The Healing Odyssey: Uniting Mind, Body, and Spirit Across Cultures with Jessica Webb

Have you ever felt the pulsing energy of a story that resonates with your own search for wholeness? Our guest, Jessica Webb, a relentless explorer of the world's diverse mind-body healing practices, returns with tales that promise to ignite a flame of curiosity within you. Embarking on a narrative odyssey, we traverse the common threads of healing across cultures and the transformative power that comes from embracing our true selves. Jessica, drawing inspiration from Gabor Maté's "The Myth of Normal," reveals how anger, authenticity, and self-agency can lead us to reclaim control over our healing journey, with captivating anecdotes that showcase the universality of the quest for wellness.

Witness the astonishing tales of individuals who've harnessed the sheer force of belief, faith, and the mind's resilience to overcome physical ailments. These stories not only reflect personal triumphs but also a shared human strength that can awaken dormant healing capacities within us all. We reflect on the delicate interplay between nurturing and fostering agency in children, the ripple effects of our health awareness, and how these manifest in our lives and the lives of those around us.

Finally, we ponder the impact of community, self-love, and embrace diverse learning methodologies, celebrating the tapestry of healing as a collective experience that connects us, shapes us, and propels us forward on our individual and shared paths to wellness.

Get in touch with Jessica:
https://liberationfound.com/

Liberationfound@gmail.com

Listen to our previous episode here: Emotional and Holistic Healing with Physiotherapist, Jessica Webb

Podcast Disclaimer:

The Pain-Free Podcast is presented solely for general information, education, and entertainment purposes. Any information presented in this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional diagnosis. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. As always, users should not disregard or delay obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition that they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to the Pain Free Athlete Podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:08

I'm your host, dana Jones. I am a certified personal trainer and I'm here to help you achieve your fitness goals without pain. In each episode, I'll share tips and strategies that will help you stay safe and pain free while you're working out. I'll also interview experts in the field of fitness and pain management. So if you're ready to learn how to stay active and pain free, then subscribe to the Pain Free Athlete Podcast today.

Speaker 1: 0:34

Welcome to the Pain Free Athlete Podcast. I'm your host, dana Jones, and, as promised, I have brought back Jessica Webb and we are for those of you who may not have listened before, jessica was interviewed number three or four or something like that. I got to go back and check, but anyway, we were so excited because Jessica was on kind of a vision quest of the mind. She's our mind body warrior that's what I'm going to call you your mind body warrior who was going to travel around and find out what people were doing in terms of the mind body healing and how other cultures live and whatever. So she is joining us from southern India and if you get the opportunity to see the video of this, you will think that she's in front of a green screen, but no, she's in the middle of the jungle and it is absolutely beautiful where she is and welcome Jessica.

Speaker 2: 1:36

Thank you so much, dana. I love being a warrior. I'm going to continue with that one. That will be the quite one. Yeah, we've been having such an extraordinary time. I think you did a really good synopsis of how we started. This project is looking at how the world, how the global community, have approached mind body healing for hundreds, if not thousands of years, before we started coming up with the Western methodologies that we've been finding have been so successful.

Speaker 2: 2:08

And it was going to the Circle Conference I can't believe it was two years ago and seeing these thought processes of how it was working so well and going actually, this is really reminding me of some really old techniques of meditation that I know of. And hey, what about we go out into the world and find out what we all have in common, instead of dividing that we've been doing for a really long time? It's actually underneath it all, under this, into our neural processes. Are we kind of getting to the same place in healing? Are we finding a way to tap into it, even if our methodology is looking really different across the board? And that's how we started the project is going. Let's look at these, excuse me, let's look at these methodologies and just kind of see the amount that's out there. And it very quickly became something that we were aware of in the case studies that were coming up, that often it wasn't about the methodology itself, it was the person, it was the personality that had approached that particular methodology, and so I've made a little note of it is that I'd started by looking at these. This that, like the approach focus that Bessel van der Kolk talks about in the Body Keeps. The Score is that there was three kind of main areas where people were approaching mind body, which was the top down approaches, the psychological approaches, the bottom up approaches, the somatic, upwards approaches and obviously the very archaic, just kind of simple medical approaches. And he talks about the fact that the mix of the mix of one or two or three of them were what he was seeing was was being effective for people. So that was kind of the mindset going in is I'm going to go and see the approaches. But what became clear from the first interview is I don't think this is about the approach, because the approaches all look so different, is that? Actually I want to go into this with a different focus about who are you not like, who are you Not aggressively, but who is the person that has found the success in this. And luckily, while I was, while we started the travel really early on, I started reading Gabor's new book. I don't give a life like a new Gabor.

Speaker 2: 4:44

Gabor Mattes new book, the Myth of Normal, and he expands on an idea that he built on from when the body says no of these, he calls them the four, as he says that there are four as that people need in order to have a success in the mind, body, condition improvement or healing. I don't think anyone just uses straight healing, but change, and the one we've touched on is this this idea of authenticity is that people have to reach a point where they're coming back to themselves, they're true self. That, putting aside this, I'm doing this for somebody else. I'm doing this because my parents told me this is the way I need to live. I'm doing this because society has said this is how I need to be. Is coming back to? Is this right in my heart? Is this right in my gut? Is this actually what I want to do? And so many of the case studies which we'll touch on talking so professionally, I'm so touched myself is I want to talk about what we're seeing, what I'm seeing with these people from all over the world are becoming back to authenticity. And he also talks about this idea of agency is that you are running the show this is your carriage, this is your, which they call wagon. Like you know, on and off the wagon, it's like this is your wagon and you're driving this and if you're going along that your mind, body, journey with the idea of that person's going to have the answer for me, I need to do what that person is saying rather than I'd like to do this for myself. I have these tools that I can use, but I'm the mechanic. Is that that, that idea of agency, is? Another huge reason why people find success in it is that I'm in control here.

Speaker 2: 6:35

Another thing he talks about in the book is the another A is the anger, and when I first read that I was like, oh, not sure how I'm gonna feel about that, but he explains it really well. Is that anger should be this quite short term use it when you need it. Someone has overstepped a barrier, something has has, has put you into a place that isn't the right place to be, and using anger for what it's meant to be, as a self preservation tool of oh, we're not going to go that way, we're going back again and then being able to let it go. That one meant a lot to me, because I'm sure you if we understand both from the TMS personalities is that allowing yourself to be angry is a really, really hard step. And once you can feel that anger go, I know what to do with it now, rather than just let it boil and boil and boil and boil like a witch's cauldron.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Right.

Speaker 2: 7:28

I'm gonna let that. I'm gonna use it for what it's for. And the last A he talks about, which is one that I'm still understanding better with every person, is his idea of acceptance, and I don't know. I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on what acceptance means when you have a mind, body, conditional or any long term condition, as he's describing it as a. You are aware, he's aware, of the word. You are acknowledging fully that this is, this is real, that you're not wishing it to be something else, but you're also not saying, but you're also not minimizing what's going on and under reflecting on oh you know, it is what it is.

