Finding Peaks

In this episode, Chris brings Sam Peterson, a combat veteran and the founder of Mind Spa Denver, to the show. In this compelling conversation, Sam shares his inspiring journey and dives deep into the vital importance of mental health for everyone. With raw honesty and transformative stories, this conversation reveals the realities of military life and a life-altering moment that reshaped Sam’s perspective. Whether you’re seeking insight or inspiration, this episode is a must-listen! For more information on Sam and Mind Spa Denver, check out mindspadenver.com.

[Music] hey everybody and welcome to another amazing exciting and important episode of Finding Peaks your host founder President Chief Executive Officer Peaks recovery centers Chris Burns so grateful to be here today and joined by combat veteran Sam Peterson EOD technician two tours in Afghanistan Masters in Business Administration owner and founder of uh Mind Spa Denver the list goes on and on I’m really grateful and humbled to have you on the show today talking about what is so near and dear to your heart yeah absolutely man uh you know appreciate appreciate you have me here um you know I think that it’s really important that we’re we’re having these kinds of conversations about mental health and particularly about what we can do in the Mental Health Community to treat more effectively yeah I love that moment I sat down um with Sam I identified and connected with a true champion for mental health for combat veterans veterans in general and First Responders I had never sat down with somebody who was more impassion and more directional I think even the first time I sat down with you I said oh you don’t have any kids I got to meet your wife and you’re like I’m trying to change the world one day at a time and I can’t have kids because this mission is Mission critical for you and it means everything yeah yeah it really does like it I you know I know that I can’t be the the founder CEO and change maker that I want to be and be a present like present father at the same time there’s just not enough hours in the day and um and you know that’s a decision that me and my wife are very very aligned on and and I I no regrets it’s it’s really it’s really fulfilling because you know I think it’s one thing you know being a parent is great you’re especially being a good present parent you’re giving a gift to the world of raising a great citizen that’s really great but where I get where I get that kind of cup filled is you we lose so many great fathers mothers sisters brothers to suicide in the veteran and first responder Community every day these are people who who have disciplined selfless service and Community just like grafted onto their skeletal structure they are they are service they are providing you know the protection and the the healing on your literal worst day especially with First Responders they’re they’re providing that to you and giving giving that piece of themselves has some serious baggage um just especially when we’re talking about trauma and I think it’s just it’s the most incredible thing to be able to see a happy family when you’re done when you help someone get through that worst time in their life get to the other side and actually get healing and you get to give the gift of that parent brother sister mother father back to their kids yeah like back to their community and you know it’s not just about healing that trauma but you have the ability to grow from it and to take that negative input and turn it into positive output in family systems that never thought that was possible which is just really really beautiful and we’re going to get into what you guys are actually doing down there which is Cutting Edge bucking the status quo Innovative and so much more but I wanted to kind of check in on your early career and like why did you decide why were you impassioned to join the military what was it for you uh I mean I just wanted to get the hell out of my hometown yeah um and you know one of the things I really didn’t realize so my my father had a traumatic brain injury uh you know from when I was before I was born my dad D was a roofer and he fell off or three-story roof and landed on a bed of concrete the only reason he was alive is because the wooden Step at the bottom where his head hit just you know growing up with the emotional equivalent of a 15-year-old who like if he didn’t like what I said it and I’m a very loud opinionated person uh you know my my head would go through a wall so um I wanted to get the hell out of that situation as fast as I could so we we went to the recruiter and we took the ASVAB and and uh after we took the you know took the test he the recruiter kind of pulled pulled us to the side he’s like you guys uh you guys scored in the kind of upper seven higher than the 75th percentile are you sure you want to go into a job that has a score requirement of the lower right 20 the 25th percentile and I was like keep keep keep talking uniformed man and so he’s like well there’s a couple more options that you qualifi for and so he started showing us video the first one he showed us was Counter Intelligence and I was like that was a trailer of people sitting in a tent looking at a computer screen not you not my gig I I want to be Action Jackson here yeah and the second one it was like explosions bomb suits robots and I was like you just checked literally every box I didn’t know I had let’s go yeah let’s go oh I’m guaranteed this yeah yeah you’re guaranteed it and enter into the hardest Academic School in the Department of Defense with an 85% drop out rate yeah oh yeah man it’s it’s over 50 tests and if you so you if you fail like you can get rolled all the you can get rolled back or just kicked out oh wow yeah yeah it’s it’s uh you not to get into like how the whole system works but it’s a very it’s a very rigorous selection process to really get to get to people who have the the cognitive capability to take on some of the most complex and dangerous problems that we have especially when we’re talking about counter Insurgency and that especially at that time in uh that was in like 2008 2009 when uh you know Iraq was entering that that really heavy IED phase um that that was the biggest threat that was facing our troops so hell yeah I was like yeah let’s do it yeah I love bombs I like explosions and uh you know that was all well and good but you know one of the things they don’t tell you going into EOD is how high the suicide rate is and EOD has one of the highest suicide rates in the entire Department of Defense because of that relationship to traumatic blasts it was interesting when you were telling me about this the other day I was shocked to hear that not only the blast but potentially you know what what is the cost benefit analysis done on the mental health that people like searching for these things I mean I I don’t like to step on cracks on the sidewalk Sam you know what I mean I’m like oh whoa hey that’s my mother’s spinal cord we’re playing with here so I mean just the the the compounding effects of not just what’s potentially going to happen but what I’m searching for what I’m walking over and who I’m potentially doing it with or not you know well there’s a big a big distinction to make there uh most of the time EOD techs are not searching we are responding to we are responding to found unless you’re in a special operations environment where you’re running with you know a team of Green Berets that that’s the scenario where they you know you get put at the front with the uh with the metal detector going around okay oh yeah okay that it’s all the wrist it’s all the wrist it’s all the wrist um it’s all the wrist in the ear you know we had talked earlier and I think we’ve talked um quite a bit about the connectivity and the Brotherhood that you had over there and maybe you can share for the viewers what that’s like I know we’ve had Sebastian Junger on the show he speaks to kind of hanging out with you guys and kind of just taking notes and how you guys are connecting and mental health is is generally pretty well establish and connected throughout those processes and so maybe touch on that a little bit for the viewers and then what it felt like coming home yeah uh that I mean that’s a great question so what what is it like to be in that deployed environment you would think that being deployed overseas in this combat zones in these high stress environments all the time would actually be really bad for your mental health but it turns out that the opposite is true you are over in you know basically you’re kind of living in a jail you know big big high Towers you know with Barb Wire the only difference is you’re the one with the guns even they’re on the inside yeah but you would you know you think that this would cause a lot of issues but the reason it doesn’t is because you’re around a bunch of your compatriots you’re around your brothers and you’re there for a shared Mission so you know we know that one of the the leading indicators of suicidality is that lack of purpose that loss of purpose and and I’ll get into that in a second but when you’re over there you have a mission you are there for a reason you are following direct command directives to execute this larger operational plan of the battle space that is incredibly good for your mental health in fact you know you might be under this stress but you’re all in it together there it is this glue that binds you to each other in a very very profound way um I’d be interested to see you know if there was any way to get inside the brains or measure the oxytocin that’s actually excreted by by uh troops during war it’ be really interesting to see if there’s an upregulation in that because you know you really kind of get that pair bonding with your your team and when you come back especially if you come back from that environment and then leave the military like that’s like taking that would be like the equivalent of taking a kid away you’re you’re losing your entire support structure because these you know these individuals the people on your team the people on your squad are who you you know eaten with you know slept in the same tent worked out with operated with in a dangerous environment and and got through the other side with like you know from a mental health perspective losing that [  ] off my arm first please yeah that’s what it sounds like man and you don’t you know I I can only relate it to like the relationships I had and do still have in like early recovery we’re fighting through this very very difficult thing lives are on the line certainly nobody’s shooting at us so not as intense but I remember like those are my brothers like we walked this path because we kind of needed food water and shelter together yeah and I love what you said It reminds me in Gabor me’s book The Myth of normal and he talks about pretty sure it’s myth of normal pretty sure it’s Gabor mon um but he talks about the mental health of uh London city center when in World War II they flew bombers over Great Britain they called it the blitz yeah they were literally bombing this city to shreds and psych visits before the blitz were up around 70% and when the blitz happened the psych visits were single digits 8% or something because now I need food water and shelter just the same as Sam does and it doesn’t matter how much money you have or don’t have we’re connected with family community and culture in this very intense way and that’s kind of what it reminds me of is this this coming together in a profound way that I don’t know that we can necessarily experience here State Side I I you know I think there’s a few places that we can uh Combat Sports is a great is a great place like you were you were in that you know we were talking about Jiu-Jitsu the other day so it’s a great place to find it kind of that shared struggle also business I mean yeah I I’m sure with you know you and your business partner I can tell you this me and the partners that I have in business like man you you get tight especially once you’ve gone through some really heavy [  ] together it it bonds you and and that’s an important thing like you are being a good mammal by a game with that and in being a good mammal you are creating a positive mental health outcome and and a good pair bond whether you like it or not yeah and it’s so important you know I was I was reading a study the other day maybe I shared it with you but you know we grow up thinking don’t do drugs don’t smoke cigarettes there was a study the other day I think it was one of the ivy schools who said that being disconnected from your brothers from family community and culture um is Sy symbolic and if not worse than smoking two packs of cigarettes a day yeah the loneliness epidemic yeah and so you guys come back having been like really rooted in this connection and you get back over here and you realize some things to just be extraordinarily disconnected and I wanted to move into what you started to learn about yourself what it took to get there and kind of what you’ve started to create um with some of the the modalities that You’ moved into yeah um yeah where do you want to start let’s start with I think not just the the disconnection when you got back home but maybe where you found yourself in that disconnection and where you started to move into your recovery yeah so I mean when I it really really hit me like when I had just gotten back from my second deployment I got hurt I got sent back early I lost lost that connection you know got into a new unit and and I was just I had an X fiance that kind of dear johned me while I was over there so complete loss of that unit like the support structure was fairly well gone and you know it it damn near caused me to kill myself like I had my 45 in my mouth ready to pull the trigger and that it was because of that and a few other reasons but at the end of the day like it was a couple of friends reaching out that saved my life and kind of got me on this path really introduced me to this path uh and it was MDMA that was the vehicle for that during that time period and and I went from you know having a a pretty I wouldn’t say like it wasn’t completely abusive but just like I could probably count on one hand how many times I got hugged by my dad as a kid like and the the man Had a Brain Injury like and a brain injury and sleep apnea so it can’t completely fault someone who’s in that compromised state but you know that [  ] doesn’t wash off sure yeah um and you know after that really started to I I so basically I’m sitting there I’m sitting there in my in my house at the time got my 45 in my mouth I’m about ready to pull the trigger it’s the day before day before Christmas uh Christmas Eve and I get a text message on my phone that was like Hey man come over we’re having to get together I was like oh [  ] this great all right cool well I’ll just I’ll shelf this for later and uh so I went I went over to one of my buddies house um um another bomb Tech and uh he had he had some pure MDMA we know CU we had a Ramen spectroscopy laser you guys in yeah you guys yeah got cool technology um he’s like hey man you’re [  ] up take what’s on this counter and pour some out sit down on that couch and tell me what’s bothering you and and I did and it was the that experience saved my life hands down no question I got to feel Joy for really the first time in my life just unadulterated joy and it literally it felt like someone took my soul out of my body washed it really well with bleach and stuck that [  ] back in wow and it it just changed my entire Paradigm because I used to be I used to be really Evangelical Christian I was thought I always thought the darline was telling the truth that you know drugs are putting holes in your brain yeah right and everybody who did it was a bad person oh yeah yeah really opened my eyes like oh no this isn’t the case and I had been on a Litany of of mental health drugs of psychiatric drugs plenty ssris beta blockers and everything the world was numb I was like I’m done and and I was having panic attacks all the time so not a good situation and this was like oh my God like there is there is a substance out there that can give me this peak into Bliss and the cool thing was that it wasn’t just the you know this oneandone experience afterwards was like I could breathe again and it gave me that space integration yeah it gave me that space to go okay maybe life’s not so terrible and not only is life’s not so terrible but I can I can claw this this scenario back into my favor and really use it uh and and I didn’t I didn’t really understand the mental health implications until later uh it was about five month it was about five months later when this whole thing just really hit me square in the chest and it was uh I was I was uh it was right before Memorial Day the weekend before I was talking to one of my mentors we’re in the motorpool just smoking and joking having a great time there a and I was the last one I ever talked to Neil at the unit that was the last time I ever saw him uh on Memorial Day walks out into his backyard and blows his head off with his three-year-old kid in the house and it just floored me and it’s like oh my God he was he was in that same spot and he didn’t get that text like I did he didn’t get to have that experience like I had and I know that if he had he’d still be alive I have no question about that and from that point forward it was like just out of that grief and out of that pain it’s like you know it wasn’t quite that the sky opened up there was just this little voice inside was like hey [  ] this is your job now like you’re going to learn everything you can about this and you’re going to do this for other people CU someone saved your life and we lost a really amazing dude true because this wasn’t available yeah and yeah that’s that was the pivot point that was it holy SM and from that on it’s just been how can we how can we treat traumatic brain injuries post-traumatic stress disorder depression anxiety and that that also bleeds into substance abuse how can we treat these things more effective how can we stop taking this monoamine approach to these complex issues and really just bring in the Cavalry like attack these problems from all sides just like we would attack an enemy mhm like I’m not just going to if you know if I’m in a if I’m in a war with an enemy am I just going to am I just going to use one howitzer no right no I’m going to bring in the Abrams Tanks I’m going to have artillery backing them we’ve got you know OverWatch from Air assets I’ve got my infantry and that model is you kind not to emerge mental health and War but it kind of is you know taking taking a force on Force approach to a force on Force problem and that’s what we do in in all the programs that I’ve founded since is let’s not look at this through a single lens because our brains and this is a quote from John Kell’s a CEO of s metric great great dude uh one of the Pioneers in neuroimaging here in Colorado and uh what he said to me really stuck out uh our brain is the most complex organ that we know of in the universe right now it is its own pharmaceutical company it reacts to stimuli it makes its own drugs in taking a monoamine approach to treating that complex system isn’t just stupid it’s bad medicine yeah yeah and it’s medicine that we’ve been doing here in the United States for a really long time and I even think back to 15 16 years ago in treatment oh yeah I mean we’re going in here you go here’s the box over your head that was one of like the biggest breasts of fresh air when I first sat down with you was you know you start talking about MDMA you know Peak started out 10 years ago of treating substance use disorder and all substances were bad we’re beginning to learn that that’s just not the truth and I love what you say about complex individuals we should treat them complexly and individually and each individual needs a certain type of RX and that’s what I loved connecting when you told me that you’re working with veterans that have experienced TBI have never had remission of symptoms their whole life or 10 years and then within 17 or 18 days because you’re treating them humanely complexly as they present there having remission of symptoms in a few weeks yeah that’s our average time our average time to to symptom remission and that’s you know for everybody who’s not aware of what symptom remission is that’s at least a 50% reduction in symptoms so we’re seeing more like 75 so we’re we’re having someone come in at the severe level when they’re deal you know dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder with depression with anxiety with with TBI they’re coming in scoring at that severe level and within 14 to 17 days they’re down to mild yeah and then within 21 days that typically that we see that number dropped to zero so like symptom gone yeah and that’s because we are treating the root cause and uh when it comes to traumatic brain injuries PTSD depression anxiety what I don’t hear people talking about is what all those things have in common and the one and the two things that those issues have in common in the brain is one they are highly inflammatory so they are causing an inflammatory Cascade in the brain and two they affect neural connectivity so we talk about PTSD if you were to look at the brain of someone with post-traumatic stress disorder what you would see if you could peel apart the layers and see the firing circuits is you would see an underactive prefrontal cortex and an underactive executive functioning Center and an overactive amydala so you are having your fight flight or freeze function the emotional center of the brain driving your experience constantly yeah and the thing is like we can do something about that we have we have the technology we we can rebuild those neural networks pretty quickly uh and it and it starts by one just taking the temperature down on that inflammatory process that’s going on in the brain and then encouraging the brain to start to rewire with more effective tools how do you do that yeah so you know in our programs we use a combination of ketamine infusion therapy hyperbaric oxygen therapy transcranial magnetic stimulation and culturally competent Psychotherapy so I want to break this break this down a little bit and then talk about why so why do we do it this way if you were to just try to build your own positive mental health outcome it’s like building a house you’re going to come to the table and you basically have a hammer some nails and some Lumber if you try to just build your own mental health outcome chances are you’re going to end up with a half rickety Shack and you know the big bad wolf being life is going to blow that son of a [  ] over pretty easily MH now we add therapy into that what do we do we’re we’re providing a blueprint right all right that’s great now I know how to build it but I’m still you know I’m hand jamming this thing never actually swung a hammer yeah yeah exactly I don’t even know how to swing a hammer so I’m hand jamming this thing it’s still going to take a long time and that is a great uh you know a great analogy for your neurons rewiring it it is going to take you a long time to do this on on yourself and that’s not to say that psychotherapy Y is not effective it’s a very very core piece of what we do but you’re trying to push the boulder up the hill if you’re not if you’re not using these other techniques so when we add in when we add in ketamine infusion therapy when we add in transcranial magnetic stimulation when we add in hyperbaric oxygen therapy now it’s it’s you’re showing up we’ve got power tools laid out we’ve got the blueprint right in front of you and we have a Contracting Company helping you to build this entire thing and that allows us to get to a better place faster and keep it there longer because that’s a nice thing about rewiring the brain is when you get these circuits instantiate in the brain it’s not like okay you stop doing therapy and they go away they don’t there is resilience built into the built into this human model and it’s really cool do you find the veterans because you know being in Colorado Springs for the last 10 years one thing I’ve learned in a pretty um intense way is that veterans are absolutely underserved and the resources are abysmal um do you find what I mean this it’s so lifechanging pretty quickly what is the response you’re getting from these I mean are they like are you can’t believe my ears aren’t ringing and I’m not I mean what kind of responses you getting in community from oh I mean like some of the Vets we’ve treated like I I’ve treated guys who have had who have woken up with a migraine every single day cuz they got blown out of a Humvee in Iraq by an IED like waking up every day for 19 years with a headache imagine waking up every day in the first thought in your head is I’m in pain well I I don’t know about you but uh I wouldn’t play that game for very long no not at all and we’ve been able to take take individuals like that who are you know severe brain fog issues controlling their mood and that’s again because this inflammatory process and just completely wipe those symptoms away because we’re treating the root cause and especially with traumatic brain injury with traumatic brain injury if you are not treating the underlying neurobiology of that issue you are wasting the patient’s [  ] time I love that you said that yeah I love that you said that and if you it’s just a simple fact the brain is in a h it is a hypoxic injury and and I’ll explain why so I’ve got a nice little analogy to make this simple so the blood vessels in your brain especially in certain parts of the brain are very very small they’re so small that a single red blood cell can pass along that vessel at a Time Imagine This like we’re here in Colorado Springs you’re driving up to Aspen you’re going over Liberty Pass you know that that road is super narrow oh Independence Independence Pass yeah you’re driving over Independence Pass it’s pretty much a single aid and there’s a cliff on the other side so you’re you are imagine you’re the red blood cell so you’re a truck that’s full of oxygen and that is your only Pathway to The Village on the other side that Village on the other side depends on your delivery in order to heat their homes in the winter so if all of a sudden there’s a rock slide because of this inflammatory process your truck ain’t getting through so what happens on the other side what happens in Aspen Village well the cell they’re not just going to die they’re not just going to freeze to death so they the cells switch over from burning natural gas which is what you’re bringing to burning their wood stoves that’s a that’s going from cellular respiration which is a clean way to make energy to what’s called anerobic glycolysis that is how cancer cells make energy so that burning that wood stove if you can imagine all these all these cells all these houses in Aspen are burning these wood stoves they’re increasing the amount of carbon in that Valley and that has negative consequences to the cells in that space to the people that are living there they’re going to end up with more issues that’s exactly what happens in the brain so what can we do about that process well we can one we can clear the inflammatory aspect with things like ketamine with things like hyperbaric oxygen therapy but the other thing we can do is instead of relying on that truck we can create a pipeline that’s what hyperbaric oxygen therapy does it hyper oxygenates your blood plasma so we are no longer we are no longer worried about the truck it’s not a single Lane it goes it’s not a single Lane it’s a pipeline now because you’ve hyper oxygenated the liquid that that red blood cell travels in and you can get it you can get the oxygen saturation of that blood plasma high enough that it has enough O2 in it enough oxygen in it to do the same job as the truck as the red blood cell so you can take an area that has been starved of oxygen that has been in this anerobic state and bring it back into uh a fully aerobic State that’s really beautiful and so basically nothing gets jammed up everything moves through and you’re getting the oxygen or what whatever you need and then your body the great thing is then your body can start to heal itself this isn’t like weren this isn’t rocket science this isn’t rocket surgery I know I used to do rocket surgery this is neuroscience like this is biology and it’s really wonderful and when you especially when you take into account proper nutrition proper exercise you can literally give the body and the Brain all of the resources that they need to heal the injury yeah man we’re talking like with combat veterans First Responders with and talking about healing mhm healing right you don’t we don’t hear that a lot in our medical model it’s we’re in the business for repeat business and come back for more we we’re we’re all about response not about remission MH like no that you know there are enough sick people that we do not have to play that game yeah let’s play get better next get better next there’s a line out the door around the block and down the interstate of people who need this yeah who people people who are just crying out for help for something that can take that burden off and then help them get to the next level and that’s not to say that anything that we do is a magic pill you still have to do the work you’re still showing up to build the house if you don’t pick up a hammer and a saw nobody else is going to on that in that team right you know in your biology so that’s not to put the onus on the treatments themselves I think that’s also a trap that a lot of people can fall into is like oh well you know this one thing didn’t work yeah well it’s not a magic pill you still got to put in the effort what was it that you experien differently than what you’re organizing for the people that need it the most when you went and tried to seek services for your mental health I mean I I ran into the traditional the traditional model like I got thrown ssris um that beta beta blockers was on uh trazodone for a while and it didn’t make anything better it made everything gray and then when I when I got introduced to these therapies you know just really started seeking them out I started a nonprofit for veterans who were struggling and started to kind of piece together all of these disperate pieces they already existed you know ketamine TMS hyper bear but no one had put them together i’ never heard until I met you yeah and like no one had put them all together and I was like man I bet I bet if we just stacked these we could get some really amazing results really fast and so raised money to try it I I tried on myself first uh oh I was like all of a sudden lights hey lights are on and I am home and I’m happy about it and then my my former business partner at the time um he uh he had he had uh been blown up in Afghanistan then got in a car wreck where he lost Consciousness then he fought professional movie thae kickboxing for a year and was having severe postconcussive migraines 5 to six hour long episodes throwing up he’s in so much pain oh my go and we put him through uh we put him through a protocol that we helped develop and gone all that [  ] was gone yeah and that was another real big light bulb moment I like oh wait you know hey I may not be a doctor but we’re on to something here and I bet you we can put together a team around this concept and that’s what we did you know we put started the outpatient Psychiatry Clinic called MPA up in Denver and then that you know that’s still rocking and rolling and then we also have Patriot PowerUp which is you know our inpatient treatment program up in Idaho we can serve the entire United States and we’re doing all this stuff under the banner of the VA Community Care Network that’s beautiful and and are you finding that the VA is coming in and supporting your guys’ efforts because it’s so efficacious you know they’re starting to okay uh you know we’re we’re starting to show the results the program’s only been around for a year sure uh the current environment that we’re in the VA is is over budget right now and you know one of the primary one of the primary causes at least what they’re saying the primary causes is of that is Runaway community care costs um and you know unfortunately we get put in that bucket even though we’re doing what nobody else is doing so it’s been a little bit of a struggle but like I said the providers are coming around we’re seeing the efficacy we’re seeing those 45 degree angles you know increase in executive function complete relief from symptoms we’re seeing these guys come back like come back to life and people are starting to take note yeah it’s a big deal what you’re doing in the community man and I really um connect with it and value it and want to be close to it CU I I can remember when we opened Peaks and my brother coined the core value to disrupt the industry through quality of care and like what that meant to me oh yeah and was so near and dear to my heart and I feel it even even more so with you and with your mission and your vision and the minds spawn and your certainly your resume and the people that you connect with like what is your your goal your dream what do you see happening and where do you find yourself in that process yeah uh I mean I I want to improve the way that mental health is treated in this country uh and move toward WS value based care like that’d be amazing yeah I I think that there there is the see the incentives are aligned right if we can treat people more effectively not only can we make their lives so much better in a relatively short period of time if you think about it like you know anywhere from 30 to 60 days that’s yeah I mean dude one to two months come on like in one to two months your life could be so so much better than it is now you can be feeling better and engaging with your environment instead of retracting from it that’s huge yeah you know we have that right here and also people who are feeling better and not in their deep dark cave or having panic attacks all the time or suffering from substance use disorder they use the medical system less they take care of their themselves more what does an insurance company want right spend less money they want you to pay your premiums and not go to the doctor yeah less the visits yeah yeah less ER visits you know less less of these things so you it’s I I think that it makes a lot of sense from every perspective this can be a win-win win-win win across the board we can get people in we can make them better and with a relatively small upfront investment from the insurance companies that I I’m including the VA in this we can stem those Downstream costs because Healthcare is one of the things that’s going to bankrupt our country if we keep on the same track and mental Health’s a huge part of that yeah and I love what you said about it too because you’re fair in your assessment you say it’s it’s not just a payer Source problem there’s a provider problem and the provider problem has the onus on them as well you know to step up and put the not can treatment and create these drop downs for individuals who deserve complex thoughtful curious processes and so I think just as much as we got to continue to put our best foot forward in that integrous foot with what is best for humans um then we can move into this kind of like you know they’ve been saying it for years man as far as value based care and this kind of thing and so we’ve been keeping outcomes for the last five years I think we’re one of only 15 treatment programs in the United States that’s not a nonprofit that lists those outcomes online that’s insane we want to share this message that’s insane you know and we want you to ask good questions yeah you know and so if you’re a viewer out there ask good questions make sure you’re in front of a great provider well I think it’s really important like we should demand as constituents hey you I saw an article the other day that you know the VA was talking about how much better it was than than Community Care and I was like all right cool where are your outcomes I I would love to see them I can tell you right now if I drive down to the if I drive down to the Phoenix Arizona VA and Survey some of the folks in there they’re not going to have the same answers that you put on your website yeah like let’s let’s all get on board with transparency around outcomes yep that’s you know hiding this stuff in a black box is exactly how we got here exactly yeah we need to open open up this dialogue around what makes people better and bring our data together so it’s it’s just it’s a matter of not there’s no way any one organization just like any one person has the answer do I have a a great program a couple great programs absolutely do you have a great program absolutely is my program going to work for every single person in your program no insane like but together we can put together this cohesive picture of what real valuable care looks like real outcomes based care and I think that there are real solutions to billing along those lines yeah that don’t cause favoritism that that don’t put one program over another like we can you know be on the level together yeah I think that’s a beautiful thing man and and and I know it’s so needed and valued specifically in our community here in Colorado Springs I’ve never been around in my entire life more combat veterans more people that have served our country more people that have servant hearts and just just want to show up and at the same time have had a tough time connecting in community as a result of the time they spent um you know in combat and serving their country and so so grateful to have you on the show where do we where do we find you what’s the website yeah so you know if you’re interested in learning more about our offerings uh in the Denver area mindspa denver.com uh you can look us up on there see what we do uh get in contact with us uh you know at that clinic you know we’re doing the Hyperbaric ketam infusion therapy trans cranial magnetic stimulation talk therapy and medication management uh and we are open to just about every major insurance carrier all the big ones um up to an including tracker in the VA and then if you’re a veteran who is suffering with you know PTSD TBI uh sorry PTSD TBI depression anxiety uh and substance abuse disorder to a secondary degree Patriot PowerUp is is a program that is a part of va Community Care we are doing Hyperbaric ketamine TMS culturally competent therapy in a nice homebased U homebased uh inpatient setting it’s it’s very intimate it’s very nice uh it’s a non- lockdown facility and you can come to there if you get a referral through the VA you can come to our program at zero cost wow yeah and and take part in better outcomes sure that’s a big deal zero cost through the VA only you can do 30 60 days there you can transition Community Based resource and move and groove in that direction we’re just getting started here man I’m going to bring you back on for other episodes I want to kind of get into the the real nuts and bolts of what you’re doing in a different episode but it’s just been uh a humbling experience to have you on I appreciate your service I appreciate how you show up in the community with a whole heart we need more individuals and professionals like you moving into Community with true cause and purpose thank you so much for coming on until next time my people peace [Music] you

In this episode, Chris Burns sits with Cynthia Baker, Chief Clinical Officer of The Raleigh House, in an open discussion surrounding the treatment industry. With professional insight and personal testimonies, this conversation spans from focusing on individualized approaches to care and the clear benefits of looking into the role that nutrition plays not only during a treatment stay but also in everyday life. A huge thank you to the Raleigh House and Cynthia for being disruptors in this industry and for sharing insights and information on how we can continue the best experience for clients as we walk them through their recovery.

