18. Dr. Christian Gonzalez: Impact of Stored Emotions On Health, How to Release Emotional Traumas, Wellness from Within + More

For people who are listening, like, come on now. If this isn't a signal right now, you gotta come to your place to be. Begin to feel your heart. Begin to feel who you need to forgive. Begin to feel the anger. You need to feel the sadness, the guilt, the shame. All of that to be a more expanded version of who you are for not only yourself, but your future children or current children.

So shifting from doing to being, for expansion and deepest healing.

Your healing is not coming and doing. There's no other protocol you need to do. It's crazy, because 10 years ago, I was a naturopathic doctor getting. We're always looking, I will say, for healing, you have to be wanting me.

The following is an operation podcast production. All right. I'm so excited to do this with you today, Dear friend Christian, Dr. G. Do you have a preference? No.

I don't know.

Did Dr. Did media make up? Dr. G, did you?

No, I think we did.

Okay.

Dr. Gonzalez is fine.

What's that?

Dr. Gonzalez is fine.

Okay. All right. So excited to be here with you today, dear friend Christian. Dr. Gonzalez. I adore your energy. I've known that since the first day we met, actually. There's just something about you and your energy that I just gravitated to. I don't even remember how we met, do you?

No, but it means a lot because I know you're sensitive to energy. So this is really. That's a real meaningful compliment.

Yeah. You know, when you meet someone, you know, you just want to be around them a little bit more. So.

Yeah, we met through Jason. Our friend Jason Goldberg.

Absolutely. Who doesn't meet through Jason? Jason and Drew Pruitt, the two connectors. Right.

That's a gift. Some people are connectors, and some people are just, like, kind of just showing up. Yeah, they're hub connectors.

Absolutely. So there's a lot that I want to talk to you about today. So first, let's just start. This podcast is all about ancient wisdom and just getting rooted in wellness today. And when we think about this aspect of rooting, you know, it's about rooting in yourself and your health and your life and your inner knowingness for your body to heal. So I often love just asking, what helps you feel really rooted in yourself and in your life and why?

What helps me feel most rooted? I know if I don't do any rituals in the morning, I'm unrooted, and it only takes a day. So, you know, I'm the type of. Ayurvedically, I'm a vata Right. So I'm flowing around my man. I'm in the clouds most of the time. So I need grounding more than, you know, most people. So any connection to Earth. And that's why I lived in Topanga and Ojai, to be around nature. So sometimes when I'm out here, I need to go extra hard. So putting my feet on the ground, laying on the ground is very important for me. I think it has to do with the elements. Sun, wind, and cold does not work well with me.

Yeah.

But as long as I have time to stop those thoughts that we all have. But, you know, fatas may be predisposed to having more of or flowing, you know, just needing that anchorage. Yeah. There's some of the things that I do. So meditating, breathing. Definitely dancing. Yeah, I gotta dance. And you know what's grounding for me, even when I rap.

Yeah.

I'll do some freestyle rap because it's grounded, because it's channeled. I'm not thinking about it. So anytime I'm turning off my mind and getting artistic or connecting to Earth.

That'S the most grounding channels and creativity.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's a childlike feeling almost. Right. It's like freedom. And can you describe an emotion around that? Like, when you're doing those things, what's the primary emotion that comes up for you?

Excitement.

Yeah.

Yeah. There's true joy. Right. Like, you talk about childlike.

Yeah.

When we were. Because we're removing all those artistic expectations. Like, you know, I'm not painting, but if I was painting, I'd be like, oh, man, I went out of the lines. Or it doesn't look exactly like the photo that I'm trying to mimic. Well, when I'm rapping or freestyling, it's like, well, that was terrible, but that was funny. So here I am giggling, and sometimes like, oh, my God, that was amazing. Should I record that? You know, like, see, you see, like, the whole expanse of it. The whole spectrum I'm falling into without any intention other than to get out of my own way.

What's so cool about that is that typically when I think about getting rooted in wellness, and a lot of people will bring up mindfulness practices to get them there, but they think it has to be about just peace and ease. But it can be about excitement and joy and, like, feeling elated and stuff like that also. So I love that you're one of the first guests to actually bring that up. So thank you.

Yeah, we need joy. We need joy. Like, look, I've been Channeling some stuff for years. And one of the main themes that I come out when I channel and write is that the most important emotion for ourselves, health, is joy. And when a cell is in joy, it's opening and allowing the own life force to flow through. We call it chi and Chinese medicine and naturopathic medicine, it's called a vis, viz, but it just flows through. And that's a life force that animates us from you Roadkill.

