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Facing The Inner Depths with James Jung · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Papist podcast. My name is got Macpherson.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who have been impacted by trauma. Here we go,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: So five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Very excited to have as my
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: guest today. James James, Welcome.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: So.
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  Speaker 1: James is a former armbat Army combat veteran who, after
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: serving in combat environments, began his own journey to understanding
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: and treating trauma. Now a psychiatrist specializing in PTSD and trauma,
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  Speaker 1: James currently serves as the director of Behavioral Health for
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: ZEEM Health and Wellness. In addition to his clinical work,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: he co founded the nonprofit Interdepse Free Diving, where he
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: serves as a mental health program director. At inter Depths,
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  Speaker 1: he supports trauma survivors and reconnecting with their bodies and
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: regulating their nervous systems through the transformative power of water
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: and breath, teaching free diving skill integrated with mental health support. Yeah, awesome, bio,
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  Speaker 1: I mean combat veteran. Of course, you have to get
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  Speaker 1: out and become a psychiatrist. And then so anyway, just
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  Speaker 1: really really awesome. But before we could get into all that,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: share with the listeners where you're from originally and where
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: you are currently.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks, I appreciate. So I am. I'm from New
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  Speaker 2: Mexico originally, where I grew up, and I'm currently based
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: out of Sacramento, California.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so all right, let's start from the beginning. Sure, Yeah, military,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: how why? What?
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  Speaker 2: Yes? I remember it was kind of a combo, you know,
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  Speaker 2: being I think a young male in my frontal lobe
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: not fully developed, and I did want to serve, and
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  Speaker 2: I think part of me really wanted to go over
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: and I was kinda wanted to see things from myself
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  Speaker 2: and like real things, And so that's kind of what
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  Speaker 2: got me into the army is you know, it was exciting.
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  Speaker 2: There's adrenaline, there, felt like something meaningful. I was right
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: in high school when nine to eleven happened to so
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  Speaker 2: that was kind of there in the context of what
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: I joined as well. So yeah, and that's kind of
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: how I ended up. I didn't necessarily think I was
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: going to be going into infantry, you know, I became
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: a kind of infantry of toon leader was my job,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: you know, my MS and the army. But yeah, it's
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: kind of how I ended up there. But I didn't
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  Speaker 2: really have I had a grandfather Navy, but I, you know,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: just kind of looking for an adventure, I think. So.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: In the bio, it says, after serving in combat environments,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: you began your own journey to understanding and treating trauma.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: You don't say specifically your trauma. It was your trauma
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: or the trauma you saw experience, what.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: No, I mean, it was definitely it was bold, you know,
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  Speaker 2: it was I had my own experiences over there of
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: on a loss and death and some really challenging moments
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: that that you know, still affect me in their own
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: ways today. And then and then you know, when I
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: was serving the time, you know, I remember I had
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: this this this memory of when all of a sudden,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: like the news started talking about like how many veterans
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: were committing suicide and and and like we just kind
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: of knew this, you know, like that was like our
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: life that we accepted.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it's like like of course this happens, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And and so it was, and I was somehow
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  Speaker 2: like in chart of that we came back and we
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: knew it was a problem. I mean, we'd come back
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: from deployments and had like I want to say, like
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: our our company ID like two or three suicides or
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: suicide attempts just coming back, and and I was like
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: I was somehow in charge of like monitoring I don't know,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know shit about this, you know. I was like,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know, and my own, you know, my own
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  Speaker 2: kind of experiences that I was trying to kind of
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: deal with and process, and so it was it was
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: a combo of that. It was just kind of what
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: it was like for me, and then watching the people
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  Speaker 2: around me cope with it too in a way. And
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  Speaker 2: so that was kind of the dealing with it and
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  Speaker 2: and and dealing with it, I mean was like recognizing
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: that I didn't know anything about it.
