Latest / Kickin’ It With KeKe: Life, Love, & MINDSET / Episode # 178 w/Owen Smithyman

Transcript

Episode # 178 w/Owen Smithyman · Kickin’ It With KeKe: Life, Love, & MINDSET

0:03
Speaker 1: Welcome to Kickin' It With Kiki. Kickin' It With Kiki.
0:14
Speaker 2: Kickin' It With Kiki. Full of personality.
0:17
Speaker 3: Switchin' up the story.
0:18
Speaker 4: Line on God, we makin' history.
0:20
Speaker 3: Writing books, changing lives.
0:22
Speaker 2: One day at a time.
0:24
Speaker 1: Put your problems to the side.
0:25
Speaker 3: Enjoy yourself.
0:26
Speaker 2: Freeze your mind. Hello, hello, and welcome back to another
0:43
Speaker 2: episode of Kicking It With Kiki, Life, Love, and Mindset.
0:46
Speaker 2: I am your host, Kiki Chanel, and around here we
0:49
Speaker 2: talk about life, love, mindset, and things that help you
0:52
Speaker 2: become your best self by changing the way that you
0:55
Speaker 2: see things in life by altering your perspective. Thank you
0:59
Speaker 2: guys for tuning in. If you are new to the podcast, hi, welcome.
1:05
Speaker 2: I like to give my guests the opportunity to introduce themselves.
1:09
Speaker 2: So I'll go ahead and do the same with Owen.
1:12
Speaker 2: Thank you for coming to kick it with me today.
1:15
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm so happy to be here. And I just
1:18
Speaker 3: have to say, I love your intro. I played it
1:22
Speaker 3: for my wife.
1:23
Speaker 4: And she was like, period.
1:28
Speaker 2: Love it.
1:29
Speaker 3: I had it stuck in my head all like for
1:30
Speaker 3: two weeks afterwards, like kicking it with Kiki. So, um,
1:36
Speaker 3: but yes, to introduce myself, I am a peak States
1:40
Speaker 3: therapy practitioner and that peak States therapy is a healing
1:44
Speaker 3: modality that came out of some research that was done
1:49
Speaker 3: by the Institute for the study of peak States and
1:52
Speaker 3: their whole goal, which has been their goal for the
1:55
Speaker 3: last 30 years. and they're still working on it, is
1:58
Speaker 3: to develop a healing process that will completely make a
2:03
Speaker 3: person immune to all trauma forever. And they're trying to
2:09
Speaker 3: give people a particular state of consciousness, a peak state
2:12
Speaker 3: of consciousness called beauty way, or walking in beauty as
2:15
Speaker 3: the Native Americans call it. And they haven't gotten it there.
2:19
Speaker 3: They are having a lot of success in discovering things,
2:27
Speaker 3: And so the modality that I use, peak stage therapy,
2:31
Speaker 3: is a spinoff of all of the stuff that they've discovered.
2:34
Speaker 3: So I can't heal all trauma at once, but I
2:36
Speaker 3: can help people heal a very wide variety of highly
2:40
Speaker 3: nuanced traumas and emotional issues and energetic issues one at
2:45
Speaker 3: a time. And so that's, and so I help people.
2:50
Speaker 3: So it's technically a trauma therapy. And when people hear
2:54
Speaker 3: the word trauma, they often think like, oh, you know,
2:57
Speaker 3: horrific abuse, war, car crashes, you know, terrible things. And yes, that,
3:03
Speaker 3: that is what people have kind of learned the word
3:06
Speaker 3: trauma means. But to me, trauma is anything from your
3:10
Speaker 3: past that left a mark that still affects you today.
3:14
Speaker 3: You know, whether that's just getting yelled at that one
3:17
Speaker 3: time when you were feeling so happy and free, and
3:20
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden you're like, Oh, I guess
3:22
Speaker 3: I shouldn't be happy and free. You know, that, That
3:25
Speaker 3: was not horrific abuse. That was someone yelled at you once.
3:29
Speaker 3: But it carries for the rest of your life unless
3:31
Speaker 3: you do something about it. And so I help people
3:35
Speaker 3: do something about whatever trauma or whatever issue they are encountering.
3:41
Speaker 3: And my favorite thing to work on with people is
3:44
Speaker 3: relationship and mindset and personal, like relationship with other and
3:49
Speaker 3: relationship with self. So that's one aspect. And then the
3:53
Speaker 3: other aspect is actual peak states of consciousness. I can't
3:56
Speaker 3: give people beauty way, but I can give people other states.
4:00
Speaker 3: In particular, if you had a peak experience in the past,
4:04
Speaker 3: like where you felt elevated, you know, beyond the norm,
4:08
Speaker 3: you felt so happy or connected with life or connected
4:12
Speaker 3: to yourself, or like just some people wind up in
4:17
Speaker 3: states that make them feel like nothing can get to them,
4:20
Speaker 3: like nothing can make them back down, like they're just invincible.
4:27
Speaker 3: And then because it's a peak experience, that means that
4:29
Speaker 3: it goes away. And you're like, oh, that was amazing. Like,
4:33
Speaker 3: how do I get that back? And some people spend
4:35
Speaker 3: their whole lives trying to get that feeling back. And
4:38
Speaker 3: I actually have techniques for restoring those states of consciousness.
4:43
Speaker 4: You're supposed to have them. Like you're supposed to have
4:45
Speaker 4: a lot.
