How Humans Heal

In today’s episode I'm excited to introduce you to Marisa Chadbourne. She is a myofascial release therapist and she's been my myofascial release therapist for many years. Marisa owns Touch of Health Myofascial Wellness Center in Sayville, NY. She created Touch of Health as a supportive and therapeutic environment to assist her clients through their healing process.

Marisa is also a Certified NLP practitioner since 2019 and a locally and nationally published author regarding Fascia, the Mind-Body, and Subtle Energy.

Today we talk about how myofascial release therapy can help people with muscle and joint pain, inflammation, stiffness, physical pain in general, and even recovery from trauma.

The Myofascial Tissue

The myofascial tissue is a network of tissue that spreads throughout your entire body. It connects your muscles, joints, and bones. It also provides support to your organs, helping to keep them in place. If you could see it, your fascia would look like a single sheet of tissue paper.

The fascial system is omnipresent throughout the human body as one continuous web-like structure connecting all parts and systems together so, it's the only system in the body that actually comes in contact with every other system right down to the cellular level.

The myofascial tissue has three major components: 1. elastin fibers, which give our bodily movement it's elasticity and stretch, 2. collagen fibers that give our physical structural support and 3. a ground substance which is a gel-like substance that mainly helps with intracellular communication. So, this matrix of collagen, elastin and ground substance is what holds our bodies upright.

What is Myofascial Release Therapy

Myofascial release therapy is a connective tissue therapy designed to bring the body back into its natural alignment by releasing facial restrictions, and in turn, this increases our range of motion. It also takes pressure off of pain sensitive structures within the body. All different types of injuries can be treated. It can even help people who have autoimmune disorders, neurological dysfunction, etc.

During myofascial release therapy, the therapist applies light pressure by hand to find myofascial areas that feel stiff instead of elastic and movable. These stiff areas, or trigger points, are thought to limit muscle and joint movements, which can play a part in widespread muscle pain.

The main difference between massage and myofascial release therapy is that in myofascial therapy we are focusing on the fascia or connective tissue, while in massage the main focus is on the muscles. With myofascial therapy, the goal is to release fascial restrictions in order to bring the body back into healthy alignment. This is done by using gentle sustained pressure of 5 minutes or more to make a very specific change within the connective tissue.

A massage is more of a soft tissue mobilization technique. Another difference is in the intention to bring the whole body back into alignment by opening up the entire fascial system. For example, even if someone has neck pain, in myofascial release therapy we evaluate the whole-body posture instead of just focusing on one part of the body.

What is a Myofascial Restriction?

When we say there's a fascial restriction what we're mainly saying is that the ground substance part of the fascial system starts to become solidified. When that happens the elastin fibers, collagen and muscle fibers get stuck in the solidification and they're unable to slide across each other to do their job correctly. This will in turn stiffen movement and put pressure on pain sensitive structures.

The main four causes for this solidification or facial restriction are surgery, repetitive movement, inflammatory responses and also trauma, whether it be physical or emotional trauma. This solidification can happen in response to our thoughts, environment or something that’s happening to us on an emotional level. This is because of the mind-body connection and how they respond to each other.

What we're looking for in myofascial release is what was the cause of the restriction. So we allow for there to be many different types of healing: structural healing, somatic healing, and emotional healing. Some people have an emotional release and some people don’t. It really depends on the type of healing that they're looking for but it completely impacts the body much farther than people are aware of.

When we open up a fascial restriction it's like opening up the dam of energy flow. Opening up the dam for more intercellular communication to flow smoothly. When we talk about emotion, a lot of times we refer to it as energy in motion, and when trauma happens in our lives, that energy can get stuck, leading to solidification of the ground substance. And so, as we shift the gel-like substance back to its normal state, the energy is released and that's what people are feeling.

Sometimes during a myofascial release therapy the person might go into a meditative state or a deep relaxation state as this kind of therapy also stimulates the parasympathetic system and the vagus nerve. And that’s when we have the opportunity to be able to go a little bit deeper in feeling and releasing trauma because we're not in the place of thought, but it has to happen naturally.

Myofascial Release Therapy for Pain vs Maintenance

This kind of therapy is good not only for when someone does get in pain (to help release it) but also for maintenance and preventing pain. What’s important here is having body awareness and empowerment of how we can support ourselves during a treatment. It’s important that people tune into their body to see how they feel over the next few days after their first session.

Once people find that rhythm of what they need for maintenance they can make that decision on their own and so this decision is made from an innate place instead of being told what to do. If someone wants to make a lot of change quickly, they can do a myofascial intensive series, where the person comes in three to five times over one to two weeks and we get a lot done over that time. Then it's more likely for that change to stay with the person.

We also teach people how to do self myofascial release at home so that release and opening that was made can be maintained at home by the patient by continuing to feel into their body and where they're restricted. This is the special relationship between the client and the practitioner doing work together and teaching the patient how to do it on his/her own.

During this process you can also learn so much about your body, the signals it gives you and what it needs to heal. There are so many different symptoms that people come in with for this therapy, not just pain, but sleeping disorders, anxiety, fatigue, autoimmunity, neurological dysfunction, and they all benefit from this work.

We look at symptoms as the signals the body is giving you. The most important part of the facilitation is guiding the client to get in touch with what these messages are on a subconscious level. This is another part that isn't just purely structural. We're looking at the body as a whole, mind, body and spirit, and how they are always working together.

Combining Myofascial Therapy with Other Treatments

When we identify that inflammation is causing the fascial restriction, we then ask why the inflammation is there in the first place. We need to take a look at your diet for example, so the client might be advised to take the healing to the next level by talking to a Functional Practitioner or a Naturopathic Dr. to help them. Then they get the benefit of both by working synergistically. As the inflammation is coming down and the body's healing, then there's less likelihood of repeated issues coming up.

We don't want to just keep continuing releasing the same fascial restrictions over and over again. If what is causing the issue is a repetitive movement for example, then the client is oriented to find out how they can change that movement, and how they can change the inflammatory response. They need to make an ergonomic change. Or someone has a compensatory pattern from some type of physical movement they've been doing their whole life, then they can also do physical therapy along with myofascial release. This is because if you just continue to work on the restriction, without addressing the cause, you may not be solving

the problem. So it is a priority to think about what other approaches will complement myofascial release therapy for each individual so that you can feel better for good.

At the same time, myofascial therapy helps other approaches to work better because the fascia connects with all the other systems in the body. By opening fascial communication, it is going to support healing on every other level.

If you want to reach out to Marisa and learn more about how she can help you, please make sure to check out her website or her Instagram @touchofhealthny.

To understand my approach to helping people recover from stress and trauma with my Stress Recovery Protocol, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. In the book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online. You can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here.

If you’re interested in a safe and effective body, mind and spirit detoxification that will actually make you feel better and that you can do without affecting your daily routine, you can check out my New 14-Day Detox Program here. In the Detox Program I teach you to connect with yourself, and use mind-body tools, such as biofeedback, to process emotions.

For the most comprehensive support to recover from stress and trauma, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.

We're here to help you!

Connect with Dr. Doni: 

Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND  

Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW  

-

Books and Resources: 

Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576

Stress Warrior Book (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR   

Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE) 

HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR  

7-day Stress Reset (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET  

HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/  

-

Personalized Solutions: 

If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH  

To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Today’s episode is about emotional healing. This is something that comes up with my patients from around the world and also with the people that participate in the programs that I offer.

Whether it’s healing something like HPV and abnormal pap smear results, or helping with anxiety and depression, emotional healing comes into play.

So, I feel like it's an important thing to for us to talk about as it's an essential part of the stress recovery process. I also cover emotional healing in my most recent book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.

What is Emotional Healing?

We hear a lot about the mind-body connection, but what does it mean to process emotions?

Well, stress can come from a psycho-emotional level (our minds) like a traumatic experience, or it can come from a physical level (our bodies) like infections, toxins and injuries. And it’s the combination of those stresses and even spiritual or energetic stresses that compound into the total load of stress that we're exposed to. This is our environmental exposure to stress. And we know from research that it's this exposure that turns on our gene expression and makes us susceptible to all kinds of health issues.

We are so used to going to different practitioners for different parts of our bodies (including different practitioners for the mind and body) when in reality we are one whole being and all of our systems are interconnected. Our digestion is in communication with our immune system, our hormones with our nervous system, etc. They're all talking to each other and that means that they can either have a negative influence or a positive influence on each other.

Our physical bodies (digestion, glands, muscles, bones, etc.) are always in communication with our nervous system and our minds. So, our feelings and our emotional state are also in communication with our physical bodies. An example of this is not feeling hungry when you are feeling anxious or depressed.

So, it is very important for our health (mental and physical) to allow ourselves to feel and to process emotions. Emotions come naturally to us as humans. Our bodies and nervous system inherently knows how to feel emotions and to cry, laugh, and yawn. The problem here is that from a young age most of us are taught not to express our feelings or emotions. Society, schools, religion, or our own households teach us that we must suppress all of this.

Meanwhile research shows that when we don’t allow ourselves to feel and process all our emotions there is a high risk of developing health issues, again, mental and/or physical conditions. There are several good books on this topic, including by Carolyn Myss and The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk.

Unfortunately, I don't think people have enough support to learn how to process emotions and to recover from stress and trauma. As much as we might be bringing awareness to stress and trauma, we're not so much being guided what to do about it. And so then the stress and trauma just start feeling heavier and heavier.

I want to help you to have the right tools to transform the effects of stress and trauma, to recover from it, and it begins with learning to feel your feelings instead of suppressing them.

What also helps us heal on an emotional level is for us to start making decisions for ourselves, and to get in touch with our intuition and messages from your body. So, I would much rather give you information for you to then connect with yourself and see what feels right to you. Then along the way you're also learning to listen to yourself, you're learning to feel your emotions, you're learning to try things with curiosity, and learn through the experience.

How Do We Heal Emotionally?

First, we have to establish that healing is possible, and that recovery from stress and trauma is possible. Then we can start to look at how best to approach this healing.

A lot of times you hear me talking about how to heal on a physical level, such as how to get cortisol, the stress hormone, back to optimal levels. The amazing thing I find with my patients is that when cortisol, as well as adrenaline and neurotransmitters, are optimal, they find it so much easier process emotions and heal on a psycho-emotional level.

This is important because a lot of people find themselves spending hours and hours, and thousands of dollars, in talk therapy and end up feeling like they're only getting so far with it. In that case, we have to be sure we are also addressing the physical part of you, such as cortisol, adrenaline, neurotransmitters, nutrient deficiencies, thyroid imbalances, digestive issues, etc.

For those of you who are doing the work to balance your hormones, microbiome, and nutrients, but you haven’t paid attention to the mental, emotional, and even energetic aspect of your healing, then I encourage you to make that a priority. For some people it is very helpful to work with a therapist. And then you might decide to try different forms of therapy, from CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy to EMDR, which has been shown to be very helpful for stress recovery and PTSD.

There are also natural treatments like homeopathy, which is an ancient system of medicine that's very helpful for processing emotionally and connecting the mind with the body to heal.

Also, psychedelic medicine, which has been shown more and more to be effective at helping us heal on an emotional level. Psychedelic treatments include the use of psilocybin, ketamine, as well as MDMA and Ayahuasca, which is a plant medicine from Central and South America that has been shown to be extremely effective at healing PTSD and addictions. If you’re interested in psychedelic therapy you can learn more by watching Episode 151 of How Humans Heal where I share my experience of attending a shamanic journey in the Peruvian Amazon.

Other tools that help with emotional healing are meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, journaling, and rebalancing of the chakras. The important thing is that you experiment and find what works for you specifically.

Something that you can do for yourself starting now is to become more aware of your emotions, and to allow yourself to feel your emotions. Be curious about your emotions, because I think so often, we don’t allow ourselves to fully feel because we may think we don’t have time for this, or we fear what could happen if we let it all out. It's almost like our emotions are monsters and we run away from them. Well, if we don’t allow ourselves to feel these emotions, we will never be able to process them, and we will continue to carry the weight of them through our lives in our bodies.

I learned this lesson the hard way – by developing severe migraines and a chronic inflammatory joint condition. It was through my own process of healing emotionally that I have been able to recover from these physical health issues.

What Happens to Our Bodies When We Heal Emotionally?

I think that as humans we're probably only allowing ourselves to feel less than 5% of our emotional capacity. I know that for myself, and I know that from observing patients and others in my life. We really restrict ourselves from feeling and we have no idea that we can experience such emotional breadth. Just like when you go to the gym and workout your muscles, you can learn to expand your ability to feel, and feel comfortable and confident doing it.

