The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Trauma Code: Uncover The Hidden Map To Your Life’s True Purpose by Elijah Nisenboim

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

The Trauma Code: Uncover The Hidden Map To Your Life's True Purpose by Elijah Nisenboim Amazon.com Effijibreath.com Inside your body at this very moment lives a unique configuration of "stuck" energy called your "Trauma Code." This energy was stored by your body, in response to events of your past, that were beyond your capacity to process. This stuck energy controls how you feel, it controls the way you think, it controls what you do and say. This book offers a way out. It offers a map to move beyond the controlling effects of trauma and get on the path to living your life's true purpose. This journey is not quick and it is not easy. But if you want to live a life beyond the controlling effects of this invisible energy, then what you will discover in this book is a way to do that.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

Chris Voss. Welcome to the big show. We certainly appreciate it. As always, the Chris Voss Show is a family that loves you but doesn't judge you, at least not as harshly as your mother-in-law. She wanted her to marry Bob, and she's disappointing you forever. But you'll get over it. Refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives.

Go to Goodreads.com for it says Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com for it says Chris Voss, Chris Voss1 on the TikTok, and all those crazy places on the Internet. As always, we are the most amazing minds and speakers on the show. Today, we are joined by a young man who's going to be talking to us about trauma, breath work, and all sorts of different stuff. We have Elijah Nissenboim on the show with us today. We're going to be talking about his amazing book, The Trauma Code. Unlock the hidden map to Your Life's True Purpose,

out July 22, 2024. And we're going to be talking about everything that goes into that book and what it's about and how it does it. You're going to be just smarter when he's done. He is the founder of Effigy Breath, sharing his work with tens of thousands of people for over 30 years. He has a unique method for guiding people using effigy breath work and sacred taoist movement to reveal the trauma code that unlocks the map to one life's purpose he has

composed and created and recorded 18 volumes of music created specially for his company and six volumes specifically related to the six stages of effigy breath, which can be found on all streaming services. He's the author of three books, The Trauma Code, Uncover Your Hidden Map to Your Life's True Purpose, A Liberated Life, and is in the process of freeing your mind with his books and everything else. Actually, let me get that title right. It's A Liberated Life, Effigy Breath Work, and Process of Freeinging your mind out on 2021. And what are your what's making the unconscious conscious? Welcome to the show, Elijah.

How are you? Good. Nice to be here. I'm a fan of your show. Thank you. We're glad to have you as well. Give us your dot coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs?

Effigy breath, E-F-F-I-j-i breath.com so that's website and then instagram facebook if you just look for effigy breath they're there so give us a 30 000 overview what's inside your new book you know it's interesting just before we started we were talking about music i grew up in canada i was in the music business. And just before I used to play piano, and the piano teachers used to hit my hands with a ruler. And when I went out to be a musician, a songwriter with a band, I would always just kind of freeze up, and my hands would get cold. I was playing in this rock and roll piano bar, and I went next door to get a get massage I found this place and I befriended the woman and she and her husband were moving to California and she said if you help me put stuff in storage I'll give you massage which broke musician I was like sure and she said well you

try my husband's breath work and this was 1990 and I like work, so I didn't really want to do it. But I did. And it was the most excruciating, terrifying, profound, enlightening experience. It just completely changed me that day. And my hands had so much pain when I was doing the breath work. He moved off to California and I followed him out here, trained and then eventually sort of ran his business. So breath work back then in 1990, there was no alternative anything really. And now breath work is a pretty normal mainstream word, breath and work. It's just the conscious use of your breath.

But over these 35 years, what I realized is that the reason why people suffer in any way is because of trauma, which are just basically the unresolved events of the past. And I realized sort of two things. One is the problem, the trauma is a problem in that there's the adverse effects of it, all the things that we suffer from because of it. And breathwork can really release that. But I also realized in talking to people that trauma also has a value. It's not just garbage to be getting rid of it's that we experiencing we experience these things to learn lessons that are part of our mandate here like why we're here so the trauma code is really being able to release the energy of trauma and find the value of those experiences, learn those lessons so that you can fulfill what you've come for.

