#113: A New Therapy to Heal Trauma | Dr. Christopher Genn, DPT
Trauma, such as your parents’ divorce or extreme family dysfunction, doesn’t only affect your emotions. It affects your body too. It quite literally has physical effects.
In this episode, Dr. Christopher Genn, a physical therapist and expert in applied kinesiology, explains how our bodies respond to trauma and how we can heal. Plus, we discuss:
A new therapy to treat pain, trauma, and even rewire bad habits
The story of a girl enduring her parents’ divorce who became physically debilitated
How we often lie to ourselves about our families, parents, and past - and why that’s a barrier to healing
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!
When you endure a trauma such as your parent's divorce or extreme family dysfunction, it doesn't just affect your emotions, it affects your body, too. It literally has physical effects, and in this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Chris Fergen, a physical therapist and expert in applied kinesiology, where He's able to explain how our bodies respond to trauma and what we can do to heal.
We also talk about things like a new therapy to treat pain, trauma, and even to rewire bad habits. He also tells a story about a girl who went through her parents divorce and how it literally had physical effects on her. We talk about the balance and healing between accepting where you are today, but at the same time striving for a better life and a healthier future.
You and finally we hit on how we often lie to ourselves about our families about our past and even about our parents And how that's super unhelpful how it's such a barrier to healing. So a lot of great stuff ahead. Stay with us Welcome to the restored podcast helping you heal and grow from the trauma of your parents divorce Separation or broken family so you can break the cycle.
I'm your host Joey Pontarelli, this is episode 113. We're so thrilled that so many of you have found the podcast helpful and even healing. We've heard tons of great feedback. One person left this review. They said, The community that's needed. I feel so grateful for this podcast. After my parents divorce, I was left with a lot of unanswered questions and feelings, leaving me confused and isolated.
My friends and family did their best to be present for me, and counseling helped. But this community of others who have walked the same road and chosen a different path, one of love, peace, and forgiveness, continues to encourage me years later, wonderful, practical hope giving. Again, we're so happy that it's been so helpful for you.
We do it for you. Again, my guest today is Dr. Christopher Gann. As a child, he experienced these extreme headaches and vomiting, which actually led to five brain surgeries, if you can believe that. And that sparked a passion in him to really better understand the human body pain and healing. And he graduated from Mercy College with his bachelor's in health science and a certified strength and conditioning specialist.
certification. He then completed various clinical rotations working in orthopedic, acute care, and pediatric, and doctor again became certified in something called functional movement systems, and he worked alongside this physical therapist who was trained by the American Academy of Manipulative Therapy, and that led him to learn these advanced manual therapy skills, including spinal and joint manipulation.
techniques. Eventually, he launched his own practice. It's called Be Not Afraid Physical Therapy. He launched it to better serve his clients, where he became fully certified in new therapy called QNRT and applied kinesiology, which you're going to hear a lot about in this episode. And in this episode, we do talk about God and faith.
And if you don't believe in God, you're totally welcome here. Anyone who's been listening to this podcast for a while knows that We're not a strictly religious podcast. And so wherever you're at, I'm glad you're here. If you don't believe in God, I just challenge you to listen with an open mind. Even if you were to take out the God parts, you're still going to benefit from this episode.
And with that, here's my conversation with Dr. Christopher Genn.
Dr. Genn, so good to have you on the show. Thanks for being here. so much for having me. I'm very excited. I'm super impressed with you. I mean, we've known each other for a while and just looking through all the work you've done. I'm again, very impressed and how you've really taken your own pain and transformed it into something to help other people.
And I was thinking about this before the show, a lot of times people who get in your line of work, they often do it for practical reasons because maybe they were really good. at it, or they have a passion for it, or it's just a way to pay the bills. But, and while some of that might be true for you, there's a much deeper reason.
You didn't learn about suffering. You didn't learn about pain and healing in a book. You've really lived it. And so I'd love to know your story. Sure. I mean, my story really started at a very young age, uh, before my memory started. And. In my first year of life, even, so, uh, I've been told that every month or so I'd have at least three or four days worth where I'd have 105 plus degree fevers and sweats and everything that goes along with fevers and, uh, the doctors and everybody that couldn't explain it and it was untreated and went as such for at least a year, a little bit more than a year, I think, and, uh, that subsided and Uh, then after that, uh, around five, uh, I started having real severe headaches and they were so bad.
I, they were accompanied by vomiting, profuse vomiting for, uh, days sometimes. And, uh, they'd come and go and they gradually got worse and we tried to have them evaluated and, um, my mom's a nurse and so she kept kind of pursuing it. The doctors at that time said, you know, they're just childhood migraines.
Take some, take some Tylenol and, you know, go rest. So, as it continued, uh, for months and months, and, uh, I'd be vomiting in the office, in the waiting room in the office and everywhere, uh, with a pounding headache. And they finally put me in for an MRI. And when they did that, they found a huge cyst the size of a plum in my five year old brain.
And, uh, that was causing many of those, those symptoms. So Uh, I was put into emergency surgery, but, uh, not quite emergency because they had to calm down the inflammation because it was so high. So, uh, after a couple of days, they put me into surgery and I ended up having five surgeries before the nervous surgeon was able to regulate the pressure within my head.
And, uh, I was blessed. Um, I was spared from having any seizure disorder at that time, which the neurosurgeon was very surprised. But through that suffering, uh, I really learned the, the gift. I was taught the gift actually by my parents. Um, and I learned it very much hand up firsthand to offer up the suffering, to offer it up for other people, to offer it up for people I loved and to really give it over to God at that time.
Cause I was not in control of it. I couldn't do anything about it myself. You know, there's nothing I could do to control the pain and the suffering. So, uh, I learned that there was a way out in a way, a way to make the pain meaningful to me. And that was through offering it up. And, uh, when I learned that, it really did help.
Um, and I have many, many blessings, many stories. Where I was very much accompanied, um, by Mary. At that time I, I learned that Mary was, you know, the mother of God in, in our Catholic faith. And as I learned that, uh, she was somebody I turned to. And she, she was always there for me. Could always turn as a as somebody who comforted me as a young child.
Um, and so that was, that was really the, the, the big suffering and it continued over the years, even after the surgeries. Every time I'd play sports, do something that I absolutely loved, I would be up the majority of that night with splitting headaches and vomiting. Even after the surgeries, but, uh, but I never stopped doing what I loved, but I would have to suffer afterwards.
And, uh, you know, they eventually did subside. Probably, I don't remember exactly the time frame, but by the time I was probably nine or ten, they more or less subsided. Anyway, jumpstart forward a bunch of years, you know, um, at the end of grad school. And, uh, we had our, I was married, end of grad school, we had our first child, Gianna.
And, uh, I started experiencing, I was training for a marathon, I was in great shape, etc. And, I started getting those same headaches. I hadn't had that intense of a headache since I remember when I was like, you know, a young child and I said, man, anyway, I kept pushing it off. They're just allergies, you know, it was allergy season.
I had allergies before and, uh, I went to the doc and he said, well, you could treat it as allergies if you want to see how it goes. Anyway, it only got worse. It didn't help at all. So I'm out at my in laws and they see a chiropractor. So I. I was never raised with like natural medicine, but my, my wife, she was very much raised that way.