[Music] hey everybody and welcome to another amazing and exciting episode of Finding Peaks Yours Truly president founder chief executive officer Chris burn so grateful to be here today in this 24 hours with Cynthia Baker the chief clinical officer of Raleigh House of Hope so grateful to have you hi it’s good to see you and thank you for having me absolutely it was um I got to meet you it was probably a few months ago yes right we’re sitting down at a dinner that I got invited to by the Raleigh House of Hope and it was entrepreneurs and business owners and Executives coming together to talk about really really tough issues and things that are going on and how we’re growing together and um I’m just reminded of kind of this subtle connection that we had you know I I’d sometimes get in rooms and I talk a lot and I look around and you’re one of the individuals that I really felt connected with throughout that process I think kind of our mission and our vision both personally and professionally are really closely uh in alignment and I’m so grateful to have you on the show today and if those of you who don’t know Cynthia she is a licensed clinical social worker as well as carries a Doctorate in Education yeah awesome awesome so grateful to have you on the show and one of the big things that I wanted to kind of chat about a little bit is like you have a wildly formidable resume i’ I looked at your LinkedIn I looked at what you ran VP of this doing this you just told me you had a digital Mark digital company early on in your career and what is it about the Raleigh house that kind of Drew your attention um in that direction what keeps you motivated there that’s a great question and I would say Chris I felt the same about just really connecting during this dinner and just talking about sole Proprietors and Founders and having the people at that table that was an amazing dinner um and so you know Chris I think I think in my heart has always been around the idea of people who Who start something and they have a vision and a passion for it and so I think it’s really um really was a big deal for me to kind of choose the Raleigh house the Raleigh house chose me um but you know it’s it’s something that um I can only I can’t imagine myself doing anything else so that’s really really cool and something I really appreciated about the Raleigh house over all of these years and you all have been in business I want to say two or three years longer than us so kind of came came into the market at a very very similar time I’ve always loved how Raleigh house puts clients and individuals first and then wraps a treatment program around that how do you guys do that it seems like something that’s been missed so often in our industry but how do you see them putting a business model forward like that being able to carry it out in a really sustainable way yeah I think it was really around the visioning you know of our CEO founder you know Eric laap and so but it’s you know it’s it’s the idea of the pathways of you know substance use Mental Health and Trauma and so it’s it’s kind of developed right it’s it’s it’s evolved over the years and so I think it’s about you know having a location where you know Raleigh house started on Raleigh Street as a sober living you know so so it’s evolved and grown over the years but I think it’s really been related to the vision of how do we successfully help people how do we you know make them um how do we help them with their healing and rewriting their story right and so I think that’s something the Raleigh house seems um has been aept with long before I ever arried and you know it’s more about now taking what the core of the Raleigh house is and then taking that and projecting that forward and growing that access right for more people um to be able to have those Services that’s really really cool and I don’t know if you know this but I had a one of my best friends about a year ago um was struggling with some mental health stuff and chose to call the Raleigh house home for 30 days and he went in and and he P his family paid cash for those services and he had been to 35 treatment programs prior to that he’s been in South Florida he’s been in northern Arizona Southern California he’s Texas you name it and when he got out of the Raleigh house he said to me that’s the best treatment program I’ve ever been through boy they will not let you get away with not working on your trauma but that is the most intentional treatment program I’ve ever been a part of so it brings me to one of our core values which is to disrupt the industry through quality of care how do you see Raleigh house in your long-standing career really aiming to disrupt the industry one quality resource at a time one individual at a time how do you see that evolving from your seat you know it might be a bit like what you’re doing with Peaks right because it’s that idea of being Peaks we are the Raleigh house we are the r house and so we’re disrupting by being who we are so it’s not only the evidencebased cognitive behavioral therapy acceptance that a DBT all the evidence-based work and then let’s just throw in these other expressive therapies let’s put in the ecoin you know the animal assistance Psychotherapy let’s use more variety around what’s going to really help that person right grow and learn that it’s not one size fits-all that it’s the true person centered individualized plans for these clients and so I think that that’s something that has really impressed me about Raleigh house and really aligns with my career yeah really I love that too because I remember in my um personally going through my mental health journey in the beginning and and and people I would come into treatment and they would ask questions like how’s that working out for you and I would just be like not good like I feel so bad in the way in which we used to communicate just 15 short years ago is people come in to care put a box over their head head we say these certain things and these certain terms and we send them on this path to community integration and a one-size fits-all path and for so many years I remember sitting there and being like I guess if this is the way I have to do it but just feeling so unsafe and so scared I love what the Raleigh house does because it speaks to people and humans coming into a process individually yeah and for sure Peaks has really built a name as well over the years is like from an from V to EOB from ver verification of benefit to explanation of benefit can we suit up and show up and be curious can we listen first and solve later and I think that’s something that’s been missed but we’ve been really grateful to connect with the Raleigh house who’s our number one referral in this state for out of network cash pay folks how have you guys been able to continue with that individualized approach yeah I think it’s just going to be it’s a part of our mission and I think that you know the universe is going to take care of this right ultimately however we figure out you know we’re here and we’re we’re growing and so we know that there whatever magic ingredient it is it’s truly about it’s about being true to yourself and being true to the vision right of of what the Raleigh house is because if it was something else that was a canned approach right or or something else it might be one of the other right private organizations that is not surviving or thriving you know like like ours um you you know I think one of the things I would say is that I would like to see more disruption in the industry right yeah you know you were talking about disruption and I think about you know pairing that with Innovation right pairing that with the idea of um you know uh individualized care right and being able to um take a look at all these different like we still have to work within systems we still get paid we still survive you know we we Thrive we have employees who we you know we pay we have great leaders and mid leaders and clinical directors and all these other directors that we you know that support our mission right but it is going to be about how going forward you know Statewide nationally how as CEO run organizations and private organizations how do we disrupt an industry that is kind of you know right it’s on its way to the black and white one way no way and we’re talking about people on the streets Y and we’re talking about people leaving care and they’re not getting what they need and it’s constant cycle right in our country around Health Care Mental Illness the stigma of substance use and mental illness um I I still think we have ai at all levels um to support our organizations I think as Leaders we have a responsibility yeah I really love I’ve actually I’ve s I’ve said disrupt the industry probably a thousand times in the last couple years um but I’ve never heard anybody say we need to pair that with Innovation because it’s not and I think I’ve gotten into some hot water with this years ago when we first kind of got that core value was like I just want to be disruptful to be disruptful because this is BS and it’s not going well right you know and so I’m I’m kind of spinning my wheels like and I’m not going anywhere so I love what you said it’s this very intentional approach to disrupting I’m not going to do it just to Flap my wings it’s actually we’re going to support it with Innovation client care and outcomes that’s the way to do it and I love what you’re saying let’s let’s do it in a professional way but let’s continue to raise the flag to say hey this isn’t going well and I think we have a way into treating people in our programs and in our communities where they actually feel seen valued and heard which is really nice and I can remember when I first felt that and it was in a treatment program and it was surrounded by great professionals and I was like why are these people being so nice to me and it wasn’t because I was paying I was on scholarship so be clear I feel like our clients say that sometimes too it’s like kindness is supposed to be a part of this right and so people come in and they’re like oh my gosh why are you being so nice to me and it tells me they have a story and a story of which needs to be treated with compassion empathy and presence so I just I love what the Raleigh house is doing because when I look at the state of Colorado specific and it used to kind of be a Peaks and Raleigh house kind of doing this thing but I think you’re the the only ones if I’m not mistaken one of the only ones who’s still providing not just the level of care but the model and an out of network side of things and still thriving so to your point when the heart is true the universal conspire to support you rich role not me I I think that’s what’s happening at the Raleigh house I think your clients are some of your greatest marketers um and I get to hear the Raleigh house Praises not even so much by your professionals by the people that have walked through the program it’s been really really cool and to hear a friend of mine that I got subed with 15 years ago say something like that and I know the programs he’s been to it means a lot and so there’s actually two places in the state of Colorado where I would refer a family member Peaks can’t do that there’s a conflict so that’s one off the list Raleigh house is the second I mean that with a whole heart thank you absolutely because I love the way that you guys move into Innovation and speaking of innovation you guys just open a new facility yes tell me a little bit about that Denver TCH Center beautiful area absolutely um it’s downstairs from our outpatient which is you know our PHP IOP um on Quebec Street and that it’s called the center for integrated Behavioral Health I can only tell you all over the last four to six months how many times we’ve changed the name how we reworked the name um and that’s the cool part about visioning when you get to start something right so it’s the name it’s it’s what’s the Acuity level who are we going to serve um you know it’s it’s been an ongoing kind of Thrill Ride for me I mean to be able to come into this it was so attractive to me to be able to you know to to be a part of that and to implement and plan and strategize around a whole new facility so it’s kind of like when you get into you know when you’re getting in Boots on the ground and you’re in the dayto day and you’re trying to work on processes and improvements you know um there can be a little frustration right there can be a little bit of of heightened uh there’s a lot of investment in this right and and both financially and professionally by lots and lots of people this wasn’t you know one person who did all this but you know I think um there’s more to come on this and and we’re continuing to look and evolve with the services that we want to deliver again the person centered care components um we are featuring mental health but we also have the license for detox okay um and substance use as well so we’ve had a blend so far okay um we’ve had eight clients since our opening three weeks so do detox in that facility as well yes oh wow cool and we’ve been able to um retain U every client except one client that really you know kind of made a decision it wasn’t time for treatment okay um and so these things happen but it’s that idea that we were able to Anchor a community together very quickly that tells you something about what the Raleigh house has done before that we could pay you know take forward while also innovating was something that was a little different right in a little just a whole different environment than a ranch right I love that the city you know and you know it’s lots of windows but it’s a and it’s just a it’s a beautiful place and we look forward to you coming to see can’t wait to visit um later on this month and that is really Innovative and you’re speaking to something that Peaks has moved into um with our new facility it’s like this idea that we treat suffering together and oftentimes people come in they’ll be like where’s your substance use people where’s your mental health people and it’s like we have found over the last since we’ve opened the facility about a year and a half enough like people anchor into the process just the same we we all understand that Chris at least I understand about my history is like Chris Burns right leg was tapping I couldn’t sit still when I was in fifth grade long before I ever touched a substance and so right uh here goes a mental health disorder and substance use disorder is a mental health disorder and so we’ve brought them together and we’ve had pretty phenomenal results and so I love to hear that in your new facility like you’re taking this Innovative measure to say hey like we’re going to move into this and your outcomes are speaking to it and this community you know whether they’re coming in for substance use or not we know that you know the evidence Ed to say right mental health addiction and then somewhere in the middle is a co-occurring the evidence says that’s out the door now that literally right it’s basically one whole you know grouping of people that if they’re using substances but their mental health is primary right they’re using some sort of a substance to medicate or whatever that looks like and so it was really interesting watching this small community that was so Blended like that and really working together and I could see them even during clinical programming that they were they were really you know really grabbing on to the evidencebased things but then the other piece Chris is the pro recovery nutrition and the movement work I have a yoga person you know recreational therapist who’s doing yoga trauma informed kind of you know all these different pieces around movement and we knew because we didn’t have the outdoor space of the ranch that we needed that right you know we needed we needed to have kind of the movement work and have somebody really working with them after clinical that has been so amazing and then the other piece was the pro recovery nutrition so when you look at nutrition you know the high protein low sugar low Dairy you know gluten-free you’re feeding the brain you know you’re you’re getting healthier you’re coming in kind of yellow or gray right I’m watching the color you know in these clients at the ranch especially and you know at the center as we continue to evolve so you know at Watkins rants we have a chef there and so all the you know all the foods are freshly you know uh made we have a lot of catering in different pieces at the center because of the city location but we’re really having similar results um you know um Eric laap is is a professional and and has a background and you know working in um holistic nutrition and the amino acids and all the components so we’re kind of stepping in back into some of this in addition to food and using using some of those efforts I have a a nutritionist on board who’s an independent contractor she has groups every week with residential and out patient clients um and also we’ll do individual assessments and you know that real difference between a holistic nutritionist is they really get that whole high protein you know and they get all the under the understand all those components so um and they they adapt to that so that’s been amazing as well and so we’re really trying to specialize and have some specialty areas excuse me that makes me makes us different has it really does and you’re touching on something that’s very near and dear to my heart I remember three years ago I went into um one of our leadership meetings and it was just when we started cooking for clients you know we were outpatient levels of care and then we got a chef and a culinary team and I just I guess I had learned how beneficial it was for my recovery and I went into a leadership meeting about 12 laders and these are doctors and psychiatrists far more knowledgeable than me about everything and I just said what informs the food that we feed our clients yeah because it looks good looks real good but I just have in it was almost like exorcism people’s heads started spinning they’re hiding their drinks or throwing their food on the ground because it’s this real primal thing that people don’t want to talk about a lot and they don’t want to move into and especially when people are suffering from shame and the microcosm of addiction or mental Health whatever it might be the last thing we want to do is but this is a supportive tool yeah I’m a big believer that like we can leave a lot of this on the table and get some sunlight and some good nutrition and walk together and we will accomplish things we never thought were possible yeah so I love that you guys are doing that and frankly one of the greatest presentations on any website that I’ve ever seen is the culinary on your site yes fresh fruit and vegetables and Gardens and they grow it on site and clients were goes back years that’s all things that you know that that I think Eric really took the lead on those things and I think that was just so incredibly special when you think about what did we do different or what are we doing different people in general don’t want to leave treatments so much when they start not feeling the Cravings because you know in addition to the Psychiatry and and Matt and that we all have to have for support for some of these folks you know the natural pieces they can take forward with them through the Continuum outside our services let’s hope that they can take some of that forward and and not go back to the McDonald’s burger right and and we know there’s a cost occurred incurred with these things but at least they can learn more about it so the education compound I think is really important too yeah the education is huge because I wish somebody would you know may have come to me because I was thinking in my early recovery I’m like waking up at 6:00 am. and going for a walk that seems hard yeah but I think what’s really hard is a my ability to zoom out and see things as they actually are and what be might be more more difficult for me is you know living a life 30 years of sobriety and at 65 being cut open because I wasn’t informed to these opportunities from a nutritional perspective to inform not just quality of life physical health mental health spiritual health overall well-being so you just feel better when you do it even though it is and was for me a very very tough topic to talk about you know that’s interesting you know my um my dad um you know he’s passed away now but the idea is that you know he was he was an alcoholic and I had more alcoholic family and mental a lot of mental illness in the family and you know you were talking about that Discovery you know of why am I doing this and you and I kind of prepped and we talked about that and I was just thinking about as you were talking about how healthy he thought he was because he worked out every day but he had this awful cholesterol he had empyema he had heart problems and he eventually passed away of a heart attack and guess what none of those things had to happen had he really been healthy right you know nutritionally healthy but the way people grow up the way you know the new generation the old generation as well and what what they put in their bodies so I’m not an expert in this area but I’m absolutely learning you know from the Raleigh house you know is is and I’m watching these clients Thrive and get healthier you make such a good point though because we grew up kind of lower socioeconomic situation and I remember we had to buy the when we got cereal it was the big bags yeah not the boxes the boxes were more expensive and so instead of Frosted Flakes you get Joey’s flakes or whatever it might be right and I remember thinking as a kid I want the freaking Frosted Flakes so I get sober 2008 turns out when you don’t spend money on that stuff you have a couple resources even when you work and I remember going to the grocery store the first time Frost flakes Salsbury steak all the stuff I never had that all my friends who had resources did and then it turns out that stuff’s good for you right so bad for you and and the milk like oh holy crap she couldn’t do anything worse in the morning to eat a b of cereal I know like like your total gut health is blown out the door by it you know to learn that all these Foods I couldn’t afford growing up aren’t good for you right yeah I grew up I grew up um quite poor too and I I just remember the oatmeal every morning get know yeah so yeah I’m right there with you well it’s been just extraordinary having you on the show I I wanted to as I do with most of my guests just kind of end with one one last question and I think I know the answer I’m very much in alignment with it but for the viewers like you know why do you do this this is this is tough work it’s very rewarding work if you’re passionate about it but what is your why what’s the foundation of that where this passionate energy comes from yeah I wish I had your energy by the way I tend to be a little more [Laughter] manic well it’s it’s a pleasant oh awesome thank you thank you Chris you’re amazing um so you know my why goes back a ways right you know sometimes when we’re younger we don’t know who we are we make decisions we’re kind of floating through I raised children I raised daughters you know was married we had a small business went back to graduate school thinking I would have this next career and I’m a social worker and I’m gonna you know develop programs and you know and all these things but then there’s you know I I always talk about being it feels like I was from privilege at that point because I really didn’t see all the suffering for a while until I really looked inside myself and then I looked at my own family with the history of mental illness and substance use and then it was like I realized what a generational and you know harmful deadly stigma that has been on substance use and mental health and addiction right both that you know has harmed people right it’s cost them their lives and so it’s it’s so incredibly serious so once you know it’s like once you look at the big picture and then you look at the per you know the individual you’re realizing how wrong things are and how much there is to fix and so I think it’s been really good for me to realize when you think about these things that it’s not that human being it’s really a system right it’s really all the things that makes that human being worse and doesn’t help them yeah and then also just people feeling shame and blame and I I think that’s just some of the ugliest feelings that people shouldn’t have to feel um so I feel really passionate about the idea of people having access to services and so that can be part of an organization be a leader in an organization where I can increase that access because I’ve been other roles that I could not and then I spent 10 years in aging where I could and we served you know 1500 nursing homes and we you know we did some really awesome work and so everywhere I go I want to take that energy and but I also want to you know instill the kindness and the culture that you’re everyone’s why right we’re all on the same page and we’re here to ultimately help that client right and we’re here for the clients um so I just um you I really like developing people training and development of people to help them in these roles that are so difficult for them so I would say my why really stems from family you know and less my personal experience but more around learning about myself that’s a beautiful and well articulated why I I remember growing up thinking I knew about substance use because it was in my family and I grew up you know I was in family program at S 2 s at 7 years old 9 years old 11 years you know all these ages and I remember they would say things about my mother like you know she’s an addict so that equals a plus b equals c and you’re like oh that sucks so my mom’s an addict my whole life I grew up being like you’re doing this thing to me yeah and you’re not showing up I was hanging out with my mom six months ago and for the first time in my life life I realized she struggled with depression and she used substances to make sense of that hole that she was in and in that moment after 38 years on this planet I saw my mom clearly wow and so I appreciate your why it’s very near and dear to my heart our mission and our vision who we aim to help and walk with one day at a time there’s a story behind every individual and I’m grateful the day that peak’s recovery and Raleigh House of Hope is in alignment seeing those individuals clearly thank you Chris thank you so much Cynthia it’s been a pleasure until next time my beautiful people peace [Music]

We are preparing to celebrate 10 Years of Peaks Recovery in September! To commemorate this special episode, Chris brings PRC Alumni, community leader, and industry disruptor Sparkle Lindsay to the show! Sparkle’s inspiring story and messages of hope shine brightly as we take the time to highlight aspects of her journey- from her first reactions to Peaks and the program to bringing attention to the small moments that she attributes to turning points in her life. Thank you so much, Sparkle, for sharing your fantastic story with us and continuing to be a motivational and integral person to so many. For more information on Sparkle, check out sparklelindsay.com.

