Letting Go to Gain Control with Kyle Davies | Ep. 131

Hello and welcome back to the Holistic Inner Balance Podcast. I am Hadlee of Happy Healthy Hadlee, and I am here with

Dr. Nicole.

And we have an amazing episode for you today with Kyle Davies. Oh my gosh, it was incredible. It was something that I needed as someone who really likes to have a lot of control over things in her life, someone who likes to fix anything that comes up. If there's something that is going, quote unquote, wrong, always trying to problem solve, always trying to figure out all the things. This episode was so needed for this Pitta girly here. And I don't know about you, Dr. Kane, but I think everyone is going to really benefit from the concepts that we talk about because we talk about the nuance too. Like, we're not just saying like, oh, just let go of all control and everything will be fine, right? Like, there are times that we can problem solve and that our symptoms are telling us things like we always talk about. But it was just a really awesome episode.

Yeah, it was really in attunement with the work that we do, and he takes it into the spiritual realm. And so we've gotten into a lot of mind and body, and he's starting to look at the way that it almost sits together like a Venn diagram of what's happening on a soul level or on a spirit level, that healing from the inside out. And so I'm really grateful for the time that we got with Kyle and his work. And I think that if you ever feel like You're swimming like a salmon upstream, or you feel like you're just so stressed and you're getting body aches, and your doctors are like, we don't know why you have body aches. Maybe you have digestive symptoms, and you've done all the counseling, and you've gone to get all of the functional testing, and yet nothing is showing up as un— like a rock hasn't been unturned, if you will. And this is his zone of genius. And He helps people from an executive leadership standpoint all the way down the spectrum to someone who's bedridden. And the work that he does juxtaposing the mind, the body, and the spirit through radical allowance, I think, is going to be really, really pivotal for people.

So good. Yeah, we're really excited for you to listen to this episode and just soak it all in.

Yeah. Let me read you the bio for Kyle Davies. This comes from the back of his early book, The Intelligent Body. And he's a psychologist, a therapist, a coach, a consultant, a speaker, and an author. And he's the creator of Energy Flow Coaching. You can find his programs at energyflowcoaching.com. And he's worked with hundreds and hundreds of clients, including a dear friend of mine, and he was a big part of her healing journey and a really happy ending, which is how he and I met. He helps people get unstuck from chronic conditions, maximum— maximize their potential and transform their lives. And he has a podcast that you can check out called the Beyond Symptoms podcast, which is at his website. So without further ado, are you ready to jump in, Hads?

Let's do it,

everybody. I'm so glad to be here with Kyle, a dear friend. I feel like we just got to know each other, but there's just this wonderful kindred sort of spirit connection that I feel with you, Kyle. And so very grateful to be here. Thank you for being on the podcast.

Well, thank you very much for having me. It's very exciting to be here. I am thrilled.

And, uh, we're going to talk about letting go today. And before we get too far into the conversation, if you haven't, make sure that you get Kyle Davies' book, The Intelligent Body, the first of many. And I love this book. And so if you don't have it, Buy it, and you can get it on all sorts of online distributors. It's wonderful. There's— what I really like about this book, Kyle, is that you weave in stories and applications, so it breaks up the flow, it makes it accessible, it makes it really real. And so I, I think this is a wonderful book. So thank you for writing it.

Well, that is very nice of you to say. Thank you. I'm quite touched with that. Thank you.

Yes. Yes. So I was hoping that you could tell us a little bit about who you are, how you're showing up in the world, and maybe a little bit about how you got here.

Um, I'm gonna, I'm going to hold back on my temptation to make kind of cheap jokes at this stage, and I'll be reasonably serious in terms of how I got to this point. So I'm a psychologist by trade. I started off my working life in organizations, um, and that's a long, long time ago. And back in those days, doing, um, coaching with people within organizations, you talk predominantly about the individual and their skills and their roles, uh, and not about who they were. And I kind of was interested in who the person was and making changes at a deeper level. So I went and trained as a therapist and set up a little private practice. In the early 2000s, I was introduced to a medical doctor that had a particular interest in chronic fatigue syndrome because his girlfriend had it, and there was nothing that he could do as a medical doctor. He did some of the same therapy training that I had done and then was beginning to notice that it was— he was kind of changing some of the ideas, applying things, you know, just working away, and was beginning to notice that it was making a difference for some of the patients in his clinic. So I started to work with him, and we kind of evolved this process. Uh, and it's, uh, it really was, I guess, quite a shift from what I was doing. I was looking, uh, or working in a more of a cognitive kind of way, which particularly in this country certainly is the predominant way of working as a psychological therapist. So we shifted away from a more cognitive approach to a body-centered, somatic Um, mind-body approach, which back 20-odd years ago was like nobody was interested in. Uh, so whilst we at the time thought, wow, we've got something in, you know, we've, we've got an idea, we've got a seed of something that seems to be working, we're going to be rich and famous. And of course, we were— what we were met with was a mixture of hostility and silence, really. Uh, and I just think because that people were saying, even, you know, even when people would say Uh, well, no, I totally agree, you know, that the mind and body are connected, uh, but how could you possibly say that my physical symptoms, uh, have something to do with stress or emotion? That's just— no, that, that's, you know, you can't say that. So that was a bit of a, you know, I guess a battle with that. Um, and it's just, it's really nice that obviously there's you guys doing the work that you're doing, and we've seen this enormous change in the last 15 years. last 10 years where this openness to the mind-body connection, uh, has really come to the forefront. And I think there's such— is it borderline contempt now in many circles with this biomedical reductionist model where we kind of label, um, health challenges, uh, and then give medications? You know, there's so many people want to move away from that. which opens the door for something else, which is kind of where we are. So I suppose there's always been that kind of mind-body bit for my work, but there's also a psycho-spiritual bit. And the slightly more spiritual aspect, I suppose, for me is the essence of what energy flow coaching is, is really trying to get people to align with what I would call their true self, that deeper wisdom, or you could call the soul if you like. And so I suppose I feel that my— the mission, the purpose of this work is to, is to help people connect and align with that deeper wisdom, that true self within them. Um, because I suppose we're going through a colossal um, change. You know, the life is very intense. There's a consciousness shift, as I would see it. And what we want to be doing is, is helping people kind of raise their vibration, if you will. And I think we do that by getting people to really look inwards rather than looking outwards. Um, and I suppose what I see is, or what I believe is, that when people's natural flow, their energy flow, is blocked, they're misaligned from their true self, that's when their body will give them a tap on the shoulder to say something's not quite right here. So the symptoms that people experience, um, as far as I'm concerned, from anxiety, depression, through to fatigue, pain, stomachal bowel complaints, really are because there's that misalignment, that energy imbalance, and that need to kind of look inwards rather than looking outside. So that's kind of the— my little journey, and that's, I suppose, how I feel I'm showing up. It's trying to do my little piece.

