The Importance of Nitric Oxide and How to Optimize our Body’s Production of it with Dr. Nathan S. Bryan [EP. #1022]

This Week’s Episode Special Guest: Dr. Nathan S. Bryan

Summary:

In this conversation, Dr. Nathan S Bryan discusses the critical role of nitric oxide in preventing chronic diseases and promoting longevity. He emphasizes the importance of proactive dietary and lifestyle strategies to maintain health before symptoms arise. Dr. Bryan explains how nitric oxide influences cellular functions, including the activation of telomerase, which helps maintain telomere length, and promotes mitochondrial biogenesis, leading to increased energy production. He expresses why nitric oxide is essential for activating pathways that contribute to a long and healthy life.

About Dr. Nathan S. Bryan

Dr Nathan S. Bryan is an author and pioneering scientist transforming the way we think about health, longevity, and human performance. His groundbreaking nitric oxide research has challenged health myths, fueled a billion-dollar market, and empowered millions to reclaim their health and optimize performance.

He was the first to describe nitrite and nitrate as indispensable nutrients required for optimal cardiovascular health. He was the first to demonstrate and discover an endocrine function of nitric oxide via the formation of S-nitrosoglutathione and inorganic nitrite. This technology is now validated in six published clinical trials.

Dr. Bryan earned his undergraduate Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin and his doctoral degree from Louisiana State University School of Medicine in Shreveport where he was the recipient of the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research. He pursued his post-doctoral training as a Kirschstein Fellow at Boston University School of Medicine in the Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute. After a two year post-doctoral fellowship, in 2006 Dr. Bryan was recruited to join faculty at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston by Ferid Murad, M.D., Ph.D., 1998 Nobel Laureate in Medicine or Physiology.

Guest Resources:

Book: The Secret of Nitric Oxide: Bringing the Science To Life

Website: drnathansbryan.com

Social: @drnathansbryan

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Episode Chapters

00:00 The Role of Nitric Oxide in Health and Longevity

00:20 Nitric Oxide and Cellular Function

00:38 Activating Longevity Pathways

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KIMBERLY’S BOOKS

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Transcript:

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (00:00.77)

Dr. Nathan, thank you so much for joining us here today.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (00:04.266)

Kim, so great to be with you. Thanks for having me.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (00:06.51)

I think I hear a little bit of a Texas twang, am I right?

Dr Nathan S Bryan (00:11.562)

Probably a little. I grew up in Texas, spent a lot of time abroad. I trained it or went to school in Louisiana and then trained up in Boston before I came back to Texas.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (00:21.154)

Wow, you sort of did a full circle back to your roots. Well, I really enjoyed reading your book, Doctor, The Secret of Nitric Oxide, Bringing the Science to Life. It was really interesting. And I also love how you wove so much about your personal story in and your education and your influences, because I think that brings the subject matter to life even more. And I have so many questions I wrote down.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (00:23.36)

No place to go.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (00:50.54)

Before we get into that, have to say Dr. Nathan, right before I came on, and we both modified the time a little bit, I actually took my dad to get a calcium scan. And it was something I had heard about on another podcast interview actually. And I thought, well, maybe it’s a good thing to do. And I can’t tell you how emotional it made me. I was very surprised to see the heart. He’s in his seventies.

So the doctor was going over with us and he’s like, look, he’s in a really good level, but just to see that there was any sort of clogging is scary. know, to think about, like it starts to feel really real when you’re actually looking at the heart and you’re looking at family members’ hearts and how important cardiovascular health is and this whole subject.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (01:24.853)

Yeah.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (01:38.644)

Well, it’s the number one killer of men and women worldwide. mean, so it’s a very serious subject. you know, think coronary calcium’s are good, but really that’s, you know, it’s good to have data, but we don’t worry about calcified plaque because that stable hard plaque, what you worry about is the soft, vulnerable plaque. That’s the point. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it’s important to put that in context. It’s good data. It’s good to know, but hard

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (01:50.21)

Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (01:57.43)

Yes, and he also got an angiogram. He did that part too.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (02:08.096)

A calcified plaque doesn’t kill anybody. It’s the soft plaque that ruptures that causes an MI.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (02:12.844)

Yes, exactly. So at first, I booked him for that, the scan, and then I learned about the soft plaque angiogram and realized how much it seems like the technology has advanced from prior generations and how we can do these tests. So anyways, it was just even more interesting to me to read about nitric oxide being as it’s so related. I want to read this quote that’s in your book.

that was, first of all, a lot of people have heard of nitric oxide because as you talk about, it’s become a popular compound we hear in the wellness world. Some people are using it for working out. You’re talking about it in a much, much deeper way. And this quote, the discovery of nitric oxide and its function is one of the most important in the history of cardiovascular medicine.

and how many people might not even realize how nitric oxide led to the Nobel Prize, and I believe it was in 1998.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (03:16.416)

1998, yeah. And that quote was by Dr. Fuster, who was the president of American Heart Association at the time the Nobel Prize was awarded to. You that quote is, what, 1998? So what is that, 27-year-old quote? And it still rings true today.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (03:31.48)

Can you share with us how the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to Nitrogox, how the new discoveries and new research sort of changed the trajectory of your career and your focus?

Dr Nathan S Bryan (03:42.944)

Yeah, well, was the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1998 that was awarded to Bob Furchcott, Lou Ignarro, and Fred Murad. But collectively, they came together and really it was three independent studies. So in 1977, Dr. Murad discovered that drugs like nitroglycerin release nitric oxide, dilate blood vessels, and that’s how they work. Those drugs had been used for more than 100 years prior to they understood how they worked.

but they dilate the blood vessels, they relieve the ischemic pain known as angel in patients with obstructive coronary disease. And so, I mean, that was an important discovery in pharmacology on understanding how certain drugs work. But really, I think the seminal discovery was by Bob Furchcott in 1980, where he discovered that our endothelial cells, the cells that line all blood vessels throughout the body, produced a molecule that caused these blood vessels to dilate or to relax. And he didn’t know what this molecule was.

So he called it endothelium derived relaxing factor. Obviously by naming this molecule, this unknown molecule, knew how or he knew where it was produced and what it did. It was a relaxing factor produced in our endothelial cells. And then, you the race was on what is this EDRF molecule? Because if you could identify that it would be revolutionary in basket biology. And it was Lou Ignaro who went on to later discover that EDRF is actually nitric oxide.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (04:41.614)

Mm.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (05:07.358)

So the story came together that whether if you give a nitric oxide releasing drug or you stimulate endogenous nitric oxide production, it dilates blood vessels, it improves oxygen and nutrient delivery, and it controls everything we know about the cardiovascular system. I think that’s why Val Fuster had made that quote because it was and is and will remain to be the greatest discovery in the history of cardiovascular medicine.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (05:32.866)

Well, besides pharmaceutical or medications, doctor, you talk about in the book about eating green vegetables and how vegetables have nitric oxide and it’s related. This is really interesting oral bacteria. I keep hearing how bad mouthwash is for you, but just to keep, you know, the biology of your mouth intact, but also vegetables. can we, and I love how you talk about a plant-based diet in the book as well and all the research. And I want to show you, I’m drinking my glowing green smoothie right now.

I have a, my family has a tremendous amount of greens every day that made me really happy. My kids drink it, my dad drinks it, my husband drinks it. So is it enough to eat a vegetable, a pro-vegetable diet, given that of course levels may decrease over time, but is that the foundation of nitric oxide levels in the body?

Dr Nathan S Bryan (06:02.666)

There you go.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (06:23.398)

No, not really. mean, what we’re finding is that… So nitric oxide is a gas, right? Your body has to make it. So nitric oxide is not found in vegetables. It’s not found in beets. It’s not found in capsules or pills. And I think that’s the misconception because the general public doesn’t understand that nitric oxide, when it’s produced in the body, it’s a gas. And once it’s produced, it’s gone in less than a second. So really…

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (06:34.574)

Mmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (06:44.054)

Okay.

Yeah, I read that. It’s crazy!

Dr Nathan S Bryan (06:48.896)

My challenge was, and really how I got involved in the field 25, 26 years ago, was trying to figure out once nitric oxide is produced and it’s gone in less than a second, where does it go, what does it become, and how does it signal? Because we knew that the physiological effects of nitric oxide lasted longer than one millisecond or two milliseconds. So then we had to create this fingerprint of N-O-Biology that once it’s produced, where does it go, what does it become, and how does it signal?

So once we understood that and then we started trying to figure out, how does the human body make nitric oxide? So as we discussed, it’s produced in the lining of the blood vessels and that production pathway gets, I guess, more dysfunctional with A. So we lose about 10 to 12 % of our nitric oxide production through that enzyme per decade. But you mentioned diet. Diet is an important contributor factor in the prevention, the treatment, and the curing of all disease.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (07:37.71)

Mm.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (07:47.048)

Diet and lifestyle are the number one things for this. So we discovered probably 25, 30 years ago, even dating back before that, it was recognized that there are bacteria that live on the crypts of the tongue in the oral cavity that were somehow responsible for nitric oxide being produced, nitric oxide gas being produced in the lumen of the stomach. So then you start to figure out, how do we get from bacteria in the mouth to producing nitric oxide gas?

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (08:09.506)

Wow.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (08:15.87)

And what it was later discovered was inorganic nitrate that’s found in green leafy vegetables, really anything grown in the soil, right? Because the soil has contained nitrogen. It’s either in the form of ammonia or nitrate. And then those plants assimilate the nitrate. Then when we consume those plants, that nitrate is taken up in our gut. It’s concentrated in our salivary glands. And now each time we salivate, we’re secreting nitrate.

these nitrate reducing bacteria that live on the crypts of the tongue activate or metabolize that nitrate into nitrite. And then we swallow our own saliva and that’s the source of the nitric oxide gas. But there’s many steps as you start to understand that are required. Number one, you must get enough nitrate in your diet. Number two, you must have the right oral bacteria because humans do not have the capacity to metabolize nitrate. We do not express the nitrate reductase enzyme.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (08:55.885)

Wow.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (09:12.478)

And then number three, you must have stomach acid production. When we started figuring out, the standard American diet, you’re only getting about 150 milligrams of nitrate per day, and you need at least 300 to 400 milligrams. Number two, and the major problem is two out of three Americans use mouthwash. Almost everybody has fluoride in their toothpaste. 73 %

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (09:15.81)

Right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (09:33.326)

The fluoride will kill out the healthy microbiota.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (09:37.088)

Now that’s right, fluoride is in toothpaste and mouthwash and drinking water because it kills bacteria. So it’s killing the good bacteria, it’s killing the bad bacteria, it’s a neurotoxin, it’s just on your thyroid function. And then the other… No, it’s awful. And then the other problem are antacids. know, 200 million prescriptions written for antacids every year and two out of three Americans report using an over-the-counter antacid.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (09:43.767)

Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (09:47.596)

I’m so glad I won’t use that.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (10:03.988)

So everything that we do, our diet, oral hygienic practices, pharmacotherapy, seems to disrupt and shut down nitric oxide production. And to me, that explains why people are so sick.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (10:13.399)

Okay.

Can I ask you a question about oral health besides the fluoride doctor, if people have a lot of gum issues or cavities or just eating a really acidic diet in general, there’s a lot that can also throw that part of the equation off, I imagine.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (10:33.124)

For sure. What we’re understanding now that the microbiome has been mapped on the humans, all the bacteria that live in and on the human body, there’s 10 times more bacteria than there are human cells. The problem is what we call dysbiosis. When the terrain or the ecology of that environment changes to where it doesn’t allow for the good guys to repopulate and it allows for the opportunistic pathogenic bacteria to show up and wreak havoc.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (10:44.182)

What?

Dr Nathan S Bryan (11:01.598)

So what we’re finding now is you can’t destroy the microbiome. We have to support it and we have to change the ecology. We have to change the environment to where the pathogens can’t grow. The good guys act as the cops. They keep the bad guys at bay. And that should really be the target. But you made a couple of interesting comments or spot on comments. A diet, an acidic diet, a high sugar diet. When we eat those types of food, it drops the pH of the saliva and it makes it more acidic.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (11:24.899)

Yeah.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (11:30.814)

And now an acidic saliva allows for the population of these caries causing bacteria, the gingival bacteria that cause gingivitis, periodontal disease. And so the solution, once upon a time, was just to kill the bacteria. Throw an atomic bomb in your mouth with fluoride wrenches, with alcohol wrenches, with chlorhexidine, and just kill all the bacteria. But now we know that’s causing more harm than it is providing benefit. So the strategy now is to change your diet.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (11:54.764)

Right. Right.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (11:59.434)

change your oral hygienic practices, create an environment that’s conducive to good diverse oral microbiome. Not only do you have better oral hygiene, but you maintain optimal nitric oxide production, you get better blood pressure management, and your body’s more healthy.

So back to the nitric oxide, we’ve been talking about the benefits for cardiovascular wellness. And you also talk about in your book, there’s a section about potentially helping to reduce systemic inflammation, telomeres, mitochondrial function. Can you talk about benefits in those areas as well?

Dr Nathan S Bryan (15:35.112)

Yes, so the drivers, if you look at any, we’ll handle the of the drivers of chronic disease, then we’ll look at the hallmarks of longevity because I think they’re all related, but they’re typically two different kind of subject matters. But if you look at chronic disease, whether it’s heart disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, autoimmune disease, there’s always four things that are present in all of those disease. There’s always low blood flow to the affected organ. There’s always inflammation, oxidative stress and immune dysfunction.

And it’s the loss of nitric oxide that drives all four of those. Because if you can’t make nitric oxide, you don’t dilate the blood vessels until you get low blood flow, we it ischemia hypoxia. You get runaway inflammation. Your mitochondria become uncoupled. You generate a lot of superoxide and oxidative stress. And then our immune cells start attacking our body. We can develop autoimmune or we call immune dysfunction. And interestingly, if you can just restore the production of nitric oxide, it dilates the blood vessels.

It suppresses the inflammation. In fact, I have several patents on the methods of reducing inflammation by using nitric oxide. And it’s getting to the source of the oxidative stress. It’s recoupling the electron transport chain of the mitochondria. It’s shutting down superoxide production from NADPH oxidase and then even the enzyme that makes nitric oxide. We can suppress that enzyme from making superoxide. And then it corrects the immune dysfunction that we see.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (16:36.855)

Wow.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (16:58.136)

Wow.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (16:58.762)

So nitric oxide is the foundation for preventing the onset and progression of chronic disease. But that’s medicine, right? And medicine is a reactive practice. What we hope to do is change the conversation of being proactive and start to implement dietary lifestyle strategies before you get sick and before you develop symptoms. But when we talk about longevity, we always look at the length of our telomeres, we always looked at the function of our mitochondria.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (17:19.873)

Right.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (17:25.664)

and then we look at how well our stem cells can mobilize and differentiate. And I talk about in the book, and this is published science that goes back 20 years now, nitric oxide activates an enzyme called telomerase, prevents telomeres from shortening. It activates mitochondrial biogenesis. So if you have nitric oxide, you have more mitochondria per cell generating more energy with less oxygen. And then it’s the signal that tells our own stem cells to mobilize and differentiate.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (17:29.997)

Right.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (17:52.042)

So if you want to a long, healthy life, you have to have nitric oxide to activate these longevity pathways.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (17:59.574)

So one of the things that, and that’s all amazing, and I think there was some confusion you mentioned in the book, and I remember reading about this as well, where people thought, well, maybe I’ll take L-arginine as a supplement. Can you talk about, can you clarify that for us?

