Speaker 1: 1:25

Welcome to the show everybody. My name is Dr Jade Tita. This is the Next Level Human Podcast and I have a guest that I've been hearing about for a while. We are in the same field. We have not yet met, so this is our first time connecting in person. This is Dr Nicole Kane. She has a new book out called Panic Proof came out in October, and she is someone who you know.

Speaker 1: 1:46

It's interesting when you get in this podcasting space you oftentimes get inundated with a ton of people saying, hey, I have this great person, would you like them on your show? And so I got this from Nicole's people and I was like I've heard of her and sort of seen her around on social media. I already knew I was a fan and I was like, absolutely, I want her to come on. And I'll tell you, nicole, as I set this up for the listener part of what I forget where I was exposed to you, but I think I've seen your clips on social media.

Speaker 1: 2:17

You do a lot with education and just are an amazing educator. And I thought to myself you know, here's a naturopathic doctor like myself who has also spent an awful lot of time in the personal development space and mindset space, and I wanted to talk to you about that because I don't oftentimes get to talk to other practitioners like you and I who have moved in this direction. Now, of course, I know that you spend an awful lot of time educating people on healthy lifestyle and all those things, so we can delve into that as well. But honestly, selfishly, I was really just wanting to talk to you about how you got into more of the mindset space and helping people heal the mental stuff, and so I was just really excited to have a chat with you. So thank you for taking the time to sit down with me.

Speaker 2: 3:02

I'm so excited to be here. I have like a million ideas and directions we could go that are going to be juicy and fascinating and, I think, valuable for hopefully, everybody listening Definitely selfishly for me so this is going to be a great combo.

Speaker 1: 3:17

Yeah. So here's the thing. I thought maybe I would share a few thoughts that I could use some help on. Actually, One of the things that I am delving deep into is this aspect of you know.

Speaker 1: 3:29

People might call it trauma work, and from my perspective I don't necessarily love this, because, yes, there's these people with capital T traumas that we think about.

Speaker 1: 3:38

You know, physical abuse, sexual abuse, you know, being in a war zone, this kind of stuff, and of course that stuff is really sort of traumatic and stressful and difficult.

Speaker 1: 3:48

But there's other people who just have, you know, maybe they were bullied when they were a teenager, Maybe they had a difficult mother or a difficult father, Maybe they had sibling things that came up, Maybe they went through some financial stuff, a health scare, you name it.

Speaker 1: 4:01

They're not necessarily capital T traumas, but they seem to have negative impact in the physiology as well. And the other thing I want to just add to that is that it seems to me also that some people with these quote capital T traumas don't really see themselves that way. They don't really see themselves as traumatized, whereas other individuals with these sort of let's call them lower T traumas do. And so I'm really interested in this aspect of how let's just call them life difficulties. These difficult life events get stuck on us in a sense, and certainly you've written an awful lot about some of the emotions that come along with this, like anxiety, but I'm really just interested in hearing you, as another practitioner, sort of give your take on what actually is going on here, and why do these sort of difficult life events seem to follow us around and how do we deal with them?

Speaker 2: 5:00

I heard a quote recently and it was your brain doesn't care about your well-being, about your well-being, it cares about your safety. And all of us are here, we're all living because we had ancestors whose brains, bodies, nervous systems and other adaptive systems were poised to successfully protect them. And so in our modern era we have these caveman brains. And then we're putting that survival instinct in our modern era and it can feel very much like I'm at war against my body, or my body is broken or there's something wrong with me. And why do I feel? Why do I get hot flashes all the time? Or why do I have ADHD and I can't focus, or why is my my sleep a mess, or why is my thyroid out of balance?

Speaker 2: 5:52

And what you were just saying right there in that moment, I think, hits the nail on the head, because what you're doing is you're changing the paradigm from a more disease-based system to we have all of these symptoms. They're bad, let's make them go away. But rather you're looking in the way that you frame the question as all of these experiences that we have are adaptations to what did or did not happen to us, and I think there's a really important nuance in that is again. My symptoms are the accumulation, what did or did not happen to me? Those adaptations have gotten me where I am today, so I really appreciate just even the way that you entered that conversation.