4:46
Speaker 3: Of different peak states of consciousness that make you feel amazing,
4:49
Speaker 3: give you exceptional quality of life, And because of the
4:53
Speaker 3: way that our species, if you want to call it,
4:58
Speaker 3: has gone through, you know, just eons of pretty nasty stuff,
5:04
Speaker 3: our lives today are like actually pretty good compared to
5:07
Speaker 3: like literally one generation ago. And then those didn't have
5:11
Speaker 3: it even as bad as the one before that. And
5:13
Speaker 3: it just gets more and more brutal the further back
5:16
Speaker 3: you go. And so we've inherited all that and we
5:20
Speaker 3: have whatever childhood we have and now we're expected to
5:22
Speaker 3: thrive in this world. And so I help people find
5:28
Speaker 3: and resolve the traumas and emotional wounds and other issues
5:34
Speaker 3: that keep them from thriving.
5:36
Speaker 2: I love that. I love that. And that's, that's, It
5:39
Speaker 2: gives me clarity because I did a training with Tony
5:43
Speaker 2: Robbins a couple of years ago and he was talking
5:45
Speaker 2: about peak states, like different states of consciousness that you
5:48
Speaker 2: have to go to to make sure that you are
5:51
Speaker 2: successful in whatever it is that you're striving to do.
5:55
Speaker 2: And he he had us go through this exercise and
5:58
Speaker 2: repeat like different sayings and affirmations and all the things.
6:03
Speaker 2: write down. Some people got to come on screen and
6:06
Speaker 2: talk to him about what they were feeling after doing
6:08
Speaker 2: the exercise. So listening to you talk about it, it
6:11
Speaker 2: gives me a little bit more clarification to what we
6:14
Speaker 2: were doing in that training.
6:16
Speaker 4: No, that's amazing.
6:18
Speaker 3: No, that's really good to know because I knew Joe Dispenza.
6:23
Speaker 3: Have you heard of him? He does something similar. He
6:26
Speaker 3: has these giant 1,000 to 2,000 person like in-person events
6:32
Speaker 3: where they do these meditations and they kind of like
6:36
Speaker 3: try and get themselves into a state where they can
6:39
Speaker 3: heal their, you know, physical issues. And there is actually
6:44
Speaker 3: a state that the Institute, uh, identified that does that.
6:47
Speaker 3: And they call it the regenerative healing state, but it's very,
6:51
Speaker 3: very hard.
6:52
Speaker 4: It's one of the hardest.
6:53
Speaker 3: States to actually main, to actually activate and maintain for
6:57
Speaker 3: some reason. And, but, um, but yeah, so him and I,
7:01
Speaker 3: I see now Tony Robbins have kind of clued into.
7:04
Speaker 4: The fact that these states exist.
7:06
Speaker 3: And so they're doing stuff to actually try and activate them. So,
7:12
Speaker 3: I mean, if anyone listening to this has done one
7:16
Speaker 3: of those processes and gotten into some state temporarily, if
7:20
Speaker 3: you come to me, I will help you actually make
7:22
Speaker 3: that state permanent.
7:25
Speaker 2: And we will have all of his information in the
7:27
Speaker 2: show notes when we get to that. But yes, we
7:30
Speaker 2: will put all that information. So we are going to
7:33
Speaker 2: talk about how to cope with trauma or loss or grief.
7:39
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about that when it comes to
7:40
Speaker 2: the aspects of life, love, and mindset. So we're moving
7:44
Speaker 2: into the mindset moment. And I know you lost your
7:46
Speaker 2: mom at 22. That changed the trajectory of your life.
7:51
Speaker 2: Looking back now, Who were you before the loss and
7:54
Speaker 2: who did you eventually become because of that journey that followed?
7:59
Speaker 4: Oh man, that's an amazing question.
8:00
Speaker 2: Yeah.
8:01
Speaker 3: Before the loss, I was, I would just say innocent
8:07
Speaker 3: and in a good way and a bad way. Like
8:10
Speaker 3: I luckily had two parents who loved each other and
8:15
Speaker 3: stayed together and didn't really fight much. And, you know, just,
8:22
Speaker 3: cared for me in a lot of different ways. And I,
8:26
Speaker 3: until that moment when I actually lost her, I believed
8:32
Speaker 3: that everything would work out for the best. And it
8:34
Speaker 3: generally did. It was like this kind of theme in
8:36
Speaker 3: my life where I would, I would worry like, oh,
8:39
Speaker 3: is this going to work out? Ah, it's probably going
8:41
Speaker 3: to be fine.
8:42
Speaker 4: And then it would.
8:43
Speaker 3: And I was able to kind of trust that most
8:47
Speaker 3: things would just kind of be fine. And And I didn't,
8:53
Speaker 3: and so that's sort of the good part of the innocence.
8:56
Speaker 3: The not so good part was that I did not
8:59
Speaker 3: understand why people were depressed or why people, you know,
9:04
Speaker 3: did things that were harmful to themselves.
9:07
Speaker 4: To me, that was just stupid. Like, why would you
9:10
Speaker 4: do that? Like, hello?
9:12
Speaker 3: And I just didn't have any clue what people outside
9:15
Speaker 3: of myself, what their experience was. I was very kind
9:18
Speaker 3: of self-centered. And it was sort of innocent and adorable,
9:23
Speaker 3: but it just left no room to really understand other people.
9:29
Speaker 3: And I had some Asperger syndrome for most of my life.
9:38
Speaker 3: And that also kind of created this sort of insulated
9:43
Speaker 3: experience where this is a thing that this may sound controversial, but.
9:48
Speaker 3: the Institute has found that autism and Asperger are two
9:53
Speaker 3: separate things. Right now, the DSM has decided that they
9:55
Speaker 3: are all just part of the autism spectrum. And the
10:00
Speaker 3: hallmark of Asperger is that you kind of experience that
10:04
Speaker 3: you're like inside a glass, like there's a glass wall
10:07
Speaker 3: between you and everyone, like kind of a, it's invisible,
10:11
Speaker 3: but you can kind of feel it if you really
10:12
Speaker 3: sense for it. And that wall prevents other people's emotions
10:18
Speaker 3: from reaching you. And so you just feel like you're
10:22
Speaker 3: alone emotionally. And it's pretty frustrating. If you ever go
10:28
Speaker 3: on any sort of Asperger forum where people talk about it,
10:32
Speaker 3: it's a very frustrating condition because people act a particular
10:36
Speaker 3: way and they relate with each other in these particular ways.
