[00:05:37] Suzanne: Well, how can I explain this? The language is already different and the way of using the language is different. So a Dutch person is much more direct, but if you go with that directness to a Flemish person, they easily feel intimidated. They feel put on the spot, like you’re too direct. You’re confrontational. If I am being Flemish and I go to a Dutch person, they will feel like, are we going to get to the point now? Are you going to say what you think? They expect much more directness.
[00:06:13] Louise: Yeah. This is fascinating. Language really does determine our cultural interaction.
[00:06:19] Suzanne: And then you get misunderstandings because they think you’re holding things back. The Dutch will think you hold something back because you’re not direct enough. And the Flemish person backs out because you’re too direct. Yeah, it’s a way of, uh, finding the balance in between that.
[00:06:36] Louise: I understand. Thanks for sharing and I, I can kind of attest to that because Australians have a certain way of speaking, which tends to be ironic and very blunt and almost a little kinda loud and, and crude. And when I lived in the US, I had to tone that down cuz the Americans of course have a very different way of interacting, which to the Australians seems so overly polite and Australians actually don’t really trust that over politeness.
[00:07:02] Suzanne: Yes. Yeah. It’s the feeling, the feeling that you get when a person speaks in a certain way, it’s not even so much the words, but the way you present them to the other person.
[00:07:14] Louise: Mm-hmm mm-hmm. Yeah. Now tell us a little about your background growing up in Belgium, perhaps where you grew up and some childhood memories of your neighborhood. Paint a picture for us.
[00:07:26] Suzanne: I was born where I grew up in Boortmeerbeek. So I wasn’t born in hospital. Boortmeerbeek is a little village it’s in between Luvan and Mechelen, Luvan to say it a bit more international sounding, um, which is altogether 35 kilometers away from Brussels and close to Antwerp as well. So there is this access Brussels-Antwerp, and there’s this area in between. So relatively small village with a family that consisted of two different cultures. How was it to grow up there? Yeah, it was, um …
[00:08:06] Louise: I guess it was sort of a small village experience.
[00:08:08] Suzanne: Yeah. We lived in a small street with the dead end and behind that there was a neighborhood with young families.
[00:08:16] Louise: Mm. Okay. Um, so in the introduction to this episode, of course, I mentioned that you’re a cranial therapist. Is this something you knew at a early age that you wanted to study and then practice?
[00:08:29] Suzanne: Yeah. So what I do at the moment, what I practice at the moment is cranial sacral therapy and visceral therapy. And this was well, not, not exactly something I had in mind as a child already.
[00:08:44] Louise: Mm-hmm
[00:08:45] Suzanne: But as a child and as, as a teenager, I’ve actually always been interested in health and wellbeing. Even as a child, even as a teenager, these were subject that, that, uh, that got my interest. For example, when I was 14, I followed the course of Reiki. At that time, my mother was doing all kind of things, all these kind of modalities, uh, meditation, energy work, working with consciousness and awareness, mindfulness. And one of the things she did was a Reiki course and I was interested, so I asked, can I also do that? I also wanna learn that. And so I did. I did Reiki One and Reiki Two at 14 years old.
[00:09:29] Louise: That’s pretty, pretty advanced for a young teenager. I mean, teenage girls are often just figuring out their hair and what clothes to wear and playing with makeup.
[00:09:40] Suzanne: Actually I can go a bit further back to childhood. When I was a child, I very often had, uh, tummy aches. At that age already, I had figured out, like if I placed my hand on one spot of my body and I placed my hand on the other side of my body, like 20, 30 centimeters away, and I imagined that they are connected and that energy is flowing in between them. The tummy pain goes away. So I already figured out how to treat myself. But at that age, of course I would never have called it energy or I would never have called it, give it any name. It was just something I would do at night when I’m in my bed, have this stomach pain and I would put my hands there and I would solve my problem.
[00:10:26] Suzanne: So that came naturally to me. By the time I was 14 and I heard about Reiki, of course it fascinated me. It sort of gave, gave words to, to things I was experiencing already.
