Your Symptoms & Body Are Speaking to You. Here’s How to Finally Listen, Heal, and Recover

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:01]Good morning from my guest star in his galaxy. I'm going to introduce him in a moment. For some of the uh new listeners and people from the community who don't know who I am, my name is Dr. Tova Goldfine. This is TMS Roundtable Recovery where we stream live every week, meet professors and doctors and movie directors and authors like Cardin and practitioners and brilliant people like Carden. um we bring them to the round table. But most important what happens here is we meet people with real recovery stories, people that really have uh recovered or on their healing journey and we talk about what's going on and how they did it, how they use these neuroplastic methods to recover.

[00:00:49]So, we meet people who are healing everything from cancer to multiple sclerosis, which my own mother um had, and to arthritis and all types of chronic pain. And we're here to really talk about what I think Carden and I agree on is the real truth, the real science in the art of healing.

[00:01:10]So, tonight, Cardan Rabine, did I say it correctly? I love that name. Cardin, >> we I do say, but we do say it Raven. So not quite not quite like you rebin co-founder of Somia Somia co-author of the secret language of the body. Fabulous fabulous book. I like I was telling Cardian I I've not been excited about a book for a long time and I'm really excited about this book. So, uh, Cardin is the co-founder, um, of Somia and co-author of The Secret Language of the Body with Jen Man, who I hope to have on the broadcast later this summer. He's a neuroplastic medicine practitioner specializing in chronic pain and complex stress related illnesses. After living with debilitating back pain, which he shared with me for more than a decade, that's 10 years, Carden began studying the neuroscience of pain, trauma, and stress physiology. Through his training with leaders in neuroplastic recovery and somatic trauma therapies, he came to understand that many chronic symptoms are not signs of damage but protective patterns created by the brain and nervous system that can be retrained.

[00:02:33]Today, Cardin helps people around the world resolve chronic pain, fatigue, stressbased conditions, all types of autoimmune symptoms by working with the brain's alarm system, restoring nervous system regulation, and helping the body remember safety. He also co-created heal, a structured nervous system retraining program that integrates somatic practices, emotional processing, and brainbased reappraisal and traumainformed healing.

[00:03:07]Wow, I'm so excited because I actually started learning this course and as I said, I have 41 years of experience and learning a lot, but I've not been as excited to talk about um a topic as this and to see how they can not only help me with my work, but help so many people move to recovery and so many people that are suffering and struggling in with the medical model. And we're not against the medical model. We're here to integrate.

[00:03:40]And so tonight, we're going to talk to Carden first about a little bit about his journey, like what the hell happened and then about the book and meeting Jan who's into Indonesia. And Carden's in Massachusetts, right? And so like how did that all we I'm kind of curious about that but more so >> how we can help our listeners our communities um find the doctor in them which I always like to say so Harden welcome and I'm so happy for this hour bless your big heart for being here. Thank you for that big beautiful welcoming and uh introduction and you you make it sound like I've done a lot of things. That sounds pretty cool.

[00:04:23]>> Well, I think you're pretty busy. Even though you're have this wife and these two precious children, I see like you you really juggle and you're doing a great job. So, join us and share with us the back pain, the drama, the trauma, a little bit of growing up in your childhood and then what happened.

[00:04:39]>> Yeah, let's let's see how how do we do that in a in a digestible way? I I I often, you know, we we see people and we have these experiences where there seems to be this sudden onset. Actually, one of my teachers, um, S hitsman of the melt method would call it like sudden onset chronic pain. And the interesting thing about that is uh people tend to until they get guided, they ignore the biography, the history that preceded the kind of fall of the body, whether that be into pain, into fatigue, into uncontrollable histamine reactions. Um, and so I'm going to give like the TLDDR cliffnotes of childhood, but they would include um a divorced family um a deeply narcissistic mother who was addicted to opioids um and took 12 percoetses a day for most of her life to treat her own back pain and other things.

[00:05:45]Um, and I grew up in a household of um on my mom's side or generally like pervasive neglect.

[00:05:56]And when we the the the misnomer in most people's conception of trauma is that especially developmental trauma is the emphasis I think is it's maybe more visible or um more visible maybe appears more credible um and more obvious is like abuse whether that be physical abuse, emotional abuse. Um, we we have we quote trauma was something being done to you.

[00:06:28]Now, that's true, but I will say this till the day I die because people need to hear it endlessly that neglect and the things that were not done for you in your developmental years specifically from 0 to 7 are more damaging than the things that were done to you.

[00:06:49]the withdrawal of affection, the withdrawal of emotional attunement, the withdrawal of attention. Basically, um the invisible nutrient of a developing human being is attention and love and care.

[00:07:03]Now, you will survive and live with food and shelter and even like materialistic abundance like money, right, and fancy cars. But if the whole time you are being strangled or have this awful deficit of attention and love, that is deeply traumatizing to a developing human being, brain, body, and heart. And um I say that because people need to hear it and um I'm just saying it again.

[00:07:33]So that was more of my environment. Um my stepdad as well was um kind of uh known for his temper. So, there was that kind of scary sort of um uh verbal or sort of emotional threat and violence, but I'd even go that that was definitely second place to the pervasive neglect.

[00:07:55]And I was also the most sickly of children. Um I had u severe asthma. I was hospitalized approximately 10 times between six and 16 with severe asthma attacks. Um, I had two near-death experiences with asthma.

