The Ticket to Heal - Connecting with Your Body with Dr. Cory | Ep. 117

Welcome to the Holistic Inner Balance Podcast. I'm Dr. Nicole Kane.

And I'm Happy Healthy Hadlee.

We have an amazing interview for you today. We're recording this intro after the fact, and let me tell you that this was a very moving interview. This is a great conversation.

Oh, my gosh. So good. Like, you guys are gonna love hearing Dr. Corey's story. And just, we were both like so moved by his story and also like all the things that he is now bringing to the table for people all around the country, all around the world.

Yeah, you're gonna get some actions that you can start doing right away that can have some seriously profound effects on your emotional well-being, your physical well-being. And so be sure to listen to the end too, because for our audience, he's giving you a special discount on one of his cool events. So let me introduce you to Dr. Corey, and then we will get into the conversation. Are you ready, Hadlee?

Yeah, let's hear it.

So Dr. Corey is a naturopathic physician. I knew him back at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine, and he was an amazing student, amazing person, and he's now an amazing healer. His passion for medicine began when his mother fell ill and Western medicine failed to provide answers, and he was motivated. He was motivated to heal his mother, to heal the world naturally, and heal himself. He opened a practice in Scottsdale, Arizona in 2014, and it was thriving. And he's now with his partner Jessica in San Diego, California, focusing on the mental and emotional wellness journey for people through Reset Breathwork. He has certified over 75 Reset Breathwork trainers. He's impacted over 20,000 lives in 9 countries, 30 states, and only the last 5 years. So he's just getting started. And his mission is to show other doctors that there are many other ways to be a healer and also make good revenue while you're doing it. And we're going to talk about all sorts of fun things. We're going to get into ayahuasca. We're going to get into Healing from cancer. We're going to talk about family trauma and, of course, breathwork. So you guys are going to love it. So let's jump right in.

Let's do it. I can't wait for you guys to hear it.

I'm so happy that you're here, Dr. Corey. This is a long time overdue to be having this conversation. We were just talking before we started recording, and I think you and I had said it was like A decade, right?

Close to approaching. Yeah. Much closer to a decade than 5 years or 3 years ago. Yeah, it's been a while.

And we met in Arizona at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine.

You were my teacher, my mentor. Definitely did a few shifts, if you remember or not. So, yeah, we had quite a lot of interaction. Yeah.

Yeah, that— those memories are amazing. I actually, when I do my own trauma healing work and I think about like the ego state that I want to embody, that bullseye that I want to go towards, I teach people like, find a time where you really felt like you were embracing your true self and where you felt really confident and really strong. And for me, that involves teaching. And so I love that. We've gotten to share some of those times together.

Oh, yeah. I remember specifically you taught a lot of the, obviously, the psychological classes, and I remember how holistic you were in your application of it. So a lot of the modalities, whether it was like you introducing me to EMDR, which I used for a period of time, or holistic counseling and Dr. Daniel Moshe, we're still connected. And so, yeah, I just know you've had a really big impact on my life. In starting out in naturopathic medicine, just in general, we tend to be a little bit on the outskirts of medicine, and people say a lot of things about us, which is totally fine. I get it. And I find I have gone even outside the fringes of maybe naturopathic medicine a little bit, which I'm really excited to talk to you about, because a lot of what I do is really incorporated in the mental-emotional, is incorporated in breathwork and utilizing breath to help create emotional states for people. So I hear you on like the visualization and trying to remember a time when you were really a certain way. And yeah, you can actually use a lot of techniques to extract that with breath. So yeah, I think there's going to be a lot of full circle moments here and maybe a lot of laughs. And so I'm looking forward to it.

I always love to start by learning about somebody's journey and what were those small seeds? Because there's people who are having this conversation right now listening to this that are like, I'm not where I want to be yet. And I know that every moment counts. And even though I haven't seen the fruit of it or the tree or the flower or whatever growing, I know that we're planting seeds. And so I was hoping that you could start by just telling us about your story, how you got into naturopathic medicine.

