Naturopathic Medicine + Somatic Healing with Dr. Christian Gonzalez | EP 43

So many people who are people pleasers are suffering with physical illness. And the number one thing that I see is gut issues.
So when we're angry and we don't even know we're angry because we show up like, oh, do you need anything? Of course, I got you. It's fine.
Everything's fine, right? Well, there's a part of you that you didn't allow to be expressed that needed to be expressed like anger. But where's that energy go? It's building up and piling up like it has been over years right in the belly.
And this has been one of the most slam dunk things that I've seen in practice. Welcome.
I'm Alyssa Nobrega, your host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast, a place for you to discover the multidimensionality of what it means to be human. Over the past 20 years, I've trained thousands of coaches in my methodology, leveraging my experience as a former psychotherapist, and I'm here to share with you all the wisdom and insights that I've learned along the way.
Each week, I'll share with you life-changing tools to support you in awakening and manifesting your dream life from the inside out. We'll be exploring the intersection between ancient wisdom and modern everyday life, really diving deep into the art of human potential through the lens of psychology, spirituality, and coaching.
Let's let the magic unfold. In today's episode, we explore how environmental toxins can affect our bodies and why living a fast-paced life can actually be harmful to your productivity.
And we're going to give you practical tips to live a happier, healthier life. We're also going to talk about emotional trauma and how it's linked to illness and how you can start taking natural precautions to help you prevent cancer.
And so I'm so happy to welcome today's guest, Dr. Christian Gonzalez, or lovingly known as Dr.
G, who's received his doctorate in naturopathic medicine. I have so much love and respect for him.
After I was on his podcast, he's like, I need to join your certification program. He is a doctor who's so committed to advancing where we're at in the medical system by understanding emotional and somatic work.
He wears many hats from being a podcast host to being a trusted voice auditing health brands, and he's been featured in countless media outlets. And he's really on a mission to empower people with the knowledge and courage to take their health back into their own hands.
And so this episode, you're definitely going to want to take notes on. I hope that you enjoy all the knowledge, nuggets, and insights it has in store for you.

Dr. G, I'm so happy that you're here.
I love you so much, and I'm excited to share you with my audience. And I just want to drop right into psychosomatics because I know this is one of your specialties.
Talk to us about what psychosomatics are, and then how does it relate to mental and physical health? the field of psychosomatics is always incredible because there's been that part of me as a healer, doctor that has always said, give me all of the science. And when I was in school, I was science heavy.
I go, I don't even want, I don't believe in homeopathy because there's no science. So I kind of kind of like poo-pooed it away.
Yeah. The truth of the matter is, is that we've lost the art of understanding what it means to be a healer.
And the artistry is really the opening up of that part for the psychosomatics in my field. Right.
So I've always had the studies for breast health, brain health, gut health. And I go, I'm not going to give this supplement unless there's a great study on it.
Okay, great. I'm going to give this up.
I was rigid. Yeah.
And then there's the part of me that has that lineage. I swear it comes from my dad.
He's Ecuadorian, but it's the shamanic lineage where I'm like, no, no, no, there's energy here. There's something I can know.
I notice differences, deviations in people. This person who comes in with this disease sort of has this energy.
I can't put my finger to it. Well, over the years, as it happens, you start putting your finger to it.
Then you start seeing how not only is there phenotypic or physical expressions to the body, but there's also energetic feels you get for people. And you go, oh, okay's this person's holding on to something and as i learn more about emotions yeah i started really seeing or connecting the picture between people's presentations without even them opening their mouth how are they presenting what's their energy how is their posture how do they walk let me see their face their small micro expressions what's the pain in their eyes? What emotion is there? When you start tuning into that, what's their energy? You get to start seeing a picture and the body has a language.
And the more you become sensitized with, the more you can start reading that and reading people. So then over time, you start working with those people, treating those people and you go, oh, wait, hold on, gut health issues.
And this person has this same thing that this person in the past 10, 15, 20, 100 people have. You start connecting, oh my God, a lot of these physical diseases far surpass that science.
Because all those people go, I work with every functional doctor, every naturopathic doctor. I'm on every protocol.
I'm on the best diets. I've taken the best supplements and you ain't better yet.
There's something happening on an energetic, emotional, even spiritual standpoint. When that becomes uncovered, that opens a field of psychosomatics and it's incredible because then you go, all right, let me just use my intuition as a healer and also have the quote unquote data that I've seen one-on-one clinically and then start applying it.
And oftentimes we're starting to see, oh my God, these people from an emotional standpoint are healing once they're able to express that which has been held for 20, 30, 40 years for some people. I have so many questions.
This is so good. But maybe ground it with a case study or a story just so we can get a sense.
Sure. This is one that I always think about.
There was a young woman who messaged me and said, Dr. G, I'm going to come see you.
Before I see you, I just want to tell you it's really hard on me. I haven't been able to get pregnant.
Me and my husband have been trying for two years. This has been, I was like, okay, no one really messages me before I meet them and we talk.
But she already wanted, I don't know why she did that, but I think she wanted to bring that to my awareness that, okay, this might be a case and maybe I could have more awareness and bring more presentness, attention, something to her. But she comes in and we're talking and I'm tuning into her.
She's so sweet when I meet her. Like, you know, her face is soft or you know she's she's very she has a feminine energy right so oftentimes when i work with people i go okay if if you're not able to get pregnant first of all where are you on this polarity of balance of your doing energy or being energy or masculine or feminine you know and and oftentimes a lot of these women are so hyper masculine so doing yeah and boom, boom, that they lose their period.
And of course, they're not going to have kids. Their body's not balanced in this.
But this woman was something different. She was actually, she had that softness to her.
Okay. So then we start talking, we start connecting our voices, and then we start the process.
And she's going through it, and she starts crying. Well, I'm not surprised.
Oftentimes women will start crying immediately.

That's the first emotion that they're like, okay, I can do this.

I'm so used to this, right?

And she's crying and she's letting those tears out.

And then I start feeling that the crying is shifting before the sound starts coming.

And then she starts shifting her sound, but she's still crying, but shifting the sound of the crying. But then I look at her fist and she starts closing her fist and I go, Ooh, something's happening.
And then I could feel her body tightening. And then you see her shoulders tightening and her hips tightening.
And she's like, I'm just so sad. I'm just so sad.
I'm just so angry, angry. I said, okay.
And she goes, my, my womb on the G. My womb on the right side is tightening so much.
It hurts. It's tightening.
It's tightening. The womb started contracting in this, I'm going to protect you.
I'm going to protect this. I'm going to protect what's happening because the ego is going, if you bear witness to this pain that is here, the belief system is that it's going to be so much, it kills you.
That's what the ego is protecting you against, right? And it's a survival mechanism. And the survival mechanism came on at 100.
But the beauty is in safety, she felt safe with me and ultimately with herself to go, yes, I can face this. So she brought awareness to that area.
I pushed down with my thumb on that area, which sort of incited the

tension a little more. And then- That's also called taking over in Hakomi somatic psychotherapy.

When you physicalize what she's doing, the part of her that was doing it can relax because

something else is doing it. Oh, amazing.
Yeah. So it was a taking over.
You intuitively knew that.