Dr Nathan S Bryan (18:11.146)

day.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (18:15.648)

Yeah, so this goes back to really the year the Nobel Prize was awarded because the pathway that was discovered, this enzyme, nitric oxide synthase, takes L-arginine and converts it to nitric oxide gas. And then we get little citrulline as a byproduct. But because L-arginine is a semi-essential amino acid, meaning that we get it from the breakdown of protein, whether you’re eating plant protein or animal protein, L-arginine is found in most proteins. So as long as we have stomach acid production, we’re constantly getting L-arginine through our diet.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (18:27.906)

Right.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (18:45.792)

But every cell in the human body makes arginine through the urea cycle. So we’re never deficient in L-arginine. There’s only one condition, and I’ll talk about it in the book, but it’s a rare inborn ear metabolism where these kids can’t generate L-arginine endogously. But the majority of us, all other humans on Earth, have excess arginine, have more than what’s needed to bind the enzyme to make nitric oxide.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (18:57.997)

Right.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (19:13.856)

So to me as a biochemist, it never made sense to supplement with L-Arginine. And in 2006 and 2007, two studies came out which showed that it should be contraindicated and really shouldn’t be given because in a clinical trial in patients who had just suffered a heart attack, they gave one group L-Arginine and one group of placebo. The group that got the L-Arginine had higher mortality, higher death.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (19:18.158)

Right.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (19:40.992)

And so the conclusion of 2006 study was you should not give L-Arginine to patients who have suffered heart attack. Why? Because it will kill them. It will kill them more so than giving a placebo. And then the next year in patients with peripheral arterial disease, they did the same study giving L-Arginine chronically and the patients get worse. Their disease gets worse. So…

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (19:41.366)

What?

Dr Nathan S Bryan (20:06.62)

Look again, arginine should never be used as a primer for nitric oxide production. Because number one, we’re never deficient in it. Number two, if you have endothelial dysfunction and uncoupled NOS, you make the patients worse. They get worse. And that’s published clinical data, randomized placebo control data. It’s indisputable.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (20:25.902)

Wow, so much conflicting information that we hear. It could be potentially.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (20:32.064)

Well, that’s the problem. I mean, that’s really the problem because you’ve got these companies out there as we increase the awareness and the importance of nitric oxide, more companies are entering this space trying to sell nitric oxide products. And if they don’t understand the science, they can actually do harm and first do no harm. then companies are putting citrulline in products and calling it nitric oxide. Citrulline is a byproduct of nitric oxide production.

And so it can be very dangerous and all this misinformation and really ignorance in some cases and in other cases it’s deception and fraud because these companies know better but yet they’re still promoting this.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (21:13.538)

So as a baseline doctor, want to make sure our oral health is good. We want to make sure we’re taking in these vegetables. We have stomach acid. How do we know if we’re deficient or not in nitric oxide? Are there any symptoms? Are there any tests?

Dr Nathan S Bryan (21:19.667)

Absolutely.

Dr Nathan S Bryan (21:32.426)

Well, unfortunately, there’s not any clinical test in terms of drawing blood and getting a number and then sayin

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Week’s Episode Special Guest: Alyssa Trask Campbell Summary: In this episode, Kimberly and Alyssa Black Campbell discuss her journey as a parenting expert and author, focusing on the emotional landscape of parenting. She emphasizes the importance of understanding emotions, connection, and the needs behind children’s behaviors. The discussion covers various topics including self-regulation, co-regulation, the significance of creating safe spaces for communication, and navigating challenges like lying and bullying. Alyssa shares insights from her personal experiences and highlights the role of neuroscience in understanding children’s emotional needs. About Alyssa Blask Campbell Alyssa Blask Campbell is CEO of Seed & Sew, a platform that offers consultations and courses on emotional intelligence, as well as creating a modern parenting village. She has a master’s degree in early childhood education and is a leading expert in emotional development and travels the globe speaking on the topic. Her first book, Tiny Humans, Big Emotions, published in October 2023 from HarperCollins. Follow @seed.and.sew. Guest Resources: Website: Seed & Sew Book: Big Kids, Bigger Feelings: Navigating Defiance, Meltdowns, Anxiety to Raise Confident, Connected Kids Episode Sponsors: LMNT OFFER: Right now, for my listeners LMNT is offering a free sample pack with any LMNT drink mix purchase at DrinkLMNT.com/FEELGOOD. That’s 8 single serving packets FREE with any LMNT any LMNT drink mix purchase. This deal is only available through my link so. Also try the new LMNT Sparkling — a bold, 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water. 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Episode Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Parenting and Emotions02:48 Understanding Emotions in Parenting06:01 The Role of Connection in Parenting08:50 Identifying Needs Behind Behaviors12:09 Navigating Punishment and Connection14:48 The Importance of Self-Regulation17:51 Co-Regulation and Emotional Intelligence21:09 Addressing Lying and Trust23:47 Creating a Safe Space for Sharing27:00 Understanding Fear and Vulnerability29:45 The Impact of Trauma on Parenting32:59 Conclusion and Resources SOLLUNA PRODUCT LINKS Glowing Greens Powder™ Feel Good SBO Probiotics Feel Good Detoxy Feel Good Digestive Enzymes Feel Good Starter Kit Feel Good Skincare KIMBERLY’S BOOKS Chilla Gorilla & Lanky Lemur Journey to the Heart The Beauty Detox Solution Beauty Detox Foods Beauty Detox Power Radical Beauty Recipes For Your Perfectly Imperfect Life You Are More Than You Think You Are OTHER PODCASTS YOU MAY ENJOY! Wellness Insights: How to Listen to Your Body for Nutritional Guidance How the Power Foods Diet helps with Weight Loss with Dr. Neal Barnard EP. 877 How Not to Age with New York Times best-selling author Dr. Michael Greger How to eat to reduce anxiety with Harvard nutritional psychiatrist Dr. Uma Naidoo Powered and Distributed by: PodcastOne Transcript: Welcome to the Feel Good Podcast, which is all about heart-led living and wellness. When we awaken the power of our hearts and let that guide us through our daily choices and decisions, through our four cornerstones, food, body, emotional well-being, and spiritual growth, we will experience the most incredible results and create more vitality, health, strength, peace, abundance, and love in our lives. I am your host, Kimberly Snyder, New York Times bestselling author, founder of Solluna, creator of the research-based Heart Aligned Meditation, wellness expert, nutritionist, and international speaker. I am passionate about supporting you on your unique heart and wellness journey. For more information on todays show please go to mysolluna.com for show notes and links. Let’s get started. Speaker 1 (01:29.13)So thank you so much for being here with us today and congrats on your new book. This is your second one. Speaker 2 (01:30.73) Yeah, yeah, my first one, Tiny Human’s Big Emotions came out in 2023. I was like 32 weeks pregnant when that one published, was a whirlwind. Wow. Yeah, that one hit the New York Times bestseller list, which was exciting. Yeah. And then a few weeks after it published, was doing well. Our editor reached out and was like, Alyssa, will you write another book? I was like, actually, I just need a nap. I’m so tired. And so I turned to Rachel, who I’ve worked with, had the privilege of working with now for seven years. And she works with me at my company. And I asked her she would write this bad boy with me. And she said, yeah. So we were able to do it. Well, I think this is so great because many of us are parents in the community or are thinking about being parents in the future or even not. feel like parenting books help us understand ourselves. And I can say as a parent, there’s been this incredible experience of feeling like I’m reparenting myself. And most of us are not learned. You we don’t learn. to handle emotions, have tools as you talk about in your book. And I went through this period of this, where it’s like, hmm, you know, it just felt a little sad and I had to process that. But I also think we’re given the, you know, the childhoods that were meant to be given. But I feel like this is, you know, this is big stuff we’re talking about here. Yeah, people often say they like come for their kids, but they stay for themselves. That so much of this work. We say if you have a nervous system like this works for you. We are really just talking about neuroscience and what it’s like to be a human on planet Earth and be in relationship with other humans. And man, it’s doozy sometimes. Yeah. Speaker 1 (02:55.63)Yeah, and I like how you talk about upfront. It’s not about trying to shield ourselves or our children from hardships because you know my nine-year-old now I can see him being more self-conscious about what he wears to school and Then he told me that there was a child like in one of the older grades who kind of made fun of his dog man sure now he won’t wear it and it just brings up stuff and It’s a lot like all the layers of kind of reliving what we’ve been through as parents. 100%. And I find for myself as a parent, there’s nothing harder than just watching your child experience something hard, like being made fun of, feeling left out, feeling that shame or embarrassment. And knowing that it’s not our job to take it away, but instead to be with them through those hard things to let them know that they can navigate this and survive it. It’s so hard. to do in practice as a parent is allowing it. Well, I’m not sure that all of us were even raised with parents that were aware that there was hardship. I wasn’t. I’m not just blaming my parents or anything. just I don’t think that’s how they were raised either. So I just know that there was a lot of things that I pushed down because I couldn’t handle them. Speaker 1 (04:26.614)And I think that’s ultimately why I turned to certain things like bulimia and eating disorders. I couldn’t digest life. And, you know, as adults, we continue to learn and grow and pass on, you know, more tools to our children. Totally, and we’re not gonna heal all the things and that’s okay too. I think of my friend, Dr. Linietta Willis, she’s an intergenerational trauma therapist. And she talks about our legacy blessings and our legacy burdens. And our legacy blessings are those things that we wanna pass on, that we inherited and that we want to pass on to our children in the next gen. And our legacy burdens are those things that maybe we don’t want to pass on, but also knowing that we’re not going to heal all the burdens, that some of them will get passed on and that’s okay. We get to give our kids the tools and the outlets to continue to heal and process. Yeah Speaker 1 (05:24.078)Well, I love how, and we’ll get into some of the more specific tools you talk about, but there’s a underlying theme of connection, which is, you know, in my work with the heart and just being connected to self and always, even if we’re not perfect parents, if we can stay empathetic, we can be connected. Our children will really feel that. 100%. And when we’re talking about different topics in big kids in this book, we talk about a number of different topics, but you’re right, the through line is not it. The goal isn’t to say, Hey, say this script at this time, or say these exact words or do this exact thing. The through line for us is how do you maintain connection and just stay in relationship with each other and recognizing that Yeah. Speaker 2 (06:13.336)Sometimes relationship is messy and hard and sometimes it feels good and easy and you’re not failing if you’re in conflict in relationship or you’re in the messy hard parts. That’s just a part of being in relationship with each other. Right. Well, you know, as you say, these tiny humans and then middle childhood, there’s different things happening on in their brain and their prefrontal cortex and the way that they process information. So I want to ask you as a parent, you know, some real questions. And then of course, it will illustrate some of the information that you share in big kids, bigger, bigger feelings. either you or Rachel use an example where, obviously paraphrasing here, but I think it was one of the daughters. was teasing the sibling. then the mama, which was you, Rachel, said, well, no screen time tomorrow, if you remember this. And I think as a parent, sometimes we see behaviors in our children. And in our family dynamic, our older son, who’s four years older than our younger son, who’s now five, sometimes he’ll take his choice because he can, and he’s bigger, or he’ll do things. And as hard as a parent, like we don’t know. Sometimes you wanna say, because my kids don’t get screen time except on the weekends. So sometimes I’ll say something, well, next Saturday you’re not gonna get your 30 minutes of screen time. like you said, it’s punishment, give, take, but sometimes you don’t know what else to do. Totally, yeah. Well, and that’s real and a part of just being a human on planet Earth too, that you’re not always gonna in the moment have the answers. So giving ourselves grace is so key here too. But in an ideal world, what we’re looking at is trying to identify, we get to be like a detective and see what’s the need that’s driving this behavior. So when your older son comes and takes that toy from his younger son, is it a need for connection? Speaker 2 (08:08.768)Is he really trying to connect or engage or get somebody’s attention, which is a connection? You get so much attention though. Some of our kids, it’s like a leaky cup. It can feel like a leaky cup for connection. I have a high connection seeker. My daughter’s a high connection seeker. And it can feel like there’s not enough connection in the world that will be enough for her. And my son is not a high connection seeker. It’s almost like it feels easier to fill his connection cup. But also for him, his sensory needs are more demanding than hers. we all just have our own little blueprint walking through this world. But when we can look at what is the need driving the behavior and we break these down into two categories. We have sensory needs and we talk about the nervous system, the nine sensory systems which we can get into. But when we’re looking at that, we’re really looking at are they under stimulated or overstimulated? Are they hungry? Are