TrueLife - Randall Hansen PhD - Healing Modalities

Starting point is 00:00:01 Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fearers through ruins maze lights my war cry born from the blaze.

Starting point is 00:00:40 The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. Hope everybody's having a beautiful day. Friday, we made it. There's something to be said about the world awakening to this. new sort of paradigm that we're in. And I have an incredible show for you today. Everyone probably

Starting point is 00:01:22 already knows the incredible Dr. Randall Hansen. However, ladies and gentlemen, it is with great pleasure and excitement that we welcome Dr. Randall Hansen, a healing advocate, educator, ethicist, and thought leader who is pioneering a healing revolution. Driven by a profound commitment to helping the world heal, Dr. Randall's groundbreaking work is redefining the way we perceive healing, particularly in the context of trauma and personal growth through the intentional use of psychedelic substances in plant medicines. At the heart of his mission lies the ancient yet profoundly relevant concept of healing, derived from the old English healing, meaning to make whole.

Starting point is 00:02:02 Dr. Randall's work encourage us to ponder what it truly means to be whole, to men not only our physical wounds but also the scars of our souls. he knows firsthand the struggle of living dual lives, one dominated by trauma-fueled fears, and the other filled with love, hope, kindness, and peace we all yearn for. Through his transformative book, triumph over trauma, Dr. Randall has guided us on a journey towards complete healing, empowering us to rediscover our true authentic selves,

Starting point is 00:02:31 the individuals we were destined to be before trauma disrupted our lives. His message is a crystal clear one. It's time to stop wasting time, money and energy on incomplete and inaccurate methods to break free from the confines of conventional healing, which often leaves us with nothing more than a diagnosis and a prescription. Dr. Randall's work introduces us to the healing wheel, a holistic framework designed to address the multifaceted nature of healing. He delves into the six major modalities of holistic healing, bridging the gap between trauma and true healing. He also provides invaluable

Starting point is 00:03:04 insights into how to find true healers, shares inspirational healing journey stories, and equips us with practical tools and techniques for our own healing journey. This interview promises to be a transformative exploration of Dr. Randall's profound insight and empowering philosophy, plus the new book, Healed. We are honored to have him with us today, a beacon of hope and a world yearning for healing, self-discovery, and the embrace of our authentic selves. Dr. Randall Hansen, welcome to this platform where your vision of complete healing and personal transformation will undoubtedly inspire and enlighten all those who have the privilege of listening.

Starting point is 00:03:37 Thank you for being here today. George. First of all, again, always an honor. You're a friend, a colleague, an inspiration. In fact, you inspired me to do this little assessment we're going to do in a few minutes. And I truly am, I feel like we are one set of wings flying off in this healing journey together. And I love it. So thank you very much.

Starting point is 00:04:06 The feeling is mutual. You know, I'm so stoked to. to the first book that came out, Triumph Over Trauma, and then you have this new book healing coming out with all these modalities. I can't wait to get into all of these wonderful things that are happening.

Starting point is 00:04:19 And I want to say thank you and to your lovely wife, Jenny. You guys are an amazing team. You're helping so many people. Thank you for all the work you guys are doing. It's really incredible. So, yeah, where should we kick this thing off at, man? Let me, you know, we often say,

Starting point is 00:04:33 how are you? And so let me take that a little further. in working on these books, I found that, I guess, to some people, trauma is a scary word, or it's a word that has an imagery that maybe doesn't fit the reality of what we're trying to talk about. And then even healing, I think sometimes people have maybe a, I want to say a negative connotation, but something I'm with healing. And so I just want to ask a couple questions about, to the audience. Are you affected by past trauma?

Starting point is 00:05:11 So I'm just going to ask a couple questions. I'm going to give a little explanation. Answer on your own. Raise your hands quietly, whatever you want to do. So the first question is, how comfortable are you being you? And I asked that because I know in the depth of my trauma, I didn't like myself. I looked in the mirror and I didn't really recognize who I was. And I have a good friend who talks about it this way.

Starting point is 00:05:44 Chris says before he was healed, what he calls the old Chris, he hated being alone. He would do anything to go out. Anyone call him up. Yeah, I'm at the bar. I'm at whatever. He didn't want to spend any time by himself.

Starting point is 00:06:02 To me, that is a classic sign that you need healing. So that's one question. Second question is, do you have unexplained outburst of fear, anger, loneliness, frustration? Again, I use an example from my life. I love to build things. And in my deepest trauma as if I was working on a cabinet or a piece of furniture, I can't tell you how many pieces of wood were mashed to bits or a hammer thrown across the room. Again, not normal behavior.

Starting point is 00:06:41 So again, that to me was a sign of that experience. The classic one for me, do you hide yourself behind what I call a math? You know, are and better a second follow-up to that is do you even know the face that's under that math? You know, I had a mask that was the good husband. I had a mask that was the father. I had the mask that was going out drinking with my students. I had a mask that was the good professor. You know, all these different masks I wore.

Starting point is 00:07:14 And I actually, at some point, in the real depths of it all, lot my true self. I didn't know which was a mask and which was not. So again, if you wear masks, that's probably a sign that you have trauma. And then the last one I'd say, there were a couple more. George, I know you'll put the link into the show notes. But the other one is, do you have moments where you just feel shame and resentment? And you don't know the reason for it.

Starting point is 00:07:46 You know, that's typical what we call being triggered by something. But if you're getting these unexpected reactions from something that's a fairly normal thing, maybe someone just asking you a question and you just have this crazy reaction to it. That's probably a sign that there's some trauma in you. And so I just wanted to get that out there because I just feel, I don't know, we talk about this, that I'm trying to start this healing revolution or I'm trying to join with many others on this healing revolution. And I think the part of it is we just need to get over that the vast majority of us have

Starting point is 00:08:27 some sort of trauma in our past, whether it's a trauma of some kind of hurt or abuse that was done to us or trauma of love that was or goodness that was withheld from us. And if we're not living our best lives, if we're not happy with ourselves or having these kind of reactions, and I think it's just so important to find that healing. And, And of course, the first book was all about psychedelics as this emerging tool for healing that is so powerful, so profound, and can do so many positive things. But in the process of writing the book, I also found that so many people were using other things, either in addition to psychedelics or separate from psychedelics. So that's where the impetus of the new book came from to say people are still a little scared of psychedelics. And, you know, yeah, there are.

Starting point is 00:09:27 There are other healing modalities you can do either with or without psychedelics. And so that's where we are today. And I love you for allowing me to have that little kind of intro to ask people how they're doing. How are you really doing? How are you feeling today? And maybe today is the day you say, all right, I'm going to take that first step. I'm going to find out what's a healing journey and what it takes to get on one. Yeah, I love that.

Starting point is 00:09:56 There's something to be said about us beginning to live our own authentic lives and waking up to what it is that we're not happy about. You know, whether it was your parents being divorced or maybe somebody that you love died recently or maybe you're in a position that you don't love to be in. You know, and so often we take out these things that we have been taught on the world around us, whether it's our relationships, our family, our job place. There's like this mis, there's, I think it was Alfred North Whitehead who talked about the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. And it's this idea that we, you know, we can move that to anger. A lot of times our anger gets shifted. If you're angry at your wife or your husband or kids, sometimes you take that into the workplace and you ruin those relationships. But it begins with you, right, waking up to this trauma that happened to you and asking yourself, why?

Starting point is 00:10:45 Why do I feel this? Why am I unhappy? That's like the first, that's like rubbing your eyes when you wake up. And all of a sudden, you can start to get a clearer. picture of like, hey, maybe, maybe I can work on this. And when you start working on that, things start to get better. And then the more you, you really begin to understand why you feel the way you feel, the better your relationships get, the better you get in the workplace. And maybe you could, I think we touch on this a little bit. And I love, I love that intro.