Speaker 2: 8:14

I've got a migraine, it is what it is like. You're actually using that acceptance. Okay, this is where we are, where we are right now. I'm not somewhere else, I'm here, I'm going to do the work. What does I really know what acceptance, like what that means.

Speaker 1: 8:28

Well, so I had an interesting conversation with my father today because I had I talked to him about my trip to Disney and I talked about using HypnoBox, which is an app that I interviewed the founder for, and had used it to get over my anxiousness about getting on planes and flying and, you know, being away from home and all those things that kind of conjure up when you are changing your physical location, and I was, you know. He asked me how many times I had done it and I said it was like three or four times and then I felt very confident getting on the plane and he said, well, you know why it worked. And I said, okay, I'm like, and he goes because you were open. He said you were. You were open to receiving the information. And so when you're going down the four A's because you know I've read some math and it's always interesting to kind of see this you know that that idea of one, you know, going, like putting them out of order, is like being angry, you know, and looking at the situation and just being frustrated.

Speaker 1: 9:41

And you know, on one end, right as a person who, when you have these things happen, you know you're all like I can't believe my head hurts, you know. So there's that, you know, poor me anger. Then there's the fuck, this anger like I'm not letting this take over my life, kind of thing. And then there's the anger that comes up when you change your personality and start to set boundaries, and then you find the people in your life who push boundaries, and then you're insulted, right. So then there's that frustration, or the anger or the resentment or those kinds of things, that kind of boil up. And so when I hear, you know, when I hear him talk about, or at least in this context, I feel like, yeah, it's about boundary setting, it's about being pissed off that I said no and you're continuing to ask or push or do whatever, because you know before I was in pain, so you just thought, oh well, she's going to be tired and not going to pay attention, so I'm going to do it anyway. Or, you know, you allow this, these people, to assert their ideas or beliefs on you, and it could be at the medical system. You know of them, you know you walk through the door and they decide, right, oh, you're a migraine.

Speaker 1: 10:51

Or you know, like, for me, I was a drug seeker, you know, and I thought that was hysterical because I was like, look at my record, you know, I am not a drug seeker. And I remember I was so mad when, you know, the doctor did that he wouldn't give me, like a certain medication. I was like, look, if you look, I haven't. You know, I want, I'm not abusing it to, we're talking. I get like a few pills at a time, you know that kind of thing. And it was like you're crazy and he almost hurt me, you know, physically, because he was going to withdraw me from the drug, because he thought I was seeking it, because he didn't believe that migraines were real. So, and again, it was real for me at that moment.

Speaker 1: 11:30

So you know, it's a very odd situation, but again it's that eventually kind of coming home to yourself right and using that energy and really saying, like you know, kind of like what I told you when I read Sarno's book, and it's like when he talked about how, you know, if the pain jumps around. And as soon as the pain jumped around, that was my moment of acceptance where I went ah, shit, he's right, you know, this is a mind body thing, this is not, this is not, you know. And then I started looking right and again it goes to the curiosity. Then I started looking. I was like what other things are popping up for me that are like this you know what jumps around, what are, you know what are the same triggers, you know what are the same things that ignite whatever pain it may be, and you start to see those patterns and then that's the acceptance, right, is that? That's when you're like oh, I feel like this because of whatever, not because you know the barometric pressure changed or you know the all the other crap that I believed at the time because you know I was looking for it.

Speaker 1: 12:39

But I think, you know, as people who are chronic pain sufferers, we do have. You know there is some curiosity, right, because there's always that seeking type behavior and it does it. It makes you kind of addicts, like you know where you're addicted to finding the cure, and that is a very weird position to kind of be in. And eventually, when you have to admit to yourself, like I've tried, you know 25 things in the last, you know three months, like that's where you have to kind of get real with yourself and yeah, and say, okay, I got to, I got to go back to basics and get down to it.

Speaker 1: 13:18

So I, I know your, you know your website is live and I had the opportunity to kind of check things out. I know I'm making a hard turn here, but when? But one of the things, because I was thinking about it and I was like what? You have one story about this person who talks about healing through faith and it it talk about you know, being authentic and and having that type of feeling like what is that? Like, what was, what was it like to meet this individual? Like how, you know, how did it go? Like, what did you learn about her? And then about yourself too, because again, you know that's as a Western, or sometimes we don't always believe in those, you know, we think they're just crazy people.

Speaker 2: 14:14

It's an uncomfortable arising sometimes when you don't come from that place of faith in any way is to hear someone talk with absolute certainty that the thing that they had when they were growing up is never coming back. That I'm almost quite jealous of it. I am envious of this, this purity in life that I am on the right path because God is saying that I'm on this, on this path. So I think, like you were saying earlier, I was open at that stage to hearing different approaches to life, because I'd spoken to you and the and the and the Naman and Fiona who are all on the website as well at the moment who had used, I don't think, typical Western approaches the right word but is the ones, that is, looking at it from a reflective place, looking at it both from that top down and bottom up approaches. I'm going to get into my somatosensory stage and I'm going to look into it from my past and to see someone that used kind of anger. Anger, primarily, is what we're talking about here. We're talking about a lovely woman called Smeetja that I just met purely by chance. I was working for a few months in a hospital in Nepal. That's how I started the journey out. Here is going. I really want to see what is the world doing in terms of a physio, even from just a really basic kind of musculoskeletal way. It's how are we approaching, feeling abroad, going to get comfortable in it?

Speaker 2: 15:44

And I met Smeetja through that and her story is about when she was, forgive me, around 10 years old. She was having, every month or every couple of weeks, one of her legs was going entirely numb for no reason at all, couldn't feel it, couldn't move it, and this would happen anywhere between a day to three days. She would be bedbound and obviously she has sensible, good parents. They took her to hospital. She got all the appropriate checks to find out what was going on and there really was nothing coming up. They gave us some topical medication that they couldn't work out why it was happening.

Speaker 2: 16:22

And one day she decides well, in Nepal she's a Christian lady, in Nepal the church is on a Saturday, so it came to Saturday morning and she woke up and her leg had gone and she's obviously very frustrated. I guess I mean assumption is something you probably shouldn't do in science, but I can imagine as a young kid is like oh it's Saturday school, I wanna go see my friends. Like I'm in bed again and her mom says look, you can't go, I can't hate you, I can't get you on the bus to get there. She said no, mom, I'm going. There's no way that this day is not happening. She was. It's got kind of really positive anger. It's like this is unacceptable right now and I'm gonna do this.

Speaker 2: 17:08

And she said to her mom she said, mom, when I come home I'm not gonna have this, it's gonna be gone. This I remember we were talking about like the purity and wonder of children.

Speaker 2: 17:20

So her mother didn't feel that way, though Her mom was obviously slightly concerned, like, oh, my child is slightly disabled today. I don't think I want to just let her out of my sight, right? But Sametia said no, I'm going, I'm going to Saturday school. And she doesn't remember exactly what happened. She was very young but by the time at the end of that day and she'd been having these symptoms for good few years three, four she couldn't quite remember when it started. At the end of that day her leg had fully returned back to normal and her symptoms never returned.