[00:10:38] Louise: Okay. What did you ultimately go ahead and study?
[00:10:41] Suzanne: I always continued to read a lot. Things about our shakras, but also herbs and plants and I got interested in massage and I started a course when I was 17 and in my last year of high school. Again, I was still a teenager. I should be doing teenager things, but I wanted to do the Shiatsu course. It was in the weekends. It was one weekend a month. So I did that first year training of Shiatsu. Do you know what Shiatsu is?
[00:11:12] Louise: Yeah, isn’t it one of those Japanese pressure points.
[00:11:15] Suzanne: Yeah.
[00:11:16] Louise: Um, therapies.
[00:11:17] Suzanne: It indeed it is. It originates from traditional Chinese medicine and it uses the Meridian points. So the same points that acupuncturists would put a needle, the Shiatsu therapist will massage it, treat it with pressure, activate these points differently. So pressure point massage basically. And, in that course at some point, start talking with the teacher and somebody asked the teacher, I heard about cranial sacral therapy, but I have no idea what it is. Can you explain what it is?
[00:11:54] Suzanne: And that teacher explains about the rhythm we have in the body. He said, every tissue in the body, your organs, your head, your arms, everything has a rhythm. It expands and it contracts again, rhythmic like seven times a minute, 14 times a minute. And that shows that the body is vital and a cranial sacral therapist works with this rhythm and this vitality of the body. That was basically everything he said. But I was so fascinated and wow, that’s amazing. The tissue is like my stomach, my liver, it’s just having its own rhythm, its own vital expression. And it is possible that I can feel that. I can learn to feel that. I wanna learn more about this.
[00:12:40] Suzanne: That’s where I started. I researched cranial sacral therapy. Can I learn this in Belgium and where did it come from? And I found out that this originated from osteopathy. At that time I was 17, 18 years old finishing high school. I had the possibility and opportunity to study. My, my family was, gave the support to study and I decided to study osteopathy.
[00:13:08] Suzanne: There was one school in Belgium who offered the course and there I went studying osteopathy. But basically because I wanted to, uh, know more about this cranial rhythms and this, this vital impulse of the body.
[00:13:22] Louise: So then what I’m hearing is that the work that you do, cranial sacral, is a branch of osteopathy that you trained in, in Belgium.
[00:13:34] Suzanne: Yes, they call it cranial osteopathy. It works of course, with the same tissues and the same rhythms. I think in the 70s there was an osteopath who said, working with the cranial sacral rhythm is so powerful, and actually everybody can learn it in a safe way, uh, why don’t we offer this as a course for people who do not have any medical background, people who are not therapists, but as a therapy on its own. Cranial sacral therapy. And of course other osteopaths didn’t really like it, but he went ahead anyway. And so cranial sacral therapy became a therapy on its own.
[00:14:15] Suzanne: But the, the route originates out of osteopathy. And so since I was 15 and I was about to have my basic education, study something, I decided to study osteopathy just to have a very solid, uh, solid scientific basis before going into more alternative healing modalities. That was my idea at the time.
[00:14:42] Louise: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So you’re in your late teens, you’re, you’re studying in Belgium, but then you left Belgium in your, it was your early twenties?
[00:14:52] Suzanne: Uh, late twenties. It was 26, 27.
[00:14:56] Louise: Oh, okay. So were you practicing as a therapist through your early 20s?
[00:15:02] Suzanne: I finished my study of osteopathy and I started to practice, but at the time I had a Dutch boyfriend and that Dutch boyfriend had a house in Czech Republic. House in nature, very beautiful. Actually, it was, it was Czech Republic, but we were uh, one kilometer away from the Polish border. So we were again like two, two cultures meeting there. Polish and the Czech culture we could decide are we going to eat in Poland today or are we having lunch and Czech Republic. And usually we would choose Poland because the Polish kitchen is, is yeah, a lot better than the Czech kitchen.