Starting point is 00:11:10 Like, what does it mean to be truly whole? And like, how can we assess our own sense of completeness, considering, you know, the etymology of healing as to make whole? Yeah. Well, first of all, you know, when I was. I just love this idea of wholeness because, and that's why the whole holistic healing, because if you're truly healed, you do become wholen. And we talk about trauma creates a shadow within us. We call it the shadow self. It's, I don't, you know, it's sort of sounds like a bad word, but it's sort of like

Starting point is 00:11:49 the garbage dump in a way of where we put all the negative stuff. So we, you know, we push it down, we push it down. And whether it's one horrible trauma or a thousand paper cuts, we just keep pushing it down. And true healing. And again, maybe the spoiler alert for people and hopefully you won't turn off the broadcast now. But, you know, the healing journey is never over. So that's kind of the thing. The healing journey gets better and smoother and easier.

Starting point is 00:12:21 And it's more maintenance once you get to that whole. point, but we live in this world where trauma happens all the time. So just because you heal doesn't mean you're not going to get, have someone, something else happened to you. But the wholeness means we so we live this life, we live this divided life, whether we know it or not. And the signs are some the things we just talked about. And so healing starts this process of kind of like, who am I? Who am I really? And by going, using some of these modalities, we discover these issues, these things we push down, some of which we might have totally forgotten about.

Starting point is 00:13:01 And so wholeness comes when we can bring that hurts part of ourselves into our full reality and become this. So our life is not always just the good stuff. You know, life is good and bad. And we have to find a way to integrate all that. And so I love psychedelics uses some of these terms already, integration, shadow. But that's what healing is all about. It's about, so again, these parallels are fascinating.

Starting point is 00:13:31 And of course, that's psychedelics are certainly one of the six healing modalities. Yeah, that's one that I've been familiar with too. But on some level, I think all these modalities have this erudony thread that runs through them. And it's like this shift of perspective. You and I have talked quite a bit about psychedelics. Maybe we can talk about some of the other healing modalities that you are aware of and then are grace the pages of your new book. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:14:00 Well, first of all, I love in a weeks prior that you had Rachel on talking about sound healing. And then you had Lauren on last week, I think, talking. I call her 3M, the mindfulness, meditation and microdosing. and that's the cool part. I mean, we have, we don't have to be, you know, let me just come back to that for a second, you know, but we don't have to be a disorder. We don't have to have a label that a doctor, big farmer,

Starting point is 00:14:34 whoever gives to us. And that's, that's also one of my frustrations is that, you know, oh, yes, we have, you know, PTSD, you know, even, you know, even everything's everything is now become a disorder. So I love that we have these true healing modalities that are honest, non-medical, and holistic, you know, that treats the whole person. And so let's look at, so yeah, we talked about psychedelics. One of the big ones for me was, is nature.

Starting point is 00:15:11 And nature is fascinating to me. And I knew some of the, a little bit of this stuff beforehand. But so there were a couple of things going on with nature. All these scientific studies showed it's just time spent in nature as a calming sense for us. So that's not necessarily healing, but that's the start of the process. It relaxes us, gets us in a mode where we can turn off the world a little bit. And then actually listen to our thoughts and start thinking more deeply. there are also these chemicals that trees and plants give off called fightensides that are truly amazing

Starting point is 00:15:55 and they increase our cancer killing cells in our body to strengthen our immunity. So not only are we strengthening our mind and working on healing in this process, but we're also strengthening our body through these chemicals that the plants give off. And then the Japanese have long been wise to this practice they call it forest bathing. And again, that's simply just being in the forest, in a sense, almost like forest meditation, where you are sitting there, looking at the trees, watching the birds, smelling, smells, listening. maybe you hear waterfall or river in the distance. And all these things help put you in a contemplative state of mind that allows the mind to kind of relax.

Starting point is 00:16:49 I'm not going to say the default mode network that we talk about with Seidelog shuts down, but it quiets down enough that we do get other voices that can come up. And what about that? What about this thing? What about that thing that happened to me? And it allows us some contemplation, I think, is that is so important to heal. because even with psychedelics, we talk about, you know, it's not the medicine. It's not the journey itself.

Starting point is 00:17:13 It's what you do with what you see and feel and experience in that journey. You could have a profound journey and go back to a horrible life and do nothing. And wow, that your life's not going to improve. So all these are just tools. You still have to do the work. But nature, for me personally, you know, I didn't even know I was starting on a healing journey. when I went, you know, people thought I was, you know, people both to my face to give them credit, but also people behind my back, you know, we're saying, you know, we think Dr. Hansen's lost his mind

Starting point is 00:17:48 because I was living in a suburban area and I bought land thousands of miles away and I just said, I'm moving up there. And I didn't know why. I just had this, again, intuition, this call, the creator, the universe, whatever you want to call it, greater power. And I found, a vast majority of my healing, spending long hours every day in this forest that I actually, I thought I was helping the forest gain itself back by cutting down dead trees and disease trees. And really, the forest was bringing me back to hell. And so that's the cool part about many of these healing modalities. I think there's a, there's a neat given take between them. So that to me is nature. There's just so much beauty in nature and we are so

Starting point is 00:18:44 far disconnected from nature. I mean, you're not, I know you live in a paradise. I kind of live in a paradise here, but so many people in the concrete jungle, you know, they just, you know, don't know the healing power. We have all these plants, all these native plants that we've lost, their meaning. I mean, not even talking about the plant medicines themselves, which are amazing, but Yaro, you know, people call weed up here, and it has all sorts of healing elements to, including one that's sort of a natural novocaine. So if you have a toothache, you can put some of the root in your gums, and it naturally numbs it. So, I mean, so nature is healing in the way also that we need to be reconnected with nature. But I'll often, before I know, before I just had one

Starting point is 00:19:36 quick thing. Yeah. But you don't have to go to a national park or a national forest. You know, if you live in a city, and especially of a city, something like I think about New York, which was so smart in building central park in the middle of the city. So there was a respite for people. And I think a lot of cities have these kind of city parks. And so you don't have to leave the city. I mean, it's wonderful. If you can take a trip and go to the national park or a national forest, but you can just go to this park and just sit in a bench and still have that nature healing. Yeah, I love it.

Starting point is 00:20:10 You know, there's a certain sort of language and symbiosis that happens. And when you talk about you moving and you go to the forest and you're cutting down these dead trees and, you know, you think you're, and you are in some way, you are helping nature. But isn't it an amazing way how nature is telling you like, hey, maybe you could cut down some of your old dead ideas. You know, if you want the new growth, you got to get rid of this old growth. And we can see ourselves in nature.

Starting point is 00:20:32 And like you said, it doesn't have to be. You don't have to be at the, you know, Samity National Park. It would be awesome if you could go. But if you just take time to sit out in your own garden, just contemplate what's happening out there. Take a deep look at all the plants and the trees around you. I think you can do a lot of learning. You know, Jeremy Narby wrote a book called The Cosmic Serpent. And in that book, he talks about the language between people and plants and how if you just observe the ecosystem of the plant, I think that, and in that book, they talk about how you can learn a lot about the ecosystem of yourself.

Starting point is 00:21:03 And I think that nature is constantly trying to communicate with us, but we're so close-minded sometimes. We've been so conditioned from such an early age that we have forgotten the language of nature. But it's innate. We speak it. And if you just sit yourself with it, you'll pick it up and you'll start learning. Nature is a very powerful modality. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:21:23 And if you think, you know, we never think about what's below the surface, but if you think about the roots and the mycelium of the fun of the mushrooms, you know, all these are a relationship. The trees are connected. The roots are connected to each other and they're helping each other. It's a great way of thinking about us as people. You know, we, our roots are, our roots are intermingled, but we've forgotten that. We don't look below. We, we are not, you know, some of us are helping each other. And that's a wonderful thing. And I hope that's another goal of my idea with healing is because once we're healed or on that healing journey, we look around at a our neighbor or our friend and we put out a hand we say hey let me help you heal yeah and so there's

Starting point is 00:22:10 that connection there are roots are now coming together again and yeah there's so much we can learn from nature about that process and of course even now that we're in fall you know the whole cycle of nature birth this glorious summer of life fall time of preparing for death or renewal and then winter, the dark season of reflection, but also joy for some people. I mean, I love seeing snow on the ground. And then, of course, we then the hope for spring and the whole process starts again. So yeah, I mean, lots and lots of lessons from nature. Yeah. You know, and I've only begun to think about this pattern recently. And it's kind of been on my radar. But when we think about the cycle of seasons in our life, the more that I think about it, and maybe it's because