Yeah, it's an interesting one. It was one that I didn't expect. For instance, most of my family are nurse anesthetists, anesthesiologists, doctors, radiologists. They're very traditional, right? And so that's pretty much what my family is made up of. So, and even my mother, before she retired, 38 years as a registered NICU nurse. So that's kind of like a little bit of my background. But really, the antithesis to me even finding out about naturopathic medicine is I was In my 4th year, St. Mary's University, super small Catholic undergrad university, was pre-med, super stoked about that. And I was about 6 weeks out from graduating and I was in crisis mode because I had spent the last few months going around interviewing at specifically PA schools across the nation. And what I was blown away by from the interview process Wasn't necessarily the interview itself and how I answered the questions, but it's when I asked the interviewer, like, their approach to medicine. Or I remember asking them, like, you know, outside of alternatives of drugs and surgery, like, what will this school offer me as far as my education? And I got blank stares, almost to the point of, like, no comment. And it really freaked me out because I was like, how can I in my good conscience spend the next couple of years being in PA school, probably then transitioning to medical school, and not even getting legitimate answers about how I'm going to be treating patients outside of drugs and surgery, which is, I think, a last resort. And so, like I said, fast forward, I remember sitting in my dorm in Sal Hall, like, going, what am I going to do with my life? And so I took it upon myself to just get out my computer, open up Google, and search natural doctor. I was like, there's got to be something else. I didn't even know what a naturopath was. First thing that showed up, Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine. And so I got my butt a plane ticket, flew down there, and the rest is history. And so I really bought into the model of naturopathic holistic medicine and dove in feet first. I mean, I was sharing with my partner Jessica, I even remember when I was asking for letters of recommendation from my undergrad professors and they're— and all kindness aside, this woman has now passed away, but she was one of my mentors. She was my biochemistry professor. She was one of the original founders of GMO crops, specifically corn, at the University of Minnesota. So you can imagine what her mindset's like. Incredibly smart woman. And I even remember back then she found out she had a BRCA1, BRCA2 gene mutation. And for those of you that aren't aware of that, it's a pretty intense genetic mutation saying that— I don't know what the percentage is, Dr. Kane, you can probably say, but I think there's like, what, like a 50%, maybe a higher chance of getting cancer. Is that true? Something around—

I know it's over 50. I don't know, but it's really more than half.

Right. And so she, right around that time of me asking for the letter of recommendation, had done a double mastectomy, like an elective double mastectomy, which I understand that's her own choice. But then when I was asking for this letter of recommendation, she literally said, quote, I've only ever wrote a letter of recommendation to another naturopathic school for another student one other time. And that's because I really like that student. And I'd have to say, Corey, I really like you as well. I don't understand what this is. I don't think this is legitimate, but I'm doing this for you. Unfortunately, I found out like maybe 5 years ago or so, she passed away from cancer. And so it was just one of those real big realizations of It doesn't necessarily matter how smart you are or what you know, but it's really about the holistic application of the mind, body, and spirit. And just because you have some gene mutations doesn't necessarily mean that's going to be the manifest manifestation of the disease. But one particular detail I left out while she was writing this letter of recommendation, she was eating a Doritos bag.

Yeah. Yeah.

Your face. Yeah. So, yeah, that was kind of my start.

I have a good friend who was at an oncology office in Scottsdale because she had endometriosis, which caused false positives to show up on cancer screening. And in the waiting room, there were just bowls of candy. And she was telling me about this, about how she's not a doctor, she's an accountant, and she's aware of the research because she's done a little bit of Google searching. And the scientific literature talks about sugar intake and poorer responses to cancer treatment and higher incidence of relapse. And so she actually confronted the front desk about it, and it was a very negative response. And so then when she went back and saw the oncologist and reported that to him, he's like, well, the front desk, the waiting room, like, we kind of let the front desk girls manage that. That's their thing. And so it was very much like Kind of— I'm doing a gesture for those listening— kind of COVID your eyes, cover your ears. And it's very prevalent as we don't want to have those hard conversations about our behavior, our diet, our nutrition. There's so much more to the conversation than just a genetic test. What do you think, Hadlee? I see you nodding.

Oh my gosh. Well, I just relate to it so much because I was also pre-med when I was in undergrad and decided to go a different route as well. I went to school for public health for grad school because I wanted to work on prevention. Now, there's still a lot with public health as well that's not as holistic as I wanted it to be. But I did learn a lot about what people are taught in med school. While I was in grad school, they were teaching us all these things that the people were being taught in med school who were in med school. And It was just so frustrating because there's just not enough holistic education at all. And then there are some rockstar doctors who have done continuing education after the fact, and they continue to work through things and stuff. But the actual education itself is so far behind what the research actually shows. Like, 8 years behind is kind of what we learned. Yes. More or less. Yeah. And so it's like, as we have all of these breakthroughs in the literature, in the research and everything, it takes— obviously it's like, okay, there's one study, and then once that one study needs to be replicated over and over and over again, and then it's the 8 years after that. And so it's just so behind, unfortunately. But it makes me so excited to get to hang out with so many naturopathic doctors. It's like my joy because we have to change the way things are. And yeah, we really have to. And so this is the future. So it makes me really excited.