10:39
Speaker 4: And it makes no sense.
10:41
Speaker 3: It's like, I want to have fun and these people
10:44
Speaker 3: are having fun, but I have no clue what to
10:47
Speaker 3: do to actually have fun with them. And some people
10:51
Speaker 3: like me can compensate for it by just learning to
10:55
Speaker 3: read body language and just trying all sorts of stuff
10:58
Speaker 3: and just kind of coming up with a formula for
11:01
Speaker 3: how to act around people that seems relatively natural.
11:07
Speaker 4: And so I did that.
11:08
Speaker 3: But the combination of sort of being emotionally isolated and
11:14
Speaker 3: having like a pretty wholesome, relatively sheltered, if you will, life,
11:19
Speaker 3: up until my mother died, left me kind of just
11:22
Speaker 3: not really understanding other people or really having a lot
11:25
Speaker 3: of empathy for the difficulties that people would go through.
11:31
Speaker 3: So then after my mom died, like when it actually happened,
11:35
Speaker 3: the whole illusion of everything's going to be fine always
11:39
Speaker 3: just shattered. And I became anxious all the time. And
11:45
Speaker 3: I was just like, what the hell am I doing?
11:50
Speaker 3: with my life, like with my mother present, it kind
11:55
Speaker 3: of didn't matter because, you know, she was kind of
11:59
Speaker 3: this presence in my life that just made everything okay.
12:02
Speaker 3: And I just didn't worry about stuff. But then without her,
12:05
Speaker 3: all of a sudden I felt exposed and vulnerable and.
12:10
Speaker 4: Just like unmoored. And when I.
12:14
Speaker 3: Thought about Okay. And this was right as I graduated college.
12:18
Speaker 3: So I'm like just entering the workforce trying to find,
12:21
Speaker 3: you know, my first job. I had my first internship,
12:24
Speaker 3: which was ending right as she died. And I was like, what,
12:28
Speaker 3: what is the point of any of this?
12:30
Speaker 4: Like why, like what?
12:32
Speaker 3: It was just, it just meant it all just was meaningless. Like,
12:35
Speaker 3: why would I spend all this effort to enter the workforce,
12:39
Speaker 3: get a job, do all this stuff? Like it just
12:41
Speaker 3: didn't mean anything to me. And so then through like
12:46
Speaker 3: I started going to transformational workshops and then I started
12:50
Speaker 3: doing different therapies and healing ceremonies and modalities and all
12:54
Speaker 3: this stuff. And as I did that, then I finally
12:58
Speaker 3: started to develop some empathy. I had moments of just
13:02
Speaker 3: extreme desperation where I was, I really felt like I
13:09
Speaker 3: don't know what I'm doing. I feel completely terrified and alone.
13:13
Speaker 4: I need help.
13:15
Speaker 3: And that's where I kind of started developing spirituality because
13:18
Speaker 3: I kind of reached out. I'm not religious. I was
13:20
Speaker 3: born like my my parents were both very harmed by religion.
13:24
Speaker 3: And they were like, we're not having any of that
13:26
Speaker 3: stuff in our for our children. And I'm grateful. But
13:29
Speaker 3: they also didn't really have any spirituality at all. They
13:32
Speaker 3: kind of threw all of it out.
13:34
Speaker 4: And so.
13:36
Speaker 3: I started to just sort of ask for help from whatever, whoever.
13:41
Speaker 3: And actually started to feel like there was something out there.
13:45
Speaker 3: And I could never really tell what it was, but
13:46
Speaker 3: I felt like slightly, just a little bit of support
13:50
Speaker 3: from something. There was a voice in my head just saying, hey,
13:54
Speaker 3: it's going to be okay, keep going. Or, you know,
13:57
Speaker 3: mostly that's what it was. And so through all of
14:00
Speaker 3: the different stuff that I tried and all of the,
14:02
Speaker 3: you know, kind of extreme emotional states that I went through,
14:06
Speaker 3: I finally started to develop empathy.
14:09
Speaker 2: And then.
14:10
Speaker 4: So.
14:15
Speaker 3: So the person that I, that I became, became someone
14:19
Speaker 3: who wanted to help other people not feel terrible. And
14:23
Speaker 3: who kind of, I went from feeling like, I'm fine,
14:26
Speaker 3: everything's fine. Why are these people upset? This doesn't make
14:28
Speaker 3: any sense. They must be stupid. To, oh, like most
14:33
Speaker 3: people are dealing with some kind of emotional difficulty and
14:36
Speaker 3: that really sucks.
14:38
Speaker 4: And, you know, that's, that's. That shouldn't be that way.
14:41
Speaker 4: I felt I felt it was bad.
14:44
Speaker 3: I mean, you can you can have sort of a
14:46
Speaker 3: sort of a overarching sense of like, well, you know,
14:49
Speaker 3: life just is the way life is and it's not
14:51
Speaker 3: good or bad. You know, people suffer or die or
14:54
Speaker 3: feel good or feel bad. But to me, seeing people
14:58
Speaker 3: suffering everywhere did not feel good to me. And I
15:00
Speaker 3: felt like I want to do something about this. But
15:05
Speaker 3: I never really felt like I could. I joined a
15:08
Speaker 3: bunch of different organizations that were all doing transformational or
15:12
Speaker 3: healing or psychological stuff. And I kind of became a
15:16
Speaker 3: little zealous trying to get other people.