Speaker 1: 6:37

Yeah, I love that. You know it's interesting. This is kind of a new term to me, I think you'll get it but this idea of neuroplastic syndrome, which is 40% of individuals who go to doctors, who get worked up for sort of chronic complaints. We now know that neuroplastic syndrome is about 40% of these individuals and, for those of you who've never heard that term before, essentially what it means is that there is no physical cause of these symptoms. These people have been worked up, their livers have been looked up, their thyroids have been studied, their gastrointestinal system has been studied. They can't find a physical cause.

Speaker 1: 7:13

Yet they are having pain that causes them to double over in their abdomen, they're having chronic migraines, they're having all these symptoms that are troubling for them. Starting to point to the fact that this is coming from the brain and the brain's interpretation, perhaps, of just what you were talking about, nicole, this idea that we go through certain things and the brain is looking at our safety and it seems to want to hold on to particular things and then draw our attention through, perhaps, signs and symptoms where there is no actual physical diagnosis. And I thought that was pretty amazing, that up to 40 percent and this is just people who where maybe this is caused by the brain and how it is taking into these difficult life events perhaps. But think about the other 60 percent of conditions that they may not be caused by this, but perhaps this is contributing to the issue that they may not be caused by this, but perhaps this is contributing to the issue.

Speaker 2: 8:16

And then we get these kind of toss-in diagnoses like, well, it's chronic fatigue if you're tired or you can't think and focus, or it's fibromyalgia if you have body pains, or it must be irritable bowel syndrome if it's in your gastrointestinal tract, and it's kind of those diagnoses or the healthcare systems sort of scratching their head and trailblazers like next level human podcast. The work that you do here is we're looking at what the research is actually telling us is happening and when we look at more of a whole person approach, instead of, like your, your gut is inflamed, I'm going to see a gastroenterologist and, oh, by the way, I have neck tension. I'm going to go see an orthopedist and I have headaches, I'm going to see a neurologist that instead, if we look at how the body as an entire system adapts to adversity, stress, trauma or even positive stressors, that that adaptation exists systemically and we have biofeedback loops that are systemic, and so suddenly this trauma-informed research is opening the doors as to what might actually be going on at the root.

Speaker 1: 9:27

Yeah, yeah. So I, you know, what I want to do is I can tend to sort of want to just jump in here and be like, Ooh, here's like check out this study in this study, but I really wanted you on because I wanted to get your sense. One of the things I love about being in this podcast position is talking to experts and going let me see how they frame this up, cause you oftentimes, as you know, you hear things in a different way, you learn things in a different way, and so if you were going to explain sort of your work, how you got there and just where you would begin with educating someone on all of this, I wanted you to just, you know, go ahead and start where you sort of want to start to educate us on this, this whole thing, because I think it is still incredibly new to most people still incredibly new to most people.

Speaker 2: 10:14

Where I start is that probably almost everything that you've heard about anxiety is a myth. Starting with, anxiety can't be healed, and that was a question that I asked when I was really young. I came into this world with a lot of familial trauma, epigenetic adversity, and then my childhood was really difficult and stressful, and some of these were big T events and some of them were little T events. Arguably most of it was just complex micro things that happened, and it's sort of like learning to ride a bike. So every time you tip ever so slightly to the right, the brain, the body, the nervous system will get that feedback, it will adapt and you'll tip to the left until eventually you can be riding on gravel down in uphills. You can be riding and I'm here in Arizona, south Mountain mountain biking. You can adapt to different terrains, you can adapt to different terrains. And so the question is is what if anxiety isn't a problem to be solved? What if it is my body and my mind's attempt at telling me what the problem is, so that I can resolve it? And so then I started to look at the science, I started to look at neuroplasticity, I started to look at the relationship between psychoneuroimmunology the mind, your immune system, the nervous system and how they all interplay. And a really great metaphor for this is I live half the year in Michigan. It's very cold there in the winter. That's why I'm not there right now, when we're recording this, in February, right, and as an adaptation, we put on a winter coat and that coat protects us, it keeps us from getting frostbite, it keeps us from getting too cold, and that's an adaptation. The cold is neither good nor bad, it just is. It's not necessarily a trauma, it's just a stressor and it can become really, really problematic for survival if we don't adapt to it. But we adapted. So I put on a coat and then I moved to Phoenix and those adaptations that coat that was protective, that helped me survive in one environment would have been a real problem living in Phoenix in the summer it's too hot, suddenly the coat causes overheating.

