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Soft spoken reading of Algernon Blackwood's Wood of the Dead.In The Wood of the Dead, Algernon Blackwood weaves an eerie tale of isolation, spectral whispers, and the ominous presence of the past. The story follows a traveler who arrives in a remote village, where the air is thick with an uncanny stillness. As he wanders into the ancient forest bordering the settlement, he encounters an unsettling old man—one who speaks in cryptic riddles about the dead lingering among the trees.The deeper the traveler ventures, the more he feels the suffocating weight of unseen eyes and the rustling of something beyond the physical world. The villagers live in quiet fear, their words laced with hints of long-forgotten sins and restless spirits that refuse to be buried. The wood itself seems alive, pulsating with an unnatural presence that hungers for recognition.As the tale unfolds, Blackwood masterfully builds an atmosphere of creeping dread, blending folklore, the supernatural, and psychological horror into a chilling meditation on mortality and the unseen forces that stalk the living. The traveler—skeptical at first—soon finds that some boundaries between life and death are not easily crossed... nor easily escaped.ASMR tales from Lovecraft, Poe, Grimm & Beyond | Unlock Exclusive Secrets from the Vault on PatreonVenture softly into realms untold, where ancient whispers stir forgotten lore and dust-laden libraries echo with lost dreams. Here you'll find soft spoken Lovecraftian myths, gothic tales, dreams spun from ancient murmurs, and solace found in the decayed whispers of timeworn pages and eternal tomes. Tucking in sleepy souls, one story at a time.Soft spoken ASMR is used to provide listeners with comfort to ease symptoms of insomnia, anxiety, depression, and ptsd. ASMR with atmospheric sounds—like gentle whispering, soft taps, and calming nature noises works wonders for relaxation and anxiety relief. The soothing sounds and personal attention mimic a comforting, nurturing experience, while promoting mindfulness and focus that diverts attention from anxious thoughts. Physiologically, ASMR can lower heart rate and blood pressure, activating neural circuits linked to relaxation. This powerful combination creates a serene environment, helping individuals unwind and feel at peace. Listen with headphones for the best experience.This channel is intended to provide you with a comfortable space to relax and fall asleep. I welcome all comments and suggestions for stories because this channel is meant for you, my darling. Having recently suffered from depression, I promise that I will do everything in my power to make this channel consistent and make our way through these wonderful classic stories.Enter the Abyss: http://tomebytomeasmr.comhttps://www.patreon.com/c/TomeByTomeASMRhttps://www.youtube.com/@TomebyTomeASMR
Soft spoken reading of The Yellow Sign by Robert W Chambers, featuring a light rain on a tin roof as background ambience. Listen with headphones for the best experience.The Yellow Sign is one of the most haunting tales in Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow, a collection that blends gothic horror with a creeping sense of cosmic dread. Set in New York City, the story follows an artist, Mr. Scott, and his young model, Tessie, as they become ensnared in the eerie influence of a strange, grotesque night watchman outside their studio. Tessie, lighthearted at first, grows disturbed when she dreams of the man, whose unsettling presence hints at something beyond mortal comprehension. As their lives intertwine with the mysteries of The King in Yellow—a forbidden play that drives readers to madness—the narrative spirals toward an inevitable, chilling revelation.A masterwork of unsettling atmosphere, The Yellow Sign plays with themes of fate, perception, and an ominous force lurking just beyond the veil of reason. Chambers' tale is one of quiet horror, where the real terror lies not in monstrous threats, but in the creeping certainty that something unspeakable is waiting... just outside the window.Soft spoken ASMR is used to provide listeners with comfort to ease symptoms of insomnia, anxiety, depression, and ptsd. ASMR with atmospheric sounds—like gentle whispering, soft taps, and calming nature noises works wonders for relaxation and anxiety relief. The soothing sounds and personal attention mimic a comforting, nurturing experience, while promoting mindfulness and focus that diverts attention from anxious thoughts. Physiologically, ASMR can lower heart rate and blood pressure, activating neural circuits linked to relaxation. This powerful combination creates a serene environment, helping individuals unwind and feel at peace. Listen with headphones for the best experience.This channel is intended to provide you with a comfortable space to relax and fall asleep. I welcome all comments and suggestions for stories because this channel is meant for you, my darling. Having recently suffered from depression, I promise that I will do everything in my power to make this channel consistent and make our way through these wonderful classic stories.http://tomebytomeasmr.comhttps://www.instagram.com/tomebytomeasmr/https://www.tiktok.com/@tomebytomeasmrhttps://www.patreon.com/c/TomeByTomeASMRDonations: http://paypal.me/TomebyTomehttps://venmo.com/u/PamBreshearshttp://buymeacoffee.com/tomebytomeasmrThis video is intended for sleep. #sleepaidAs many of the larger channels noticed first, in November 2023, YouTube rolled out non-optional end-roll ads on all videos. Because this video is intended for you to relax and fall asleep, I'm hoping by adding this hashtag that YouTube becomes aware of the placement of ads on certain video types, like ASMR.Video art and video animation are done by me using CapCut, Canva Pro, Movavi, and Motionleap tools.
Soft spoken reading of HP Lovecraft's Celephaïs, 1920. Set against the eerie creaking of a drifting pirate ship on the ocean. Listen with headphones for the best experience.Celephaïs is a mesmerizing tale from Lovecraft's Dream Cycle, following the journey of Kuranes, a man disillusioned with reality who seeks refuge in his dreams. Once a child who imagined the radiant city of Celephaïs, he grows into a weary adult, desperate to return to the dream-world. As his earthly life crumbles, he plunges deeper into sleep, chasing visions of turquoise temples, timeless streets, and galleys that sail into the sky.But dreams are fickle, and the boundary between fantasy and madness blurs. When knights from Celephaïs finally arrive to escort him home, he embarks on a surreal voyage through time, back to his ancestral estate—only to awaken as king and god of the dream-city. Yet in the waking world, his body washes up on the shores of Cornwall, lost to the tides of reality.ASMR tales from Lovecraft, Poe, Grimm & Beyond | Unlock Exclusive Secrets from the Vault as a Channel Member or on PatreonVenture softly into realms untold, where ancient whispers stir forgotten lore and dust-laden libraries echo with lost dreams. Here you'll find soft spoken Lovecraftian myths, gothic tales, dreams spun from ancient murmurs, and solace found in the decayed whispers of timeworn pages and eternal tomes. Tucking in sleepy souls, one story at a time.Soft spoken ASMR is used to provide listeners with comfort to ease symptoms of insomnia, anxiety, depression, and ptsd. ASMR with atmospheric sounds—like gentle whispering, soft taps, and calming nature noises works wonders for relaxation and anxiety relief. The soothing sounds and personal attention mimic a comforting, nurturing experience, while promoting mindfulness and focus that diverts attention from anxious thoughts. Physiologically, ASMR can lower heart rate and blood pressure, activating neural circuits linked to relaxation. This powerful combination creates a serene environment, helping individuals unwind and feel at peace. This channel is intended to provide you with a comfortable space to relax and fall asleep. I welcome all comments and suggestions for stories because this channel is meant for you, my darling. Having recently suffered from depression, I promise that I will do everything in my power to make this channel consistent and make our way through these wonderful classic stories.Enter the Abyss: http://tomebytomeasmr.comhttps://www.patreon.com/c/TomeByTomeASMRDonations: http://paypal.me/TomebyTomehttps://venmo.com/u/PamBreshearshttp://buymeacoffee.com/tomebytomeasmrThis video is intended for sleep. #sleepaidAs many of the larger channels noticed first, in November 2023, YouTube rolled out non-optional end-roll ads on all videos. Because this video is intended for you to relax and fall asleep, I'm hoping by adding this hashtag that YouTube becomes aware of the placement of ads on certain video types, like ASMR.Video art and video animation are done by me using CapCut, Canva Pro, Movavi, and Motionleap tools. TAGS: female voice asmr, soft spoken female voice, whisper female, quiet storytelling, creaking ship ambiance, drifting into sleep, hypnotic reading, immersive dark ambient sounds, asmr, soft spoken asmr, asmr for sleep, asmr sleep reading, sleep aid for adults, bedtime stories for grown ups, sleep podcast, sleepcast, talk me to sleep, read me to sleep, dark sleep ambiance, dark sleep ambience, fairy tales for adults, asmr banned books, banned books podcast, modern horror, thomas ligotti, hp lovecraft, asmr lovecraft, lovecraftian horror, lovecraft audiobook, call of cthulhu, nyarlathotep, azathoth, celephaïs
Soft spoken reading of HP Lovecraft's Azathoth, 1922. With ominous cave ambience, listen with headphones for the best experience.At the heart of the abyss, where time dissolves and space is meaningless, the dreamer finds Azathoth—the mindless, seething center of the universe. A force of chaos, madness, and unreasoning destruction, Azathoth is the blind idiot god whose presence nullifies all thought and order. The story ends with the terrifying realization that beyond human imagination lies nothing but writhing, chaotic horror—and the dreamer is lost within its merciless embrace.Short but evocative, Azathoth is less a narrative and more a fragment of cosmic dread—one that hints at the unfathomable horrors that lurk beyond the fragile veil of sanity.ASMR tales from Lovecraft, Poe, Grimm & Beyond | Unlock Exclusive Secrets from the Vault as a Channel Member or on PatreonVenture softly into realms untold, where ancient whispers stir forgotten lore and dust-laden libraries echo with lost dreams. Here you'll find soft spoken Lovecraftian myths, gothic tales, dreams spun from ancient murmurs, and solace found in the decayed whispers of timeworn pages and eternal tomes. Tucking in sleepy souls, one story at a time.Soft spoken ASMR is used to provide listeners with comfort to ease symptoms of insomnia, anxiety, depression, and ptsd. ASMR with atmospheric sounds—like gentle whispering, soft taps, and calming nature noises works wonders for relaxation and anxiety relief. The soothing sounds and personal attention mimic a comforting, nurturing experience, while promoting mindfulness and focus that diverts attention from anxious thoughts. Physiologically, ASMR can lower heart rate and blood pressure, activating neural circuits linked to relaxation. This powerful combination creates a serene environment, helping individuals unwind and feel at peace. This channel is intended to provide you with a comfortable space to relax and fall asleep. I welcome all comments and suggestions for stories because this channel is meant for you, my darling. Having recently suffered from depression, I promise that I will do everything in my power to make this channel consistent and make our way through these wonderful classic stories.Enter the Abyss: http://tomebytomeasmr.comhttps://www.patreon.com/c/TomeByTomeASMRDonations: http://paypal.me/TomebyTomehttps://venmo.com/u/PamBreshearshttp://buymeacoffee.com/tomebytomeasmrThis video is intended for sleep. #sleepaidAs many of the larger channels noticed first, in November 2023, YouTube rolled out non-optional end-roll ads on all videos. Because this video is intended for you to relax and fall asleep, I'm hoping by adding this hashtag that YouTube becomes aware of the placement of ads on certain video types, like ASMR.Video art and video animation are done by me using CapCut, Canva Pro, Movavi, and Motionleap tools. TAGS: asmr, soft spoken asmr, whisper asmr, asmr for sleep, asmr sleep reading, sleep aid for adults, bedtime stories for grown ups, sleep podcast, sleepcast, talk me to sleep, read me to sleep, dark sleep ambiance, dark sleep ambience, audiobooks, asmr audiobooks, asmr audiobook reading, audiobook for sleep, storytime for adults, complete audiobook asmr, hp lovecraft, asmr lovecraft, call of cthulhu, asmr horror story, dark horror story, gothic literature, gothic horror asmr, horror poetry, cosmic horror, dark fairy tales, asmr dark fairy tales, mythos poetry, weird fiction, fairy tales for adults, brothers grimm, asmr brothers grimm, banned books, asmr banned books, banned books podcast, modern horror, thomas ligotti, nightmare before christmas vibes, spooky story, spooky bedtime story, female voice asmr, soft spoken female voice, whisper female
SHOW NOTES: On this show…we're cracking open the psychology of emotions, specifically the fine line between anxiety and excitement. Have you ever found yourself on the edge of a thrilling adventure, heart racing, palms sweaty, only to wonder: “Am I anxious or just excited?” If so, you're not alone. Anxiety and excitement are emotional doppelgängers, mirroring each other in physical symptoms—rapid heartbeat, fluttering stomach, and that all-too-familiar rush of adrenaline. But here's the twist: our mind plays the role of narrator, deciding whether this moment is a threat to be feared or an opportunity to be embraced. And once we slap a label on it, we start acting accordingly. Anxiety gets thrown around far too often, and when we're quick to diagnose every feeling of nervous energy as anxiety, we inadvertently give it more power than it deserves. But what if, instead, we took a step back and questioned whether we're actually afraid… or just excited? By shifting the way we interpret our body's signals, we can reframe anxious energy into something productive—enthusiasm, motivation, even joy! We'll explore how this mindset shift works, test out ways to tell the difference and dive into strategies to regain control over our thoughts. If you've ever mistaken nerves for negativity or let anxiety hold you back, this episode will help you take back the reins. So, deep breath—let's go! Anxiety and excitement are like two sides of the same coin. Physiologically, both can make your heart race, palms sweat, and mind buzz. The key difference? It's all about perception. Anxiety often stems from anticipating a negative outcome, while excitement is rooted in positive expectations. Recognizing this distinction is the first step in mastering our emotional responses. right now. Mind Flip Challenge: Think back to a moment when you felt nervous energy. Maybe it was before a speech, a first date, or a big change. Replay the scene in your mind—what was your body doing? Heart racing? Hands tingling? Now, flip the script. Instead of saying, “I was so anxious,” say, “I was actually really excited.” Feel the difference? Take it a step further: When you experience those same feelings in the future, try saying out loud, “I'm excited!”—even if you don't fully believe it at first. You're rewiring your brain, one phrase at a time. Dr. Yanet Vanegas details Transforming Anxiety: How to Turn Worry Into Success - Harness the power of anxiety to fuel your motivation and achieve your goals. Found at Psychology Today Megan Anna Neff declares Feelings Are Not Facts: How to Identify Experience from Reality found at Neurodivergent Insights Olga Khazan from the Atlantic's YouTube channel: How to Turn Anxiety Into Excitement CHALLENGE: Next time anxiety knocks, greet it with excitement. Embrace the energy and let it propel you forward. Instead of fearing the moment, step into it with confidence, knowing that you have the power to shape your own experience. I Know YOU Can Do It!
Let me hang out with you for a moment while we relax in a bustling party atmosphere. As we navigate the social stress and bustle of the season, it's important to take a moment for ourselves, finding mental peace and recharging our spirits. These affirmations are designed to help you take a moment just for yourself - to recharge your mental state. Whether you're feeling overwhelmed, lonely, or simply need a positive boost, let these words guide you to a place of calm and serenity. Take a deep breath, relax, and let the holiday magic fill your heart. You are valued.Soft spoken ASMR is used to provide listeners with comfort to ease symptoms of insomnia, anxiety, depression, and ptsd. ASMR with atmospheric sounds—like gentle whispering, soft taps, and calming nature noises works wonders for relaxation and anxiety relief. The soothing sounds and personal attention mimic a comforting, nurturing experience, while promoting mindfulness and focus that diverts attention from anxious thoughts. Physiologically, ASMR can lower heart rate and blood pressure, activating neural circuits linked to relaxation. This powerful combination creates a serene environment, helping individuals unwind and feel at peace. Listen with headphones for the best experience.This channel is intended to provide you with a comfortable space to relax and fall asleep. I welcome all comments and suggestions for stories because this channel is meant for you, my darling. Having recently suffered from depression, I promise that I will do everything in my power to make this channel consistent and make our way through these wonderful classic stories.Please reach out to me on my social channels anytime:http://tomebytomeasmr.comhttps://x.com/TomeByTomeASMRhttps://www.instagram.com/tomebytomeasmr/https://www.tiktok.com/@tomebytomeasmrhttps://www.patreon.com/c/TomeByTomeASMRDonations: http://paypal.me/TomebyTomehttps://venmo.com/u/PamBreshearshttp://buymeacoffee.com/tomebytomeasmrThis video is intended for sleep. #sleepaidAs many of the larger channels noticed first, in November 2023, YouTube rolled out non-optional end-roll ads on all videos. Because this video is intended for you to relax and fall asleep, I'm hoping by adding this hashtag that YouTube becomes aware of the placement of ads on certain video types, like ASMR.Video art and video animation are done by me using CapCut, Canva Pro, Movavi, and Motionleap tools.
Soft spoken ASMR / narration of Genius Loci by Clark Ashton Smith. In the desolate wilds within a dark meadow, a sinister force lurks, veiling the land in an eerie shadow. The artist, captivated by the haunting beauty of the place, becomes obsessed with capturing its essence. Despite dire warnings about the malevolent spirit that haunts the area, the artist delves deeper into his fascination and as his obsession grows, the landscape's dark influence tightens its grip, leading to a terrifying climax. The once serene surroundings reveal their true, ghastly nature, proving that some places are better left undisturbed.Soft spoken ASMR is used to provide listeners with comfort to ease symptoms of insomnia, anxiety, depression, and ptsd. ASMR with atmospheric sounds—like gentle whispering, soft taps, and calming nature noises works wonders for relaxation and anxiety relief. The soothing sounds and personal attention mimic a comforting, nurturing experience, while promoting mindfulness and focus that diverts attention from anxious thoughts. Physiologically, ASMR can lower heart rate and blood pressure, activating neural circuits linked to relaxation. This powerful combination creates a serene environment, helping individuals unwind and feel at peace. Listen with headphones for the best experience.This channel is intended to provide you with a comfortable space to relax and fall asleep. I welcome all comments and suggestions for stories because this channel is meant for you, my darling. Having recently suffered from depression, I promise that I will do everything in my power to make this channel consistent and make our way through these wonderful classic stories.Please reach out to me on my social channels anytime:http://tomebytomeasmr.comhttps://x.com/TomeByTomeASMRhttps://www.instagram.com/tomebytomeasmr/https://www.tiktok.com/@tomebytomeasmrhttps://www.patreon.com/c/TomeByTomeASMRDonations: http://paypal.me/TomebyTomehttps://venmo.com/u/PamBreshearshttp://buymeacoffee.com/tomebytomeasmrThis video is intended for sleep. #sleepaidAs many of the larger channels noticed first, in November 2023, YouTube rolled out non-optional end-roll ads on all videos. Because this video is intended for you to relax and fall asleep, I'm hoping by adding this hashtag that YouTube becomes aware of the placement of ads on certain video types, like ASMR.Video art and video animation are done by me using CapCut, Canva Pro, Movavi, and Motionleap tools. TAGS: asmr, rain, wind sounds for sleep, unintentional asmr, sleepaid, sleep podcast, sleepcast, bedtime stories for grown ups, read me to sleep, asmr sleep reading, talk to me sleep, dark sleep ambiance, dark sleep ambience, sleep aid for adults, asmr for adults, audiobooks, asmr audiobooks, audible, book on tape, complete audiobook, willy Wonka, Charlie and the chocolate factory, twilight, hp lovecraft, fairy tales, brothers grimm, asmr brothers grimm, asmr lovecraft, lovecraft in asmr, bedtime stories for adults, asmr audiobook reading, female voice, soft spoken female voice, soft spoken whisper female, nightmare before xmas, spooky story, asmr spooky story, sleep scary story, asmr spooky scary story, asmr voice reading, banned books, banned books podcast, asmr banned books, gothic literature, hp lovecraft, call of Cthulhu, the alchemist, thomas ligotti, dark horror story, reading dark horror, modern horror, dark fairy tales
Physiologically, training in your 30s, 40s and 50s doesn't need to be much different to training in your 20s. But once you start to consider the biopsychosocial model, you'll understand why less is often more for lifters over 30. In this episode I explain what the biopsychosocial model is, and why you need to consider it when picking your training volume as a lifter in your 30s committed to making optimal progress. To learn more about my 1-1 coaching, click here -> www.coachianwood.com/coaching
Welcome to a new episode of Business Lunch with your host, Roland Frasier, featuring guests John and Maria Assaraf. Today, we explore the shift from knowledge-based to wisdom-based roles in the workplace, emphasizing the growing appreciation for experience in a tech-heavy environment. We'll discuss the dynamics of younger bosses leading more experienced employees and share strategies for fostering a culture of mutual learning and mentorship across generations.Highlights:"It is truly amazing what can happen when you step out of the day-to-day and spend just a little bit of time surrounded by other powerful business owners.""Physiologically, 60 may be the new 40, but when it comes to power in the modern workplace, 30 is the new 50.""We need actual wisdom around so the pendulum in some organizations is shifting back.""We're equals in learning, and we're equals in getting things done."Timestamps:00:00 - Introduction02:38 - Wisdom Work vs. Knowledge Work06:50 - Tech and Experience in the Workplace12:52 - Formalizing Mentorship Programs18:52 - Implementing Mentorship Programs25:38 - Hiring and Ageism31:22 - Actionable Steps for the Audience33:53 - ConclusionCONNECT • Ask Roland a question HERE.RESOURCES:• 7 Steps to Scalable workbook • Get my book, Zero Down, FREETo learn more about Roland Frasier
We are the product of our influencers. The current wisdom says that if you want to know what a person is really like, look at their circle of friends. The thinking goes further to posit that if you want to elevate yourself, whether in your income, your fitness, your intellect or your spirituality, you need to associate with those who have the attributes you would like to develop. It's not just that you adopt the habits and thoughts of the people you associate with; your brain patterns actually change. In the 1950's a Swarthmore College psychologist named Solomon Asch observed an interesting phenomenon. A group of volunteer subjects was asked to estimate the length of a straight black line drawn on a white card. Asch discovered that each person's estimate was dependent on the estimation of everyone else in the group. People actually saw the line differently based on the opinion of the people with them. Physiologically, the brain craves reward, which it receives when we have our own ideas or thoughts confirmed by the people around us. When our ideas are opposed to those around us, the pain center of the brain, the anterior insula, is activated. We could choose to remain silent and not express our different ideas. Our brain, however, is wired to change our ideas to conform with those around us. A network formed of the anterior insula and the medial frontal cortex registers the difference between our ideas and those of others as an error and becomes active to try to eliminate the difference. Fascinating and a little scary. Our brain is more active in adjusting our choices and our attitudes than we are aware. This is why it is so important to choose your circle of friends wisely. This is also why it is important to choose your circle of harp friends, and your harp role models, wisely. Today, I will share the qualities that I think are important in a harp role model, starting with the qualities I admired in the harp role models I had early in my harp life and how they influenced me in ways I am only just beginning to realize. My hope is that this will help you discover more harp role models to inspire your harp life, and maybe even help you be a role model for other harpists yourself. Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode: Join a Harp Mastery® Retreat Related resource Do You Have a Harp Hero? blog post Harpmastery.com Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at podcast@harpmastery.com LINKS NOT WORKING FOR YOU? FInd all the show resources here: https://www.harpmastery.com/blog/Episode-172
In this podcast, listeners will join us in celebrating the remarkable career of Professor Amin Rostami, a trailblazer in the realms of PBPK and QSP. Following his 60th birthday, Professor Rostami will provide insights into his journey, the dynamic evolution of PBPK and QSP, and the exciting horizons ahead. Tune in for a deep dive into the intersections of academia and industry, technological advancements, and the invaluable lessons garnered throughout a pioneering career.The episode explores the following:The key milestones and highlights of Professor Amin's career in PBPK and QSPThe factors that initially captivated his interest in PBPK, and how the field evolved over the decades of his careerThe role of translational and systems pharmacology in shaping the future of drug developmentBalancing between academic and industry rolesAdvice to young scientists and researchers entering the field of PBPKSpeaker:Amin Rostami-Hodjegan, PhD, FCP, FAAPS, FJSSX, FBPS – Professor of Systems Pharmacology & Director of Centre for Applied Pharmacokinetic Research (CAPKR), University of Manchester, UK. SVP of R&D, Chief Scientific Officer (CSO), Certara, Princeton, USA The work of Professor Rostami covers wide areas of drug development over the last 30 years, ranging from pharmaceutics (e.g. bioavailability and bioequivalence) to clinical pharmacology (e.g. mixture pharmacology of drug/metabolites), translational and systems pharmacology (e.g. quantitative proteomics of enzymes and transporter for in vitro to in vivo (IVIVE) scaling). As the Director of Centre for Applied Pharmacokinetic Research (CAPKR) at the University of Manchester, Amin collaborates with many pharmaceutical companies with a view to transfer latest scientific applications into modern drug development. Amin was co-founder of two spin-off companies from the University of Sheffield (Simcyp Limited [now part of Certara Inc]) and Diurnal Limited [now part of Neurocrine Bioscience]). As a leader in the field of Physiologically-based Pharmacokinetics (PBPK) and Quantitative Systems Pharmacology (QSP), he is internationally recognized for his expertise in IVIVE to predict the behavior of drugs in human body and understanding the associated inter-individual variabilities. He was one of the founding editors of Pharmacometrics and System Pharmacology and serves on the Editorial Boards of several other journals. As the Senior Vice President of Research & Development (SVP) and Chief Scientific Officer at Certara, he facilitates the incorporation and integration of the latest advances in translational modelling to bio-simulation platforms offered by Certara to its clients, with the aim of accelerating the development and regulatory approval of safer drug products and bringing them to the patients. Stay tuned for more podcasts in our Pharmaron DMPK Insights Series!