15:18
Speaker 4: To join them with me.
15:19
Speaker 3: And most people were like, why do you care so much?
15:22
Speaker 4: Like, no, stop it.
15:26
Speaker 3: And so when I finally discovered peak states therapy after
15:31
Speaker 3: like 13 years of searching, I I felt, okay, this
15:34
Speaker 3: is actually something I could do myself. All the other
15:37
Speaker 3: stuff was so heavy on coaching people.
15:41
Speaker 2: Yeah.
15:42
Speaker 3: And maybe I'll consider myself a real coach someday, but
15:46
Speaker 3: I don't consider myself that. What I do technically falls
15:51
Speaker 3: into coaching because it's not counseling or psychotherapy.
15:55
Speaker 2: Right.
15:55
Speaker 4: And I'm not allowed to call myself that because I'm
15:57
Speaker 4: not state licensed.
16:00
Speaker 2: Right. But....
16:03
Speaker 3: But when I finally found peak stage therapy, I thought, okay,
16:05
Speaker 3: this makes sense. I've always had kind of a engineering
16:07
Speaker 3: mind and I've applied that to all of the jobs
16:10
Speaker 3: that I've had, which are all been in technology of
16:13
Speaker 3: some kind. And so when I found this modality, it's like, oh,
16:17
Speaker 3: this has a actually very comprehensive technical model of consciousness that,
16:23
Speaker 3: you know, only the practitioner sees that the client is
16:26
Speaker 3: just kind of guided to sense things in their body
16:28
Speaker 3: and do somatic techniques. But from the practitioner end, it's very,
16:34
Speaker 3: like the technicalness of it is very enjoyable. And that's
16:39
Speaker 3: when I realized like, okay, I can actually do this
16:42
Speaker 3: thing that I've been wanting to do, which is actually
16:44
Speaker 3: help people myself. And so that's the person that I've become.
16:49
Speaker 2: I love that though. I think that when you tap
16:52
Speaker 2: into something bigger than you, you realize that it's for
16:56
Speaker 2: other people to help other people. Yeah. I love that.
17:02
Speaker 2: Sometimes we confuse being guarded with being healed. What have
17:07
Speaker 2: you learned about the difference between protecting ourselves and actually
17:12
Speaker 2: feeling emotionally safe enough to love as our whole self?
17:18
Speaker 4: Oh, yes, yes. Wow. Yeah, I love your questions.
17:23
Speaker 3: I would say that when you are guarding yourself, there's
17:30
Speaker 3: a sense of safety and there's a sense of kind
17:35
Speaker 3: of like self-protection. And when you've, you know, been hurt
17:39
Speaker 3: a bunch of times, feeling safe and protected is really great.
17:44
Speaker 3: And it's really necessary, I would say, to kind of
17:49
Speaker 3: hold yourself together and to make you like, I'm going
17:53
Speaker 3: to make myself okay. I'm going to guard myself. I'm
17:55
Speaker 3: going to protect myself. No one's going to hurt me.
17:58
Speaker 3: And I think that's important and necessary when you've been
18:00
Speaker 3: hurt a bunch. But then eventually it's like living on
18:05
Speaker 3: an island with no people around, you know, or like
18:08
Speaker 3: living in a comfortable jail cell.
18:12
Speaker 4: Where, you know, you start to.
18:14
Speaker 3: Wonder like, man, it'd be nice if, you know, if
18:19
Speaker 3: I could let some people in or if I could,
18:21
Speaker 3: you know, have some closeness or some intimacy with people.
18:24
Speaker 2: And so....
18:29
Speaker 3: When it comes to actually healing those wounds, sorry, I
18:34
Speaker 3: should say when it comes to actually having intimacy with
18:38
Speaker 3: other people, it can feel really dangerous and it can
18:41
Speaker 3: feel really scary. And so that's where healing comes in
18:45
Speaker 3: is healing the wounds. Cause basically whenever you, like if
18:49
Speaker 3: you've been hurt and then you protected yourself and then
18:54
Speaker 3: now you're starting to think, I want to open myself to,
18:58
Speaker 3: have intimacy with other people or closeness, the moment you
19:03
Speaker 3: start to do that and someone does something that reminds
19:06
Speaker 3: you of what happened, then you're like, oh, no, no, no,
19:09
Speaker 3: we're not doing this again. Definitely not. And then it
19:12
Speaker 3: becomes very hard to have closeness. And so the healing
19:16
Speaker 3: work is really in understanding what actually happened and resolving the.
19:24
Speaker 4: Trauma of it.
19:25
Speaker 3: Because basically, the trauma from the past is always with
19:29
Speaker 3: you in some sense.
19:31
Speaker 2: Right.
19:31
Speaker 3: And it's, you know, it's always kind of between you
19:34
Speaker 3: and whatever you're trying to do. And that's why anything
19:38
Speaker 3: regarding other people, dating, starting a business, you're just having friendships,
19:46
Speaker 3: any of that kind of stuff, you have to kind
19:49
Speaker 3: of push your way through the trauma or the trauma symptoms,
19:54
Speaker 3: I would say, in order to actually have any closeness.
19:58
Speaker 3: And you have to tolerate your mind being like, hey, hey.
20:01
Speaker 4: This person might betray you. This person might hurt you.
20:03
Speaker 3: And some people can kind of just push that stuff
20:07
Speaker 3: aside and just muscle their way through it.
20:10
Speaker 4: And that's amazing.
20:11
Speaker 3: And I would say the best way to actually have
20:15
Speaker 3: intimacy and closeness when you've been hurt is to heal
20:18
Speaker 3: the hurt so it doesn't interfere anymore. And you can
20:23
Speaker 3: actually tell if you know what happened to you. It's
20:27
Speaker 3: not required that you know what happened to you. In
20:31
Speaker 3: some modalities, you do have to know and you have
20:34
Speaker 3: to talk about it extensively because those modalities work by
20:40
Speaker 3: just basically exposure therapy. It's like kind of by talking
20:45
Speaker 3: about it, all the emotions that happened in it come up.