Speaker 2: 12:30

So what happens is when adaptive mechanisms get stuck or they get stuck in these feedback loops and then they no longer continue to shift and pivot based on our circumstances. And so the question that we can then ask is if you're thinking about this with your own story or your clients, your patients' stories is, if you look at their current experience and you look at it from a systemic approach which would be mind, body, spirit, habits, behaviors, and you look at all of that and you allow them to pull that up with curiosity and compassion, is you can then start to almost reverse down the timeline. It's like driving a train backwards towards where it came from and trying to identify where did this come from? What is this an adaptation to? Because if we can go in and correct those adaptations, we can unwind those adaptations using transpersonal work, psychology, gut psychology work, whatever it is that's in your zone of genius that that client would benefit from.

Speaker 2: 16:20

If we can get to the very root of that, the early adaptive mechanism, where that came from, then suddenly we get to ask different questions. Instead of asking, well, can we actually heal from anxiety, which is yes, absolutely, we can start asking well, what is my human potential? How can I go up to, as you teach, the next level? If my body is in such a state of fluency and resilience and vitality and I'm able to actually take that coat on and off within my sense of personal agency and power, what could that actually look like for me if I leverage that to uplevel my life. So the whole question changes.

Speaker 1: 17:04

Yeah, I love this so much. Let me give a little bit of my perspective so we can continue with this journey. I love this idea to me. Going backwards in time right, if we take that train I love these analogies you're using and we go backwards to time and let's say we see an event in Jade's life.

Speaker 1: 17:23

I often talk about this traumatic event. That's not a capital T trauma, it's actually no one's fault, it just occurred. But I was left on a baseball field for a couple hours in the dark when I was a kid, just because my parents were had. I had several siblings and they were going in different directions that logically, as an adult, we could all go. Oh, we know what happened. My mom got home, looked at my dad, said where's Jade? He goes, well, I thought you were getting Jade and they both freak out and then run off and get me. Meanwhile I'm the six-year-old sitting in the dark at this baseball field, nobody's fault.

Speaker 1: 17:58

But I then have this what I might call misguided, unconscious decision. I call it mud, this mud that forms in my brain because of that traumatic experience that, through nobody's fault and just through an accident of life, I say life isn't safe in some way. And then that follows me around in the way I trust people perhaps, and you know what Dr Nicole's pointing to is that sometimes this happens in lots of little things occurring that slowly tell this story. That then seeps into your subconscious. So it doesn't have to be this big all at one shot. And here's the question that I want to ask you about, because I know you that then seeps into your subconscious, so it doesn't have to be this big all-at-one shock. And here's the question that I want to ask you about, because I know you specialize in anxiety.

Speaker 1: 18:35

One of the things that strikes me as you said something really interesting there about anxiety being sort of almost like something that is speaking to you, perhaps a protective mechanism, and I oftentimes think that emotions seem to have stories associated with them, right? So, like depression seems to have a story about trust and hope, anxiety seems to have a story about being able to make a choice or own a choice once it's made. Insecurity is a story about self-worth and belief in yourself, and so I'm wondering then these things occur. We go back in time to this train, we see this thing with Jade, and then we follow forward and say, oh, this anxiety around whenever he's out of control, let's say, is connected to these stories. Is this how you're seeing this and, if so, what else goes along with this? How does this seep into maybe mood issues and physical issues and everything else? I just want to see how you unwind this.

Speaker 2: 19:32

This is so good. Thank you for sharing this concrete example, and to little Jade, I'm so sorry that happened. That must have been so scary. So for him, you're very strong and you're very brave, and that was probably hard. So I see you, you I honor you.

Speaker 2: 19:51

Oh, that's hard as a little person. So if, if, we unwind this and we're going to do this theoretically, because you and I haven't gotten to dive into the mud, as you will, but let's, let's speak theoretically. So in that moment, little jade is sitting there and he's sitting in the dark and the insula of the brain, this part of the brain that is associated with the thalamus and the salience network. It's scanning, it's noticing the dirt of the baseball field, it's noticing the quietness, or maybe there are sounds around. It's noticing the heart beating in the body. It's noticing, maybe even the taste of fear in the mouth.