[00:15:44] Louise: What was one of your favorite meals?
[00:15:46] Suzanne: What I liked very much are these things like goulash. They make really good goulash. And yeah, there was this small local bar, you sort of had to know where it was, and they made it homemade. Very simple, very, very basic, but really good. And pierogi is one of these things. Yeah. Oh everybody loves pierogi.
[00:16:08] Louise: Yes. I know what, oh yes, they’re like little dumplings, aren’t they. I love those too. Mm-hmm.
[00:16:13] Suzanne: Indeed.
[00:16:14] Louise: It’s a fairly rural environment by the sounds of it. And so were you able to practice your therapy there?
[00:16:20] Suzanne: Well, that was very difficult. When I went to Czech Republic, eventually, I spent there already like, like a month at a time, a few weeks at a time during summer during Christmas. So I sort of got to know the area and I had some contacts with people. I thought, okay, it’s not gonna be easy, but it’s gonna be possible to start. But it became very difficult. The language was much more difficult. The people were very, um, not open to foreigners at all. Not at all actually.
[00:16:53] Louise: Would they have even been open to the work, to the therapy?
[00:16:56] Suzanne: Interested, yes. I even had a, a Czech colleague there who also studied cranial sacral therapy and we set up an exchange. We treated each other regularly. She also had her clients. For her it worked out, she had her network of clients. So yeah, they’re open for the work, but no, they don’t take the step to come themselves. It’s a very different culture and the expectations are, are still different.
[00:17:27] Louise: Mm-hmm. Perhaps more, uh, traditional. Traditional medicine is more, um, a part of the culture rather than energy work.
[00:17:39] Suzanne: I found it fell a bit in two groups or the people who wanted it really, really alternative, like energy and almost shamanism. And on the other hand it had to be medication. One or the other. But a manual therapy, something like osteopathy, at that time I was working as an osteopath, no, that was difficult.
[00:18:01] Suzanne: I actually never really got a hand on it. Like what didn’t work out. But when I went to Czech Republic, uh, I was the fourth osteopath in the country. I did my research and the same summer that I went another uh, Italian osteopath also moved to Czech Republic. And then there were two people who were there already. But in Prague, more in the city, it’s easier.
[00:18:24] Louise: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That makes sense. Mm. So, so how long were you there?
[00:18:29] Suzanne: All together, since I moved there and until I left, was six months. I spent longer periods of time before really moving there, of course. Um, from packing my stuff and settling there until leaving the place again, that was six months.
[00:18:48] Louise: This is a little bit of a personal question and you, you don’t need to answer it, but was this, was your relationship also falling apart at this time?
[00:18:55] Suzanne: No, that was not the case. We had a relationship for five years, a bit more than five years. I have good memories of that relationship it was a very interesting time. We did really interesting things. Yeah, I still value that a lot, but we went different roads at some point in 2015, when I, I was already in Portugal almost a year, we sort of split roads.
[00:19:20] Louise: Yeah, I see. Well, before you arrived in Portugal, though, you went to Nepal.
[00:19:25] Suzanne: Yeah.
[00:19:26] Louise: It sounds like you went together.
[00:19:27] Suzanne: Yes. I was in Czech Republic. I couldn’t really work there. I couldn’t really integrate there, but I already had left my life in Belgium. Didn’t want to stay there. So I thought, well, actually I can go anywhere in the world. Where shall we go? And my boyfriend at that moment, he had good memories of, of traveling in India. And he said, for sure, there are possibilities also to, to volunteer as an osteopath. Why don’t we just go to India? I thought, yes, that would be great. That would be my first travel outside of Europe. Why not? And he had been there already, so that gave a little bit of confidence. He had a bit of experience and so we decided to go.
[00:20:11] Suzanne: But I didn’t have a passport and to get my passport, I had to go back to Belgium and then it would take six weeks before getting the passport. And, while actually I lived in Czech Republic, we came into some administration hassle to get the visa to enter India. India is a bit more difficult to enter these days and what was a lot easier was go to Nepal. Once in Nepal, go to the Indian embassy and ask for the visa there. So we decided to go to Nepal to get a visa for India. And we ended up in Kathmandu.