20:49
Speaker 3: And if you have a really safe environment and a
20:52
Speaker 3: safe practitioner or counselor that you're working with, and you
20:55
Speaker 3: just feel safe enough in your body to accept how
21:00
Speaker 3: that pain felt, then it can actually dissipate. A lot
21:04
Speaker 3: of people kind of get stuck and they just don't
21:08
Speaker 3: want to open up enough to actually let it heal.
21:11
Speaker 3: And so that's where trauma therapy modalities come in because
21:16
Speaker 3: there's ways of getting your nervous system to relax enough
21:20
Speaker 3: to actually process what happened and let it go. And
21:24
Speaker 3: there's a few different modalities that do that. EMDR is
21:27
Speaker 3: the most famous one, but there's TIR, EFT, BSFF. There's
21:33
Speaker 3: ART lately, you know, accelerated resolution therapy, RTT. I don't
21:38
Speaker 3: know exactly what that one means. And peak states therapy.
21:41
Speaker 3: And they're all part of what they call power therapies,
21:44
Speaker 3: which actually fully heal trauma. They don't just compensate for
21:49
Speaker 3: it or make you feel better temporarily.
21:50
Speaker 1: Right.
21:52
Speaker 2: I asked that question because I was once that person
21:55
Speaker 2: who was let down as being a genuine friend to others.
22:00
Speaker 2: And I was always like stabbed in the back or
22:03
Speaker 2: I was their friend, but they were never mine type
22:06
Speaker 2: of deal. So I found myself isolating myself from the
22:10
Speaker 2: people that actually showed up for me that made it
22:13
Speaker 2: safe for me and never treated me different. I was just,
22:17
Speaker 2: I guess, subconsciously holding out, holding on to the ones
22:20
Speaker 2: who actually did hurt me. It took a lot of
22:24
Speaker 2: therapy and doing the work. I had to go in
22:28
Speaker 2: and do inner child shadow work in order to get
22:32
Speaker 2: over that. And so when I read your bio, I
22:37
Speaker 2: was like, I'm going to definitely ask him this question
22:39
Speaker 2: because I just want to know if I was on
22:42
Speaker 2: the right track. And I feel like I am because
22:45
Speaker 2: I don't shut people off as much as I did.
22:48
Speaker 2: And the people that I do know who are friends
22:52
Speaker 2: without a doubt, and I call them family to this day,
22:55
Speaker 2: have not given me reason to put them in the
22:56
Speaker 2: category of the people that actually hurt me.
22:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's awesome. It definitely sounds like you're on
23:01
Speaker 3: the right track. The way you can tell whether you
23:03
Speaker 3: are or are not on the right track is you
23:06
Speaker 3: when you're meeting with your coach or your therapist, are
23:10
Speaker 3: you talking about the same things every time?
23:13
Speaker 2: No, we always talk about something different.
23:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, good.
23:16
Speaker 3: Because I found myself in that situation a few times
23:22
Speaker 3: with the different work that I was doing prior to
23:24
Speaker 3: peak stage therapy, where I got into some kind of
23:29
Speaker 3: coaching program or some kind of transformational workshop. And at
23:33
Speaker 3: first it was amazing and I'm learning and I'm growing
23:35
Speaker 3: and it's so awesome. And then I kind of hit
23:37
Speaker 3: this plateau where every time I would come in, I
23:40
Speaker 3: would say, okay, yeah, this is going on. It would
23:42
Speaker 3: be the same thing that was going on last week.
23:44
Speaker 3: And I would have just been kind of spinning my
23:46
Speaker 3: wheels and they say, okay, you got to do this
23:47
Speaker 3: and this.
23:48
Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, yeah.
23:49
Speaker 3: And I would just try to do it and it
23:52
Speaker 3: just wouldn't quite work. And so I'd come back and say, well,
23:54
Speaker 3: it didn't work, but what else can I do? And
23:57
Speaker 3: so if you run into that situation, that is where
24:00
Speaker 3: trauma is holding you back. The block in those situations
24:05
Speaker 3: is always trauma.
24:06
Speaker 4: It's not.
24:07
Speaker 3: not knowing what to do. And it's not that you're
24:10
Speaker 3: incompetent or something like that. It's literally that there's something
24:14
Speaker 3: inside of you that's like, we're not doing that. And
24:17
Speaker 3: so you have to actually heal and resolve that. And
24:20
Speaker 3: then you can move forward. And then you'll start, you'll
24:23
Speaker 3: move through whatever challenge that is. Then you move to
24:25
Speaker 3: the next one. And so any trauma therapy, but I
24:30
Speaker 3: obviously am a peak stage therapy person, can help you
24:34
Speaker 3: break through those barriers.
24:38
Speaker 2: I love that. And I'm glad that I, I'm glad
24:40
Speaker 2: you talked about that because somebody may be listening. That's going,
24:42
Speaker 2: I had to, I had to get, we're not really,
24:46
Speaker 2: I don't want to say get rid of, refer a
24:48
Speaker 2: client to a therapist because we, I'm a, I'm a
24:52
Speaker 2: mindset coach and we were going through the program. And
24:55
Speaker 2: every time we would meet the same story would come up.
25:00
Speaker 2: And I was like, did you do the work that
25:03
Speaker 2: we said that we were going to go through? Never
25:06
Speaker 2: could do the work. Like you said, like it never,
25:09
Speaker 2: never could do it. I don't think that you need
25:11
Speaker 2: a coach. I think that you need a therapist. This
25:14
Speaker 2: is some people that I would recommend. I wish you
25:17
Speaker 2: the best because I find myself, I found myself getting
25:22
Speaker 2: sucked into that. And I was wanting him to get
25:27
Speaker 2: healed more than he was willing to do the work. Yeah.
