"Can we can heal mental health 100%? The answer is 'yes' but to heal it 100% we have to acknowledge that we're not here to get rid of it, we're here to integrate it into our being." - Greg Schmaus

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Wellness Force Radio Episode 356

International Holistic Health Coach and Licensed Massage Therapist at Greg's Holistic Strength Training, Greg Schmaus, shares his incredible story of developing OCD and then healing it, how to take back your health into your own hands, the blessing of being a wounded healer, and how listening to your body's wisdom will greatly serve you along your wellness journey.

Which holistic health practices can help you heal the mind and overcome any of the four most common addictions?

Discover what mental hygiene practices you can apply to your life now to help you grow into your best self.

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Listen To Episode 356 As Greg Schmaus Uncovers:

[1:30] Taking Back Health Into Our Own Hands

• Greg's Holistic Strength Training
• Greg Schmaus
• CURED Nutrition
• Unpacking what lessons we can learn from our own inner child plus what Josh and Greg have learned from theirs on the path to healing past wounds.
• Why feeling our emotions is the prerequisite to the healing process.
• Exploring the chasm between those who want to push pharmaceuticals for "healing" and the other side of healing: people taking the health of their mind, body, and spirit into their own hands.
• The key differences between curing and healing during the wellness journey.
• Why the wellness journey of healing is something that we all face during our lifetimes on Earth.
• His own healing journey after experiencing a testicular torsion and coming out of anesthesia post-surgery.
• How he came to meet Paul Chek and work with him to learn shamanic practices, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, breathwork, nutrition, and more.
• 275 Paul Chek
• Why he used to have moments of questioning, "Why is this happening to me?" but now knows after doing all the work exactly why all of these experiences, no matter how difficult they were, happened to him.

[18:00] The Blessing Of Being A Wounded Healer

• Why he sees himself on a deeper level as a wounded healer and doesn't just define himself by his credentials.
• His definition of a wounded healer who has faced the Hero's Journey.
• Why wellness professionals can only take a client on a healing journey as far as they have been on one in their own lives.
• How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy! by Paul Chek
• Understanding that a lot of what the universe wants to share with us is only given when we are truly ready for it.
• Exploring the collective Hero's Journey we are all facing right now during COVID-19 with mass media manipulation and rising suicide rates.
• 311 Mark Wolynn
• Other wounds he has experienced in life as a child and how they gave him the "gift" of OCD.
• His transition from a physical warrior to a spiritual warrior and how being able to be silent and sit with it is his power.
• Why some of our greatest attributes that go against cultural norms are being shunned but we shouldn't let that happen.

[29:00] What The Mind Can Teach Us

• The power of focusing on what our addictions can teach us instead of putting all of our energy into fighting them.
• How to separate ourselves from conflict with tools such as meditation.
• The soul loss we experience when we face trauma according to shamanism.
• Why we should face our obsessive compulsive disorder tendencies with gratitude because not only do they look out for us but they also help us diffuse negative energy.
• How he healed his OCD when he let go of the need to heal it and why that was so important for him.
• What process of consciousness we can work through to help us see our mental health in a new light, be willing to experience the whole journey, and accept ourselves.
• Personal tools of healing that Josh and Greg are incorporating into their lives.

[37:00] How OCD Compares To Other Forms Of Mental Illness

• Explaining how OCD differs from other forms of mental illness such as ADHD, anxiety, and depression.
• Why we tend to focus more on our thoughts rather than our emotions and feelings.
• Unpacking why obsessive compulsive disorder thought patterns are a way of keeping the mind occupied to avoid feelings and emotions that we're not yet ready to embrace and experience.
• Living 4D with Paul Chek - Greg Schmaus: Overcoming OCD and the Mental Health Crisis
• Breaking down why anxiety is a masculine energy and depression is a feminine energy.
• Exploring whether there is a divine timing to heal or if we are the ones who get to decide when it happens.
• How to decide if it's the right time for you to begin the wellness journey of healing.
• The importance of having a dream or knowing why you want to heal to help you stick to a program.
• Why he doesn't desire to get rid of his OCD or anxiety because he has learned how to integrate them into his being instead.
• How social media and technology are impacting society's mental health as numbing agents.
• The easy access we have to check out of our reality, thoughts, and feelings only to check in to someone else's via reality TV or a movie on Netflix.