There are many books out there that talk about emotions. For example, Atlas Of The Heart by Brene Brown where she talks about 86 different emotions that we can feel. Or 90 Seconds to a Life You Love by Joan I. Rosenberg where she talks about how most emotions can be felt in 90 seconds.

When we expand our ability to feel emotions and to feel comfortable feeling emotions, we are being more present. By practicing allowing ourselves to just be present with our feelings, we will be able to connect with ourselves more.

A colleague of mine, Dr. Debi Silber created The Betrayal Institute where she helps people heal from betrayal every day. You can find more about it in Episode 59 of How Humans Heal. So know that these resources exist and that it's possible to heal. There are tools available to help you heal emotionally from what you’ve been through, including somatic therapy and myofascial therapy (which will be discussed in the next episode).

I think emotional healing is as necessary as good sleep, exercise, drinking water and eating healthy foods. Just imagine what it would be like if could feel so grateful for something, or love

and joy at full capacity. We know that the emotions of love and gratitude really shift us on an energetic level. Research shows that these emotions create a change on a cellular level and therefore we can then see a positive impact on our health.

We Have More Power Than We Think

In quantum physics, which is this concept in science and math where there are more possibilities than we realize, things are not just black or white, and things are not decided until the very last second of them happening. For example, there are experiments where even atoms don’t show their decided location until they are observed by the observer. We tend to oversimplify and want to control and anticipate everything, when in reality, there are so many variables, we will make ourselves more stressed by focusing on control.

What we can do is take these lessons from physics and use them in our understanding of ourselves. By practicing being comfortable and navigating in the unknown. How do we get more comfortable with the unknown?

First, by processing and letting go of what happened in the past, we free ourselves to be in the present moment. Learn more about this from Eckhardt Tolle.

Then, by understanding that many possibilities exist and that it’s in the last moment that one will become a reality, we realize that the best way to shift our perspective or situation, is to simply choose a different way of looking at it. We can decide which reality we want for ourselves and in that way, we can create our future as we want it to be.

We can choose how we want to relate to ourselves and allow ourselves to feel. We can choose to be in silence and instead of attaching to a feeling or a thought as the only reality, we can be the observer and observe all the possibilities. And, with curiosity and acceptance, be able to see the reality as it is now and what it is that you would like to create in your life. We can get into a state of love and gratitude, intentionally, and from that state, we can create a different reality for ourselves.

The more you can envision what you want to create in your health and in your body, the more you spend time believing it and envisioning it, you can create that for yourself. This is how a lot of people experience healing, sometimes spontaneous healing or distance healing, because they're able to get into this state of creating a new reality for themselves and their existence using these concepts.

If you are wanting to learn more about this, check out Bruce Lipton and Dr. Joe Dispenza.

I mention it here because I think it helps in terms of emotional healing. I think it helps with getting out of that feeling of being stuck in terms of trauma and feeling that our future is already determined by our past. It’s not, as long as we step in and start choosing differently.

When we are able to connect with ourselves and feel our emotions to an extent where we can process them so that they're not in the way, we will feel so much better, relieved and less stressed, and our overall health will improve as a result.

The Highly Sensitive Person

Ph.D. Elaine N. Aron wrote a book in the 90’s called The Highly Sensitive Person which talks about how some people have a more sensitive nervous system so they can pick up on emotions, as well as physical sensations, more easily than others. I also think that many people have been suppressing their ability to feel their emotions and this means they can train themselves to develop this capacity to feel more.

It's about allowing ourselves to fully find out what our capacity is. What is your capacity to listen to yourself and your own signals from within, and to feel? What is your body really telling you that you maybe haven't been listening to?

It's that ability to sense your body and your response to your environment that can really help you heal. And so, I encourage you to practice this openness to feel and perceive. You can create some quiet moments in your schedule, for example by spending time in nature and journaling. You can start practicing by making a space for it in your life but at the same time not trying to force it or pressure yourself. You just have to allow yourself to completely lose yourself in the moment.

It's only by practicing feeling our emotions, and the subsequent self-discovery process, that you will find yourself open to the infinite possibilities for your existence and realize that your future does not have to be determined by your past experiences.

If you’re interested in a safe and effective body, mind and spirit detoxification that will actually make you feel better and that you can do without affecting your daily routine, you can check out my New 14-Day Detox Program here. In the Detox Program I teach you to connect with yourself, and use mind-body tools, such as biofeedback, to process emotions.

If you’re ready to start healing emotionally by rebalancing your cortisol and neurotransmitters, you can start by ordering this home test kit. You can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here. Also, if you want to learn more about how to recover from stress so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.

In the book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online.

If you want to go through your specific case me and improve your health (mental and physical) you can set up a one-on-one appointment here.

We’re here to help you!

Connect with Dr. Doni: 

Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND  

Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW  

-

Books and Resources: 

Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576

Stress Warrior Book (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR   

Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE) 

HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR  

7-day Stress Reset (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET  

HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/  

-

Personalized Solutions: 

If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH  

To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Today’s episode is about emotional healing. This is something that comes up with my patients from around the world and also with the people that participate in the programs that I offer.

Whether it’s healing something like HPV and abnormal pap smear results, or helping with anxiety and depression, emotional healing comes into play.

So, I feel like it's an important thing to for us to talk about as it's an essential part of the stress recovery process. I also cover emotional healing in my most recent book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.

What is Emotional Healing?

We hear a lot about the mind-body connection, but what does it mean to process emotions?

Well, stress can come from a psycho-emotional level (our minds) like a traumatic experience, or it can come from a physical level (our bodies) like infections, toxins and injuries. And it’s the combination of those stresses and even spiritual or energetic stresses that compound into the total load of stress that we're exposed to. This is our environmental exposure to stress. And we know from research that it's this exposure that turns on our gene expression and makes us susceptible to all kinds of health issues.

We are so used to going to different practitioners for different parts of our bodies (including different practitioners for the mind and body) when in reality we are one whole being and all of our systems are interconnected. Our digestion is in communication with our immune system, our hormones with our nervous system, etc. They're all talking to each other and that means that they can either have a negative influence or a positive influence on each other.

Our physical bodies (digestion, glands, muscles, bones, etc.) are always in communication with our nervous system and our minds. So, our feelings and our emotional state are also in communication with our physical bodies. An example of this is not feeling hungry when you are feeling anxious or depressed.

So, it is very important for our health (mental and physical) to allow ourselves to feel and to process emotions. Emotions come naturally to us as humans. Our bodies and nervous system inherently knows how to feel emotions and to cry, laugh, and yawn. The problem here is that from a young age most of us are taught not to express our feelings or emotions. Society, schools, religion, or our own households teach us that we must suppress all of this.

Meanwhile research shows that when we don’t allow ourselves to feel and process all our emotions there is a high risk of developing health issues, again, mental and/or physical conditions. There are several good books on this topic, including by Carolyn Myss and The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk.

Unfortunately, I don't think people have enough support to learn how to process emotions and to recover from stress and trauma. As much as we might be bringing awareness to stress and trauma, we're not so much being guided what to do about it. And so then the stress and trauma just start feeling heavier and heavier.

I want to help you to have the right tools to transform the effects of stress and trauma, to recover from it, and it begins with learning to feel your feelings instead of suppressing them.

What also helps us heal on an emotional level is for us to start making decisions for ourselves, and to get in touch with our intuition and messages from your body. So, I would much rather give you information for you to then connect with yourself and see what feels right to you. Then along the way you're also learning to listen to yourself, you're learning to feel your emotions, you're learning to try things with curiosity, and learn through the experience.

How Do We Heal Emotionally?

First, we have to establish that healing is possible, and that recovery from stress and trauma is possible. Then we can start to look at how best to approach this healing.

A lot of times you hear me talking about how to heal on a physical level, such as how to get cortisol, the stress hormone, back to optimal levels. The amazing thing I find with my patients is that when cortisol, as well as adrenaline and neurotransmitters, are optimal, they find it so much easier process emotions and heal on a psycho-emotional level.

This is important because a lot of people find themselves spending hours and hours, and thousands of dollars, in talk therapy and end up feeling like they're only getting so far with it. In that case, we have to be sure we are also addressing the physical part of you, such as cortisol, adrenaline, neurotransmitters, nutrient deficiencies, thyroid imbalances, digestive issues, etc.

For those of you who are doing the work to balance your hormones, microbiome, and nutrients, but you haven’t paid attention to the mental, emotional, and even energetic aspect of your healing, then I encourage you to make that a priority. For some people it is very helpful to work with a therapist. And then you might decide to try different forms of therapy, from CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy to EMDR, which has been shown to be very helpful for stress recovery and PTSD.

There are also natural treatments like homeopathy, which is an ancient system of medicine that's very helpful for processing emotionally and connecting the mind with the body to heal.

Also, psychedelic medicine, which has been shown more and more to be effective at helping us heal on an emotional level. Psychedelic treatments include the use of psilocybin, ketamine, as well as MDMA and Ayahuasca, which is a plant medicine from Central and South America that has been shown to be extremely effective at healing PTSD and addictions. If you’re interested in psychedelic therapy you can learn more by watching Episode 151 of How Humans Heal where I share my experience of attending a shamanic journey in the Peruvian Amazon.

Other tools that help with emotional healing are meditation, mindfulness, breathwork, journaling, and rebalancing of the chakras. The important thing is that you experiment and find what works for you specifically.

Something that you can do for yourself starting now is to become more aware of your emotions, and to allow yourself to feel your emotions. Be curious about your emotions, because I think so often, we don’t allow ourselves to fully feel because we may think we don’t have time for this, or we fear what could happen if we let it all out. It's almost like our emotions are monsters and we run away from them. Well, if we don’t allow ourselves to feel these emotions, we will never be able to process them, and we will continue to carry the weight of them through our lives in our bodies.

I learned this lesson the hard way – by developing severe migraines and a chronic inflammatory joint condition. It was through my own process of healing emotionally that I have been able to recover from these physical health issues.

What Happens to Our Bodies When We Heal Emotionally?

I think that as humans we're probably only allowing ourselves to feel less than 5% of our emotional capacity. I know that for myself, and I know that from observing patients and others in my life. We really restrict ourselves from feeling and we have no idea that we can experience such emotional breadth. Just like when you go to the gym and workout your muscles, you can learn to expand your ability to feel, and feel comfortable and confident doing it.

There are many books out there that talk about emotions. For example, Atlas Of The Heart by Brene Brown where she talks about 86 different emotions that we can feel. Or 90 Seconds to a Life You Love by Joan I. Rosenberg where she talks about how most emotions can be felt in 90 seconds.

When we expand our ability to feel emotions and to feel comfortable feeling emotions, we are being more present. By practicing allowing ourselves to just be present with our feelings, we will be able to connect with ourselves more.

A colleague of mine, Dr. Debi Silber created The Betrayal Institute where she helps people heal from betrayal every day. You can find more about it in Episode 59 of How Humans Heal. So know that these resources exist and that it's possible to heal. There are tools available to help you heal emotionally from what you’ve been through, including somatic therapy and myofascial therapy (which will be discussed in the next episode).

I think emotional healing is as necessary as good sleep, exercise, drinking water and eating healthy foods. Just imagine what it would be like if could feel so grateful for something, or love

and joy at full capacity. We know that the emotions of love and gratitude really shift us on an energetic level. Research shows that these emotions create a change on a cellular level and therefore we can then see a positive impact on our health.

We Have More Power Than We Think

In quantum physics, which is this concept in science and math where there are more possibilities than we realize, things are not just black or white, and things are not decided until the very last second of them happening. For example, there are experiments where even atoms don’t show their decided location until they are observed by the observer. We tend to oversimplify and want to control and anticipate everything, when in reality, there are so many variables, we will make ourselves more stressed by focusing on control.

What we can do is take these lessons from physics and use them in our understanding of ourselves. By practicing being comfortable and navigating in the unknown. How do we get more comfortable with the unknown?

First, by processing and letting go of what happened in the past, we free ourselves to be in the present moment. Learn more about this from Eckhardt Tolle.

Then, by understanding that many possibilities exist and that it’s in the last moment that one will become a reality, we realize that the best way to shift our perspective or situation, is to simply choose a different way of looking at it. We can decide which reality we want for ourselves and in that way, we can create our future as we want it to be.

We can choose how we want to relate to ourselves and allow ourselves to feel. We can choose to be in silence and instead of attaching to a feeling or a thought as the only reality, we can be the observer and observe all the possibilities. And, with curiosity and acceptance, be able to see the reality as it is now and what it is that you would like to create in your life. We can get into a state of love and gratitude, intentionally, and from that state, we can create a different reality for ourselves.