Speaker 2: 17:54

And there was so much that you don't know in that story. And I think that we want I certainly I want is I want more the answers. I want to come out of an interview going oh, I understand it now. I've got all of the. It's my body and it's this, this and this and this, and there's so much about that going.

Speaker 2: 18:15

Oh, there's so much we don't know here, but there's still enough that I think that we can ask why that we can, we can suggest what might be going on and see the similarities of what's going on with her compared to somebody else. And we know, with all of the, any story, any study on neuroplasticity is it is so much more flexible in children, they can pick things up so much better and it just like like riding bikes, you know, it just happens for them so easily. I said I'm wondering what her kind of story was it her age? Was it this true? Like I am massively authentic, forward focused. This is my life, this is my wheelhouse mindset that helped and I don't know, but I think that it was her defiance, her willful defiance, yes, right this will not-.

Speaker 2: 19:08

But like you couldn't give me yeah, she was quite literally picked up, put on this, this bus for school to come back and have absolutely no symptoms again, whereas her symptoms would tend to last two, three days. It didn't fit a pattern of where it was before, but I think more importantly is it never came back afterwards.

Speaker 1: 19:30

And how old is she now?

Speaker 2: 19:32

Same age he is late twenties, 28, 20, I think. So she's had a good. I wish I could do that better, you know. You know she's had a good enough time to test the boundaries and I really I've gotten to detail in the interview about, like, what would you do if it happened again? What's your thought process, what's your reasoning If we do get a flare up? How-.

Speaker 1: 19:59

And what did she say?

Speaker 2: 20:01

She said it's prayer, it's. I'm just gonna. My belief is what's going to help, and whilst I personally don't relate to that because I have far too much self-doubt, the way she said it. I was like fair you know, fair and the people that we've spoken to that have older, more cultural approaches to their healing journey have all said I don't think it's gonna come back and it's been really interesting to look at that culture in. Maybe I'm over-assuming the West, but we love to reflect.

Speaker 1: 20:40

Oh well, we also love to name everything.

Speaker 2: 20:43

Yes, and dissect, and deeper and deeper and deeper. And you get to some cultures that have this, oh, that have this even built into the language system. In Nepal, they have this wonderful phrase that I used all the time, called kegani, and kegani meant it is what it is, right, oh no, yeah, it's like it is, it is as it is. Is this knowledge built into the very foundation of your culture of there are some things that are out of your control.

Speaker 1: 21:15

Right, which is, you know. For us it's very difficult and it's funny, because when you look at, you know our step programs, you know whether it's AA, na, you know anything that is trying to stop an addiction. One of the first things you have to come to terms with is that you don't have control. Yeah, Acceptance.

Speaker 1: 21:38

Right, and that's right, the acceptance. And it's really hard for people because we are, we have control over so much and the reality is we only have control over our perception of events. Right, we don't really like, we think we have control over things. But you know, like, for instance, I could go ahead and you know, flip the switch on, turn on the later, flip it off, and I'm like, oh, I'm powerful, are you really? You know, somebody hits a pole and knocks out the power. I flip that switch all day long and the power is not coming on. So I have like a faux sense of control. But you know, it is right, it just is.

Speaker 1: 22:17

And you have to right, you have to go with it. So you know, as you're talking about her, one of the thoughts that I had is you know Nicole Sax always talks about right. Her core thing is right. Belief is that you have to have. You know, belief slash faith in what's going on and no real, true healing can happen. You know you're gonna get stuck right Because if you think it's all bullshit, it's going right, right it is there we go.

Speaker 1: 22:49

So you know, this young woman was like this is not happening. You know I'm going to take care of this and had a timeline right. I'm going here, this is gonna happen and I'm gonna come back and I'm never gonna deal with it again. And I think we often short change ourselves with our ability to write the neuroplasticity right, with our ability to actually influence our body. You know, it's like people can believe that we can make ourselves sick, but we can't believe that we can heal ourselves.

Speaker 2: 23:23

Yeah, I think people hear stories about monks who live on icy mountains and can manage to keep their body heat and I think a fair amount of people go, yeah, fair enough. Like, yeah, they've learned how to do it, but they still see themselves as other than outside of that process that. Oh, they have. They've learned that control of their body, right?

Speaker 1: 23:43

No, Well, even meditation, yeah, Think about meditation, right, yeah, that's for those monks, because they practice it, so they know it, and it's like, okay, well, they don't just roll in and say, oh, I'm gonna meditate for four hours and be fine. You know, the young monk struggle right, just like we struggle with the monkey mind and all the different stuff. So, oh, I'm not young monks Like it's a meditation.

Speaker 2: 24:08

It is a constant lifelong process and we love where you know our upbringing is the perfectionism. Is that if I don't get it straight away then I'm not gonna do it, whereas meditation is almost. You almost want the monkey mind to input its balloon because it's the opportunity to come back to yourself. Right Is that by having your monkey mind put up, it's not you're doing something wrong, it's the awareness of it and coming back to yourself. That is the meditation, exactly Like without it. You know it gets easier for sure, but it's not. It gets easier in this kind of up and down way. You have good days, you have bad days, it's I, that's. That's one thing I really want to impart to anyone that's like I want to try it in meditation, or, if they're not comfortable with that word of like a more mindful approach and more focused time for breathing, is that it's not meant to be quiet.

Speaker 2: 25:12

You're meant to just keep coming back. It's you were not. There's not a silence in the mind, it's. It's always that acceptance. Oh, I feel like I asked a question at the beginning. There you go. No, it's all good.

Speaker 1: 25:27

Well, so it's funny. So I have this client and she's, I would say, fairly religious, and she just had a surgical procedure and there was a lot of discussion and she came to me to kind of get some guidance through the procedure and she said, you know, one of the things that doctor told me was that I need to meditate, you know, and because it's it's shown that meditating has some good outcomes, right, good surgical outcomes. And she's like no, you know, I'm not doing this. And she's like I don't know how to do this. And you know, basically like this is crazy, shit, I'm not doing it. And I looked at her and I said do you pray? And she's like well, of course I do, you know, and I knew she did. And so I'm like it's not any different. She's like what are you talking about? I'm like it's the same thing.

Speaker 1: 26:21

Right, you go through, right, you have, you know, a mantra, right, a prayer that you say maybe just a prayer, that you say maybe just started off, and then you listen, right, you wait for a response or a knowing or whatever may happen.

Speaker 1: 26:32

And then sometimes you get a little crazy and you think about like, oh, I got to do this today and I want to have a good attitude, or maybe I want God to be with me, you know, to assist me through whatever you know difficult situation you may have for the day. And then you wrap it up, you know, and I think that a lot of people are so afraid of it because they want it to be, you know, a four hour meditation. You know, because they hear about these crazy stuff and don't realize like you can meditate in two minutes, you can meditate in one right, just by following your breath and then right, that's it. So why I wanted to kind of go there? Because I saw your first official interview was with someone who used meditation and I want to hear a little bit about it. You don't have to ruin the whole thing, because we do want people to go to your website and really see you know your little wearer in the world Jessica is and stuff but I want to hear about his.

