002: Breaking Barriers: Mindfulness, Movement, and the Power of Words with Kyle Smith

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Speaker 2

[00.00.01]

 Kyle, welcome to the Real Food Mental Health podcast, where you take a moment to introduce yourself.

Speaker 1

[00.00.08]

 Absolutely, sir. My name's Carl Smith. I'm a clarity consultant, and I'm the developer of a practice called NLS. Neuro linguistic somatic experience,

Speaker 2

[00.00.17]

 neuro linguistic somatic experience. So tell me more about that. What's the theory behind it? How did you develop it and so forth?

Speaker 1

[00.00.26]

 Totally. It is a practice. So it's something that we do is active participation. And the purpose behind it is to strengthen one's mindset in order to improve their mental fitness. And I say mental fitness instead of mental health, because I believe when we say mental health, we're ignoring the mental unhealthy or the unhealthy in general. And what we're ignoring oftentimes is the main thing that really helps us or inspires us not feeling too well. And so by having fitness instead of health or unhealthy, we get a broader range where we can be healthier. Sometimes we can be unhealthy. Sometimes, however, there's a range. We're not just one or the other. We're flowing in between the two and mindset is being able. I define mindset as the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves or our opinion of ourself, and so we're improving people's opinion of themselves and as a side effect, their mental health and their mental wellness, their mental fitness improves.

Speaker 2

[00.01.31]

 I really like that philosophy of the mental fitness rather than mental health, because I've been confused for so many years, like, what's the difference between health and wellness? And so I finally looked it up. Health is the end goal. That is what we want, but it's not really dynamic. Like you were saying, wellness is more of the means to the end goal. And you could say that for fitness as well. So love that. As far as the mindset thing goes, I'm really curious. So I was actually reading a little bit about this before we met. And I read something about story work and breathwork. So tell me what is exactly involved in the NHL's approach as far as the story work and the breath work goes?

Speaker 1

[00.02.13]

 Beautiful. So NLTK itself as a practice is an amalgamation, a combination of both breathwork and story work. The reason behind the two is so that we get the physical and we get the ethereal, the emotional, the energetic. We get to hit both points rather than just one part or hitting it all together. So we use the breath to engage the body, to down regulate, to calm. And then we use that state of calmness to explore stories. And I define stories as any experience, any dream, any moment in time that you can write down. If it could be written down as a story, it counts. And by having the breath integrated into the story, we create space. From that intense emotion that I could bring up. So if there's a story that hurts horns, taunts and noise, if it's an okay story, we can have a little a little intensity up in the chest. And when we're like up in the chest, then we're going to get really wound up. We're going to be upregulated. So when we are able to take the story from the head to either a piece of paper or a document, we're creating distance and we're creating a finite story in the mind. If it's stuck in the mind, if it stays in the mind, it's infinite. It'll take up all this space and it'll be similar to a computer. When you have a bunch of desks or tabs open on the desktop, the computer runs slower. Same way with stories in our mind. If we have accumulation of all these stories, then it's going to have a particular weight. We're going to feel a weight to it when we remove it, then we create space. Then we go through the actual practice, which I'll share the practice so it's simpler, cheaper, and actually, you know, I'll show the practice. And if folks do it then it'd be awesome. So and how it would look, I'll use my own stories as an example for for reference, I have a story from my childhood and it's called the Banana Bike. That's what I titled it because I had a banana bike. Oh, I remember those right. And so it's a story revolving with the theme of my father, with the theme of my dad. And so I'm able to take the story, separate it by writing it down. So title it Banana Bike, write down the story. When I was, how was I again six seven when I was, I'll say seven when I was seven years old. My cousin Leo, he had a driveway that went down. Into the road and it went across the street. And we use that to gain speed to hit jumps, which is true on this particular road. There is a very sharp turn like it, and it's a blind, it's blind turn. So the main point of the story, I almost got hit by a car a couple times. My dad was flustered, took my bike away. I felt upset, however, when I wrote it down I was able to take it away, have it down then. That's the first step. The second step is to read it out loud, and you can either read it to yourself out loud, or read it to another person. If you read it to another person, it's going to supercharge the experience because you're laying your heart out. It's like your your story and see or feel. So it does supercharge. So I always recommend it, however, by solo is totally cool too. Then the second step. Oh yeah, so second step, read it out loud. And most folks, many folks, if it's a story that's really intense, they'll hold their air up in their chest and they're going to try to read through it as quickly as possible so they don't experience the feels associated with the story. And so sometimes, not often. Most folks are real good, real smooth. They'll go in and they'll have a regular rate of speech like how I'm talking right now. Sometimes we got a motor mouth here where they go through, and I can say I went on a seven years old, I had a banana bike, and I used it to go down the driveway to pick up speed. And then I use drive, pick up speed and go across it. And then so there's motor mouth. It's just really fast. It's not clear. And this prevents us from going and processing the feelings. So then on the step two that's where the fields really start to come in. Step three we read it again 30% slower, 70% your normal rate of speech. And what that does is it forces the breath to come in. Because if I'm reading something at 30%, like when I was seven years old, I would use the driveway as a way to build momentum. When this happens, if it's an intense story or even if it's and I say intense, not even negative, it's also positive because we can have overwhelming joy as well. And that's hard to handle for some folks too. And so what happens is we get this physiological sigh. So we're reading. We're reading. And it's similar to when someone is crying and they they're bawling their brains out. They're falling. Then they get a big. So when we slow it down, the breath forces itself in. It breaks up that story, and then we go into the fourth step, and that's where we integrate reading and breathing. So then we read at the same slow pace and at every period the occasional column and sometimes. And we insert a breath. When I was seven years old, I had a banana bike. And you'll notice that the intensity decreases. And at each step, a couple questions to ask yourself is, what emotions am I feeling right now? Where do I feel it in my body? And on a scale of 1 to 1010 being the most intense, where is this rate? It's just an average. And as we go through the steps, it could be how was it writing it out? I was like a nine out or 9 in 10 city. Like I don't want to go into it. Going into the next step, we read it. It goes from a nine to a seven. That creates space. They don't identify with the person in the story anymore, and they see themselves as they are in the present rather than they were then. And then the feels change. It goes from a heaviness in the shoulders to a lightness in the shoulders. You can feel it in your heart. You can feel it in your gut. You can feel it in your toes. You can feel it tingles all over your body. And this is simply a processing and integration. It is a processing of metabolized emotions that have been lingering. So that's how the the frame and the steps work and how the body shifts and changes accordingly with that particular practice.