[54:00] Healing OCD With Holistic Nutrition

• The importance of being more mindful of our caffeine consumption as it drives more and more people to be 'neck up' rather than truly in our body.
• What Josh notices in his own body when he consumes too much caffeine or carbohydrates including putting his mind in a loop and feeling off.
• How caffeine consumption can further someone's imbalance in the left brain if they have OCD.
• What carbohydrates can do to our blood sugar as the body's system speeds up to an eventual crash.
• Why someone who is not in tune with their diet won't acknowledge that stress is occurring within their system and biochemistry but perceive it to be coming from outside in relationships or work.
• How to apply the teachings of Ayurveda to your life plus how to uncover your Dosha.

[58:00] Listening To Your Body's Wisdom

• What steps we can take to become really clear on our body wisdom and what nutrients are best for our unique biochemistry.
• How to use your natural intuition to know whether a certain food is what your body needs right now.
• The challenges we face to listen to the body's wisdom when we either have diet dogmas, addictions, or biochemical imbalances in the gut
• Why your nighttime cravings might actually be parasites in the gut that are impacting your sleep and overall health.
• Multiple health symptoms that were showing up in his gut post-surgery as it continued to hold onto the stress through poor digestion and gut dysbiosis.
• The moment he noticed that the state of his gut had a huge influence on the state of his mind.
• His view on intelligence and why we often use the idea of intellect as a shield to stay safe and avoid exploring different experiences.
• Why he views awareness as being more important than intelligence and how we can improve our state of awareness and consciousness through meditation.

[1:08:00] Mental Hygiene Practices For Life

• Why we cannot connect with the world around us when we are not actually connected to ourselves and know who we are at our core.
• Mental hygiene practices to help us reconnect with ourselves and our inner awareness.
• Why a consistent meditation practice is a non-negotiable part of his regular mental hygiene.
• How exposing himself to Hormetic Stressors such as the hot and cold as well as breathwork helps to keep him grounded and strengthen the muscle to embrace discomfort.
• The power of grounding and earthing by walking barefoot on the earth for someone who has a lot of mental health challenges.
• Why it's so important to be mindful of the amount of information you are consuming especially now with the media today.

[1:13:00] The Four Most Common Addictions

• The Four-Fold Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer, and Visionary by Angeles Arrien
• Unpacking the four most common addictions: intensity, perfectionism, needing to know, and the fixation on what's wrong.
• Why our constant need to know something or fix what is going on in our lives is an addiction in itself.
• Exploring one of his favorite quotes from Matt Kahn: "Whatever question you have, the answer is exactly what you don't need right now but the answer will be there when we're ready to receive it but you need to be able to live without it first."
• Matt Kahn
• Why, for Greg, stillness is our access to the truth but it's not necessarily the access to all of the answers because the questions that we're asking are usually the wrong questions.
• How he came to the point to realize that his OCD was actually a gift to unpack and apply its spiritual teachings to his life.

[1:19:30] Coming Back Into Balance And Awareness Through The Middle Way

• Exploring the massive gut check we're experiencing as a society as we go through the Middle Way in 2020.
• Whether the Middle Way is actually the right path for us or if we should go hard right or hard left instead.
• How we use the pathways of hard left or right to counterbalance the imbalance that we had prior to COVID-19
• How we can come back to the Middle Way after going hard right or hard left.
• Why the violence that we're seeing in today's society is happening because we're avoiding going in and looking at the shadow.
• Exploring this new wave of masculinity as men are starting to face their emotions, feel their pain as well as accept and love all of their feelings.
• Why there is a place for conscious anger that is not used destructively and how it can be explored in the Middle Way.
• What happens when we define an emotion as "bad" and store it back in the unconscious instead of being willing to experience and accept it.
• How the breath is used to bridge the mind and the body in the present moment.
• BREATHE
• M21 Wellness Guide
• Wellness Force Community