[00:20:47] Suzanne: The first few days, we spent outside of Kathmandu. We thought let’s first spend five days in a place that we like and then we travel to, to India. So then we went to the embassy to get this visa, but it was a holy day and then it was a weekend and then it was a strike and then it was, so this, this visa it took more and more time. And we decided to stay in Kathmandu also, because once being there, we got contacts and there were possibilities as well.
[00:21:16] Louise: Right. So the possibilities were volunteering?
[00:21:20] Suzanne: Yeah. Once there, I looked for the possibility to volunteer as an osteopath. My boyfriend, he got into contact with the shelter for women. What happens in Kathmandu, people who come from very small remote villages, they have no possibilities. They come to the city and once in the city, they end up in, in situations of exploitation in restaurants, in bars and at worst in sex work. So there was an organization who tried to locate these girls and get them out of their difficult situation.
[00:21:52] Suzanne: And then they stayed in a shelter until they got on their feet. And they were interested in treatments. So I worked in this shelter with these women, with the cranial sacral therapy and the osteopathy. That was very interesting. Another place where I worked as well in, an orphanage for street children. This orphanage specialized in picking up children off the street. And I worked with Circus Kathmandu. That was also very interesting.
[00:22:22] Louise: With the circus?
[00:22:23] Suzanne: With circus. Yes.
[00:22:25] Louise: Oh my, wow!
Suzanne treating a circus performer. Most of Circus Kathmandu’s performers are former victims of human trafficking
[00:22:26] Suzanne: This is also one of these things that happens in Nepal, India, that children who are athletic, they get abducted and they are put in circuses in India. And then at some point the kids do the circus tricks for many years, and then it becomes an adult and they’re not useful anymore so they end up nowhere. And one way or the other, they locate these people and they bring them back to Kathmandu. And there’s an organization that decided, well, this is the only skill that they know, circus tricks, so why not put them in a fair situation of doing what they can do? And they started Circus Kathmandu.
[00:23:08] Suzanne: So I worked with those people as well, giving them osteopathic treatments. They often had been going through physical strain and not getting the care that they needed.
[00:23:19] Louise: It sounds like incredibly worthy work, Suzanne, but not easy emotionally.
[00:23:25] Suzanne: No.
[00:23:26] Louise: How did you manage the difficulties of, uh, dealing with some very, uh, challenged individuals?
[00:23:35] Suzanne: Well, I knew that this was their background, but I was not in a situation that they would tell me stories. Very often when people are very traumatized, they do not talk about it. So it was merely something that I could find in their body tension. Um, the tuning of the nervous system. I work with the body and I feel this is a person in fight-flight or in freeze. Uh, really this trauma responses, the, the tension in the muscles, the muscle is always ready to run away.
[00:24:06] Suzanne: That was very interesting to develop my skills, to negotiate with a nervous system. Like, can you relax? Can the tuning of your body allow your muscles to relax a little bit more? I learned a lot, was very interesting work. And with some people very good results and with some people, you just don’t get through.
[00:24:28] Louise: It was almost like a very sophisticated apprenticeship for you before you then launch into your, uh, work here in Portugal. So you, you relocated here when?
[00:24:39] Suzanne: Very end of 2014.
[00:24:42] Louise: And I think I met you probably a year later or so and you were working at a clinic in Lisbon. Firstly, why Portugal? And then what was it like working in that clinic?
[00:24:52] Suzanne: Why Portugal? To summarize it, it was a gut feeling. Not so much rational decision involved in this, uh, decision to come to Portugal. I didn’t know anything about Portugal. When I was in Czech Republic, I followed, uh, postgraduate courses in cranial sacral therapy and in visceral therapy. Visceral therapy is everything that has to do with the digestive system, the organs inside. And one of the teachers was Portuguese. She was a Portuguese osteopath.