Starting point is 00:23:00 of the journey I'm on and people like you that I'm speaking to. But it seems like we're, we're spiraling up. You know, it doesn't seem so much as just this plain wheel of, you know, the dark night of winter, spring, summer fall, and it starts again. It seems like we're moving up. When winter comes, some of the bad ideas die off. And spring comes new, better ideas. And so we're moving forward. And like all of a sudden, I like the way you expressed as healing each other, like the roots. It seems to me like healing is becoming contagious. You know, when you're writing these books, when you're talking to people, hey, I felt this thing about me. Now I'm going to help this person. It's like each one teach one. You know, we're reaching back and

Starting point is 00:23:38 we're helping that next person up. And, you know, that sort of pays huge dividends once you reach a critical mass. Like we're helping everyone up. We've gotten here. Okay, turn around, help that person up. Here's the secret. There's no longer this tight constraint on information that so many people held tight because they thought they needed it for themselves. But look, the more you spread it, the more the garden grows. And I think that's what the new book, Heel is doing, man. It's this contagious medium to help people.

Starting point is 00:24:05 It's beautiful. I love it. All right, Jared. After the show, we'll talk about your fee for hiring you to be a publicist. But you're right. I love that uplifting that you just said because it's such a beautiful thing.

Starting point is 00:24:21 And it is. And the other thing about healing is it just makes us lighter. You know, we're not so. I mean, I know we talk about grounding, but in a sense, not that's a different thing, but it just makes us lighter in our souls, in our bodies, in our hearts. And lighter means we want to help people. We want to share the news.

Starting point is 00:24:41 So I love that. The other thing I'd find I mentioned, I think it was, I can't remember which podcast it was. I think it might have been Lauren, but I apologize if it wasn't, but I love it. I think she said something like, or maybe you mentioned on her, but anyway, one of you said about how we're all co-creators of these stories. And that ties into just what we're talking about here with these roots, with these connections, with the hands. We are helping each other with our healing,

Starting point is 00:25:09 but also with our stories and building better stories, stories with that true and they lived halfway ever after, which most stories don't, but we can with a healing journey. Yeah. Yeah. I see this shift too where we're moving away from our individual stories into that. Like we're one giant story.

Starting point is 00:25:30 And maybe at the end it will be a happy ending for all of us. But we have to get there. And a happy ending. I think some way I think we're at this, you know, threshold guardian. If I can use a term from Joseph Campbell's stories where, you know, we've had the call to action. And now like we're facing our first threshold guardian of like, you guys have to stay in this form. you have to work like this and you only get this much money and there's inflation or not wars like okay time to bring it together let's huddle up everyone we don't like this

Starting point is 00:26:00 let's change it how do we change it well one way we change is by everybody working on becoming the best version of themselves and being honest with themselves and you know it's it's fun of i guess that brings me to a question of like how can individuals reconcile the dual lives that often result from trauma one filled with fear and pain and the other filled with love hope and kindness. Great question. And I just want to go back to the other thing you said about lies, because I think we are master liars to each other for ourselves, not necessarily other people, although oftentimes it spreads to other people, but we are really good at lying to ourselves. Everything's fine. It'll be better tomorrow. Or I don't care. And again, to me, that's just a

Starting point is 00:26:50 sign of trauma or denial. I mean, I was that way. I, even in my craziest moments, oh, boy, you know, let's just say, I'll, you know, be honest, everyone wanted to hear parts of my story Anyway, so let's just say one evening deepened my trauma after closing a bar down, sitting in my truck and a police officer comes and knocks on my window to have no idea where the police officer came from and says, hey, what's going on? what are you doing? And I'm like, oh, Dr. Randall Hanson, why, you know, why are you, it's full of ego. And so in denial. And luckily, the police had a pretty good relationship with the university. So he, he didn't get too offended by my ego. And he sort of let me go with a path. But, you know, I wasn't doing it. I was just sitting in my truck. But that denial, I spend the next couple of days saying, you know, oh, that damn cop, what was he do?

Starting point is 00:28:13 What was his problem? Oh, no. It was my problem. But I didn't see it. So you're right. So that's the hard part of the journey to me. The hard part of the journey is facing that dark side, facing that side that used to having negative reactions. because the trauma has just loves that, you know, that, that, that those, those hidden pockets of

Starting point is 00:28:45 of fear, guilt, shame, resentment, all these things just love to flare up. And so in a healing journey, there will be tough times, you know, whether, you know, again, like they'll call it challenging, challenging, tough. But the good news is, the more you reconcile these issues, and you're not going to handle them all at once. I mean, that's a nice thing. It's a journey. It's not, today I'm going to tackle everything and be overwhelmed and no.

Starting point is 00:29:21 It's just one little thing at a time. But the cool thing is, the first time you integrate one little piece into your whole self or yourself, it comes easier to each time. And, and, but I, you know, there will be setbacks. I'm not going to say it's a perfect thing. There are going to be times where you wonder why you're doing this because why am I dragging up the path, but you're not dragging it up to relive it.

Starting point is 00:29:51 You're dragging it up to say, okay, this happened to me. I understand it better now. Here's how I can, the lessons I can learn from this. And now I can put it down and lock it in a place where. I can come back to it, but not back to it in a way where I'm stuck in that groove in that path, but back into now where I understand it. It just becomes part of me because, again, we're not saying ignore half your life because that's silly. You live that life.

Starting point is 00:30:21 It's saying, how can I find better lessons from these things and bring them forward into this life and then become a better person? And whatever way that means to you, you know, for me it means. jumping up on the rooftops and saying, you know, please everyone get a healing journey. For you, it's, it's, I have all these things, all these questions and all these great thoughts I have, and I want to bring all these experts in, and I want to share all this knowledge. And that's all this, again, it's positivity. So everyone's endpoint is going to be different what they do with that.

Starting point is 00:30:58 But it's just one, you know, one step at a time getting there. Don't try to do all that integration in one in one short step because it's not going to happen. Even with psychedelics, it's not going to necessarily happen. Yeah. As you're speaking about this idea of integration, I had this image come to mind. It was like, we're brought into this world and like someone shows us this beautiful picture of us. Like, see this picture? You're like, yeah, get a good look at it.

Starting point is 00:31:24 Yeah, you got a good look? Okay, yeah. And then they smash it. It turns into a jigsaw puzzle. They're like, okay, put it back together. Like, what? It's all broken. And then you look at it.

Starting point is 00:31:32 Like, I cannot put this five. thousand piece puzzle together. It's not going to work. But then you find one piece you put together. Okay, I can see what's happening here. And the more pieces you put together, you're like, yeah, okay, you know what? I'm going to use this other tools, magnifying glass. Look at the corners over here. You start putting that thing together and it gets kind of fun. You're like, oh, this is the top part of me. Hey, this is me smiling, you know, and it can be contagious. Like, okay, I'm going to put this thing together. I'm going to ask somebody else how they figured out do the corner pieces. I'm going to ask them how they put the legs together, you know? But if you think of it as a puzzle, you can kind of use a little gamification to figure out, It's not so much problems that you have.

Starting point is 00:32:05 It's just the way you're looking at it. The same way it's difficult to look at a jigsaw puzzle and not see how things fit. If you just take some time off sometimes or you find a different modality, whether it's nature or psychedelics or breathwork or any of these other ways you can put this picture back together. It's really awesome. And maybe that's kind of what the healing wheel is. Maybe you can talk to us about this healing wheel. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:32:27 So I, you know, so again, from all this work, I said, well, you know, there are all these modalities. Let's try to classify them in some way that, you know, yes, kind of catchy and a good memory aid. And so we'll probably mention psychedelics many times. Probably we'll still again later today because it is such a thing. Nature, somatics is the third one in the wheel. And somatics is basically dealing with anything dealing with the body. And we know the body keeps score, great books.

