Improve, Upgrade, And Optimize Everything with Dr. Ian Chambers
21 Jul 2021 · 62 min
Dr. Aziz talks with chiropractor Dr. Ian Chambers about using network spinal techniques to rewire your nervous system. They cover how changing your perception and energy can transform your life, and why the nervous system matters more than you think for personal growth.
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Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence, first in myself and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Welcome to today's episode of the show. I'm excited to be with you. Today we have an amazing guest, and what we're gonna be talking about can benefit you in every single area of your life. We're gonna be focusing on how to improve, upgrade, and optimize everything in your life. And the reason it can be everything in your life is because we're not gonna be talking about just one thing, like your relationship or your social confidence, because we're gonna be talking about you and how you approach life. Your perception, your energy, your relationship with life that bleeds into everything. And so when you change this, when you change the energy with which you approach life, all of a sudden that can affect every area. And that's why today is particularly exciting and beneficial. And the interview is with Dr. Ian Chambers. He is a chiropractor who operates in Southern Washington. And he's a man that I've gotten to know well over the last year because I've been continuously working with him as one of his patients. And it's been extremely beneficial in my life, not just from a physical health perspective, but also from a upgrading my life perspective, as you'll discover as we go into more today. So Dr. Chambers is an accomplished chiropractor, and he practices a specific kind of chiropractic called network spinal, which is something that was developed by a man named Donny Epstein. And he has been working in that field for many years, almost two decades. And he has helped thousands of people. He's helped, been involved in these extensive healing retreats, produced miraculous results in people's lives of helping them overcome a wide variety of ills and pains, physical problems, as well as everything else in life that can be upgraded, and is truly a master of producing transformation in people. And what I love even more about working with Ian is it is so subtle and kind of mysterious and magical because it's not like, okay, sit down. Let's Talk for an hour about your life. That's me. That's like coaching and my therapy background, and it sort of makes sense. And him, it's like, okay, lay down on the table. I'm gonna, like, touch your spine in some places and you're gonna wiggle around and then you'll leave, and then you'll just perceive life differently. And so I just been going to this guy, you know, repeatedly. I drive out like an hour each way to get there out in the woods. And it's an amazing drive, by the way. And I'm just like, more and more, I'm like, what the heck is going on? And so I started to, you know, I was like, I gotta interview you. So we did. This is interview number two. We did interview number one, which you can go look up@shrinkforthshyguy.com in fact, we'll have a link down below this episode as well. To go back to the first one, that one is about how to heal your life. How pain and physical pain as well as emotional pain. These are things that we can shift and resolve. That's a big part of what he helps people with. This second interview is about what he also helps people with is what happens when you're out of pain, what happens when your life's not about just getting rid of your pain anymore, what's next? And then it's about upgrading, enhancing, optimizing every area of your life.
And.
And that's what we're going to talk about today. So without further ado, we're going to dive into the interview and I encourage you to, you know, listen. Listen multiple times. There's a lot being transmitted in this interview, just beyond the words, as we talk about in the interview, above and below the level of mind and energetic transmission. So get ready, you're going to benefit from this greatly. So I'm very excited to have Dr. Ian Chambers back on the show with us. We were just chatting before this episode began and felt like the last interview we did, we stopped right as we were getting to the next level. And so this interview is going to be all the next level. And the first one, we talked a lot about healing and how being in a chronic state of stress and fight or flight can have impacts physically, emotionally, and more. And how to really start to change how you see physical pain and yourself so that you can heal all kinds of conditions and live with more energy and health. So if you're. If you're interested in that, you'll definitely want to go back and listen to that. First one of these, but this one, we're going to go beyond just kind of getting out of pain. But how do we really like what do you do when that stress response is calmed down? How do you live with more energy, with more joy, with more pain, passion. We're going to cover all kinds of things, juicy things I've heard Ian say, like easeful, effortless expansion, optimizing. He does a lot of work with the field and how to make sense of that and work with that as well as being in a more energy rich state. So we're going to uncover a lot. And thank you so much for joining us today, Ian.
It's my absolute pleasure, Aziz. Thanks for having me.
So let's start with that question of okay, someone gets out of, let's say they've gotten out of that stressed state, they're not in this like I'm an under threat all the time or it's calmed down some. What's, what do you notice starts to emerge? Because I'd imagine clients that you worked with, over time, you kind of see that trajectory with them. What start or me, you may have seen that with me as well. What do you start to see with people when they, when they make that transition?
Well, that's an awesome question. And you know, it's really when people are starting to shift out of like pain or out of suffering, that's really been kind of all consuming, you know, or just really getting all of their attention there, it's really a bifurcation point. So there's an opportunity, you know. And you know, it reminds me of, you know, one of the translations for the word crisis in, in Chinese, it has a dual meaning. It means, you know, crisis or danger, but it also means opportunity. And so it's a bifurcation point where a person could choose to, now that they're feeling less stress, less pain, less suffering, they could choose to just coast and go, just take it easy because thank goodness we're out of that and things are feeling better. Or what if the system could actually start to rewire itself to look for what's a new way of functioning that's even better, that's even more effective, that's even more optimized for who I am now because if interesting because, you know, we look at pain, we look at suffering, challenge adversity, stress, we look at it as a bad thing predominantly in our culture. And so, and certainly, you know, when you're, when you're in a lot of pain and you're, and you're going through A pretty challenging time in your life. It's not fun, there's no question about it. However, what if it were. It was potentially, if you could at least hold the perspective that it was placed there for our. Perfectly, perfectly for our opportunity to grow and change and evolve as a human being. What if that were actually. What if it was perfectly destined and put in our path, exact thing we needed to help us grow to the next level. So you know, when you're in it, you may not necessarily be able to hold that perspective, but at this point, when people are shifting and the flower is just perhaps starting to blossom a little bit. But that, that perspective, that experience that I wonder, that's. That's where things can really start to move to the next level. And it's. It's moving forward rather than looking backwards or staying in a certain comfortable level. If that makes sense.