The more you can envision what you want to create in your health and in your body, the more you spend time believing it and envisioning it, you can create that for yourself. This is how a lot of people experience healing, sometimes spontaneous healing or distance healing, because they're able to get into this state of creating a new reality for themselves and their existence using these concepts.

If you are wanting to learn more about this, check out Bruce Lipton and Dr. Joe Dispenza.

I mention it here because I think it helps in terms of emotional healing. I think it helps with getting out of that feeling of being stuck in terms of trauma and feeling that our future is already determined by our past. It’s not, as long as we step in and start choosing differently.

When we are able to connect with ourselves and feel our emotions to an extent where we can process them so that they're not in the way, we will feel so much better, relieved and less stressed, and our overall health will improve as a result.

The Highly Sensitive Person

Ph.D. Elaine N. Aron wrote a book in the 90’s called The Highly Sensitive Person which talks about how some people have a more sensitive nervous system so they can pick up on emotions, as well as physical sensations, more easily than others. I also think that many people have been suppressing their ability to feel their emotions and this means they can train themselves to develop this capacity to feel more.

It's about allowing ourselves to fully find out what our capacity is. What is your capacity to listen to yourself and your own signals from within, and to feel? What is your body really telling you that you maybe haven't been listening to?

It's that ability to sense your body and your response to your environment that can really help you heal. And so, I encourage you to practice this openness to feel and perceive. You can create some quiet moments in your schedule, for example by spending time in nature and journaling. You can start practicing by making a space for it in your life but at the same time not trying to force it or pressure yourself. You just have to allow yourself to completely lose yourself in the moment.

It's only by practicing feeling our emotions, and the subsequent self-discovery process, that you will find yourself open to the infinite possibilities for your existence and realize that your future does not have to be determined by your past experiences.

If you’re interested in a safe and effective body, mind and spirit detoxification that will actually make you feel better and that you can do without affecting your daily routine, you can check out my New 14-Day Detox Program here. In the Detox Program I teach you to connect with yourself, and use mind-body tools, such as biofeedback, to process emotions.

If you’re ready to start healing emotionally by rebalancing your cortisol and neurotransmitters, you can start by ordering this home test kit. You can also sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here. Also, if you want to learn more about how to recover from stress so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.

In the book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online.

If you want to go through your specific case me and improve your health (mental and physical) you can set up a one-on-one appointment here.

We’re here to help you!

Connect with Dr. Doni: 

Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND  

Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW  

-

Books and Resources: 

Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576

Stress Warrior Book (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR   

Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE) 

HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR  

7-day Stress Reset (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET  

HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/  

-

Personalized Solutions: 

If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH  

To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In today’s episode I interview Sandy Weiner. She is founder of Last First Date and The Women of Value. She's an internationally known TED X Speaker and Dating and Relationship Coach, as well as Women's Empowerment Coach. She's author of three books and is a podcast host.

Dating and relationships is such an important topic because, as humans, relationships with other humans can be a source of joy and love, or it can be a source of toxicity. Whether you are currently in a relationship, dating, or not, this interview will be helpful because we discuss how it comes down to knowing and feeling comfortable with ourselves in order to have more fulfilling experiences with others.

Sandy shares that it was after experiencing a difficult childhood, being brought up by two parents who had a terrible marriage, and divorcing her husband after 23 years of marriage, that she had an opportunity to reassess her life. She decided to reclaim the parts of herself that had been lost along the way, and one of those was her interest in helping others.

She trained as a life coach which gave her so much self-awareness. She found herself helping friends who were dating, and in the process, started studying the deeper parts of dating, communication skills and boundary setting. This changed her life for the better and now it’s doing the same thing for her clients every day.

When You’re in the Wrong Relationship

Sandy finds that a lot of people realize later in life - in their 40s, 50s and even older – that they are not in the relationship that works for them anymore. It's often when their kids are grown, if they have kids, and they’re starting to think about if they really want to spend the rest of their life with this person. Perhaps they realize they don't really enjoy being their partner anymore or it doesn’t feel safe anymore.

Sandy doesn’t think divorce is the right thing for everyone. She says, you must assess for yourself and think if you really want to stay in a relationship. She sees people staying in terrible relationships and that breaks her heart. Couples may be having the same complaint every single time they talk, and yet they stay in the relationship. Of course, there could be a lot of reasons for this, such as fear of going out on your own, or financial concerns.

You must believe in what you're doing and know why you're leaving. In the end, it’s almost always for the better. You have to weigh out how you want to live the rest of your life.

Avoiding The Same Patterns in a New Relationship

We often make the same choices over and over, and don't even realize it. Or we go to the opposite extreme. It's not just about finding the opposite. And we can’t make choices based on

attraction. It’s about analyzing if you’re going into a relationship just because it feels familiar and think about it based on your attachment style.

Knowing how you attach to your partners, how you tend to bring your past into the present, how to self-regulate, how to talk about the things that matter, how to bring up hard stuff, and how to ask questions when you have questions instead of keeping them inside, as well as knowing what you want in life… are all so important. These are things to work on before even going on dates, so that you can come as a whole person to the dating process.

We also need to look at the patterns of core relationships in our life, and what they have in common. We also need to consider our limiting beliefs, and where we’re struggling. When we really go deep into who we are, then it is easier to find someone that will be a good match for us.

Attraction is Not The Most Important Thing in a Relationship

You have to have some attraction obviously, but if you're so attracted that you lose yourself in that person's presence, it’s not a good sign. This is something to look at - we need to analyze where does this come from? Is there abandonment involved? Does this person remind you of someone, and now you’re trying to get that missed attention? If you do this, you then can rewire your brain for healthy attraction.

There’s a difference between attraction based on deprivation and attraction based on inspiration. Most of us are stuck in the attraction of deprivation. This is what we don't have, and so we want it. When we are attracted to somebody in an attraction of inspiration, we're inspired by that person, but we also bring value. That's called interdependence.

With interdependence, we have a life; we have wholeness and fullness, but we also have the capacity to allow another person into our life to add value to each other and to complement each other.

Narcissism in Relationships

Sandy finds that the term “narcissism” is thrown around a lot, so she tends to focus instead on behaviors. If you were in a relationship with somebody who was self-centered, not empathic, they always had to be right, and you felt that your needs didn't matter, that is something you need to look at and consider why you chose that relationship.

She helps clients to trace back in order to understand their choices - who did that person remind them of and in doing so, they start to rewire their brain for attraction in a healthier way. She doesn't believe in hard and fast rules. She believes in principles, and self-care, and knowing how you function best so that you can advocate for that in relationships.

To be able to succeed in a relationship you have to be able to communicate your needs in three main areas: worldview, lifestyle and sexual. If you don’t communicate your needs, you can’t expect them to be met. Lifestyle has to with whether you like hot or cold weather, and whether you are vegetarian, or not, and can you be with somebody who is a meat eater. What time do you go to bed, and are you an introvert or extrovert. It's really important to understand that lifestyle piece.

The next area is worldview, which is how you see the world. How do we view religion, politics, God, miracles, faith, community - all the things that are the bigger picture because that's really the core of you see the world.

And then the last category is sex, including what kind of sex you like and how often. You have to be able to communicate all these things. When you get comfortable advocating for yourself, as well talking and sharing your stories in a way that make the other person want to share their stories in a way that's healthy, that's a big win.

A Healthy Way to Be Motivated About Choosing a Relationship

Sandy shares that a lot of people have a hard time picturing what it is like to imagine a healthy relationship. We can create a vision of what you want, not just what you don't want, or what you think is out there regarding relationships. Also, it is not healthy to be too rigid or specific about it because you could end up overlooking some amazing people who don't have all those things that you think you need and then love shows up in a surprise package when you're open to it.

It's when we get out of our heads and into our hearts that we make room for real love. But we have to understand what would work best for us. We have to have certain parameters of who that person has to be in order for us to feel that way. That's where we start to really attract not just the right partner but the right friends and the right work - it's all connected.

And most people really don't have an idea and so they get distracted, discouraged, and they just shut down to dating, but what would it feel like to be in a partnership, what would it feel like to have somebody to travel with, to come home to at the end of the day and take a walk and share a meal. It's those small things that matter.

Communication Is Key in a Successful Relationship

We also need to look at our needs and feelings without judgment. We normally bring in history to our arguments or needs that were not met when we were growing up. When you start to see that needs and feelings are connected it's helpful. Then you don't have to say it all out loud. You could even just process it for yourself without feeling upset because of something your partner did or did not do.

Maybe you had a need for communication; maybe you had a need for respect. And then you get curious about the other person; maybe it wasn't disrespectful on their part to them but now you can have a conversation about what was going on for you, so your partner knows about it.

This takes practice and openness on both parts. We have to be able to honor the other person and see their needs being as important as ours. Sometimes we're taught is we say something then the other person might get mad and then we feel like we can never say anything, and then we never do say anything, and it just becomes a tense situation.

It is also very important that we give ourselves time after a breakup before dating again, to process what happened, and to analyze what we learned, what worked, what didn’t, and what would we like our next relationship to feel like; what type of communication would we like to have.

Give yourself the time to feel it in your body - to feel all the feelings. A lot of people miss companionship and the feeling of intimacy so much that they will either go back to the person or they'll find somebody to replace them too quickly and end up repeating the same thing over and over.

We have to take our time to really picture what it would feel like to be in a healthy relationship. What would that look and feel like to you because the more you have it as a felt sense, the more you're going to recognize it when it comes.

Sandy finds that a lot of people are waiting to be saved and rescued. Instead, she encourages people to enjoy their life while dating and find somebody who adds value. Don't settle for less.

If you want to reach out to Sandy and learn more about how she can help you, please make sure to check out her website and her Last First Date Radio Podcast. You can also check out her Dating and Relationship Support Group on Facebook.

To understand my approach to helping people recover from stress and trauma with my Stress Recovery Protocol, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. I talk about relationships and their impact on our mental and physical health in the book too!

For the most comprehensive support to recover from stress and trauma, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.

We're here to help you!

Connect with Dr. Doni: 

Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND  

Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW  

-

Books and Resources: 

Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576

Stress Warrior Book (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR   

Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE) 

HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR  

7-day Stress Reset (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET  

HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/  

-

Personalized Solutions: 

If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH  

To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

Today's podcast is going to be about HPV and why it is that women are having such a hard time clearing this virus and getting it to negative. This just so happens to be something that I've been paying attention to and helping women with for over 23 years.

I've accumulated a lot of experience in this topic through research and observing my patients and I really feel this information needs to be out there in the world because so many women around the world are struggling to protect themselves from the HPV virus.

So, today I want to focus on why this virus is turning up positive for so many women, and what women can do to help protect themselves and prevent this virus from causing abnormal cells and cancer.

The HPV Virus

The HPV virus is a sexually transmitted virus that has over 150 different strains and some of those (at least 13 that we know of) are associated with cancer of the cervix, vagina, as well as anal and oral cancer. The HPV virus can also cause penile, anal, or oral cancer in men, so men are becoming more aware and interested in protecting themselves.

Today I'm going to focus on women because women are more often being tested for HPV. In fact, that's part of the reason why more women are finding out that they are positive for HPV - simply because doctors are testing for it more now than ever before. In the past, we only tested for it when there were abnormal cells on the cervix. Now most doctors, around the world, are testing for HPV when women go in for a pap smear, whether abnormal cells are present or not.

It is very important to get pap smears regularly - I want to be clear about that. Thanks to pap smears, and biopsies, we're able to identify when cells on the cervix are being affected by the HPV virus, even before it gets to the point of cancer. That's good news because that means, if we can catch it early, we can be proactive and prevent it from progressing and causing more damage.

According to standard gynecological guidelines, if HPV is positive, but there are not abnormal cells, or mildly abnormal cells, your doctor is likely to say: “let's wait and recheck to see if the cells become more abnormal.” That is because a study from over 10 years ago showed that 90% of women are able to clear the virus within 2 years without abnormal cells or cancer developing. 

If abnormal cells develop, or if they become more abnormal (closer to cancer cells), then the doctor will likely say “let's do a biopsy (colposcopy)” to double check the severity. If the cells are indeed more advanced (CIN2 or 3 is common nomenclature), the doctor will recommend removing the abnormal cells using a LEEP (or what is referred to as LLETZ in some countries) or conization procedure (a surgical procedure to remove part of the cervix). 

Treatment Against the HPV Virus 

Unfortunately, in today’s conventional medicine, there isn’t a way to kill the virus. Even when the abnormal cells are removed, the HPV virus can continually cause more abnormal cells. Oftentimes women find themselves in a repetitive process of diagnostic and treatment procedures, in some cases for years or decades of their lives. 

