Episode 743: How to Tap Into a Whole New Level of Performance You Didn’t Know Existed with Dr. Don Wood

You're listening to the Mind your Business podcast. In today's episode, you're going to discover how to tap into a whole new level of performance that you didn't know existed. This you're going to want to hear, so stay tuned.

Hi, I'm James wedmore, and with 17 years online, I've built my business to over $12 million in sales per year. And this is the first non business business podcast that shows you how to apply the principles of spirituality, energy and mindset to grow your business beyond your wildest dreams. All from the inside out. This is the Mind your Business podcast.

All right, what is up, my friend? Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode here on the Mind you'd business podcast. I am your host, James Wedmore, and I just wrapped up an unbelievable interview. I cannot wait for you to listen. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Where do I even begin? Let's start with this. I remember years ago talking to other course creators and coaches and in private. This is a common conversation that we've had. Struggling with the plight of students that can't take action, won't listen, get into imposter syndrome, self sabotage, you name it. And despite how simple you lay it out for them, despite how detailed everything is, despite the amount of coaching and hand holding you give. And I know I'm speaking to a lot of you that have had that same experience. You're doing everything and it's still you're noticing a lot of your students that get stopped in their tracks. Or maybe you've seen them making decisions that aren't really in alignment with their goals. The list goes on and on. Maybe you've been there yourself. Maybe you're there right now.

Today, I'm introducing you to another secret weapon of mine, none other than Dr. Don Wood. I first met Dr. Wood back in 2019, and he spoke at one of my Mastermind retreats. And I have since worked with him, worked with him again. He was at our last retreat in 2025 this February. I've sent many clients to him and he's even been a previous guest on previous episodes. But those are buried way, way, way back in the past. And we have a fresh look, a fresh start in this conversation because it's a doozy and it's an important one. What Dr. Don Wood has dedicated his life to is the work, the technology and the healing of clearing trauma. And what his research has shown, and he'll share a lot of it in today's episode, is just how much that trauma is affecting Your life.

Your performance. And because this is a business podcast, your business, sales, money, audience leads, conversions, and so much more. And one of my favorite distinctions is him introducing you to the idea that, number one, yes, we can clear this trauma. Number two, I pretty much think all of us have got it. Even the small stuff, even the things like the, oh, I don't really think I have a big traumatic past or childhood or anything.

We have little formative moments that left an impression on our psyche at a young age that helped us create meaning out of the world that now distorts and filters and alters our decision making, our belief system, our attitude, and our overall approach to life. Things that are error codes that we can overwrite, delete, and change, and we can actually do it a lot easier, safer, and quicker than most people realize. And ultimately, I want to point out something that he said, that we all have another gear that we can click into that we've had all along laying dormant within us. This is truly, truly powerful work that Dr. Wood is bringing to the planet, to the collective. It brings me to tears every time I see him share the stories. You're gonna hear a few of them today from the countless people he's worked with, from people that have had extremely traumatic childhoods, that have now gone on to live well adjusted lives and talk about those past memories. Two victims of one example, the Boston Marathon bombing, that were able to heal from that and go right back and stand in the exact same place they were standing when the bombs went to. Entrepreneurs, athletes and high performers like you and I, who are able to click into that high gear and see even more results without the need for the pushing or the back and forth. Look, this is really important work for everyone. I believe that we're at such an interesting time in our lives and on the planet collectively. People are starting to wake up, wake up to.

Clear perceptions, their own gifts to their own potential. And dharma on the planet. They're breaking the curses of their own generational trauma. Most people listening here are seeing that you are the one that gets to end the cycle of the lineage of patterns, belief systems, and trauma that maybe have been in our genetics and our family tree. And we get to start something new. This is what I believe and why I believe there are so many entrepreneurs in this time, that these entrepreneurs are the change makers, that these entrepreneurs are the ones that have a new message to share with the world, a new way of doing things, to give permission the others to do the same. And if you're trying to crush it and hustle your freaking face off all day long, and you're burnt out and you're spinning your wheels and everything you're doing isn't working.

This might be one area to look at, and I would be baffled why any entrepreneur who's passionate about growth and performance and reaching more and dreaming bigger would think that a conversation like this would not be relevant to them. Because I think not only is it relevant, it's necessary. So I can't wait for you to dive in and enjoy this episode, this conversation that I had with Dr. Wood. So what are we waiting for? Without further ado, let's roll that tape right now.

Dr. Don Wood here in the studio. Thank you so much for joining us. How are you doing?

I'm doing awesome, James. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah.

Hopefully you've had a wonderful little trip here in Sedona. Th far.

Oh, my gosh, this is amazing. Just the views living here. It must be amazing.

It is. And you just tell yourself, don't ever take for granted, because it's every day.

I don't know how you could take for granted.

It's pretty spectacular.

Yeah.

And you just spoke for over four hours to our mastermind clients at our first retreat of the year. What a treat. They got to experience you. So thank you so much for that. So I said, I got to get you here in the studio. I want to start if you could share with our listeners in the best way possible the work that you do.

Well, it's very unique. And as you can tell from what I was talking about, I have a very different approach to how to help people perform at their highest level. Because what I say is trauma is interfering with them hitting that next gear and how it affects the way that people are operating. So if we have this unresolved trauma, it's going to affect the way the brain operates because it filters through trauma. So if you had something that happened earlier in your life, it could be a connection to a theme of, say, abandonment. Right. Or criticism. And then all of a sudden, you start feeling criticism and attack. And then people go, what did I say? I didn't say anything to you. Why would you get so mad at that? Yeah, it's coming from that. So I really developed the program. The genesis of it was really trauma because my daughter experienced trauma, my wife experienced trauma, and I had none. And so I was fortunate. I was living in Sedona as a child. That's not really. But it felt like Sedona, right? Yeah. And so I had this amazing childhood, and they were operating differently and my daughter ended up with two autoimmune disorders. And so that's when I started to do the research. And my wife and I started trying to figure out what happened. And we didn't know that she had trauma when she was 6 that she had never disclosed to us. So that is what was sort of the start of me researching. And I think the advantage was. And you deal with brilliant entrepreneurs. I was an entrepreneur, I wasn't a doctor. Right. But if you want to fix a problem, bring in an entrepreneur. Because I looked at things differently. So I studied everything I had to study to, you know, to get my degree. But I was realizing they really weren't helping my daughter. So I discovered the inflammation that is the root cause of trauma. And then inflammation changes the way the immune system works, neurotransmitters, neuroplasticity. And so I just published a study showing that it's reversible when we reverse the trauma. We get the trauma to stop operating and looping. We can then start changing the physical health. And it's basically a four hour process that they take people through.

And you've shared example after example of a lot of people in sports and other very performance based roles, and I'd love for you to share a few of them where the difference is palpable. You can measure the change in performance from that. Can you take a moment and just share a few of some of those extraordinary before and after scenarios?

I mean, that's why I liked working with athletes, because they're measuring performance all the time. So I worked with Marco Chisetto. He's a double amputee. He tried to commit suicide, passed out in the snow. And he was a marathon runner from Kenya. And so they built him prosthetics to walk on again and then blades to run. And then they called me up and said, he's sort of plateaued. We think he's got more potential, but no matter what we're doing, he's just hit the limit. So do you think you can take him through your program? So I said, sure. So I took him through the program. Nine days later, he runs in a marathon and takes 15 seconds per mile off his time. And what I said to him, I said, marco, I didn't make you faster. You were always that fast. What I have discovered in the research is that this unresolved trauma, besides the inflammation, it's actually affecting the mitochondria, the energy in the cells. And when we release the trauma now they have more power. Then a month later, he runs in the Boston Marathon and breaks a world record, and then two months later, runs in the Chicago Marathon and breaks his own world record by another five minutes and gets signed by Nike.

Wow.