Well, and you have. It's so cool to hear how you started doing this 20 years ago. Even when I started my business 6, a little bit over 6 years ago, there's been a huge shift since then. So I can't even imagine 20 years ago doing this work. You're like one of the pioneers. You are on the forefront of this change and this consciousness shift. So bravo. Thanks.

It certainly seemed like there were not many people around, and it's kind of interesting. You know, we'd as we started and evolved the stuff, I then some years later heard about Gabor Maté, and I came across his book When the Body Says No, and that kind of blew my mind a bit because as a sensitive emotional person, you know, I felt slightly bruised by the attacks that we would get, and we were talking about. Um, health challenges, you know, your chronic fatigues, fibromyalgias, where they are diagnosed through exclusion and there's no structural damage within the body. So arguably the symptoms are completely reversible. And then, you know, reading, uh, When the Body Says No by Gabor Maté, he's talking about, you know, cancer, heart disease, stroke, and, and coming from this exactly the same space. Um, so it was interesting to come across him. And then I also read Mind-Body Prescription, I think, by John Sarno. So it was nice to see again. But that was, you know, certainly to begin with, it felt in that, you know, kind of early 2000s, it did feel like, well, is any— is there anyone else out there doing this kind of thing? There's always been people within the spiritual world that have talked in these, you know, in these ways. about energy and aligning energy and this kind of stuff. But I suppose unless you're inclined, um, to look in, in those areas, then you may just think, well, that's woo-woo, that's not, not for me. Uh, but of course it, it doesn't have to be seen in that way.

I resonate with what you just said coming from a holistic philosophy of medicine. So I started doing top-down cognitive behavioral, my master's Thesis was in cognitive behavioral therapy, and then going into naturopathic medicine, and then coming out with a lot of— it felt like contempt from the medical community of, well, it's not science-based. There's a lot of theorizing and conjecture. And oh no, if you get into that spiritual stuff, then we're definitely gonna put you into that woo-woo bucket. And so as I wrote my book Panic Proof, I'm trying to figure out how to bridge that gap to say that what we've known in many spiritual communities, what we've known intuitively, what we've seen in our lived experience, science is just now starting to be able to measure that or understand it or explain it. But we're just in the beginning, and it's thanks to people Like you, like Gabber, who are willing to be the trailblazers and work with patients and get the data.

Oh yeah, very much so. And thanks for saying that. I think that it is interesting, isn't it? If you can, if you're happy to stick your neck out a little bit, then, you know, it can pay dividends. Um, but it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's a tough path to walk because I would have liked energy flow coaching to have had some kind of mainstream acceptance. Um, but I think, yeah, that, that's been very difficult. And that is difficult, just, you know, to, to kind of get anyone within academia to look at what you're doing. Well, certainly it was. I mean, maybe things have changed a little bit now. I, you know, it's been probably quite some time since I've kind of looked in that, in that space. But, um, I think particularly in this country, mainstream academia would be only really interested in things that were, you know, within the realms of kind of mainstream science with that conventional reductionist perspective on things. Um, anything else, as you say, was kind of classed as woo-woo.

Yeah. Absolutely.

So how do you differentiate it? Can we talk a little bit about this? For some people listening, this might be a new paradigm.