[00:08:12]I was the kid that was sick all the time and didn't make it to birthday parties because somehow I was always getting ill. Um, again, all these things other than the asthma, all the other weird things no one I couldn't explain. I have I would have terrible migraines. I had abdominal migraines. Um, I would I only found out in the last two years that there's finally a name for this, but at times I would wake up feeling terrible, like I was suffocating and having a panic attack, but I didn't know what a panic attack was. And I'd run up to my mother and I'd tell her that the the static from the TV was in my brain, which we now know is called it has a name. It's called Visual Snow. Which by the way, think about a seven or eight year old kid going up to his parents and saying, "I have what's the closest thing to Visual Snow?" It's the static the from the TV was in my brain. And you can imagine my mom looked at me like I had three heads. like what the hell's wrong with this kid?

[00:09:13]So, I had all of these unassessed weird neuroplastic symptoms throughout my childhood.

[00:09:22]Um, and as I went into adolescence and got away from the home and went to college, basically as I got independent and away from the traumatic environment, I for a period of time stabilized. A lot of those symptoms seem to go away. People will often say asthma resolves itself as you grow older, right? Well, when you look at that physiologically, it doesn't make a lot of sense. But when you look at it from the perspective of the nervous system, it makes a huge amount of sense. Doc, you look like you're itching to say something. So, I want to let you >> No, no, no. Thank you for that. It just I I just want to even go back to No, no, no. Continue.

[00:10:02]>> So, >> I'll stop you. Yeah, continue. But this is >> so things things a lot of my symptoms stabilized and when you look at them from a nervous system perspective in that period that I got more agency more independence more adulthood and separation from the home a lot of the things that were causing my dysregulation or perpetuating trauma responses I got safe from for a period of time.

[00:10:29]Um, but because we carry these things inside themselves and they're unresolved, as most of our listeners will know, I think even some listeners might be listening be like, "Yeah, I think I had a bunch of things going on." Then I had this period where I felt well and functional, but then all that caught up to me. We'll get to that.

[00:10:48]Um but the next part of the story would be that when I was 21, when I was a senior in college, my mom died of complications, cardiopulmonary failure from the at 54 from all the medicine she was on, all the cigarettes she was smoking. Like she just her body her body couldn't do it anymore.

[00:11:09]Um, and we're not going to go there there's all sorts of stuff that we could unpack from there from the nervous system perspective, but it was a and remember she was on all these opioids presumably to treat low back pain.

[00:11:22]And um, it was two years after that that I had my first episode of low back pain.

[00:11:28]>> How old were you?

[00:11:30]>> 23.

[00:11:32]>> You were 21 when she died.

[00:11:34]>> Yeah.

[00:11:35]>> 21 when she died. 23 is when I started having maybe even 22 when I first started having episodes of low back pain. And then um it was after doing uh a cross my first ever CrossFit workout where I was subjected to a workout that was completely irresponsible and inappropriate and momentarily injurous to my body. That was the thing that locked in the predictive coding of the pain spasm pain cycle and the fragility and danger of my low back. And then I was lost in a wilderness of pain and failed interventions from basically I'd say 25 till 36 37 35. Yeah. 10 years.

[00:12:27]So, so you're thinking something's wrong with my back. Something was wrong with my mom's back. So, if something's wrong with my back, I'm broken.

[00:12:34]>> Totally. And also, I was a body worker and functional movement guy. So, I I was worshiping at the throne of structure and function, right? The the the way I was educated and the promise that was made to me is that if I could get things to be in the right place and move in the right way, then pain goes away. Right?

[00:12:51]And that was the mo. And by the way, we're successful enough in that model um to make a living and for people to think that we're competent and for us to think that we're competent, but we're really in active denial about all the places where those models are failing.

[00:13:08]We're in active denial. And in that process of active denial, we tend to do a couple things. As a practitioner, we're like, "Oh, well, I must I just need to learn more. There must be something I'm missing about the structure and function side of things."

[00:13:20]The other form of denial which is a bit more uh perpetrative is that we blame the client. You know, you either didn't do enough of the stretching, you didn't do enough of the exercise, you weren't moving cleanly enough, right? And we're in this game. And there was a part of me that despite the success since I saw over time these things not working for me even though I was an expert and I was committed and then I saw them not working for client for certain subsets of clients. There was something always going like I'm missing for I'm missing something. There is an origin that's hidden here.

[00:13:54]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're because you're you're the practitioner. It's like we have this responsibility and it's our it's not even our ego. It's like we truly care. I mean someone like you and I we like care about our clients. Like we really want them to get better. We really believe in our art and our skill. And then here you are as a practitioner. So enormous amount of of chaos continuing. So you continue to practice and work and still with >> practice and work and each progressive year when some random activity made my back go out. It was in it was 10x worse.

[00:14:30]It lasted longer, the recovery was harder and um my you know basically paranoia about my own body and movement increased. And uh the kind of crux of this story is 2016ish.

[00:14:49]I'm in the longest bout of unrelenting terrible back pain that I've been in. I think I'm on at least month eight. Um and remember it's it's the low back.

[00:15:02]It's the ilotibial band. It will go from one sciatic to the other. Sometimes it would feel like a thunderstorm in my groin of electrical pain. It would go down both legs and I'd have bilateral shocks into my peroniiuses, my outer calves, and I'd collapse to the ground.

[00:15:17]Um, it was, you know, it was all-encompassing. And I was considering surgery. I was I I actually I got I got my I got my disability insurance for my hands and my body just in case I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to continue to practice.