[Music] hey everybody and welcome to another exciting amazing and miraculous episode of Finding Peaks your host president founder and chief executive officer Chris Burns formerly known as recovery cheerleader I am joined today by a great friend of mine colleague professional recovery human Sparkle Lindsay so grateful to have you Sparkle how you doing it’s good to be here doing so good and you guys would probably be shocked to learn that sparkle and I have just been sitting here shooting the stuff for the last 30 minutes we haven’t even B we get the show going but I I cannot wait to highlight for the viewers where Sparkle was where she’s at today and where she’s going I think it’s a very powerful story of a lot of one days at a time and um she’s a Peaks alumni we’re in our 10th year celebrating our 10 year anniversary and Sparkle just celebrated 5 years in long-term recovery I mean I was just saying she’s been in recovery as long half as long as we’ve been in business right you know um just really really cool to have you here so thank you for joining us today my friend thank you for having me and I do think they probably think we talked longer than we should have anyway I’ve had a couple guests are like man they just don’t shut up yeah for sure um what I wanted to highlight five years ago in Peaks recovery you know the picture was a lot different we were Extended Care we’ve always been gender specific but I just kind of wanted you to highlight for the viewers you know what was it like where were you at what was it like kind of surrendering we talked a little bit about that before and making a commitment to walk through a wildly big authentic and robust recovery process you know uh for me being a the oldest of five I mean obviously I have three brothers and a sister I love them dearly um and all of us have this this past of being athletes and we all have full-right scholarships to play a sport and um we all played those Sports we all have degrees um and so being the oldest um they really looked up to me you know during that time so Pride was a lot of what was in my way um I talk a lot about you know in a lot of my YouTube videos being the fixer and uh I really realized later on in my recovery how intense being the fixer was to myself because I was fixing everybody else but me so this journey you know for me really started from realizing that I just couldn’t do it by myself I couldn’t do it by myself I thought I could um I tried multiple ways to get sober I kept secret so that I wouldn’t tell people what was wrong because I was Sur afraid of what people would think of me especially me being this this High intense executive um being a part of such a great family um um not even really looking like I even was a drinker or anything like that and just always holding myself to this standard this OCD this Perfection thing that I later on found out some of my wise to my usage you know and I just didn’t you know I really was like I don’t need treatment I can handle it I’m okay um you don’t worry about me I got you you know that whole I want to help everybody else but in all reality I was distracting myself from myself right and then before you know it I I mean there was just these moments where I was battling a form of chemo because I was diagnosed with lupus been diagnosed with five autoimmune conditions and at one point I was giv myself shots of tequila and taking shots of chemo to make it and I was like either way you could die so you’re doing them both yeah and I was getting I was just really sick and um for me so many different things happen right um I ended up in jail a few times um I had an employee kill himself in front of me um um and that I spiraled I spiraled and then after all of that when I thought I was going to be let go um I was brought into the office and um promoted to 125k and uh I just remember sitting in in the in the room that day because I thought I was going to get fired I was like take a few shot shooters and I’m going to just get out of here and I looked and the guy’s like turn it over you know and I’m like why these people look happy you know turned it over and they said 125k and uh everything got quiet all these people around me and they thought I was going to be ecstatic and I started thinking in my head I said well this could cover my addiction for real I could we’ll be all right we’re good you know and uh and then I started thinking like I’ve been telling these people that I haven’t been feeling well for a long time and they haven’t really been listening but the numbers were blowing up and uh I just said you know what I think I’m going to turn it down and I I I did you see how I’m doing my hand I’m still doing that right um and they’re looking at me like what and I said you know nothing is fun when you feel like you’re in a room yelling as loud as you can to a bunch of people and no one’s listening listening I said and if I take this money I’m going to die I said it may not mean that much to you cuz obviously I’m replaceable I said but no amount of money is worth my life so of course I get up and I’m like yeah you know I did good forgot what door uh I came through so that was fun I’m like this they’re like the right one and I’m getting a little tipsy cuz I took Shooters before I went in there and I’m like H so I get to the car and I’m like what am I gonna do well let’s just go to Blackhawk and let’s just spend money end up in jail so I end up in jail that same night same night end up in jail and I just remember sitting there and this voice came to me and it said no one’s coming no one’s coming and I was like I can’t remember one number I could not remember one number I could it didn’t matter we’re talking about someone with a photographic memory okay I could not remember is it 720 or 3 719 I could only remember the area codes but not the numbers no one’s coming and I sat there and I just asked myself what do you want out of your life what are you doing and so I actually was booked in there and uh I got an opportunity to see how it was to try to get out try to get numbers um all of the above and I started noticing some of the the women in there that I wanted to help and it was crazy because they thought I was a plant and I I remember going back into the room and being like they’re telling me I don’t even I don’t even fit here do you get what I mean like I actually was there MH but I didn’t fit yeah so I got out and I just remember my ex told me if you go get help you can’t come back here I’ll never forget it and so for a week and a half I sat there thinking about should I go to treatment should I not should I go to treatment should I not and one night 3:00 in the morning I threw everything out of my my car jumped in the car and made it to my grandparents house and I knocked on the door and I said I’m ready and I ended up because my aunt at the time my aunt Bonita she said she had uh talked to you and was like I don’t know what’s going to go on with my niece but she needs some help so I ended up at Parker Valley Hope and Parker Valley Hope is where me and her had this conversation this it was almost an argument I was like listen there are people who need my help out there and there are people who need me to help them and she said why don’t you just stay in your lane and I said listen my Lane is their Lane okay this is 30 days in right so I said people need to know and she said sparklet H stay in your lane right and I I I was fighting that and then 30 days went by and I started feeling really good and then I got sick with pneumonia and I was like huh well I I probably missed my time to go to Peaks recovery and since I’m sick and it’s been 30 days I’m sure I’ll be good you know and SM and I’m talking about it like you know I have plans to start a new career now and and I don’t need you know I don’t need another treatment center this is this is people just thinking I need help you know and uh I’ll never forget it I did my hanging the cup ceremony and they had speech you know you got to give a speech and I had already made plans to go camping with my ex and as soon as I was leaving we were about to go go have some fun okay so I’m sitting there I will cherish this moment and I was doing all these things and people were like she’s going to make it you know they were feeling it and I got so close to the door right I’m close to the door I got my bags and I’m like I’m home free right and I get out and all of a sudden I look over at my ex and I look over and I hear are you Sparkle oh my goodness and I was like what uh yeah peak’s employee with the big van the big van can’t get you oh your auntie took the luxury of making sure we could pick you up for your next treatment
I go I never heard that one okay I look over and then I look at her and I look at him okay and I got on the van so the drive there is just like I’m like how long am I supposed to be here and then I’m thinking I don’t I don’t have any money you know I’m thinking in my head I’m like am I a Bonita you know I’m like what a brat yeah and then when I talked to her she was like well I know myself she said so what do you want me to do and I was like uh thank you so so I get there and I’m fighting it for at least a month I’m fighting it I’m like I I think I’m good I don’t need to I walk in the building and I’m like wow this atmosphere is so relaxing um and then I was like and it’s so quiet and I I was like it’s this kind of worries me because there’s not anybody yelling my name or needing me or anything like this I don’t know maybe this actually might work you know that thought like maybe maybe this was a good decision but you’re well here I was scared you know what I mean um and so I walked in and you know the first the first person I meet my case manager uh Danny DOR and Danny was so nice you know she gave me hug and everything else and then I got right into talking about my career and how I have to leave after this um I’m probably only going to need about you know 30 days 30 more days I’ve already been killing it in the other spot I’m making yeah I’m a winner um here’s the resume um whatever you need okay and she’s like okay well if you could just come in I said well you know I want to make a few calls before and she’s like you can’t have your phone and I was like but there’s people who need me to make things happen so and she’s like I understand I understand I said I had to go do this I had to go do that I had to go do this and then she’s like okay so you were you were kind of like the doorm O and I was like come again and right there as quiet as it’s kept that comment right there changed my life forever ever it intrigued me to realize there’s something more to this and so for a minute I stood in her office and I was like I don’t really know if I want to be a part of this yeah and we ended up being the best of friends all through my five years even after and she checks on me every day checks on me daily just to make sure I’m okay and I’m on the same you know on that same that same road and also with running running my own business not being that yes person I can’t be um and not be be able to being able to maintain that balance is what Peaks really brought for me but they I mean PE you guys challenged us on so many different levels on levels that gave us an opportunity to do something with the tools that were given while we were there so it wasn’t like here’s some tools when you leave it was like let’s watch you put these tools into action before you leave and so before I even hit the ground running or even left or before we even got to the sober living phase my thought process was on a holistic level was on a mindset level that was like I know my program I know I feel safe and I know I’m going to be okay and the reason why is because I know that I can always come back here if I need to um and no one’s going to say anything you know and I also was really excited when I heard that a lot of the staff was excited to see what I was going to do next with the materials and the tools that were given for me to be the best version of me you know and then there was my first therapist I ever had Kelly herrow which was another one that was involved in a lot of my family stuff so she was that third party that was working with us as a family so that we could teach our families recovery but then they could understand my recovery at the same time and the support that was needed for all of us and so that session was pretty intense and I would say that was the first time I had cried in 13 years wow um and when that happened I went into almost pretty much almost stroke mode um and ended up in the hospital because I hadn’t cried in so long um and Kelly was there with me every step of the way all of you guys because I I was also battling a lot of you know condition everything comorbidity right um so once that happened though and uh I just I kept saying I’m going to go back I’m going to go back and then I just started letting it go you know I started letting it go and I started focusing on me and um I started realizing that I couldn’t give away something I didn’t have to begin with so how was I doing it for so long and that wouldn’t it be really cool to not do that anymore right so then I got on the table with Tammy Tam Tammy Romano for somatic experience love and that’s where we started focusing on the words I trust my body and my body started doing things it could had never done before I’m in remission from all five of my conditions that stuck with me forever as well so you had the therapy going on over here we were doing a lot of working out and just mindset work and then I started learning the the gift of processing and being able to process the things I was talking about on a deeper level yeah and that’s when I started to find
me I could say
that the moment I found out or have found out who I am everything has just moved the way it should and it took the doormat conversations and somatic experience and the growth from the inside out to build who I’ve become you know and uh forever grateful because the whole time I kept thinking all this access to me there was so much accessible I could do yoga I could watch TV I could eat good meals like there was so many things that made me and helped me to learn how to take care of me and with no judgment just to learn again to just make your bed again to create the routines again to start to believe in yourself again and I just knew I was with a great program um and then you know I even had I I even had that feeling of realizing even after I left I took this program very seriously um and some people didn’t but I was on scholarship and my family we didn’t come from a lot of money my dad always used to say I’m rich in love not money and so the whole time I was in treatment I was like how the heck am I going to pay for
every time something new would happen I’d be like oh God that’s another $100,000 and Chris you walk in and you go hey Sparks and then you leave and I be like okay no okay okay I’m all right and then after a while you guys were like just do just work on you we don’t care use it to the best of your V ability let’s go and uh I’ll never forget it I tried to go back home oh yeah and I got to the door of where I was at and I remember my ex opened the door and handed me a beer he said there’s more downstairs where that came from I remember being so scared look threw the beer up the thing ran to my car and I went back came back I think you even described the time when you went to the grocery store everything was and I said I’m not ready for this I’m not ready I’m not ready they handing me this the trying to do this for me I said I think it might be better if I stay in the sober living and um I had to ease myself into it and I ended up really never going back to that house again um I it ended up not being for me you know and even after I got out the support from Peaks the support from sober living then the after care right um Rachel from Peaks just talked to her as well she’s like oh my God you’re at five years you know um all of all of you guys played such a huge role in my life and I don’t even think how much you realized it um until like I started coming back and you were like she think she doing all right right now you know we hit one year you hit two years and you’re like okay she’s doing all right you know and then for you to get that call that’s like hey Chris I’m at 5 years today you were like wait what how that happened so it it was a very interesting process for me and I think not not only interesting it was just so humbling and it was um I have so much gratitude from it and I think even now just every day even having um some Peaks people in some of my courses and hearing them speak is reminds me of what I learned do you know what I mean and so when they hear me speak and then they’re like wait a minute it’s Peaks thing you and they’re like you went to Peaks huh I’m like I did you know and it’s a Peaks thing because of the way we talk about it especially with the holistic piece um being able to Center and ground ourselves body scans okay I hated those at first like y’all want me to be talking yeah I was like no Danny I’m not doing it you guys can do this on your own time I’m not doing it she’s probably ready to kill me by the end probably a few of them goodness and then on top of that like meditation I remember like meditating for like two minutes and then I’d open my eyes and I’d be like oh we’re still meditating like I I would forget it’s so hard you know so we did a lot of that a lot of walks a lot of working out and just a lot of being in secluded areas to hear ourselves see the difference is the gift of being and when you have nothing but silence but to sit with yourself and figure out what you’re actually doing it all makes sense it starts to come together but often times people don’t get time to do that and then when they do you’re it’s it takes you back you know that you you want to do something because you don’t want to sit with it and so the greatest part about being at Peaks is I was able to sit with it and feel comfortable because my surroundings were safe and comfortable so then and everybody else around me even the people that I was in treatment with they were processing and sitting with it too so it’s like we all were learning you know how to be and um that right there was probably it’s probably been one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever had is being able to sit in silence and do nothing you know and it’s really it’s Unique and that would have done nothing I said a body scan and sit in silence that’s that’ll be the the the Pinnacle of the experience but I think it’s you really speak to something that I think is very near and dear to my heart and that’s important I think for the recovery process and you talk about safety but then to get to safety we have to talk about things like settling and to get to things like settling we have to talk about environment right and I’ve always said about Peaks you know the one thing you’re going to experience here that you won’t experience anywhere else you can only feel you can’t see yeah you can only feel you’re talking about this place where we go into and even though Peaks has evolved it doesn’t matter what you know yeah but how much you care and the foot you’re putting forward and walking with these people and so I’m wondering today as you work with literally working with peak’s clients now what a lot of things have changed over the last 5 years but what is a commonality with the Peaks clients that you work with that share your experience because I was sitting with another guy the other day in our alumni program KJ mhm and he’s like it doesn’t matter if someone was in Peaks 10 years ago 4 years ago 6 years ago Sparkle 5 years ago me 5 months ago we sit down and we go oh it’s a Peaks thing yeah because here’s the thing we lean in with our feelings see there’s a lot of of things that I talk about and I say because of what we’ve learned whoever feels the most wins okay and then I heard somebody else in a podcast say to me Sparkle I’m not hearing what you’re saying I’m feeling what you’re saying said because order for us to actually consume what we have you got to fill it to know and often times that’s where we block right well that’s not that we’re opened up with this safety piece but we’re also open because it the the therapist and the people we work with really challenge us to go deep and actually identify with the feelings the whole process how are you feeling today what are we doing people think that stuff is funny but I ask myself how I’m feeling every day every second of the hour and check in with it because if I can identify with the power of my words through my feelings others feel me too and the difference is is I learned that because I realized how much I was running from my feelings my whole life and in all reality when I started leaning in with how I felt first people respected it better and you hear this everywhere you go from people who come from Peaks people who have worked for Peaks people who have went to Peaks we speak breathe and feel we feel our feelings and that’s what makes it different because that means we have a willingness to get deeper with ourselves every day you know and when you consistently do this and you’re consistently doing it in your after care and all of that stuff it’s a becoming of you it’s no longer a goal it’s an intent it’s an intention that becomes who you are changes the mindset and now you’re just filling you know and you’re doing what we used to do when we were younger that we shut down a long time ago but now which was authentic yeah it was our authenticity and then all of a sudden someone was like you cry I’m going to give you something to cry about right you know we’re done you’re done for a long time well all of a sudden here we are in the era of 2024 we’re feeling is what what it should be and where our younger people right now are doing all of that and it’s okay it’s okay and we know emotions are temporary not permanent so fill away because the next one’s coming I love that see it’s it’s this authenticity thing that actually it’s not required for recovery but I think it’s required to thrive in recovery oh absolutely and Peaks I think kind of pulls that it’s pulled it out of me over the years I mean you talk about sematic work I started that three and a half years ago oh my goodness I forgot that you were doing that with t yes I started sematic work with Tammy and then obviously you know for three and a half years I’ve shift into Quantum healing with my father Philip Lindsay so um you talk about the you talk about the gift of energy it’s a crazy thing you know um and just becoming one with yourself from within because there’s layers to this fillings thing right there’s layers of surrender there’s layers of empathy there’s layers of gratitude as you grow in your recovery right it’s it’s like you’re always going to go through the cycle of butterfly most of us think that when we’re in the Cocoon it’s the most uncomfortable time well it’s Ascension so when you’re ascending you’re uncomfortable right but what you’re doing is preparing yourself for the knowledge you need to transform yeah and then bam Here Comes transformation yeah and then here you go all over again and it’s a process that we have to learn and condition our minds to think and before you know it it’s just a becoming of us feelings empathy all of it that becoming of us is is so is so near and dear to what I do it in the recovery and I used to think it was just a recovery thing but I almost think like the whole world can afford to be in recovery and so I think it’s this life thing yes is that if we fortify our experience with some nice edges and some good goals they speak to something that has to continue yes and keep moving it’s not like you know today I’m feeling so connected with God myself and my fellow human that I can’t get any more connected yeah I’m bully connected that’s what I love about the way that you speak to this recovery process because it’s like I’ll go back to that eight how good can life get M I mean I mean and here’s the thing how good can life get and then how how not so great can it be too because when you’re when you’re dealing with the fact that you can embrace the good and the not so great and realize it is what it is it’s a beautiful thing because most people think that when you mess up it’s a bad thing have you ever thought that when you mess up it’s a great thing because now lessons are transpiring which means that you are growing and therefore you got to mess up in order to grow so why would we stop right and and I always tell a lot of you know I tell tell my coaches as as they’re going through their programs it’s not a about a using thing or a stop using thing it’s a living thing y how do you become a well-oiled machine mind body and spirit taking care of yourself first and illuminating your light to others so they see it it starts with you because you are doing it for you if you’re doing it for everybody else but you you’ve lost sight of the mission and and we have to remember that even as helpers now even as people who want to go out there and guide and give people the light let them find their light but show them your light by doing what you need to do in that action continue to feel continue to be your authentic self and step into your power you know and a lot of this comes from working with other people but it also comes from seeking to understand and remaining curious about who you are that’s that is so unique and that’s why I love I love how you branched out and open Sparkle LLC is because like if there could be an orientation at Peaks that we could like really but it would be that it would be just take great care of yourself and you’ll be exceptional yeah just going to be exceptional you’re going to thrive and there’s greatness written all over you but you have to invest yes every day every day and the thing is is that the investment becomes so fun because you fall in love with yourself all over again and this is what I say I challenge you if you haven’t fell in love with yourself or do so take yourself out on dates do things make yourself laugh I mean I got kicked out of a few Potter I got kicked out of a few pottery classes because I’m not an artist chuckling oh my God I saw my dad at the the pottery piece he said well how do you feel I said well I guess it was just the date that counted but they said I don’t really have to come back if I don’t want to good we love having you we loved it but it’s okay those parts I still to this day laugh at myself and love myself wholeheartedly for being able to spend time with me and embracing who I am so that I can teach people how to love me cuz now I’m starting to know what I want and how I want that done and what I want done in my life it means that anybody else who comes my way they need to know I know how to love me and in order for you to be in my realm and me to be in yours we have to teach each other how to love one another and we got to know from within first you know I really love your your recovery process it’s very it feels like a breath of fresh air you know it says we can it doesn’t say we can’t um it there’s no life sentence to anything except for quality of life improvements opportunity seeing ourselves clearly it’s it’s really cool because you’re able to move out within five years and do something that would have took 10 years ago 20 years to do because you’re anchoring into things that are so holistic sustainable and rooted in value from a foundational recovery perspective people feel that yes and they also feel and feel really good with self-reflection see everything that I’ve ever done and um one thing Peaks brought to me was the honesty and integrity with myself and I had to start getting real with me in order to figure out what needed to happen next and often times we don’t want to do that we want to distract ourselves you know but after a while when you start to learn the becoming of self-reflection you can’t help but speak that way so people respect that because you’re not talking about them you’re talking about you and when they realize that you have the audacity to talk about the things you need to do better it changes the way people look at things and it also changes the way you look at things it keeps you more mindful it keeps you empathetic um it it keeps you humble and it also it it consistently challenges you to surrender and that part right there is what people forget your surrender never stops once you say I need help you always need help and you should never be afraid to do that or ask for that especially because the first time was the hardest but once you continue saying I need help I need support those people just start to show and it’s because they need help and support too the people who are growing in this game right now and in this world with recovery or not just in this world are people who actually say hey I need help I don’t got this right and and and here it is I even do kind of got it but you know what a a second eye would be nice mhm just tell me what you see what’s wrong with that there’s nothing wrong with us reaching out to one another and saying hey two heads are better than one what do you see yeah we’re in this together and we are we’re all sober Warriors when you’re getting sober from whatever it is you’re getting sober from but when you’re able to consistently surrender and ask people for help and keep moving it gets stronger and stronger and those it’s like a burning ball that’s just gaining momentum and before you know it you’re just locked in and when you start to lock into how you feel your mindset and other people start to feel it it’s infectious and that is I would say that is what I have seen in my career now with having my own business right Sparkle LLC the light at the end of the tunnel I have seen I have seen amazing coaches come from a program that I I didn’t even know what I was doing at first I didn’t know what my vision was I just knew I needed to create it and uh 850 coaches later um I just watched them grow I watched them 850 later spark I watched them grow and I watched them get it and I watch them say I want to be better for me and I tell them it starts with you it ends with you and you can’t give away something you don’t have so got to be as strong as you can and you got to be as willing to make mistakes as you can and be willing to say I need help and then on top of that you got to be willing to say if I’m not okay then I don’t need to work with people right now I need to stick with me and all of this came from just for me a vision and I I feel like I took got the C car curriculum and and I really just started trying to make it my own and then started bringing in other things to make it mix and make it work and next thing you know I you know I’ve come up with a university and an academy for coaches where they can be great coaches they can grow they have a place to call home and uh they can continue to grow into the versions they want to be not all of them are going to be coaches for the rest of their life what do their advancement plans look like where do they need to go and if they have a place to call home they’ll continue to grow because they have a place just like I do here at Peaks that knows who I am and who values me for who I am and when you know you have a place like that there’s nothing that stops you that’s a I mean when you said 850 I I think to myself like that just one human one person who said you know what I’ll do this thing it’s uphill both ways yeah it’s uphill both ways and I remember you know people that have been there no but I I remember just being able to sit in these groups with you and I and I remember the time when you just let go and you get to experience with these people that are like your family that have been around for 360 hours of group with you and it’s these special moments that we get to share as people in recovery yeah where we’re all just we’re all just okay together and it’s one of the most beautiful things because they never thought it was possible well and it’s crazy too because when you leave and you see someone you were in recovery with some of the people that I was in recovery with I still talk to today they are still watching the program they’re trying to be a part of the program they’re like sparkle how you doing and they’re looking great you know what I mean and even some of those people that may have left and things didn’t go as well they reached out to me that made me feel good because they didn’t feel like I can’t tell nobody they said nah that’s that’s a peak sister right there I could call her and she’s going to she got my back regardless CU I don’t care it’s it’s a a non-judgmental approach for anybody who’s going through anything and I think a big portion of where we have went wrong but we’re starting to get better is the judgmental piece MH and you know being a recovery coach for four and a half years right and a facilitator and a motivational keynote speaker an author right um and then trying to do something different for those especially now at um that are coming up and and people are are more into their feelings and everything else and I’ve become very very much more spiritual um he just been wonderful watching people just soak up all of the goodness and I mean I can tell you now I I starting this business I I really didn’t I didn’t have much of anything you know I I started at Peaks at uh not Peaks recovery but Serenity recovery connection which was Springs recovery connection and I had some great mentors there Kathy plush Don Gillum my best friend chid limel um and we we went for it we went for it and was one of the best places I could have ever been cuz you mentioned it and you said hey Sparks I think you should check this out and I remember coming in gungho and there was I mean we created so many different things there that never existed the Justice settings the emergency rooms like we by the end I was like this is amazing and then I remember I remember it co co I had an interview that ended up with 28,000 views and and uh Kathy plush said to me Sparkle you need to speak she said you need to speak and I said you think she said I think and uh I remember telling her hey I I think that I’m going to go on ahead and take off I’m going to leave and I just see something more for me and she said hey if it’s easy take off she said I built this place for this to be a springboard for you to catapult into what’s next sure enough I got out there Chris and I was like I don’t know can I come back this is kind of hard you know and got my first books out there being a better me for me and uh it’s on Amazon and then I being a better me for me Amazon being a better me for me uhhuh the book in the workbook I turned it into a master class and then I started getting asked to speak more and and uh I said okay I think I got something but I had been facilitating and I noticed that like a lot of the coaches that were with me some of them weren’t making it yeah and I was like what you know I’m an HR executive for for big box companies I’m like okay we going to have to make some changes cuz if people are if the helper is not being helped we got a problem this isn’t this isn’t making sense and so I said you know what I’m I’m going to make the first coaches Hub a place where coaches can be successful coaches can get all the all the lectures the spe speakers coming in to their courses everything you can think of to shine and this is where they rejuvenate themselves this is where they call it so internationally um you know they they jump into these classes they get a chance to be State Certified and stuff but also have other master classes and stuff and speakers coming in that they can see once every two weeks and just really be a part of of my Coach’s Corner um and it’s it’s going it’s starting to hit International and everything else so it’s been good to see that there’s a bunch of coaches who can come together communicate to each other and uh just just cry and be open and talk about their recovery and know they have a place that they can talk about it openly without judgment so yeah you you I love what you did and I love what cavy did and I love springs recovery Serenity recovery connection it’s amazing process but you reminded me of one of our core values which is to disrupt the industry through quality of care oh yeah we don’t bring anybody on this show that sits in the status quo you know we bring leaders and entrepreneurs and Visionaries and miracles and we bring them in to tell the world that we can do better one day at a time together together and this is where people don’t think about the fact that Tammy rato I’ll never forget it I said I always thought of that term the strong black woman it always made me feel a lot of pressure and they always showed in on media like that and um we got to go going and I said she said what would you call it if you could call it something I said well I’m tired of people putting that cliche up there I said I’m a woman of many strengths you hold yours and I’ll hold mine and we’ll walk across the Finish Line together I said everybody deserves an opportunity to be a part of their recovery process or their life and if we allow people to do that and we walk with them we don’t interfere we just guide and they guide us and we have what we call people walking together to be kind and empathetic and understanding and help each other grow encourage each other and Enlighten each other step into your power together and go take what’s yours and when I say take it you take what’s yours because it’s written not because you got to take it from somebody else CU that’s somebody else’s stuff but what’s yours is for you and if it’s not for you it’s not going to be for you anyway you know so these things are I mean even the words that I’ve I’ve learned to that I’ve talked I don’t know I often ask myself where they came from because when I was younger I was like I’m going to be a speaker I don’t know what I’m going to talk about and now I can’t stop and and I feel like you know as my higher power channels through me and I speak from my heart I will speak as much as I need to to help people know they’re not alone that’s right and that people do care and people care about people care and also that it’s okay to care for yourself as well it’s not about caring for everybody else but you and you end up last no we can all cross this Finish Line together so it’s been very interesting I find myself uh having a lot of uh transformation moments in the classes uh with coaches and you can feel uh the coaches Rising you feel their vibration taking off and it just feels like an army of people being kind and loving and disrupting things because of that not because they need to be mean or upset it’s because from the inside out they care and you get enough of those people around you change the world you change the world you know yeah I’m so grateful that I get to sit and Recovery with you CU it’s like this authentic perspective like you know we go into this world from 20 to now and things are all sort places intense but we know being in recovery like there’s this Mission and this vision and this opportunity yes we get to thrive together and I love what you said because it’s been one of the greatest Gifts of my career you know when I started off 16 years ago it was about what I knew and what you didn’t have and you needed to follow me and you just said something that’s so profound it’s like I can remember a moment when I had a heavy phone in my hand and I didn’t think anybody cared mhm and what you said is so profound because all I wanted to know was that there was people willing to walk with me yep they didn’t even yeah they didn’t have to say here we’re doing it this way cuz if they would have dragged me I would have been like leave me alone anyway it was the fact that they said how can I help you with your recovery today how can I help you find a job today how can I just ask what you can do to help you’d be surprised how many people will look at you and be like wait you you want to help me me and I’ll tell you as soon as you say yeah we in this together it’s your journey I can’t do it for you but I will walk with you and I don’t care what happens I’m here they immediately start to feel like I can do this and you watch people transform into something they never thought they could be and they look back at you and realize that it was all them it’s all there and that right there is like I’m doing it yeah right and then that for you as a coach Co or as a helper or even for yourself looking probably at me is this they’re doing it and they’re okay and they’re going to continue down that Journey that they need to because they have a routine they remember how they were done you know it’s like um when you if you start and you’re a coach and you start with a A young team and you guys start with the fundamentals the basics and you continue working and flowing and everybody’s starting to go all of a sudden their layups start getting better all of a sudden their jumpers start getting better and then by the time they grow up together it’s a team and that’s exactly how we did this in our Peaks recovery and and we did it as a team and we still worked on our individual things but everybody was still learning about themselves which means that most of the people who leave Peaks they have that mentality of team that’s why they’re okay with coming back if they have to yeah that we thing yep it’s a we thing not a you thing you know what I mean we had to learn how to get those interviews like well I had 100 points you know it’s a we thing and after a while that we thing it’s it’s a bond that you will never ever lose with someone who knew you on such a vulnerable level and most teams that win the championship they know each other vulnerably enough to to block for each other or cover for each other to the point where they’re just a well oiled machine and that’s that’s really what recovery is about and that’s that’s what it’s about when you bring in your engagement of the community you know yep you’re hitting the player at the spot before they even move yeah it’s a beautiful thing like we know we’re yep yep you know the dishes exactly like you know when we started Peaks recovery 10 years ago and it was one of those things where it’s like hey if we can come into the Colorado Springs Community and help a couple people yeah that would be amazing and I’m I’m just I think the right word for it is humbled and then and then maybe secondly would be honored MH to sit with you today absolutely um these experiences are just 24 hours at a time the Capstone of my recovery existence and the fact that we get to walk together and connect with family community and culture and this enriching process is not only a miracle but very very special right the last question I wanted to ask you is as we swing into this 10 years it’s like what does it mean to you to be a part of because you’re you’re a significant part of this 10y year anniversary this celebration this momentum forward um with helping people that don’t have the opportunity to help themselves and you you have a big big part of that and a big presence in our community and what does that mean for you personally and professionally you’re going to make me cry again um I would
say I am so proud of what I have accomplished in my
life I was in a real real real dark spot um and I would say that everybody that I’ve ever had in my corner nobody ever gave up and I think that uh the supports I had the love I’ve had the conversations I’ve had the fun times I’ve had like it’s crazy because I used to think about the things that went wrong or what I needed to fix and when I hit five years the only thing I could think about was everything that’s going right and I think uh sometimes we get going and and we’re we’re moving and grooving and we’re helping and we’re doing these things but then after a while you stop you know every Milestone Kelly taught me that you celebrate and I remember looking outside the window and I another voice came to me and it said congratulations on your five years you don’t want to miss this it’s on me to stay in the present moment stay in that present moment focus on what we have today and allow the days to come to us as we may and even since 5 years I’m 5 years three months sober I have not everything just is what it is and I feel like even some of the things that used to drive me nuts even about this business and just where to get started I’m like God if it’s your will let it be done and he is doing it and I think when you know that things are are happening and they’re written you don’t fight it you just go with it and I feel like there’s so much more left to happen out here and I feel like growing in my recovery CU 5 years is still pretty early um I would say that growing into myself and into my recovery but into this new phase of living it is so exciting and the expansion and the way the vividness I mean I’m just so grateful to be here and see what’s probably been here the whole time but I wasn’t ready to receive it and now that I’m here I’m like let’s freaking go there’s no like it’s it’s you’ve I’ve worked through through the past and now I’m consistently working this thing and I’m on I’m ready to go and I just think for me it’s I’m grateful for it and I know this what my past was doesn’t Define me but who I am right now is Sparkle Lindsay I’m a woman in long-term recovery that’s the only thing I care about the rest of the stuff is going to happen and then it’s not but one thing that’s always going to change is me as long as I believe in who I am and also continue to keep beautiful wonderful supports around me and I’ve noticed that every step of this company every step of what I’ve been or who I am there’s always been somebody my legs to the table obviously that’s my book coming out there’s been somebody from my legs to the table there to hold me up and realign me and I’m okay with that and I think that when you become that person who’s okay with not criticism but growing and and learning and you know that there’s people around you who hold you in their hands and in their arms there’s power and numbers because of that so I would tell you now I feel very very powerful from within and I feel like stepping into my power is just starting to happen and I also feel like this place for me Peaks recovery it always has a place in my heart because I was a pretty tough person to crack but right off out the gates it was like we don’t care if you come here or not if you want to come here for yourself we got you but if not then we don’t and I found that so astonishing that you guys just owed people to recover when they wanted to and so that’s the part for me and it didn’t matter how long it may have taken it was more like what do we need to do to help Sparkle move forward and it was always on an individual basis um and it always has been and and also the fact that you would come in and have those those stories or those conversations with us in the mornings when we have to have our groups and you’d I’d hear a story from it and each time time I became more empowered um by hearing that and realizing like this journey is just getting started and so even now um when I get to be here with this 10e anniversary it’s so surreal because I see people coming up I see you guys still doing very well I see so much movement and churn and it just feels good to know you guys are still standing and I think um first and foremost I am honored to even be on this show as well because um it it s it surprises you you know that time and I didn’t realize that you guys were at 10 years either so um when my aunt said uh Sparks this this is pretty big I was like of course it’s huge I was like this is huge you know you think about Jason’s and Laurens and just all of these people and they’re still around and still seeing them and then watching that sparkle in their eyes where they see me and they’re like she’s still doing okay you know what I mean and all of it is just like bringing back family you know so I say for me this is the most surreal and it and it’s also just it’s just one of the greatest blessings to know that you’re sitting here in a place where you were at your worst but you’re also in a place where you are right where you need to be and it’s still right here with Peaks recovery right still here now worst best where you need to be it’s it’s uh it’s it’s it’s full circle and it’s just so amazing to be able to walk with you on this journey and I talk to people a lot in early recovery and we’ll leave we’ll leave people with this it’s like we have this opportunity and we know very near and dear to our hearts that it is an opportunity right in front of us every day is this we’re going to change the world one day at a time yep when I line up right like so I do Jiu-Jitsu I’m not very good but I’ve been doing it 16 months um but when I line up across somebody regardless of what training they put in I you haven’t sat with the people and walked with the humans in the way that I have over the last 16 years and that’s a problem right a good problem right you know and so I’m grateful to know you as a sister a friend a colleague a professional and somebody that’s rocking and changing this world one day at a time my friend Sparkle lindsy LLC what is your website uh Sparkle lindsay.com Sparkle lindsay.com check her out check out all her stuff she’s speaking all over the place she’s putting out a lot ofi information that’s taking off like a wildfire Sparkle thank you so much I appreciate you we love you I’d say this I’m I’m pretty honored I think we uh we still got a whole lot of work to do out there so we’ll just keep we’ll keep taking it one day at a time one step at a time in the present moment and we won’t look back that’s right thank you so much until next time peace [Music]
you

Our 10th Anniversary is coming up soon! 🎉 Alumni guest Austin came back to celebrate with us, and we also honored how far he has come in his recovery. 👏🏼 In this episode, Chris Burns speaks to Austin about his experience walking through Peaks as a client and the life path that illuminated him from it. From discussing when to reach out for help to building and developing lifelong friendships and communities through recovery and a message never to give up, this episode offers hope to anyone who feels they are in the dark, at rock bottom, or ready to change their life. Stay tuned for our 10th-anniversary video coming out September 1st! 

