Unleashing the Transformative Power of Emotion Code Healing EP 355

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Close your eyes and imagine. What are the things in life that cause us the greatest pain? The things that bring us grief are challenges, challenges designed to help us grow, to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried. But what if, like a seed, we've been planted? And having been planted, we grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is Grief to Growth. And I am your host, Brian D Smith. Hey there, welcome to another episode of Grief to Growth. I'm your host, Brian Smith. This is a place where we explore the depths of life, the mysteries of death, and a journey that connects them both. Whether this is your first time with us, or you're a valued part of our growing community, I want to welcome you to another episode where we talk about healing and understanding. In today's episode, we're going to delve into a topic that holds a lot of personal value for each of us. And that's the transformative power of self-healing and emotional release. And this isn't just an academic discussion. It's a journey in understanding how we can unlock our inner potential to heal and grow, even in the face of life's most daunting challenges. And I would say a lot of times those challenges actually force us to heal and grow. Our guest today is Jay Chattelain-C. I believe I got that close to correct. He's a beacon of hope and resilience. He's an Emotion Code practitioner. And his story is a testament to the human spirit's ability to overcome adversity. His experiences, especially during the challenging time when his eldest daughter battled a chronic disease, have given him profound insights into the dynamics of emotional and physical well-healing. And his journey is more than a personal triumph. It's a roadmap for anybody seeking to navigate their own trials. With Jay's guidance, we'll explore how to harness the Emotion Code and other self-healing techniques to transform our own traumas into strength and into wisdom. This is an opportunity for you, listener, to learn to practice learn practical strategies for emotional healing, and to gain insights into how physical health intertwines with our emotional state. So as we engage with Jay, you'll discover how to apply these principles in your own life, turning challenges into opportunities for growth and healing. And if you enjoyed this conversation, once it's over, please visit us at grieftogrowth.com/community to continue the conversation there. So with that, I want to welcome Jay to the podcast.

Thank you. Thank you for that awesome introduction. Happy to be here, Brian.

Yeah, I'm happy to have you here too. You're— what you do fits right into what we talk about here on Grief to Growth. And that's how do we, how do we grow? How do we take emotional challenges and grow? So I'd like to start with asking you, how did you begin this journey? What made you decide to get into helping people with this, with this topic?

Oh, very good question. So I had to, I had a lot to overcome myself emotionally, a lot of trauma, and I saw repeating cycles in my own life. And then a couple of catalysts happened to kind of wake me up even more, because that's what life does, right? It throws you these curveballs to make you wake up and hopefully give you enough signs or enough wake-up calls to then give you the awareness to then want to change and transform. So I had a couple of those, and the transformation was so profound that I knew this was my life path, was to help others because of the transformation that I've experienced myself. My wife, my kids, generational, generationally with, you know, uh, all of my children, uh, everyone that's connected to me and then now with my current clients. So it's been an awesome journey so far. It's something that I've never even thought that I would've got into cuz I'm more of a tech guy. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a web designer by trade, so I was in, you know, corporate, you know, making, making websites and marketing, digital marketing. And then all these things happened to kind of steer me into this direction. And, and now here I am and it's been so fulfilling and, and I'm, I feel so blessed and honored to be a part of, uh, other people's healing journeys to be their guide, uh, and to help them, you know, see the patterns and things that they can work on to to truly transform. So that's how I got there.

Yeah. So if you wouldn't mind, what are some of those things that happened to you that kind of puts you on this path without revealing anything too personal?

Oh yeah. Um, so you mentioned it in the introduction, you know, uh, the first catalyst was my eldest daughter who, uh, she was born with a rare genetic disorder. Something that we never saw coming. It was kind of like a luck of the draw, I guess. That's what her genetics doctor told us. Uh, both her mother and I had no understanding of it. We became, uh, experienced in genetics after we had her, understanding, you know, how things work and biologically, uh, genetically. And that was probably the first, you know, uh, thing that happened because we stayed in the NICU in Stanford, California, uh, Stanford Lucile Packard Hospital for about a year and a half as she was fighting for her life and didn't know how that was going to turn out. But luckily, you know, she got through it. Um, she's 14 now. If you see her, you wouldn't even You know, you can even tell what she had to go through in her early life. So that was part of the first catalyst that kind of woke me up to understand like, wow, you know, things can just end quickly. And I was watching my child fight for her life.

Yeah.

You know, and nothing really mattered to me at that point. I was in college still, and I was just still trying to get my bachelor's degree at San Francisco State. I wasn't even thinking about school. I was traveling back and forth, you know, uh, from Stanford, uh, there. A lot of things, a lot of ups and downs. Um, but luckily, you know, we had a lot of support.

Mm-hmm.

And it gave me the first understanding of how resilient we are as humans, you know, as these human beings, the things that we could just fight through. Even when we first come into this world, you know, on top of, you know, medical technology and all the nurses and doctors who know their stuff. I mean, I feel so blessed to be a part of that. But even that, even that whole experience, looking back, for her to go through that, for her to be put in that specific hospital with the number 2 doctor specifically that understands her genetic disorder was like, what? You know, 'cause she was born in a different hospital. Mm-hmm. 2 days after she was born, her mother with her intuitiveness thought that something, something was wrong with her, which proved correct because 2 days later we were transferred to Lucile Packard and that's where we found out all this, these things, her rare genetic disorder, you know, it's called MMA, methylmalonic acidemia, basically. Her body can't metabolize protein. Mm. So she's on a very low protein diet, you know, and you know, if you don't have protein, it affects every part of your body.

Right.