Yes, it does. And I find that that perspective that you're sharing can really quickly melt resistance and to the pain that can manifest as either angry resistance, like frustration or, or might have even maybe more debilitating the kind of collapsed energy resistance of helplessness and self pity. And why is this happening to me? Fear like these things are so what you're. That because that. This is for me, this is for my benefit. This is put here to help me completely changes the meaning and the message of the pain and can put someone in a much more resourceful place to really work with it. And then of course the resistance softens and then we're able to flow. I've seen this for myself out of a pain state and towards something new so much more quickly. And I'm curious, you said there's two ways you can coast or you can expand and maybe take on more. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, option two, let's go, let's see what we can do. And what I found is that there's a. There's this hunger to start to just explore life in a way. Perhaps, maybe, maybe some people felt this. I certainly did as a child. There was more of that kind of curiosity and just trying things and not so much fear and concern. And so I've seen that there's sort of like I just want to have more and different life experiences and see what I can do and create while I'm here. And it's a very different. I might be doing similar things, but the way I'm doing them feels very different than I'd say before.
Absolutely. That is, I mean that's a great way. That's a great way to describe it this, it's a shift from trying to bind energy, binding it, meaning let me stay safe, let me protect myself from what's happening or something in the future that might happen or something that happened in the past, to an opening, a curiosity, a wondering. And it's more inclusive and expansive. And it's kind of interesting because that perspective or that take on your moment, whatever moment or experience you're having, allows for the system to not try to bind energy. If you think about binding energy, it's constrictive, it reduces flow. If you start to think about the expansion of energy, the growing of energy, it's an upward, outward feel. And it also allows for new growth to occur. But that energy has inherently within it different capacities for change and transformation.
So let's talk about the field, because I think that when you talk about expansion and binding versus unbound, the way I've perceived, perceive it is that, that I'm. That I'm not safe. That that stress response, that fear is kind of like this binding. And then there's this perceived perception that I'm like separate from life around me. I got to protect myself from, from life, from adverse events and things. And then when we're talking about this more open state, this more connected state, me, the boundaries of me feels a little more porous or vague. And I get the sense that there's even, there's even another level of this where we can operate, where we don't, where we are in a much more of a state of flow with the field around us. And there's an exchange of, you know, life around me and within me, back and forth. And the next thing to do. I think that's one thing you're kind of steering me towards is I can still get really in my head is like, I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to get this, I'm going to do that, I'm going to do this. And now there's stress around. Is it all going to go according to plan? What if it doesn't go according to plan? You know, and you're kind of guiding me to like, well, just let the next thing come from the environment around you, from the field. And when I do that, it, I feel it's like sanity. It's like a breath of sanity and refreshing truth. And then there's an old pattern that's like, whoa, like we're just riding on this wave right now in this moment. But what about tomorrow? What about yesterday? And get to get back to the structure and the known. So let's talk a little bit about how do you see the field and our relationship with it and how we move through life? It's kind of a broad question, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Well, it's a great question because, I mean, you know, and for some people, it may sound a little bit mystical, a little bit untethered, but really, when you. When you look at it, I mean, everything's energy, right? I mean, at its very fundamental levels, everything is energy. The only reason we can see things is because light in its various wavelengths literally is both particle and wave. And it bounces off. It comes down and it bounces off the back of our retinas and it produces an image the way that we taste things. There's an oscillation, the molecules of food and drink that we put in our mouth that has different characteristic frequencies that produce the tastes of sour, salty, bittersweet, you know. So the only way you can differentiate tissues in like, an MRI or a CT scan is because the tissue itself oscillates at a specific frequency, or hertz. That differentiates. It makes it look different than the tissue beside it. So, you know, just to. On a. On a fundamental level of energy, I mean, literally everything is energy. And. And, you know, to. If you go back and you think about high school physics, there's really two types of energy in the universe. There's bound energy, and there is free, movable energy, which we know is potential and kinetic. So we can bind energy in our bodies, tissues, we can bind energy in our minds, thought processes, emotional emotions that are not necessarily the most resourceful. They're maybe habituated. Maybe we learned them from our parents. Maybe we experienced something as a kid or as an adult. We made up a belief system or emotions around it. And also we have cultural beliefs. You know, the beliefs about certain things in Western culture are very different, say, in the east and from culture to culture. So we have all these different ways of binding energy. But when energy frees up, it goes from compressed, for lack of a better term, to able to do work. And that's one of the beautiful things of kinetic energy is potential is waiting. It's energy bound up. So you got to remember that if there is a perspective or a physical sensation or a challenge in your life, and it is bound. Whether it's, I don't know how to make this business proposal work, or I feel stuck in my relationship, or I feel, you know, kind of lack of creativity in my work, it's bound energy. But you got to Remember, bound energy is literally it's free energy waiting to happen. If it takes only it takes something to initiate that reaction to make it go from bound to free. And that's what we forget because we get locked into it. So there's something that can help us shift and as we start to become as, as beings less bound and more free, our capacity for seeing those sticky spots in all aspects of ourselves and learning the leverage points, what helps us free things up? Like maybe it's working out, maybe it's remembering everything I'm grateful for. Perhaps it's maybe rehearsing positive emotions on a regular basis so that I actually bring that into my system a little bit more. Whatever it is, the field, my take on it is our capacity to interface with the experience and the expression of energy as it's moving inside of us and as it's moving around us in our world. Energy or the field can be felt very often between two people. You can feel love, you can feel sadness, you can feel fear, you can feel anger in yourself and in other people. You can feel collective fear. Just look at the stock market, for example. It can go up and go down and real estate prices, et cetera. There is a field of energy that can collectively and individually influence our experience, the available energy we have and how that shapes our physical body, our emotional body, our mental body, and ultimately our evolution.