Speaker 1: 27:26

you know his belief in meditation and how that allowed him to navigate his condition.

Speaker 2: 27:33

Yeah, nam was a wonderful guy who really showed a. Probably 180 is probably too strong a word, but he really navigated out of strong conditioning into a place of healing for him. Nam talks about growing up in Sierra Leone during the atrocities that happened there and quite obviously being left with some psychological scars from that, and he talks about ongoing problems with forgive me, not ongoing problems older problems that he was having with anger and anxieties and addictions that were coming up for him, and he talks about his. He was in the army and then he was a firefighter and then, while he was a firefighter, he learned about a course that was happening about relating to people and he this course and it really him just went oh, I think this is what I should be doing with my life and it was that. It was that gut knowing that we loved to find.

Speaker 2: 28:34

And he trained as a psychologist, as a psychoanalyst, and he talks about these two really distinct methodologies that he uses when, when things arise for him, when he does get that old, that old bubble of all this could turn into a big anger or anxiety is that on the one side, he uses his, his psychotherapist mind, and you know he really reflects on it and you know where his nose is coming from. I need to give this a minute. Really, really like frontal frontal work gets in there and then the other side, the somatosensory side, he comes in and goes. I know for me that I can't deal with this straight away. I need to come in and take a breath. And he finds that place of pause and rest. He says in the interview, like I don't need to say, say someone said something that's riled him up. He says I don't need to reply to this straight away, I'm going to come, I'm going to rest, I'm going to be in my breath. I think he uses the, the 10 second rule that he found for himself. He comes into there like if a human in that situation. His meditation was 10 breaths long. He had enough for him to find his center and then come and come and meet that conversation in a way that he wanted to. Or if it wasn't enough, he didn't, he did more. He was wonderfully elephant now and talking about how he navigates when things aren't going right for him. I think his approach is a very clearly clinical approach and it worked so beautifully for him.

Speaker 2: 30:06

But to see someone coming from such a he describes it quite a macho atmosphere of like I was in the army. I was in, I was a firefighter, you know, I was in these really aggressive areas to come to someone is actually I didn't sit back into my feelings and see how I'm doing. I was listening to, I was so proud of him. We are we are not the same age, but I had this, this kind of like war, motherly, like my God. Well done.

Speaker 2: 30:34

One of the things that that I'm doing on the website is that we're doing a real detailed breakdown of what we feel might be involved in that person's journey, especially looking at them them themselves, and that that the the positive personality traits that they're they're working on to help them in their healing direction. And I've just lost my train of thought do come back. I quite like to use really great. Oh, that was it. Nams was feeling okay. To be different from his culture, from his upbringing and from his gender is something that we've seen with a couple of people. Is that their willingness to be different? I suppose another word would be that openness. To be like this isn't how I have grown up. This isn't how I've learned about life, but now I feel like I'm ready to try something new. That was a huge one.

Speaker 1: 31:34

Well, and what was old wasn't working.

Speaker 1: 31:37

Right, you know it's one of those things where it's like this is no longer serving me. You know this. You know as a fellow person in the. You know that was in the military.

Speaker 1: 31:48

The stuffing of feelings is not something that serves you. When you're anxious, right, and if anything, right, it perpetuates by the way you focus on. You know grows and you know for anybody who has suffered from anxiety, the more you tell yourself that you don't want to feel this and this isn't working for you right now, or the timing is bad or whatever, it only perpetuates the anxiety. And then you had in a stupid spiral and then it's. You can't get out of it and you know for him. You know the beauty is in that I take a moment right, because whatever it is doesn't have to happen right now. And we are so in twined in this idea that, like I need to respond to that email right now, you know so, and so text to me right now and I have to get back to them. And whenever you find yourself in that have to or should or whatever, right, there's no value in it for you and the other person. They're like cool, you answered me, you know that kind of thing and it's. But just taking that moment right, creating space, right, like I was talking earlier, we were talking before we started recording about that space between the thought and the sensation and that when you're in a spiral there, like it's a millisecond or you know whatever, I think it's insane, right, it's just like bam, it happens, and then you're gone.

Speaker 1: 33:19

Then you know like, oh, I can't believe I have this migraine is, and you know everything, I'm not going to be, you know, like your young woman, right, it's like I'm not going to be able to go to anywhere, I'm not going to be able to be with my friends. I'm not, you know we. Just what is it? You know pre grief, right, about all the things that are not going to be able to happen as a result of it.

Speaker 1: 33:38

But the longer we're able to practice whether it's the breath or taking a moment or 10 seconds or whatever works for whoever you're creating that space, and the more space you put between the thought and the bodily sensation, then eventually I think you break the connection Right, which is a wonderful thing. If somebody who is in a pain cycle, or you know anxiety or you know whatever, maybe your you know thing of choice or your your expression or expression of being held back. Right, you know? Right, like the anger is not being able to be expressed. So then I'm going to hold it all in my head and make my head hurt.

Speaker 2: 34:21

Or you know, I have this, so you had a wonderful training and I had such a vision in my head of exactly what you were saying and I just wanted to but it and go for terrible guess.

Speaker 2: 34:36

I see that that gap in my mind, like I'm at a, I'm at a fork in the road and that fork in the road is going in these two very distinctive ways is that am I going to create a story about it, am I going to feel the sensation and then roll with that, and this means that I can't do that thing, and then I'm going to let that person down and it's spiral and spiral and spiral and I gone down that well worn pathway over and over again.

Speaker 2: 35:02

I'm going to be able to go through the same path. Just just clear in that path. Why don't? Why? Or am I going to be able to stand at that fork and go with? It's a term I used in the meditation technique, but I use cook equanimity, which is the ability to to, to watch it and not react to something like that. I'm going to be able to sit with that fork, feel the sensation that I'm feeling and treat it with equanimity. Can I be here and not create a story about it? Can I be here and just sit with the feeling and watch it and see what happens to it, and yet probably won't just turn off like that?

Speaker 1: 35:39

It's work.

Speaker 2: 35:41

Yeah, am I able to feel the physical pain and not add the psychological pain on top of it? I don't know if that I'm like.

Speaker 1: 35:51

No, that's exactly it, right, is that? Can I just be present? And even you know, going back to so you know, I'm in Disneyland and I got this twinge in my stomach and there was a half a moment of freak out. Where I went, you know, oh, the twinge is what does this mean? You know whatever. And then I went, let's talk to you.

Speaker 1: 36:14

And I went into the twinge and I was like, oh, you're here. It's like what do you need? You know that kind of thing. And I was like kind of just sitting there and kind of like, well, what does it feel like? You know, almost a little somatic tracking on my own. And then something happened and I got distracted and I never thought about the twinge in my stomach for the rest of the day.