Yeah.

But if we're not allowing in joy to flow through our bodies and allowing ourselves to receive joy, then we're not epigenetically activating the very genes that bring health to our body.

Yeah, we're in contraction.

We're in contraction. And if you're not in a state of joy, you ain't going to be in a state of love because you're going to be completely disconnected to your heart. So the most important thing I say is like, hey, can we connect to that part of us that feels the most joy? I know when I was a kid, I danced joy, I played, ran around, screamed in the backyard joy. Right? I ain't screaming in the backyard like a crazy man. I'm going to Venice. They might think I'm homeless. Crazy man. But still, like, I'll still sing if I need to, rap, if I need to paint, if I need to definitely dance. But play, play music. All of those things, man, I can quickly come out of joy if I don't do those things. So that those are other things that I didn't mention are very grounding for me. Emotional.

I love it. This is like the essence. One of the inspirations for this podcast is to talk about that feeling of expansion. And really the foundation of health has to start there. But before we dive into all of that, I think a lot of people in today's world, especially in la, when we think about getting rooted or getting healthy, we think of it as these checklists that we have to follow and do every single day that a lot of people don't even know that the things that they're scheduling might even be the things that are uprooting them that might be the source of. Of their inflammation or decision making around things that aren't the best for them, their health and stuff like that. So, you know, you mentioned if you don't do those things, you might feel uprooted. What are the things that cause you to feel uprooted and why?

Man, I. I'm very easily distracted, you know, and I'm very easily, like, doing something, not completing it and going on to the next thing and then completely forgetting about the other thing. I can very easily get overwhelmed with a lot of things. So uprooting is if I get up, got to get out of bed, run somewhere, and then I'm just doing thing after thing after thing. And I don't take any moments to just stop because. Because. And that's. That's by my own mistake, sometimes I'll just keep going. You know, I'm a New Yorker, too. Like, I'm a doer, so being is something that I had to actually work uphill to do. So if I don't allow myself to be, I will be uprooted by. Oh, my God, I hate Zoom calls. I hate being on zoom calls. Yeah, it's like, I'll put it on mute, and then I'll just, like, do other things, and then I'll come back and be like, yeah, yeah. You know, I. I. Yeah, I heard that. You know, the thing about that is, you know, it's the same thing I did in school when I would, like, fall asleep in class, because I just hate sitting down, and I hate sitting down and just talking or hearing just logistical stuff is the most uprooting things for me. Black and white stuff is the most uprooting. Back end stuff is the most uprooting things for me is why people do it, because I can't. It is like, you have to know what your weaknesses and strengths are.

Absolutely.

You have to know what brings you light and what really drains you down. Anything that has to do with numbers or logistics drains me. My life force. My face is pale after it. I got bags under my eyes after it. I'm exhausted, so I'm like, okay, well, how can I not do more of that in my workspace? It's essential. But some of the things I don't.

Want to do, it's so good. Every single person. So these are, like, foundational questions that I'm asking everybody, but everyone's response is different. And what I'm realizing is, like, I'm really hoping that people take home the fact that everyone's healing protocol looks different. Okay. You're a doctor, and you're coming at us saying that creativity is now, like, one of the most foundational things that you can do to awaken joy and stuff like that. So I really hope that people understand that, because I think that there needs to be an unveiling or unlearning of a lot of things that are being preached for what it takes to feel rooted in wellness in society. When it could be completely your own. Right?

Yeah. You know, listen, I did, you know, I remember doing. Three years ago, I did this podcast. It was dang, I don't know. It was a dear media podcast, True Skinny Confidential. I was sitting there and I was. And they were like, well, what are all your rituals? And you know, it's cut in half. They did a blog. This. This doctor has three hours of rituals. And then I realized, like, the other hour and a half or even like two hours was just things that I was doing. I was like, I need to do this to feel healthy. Let me go outside of me and make this drink or take all of these supplements or do all of these biohacks. And at the end of the day, like, none of that compares to me freestyle rapping in my shower, putting my feet on the ground and dancing. Like, none of that. You know what I mean? Oh, wow. You mean to tell me it's free and a lot more simple and the answer is yes. So when you say unlearn, that's where we have to go. We sort of have to. And I say this as a naturopathic doctor, we have to unlearn that all of the things that we're looking for are outside of us. Yeah, we have to. Because I've seen people so desperate looking for the next X, Y and Z, whether it's supplement, whether it's biohack, whether it is the next best doctor to tell them what's wrong with them. My God, ain't nothing wrong with you.