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  Speaker 1: I really didn't, Right, So how does that unfold? Do
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: you get out and what happens?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? So I actually so I was originally with the
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: eighty second Airboard and and then I had gotten picked
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: up to become a opportune leader at the Ranger Battalion.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: And when I went over there, I got injured. I
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: had a pretty bad heat stroke, and that kind of
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: you know, took me out of the deployment status, which
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  Speaker 2: at that time, you know, that was kind of the goal,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: right that was the job was to deploy. And so
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: but I also kind of had this sense that like
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: I was gonna chase my own death down eventually in
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  Speaker 2: some sense, like I luck was going to run out,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: you know, it already kind of had a few really
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: close calls, and after that injury, it kind of just reset.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: And you know, I went from this almost like accepting
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: that I wasn't going to live in my thirties to
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: I kind of want to be in a relationship, you know,
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: get married to kids, and I don't know that I'm
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: going to be able to do that if I keep going.
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  Speaker 2: And so that's when I kind of decided to get
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  Speaker 2: out of the army. And I didn't I didn't really
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  Speaker 2: know what I wanted to do. I didn't really know
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  Speaker 2: what it could do. Like everything felt crazy, you know
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  Speaker 2: that to kind of transition to that wasn't like fighting
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: or shooting or something like that, and and that had
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: already kind of taken its toll on me, and and
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  Speaker 2: so I so I actually got out. I worked as
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: a police officer in Albuquerque, New Mexico and went back
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  Speaker 2: to school, and I had this crazy idea I was
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: going to go to med school because that made sense.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Let me play right there for a second. Yeah, So
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  Speaker 1: were you experiencing symptoms of PTSD at this time?
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  Speaker 2: I was, Yeah, yeah, it's kind of it's it's just
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: when I look back on it, you know, when I
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: was working as a cop, and even when I was
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: in the Army, because I was like in it, some
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: of those symptoms weren't nearly as a parent. You know,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: it was just because my mindset was there. You know,
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  Speaker 2: I wasn't making these context switches like between you know,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: violence to normal life all the time, and so I
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: don't think it was as much when they really became
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: a parent for me personally. It was actually when I
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: went when I went back to school to get my
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: med school PREWEX and I was in a creative writing
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: class and I had the first panic attack I've ever
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  Speaker 2: had in my life, Like sitting in there with like
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: a bunch of eighteen year old college students in a
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: creative writing class, just like freaked out. And that was
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: kind of like something's wrong.
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  Speaker 1: You know.
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  Speaker 2: I can look back and say, like why that happened
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: in there, but you know, the tough like that was
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: what it really Those two worlds kind of came together,
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  Speaker 2: and I was like, like, what's what's going on with me?
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  Speaker 2: Like I can can go and I could get shot
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  Speaker 2: at and be okay and do these things, and I
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  Speaker 2: can't sit in a classroom with eighteen year olds and
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: read papers and so yeah, I was I did kind
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: of start to experience things. I mean, I mean I
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: did experience like, you know, had like nightmares. My sleep
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  Speaker 2: was just completely messed up, you know, But I didn't really,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: i think, have a framework at the time to like
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: say like, oh, that's what this is. It's just like,
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  Speaker 2: you know, that's what I did in my body and
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  Speaker 2: now I'm dealing with it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you you decide to go to school, go
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: to college. How some might say that the shift from
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  Speaker 1: the military to medical school maybe not draw a direct
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  Speaker 1: line to that. Yeah, maybe you could argue that there is.
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  Speaker 1: But what was your reasoning or what was your inspiration
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  Speaker 1: for doing that?
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  Speaker 2: Well, it was it was a couple of things. I think,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I'd had to make some decisions overseas that
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  Speaker 2: you know it, but that were really hard for me.
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  Speaker 2: You know that to protect us, we had to kind
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: of destroy something else, and that really weighed on me.
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  Speaker 2: And I think I think when I got out, it
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  Speaker 2: wasn't necessarily a I absolutely have to make up for this,
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  Speaker 2: but I had this feeling of like I've done a
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  Speaker 2: lot of destruction, and the idea, at least at the time, well,
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  Speaker 2: it wasn't you know. I was kind of processing this
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  Speaker 2: in the own way, like like medicine or something that
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: feels like a way that I can kind of like,
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  Speaker 2: you know, fix my karmath well, a way that I
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  Speaker 2: could get back and and and it was interesting to me.
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  Speaker 2: And I always like did like science, and I enjoyed
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: going back to school, and yeah, so that was kind
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  Speaker 2: of how I got there. But you know, I think,
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  Speaker 2: like become a psychiatrist and and go to med school.