And that was his talent. That's what he had. And that's why I love working with you as well, with these entrepreneurs. The stuff that you do for them is amazing and how you can help them. But if they've got a block, then that's going to affect the great work that you're doing. The same way these trainers were saying, we're doing our best. And he's hit a limit. But that limit wasn't because of anything that they were doing wrong. It was because he couldn't reach that limit.

Wow.

And even without people noticing was really funny because I worked with a guy actually in Phoenix, and he did our online program. And then he said, oh, I've healed all my trauma. I don't really have anything. I think I'm fine. I just want to experience the program. We'll see what it's all about. And he was doing a lot of stuff in addiction. So anyway, a few weeks later, he sends me this Google map of Saddleback Country Club with this red line through it, the golf course. I was like, what's he sending me? A map with a red line. And then he calls me a few hours later. He says, you get the map I sent you? And I said, yeah. I said, what's that about? And he says, well, I was running with my girlfriend last night. I run that route every day. And he says, and then she started getting mad at me. She says, like, slow down. Why are you running so fast? Why are you trying to outrun me? It's not a competition. He goes, I'm not trying to compete against you. I'm just running. And he says, and that made him think. He says he got back home and he realized he was making personal bests after going through the program.

Wow.

And he never noticed it.

Amazing.

Yep.

So you even labeling yourself as an entrepreneur? I've always called myself an entrepreneur. Business owner. Our listeners are entrepreneurs. Do you either have examples of where you've seen the clear trauma, transformed performance in business or where the potential is for the average entrepreneur?

Yes. I got a really good example. A gentleman, very successful guy making 2 million a year, trading stocks, options, derivatives. But he comes to me and he says, every fourth quarter, I shut down. He goes, I'm sabotaging myself. And what I say is, you can't sabotage yourself. It's impossible. That's a survival brain. Why Is your mind shutting down in the fourth quarter? He says, my anxiety gets so bad I have two partners. He says, I can't go in the office, he says, because I literally feel sick in that fourth quarter and I don't know why. And he says, so I make excuses, I go on vacations. I try to come around and work around it, he says, but it's debilitating. So when I sat down with him, I said, let's take a look at your life and what's gone on. And he goes, I had a great childhood. He says, my dad's my hero. He says, very successful entrepreneur, multi, multimillionaire. And he's the most resilient person I've ever met. And I said, okay, tell me about resiliency. He said, well, he went bankrupt four times. He says, so we'd be flying in private jets, he says, and then in the middle of the night, we'd have to get in the car and leave because we're getting evicted. And then we'd be back in private jets. And so what his mind was doing was protecting them. When he got to the 2 million, it said, shut down.

Wow.

And so he lived in Tampa, so he was about an hour from us. And the next morning he texted me and he said, I've never felt that sense of peace driving ever. And then he called me on December 15, said, Today's my last day. Best year ever.

That's so beautiful.

Yeah. And he said he had no anxiety now going into the office.

Okay, but hold on, you said something really powerful, but very quickly, that it's impossible for us to sabotage ourselves. Can you elaborate on that? Yes, Because, I mean, people, they say it all the time. I'm self sabotage, sabotaging.

It's impossible. The brain can't sabotage you because it's survival based. So people will say, well, how do you explain why I'm on a really good path? And then all of a sudden I do something stupid and I go in another way. I said, because your mind saw danger coming from some experience you had. So it'll move you into another direction, but you'll describe it as sabotage. It's not. It's your mind protecting you.

It's always protecting you successfully helping you survive.

Exactly. So if it sees, and I give a really simple explanation. So think about if, you know a guy in high school, there's a really pretty girl at the school dance, he wants to go up and talk to her, and he sees her across the room. So he's trying to get up the nerve to go up and ask her to dance. And as he's walking across, he's, like, physically feeling it. And then he sees Eddie in the corner. And then he goes, I gotta go talk to Eddie first. And he moves towards Eddie. His mind was protecting him from the shame. If she shuts him down and everybody sees him, and so he wants to do it, but he can't do it. Was his mind sabotaging him or protecting him?

Wow.

It was protecting him. Yeah. It can never sabotage you.

Oh, that's so good. Okay, well, before we go any further, can you give a definition and really enrich in the label and word trauma what that is? Because I also know that you. And you've mentioned people that come to you or people that you work with. And I hear it a lot too. Like, well, I don't have any trauma. Right, so. Well, what is trauma?

Trauma is an event or an experience that is dysregulating your nervous system. And it's really easy when people say to me, well, how do I know I have trauma or I don't have any trauma? What I'll say to them is, can you tell me about an event that you had in your life? And if you feel an emotion, it's active. That's a really simple way to tell.

Can I repeat that back? So I got it. So you can feel the emotion now. Now, based on a. Like, if you're thinking about the memory of it, is what you're saying. Yeah. So if you think. If you start thinking about or talking about something of your past and you get activated now.

Yep. And you start feeling an emotion.

Got it.

Because what I talk about, the purpose of an emotion is to get you into an action. Your mind produces an emotion for an action. You shouldn't have an emotion. When you think about something from 10 years ago, and we're not going for happy about it. We're just trying to stop the dysregulation so people will say. So I give a good example. I had a lady who said, oh, I didn't have any trauma. And she volunteered, you know, similar to how I asked to volunteer up at the session we did at your event. And so she came up and she sat down. She goes, well, I don't have any trauma. She said that she. Yeah, this other lady, when she sat there.

Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Yes.

Oh, oh, oh, you're not my.

No, she told me she had.

Okay, yeah. Okay. I didn't hear that part. Yes, sorry, go ahead.

So I'm thinking, well, why would you volunteer? Because I'M looking for a volunteer. And so I says, can you think about an event in your life that when you think about it, you can feel an emotion? And she had to think of it because she said, oh, I had a great childhood. And then she goes, okay, yeah, yeah, I've got an event. And so she says, when I was six years old, she says, I was in church with my family. And she says, and I started to talk to my friends and I could see her eyes filling up. And. And she says, my grandmother took out her hairbrush and she hit me on the head. And she said, stop talking, you're in church. And then the waterworks came and it took her about 30 seconds to catch her breath. And when she caught her breath, what she said to me was, I lost my voice that day. I never connected that. I never stand up for myself. I always back down. I hate confrontation. Her grandmother wasn't trying to do that. But that's what I call an emotional concussion. It may not be a big T trauma, but those emotional concussions still have an effect. And there's so many examples of it. I give an example with my wife, Bridget. So she's living in a traumatic household. On top of it, she's about the same age, six, and she's invited to a neighborhood tea party by the mothers. And so when Bridget gets there, she's, you know, grandmother dresses her up all pretty and she loves being a girly girl. And she gets there and one of the mothers goes, oh my gosh, Bridget, look at you. You're going to be such a heartbreaker when you grow up. And the other mothers are like, oh, yeah, Bridget's going to be a heartbreaker. She says she felt sick and had to go home. What she heard was, you're a bad person. You're going to break people's hearts, hurt people.

Yeah.

A six year old doesn't know what that means. So, so many times it comes back to those kinds of an event that you don't even realize. But if it's running and you haven't resolved it, it will have an effect.

Yeah, little, these little things, even when it wasn't with bad intention, with the.

Best of intention sometimes. Right, right. It can very easily. And that's why I talk about. So I wrote my last book and I called it Don't Mess with My DNA because it affects the way that child's DNA is read and transcribed, even with good intentions. So if you and I, and I give a funny way to an example because I had this great childhood and So I talk about when my mother used to say, it's hard to make ends meet. I thought she was talking about meat. Somehow we're having a problem getting meat together.

Yeah, right. Like, I don't even know what that means.

But I never asked. Children aren't going to ask. They're just going to accept the language. And they don't have enough experience to understand what the language means. So you need to be very careful and make sure children understand. And that's what I wrote in the book. You can always repair everything. You can always talk to your children and make sure they understand. And if you make a mistake, it's okay. Apologize.

Yeah.

What's wrong with apologizing to your child and say, you know, that wasn't my best. Right. Let me be better.