So I was out and my in laws visiting for Easter, I believe it was, and I was getting my headaches. I couldn't do anything about it. Nothing touched them. And I was vomiting all night that night. I said, and my in laws were like, you got to go see. Uh, you know, Dr. Kathy, who they had seen and they said she'll be able to help at least figure out what's going on.
I was like, okay, you know, I'll take anything. So she's a chiropractor who does muscle testing. And that was my first introduction. So, uh, she was, she took me in as a friend of theirs. So she didn't even do like a full evaluation. She just took me in and said, let me just see what's going on. And she did her evaluation and she knew nothing about, about my history.
And she said, uh, is there a reason that your cerebral spinal fluid, uh, which by the way, my cyst when I was a kid was filled with cerebral spinal fluid. That's the type of cyst it was. And she said, your levels are off the charts. There's something wrong, and I was like, How did you just figure that out?
He's like, you know nothing about me. Yeah, wow. And she just did muscle testing, and I was like, Yeah, there's a reason. You know, I have a, I have a shunt, and it drains the cyst. You need to get that checked out. So I was like, all right, I need to, you know, I went back to my neurosurgeon, and, uh, Sure enough, um, the tubing had corroded, and it was no longer functioning.
So I had a flare up, so. At that point, I had never experienced that. I was at the end of grad school, as I said, physical therapy. I was led to physical therapy, and I loved what I was doing. And then this stopped, kind of stopped me in my tracks and said, Whatever she just did, I have no idea what she just did.
Whatever she just did was meaningful because, like, that gets to more than just, Oh, these are your symptoms, let's cover it up. It was like, no, she could tell what was the most important thing. By just muscle testing and evaluating my entire system as a whole and so that was a start and I said at that point I was I graduated and then I said, you know, I'm gonna hand this over to God I'm I'm gonna say, you know lead me to learn something like that that I can really help people and Do it in your time and I kept looking for opportunities to learn Any type of muscle testing.
And, uh, And all the doors kept closing for me. And I was like, alright, I'll put it on the back burner for now. And I kept looking into it again. And, nope, not this time. So Looking back, I have many ideas as to why I didn't learn it quite right away. I had, I had some many, many things to learn about prior to that, but, but eventually a couple of years ago, uh, it was the right time.
And I launched pretty much as my, as my wife told everybody, pretty much back into like graduate school almost. And I launched full steam ahead into a hundred hour course in applied kinesiology. And. That's really what allowed me to see what she did and even further than that allowed me to realize the impact of what I went through back then and how it's actually interconnected with what my family was going through at the time and the pain and suffering that was there and how that had impacted my suffering.
Uh, on a physical level and, and ways that, for instance, when I was at one of the seminars, again, these guys don't know anything about us or whatever, you know, and we're testing each other. And, uh, you know, he isolates a spot here. Um, on my head where the cyst, where the, where the cyst happened to be, um, he didn't know that, but he said, you know, um, and he narrowed in some, some, uh, some emotions, some things that, you know, were, were affecting that region.
And he said, you need to address what's going on there. And I was like, you know, in my head, like all these thoughts, I'm like, what, whoa, like, are you kidding me? Like, and I told him, I was like. I have a, I have a VP shunt in my head that drains a cyst that I've been told is pretty much where you're pointing and he's like, that's not surprising and he had been doing this kind of work for years and I was like, that's not surprising.
I was like, yeah, it is. Are you kidding? I mean, that brings a whole new light to like everything I've ever experienced, like And he's, and, uh, and that was the opening of my door personally, uh, to actually experience what I had been starting to learn and, uh, have now been graced to continue to experience personally the healing, uh, of that type of work because the physical stress that I was under was a, uh, just a presentation.
Of what I was kind of experiencing around me at the time and my body trapped in and, uh, and has affected me in many, many ways since then, uh, that I've come to learn through some of the work that I've experienced. Incredible. Thank you for sharing so vulnerably and I, man, I want to go deeper into a couple of things.
Uh, one point I just wanted to make is it's beautiful how your pain didn't crush you, but you allowed it to transform you. Um, sadly, you know, you could look around the world today and see people where their pain crushes them. It truly does hold them down. Um, but it's beautiful how you didn't let that happen.
And you, by God's grace, as you'd say, we're able to transform that. And then now even use that as a way to help other people because you understand pain on a deep level. You know, again, some people understand it kind of intellectually, but they've never suffered much. You've suffered a lot, which I think would totally change if, you know, a patient comes You're helping them through some problem they're facing, whether it's physical or emotional.
You get that on a deep level, so that's really beautiful. I also admire the balance you had. And I know when you were younger, this is maybe more of your parents kind of instilling it in you, but how you had somewhat of an acceptance of where you were. It's like, okay, I'm going through all this pain, like I'm throwing up.
I'm, you know, have these horrible headaches, like all this stuff that you were dealing with. Um, but at the same time you were striving to find a solution. And I think that that that's a tricky balance because I think on one end we can just give into resignation thinking, well, my life is just always going to be this way.
All I can do, and I know we're going to get into this, but all I could do is really manage it. Um, or, you know, kind of even just having this ultra focus on finding some sort of utopia. A solution that will make, you know, life perfect, neither of those are healthy, obviously. And so it's cool to see kind of how you had the balance between the two.
But what I want to focus on and feel free to comment on any of that is just the pain in your family. Um, that, uh, stood out to me, especially given our audience who comes from broken families. So I'm just curious, like, what was that that impacted you not only emotionally, but also physically whatever was going on in your family?
First of all, I want to touch on the acceptance. You know, because, uh, I mean, anybody knows that if you stub your toe, you know, and if you're in the middle of something really important, you can put that aside and focus on what's really important in front of you. If you're alone and you're doing something, you stub your toe.
That's like the end of the world. You're like, oh my gosh, that hurts so bad. But if you're like, you know, in an interview for instance, and you stub your toe on something, you can kind of, you know, push down your reaction a little bit and accept the fact that, you know what, it hurts, but I'm okay. And, uh, you know, that's, that's a hard place to be except pain and except suffering and realize that that's actually not the end of the story.
It's actually the launching pad, right? Pain and suffering in our life allows us to grow. Anybody who exercises, right? When you exercise, what do you have to do? You have to stress the muscle. You have to strain the body. You have to push. Past the limit that you think you can handle, but what do you get out of that?
You get the awareness that you can actually do more than you thought you could an hour ago. You get the, you get the increased growth of muscle. You get the increased ability of your body to do more, to go further, and to experience greater heights of enjoyment. But if you just think, I'm stuck here and I can't endure any more suffering.
Then there's no more growth. And so yes, your point of accepting that pain and suffering, whatever it is, whether or not it's a physical pain of suffering or whether or not it's purely emotional and you're just having total anxiety or deep depression. Um, you know, accepting the fact of where you are is a huge first step.
Uh, and, and that always. And I had a quick scenario. I had a quick, I had a gentleman in, and uh, first time working with him. And he, he, we evaluate what's going on, etc, etc. And I, and I ask him, and I go, You know what was going on between three and five years old? And he goes, I don't have much memory at all of my childhood, but uh, And then he thinks, no.
He comes out, he's like, Oh, but my, you know, my dad was an alcoholic and, and he died when I was six, but you know, he was a good father. And through my testing, I'm like, yeah, but your system doesn't believe he was a good father. So I go, so, so could you just say that again for me? And he goes, my dad was a good father and I muscle test him, which is testing whether or not that statement is congruent with his entire being because our system responds to statements like that.