How do you differentiate? Well, that's a good question. And I suppose part of what I, what I do when I work with clients is, is leave it open to people's interpretation. There's probably a number of components to a number of ways of answering that question. I think one of the things that's interesting is certainly, you know, part of my work is within organizations. So I, you know, I run workshops and various things. And it's interesting how people will talk about conscious business, embodied leadership. You know, there's lots of yoga and mindfulness within organizations. So it's, you kind of just baby step it really. Um, I think unfortunately I should— I shouldn't, you know, be too critical of it. Unfortunately, there's still a, well, give us the steps that we need to do. So for me, the fundamental notion of the idea we need to look inward and understand that, right, well, it's about allowing— it's, you know, looking inward, tapping into those resources within us and beginning to flow a bit more, uh, and understanding how we work and where our experience comes from. I think that, you know, that's for me, the ultimately where we need to be going. But if we're tiptoeing towards that by giving people some techniques, that I suppose that's probably a good thing. So, you know, these things are seen to be spiritual, aren't they? When you're doing mindfulness or you're doing yoga, people will say, well, they're spiritual things. So this notion of, well, what is spirituality, it kind of means different things to different people. Um, but, and that's one of the things, isn't that? It's one of the issues, is that everyone has their ideas, their preconceived notions of what words mean. And that's very much a culturally conditioned thing. And it takes time to, to change those, those ideas and take things away from having a negative connotation to something a little bit more beneficial. So I don't know that I'm answering your question there, really. Yeah. Am I answering your question? I

think you are. You're kind of helping us tiptoe into the nuance of the answer of the question because we're trying to speak about something that can be so different for each person versus maybe the more materialistic top-down. Okay, you have high T3 thyroid. We know how to measure that. We know the typical effects of that. But then as we go down into the symptoms or the tappings from the body, that can show up in lots of different ways. Like chronic fatigue is or fibromyalgia or irritable bowel syndromes. These could be very different for each person. The root causes could be multifaceted and complex, and there may not be just one test or one technique or one checklist to go through. And there's, there's ways of working with it that just go beyond maybe the more materialistic scientific method. You're getting a little bit more into some of that. That spiritual, that energetic medicine. Am I, am I tracking with what you're saying?

Yeah, I guess so. There's probably, you know, as you were talking, there's a couple of things that kind of popped into my head. And in terms of paradigm shifting is, I think for the most part, when we talk about health challenges, people seem to automatically adopt a medicalized perspective. where, well, body is a machine and give me something to solve the problem. And it's— and this idea of looking for a single cause of the problem. Uh, so it's, you know, for me then it's entirely different when— and it's a paradigm shift to say, right, well, you know, your body is this— body and mind is this interconnected flowing system And it's not necessarily a single cause. In fact, it's probably multiple primary causes that all impact on each other, whereby you can have causes and then effects, and effects can become causes in a circular causality kind of, you know, motion. Uh, and yeah, I guess all of my, all of my approach has really with the collaboration of colleagues and working with clients has just been something that's evolved intuitively. And in doing so, it was— I've— the attempt has been to simplify everything. Um, what's this, you know, what's the simplest way we can look at things? And that can be an issue for people. So, uh, for me, The way I, I'm looking at a health challenge is that it doesn't really matter what label a person has been given. Um, that may offer some security to them, but if somebody comes to me with anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue, you know, all that, all that list, I, I'm still looking at it as, well, their body is sending symptoms and there's some reason for that. Um, and there's a very good chance they have the resources they need within themselves in order to solve the problem. Um, so, you know, I guess there's a number of kind of core principles that I work from. You know, one is that, because it's hugely empowering to, to know that. I think part of the problem within healthcare is people are disempowered and people are passive without realizing the enormous role in— they— that they play in the creation of their ongoing well-being and their attitude, their approach, what people are doing today, tomorrow, and the next day, how they see things, how they think, act, behave, all the rest of it. All of those things are impacting how, how they are, their well-being next week, next year. So I think that's, you know, making some shifts in that, and what I think probably is a paradigm shift from something happening to me where we're externalizing and pathologizing to, oh right, well, this you know, maybe there isn't— maybe it's not that there's something wrong with me. Maybe my body is responding in an appropriate way given the set of circumstances, given my personal history, given my environment, given the patterns and the adaptations that I'm currently implementing unconsciously. Um, you know, maybe all that is giving rise to my body needing now to tell me that, well, I'm out of alignment and my kind of flow is blocked, but there's something I can do about that. So for me, that's kind of crucial. And then you say boiling it down to— even though people will say if somebody's got fibromyalgia, they may argue vociferously that they don't have chronic fatigue syndrome. And of course, for me, that's— you're getting caught in a revolving door there and not really making any progress. So I think that's— those are some of the big things. It's trying to simplify things down. And it's fundamentally being empowered. Um, and I, I— another key principle for me is having people understand that they're self-correcting and self-healing. And then very often, I guess, based on what I just said there, you— we very often putting obstacles in our own way without really realizing that. And we don't be blaming ourselves. We want to be empowered and look at, oh right, okay, so if I'm putting some obstacle in my own way, then if I can— if we can identify what that is, it's probably an adaptation from, you know, something in my past. In order for me to be able to deal with that, to cope with that, to get through, to manage to survive, I've, you know, I've, you know, behaved in a certain way. I've, I've created a, a story, a narrative in my mind, um, and that's helped me get through. But actually, what served me back then possibly doesn't serve me now. And my body is just telling me that. So it's entirely possible that I can have experienced something different to what I'm experiencing now.