Definitely. Do you find that it is your experience that if people are saying, I don't really have any trauma, then that's rarely the case?

Then Very rarely, yeah, they'll feel like that.

Or.

What I get a lot is, oh, I've worked on all my trauma. I get that a lot. And people think they have. And I had just a couple that came in, husband, wife. The wife sent him first, and she says, I've done all my trauma. I'm good. Yeah, I'm good.

Healed and perfect.

She says, and I think he could probably use a little bit. But we've done all kinds of stuff together. And they're super successful people. They have all the money in the world to do everything. And both of them at the end of it said, wow, I had no idea I still had that trauma running.

Yeah. I mean, when you first came in with our group In San Diego, 2019, I got just this little thing like one of the process you took us through. Because for me at this point, it feels harder for me to find a specific, like just from a prompt like that. But you took us through something that allowed for a memory to come that was really blindsided me. I wasn't thinking about it. It wasn't something I had consciously been remembering over the last few years. And I must have been five or six, and I was at the checkout line of the supermarket with my dad, and I was probably fiddling with the toys or the gum or the candy, and he's then checking out and he whacked me on the head. But when you took us through one of those processes, I got to re experience it from a different vantage point. And in this new vantage point, I connected a dot. And I remember telling you this was like, it doesn't even matter if it was true or not. It's just like, recategorizing the brain that he had a ring on. I always remember he had this ring. And what I was able to reconnect it or tell my brain was, it hurt, obviously, as a kid, but he had a ring on. So he didn't mean for it to hurt, but because he had the ring, it hurt a lot more than it did. He was just kind of giving me the little like, come on, we're going. But in my experience, it was a really painful whack on the head, but his ring hit me.

That's so funny, because when you were telling that story, I was thinking, oh, I've got a story of the same kind of thing. But the father had a ring on. And he described it as, he whacked me on the head, like, belted me. Right. And then the same kind of thing, after we went through it, he goes, you know what? He had a ring on. Like, it probably didn't hit me that hard.

That's exactly what happened.

Yeah. Exact same story.

Let it go. And it was this little thing. So it's both fascinating how that memory was able to come. It was like the unconscious was, like, ready for me to. Here, you gotta let this go.

Yeah.

If you would have just asked me.

Like, hey, what's something that would have never come to mind.

No, never.

But.

But those are those emotional concussions I call, like, it wouldn't be a big T. Your dad probably had no idea that he even hurt you. Probably. Right. He just. I tried to get your attention. Yeah. Right.

So do you find that your work gained the gambit with people on big T versus little T? Is it mostly people with the smaller trauma or. I mean, I know you've told me some stories of people with some pretty big trauma, a lot.

Another entrepreneur, a female, very successful, running her business. And what she said to me, she goes, I procrastinate. I don't know why, but I'm always procrastinating. And I said, those kinds of things are coming from emotional concussions. So as we sort of went through everything, what she said, I remember my mother was the principal at the school I went to. So she says, whenever I would do my homework, she says, I'd have to bring my homework to her. And she said, I remember that red pen. And she says, and she'd bring out that red pen and start underline all my mistakes. And she says, I hated that. And so what she was feeling is her mother was criticizing her as opposed to helping her and correcting her. But a child interpret that is I never get anything right. So she says. So what I do is I put everything off until the last minute. That way I can't get corrected. Wow, that amazing. Yes.

Can you speak more about that too? It's real fascinating what you were sharing. I think it connected a lot of dots for everyone in the room about how it's because it's not self sabotage, it's a survival strategy. So when we're activated, what is really happening based on that original memory moment or theme from our past?

This is what I discovered in the research. It's all coming from memory. So those memories are stored in high definition, very bright and intense.

And can you explain why that is?

Well, because when you're in a threat, think about right now. If there was a threat right now, right. We would get activated. Right. So our nervous system, our autonomic nervous system would go into fight or flight. When you're in that response, sight, smell, hearing are all intensified. So your mind is recording every experience in your life. So you've got a camcorder on constantly throughout your life. Every single thing you see, hear, smell is recorded. So if that is recorded in high definition, it's now stored in memory in high definition. And then all of a sudden say, it's just a word or it could be a smell. Or I'll give you an example. I had a lady who had been sexually assaulted. She'd been raped when this song was playing on the radio. And she says, and every time that song comes on the radio, if she's in her car or she hears it, she wants to throw up. What is happening is the mind hears that song, says what do we know about that song? Pulls up the high definition memory and she's living in it in the moment, even though consciously she's not. It's subconscious, but people don't realize that. So that's where it's going to activate your nervous system. And you can't stop it until you reprocess it. So if I had a little hammer and I tapped your knee and your knee bounced, I'd say, well, you shouldn't do that.

I wish I could stop it.

You can't stop it. It's the way the system works. And that's what I learned in all the research, is that people are living through this. Constantly activating the nervous system because the subconscious memory is coming up, then turns on the system.

Yeah, I remember my ex and I, we had a not so fun experience where we had to get airlifted from a dangerous, treacherous hike that we got caught in during a torrential downpour. And it was like really hairy experience. And I would say maybe two years later we were on a, like a walking path in a park. And the sound of, of her shoes hitting the gravel and the feel and texture of that rock. She was right back there in that, in that same hike, like it was happening all over again.

Because her mind is always trying to protect you. That's why I said it's not sabotaging you. So it's experiencing this new experience and, and using the new experience and basically using research to say, have we experienced this before? Pulls up the high definition memory and the memory is seen in real time.

Yeah.

So you've got a nervous system operating in the present, activating memory from 10 years ago. Your mind doesn't know it's not 10 years ago.

Yeah. So there seems to be a lot of like controversy or trauma around trauma in that conversation. And you seem to hear a lot of people that say like, you cannot clear it. Do you run into that? Do you have people that try to like fight for their trauma and believe that it can't be cleared?

Yes.

And what do you say to that? Because obviously the evidence and the experiences you've had is that it can. That it is.

I just say no, it's just science.

Yeah.

So what I learned through all my research is that it's always repairable. We're designed to heal. Our minds and bodies are designed to heal. What's interfering with the healing is this constant fight or flight. So if you're in a fight or flight state all the time, you're not going to get much maintenance done because the mind is focusing on survival. And so that's why we see the gene regulation change. High inflammation. So the genes that regulate inflammation are upregulated. The genes regulate, immunes are down. That's an allocation of resources. The way the mind's looking at it was we more power to survive. And so we need less maintenance being done because we don't need to maintain something. We could be dead.

Yeah.

Let's get out of danger first. And now we'll start doing stays stuck.

In that gear because of the trauma, keeps looping and people are just in that gear for years.

Yep.

Can you speak more to the links you found with inflammation and, and trauma? Because I know you've had a lot of experiences with inflammation and that just being gone when the trauma is gone.

Yep. So what I explained is physical or emotional trauma creates inflammation. So if you started punching me in the arm, my arm's going to swell up. Yes, it has to. Yeah, right. It's a cell danger response. The purpose of that is to protect the integrity of that area. So now what happens is the cells become hardened and inflamed. So nothing can penetrate the cell while it's under attack. So no pathogens or viruses. And so as soon as you stop hitting me, eventually the system will say, we're not in danger anymore. Inflammation will come down and the immune system comes in and cleans up. The problem with trauma is trauma is running. So it's like it's never stopped being hit.

Wow.

Being hit over and over and over. So the inflammation, those genes stay high and the immune system stays low. Perfect recipe for disease. I believe 80% of the illnesses we're dealing with are psychological based, not physical based.

Wow. And so a lot of people are having an emotional experience when they're activated through the trauma. But are there people that really aren't having that emotional experience and it's just manifesting as something physical, or are they getting both?

They're usually getting both, but they've. You know, one of the gentlemen at your retreat basically was talking about that. He says, I've just lived with this stomach tension for so long. He goes, I just accepted it, that this is just me. Didn't think there was anything I could really do about it. I just accepted it. And we took him through the exercise and he goes, it's gone that fast?