Starting point is 00:33:02 many other experts also agree that we carry trauma not just in our minds, in our brains, but also in our body. And so somatics is just, there are probably, you know, 20 tools within somatics that involve releasing this trauma from the body. Stalyn therapy is one. Somatic therapy itself where the is a category in itself. EMDR,

Starting point is 00:33:42 light therapy, massage therapy, even just dancing, moving, all these things that can help release these things, these feelings that are in your body, And again, it doesn't release them out to the world necessarily, but releases them back to your act so you can access them, process them, and deal with them. And I love the idea of, I've had just a little bit of sound therapy.

Starting point is 00:34:21 After Rachel, you know, I definitely want to do more. I'm a wonderful expert in my book, Bree, who talks about it also. And I know just from psychedelic journeys where the sounds during that journey had such a dramatic effect on my journey that I know. And sometimes also in deep meditation if I have just some ambient music in the background, that helps take me to a deeper place. And so I just love that we can use these techniques to remove the trauma from our bodies as a separate. So I think anyone, everyone should be looking at probably some somatic elements of healing, even if they're doing talk therapy or psychedelics or nature or any of these other modalities because we have to get it,

Starting point is 00:35:24 we have to get it rid out of our bodies as well. Yeah, when I spoke with Rachel, who's over at Moksha journeys, and she has her own, her own business as well. We really got into this idea of frequencies. You know, and if you think about the world,

Starting point is 00:35:40 we're surrounded by different kind of waves, even light is a wave. So you could argue that light has its own sound. Yeah, yeah. You know, if people can take a moment, just to just to shift their perspective on their environment and think about it as waves and sound. What kind of sounds are you affected to every day?

Starting point is 00:35:58 Are you affected to, you know, a relationship where there's a lot of screaming where there's a lot of negative words? You know, there's, I know that at Guantanamo, they were using the sound of crying babies to make the people feel like anxiety. Anybody who's ever had kids understands that sound is like, I've got to do something now. Like it weighs on you. And it's a sound that calls to our heart that forces us into our. action. So if we know that to be true, then might that also be true about other kinds of sounds,

Starting point is 00:36:27 positive sounds, like different kinds of hurts. And, you know, there's even different sorts of harmonies between the planets that people found the chords through. And we see this idea of sound that goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks and even before them. And some of the ohms. Isn't interesting that when we hear people say, oh, the word home is so similar, you know, Like there's a lot of things that we may have forgotten about that come from the idea of frequency. You know, you know, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I was just saying, you know, and we are, you know, energy and water. And so both those things are going to be affected by vibrations, by sound, by frequency.

Starting point is 00:37:12 So, yeah, I agree completely. again, it's going to sound crazy for someone who hasn't done a psychedelic experience. But I remember, you know, people talking about, you know, where everything's energy. And I'm like, you know, this laptop, I can smack it. But no, it's not really, it's not real. It's just energy. It's just sort of sitting there. And I'm like, yeah, okay.

Starting point is 00:37:36 But in this psychedelic experience, I sat in a room and the entire wall. the ceiling, appliances, furniture were all energy. I could see the energy moving and it was profound in a sense that, yeah, okay, now I am a believer, that, you know, yes, I read the physics and all that, but this now I, you know, it's one of these things, have faith, no, I need to see it. And so I saw it and, okay, now I have, now I have that belief. But yeah, it's amazing that how energy or sound frequency can have such an effect on that's positive or negative. Yeah, it is amazing to see. In some ways, I think science is just, in one ways, I think one of the beautiful things

Starting point is 00:38:33 about science is that it reaffirms stuff we already know. Yeah, we can communicate to each other without any words. Like there is this sort of telepathy where I know if you're feeling sad. I know if you're feeling happy. I know that there's a problem without even just looking at you. Like there's this communication that's happening. That's back to the idea of energy. Like you can see it.

Starting point is 00:38:54 You may not notice it at all times, but you can see it and feel it. Maybe this brings up the idea of spirituality. What is the relation to spirituality and wholeness? What do you think? Yes, that's the next modality. Thank you, George. I love spirituality because I put in my classification, I put in spirituality, I put meditation, prayer, mindfulness, and even affirmations.

Starting point is 00:39:24 Because, again, I think we are spiritual creatures. What's that classic quote? Spiritual creatures living a physical life or whatever, something I can't remember right now. But, you know, we are spiritual creatures. And sadly, I think, and not to offend people, but sadly, I think religion, organized religion has really hurt us as spiritual beings. It's turned off a lot of people. Most recent studies show that, you know, organized religion is way down, but people feeling,

Starting point is 00:39:59 they call themselves spiritual beings, is way up, which I love, because to me that's a of healing also. So we can be, you know, we have a soul, a spirit, whatever it is, and that spirit's in nature, it's everywhere. It's the universe. It's the creator. It's divine. It's God, Allah, Jehovah, whatever, you know, whatever people call it. But, and I think when we're disconnected from that feeling when we think we're just alone. This is one life and we're done. And I'm not, I don't care about you. I'm not connected to you.

Starting point is 00:40:45 I don't know who you are. It's kind of us, it's, it's sad because we are connected. And the one thing that, again, I love about almost every psychedelic, story I have heard is that besides this feeling of love and acceptance, there's almost always a spiritual component to it, whether it's just a feeling of that love was so unnatural it had to be God or something. You know, I was embraced with this love of God or, you know, some people say, you know, Jesus touched my shoulder or Jesus gave me a hug. God spoke to me, all these things.

Starting point is 00:41:35 And I think that if we ignore that component, then we lose a big part of ourselves. A quick example for me, I was raised to Piscopal, loved being, in Catholic Church it's called altar boys, Episcopal Church, it's called Ackleites, but basically they helped the priest in the church service. Absolutely loved it. It probably saved my life as a teenager because I had some bad things going on at home. But ironically, I was sexually assaulted by a minister, a priest, and lot that was part one of losing my faith. And again, this misconception of my own that I tied spirituality with religion.

Starting point is 00:42:40 So I tied some man's action and said, God, there is no God. If you can't protect me against someone who you've chosen to be a man of God, so to speak. And so I was separated from, you know, I was that lone wolf. I was, you know, and to me, spirituality is also community. And so I felt I just was alone. And so I regained, so through this nature healing, I also regained my spirituality. At first, it was just the spirituality of nature. Oh, yay!

Starting point is 00:43:23 Kitty wants to hear. But it was just, and it's grown, obviously, since then. But so I think, again, whether it's, I'm not, I'm not saying that you can clearly heal within a certain religion. That's, I'm not saying you can't do that, but spirituality is so much bigger than religion. And I think some of the best meditators are the most spiritual people I've ever met. And so it's just a process of looking at that modality and what might work. work for you there. It might just, it might be just sitting down and having a discussion with whoever you think is out there listening. It might be a meditation where you're just going deeply

Starting point is 00:44:14 to asking the questions and waiting for the answers to come through, again, this process. But that healing to me is probably for many people, one of the most powerful healings. if you can get that, because again, it ties into what we've been talking about all along, that this connectedness, that there is, and especially when we're in despair, and we look at, you know, why are there not peace in this world? You know, why are there still wars? Why are we destroying the rainforests? You know, a million different things we can talk about,

Starting point is 00:44:52 all the negatives that are happening, as you mentioned earlier. but the spirituality says there's a greater good. And what's happening here is caused by man, by people, not necessarily by the greater good that's out there, again, wherever we want to call that spirit. So I think spirituality is something that just truly brings us together in community, if it's done the right way, not if it's done in the dogma religion that says my religion is better than yours if you're not following my god

Starting point is 00:45:28 then you must be going to hell or you know whatever it's it's not that that's not what it is at all it's about love it's about spirituality in my mind is about again this brotherhood sisterhood that we are all connected through the spirit whatever that spirit is i don't know any of us can define what that spirit is but it's it's out there yeah yeah yeah I think on some levels, heightened states of awareness bring you close to that connection, whether it's forest bathing, whether it's psychedelics, but you run up against that thing that's ineffable. And that is the spirit.