And so consciously, he's told himself, because it's important for us to have a good father, he told himself that my dad was a good father. He doesn't have many memories of it, but he was an alcoholic and there was tension there. So I said, say that again, and his arm goes weak, he goes, wait a second, does that mean That my subconscious, my entire being doesn't actually agree with that statement.
I said, that's exactly what that means. And that was the root of it. Um, that he didn't accept the fact that, oh, my father actually was not a good father. And if we don't accept what reality is, we can't then address it. We can't allow healing if we don't actually look at it and see what, for what it is. So I didn't know what was going on in my family back then.
I had no idea. I had no conscious awareness at all, really. Uh, looking back, I mean I thought I had a great family life. I thought it was peachy, um, sort of speak. But, uh, but after having worked with my parents and, and, and the work that I do as well, and work, having work done on myself, I realized so many things are linked back to that time frame and linked back to difficulties within my parents marriage, infidelities linked in my parents marriage.
Uh, and generational sins and difficulties and patterns of impurities and infidelities within marriages in my parents, my father's line, and how that actually has impacted my genetics, you know, things that get passed down genetically, right? It's they actually can be patterns of sin or patterns of bad decisions, and they can get passed on and they get trapped in our tissues.
And so, you know, looking back, you know, there, there were those patterns in my, in my parents, um, relationship at the time. And I was kind of, I was kind of like the, uh, the scapegoat, so to speak. Or I had to be the person to, to regulate. And when stuff was going on and I couldn't regulate I had severe headaches, severe symptoms, or later on I had, you know, I had the high fevers early on in my first year of life, you know, these things were probably related or actually definitely were related to some of the things that were going on in my parents, uh, marriage in their, in their experience.
And so, you know, learning that now it links a whole lot together for me. Um, and it allows me to, to, to actually address things that I wasn't fully even conscious of because again, I didn't have memories at one years old. I don't even have members at three, four years old when I started the other symptoms.
So you know, families that are broken, there's many more repercussions. And so often we don't allow ourselves. To accept them or allow ourselves to say, you know what, my family situation is not good. And as a five year old, I can't really do anything about that. And it's not my role. You know, I took on, and I very much even consciously took on, from a young age, the responsibility to kind of manage the family.
to balance the family. And I was always extremely aware of, um, my mom's mood, or my mom's situation, or I always had to kind of watch out there, or, um, even amongst my siblings, I would try to kind of be the peacemaker. Um, or I was never really a part of the discord. I felt like it was my role to accept it, and then kind of My body couldn't take it anymore and it would erupt.
So that's a little bit about, you know, makes so much sense. No, it's so fascinating. And gosh, so many lessons I'm learning from you. A couple of things I wanted to mention one, just this fact that we lie to ourselves, like that patient that you had fascinating, right? And I'm just thinking in my own life, man, how often have I just lied to myself or what's coming out of my mouth just isn't, doesn't align with reality.
It doesn't reflect reality. It's just not actually true. That's one thing. Um, the other thing too, is just. Please. Yeah. And the other thing I was just going to mention is this whole field of epigenetics, just to make sure everyone, because I think sometimes what people, when they hear some of the things we're talking about, they may think that, well, that's kind of like phony.
It's not real science. It's like, no, no, this is real science. Like this whole field of epigenetics, from my understanding of it, I'm not, you know, like you clinical, medical, medical, Signs trained, but my understanding of it is it's looking at the ways our genes express themselves Based on our environment and an example that was kind of given to me is you might in your genetics You might have a predisposition to be an alcoholic but if your environment never kind of triggers that in you you could go through your life and not struggle with alcoholism or you can Be in a really difficult situation and then start becoming an alcoholic in order to cope with the pain in your life Exactly so Right, so in this field of epigenetics, from what I understand, it's like, it's, we're still discovering so much right now, and so, feel free to speak to any of that, but yeah, lying to ourselves, it's super real, I didn't realize it until you just said it.
Think about a lie detection test, right? Everybody has a basic understanding, generally, of a lie detection test, you know, you're hooked up and, and you, They look on a graph and see whether or not there's a physiological change when somebody's telling the truth or when somebody's telling a lie. And they start with something basic, which is actually how I start explaining it with people too.
My name is Chris, and that's a truth. And my subconscious, my entire being, should respond to that as a truth. And so, if I said, my name is Josh, my name's clearly not Josh, and so that would be a lie for me. And not only is it a lie, it actually has a physiological effect on me, so it changes my heart rate and you can see that it changes my ability of my nervous system to function.
And so that's how the muscle test then works. It inhibits the nervous system to respond normally, and which is why lying is not good for us. But physiologically, it brings us down. And, you know, you said you stated that fact of the epigenetics so perfectly because Some, some people argue whether or not, you know, these things are real and things, but it's the expression of, you, you may have a predisposition to, uh, cancer or predisposition to different types of cancer or predisposition to any number of things, um, including then the emotional side of things, depression that runs in families, people know things like this runs in family, you have a predisposition to it, but if you live a healthy lifestyle, have a of well functioning, stable environment, and, uh, you're not triggered, you may never fall into that, but you are more readily triggered, um, by certain things, and then It's when those thing gets triggered a time and time and time again that then it creates real issues and you see the body and the person breaking down because it can't because the same triggers are there people are rejected and then so and so a boyfriend rejects them later in life and then you know and then you end up having somebody who just gets rejected a time and time again the boyfriend keeps cheating on them you have a different boyfriend he cheats on you have a different boyfriend he cheats you Wow, and then you get married and then that guy leaves and cheats on you again and people are like, why is this always happening to me?
And part of it is, is actually the suffering that they almost bring it on because they've never addressed the fact that they're okay having a faithful partner because their system is patterned to respond to, I actually want rejection. And that's like, when people come to the realization that their entire being, except for their conscious brain, is asking for rejection, it's like, so backwards.
But our nervous system can get so screwed up, because it's been hurt so badly, that it can be patterned to want the opposite of what our conscious brain thinks. We want We want to get rid of that stuff, the total rejection, and we want somebody who's going to be faithful. And the work that I do with the QNRT, the Quantum Neurological Reset Therapy, is doing exactly that.
It's saying, listen, consciously, you are seeking after a faithful relationship. But subconsciously, your system is saying, nope, I'm not letting go of that rejection. I'm not accepting that rejection that I had when my father left me or left our family. I'm not accepting that. I'm not letting go of it. I'm not forgiving it.
And I no longer, and I'm not even saying I'm okay moving on or moving forward. And when your subconscious is trapped there, you want to be ready to say, no, consciously I do want to let go of that. I do want to forgive that. I'm, I'm actually at that point where I'm ready to do that and as long as we have that conscious acceptance of that, then we can do the work that I do and we can say, okay, let's do the training of the brain in a couple minutes and let's help to repattern that part of the system that says, okay, I'm going to let go of that.
I'm going to forgive him and I'm going to be okay with having a faithful partner. Okay. And it's so powerful, the nervous system. If somebody is not consciously ready to forgive that person, and I do the reset, helping them to actually be okay with forgiving them, but they're not actually willing to forgive, they could be sick for days or weeks because it creates such a non congruency.
Their will, their desire is not there. Which is why I always have to say, as soon as we come up with what's bothering the body, are you willing to say, I forgive my father for leaving us? Are you willing? If they're not, we wait. And you have to come to the time where, and we can do other things to assist.