Well, I didn't know about that.

Oh, you didn't hear about it?

I didn't hear about this one.

Oh, he just videotaped a testimonial for saying, I can't believe it. This is something I've just lived with for years.

And it was, it's just like a stomach pain.

Yeah, Like a tension, like a stress.

In that stomach that's just always there.

As long as you can remember.

And it's just gone.

It's gone. And he says it was just like how that fast gonna do it. But as soon as that tension, right. We release the trauma. Right. The tension releases because, oh, we're not in danger now.

The system's so brilliant, it knows how. And that's what I was talking about is we're designed to heal. All we have to do is understand how the brain works and how it's connected right. To the physical system. And so the brain's the computer, the mind is the software. And so the software can get glitches and error messages. And so the Brain can physically get hit and that can affect the way it operates. It's a computer. Drop the computer, it's going to affect it, the mind. You can open up the computer, you can't see the software. Right. That's the mind. Yeah. And so that software, we're born with pre installed software. But software is prone to glitches and error messages and trauma cleats the glitch.

And errors and the trauma is the glitch or it's. You said it's what creates the glitch.

Yeah.

And so the glitch would be whatever activates for that person in that moment like anxiety or to high stress responses. That's the glitch.

It's going to. And the reason being, I call it a glitch is because the mind is looking at old data in real time and things you need to run, but you don't need to run. It's old information.

Wow.

Hollywood's made trillions of dollars from this. We can sit in a movie, consciously know that that's Leonardo DiCaprio playing in a movie called Titanic. Your subconscious mind goes, Jack's drowning, he's gonna die.

Right.

And then you feel the emotion because it's trying to get an action.

Wow. Oh, that's so great. So you talked about symptoms or evidence that someone could have from trauma by looking at any activated or emotionally charged memories. What are other examples of physical symptoms that people have that might actually be as a result of trauma as well?

Well, panic attacks is a big one. So we can get rid of panic attacks, which is most people teach you to, well, breathe. Right. Or do these different or distract yourself. But you're in the panic attack when that's happening. Yeah. So I got a patent on this that we can actually eliminate panic attacks by alerting you to the system is starting up. And so panic attack starts up to an hour before. So when I wrote the patent, I said a panic attack is a combination of psychological and physical. So it could start from a psychological, a thought, which then the system. So if you start thinking about, oh I remember this was a really bad thing that happened to me before on a very low level, your system starts to then create a response starts to move you into fight or flight. But you're not aware of it because it's just below your conscious awareness. It's an uneasy feeling that your brain and your mind is feeling. So then it starts to then change the way you're breathing. And so now all of a sudden you've got less oxygen because you're starting to breathe a little differently, but you don't know it yet because you're not. It's not a big change. So then the brain gets a message that we need more oxygen from the body. And the brain that's already looking for the problems going, what? We need more oxygen. Oh, this threat may be bigger. There may be a lion around here. So let's now speed up the lungs and then starts burning oxygen from the muscle groups, which then creates a change in the ph in the blood. Now all these messages keep coming into the brain. It created it on its own, created its own loop. And the more evidence it keeps getting that there's a threat, and it can't find the threat because it doesn't exist. Goes into panic. And that was starting an hour before.

It's like feeding.

It feeds itself. Now it could even start physically. So you just all of a sudden. Like Bridget, for example, when we were. Before she cleared her trauma, my wife, we'd be driving, and all of a sudden she'd just go. And I was like, what? And she'd go, oh. I just said, stop breathing.

I forgot to breathe.

Yeah, because she's tense. She's stressed from all this trauma. So if you stop breathing just. And you don't realize it, that could start the physical. The brain going, what's wrong?

Right. Whoa.

So what they're teaching people, which is. Okay, I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do, but by the time you start experiencing a panic attack, Right. It's like, you know, the bullet's already been shot. And so now you're trying to dodge a bullet. Right. But you already got shot.

Yeah.

So you don't want to experience it. So what I've done is I've got the patent on a device that we would then start to recognize when those symptoms start changing to an hour before, up to an hour before. So when I wrote the patent, they denied all the claims first. And they said, you're just monitoring vitals. What does that have to do with a panic attack? I said, because you don't know what's coming. And so if we can alert you that your system is going into this loop.

Right, because people are not consciously aware of it.

No. And most people will say, I found a study at a SMU university that had 2,000 hours of data on panic attacks after I wrote the patent, and it verified my patent because they said they had 13 people experience a panic attack during the study. All 13 people said it came on instantly, but they were monitoring them. And Said there were all these changes in these vitals up to an hour before.

Wow.

So it absolutely guaranteed the patent was right.

So what I'm hearing is. And you don't have to debulge too much, of course, but you have a patent on a device that will allow for individuals to notice the changes ahead of time. And that way there will be things that they can do that will stop it in its tracks.

The stuff that we teach you how to do normally. Right. When there's trauma. Right. So what will happen is the device will vibrate first. Right. And then say, something's going on. And then what we taught you how to do. And on your cell phone will come all your information on what to do. Plus there'll be a phone call. It's a fake phone call, but it's from me. So if you're sitting in the meeting, you don't want people to know you have panic attacks. You just say, oh, Dr. Wood's calling me. I got to step out and take this call. You go out and then do the reset that we taught you how to do. You don't even know it's coming. And then it's just me on the phone talking you through it.

I mean, it's like stopping the snowball at the top of the mountain.

Yep. And generally, once we get them through that process of retraining the brain anyway, and the trauma, they don't need it. So we've had our clinical director had 30 years of panic attacks when I first met him, and he's not had any since. Another guy, 45 years, eliminated it.

It's all so fascinating, so mind blowing that one of the big things you talk about is how you don't even need to talk about the trauma in order to clear it.

Yeah, the mind knows what it is. So when I sit down with somebody, they're like, what do I have to talk about? I can't talk about this. The most dramatic one was a US army sniper that I had to work with. He had to shoot and kill a 12 year old boy. And so when I sat down with him, he goes, I don't want to talk to you about this. I got arrested at the VA last week for throwing tables and chairs and keep asking me to talk about it. And I said, well, that's okay. I don't need you to talk about it. He goes, what are we going to do? I said, we're going to fix it. He goes, how are we going to fix it if I don't talk about it? I said, I'll just take you right through the process. You don't have to tell me. After we finished, he then said, can I talk about it to you now? Can I share it with you?

Wow.

Gave me a complete description and said, how the bleep did you do this? How am I able to talk about it now? And I'm not shaking and crying. And I said, because for eight years, your mind's been trying to get you not to shoot being. Calling for an action. That wasn't possible. Now your mind just got the update. We're not happy about it. We're not trying to change. We're just stopping the dysregulation.

Yeah. Oh, so good. Okay, here's a question that's been on my mind, Dr. Dunn. I understand, like, if it was a. Maybe a theme, you could have a. Isolate a memory and clear that. But I would assume most people have many things, many different little things. Is it one session with you per each incident? Like, do people come back again? Because I got something again from our second this last week. I got something. Which I'll share in a minute, but. Or is it just like. No, one session and it's like all trauma.

Generally, we clear everything.

But I was a separate exercise. Right. Is it. Do you do, like. Okay, well, I had this with my mom growing up, and then I had this with my teacher years later. And then I had this real big thing. And it's like you go in there and do a process for each of those.

So if somebody has different ones. Yeah. I'll generally say, give me three.

Okay.

And so three could be completely different, or three could be themed, what I call themes. Right. It's an abandonment issue or, you know, something like that.

And usually once you get the theme in a process, it's gone.