Absolutely. I, I love that you said that all of the things, all of the things work together. So I see a lot of times people, now that, now that the mind-body connection has been established, people are like, yes, Our minds are impacting our bodies, you know, all of that kind of thing. I see that people are like, well, and I witness it in myself too, like, okay, this condition that I have, is it mental? Is it physical? Is it energetic? Like, what is, what is it? But I love that you said that it's, it's all of the things. It's, they're all interconnected. They're all playing on each other as well. They intertwine and they They can cause each other. And so I think that sometimes we also are, you know, our egos or whatever can kind of get in the way and be like, like, I— this isn't my fault. So you're talking about that too, the like self-blame, like, this isn't my fault, I'm not doing something wrong, so therefore it can't be a mental thing. But really, there's— it could be that there's a physical thing. That's, that's also being impacted by these mental patterns, these different things. And it's not our fault that we're having the mental patterns. There's a number of things that, that cause it, and there are some things that we can do and we can look at it in a more empowering way. Does that track?

Oh yeah, absolutely. I think it's kind of vital that we do look at things in that more empowered way, isn't it? And it's, and it's, it's tricky because if you're in a space and maybe you're debilitated with symptoms and you've been to your conventional medical practitioner, uh, and you've not been treated particularly well, uh, then you probably won't feel very safe and you may feel like a victim. So then, um, it's much easier in that space to think, oh, well, what am I being blamed for this now? What are these mind-body people doing? They're blaming me. So, you know, I guess we've got to be kind of careful about that, uh, because I think there are many people experiencing health challenges that, uh, if they've not come across the sorts of things that, that we do, then, you know, they, they may well have had very uncomfortable experiences. And I, I've, you know, had loads of clients over the years that have been feel like they've been treated quite badly. And I guess if nothing else, it's bad enough, isn't it, when you have symptoms of a health challenge and you know what it is and you know how long it's going to last and you're going to be okay in a week or whatever it is? That's bad enough. You're debilitated, you know, you've got a case of flu, you're in bed, you know, you can't do much, you're frustrated, but at least you know what's going on. When you don't know exactly what's going on, you don't know what's causing your symptoms, you don't really know what to do about them. You're hugely afraid of them, so you're managing your life around them. Medicine doesn't really offer you much. May even be telling you, well, you've just kind of got to live with it. You know, we can offer you some, some meds, some antidepressants, some painkillers, some sleeping tablets, whatever. But you know, that's— it's really, it's kind of tough, uh, I think, to be in that space. So, yeah, we've almost got to baby step our way to that idea of empowerment with it. But I think being open to some of these new ideas, that is where— that's the place to start, I suppose, isn't it?

I love that. And something that we wanted to talk about today is control. And I think that this is a great moment to kind of bring this into the conversation of, like, When we have this— so when we have something going on in our bodies, a lot of times we're like, okay, what are the steps? What are the things that I need to do? Give me the, like, exact things to do. I'm gonna go do this thing. I'm gonna take this supplement. I'm gonna take this medication, whatever it is. And so do you wanna just talk a little bit about how Sometimes the control, um, is actually hindering us, or the need for the control.