But if they're not ready, the system is so powerful and has so much So much there that it'll create real discord and they can be, they can be, you can get suffer tremendously after that. So it's testament to the power of our nervous system. Wow. So fascinating. What I hear you talking about, we've talked about a little bit on the show is like repetition, compulsion, how we end up repeating behavior that harmed us.
Um, in our own lives, you know, and you gave the example of infidelity, rejection. Another example, kind of going back to alcoholism is if you grew up with an alcoholic father, you know, you swear, I will never be like that and don't want that in my life. And then years later in your life, you end up. becoming alcoholic and like we talked about, there's obviously the biological component, the predisposition, but there's so much more going on there.
And, uh, so it's, it's really, really fascinating. And one of the interesting statistics that have all has always blown my mind is how people who come from broken, especially divorced families, we're less likely to get married. We're more likely to get divorced. Um, I've even seen some data, I don't have a lot on this, but I've seen some data that says if you were.
You know, in a family where mom or dad cheated on the other, you're more likely to have an affair yourself, um, which obviously is so scary for people who want, you know, a beautiful, faithful marriage. And so it's um, it's just fascinating to see that these things that we go through in our lives are programmed into us, even perhaps down to our DNA.
And unless we kind of course correct, unless we reprogram, which I believe is totally possible, uh, we'll end up going down those similar paths that we truly fear that we're doomed to go down. Even though we don't want that. So I hear you talking about all these things that are super relevant to, to, um, to people like us, right?
And that's the ACE study. It's a very, you know, well known, you can look it up, study on adverse childhood events and what that actually does to our health. Yes, our patterns like you just mentioned, but also just our health. People who experience one or more than one, obviously as the number increases with the number of adverse childhood experiences, the rate at which their health declines is more intense the more you experience adverse events.
Because There are more trauma that our body cannot normalize from. And so that study shows, yeah, that they'll have more Again, remember exactly the, the diseases or illnesses that it states, but, um, they'll have more, uh, you know, sleep disturbances and some common one and asthma and, uh, chronic illnesses and headaches and, you know, migraines and, and various different things.
Um, the, the percentage will be higher in the people who have broken families or any type of adverse childhood experience. Um, so yeah, it increases our rate of patterning. Um, To speak to that too for, for my personal, right? Yeah. I'm getting married and all I want is a, is a, I want to be a faithful, you know, uh, husband and, and I don't want to, uh, you know, do any harm to, to my wife or to my, to my kids or repeat any patterns of, and, uh.
And of course, I didn't even know at that point when I'm getting married really of, of some of the, um, some of the infidelities and different things in my, my family history. But, uh, you know, I had a real struggle personally, uh, to be open and honest with everybody, you know, with pornography for years. And, uh, and it was a real hard struggle and battle.
Um, and it really affected all parts of my life. And. When I get, you know, when I'm getting married, I'm like, you know, I'm, I had been, you know, clean for a while. And I'm like, I'm never doing this again. I'm so done. And I'm over that. Right. And I'm thinking, you know, it's all smooth sailing and, you know, and, uh, sure enough, it creeps back into my marriage and, uh, it creates real, you know, I can see the immediate effects on particularly my wife.
Um, and, uh, You know, the patterns and actually a perfect example of how our body traps things. So this was actually just last night, uh, my wife, we're sitting at the dinner table. She's, uh, doing totally fine. Uh, and then all of a sudden she's like, I have this severe pain in my neck and it's like killing me.
And it stayed there for, uh, you know, a couple of hours and she's like, I can't do anything right now. So I evaluated her quickly. I said, you know what, uh, you need to do a, there's a technique Callahan, a psychologist, uh, came up with a technique of helping using tapping techniques to activate different parts of the system to clear traumatic events and clear trauma from the body.
And it's a wonderful technique anyway. I said, you know what, you need to do a trauma release from that time. Uh, when. I, that you found out and we talked about and, uh, it came to the, came to light that I was struggling with pornography again in our marriage. And she goes, wow, that's, that's crazy. And she goes ahead and we do the technique, which takes all of a few minutes.
And, uh,
she's like, I mean, I've experienced this a number of times, but that's crazy. It's entirely gone. And it was 100 percent I was gone for a few hours and she was like, it's totally gone. And she knows how much sense that makes, but she goes, wow, because we've been working through the repercussions of, and that's an unfaithfulness on my part to our marriage.
And I learned that that was. You know, in my, in my past, my, my grandfather and other issues going back and, um, and man, yeah. And, and there was no part of me that wanted to do any of that, uh, but it was a weakness and, uh, sure enough, it showed up again. And you know, I always want to be like. You know, I got this.
I can do this. It's no big deal. Uh, you know, I won't do it again. As I said before, say, mm, yeah, we can do that for only so much period of time before somehow we break down, uh, whether or not it's emotionally, whether or not it's physically, um, or we get really sick. Um, and so, uh, so yeah, that, that was just a powerful example of.
Of how really hurtful things that we go through can, can present with physical symptoms and then They can actually go away almost instantaneously. And I see that every day in my practice, which is pretty wild. That is so wild. Well, man, thank you so much for sharing so vulnerably about, you know, those past juggles and wow, like I'm blown away and So fascinated by your practice and how you're helping people.
And I have a million and one questions, but, um, it's clear, you know, you anticipate some of the questions so well, just this connection between our bodies and our emotions. Like there's clearly the connection there when, you know, we go through trauma in life that doesn't have a physical component in the immediate, but it certainly affects our bodies.
And you gave numerous examples there, which is, is amazing. Um, You've already spoken to this, but I want to give you a chance to mention it further, just if, you know, outside of your own story, how you've seen people who come from broken families, you know, struggle with physical, even pain or physical symptoms.
Again, you've spoken to this already, you mentioned the ACE research as well, but I'm just curious if you've seen anything in your own practice of what drove me. Even further to, uh, and I think that's why I needed to wait to, I needed to be a physical therapist who honed his skills with his hands and honed his techniques with how to address physical side of symptoms.
And I worked extremely hard on that. Um, and I was gifted. I worked under somebody who was really skilled with his hands for a good number of years, and I learned a ton and through that work. Because, not to boast, but I, I was told, and, and I saw good results. So I knew that I had some skill there, but there were plenty of people I couldn't make any change with whatsoever.
And they would come in every week with the same exact pain. Might get better for a couple of hours, maybe a few days eventually, but they're racked with it at time and time again. And I said, You know, I went into physical therapy to help people. I love the human body. I love learning about it. And I love it even more now that I'm learning even deeper.
The more I learn, the more I love it. It's amazing. And when I started seeing these people, I'm like And I take my work as ministry. As, you know, God sends me my clients. for me to assist in their life. And I had these people that would come time and time, I couldn't do anything to help them. And I said, there's got to be more.
And I started my practice. And then I finally started learning applied kinesiology. And I started having people with the techniques that I was learning refer to me because they would come in and they would say, I'd say, alright, you know, tell me a little bit about your story, what's going on. And I said, well, I don't really have anything physically wrong with me that I know of, really, but I have a lot of trauma in my past, and I, I just can't really function.
I can't get a job, I, I, I just can't function. And I'm like, I can realize I'm a physical therapist, right? And I'm like, Lord, I guess, I guess maybe they missed the physical component of the therapist. Well, you're obviously referred to by so and so because I helped them with similar things. I was like, all right, well, let's go.