So that's the essence of my work. You know, it's interesting how trauma shapes us and influences us. You may want to turn your set down. It influences us and shapes us. I mean, it can shape a lifetime. Like you can see trauma's path dragging behind you you know after 50 years yeah it's interesting how it shapes us and like on one hand you look at it and go I really wish that it never happened on the other hand you kind of go it's kind of what shaped me into being

me and being a survivor and giving me the skills that I need to kind of get through life. And the motivation to seek certain things because of it. Yeah. And it's interesting. It's like I grew up in a cult, a repressive cult. You did? Yeah. And the impact that it had really shaped my life. And as an entrepreneur, learning to ask hard questions about what

is this bullshit you're feeding me and analyzing people people's character in life yeah it's uh it really has helped me shape and i and i'm i think i'm a better business person for it would i have liked to not gone through that trauma of you know having religion you know force will be shoved up my ass no but in the end it's been really interesting to see how that has shaped me and it's almost kind of like an indelible mark that i i often wonder what sort of different person i'd be without it so it's kind of interesting the yin and yang of that i think if first of all thank you for sharing that because this is in some ways you know i've been in the alternative health healing space for years and there's a there's always this idea that it's for special people or spiritual people

or people who've studied things but really the human experience is kind of all the same. And you're just sharing the essence of what this is really about, which is, if you only see these terrible things that have happened to you as you being a victim of them, then it's just garbage. There's nothing, you're a victim of this but if you are able to create value from that learn from that it makes your whole life meaningful because the path that you pursue if as i said it sort of becomes compost in your garden and at the end of the day like whatever your technique for getting there like we all are trying to be i i think when you're born you have an original blueprint and that gets changed because of trauma and let's not just say trauma trauma and conditioning you grew up in a cult i mean cult and culture the same word but the whole the whole

society is a cult, as we know. And even in the times we're in right now, where people just are deeply questioning, like, am I supposed to trust the government or the doctors or school or whatever? And really, at our best, we should be autonomous individuals with agency, like seeking to be who we're meant to be. But cult is basically what you do to fit into the tribe and to belong. And there's so much personal and collective trauma like that. But I think what's beautiful is here you have this show and you're sharing something that's come out of the roots of your own life. And really you're an example.

What I'm saying is unlocking the trauma code is that you've taken something difficult and used it as your power to be who you are out in the world. And that's what my book is about. But it's really the book is short. It's only 100 pages. And that's what my book is about, but it's really, the book is short. It's only 100 pages, but it's what my work is about. And the breath work is sort of the one way I help people get there. Yeah. Now, you talk about the trauma code. What is this map?

Can you give us some details on what the mapping is about? Simply, I mean, we're made up of all kinds of different parts. So I want to speak in the most general way, because after 35 years of working with people, I do understand quite a bit about the unseen world. But if we just take mind and emotion, that's unseen, but it does reflect in how we behave and how we look and all that. So we have, I think each person has a unique configuration, a design, and there's a map that goes with it. So like an acorn that already has an oak tree in it at birth. So being able to unlock the map is kind of like my phone. I want to swipe it to open it, right? But what is the code that opens it?

But the thing about trauma is the nature of our human, our dealing with trauma. Sorry, let me back up and say, there's big traumas and there's little traumas not every trauma is like abuse tragedy and and and growing up in a cult but it's it's it's that you couldn't process it so the energy of who you are gets stuck and held until it can be released but it goes into what we call the unconscious which is the word just means without awareness unconscious so why does it go there because some part of you is protecting yourself so that you don't re-experience the pain of that trauma so we have these, these programs and these patterns that make us make it very hard to get to that energy to unlock it.