Right.

What was wrong is we're living in so much tension because we're not allowing ourselves to just be fully expressed on who we are.

And so what do you think? You know, I really watch this kind of transformation, especially through your social media, the fact that you're so open to sharing this, which is such a gift. But if true health really revolves around, you know, a healthy mind and spirit, what do you mean by that? That, like, for people who are just like, so foreign to this concept of Ayurveda and spirit and chi, and here you are saying that, you know, well, these are your healing practices. What do you mean by that?

Yeah, you know, like, look, I came out of school only on nutrition and I was like, plant based everything. I built a lot of big. Part of my following in the beginning was plant based stuff. And I stand by us eating a variety of fruits and vegetables and, and seeding our microbiome and the implication of our gut microbiome for overall health. And then I ended up after that, talking a lot about toxins and I found a passion for environmental medicine and I talked about what should be in your home and what shouldn't be in your home. And that's important because what you're breathing in and putting on your skin is very important. But at the end of the day, before I transitioned to like this real understanding, it was like, well, what does resiliency mean? Because if your stress bucket is full, your nervous system is dysregulated, you're in a state of contraction, you're living in sympathetic. The, that's a problem. It doesn't matter if you eat vegan carnivore keto, that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you have the best, most expensive supplements. It definitely doesn't matter if you're getting peptides or doing all these biohacks. Those are drops in the bucket. Because the state of your nervous system, the state of your being is the most important thing for your health because it's the state of your being that is causing all the downstream effects. For example, if I'm super contracted because I'm not allowing myself to get as angry as I want to be, right? Because I grew up in a home that didn't allow me to get as angry as I want to be, that's a problem. Because that state of contraction over time is informing my nervous system that it is not safe to be fully and comprehensively who I am. And our state of being, our God given right, is to be who we are. You have kids, you know that they're fully expanded in who they are for better or for worse, right? They're really loud and they're really sad and they're really happy and they have all the heightened 99 out of 100 emotion, full range, right? So that state of contraction that we live in is informing our nervous system that something's not safe. Whether it's the environment, outside environment, or your relationship to self. If that's not safe, you are going to teach your nervous system to be in a state of sympathetic. Sympathetic dominance is going to create immune dysfunction down the line, which is going to create hormonal dysfunction, inflammation down the line. And then, then, only then are we beginning to see the manifestation of diseases. And we're going, well, why do I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis? Where this come from? Where did my autoimmune disease come from? Where is, why is this pain not going away? How did I get arthritis, Brain fog, all of these issues, diseases, hypertension, gut issues, and we, we, we go, what happened what happened was years ago your nervous system was in this state of contraction. So the deeper question is, what is holding us back from being the full extent of who we are as adults? And when you start doing that digging, you start uncovering that there's a lot of parts of us that are very much so unlovable and unwitnessable according to us. And we don't want to show them to other people. So it's so painful for us to express. And I would say for most people, most people are walking around not knowing that that is the root of all of their issues.

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Yeah, look, it's important because it is a blind spot. I would say it's probably the biggest blind spot in all of health and wellness. Biggest blind spot because it's a blind spot that is independently scary. We're all scared to look at those parts of us. The truth is, it's an illusion. The truth is you're very much so allowed to be who you are. You're a full grown adult and you're not in a household that you grew up in that may have been traumatic. You may have attracted a partner, not by coincidence, who is mimicking the traumatic household that you lived in. That's not by mistake. And it's important for us to look at that. But for all intents and purposes, you are an adult who has full autonomy over how they express themselves. But the thing about this is that we've learned through life to express the parts of us that are most safe, that are most lovable. And unfortunately, those definitions contract more and more over time. Now you may find a partner who may be a godsend and says, I love you for every single part of you and you can be who you are and my heart can hold all of that and I'm not going to judge you. And oftentimes when we get that level of love which we call unconditional love, it's too much for us to experience. So we start self sabotaging and we start pushing that person away. I've done it. I've had partners who've done it. Yeah, and we all guilty of that. But we won't attract that person or the love that we deserve. Until we see all those parts of us. Why do we hold those parts of us away? Because it's scary. Because it's scary for us to be as big and loud as our anger is, or as vulnerable and shaky as our fear is, or as deep and sorrowful as our grief is. Yeah, right. Or as. As held in and. And so ashamed as our shame is. Right. And guilty. Remembering all of those things that we sort of knew wasn't us, but we still did and we went against our own integrity. As human beings. We all live with these things because it's a human experience. We have all the colors of the rainbow. But unfortunately, one of the banes of existence we live in in health and wellness is that we look at just be the light, right? And we have all these self help books or just you are love. And everyone's like, what the fuck does that even mean? Yeah. The truth of the matter is love is way beyond that light. It is also all of your darkness that you're not looking at.