And so now she's very healthy, you know, and so like I mentioned, that's the first, uh, catalyst that kind of woke me up. And then the second one was meeting my wife, and a lot of things came with that as well because we were like polar opposites emotionally. I was very closed off. I was very emotionally unavailable. Uh, I got all these, uh, traits and characteristics from my father, who was a huge part of my own You know, childhood trauma. Um, but back then I didn't make the connection with that.

Sure.

My behavior, my beliefs, uh, everything I did, my decisions, my reactions, I just thought it was part of who I was. And then it was like, love it or leave it, right? Like, this is who I am, never gonna change. And then I meet my wife and then That all changed, of course, cuz we were mirroring each other of the things that we needed to work on. So she taught me vulnerability, she taught me empathy, she taught me sensitivity, something that I never really understood. I was a, a guy who suppressed his emotions easily. I didn't know how to feel. I didn't know how to articulate. I didn't know how to, you know, be sensitive, even with my children. I didn't know how to console them when they were crying. I blamed them, I guilted them, I shamed them. And it was just a repeating pattern because that's what I was used to when I was a kid. I was never able to express anything. If I did, I would get reprimanded, I would get guilted, I would get shamed, right? Feelings were weak in our household, so couldn't talk about it, couldn't even cry, you know. I would get in trouble if I cried. So that behavior and that understanding transcended into my own parenting as a father. So when I met my wife, you know, she was kind of like the first one that said, hey, you can't say that to your daughter. That's mean. You know, like you can't just tell her to stop crying when she's hurt.

Right.

And that didn't, translate. That didn't make sense to me at all. And so I had to learn that. I had to learn how to feel and connect, become more emotionally intelligent. It was so foreign to me, Brian. Like, I, you know, and I'm pretty sure a lot of the audience members can, you know, relate to this if you've grown up in a household like that, right? But it was nothing of my father's doing because that's what he was used to, right? So he didn't know any better. But then at the time when I was growing up, I didn't, I didn't make that connection either, right? I was, it was very personal to me and I was very resentful, a lot of anger, a lot of frustration. Like I said, suppressed emotions. And then when I got out of high school, it was, I just exploded. I rebelled, got into drugs and alcohol and, you know, just the, the the life of just not caring, living on the edge, you know, every single night, destroying my body, my mind, everything. I had no direction, you know, I was just letting it all out. And, but deep down inside, I knew something had to give. And like I said, when I met my wife, she gave me that direction. She gave me all the things I needed to work on. It was tough, but You know, we got through it and now, now we're here. So those are the two major, um, reasons why I then started to get on this path of healing and transformation for myself, right?

So, so was there a moment when you realize something's got to change? I mean, I know you said you had these couple, these couple of events, but you were, you said you, you are, I guess, were a web developer, but now you're also coaching people. So what, what, what caused you to say, okay, this is I want to do. Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief? Most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up, so you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry a loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night, written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it: the community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing— listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become. A place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there.

I think the fulfillment of working with clients and seeing them transform Uh, the feeling that I got, that was, you can't really explain it when you work with, uh, people and you see them change and transform in real time. The realizations that they get, the light bulb moments that they have within themselves, it's magical to say the least. And for me to be a part of that, it's almost like a higher calling. You could say, and a deeper connectedness with them that is truly miraculous. Um, I'm one to believe that, you know, things don't happen for a reason, uh, for specific reasons. So any person I come in contact with, my clients, anyone, you, I mean, this is all divinely orchestrated somehow, some way, and our messages and this podcast is going to impact whoever it's going to impact, but we're here now. And so I really never understood that until I started working, you know, with my clients and, uh, diving deep into my own transformation and healing.

Yeah.

And then making that decision finally, you know, to become a coach was, like I said, the best, one of the best decisions I made in my life.

So what, what brought you to the understanding that everything is orchestrated? Is that something from your, from your background, or how did that, how did that come about?

Good question. You know, I was, um, raised devout Buddhist, right? So we believe in, you know, reincarnation, um, you know, karma, right? All that stuff. Uh, my dad was, was a really devout Buddhist. He was a Buddhist almost all his life, from 9 years old up until like almost 40, until yet he was forced out of the cloth to create his family because they were going to, you know, prosecute him back then in his home country of Laos. And so growing up, I was always around that. I was always around him, you know, preaching about all these things of how things happen. And they have special reasons for why it happens. Mm-hmm. Um, and all these different, uh, aspects of the, of the philosophy of Buddhism, of how things are connected to each other. But I never took it serious. I was like, you know, I was like, I was so angry at him most of the time. I was like, ah, whatever. Right? Like I never really dived into my spirituality around it. Mm-hmm. For a long time until those things happened, until those two major events in my life happened, which put me down this path of self-discovery, of remembering, right? Because when you start to heal, you start to understand a lot more about yourself. You get more in touch and in tune with your history, your past. You know, the relationship that you have with your parents, with yourself. You question your beliefs, you question your morals. And that's when things started to just click with me. Mm-hmm. And I start to ask the most important questions, like, like, who am I? Why am I here? Like, what, what makes me happy? Or why am I always angry? Like, why can't I express my emotions? You know, like, why can't I have a normal conversation without, without getting offended? And always defending myself. Why do I get triggered? Right? And so all of that was a culmination of how it led me here. Um, and it led me to believe that, you know, all things happen for a specific reason. Because only when you look back, you then can connect the dots to everything. And I haven't, there isn't a time where I look back and I wasn't able to connect the dots. And that profound moment that you really understand, it's like, the best way I can explain it is like when you make that connection, you're going at light speed into space. You know that, you know, like kind of Star Wars, like, and then like everything kind of slows down and you're like, whoa, you're here and present. And now you see why it happened the way it happened, even all the bad stuff.

Yeah.

And this, and this profound intuitive knowing just resonates all over your body. And that's, that's pretty much how I believe that, you know, things happen.

Yeah.

Simply for a reason.