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  Speaker 2: I like probably the most impactful moment was when I
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  Speaker 2: got my pre wrecks and then I had applied to
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  Speaker 2: med school, which felt crazy. It's like, this is like
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  Speaker 2: what am I doing? You know? And but I I
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: found out I got into the University of New Mexico,
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  Speaker 2: and it was pretty pumped about that. And I called
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  Speaker 2: my best friend from the Army, Frankie Kim, and he
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  Speaker 2: was he was in Florida, and he was kind of
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: his own stuff over there, and I was like, I
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: got to bed school. It's crazy. He's like, that's awesome,
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  Speaker 2: you know. And we'd kind of like the life after
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: the Army was like going to funerals and you know,
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  Speaker 2: so and so died and and that stuff, and so,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: you know, with the close people, it was like when
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  Speaker 2: something good happened where we felt like like we might
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: make it kind of a thing. We're like, hey, you know,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: made it right, or or someone gets married and the
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: and so, yeah, I called Frankie to tell him because
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: because he was just we were close like that, and
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: and Frankie had been dealing with his own kind of
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: survivor's guilt from his deployments and and I think it
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: was kind of self medicating, but just very like kind
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: kind excited person. And and I remember we had this
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: conversation and at the same time he told me like
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  Speaker 2: he'd gone to the BA for the first time and
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: actually started on an antidepressant. And I was, you know,
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  Speaker 2: I was happy for him too. I was like glad,
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  Speaker 2: I know he'd been suffering. And and then a week
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  Speaker 2: after I told him my phone rang and our other
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: friend called and like I knew the second I saw
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: it on my phone. I picked it up and he said,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Frankie killed himself. And that just like ripped this like
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: ground out from under me. You know, it was like
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: this the person that I was. You know, we talked
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: about how hard school was, how hard going back to
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: school was, you know, doing what we did and being
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: around other people where you can't really talk about it,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: and so you know, I went into and actually to
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: add to that, what was extra hard was, you know,
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: it wasn't quite sure. And I called Frankie's brother and
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: he was like, yeah, he did, and he said, you know,
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: he was there. I think it was for Thanksgiving or
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: holiday and his brother Niki, was like, yeah, we talked
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: to him and he said he's like he told us
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  Speaker 2: he got into med school and was so excited for you,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: and that just you know, totally kind of changed what
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  Speaker 2: I thought I wanted to do and kind of why
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: I wanted to do it. It took me a while
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: to like grieve and process that also. And at the time,
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: you know, when I started meds, I was like, I'm
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: sure I'm gonna be an emergency Posisue and I just
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: like that's where I go, you know. I But then
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: I went into you know, did our psychiatry rotations, and
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: there was something that kind of connected with me in
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: a way, and it felt like I finally had some
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: tools to kind of talk about and do the things
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: that like we're being asked to me that I had
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: no idea what to do. And so yeah, that was
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: kind of the the transition into med school and becoming
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: a psychiatrists. It was wow.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man, thanks for sharing that story. That is freaking intense.
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  Speaker 1: And as you were telling, as you were talking about
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  Speaker 1: your friend and I was listening, part of me was like,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: do not tell me that this guy is gonna but
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: you could feel it. So when you decided to pursue psychiatry,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: was it, yes, I want to work in trauma and
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: PTSD or did did that just slowly happen or what
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: It slowly happened? You know, I I don't think I
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: could have. It took me a while to understand myself
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  Speaker 2: and my own kind of process before I could like
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: do this kind of work in a healthy way. I
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: think I just prior to that, right, I've been I've
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: been dealing with kind of my own symptoms and things
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: that I was going through, and I was naturally introspective.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: You know, I would say I'm kind of young in
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: in my psychological kind of understanding. I would say that
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: I took kind of an intuitive introvert. I just kind
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: of naturally kind of like dive inward and want to
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: think about myself and what's going on and why that is.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: And so I've always got to like interested in that.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: And then and then I liked the aspect of like
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: talking to someone and that like to get you know,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: to understand them, I have to be able to ask
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: the questions correctly for them and understand them. And so
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: that really kind of appealed to me in a way.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: And so like the field of psychiatry and and and
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: the work of that was kind of interesting. And then,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: you know, when I got that under my belt and
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: I kind of understood myself a lot more on what
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: I wanted to do. That was really when they kind
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: of came together where you know, the trauma and and
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: how I thought about that and being able to apply
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: my experiences in a way that was like healthy, felt
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: really positive and kind of the direction that I was
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: headed let.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Me just remind everyone I'm speaking with James. Doctor James Young.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: He is the founder co founder of inter Depths Free Diving,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: also director of Behavioral Health for Zeem Health and Wellness. So,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: all right, you both through medical school, you become a psychiatrist,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: you are a psychiatrist. Talk to us about It's interesting
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: when you were just speaking, you use the word I
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: kind of like to naturally dive into my inner, inner, inner,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: inner experience, which is obviously what inter depth is is.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: So how did this come about?