[00:15:32]And in a form of irony, I'm down on Long Island at a yoga studio, a colleague's yoga studio. And again, I'm an authority on the body. So, I'm teaching the anatomy and physiology component of this yoga teacher training. I'm telling them how to move, right? I'm telling them how things function. I'm being wicked smart.

[00:15:52]And in between the lectures, I'm collapsing to the ground, putting my legs up the wall. You know, I'm sweating bullets with pain sometimes while I'm teaching. And during one of the breaks where I'm resting at the yoga studio owner's home, I see on her bookshelf, >> I see it.

[00:16:10]>> Sliver of a book.

[00:16:12]>> Let's see it.

[00:16:13]>> Healing back pain.

[00:16:14]>> Let's see it.

[00:16:16]>> And guys, it's really skinny.

[00:16:19]>> And then and then I'm like, and I by the way, I looked at it. You most people from around the world won't know this, but I'm from New Jer won't know what this means, but I'm from New Jersey.

[00:16:29]which means I have an enormous amount of cynicism in me. So I like looked at it and I was like, what could this possibly teach me? Right? And then and then I saw this picture, right, of this like dude's back with a towel over it. And so I was like, "Oh my god, what is this BS? Is he going to like show me a bunch of primitive exercises like a plank?" And because part of healing is is good fortune and fate and something beyond us intervening, um I had to go to the bathroom and so I needed something to read. So I brought it with me. That's the truth. All right.

[00:17:09]And I read the first two chapters of the book and like like a kung fu master in two chapters. As far as I was concerned, Sarno did two things. He completely decapitated and swept the feet out of the orthopedic model that I had been using for years. Okay. Decapitated it.

[00:17:33]And one could say because I knew so much I should have resisted. But I think because I knew so much I was like, "Oh, that makes sense. That makes sense. That makes sense. That makes sense. That makes sense." Again, it's not a rejection of orthopedics. It's not a rejection of clean movement. It's not action of strength. It's not a rejection of posture. But the idea that these things are the cause and effect of pain was completely erroneous. He does that and then he in his the language of the time presents what we would call now nervous system patterns or states as personality models.

[00:18:08]>> Yeah.

[00:18:11]>> And my brain exploded.

[00:18:15]>> Like the book was written for you. The book was written for you.

[00:18:18]>> Correct. The book was written for me.

[00:18:20]Thank you, Dr. John Sardo.

[00:18:22]>> Years ago, um I I forget her name. Black Danny Fagan said I didn't even have to use a highlighter because the book was written for ME AND I'LL NEVER WAS the highlight. Right. I love Danny, by the way.

[00:18:38]>> To Cardan Dr. Sarno wrote directly to Carden and you needed to have your back blown away for you to get that message from Dr. Sarno. Okay. That's right.

[00:18:47]>> And then I got the benefit I got the benefit within a week of the book cure.

[00:18:53]And for those that don't know what this is simply from re because by the way I know this is going to sound crazy. Since your mind is connected to your brain and your brain is your nervous system and then your nervous system is what controls pain. Something that influences your mind can change the way your brain is responding to your own pain. And so I got temporarily like almost almost 12 weeks unremitting pain for basically a decade for the past eight months went away. And the the combination of the proven my body plus the understanding what I say is that I I I viewed the way I'd been practicing for the la for the previous decade as synonymous with with leeches and bloodletting.

[00:19:37]And I couldn't go back. I couldn't go back. Like the the premise of my the entire premise of my work, which was because my my work wasn't to get people more functional. My work was to get people out of pain. That's what I was committed to. And the model I was practicing in basically fell apart in a few hours.

[00:19:55]And uh this is important. My book cure did not last. And the reason why it did not last your conscious mind is not the only thing involved in pain and chronic illness patterns.

[00:20:08]And so accessing different aspects of the brain, the autonomic nervous system and its somatic, it's embodied representations is absolutely vital to this method. And that's >> like the trajectory of where my interest in training went from there.

[00:20:23]>> So go ahead. So let's move on because I want to get to so you finally get the big message and it doesn't matter whether the pain leaves or not because you understand what's going on. So then you move from this hands-on I mean you're so hands-on now in in a deeper spiritual way but you move from being the massage therapist not the medical >> massage therapist it's fine you can call me a smologist I don't care >> yeah and then you you start to understand about mom and dad and the trauma and the the snow and then you meet Jennifer like just give us a little idea about because the book for joining us. Yes. Give us a little idea about that. Move to that. But then you're still living with discomfort, but you're in a relationship with it >> and your brain is is now a friend and not an enemy.

[00:21:15]>> Yeah. I'd say that my the I got rapid results that demonstrated the efficacy of the method, but it probably took me two to three years to like really completely declare resolution to the uh neuroplastic based back pain. Um but that's part of the journey. Anywh who, for the next, you could just say for the next three or four years from like 2016 to 2020, that's my time of working this out inside my own body, studying with Charlie and Howard Schner, reading more books, beginning my training in Peter Lavine's sematic experiencing the trauma aspects of the training. Um that was like four my three to four years of deep immersion in both the work but also the application of the work to myself and um my private practice which is all that I had had transformed into a nervous system neuroplastic and somatic based practice over a primary body work and touch-based practice. Although I still have a table, I still make contact with people and I still think touch and hands and these things are a great part of providing safety and guidance to a nervous system and a human being. So >> the as we call them paws in my family, these paws are still used and uh they're just used with a different model and intention behind them. And by the way, most of the results that these paws were getting in terms of helping people heal before I knew the model was because it was accidentally inter interacting with the model.