I completely agree with you. I think that, that shift for me is probably one of the biggest shifts that I've, I've made in my life is to understand that things happen for a reason, that we don't always understand what the reason is. But they're just having that trust that there is a reason. And ironically, for me, that understanding came after my daughter passed away. Up until that point, I was just like, you know, maybe it's random, maybe there's, you know, some influence or whatever. But when I had to make sense of that event, and then I start looking back at all the other events, like you said, even the things we consider to be bad, we can start to kind of piece the puzzle together as we look backwards.

Exactly. Um, it's pretty profound. It's pretty miraculous how things work. And I think when we start to open up, you know, to these higher, you might call them vibrations or the universe or your own spirituality, your guidance, whatever it is, we then can start to see and experience more things because we're always being guided. That's another part of like making these connections. On top of that is we always, we're being guided in some way, some form, right? Whether it's by intuition or like just signs here and there, you know, I think when, when, when I started to really experience that, like everything started to just shift. Like, everything was like in HD, you know? Things people said, the words I read on the shirts, music that was playing, you know, the emotions that I would feel in like random places. I'm like, wait, why am I feeling this? Or why am I experiencing this right now? Or why did she just say that to me when I really needed to hear it? You know, like in a passing conversation, I'm like, huh, I think I needed to hear that, or this is definitely a sign, right? When you're open like that, I think the signs are everywhere, you know. But if you're not open, the only sign that you're going to listen to is the one that's mostly like catastrophic, you know, mostly like in your face, like, oh my, oh my gosh, you know, like It's a tragedy or it's a catastrophe, and then you wake up, right? But when you're awake and you're fully in tuned into these, you know, higher frequencies or vibrations, you're just like, I see, I got it, you know? And then comes the gratitude with the awareness, you know, um, and just the ability to flow and surrender. To life itself and all the experiences and situations that you're put in. And then you're, you're here, you know, you're one with almost everything. That's a beautiful place to be.

So would you, you mentioned you were raised as a Buddhist. Would you describe yourself as a Buddhist now?

No, I would, I would say I'm more spiritual. Um, I do have a lot of my roots in Buddhism. You know, I was a monk many times. I studied all the chants and, you know, lived in a monastery, all the whole, the whole thing. Met my wife, she's like devout Catholic, right? So, you know, our, our, our two philosophies and religions fused and just being with her, we started seeing there's a lot of commonalities in the things that we believe in and how the things that we believe in make us feel. Right. I mean, I would consider, I consider myself an omnist actually. You know, I think there's, there's truth in, in every religion. So I respect every religion. Um, and I think religion and belief systems are there to help us, um, and to help guide us, you know, to live a more righteous and, um, uh, beautiful life. Right. It's kind of like a template to follow. But in essence too, it is just that, you know, like it's just a template. Like there's a part of religion where you have to also discover for yourself what is your truth and your belief or your higher power or whatever it is. And I think what I draw from being or raised being a Buddhist, you know, my dad would always say like, you know, Buddha himself said, you know, like, my way is the way that I found for myself, but don't follow me, you know, find your own truth. This is what I just did and it worked for me. So I never forget what, you know, why he said that, you know, as I was like growing up, learning how to meditate at 5. And so I was like, I don't wanna do this at 5. And then he would tell me about his story and I'm like, Ah, okay, this is so boring. I never understood this until now, where now it's like meditation is an integral part of my self-care routine and daily life now, right? So like I said, if you look back, it's like you make those connections.

So, oh, I hear you. Zemi. All right, we're back. We had a little, little bit of a technical glitch there. Um, we're talking about Buddhism and the philosophy of it. There's so many great things about Buddhism in terms of understanding your own mind, things like meditation or mindfulness, which I, I'm kind of jealous that, you know, you were taught that at an early age because most— a lot of us Westerners don't discover it till you know, very, very late in life, uh, and then we struggle with it, right? We're like, oh, I can't stop my mind. Um, but, uh, but I agree with you. I love the idea that all religions have something good to do. I've studied lots of them at a kind of a superficial level, uh, and there's, there's that core that they all have in common that's really great. And then there's the stuff around the fringes that is like, yeah, maybe not so great.

Exactly. Um, and you know, being raised in this type of philosophy too, like I guess it was part of the, our tenets of being Buddhist cuz it was, you know, we're, we're, we're such a passive religion or philosophy. Like we, our, the core, the core belief in us is that we are our own doing, right? That's why we believe in karma.

Mm-hmm.

So our own fear is like, don't mess up in this lifetime cuz you will pay for it. It'll come back to you either in this lifetime or the next. So I can always remember my dad, you know, telling me all the time, like, you know, better watch what you do. You better watch what you, you know, do to people. You might not experience it now, but you know, next life you might come back as something else, you know? So that was always playing in the back of my mind. And so, you know, I guess that was sort of like this underlying fear and understanding that I had, you know. And then when I started to really study, uh, the philosophy and the religion, and also being with my wife, you know, uh, like, like you studying other religions on a very surface level, I started to see seeing a lot of patterns, you know, and, um, making those distinctions in each one. Like I said, when you truly put everything into perspective with, with religion, it's just there to help, to help guide us, right? To help us find our own truth and be connected to, you know, whatever higher power you believe in. 'Cause it's like a, a beacon or for us to follow, right? Yeah.

So tell me about the Emotion Code. I hadn't heard of that before discussing this with you. And so what is it and how did you discover it?