[00:25:27] Suzanne: And that was actually the first time that I thought okay, osteopath. Portugal is a country where there are osteopaths. Interesting. So it sparked some inspiration in my mind. I thought maybe I should visit Portugal one day. One day, you know, no clear plans. But then we were in Nepal and in Nepal, I met, uh, a very interesting woman and she had a project going on in the south of Portugal.
[00:25:53] Suzanne: We got along very well, and she said, ‘if it ever happens to be that you’re in Portugal, let me know. You can stay a few days in my place.’ When I left Nepal, at some point, I even considered staying in Nepal longer, but the air pollution is so bad in Kathmandu.
[00:26:14] Louise: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:15] Suzanne: So I came back and I thought, what am I going to do? Where am I going to settle? I will need to create some work for myself. Is it going to be in Czech Republic? No, that was not the case. Am I going to go back to Belgium? No. After my experience in Nepal, which was great, I thought if I want to settle, actually I want to stay within Europe. So which country shall I go? Why not try Portugal?
[00:26:41] Suzanne: As I said, I didn’t know anything about Portugal, but I booked my ticket. I contacted this lady. I said, well, I’m in Portugal. Uh, shall we meet up? And she said, yes, come over, stay a week in my place before you continue traveling. And that’s what I did. That’s where my journey started, took the flights to Faro and I stayed in Aljezur and then I continued traveling to Lisbon.
[00:27:04] Louise: Did you come on your own?
[00:27:07] Suzanne: Yes. At first I came on my own. The first six weeks, I think the first month I was on my own. And then my boyfriend also came over. He stayed a month or six weeks. He stayed over Christmas and then he left again, cuz he had his work going on in, in Czech Republic. He had things to do. So then I was on my own again. And then eventually this relationship also ended half a year later.
[00:27:34] Louise: How old were you when you arrived in Portugal?
[00:27:36] Suzanne: When I arrived it was three weeks before my 30th birthday. By that time I was in Lisbon already and on my 30th birthday, I decided to visit Cascais. I was in Lisbon and I found the city, well, it’s a city it’s, it’s very busy. It can be overwhelming. I’m more a person who likes nature. Uh, so I decided I’m going out of the city. I’m going to Cascais. Visit that place for my 30th birthday. And that’s where I live now.
[00:28:07] Louise: But you were working in a clinic and were you received well as, as a foreigner working in a Portuguese clinic in Lisbon?
[00:28:15] Suzanne: Yes. I was actually very lucky without having any plan and without having any preparation, I was lucky with the people that I met. I wanted to know what’s it like to work as a therapist or as an osteopath at that time, here in Portugal? So I contacted a few people uh, introducing myself. ‘Hey, would you have interest to have a coffee together? Shall we have a cup of tea together?’
Suzanne engaging in a group discussion about cranial sacral therapy
[00:28:40] Suzanne: And one of the first people I spoke with said, ‘yes, why not, interesting to hear what’s going on with osteopathy in Belgium.’ Meeting a colleague, I’m always open for that. If somebody says, ‘ I’m a colleague, shall we have a cup of tea?’ I always say yes and make time for that. This man also did that and during our conversation, he complained about his colleague because he had a clinic with three or four treatment rooms. And one of the osteopath’s colleagues had started his own clinic and he had taken all his patients with him to his own clinic. Okay, this man had a reason to complain, but what I heard was okay, he has a treatment room and it’s empty. It’s available.
[00:29:23] Suzanne: So a few days later I contacted him again and I said, I remember from our conversation the situation. Would it be possible, would you be open for it if I use this space? Can I rent it for example, one day a week? We got an agreement and it got set and I could see patients there.
[00:29:44] Suzanne: The next challenge. Find patients. And then one way or the other, I managed.
[00:29:51] Louise: You did, to the extent that you ultimately opened up your own private practice in Cascais.
[00:29:57] Suzanne: Yes.
[00:29:59] Louise: Talk us through the logistics of setting up your own practice.