It's amazing. Like, I had a lady who had really bad sexual abuse as a child. We worked on three different events, and then she said to me, we're going to be here all night because I have so many of these. And I said, we don't need to do anymore. She goes, we don't have to go through each one. And I said, no, your mind's got the process down. It's going to continue to process that data for you. When you go to sleep in Theta, your mind processes what it just learned during the day. What it learned was how to go through this memory. So I met her a month later, just by chance, at a store. And she came up to me and she says, I got to share something with you. She says, that Night when I went home for the first time in my life, I was able to sit down with my husband and share what happened to me as a child. It was so bonding, like it was so good for us. She goes, but I'll be honest with you, I didn't believe you when you told me my mind. I told my husband I'll be going back, right. For more of these.

That's most people's experience, is it not? Where they're like. It's so simple, gentle, light, and in a way fast.

Yeah.

That they kind of like. I don't really believe you are. Like, this can't be.

Sounds too good to be true.

Too good to be true. Like, like it's not like all of a sudden their whole life is altered in an instant. It's just like this subtle, gentle, keeps unfolding.

That's what Bridget, my wife, said. She's. It was a gentle unfolding. Just kept noticing it changing. And what she said to me, she goes, after I went through that process, my husband and my daughter and I were at Universal Studios when we were riding on the escalator, and I'm looking over the railing and my daughter said, mom, look at what you're doing. She goes, I never told you I had a fear of heights. And it's gone. I got up to the top of the escalator, I watched people walk underneath the bridge. She goes, I couldn't do that before.

I mean, obviously, conceptually, I completely understand what you've been breaking down. You have something that happens, it's coded in high def. The brain is sitting there trying to fix, change, take over control. But it is so mind boggling to me that if you have 20 of those memories, but they're the same theme, you really can go through. And just, just one.

Yep.

And the brain starts to go, I'll do that same thing for all the rest.

So it's running all the data because it's understanding what it's trying to do. So it runs the process on multiple events. And it's really common. If you watch a lot of the testimonials on our site, you'll hear people. One guy, Bradley Warner, he was U.S. air Force, military police and had such bad trauma, they had to. He had to retire. They took away his service weapon. They said, we can't trust you with a service weapon. And when he first came in to see me, he was wearing shorts and he had all these bruises and cuts on his leg. And I said, what were you doing? Like, I thought he must have been working Outside, he goes, I wake up in the middle of night and start running. I'm hunting Taliban. And he said, I run into tables and chairs and fall and hurt myself. I can't sleep in bed with my wife because I'm kicking and punching all night and I'll hurt her. And so when he went through. We really went through a few of his traumas and then his testimonial, he goes, I think about other traumas that I had, not even military, other things. And he goes, and I can hardly remember them. I can't even come up with what was bothering me.

That's so amazing. You know, some of my. Most of my little t traumas were around my interactions with my father because he would, like, rage. Yeah. And it wasn't until I got older and started diving into work like this and understanding with myself that I got to re experience my dad and understand more what was happening. He served three tours in Vietnam. He got shot twice.

Sure.

Almost died many times and watched his close friends die right next to him. And he just had ptsd. I mean, he's got. He's got all of that still inside him and somehow, somehow still found himself living a well adjusted, successful life. But he would get activated and just a level of rage. You did not want to be in the neighborhood when this man was. Was upset. It's really, really interesting. So I was able to see that and at least see past that. And he never got it cleared or anything in this lifetime. He passed about two years ago, but as you have demonstrated, have all the science with the link of memory. I had a dream. This dream I had about a year after he passed. And in the dream, which is hands down the most powerful dream I've ever had in my entire life, my dad is alive again in the dream, and he's wandering the highway, and no one knows who he is. He's lost all of his memory. And my mom finds him on the side of the road and says, this is your dad. But he doesn't remember anything. And all I got to witness was the love.

Yeah, I love that. That's beautiful.

It was like I got to see my dad without those memories.

It was.

That's powerful.

It is, isn't it? Like, and when you understand, that's one of the big things I talk about is understanding. If you understand the atmospheric conditions of a person's life, you'll understand why they do what they do and why they behave the way they behave.

Right.

We don't have to be okay with it. We don't have to let them off the hook. Right. But if we understand, then that heals us, because it's not about us. So as a child, you're thinking, I'm not safe. What did I do wrong? So it's almost like in a hostage situation when you know the Stockholm syndrome. So in one of those kind of situations, their strategy is to keep you off balance. So they'll be yelling and screaming and pointing the gun at you, and then come up and apologize and say, I'm so sorry, I won't do that again. You know, and then you're starting to feel safe. Then they start yelling again. The purpose of that is to keep you off balance. Now you're focusing on, what was I doing when they were happy, what was I doing when they weren't screaming and yelling? So there's where the danger for a child comes in. Your father's not going to hurt you. He's just flooded with this data coming in from his trauma.

Yeah.

And so if his mind is looking at his friends dying, him getting shot, all these things that happen, his anger is, why did that happen?

Yeah.

And so it overwhelms his nervous system with so much data. It was never about you doing anything right or wrong. But until you get to the understanding of that, your dad couldn't have been any different. Yeah, it's impossible as long as that trauma was running.

Right.

But as a child, you can imagine what that does to your nervous system, because then you're always like, how do I keep everybody happy? Yeah, because I don't want to get them. And that's what they do in a Stockholm syndrome situation is keep you off balance. But you're now always trying to keep them happy and not thinking about escaping or attacking them.

Wow. Do you find it with all the years of research and working with so many different people, I mean, this is what you're calling nurture. Right. So is there a nature to this? Are there certain temperaments, brain types that are either, I don't know, having more inborn resiliency and not susceptible to the trauma versus others? Do you see a pattern in that? I mean, not that I'm saying anyone is impervious to having trauma in their life, but do you notice any patterns with that?

Well, I think that comes in from the transgenerational trauma that comes into the DNA. So you're coded with your parents experiences. Right. So you've got half your mother's, half your father's experience, plus their parents. Right. So in your DNA code is what you've experienced from your generational trauma. But if that never gets activated, which is what happened to me, so I never had any trauma. So my. The way your mind works is it uses information like, think of it as research. Your mind says, if I'm experiencing something scary or traumatic or painful right now, what do I know about that? What's my own experience, which is the memory? And then it goes into, is there more information that I can use? And goes into the generational research. And that's where people may be a little more resilient. And that's what I think happens. So I think I had some of that, but I didn't have any trauma. So my generational trauma was never activated. Plus, I never had anything happen in my life to activate my own trauma. And so my daughters growing up in the world that I grew up in with my wife and I, a beautiful home, the same way I had. But when she got the trauma, then her mom's trauma, my parents trauma, all of that showed up.

Wow.

And then it shows up in her illness.

Yeah, man, that's so fascinating. Well, like I said, you were here and you did your session. And I wasn't able to instantly recall a memory. So I just, you know, I just chose something that was like semi recent, not too recent. And I was like, I'll just work with that. Because obviously, obviously activated. I had gotten an email, and when I read the email, it was like, oh. I instantly activated, like, oh, my gosh. And I was able to get so present that I was able to immediately be aware, like, okay, I am in some kind of state of anxiousness, and this feels really what's going on in my brain right now. And so I was like, this is what I brought to one of your processes. And it was a particular sentence that someone had said in. In the email. It was something to the effect of, like, you've taken advantage of me.

And.

And it was more like I knew I hadn't. So I was. I was upset about that. And it was. It was like the optics of it of that that you would think that. And when I know that's not the case. And as you took us through the process, the most fascinating thing happened is I'm re experiencing the memory. And every time I re experienced it, even though the memory said, you've taken advantage of me, when I re did it every time, you know, because you had to loop it and do it again, it changed.

Yeah.

And it kept saying, you've disappointed me.

Yep. Not awesome.

And I was like, I thought I. At first I Was like, no, that's not what it was. Just do a better job, James. Like, you got to do it right. You're supposed to remember it accurately. That's. And then it kept doing it and it did it on its own. And then finally I just, like, I'll just leave that there and finish the process with that. And I don't have a conscious memory that I can recall right now of, like, when someone would have maybe said that to me or left me with an experience where I felt like I disappointed them, but I still felt like that's what I was able to clear.