25:32
Speaker 2: And as an empath, it happens. Like I cannot take
25:35
Speaker 2: on other people's stuff. I have enough of my own.
25:38
Speaker 2: Talking about the mindset side, what mindset shift has had
25:43
Speaker 2: the greatest impact on your own understanding of healing? Wow.
25:49
Speaker 3: The biggest mindset shift for me when it came to
25:51
Speaker 3: healing was going from this conventional wisdom that you never
25:56
Speaker 3: really heal. You know, you always just, you're just kind
25:59
Speaker 3: of endlessly chipping away, you know, just compensating, uh, you know,
26:05
Speaker 3: kind of just learning to live with the pain gracefully
26:09
Speaker 3: and learning to just tolerate it and accept it as like,
26:13
Speaker 3: this is life. And if I just accept it, then,
26:17
Speaker 3: you know, it just kind of becomes part of my
26:20
Speaker 3: life instead of this thing that I'm fighting against.
26:22
Speaker 4: And that's very noble.
26:24
Speaker 3: And that's a very, you know, like there's a lot
26:26
Speaker 3: of kind of Zen or Buddhist kind of connotations to that,
26:31
Speaker 3: where it's, it's not Healing yourself is not getting rid
26:33
Speaker 3: of the bad feelings. Healing yourself is learning to accept
26:37
Speaker 3: the bad feelings. And that's fine when the bad feelings
26:43
Speaker 3: are up to a certain point. But when they are
26:46
Speaker 3: completely dominating your life, it's very hard to just say.
26:50
Speaker 4: Okay, this is how it is.
26:51
Speaker 3: I just feel horribly anxious all the time and I
26:53
Speaker 3: feel like I can't function.
26:54
Speaker 4: Sure, I accept this.
26:56
Speaker 3: So the mindset shift for me was learning that you
27:01
Speaker 3: can actually completely heal something to the point where it
27:04
Speaker 3: just goes away and doesn't come back. And, and that
27:09
Speaker 3: is what all good trauma therapies do is they actually
27:13
Speaker 3: fully resolve whatever that thing is. And then you're no
27:17
Speaker 3: longer triggered by, you know, that, that, that, that pain
27:21
Speaker 3: from the past no longer is in your face when
27:24
Speaker 3: something reminds you of it because nothing reminds you of
27:27
Speaker 3: it anymore. Right. You know, it's just, it's just not
27:30
Speaker 3: an issue. And I liken it to, if you, you know,
27:34
Speaker 3: like fracture your leg or your foot and your doctor
27:39
Speaker 3: will not say, oh yeah, you know, just going to
27:41
Speaker 3: be painful forever. And, you know, you just need to
27:44
Speaker 3: learn to live with it. And, you know, here's some, uh,
27:48
Speaker 3: some books on like how to think differently about this
27:51
Speaker 3: pain that's going to be in your leg forever for
27:53
Speaker 3: the rest of your life. Um, the doctor says, oh, wow, you,
27:57
Speaker 3: you fractured your leg. Like let's put your leg in
27:59
Speaker 3: a cast. And then have you stay off of it for,
28:02
Speaker 3: you know, a few weeks or a month or whatever.
28:05
Speaker 3: And then by that time it's over, your leg is
28:08
Speaker 3: fixed and you don't have to remember how to walk.
28:11
Speaker 3: You don't have to do any sort of, you know,
28:14
Speaker 3: mental gymnastics to tell yourself that you're healed. Like you
28:18
Speaker 3: just are healed and you don't even think about it.
28:20
Speaker 3: It's like it never happened. And so that, the fact,
28:24
Speaker 3: the concept that psychological healing, you know, emotional healing can
28:29
Speaker 3: actually be as effective as that was a powerful shift
28:34
Speaker 3: for me.
28:35
Speaker 2: I love that. I love how you say emotional gymnastics.
28:38
Speaker 2: I had to write that down. I love that. Okay.
28:45
Speaker 2: So I talk about becoming and evolving. When someone begins
28:49
Speaker 2: releasing old emotional patterns, can there be a period where
28:53
Speaker 2: they almost have to meet themselves again because of the
28:56
Speaker 2: version of you built around the survival is changing?
29:02
Speaker 4: Um, a little bit.
29:03
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I think that probably in other modalities, that
29:08
Speaker 3: is definitely a thing. Um, and it is in peak
29:11
Speaker 3: stage therapy also, but we have a particular way of
29:15
Speaker 3: addressing it. And in particular, there's, so there's three, there's
29:20
Speaker 3: three major categories of trauma. There is biographical trauma that
29:24
Speaker 3: happens to you in your lifetime, including in prenatal development.
29:29
Speaker 3: then there's generational trauma that happens to your ancestors and
29:31
Speaker 3: is passed down through the family lines and then there's
29:34
Speaker 3: associational trauma which is when two things happen at the
29:40
Speaker 3: same time in a moment of trauma and they get
29:42
Speaker 3: associated even if they have nothing at all in common
29:46
Speaker 3: even if they're completely unrelated so like if you get
29:49
Speaker 3: hit by a car and there's a red fire hydrant
29:51
Speaker 3: nearby you may develop an association between red fire hydrants
29:55
Speaker 3: and you know horrible horrific pain and so then you know,
30:00
Speaker 3: and you won't think about this. This, this is all
30:02
Speaker 3: like your, your lizard brain is what does these associations.