they tired? Do they need to move their body? Do they need a break from stim? They need to chill. Right, okay. That’s more easier to decode in a way. Speaker 2 (09:11.822)For a lot of us, we grew up in cultures where sensory needs were seen as needs. Food, water, movement, were seen as needs. And connection needs were often seen as wants. It was like attention-seeking behavior, and that was a negative thing. And it wasn’t seen as, you need attention, that you have this need for inclusion or belonging or knowing that you’re loved or worthy or valued. so for a lot of us, the connection needs can actually be quite triggering. where it can feel like, my gosh, this kid’s so needy. They need so much. And that’s our own bias coming up into play and being able to recognize that is half the battle. And then really being able to see like, okay, this is a need for connection. And maybe I just spent a bunch of time connecting with this kiddo and maybe they’re a high connection needs kid. And so what are the outlets for that? Great. Speaker 2 (10:07.154)And we give some examples in the book. And I was actually, was just at an event down in LA where we were, I was met with a group of a hundred moms and we were talking about exactly this. Like what are ways that we can help our kids? Like if I can’t give them more connection in this moment, I’m cooking dinner or I’m trying to do something. What are outlets for that? And we have things like journaling back and forth or being able to call a friend and chat with them on the phone or. FaceTime a grandparent or a cousin or a friend or an aunt or uncle and find ways to have that outlet that’s not always directly from you as the parent or maybe even from the sibling who might have lower connection needs and kind of needs a break to be by themselves for a little bit. Right. Okay. So would you say as a parenting expert, Alyssa, punishment or taking things away doesn’t really work? It just doesn’t solve the problem. What we’re going to do is we’re responding to the behavior on the surface. As long as we’re not meeting that need, you’re going to keep seeing new behaviors pop up because the need doesn’t go away. Right? In the same way that if you had like a baby who was hungry, you could bounce them and shush them all day long, but until you feed them, they’re not going to stop crying because they’re hungry. And if we have a child who needs to move their body or a child who needs to connect, we might put out the fires on the surface, but until we meet that need, you’re just gonna see new ones pop up. Speaker 1 (11:40.226)Do you think that there’s some children in the way that they’re, you know, finding their way in the world? Like my older son is very mischievous, for example. Slime in my farm boots and he thinks it’s hilarious and he laughs like he’s always… Pranks like he loves it. And he just thinks it’s hilarious. And he gets so much attention. Again, like always, all the time. Do you feel like maybe some of this behavior is, you he wants his… He would. Speaker 2 (11:54.888)Such a connection seeker. Speaker 1 (12:09.57)get a rise out of his brother and. really from a place of connection. I want your attention. want you to notice me. brother. From anybody, right? Our high connection seekers, they’ll seek it out anywhere. we can help them identify that. I would say things like, that was a silly prank that you did, or that was silly joke. Did you want me to laugh? Were you trying to connect with me and help kind of bridge that awareness for them of when you’re doing these things, it’s because you want to connect. That’s how we help build their awareness of what is my need. So then when they grow up in the world, they can move through the world knowing, when I feel this way, it’s because I’m hungry. When I feel that way, it’s because I’m tired. When I feel this way, I need to move my body. When I’m doing these things, it’s because I need to connect with somebody, because I need to feel that sense of connection and belong. you Speaker 1 (13:07.278)As many of you know, I’ve been drinking our beloved Power Protein Smoothie Community Recipe for many years. And I do this day to day as a great way to get energizing protein into my day without feeling too heavy. Usually I drink it in the early or mid afternoons. And lately for the protein, I’ve been using the most pure, delicious vanilla chai plant-based protein blend that I want to share with you by Anima Mundi. This protein is made from pumpkin seeds, brown rice, sacha inchi, and pea, and it contains adaptogens like astralagus, ashwagandha, and aluthero, which all have been known to help support recovery, enhance performance, and help the body adapt to everyday stress. It also has digestion-boosting warming ingredients. You know we love that, like cardamom, cinnamon, and ginger. This protein tastes delicious and there’s a subtle sweetness to it which comes from the vanilla and the monk fruit. It’s a way to deeply nourish your cells with amino acids, complete plant-based protein. To get this delicious plant-based blend, please go to anemamundiherbals.com and use code Kim20 to get 20 % off your purchase. Again, we’re talking about the amazing vanilla chai protein powder. That’s anemomundierbals.com code Kim20, A-N-I-M-A-M-U-N-D-I-H-E-R-B-A-L-S.com code Kim20 to get 20 % off your purchase. In a world that is constantly promoting health fads and quick fixes, we can never get past the importance of the basics, such as creating optimal digestion, eating whole foods, and hydration. Yes, hydration. When we are optimally hydrated, our skin glows and is nourished, and it greatly helps us avoid headaches, cramps, fatigue, brain fog, and weakness. Besides water, we need electrolytes, which need to be replenished like probiotics. Every morning in my room temperature water that I drink first thing, Speaker 1 (15:27.99)I add a packet of Element electrolytes, usually the watermelon or raspberry flavors, which contain a science-backed mix of magnesium, potassium, and sodium. Element contains no sugar or artificial colors or fillers. I highly recommend that you also incorporate electrolytes into your routine as well to optimize your hydration, which your body, mind, and heart will greatly benefit from. And for now, our amazing community listeners, We’ll get a free sample pack with any element drink mix at www.drinkelement.com slash feel good. That’s eight single serving packets for free with any element drink mix purchase. Please go to www.drinkelement.com slash feel good. That’s www.drinklmnt.com slash feel good. Also check out the new element sparkling, which is a sparkly, fizzy electrolyte water if you love fizzy drinks. Speaker 1 (16:34.958)I’ll just tell you a fear as a parent hearing this is, again, he gets so much attention. Again, everybody says it, right? I pay so much attention to E. So I guess my fear is if he’s still wanting more, what if when he grows up, he gets into unhealthy relationships or he just always has to be in a relationship because of that. I want to reframe, like, you’re looking at intimate relationships. I see most often with our high connection seekers, they often actually seek it out even much outside of intimate relationships in friendships and in other spaces where, like, they might be the human who corrals kids to, like, all get together and play a game or they can often be, like, leaders in a pack where they… are so many outlets for connection that it’s not just an intimate one-to-one relationship. There are so many avenues for it. And as they continue to grow, they’ll find places to connect in different ways to make that happen. And we can support them along the way. But these are humans who it’s a superpower and we need them in this world. My daughter is like this. She is a high connection seeker. She walks into a room of 100 people she doesn’t know. And she’s like, my God, yes, 100 new friends. She’s 20 months. And she’s four? my gosh. and do you think that correlates with being an extrovert? Yeah, a lot of way. Speaker 2 (18:00.494)A lot of our high connection seeking kiddos are also extroverted. You a little bit have to be because it’s going to fill that cup, right? That like when you’re in that, although I just had a kid pop into my head who I when I was teaching and he was five years old and he had high connection needs, but he was an introvert and he would seek out more one to one like peer connection connection for me as a teacher. But he would look forward in those kind of smaller groups. activities and avenues, but he would glom on to like other kids and just want to be near them and want to talk to them and want to share and yada yada. But it was like he had one or two good friends in each space. He wasn’t like, I want to hang out with everyone in the class. Well, so there’s natural extroverts, introverts, connectors, like you said. How do you think this relates to, and you know, this is sort of on a spiritual level and in yogic traditions, you talk about the true self and self connection, which is self-effulgence and fulfilling and being so connected to the love inside that you wanna share it with people, but you’re not needing it. Yeah, I think that we’re, I’m going to pull in the like neuroscience and too. When we’re looking at this, I want to recognize that there’s not a human on the planet where there’s a one size fits all. Right? all of us, our nervous systems operate differently in the way that we integrate stimuli, the way that we integrate the world around us and make sense of it is different for all of us. And for some kids, they are their superpowers. I can noticing the details. or they know if something moves in their environment. They can get really dysregulated by like piles or clutter or things like that because they’re super attuned to the visual stimuli in their space. Some humans who sound, they’re really aware of the sounds in their environment and they can get really overstimulated by sound, especially if there’s competing sounds happening. Some kids who notice the details of how clothing feels in a heightened way. It’s too itchy, it’s too tight, it’s too something. Speaker 2 (20:02.378)And I look at these as superpowers, that they’re really good at noticing, they’re very attuned to those senses. And there are some humans who aren’t as attuned, and for them, can, it then appears as though they can maybe be more easygoing or they can move through the world differently, because their brain isn’t so hyper-focused on like, my gosh, what is that noise? I can’t stop hearing that clicking sound in the background and kind of tuning into those things in different ways. And so when we’re looking at the integration of all of that stimuli. We go through the nine senses in the book and outline it. But I think it’s really important in then saying like how you integrate them then determines how you show up in the world and what you need from the world around you based on how your nervous system is integrating that stimuli, because it’s going to find kind of homeostasis and regulation in different ways based on your unique nervous system. Does that make sense? It does to me. It sounds a little complicated to explain to a child. for sure. I’m going to break it down in different words to Yeah, to a kid. we this so the bulk of the work that we do at Seed is in school systems. I work in schools, elementary, middle schools, and then in childcare programs. And we teach teachers like how to talk to kids about this. How do you teach them about their nervous system? Totally. Well, there’s this idea of self-regulation even is something I think we need to really break down that and self-regulation. Speaker 2 (21:32.404)You teach self-regulation through co-regulation and self-regulation isn’t one size fits all. Wait, so say that again for a moment. mean co-regulation, you regulate yourself and then you’re in the space and then… You know, it’s like goosebumps. It’s almost like the science of heart coherence. Well, our hearts are giving off a magnetic field that’s 100 times stronger than the brain. So when we’re more emotionally calm, you talk about emotional intelligence and the more coherent, our heart rhythms are smooth and our… borrowing your comms. Speaker 2 (21:52.108)Not anymore. Speaker 1 (22:06.306)Brains are nervous, everything’s in sync. People around you feel that. Totally. So as we calm ourselves, we can calm our children more. That’s right. I think of it like the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat. A thermometer is just going to read the temperature of the room, you’re going to join it. A thermostat sets that temperature. And in order to set that temperature, you have to be mindful of your own regulation. So often we want kids to regulate for us. We want them to get calm for us when we can’t. Right. Yeah, I see parents who are literally screaming in public. Yeah. And they’re like, you calm down. We’re at the playground and I heard this, this mom didn’t know we were there. We were in the bathroom and she was like talking to her two girls and then me and my younger son came out and she was like embarrassed. I mean, I felt bad for her because obviously she didn’t want, no one wants to be that person. Nobody wants to be in that state where their body feels so out of control that you’re like, need the humans around me to change their behavior so I can feel in control. And so so much, that’s why I said so many folks, they come for the kids, but stay for themselves that we dive into what is, how does your nervous system work? What does it look like to learn how to build your own self-awareness and self-regulation so that we can then navigate co-regulation with our kids so that Speaker 2 (23:28.098)when our kid comes in and they roll their eyes and they slam the door and they give a sass or the sarcasm or whatever, that we can be the calm force in that moment. And it doesn’t mean I don’t hold boundaries. It doesn’t mean that any behavior is allowed. It does mean that I am really working on, okay, how do I calm my body so that I can respond with intention instead of react from a place of dysregulation. So let’s play this out for any mamas out there who have teenagers or getting close to teenagers, not there yet. But although I’ve seen some behavior from my nine-year-old defiance and disrespect, which you talk about in the book. Let’s say your teenager comes home and you say, or, hey, I’ll be the teenager. Well, it seems like something happened at school today. I’m fine. Yeah, I am here if you want to chat. Would you like space or do you want to talk about? Speaker 1 (24:30.862)Why are you so annoying? Why are you always trying to say that to me? I love you so much. I’m going to be cooking in the kitchen. If you want to come touch base, that’s where I’ll be That’s not a fun. Okay. Let’s do another one. Yeah. I mean, so it’s a center. You’re the center and you’re not trying to grab. Okay. I love it. I’m not taking the bait. Right? Like the bait is all, that would be me joining their energy. And I’m saying like, I’ve got you. I’m still calm in your storm. Okay, let’s do this one, which I have experienced where my son will call me by my first name and I don’t like it. Sure. Okay, so I’ll be the teenager tween, okay? Yeah. Comes home from school. Hey, Alyssa. Speaker 2 (25:15.544)Hey, did you want my attention? I heard you use my first name. Alisha? Yeah, it does sound like you want my attention. I’m here if you want to chat or hang. Lyssa, Lyssa! Yeah, come