I love that. That's well said. So, so this way of being, you know, we're fight, fight or flight. Kind of to contrast the two. There's a fight or flight. I'm maybe not even aware of the field and kind of blocking myself. And I'm feeling a lot of bound energy. Right. My body might be tight. I'm maybe stuck in a certain perspective or pattern. Maybe in life circumstances feel bound and stuck. And then we can contrast that with maybe now things are starting to free up more. And that's part of the work that I do with people is to help them take the actions and shift some of the perspectives that they can unbind and they start to step into the unknown more. And what I as we do that though we are living in a state of less bound, less certain, it's more unknown. It is really more a communication, an ongoing communication with the field and reliance on the field and maybe not seeing it so much as me by myself doing things and more of like a we, I'm interacting with other humans, but also something even much bigger.
Right.
These field between humans and between other things and. And there's like a. It's Almost like I can get a sense of like a taste of a way of being where you are really in that. And that becomes a new center of gravity. And it feels like that is marked by a lot less self preservation and obsession. That way of being in the world. And the other way, the stressed way, is much more like, how's this gonna affect me? And what's my safety and rah, rah, rah. And I kind of found myself, you know, the more work we've done together and I've grown and it's like more and more in that second one and then the other one's still there in the background. Like, but how does this affect me? And I understand there might be an element of that as a human personality and stuff that that's maybe always there. And I also see how kind of unnecessary it is. Like I'll look back at the end of my life and be like, wow, look at all those moments that I could have been way more in this moment and in the flow and not even needing to worry about this self preservation because look, I'm dying now anyway. And now I'm. Now it's all unbinding anyway. So I'm curious about that, particularly like the amount of time, it's not necessarily time spent in, but how, how dominant a new way of being can become. You know, what is your personal experience or clients you've worked with around really residing in that new way so you know consistently?
Well, that's an awesome question. And I think that's something that's central to everybody on the planet. I think ultimately everybody wants to be a better version of themselves. And ultimately I think that's at our core nature. And I think ultimately people want to have an experience of freedom, whatever that means to them, an experience of meaning that my time on the planet, my gifts, the ability for me to contribute, it's meant something to me. And so before I do leave this plane and go wherever I go next, it's been, what an opportunity, what a gift. And I feel like the time that I've spent here has been worthwhile. Obviously, that meaning, that sense, that experience is unique to every single human being. But the path or the journey, I guess you could say that I've seen from, with my own self, work by myself and through the work that I've done as a, as a network chiropractor, you know, one of the things that my mentor Donny Epstein says is that, you know, there's a, you know, ultimately there's this. Well, this is chiropractic. Philosophy, there's this innate intelligence that's inside of us, right? And that there's this inborn wisdom that's always trying to adapt to the forces of the universe. That even though the universe is generally a friendly place, that our systems has this capacity to adapt, its effectiveness, its capacity to adapt allows us to either bind and protect and defend on whatever level, or grow and open and evolve. And it's not to say that those are mutually exclusive because sometimes, like if you are at a car wreck, you certainly want your system to do, be able to adapt effectively, bind where it's needed and then, you know, be as flexible and open, as adaptable as possible. But when it comes to transformation, transforming patterns from our lifetimes, there's a dominant way or ways that our system binds energy as those, those ways transform or evolve. The avenue that I've explored that mostly through has been through the interface between the central nervous system, brain, spinal cord, spinal nerves, relaying the messages to the physiology and the nervous system's responsiveness to the field, the internal and the external fields. That as the frequency in the nervous system can change, so it could actually optimize or become a more coherent signal, a clearer signal, that the dominant patterns for how we bind energy and experience more pain, suffering can actually become and develop a new dominant pattern. So that the system can more commonly experience a more open evolved state. And that that open evolved state can continue on a spiral, an upward spiral to greater capacities of well being and a greater capacity for adaptability. My experience is not that those dominant, old dominant patterns for binding energy necessarily go away. It's more like they go from being the primary way that we experience reality and respond to more of a secondary and eventually a tertiary response, meaning that and the degree of self awareness increases so that we may at certain points down the road see the option like I talked about at the beginning, that bifurcation point where you see hey, you know what, here's that reaction that I'm noticing in my body. My back is starting to tighten up, my headache starting to happen, I'm starting to feel fearful or I angry. And yet the system can be self reflective enough to say, ah, but I have another way and I choose this or even innately, the physiology may move or create a sound or match the vibration of what someone's feeling, or put its focus somewhere else. And instantaneously the state changes. And as a result the system no longer binds energy physically, mentally, and it produces new responses. And ultimately the system can maintain a higher level of capacity to do that. It can grow and evolve, you know, in theory, infinitely.