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in your depth? So, school was hard, I I
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: I and and residency was hard, and you know, I
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: think the reality of being a veteran in school and
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: and I'm you know, I might generalize here a little bit,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: but on universities, and my experience was that like it's
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: not really recognized, you know, it's it's there are other
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: things that I really kind of pointed out, but I
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: never really felt like it was kind of found or group.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: I really talked about it, but it was it was
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: like the kind of environment of college and school, Like
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: the academic environment wasn't always as as welcoming or kind
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: of curious about natural experiences. And and you know, I met.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: I met good people in residency, but it was also
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: kind of a similar type thing where you know, people
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: kind of knew what I did or a little bit
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: about my background, but but I I couldn't really share
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: a lot. It was like too shocking, too upsetting. People
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: didn't really know how how that worked in psychiatry, you know, like,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: how do I bring that into psychiatry is a weird thing.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: I didn't really know fully how I brought that into psychiatry.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: I was learning how how those parts of me kind
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: of coexisted. And and so just getting through residency was
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: a struggle, and not the academic part, just the like
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: can I do this? How can I be a doctor
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: and a psychiatrist? Because then I was really doing the work,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: and it was kind of weird experience to be there.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: You know, It's like going through the idea of being
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: a psychiatrist to doing it and having to process kind
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: of a whole extra layer of myself in that. And
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: so I had some really important kind of experiences and mentors.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: One of them, John Strass, he's a he's a psychiatrist,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: is about to retire but works out of the VA
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: and in San Francisco, and and I met him through
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: a veteran surfing organization, Operations Surf, which I just went
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: to as a participant. I take veterans and you know
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: kind of surf.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, is that what is Operations Surf? That sounds very
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: familiar to me.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's I mean they're they're becoming bigger. I mean
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: they're the surf therapy is you know, really kind of
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: picked up right a wi of therapy and and so
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: this was a pretty large organization, but it was it
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: was really cool. And and so I met John Strass
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: when I was a It goes by Strass too, but
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: he uh when I was a fourth year medical student
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: and at this and I went as a participant, and
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: that connected me and I was like, yeah, I'm going
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: to my psychiatry residency and that's pretty wild. And so
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: he was, you know, then there are a lot of
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: people that kind of helped me through this, but he
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: was he was kind of fundamental in keeping me put
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: together to residency. No, I would I would call him
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: on the phone when I was really started, like you
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: I can't believe that. I'm like I'm done, I'm out
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: of here, you know, like and he's like, you know,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: you're good like through this right, it's it's and he
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: really encouraged me to kind of like I would come
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: out and surf with veterans, and so I I something
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: in me just kind of wanted to. I think part
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: of what I was missing was, you know, and if
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: you haven't kind of experienced this, it's explained, but there
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: was something peaceful about the intensity of combat, like, and
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: I kind of describe it to patients as like, you know,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: we walk around in this world and we have to
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: play the game. You know, the game is kind of
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: these structures and these things that that feel real to us,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: but they're not really real.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: It's like the when I was in med school, right,
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: It's like that's my world, right, like all these people
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: around me like that, and you step out of it,
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: You're like, wait a second, no, you know, I just
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: not do this right. And and when you're in combat,
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: it's like the game is gone. It's very simple. You know,
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: you're going to die or not going to die. There
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: aren't these arbitrary rules or something like that. And I
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: think you can get to that understanding in a healthy way,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: because you know, if you kind of get too trapped
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: in the game, it's can cause a lot of suffering,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: and I just i'd been trying to put that side
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: of me down, I think because it just didn't feel
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: compatible with medicine, like, but I think I needed some
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: of that, and there was some edge that I think
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: partly I needed to feel to kind of fully feel connected,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: and I had more to lose at that time. So,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: you know, riding motorcycles really fast like I did before
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: was less of an option, and so free diving just
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: kind of seemed to appeal in that way. I was like,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna try that seems hard. Freaks me out a