Good question. So Emotion Code is an energy healing technique that was developed by Dr. Bradley Nelson. Look him up, uh, there's a book called The Emotion Code. Um, so Dr. Bradley Nelson He developed this energy healing technique. It was God-given to him through, you know, I think dreams or visions that he had. He's a chiropractor by trade, and when he got these downloads, he started to do these, these techniques on his, his patients, uh, because he saw that, you know, even being, you know, the chiropractor, some of his patients kept coming back, so things weren't really working. And so as he started to practice on his patients, he started to see that everything is subconsciously trapped inside of our bodies. And that's what emotions are, right? And we're just beings of energy, and emotion is just energy in motion. And emotions make us who we are, make us experience life. And the drawback of emotions though, that most people might not understand is it's also a form of energy. So if that energy doesn't get purged through you or doesn't move through you, because it needs motion to move through, it becomes trapped inside of our bodies. Right? And that energy that becomes trapped, or those emotions that we suppress, it can then start to distort our physical body, right? Our cells, our tissues, our muscles, our bones. It can manifest into these diseases or ailments. Because a lot of times most people will start to experience these physical ailments or mental ailments. And then when they go to the doctor, the doctor can't give them a correct, you know, diagnosis. Like they say, oh, you're fine. Like, we don't know what the cause is, but here's some, some meds, you know, to, to ease the pain a little bit. Right. And so when he discovered the Emotion Code, he started to understand like emotions have a very critical and important role. On our overall health and well-being, right? Uh, for me, we found it because my wife went through postpartum depression, rage, anxiety. She was diagnosed with that after she had our son Ezra, and it was one of the most scariest times of my life. Um, I didn't know what to do. I was feeling very hopeless, very scared. Because I'd never seen my wife that way. She's a very bubbly, nurturing, loving, empathetic person. And for her to be depressed and not even want to hold our child or play with our kids, not wanting to come out of bed, always crying, I was really scared. I didn't know what to do until we took her to go see the doctor and the doctor diagnosed her of having postpartum, uh, depression and rage. And I think after 3 weeks, the doctor was already prescribing her with antidepressants. Mm-hmm. And luckily she was still mentally there to tell me. She was like, I don't wanna take these meds. I'm still breastfeeding our son, like, I don't want to even risk it, no matter what the percentage is that it, you know, might move through her body into the, into her milk supply. Right. Right. And so she went on, she went on this, you know, uh, research on Google and, you know, social media. She's like, there has to be a better holistic way to do it. She's already that type of person, you know, herself, where she just uses all natural products and stuff like that. She's like, there's got to be a way. And so she came across this other practitioner on Instagram, uh, she was promoting the book, The Emotion Code, and she just decides to buy it, right? So she buys this, she starts reading it, uh, things started to make sense to her. And then she tells me, she's like, you need to read this book. And she's like, I think it's gonna help you. I was like, uh, whatever. Whatever you need, I'll do it right now. 3 days, I got the audiobook. I went through it in 3 days. And something told me, I was like, I think this is it. I think this is, this is what's going to help you. And so the Emotion Code book, Dr. Bradley Nelson teaches you how to release your own trapped emotions in your body. And it's by way of sway testing, right, or muscle testing. Most of all of our ailments, we have answers for within us, right? It's trapped away in our deep subconscious mind and it's trapped all over our bodies as these like little energy balls. So we start to implement these techniques that we learned in the book on ourselves. So my wife and I did it on ourselves, and 3 months later, my wife is clear. Of all of her postpartum rage, depression, anxiety, to the point where her doctor's like, what did you do? What happened? Like, you know, like, are the meds working? And, you know, she couldn't really tell the doctor, like, you know, about this energy work. You know, she felt like she might not be receptive to it, so she was just saying, oh, I'm doing a lot of mindfulness activities and meditating, you know, stuff like that. And she was like, well, seems like you're, you're fine now. You know, I mean, I guess, you know, I could take you off the meds and, you know, maybe you can go back to work. And so after seeing that transformation, that's what got us to become certified practitioners in the Emotion Code. So we use that with our coaching, um, with our clients. Uh, and personally myself, I've gone through a lot of my own energy work and a lot of things came up with me, a lot of trapped emotions that I've been suppressing for a long time. The things that I felt within myself when I did those releases was, I can't even explain it. Even till this day, Brian D Smith, like sometimes I work on my clients and they tell me things and I'm, I'm, I'm still pinching myself. I'm still questioning like, is this real? Like, are they just Are they just messing with me? You know, like, are they really feeling this? But they are, like, they're just, you know, they feel differently. They, they, they have these experiences that somewhere like just, you can't even explain it, right? Um, but it helps them, you know, they, they have this new awareness and new level of consciousness of the things that they've been holding onto. And when you really think about our human experience, You know, what do we remember most, right? We remember how we felt most. The rest are just details. But if you are feeling negative emotions based around the situation, which we call trauma, right? Like that energy's gonna stay with you. So even when you talk about it, even when you remember thoughts or something triggers that memory, your body automatically reacts. And that's the trapped energy of that trauma or that emotion that's been in your body for such a long time. So for us to release that, there's different ways, and Emotion Code is one of them. So there's three, three different codes that Dr. Bradley Nelson has. Emotion Code is one of them. And then the other one is called Belief Code. Uh, I'm sorry, Belief Code and Body Code. So those are more comprehensive, uh, techniques, um, to help you do the same thing, release these trapped emotions. So that's what I'm—

so are there like exercises that you do? There are something that someone works with you? How does that, how does it actually work?

So as a practitioner, um, everything is, everything can be done you know, virtually, like we don't have to touch you. We connect directly to your subconscious mind by your consent. So if I were to do it to you, I'd, you know, ask you for your consent to see if I could, you know, tune in to your subconscious mind. 'Cause we're all connected energetically, right? It doesn't— energy spans space and time.

Absolutely.

So I have clients like all over the world, right? So They could be in different countries, different, you know, regions or whatever. But once they give us consent and we're able to connect with them, then that's when we ask questions and use muscle testing. So, so for me, I'm gonna use my body as the tool once I connect to your subconscious mind to understand and identify the trapped emotions that are inside your body. And once I identify that, I can then release it just by pure intention.