Absolutely right.

And when you get to hold all of that, then your nervous system is informed. What's happening? I'm safe to be more of me. And then all of a sudden that tension, which was at 100 out of 100 now is at like 45 out of 100 now. You're giving your nervous system, your immune system, your hormones, the resources it needs to begin healing. That's why in the practice I've done, I've seen spontaneous miracle healings, like people with back pain since they were 12 years old, gone in an hour. Full body eczema, gone in two days. Thyroid issues, knock on wood. Cancer. I'm still following through, but it's in remission. Like why? Why? What's happening in the body? Yeah, it's that. It's these people who come to me, they're going, I've seen all the doctors I know, all the diets I've done, all of the fancy instruments and devices, right? I've worked on my mindset. But what's happening in your body? And when I say mindset, that's like you and I talking. And every day I'm your mindset coach and I'm telling you think these things and don't forget this perspectives and communicate like this. And you feel really confident. But if it's in your body, all that's for naught. Totally, right? What more do we have to talk about? Because I promise you this, your body does not care about the story of your trauma. It doesn't care about the details when.

It happened when it happened.

It doesn't care. You care. We care and we identify with that and we hold on to that. Your body only cares. Are you allowing me to express what is being repressed? That wasn't allowed in that moment or moments or not? And if you're not allowing it, your body's like, damn, you're not allowing it. If you are allowing it, it's like, whoa, what's happening? Let's express it. Because your body only knows one thing and it's homeostasis, it's healing, it's balanced, and it's always self correcting. We, our ego, our mind, our protection of who we think we are, the identities, the identifications that we believe ourselves to be. Because everyone viewing and listening, you're not fully you. You believe you're you. It's one part of you. You've defined yourself to be this person. But I promise you, you're more expansive than that. And that person, unfortunately, you define yourself to be is the very thing that is holding your nervous system back from expressing those emotions. Yeah, that's, that's the, the crux that we find. So the question is, can you allow yourself to expand who you think you are? That means if you're all put together and you're pretty and you don't really cry that much, but sometimes you cry, but you definitely don't get yourself. You don't let yourself cry, you don't let yourself get ugly, you don't let yourself get dirty, then your anger is never going to come out. Because I promise you, anger is the least sexy emotion. It is crazy.

Well, it's not safe to show it.

We were told not to. It's not safe to show. And imagine men listening or people who have a partner, they never seen their partner cry. Or maybe once they've seen him cry. How much pain? You think that guy doesn't want to cry? That man is living with a ton of pain. But the man has identified through his life experience. Maybe his dad going, you're a big boy, you don't cry now. Or whatever experiences, maybe sports, anything that has imbalanced this masculinity for this man, he. It does. It's not because he doesn't have access to those tears. He does. His identity that he's created. I am John and I am John and I don't cry. I was guilty of this. I didn't cry for 10 years after my mom passed because I said, oh, I just don't really cry. I'm not really a crier. I identified with that until I de. Identified with that and allowed my body to process. And only then did all those parts of me start coming online and bringing me to, I guess the person I am today, which still needs a lot of work, but I feel really good.

Well, it's funny. Well, first of all, the piece on crying. So the best way that I describe to a lot of my clients who feel like, oh, crying's a sign of weakness, like, I can't do that. No one can see me doing it. I think it's often a way of your spirit saying, oh my God, he's finally listening. She's finally listening. And to have a different approach on it, right. It's like, oh, it's like it's just something that needs to be released from my body. Then there's more freedom there. Right. But I'm curious for you, so if you're a trained doctor, was there a pivotal moment where you knew you had to shift?