30:06
Speaker 3: And so if that, if you've developed that particular association,
30:10
Speaker 3: every time you see a red fire hydrant, you'll just
30:13
Speaker 3: get kind of uneasy and like, just won't feel comfortable
30:16
Speaker 3: and won't feel safe.
30:17
Speaker 4: And you just won't know why.
30:18
Speaker 2: Right.
30:20
Speaker 3: And so the same thing is true when it comes
30:23
Speaker 3: to sort of the dysfunctional lifestyle that people might lead
30:28
Speaker 3: while they're you know, kind of in the throes of
30:31
Speaker 3: their trauma or whatever their issue is in that you
30:36
Speaker 3: can heal, you know, the wounds that kind of make
30:40
Speaker 3: them believe that life is a particular.
30:43
Speaker 4: Way and act that way.
30:45
Speaker 3: But there are certain things like if you come from
30:48
Speaker 3: a chaotic family or a family that has violence in it, or.
30:54
Speaker 4: If you just engage.
30:56
Speaker 3: In a lot of problematic behavior in your own life,
31:01
Speaker 3: those behaviors or those kind of like feeling tones that
31:05
Speaker 3: you experience can be associated with safety in a particular way. Or,
31:10
Speaker 3: you know, safety and familiarity. And so you actually have
31:15
Speaker 3: to dismantle those associations or else you'll keep recreating those
31:20
Speaker 3: same scenarios and those same feeling states.
31:23
Speaker 4: Wherever you go.
31:25
Speaker 3: Sort of an example of this is like, back to
31:28
Speaker 3: the house, if your household was chaotic and crazy and
31:34
Speaker 3: people yelled all the time, it's still your home.
31:37
Speaker 4: And so.
31:40
Speaker 3: If you experience any sort of love or safety while
31:45
Speaker 3: all of that craziness is going on, then it will
31:48
Speaker 3: suddenly start to be normal for you. And so then
31:52
Speaker 3: if you go get into a relationship or you're interacting
31:56
Speaker 3: with other people, particularly in relationships, you'll kind of unconsciously
32:01
Speaker 3: attract that same chaos or that same yelling or whatever
32:07
Speaker 3: it is because it's associated with home and family and safety.
32:11
Speaker 3: And so to actually break out of those patterns, you
32:15
Speaker 3: have to heal those associations. And so I thought I
32:19
Speaker 3: could give a very quick technique to do that. It's
32:23
Speaker 3: one of the simplest things, but it's just insanely powerful.
32:29
Speaker 3: which is peak states therapy is a somatic type of.
32:35
Speaker 4: Modality.
32:36
Speaker 3: And so it's all done with either tapping or visualizing
32:41
Speaker 3: or sensing. And so this particular technique, you have to
32:46
Speaker 3: hold out your hands like this, and you imagine what
32:50
Speaker 3: looks like a crumpled paper bag in each hand that
32:53
Speaker 3: is radiating that feeling state that you keep going back
32:57
Speaker 3: to unconsciously that's associated with safety. And you just imagine
33:03
Speaker 3: that and you sense which bag is heavier or seems
33:08
Speaker 3: more real or has a stronger feeling emanating from it.
33:11
Speaker 3: And then you just tap in this spot between the
33:14
Speaker 3: ring and pinky finger bones and stay focused on the bag.
33:18
Speaker 3: And eventually, on its own, the bag will either float
33:21
Speaker 3: away and disappear or it'll kind of just disappear out
33:23
Speaker 3: of your hand. And that actually breaks that association. And
33:27
Speaker 3: that's all you have to do. And you should repeat it.
33:30
Speaker 3: You should keep doing it until you can't find any
33:32
Speaker 3: more bags with that feeling. But that's the whole process.
33:35
Speaker 3: And if you can do that on any kind of
33:41
Speaker 3: feeling that you have consistently that you don't like, but
33:44
Speaker 3: somehow you just keep ending up there, this is the
33:46
Speaker 3: perfect technique to do to.
33:49
Speaker 4: Get yourself to just let go of it.
33:51
Speaker 2: Thank you for that. I love that advice. I cannot
33:55
Speaker 2: wait to do that because I was starting to feel
33:57
Speaker 2: something with just doing it just then when you were
34:00
Speaker 2: talking about it. So thank you for sharing that with
34:04
Speaker 2: our listeners today. You guys, go ahead and practice that.
34:08
Speaker 2: It doesn't cost anything. He just gave you the technique
34:14
Speaker 2: to do it. So yes. All right, so let's talk about,
34:18
Speaker 2: you know, if anybody wanted to work with you, how
34:21
Speaker 2: can they get in touch with you? You know, where
34:23
Speaker 2: do you hang out on social media, websites, anything? Go
34:26
Speaker 2: ahead and plug away. Yes.
34:28
Speaker 3: Now, all of my stuff is Optimize Consciousness. So in
34:34
Speaker 3: all the socials, it's all one word for my website.
34:37
Speaker 3: There's a dash between, so optimize-consciousness.com. And I have, if
34:42
Speaker 3: you want to experience... more healing processes. I have a
34:46
Speaker 3: couple free guided healing processes on my website at gift.optimized-consciousness.com.
34:54
Speaker 3: And the one that is, there's two there. The one
34:57
Speaker 3: that you get to immediately when you go there is
35:00
Speaker 3: for letting go of resistance to positive change. So whether
35:05
Speaker 3: that's trying to do something positive for yourself in your life,
35:09
Speaker 3: or that's even just feeling more positive, we can have
35:12
Speaker 3: resistance to both of those things. And so this it's
35:15
Speaker 3: like a five, 10 minute process that like a somatic
35:20
Speaker 3: process where you actually release that resistance to change. And
35:25
Speaker 3: then you feel lighter and you're like, oh, I can
35:26
Speaker 3: just do this thing or feel this way.
35:29
Speaker 4: And I don't have to try so hard. And so
35:31
Speaker 4: that's one thing.