Speaker 1: 36:33

So I am so happy for myself. It happened because I was Happy for you, because there was never that. You know, I didn't have those moments Like it would be. You know, I'd wake up at whatever four or 20 in the morning and then start freaking out, and then I spent the next two hours freaking out before I had to leave for work and I never had that moment where I can stop and go. Oh, all right, yeah, I could feel that it's a little tinkly here, it's a little pokey here. You know that kind of thing. And so, well, what do you need? Right Even to ask, like we asked small children what they need, right, they fall down or whatever and you're like what do you need? You know, do you need a bandaid, do you need an ice pack? You know that kind of thing. But as we grow into adults, we don't ask ourselves what we need.

Speaker 2: 37:21

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 37:22

You know, and that's a big thing, right? That's that re-parenting piece, that's that. And you know, and I don't mean re-parenting, like you know you had crappy parents or whatever. But sometimes there's things that you know, sometimes the communication can be disjointed. Right Is that? You know parents have goals and hopes and dreams for their child and sometimes it's just different. And you know it's personalities don't always match.

Speaker 2: 37:48

Yeah, and they talk about those two distinct parent view styles of of. Is this a responsive response or is this a reactive response to how a child is feeling? And this is, I feel, relatively new in the parent space and I'm doing a lot of research because I really hope it happens soon, because am I going to teach this child, am I going to be a parent to this child? Am I going to react to absolutely everything that's going on? Oh be careful, oh don't do that, oh, let me do that for you, oh I'm, you know, stopping things before they even happen? Or am I going to respond and I'm going to allow that breath and allow things to happen by themselves and then I can be a parent when I need to be a parent? Forgive me for talking like one is not one, yeah.

Speaker 1: 38:34

But as one, as one who's parented both ways, I will tell you that being a reactive parent is exhausting. It is absolutely exhausting because there's more energy expended to protecting your baby egg and making sure that it's going to be perfect and you're going to, you know, put rubber around all the corners and you know what do they call it now Got I we're. Our parenting has gone. Before it was like I can't remember what it was.

Speaker 2: 39:05

It was helicopter parenting.

Speaker 1: 39:07

And now we're into like bulldozer parenting, right, because we're reading these stories about these parents that are actually going on job interviews with their 20 year olds or going to college. You know those kinds of things, right, and you know so. There's all different types of parenting styles, but there is a sense of agency that you are giving your child, regardless of their age, whether they're, you know, and, again, if they're teeny, tiny, then you offer them choices. Right, like you fell down, like you know a popsicle or would you make a bandaid, you know that kind of thing. But allowing them to make a choice is giving them agency.

Speaker 1: 39:47

When you make the choice for your child and some people do it because they're like well, I know what's better, I know how to keep them safe, or whatever it may be You're taking that away from them and we're getting what we're getting right now. And as a school teacher, what I'm seeing is a lot of people who don't want to make decisions at all because they never had to make decisions, and so then I'm like hey, do you want, you know black or red? And they're like I don't know man.

Speaker 1: 40:16

Like it's like it's never been two choices.

Speaker 2: 40:19

Yeah, right, yeah.

Speaker 1: 40:22

And they just are so blown away by it, like they don't understand that they have choices. And that's where I think we're failing, right? Is that that's the apathy that we're seeing in people? Right? And I think that's what happens when I don't feel well and I go to the doctor. Right, I want to go to the doctor and I want you to tell me what you're going to do for me. And we're running into these situations now where doctors aren't even touching you.

Speaker 1: 40:47

You know, I had another client who went to the doctor and she had, you know, she had a sinus infection, she had other things going on and the doctor didn't even put a hand on her. It was willing to write all these prescriptions and everything. And it's like, come on, man, like you could listen to it, you could listen to her lungs, like you can suck a thermometer in her mouth. It's like you can just do the basics. I'd appreciate that, but again, it's, you know, for that person. You know, the good thing is that they have good friends that are like no, you need to ask for somebody different or you need to, you know, whatever.

Speaker 1: 41:21

But for a lot of people there's just acceptance in that, and I think that's what happens in the chronic pain space is that we just accept what is being thrown at us, the label that is attached, you know, and I've previously I've been told like, oh, I need to embrace that. I'm a migrator, you know. And then I was like why am I doing this? Like this feels weird. Because now it's like I'm coming in with a label that I really don't want. Right, it's different, like you know, coming in and saying I'm a veteran, like I'm kind of proud of that. Right, I did my thing. You know that kind of stuff, right, that's something that you know builds you up. And when you put a label on yourself, you know, whatever the doctor may give you fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, you know, depression, anxiety, all those kinds of things then you just get stuck in the system of being labeled and then a lot of times, hope is lost.

Speaker 2: 42:18

And you know you're walking down that same normal pathway, without questioning if there's another one. Right oh yeah, no, that's it. That's the only choice.

Speaker 1: 42:27

And that's what we're talking about.

Speaker 2: 42:29

Yeah, that goes back to that agency and choice and that kind of questioning mindset of is that the only choice? And I really want to segue that into talking about another woman that we're going to post her story in the next couple of weeks. And so, interestingly, her name is Manju and Manju is actually the mother of Sumitia. And you know, when we talk about epigenetics and this idea that symptoms and illnesses and diseases can pass from person, pass from family member to family member, and it's not necessarily the fact that the gene is saying it so, but it's the environment, in that the gene is kind of being switched on and off. Now, manju had different symptoms to Sumitia, but Manju was going through very regular episodes throughout her teenagers and early twenties, pretty much throughout, of epileptic like seizures. We're not going to use the word epilepsy because it was never diagnosed with epilepsy and I don't know enough about it, but she was having quite severe seizures, full body on the floor, shaking. I wasn't really aware of when it started, but she went through a huge rigmarole of trying to fix it as you would. For years and years and years she was going through the Nepoly medical system, doing it in a very strictly allopathic way she was doing all the medications that she was being suggested to do. She was having all the brain scans to check everything was okay, obviously normal, and that unfortunately wasn't effective there and this is kind of under the title of agency and that then she was being driven by her family to go through a more cultural approach and at the time she was in a Hindu family and they were like well then, we're going to, we're going to go to the temple, we're going to pray over you, we're going to do really expensive ceremonies to try and help you with your symptoms. And she describes it on the interview, that is, that they did work for a bit, she did feel good. But, as you were saying with all of the last interview we had, is that things work for a little bit? We kind of convince ourselves, yeah, this is the thing. And then we come back to where we were before. So she was having these extraordinarily expensive ceremonies over and over again, which then didn't work, and then her family took her to the shaman, which is not uncommon in Nepal, and then even in the cities and rural, and I'd love to talk about that a little bit later. Is that then she was going through shamanic ceremonies and that involves animal sacrifice, that involves really intensive, like vigorous drum beating, getting getting into the mind stuff, and again she was saying you work to a point. And then it came back again and it got to the point where her doctor, she went back and the doctor said to her oh, this will go away when you get married. That was what a doctor said. That will be your cure. Imagine, that's so weird, it's so weird, so weird.