[00:22:49]>> Right.

[00:22:50]>> Right.

[00:22:50]>> Exactly.

[00:22:50]>> That the work my work and interaction with people was helping them feel safe, helping them feel empowered, helping them have an understanding, helping them have a plan, helping them feel care, and all of those things are antidotes to a brain stuck in a fear spasm uh uh process. Okay. We just didn't know we were doing it.

[00:23:11]>> Yeah. Exactly. Well, of course, of course, you know, hands-on practitioners and um mindbody and holistic and I didn't understand it for years and years what I was doing with my chiropractic and getting people better. But then there was those people who we knew that it was not the disc, it was not the ligament, it was not the tendon, it was just something deeper. And that's what drew, you know, like that's my story, which is not what tonight's about. So you're getting the idea. You're starting to take other courses which sound phenomenal. I mean you know um Besser Vandelock you know writes on your so like you're really hanging out with some really amazing people and you're you're really doing the mind body work because a lot of us people doing the neuroplastic work. I mean you know Dr. Schuber is my teacher and Charlie's my colleague and you know we're doing this pain reprocessing therapy and I think it's the most amazing thing that came down the thing down the road PRT. It's amazing and Vanessa is amazing in this workbook is amazing. But some people I'm even realizing with all true there's nothing but truth on my broadcast in my studio that they they there's something missing and I'm seeing the somatic work as being kind of like the missing piece because PRT is somatic. We're meeting our symptoms in a safe way. We are hanging out with our doubt and our fear and our our emotions because pain is an emotion. But there's something that you're doing with this book. But I want to move into, you know, how you met Jen and the book that's really helping so many of those people who are just stuck on the couch, stuck in their head, stuck in their ego because this pain is doing something for them. That's why they're stuck there. And we can get them out of the we can do it gently and lovingly using who we are as coaches, using the PRT, using the Charlie Merrill, the Howard Troub, you know, the hands-on.

[00:25:07]But there's something else with the brain that I'm understanding through this work specifically needs to people need to hear it and apply it and implement. They can't just read the book and do it. They're going to have to get in the game and feel really uncomfortable.

[00:25:23]>> Let's let's talk about that. if you if you're okay to because I I love what you're rendering here.

[00:25:29]>> Um I'd like to lead a five minute practice.

[00:25:35]Um, >> and the goal of the five minute practice will be to support the listeners in seeing actually how readily and fast you can create a somatic and embodied relationship to your symptoms.

[00:25:56]And um this will be very distinct from PRT.

[00:26:05]It's going to be a little closer to emotional awareness and expression therapy, but it's going to be I'm just going to say hopefully a little more raw and direct and less verbal.

[00:26:19]And it's going to be very distinct from somatic tracking which is just a neutral observation of things.

[00:26:30]Um, and before we go into it, folks, some context in the model that Jen and I work with inside the heal program and basically in all aspects of our work is that we use this generalized word called state.

[00:26:51]We say that the the the what's go this the state of your physiology which includes your anxiety your your pain symptoms your mcast your gut issue that's physiology >> the state or presentation the activities of your physiology are always a perfect reflection of the state of your autonomic nervous system.

[00:27:16]So if your autonomic nervous system whether you are aware of it or not is in some pattern of survival, protection, threat, lack of safety. All four of those are synonymous. There's no difference.

[00:27:33]Then it will instantly and without fail be producing some kind of symptomology in the physiology as well as the mind.

[00:27:44]By the way, now the system is a feedback system. So there is no chicken and egg.

[00:27:50]There's egg, chicken, chicken, eggs.

[00:27:51]Like it goes back and forth, but we have to enter somewhere.

[00:27:57]When all you're doing is working at the level of cognition or education or even sematic tracking or PRT, you are may not be getting into the actual I think the Gen Z word is the tea, the the juice, the trauma, the the the dirt of what's really going on in the nervous system.

[00:28:23]And until you get to that level, until you can actually get your hands on the steering wheel of the state of the nervous system, you then you you cannot redirect it. You can't even really care for it or connect with it because it's like it's like on the other side of a piece of glass, a soundproof piece of glass. You don't even really know what's there and all that comes through is either nothing or muffled So, we're going to just try cutting through that for a second. So, all I need everyone to do for a moment is here's a great thing. All you got to do is close your eyes and you do nothing but listen.

[00:29:03]All right?

[00:29:09]Placing your attention, which is different than your analysis, judgment, and interpretation. Attention just means you're being a bird watcher.

[00:29:19]Okay? You're on the bench. You're on You're on a a park bench watching people go by. That's it.

[00:29:27]Place your attention on your body.

[00:29:31]And for the sake of this exercise, I invite you to place that attention on the area of your body that you perceive that has the most distress, disease.

[00:29:45]It could be an obvious area that's in pain or it could simply be the area some muscles that are just obviously tense.

[00:29:59]It could be anxiety in your heart or a pit of fear in your gut. It could be any one of those.

[00:30:07]And take a moment somatic tracking style to just notice it.

[00:30:14]with utter curiosity. Like now you're the bird watcher, but you have the bird in the palm of your hand.

[00:30:26]The next thing I'd like you to do is use some adjectives to describe the sensations that are there.