Brian Hite, Ph.D., is a seasoned professional with over 40 years of experience in performance, psychology, and coaching. He has a rich background as a stuntman and coordinator in film and TV, an adjunct faculty member at Grand Canyon University, and a performance psychology consultant for the U.S. Army. He holds a Bachelor's in Psychology, a Master's in Sport Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology, along with certifications as a Certified Mental Performance Consultant®, Certified Leadership Coach, and Certified Executive Coach. Brian founded Begin Again Performance Psychology to enhance the mental strength and well-being of athletes, performers, and business leaders. Key Takeaways The Four Phases of Performance: Brian breaks down performance into before, right before, during, and after phases. Mastering the "right before" phase, when emotions and energy can spiral, is crucial for success. Achieving the Ideal Performance State: Brian uses breath control, progressive muscle relaxation, mental imagery, and attentional focus on the first 2 seconds of the task to get into the zone or "bubble." Nervousness and Excitement are Physiologically the Same: The difference lies in perceiving the situation as a threat or challenge. Framing the energy positively allows you to use it to your benefit. Eastern Philosophy and Western Psychology Overlap: Both emphasize the mind-body connection and achieving optimal mental states. Embracing this connection can lead to more flow experiences. Three Keys to Personal Change: Develop self-awareness of thoughts, emotions and their influence. Accept current reality. Take self-regulatory action to make positive changes. Sponsors and Promotions: Lumen: Unlock your metabolic potential with Lumen, the world's first handheld metabolic coach; visit lumen.me and use code DIVINE to get $100 off. Start optimizing your health today NeuroHacker: To feel in your prime WAY longer than you ever thought possible, try Qualia Senolytic up to 50% off right now at neurohacker.com/DIVINE15, and code DIVINE15 at checkout will score you an additional 15% off. Defender: Ready for adventure? With a family of vehicles to choose from, you'll have the space, technology, and performance to go further than ever before. Explore the Defender lineup at https://www.LandRoverUSA.com/Defender SealFit ElectroGreens: Fuel your body and conquer your limits with SealFit ElectroGreens - a USDA organic superfood packed with over 25 organic fruits, vegetables, and electrolytes. Head to Amazon, search for "SealFit ElectroGreens," and use code SEALGREENS25 at checkout for 25% off your order. Links for Brian Hite LinkedIn Website
ICUedu Physiologically Difficult Airway Pocket Intensivist CardICUedu.org page with video lecture, references, and a downloadable link to key visuals: https://www.icuedu.org/physiologicallydifficultairway
“Control what you can control.” Brooke's birth experiences have not been without challenges. She first had an extremely difficult miscarriage during COVID followed by intense bleeding due to massive subchorionic hemorrhages during her other two pregnancies. Her first delivery was a very traumatic C-section from not being completely anesthetized. After that, Brooke committed to doing everything in her power not to have that experience ever again and to do everything she could to avoid a C-section. Along with another subchorionic hemorrhage, her third pregnancy presented another challenge when she found out her baby had a bowel obstruction and would need surgery along with a NICU stay immediately after birth. Brooke was disheartened learning that she needed a medically necessary induction, but she was still committed to doing everything she could to achieve her VBAC. Her efforts to surround herself with a powerful team paid off. Everyone around her championed her VBAC. Brooke was able to go from the most traumatic birth imaginable to the most beautiful, empowering, and healing birth she literally dreamed about. Brooke's WebsiteInformed Pregnancy - code: vbaclink424Needed Website - code: vbac20How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 04:36 Review of the Week07:19 Brooke's first pregnancy11:18 Miscarriage15:01 Brooke's dream17:20 Second pregnancy21:26 Going into labor and getting admitted28:06 An extremely traumatic C-section32:53 Third pregnancy38:17 Bleeding again43:09 Finding a bowel obstruction in baby46:57 Switching providers the day before her scheduled induction50:57 Progressing to complete dilation54:54 Getting an epidural and pushing for three hours59:40 15 tips for birth1:04:22 Control what you can controlMeagan: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening– whatever time it is that you are listening to this episode, I hope that you are doing great. We are excited to get into another VBAC story today from our friend. Okay, so I'm trying to think. Remind me. Are you in North Carolina now or are you in New York City now?Brooke: No, I'm in North Carolina now, but the story starts in New York City. Meagan: The story starts in New York City. She's in North Carolina now. Her name is Brooke. Tell me a little bit more. You are an educator. You are helping kids read, right? Is this what I'm getting from your website? Brooke: Yes. Meagan: Okay, so tell us more about what you do. Brooke: I worked in New York City public schools for 10 years. I was a teacher, a literacy coach, and an administrator so I have experience both in the classroom and in school leadership. After we welcomed my daughter and after the pandemic, we moved to be closer to family in the Raleigh, North Carolina area and here I'm an education consultant. Meagan: Education consultant. Awesome. We will make sure to have your website linked for anyone listening. What type of people would want to go to your website? Brooke: I offer a number of services. The first thing that I do is pretty classic consulting in elementary school. I provide literacy support. My expertise is in pre-K through 3rd grade so early reading foundational skills. I help schools with their reading programs. But additionally, there's a big home school community in the Raleigh area. Meagan: I saw that on your website. Brooke: Yeah, I've had a really wonderful experience so far working with families getting set up on their homeschooling journey and supporting parents and caregivers in taking on the teacher role at home. Meagan: Awesome. Awesome. I think home school, especially since COVID has really taken off. I know a lot of people, some of my best friends in fact here in Utah even homeschool. It's a great resource. In addition to all of the amazing, great things you do, you have a VBAC story to share with us after a Cesarean that was performed pretty early, right?Brooke: Yeah, it was a pretty preterm and traumatic C-section. All VBAC stories start with a C-section so that's part of my journey. I'm so, so, so, so grateful. Thank you so much for welcoming me onto the show today. Putting this story out there, being on this podcast, and sharing my VBAC was part of my birth plan. It was on my vision board. It was a goal that I had set so I am just so, so, so grateful to have this opportunity to share that. Meagan: I'm really excited that you're going to dive in today. We talk about this a lot of the time with this podcast. Without these stories, without women of strength just like you, we wouldn't even have a podcast. I mean, probably I could get some content for sure but I think these stories are what makes this podcast. I'm so excited to dive in in just a moment. 04:36 Review of the WeekMeagan: I do have a Review of the Week. This is a review that actually was just given this year in 2024, the current year that we are recording. It's from a Bailee Atkins. She actually emailed us in a review. If you guys didn't know, you can email in us a review. It makes our hearts smile so big when we open up our email in the morning and we get these amazing reviews letting us know that everything that we are doing right here is helping, is inspiring, and encouraging, and educating.This says, “I just want to start off by saying I am OBSESSED with this podcast. I'm a labor and delivery nurse of four years, currently 29 weeks pregnant with my second baby. I'm praying for a redemptive VBAC this April. I absolutely love this resource for evidence-based information. Being that I am at the bedside as a nurse, I have plenty of knowledge. However, I don't have the experience of home birth or a birth center birth, so it's great to get all of the insight. I can't escape negative birth situations and stories as a pregnant nurse so this podcast is often my escape and positive note for the day. I've been listening since 2022 and couldn't feel more empowered for this VBAC. It is my dream to be on the podcast one day, so be on the lookout.” Okay, I love that. This is being aired probably after her due date. I mean, I don't know when her due date was, sometime in April, but we are now in May, so Bailee Atkins, if you are still listening, if you haven't already, email us and let us know how it goes and we would love to have you on the podcast. 07:19 Brooke's first pregnancyMeagan: Okay, cute Brooke. I am so excited to hear your stories. You also have a miscarriage story, too. Is that where this all began? Brooke: This is where it all began. I'm glad you brought it up because I did want to just say at first that my story– I just want to put a note out there to any listeners who are kind of sensitive. My story does include loss and a lot of medical trauma so I just want to put that on the listeners' radar. Meagan: Yeah. I think that's important. I know some people don't feel like they need any trigger warnings, but when you've gone through loss or medical trauma or things like that and it hasn't completely been worked through or processed or anything like that, and even if it has, it can be really triggering so we just wanted to make sure to mention that. It also is your story and I think that's also really important to share. Brooke: Yeah, so thank you for that. It was actually four years ago this week at the time of this recording. This is a really lovely way to kind of just close that chapter. It just is all working out beautifully.I'll set the scene. It's December of 2019. The world is still turning. Things are great. I'm at a New Year's party in Brooklyn. I'm just thriving. I had just come back from a great backpacking trip with my husband for the summer across Asia. Life was– we were on a high. Meagan: Wow, super exciting things happening. Brooke: Yeah. It was great. It was a great time. We call it the great grand finale. We are at this New Year's party in Brooklyn and I go to pour myself some champagne and I think, “Maybe I shouldn't. I think I could be pregnant.” I'm like, “No, no, no. Whatever.” Anyway, I take it easy. We go home early. A couple of weeks later, I'm so ill. I am so sick. I have the worst cough and cold situation I've ever had in my life. My boss at the school was like, “You need to go to the doctor. This has been too long.” I go to the doctor and I'm at urgent care. It's a Saturday morning and they're like, “Oh, we need to do some x-rays. We think you might have pneumonia. Is there any chance you might be pregnant?” I was like, “Oh my gosh, yeah. I didn't drink at that New Year's party. That was two weeks ago. I can't take this x-ray.” I go to the store. I pick up a pregnancy test. I go home. I take it. It's positive. I'm over the moon. This is the happiest moment of my life up to this point. My husband gets home. We are jumping up and down. We are so excited. Everything is smooth sailing. Everything is great. I immediately start getting sick and I'm breaking out. I just feel awful. I was complaining. As this pregnancy is progressing, the world is really starting to get a little bit of that pre-COVID hysteria. It's just starting. Meagan: Yeah. Especially in New York. Brooke: Yeah, right? I'm in New York City at this time. I go to the doctor. My husband is still allowed to come with me and things like that. This is the time before. We see the baby. Everything is normal. We go back again. We see the baby. Everything is normal. My doctor offered the NIPT genetic testing and I was like, “Yeah, let's do it.” We took the blood sample. I think I was about 10 weeks at that point. We got the results 7-10 days later in that window and it was inconclusive. The doctor was like, “It says there's not enough fetal DNA. We might have just taken it too early. This happens sometimes. Nothing to worry about.” I was like, “Okay, nothing to worry about.” 11:18 MiscarriageBrooke: It was maybe week 11 and I had miraculously felt better. I was like, “Phew. I don't have any more symptoms.” I'm there at the end of the first trimester and everything is fine. I go in. It was March 9th. It was a Monday. I had my nuchal translucency 12-week scan then and I was going to be 13 weeks the following day on Tuesday. It's Monday. I wake up. I'm getting ready for work and I start bleeding. It's just spotting. I call my doctor. She's like, “Spotting can be normal. I wouldn't stress about it just yet. You have an appointment later today.” I was like, “Okay.” I tried not to worry about it, but as the day went on, the bleeding got really bad. Really bad. I got in a cab and I called my husband who was at his last day of work at the job he was at. I was like, “You need to leave right now and meet me at the doctor's appointment. I know it's not until 3:00 but I'm going now.” It was around 1:00. I showed up at the hospital early and went in for my scan. I was like, “I'm bleeding. I can't wait 3 hours. Can you just take me now?” I was so shaken. Meagan: Yeah, that's a lot. Brooke: I was so scared. This is March 9th. People are masked. Everybody is a little bit scared of the hospitals because in New York, things had been happening at this point but nothing was closed down yet. I went into the room. A doctor I had never seen before because this was my first MFM visit does the scan and she comes in. She's like, “The baby isn't growing.” My husband is there with me and he's immediately crying. I'm just not computing. I'm like, “Okay, so does that mean he's going to have delays? What does this mean?”She's like, “No, there's no heartbeat.” I was like, “Okay, so what can we do about that?” I was just not understanding what she was very delicately trying to explain to me. I was like, “What do you mean he's not going to grow anymore? What does that mean? Is he going to have defects?” She was like, “No. The baby stopped growing 3 weeks ago somewhere between 9 and 10 weeks. You are 13 weeks now. We need to do a D&C.”It was like I was in a whirlpool. I had no idea what was going on. I just became a complete zombie. I just moved through the next two days just absolutely devastated like catatonic. It was the worst grief I had ever known. It was just so surprising. She was like, “You had a missed miscarriage” which I had never heard of to that point. I was like, “What does that mean?” Meagan: What does missed miscarriage actually mean? Brooke: Another term for it is a silent miscarriage. It is when the baby's heart stops when you have a miscarriage, but your body continues to grow. Your body grows. You still have symptoms. Your body doesn't recognize that the baby is not growing anymore and isn't viable anymore and doesn't properly miscarry. It was several weeks later before I started to bleed. It was that day. I didn't know. In retrospect, it's like that's why the NIPT came back the way it did. That's why my symptoms stopped. Those things on their own, in my first pregnancy, I didn't understand. 15:01 Brooke's dreamBrooke: On the 11th, we had the D&C that Wednesday and on Friday, March 13th, New York City shut down. I came out of this procedure just so sad and then was basically locked in my house for a year. My husband and I were grieving in total isolation. It was just a really tough time. Typically, after a procedure like that, you would go in for a follow-up appointment several weeks later and the doctor would make sure everything was okay. But because it was only emergencies in the hospitals at that time, my doctor just emailed. She was like, “Let me know if you have these symptoms and then I'll see you, but otherwise it's safer for you not to come in and you can get pregnant now.” In retrospect, I think she meant you can, not necessarily that you should but I was like, “Okay. I can get pregnant again.” This is maybe a little too much for some people, but I was crying myself to sleep just so, so, so sad and I was like, “I want my baby. I just need to know that it's going to be okay.” I went to sleep and I had the strangest dream that I watched myself through a snowy window of a nurse handing me a baby girl in a pink blanket and then I didn't see her, myself in the hospital bed didn't see her, but through the window, I watched the nurse also take a baby boy and lay him next to me. He was asleep. Meagan: That just gave me the chills. Brooke: Yeah, I'm happy. I'm holding a baby girl. I woke up and I just felt okay. Two weeks later, I found out I was pregnant again. The whole time, I was like, “It's a girl. It's a girl. It's obviously a girl,” and it was. I just knew right from the outset that I was having a baby girl. 17:20 Second pregnancyBrooke: I tested positive at 4 weeks. At 5 weeks, I started bleeding and this time, I was angry. I was like, “What is wrong? Why am I miscarrying again?” I go to the doctor and my OB who is amazing, my New York City OB took such incredible care of me. She is just really an all-star doctor. She was like, “I don't know why you are bleeding so much, but the baby is fine. They are still in there.” I went back a week later. The bleeding never stopped. When I say bleeding, I mean I'm passing clots the size of golf balls. Meagan: Whoa. Brooke: At 7 weeks, I went in. At this point, my OB was like, “I don't know what's going on. I don't understand why you are bleeding so much, but the baby seems fine.” Meagan: There's no placental tear? Brooke: No. Meagan: Subchorionic? Nothing? Brooke: At this point, they didn't know what it was. They did find out. I got on the table and I was like, “I'm really bleeding a lot.” She was like, “Okay.” She put me on the table and she was like, “Oh my goodness. It literally looks like you've been shot. There's so much blood just everywhere.” I mean, I'm not a doctor obviously, but I was like, I don't know how I can go on with this much blood loss. It was really extreme. Then the psychological impact of all of that bleeding when I've just had loss. The world's not turning. I'm locked in my house other than going to the hospital. There are field hospitals everywhere. I can see them from the window. It is really just apocalyptic. We go through the next several weeks. I go to the MFM. They diagnose a very, very large subchorionic hemorrhage. It was three times the size of my daughter. They were like, “We don't know if she's going to be able to sustain this much blood loss and there's really nothing we can do to stop it.” They were like, “There's not a lot of research on this kind of thing. We don't know how it's going to go. We'll just keep seeing you once or twice a week, making sure you're not losing too much blood and make sure the baby is still okay.” The whole pregnancy, she was totally fine. I bled and I bled and I bled. I was on total bed rest because any walking I did at all just aggravated it and caused more bleeding. I was so scared of that. I was really, totally isolated. It was very tough emotionally and physically, but my doctor took excellent care of me, helped me find mental health resources, and helped me to get a prenatal nutritionist just to really give me well-rounded care throughout the pregnancy. Brooke: By 24 weeks, it went away. Prayers were answered and the hemorrhage went away. Meagan: Halfway through the pregnancy. Brooke: Yep, by 24 weeks, it was gone. I didn't have any new bleeding although I was still bleeding, but it wasn't the full hemorrhage bleeding that I had been experiencing up until that point.I took it easy until 36 weeks when I was like, “I need to start walking and moving. I've been in bed this whole pregnancy. I know that's not good.” I'm usually a very active person, so I was a little anxious about that. Around 36 weeks, we started taking the daily hot chocolate walk. We would walk to a different spot and we would get a hot chocolate. It's winter time now. It's December. It's Christmas. We were just relaxing and then on January 15th, it was snowing in New York City. I was 38 weeks and 6 days and I went into labor. 21:26 Going into labor and getting admittedBrooke: I woke up at 3:00 in the morning and I was like, “I'm in labor.” I was so excited. It was happening. I labored at home for 14 hours and then we went into the hospital. The traffic was so bad from the snow that I ended up walking down 5th Avenue for 10 blocks because we were in gridlock. I was like, “I'm in labor!” I was nowhere near ready to go to the hospital but I didn't know. I went to the hospital way too early. Classic C-section red flag right there, but I didn't know. I got there and my doctor happened to be on call. I was so excited because she was just incredible. We had such a good relationship after the care she had given me throughout both of these pregnancies and I was just so excited. But then she left. She had me in triage. I was only 2 centimeters. She was like, “I think you should go home.” Meagan: You're like, “I just walked blocks to get here.” Brooke: I was like, “I can't.”She was like, “It's probably going to be another 12 hours until you really need to be here.” I was like, “I can't come back at 3:00 in the morning tomorrow.” I was so anxious. My anxiety from what I had been through, I was like, “There's no way I'm going home.” She was like, “I'll push it. We'll admit you now.” She was catering to my emotional and mental needs to have this baby monitored. I was so scared. Brooke: I get admitted. By the time I get upstairs, my poor husband is not admitted at this point. He's outside in the snow just walking around Central Park. Not until I'm in my room is he allowed to join me because he had to be tested for COVID and all of that. This is January 2021. Now, mind you, two days before that, I think the 14th was one of the worst days of COVID that we'd had up to that point in New York City. That is what everybody is focused on in the medical world. They're not like, “This routine birth. This girl is in labor. She's 39 weeks tomorrow.” Nobody's stressed. I get the epidural. By that time, I'm 5 centimeters. Two hours later, my water broke. I was at 8 centimeters. It's 7:00 PM. I'm 8 centimeters. I'm like, “This is happening.” Everything is smooth. I go to sleep. I keep telling everybody that the epidural is not working. I can feel the epidural on the right side of my body. The nurses moved me around, trying to get the medicine to other places, they had me just lying this way, laying that way, but I got up. Never walked around. Didn't get in any other position other than my back or my side. I went to sleep. I woke up in the morning and was still 8 centimeters. I had stalled out and now, everybody is starting to worry. The doctor who was on call, my doctor, who left after I was in triage, was someone I had never met. I have lots of friends who she delivered their babies and they had great experiences with her, so I'm sure she is absolutely wonderful, but I didn't know her and I felt really unsafe. She seemed very busy every time she came in and I was very anxious at this point. I was like, “I thought I was going to have this baby yesterday. What is going on?” My angel of a nurse just was so reassuring that whole time, but I kept telling her, “I don't think this epidural is working.” She was like, “Well, this is the max that you can have. Let's give you more Pitocin to get those contractions to kick in so we can get you all the way.” More epidural, more Pitocin. More epidural, more Pitocin. The cascade of interventions. This is all for a labor that I went into spontaneously. It's 39 weeks now. I'm full-term. My nurse goes on lunch break. It's now Saturday the 16th. My nurse went on lunch break and another nurse came in, someone I didn't know which is a theme throughout my whole VBAC journey. I really liked to know my provider. Meagan: That's an important thing, by the way, to know. It doesn't happen as much anymore, but to know who is going to be with you is very common to want that. It was for me. Brooke: It was not something that I thought I would care about, but at the moment, it was something I really needed. So this nurse I didn't know came in and took my temperature and was like, “Oh no. You have a fever. This is bad. I'm going to get the doctor. She's going to operate.” I was like, “What are you talking about I have a fever. What?” The OB comes in. She's washing her hands. She's putting on the fresh gloves. She's doing it. She just came out of C-section. She was like, “You have a fever? You've been at 8 centimeters for how long? All right. We're going to the OR.” I just immediately start hysterically crying. I was terrified. My nurse is back and she was like, “It's okay. Look. Your baby is perfect. She's not in distress. Everything is okay. It's just taking too long. You have this fever. We don't want the baby to get sick. This is the best thing.” The OB was like, “Why are you crying? Everything is fine.” Meagan: Oh my gosh. Brooke: My husband was like, “You know, she's been through a lot with the loss and the hemorrhage. We are scared.” The doctor was like, “What hemorrhage? What are you talking about? This wasn't your first pregnancy?” I felt in that moment like she didn't know me like she didn't know my case and I felt really unsafe. She's a great doctor and she knew what she was doing, but I felt nothing. Meagan: She wasn't really talking to you. She was telling you what you were going to do, not talking. Brooke: Exactly. In retrospect, I can appreciate that they are in the middle of a pandemic and it was truly unprecedented. I understand now where she was, but it was not good for me. 28:06 An extremely traumatic C-sectionBrooke: I go back into the OR and I'm sure all of the listeners are familiar with this moment where you are being prepped for surgery and it's really overwhelming. I was like, “Oh my gosh. I hope my husband is not in here right now.” I couldn't see. You're just staring up at the lights. I was like, “I hope he's not in here right now seeing this.” They bring him in and I'm prepped for surgery and they are testing where they are about to perform this surgery. I was like, “That really hurts.” They were like, “No, no, no. It's just pressure.” I was like, “No, it's pressure on the left side of my body, but it's pain on the right. I am telling you as I have been telling you since I was 5 centimeters yesterday, that the epidural is not reaching the right half of my body.” They were like, “Okay. Here is some pain medication through your IV, but we've got to do what we've got to do.” Meagan: Oh my gosh. Brooke: I think it was extremely traumatic for my husband also because I was screaming through my whole C-section. I was in extreme agony. I'll liken it to when you watch a Civil War movie and you're watching an amputee. I was being operated on and was not fully anesthetized. It was the worst thing I have ever experienced or could really imagine physically. It was excruciating. My daughter was born and they said, “The baby is out.” That was maybe the longest moment of my life because she didn't cry. The first thing I ever said. The first words my daughter ever heard me say were, “Is she alive?” I was like, the baby is out but she's not crying. They were like, “Yeah.” She cried. They did the suction and she cried. 100% healthy, perfect APGAR scores, everything was fine, but all the while, I'm just screaming. After they checked her, they handed her to my husband and they made him leave. He was down the hall taking the baby to where I would ultimately meet them in postpartum, but he could hear me screaming all the way down. Meagan: Oh, so traumatic for both of you. Brooke: Yeah, it was horrible, to say the least. I hate saying that because it was my daughter's birth and so amazing for so many other reasons, but my experience was bad. Bad. I was thankfully able to nurse her really well and hold her and everything from then on was just totally smooth sailing. She was perfectly healthy, but I knew immediately that I never wanted to have another C-section. Brooke: The next morning, they were doing their rounds in recovery, and the anesthesiologist who was there, not my anesthesiologist, someone I hadn't seen before. My husband and I were like, “Will this happen again? If I were to have another baby, would this happen again? What's wrong with me?” He was like, “Well, I'm not sure, but you probably have a window in your spine and yeah, this would happen with any epidural so I wouldn't recommend it in the future. We'd have to go a different anesthesia route for a different C-section or you would have to give birth unmedicated.” That was the story in my head moving forward. After that, I was like, “I'm not having another C-section,” so in my head, it was like, “I'm going to have an unmedicated VBAC in the future.” That was day one. To process all of that trauma, I started listening to VBAC podcasts. I just was listening to VBAC stories because that was really the only place where I was hearing C-section stories. I had so many friends who had C-sections before me and I didn't understand how horrible that recovery can be for some people. Mind you, lots of my friends had great C-section experiences, but I did not and it really took a lot of work to process that. At my postpartum visit, I was back with my doctor and she was like, “You know if you do decide to get pregnant again, we will do an anesthesia consult and really explore that and make sure that that never happens to you again.” Life goes on. I'm raising my daughter. We're in New York. We decide to move to North Carolina to be with family and to try again for another baby. We're in our new house and I don't really know anybody here beyond some family. 32:53 Third pregnancyBrooke: I found out that I'm expecting again and we are so excited, but there is obviously a lot of anxiety after everything that I went through. I was like, “This time around, I need a doula.” I was like, “We're in a different time. It's not New York at the height of a pandemic. I need a team. I know now after 2 years of listening to VBAC stories what I need to do. I'm going to control every single thing I can control so that this will go how I want it to go.” I made a vision board about it. I looked at it on my desk all the time. I was like, “These are the things I need to be doing every day to hit this goal.” Sharing my successful VBAC on a podcast was on that, so I am really excited to be able to do this today. Brooke: The first thing that I did was hire a doula, but I didn't know any doulas and I knew that I wanted one who would really support a VBAC that had experience with the emotional elements of it. I interviewed several doulas with that in mind, but what I did that I would definitely urge listeners to do if they don't have a supportive provider is I asked every doula that I interviewed if they knew of or could recommend or had worked with in the past any VBAC-supportive OBs. I knew for me and my anxiety given the complications that I had with the hemorrhage and the loss that I wasn't going to go the midwife/birth center route. I knew that I would want an obstetrician. I was looking for a hospital provider that would be VBAC-supportive. Every doula I interviewed recommended the same practice and the same hospital. I was like, “That's where I need to go because if all of the doulas are recommending this practice, that's where I need to try and get in.” I was relieved to find out that they delivered at WakeMed Raleigh and I say that because it's important to note that it is one of the lowest C-section rates in the country, that hospital. That alone was really reassuring to me because I was like, “They are not going to do it just because it's taking too long.” It's really going to be based on that medical evidence. If I need to have one medically, then that's what we have to do, but I wanted to make sure that it wasn't the result of interventions or stalling. I don't know if I had done things differently if my C-section would have or wouldn't have happened, but I know that I didn't set myself up for success. This time around, I was really determined to do it. I got a doula. I got a supportive provider. Through my doula, I did childbirth education classes. They recommended Spinning Babies and yoga. I did that. They recommended a Webster-certified chiropractor and I did that. All things really stemmed from my doula and the doula group that she was with. I cannot recommend that enough. I know getting a doula can sometimes be cost-prohibitive, but there are so many doulas on Instagram that share a lot of this information on social media that just following those recommendations, I tried it all. I really did. I drank the tea. I ate the dates, but early in this pregnancy, I hadn't even hired a doula yet. 38:17 Bleeding againBrooke: 6 weeks, I started bleeding again. I was like, “You've got to be kidding me.” I wasn't as scared because I had just been through my daughter's pregnancy and I was like, “This just must be the way that I am.” So I go and I get an appointment with this practice because I knew right away that that was where I wanted to go. They took me even though I was a new patient. They took me right away even though I was 6 weeks because I was bleeding. I don't think all practices bend the rules that much. Their policy is, “Oh, don't come in until 9 weeks,” but they took me. I really appreciated that. I loved the staff. They were like, “Yeah, we don't know why you are bleeding.” I said, “Well, I do. I'm telling you right now that it's a subchorionic hemorrhage.” They were like, “We don't say anything.” I was like, “You will.” Pregnancy was pretty routine after that. The bleeding stopped. I didn't worry too much and then I took my daughter to a museum at 12 weeks, 5 days which if you recall is just about to the day and the time of my loss. It was 12 weeks and 6 weeks when I started bleeding. I had a huge bleed. I mean, bad. I was like, “How could it be that I am miscarrying on the same day?” I was like, “This is crazy.” We went to the ER because it was nighttime and I was like, “I just have to know if there is a heartbeat.” The ER checked and it was incredible too because I could feel that the doctors were nervous for me and then I felt their relief telling me that there was a heartbeat. They were like, “We don't often get to give good news in the ER and we are just so happy to tell you that your baby is fine and you have a subchorionic hemorrhage.” I was like, “Knew it.” I continued to bleed for a few days. They were like, “Do you want to do bloodwork and see if there's anything else?” I was like, “No. That's what's happening. I don't need to stay for bloodwork. This is what it is. I've just got to ride it out and take it easy,” which is tough with a toddler, but I did my best. The bleeding stopped and everything was fine. The rest of my pregnancy was great. I had that second-trimester glow and it's sunny North Carolina. I'm with my family. I've made some friends. Things are going smoothly. Then at my 24-week appointment, I said to one of the OBs there that I was feeling pretty anxious. I was like, “I'm a little bit nervous just because I did hemorrhage this pregnancy. I hemorrhaged all last pregnancy. I don't feel okay with this being my last ultrasound until delivery. Can we just put a growth scan on the chart?”She was like, “Of course. You need to feel comfortable.” I appreciated that. She didn't have a medical reason to do it, but she was like, “You're right. You've been high risk. Let's go ahead.” At 30 weeks, it was the night before my appointment and I had the strangest dream. I had a dream that I had the most amazing birth. My doula was there. I was standing up. I pulled my son from my own body. It was this redemptive, joyous dream. I felt this happiness. Then all of a sudden, it went dark and everything was dark. I was walking around an auditorium, a dimly lit auditorium with a bunch of empty bassinets. I was looking for my baby. I wasn't scared, but I was a little bit nervous walking around there, then all of a sudden, the nurse handed him to me and they were like, “Here he is.” I was like, “Where has he been all this time?” She was like, “Oh, he's been with us, but he's fine. You can go home.” I was like, “Okay.” Then I woke up. I went on with my day and I was like, “That was a weird dream.”I went to my 30-week scan and mind you, I had been put on there because of my advocating for myself. I looked at the ultrasound. It was just me and the tech in the room and I said, “What the F is that?” I had seen through weekly ultrasounds my entire pregnancy with my daughter. I'm not a tech, but I have a lot of experience as a mom looking at ultrasounds and I was like, “This is not normal.” His belly looked like sausage links. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before and the tech was like, “I need to go get the doctor.” 43:09 Finding a bowel obstruction in babyBrooke: She brought in another doctor at the practice. This is a big practice with lots of different OBs, all of whom were wonderful. This doctor who this was my first time meeting was just so sweet as she told me that my baby had a bowel obstruction and that he would need to have surgery and stay in the NICU for a while when he was born and that it was really likely that I was going to have to deliver him prematurely.I immediately became hysterical. She was so sweet. She asked if she could hug me. I was like, “Please.” It was just the most incredible practice of doctors. I felt just really supported by them. She sent me to the MFM where I had to get an ultrasound at least once a week. They did the antenatal screening there to check his intestines every few days because they wanted to make sure that they were balancing the risk of letting me go as close to term as possible while not risking his intestines bursting basically. Meagan: Right. Brooke: This was very scary again so I was like, “Oh my gosh. What is going on with me?” I go through with the rest of the pregnancy. I did have polyhydramnios because he is not passing fluid as he's supposed to be. It's all getting stuck where this obstruction is. But because it's a picture of a belly inside a belly and your intestines are so long, you can't see through ultrasound where the block is. There were five causes that they were going through. They weren't sure where this block was or if it was part of a larger disease or if this would cause lifelong issues. There were so many questions, but I just was like, “Listen. I had a dream with my daughter that I would have a baby girl in the snow and I did. I just have to trust that this baby is going to be fine too and I'm going to take it home too.” I'm going to have that VBAC and at every single appointment, once or twice a week, I ask, “Does this impact my ability to have a VBAC?” He was like, “No. It has nothing to do with pregnancy and delivery. That's going to be what it is. You make those choices based on your history. It's just that when the baby is born, you will have to have a huge team out there. The NICU team has to be there. Pediatric surgery needs to be there. You're going to have to give birth with 15-20 people in the room.” I was like, “There goes my unmedicated, serene vision with no epidural, no medical intervention, beautiful hospital birth in a dimly lit room with the candles. No.” All that planning is out the window. It's gone. I can't have that experience. So I'm like, “I have to control what I can control. The MFM is saying I can still do it. I'm still going for it.” So then at just before 37 weeks, they were like, “Okay, it's time. We need to get him out and get this surgery underway.” They were like, “He's doing well. You're doing well. Let's have an induction.” For a VBAC, being induced, I was like, “Oh no. This feels just like a death sentence to my VBAC plans, but this is what we have to do.” 46:57 Switching providers the day before her scheduled inductionBrooke: I'm meeting with one of the OBs and it's the day before my scheduled induction. This is on Monday. I like this OB a lot. We've worked together in the past. She's been great and supportive, nothing bad to say about her. But we were talking about my induction which was going to take place and I asked her a question about Pitocin. I just asked a question because I didn't know. Her response was along the lines of, “With all due respect, you need to let the nurses do their job. You're not trained in Pitocin and you need to let them do that.” Right then, I was like, “Mm-mm.” Medically, she's right. Would she have delivered my baby safely? Almost certainly, but I knew right then that was not the energy that I needed in the room. I felt immediately like I shouldn't have asked the question and I was like, “I can't feel like that this time.” I didn't ask any questions at my daughter's birth. I just went along with it. I was blind and this time, I need to be with a provider that I feel like I can ask anything and that I will get an answer. So I emailed the MFM and said, “Do you think it's safe if I push the induction a few days? I'm not comfortable with the plans we have right now. I want to give my baby and my body a few more days. What's the last possible day I can push this to?” He was like, “I'll let you go 72 more hours, but I really think we've got to get this moving.” I messaged the doctor I felt the most comfortable with in the practice and I was like, “Listen. I really want to have my baby with you. I just feel the most comfortable with you. You had mentioned you were going to be on-call that day.” I didn't do it because I wanted to do it sooner so I had scheduled it with a different doctor, but he was like, “Let me see what I can do. I have a full load that day, but let me call the hospital and see what I can do.” He called me back and he was like, “I pulled some strings and I got you in. I'm going to deliver your baby. We're going to do this induction. You're going to have your VBAC. I don't want you to stress at all. We're going to have your VBAC. Your baby is going to go to the NICU. He's going to be fine. You're going to come home happy.”I was like, “This is what I need.” I just felt like, “Ahh.” I was like, “Do you think it's safe to be induced? Is it safe for a VBAC?” He was like, “It is totally safe and I will let you know the moment things become unsafe and we will change the plan. But right now, this plan is safe and I will let you know when I don't think it is safe anymore and we need to do something different.” I was like, “Okay.” I went in for my induction and it all moved really fast from there. I had a Foley induction on the night before. I went in on Tuesday night and they gave me a Foley, but all that prep work paid off. I was already 2 centimeters dilated when I showed up at the hospital at 37 weeks for my induction. I was like, “Yes.” That baby was in a great position. I was in shape. I had done that Spinning Babies yoga. It was paying off. I had drank the red raspberry leaf tea. I ate the six dates a day and I will never eat one again.I was like, “Yes.” They put the Foley in. It fell out around 8:00 AM the following morning so this is on Wednesday now. Wednesday, September 27th. At 8:00 AM, they started Pitocin. By 10:00 AM, I was in back labor. It was mild. It was manageable. I was not stressed at all. My nurse was amazing and she helped me get into a lot of different positions. We got baby to move and back labor subsided. That made all the difference. 50:57 Progressing to complete dilationBrooke: By noon, just a few hours later, I was 100% effaced and I was 5 centimeters. I really wasn't feeling anything. I was totally fine. I was able to sleep and I was already 5 centimeters on Pitocin so I was feeling good. I was like, “Oh, I can do this. I do not need an epidural. This is happening.” My doctor came in and he was like, “I want to break your water. You have a bulging bag. Let's break this.” I was like, “Okay,” because I fully trusted him. He was so respectful of my birth plan. I had put on there that I wanted limited cervical checks because in my previous labor, I got the chorio infection and I was like, “I want to limit cervical checks because I don't want to have that infection again that caused my first C-section.” He was like, “I'm not going to check you unless I feel like we really need to and we can talk about it.” He was just so respectful of my wishes and how I wanted my birth to go. He was barely there. My contractions weren't intense, so at 2:00 PM, my nurse upped my Pitocin to a 10. I'm not really sure what that means as the other OB pointed out. I'm not trained in Pitocin. Meagan: It's starting to get into the higher does. Usually at 20 is when OBs will cap it off or try to get MFM involved to get more clearance or do an IUPC and stuff like that. 10 is low but still getting there and getting higher. Brooke: Okay. Okay. She put it to 10 and said, “It's time to get things going. I was just still coping fine and I was starting to get a little bit worried that I wasn't going to get past 8 centimeters because so far, it had been similar to my previous labor. It was taking a while, but I was feeling fine. I texted my doula. This was 2:00 PM. I texted my doula and she was like, “Go get on the toilet. Sit backward. I call it the dilation station. Just go sit there for a little while and I'll check back in with you at 3:00.” But at 2:10, so 10 minutes of doing that, I texted her that I was at 8 centimeters and I was in so much pain. I was like, “You need to come in right now.” 10 minutes. I was so sick. I thought I was going to throw up. I was screaming. I was not prepared for how bad this was going to hurt. I was not expecting that. It came out of nowhere. She got there at 2:35. I was pacing up and down the room yelling and I was screaming that I really wanted the epidural. My nurse gave me IV pain meds and I kept telling her I would get relief during the contractions but the contractions themselves really hurt. My doula was there applying counterpressure, helping to move me into different positions and she and my nurse were working together to get me from just one contraction at a time. One contraction at a time. I mean, I was just in labor land. I could not see beyond the moment that I was in. I was begging for an epidural. My husband didn't say anything because he was really supportive of just supporting my wishes, but I was like, “I really want an epidural.” My goal going into the birth was to have a good experience and not necessarily to have an unmedicated birth because the unmedicated part was because I was afraid that the epidural wouldn't work again. That's why I didn't want the epidural. It wasn't because I wanted the unmedicated birth. It just felt like that was my best option. 54:54 Getting an epidural and pushing for three hoursBrooke: I'm hysterical and I'm like, “I want the epidural. This is not a good experience. This is not on my birth plan.” My doula was like, “I think you're right.” My nurse checked me. She was like, “You're complete. You're complete. You can just push.” I was like, “I am not pushing without an epidural! This is not what I want!”An angel of an anesthesiologist came in and gave me that epidural. I was complete and I got that epidural and let me tell you, there is nothing wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with my spine. That was the most incredible relief that I have ever felt. I know now it was the right decision. My husband was so against it because he was so scared that I was just giving up and throwing in the towel at the final mile. But he didn't say anything at the time. The anesthesiologist was amazing. He kept coming in to check on me, making sure I was doing okay. That was around 3:30 that I got the epidural. I stayed on my hands and knees. My doula was giving me peppermint essential oil to help me cope with the nausea. She kept checking on me and I felt that relief around 4:15, then it was calm and joyous. I knew instantly that I had made the best choice for me. The nurse kept trying to get me to do practice pushes and my doula was like, “You don't really have to do that.” I was like, “I don't have to practice doing anything. My body is just pushing.” It was involuntary. It was just happening. I pushed for 3 hours. Yeah, 3 hours of pushing. Meagan: All right. All right. That's some time.Brooke: It was a long time. I started pushing around 4:15-4:30 and my baby was born at 7:28 PM. I had no tearing and it was exactly like my dream. His head was out and my doctor was like, “Reach down, Brooke. You can do it.” I reached down and pulled him from his shoulders up onto my chest and I got that completion of that circular motion. Pushing the baby out, completing the circle with putting him on my chest. He was crying and looking up at me. I had that skin-to-skin moment. Mind you, this is happening with 15-20 people in the room. The team rushed over. They took him. They checked him. They laid him back on my chest and they left. They were like, “He's perfect. We're good. We'll see you in an hour.” Meagan: Oh my gosh. Yay. Brooke: Yeah. Yeah. So I got to hold him on my chest and have that golden hour. It was just me, my husband, and my doula. It was the most incredible, healing moment of my life. I was pushing him out and I was like, “I could do this again! This is amazing!” It was just– at one point in pushing, I even asked my OB. I was like, “Oh my gosh. This is taking so long. Do I need to have a C-section?” My doctor was like, “Brooke, I'm touching his head. No. You're having a VBAC. It's here. It's done. You did it. This is it.” I was like, “Oh my god.” The baby was never in distress. He did great the whole time. They didn't feel any need to rush it because medically, he was monitored the whole time. I was monitored. We were both doing great. It just took a while. It was absolutely perfect and then they took him back to the NICU after that hour and he ultimately did need to have bowel surgery and stayed there for almost 6 weeks, but I'm happy to report that he is a 100% normal almost 6-month-old baby now and just absolutely perfect. It was the healing VBAC that I had pursued and I am just over the moon about it. It will remain one of the best experiences of my whole life in spite of all of those challenges that I had with another hemorrhage, an induction, and my baby with this obscure birth defect. Having that VBAC and that VBAC success really just completely changed my outlook on the whole situation. I could drive to and from the hospital to see him. I got to hold him for that hour. It was an amazing, amazing, amazing experience. 