Power Quotes From The Show Healing OCD Through Integrating It Into Your Being "I have healed my OCD but have I completely gotten rid of everything? No, but I don't have the desire to get rid of everything because I've integrated it into my being and I know that it's the greatest spiritual teacher that I've ever had; it's the only reason I can really understand how the mind works and how consciousness works. So, the answer to the question, 'Can we can heal mental health 100%?' is 'yes' but to heal it 100% is the acknowledgment that we're not here to get rid of it, we're here to integrate it. By carrying our mental health struggles with us, we heal them 100% but if we focus on getting rid of it for good, then we're still engaged in it." - Greg Schmaus Separating Ourselves From Our Addictions

"OCD is a form of addiction and the challenge we run into with trying to get rid of an addiction is the part of ourselves that is engaged in it is also the same part that is trying to get rid of it. It's almost as if addiction has this persona that is wrestling itself and we're creating the illusion that we're in the wrestling match. So, the first thing to do is to become aware that you are separate from that conflict; you are the one that is observing the conflict. OCD and addiction are very similar in their energy and root cause; usually they some form of trauma that runs so deep that we will set up these conditions, routines, and rituals as a way of making sure that we never re-experience that level of vulnerability again." - Greg Schmaus

The Healing Journey's Divine Timing

"A lot of times, we're not yet ready to heal and integrate the parts of ourselves that we've rejected or abandoned. I do feel that there is divine timing in terms of when we are ready and the opportunities will present themselves but the prerequisite for all of that to happen is awareness. We have to be aware of when those opportunities and those teachers or mentors are presenting themselves to us." - Greg Schmaus

Links From Today's Show

• CURED Nutrition
• 275 Paul Chek
• How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy! by Paul Chek
• 311 Mark Wolynn
• Living 4D with Paul Chek - Greg Schmaus: Overcoming OCD and the Mental Health Crisis
• The Four-Fold Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer, and Visionary by Angeles Arrien
• Matt Kahn
• Leave Wellness Force a review on iTunes
• BREATHE
• M21 Wellness Guide
• Wellness Force Community
• Greg's Holistic Strength Training
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
• Greg Schmaus
  • LinkedIn

About Greg Schmaus

Greg Schmaus is a Holistic Health Coach and Licensed Massage Therapist. His work focuses primarily on coaching clients with various physical, mental, and emotional challenges using the tools, of nutrition, meditation, mindfulness, exercise, and lifestyle coaching, Greg has been a guide for many clients globally .... their healing journey. Greg's work was inspired by his own healing journey, overcoming obsessive-compulsive disorder using these holistic healing modalities.

Greg's journey began in the arena of athletics. As a kid, he was always playing soccer, ski racing, or out playing on the golf course. At the age of 16, Greg moved to South Carolina to pursue golf exclusively. This led him to earn a Division I scholarship at The University of Houston.

After a traumatic injury and surgery during his freshman year, Greg began to experience various physical and mental health challenges. These challenges eventually led him in a new direction. Rather than pursuing golf collegiately and professionally, he began to invest more time in holistic health, healing, and went on a journey of self-discovery. This journey led him to the CHEK Institute, where Greg furthered his studies. At the CHEK Institute, Greg studied corrective exercise and rehabilitation, nutrition, and holistic health coaching.

Greg's Mission To Help Others Heal

During this time, Greg was personally coached and mentored by the founder of the CHEK Institute, Paul Chek. After two years of working with Paul, which included training in meditation, tai chi, shamanic healing, and lifestyle coaching, Greg opened up his own practice. Using the tools that were taught to him by his mentor and guide, Greg now acts as a mentor and guide for others on their healing journey.

Currently residing in Englewood, NJ, Greg works with clients locally at his studio and remotely via Skype, FaceTime, or Zoom.

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