Yeah. And what sort of surprises and delights me regularly about the network spinal work that you do is these changes that you're describing I've definitely experienced in our work together. And there's so much they're not me listening to you tell me about it or reading a book about it. And then, okay, I'm going to implement strategy 1, 2, 3. And now this old way of being is going to become my tertiary Saturday. Boom. It's much more. It's just sort of is happening. And I know one thing that you mentioned, Donnie Epstein, and I remember him saying something during one of the workshops of his I was at, where he said, a lot of what I'm communicating here is I'm saying words, but a lot of what I'm communicating is being transmitted above the level of mind and below the level of mind. And it seems like that's what happens in the work that you do with people as well. Can you say a little bit more about that? The communication or the information transfer that's happening with. With people and network that's above and below the level of mind?
Well, I can certainly. I'll certainly give you my best. You know, my experience of it from being a practitioner for the last 20, little over 20 years is that we. My experience is, for the most part, you know, we do live in a very mental culture that our focus, our accolades, our reinforcement, our success are a lot of energy is put into the development of our mental intelligence, which is not a bad thing because, you know, there's phenomenal creations like that have come from humanity's capacity to develop and evolve and continue to think in greater and greater ways. It's just that also at the same level, it's still limited to the field of energy that it has access to. And that, you know, anybody that's fallen in love, anybody who's lost somebody, anybody who's been challenged or pushed so far that you've had to step out of your mind to get a sense of what really you need to do next or what's really important in life. There's a level of experience, of consciousness, or maybe people that have been in peak physical states who push themselves physically or meditation or whatever it is, that their consciousness has been pushed outside the realm of the cognitive realm of understanding, that we can also understand without having to use our critical logical mind, that there's information that is available outside of that bandwidth, both above it and below it, and again, not in a hierarchical way of looking at it. For me, it's more like there's a body sense. You can gather information from your body. It's energy, it's feelings, it's what you need. It's what do I need to go to bed now? I need to wake up, I need to change my diet. I need to work out differently. This doesn't work for me. This does work for me. And then there's that kind of bigger perspective that goes beyond mine, and mine can kind of get up to a certain point and then it has to go away because we can't comprehend. So there are many avenues. Certainly network is. Is one of them. That the capacity for the central nervous system to allow for the energetic exchange can go above and below and around and also through mind. Because we are such a mental culture, sometimes you do have to lay down a cognitive framework for the lower mind so that it can find more ease and safety and be like, oh, that makes sense to me. And then the barrier or the protective mechanism of our, of our brains goes, okay, that makes sense. I can now let that. I can let in whatever else is behind that. And so some more stuff gets to come in. Does that, does that make sense?
Mm, yeah. I love that. I love that. So I want to ask you a question about a phrase I've heard you use multiple times in our work together, and that is easeful, effortless expansion. And so I, I have this metaphor that came to me recently with. We have recently have a puppy, which you know about. And, and I'm training him to work to walk on a leash. And it's funny because I'm training him to walk on a leash and I feel like he's training me. And, and also I get a bigger sense of something. The, the hand of the divine training us. And you know, the sort of the, the. The. The goal is that your dog walks alongside you and you guys are both in a great pace. And the lease, the leash is loose and you know, we all seen. And maybe you experience it if you're a dog owner, like, that doesn't happen. There's a. Something he wants to smell, or there's a squirrel. There's another dog, and it's like, whoa. It yanks on the leash. And. Or, you know, you're trying to turn another way and the dog's like, I don't want to go that way. And it kind of hunkers down, is like, you have to pull me or bribe me. And, And I just got this insight about the flow of life or the dao or the hand of the divine is kind of moving. And do we move with it with a loose leash or not? Or do we kind of pull and thrash and try to get away? And. And there's something about that metaphor that, to me, that really relates to this idea of easeful, effortless expansion. I think I've spent many years of my life in a maybe high energy, high neutral state where I'm. I am effective, but it's a lot of if I grow in one area, then there's going to be a detraction usually in my health and the other side. Right. So it's just kind of, I'm pushing against that leash. I'm the dog who's like trying to go forward fast. And this, this other way of being, this easeful, effortless expansion. Can you share more about how do you. How do you see that? Or how. How might we access that more to. To. For me and others to, to really benefit from that wisdom?
Sure. And that's a fantastic question. I, you know, I'll tell you, I'll share with you one of my early mentors when I was first as a chiropractor. He's a. I think his original training was a somatic psychologist and then kind of developed into personal transformation. His name is Gay Hendricks. You may be aware of him, his wife, Kathleen Hendricks. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm a huge fan of Gay Hendricks. I really love his work. Wow, that's fun.