Right?

And once the release happens, a lot of, you know, our clients and people that have done this work, you know, there's thousands of practitioners worldwide. Um, and a lot of people say the same thing, like when they get the emotions released or, you know, they get the energy work done on them, you know, they feel tingles, they get lightheaded, they have crazy dreams at night, you know, they become very thirsty because when you think about it, you have all this energy, you know, trapped inside your body. And then when it finally releases, your body is going to feel different, right? A lot of people feel lighter, you know, they, they, they, they have like creative sparks, you know, a lot of people cry, you know, just, just because they were never able to feel it. They were never able to let go. Of that trapped emotion. For example, for me, one of the most profound things that happened to me doing this work on myself was I had— I fully reconciled with my father. I fully forgave him. And I knew this, like, deep down inside, because when I was doing all this work, he had already passed in 2000 2009, right? And we never had that closure. We never had that, you know, that talk, or, you know, that, uh, um, that connection. I mean, our, our relationship towards the end of his life was pretty good, you know. I was— we were talking and stuff like that. We were amicable, we were respective, uh, but I was still feeling a lot of anger, a lot of resentment. So when I started to do the work, a lot of these emotions came up for me, Brian, like resentment, bitterness, hatred, anger. You know, I was feeling all these emotions in my abdomen, in my back, in my shoulders. And then one day when I was working on myself, I felt like this weight just lifted off of my body. And as it was lifting, I started to cry like profusely. Like I felt like my tears were shooting out of my eyes, right? Like, and my wife was there. She's like, are you okay? I don't know what's happening, but I'm just feeling all of these emotions. It's overwhelming and I don't know what I'm going through. And then everything made sense. Like, everything just clicked into my mind. Everything was like, your dad was the way he was because of XYZ. He treated you this way because of XYZ, right? Like, the veil of my anger and resentment and bitterness and hatred towards him just lifted away. And what was left with this was this light very airy feeling of compassion, of like unconditional love and, you know, forgiveness and gratitude. Like, and for a whole week I was so emo, I was still crying, you know, for like a whole week feeling all these things and was journaling everything down, everything that I was going through. And I really felt inside that I finally was able to just let all of that, those trapped emotions, you know, those negative emotions towards him, just, just go. And the dreams that I was having, like he was coming into my dreams and we were having conversations in space, Brian, like, you know, I was like, like I was there sitting with him and he's like asking me about my wife and my kids and I'm just like, Yeah. And I was just aware even in my dreams and I would wake up, you know, sweating and just like heart pounding and I'm like, what is going on? Like I'm getting goosebumps just talking about it.

Yeah. Yeah.

It was, it was just incredible, you know? So that experience was just, you know, like I said, I, I couldn't explain it, uh, but it was so real to me. And I truly believe that because of energy work, it allowed me to fully, you know, forgive him. And now that I talk about him and now that I, you know, um, tell his stories, you know, to my kids, there's no, there's no ill will. There's no negative emotions. It's just all love and gratitude.

Now I'm curious, did you When you were younger, did you know that you had these feelings, the anger and resentment toward your father, or did you even know that you had them?

Yes, because I was so fearful, and part of my fear, I did things that were very, uh, against his rules, and I got caught for some of them, you know, um, He was very physically, emotionally abusive. And so when I got caught, you know, it was, it was lights out for me. It was like, you know, uh, it was a bad day. Yeah. And so, and you know, there's a disconnection between his upbringing and then my upbringing. So we were first-generation Asian immigrants to the United States. Mm-hmm. So he was well respected in his country, right? He comes to the States, didn't know the language, you know, like was on welfare, you know, trying to help his family and stuff like that. Um, he, you know, he had a master's degree from India, was useless, you know, in the States because he didn't know the language. And so he went from speaking this high priority, you know, high value person to being nobody working as a janitor at an adult education school, right? And trying to learn the language.

Wow.

And when I think about him and I put myself in his shoes, I'm like, that would have messed me up.

That's a brave man.

Yeah. And he, and he had to, and he was the one that you know, helped my mom and my sister at the time escape, you know, and not get killed during the war, during the Laotian-Viet Cong War, you know, they call it the Silent War at the time. And so he, you know, even when I was born, I was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, and my mother didn't know if it was going to make it or not until 3 months right before I was born. And then 3 months after I was born, he was like, we're on a plane to the United States. That's where we're going to be safe. So his own trauma, right, with all of that. But like I said, when I was younger, right, and as I was growing up, like, that was— I didn't make any of those connections. It wasn't until I had that realization and that experience was when everything just clicked. Of course he was abusive because he didn't know emotional regulation. Of course he's going to take it out on us because he didn't know how to— he didn't have the tools, right? And being a monk his whole life, he had to detach from emotions. He didn't know how to love. He didn't know how to be nurturing. He didn't know how to support emotionally. You know what I mean? Like, he had to detach from all that. All his life. He was celibate most of his life. And he comes here and he's nobody, you know, like, that does something to you. So I didn't get that.

That's, that's an incredible story. And you know, as you were saying, when you were saying earlier, raised Buddhist, I was gonna ask, it's like, you think maybe his lack of emotion had to do with Buddha? Because I don't, I don't know a lot about Buddhism, but I know that it's kind of stereotypical. It's like, because you're trying to understand your mind and not react and all that. And sometimes we can move from that to spiritual, to bypassing, right? So it's like, then therefore I'm not going to have any emotions, I'm just going to be flat. And every philosophy, every religion has its extremes, you know, and that could be an extreme that comes about with that. It's like, it's not good to express anything.