Yeah. It's amazing how the mind works and what I say, the real reason why I'm getting the results I'm getting is I'm getting the mind into optimal condition to heal. So if you've had a lot of trauma in your life and then somebody says, well, let me take you through a process and heal that for you. You may be in a highly sensitive state when they're taking you through that memory, but when we're doing it in that group, I've done a number of processes. By the time we get to that memory, your mind's ready to start fixing it, and then it just easily does it.

Yeah. In fact, the first one you did, where you had us, you know, make a bunch of choices, I won't reveal anything because you don't want to spoil it for people that haven't experienced it yet. Making that one where you're making a lot of choices, you had started with a prompt of like, something you're dealing with or a challenge or a question.

Right.

Looking for guidance on, like. As soon as I said what it was in my mind, I already had the answer within like 4 seconds. I was like, oh, oh, I already know.

Yep.

And I got to just go through the process and just kind of enjoy it for fun.

So. Good.

I was going to ask something else around that, but it's interesting that it's layers and I found something else and, you know, so you wonder, like. Because I guess that's a question would, as we're still going through life, we could have little t trauma moments. Like, I'm not talking about, you know, some big thing happens. Right. And so it does become kind of like a endless maintenance process.

Right.

To keep. Right.

I mean, but here's the. This is the thing that I explained.

Okay.

If you've had a lot of trauma in your life, you're carrying this 165 pound backpack around, and then somebody puts another 10 pounds on you currently it overwhelms you.

Yeah.

But you take the 165 pound backpack on and then somebody hits you with that email. Right. Or hits you with something that. And you're like, okay, I can deal with that.

Oh, man. That's it. Well, you know what? I was going to share, which is really fascinating. I don't know how much I've shared with you, but I share with our listeners that I started working with the shaman several years ago and he's really helped on my spiritual journey. And at the end of the day, a lot of what he shares is just ancient wisdom of your own personal growth. And he comes from the Toltechian lineage of just. It's ancient wisdom that has been passed down through the ages. And it's referenced in certain books, like the Don Miguel Ruiz series on four Agreements, talks about the Toltechian philosophy. And one of the core tenants and practices is a concept called erasing past history. And you know, that's something he's always encouraging us is like, erase past history. And I'm like, I see it as the same.

Yeah.

As let go of the charge of whatever happened to you that you're still carrying around 20 years later.

Yep. And I think what I'm doing is even going another step further by saying it's the memory that keeps doing it. So if we can take the memory from high def into low def, you don't have to erase it. It's just not going to activate your nervous system. So you still get the benefit of the experience of what happened to you and now, but you're not going to overreact to it. That's a sort of a double. Where you want to be able to say, okay, this thing was really a bad thing that happened to me. I now can recognize it again, but this time when I'm recognizing it, I'm not going to overreact.

Yes.

So now you become very calm and you're able to handle that.

You can handle it with so much power.

Yep. So that's why you still have the experience. You don't lose the ability to get dysregulated.

It makes for a great story. Yeah.

And what was really interesting, because I had one of the Boston Marathon bombing survivors, she said, when she came in to see me, she said, you know, five and a half years of post traumatic stress terror nightmares every night. And she said, she said it sounds too good to be true, that you could eliminate that, but that we eliminated it right. That fast. But what she said to me, which was really profound Is she says, I thought I came to you for the Boston Marathon bombing. She says, what you did for my childhood trauma was way more powerful. She says, I didn't realize how much that was affecting me. The Boston Marathon looked like it was the big one, and it was obviously a big trauma, but her childhood trauma was actually more impactful.

And that goes back to my question. So did you take her through a process from both that incident and then with the childhood incident?

Yep.

In the same day?

Same day, same session. And she says it was so. Like she just saw so much clearer now.

So she didn't just get her life back after that bombing, she got an even better life.

Yeah. Yeah. Because if you had not done that. Right. She would have gotten, obviously, the release from that. But she got all the way back into a lot of it comes back to our childhood, especially because children don't have enough life experience to understand what they're going through. So what they're going to do is attach a meaning to it. I'm not lovable. Right. I'm not worthy. I'm not smart enough. And then that starts to have an effect, like even on neuroplasticity. And I share my wife's story all the time. When I first met her and I told her and she told me about her trauma, she swore me to secrecy. You can't tell anybody what happened to me. I don't want anybody to know. And I'm like, but why? What's wrong? And she goes, no, I just don't want to go through that. Now everybody knows her story. There's no more shame about it, no more guilt about it. But that was very hard for her to do. Because what happened is, if you had asked her about it before she did this clearing, she'd break down and cry. Because as soon as she started to try to discuss it, what does she have to do? She has to go into memory. Now the memory is going to activate her nervous system and she's going to get emotional, and that's why they don't want to talk about it. So the number one pandemic in this world is sexual abuse. And they don't talk about it. Yeah, because they're hidden it. My daughter was the exact same thing. She didn't share it with loving parents. That would have protected her, but there was so much shame about it that she couldn't even talk about it.

Wow.

You do?

I actually was already answered that question before. I might as I know it, but I'll ask it anyways. Do you work with Kids as well.

Yeah. The youngest I've worked with is eight. I actually did six, but I have done an eight year.

I know you mentioned a 12 year old, but eight and six.

Yeah. And so we're really working on developing a program for even younger kids. I can do it one on one. I wouldn't put them through our online program because I think it takes a lot of explanation.

You like puppets and cartoons?

Yeah, yeah.

I'm entertained while you do it.

But with kids, they're actually really fast.

Isn't that funny?

Yeah. I had one problem. I had one autistic child who came in of high functioning autism, but had been really badly sexually abused by an older kid in the school. And so he came in, his dad and mom both brought him in. And I knew what the situation was. I took him through the process and I said, he's pretty able to talk about it, and took him through the process. And then three days later, I get a call from his therapist and she leaves me a message. She says, I would like you to call me. And I'm like, oh, what happened? And so she said to me, she goes, that's the greatest miracle I've ever seen. She says, I always try to get one positive thing from him after every session that I do with him. He says, and sometimes I get one, but most of the time I don't get any. She goes, I got 15 today.

And so all that burden had been lifted off him. And what I hear quite often is people will say, I feel lighter, you know, things look brighter. Yeah. And it's true. Because now the energy is surging.

Yes. And as we relate it back to the business owner and the entrepreneur, the things that we have to do to be successful can be so scary, intimidating, threatening to the ego.

Yep.

Whether you're selling and you risk rejection and criticism and judgment, you're putting yourself out there, you're getting on stages, you're spending more money, money on things. I see how much harder it is when you are carrying those heavy, heavy weights.

And they may be coming from. Not even. They could be coming from business trauma. You've had earlier, you know, go through a bad business breakup or a partner or things like that. What is your mind going to try to do? The survival brain will try to protect you from experiencing it again when in actual fact you. Was it Henry Ford that said it that a plane takes off, end of the wind. Right. And so now all of a sudden you've got that wind coming at you and you've got to try to get your business off the ground. Right. So if you don't get that resolved, it's going to be very hard to run into that wind, because your mind will try to protect you from going through that pain again. And that may not let you make the investment that you actually need to make. And that's what I love. Hear all your entrepreneurs, and they're just like, what you do for them is amazing because they're sitting there saying, Yeah, I spend 30,000, 50,000amonth on ads. And I'm like, wow. Yeah.

Yeah.

They talk about it like they're just. Yeah. Like, I bought a coffee at Starbucks today. Yeah. Right. It's amazing. I know.

It's really cool. And they've all found something in that room that was a memory they could clear.

Yep.

It's like, there's still, like, as you say, which was like, my favorite line. Every time you say it, it's like, my favorite piece is like, there's another gear that you didn't even know you had.

Yep.

And I think that's why I started this podcast all these years ago, is because I've found those other gears. And you realize when you've experienced, you want other people to do it.

That's what I love about what you do. You're so giving. And I just watched what you do and see these people, how much they admire you and how giving you are. And that's why they're there.