Speaker 2: 45:31

So, anyway, she's going through this whole traumatic situation. She's part of a Hindu family and she has a Christian friend come up to her and says, can I pray for you? And her, coming from the place who shows, was like, well, absolutely not, not appropriate, I'm not, I'm not going to go down. That mindset closed. This is my direction, this is my lane, I'm going to stay in my lane. But I think a number of weeks, number of months, she, she got to know this, this friend, a little bit better and she started to open up to the idea that there might be a different way of thinking. I don't know if it's strong to say like, oh, you know, I'm going to convert or something like that, but she defies this dream that she had and it gave me goosebumps when I heard it, and then obviously I'm hearing it kind of through a translation is that she dreams one night that she's standing in front of the Hindu temple where she grew up and the temple stands up in front of her and it's like why?

Speaker 2: 46:27

are you betraying me? Why are you going to this other God, like I have been there for you all the time? And a little little man you stands up in front of this humongous temple and it's like you are not serving me anymore. I'm going to do what's right for me. I'm in control of this now. And the temple sits down and says very well, and she threw the temple doors, she can see the church on the other side. And after that dream, months go by. You know it's not a quick process with everybody.

Speaker 2: 47:05

It's very stipulated her symptoms go away. It didn't happen after a sudden conversion, so you know it didn't. You know.

Speaker 2: 47:14

I'm Christian now and it's over, and I don't want to say because it would be wrong to just be like, oh it's Christiana's, because we've all got different ways that this has worked and it hasn't been anything to do with one particular thing. But for me, my understanding of her was about the fact that she found agency. She stopped doing what her family were telling her to do. She stopped doing what the Shaman was telling her to do. I think I'm very much assuming that she stopped taking medication that wasn't working, but it was the first time in her life. I was there for a few months.

Speaker 2: 47:51

It's a patriarchal society. Is that she stopped being led by her husband and her family and her Shaman and decided I'm going to do this thing for myself. And I really think that was a part of what made a change for her. And that's what's been so challenging and interesting about our project. Is that we're going and learning from people that we don't have that same mindset. We're not going in as Christian people going well, of course it's Christianity or well, of course it's Shamanism.

Speaker 2: 48:21

Is we're going in and going what could be the underlying neural mechanisms that have helped this to work? And learning about these different positive personality types and these, these open-mindedness, this agency, this healthy anger, this acceptance, this authenticity, learning about things that have really helped people, no matter where they've come from, no matter what methodology they're using. I'm starting to see similarities of why things might have been working, even if I don't have the full picture around it. I think it's enough to ask the question why, without simply going, oh, it's a placebo, oh, you know, she just believed it strong, it's like we could do that, but that's very easy. That's very easy. It's very much a sort of oh, it is what it is.

Speaker 1: 49:08

We don't understand it, so it's a placebo.

Speaker 2: 49:11

I really want to be the work of asking why.

Speaker 1: 49:14

So with that like yeah, is there the like you know, and maybe this may be a little pie in the sky kind of thinking, do you think as a human race we have the ability to make that mind shift and to really have, you know, start thinking about like, how are we denying ourselves?

Speaker 2: 49:43

I do, but I think it's on an individual basis. I think that we all have the ability to open up and question why, but not to all have to do it the same way. I don't think we all have to come on board with that, like I'm sure you've had clients that have been like oh curable, didn't work for me. Well, cool, that's funny, it didn't have to. Is that we have all, through our upbringing, through where we've come from in the world, through our gender, through our religion, have all come when built a brain around a different belief system and a different acknowledgement of what is and what isn't. I think my job as a clinician is to come to people and meet them where they're at. Like you with your client, with prayers I don't want to meditate, then pray Is that? I think our job is to come and meet people where they are, rather than make them do this a certain way.

Speaker 2: 50:42

I don't think we need to be saying this is your methodology. It's saying, well, hey, these are all the tools option to you. Here's my wonderful toolkit, let's see what you'd like. I think that's going to be the best way to help people, rather than a prescriptive, which I think we might be in danger of if we just try and overmedicalize it Always. This can't be. This can never be a do this, this, this and this, and your symptoms will go away. Each person needs the time with the practitioner or however they choose to go through their mind-building journey. It needs to be a completely tailored approach because all of our brains are completely different. That's lovely.

Speaker 1: 51:28

I agree it makes sense. All right, reflecting back, here we go. You have your own personal learning Things that you're seeing. I know that when we had talked a few months ago, your belief was really trying to be open-minded and not bringing your belief system, not being the white people that show up to save people. I can't remember how you described it. Now you're dealing with cultural pieces and these communities. Now, what have you learned?

Speaker 2: 52:04

I've got a really good story about this. It was unfortunate no, I'm going to retract that word. It's not unfortunate. We've said very much from the beginning with the project that we're making a hard line on certain practices is that we want people to find we love stories of mind-body success and we want everyone in the world to do it. But we don't want to focus on stories that involve harm. We don't want to emphasize methodologies that involve animal sacrifice, human sacrifice, mutilation, regardless of whether it worked for that person or not. So there was a definite learning experience for me that I took very much personally for me rather than project-wise, but I'll talk about it anyway.

Speaker 2: 52:55

After the few months of working in the hospital in Nepal, I had the privilege of going to work in a really remote outpost in a village, a place where, thankfully, the outpost treatment was free, but it's still very much miles and miles and miles away from everyone. So everyone's really walking to it. We're talking, we're still seeing cases of leprosy in TB. I was staying with the chief of the village, the elder of the village, with a couple of other medical people, and I was going in and going oh, this is my project and I really want to know if I can meet anyone. He went oh cool, we live right next door to the shaman. I went to go and meet the shaman who lived in this actually really nice mud hut like all the mod cons in a mud hut. It was really cool and I've not been to America and it's a big place, but it gets really hot in Nepal, especially in valleys, and it did a really good job of staying cool and I'm going on a track and I'm coming back. The very next day the shaman wife came to me and said hey, we're doing a ceremony tonight. Do you want to come and come and learn? Because I said, yeah, I'm really open to just learning what goes on here. It was intense. We're on low battery levels, thank you, sorry pausing that before I lose you. So, yeah, I was allowed.

Speaker 2: 54:25

I had the utmost privilege of sitting in this incredibly beautifully traditional hut with a few of my colleagues and two of the local village people watching this for our ceremony for this lady and I, through kind of loose translation, understood that she was having, to my understanding, tb-like symptoms, okay, and my welling up of oh, this lady should be in a hospital. This is. I don't think this is the correct treatment for her. We're all really coming up and there was that feeling of I shouldn't swoop in and do the white savior thing and be like get this woman to hospital. But I couldn't. I didn't have that hierarchy, I didn't have that authority to do that.

Speaker 2: 55:16

I was invited as a guest to be here to watch the ceremony and I learned a few things while I was there. There was a really distinctive kind of drumming type pattern that was done over sections within those four hours and like some forms of meditation that use that kind of repetitive mantra type energy. It really did kind of it was very settling feeling that you had when you were there. And what I found fascinating about what the Shain did during sections of those four hours because it's kind of you do a bit of something, you do a bit of another and I recorded it, I've got it.