[Music] hey everybody and welcome to another exciting episode of Finding Peaks Yours Truly Chris Burns founder and CEO Peaks recovery centers grateful today to be joined by an amazing friend in long-term recovery in a Peaks alumni Austin pelster so great to have you sir hey it’s a pleasure to be here an amazing breed’s amazing with it there so definitely a balance scale sitting here with yeah yeah man it’s just been a pleasure you know we’re we’re in the process of us getting close to celebrating 10 years so having you back out four years of recovery you know you were here in 2020 it’s just been exceptional having you around connecting with chef and so many of the other folks that you spent quality time with in your stay with us yeah it’s been been great getting some catch up with everybody and and the amazing things seeing around the facility there like you guys have been busy I I’ve been I spent the last four years keeping myself clean and I come back and look at all this and go God this could have been a cakewalk wow yeah I mean the the new the new trail head everything going on there plus having the old houses like it’s out of this world the abilities that the you you were set so free with things that you can do and knowing the new programs that have come in just the uh with mental health help with uh with raiki with the magnet stuff you were talking about wow there’s so many cool things there yeah I love that when we were torn Austin around today you know the new facilities built and he was here in 2020 when we were just preconstruction zoning everything and so for him to really be able to see it real time and walk through there was a was a real gift for him and a gift for everybody to see him and get to celebrate and I think that’s where we’ll start in the show Austin just picked up four years you know when when you came into Peaks or maybe even prior to Peaks did you ever think you know that was going to be a part of your existence or did you think that was possible you know there was a a good long spell and a good long drinking career where I thought I’m like everyone I just drink a lot you know it it is what it is I go to the bar you know these guys are throwing them back I’m throwing them back all the same balanced action watch of functioning alcoholics there people were making their way to work the next morning or going home to the wife and kids didn’t get to see a whole lot of the behind the scenes and really didn’t want to do a whole lot of the math I ignored the homework because behind the scenes I was seeing couples who were getting divorced I was seing people who were transitioning jobs like they just got promotions but I think they might have softened the blow on what they were really saying the repercussions of that so it camouflaged itself to me and I never really thought that I had such a problem now I did stare across the bar and be that guy he’s drinking a lot you that at least I’m not that dude yeah been there and I know from the other side of the bar they were looking across and going at least I’m not that dude and here I am and I mean not to prove my guidance counsel or WR or anything but yeah eventually I knew something was going to have to make changes and through a lot of years and watching a lot of friends do a lot of Peaks and valleys in their own lives and watching people literally drink themselves to death and we did did their their wakes and their funerals and we mourned and had our sorrows and our celebrations for them and we did them all at the bar like those those signs should have been you know right in front of you like the coyote know mother trying to say what are you doing here but that didn’t ring a bell either you know it’s you know somebody dies oh crap set him up somebody gets out of the hospital hey pal want to drink and we continued in that process but never thought internally and never thought on my own that you know maybe there was some
her all the apologies in the world she’s Beyond step work and the apologies that I owe her like I should buy her a house and a new life and then stay the hell out of it cuz she’s ear ined that you know she got in my face when we were at the bar right before I had made my way to Peaks you know really shortly before and called me out on my heavy drink but all also started calling me out that my eyes were changing colors and she’d had some drinks in her so she was a little more vocal a little more animated than a normal intervention style crowd would have been sure but she was trauma informed yeah but she stay she got right up in my grill about it and I’m sitting there taking shots you know I’m fine don’t I’m tired and worn the hell out you know every excuse possible well as that escalated that day she ended up getting 86 from the bar for making a scene while they kept serving me the guy who’s jaising his eyes yellow who looks like hammered [  ] that poor girl I owe her so many apologies but that’s also part of the the camouflage you know why are they still serving me if I’m a problem right what and I never really thought about it until I woke up that magic morning June 18th 2020 and went and looked in the mirror and saw The Simpsons but they weren’t on TV it was me I was that color that was some scary [  ] thought maybe I could have looked back at all those times before where co-workers called me out girlfriends called me out parents called me out no no they were just being judgy yeah I love that too and I that’s what I wanted to you know we’re chatting a little bit before the show but I think that’s a great overarching view of things is like the bottom can be whenever we decide to stop digging oh yeah we can Elevate that bottom today I think sometimes people see stories like yours or mine or some of your friends and are like I don’t have that maybe you can highlight for people when you started to feel like like you needed something to show up in this world to have or add value absolutely so the social Norm is what really really drove it and I was working in an industry that was all food and beverage and I was the buyer for wine I was the buyer for booze I was the presenter I was the wine tasting guy at 10: a.m. so for me it was kind of yeah you know no big deals but I was scheduling these and I even had employees pull pull do you really want to schedule a wine tasting at 10: a.m. and to me it’s like yeah it’s [  ] normal right what what’s so big about throwing back some breakfast Shard day and I never really caught the signs on those and you know there there was a lot a lot of big warning signs but I just ignored all the signs of the road and kept speeding now the rock bottom piece you know Rock Bottom doesn’t have to be a solid slab of granite you know Rock Bottom could be where you’re just starting to hit those pebbles at the bottom of the drain and go why the hell am I down here or maybe your toes just barely touched it and you’re treading water but you know that that Rock Bottom is below you yeah and the ability to learn and be educated enough just in normal societal Norms or have the balls to listen yeah because that’s really what it is it’s easier to push it aside y That Rock Bottom could be on the shallow end of the pool yeah yeah exactly and and we want to highlight that for people today it’s like let’s let’s Elevate that let’s not wait for some of these huge huge life-changing events to find our clearly what it is today our mental health and our mental equinity you know because often times it’s the booze come up and they serve a purpose because I’m struggling with you know my anxiety or my depression or my allergies or whatever it is and it fills this like oh man I can kind of talk to this person now I can do these things and so looking at it from the mental health side of things is like we can we can catch this thing far before you have to go that deep exactly you know when you look at like a a a bottle of Tylenol or a bottle of ibuprofen you know there’s a dosing WR on there and it says not to exceed not to do this not to do that and it really talks about what you should and shouldn’t do with it it’s it’s a regulated thing but you look at a bottle of booze it doesn’t say right it says 32 ounces of now my back won’t hurt right and so you’re self-medicating on that but you don’t have prescription on it and we see this with more than booze we see it with weed you know the California sober that is so popular out here in Colorado let’s go colado yeah wo yeah puff puff oh oops oops but there’s no dosing on it there’s no you know this is what it takes to make the the pain go away and it might take a minute to kick in it’s a delayed reaction you know or you know delayed what do they call them the delayed extended release yeah delayed release uh tablets of a leave or whatever okay yeah that’s not booze Bo boots it’s a fast acting do it now now my back doesn’t hurt but it also wears off just as fast so keeping the level up you’re self-medicating here and you’re not doing it with anything more than what really is a drug frankly it works pretty well like a [  ] charm man yes that’s the problem I’ll tell you what after after I got my uh my regular fix my uh my four down to start the start the evening out my back didn’t hurt my head felt clean um I was ready to be social my anxiety’s disappeared life was a cakewalk hell yeah let’s do a couple more because I got more friends showing up that girl looks pretty nice over there I want that liquid courage you throw them down because this is the medicine that’s working for me when really that medicine is what’s killing me yeah right and it’s hard to get enough of something that almost works yeah Gabor mate said it best what do you think what what was like when you look back at your experience I know we chatted a little bit yesterday but what was kind of the toughest part because we’ve been talking a lot lately I had the Reconstruction guys on a few months ago we’ve been talking a little bit about a part of recovery that’s been missed a little and it and it does take a little bit of grit does take a little bit of fight and it takes some Champions around you to enfor form that but can you think back you know as we were on campus earlier can you think back to some inflection points it’s like you talk about it a lot with people that you help you say now you’ve done the first hardest thing now you’re G to do the toughest thing which is the work the the work the work is the hardest thing and it’s work it’s a four-letter word you know it [  ] was already taken so we got to call it work yeah and it doesn’t have to be hard work though I mean there are some moments where you really have to apply yourself you don’t have have to think of it as hard because you’re stepping from one piece of life to the next and sure there’s transitional things in there that hurt and there’s times where you don’t want to go and do this work because the old job was easier but that work and it it’s tough and it’s accountability is probably the number one thing to keep you driven in your job you go to a regular job you get a review okay and sometimes you have to generate your own review and then give it to your boss and then you compare notes and and you think you’re horrible at something and they’re going actually you’re really good at that but you’re pissed poor at this one you thought you were good at right so the accountabilities that are in there and building that core around you you can’t do it on your own and a lot of people try to do it on their own all the way from trying to detox on their own from my friend Nick who tried that he’s not with us anymore yeah um he didn’t try to medically detox and do it the right way and bring himself down he had a seizure on his couch and died very very young man tragic story lifelong alcoholic yeah and he had he had the ways to get out he never asked for help could we have pinpointed it for him yeah and that’s an accountability I like to bring into life now for sure so not just within myself but within everyone around I see that when I when I was at Peaks today looking the accountability is there from not only a therapist or not only from an owner or from chef but it’s from everywhere like you sign engagement around every corner with everyone there wasn’t a figure walking through being a a CEO just you know going to my office it was full Engagement full asking how you doing across the board I heard probably waiting listening for response yeah yeah I heard how are you doing probably a dozen times before we got out of the lunchroom from different people across the board full check-in and that’s that accountability needs to make its way outside the doors too and you you do that by finding AA groups you do that by finding na groups or finding a Dharma group or just a group of random Joe’s are going to sit and have coffee on Sunday morning it might be a golf club I don’t know you will yeah CU that’s your job that’s part of that work is you go out and you find that group to hold you accountable I have the D team yeah that’s what I was going to ask you next man it’s not on the list but let’s talk a little bit about the D team and what that means to you because the single greatest recovery tool I had certainly in my first year was the people around me was the community that informed my every existence and well I was everything with them and really I felt absent without and so you developed just a incredible friend group that is in the community doing great you guys meet up all the time you keep each other maybe talk to them a little bit about that relationship you found at Peak yeah and it’s amazing so six of us all checked in at the same time um within about I think it was like eight hours of Total time of checkin and the six of us all check in and we’re all six from different walks of life well walks or staggers or whatever I mean some of them came in a little hot too but if I mean if you’d have put us all six at a bar maybe three of us would have turned out out being friends from any which side You’ have never put it all together into one but we made a good Bond right there being the the brand new six all people around like hey what are you in for drinking dumbass what do you think I’m here for you all the awkward conversation then it generated more and more and more growth some of some of them stuck around for the fast 30 and got out and went on and started getting life lived and doing well uh there’s schmoes like me who stuck around for 97 days best summer camp ever yeah I I know I’m not the longest but damn it it was I think great I mean you look back like it up there there’s not a lot of times people in this world will check into a a community or treatment program and you’re seen valued and heard around every corner H yeah and we’ll we’ll touch on that a little bit too just some of the internal uh things that I jumped in with while I was there but this dteam group and we called ourselves the D team because of detox where we met that’s I wonder that yeah and we’re still in contact every day there’s a text there’s something that comes through every day out of this group and they’re always right there and a lot of times it’s dirty stories or silly [  ] but then if somebody needs something or they’re celebrating something it’s right there and it’s support it’s the hey I [  ] up or hey I just hit four years happy birthday you know it was Gary’s birthday yesterday you know that was all over it and this Core Group sticks together we try to get out and meet each other whenever we can because we’re not all localized together we got a couple of them down here in the springs we got Washington State North Carolina Kentucky you know uh other end of the state too over in Grand junk that’s right we got people everywhere so it’s not like hey come on over and watch the game yeah but when we can we do and it’s great because it’s almost like they were they never weren’t by your side now they’re just physically sitting here yeah you know one of them picked me up at the airport we managed to have a bite to eat and that’s the only time I’m going to see him while I’m down here because he’s busy he’s got things going on but also knew like hey man I’m in town like dude where you at at the airport just dropped off a rental I’m on my way that’s so cool and that’s the tightness that we have that’s the beauty that we have and that’s it that’s something I never certainly when I was coming into treatment I didn’t think as a young person like oh I’m going to be here to inform it and entrench lifelong relationships but when you spend quality time with individuals intimate authentic time with individuals even if it is just 30 days you know I went into the Meadows for five days and they were like you’re going to get three to five years of talk therapy in the next five days so I’d imagine in these bonds there there’s so lock Tight cuz before you know our relationships are fleeing they’re coming and going and it sounds like you and your buddies and I know them all man these are entrenched lifelong relationships absolutely yeah I mean and we’re tight and I know one of them keeps us a little quiet to the rest of their friends you know it’s I know these guys it’s about as far as it goes others of like dude if I get married you’re in so yeah it is it is a tight core group and I I I think with what I see new over there on the facility too it’s going to help generate a lot of that because you’re seeing that kind of when you showed me the the U shape of progression going through the new building and how this group is going to come in and start experiencing the beginning of their recovery here together and then yep and then they’re going to move over here together for the most part but probably in a good success rate and transition and transition until they’re out the door being that functioning amazing member of society they knew they could be yeah and those bonds are going to stick and go because now it’s like graduating you know know kindergarten and then first grade second grade Etc completely present you know for the experience or more present than I had been in my whole life yeah and it keeps them balanced and helping each other too so you’re they’re already putting accountability together and that’s kind of that same core we had with the D team is we were all starting out at the same time on our adventure and so that accountability was each other like how you doing on this to do this meeting yet play with this yet yeah I love that man you guys came out was it was it 2022 2020 oh 2022 came out for the reunion yeah uh did a reunion out here in 2022 in October and we’re at a ridiculous mansion and we didn’t trash it because we were sober man if we if we’ have been drinking that place that grand piano would have been sitting upstairs that’s so funny it would too oh such a nice great room there was beautiful in there yeah it was we got everybody together had some other friends in um some former Peaks Associates too um they stopped by hung out and swapped some stories it was great you were you were over there that was so much fun yeah Bobby was over there we got I love being a part of that man long term and you guys actually want to come back and you want to celebrate with the people that it all started with it’s it’s very connecting and satiating and quite frankly it’s it’s why we do what we do absolutely and and I think you know don’t don’t get don’t get me wrong here it costs money to go to treatment we all know that and insurance thank God it exists I know you guys took care of me for my last month that was there um I believe that was full scholarship on there I don’t think you had anything that was buildable that’s a different story but there’s also the giving back and kind kind of like step 12 where you’re getting back out there and you’re being of service I like to push mine in the direction of the place that helped me get there to start with and I know the majority of it was internal for me but damn it it took Direction it took help yeah and as much as I can give back to PE the more I can be here you know I’m here today um the more I can be here the more I can do even if it’s just jumping on something online it’s giving back and helping build a process that I know works and being a part of other successes even if I can’t be in the room with them if I can be there in spirit if I can tell a story if I can share a slideshow they see this they see things we filmed previously whatever we can do to help because that’s what we’re here for we’re here for each other as much as we’re here for ourselves yeah yeah it’s a beautiful thing man and I like to I mean I called Austin three weeks ago I was like hey can you come to Colorado for a week he’s like you know what man I’m going to take a week of PTO this week let me just move it I’ll be there he arrived before I even got back from my vacation you like he was here he’s like what are we doing boss you know ready to go man let’s check it let’s go let’s go man I’m ready Spike want to chase some cars let’s do it and I feel that like um that loving recovery support from you on the peak side and even with you know people that you didn’t know in the facility today I could tell just from an energetic perspective it was just like it was connecting it was supportive it was Hey and you know what these people are walking through so there’s nobody better to kind of guide them or inform that or speak to it than somebody who’s been in their shoes yeah absolutely and I I would love to do more of them you know um from a from a client perspective you know a lot of people that you have working there now were actually attending Peaks as somebody who needed help yeah and they’ve taken that same side and now they’re they have this opportunity to give back to be part of the process and help teach and maintain others and work with them and I love that aspect I wish you guys were in Kentucky I know or Wyoming or Wyoming crack open that Wyoming door let’s go I know that’d be so cool well in support of you know the Peaks mission and vision which is to save lives through quality of care and or to save lives and disrupt the industry through quality of care what would you say to somebody who’s the phone’s sitting right there and they have a million pound block of Shame on top of them and they’re on the fence I don’t know if this is for me I don’t know if this is I don’t know if this is something I can do I don’t know if recovery is possible four years oh my God he’s probably lying you know what do you say to that person who’s really vulnerable right now and sitting in that fox hole with nobody so this this way is enough I can sit here and do these things with it but when you put it here and you know that if I pick that up and push send on a button that’s for treatment a lot of people think [  ] I’m giving uph but you’re not you stopped giving up yeah so you can take all that weight and the [  ] that’s on top of it and swipe it aside because even when you call that number you don’t have to be like yeah I need to check in yeah I’m [  ] up I need to go right I’m a drunk I’m a piece of [ __ ] Etc no you can call and be like hey I think I might have a problem can you tell me how your process works and somebody from the admission side and a lot of them have been part of the program from the other side too somebody from admissions would be like yeah man we understand so what’s going on tell me a little bit more yeah here’s what we offer here’s what we could probably work with do you want me to see if I can pre-qualify you do you want to open a Gateway for it or do you just want info do you want me to shoot you a call back tomorrow and they open the door for for it and they still have the ability to make their own decision to to put themselves in the yes I want help and now they have a friend that’s going to help them make that decision and it’s not just Peaks you can call your buddies next door you can walk into any AA spot a lot of people don’t know this one there’s an app out there called meeting guide throw it on your phone and no matter where you’re at you drop in the zip code it’ll tell you what meetings are where at what time in that zip code yeah what’s really cool about that too is it’s like 12 stepper or not there’s people who care yeah and they’re in recovery and what I love about that 12ep Fellowship is it’s everywhere everywhere every country every I don’t know about I’m sure they got an anut 100% I’m will to bet there’s somebody down the station
going the promises yep exactly well I it just been really amazing having the opportunity to connect with you over the last couple of days and I kind of wanted to wrap up the show with you know my favorite college basketball coach of all of all time Jimmy Bano right North Carolina State national champs went in against Houston Houston was the number one seed nearly undefeated Keem elijahwan Clyde Drexler um by lamama Jama they were all but a shoe in to win the title and this guy came in I think he was seated it was an upper seat six or something six or seven and he came in and he beat that team and one of his famous quotes was don’t give up don’t ever give up and when I think about your story and I think about some of these very intense inflection points it reminds me of that quote and you’re one of those people that and it’s not like today at four years sober you don’t have complications from the decisions you made in the past you keep showing up and you don’t give up no matter what how do you do that day by day every day but with confidence yeah so once you’ve won a title and for me it was walking in the door and knowing that I had 14 days without a drink and I was going to go put some help behind me and make things happen once you win that first title you know what victory feels like and that first title might just be the picking up the phone it might be tapping the neighbor on the shoulder but you know what victory feels like now because you made that first piece of it so the never giving up I could have laid down and given up quick and easy it have taken nothing it probably would have taken two more drinks Y and that in fact I’ve seen people run off campus and go drink for far less harsh news than you received three days into your stay yeah I mean I had a billy Ru score that hit uh 29 I believe is what it was 27 29 was all the hell the way up there and that that’s death I mean most people that’s death but I didn’t let my mental capacity hit that and that’s a huge thing about it too is I told myself and I had the support that we’re going to make it through this we’re going to figure this out because I’m not going to be another statistic like that and here we are you know four years later but you don’t give up and even when you even moving along into it you know I don’t have a a beautiful coin sit on my my wallet right now it’s a half ounce Troy silver if you want to mug me later with with a Roman numeral four on it because I gave up I did quit drinking I definitely quit the [  ] out of that but I never gave up because if I gave up I’d be dead so earning that and continuing to win that Victory every year it’s another championship every year it’s another another time to put on there right now four four rings baby yeah four time champ yeah I’m feeling pretty good right now dribbling the ball out do Brady I’m going to out to you name one here I come and it’s not just not just an individual sport though it’s an everybody’s sport because I can go to parties I can go be around friends who are living life the same way that they do that I used to and yeah there’s Cravings there’s Temptations hell yeah there is but I know if I don’t practice that day and I don’t maintain my ability within this then I’m going to lose and not get that next championship and I’m gonna earn it and keep damn earning it that is better stated than I ever could have I’ve been talking a lot lately about mental health victories you know picking up the phone could be a victory more victories we get the more confident we get and engaging in those risky uh opportunities if you will and one of the things I point out in mental health victories is being self fish isn’t a bad thing as long as you’re not a complete jerk about it right most recently I was at work MH and sitting and I’m getting ready to help coach a a new hire with some stuff they were working on and a supervisor came up and tapped me on the shoulder and asked to talk to me in a conference room that never goes good right yeah I was like [  ] what kind how big of a box do I need to get my stuff out of here and she said PL someone said hey I have a task that only you can do I’m thinking what in the hell is this like we got a room full of qualif individuals one of our new hires just got a call over lunch that her sponsor had passed away from an OD so holy [  ] her support system went back into using and died said I’ve already talked to her and said I have somebody on site who would be okay talking to you and she’s agreed and like okay so went over and had a chat with her I didn’t save her day right I didn’t take her out of any Darkness didn’t realive somebody who had made a horrible decision but it made her feel better to have somebody to relate to and it made me feel better that’s my selfish part it made me feel [  ] great that I could sit there with her and know how to talk to her about these things and work with her and I’m not a I’m not a CA trained person don’t need to be but I am somebody who’s been through the Gambit and being able to say you know yeah remember we’re celebrating life here you know what’s our next step and we we got her a plan we got her a plan for the day you know she’s clean and she wanted to make sure she didn’t [  ] up because of emotion right so we got her a plan we jumped on that meeting Guy app we found one on her way home from work she could bump right into hey guys [  ] day you know and not a person in those rooms is going to go oh yeah whatever or really come on in let’s talk about it that’s the beautiful story of not only your recovery but the the opportunity we have walking through a program like Peaks is like this ripple effect that you have in community that’s just one person the other day yeah you know like and nobody at face value would have ever given you the opportunity to help anyone and here we are in my opinion changing the world one day at a time grateful to do it with you yeah it’s a butterfly effect too because you gave me the ability to put myself in a good spot you helped coach me through it everybody there took the reins and helped drive me from near death death I was dead yeah to being where I am now and I learned a lot of things and I get to spread that wealth I get to share it it’s it’s not big secrets either it’s just hey I got you and that’s probably going to transition somewhere else and continue and continue continue and hopefully you know from the addiction side in recovery but also the mental health side you know [  ] sucks yeah we all know that everybody has problems from the richest person in the world to the poorest person in the dirt everybody has problems and understanding that you can work your problems that’s that’s where life enriches itself and that problem could be anything could be finances because you had to go to Peaks no you had to take the time off from work everything else covered insurance but it could be anything it could be [  ] relationships who knows there’s a million things out there but knowing how to work with them and making the balance in there and it could be the easiest things that maybe you just can’t get over what if you’re afraid of the dark sounds silly to a lot of people right but it messes up your sleep skyle which messes up your day-to-day function so even if it sounds as simple as that it can be worked with and helped yeah because the implications of one little piece that you just can’t get worked right can go on so far too so the work is there the process is there and you guys are supplying a lot of that and I know you’re partnered with a lot of other folks that are out there and it’s a community and it’s a beautiful Community yeah man it’s been so nice having you back in and you know four years removed just seeing the progression not only in you and your story and your community but aligning that with Peaks and walking with you man it’s been an absolute pleasure and you know for the folks out there that are on the fence or don’t know what to do remember there’s a mental health Victory right there may you have it now and remember you’re worth it you’re valuable don’t give up don’t ever give up until next time peace [Music] you

In this episode, Chris Burns brings Dan Hugill, Activities Director at PRC, to shed some light on the experience of returning from a treatment stay or incarceration back into daily life. Dan, through The Bridge, offers amazing community-building opportunities for everyone who is looking. From looking deeper into mental health, the impacts that fatherhood can have on life, and our human relationship with time, Chris and Dan engage in a captivating and high-energy conversation on topics often kept quiet.