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The Connection Between Body Movements and our Emotional & Physical health with Henry Abbott [EP. #1011]

Week’s Episode Special Guest: Henry Abbott Summary: In this episode Kimberly Snyder speaks with Henry Abbott, a former ESPN journalist and physical movement expert, discussing his new book ‘Ballistic: The New Science of Injury-Free Athletic Performance.’ They explore the importance of heart-led living, the connection between movement and emotional well-being, and the significance of understanding our body’s mechanics to prevent injuries. The conversation emphasizes the need for diverse movement practices, the role of weightlifting, and the impact of hydration and nutrition on overall health. Abbott shares insights on how to improve mobility and stability, particularly focusing on the hips, and the importance of trusting our bodies to move freely and joyfully. About Henry Abbott Henry Abbott is an award-winning journalist and founder of TrueHoop. He led ESPN’s Networks 60-person NBA (National Basketball Association) digital and print team, which published several groundbreaking articles on sports science and body injury prevention. He also won a National Magazine Award. Abbott currently lives in New Jersey. Guest Resources: Website: treuhoop.com Book: Ballistic: The New Science of Injury-Free Athletic Performance Episode Sponsors: LMNT OFFER: Right now, for my listeners LMNT is offering a free sample pack with any LMNT drink mix purchase at DrinkLMNT.com/FEELGOOD. That’s 8 single serving packets FREE with any LMNT any LMNT drink mix purchase. This deal is only available through my link so. Also try the new LMNT Sparkling — a bold, 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water. USE LINK: DrinkLMNT.com/FEELGOOD FATTY15 OFFER: Fatty15 is on a mission to replenish your C15 levels and restore your long-term health. You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription Starter Kit by going to fatty15.com/KIMBERLY and using code KIMBERLY at checkout. USE LINK: fatty15.com/KIMBERLY Episode Chapters 00:00 Heart-Led Living and Wellness Introduction00:53 Exploring Athletic Performance and Injury Prevention03:06 The Importance of Connection to Movement05:42 Understanding Movement Patterns and Injury Risks09:01 The Role of Hips in Mobility and Stability12:00 Weightlifting and Its Benefits for Women15:00 Hydration and Nutrition for Optimal Performance17:38 The Science of Movement and Body Awareness20:50 Fascial Release and Its Impact on Mobility23:31 The Interconnection of Physical and Emotional Health26:35 Embracing Diverse Movement Practices29:31 The Role of Animals in Understanding Movement32:41 Conclusion and Call to Action SOLLUNA PRODUCT LINKS Glowing Greens Powder™ Feel Good SBO Probiotics Feel Good Detoxy Feel Good Digestive Enzymes Feel Good Starter Kit Feel Good Skincare KIMBERLY’S BOOKS Chilla Gorilla & Lanky Lemur Journey to the Heart The Beauty Detox Solution Beauty Detox Foods Beauty Detox Power Radical Beauty Recipes For Your Perfectly Imperfect Life You Are More Than You Think You Are OTHER PODCASTS YOU MAY ENJOY! Wellness Insights: How to Listen to Your Body for Nutritional Guidance How the Power Foods Diet helps with Weight Loss with Dr. Neal Barnard EP. 877 How Not to Age with New York Times best-selling author Dr. Michael Greger How to eat to reduce anxiety with Harvard nutritional psychiatrist Dr. Uma Naidoo Powered and Distributed by: PodcastOne Transcript: Speaker 1 (00:00.302)Welcome to the Feel Good Podcast, which is all about heart led living and wellness. When we awaken the power of our hearts and let that guide us through our daily choices and decisions, through our four cornerstones, food, body, emotional well being and spiritual growth, we will experience the most incredible results and create more vitality, health, strength, peace. abundance and love in our lives. I am your host, Kimberly Snyder, New York Times bestselling author, founder of Saluna, creator of the research-based Heart Aligned Meditation, wellness expert, nutritionist and international speaker. I am passionate about supporting you on your unique heart and wellness journey. Let’s get started. Speaker 1 (00:57.518)Hi everyone, welcome back to our Monday interview show. I am so excited for our very special guest. Joining us here today, Henry Abbott, who is a former ESPN journalist, a physical movement expert, and he has a new bestselling book out called Ballistic, the New Science of Injury-Free Athletic Performance. He talks about research on pain, psychology, biomechanics, and neuroplasticity. And as we all know, this is such an important topic today to increasing our mobility, keeping our mobility going for decades to come, to really enjoying our lives, to living with our hearts, to living with passion, to avoiding injuries and aches and pains, which really detract so much from our enjoyment of life, our spiritual growth, so many things. So Henry, thank you so much for being here with us today. It’s a delight. Thank you for having me. And so you and I were chatting a little bit before about your daughter, who I know is involved in soccer, and I was saying, Henry, I love your book. Really cool cover, by the way. If any of you guys are watching this on YouTube or if you’re listening, check out our YouTube so you can see the beautiful cover. And I said, you know, at first, you you say, oh, athletic performance. And some could say, hey, well, I’m not really an athlete. So this doesn’t apply to me. But as I got into the research and the book, and there’s some really interesting things that you’ll talk about here about glutes, really helping with back pain, hips, like lots of things. I said, you know, this is such an important topic for women and everyday women like me and moms. So that’s, you know, it just, it’s a lot broader. It’s really for everyone actually, we could say. Speaker 2 (02:41.718)I know this sounds like super salesy and woo woo or whatever, this really is like these people that we’ll talk about have a different lens for looking at the human body. They’re looking at it with biomechanical, granular biomechanical movement data. Who cares? Why is that fun? like, if you look this way, you start unlocking all kinds of crazy stuff about how to manage your body a little better. You kind of end up with a better owner’s manual to your own body. and get to age better. I’m trying to do it myself right now, right? So I feel like we have MRIs, we have x-rays, they solve a bunch of problems, but they don’t solve all the problems. And a lot of us are struggling with things that we can see in how we move. And that’s kind of, I think, important revelation for all of us moving forward. Well, one of the things we talk about here so much, Henry, in the community is connection, right? Connection to your heart, connection to your intuition, connection to what foods would best serve you and so on. And I think a lot of us develop movement patterns that maybe we’re not really connected to or fully aware of that form from an early age or some sort of emotional trauma or something can. cause our feet to turn out, or I know I can dump a lot in my hips, or I lean on one side, and I noticed a lot, you know, I held my babies on one side of my body. And so I think it’s really important to bring that connection back to movement because we’re in this physical bodily temple to house us through. And if we’re abusing it in these microwaves or not really nourishing proper movement, it does have a profound effect on our life’s experience. It’s super real and your doctor doesn’t know about this, unless you have a really good doctor, right? But like they, there’s a kind of a dumb example in the book of the guy who’s the founder of P3 that the book is about. His name is Marcus Elliott. was suspecting there was a better way to prevent injury while he was training to become an elite triathlete. And he would reach his hand forward in the pool and, you know, end up with pain in his shoulder. And then his coach was like, just move your hand a little bit out to the side, right? Speaker 2 (04:52.34)and all the pain went away. We all understand this could happen, right? Of course how you move can have these effects, right? But he was like, well, look at that. That’s kind of like he was going to have an injury and then he moved a little differently and then he was fine. I think so that’s one little super basic example. We all are doing this to ourselves. I think we’re open to the idea that maybe if you jog the way that you land on the ground or the way that you know, there’s People debate should you land on your heels or on the ball of your foot or on your toes or should you get these shoes or those shoes. Like we’re used to the idea that these things could, with all those steps, pounding again and again, end up with like maybe your knees hurt or maybe your hips hurt, right? And so I think we’re used to the idea that how you move can inform whether or not you get injured. These are the people who are just taking that and really making a scientific approach out of it, making a systematic scientific study of like what kinds of movements tend to connect to what kinds of outcomes. You know, it’s interesting in the beginning of the book, you say, know, trainers say that we often go back to the type of movement that we did in high school or earlier. And it’s funny because I played soccer, you know, when I was younger and then I stopped. And now my older son is nine and we play a lot of soccer and I’m experiencing some those knee pains. I’m oh, don’t run like this anymore. It’s sort of taking me back to that period in time. And I just stopped Henry, right? Instead of trying to figure out like maybe I’m not really running correctly or, I did some marathons too. And I don’t know. It was just interesting because it’s like, huh, I don’t know if this is the pounding or my son’s place a little rough, it’s, you know, it’s funny. He’s a rough nine year old, that’s what’s happening. Speaker 1 (06:33.422)He’s a rough nine-year-old. We have a lawn and we love to, know, anyways, sort of rough house. But I think it’s amazing when we can sort of say, like you said, I think what’s interesting is micro shifts. You know, people are experiencing towards injury, but so many aches and pains. As you know, Henry, it’s really common back pain. For me, a lot of women, hip pain. And so how do we sort of take this research and some of the things you talk about in the book and apply it to, again, the everyday movement and our workouts so we can benefit? Yeah, so I think there’s so much to unpack there. One for me is just thinking about the goal. And after spending three years marinating in all of this super geeky stuff about, you know, hips and knees and ankles and how we move and all this stuff, you know, I think it was important for me to kind of think about what is the real goal of all this. to me, my personal answer is like two dogs playing on the beach, like off leash dogs just romping around. maybe they’re in the ocean, maybe they aren’t, they’re covered in sand, they’re throwing each other down, but they’re having the time of their lives, right? And that’s movement, right? That’s really moving, right? And so to me, moving with joy, I’m not a dog, but to me, that kind of fun, driving that amount of fun from how you move is to me the goal. And so I’ve done a lot of physical therapy in my life. I’ve done a bunch of, injured myself a bunch of different ways. And I know that sometimes you have to go, or this place from writing about P3, know, NBA players, NFL players, MLB players, WNBA players, they’re in there doing their prescribed workouts with coaches watching carefully and it’s work, it’s real work. But that’s not the goal, right? The goal is for you to play soccer with your son, hopefully to be feeling great doing that, right? Like the goal is to have this body just move how you want it to move. And so what’s keeping us from that? Speaker 2 (08:36.662)And it’s tricky. We all have different bodies and there’s not going to be one answer for all of us. But some big themes do emerge from all of the thousands of athletes that they’ve studied. And one of the big ones is that basically every single one of us needs to work on our hips. Yes. In different ways. your hips, women tend to be more mobile than men, but plenty of women are not mobile enough. And so either your hips need work on mobility or stability. when mobility is not exactly the same as yoga, but you could think of it as a yoga type move or stability would be more weightlifting. You need to put muscles around your hips to keep them from being dangerously unstable. It’s to know which one of those you’re in. Yes. when you say that, obviously men, everybody has a different body, but in general, can say women’s hips, you know, kind of go out and they don’t align with your waist and they don’t drop straight down to your knees. So how does that affect injuries for women, whether we’re talking about stabilizing or mobility versus a man’s body, which is more linear. There’s all kinds of, like we’re hundreds of years into kind of guessing around that issue, right? And one of the big topics is ACL tears, right? This is where women athletes tend to have eight times the ACL tear rate of men. So why is that? It’s like a big mystery, right? And if you want that, you can go and watch like the finest experts in the land have given lectures on this and like they’re all like one theory is hormones. One theory is exactly as you described, like the just the geometry, right? There’s theories about how big is the actual ligament, right? Women tend to have a smaller ligament or how big is the canal the ligament sits in and on and on. All these things that are easy to study with MRI and x-ray or blood tests, they’ve been studied. if you go and look at these lectures, the answer is everything is wrong. Every single theory has a study that proves it and one that disproves it. It’s all messy. Speaker 2 (10:45.454)It’s hard to find a bright thing. So when you just look at movement, you see that there is like 100 % of NBA players who tour the ACL land on the outside of their foot and then roll to the inside. It’s a little movement that no one studies that is 100 % or like another very common thing. Big theory that’s gone around and probably we all have trainers who will cite this, right, is about cue angles. Do you know about cue angles? Have you heard this phrase before? Okay, so this is exactly what you’re describing with like if your hips are wider, there’s a chance for your legs to like your knees to basically have a can travel in towards each other as you squat. Yeah, it’s like they call it valgus collapse. Please explain. Speaker 1 (11:34.177)I Speaker 2 (11:37.964)Right? And so if you were to squat in front of a trainer and your knees were to dive in together, they would like have a cow. They would be very upset about this. Right? So this Q angle thing is seen as like a major risk factor for catastrophic knee injury. what they found in a bazillion, studying thousands, literally thousands of athletes and how they move at P3 is that just having your knees dive in like that is not a giant risk factor. Instead, Some of those cases where you need to dive in, have something happening that’s very hard to see with the naked eye, which is your femur, your upper leg bone, is rotating. And it ends up being kind of like twisting the drumstick off the turkey. And it like, that tears your ACL, is your upper leg bone rotating. And so when I talked about needing hip stability, this is what we’re talking about, is like, you can literally lift weights to build the muscles to hold your femur in place so it doesn’t rotate. That’s like the kind of work we should all be doing, but that so far most of us don’t even know to think about. you Healthy fats are essential for our health and wellbeing. And I’m so excited to share with you a very exciting scientific breakthrough to support our long-term health, wellness, and beauty. C15. This is the first essential fatty acid to be discovered in 90 years. Studies have confirmed that C15 is three times better, broader, and safer than taking omega-3s. Speaker 1 (13:14.254)C15 works by strengthening our cells, improving our mitochondrial function, and protecting us against damaging free radicals. The result is better long-term metabolic, liver, and heart health. Taking C15 can help to slow aging, boost your sleep and your skin, hair, and nail health. The most pure brand that I found that I absolutely love and take every day is Fatty 15. This is a vegan friendly supplement of pure C15. It’s a tiny little capsule that you take every day and it helps to replenish your cells with essential C15. You can get 15 % off your Fatty 15 subscription or 90 day subscription when you go to fatty15.com slash Kimberly and use code Kimberly at checkout. Please check it out for yourself and take it every day as I do. Once again, that’s fatty15.com slash Kimberly. That’s fatty15.com slash Kimberly to get 15 % off your 90 day subscription. It’s the small consistent things that we do on a regular basis that give us great results over the long term. And one of the easiest and most effective steps that we can do on a regular basis is to create optimal hydration in our body. It’s really the difference between a grape and a raisin. Of course, the grape is beautiful and looks supple and is full of water. And that’s what we want our energy to feel like. That’s what we want our skin to look like, glowy and supple and just full of that beautiful hydration. So it comes down to water, of course. That’s quite obvious. But also electrolytes, right? Electrolytes are a really important part of hydration and we need to replace them regularly. And I’ve been talking about certain foods for years, like celery and chard and certain foods, which are really great to help with electrolyte levels. But in our modern busy days, and because we’re running around and we’re sweating and there’s stress, I also recommend adding a packet of electrolyte to your room temperature water every day as I do. And the reason for this is that in one packet, you’ll get a hefty dose of science-backed electrolytes. Speaker 1 (15:38.894)including sodium, potassium, and magnesium. It has no added sugars or filler. And it’s just a great way to ensure that you’re really staying hydrated. And this is one of the easiest, I find, and most effective wellness steps because hydration is fundamental to our organs functioning at their best and also to enhance detoxification and many other things. So right now, Element is offering our amazing feel-good community. free sample pack with any element drink mix that’s drink element comm slash feel good D R I N K LM NT comm slash feel good to get your eight single serving packets for free once again drink element comm slash feel good Speaker 1 (16:36.012)the diagrams in the book as well. The visual because unless we’re, you know, a trainer or we studied a lot, it’s like it can be hard to visualize on a level with these detailed bones and the muscles. Yeah, no, this guy, John Early did these illustrations and they were like, they’re hard to do because they have to be like medically accurate, but also hopefully kind of like fun to look at. Right. This one is I think maybe important. I don’t know if you’re if you’re watching. Yes. OK. So when I mentioned that everybody’s hips need help with mobility or stability, you can do a little test. Right. If you can side plank all 10 toes pointing forward with your leg elevated, your body like in a big X. If you can hold that for 30 seconds, just lock it out, then they would say that your hip stability is sufficient, right? Like your hips are stable enough. Similarly, if you can do this standing figure four, so you’re like, take your, let’s say your right ankle and hook it over your left knee, rest it on top of your left knee, and then sit down and get so that like your hips are are level with your knees. If you can sit down like that, then your hips are mobile enough. But If you’re like me, then you can’t do either of those things and you have to work on it. Right? So we all got to work on these things. Yeah, it’s cool. These are both yoga poses or asanas that can be incorporated in a routine. This is a version of an ukta asana. Yeah, and that’s, I love that. That’s really interesting, seeing the diagrams, because I’m like, hey, I’ve done these movements before. I never thought about them in terms of this language, but they’re kind of fun to do. Speaker 2 (18:21.688)Do think you can lock out that side plank like that for 30 seconds? Gosh, Henry, it’s, you I used to have such a serious asana practice. It was every day, hour and a half. And then I started shifting to walking for different reasons, to getting outside. It’s just a break in the middle of my day. And it’s really hilly where I live. I live in the mountains, so it’s like quite a tough walk. But, you know, my husband keeps saying, you know, got to do more upper body lifting, you know, for bone health. And I got some weights. And so I’m… thinking about shifting the routine. So I’ll report back to you because I don’t know. Honestly, I used to do it a lot and definitely hold it for that long, but it’s been some years. So it’ll be interesting to see what I try. I’d be interested to know. It’s hard. I mean, it’s hard. My wife is amazing at that kind of stuff. She can do it. She can do all that stuff. she’s very, she can go to any yoga class and just fall right into whatever the teacher is doing and just fine with it. But me, I don’t have that kind of, that’s not my forte. Well, know, injuries even within yoga in the last few years of my practice, I noticed when you’re doing the warrior poses, because people think, yoga is great for injuries and it doesn’t have slow impact. But I would experience towards the end hip pain from doing the warriors. And again, I don’t know if that’s dumping into my hip or not having enough hip stability, but I did experience some pain from the asanas. What do you think about that? Speaker 2 (19:54.54)Yeah, that brings up an interesting point. I grew up, my family, have, parents and sister, we have really tight hamstrings. And so to me, anyone with hip mobility is like a magician. And clearly you’re better off, clearly you’re better injury resistance, et cetera. So I’m always working on trying to get more hip mobility. And so I’ve been to a bunch of yoga classes and I always think the teacher is probably someone who’s just in a better category than me in terms of injury risk, right? But Marcus Elliott, who this book is largely about, he was explaining that when his first yoga teacher in Santa Barbara, where he lives, she had the most incredibly mobile hips and she would show off. She could do all these crazy yoga moves that no one else could do. But she had both hips replaced in her early 50s. he would explain the reason why is because she didn’t have hip stability. Right? Like she worked crazy on hip mobility, he’s like, but if she had just done basic weightlifting to just, you know, she could move that hip super mobile, but like she didn’t have the control of it to keep it from getting out of place. And for things like our femur rotating other lots of other things from hips ability, like she didn’t have very stable hips and you want both. What kind of weightlifting would you do to stabilize your hips? There’s a fair amount of that kind of stuff in the book. I think there’s different flavors of hip instability, but they do recommend basically for everyone really good form as you squat and do hinging motions. I follow their routines now and I spend a lot of time doing single leg RDLs. There’s also in the book, most of what they prescribe is individual to the athlete. Speaker 2 (21:44.28)The warm up is the same. There’s a 13 step warm up, includes a fair amount. Your hips will be like, the hips will notice the warm up. I don’t know, it takes 15 minutes maybe depending how careful you do it. But there’s a ton of like Romanian dead lifts. You know this move, the Romanian dead lift? It’s like the most basic form is you stand on one leg and then you keep your torso and the other leg in a line as you like. pitch forward and touch the floor in front of you. You’ve done something like this, I’m sure, a bazillion times. And you can do that with a weight, starting with a lightweight, et cetera. But that’s a hinging motion, right? Which will put a pretty good bunch of tension on the back of your hip. I’ll tell you, for me, they obsess about the form of how you do that. And I would tend to do it leaning a little too far forward, which means I wasn’t using the proper muscles in my hip. they have to have me like… Yes. Speaker 2 (22:42.018)I mean now I still as a little cue like when I get in the form for that I like try to really like shift back a little bit so that when I bend over and come back up I’m pulling on like the very back of my glute as opposed to recruiting other muscles from your hips to kind of cheat. Right. You know, this is so, it’s so interesting we’re talking about this, Henry, because I can say, you for me, I really like walking in nature and it feels good or doing my yoga poses sort of like that teacher you described where I could put both of my feet behind my head and do these crazy poses. But sometimes it’s like what we need is not, not to say our favorite thing or the other thing that we’re most drawn to, but it is the balance. And Dr. Suhas was an Ayurvedic teacher and doctor came on here and he was talking about how, he talks about in different contexts, weightlifting is really important to women for that cough of that groundedness to balance. we’re in our heads and Vata energy and it actually makes you feel strong so you can feel strong on the decisions you make in your life. And, know, in terms of what you’re talking about preventing injury and just feeling really stable. So maybe it’s, you if you’re like me and you’re like, well, I don’t know, like I never, I never go to these like weight, I don’t go to the gym and I don’t really lift, you know, I’m not drawn to weightlifting classes or whatever. But what you’re talking about the book is things that we can incorporate and you can make a huge difference in balance. Because if we’re just doing the things that we like, can, that’s, that’s probably why I started to feel some injuries from yoga because I wasn’t doing the stabilizing aspect. Yeah, that’s definitely a factor. I think they do. There aren’t a lot of things they recommend for everybody at this place, but like they do recommend there’s some kind of weights in everybody’s program, right? Like it’s just, it’s just maybe there are ways around it, but I think it’s, it’s, you know, your husband’s probably right, which I hate to say, you know what I mean? There’s all these studies and stuff, you know, like, Speaker 1 (24:40.226)Right? But then it’s like, again, you’re talking about patterns. It’s making space in our life and creating a new habit. It’s also I mean, I never thought I’d be a weightlifter. I was a runner and just like never had any interest in that. And then I started having like hip trouble basically. And and a friend of mine, she is a kinesiologist who runs a gym. And so I started going to her gym and it’s I don’t know, it’s 75 % women and like, which matters to me because like, it’s fun as hell to go there because everyone’s very supportive, right? Like, like, it’s just not it is not the like, it is technically a CrossFit gym. But I don’t know, they got that certification for whatever reason. the fact is, no

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Overcoming Trauma through Somatic Body Healing with Britt Piper [Episode 1008]