Because it leads to suffering. I mean, the tenet, you know, the Four Noble Truths, like life is suffering, right? Love is suffering.

Emotion will lead you to suffer.

Exactly. And it's, and you're right, you know, when you look at those tenets in the philosophy for him, maybe my father, you know, feeling anything was probably causing him to suffer. And because he was alone and celibate most of his life, and then now he has to become a father, become a husband, raise kids. He didn't know how to do any of that. Like, my dad never changed my diaper, never did my sister's diaper. We had nannies who were his nieces that came over with us to the United States, but they raised us. You know, he didn't really know how to do anything.

Yeah.

So imagine his, you know, the experiences and the things he was telling himself, you know, and he was like, my life wasn't supposed to be like this, right? My life was supposed to end in the yellow robes, right? Because I asked him, I asked him one time, I asked my mom actually, and my mom was like, yeah, if his venerable didn't tell him to go save himself and find a family, he would have died as a monk, right? That's why he was so old when he met my mother. He was already like 40, like hitting 40, right? And so, you know, it was all those things that, like I said, finally made sense to me, to make me understand, like, wow, You know, most of our parents, they didn't have the tools to help them regulate that type of trauma, that type of experiences. And unfortunately, as their children, we're the ones that have to endure all of that. But it's subconscious and unconscious with it, right? Like we don't, we don't have, he didn't have all these tools. He didn't have the internet. He didn't, you know, have therapy. He doesn't believe in therapy or anything of that stuff, bro. Like he was like, you know, I'm just gonna shut it down, shut it off, and that's it, right?

So, well, you're a, you're a beautiful example of a couple of things. One is, generationally speaking, we can take our, the trauma that we were, we were passed by our parents, and we can, we could follow in their footsteps, or we can choose to do something completely different, which you've clearly done. Uh, so congratulations to you for that. But the other thing is, I think it's wonderful example of how it's never too late. Because sometimes people will say, well, it's too late, that person has passed on, we can never heal that relationship. And you've healed that relationship even while your father was not with us physically anymore.

Exactly. And I would have, you know, I would have believed, if you talk to me 5, 10 years ago, I would have, I would have said the same thing, like, there was no closure, right? Because he's already passed, right? It's too late, right? But doing this type of work, you know, with energy and going through my own experiences, I'm a firm believer that just because they're gone doesn't mean you can't have the closure or the, you know, be— have reconciled with each other because the energy is still there. You still have those memories, you still have those connections. They come to you in your dreams, you know, they show you signs that they're still there. Like, my wife, you know, talks to him a lot, and she believes, firmly believes, and I do too, that, you know, he's like one of her guides. She says things to me, she talks to me about him, and I'm like, I never told you that. Wow, you know, and, you know, he'll come in, into my dreams and tell me things, and we'll have our conversations, and like, he's just there, you know. So it's, um, it truly changes, you know, the perception and the way you think about these things when you think about it like that, you know. It opens you up to more more ways to connect beyond this physical reality, which is amazing, I think.

Yeah, absolutely. And I truly believe that we are, we are energy. That's, that's what we are. And the energy never dies. And, you know, our— and we— and it's kind of circles back to something we said, you said at the very beginning, that everything happens for a reason. So if we, if we believe that even the quote negative things, you know, that the role that your father played in your life, was a role that, that caused you to bring forth your resilience and, and this beautiful story that you have now because of your father. And I'm impressed by the guy just for what you just told me. Sounds like a very impressive man.

Yeah, he was. And every time I think about him now, like I said, the emotions of of gratitude and compassion and all the good things about him that I remember, you know, sticks with me and the things that I teach, you know, my children and all those things and years of strict rules of following the meditative guides and, you know, learning the The history of, of, of the religion and philosophy, it still sticks with me, you know, no matter how much I hated it or hated him for that. And now when I, when I'm in my meditation, like he always comes to my mind. It's the first thing that, that pops up. Like, man, I was 5 when he told me to sit down and don't move and just close your eyes and relax, you know, and don't try to do anything. Just sit there. That vibe, you know, sometimes my inner child comes up. I'm just sitting there as I'm sitting in meditation, you know, just seeing myself. And sometimes he comes into my meditation. Sometimes we have our conversation. Sometimes he, you know, tells me, he still tells me things. He's still teaching me things. You know, in, in that solitude, in that silence.

Yeah.

And it was because of him.

So yeah, it's a great example of how love never dies. That connection is— it could never be broken and, and, and can actually be healed, um, you know, at any time that we choose to heal it and, and to feel those feelings. I think that's a really important thing that we're talking about here also, because, um, you know, we're off— we're so often taught as, as men especially. It's always— it's always great to talk to a guy because it's very rare I get to talk to a guy A lot of times we're taught as men, you know, to suppress the emotions. And men, I find a lot of times they don't even— we don't even know we have emotions. It's like we don't even know that we're angry. We don't— you know, my wife sometimes will say to me, why did you answer me this way? And I'm like, what are you talking about? But, you know, it's like I was raised in a family where we were taught not to express emotion. So a lot of times I have to really work on like, okay, yeah, I guess I was feeling that way.