Yeah.

Because one, they're willing to listen. That's not. That's a big thing.

That is a big thing.

Right. But the way you deliver it is so kind. And I think that's what. It's a humility, and that's what people are relating to. Yeah.

Well.

And so. Yeah. That. I think it's amazing what you do.

Yeah. It's fun.

Yeah. And you look like you're having so much fun.

I'm having a blast. And, like, this is our Saturday night. Like, this is. This is my idea of Saturday night. This is great. So I know people listening are. Obviously, it's. How hard is it to just even take everything that you do and distill it into the time that we have? I mean, you went for four hours and you could have kept going. And it was riveting the whole time. And we put breaks in, but we didn't even need to. Like, I didn't need a break. I was sitting there the whole time, you know, just. And I'd heard it all before, but I also wanted to give you some time to talk a little bit about how your process works. I know when people listen to this, they're going to want to work with, with you. And there's a few ways in which you do that. Can you just kind of start to walk people through what they can expect if they're ready to clear this trauma?

Well, one way is they come to Orlando and they work one on one with me. We take you through a whole process. So we have a theta chamber, a hyperbaric chamber, pemf, mats, we do scans. That's sort of the ultimate experience. So you come and you spend the whole day or two days or even three days. Or if people can't fly to Orlando or they're busy, we have an online digital program that's the same process I take you through, but you're just watching the videos, but you have to do the four hours straight. You can't break it up because I'm trying to get the mind into optimal condition to start the healing. We shot it now in virtual reality. We haven't released the VR version of it yet, but that's coming. And then I also do groups like we did with you, and so I can take people through and no one has to share their trauma. Like the lady that we had up on. I mean, she ended up sharing her trauma, but she didn't have to. But you saw how quickly something she'd been dealing with for years released.

You talked for four hours. This is. Okay. This was my experience. It's really funny.

So that night we had a little.

Dinner and evening fun adventure. Afterwards, we took everyone out to a little UFO tour and we got to have night vision goggles and look up at the night sky. So it was a bit of a, you know, we had a bit of a schedule to keep and. But the last thing I want to do is rush you off the stage or end something before it's finished. And I look down at the time and I think you were supposed to be off at like 5:00' clock or whatever it was. And it's like 4:53. And he's like, all right, should we bring someone up to do an example? And I'm like, well, either dinner's gone or the UFO is gone. And seven minutes later, the process is done. She has released. This thing was absolutely amazing, and we're on time. I was like, he did that in seven minutes. Are you kidding me?

But that's how brilliant our brains are. So it would all be building up to that. That's why when I sat her down, I knew we would get it through So I had to do two techniques with her. So she got a little bit of release on the first one, and then the second one is what did it?

Yeah. Now, you could just. Out of curiosity, you could see she got a little bit in the first one because you could see it in her body language. I mean, she actually did this thing where she.

Yep.

You could physically see her look like she dropped something.

Right.

So you saw that, and that's why you said that, like, because you saw it in her physiology.

Yep, I could tell. So I can see when the trauma is releasing. Right. You can just physically see it. And then I was like, we still have some work to do because she hasn't completely let this go yet.

Yeah.

And so then when we did the second one, you just saw it.

Yeah.

I mean, she was just like. You saw the exhale. It was just like.

Yeah.

She goes, I just felt that release.

Would you categorize that? Not that we're going to share the specifics, but as what she described as a big T. Yeah. Trauma. Okay.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Because what I explained to her is, for years, it was her. She talked about, it was her mother dying. But she had said something to her the night before that she regretted.

Makes it, oh, so much tougher. Yeah.

So what her mind was trying to do is go back and don't say it. So the same with our sniper. Don't shoot. Her mind was saying, don't say it. And so it kept looping through it, and there's where the emotion kept coming in. Because what's the purpose of an emotion? To get you into an action. The action it was calling for was impossible to do. Her mind didn't know that. But once we got it to the point where I understood, it's over. We're not happy about it, but there's no action she needs to take. Her mind just said, oh, let it go.

Right.

And it let it go.

Yeah. I think that's beautiful.

You said, too.

It's like, we're not happy about it. Like, you can still be sad and born and miss your mom, and obviously. And that can always be hard, but the brain's still not trying to fix it.

Right. It understands there's nothing we need to do now. It's over.

The mission is over. The objective is complete, and that's what.

The emotion was trying to get done. So that's why when I talk about all these symptoms, people say, oh, I have depression. I say, well, tell me what you're angry about. They'll go, well, I'm not angry. I'm depressed. I go, depression's anger. I just think about it this way. If your mind, like for her, her mind kept saying, don't say that, because she kept seeing herself saying it to her mom. And her mind is saying, don't say it because it thinks she's saying it. Now the memory's so high definition, and so she can't do that. So if her mind kept calling her into an action and she can't complete the action because it's impossible, how does your mind protect you? It goes into depression. Depression is the absence of emotion.

Wow.

You couldn't fix the problem. The emotion wasn't working. So your mind doesn't want to hurt you anymore because you're not solving the problem. So it shuts down.

Just shuts down.

And now there's no emotion. And people go, oh, I don't feel. Because your mind's not trying to sabotage you, is protecting you.

Wow.

Against the pain.

Wow. It's kind of like the fine, it's final big option that it has to protect you.

It's the only way it can protect you. It's been trying for years to get you to do something that you can't do, but your mind doesn't know you can't do it because it sees it in real time.

Right.

And so that's when I started explaining people. I'll give you an example. I had a lady. This is a little bit different, but she was the sponsor for a young lady who was on heroin who came in to see me, and I got her off of heroin from seven years. And she goes, that was the greatest transformation I ever saw. She goes, I was an alcoholic. But she says, I've been sober for 20 years. I just sponsor all these people. She says, but I have a lot of trauma. And I saw what you did for her. Trauma. So she comes through, goes through the program. She goes, it was amazing. The trauma was gone, but that was what was the cause of her addiction in the first place. But she had managed to stay sober. So about three years later, she falls and injures her wrist, and they put her on pain medication. She had such a severe reaction. She went into deep depression, and she wanted to commit suicide. So they put her in the hospital, they put her on all these medications, sent her home, and she said to her husband, she goes, I still feel so dark. I want to take my life. So anyway, they send her back to the hospital, comes back home again, nothing's changed. So her husband said, well, why don't you call Dr. Wood, because when you saw him, that seemed to really make a difference. She goes, this isn't trauma. She goes, I can think about all my trauma. I don't feel the same thing. It's not that at all. That's clear. She goes, this is just a darkness, and I don't know what it is, and I can't get out of it. So anyway, she calls me and, you know, and I said, oh, come in, but bring your husband with you, because I don't want you driving on your own. So she comes in, and they both sit down, and I said to her, I said, so tell me what you're angry about. And she goes, well, no, I'm depressed. And I go, yeah, depression's anger. Tell me what you're angry about. And she goes, looks right at her husband. And I went, oh, no, I just brought the wolf in, right? So he doesn't pick up on it. And so I said, you know, why don't you go grab a coffee and let us sit here and talk? And as soon as he walked out of the room, she goes, oh, my God, it's him. She goes, he's not a bad man. He's not beating me or doing anything. She says, he makes me feel guilty about everything. I don't have the house clean enough. Dinner's not ready on time. Everything is guilt, guilt, guilt. And she's so sweet. She wouldn't fight back, so she was stuffing all of it. And then when she got on the medication, her mind wanted her to fight. Stand up for yourself, you know, don't take this. And so I said to him, I said, is he Catholic? She goes, yeah. Why? And I said, well, he learned that. He learned to use guilt to get what he wants. He probably doesn't even know he's doing it. It's just. And so we brought him back in, and he was, like, devastated. He goes, I. That's right. I. I do it. He goes, my mother did it to me.

Wow.

He goes, he never realized it. But once she got that resolved, she sent me an email the next morning. She says, I woke up this morning and I felt joy. And she says, and I was afraid to move. She says, so I lied there for 20 minutes, thinking, if I move, it's gonna go away. And she's not gone up. And it stayed.