Speaker 2

[00.08.39]

 Yeah, that's really interesting. As you were describing that my mind was going to these other therapies that I practice as a psychotherapist. So I practice eMDR,

Speaker 1

[00.08.49]

 which is it has a lot of overlap with NLS. It sounds like. So I mean, you described people reading their story too fast and not really feeling emotion. And I actually try to get people to slow down as they are describing their trauma. To me, when I'm doing eMDR, because we call that activation, we want activate the trauma in the mind, because when the trauma is activated in the mind, it's going to get processed much more thoroughly. Yes.

Speaker 2

[00.09.21]

 And then also my mind kind of went to I practice emotional freedom techniques as well, which is it's got some similarities with the eMDR, but in that. People are actually telling me what they're processing while they're processing it, and I encourage people to say the words emphatically. We're not just going through the motions. We're not just being robotic about it, but really feel the emotions that are tied to those words. Because, again, it's about that activation of trauma in the brain. And as we're able to activate, like I said, we're processing the trauma much more thoroughly. So I love that approach. It sounds like you are well aware of those things.

Speaker 1

[00.10.34]

 Totally do something else. That and I'm gonna ask this one because I think it's really cool what you do. And I think that there is a synergy. Something that I, I developed this practice with. I don't think that was a word. I wanted to make sure that there is a holistic approach to this practice. There we go. I was going to say holistic ism, and I don't think that's a word. Yeah, I was thinking about the holistic ism of this practice.

Speaker 2

[00.11.01]

 Holism is a word, but holistic ism definitely not

Speaker 1

[00.11.04]

 cool. And so something that I do with this practice is I like to integrate with other practices as well. So I'll do unless with, let's say a cannabis connection and like with sound healing, unless with a variety of other modalities. And I think, I think it's interesting. Where do you think, do you think that what I do when you do overlap in the way where it could be integrated as a practice or to supercharge each other? Because I don't think that there's a this or that, because I do believe that many of us are wanting the same outcome where it's abundance is feeling bloody good about ourselves. It's enjoying our life. It's being able to do the things that we want to do and pursue the desires that we have. And so with that, there's all these variety of modalities, and it's picking which ones work for the person to get to the same outcome. And I think finding the ones that can connect, interconnect and supercharge each other. If you're a fan of Transformers, think of like Combiners and Transformers. Same idea. Where to just supercharges the whole the whole practice. Yeah. So I actually I've been following doctors Christopher Palmer and Georgia Ed. These are psychiatrists. Uh, Chris Palmer, I believe, is at Harvard University. Georgia Reed I'm not sure exactly where she practices. She might be tied to Harvard, too, but they're all about metabolic health of the brain, which essentially, like their argument is mental illness is a metabolic disorder of the brain. And there are so many modalities that we could use that all contribute to metabolic health. And so my specialty is it's holistic nutrition for mental health. And obviously I do those other things that I mentioned before as well. That under that U of T, I do mindfulness stuff, some cognitive behavioral therapy type stuff. But it's all about metabolic health.

Speaker 2

[00.13.06]

 And so as we do these these conventional therapies, the cognitive stuff the the the story work that you are describing, the breathwork, the eMDR, all of that contributes to metabolic health. And so to answer your question, I do think there's there's a way that we could combine these things to supercharge the benefits. Well, how do we do it? I don't know, because I, I do think everybody is individual. We've got bio individual needs. We've got psycho individual needs. But really what it all comes down to is self-care. How are you caring for yourself? Are you eating well? Are you exercising? Are you sleeping well? Are you managing your mindset well? And I think that's really your area of expertise. I want to go into that in a minute on mindset, but it all comes down to self-care.