59:40 15 tips for birthMeagan: I am so happy for you and I'm so happy that you felt you were able to advocate for yourself. It is definitely something hard to do. It would be hard to email and be like, “Actually, I'm not going to go with this provider” or even say, “Yeah, okay. Great. I'm 10 centimeters, but this is not the experience that I'm wanting anymore and I'm going to do this.” I think that is something also they tell people a lot. You can't get an epidural after a certain number of centimeters. That's not necessarily true. Sometimes it can be heavy and harder to push, but a lot of the time, it is what a mom needs to push. You had 3 more hours. You knew what you needed. That was the most perfect decision that you could have made for you. Brooke: Exactly. Exactly. Meagan: You had that amazing full-circle moment of bringing your son up, feeling him, and holy cow, intuitive. Your dreams are on point. I'm just so, so happy for you and I do want to talk a little bit. There is something that you said a couple of times that stood out to me and it's something that I feel like I just in life in general, not even just in pregnancy and everything that I stick to. You can only control what you can control. That, in birth, is hard so what you did is what you could control. I want to give some of those tips. I've got 15 tips and I'm looking down here and I'm like, yeah. You did a lot of them. Learn the facts. Learn what the evidence says. A lot of providers are on the opposite side of your provider where they are like, “No. Pitocin is not safe. It is not acceptable. We cannot do this. You have to go into labor by tomorrow or we have to have a C-section.” Right?Brooke: Right, totally. Meagan: That's not what the evidence states. So you learned the facts. You found the provider. That's the next one. Find a supportive provider. Hire a VBAC doula if you can. I want to talk a little bit about doulas. Obviously, I am a doula and I have a whole doula program here at The VBAC Link so I advocate for doulas every single second of the day, but I know sometimes it's not possible and you mentioned that financially. There are avenues. You can go to Be Her Village or instead of a baby shower and getting a whole bunch of extra clothes, you can ask for support for doulas. There are ways around that but then I wanted to also talk about hiring a doula. Just like hiring a provider who is supportive of VBAC, you also want to try to find a doula who is supportive of VBAC as well. We had a story just a while ago that talked about how she had an amazing doula and it sounds like she was honestly amazing, but VBAC was something that made her uncomfortable. She didn't know that until she was in that space. Brooke: Yeah. I experienced that in my interviews. I did talk to a few doulas who were like, “Well, I've never done a VBAC but physiologically, it's the same as any other birth.” While that is definitely true, I knew that I needed somebody in my corner who understood the emotional impact and what this was going to do for my psyche. Physiologically, man. I have been listening to your podcast. I was like, “These women can do it. I can do it.” A very good friend of mine had a VBAC and the whole time through her pregnancy, I was cheering her on. It was in my head. I was like, “It has already happened. This is done. It's a done deal. You're going to have a VBAC.” Then it was my turn and I was like, I had that faith in my friend. I need to have that faith in myself. I can do this. I really can. I got that from listening to your podcast and hearing other women have this success. That was absolutely critical, but knowing that a doula who understood that and who had been there for other VBAC moms was critical for me. Actually, the doula that I ended up having with me that I hired and that was with me in my birth, she was the doula for her sister who had a VBAC so I was like, “She knows. It's personal to her.” It was perfect. It was perfect. Yeah. It's another part of your team that supports you and understands. Even if they haven't had a VBAC themselves, they are supportive of VBAC and really understand again those facts and the evidence surrounding VBAC. 1:04:22 Control what you can controlMeagan: Finding the birth location. You mentioned you knew that this other location may not have been the best idea and this is where you would feel more safe and you chose that. That is so important to choose where you feel comfortable and what resonates with you. Avoiding induction, however, we know induction happens. Here we are. An induction happened and an induction can happen. Avoid an induction that is not necessary, but also know that if induction comes your way, that doesn't mean that your birth dreams and your birth preferences and everything just go completely out of the window. It's still possible to VBAC if we didn't just prove it with this episode and many other episodes before with an induction. Processing past birth experiences, creating a birth plan. I love how you had a vision board and you were like, “This is my vision. I'm going to do these things. These are within my control.” Surround yourself with the people who support you even outside of your birth team. Going to the massage therapist, and chiropractor, doing Spinning Babies. All of these things are really, really going to help you have a better chance of a VBAC, but then also I feel like if a VBAC doesn't end up happening, you can go back and say, “I did everything I could do in my power and I controlled what I could control.” That message stuck out to me during your story. You said it just a couple of times, but that to me is very powerful. Control what you can control. Brooke: Yeah. I would want anybody listening to really hang on to that and to have faith in yourself. In my second pregnancy, I felt like I just needed to go along with what the doctor said. I had a high-risk pregnancy. I was bleeding like crazy. I didn't know what was going on. Everything felt really uncertain at that point in the pandemic and where I was living and it was just that I didn't take any control. I just did not own my birth at all. I will always wonder if I had done things differently. If I wasn't on bedrest and I was moving and if I drank the tea and if I had a doula which wasn't an option at that moment in time, but if I had done things differently, would I have had such a traumatic Cesarean birth? Would that experience have happened? I will never know, but I wanted to know going into this one that I did everything that felt right to me. My doula would make suggestions and I did the things that I was like, “Yeah. That's something I'm going to do.” Then there were suggestions that she made that I was like, “Mmm, that doesn't sound good to me,” so I just didn't do it. I followed my gut. I had faith in myself. I was like, “I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. I'm not going to do A, B, and C.” Doing what feels right to you and your body, my provider, and I had the mantras too. My provider was amazing, but I knew going into it that obstetrics is not as old as the wisdom of my body and I need to trust it first. My OB is one man. If there is something wrong, they are there to course correct but I just need to let my body do its thing. My provider was so supportive of that and I think that controlling that was huge. I mean, I literally changed doctors the day before my induction. That is something you can do. In my first birth, it was so obvious that I was just routine. I was in and out of the hospital, just another mom giving birth. Nameless. This is the biggest moment of your life and you have to do what you can do to make it the experience you want it to be. I knew that going in, my son needed an induction and that was the whole pregnancy, I was like, “I won't be induced. That's where I draw the line. I'll go for a repeat C-section before I get induced,” and it was time. They were like, “We need to induce.” I knew that was what I had to do to save my son. I was like, “We're going to go for it.” My provider made me feel really safe and I'm just really glad that up until that last minute, I was advocating for the birth that I wanted and that was when I got the birth I wanted, but I knew that if it ultimately ended in a C-section because that was what he needed or if something would occur that that was what I needed, that that is what was needed and not just, “Oh, time's up. Oh, you have an infection.” Control what you can control. Meagan: Yep. That's the message of the day. Control what you can control. VBAC is possible. You did it. I'm so happy for you and thank you so much for sharing your story with us today.Brooke: Thank you so much for having me. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
This week, I'm excited to welcome Anoop Asok and Ann-Maria Tom to the podcast. Together they are known as the weight loss whisperers who focus on metabolic mastery and hormonal health to provide their clients with real results. In this episode, we discuss where so many of us go wrong when wanting to lose weight, the importance of calories versus quality of food, and the strategy to actually keep the weight off for good. Over to Anoop and Ann-Maria. Some questions asked during this episode: Where do many of us go wrong when wanting to lose weight? How can we ensure we keep the weight off? How important are calories vs the quality of food we eat? https://180nutrition.com.au/ This week I'm excited to welcome Anoop Asok and Ann-Maria Tom to the podcast. Together they are known as the weight loss whisperers who focus on metabolic mastery and hormonal health to provide their clients with real results. In this episode, we discuss where so many of us go wrong when wanting to lose weight, the importance of calories versus quality of food, and the strategy to actually keep the weight off for good. Over to Anoop and Ann-Maria. (01:15) Hey, guys. This is Stu from 180 Nutrition and I am delighted to welcome Ann-Maria and Anoop, also known as the weight loss whisperers to the podcast. Guys, how are you both today? Ann-Maria (01:27) We're doing fantastic. We are in the middle of winter here in Canada. It's cold, but it's good. Stu (01:37) Exactly right. Ann-Maria (01:38) [inaudible 00:01:38] here today. Stu (01:40) Fantastic. Well, I really appreciate you sharing some of your time. First up, for all of our listeners that may not be familiar with you or your work, I'd love it if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself, please. Ann-Maria (01:50) For sure, my name is Ann and this is Anoop and we are husband and wife. We are fitness coaches and we basically teach people how to lose weight while eating whatever they want, that's what we do. The reason why we got here and all that dates back to three, four years before when COVID started, everyone was sick. (02:16) We are also registered nurses in the ER. We were working in the emergency room at that point in time. We saw a lot of younger population coming through the emergency doors with variety of health issues, especially when we were in the middle of that COVID season. One of the reasons why we started our coaching back then. (02:36) One of the other reasons is also just our journeys, personal journeys, which we'll talk about here in a second, but we literally teach people how to lose weight by [inaudible 00:02:48] Stu (02:51) Well, it can be so confusing because there are a number of different strategies. If you were to jump on the internet right now, you'd see that some people say it's just all about the calories, that's all it is. Whereas other people say, "No, no, it's more about the quality of the food that you eat." Whereas other people say it's about the timing and maybe a mixture of those two as well. (03:12) Maybe there's a personal aspect to it where we need to look at our own physiology in terms of our genetics and our digestive system, et cetera things like that. I guess the question then in my eyes is that where do many of us go wrong? What are the glaring mistakes that we make when we want to lose weight? Ann-Maria (03:33) That's a great question. I think the reason why most of us or most of us are not able to lose weight and where we fall apart is the part that we go all in when it comes to the diet part. We cut a lot of food, then we go into this binge-eating and then we do a ton of exercise. There is not enough balance, I would say, in what we are trying to do, and that's where most people fall short. (04:03) As much as it is true that we need to be in a caloric deficit for us to lose weight, you have to make sure also that your body is ready for it. I don't know how many of you listening this know this, but yes, caloric deficit is required for you to lose weight, but most of the weight loss happens in our brain because the brain is what regulates the weight loss. (04:26) Our brain is literally our thermostat, meaning it wants to keep us in homeostasis, meaning our brain always prioritizes survival over weight loss. One of the biggest mistakes people are making these days is eating very few calories, cutting too much food all at once. Whenever our brain senses too much weight loss happening, again, it goes back to when I said it tries to bring us back to that homeostasis, the vital mechanism. (04:58) How does it do it? By really increasing, upping our hunger cues, making those donuts in the break room feel much more enticing and yummy than it normally is. Physiologically, our metabolic rate also slows down so that we can conserve more energy and send that right back to building up the [inaudible 00:05:21]. Technically, when you are trying to ease eat less food, your brain wants to cheat more. (05:28) The hunger is what is going to really give you in those situations. Sometime we don't even realize when that we are in such a drastic caloric deficit, we end up eating more at the end of the day. When you are below reaching that set points, metabolically speaking, you end up eating more to maintain that same level of hunger you had before. (05:55) This is why it's really impossible for you to maintain that weight that you lost with intense calorie restriction. One of the reasons, biggest reason why yo-yo dieting is the best diet out there for weight gain not for weight loss. Yes, to answer your question, eating less food and [inaudible 00:06:15] For full interview and transcript: https://180nutrition.com.au/uncategorized/anoop-asok-ann-maria-tom-interview/
OutlineChapter 14- Hypovolemic States- Etiology - True volume depletion occurs when fluid is lost from from the extracellular fluid at a rate exceeding intake - Can come the GI tract - Lungs - Urine - Sequestration in the body in a “third space” that is not in equilibrium with the extracellular fluid. - When losses occur two responses ameliorate them - Our intake of Na and fluid is way above basal needs - This is not the case with anorexia or vomiting - The kidney responds by minimizing further urinary losses - This adaptive response is why diuretics do not cause progressive volume depletion - Initial volume loss stimulates RAAS, and possibly other compensatory mechanisms, resulting increased proximal and collecting tubule Na reabsorption. - This balances the diuretic effect resulting in a new steady state in 1-2weeks - New steady state means Na in = Na out - GI Losses - Stomach, pancreas, GB, and intestines secretes 3-6 liters a day. - Almost all is reabsorbed with only loss of 100-200 ml in stool a day - Volume depletion can result from surgical drainage or failure of reabsorption - Acid base disturbances with GI losses - Stomach losses cause metabolic alkalosis - Intestinal, pancreatic and biliary secretions are alkalotic so losing them causes metabolic acidosis - Fistulas, laxative abuse, diarrhea, ostomies, tube drainage - High content of potassium so associated with hypokalemia - [This is a mistake for stomach losses] - Bleeding from the GI tract can also cause volume depletion - No electrolyte disorders from this unless lactic acidosis - Renal losses - 130-180 liters filtered every day - 98-99% reabsorbed - Urine output of 1-2 liters - A small 1-2% decrease in reabsorption can lead to 2-4 liter increase in Na and Water excretion - 4 liters of urine output is the goal of therapeutic diuresis which means a reduction of fluid reabsorption of only 2% - Diuretics - Osmotic diuretics - Severe hyperglycemia can contribute to a fluid deficit of 8-10 Iiters - CKD with GFR < 25 are poor Na conservers - Obligate sodium losses of 10 to 40 mEq/day - Normal people can reduce obligate Na losses down to 5 mEq/day - Usually not a problem because most people eat way more than 10-40 mEq of Na a day. - Salt wasting nephropathies - Water losses of 2 liters a day - 100 mEq of Na a day - Tubular and interstitial diseases - Medullary cystic kidney - Mechanism - Increased urea can be an osmotic diuretic - Damage to tubular epithelium can make it aldo resistant - Inability to shut off natriuretic hormone (ANP?) - The decreased nephro number means they need to be able to decrease sodium reabsorption per nephron. This may not be able to be shut down acutely. - Experiment, salt wasters can stay in balance if sodium intake is slowly decreased. (Think weeks) - Talks about post obstruction diuresis - Says it is usually appropriate rather than inappropriate physiology. - Usually catch up solute and water clearance after releasing obstruction - Recommends 50-75/hr of half normal saline - Talks briefly about DI - Skin and respiratory losses - 700-1000 ml of water lost daily by evaporation, insensible losses (not sweat) - Can rise to 1-2 liters per hour in dry hot climate - 30-50 mEq/L Na - Thirst is primary compensation for this - Sweat sodium losses can result in hypovolemia - Burns and exudative skin losses changes the nature of fluid losses resulting in fluid losses more similar to plasma with a variable amount of protein - Bronchorrhea - Sequestration into a third space - Volume Deficiency produced by the loss of interstitial and intravascular fluid into a third space that is not in equilibrium with the extracellular fluid. - Hip fracture 1500-2000 into tissues adjacent to fxr - Intestinal obstruction, severe pancreatitis, crush injury, bleeding, peritonitis, obstruction of a major venous system - Difference between 3rd space and cirrhosis ascities - Rate of accumulation, if the rate is slow enough there is time for renal sodium and water compensation to maintain balance. - So cirrhotics get edema from salt retension and do not act as hypovolemia - Hemodynamic response to volume depletion - Initial volume deficit reduced venous return to heart - Detected by cardiopulmonary receptors in atria and pulmonary veins leading to sympathetic vasoconstriction in skin and skeletal muscle. - More marked depletion will result in decreased cardiac output and decrease in BP - This drop in BP is now detected by carotid and aortic arch baroreceptors resulting in splanchnic and renal circulation vasoconstriction - This maintains cardiac and cerebral circulation - Returns BP toward normal - Increase in BP due to increased venous return - Increased cardiac contractility and heart rate - Increased vascular resistance - Sympathetic tone - Renin leading to Ang2 - These can compensate for 500 ml of blood loss (10%) - Unless there is autonomic dysfunction - With 16-25% loss this will not compensate for BP when patient upright - Postural dizziness - Symptoms - Three sets of symptoms can occur in hypovolemic patients - Those related to the manner in which the fluid loss occurs - Vomiting - Diarrhea - Polyuria - Those due to volume depletion - Those due to the electrode and acid base disorders that can accompany volume depletion - The symptoms of volume depletion are primarily related to the decrease in tissue perfusion - Early symptoms - Lassitude - Fatiguability - Thirst - Muscle cramps - Postural dizziness - As it gets more severe - Abdominal pain - Chest pain - Lethargy - Confusion - Symptomatic hypovolemia is most common with isosmotic Na and water depletion - In contrast pure water loss, causes hypernatremia, which results in movement of water from the intracellular compartment to the extracellular compartment, so that 2/3s of volume loss comes from the intracellular compartment, which minimizes the decrease in perfusion - Electrolyte disorders and symptoms - Muscle weakness from hypokalemia - Polyuria/poly dips is from hyperglycemia and hypokalemia - Lethargy, confusion, Seizures, coma from hyponatremia, hypernatremia, hyperglycemia - Extreme salt craving is unique to adrenal insufficiency - Eating salt off hands ref 18 - Evaluation of the hypovolemic patient - Know that if the losses are insensible then the sodium should rise - Volume depletion refers to extracellular volume depletion of any cause, while dehydration refers to the presence of hypernatremia due to pure water loss. Such patients are also hypovolemic. - Physical exam is insensitive and nonspecific - Finding most sensitive and specific finding for bleeding is postural changes in blood pressure - I don't find this very specific at all! - Recommends laboratory confirmation regardless of physical exam - Skin and mucous membranes - Should return too shape quickly - Elastic property is called Turgur - Not reliable is patients older than 55 to 60 - Dry axilla - Dry mucus membranes - Dark skin in Addison's disease Frim increased ACTH - Arterial BP - As volume goes down so does arterial BP - Marked fluid loss leads to quiet korotkoff signs - Interpret BP in terms of the patients “normal BP” - Venous pressure - Best done by looking at the JVP - Right atrial and left atrial pressure - LV EDP is RAP + 5 mmHg - Be careful if valvular disease, right heart failure, cor pulmonare, - Figure 14-2 - Shock - 30% blood loss - Lab Data - Urine Na concentration - Should be less than 25 mmol/L, can go as low as 1 mmol/L - Metabolic alkalosis can throw this off - Look to the urine chloride - Figure 14-3 - Renal artery stenosis can throw this off - FENa - Mentions that it doesn't work so well at high GFR - Urine osmolality - Indicates ADH - Volume depletion often associated with urine osm > 450 - Impaired by - Renal disease - Osmotic diuretic - Diuretics - DI - Mentions that severe volume depletion and hypokalemia impairs urea retension in renal medulla - Points out that isotonic urine does not rule out hypovolemia - Mentions specific gravity - BUN and Cr concentration - Normal ratio is 10:1 - Volume depletion this goes to 20:1 - Serum Na - Talks about diarrhea - Difference between secretory diarrhea which is isotonic and just causes hypovolemia - And osmotic which results in a lower electrolyte content and development of hypernatremia - Talks about hyperglycemia - Also can cause the sodium to rise from the low electrolyte content of the urine - But the pseudohyponatraemia can protect against this - Plasma potassium - Treatment - Both oral and IV treatment can be used for volume replacement - The goal of therapy are to restore normovolemia - And to correct associated acid-base and electrolyte disorders - Oral Therapy - Usually can be accomplished with increased water and dietary sodium - May use salt tablets - Glucose often added to resuscitation fluids - Provides calories - Promotes intestinal Na reabsorption since there is coupled Na and Glucose similar to that seen in the proximal tubule - Rice based solutions provide more calories and amino acids which also promote sodium reabsorption - 80g/L of glucose with rice vs 20 g/L with glucose alone - IV therapy - Dextrose solutions - Physiologically equivalent to water - For correcting hypernatremia - For covering insensible losses - Watch for hyperglycemia - Footnote warns against giving sterile water - Saline solutions - Most hypovolemic patients have a water and a sodium deficit - Isotonic saline has a Na concentration of 154, similar to that of plasma see page 000 - Half-isotonic saline is equivalent to 550 ml of isotonic saline and 500 of free water. Is that a typo? - 3% is a liter of hypertonic saline and 359 extra mEq of Na - Dextrose in saline solutions - Give a small amount of calories, otherwise useless - Alkalinizing solutions - 7.5% NaHCO3 in 50 ml ampules 44 mEq of Na and 44 mEq of HCO3 - Treat metabolic acidosis or hyperkalemia - Why 44 mEq and not 50? - Do not give with calcium will form insoluble CaCO3 - Polyionic solutions - Ringers contains physiologic K and Ca - Lactated Ringers adds 28 mEq of lactate - Spreads myth of LR in lactic acidosis - Potassium chloride - Available as 2 mEq/mL - Do not give as a bolus as it can cause fatal hyperkalemia - Plasma volume expanders - Albumin, polygelastins, hetastarch are restricted to vascular space - 25% albumin can pull fluid into the vascular space - 25% albumin is an albumin concentration of 25 g/dL compare to physiologic 4 g/dL - Says it pulls in several times its own volume - 5% albumin is like giving plasma - Blood - Which fluid? - Look at osmolality, give hypotonic fluids to people with high osmolality - Must include all electrolytes - Example of adding 77 mEw of K to 0.45 NS and making it isotonic - DI can be replaced with dextrose solutions, pure water deficit - Case 14-3 - Diarrhea with metabolic acidosis - He chooses 0.25 NS with 44 mEq of NaCl and 44 NaHCO3 - Talks about blood and trauma - Some studies advocate delaying saline until penetrating trauma is corrected APR about to. Keep BP low to prevent bleeding. Worry about diluting coagulation factors - Only do this if the OR is quickly available - Volume deficit - Provides formula for water deficit and sodium deficit - Do not work for isotonic losses - Provides a table to adjust fluid loss based on changes in Hgb or HCTZ - Says difficult to estimate it from lab findings and calculations - Follow serial exams - Serial urine Na - Rate of replacement - Goal is not to give fluid but to induce a positive balance - Suggests 50-100 ml/hr over what is coming out of the body - Urine - Insensibles 30-50 - Diarrhea - Tubes - Hypovolemic shock - Due to bleeding - Sequesting in third space - Why shock? - Progressive volume depletion leads to - Increased sympathetic NS - Increased Ang 2 - Initially this maintains BP, cerebral and coronary circulation - But this can decrease splanchnic, renal and mucocutaneous perfusion - This leads to lactic acicosis - This can result in intracellular contents moving into circulation or translocation of gut bacteria - Early therapy to prevent irreversible shock - In dogs need to treat with in 2 hours - In humans may need more than 4 hours - Irreversible shock associated with pooling of blood in capillaries - Vasomotor paralysis - Hyperpolarization of vascular smooth muscle as depletion of ATP allows K to flowing out from K channels opening. Ca flows out too leading to vasodilation - Glyburide is an K-ATP channel inhibitor (?) caused increased vasoconstriction and BP - Pluggin of capillaries by neutrophils - Cerebral ischemia - Increased NO generation - Which Fluids? - Think of what is lost and replace that. - Bleeding think blood - Raise the hct but not above 35 - Acellular blood substitutes, looked bad at the time of this writing - Di aspirin cross linked hemoglobin had increased 2 and 28 day mortality vs saline - Colloids sound great but they fail in RCTs - SAFE - FEAST - Points out that saline replaces the interstitial losses why do we think those losses are unimportant - Pulmonary circulation issue - Pulmonary circulation is more leaky so oncotic pressure less effective there - Talks about the lungs be naturally protected from pulmonary edema - Rate of fluid - 1-2 liters in first hour - Suggests CVP or capillary wedge pressure during resuscitation - No refs in the rate of fluid administration section - Lactic acidosis - Points out that HCO can impair lactate utilization - Also states that arterial pH does not point out what is happening at the tissue level. Suggests mixed-venous sample.ReferencesJCI - Phenotypic and pharmacogenetic evaluation of patients with thiazide-induced hyponatremia and a nice review of this topic: Altered Prostaglandin Signaling as a Cause of Thiazide-Induced HyponatremiaThe electrolyte concentration of human gastric secretion. https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/expphysiol.1960.sp001428A classic by Danovitch and Bricker: Reversibility of the “Salt-Losing” Tendency of Chronic Renal Failure | NEJMOsmotic Diuresis Due to Retained Urea after Release of Obstructive Uropathy | NEJMIs This Patient Hypovolemic? | Cardiology | JAMAAnd by the same author, a textbook: Steven McGee. 5th edition. Evidence-Based Physical Diagnosis Elsevier Philadelphia 2022. ISBN-13: 978-0323754835The clinical course and pathophysiological investigation of adolescent gestational diabetes insipidus: a case report | BMC Endocrine DisordersSensitivity and specificity of clinical signs for assessment of dehydration in endurance athletes | British Journal of Sports MedicineDiagnostic performance of serum blood urea nitrogen to creatinine ratio for distinguishing prerenal from intrinsic acute kidney injury in the emergency department | BMC NephrologyThe meaning of the blood urea nitrogen/creatinine ratio in acute kidney injury - PMCLanguage guiding therapy: the case for dehydration vs volume depletion https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/0003-4819-127-9-199711010-00020?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmedValidation of a noninvasive monitor to continuously trend individual responses to hypovolemiaReferences for Anna's voice of God on Third Spacing : Shires Paper from 1964 (The ‘third space' – fact or fiction? )References for melanie's VOG:1. Appraising the Preclinical Evidence of the Role of the Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System in Antenatal Programming of Maternal and Offspring Cardiovascular Health Across the Life Course: Moving the Field Forward: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association2. excellent review of RAAS in pregnancy: The enigma of continual plasma volume expansion in pregnancy: critical role of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone systemhttps://journals-physiology-org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/doi/full/10.1152/ajprenal.00129.20163. 10.1172/JCI107462- classic study in JCI of AngII responsiveness during pregnancy4. William's Obstetrics 26th edition!5. Feto-maternal osmotic balance at term. A prospective observational study
When it comes to adventure, a crisis can come in many forms ranging from getting lost, getting injured, pushing well past our capabilities and being faced with the prospect of disaster. It's fair to say that being able to navigate through a crisis if one happens, is an essential skill for delivering adventure.In this episode, we are joined by AJ Maheu to gain a deeper understanding of what happens to us in a crisis and how that affects our performance. AJ taps into his extensive adventure industry experience as a ski patroller, guide, first aid instructor, paramedic, avalanche forecaster and adventure educator.Guest BioAJ Maheu began his career in the outdoor industry over 30 years ago. After spending a decade instructing, guiding river trips in Québec, and hikes from Alaska to the Andes he shifted his focus to emergency response in remote settings. He worked as a paramedic on worksites on Baffin Island and began a 20-year-career teaching wilderness first aid. He has taught emergency preparedness and first aid in multiple adventure travel guide programs in 6 different colleges and universities across the country.AJ Maheu is an avalanche professional and member of the Canadian Ski Guides Association. He has also worked as a professional ski patroller for the past 20 years. He is active in many spheres of the avalanche industry including forecasting for industrial operations, search and rescue, and ski resorts as well as instructing and guiding.AJ runs the North Shore Snowpack YouTube channel, providing weekly snowpack information to backcountry users and is a brand ambassador for Nano Traino, manufacturer of high quality, packable emergency evacuation toboggans. When not working, he is busy delivering adventures for his 2 boys, taking them on family adventures.Guest LinksNorth Shore Snowpack YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/@northshoresnowpack?si=eZClzV6KePi3hYwbNano Traino: https://nanotraino.com/en/Key Takeaways:Definition: According to AJ, a crisis is when we lose control. We may have had a critical period before we lost control where we were holding things together. During this critical period there is usually an element at risk like our physical well-being, or the safety of others. However, if that situation deteriorates, that element at risk is compromised and we can no longer keep things together and we can end up in a crisis.Subjective: A crisis is a very subjective event. Two people can be in the same event and have a crisis for different reasons. Of course, two people can also be in the same incident and maybe only one of them has a crisis.During a crisis: Physiologically we get a surge of adrenaline which prepares us for action. This puts us in a state of fight or flight. This causes our muscles to tense up and leads to tunnel vision. It becomes hard to analyze mentally as our capacity to process everything that is going on is reduced. Eventually we can become physically incapacitated.Managing others: It can be very difficult to manage people when they are experiencing a crisis. 10-20% of people are predisposed to act appropriately in a crisis. That means that when people are faced with a crisis, 80-90% of people will experience some level of paralysis or loss of performance.Unreasonable: When people have adrenaline flowing through their bodies and they are gripped with panic, it is impossible to reason with them. This means that people may need time to process things before debriefing them Also, trying to downplay their feelings can backfire on you as AJ learned.Follow or SubscribeDon't forget to follow the show!Share & Social Links
This past May I was invited to schedule a time to appear on a podcast entitled “A Little Less Fear”. The title intrigued me as you can imagine. As I learned about the host, Lino Martinez, I found that not only did I want to appear on his podcast but that I was certain he would be a wonderful guest here on Unstoppable Mindset. As it turned out, I will be appearing on his podcast later in August and we just today, August 2, 2023, recorded my episode with Lino, (pronounced Leeno). What a fascinating and heart wrenching story Lino has to tell. He was born in 1980. While a diagnosis wasn't forthcoming until he was 36 years old, Lino was born with Muckle Wells Syndrome. As he will tell us, this syndrome manifests itself as the various parts of his body were at war with each other. He did attend school around many illnesses due to the syndrome. However, things grew worse in 2006 and he began what turned out to be some forty surgeries. Even through the surgeries he worked to secure a doctorate in Psychology. He is a college professor today and has learned to thrive. I believe you will find that Lino has much to tell us about how we can learn to fear less by especially learning more about self love. I am going to leave it to him to explain. Our conversation this episode is far ranging and quite provocative in a good way. I hope you find many good take-aways from my time with Lino Martinez. Be sure to check out his podcast “A Little Less Fear” too. About the Guest: Lino Martinez, Psy.D, is in the forefront of his life for the first time as a man. At birth he was given a rare genetic disease, Muckle Wells Syndrome, in which he was diagnosed 36 years later. In just 12 years, from ages 26-38, Lino had gone through over 40 surgeries to maintain his life. Lino was also born female and transitioned from female to male, to better match his authentic self at age 34. Lino is now 43 years strong and thriving for the first time in his life. With incredible health experts, and a strong will to survive, Lino was able to take his pain and create a fruitful life with it. He now lives as vibrant as possible, walking on two legs, with his doctorate in Clinical Psychology. His dissertation explored ways to help women suffering with Chronic Urological Conditions by using Existentialism and providing a model for a therapeutic setting. Some of his greatest passions are writing poetry, singing, interviewing people on his podcast show and showing love to the world. He is also inspired by the Deaf community and aspires to connect the hearing world and the Deaf world. Lino wishes to help the suffering world through telling his story, and writing to help the world be a peaceful, loving place for humanity. With his new book, A Little Less Fear, Lino hopes to encourage others to live by his motto of living life with more love. Ways to connect with Rob: www.alittlelessfear.com https://www.instagram.com/alittlelessfearpodcast/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtP4TN79CnanTFpRfOw0lUA https://www.tiktok.com/@alittlelessfear?lang=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-lino-martinez-48ba83202/ About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes **Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. **Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hi, and here we are once again with another episode of unstoppable mindset. We're inclusion diversity in the unexpected meet. And in case you really don't know the reason the subtitle is that way is that when we talk about diversity, very rarely does anyone ever talk about disabilities. So I put inclusion first because if people say they're inclusive, they can't get away with leaving out disabilities. How's that for a philosophical attitude. But anyway, there we are today, we have as a guest, Lino Martinez, who is a really neat person I've gotten to know over the past few months and we've chatted a little bit more today. And he has an interesting story to tell for a lot of reasons. And I'm gonna let him do most of it. And I'm gonna sit back and listen and just but if I really need to, so leave it all. I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. Thanks for being here. **Lino Martinez ** 02:14 Thank you for inviting me. It's such an honor. Thank you so much. **Michael Hingson ** 02:17 Well, I really appreciate you coming and, and I know you and I are going to do an episode of your podcast called a little less fear later in the month. So that'll be fun. So we'll have to talk about that. But why don't you start by telling us about kind of the early you and kind of where you came from. And I'm really interested to hear more about this Michael's wells muckle wells syndrome. I've never heard of it before, but I'll leave you tell it in your way. **Lino Martinez ** 02:44 Okay, thank you so much. So yeah, basically, let's see here. Uh, well, I was born in East Los Angeles in January of 1980. And I was born two months early, as an emergency C section, baby for my mother, the cord was wrapped around my neck. Now, I used to joke about this. And I used to see, well, I looked like I was trying to hang myself commit suicide in the womb, because I knew what I signed up for. I didn't really want to be born. But I mean, lo and behold it. I mean, I really I was born early and and shortly after I was born. Within six months, I started having health, health issues, a lot of body spasms, a lot of tummy aches, and I was in and out of hospitals ever since I was a little kid. So, but the way that the disease presented itself was a lack of me growing, I wasn't thriving at all, I was very skinny little kid, and I'm very tiny petite. And it just, I had severe stomach pains. And I was always in the hospitals. And that's really how I spent a lot of my life. And, and it really wasn't until, until I was 36 years old, where they finally diagnosed me with a rare genetic disease. I'm not sure if you want me to jump from birth to 36 years old, because a lot happened in between all of that. But to make the long story short, that what the disease does is it causes inflammation throughout my entire body. Now all diseases inflammation, even even having a headache is an inflammation. But this disease specifically has a mutation in the genetic mutation called an L and L RP three genetic mutation. And so when that is activated, it kind of like it kind of like it causes a war with all parts of my body, every organ, every nerve. And so when there's constant inflammation in the body, and your nerves and your organs, things start to dysfunction, and they start to overreact. One of the doctors said that the disease is a drama queen. So **Michael Hingson ** 04:49 quite literally, love doctors with great medical descriptions. But but it really probably makes sense. Yeah, **Lino Martinez ** 04:56 so let's say that and it could be triggered by anything. It can be triggered by stress, it can be triggered by any emotional stress, physical stress, even an injury, anything can cause this disease to activate and it can present itself and in countless ways, from migraine headaches to paralysis. And so in my case, since it took so many years to diagnose, it lead to paralysis and paralysis and my motor nerves and my peripheral nerves. And the paralysis began in my pelvic area. And basically, I wasn't able to pee, I wasn't able to go pee like a normal person does, starting as early as 26 years old. And by the time doctors figured out what was going on, that my muscles weren't working at, there's a lot of inflammation in the bladder that the bladder was hardening. By that time, there was no salvaging of my my bladder. And so after about 15 surgeries, it was not salvageable. And by the time I was 33 years old, I had a complete what's called a radical cystectomy, which is a complete removal of my urinary bladder. And they did a complete reconstruction using about 60 inches total of my small intestine, my appendix and removing my urethra and cutting my kidney tubes in which took about five years to heal. So it was quite an adventure. And there's a lot of suffering involved in that, but I came out on the other side stronger than ever. **Michael Hingson ** 06:30 Wow. So you, you just really wanted to get the attention to the doctors, right. **Lino Martinez ** 06:37 I guess. I was a challenge. I'll tell you that much. It was a big challenge for them. It **Michael Hingson ** 06:42 certainly sounds like it well. So what was it like for those first 26 years going through, obviously having a lot of issues. And so I'm like you, you clearly went to school and other things like that. So tell me a little about that. **Lino Martinez ** 06:55 So by the time I was 26, I had my master's in psychology and my bachelor's in communication. I was doing very well. I do have my doctorate in clinical psychology, and I graduated when I was 30. That was back in 2010. I'm 43. Now, you graduated **Michael Hingson ** 07:09 with what in 2008? Doctorate in clinical doctrine? Wow. **Lino Martinez ** 07:13 Yeah, back in 2010. But from the first 26 years, yes, I was definitely going to school or getting a lot of good grades. But I was also sick in between. So I was constantly going to doctor appointments, and they couldn't find anything, quote unquote, wrong with me at the time, but I knew there was something going on. There was something different than that. And I could just feel it. I could just feel that it wasn't your average person. Yeah. Yeah. Well, **Michael Hingson ** 07:35 where did you go to college? So **Lino Martinez ** 07:39 yeah, I got my bachelor's at Cal State San Bernardino, and mass communication. And I got my master's at the Chicago school. And I also got my doctorate at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, the Los Angeles campus. Well, **Michael Hingson ** 07:52 and as you pointed out earlier, we should tell people you're in what Pasadena now so you're really not all that far from us. Just a hoot and holler away. **Lino Martinez ** 08:02 Yeah, I'm in Pasadena, California. Lovely. Sunny Pasadena. Yeah. And it is today. So you can call it the heat is on Michael. The heat is on. This is **Michael Hingson ** 08:10 August 2 When we're doing this recording, and it was 95 out here today. **Lino Martinez ** 08:16 Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we're getting over here to Wow. But **Michael Hingson ** 08:21 you see you, you know, it seems like 30 as an age to get your doctorate that is certainly not by any standard, unusual, and been so good for you to go off and do that. **Lino Martinez ** 08:34 Thank you. I appreciate that. **Michael Hingson ** 08:35 Did you start up practice or what? **Lino Martinez ** 08:37 I was unable to practice, I was unable to get licensed because I started having a lot of surgeries prior prior to graduating. Luckily, the faculty and all of the professors worked with me while I was in hospitals, in and out of hospitals, I was able to complete my dissertation, within years of after graduating. And it was from the time that I graduated to about 40 years old that I had over 40 surgeries to save my life. And so I even missed the whole Facebook era. I never even had a Facebook I still don't because that was very popular back then. And I was too busy wired up to machines and tubes coming out of my body. So I also had a feeding tube for eight years and I also lost my voice my ability to speak for two and a half years. I also wear hearing aids. So the journey continued with this with this disease up until I was approved approved by my insurance for immunosuppressant medications. And when I finally got on immunosuppressant medications, my voice started to come back very slowly, one vocal cord at a time. And yeah, so here I am thriving finally. **Michael Hingson ** 09:38 Well, you certainly sound like you are and you're you're hopefully done with the surgeries for a while. **Lino Martinez ** 09:43 The last surgery I had was about six months ago and it was because I had a CT scan of my kidneys and they thought they saw some stones but when they went in there, they didn't find anything. So luckily I really feel that I'm for reals this time. I'm going to live the rest of my life disease free. That **Michael Hingson ** 10:03 is so cool. And you are clearly a person who sounds very positive about all of it. And you get here, it really did. So any other things that you want to talk about regarding medical issues and all that. **Lino Martinez ** 10:21 Be honest with you, it was very challenging losing my voice. I mean, losing my bladder was was a challenge in itself, but losing my voice, because I also saved my chin when I was a teenage singer. And so when I all of a sudden couldn't speak, and even hurt, my vocal cords even breathe because your vocal cords expand when you breathe. So even breathing hurt. So I was really bedridden for that amount of time. But I went to sign school to learn sign language, because I wasn't going to give up I have to keep communicating somehow. But that time, I became very depressed. So I went from physical ailments to now hitting my mental health. And I hit my mental health because I thought, What am I supposed to do with my life, I lost my ability to pee, I have a feeding tube, I can't speak, I'm losing my hearing. I'm worrying trifocals on my glasses, like I don't, I don't know what else is gonna go next. And it seems like every every Oregon was going I went, I was on high doses of heart medications for a incredible rapid heart rate. So I was really bedridden for a very long time. And I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. But one thing that I do want to reveal is that I'm transgender, I lived the first 34 years of my life as a female. And I also knew at the time that if I didn't transition, I was going to die in the wrong body. And I was going to die in authentically. And so when I decided to finally get on hormone, hormonal replacement therapy, other things started to align even my purpose in life. So when I was in this, what I call the dying stages, because this disease was taking my life very slowly, I looked on the brighter side and saw that now my gender was aligning with what felt the best alignment for my spirit in this life. And that was a masculine energy. And even though at the time, I didn't have a voice, and I didn't know what I would even sound like as a man because part of becoming a man was being able to sound like a man. And now wasn't even going to sound like a man. But at least I was looking like one. And at least I was feeling like one. And so when I was getting into this alignment of my feeling masculine other things started to align because I started to experience more self love. And when I experienced more self love, other joys started opening and opening itself to me and presenting itself as different avenues in my life. **Michael Hingson ** 12:33 Did becoming a man, though, in any way, medically, help the whole healing process and getting you through a lot of the surgeries or lessening them. Did anything become simpler or is it wasn't really totally unrelated, **Lino Martinez ** 12:47 it became simpler became simpler, because I was more authentic with myself. It's kind of like, it's kind of like this, this is the only way I could explain it. Let's see that you. Somebody tells you hey, Michael, just for the next three years of your life, you're going to be called Jane, wherever you go, your name is Jane. Now you know, you feel like Michael, and you feel like my your body feels like Michael, you can feel yourself as Michael. But all of a sudden you have to be Jane for the next three years. So being Jane for the next three years is not going to feel authentic to you. And in that you start to present