I had that book and I haven't read it yet. And I'm supposed to read it when I go on my next flight.
Yeah. It's a little blue book with a pelican on it.
Yes, yes. So I'm ready to read that.
I had that book and I haven't read it yet. And I'm supposed to read it when I go on my next flight.
It's a little blue book with a pelican on it. So I'm ready to read that.
So intuitively I'm like, okay, let me do this. So I'm pushing.
And then she identifies that she's angry. Again, I'm angry.
And then she has this vision and it was so not a big deal to her but now it is to her body her ex-boyfriend in college who she would say no to she didn't want to have sex with him but he would just force himself on her but it was her boyfriend so it was okay and it was a series a lot of a lot of that you know until she broke up with him and and the body the womb in particular will remember everything it'll remember when when you abandon your no. Yes.
It'll remember when you abandon your boundaries. Yes.
And for her, all the memory was there. So then when that anger came, I'll never forget this small little woman, my whole little back house was shaking.
And I was like, oh, my God. I was like protecting myself too.
Because I'm like, there's so much coming out of her.

And you notice there's this, once there's this charge,

there's a, on the other side of that,

there's just this beautiful coming of this part of her

that she had no contact with.

It was this charge of anger, that part of her.

And then on the other side was this charge of like love,

peace, clarity. And you hear her, she goes, oh, I feel so calm.
I haven't felt this calm in years. Oh my God, is this what it feels like? And it's coming, it's coming.
Fast forward, month and a half later, month and a half later, I get a email, a full email saying that she got pregnant. She was ready to do IVF and she got pregnant.
And she noticed, this was incredible. She noticed that because of this practice, when she would have sex with her husband, without even knowing, she would close her legs.
They would tighten. She would reject someone who loves her deeply and she loves him deeply.
Her ego through the nervous system, telling the body, protect yourself because sex isn't safe. So sex as a whole was not safe for her.
Of course, the body's not going to accept a pregnancy, right? So this is the psychosomatics. This is the grounding piece to all of this.
That's one of so many. And that particular expression was infertility through repression of anger and sadness in the womb.
Yeah, it's beautiful. It's very clearly articulated.
And the body is the unconscious. And so it knows and it holds information even when our conscious mind doesn't see it.
So part of what I hear you did was support her in tuning into her body and listening deeply and allowing the emotions to come up and out. And another thing that you highlighted or that you shared that I want to highlight is the safety, is really feeling that level of safety so that she could actually transform and let go of the anger that she was holding onto.
The no was honored. It was beautiful.
100%. If you don't feel safe with your environment, and it's perpetually through your life, the signal, I'm not safe to be me, then of course course you're not going to be yourself yeah so most of us grow up with this experience of like our environment isn't safe therefore i'm not safe therefore my body's not safe so safety is the most important piece of the whole equation when it comes to looking at what's deep inside of you.
And if you don't feel safe with the person working on you, because the person might stand the way someone gave you trauma or smell like the way someone who gave you a trauma, then you're not going to open up. So first, it's true safety with your environment.
Am I even safe enough to be with myself? Once the answer is yes, then the big one is, can I be with myself? So part of what I do in these processes is open up the space. Hopefully, they feel grounded and loving and safe around me.
Most people do. And it's up to them through my guidance, right, through my support to feel safe with themselves.
You can tell when someone's not safe with themselves because all of their awareness goes all the way up to the head. And they're like, oh, am I doing this right? Or I don't know.
I don't feel anything really. I just, I just, I don't know.
They're living in their head because their ego's pulling up their awareness from the body, the unconscious, as you said. But you can also feel when someone's dropping into safety because you can feel their energy go all the way to their body and they're in it.
They're still in their body over and over and over. And that's when that onion, proverbial onion starts peeling and all these emotions start showing up.
Yeah. And that safety also sometimes when people don't feel safe, they're hypervigilant.
They go into their minds and they're over assessing what's happening in their environment. It's not bad.
But when we do that,

it's like, okay, that's a cue. That's feedback.
I don't feel safe. And then teaching them how to

insource their safety is one thing that I'll do is like, where have you felt safe before?

How can you create that inside of your own body and nervous system? Because as they are more

tuned and they're more aware, they can create that wherever they are. And then they soften,

they relax. It's a beautiful moment when they soften and relax too.
We put so much value on intellect and IQ and we put zero value on somatic intellect and somatic IQ when both need to be balanced. And we, especially in America, live so much in our heads and we celebrate doing so much, that energy, when in reality, this energy is a being energy.
It's a feminine, let me be exactly where I am and allow what's there to show up as you talk in your courses, showing up and whatever's coming up, allowing it to come up and then navigating it in a loving way. Yeah.
And I think people think that it's hard,

but it's actually pretty simple. It's just the courage and the willingness.
And I think the more we feel safety as the foundation, the easier it is to allow and presence all the thoughts, all the feelings, all the sensations. And I'm curious in terms of trauma, emotional trauma and physical health, what are some of the correlations or patterns that you've seen in your work? Well, even besides from my work, big time, there's no disconnect between the

unconscious body expression and trauma, right? What I've seen and the way that I've explained it

in my head and now to people is that when a child doesn't feel safe, we were all children, doesn't feel safe, there's parts of them that become repressed. But that's not always the truth because there was parts of us that were never repressed.
We were fully expressed. We were five years old and staring at butterflies.
And then when we were sad, we cried one minute later, and then we cracked up to two minutes later. Adult does that.
They must seem like a crazy person, right? But we were fully expressed because we were unfiltered. And then the way that I've seen is just this connection between when you're in a household that's unsafe, of course, you're not going to be able to express those parts of you which are authentic to you or were authentic to you.
In a household that is unsafe. There's brainwave changes that happen from the ages of one to six, seven onwards.
In this theta brainwave state when we're kids, right? Like meditative, present. You are the experience.
You are not the experience. And experience and then this individualized autonomous egoic part of us comes online more around the age of seven now it's like um well that butterfly it's nice but it has green and i hate the color green because green is the color the bad guy on the cartoon that i hate butterflies yeah right like we have this reasoning all of a sudden that involves what is my choice behind it what is my experience and and that's part of the human experience we have to go through that we need relativity to understand ourselves better with that said in a home that's traumatic or a place that we go to that's traumatic as children that predisposes us towards all of a sudden repressing those parts of us that were really expressive and easy and our nature and then holding back and compensating.
So I always give the example, like let's say mom and dad, and then dad comes home and he's really angry all the time. And then he screams at mom and then mom gets really quiet and you feel really alone.
Well, you know that anger in the household, look what happens. Mom gets like that.
So, oh, I guess I can't be angry anymore. Or maybe I can't be angry at a 10, maybe a five, maybe a four.
Some people shut it off completely. I've seen this over and over.
And I talk about anger because everyone knows anger. Is in a household like that, there's two expressions.
It's I'm not turning off my anger and I'm going to be angrier and i'm going to i'm going to be that i'm going to be a child who's problematic or most turn it down and become these people pleasers yes because that compensation is the survival compensation yeah it's a safety strategy it's a safety strategy so we learn, it's biological imperative. We need to survive.

Totally. We need food.
So in our little egoic heads as kids, if we don't show up like this, we're not going to get food. We're going to die.
We're going to be excommunicated. We're going to die.
This is our tribe. So the truth of the matter is that, okay, can you bring more loving compassion to hold on? Maybe I've just been compensating all my life as a people pleaser or an addiction or compulsions that I live with, right?