Yeah. Uh, so, okay. I got like a few things in my head now. I gotta try and, uh, where do we start with this? I, I think that, I think, um, one of the things I, I'm always looking to do with people I work with, and I do work with kind of a broad range of people because I work in organizations. I do, uh, coaching for, um, executives as well. So I, I do anything from kind of coaching through to working with people that are bedbound. Um, but there's always— in, you know, I touched on a point earlier which was, well, it's important at some level that we begin to have some sense of the role that we play in the creation of our ongoing experience. One of the critical pieces in that is how we define a problem. So a lot of the time, I feel what I'm doing with people, probably more so those that may not be presenting with debilitating symptoms, is figuring out, is this really a problem? And how much of a problem is it? What really is the problem? Because, you know, my sense is that we Our cultures at the moment are ones whereby we have a low tolerance for discomfort. We want things immediately. We want to feel good immediately. So if anything isn't quite right, we are going through that list of what will give me the 10 steps to whatever it is. So there's the looking outside of ourselves, which I think is we're out of balance in that regard. I think we're far too externally focused. Uh, and I think it's— we're, you know, there's that heavy emphasis on, right, well, this is a problem. I can't possibly feel like this. So I think there's— so there's that on the one side. The other bit, we're looking at control. Control is a kind of, I think, an interesting thing because we know that as human beings, we have some fundamental human need for a sense of autonomy, agency, control over ourselves, over our direction. Um, but there's the, the, the irony with it is that from as far as I'm concerned, we have— we don't really have any control over anything. Uh, and so the, the more we try to control and fixate on things we can't control, the higher our stress levels seem to be, because it's almost like we have that— I think deep in our, our deeper wisdom knows, well, you, you can't control So I think there, there is that bit. And for me, the paradox of control is that when we give up trying to control, we almost regain control because it's sort of, well, I'm surrendering to the flow of life, and in doing so, I'm facilitating my own flow. And, you know, I can ride that like, like, like a wave, if that makes sense. So I think that That, that's the part of— if I can go a little bit deeper, um, part, you know, another kind of key principle for energy flow coaching is that our experience is, is created inside of us. And but we live in a paradigm where people believe that, right, well, my internal experience, particularly my feeling and emotional experience, is 100% directly controlled or caused by outside life. So something happens outside of me, and that causes me to feel something inside. And what people then generally do is try to control or manipulate or manage external events as a way of trying to control and manage their internal feeling state. And because I would say, well, that just gives rise to more tension. Uh, so rather than trying to control outside life, come back and just place your attention on processing and regulating your own experience, coupled with the idea that it is entirely possible to feel completely different things even though circumstances don't change. Because I, I think even though— because we exist in relationship to everything else around us, We are— that experience is created inside. I always think kind of sport is the best example of this, where, you know, you can have a person that maybe loves football, either in your country or mine, and they could go and watch their team every week. And if their team wins, they're elated. Their team loses, they're in tears, you know, they're distraught, their week is wrecked. And of course, we know, well, there's no inherent meaning in that game. You could argue that at some level internally, that person is set up a contract with football that it's going to give them an emotional experience. And of course, as human beings, what's fundamental to our experience is having feelings and emotions. And if we didn't have those, well, we wouldn't do anything and, and we wouldn't have life. So it's important that we have them. But it's also useful to— for us to recognize that, well, those feelings and emotions are largely created within me. Yes, there is, at a more spiritual level, you could say, well, there's, there's energies of life, and we will pick up on mass consciousness, we'll pick up on the movement of the planets, and, you know, the— so, and, and, and our emotion can be contagious. So we will pick up on energy outside of us. And, you know, there's a whole other kind of piece there. But I think it's really useful for people to know that All right, so if my experience, if my feeling experience is created within me and it's not completely and utterly determined by outside life, I— what if I take my attention off what's going on out there? You know, because we know with that, that person that's obsessed with football, they have that massive emotional experience because they're listening to interviews with the players on the radio, they're kind of reading stuff in the newspapers. So The— this is part of the practical bit of, of creation of experience, is that by giving attention to something, we are teaching our emotional body that this is important. So I'm going to have a big emotional response to this. Because if that person kind of ignores football for a year or so, doesn't read anything, doesn't go to any games, moves to a different country, you know, their emotional response after that period of time will be completely different. Because I think that's, you know, I think it's a really useful thing. So it's in terms of that control piece, particularly when it comes to external events, rather than trying to control outside life, what we want to be doing is redirecting our attention inward and looking to process and regulate our feelings. And there's a— and then there's the next level. Which, if you're happy for me to keep talking, I'll just keep talking.

Yes, keep talking. Yes, yes.

So the next level then is, again, I— we don't control our feelings. I, I'm not, I'm not controlling what comes up for me in terms of my feelings in the next moment, just in the same way as I'm not controlling the thoughts that may pop into my head. Uh, but we interestingly have an instinctive, almost like reflexive response to tense up, stress, and resist or suppress feelings, um, as a way of trying to control them. You know, I shouldn't— I don't want to feel anything bad. You know, I'm going to drown in it. It's bad for me. I don't want to be the kind of person that feels this. Well, there's nothing I can do about it anyway. You know, so there's a whole host of reasons why people kind of try to suppress or block their internal feelings, um, as a way of kind of trying to control them. But again, that, as we know, when we kind of block, uh, everything up, then that has negative health outcomes for us. So when we let go of trying to control our internal experience and we just allow it to flow, it just naturally flows through us. Um, but it's, you know, it kind of probably takes some practice and some knowledge and a bit of courage to be able to do that because we've got to overcome those as I say, those kind of instinctive urges to lock it up. So those are the— I think those are the, you know, those, the 2 bits of control. And I know, again, within an organizational setting, it's been very popular to talk about from a management leadership perspective, you must, you know, you've got to control everything. But I think that's it, you know, and me suggesting letting go of control and harnessing our own flow and you know, going with the flow of life a little bit. It's not about not planning, you know, it's not about, uh, having, you know, uh, dreams, outcomes, visions, goals. It's not about that, but it's about being mindful of the impact of trying to control excessively, and also that fact that Um, well, why am I doing that? I'm doing that for my— for the feeling experience. And I think it's really useful for people to know what you're doing in life. You know, you're only doing what you're doing because of the feelings you have. So as you go through life, you're trying to manage your internal experience. That, that's how I see it. And when we recognize that, well, it's entirely possible to have different feelings, even though circumstances may not change, you're not forcing yourself to feel anything else. You're not trying to control what you feel. but you're open to the possibility that, well, my feelings are created within me, and it could just be that I have a narrative running that, well, I should feel something, you know, because this is happening. I— this is what I should feel because this is who I am. I appreciate with all of that I'm covering quite a few things, and there's— this is a degree of depth to that. But just as a kind of an example of, of that in real life, uh, one of my best friends kind of threw this back at me when I went was I was— I got divorced about 6 years ago, and at the very early stages, um, I was kind of— I was on the floor. I was distraught, devastated, uh, and my, uh, one of my best friends said, well, what if you could go through this experience and feel joy? Um, and, you know, just— it is— and I mean throwing it back at me because she wasn't suggesting, well, you should feel joy, or you could feel joy, you would feel— you must feel joy. It was just that possibility. And it— because it's that sense of, yeah, but of course I'm going to feel like this because my life is falling apart. And when I stopped trying to control how I felt, when I trusted my natural self-correcting, which is really at times it was, well, in this moment I just want to feel okay. And I know that nothing needs to change in order for me to feel okay, because that's a, for me, that's a key principle of this work, is that we do— our natural tendency is to come back to feeling okay, to feeling good. I think that's how we're wired to sort of thrive. But I think we keep up, we hold ourselves down. And I would, so I'd bounce back and I'd kind of feel okay, and then my head would come in and say, oh yeah, but you can't, you can't feel okay, your life is falling apart. And that was really interesting from that identity perspective of, well, who, who am I? well, I'm somebody, you know, these things are important to me, you know, family, my home, my, you know, being, being a good father, being a good husband, you know, that, that's who I am, isn't it? And, and if those things are sort of shattered, then I have to feel in this low space. So it's that, you know, these— it's, it's kind of deep stuff, but it's— I think, you know, that's— and that's spiritual, isn't it? You know, as we tiptoe towards the spiritual, you know, the things we, you know, that we're saying, it's It's, it, it comes down to, well, who are we and who do we think we are and how does that show up for us and what's our experience of that? And I think that, I suppose I feel in healing, it, the, the, the, we need to embrace that kind of metaphysical spiritual bit because otherwise, for me, I would've been clinging on to that ego identity. Well, yeah, but this is me. This is me. You know, I can, you know, and me being able to come back and recognize this is all a transient experience. And not that's— it's not that's me, you know, but this is— I can, I can see what's that other voice in my head. That's, you know, the, the ego mind saying you shouldn't feel like this, you should feel devastated all of the time, you know. Um, so I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put it back to you because I feel like I could just keep going waffling now.