Yeah, I love that. I love that you're coming at it from a public health perspective.

Yeah, lots of prevention.

Yeah. And especially since I don't know if we want to dive into this topic, but what always comes up for me around public health is just the blatancy that occurred during the pandemic around such basic things, even if you don't want to get as controversial with, like, ivermectin and some of the other drug therapies, but, like, even something as simple as, like, vitamin D. Yeah, totally. I can never understand or get over the fact that there was— I don't know if you want to call it a suppression, but definitely, like, an obfuscation of the fact that the correlation of hospitalization and death rates with people's vitamin D levels and being able to supplement something that's so simple. And then you hear in the public, for instance, people of color, people, BIPOC, they have higher rates and incidence of hospitalization and death as a result of COVID And I'm like, yeah, one of the big factors behind that Expect that their diet vitamin D levels are chronically low to begin with. And then it's like, on top of that, how inexpensive is vitamin D? I mean, there, of course, is better qualities and better absorption rates, and we don't have to get into all that. But just the sheer fact of pennies on the dollar to prevent this, is that really public health? I'm not so sure.

Right. Well, and I mean, also, there's so much that plays into like adverse outcomes with, you know, with different socioeconomic status and also with race and all of these different things. Stress is a huge factor with all of that because, you know, when people are— have, you know, microaggressions happening on a daily basis, stress is a huge factor in that. There's so, so, so, so many factors. And so that's where, that's where my like I was gonna say joy, passion. I'm gonna say passion for actually, like, let's, let's get to the root cause of why these things are. Because I had, I had, you know, people telling me, oh yeah, it's because of genetics that these people from different races, like, you know, are having worse health outcomes. And I'm like, that is patently false. Like, there is no chance that that's, that that's true. It is It is environmental factors that are influencing these differences. So, yeah, I feel that

that's the power of epigenetics, is looking at the research, is you have a light switch on a wall which represents the gene, but then we have opportunities to influence the expression of those genes. And sort of circling back to your late mentor who had the BRCA gene, is that there are opportunities to increase the resilience and the health, maybe even if she opted to have a double mastectomy. There are still things that she could do to increase her health, increase her immune system function, increase her longevity that can be done complementary. And I totally hear what you're saying is that there's a lot of resistance to even taking into consideration something that's so well substantiated by science, but then hasn't gotten through the red tape up into the larger scaled systems. And I really appreciated what you mentioned about stress, especially because stress is catastrophically high in culture today. I think the studies in the American Psychological Association show that upwards of 75% of people have symptoms that would be clinically diagnosable as generalized anxiety or depression. And so stress is a huge part of that. And so I was curious about your experience going through medical school? Because I can tell you that after I graduated from medical school and then got into cruise control of private practice, that was when all of the accumulation of trauma and stress for me hit an apex. I call it like the dark circle of hell crash. And so I was curious, what was your experience? So you learn about naturopathic medicine, you get on a plane, you start school, you and I meet, you're kicking ass in your program. I respect you tons. What's happened in that time between then and now?

Yeah, well, I'm a lot more relaxed individual.

Yeah, good.

I would say my overall lean body mass is a little bit better. I don't know if you remember. So for those of you listening, I'm pretty tall. I'm almost 6'6, so you can't miss me when I walk in a room. And part of my story is in naturopathic medicine, of course, I learned all these amazing things, but the accumulation of stress, like you said, it has some weight and it's like a never-ending black hole. And so for me, unfortunately, what happened was because I was so studious, because I was trying to absorb all the information, I did not do a very good job of creating work or like school-life balance per se. And so my health got significantly worse, especially into my third year. And I'll share this because I've shared it publicly before, but Dr. Mona Morenstein was actually my physician for quite a long time throughout medical school. And it, long story short, went from about 195 pounds, which is pretty lean still, to 154 pounds. Wow. And was dealing with all sorts of diagnoses, whether it was mold exposure, SIBO, even at one point, Mona really had a great point, which is I had this chronically low— or excuse me, like a chronically sub-high level of eosinophils within my bloodstream. And eosinophils, most people associate those with like allergies or histamine reactions. And so, She diagnosed me with chronic eosinophilic myalgia because what ended up happening is my immune system started to attack my joints and I started to get bone spurs like all over, like in my ankle, my hip, my neck. And so really, I got way sicker during medical school than I felt like I ever was. But at the end of the day, I'm so grateful that I went to naturopathic medical school because it saved my life. I don't know where I would be without naturopathic medicine, and I'm so grateful for it because I started this long journey after medical school to heal myself. And that's how the progression went for me.