Or anxiety. Maybe I've just been compensating all my life as a people pleaser or an addiction or compulsions that I live with, right? Or anxieties that I live with.
Maybe, just maybe, there's a part of me that has just been so unbearable and unwitnessable and unlovable to be expressed. And that that's protecting me.
Oh, my God, my ego's protecting me to survive. So there's nothing wrong with people.
You're just being protected by you to survive, but now it's not serving you. So now the beauty is you have the power also and safety, believe it or not, even when people don't feel unsafe, you can go there to open up that part of you and start seeing what's been held in since you were a kid.
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Like we needed our parents to survive then we actually really did. And so we abandoned authentic parts of ourselves to survive in our family system.
What is not ideal is when we're continuously playing those patterns and conditions out and we don't need them anymore. So what I'm hearing you say is seeing it with a compassionate lens, like, oh, that people pleasing part of me, that was the best way I knew how not to be violent in my family the way that my dad was, for example, like as somebody's example.
So instead of going into violence, I went to people pleasing. And so having compassion for that, having awareness, and then being able to shift it ironically is through acceptance, is through compassion.
Because if we accept something, then we can change it. People think acceptance is complacency, but it's not.
It's actually just saying, oh, this is what it was. Thank you for trying to protect me the best you've known how.
Let me upgrade a new way to authentically express and feel the safety. And so I love that you bring that into place.
In terms of trauma and illness and then physical, are there any patterns? I know that there's some research around anger. A lot of women that repress anger and there's also cultural know, typically boys are conditioned not to feel sad, right? Or girls are conditioned to be quote unquote good and then caretake for others and abandon their own needs.
I'm curious around the cultural norms, if you've seen patterns or also just trauma and physical illness. Yeah.
From, I think actually back to people pleasers, how so many people who are people pleasers are suffering with physical illness. Yes.
Right? And the number one thing that I see is gut issues. Okay.
Talk to us about this. Yeah.
So most people are expressing as people pleasers with gut issues. And this has been one of the most slam dunk things that I've seen in practice.
And it's because that anger is being held in the belly. It's being held in the upper right quadrant of your belly, right in the fascia over the liver.
Right? So when we're angry and we don't even know we're angry because we show up like, oh, do you need anything? Of course, I got you. It's fine.
Everything's fine. Right? So when we're angry and we don't even know we're angry because we show up like, oh, do you need anything? Of course I got you.
It's fine. Everything's fine.
Right? That nervous, anxious people pleaser energy. Well, where's that energy go? It's building up and piling up like it has been over years right in the belly.
So if we think of it from a physiological standpoint, that sympathetic activation is pulling blood away from your

digestive system. And if you're continuously in that sympathetic dominance of repressed anger, because you have a volcano that's ready to pop, and on the surface, your cool, common, and parasympathetic rest and digest, truth of the matter is that people who are sensitive enough will begin to feel you as it comes more and more to the surface.
But that sympathetic dominance is doing everything except digestion.

It's getting you ready to run away.

So your muscles are ready. Your joints are ready.
Your eyes and brain are ready from threat. But the truth of the matter is, is that you're not digesting properly, assimilating your nutrients properly, building up your, you're not digesting.
So food is building up in your intestines, you're building