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: little bit, you know, I get a little like of
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: that philasophobiat of fear of that kind of dark, big
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: the water, and so it was a challenge, but it
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: really kind of I mean, it was amazing when I
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: did it, and it just kind of decided to do
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: it in residency, and it was it's like I dove
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: down the first time when I got comfortable, and I
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: was like boom, It's like wow, you know, that was amazing,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: and and so that that's when we started. I started
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: doing that, and my wife learned to do it, and
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: and then by us doing and I was like recognizing
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: that by doing free diving, I'm like learning and doing
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: the same things I like teach patients that I meet
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: with and trauma. So that's kind of how that all, yeah,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: came to be.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: So free diving for those listeners who don't know, is
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: what give us? Give us the thumbnail.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, I mean basically, you know, holding your breath
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: and diving down and and nice. Yeah it's not that simple,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: but yeah, it's like learning how to kind of tolerate
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: the experience of holding your breath and relaxing and and
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: I mean people do it for different reasons. You can
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: dive for depth or time or.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, now some might be familiar with like these
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: super deep pools where they have like guide ropes.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Is that what you're doing, Yeah, I mean that's how
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: you learn. I personally have not like like sometimes they
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: call them like depth seekers, you know, I I that
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: is not necessarily what pulls me in, Like I like
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: diving down to a certain depth that that feels like
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: a challenge and then being able to spend as much
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: time down there comfortably by myself on one breath as
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: I can. So mm hm, you know, it's like extreme snorkeling.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Might be a term that I used to describe what
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: I what I like doing.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, so get more specific about inter depths and what
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: do you do there? Who do you Is it just uh,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: people who've experienced trauma or what?
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's it's primarily the focus of people who
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: experienced trauma. And we you know, we created this course
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: that kind of tries to integrate the mental health understanding
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: of you know, like nervous system regulation and those things
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: and and what happens in trauma. So like so like
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: we'll take participants and and so our most recent one
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: was in ConA. We did a ConA, Hawaii, which is
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: a really big brain diving locations. There's a lot of
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: free divers out there. And we had a women's program
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: you know when it's program plus plus me and and
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: so it's it starts it's kind of like a educational
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: portion where I'm kind of describing like what happens in
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: our brains with trauma, which I think is really important
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: for people to understand, and then connecting kind of like
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: what we're going to do and what you learn in
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: just by learning free diving, how that could be applied
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: to help kind of reduce activation and the kind of
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: nervous system in balances that happen, you know, when you
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: have PTSD, and how to kind of tolerate stress. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: yeah yeah, so a lot of it, right, Like when
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: you're learning to free dive, you're you're learning to kind
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: of it's like, can you relax more in a certain way.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: It's like like it's you know, it'll be really like
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: goes out and like just holds their breath for fun
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: for a long time because it doesn't feel good. But
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: by doing that right, like it's pretty incredible how long
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: you can actually hold your breath for. But by one,
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: you have to really relax before you do this. Like
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: like your body will tell you pretty quickly if you're tense.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Because our urge to breathe really is driven by CO two,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: so it's not actually low oxygen for most of the world.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Our CO two build up is like that that I
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: gotta breathe, and that happens, you know, that will increase
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: when we're tents and our muscle tents, right, we're like
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: creating more CO two and that builds up. So it's
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: like this this automatic like indication like your tents, you know,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: and you can tell so like a lot of it
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: is just learning how to first, like you know, learning
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: kind of like mindfulness and relaxation. So before you're about
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: to do this, this thing that you know is going
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: to be pretty uncomfortable, like can you can you relax
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: and kind of breathe into that, then prepare for this
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: and then and then actually like doing the breathe up
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: and taking this big breath and tell people like you
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: sit there and when you're practicing, you got a lot
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: of time allow with your thoughts doing nothing, and your
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: body starts to feel uncomfortable that you know, the hamster
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: on the wheel starts going around. They say like they're like,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: now you're not gonna make it. You're not gonna make