Yeah, yeah. I worked in cancer, so I came, I did my residency in oncology. I've seen 2,000 plus breast cancer patients. I seen a lot of cancer, a lot of death. And my thought process was essentially this. When I left the residency and I had more freedom to work the way that I wanted to, I said that I'll never forget. I had a whiteboard behind me and I wrote down all of the evidence based causes of cancer. What do we know in science? Some genetic stuff, epigenetic stuff. And I said, what do we. What do I have a hunch. But there's not enough science. And those were big things where the environmental toxins and emotions. And back when I did this, I was wearing a white coat and I knew that there was more evidence for environmental toxins. There's not much evidence. You can't quantify energy being released by the nervous system moment to moment. Right. This is a. This is beyond what we can see with our eyes. So I went down the environmental medicine route and I did that for a few years and I did it all on the podcast and I went on podcasts and talked about this. And that plays a major part because at the end of the day, the environment plays a huge role. Not only when we talk about stress, there's chemical stress. That's environmental toxins. Those are things that are stressing your nervous system too. There's physical stress if you're overworking out or get into an accident. And then there's the mental emotional stress, stress. So I didn't touch the emotional one until the environmental one transitioned. And I Go. There's something more because we're inevitably going to work in spaces that have voc paint, that have rugs that are off gassing, new upholstered chairs. You have plywood with glues and adhesives. We're going to be hit with that.

Yeah.

The bigger question is like, okay, if we reduce that as best as possible, we're still going to be hit with stuff. We're going to go to places. How do we build our resiliency? And then that's the moment when I said, okay, resiliency has to do with your nervous system's ability to adapt. Well, what's holding back its ability to adapt? What's holding back its flexibility, what's making it tight and contracted? And its emotions, it's repressed emotions. It's the stress, the mental emotional stress, not day to day, but that we lived with, that we've been living with. So then the bigger question is, okay, so for us to be more resilient around environmental toxins, or for us to have more energy to work out to us to have more energy that we can eat crappy, maybe one full day of the week and we're fine on Monday. Right. All of that stuff counts on resiliency. And that's where the nervous system flexibility comes in. And that's where the emotional healing. And that's why I said, ding, ding, ding. And I went with that theory. And I mean, I work for two years doing emotional healings. We do group ones. I train people to do this, and that's been transformative. That's been like, whoa. These are people who are doing. This is real healing. I remember we did our first launch in the cohort, and one of the girls said, this should be like a new medicine. And it is a new medicine because we're looking at people holistically. We're not just physical beings or mental. We have an emotional component that has been long, long neglected. And now it's time to come back to that in order for people to come back to their healing.

This is not the way that our ancestors viewed healing, really, like a holistic approach to everything. And, you know, when I think about, you know, the clients that I work with, especially over the past five, 10 years, never before have I seen so many people doing the right things. Okay, so they're, they're lowering their toxin exposure, they're eating the right foods, they're doing their functional lab testing, they're working with a personal trainer, they have their chefs, but they're still waking up. And whether it's inflammation that they have or they just don't feel good, they're not achieving their goals. There's always something more to it. Right. And, you know, usually when I get them talking to their lives, nine times out of 10, most people will end up in tears because they're talking about something that's completely unrelated to health and the protocol that they're on. And more so a memory within the body or memory that they feel like, oh, you know, something that still feels very alive. Right. And this is where I'm really excited about medicine today, because we've always looked at healing as this dualism. Even in the world of, like, yoga and mindfulness, I think the way that we teach it or the way that it's perceived is that there's a dualism between mind and body. Even the point that you brought up around, like having a mindset expert. Right. We're working exclusively with the mind without the body. So there's constantly the separation of mind and body. Right. Well, we know that there's this intelligence and wisdom to the body, not to the mind.

Yeah, right, yeah.

So can you just describe then, what is emotional trauma release?

Emotional trauma release is the practice of, for many people, for the first time and probably their adult lives, moving away from their head and into their body. So it's the practice, first of teaching a person what it feels like to be one safe with your own self, which is one of the hardest things for people. That's why we distract ourselves. That's why we are on our phones all the time, or making plans all the time, or overworking all the time.

Looking for protocols and gurus all the time.