up bacteria in different parts. It can be in your small intestine for SIBO, a slew of digestive issues.
That would be the mechanism. But really the energetics is it's being stuck in your belly and all of that energy is unexpressed.
And I've seen this over and over, over and over. Mostly, I see a lot of women, mostly women are angry.
Yeah. Angry.
A lot of women are angry with their fathers because they didn't show up emotionally, because they never connected to them, because, you know, they thought just providing was, that's all they needed to do as a father. And so many young little girls seek that connection with dad.
And it's expressed in the body. You see it.
It's on the right side on the shoulder. It's like the weight that they carry on their shoulders is so heavy, you touch and it's like a rock, right? So when they're connecting to that anger that's all over their body, their shoulders relax, the weight on their back relax, their belly starts loosening up.
I can actually move my fingers around it. It's not like a rock.
And then over and over, my IBS is gone. My SIBO is gone.
I can poop now. I don't have stomach pain anymore when I eat X, Y, and Z.
That's been the biggest connection. Anger and fear.
Anger and fear, because fear is almost the same mechanism. I'm really scared.
Instead of running away, I'm just kind of shaking and freezing. But it's the same mechanism.
You're in that sympathetic dominance. Your digestive system will not work optimally at all, really.
You'll eat food, you'll poop, but it's not going to work optimally anywhere near if you're in sympathetic dominance. That's one of the mechanisms of that energy.
It makes so much sense, everything you're saying. And I'm surprised that medical, this is still cutting edge.
And it's also very practical. It's very common sense as you're sharing it.
But I love that there's a map being built and more clinicians are coming together to talk about what that map is and reporting from their clients what some of the patterns are. I think that it makes also sense that with women, particularly, I know if they don't, well, people in general, if they don't express it, they repress it, right? And that will show up in the body both ways.
But for women, trying to be conditioned culturally, the norm is to be nice and to care take for others so if they don't feel safe to be angry then they will guilt trip themselves and they will think something's wrong with them and they'll hold that anger in and then it still expresses in the body so the more i think that we have the capacity to be with the range of our human emotions as sensations in the body the easier it is to transform and heal. A hundred percent.
And this is a shout out to everyone. If you're listening to this podcast, you are that one in your generation who's ready to do this.
And guess what? You have no points of reference other than what's on the internet and what you're being taught. But we didn't learn as kids.
It's us to like figure it out. And the truth of the matter is, if we're listening to this podcast or doing anything around this work, then we're ready.
Our soul is bringing this forth and saying, hey, listen, it's the time for you to break generational stuff. And to even answer your question from before, like culturally, it's that., there's so many women who are so comfortable with crying and so uncomfortable with being angry.
And those women, the more actually I could tell what women are more uncomfortable. Yeah.
I was one of them. And me learning how to feel my anger in my body somatically was liberating.
So on the scale of emotions, I would jump to sadness over anger because anger wasn't healthy and expressed in my family. And so I would go underneath anger to feel sadness.
And I also felt guilty for being angry at certain situations because I understood my family's trauma. So I understood at a young age how my family got to be the way that they are.
So I was like, well, I don't need to express my anger because then they'll feel guilty. So I held it in.
And then I went to a workshop where I just went for it. And I had to give myself permission to really be angry because it was my authentic childlike experience rather than my adult understanding being in my prefrontal.
It was just like, that's what we do. It was like, oh, I understand.
It was like, no, let me be true to my childhood experience and let this anger out. Anger at girls that were bullying me in middle school, anger at just different situations, which I'll talk on the podcast later.
And in expressing it, not hanging out in the story, but hanging out in the sensation, just fully allowing it liberated my power, liberated some weight that I was carrying in my body. I felt more embodied than I had before.
And this isn't even, I've been doing this work for over 20 years now. And this was maybe, this was during the pandemic that I found a new level that I hadn't accessed before.
And so I just want to, we don't have to hang out and focusing on the person and the surface level situation, but to really feel the authentic expression of what was true for us as a kid, just so it's allowed to come up and out is all that's needed. So focusing on the sensation more than the story, the story is good to activate the sensation.
But once the sensation is activated, I have to tell you, like what I got angry at my husband one time and it felt like electricity moving through my body. I was like, for the first time in my life, I fully let anger move through my body without any resistance, without any story of what it meant.
It was just like, wow. And then I understood why some men hang out in anger because it's way more empowering than sadness.
That's the word I was going to wait for you. Right when you finished, I was going to say, talk about power.
Anger, healthy anger is healthy power. You have to understand it.
Everyone, everyone, you have to understand. If you're able to connect to your anger, you are in connection with your power.
You are not abandoning yourself because now you have boundaries. What is true for me? Your anger is so sacred because it shows you what is true for you.
Where is your integrity of respect? And it's really important. Unfortunately, most people will be living in that unhealthy anger.
So we're seeing unhealthy power. Look at every dictator across the world.
They're just mad at their dads. Overpowering another.
Yeah, overpowering another, right? Yeah. And also distinguishing anger and violence.
So anger is a human emotion. Violence is an action.
It's an action. So we all are going to feel anger at certain points.
And it's good. It's feedback that a boundary has been crossed, right? And I'm reading the book, When the Body Says No, Gabor Amante.
Yeah, it's a great one. So it's all about autoimmune disease and cancer.
And when there's a lot of people-pleasing tendencies, part of what I'm hearing, it can show up in the body as different disease. Yeah.
And so this is good research that's happening right now. It's good research.
And we have to be aware, especially, again, in an anger thing, is the more we express the anger, the more sensitive we are when that boundary is being crossed. We can, we can notice micro sensations of being like, oh, I don't know if I like that.
Right. In the past, you wouldn't even noticed it.
Right. All of a sudden, how many people listening and viewing? I don't know, just like my wife or my husband, they just blow up.
Well, that's because they, their sensors are enough yet. So once you embody that anger, you truly feel what it feels like and it's flowing and it's open, then you get to go, oh, honey, I love you.
But I don't know. That comment just felt like a little like it came from your head out of fear.
Didn't feel true. Like, let's talk about it.
And then clearing that air before you build build up resentment building up resentment is going to tear up every relationship every relationship but when it comes to again women holding in that anger it's massive and you can tell the more a woman is talking from their upper chest and it's kind of like this you know when they're out of that they're because their stomach is sucked in and they're holding in so much. Sympathetic.
Sympathetic. Yeah, the whole, but oftentimes in the practice, I'll see women's chest go down and their voice just open up.
They're talking from their belly. They're, whoa, there's your true voice.
Yeah. Right.
But they're taught at a young age, they have to talk from up here. The reverse oftentimes is true for men we are so held men are so sad we are we have so much pain in our hearts and we're so scared to show it yes but we are comfortable with anger yes for most men yes i see a lot of people please are men too but yeah most men will be expressing anger easily but my god how much pain we hold in our hearts and how scared we are to cry.
And what's the consequence of that? We're not able to connect. We're not able to connect with our wives, with our partners, with our daughters, because we can't emotionally hold them because we're just completely ignoring our own capacity to hold emotion.
We have to be connected with our heart if we want to have a deeper connection with our lovers. 100%.
Period. What would you say to, you know, I know we're talking gender norms and cultural norms, but what would you say to somebody that doesn't feel safe to feel? I mean, I had a post that went viral around being vulnerable and speaking from that vulnerable truth.
And all these men were commenting, If I speak my vulnerable truth, my wife will use that against me or my partner will hurt me with that information and broke my heart. What would you say to somebody that feels that way? That's a tough one because oftentimes we'll be in a relationship for all of those things to come up.
We'll be in the relationship for us to finally speak our vulnerable truth. And then when it's not met with love, stay still in our vulnerable truth.
That's not a mistake. Now with that empowered self, new self, then you make a decision.
Hold on. If this person can't hold me, why am I with her? I've been married to her for 20 years, but every time I open up, no.
More important to me is the expression of authentic parts of me, including vulnerability. And if vulnerability is number one thing in your space to heal who you are, and you need to speak your truth, open up your throat, speak from your heart, and your partner can't hold it, and she or he is not willing to meet you there, or using that from their own traumas, projecting it on you, then my God, it's about time to make a decision.
Right. So, so real, I understand how difficult that can be.
Yes. I would also say practicing, you need to have your own experience.
If you're having a co-experience with someone else and parts of you are just identified with them, then, then, then of course you're going to be entangled so much in this whole experience and you're not going to be able to be your own self. It's very important to work on yourself.
It's very important to work with your body, dropping your awareness into your body, just knowing where you're holding tension. Just knowing where you're holding tension day to day will be massive for you because that tension, that body is going to start talking to you.
It's going to start revealing what's there, practicing meditation. These things, just getting quiet, are going to be able to give you guidance on what parts of you need to be expressed for better health.
Now, from that point, that's your reference point. Once you find your grounding in that, then you start making decisions around everything in your life, people, places, things, situations, partners.
This is where you make your decision. If you feel lost, you got to get your grounding first.
Identify who you are in your own integrity. Integrity is the boundaries of who you are as a person.
Do you know who you are? At least can you start building up that person of who you truly are, minus the work, minus the religion, minus the clothes? Can you embody that integrity? And then from that integrity, start making decisions in your life, including partnership. That's right.
And I keep coming back to safety. And I love what you were saying, notice where you're holding contraction.
Because even right now, I was just speaking with you. I'm like, oh, I can feel contraction in my belly.
Just as soon as I saw it, there's a softening, there's the breath into it. And so the more we can track and we're aware of, because sometimes there's no reason not, you know, like it can just be a habit of just going into a hold somatically a contraction.
And so the more we're aware, the more that we can build safety, the more the defenses drop and the more we feel safe to speak from our vulnerability.