Speaker 2: 20:57

It, your audience knows, is largely the amygdala, with its buddies, its associates, and it can create a fear response. So then little Jade is like oh my goodness, I'm afraid I'm all alone. And that is paired with a lack of personal power and agency, because in that moment you were a child. You couldn't just call a Waymo or an Uber and rescue yourself. You had to wait for someone else to come rescue you. In that moment you were a child. You couldn't just call a Waymo or an Uber and rescue yourself. You had to wait for someone else to come rescue you in that moment. So now we have this, this, now experience has become scary. We lose our agency. So we don't stop here, though the whole body is like, okay, we're in danger, I've got you. So now we have the amygdala and it's going to send on this cascade that recruits your body to go into a fear response, and so your hypothalamic, pituitary adrenal axis is going to be releasing stress hormone, cortisol. You're going to release adrenaline and, as a result of that, you're going to see changes in the gut microbiome.

Speaker 2: 21:48

We see that the gut microbiome can change very quickly from moment to moment, based on what you eat, based on your experiences. That gut microbiome is communicating bidirectionally with your brain via the vagus nerve and the enteric nervous system, and everything is getting memorized. And so, now that experience is getting stored in the body, we have inflammation that can take place and a whole domino effect of these feedback loops that are taking place. And now that state's getting memorized and the brain doesn't care about your well-being. Little Jade's brain is like we got to get this whole body to keep us safe. Brain is like we got to get this whole body to keep us safe. So you're in this pattern. This pattern gets memorized and now going forward. Anytime that there's something that's reminiscent to that pattern in your internal or external environment, this memorized head-to-toe state can get activated.

Speaker 2: 22:44

So when we think about if we set that aside for just a moment and we think about somebody who goes to their doctor and they're like I'm losing weight, I'm eating all the things, I can't stop losing weight, I'm losing all my hair, my skin is really dry and I'm really anxious, I have palpitations and I can't sleep. Doctor can say sounds like thyroid. I can confirm that with a blood test. And not only can I confirm that with a blood test. We have medical treatments, surgery, radiation. We have treatments that we can use for that.

Speaker 2: 23:19

But then let's say that little Jade goes into the doctor and he's like I'm getting colds and flus, I feel like my gut is a mess. I get gas and bloating, I get gut anxiety. I feel nervous. I just don't know why I have these just anxious thoughts. My brain is spinning.

Speaker 2: 23:40

I want to be a high performer but I feel held back by this and the doctor's like cognitive behavioral therapy or an antidepressant, maybe a PRN benzo, but then you're still going to have the systemic adaptation plus. You're going to be feeling frustrated that, no matter how much you talk about it, that the body doesn't care what you have to say about it. Or you're going to be on an antidepressant and you're going to have all these symptoms. Plus, you may feel a little zombied out, lose your libido and start gaining weight, and so the conclusion that would be drawn I think that we're doing such a good job now with the trauma-informed research is that we can look back and say, oh, this thing happened.

Speaker 2: 24:23

He may not even remember it, but the body keeps the score and we can start doing the work, the work to release that. And then, when the body keeps the score and we can start doing the work to release that, and then when the body's like, oh, that's not relevant anymore, when we do the amygdala deamplification which we could totally get into, when we do that amygdala deamplification, when we decrease those connections to all those associative networks and then start increasing the connections to the agency part of your brain, that prefrontal cortex, then suddenly your symptoms get better and you don't need the talk therapy, you don't need the antidepressants, you don't need the omeprazole for your gut, and now you can up-level. So that's like one little kind of boop toe in.

Speaker 1: 25:05

Nicole, you're such an amazing teacher, I mean, that was so well said that I really think the listeners are just going to really be able to understand that and grasp that. And I do want to get into this idea of going in and dealing with the amygdala. And the interesting thing is, if we unpack a little bit of what you said, right. So there's this idea and please correct me if I get any of this wrong, I just want to repeat it just because I know it's maybe complicated for some of the listeners. But so we have this sympathetic state that we're in, right, this fight or flight nervous system response, and the insula is getting involved here. It's surveilling. We're having this amygdala response, this fear response, where then all of this is what the body does. So it releases adrenaline and cortisol. And what some of the research says when you have these huge adrenaline and cortisol surges, they kind of get this neurology sort of cemented in place.

Speaker 1: 25:55

And so I love this idea and I want to see what you think about it.