[00:30:41]But I need you to make your paintbrush of adjectives a little more interesting.

[00:30:45]Not just tight or hurts.

[00:30:48]I want you to feel like, is it gripping?

[00:30:52]Is it being crushed?

[00:30:55]Is it being strangled? Is it burning? Is it buzzing?

[00:31:01]Is it stuck?

[00:31:03]Get some better descriptors here, folks.

[00:31:08]Notice.

[00:31:15]Great.

[00:31:18]Now I simply want you to notice the amount of energy that is at that place.

[00:31:34]I am telling you that every symptom presentation, even fatigue, has an pretty impressive amount of energy trapped in it or restrained around it.

[00:31:49]Notice that. Perhaps you might even be surprised by it, like, "Whoa, I never knew that."

[00:31:59]Great. Take a breath.

[00:32:05]Now ask yourself what is the attitude or the mood of this particular area?

[00:32:23]You might get a visual of it. You might get it like almost like a like a wave of the feeling through your body. However brief, a flash, if it had a facial expression, or if you could imagine it as a Pixar character, what does it look like?

[00:32:53]Good job, Tova. Good job, everyone.

[00:32:57]See if your body can now your awareness can be like, whoa.

[00:33:03]That feeling of pain or tightness is just the tip of an iceberg of a much more juicy, interesting, scary, impressive, intense state.

[00:33:20]I did not know there was a part of me so angry.

[00:33:26]I did not know there was a part of me that is so nervous or scared.

[00:33:34]I didn't know there was a part of me that was sad.

[00:33:43]So, last thing I want you to do is just move your body a little bit as if that area could express itself just through some movement or some sounds and then come back out.

[00:34:09]I was about to say that's what we're dealing with, but the more honest answer is that's what we're not dealing with.

[00:34:16]Tova, what was that like for you? Can you share anything?

[00:34:18]>> So, you know, I don't have any pain.

[00:34:21]Thank God. Thank you, God. Every day, I don't have any pain. So, I don't have that kind of experience. I might have I might I might find myself not breathing.

[00:34:30]I don't know if I'm the greatest person to talk to about it. We can ask maybe one of the listeners. Um, I think what I want to ask you is, you know, your your your voice is very calming. It can get someone there rather quickly, but these people are going to have to do that for themselves. They're going to have to find ways to be comfortable with this stillness because people are so uncomfortable with stillness and quietness.

[00:35:02]And yet, it's a key. Like if we left people with like if all you can do is just be in the moment and watch your breath, you don't even need me. Like this is even hard for people to get to that place. And maybe a suggestion of because there's this is it was incredible meditation. It was very powerful and there's so much out there. But it's a relationship that person has with their ability to be quiet. So what would you say to somebody when you're you want them to calm down and come into their body?

[00:35:35]What would be some advice on how they can get there without because what people are doing they're judging. I'm not there. I'm not quiet. I can't do this. My my thoughts like they're not able to come to that place.

[00:35:49]And we'd like to help them get there.

[00:35:51]And also be be loving and compassionate until they learn because it's a new pathway to be quiet.

[00:35:58]I would push back and say the reason why what I just did was effective isn't because of the quality of my voice, but because I gave someone's brain something to pay attention to. That was not a meditation. I didn't tell anyone to pay attention to their breath. I didn't tell anyone to get quiet. I didn't tell I didn't tell one mother I didn't tell one mother I was going to really curse there. I didn't tell anyone on this call to calm down or relax.

[00:36:25]I didn't do that. atovva. I never do that.

[00:36:30]So, don't do that.

[00:36:34]So, I'm going to say it again to answer your question. Yes, we have to just take 10 seconds to stop and and and divert our attention from what we're thinking about to what I want to pay attention in the body. But I am it is I don't care what state you're in whether you're sympathetic or you can't calm down or you're I'm not asking you to stop.

[00:36:55]Meditation asks you to stop. I'm pointing your awareness at something.

[00:37:04]So yes, you could listen to this recording and do it again. But that's my first coaching is y'all. You're not trying to calm down. You're not trying to relax. You're not trying to get still. You're just trying to get you're just trying to pause long enough so that you can point your awareness at what's going on in your body. And most of you probably found what we just did interesting. Meditation is boring and aggravating.

[00:37:28]>> Paying attention, especially if there's cool stuff to find down there, is not.

[00:37:34]The second thing I'd advise, Tova, is that I have this expression that sometimes you got to get up to get down.

[00:37:40]And what that means is that physical activity, discharge, shaking, stomping, doing things to actually um move out the volatile or sympathetic or arousal energies first usually make it easier to calm down. A lot of folks who take a a yoga class, most folks, not everyone, but most folks, by the end of the vigorous venyasa, it's a lot easier to lay down in shiovasana than if you tried to lay down in shiovasa in the beginning because we've mobilized a lot of sympathetic energy, a lot of survival energy and then the system is naturally willing to naturally willing to quiet him. So that's the thing to I never coach anyone to relax. I never question anyone ever.

[00:38:27]>> So is it re is it refocusing? Is it helping people to change their focus?

[00:38:32]Which is that was kind of >> Yeah, I'd say that it's it's the it's the rapid direction of attention. And I just I just you can tell like I was also like I want you to look here. I want you to look for this. I want you to then look for that. People do need help being stepped into attention because they're not used to the territory, right? Right?