Now, I can tell you, based on research and my 23 years of clinical experience helping patients with HPV, there are effective ways to prevent the virus from causing abnormal cells using natural substances (nutrients, herbs, mushrooms) to strengthen and reset the immune system and our body’s ability to fend off the virus.

Dietary changes (such as to decrease sugar intake and increase antioxidants), as well as certain nutrients and supplements at clinical doses, and herbs and mushrooms, have been shown to help prevent HPV from causing abnormal cells and from advancing to cancer. In this episode I’m not going into detail about those approaches, although you can find references and resources below if you’d like to learn more. 

Much of the research on natural products and approaches is aimed at using specific substances that are either directly antiviral and/or are known to improve immune function, decrease oxidative stress and inflammation, and provide nutrients important for healthy cellular function. This makes sense and studies have shown this approach to be effective. 

The human body, after all, has the ability to clear the HPV virus on its own as shown in the study that 90% of women will clear this virus within two years of it testing positive. 

Because I work with women who have persistent HPV – they have had it longer than two years – many of whom have already been trying natural approaches, such as diet changes and mushroom extracts (AHCC), in addition to avoiding commonly known factors that increase risk, such as smoking and birth control pills, I had to start asking… what else needs to be addressed? 

Why is it that 10% of women are not clearing the virus? (Keep in mind that percentage may be higher now.) If we can learn from the 10% who are not clearing the virus, then we can help them to get into that 90% percent that are clearing the virus. This is question I’ve had in mind while developing my strategy and protocol to help women over the past couple of decades. I have been able to identify the most common reasons why women are not clearing it and how to help them successfully.

Reasons Why Your Body is Not Clearing The Virus

Stress 

The most common reason why women are not clearing the virus, even after making diet changes and taking the right supplements, is their exposure to stress. It has been demonstrated that when women are under more stress (psychological, emotional, and/or physical stress, including infections, like COVID) they are more likely to have HPV be persistently positive. In fact, when our bodies are under constant stress, our immune system is affected and isn’t able to work as it should, and we are more likely to get sick from any kind of virus or bacteria we are exposed to. In research this is referred to as “immune dysfunction.”

In this modern world we are all constantly exposed to stress, from being a student, our careers, families and relationships. Everything that is going on in our lives will likely cause us stress, let alone the additional stress of the pandemic and/or abusive relationships and trauma. 

So to me it is not enough to just say: “decrease your stress.” That thought is stressful in itself. Plus finding out HPV is positive is stressful. 

To me, we have to think beyond that. We have to figure out not just how to reduce our stress exposures, but how to recover from stress WHILE STILL STRESSED. 

That’s why I put my mind to figuring out how to help people recover from our exposures and reset our immune system, nervous system and neurotransmitters, hormones and digestion, so our bodies can get back to performing as best as they can. This is where my Stress Recovery Protocol can really help. Throughout my years of practice, I have researched, lectured, and written books on how to effectively recover and become resilient to stress, while still living our daily lives.

And this is not a one size fits all kind of thing. We need to understand how stress is affecting you specifically and how your body responds to stress. This includes your cortisol and adrenaline levels, adrenal gland function, as well as your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. These are all affected differently in each person. 

Vaginal Biome

The next reason why your body is not able to clear the virus on its own is a disruption in the microbiome. When we think of the microbiome, we generally think of the gut, however it is important to know that we have bacteria and other microbes living in and with us in all areas of our bodies, including the vaginal area. And they do more than just hang out! They help our immune system protect us from microbes (including viruses like HPV) that can cause trouble. They produce substances, for example, the predominant bacteria in the vagina, Lactobacillus, make lactic acid, which protects us from infections. 

We want this healthy balance of microbes that help protect us because if they are disrupted, we become susceptible. Research now shows that when the cervicovaginal microenvironment (CVM) is disrupted, women are more susceptible to HPV and abnormal cells. 

So we need to think about what are the things that disrupt our biome? This way we can avoid what we can, and we can also work to restore a healthy vaginal biome. 

Back to stress! Stress will disrupt this vaginal biome. Also, different kinds of chemicals and toxins (like pesticides in our food and chemicals in spermicides), as well as medications (like antibiotics) will get disrupt the vaginal biome and subsequently affect our immune system’s ability to fend off HPV. Stress also disrupts the digestion – decreasing the ability to digest food, increasing intestinal permeability (leaky gut) and inflammation, and disrupting the gut bacteria. And studies show that the gut biome affects the vaginal biome. 

Now, just because your biome gets disrupted doesn't mean it's going to stay that way. There are ways to bring that biome back to balance and I can show you how. 

Gut Health

Another thing that I see affects the body’s ability to get rid of this virus is leaky gut. Leaky gut is when the intestinal lining cells are not as healthy as they should be and so our digestive system is not capable of absorbing the necessary nutrients from the foods we eat. Moreover, the foods we are eating end up “leaking” through the intestinal wall (without being digested) and our immune system (70% of the immune system surrounds the intestines) reacts in an effort to protect us, which causes inflammation that can spread to all different parts of our bodies. 

We then start developing food sensitivities which delayed inflammatory responses, sometimes even to healthy foods, and our immune system starts trying to protect us from them. The cause of leaky gut is almost always the lack of stress recovery and an imbalanced gut biome, which can be caused by certain foods like gluten, as well as toxins and medications. 

Nutrient Deficiencies

When our bodies are nutrient depleted, including if we don’t eat enough protein, it is harder for our immune system to get rid of the virus and for our body to make new healthy cells. Nutrient deficiencies are caused by leaky gut, as well as restricted diets (including plant-based diets), medications, such as birth control pills (which are synthetic hormones), and stress without enough recovery.

Hormone Imbalances

Hormones imbalances are also a reason why our bodies struggle to fight off the HPV virus. When estrogen is either too high, and not being detoxified well, or too low (post-menopausal, for example), both are associated with increased risk of HPV. Other hormone imbalances can also play a role, such as low thyroid function, elevated insulin and blood sugar levels, as well as cortisol that is too high or too low.

Toxin exposure

Another reason why women are not clearing this virus as quickly is toxin exposure. I'm finding this more and more in people who have been exposed to mold toxins. If there are mold toxins in your body - if you think you've been exposed to mold in the building where you live or work - then we need to address this because mold toxins can suppress your immune function and make you susceptible to all different kinds of infections, imbalance the microbiome, cause leaky gut, and make you susceptible to HPV. 

There are many other toxins we're exposed to in our food, water, in our homes, our personal care products, cookware, and furniture, so it's really important to go through a process of identifying what toxins have you been exposed to and help your body get those toxins out. That’s why I developed a Detox Program, to help you detoxify without making you feel worse.

Methylation Issues

Lastly, one other reason why it's hard for women to clear HPV is because of what's called deficient methylation. Methylation centers around how well our bodies can use B vitamins in the biochemical processes that these vitamins are involved in. Methylation is also used for many purposes in the human body including detoxification, making healthy cells and neurotransmitters, as well as breaking down neurotransmitters and protecting our DNA. 

So, if your body is not able to effectively use B vitamins to protect you and make healthy cells, then you become more susceptible to HPV causing abnormal cells. Methylation is negatively affected by several of the other things on this list, including stress, inflammation, toxins, and nutrient deficiencies. You can learn more about efficient methylation and the MTHFR gene variation here. 

How To Get Rid of HPV

So, ultimately, it's by addressing the reasons we are not clearing the virus, that we are actually able to get rid of the virus. That’s what I see time and time again in my practice and program.

Imagine that! When we give our bodies what they need in order to protect you from HPV, you can clear this virus just like the 90% of people mentioned in the research.  And, at the same time, you’ll be able to move on with your life, have better energy, mood, focus, sleep and less likely to have any other health issues. 

It’s not enough to go after the virus with vitamins, herbs and mushroom extracts. We need to dig in to the reasons you're susceptible in the first place - the root causes of why the virus is still in your body. 

The women who work with me to address those causes end up not only reversing abnormal cells, but getting HPV to negative and keeping it negative. I've worked with patients over 15 years ago who have been able to keep HPV negative all this time because we got to the underlying cause of the virus being persistent in their bodies.

I hope all this really helps you get a better understanding of why HPV might be hanging around longer than it should be and also to feel empowered, optimistic and hopeful that there are ways you can protect yourself and help your body fend off this virus for good. 

If you are really committed to erasing this virus from your life forever, you can sign up for my Say Goodbye to HPV 12-Week Program here.

If you’re constantly feeling gut discomfort or digestive issues like bloating, gas, constipation or diarrhea you may want to sing up for my Heal Leaky Gut Program where I teach you how to heal leaky gut with my proven protocol. Keep in mind that 50% of people with leaky gut, have zero symptoms, so the only way to know for sure is to do the food sensitivity panel I recommend.

If you’re interested in a safe and effective detoxification that will actually make you feel better and that you can do without affecting your daily routine, you can sign up for my New 14-Day Detox Program here. It includes The Total Detox Support Kit with a Total Detox Protein Powder (your choice of plant-based or collagen based), Antioxidant Support Capsules, and Complete Amino Detox Capsules.

If you’re ready to fully heal your adrenal glands and rebalance your neurotransmitters, you can sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here. Also, if you want to learn more about how to recover from stress so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to read my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. 

In the book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online.

If you’d like me to help you one-on-one by phone or video, from anywhere in the world, to review your symptoms, and what your body is trying to tell you, and to have my guidance to implement my protocol, you can schedule a comprehensive or priority consultation with me. 

I think of myself as a health detective, reviewing complex cases to identify what has been missed, and then helping you create a strategic plan for healing. You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.

We’re here to help you!

Connect with Dr. Doni: 

Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND  

Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW  

-

Books and Resources: 

Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576

Stress Warrior Book (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR   

Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE) 

HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR  

7-day Stress Reset (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET  

HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/  

-

Personalized Solutions: 

If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH  

To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In today’s episode, I interview Christine Burke. She is a Forensic Genetic Genealogist, law enforcement expert, trainer and private investigator. She specializes in helping people who have discovered information about their biological family through genetic testing.

After experiencing "DNA Drama" resulting in the almost complete loss of her identity as she knew it, Christine created an innovative process using Genetic Genealogy to help others quickly and easily find biological family.

Since genetic testing has become more available, people are getting access to information that they didn't know about themselves or their families, or perhaps they want information about their families that they haven't been able to get anywhere else.

It was particularly interesting for me to talk with Christine from my perspective as a Naturopathic Doctor who specializes in MTHFR and helping patients understand how their genetic variations are affecting their health, and what they can do to circumvent those effects.

Over the past decade, I've been helping people to understand the influence of their genetics in terms of polymorphisms, such as MTHFR, that affect metabolism and health. I then guide patients to do testing, including an ancestry.com panel that I then run through software to identify the most pertinent gene variations, as well as tests to show whether those gene variations are being expressed. I developed my MTHFR protocol to optimize methylation based on my own case and working with thousands of patients.

In the process of identifying gene variations, people do often report being surprised at what else they discovered in their ancestry, finding out something about their family members or making connections with family members who they didn't know.

Genetics vs Genealogy

What's interesting about genetics is that for so long we've relied on the genealogy to know our history but that is just the record. When you bring in the genetics it provides people with information that they may had not known before.

In the interview, Christine shares that she herself is an example. She recently found out (by doing a 23andMe test) that her father, whom she never knew because he died when she was young, was not her biological father and that she has half siblings who she had never met.

This could be quite shocking to receive this type of information. It is common not to know what to do with the information or how to process it. For Christine it was shocking to find out that there are people who are biologically related to her. It shook her sense of identity. That is when she realized that she wanted to bring much needed awareness and support for people in a similar situation.

It can become even more complicated when parents or families perpetuate the lie. That’s why having support and realizing that there is a healing process is so important. People have the right to know. Everybody deserves answers, not only from a medical perspective, but to try to understand what happened and to deal with the grief that this new information could cause.

Dealing With the Shock of Finding Out About Your Genetics

A lot of people feel hesitant to share the truth with their own families for many reasons. They might feel they will be judged or criticized for sharing what really happened. And yet, when the person involved finds out the truth, it can be quite shocking for them.

People could feel that information that they had a right to have, was “pushed under the rug.” This is what inspires Christine to support people in this process.

The healing needs to come from people being honest. For example, in the case of Christine’s mother, who passed away recently - her father was not her biological father either and she would always say “I don't know why my dad doesn't love me.” This is the kind of trauma that can be generated when people are not honest with their family members.