And, and, and I learned through those people coming to me that yes, doing work through the physical, you can actually help. And, uh, so to back up just a little bit before I really started getting into that, there was, um, there was this one girl, uh, that stands out in my mind very much. And, uh, she came in, I did not work with her initially.
I didn't do the initial evaluation. One of my coworkers did. And, uh, I saw her, I think the second or third time and, uh, she would have. She wouldn't be able to walk. She could barely stand on her own two legs. She went from a very very active, functioning girl, to, I can't move. She would, uh, you know, lie down on the table, and you would muscle test the legs and stuff, and, you know, like, you have strength.
You know, you have strength. You go up and stand, and she'd like collapse. And you'd have to support her. And some days, uh, you'd have to have two people holding her, and she'd be trembling. Her legs would total tremble. And, uh, it was just like heartbreak. And it could, uh, in that setting where I was, I really couldn't, I really couldn't do that much.
Well. Uh, there was one evening where I was all alone with, with that, uh, in the, in the clinic. So it was quieter. So she could kind of focus. And uh, I had just started learning some of the applied kinesiology stuff and I was doing my business part time. And so I was there and uh, I said, you know, do you mind if we do some, some muscle testing?
And she was like, yeah, whatever, whatever works, you know, that's, and uh, yeah, anyway, I came up with a few things and I said. I said, you know, what's going, what's going on at home, you know, you know, what's, what's, what's bothering you so much at home, what's, what's the struggle there, uh, and she started, she, you know, started really breaking down and her parents were in the middle of a divorce and it came out of nowhere, I guess.
And uh, And they were in the middle of the hardship of a divorce. And I was like, oh. It's like my heart just, you know, totally went out to her. Um, and at that time, there was really nothing at that time that I knew to be able to do to actually help her in that case. I just knew like, man, you know, we can do X, Y, Z, any number of things, and I did everything we could.
Some improvement. Um, and then she'd come back in again, totally just, and then she started getting a little bit better and, uh, and he started seeing the direct connection with her environmental stability that she would report and how she could actually use her legs again. And then she might come in with a huge flare and there was again, you know, some kind of discord there.
So it was, and it was incredible. My first, probably my first. Extreme case that was like night and day between what was going on fully functioning, totally fine, and then something hit her. Bam. Can't use my legs. It was a really sad case, but she did eventually kind of get through it. Um, and you know, you know, at the end of the day, did she get through it for now?
Yeah, but chances are, uh, she still has a lot of that hurt in there. Uh, she's learned how to navigate it, which is an important survival tactic. Um, deep, true healing is what we, what we probably want more because it allows us actually freedom from that and, and to be free from the bondage of, of that, of that hurt, that wound, uh, and allow that to, to, to heal.
So that was one, that was one really big thing for me. And then I wrote down another one. What was the other one? Oh yeah, so early on too, I was like, I had this client who, like every October, so three years in a row, she would come in from October to like the end of November, come in for like six weeks treatments.
And by the third year, it was the same exact thing. And I was looking, looking at her chart, I'm like, it's like the same time of year. So this was before I got into any of this. This was just, I was, you know, a regular physical therapist. I turned and looked at her and I was like, Did anything happen this time of year a couple years ago?
You know, I started seeing you three years ago and you came last year for the same thing about the same time and you're coming back this year. You know, just wondering, did anything happen? Because you could have seasonal triggers. You know, in the autumn time of year, the leaves change, everything changes in the air.
That was her trigger. And again, she broke down at that time and said, yeah, she got her husband left her. And I was like, wow. And that was three years prior to me even getting into any of this and I was like, and you know, she let it out. And the thing about that was that the therapy manual therapy technique that I was doing with her actually helped her to release some of that.
She wept, she cried, she spoke it out. And I was doing just normal manual therapy, uh, release of certain nerves and muscles and. cranial bones and different things I was doing. Uh, and she really processed. Anyway, I was there at that clinic for three years after that. And I didn't see her again. So, um, it was just neat to see that too.
It's like, yeah.
Unbelievable. Like I think some people listening right now are maybe having a hard time believing, honestly, believing this. And it's . You can't actually fully, and I believe you believe it, and, and I a hundred percent, I'm like really? Um, understanding of people who are like, dude, you're nuts. I, that's crazy.
Talk. And I'm totally understanding that because it is, it sounds nuts until you experience it. And, you know, as soon as somebody experiences it and says, My pain is entirely gone after you just did that and you didn't touch my arm. It's not until that time that they come back and they say, You know what, I haven't thought about what happened, what came up and um There was actually a whole lot more to that time frame that I didn't even realize that that day I didn't allow myself to get to, but there's actually a whole lot more.
And I was like, great, you don't even need to tell me, but that's great. You know, but, and, and, and not only that, now that I am in it, you know, I see, uh, One of the other women that I had treated for multiple years and, uh, another case that I was just, I felt totally Useless almost. I could be, you know, she loved me as a therapist.
She said, you're amazing. And in the back of my head I'm like, I, I am so thankful that you think I'm doing you such good and I'm here for you. But I know I could, somebody or something or some other thing could do you so much better. Because, uh, and, uh, she was just stuck in a pattern and she had a lot of hurt and IBS, colon issues, and all of these digestive things, they're so commonly linked.
to indigestible situations. We talk about stuff like, oh yeah, our digestion's off. Um, but like if you have a real bad disease in the digestive tract, it's normally linked to some type of indigestible something that happened in your life. You can't digest a particular event or a whole situation in your life.
I can't comprehend that. That's just too bad for me to even put a. Um, and anyway, so yeah, there's, there's examples just left and right that, that just are incredible. Yeah, no, we need to tell you the camera, I think it's fascinating. It's so good. And my goodness. And I think one resource I would recommend for people who want to learn more about a lot of this, I know maybe not specifically your field, but just overall how trauma affects our bodies and emotional wounds is the body keeps the score by Bessel van der Kolk.
Like that will kind of give you the scientific proof, a much deeper explanation than we can do. Expand your thought process of how these things actually affect us. I think everyone listening, you know, unless your life has been like pain free, which there's very few people like that, uh, can probably point to something in our life that resonates with one of the stories that you told, you know, just like physical ailments or pain that connects to some sort of emotional trauma or, yeah, and in a lot of cases we haven't been freed from that, unfortunately.
And I, I wanted to talk to you a bit about just this whole, um, tension when it comes to healing. So on one end. There's maybe this unrealistic goal that some of us have that we want, like, our life to be this utopia, to be this perfection, to have all the pain ridden from us and just be able to function perfectly.
Like, obviously that's not realistic, but we somewhat have a desire for that, right? But on the other end, there's plenty, probably more people who just give in to resignation. Just think like, well, my life is always going to be this way, like we said before. And all I can really do is just survive. All I can really do is just get by.
I'm curious, um, what's like that realistic goal or expectation between those two extremes? Like, how can we, you know, on one hand not despair and give in to like, well, this is hopeless, but on the other hand not, maybe hope that all of our problems in life and our pain will be, um, resolved, though there is a possibility, I firmly believe that there is a possibility that a lot of it can be.
So I'm just curious, like, what's the right goal, expectation? It can be a fine line in a way or, and it's very personal too, um, depending on, you know, what you're suffering with, um, you know, some chronic diseases and stuff. Yes, you're not, you might not get back to like 100 percent where you have a super strong immune system, let's say, or you have a super robust um, uh, system that helps keep you from anxiety or you have a super robust system that, that you're never depressed ever again.