yourself differently in a different manner. And you start to feel insecure. So I lived my life with such insecurity. So when I finally transitioned to my full self, there was less insecurity and with less insecurity means there's less fear. And when there's less fear, that means there's more love. And when there's more love, there's more opportunity. **Michael Hingson ** 13:39 And with all of that there's a whole lot less stress and that had to help in the healing process. Physiologically, yeah, physiologically, did it make life easier just to be a man instead of a woman? Or did that did that help just from a standpoint of apps actual physiological sorts of things did did the insides of your body becoming a male as opposed to a female make any difference? **Lino Martinez ** 14:08 The what made a major difference is that I decided to have a lot of surgeries to better align my body physically as a man and I wasn't intimidated at all because by by now Michael, I had had over 2030 surgeries to save my life. So what it's not a big deal to have my breasts removed at this point, it's not a big deal to have a hysterectomy and it really wasn't and I'm sorry for for listeners that are listening for the first time and if it triggers them, for me to say that it was nothing to have a double mastectomy or that it was nothing to have a hysterectomy. This isn't in any way to hurt anybody's experiences with whatever they may have experienced. But for me personally it was freedom. For me personally, it was not painful. There was joy involved with that. And it better align with me when I touched my chest and the breasts were gone. It felt like this is me whole this is who I am. Well, **Michael Hingson ** 14:53 the other part about it is just listening to you clearly you're very confident about yourself Today, and as I said, with all the things that have happened a whole lot less stress, and that has to help the confidence we I'm actually writing we're we're in the middle of writing a book about fear. And the idea behind it basically, is that the biggest problem with fear is everyone thinks you can't control it. It's all biological. And that's all there is to it. But the reality is, you have control over fear or can learn to control fear so that you can make it a very powerful tool, as opposed to a negative thing in your life. And, of course, my story of being in the World Trade Center on September 11, and the things that I learned that prepared me, although I didn't know it at the time, but prepared me to be able to deal with the emergency of what happened that day and getting out and so on, was all about creating a mindset that I only later realized that creative which was fear, is not really the problem. There are some things you can control and some things that you can't. And what we need to focus on are the things that we can and one of them is really the whole issue of fear. We don't need to be afraid of everything, even unexpected things that happen in our lives. If we prepare. **Lino Martinez ** 16:17 Yes. And a lot of the times it's hard to prepare to not be in fear, because our instincts and as you were saying a lot Physiol physiologically, our body will respond with increased cortisol levels stress hormones, when fear presents itself, but fear in general as an emotion, is the complete opposite of love. And in life, there's only two emotions fear and love. Because all negativity is the derivative of any negative feeling of any negative thought is fear. And so when you can break that down and see, well, why am I feeling negative about this? What's the underlying fear? There's a fear with every negative emotion, there's an attachment to it. And when you see that life is only two major emotions, love and fear, you can start leaning more towards love. And when you start leaning more towards love, there's less fear and less negativity. **Michael Hingson ** 17:10 Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense. It's just that we don't teach that collectively to people we **Lino Martinez ** 17:19 don't, we don't. And that's challenging. And when we learn that in school, either, yeah, we don't know that anywhere live, we **Michael Hingson ** 17:27 don't live anywhere. Well, and look at all the things that are going on around us. If you sit back and analyze everything that's going on in politics, it's all about fear. People are selling fear. And they're, they're not helping to encourage us to step back and look at things or on television, advertisements are oftentimes all about fear, really is beware of your car light, or engineering light or your your car. Motor light coming on, you know, so get this warranty now. And it's all about fear. **Lino Martinez ** 18:04 It really is. It's all about fear. And I really stay away from politics as much as possible. I don't listen to the news, if I really try to remain as focused in the present moment, because any any any politics or anything that's going to steer someone towards fear. It's either living in the past or living in the future. And it's not living currently right now. Like right and right, specifically right now with you and I chatting, Michael, there is no fear right now. He's only connection and because of couldn't reconnecting because of the love for humanity. **Michael Hingson ** 18:35 I do watch the news every day. But I do it because I want to know what's going on in the world. And I can do that. Without fear. I've, I've learned I've read enough to understand the need for conversation to understand the need to connect. And so for me, what is just amazing is how many people have forgotten how to do that. I mean, but I grew up needing to connect. And I was taught how to do that by my parents. And I think that's extremely important. And I wish that we taught it more today than we do. **Lino Martinez ** 19:09 I love that you can do that. Michael, I think I'm not in a place in my life where I can listen to negativity, negative news, and then it not come with me and kind of start steering me in a negative in any direction. So I that's where I'm at right now. And mostly because my mother, I'll give you an example. My mother watches the news every day. And she's so she gets in that negative loop. She'll be like, Oh, don't do this, because this or there, oh, there's this killer going around, or you're this and this might happen. And I just I have to tell her sometimes I get very short temper and I say you know what, you need to stop watching the news. So that really scares me away from watching and if she if she was able to deviate from from not being so absorbed about it, and I saw more of the positive aspects of it. I probably would watch it or listen to it a little more. But for me personally, I tried to see your way as far as I can **Michael Hingson ** 19:59 I fully understand that. And for me, as I said, it's it's a source of information. But if I start letting it get to me, whatever it is, then that's the time not to watch it anymore. And very frankly, I love having a good part of the day where there's there's nothing going on my wife passed away last November after we were married for 40 years. So it's me in the house. And I have a person who helps part time. But I value silence. And I think that we really need to value and get more of that. Because, again, if we don't have that silence, then we don't spend any time thinking and becoming analytical and really reflecting on our lives and what we need to do to improve and so on. I **Lino Martinez ** 20:51 agree with you. I love being in silence myself, and I do it very often. **Michael Hingson ** 20:55 Yeah, it's, it's valuable to do, we don't always need to have something going on. And and you know, I will have something on I'll have I collect old radio shows as a hobby. And I also listen to internet stations that do radio when I listen to other things as well. But if if I'm going to have something on, it's going to be reading a book or listening to old radio shows, and I will watch news for a little bit during the day. But it's not something that is a major driving force that I have to do. And certainly I'm not going to let it affect me. But I have control over that. I have control over whether I let it affect me or not. Which is the point? **Lino Martinez ** 21:35 Definitely. That is the point. Exactly. Yeah. **Michael Hingson ** 21:39 So it really works. works out well, I think. I hope so anyway. So does does fear, however talking about fear like that does fear serve a purpose. **Lino Martinez ** 21:54 I believe that fear steers you in the direction of what needs healing and what needs attention. And it really depends also on the type of fear, if it's a fear of something of being attacked of your wellbeing, perhaps that's more of an intuition for safety. And if it is, but if it is a fear based on emotions, that can be a really good indicator of things that need attention to, for example, Shadow Work, or things that need to be released. Things that need attention in order for you to progress yourself as a mind, body and soul in this one human life that we're experiencing. So fear definitely has a purpose. Well, **Michael Hingson ** 22:36 and if you're afraid of something, like fear of being attacked, and so on, it really is important to spend a little bit of time looking at why do I feel that way? And that's what most of us don't? Do we just live in the fear rather than living in the real cause? Or what can be the real result. We don't look at that. **Lino Martinez ** 23:04 I love what you said that why do I feel this way? This? I mean, not that many people ask themselves a question, as you said, they just live in reaction. **Michael Hingson ** 23:10 Yeah, it's all about reaction, isn't it? It is it really, it really is. And it's it's unfortunately, getting a lot worse. We're getting a lot more reactive and things that we do look at drivers today. I am absolutely ready for the time. Some of your people are going to hate me for it. But I am absolutely ready for the time when we have fully operating and running. Well, autonomous vehicles because I think it's high time to get the hint driving out of the hands of drivers. **Lino Martinez ** 23:37 That's coming soon. coming very soon. Yeah, it's **Michael Hingson ** 23:41 gonna come pretty soon. It'll take a little while yet, but drivers are just not being responsible at all. And I've been in the car with many people who are driving and they complain about people on the road and people who have the road people who just pass them I was in a vehicle going to an airport. And all of a sudden this motorcycle actually, I guess it was only one past past us and the the driver said I cannot believe what just happened. We were in a lane. There was a car next to us. And this motorcycle threaded its way through and the driver said there had to be no more than an inch on either side. But he was in a hurry. And he passed us on he was really moving quickly and pass us I'm going to give me a break. Why? Yeah, **Lino Martinez ** 24:28 the rage. Something anyway, impatient in this. **Michael Hingson ** 24:33 Yeah. And it happens all too often. Well, how did you get into this whole idea of thinking a lot about fear and making that kind of a basic part of what you do and what you think about and what you practice in psychiatry psychology. **Lino Martinez ** 24:51 Well, the reason I got into fear was because of my fear whether or not I was going to live with this genetic disease whether or not I was going to make it and I realized that I had fears, constant fears, fears of the female that I was fears that I wasn't being authentic fears that I had this disease that I was going to die young everything was fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. And every time I overcame an obstacle, AKA a fear, I realized, oh, one less fear, or one less fear, one less fear. And every time there was a less fear I had, I started to gain a momentum of more happiness and more joy, and more in realizing that there actually is a way to succeed in life. And I don't mean a diploma, I mean, to succeed in life into finding growth, personal growth, expansion and opportunity within yourself. **Michael Hingson ** 25:39 And so you, you have made that a mainstay of a lot of the things that you do, needless to say, Oh, **Lino Martinez ** 25:46 yeah. And then even even recently, is going through somewhat of a separation with my girlfriend, we're looking a little separated mode right now. And even in the separation mode, a lot of fears that I wasn't faced with before were coming up, it's been about a month. And these fears that I haven't been faced with ever. Because before, when I separated with somebody, I think maybe the type of separation that I had before I it was just a different period of my life. And in this period of my life, I started to feel, having these emotional fears that I hadn't experienced before such as I'm unlovable or I'm not deserving of love. Or where did these fears coming from? Why am I feeling these things? That's not true. These are untrue. All these fears that we tell ourselves, none of it's true. We're all deserving and we're all worthy of love. So where do these fears come from? So I've been digging into a lot of these fears and how I'm feeling and trying to break through them, get past them, so that I can continue to grow on on the path that I was before the relationship, but it's really posing a lot of obstacles in which I am overcoming because today I can smile. And two days ago, I couldn't. So yeah, it's fears present themselves in many different ways, shapes and forms. **Michael Hingson ** 27:05 How do you work through it? How do you how do you work yourself to get beyond some of those fears? **Lino Martinez ** 27:13 Well, I write a lot. And I think a lot and I meditate a lot. And I write a lot of poetry. And in my poetry, I can give you an example. Poetry really helps me and I can read to one of my poems here. It helps me discover what is inside me, and what I'm fearing and what what it where is there light. So a poem that I wrote last night it says, The dim night lights up with the full moon ready for a fresh start and a new beginning, emerging after a rebirth was necessary. And I still feel the heat of your breath on my skin, the way our love emerged after an Eclipse of the Heart. So when I write it releases, fears, it releases stagnant energy within my body, and I'm able to then see things in a different type of light, and also meditating. I mean, I do spend a lot of alone time I do take a lot of baths. And in this alone time with baths I symptoms, I listened to meditative hertz frequency music to heal myself. And I do self affirmations starting with the I am statements I am love, I am worthy. I am deserving and then moving up from after I am I feel I feel worthy, I feel loving I feel deserving. Moving up from feel you go with I do statements I do believe that I am worthy. I do believe that I am love moving up from I do too I love I love myself I love unconditionally means note when you love unconditionally, Michael, that means that you love with no with no conditions involved meaning that you simply just love for loving, it's because love is not a transaction. So I go with I love my mother I love myself, I love my friends. I love this bathtub. I love right now. After I love I move up to my throat chakra and the throat chakra is the speaking that I speak. And so when I say I speak words of love, I speak words of unconditional love, I speak of worthiness I speak deserving. After that I go to I see I see love all around me, I see happiness all around me I see joy. Then after that I go to understand, I understand I understand that I am deserving. I understand that I am love. I understand that I'm unconditional love. I understand that I can give the same love to everybody else that I give to myself. And so when I when I move up my body with all of these statements, it brings me into an alignment and realizing that I'm okay, I'm okay and I'm going to be okay. **Michael Hingson ** 29:49 And none of that is conceived at any way. I mean, there's nothing wrong with loving yourself and loving other people. As long as If you are truly loving, I mean are plenty of people around who are conceited. I'm the greatest thing in the world. There's a difference in saying I'm the greatest thing in the world and believing it from a philosophical standpoint. Yeah, it's just amazing how, oftentimes we miss some of the very things that you're talking about, which I think is great that you're able to go through that process. And really love and respect yourself and come out the other side better, much better for it. Absolutely, **Lino Martinez ** 30:32 yeah. Because if somebody comes with the, with the attitude of I'm the greatest thing in the world, there is still there's actually some fear attached to that not love. You're saying you're the greatest thing of the world, that means that you aren't any lower than anybody else. And there's somebody saying they're not lower than anybody else, they're already having fear that they could potentially be lower than someone else. And if that were to happen, they wouldn't be the greatest thing in the world. So when it comes from true love, there's no judgment attached to it. When you just say I'm unconditional love, I means I love myself without any conditions. And in doing that, I can see everybody for who they are without any conditions. **Michael Hingson ** 31:07 Right? And that's the real point. Isn't it? Unconditional? Exactly, **Lino Martinez ** 31:12 exactly. Because when it's not unconditional, you're trying to control the situation so that it matches what's going to make you happy. And in that case, it ends up being manipulative. **Michael Hingson ** 31:21 Have you ever read a book called it's a little book, The greatest thing in the world is Love by Henry Drummond? No, but I gotta get this. He's a British philosopher. And he was a, I think he was with a group. And they asked him to talk about I forget how it started, I think they asked him to talk about love. And he, he took a Bible and and he read a couple of lines from Ephesians, and so on. And basically what he did, was lectured for about 15 or 20 minutes, and it got written into this book. And there are other lectures in there as well. But that love is the greatest thing in the world. And there is a lot of evidence to prove that. And the people who truly love and who truly are willing to love are going to be the ones who recognize that first, as long as they live by it. Of course, he talks about God, and that's fine. Because that's all part of it. Because that's where the love originally comes from. **Lino Martinez ** 32:28 Exactly. Yeah. And you know that, that sounds amazing. It sounds like a little book that I'm gonna have to definitely, yeah, I think also right now, you mentioned God, I think that a lot of people steer away from when they hear God because they think that God is a human being rather than an energy, rather than a force of energy. So when I think of God, I think of the universe I think of higher consciousness, I think of all that unites us, because we're all universally connected, and we can all communicate telepathically and we do. And that is where the true essence of God lies, higher consciousness. **Michael Hingson ** 33:05 And we're all part of it. And it is all part of us, God is part of us. And we are we are, we are all part of the same thing. And it's so unfortunate that we, we miss that a lot of organized religion tends to not really teach some of those things. And I went to a church and attended for years. And the pastor said, you know, people are at this church are really great at knowing about spirituality, you've they can intellectually talk about it. But as far as being spiritual as far as really having that true, emotional relationship with God, they don't. I **Lino Martinez ** 33:49 agree with you. And that is because of organized religion that is more of a control factor, rather than rather than free will. **Michael Hingson ** 33:57 Yeah. I hope that that somewhere on the line, we can get beyond some of that. And I think we will. I don't know what it will take Michael. Go ahead. **Lino Martinez ** 34:09 I feel it's headed that way. Yeah, we'll get there. Yeah, because what I've noticed, mostly on social media, actually, well, there's a lot of almost said the word kids, but I'm gonna say kids, because people in there, like it. If I see people in their 20s to eat, I mean, to me, they're very young and but these young minded individuals in their 20s I'm noticing a very spiritual and a lot more spiritual than I was in my 20s. I wasn't spiritual at all. I didn't I wouldn't God, what are you talking about? God, I'm not I'm going to hell, I'm a sinner. These people. Yeah, they're not thinking like this anymore. I'm seeing the evolution happen. And so it's an evolution and it's really beautiful. **Michael Hingson ** 34:49 It is and I think it will continue. I think that people are and young people are going to be leading the way are discovering that there's a whole lot more to The world then all this hatred, and I hope, it won't take overly long for some of those people to get into positions to stop some of the nonsense that we see all around us. I was fortunate my, my father was very spiritually oriented. And we had a lot of conversations about God. When I was growing up, I did some with my mother, but my dad was really the one. And he was a great thinker about a lot of those things. So I was blessed by having someone who encouraged having strong relationships in terms of loving myself, but loving God and recognizing that God is in all of us and what God is. I **Lino Martinez ** 35:42 love that. Yeah, it's really important to have these discussions with with your children definitely helps them open up and feel things differently and expand their mind and not close up their heart or, or their mind **Michael Hingson ** 35:54 what we've talked about a little bit, but maybe you could define a little bit more detail, what really is self loves. Since we know it's not being conceited, and all that stuff. **Lino Martinez ** 36:06 It's a really good question. So self love can look different to everybody. My personal experience, self love came from accepting who I am, and who I've become and who I am becoming. And also comes from forgiveness, forgiving your past forgiving past pains, and learning lessons. And when you can learn the lesson and forgive the pain forgive the past. You gain love, and you gain joy. And self love is also joy. When you find what brings you joy, what makes you laugh, what helps you connect with other people. That's all self love. Self love is also spending time with yourself alone time, or even talking to yourself, doing things that you love to do not what other people love to do, but you yourself, what do you love to do. And also telling yourself, you love yourself. And this can be really difficult, especially if you're having a bad day. And I can tell you because I had many bad days last month after this separation. But I keep at it, Michael, I'll keep at it. And I'll keep telling me so before I go to bed, I love you lino, I love you. And even if I say with tears, or a knot in my throat, I'll still keep adding, I'll keep telling myself because I know that inside I am loved and that God loves me. And if God loves me, why wouldn't I love me. And so it's just a constant reminder, a constant push, that we are made, we're made to love. We're here in this in this life, to love ourselves, and to give the same love to others. So self love can look as as beautiful as learning how to grow within, as even eating something that you love, or even learning something new, a new activity, doing something healthy for yourself. Even the people that you hang out with, who are you hanging out with self love looks like hanging out with people, that increases your peace. If people are not bringing you peace, it's probably time to move around, move that energy around, refocus on who brings you peace and what's going to bring you peace. And when you start bringing peace to yourself, peace will start navigating towards you naturally. **Michael Hingson ** 38:13 I liked the way you you put that and that you talked about peace because we we oftentimes go down these rabbit holes and we don't come back to wait, what's going on? I'm not feeling peace. I'm not feeling confident, or I'm not feeling certain. Why is that? And going back to recognizing what it was like yesterday when I did feel all of those things. I **Lino Martinez ** 38:39 love how you said that. Again, asking yourself these questions is so important to be asking yourself these questions because you will get an answer a lot. Oh, you don't. And then there you go. And you know what, Michael? That's self love right there. Self love is asking yourself questions. Start a relationship with yourself, I can tell the audience's if you have not done this yourself, and you don't know where to start. You can start by having conversations with yourself sitting in a quiet space and seeing what comes through the what kind of answers comes to your mind when you ask yourself these questions. That's spending time with yourself quality time with yourself. And that's self love as well. **Michael Hingson ** 39:11 I love to tell people that. You know why. As I mentioned earlier, my wife passed this past November after 40 years of marriage. And as I tell people if I misbehave I know I'm going to hear about it. So I have to stay on the straight and narrow you know, leave it for two years and marriage is a great thing and I still value everything that we had and as far as I am concerned really do have. So I know that if I misbehave in some horrible way I'm gonna hear about it somewhere along the line. I'm sure you will. That's all I need. So you know, I'm not going to say I'm living in fear because of it. But, you know, it's it really is love because I know what we had and why we had it. and maintaining that mindset is really so important. **Lino Martinez ** 40:04 It really is my thank you for sharing. So **Michael Hingson ** 40:06 you talked about people talking with themselves and really interacting with themselves. What other advice can you give to help someone who maybe wants to start really learning more about themselves. **Lino Martinez ** 40:23 If somebody wants to learn more about themselves and doesn't know how to start, where to start, I do I do recommend journaling. And I know it sounds cliche, but it's it helps so many people helps millions, billions of people to journal even if you're not a good writer, you don't have to be a good writer. If you're you can even speak it in your notes. You don't have to write you could just speak it in in your phone and just kind of keep a memorandum is that the right word? memorandum? That's fine. Sure it works of of your personal journey and start asking yourself questions, start giving yourself the opportunities to for different choices and things in your life. What have you been interested in your life that you haven't done yet? Well, you know what, I really, I want to take this road trip here. I've never done that before. Okay, well, let's, let's put this let's write this down. Let's talk about this. What is this road trip feel like? Well, what would it signify for me, oh, that I stepped out of my comfort zone, that I was able to be exploratory that I was able to see different a different path and meet new people. And perhaps maybe even now, I want to move to a different city, because I travel I mean, there's just so much expansion when you start coming up with these ideas within yourself. And so I would first start with journaling, because so much comes out of it. When you start to journal and talk to yourself and ask yourself questions and come up with these ideas. Creativity will be your guide, creativity will be your North Star, your navigation tool. And we all have an inner navigation star, we all have this north star within us. And it wants us it wants to navigate us, we just have to ask, we have to ask it's as easy as asking. **Michael Hingson ** 41:52 Well, and I think that the whole issue of journaling also means go back and read it. And and think about what what you've written to. **Lino Martinez ** 42:07 Exactly. I've left myself a lot of memo notes as well. voice notes, and I'll go back and and listen to this Oh, today, I wanted to do well. But you know what, actually, Michael, what I did last night, I was cleaning out my office. And I found some notes of some things that I wanted to accomplish this year. And that's another thing that I can recommend for people as well getting to know yourself and getting to know what you want to do. Give yourself some and you know, I try not to say the word goals, because there tends to be a lot of negativity with gold, what if you don't reach your goal, there might be some fear in that. So rather than reaching a goal, just write yourself stuff that you want to do and make it sound that easy stuff that I want to do. And if you don't do it, that's fine, because it's just stuff. But either way, if you get the stuff done, and you can go back and reflect and say, Hey, I did that stuff. It felt great. And so I was able to go back and say, Wow, so far, it's been six months into the year and I've done this stuff. And so far, I feel great that I've done this stuff, or that I completed this task. And so yeah, make it fun, have fun with it. **Michael Hingson ** 43:06 The other side of it. And the other aspect that's worth considering is you took some notes, you wanted to do this stuff. And you look at them in six months, you didn't do some stuff is also scared to go. Why didn't I do that stuff? **Lino Martinez ** 43:22 Yeah, right. Yes. **Michael Hingson ** 43:25 And it doesn't necessarily have as you said, I mean, it's a bad thing that you didn't, but why didn't you? Were you afraid? Or was there really something else that came up, that was a more important bunch of stuff to do, which is also just as Okay, now, I understand the whole concept of the issues with goals. So just writing down direction and writing down ideas that you want to do is fine goals, that there there's a place for goals and things that you have to do. But a lot of things aren't goals. And so it is it is a fair thing to then say, why didn't I do that? **Lino Martinez ** 44:01 You know why like that as well. Because why didn't I do that can lead you all kinds of different directions? It could You could even say, Hey, I never really even wanted to do that. I didn't really want to do that, I guess. And you can even figure out if that's something that you want to revisit and whether or not you want to try it again or just let it go. **Michael Hingson ** 44:18 Try it gives you a discussion point, which is what it's really all about, is I think really the issue, right? So there's nothing there's nothing wrong with discussing and you can talk to yourself. And as you said you will get answers. Yeah, that's the other part about it. I think and it goes back to talking about God. You know, we talk about prayer a lot. Churches talk about prayer a lot. But the reality is God knows what we want. It isn't so much that we have to tell God what we want, because God knows, but verbalizing it or putting it in some form for us. The other aspect of that is listening I'm looking for the response. And it may not come exactly what in the way that we think or how we think. But we should be looking for a response. And I say pretty much invariably, we'll get the response somewhere. **Lino Martinez ** 45:15 The response definitely comes to us. And if and one thing that I've learned too, is to not obsess over getting an answer, right, when you start to obsess over getting an answer, you create a resistance. And resistance holds up a lot of energy in your space. And when this resistance is holding up a lot of filling up your space with with tangled energy, you're disallowing what's supposed to come to you naturally. And so part of this is releasing a lot of a lot of resistance. And that that can be challenging as well. **Michael Hingson ** 45:47 There is something to the old adage of watched pot never boils. Just Just sing. So I've learned that when I turned my tea kettle on in the morning, don't stand there and wait for it to boil, go do other things. And when it boils, you'll hear **Lino Martinez ** 46:07 yes, absolutely. I love that. But **Michael Hingson ** 46:11 there is something to be said for that. What is really is **Lino Martinez ** 46:15 what a struggle taught you. struggle has taught me has taught me a lot, Michael. So when I was struggling and come again, I mean, I'm still in some struggle, struggling in some certain emotional parts of my life right now. And because just what I'm kind of just overcoming right now. But the struggle for me, when I did think of struggling before was me struggling physically in pain. But one thing that I learned and this is because I practice Buddhism for for about five years, and our monk taught us that just because you're struggling or because you're suffering, it doesn't mean you have to be in pain. And when I when when he said that it really struck a beautiful chord within me. And it made me realize that hey, you know what, that's my body is suffering, I am in pain, I do feel this, but but I don't have to be in pain overall. Overall, I can think happy thoughts. Overall, there's connection all around me. Overall, if I sit here within my with my true self, my inner being, I'm okay. And I'm going to be okay. And when you start to see and the the the eyes of seeing it, when you start to look at pain as an opportunity to transform pain into wisdom and love, you start to see that anything can be transformed. And so that is really what I learned with struggles struggle with struggling with a lot of pain and realizing that pain can be transformed, because pain is just energy. And all energy be can be transformed. And energy is not either positive or negative. It's neutral. And so if I can transform it into something beautiful, wise and into love, why not choose the latter? **Michael Hingson ** 47:56 Yeah. There's, there's no reason not to do that. You know, there's there's physical pain. And of course, as doctors and others tell us, pain is a warning, there's a message about something with your body. But even that is a subset of the more general spiritual or emotional pain that we do have the ability to deal with. **Lino Martinez ** 48:21 Right? Absolutely. **Michael Hingson ** 48:22 Which is so cool. Well, you've talked about the fact that you value silence and so on what is silence taught you. **Lino Martinez ** 48:32 So my value from being silent, came from when I lost my voice for almost three years. And at first, it was very difficult. But I accepted that there was there was a chance that I would never speak again. And when I accepted that, I started to go inward more and see more of within my own life, my own personality, my own wants and desires. And that's really where the beauty started to blossom. It's almost as if my higher self said, Hey, I'm going to shut you up and you're going to be completely silent in order for you to go inside, within and really find the beauty within yourself. And once that silent really taught me to calm down, ease anxiety, be patient, and just allow things to unfold naturally. And that's what silence teaches me even now when I am in silence, learn to appreciate the moment the solitude and allow the universe to naturally show you and unfold things for you because everything's happening in a synchronistic manner. **Michael Hingson ** 49:39 So you've been going through the whole business of having a relationship and it's kind of stopped for a while and I don't know whether that's that's permanent or not. But what what have you learned from that and also having silence again in your life like that? **Lino Martinez ** 49:56 That's a beautiful, beautiful question. Honest See, I really feel that I'm meant to be with this woman. And what for whatever reasons whether it's trauma, whether it's insecurities that caused us to be in this non-communicative. I guess the buzzword is ghost being ghosted. But I do feel that we have a really strong spiritual connection and that what we had was was very authentic. It was very soulful, spiritual, very loving, and whatever the separation means right now, at the moment, I can tell you right now that it means growth. Because I have grown so much in this last month going inward and going silent, I have meditated more than I ever have. I've taken more walks than I ever have. I've taken more baths by myself listening to meditative music than I ever have. And I was able to, in this just last month, really ask myself, where my fears were stemming from what if I never hear from her again? What does that mean? And again, asking those questions, Michael, what does that mean, right away, the fear will start to start to show up that I'm unlovable or I'm undeserving, but none of that's true. But when did this support this originate? You don't where it originated, and that I realized is growing up with alcoholic family. And growing up with an alcoholic family, parents are not usually present when that happens when when they're drunk. So as a kid, I didn't really fully have present parents emotionally. And so when somebody ghosts me, it started to remind me of my childhood when family members would ignore me because they were busy hitting the bottle rather than paying attention to their kid. And I started to realize this isn't the same situation. And this isn't true. And so in going that, I constantly have to rewind and say, and rewire my brain, and even go back to that timeline, and forgive myself for my survival skills that I that I had to go through in order to survive emotionally, and mentally as a little kid, and really gravitate towards learning how to feel safe within myself and not receiving the love that I needed as a little kid. But I so I mean, I've learned so much. And I wouldn't have been able to admit this even just two months ago, because I wasn't aware of it. So going silent in her goes to me, which is silence. And also me go see an officer and also me going silent with myself, I'm able to go inward and realize what needs healing. Because should I get back into this relationship? Or should I go into another relationship? I now know what needs attention and what needs work? And what what? What part of my body and mind, body and soul needs more love? **Michael Hingson ** 52:35 Well, and if you really feel you have that deep of a spiritual relationship with her, do you reach back out to her or what happens? And **Lino Martinez ** 52:43 that's a great question. I was reaching out with her. Yeah, I was I the reason why. And the reason why we broke up, she literally told me that she cannot give me the same love that I give her in return. But then I started realizing that she could only be friends. And this was literally a month ago. But when that happened, I felt I felt a few things. And this all in all of this was solved all these answers came again from being alone. And this is why I want listeners listening to this. Whoever is going through a breakup. Don't be afraid to go inward. When you go inward and ask yourself questions, ask yourself a million questions, you will get answers. And as much as it hurts, you're gonna plow through it, and you're gonna have incredible self discovery. So my self discovery, I realized, we're, we're all mirrors of each other. There are things aspects about you, Michael, that I have in common with, there's aspects about anybody that I come in contact with, that I have in common with, we're all mirrors of each other. And so when she felt that she couldn't give me the love, and I'm I can't speak for her because I'm not her, but I feel I can feel and what I felt at the moment as well, when she said that, and and she left I felt at that moment, Well, geez, that must mean that I'm undeserving, and I'm unloving. And then I realized, but wait, she's the one saying that by saying she can't give me the same love that I that I give in return. That message is the same message. She's saying I'm undeserving, I'm unloving, and therefore, I can't give you that much love. But I'm also feeling the same way. And so and I started to reach out to her shortly after the breakup within within a week, and it was text messaging, how are you and she was responsive. And I must have text within the last month, maybe about four or five times when she did respond. However, I finally realized two weeks ago, you know what, it's time for her to reach out to me, because at this point, it's not self love anymore. At this point, when you start filling up someone else's cup and pushing them to communicate, you're taking love away from yourself. And so I needed to go back and fill my own cup and because it was bringing me down, why is it me reaching out? Why am I always the one reaching out? Well, you know what, I also need to give her the benefit of the doubt that she's also growing and that she's learning and that she's going to get stronger and that she does have the ability and the capability to reach out to me and communicate. I'm not going to give her I'm not going to doubt her growth is either and so I'm giving her the opportunity to come to me when she's ready. And because I have no doubt in the love that we've experienced together, we didn't have a toxic relationship. There were simple traumas. And whenever there's trauma versus toxicity, you can work through traumas, you can learn to love each other, and through love, grow and expand and understand where there needs more attention. **Michael Hingson ** 55:19 Yeah. And the reality is, of course, that the love that she gives you is different than the love that you give her anyway, because you're two different beings. And then that's a matter of figuring out how to blend those. And clearly, that's part of what you're hoping that she will work on an hour, or come to realize, and then you'll be able to get back together. **Lino Martinez ** 55:42 Absolutely. Michael, and I'm not going to deny that there's been thoughts recently Oh, it's been two weeks since I reached out should I reach out but there's there's this nagging voice inside me that says allow her, give her she she is strong enough, because in me doing so there's a lot of things that I'm that I'm not allowing, I'm gonna allow a not allowing her to grow. If I come in and keep and keep kind of like intruding into these unspoken energetic boundaries. And in doing that, it's also manipulative in a way even though it's not intended to be that way. It's hang on a minute, I'm feeling bad. I'm feeling sad. Let me get a hold of you. I miss you. Rather than you know, what, how about I trust the situation and trust that we're both growing and that there's still love within our distance? Yeah. **Michael Hingson ** 56:26 And hopefully it works out, you'll you'll figure it out. I have no doubt about that. And the right solution will come along whatever it happens to be. **Lino Martinez ** 56:35 I believe that, Michael, thank you. **Michael Hingson ** 56:37 What other advice might you have for anyone else who may be suffering or feeling challenged in one way or another? **Lino Martinez ** 56:45 It's such a good question. Because so many, I mean, everybody, there's so many so much suffering going on going on in this world. Yeah, **Michael Hingson ** 56:51 don't watch the news. I know. But **Lino Martinez ** 56:57 you know, pay attention to, to your feelings. Because all your feelings are messages. And as negative as it can feel, and is in as daunting as it could be. It can always be turned into something beautiful, even grief, even in the grief of losing someone, there's always beauty in grief. And when you can turn pain and sorrow into beauty. That's where all the magic starts to happen. And don't give up. There's no reason to give up. There's, there's also people need to understand that there's no failure. At all, there's only clarifying things in this world, you can't fail, there's only things that are constantly showing you clarification. And also Success is not final. And also failure is not fatal. So as long as you know that Success is not final, you're going to always be striving for to do something else or feel something else. And that's okay. There's a flexibility of flow of life and ebb and flow. And just like the ocean waves, they come back and they back and forth. We're the same way the same, that same beauty that Earth possess we possess within ourselves. **Michael Hingson ** 58:08 I think it was in the Henry Drummond book that I mentioned one of his lectures, he talked about the fact that teachers can teach a lot of things, but really the only person who can teach you is you. You're your own real teacher, everything else is information or concepts, but you have to teach it to yourself. And that has taught me to learn to realize that, in fact, I am my own best teacher, I have now learned not to say I'm my own worst critic anymore. I always said, I didn't. And I don't journal a lot as such. But whenever I give a speech, I reply to record it. And then I can go back and listen to it and improve. And I've realized that it's not being my own worst critic. It's my faith and my recognition that I'm my own best teacher, I get to listen to it, and hear what happened. And I can go on thinking, could I have done that better? Was it as good as it could be? Or how can I make the best part even better? And that's only something that I can do. No one else can do it. So I am a firm believer and I my own best teacher. **Lino Martinez ** 59:14 I totally agree with you. I love I said that. How can I make the best better? **Michael Hingson ** 59:19 Yeah, I love it. And maybe the answer is it's as good as it can possibly be. But it's okay to ask yourself. Yeah, absolutely. Which is what it's really about. Well, this has been fun. But if people want to reach out to you, and learn more from you, I don't know whether in the things that you do. Do you work virtually or just in person? **Lino Martinez ** 59:43 Do I work virtually **Michael Hingson ** 59:45 doing you've got a doctorate in psychology do you do and do you have any kind of practice or do you coach or teach people? **Lino Martinez ** 59:50 Yeah, actually, I'm a professor in psychology and there you go. This fall I'm teaching. It's called psychodynamic theory. And so I'm not teaching right now in the fall. I mean, I'm sorry, in the summertime, we actually did teach the summer but summer session ended a month ago. So
I'm Not Fine with Lizzie Ens Unhealthy relationships can exert a significant toll on both our physical and mental health. Chronic exposure to negativity, manipulation, or abuse in relationships can lead to heightened stress levels, contributing to a range of health issues. I.E. Adrenal fatigue, thyroid issues, hormone imbalances, anxiety or depression. Physiologically, the body's stress response can compromise the immune system, disrupt cardiovascular health, and negatively impact overall well-being. Recognizing the signs of unhealthy relationships with yourself and with others is vital for your body to be able to heal. Join your host Lizzie Ens Functional Nutrition Practitioner as she walks you through how this can affect your overall health and how to recognize these relationships plus what you can do to help you yourself in these situations. ~ More About I'm Not Fine with Lizzie Ens ~ Lizzie Ens Is the Founder of UnDiet Yourself, a Board Certified Functional Nutrition Practitioner, Personal trainer, Author of Escaping My Reflection, Speaker, Radio/TV & Podcast Host. Lizzie Ens, is a former Amish girl who chose to jump for a better life and future at the age of 19 leaving everything she knew up until then; her entire community and family behind. Lizzie is now on a mission to make an impact by helping people get more energy, get better sleep and rebalance their hormones by focusing on whole body healing so their body can function at its best and take them from feeling just fine to feeling amazing. https://www.lizzieens.com/ https://undietyourself.live/ Book with Lizzie today: https://info.undietyourself.live/ To get more of I'm Not Fine with Lizzie Ens, be sure to visit the podcast page for replays of all her shows here: https://www.inspiredchoicesnetwork.com/podcast/im-not-fine-lizzie-ens/
This episode focuses on how to help child-clients become physiologically centered. Previous episodes have focused on helping children become emotionally and cognitively centered. Emotional centering involves regulating extremes of emotions, and developing reaction inhibition and stress tolerance. Various tools, such as the Check-in and Empathic Listening can be really useful for helping kids become emotionally centered. Cognitive centering techniques include the use of tools like the Feelings Thermometer and Feelings Maps to help kids describe their feelings. A complimentary approach focuses on leveraging clients' physiology to help them become centered. Afterall, every emotion is expressed in various ways throughout a person's body. Co-regulation, achieved through shared activities and physical engagement, is a basic way in which a counselor can help a client become centered on a physiological level. Changing a child's physiology is a powerful way to influence regulate their emotions and thoughts. Techniques such as sitting down, drinking water, engaging in physical activities, and going on walks are explored. Food also powerfully impacts physiology but in many ways it's too powerful and overusing it as a way to change a kids mood or attitude can cause unwanted negative consequences. Likewise, touch, hugs, and hand-holding can be very physiological centering, but again there's a need for judgment and clear program guidelines. Various techniques, including sensory meditation, breathing exercises, and mindfulness, are recommended to help children become physiologically centered. The challenges of implementing these techniques are explored, including the need for months of daily practice and potential boredom of some exercises. This episode concludes by introducing the Owl Eyes technique, a form of sensory walking meditation involving maintaining peripheral vision.