[Music] [Applause] [Music] hey everybody and welcome to another exciting episode of Finding Peaks your host Chris Burns president founder CEO so ecstatic today to be joined by an amazing professional but an even better human Dan Hill how are you sir I’m good Chris how you doing today brother doing really well great to see you Dan as our activities director uh but we’re kind of shift gears a little bit today and I wanted to bring Dan on to talk about well the Shir he’s repping right now the bridge doing a lot of amazing work for folks in the community people transitioning in and out of the Department of Corrections and this is a cause that’s very near and dear to your heart and I know we’ve had you on the show before and we’ve touched on this but this is kind of your your personal mission your personal vision and um it’s your dream to kind of walk with people in a similar way to people walked with you um out of the Department of Corrections and into thriv in community so what inspired this uh this opportunity for the bridge in Colorado Springs cool thank you Crystal what inspired the bridge in Colorado Springs is there’s I love that question because um what we had seen these you know have been going in and out of the prisons for several years working like when we would go in there like volunteering for the rf2 the CrossFit program they have in there we saw this beautiful community that they had in there like the camaraderie and it’s just like Sparta in there and then we would find when people were getting out there’s like certain gyms it’s a different vibe out here so one of the things that that really inspired us is like we want to recreate that Community out here because even if they’re like a member of a program or a mentorship program in there it’s like like like how how the my co-founder Matt Clovis says he’s like it’s like going from a hot shower into an ice bath so we’re trying to warm the water up a little bit for him when they get out so like in in that like so we’ll go and speak to them while they’re in there before they get out working with case management to help him have a plan to transition out and have a community ready for him and we do a lot of Fitness stuff we do like CrossFit partner with Crossfit decimate we do boxing over at Old School uh we’re doing uh weightlifting over at grid Athletics we’re doing things they were doing in there were the community with like-minded people out here and people that have shared those experiences helping people become the leaders that they were meant to be like we’ll get a leader from there we’ll help develop them so that we could just have leaders helping leaders helping leaders mentoring them what did I do when I got out of prison it might look a little bit different but we have that shared experience so I help you get out of prison you help the next person get out of prison let’s all go work out together let’s go eat together that was the big thing is just bringing the community MH that’s really really cool man and I’ve actually never heard it defined from hot water to an ice bath you know I’ve been doing Behavioral Health substance use mental health treatment for nearly 16 years now we’ve always talked about the transition and how difficult it can be just after 45 days right and these people aren’t in lockdown right they’re in a community they’re in a holistic environment and we talk about often times how difficult maybe I would even describe that transition as hot water to an ice bath we’re talking about individuals that potentially have been disconnected from the social milu and environment for years yes and creating a bridge right I I love that man creating a bridge for these individuals so they don’t have to experience that shock that can really exacerbate symptomology of trauma mental health pain and shame whatever it might be so I love that cause something that isn’t on the list today that I want to talk to you a little bit about these are folks that are incarcerated that are on really really good behavior right they’re showing up for themselves they’re showing up for others they’re creating Community by the time you see them they they’ve kind of progressed through that system quite a bit right absolutely absolutely we’ll work with them but we’ll even go and we’ll work with the stgs violent offenders people that are gang members and just let them know like when you get out here it doesn’t have to be how it was I’m not asking anybody to put your flag down but I’m just saying do you want to choose life or do you want to go back through the revolving door right yeah man I really really love that and there’s no better people to do this it’s similar to like veterans helping veterans yes there really is this succinct connection and authentic trust that is just there for the folks who have walked in their shoes yes I love that man and and Matt man your your business partner does a great job kind of fortifying that mission I’ve L the opportunity connecting with him as well he’s a great human man yes maybe you could share for the viewers I always like personal stories little personal touches do you have any stories you can share with the viewers I know you have a bunch where you’ve met somebody in the Department of Corrections hopeless M and they’re out in the community today serving others yes in a really really cool way you chat about that a little bit absolutely Ely so gosh I want to shout out I don’t I know he wouldn’t mind but specifically I think I think of my buddy Trevor Jones he he had a pretty significant he had a prison sentence he was in there he was a leader and then he got out gosh I think want to say two years ago if he sees this he’ll he’ll he’ll he’ll let me you know he’ll put it in the comments but but he got he he was uh been around for the Redemption Road Fitness Foundation I think like pretty close to day one like close to maybe even one of the founding members but he was a big part of it he was actually my first experience going in and getting to coach a CrossFit in the Department of Corrections in 2019 down at Fremont with him and we both just got our CrossFit level two certifications and I went in he was like what’s up bro get in here and Coach show them how they do it on the streets and I was like dude it’s in here it’s the coaching this is just like they do it on the streets and there’s all these different gang members working out together and I love that but yeah which is atypical yeah that doesn’t happen in prison ever ever but now since he’s got out he’s up in Denver he he’s leader in the community up there he’s doing peer work he’s helping people getting out he’s working he’s successful he hit the ground running and he’s a prime example of what people like us can do like the formly incarcerated population like like it’s amazing MH it’s beautiful because what what what you’re speaking to is something that I think we’ve spoken to for a long time but without very much movement which is these people need recovery yes right these people need recovery they don’t necessarily need to be locked in a box but that’s a different topic for for a different day so I love that and you’re allowing these individuals right whose agency is quite literally been taken Humanity quite literally been taken you’re introducing them to this opportunity in community for people to see value and hear them yes the new Gabor mate book I haven’t finished it yet so I can’t recommend it one way or another yeah but he talks about two things that create mental unwellness and it is uncertainty and it’s feeling all alone yes there is not one thing that the Department of Corrections does better than create uncertainty and make people feel all alone and so your mission and your vision and your purpose with the bridge is dynamic and I love love where this how this thing is getting started but my question is is if it were to go all the way because we’re celebrating our 10 year anniversary of Peaks recovery um in September yes and if you would have asked me even five years ago where peak’s recovery would have been I would have sold myself short yeah and I would have sold the community short so what do you think if you were in the spot you wanted to be what would the bridge be doing for people in the community oh so I love that question Chris again thank you thank you so one of the things that we do is we have a it’s a like I said it’s peer-led and it’s a restorative justice approach so doing things in the community is a part of that is a it’s one of the the three big points of the restorative along with like the offenders and the victims and the community all coming together for healing so ultimately what I see is I just I see huge events I see this spreading across Colorado maybe the nation maybe the world in reducing recidivism I know that gets brought up a lot in these kind of conversations but in Colorado if we can stop a 100 people from going back that’s 1% Colorado’s 39th out of 50 states with recidivism every other person’s going back to prison the way it looks so the way that I could see that is we’d have gyms we’d have things to go people to do places and people for people to lead and develop more leaders just making an impact taking rights back being able to show up and be there for your families families reigniting on a huge level yeah that’s that’s just off the top one of the things that I think about is just what we can do to serve others because I think Zig Ziggler said if you help enough people get what they need you internal get what you need and if we can just copy and paste that but make it on a case- toase basis and just people helping people helping people yep I love that man and you’re providing an opportunity for individuals that maybe don’t understand the system don’t understand individuals within the system and so often times you know shoot when I don’t understand something certainly in the past I begin to judge it maybe begin to judge it harshly have a negative tone about it or whatever it might be I just I’m so grateful to have you on the show and to continue to reintroduce and reorient the community with Dan hook Hill and what you’re doing and what people with big hearts that just got in a tough environment for a season can do in this world yes it’s a beautiful thing man and the recidivism rate you know that’s another conversation as well but it’s clear to me why that continues to happen there’s not enough bridges yeah for sure there’s not enough Bridges you know and at the same time I want to I want to say that there there’s probably people incarcerated that don’t want to do what you’re doing absolutely and that’s okay yeah you know but there’s a vast majority of people that maybe otherwise people wouldn’t know that actually really want recovery yeah they really want hope they really want freedom but they’re Bound by some of these mental health issues and this trauma and being isolated and locked away in a cage for a long time can do a number on humans in general yes so I wanted to talk a little bit about something that has been a huge transition for you a huge transition for Peaks uh probably a huge transition for the Department of Corrections what has it been like um you know obviously you’re our activities director here you’re the founder at the the bridge what has it been like to kind of shift the language into more of this kind of mental health view of things is to say that you know we believe that everything stems from mental health and that substance use disorder is a mental health disorder yes and so how has it been how has that shift been for you and what have you been able to see in community Through just kind of reorienting people with just kind of different verbage and a kind of a different tone yeah that’s great I I love that because mental health is the stem of it I believe that the addiction is just a symptom and and it can show up in other ways than substance use for all kinds of people and I I love seeing that it’s going toward more towards mental health now I love that and the way that that shows up is like like I I go in one of the meetings that I run over here at the sanctuary we’ve started to shift the language there to mental health and been getting more bu and and people are like oh they feeling like they belong a little bit more and I love seeing that because it’s almost like there was like an Us and Them between mental health and substance use there’s not there’s not and there shouldn’t be because our experience is would you boil it down to the mental health like that’s why yeah that’s why that’s what we need to talk about that’s what we need to be addressed and like you said like being incarcerated it can make you feel uncertainty and it can make you feel lonely and if you’re in there and you’re lonely like joining a gang might sound real good because you want some sort of community they told me they love me I mean yeah for sure for sure and if you’re accepted by that you know then you’re accepted by something then you get become a part part of that culture and all kinds of other stuff can can stem from that but then gosh the loneliness the loneliness feeling like nobody’s there like I remember being when I was incarcerated I remember like when I’d get mail when they’d call my name for mail even if it was just something like that like some kind of paperwork just a throw away I just I loved it so much open it up open it up yeah if it was something good like a picture you go around and you show everybody like all your friends you’re like look I got a picture of my dog and it’s just it’s great and it just it felt so good it it feels so good to have people that are there for you that’s one of the that we’re trying to do with the bridge is like Hey we’re here for me for you even if you like you come out you get out you get involved with us and you go back we’ll walk you through the whole way we’ll be there I’ll come and visit you in prison I love that man love what you guys are doing it’s it’s a really cool cause and and I’d love to go back 5 years from now and revisit what you think and thought this bridge thing would be and watch it blow your doors off you know what I mean brother thank you one of the things we were chatting about before the show and we’ve really it’s just been top of mind for both of us in this season you know over the last six months we’ve you know we’ve dealt with a tremendous amount of intensity and Community personally professionally it’s just been a season for the reason yeah and one of the things that I really like to talk about especially with individuals like you is is we we approach recovery early on and most certainly in the first five years with this really servant heart yeah we just serve others because well it’s true we understand that our recovery longterm is directly proportionate to our ability to give it away yes and so when that saves Our Lives you know generally speaking we’re all alone we don’t have a family and that is our family is a community but now we’re fathers yes you know two we’re both fathers of two and married and how has the transition been you know because as I was saying before the show people are looking at you from the Department of Corrections and they feel like they can’t touch Dan hu call in your experience with a million foot pole um but when they get there I think it’s important to be where your feet are yeah and to be present and how have you managed that personally and professionally and and what would be some of the things in community they they’d want the viewers to know to look out for when you are in long-term recovery and you do actually get all the blessings you were praying for all those years you know yeah so so the way that I I would answer that one is is I want to start from the beginning there like right when I first got out you know I was a a year and a half almost two years sober when I got out I did stay sober through and in recovery through my stay in the Department of Corrections when I first got out it had to be baby steps because I didn’t really have anybody there for me I had a program that I was a part of here that helped me tremendously but I couldn’t let myself get overwhelmed I like if I need to go down to the DMV and pay my reinstatement fee to get my driver’s license done today that’s one baby step if I just did one a day like like Darren Hardy talks about in The Compound Effect you get 1% better I think Atomic habits too 1% better every day and it’s it’s bite-sized it’s not eating the whole elephant so from that you know I was able to be blessed with getting into recovery into the recovery Community finding my wife but there were some certain things that in recovery I didn’t get to work on and they’re showing up I’m nearly 10 years completely abstinent that’s crazy man right I feel like I met yeah that’s wild yeah so even after you know this 10 years it’s like right when you get sober that’s just the start you get these big rocks out of the way you get these big rocks you escal you excavate them out of your terrain and then the little rocks that you didn’t really know about become the big rocks after that and one of a big rock for me recently was just like not having good boundaries and it’s like every time I get to a new place I get really excited and I want to go do all this stuff and I have to redraw a whole new set of boundaries and it creates a whole bunch of new rocks for me and one of the ones recently that I went through I was just looking at like you know we talk about self-care being a really important part of recovery but when you’re a father and a husband you got to find where you’re going to get your self-care because one of the things that I had been doing and it started to cause some turbulence in my relationship is you know like Monday like like the only day that I have off and I would be so protective of my selfcare it’s like Dan you don’t need a whole day while while your wife’s taking care of the kids and working and doing all this and clean get up and help buddy so that’s something I’ve just been through recently is I I I got to really look back at myself and just be like you you took this selfish thing a little too far Dan and I’ve got to experienc some pretty tremendous healing with it and it got to change my whole perspective to help me to show up better for my wife for Nicole because I adore her and to be there for my kids I’ll me and Ash we we we get doing the Jiu-Jitsu in the martial arts together yeah we have fun ellish he’s in gymnastics oh it’s great but yeah man just just constantly being able and being so self-aware that like I’m not fixed yeah and I don’t know if I wanted you know if I was fixed if I was at a spot where I don’t have to put in any more work I don’t think that that’d be fun you know like so like I’m constantly trying to just keep a growth mindset and just what’s next what’s next what’s next how can I help how can I take of my family first cuz I have like this concept called vertical alignment it’s like you know it’s like what do you value the most for me that looks like God Nicole my kids my work and if I make a decision that like puts one of those above the other one that’s what causes some of the chaos and the anxiety and I just had to get I just got a slap in the face and a check with that recently and I had to realign some of my things so that’s kind of like how I like draw my boundaries and make my decisions is it has to go off of my alignment what I hold most important to myself and I have to be very true to that yeah and it could be tough somebody calls and says hey man you know I can you come help me yeah can you come do this yeah like a gold retriever it’s like I’m coming you know here I come yeah but I love that too and it’s it’s something just to be really really mindful of and and and I think you know I often refer to it the Gabor mate kind of myth of normal is like otherwise unless Dan just was authentic and vulnerable with you everybody would been like Dan’s batting a thousand you know and Chris is batting a thousand and there’s been times in my life when I have been batting zero yeah and the world’s been thinking I’ve been batting a thousand and so that’s what I love about the recovery process what I love about people in recovery is this opportunity to really really connect yeah authentically yes you know yes because I think when we can do that in a humble authentic and vulnerable way we can move into these opportunities for healing and growth yes right but it’s so hard for it was so hard initially and Recovery to to say you know what I got that wrong yeah I would fight your tooth and nail everything it was this it was this it was this it’s like hey man someone’s just trying to tell you how they feel yeah you know yeah and so I’m grateful for that reminder today and I’m sure there’s some viewers that are in early recovery short long-term recovery personally and professionally that can relate to what you just said yeah thank I appreciate you talking about that how has being a father right four years now yes right Asher Dan brings his his youngest son over his name’s Asher he’s four years old my boys have been doing Jiu-Jitsu for a couple years and he kind of warm up with the boys boys will try and teach him some stuff and things like that but what has being a father done or not done for your for you professionally that’s a good one so professionally what what being a father has done for me back to the boundaries thing it’s helped me get some more boundaries because there’s certain things in my life prior to being a father that’s like oh I can take it or leave it or I can go have fun you don’t do that with kids you’re there for your kids you love your kids and
they’re so great they’re so great uh but what one of the things I I’ve really learned from is how to like I’ve never had a problem with letting my inner child out and I get to really do that with them and I and I love that and it’s it’s just it’s taught me how to take care of myself and show up for somebody better and to be more responsible to be mindful to be in this situation with them to not have a social media phone out which I have done I’m not I’m not perfect I’m not lie but like when I’m home in my son and I’m not so tired and he wants to play and it’s like hey Daddy you’re Michelangelo I’m Leonardo we’re going to play Ninja Turtles and I’m like knuckle up bud let’s do it or or my daughter she oh she loves wearing makeup and yes I’ve worn makeup many times and I love it it it just teaches me how to be more present like truly and authentically like hey I’m in here I get this moment this moment I might not ever get it again they’re going to grow up really fast and so getting to be there for them it’s it’s taught me how to be more more present and more in the moment and I truly enjoy it I love that man you’re you’re you’re bringing up something that I was talking about was it earlier this week or last week um this idea of our relationship with time yeah right and and and I think that’s something that recovery has really allowed for me yeah and and and initially it is a very harsh reality cuz I wasn’t you know when I first got into recovery I just wasn’t doing well and and the path ahead was very very steep but today being in long-term recovery and uh you know Sunday was 16 years since I took my last drink my dude been a long time and um but I I really started to idealize my relationship with time I’m 38 years old Jesse ller talks about this on his podcast a lot but he he talks about his relationship with time and what am I doing with it so my boy are on summer break right now we leave tomorrow on a 10-day camper B Trip why because if I live a great life maybe I got 52 Summers left yeah right that’s a great life yeah you know and next after this summer 51 yeah and that’s going to go like a flash in the pan yes right so I love what you’re talking about today is like is if we can be where our feet are yes we can Empower ourselves the people we care about in the world around us in a really tremendous way to maybe negotiate their relationship with time yes so that they can be there for the ones that they love yes you know it’s been an absolute pleasure having you on the show um I look up to you personally and professionally I love what you do in the community um your servant heart is one of the most robust and authentic that I’ve ever known thank brother grateful to have you on the team at Peaks I mean the surveys you you and and terara I mean and The Culinary you guys might as well run the whole company I mean it’s just it’s it’s it’s where it’s at and and and the reason is is because you show up with a whole heart you don’t hold back and what you see is what you get man so thanks for coming on the show buddy I appreciate you Chris I appreciate you let me come on the show and I just want to thank you because when I right when I got out and you were there for me when we were go work out at Villa I don’t even know if you knew it but you were showing me what this like steps ahead in like my longer term recovery could look like and you continue to do that to this day and I’m very grateful for you that brother yeah man thank you man thank you for the opportunity myud go peace

In this episode, Chris Burns brings Brandon Burns back to the show! As our new Executive Director, Brandon brings back his logical and philosophical background to talk about the current state of our industry, problems facing treatment centers, and efficacious plans to prioritize client care above all else. From maladaptive behaviors to plant-based medicine and disrupting the industry, this team of Burns lays out an information-filled and education-focused episode for all to enjoy.