Speaker 1: 25:58

It's like literally it seems that that little jade neurology lives in adult jade, like there's literally this cemented neurology that represents little scared Jade on the baseball field. That is cemented inside of me whenever there is perhaps a fight or flight response that somewhat resembles the chirping of the crickets and the dirt, and that night that then triggers me. And what's interesting is so, if all of that is true, you brought in something really beautiful, which is this idea of agency. So I like to think of now, if we can somehow and I think this is where you're going to take us but if we can somehow go back into the sympathetic state but be in a safe place and rewrite the narrative, the mud that we told ourselves then, the misguided, unconscious decision. Now we go in with an awareness and revisit this perhaps in some way, but we go in with safety mechanisms and resourcing. We can and should be able to maybe shut down this amygdala response. And am I getting this right? And if I am, what are the tools to do this?

Speaker 2: 27:07

That brilliant. That's so good, as you're saying that there are a lot of wonderful tools and the great thing about this is that it can be personalized for for you, and so there's a couple we can do together, we can talk through, and then I teach all about this in my book, and so people are like like, oh, I want more. What are the other ones? It'll you can find it there. One is I can teach us about amygdala deamplification, and two, we can do the four part process. And then number three is we could do the three minute hack and then so, let me, you can pick which one would make the most sense, and I'll talk about who might be ideal for each.

Speaker 2: 27:51

So for amygdala deamplification, that's really good for people who have a single big event and it's really hard to get out of that. And it's like one thing you don't have necessarily all these other associative networks where it's like a whole ball of cat yarn or maybe necklaces and a drawer, and you're like, ah, you pull them all out, they're all stuck together. This amygdala deamplification, I see you working really well for a big, big event like this one that you just talked about in the ball field. That's a good one for this. The second one, the three minute hack, is really good if there's inner child work and you want to learn how to do inner child work, if that resonates with you. And then the third one is more for complex stress, complex adversity, and that's going through a four-point process and so, based on Little Jade, what do you feel like would be most helpful we can do together today?

Speaker 1: 28:49

I mean I love all those, but let's just do the amygdala deamplification so they can see how this works.

Speaker 2: 28:56

Yes, so amygdala deamplification is borrowed from. We stand on the shoulders of giants right, and so this is borrowed from EMDR, which is eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing therapy. This has been around since the 1980s and it involves bilateral stimulation, left and right stimulation, either with the eyes or hand buzzers that bilaterally alternate. It also borrows from internal family systems, and so if anyone has seen Inside Out and we know about parts, it's borrowing from that, and it's also borrowing from hypnosis and calming of the body. This is how we do it. So step number one is that you're going to think about and we'll use little Jade's example, but for those who are listening, you can do this exercise with us. So think about something that you want to maybe start to the process of reprogramming. So you get a little activated with this, you feel a little stressed with this. Maybe it's the Sunday scaries, or maybe it's when you have to drive on the interstate, or maybe it's when your phone calls come in, like whatever it is. So notice that, and what we're going to be doing together is you're going to identify whatever it is you're working on. We're going to talk about Little Jade and the baseball diamonds. You're going to go back and you're going to notice your thoughts, your feelings and your sensations. So that will be the first part, and for those who are doing this exercise, your eyes are going to be closed if you feel safe.

Speaker 2: 33:32

The second part is we're going to, we're activating those memory networks. We're going into it in step one, and then step two is we're going to create connections to the logical brain. And so how do we activate executive control network? How do we activate logical brain? We see in the research that this is done with distraction, with math, with spelling, with things that require you to think about it, and so when little Jade gets activated, that whole memory network is concreted in, just like you said, and he doesn't have access to adult, amazing, healer, entrepreneurial, next level human. He doesn't have access to that. We're going to create that access and this could be a very quick exercise. So during this second half I know this is a lot of lead up, but it'll make sense.

Speaker 1: 34:25

No, this is wonderful information.