Week’s Episode Special Guest: Estelle Bingham Summary: In this conversation, Kimberly and Brittany Piper delve into the profound impact of trauma on the nervous system and the importance of somatic healing. Brittany shares insights from her new book, ‘Body First Healing,’ discussing how trauma is stored in the body and how somatic work can help individuals reconnect with their bodies to facilitate healing. They explore the concept of intergenerational trauma, the natural responses to trauma observed in animals, and the significance of body awareness in the healing process. Brittany also shares her personal journey of overcoming trauma and the tools that can aid in navigating trauma responses, emphasizing the importance of building resilience and capacity for emotions. The conversation concludes with a message of empowerment, encouraging individuals to trust their bodies and recognize their innate ability to heal. About Britt Piper Brittany Piper is a renowned speaker, author, and Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner specializing in sexual violence prevention and trauma-informed care. As a survivor and leading advocate, she has educated thousands worldwide, including the U.S. Army and Department of Justice. Her book, Body-First Healing: A Revolutionary Guide to Nervous System Recovery, offers a groundbreaking approach to nervous system regulation and recovery through harnessing the wisdom of the body. Guest Resources: Website: https://www.bodyfirsthealing.com/about Book: Body-First Healing: A Revolutionary Guide to Nervous System Recovery Episode Sponsors: LMNT OFFER: Right now, for my listeners LMNT is offering a free sample pack with any LMNT drink mix purchase at DrinkLMNT.com/FEELGOOD. That’s 8 single serving packets FREE with any LMNT any LMNT drink mix purchase. This deal is only available through my link so. Also try the new LMNT Sparkling — a bold, 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water. USE LINK: DrinkLMNT.com/FEELGOOD FATTY15 OFFER: Fatty15 is on a mission to replenish your C15 levels and restore your long-term health. You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription Starter Kit by going to fatty15.com/KIMBERLY and using code KIMBERLY at checkout. USE LINK: fatty15.com/KIMBERLY Episode Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Somatic Healing and Trauma02:59 Understanding Trauma and the Nervous System06:07 The Role of Body Memory in Healing08:56 Intergenerational Trauma and Its Impact11:57 Lessons from Animal Behavior on Trauma Recovery14:50 Cultural Disconnection from Somatic Practices17:52 Personal Stories of Healing and Resilience21:05 Justice and Advocacy for Survivors of Trauma24:31 The Journey Through Trauma and Justice28:49 Understanding the Body’s Response to Trauma33:51 Navigating Anger and Emotional Regulation39:32 Empowerment Through Somatic Healing46:41 The Path to Self-Healing SOLLUNA PRODUCT LINKS Glowing Greens Powder™ Feel Good SBO Probiotics Feel Good Detoxy Feel Good Digestive Enzymes Feel Good Starter Kit Feel Good Skincare KIMBERLY’S BOOKS Chilla Gorilla & Lanky Lemur Journey to the Heart The Beauty Detox Solution Beauty Detox Foods Beauty Detox Power Radical Beauty Recipes For Your Perfectly Imperfect Life You Are More Than You Think You Are OTHER PODCASTS YOU MAY ENJOY! Wellness Insights: How to Listen to Your Body for Nutritional Guidance How the Power Foods Diet helps with Weight Loss with Dr. Neal Barnard EP. 877 How Not to Age with New York Times best-selling author Dr. Michael Greger How to eat to reduce anxiety with Harvard nutritional psychiatrist Dr. Uma Naidoo Powered and Distributed by: PodcastOne Transcript: Kimberly Snyder (00:00.718)Hi everyone and welcome back to our Monday interview show. I am so excited for our very special guest today and our conversation with Brittany Piper, who is a speaker and somatic and trauma trained practitioner specializing in somatic experiencing. She has a brand new book out called Body First Healing, Get Unstuck and Recover from Trauma with Somatic Healing. Brittany and I were speaking just a little bit before the podcast about how amazing it is to talk about trauma and healing on such a deep level now, which wasn’t really happening a generation earlier. So Brittany, thank you so much. Welcome to our show and congratulations on your new book all at the same time. Brittany Piper (00:43.95)Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I’m excited to have a conversation today. So I appreciate you having me here. Kimberly Snyder (00:51.118)You know, it’s very close to my heart, literally. My recent book was about the heart and dropping into this deeper place beyond the linear mind. And I found that really reflected in your book as well, this idea that things happen to us, challenging experiences happen of all different degrees, and we can’t just think our way out of it. Can you talk a little bit about how experiences can actually get stored? in our nervous system and in our body, similarly to how we might not properly digest certain foods. Brittany Piper (01:26.124)Yeah. Yeah, the, so I think that there’ve been so many different definitions surrounding trauma over the years. And I think that the one that lands best with me is that trauma is any experience that overwhelms the nervous system’s capacity to cope. And when that happens, your nervous system can get stuck in chronic states of survival. Or in other words, it gets stuck. Kimberly Snyder (01:42.381)Mm. Kimberly Snyder (01:50.062)Okay. Brittany Piper (01:54.016)in the states or the responses that it used in the past. And it’s as if somatic work, which is body-based healing work, we work with the nervous system and with the body, and more specifically body memory rather than verbal memory to help the body and the nervous system to know that the trauma is over, essentially catching up with what the mind already knows. Like the mind knows that the trauma was, you know, maybe seemingly back then, but maybe the nervous system doesn’t know that. Kimberly Snyder (02:14.473)Right. Brittany Piper (02:23.714)and it’s not a rational system. Yeah, it’s a system that operates through experience, through this felt sense. And so what we really try to do is help people in their nervous system to kind of disarm and to recognize you don’t have to be stuck in survival mode anymore. So, yeah. Kimberly Snyder (02:25.516)Yes. Kimberly Snyder (02:43.904)Survival mode is that feeling of almost, when you say that word, it conjures up frantic, irrational, big emotions, freezing, like all sorts of ways that can manifest and not feeling safe. Brittany Piper (02:59.01)Yes, yeah. Yeah, it’s kind of the best way I describe it is like an analogy I like to use is like, we’re armored up, but you can think of like this night suit of armor. It’s like we’re battled up to go or we’re armored up to go into battle. But at some point it’s like our nervous system didn’t get the memo that the battle is over. And so we kind of remain with like this armor on and this armor can start to, know, what once started off as self protective in nature. Kimberly Snyder (03:06.582)Yes. Brittany Piper (03:25.486)it can start to show up in almost the self-destructive or self-sabotaging ways, which I think is such a more compassionate way to look at it as this is self-protection, not self-sabotage. And we can kind of like lose sight of ourselves. We can disconnect from ourselves because we get so lost in this armor. Yeah, and I’m sure you experienced the same. A lot of the people that I work with, they come to me and they’re like, I just feel stuck. Kimberly Snyder (03:43.854)Right. Brittany Piper (03:52.168)And I feel like I’m not myself and I don’t know how to get out of this. And that stuckness is really what it boils down to is a nervous system that is stuck in those active defenses still. Kimberly Snyder (04:03.99)And has it been your experience that no matter what we’ve been through, we can reteach the nervous system through some of the tools that are in your book, which we’ll talk about in a moment and through this more body-based experience, because I’ve met people, and I’m sure you talk about in the book, that have been in therapy, because we’ve been talking, go to therapy, but they’ve been talking about the same story. for years and years. I’ve met people that seem to have the same narrative, victimhood, I wasn’t treated like this, and they almost still sound angry. So it’s like, are we really clearing it out by continuing to reinforce and talk about it? Brittany Piper (04:35.0)Yeah. Brittany Piper (04:39.992)Mm-hmm. Brittany Piper (04:46.54)Yeah, exactly. So I think what I can maybe like describe a little bit is what we call the stress or the threat response cycle. And so when your nervous system goes into an active state of survival, know, fight, flight, shut down, freeze, fawn or functional freeze, what happens is first, your body is kind of inundated or flooded with survival hormones, stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol. Kimberly Snyder (04:54.231)Yes, please. Kimberly Snyder (05:13.644)Yes. Brittany Piper (05:13.74)and this helps to mobilize you to fight or flee. And so when you have an experience though that overwhelms that stress response, you can kind of think of it like a pressure cooker. All of that adrenaline and cortisol is still stuck within the body and the physiology. And so there’s no amount of talking that out of your body. You have to be able to move through that experience and express or what we call discharge all of that adrenaline and cortisol. So. You you see this, I’ll use an example of maybe abuse or, you know, something that was violent in nature where you weren’t able to fight back. You might find that you now have what we call a thwarted fight response. And so you have likely a lot of suppressed anger that’s being held down within the body and the system. And so the work actually starts with not throwing someone into the deep end of their trauma. Kimberly Snyder (05:50.765)Right. Brittany Piper (06:07.276)like we commonly do in therapy, right? That’s what we’re used to. I just wanna talk about it. I wanna get into it. Instead, we actually walk them into like the shallow end and we’re like, hey, what would it be like to think about a moment recently where you felt a little frustrated, a little angry by something and maybe it’s, yeah, someone cut me off the other day and it kind of like pissed me off. And you’re like, okay, and as you’re thinking about that, what do you notice in your body? Wow, there’s some heat here and I’m actually noticing my jaw is clenching. And so, we touch into more gentle moments of activation, which allows that, again, that pressure cooker, we just gently open the lid for a second and close it back down. And it lets out and discharges some of that adrenaline and cortisol, getting these chronic stress hormones out of the body. And we do that consistently over time. But what’s also great about that is that you’re showing the nervous system or you’re giving it evidence that, hey, you can be with an experience of anger. Kimberly Snyder (06:54.627)Mm. Brittany Piper (07:05.358)maybe like you weren’t able to do in the past and you can be okay. And so it’s this evidence that over time is like, yeah, when I do feel anger in my body, like this frustration of, don’t like the way that person talked to me. Instead of shutting it down like it automatically do, or instead of running away or avoiding conflict, my body now has this muscle memory of like, I can be with that anger and I can express it. so trauma work doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to go back into all the hard stuff. Kimberly Snyder (07:28.078)Well. Brittany Piper (07:35.692)Right? We’re working with the body memory here in the present and untethering that, like, from the past. If that makes sense, Kimberly Snyder (07:42.851)Mm. And it’s, imagine it’s different for each person. noticed in, you know, the heart work awakening, the heart or heart coherence, it’s not linear. Like, you had this much trauma, so it’s going to take this prescribed amount of time to reteach. It could be big awakenings or big realizations. Certain junctures are maybe a little bit more time to work through. that? Yeah. Brittany Piper (07:48.611)Yes. Brittany Piper (08:01.998)Mm-hmm. Brittany Piper (08:05.804)Exactly. Yeah, yeah, because every year you’re working with each individual person, their nervous system, but also the nervous systems that came before them. So like a lot of the work that we do is we work with a lot of, you know, it’s important to know like intergenerationally, what was your life like in your earliest years, because our first three years of life really lay the foundation for our nervous system. Kimberly Snyder (08:23.286)Yes. Brittany Piper (08:30.306)And so that surprises people when they get into somatic work. They’re like, well, I can’t even remember that. And it’s like, your body remembers. And yeah. And then even before that, even when you’re, exactly. Yeah. And even, you know, what were the experiences of your mother and your grandmother? So, and that’s something I, you know, deeply explored in my book with my experience was that journey of intergenerational trauma, you know, cause I’m not. Kimberly Snyder (08:32.535)Thank Kimberly Snyder (08:36.724)so much or even when you were pregnant or when your mother was pregnant with you. Brittany Piper (08:56.578)I’m not sure if people probably come to you with this of like, think I have the signs and symptoms of trauma, but like, I don’t think I’ve experienced anything. And so we explore indirect trauma, which is like, yeah, but I think there’s also like, you know, getting to the, well, trauma might not be what you think it is. I think we have these ideas of, yeah. Kimberly Snyder (09:05.058)Kimberly Snyder (09:15.982)Well, when I read the body keeps the score, it blew me away that statistic, which really stayed in my head from Bessel van der Kolk, that was 75 % of Americans experience some form of trauma. Because I think some of us hear that word and we think about accidents or a one-time incident. one of the things that, because I wouldn’t have used that word in the past, Brittany, but for me, it was learning, not being seen and heard, like different levels of neglect is actually a really big form of trauma throughout childhood, which is something that I did go through. well-intentioned parents that were busy, were hustling, they were working, but there was a lot of coping mechanisms and perfectionism and eating disorders and just constant achieving to sort of fill that unworthiness feeling. So. Brittany Piper (10:02.99)Yeah. Brittany Piper (10:09.027)Yeah. Kimberly Snyder (10:09.688)Thank you for bringing up that it is actually much more than we realize. And I love how you delve into Peter Levine’s work. We could touch on that for a moment where he researched animals to see that, you know, they don’t have trauma the same way we do and they’re like naturally shaking and trembling after something happens. Can you share a little bit about, you know, that work and how we can, what we can learn from it as humans? Brittany Piper (10:33.888)Yeah. Yeah. So I first want to touch on what you just mentioned is, you know, in hearing about your experience, it reminds me a little bit. So in the somatic experiencing world, we use the definition of trauma is that it’s anything that feels like too much, too fast, too soon, or not enough. And so like when you talk about neglect or things like that, those are things that often get overlooked. Kimberly Snyder (10:54.156)Mmm. Kimberly Snyder (11:00.993)Yeah. Brittany Piper (11:01.026)You there are such experiences that are overlooked in our culture today. And I think because they kind of fly below the radar, they sometimes can fester, you know, in our lives in much more intense ways. And so, yeah, just thank you for mentioning that. Yeah, Peter’s work was profound for me to the point where I became a somatic experiencing practitioner. So, SE is what I’m professionally trained in, but… Kimberly Snyder (11:10.647)Yes. Brittany Piper (11:28.31)Yeah, his book, Waking the Tiger, he explored how animals in the wild, they experience threat all the time. They go into these survival responses, yet they don’t remain, and I’m using air quotes, traumatized in the way that humans do. And humans, mean, we have the same primal systems, subcortical systems that animals in the wild do. In other words, our nervous systems are nearly identical to nervous systems of animals in the wild. And what he found is that animals in the wild don’t have this wonderful conscious human brain, right? And so they’re often not talking themselves out of their feelings. So animals, when they experience activation and they go into fight or flight and they have that adrenaline and cortisol, they will naturally discharge all of these, know, press hormones. And I remember in my SE training, they’re like, okay, we’re gonna watch some animal videos today. And I’m like, we’re all looking at each other like we’re watching animal videos. Kimberly Snyder (12:18.06)Wait. Brittany Piper (12:27.202)But it was fascinating to see how a gazelle would run from a cheetah, would get away, but it would go into a shutdown or a freeze response and it would faint. And then we watched this video as it would kind of seemingly come back to life and it would lay there and it would do this labored breathing and then it would start trembling and shaking. And then you see the mouth kind of salivating. And then the next thing you know, it’s standing up, shaking its body and it’s running off. Kimberly Snyder (12:55.402)All innately, it’s just in their knowing, their intuitive knowing. Brittany Piper (12:58.56)Exactly. Yes, exactly. And we have those same mechanisms and those same responses. So like, you know, as a professional speaker, I had debilitating stage fright. And for years I was like, I need to go to Toastmasters to figure out how to get over my fear. I need to do like exposure therapy. Like I got to figure this out because I would freeze on stage. Like I’d get dry mouth. I wouldn’t be able to talk. And when I learned that it was less about like calming down and like making the shakes go away, and it was more so like, how can I actually allow some of that to be here and move it through my body? Like our body naturally knows how to metabolize the charge of emotions. If we just stopped getting in our way and overriding what the body knows how to do, or… And I don’t want to say that we always consciously do that. Sometimes it’s done to us and we remain kind of stuck, dissociated, and our body doesn’t know how to contain or move through those emotions. But yeah, the study of animals in the wild is a really big part of the SE framework. Kimberly Snyder (14:10.126)You know, I think about these ancient cultures where there was a lot of tribal dancing and gathering around fires. And I wonder if that was embedded in these earlier cultures. We’ve unfortunately moved away from a lot of that innate knowing. when I was backpacking in Africa, I saw almost, I think it was a funeral gathering and it was, the dancing was like so, intense and it was just beautiful, but dramatic. And it was. Brittany Piper (14:23.084)Yeah, absolutely. Brittany Piper (14:29.613)Hmm. Kimberly Snyder (14:40.11)Like they were moving the grief through their body. I had never seen anything like that in any sort of funeral. And it was amazing. It was somatic as you were describing. Brittany Piper (14:50.51)Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, even as you’re talking about that, I’m getting goosebumps now because that’s, I feel like in this world that we live in, in kind of a modernized culture, we’ve become so disconnected and associated and detached from our bodies. You know, this fast-paced world that we live in, we’re very mind heavy, which is fine. However, our body in many ways, a lot of the upgraded science shows that our body is really in the driver’s seat. the vagus nerve, which is like the longest nerve in the body. It’s known as the information superhighway. But in the early 2000s, we found that this bidirectional informational nerve, 80 % of those messages go from the body up to the brain and only 20 % go from the brain down to the body. And so, yeah, the body holds so much ancient. Kimberly Snyder (15:40.279)Yes. Brittany Piper (15:45.934)primal wisdom and I feel like we oftentimes we’re scared of our bodies. We don’t know how to connect with our bodies and that’s why like in my book, but also if you were to work with any somatic experiencing practitioner, they give you a vocabulary of sensations to like learn the language of the body and I feel like this is something that I do believe is innately built within us, but it’s become so we’re so disconnected from it that it feels so foreign. Kimberly Snyder (16:00.728)Mmm. Brittany Piper (16:14.351)We kind of forget that we have bodies sometimes and then we… Kimberly Snyder (16:18.11)Yeah, it becomes very heady. It’s the same thing with the heart work. know, so surprised to learn the heart is another brain with 40,000 neurons and it too is sending more messages up because we do get so rational and linear. You know, how we started the conversation trying to think our way rationally, well, I’m not in danger anymore or this is safe, but it’s still in there until we feel. And I want to get into some of those tools you share, but first I just want to acknowledge Britt how vulnerable and Brittany Piper (16:28.91)Mm-hmm. Brittany Piper (16:37.421)Mm-hmm. Kimberly Snyder (16:47.49)beautiful it was that you shared parts of your story as not someone just teaching about this, but someone that’s gone through profound healing and embodies what it can be like to live in far more peace in your body. And you mentioned about your brother’s car accident and also your, you know, the sexual assault, which, know, is, you know, as a woman, could say it’s like the, you know, one of the worst things that we could imagine happening to our sense of safety. Brittany Piper (17:17.016)Mm-hmm. Kimberly Snyder (17:17.462)And to have gone through that and teach about it now is amazing. Brittany Piper (17:22.263)Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I always say a lot of my work started off as me search. You know, I would say probably most of us in this space, right, where a lot of our work is informed by our own personal experiences. And, you know, I had been in and out of conventional therapy for a lot of my life and on different medications. And it was supportive, but I felt like it would bring temporary relief, but I never found like resolution. And I would get in these cycles of like, Kimberly Snyder (17:27.66)Sure. Brittany Piper (17:52.44)Britney’s drinking again or, Britney’s in jail now or, Britney’s in the hospital. And I just felt like every couple of years I was in this cycle of self-destruction, like just destroying myself from within. And I had an experience, which I share about in the book, when I ended up in a jail cell. And it was in that jail cell over three days that my body was able, I feel like, to process decades old grief and trauma. that I had become such an expert at running from. And I also came from a family where we just put everything under the rug. You just muscle through, you armor through, right? And in my early 20s, I realized that avoiding isn’t the same thing as healing and that eventually you have to do the work. So yeah, coming out of that jail cell, I felt like a literal different person. And I remember the judge, this was shortly after my sexual assault case, she remembered who I was. And she said, we’re gonna drop the charges, but she said, you need to learn to live with your pain better. And that was kind of like a big moment because she didn’t say, get over it, get past it. She said, learn to with, yes, with it. Which was a totally new concept, right? Like that’s not what I, you you muscle through, you move on, you get past it. And that was also a message that was passed down. Kimberly Snyder (19:03.775)with Brittany Piper (19:15.95)through generations in my family, in my lineage. And when I looked at the history of the women in my family, we’re all very much the same, right? We just, keep it pushing, we keep going, we stay busy, we focus on work, we overachieve, we’re perfectionist, kind of like you said. But the masking could only last for so long. And so I got into somatic healing back in 2012, just on my personal. in my own personal journey, because I was like, what happened to me in that jail cell? My body felt different. Something happened. And as I started to learn about the literature and also started experiencing it myself as a client, I was like, how does the world not know about this? And so that’s kind of what started that process for me of just trying to share with anyone that I could, because I was like, this needs to be more widely known. Kimberly Snyder (20:08.589)Yes. Kimberly Snyder (20:12.428)Before we move on from your story, Britt, I also want to acknowledge, and what an amazing judge to have been put in your path. It was like a messenger, right, from the divine to say that. But I also want to acknowledge in our society when these sorts of things happen, how easy it is to pretend, like you said, like to not take someone to trial for rape. I have a friend who was raped in college and her parents were like, no, this is going to be too big a deal, just get over it. And so she never pressed charges. And now, you know, a couple of decades later, I don’t know if she ever fully healed. She has never had any other long-term relationships. And so the bravery it must have took to go on trial for two years. And there was a short trauma from that, but maybe a healing that you actually saw it all the way through. Brittany Piper (21:05.26)Yeah. Yeah, there was. I think justice looks so different for every survivor. My work in the trauma space started. I was working in sexual violence and rape crisis centers here in the States, but mainly abroad. And justice shows up in so many ways. unfortunately, we live in a time where favor is not in the hands of the victim. It’s often most times in the hands of the perpetrator. It’s a systemic issue and one that I still fight to end. Like every day this past week, I was in Pennsylvania. I had three programs talking to college students through different universities in Pennsylvania. And I always ask this question at the beginning of every program, like, will you please quietly stand if you know someone who’s experienced sexual violence? And usually it’s like, I’m just tearing up talking about it. Usually it’s like, I don’t know, 50 to 75 % of the audience will stand, which is like gut wrenching. The second question is then, for those of you standing, will you please stay standing if you know that that person reported it? Half of them sit down. And then the people that are still standing all then ask, if you know that the perpetrator received justice, please stay standing. If they did not, can you quietly sit down? And usually it’s a handful. And I’ll talk to audience of like hundreds, thousands, handful of people. An event I had this past week, there were probably about 250 people standing. <