[Music] hey everybody and welcome to another amazing episode of Finding Peaks your host Yours Truly Chris Burns president and CEO of Peaks recovery centers so grateful to be here today and even more grateful to be joined by my brother business partner and colleague Brandon Burns so grateful to have you on the show today Brandon and welcome back thanks Chris I appreciate it and all the viewers out there I think we have 870,000 followers at this point so for all of those of you have missed me in my episodes it’s uh it’s a wonderful opportunity not only to be back at Peaks but to be back in front of the viewers talking more about our industry and Leadership Behavioral Healthcare and so forth so thanks for having me back Chris absolutely really excited to get into this episode but I wanted to start with kind of a personal tone and lean into this a bit back in 2020 or the end of 2019 I was walking through a season of life that really required me um to get some support for my mental health um I had gone through and worked in the industry for nearly 10 years um we had done a lot and something that I hadn’t done in that process was find it necessary to take great not good but great care of myself and you afforded me this opportunity back in 2020 having been the CEO and you allowed me to go um have this time to really take great care of myself and I’m able to come back today and let the viewers know and you like I’m back better than ever and I’m really really grateful for that um in the opportunity that you had last summer um we were going through a lot as a culture the industry was shifting we got thrown a tremendous amount of curveballs we had some grief that we walked through and so I know that it was it was intense and it felt very disconnected but you had this opportunity as well to take a little break to zoom out a little bit to be where your feet are and uh it’s been my experience since bringing you back into the organization that you experienced a tremendous amount of growth not just personally but professionally and I just wanted to allow the viewers to gain a little bit of insight into that process that you walk through and what you gained from that what you’re bringing back to Peaks rebound tour 2024 yeah I I appreciate it so much Chris and and personally just filled with gratitude to be in this chair today and to be where we are at at Peaks recovery Cent given all of that we’ve gone through as the challenges you know to the viewers out there who remember my episodes and certainly to you know be honest and transparent about it as you know sort of a process just a little bit of a backfill on a storyline uh you know when Chris stepped aside and allowed me to uh become the CEO and high highlight me for that role we had at that time only success at Peaks recovery centers as far as a business you know driven model is going and I was able to ride a really important wave out of covid recreation of services uh getting us away from some of the challenges that we experienced uh in the early settings of covid and it’s really when I reflect on it as a period it’s amazing to ride things up from a business sense of things uh in Behavioral Healthcare any industry or otherwise it’s one thing to be met with extraordinary challenges that you didn’t see coming in this regard and so we won’t speak to the administrative challenges that we experience but you know January 17th of 2023 is sort of a day that will live in infamy with me as far as receiving an administrative problem that I didn’t know how to handle I didn’t know how to handle it emotionally I didn’t know how to go to a team I’ve only had successes with and say we have challenges and this is what we need to do in honesty I just didn’t know how to show up as a leader in that moment and that’s a challenging recognition going through something that was so valuable at the time to be the CEO of an organization and to be its sort of visionary for that time period to hit such a speed bump and a curveball in the road that completely dejected me from the not only the path we were on but the experience of leadership and what do I do now and for the viewers out there I can only describe the process and experience of dejection as uh sort of floundering not having confidence not knowing how to take the next steps and only knowing how to point at a problem rather than create Solutions out of it and I think you other leaders in the organization at the time saw a distress leader in that regard and out of that admittedly upon reflection and it’s not just to scratch backs here like like I needed to take a step away and a step away from I was not in a position to lead and guide in the way that I thought I could throughout that time period And so taking 10 months away from something you know you have a c the CEO title now I have an executive director title I think that’s one experience that was you know really challenging to feel like in a resume way I’m taking a step back and what I’m sharing with the viewers out there is like the emotional response of like anger and uh frustration and moving through processes outside of Peaks but the gifts it gave me was internal of what was my responsibility in this I wish I could have taken that administrative burden away from the company just taken that administrative charge and said this is what we are doing in confidence I got everybody’s back and this is how we’re going to carry this out and it’s through the process of stepping back going on my runs sematic experiences and returning back to the fold that I had a lot of responsibility in that moment and I did let the organization down and I did from a leadership standpoint not have the emotional intellectual and sort of spiritual capacity to move the company through that challenging time and I think it’s important from that standpoint to reflect on the fact ultimately that um we can take these moments and only move into emotional frustration and anger and whatever and things were taken from me or as I was able to do in my process process through my experiences take a step back hone in on my responsibility find a path to show up better in the future and get right sized with my value system so that in the future if I’m in a position executive director CEO or otherwise um that I can meet those challenges uh in real time and um and meet it with a bigger heart and open mind and have the emotional capacity to uh be still in those moments yeah man I really appreciate you not just sharing that with me but with the viewers I think it’s it’s transparent it’s authentic and it’s clear and I know there had been some Rumblings in community on like what had happened and so I just wanted to start off the show with really clearing that up for the viewers is that the opportunity we have today because of what we’ve walked through over the last 10 years as business partners is um and I’ve heard it heard it this morning I’ve heard the slingshot analogy but this morning it was an arrow Karen was telling me about and that’s what I like in your experience over that 10 months to be as much as it felt like this big step back you were really anchoring into a position that you had never been so you could go to a spot um that was foreign and we’re experiencing that today as a company culture and just appreciate again your authenticity and transparency for the yeah and I just want to you know in addition to that honor like fear is such an easy place to operate from um because it’s soothing in a way to State I know my truth and it’s indifferent to the reality that’s in you know that’s that I’m being faced with but you know for the viewers out out there as somebody who sort of transcended that fear through you know philosophy that I’ve shared in the past and I love and through that sort of stoic lens my attitude now in my emotional state is very much of a Marcus aelius tone that the impediment to action advances action and what stands in the way becomes the way and we are to be a rock in the sea of dysfunction in that regard As Leaders within organizational sets so when challenging things happen people can look to us in confidence that we know the path and can be still in those moments and so Stillness is really the principle of I’ve arrived at the tradeoff of fear into Stillness and now the things that are happening are just things we have to move through and there’s no reason to be in fear about it because there is another side to it yeah it’s it’s it’s so clear to me and huge to your point is like presence affords us so much but what informs presence right mental health opportunities to be where I’m at being seen valued and heard in community a lot of the stuff that you expressed that you walked through over the last 10 months it was extraordinarily difficult for us to come to that decision last summer because as I’ve let all the viewers know I mean Brandon Burns is not satiated with the research the Insight the education he continually educates himself so he’s our only industry expert and so it was really difficult to draw that Arrow back and see Brandon go um and having said that we are so grateful to have him back we’re pointed in just a really really cool Direction that’s sustainable and fruit F and intended for the future and we’re really excited to having back and and and really carry out this Mission and this Vision that you created with the team in the first place so um again just really passionate about the opportunity we have in front of us what are some of the things that you saw because a lot of changes in this field really on a day-to-day basis a monthly basis but certainly over a year what are some of the shifts you’ve seen because something that you did even though you took time away was you stayed AB breast to Industry information new things that were coming up Law changes um Behavioral Health Administration you were attuned to all of that throughout the process so what are some of the changes that the viewers can be expecting and to be looking out for as they’re trying to find a great program for their loved one yeah being on the outside kind of looking in and and not knowing exactly what the future would hold for me in that regard it led to opportunities to interview with other companies and programs that led for opportunities for connection um the power of LinkedIn at the end of the day to negotiate with people and create you know professional relationships and I think overall as an industry the industry faces a lot of the same challenges when I left it those challenges I think is the uh saturation of services in certain areas that applies pressure to how we hire individuals professionals within the community and so forth and I think these are some of the great challenges and pitfalls of the future that if this epidemic continues to rise in the background we are falling short of Staff in that regard so maybe one thing the viewers can be mindful of in the future just as they look for you know a valuable program moving forward is lure opportunities you know group sizes within state standards and a variety of these more what feels right professionally things that should exist within companies like this to deliver the best care possible ensuring individual sessions and followup uh complete utilization reviews to ensure that you know your loved ones getting is care in programming is being maximized uh in that regard but we are running into headwinds from a staffing standpoint as an industry and I think that’s something mindful for people to be of when they call Admissions team your website looks beautiful but can you actually deliver this care uh in that way I think you know as we spoke about in the past from these episodes the natural medicine Health act has afforded um the Psychedelic opportunities through uh mushrooms and future opportunities through MDMA and so forth with these U mushrooms being the first sort of uh front lines of the Psychedelic interventions I think we are getting a little over our ski tips here in the state of Colorado and the thing that I’ve referred to the world as um in the professional lens is that I’ve seen a lot of clinicians turn Shaman uh overnight and I’m seeing really an inappropriate I want to call it at some level clinical intervention of what we call heroic doses of psychedelics uh being given to participants and I just think that’s not the direction this was intended to go in and so we’re sort of still in that unregulated sort of wild west space my hope is that by 2025 when uh Healing Center lures actually come out we can get more right sized as a as a state and a world around psychedelic treatment and move away from hero dois into what is more clinically efficacious because really anything as we’ve talked about over two grams is probably um not clinically efficacious uh so I think that’s one thing for the viewers to be thinking about as we move into Healing Centers what does it mean to do a heroicos and why are we doing that at all uh in that regard and then I would say you know kind of the tail into this I think we still have to get our trauma narratives right as an industry and this will be the final note I’ll put on it hear me clearly viewers out there with PTSD diagnosis and individuals who come from traumatic backgrounds um we are right siiz to talk about our trauma and to live in that reality at the same time I think the narrative has gotten away from something that has happened to us in the past a traumatic event as the thing that needs Excavating versus my response maladaptively speaking to the event and my behavior that’s taking to place that’s where trauma lies is in the now and in the behavior not in the past moment uh in that regard and I think the industry could do a better job at relating this to individuals post-traumatic stress disorder means the stress is still happening in front of the past event right so the language matters here and I think if we hone in on that a little bit better uh we can be better informed Trauma Centers at the end of the day yeah I love that’s very good B mte of you you know and and I love that back to your initial point I think it’s important and you brought up a great point for the viewers but what’s happening in our industry as payer sources are beginning to Crunch what programs are doing is they have amazing websites and all of this stuff but they’re they’re Maxim in group sizes over and above um what is the parameter for the state regulations and so one of the questions we really want to encourage people to ask and in addition to a multitude of questions when you’re calling these places like how many group sizes what does individuals look like just get really curious with it because a lot of providers especially in network are moving to this more robust group size to make sense of the lower payments and so I really appreciate you bringing that up and that’s something even as we’re going into a full- end network provider um we are very integrous with as insurance that that group site doesn’t go over 12 because naturally I’m not going to be able to heal in a group setting or have the connectivity I need in the Insight offered if it’s 25 people and again it’s not safe and so I really appreciate you bringing that up for the viewers I think it’s important to move into kind of one of our core values with that is like we’re disrupting the industry through quality of care differently than when we came up with that core value probably three four years ago I know it meant something then and I think it means something quite a bit different today how do we begin to inform that and not spin our wheels and waste time be very intentional with disrupting the industry how do we do that today I think we live in this world unfortunately where the patient wants to say Peaks Recovery Center is letting me down and we want to say no the insurance company and reimbursements are letting us down and then the patient calls the insurance company and says no it’s Peaks and we get into this finger pointing game as an industry at the end of the day and I think that’s disruptive um because all three of these prongs are really needed at the end of the day to drive a successful uh Behavioral Health Care system so for me I think quality of care is a calling to the behavioral health industry to stop acting outside of healthcare to stop creating programmatic features that are based in how we got well at the end of the day to stop driving psychedelic inter ventions that worked for us but might not work for the individual in front of us and to accept the fact that these are time limited interventions you know we’ve talked about it on these past episodes but you know just to recapitulate recapitulate it today the 30-day Paradigm came out of a state law in the Northeast that said individuals who are suffering from alcoholism in the 70s need more time than six days in treatment it’s obvious to us that they need more time and treatment but the challenge is when we say something like we’ll give you 90 days of care is that right size for the individual are they in care for too long do they need to be in residential programming do they need to be in PHP or IOP and these are some of the navigating features of our industry that uh continues to strain something from an outcome basis we work with Vista research Vista research continues to highlight since 1993 the outcomes and the national averages have not changed above 36% as an industry standard and I think that strain and delay and outcomes is not because we aren’t interested in evidence-based practices cognitive behavioral therapy um uh EMDR these types of interventions I think it’s because we continue to place our own philosophies as individuals in recovery whether for mental health or substance use disorders in front of patient care to say I did it this way so you’re going to succeed doing this way but what we’ve learned is that way works 36% of the time and 64% of people need multiple if not tens of dozens of treatment episodes you know to get well in the process and so some way we have to work together within the model that we are in as a Health Care system use variable length to stay as an actual fundamental feature of this and get right sized with what we can work on within a residential treatment model what I mean by that is probably not deep Excavating of traumatic events but stabilization of emotions relationships those types of things and then better utilize these uh buckets of care that we call ambulatory PHP and IOP more usefully once the individual stabilized now we can work on sort of more of these intensives without exacerbating the original symptomology that brought them into care yeah no I think that’s really huge and it’s clear to me it it almost feels like individualized treatment for the first time ever yeah you know it’s like everybody said we’re going to do these things but a lot of times we’re coming in we’re like everybody does grief and loss everybody does identity and purpose everybody does relationship well what if just what if if the individuals coming in need skill building what if they need a community wrapped around them what if we met everybody as an individual and approached their treatment in that way I know we’ve been using a hot kind of coin topic words you know these days and individualized care but really what happens is you come in and you do the program that they’re telling you to do so I love this opportunity because it’s an opportunity to get a little bit more Curious and a little bit more clear with the individual to say hey we don’t need to go down into the line done if we don’t need to we can focus in on what the trauma is causing it’s not about the trauma it’s what happens inside of us and uh outside of us as a result of that trauma so I really love this new way is to say you’re not going to come in we’re going to put a box over your head and say you’re doing this thing really begin to meet people where they’re at and that’s a cuttingedge way I think to disrupt the industry through quality of care yeah thank you and I know as you know about me I love tangents in the past few years so I don’t mean to be tangential about this in any way but I think when you think about the delivery of care and access to care and Behavioral Health Care the vast majority of Clinical Services the better stated the vast majority of clinical interventions are received in a group atmosphere so go around the group and you have individuals suffering from suicidal ideation low ADLs and maybe psychotic features you know in relationship to their medications uh go through the group and you might have somebody who just has a significant opio IDU disorder or a poly substance disorder go around the room and you might have somebody with a major depressive disorder with some use but not you know uh you know not substance use disorder related in that regard so just taking these three individuals that I’ve have described and put them in a room how does rhetorically I’m going to ask the viewers how does a single programmatic approach lower the symptomology and advanced recovery for each individual within that setting never mind in the state of Colorado the behavioral health administration the group size is not greater than 12 so just put 12 people inside that group at the end of the day how does a program atic intervention speak to the symptomology of each individual it’s rhetorical because it is nearly impossible when we ask it in that framework so from a group perspective we need to be more creative in our approaches to that and more honest with family systems about the maximum possibility of delivering interventions in time limited Services uh at the end of the day I believe I had a follow-up point to the group sitting at the end of the day but maybe I can just rest it there and it’ll come up here in the future well I love that too because it it really points to this piece of a greater process right and you you pointed to length of stay and and not excluding these really valuable intensives that have been around for a while that we know we can extrapolate really good information from and growth it’s just doing them at the right time and at the right size which is something we haven’t really looked at in this industry is this person ready to receive this service is it going to exacerbate symptoms fine then we’re not doing it and so I think it paints a very clear picture for people coming into care that we are potentially moving into something that Peaks recovery that could treat each person as an individual and begin to back up what we talk about a lot which is treating suffering yeah absolutely and what if family systems knew the correct language at the end of the day for how this is working it’s not a program it’s called levels of care it’s residential PHP IOP outpatient that’s how it works what is it based in it’s based in Asam ter you know criteria what do those standards mean what does the behavioral health administration here in Colorado mean all of these external bodies are applying pressure to these models at the end of the day and so when I think about that original sort of cycle between provider uh manag Care Systems and patients at the end of the day all of these things are applying at one time and so removing the hyperbolic language as an opportunity and informing family systems how this actually works I think would be actually very healing for the family system coming in to know why Johnny just got stepped down to this thing called PHP when you said it could could be for 30 days at the same time because that’s the expectation of the Managed Care Systems and I think it would provide a lot more insights to the individual who’s moving through care about what I need to be working on and to not sort of get uh comfortable about this position that I’m in because somebody told me I was guaranteed you know these time frames and I guess the last thing I’ll add to it you know one of the one of the thing that strikes me kind of is absurd in our industry from a quality standpoint right now is like we know these cell phone devices we know social media at the end the day is messing with our brains there’s not a person you can walk to In This World right now I think that’s paying any attention to this that this isn’t causing a lot of harm especially to adolescents to adults from our attention and consumption standpoint so an ad that says something like come into programming get your cell phone here today one yeah cell phones matter in this world like we need them at another Point like these are behavioral health disorders and at the strictest level these things are m ING with that disorder at the end of the day and exacerbating the issue so I want to be curious with the industry why cell phones at the end of the day are so important when we know it’s causing a lot of these issues at the end of the day for the individual that’s suffering and to just be mindful that as a family system is it more important to have your cell phone in treatment or is it more important to get down to the disorder and get into Solutions and move into recovery and so it’s not that cell phones are bad in treatment it’s if there’s an ad about that we should probably put our Spidey senses on and go maybe this isn’t where I want my loved one to go yeah yeah I think I was reading something the other day in regards to cell phones um with respect to its ability to detract from our mental health increase anxiety exacerbate depression because there’s this thing that we don’t get a lot in our culture anymore that we used to have as kids it’s called boredom yeah and this boredom thing actually Fosters a lot um thought deep thinking Insight presence presence empathy so these things come up and then at worst case you go outside yeah and so we’re we’re missing a lot of that and I’m grateful that you brought that up because tremendous amount of information on and how this detracts from our mental health yet we see programs putting them on their website and saying you can have these come on in so something to be we of and mindful of of the program structure when you’re going in you know are they there to make a book are they there to find Healing For The Individual because the power of know is really powerful MH you know yeah and I would imagine for a lot of people coming in and we can just put a pin in it to continue the episode forward um for the car drives home but an individual coming into treatment that’s demanding their cell phone is probably likely exceeding six hours of screen time on their phone at the end of the day I mean when we think about that from a day standpoint that’s in my quick Mass there I think that’s 25% of our day staring at at a screen at the end of the day this cannot be part of the solution in that way or part of the thing that uh we need to get well in the end of the day I think for all viewers out there and any patient or client experience who know that you can’t take my cell phone it’s not about taking your cell phone it’s I’m confident that if you put this thing down for 30 days and work on yourself you will see the value of putting this thing down for that time period and just encouraging you the viewers to take that seriously for your mental well being yeah in the 15 years that I’ve been doing this there hasn’t been a single person that’s relinquished their cell phone for 30 or 45 treatments to day that when they got it back didn’t say they were grateful for that opportunity not a single person yeah so it is again we’re back to the arrow y pull it back to launch over a potential spot we’ve ever been so really appreciate that I want to end with you know we’re coming up on we’ve talked about how we can continue to inform the industry through quality of care we’ve talked about some changes we would make we talked about some changes that have happened um some new rules and regulations Peaks recovery is rolling into a very special anniversary um our 10year anniversary and I remember when we we opened Peaks recovery in 2014 um something that was really important to me I wasn’t right sized at the time but I was like man somehow someway Someday my brothers are going to be out here and we’re going to be rocking this thing and so here we are 10 years removed from that day we got Dylan who’s over in it we got you is in the executive director of role and to be very clear and Frank with the viewers you you and I are are very relational for the first time in a long time and it it it feels really good feels like we have a phenomenal and integrous opportunity to move the company in a direction that we’ve never been and I’m really really grateful about that opportunity but I wanted to talk with you a little bit about some of the gratitudes you have I mean 10 years is a long time um to your point and certainly a point that I’ve connected with uh we’ve been able to build somewhat of a resilient company we’ve gone through a [ __ ] ton of stuff a bunch of curveballs in the last two years that have otherwise sunk a normal small mom and pop business and so as we roll into this 10e the anniversaries in September were as connected as ever dyan’s on site our ownership group is coming together what are some of the stuff that you’re excited about in this uh this anniversary season yeah thank you for that the uh I you know maybe as a joke maybe it’s not a joke maybe it’s not funny but it feels like we’re on our nights live like we we’ve put a lot of I think one of the gifts of Entrepreneurship it comes with a lot of fear in the beginning of it we don’t have the spirituality coming into this no doubt I didn’t even know what a PHP was when I started here you know at Peaks at the end of the day one of the gifts of being an entrepreneur is you get realtime life lessons along the way as a professional not just in behavioral health care but a person who’s come to recognize the values in running a business and something like Behavioral Health is there are clinicians and doctors who come in with all of this intrinsic motivation to treat the patient that’s in front of them and I got a big heart and love for the patients I walk by high five in every day at Peaks recovery centers but what this time frame has given me is the gift of what my values are in operating a business at the end of the day and I see especially in that stepb back period leadership strategy crunch in numbers that’s my value system that’s what I love what can I do with those skill sets and values I can take care of teams and operations and systems and allow them to be the best versions of themselves in the delivery of that care and have learned to give them what the not give them in the sense of like you know a mom and dad you know kind of atmosphere but allow them the opportunity to get into work and do what they do best and what they went to school for and what they are trained to do and where their hearts and passions are at because mine is in managing all the systems right so for all the great love I’ve had one of the trade-offs and Gifts that’s been given to me is I used to just carry this huge weight about what’s going on in patient care am all that type of stuff but that’s not really my weight within the operations and so the gift has been to learn things in real time to be able to know what my values are you know as a leader as a professional in an organization and what I mean for the viewers out there as well too is that I hear a lot of you know whether it’s our patient demographic or individuals and friends that I encounter they’re like I want to be a physical therapist I want to be this over here and I think we point a lot at the job and we could do better as a world about pointing at the values because when you know your values whether it’s Peaks recovery centers for me or a hospital system or a tech company or whatever I can work in any industry now at least that’s the way I see myself within this world and it feels like such a relief because it’s not limiting you know in that regard so showing back up to Peaks like the gift is like I’m wholly excited to be here because I know what that values and I can apply these values and skill sets here to the benefit of other individuals Within These programs so you know again just kind of recapitulate Entrepreneurship gives you a lot of life lessons it kicks your ass in real time in a way that you know even pursuing my NBA program here in the near future you I know I’m not going to get a lot of that out of the program I’ve already received the gifts of you know leadership and those benefits but at the same time giving that value uh construct as well too and then I think you know from a Brotherhood standpoint as well too how many people even in interviews outside of Peaks that I’ve stepped into it’s like I would have killed my brother too it’s like we we have killed each other you know and Dylan coming into the organization as well too you know like he’s fought us as the younger brother as he naturally would and then we turn to him and say dude we’ve been doing this for a decade you’ve only been doing this for us for a couple years so like we appreciate the intensity but we know how to throw blows in a different sort of way uh and to survive a process in which we recognize to the viewers out there from like a mental health standpoint we were prepared to start it from a mental health standpoint but we were not prepared to drive it to where it was at and it took took the teachings and lessons from fellow staff uh clinical care the Psychedelic movement a variety of different things to get us right sized and centered to be the professional that we are in this moment and to be the rock I think finally in the wave of crashing water uh in that regard so that would be my whole capitulation of what these gifts have been like yeah I think it’s a really well stated thank you it’s moving into this 10th year um I’ve really seen a d Dynamic approach from you that I hadn’t seen before specifically to what you just noted is you’ve taken this time to kind of zoom out and now you’re passionately putting people in positions that they’re passionate about and getting the best out of them and I think that’s what great leaders do is they look at systems they identify to your point what’s your value here and you put them in front of something that’s really valuable for them so that they too just like us as entrepreneurs and being business owners they can drive with a tremendous amount of fortitude and passion into that process which I think is absolutely huge and it’s been just an incredible joy to have you back in the organization over the last 5 weeks um even more grateful to have you on the show today to be connected and I want to remind the viewers of one thing um that we started with that we continue regardless of what the industry payer sources uh do we continue to run on this constant thread from a cultural perspective it says nobody cares what you know until they know that you care and that is something that will always live in value at Peaks 24 hours at a time yeah and to not steal the hook but just to you know reinvite it in that may be the fundamental aspect of what quality means in our industry at least for a time period is caring caring fundamentally matters because caring is that ability to uh build that rapport with the individual with the hope of exchanging that relational aspect into a future uh that is Guided by a recovery journey and so in the interim period it’s not even though we point at pains of recovery centers and behavioral health programs and challenges that they face and cell phones and these types of things that we’re scrambling out at the end of the day I have no doubt in most of the programs that I’ve worked in there is a team that is operating that cares and that cares for your loved one to be well uh in that regard and that’s certainly the principal and priority at Peaks recovery yeah really appreciate it man so grateful to have you back until next time peace [Music] you

In this episode, Chris Burns brings Amity Cooper of Wayfinding Counseling, Human Herd Network, and Clinical Career Collective to the show! From hearing Amity’s personal and professional experience getting her to where she is today to the empathic powers and benefits of working with and alongside horses, this episode holds amazing information on rarely focused topics. For more information on Amity, check out amitycooper.com. For more information on Wayfinding Counseling, check out wayfindingpractice.com. For more information on Clinical Career Collective, check out clinicalcareercollective.com.

[Music] hey everybody and welcome to another exciting episode of Finding Peaks Yours Truly president founder and CEO Chris Burns joined today by an amazing guest and even better human AMD Cooper with way find way way finding counseling human herd Network clinical career Collective that is a mouthful isn’t it wow I love it thank you so much for joining us today thank you for having me a pleasure to be here yeah so good to have you I had a chance to connect with AMD probably about six weeks ago on a call and just got to learn a little bit about what you do and why you do it and something I want to touch on early and often is you’ve done something really unique and I think kind of atypical in our field is you’ve developed three different businesses with respect to meeting individuals where they’re at I think it’s really really unique you don’t put boxes over people’s heads and you kind of get to come into you know your website reads basically if you’re looking for a solution there’s one and you may have it inside of you yes really cool why did you develop those three and um maybe tell the viewers a little bit about each one of them yeah so I gosh I came into this field I think I’ve already I’ve always been a therapist probably born that way um but I really came in into the mental health space about six seven years ago after 20 plus years as a serial entrepreneur and um I sort of dipped my toes into this kind of one-on-one work with people really as a a trained mediator and negotiator so I have a a master’s degree in conflict resolution and um it was a good foreground and foundation for really figuring out how to sit side by side or need with somebody else figuring out what their issues are and then um back in 2015 my last business closed and I was just faced with a devastating moment of Crisis I didn’t know who I was without my business and I think there’s probably a lot of listeners out there who have had that moment of existential question and it with some deep dive into myself I realized that I really wanted to be more internally driven I wanted to focus my life Orient my life around helping other people find their best selves and that meant going back to school for a second degree in mental health counseling and so I combined all those years of experience by working with others and on businesses and in projects to do that very thing about working with people um on a very intimate sort of level to really uncover and un Earth or excavate what their dreams are I think that is so unique and intention intentional and connecting with respect to kind of the entrepreneurial dream right Gore mate just wrote a book his phenomenal book called The Myth the normal I haven’t read it yet yeah it’s a 19h hour audio book um but it’s it’s wonderful and what it talks about is you know essentially you turn on the TV you look out in our community and the message is go to the hilltop to get the pot of gold yeah and you’ll be satiated life will take on new meaning you know everything you turn on TV it’s bigger faster stronger and more you look outside it’s bigger faster stronger and more and you’re bringing people back into this functional connectedness with themselves and you mentioned something really unique too with entrepreneurs and people in business and even helpers in general is we become really really overcoupled with that career it goes up we go up it goes down we go down how do you help people manage that how do you resource them well I think the it’s awareness right the first thing is is about okay where I am where am I in this where do I sit in this place and it’s about discovering and returning to our first principles about who we are what makes us us what our values are how we’re in alignment or disalignment with our lives and then we can sort of tease apart where we want to go with that we can we can set a course we can set we we have a a an orientation a compass to navigate our next choices by so I think it starts with who we are what’s fundamentally important to us and then discovering what the next steps are that is so rad and what I love about that too you see that R yeah no like super radal awesome yeah not radical maybe radical as well but I I think about it not just for helpers entrepreneurs professionals but why not a life book for people who are new in their recovery from mental health absolutely like oh my gosh like when you said that I got chilled because I can remember sitting there my life book was created for me I was checking out a treatment in 2007 and they said this is who and what you are and you will do these things or you’ll lose it all right and so it was a very canned and boxed treatment plan safe safe it’s so safe I mean don’t you think the default button is sort of mediocrity these days I mean we’re sort of we we want to personal responsibility personal accountability is a really hard thing to stand in today and it’s much easier to refer to and refer and Outsource our life to other people it’s easier to take that path for most of us most of us are not going to spend time self doing self-examination and exploration that’s just you know we don’t yeah yeah so if you are of a different elk if you have a different view a different take on your life and what you want it to be the only way is in and through to get to that pot of gold if you will and and that takes deep that takes deep work and it takes time and it’s not a canned response to your life right so I love what you said there because I’ve been quoted as saying the only way out is through that’s even more intentional to say the only way out is in and through let’s not forget that in part yeah which is really really important to red discover and realign who and what I am yeah you bring up a really good point too because when I got into recovery at 22 years old nearly 16 years ago who I thought I was at that time was much more noise coming from outside in yeah than inside out and so it it’s only been in the last couple of years I’ve been doing this recovery thing a long time the last couple of years I’m finally starting to see the efficacy of that that perfect that resource inside of us that opportunity to go within to put our feet in the earth to get in the cold bath to get the sunlight on the face to move the feet just one step after another as slow or as fast as I need and it took me a long time to get there why has this message feel so difficult to get out to the average human that’s a really great question and it wasn’t on the list I yeah that’s cool um h well I think we can I mean what our lives are very phenetic you know there is this constant looking to the outside to give us validation and confirmation that who we are and what we are striving to be is okay okay so there’s that we sort of have usurped our own innate power to the outside world who really has no care or concern for us so that’s one thing yeah um so true and these are skills maybe they’re life skills that aren’t necessar that we have to learn from our elders we have to learn from people that have already gone before us and so we don’t have and maybe this might go a little off course here but you know in a in an indigenous culture you know there are there are initiations there are initiatives that are set by the elders the teachers the wise people the wise ones who come back and and it’s their task it’s their job to teach the ones coming up and we don’t have that base and I think so there’s there’s that loss here and I think there’s some mourning and there’s some grief around that loss and I think that’s why so many people struggle with addictions I think that there’s so we’re trying to find those places those vehicles to find our inner selves and they’re misplaced you know so does that answer that makes so much sense yeah yeah and it you you get to tell me why and then I get to back it up with a story so I was a couple weeks not a couple weeks ago during the winter Symposium so in February were you down here for the or some so one of the biggest conferences at least in Southern Colorado um for treatment providers and helpers and the like and I was telling you about before the show my shoe stuff right so I’m at the conference and I have to wear these uncomfortable shoes and I’m like oh I just cannot wait to get out of these shoes and so I get back to the office and I put my Earth Runners on and I got my toe socks on and feels so good yeah and I come to do a tour with somebody from the Symposium and it’s a Wednesday it’s the last day of the conference yeah and she comes in it’s a doctor um a pretty well revered doctor here in Colorado and I said said Dr so and so so great to see you and I’m so grateful to have my earthrunner sandals back on it’s like you know after a conference and having to dress up and wear these shoes and I said you know and I just feel so much better having these on and she looked at me with some of the most contagious eye contact and she said you should have just wor them all conference that’s who you are and I was like oh my gosh you see you saved my life you saved my life so now I refuse I told you today I was like today is the first day I put shoes on but it goes back to your point it’s like I’m waiting for this external thing to tell me that I’m okay doing or being who and what I am today right yeah so I love that there’s a lot of those barriers and oftentimes we feed ourselves unfortunately and I’m guilty of this and I think it’s human nature is I feed myself from the outside in oh and that creates a lot of internal disconnectedness oh gosh an incongruence uh a just a just a discomfort like we just don’t feel right in ourselves you know and I think most people can identify with that like they just don’t they don’t feel good like their skin doesn’t feel right and uh you know to the touch or there’s things like just this innate itchiness yeah you know yeah and it is something it’s so interesting you say that this innate itchiness may as well have been synonymous with my cohort that walked through and I’m not throwing the 12-step way of life saved our life from a um a connectedness perspective and a social connected persp of my that we walked with abent of resourcing ourselves internally it’s kind of this just this uneasy feeling and not feeling any sort of embodiment and I had thought and I think there’s a number of people that are really going to be satiated by this episode because I think there’s a number of people specifically young people in our world that are finding resources for their mental health that are being told a story um that speaks to a life sentence of you name it yeah and the way that you work with individuals clients families and the community speaks to something so much different you speak to Healing um how do you get people to see their own healing when they’re being told this external message of it’s not
possible well I truly believe that we have all the answers within us right so my job is I see myself more as a as an ally and uh a witness to their process it’s it’s a it’s it’s a revealing like so I I use a lot of tactical empathy deep listening you know these these skills that I’ve sort of honed in my clinical preparation and orientation I mean it’s all about relating and seeing the person there and I just open that up for them to explore in a safe container and space for that and that could be done but that could be done obviously oneon-one KNE to knee but where my sweet spot really lies is actually working outside with them in concert and in partnership with horses and my backyard all my trees and Forest so at least like I present an opport opportunity for them to discover who they are in in a sense of like an unguarded way because that’s what nature does for us it provides this this incredible access point whereas we can be really guarded and sort of uh shed up we could put a lot of we wear a lot of armor every day if I hope I’m not going down rabit here but like it’s it’s just like we’re so guarded against actually feeling something or showing ourselves and that’s what makes my work so powerful is that none of that is needed it’s just just giving an opportunity and an opening to explore and and let all of that armor be shedded and released gosh I can actually when you talked about your backyard the 40 acres yeah that you have in the horse and I my mind went right to that spot with like the Sun out and the trees and I thought to myself why would we not combine therapy with nature you know it’s the best form of therapy out there how cool some of our best therapists over the last 10 years in peaks in my opinion are the ones that I can look out my office window and see them walking down a path outside yeah or walking around the trail just getting some fresh air and sunshine walk and talk walk and talk yeah there’s some that really happens there absolutely oh that’s so cool and that kind of dubils into my next point something that I truly believe in is equin assisted therapy since I’ve lived in Colorado Springs I’ve become an even bigger believer in it because of all the veterans who have found healing and strength and equinity within that modality however as we talked about before the show I think there’s some people that try to actuate that modality that do it at complete and utter disservice unfortunately with the way that they show up or the way they don’t show up so I wanted you to light a passion under the viewers today and just talk about why you believe so wholeheartedly in this research in this modality and in this opportunity for people to heal with horses oh my goodness I love that sort of introduction and oh a lot of pressure a lot of pressure um well okay so I can speak from personal experience I I didn’t grow up around horses I came to this work late in life um it’s only in the last 8 10 years that horses have been an integral part of my daily life practice uh just engagement and it’s changed it’s changed my orientation on my view my world view um my practice and um the bottom line is that horses are magic and they are my spirit animal um and I had an opportunity was something that was presented in in my graduate training and there was this flyer that showed up on the on the pin board and it said come spend a day with horses and that experience changed my whole trajectory of how I was going to be a therapist in the world and I walked out into the arena and I was at uh surrounding by three horses at Liberty so that’s without any halter or any any any sort of line lead anything and it was such a powerful profound moment for me that I knew that when I walked out of that space that this was what I was going to do for the rest of my life and so that is sort of like an anecdotal experience that thousands of people have recorded it’s a qualitative example some value of how wonderful and profound being up close and personal with a thousand PB animal can be okay then there’s all this 30y year historical research and data to back that fact that being and surrounded and companioned with or joined up with an animal in the healing domain um healing and transformation occurs faster it’s longlasting it changes perspectives it changes life trajectories and recovery and is possible like you don’t have to stay in this one place with this one label if you will of like I’m always in recovery or I’m always this I’m always recovering from trauma or I’ve lived my trauma like the the it is so powerful I don’t it’s hard to put into words here but let’s see so horses have this unique ability they are they are prey animals and they survive by being in a heard they have an incredible sensient and intuitive way way of reading their environment and when humans we’re naturally Predators right but when we are challenged with a traumatic experience and we don’t have the skills or the ability or to know how to to reset ourselves we live and we walk amongst others traumatized and and I know that the work that you do you can speak to that you see this every day the people are just sort of heavy heavy yeah well all horses do is live in the present moment they they’re not thinking about yesterday they’re not thinking about tomorrow it’s about right here and now and they want to know that if you’re going to come up and be next to them are you going to be with them or are you going to be distracted and it challenges you and it brings you so quickly into the present moment it’s like instantaneous and things shift for the individual and it the horse’s presence acts as a mirror it reflects back your attitude your stance your your breath um it’s it’s all of these Nuance somatic uh results that you see and you watch an individual as as a witness to that and the work that I do I actually am not doing anything in in that in in that space like I’m noticing I’m bringing attention or awareness to what is arising in that moment and I may point that out but it’s all about processing and giving voice to that experience that that human being is that individual is having I love that that’s a lot no and it makes it makes total sense to me is last time I did equin therapy I was 22 years old I was at Cottonwood day Tucson and I was scared to death why I was scared to death of everything yeah not just the horse my existence being present holding space so I remember being like oh this isn’t for me you know and actually get chill saying that now when you get kind of eloquently describe what holding space in equin therapy can do for an individual that’s really profound and simple tool so simple to use so simple and again like I think it goes back to the this I think there’s a golden thread here that’s being connected here in our conversation because we originally started talking about this Earth thing right and there is um being able to lock in or connect in and ground ourselves it allows us to be we’re stepping into the arena of life here and so there’s a metaphor for that space that I create uh during each session it’s like you walk through the gate You observe first and then you walk in and you say are you ready you know and then you sort of enter the arena you enter the the horse world and it’s the subliminal sort of like space and then all the rest is is the magic I mean it’s just the engagement the slowness the steadiness the process and um and then things happen I mean I I’ve watched I watch
clients just taking the lead line just taking a horse and being able to to walk with the horse around the
pasture takes patience takes acceptance of like I might not know what to do but if I just put my one foot ahead in front of the other I might be able to do this and you see the body you see the body sort of like maybe he’s really stiff or crooked or whatever and all of a sudden somebody’s alignment just like you see that that sushumna that line of energy just like Elevate them they just walk taller they walk Fuller they’re more open the horse’s ears perk up the but the yeah there’s something that joins up and it’s so magical powerful and beautiful that is so wonderful in fact you know since we started with the earthing thing it might be top of mind for me to do some Equine Therapy I think that would be really cool I think I’m in a really funky spot in my life to really receive that resource um because as you’re as you’re talking about I’m like maybe that could be me maybe a horse I’ve never held a horse before I’ve only ridden a horse one time and it bucked me off it didn’t Buck me off kind of fell and bucked me off I was trying to help itself we’re going down a hill um but the mindfulness and Attunement that can come as a result of one of those sessions and maybe you have your shoes off maybe you don’t but I’m I’m I’m envisioning like really receiving Earth’s energy yeah while you’re beginning to hold space with and potentially align with this animal that could step on your head yeah right and so there I think that’s important to you for whatever reason they represent you know like I was saying that subliminal world right there’s above and below but a horse if you think about it symbolically right rides across the world um you have nightmares you think about what is that that’s a female black horse that tramples through your subconscious your dream life and what does that represent what are they riding in to your life and so to be in touch and next to this very like intellectual and instinctual ual animal that that’s all that’s pure Instinct it’s embodied right and so and they’re showing you how to be okay with that can you hold the tension of an intellectual body and an instinctual body do you can you know do you know the difference can you integrate those two and you can do that by just standing with and alongside this animal who shows you the way it’s I know I’m oversimplifying it but it’s um is a powerful effective treatment clinically tested proven process and um it’s changed so many lives and it has the potential to change thousands millions more yeah I agree especially if people can get in front of authentic and integrous providers like yourself you’re reminding me of a equin based opportunity I may have been introduced to it by a friend it’s called Mustang medicine uhhuh you familiar yeah I am a little bit differently but the I think Mustangs correct me if I’m wrong but they live more in the lyic brain right they I don’t know about that per se but I think the Mustang I mean we we our country and and in our backyard we have a lot of Mustang sanctuaries you know so they live on the land they run in their herds and they are they’ve been sort of that poster child for like can we can we break them can we tame them you hear and you see a lot of the the horse Whisperers talk about this process the Mustang medicine in particular it just reminded me a lot of what you’re doing with clients in a in a little bit of a different way but they are bringing people in beds or otherwise and doing these intensives and before you know it by the end of the intensives these humans are laying on these Mustangs on top of them isn’t that amazing these these animals that only know for the most part Mustangs fight or flight yeah um are calm to the point where you’re laying on them I mean that is just that’s what reminded me when you were talking about the work you do with clients is this Attunement this alignment this coming into embodiment and Oneness with this really huge and assuredness and confidence and and self it’s really s with a capital S you know it’s like this inner knowing that you like I’m going to be okay I can find that which is so if if that was in a pill it’d be selling off the it’d be selling out everywhere and what’s really cool about it is we want the viewers to know that it’s there and accessible for each and every one of you it is it has been such a pleasure having you on but before we go I wanted to ask you one more question you may have answered it on the front end a little bit um but for the viewers I’m I’m very in alignment with professionals passionate professionals with a tremendous amount of purpose so I find myself asking each individual that I have the opportunity to interview is like what is your overarching why why do you do this why do you fight so hard for this well I thought about that because I you know you sent me questions and I was like I want to bring about I want people to experience the awe the Beauty and the connection with feeling alive and engaged Eng with ourselves and with our our natural environment like I feel that I feel called to be a steward and to to sort of be a way shower for others along this process of discovery self-discovery so that is wonderful I I love that because there’s going to be a myriad of people that are watching the show today that are sitting there with like a six and a half out of 10 quality of life yeah and they’re like ah you know maybe sober 10 years or been in the field 10 years whatever it is and just thinking like is this it yeah want something more want something more and um you really showed the viewers today and certainly um reemphasize my passion behind healing growing together coming into community and some of the resources some of the more cost-effective resources that we have at our Disposal today and so I really appreciate you coming on thank do you have a website you’d like to share with you yeah I have I have a few but you can reach me I almost wrote that I was like she can do this yeah so if you are looking for one-on-one coaching with me you can check me out at wayfinding practice.com you can find everything in everything about me under AMD cooper.com wonderful website oh thank reads really well it’s fresh It’s like got like colors yeah thank you I appreciate that um but I think um as an access point an entry point into all of the services and programs that I do way finding practice is probably the best way to reach me okay awesome well I can’t wait to get you in front of our treatment team they’re absolutely going to love the resource that you’re creating in the community and and begin to move into so thank you so much for coming on today I love I loved your energy and I uh this was just so fun for me awesome and yeah I’m looking forward to learning more and being part of it I cannot wait we we have to have you on again for a 2.0 after I come down to get some Equine Therapy I I want to be in that space on the 40 acres I want to see if my mind’s eye is accurate we can walk Barefoot in the trees oh that would be so cool yeah well thank you so much Amity until next time thank you all for joining us today please find us on all of your podcast Outlets Instagram Facebook podcast Apple music Spotify you name it until next time peace [Music] you