Speaker 2: 55:57

But what you did, what I loved is he actually conducted a subjective assessment and obviously I learned that through translation my Nepali was only Ali Ali. But what I found extraordinary about that and I've written two blogs about this, about what the Shaman did wrong and what the Shaman did right and what I really liked about that is that you're not seeing that subjective assessment in the hospital when I was working in the hospital setting in Kathmandu is that you're seeing a nuts and bolts type approach to physical therapy. I can't speak too much of the doctor side of things, but like a reactive, a reactive approach.

Speaker 2: 56:47

Or too simplistic of an approach. Rather than treating someone as a person, you're treating them as a shoulder. So I've got this person. They're coming in. This is the pain. No more questions are asked. There's no know how long has it been there for? What does it feel like? What can you do? What can't you do? Is it getting worse? Is it getting better? It's oh. Here is shoulder pain. These are the exercises you're going to do. Come back next week. And that was baseline normal and I saw in a few other places. Granted, I was in a government run hospital, so I can't again speak for privately run hospitals.

Speaker 2: 57:24

But, the difference between that fairly classic hospital approach over there they didn't even do notes. I'm not a white savior. There was a lot that was frustrating. What I was seeing in the Shamanic ceremonies that made me think gosh. I can kind of see why people are attracted to this I don't want to do it personally, but I can see why it's lasting so long is that there's actually a relationship being formed between the practitioner and the person coming to the ceremony and that really surprised me and I came in with that feeling of discomfort. And unless they're feeling of there are shades of gray Whilst, I don't, I don't, I don't feel like that was the appropriate treatment for that woman.

Speaker 2: 58:11

I could see why in some circumstances forming a relationship with somebody, having that place to come in and settle, be with that drumbeat, be with that almost kind of sound type mantra, having someone who's actually caring for you, asking you what's going on, finding out what's going on and dedicating four hours of their time to helping you feel better I can see why in some cultures where that would be effective and we did meet somebody who had had very significant chronic fatigue type symptoms, who had had a complete resolution in his symptoms, frustratingly no, I'm retracting that. It's not frustrating. I didn't take his story because shamanic ceremonies do involve animals at twice and we don't want to include that. But being there and learning over those four hours allowed me to take a step back from my immediate judge reaction. Response no, this isn't appropriate. This shouldn't exist anymore. I'm going why is it still there and why is it still a popular treatment? What is it here that's working?

Speaker 1: 59:15

Right after 1,000 years.

Speaker 2: 59:17

Yeah, and the shaman in a village setup is often the first person that he's gone to before the allopathic treatment is sought, even if the allopathic treatment is free. So there's enough out there in the world to question why and to learn from, without immediately judging things that are right and wrong. And really we're learning so much about that in the project and whilst I had in my mind, lovely, it's all going to be meditation and the beautiful thing is I've really been given this opportunity to learn and I'm taking this whole heartedly. I've in North India, where we were doing a little bit of a jumping around doing some of the well-known Buddhist sites in the area Because we know, obviously, that Buddhism is quite good on the meditation front is that we went to a place called Vulture Peak, which was apparently where Buddha's assistant, ananda, became liberated. We just obviously was like it's a huge tourist site now. So people really come to come very seriously from all over the world to meditate their Buddhists do and became just curious in what was going on. And it was there where I had another kind of piece of learning come up for me and I've made another episode of episode, so I'm a TVist. There is I made a video about it.

Speaker 2: 1:00:44

Well, I came to the really obvious conclusion of something that I was missing in my mind body journey. It's funny how it all kind of adds like that Is that I was missing, and not everyone loves the term self love, but I was really missing that kindness to myself and how I was talking to myself, how I was reacting to my mindset and the things going on around me. I don't know if you've been to India or Nepal, but these are intense places, these are. You know you get hands in the face that you're giving money Like this is. You're seeing really, really unfortunate circumstances every day and you have to reach a point of acceptance with it, because you can't save everybody.

Speaker 2: 1:01:28

You can just do your best and they came to this point on that day Because it was so busy. There's a poor, poor lady who came asking for money and I gave her some money, but there was a slight I think perhaps cultural thing that happened there with this person that no matter how much money you give and I've seen it with a few people it wasn't enough.

Speaker 2: 1:01:52

It's that no matter how much you give it, it's not enough. And I just huge kind of welling of frustration, probably, probably anger, like what man? What the hell man? Like I'm doing my best here and I spoke to Rick about it, my partner. I was like I'm really struggling with this idea of I'm supposed to feel compassionate for you and I'm feeling really frustrated. And he said to me well you know, if you're not feeling self-love for her, do you have an awareness of what that feels like for you? And I didn't. I had no on-set, certainly nothing that came to me straight away of kindness or gentleness to my own thought patterns, let alone somebody else's. So it took me on this kind of couple of day journey where I was doing a lot of reflection of what would compassion and kindness look like towards me, how would I feel in a sensory way, how can I reflect on why that might be that I'm lacking that? And is that something to do with the PPD personality types? And probably is.

Speaker 1: 1:03:01

Everything goes back to that.

Speaker 2: 1:03:04

And how can I kind of settle into it and learn what that feeling looks like? And pretty quickly, again, a couple of days wise, I managed to find and kind of sit with that feeling and sort of get uncomfortable with that kind of hey buddy, how are you, how are you? The self-love language that you're trying to build that quickly could work out where this woman was coming from. Is that, when I had that feeling of compassion in myself, I could understand it from this lady's perspective? It's that, yes, I'm giving her money and it's not gonna be enough money, but that's how she was raised, that's how her neural pathways are running. Is that she's doing her life? I'm doing my life. She's in survival mode. She's in survival mode. There's no point in me holding on to this anger and frustration because it has nothing to do with me. Right? And if I can have compassion with how I'm feeling at any given moment, maybe I can try and give some to her as well.

Speaker 1: 1:04:05

Look at you, look at you.

Speaker 2: 1:04:08

It was so beautiful, anna. I can't tell you how much change that I felt from being here and, if I might be so bold, I think that there is one element of the say the Gabor Matei three A's sorry, four A's that is missing and it's not an A, so maybe that's why he didn't add it. But I think there's something that we're seeing from different cultures approaches to healing, and I won't go into too much detail, but we went on a 17 day trek to a 4,000 meter high monastery on a remote Tibetan border in Nepal. It was very dramatic. I managed to interview with a monk about his healing journey with a stomach condition and something that he was talking about, something that the other Nepalese ladies were talking about, something that a few people have touched on in India and Nepal.

Speaker 2: 1:05:05

Something that I think is missing from my A's is this idea of humility and almost this. It's not quite acceptance, because it goes more broad than that. Instead of it being that I accept this personally as it is, it's that I am part of something bigger, if I can focus my attention perhaps on helping other people. It's the word humility. I'm not quite sure, but a couple of times in the interviews people have been saying. I've been saying like what can you do now that you couldn't do before? And really kind of poking them in there, poking, poking, asking them what has this done for you, this change in your life? And they're talking about like I help others.