Yeah. So I had the privilege of working with him and, and, you know, one of the things that he shared with me early on in our work together was he said, you know, as we evolve, you know, hopefully that we can learn that our nervous system. Because the reason I keep coming back to the nervous system and while it's. Why it's so central to me is that, you know, the central nervous system is. Is this kind of like. It's kind of cool because it's literally, you know, you know, you can look at it. If you, you know, look inside a human being, there's literally like wires. You've got a brain, you've got a spinal cord. You have spinal nerves that go to every cell of your body. There's this literal wiring system you can look at and touch. And yet I remember reading a neuroscience article recently that said that we know roughly about 3% of how the nervous system works, which certainly was a humbling article to read. But what we do know is that the nervous system is the. This kind of medium between body, mind and beyond. It's this, it's this, it's this, it's this system that processes so much information and we really know very little at this point. What we think we know is that if our nervous system, our awareness and our nervous system's flexibility, its adaptability gets better. That going back to what Gay Hendricks said is that hopefully as we move up the evolutionary ladder of growth and transformation, that we don't require as many two by fours up against our head to remind us that we need to make a change. That in fact we can use what he calls the feather tickle approach, which is before the feather even gets to your skin, you can feel the little subtle oscillations of the wind on your skin to say, ah, something needs to change here. And so, you know, I think that speaks to what you're, what you're, what you're asking is just that there are, there are many, many ways to, I think up level our nervous systems or our capacity for being self aware. Because the more aware you are of things, body, mind, energy, you can see things before they develop into big problems. And that's I think ultimately the goal. And that way, you know, through the effortless, easeful, effortless expansion, you know, again, it's like when it's a small thing like a feather, you know, flopping in the breeze, in the space beside your skin and your cheek, for example, you can make, even with your eyes closed, a subtle sense of that and kind of make a little change to it where if you're not aware of it until a piece of wood like a 2x4 hits you up ahead. Now sometimes we need it because certainly in my life I've needed a few two by fours up against my head to say, hey, hey, hey, pay attention, this is not good. But hopefully as we go, and this is what I see in this work and this is what I see with people who are pursuing higher levels of optimizing their experience as human beings. And their contribution is that they're looking at not only becoming aware, they're also becoming more aware of, based on the awareness, what actions do I need to take? And action may in fact also be like you described, non action, where instead of the dog pulling you or you like the dog wanting to go this direction, there's times to do that and that's the appropriate thing with awareness and a little bit of trial and error. I think we kind of figure that out. But then also you may note that there's senses of times when it's not time to move, you have to actually wait and allow it to come to you. Or for the timing to be right. I think we've all had that experience where we've wanted to share something important with our significant other or a child or a parent. And you see them and you're all excited to share this insight and you look and you go oh my gosh, they just came home from a 10 hour day and they do not look happy. So I am not going to share that experience right now because their state is not going to be resourceful. Now if they were able to shift the state, they are in a peak state, they are really happy, they are joyous. The way that their nervous system, their energy could receive it could make a huge difference. So that is just kind of, you know, one example is being aware of states or learning how to be able to create a state change for yourself. That could allow us to both enhance awareness and also be able to recognize what can. What needs to change in order to help us move in the direction that's the most optimal, easeful, effortless way for us to expand to the next level.
Yeah, I love that. And there's a, there's a sort of a current of daoism in that, right? Like the. When to take action and when to. When their best action is no action until. Until the right moment.
Yes.
So the nervous system, I love that by the way. Actually I wanted to jump in and Let me, let me ask this question. You said the only know about 3% of the nervous system. So that just was a fascinating little tidbit there. What I mean because I. My understanding of, you know, certainly physiology and the intercommunication of the, the systems of the body is that's. I'm not that kind of doctor. I'm a, I'm a feelings doctor. And you know, but I know that little things that I've heard is there's sort of these, these models of like biochemical communication, right? Like everything is just, you know, between the cells or electrical impulse is another one. And then there's people say well you know, those models as, as our observation of the body has enhanced since the development of those models. Those models are inadequate to explain the complexity and the speed at which the cells in the body communicates. And so then there is sort of a, it's looking more towards an energetic or some other system that is being communicated. So I'm curious if we could just take a left turn down that because I think it's fascinating and I do think opens our minds to awe that this vehicle that we find ourselves in is not just. Oh yeah, well we know what's going on in there? We got it, we got names for stuff and scientists got that all figured out. It's like, wait a minute, maybe it's 97% mystery so it can shed a little bit of light on what is going on. Is there some communication way beyond electrical impulses in the, what's that 97% in there?