Christine believes that parents have a responsibility to their child, to put their child’s emotional and physical health first. When people continue a false narrative, it only ends up damaging their child’s health.

If you are observing intergenerational trauma in your family and you have information about the truth of what happened, then you have the power to stop the intergenerational trauma from continuing by sharing information. In doing so, you can change the future of your family. When the truth is not told, it is just a form of abuse that gets handed down and handed down, and that's what we need to stop.

When people find out about their relatives through a genetic test, it can be a really hard place to be because, first, they need to cope with the shock of having this new information; then they could try reaching out to the people who they would normally reach out to, but they may not be there for them anymore; and then the new people they just found out about may not want to be present to listen to their identity crisis. This is why it’s critical for these people to find the right person to talk to about all this. Otherwise, one trauma leads to another.

Christine clarifies that she is not a counselor. Her background is as a detective. But after going through this herself, she wanted to offer tools for other people to be able to find out information they need in order to move forward. She is able to help people find biological relatives, and she has created training programs to show people how to look for this information themselves.

While finding new information about your family of origin can be shocking, Christine finds that it is also the first step in the healing process.

Genetics and Health

When I review genetic reports with patients (Dr. Doni speaking), it is common to first feel a sense of fear – what am I going to find out about myself that I didn’t know before and am I going to be able to do something about it. Then, once we review all the information, people often report feeling validated, realizing that the information in their genetic report makes sense in terms of their real day-to-day experience in their body.

It can actually be quite empowering to understand the blueprint behind your biological and metabolic processes, and responses to stress.

And then, to realize that we have the power to turn off genetic expression through diet and lifestyle – it’s mind blowing! Our health and future is not 100% determined by our genetics.

Our genes simply show potential tendencies. What has more power in determining our health destiny is what we do each day to recover from stress and trauma, and how we take care of our bodies, in terms of diet, sleep, nutrients, exercise, and activities that our bodies reset.

That is how I realized that our Stress Type – how we each respond to stress – is determined both by our genes and our past stress exposure.

For example, some people tend to have higher adrenaline levels when exposed to stress. This is related to gene variations of COMT and MAO, but it is determined by levels of inflammation, toxicity, and nutrients in their body. I can see all this when reviewing test results, and then guide patients to correct the elevated adrenaline levels so they can feel well and not be constantly in a state of high adrenaline.

Others tend to become depleted in adrenaline, which means they are more likely to feel tired when under stress. In that case, I can suggest the precursor nutrients to take to correct the deficiency and help the person keep up when under stress.

Overall, understanding your genetic variations, and how best to find out whether those variations are affecting your health, and then having guidance to support your body to navigate around those metabolic traffic jams, can make a significant difference in your health.

There is a lot of confusion out there on this topic. Many practitioners will prescribe based on a genetic variation, without finding out first whether you even need that prescription. So I often find myself warning people to work with someone like me who has extensive training and experience guiding people, so that you can feel better and not worse.

Where to Start with a Genetic Test

There are many genetic tests available now. Some tests are specifically designed for health purposes and can give you a sense of your genetic predisposition to health issues. There are other tests that give you information about your biological relatives.

23andMe and Ancestry.com are accessible to the public and can provide both health and ancestral information. There are some more specialized tests for identity, such as GED Match or FT DNA, which are the only databases that law enforcement is allowed to utilize to help identify unknown deceased and to catch criminals.

The important thing is to have someone who can help you evaluate and understand these reports correctly.

A genetic test result is like the blueprint of the person, which is amazing!

Everything needed to make the unique you is right in there and it's just fascinating what you can do with this information. We can take action in our lives to influence how this genetic information will affect us. Our longevity can be influenced by our lifestyle and by both our stress exposure, and our recovery from it.

Receiving genetic information and having support to allow ourselves to go through the healing process of having that information, makes it possible to integrate the information into our lives and our understanding of ourselves. All of this actually helps to decrease the probability of developing health issues in the future.

As traumatic as it could be to find out a truth that you didn’t know before, it can also be liberating. Once you have information, then you can become proactive and make choices based on that information.

If you want to reach out to Christine and learn more about how she can help you, please make sure to check out her website or reach out to her by email or on Instagram @dnageneticgenealogist.

If you want to learn more about how I help patients with genetic variations, such as MTHFR and others, be sure to watch my free MTHFR Masterclass. https://doctordoni.com/mthfr-masterclass

To understand my approach to helping people recover from stress and trauma with my Stress Recovery Protocol, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health. I talk about genetic variations and how to address them in the book too!

In my book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected your cortisol and adrenaline levels. You can also take the Stress Type Quiz online.

For the most comprehensive support to recover from stress and trauma, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.

We're here to help you!

Connect with Dr. Doni: 

Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND  

Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW  

-

Books and Resources: 

Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576

Stress Warrior Book (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR   

Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE) 

HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR  

7-day Stress Reset (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET  

HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/  

-

Personalized Solutions: 

If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH  

To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

This episode is going to be about the head game of healing. I find that when I'm talking with patients a lot of what I'm doing is really coaching them on the process of healing. And I find this to be really important because sometimes we can feel like we're in this dark tunnel when we get diagnosed with some health issue.

As much as I can recommend the specific dietary changes and nutrients and herbs to rebalance and restore what's out of balance, I also think that an important part of the healing process is the head game of healing or how do you think about the healing process and how do you think about what's going on in your body.

What Is the Head Game of Healing?

If you're having a high level of anxiety about whatever your diagnosis is then that just ends up working against you. When we're in a state of fear, we are constantly thinking of all the worst-case scenarios, we're constantly worrying and feeling anxious about the diagnosis and what is going to happen or how will you get better.

When we're in a state of fear it's very hard to be proactive and at the same time, we're just reactivating our stress response constantly. So, now we not only have the original stress response that likely created the health issue but now we have the fear response that's triggering more stress and it just snowballs. That stress response to the health issue ends up working against you and actually makes the health issue worse.

This is why to me the symptoms and diagnosis are really just your body's way of communicating with us. You are not your diagnosis. A lot of times what our mind does is attach our identity to a definition of a role like sometimes we identify ourselves as the oldest child or someone who's married or a single mom, or we identify with our experience, and we can also identify with a diagnosis.

An important part of your healing process is to detach yourself from the diagnosis a bit because if you're completely identified with a specific diagnosis then it will be much more difficult for your body to heal.

For example, if I identified myself as someone who gets migraines then that becomes my identity. This is the way our brains work so we if we identify with the diagnosis, we end up recreating that same health issue.

This is something that is really hard to do because when you're in the midst of pain, that's the only experience you can have. You're 100% experiencing having a migraine or whatever pain you might be experiencing, so it's hard to even imagine how you could separate yourself from the symptoms or the diagnosis.

You have to think of who are as a spirit, as an essence, as a person, as the person who's existing in this human experience, in this body. Who are you separate from your symptoms or diagnosis. This way you can create a little bit of what I call separation between who you are and a specific situation that you’re experiencing at some point in time. If we want to create change in your health, you will no longer be that diagnosis. So, we need to separate from the diagnosis to create the possibility for something different to exist - to create the possibility for change.

Our Bodies Call for Attention

Our bodies way of communicating to us that something is out of balance is through symptoms. It could be physical pain or emotional pain, mood changes, energy changes, sleep patterns changes, brain fog, etc. These are all ways in which our bodies let us know they need attention.

And it doesn't help if we're hard on ourselves or in a battle with our own bodies over that because this just creates more stress and a vicious cycle that makes the healing process longer and harder.

Whatever signals your body is giving you, it's trying to communicate to you that it needs help.

That something is out of balance, something needs attention. It could be a heart palpitation, reflux, feeling tired, hair falling, migraines, etc. Then in the medical world what we do is we go through a process of evaluating to understand those signals so that we know what the appropriate treatment would be.

A Naturopathic Approach

A Naturopathic Doctor’s approach at how to fix a health issue is slightly different than that of a classically trained Medical Doctor. The latter are mostly trained to use pharmaceutical medications or surgeries or procedures and so they're looking for indications in the body that something requires a medication or surgery but a lot of times this may not be what our bodies need in order to heal.

If a Medical Doctor doesn’t find the cause of your illness or a reason to give you medication, he/she could say that there’s nothing wrong with you or that you should keep monitoring the issue because they may not have any other tools they can offer for you to feel better.

A Naturopathic Doctor, in contrast, is trained in a lot of other potential tools that you can be used to support healing, such as dietary changes, general lifestyle changes, sleep pattern changes, exercise changes, etc. We are also trained in the use of supplements, herbs and nutrients (based on research in clinical textbooks) and how to use these for different health issues.

Another tool that some Naturopathic Doctors use is Homeopathy. This is an energetic medicine that helps realign our bodies with its own ability to heal. There are also other tools like the use of plant medicines, meditation, breathwork, cold water therapy, physical therapy, detoxification, etc. So, there is such a long list of possible healing modalities that a Naturopathic

Doctor can use to help you heal naturally while getting to the real root of the problem, so it goes away for good.

This is not to say that medications or antibiotics or surgery are not important or ever necessary, but for you to know that if your M.D. says that they don't have a treatment for you, then I want to make sure you know that there are all these other treatment possibilities, like diet and herbs and nutrients and so on, for you to heal.

Prevention is Better Than Cure

Prevention of health issues is for each of us to choose for ourselves and this is one of the other key head games of healing. We can take on that responsibility and accountability for our own health. If we're here, we are living this beautiful life experience, why not try to be as healthy as possible through it and even try to make it as long as possible to enjoy more of the things we love doing with the people we care about.

Everyone has the choice to become more intentional about their health. We can choose to treat our bodies poorly and just eat whatever and work 24/7 and then rely on health insurance when health issues arise, or we can choose to take good care of ourselves today and try to achieve our best health each day so we can have better and longer lives.

A lot of patients I see wish they could have known before how to take better care of their health themselves. So, as a Naturopathic Doctor my goal is to help you become more in charge of your own health and your own future and then become more intentional about each decision you make.

This is what I call SelfC.A.R.E. (this is the acronym I use in my latest book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health) where you're taking good care of yourself and it turns out that the more we have compassion for ourselves, the more we are accepting of our experience in our bodies and in our lives, and then it decreases our stress and it creates more peace, and this actually prevents health issues.

Setting Yourself Up for Success in The Head Game of Healing

When we take good care of ourselves, we are going to be healthier, happier and more productive. We’re going to feel good and enjoy more what we're doing.

Stress is part of life. All humans are going to have stress. The key here is not trying to be stress free, but learning how to help your body recover from stress in the moment right alongside the stress exposure. We need to learn how to counterbalance the stress so we can help our bodies keep up with this experience.

We are all like a marathon runner or an airplane in our own lives. Marathon runners don’t only take good care of themselves the day before the marathon, they have to be on point in every

aspect long before the marathon; training, nutrition, sleep, hydration, etc. The same way that a plane must be in balance in every switch, control knob, altitude, weight, speed, etc. for it to fly straight. Our human bodies have thousands of systems working 24/7 at the same time and my job as a Naturopathic Doctor is to help you fine tune it a find a way to bring all those systems back to balance so you can be as healthy as you can.

Some of this evaluation can be done in regular blood work covered by insurance like trying to figure out if you need to be in the emergency room or tell if you have anemia or if you have an infection. But when I look at these tests, I'm also looking at a much more fine-tuned level. What I do is I help you to tune in your body to a much more optimal level. In standard blood work the ranges are wide so you may still be in the range, but you might not feel good. You might still feel tired and have borderline anemia or have low iron, or have low B12 or folate or a nutrient deficiency or a methylation issue or an MTHFR gene variation, etc. All this is going to give us a much better sense of your body's needs to get back in balance.

Going Further than Regular Blood Work

If you don't feel good there's a reason - that's always the case. If your body's giving you indications in some shape or form it means that something's out of balance and it might not show in the regular blood work because the regular blood work is really for identifying more emergency situations even when we do a complete metabolic panel. A complete metabolic panel is to identify the liver and kidney function and blood sugar levels and electrolyte levels, but you could have in range glucose and in range electrolytes and in range kidney and liver function and still not feel good for some other reason.

For example, the adrenal glands don't show well in regular blood work. You can pick up on the adrenal glands a little bit with the sodium, potassium and electrolyte levels because part of the job of the adrenal glands is to manage our sodium and potassium, so if there's an imbalance in sodium potassium even slightly in the blood work we should be thinking about the adrenal glands but what I find is I don't even wait for that because by the time it shows in your electrolytes, it's already a severe issue. I'd much rather pick up on an adrenal issue before it starts affecting your electrolytes.