Speaker 1: 1:05:52

But is that what's happened with you and I?

Speaker 2: 1:05:55

Yeah, is this energy shift in their life has come from an insular. I think it's negative to say, oh, woe is me. But a real self focus of this is all the things that are bad going on in my life and they've managed to open up and their life has changed into a my life. It's getting better and I help other people as well, and you're seeing that culturally, you're seeing that in a religious sense, but that shift I want that it's. I know humility is not the right word and I'm still building on it, but I think that there's something that's missing when we're looking at that. Anger acceptance agency. Is that where is your shift happening to? And it makes me think of like way, way, way long ago, the Johan Hari book Lost Connections, I think you talked about that?

Speaker 2: 1:06:50

Yeah, it's an antique. It's absolutely one that I think is still relevant and still worth looking at. That looks primarily at psychological illness like your depressions and anxieties, addictions and PTSD and such forth. Is that the methodologies that Johan found people worked with are ones that help them look outside of themselves, is ones where they got involved in their community. They got involved in the person that lived next door. They were building relationships with other people.

Speaker 1: 1:07:26

Well, that works, it always works. I mean, and I know I mean again going back to the 12 step groups you know there's not a miracle cure or anything that's going to happen when you walk through those doors. It's really about sharing. You know, not over sharing or not detailed sharing, but sharing and sharing your vulnerability with others. And then it creates a community through that.

Speaker 1: 1:07:51

And I think that when you're dealing with somebody who is a chronic pain sufferer, you know one like we talked about, there's a, there's that PPD personality or the TMS personality that really says like I should not use my shit on you, Right, it's like I should suffer in silence and you know, carry that cross and drag it and you know whatever long, but I can't really. I mean, I'll tell you, oh yes, I feel horrible. And then generally that's code for people like I don't want to talk to you, right, because, oh, you feel horrible. That means you're going to list the 25 things that are making you feel horrible, so I don't want to talk to you. So, you know, when you get out of that almost selfish, you know, and it's again, it's a survival mechanism. Right, to be selfish is to like I don't want you to feel my pain. I don't really want to talk about it anymore. I just want to suffer silently. But when you snap out of it, like you, there is that realization.

Speaker 2: 1:08:52

It's a whole lot.

Speaker 1: 1:08:53

Yeah, one, the world opens up, right, like holy shit, look at all this stuff. And then on the other end, you're like, why aren't other people doing this? This is fantastic. Like you know and you also have, I believe you gain tolerance for others and you have that ability to listen and decipher. And you know and of course there's always that phase, right, as soon as somebody you know heals from a particular thing, whatever, they decide that everything that they see your meat or whatever has got to be around that thing, right. So you know, like, once you get out there, you know if you're in AA or if you're in, I'm in Al-Anon, right, everybody should go to an Al-Anon meeting. You know, and again it's, one of those things is that they will go when it's time, right, and just like you will find that different path, right, you'll go left on that fork when it's time. And all of us have a different storyline and we have to honor that.

Speaker 1: 1:09:49

And you know, sometimes you can, you know, you can mention it right, like, oh, I've done this and I've noticed some changes, because I think, by being a living example, then people are inspired by that.

Speaker 1: 1:10:01

Right, me telling you over and over and over again and poking and, you know, needling, that's just annoying and you're just another person trying to push your agenda. But if I just go out and live my life and they're like, oh Dana, you know, five years ago I couldn't get you to go ride your bike around the block and now you're out doing XYZ and doing all these things, it's like, well, that's pretty damn impressive and that's cool. Like, how did you do that? Right? And then you can have a little conversation and then, you know, somebody may say, well, I think that's bullshit, and you go okay, that's cool, you know, because, again, they're entitled to live their lives however they want to live. And if what you're doing is working for you, then thumbs up. But, you know, but if it's not, because I know my shit wasn't working for me, you know, and there needed to be that change, and I think that's the key is that opening that just mental freedom, right, Like you know?

Speaker 2: 1:10:55

so going, I'm going to make this super corny but like the name is the Sticks Mindset versus the Open Mindset.

Speaker 1: 1:11:02

Exactly Well, and I think about your website name, right, the whole Liberation Femme right Is like you know, I am liberated now, you know, and I am enjoying that because it has so many different meanings for me and so many different avenues of my life, and that's the cool part about it is because there's stuff that's happening to me that I don't even know, and then, as I run into a situation, I'm like, oh, that's cool, Like I didn't think that was going to. You know, there's side effects, right. It's like. You know, it's kind of like the was it the drop in the pond? Right, you just think it's a drop, but then you watch the ripple effect, right.

Speaker 1: 1:11:39

And this is this. Is it that liberation is the beginning of the ripple, right? Is that realization? And then, who knows? But helping others makes sense, right? Is that that idea? So, to kind of wrap this up a little bit, so the website is live, which is always a wonderful thing. I'm so excited for you guys to get that up. I know you're looking for people, right, that possibly have had some, because you mentioned that early about having some mind body experiences and possible healings, right? So how are they? How are you interviewing people? How do they get in contact with you? What are the things that you know they need to do?

Speaker 1: 1:12:25

Cause I want to see this project like explode right, I just wanted to take off and cause I'm so happy to be a part of the process with you guys.

Speaker 2: 1:12:34

It's been so lovely to be like part of your journey and you're part of my journey, and this is definitely not going to be our last podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:12:42

Whether you want to do it or not is, yeah, we're looking for for, really, anyone that has a story of of any significant change that they've had in in in a physical or psychological symptom that they've been working with for some time.

Speaker 2: 1:13:01

They don't have to have used a prescriptive technique like a, like a curable or a particular thing is that it could have been something that happened entirely by chance. It could have happened from a dream. Really, anyone that has had a symptom or a combination of symptoms and have had a significant change in those symptoms. We want to talk to them here, regardless of how that methodology looked like, because we're trying to look at that, that correlation, that underlying humanity and in all of us and our ability to heal. I'd love them to reach out from the email address liberationfoundatgmailcom and we'll I'll pass that to you and we'll make sure it's nice and clear and, yeah, we really just want to grow this knowledge and grow it without judgment and grow it without the assumption, like we're saying, that everything has to be done. One way, when everybody's beautiful brains are so intricately woven in different ways, is that one methodology will never be the right methodology for everybody. We can all learn from each other and kind of pick and mix this and see what works best for everybody.

Speaker 2: 1:14:14

So yeah, we're still looking, we're still looking and have so much joy in really talking to anybody and have quite a few lined up and we're really getting more on the social media drive now which brings up so many personal feelings and I love reflecting and meditating on. However, that's where we're at now and we're so ready to kind of open this baby up and then say, hey, this is, this is what's possible in life, if we can go to open minded and look beyond our assumptions into a place of open open growth.

Speaker 1: 1:14:49

That is fantastic. Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks, I've had such fun.

Speaker 2: 1:14:55

All right, we'll talk soon. Bye, bye, bye.