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This Week’s Episode Special Guest: Dr. Caroline Leaf About Dr. Caroline Leaf In this engaging conversation, Kimberly Snyder interviews Dr. Caroline Leaf, a renowned neuroscientist and author, about her latest book, ‘Help in a Hurry.’ They explore the profound distinction between the mind and the brain, emphasizing the importance of understanding the non-conscious mind and its role in managing thoughts and emotions. Dr. Leaf shares practical tools for self-regulation, particularly in moments of stress and regret, and discusses the impact of our thoughts on our physical health. The conversation highlights the power of self-awareness and the ability to create positive energy in the world. Guest Resources: Website: drleaf.com New Book: Help in a Hurry: Simple Tips for Finding Peace When You’re Overwhelmed, Anxious, or Stressed Social Media: @drcaolineleaf Episode Sponsors: MOMENTOUS OFFER: Head to livemomentous.com and use code KIMBERLY for 35% oﬀ your ﬁrst subscription. That’s code KIMBERLY at livemomentous.com for 35% oﬀ your ﬁrst subscription. USE LINK: livemomentous.com Code: KIMBERLY for 35% oﬀ your ﬁrst subscription. GLOWING GREENS POWDER OFFER: Go to mysolluna.com and use the CODE: PODFAM15 for 15% off your entire order. USE LINK: mysolluna.com CODE: PODFAM15 for 15% off your entire order. Episode Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Dr. Caroline Lee and Her Work 02:53 The Mind vs. The Brain: Understanding the Distinction 06:00 The Non-Conscious Mind: Tapping into True Self 08:48 The Role of Thoughts in Shaping Reality 12:05 The Tree Analogy: Visualizing Mind and Brain Connections 15:00 Managing Emotions and Patterns for Mental Strength 18:00 Practical Tools for Overcoming Emotional Challenges 20:47 Conclusion: Integrating Techniques for Mind Management 23:05 The Power of 63 Seconds 24:58 Self-Regulation Techniques for Emotional Control 27:46 Understanding and Managing Regret 30:08 Practical Tools for Emotional Clarity 32:50 Breathing Techniques for Stress Relief 35:38 The Camera Technique for Perspective 38:41 Harnessing Personal Power for Positive Change 44:57 Introduction to Intimacy and Sexuality Coaching 46:42 The Power of Partnership in Coaching 49:05 Dismantling Masks and Embracing Vulnerability 52:49 Body Image and Sexual Confidence 55:45 Cultivating Erotic Energy and Self-Expression 58:29 The Connection Between Sexual Energy and Overall Wellness 01:01:08 Healing from Shame and Cultural Beliefs 01:04:30 Daily Practices for Sexual Energy and Connection 01:07:32 Navigating Pornography and Intimacy in Relationships 01:08:00 Exploring Intimacy Through Pornography 01:09:03 The Connection Between Vulnerability and Sexuality 01:12:47 Overcoming Blocks to Sexual Energy 01:16:52 The Evolution of Sexual Desires Over Time 01:20:14 Understanding Trauma and Fantasy in Sexuality 01:24:40 Empowerment Through Self-Connection and Healing SOLLUNA PRODUCT LINKS Glowing Greens Powder™ Feel Good SBO Probiotics Feel Good Detoxy Feel Good Digestive Enzymes Feel Good Starter Kit Feel Good Skincare KIMBERLY’S BOOKS Chilla Gorilla & Lanky Lemur Journey to the Heart The Beauty Detox Solution Beauty Detox Foods Beauty Detox Power Radical Beauty Recipes For Your Perfectly Imperfect Life You Are More Than You Think You Are OTHER PODCASTS YOU MAY ENJOY! Wellness Insights: How to Listen to Your Body for Nutritional Guidance How the Power Foods Diet helps with Weight Loss with Dr. Neal Barnard EP. 877 How Not to Age with New York Times best-selling author Dr. Michael Greger How to eat to reduce anxiety with Harvard nutritional psychiatrist Dr. Uma Naidoo Powered and Distributed by: PodcastOne Transcript: Kimberly Snyder (00:00.75)Hi everyone, welcome back to our Monday interview show. I am so excited to have back on our show, sitting right next to me, the amazing, brilliant, beautiful Dr. Caroline Lee, who I love so much. I love you so She’s one of my favorite authors, one of my favorite people, a dear friend of mine. She also happens to be a researcher, communication pathologist, audiologist, am I saying that right? Yes, you are. Author of how many books now? 19. 19, 24 languages. my gosh. I’m getting goosebumps. I have read so many of Dr. Carolyn’s books, but when I read this new one, which is out now, by the time we’re listening to this, help in a hurry, simple tips for finding peace when you’re overwhelmed, anxious or stressed. I said, Carolyn, this is your best book. thank you. That’s really a lot coming from you. Thank you. Well, I it was a lot of love and emotion. I felt like it was written. in connection with what’s so needed now. And I love how you make it simple, but really practical and really powerful and based as a researcher. What I love about you is you’re full of heart and that’s a very rare combination. Thank you. think, you know, often what I feel, I’m a clinical research neuroscientist as well. And my field is psychoneurobiology and that’s really heavy science. Right. But that’s where I find my spirituality. And people often ask, you know, are they die quite? They almost sound like a dichotomy, but they’re not because they’re two sides of the same coin. the more when you see science and you see how incredible things work, how the mind changes the brain and the field that you cannot know that there’s more than just this physical time, this little bit of time that being on physical bodies and that soul is just so much bigger than unconscious mind is just so much bigger. There’s just so much more. And it’s so important that we know how to manage our mind because it’s such a responsibility. You know, one of the things that you talk about in this book that really stood out to me is how you really make the distinction that the mind is not the physical brain. Yes, that is that is so important. Because a lot of people say it’s synonymously. Well, that’s the thing. And that’s been a 40 year journey. So basically in the 80s, the mind and the brain were still spoken about separately. So up until about the 80s, it was mind and brain. But they didn’t believe that the brain could change. I’ve been in this field 40 years now. I’m 61. Kimberly Snyder (02:27.382)So I’m old now. Don’t feel old. Yeah, you’re ageless. As Yogananda says, your energy and your vitality and just your skin, like everything just shows how this, you know, biological age or, know, chronologically is not our reality. I agree with you. We can. And we know epigenetics. I mean, there’s so much that’s influenced by, you know, your living this work. It’s coming through your heart. managing your mind, which controls so much stress. And here you are. Thank you. It’s well, I’ve had some of the research you’ve done works on telomeres and yes, the telomere research up until quite recently said that you can’t change telomeres over shorter than a five year time period. And generally with exercise and, and diet and that kind of thing. And so I saw Lisa Apple, is Elizabeth Blackburn and Lisa Apple I’ve interviewed, they, the leaders in telomere research and they started talking about maybe my meditation may change telomeres and so on. So I well, let me do a clinical trial, add a component in where we teach mind management. let’s see, because mind management, the whole system that I’ve developed around mind management includes meditation and preparing the brain and all those kinds of things and preparing the neurophysiology. And then it goes further into mind management techniques. And we show that you can change your telomeres in nine weeks, which is wow, and it’s significantly and your telomeres are the things that respond to your mind, your mind does everything. And they basically telomeres are, are needed for other ends of chromosomes. And that’s what we need to make cells. And we make 800,000 to a million new cells every second. And those, the ability to make those cells is based on telomeres, but the ability, the thing that makes the telomeres work are our thoughts. the energy from our thoughts, So we are not managing our mind and our thoughts are chaotic. We send chaotic energy through to the telomeres and this is science. This is not anything weird. is pure science. Science and spirituality are the same thing. Yeah, I love this. They’re the same thing. And that energy from our thoughts is going to influence how the telomeres function and how the telomeres function determines how your cells are formed, which is how your organs are formed and your systems and therefore physically how we function. And that’s why Kimberly Snyder (04:44.194)mind is not the brain. mean, the brain is simply a host. We need to think in a particular model here. The is simply a host and our body is a host to something much bigger. And that is the word that is, I use the word mind because it’s been used for thousands of words by so many ancient spiritual wisdom. And in current day science, we use mind. incorrectly, it tends to be used, and not all scientists, but it tends to be used synonymously with the brain. But the brain is not the mind. The brain is a physical organ. It weighs around about three and half pounds. And it is when you die, your brain just disintegrates. When your heart stops within 10 seconds, your brain flatlines. And all the energy then reverses. the minute that your heart stops, there’s no energy flowing through the physical anymore. And that energy is your mind. So when we Physically when our body dies physically our energy moves out and what is that energy? That’s your mind So your mind drives your psychology So it’s your your intelligence your ability to love your personality your preferences how you see life how you have this conversation your choices that is mind and then the brain is the host that Hosted so it’s simply a host It responds to the brain. I mean, sorry, it responds to the mind. So the brain responds to the mind. makes sense. it’s only one percent. The brain and body are one percent. The mind is infinite energy. And when we’re on this earth in this physical body, our mind can’t even encapsulate all of our brain can’t even encapsulate all of the mind because the mind is too big. So we have a big portion called the non conscious mind. You in not unconscious, unconscious is when you’re asleep or in anesthesia. Or yoga would call the true self. The non-conscious would be the true self. The non-conscious is the true self. So the unconscious is a sleep state. the non, that would be your true self. The non-conscious is your deepest spiritual wisdom. where every experience you have all day long is absorbed and every memory that you’ve ever had, that’s where it is. And that’s the part of you that drives you. It’s an energy force that is connected to the source of energy, whatever you believe that is. Kimberly Snyder (07:00.832)everyone, God, whether it’s God, the source, the universe, whatever you believe, we, there’s more than just us, but us, the true Kimberly, the true Caroline is in the non-conscious. And in the non-conscious, it’s infinite beyond space and time, so fast that it’s faster than 400 billion actions per second, way faster than the speed of light. And it basically generates electromagnetic fields. the heart field, the heart field, So their heart field is coming from the non-conscious. The non-conscious puts that into the heart. And the heart is basically generating from the non-conscious, generating the true self. You know, it’s so amazing about this, work and the science and what we talked about with my last book on your podcast. Yes, your beautiful book. Is how, you know, this managing the mind that you give such practical tips about is so important because if we’re in reactivity, If we’re in our old memories all the time and just reacting in patterns, it keeps us from being that true self. keeps us from living with love and kindness and compassion because we’re sort of in survival, you know, just these states. We are, we are. And I can, and I can describe that. can give you the simple science explanation. That’s okay. bouncing off what you’ve just said now of your first question, the difference between mind and the brain. So they talk about the mind for a moment and then they this question. So the mind, then we’ve got the non-conscious level and then you’ve got the conscious level and in between you’ve got the subconscious. So it’s non-conscious, subconscious and conscious. Conscious is tiny. It’s messy. It’s chaotic. It’s where we make our decisions. It’s very powerful because it’s where we make our decisions. We can choose to do the work of change. We can choose to love. We can choose to hate. We can choose to… our non conscious has no no hatred, pure love, and it’s pure wisdom. And everything we need is inside the non conscious. Yes. And that we’ve got to learn to tap into it. Now the subconscious is like a waiting room. So what the non conscious does a true self is going through all of our experiences, which become memories inside thoughts. So every experience is broken down into memories and encapsulated into a thought. And that’s what’s in the non conscious, all these thoughts, which are all our experiences that we’ve had. Plus, Kimberly Snyder (09:19.448)from whatever your belief system or everything about you, which could be include all kinds of things that pass. Every thought is stored somewhere. Every single thought that you have, every experience becomes a thought. Every thought is stored in the non conscious and the non conscious then basically process it’s received by the conscious mind. So the experience is received by the conscious mind and the non conscious mind at the same time. But the conscious mind is very limited. can only, for example, the conscious mind can only handle one. conversation at a time. The non conscious can handle an infinite number of conversations. So when as we sitting here, we having one conversation, that’s what the conscious mind is dealing with. But the non conscious or non conscious is absorbing everything else, the energy, the everything in this room, all the things that you’re going through, the things that I’m going through, the connection, but all the things that are unseen, right, which is most things unseen by the physical. Exactly. And Dr. Kailin, this is like again, with the third eye. It’s like the vision opens up perception. Exactly. That’s exactly. So that’s what the non-conscious, that third eye, that wisdom, that spiritual part of us, that is on our side. And it looks through at the patterns that we’ve chosen to make with our conscious mind into habits, the way we’ve chosen a thought pathway and we haven’t dealt with something. And they get strengthened. And it gets strengthened and it goes into the non-conscious, but the non-conscious sees it as like a wound. So then it tries to, it basically grabs that and puts it into the subconscious. And then the subconscious, because it’s much slower than the non-conscious, it’s at some interim level. the non-conscious subconscious then sends messages to the conscious mind via our emotions, how we feel in our body, which they are coming from the, the heart generates signals, our behaviors, our perceptions, that to grab our attention. And when we pay attention to those signals, then we can start tuning back into the wisdom of the non conscious mind. And then it influences eventually the consciously how we’re behaving, we’re behaving, loving, loving. Exactly. So if we, if we exactly, so if we learn to listen to those signals and we learn to listen to the messages of the non conscious mind, which identifies these disrupt the most disruptive thought in the moment in our lives in order and puts them into the subconscious is around about the subconscious can hold about Kimberly Snyder (11:40.75)four to seven of these disruptive thoughts. Also what’s good thoughts in that you, that’s non-conscious minds want you to think about because gratitude and joy and those great experience because those increase your resilience. So that subconscious is holding those and then the subconscious as I said, send signals to get your attention. Now what we need to do as humans is we need to listen to those signals so that we grow the good thoughts because it increases our resilience and helps us to get stronger in our base, which is our non-conscious. And then we function at a high level and it wants us to break down, deconstruct and reconstruct the toxic thoughts. If we don’t, if they go into and we ignore the signal or we hear the signal, but we just stay in that same pattern, it goes back stronger into the non-conscious than before. And then we feel worse because now it’s this boil in the non-conscious. It’s not right. It’s not right. It’s this kind of thing. Oh yeah. love that. The tree is awesome. If you guys are listening to this, please check out the YouTube as well. to see these amazing tools that Dr. Caroline has brought, which really bring the work to life. I love analogies, I love physical. So tell us about the tree. So basically, as I said, the brain is 1%. The brain and body are 1%. The mind is 99%. So the 99 % brain, which has these three levels, conscious, subconscious, non-conscious, is energy. It’s electromagnetic and gravitational fields and quantum energy and whatever. When we do something like an EKG of your heart or an ECG when you do QEEG in the brain, when you have a sonogram when you’re pregnant, if you have MRI, all of those machines, that technology is just measuring the mind. So the mind is the thing that not only is your psychology, your ability to love, feel, intelligence, personality, preferences, it’s also the thing that runs your heart and your brain. So it runs your physiology. So it does two things, the mind, it runs your physiology. which is your body and it runs your brain, which is your body and it runs your psychology. It’s you. And so what we’re supposed to do is we are supposed to listen to the non-conscious, but we can ignore the messages of the non-conscious via the subconscious because the non-conscious puts the messages, the four to seven top priorities into the subconscious. And if we ignore them, then we’re going to get worse. We’re not going to get stronger. to, so before I explain these to you, you had your one question was we get stuck in these patterns. Kimberly Snyder (14:03.662)So when you say stronger, mean mentally stronger, like physically stronger and mentally stronger. they get, and I’m going to explain that whole route exactly. I’m going to give you a really strong visual leading to this visual, but you asked a question earlier on. want to make sure that I answer that and link it all into this. You mentioned about how we can get stuck in those patterns. Notice how we both did this with our fingers. That’s so accurate because the conscious mind is kind of up here and the non-conscious mind is. everywhere. subconscious, the non-conscious mind is, mean, the non-conscious mind is massive. It’s, it’s, it’s this field all around us. It’s the crown chakra, like everyone. It’s almost like a big, we’ve got a biofield and it’s connected to the universe. The conscious mind is a tiny little part of it and the conscious mind is only awake when you’re awake. The subconscious is this bridge in between. So conscious mind can handle one conversation, subconscious can handle about four to seven conversations. When I say conversation, it’s in really common, it’s a thought. and then non conscious infinite. Okay. So that’s all energy. And then that energy of the three minds then uses the brain and the body so that we can be in life, that we can talk to each other, that we can eat and live and be physical. So what the mind does, the non conscious mind working with the conscious mind is it takes an experience or conversation now. And that’s a whole bunch of energy. And it grabs the details of the energy and builds it into like a little thought pattern that looks like a cloud. So imagine around me or around you, those that are listening, that there’s a circle of energy around you. If you stretch your arms out, this is kind of the circle all around you. That’s your mind and it’s around and through you, even in your toes and in your fingers, the mind is all of it. And so that mind and that’s composed of the three different levels. Okay. The conscious being small and awake when you’re awake, the unconscious, infinite subconscious in between. So this conversation comes in as words, those words cluster together to form thoughts. Those thoughts are like clouds. So imagine all these clouds around me. Those are all my experiences that are happening currently. And then what the mind does is it takes the thought that first the information comes in, it builds the cloud, and then it makes a photocopy, copies, and it puts it into the brain. And then the brain as an energy force. Kimberly Snyder (16:21.29)little cluster of energy force. So it’s a copy. So it’s still in the mind. There’s still the cloud floating around, but a copy of it’s put into the brain. And that causes a reaction in the brain, a chemical, neurochemical, genetic, and a tree is formed, a tree like network. So we talk about net, sorry, we talk about networks. Yes. So this is a protein network. So our words now are clouds in the mind. and copies are being made at 400 million actions per second into a tree in the brain. there’s infinite trees in your brain, infinite trees in your brain, because you’re going to infinite trees in your mind. And so there’s, and there’s, so the brain just hosts and it just creates these networks. So this is as a tree has roots, lots of roots, and it has lots of branches. So our conversation, we’re saying lots of words, like each little branches, like a word or a phrase or a concept. So as we keep adding more and more and more, By end of our conversation, we’ll have maybe two or three thousand words that we’ve spoken or concepts we’ve spoken. They’re all going to build into this tree. But what we say is the root. What we say and the listeners and viewers, are taking that into what our words become the root and the branches of their interpretation of what we’re saying, because their mind filters what we’re saying to their unique tree. So everyone listening is building. So this is what it looks like inside the brain. So the cloud in the mind and then it’s net copy into the brain and it’s connected. Then then the mind then makes copies of this and puts it in every cell of the body as a tiny little hedge. So take this and squish it up into a little hedge and inside the inside every cell and you have 37 to 100 trillion cells in our brain and between our brain and our body. And there’s a copy in the brain. It looks like a tree in the body. It looks like a little hedge. So every thought, every single, well, Dr. Kiran, it’s crazy. also one of the things that I’ve always felt intuitively, and we talked about here before is really managing what you’re taking in. Like, our uvata says digestion is the senses, right? So who you’re following on social media, the news you’re watching, everything is affecting these trees. It all goes into that minefield. Right. And it’s all forming clouds. and that’s the conscious mind is not very good at filtering. Kimberly Snyder (18:29.186)That’s why the conscious mind needs the non-conscious and the conscious mind is like a toddler. You’ve got young children. Imagine if you just didn’t watch your children. They’ve hurt themselves. They would burn themselves. They would get up to all kinds of things. That’s what our conscious mind does. So when we get stuck, our conscious mind doesn’t listen to the subconscious or the non-conscious. It’s just doing its thing. just So it’s taking the social media. It’s taking the toxic thoughts. It’s taking the experiences. It’s taking the arguments. It’s taking the politics. It’s taking whatever. And those clouds are not beautiful clouds. They’re ugly stormy rain clouds. And it’s making those ugly stormy. So instead of this, it’s building this. Right. And then those are the hedges in the body. And now that’s counter to our mind, brain, body connection because we want it for love. So we have a worldwide web between the clouds of our mind, the trees of our brain and the hedges in our souls. It’s a network. So every experience is in the mind, brain and entire body. So it’s not your brain that’s doing anything. Right. It’s just the host. It’s all of it. So that’s that and that process is happening all the time. And your brain and your body is plastic, which means it can change. Yeah. So if you’ve got these in your brain, the good news is that you can change them and that’s neuroplasticity and you can direct that change. And so everybody listening to this, what Dr. Carol was saying, it looks like this, it’s this ugly sort of gray. Worry. Right, that’s, know, again, these, what we say in terms of the heart, incoherence, just feeling like you’re not really connected to your, you’re not living your truth, you’re not living in love, there’s a lot of fear, there’s a lot of sadness. In the book, you actually write down topics, which is what I love how practical this book is, you talked about, you kn