Um, yeah, there is a expectation or a realization that, you know, life is not without any hardship. And as I briefly mentioned before, I think a lot of our society at this point, it's so geared towards comfort, towards convenience, towards no pain, that we actually, we tell ourselves and we begin to believe that That's actually possible and I think some of us are starting to realize that if everything is entirely convenient and 100 percent done for us, we become like, you know, dwindling, you know, Can't barely function and do anything for ourselves anymore.
We don't know how to do anything because everything's done for us. Um so II think it's important in the healing process to remember that it takes work. It's actually a never ending process of of living right. So, living is experiencing. We're we're the center of our beings is our heart Right. Our heart is is the center of it all.
We're we're made for love Right. We're we're made for relationship We're made for connection We're made for unity And you know as a as a catholic too, you know, we're made to unite back to our heavenly creator Who created us out of love? and Uh, which is also why when we experience hurt from a loved one or from a relationship where there should be love, those hurts hurt a whole lot deeper because they hit us at our core.
Yeah, our heart suffers greatly, not by those people who we don't really care about or don't care much about us. Those don't really hurt us all that much. We can just kind of shrug 'em off and it's not really a big deal actually. But when those hurts come from the ones that we've loved or should love us, our parents, or our loved ones of any other nature, those are deep wounds.
I also deeply believe, because of the way I see people come in and out of my practice, those who know that we cannot really rely on man, because we'll always be disappointed. We are all Imperfect human beings And if we seek for full connection and full satisfaction out of somebody else any other human One it's not fair to that other human Because they can't possibly provide everything that you need And two it's not fair to yourself because you'll always be disappointed So there's You A whole, a spot, a center of our heart that really only somebody outside of our fallen human being can fill something, somebody greater than us, who, who, at the end of the day, you know, loves us into being to experience.
Yes, there's hardships, but to experience the growth that can come from that. Um, so there's that expectation of. It will never be perfect. If we're thinking that, oh, it'll be everything will be totally fine. I'll get through this Point in my life and then boom, you know, it'll be great. Yes. That's an unrealistic expectation there will always be hardships, but What we want to be able to do is to be able to tolerate the hardships to be able to respond to the hardships not necessarily with so much anger and reactionary Ness But maybe with, okay, I really don't like the fact that, you know, that for whatever reason my, um, sibling, uh, is going behind my back and talking terrible things about me.
No, I don't like that. But I don't need to respond like what I used to respond to. I can take that suffering and I can actually be okay with it. Not just tell myself I'm okay with it. My entire body can be like, okay. I'm okay that they're talking bad about me. I'm okay that other people don't think I'm great.
I'm okay with people thinking that I'm really not a good guy. It's like, but if you're doing the best you can, you're doing the best you can. So there's like that expectation of, yes, it takes hard work, but what you're doing is you can change your reaction to what's in front of you. There is a possibility, there is an openness to changing your reaction, which then changes your life.
It's first an outlook, an acceptance of where you're at, and then having a realistic outlook, saying, Okay, and honestly, if you have a realistic outlook, the level of improvement is actually normally even greater than what your realistic outlook is. If you're open to that healing, and I think that's the next step is, is openness and accepting reality, then being willing to do something about it and to change your situation.
Um, and then to be open to the healing, whatever that might mean for you. So good. Yeah. And I love the whole idea of, you know, post traumatic growth. you know, being stuck in the past and always being like handicapped in a sense. And even if, you know, let's say physical ailments can't be perfectly cured, there is a way to kind of move through them and live with them.
That is truly healing where you can become a more whole functional person, even if the, you know, that particular, uh, ailment, illness, trauma, whatever, isn't totally gone. Or maybe a better way to say it is you still have the scars from it because we can't remove the scars. We can't remove, you know, fully.
Maybe all the negative effects, but you can grow some mastery around it. You can heal the root cause to where it's not really affecting you as much anymore. And I've seen that in my life and the lives of other people who've, you know, worked with people like you've been through trauma therapy, you know, maybe one minute they're depressed, they're cutting, they're like suicidal.
And then they work on healing those root. Wounds next minute. They're, they're good. And that, you know, they're not tempted to cut. They're not tempted to suicide. They're not constantly depressed. Like, yes, maybe there's some seasonal component of depression that they have to kind of learn to manage. But overall, they're in like a much healthier spot.
And so I think, you know, like you're saying, the goal is to be healthier, more whole, more functional, not to be like living in this, like we said, utopia where nothing can go wrong. And, you know, our life is so comfortable that There's no pain. It's like that. That's a joke. Like we can't have that exactly.
And one book that I haven't read yet, maybe you have, and I've heard a lot of people rave about is the whole comfort crisis book. So comfort crisis, just talking about how, yeah, it's apparently it's a great book. Just saying how, you know, our, the comforts in our lives have honestly ruined us as a culture in many ways.
Like we don't know how to do hard things anymore. And, uh, we really need to get away from that. And so there's, yeah, a lot going on there. Um, definitely a lot to dissect and I'm sure, um, we could have, man, a whole another conversation about a lot of this. I want to give you a chance to respond, but I do also want to hear about your therapy, about, um, QNRT and how that's helped people.
Yeah. Where do, where do I even start? So yeah, quantum neurological reset therapy was an answer to prayer for me. Uh, as I briefly mentioned before, I had people more than. More than a few people coming to me for, I have had this trauma and it's having this effect on me and could you help? Uh, and I started getting more that I said, God, if you want me to work with these people, um, I believe there's more that I could possibly do for them.
And if that's the case, could you help me learn it or help show me where I can learn this? So I was at a seminar, uh, and I heard QNRT as an acronym, and he only mentioned it briefly, and when the lecturer mentioned it, I felt like a lightning bolt hit me, and I was like, oh, that's what I'm studying next!
And I had no idea what it was. So I wrote it down in my notebook and I was like, That's what I'm studying next. My wife loves to tell people that. Yeah, he called me at lunch and was like, Hey honey! She's like, how's your seminar? I was like, it's great. I was like, yeah, but I know what I'm studying next. I'm so excited.
She goes, uh, that's awesome. How's the course? And I was, it's great. But this anyway, she's like, what is it? And I said, it's Q and R T. She goes, what's that? I was like, I don't know. What's it stand for? I don't know, but I know it's going to be great. She said, you're crazy. Anyway, I went home and we looked it up together.
I didn't look it up until I got home. Uh, and it was an answer to prayer because it addresses adverse Events that we go through and how it impacts our nervous system directly and how those experiences what we go through sometimes get trapped in our nervous system and create patterns of response and those responses can create imbalances in our nervous system.
It takes foundationally, it takes, you know, quick question for you, joy, you know, what is it? And don't overthink it. That coordinates every cell in your entire body. I guess it would be, yeah, your nervous system, your brain. Exactly. Your nervous system and your brain. They coordinate 30 trillion cells. And do you know how your body's digesting your food right now?
Do you know where it's sending the proteins? Where it's sending all the carbohydrates and how it's doing all that? No. Thank God. Thank God, no. It happens out of habit. So millions of things are happening every minute in our body. In our nervous system that communicates trillions of cells together and tons of messages are being sent at lightning speeds through our body to keep us alive and to allow us to function.