And so if your partner can't necessarily, oftentimes you attract somebody that's going to bring up all your wounds and it's designed that way so that you can see it and heal it. And so if we had stuck focusing on the partner, then we miss the opportunity to see what was triggered, what was unresolved within us, and then resolve it at the root.
And so by creating insourcing safety, creating that safety for ourselves, we'll feel more safe even in the dynamic of being triggered. And we can also compassionately see that they're not feeling safe.
And this is their defensive part rather than dropping into their vulnerability and the truth underneath all of that. And so it can extend some compassion to find your way together, but it always starts with us.
And I love that you come back to that. It has to, it has to.
And look, just because I've done this work does not mean like I've always been like this. I've been in my cycle in relationships was to abandon myself for another, right? So making sure that she's okay and she feels loved and she feels happy.
Yeah. And then like, well, i'm like well what about me how do i feel right and that was the cycle but the truth of the matter is is that i would abandon myself because i didn't want to see my fear my anger my shame my guilt and the depth of sadness that i had yes right so why not move my energy into someone else pour into them so i don't have to at that? So good that you're honest with that because then it's like, okay, what's the benefit? What do I think I'm getting for not taking care of myself? Then I get to feel good about helping others or this personality that I think I am.
And sometimes I notice, I look at life through the lens of the personality assessment of the Enneagram and twos, the helpers in the Enneagram, oftentimes when they abandon themselves, they can pendulum towards eight, the challenger, which then they've been people pleasing and helping. And then they're angry if they're not conscious and they swing to the other side and get super angry.
So it's also what you were talking about, the micro noticing when you start to slow it down so you can pay attention. When do I not feel safe? When am I angry? How do I create that safety so I can speak that I don't feel safe? Whoever you feel closest with to speak your truth, just start there.
How many people are guilty of that, not having a clear integrity of who you are? So instead of abandoning yourself, micro abandonment throughout the days, weeks, years of a relationship for someone else's happiness, of course you want to make your partner happy. You want to show up for your partner, but not at your expense.
And when you do that, that's exactly what would happen. I'd have this resentment.
Like, well, why? I'm angry. What's going on? Like, this is such a disproportionate reaction to something going on.
The truth of the matter is I was angry at myself. I was abandoning myself.
I was never asking myself, do I want to go to this movie? Do I want to go out to this party? Do I want to rest at home? Right? And it takes a somatic awareness because if you're in your head, like I was, and my whole human experience was in my head, then of course you're not going to be able to feel what you want. You're just going to try to be logical about like, oh, well, you know, I haven't seen this person in a while.
Maybe I should go. And, you know, she would be mad if I didn't.
The truth is if I go, okay, hold on. Let me just feel into like what's true.
You take one minute and then you go, I actually do want to go to a party. I feel good.
I have good energy. Let's go.
If you can do that, just break that, take a minute. I promise you those microaggressions, micro resentments, micro repressions will begin to move away.
And then you, your integrity starts coming up. Yeah.
And I love coming back to just slowing down and tuning in. I know that Paul Ekman talks about we have six basic human emotions and all other emotions are a variation of these six.
So the six are sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust. And so from those, it's like when we can just allow our full human experience, breathing into and allowing those emotions as sensations in the body, they move through.
And so I try to tell, it's like when we don't think of an emotion as good, quote unquote, or bad, it's just energy. And when it's just energy and you allow it, it can pass.
So presence and acceptance ironically is what transforms it. And so we know that neuroscientists takes, neuroscience has shown us it takes 90 seconds to feel an emotion before it moves through the nervous system.
And so if that's the case, then anybody has 90 seconds to breathe into and allow an emotion that's here. And, and part of the work that I do is I want to, I help my clients stretch the capacity to be with their experience.
So it's like a storm that just moves through and you have the ballast, the, the the ship so that the winds of life can do whatever they do. And you still feel centered and connected to what your truth is as these things start moving through your nervous system and integrating a bit more.
Like another analogy you could use is the iceberg. As you take those micro 90 seconds to just presence and be with that energy in your body, it's chipping away at this iceberg.
And then eventually it moves through and you're no longer triggered from the past. It's just the current moment experience and you know how to allow it.
So I tell clients that thoughts, emotions, and sensations are like little kids. They just need a hug.
They're just looking to be accepted. And then they're off playing again.
It doesn't have to take a long time and it can be much more simple. And so even with somatic work, and I think you and I similarly do, and I want to give people a reference point for somatic work, you know, like what you were doing with the woman, the case study of just feeling this sensation.
So sometimes when you have attention in your chest or wherever your shoulder, wherever it may be, by presencing that energy and just getting curious, sometimes an image will come forward. They talk about bottom up instead of top down in somatic work.
So your body remembers and will show you. It's not from your conscious mind, which is only really leading 5% of your behavior change.
So by presencing, say, the pit in your stomach or starting to speak from it, it will reveal insights that you didn't know you already had because the body has already has so much wisdom for you. So working with somebody can sound like, like what you were saying earlier, pressing on a part of their body that is holding so that they don't have to hold it.
It's called a takeover. And then that emotion releases and it starts integrating.
Or say you have something in your throat, you may want to presence that energy in the throat. You may just get curious if there's an image, an emotion, a sound, a movement that goes with it.
All that it's looking for is expression. And so being able to presence it, allow it, and then need it with acceptance is all that it's looking for.
And we complicate it, but it can be that simple. It is that simple.
And we don't need to go to the jungle to do anything like that. We don't need to go to mountains to do this.
You could do this in your living room of your apartment. And the word you said is presence.
If we allow ourselves to drop into that sensation, wherever we're feeling and just be there, my God, I'm telling you the body will talk to you. When I went through this process and I still connect to my body every morning, but back when it was really intense, I was seeing things I swear wasn't even in my life.
It was my genes were showing me something that it was completely not. I was like, this is not the time period that I was alive.
Epigenetics. Epigenetics.
It also showed me things that I was alive. It showed me memories that I never, ever thought I'd ever remember.
Never in my conscious. And like movie screen, like in my third eye, movie screen.
And I'm like standing in front like standing in front of him like i can't believe i'm watching this part of my life which had such a impact into how i presented and compensated up till that day so know that the body if if you bring presence to it and begin to move that energy may show you colors visions tastes memories. I've had the clients go like this.
Oh my God, why did this person come up? Oh my God, I can't believe this is why they're here. They're literally talking to someone.
Like, why am I talking to my great grandma? I only met her once. Oh, well, your great grandma had something to say to you, you know? So trust that your body has a language.
Trust the more that you visit it. The more that you visit it, your body's going to share with you.
This is why we say your body's conscious and it's waiting for you to knock on the door. Y'all used to be best friends.
You used to go outside. You and your body were in alignment.
And now you knock on the door, the body goes, I don't know if I remember you and closes the door. Keep visiting.
If you go every single day, your body's waiting to reconnect and reconcile that relationship with you, the egoic part of you. And if you build that bridge, oh my God, you could just drop into your body in the middle of the supermarket and go, do I want this bag of rice? Is this like true for me? Hold on.
No, I want lentils. Okay.
Like your body will communicate that even. I love that you're saying that, especially as a doctor, because there's so much of our outsourcing of our knowing to an authority and to really tune into our own body's wisdom and to be supported in that, especially in a traditional medical field, I think is so valuable and important.

And so I appreciate you bringing that because we are wired are going to know more about ourselves than any other person. And so having that authority figure help come back to our own truth and knowing is so empowering.
One thing I will say before I move on, a hack for people that are really interested in more deep somatic work. Having a story to activate the energy is helpful.
Having a visual that maybe is revealed to you when you're presencing an energy in your body is great, but it's not the end because then it's still in your mind. And you want to really drop into the direct experience and sensation, letting go of the story and a visual so that it's pure energy.
And again, it takes 30 to 90 seconds to just fully breathe into it as pure sensation before it moves. Yeah.
And a lot of people protect themselves. They'll go up to their head and they'll go back to the story.
I always tell people, your body doesn't care about the story. It doesn't care about the detail.
It doesn't care about the story. It only cares are you repressing that energy or expressing it.
You can can use a strategy it's a safety strategy yeah but this is this is why i keep telling people you gotta get in the body we don't need to talk about it yeah yeah and some people aren't ready and so like if there's big t trauma work with this trauma specialist a psychotherapist because there's also some people and i always train my coaches this way is like yes i train my coaches with somatic work, but they're trauma-informed. So they know if they're starting to go, if a client is resistant to going to the body, it may be because they're not ready or they don't have the resources to navigate it.
And any big T trauma is great to work with a trained specialist. You need someone to open up even that safety that you can go into your body.
And somebody that's trained to know how to navigate the nervous system in that way, especially in the United States, there's more regulations around that. I can imagine.
Yeah. And, and so, you know, just learning how to say yes to all of our experience is really powerful.
And I'm curious, cause I want, I keep coming back to the gut and the nervous system. And you were talking about earlier before we got on the podcast, I was sharing with you, I'm going in for a biopsy on my right breasts because, and I know that you got into oncology because your mom passed from cancer, right? Yeah.
And so I'm curious what we can, I mean, there's so many things that I want to ask you, but what can we learn about preventative work, you know, in terms of alternative medicine and taking care of ourselves in our 20s, 30s, or 40s to help prevent high risk of having cancer? When it comes, cancer is, I'll put it this way. There's known evidence behind what you can do to prevent cancer.
That is around weight, obesity, right? Having a good, strong BMI or building good muscle, reducing fat, avoiding alcohol, avoiding cigarettes, not eating processed foods. Like this is stuff that we know, right? I use that as a foundation, especially when I was working in the hospital, like, okay, asking everyone, like, where are you at? Checking them BMI or just BMI actually is sometimes skewed.
Like you just want to make sure that you're at a good weight for your body and building good muscle. But then as I went through this process in oncology, I was like, okay, well, there's more.
There's more. Because I've seen people perfect across the board.
I've seen people exceptionally perfect, and they were triathletes, or and they were athletes. I was like, something's going on, something's going on, something's going on.
So there was a really important part of my career where I was working with this client. I had a big whiteboard behind me.
And I started, before she came in, I started writing all of the things that I know cause cancer and science knows that cause cancer. And I just making like this big pie chart.
And what do we know that we don't talk about? And then I made a little mark. And then what is, I have a feeling, but we don't know yet.
Well, what we do know, but we don't talk about was the environmental exposures. That we know.
There are environmental exposures that are connected to cancer. They are carcinogenic, even at small doses over time.
That's when I started talking about environmental medicine. And that was really important because everything happens for a reason.
It helped build my career because I was ongoing on all the podcasts. Dr.
G, what's the best bed? What's the best matcha? What's the best air purifier, right? And that plays an important role because when we think of the body in cancer or any disease, we think of stress, physical stress, chemical stress, and emotional stress, right? We're used to the emotional stress, but I will bring awareness back to that. It's like, if you come home and say, honey, I'm stressed, and then they go, oh, okay.
Well, what happened? I don't know. My boss just yelled at me and put stress on me.
When I hear that, I say, well, there's a part of you that you didn't allow to be expressed that needed to be expressed like anger and being like, hey, don't talk to me like that. You're degrading me.
I quit. That's a truth.
So we have to understand what stress on the emotional level is. Then there's the chemical one, what we're being exposed to.
And then obviously the physical, if you work out too much, you're going to lose your period. That's a physical stressor.
The chemical one's important because we have to think about what we're breathing in.