[00:38:53]It's like when you're on a tour, if you're in the middle of Milan or something and you don't have a tour guide, you're just looking at everything. It's overwhelming and you kind of get can't deal. But they say, "Hey, look at the space above the arch.

[00:39:04]You see the you see the beautiful design there that was done by a medi and whatever." Actually, the medaches weren't in Milan, but you get my point.

[00:39:12]The guide has to help the person know where to look.

[00:39:17]So, we're helping people, of course, we're helping people, you know, learn how to focus, but it's it's a it's a habit. It's a skill for them because they're it's we feel like our thoughts suck us away. So, that's why I mentioned your voice. Like, your voice helped me just focus on the bird and the, you know, the hand, the bird in the hand. like I like I felt like your voice helped me because I wanted to, you know, focus. So, again, I'm not the best the best um I'm pretty rowdy and pretty rebellious. So, anyway, but the focus was important, but I want to talk about two things because we only have, you know, 20 minutes left, but I really want to focus on two thing. Focus because I have an agenda. First, there's a couple of questions and I will get to them, but I really want to talk about something really important. So, give me five minutes on this because it's so important. And there was something one of Jen's carousels addressed this and it's so important in our field across the community. This is exact this is one of the big stuck fall on your face and not be able to get up. People are are having symptoms like I'm seeing it all pardon. It's really like I have enormous empathy. Crazy symptoms, crazy chronic pain all coming from the brain. The body's fine. They're not broken.

[00:40:41]They have their symptoms. They have their flares. They have their es and flows. But their reaction to it and their judgment and their anger and their fear and sadness is what we we need to help them help themselves with because this is the issue, not the symptom.

[00:41:04]And Jen had something beautiful about it, the way she framed it. And so this is where people are not realizing it and what's going on there is their ego like I couldn't help myself or I was better yesterday and I couldn't get better today and I'm really pissed at myself like all right D. So, it's this interesting place where I want to help people stop, pause, notice how you're bullying yourself, beating yourself up, hitting yourself up with a bat and and not seeing that you are the one that this is the place. So, can you address that?

[00:41:42]>> Uh because that's where I think people I believe people are getting stuck in their reaction as opposed to response.

[00:41:49]to themselves around their symptoms.

[00:41:53]>> Yeah, there's a lot of layers to that. Tova, unfortunately, an extraordinarily common thing of the human mind is to in reaction to a life lived with a lack of support and attuned care is that we end up functioning in this world. They call it an inner critic, but I don't think that's appropriate. We function in this world by developing a bully.

[00:42:24]A bully. And the bully is a it's it's a it's a shadow form of motivation.

[00:42:32]And usually we develop the bully ourself because we can't figure out a way like something's wrong. We need to do better.

[00:42:41]And we're often usually internalizing parenting or ways we've seen it around us. And basically through bullying, which is also shame, we are we get motivated enough to do stuff.

[00:42:59]By the way, that motivation is always predicated on fear and wounds underneath, but we don't go to those things. So I just want to normalize that almost every human being unfortunately develops a bully and that bully is the result of nervous system distress and then it reinforces nervous system distress.

[00:43:26]I bring it up because when you say ah you have to work with your inner critic.

[00:43:30]I don't think it's that motivating. But when you have to when you say more like you have to work with your inner You have to work with your inner tyrant. You have to work with your inner piece of that treats you like You know what I mean? There's there's it's a little bit more visceral and motivating. Now, that's one aspect.

[00:43:47]I just want to rarify it for you guys like that.

[00:43:50]In both our book, the secret language of the body, but I'd say also on steroids inside the heel program, we teach in in the book we call it air. A air is underlies everything awareness, interruption, and redesign. Awareness, interruption, and redesign.

[00:44:07]And um in the book, sorry, in the course, we have something called space.

[00:44:11]And so doc, you know, Alan Gordon in the way out will talk about you need to develop sematic tracking so you have a non-reactive response to your symptoms, which is not beating yourself up, not freaking out. This is so important. But if you're unable to do that just by someone telling you to do it, you're like, "Great doc or therapist. Now what?

[00:44:34]Now how?" In order to change something, you have to do something.

[00:44:41]And the the the becoming aware, the interrupt step is the moment, let's say you start having pain. And the next step in that pain response is that your own brain goes, "Oh crap, here it is again."

[00:44:55]Or, "Oh this isn't going to work or OR OR I DID THAT." WHATEVER IT IS, the first step is to interrupt it. that you need to remember that like like it's like I need to pull the lever right now.

[00:45:11]I need to hit the interruption button right away before that train leaves the station. I cannot take that bait. I cannot take that bait. And usually doing something somatic or physical will work where your own efforts of thought and will have failed because you've had those times like Doc Tova told me not to do that or Alan Gordon told me not to do that. Stop. Stop. Stop. I'm doing it anyway. You have to get out of the head.

[00:45:38]You have to interrupt the head with technique. So, um, literally getting up and shaking your body could be a way to stop the train from leaving the station.

[00:45:49]Deciding to instantly do some four-part breath and focus your attention on the body and stabilizing your anxiety as opposed to getting lost in your head could be a technique. Inside the heel program, we teach a big NLP perceptual positioning technique which physically moves you out and away from the state.

[00:46:09]But the absolute truth is doc that until you start doing something extraordinarily deliberate to interrupt and retrain the nervous system, rarely will more thinking or desire work.