Wow.

Because we resolved the problem. Her mind was trying to protect her. Yeah, don't take that fight back. But she couldn't do it.

And then he came in the next week, hopefully, actually, he didn't.

But they resolved. I still see them all the time on Facebook. And their marriage is great. It was always a good marriage. But she didn't realize he was doing that to her. But when she got on the medication, then her mind started going, no, we're not putting up with this anymore because the medication brought down all the guards. Right.

So fascinating.

Yeah.

Amazing. Such amazing work that you do. That's so beautiful.

And I'd love to share too with it, what I talk about with addiction. We're getting a lot of success with addiction because I believe addiction. We're treating people with addiction the wrong way. We're shaming them and guilting them because it's the same thing we do with prison. Right. How are we going to change these people from being violent? Well, we're going to make them, you know, shame them and guilt them and punish them. Well, you can't punish that somebody. And so they're hurt. You know, our prisons are full of traumatized people who have been injured in their childhood. And then what do we do? We continue. Right. To punish them, which is what created in the first place a lot of that anger. So what I do is I treat it very differently. I say, there's nothing wrong with you. Right? You have a pain resource that you found. So you've had all this trauma and this pain and then your mind found a resource to stop the pain. What does that say about your character, morals, willpower, ethics? Nothing. It's about pain. It's not about wanting to get high. You just have found no other way to stop this pain. So as soon as you take the drink, you take the drug. Like the lady who'd been on heroin for seven years when she came in to see me, she said, I told my therapist I was coming in to see you. And so I've worked with him for seven years. And he says, make sure you let Dr. Wood know that you have self destructive behavior. She says to me, I have self destructive behavior. And I smiled. I said, really? What makes you think you have self destructive behavior? She goes, well, I'm sticking a needle with heroin in my arm. You don't think that's self destructive? I said, no, I think you're trying to feel better. And I bet you when you stuck the needle in your arm, you felt better. She goes, yeah. And I says, the substance is destructive, you're not destructive. And so you saw the shift in her face. Nobody had ever talked to her like that. I just had a young 22 year old lady who came through. Her parents knew about what we did. And they said, can she come in? She's dealing without. She detoxed herself, which was pretty amazing. When I talked to her, I said, congratulations that you did that. I said, I know this program will be successful. If you have that discipline, we're not going to have any problem getting this dealt with. So she came in and she spent two weeks, and when she left, what I said to her is, I said, here's the new way you speak. When somebody says, oh, I understand you're an addict, you say, no, I experience symptoms of addiction, but I've recovered.

So instead of saying I'm in recovery, which I never liked, I said, you've recovered. I said to her this way. I said, did you get Covid? She goes, yeah. And I went, oh, I guess that's it. You're going to have Covid forever.

Forever.

Oh, no. You recovered from COVID How'd you do that? You're designed to recover. Yeah.

Oh, it's beautiful. So good. So amazing. So even the course, if someone sits through that for the four hours, they're going to get something where they can, like, actually clear a trauma that they're having.

Yeah. So I know there's a number of people who went through the online program in your own group.

I know.

And they'll share it with you. It was life changing.

It's unbelievable. What are the next steps that our listeners can take to start connecting with you and start doing this work?

So I definitely encourage them to go look at the testimonials because they'll hear things that maybe they relate to, whether or not it was anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress, panic attacks. You'll hear different people experience what changed for them and then just go to our website and somebody, they can talk to, somebody go through the different options and what they want to do, and somebody will just guide them right through it. URL inspired performanceinstitute.com There you go.

I'll make sure that's linked up in the show notes for all of you guys so you can access it easily. And the click of a button. Dr. Wood, this is amazing. Is there any. You have any final things you either want to share? Anything that maybe I didn't get to ask you that you feel like would be of value to your. To our listeners?

No, I think we covered a lot. Like I said, the big thing is to say, stop worrying about these labels they put on you that, oh, you're a depressed person or you're an anxious person. Those are all symptoms. Those are symptoms of a problem that you've experienced one of these experiences in your life. Once we reset them, you don't have the symptom anymore.

Could you see an entrepreneur being resistant to going through this work because they're worried it would end their drive?

Yes, I hear that a lot.

Can you make sure and go on record to say that that is baloney.

Total, right?

Yes.

So what I'm saying is if your nervous system is dysregulated, I don't care how good. There's a lot of high functioning people that deal with dysregulation of their nervous system and they mistake the fact that the reason they're there is because of what happened to them. No. That's interfering with their next gear.

Yes.

And so I always give the example of Sully Sullenberg. Right. Who landed the. Remember? That's right. The story about him. So what I say is, think of that. And I do this with entrepreneurs all the time. I said, first of all, he landed the plane in the Hudson River. I didn't know you could land a plane in the Hudson River. I've talked to pilots who said, I didn't know that either. But the most remarkable part about the story was not him landing the plane in the river. What everybody talked about afterwards was how calm he was. So when he communicated with his crew and he communicated with that sense of calm and then that allowed them to do their job and then he communicated with the passengers, he helped them feel more comfortable, then he didn't have to worry about them. He just had to land the plane. So my message to the entrepreneurs is just land the plane.

Oh, beautiful, beautiful. Dr. Wood, thank you again so much for coming on the show. I appreciate you so much. Not just for what you've done for so many of our students. You spoke at BBD Live. You've spoken at my mastermind groups, you've helped me close people in my life. But just in general, the work you're doing in the world I think is absolutely needed. It's beautiful. And it really feels like this is the time on the planet where we get to end all of this cycle and generational trauma and everyone has this invitation to start anew and be free of a lot of these things that have been crippling a lot of people.

I think you're absolutely right. I think we're in a transformational change and people are starting to talk about the things that they've dealt with. There's no more shame. It's not hidden anymore. Our generation, our parents generation. My dad came back like your dad. My dad was in World War II. Your dad was in Vietnam? They didn't talk about it. No. And so now my dad still never talked about.

Yet he never. He was born in 1939, so he never spoke about it. And we did a. He was invited to go on a documentary with the Discovery Channel called Going Back Vietnam, and I came with him. So I'm 21. I went back with him and 10 other vets. And two things. Number one, I'm hearing things the first time in my entire life about what he experienced for the first time while we were there. Only because the cameras are rolling and they're asking him the questions and he finally opens up. But everyone else there, except for one other gentleman, you could tell it was still in them. They had not moved on. They couldn't. Somehow my dad found a way to move on in his life.

That's amazing.

And while we were there, we're sitting in a boat going down the river, and he's, you know, you're looking, and it's still. It's a lot of third worlds, a lot of what we would label just poverty. And people are living in three walled concrete huts with, like, tarps. And that's. And he just said something really simple. He's like. He's like, man, this is what I went through and this is what I lived. Plus war. He's like, I just told myself, if I make it out of here, I'm going to live the best life I possibly can.

Amazing.

So he found a way to still live life, but I know he still suffered from that.

Yeah.

For the rest of his days.

But what's amazing about that is he passed that on to you. Yeah. Right. You've got that ability to do that, and that's why you are who you are.

I mean, the level of resiliency and ability to make a new empowering meaning, I, I. All of that, I, I see that from what I got from him, so feels like a sacrifice that he made in a way for. For me. So. For sure, really beautiful. Thank you again, Dr. Wood. I appreciate it.

I loved it. This was great. Thanks so much.

Thank you to our listeners for tuning in, making it to the end. Are you on Instagrams?

Yes.

Oh, great.

We got Instagram. We got all those things.

Okay. We'll link all that up in the show notes. Please reach out to Dr. Wood, let them know which parts of the episodes touched you the most. Please get in contact with him and his company. Tons of options to work with him, and it's highly recommended. And endorsed. So go check him out and all the incredible work he's up to. Thank you guys for listening. We'll see you next time on the Mind your Business podcast. Take care.