Airway management in the critically ill can be one of the most challenging, stressful and rewarding elements of critical care medicine. While the anatomically challenging airway is often the first place our minds go when discussing difficult airways, the physiologically difficult airway is both more common and often requires more savvy to overcome. Join Cyrus & Nick as they take a pragmatic, case-based approach to this topic with the hopes of equipping you with the tools you need to successfully take a physiologically difficult airway, or support an airway operator charged with this task! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Waning libido is common but it's not the only thing to consider. We're looking at libido, sex, and orgasm all inclusively in this episode. If this all makes you blush, it's audio-only, and we're just talking. But if you don't have this discussion with girlfriends because sex talk is uncomfortable, you don't want it and your partner does or vice versa, I'm actually sharing this podcast for exactly that reason. If not here, where? Intimacy (including sex) is actually quite tied to overall health and wellbeing. If an integral part of your life is missing but you're not inspired to discuss it, then maybe this is for you. It's still pretty PG so, no worries there. A European study conducted by a sports nutrition company in 2022 with expert opinions from a Professor of Exercise Science and a Sexual Health Educator set out to find out how different sports improve sex lives. The study was conducted by survey of 3200 Europeans who play sports or exercise. Interestingly, several of the sources I found reviewing references for this episode were done by sports companies of some sort. I point this out, because it's no accident. We care about sex. They're posting content and spending time, money, and energy polling, conducting surveys for one reason, to sell more products. I want you to know that if you're feeling like if this were a book you'd have to put a brown paper wrapper over it, don't. This is something pretty foundational to every human. Sex and Exercise & Sports Participation Exercise (and sport) can be a part of bringing this little bit of joy and connection back or enhancing it if it's already present for you. I'll put in resources a few other connections that can help. But above all, 100% transparency, strength training may be a girl's a boy's, and a couple's best friend, as long as you're in the sweet spot. (couldn't resist!) It's not football players .. in fact they were the least likely to reach the big O and the least confident in the bedroom. Golfers enjoy the most sexual activity among all popular sports, followed by dancers and weightlifters. More than three-quarters of golfers said the sport improved their “o experience. Golfers, and this is probably better golfers, are very in tune with their body position, confident in their ability to affect results by changes that they make. Incredible self-awareness in any area of life spills over into awareness elsewhere. Dancing, provided it's not a waif-like ballerina sacrificing her libido by starving and extreme discipline, is very rewarding in terms of intimacy. Dancing fosters feelings of lust, sensuality, and sexiness. Those least adventurous on the dance floor may also be least adventurous or confident in the bedroom. Easiest place to start? Some dance lessons to help you get more confident in your own body. There aren't many things more sensual than dancing with the right partner. Sex and Sports Specifics 78% of regular walkers report it improving their sex life. It might be that exploring new places and having new adventures builds trust, happiness and satisfaction that pays off in the bedroom. Consider getting off the beaten path. 81% of swimmers say swimming improved their sex lives but only 44% are confident in the bedroom. While women actually enjoy watching football, the benefits of the sport don't actually add up to the best results in the bedroom. Fballers aren't all that confident and don't climax as much as other sports participants. Running can have a positive effect on hormone levels provided it's not too much. Endurance exercise decreases testosterone and increases cortisol levels, having the opposite desired effect (see what I did there). Couples, about 66% on average, who run together report a higher frequency of sex compared to those who don't. (a survey conducted by Brooks Running) What was the quote? "The Tango is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire." – Jennifer Lopez' character in Shall We Dance? More than any other sport, 90% of weight trainers said it had a positive impact on their sex life. What's the physiological reason? Weight training not only improves testosterone levels that directly impact libido or desire, it also edges out yoga for support in cognitive function and problem solving, lending to decreased stress levels through enhanced resilience. Physiologically, no other exercise will change your body shape in the way strength training has the ability to do. Aerobic activity may support weight loss to some extent, but it leaves a smaller version – possibly even less toned – than you started with. Parting Thoughts About Sex and Sport One of the biggest killers of libido, sex and orgasm tends to be a mismatch between fitness status of partners. Even if the couple doesn't do the same fitness or sport activity, those that support each other independently pursuing some type of fitness activity tend to also have a better relationship. Reference: https://de.myprotein.com/thezone/lifestyle/europaeische-studie-einfluss-von-sport-auf-das-liebesleben/ Resources: STRONGER 12-Week Strength Training: https://www.flippingfifty.com/getstronger Libido boosting Julva: https://www.flippingfifty.com/julva Other Episodes You Might Like: Better Sex After 50 How to Love Getting Intimate https://www.flippingfifty.com/better-sex-2/ Juicy New Menopause, Libido, & Intimacy Solutions https://www.flippingfifty.com/juicy-new-menopause-libido-intimacy-solutions/ Not Just for Men, Why Women Need Testosterone, Too! https://www.flippingfifty.com/testosterone/
What's Good Dimah Fam! Being a woman is synonymous with strength, resilience, and adaptability, though it often comes with its unique set of pressures and challenges, both physical and societal. Physiologically, women's bodies undergo a monthly cycle of hormonal changes, but the effects of this cycle extend beyond just the week of menstruation. The menstrual cycle is typically 28 days long but can vary between individuals. It comprises several phases, including the follicular phase, ovulation, the luteal phase, and menstruation. Each phase comes with its distinct hormonal fluctuations which can influence mood, energy, and overall well-being. For example, right after menstruation, many women enter the follicular phase where the hormone estrogen rises, leading to increased energy, optimism, and sociability. Contrarily, in the luteal phase, which comes before menstruation, progesterone dominates. This can lead to feelings of moodiness, irritability, or sadness for some. It's essential to recognize that this isn't just "one week of pain," but rather a continuous cycle of emotional and physical shifts. On top of these intrinsic biological changes, women face external societal pressures. The modern woman often juggles multiple roles - from being a career professional, a mother, a partner, to a caregiver. Each role carries its expectations and challenges. The expectation to excel at work while simultaneously being a doting mother, a loving partner, and an available friend can be exhausting. Moreover, there's the additional layer of cultural expectations. Depending on societal and familial norms, women might feel the pressure to get married by a certain age, have children, or prioritize family over personal ambitions. This is not to mention the ever-persistent standards of beauty and femininity that many women grapple with daily. In essence, being a woman is a complex interplay of hormonal, physical, and emotional challenges. It's a testament to their strength that despite these pressures, women worldwide continue to thrive, inspire, and lead. Understanding and acknowledging these pressures is the first step to supporting and empowering the women around us. We love and understand all of you! Thanks for listening!
Join our Patreon Community!https://www.patreon.com/badassbreastfeedingpodcastDo you worry about nipple confusion? Have you ever thought that bottle feeding is much easier for your baby than breastfeeding? Tune in today to learn all about why bottle feeding is not easier than breastfeeding. If you are a new listener, we would love to hear from you. Please consider leaving us a review on itunes or sending us an email with your suggestions and comments to badassbreastfeedingpodcast@gmail.com. You can also add your email to our list and have episodes sent right to your inbox! Things we talked about:Both partners should be a breastfeeding class! [4:36]For most families, bottle feeding is necessary [7:43]Everyone thinks bottle feeding is easier [8:25]Babies are born with a suck reflex [10:38]Physiologically bottle feeding is harder for a baby [11:30]The snoring conversation [15:00]Creating a vacuum [17:06]Tongue position: breast and bottle [20:46]Do babies burn more energy breastfeeding? [22:37]Nipple confusion [25:39]Emotional attachment to breastfeeding [31:49] This week's episode is sponsored by Ceres Chill! Ceres Chill offers guaranteed convenience with their double walled stainless steel container for breastmilk or formula. Use code BADASS for 15% off at www.cereschill.com.Links to information we discussed or episodes you should check out!https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com/episode/bottles-versus-breast/https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com/episode/071-overfeeding-paced-bottle-feeding/https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com/episode/bottle-refusal/ Set up your consultation with Dianne https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com/consultations/ Check out Dianne's blog here~https://diannecassidyconsulting.com/milklytheblog/Follow our Podcast~https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.comHere is how you can connect with Dianne and Abby~Abby Theuring https://www.thebadassbreastfeeder.comDianne Cassidy http://www.diannecassidyconsulting.com Music we use~Music: "Levels of Greatness" from "We Used to Paint Stars in the Sky (2012)" courtesy of Scott Holmes at freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott Holmes
Intermittent fasting has been around for most of human history, but has seen a peak in interest in the last couple of years. What is intermittent fasting? Physiologically, what happens to the body when you fast? And should you dabble in intermittent fasting as an endurance athlete? There is some excellent research in fasting and exercise performance so tune in for my recommendations on whether it is something you should or shouldn't be doing as a triathlete. References Aragon-Vargas LF. Effects of fasting on endurance exercise. Sports Med. 1993; 16:255–65 Aird TP, Davies RW, Carson BP. Effects of fasted vs fed-state exercise on performance and post-exercise metabolism: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Scand. J. Med. Sci. Sports. 2018; 28:1476–93. LINKS Check how well you're doing when it comes to your nutrition with our 50 step checklist to Triathlon Nutrition Mastery: dietitianapproved.com/checklist Start working on your nutrition now with my Triathlon Nutrition Kickstart course: dietitianapproved.com/kickstart It's for you if you're a triathlete and you feel like you've got your training under control and you're ready to layer in your nutrition. It's your warmup on the path to becoming a SUPERCHARGED triathlete – woohoo! Join the waitlist for our next opening of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy www.dietitianapproved.com/academy Website: www.dietitianapproved.com Instagram: @Dietitian.Approved @triathlonnutritionacademy Facebook: www.facebook.com/DietitianApproved The Triathlon Nutrition Academy is a podcast by Dietitian Approved. All rights reserved. www.dietitianapproved.com/academy Dietitian Approved acknowledges the Traditional custodians of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, The Turrbal and Jagera peoples. We pay our respects to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
George W Carey was an American homeopath and occultist known for a number of 1910s ‘chemistry of life' publications, a subject which he referred to as biochemistry, particularly his 1919 The Chemistry of Human Life, all generally using a mixture of religion, astrology, physiology, anatomy, and chemistry, themed particularly with a mineral-based theory of human disease. Carey is popular among homeopathic and new age circles. In the context of a person viewed as a "human molecule", Carey was the first to state that a person's body is a “chemical formula in operation.” In his book God Man The Word Made Flesh, Carey writes about the biochemal nature of the word as it is written of in the bible arguing that the word may mean the christ oil in the body that awakens us to our true self. "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God."—John, 1st Chapter. "W. O. R. D." This combination of letters does not mean, in its first and original sense, voice, sound or speech. Physiologically speaking, it means a precious substance. Therefore, as mankind must be "placed on their feet" physically before the same condition can exist mentally and spiritually, we must get down to fundamentals, and give the physiological meaning of W. O. R. D.
This episode of the podcast is a live recording from the PREMIER Conference of John O Neil discussing penetrating injuries with learning points that are useful for clinicians who look after both adult and paediatric patients. There are three main mechanisms – violence, impalement and self harm, although the first is by far the most common. Penetrating injuries are rare but have significant morbidity and mortality. The key is early and accurate diagnosis, and many can be managed conservatively. The distribution of penetrating injuries across the UK differs widely, with most in the London area, although as seen in the news recently can happen anywhere. Remember how traumatic it is to be a trauma patient. We put you on a bed, cut off your clothes, stick needles in you and take your family away. Some will also just not engage with you (teenage boys particularly) making assessment difficult. Be kind. Don't get frustrated. Physiologically there may be a strong vagal response that can hide some of the signs we'd expect. Also, bear in mind the events prior to the injury – the child may have been running a considerable distance (before and after the incident) raising their lactate (but don't assume this is the cause). Children tend to ‘fall off a cliff' – they appear well, but can suddenly decompensate – keep the momentum to definitive management going and do not be falsely reassured. John mentioned a great friend of St Emlyn's Vic Brazil and we would heartily endorse you have a look at her work. You can find more information about the Reducing Knife Crime initiative here
2023.06.16 – 0897 – Studio Excitement ExcitementYes, finally, nervousness might be excitement in disguise[1]. Physiologically, they certainly have some of the same symptoms: knees shaking, heart racing, hands sweating, gut misbehaving… Nervousness is often seen as a negative experience to do with fear and potential survival, shying away from risks and limiting success. Excitement is a positive experience, in which we can take advantage of potential possibilities and opportunities by showing competence, enthusiasm and personality. The difference is all in how you interpret the feelings. Swap nervousness in which you focus on what could go wrong, for excitement, and you'll see what could go right and be advantageous. Again, some or all of these situations are potentially serious and may need to be addressed appropriately, but, like a mis-interpretation of ‘excited' for ‘nervous', it's often best to take a moment and think of what is really going on, and the name for it, as a first step. Because they are broadly similar with common roots, for the purposes of this podcast/book, let's look at them in the round, under the heading of ‘Mic Fright'. This in no way dismissive of the seriousness of these thoughts and feelings, for which a qualified medical professional should be consulted. [1] At the Royal Northern College of Music, Professor Jane Ginsborg asks students to write down what it feels like to fall in love, then, much later, write down what it feels like to stand backstage moments before a performance. Love and fear seem like contrasting emotions, but the descriptions most students will write for each are eerily similar. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/08/how-classical-musicians-cope-with-performance-stress Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Contributor: Meghan Hurley, MD Educational Pearls: Two main reasons to choose non-traditional RSI Anatomically challenging airway Physiologically difficult patients: hypoxia, metabolic acidosis, hemodynamic instability Ketamine may help patients remain hemodynamically stable In critical patients, it is important to consider non-traditional RSI medications to improve outcomes References 1. Lyon RM, Perkins ZB, Chatterjee D, Lockey DJ, Russell MQ. Significant modification of traditional rapid sequence induction improves safety and effectiveness of pre-hospital trauma anaesthesia. Crit Care. 2015;19(1). doi:10.1186/s13054-015-0872-2 2. Merelman AH, Perlmutter MC, Strayer RJ. Alternatives to rapid sequence intubation: Contemporary airway management with ketamine. West J Emerg Med. 2019;20(3):466-471. doi:10.5811/westjem.2019.4.42753 Summarized by Jorge Chalit, OMS1 | Edited by Meg Joyce
If Benoit had a family show it would be called Better Call Mommy. He's a mamma's boy. His mom had to build up calluses in order to achieve. Surrender is not giving up. Benoit chose the path of highest resistance with his girlfriend gave up sex, and addressed their emotional and moral incongruences! Better Call Daddy: The Safe Space For Controversy. Benoit Kim, is a US army veteran, Penn-educated former policymaker turned psychotherapist, and host of Discover More- an Apple Podcasts Top U.S. 100 podcast. Discover More is a show for independent thinkers by independent thinkers, with an emphasis on mental health. The topics include cognitive psychology and mental health, the power of hypnosis, why spirituality and science are related, exorcism and psychology, and more. Looking for practical mental health insights? Notable guests include Fr. Vincent Lampert, Brothers Green, David Rudd Ph.D., Austin Chiang M.D., Anthony Kaveh M.D., Zach Pincince, Pain Academy, and more. He pivoted early into the non-profit and policy sector from management consulting upon graduation, then committed to Teach for America (AmeriCorps program) teaching in inner-city Philadelphia before taking a military leave from this commitment and graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania due to a 2017 near-deployment. In this 2017 near-deployment to the North-South Korean border, he experienced his first major depression and had to acknowledge that perseverance does not always prevail, which catalyzed his venture into the realm of mental health. Then, he worked in the policy sector for a few years after becoming the youngest policymaker in the agency's 100-year history and, then pivoted recently into the clinical field as an aspirational psychedelic-assisted psychotherapist. Lastly, he started the podcast in 2019 as a passion project which has turned into a growing business with an expanding team, and the show has been recently featured on Apple Podcasts Top U.S. 100 in 2023, Apple Podcasts Top 200 Global Chart in 2022, and is a top 2% globally ranked podcast in all categories. He invites you to seek curiosity over fear by joining us in our collective journey of Discovering More. Transcript @podtexts on Twitter Reena Friedman Watts: Okay, so since you gave me an option in the beginning of which direction we wanted to go, would you rather go with questions from your friends or mine? Benoit Kim: Oh wow. You said, friends? Plural? Doesn't matter. Whatever's the juiciest. Reena: Juiciest are always who knows you better, right? Benoit: True. Yes, we'll start with friends. Speaking of memory lane. Reena: Yes. Okay, so let's go with Tony. How do you pronounce his last name? Is it Mena? Benoit: Mena. Yes. Reena: I was right. Okay, so Tony wanted to know, and I know you were recently on a Christian retreat, he wanted to know what motivates you to work for nonprofits or what motivates you to have a service-oriented career. Benoit: I love choosing the broke poor life, just kidding, but I think that we all have to choose our path in life and a lot of that is attributable to my parents' genetics. It's not necessarily cultivated. I think I had the privilege to exposure to six figure salary early on at age 21, 22, straight out of college into management consulting realm. I saw the rat race, I saw how miserable so many people were, and I remember this viscerally like yesterday where one of the partners, managing partners at Deloitte at the time, he was taking us out. He rented out the entire bar at Penn State for entrance to show us woo woos with that golden handcuffs. He got pretty drunk and I asked him a question, as I always do even before podcasting, that, "Hey, is that worth it? Is it worth making that $500,000, $600,000 salary plus vesting options?" He started being tearful. He straight up started crying. A grown-ass man in his 50s. He said that "I miss my firstborn. I didn't held him in the hospital. I wasn't with my wife. I missed my 10 year anniversary with my wife. I missed out on so many birthdays because the duty calls, and to get to that level comes with tremendous sacrifices." That story stuck with me, and then once I started to work as a management consultant I realized, "Wow, this is not the life I wanted." I always wanted to do something altruistic, even though I don't believe in altruism because there's always that feedback of feeling good, but I do believe in effective altruism, and I chose the path of nonprofit and giving back, and I always check myself. I'm not a savior. I'm not better than other people. Some people find money intrinsically incentivizing and they like money intrinsically. For me, intrinsically I like making impact and creating this legacy, and at the end of the day it's just a job and it's just a personal calling. Reena: When did you realize that? Benoit: The first few years in the nonprofit sector, I think I definitely had this extra chip on my shoulder that, "Oh look at me, I'm creating this impact. I'm parting the positive footprint in this world unlike all my private sector friends," and we always find reasons to put other people down when you have that hole internally. Then through my mid to late 20s I realized, "Wait a minute, I happen to choose this path because I find this fulfilling." It's not holy or sacred or better than anyone else. It's just what drives me well, and I can't survive that rat race background. I just can't. I can't even just suck it through, just treading forward. A lot of people do it. I can't do it with my personality trait. I think it was about mid-20s. Reena: Interesting. Now, you were just at this Christian retreat, and in our interview together you asked the audience, "How many of you want to get married?" You shared with me that 60% of people end up in divorce, but how many people wanted to get married? You said that a good chunk of the audience raised their hands. What did you take from this Christian retreat that you just did? What stayed with you from that event? Benoit: That's a great question. I tie this back to my previous, previous, previous career as a teacher through Teach for America, where that's how I ended up in Philadelphia, and that it was my entry point into the nonprofit sector. I taught inner-city students, like the Black and Brown kids who had nothing, drive-by shooting on a weekly basis, some crazy stuff, and I thought, "Oh, I'm going to go in and teach them the subject I was teaching because I was a subject matter expert as a teacher, but the reality is I learned more from my kids. Their grits, their resilience, their emotional maturity, and tie that into your question where I thought I was going in to volunteer my time to babysit 65 high schoolers, which is tremendous hard work, but the reality was, I saw the kids being really emotional, witnessing a lot of God moments. We have this worship night where it's like a sober rave. It's like a raving. Kids just go crazy. They jump around, they sing in this dark, and all the kids are crying, they're hugging each other because of depressions, the lonely path, just being Korean Americans and that heightens pressure from our parents. Just seeing them I realized, "Wow, I might be farther in life than they are due to my age and experiences, but in terms of spiritual maturity or this thing that we call faith, some of these kids might have stronger faith than I do because they're in high school. The opportunity cost of them hanging out with their cool friends outside of this retreat because it's a two days retreat. Yet all of them, sure, some of them are parental pressure. It's a tradition, sure, but a lot of juniors and seniors, they chose to come to this retreat by giving up their technologies, phones, and cell phone for two days and just spend time with God and each other, and I realized, "Wow, there's definitely things I could do better in my spiritual life." Yes, I definitely learned in terms of how mature and how vulnerable, and how honest they are with their feelings. Because as adults, we're not always honest and straightforward with how we feel inside. Reena: How do they get the kids to do that in today's social media addict world? Benoit: I just talked about this too on my way back. It's funny. There is this "formula." I'm part of the church called Yongnak Church. It's one of the Korean megachurches in LA, and a lot of these kids they're like legacies. We call them Youngnak babies. Their parents used to be students and then the parents became teachers, and it's like almost like three or four generations. It's extremely, extremely internally interconnected. I think they have this unwavering trust with their peers and other classmates who are there, and I asked the kid who's in my small group, I asked him, his name is Ryan. I said, "How are you guys able to cry just so openly in 50, 60 people?" A, having dark lights, having the lights off helps a lot, so people feel like they can be more honest, and B, he said, it's almost more embarrassing to hold your emotions back when your friends are being so radically honest. To nerd out a little bit, it's a group psychology. It's a group flow. Why is music festivals, why are these concerts so riveting? Why do people emote and have these group almost psychedelic experience without the substances? Because you are moved by this collective entity and this collective movement. The psychology behind group flow is fascinating. Where a lot of people who go on riots and these very violent behaviors and these circumstances, a lot of those individuals by themselves they will never do such a thing. They will never even harm a fly, but you put them in this group where they're emoting, whether through anger, resentments or whatever emotions, positive or negative, they just get activated, and it's almost like the hormones are being synced. I feel like all that helps with people feeling more comfortable, but at the end of the day, it comes to emotional safety. They feel safe and they feel like it's a perfectly fine container for them to embrace their faith and for them to emote the way they feel called to. Reena: That's really beautiful. I have a couple of questions that came to mind when you were saying that. One, have you come across any doubters and be able to understand them? Then, two, have you ever studied true crime cases? Benoit: I was a forensic clinician for a year three years ago, and I did work with individuals who committed felonies, atrocious crimes, murder. I know true crime a little bit all too well because I've sat in sessions with individuals who've committed multiple murders and homicide, but they pled guilty to NGI, which is not guilty by their reasons of insanity. What that means is at the times of their crime, they're under psychosis or psychotic episodes, and these are not fakeable. The process to get to that NGI pleading is one of the most rigorous process. As a reference point, out of all felonies and all homicide charges in all of America, only 1% is eligible for NGI plea, and out of that 1% eligible individuals, only 1% actually get NGI. Because you have to prove by psychiatrists, medical doctors, and psychologists, multiple panels to show that you are actually under psychosis, which means you are not yourself, and it's true. These individuals who have committed three or four murders, who killed their mom, like Ted Bundy type, we have those individuals, they're in their 50s and 60s now because they've been under these programs for like years. A lot of them don't really remember the time of the crime because they blacked out or they're just under psychotic episodes. Yes, I definitely have some experience with true crime, which is why I was saying your research skills are forensic-worthy, but to answer your first question, yes, there are a lot of skeptics, but many of them they go there because of their traditions, and many of them go there because of their relationships of friends. A lot of these Korean American kids, their parents are tiger parents. There's so much pressure because a lot of their socioeconomic backgrounds are more privileged. They feel like they can't really complain. They have "everything planned out for them" just like a lot of Jewish families. It's similar backgrounds, where you're really well off. What are you complaining for? Just work hard, put your head down, study, go to the best college. Yada yada ya. They don't really have a space in their household to share their emotions and express their internal realities to their parents because they get shut down the moment they do that. I think that's why they come to these retreats. Just have two days of unplugging from everything and just be themselves, but not everyone there believes, but I think to me, God means love, and I think God works through relationships. Reena: I've heard you mention that you yourself had a tiger mom. What did that do to you in terms of life expectations? Benoit: That is a deep question. A lot. Quick trigger warning. It catalyzed some of my first few suicidality like suicide thinking, I wanted to cut myself, I wanted to jump off the building. My mom also used to fat-shame me when I was in middle school because I was so stressed. I moved from France and then Korea, and then Korea to China at the time, and I didn't speak the language, so imagine the frustrations. I remember I used to stress eat a lot so my mom would be like, "Oh, you're a pig." She'll use very abusive hurt languages. In terms of expectations, I thought that life were linear. If you do X, then Y happens. If you work hard, then life is guaranteed to do well for you. If you do this, then that, but as you know, Reena, life is not linear. Life is not linear by any means. You can do everything within your power, life still may not pan out the way you want it to be. Because if you think about this, we didn't even choose our birthrights. We didn't choose to be born. If we didn't choose our birth rights, it's laughable to think that we can exert influence on this thing we call life. It's a greater force than we are. I think I had a very unhealthy and distorted expectations of how life works. If I just work hard enough, I'll get into the college I wanted to be. Then for my senior in high school, I got rejected by every single college my mom asked me to apply for. My mom didn't believe in safety school. She only made me apply to top 20 in the entire country, and she literally said, "Benoit, you are my son. You have my genetics." She has insane CV and resume. She's like, "You have my genetics. You have God as your cheerleader. With those two things, you can achieve whatever you wanted to do." Then six months later, I got rejected by all schools. Waitlisted by two. I was depressed. I didn't know what depression was because I was 17, 18 at the time, and I got really, really down. I thought, "Wow. God must not love me. I must be a failure. My mom can do this. Why can't I?" I was an older sibling, so I also had the additional pressure of being the role model, being the best example for my younger sister, but it definitely screwed me up well, until the early of my 20s. Reena: Whoa. Have you been able to communicate that to her? How did you start that conversation? Benoit: Your show is called Better Call Daddy. If I had a show, it'd be called Better Call Mommy because I'm a mama's boy, for sure. Yes, we've reconciled, and we had conversations in my early 20s, my mid-20s, and even now. I'm moving through some family situations, as I shared briefly on our episode earlier, but we never saw a therapist together, but we've had a lot of heart to our conversations, and she is extremely open, and she's very receptive, and as with the power of age and time, her fangs and her claws of tiger mom falls off a little bit, just with the power of time. She softened out a lot, and she's become a lot more receptive. She started to believe in mental health because she didn't believe that for the longest time, but a lot of older generations, people, especially as a woman in her generation, she's 60 now, navigating that space in Korea. If you think women get treated bad in America, go to Asia or some of these countries, women have no rights. It's not possible. She had to build up all these calluses to protect herself. It's a protective mechanism, so I understand where she was coming from. I always empathize with her upbringing because I work hard and I'm pretty high achieving, but I will never amount to what she's achieved, and I'm not comparing. I hate comparison syndrome and comparison Olympics. It's just the circumstances I'm seeing this for objectively. I always understood where she's coming from and she always told me that- We talked about this earlier, where every parent is a parent for the first time, and if you think about what adults and parents are, they're just older children who are parenting their own children for the first time in their lives. I think that understanding helps a lot, but she's very receptive. She's not afraid to say sorry, and she owns up to some of her mistakes and she has a lot of regrets. At the same time, I wouldn't be where I am now sitting across the screen from you if it weren't for her to burden the shoulder of being a single parent for the longest time. Reena: I love that you said your show would be Better Call Mommy. That's really sweet, and it's truly amazing that you had that compassion for her and that understanding, even though those are some hard words to hear. I actually definitely had some body image struggles because I was very close with my dad's mom. She was like a second mom to me. I grew up with all four of my grandparents, and my dad had very thin sisters who my grandmother loved to shop for, and she constantly made comments like, "Oh, well, when you're skinny, you can fit into so many more things." She loved to feed me, but then when I got curvier, she also loved to comment on that, and I think I started dieting at 12 and I started having eating disorders in college. Even before that, high school, and it took a long time to get over that, and then even as a mom, oh my God, having kids really puts weight on your body and loving yourself through that and realizing that you're bringing life into this world and you need to be healthy in order to do that. How did you resolve those body image issues? Benoit: Before that, I just want to add where it's funny you mentioned the grandparents, their love. I think Jewish culture and Asian culture are very similar, where we express love through food. It's like the best vehicle for love. My grandma will always say that "Oh, Benoit, you look like you lost a few pounds. Eat up." Then next time she's like, "Oh, you look like you gained a few pounds. Let's cut back a little bit." I was like, "Grandma, what do you want? I can't do both. Do you want to feed me or do you want to starve me? Please don't do both. It sends too many confusing signals." Because there's a difference between eating disorder, which is ED clinically. There's also disordered eating, and unfortunately, a lot of men who work out very religiously and who are rigorous workout, former athletes. I'm also a veteran. I think we all have some a body dysmorphia that we move through. Even now, I have some disorder eating tendencies where it's not that I'm conscious about how I look because I'm happily engaged. I'm very fit. I'll always be fit because workout is just part of my life. At the same time, I don't truly know actually work through that entirely but to go back to the time I just referenced in terms of when I was being suicidal, when I was being fat-shamed by my mom. In my early adolescent days, I think I just had to recognize that I'm really stressed. I'm in a new country, new language, new friends. I'm being uprooted every single couple of years due to my mom's business at the time. I think I just chose to be a little bit more gracious with myself, and I think I overcompensated my body image concerns by working harder, by striving for achievements. It's almost like I detached my self-worth from my body image because I knew I wasn't able to lose weight right away to achievements and being a scholar, but then my sophomore in high school. A few years after the fat shaming incident, because that happened in middle school, I lost 55 pounds in one summer. I just have that willpower it's given where I started to get bullied in high school because I was the first international student at the high school in Orange County ever, ever witnessed. I was bullied very severely freshman year, and then I found football. I was like, "Wait, there is a sport you can legally hit people in the field?" That was a very healthy way for me to cope through my anger, and also, I just got sick of being bullied. I said, "You know what? I'm going to lose 55 pounds." I lost 55 pounds in one summer. I ate special case cereals. I cut a lot of weight. I started to run every single night. It was dreadful, but ever since then, I started to get a little bit better and more healthier with my body. Reena: I can relate to some of that insanity because you can control it, and I have perfectionism in my blood, and so, yes, once I figured out how to start losing weight, I just made myself do it, and it is painful. I blacked out and took diet pills and diuretics and you name it, I've tried it, but that's not healthy [laughs]. Benoit: Even now, if I have a big gorging incident over the weekend or something, I will go on like 24 to 36-hour fast, even though I do like the lucidity you feel from fasting because it's like an ancient practice and it has a lot of health benefits, but I'm very self-aware and I'm a clinician, so I can't lie to myself. I know deep down the reason for me to do that is still because of body image or the so-called physique or some disorder eating tendencies. I recognize it and I'm working through it too. At the same time, I know my body really well and I'm really healthy. I get sick once every five, six years. I'm an athlete. I do a lot of mind-body connections exercises. What I do and what works for me is definitely not for everyone, but at the end of the day, it comes down to, do you know your body well. Reena: I totally relate to that. I ate too much peanut butter trail mix over the weekend, and then the next morning I'm getting on the treadmill. Every single time I have something sweet or a piece of cake or something that I shouldn't that's off the diet or off eating healthy, I hop on the treadmill. Yes, it's still underlying with me too. I would like to talk a little bit more about Korea because I know that you, in your military service, ended up there. What was that almost? What was your military experience like in the time that you spent? Benoit: I was in Army Reserve and I talked a lot about on the show and when I was interviewed where my military experience catalyzed my first major depression, which was the entry points to this realm of mental health. Because as I alluded to earlier, I didn't believe in mental