Speaker 1

[00.14.00]

 I like that I on that note as well. I think I can toss it this way and see what you think of it. I like to remove the self component from it so self-respect when it could be respect, I do think have that we will treat the world as we treat ourselves. So if we simply have care, then both us as an individual internally as well as the people around us and the environment around us, is also going to benefit from that, because that care from the inside out is going to perpetuate. It's going to reverberate. Yeah. And it does seem like it has. Sorry. It does seem like it has to start from the inside and go out, because I have noticed with many of my patients, they struggle to love themselves, and by doing so they have a really hard time sharing love with others. So it does start with in mindfulness we call it a loving kindness practice, where it's we're turning more inward. We're being mindful with ourselves, with our emotions, so that we can then turn and project that that love

Speaker 2

[00.15.06]

 toward others. Totally.

Speaker 1

[00.15.08]

 Absolutely.

Speaker 2

[00.15.11]

 So as far as the mindset stuff goes. So I know that you are with the MLS approach. It's all about mindset. It's all about overcoming victim mentality, right? Absolutely. So clinically we would call that top down processing.

Speaker 1

[00.15.26]

 Yeah. Huh. Yeah. Yeah. So and I thought it was important to say that because there are so many other therapists out there, even in my own community, who just automatically jump to the conclusion that top down processing is inferior to bottom up processing. But for me, I, I would argue it's not inferior because mindfulness is top down processing. Cognitive behavioral therapy is top down processing. Then we've got more bottom up processing like eMDR, which is more trauma focused. To me, they're all valuable approaches, but they're just different. And so so you can't say if one is superior or inferior. But as far as the mindset goes, some people have a really hard time

Speaker 2

[00.16.14]

 changing their mindset. If they've got complex trauma, it's just really deeply ingrained in their minds. They know they need to change their mindset, but they have such a hard time doing it. So how would you approach that situation?

Speaker 1

[00.16.28]

 Well, if there was someone with within the context that you gave, where it was someone who experienced something or a trauma? The the phases that I break things down is the first one. We get unstuck, we declutter the mind, so we make room to throw the party. So it is a removal or a integration of those stories, because a trauma can happen in the moment. And then if there's nothing in our surrounding environment, then we are creating our own inner turmoil. And so I love what you said about Top Down, because with the story work and the breathwork, we're integrating the very first skill that we adopt when we're born, the breath, and then we're going with the second skill. Closely after is the words. And so with the decluttering process is it's decreasing that intensity so that people can see and not experience themselves in that moment. And then what we go from, from there when the individuals I am feeling better because they notice the changes. And so when they're like when they start recognizing, they start thinking about their thinking. Because that's the key to mindset is thinking about our thinking. Oftentimes we're thinking about other people's thinking. They're either consciously or unconsciously adopted stories. And so by declaring the stories, we get to remove the stories that are other people's stories, if they don't resonate, if they resonate, we can keep them or reject them. And then from that point, when someone is feeling a lot more relaxed, it's going into celebrating the wings, celebrating progress, celebrating themselves. So we go from decreasing the intensity to moving into increasing the meaning. And it's the same four step process for either the energy stories or the celebration stories. And so when we create that mean, we create that like that awesome sensation where we're being the person that we say we are, then our mindset is going to elevate our mindset, how we think about ourselves or the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. I suck goes from I'm awesome, and by being able to write things out and put them somewhere else, it's a collection of data and information. So we get to look at the evidence, the undeniable facts that. They are qualified to do what they want to do, that they do not have to be anchored by the past that is no longer present. And when that happens, then folks just naturally begin to feel better about their mindset. I think that the difficulty is when someone is resistant to alleviating themselves of their trauma. The more that we can expose ourselves and possibly benefit from it in some way, the more that we realize that we're actually resilient. Desire that we're actually courageous from those practices. Being able to take our stories and write them out in this amount. One is we're braver than a majority desire to make changes and open, confronting our own dragons and a willingness to test their pain threshold. The more that we can expose ourselves and push that pain threshold, the more that we realize we're actually resilient, that we're actually courageous, that by being able to take our stories and write them out and read them out, we're braver than a majority of the individuals on planet Earth. We're confronting our own dragons. And when we confront the dragons and we integrate the dragons, rather than kill the dragon, we contain the dragon, we become the dragon rider, and we get the gold in that way. It's a process over that time where I believe most folks can alleviate themselves of intense experiences, emotions, and be able to unravel the adopted stories in order to allow their true inner being flourish. I love

Speaker 2

[00.20.19]

 that I love the analogy with with what what you mentioned about you're not killing the dragon, you're taming the dragon. You are writing it. You are its master.