Yeah, I mean, we can go on another hour about this, but I just wanna touch on this because it's, this is very near and dear to me when you, when we talk about emotions and being in a relationship, especially with my wife. She had a term for me. It was like, you're emotionally disabled, right? Mm-hmm. And I was like, uh, yeah, I, I didn't know, like I said, how to feel, what to say. And when I would, and when I would say something, it would just come out as anger, as defensiveness, as, you know, very, a very condescending tone, or blaming her and gaslighting her all the time, right? Like, that was my MO. Or if it got too bad, I would just walk away, right? That's like a form of emotional abuse. I would just like, forget this, I'm out. I wouldn't call her, I wouldn't, you know, say anything. I wouldn't tell her like, oh, we're gonna have another conversation about nothing. It was just out. That was my behavior. And one time, you know, after we had our first daughter, like, she was ready to leave me because I didn't come. I was out for like 2 weeks, you know, almost 3 weeks, and I didn't talk to her. Like, I gave the silent treatment and, you know, um, She literally called my sister and was like, "I don't know where your brother is, but if he doesn't come back, I'm putting all his stuff out in the streets. Like, it's over." You know, and luckily I called that night, came back that night, and, you know, we had a conversation about it. She's still healing from that today because it was very traumatic. And when I look back at, you know, those moments, you know, it was very I mean, I look back at myself, I'm like, damn, you were a effing jerk, man. You know, like, you, you, you were so mean, you were so this and that. And at that time, like I said, we are so unaware because we've identified with that behavior, with those behaviors for such a long time, that if we go against that it would go against our pride and ego. And as men, you know, we're so masculine, like, we don't want to— we never want to be wrong. We never want to feel. That's what we have, this like hard exterior. But it was harder for me to be soft and articulate and have empathy, you know, like, like when I had to learn— when I said, Brian, when I tell you I had to learn to have emotions and to feel. I really had to— I told my wife, I was like, you need to dumb it down for me.

Yeah.

Like, when you're feeling something, or when you want me to do something, when you're feeling some type of way, like, talk to me like I'm 5 years old. What am I supposed to be doing? Am I supposed to give you a hug? Am I supposed to listen? Am I not supposed to help you fix it? Like, And I was reading books, I was watching, listening to podcasts, watching videos, everything I can do. Because it got to a point, Brian, where like we were fighting so much and I was so exhausted just from fighting, from arguing every single day, not knowing that we were just pushing each other's buttons because we didn't know how to handle our own triggers.

Right, right.

And then one day it was just like Man, I can't live like this no more. I love this woman. I can't see myself without her, but damn it, I cannot, you know, I can't be fighting with you every day. Yeah. Like, you know, it was draining emotionally and I didn't even know that. I mean, I was so tired and I was working like, you know, around the clock and I was just like, this can't be my life. Right. And so. You know, like I said, meeting her was one of those like wake-up call moments. And then when I finally figured it out, you know, I literally asked her like, you need to help me feel like, how do you do it?

Yeah.

What do you say? What are the questions that you ask yourself? Like, how does it feel in your body? Because it, you know, and when I would feel before, when I would feel something, it would come up to a certain point and then boom. Suppress, suppress, suppress, and then gone, right? Like, your body gets tense, you know, you feel like tightness in your chest or your diaphragm, and then that's it.

Yeah.

So you don't even let yourself regulate, or you don't— I didn't even let myself feel anything. I was so numb.

Yeah.

But even that numbness and emptiness is still a feeling. That's what most guys don't understand, right? Like, but we're so conditioned in that behavior that that becomes our normal.

Yeah.

So for me, yeah.

What you just said was really, really super important. I want to, I want to, because, you know, I can relate so much to you. My father was raised in the fundamentalist Christian church, and I remember when I was in my 20s or 30s, I found this book called Wild at Heart by John Eldredge, who is a Christian guy who wrote about the wounds that fathers give to sons Unintentional Wounds. And I read this book and it just really grabbed me and resonated with it. So I was so excited to give it to my father. And I gave it to him and he goes, I don't read books. And my father is a very literate man. He reads the Bible like every day. He reads newspapers. He would do 2 crossword puzzles. He reads magazines, but he doesn't read books. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna give it to him on audio. So I gave it to him on audio. He still didn't listen to it, you know, but I wanted to make that connection with him. So I understand what you're saying. And but I think it's also really important I heard something very recently said, instead of asking what's wrong with somebody, ask what happened to them. Um, when it comes to your father, when it comes to, you know, it's so— it's like, what happened to him? You and I even— it's like when I was a kid, and I remember I was going to counseling, was in my 30s or 40s, and I was telling my counselor about my upbringing. She's like, well, that's just not right. Your parents never told you they love you. They never said they were proud of you. Did they ever hug you? Well, no, they didn't hug me. But that's okay. That's just— it's just like, no, that's not okay. So sometimes people look at people like us, and our wives were fortunate to hang in, hang in there. My wife's hung with me for 33 years. I'm still learning. But I'm like, yeah, but this is the— this is how it was at my house. You know, we didn't express emotion. We didn't hug each other. Just like, why don't you ever hug me? I'm like, okay, you know, it's not— it's not like I'm trying to get back there, but nobody ever hugged me.

Right, right. Oh my God, we have— there's a lot of parallels. And that kind of put me back into this, into those specific memories with my wife too. When you said like, oh, we don't hug each other, I was never physically affectionate with my wife too. Like, she would always get mad at me, especially when I'm laughing at myself, because like, when you think about yourself, you're like, You were actually like that? Man, you were a piece of work, man.

Yeah.

Yeah. Like when she would be like crying about something, because she's very emotional, right? But everything, like she's very in touch. She's a hypersensitive person. When things happen to her, like she feels. And I think deep down inside, when I would see her feeling like that, and it came easy to her, like a part of me, like maybe my shadow part was like, how come I can't do that? You know, how come I can't just let go and like, and then like I would get upset, right? I would get like very defensive and that would trigger me and my own, you know, work that I needed to do. And so I didn't know how to even like give her any type of physical affection, even in those moments when she was feeling sad. And when I tell you, Brian, when I told her, you need to dumb it down for me. I was literally writing down protocols, like when she's crying, number 1, you sit next to her. Number 2, put your arm around her. Number 3, hug her. Number 4, don't say nothing just yet until she calms down. I wrote everything step by step. Like that's how That's how conditioned I was of like not feeling and connecting and not empathizing with, right?