And that amazing nervous system that coordinates all these things. It can't differentiate between a physical stress. stress, an emotional stress, or a chemical stress, because the process in which they communicate are the same neurotransmitters, the same chemicals in our body, the same hormones, all those things are the same, they just communicated as stress.
So because of that, QNRT takes an evaluation of the brain and nervous system, and you can, see patterns of where different stresses, Affect our nervous system and, you know, you can even dial down as to timeframe period. Um, you know, when was this an issue in your nervous system? Okay. It was also related to a viral reaction in your body.
Oh yeah, I had Lyme's really bad when I was five. Okay, yeah, it was linked to that Lyme's. And, oh yeah, that was the same time frame that I experienced this other thing. Um, and it, so it helps us to tie together the nervous system and how different things have affected it. Um, and then finally, it responds to, as I mentioned, the lie detection test.
It responds to lies or truth. And So if we want to let go of something, but our nervous system is like, no, not ready to let go. And you said, no, I'd like to let go of that. We say, all right, let's go. So your brainstem, let's say, right? So we live so much of our life in the limbic system. Limbic system is our reactionary survival mechanism.
Right? And fight or flight, right? Everybody knows sympathetic response, fight or flight. So much of us are in a sympathetic overload in today's society, more than ever, I think, for many more reasons than one. But sympathetic overload, if we're meant to function, let's just pick a random number at 10, a level of 10 stress, okay, is right here.
And we're functioning here, we're doing okay, right? As soon as something blows us over our threshold. Our body can't regulate back down and that inability to regulate back down is trauma to the body. That trauma can get lodged into our nervous system. And if you live up here for too long, you get totally wiped out.
You get drained and you start failing in many more ways than one. And that nervous system just can't take it anymore. And you're more reactive, uh, you, you can't focus, you know, different, there are different ways of different ways of reacting. Some of it is sleeplessness. It all depends on exactly where in your system it has affected you and it would tells you then how it affects us.
And it's because there are patterns in the nervous system. You know, when you hear a sudden sound, that's triggered through a particular part of the brain. Um, when you smell something, that's triggered through a different part of the brain. And all of those are normal neurological pathways that our brain functions, our body functions.
So we take all those things for granted, but when you start realizing that, when you smell something, you're like, Oh, that instantaneously brings me back to my grandmother's room when I was a kid. That, that was, that must have been, I don't know. Uh, a perfume that she used or something in, in her room that, that, that makes me think of my grandma.
You know, we've all had instances like that where you smell bacon cookies and you're like, Oh, those were the cookies that, uh, that grandpa always made for Christmas after, you know, Christmas dinner or dessert. And you know, all of these things, we have things that can trigger us back or the other way around.
You know, people smell something and they're like, Oh. My ex husband used to wear that, I hate that smell, or something like that. You know, people say these things all the time, but we don't realize that, well that's partially because it's triggering that part of the brain, and that part of the brain is still holding on to that hurt.
If you can clear that trigger out, which is how we use cranial nerves, which are the closest thing to the brain. Um, and we use the, the eyes, which are so powerful for our, for our nervous system. The first thing to, to grow from the brain in utero. And we use all these things to activate. And reprogram, that's what we end up doing, is reprogramming your response, as you just mentioned a moment ago, your response to certain triggers.
So let's say, no, it's not all things that are in the past. Let's say somebody's going through something right now in their life. They're going through something right now and they can't escape that relationship. They're a child who lives in the family's house and there's actually no place for them to go right now.
Okay, so that's not something that we're dealing with in the past. All these things are not just past. It can be very much present. So no, we're not going to change, you can't change that relationship. You can't change that situation that you're stuck in. So sometimes the issues at home, they have symptoms when they're at home.
They're really anxious at home. They can't sleep at home or something like that. And then all of a sudden they go maybe someone else's house and all of a sudden they get a great night's sleep and the kids like. Well, that was weird. Well, all of a sudden, every time they go to school, their headache kind of gets a little bit better.
Or vice versa. Sometimes the stress is at school. They're being bullied at school. They're not telling anybody or something. Or you have a teacher who's really mean to you, a different kind of bullying, something like that. And they're not telling anybody. But every time they go to school, they get a headache.
They end up calling the nurse every week, pretty much, and they get taken home. And then you find out later, okay, they're dealing with bullying. So there are certain situations that we can't necessarily avoid currently, but what we can do, and that's what that's what Q and R T has been able to do is change the nervous system's response to it.
And that's powerful. So no, the bullying may not stop or the situation between your parents at home and the moment might not stop or, uh, any number of situations you can actually change. Maybe you. In your time right now, but what you can do is say I'm accepting of this right now, and I'm not allowing it to Not allow me to move forward Or I'm I'm no longer holding on to that and keeping it from allowing me to do XYZ So so your response and And the fun thing is too, sometimes the spouses of people come in and they're like, What do you do to my wife?
Like, she's totally different. Or, man, my husband, he hasn't done that in years. Or like, he's just happy. Oh, one other instance. So I had this, had this kid and Apparently he screamed bloody murder every time they gave him a bath. He was like two years old or something, a year and a half or two years old. I mean, his whole life, gave him a bath, screamed bloody murder.
I didn't know this. I was treating him for something totally different. And I was like, Hey, he needs to take a bath in some essential oils. I love essential oils also. And, uh, and the parents like, Hmm, yeah, he screams bloody murder. I was like, okay, let's see if we can do something that might help this out or whatever.
So we did some treatment and, uh, And then the next day she sends me a picture of him playing as happy as can be in the bathtub the next day. And she was like, this is a miracle. And I was, you know, it's another experience of the situation didn't change. He's still taking a bath. Nothing else changed in that situation.
That's a simple benign situation of a bath, right? Uh, but even benign things can trigger us somehow that trigger was linked to something else that was more. hurtful than just the bath. And that trigger was what his body was going into fight or flight. It was going into, ah, I don't know. I got to survive.
I'm freaking out. And the child's response is to scream. Sometimes. Adult responses to screen too. And, you know, sometimes we're in total protective freak out mode. We all know our nervous system's response to stress, right? If we're about to give a talk or, you know, public speaking, and we get a little nervous in our stomach or, you know, we get a little raised heartbeat or we start sweating a little bit more.
You know, all these things are normal responses we experience every day, right? But sometimes we don't realize that triggers that shouldn't. Make that happen are making us happen. And that's what anxiety and anticipatory anxiety, all those things are is that, well, the situation right now is actually okay, but you're interpreting it as not.
Okay, you're interpreting it as I'm going to die and I need to do something about this. And so you're freaking out and that's where you're just changing our response to the same exact situation that that yellow car just drove up the driveway and. It's okay. It's, you know, it's not a taxi cab who's delivering the guy who came in and raped you.
You're, you are now okay with the fact that a yellow car can drive up the driveway and you don't have to respond with a pattern of, oh, that means bad stuff's going to happen. Not every yellow car driving up means that. And so that's where you're actually changing your response to the same exact trigger.
Um, and allowing your body to let go of those patterns. Because, uh, we're trained. Nervous system learns our name. It learns many more things than we even give it credit for. It learns to react in certain ways. Like, for instance, we know, you know, when we're walking down the street. And we get a little kind of creepy feeling.