In this episode, Chris Burns invites Peaks Recovery Center’s new Clinical Director, Dr. Marissa Prince, to the show! Dr. Prince shares her incredible journey, both professionally and personally, that led her to Peaks and structures how she approaches life every day. From sharing the value in everyone, what makes the PRC special, and Dr. Prince’s community engagement, this episode holds so much wonderful information and shines a light on our Clinical Director.

[Music] hey everybody and welcome to another amazing episode of Finding Peaks Yours Truly president founder and CEO Christopher Michael Burns so grateful to be joined by our new Clinical Director Dr Marissa Prince thank you for joining us today thanks for having me I’m excited to be here absolutely this is a new season of Peaks a new energy coming into 2024 and Marissa has been on staff for about a month now almost yeah almost four weeks now and she’s already got into the process and really informing a lot of the things we do and so I just want to introduce the community to one of our most dynamic professionals and newest employees Marissa so let’s get right into it okay um one of the things that really compelled me early on specifically in the interview process was It was kind of wrapped around your why and how you got into this field some of your family experience early be on some of that developmental process family history and then moving into kind of this professional life and the goals that you’ve set and walked through and um you’ve just you’ve been in so many different places and situations and scenarios of which you’ve drawn experience from and I just want the viewers to learn a little bit more about you know what what motivates Dr Prince why did you get into this and at such a young age been able to pursue and be a part of so much absolutely so um I’m a first generation American first generation college student my father’s from Ethiopia and my mother is Puerto Rican um and so my father fled Ethiopia um fleeing the genocide of the fascist government and so him and my Mom married and eventually separated um in my early childhood and he didn’t have a model of what a father was um his father was killed by the fascist government in Ethiopia um and so my father kind of dissipated out of my life after that and I was left with a single mom and a little sister and so my mom worked hard to show us hey get an education uh follow a good path and I worked even harder to find a different path and so in my teens I fought my way through Colorado Springs schools um six of them and I ended up graduating out of the 7eventh high school but I was always intelligent I I always carried I always did well in school I just like to hit people sometimes yeah turns out sometimes it’s a coping mechm you and um and I had dealt with colorism in my community and and um so I think it was kind of this oh I’m going to hurt you first before you could hurt me and um my mom looked at me when I was much older I was 18 I was a teen mom so I had my first child very very early and she said you’re going to die you’re not going to live to c21 and at that point I said there’s no way there’s no I can’t leave a child behind so I enrolled in school for an undergraduate in political science um I was going to be a lawyer because I said what can I do to change the lives of people who were like me and I thought high-profile defense attorney I’m gonna be rich and save all of the people like me and and as I started my my education I had a class with um Ronald Smith he was my first psychology professor and I said this is what I need to do and then of course as I progressed through my um undergraduate I said I’m going to be in the ba for the FBI and chased down serial killers and then I remembered I didn’t like to run that running thing so I went to graduate school and got um a few Masters degrees um one of them being in clinical mental health and at that point um I started to teach and um I continued to pursue a career or I’m sorry my education uh to get a PhD in Psychology um so I chose to be who I needed uh and to provide assistance to the individuals like me um in different Realms so although I did not suffer from substance abuse I still suffered from something else and so I needed to help those who were suffering I love that Dr Prince and thank you so much for sharing with me and and some of the viewers that experience you know it’s it’s interesting too because I would consider you to be somebody in long-term recovery um from just a disconnected system of which you were brought into right and um I think it really speaks volumes to the viewers today because a lot of the folks that are coming into our program now they don’t struggle with substances they have family systems generational disconnectedness and I think it’s important to mention that you can find healing for that as well and here at Peaks and one of the other questions that I have for you is what do you think professionally some of the other things you’ve done professionally has prepared you to have such what I would consider to be at least I’ve seen over the last four weeks equinity in the face of Behavioral Health crisis yeah um so I have worked a range of jobs in in my career um in Psychology I started off um working with kids with autism and so I was a behavioral interventionist and that’s what I did and as I progressed I have always kind of steered in the path of severe and persistent what we would refer to a severe and persistent mental health whether inpatient outpatient so I’ve worked just right up the street from us um and served many of the many of the displaced individuals in Colorado Springs and then I had I would say the pleasure of gaining information and working in the prison system and I worked from Maximum Security all the way down to pretty low security and maximum I was adeg I I worked CSP um some some pretty hardcore individuals um but they weren’t lost right and so and from there I’ve worked at one of the largest facilities uh inpatient rehabilitation facilities in the nation one of the largest in the state for sure um and as you know I I was a seven to seven person um and I I even was like why do I need an office yeah we’re here I’m never there yeah and so um I have never wanted to be complacent and so when I came to Peaks um I told I told our HR person I’ll see you at 7 what and she said no you don’t need to be here I thought we were doing this and I was like oh I was ready you know and so just that vast experience and then I was a professor um for almost a decade um I have I counted this morning right when I was coming in here over 3,000 students over that time period I’ve had and many of them today are clinicians in our state that’s cool that’s so cool I I love that you mentioned the death row thing that was one of the things I brought up you know or the team brought up said how do we know when you’re stressed he’s like yeah probably won’t see it very often because of the situations scenarios and that I’ve been a part of one of the stories that you chatted with me about on death row is cu I have a tough time with the punitive direction in which our legal system goes for a lot of different reasons because people are struggling with mental health issues um and we talked about believing that everybody has value we believe in healing for even some of the most worse heinous of crimes and you tell a story of uh people that were on 23-hour lockdown where you would just go and hold space right and talk what why’ you do that so something that we spoke about is if you treat people like animals they act like animals but if you treat them like humans they will be humans and 23 we don’t even it’s illegal to lock a dog up in a cage for 23 hours a day but we do it to humans across this nation every day and just to have a conversation I and I I’ve learned so much from inmates um from these people who are locked up across the United States just hearing them talk and and I’ve learned information about the law I’ve learned how to make tamali out of chicken uh chicken um with the Doritos and Stu Doritos yeah Doritos and dried chicken like the the meat steak the cheese wig I mean and you know and the I something I’ve always said to people is they like to call us us individuals with these degrees essential people of society but all I know how to do is read a book really well I can’t fix a society that will Crum I don’t know how to go outside and fix the ground right the concrete so am I essential or are those people who have learned to survive more essential than me yeah that’s a big that’s a big deal and I I love that you say that because it really shines a light on like value for individuals and humans and I think for whatever reason in our culture we’ve displaced that and L others to believe that they’re less valuable through the way that we communicate with our systems appr and a lot of times in my opinion the systems just need a bit of restructuring so they can speak clearly to people’s value so that they too can see the light at the end of the tunnel of healing and growth otherwise to your point it makes a tremendous amount of sense I acted quite a bit like an animal until uh I got some people around me that spoke truth into me which was light and love through the recovery community so um I appreciate you sharing that of course uh with being The Clinical Director of the team what are you most EXP excited about heading into your second month with us so I am so excited to review the curriculum myself and our executive director will be doing that next week and we are going to start moving things around we are a breast of new curriculum and uh being on top of our game in this field and so start implementing more advanced more upto-date curriculum while we’re here I love that too and it’s it’s just really nice because there’s what we have in place right now has been pretty functional um for a handful or a variety of people I think a couple opportunities to integrate some skill building and some insight on that side of things specifically not not just in our impatient program but the outpatients of levels of care and really tying those together right and marrying them in a really efficient way probably for the first time I’m really really excited about that because we’ve definitely had those curriculum meetings but really being sure that we’re like carrying out this mission and vision in an appropriate way in a more connected way into the future not only satiates the team and allows people to settle there but the client Mill you yeah as well so absolutely yeah I love that one of the reasons that I really connected with you initially is your willingness to be distrustful when things need disrupting right you’re very I would say more pragmatic in that regard you come in and you assess things and you’re willing to um say that doesn’t look right and let’s make a change um where does that come from how do how do you form such good edges you have great boundaries uh you speak so clearly to the team and you do this thing that I really struggle with which is like say no and people still trust you right um so something uh that I have
always said um was you should never be the smartest person in the room cuz then you’re in the wrong room and I heard that phrase when um when I was in an undergraduate program and a professor that I highly regarded um said that he said if you’re the smartest person in the room you’re in the wrong room and he said question everything be curious because we don’t we don’t want you to be complacent so that is something that I’ve done throughout my career is I’m never the smart SM EST person in the room and and when I thought about it as an undergraduate student I said you are the smart he had like four phds I was like you Wen Prett sure and but and I talked to him about it and he said I’m never the smartest person in the room he said you have so much more to offer me than I have right now um and this man also learned to live off of Tire refrigerators like he had no electricity in his house he was just such a cool guy yeah but when I go into a room I easily build rapport because I can easily relate to individuals on a personal level and then I carry myself with my own boundaries and so when I present them I’m going to present them kindly um but also I’m going to present them in a way that hey we need to get this done um so I stay curious I I love that too and curious is a catchy word for me lately I’m really really liking it but what what that does is it allows cuz I can remember in the early parts of my career and shoot the vast majority of our team at least 50% of them are not graduate level students aren’t doctors and so what you do when you walk into a room and and you you assume I’m not the smartest person in the room because what you said was it doesn’t always have to do with this educational s people have experiences that they’ve lived that are really really valuable and that matter a lot I’ve seen that with our culture you’ve been able to walking not just in a clinical room but the residential side and people feel valued in their interactions and um I love that it seems to have permeated from that Professor into your dayto day absolutely every day I walk in and I I think this person has so much more to offer me than I have to offer them and I appreciate every single person um I as I said I was I was raised by someone my entire family I was the first one to go to college um I was the first one to finish and so I I know that my grandfather who had a GED um and served in the military was vastly more experienced in life than I was and he gave me some great advice in life so yeah that’s really really cool I love that you had that initial kind of human family generational experience it created this why and you move into this professional opportunity and you have so much compassion and empathy and insight because of that um which really creates an opportunity for you to be a really well-rounded professional and we’re just so grateful to have you at Peaks and the clients we grateful to have you the team you can tell since you’ve been there um even though we’re getting to work it’s like people are settling and feeling connected with and um a lot of that has to do with you so really really appreciate that oh thanks absolutely uh what is your experience in the time that you spent at PRC in your opinion in your opinion what makes Peaks recovery centers so special everything yeah everything so I walked into a room for an interview with yourself um and our cgo and I sat in this room from day one and felt not just heard but listen to and that from your perspective you’re an owner who am I you know who am I this person coming in for an interview but I felt appreciated and I felt listened to and as I’ve been here for a month I see that our clients are treated the same way they get individualized care they’re not just heard they’re listened to and what is best for the client is followed and I appreciate that and that’s not true for every um place that I’ve worked and it’s not true for every facility out there MH oh that’s awesome yeah thank you for that it’s it’s really indicative a lot of times like how you treat your clients is probably pretty similar to the way you treat your team you know I love that you connected with that because that’s a really important aspect of what we do and how we do it not just with the individuals we serve but the team members and I always like to bring this up on the show but when we started the program 10 years ago it was the Theodore Roosevelt quote that says nobody cares what you know until they know that you care yeah it’s one thing to do it with clients but to allow professionals to experience that same energy absolutely is really really important to us so I’m grateful that you experienced that yeah uh lastly um Dr Prince doesn’t only only work at Peaks and guide our team and our clients into healing um but she does a lot of work in the community um I want to allow the viewers to get to know a little bit of uh some of your causes that you’re passionate about and what you’re doing in the community to make this world great one day at a time oh thanks so when I I came in to Peaks one of the things that I informed everyone is I said hey I need a few days off a month because it something I’m so passionate about is to dismantle the Cradle to prison Pipeline and I do this through building leadership skills with youth in our with youth in our community um and so Peaks has been so gracious to let me take those days to go to and serve over 300 students in Colorado Springs and help them build those leadership skills um help them build financial literacy and all of these different things currently in my car I have 50 bags to go deliver to foster care students um acoss Colorado Springs just up the street um because we complete service learning projects so just as though I am helping those students they are helping their own communities that’s R yeah cradle the prison talk to me just a little bit before what is that what what have you what were you seeing there is this like is it family systems that are incarcerated or is it absolutely what is the I think it’s a community as a whole so what we see um we see this line and it’s often called the school prison pipeline um but we know that it starts way before the school systems get in um impoverish and minority students are more likely to enter the criminal justice system than any other person in the United States um they’re also likely to get harsher sentences um specifically related to drugs um and alcohol um violations and so often times implicit bias is seen as this child of color is the Diller but this child of of um Caucasian or white descent is an addict and so they and there are Judges here in Colorado Springs who have said that that that is how they thought um so it starts when we think of poverty and it starts epigenetically before a child is even born um their risk of being in prison goes up tremendously and so if we can disrupt that um they are more likely to complete and something with the organization that I volunteer and work with um 100% of our students have not entered the criminal justice system and 90% of our students after completing our program say they will pursue higher education or military service wow yeah that is absolutely incredible and I kind of got like chills when you said that I was like wow that that is changing the world one day at a time I think we talk about it a lot and we kind of throw it out there but it’s if you show up and put that best foot forward we have this authentic opportunity to make serious incredible and identifiable change in this world absolutely and I I I love that I love your cause I love your mission I love the passion behind it I love that we have you here at Peaks now and I’m looking forward to fulfilling our mission and vision um with a great professional but an even better human Dr Prince everybody thank you excited to be here absolutely catch us next time on all of your favorite podcast locations Instagram Facebook Spotify wherever you get your podcast until next time my people peace [Music]

In this episode, Chris Burns invites a very special guest, Dr. Michael Pierce from the Human Condition Podcast as well as Human Condition Lab, to speak on all things healing. Dr. Pierce shares his personal story, industry insight, and professional experience over the past few decades. This episode has ample information on vital topics, from biochemistry and the pharmacological debate to deconstructing the key to healing. For more information on Dr. Michael Pierce, check out the Human Condition Podcast or humanconditionlab.com.