So you're in school, you're under a lot of stress, you're working really hard to learn everything that you can, and then your body is producing all these immune system cells. It's attacking your own body tissues. You're getting bone spurs. And what happened next?

Gosh, what happened next? I mean, on the business side, I was in private practice, um, built that up with some other classmates of mine for a few years. But at the heart of it, what I really had to discover was the pain and unresolved trauma that I had from my childhood. God bless my parents and my dad. I have such a better relationship with them now, but My father was definitely kind of in and out of our household. And long story short, we found out he was actually really suffering from bipolar. And it was something that really did put a lot of stress and ravaged our family. And I realized that during that time, I ended up becoming my mother's caretaker because with my dad in and out of the house, she needed some support. And she went from this superhero in my life I mean, she was quite literally running marathons and working the night shift in the NICU and also taking me and my brother to school. I was like, even as a kid, I was like, do you sleep? Like, how does this work? It clearly wasn't working because right around the time she was 35, 36, her health started to go downhill and it went really downhill. Like, she got misdiagnosed with cancer. She got misdiagnosed with a whole host of autoimmune disease. And then they lumped her in this box of fibromyalgia. Yeah. And so she got put on antidepressants, painkillers, muscle relaxers, all sorts of things. She was bedridden for a year. And so I took care of my mother, essentially sleeping in the same bed with her for a year when I was about 13, 14 years old. And so there was a lot of patterning that had happened within my body and my nervous system and definitely just within the hierarchical structure of my family where I don't even think I knew where I was at. And so a big reason that I didn't share in the beginning why I was like, I'm going to do this naturopathic medicine thing, is because I wanted to heal my mom. Yeah, I wanted to heal my mom. Yeah. And so I think what I ended up being was— it makes me a little emotional, but I think what I ended up being was almost just like a sacrificial lamb by sacrificing my body to try to get to the root cause for my mother. And then, you know, as a consequence of that, I lost my health. And funny enough, I helped heal my mom during medical school, or at least really helped her start along that journey. And then as a result of that, right around the same time in my 30s, that's when my health completely started to fail.

So she's okay, right? Took care of her.

Yes.

Now, now you can melt down. I resonate very much with that. It's like after getting through all of that, everyone else is okay. Then the health crisis happens.

Yeah, I think I, I, I hadn't had maybe a moment. My, like, you know, our bodies are so intelligent. It's, it's really phenomenal. And I think my body did the best that it could, especially going all the way through medical school. And the second that it knew, like you were sharing, like kind of coasting into private practice, my body was like, oh, oh, oh, wait a second, there's about 16+ years of stuff physically, mentally, emotionally that now you got to catch up on. And that's when everything just crashed. Yeah.

Totally. I mean, you see this on a small scale too. Even after finals, I would always get sick right the day after finals. It's just our bodies are so wise. They hold out for us. And then once they can fall apart, then they're like, okay, you got to take care of some stuff because you have the capacity now. So do it.

So in a certain branch in naturopathic medicine, we refer to this as dissimilar disease. And I think that the work of Internal Family Systems has expanded on that language where we have separate parts of ourselves. I call them ego states, and they adapt. You use the word patterning, and So when anything stressful happens, our mind, our body, our nervous system, and our other bodily systems will adapt, and they'll make changes to help you be better able to survive in that. But the sticky factor is when those adaptations are no longer adaptive, and then they become maladaptive. And so at some point, you were patterned, and we all are. Everybody listening to this, you've been programmed by your life experiences and likely the experiences of your ancestors. When we think about RNA and, you know, inherited trauma, we go into all of that. But so the process that you kind of hinted at, and I'd love to hear more about it, is that process of repatterning. As opposed to looking at your symptoms as the problem, you looked at your symptoms as patterns that were no longer adapted, as opportunities to dive deeper in what needs healing and how. And you emphasized that mind-body connection. Tell me more.

Okay, so it was definitely not a linear path. I think in the beginning it was more of like throw gluten-free, non-GMO spaghetti at the wall, like a naturopath, and see what sticks. Yeah. And it really started out— and by all means, I'm just sharing my story. I wouldn't recommend this, but I'm glad I did it because my story now is I was really connected with— do you remember Dr. Joe Tafur. He came to our, um, school a couple times. He's an MD psychiatrist out of UCLA. He's pretty big now, but he essentially opened, um, an ayahuasca retreat center in Iquitos, Peru. And so he would come by the school and then like share presentations and then ask people if they wanted to come down. So one of my first experiences, mind you, super squeaky clean, maybe drank a few times, never smoked weed, and then here is 150 4-pound gaunt Cory going down in the middle of the Amazon on a strict raw vegan diet, right? And then doing plant medicine for— gosh, I think I did at least 10, 12 ceremonies, something like that. Yeah, I was down there for 3 weeks, right?