Speaker 2: 34:27

Good, good, good, good. So during the part where we're going to be activating prefrontal cortex, activating your logical agency part of your brain, is you're going to be activating prefrontal cortex, activating your logical agency part of your brain, is you're going to be using somatic-based treatment because the body keeps the score. Thank you, bessel van der Kolk. The best right. So I borrowed this from Havening, and Havening is amygdala de-amplification, where you use touch, and so in Havening there are different places. One is you could put your palms together and then you're going to just alternate them back and forth, kind of like you're dusting your palms off and so, for those who are just listening to the audio file, you're just going to imagine palms up, dust to the left, dust to the right. The second one you can do is you can imagine you cross your arms and you dust down your arms and you just touch.

Speaker 2: 35:19

I like this one because you're crossing the midline. The third one I have bangs, so I don't like this one. My hair looks beautiful and I don't want to touch it. But if you don't mind, if you're not vain, then they think the most effective one is you stroke from your forehead down the sides of your face. Okay, so let's do this together. We'll make this a really mini one for the sake of time, because I know people have things to do, but we'll just go through the motions and you and I'll do this together. We'll spend like three minutes, is that okay?

Speaker 3: 35:52

Perfect, yeah, let's go.

Speaker 2: 35:53

You and I'll do this together. We'll spend like three minutes, is that okay? Perfect, yeah, let's go. All right. All right. So if you feel comfy, I would love for you to close your eyes and bring yourself back to that night on the ball diamond and you might start to settle into the sounds that you heard around you the crickets. You might notice the sensations of the dirt, maybe the temperature that it was as it became darker. Maybe there's a smell that you can remember, the smell of being outside in grass and dirt. And then I want you to notice what's coming up in your body, where you feel that, the emotions that are coming up, and we're going to hold on to that.

Speaker 2: 36:32

Yeah, what do you feel?

Speaker 3: 36:34

Yeah, I feel my heart's picking up, queasiness in my stomach, just a general feeling of unease.

Speaker 2: 36:43

Let's hold on to that for about 10 seconds. We don't have to change it, you're just going to notice it. And then, with your eyes continuing to be closed, I want you to start the havening. With your eyes continuing to be closed, I want you to start the havening, if you don't mind. Fingers to palms, kind of like you're getting ready for a nice meal. And then, dr Jade, can you please spell your first and last name for me?

Speaker 3: 37:07

Yeah, it's J-A-D-E. And then can you count backwards from 40 by twos 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 0.

Speaker 2: 37:45

And then can you name as many US basketball teams that you can think of.

Speaker 3: 37:51

Seattle Supersonics. Are they still around Dallas, mavericks?

Speaker 2: 37:55

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 37:56

LA Lakers Phoenix Suns. I think that's your group.

Speaker 2: 38:00

Yeah, yes.

Speaker 3: 38:01

And the Knicks, the Nets, the Bulls, the Celtics. That's all I can think of.

Speaker 2: 38:05

That's all I could think of too. That was really good. And then can you spell your first and last name backwards for me A and then we're going to go back into that memory. You're going to go back to being on that baseball diamond, knowing that you're alone. Notice what's different.

Speaker 3: 38:30

Yeah, it's interesting it's lost some charge and it's moved from my solar plexus kind of up into my heart area. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:41

So this is where we would repeat that, and ideally we would keep dipping in and dipping out until it's completely gone, but the moving is really good, and so what I'd like to actually have you do is we're going to container this just because we're not going to be getting to finish all of it, and so I want you to imagine that it's 2025 and your adult, doctor, amazing, influencer self that you have next to your feet a container can be made of any material, any size, and what I want to have you do is take this memory and I want you to surround it with golden light.

Speaker 2: 39:30

You might even feel inclined to breathe that golden light into your body and then, with the exhales, breathe that memory, that image, into the container, maybe bring your mindful awareness to your heart and your gut, breathe in that golden light if you wish, and then breathe out into the container any tension or stress, and this is to not get rid of this memory or this image, but to put it somewhere for safekeeping. You can come back and keep doing the work whenever you wish, but now you get to rest and when you feel complete, you can put the lid on the container and you can open your eyes.

Speaker 3: 40:15

Yeah, that's super powerful.

Speaker 1: 40:17

I would love to have gone through that whole cycle with you, yeah, but I think that just gives people an amazing understanding of the process.

Speaker 2: 40:27

Yes, thank you for doing that.