And that's we just end up in the repeating pattern of of of replaying the unconscious, replaying those traumas. So to unlock the map is to is to get past the guard at the gate. The thing that says oh we don't want to experience this because it's going to be painful but the problem is your life force is locked up in when you were told this is this is how God works this how the universe works I'm just talking about being in a cult like you you know it's bullshit but some part of you is going to have some fear about acting out particularly if

you're a child so as you get older you you know how do you get around the parts of yourself that have suffered the adverse effects and some of that is repression some of that is you know rage and abandonment physical health issues like the body our whole map of who we are is tied up in this if you can release the energy the potential of who you are can can can be manifest and are you and it sounds like you espouse this belief there's a there's a book out called the body holds the score and we've had numerous people like yourself psychologists and phd people on the show that, you know, we talked about how the body will hold emotion and trauma and different things. Do you believe in that? Yeah.

Two thoughts here. One is maybe we could just do like you and I, as long as we have a disclaimer for the people here like we'll do 20 breaths together and you and we can talk a bit about that just to show you how quickly we can we can experience what i'm about to say which is the body is a physical manifestation of the mind of of of this and of the spirit and the mind is a metaphysical manifestation of the body so whatever happens within us internally shows up in the way that it shows up in the way in our body what i said at the beginning like i had the piano teachers who were old biddies whacking my hands with the rulers as soon as i started to do the breath work i had like incredible pain in my hands it's just

memory so the body keeping score is that you know it's not terrible to have memory it's just that the memory of trauma is like a configuration that's locked up in us and that will show up in the way that our body is also just how we eat and how we sit and how we move like that also comes from these experiences so that also is going to affect the health of our body yeah and is breathing a way to flush that trauma out of the muscles to release the, you know, the cells in there? Yeah, so the term breathwork, just to demystify it, I mean breathwork, we have all of our internal organs cannot be manually operated except the lungs.

You can't make your liver do something. Even your heart rate, if you want to slow your heart rate down, you have to go through your breathing. I just have a bunch of vodka in that liver and it does stuff. That's true, but could you do it without the vodka? No, you're right. You couldn't individually, manually be like, do your job or else. Sometimes I hold it up to my liver and just be like, you better keep working.

And your liver responds to vodka. I mean, the physical part of the body. I say there are, in my book, there's four minds, four levels of the mind. And the animal mind, which is the one you're talking about, like the liver has a relationship to vodka. It's just you can't really change that. And as a Russian Jew heritage, I do like vodka, by the way, just want to say I'm not against it. But the lungs can be manual or automatic. And to me, it's a metaphor really, because, well, first of all, meaning you can breathe breathe or you can just let the breath happen. But we are like animals. So if I don't tell you to breathe, you're going to keep breathing and stay alive. But that's to be unconscious. Animals can't change. But humans, we have choice.

Our life is our choice. And really the breathing in and the breathing out and the effect of the lungs is a metaphor. It's that we can choose our life or we can be unconscious like animals. We can go inside. We can go outside. We have life in and we have death. We have the seen world and the unseen world. So whenever you consciously choose to breathe, that's breath work.

It's that basic. But the technique that Effigy, which is my brand, started in 2001, comes from a particular style that's about 5,000 years old from India. And it's mouth breathing. And would you be open to do 10 breaths with me? Yeah, sure. With our audience? Let's do it yeah so all we're going to do is you're going to breathe and it's very counterintuitive so if anybody's thinking walk around all day and do this and plus for waiver's sake we're not advising you

to go and do this on your own we're just doing 10 breaths so you're going to breathe in the center of the chest with your mouth open about two fingers wide and the focus will be on the inhale. I don't know with our video, I know on Zoom, if I start breathing, it'll cut the mic off. But basically, we'll do 10 together, focus on the inhale, just breathe with me. Here we go. Okay. So go. And then just let it go. Okay. And you close your eyes for two seconds.