Go big or go home, huh?

Wow, that is a lot.

Yeah, it was like major leagues, step up to the plate. and swing kind of scenario. Yeah. And so I think for me and my ego and how stubborn I am, like, it was a good recipe for me because ayahuasca, the mother that she is, set me down. And, um, I think, you know, I won't share like all my journeys, but I think the biggest thing that really was the awakening for me around the patterning that you're talking about is realizing she showed me One night, because sometimes you have visualizations, sometimes you have emotions that come up, sometimes you get completely transported to another dimension, right? It's really up in the air. But the first couple nights for me, I actually felt a significant amount of pain in my gut. And I literally felt the ayahuasca syrup. You take these shots of syrup. I literally felt it like going through my stomach. And then around my duodenum into my small intestine and then wrapping through all my sphincters. Like, I could tell, I would be like, it's right here. Like, I can feel it right here. And I think that was one of the first times that I really had a strong internal connection to my body, like a visceral interoceptive, right, internal sensation of like, Oh, this is my gut, like, and this is what it does for me, right? And that was the start. And then the other part of it was too, is her showing me like, hey, you know, you're— what was I, like 30? I don't know. I was like 29, something like that at the time. And she was like, hey, if you keep going down this road, Like, if you keep doing the same thing, and I think, you know, she probably showed me like my past mentor with the Bracca jeans and the Dorito chips. And I had another mentor that used to love to go to Pizza Hut and do, you know, and unfortunately died from a coronary. But like, she was like, if you keep going down this road with the pain, the joint, joint issues, the autoimmunity, like, where do you think this is going to end up? Where are you going to be at 40, 50, 60? And it wasn't even just that conversation, but she showed me what that looked like. The moments where it's like my daughter wants to play with me and I'm like, hey, Dad's sore, can't get on my knees, like, gotta go rest, you know? Like, she showed me all those moments and it was such a, such a wake-up call to be like, hey, you helped your mom. Now help yourself. Like, if you can help her, you can do it too. And so these journeys were really the start of it for me, and then it progressed from there.

That tough love. Yeah.

I always say, like, Mother Ayahuasca. I don't know if you've ever done it before, but that's what people refer to it as. And that's how she presented to me as the ultimate mother. And she, she will hit you over the head with a spiritual 2x4, you know, like clunk. Oh yeah, I'll do that now, you know. And that's what I really needed because I think I would have just kind of, kind of healed myself rather than like really top to bottom, taking the time to heal myself on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level.

Well, I love that you say that piece about feeling each part of your digestive tract, because I have similarly— it's the mind-body connection. And when you actually feel— I haven't done ayahuasca. I'm not super opposed to it or anything, but I have never done it. But just connecting with my body was the That was the path for me because it's— and in Ayurveda, like, they talk about how the— when you feel really, really good in your body in the moment, you're in balance and you're not actually going to create disease in your body in that moment. And so, like, it's all about being, like, actually feeling into how do I feel? Right now? Like, do I feel really good in my body right now? And if you do, that's what's going to prevent the disease down the road. Like, we ignore all of these things that it sounds like, you know, through med school, it was like you were ignoring to get through. And it's not to say that that's good or bad. Like, it's just to get through and we adapt and we, you know, we do all these things. But yeah, once we can connect to the body, that's just— I love that. It's just the ticket.

Yeah, it really is. I mean, I was just working with a client of mine yesterday around this, and it was— his challenge was a little different, but like, his struggle is really like, okay, like, I understand the patterning. I especially understand my trauma. I've worked through those emotions. And like, I don't even know what it feels like to be in the present moment.

Hmm.

You know? And I was like, wow. Wow. Let's call him Tom. But I was like, Tom, yeah, that's the ticket. And he's like, how do I do that? Right? How do I go about actually understanding what it feels like to be grounded in this present moment? Because you're right, if you can do that, that is like the ultimate way of preventing a disease process.

Totally. It's all the Blue Zones. All the Blue Zones are like, everyone's like meditating. Everyone's just really present in their moment all the time.