[00:30:03] Suzanne: There are different formulas. I think every country has different formulas. Here in Portugal you start your own business, you register as a business owner, and you have your own location and everything, or you work as an employee, of course, in somebody else’s clinic or you have a form in between in which you are not a business, but you do work for yourself. That’s actually the formula that I’m using. I am renting the room. I manage my own work.
[00:30:30] Louise: It doesn’t sound particularly challenging.
[00:30:32] Suzanne: It’s relatively easy. I think. This option exists in Portugal to join a group clinic in which there is a dynamic use of a room. Sometimes you can book by the hour. Sometimes you can just say like, I want one day a week, or three days a week. That’s what I’m doing at the moment. I’m renting three days in Cascais and two days in Lisbon. So I work in two locations.
[00:30:57] Louise: Are your clients mostly internationals or do you see Portuguese as well?
[00:31:02] Suzanne: I do see Portuguese clients as well. Initially, of course, I didn’t master the language yet, so they were so kind to speak English with me. Now that I’m almost eight years in Portugal, I also see clients that speak Portuguese. I still find it a challenge. Portuguese is a complex language and, let’s not forget that I’m dyslexic so learning language is a challenge, but I like the language, think it’s a beautiful language and I’m very motivated to learn it and I’m getting there.
[00:31:36] Louise: Good for you. So you speak Dutch Flemish, English, some Portuguese. Did you end up picking up any Czech or Polish?
[00:31:44] Suzanne: A little bit? But that sort of disappeared.
[00:31:47] Louise: Do you see yourself continuing to build your practice here or, um, or do you see another move at some point in the future?
[00:31:54] Suzanne: I really like to be in Portugal. Although coming here was with a lot of challenging and it was not an easy time. I always loved where I was. As soon as I landed in Portugal I had this feeling of, okay, I like to be here. And I still have that. I like to be in this country. So the first three years I was here alone, but now I have a beautiful Portuguese boyfriend and we are living together. He has this work here. I have my work here. For now I think I’m gonna stay.
Suzanne and her Portuguese partner, Miguel
[00:32:26] Louise: You’re settled. You’re very settled, aren’t you? Yeah. Yeah.
[00:32:29] Suzanne: At some point we might move away from the city. I would love that I would love to have a house with a garden. I would love to put some vegetables in the ground and grow my own tomatoes. That’s a plan. And then I don’t know. What is the future going to bring. My boyfriend has an interest in Sweden. Perhaps at some point we might stay a longer time there. I don’t think I would move there, but some traveling will come up for sure.
[00:32:55] Louise: I’m sure it will. I’m sure it will. But as you say, we, we don’t know what the future holds and for now you’re settled here, and you’re happy and you have a thriving practice. Yeah. So then if, if listeners would like to learn more about you and your work, where can they find you online?
[00:33:11] Suzanne: I have two websites at the moment. One is CranialAndVisceralTherapy.com. And the other one is called MyFrequencyAndMe.com and that’s an aspect of my job that we haven’t discussed, but it basically works with frequency therapy.
[00:33:27] Louise: Okay. I’ll put links to both of those in the transcript of this episode, and we didn’t talk about that second one, the frequency work, but if people are curious, they can look up your website and, uh, and perhaps contact you if they have questions about it.
[00:33:43] Suzanne: Yeah, exactly.
[00:33:44] Louise: Thank you so much for your time today, Suzanne, this has been lovely to hear a little bit more about you. I’ve known you for years, but I didn’t know some of the, the details of your travels and your country moves.
[00:33:55] Suzanne: Thank you for having me. It was lovely to talk with you.
[00:33:58] Louise: Thank you for listening today. So you don’t miss future episodes, subscribe on your favorite podcast provider or on my YouTube channel Women Who Walk Podcast. Also, feel free to connect with comments on Instagram @LouiseRossWriter or Writer & Podcaster, Louise Ross on Facebook, or find me on LinkedIn. And finally, if you enjoyed this episode, spread the word and tell your friends.