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: it that far. You know, you're not good enough. Like
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: that's where all these things come up, these these like
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: lines and those things about yourself where like if you
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: hold it one more, you know, ten more seconds, you're
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: probably gonna die for sure. And so that's like kind
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: of a mental experience, right, and then your body is tense,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: and so so learning to do it well means learning
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: how to deal with those thoughts, and it means knowing
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: and you start to get a really kind of a
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: tuned sense of like, oh yeah, like how many hell
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: it for a minute and a half, Like my shoulders
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: were tense. I definitely know that, right, And you start
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: doing that process of like kind of like biofeedback in
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: a way. And so and it is like the term
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: I kind of is this distress tolerance. And so it's
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: like how do you kind of in a really intense
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: situation calm yourself, you know, call yourself to think think
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: through something. And so when they learn that, then they
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: can apply it to There's like when you're diving, there's
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: this kind of a sequence of of of diving to
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: kind of best best preserve your you know, your energy
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: and not build up CO two. But it actually requires
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: kind of some thinking through when you're learning. And so
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: you know, in trauma, a lot of what we see
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: right when we see like fMRIs is this you know,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: central executive network in our brain that controls like the
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: planning and thinking through things and and and so I
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: kind of explained to participants that's why you like people
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: feel like like I know this, right, I have done.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: And then when you're activated at a certain level, right, it's
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: like not right, you can't you know, I say, like
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: I tell them, you know that our body was not
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: meant to do calculus when we're running from a lion,
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: you know, it's it. And so so you have to
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: calm yourself down enough to be able to think through
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: those sequences. And then and then there's always a moment
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: when you dive down where you're like, oh ship, you know,
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: like I'm I'm I'm deep and I got to make
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: sure you back up right, And so it's it's another
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: moment where you kind of deal with that that kind
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: of distress and those just environments and like the more
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: you go down come up, the more you learn about
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: your body and kind of where you're tense and what
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: happened and the right exactly. Yeah, and I think it too.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: It's like when I do it in the office, you know,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: some often we're talking about specific content that's really challenging,
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: and so this free diving, you know, seem to offer
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: a way to do that with that where the goal
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: is like like be more relaxed and comfortable and dive
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: in the ocean and see beautiful things. And you're still
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: training kind of those abilities without me ka digging into
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: some really gnarly experiences in your past, but then you
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: can apply that right too. When you do have to
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: do that, you have to talk about those things. Yeah.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Well, so you talked about program in Hawaii. Are you
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: what kind of programs are you offering for people?
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're we're in another kind of a mixed group.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: We're we're planning on some veteran specific free diving programs
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: coming up here probably probably in the fall, and so yeah,
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: we're I'm kind of excited. All it's early. We're working
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: with Martin's uh product kind of miss mispronounced his last name.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: So he's a He founded or co founded FII, which
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: is the Free Diving Organization certification organization, because you know,
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: we want to make sure it's like state right, it's
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: there's us there, and so we always like have to
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: be saved and so FII is probably, i think, you know,
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: in our opinion, one of the safest oriented the way
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: they teach it, and so we're hoping to he's been
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: he's really excited, and we've worked with him on on
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: developing a kind of the first Trauma Formed instructor certifications
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: so we can kind of teach the trauma and form
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: principles to the your current free diving instructors to help
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: expand this, you know, to more groups and classes.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: And awesome, yeah, all right, James. How do people learn
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: more about you and what you're what you're doing.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Zine health zinehealth dot com. You know, it's kind of
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: our website and reach out there and also inter depths.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Free Diving dot org is is the website for organization,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: and there's there's links to kind of contact and you know,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: always pumped talking spread the word about things that help
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: with trauma.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Awesome and zeem is spelled z e A m z A. Awesome,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: all right, James. Awesome, man, love to have you back.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Super inspiring. I just love what you're doing. Appreciate it.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being here.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you having me on to talk about it.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: All right, man, We'll be in touch