Starting point is 00:46:04 That is the, that is being in communication with a part of you that's greater than you. It's part of the whole. And like just, you know, it's like the moth flying into the blue light. Like, I'm going to make communion with him. Zap, it's gone. You know what I mean? Like, is it die or does it get absorbed into the wonderful blue light that is its magnificent essence? I don't know.

Starting point is 00:46:30 But you're drawn to it. And like, you know it's there. And it calls to you on a level that speaks to every cell of your body. And it is powerful. Like, you realize, the moment you realize you're part of something greater, then you can begin to understand that this thing you can't let go of, this trauma that plays you and hurts your soul is like, it's necessary on some level. And I don't know why it's necessary, but for growth,

Starting point is 00:46:56 it's necessary on some level. And that allows you to begin thinking about it differently. Because when we're so consumed by the pain, you can't think about anything but the pain. And that's, it's, it's the beautiful tragedy of our lives that unfolds in front of us.

Starting point is 00:47:17 And it's painful and it hurts, but it's necessary on some level. I've recently came to the conclusion to the question that was always asked me. George, is that really necessary? The answer to that is yes, it's imperative. Yeah. Two things come up from that. One is I love what you said.

Starting point is 00:47:38 I can't remember what was on a podcast or me personally or whatever, but. And others have said it now to me too. And it's something I think the world needs to heal here. Well, he'll end here. Yeah. And that is, you said that your greatest trauma has become your greatest gift. And wow. I think when you're in that trauma, there's no way in the world you can ever see that, ever, because you are so deep in it.

Starting point is 00:48:17 But if you can get through that. And so that's why I talk about, you know, that mountain sometimes is like insurmounted. It's like Mount Everest. I'll never get up there. Yeah. I'm going to need breathing and a camel or whatever to get up there. But once you get up there and you can see the view, you can say that was a gift. And it, you know, I, if that could be the billboard message we plaster, you know, you might

Starting point is 00:48:54 not believe it today. I might not believe it tomorrow or next month or next year. But true healing is when you can look back and say it's a gift because this is how it's transformed my life, my worldview, my relationships, everything for the better. And I just thank you for that gift to me because, wow, I mean, so that's one thing. Thank you. The other thing I just want to get back to the puzzle, because I swear, George, you're going to drive me crazy because you always give me like 20 ideas in each podcast, but I love the puzzle metaphor because the other thing I love about it is I think about, especially people that have experienced childhood trauma, because their childhood is kind of robbed from them.

Starting point is 00:49:54 And, you know, until recently, I had forgotten that I had a, please don't question my sanity here, people. But I had a childhood friend for imaginary friend, sorry, imaginary friend, probably some real friends, too, but I had this imaginary friend who lived in, I just recently remembered, lived in this utility shack that was probably like a power station or something like that why he lived there I have no idea

Starting point is 00:50:29 but he was the friend who always supported me when I was getting my punished for something I felt I didn't do or my parents were fighting or my older brothers were ignoring me or whatever this friend was

Starting point is 00:50:49 reliable. And we play games together. And so I just want to say the other cool thing about healing and this puzzle piece is so perfect because I think we've lost, many of us have lost that picture of us as a child. You know, I've really grown to understand inner child work so much more because it's we lose, you know, when we're children, think about, you know, we watch five-year-old's play, they're just, they're not looking and comparing themselves to other. They're not saying, oh, you have Nike and I have, you know, Walmart shoes. They're not saying, uh, I'm better than you. They're just playing and laughing and going on the swings or whatever it is. And they're a community together and they realize, hey, if we all push this merry ground, it'll go even faster. And so they're

Starting point is 00:51:48 working together. So I think it's beautiful when you can get to a point of healing where you can go back. And I think I think adult trauma can separate that as well, because that certainly in my case, more. But I love that puzzle piece where we can start putting those puzzles together and say, and maybe as we're building that picture of us, we see in the background, oh, yeah, there's that swing I used to love playing on. Or there's that tree I climb. you know, we don't do enough as adults to have fun. You know, Jenny and I, and since you mentioned her and Rachel mentioned her in the comment, you know, we play a crazy game of ping pong every day almost.

Starting point is 00:52:34 And we don't follow the rules. We allow ricochets off the wall, off the ceiling. You know, people would be offended, you know, table tenants, people would be offended by it. But we laugh our butts off. And it is so cathartic, even as we both feel like we're, you know, kind of in a maintenance phase of our healing, that laughter every day is something that brings back that childhood joy and that childhood memory and just help stoke. So if we had a bad day, you know, if I got an email, someone complaining about something or I couldn't find the email I wanted to reply to, 10 minutes of crazy ping pong and I am, I've forgotten what that problem was. I love that puzzle. I'm going to steal the puzzle.

Starting point is 00:53:21 Sorry, I'll give me a little aspect for credit. Yeah, do it. Thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah. So often it's that, it's that odd piece of the puzzle.

Starting point is 00:53:32 You're like, you don't know what it is. Like, you don't know what that. What is this? I can't find it. But then you find it, everything makes sense. And I love the idea about it being the swing set. You know, all of a sudden you see the swing set and you go,

Starting point is 00:53:43 that's where my sister pushed me off. That's when I fell out. That's when I broke my jaw bone. No one did anything about it. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's fascinating to think about it. And I think that the puzzle speaks to the idea of wholeness as well.

Starting point is 00:53:56 When you put the pieces back together, now you have a whole picture. And you can look at it and admire it and go, oh, this is, I can see the cat chasing him over here. I remember that, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that it's so true.

Starting point is 00:54:11 And, you know, maybe especially in today's era of digital photos. where, you know, at least in the old days, we could get the old, you know, at family holidays, we'd get the scrapbook out and people would look at the old photos. But, you know, I don't think people would do that anymore. And it's that puzzle of, you know, reminding ourselves when we complete it. Oh, yeah. You know, my mom used to call me her happy go lucky kid, which I think is, for many years, I thought was ironic because I didn't think I was that happy or go lucky.

Starting point is 00:54:42 Certainly not the lucky part. But as I built this picture, you know, again, it wasn't the puzzle, but now it is. I saw that happy, go lucky kid. And I remember that imaginary friend. And I was like, yeah, I want that spirit back in me. I don't want to be this serious adult that takes everything with so much gravity. I want to experience the lightness. That's why I get one of the reasons I so love your podcast, George, because, you know, I look at you, you ask, especially when you have this question you're going to ask, because I can see the little devilishness in your eyes.

Starting point is 00:55:24 And then you ask it and you sit back and wait for the explosion. That is joy. That is, you're loving what you're doing. And that, that's healing to me. That's what we're looking for. That's that inner child that says, yeah, there's a time to be serious, of course. But there's a time for joy. It's a time for lightness.

Starting point is 00:55:46 There's a time for reflection. So, yeah, thank you. It reminds me, like, good conversations are so amazing. And one thing that I've learned doing podcasting is that when I give this good question, I'm like, I'm going to ask this person teaching me about a problem in their life and it's going to help me solve a problem in my life. So in some ways, I'm like, oh, it's just so exciting to me to get to speak to so many cool people that are unique and have something to say and have found a way to do something I admire.

Starting point is 00:56:17 And I'm like, wow, I can't wait to learn from this person. And I think if more people took that approach that everybody you speak to is a master in some way and they have a secret, they're trying to teach you. And your job is to get it out of them. Maybe they don't want to tell you. So you got to kind of sneak up to it a little bit on some ways. But it's such a fulfilling way to help heal. And I always harken back to the like the youngian idea that people are mirrors and the things that you see in people, the reflections of yourself. And maybe that's why you gravitate towards certain people, is that you share a common bond or each of you holds a piece to the puzzle.

Starting point is 00:56:50 And if you put it together, then you can both walk away with this tool. But yeah, I think that these modalities are amazing. Yeah, it's a good way to reflect back on that, too, that if someone is yelling at you or scream, you know, whatever, calling your names, it's probably them projecting their pain onto you. It's nothing for you. So it works both ways that we can learn from each other, but we can also be careful if someone is not being nice to us.