health because my mom didn't believe in mental health, and a lot of children we uphold our parents' and authorities' and teachers' opinions as truth, and we internalize those truths even though they're just limited opinions. I have a lot of gratitude towards that experiences in retrospect, but going through it, it was a wild whirlwind of journey. I joined the reserve to become an American citizen. They used to have this specialized linguistic program. If you speak one of the languages that's in high demand for strategic reasons, you test into it and then you can skip green card. You can literally go from foreign national into become American citizen in about four months. It's unparalleled. It's a faceted accelerator program. It's been discontinued because of Mr. Trump a while ago. I was the second to last cohorts they've ever admitted. I got really lucky with that, but when I joined, I did a lot of front loading, a lot of calculus. I said, "Let's think about the international arena," because my majors in college was international relationships and economics, because I wanted to become a diplomat. Since I speak three and a half languages, I'm multicultural, I thought it would be the right path. Of course, God had different plans for me entirely, but because of that, I've always had great pulse on international politics, and I thought, "We're in a pretty safe post-Bush era. There is no likelihood of warfare." This is, of course, way before Trump and all that. I thought, "I put my six years in. I get my citizenship and I get out, and you make decent money, decent benefit." Then lo and behold in 2017, Mr. Trump and Kim Jong-un, the dictator of North Korea, started to have some measuring contest of "I got the red button." "No, I got the red button," and remember, the tension was very high. We were fearful, is this going to be World War III? Mine was one of the 12 units in all of the US to get deployed to support the American troops stationed in the North and South Korean border, and the chance of escalation was pretty high, and I had to confirm my mortality for the first time that, wow, I have this three-year, five-year, seven-year plan. I'm pretty smart, I'm capable. I got work ethic, I got a great vision, but God is like, "Nope, not happening. You're going to get deployed internationally and you may die." I confronted and flirted with the idea of mortality that I'm just one of the infinite floating stardust. What do I know? A lot of times what we think how life happens is not how it happens. It unfolds the way it does. The deployment was canceled the day of because it was way too expensive, and we, fortunately, came to this de-escalation point, but I was passed to Kentucky for three months of rigorous training because Kentucky has similar weather as South Korea, which is very humid. We were under this climate-controlled training to get ready for mobilization. That's what we call it. Yes, for those three months, I was depressed. I was like, "This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. I'm going to die and I'm going to go back to Korea, not as a tourist and not visiting my family, but to be stationed at the north and South Korean border staring at the North Korean soldiers across the border." That is crazy, but that's how that was, but fortunately, everything calmed down and my deployment was canceled literally the day of when we're about to fly across the country, get shipped, and then I went to Coachella the week after to celebrate the difference between from potential death to life. Reena: Oh my God. Did that feel like a God moment? Benoit: Yes, and it's just so hard to describe that stark contrast going from majorly depressed to about to go across internationally for warfare to now in this beautiful California weather, not sober entire time, and just celebrating life and just hanging out with my friends who invited me. Yes, I couldn't believe how life worked, and that's when I realized, yes, life moves the way it does, and we have no influence or control over this thing that we call life. Reena: How are you surrendering now? Benoit: That's the biggest theme I think God put me on for the last three years with my multiple career pivots coming from Philadelphia, where I loved, to LA to support my fiance's medicine journey because she's a physician, and there's so many greater forces in life that are just beyond our control and amount of prepping it does nothing. It happens the way it does. In Stoic philosophy, because I love Stoic philosophy, a lot of people think Stoics are just emotionless people who fight on. That's actually not true. Stoics believe that you have to be honest with your feelings and you have to emote and release those feelings, but not for too long. Do it, and then you need to confront life and move head-on. That's Stoic philosophy at its core, and there is a philosophy in Stoics where I talk about, do not borrow unhappiness from the future because you're going to suffer, because suffering and pain is part of life. You're going to suffer by the circumstances of life anyhow. Why suffer twice? That's like the root of my answer, where I learned that over and over and over again. I think you can relate where I think I call it God. Some people call universe. God will instill and try to teach you the same lesson multiple times until you get that lesson. If you don't get that lesson, you're going to go through the same situations that looks differently and manifest differently, and I've gone through some of those four or five lessons, the same pain teacher just over and over again. I realize, God, you got me. I'm going to surrender. Your surrender is not giving up. You're giving in to a higher power, and that alleviates the pressure because if there's no God, we have to burden the pressure of uncertainties in the unknown. Humans are terrified of unknown. That's why pattern recognition works. It's, "Oh, let me check out the data points in my database. Let me pattern recognize. Let me look at some of the things in the past to predict the future," but the future literally means it hasn't happened. It's unprecedented. That's why pattern recognition is inherently flawed, but I think that's how I was able to surrender fully because I learned that hard lesson and I had to swallow that pill, I had to internalize it, and I think without this ability to surrender utterly. I'm not saying I'm perfect. Three years ago, it might have taken me three, four months to finally go to God and pray say, "God take me now." Now it would take me about a day. Within a day I will say, "God help me." Because I'll try to be resourceful and move through whatever situations and then go to God, but without that surrender I don't think I would have able to survive my three career pivots in seven years. Because all the careers I pivoted into were brand-new fields. No experiences, no connections. It's complete unknown, but now I love pivoting, I love the unknown because he keeps me exciting. Reena: Speaking of struggles, was it a struggle not to have sex for three years? Benoit: [laughs] Yes. That's funny. It's the most profound, challenging emotional training center I've ever gone through. Because I learned about self-control, I learned about creating systems like Atomic Habits by James Clear. Great book. The ethos of that book is about everyone has finite amount of willpower and discipline because that's also genetic variability. Not everyone is given the same amount of willpower, like David Goggins or Jocko, those people are given and birthed with a heightened threshold of willpower. That is a fact. Plus discipline, plus they work hard but they do have genetics. In the clinical literature we say about 20% to 30% is about genetics and 60% to 70% is about nurture, which is the environmental feedback where you grew up in. It's always both, nature and nurture. I have very high discipline. As I talked about, I lost 55 pounds. I chose to give up sex with my partner to address the internal moral and emotional incongruence and most people wouldn't able to do that and I able to initiate it and I had to realize there are some tough days. Sometimes temptation is really strong. Plus I lived with my fiance, who's now my fiancee now. It's not even like we're doing long-distance, we gave up sex, it's because we had to. It's like no, we chose to living and sleeping in the same bed, but I realized the importance of creating systems to ensure that what we want to achieve, the intention can be executed well, but yes, being hard is an understatement. I think we need a more challenging, deeper word than hard, but I learned a lot about myself and my partner and now we have this hyperactive, hyper-proactive communication channels and methods that we learned from those three years of profound experience. Reena: What gave you that idea? Benoit: Can I talk about psychedelics in this? Reena: Yes. Benoit: I'm an aspirational psychedelic assistant psychotherapist, I work at USC, got my masters at USC as well. My clinical orientations and my clinical focus is psychedelic therapy. I'm not here to explain the science because evidence is very robust. I tell people I'm not in the business of convincing. The evidence is out there. If you want to look it up, please look up and do more research after the fact. This is a little bit of long story, goes back to another thing where I had a sexual trauma in college, during my sophomore in college, and then that propelled me to this objectifying woman because it was a sexual assault by a woman because statistics is about one in seven men experience sexual trauma. Of course, woman that's like the more obvious, more explicit, but a lot of men experience that too and I fell victim to this. I was vindictive, I wanted to objectify woman. I said I got screwed over so I'm going to revenge back. I was never violent, and everything was consensual, of course, but I'm what people call a retired Fboy. Because I would never lie for sex, but it was very common, and therapy didn't help. Self-help books didn't help. My introspection level didn't help. Nothing helped. That allow me to move through sexual trauma until I came across psilocybin, which is magic mushroom therapy in 2017. Ironically, around the same time as deployment, this healed both of my traumas in 8 hours. I witnessed the efficacy of psychedelic therapy. I was like, "Holy crap, there is more to this just being a party drug you trip on a music festival." There's the implications, the potential for healing is a lot greater. I subscribe to psychedelic therapy. Reason why I share that, to answer your question, is every single year I trip at least once a year because one of the documented evidence for psychedelic is we call it neural reset. With stress and just things you go through in life, lack of sleep, your brains accumulates toxins in your brain. That's why sleep is a non-negotiable. Because by you going to sleep, your neurons in your brain are literally neurologically working hard to cleanse through those toxins and release those toxins in your sleep through neuroplasticity mechanisms. By shortcutting your sleep you're also shortcutting your process to clean out the neurotoxins in your brain, and psychedelics is an accelerated way to do a neural reset. It was completely cleansed and reset the toxins in your brain. I do it microdose once a year just for the sake of that neural reset, and I wanted to finish my time and chapter in Philadelphia before I moved to LA by doing a psychedelic trip. I did a full heroes dose, which is like 5 grams. It's a lot, but I have a lot of rational and clinical experiences. I also do research so I'm very well equipped because there are warning signs and red tapes, and during that trip I had a God moment. I think at that time I tripped at least 50 times in hundreds of hours doing psychedelics, but I've never had a religious experience that people have described it as. Mine was always lessons and sure, it was very insightful and colorways but never had this God moment until then. Let me try to describe this visually. When you close your eyes, psychedelic opens a portal to a different reality. I call it the reality behind the eyelids, and I remember seeing this river of dots, like a stardust. If you've ever been to Yosemite or National Park, like 2:00 AM, you can see the Milky Way. It's almost like you can touch it. Imagine that but inches away from your face, and I remember this just beautiful, majestic, indescribable beauty of this floating river of this floating stardust, and it was billions of stardust. It was like a river, and I just instinctively knew, reflexively I was like, "Oh, that's God." Not this God, this beard, Jesus figure that we think about, but the embodiment of what God is. I think it represents humanity, because in theory, if 8 billions of us can collectively wield our power together, we can rebuild pyramids in probably two minutes. We can empty out the Pacific Oceans in probably three minutes, in theory, but of course, it's not possible. Mechanically, you can't control 8 billion people every single step of the way, but I just knew that that was gone, and I had this thought, "Benoit, I know-" it's literally spoken from a first-person view to me. It's like, "Benoit, I always knew that every time you had sex, even with your girlfriend at the time," because we've been dating for a year and a half before we gave up sex, "You always felt a little bit guilty because of your Christian faith," after the words because it was premarital sex. "Why don't you take this opportunity to start a brand new chapter by leaving Philadelphia, by giving up sex, by recommitting to absence?" It was literally a thought while I was hallucinating and having this trippy experience in my empty apartment in Philadelphia, and it was unshakable. It's one of those two things that once you see it, you can't unsee it. I thought, "Holy crap. Am I about to give up sex?" I gave up alcohol shortly after as well. I've been sober from alcohol for three years now as well. I had a conversation the next day with Becky, my fiance, saying that, "Hey, this is what happened. I had a God moment. How do you feel about giving sex?" She said, "I felt the exact same way my whole life." She tried to give up sex with her ex-boyfriend of seven years. They lasted for a month, and they failed. I told her, "I'm different. I have heightened willpower. We'll systemize this. We'll create systems to make this work," and lo and behold, her and I, we agreed, and she shared the exact same faith as I do. She's very spiritual, and that's what catalyzed and prompted both of us to give up sex, but it comes down to the God moments and the religious experience from doing psychedelics. Reena: That is amazing. What has that done for your relationship? Benoit: It leveled up all domains of relationships. It taught us to communicate better, more proactively. It taught us to be more patient with each other because you get frustrated through arguments and you want to short-circuit the frustrations of having sex, using sexuality or lust as a crutch. We don't have crutch because it's just us and emotions. It taught us to not run away from our problems and confront it head on. It's different for me because that's who I am, but she deals with avoidance tendency like attachment theory, so she's a lot more avoidance. Confronting emotions is not easy for her as it's easier for me. She learned a lot from me and I also learned to be more gracious with each other's mistakes because there are steeps, there's highs and lows. Some days the temptation is really, really loud and we just learn to be more attuned with what we need in the moment versus what the society said you should. Because what we did is not popular by the societal metrics. You could relate because you did it for a year and a half. I think it really taught us to communicate better, but more importantly to really trust our guts and follow what feels right for us internally versus the external noises and external standards of what you should do. Reena: Okay, but talking about what feels right, it definitely heightens your level of sensitivity to any touch. She could probably brush by you and that would turn you on because if you're not touching at all then you're noticing every little touch, right? Benoit: Here is a high level of the parameters and the boundaries we did. We tell people that we lived a hermit and like middle school life. The farthest kingship we will do is cuddle when we go to bed. That is it. Reena: That's dangerous. Benoit: Yes, but we leave room for Jesus in the middle. There's always a gap. It's not that intimate, which is what middle schoolers and high schoolers do. We did that. We will hold hands, we will kiss, but there's no French kissing. You're just dabbing. Literally, like middle schoolers to create temptations. We become a lot more shy and innocent with each other. Even thinking about it it's crazy where I haven't felt that level of innocence and purity since I was in high school. Yes, it wasn't easy at all, but I think by creating systems it allowed us to rely less on our willpower and it was easier to be disciplined because we had these mutually agreed upon rules and systems and housekeeping rules that allowed us to do it. Then when we do get a little bit more skinship, AKA like cuddling a little bit longer or kissing for two seconds instead of half a second dab, we get these jolts of energy. We get that high school chills like, "Oh, that was scandalous." Of course, that's a joke, but I think it in a way sparked us and kept us relationship more exciting and we have more things to look forward to because we knew that we're doing this A, because we believe we're going to get married. If we knew it wasn't a lifelong partnership, why will we subjugate us under this torture? Because it was torturous, for sure, but yes, it kept our relationship more innocent and interesting in a weird way that we didn't really foresee beforehand. Reena: I think that's something that the audience should take note of because if you want someone that you're dating to experience what it would have been like to spend time with you as a teenager, try that on [laughs]. Benoit: The running joke is since now we recommit a sexual relationship with the engagement, we'll get legally married in like a month or two because she has great physician insurance, so I need the insurance benefits ASAP. That's half joke, half-truth. It's almost like because we had known about every other skeleton, there is no skeleton in the closet. You really have to get deep and you really have to know yourself and your partner. Now we almost joke like, "Wow, we're virgins again." We joked about us being virgins again, like being the chosen virgin. In a sense, it is true because it's not even like forbidden fruit like Adam and Eve. We knew the forbidden fruit because we've partaken in it for a year and a half before we recommitted from abstinence from sex. We're like we chose to be virgins again, and it does keep the sex life or the current romantic and sexual chapter a lot more, not enticing, but just a lot more worthy. Because we know we both chose the path of highest resistance. Now we're here on the other side, everything just a lot more fruitful, emotionally, relationally, romantically, sexually. The benefits are great, but I also don't want to say that, "Oh, all these were planned out. This was all calculated. That wasn't the case. The reason was very pure. Let's address our moral and emotional incongruence. That was it, but all these unintended benefits start to happen because when you make a decision in life, Reena, you embrace that decision. You don't look back. You just move forward. A lot of new pathways tend to open up. Reena: Okay, I love that you just said my name. [laughter] What would you tell someone who has experienced abuse and has not shared that with their partner? Benoit: I'm going to have to bill you for a therapy session afterwards for all the therapy feedback. That's a really hard one. It depends. It depends who the person is. It depends on their circumstances. It also depends on the level of psychological and emotional safety that's been established within their relational container. Instead of answering, I would ask, why not? What is stopping you from sharing your abused history or some of the more vulnerable and intricate sensitive details with your significant other that you say you love? Why not? What's stopping you? What happens? Because I think we have to meet where they are at, whether it's therapists and clients or humans to humans like we talked about, where I don't believe in advice because too much context is required. Who am I speaking with? What is their upbringing? What is their aspirations? What do they want? What is their goals? Likewise to your question, it depends, what are they hoping to achieve out of their relationship. Are you seeking a lifelong partnership? Is it just a season? Is it just a rebound relationship? Is it just for fun? Because the ultimate goal of every relationship, friendship or romantic or otherwise, it's all about finding the world safe again. Because what trauma and abuse does to you psychophysiologically, is you feel that the world is no longer safe. Because the world is unsafe, I have to do everything within my power to protect myself. It's survival. There's nothing wrong with that. If someone is not sharing anything that's vulnerable and very close to their heart with their loved ones, I don't pathologize that. I just view it as, "Wow, they're trying to survive in this world where they feel unsafe." I would rather instead of what's making you feel unsafe currently with a person that you love, if you've been dating that person for three or four years and you still feel unsafe emotionally, there's something there. I don't use the word good or bad, but I think it's worth examining the archives of your behaviors, the archives of your patterns and what characters or what behaviors that is contributing to you feeling unsafe to a point that you feel you can't open up wholeheartedly to this person who tells you that they will love you no matter what. Reena: That's a great response. I have a follow-up, too, because you mentioned after that happened to you that you became an Fboy. Do you think when men are abused that it changes something in their sexual wantings or desires or anything along those lines? Benoit: I can't speak for all men, so I'm going to speak for my experiences where there is actual neurological and genetical changes. The field is called epigenetics. Once again, not to nerd out too much, but I love neurobiology, so please stop me when this becomes a Ted Talk or a lecture. Genetics is the given subsets of DNA genomes, which is a DNA expression, that's genetics. Y chromosome, X chromosome, et cetera. Epigenetics is a study of change of DNA expressions based on your environmental feedback. What that means is a given subset of genetic foundations of the chromosomes and genomes, they're unchanged because they're fixed, but the DNA expressions of how you express those given subsets, they do change based on nurture. That's why the people ask, is it nature or nurture? It's always both. Epigenetically, it does create psychological changes in men, and it's not just men, women, men, whoever you are, anything that's traumatic. Because trauma is this word that people are allergic to nowadays, but trauma literally means a scar because it's a medical word. Physical trauma means you have a scar tissue. That's what trauma is, literally, but then that trauma creates a scar tissue, which creates a physiological change. I'm a former athlete. I'm a veteran. I used to be pretty rowdy as a kid. I used to do a lot of dumb stuff, jumping off the rooftops, whatever. I have like four or five scars around my body, and they're permanent. Physiologically, the physical trauma changes your physiology. Similarly, psychological-emotional trauma changes your psychology. Also not permanently. A lot of it can be reversed, but it takes a lot of time. I don't really know how that changes people's or men's sexual preferences or their sexual expression. That's probably what you're asking about. I don't quite know. At the same time, what I do know is hurt people hurt people. With my case, I was hurt, so I wanted to hurt other people. Because when you feel like your life is missing control, that your life is spiraling out of control, you have no control or pulse over how your life goes. How do you get that power back? You exert influence other people by hurting them and a lot of people and the reason why a lot of perpetrators- For example, this is a very dark and sensitive topic. A lot of kids with sexual trauma, let's say they were raped and abused by their father, by their mother sexually. A lot of times they become perpetrators themselves when they grow up because it's about priming and role modeling. Imagine the only ways you know how to cope through a relational conflict is through alcohol. Because you grew up under alcoholic parents. Guess what you're going to do when you go through your own relational conflict? Alcohol. It's not because they're incompetent. It's because that's the only reference in data points they have in their databases, and likewise, if you've been abused sexually by your parents or by elders, your cousins because a lot of sexual trauma and assault happens within families, people that you know of, that's statistically accurate, is you're going to replicate that behavior unconsciously without because it feels familiar, and familiarity comes with comfort. Nobody likes discomfort. I think the answer is yes, but that's a long one and the answer is to say, I don't know, but hurt people to hurt people traumatically. Reena: I appreciate that answer, and I think it really segues into a question from Patrick Martin, who you've done an episode with. He was interested in your experience moving into the therapy field and wanted to know about how your military experience helped you transition into that, and then how do you take these experiences and all of these things that you've talked about with me today and how do you share that with your clients? Benoit: Shout out to you, Patrick. Great guy, and shout out to you for the thorough forensic research. I think it also depends who I'm speaking with. I think the short answer is, it gives me a sense of relatability. Because I could tell them that, "Hey," especially with men clients, because a lot of men come into our session saying that, "Oh, this is pseudoscience. We're just going to talk about my feelings. What are you going to do just talking about feelings? You're not going to change me?" I say, "Yes, I'm not here to change you. I'm here to hopefully help you going from a place of stuckness," because that's what trauma is. You get stuck. "To go from stuckness to unstuckness," but therapy is the same thing as reading a book, journaling, talking to people. It's a space of self-exploration. We all navigate our lives based on the idiosyncrasies, our belief systems, our thoughts and feelings, and a lot of times, many of those are distorted, like the way we started this interview with we internalize our parents as truth. If you're going to navigate your life based on your internal thoughts and feelings and belief system, let's make sure that the operating system you're basing your life out of is accurate. Let's just start there, and that's how I approach my therapy where I'm just a GPS system with certain expertise in certain modalities. I'm just here to show you, turn left, turn right, but I often ask them, "Can you get to where you want to be by taking a detour or not following a GPS?" Yes, of course. It might take you a little bit longer, it might take a few additional detours, but you can get to the same destinations by taking a different path, but at the end of the day, Reena, I tell all my clients that I'm the expert of clinical psychology and therapy, but you're the expert of your own life, always. To answer your question, I think it depends on who I'm speaking with, but if there are men, I relate because I'm a veteran, I'm a former varsity athlete, I'm tall, I have a great physique. If they want bravado and machoism, I got them, but if they want more emotionality and being attuned with their emotions and redefine what being masculinity means. I don't like the term toxic masculinity because what does that mean? It's more about let's redefine what does it mean to be a man in 2023? Because, like I said, Stoics are real men. These are gladiators. These are the greatest philosophers of our- not our generations, but historically, and those men will cry in public. They would talk about their internal stresses with their trustees, and then they would confront it, internalize it, and move on with their lives. That's how I define a man, is do the difficult things, even if that means going to see a stranger who's a professionally trained therapist and talk about some of your vulnerability. If that's difficult, it's worthy, because being fearless and bravery isn't absence of fear. It's in light of fear, you're still dealing it. That's what makes it courageous and fear. I think my veteran and military experiences, some of my experiences, that a lot of people view it as a bravado, and what a real man does, I think, gives me additional entry points and relatability and comes down to creating a buy in for the clients to feel comfortable, to share what they're sharing with me, probably for the first time in their lives. Reena: That's amazing. I'm now interested in finding out what my dad thinks a real man is [chuckles]. Speaking of that, do you have a question for my dad? Benoit: Yes, I do. It's related to what a real man is because your dad sees and he gives his high-level, two-cent advice at the end of each episode, and he gives great advice by the way. I have a question for him which is, what does being a good father mean to him? Reena: That's a great question. I'm excited to hear what he has to say about that, and one final question for you coming out of the pandemic. How has therapy changed in the time that you've been in it? Benoit: Are you asking for as a consumer of therapy because I see a therapist or are you asking as a therapist? Reena: I'll let you pick. Benoit: I'll give you both. [laughter] Benoit: I'll keep them succinct. As a consumer of therapy, it's a lot more scarce and a lot more difficult to seek therapy because there's just so much demand, and the pandemic was about physical illness. It was a pandemic, but then there is the invisible, hidden epidemic, which is mental health. The suicide rate during the pandemic, the adolescents, little girls, one of the highest suicide populations is adolescent teenage girls because social media, unrealistic beauty standards, the eating disorder we started this interview with, it's staggeringly high. It's extremely concerning how many little girls attempt to take their own lives, or they do end up taking their own lives because of cyberbullying and because of the beauty standards through social media. That's the consumer side. As the therapist giving therapy. Therapists are making more money now because I think they're finally recognizing the role of therapists and because supply and demand basic economics. Because of the rise of demand, there is the rise of supply. I do see more people going to therapy who want to help people, who want to help reshape and reimagine a lot of people's internal reality landscape, which is really exciting to see. It's mixed because the rise of therapy cost is deterring a lot of people from a lower or more marginalized socioeconomic background. The barrier to service is a little bit more difficult for a lot of people. It's mixed, but I do see that a lot of people believe in therapy a little bit more, but I want to caveat that because whoever is seeking therapy, unless you're first-hand therapy seekers, you've already bought into therapy before. We need to target the population that hasn't bought into therapy, who has never seen therapists before because those people are often the people who need help the most. Even though they're desperately in need of therapy or any other help-seeking life coaching, whatever, therapy is just one of many vehicles for help. They're often not getting the help they need because seeking help is hard. Because to seek help, you have to recognize that you need help, and recognizing that you need help, first and foremost, I think is the greatest barrier, especially for a lot of men. Yes, therapy landscape has been interesting and mixed with upsides and downsides post-pandemic. Reena: It's also expensive. I would think that that would be a barrier too. Someone in my audience even said, why is it so hard to get in with a therapist? She found it to be hard, and like you said, the supply and demand thing, that she's been told that she has to wait weeks to get in with one. Benoit: At USC. I work at Keck Counseling Center at USC on campus. I serve all USC populations, undergraduates, and PhD students. Our USC clinic site, we serve about 21,000 students a year. There is 65 of us clinicians. Let me say that again. There's over 20,000 students seeking help every year, and the number is growing. There are 65 of us therapists. Of course, it's hard to seek therapy. Addition to that is, not all therapists are made the same. Just like not all podcasters are the same. Not all doctors are the same, not all chefs are the same. There are competent ones, and there are- I don't like the word competency because it's very bourgeois who decides competency, but not all therapists have the same capacity for healing. Even if someone can go through and move through all those obstacles and barriers to finally get linked to a therapist for intake session, which is the first session, you may realize that, wow, this is not a good fit. They don't understand me. They don't validate me enough. I don't like the approach or the modalities they're using. Because I often say therapy is like a buffet. There's many different flavors, so you have to try out different flavors, but if you don't like a single doctor you've seen, would you just give up on emergency medicine? Would you just never go to hospital again? Probably not. You probably shop for a new primary care physician. Likewise, if you have a "bad" or less than ideal experience with a therapist, I strongly encourage you to do more shopping and check out a different flavor, because there will be someone to your liking and there will be a goodness of fit, which is what we call. Reena: There will be a different flavor and you can Discover More. Benoit: Discovering more with us in Reena. Reena: Let people know how they can find your podcast, Discover More, and learn more about you. Benoit: Exceptional segue. I have a podcast called Discover More. It's a show for independent thinkers, by independent thinkers, with an emphasis on mental health, and if you listen to my new introductions, you will hear Reena's voice in the background as part of my intro. She was gracious enough to submit her recording, and I love a lot of esoteric topics. Of course, I know mental health and psychology the best, but I speak with Christian philosophers, I have podcasters on like Reena, I have entrepreneurs, I have pretty much anyone that I think have fascinating and unique stories to tell. Like Reena, I'm a story junkie. That's what I borrowed from her during our last month of knowing each other. I love highlighting the stories and elevating the voices they need elevated the most, but if you found any common grounds or interest with the way I view things, my output in life, how I navigate life, if you want to ask me any questions, feel free to connect with me on Instagram and social @discovermorepodcast. You can find my YouTube channel if you're more visual @discovermorepodcast on YouTube. If you're more audio listener, you can find Discover More Podcastwherever you listen to your podcast. Reena: Amazing. Thank you so much. Benoit: Thank you. Connect with Reena https://youtube.com/c/BetterCallDaddy bettercalldaddy.com linkedin.com/in/reenafriedmanwatts twitter.com/reenareena My dad and I would love to here from you, subscribe, drop us a five star review podchaser.com/bettercalldaddy ratethispodcast.com/bettercalldaddy
For more inspired edutainment, visit: www.bebettermedia.tvKey Points, Top Takeaways and Memorable Quotes - “So I wanted to understand the mechanical error that was taking place within my brain.” 9:27“As soon as I started treating that injury, my symptoms started to dissipate.” 10:36“It takes somebody exploring it themselves to figure out what works for them.” 15:35“CTE is like the cirrhosis of the brain if we use the comparison of the liver and the brain.” 16:04“The depression was beyond anything I could have imagined.” 22:16“You need other people to help you heal.” 32:06“Physiologically our bodies and brains react to physical and emotional trauma with almost the exact same response.” 36:09“These practices become part of your central nervous system's reaction to the stressors that you're feeling on a daily basis.” 57:05 “Wow, most of that anxiety began in my gut.” 1:00:08“If I was going to tell somebody this is the most important supplement you need to be taking, it would probably be vitamin D3.” 1:03:35“There isn't enough focus on how important it is, what we put into our bodies.” 1:07:29“Changing these thought patterns has been one of the most difficult parts of the process for me, right.” 1:12:35“There are no national standards of fitness for first responders.” 1:23:55“Trauma is the gift.” 1:28:37 Guest Bio - Pete DePrez began ASM Foundation as a means of providing healing to veterans and first responders suffering from PTSD. Pete spent over a decade working in Search & Rescue, SWAT and Sheriff's Deputy in the state of Colorado. "I believe the symptoms that are being diagnosed as PTSD are the result of injuries. When we heal the injuries, we resolve the symptoms." Show Notes - 0:00 - Coming Up on ‘What I Meant to Say'0:38 - WIMTS Podcast Intro1:02 - Welcome to Peter1:56 - Childhood Backstory & Beginnings of Head Trauma 7:48 - Being Diagnosed with PTSD9:47 - Symptoms of PTSD Mirror TBI11:00 - Founder of ASM Foundation11:39 - The Hard Part of New Healing Tools14:15 - How You Share Your Story Helps Other People 17:24 - Pay Attention to Early Symptoms 21:23 - Effects of Leaving the Sheriff's Office in Jan 202027:26 - At What Point Did You Realize You Need to Tap into Yourself?29:25 - WARNING: INTENSE Content - Did You Ask for Help During this Dark Time?32:10 - Started Dr. Gordon's Treatment34:15 - 10 Days into Treatment35:30 - Finding Grace for Yourself in the Process40:50 - Generational Discussion on ‘Suck it Up' Mentality43:48 - When Did You Realize Human Connection was so Important?43:56 - BB Commercial44:29 - Isolation Due to Anxiety of Human Connection48:37 - October 2021 52:45 - Goals Behind ASM Foundation53:33 - Stelic Ganglion Block 55:00 - Wellness Tools & Personal Responsibility59:57 - Back to the Anxiety Aspect1:02:03 - Supplementation of Vitamin D31:08:03 - Getting to the Root Cause1:11:26 - Look at Ice Baths1:12:57 - Jiu Jitsu Example 1:16:04 - Tools for the Law Enforcement World1:20:21 - 3 Key Elements Recognized for ASM Foundation 1:25:52 - One Piece of Advice is ‘Just Breathe'1:27:35 - Where Can People Connect with You?1:28:12 - Trauma is a Gift1:29:41 - Thank You1:30:15 - WIMTS Podcast Closing Links & Where to Find Peter -www.asmfoundation.competerdeprez@asmfountain.comIG - @asmfoundation
Pastor Gary Hewins' sermon on March 26th, 2023
Pastor Gary Hewins' sermon on March 26th, 2023
Pastor Gary Hewins' sermon on March 26th, 2023
Trauma is often the result of an overwhelming amount of stress that exceeds one's ability to cope. Depending on how you're affected, trauma may cause difficulties in your daily life. On this week's episode of Integrative Wellness Radio, we'll be discussing the connection between mental trauma and our physiological health and how that can actually manifest later down the line. Trauma is also described as an emotional wound causing a psychological injury. Most of us know that trauma affects us negatively, but we often fail to understand how that can actually play a role in our health, diagnosis, and symptoms. Leading the episode, Dr. Nicole alongside, Dr. Nick, will be shedding important insight on this topic and will help us understand how this emotional piece of the puzzle can affect us in ways that we may be completely unaware of. What you'll learn: Trauma can not only mentally affect you but can also take its toll on your physical health. What is transgenerational trauma and what are the ways to overcome it? What are the things that affect your judgments and triggers? Importance of having a value system and how it affects our decisions. How poor stress management can cause hormonal imbalances.
