I Didn’t Leave Physiotherapy. I Expanded It.

I have just left my clinical job as a physiotherapist.

I have been a clinician for over two decades, and it is fair to say that physiotherapy became part of my identity. Over the last few years, however, I began to feel a persistent call toward something else. Something new. Something more expansive. Something that felt greater than the walls of a treatment room.

My first attempt at answering that call was a tech startup. I built an app offering exercise prescriptions, an evidence-based approach widely used in Sweden, with over a 50 percent success rate shown in five-year follow-up studies. Exercise is one of the most powerful tools we have. It improves mental health, physical health, sleep, eating behaviours, and dramatically reduces the risk of early death.

The idea was sound. The outcome was not.

The startup failed. I learned, among other things, that inactive people do not actively search for ways to get active. I also learned difficult lessons about cofoundership. The underlying intention, however, remains the same today as it was then. Helping people improve their lives.

Burnout followed. And with it, a pause.

When I recovered, I went back to the root question. Why did I want to be an entrepreneur in the first place?

The answer was clear. If I wanted to create real change, I had to create it myself.

As an employee, especially in healthcare, there are limits to how fully you can express your purpose. Physiotherapy has a clearly defined role. When you move beyond that role, it is often quietly discouraged. At least, that was my experience.

After completing my master’s degree, I became deeply influenced by the biopsychosocial approach to pain. This framework helped me understand why some patients recovered while others did not. It helped me understand myself. It sparked a deep interest in meditation and self-development. I began to see how closely internal pain and physical pain are linked.

Some of the most meaningful moments of my career were not manual techniques or treatment protocols. They were conversations.

Moments when patients understood that pain equals danger in nervous system language. That danger is not always structural. Often it is found in unfulfilled dreams, unhealthy relationships at home or at work, or roles people have outgrown but feel unable to leave. In many cases, the ongoing pain had very little to do with the original injury.

I wanted to help people more in this way. Those moments of insight and connection brought me deep joy. They made me feel aligned and alive.

Not all colleagues embraced this approach. Many preferred to focus solely on the biological aspect of pain. Often, I believe, because engaging with the psychosocial aspect requires confronting one’s own inner world.

Patients, too, were conditioned by the biomedical model. They came for mobilisations or manipulations. After all, it felt like the body was what had failed them. The people I helped through education about pain did not know they needed that information.

They simply needed relief.

This is where Pocket Physio came in.

Pocket Physio is a small, convenient device designed to communicate safety to the nervous system. It gently down-regulates the system and provides moments of relief. It is not a cure. It is not a magical solution. It does not fix everything.

What it does is create space.

It teaches the nervous system to settle. It gives the body a break. A pause. And that pause can be used intentionally. To slow the breath. To quiet the mind. To listen inward.

Because only when you can hear yourself clearly do you know what needs to change. Pain is the body’s way of asking for change.

Pocket Physio is not the destination. It is the doorway.