Well, I mean, so again, it's a great question. I, I'm, you know, I'm a clinician, so I, I work hands on in my, my lab, so to speak, you know, with, with people as I have, but I'm not a neuroscientist, but I do, you know, read and, and so, you know, we do know that there are electrical signals. We know. We've known that for a while. We do know that, you know, the nervous system, the brain generates electrical signals. We do know that they find their way down the length of the nerve cell and through the dendrites to the nerve body and then out through the axon and the next nerve cell. We know that there's biochemicals along the synapse that produce neurotransmitters. We know all that. There's a couple of things. We know that nerve signals produce energy, we know they give off energy. There's some really interesting new models for what might be the precursor for the electrical impulses or the generator of the electrical impulses is that I believe it's whole stage, and don't quote me on that, but there was a research paper that came out just a few years ago, the last four or five years out of a group of researchers in Europe that theorized that the nervous system is actually, it's producing sonic waves, so it's actually producing sound waves and that the sonic waves are able to be measured electrically because of the oscillation that they create. So we also know that through the research of groups like HeartMath Institute in California, that tissues so that there's neurons in the heart. We know that there's neurons in the gut. We know that the neurons around your heart produce an electrical signal that's measurable outside of the body, meaning that what's called the heart torus is measured. It can be measured up to 19ft outside of the human body. And it's one of the most dynamic and yet stable energetic structures that we know of the heart torus. It's constantly evolving, it's constantly changing, and yet it also produces a signal of stability for anybody that knows a little bit about heart rate variability up until maybe the last five or 10 years. We used to think, well, the most stable, consistent heart rhythm is what produces. Is an indicator for a healthy heart. And actually we know that to be quite the opposite. We know that the more dynamic heart rhythm, the one that's constantly fluctuating to the demands of the internal and the external environment, is actually what produces a healthy heart. In fact, if it stays the same for too long, that's a pretty consistent indicator for that individual to actually have a heart attack. So I think it's a fantastic mystery. I think it's great that we only know roughly 3% of how the nervous system works. I think what it also begs to question is, so, you know, we know the brain produces images or signals rather, through the central nervous system and back and forth, it's a relay information. You know, to me, it's. It's like so, well, you know, where does consciousness come from? If. If I think of a picture of a flower, if we cut up my brain into small pieces, are we going to see a flower? Well, I don't think so. So, so. So where does consciousness come from? And I think, you know, from that perspective, you can look at the fields of individual consciousness, the perspectives, the thoughts, the energy that I've thought over a chunk of my life and my years and maybe influenced by my family and my education and my experience, my culture, my country, and then the collective. And certainly people in your realm of study, like Carl Jung and people of that they've investigated and in various ways, the collective unconscious and people like Ken Wilbur and contemporaries like that.
Yes, I love that. There's the mystery of the nervous system. You know, there's sort of the mystery of the field that we were talking about earlier. And then there's just. The mystery goes within and without, kind of anywhere, anywhere we look and just scratch beneath the surface.
Yeah.
Oh, were you gonna say something?
Can I add just one thing? Yeah, I was. I just. You know, what really also fascinates me too, and I think it kind of. It adds to the mystery is that, you know, if you look back in the history of chiropractic, so the gentleman who developed chiropractic, his name was Daniel David Palmer, and he developed chiropractic officially in 1895. There's a lot of kind of processing that happened in order for it to actually come into being a full profession. But. But his original intent back at that turn of the century, you know, was that energy and information flowed from above down meaning from the universe, the greater universe through us. And that his perspective was that the central Nervous system, the human nervous system was the conduit to take a universal consciousness, universal energy and information, to make sense of it, to, to process it and to express it in an individuated, in an individual consciousness. So you are you. There is no other you, there is, there is no other me, there is no other anyone on the planet. That our nervous system has this capacity to express and experience energy and information that is unique to us. And that it's, it's an expression of divine intelligence, of a universal consciousness. That if our nervous system, our conduit can be as clear as possible, then, then this experience, each individual experience of consciousness can be as clear as possible and bring to fruition the purpose for that being being on the planet. Meaning if there's any. It's like having a king toes, if the hose is kinked, even 5% or 2%, there's less capacity of expression and experience for that individual to express who they truly are, why they're here, the gifts that only they have to give and to contribute to this planet, this place being a much better place. That to me is very exciting. And I certainly don't know the neurology or the science or the physics around it, but that principle is what originally got me so excited about chiropractic. And that network spinal to me has been the kind of the hallmark for, in a body centered way, how to allow a system to be a clear expression for that individual to express why it came here and ultimately give back to and serve the universal. So I don't know if that makes sense, but I just wanted to say that because it's a pretty significant historical piece and I think it speaks to the essence of our conversation tonight. Thing. Hmm.
Yeah. Which I know is like a product of network spinal work. Right. Is that authentic signature wave, the way you move through life. And when you were talking about the heart rate variability, that made me think about like a, almost like a drum, like someone playing a hand drum or something like that. Like you have your own, your heart has its own dance, its own little rhythm that's slightly different than just a metronome or something like that. And that's part of this unique, I mean this, the uniqueness of your, of our expression manifests in on all different levels from the nervous system to the organs, to what we say, to the work that we choose to do, to what we are passionate about. And I have, I have two other questions and I want to see if we can get to both of them because I just love this opportunity to pick your Rein here. Okay. One is around this safety need we've been touching on throughout this interview, and one is about the hunger. So let's talk about the safety need first, which is what I found is I've taken more, you know, updated and upgraded my nervous system and how I approach life. And then I'm able to take on more and I take, you know, more risk and more. The risk to be me in many ways and do what I'm here to do. Sometimes they, you know, I fail or have setbacks, and then often. And other times I'll. I'll be able to achieve or create or do the thing that I. That I set out to do or more. And what I found is that there's a way that I can be. Things are going quote well.
Right.