Starting point is 00:57:23 It's probably not a reflection of what we did. It's more what they're going through. And it gives us a chance to give them grace and excuse them and not engage in that process. The other thing I just wanted to mention, people say, oh, you know, you should be, you know, tell me, oh, you should do your podcast, you'll get more people on the healing journey. I'm like, no, no, no. I don't have the skills. George, you do. I mean, and I think part of it is that curiosity, which is awesome. I mean,

Starting point is 00:57:53 I have curiosity, but I don't think I could write or develop the questions you do. And you have such a broad spectrum of what you read, which is, again, why I love listening to you and being on your podcast, both because I pick up books. I do this. same thing you're doing. I'm like, oh, that book. Oh, yes. We write it down. So thank you for that. The other thing I think works, why reflection and all these things work are the stories, because I think we can not only learn from interacting with each other as we do now, but in reading these stories, we can say, oh, that person got healing that way. We have the same problem I have, so maybe I will try that. You know,

Starting point is 00:58:37 where before I'm going, I don't know if I'm going to try that healing modality. It sounds a little too woo-woo or too out there or new age or whatever, whatever the reasoning might be. And so that's why, again, in this book, like in Triumph Over Trauma, I have, in this book, I have fewer stories. I have 11 stories of healing. And I just had to include these stories because, one, I just love supporting the courageousness of these storytellers.

Starting point is 00:59:07 And two, there's so much learning that people can get in a safe, safe avenue. You know, they can read this book on their device and the actual paperback. They don't, you know, no one has to see them reading it to fear that they're, you know, whatever problems they have. But these stories, like I have two stories, wasn't planned, but two stories from these women that both had Lyme disease and Lyme disease. I don't know how much you know about that, but it is the most, I don't know, nefarious disease in my mind because it mimics so many other things. You know, you get migraines, you get body aches, you get mind fog, you get all these different symptoms.

Starting point is 00:59:57 And so it looks like 30 different other disorders or diseases. And so these two, women in these stories both fought long journeys to their healing. Again, not necessarily the healing we're talking about here, but it's still a healing that they were so frustrated that, you know, that conventional medicine could not heal them because it couldn't, it was trying to, again, because so much of modern medicine is symptom management. Oh, you have a headache. Take an Advil. Oh, you're depressed. Here's an SS. or I, oh, you have high blood pressure. You know, here's this drug.

Starting point is 01:00:39 Rather than what's causing the high blood pressure, what's causing this? And so I just, because Lyme, and I grew up on the East Coast, and the East Coast is where lime is. That's why Lyme is special to me is in my mind. But lime is slowly spreading across the entire 48 states because of climate change. So it's something that we need to be aware of. So all these stories have little. lots of little pockets of information and secrets and that come out, open secrets that can

Starting point is 01:01:12 inspire people to say, wow, if that person can do it, I can do it. And so I love, that's the other power of storytelling to me is that not only are we learning and sharing from each other, but that we can take these lessons and incorporate them into our own lives. our own healing. Yeah. I love the idea of storytelling. And I love the way in which you've compiled the stories. Like, how does that happen?

Starting point is 01:01:45 Like, how do you find the people that have these amazing stories? And it is, and I think both of the books seem to be like a magnificent puzzle that you have found these pieces and put them together. Like, they all complement each other and like the people. I would love to talk to all those people. If we're listening, you guys are all welcome on this podcast. Maybe we could, maybe we could, you could, talk a little bit about what the process is like putting something like this together.

Starting point is 01:02:08 Yeah. I mean, first of all, I would love to do a podcast with either a couple of storytellers or a couple of the experts or all that. Yeah. I think I have a, I forget who it is now. He's not in the book, but he's someone who shared a showing story on LinkedIn. And we got on a Zoom. and I hadn't shared my story at all at that point.

Starting point is 01:02:41 And within five minutes, he said, you're just like me. What? He said, you were sexually abused. What? And so I think, again, I don't know God, universe, something, spiritual connection. So I think sometimes it's,

Starting point is 01:03:06 we just intuitively know when we see someone or see their writing or talk to them that there's trauma back there. It's not in the, maybe it is in the eyes. I don't know. It's something about the soul. And so, and I can't even tell you.

Starting point is 01:03:28 I mean, it's going to sound bad as an author, but I can't even tell you exactly how I recruited the storytellers for both books. For the first book, it was actually easier because with psychedelics, people often want to shout, oh my God, you know, I had this journey. I had love for the first time or whatever, because it's often so joyous or it's just so transformative or. And so those were easy because I could, I'd be on LinkedIn. Oh, there's another person. Okay, I'm going to contact them. With this one, it was more difficult because I also didn't, I didn't mind if one of the

Starting point is 01:04:16 healing modalities was psychedelics, but I didn't want that to be the sole modality because I think, again, I think some people were in the first book were a little scared off, you know, they're illegal. I'm not quite ready for it. You know, I don't, I can't remember if I told this last time but I have a dear dear cousin of mine and he wants to do a journey so badly and I'm like I have a source they mail it directly to your house it's microdosing tablets if you have a few boxes it'll go there you don't have to see the post person And her first thing was, well, you know, what if the police show up? I said, well, they're not checking.

Starting point is 01:05:09 As far as I know, I said, this company has shipped thousands of these bottles, and I haven't heard of no issues of that. I don't know how it works because to me, this stuff is still illegal, but it's happening. And then the second question was, well, if it's microdosing, how do I do a full journey? kind of combined some capsules but so I I

Starting point is 01:05:35 I just lost what was my point with telling that story he wanted to do a journey and he was afraid to do it and seconded else to illegal so it stops the modalities yeah so

Starting point is 01:05:49 I know but I don't know I got lost there in terms of the modalities that we were talking about because people not all people want to that's okay not all people want to do psychedelics because it's still illegal. Thank you. Thank you.

Starting point is 01:06:01 Yeah, that's right. So she, it's actually she. So she's not, I mean, she may do it before they become legal. And certainly in her state, there are movements to decrim certain cities. So, and the state itself. So she might do it sooner than she thinks. But so there were people that, yeah. So, so I learned that they're just people that are not ready for psychedelics.

Starting point is 01:06:25 And so I wanted to make sure we had these other. people with these other healing modalities in this new book. And so it was a little more challenging. And I don't know. I guess I just looked both at my people that I knew first, that I already had been connected with and kind of, since there was something going on there. And then the others, you know, just again,

Starting point is 01:06:53 looking at their post on social media, there's just something about that that just, again, I can't explain it and maybe it's again this this this this power that that supplies supports us all whatever we call it but I just found these people and again I probably found about three times as many that are in the book because those that are I talked to all of them and some have amazing stories, but they're just not ready to share it. And so that's why I call them courageous because it does take courage to, to,

Starting point is 01:07:38 it's one thing to heal and say, okay, I accept what happened and, and I see the benefits from it. And my, my life wouldn't be the same without it. It's another thing to put it on paper for the world to see. And I, I had someone who, who, who, recorded and wrote their entire story with me months ago. And my philosophy is I don't push people. I'll give them one nudge.

Starting point is 01:08:13 And if they're not ready, they're not ready. I don't want to cause more trauma on them. And she has this, wow, beautiful story. And I think one day she'll share it, but she wasn't ready. And so that's, that's okay. but those who are courageous. So I thank all of them, including my wonderful podcast host here.

Starting point is 01:08:37 And by the way, Georgia does have to say, every editor and proofreader who has read the book all talk about the power of your story. So thank you. you are going to help a lot of people heal. And I, I, I'm getting, you know, it is, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you.

Starting point is 01:09:07 All the storytellers because, you know, it's, and I guess, you know, people said in the first book, you know, why didn't you share your, why didn't ask me, why didn't I share my story? And partly it was, partly was an ego thing. I didn't feel people, my story was important enough, you know. And I didn't want to take the focus away from the people that were doing the stories because sometimes a reader can say, oh, the author has more weight to it because it's the author, so that story is weighs more or whatever.

Starting point is 01:09:47 And it's like, no. But I got so much grief from not including the story in triumper trauma that I did include it in and heal. And it was cathartic. It was helpful to share that story. And it is different when you see it in print and say, oh, wow, now everyone's going to know what happened. And I think for me, it's been really freeing. I don't know. You can talk about it.