[00:46:24]>> This is where they're trying to think their way. And this is why I think this is so important because some people can think their way out of it. But a lot of us who are stuck and that's why you're here. You cannot think your way out of it. Keep your thoughts. Accept them. Own them. Question them. They're usually not true. They're repetitive. They're usually negative. But you're going to have to deliberately interrupt.

[00:46:54]What's the other word? Interrupt. So it's you become aware that it's happening, interrupt it >> and then redesign it.

[00:47:02]>> Yeah. Yeah. Redesign. It's like it's really powerful and I I see it like covers everything the air you know the awareness the interrupt and >> and also choosing new pathways. So when I was when I was first after I read Sarno's book and I learned that my body was not broken and that this was patterns caused by my brain and largely related to some repressed emotions when my low back pain would spike. Yes. For the first 30 seconds, I'D BE LIKE, "OH, NO." And my thoughts would think, "Stop, stretch, foam, roll." Those were the the typical things that would come up. And then I'd have to remember. I go I'd literally go like this. Go like, "No, no, no.

[00:47:42]This is painful, but I am not in danger." was my mantra. This sucks, but I am not broken.

[00:47:51]I need to remember that the new dialogue. But again, it would be it would be interruptive. I'd shake myself.

[00:47:57]It's like I joke I joke that it's the equivalent of like in an 80s comedy where someone's losing their mind and the person gets slapped in the face AND THEY'RE LIKE, "PULL IT TOGETHER." You know, I had to have those physical dramatic and I I a little comedy helps.

[00:48:13]It was like like, YOU KNOW, PULL it together. Okay. And then I remember Oh, wait. And what else was I trained in? I was trained in that I had to interrupt the fear spasm loop. I'm not going to be afraid of my symptom. And then lastly, because emotions were such a big part of it, I would do a version of the practice I just did with you guys. Instead of going to my foam roller, I would find a place to lay down, be quiet, and go right at the pain. Go right at it, and find the unexpressed emotion underneath.

[00:48:45]So that was my primitive air before I knew about air.

[00:48:51]>> Yeah. And I think the majority of us that are stuck and this, you know, when when the flare gets so high, they have to they have to stop. They have to they have to come out of their head and into their body. And it's a a skill that has to be learned. And it's not going to happen easy. We have to practice over and over again. And you have to be loving and compassionate when you don't go there right away. It takes time. But the hope and the belief which is chemical and the and patience is so important here. So I think we're also talking about compassion and love and patience and and not giving up. I mean I just figured out in the word hopeless is the word hope. Like >> I want people to feel like not to feel I want people to to be to to see that they're in their way and that that not to blame them but that you can get out of your way. Also, I think I want to encourage people with the last few minutes of of our time, but I I want to stop because there are some questions and there's some really amazing people leaving some amazing comments. There's a few questions that I may not think are as appropriate to bring up, but I will answer them and I will go to the feed after the the broadcast and bring your questions to card. But there is one question I do want to bring up um that I think is appropriate to answer. Let me bring up the the beginning of the question. Yeah, here you go.

[00:50:18]>> So, how can we be sure that this is the case? Why don't we see as many people who recover from this type of condition than the other kind?

[00:50:26]Um, say we bring this up. Although there are many people more than those out there. Can you bring the rest of it up for me, Bri? One second. Here you go.

[00:50:38]Um, here's the question. Wait, wait, wait.

[00:50:41]>> I'm reading it out. It seems like it's but it's it's it's preceded by basically how can we be sure this work applies to autoimmune and inflammatory conditions.

[00:50:51]>> Yeah.

[00:50:53]>> Question I think it's an important question to address. Yeah.

[00:50:57]>> Okay.

[00:51:12]Just a moment.

[00:51:14]>> Think about it. We don't have to answer it. We can also send >> No, no, it's it's it's it's it's a good it's a good question. It's a good question.

[00:51:24]The first thing that's fundamental to understand Well, no. Yeah, I'm just going to go for it.

[00:51:33]Your brain when it produces any symptom is initiating a protective response.

[00:51:44]Do you know what inflammation is? It's the body's primary endogenous protective response. Full stop. Full stop. So inflammation is not the enemy.

[00:51:58]Inflammation is actually the body's first way of responding to something that it thinks is an invader. And let me let me explain something here that's really important to know.

[00:52:09]>> Big protective mechanism.

[00:52:12]>> When I when I it is not pollen or any substance that causes inflammation.

[00:52:21]It is the neuroimmune system's interpretation of the substance as foreign or threatening and then it creates it chooses autonomically to do inflammation. When you have a terrible fever from a horrible virus, the virus is not giving you inflammation ever. When you have a when you're having a terrible like um salmonella, salmonella does not make you puke or your brains out. Your neuroimmune system in an effort to combat the cella tells you to puke and your brains out.

[00:53:03]So please own this first fact. The brain and the immune system are making a choice. Whether it's accurate or not, it is making a choice and it has created a conditioned response.

[00:53:20]A conditioned response. It says this ele this item is dangerous. I'm going to attack it.

[00:53:28]Moreover, there is pretty impressive initial research that people who grow grow up with trauma and ACEs have a much higher rate of autoimmune.

[00:53:39]Why is this? because there's is this because uh there's something wrong with them genetically? Unlikely. It's because their internal experience of their body is so unsafe that their own brain and immune system is labeling themselves as unsafe and it attacks it.

[00:53:56]This is wild stuff. But when you actually just understand that the brain and the immune system are the one are making choices and then choices that become conditioned. I'm gonna go one more with this. Just give me a little time.