Speaker 1

[00.20.30]

 As far as crafting our language, how do we do that? Aside from the storytelling? Like is there? Do you have a specific method for

Speaker 2

[00.20.40]

 crafting the language in just the right way that it benefits

Speaker 1

[00.20.44]

 us? I find it to be an easy one where we recognize it after we. After I share it, you'll recognize it everywhere. So for context words. So before this I was a personal trainer for 13 years. So I have a couple fitness analogy or references. So the the building blocks of the body are the macronutrients. Our carbs, fats and proteins, the quality of the carbs, fats and proteins we intake is going to influence the physical body words I see as the ethereal macronutrients of the mind. When we feed our mind quality words, we're going to have quality. My quality thoughts. When we feed our mind less than stellar words, we're going to have less than stellar thoughts or lower quality thoughts. And something that helps out with this with our words is being able to. Remove ambiguity and uncertainty and weigh in on certainty and clarity and decisiveness. So there's two types of there's two types of talk. There's soft talk and then there's solid talk. Soft talk ambiguous uncertain. I like to think of it if if you can if there is a question behind a statement, it's not solid enough. So examples of soft talk I might be at the party for 5 p.m.. I'm probably going to be at the party for 5 p.m.. I could make it to the party for 5 p.m.. I should be able to make it to a party for 5 p.m.. I kind of want to make it to the party for 5 p.m.. All of these have questions? Are you going to make it to the party for 5 p.m.? So they're soft? There's ambiguity. You're

Speaker 2

[00.22.22]

 not totally convicted with what you're saying.

Speaker 1

[00.22.25]

 Got it right. Yep. So then we do a translation. And in this case it's a removal of the word. So it's simply I'm going to make it to the party for 5 p.m. or I'm not going to the party tonight. Simple. And. What this does with our language is that we're being honest with ourselves, with what we want to do, rather than simply flowing with other people's expectations of what we should do. And when we speak with solidity. What happens is we're microdosing decision making, and we're showing ourselves with the small decisions that we can make it. I'm not going to the party. I'm going to the party for five. All kids. At least there's a decision and our mind is going to register that and be aware of that. And it's going to because decisions are skills. A decision is a skill. To be able to make a good decision is a skill. So we can practice this skill. And as we practice the small things like parties or get togethers, we get better and better and better at our decision making. Our bandwidth for decision making becomes larger or threshold. And when we're able to make the smaller decisions with competence and have confidence in that competence and confidence is a side effect of competence. So the more competent we are, a decision making, more confident we're going to feel we're going to have an elevated mindset. We're going to speak with certainty. We're going to have an internal dialogue with certainty. We may still have a couple of soft talk words. I just said. There may sort of. However, when our internal dialogue is more decisive than we're going to be able to direct our character, who we who we are in the direction we want to add to our own personal lore, to our own personal story. And so the removal of the soft talk, focusing on solid talk and and it alternate to this, not an alternative. Side note if someone is truly undecided then that's totally cool. Then they can say I might be able to make it to the party for 5 p.m. I'm just going to check my calendar. I'm going to check my schedule. I'm going to see if I have this, that, or the other, then that's legit. I find that soft talk is dangerous when we use soft talk in order to not upset the person that we are speaking with.

Speaker 2

[00.24.46]

 And I see that so much in. I don't know if that's the thing where you are in the western United States. We are people pleasers, and I haven't spent very much time in the eastern states. But what I, what I hear is that the culture over there is much more direct. They're much more into the hard talk

Speaker 1

[00.25.07]

 where on the West side it's more about the soft talk. We we care about people's feelings. And I mean, it's it's not that that's a bad thing, but we do it so much to the point that it hurts us. It cripples us to think that we might hurt somebody else's feelings, but then we can't even use that hard talk to be assertive for ourselves, to be

Speaker 2

[00.25.31]

 competent and confident like you were describing. Totally. I think the the pivot point from the place to go from people pleaser is to go to person pleaser and have that person be yourself. It's just a flip. And there's the thing, because I think when there's when there's hospitality, because there I think that there is. Yes. When speaking to someone and there's hospitality, then there's that genuine, that genuine feel good that I think that there's compassion in that when there is the internal decision, I don't want to go to the party and they say yes to the party, then that's there's going to be an incongruence and someone might feel resentful of themselves or whoever else later. That's that's where I think is dangerous as well, because I think that there's a politeness and then there's a how to describe, there's a politeness and it's a pseudo politeness. It's not real politeness. It's it's not quite politeness. Does that make sense. And I can't think of the word. There's one that's lingering there. But like pleasantries.

Speaker 1

[00.26.36]

 Pleasantries. Yeah. This one. Yeah. We're we are doing it more out of cultural

Speaker 2

[00.26.44]

 expectation. Yes, yes than than from the heart.

Speaker 1

[00.26.48]

 Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Sweet. And so the that's the one way to be able to go through and think about the thinking. And then honestly, you see it in the texts when you when you're reading your texts, read it over again and see if they're soft talk. When you are aware of the soft talk words, then you hear it outside of you as well. And it's it's pretty interesting. That is interesting. And I can see that once a person is able to do that and they notice that they're feeling better, that is motivating to keep going. And and I've seen the same thing with nutrition where it's like, okay, now I want you to focus on Whole Foods and just do that one thing. I'm not going to tell you what foods to eat, but

Speaker 2

[00.27.32]

 once they start doing that and they feel better, they want

Speaker 1

[00.27.34]

 more. Yes.

Speaker 2

[00.27.36]

 And I'm sure you've seen the same in like personal training type situations as well, where once they start feeling better, they want more.

Speaker 1

[00.27.44]

 Yes, I, I find I think that that's the aha moment. That's the epiphany. That's where there's a pattern interrupt in the brain. And from the fitness side of things, because now it's different because I'm working with the mind. So things are fast tracked in the mind. It's pretty cool. And then for the physical, I do think that it's that delay in between when someone starts and then someone has that epiphany, that aha moment, that pattern interrupt where they're like, yes, this is doing wonders. And the sooner that we can get that aha moment, however, that is I believe that that's when people can really well, they can identity shift, they can step into their ideal self. They can make peace with all their past selves.

