Today you’re going to hear a presentation from my Reduce Your Stress Summit. It’s from a phenomenal woman named Sukie Baxter on the nature of healing trauma. I’ve been on a learning journey about trauma since about 2016 and what I can say is it’s A LOT more nuanced and complex than what we think on the surface. I’ve had a few, key moments of learning about healing trauma along my professional clinical journey. The framework that Sukie presents is one of them. It transformed how I saw trauma as something that affects the body, not the mind. I wrote a separate blog post detailing four books that have helped me, and this framework is from one of them.
I’m really excited for you to hear from Sukie; she’s an amazing presence and resource. Make sure to check out her youtube videos as well because they are really well done and worth checking out. https://www.youtube.com/c/SukieBaxter
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“Fresh powder” is a term I grew up hearing about, but never experienced. As a skier growing up in Connecticut, when you ski the Berkshires, you don’t get fresh powder too often. When I’d watch Warren Miller ski films and see skiers out west skiing fresh powder, it looked magical. There was this blank slate of a hill just waiting for that lucky skier, and they were free to move in whatever direction they chose down that mountain. All routes were possible.
Well, last week, I completed my first of six sessions of ketamine therapy to help treat depression. During my consultation, the nurse practitioner explained the neurological benefits of ketamine using the ‘fresh powder’ analogy. He said, imagine you have all these ski tracks in your brain. Those are ingrained patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior. Now imagine a fresh snowfall, and imagine that fresh powder temporarily filling in those tracks. In the 2-4 days following treatment, Ketamine triggers the release of chemicals in your brain that essentially do just that. This allows you to more easily carve new tracks in the snow… you know… CHANGE direction with less effort because you are not stuck in a rut – so to speak.
We know that the term neuroplasticity means that the brain can literally change shape over time, and ketamine creates a window of time where the brain is more malleable than normal, so new patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior can be established during that time. I’m extremely excited about this, because the treatment is once a week for 6 weeks, which essentially gives me a 6 week window where I can really create some serious, positive change in the way my brain works.
For those that don’t know my story, I received 18 documented concussions with 6 occurring between 2016 and 2018 alone. The docs diagnosed me with a mild traumatic brain injury which has exacerbated issues related to emotional regulation, memory, and focus. I am on a journey to continue to heal my brain with as many cutting edge therapies I can find, and during January’s summit I hosted, we had a ketamine therapy expert speak. He opened my eyes to some exciting and very promising research. I’m now looking to 2022 with so much hope. It’s like I’m standing at the top of a ski run, and there’s nothing but fresh powder in front of me.
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Brain health is body health AND mental health. After all, everything we do in life requires our brains. In this episode, I interview an extraordinary man named Alex Doman. Alex is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, psychoacoustic music producer, and TEDx speaker with more than twenty-five years’ experience in neurotechnology. Alex founded Vital Neuro, Advanced Brain Technologies, and Sleep Genius. His bestselling book Healing at the Speed of Sound® is published in five languages. Alex has contributed articles to scientific journals, magazines, and books. He’s the host of the Advanced Brain Podcast and a global keynote speaker. Doman’s production credits are extensive, guiding teams who’ve created cutting-edge solutions that have helped millions of people worldwide.
He is currently launching Vital Neuro, a mobile cloud-based neuroscience platform for brain wellness to help the masses manage their stress and optimize performance. We talk about his family’s amazing journey in studying music for brain health and how he is furthering his family’s work through using music to help people deal with the global pandemic called STRESS (Yes, before COVID, we were already overloaded by chronic stress). It’s super exciting to hear what the future holds for how we’ll all be able to reduce our stress like never before thanks to the ancient gift of music and modern gift of digital technology.
Find out more about Vital Neuro at www.vitalneuro.com
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Do you still have dreams? Not at night… in life. As always, I like to look at how life and art are metaphors for each other. Today, what I see is that my life has a creative process to it as well. If we look at a finished podcast episode as the result or output on a micro level, my life as it looks today is also a result on a more macro level. My creative process when it comes to my life is really a function of my values, or what I think is most important. I might not have conceived myself to begin this journey, but at this stage, I believe each one of us is the one “behind the wheel” steering our process towards our results.
So, where do YOU want to go? What do you dream of being, doing, or having? What’s the creative process that will take you there? After reading enough stories of ordinary people overcoming extraordinary obstacles to make their dreams come true, I’m convinced that if we just trust the process, and don’t make the mistake of trying to predict the timeline… that’s a rookie move… we can all make at least some of our dreams come true. Oh, and just because you think you missed out on one particular dream in your past DOESN’T sentence you to missing out on the dreams of your future. You just need the courage to dream again… and believe me… I KNOW how much courage that takes.
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To think unbroken. This week we’re going to hear from an extraordinary man. I had the good fortune to meet him at my one and only live business conference I attended in 2021. His name is Michael Unbroken. Michael’s personal story is a testament to the resilience of the human being.
It’s not that we want to get competitive with our suffering or struggles… you’ve heard it before… just after you express something you’re going through, someone immediately counters with “You think THAT’S bad, dot dot dot, yada, yada yada.” Then they go one to try to one up you on your own challenges! Great. Thanks. Having said that, there IS this thing called perspective. We CAN use perspective to put our challenges into some sort of framework of understanding. Let’s face it, some things simply ARE more challenging than others. When we hear another person’s story when NOT presented as a counterpunch, we CAN take inspiration in that story. The inspiration goes something like THIS, “If blank got through blank, maybe I can get through THIS.” In addition to having an inspiring story, Michael’s going to give you two key frameworks to help you through any stressful situation you’re facing.
Learn more about Michael at https://www.thinkunbroken.com/
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