[00:54:10]>> I love your explanation. It's so important.

[00:54:12]>> Okay, but I want to bring one more minute on this.

[00:54:15]>> It's so important to talk about inflammation. So, so, so when we start retraining the nervous system, when we start making ourselves collectively safe, when we start being able to become attuned to the way our brain and immune system are conditioned automatically default responding to a benign substance like gluten, we can start interrupting it. Often, just global regulation of safety and being able to process your own experience is the trick. Sometimes you need more tactical work. But last way to just further prove this to you guys when someone starts having a food sensitivity like gluten or dairy usually usually in most cases for years or decades they had no problem at all. Then all of a sudden they just started noticing I don't know I'm getting bloated now when I have dairy. Okay.

[00:55:09]Then they go to a nutritionist or some holistic practitioner and they're like, "Dairy is not designed for humans. It's so dangerous. I know we've been drinking it for a hundred,000 years or whatever, but I'm telling you IT'S GOT POISONS IN US AND IT'S KILLING US." AND >> YOU GOT A BABY COW, >> RIGHT? OKAY. So then we add fear. We're reinforcing the mechanism.

[00:55:32]And then each time you're exposed to it, your reaction gets worse. But like guys, it gets worse because what happens is that nine months down the line, you're like, "Oh, onions aren't really sitting well with me anymore." Oh, yeah. Well, let me tell you about night shades and how bad those are. Okay?

[00:55:53]And most folks who go down this path, they go to functional medicine people.

[00:55:57]They go to elimination diets. Okay? And what happens over time is the amount of food they can eat restricts and restricts and restricts until they can only eat four foods. This is what's happening. The you're actually actively training your brain and immune system.

[00:56:11]You're actively training it to have a negative protective conditioned response to food at large because it started labeling all food as dangerous.

[00:56:21]>> I love it. I'm going to interrupt you because I want these two last questions before you have to go. The two and the other questions I'll get them answered.

[00:56:28]I just really they're they're both the same and they're important. Pattern interrupt feels wrong when my body is supremely rebelling. And then does interrupt imply movement? What if I can't move? How do I interrupt the acute uptake? Both really important about the interrupt.

[00:56:43]>> Yep. So um although movement is easy, interruption could literally be no. Okay. Interrupt is or it could be tapping. It could be go look at the trees instead. An interrupt is anything that derails the default automatic process. You can be creative about it. In our programs, we give you lots of things. You could just massage your vag nerve. Now, interrupts themselves usually don't lead to retraining, but they are necessary.

[00:57:19]Second, I think will the interrupt not feeling like my body's rebelling.

[00:57:24]Like it feels pattern interrupt feels wrong when my body is supremely rebelling, freaking out.

[00:57:34]I just want to answer and say I think it what I know what it does. It's also it's shifting a focus. You're focused on supremely rebelling and freaking out and it shifts the brain. It shifts the focus. It actually can bring calm if you let allow it. I feel like it's a a door.

[00:57:51]I want I want you to answer that. And I also think for this person in particular, like I said, we in our programs often subscribe forms of discharge first. Discharge could be emotional journaling. It could be physical movement. It could be sounds.

[00:58:07]It could be contracting and releasing the body. When there is a strong fight protective response, I don't interruption may not work as well. You might have to kind of indulge it. As I say, sometimes you need to allow a bit of a tantrum to happen first.

[00:58:23]and then the interrupt will take more.

[00:58:26]Um, and then also when interrupt doesn't feel good, I might even suggest some parts work. You can make the resistance a part and you can have a dialogue with it.

[00:58:37]>> I I I'm so recommending this course.

[00:58:40]It's reasonably priced. It's so well done. Uh, it's I've never seen a course so well done on the internet because we really want we want you like in our face. I want you sitting by me. I want to hug you. But here you're like you're like you and Jen are really doing an amazing job and the producers of the course. I highly recommend that to implement and apply. Hire a coach for a few weeks to help you implement and apply it. It's also very interactive the course. I I really really am recommending that getting it out of your head into your body. A lot of the questions came in in the last 20 minutes. So I will go back to them and I will absolutely um send them to car didn't have them answered. I really um am woman woman of my word when it comes to my broadcast. So I'm really happy you're here. We will have card in a can.

[00:59:28]Maybe we'll have a monthly coffee clutch. You know, maybe if your wife and kids let you or J. But I love having you. It's the time is up and I'm just so excited about this healing and everyone can heal. It's possible probable. And you too, even you. Even you can heal.

[00:59:44]Even you. And even you. Don't give up.

[00:59:48]It's right there. You're close. The most discomfort is when you're close.

[00:59:54]>> Yeah, I appreciate everyone attending to our our ruckus our ruckus conversation here, Tova. Um, and um, >> yeah, >> thank you for having me. Um, we will answer some of these questions. Oddly, I was just looking at the one from uh, Sam Miller's work says to just allow the energy to pass through you. Um, I don't disagree with that, but that's an very advanced practice. It's not appropriate for most beginners. If you go on my Instagram wall, I did a post recently on called Why Just Feeling Your Feelings Doesn't Work. You might want to look at that.

[01:00:26]>> Wonderful. Bless your heart. We'll meet again soon. Have a wonderful day. Thank you.

[01:00:31]>> Thank you all. Have a good night.

[01:00:34]Appreciate everyone. The best. Bye bye.