Now more than ever, it's tough. It's tough.
The EPA has allowed so many chemicals, over 80,000 since the 70s, without being properly regulated, without being properly checked. And we are sort of like these lab rats.
Now, what happens is this, especially when it comes to chemical research, right? When we look at one part of it is endocrinology, the other part is toxicology. Toxicologists will go, well, the dose makes the poison.
And then everyone's like, well, dose makes the poison. That's right.
They're missing important pieces. One is something called a monotonic dose response.
That means that a chemical, you'd kind of, when you think of a chemical, you'd think of it just going up, right? As more chemical, worse you get, right? More chemical, more symptoms, more chemical, more damage. Well, some chemicals like BPA that we find in plastics, actually they have more like a bell curve, right? So yeah, right? That's really high amount of chemical, goes really high.
And then all of a sudden, before low doses, when past the EPA or FDA's regulation, then we start seeing it has the same amount of damage, goes back up. Why, right? So not all chemicals, it's the more you're exposed to, the worse it gets.
Some is just by a little bit exposure, it's bad. A little bit more, it goes down and then it goes back up.
That's like BPA. So that means that, for example, BPA and phthalates we're being exposed to at low doses is having an effect on us lower than what's regulated.
So that's one problem. The other problem is we don't

think about synergy, right? Like what about all these chemicals together? We only look at phthalates, PFAS, BPA in a vacuum. The truth of the matter is, is that they're all working together.
Some are endocrine disruptors. Some affect your respiratory.
Some affect your immune system. we have to look at environmental medicine when it comes to any cancer.

It is so important to do an audit of what's the air in my house like?

What materials in my house are off-gassing?

Do I have mold in my house?

All of these we don't talk about, which is crazy because I believe- They they're not being studied they're not being studied in connection enough with human disease because how do you study a little bit of coming from the rug a little bit coming from the wood how do you study someone's household like that you know everyone has different materials at different doses and then we're bio individually different so someone's liver can metabolize better just said mold, like some people have the genetic mutation where they're not breaking down mold as efficiently. We're talking about 120 times less efficiently.
So those are the people in a moldy household who get sick. That makes sense.
Because I was thinking about some people, like mold is natural. And so maybe people that can break it down have just been, you know, they're genetically predisposition to have broken it down in the past because of where they grew up or.
A hundred percent. Things change.
Things are changing, right? Like we have more chemicals in the environment. The houses are being built with these different materials than they were.
But the truth of the matter is, is like environmental medicine, if you have someone in your family with cancer or you have cancer, you've got to start thinking about what's my home like okay like don't go crazy you don't need to burn your whole house down yeah but yeah like maybe get an air purifier for this room now because they're going to be good there's a lot of good hepa ultra hepa air purifiers it'll clean out the rooms really well open up your windows and then slowly start going okay well like we need a new bed. Maybe let me get a bed that doesn't off gas flame retardants.
Because most are, right? Especially those like Tempur-Pedic ones that I had in college. But they were so comfortable.
Yeah. But anything that it's not only the smell too, like you open up a Tempur-Pedic and it smells like chemicals, but some things don't smell.
So just like the adhesives that are in furniture, the glues, right? There's things like benzene, tyloine, formaldehyde. Those are real things.
I know it's not sexy to talk about, but it's very, very important. And then the emotional standpoint, right? I don't know what part of the pie is the emotional standpoint for cancer,

but I know it's a part of the pie. Maybe 15% at least, maybe 50, maybe 90.
My mom died of cancer. And for years, I was like, well, why? Okay, well, she didn't drink alcohol.
She didn't smoke.

She was overweight, but not really overweight.

And then I start thinking about like, there's two things that happened. We had in our basement two years before she was diagnosed, a pipe exploded.
It's New Jersey. It's like freezing cold pipes.
Something happened and there was a big flood and we didn't get it remediated the right way. Remediation is like, if the wood's damaged, they have to rip the wood out.
They have to clean out the mold. They have to replace it with new, you know, they're testing and checking that everything is fine.
We just had fans drying out the rugs, you know? That's what the guys say, we're going to fix it for you. We'll just put some friends, you know? I mean, they still do that nowadays.
They still do that nowadays, right? Especially if your landlord is trying to cut corners. And viewers and listeners, make sure your landlord is not cutting corners.
If you have water damage, they got to go in. They have to cut it open.
You got to demand that they clean that up. And if not, then get someone to test it for you properly.
Not just air samples. Going into the wall, going behind the walls, going in crawl spaces, really checking that for you, taking swabs, doing moisture meters, all of that, making sure that they're testing correctly.
But for my mom, okay, I'm like, all right, well, that's something that filled up her cup, right? And not in a good way, like, oh, she fills me up. No, like fills up the toxic cup.
And then I thought about her emotionally. Years later, I'm talking about like two years ago, you know, and she died like 12 years ago, 13 years ago, and never expressed anger.
And when she did, she would blow up like once a year, like once a year, there would just be an explosion. And, and that was it.
Like, and I would never see my mother. She would always be super sweet, super nurturing, super loving, which was beautiful parts of her.
But I wonder if there was any people pleasing. She also had a lot of shame.
She had shame around sexuality. And I took on that shame as a kid.
And I had to work through that generational trauma. That was what she passed on as part of this.

But in the context of her cancer, which was breast cancer,

part of what I see is some sort of shame that is held in.

And I've seen it in my clients who come in with breast cancer.