I do have— I would love to expand and I'm humbly grateful for you sharing your personal experience. And I know that there's people who listen to this conversation that maybe are in the depths of despair, or they're in that kind of dark circle of hell, if you will— suffering, sad, angry, devastated. And so one of the challenges that your friend gave you is, well, what if you felt joyful in this? And so What would something tangible be for someone who's listening to this and they're like, okay, I'm going to try to release the need to control? What, what would, what is something tangible that they could do right now?

So if we go with, if you're saying, oh, well, there could be people that are in the depths of despair, they're, you know, in a low space. I think it's, there's the, the control piece is that it's trying to control experience and it's usually by resisting it. I shouldn't feel like this. I don't want to feel like this. Um, there is another bit to it. So the other bit to it is that I think, running counter to the conventional cognitive behavioral perspective, I think that our thinking is a manifestation, is a, is, is the result of, uh, what I would say our state of consciousness or our physiological state in the moment. Uh, so whatever's going on in the body is affecting our thinking, and people believe their thinking. Uh, so, and that can often be our emotions. Our mood and emotion will have a profound effect on the thoughts that we're having. But so it's really important, I think, to know, well, you're not your thinking. Your thinking is not true. In fact, your thinking in many instances is a lying prankster. And if you're in a lower space, in, in a lower mood, or you're emotionally full, it's recognizing a bit like putting on a pair of red glasses where the entire world would look red. Your thinking will be distorted in a similar way. Uh, and even being open to that idea that, well, my thinking is not true, my thinking is not me, but if I allow myself to jump on Uh, like jumping onto a train, the scenery is going to be, you know, whatever that train takes me. So if I'm into that, if I indulge those, those think— that thinking, um, and of course, if you're a lower space, it could well be you're— you will be fixating probably on all of the things that are outside of you. So for me, you know, it was how will I cope? Uh, what if I can't deal with this? What if my kids don't respect me? Uh, what if I can't work? What if I'll end up living with my mother? you know, I could lose my friends. It's very easy. It's very, you know, you could be in that, you could be there in like 30 seconds. You're in, you're in that headspace. And recognizing, and of course it's all then the fixation is on the outside. So if there are people in that space, it's like thinking about all of the things that have to change in order for me to feel better. So the practical bit is, well, being open to the idea that, well, what if It's entirely possible in this now moment for me to feel okay. And there isn't anything that I need to do aside from allowing myself to disconnect from thinking. And, you know, you just come back and, and, and put your attention on your breathing and, you know, whatever you're doing in this now moment without having to fix yourself. Because a lot of the kind of the running through the head is, is rationalizing and trying to find a solution and, but realizing, oh yeah, but this and this and this and this. without realizing, because all of the thinking is, is, is negatively affected by the negative feelings. So that's— it's, it's really hard to do. But that idea that, well, I just, in this moment, I just want to feel better. Uh, and interestingly, I mean, I had a client reasonably recently which— who was a guy, um, and I— he was brilliant really because he was a, a retired, uh, orthopedic surgeon, so extremely bright, clever man, um, but his 30-year marriage had come to an end, and he was up— he was in a— he was a mess, but he was up in his— in his head continually going through the ramifications and, and all of this kind of stuff, uh, and, and going through this process of, of coming out of his head, trusting in the moment his self-correcting nature. enabled him to, you know, kind of bounce back and then have periods of feeling better and then having some clarity and then engaging with life. And because that— he was going then obviously through a natural grieving process, but he was able to go through that process. But I think we want to— understandably, we want to get away from feeling uncomfortable as quickly as we possibly can. But this— I think there's something incredibly powerful and profound about being able to tolerate internal discomfort. And it's easier when you know that— well, it's easier if you're spiritual and you can think, oh yeah, but that's— this is just my vehicle having an experience. Isn't it interesting that my body is doing this right now? But it's, it's, you know, I am— the bigger I am is more than this, and it's observing this experience. So I can have the experience. and observe it at the same time. So I think, you know, that's a— it's obviously useful to be able to be in that space where you can observe it and have it. But if we're— if you're just kind of trapped in the body, there can be that, oh my God, I've got to get away from this, and I've got to do something. I have to do something in order to feel better. And usually people get in their set, you know, you know, they're in their head overcomplicating things. So I think it's— there is always, you know, we always, you know, good things. There is, there's an ebb and flow to life, isn't there? And kind of good stuff will, will happen. So you— it may be that for those that are struggling in this moment that are listening or watching this, it's— it may be that doing almost nothing is enough. And actually doing— trying to fix yourself and being up in your head could just kind of hold you in a Lower space for longer.