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Week’s Episode Special Guest: Ghanim Al Sulaiti In this episode Ghanim Al-Sulati shares his transformative journey from a traditional lifestyle to embracing a plant-based diet, inspired by Kimberly Snyder’s book the Beauty Detox Solution. He discusses the impact of food on health, the cultural challenges of veganism in Qatar, and the importance of education in nutrition. Ghanim highlights his entrepreneurial ventures, including the establishment of Evergreen Organics, and emphasizes the emotional and spiritual connections to food. He reflects on personal growth, the role of community, and the ongoing journey of self-discovery through food and lifestyle choices. In this conversation, Ghanim shares his journey of navigating challenges during COVID, the importance of building a sustainable business ecosystem in Qatar, and his commitment to giving back to the community. He discusses his deep connection to Qatar, the lessons learned from the desert, and the shift towards mindful eating and home cooking. Ghanim emphasizes the significance of presence in relationships and the evolution of family dynamics. He also outlines his vision for improving health in Qatar, particularly through increased fiber intake and promoting a vegan-friendly environment. About Ghanim Al Sulaiti Ghanim Al Sulaiti is a young Qatari entrepreneur passionate about creating a positive impact on society by promoting a plant based lifestyle. By trade, Ghanim is a qualified Engineer. In his spare time, he is a serial entrepreneur, founding his first business—Evergreen Organics—in 2016, and now has over 10 projects currently live or under development. All of these projects share the same vision and values as its founder—to be vegan, sustainable, and promote a healthier lifestyle. Equipped with a comprehensive understanding of the creative and operational procedures needed to produce excellent brands, Ghanim has a personal interest in developing dialogue about healthy living, veganism and sustainability. With a mind wired for logic and strategy and a desire motivated by the passion of creativity and business savviness, Ghanim is on a mission to help and transform people’s mindsets to live a lifestyle that helps their planet, their health, and their future. Ghanim has worked extensively with local schools and regional organizations such as Qatar Foundation, Ooredoo Doha Marathon, Qatar National Library, Qatar Financial Center, and the Qatar Investment Authority, producing educational programs to change the status quo. He holds a BSc in Civil Engineering from Drexel University, USA. Episode Sponsors: LMNT: OFFER: Right now, for my listeners LMNT is offering a free sample pack with any LMNT drink mix purchase at DrinkLMNT.com/FEELGOOD. That’s 8 single serving packets FREE with any LMNT any LMNT drink mix purchase. This deal is only available through my link so. Also try the new LMNT Sparkling — a bold, 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water. USE LINK: DrinkLMNT.com/FEELGOOD FATTY15 OFFER: Fatty15 is on a mission to replenish your C15 levels and restore your long-term health. You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription Starter Kit by going to fatty15.com/KIMBERLY and using code KIMBERLY at checkout. USE LINK: fatty15.com/KIMBERLY Guest Resources Website: Evergreen Organics Social: @ghanim92 Linked IN: Ghanim Al-Sulaiti Episode Chapters Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Ghanim Al-Sulati and His Journey03:00 The Impact of Food on Health and Lifestyle06:07 Transitioning to a Plant-Based Lifestyle08:55 Cultural Perspectives on Veganism12:01 Education and Awareness in Nutrition15:00 Challenges and Support from Family17:59 Religious and Cultural Considerations20:56 The Evolution of Food Choices24:04 Personal Growth and Self-Discovery27:05 The Role of Food in Emotional Well-Being30:05 Building a Business Around Veganism32:59 Future Aspirations and Community Impact37:09 Navigating Challenges and Opportunities During COVID38:36 Building a Sustainable Business Ecosystem40:00 Giving Back to the Community and Empowering Others41:43 The Importance of Roots and Connection to Qatar43:50 Embracing the Desert and Its Lessons44:49 The Shift to Home Cooking and Mindful Eating46:47 The Energy of Intentional Touch and Connection49:00 Practicing Presence in Relationships51:36 The Evolution of Family Relationships53:35 A Vision for Health Improvement in Qatar SOLLUNA PRODUCT LINKS Glowing Greens Powder™ Feel Good SBO Probiotics Feel Good Detoxy Feel Good Digestive Enzymes Feel Good Starter Kit Feel Good Skincare KIMBERLY’S BOOKS Chilla Gorilla & Lanky Lemur Journey to the Heart The Beauty Detox Solution Beauty Detox Foods Beauty Detox Power Radical Beauty Recipes For Your Perfectly Imperfect Life You Are More Than You Think You Are OTHER PODCASTS YOU MAY ENJOY! Wellness Insights: How to Listen to Your Body for Nutritional Guidance How the Power Foods Diet helps with Weight Loss with Dr. Neal Barnard EP. 877 How Not to Age with New York Times best-selling author Dr. Michael Greger How to eat to reduce anxiety with Harvard nutritional psychiatrist Dr. Uma Naidoo Powered and Distributed by: PodcastOne Transcript: Kimberly Snyder (00:00.824)Hi everyone and welcome back to our Monday interview show. I am beyond thrilled for our very special guest here with us today from across the world in Qatar. His name is Ghanem Al-Sulati and he’s a Qatari entrepreneur. He’s passionate about creating a positive impact on society by promoting a plant-based lifestyle. He has created Evergreen Organics, which since 2016 has Qatar’s first and only completely plant-based cafe. He’s working on 10 different projects all across the Middle East to support healthy living and sustainability. I started finding Ghanim when someone sent me a YouTube video and he was talking about all these incredible festivals and things he was creating in the Middle East. At the very beginning, he mentioned that he had read the Beauty Detox Solution, now over 10 years old, and it had an impact on his philosophy. And I was just feeling so honored. And it’s so amazing that we’re here today. So Ghanam, thank you so much and welcome to our show. Ghanim (01:03.417)Thank so much, Kimberly. mean, this is such an honor as well from my side. I’m absolutely happy that finally I get to meet you as well virtually, but also to be able to share kind of my journey that have not only impacted me personally, but also impacted everybody in Doha because I’ve realized that I’ve taken something from your book, but then managed to create something out of it that is, you know, Kimberly Snyder (01:12.846)Thank Ghanim (01:30.947)creating a wider impact. And I think I’m just so grateful. So thank you so much for, you know, for hosting me here today. And I’m excited to share my story as well with you. And, and let me take you back actually 10, 10 years ago, actually a little bit more 12 years ago, I lived in the States, actually, I lived in Philly. I went to school there. I’m an engineer by profession. And I was actually sitting one morning, watching Good Morning America. Kimberly Snyder (01:51.063)Okay. Ghanim (01:58.745)in 2013 to be specific. I think it was either January or February of that year. And you came in on the show promoting the beauty detox, the green book. And I remember you were talking about how food changed the way you feel and how it actually inspired you to not only kind of Kimberly Snyder (02:05.304)Wow. Ghanim (02:26.083)to learn more about how food can change the way you feel, but also the way you look. And something about what you said kind of made me so interested that I actually got up my couch, went to Barnes and Noble, which was a few blocks away, picked up your book, opened the first couple of pages. And I remember the first few pages, you were talking a little bit about the concept of veganism, but not necessarily like actually like pinning it down and something about like not consuming dairy. And for me, it was a Kimberly Snyder (02:30.413)Yes. Ghanim (02:56.291)someone who never had any kind of, let’s say idea of what you were talking about, I was completely shocked and overwhelmed. So I literally closed the book, put it back on the shelf and I was like, that’s not for me. I don’t think I, I just, I felt there’s something for me, but at that moment when I read it, I remember like just putting it back. The next couple of weeks after that, I started seeing so many signs when I was opening the TV, I was watching kind of let’s say the doctors or Kimberly Snyder (03:00.757)Right. Kimberly Snyder (03:20.813)Wow. Ghanim (03:25.293)couple of these shows where they were talking about plan-based options. I was walking on the streets and there’s big billboards of like this alternative milks. And suddenly I’ve been seeing all of these things that are giving me signs saying like, my God, you need to go back and get the book. I said, you know what, let me just get the book. There’s nothing gonna happen. There’s no harm to read that book. So I took the book, came back home. I was living with my friend at that time. And I decided to read the book in very, like maybe, I would say loudly in the living room with my friend. And I think I was a bit in a sarcastic mood, kind of like every time I read something, I was pretty much either kind of laughing about it or just saying, that’s never going to happen for me. And I don’t know, something changed when I reached, I think part of the book where you’re talking about experimenting and trying to incorporate more greens and more raw food and I remember telling my friend at that time, said, there’s nothing wrong with trying. Let’s just get this recipe, the glowing green smoothie. Let’s just go to the supermarket and get the ingredients and let’s do it. And I still have the first green smoothie that I drank. It’s actually on my Instagram archive, like as a picture there. And to be very honest, it wasn’t delicious. And it was a shock for me because like, I’m not used to eating like, you know, all these fibers and kind of the Kimberly Snyder (04:41.708)Wow. Kimberly Snyder (04:51.139)Yeah. Ghanim (04:52.057)for me that time, the bitterness. And it started with a smoothie and then that smoothie became another smoothie and then another smoothie. And then suddenly I started kind of saying, hey, how about incorporating less meat? And then I started taking off meat. And then I said, okay, you know what? I’ve been not eating meat for three months. Let’s take off chicken. And then suddenly fish. And I remember you helped me in the book because in the book you were saying you were kind of trying to show us how to do that transition without actually telling me to transition because you didn’t want people to actually go vegan. You wanted them to feel better. And I think that’s the philosophy that sticks with me is I was thinking every day, am I feeling better? And if I was feeling better, I wanted to continue doing that. And that’s what kept me going. And then a year later after reading the book, that’s when I woke up one day and I said, apparently I am vegan. I didn’t have any animal product. I didn’t eat anything. I never said I want to go vegan. Kimberly Snyder (05:32.77)Hmm Ghanim (05:51.459)But I feel great. How about I go for a one year vegan challenge where I actually do it like intentionally and with proper blenders and all of the product that I need. And I never went back since then. And it’s been 11 years since I’ve been vegan. And I always say this to every person that I meet. Yes, veganism was a personal choice, but I still do it today because it feels Kimberly Snyder (06:07.16)Wow. Ghanim (06:20.663)great and amazing. And the moment I don’t feel great, maybe I might explore something else. But of course, nowadays, I’m vegan for the animals, I’m vegan for the planet. So there’s a lot of other reasons as well to keep me on this lifestyle. But yeah, your book, you know, that was the initial kind of stuff. But then you came up with the next book, and I went on and kind of as well, dug deeper into the research aspect of food and how Kimberly Snyder (06:33.997)Yes. Ghanim (06:50.339)combination of food. I think you were talking about, you know, pairing certain foods and you know, got it took me a while to actually believe in it because you know, I love bread, even as a vegan, I love bread, I love gluten. And, and just recently I realized that I actually, whatever you were talking about 10 years ago is really makes a big difference if you follow it and they, and that I, sequence. so this is pretty much what happened. So I just want to kind of give. Kimberly Snyder (06:52.417)Yes. Kimberly Snyder (07:02.006)Yes. Ghanim (07:20.055)you know, a little bit of a, want, I want to, I want to say thank you actually properly to you because you, you, you, you, don’t think you will understand how much impact that had on not only me, but also my family, my friends who actually went to try vegan after my transition, how many people I’ve recommended the book to them and actually change their lives. So yeah, it did, it did change my life completely because I started a Kimberly Snyder (07:44.854)Wow. Ghanim (07:49.667)whole new business. became an entrepreneur and look what I’m doing now. And I think I am very proudly saying that it’s because of you. So thank you so much. Kimberly Snyder (07:51.182)Look at what you’re doing now. Kimberly Snyder (08:00.994)my gosh. I’m just so grateful and in