Starting point is 01:10:22 I mean, it's not out yet. So for you, but for me, it's like that last stake of honesty that I needed to plant in the ground. You know, I, my, you know, the story, the question people like to ask, like, what's one thing you would change in your life if you could go back in time? And I think you and I, well, I don't know. I'm not going to speak for you at all. For me, I would say, well, there are a lot of things I probably would love to change, but I wouldn't change anything because I am in a spot now that I never in my life imagined I would be in. You know, I was maybe almost a pathological liar because of my trauma.

Starting point is 01:11:15 I mean, to the point where I was believing my own lives. I mean, it's kind of scary when that happened. And, and, you know, I had, I mean, I was this not Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Hight, or Mr. Huy, Dr. I, but I was this, you know, straight-laced professional with this deep, dark side that some saw and kept seeping further and further out. And I think it's important for people to be able to see that, you know, we all struggle. We all have trauma. We all have done things or have things happen to us that are bad or uncomfortable or unfortunate. But I would not have the love of my life today without the trauma.

Starting point is 01:12:15 the healing journey that ensued. Jenny's the only person in my life that I've never told a lie to from day one. And maybe, maybe, I'll just say that it's not dating advice, but we started out as friends. And so from the first couple of times we chatted once we became good friends, you know, we told each other all the crap in our lives, all. all the bad stuff because we're like, oh, we're just friends. We can share all this. And then we had a chance meeting and that changed everything.

Starting point is 01:12:55 But I love that I had that foundation with that because there are the vast majority of people, at least in my path, that, you know, probably half the stuff I told them were lies because that's just how I existed. My lying was almost like breathing to me, which might lead to breath. We'll hold off on that for a second. But anyway, so, so, you know, do you want, I don't know if you want to talk a teeny bit about the process with you and as a storyteller, or save that for another time or what, I don't want to put you on the spot, but I'm just, I just, again, just so grateful for you in so many ways,

Starting point is 01:13:41 but especially for providing the story in the book. Yeah. Thank you for that. I love talking to you because the same way that we both come up with all these ideas and metaphors. And when I hear you talking about, what is it like to publish it and put that story out there? The idea that comes to mind for me is that like our lives and trauma is like a lighthouse. Like we find ourselves in this secluded area and then we build this big monument to our trauma. It's like a prison.

Starting point is 01:14:12 And it's way out in this powerful area where the waves are crashing and it's violent. And we're all alone. It's this solitary structure in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing. But then when you publish it, it's like you put the light on. You're like, I'm going to start calling people over here. Really? I'm going to start telling people to come this way or watch out. But if you think about it, it's like you've built this prison for yourself on the middle of nowhere.

Starting point is 01:14:36 And all of a sudden, you get to a point where you're like, okay, enough of this. this is no longer a prison for me. This is a beacon of light to warn people about the situation. I'm going to turn this light on and I'm going to have it run 24-7. That's what publishing does. It puts your story out there and it shines a light like, hey, you're not alone. There's been people that crashed over here. Be careful.

Starting point is 01:14:58 It's okay if you crash, but stay away from this area right here. This is a sign that something's going on. And, you know, I just, I love the idea of building, of building, of, a lighthouse where you can warn people of things coming. And, you know, that, that lighthouse is built in an area where there's been dangerous things before. And if people can be aware of it, perhaps it will allow them from not having as much of a crash or to allow them to know

Starting point is 01:15:27 that there could be danger uphead. And sometimes that awareness is enough to change someone's life. If you see something, you can move out of the way. If you're aware of something, you can change your direction. If you're aware of something, you can shift your focus. And I think that that's what so many of these great storytellers that are in your book and both of the books are doing for people is that they are changing the perspective of a potential person who is either in a storm, getting into go through a storm or coming out of a storm. And that's back to this connectedness. It's really wonderful.

Starting point is 01:15:58 Okay, George. And here's how we're connected. Okay. And too many ways. Wow. So Jenny called me first. lighthouse and I called her my safe harbor mind blown every time we do one of these but I love that yeah yeah that light at first is solitary the lightkeeper yeah think about the lives

Starting point is 01:16:31 of the what you know yeah that I I toured many of the lighthouses along Oregon coast on a trip And, you know, some of these were only access to land during low tide. They were, you know, out there. And oftentimes there was just a lightkeeper and maybe his family or her family, 99% were men back in the day. And they lived pretty harsh lives. So it's a great analogy. But they had a duty to protect others and shine that light to show the hazards.

Starting point is 01:17:08 And that's what these storytellers who were once sort of solitary in their trauma have now said, I again, that said healing. I want to shine this light to everyone can avoid or learn from this and be on their own healing journey and protect themselves on that journey. So it's beautiful. It's like it's an honor to be called a lightkeeper. That's a great title. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 01:17:39 Like that's fascinating to think about. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was definitely fascinated by all the, by the structures and the lives of those people. And the dedication they had. I mean, they knew lives were at stake. They could just sleep in or, you know, yeah, it's foggy today, but I'm tired. I don't want to like the thing. No, they went up there and they did that.

Starting point is 01:18:03 So, yeah, yeah, it's fascinating. Yeah. Yeah, I guess that that kind of takes us into, you know, the idea of breathwork in some ways. Yeah. So I love, I love breathwork. I love all the things that Lauren said in your podcast. I find I'm kind of an amateur meditator. I can get to some level, and sometimes I can get a little deeper, especially if I'm maybe on a microdose, something like that.

Starting point is 01:18:44 But I can't get to the level of some of these master meditators that are just, you know, their experiences basically sound like a psychedelic experience. And I haven't trained my brain well enough for that. But breathwork, you can get, you know, by some of these, you know, it's all sorts of different techniques of breathwork, but some of these breathwork techniques can get you to a point where you, because of how you're adjusting the oxygen and all that in the breathwork, but can take you to different states of consciousness or certainly different perspectives as we're talked about.

Starting point is 01:19:24 And so I love that, but I also love the idea of just So that's the healing part of it, I think. The healing part is using breathwork to get to that place of, again, I think always what we're striving for in healing is getting to a place where we're sort of in a third person. We're a third party looking at our path. I was talking to Bob Whitty yesterday. and he said one of his healing experiences was like looking in a window of a cabin and seeing himself and whatever it was, the trauma happening. And he was just like just watching it, just looking at like it was a movie or something

Starting point is 01:20:18 and perfectly calm. but allowing the adult brain to say, you could have some grace for his younger self and some mercy for the person that was doing, you know, whatever was happening. And so I think that's the, when we can get to that point with breathwork where we can have that change in perspective.

Starting point is 01:20:47 But the other thing I love about breathwork is, is to the mindfulness, part of it, that, you know, this is, you know, one of the few automatic functions. Yeah. That during this whole podcast, I haven't thought about breathing once because we're just, you know, just talking and the body does it for me. But having conscious focus on breath, again, sort of like that nature healing, it allows us to calm our system down and shut out.