Another example is your cortisol levels. You can run a blood level for cortisol which is a hormone made by the adrenal glands, but even then, the normal range is very broad. It's easy to fall in the normal range and I think that most of us are in this normal range but that doesn't mean we're at optimal levels throughout the day. It just means we're in what's considered normal range which means we don't need to go into the hospital because it's not an emergency but the more we optimize our cortisol levels the more we prevent ourselves from becoming an emergency.

I can't tell you how many patients I work with who the practitioner said this is a condition you're going to have for the rest of your life, it's irreversible. And after working with me, now those patients are testing negative, and for decades. Someone could test positive for an

autoimmune condition, like rheumatoid arthritis at one point in time, but then by making diet changes and detoxifying and resetting all their systems, they heal, the immune system and their bodies overall, come back into balance again.

Genetics as Part of The Head Game of Healing

For many years we thought that genetics determine most of our health. We tend to link our genetics with our destiny. That's why they did the whole human genome project to identify all the genes in a human and what they found is that our health is not mostly determined by our genes. Our health is mostly determined by what I refer to as our stress exposure – which is our environmental exposure, whether that's emotional stress, physical stress, injuries, infections, or toxin exposure.

All of those exposures, and even our parents stress exposure and our grandparents stress exposure, affect us and what's going to happen with our health. Studies show that less than 10% of health issues are genetically determined. We are all unique, there's certain things as humans that we have in common, but we're very unique in how our bodies use nutrients or how much we need of certain nutrients.

If you have a genetic tendency or you have a genetic variation, it does not mean that you have that issue. The only way we can know if that gene or gene variation is actually causing a health issue for you is to test your body and analyze if this gene is affecting you at this moment in time. Also, those genetic variations can turn on and off. So, if we see a genetic variation, let's say MTHFR, we need to do blood work for homocysteine and look at B vitamin metabolism. If your homocysteine is healthy then you don't have to worry, you can just keep preventing this gene variation from turning on and keep taking good care of your health.

So, we need to evaluate if a gene is affecting your health today, and if so, then we can take steps to address it, we can look at ways to turn a gene back off. Often times it’s stress exposure that turns a gene on, so we need to work on your stress and trauma exposure to get your body back in balance. It comes back to understanding how stress has caused imbalances and then address those imbalances in order to get you back to balance.

We need to give your body safety signals. Our bodies are constantly noticing stress signals all the time from changes in the environment, temperature, light, sound, toxins, etc. We are constantly exposed to plenty of stress signals (that affect our immune system, our nervous system, our digestive system, our hormones), but what we lack is the anti-stress signals.

We need to learn to balance our stress and anti-stress signals, so our body is in harmony again. Anti-stress signals could even be taking a deep breath or spending time in nature or with your pet. There are so many anti-stress signals we can choose from to counterbalance the stress and we need to integrate those in our daily routine.

Being Strategic About The Head Game of Healing

To me the thing about the healing head game is we have to be strategic, we have to think about it from a big picture view and we have to think about it from what can we do in this moment that's going to have the most positive ripple effect going forward. What are the things we can do that have the most healing potential on multiple levels because we are an interconnected system.

There are two core areas that we need to address that create such a positive ripple effect in the healing process. First, we have to address the leaky gut. We have to address your body’s ability to digest food and absorb nutrients by avoiding inflammatory foods and healing your intestinal lining. If we don’t address leaky gut, your body will have more inflammation and more toxicity coming from your gut, which only adds more stress.

The second core area to address is the adrenal glands. We need to heal our adrenals (your body’s main protection from stress by generating cortisol and adrenaline). If we're under constant stress, our system is going to break down. For some people they end up with cortisol being too high at certain times of the day, and for others it could be that cortisol is too low at certain times of the day.

At optimal levels our cortisol will be high in the morning to wake us up and gradually decrease through the day. We also need adrenaline (made by the adrenal glands) in optimal amounts; it gives us energy and focus, but we don't want too much or too little. So, we need to optimize your cortisol and adrenaline levels throughout the day to optimize your health and prevent future issues.

For this we need to measure your cortisol in the morning, midday and evening running a cortisol panel to know what your cortisol curve is up to. You can do this at home with a test kit that you can find here. Then we can use herbs and nutrients to address the imbalances.

We also need to reset our daily schedules so that we are not under constant stress. It's not just about relying on a nutrient. It's about how do we reset ourselves and our relationship with ourselves so that we can help our bodies to stay in a balanced state every day. This way we will not need to keep on taking these supplements and herbs forever. We recover back to balance and only need maintenance going forward.

This is why my stress recovery protocol has three phases: One is get out of stress mode first. Get the stress signaling to calm down enough so we can actually heal. Phase two is focusing on rebalancing everything and do the real recovery. And phase three is maintenance and resilience - becoming resilient under stress.

We also need to learn how to protect ourselves on a physical, mental and emotional level and even energetic and spiritual level. How do we protect ourselves from various stress exposures?

Well, this is part of the healing process. I really see that this is happening more and more. As humans we're learning how to choose for ourselves to have compassion for ourselves and have compassion for our human bodies. We can feel gratitude for our human bodies and how much they're working to help us survive. There might be a stress or trauma from way earlier in our lives, maybe a grief, maybe a sudden loss, maybe something that happened to us like abuse in a relationship or sexual abuse or something where your system got stuck into a state of stress and shock and you didn't get to process it.

When we are finally able to be present with ourselves, we start to realize when this started and when a certain health issue started. We need to have compassion for ourselves and our bodies, forgive ourselves for what happened and learn how to protect ourselves.

This is not something we learn in school or from our parents usually, but it's something we can teach ourselves and practice. I really think that the human experience is learning day by day how to have more compassion for ourselves so that we become the ones who can take the best care of ourselves and achieve our best health.

If you want to learn more about my approach on how you can start taking better care of yourself and apply my SelfC.A.R.E. protocol so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.

In my book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online.

Because I feel so strongly that I want people anywhere in the world to be able to access my protocols, I developed online video courses or programs you can start anytime.

· Heal Leaky Gut Program – teaching you to heal leaky gut with my proven protocol

· Stress Warrior™ - If you’re ready to fully heal your adrenal glands and rebalance your neurotransmitters, you can sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here.

If you’d like me to help you one-on-one by phone or video, to review your symptoms, and what your body is trying to tell you, and to have my guidance to implement my protocol, you can schedule a comprehensive or priority consultation with me. I think of myself as a health detective, reviewing complex cases to identify what has been missed, and then helping you create a strategic plan for healing. You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.

This doesn't have to be a mystery, and this doesn't have to take forever, it just needs to be individualized to you.

We’re here to help you!

Connect with Dr. Doni: 

Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND  

Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW  

-

Books and Resources: 

Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576

Stress Warrior Book (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR   

Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE) 

HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR  

7-day Stress Reset (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET  

HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/  

-

Personalized Solutions: 

If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH  

To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In today’s episode I interview Kimberly King. She is a sexual abuse educator and author of several books. As a freshman in college, Kimberly started her work with sexual abuse prevention as a women’s health Peer Counselor and Human Sexuality teaching assistant to the renowned Dr. Sandra Caron.

After more than a decade of teaching kindergarten and proactive momming, her son had a body safety scare with a friend - that triggered a shift. She realized she wanted take the scare out of sexual abuse prevention.

Now, Kimberly helps parents, and all who care for kids, learn to talk about body safety with ease so they can prevent abuse and protect their kids.

In this interview, we talk about sexual abuse. This is such an important topic and one that a lot of times we would rather not have to talk about, but we need to in order to raise awareness and help people recover and prevent sexual abuse from happening in the first place. Often parents report that it was by observing the experience their children are going through that they started to realize that they had a similar experience in childhood, but it was never addressed.

In fact, sexual abuse is more common than we realize. This type of trauma can paralyze children and adults with fear. In this interview, Kimberly shares ways to talk about it in a very kid-friendly or just simple matter of fact way. She describes that by having these conversations with your children, you can help to protect them and avoid anything from happening to them. When you think about it that way, the topic becomes easier to talk about.

How Common is Sexual Abuse?

It's shocking that one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before they're 18 years old. That's a terrible statistic right there but what's even worse is that only 38% of children ever tell anybody, so most of sexual abuse is not even reported. So, we don't know the real number but it's of epidemic levels which is why prevention is so important.

90% of children who are sexually abused will be sexually abused by the people in their inner circle of trust, the people that they already know including family members, siblings, cousins, distant cousins, teachers, and people they already trust.

How Does This Happen with Access to Devices Like Smartphones?

When you give your child a cell phone, they have access to apps, and they have access to everything. Predators know that kids are on phones and are hanging out on these apps. So, to give your child a cell phone is dangerous unless you get very prepared and empowered to prevent sexual abuse.

These conversations must happen with our children very early, way before they have access to cell phones, so that they understand body boundaries, body safety rules, they know who to tell if something happens, they know who they're safe with. And then you must start implementing online safety measures on these devices to make sure that your kids are protected.

We Need to Normalize Talking About Sexual Abuse

This is a safety concern. The goal is to prevent sexual abuse. The topic of body safety needs to be as approachable as possible. We need to teach our kids about this just as we teach them to put on their bike helmet and to buckle up in the car. It should just be common language like of course we know our body parts, and of course we know we have rights to protect our bodies and of course if we have a problem, we're going to tell our parents or our safe adults. So, we must normalize talking about these things so that it's not so taboo that children are terrified to tell us when something happens.

Sometimes we don't really teach our kids but it's so important. They don't have to respond or comply when an adult is demanding a hug or physical attention or being mean or saying something dangerous. We do have to empower them to use their voice because we're not always going to be there to protect them.

There are very few people talking about this with children. We need to talk about the real risks that they face so that parents understand and do an assessment of where and when they are putting their children at risk. We can certainly educate our kids about this but as parents we must make really good decisions. Is it a great idea to let a random babysitter that you hired on Facebook watch your two-year-old? NO! It's not!

The Effects of Sexual Abuse in a Person's Lifetime

The healing process is different for everybody. Having a history of sexual abuse can increase the risk of drug dependency, alcoholism, depression, anxiety, psychiatric disorders, academic problems, criminal problems, etc. It really does blossom into pretty much every disorder that you can think of, especially if left untreated.

Even one incident can create a lifetime of anxiety and depression. It would really be ideal if we could get ahead and prevent this from happening but for the people who went through something like this earlier in your life, it's very important to get help and start the healing process. Just talking about it with someone safe will help by letting it out of your head.

Does Sexual Abuse Tend to Repeat Itself in Families?

The data on that is not very well studied but if you are a victim of sexual abuse once you're more likely to be a victim of abuse later. If you were abused as a child, you're more likely to be abused again later and this comes from a lack of awareness of what abuse looks like. If you

were abused by, say your stepfather, and were threatened or blackmailed and you felt responsible and he blamed it on you, if you were raised in that environment and you didn't even know what you were going through, then when you get to be a young adult, you're still not going to know what is normal and what isn’t. This puts you at risk and this is why education is so critical.

It's critical that kids, especially teenagers, understand what abuse looks like because you don't want them to make a mistake just because you haven't talked to them about it or because they don't understand it. Why risk it when you can teach them about it. You could really get ahead of it and save them a lifetime of hardship by preventing abuse from happening. It doesn't matter what age your child is - just start talking about it now.

So, having that conversation with your teen about alcohol for example, do not mix sex with alcohol because it will never go well or that you could you could actually be in some type of a sexual situation with a girl or a boy and they can change their mind in the middle of it and just because she or he is your girlfriend or boyfriend or partner, it doesn’t mean that you can keep going. You have to stop. Conversations about consent and what that looks like for your children and for their relationships are critical to have.

Healthy sexual activity with consent can be so beneficial to our health, but that doesn't mean that we get to just force that on someone and overlook these important boundaries, and so the more that these conversations can happen at a young age, the more we will be preventing the type of behavior that could push past these boundaries.

Having this education and being empowered in this space will also prevent things like sexual harassment in the workplace. Our kids when raised and taught these things aren't going to accept this behavior from their boss. They will have their boundaries in place and they will not be afraid of speaking up if needed.

The Fear of Speaking Up for Yourself

Being an authoritarian parent is not an effective way to parent because it can make it so that children don’t feel comfortable going to parents when they are dealing with sexual abuse, bullying and/or depression. You want your kids to be able to communicate with you, no matter what the topic. You want to develop a relationship with your kids that involves you being an active listener and not a dictator.

Studies show that children with authoritarian parents are more likely to develop anxiety and depression than kids with parents who are more open to talk about anything. A style of parenting that includes structure as well as calmness, gentleness, and very good listening skills makes it so that your children will talk to you and share these things with you, so that you know when they need help.