awe, goosebumps all over the place. It’s one of the best stories I’ve ever heard. I really believe we’re all connected in humanity. We’re brothers and sisters and it just seemed like your heart, you were right there, you were ready. And of course there’s a little bit of resistance because it can feel like, this is really different. And it feels a little bit scary when you’re doing, it’s counterintuitive to how you. raised or how you would eat before. But the fact that you kept going back and you kept going back means you were, you know, you’re something in your soul is just so ready to go in that direction. And, know, it really resonates with me when you said it’s just about feeling better, because I think sometimes get people get so caught up in labels, and then separation like, I’m this I’m a vegan, I’m an omnivore, all these different things. But really, what we’re talking about is choosing vitality and choosing nutrient rich foods and choosing fiber. And sometimes for people, it’s not all or nothing, but like you said, you kept going down this path. And the way I started becoming plant-based from the very beginning was when I was traveling actually. And so I love that there’s this through line. We were talking before the podcast, how connection transcends space. Here we are talking across the world, across different cultures, different religions. mean, it’s all this. know, oneness, these truths, it’s how we digest food. There’s a compassion aspect to eating plant-based, there’s an environmental aspect. And when I was in India, it just felt like, wow, I was reading about meditation and just these ideas of how light you can feel in your body. So for me, in my background, which I’ve talked about in my books, I had so much anxiety and insomnia and things you might not directly relate to food. But when I started lightening up, diet and freeing up my digestion, it really did feel much better. And then as I shared, I cleared up my acne, all these things on my skin. And I was like, wow, all this stuff works together. It’s pretty profound. Ghanim (10:00.867)Yeah, you know, to add to that, think after kind of going through the first few months of following, let’s say, all the recipes and following all the knowledge that you were sharing at that time. I remember waking up every day feeling a little bit, am I doing this? Am I a crazy person? People around me were saying, Ghanem, okay, great, you’ve done this step, but it’s not going to take, you know, it’s not going to, it’s not going to be forever, you’re doing it for a while, I’m sure you’re gonna bounce back soon. Everybody was doubting me and also I had a lot of questions, especially when it comes to our cultures, our tradition, everybody was saying, hey, as humans we evolved eating animals, so how can I answer those questions? I was not ready, so I actually started traveling. So I actually traveled to 33 countries in the next kind of two years after reading your book and it opened my mind so much. Kimberly Snyder (10:37.473)Yes. Kimberly Snyder (10:52.493)Wow. Ghanim (10:58.553)to not only food, but also the people that are making the food, to actually understanding how food is being made. I started kind of going to cooking schools, learning how to use herbs and medicinal botanical kind of plants. And I wanted to understand then how is our food being grown and went to the farms. And I’ve been to Nepal, I’ve been to Beijing, I’ve been to Singapore. Kimberly Snyder (11:04.779)Yes. Kimberly Snyder (11:10.914)Mmmmm Wow. Ghanim (11:27.417)Jordan, of course, Egypt, you name it, like all these countries trying to really understand what happened in the last 50 years where we have disconnected completely from nature and especially from our food systems. And I remember every time I used to come back to Qatar, I was thinking, my God, there’s something missing because I’ve I’ve been exposed to all of this information and knowledge and I felt so heavy keeping the knowledge to just myself. Kimberly Snyder (11:40.6)Why? Kimberly Snyder (11:57.452)Right. Ghanim (11:57.485)And I’ve realized that I… needed to share it with as many people as possible because I’ve learned this from you as well because you were traveling and coming back and sharing that knowledge through your books and through your podcasts. And I was like, I need to do the same. And that’s what I started doing. I started coming back and going to schools and getting invited to do normal public speaking events when I actually wasn’t famous at that time. I wasn’t well known. People just loved me sharing my stuff through Instagram and they loved my smoothies that I was creating and simple recipes. And it got people so interested that I started being asked to come to schools and talk to kids. And I was 23 at that time and remember kind of talking to a couple of the kids in school. And one question I remember raising a carrot and I said, do you guys know where this come from? And one of the young kid raised his hand and said, this comes from the fridge. And I said, Kimberly Snyder (12:30.541)Okay. Ghanim (12:58.271)my God, there’s something missing like in our education system where kids think that things comes from a, you know, a fridge and not coming from a, so that’s when I realized that education is very important and I wanted to create a space that can not only raise awareness about this kind of epidemic of nutrition that we have, but also connect people back to our, to the source. And I felt great eating vegetables. And I think a lot of people will feel great eating vegetables and eating more greens and raw food. And that’s what I did for those years. And that’s how I started my businesses afterwards, because I realized I needed to… People were saying, Ghanim, okay, whatever you say is great. How can we do it? How can we do it? I want to do it. I want to be part of it, but I just don’t have access. I don’t have the recipes. And I was like, I need to create a space that can… Kimberly Snyder (13:46.368)Yeah. Ghanim (13:54.349)resemble everything that I’ve learned from my travel and maybe set an example so that people can feel a little bit more comfortable to make the switch. since then, we have been pioneering not only the vegan movement in Qatar, but also changing that mindset and making it more normalized, I would say. Veganism is so normalized nowadays in Qatar and it actually became so… Kimberly Snyder (14:17.07)Mmm. Ghanim (14:23.353)at some point that people felt so cool being vegan, which is completely the opposite anywhere else in the world. Kimberly Snyder (14:30.414)Yeah, you got it. I love you know what I can feel even when you’re telling your story, this heart bursting with authenticity and just so much love and so much passion and so much wanting to help that your journey just kept going and you didn’t plan it. It was just like, I’m going to travel similarly to me and then I’m going to do this. I’m going to do this. And people follow that passion. I mean, you’re just dripping with it. So you don’t really have to try. You don’t have to convince. It’s just this. radiating out of you. Well, in the story, when you started to change over, what did your parents say and people around you? Because at the time, even here, was still, and it did rise up, right? The vegan movement. And now there’s like, there’s pushback from people who feel threatened by it, of course, there’s always opposing ideas and forces. But when you first started, you know, were people saying, you’re not eating, you’re not getting as a protein, like some of the things that we always hear, what were some of the things that you heard? Ghanim (15:17.785)Of course. Yeah. Ghanim (15:29.955)See, I’ve done it very gradually. So when I decided to do it, I actually didn’t do it like cold turkey. So for me, it took me a whole year to actually make the transition. And I wasn’t pressured at all because my goal was not to be vegan. My goal is to feel better. So for me, it didn’t feel like I was transitioning. And then people around me kind of went with me through that transition because I became obsessed at some point on not eating anything Kimberly Snyder (15:37.965)Yeah. Ghanim (15:59.661)but only having goat cheese in my food because that’s kind of for me to transition from eating all the kind of cheeses to just eating one kind of cheese. And I think you did mention it at some point, like that you need to narrow down the choices. I think that’s helped me a lot to simplify kind of the options. And I did that for every category until I reached a place where I not eating anything. So people around me, I think kind of in the beginning, they were a bit, again, as I said, Kimberly Snyder (16:14.294)Yeah, and simplify. Ghanim (16:30.041)thinking that I will just do it for a few months and a few weeks and then suddenly I’m going to go back. So everybody was just on him. It’s okay. It’s just a phase. So don’t, don’t exaggerate. Don’t over, don’t overthink it. And, and, and then I, I, I, I, I saw people around me started kind of wanting to be part of what I was doing. And especially my mom and my dad, they started saying, can you do the smoothie for us? We wanted that. We want to have the green smoothie with you. And then that’s what they started doing. So I started doing the smoothie for them. So they used to have this amazing Kimberly Snyder (16:52.098)Wow. Ghanim (17:01.069)breakfast in the morning that gave them so much energy. They started feeling better. They started having better bowel movements and having more energy. My mom till today, she only have a green smoothie in the morning. And for me, she’s not vegan, but she took some kind of tips to enhance her diet. And I think one of the tips that she as well taught me that I can eat at that time, let’s say, Kimberly Snyder (17:13.591)Wow. Kimberly Snyder (17:23.01)Yes. Ghanim (17:30.359)whatever I want to eat, have the raw green salad at beginning. And that’s a habit that I still do it till today. I just eat lots of greens and then I eat whatever I want. If it’s something that I’m not comfortable eating or of course for me now it’s vegan, but if it’s like a little bit junky vegan or if it’s a bit too over oily, which I don’t usually eat, but I have to kind of have this beginning. That’s in my house. But then of course, publicly, Kimberly Snyder (17:34.114)Yes. Kimberly Snyder (17:48.206)Wait. Ghanim (17:59.513)You know, people were questioning my decisions and they were coming to me saying, you’re going against religion, you’re going against the culture, you’re going against what your ancestors have done for the last hundred years. And for me, it was. People felt intimidated by me every time I was choosing to eat vegan, even though I’m not making it the subject of the event. And I realized that I needed to be stronger in my Kimberly Snyder (18:12.649)It can feel threatening to people. Kimberly Snyder (18:24.234)Sure. Ghanim (18:30.391)defense, because I was a bit hesitant to get into the conversation. so I did a lot of research into my culture, understanding how my people have eaten in the past hundred years. and I’ve found out some amazing facts that, you know, 50 years ago, Qatar was so poor and, and didn’t have enough resources that actually people didn’t have the luxury to eat animal products. They were eating lots of starchy vegetables, lots of rice and beans, lentils to be specific. when they want to eat meat, it was a celebration and it was once or twice a year. So it had a different cultural meanings behind it when they have consumed animal products. And I realized that I needed to kind of go back and talk to people and Kimberly Snyder (18:59.085)Right. Kimberly Snyder (19:04.055)Yes. Kimberly Snyder (19:16.099)What else? Ghanim (19:29.111)that have lived during those times. And I found amazing facts that our region is, lots of people have eaten plant-based in the 40s and 30s because they had their own farms. That was actually the most sustainable way. They didn’t have access to food. The oil industry didn’t boom yet. So actually only after the oil industry had boomed in the 60s and 70s, that’s when people got access to animal products. Kimberly Snyder (19:30.798)Amazing. Kimberly Snyder (19:43.99)Yes. Ghanim (19:58.081)And the funny part is that I do a lot of work as well in Cambodia to help children eat healthy vegan food. And I remember kind of going to Cambodia in 2017, promoting eating fruits and vegetables and no one wants to eat it. And everybody was so angry with me because they say, this is not good food. This is poor people food. And then that same food in Qatar, I go to schools and I show people the vegetables and I said, this is Kimberly Snyder (20:20.941)Yeah. Ghanim (20:26.241)rich people food because no one eats organic except the rich people. And I’m like, wow, look at how cultures are so different. It’s like, have people here who don’t appreciate fruits and vegetables. And we have people here who appreciate fruits and vegetables, they don’t think they can access to it. and then I had to change that mindset. And I think that mindset is about, you know, actually plant-based food is the most affordable option out there. It’s, it’s the simplest food to be, to, to, to be stored, to be, to create, to, cook. Yeah. So. Kimberly Snyder (21:03.904)Yes. Well, this is an amazing story. It’s sort of like the Blue Zones too, Ghanim. You know, when you, they’re not trying to be vegan, but that’s what was available. If you lo

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