Speaker 1: 40:30

Yeah, and thank you for doing that for me, and isn't it interesting just for you, the listener, to know? So I have done work on this particular memory and other memories, but not in this specific way, the way Nicole does it, and I definitely felt was able to kind of get to a really interesting place. A couple interesting things come up. Even before you had said about you know, you're this amazing, you know, influencer and teacher, I could see how that experience was something that was useful for me in, you know, kind of being a teacher, and so it's really interesting that sometimes that happens and I see that with my clients and patients as well. Sometimes they'll make that integration and that jump from.

Speaker 1: 41:10

Oh, this was also instructive and I have been using this perhaps as a way of learning, teaching and loving in life and so that integration process of that story you said something really interesting about not necessarily getting rid of it, but you know sort of this idea that you get to learn from it in some way. At least that's what happened inside of me, that I wanted everyone to kind of hear, because I see this happen often when I'm working with people in this way, that they will make these connections, that sort of clear things, and I don't know if you see that as well often.

Speaker 2: 41:42

I have the biggest smile on my face because I feel like you just tied this beautiful bow around the message that my heart is to get across in this conversation, as we started in the beginning and we're debunking the myth that you can't solve anxiety and we're showing us how anxiety is an adaptation to what did or did not happen to you.

Speaker 2: 42:03

And then we moved on and we asked the question of well, how can I up level? What's next? And so what you just described is that you alchemized, or you're in the process of alchemizing, an experience that not only brings you to a neutral baseline of being anxiety free, but you're able to use that experience, alchemize that experience to then you know Hahnemann teaches about this to show up in such a way that you're able to use your mind and your body for the purposes that you were brought here on this earth to do, to be and to illuminate in such a way that it obliges wonder from those who are looking on. And so people see you in your bright, golden light and they're like where do I get me some of that?

Speaker 1: 42:51

And that comes from doing this work, and isn't it interesting? Yeah, if I can, if I could piggyback off of that the next level, human work. This is why I think I was really excited to connect with you, because it seems like we have the same message. From my perspective, it seems to me that hidden in this, the suffering and the pain and the hurt that we experience, that hidden in that, in some way, it's pointing us towards finding an aspect of ourselves that serves our growth and the enrichment of others and the evolution of the world, so almost that this suffering is meant to be a source of meaning and this, this pain, is meant to be a path to purpose and this hurt is meant to be a way to help, but not if we can't find a way to process it.

Speaker 1: 43:31

I oftentimes think that when we cut our finger, you know we feel the finger getting cut, which is what makes us pay attention to it and then deal with it.

Speaker 1: 43:39

And, of course, then the healing process is not just about, you know, changing the bandages and putting the antibiotic ointment on the finger. It's really about knowing okay, I cut my finger, so next time I'm in the kitchen cutting vegetables, I will be careful in some way, and perhaps even I will learn to cut vegetables and go out on YouTube and find videos to help me, and maybe even as a result of that, I end up becoming an amazing cook and a chef, you know, or something. And to me it seems as if this is the work that you and I have perhaps stumbled across, in this idea that, yes, our body knows how to heal and we know intuitively how to deal with physical pain and physical injuries, but no one has ever taught us in the way that Dr Nicole just did on how to deal with when we cut our metaphorical, emotional thumb. We've never actually learned how to feel, deal and heal from that stuff, and so this is why I think this works so powerful.

Speaker 2: 44:34

I love how you said feel, deal and heal, because one of the number one things that I see happening out, especially in the anxiety world, but arguably a lot of our symptoms is what can we do to make it go away? A lot of people ask me I get so many DMs, what supplement can I take to stop panic? And, yeah, I can give you alternatives to benzos. I can give you theanine and kava and passiflora, and those have a place. But even better is what you just talked about is is figuring out what, how, what is the purpose of this and what needs healing. And then how can I leverage that to be a next level human.

Speaker 2: 45:14

This is such a good podcast names.

Speaker 1: 45:17

Yeah, I love it so much and I'll say one more thing and get your final thoughts on this, then we can begin wrapping up. But you know, one of the things I think about with this pain and I want to see how you relate to this you know, there's, it seems that to me, that we can have if we don't feel, deal and heal in the way that you've described and we don't have these mechanisms and methods and people to go to, like you and myself, that in a sense, as humans, I feel like I liken it to like carrying a backpack. So you're carrying this backpack full of pain. Let's imagine it's filled up with bricks, and we can play the villain in a sense, and many of us will, and we can have compassion here because hurt people don't know necessarily how to deal with their hurt and so oftentimes they will inadvertently take bricks from the backpack and throw them at other people because they don't know what else to do with them, and so that I would call the villain state. And then there's, of course, the victim state, where we become so used to and accustomed to the heaviness of that backpack that we over-identify with the bricks in a sense. And you know, woe is me, and we blame and complain.