Starting point is 01:21:23 the noise and just whether it's the box method or just counting your breathing or keep breathes in holding it and except you know there's like I say there are multiple methods that are out there and of course also listed in the book but I think any time we can turn off the automatic things in life and focus on it itself so like breathing yeah It just allows us to, again, change our perspective, change our environment, and take us to a point where we can have some reflection on whatever it is we're talking about. Oh, which leads me to one other point. Again, another parallel with psychedelics, but I think all healing

Starting point is 01:22:22 needs to have intention. Like if you just do breathwork for the sake of breathwork, that's fine. It's a good thing. It's a nice process. It's a good practice. It maybe gives you a gratitude moment. But if we set the intention

Starting point is 01:22:38 that I'm going to do this breathwork to solve something that's nagging at the back of my head, you know, what is the scent? I can't quite put my hand on it. Or you know, I had this other journey and I saw something, but I need to go deeper into it. So intention is critical in all these healing modalities. I mean, yes, if you go up for a walk in nature and you don't think about it,

Starting point is 01:23:03 you're still going to get some of the benefits. But if you have the intention of, you know, I'm going to go sit in my garden. I love that, by the way. Yeah. And I'm just going to be here for 30 minutes and just be with the intention of being quiet, observing nature, feeling, seeing, fencing, everything around me while working on this problem. And it doesn't have to be in the forefront, but you have to have that intention because otherwise you're just sitting there and enjoying your garden, which again, is a wonderful thing,

Starting point is 01:23:37 but it's not necessarily getting the healing part of it. So thank you for saying intention, because that is critical in the healing process. Yeah. There's something to be said about knowing what you need to be. to work on like that will focus you on the direction or at least help you help you see the path you know we don't always know what the answer is but we can start by taking that first step and that first step will lead to the next one and so on and so on and yeah and yeah and we have we have great you know again i am not the the i'll let me come to say this first you know we have

Starting point is 01:24:14 whimhoff and dan groff and other great great experts in and breath work. And so I am not, my goal here with this book with both books actually is, my goal is coming back to what you said at the very beginning of this podcast, which is I want to take this healing to the world. And I think sometimes people get intimidated by like how to change your mind. Love that book. Love Michael Pollan. But I've had many people say, they couldn't finish it. The body keeps score. Amazing information in there.

Starting point is 01:25:00 I've had a lot of people say they get through half of it can't finish it. And so there are all these amazing experts out there, but sometimes we have to take it down to a level that everyone can understand. And I'm not trying to downplay it. I'm not trying to say we all couldn't understand Michael Pollan. We all could understand Michael Pollan. but sometimes I guess my writing style is always try to be make it as accessible anyone who needs it.

Starting point is 01:25:31 And so I utilize all these experts and I certainly always try to reference them because they are the ones who did. I'm just saying here's a compilation. So you don't have to do 100 hours of your own research. Here it is in one book. And if you want to find out more, then go to, you know, go to, you know, Wimhuff website and learn more there or whatever. But at least you have the basics in this one volume. And it's a starting point for going deeper.

Starting point is 01:26:04 You know, there are great books on psychedelics besides how to change your mind, you know. Matt Zeman has a great book. And then there are also great books about personal stories like Shannon Duncan's and Matt Simpson's. Doc asking, so there are all these, you know, people that are, so again, I guess my point is I'm, and maybe it's, you know, the ego saying shut up, but I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, the ones that the ones who, the, the, the ones who, groundbreaking people, whether it's psychedelics, whether it's breath work, whether it's meditation. So that's why I try to do. I try to do, I try to, I try to, I try to, I try to, I try to In this book and in Triumphrauma trauma, I've tried to, again, my educator hat, here's what's been done. Here's why it works. Here's how you could use it. Here's why you should use it.

Starting point is 01:27:04 Here's some stories of people who did use it. If you want more, here are the experts to go deeper into and into whether it's, you know, semantics or spirituality or whatever. And so I just want to kind of backstep from that because I, you know, that's I guess one of the hardest things for me when it is it's my book, yes, but it's a storyteller's book. But it's also the, I have eight experts in here that actually have contributed to the book. Plus then, of course, the experts that have contributed by just sharing their research. So it's a, I guess, I guess a book in a sense. falls what we've been talking about all along, that it takes, we are a community and it takes all of us. It's not just one person who's an expert. It's all of us has something to share. And again,

Starting point is 01:28:02 it comes back to your podcasts and other podcasts. I don't want to just keep all the praise on you, although it's deserving. But, you know, all these podcasts that are out there about healing and minding expansion and changing perspective and even just educating on all these topics, it's important because we all do have something to say and all of us have life experiences that have deep meaning. And so anyway, long tangent. Sorry about that, but not at all. It's beautiful. I think that your two books so far and books like Rattled Awake, which is a cool series.

Starting point is 01:28:44 Yes, I definitely want to check that out. Yeah, you love it. But I think that these three particular books that are right on my radar right now is that it goes hand in hand with the revolution of healing. Because what you're doing is you're co-creating with people for so long the way in which we've worked is this rugged individualism or this idea that one person does. But no one person does anything that's magnificent. There may be some great things that people do, but everyone has a team around them. Everyone has someone that contributes. And now it's like when I see the books like this, like, hey, everyone's getting a chance to be part of the healing modality.

Starting point is 01:29:25 Everyone is sharing a story and we're sharing them together for so long as like we were all alone together. But now we're kind of like co-creating this thing. And when you do that, you're sharing the responsibility. You know, it's the chop wood, carry water as a community. We're building something together. And I think that your work has been instrumental in this. You know, you're bringing together people's stories and putting them in one place so other people can find them. And you're giving credit to the people that are like, it's like that pink Floyd dark side of the moon where the light goes through and then like all the colors come out the other side.

Starting point is 01:29:57 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I feel like you're the prism and you're just like this light shining through. And then you're like, look at all this beautifulness, you know, so I love it. Thank you. I love our conversations. And so where, when is the book available is out now? When is the launch date? Where can people find it?

Starting point is 01:30:16 Give us the load on on that kind of stuff. The book is currently pre-sale on Amazon, just the KDP, or the e-book, the Kindle book. But I probably in my email right now, I have the final cover design and pages from the designer. So it'll be going to press soon. And the actual launch date is November 15th. And that's definitely when the paperback will be available. And it should be available, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and bookstores, it might take a little longer to get to, but we'll see. But yeah, so November 15th, it's a big day.

Starting point is 01:30:58 And if you follow me on any social media, you'll probably get a little sick of it by the time November 15th coming around. But, and they can go to heal mehold.com. and there's some free articles already posted up there about healing. There's also a link to the Amazon page and some other information about the book itself. I'm so excited for it. It's going to be in so many ways. I'm so thankful that I get to be a part of this project. I believe in Triumphrauma, It's such an amazing book.

Starting point is 01:31:34 This is such amazing book. I can't wait to meet some of the co-authors. And it's always a pleasure to get to spend some time with you. And next time we got to have Jenny with us because I think the three of us could probably have like a really even more robust conversation. That's true. Yeah, but it's fun.

Starting point is 01:31:48 We have to twist her arm. We have to twist her arm a little bit. I know. And yeah, well, maybe we can get in, maybe we can get another podcast before launch date, but let's stay in touch. And I really love talking to you. And I appreciate your time.

Starting point is 01:32:01 And I'm really thankful for everything you're doing and how much you care about people. So thank you very much for that. Thank you. I appreciate you, George. And thank you. It's just someone told me the other day, It's a, you're a man on a mission.

Starting point is 01:32:12 And I said, yeah, I am. I didn't expect to be on this mission. And I just, I feel like I'm, as your analogy, I feel like I'm being lifted up by all these co-creators and others. And every time I get someone who said they've healed, it's just like, you know, my heart sings. And that's just what I want. I just want people to heal.

Starting point is 01:32:37 Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you there. So ladies and gentlemen, The book is called it's called heel. Is that the name of the book? What's the name of the book? Heal. It's called,

Starting point is 01:32:47 Heal, first, because I don't have it in front of me. That's good. Yeah, Mike, you have all these notes and I've lost my notes. I know. All right, hold on one second. I have to do it.

Starting point is 01:33:03 Yeah, yeah. All right, it's called heal, holistic practices to help clear your trauma, heal yourself, and live your life and live your best life. Yeah, and it's packed with incredible stories that come from the heart that will go to the heart. And, you know, it's a wonderful thing. I'm so excited to see what's happening in our world right now.

Starting point is 01:33:27 And we'll hang on briefly. Hang on briefly afterwards. I'm going to hang up with our friends in the audience, but I want to talk to you briefly afterwards. Ladies and gentlemen, the book is called Healed. The book prior to that was called Triumph Over Trauma. They are a series of stories that will welcome change into your life. and hopefully at least be somewhat like a lighthouse to keep you aware of what can be out there. And understand you're not alone.

Starting point is 01:33:50 There's plenty of ways to find ways to become whole. And that's all we got for today, ladies and gentlemen. Aloha.

TrueLife - Randall Hansen PhD - Healing Modalities

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