INTRODUCTION: I'm a professor, hypnotherapist, author, and advocate who has helped many people for the past 20+ years overcome trauma from PTSD, abuse (physical, sexual & emotional) & other mental health issues. In many cases, I may be the only person that my clients confide in regarding their sexual assault or rape. My mission is to raise awareness and convince people and parents that young children and teens must learn about grooming and targeting so that, as a community, we can reduce the number of sexual assaults against our youth. INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): · Sexual Victimization & Trauma· Reporting/Non-reporting · Me Too Movement · Victim Grooming· Religious Implications · The “Sex Talk” Is Not A One Time Event· How Molestation Affects Future Relationships For The Victims· Molestation Is Not Because Of The Gays!!!· Women In Comas Who End Up Pregnant · Possible Treatments – For The Victims & The Perpetrators CONNECT WITH DR. SMITH: Website: https://right2consent.com/Books: https://right2consent.com/#BooksTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@right2consentLinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3SpKsp3Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/right2consent/?hl=enTwitter: https://twitter.com/@right2consentFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/right2consent/ CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comWebsite: https://www.DownUnderApparel.comTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sexdrugsandjesusYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonPinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/SexDrugsAndJesus/_saved/Email: DeVannon@SDJPodcast.com DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS: · Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs · OverviewBible (Jeffrey Kranz)o https://overviewbible.como https://www.youtube.com/c/OverviewBible · Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (Documentary)o https://press.discoveryplus.com/lifestyle/discovery-announces-key-participants-featured-in-upcoming-expose-of-the-hillsong-church-controversy-hillsong-a-megachurch-exposed/ · Leaving Hillsong Podcast With Tanya Levino https://leavinghillsong.podbean.com · Upwork: https://www.upwork.com· FreeUp: https://freeup.net VETERAN'S SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS · Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org· American Legion: https://www.legion.org · What The World Needs Now (Dionne Warwick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: · PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon TRANSCRIPT: Dr. Lisa Smith[00:00:00]You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: Hello everyone, and welcome to episode number 92 of the Sex Drugs In. Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. Dr. Lisa Smith is a professor, a hypnotherapist, an author, and an advocate who has helped many, many people over the past 20 years to overcome all kinds of sexual trauma and P T S D and physical and mental and emotional abuse and all kinds of stuff.Y'all Now, in this episode, Dr. Smith and I are gonna be focusing [00:01:00] particularly on child molestation elder. Victim grooming, religious implication, and various things like that in the sexual arena. This episode touches on serious issues within our society that are severely understated. So I hope y'all get a lot out of this episode and share it with somebody you know.Hello, are you beautiful people out there? And welcome back to the sex drugs in Jesus podcast. Yes, Jesus is your friend. He's my friend. And if you don't believe in anything at all, then maybe you will one day. Today I have with me Dr. Lisa Smith. She's an author and advocate and professor. This woman has over 20 years of experience as a counselor and a hypnotherapist.She considers herself to be an advocate for the masses of those suffering from trauma and abuse. She's professor of psychology, criminal justice, and Human services. Girl, how you doing today, ? Dr. Smith: I am beautiful. And that is [00:02:00] my mantra. Hello, beautiful people. So I am doing really good today and I'm very grateful to ha to be on your show.De'Vannon: Well, thank you for setting us out an hour of your life, Dr. Smith. You know, all the resources we burned through in this life and that we can create more of time. time is one of those things that we just can't get back any more of. And so for you to set aside an hour of your irreversible resource, you know, irre, replenishable resource with Little O Me, you know, it is not taken for granted.I appreciate you mentally. Dr. Smith: Thank you so very much, and I appreciate you for spreading this important message because I don't think we have this conversation enough with all the conversations we could be having. I think this is one we definitely need to have a lot more of, especially when you're talking about trauma and [00:03:00] sexual.De'Vannon: So y'all, well, you might be questioning what trauma will we be talking about today? Cause we talk about a lot of trauma on this show for the day, we're talking about sexual victimization of everybody from Little Childrens all the way up to old people. Before we hopped on this Zoom meeting, Dr. Smith was telling me about the sexual assault of elders, like in her state.She's in Florida. And I was like, okay, well fuck, I never thought about people trying to like do sexual things to incapacitated old people. And, but you know, we're gonna talk about that, you know, you know, later on here. So tell us, you know, so tell us about your, your educational training. You know, you are a doctor.Where did you study? What did you learn? Dr. Smith: Absolutely. Well, I live in Florida, but I am a New Yorker, so I studied at the, in, in CUNY City University of New York at City College. I'm shouting out my alma mater. I also received my [00:04:00] doctorate. I got my bachelor's in my master. There and I received my, my doctorate from Walden University.And then I also have a criminal Justice Masters from Johnson and Wales University. And one of the things I am is the advocate for sexual violence because most of my training has been with trauma, trauma with foster to care kids, trauma with young girls as well as boys. I work with juveniles who were trying to move from the prison system out of the as in diversion programs.And they have a lot of sexual assault history. But I'm a hypnotherapist. I've been a hypnotherapist since oh six. I've worked in a lot of social programs. And what I find is that sexual trauma is most prevalent. So let me give you the stats. One in four girls, one in six boys. But I believe that that is much higher simply [00:05:00] because these are the people that we know have reported.And as you and I know, many people don't report. They tell their story, but they don't report. And so for, especially for the males, those who are themselves, sexual assault victims as well as predators in the juvenile justice system, you find a lot of both, right? Because they were sexually assaulted and they modeled that behavior.So in 2006, I I was working in a. Delinquency program and I was asked if I would be interested in hypnotherapy, which I had not considered, but the subconscious is where we hide or code that trauma through our sensory memories. So it, it was apropo for me to be able to use that technique to actually hit the trauma much quicker than you will in talk therapy.Most of the time it can take anywhere from one to [00:06:00] six meetings, but usually about three meetings with me and that trauma is exposed and you can start moving f from that. So that's, that's my background. And I, like I said, I'm a professor as well. I teach at University of Arizona Global Campus in the human services programs.We have a bachelor's, master's, and PhD there where I work with graduate students. So that's my background. De'Vannon: There's nothing wrong with that. You know, I'm a, a hypnotist as well. I went to school for that and learned you know, all about it. And I, I was gonna pair it with my massage therapy certification that I have it.In the process of learning hypnotherapy, I realized just how how much help I needed myself, and then I decided that I didn't need to be doing that on anybody else. And I, and I turned my training inward and used it to heal me and Dr. Smith: so beautiful. I love De'Vannon: that. , like Dr. [00:07:00] Smith is saying, hypnotherapy is real.And she's not talking about make people quack like ducks on stage or see if they're afraid of cotton and all, all this crazy shit. You see, like on talk shows, we're talking about a therapeutic approach and it's often paired with like psychologists and sociologists or social workers rather, and things like that.And it is totally done in a clinical setting. The education is accredited. Look it up, people. Hypnotherapy is real. There's all kinds of mental health services out there. Maybe hypnotherapy can work for you if nothing else has. So Dr. Smith also wrote a series of books. There's a couple for parents, a couple for kids.The titles are interesting. The first one is called Chad Keeps a Secret. The other one is a yes. Aaliyah can't tell her secret. Yes, those are the ones for parents. It's called the blaming and shaming of defenseless victims in America's rape culture. And y'all, the statistics and things we're talking about today are for the United States of America.We're not talking [00:08:00] globally. And then the other one is overcoming trauma. Is there anything you'd like to say about these four books that you have contributed to the world? Dr. Smith: Absolutely. So the children's books are so that we can start talking to children about sexual violence simply because, Most children under the age of eight will be approached by a sex offender.And many of them don't know what to do when they're asked to keep a secret. And so Chad Keeps a secret, was named by my, my niece Chad Bozeman had just died. And she thought that it would be important for her to name the character Chad in his honor. Now, of course, Aaliyah can't tell. Her secret has everything to do with Aaliyah.Just be clear. The, the characters in it are Aaliyah and [00:09:00] Robert, right? Because I don't want us to know that as a community. We slept on Aaliyah. We knew what was happening with r Kelly, and we did nothing. So this is homage to her. So that people are aware that yes, your teen too can be in a sexual situation that she is not consenting to.And even though we have what we call Romeo and Juliet laws that oftentimes people are not aware that 36% of sex offenders are juveniles or they're consenting with older adults. So those are five to nine year olds. And then we have the the blaming and shaming of defenseless victims in America's rape culture.Why is that? Because we use this theory Now, this is a theory that I devise, you'll find it in my book. That book is specifically [00:10:00] for parents, teachers college student. I wanna know more about how we encourage rape culture in this, in the United States, how we deny, or what we call denial, which is part of dis theory, d i i S, we deny we do not act, which is inaction and information suppression.So basically what we do as a community, as a friend is oftentimes we say, no, that couldn't have happened. Most of the time we are not saying, I believe you. I wanna help you. What can I do to help you? We deny we don't provide action, we don't report, and then we suppress the information. So we have a large number of undetected sex offenders out and about making their way to another vulnerable victim, whether that be a child, a teen, or an adult.So those are my books. They're [00:11:00] available on Amazon, but they're also available on my website. Which is a crime reporting website right to consent.com. And that's the number And that is report? De'Vannon: Yeah. And that's the number two. And I'm gonna put her website, it's right, the number two consent.com. And I'm gonna put all that in the show notes along with her social media and everything like that.I'm curious, what, what got you particularly passionate about this subject matter? Did something happen to you when you were younger or someone you know? What sets you on this Dr. Smith: trajectory? Ironically, there four girls in my family, three have been sexually assaulted. I have not been sexually assaulted, but when I was nine years old, my.Cousins were kidnapped and taken to Saudi Arabia because their father wanted to practice Islam from the origins. And when I saw my cousin [00:12:00] again she was 12 years old. She was a child bride, and she had a baby. And so for a long time I was afraid of the Islamic faith. I didn't know much about it.But I learned a lot about what my cousin would went through. Not only was she sexually assaulted in her marriage as a child bribe, but she was de she, she also faced physical violence. So like I said, the, my, my quest is, , how do we reduce the numbers, eradicate the issue because that was so personal to me.And I have my other cousin who was also married at a, a young age, but she was able to consent the, the sister of my cousin at the time. So, you know, that for African American [00:13:00] girl was a startling revelation. Should I say that this was accepted practice in another part of the world and that child brides can be found in so many places in this c in this world.De'Vannon: Tell me what, what is, how do you feel like the Me Too, the me Too movement compares with what you've studied here and what you've written about? Dr. Smith: Well, I think that the Me Too movement. Kind of piggybacks off of what I call the, the kids too movement, because many of the young people in, not young, but older people in the Me Too movement was sexually assaulted as children, as teens.For many of these women and men, their first sexual this first sexual, [00:14:00] I don't wanna say event, was forced or forcible rape or sexually violent. It wasn't consenting. And so when you say Me Too, the question is what does me, what's the foundation of Me Too? Are the women and men saying that I was a child when I was first sexually assaulted under the age of 10, right.Prepubescent ages, or was I a teen under the age of 18? Right. And so, . The reason why I say that's important because if you are sexually assaulted as a child, you are depending on your race and, and gender, you are. If you're African American, you're 35 times more likely to be sexually assaulted in again.And the sexual assault repetition [00:15:00] is increased when you're under the age of eight. So sexual assault can happen again in your teens and many times the people in Me Too have been sexually assaulted more than once. . Okay. And that's why I think it's significant because depending on your age, will determine the likelihood or your vulnerability of being sexually assaulted again in the future.And that's why I think we need to start having these conversations much, much earlier so that children know how to talk to an offender because the parents aren't gonna be there to save them, if that makes sense. De'Vannon: Right. And we'll talk about those parents in a, in a minute, cause I've got my opinions on, on, on parenting when it comes to the topic of sex.But what, what would you say, I'd like you to give a word of comfort to people out there who have been victims [00:16:00] of sexual assault, either once or multiple times, but, and they may be thinking like, why does this keep happening to me? What am I doing wrong? Why is it my fault? What would you say to them? Dr. Smith: Well, one is the, the fact that we don't talk to our kids and teens about sex.In fact, we usually, if we're talking about sex education classes, they don't come around until the child is in their teens. But what about all those other stages and ages? One is about vulnerability. The other is about what do I do if I'm in this situation? And we don't have those conversations if we're not having conversations about sex.And sometimes that's religious based, right? And sometimes that's cultural based and taboo. But if we're not having these conversations, then how does this child know that I can be in this scenario and how am I going to out of this scenario unharmed. Right. [00:17:00] And and, and that's what I think is missing, right?How is a child victim? How is a one child more likely to be victimized than another child? Right? And, and, and the question is, is how savvy are they when they are approached by someone who, let's just take teens, for example. If you've never had sex and you don't know what to expect and nobody has told you what to expect, even if you say no, somewhere along the line that consent, because we have a lot of issues with consent in this country, that consent may be disregarded.Right? And why is it disregarded? Because we have a culture in which there's this that no doesn't mean. , right? We have movies that show No, no, no, no, no. And then acquiescence, right? So we have these these cues that we're [00:18:00] giving teens as well as young children that just because you say no, that does not mean that you have agency over your body and that the person who is wishing to violate you has more power and control over you.Okay? The other is that what scenario is that child gonna be placed in, and how savvy are they to maneuver their way out of it not to be harmed? And so that's what I believe the issue is. We need to talk about it more often. We need to provide scenarios to young teens as well as children, so that in the event they are approached, they know how to act and respond.And they know that secret keeping is not part of the equation. De'Vannon: Can you give us an example, either from your experience or one of your books as to how a child or somebody who's about to be a victim or has been can act and respond?Dr. Smith: [00:19:00] Absolutely. So in one of my books the blaming is shaman of defenseless victims.I have a boy at the time, he was five years old. His cousin had approached him 11 years old. Grandma goes to the grocery store, his cousin's supposed to be in the house, right? Because 93% of people who are most likely to victimize your child, they're known, they're acquaintance, they're a family member.And let's be clear, so he's in the home with his cousin, she's 11. Okay? And they play this game of touch, right? And, and pleasure. . So he doesn't know as a five year old that this is something that he shouldn't engage in, but it feels good to him. So he allows it. It's a secret. Grandma's not here. So we're gonna keep this secret.And this goes on for up to a year. Every time grandma leaves, they are both touched, they both touch each other. Right now, if we were [00:20:00] to do a rape kit, there's no evidence, right? But yet this is still happening. So how does a child combat that one? , they need to know body boundaries. They need to know that even if this is your cousin, this should not happen.There needs to be a conversation that nobody should touch your body outside of washing it. Right. Because there are times where older adults and older siblings are responsible for taking care of their younger siblings, but that child needs to know that their body shouldn't be touched in a certain way.Those conversations for that five-year-old didn't happen. And so now we see him as an adult. He has a lot of sexual addiction. He also modeled some of the behaviors as he was growing into a teen. And so he looked for, for other girls that had some sexual assault history because [00:21:00] it was easier for them to consent, if you will.Right. I have lo loads of stories where I had someone contact me on Instagram. Four year old daughter is being anally raped by her dad, but the courts don't believe her. The cops don't believe her. She's gone to C P S C P S refused to do a refused to do a wellness check and a, and a bodily check.They just took the report and because she has drug abuse history, they did not investigate. Right. So my. , my advice to her was go to the hospital. They're required to do a check after she comes from her father because it's court appointed that he sees her every weekend [00:22:00] after she comes from her father to get that report.And a doctor providing that report can easily be taken to the courts to say there's some anal fissures, which she, which they did fine. And there's lacerations around the anus. So, so as I said before the goal is not for your child to be victimized or for a, a child to experience this. The goal is to keep them safe, but it's happening.So what do we do now that we have to be reactive instead of proactive? Well, De'Vannon: that brings me to my issue with parenting. So like growing up here in the south, in good old Baton Rouge, Louisiana. , you know, they didn't talk about the s word, you know, they didn't mention sex. They kinda left it to the church into the school, which is like nothing.And so and, and like, and like you're saying when the, the talk, the sex, the birds and the bees does [00:23:00] happen. A per a person's a teenager or whatever, they already got hard dicks and you know, and everything's already been happened by then. But we started experimenting with each other's body parts when we were like in kindergarten, you know, we were already curious at that age.And so I learned about sex from like red shoe diaries on Showtime and real, you know, real fucking Right, right. And so, I agree with Dr. Smith. The only way to safeguard your child against a sexual predator is to establish boundaries as soon as that child is gonna be being outside of your sight. You know, because you cannot control what the hell is gonna happen to your child when they're not there.Education is the only way in keeping that door open. The sex talk is not a one time thing. It's supposed to be an open dialogue that that kid can always come back to you and be made to feel comfortable and safe and not weird. And then if something [00:24:00] does happen, then that bridge is already built. You know, here in the south it's like, it was like the big parents and little kids, you know, the adults over here, the kids over here, they always had this gap between us.And so I never felt like I could go to an adult with any fucking thing. And so, right. You know, when I was 15, I was the older boy in my church and they, the choir director was like 21, 22 and he took an interest in me and we were dating or whatever, and we'd meet in the back of church and make out the adults I guess acted like they didn't know or whatever.And this went on for months and he was running around trying to intentionally give people H I v aids is what he was doing. And so, wow. As an adult, looking back on it, And the, and it, it had to be fucking clear, you know? I'm like, why the fuck didn't any of the adults in this, in this church say anything?They just let me, let this, let this [00:25:00] 22 year old man do whatever the fuck he wanted to with my 15 year old assDr. Smith: Can I bring my criminal justice background in here first?first. They're, they're equally as liable nowadays. Now that the laws are changing, parents as well as guardians are starting to be held accountable for stuff like that. But when we talk about consent laws and age of consent and ability to consent to a certain type of sexual relationship 14 used to in, in, if I'm not mistaken, in Louisiana.14 used to be the age, but they pushed that up if I'm not mistaken, to 16 and that, and it's been 16 probably for decades. Right. So if you're saying that this happened at [00:26:00] 15, that man could have, cuz he's a man after 21, after 18. Right. That man could be responsible. And many of the laws now are changing that they are allowing people to report abuse.That was depending on the age. Of course, if you, if you were a child, you have a lifetime of reporting. But if you were like you, you, a teen, usually some only allow 10 years. Some might allow 25 years. It depends on the. If that makes sense. So that's my criminal justice history. But the fact what, what I need, need the people out there to know is most of the community knows the sexual predator and knows the sex offender.Right. And I'll just throw a question out there. Which one of your family members was suspect that your mama told you Stay away from? Right. Stay away from him or tell [00:27:00] her because they up to no good. Right. Most of the time the community knows first why. is it that they don't engage? It's cuz let's be clear, it has everything to do with who is the person responsible for this victimization?Are they a pillar of the community? Is it a pastor, is it a deacon in the church? Is it a authority figure? Is it a head, a principal at, at the school? Is it a teacher? A lot of times parents will not report because they don't want one, their business to get in the street. And two, they don't wanna be the parent that was not paying enough attention to their child to have and, and victimization occur.Right? So that's denial, inaction, information suppression, dis theory at the top. [00:28:00] Correct. De'Vannon: And you know, parenting is, is not like a cute thing. But it is treated cute. You know, whenever you hear somebody say, they usually don't wanna have a kid. , it's really to the benefit of the parent. You know, you don't really have a child for the child's sake, you know, the kid does not exist until you create them.You create them for your own entertainment or for your own pur purposes, or you want something to love. It is completely selfish to have a child. I don't mean that in a judging way, I just mean it in a truthful way. Not going to adopt a kid that's already here is a little bit different because you're trying to help somebody in a fucked up situation.But the whole point is once the kid gets past the cute rosy phase, you know, you know, there's actual like a lifetime of accountability and it's like a job to be a parent, you know, and everything like that. And it is not just this cute thing, you know, cute kid. You want it to help save your marriage or to help you feel good about yourself or to help you have something love.You know that that person. A, a living ball of emotions and con [00:29:00] consciousness and decisions and things and, and yeah, I, well, I'm saying all this is say, I don't think a lot of people think very deep into the weight of parenting and they get caught up in the emotion of fulfilling the American dream. And then when all of these mm-hmm.things come up, they fall short because they really didn't think about what the hell they were getting into when they decided. Dr. Smith: Right. And, and here's the thing. If that person who's victimizing your child happens to be within your family, families break up for this, right? If it's a father who is victimizing their daughter or their son, , what does that mean to split up the household, right?If it is a nephew or a c a a, a favorite cousin who's victimizing your child, what does that mean to the family as a unit? What parent wants to [00:30:00] turn in their son or daughter, right? What family wants to deal with the fact of sexual assault? And I get it, however I'll give you another case. Girl is 16 years old.Her, she's in her aunt's house. Her pa, her sh her family is there because they lost housing. And it's not uncommon for aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and cousins to be living in the same house at grandma's house. But at night, she was expected to sleep on the couch. So her uncle would come in, have his beer, feel her up.Go home, go and get in bed with his, with his, with her aunt and sh and her mom slept in another room with her younger siblings. And that was a every night occurrence. But when she brought, she brought it to me. I'm a mandatory reporter, so I have to report this. One of the first things I do is contact her mom.And her mom cusses me [00:31:00] out. I'm gonna make her lose her housing. Her sister's not gonna talk to her anymore. And I, me, the counselor is gonna cause her to be out on the street. I can't tell you how many times people have cussed me out to keep their child safe. I've had a father tell me he was gonna come up to.My job and whip my ass and he don't know me cuz I'm like, listen, I'll give you what you looking for. I get off at five o'clock and I have no problem meeting you. I don't bullies. I'm sorry. Not I ain't your wife and I ain't scared of you. Yes, I absolutely will report this, but I won't be by own myself either.Okay. I'll not be by myself. So call me again. I will give you what you looking for. De'Vannon: He said he ain't about that life. You ain't about that life.[00:32:00]Dr. Smith: I'm not the one. Absolutely not. I, I know that this is a thankless job, but the question is, well, what child in your family do you wanna be harmed? How do you wanna mess with their sexual identity? Because let's be clear. Sexual assault. I'm not talking about sexual orientation, I'm talking about sexual identity.I'm talking about the way they experience pleasure. I'm talking about the way their ideas of sex after they've been violated. I'm talking about how they feel about their own body, their own agency over their body, and how long that's gonna last, right? Is it gonna last into their twenties? You best believe it.Is it gonna last into their thirties, their forties and fifties? You best believe it. We've got 60 and 70 year olds who had sexual charma, and I'm still the first one they told. Hmm. Okay. And what did that mean for the way they, they [00:33:00] received touch, right? Did they find pleasure? Were they out of their body?Are they still numb from something that happened so many decades before? . Right? That's what I mean about sexual identity. You and I, we love sex just as much as the next one because it's pleasurable and it's orgasmic. But what does that mean for a child who's just entering that sexual world and they've been violated and victimized?How will they experience sexual pleasure in the future? And why are we as a community so careless about the fact that we are creating these damaging individuals? Sexual addiction isn't a joke, but let's be clear. There is a link between those who are sexually addicted and sexual assault. Okay. And the way in which promiscuity plays out in their life.[00:34:00]Is that a bomb dropper? De'Vannon: No. I'm just thinking about some people that, well, you know, some people that I know. You know you know, and wondering, you know, what the possible link, just ask them. Dr. Smith: Ask them. I, I, listen. Sexual addiction is linked to sexual assault or victimization or violation in the youth, in their youth.And many of them have repressed it so deep that they don't know that they're being triggered every time they're in a sexual, sexual situation. De'Vannon: So do you find that people who've been sexually assaulted are not emotionally present, they're just kind of like doing the act of sex or what, what, what do you.[00:35:00]Dr. Smith: So there I, yes, I'm gonna say yes to that because there are people who the violence was so frequent that they left their body right, and so they're emotionally lo numb. It's what we call dissociation, right? And we leave our body if we are in threat, right? But if it happens so frequently, then we are no longer emoting properly.So if you are in, for example, if you are in a car accident and you felt that you were going to die, right? You dissociate, meaning that you go into a shock and you freeze. But in that freezing, you disconnect from that emotion, those emotions that may prevent you from reacting and responding. So then we respond.Physiologically, but we are not aware of why we're doing it. Our body mobilizes us and that happens a lot. [00:36:00] So when we are sexual, when, when, when we are sexually assaulted, and that brings sexual violence, right? It is painful. It is harm. Hurtful. It is. And, and you, you stop having control over your own body regardless of the age you dissociate.And it doesn't mean that you return. So for many people, they don't experience that pleasure. They have to have this real intense either roughness. It's the same thing with substance abuse issues. Many people who have substance abuse issues use that as a form of escapism to escape the fact that there's all this trauma in their background.Okay? And they can't. Prevented because they're constantly being triggered by sensory experiences, smell, taste, touch here. Okay. And all the [00:37:00] time they're triggered. It brings them right back to that place because like I said, there are some people who are can, can absolutely cannot move past the trauma. And sometimes talk therapy doesn't allow them to do that.And some people don't even get any kind of therapy, so they just go on. But they're still in that state and they've made a decision. Every time we make a life threatening choice, we make a decision. Sometimes it's an eight year old making that decision. Sometimes it's a 12 year old making that decision.Sometimes it's a 25 year old or a 65 year old making a decision. But we do make a decision about our lack of power and control. De'Vannon: So I have a question about the gays. So when I was in my, it's the gays , right? But when I was in my mid twenties, I, I used to be heavily involved at Lakewood Church in [00:38:00] Houston, Texas, you know, under Joel, Joel and Victoria Osteen.Once they found out I wasn't quite as straight as they would've liked me to be after questioning who I'm dating and stuff like that, I was fired from volunteering and basically told that I was a threat to the children that I was working around just due to my sexual orientation. And so, since the church has this belief that gay men want to lurk around the church to fuck their little boys, I'm, I'm curious if you've seen this in your practice, cuz the church acts like every child molester has to be a gay.Dr. Smith: Okay, so first I wanna say I apologize immensely that that happened to you. As you were saying it, my heart was dropping and I had a little ping. Okay? They are wrong. As soon as I see their psych degree, I will revisit this, but they are wrong, and they had absolutely no [00:39:00] right to tell you that you are a predator.Let's be clear, gay does not equal predation. Let's start there. If y'all didn't hear that before, gay does not equal predation. More importantly, when we start looking at the research, the research says that if you are a sex offender or a predator, you most likely have a. , okay. It has absolutely nothing to do with sexual orientation.It has everything to do with your sexual proclivities. What are you attracted to? There are some male as well as female, and it does not necessarily mean that it is a gay relationship, a bisexual relationship, a transgender relationship, an intersex relationship. Let's get it all out there. Or pansexual, I can go on.This is [00:40:00] about are you attracted to a certain type of minor? Are you attracted to prepubescent? Are you attracted to pubescent? Are you attracted to a certain kind of individual? Now there are those who were born that way, has absolutely nothing to do with sexual orientation. More importantly, if Joe Stein can show me his psych degree.I listen to him, absolutely listen to him. But the days of homosexuality as a disorder in ERA have long passed. Okay? The D S M does not recognize homosexuality as a disorder, right? So let's be clear. Religion often takes a stance that's not validated by research science [00:41:00] or any other human behavior, okay?The fact that many people think that a gay man or a lesbian woman can influence their child in such a way means that they have very little information about the way in which a child not adopts, but is born into a certain sexual orientation. . Okay. So you being a gay does not influence me To be gay does not influence others to be gay.You might serve as a model, meaning that you might be someone that a young gay boy can come and talk to about experiences because they themselves are gay. Okay? But it's not to say that you would somehow, because you were interacting with this child, rub your gayness [00:42:00] off on them, if that makes sense. Okay.It is bullshitand you know when people come up with this or if, when people perceive these incorrect and ignorant thoughts, it's not a threat. That you, it's not that you are a threat, it's that they are a threat because they go around preaching this to others and it's totally and completely inaccurate. But I always tell people, well, as soon as I can see your psych degree, then I will listen to you.But outside of that, if you've sat in as many psych classes and hypnotherapy classes as I have to be not only just to get the degrees, then you might have something to say, but I'm certain that it's not gonna be what they're saying. So again, I apologize for that because [00:43:00] they are authority figures and people listen to them as if their words and thoughts are truthful and factual.Mm-hmm. , and that's bullshit. , whatever they came to you with, that's bullshit. But I'll tell you what, nothing in this life happens for a reason you weren't supposed to be there. And who knows what, what they might call Joe Osteen and his wife in the future, right? Because oftentimes we don't see them work acting godly.But that's another show, right? , that's another show. And more importantly, what would Jesus say? Jesus will probably let you through the Pearl gates quicker than they, than will let them through the pearl gates. And that's just my 2 cents. De'Vannon: Hallelujah. [00:44:00] Tabernacle and praise on that. Well, that's all I'm gonna say.I appreciate your, your kind words and when I was researching you, this word grooming kept coming up. Yes. , what does it mean in the sense of children or, or grooming that this, what is this Grooming? Dr. Smith: Yes, grooming is such a powerful word. The horrible thing is that a or a offender or a predator, most of the time a predator will groom a family, meaning that they will gain your trust and that trust will can span years, right?Because one thing about offenders is they, they wait, they wait to build the trust between the parents so that the parents releases the child to the predator or the offender's care. So they can isolate and withdraw that child so that the grooming process can start. And [00:45:00] that basically means give the child to trust them, give the child gifts, give the child's praise, attention, affection so that the molestation and the penetration can happen.And so basically what happens over time, and it can take days, weeks, months, is that that family trust, that predator or offender, they bring wine to the family functions, okay? They're usually in the house. The parents trust them. And so when that predator says, let me pick your child up from soccer practice.Let me pick your child up from basketball practice. Let me pick your child up from Girl Scouts there. There's the trust. The parent trusts them. That child's in the car. And so that predator or that offender will use touch or they'll expose them to child pornography or naked pictures of themselves. [00:46:00]And if that child doesn't know what to do, that offender or predator will go a little bit further.So they might touch just above the dress, just up the skirt. And if that child says nothing, then that predator or offender knows they can go a little bit farther by touching the butt. And each time they may give candy because the gifts are usually cheap. They might give kisses. They might buy a new pair of shoes or a new toy to get access to the body, and they will wait, wait.And the more that child doesn't fight, the further they will go the next time. You're talking about? Yes. That's grooming. Hmm. That's grooming. De'Vannon: So grooming is like hunting. This is like, yes. An intentional, perfect word. This is a hunt, , [00:47:00]Dr. Smith: pray. They're looking for their prey. They're looking for the weakness in the family unit, and they're looking for the opportunity to isolate the child.Yes. Predators. No. Pray. Yes. They're looking for an entry point study. Long study wrong. De'Vannon: Do you think that these predators. are probably looking for like either weak-minded parents Dr. Smith: or Absolutely. Or a parent that just has too much to do. We have, we come, our culture has parents out of the house, long hours at a time.Children come home sometimes to empty houses and they're governing themselves. I was a latchkey kid. My parents, my mom didn't get home till at, well after five o'clock. Sometimes she left the house to go to work when I was getting home. So we had no [00:48:00] one there at night. This happens often, often, okay. Or that grandma might leave this child with their, that grandma might leave this child with the offender in the house.It might be a sibling, right. It might be a a a uncle. Right. And they might be le a babysitter. Babysitters oftentimes. And people think that because they're little boys and the babysit, if the babysitter is allowing, is having sex with your 10 year old, that's sex offending, that's criminal, that's a felony.Doesn't matter that he's a little boy. It matters. Is it criminal?De'Vannon: Good lord. My mind is [00:49:00] just like spinning. So let, let me, let me take us back to the church. What is your opinion on the Catholic Church and these altar boys and the way they molest them? So, Dr. Smith: snap, these are Survivor. This the Survivor Network Network of those assaulted by Priests is a huge network that's online.You can find it. Okay. What is my take about it? The, the Catholic Church, not just the bishops, but the community. There are communities of older adults who were sexually sodomized, okay. Sodomized by priests and nuns. It's in my book, okay? It's in my book, that it was sanctioned by the community, meaning that the bishops didn't automatically move a priest.They kept what they called pedophile files. The same thing [00:50:00] happened with the Boy Scouts of America. They kept the files and they moved the priest around. So community members and their children knew these priests had absolutely no right, but they left them in place, and when the complaints got big enough, then they would move them to another parish and allow it to happen again.And so if we start holding people who knew accountable authority people or people in authority who knew and did nothing, if we start including them in the lawsuits, then we would see this diminish that you can't move predators around you because you leave a new group of people vulnerable to these assaults.So that's what I think about it. I think they should be jailed. I think that if they're not jailed, they should get [00:51:00] rehabilitation. Because listen, When you sexually assault a child, you don't get a lot of time. It's only recently they started getting time. Some people got 90 days, some people were out in a year, and then they went and got jobs someplace else.Okay? There are some people who serve absolutely no time at all. Sandusky, who ran, who who, who brought that scandal to Penn State. He had a whole foundation centered around his predation and what happened as a result, he got, he, he, of course, he's in jail for the rest of his life, but in comparison to the number of kids he's sexually assaulted, he got a year per kid, right?When we look at some of the major cases, there are people, institutions that know. That's why I said this theory is not just for the victim or the predator or the offender, it's also for the institution. How many schools have [00:52:00] moved around a predator? . Okay. Colleges. I mean, the thing about NDAs is that you hide the fact that this conversation, it's the suppression of information.This conversation cannot be had by the people involved, and so nobody knows about it. That institution doesn't get a smirk on their record. There's no issues with their reputation, and nobody knows about it. So that person gets moved to another university because if there's an nda, that means that they can't talk about it when they're providing a reference.Okay? We engage in a lot of NDAs, and so this is what gets my hackles up because there are so, so many law enforcement agents who are like on college campuses, I am not going to pursue this cuz I don't wanna [00:53:00] mess up this boy's. Career. And so that boy gets a slap on the back and he gets to go on with his life again.When I go back to sexual identity, he gets to use those same techniques someplace else. Because if you are not punished, how does your behavior decrease or decline? Right? That's a basic psychological principle. A rewarded behavior will reoccur. So if you don't go to jail and there's no consequence for your actions, why wouldn't it reoccur?We've just rewarded you. So that's what I think about not just priest, but nuns. who also engaged in this practice in Catholic schools and Boy Scouts. If you were ever in Boy Scouts and many of these other organizations like Coaches , the University of Michigan and the US Olympics. [00:54:00] I can go on with this.NDAs lead to information suppression. Is De'Vannon: there anything like that in the I want, I'm gonna, that is after the interview is over, I'm gonna probably have me like, I don't know, a glass of vodka or something to help this all. Like, settle down. I didn't know much of what you're telling me today. Now let, let, let's talk about this elder abuse in Florida because this shit here y'all, when I think about elder abuse, I was thinking maybe they were taunting them in some sort of menacing way or hitting them.I, it never crossed my mind that somebody would be doing something sexual to some incapacitated elderly person. What in the fuck ? Dr. Smith: It happens at a, on a great scale. So here in Florida, we have a lot of [00:55:00] assisted living facilities in those assisted living facilities. You can have people who can walk those who can't.But the thing about assisted living facilities is that families often stop visiting, right? So that patient might not have anybody who comes to visit them in six months. Maybe one person will come once a year, and so a predator or an offender may see that as an opportunity. And if that, , if that elderly client is off, often uses me medication that keeps them in a comatose state, they are often victimized.And it's, and, and it happens. We know of people in comas who end up pregnant, but when we talk about elder abuse, we're talking about let's, let's say that, that a client has aphasia. Aphasia means, which is exactly [00:56:00] what came, ha, came out with Bruce Willis today. Aphasia means that they have trouble speaking and if you can't understand them and someone has sexually assaulted them, they can't tell you what happened, right, because you don't understand them.Right? There are some people who can speak, but usually stroke patients, they can't speak very. . Okay. So they can't tell you that something has happened to them, right? And so that person visits them when, no, when the staff is small and people aren't really around and paying attention, or when they're supposed to be doing something, they have access, right?Not only do they have access, but they can isolate by simply closing the door, right? By simply closing the door when there's not a lot of staff around to see what they're up to. And so that can happen with just fondling and molesting them while they're taking them to different services, like getting an [00:57:00] M R I or things like that.And that's what we're finding is taking place with elderly, right? So if it's not penetration, it's fondling and molestation, or it's, like I said, penetration in actual sex. De'Vannon: So if, so, if somebody in a coma ends up pregnant, what is the protocol? Do they then get the d n a test on every male staff member, or do they kind of sweep it under the rug?I guess it varies Dr. Smith: per place. They can absolutely get DNA n a evidence, right? Because if there, there shouldn't be semen, right? They can get DNA n a evidence if it is happening frequently, because if it happened before, that doesn't mean it's gonna stop happening when this individual is pregnant. But more importantly they're going to look at the, the people who have access [00:58:00] and then like I said, they're going to see when and when this person had, where this person had access and for how long.Right? And usually if they're the only ones in a room, , right? There's only a few people who are assigned to that individual. Mm-hmm. , right? And then it starts becoming investigation because if oftentimes there's others, there's others, right? And so you just start by eliminating the people that it couldn't be, can't be women, right?However, the men, this, this, this client comes in contact with, but with elderly abuse, you're not gonna find that, because of course they're past the menopause, but there are lacerations, there might be marks. And that's how they're finding out about it. Can a De'Vannon: woman give birth to a [00:59:00] kid if she's still in a coma when the term is Oh yeah.Dr. Smith: Absolutely. A reproductive cell. Her, her reproductive organs are still working and it has happened. It has happened. De'Vannon: How in the fuck can you imagine waking up out of a coma with a kid? You be like, oh, hell no. Where the Dr. Smith: fuck , I can't, I can't imagine being someone who's coming in to check to see that and finding out that this woman came in and was not pregnant and now all of a sudden she is.Yes. And d n a nowadays, you know, that's e that's easy to get now. Sweet Jesus. De'Vannon: And so, exactly. All right, so the last thing we're gonna talk about are like treatments. Before we talk about treatments for the victims, I wanna talk about treatments for the perpetrators because everybody's gonna, yes, everybody's gonna take their tiki torches out and their goddamn machetes and wanna butcher them and [01:00:00] burn them at the cross.I leave the judgment to y'all. I fear God, I gotta stand before him myself. I am not gonna be yet another voice in the crowd saying, burn him at the stake or her, because you hateful bastards got that covered. So, , , look, it gets on my nerves, you know, every time there's a child molester here, I, when I, when I lived in an apartment, I got sick of getting those goddamn postcards with this dude's face thing.He's a molester. I'm like, Nobody's perfect. I'm not excusing what they did or allegedly did, but there's got to be some recourse, some sort of help. You know, everybody can be redeemed, you know, if Jesus had a murder, murder and a thief hanging with him at, at Calvary Cal, you know, at Calvary, so, you know, at Calvary, so what hope that someone have, if they have molested a child or an adult or been been the perpetrator in a sexual situation, you know, they may feel guilty, they may beat themselves up, but [01:01:00] everybody can change.I don't care what's going on. So what do you think? Dr. Smith: Absolutely, absolutely. So we use several different techniques. The most severe that I believe and some Some pedophiles ask for, this is medical cra castration. But that doesn't really solve the urge, right? That doesn't really address the attraction, right?Because there are those, what we call minor attracted persons. These are people who are attracted to minors. There's that urge. Now there are those who don't act on it. And so that's not criminal, right? That attraction is still there, but how do we treat it? And we use what we call desensitization, right?And so we desensitize them. We use cognitive behavioral therapy because now we have to deal with the cognitive loop. The thought loop [01:02:00] about this. And, and like I said, there are a large number of people who were sexually assaulted by someone at an early age, and they received pleasure. And so now that they're older, I have had people tell me, you know, I married someone who looks just like the person who assaulted me, simply because sexually they're.Magnetized because they were so young. That was their first sexual experience. They equated it with an orgasm and it gave them pleasure. And so now they have this type and people call that a sickness, but it happens. There is somebody out there who's gonna tell you, yes, Smith, this absolutely happens. I and, and there are those who have babies for their offend by their offenders.And so cognitively we have to reduce or [01:03:00] we have to teach them to make new decisions about their offending. Right. And so not everyone who's been sexually assaulted is a predator, an offender or will be, but there are those who are and can be. So we have to. The thought processes, the way in which they experience pleasure, the desensitization of that.And that can be anything. Absolutely. Anything sensory. What do you smell? I smell the cologne. So anytime I smell that cologne, that cologne stimulates me in such a way, even though it's destructive, even though it came outta trauma. Right. Or I hear certain music, certain words that he would say or she would say to me, those things have to be addressed.And a lot of times they're hidden in the sensory memory. That doesn't come out during talk therapy. You have to do a series of sessions with that [01:04:00] individual to get to that which is stuck in the subconscious. And to get to that which is stuck in the subconscious, is outta your awareness. So you have to use certain techniques to do so.De'Vannon: My my with a tangled, well, we weave. Dr. Smith: Yes, it absolutely is. De'Vannon: Well, what I'm excited about is whether somebody's been a victim or they've been the perpetrator, there's help available if you want it. Dr. Smith: Absolutely right. Because we can reduce the urges so that that person is not a criminal. But for those who have not acted on these urges, how do we, how do we reduce that cognitive loop and that physiological response?And there's ways in which we can absolutely do that. Hmm. De'Vannon: Hold on. Y'all help is on the way. Help is on the way. [01:05:00] So y'all, so y'all, Dr. Smith's website is right to consent.com. You can find her on Facebook. The LinkedIn, Dr. Smith: TikTok, Instagram, I'm everywhere. De'Vannon: Okay, I'm here for the TikTok. Yes. And and I'll put all this in the show notes and everything like that.So thank you so much for this, for this, for this deep and troubling and moving it truthful information that you've given us today. I'm gonna have to have you back on. Okay. You can Dr. Smith: anytime you need me. Yeah. De'Vannon: Y'all, Dr. Smith's gonna be a standing guest on the sex drugs in Jesus podcast because of what a oppressing issue this is.I fear that it probably won't be going away overnight, so I kind of wanna stay on top of this as new information develops. You know, we're gonna be you know, in touch with you. So are there any last words [01:06:00] of advice or encouragement or whatever you'd like to say to the people out there?Dr. Smith: Absolutely. If you have been sexually assaulted regardless of the age, or you are a parent and you wanna educate your children, the conversation is where you start having the conversation and communicating. There is absolutely so many different areas. YouTube has a lot of self-hypnosis for those who've been sexually assaulted.But more importantly, you know it was not your fault and that self-care is so, so vital in the way you move past the trauma that you've experienced or that your child may have experienced, or if you're trying to keep your children safe. So thank you so much. I am so grateful for the opportunity to talk to you, and I just asked that if you come across someone who has been sexually assaulted, the only thing you can say is, I believe you, and how can I help you?[01:07:00]De'Vannon: and that's the T right there. Y'all look, look forward, look, look, look out for Dr. Smith being back on our show Again, thank you so much for expressing all that you have expressed today. God bless you. Thank you.Thank you all so much for taking time to listen to the Sex Drugs in Jesus podcast. It really means everything to me. Look, if you love the show, you can find more information and resources at Sex Drugs in jesus.com or wherever you listen to your podcast. Feel free to reach out to me directly at Davanon Sex Drugs and jesus.com and on Twitter and Facebook as well.My name is Davanon, and it's been wonderful being your host today. And just remember that everything is gonna be all right.