In effigy breath work, we breathe like this for one hour without stopping. Really? Yeah. So you're laying on your back, but also you can feel a lot of, how does that feel? I mean, it feels pretty good. I can breathe. I've been fighting to breathe since I had COVID. I'm on to that breath.

I have helped some people with long COVID with this. It's pretty instant because, you know, your breath is life. It's the one thing you need to do to live. So this particular technique, it's not like a meditation breath work. It's not subtle. It's conscious hyperventilation. And we do it for an hour with no stopping. So as you can imagine, you're going to enter an altered state

and you start feeling a lot of energy in the body and it releases trauma. It's interesting how that works. I was watching another author recently on another podcast that was talking about and how this is kept in the muscles. Breathing also kind of changes some of our state too right doesn't it 100 kind of help us focus and and kind of live inside of ourselves and kind of you know there's so much external crap that we have going on you know podcasts and tv and other things you know know, phones. Attention overload.

Overload. Attention overload. And a lot of people use a lot of these distractions, these distractions for, to get away from themselves, to not have to face themselves, to not have to sit still, to not have to, you know, know what's going on with yourself. And it keeps you from, you know, saying, hey, what's going on with me? Checking in, maybe addressing your traumas and other things, because so many people want distraction. But breathing is one way that can really help do so.

If a person were like who's watching our podcast right now, just while they're listening, close their eyes and took a deep breath, there would be an immediate connection to the inner world. And that would balance in some way and for most of us most will live to the outside and then they get controlled by that and then on the inside the mind is just racing and breath you're you know if you can master your breathing particularly when you're upset or triggered or whatever of course it's going to change your state. It's going to change how you listen. You know, one of the things I say in my book, basically, that there's really two main effects of trauma breaking down. One is perception, that how you see things is filtered through the lens of trauma so how you

think and process data is affected and then the other is that you become feeling avoidant you don't want to feel feelings so much of what people are under stress from is just the resistance to experience what they feel and see things separate if If you cut me off on the road or whatever and I'm in a bad mood because my wife left me, of course my perception of that situation is going to be filtered by how I'm feeling. But whenever you go to your breath, your breathing, it completely changes. It connects you more to the greater matrix, the one that's not just so personal inside you to your own experience. And when you have trauma, the tendency is to be very personal about everything that happens in the wrong way. Yeah, it's pretty interesting how all of it works.

Tell us a little bit about you. How did you get into this sort of business? How did you grow up? What were some of your influences that shaped you? Yeah, I'm 60, so I grew up in Canada. And, you know, I have garden variety trauma meaning and in some ways I feel like you know but I I knew as early as three or four that I was just like what what I I was a unicorn of some type I just didn't quite get school I didn't I had authoritarian parents those were super sensitive my my father had an affair I

wrote about that in a liberated life but he you know and he carried that on all for about seven years during during a period of my life but music I knew as early as three or four I wanted to be a musician and music's still a very big part of my life but as I said you know I was I was really negated and I was very shy and I was afraid to talk my mother was kind of volatile I just had this truth-telling way that she didn't like so I kind of grew up afraid to express myself and my trauma code like yours in a way is that I can sit here and freely express myself like she she in a way gave me the lesson I needed to to learn not to worry about being popular and just to say and be who I am but that wasn't how I grew up and as I said I had the piano teachers who used to hit my hands and stuff like that.

When I was a musician in Toronto in the 70s, we were talking about Rush. They were a little before me, but I was traveling in similar circles. I briefly knew their manager. But I couldn't really... There were two things going on. One was that I just couldn't play the game because I had all this fear about self-expression, but also I was always into the transformational part of the relationship,

how music was healing. And so I found myself focused sort of on the wrong things in the business. And I wasn't like a massive drug user. So when I discovered the breath work it was sort of like doing drugs and it was sort of giving me that liberation and I thought when I experienced the breath work that I had gotten money actually to to make an album and my partner songwriting partner had was born in the States. So we took our album and moved to San Francisco.