Speaker 2

[00.28.34]

 Yeah. And I love the somatic part of the neuro linguistic somatic experience as well. And just kind of going back, you had mentioned this before. I meant to comment on it, but we tend to hold emotions in our bodies and so, so physical exercise that can help work it out. Something like eMDR. Yes, you're sitting on a couch and you are processing that way, but that's helping to work it out too, because we do pay attention to the physical symptoms that a person is having during that processing. So as far as the NLC approach goes, do you have any other things that might address the physical symptoms?

Speaker 1

[00.29.15]

 For the physical symptoms they would be? Well, with the practice itself, the physical symptoms are a side effect of the emotional regulation or the emotional block. Yeah. And so with the practice that I have, it focuses on the mind and the nervous system itself. And in the nervous system. That's where we can have those blockages. And so if we're thinking like energy system modalities, that's like the chakras. So when I'm doing work with folks and someone's saying, oh, it's my heart or it's my solar plexus, I know where the eye can see where the trajectory of the story is going. And those, those indicators, those by going into the breath and practicing the breathwork. Because the way I break it down is that we start with the breath work and then we go into the story work. And the breath work is sit down, regulate calling the body, and bring the person to the present moment. And when that is solid, where people are in a Goldilocks zone where they're not too high, they're not too low, they're just right, then we can go into the stories with a level playing field, and then the stories are not as intense after we do the breathwork, because we primed our bodies to go into it, we set the intention prior to the breathwork. What is it that we're exploring? What is my intention behind this practice? What am I opening myself up to? Where am I? What stories am I exploring today? Then we have the breathwork. We have the physical, it down regulates and that one's fun. We get high off our own supply of oxygen, of oxygen, all the folks out there. So when we're getting high off our own supply of oxygen, we're oxygenating our body. We're going to feel tingling. We're going to feel euphoria. We're going to feel a sense of calm. So then we're primed to go into whatever story it is. So then when we go into the story and as people are reading, people are still sitting in stillness and they're feeling all these emotions move around. And as we go through those steps and through those phases, it's and you can correct me on this one. When one thing I read when it came to exposure therapy, when it came to exposure therapy was three points of exposure therapy, and then the person feels a lot better or alleviated from that. Is that accurate?

Speaker 2

[00.31.37]

 I actually don't have training in exposure therapy. I'm mildly familiar with it enough that I sort of use it. So like like I mentioned emotional freedom techniques earlier, that actually draws from exposure therapy.

Speaker 1

[00.31.52]

 And so the general idea of exposure therapy, though, is that you are exposing yourself to whatever disturbance you're feeling. So it might be a situation, a person hopefully. It's still a safe situation though, but you're exposing yourself to that disturbance and practicing various techniques to help regulate,

Speaker 2

[00.32.17]

 regulate the mind down, regulate the mind so your your mind associates that trauma with a sense of peace.

Speaker 1

[00.32.26]

 Okay, cool. So with the the four step part so goes breathwork down regulate calm down. Then we go into a four step. And each of those points is a point of exposure therapy where not it's a point of exposure, not therapy exposure where the people get to feel the change of the emotion of that story real time. So that's that's how the practice collectively goes into the nervous system and into the mind to push things out and have another fun little idea of a visual of how to explain this. If there is a river. So the river is the flow of energy. That's our emotion. There's logs. Each of those logs represents a story or an idea. An idea is a story. I can come up with this. I can build this chair. That's a story. Those logs flow down the river and they meet the lumberjacks. The lumberjacks take the log out. They take it to the processing plant. They turn that log into wood, and on the other end they turn that into a chair. They turn into a table. They turn into a rocking horse. They turn it into whatever the mind can come up with over time. Let's say for this example, lumberjacks come in, they noticed that the water is decreasing a little bit and like, oh, that's weird. There's still logs coming though. So let's, let's take those logs and let's process them. Let's just do them. Next day they come in. There's a couple less logs today and the water is actually lower. Whatever. Just keep on processing the logs that we got. And then they come in another day. There's no more river. It's just dry. There's logs that are kind of there. And some folks will say, well, I guess someone turned off the tap, let's just go to the bar while others can think, oh, shoot, we're going to go upstream and figure out where this blockage is, where this dam is. So you go upstream and then you start with the first dam, and there's oftentimes one story or one theme per person that you can see run through their life. And so you go to the source of that where they felt that emotion for the first time. So, oh, I have a fear of rejection. When was the last time that or when was the first time you ever experienced rejection? And then we can write a story about that. And when we remove that log, then the rest can flow. Then we have more water flowing and we have more stories flowing. We have more inspiration flowing. The mill at the end of the river is flourishing. Now we can go even further back. Let's go find the biggest dam that we can find. And that way we can unlatch it. And then the water can just go and knock out all those other stories without us having to visit them. So through that process, it's breaking down the dams, breaking down the stories, allowing energy to flow through. And when that energy flows, then we have inspiration, encouragement, and we're able to recognize ourselves in a preferred light because we can choose which light we see ourselves in. And it's going to be backed up by the evidence that we've acquired that say we are who we say we are. Yeah,