35:33
Speaker 3: And then there's another one, which is if you feel
35:36
Speaker 3: like other people have qualities that you don't have, like
35:39
Speaker 3: qualities of being like they're smarter or, you know, more
35:44
Speaker 3: outgoing or, you know, like out of your league, like
35:48
Speaker 3: if you're trying to date people and you're like, oh
35:50
Speaker 3: my God, they're just out of my league. Or, you know,
35:52
Speaker 3: your competition in dating is, you know, kind of better
35:55
Speaker 3: than you in some way. Anything where you feel like
35:58
Speaker 3: they have something you don't have, there's a very good
36:01
Speaker 3: chance that that is actually a projection of your own
36:04
Speaker 3: positive qualities. And so there's a process to actually heal
36:08
Speaker 3: that projection and reclaim all of that goodness for yourself.
36:12
Speaker 1: Okay.
36:14
Speaker 2: I love that. All that will be included in the
36:16
Speaker 2: show notes, so you don't have to worry about rewinding
36:18
Speaker 2: or stopping. All of it, it will be listed. Before
36:22
Speaker 2: we get out of here, I want to ask you
36:24
Speaker 2: this question. If you could sit down with your 20-year-old self,
36:29
Speaker 2: the young man who had just lost his mother, what
36:32
Speaker 2: would you want him to know about life waiting for
36:35
Speaker 2: him on the other side of pain?
36:38
Speaker 4: Oh, my God. I'm going to cry. Go ahead.
36:42
Speaker 3: If I could sit down with my 22-year-old self, I
36:47
Speaker 3: would say, just do your best and that will be
36:50
Speaker 3: good enough. And don't worry. Like, just do it. Just
36:57
Speaker 3: keep going. Just do your best.
36:59
Speaker 4: And just know that you are supported by life.
37:01
Speaker 2: I love that. I have to ask you the signature
37:08
Speaker 2: question because I asked. every guest on the podcast, when
37:14
Speaker 2: life challenges you and love stretches you, what mindset keeps
37:19
Speaker 2: you grounded?
37:23
Speaker 3: Literally just what I just said, like that if I
37:27
Speaker 3: just take the next step, that there's always a next step.
37:31
Speaker 3: If I just take the next step and the next step,
37:35
Speaker 3: I'll just, I'll be okay. And that came from When
37:40
Speaker 3: I was just in the depths of despair and I
37:45
Speaker 3: went out on the end of this dock and there
37:48
Speaker 3: was this crazy windstorm going and I just yelled into
37:51
Speaker 3: the wind like, what should I do? And I just
37:55
Speaker 3: heard this voice in my head that just said, just
37:57
Speaker 3: keep going.
37:58
Speaker 4: You've got this.
37:59
Speaker 3: And that's what I've done. And it's been crazy. It's
38:03
Speaker 3: been hard. It's been good. It's been bad.
38:05
Speaker 4: And it's always, I've just always come back to that.
38:08
Speaker 4: And I'm still here.
38:11
Speaker 2: Right. I love that. I love that. So Owen, thank
38:14
Speaker 2: you for kicking it with Kiki today. Thank you for
38:16
Speaker 2: being here, pouring into myself as well as the listeners.
38:20
Speaker 2: Any words of encouragement, any words of impact that you
38:23
Speaker 2: would like to leave today before you go?
38:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is just when you feel like you don't
38:30
Speaker 3: know what to do, just try stuff. Like just be
38:35
Speaker 3: open to new things. That has always saved me. is
38:39
Speaker 3: I feel like I don't know what's going on. I
38:41
Speaker 3: don't know how to help myself. I don't know what
38:42
Speaker 3: to do. And inevitably when I become, I'm like, okay,
38:47
Speaker 3: I'm open to whatever. Something will come along and it'll
38:52
Speaker 3: often be something that I haven't really considered or like,
38:56
Speaker 3: I don't know about that. Like that's kind of outside
38:58
Speaker 3: of what I would normally do. But you know, what
39:02
Speaker 3: I normally do hasn't been working. So sure, I'll try this.
39:05
Speaker 3: I call this divine desperation. And It's the thing that
39:10
Speaker 3: can transform despair into hope again.
39:13
Speaker 2: I have to write that down. Transforming despair into hope again.
39:19
Speaker 2: I love that. All right. Thank you for pointing to
39:22
Speaker 2: our audience again with your words of impact, Owen. It
39:25
Speaker 2: has been amazing having you here. So thank you, thank you,
39:28
Speaker 2: thank you for all of the listening. Thank you for
39:31
Speaker 2: tuning in to another episode of Kicking It With Kiki, Life, Love,
39:34
Speaker 2: and Mindset. One thing I hope everyone listening takes away
39:38
Speaker 2: from today's episode is that functioning and freedom aren't necessarily
39:42
Speaker 2: the same thing. Sometimes we become so good at carrying
39:47
Speaker 2: something or something picking up from others that they never
39:51
Speaker 2: asked us to, that we assume we are healed from it.
39:56
Speaker 2: We keep working, loving, achieving, showing up, and moving forward,
40:01
Speaker 2: but there may be still pieces of our past quietly
40:05
Speaker 2: influenced the way that we experience our present. And maybe
40:09
Speaker 2: the question isn't always, how do I keep carrying this?
40:14
Speaker 2: Maybe sometimes the question is, what would my life look
40:18
Speaker 2: like if I didn't carry it anymore? Until next time,
40:22
Speaker 2: keep living, keep loving, keep working on that mindset that
40:27
Speaker 2: allows you to become more of who you were always
40:30
Speaker 2: meant to be. So this has been another episode of
40:32
Speaker 2: Kicking It Kiki. Purple hugs. Later. Thank you. Thank you.