And I thought, I'll just do breath work while I try to get this record deal. And then really, my ability and my relationship with people doing healing work, just that became my life. I haven't done anything else and I think that I have sort of two personal gifts I guess but they're things that I've developed over all these years one is is that I just can read very deeply into people's inner lives and so when I discovered the breath work I was just seeing out in the open the things that I could already see. So I had that. And the other is that I'm still sort of a sensitive little middle-class Jewish Canadian boy. Like, I care about people. I connect. I'm a person who can connect and I can put that with words. So anybody that I'm working with or come in contact with, i use breath work and various other things in my system

to to just help people to to unlock their trauma codes i don't even know if i answered your question did i yeah yeah you told me about how you journeyed and and how you got down here the you know it's it's it's an interesting how like said, the traumas and things that happen, how they shape us. Yeah. And then if you address them and fix them, you can learn a lot about you. But really important to get on this early in your life if you have it. Let's talk about some of the stuff you do at effigybreath.com, your website, different offerings that you have. Tell us about some of the offerings that you have so that people can you know look on your website and yeah i traveled non-stop from 22 to 2002 to 2020 and

then the pandemic hit and i didn't leave my house for almost five years and i just started going back out in person i was actually in can Canada two weeks ago in Kentucky. So I'm meeting people in person. I'm going to be in Boston this coming weekend. But to have a newsletter, I write two, three times a week. People can read the book to be educated. Sometimes we have, we did online classes regularly up until several months ago so sometimes there's online experiences for the breath work and we do a one-day trauma release immersion and then if you come in person there's live classes and workshops and facilitator training and personal development programs and people can book a private session with me as well oh wow yeah so yeah lots lots going on i mean during the pandemic i i needed to stop and get

an air fryer and a dog and stuff and and a lot of people were doing that during the yeah yeah you know it's funny i i was in i a side note it's part of my work we haven't spoken about, but I started studying internal martial arts in 1999. And I went to China in 2014 with my teacher, George Hsu, who did a camp with many of the great living masters of internal martial arts, which come from Taoism. And I went back every three months for five years, studied Mandarin, studied with many masters. And part of what I use in my programs is movement to help retrain the body. But January 2020, I was in Chengdu, which is the next city over from Wuhan.

And I got home and thought I was going to die and didn't really know what it was, but probably had COVID in January 2020. But that was the last time I had gone anywhere. But anyway, yeah. So anything more we need to talk about in the offerings you have on your website to tell us how people can reach out to you as we go out how they can get to know you and ask more about your services you know there's a five minute video that we made this year that people that's guided that they can do effigy breathwork and experience what that is and i think it's on our website it definitely probably on our youtube channel but you know we know, we're not hard to find. I have a partner, Sarah, Sarah Charmoly. She's been with me for 12 years.

So she's my co-teacher and holder of the vessel that we are. But I think we've pretty much covered it. You know, just reach out if you need something. Reach out if you need something. It's been insightful to have you on the show. We've learned a lot, Elijah. Thanks. Give us the.com as we go out one last time.

Yeah. Effigy, E-F-F-I-J-I, breath.com. Thank you for coming to the show. We really appreciate it, Elijah. Thanks, Chris. Nice to be here. Pleasure to have you as well. Order up the book wherever fine books are sold, folks.

The Trauma Code. Uncover the hidden map to your life's true purpose. And if you have trauma or if you have trauma, look into it. Please get professional help. Don't buy crystals. Don't do that. I'm against crystals. But, you know, you get professional help. But trauma is something that if you have it, please deal with it as early as you can.

If there's anything I would tell my younger self as a child, go to fucking therapy. It would save me about 50 years of 40 years of hell anyway guys thanks for tuning in go to goodreads.com 4chesschristmas linkedin.com 4chesschristmas christmas one on the tiktokity and all those crazy places on the internet be good to each other stay safe we'll see you next time and that should have us out man great