Speaker 2

[00.35.23]

 and I like the metaphor of the logs that makes me think of the book. Have you ever read it? It's called Who Moved My Cheese? No, it's it's kind of older at this point. I think it came out in the 90s and it's more of a business book, but it basically outlines this story of mice in a maze. And like it's been a few years since I've read it, but essentially there's one, one mouse that goes through the maze. They find cheese in the maze, and there's this huge pile of cheese. So they keep eating the cheese, and then it's gone. And they they sit there and they're like, it's gone. When's it going to come back? And then there's another mouse that similarly goes through the maze. They find a pile of cheese. They eat it all. It's gone. And without hesitating, they keep moving to look for more cheese. So they're taking a proactive approach to finding that cheese instead of saying, but it was here, it was here, and it should still be here. So take that proactive approach. Go find that damn that you need to break down, move the logs or whatever the obstruction is and solve the problem.

Speaker 1

[00.36.36]

 Absolutely. There's something I heard this definition of intelligence two weeks back, and I really like it. The sign of an intelligent person is their capacity to solve problems. I thought that was cool and I do agree with that. Where the better that someone? Because it's not a matter of how well someone did in school. If that was the case, I didn't do very well in school, so whoops. However, I'm really good at solving problems. I'll take that trade off. I'm cool with that. If I if I had to choose between how it is now and being good in school and bad with problems, I don't I don't know how it would go. And I think that when I believe that when we learn to solve more of our problems or issues or the things that we're resistant to is oftentimes the things that is the easiest to go after to solve first, and it flushes everything out. It makes life a lot easier. And when. When we have the opportunity to be able to solve our problems. I do believe that our problems eventually become our passions. And so for myself, I developed this as a side effect of me not liking who I was in 2016 and through that duration of time, try to modalities and then found the two that I wanted to share with folks that have helped me the most. And that's a side effect of solving my own problems and being open to receive help and support as well, and being able to and making the decision to flow with it and to pursue it.

Speaker 2

[00.38.09]

 If you don't mind sharing, would you would you be okay with speaking a little bit more to your experience? And what led you to developing the neuro linguistic somatic experience approach?

Speaker 1

[00.38.21]

 Oh, certainly my friend. So 2016, I actually have a well known watching, but you can see it. I have a beverage here and that's for what's called the World's Toughest Mudder. And it's a modality love Italia, so it's a 24 hour obstacle race. You do as many rounds as you can in 24 hours. And what led up to this was me realizing and seeing the damage I was doing to myself and others. I was not a very. I didn't like who I was, I honestly, I was, I was like chapped, I was upset, I was disappointed, I did not have a very good mindset for myself. I did not have a good opinion of myself. I did not have good stories of myself. I was still doing stuff. I was still working towards my goals. Uh. However, the relationship internally was not helping. And so like most folks have seen, I sent a I made a help me out post and I was asking for counselors, coaches, therapists, any references that anyone has ever tried that has even sort of done something for them. And I got a whole bunch of really awesome answers, tried out a couple cool things. And my buddy Sean Curran who he did a Tough Mudder with me before and I got him into actually I'm going to say I got him into it inspired him to go into endurance running. And he's he's not a built like a runner fella. He's like six foot six foot one six foot two and he's in his two hundreds and he's got like freaking quads like this big, like thick. So he doesn't look like a rider, but he's crushing it. And so he, he was trying six months prior to me making that post. He's like, come on man I did the World's Toughest Mudder last time. It was so much fun. I want you to come. I want you to come out like no no no I don't want to I'm not feeling it. No. So this is at the same time that I was feeling not too good about myself. And then I made that post immediately he sent me a Facebook message and he's like, hey World's Toughest Mudder. Hey. And I said, okay, fine. Because at that point I just didn't like where I was. So I was willing to do anything to get out of that. And so what I learned from this is or what I learned from that experience, I had that pent up emotion, how we were talking earlier, how there's that buildup, there's that heaviness of emotion is within you. And I didn't I was going to the gym and do something like that. So I had modalities, I had breathwork, however, I still had it all in there and I didn't have a strong enough sledgehammer. Yeah, I didn't have enough sledgehammer to make crack in the in the fields. So what I learned from this 24 hour race is break down the body to build up the mind. And it's it was a way to alleviate because I was walking, walking, walking. It was in Las Vegas. I was out in the desert by myself most of the time. And I had nowhere. I had no one but my thoughts. And so when I pushed my body to a strenuous point, when I alleviated all the intensity. And I found myself in calmness even in the middle of a 24 hour race. I was able to actually think about my thinking. I was thinking of where I wanted to go, what I wanted to see, what I wanted to do. Did I want my life to mean this? Or do I want my life to mean that? And from there went into or continued on with my personal training career. That was solid. Grateful for every moment of it, and then started doing breathwork sessions. That was pretty cool. I was recognizing the way folks were working with that. And then when I was hosting a podcast, I had a buddy of mine, Ryan Sprague, on, and I saw him on the Aubrey Marcus podcast, wanted him on. And then we were having a conversation. I asked him if he knew of any guests that would be interested in coming on, and he introduced me to Kimberley Casting and Mark England and Mark England is the the founder of the story work method, the see and lifted method and lifted and had them on. And before this I was already exploring the importance of words and communication, because during this time I found there was a client that I had that we had a disconnect when it came to expectations of communication when we would talk. We were solid, white, receptive. It was back and forth, like solid dialogue. And then we had a falling out, not really a falling out. We just decided to part ways because we we just weren't vibing. We're solid coach and client. We just weren't the solid coaching client at that time. And so then I had a client after that and I was questioning my practice. It's like, okay, well, is it something to do with what I, what I offered him what I. Is there any issue with the targets. Is there any issue with the macronutrients. Is there any issue with the system? Is am I off somewhere? And I had a follow up client almost side by side, the exact same person. And that person absolutely crushed it. They crushed it. And I thought, okay, so it's not the practice, so it's me. So where did I not communicate properly? Where do I not relate things accurately? Where did I. Well, those kind of questions. And so that's why I dove into communication and started to explore how the words impact us. And then when I was introduced to Mark Beasley found that program and then went through that and it was pretty solid. And after that combined story work and breathwork and been awesome. Yeah,