And you don't quite realize why maybe yet, but then you kind of see somebody in the corner of your eye, you're like, it's a little off putting. I'm not sure what's going on there, but I'm not going to stay to find out what's going on. I'm just going to kind of go this way. Yeah. Um, you don't know why, you don't need to know why, but for whatever reason, your system was aware of something not so good going on down there.
Um. And, you know, those are things that our nervous system knows and it tells us by activating our sympathetic nervous system. But when that gets awry, normal things activate our survival mechanism that you might not want to happen because that can really debilitate our life. Um, and we want to actually accept what's happened in the past or in the present and You know, no longer react in the same way, but change our reactions and heal from them.
So I don't really know where that just went, but no, it's super helpful. No, in those false alarms that sometimes, you know, set us off, you know, being able to disarm them and move through them. That makes so much sense. So wow. You truly, Dr. Gunn, you have a PhD in this stuff. You truly do, um, on many levels and, uh, well, thank you for explaining it and going through it.
I'm sure we could talk so much more about all of this, but I want to make sure if someone's interested in working with you, uh, what do you offer and how do they get that? My PhD is an in person. Only, um, technique, uh, and so I offer that I'm in New York, in Pauling, New York, and I have a practice right out of my house, and, uh, I'm here full time now, and I do offer some virtual treatments generally, not for QNRT, but other work.
Um, another book, um, which is The Emotion Code. Second to, and that's also a great book. Um, Dr. Nelson wrote that book and it goes into some treatment of, uh, how the emotions affect the body and that type of work I do virtually. I do mostly in person just because it's a real connection and a real, uh, a different level of treatment because we can do, because I'm a physical therapist.
So there's a lot of hands on, a lot of cranial. A lot of, a lot of implementation of hands on work with the, uh, with the emotional work. Because again, the body doesn't differentiate the two. So they kind of go hand in hand. And, uh, 98 percent of my clientele I do QNRT with now as, as part of the treatment and then help facilitate healing through other avenues that I've been gifted to learn to.
So those are really in person. And then I do, uh, Um, the virtual work that I do, I keep minimal for the most part, uh, but there can be hugely helpful things. Um, and there, there are examples of how that works as well, but, um, I don't, I don't really have much of a presence on social media or anything like that.
My website is pretty minimal, uh, but the best way to probably contact me is, is by email. Uh, chris at be not afraid pt. com, which I'm sure you'll also put in the link and all that. And, and also my, my business number, um, I'm reasonably good at getting voicemails back or, uh, I don't answer generally, but I'll return voicemails.
And uh, so, uh, calling the business number there is another great way to get in touch with me if there are any questions or curiosities on, on treatment, anything like that. Love it. No, so good. Thanks for mentioning all that. And we'll definitely link to be not afraid pt. com. Is that right? And then, uh, we'll yeah, put all the, the number in the show notes and everything like that.
So thank you so much Dr. Gannon. One thing I wanted to mention to people, if you're intrigued by this, you know, setting up a call, you know, doing some sort of a consult, I know you offer that too. Could be a good next step. Um, I know people will travel. To, you know, different therapists or physical therapists in order to get the benefits that they offer because there's not many people doing this stuff.
And so that is certainly a possibility, especially if you're, you know, in that area of the country or you can, you know, get there, um, to do some sort of treatment. So I know there's a lot of possibilities there. So I just encourage people like think outside the box if it's something where you're thinking like, wow, I could really benefit from this.
But oh, it's. far away, or, you know, maybe I couldn't afford it right now. I would just challenge you to think creatively and figure out a way that maybe you could, um, potentially work with Dr. again in the future, they end up just, there's nowhere else to turn for them. And they've, they've tried many things.
Yeah. And, and so I have many clients that travel many, several hours, uh, to come in and I'm. In the near future, we'll be setting up a better situation where I can, uh, to accommodate more people, um, so that we can have longer periods of time. So Dr. Turner, who was the founder of QNRT, he has a place down in Roswell, Georgia.
And he is, um, he is set up so that he can have people stay in a hotel nearby and do intensives. So he does three, four, five day intensives where you get a lot of work done in a short, you know, in a several days back to back. And that's something that I'm, I'm working towards as well. Um, but yes, traveling sometimes, you know, I only need several sessions sometimes to make huge progress.
Love that. No, I, yeah. And if it works, man, it works. And it's better than spending years in an office with, you know, someone who may have good intentions, but they're just the, that method of therapy, that method of trying to help them. It just isn't one tidbit for people to, if you don't see some improvement with what you're doing with somebody, um, you know, we can be generous and say three, two, three months.
If you're not seeing any change, maybe. Explore other options. There you go. Second opinion about, at the very least, schedule, consult, phone call, something. Same thing for years. If it's just not making much of a change, there's, there's better things out. Yeah. It's waste of time, waste of money. Individually.
There is healing, there is growth. And don't allow that to say, well, I've already tried. There's more. Never. Stop seeking for, for healing. Never Stop seeking love and truth. Hmm. Beautiful. Well, thank you so much again for your time and your expertise. You're really beautiful and, um, and we all need healing in our lives.
Uh, so Of course, couldn't agree more. I want to give you the last word. What final advice or encouragement would you give to everyone listening, especially people who feel just stuck in life? They're going through pain, especially because of maybe dysfunction at home, or their parents getting divorced.
What final advice or encouragement would you give to them? You know, it would be hard for me to say anything other than the words of a dying man, a client, who said to his family, uh, embrace the cross. Embrace your suffering and when you are not feeling loved and you don't believe you're loved by anyone, know that you are loved and that you are cherished.
Can't get better than that. So, uh, never stop seeking it. For love you will find if you seek.
Again, if you're interested in learning more about how Dr. Gen can help you, I just encourage you to schedule a consult with him, send him an email, give him a call, whatever it takes to just learn more about how he can help you. Now, if you're not ready for that, I wanted to let you know that we have a free video course on trauma that you can go through right now if you wanted to.
It's called Broken to Whole, Tactics to Heal from Your Parents Divorce or Broken Marriage. In just two hours, you're going to learn from a trauma therapist who has over 17 years of experience. experience treating trauma. You're going to learn things like why the trauma of your parents divorce or family dysfunction is so damaging.
Uh, you're going to be able to identify the root of your struggles, which is often trauma as you'll learn in the course, you're going to feel validated and less alone in your struggles. You'll understand and better be able to navigate your emotions. You're also going to build healthier relationships and a better life.
And perhaps most of all, you're going to avoid passing your brokenness onto the people that you love the most. And so if you want to get, Access to that free course. Again, it's free. Just go to restored ministry.com/broken to whole. Again, restored ministry.com/broken to whole, or just click on the link in the show notes.
You can sign up for free on that page, and then just start watching the videos again, restored ministry.com/broken to whole, or just click on the link in the show. That wraps up this show. If you know someone who's struggling because of their parents divorce or broken family, share this podcast with them.
Seriously, if you want to, take like 30 seconds right now to just shoot them a text message with this episode or another. And you can just say something like, hey, I listened to this podcast. Made me think of you and everything you have been through with your family. Just wanted to share. No pressure to, you know, actually listen.
Um, but just wanted to send it your way. Something like that will go a long way. And I promise you, they will be grateful even if they don't say much. right now. It is going to help them. I wish someone would have done that with me years ago. In closing, always remember, you're not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and break the cycle of dysfunction and divorce in your own life.
And always remember the words of C. S. Lewis, who said, you can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.