Well, I think it— I think we come in with that emotional intelligence, but it's conditioned out of us. Like you keep using the word condition. I completely agree. It's conditioned out of us. Because I remember being a little kid, and I was a very sensitive child. And my parents would say to me, oh, Brian's a sensitive one. But then, and not intentionally, but they just kind of pushed that out of me. And even just that, even just that thing, Brian's sensitive, like, that's not good. Don't be sensitive. Okay, got it. Don't be sensitive.

Exactly. I totally agree with that too. Because when I, when I started to look back at my own childhood, I was the creative, more sensitive, you know, kid. And my father wanted me to be, you know, the academic, the logical, the, you know, go-getter. You know, Asian families, like, they want their sons— I was the only son, right? They want their sons to be like doctors and lawyers and engineers.

Yeah.

And he was highly educated, so he wanted me to, you know, become highly educated. And that just wasn't me, right? I was more like passive and just flowy like my mother.

Yeah.

So I mean, I'm pretty sure that made him even more, you know, kind of harsh and rigid with me. But as you know, in that type of environment and that type of upbringing, like you said, it gets conditioned out of you. Because I mean, I knew that my behaviors— I don't know if you felt this way too, I'm pretty sure you did— but even in those moments of like me being triggered and behaving that way and not knowing what to do and, you know, calling my wife out just because she's crying and stuff like that, you're like, after that, after I would go through all that and do that stuff to her, like, I would feel guilty. Like, I knew that shit was wrong, you know. I knew I was like and this ain't right. But then my ego or my pride or whatever it was, was just like, nah, you didn't do anything wrong.

Right?

It's okay. Just go back and make it seem like you didn't— nothing happened. Don't even talk about it. Yeah, you know, like, just sweep it under the rug. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, hated that, you know, she was like, we're just not gonna talk about it. We're just not gonna like, have any closure. And I'm like, what, we're good now? So why do we need to talk about it?

Yeah, well, yeah. Okay. Well, I'm not gonna do my own therapy session here. But yeah, that's one of those things I'm still learning. I I was really proud of myself like yesterday because I went to my wife and I apologized for something that I— because I woke up in the morning, I was like, I— what I said to her last night, I shouldn't have said. I could let it go and see, you know, she— because normally she holds on to it, right? So I'm like, see if she holds on to it. And then the other side of me was like, but you should just apologize because you know you were wrong. And I actually did. So I was proud of myself then.

Awesome. That's the first step. Yeah, Brian D Smith, like I would never apologize for anything. Like, my apology was like gaslighting her. Yeah, to make it seem like, you know, it was part of—

sorry, you feel that way too?

Yeah, sorry you feel that way. Yeah. And so like, when, like, like you said, when you can't really deeply connect and empathize and hold yourself accountable, you'll do everything to like push it off of you, to like blame the other person. And I had a PhD in that, Brian. I knew, I mean, even now when we talk, when my wife and I talk about our first years of marriage, you know, we've been together for almost 10 years, you know, married like 7. Like our first 5 years of relationship, very tumultuous.

Yeah.

You know, and like I said, she almost left me that time. And even if she did, I would have, and even if she did, I would, I was, I'd be sitting here and telling you, Brian, I deserved it, man. I was a— I wouldn't want to be with myself, you know, in a relationship with me back then. Like, there's no way, you know. It's like, you know, until you go on that journey, until you start to understand and heal, I think that's why it's so important to do this work. Like what you're doing now, you know, having that, um, that will to like work on yourself. And when I talk to my clients about this and I share my stories, I'm like, you know, if you, if you, if you would have talked to me 5, 10 years ago, you wouldn't believe the type of person that I was.

Yeah. You, it's, it's like, and that's, and that's why you're so qualified to do this work because, because of the work that you've done yourself. But Jay, I could, I could talk to you for a lot longer. We, we need to wrap up. I want to say it's been such a pleasure getting to know you. Uh, tell people how they can reach you and how people can work with you.

Of course, um, you can go to my website, uh, it's www.jaychantalangsey.com. Just my whole name, J-A-Y, and then my whole last name, uh, chantalangsey.com. I have some free resources there you can, uh, check into. Um, there's a couple of, uh, assessments you can take if you're ready to start the healing journey. Um, I have the healing journey, uh, assessment, uh, that can tell you exactly where you are on your healing journey. It's modeled after my own personal journey. We first become aware, we accept, we take action, we start to heal and understand that we're doing the work in the fourth step of actualization. And then the final step is getting back to your authentic self, remembering who you are underneath all of that trauma and suffering, right? You're We're all there. We just have all these things on top of us that we need to work through. So that's the healing journey. And I firmly believe that, you know, the initial path to start healing is through self-care. So we really have to understand how to take care of ourselves, you know, how to ask the important questions, looking in the mirror, you know, asking those questions like, who am I, right? So there's those free resources there. And I'm also taking on new, uh, coaching clients, and you can book a session or book a call, free call, on my website there as well. So that's open to everybody.

Awesome. Jay, thanks again for doing this, and I know it's, it's late for you this evening. I appreciate you doing it. Have a, have a good night.

Of course. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Hi there, I'm really excited to tell you about my latest ebook. It's 4 lessons that you can learn from the near-death experience without going through all the trouble of dying to learn them. I've been studying NDEs for several years now. I am completely convinced that not only are they 100% real, but that there's some very universal wisdom that we can get from the near-death experience. And I've distilled that down in this book into 4 short lessons. And I've also given you all the reasons why I believe that NDEs are absolutely real. So go to www.grieftogrowth.com/NDElessons to pick it up for free. www.grief-the-number-2-growth.com/NDElessons. I hope you enjoy it.