Oh, it's so good! I'm sitting here laughing because this is this is so me. Like if something if I deem something as wrong, it's like okay, gotta figure out and they gotta gotta fix it. Gotta fix all these things. Gotta do da da da da da. And really, the medicine for me pretty much always is surrender. Surrender, surrender. And I love what you said at like the very beginning of this conversation. You brought up the idea, the question of, is this really a problem? And I think, I mean, that when you said that, I like, my whole body lit up. Like, I was like, oh, that's a great question to just continuously ask ourselves, whether it's the emotion. Is this emotion a problem? Whether it's the physical symptom, is this actually a problem or is it just as it is right now? And, you know, sometimes our mind is going to be like, yes, this is a problem. And that can also be okay as well. Can I just jump in there a second? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I think that in terms of the way I work, I would, I would say to people, well, what you feel is never a problem, and, uh, what you feel never needs to be solved. Uh, and that's really— I had 2, like, reasonably profound realizations. Um, and there was nothing particularly big happening, but I, I remember one Sunday afternoon just not feeling good. And part of what was not feeling good about my just overall experience was, uh, you should feel better than you feel. There must, there must be something wrong, and you've got to figure that out. And when I kind of, when I just went with it and realized, well, what if it's okay that I just feel like this? I don't feel, you know, I feel off-kilter today. I don't know why. Well, what if that's okay? And that was just a huge amount of my suffering In the moment went away because it was well, I don't you know it's okay for me to feel like this. So that was one bit. The other profound thing I had was that what I what I you know I went from well what I feel is not a problem and then what I feel doesn't need to be solved. And I think that's I think there is a bit of an alarm bell that goes off understandably in the brain of well there is something wrong you know ba ba ba ba ba ba there is something wrong and you do need to solve it. And of course, there are times when things need to be solved. But if we're talking about emotional feelings, then I think it's very useful, particularly in our, in the current culture where there's such a low tolerance and we put, you know, we put labels, anxiety and depression, very quickly onto probably emotional experiences. I think it's very useful to be in that space of, well, what if, what if my feelings are not a problem? And what if they don't need to be solved? Now, just need to be clear on that. Me saying my feelings don't need to be solved— my feelings may be alerting me to something that I need to take action on. So it doesn't mean there's not a problem out there in life. But the feelings themselves don't need to be solved. And the reason I say that is because usually first course of action for people to solve their feelings is to get up into their head and to try to do some cognitive manipulation process to adjust how they feel. But what if, what if it isn't? What if I can just come into my body, feel it, and trust that, well, if my deeper wisdom will guide me, if I need to take action, if I need to do something, I will. And because in many instances life is made up of a series of moments where simple things are happening, you know, if I'm— if I feel frustration because my TV remote is not working well, oh, I'll just change the batteries, you know. And I think a of the time things are reasonably straightforward. Yeah, there are lots of things in relationships where life becomes more complex, but I think that there's— I, for me, that's very profound. What I feel is not a problem, uh, and my feelings don't need to be solved. It may be they're guiding me to take action, but they don't— it's not that their feelings in and of themselves need to be solved. What does that do? It just takes the pressure off. Which is a big thing. And, uh, I'm there, you know, I therefore can allow my feelings, which is of course a lot more healthy than blocking them up. Um, and I'm not trying to control them.

I love that. And I love that you also said in relationships too, it's like my feelings don't need to be solved and other people's feelings also, I don't need to solve them either. They're allowed to have all of their feelings as well.

Well, that's a whole other point though, isn't it? That's a really interesting thing because when people are empathic, because we're naturally connected.

Yeah.

You know, if you're feeling angry, and particularly if you're feeling angry and that's directed at me, I will feel hugely tense and I'll have a strong compulsion to try to change your emotional state. There's something very powerful about me being in that space of, it's perfectly okay for her to have her feelings. I don't need to change them. Um, it's, it's, you know, that's quite freeing. It's really difficult to put into practice, particularly with Uh, you know, spouses and parents and children. But, um, yeah, it's a good practice.