This is critical in the topic of body safety because kids have to know that when something is wrong, they have the right to speak up and they need to speak up and they need to know who which adults are safe for them to go to for help. Not all kids understand that, and not all parents teach that. There are kids who are worried they're going to get in trouble if they say something about sexual abuse.

A good option is to make a list of safe adults in case mom is not available. Who is it that you love and trust in case of an emergency or who is it that's super easy to talk to and can be on your body safety team. Some examples are people who have never asked your child to keep a secret, or they've never violated a body boundary, and they follow your family safety plan and rules.

We need to learn to protect ourselves not only physically but also emotionally and spiritually at the same time. And we are not really trained on how to protect ourselves very well. And so learning what does that mean to better protect ourselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Having conversations about what are the feelings that make us feel good or green flag feelings and then the red flag feelings such as butterflies, or maybe you're nervous, maybe your hands are shaking, maybe you're sweaty, maybe you’re angry or scared or stressed. We need to teach our children to recognize these feelings and how their bodies feel when they're experiencing those emotions.

This helps them communicate with you better, and it doesn't have to just be about sexual abuse it can be about anything like feeling nervous because the teacher raised her voice. Where did your child feel that in his or her body? Ask your child if they want to talk about it. It's about processing all these emotions instead of just keeping it all inside because they don't know how to talk about it or they don't know how to express themselves.

Then we can make a list of who are the green flag people and the red flag people, and then why are these people in the red. This is a great way to have a conversation about it and it’s an easy way to talk about it.

Good Communication is Critical to Prevent Sexual Abuse

When we're able to be in such deeper real authentic conversations with our children we can reduce rates of trauma in future generations and the more we can prevent trauma experiences, the more we're going to be preventing health issues and abuse and addiction.

We also need to open up the conversation about what adults and parents have experienced and how can they heal in the process, because sometimes people are afraid to have conversations with their children because they're afraid of what they might feel as an adult.

You might not be ready to share your story with your kids, and that is fine. You can even just say something happened to me and I don't want it to happen to you so let's talk about it.

If you avoid these topics completely, it's like you're rolling the dice. Maybe your kids are going to be lucky, and they'll get out of childhood unscathed, but the statistics are not in the favor of that. So, even if it's difficult, even if you have to get through some stuff to talk about it with your kids, you need to have this open communication.

If you want to learn more from Kimberly please make sure to check out her website or reach out to her on Instagram @toughtopicsmom.

If you want to learn more about how I help patients recover from stress and trauma by reversing the effects of stress with my Stress Recovery Protocol, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.

In my book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected your cortisol and adrenaline levels. You can also take the Stress Type Quiz online.

For the most comprehensive support to recover from stress and trauma, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.

And if you have tested positive for HPV and you’re ready to transform your health and life, please start by watching my HPV Masterclass here.

We're here to help you!

Connect with Dr. Doni: 

Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND  

Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW  

-

Books and Resources: 

Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576

Stress Warrior Book (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR   

Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE) 

HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR  

7-day Stress Reset (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET  

HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/  

-

Personalized Solutions: 

If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH  

To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In today’s episode I am going to be talking all about your adrenal glands and why it is so important to prioritize understanding your body’s particular stress response pattern.

We will discuss what the adrenal glands are, where they are, what functions they serve, why they become depleted, why it’s so important to help these glands to perform their best, how we can test them and what we can do to help them recover!

How Does the Adrenal System Work?

We each have two adrenal glands in our bodies, and they are located on top of each of our kidneys. These glands are responsible for the production of adrenaline (epinephrine and norepinephrine), cortisol, and other hormones that determine heart rate, blood pressure, and other important bodily functions.

I like to think about the adrenal glands as our internal bodyguards. They help protect us from danger by activating our body into the necessary state for fight or flight when we sense there may be a threat.

Throughout time, as humans, our adrenal system would activate when exposed to a threat and then afterwards deactivate appropriately when the threat had dissipated. But in our modern world, the threats to our lives have become much more distant and abstract, leaving our body in a less certain state of fear for our safety. Did you know that your adrenal levels can become triggered just by watching an intense scene on TV?

Our bodyguards are now in an almost ubiquitous state of activation, meaning they are often chronically triggered and ultimately depleted, and they are not able to protect us as they’re really meant to.

You sense a threat and the amygdala in the brain picks up a fear response that sends signals through what's called the HPA axis (the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis). The brain is perceiving there's a danger going on and it's going to then send a hormone to your adrenal glands through the bloodstream to say we need extra cortisol and adrenaline to help protect us from whatever is going on right now.

That extra cortisol and adrenaline then tells all the other cells in your body we've got something dangerous going on and we need we need to turn off certain functions: we're not going to need to digest food right now or we're not going to do reproductive function. We're going to be making sure that there's blood flow and blood sugar so you can get out of danger. The heart races, and blood pressure increases, to get us out of danger.

Why is Chronic Depletion of Adrenals a Problem?

As our adrenal system becomes activated, it tells the rest of our body to cease normal functioning and upkeep. It tells our body to stop digesting food and absorbing nutrients, and instead to only focus on the threat in front of us. If we are unable to leave this heightened state, our bodies do not return to their normal functioning.

When we ARE able to return to a normal (healthy) level of cortisol and adrenaline, that's when a signal goes out through all of our cells, including our digestive system, and says: it's time to digest again, let's make digestive enzymes, let’s make healthy new intestinal cells, let's support our gut bacteria, let's absorb our nutrients.

In our nervous system, serotonin and GABA are calming neurotransmitters that help counterbalance the adrenaline, so if we have stimulating adrenaline happening, we also need a counterbalance of serotonin and GABA. I think of it like the gas and brake pedals in a car. You need the gas pedal to get your brain responding but you also need the brake pedal to be able to calm things down.

When we are depleted from over-use of our adrenal glands, we can become more and more reliant on things like caffeine because caffeine stimulates us to make adrenaline and then alcohol to sedate us in the evening. Caffeine and alcohol are fine in moderation, but they are cause for concern when we need them to maintain our lifestyles.

Optimal Adrenal Function is Key for Optimal Health

Research shows that when we have optimal adrenal function we live longer.

Unfortunately, this is something that is very rarely addressed in the traditional doctor’s office. Even when you go to an endocrinologist, who specializes in glands that make hormones. Only in extreme cases like adrenal insufficiency, Addison's disease, or Cushing syndrome would adrenals raise to their attention. But most of us are suffering silently in not extreme cases, but still suboptimal and correlated to most all health conditions.

Studies show that over 80% of adults have dysregulated adrenal function -- so most of us have adrenal function that is NOT optimal on a daily basis!

When our adrenal glands are over or under functioning, it's predisposing us to all different health issues.

The Prescription to Fix Adrenal Function Doesn’t Have to be Medicine

The good news is there is a lot we can do to help our adrenal glands return to optimal functioning, and therefore optimal health, and it often doesn't involve taking a prescription medication or an invasive surgery, even though traditional medicine would like you to believe that it does.

Instead, it involves learning how to give the right support to your adrenal glands for them to function.

My book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health is really all about your adrenal glands and understanding your body’s unique stress signature.

Through helping thousands of patients, I have seen evidence that adrenal gland function is usually the root cause of so many other health problems, and once corrected, tend to have a huge positive ripple effect on your health and your life.

Please dive into the research if you are interested! My book has hundreds of references, and many sources are available online.

As a naturopathic doctor, my goal is to help people feel better – not to give you a prescription that will keep you coming back into my office every week. This passion was ignited by not getting enough answers in my own life and wanting to share the wisdom and freedom I’ve found, to save you time, money, and headaches.

I often have patients with very complex cases where they've been in severe fatigue or pain or distress for years and have never had their cortisol and adrenaline tested. I’ve had countless cases of patients not receiving answers or making progress on their medical diagnosis, and then when we address their adrenal functioning, it is the domino that changes everything for the better.

Your Stress Pattern and Therefore Adrenal Function is as Unique as Your Fingerprint

It's not the same for all of us, and therefore our treatment plans are not one size fits all.

Your stress pattern is based on your genetics, past stress exposure, and it's even based on your parents and your grandparents stress exposure. These all influence how your body responds to stress today. So, to really understand what your cortisol and adrenaline are up to at this point in time, we need to measure them.

Standard bloodwork will not catch the inner workings of the adrenal glands. Additionally, your levels will – and should – change throughout the day. This is your natural cortisol curve, the highest point in the morning and gradually decreasing throughout the day. And so, we need to take measurements throughout the day to provide an overall picture of how your cortisol levels are fluctuating and when.

But we also need to measure adrenaline levels. What I want you to know are your actual norepinephrine and epinephrine levels and there's only a few labs that measure these accurately, and that's what I offer through my office.

Although everyone’s situation is unique, through the many patients I’ve seen and studied, everyone falls generally into one of five common stress types:

- The Stress Magnet: elevated cortisol with elevated adrenaline in the morning or all day

- The Night Owl: elevated cortisol in the evening with elevated adrenaline

- Sluggish and Stressed: elevated cortisol with low adrenaline

- Blah and Blue: low cortisol in the morning or at midday, with low adrenaline

- Tired and Wired: low cortisol morning or midday with elevated adrenaline

In my book, and online, I have a self-assessment quiz to help you figure out what your stress type might be, and I’ve included the links below.

Each stress type will have a different path to recovery. All treatments will fall within the umbrella of my treatment program called SelfC.A.R.E. where C stands for clean eating, A for adequate sleep, R for recovery, and E for exercise. I have tailor made programs for each stress type so your body will get exactly what it needs and nothing it doesn’t.

How to Help Your Adrenal System

You can start by testing your cortisol and adrenaline levels throughout the day, by knowing your stress type pattern, and watch every other facet of your health fall into place. You can get a home test for this here.

If you want to learn more about my approach on how you can start taking better care of yourself and apply my SelfC.A.R.E. protocol so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.

In my book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online.

If you’re ready to master your stress and become a stress warrior you can sign up for my Stress Warrior Program here.

If you’d like a more accurate and thorough picture of exactly what’s going on in your body, please make an appointment with my office. We would be more than happy to sit down and help you get to the core of whatever health issues you’re facing, so we can figure them out together. You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.

This doesn't have to be a mystery, and this doesn't have to take forever, it just needs to be individualized to you.

We’re here to help you!

Connect with Dr. Doni: 

Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND  

Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW  

-

Books and Resources: 

Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576

Stress Warrior Book (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR   

Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE) 

HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR  

7-day Stress Reset (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET  

HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/  

-

Personalized Solutions: 

If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH  

To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In today’s episode I interview Louise Swartswalter. Louise is an energy healer and certified biofeedback specialist. She specializes in clearing energy blocks and uses neurofeedback and neurolinguistic programming (NLP) to rebalance the human brain through her signature B.R.A.I.N. System. She is also the owner and founder of the Brain Soul Success Academy.

Today we talk about how a multisensory approach, which is used to help with dyslexia, can be used to clear past traumas, even generational trauma. Louise shares how the system she uses is able to transform health, behavior patterns, and emotions, and how by releasing our energetic roadblocks, we can achieve success and reach our goals in life.

During her career and own healing journey, Louise discovered that the brain operates like a motherboard for the body. When a person’s brain is functioning at optimal health and is in balance, the rest of one’s body and life is able to fall into balance.

We're not just a body. We've got to heal the emotions. We've got to heal the spirit. We've got to heal whole person. We have an energetic field that goes all the way out to the stars. We are energy bodies before we are physical bodies. So, in order to really heal, we have to reset on an emotional, spiritual and energetic level.

The B.R.A.I.N. System

B.R.A.I.N. is an acronym that stands for:

B: Body. This relates to all the work we do to heal our bodies like detoxification, taking supplements, mastering stress, supporting adrenal function, getting good sleep, exercise, etc. The B is the lifestyle pieces that a functional medicine doctor or somebody doing that kind of work would know.

R: Release. Release the trauma and the emotions and the baggage. Often times it's ancestral and we have to clear that out for people to become whole and aligned.

A: Alignment. The brain system is aligned with our spirit. And so, a spiritual God or whatever God means to each individual person is always a part of the healing process.

I: Integration. This is integrating your brain frequencies to your soul. Your true purpose. People don't really heal their life where they want to if they don't have a purpose. Our bodies will still struggle with some kind of adrenal issue if we don't have a purpose in life. It’s when we can identify and feel that sense of purpose that we really thrive. It’s your big WHY, so, we clear energy blocks to get to that.

N: New Program. The new program piece is this high-level energy work that rewires your brain. This is achieved by using frequency medicine which is neurofeedback. It’s about working multidimensionally to get the results we want.