Yeah. Yeah. And so I told him there's a specific process, breath practice, you can take him through. But really what it's about is taking the time to even have that realization, right? Getting out of your environment. And so kind of piggybacking on what I shared about going to Iquitos, Peru, in the middle of the Amazon and doing something really extreme, what it did for me was it completely got me outside my bubble. My cell phone didn't work. I wasn't going on the internet for, you know, a couple weeks on end. I was completely surrounded by strangers that then became my friends, and I unplugged. I unplugged. And so, you know, for this client, Tom, like I told him, you know, I don't have the answer for you because I'm not going to sit here and tell you I'm, I'm your guru and these, these are the emotions and this is the process, right? But it's like, what you got to do is take intentional conscientious time to just sit with yourself and be with yourself. I'm not even talking about meditating. Like, just go in a room without your phone, without your computer, the most purest sense of it all, and just sit and breathe. Not in a particular way, but just sit and breathe with yourself to create that space to even understand, all right, now that I've created enough of these spaces for myself, what do I want to fill it with? Right? What emotions, what feelings, what thoughts, what actions that come later. But yeah, it's— I think it's such a conundrum in our society right now where, especially with like this evolution of ChatGPT and being a private business owner, it's like, oh my God, we have so much technology and information at our hands, but nobody knows what to do with it. And people just get so overwhelmed by the process of it that they either like succumb to the matrix and just fall in line and like go on their merry way unconsciously, or they're in this rejection process and they're like, I'm anxious, I'm worried, I'm overwhelmed, and I don't know what to do. And it's like you're so plugged into something that you actually really don't have a lot of control over, and your nervous system's going crazy. So the best thing that I can recommend is like, how often are you just sitting with yourself?

Yeah, I love that you said that about it doesn't even have to be meditation. I always, with my clients, I'm like, just throw out the word meditation. Let's just call it— I just call it sitting in silence.

Yeah.

Like, just be with yourself. And I love using, like, your hands on your body and that kind of thing too for grounding. But yeah, I love that. It's, yeah, just be with yourself. And it's easier said than done. More people, apparently there's a study done that, like, people would rather die than sit with themselves in a room with nothing to do. Like, that's wild. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

I think that shows, like, the— how much we're suffering and how much dissociation that people have to use because they're suffering.

Totally. Yeah. It's not to say that, like, oh, people should just be sitting with themselves. It's like, no, like, they've got so much stuff and Because of the nature of the world, we are coping in whatever way we can. And there are tools, there are things that we can do to change that as well.

Well, Dr. Corey, I think the work that you do is beautiful because we're able to work with the autonomic nervous system, but also it gives the person something to do. I like transcendental meditation because I'm working on my mantra. there's something that I'm thinking about so that that empty void isn't just filled with anxiety or sadness or whatever. There's a directionality to it. And I know that one of your passions is helping people with breathwork. And so I was wondering, in the time that we have left together, if you can just share a little bit about that.