You know, it's like, oh, look at, look at this. I'm creating or expanding. And there's this pattern of, like, wanting to put douse out some of that optimism. Or it's almost like when you observe things going well, you can say, wow, this is going well. This is. This is awesome. Let me have more. Let me run with this even more. And there's a part, it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Put the brakes on here. Bad things, death and ruin. Remember, you know, don't get too excited. Sort of trying to always. And I just sort of imagine him, he's in, like, the backseat of the car kind of picking at things. And I'm. I'm curious, you know, is that simply an old pattern of like the kind of the old way of being. Trying to rope itself back in to. You know, it's like, oh, it's evidence that they're not really fully out of that perception, that hence the danger is still looming. Or if there's something else there. Because I think it's something that a lot of people can relate to as well. That's kind of a foot in both ways of being almost and particularly guarding against optimism and enthusiasm and positive anticipation.
Yeah. Or higher levels of growth, higher levels of positive experience of being on this experience. And, you know, I think, you know, it's. There are. Within the central nervous system, you know, if you think about a governor on your. On your car. Right. Like, the governor, only because of factory settings, only allows for a certain type of acceleration or a certain speed on the car. Right. And so we've all had experiences in life. Usually, you know, the majority of them have happened earlier in childhood where, you know, we've learned to keep it at a certain level. Whether that's in our finances, how much love, how much passion, how much joy, how much fun, how much. How much of all of that stuff, you know, is okay. Because if you have too much of that, and then you can fill in the blank with your own particular version, right? If you have too much money, well, you know, whatever you might say, you know, people may not have. Other people may not have enough. That's just one example. If I'm feeling really good in my relationship, you never. It's going to come around the corner, something bad's going to happen. So I think there's a threshold in our nervous system that, based on our own experiences, has capped our capacity for how much positive energy we can experience in a particular area. And I think everybody has their area or areas where that's more of an issue than others, right? Because some people have no issues with money or relationship or creativity, whereas other people do, for example. But my experience is that as the nervous system becomes more free, it becomes more adaptable. That, that way, if you want to think of it as a threshold or a thermostat setting, that. That thermostat setting can be raised. Now, that being said, so that. So example, you were used to being at 70 degrees in terms of how awesome life can be, it can go up to 72 or 73. Now, what can happen a lot of times before people are really aware of that is you may notice that things are going great. Things are going great, and then something bad happens, like an unexpected bill, or you injure yourself and you're working on losing weight, or you start getting off the rails and you start eating poorly again. So there's this little subconscious pattern that keeps us. Its job is think, oh, this is not good. I have to keep us safe. So I'm going to keep us to 70 because I remember subconsciously or unconsciously what happens if I go to 72 or 75 or 78. Now, that threshold, in my experience, can change. As the nervous system becomes more adaptable and more flexible, that number can rise. But there's two other forces, and you touched on them. So safety, or also what we might call stability. If you look at growth in systems, there is dynamicism or instability. So the need for growth and change and then the need for stability, and different people, different systems at different times need both. We all need both. If we have too much unchecked growth at a certain point, the system can't process as much of the experience and it can break down. If we have too much stability, we're trying to keep everything the Same. We want to keep it just the way it is. And that can be problematic as well because we'll never grow and we'll start to bind energy to keep things insulate ourselves so that change never happens. And we just keep where we are. So we need at certain levels of growth, a certain amount of stability to help the system integrate. So it can kind of say, okay, we just moved from 70 to 74. Get used to 74. Oh yeah, okay, cool. 74. This is 74. And then after a while the system. And that might be like a moment, that might be two weeks, it might be two years, we don't know. But the nervous system just needs time. The system needs time to then kind of feel what it feels like and integrate its new identity as a 74 degree set system. And then growth can occur. So safety is essential. Some of it is programmed due to our, I think, subconscious unconscious patterning from different traumas or experiences. But a lot of that can be improved or shifted over time to allow the system to have a higher baseline and a higher level of function, AKA a higher level of experience, of energy, and a greater capacity to influence change and growth, both individually and collectively.
I love it. I feel like sometimes when you're talking, I'm looking. I have this picture in my studio here that's of. I think it's a little cove in Hawaii and it's got this water and these cliffs. And I'm looking at it as you're talking and I just feel like there's some transmission that's happening that's like I'm sort of going to a trance sometimes as you talk and I receive a lot. It feels very impactful, what you're, what you're sharing. I really appreciate not just what you're, the ideas you're sharing with us, but who you are, I think is transmitting through to me. And just the years of experience you have with this, with, with this, with the transformation of people. I would love to ask you one more question, which is about hunger. So just yesterday I was out in the woods with Candice and I just often notice, especially when distractions are away, that there's this ache inside of me. And you know, and I sort of notice that I quickly interpret it negatively, like, oh, what am I aching for? Come on. I could try to, try to dismiss it and then, and then getting a little more curious. It's like, okay, what if. What, what if that was. She was kind of getting like, what if that's a hunger for something? You know, and sort of like what if that's like, the same hunger that has these trees striving to get to the sun or. And I started to tune into it that way, and I felt. I feel that it's kind of like a. It's never done. You know, I think I'm looking for some, like, well, I achieve something where I get to something, or I've accumulated enough things or whatever. I've had enough experiences. I've helped enough people or something, and there's just sort of this, like, I'm done, you know, the coast. The coast thing we were talking about, it doesn't seem to ever be there. And. And I think I have this sort of negative interpretation that maybe comes from certain interpretation that might be an inaccurate interpretation of certain spiritual teachings of, like, sort of peace, where you're just kind of like, there's nothing that needs to be done. I could, like, sit on a park bench for. For, you know, years and be at peace. I remember even Eckhart Tolle talks about that, you know, sort of after his awakening, he's just sitting on park benches. I'm like, if I was sitting on park benches, I just go crazy. I got to go do stuff, you know, and. And I think there's a way that I kind of. You know, one part I love that about me, and it's led to a lot of creation in the world. And then other times, I'll sort of judge the. The that hunger, which is part of the engine there. And I'd love to get your thoughts on our perspective on hunger and how maybe it's what. What role does it play in our experience and how best to be with it so that there's the capacity to be driven by it and also feel. Feel more peace and joy now, too.