Healing Trauma at a Brain Soul Level

People looking to heal are often getting one protocol from one practitioner and a different protocol from another practitioner. It’s when we integrate all the healing holistically that we will be successful. We need to find a way to be cohesive and synergistic when healing our body, mind and spirit.

Sometimes the challenge with energetic work is that it’s something we can’t see and sometimes people have a hard time believing or understanding how it works.

When we heal trauma at the brain soul level we can even see physical changes in peoples physique. They smile more, their eyes look brighter, they feel lighter, more energetic and vibrant, and they have a different glow in general.

Louise describes that when she was a special education teacher, she used a multi-sensory approach with her students. She would guide them to consider what they see, say, hear, write and feel all at the same time. Most of health and healing doesn’t integrate a multi-sensory approach. That's why she developed the B.R.A.I.N. System.

More than 60% of adults have experienced at least one adverse childhood event, let alone adulthood trauma, so it's something that's prevalent and yet a lot of times we go through life without being aware of it. And most people are not addressing it, and a lot of practitioners don't know how to address it.

We know that trauma is associated with health issues. We need to be able to release traumatic experiences, compassionately and effectively, so that we can move forward with our lives without the negative effects of this baggage called trauma.

By using this multidimensional system, we will definitely see results faster. Everybody wants to heal faster, no one wants to stay sick or imbalanced for a long time.

A B.R.A.I.N. System Session (Louise does a live session for Dr. Doni)

Here are the questions that Louise asked Dr. Doni about pain in her joints and posture.

- What would you want to have change or be different?

- If you were connected to your body and you knew your optimal posture, what would you be doing differently than you are now?

- If you're feeling lighter and easier and you're paying attention to your posture connected to your body and your optimal posture, what would you tell yourself that you're not telling yourself now?

- If all those things were happening, what would you be allowing that you're not allowing now?

We often don’t realize how much our self-talk is part of how we feel constantly. By taking the judgment away you could tell yourself you're stronger, you're allowing things to be the way they are. You allow what is, you're connected to your body, you're feeling lighter, you're aware of your posture and things are easier.

So, what is taking Doni away from allowing what is, to be connected to her body and feeling light or having that ailing easier flow of things?

The next step is muscle test what is preventing her from clearing energy. We're all energy and we can get other people's energy attached to us, and especially as a practitioner when you're working closely with people, some of their pains or their imbalances could become attached to you. This energy could also come from early experiences during our childhood with parents or siblings, this is what we call trauma and what constitutes the foundation of the restrictions that do not let you move forward with your life.

These experiences can make us demoralized and manifest through physical pain in our bodies later in life. These can also steal from us our peace, our strength, acceptance, fulfillment, and sense of protection.

The key here is to release this trauma by working on our brains so that this trauma is no longer allowed to follow us everywhere. It is no longer allowed anywhere near our physical body, nervous system, etc. This trauma has to leave all of your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual being in order for you to heal. We have to clear the shock to be able to heal.

When we release all judgments, assumptions, projections, conclusions, decisions about the situation, we let it go, allowing us to be free, to honor what is, to be connected to our bodies and to feel lighter.

The last part of the system is energy work that has to do with codes and numbers. Think of it as acupuncture points but in the energy field. Then you speak positive messages to your brain. In this example the messages were: I am connected to my body, I pay attention to my posture, I feel lighter and easier, I am stronger than I think, I have positive self-worth, I am able to do things I didn't know I could do, I choose to succeed, I choose to live in joy, I allow things to be the way they are and I allow what is.

By doing this you are reprogramming and rewiring your brain and therefore your reality to the reality you want for your life now. It is rebooting you with these goals and intentions.

How The Healing of Trauma Works

You can have an intention when you go into an energetic healing experience, but really you don’t have to try. Energy shifts tend to cause a subtle ripple effect without any effort. More important is to allow yourself to let go and be guided.

Louise asked me about my experience with her energy work compared to what I experience with shamanism and psychedelic medicine. I explained that psychedelics have a similar ability to help us release and overcome trauma. Transformation happens when deeper traumas are cleared at the brain soul level. These processes literally reboot every cell energetically.

And then right away you start to see things come back into flow again. When the energy field is aligned physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, you start noticing good things coming your way. You start feeling better and your health improves.

If you want to learn more from Louise and get a better sense of how her system works, you may want to attend her upcoming online masterclass. Find out more and sign up for free here.

If you want to learn more about how I help patients recover from stress and trauma by reversing the effects of stress with my Stress Recovery Protocol, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.

In my book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected your cortisol and adrenaline levels. You can also take the Stress Type Quiz online.

For the most comprehensive support to recover from stress and trauma, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.

And if you have tested positive for HPV and you’re ready to transform your health and life, please start by watching my HPV Masterclass here.

We're here to help you!

Connect with Dr. Doni: 

Facebook HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

Instagram HTTPS://INSTAGRAM.COM/DRDONIWILSON  

YouTube HTTPS://YOUTUBE.COM/USER/DONIWILSONND  

Weekly Wellness Wisdom Newsletter: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/WWW  

-

Books and Resources: 

Order My New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Your-Stress-Reset-Health/dp/1953295576

Stress Warrior Book (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESSWARRIOR   

Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency Facebook Group (FREE) 

HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/STRESSWARRIOR  

7-day Stress Reset (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/STRESS-RESET  

HPV & Cervical Dysplasia Guide (FREE) 

HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/HPV-AND-CERVICAL-DYSPLASIA-GUIDE/  

-

Personalized Solutions: 

If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/BREAKTHROUGH  

To get an idea of more comprehensive options, read about Dr. Doni’s Signature Consultation Programs: HTTPS://DOCTORDONI.COM/SERVICES

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are product links and affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I will earn a commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.

In today’s episode I am going to be talking about protein and why it’s so important to make sure you’re getting enough protein not only in your diet but in every single meal. So, let’s get started.

As humans we need 3 sources of calories or energy that our bodies can’t produce by themselves: Protein, Carbohydrates and Fat. These are called Macronutrients. And, from my experience as a Naturopathic Doctor and Clinical Nutritionist for over 23 years, I see that the best health comes from balancing these 3 Macronutrients in every meal. Just as a point of reference, 1 gram of protein provides 4 calories for our bodies, 1 gram of carbs also provides 4 calories, and 1 gram of fat provides 9 calories for our system.

Why Is Protein So Important?

The basic structure of protein is a chain of biochemical 'building blocks' called amino acids. Our bodies use those amino acids to build and repair muscles and bones and to make hormones and enzymes. You also need protein in your diet to help your body repair cells and make new ones. Protein is also important for growth and development in children, teens, and pregnant women. Furthermore, protein is also a critical part of the processes that fuel your energy and carry oxygen throughout your body in your blood, and it helps make antibodies that fight off infections and illnesses. So, protein is a very important part of a healthy diet.

The protein we eat gets broken into amino acids during our digestion process and there are 9 essential amino acids that our bodies can’t produce: histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. These amino acids are not synthesized by mammals and are therefore dietarily essential or indispensable nutrients, meaning we must get it from food or another source.

We can get those nine essential amino acids from either animal-based or plant-based protein. We just have to learn how to choose the protein each time we eat.

Our bodies use these amino acids for building muscle every day, especially if we're working out and we want our muscles to grow, our bodies need even more of these amino acids. We also use amino acids in the liver for detoxification and we need amino acids for making neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, adrenaline, etc.

If we're not getting enough protein and amino acids in our diet, we're going to be making it harder for our body to maintain adequate neurotransmitters and to maintain adequate detoxification.

Where to find Protein?

The thing I find is that so often people are way more likely to get plenty of carbs and now we're even learning to get fat in our meals but still many people are not getting enough protein. It is so much easier to get access to carbs than it is to protein. For example, if you’re hungry and eat a snack it will likely have more carbs than protein or fats. Chips, crackers, even fruit are all sources of carbs and have little or no protein in them.

Remember, our bodies like balance and so we are going to be feeling so much better if we get sources of all 3 macronutrients in every meal. We want to have all 3 macronutrients in every meal in intervals of 3 to 4 hours through the day. We want to have space in between meals so our bodies can digest and absorb these nutrients.

So, you can get protein from animal sources like eggs, milk, chicken, beef, turkey, and fish. I normally see that eating too much eggs or dairy causes inflammation, especially in people with leaky gut so I recommend to have them in moderation. I also recommend when choosing meat like chicken or beef that it is organic, free range, grass fed and free of hormones.

There is also plant based protein like nuts, seeds, legumes, soy and certain grains like quinoa. The thing with plant-based protein is that the quantity you have to eat to reach the minimum requirement is large and plant sources of protein often come tied with high carbs so you risk overfeeding your gut bacteria and having digestive issues.

Now you could also get a plant-based protein powder like pea protein, for example. If you’re interested in this product, you can find it here. There is also hemp seed, flaxseed and watermelon seed protein powders available. These plant-based protein powders are a good way to reach your body’s minimum protein requirement if you don’t eat meat.

How Much Protein Should You Eat?

The amount of protein you need depends on a number of factors, including your weight, age, goals, and activity level. As a general rule, we need around 1 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight or 0.36 grams per pound of body weight per day. This is the minimum requirement for a sedentary person. However, if you do intense workouts, have a physically demanding job, or both, you may need more, maybe even twice as much.

If you're wondering how many grams of protein you’re eating you can do a google search and type for example, how many grams of protein in 4 ounces of chicken and it will immediately show up for you (in this case it’s around 31 grams of protein). If your food comes in a package, you can look on the label and see how much is in there.

My recommendation is to get at least 20 grams of protein per meal or each time you eat. So, each time you eat ask yourself where is the protein? At the same time, I recommend keeping the carbs under 20 grams in each meal.

The thing is there's not one perfect number you really have to know your body and your activity level and start to fine tune it and play with it until you find the spot where you feel the best.

There are also other factors to consider like health-related issues. If you have kidney issues for example you may need to moderate your protein intake because as your body uses protein, the protein breaks down into waste that your kidneys must remove from the blood.

Consistency And Balance Are Key

It's important to give your body consistent signals. Our bodies do best when they can predict what is going to happen regarding food during the day. If we shift things around all the time like not eating for long periods of time and then eating too much all at once, then our metabolism and digestion can be overwhelmed.

If we can't digest everything that we eat especially the carbs and fibers, we end up overfeeding our gut bacteria and then we end up with bloating and gas and burping and bacterial overgrowth or yeast overgrowth.

I see this a lot where people want to eat more of healthy stuff - more vegetables and more seeds and more nuts and they put it all in their protein shake or bowl - but our digestive system is only capable of absorbing a certain amount of nutrients each time we eat (especially if you have leaky gut), so the rest ends up just overfeeding our gut bacteria.

It’s the same with protein. You don’t want to eat 100 grams of protein in one meal because it would be too much to digest, and your body will not be able to benefit from it. What you want to do is space your protein intake evenly through the day in 3 or 4 small meals and combine the protein with some healthy carbs based on your blood sugar levels and insulin function and some healthy fats like olive oil, nuts and avocados.

What happens is when we have an adequate protein intake it really helps balance our blood sugar levels. If we have a meal with just carbs then our blood sugar is going up and down like a rollercoaster. Protein not only helps smooth out all of your metabolism, but it also helps prevent reflux as it signals to the esophageal sphincter to close so you're much less likely to have reflux happening.

Protein also helps you feel more satiated and satisfied. If you're only having carbs in a meal then it's just going to be a temporary blood sugar spike, but if you have protein in there and healthy fats now your brain is getting the signals that you ate and you're resetting your hunger and fullness signals which is way better for your leptin levels and longevity overall.

So, this is why it’s so important to have an adequate protein intake. I recommend that when you cook you leave some leftover protein in the fridge ready to eat so it’s easy to add protein in a meal that doesn’t have it.

For those of you who might be interested in learning more about how to eat in the way that I'm describing or would like to decrease the inflammatory foods and detox your body and really start feeling good then I definitely encourage you to check out my New 14-Day Detox Program.

This program includes two protein shakes per day with 18 grams of protein, and two meals per day with a meal plan that I created based on making sure you get at least 20 grams of protein in each meal. I also teach you how to eat mindfully and how to detox gently but effectively without feeling worse. This can all be done without pushing yourself too hard and stressing you out, and while carrying on with your daily activities and routine.

If you want to learn more about my approach on how you can start taking better care of yourself and apply my SelfC.A.R.E. protocol so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.

In my book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online.

For the most comprehensive support to recover from stress and trauma, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.

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