Yeah. So kind of picking up from the story about ayahuasca and the mother hitting me over the head with the 2x4, really the next step for me was getting into yoga. So I got into a lot of yoga in Arizona, which is where I was at the time. And then that really translated into finding some teachers that incorporated more of the breath, more what are called pranayama techniques, very simple mindfulness, like relaxation, getting yourself into the zone. And then it progressed from there. And so before I describe kind of what I do, I love to talk about the fact that breathwork is getting really popular right now. And people see a lot of things on social media. They see like people, you know, standing with their mantras and their mudras and, you know, Instagram, or they see people screaming and crying and their mascara flying off their face, right? And so it's like not all breathwork is the same. And I really take a stand to not poo-poo or shit on any forms of breathwork technique because I think we really need like all of them, a holistic approach. But breathwork could mean one thing to one person and one thing to another person. So let's talk about that. So let's think of breathwork as an umbrella term, okay? And so on one end of the umbrella where the rain's dripping off is what are the pranayama techniques. So those are ancient yogic practices. They've been around for 8,000 years. And what most people don't understand, which I found so fascinating when I got into yoga, is that The postures are secondary to the breath, and we focus so much on the postures, right? Warrior 1, Warrior 2, Reverse War. Like everyone's all about the postures, but those come secondary to the actual breath. And so yogic tradition is really a foundation around breath and breath practices. And so usually, for the most part, like I said, they're short, they're meditative, they focus. Focus more on the relaxation part of our nervous system. And then what's happened, I think, maybe like in the last like 20, 30 years, you start to see more breath practices that are a little more intense, a little bit more on the fitness side, maybe I would say. You hear about these figures— won't call them gurus— but you hear about these figures called like Wim Hof, right? So Wim Hof breathing, and that's based upon an ancient practice called Tummo from Tibetan monks. And so, he took on that breath practice, kind of made it his own, his own Wim Hof Method. And, a lot of it is focused around changing your physiology. And, he's done amazing things with the Guinness Book of World Records where people have had poisons injected into their bloodstream. And, with his breath practice, they've stimulated their immune system and caused that toxin to be inert, et cetera, et cetera. So, there's more physiologic, maybe more performance-based. And, those practices range anywhere from like 10 to maybe 20 minutes max. Then on the other end of the umbrella where the rain's dripping are what are called long-form conscious connected breathing practices. I can get into the history of it, but long story short, they've been around for a long time, and the modern movement of these types of practices really came from Stanislav Grof and Christina Grof Funny enough, a doctor and a yoga teacher, which is— I know my better half Jessica is in here right now, but I'm a doctor and she's a yoga teacher. So maybe we're in the future. I don't know. Maybe we're version 2.0 of that. But Stanislav Grof was really in the LSD and, yeah, the LSD movement and incorporating LSD and other psychedelics into therapy right around the '50s and '60s. And so long story short, there was a huge annexation of psychedelics within the psychological field. So it's like, can't use it anymore. And he was disheartened because he felt like he was getting such great results for his patients and clients. And so he went to the Esalen Institute with his wife and formulated this long-form breath practice because he knew With certain breathing patterns, you can actually stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, ramp up someone's nervous system, and get them into altered states of consciousness, very similar to using these types of psychedelic substances. So that's the umbrella, right? And I am a proponent of all of it. I think you need a mixture of the short practices. I also focus on breathing practices with exercise and physiology and whatnot. And I think it's really critical, especially right now with how overwhelmed people are, how confused they are, how plugged they are into the matrix, to give them long-form breath journeys so they can spend extended periods of time disconnected from the things that are actually causing them stress and anxiety and figure out who the heck they are. And so I've taken Stanislav Grof's practice. I've worked with him as a mentor, as well as some other breath practitioners and really tried to formulate, okay, what is the best way in which we can present these types of long-form journeys to the mass public without freaking them out thinking that I'm some type of guru and I'm going to take all their money and I'm going to turn it into this huge thing, but really focus on the physiology, the anatomy, as well as like the spiritual component of it so that people can have whether you want to call it a rite of passage, whether you want to call it for them to actually address their challenges in an internal way for them to get to the other side. I don't think there's enough of that going on right now. And, breathwork is a great alternative for people that aren't a good fit for psychedelics or other types of drug therapies and they want to still have those types of experiences. Yeah, long-form breath journey is the way to go. And that's what I've been doing for at least full-time now for the last 6 years.

What are the biggest results that you've seen in your own health journey as a result of the breathwork part?

Gosh, my facial structure looks different. I know it's been a while since you've seen me, but my jawline, my maxillofacial area muscles have thickened. I would say other benefits that I've really seen is my ability to connect with others. I've always very much been a lone wolf, and I've seen massive benefits with that. Also with my mother. So like I shared in the beginning, like me healing my mother there, it wasn't just like cut and dry. Okay, heal my mother. Now I heal myself. I had to go through a lot of processing around just resentment. of being that little 13-year-old kid having to take care of his mother in this unfortunate situation, and then feeling the burden of that carry all the way through medical school. It's a lot. And one of my biggest issues around this and emotions was I was a lone wolf. Even in medical school, I was the guy, sweatpants, sweatshirt, sit in the back corner and like maybe get pretty good grades, but like I'm not really talking to anybody. And so, especially with my mother, the biggest thing was I didn't realize how angry I was and I didn't realize how disconnected I was from my emotions. Speaking of long time, I hadn't cried for about 10 years up until the point of doing breathwork. And so, my first ever breathwork journey that I did, I didn't know what I was getting into, this long-form journey. I went up to do a retreat and really skeptical. And gave it 100%, you know, conscious connected breathing. We breathed for like quite a while, and I had this, this very spiritual experience where my grandfather who had passed away showed up, just showed up. And I had this full conversation with him about how I had been treating myself, how I'd been treating my mother, how I needed to really absolve myself of this. And let it go. And when that happened, I mean, you're talking just like waterworks central, you know. Um, it was very much so of like I had dammed up those tears for so long, and now they were all coming out at once. And it was such a profound spiritual moment for myself. I remember popping up, up off my mat, looking around at other people, being like, holy— Did, did everyone else experience this? And then the medical mind was just going crazy. I'm like, made that up. That was a psychosis. I passed out. I don't— and it really was such an enlightening moment for my healing. But also like, holy cow, if this is possible just with your breath, no drugs, no ayahuasca, nothing else, literally like being on plant medicine without the plant medicine, it's my duty. to try to bring this to the world in a bigger way, in a more legitimate way. And so, yeah, that was a big part of the journey for me with breathwork and how it all began.