And maybe it's a culture thing because I see a lot of Latin clients

who come in with breast cancer. And in's a cultural thing because i see a lot of latin clients who come in with breast cancer and latin there's a lot of religious shame sex is no good i remember any time as a kid yeah there'd be naked people on t on movies and then she'd run in and cover it but like i'm a teenager i'm like 16 years old we're watching a movie i'm 18 years old why are you covering the screen like come on you know like but there's that taboo of like you can feel a constriction if you say a word that is too sexual no one ever talked about that it's very taboo it's not just shame but anger plays a big role shame plays a big role and shame is such a toxic strong emotion that if you just think of it pure from energetics, you're contracting and

yeah, it's a collapsing inward. So it's a strong emotion.
So it's not like a,

yeah, it makes sense what you're saying. I just want to highlight.

Yeah, so strong, so strong. The fear and shame, and my mom had a lot of fear and that was passed

on. We grew up in New York.
We grew up in a neighborhood where I had to, like she said,

people out there, they can hurt you. Like, what the heck? This is the

Thank you. and and that was passed on we grew up in new york we grew up in a neighborhood where i had to like she said you know people out there they can hurt you you know like what the heck you know this is the world yeah right so so i i know as her son she was holding in a lot of emotion a lot i'd say my mom had massive reservoir of anger that was unrepressed probably for her family for her dad a lot of sexual shame from from and i and i talk about this freely because this is empowering we need to know this stuff and as she was here and and she was healed up from everything she wanted to talk about this um sadness no my mom would cry she she see a dog commercial adopt a dog and she start crying sarah mclaughlin playing McLachlan playing.
That's easy. But what wasn't easy? Saying, I'm angry.
What wasn't easy? Being like, oh, I feel like a woman. I feel sexual.
My sexuality is beautiful. And owning it, right? It's so important.
Owning her sexuality. That it's healthy and beautiful and natural.
Yeah. But that wasn't it.
Yeah. yeah so i would say that so let's think about that in cancer what parts of us are being held in like that what parts of us are being held in that's a really really important point when we think about being chronically sick yeah and i i just like if it wasn't already motivating enough just to have a healthier happier uh, freer, lighter life by doing the inner work, somatic, emotional, mental.

But it actually, science is starting to find how it plays a role in our health, which makes

so much sense.

Dis-ease, right?

Disease.

And so I just always come back to the power of learning how to navigate our inner world so that we can live more open-hearted, more open-minded, but also healthier lives. And let me say this.
Okay. So you go, okay, she was repressing emotions, right? Like you're saying, like living healthier lives, right? Becoming more motivated to this.
But like this ease, you said, is you not being in ease. But what's not in ease? Well, your nervous system isn't in ease in ease that's right so when we think of the context of my mom repressed continuously holding in her anger continuously holding in that shame of like i just feel i feel disconnected from the feminine the true like i'm owning myself as a woman like like like the phoenix that's like blossoming out of the lake or something you know like whoa like, whoa, look at that powerful, remember, anger, power, boundaries.
Look at that strong, strong woman, her full potential. What happens is when you're holding in that phoenix, your nervous system is holding that in.
And what happens when your nervous system is holding it in? Psychoneuroimmunology, you are repressing your immune system through your nervous system. What's important when it comes to cancer? Your immune system.
Your immune system is what's monitoring your body for cancer cells, breaking them down, not letting it go awry. So there is a mechanism here, and it's through the stress of the nervous system that's all those resources being held.
I mean, like there was a girl with full body eczema. We did emotional release and this massive amount of energy was expressed in her body.
She was dripping in sweat. It was anger.
It was sadness. It was everything.
In two days, she had no more 90% of her body eczema. I have pictures in two days.
Why? It's because all those resources that her body was using to repress through the nervous system and the fascia and the body, all that energy was released. All the space was opened up.
And guess what? Now the $10,000 worth of energy that was used to repress is being used now for immune system. Her immune system goes, oh my God, thank you.
We can balance. Her liver is going, oh my God, thank you.
We can detoxify. How in two days did those dark red spots become light red spots and in two weeks they were gone? That's important.
We have to understand it's resources in the body and we're holding it in. Ooh, that's the most expensive resource in the body.
Totally. It's like that analogy of a beach ball that you're holding underwater.
And when you let it go, you have all this other energy too. In your body naturally knows how to heal itself.
So you just create the environment of acceptance so that it can heal. I do want to be clear, though, because I know we focused a bit on anger.
And I think that's important because people don't normally express their relationship with anger or allow the energy of anger. But even if somebody wants to work with anger or somebody wants to work on feeling sad and feeling safe to feel sad, you don't have to do it with someone else to start.
And you can do journaling practices to journal, letting anger speak directly, letting sadness have a voice. It's not who you are, but you allow it.
It's more of a gestalt psychotherapy practice where you speak from, I'm angry and letting anger speak directly as first person present tense. You can do that through talking, through journaling, through sounding, through movement.
So at least then people don't feel like they're just going to unconsciously spew on another relationship or if they don't know that there's context or safety for that. Obviously working with a trained coach that's good, a therapist, a friend that can hold space, you know, even boxing practice to start getting the anger out.
Yeah. I box once a week.
It's good. I mean, in high school, I had so much anger that I, you know, feel being bullied by these girls.
And I was just, I would just, well, that teardrop, I would just box and just getting it out. It was good.
It helped. But having a relationship with all of our emotions, even if we take those basic six, not repressing them, but being able to allow them to express them in a safe place, whether that be through your friend or you're doing it on your own, or if you feel safe enough in the relationship to navigate it, we're not going to blame.
You made me feel this way. It's like the story I made up was, and sometimes we can do the work on our own and then take it to the relationship or a more masterful next level is to learn how to do it in relationships.
So both are important, but let yourself work your way up. Sometimes people are just at the stage where they're becoming aware of even myself.
Like sometimes I haven't slowed down enough to check in with what does, what, you know, my, my friends were like, I'll go with you to your, um, biopsy appointment. And I'm like, no, I'm good.
I'm usually like, I got it. I'm good.
And then I was going to bed last night and I'm like, that really moved me that she, one of my best friends was like, I'll be there for you. And I, I didn't even know it until I went to bed.
And I was like, oh, that was important to a part of me just to say that somebody was there for me. And it's like, I have been doing this work for 20 plus years.
And for somebody that like, just so we don't, you know, we humble ourselves to slow down, to keep listening to the parts that we may have not realized were there. I think it's important, you know, if you want to go faster, slow down with the inner work is a hundred percent the way.
And so starting to become aware of what we really, what our patterns and dynamics are, then having choice to express and find healthy outlets. And from there we have more of that energy, that beach ball is, is you're no longer suppressing it and holding, using your energy to hold it down.
create a life that is fulfilling is more present more open-hearted you know more aligned for ourselves and so we need that you know we need and you you said it best like what you have to tune in take a moment and tune in what feels good for you if you are drawn more towards dancing than writing in a journal, then dance shame, dance anger, dance fear, dance guilt. Right? But if you were really like, I like to have my feet up in nature and just let it all out on a paper, then do that too.
If you like both, do both. But find what's working for you.
That's right. We need awareness and then expression, acceptance and expression, because if we dance it and we're not aware, then that pattern can just suck us into unconscious shame.
So having awareness of the pattern and then expressing it in whatever form, yes, and then aligned action naturally comes from there. And shame was so gripping for me.
I just want to speak to this. If people feel paralyzed in shame, the way I did start looking at, looking at shame a little bit more objectively rather than taking it personally and subjectively look at where, what does shame feel like in my body? When do I feel shame? Where might this have come from? So you're starting to get space and you're not identifying with it.
And then yes, dance the shame and have a relationship with it. So it's allowed, but it's not judged and it's not identified with.
Yeah. That's with the assumption that we know where we're holding shame.
We feel it and we're ready to give it a move or give it a voice or give it a something like you said. But you need the awareness.
Otherwise, if you're in your head the whole time and you're in the stories, the dance isn't going to be authentically moving. It's cut off.
Right? It's going to be cut off. It's going to be cut off.
So the awareness, I love that you said aligned action too. I know where that came from.
Yeah. So taking that action is going to be so important.
And like, again, to reiterate, you can connect to this work with yourself. That's right.
You could do it with yourself in your living room, in your apartment, right? You just, it's that awareness and know that your body has answers and knows if you listen, it will show you what it needs to show you. I promise.
That's my promise to everyone out here. Yeah.
Yeah. And if they're, yes.
And if you can afford it or you have, my experience is having somebody hold, especially if we have big T trauma, having somebody hold can also accelerate. And I want that for the planet.
I'm excited for some of the technology that's going to make healing scalable through nervous system tracking, becoming aware. And we won't keep on on that conversation right now, but like that excites me about where we're going with technology and AI and the ability to do that.
Yeah. And let me say this quick.
Like you want to have an idea about where your nervous system is. You can look at heart rate variability.
Yeah. It is a real direct connection to the state of your nervous system.
And how fast does your nervous system go back into parasympathetic? How strongly flexible? If it expands like a rubber band, when can it go back to normal? So if you're running and your heart's beating, how fast do you come back to safe? Your heart slows down. Now you're just back to normal.
The same goes with stress. And heart rate variability is a really important parameter.
Look at your number when you first test it and make it a goal to go up. And how? Sleep, walking after meals or just whenever you can, getting a good amount of steps a day.
Exercise but not over-exercising. The meditations, the somatic work, those are all known evidence-based interventions that you can do to improve your heart rate variability.
And in my course, everyone tests their heart rate variability every two weeks. So we go over it over and over the whole cohort because I want to know that their nervous systems are getting more resilient.
I want to know. And part of the process is making sure your environment is safe.
So I have them connect to nature. If they're scared of people, I have them actually compliment people once a day.
Just something to go, whoa, it's not that bad. Actually, people aren't that bad.
Even if the assumption is the world is not safe, well, hold on, you're retraining your nervous system and then doing the inner somatic healing work.