Partial anomalous pulmonary venous return refers to anomalies in which one or more (but not all) of the pulmonary veins connects to a location other than the left atrium. This causes left to right shunting which may have hemodynamic and therefore clinical significance, warranting repair in some patients. Join CardioNerds to learn about partial anomalous pulmonary venous return! Dr. Dan Ambinder (CardioNerds co-founder), Dr. Josh Saef (ACHD FIT at the University of Pennsylvania and ACHD Series co-chair), and Dr. Tripti Gupta (ACHD FIT at Vanderbilt University and episode lead) learn from Dr. Ian Harris (Director of the Adult Congenital Heart Disease program at University of California, San Francisco). Audio editing by CardioNerds Academy Intern, student doctor Shivani Reddy. The CardioNerds Adult Congenital Heart Disease (ACHD) series provides a comprehensive curriculum to dive deep into the labyrinthine world of congenital heart disease with the aim of empowering every CardioNerd to help improve the lives of people living with congenital heart disease. This series is multi-institutional collaborative project made possible by contributions of stellar fellow leads and expert faculty from several programs, led by series co-chairs, Dr. Josh Saef, Dr. Agnes Koczo, and Dr. Dan Clark. The CardioNerds Adult Congenital Heart Disease Series is developed in collaboration with the Adult Congenital Heart Association, The CHiP Network, and Heart University. See more Disclosures: None Pearls • Notes • References • Guest Profiles • Production Team CardioNerds Adult Congenital Heart Disease PageCardioNerds Episode PageCardioNerds AcademyCardionerds Healy Honor Roll CardioNerds Journal ClubSubscribe to The Heartbeat Newsletter!Check out CardioNerds SWAG!Become a CardioNerds Patron! Pearls - Partial Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Return (PAPVR) What is partial anomalous pulmonary venous return (PAPVR)? PAPVR refers to anomalies in which one or more (but not all) of the pulmonary veins connects to a location other than the left atrium. Often, this means one or more pulmonary veins empty into the right atrium or a systemic vein such as the superior vena cava or inferior vena cava. Physiologically, this produces a left-to-right shunt, allowing for already-oxygenated blood to recirculate into the lungs and result in excessive pulmonary blood flow. What are the clinical features of PAPVR?Diagnosis is usually incidental on a cross sectional imaging such as CTA or CMR.The most common associated lesion is an atrial-level defect.It is unusual for a single anomalous pulmonary venous connection of only 1 pulmonary lobe to result in significant shunting. Patients with a significant degree of left to right shunting may have right heart dilatation or symptoms of dyspnea on exertion. When are some strategies for managing patients with PAPVR?A surgical correction is recommended for patients with PAPVR when functional capacity is impaired and RV enlargement is present, there is a net left-to-right shunt sufficiently large to cause physiological sequelae (aka: ratio of pulmonary flow (Qp) to systemic flow (Qs) is > 1.5:1), PA systolic pressure is less than 50% systemic pressure and pulmonary venous resistance is less than one third of systemic venous resistance.Surgical repair involves intracaval baffling of the left atrium (Warden procedure) or direct reimplantation of the anomalous pulmonary vein into the left atrium.Pregnancy is well tolerated in patients with repaired PAPVR. In patients with unrepaired lesion who may have right sided heart dilatation and/or pulmonary hypertension, preconception evaluation and counseling should address how pregnancy may affect mother's and fetus's health. Antibiotic prophylaxis for infective endocarditis is typically not needed unless patients are less than 6 months from recent surgery, have residual defect at the patch margin or prior history of infective endocarditi...
Subtitle: Media trauma. Sounds scary… but (our own) Bob Hutchins and Jenny Black's new book, Our Digital Soul helps to, “guide you through the overwhelming maze of modern life to the life you really want, as it takes a hard look at the impacts of digital media and the trauma that results for all ages and every generation. Backed by research and experience, Black and Hutchins share their own personal journeys as well as those of their clients to explore a path where we can recover and thrive alongside our digital reality.” We dive deep on Bob's new book, trauma bonds, technology, social media, small-t trauma, and more on this insightful episode. Summary: What is media trauma? In order to understand what media trauma is, we first need to acknowledge that all technology is an extension of us. Because of this it impacts and changes who we are physiologically, psychologically, emotionally, and as a community. The magnitude of this impact is partially due to the imbalance of our brains and our technology. While our technology has continued to advance, our brains have stayed the same. This imbalance can lead to overwhelming amounts of small-t traumas. Small t-traumas are things such as a breakup, the death of a pet, losing a job, getting bullied, or being rejected by a friend group. These social small t-traumas happen even more online, that compound upon each other, causing media trauma. All trauma is created through trauma bonds and trauma bonds are defined as “emotional bonds with an individual that arise from a recurring cyclical pattern of abuse, perpetuated by intermittent reinforcement through rewards and punishment.” If we changed the word “individual” into “technology” would that statement not define our relationship with technology? In order to heal from media trauma, we must become aware of it, educate ourselves and others on the magnitude of media trauma, and begin to exercise self discipline. We will dive even further into Bob Hutchins and Jenny Black's book, Our Digital Soul in the next episode; you definitely won't want to miss it! We also highly encourage you to check out their book on Amazon or ourdigitalsoul.com and let us know your thoughts or questions in the comments below. Top 3 Curtain Pulls in this episode: All technology is an extension of us. Though technology can be a very broad term it could include things that are considered commonplace along with computer and internet based inventions. Consider this; an airplane is an extension of our feet and a shovel is an extension of our arms. With this kind of perspective, computers could be considered extensions of our brain and the internet an extension of our nervous system. This understanding helps lay the foundation for comprehending media trauma and the magnitude of its impact. “If it's an extension of us, then it fundamentally changes us. Physiologically, psychologically, and as communities…” We have godlike technology. Bob has mentioned this quote before, “The problem with humanity is we have Paleolithic brains, medieval institutions and godlike technology”. Due to this unique combination, this can lead to overwhelming amounts of small-t traumas because of the imbalance between us and our technology. Media trauma is real. We've all experienced feeling left out, and this feeling along with others is magnified and multiplied by social media, creating repeating small-t traumas that compound upon one another. Bob defines trauma bonds as relating to an abusive relationship with a spouse, and changes “someone” into “technology”, as a stark description of our relationship with technology. He doesn't make this comparison lightly. “Trauma bonds, or emotional bonds, with a device or a technology that arise from recurring cyclical patterns of abuse, perpetuated by inner intermittent reinforcement, through rewards and punishment.” For more tips, discussion, and behind the scenes: Follow us on Instagram @AgencyPodcast Join our closed Facebook community for agency leaders About The Guys: Bob Hutchins: Founder of BuzzPlant, a digital agency that he ran from from 2000 -2017. He is also the author of 3 books. More on Bob: Bob on LinkedIn twitter.com/BobHutchins instagram.com/bwhutchins Bob on Facebook Brad Ayres: Founder of Anthem Republic, an award-winning ad agency. Brad's knowledge has led some of the biggest brands in the world. Originally from Detroit, Brad is an OG in the ad agency world and has the wisdom and scars to prove it. Currently that knowledge is being applied to his boutique agency. More on Brad: Brad on LinkedIn Anthem Republic twitter.com/bradayres instagram.com/therealbradayres facebook.com/Bradayres Ken Ott: Co-Founder and Chief Growth Rebel of Metacake, an Ecommerce Growth Team for some of the world's most influential brands with a mission to Grow Brands That Matter. Ken is also an author, speaker, and was nominated for an Emmy for his acting on the Metacake Youtube Channel (not really). More on Ken: Ken on LinkedIn Metacake - An Ecommerce Growth Team Growth Rebel TV twitter.com/iamKenOtt instagram.com/iamKenOtt facebook.com/iamKenOtt Show Notes: [0:32] Bob opens this week's episode with a chat about what the guys have been up to recently. [5:47] Bob talks about his book that was just released, “Our digital soul: collective anxiety, media trauma and a path toward recovery”. [8:47] Bob begins a discussion about technology and its impact on society and says that, “good marketing is Psychology and math.” “it's getting people to respond and engage and then measuring and scaling it”. [16:06] Bob talks about the difference between video games and cell phone time/social media/work and how they impact your brain differently. [17:16] Bob breaks down how all technology is simply an extension of us as humans. “Every new technology is an extension of us. if you think of the wheel, it was an extension of our feet, right? We have to frame it that way, versus it's just a tool, and it's separate from me, no technology is ever separate from us…If it's an extension of us, then it fundamentally changes us. Physiologically, psychologically, and as communities… What is the computer and the cell phone an extension of? It's an extension of our brains. So what then is the internet? It's a further extension of our brains, and I would argue it's an extension of our nervous systems.” [21:57] Brad adds that it can often be very easy to be overwhelmed with the high amounts of information with emotional ties that enter our brain every day. [23:06] Bob talks about a quote from a biologist, EO Wilson, “the problem with humanity's we have Paleolithic brains, medieval institutions and godlike technology.”, adding that, “you can't plug a Paleolithic brain and expect it to keep up with godlike technology.” [24:25] Brad asks Bob if he believes that AI will be able to regulate the amount of information and stimulation we receive to healthier levels. [26:54] Bob defines media trauma, “small-t” traumas, and dives into some of the side effects (or “small-t's”) of screen life. “We define media trauma as experiences through media, and personal devices that hinder or harm our capacity to be mentally whole.” [32:22] Ken discusses how according to Dr. Andrew Huberman, “the frequency of dopamine hits that we get daily is the number one societal problem because because they're their weight, they're way more frequent than they ever have been in history.” [34:29] Bob dives deep into an explanation of his and Jenny Black's book, discussing how the internet compounds small-t traumas, three of the five symptoms that indicate that you have media trauma, and breaks down trauma bonds. “That's something called a trauma bond. Now I want to read the definition, and then I'm going to change one word. Trauma bonds are emotional bonds with an individual that arise from a recurring cyclical pattern of abuse, perpetuated by intermittent reinforcement through rewards and punishment. But let me change one word. Trauma bonds, or emotional bonds, with a device or a technology that arise from recurring cyclical patterns of abuse, perpetuated by inner intermittent reinforcement, through rewards and punishment.” [42:58] Ken asks whether we as a society can exercise our discipline muscle now that we know the true impact of technology on our lives. [44:36] Bob talks about the importance of self awareness, education, and collective intervention in order to, “retrofit this crazy godlike technology to our paleolithic brains.” [48:03] Ken asks what the audience should take away from this, and why should they read this book? [49:09] Bob says that, “mental health and wellness professionals. We want to get it in the hands of all of them. So hopefully it's accessible to everyone. But it is chock full of studies and data and information that could make an impact.” [49:58] Bob says that you can buy Our Digital Soul on amazon.com or at ourdigitalsoul.com. [50:29] Bob talks about some of the topics for the next episode. “What are some things that you can do to heal? What are you addicted to? One of the indicators is, what's the first thing that comes to your mind when you open your eyes in the morning you wake up?”
Stress can be good… in the right situations. There are times when we need stress in order to get things done. It's that little push you need in order to get you going. Yes, there are people who actually love the response of stress on their bodies. Higher energy and stronger focus just make them accomplish their goals. But… What happens when it gets too much? Though it has some “good” effects that keep us going and going, our body can only take so much before we actually suffer from it. In today's episode, we get to hear what exactly happens to our body when we go under stress from Dr. Jake Schmutz himself. He tackles what damages it entails and how it affects our overall energy and health. We go deep into what it does to your body physiologically and how we can respond to and heal our body the best way. But how do you differentiate normal stress from chronic stress? How long does it take for it to be considered chronic? Tune in to this episode to know more! Find out more: https://integrativemedica.com --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jake-schmutz/message
The power of love is real. Love really does win. Physiologically, physically, emotionally, spiritually - love is the elixir that will lift up everything. "Love is an adventure and a conquest. It survives and develops, like the universe itself, only by perpetual discovery." ~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Did you know that showing gratitude is actually a tool you can use to reconnect with lost joy? Research shows that acts of kindness and gratitude positively impact our well-being. In scientific studies, people who practice gratitude exhibit lower levels of stress and depression, cope better with adversity, and sleep better. Gratitude has been shown to increase self-esteem, empathy and compassion, and even improve mood. It can decrease blood pressure and the stress hormone cortisol, which directly impacts stress levels. Physiologically, gratitude can positively change your brain. (You read that right!) Practicing gratitude boosts serotonin and dopamine, which are neurotransmitters in the brain that give you feelings of satisfaction and well-being, and cause the pleasure/reward centers in your brain to light up. In today's episode we're looking at gratitude with a new lens. We chat about what gratitude is, is not, and how to practice it in new ways so you can start experiencing all these amazing health benefits. Need one more reason to listen? November is National Gratitude Month. So what are you waiting for? Listen now. Thanks for listening! Don't forget to subscribe, rate & review! :) https://www.soulfullofwellness.com/ We invite you to visit our website. Email questions & suggestions to SFOWpodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram @soul_full_of_wellness https://www.instagram.com/soul_full_of_wellness/ Follow us on Twitter @SFOWpod Follow Kaelynn on Instagram @coaching_with_kae Follow Kit on Instagram @breathe.relax.trust Thank you to Nick Serena for our theme music!
Today's episode features Jamie Smith, founder and head sport preparation coach of The U of Strength. Jamie is a passionate coach and learner, who strives to help athletes incorporate the fullness of perceptual, social and emotional, elements in the course of training. Jamie has been a multi-time guest on this show, speaking on his approach to training that meets the demands of the game, and settling for nothing less. The further I get into my coaching journey, the more I understand and appreciate the massive importance of stimulating an athlete on the levels of their physiology, their emotions and social interactions, and their perception of their external environment. Coach Jay Schroeder had his term called the “PIPES”, referring to the importance of a training session being stimulating Physiologically, Intellectually, Psychologically, Emotionally and Spiritually”. I certainly agree with those terms, but they could also be re-ordered, as per today's conversation “Physiologically, Individually, Perceptually, Emotionally, and Socially”. (Individual referring to individual autonomy). On the show today, Jamie goes into how he “stacks” games, play, perception & reaction type work onto more traditional training methods, for greater “sticky-ness” to sport itself. Through today's conversation, he'll get into concepts of variability in training as it relates to sport, driving intention and learning through a training program, older vs. younger athlete response to game play with potentiation, and much more. Today's episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, Lost Empire Herbs, and the Elastic Essentials online course. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for FREE (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points: 3:30 – How Jamie infuses “play” into basic exercises and warmup movements 21:50 – How infusing meaning into movement improves intention, immersion and movement quality 49:00 – The role of play in helping infuse natural variability in athletic development 33:38 – How the goal of play and variability changes through a training week 43:17 – Menu systems and autonomy within the scope of games and training sessions for athletes 49:39 – How Jamie's approach to “High CNS”, max velocity days and how layers of challenge are added on, as athletes grow and mature 1:02:53 – What gym work and warming up looks like for Jamie's athletes when those athletes are already playing their sport a lot outside of the weightroom (and how to help use social/emotional elements to create a more restorative stimulus) 1:15:34 – “Sticky-ness” of skill in training, created by blending “training” with gameplay “Play hits those missing pieces of the strength and conditioning model” “Game play can create athlete driven approaches to movement and strength and conditioning” “We teach them for the first few weeks, just so they have a general understanding, “what is a crawl”… but once it gets to the point where they understand what it is, lets layer on challenges” “A big thing with the gameplay, is we never repeat the same thing twice in a row” “I believe in exposing them to a wide range of situations so they can see what works, and what doesn't work” “It's all about intent, and when you add intent, it changes everything” “(With play) I'm talking about focused variability, having a purpose” “They are trying to solve a problem while getting pushed, shoved, knocked off balance; I call that kind of “sticky strength” qualities” “On the low CNS days I am looking at the gameplay, the emotional side of things, the social emotional side of things” “The social-emotional does have an immediate impact on (performance), it does influence the strength, the speed, the power qualities” “You're working with a 7th, 8th, 9th grader,
Join us for part four of our four part series looking at the physiologically difficult airway. Matt takes us through the approach to RV failure why these patients are so dangerous to intubate.
This episode features relationship coach and masculinity coach Stefanos Sifandos, who dives deep with us about relationships, connections, human potential, and how masculine and feminine energy affects our day to day dealings. Stefanos Sifandos' Story [2:47] “Relationships can be really really difficult. What we miss often in our childhood is what we crave and value the most as adults. I value healthy relationships. ” Being an Adrenaline Junkie to Avoid the Healing [9:57] “We're avoiding dealing with stuff which leaves us feeling empty, and we end up filling that void. Physiologically, we're attempting to close the loop around trauma.” Dealing with the Household [14:15] “All these peak experiences that I was seeking were really about me pursuing pleasure to avoid the suppressed pain and unresolved trauma from my childhood.” Deep Curiosity [17:36] “You're never going to stop learning. You just become more curious and you want to go deeper.” Realizing the Readiness to Commit [33:15] “It can be challenging at times but it was in the solo work that we did that we were able to become more present with each other, and less detrimental and more valuable to each other.” It Won't Work [37:40] “If your partner is against your non-negotiables it will be very difficult to work. ” Intimacy Issues [44:57] “You have to feel safe with your body with your partner. The way through pleasure and safety for women is through the heart.” Masculine and Feminine Energy [54:45] “Culture, beliefs and values influence what becomes a dominant energy in our society.” Flipping the Switch of Intimacy [1:01:45] “Healing those original cores can be very very helpful in relieving the pressure of needing to perform.” Follow Stefanos Sifandos: @stefanossifandos Please download, rate & review this episode and share it with friends! Connect with Kelly here: Courses & Coaching Kelly's Favorites Follow Me on Instagram Join the ChaseLife with Kelly Community! Subscribe to My YouTube Channel Visit My Website!
Have you ever gone out HARD in a race then crashed & started slowing down? It's super painful right? Not only physically but it's hard on the ego! Starting a race FAST then slowing down is called “positive splits”. We often find that the opposite approach of starting slower and finishing faster allows for athletes to push harder at the end of the race & gain confidence resulting in faster times! This type of approach to starting SLOWER and finishing FASTER is called NEGATIVE SPLITS
In yesterday’s edition of The Anxious Morning I talked a bit about the need to experience the natural end of a panic attack and the natural decrease in anxiety and agitation that occurs when we allow it to occur.When I talk about that, invariably a few people stand up and want to tell me that theirs never ends. “I have panic attacks that go on for days!”This is a common assertion in the community. But while it may feel like your panic goes on for days and days, it does not.Physiologically, human bodies do not have the ability to maintain a full blown fight or flight life and death alert state for days on end. That is a high intensity, short duration physiological state. We just don’t have the juice to actually panic for 8 hours, or 4 days straight. Biology. It matters.Usually when I point this out, a person that insists that they do panic for days will re-think that assertion and will fall back to a lesser claim. They might say that they feel on the edge of panic all day, or that they feel afraid all day. Then we’re getting somewhere. You can be afraid all day. You can feel on the edge of panic, or the edge of some horrible disaster, all day. That can happen. But that is not uncontrollable level ten five alarm panic. That’s just being anxious and uncomfortable for long periods of time. Naturally you don’t want that, but it is important to understand that you are not in a blind panic from Tuesday to Friday. You are likely agitated, uncomfortable and anxious from Tuesday to Friday, and you could be experiencing panic attacks multiple times from Tuesday to Friday. Panic can come in waves, but just like the ocean, it does subside between peaks. That is VERY different than saying that you live in a state of panic during every waking moment.Why is is important to make this distinction? It matters because for most people, the state of panic is the “forbidden” state that they must never be in because they have no control, can’t do anything, and are totally helpless. This is not true, but the perception matters. Thinking that you are living in that state all the time leads to the logical but incorrect conclusions that you can do nothing to change things, that you have the worst anxiety in the history of the world, and that nothing can help you. Recognizing the breaks between panic attacks gives you some initial room to work in. It cracks open the door and lets in some light. It offers a first ray of hope, and sometimes that’s what’s needed to get things moving in a new direction.So if you want to respond to this by telling me that I am wrong because you are in a state of panic all the time or for days on end, stop and think about it. How would that even be biologically possible? And if it is biologically possible for you, then I assume that you are one of the new alien overlords so … welcome to Earth. We have cookies and cake here. Help yourself. I am not particularly interested in saving time; I prefer to enjoy it. - Eduardo GaleanoEvery Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Many women dont realize that as we age, our training and fueling routines need to change with us. But how do we do this when there are so many nutrition trends out there that are so easy to get sucked into? The answer is in this 2 part episode where we dive into the research beyond how to fuel and move your body in peri-menopause, menopause, and beyond. Key Takeaways If You Are Looking to Change Your Training Routine as You Enter Your 40s, You Should: Remember that women are not small men and most guidelines out there need to be adjusted for your changing body Drop the moderate intensity crap and focus on high-intensity speed and power to see the results you want Take a step back to re-learn the difference between being tired from exercise or tired from stress Women Are Not Small Men with Dr. Stacy Sims Stacy T. Sims, Ph.D., is an applied researcher, innovator, and entrepreneur in human performance, specifically sex differences in training, nutrition, and environmental conditions. She is a regularly featured speaker at professional and academic conferences, including those hosted by US Olympic Committee, High-Performance Sport NZ, and USA Cycling, she is a Senior Research Associate at AUT University and resides at the beach in Mt. Maunganui, New Zealand with her husband and young daughter. Listen To Your Body and the Research When a woman enters her 40s, her body composition starts to change. Many people associate the symptoms of these changes with low sleep, high stress, and try to do more training to counter it. None of these are the appropriate types of stress that your body needs in order to mitigate these changes. Women need specific changes to their training routine, along with nutrition, to support their bodies throughout their 40s and beyond. Proper sleep, high-intensity workouts, and polarizing your training in order to recover are key. Change Is a Good Thing Often as women are approaching peri-menopause they are nervous about getting bulky or are told to switch to moderate intensity workouts. Dr. Stacy is here to say that is absolutely not the case. Physiologically women respond better to speed and power, and if anything we should be increasing the intensity of our workouts when we can, and bookending them with softer workouts for our recovery. This is just one example of the necessary ways you need to change your training routine in order to support your changing body and hormones. Are you excited for Part 2 of Dr. Stacy Sims' knowledge and experience? Share which of her tips you loved most from this episode with me in the comments section of the episode page. In This Episode Why the phases of your menstrual cycle should impact how you train (11:35) Some of the changes that you can expect to see when entering peri-menopause (14:49) How to shift the way that you strength train as you enter your 40s and beyond (18:42) Why the ‘moderate intensity' for women in their 40's is the exact opposite of what you should be doing (26:22) Tips for changing up your training and eating routine in order to stress your body and see results (33:52) Quotes “They attribute it to life stress, but it's not. Well, some of it is life stress of course. But when we pull it back to physiology and we see this change over these ratios, and our bodies are also trying to adjust.” (16:26) “What we are trying to do when we get into our 40s is look for an external stress that is going to help support what the hormones used to do, or augment what the hormones can do.” (19:55) “You need to work with someone who knows how to do proper movement.” (23:26) “We don't know what it is like to be uncomfortable. We have air-conditioned houses, we have heating in the winter, we go outside in the summer, and we don't know what it truly means to be uncomfortable, so our bodies never adapt.” (32:05) “We are really trying to get people to understand what it feels like, and teach themselves because we have lost that. We have lost what it feels like to be tired from physical activity, versus being tired from stress. So we are trying to teach that.” (37:41) Featured on the Show Join the Strength Nutrition Unlocked Group Coaching Program Here Next Level: Your Guide to Kicking Ass, Feeling Great, and Crushing Goals Through Menopause and Beyond with Dr. Stacy Sims Women Are Not Small Men TED Talk Check out the full show notes here! Follow Steph on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | Pinterest I'd really love it if you would take 1 min and leave us a rating and review on iTunes! Podcast production & marketing support by the team at Counterweight Creative Support the Podcast Get 20% off Legion Supplements with code STEPH Follow Steph on Instagram Rate and review on Apple Podcasts Related Episodes HTK 077: Women are Not Small Men with Dr. Stacy Sims
Join us for part three of our four part series looking at the physiologically difficult airway. Matt takes us through the approach to severe metabolic acidosis and why these patients are so dangerous to intubate.
In this episode I sit with Christian Elliot, Health Coach & Creator of the Healthy Lifestyle Reset. Since 2005, Christian has done over 15k hours of 1:1 coaching sessions. He has also been featured in Men's Health, Huff Post, CBS & other media outlets. You can learn more about Christian @ https://zecohealth.com/christianelliott/ Click here to access The Zeco Recommendation Page for all products I have recommended for health, fitness & fatloss. https://zecohealth.com/recommendations/
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