Speaker 2

[00.44.08]

 I found that when we get so passionate about things like this, it's coming out of personal experience. So thank you for sharing your experience with that. And I would definitely say that's true for therapists as well. So like if if anybody wants to be a therapist, usually it's because they have personal experience with mental illness or

Speaker 1

[00.44.30]

 a loved one has or had mental illness and they want to make a difference. So that's kind of how I came into it. And then the nutrition piece is more it's something that I noticed for myself. I felt better as I was eating better. And so yeah, I mean, they don't teach you that. Like you take health, you take health classes in school. They talk a little bit about eating quote unquote healthy. Right. But they don't really teach you that what you eat actually affects how you feel, not just physically but mentally too. And when I started to notice that, I was like, I want to help people with that. And so it's really it's amazing how we get so passionate about these things that they grow from that personal experience that we have. And, and I would say not just personal experience but personal struggle. Yeah. Like it's something that really put us out of our comfort zone. We thought we were at the end of our lives or something that just seemed so incredibly heavy and

Speaker 2

[00.45.37]

 we found a way out of it, and suddenly we were inspired to share that with others.

Speaker 1

[00.45.44]

 Yeah, man, I think there's magic to that. I truly believe there's magic to that because as you were saying it, like it. It's neat. When you were saying it, I was envisioning a just the expanse of my growth and how it's molded and shifted. And now I get to serve from that previous place of pain. And I think that that's a beautiful place to be able to say to. And I would say the folks that resonate, to show folks that resonate, that there's that alternate option. There's a there is a pivot point. There is an opportunity to be able to make go into an alternate place, into a different state where you feel real good refueling. Awesome. And I know where you are. I know it sounds crazy that I know how it feels to be on the other side.

Speaker 2

[00.46.33]

 Yeah, I was actually I was taught in graduate school about a phenomenon called The Wounded Healer, where essentially it's like I was saying, most therapists become therapists out of personal experience. Either from being mentally ill themselves or from a loved one. But the wounded healer effect implies that the person who's helping you isn't 100% healthy themselves either. And that's something that we have to recognize and honor, because no, nobody's ever perfectly healthy. But the fact that they are farther down the path than you and they've experienced something similar to you makes them not just your clinician, your doctor, your therapist, but your mentor. Someone who can show you the

Speaker 1

[00.47.23]

 path. Yeah, man, this is such a good five conversation, man. You have so good. Something thought popped up with that too where I, I think I think that there is the other aspect with what you said as well, where I believe that folks, it's a, it's a, it's a consistent growth. So I don't think that there is a self improvement. I think there's a self betterment. So when I read things, it's towards when I wear things is towards not the state of lack, where someone could be a wounded healer and then they could just after that, be healed. And I believe that just as a part of us being humans, when we're progressing, when we're pursuing that self betterment, then we see that we're actually not suffering from that same point. So I think, how would you or know? Because I think someone could see themselves as healed. And I believe that someone can see themselves as healed and get better. I,

Speaker 2

[00.48.29]

 I think I know what you're saying, it sounds like if a person thinks of themselves as

Speaker 1

[00.48.34]

 healed, it's like they they've met their goals for health. And so so they feel adequately capable of being a mentor or being a therapist, whatever. But they know they can still get better. Yeah, that kind

Speaker 2

[00.48.49]

 of along the lines of what you're saying. Okay. It was

Speaker 1

[00.48.51]

 perfect. Thank you. Yeah. So, so essentially

Speaker 2

[00.48.54]

 what it is, is that they've met their goals or they've met their vision of what it means to be healed, even though they could go further.