Jack Kornfield teaches about an exercise that I call the boats, where he has you visualize sitting on a hill and that there are these boats that are coming around the bend and the boats represent thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, problems that you're struggling with. And what he teaches is to notice that, acknowledge that even your impulses with the boat, like maybe you want to jump on the boat or you want to blow the boat up, whatever it is, is just notice it, acknowledge it, and then let it continue to float by on the water. And so it's a process of which you touched on is it's like an undetached radical acknowledgement and acceptance. And then if that boat keeps circling around again, you know, sometimes they just go around the loop and they circle around. There may be an opportunity to use that data into something that can inform deeper healing. But the process, maybe as you're describing it, may begin with just simply acknowledging and not trying to control the boat and to just let it float past.

Yeah, I think so. I think The, the one, the one, it's not a caveat as such, but the one thing I guess I've come across when people talk about those, those sorts of ideas is just being resigned to something, or the idea of acceptance means that I should be happy about it. And it's, I always think it's important to emphasize that Because I talk about allowing within my work rather than acceptance, purely from a semantic perspective of acceptance has historically conjured up ideas of, well, just being okay with it then. And it's like, well, it doesn't mean you're okay with something, but you can allow the, you know, I'm, I'm, well, it's happening and I'm allowing it. I'm, and I have my internal experience, which could be frustration, anger, hurt, and I'm allowing myself to have that experience as well. And of course, that's the fundamental bit of, as I said right at the start, of that coming back to your true self. And I suppose that's why I say to people, well, whatever you feel is not a problem, because in that moment, that's kind of who you are, what you're feeling. You may not feel like this next week. You may feel something entirely different. But in this moment, this is what's coming up for you. And it's really important to create, give space. for that to present itself. Um, but yeah, and there's times, and for me, I always think that when I'm working with people, that the challenge is one, when things come up, symptoms, feelings, whatever, is when do I need to take action? And then figuring out what is that the most constructive action that's in alignment with my authentic true self.

I love that. That's actually really I'm gonna— that's gonna stick with me after our conversation today about allowing, especially as it pertains to conflicts with other people. Well, I'm gonna allow them to have their experience. I'm gonna allow myself to have my experience, as opposed to— I do really like the nuance in that versus acceptance. That's beautiful. Thank you.

I think a little bit of that came from Uh, a number of years ago I worked with a number of, uh, Buddhists, and they'd all come from the same Buddhist temple, and they all had— I say all, obviously they came to you because they had chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia— but one after another, I think I had about half a dozen of them. And it was really interesting because it— I don't know anything about Buddhism really, but it seemed to me that they were probably practicing something akin to a westernized version because they, they, the sort— they were practicing a sort of acceptance, which meant that they weren't allowed to feel anger, really. So it's almost like, well, I've got to feel— we've got to feel joy and gratitude for everything. And my sense of it is, well, anger, fear, worry, boredom, hurt are going to come and visit you, and you need to allow those to move. It's energy. It's just energy. You just— you need to allow that to move through your system and recognize it and allow it. So I suppose that was my thing. There was something about being passive that came from there, sort of that acceptance of things. It's almost like, well, I've got to be happy that's happening, and I can't feel anger. I've just got to accept it.

I love that. That's a mic drop moment for me. That's gonna stand out. Thank you for that. I'm glad that the conversation went in that direction so that I could have learned your perspective. That was brilliant. And I know we're coming at time. Anything else that we really wanna make sure that we get to squeeze into this conversation before we wrap for the day?

Have you got any last questions? I know I've kind of— I felt like I've thrown a lot out there.

We love it.

Yeah.

You know, gone a little bit deep. But yeah, I suppose that just kind of retouching on that control. I think that's for me, that paradox of control is, well, we need to have some agency as human beings, but it's really, it's about turning and looking inward. And I think that we have become a culture that fixates on the external, and we need to rebalance that. And I think when we look inside and recognize, well, I don't really have control, and that's okay. I'm regaining control by not having to control, I think.

And one of my teachers always says that, that you can't, if you're in control of everything, you can't feel delighted. There's no way for you to feel delight if you're in control. And so like our souls want to be out of control so that we can be surprised and delighted and, and all of the, the things. So it's so good.

Flow, I suppose, like that's kind of what I, what I feel with that is that, you know, I, I often say to my clients, your, your true self, your soul wants to experience and express itself in life. And if it feels shackled in any way, and of course your mind will wanna do that by jumping into the future. And, you know, there's all sorts of things we could go down with that as well. But, you know, that, that can shackle us and prevent us from just experiencing, just unfolding in the moment, which I think is the essence of what our true self wants to do.

Absolutely.

Oh my goodness. Thank you so much. This has been one of my favorite conversations. It's been so good. You must come back. Everybody listening, Please get his book. It's so good. The Intelligent Body, Kyle Davies. And definitely check out his website, energyflowcoaching.com. He's also on Instagram. And so if you just want more up to date of what's happening, definitely check him out there. But thank you so much. I'm so very grateful for you. And Kyle read my book, and so I'm super excited too to talk with you more about that. You wrote the kindest words. And so thank you. Thank you.

That was great. Well done, you, for that.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. I just respect and admire you so much, and I want more of your books to come out. So everyone follow Kyle. Thank you for being here.

Thanks, Kyle.

Thanks, ladies.