Speaker 1: 46:15

Of course I don't want anyone to hear me wrong, because I think it is required for healing. We must at some point, we must be a victim to heal, but we can't get stuck there. And so I think the final sort of stage is the victor stage which you're pointing us toward, which is to understand that these bricks, this pain, lives with us. We do have to carry it. We can't ever take the backpack off, but we can see these bricks as building blocks for our own personal growth and to enrich others and evolve the world, so we can use them to build something beautiful for ourselves and other people.

Speaker 1: 46:47

And perhaps that's the whole point of suffering in the first place. But we can't do it unless we have techniques and tools, like what Dr Nicole is teaching us, to understand how to deal with these sort of wounds. So I'm wondering how you see that and if you see it the same way I do. And then I just want to hear you know. Just as final thoughts, where would you, you know, other than getting your book and getting more into your work? Where else should people go and how should they begin this work if it's really resonating?

Speaker 2: 47:17

This is so good. The backpack is one of my favorite metaphors, and so I'm like I'm feeling so connected to your messaging. This is great, and what I would encourage for this image of the backpack is that little Jade if we go back to that example is that he's been carrying that backpack. That's a metaphor of like having your 15-year-old self telling you how to drive a car. You're like, you don't need to do that anymore. You're 15. I have everything that you've learned. Plus, I'm an adult, so I'm going to drive like parts. You can relax.

Speaker 2: 47:53

So what you can do and what I teach you to do with the three-minute hack, is that you go back, we do the amygdala deamplification and then, if he has a backpack, is that you then can take that backpack from him and then, with your adult resources, you can carry and alchemize that backpack. If that backpack is if I could say bullshit from other people that never even belonged to you, you also have the chance to send that back. And so who were you before the world told you who to be? And so, auditing, what is it that I'm carrying, and is this for me, so that I can be top chef? I cut my finger. This was for me, or is this just nonsense from an abusive partner or parents or teachers or whatever that really I shouldn't be carrying?

Speaker 2: 48:47

So, for those who are listening, what I would say is next steps is figure out how you can create intentional time to practice noticing. So this is called interoception and this is starting to create a new relationship with the body, and so creating intentional time and space where you just notice your body. Shower time is a great time for that. We all, hopefully, shower every day, so while you're in the shower, you're not going to have your phone or your iPad, probably, and so when you get in the shower, I want you to feel the water hitting your head. I want you to feel the water pulling down your body, every single skin cell. I want you to feel, maybe, if you do a loofah or a brush, what that feels like the soap, and then even notice what's happening in your body.

Speaker 2: 49:40

I feel hot, my tummy feels a little nervous, just notice it and then, when you end the shower, you end that activity with an environmental shift. And so, for those who are listening, this is free. You don't have to sign up for anything. You do showering anyway. So just intentionally shower, notice the body and then come and hang out with me and Dr Jade on Instagram.

Speaker 1: 50:04

Yeah, I love this so much. Such a powerful way to sort of sum this up, and I just want to say you're such an amazing teacher. Thank you so much for your time. So for those of you who want more of Dr Nicole's work, where can they find you? Where do you hang out? I know you hang out a lot on Instagram, your website, your book. Where else can they get more information to fill in the gaps?

Speaker 2: 50:27

Those are my places I also have. I don't see patients anymore, but I do have an online membership. So for those who are like, how can I learn from Dr Cain? I do tons and tons of teaching, and so it's called the Holistic Wellness Collective. You can get info about that on my Instagram and my website, Dr Nicole Cain.

Speaker 1: 50:45

Yeah, so if you go to DrNicoleCaincom and follow, if you follow Dr Nicole on Instagram, she does a lot of free teaching, so you'll get a lot there. So, nicole, do me a favor, hang on the lines. Just kind of want to make sure everything uploads. And for all of you I know you absolutely just loved Nicole, like I do. You're such an amazing teacher. Thank you so much for your time and for all of you. We will see you at the next show.