Yeah, it's a really great question, and I appreciate that you've done a lot of contemplating as well as a lot of, you know, just taking action. And I think there's a few different pieces to it from my experience. I think the hunger that you're describing, ultimately, you know, it comes from a desire to experience. And ultimately, I think to give more, that there is more. And, you know, just like we're all unique expressions on this planet. My experience is that hunger that you're describing will look and feel unique for every single human being. Like, for, you know, Eckhart Tolle sitting. Sitting on a park bench for two years. That's exactly. Exactly what the expression. I mean. And again, my thought about that is maybe just sitting on the park bench and him being in that state was exactly what he needed to do. And the expression of that consciousness, you know, needed obviously that transformed over time. And he, he's written a lot of books and traveled around the world and spoke to a lot of people. So, you know, I think it comes from a place that is ultimately at our core, if you want to call it our soul's level that is driving us, that is calling us, calling us. And I think that's where the hunger comes. It's the calling that we feel inside that it pulls us to ask more of ourselves, it pulls us into relationships with people, it pulls us to make decisions, it pulls us to try new things. Not always successful, quote unquote by how we might interpret the outcome, but it asks more of us. And I think ultimately as part of the self fulfilling destiny piece, which is to allow ourselves to give and contribute and experience as much of our unique spark that we came here with. And you know, again, I just want to clarify that, you know, it's not a hunger to fill a gap, avoid something that you're not lacking. I think what you're describing, my sense of it is that it's a, it's a pull from a deeper place that is asking, calling us to give, to move, to experience, to contribute more. And you know, I think also it may change forms as well because if you look at some of the great visionaries, they may have stayed on the same path in what that terms, of what that looks like in terms of their desire, their calling. Some people the calling switched and so that change forms. And so part of that, I think is being aware of differentiating what the pull is and the calling is versus the attachment to the expression of what we think it should look like out in the world. Sometimes it's really clear and easy to know, but other times there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a switch that needs to happen in order for that divine expression to be better, have a better avenue for its, for its expression on the planet.
I love that. Ian, thank you so much for, for all this that you're sharing and, and just the years of experience that have led to here and you being able to share. And I just know that this is not just your own growth and your own training, but real time, practical daily years of helping people through all these stages and certainly very much helping me. We talked about it more in the first interview, but of course I would highly recommend people can learn more about you and network. If people can look for network spinal practitioners in their area I think there's probably searches people can do to find that. But what would be a great place for people to get started to find.
Out more about you? Well, so my area of kind of helping people or serving people is in my practice, which is in the northwest. It's in the southern state of part of Washington state, just about an hour east of Portland in Vancouver, Washington. And you can find more about me at our website, which is www.chambersfamilychiropractic.com.
Beautiful. Yes. And if people are in other locations, then definitely look up network spinal practitioners in your area. It is something that I have found absolutely life changing. Thank you so much, Ian, for being with us and we look forward to many more in the future, whether it's recorded or not. I look forward to many more interactions and continue to learn from you.
It's always a pleasure to spend time with you and I really appreciate your capacity for asking such insightful questions that lead to such a rich dialogue. So thank you, Aziz.
That brings us to the end of the interview. We got one more thing to do. Can't leave without an action statement step. Time for action. Action, action. With an interview like this, I don't know if I'd want to specify what you would want to do for action, but I, I am going to encourage you to take some action based upon at least one, one of the things that's standing out to you from here, from the interview. So maybe there's a specific thought or idea, maybe it was an insight, maybe it was an aha that you had that had nothing to do with what one of us said. I feel like when I was listening to Ian, I even mentioned it in the interview, as you heard. Right. I feel like I was just kind of in a trance sometimes and he's saying things, but I'm just like being impacted. And what's fascinating is actually after I recorded this interview, because I recorded it a little while back, like that day, I was just significantly impact and I was like making decisions, decisions in my life and making changes and then I just felt optimized. So there's a lot. I mean, this guy's a, he's a magician. So whatever impact is brewing for you, I'm gonna encourage you to just turn it into some sort of specific action and maybe you know what it is right now. Maybe you will know very soon. But whatever you do, put this into practice in your life in some way, shape or form. And I can't wait to hear more about your success and ever increasing confidence until we speak again may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. We'll talk to you soon.
Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.