Speaker 1

[00.49.01]

 I have an interesting theory on this. I think that each human and I refer to things in a video game format. I gamify things where if you're the avatar of your video game on the avatar in my video game kind of thing, and I do think that there is a similar to video games where there's a main objective to the story, and I'm thinking RPG like Skyrim, if you're familiar with video games. That one I was addicted to hours until my brother deleted it, and then I created a new game and I was like, I don't want to play anymore. So I'm very grateful for him for doing that. Now, I believe that there is a a main quest where it's an that process is an is a it's creating an where we go from me to AI. Does that make sense where we're going from me, me, me to I? And I think that when we hit that main objective, that's the main quest and all the other betterment, all the other healing modalities. They work a side quest to supercharge that main quest. And my theory is that that main quest is an elevation of consciousness, of self-awareness, where we can be objectively aware of our subjective existence. And when we have that balance between the internal world and the external world, then we go into the side quests and it's almost it. It turns in, it turns life into an active meditation. So passive meditation, sitting in stillness, active meditation, presently pursuing. Yeah, I do a lot of mindfulness stuff, and I teach people the difference between a formal and an informal practice. And I mean, you're going to get benefits from both. Kind of just depends on what you're doing. And so so yeah, that the informal practice would be more of the active

Speaker 2

[00.50.50]

 suite that you were describing. Love it. So we're coming up on the end. I'm going to ask you just one question. If there were one thing you could change about the way people approach health and wellness, what

Speaker 1

[00.51.03]

 would it be? Oh, you got my thinker thinking, man. You put you on the right because I love it. It's good. There's a couple of things that are coming to mind. One thing that popped up was being mindful of it. I'll just go with context as well, folks. Not wanting to go to the gym because they don't want to get bulky or they don't want to. They don't want to look like that person or that person or that person. When in reality, people, it's going for the self. No one cares. Everyone is at some place, everyone's. If someone is at the same place as you, they're looking to do the same thing as you and it's to get better. And I find that that narrative where there's the attribution of, oh, I don't want to become that person. I think that's silly, because then it can deny them the opportunity to become themselves. It doesn't have to be the same. It could be the same thing. But no matter what, the person's going to be their own self, they're going to experience it in their own way. I think that an openness to exploration as well would be really good. So for that last story, just recognizing that health is for health is a personal journey that also positively impacts the people around you. That would be one part I would definitely say. I'll leave it that one. I like that one, actually. Very

Speaker 2

[00.52.38]

 well said. Okay, so Kyle, how can people find

Speaker 1

[00.52.42]

 you on the socials anywhere on social or any social media? I'm a dapper, dapper dude. Kyle Kyle and website is clearly consultant. Okay,

Speaker 2

[00.52.55]

 great. Thanks, Kyle. Thank you for having me.

Episode Title: Breaking Barriers: Mindfulness, Movement, and the Power of Words

Episode Summary In this inspiring episode, we dive deep into the transformative journeys that shape our health and wellness practices. Our guest, Kyle, shares his unique story of self-discovery and growth, from competing in a grueling 24-hour race in the Las Vegas desert to discovering the power of breathwork and story work. Along the way, Kyle uncovers how breaking down the body can build up the mind, and how communication—especially the words we use—can reshape not only our relationships but our entire perspective on life.

Kyle also introduces his innovative therapeutic approach: neurolinguistic somatic experiencing. This groundbreaking method integrates the body, mind, and language to address deep-seated emotional patterns, offering clients a unique way to unlock healing and achieve personal breakthroughs.

We also explore the concept of the "wounded healer" and how personal struggles often spark the passion to help others heal. From blending active and passive mindfulness to gamifying self-betterment, this conversation challenges conventional approaches to health and wellness while offering actionable insights to help you on your journey.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• How pushing physical limits can foster mental clarity and self-reflection.
• The importance of words and communication in creating meaningful connections.
• What it means to be a "wounded healer" and how personal experiences inform professional growth.
• The difference between formal and informal mindfulness practices—and how both can transform your life.
• How neurolinguistic somatic experiencing bridges the gap between the mind, body, and language to facilitate profound healing.
• Why health and wellness is a personal journey with a ripple effect on others.

Quotes Worth Sharing

• “Break down the body to build up the mind.”
• “There’s magic in serving from a place of previous pain—showing others there’s an alternate path.”
• “Health is a personal journey that also positively impacts the people around you.”
• “Life can become an active meditation when you blend self-awareness with action.”
• “The body holds the story, and language can help unlock the healing process.”

Connect with Kyle

• Social Media: @DapperDudeKyle
• Website: Clearly Consulting

Resources Mentioned

• The Story Work Method by Mark England
• Breathwork practices
• Mindfulness techniques for active and passive meditation
• Neurolinguistic somatic experiencing

Final Thoughts Whether you're navigating your own healing journey or looking for ways to help others, this episode will leave you inspired to take that next step. Kyle’s insights into combining movement, mindfulness, and innovative therapy methods will challenge and motivate you to rethink what’s possible. Remember, it’s not about perfection but about consistent growth and betterment.

Subscribe and check back for more soon.

• To support me and the production of this podcast, go to ⁠ko-fi.com/codycox ⁠

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• Visit my website at ⁠beavercreekwellness.com⁠ where you can read more about me and schedule sessions.

**Until the end of 2024, get 20% off your first payment of my holistic nutrition and nutritional psychotherapy packages! Each package includes an endless gratitude journal and other tools to help you on your health journey. Go to my ⁠website⁠, choose a package, and use the promo code “podcast24” when checking out.

Music:

Coconut Grove by Hotham | https://soundcloud.com/hothammusic

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