Singing and dancing is crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like that'll really-

And every culture has done that throughout time.

Yeah.

And how come we don't celebrate it?

How come we're not around fires on a Saturday doing that with our friends?

Maybe this is too hippie, but I want to do it.

Yeah.

I got a fireplace.

Let's do it.

Come on, let's do it.

Like I'm so down for that because it's like, I know that there's so much value in community right big thing about community we feel disconnected alone our nervous system doesn't feel safe alone why because it's not a survival strategy we're supposed to be with people we're supposed to be healing and moving and living with people and not necessarily in a commune but at least in a tribe yeah our family our loved ones being alone. But like singing and dancing is telling your nervous system, anyone ever run away from a bear and sing a dance while you're running away from a bear? Of course not.
You run away from the bear, everything's safe. A few hours later, you eat, you hear a good song, and then you start dancing, right? It's because you need to be in safety.
But what a signal it is if you start practicing every day. And singing is the best because it opens up your voice.
So you're not singing from up here. You're actually singing from down here and you're creating this voice that's coming from your belly, filling up your shower, wherever you are, your living room, your partner hears.
You're not afraid. You're not in shame of your voice.
A lot of us have been told, hey, your voice is terrible. Don't sing anymore.
And then we go, when we when we were kids we would sing it doesn't matter how we sound we just wanted to sing the joy in our hearts yeah we got joy in our hearts too singing uh dancing move the hips move that energy yeah it's some beautiful stuff it's like what i'm hearing is and i know this also is it's like both approaches help expression and the more we express the more it signals to our nervous system that we're safe, that we're authentically allowed. All parts of us are allowed, which also further supports our health and wellbeing.
Yeah. And that's a big part of us, the fear of moving our body and the fear of being heard, right? So moving is sort of like this expression of like, see me, like I'm dancing.
A lot of us are scared to dance because we don't think we're good dancers. A lot of us are scared to sing because we don't think we have a good voice.
Both are very important for expression. How do we move in space and how do we sound in space? And we can actually be in our power in both.
Even if we're walking to the supermarket up and down the aisles, we could still walk in our power. And there's a difference.
So the more we dance, we allow that fluid movement. Our fascia has that signal.
Our nervous system has a signal that, oh, I can move. My body moves like this.
Oh, I'm actually a little bit more sensual than I thought I was. Or, wow, look at my feminine power.
I feel grounded in my power. And our voice, we're able to express that power.
This is why it's such a fantastic combination. So I actually would urge everyone, hey, dance a little bit.
Even if we're sad for the day, we will not be sad when we're dancing. Tears may come out, but we'll feel good when we're done.
And you can even listen to a song that matches the frequency of the sadness. Exactly.
Exactly. And it allows it to come up and out.
And if it's longer than 90 seconds, you're indulging in it, right? And so just be aware of that. And then, okay, notice the thought that created the sadness and then keep staying present in what's true in the moment.
It's longer than 90 seconds. That's so important.
That's such a good barometer too. But make a playlist.
Totally. Like make a I'm sad playlist.
Ooh, I'm joyful playlist. Ooh, I feel really sexy today playlist.
Yeah. And start playing them for yourself.

Start tuning in because then that's a great way to tune in in the mornings.

How do I feel right now?

How do I feel?

I feel, ooh, I feel kind of angry today.

Oh my God, let me put on my heavy metal playlist and start bashing some pillows in my room or

something, you know?

Yeah.

I like that.

It's like sadness, maybe sadness playlist instead of I'm sad.

So there's not identity in it.

Right.

But sadness and allowing sadness. Exactly.
Like dancing as sadness with sadness. Yes.
Yeah, exactly. What a beautiful.
There's so much, Dr. G, Christian, I love you so much.
There's like, I want to just go deeper and there's, I'm aware of our time. I know that my audience is going to want to hear more about what you're up to share with us what you're doing in the world.
Oh, so we were talking off air. I launched a somatic course and that is teaching people how to do this emotional release, how to use their hands.
But it's a very special course because you're also undergoing your own healing. It's not a lot of courses like that.
Yours is, right? Like we actually have to like kind of face some stuff, right? Yeah. So I love that design.
So I was like, okay, this is how courses should be. People should, you have to, you have to be able to heal and hold more so you can hold another.
That's right. So this work is about that.
You go through your own process. You have your own homework.
You've got your own manual and there's knowledge, wisdom, and you're learning how to do these practices. So the next one launches September 1st.
We had our first cohort. We're going next week.
I'm doing the hands-on one in San Diego. I can't wait for this.
And Instagram is dr.gonzalez with two Zs. And most of my information I'm putting out there.
The website is dr.gonzalez.com. I've been busy and just watch out for me.
I'm out here doing some cool stuff. Yeah, you are.
Yeah, we'll put all the links in the show notes. I appreciate you and what you're doing in the world is so important.
Thank you. Thank you so much for doing this work that changes the world starting with yourself.
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