[Music] hey everybody and welcome to another amazing and exciting episode of Finding Peaks your host Chris Burns president founder and CEO here in Colorado Springs so grateful to be joined by Dr Michael Pierce Kyo practor also a neurologist joining us from Dubai today virtually thank you for coming on Dr Pierce really appreciate it thank you you got it you got it Dr Michael Pierce has really championed um something that’s very near and dear to my heart and that’s walking with humans um in a very intentional way in and out of suffering and into healing in a lot of different ways and so he was introduced to me by a colleague of mine and just couldn’t wait to get him on the show and talk a little bit about the biomedical model some of the stuff that he’s doing with clients and groups to uh inform healing um before we get into that I just wanted to allow you you to chat with the viewers a little bit um give some insight into your background and why you started the journey to help people heal sure well you know when I was a when I was a little kid I had a a number of health problems and my family went to the standard doctors you know in the in the 70s and they sought out all these different methods and tried a bunch of drugs and nothing worked and then my grandfather stepped in and my mother stepped in and said hey let’s let’s try some natural stuff let’s try an Elimination Diet so I did an Elimination Diet I got better and I I didn’t need medicine I didn’t need drugs and then as my family Grew From kind of a standard American diet a sad diet uh we evolved into you know my my parents became interested in um you know breastfeeding and natural natural health natural labor and delivery my mom became a l League leader and a natural birth coach and I grew up in that environment of lay people women helping women solve problems you know they were solving problems about milk and let down and nurs Ing and and inability to nurse and and and at that time and even today um the the hospitals would say to people on the surface oh yes we think breastfeeding is the greatest thing to do however if you got a little problem we’re just nudge you over here toward a bottle and they would always do that they would always find a reason and and L league and other types of groups were able to get women to understand that there’s very little reason for you to need a bottle most of the time you can you can take care of it yourself and and if you can’t a wet nurse is the best choice way better than formula way better than a bottle and I don’t have to tell you about Nestle I don’t have to tell you about the boycotts I don’t have to tell you about the hundreds of thousands of people killed in in in in Africa and Asia by that company so um that’s how I got into it and I I thought I wanted to be an astronaut or a firefighter a cop or or you know an athlete and then I ended up in Chiropractic and I ended up in natural medicine um because of an injury in college so that’s that’s really my story pretty pretty much in a nutshell yeah no I I really love that and it it blew my mind that I was talking to you about a book that I was reading uh the biology of belief by Bruce Lipton PhD and you were like oh it’s my professor at Stanford at Palmer Palmer Palmer he was at Palmer in Iowa the the the Chiropractic the leading chiropractic school at the time yes he’s an amazing amazing Professor uh returning professor and um his books are amazing his concepts are amazing quite a guy yeah absolutely and with respect to what we do here at PE obviously treating you we treat all types of suffering but most certainly uh mental health issues and uh disconnectedness and Trauma one of the one of the biggest things that comes up for us in our milu with the clients that we serve especially on the substance use side is kind of this fight or flight response and um you have a brilliant podcast called The Human Condition um that I’ve just loved and we talked a little bit before the show it’s just anything and everything that ails the average American is on this podcast with a seemingly simple way through and so I wanted to talk a little bit about I was drawn to that podcast in particular and I think the viewers with respect to peak’s recovery would like to hear a little bit about that how does that work well there’s a couple of approaches um there there’s these PODS of people that have been doing things since you know time and Memorial and they haven’t talked to each other and there’s kind of probably three groups the first one was led by Jay gunman around 1972 he was a guy that was doing Nur feedback and he said you know you know what let’s just figure out people’s EEG and let’s do neuro feedback to help with addiction and let’s let’s see what happens with addiction and so he did some neuro feedback and you found that there were two general types um the groups divided into about twoth thirds and onethird of of either problems with Alpha problems uh Alpha problems or or problems with the with the anterior singulate in in the frontal part of the brain and he did neuro feedback and largely fixed them and then sought Federal funding almost got it and then it was denied and so that was the beginning of of really highly successful neur feedback treatment in in that little insular Silo for addiction the other the next one that comes along was a biochemistry one and that was related to a guy named William Walsh William Walsh is in Chicago to this day he’s a biochemistry professor and he doesn’t do mental health he just does biochemistry and lab testing and diets and supplements and he’s been treating addiction and other types of mental illness for 50 years using lab tests and so it’s not to say that everyone who has an addiction is only a biochemistry patient but it’s to say that if you treat addiction with the 12 steps for example in counseling and you ignore their biochemistry you’re probably going to have recidivism rates that are you know the natural average and you’re not going to get as well as you might and then the third group would be a functional Neurology Group and and diet group that looks at ketogenic diets and carnivore diets and and neuro rehab and that’s the American Chiropractic neurology board um which I serve on and that’s a group that takes care of um you know natural neurology approaches basically gosh that’s that’s that’s really really cool to even even conceptualize in opportunity since 1974 we we we’ve been doing this thing I just heard or for the first time in my recovery about nearly 16 years I just got hooked up to bio and neuro feedback you know eight weeks ago and I had people had touched on it but not with respect to hey there’s this thing that could potentially introduce into your nervous system for the first time you know for a guy like me I’ve been all gas no break my whole life you know and sure so I always tell you know and Dr Jen and some of these folks that are doing this biuro and HRV feedback it’s like we’re just going to introduce a breaking system and so now and I said so what is the RX Dr Jen what do I do you know is it a pill is there something crazy that I need to inform myself with she’s like no low and slow diaphragmatic breathing just 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in night I’ll do I’ve been doing that for six weeks and I have noticed diabolical changes with a with in with respect to my ability to
calm the nervous system that is a beautiful thing yeah because with the fight ORF flight response that’s what we’re what what we’re noticing a lot with the folks that struggle with substances and high degrees of trauma is this cortisol habituation and so being able to really introduce something like that is is phenomenal why do you think we don’t hear more about this in the addiction or more I should say more connectedly the mental health space why why aren’t people seeing this from the rooftops Dr Pierce well I mean I I admire you guys as counselors you are the Frontline people and you should be the Frontline people to deal with this issue you should be the ones that do the intake you should be the ones that hold the people’s hands and and wipe the tears and and dry the eyes and and do that work and and you are and and we stand kind of behind the scenes we Chiropractic neurologists and and people that do EEG and neuro feedback kind of stand in the sidelines to help you with the the the you know the the biochemical part the lab testing the physical examination the digestive stuff all that you know skin disorders how does skin have to do with it you know those are things that are out of your scope of practice but I think that the real reason is is because we were not allowed to integrate originally your profession and my profession was allowed to integrate and we were able to do that stuff but around 1911 there was a a real push that was done um that was called the flexner report and the flexner report was a report that looked at medical schools and it showed by an educator named Abraham flexner where he looked at the medical schools and said basically the medical schools in the United States are fraudulent and many of them were many of them were diploma Mills but unfortunately they used the fact that there was some diploma Mills that were legitimately needing to be shut down in in a in a massive coup to take over all these medical schools in the medical industrial complex and it happened in 1911 1912 1913 and that was the that was the really the big move that really restricted what psychologists and counselors could do in their scope of practice what dentists could do what nature paths could do and everybody except chiropractors was taken down by that and the reason chiropractors work was because the founders of Chiropractic the Palmer were uh Rich because they had radio stations they they were responsible for radio stations in that time of of of the of the world and so they were able to fund and pay for the expansion of Chiropractic and keep it a separate and distinct profession so because Chiropractic stayed a separate and distinct profession it remained immune although we gave up the right to go to go to medical school and get hospital privileges and prescribe and do surgery however we still got full physician rights the ability to diagnose and treat any disease but we were tied and we could not our hands were tied and we could not do prescriptions drugs and surgery and that I think is the foundation of what happened to both you and me yeah wow that’s an incredible amount of information that going back to 1911 and and it makes a lot of sense they’re like yeah we’ll allow the Chiropractics to do their thing but they can’t inform any of this prescribing or any of this stuff we’re doing the dayto day and to your point point I remember when I was growing up as a kid and my parents would lead me to believe that you know there’s these chiropractors and they this kind of woo woo stuff over here um you know we used to have a Dr Jarrett in Prescot Arizona when I first started in the field sometimes we would refer individuals over to him and they were like you know oh it’s just Dr Jared I would imagine now I think I’ve mentioned this before as well I would imagine that his books are full and he is in alignment with where we’re at today and where I think a lot of this energy is coming is people are tired of being stuck people are tired of being sick and they want to find Solutions and you know it’s it goes back to when I sat down with my primary care doc 15 years ago when I got into recovery and he said oh you have hypertension and I said yeah I do and he said I know why your dad had hypertension and I said yeah my dad did have hypertension but since he didn’t ask a good follow-up question I didn’t give him a good follow-up answer and I went on the losartan train only to learn that there was ways to mitigate stress introduce produce good nutrition and alleviate that hypertension just amazing yeah there was no heart disease and there was no profession of Cardiology before President Eisenhower it was caused by diet in the United States I mean Parkinson’s disease toxic chemical exposure there’s so many things small poox uh polio these things were caused by DDT these things were caused by chemicals in the environment I’m not to not to say that there isn’t other typ of problems out there but this was a large coverup by a lot of toxins in the environment and it was controlled by a media that was just as controlled then as it is today yeah yeah yeah I mean it’s music to my ears I really appreciate that insight and I think the viewers will really you know when you get to zoom out and see the timeline very clearly you’re like whoa it makes a lot of sense where we sit today in 2024 and why it really feels like this uphill battle that we need a mountaineering team to get up you know but that’s what absolutely that’s what we’re doing today is we’re introducing and bringing to the table you know Dr Michael Pierce and some of these really extraordinary professionals that have been moving in the direction of healing for the multitude of their career um I noticed on your uh website or on the podcast um that the majority of your resources for health and wellness exclude you said it earlier you don’t prescribed medication exclude any sort of pharmacological approach why well um the root cause of most things are uh usually some mechanism that does not require drugs if a person needs drugs urgently upfront I’m okay with that but my goal would be as every pharmaceutical textbook in the world says to get them off of them within three months if you read every pharmaceutical textbook ever written it says that most medications are not designed to be used for longer than three months wow um even insulin insulin type two diabetes is completely reversible um so the concept that that that most people don’t need medication is really a foreign one medicine is a genie that’s been let out of a bottle and we need to stuff it back in because the scope of of modern medicine is really small it should be absolute horrible surgeries for terrible catastrophic car events and disfiguring uh disfiguring industrial events where you cut off an arm or you slash something through somewhere and you needs surgery you need heroic interventions but we’ve we’ve allowed the heroic interventions of medicine to invade EV into chronic life conditions that they have no business being in they should stay in their Lane and they should stay in that era of of of very very serious illness in fact I want to Elbow my way into mental illness and say that most mental health crises really do not require a a medical intervention the the history shows that there’s a lot of ways that we can mitigate crises mental health crises with natural methods and not necessarily have to beat them over the head with some kind of of psychotropic drug and I I can cite all kinds of doctors that are psychiatrists more qualified than me to talk about that and we’ll do that another time but there are sources that are really powerful psychiatrists that are that are saying the same message that I got it from yeah no no that’s that’s brilliant I I actually want to even reference uh the biology of belief and when they when they talk about introducing these medications and how powerful the placebos were and the only reason that they even got um any sort of data on the side of the people that were actually taking the real medicine was because of the side effects that came before any sort of benefit and so oh yeah those numbers are so skewed and frankly the biology of belief really speaks to the people that believed that they were taking the drug had this change this this this uh this healing if you will and so um I’m I’m really really in alignment with that and it turns out you know when I when I got into recovery 16 years ago it was medication after medication it was stratera it was lartin for my blood pressure it was cakil for this and um today I find myself laying in the grass before I go to work with sunshine in my face good nutrition in my belly and I could not feel better from a quality of life perspective good well you know the the clear viw sanitarium in California and Iowa did those things in the 1930s and 40s and 50s the um the spears the spears Hospital in Colorado did it before it was closed in the 50s so um these these these me methods existed and they were part of an actual ecosystem of care that was expunged wow by the industry so they existed they were part of our of our heritage in the United States wow that that’s absolutely incredible and then you get to see you know families on my side of things Dr Pierce where I’m just thinking of a case that we have right um a couple months ago and there’s this individual who came in um from the East Coast she came in from some depression treated her she went into the community got swallowed up by the biomed model she comes back a year two years later on 16 medications you know 100 pounds overweight and the family looks at me and just says you know what happened here and and I see it over and over I’m thinking of a young man who was in our program six months ago I’m thinking of a mature adult last year who was a physician who came into our program who quite literally just got swamped by this biomedical model and it really chews people up and spits them out the other side in a casket I mean yeah and they’re not measuring it no they’re not measuring it no not at all and then you have these this pharmacological approach again that really now we’re taking medication to treat symptoms of other medications and it’s just really really bad and your point about all the phac pharmacological textbooks um speaking to clearly 3 months of medication as a stepping stone potentially and then getting off that was I got chills when you said that because I had never most of the mental health medications that you deal with had eight weeks of study that’s it wow most of the medications were studied for eight weeks no longer wow that’s incredible yeah so excited to be moving into these opportunities but again you know when you are a provider and you’re trying to do something like access to care and quality of care it’s this real difficult thing to do because the access side says do the thing that doesn’t work and you have to do it or we’re not going to pay you and that’s the vast majority of Americans are trying to pay for their healing for their mental health through a benefit that really is more despondent to shareholders than it is individuals and members you’re right you’re so right yeah it’s it’s a sad thing how do you see longterm Dr Pierce is it is it through having meaningful conversations that matter with the people that matter the most and really getting people at the table to inform healing and um change one day at a time um how do we do this how do we make continue to penetrate this model in our very holistic and mindful way well I’m a I’m a root cause guy I’m I’m a kind of an engineer at heart and um my training and My Philosophy is to go for the root cause and the root caus is really at its core is inflation if we if we haven’t addressed inflation what happens with inflation is that people get squeezed by every side they get squeezed by the cost of of Education the cost of housing the cost of food all these things are avoidable and preventable and they’re usually caused the root cause of it is inflation and that is a money printing process so what we have to do is we have to give people hope and help them understand how they can take care of themselves and how they can do it as cheaply as possible but most importantly we have to make sure that they’re not so squeezed that they’re absolutely dependent on some benefit as you so rightly said they’re stuck that that they can’t pay for it because they’re squashed and if that benefit doesn’t pay for it if that insurance doesn’t give them a return on on their payment they’re screwed because they don’t have 400 bucks to rub together if an emergency happens so if we can provide cheaper care and if we can provide care that involves a little more involvement of the family and and and switches from technology and medicine to to home labor then we can figure out ways that you can do this stuff at home if we can convert the the price of healthare of Mental Health Care from very expensive and very technical to very cheap and very labor-based which is what’s what you do it’s how you eat it’s your discipline it’s your habits if we can convert that over then it won’t matter what happens with inflation it won’t matter what happens with the economy it won’t H people will be able to take care of themselves regardless of the of the economic environment and political environment that they live in yeah that that actually hits really close to home I was sitting with my business partner the other day and he said yeah I said you got to go see uh so and so you know over here it was a cash pay situation and he’s like I found someone with my insurance over here and I said I’ve done the research for you buddy it’s over here you know but to your point introducing the viewers to this really cost effective potential opportunity much different than what they’re walking through on the biomedical side Bruce lipton’s book often speaks to in a very broad way the most important thing for individuals is environment right yeah and and and so how do we speak to that environment you know and being connected within that environment and I want to say there was studies showing that isolation and disconnectedness was one of the worst things for humans Point Blank end of story and so if we can begin to reinform that environment good quality relationship sunlight good healthy ecosystem helps humans heal in a way doesn’t it yeah oh yeah well if you think about the licensing regulations once again you’ve got a you’ve got a restrictive system coming in and saying you can’t help others unless you have a license well wait a minute we’re not talking about practicing medicine we’re talking about just people helping each other so there’s got to be as you said a community way of people helping each other and I’ve seen seen patients even before they’re fully better they get inspired enough that they want to go out and help somebody else and they’re not even better yet and so if if they could be empowered to go out and and and give the good message the good word to other people about what they can do without having to have a license and of course without practicing diagnosis and treatment but just just in a coaching model just helping people understand mechanisms and steps that they can do that would change that would change a lot of what’s going on in in Denver and Colorado Springs for sure yeah definitely it almost feels like to your point the biomedical model has created this need for instant gratification um and when when you tell me something you know if I zoom out 16 years ago and I’m sitting in front of Dr Michael Pearce he’s like all right Chris we’re just going to get you a good Community around you and some sunlight on your face I’m like Dr Pierce I’m dying this isn’t going to work but I think there’s been too much emphasis on do this one thing and get this experience or this solution and it’s just not the way that he works it’s a multifaceted approach that speaks to physical mental emotional you know all of the things and so um I the viewers have to be ecstatic to hear especially for their loved ones who potentially are struggling that we get can change from the outside in and the inside out and really provide a quality of life not just for us our family systems but our loved ones that are that are struggling this is just amazing amazing information yeah it’s the patients often ask um well even if they don’t ask I try to help them understand how did how did you get into this bloody big mess and and that that understanding of the ideology the formation of their condition is is how they’ll get out of it and until they understand how they got here they won’t understand how they’re going to get out of it yeah and really really speaking life into that timeline and um what I love about your approach and we’ll kind of um wrap a bow around it here what I love about your approach is it it says to humans that you have the key to your healing right it’s not some wild thing off in the closet we got to go search for you have the light inside and somebody has told you or wrapped around it a blanket so that you can’t see it we want to expose that and allow you to be empowered in your healing Journey which is so much more refreshing than when I got into recovery 15 16 years ago and they were like you have this disease it’s called addiction you’ll have it the rest of your life it’s an allergy let’s speak to the book that was written in 1935 by the doctor’s opinion that actually isn’t even valid anymore may you find this one day at a time and I’m like oh my gosh I’m 22 years old this is I can’t do this right so I I love the light that you shine and that the life that you breathe in to the clients that you serve in the community that says that not only can we do this we can do it better and you have greatness living inside you I just think that’s extraordinary thanks Chris you got it Dr Pierce um we’ll leave the viewers with this I know we talked about on the front end kind of disrupting the industry through quality of care I think your your podcast Again The Human Condition really speaks to that in a very authentic meaningful and educational way is there anything you want the viewers to know maybe people that are out there struggling with their mental health that have been stuck in the biomedical model maybe families that have spent you know 500,000 a million dollars on treatment are coming in and saying we give up yeah when when when they come in they’re tapped out and so we’ve got two free ebooks on my my website that people can get for just giving their email and and signing up there there’s no no obligation at all no no cost at all ever um you can get an ebook on on elimination diets which is the way to start in mental health and another ebook on how to talk to your doctor about new diagnoses and questions that you’ve got and you can get both of those instantly just by going on Human Condition lab.com human condition.com I love that Dr Michael Pierce is bringing up cost-effective strategies to find healing and then he’s got two books on his website that are absolutely free for the viewers and that’s how you get started thank you so much Dr Pierce for coming on today joining us from Dubai late evening it’s been phenomenal I know the viewers are going to really connect with this information and uh you’ve created a lot of hope for us today so thank you so much sir well thank you for all your work and all you’ve built Chris thank you I appreciate it until next time folks peace [Music] my

In this episode, Chris Burns brings Tara Woodson, our Activities Director, to the show to share her knowledge on connecting our minds to our bodies. Tara brings valuable information on how important movement and breath work can be, not only in a time of recovery and chaos but as a general tool for every day! From mindful breath work to client testimonies of feeling safe in their bodies, this episode is a must-listen for a holistic approach to life.

[Music] hey everybody and welcome to another exciting episode of Finding Peaks Yours Truly president founder and CEO Chris Burns joined today by our activities director Tara Woodson so grateful to have you on the show a thank you I’m happy to be here absolutely this has been a show uh quite frankly that I’ve been really looking forward to uh it’s a really dynamic thing that we do at Peaks that I think is really atypical um in our um field and that is actually getting people up and out of the group chair it’s a concept that when I was in treatment I would have loved uh to kind of lean into but it wasn’t like top of mind for a lot of people but the idea that people are walking through a tough weighted intense curriculum something like grief for identity and purpose and relationships this idea of mindfulness comes up um as well as ambulating and I just want I can’t cannot wait to talk with you about that today so thanks for joining us yeah so happy to be here absolutely so why did you start doing yoga initially like what was that about was there an inflection point in your life where it presented itself maybe tell the viewers a little bit about that yeah yeah and honestly it was something that I kind of Ed as just a workout right like it was very Western and then I started going to therapy in my 20s and they’re like well where do you feel that in your body and I’m like what what are you guys talking about feel it in my body I literally had no idea cuz I just you don’t know what you don’t know I was so disassociated from my body and so then they started leaning me into a more healing version of yoga which was slow and intentional and so I started doing it I was like they would cue like feel this in the back of your leg and then I’d be like oh I like you know I do feel that and I was like oh my gosh this is the most beautiful practice because not now I’m have embodiment where I can actually use my body for more than just this machine that gets me to A and B it’s like this beautiful sensory where I get more connected to life and so after I started going to therapy and doing yoga as part of a healing practice I was like oh my gosh everyone has to do this yeah that’s huge like what did it maybe you can talk to the viewers a little bit about like that that mindbody connection because for so many years for me I mean been in recovery 15 years for the vast majority at least 10 or 11 years those things were wildly disconnected yeah and so what is the importance of bringing that together and what can people expect to feel in that right right it’s absolutely so important to bring the body with the mind right like so I always tell the clients or just anyone in life we tend to go so fast that we don’t notice these signals our body is giving us all the time and a lot of times we’ll get to a level 10 when really we’ve been having these Body Sensations that we just missed because we are so disassociated so when we give ourselves that time to become Mindful and connect to the body and be embodied then we get to witness those signals and be like oh my gosh I’m I’m getting overwhelmed right right now and like let me pull away for a minute before I get to anxiety or before I get to a place where I don’t want to get out of bed you know so um I think that embodiment is essential for our mental health that’s so unique too I don’t remember those types of questions getting asked to me when I was in treatment what are you seeing like you know for the clients that you get to work with and and Tera does raiki and sound B healing and yoga and got a plethora mindfulness based resources but what do you be what do you see when clients come in as far as disregulation and what is um not not NE necessarily the benefits but what are you seeing as far as when those clients are able to connect those two things oh gosh and that that’s when that happens it’s like the most beautiful experience like I’m just so grateful for Peaks that they are willing to add this layer to treatment right so this energetics and the movement and the mindfulness because I’ll have clients that will like start just crying in the yoga in the yoga class and they’re just like I have never been present with my body before and then they just are breaking down and it’s like this you know beautiful thing to witness that they are starting to feel that beautiful connection to the body again um that’s just one example but there’s so many examples of them being able to calm their nervous system too just with the breath work and ways that they never would be able to do that before yeah right yeah that’s that’s really big and key too like I wonder sometimes it’s it’s like you know what insurance pays for and doesn’t but like these are cost effective resources oh my gosh yeah and so I’m like looking down I’m like well can I all right so I can breathe that’s free we can do that we can do y I love the mindfulness side of things because the resources can be on all of our tool belts oh for sure absolutely and it’s so accessible you know a lot of times when there I iqe breath with them every day and I have a different like I have a curriculum right and so they’ll do this breath work and I’ll have them do it every day and it’s the same one so that they build the practice of it and I’m like I know it seems repetitive but honestly when you’re at a 10 and if you haven’t been practicing and you’re someone’s like just do some breathing they’re going to be like are you kidding me like now I’m 11 right yep exactly and so if we’re doing this practice at a regulated nervous system then when someone asks you to breathe when you’re at a 10 you’re going to be able to utilize that tool because you’ve been doing it when you’re regulated right and so then you’re starting to get more present come out of the emotion the frontal lobe comes back on and it’s like okay and this is a tool belt just by using our diaphragm it’s the why this thing yeah that’s really incredible too especially with like substance use clients right because if I have a craving you know I have a craving that comes up generally speaking those the last minute and a half to two minutes can I get mindful within that craving yep and then I think when at least what I’ve seen is when people can become Mindful and present within the craving the craving seems to move because the craving oftentimes is stuck in what eer tol quotes oftentimes as psychological time right the future or the past and so allowing that just from a substance use side of things I had you know when I first got sober 15 years ago I was like there’s two things that can get between you and a drink I’m like what is that and they said God or another alcoholic may you find him now and I’m like I want to lean into breath work I want to get centered I don’t want to go somewhere that I’m not now mind you I have got a lot of resource with respect to leaning in and counterbalancing with another human right who’s walking with me but I really like this opportunity of like self-regulation oh for sure you know because you’re not only going to have a sponsor or your therapist or your psych do or your community wrapped around you yeah so it’s pretty pretty cool stuff like um as far as the group process I wanted to touch on a week that’s really really impactful for us and that’s grief week you know a lot of programs and a lot of programs I’ve been to and been a part of um they’ll just walk people into grief week grief starts at 9:00 a.m. it’ll end at 2 and we’ll move through that you and your team come in before that maybe talk to the viewers a little bit about the prep work that you do before we engage in in intensive right yeah absolutely well grief week is a different kind of thing of its own you know you walk into that room and you can it’s palpable that they’re walking through shadows and they’re walking through some heavy stuff in their past and a lot of times you can even witness that they are live they’re not here they’re not here and present and so though the griek we grief week in particular what I do is I try and like I don’t come in at a 10 happy Tera I come in and I meet them where they’re at and then I try to bring them back into the present with like breath work with a meditation and allow them to get into their bodies in a very gentle way um I am lucky that I get to do this all the time and I the other weeks I get to like come in and bringing this like amount of joy and bring them into the presence so they’re always going to be ping ponging back from like depression the past or in the future anxiety and so I always like get to celebrate that my job is like let’s bring you in the present let’s have some fun let’s remember the beauty of life and like live here in our bodies in our breath and you can tell from when I walked into the room and when I left I have them do a body scan before and after and they’re always just like a little more there whether it’s more presence or more joy and it’s like another beautiful part of my job that I get to witness that that is so cool you know I was it I know you’ve been as well but I the Survivor like you think about Survivor at The Meadows which is phenomenal program um but if we go into that room after breakfast and we can engage with some mindfulness now I know there’s a meditation playing and everybody sitting down and like dancing and whatever yeah but to have something anchor you into the moment that’s powerful because what we know to be true about trauma is we’re not up here it’s in my body so I need to access needs to be an access point as I’m moving through a week like that to get into my body to provide some repair oh yeah you know so I really really love that and why wouldn’t you want to go there instead of be here you know what I noticed when I’m in grief week or Survivor whatever it might be I’m like thinking about the letter I wrote I’m thinking about my development the last thing I’m thinking about is growing where my feet are yeah and being with yourself fully yeah yeah it should almost be like the movement team like directors of presence like and being where you at and empowering you to do so it’s a really really cool thing and I I can’t talk enough about I’ve talked about it on other podcasts as well of just how youi ique this is not only for our clients that we serve but Peaks recovery in the community in general and so how can mindfulness uh based techniques be used in the midst of Crisis now you’ve talked about we’ve talked about potentially some substance use stuff but how about on the mental health side folks that actually don’t cope with substances how are you able to ground folks that are suffering I’ll give you a good one like from severe depression yeah how do you get them to turn the lights on be where their feet are and move through that process I know you worked with a lot of people yeah that suffer with that yeah for sure you know I I somewhat treat mental health and substance abuse the same right but in particular depression they’re state they’re already in this very lower level their energy their Chi their Prana is very low and so what I try to do when or emphasize when they are in a low state is actually try even just get the breath to change so it’s going to be more of a breath that’s going to activate the system kind of uplift the system where I wouldn’t tell in an anxiety state to do this breath work but when you’re in a lower State having them do that allowing them to just build a little bit energy inside the body through breath is a much better way than trying to do some diaphragm slowing down they’re already slow right um and then if you could get them to start to do that maybe we could get them to get get out of bed do some movement with us and stuff motivate them in that way but going at it very gently uh and recognizing and just being present with them you know there’s so much you know had someone come in and he’s like I am just so low today like I can’t and it’s really just sitting with them and looking them in the eye and being like I’m here like what can I do for you and that type of relationship then lets them trust you so that you can give them these tools to utilize when they’re in that space and I’ll tell you that gentleman now comes to every single yoga class and it’s just really nice to have that yeah I in I know at Peak recovery we definitely don’t SE separate substance use and mental health I was just interested from a mindfulness based perspective but to hear that it’s pretty synonymous yeah um as far as how they show up I really love that some of the greatest Joys I’ve had as a professional um you know I worked with substance used for 10 years and now we just do mental health we just treat suffering but some of the greatest experiences I have is when somebody who’s uh experiencing chronic or severe depression you know goes from here to here before they leave and it’s just amazing to watch you and the rest of the team and the clinic clinicians do their thing and provide some authentic healing for people and I think it’s a little more simple than you know I think we chocked it up to be over the years so um you’ve spoke about your curriculum right I want to chat about that a little bit maybe you can talk to the viewers about how you’ve set that up and what that looks like yeah absolutely so I’ve changed my curriculum quite a bit but uh when I first started I thought okay I got to do grief work we’re working with the hips like I tried to make it to the curriculum was very like copae but I realized they’re already like doing so much work in those therapy rooms and my goal is for us to just create something that again brings them into the present lets that kind of stuff leave and just be on the mat with me so my curriculum has changed it’s more just about doing different body parts making sure that they have utilize the same breath work enough times that it’s definitely in their tool belt um teaching them to trust themselves a lot of stuff is around intuition and listening to their body so a lot of the curriculum is queuing Sensations in the body so that they could witness it and so they could start to build that trust and that intuition so that they when they leave it’s these are tools that are not just oh I have to go back to Peak to get it these are tools that they’re like oh yeah I can witness this I trust myself enough to know how to utilize this and trust my body enough to be able to take control of my life that’s cool and that’s both inpatient and outpatient does anything change as far as levels of care do you do something different when they hit outpatient because I know you circle around the outpatient levels of care as well yeah yeah pH P I do try to teach them a little bit more of what they’re going to meet outside of the walls right so some yoga that they’ll they’ll see out there um and IOP is really just trying to help them utilize building routine right because they they don’t have us every day with them anymore um so I just try and help them build morning routines and evening routines um so that they can start to have this you know self-reliance and reassurance in themselves yeah it’s it’s it’s wild to think that you know for a number of years at least that I’ve been in recovery it’s like it’s interesting message because it says don’t trust yourself it said keep doing what you’re doing you’ll always get what you’ve got your you’re thinking got you here there’s a lot of negative messaging in our field that says that you’re sick you’ll always be sick may you find people that aren’t you know and you’re providing humans with agency like it and it took years into my recovery to be like oh my God it gives me chills right now I just got good too like I get agent and so by thees days they Haven had the ability to be where they’re at be in their own body have agency probably from a really young developmental age and the fact that we provide that and you and your team does it so intentionally is just very very special to me so cool yeah thank you yeah that’s like one of the things I really want to kind of debunk right is like we need we can’t trust ourselves because we’ve done X Y and Z we can’t trust ourselves and I just really a lot of times try and bring them back to you know compassion compassion for that so that you because you can trust yourself that intuition is there that knowing is there and for us to have this messaging that you can’t trust ourselves because of is just not it’s not real and so I try to bring them back to the reality that they are strong and they are wise and they just need to slow down so they could hear that wisdom you know yeah and really burying that into and it’s it’s an interesting in ction point where you marry that information because what I always talk about impatient treatment and it’s like you’re going to come in you’re going to do a 30-day curriculum but you’re probably going to get three to five years of therapy why we turn the volume down the nervous system settles for the first time it’s an option to be where your feet are at prior to that it’s fight ORF flight we don’t have the opportunity to do that and so I love the idea that like we can experience three four weeks and this is not nonsensical it’s like we used to be told that we don’t make it decisions for oursel in the first year of recovery right but 3 four weeks in people are experiencing healing MH really intentional healing that can walk with them um and they can actuate and pull a tool off their tool Bel for themselves at any given time yeah it’s really cool yeah I they talk about clients talk about it all the time like this is like the safest I’ve felt this like this is a bubble that I just feel like I don’t want to leave because it’s so wonderful I’m always like that’s why PHP it’s like you still get that bubble but you got a little taste of life you know because we do I’m like so grateful for peaks in the way that they whole everyone that works there shows up and it does create this safety where people really feel like they are getting the deep healing that they need so they could take on life yeah and I love love the way you kind of frame that too because it’s like it doesn’t have to go away because we can provide right we know about how the environment informs right it informs everything and so when we come to Peaks and around great people like yourself the environment’s informing all that man I don’t want to leave we actually don’t have to you can build a TR traded version of this in your own personal life so that you can have people in your community that speak this life into you yeah which is really really important because I think the idea is sometimes like well this bubble’s gonna I don’t I don’t think it’s a bubble yeah it’s it’s actually my reality and I’m going in to get this healing but it can walk with you it packs well it carries well it’s like a good door Dash good door Dash you know travels well it does travel well I love it that toolkit that you talk about that the team’s been recognizing it’s like it’s an empowering set of tools um and I just really like that I’ve been talking a lot lately I’ve been reading about to finish the dang book like somebody told me it’s a 3our audio book but it’s like a 12-h hour audio book it’s called the biology of belief oh okay by Bruce Lipton PhD and this idea that like Words matter for our biology oh my God right and so the example that they give is that if you go in to the hospital today and you get tested for cancer they’re going to say Terry you’re cancer free it’s awesome great I’m not waiting for the boogeyman yeah but if somebody who’s had cancer before and they get tested and they’re cancer free what do they say well I’m sure they’re waiting for the other shoe to drive good news is is you’re in remission ah that matters so now if I hear remission I’m thinking oh I look over my shoulder scary but why don’t we just tell those people they’re cancer free and so anyway lots unpacking the book but this idea of words matter empowering individuals matters speaking life into them matters that’s what I really love about the movement and mindful mindful situation that Peaks and that you bring to the team maybe chat a little bit before we wrap up about um the other side you do you got Dan on the team yeah he throws punches right so what’s he about you know I just love him because I’m like this kind of like calm nurturing and he’s like let’s do this thing and it’s we’re just such a per perfect like ying and yang and so he brings boxing and he brings weightlifting um and he just brings like this energy that like will help motivate those people he does self-defense classes for the women and it’s just like a really beautiful class or like balance between us we have one class that we do together and it’s our favorite one it’s morning routine so they start it’s 30 minute class they start with Dan and he’s you know like CrossFit warmups and then I settle them down into a breath work and then we meditate and then Journal afterwards and the feedback from this class has just been like amazing they’re absolutely loving this very intentional way to start the day and it’s a good balance B of like the activation as well as dropping into that that inner world so that’s dope so literally they have a class in the morning before group starts it’s called morning routine I walk into the office and I see it they’re like running in the group room and then before you know they’re sitting but like whoa okay so we have this opportunity to really entrench behaviors in this 30-day model call it a bubble call it what you will you’re going to experience a lot yeah but that morning routine really s satiates and entrenches on like a foundational level what will do in the morning to continue to empower myself provide agency and a quality of life that’s pretty addicting yeah for sure for sure right it’s so cool they have that routine that they started and like they get to get that feeling that they really enjoyed feeling it Peaks every morning if they continue with it so yeah it is a really cool class love it’s so much better than being like and and not to say and I’m AIT really passionate about this obviously but not to say that the 12 steps is bad right wrong or different but it is a tool mhm but I want to hear that when I leave treatment instead of like 90 and 90 or you’re gonna die you know that’s that messaging it’s like I’m 22 years old I’m not 22 right now by the way I’m 38 but when I got sober I was 22 years old I’m like I remember thinking to myself I have a life sentence of mediocrity and I did this to myself just couldn’t be further from the truth before we end today yeah I wanted to ask you one question just to wrap it everything up with a big beautiful bow yeah what is your why like why do you do this why are you so passionate like there’s got to be some sort of story or connection or is it just to be helpful like what is it yeah you know I my why is pretty big uh but I have Addiction in mental health in my family and I see this kind of trap or prison that they are wrapped up in and I would love just want to be of service and like help those people and allow them to just get that little bit of freedom and self-reliance and trust and intuition and growth and so I provided that for myself I walk through my own challenges and now it’s like become my like marching orders you know my heart calls for it and I just want to be of service in that way because I know it’s just some simple things that start to build build that strength for ourselves and we are our own you know Temple we can do this ourselves and I want to empower people to know that they can they can do it all on their own that’s cool yeah yeah I love that too it’s like this this self-empowerment that just didn’t fit maybe it maybe it did fit 15 years ago it just wasn’t being talked about I saw so many people unfortunately use and never come back or do the things that they were talking about but like this is really nurturing it’s authentic it’s present it’s mindful yeah creates a lot of Hope hope for me and I should create a lot of Hope for the viewers out there too so I really appreciate you coming on today Tara Woodson activities director she’s also raiki certified yoga teacher training at what degree uh 400 400 level that’s a lot um as well as anything any other certifications um no that’s good yeah trauma certifi just straight up badass mindfulness yes let’s go well I appreciate everybody joining us for the mindfulness moment that matters today with Tara Woodson until next time peace peace [Music]