I'm so moved by that.

Wow. Yeah, that's so cool. Yeah. And the cool part about breathwork, too, is you can, especially for beginners, with ayahuasca, all these other things, you can't get out of that. With breathwork, you could stop. Yeah, you can have a little bit of control. Yeah.

Yeah. And I'd love to talk about that just from the perspective of— because, like, you know, people always wonder, like, is breathwork right for me? Or, like, is there any contraindications? Absolutely. It's not for everybody. And absolutely there's contraindications. But what I love about breathwork so much is it doesn't really matter necessarily what the trauma has been or what they would desire to work on, as deep or dark as that is. You have control of your breath. So even in the middle of the experience, you know, me and Jessica will take people through— like, it's like a whole journey. Like, you come do an experience with us, it's kind of like a rock concert in a way, but it's a healing rock concert. And so we take you along this whole journey, this, this whole visualization, and there's music and all these other aspects to it. But letting people know that, like, it's really about— What I found, you know, after doing this for, like, well over 20,000 people is, like, It's, it's really about what you just mentioned, which is like you have control of your breath. So no matter what that issue is, it'll probably come to the surface during this journey. So, you know, be ready for it, but play with your edges, you know. So if it ever at any moment seems like too much, you can always back off. You can seal the lips, you can slow down your breath. But when you are ready, I really suggest that you dive back in. And what I've found is it's almost like Turning these traumas, this past, these negative belief systems, going from this like big black wolf that like people are so afraid to even address, they're just going to do anything in the world to avoid, to coming to one of our breathwork journeys where, yeah, we're going to tell you straight up, like, if this has been a big thing in your past, it's probably going to be like looking at a mirror and you can't look away. But this time it gets to be different because you're in a safe setting. We got your back. And you have control of your breath. And so if you have control over your breath, you have control over your life, your emotions, and how you interact. And so playing with those edges, it goes from this big black scary wolf to like kind of an elephant in the room. And then they realize like, oh, it's just a little teddy bear, and I can see all of it, and I can let that go. And that's what I love about the— this, um, this practice so much.

The, the reclaiming agency part, I think, is We can't talk about that enough because that's a big thing with trauma. We somatically re-experience. We create these stages, and then people in our present life are actors on our stage, and we're just recreating it and recreating it. And so EMDR is a way to go in and reprocess that, or different natural remedies. But what I love about what you're talking about is that sense of personal power. Like you said, you could close the lips, you could take a pause. You are holding onto the control, which for some people, that's what they needed. They come from trauma, from powerlessness, and to take back their power in such a profound way. And it doesn't have to cost you tons of money. Everywhere you go, you have the breath.

Yeah.

So I think that's huge. And I really want to emphasize that. And you mentioned that you and your partner are— you help walk people through that. So tell us a little bit about how people can learn more and maybe work with you.

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, as far as like reaching out to us, super easy. We're just The Healing Couple on everything, whether it's Instagram, the web, Twitter, you name it. We're just, you know, The Healing Couple or The Healing Couple underscore. And, you know, if, if you're interested, I always recommend just coming to one of our monthly online workshops. So we do one every month. I think you had mentioned this podcast is coming out in May. So the next one is going to be May 23rd, 4:00 to 5:30 PM PST, and it's going to be all about abundance, actually. So every— it's a different topic. And so we're going to be talking about not just financial abundance, but abundance in all aspects of your life. And so what I'll do is love to just offer to your community a discount code. So we probably just do like BREATHE100, and you can put that in the show notes and you can come experience what a class is all about. And that's usually— yeah, I'd say that's the greatest way is to dip your toes in. We have programming, we have teacher training, all that kind of stuff. But I think the best way is to really come experience it yourself because what's so unique about breathwork as far as a modality is there's really nothing to compare it to because it's really all about your own inner experience. And so if you're ready to have a different experience that's outside of your anxiety, outside of your depression, Outside of your overwhelm, I really recommend it because there's really nothing else like it.

I love that. This has been so absolutely incredible, and we'll be sure to put the the way to get in touch with you in the show notes and the the code. So that's B R E A T H one hundred. Yeah. Or E A T H E.

B R E A T H E. Breathe one hundred. That's what I'll put it. I'll put it in the system. Yeah.

Breathe 100. Awesome. Thank you, Dr. Corey, so much for being here. It's been such a gift, such a blessing. I was really moved. I respect and admire you so much. Thank you for the work you're doing.

Yeah. Thank you so much. This was wonderful.

Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

So we'll see you soon.

Bye.

Bye.