Gurus all the time. Right. That's not by mistake. That's your ego protecting you from going inside of what's there to fulfilling what's there. So it's the practice of allowing the space for someone to come back into contact with themselves, usually their heart, that they need to feel into, not only with their own self and safety, but it's with another. Because trauma happens oftentimes through dysregulation from another. You know, like you're walking in the street and someone goes to take your purse. That's traumatic. That's another person trying to take your purse. And it's. It's, what the heck? I feel so unsafe in this alleyway in Santa Monica. Right. So co regulation, feeling safe with another. Oftentimes it's both. Oftentimes people don't feel safe with themselves and they don't feel safe in the world. So what we're doing is we're creating signals in the body that is telling the body that I am safe, I am safe. Remember, isn't just I'm safe with, with myself, it's I'm also safe with this person next to me. So allowing that safety to drop into the body so people can begin to start feeling. So what it does is it brings people more awareness into their body, having more awareness on to what's where. It's a combination of also manipulation techniques with the hands, it's a combination of breathing, it's a combination of visualization prompts, but all of them masterfully put together to put people into that state. Now I would say If I saw 10 people, you know, of the general population, I would say probably seven would be able to get into their body. The rest of them would be. I'd have to see them multiple times because it would be so hard for them to get into their body because they're so in their heads. And I've seen it like you can just feel the energy when someone's in their body after you, you know, you're getting them in there. Oh, they're dropped in. This is going to be an easy one, you know, and you know, 10 minutes later, their whole body's shaking and they're expressing. But there's a lot of people, I would actually say maybe, maybe six out of 10. The rest of these people, let's say 40% of people, it's so hard to get into their body because their ego takes over. It pulls them up into the head and says the real underlying message is don't go into the body. It's too unbearably painful, but it's masked and voiced as well. Am I doing this right? Or maybe in your own head? What do I have to do later? I really have to go pick up. That's the mask. The truth of the matter is your ego goes, no, no, no, no, no, you are not going into this. And usually the picture I paint for people is this. It's like before we do this, if you have a beautiful mansion that has the most comfy, cozy, most beautiful interior design that you've ever imagined, that is what you want out of life internally. Like you would die to live in there. But you're choosing to live in this rinky dink tent in front of the lawn of the mansion and it's got holes in it and it's. And it's raining and there's a little rat that passed by, but we'd much rather live there. Because every time you walk up to that mansion and you open the door, you hear scary sounds and you go, nope, nope, no, no. I tried this last year. There's no way I'm going back in there. I'm going back to my rinky dink tent, and I'm just going to. I'm not going to thrive. I'm just going survive.

Yeah, safe there.

It's safe there. And we've taught ourselves that, and our body has adjusted that, or ego has adjusted us to that way. But the truth of the matter is, those sounds that you hear are just parts of you. There is the really scary, sad part of you and the really scary, angry part of you and guilty and shameful part of you. Those parts are very much so alive. And you're not hearing ghosts in there. You're hearing yourself. So what I do as a practitioner, I teach my practitioners, is, well, I hold your hand and I say, hey, listen, I got a light. We're gonna go in together. But I can't go fully into that room. That's your decision. I walk you to the main. The main, you know, hallway or something, foyer. And then you can go and do your thing. But I'm here. You ain't gonna die. Feels like you might die because it's so painful and overwhelming, but you will be good. And here's the most beautiful thing. When people undergo these processes, there's a part of them that they've been desperately looking for that's on the other side.

Yeah.

So oftentimes I'll hear things like this. Oh, my God. Is this. Is this what it feels like to be clear? I'm so clear. I know. Oh, my God. I have answers to everything. Sometimes I'll feel. I'll see someone crying, and they'll go, oh, my God. I just feel love. Is this what it feels? My heart? I can love again. I feel like I feel happy again. I feel so excited again. I'm so excited about life. It's because joy, joy and love, the version that is imprinted on a specific person that is individualized to them, starts being expressed. So on the other side of all these parts of you that are really dark is the parts of you that are lighter. Why? It's because you can't. It's proportionate. You can't go 10% in the dark and 50% of the light. The more dark you go into, the more your light expands. So you get to feel more of your lightness as you can access more of that darkness. You don't have to Live in it. But the beauty is when you see those emotions that were so deeply repressed and unwitnessable and unlovable by you, you can express them a lot easier and a healthier way because all of a sudden, you've unlocked that chamber and now that gas is moving. So now when you say, I never cry. Oh, you might be able to cry now. I don't get angry. It doesn't mean you're going to freak out in the middle of Whole Foods in front of people, but you'll have access to your anger. So when you get home, you can shake that out. You can scream it out into a pillow. You can punch a pillow. Yeah, that's okay, everyone. You can do all those things and you have better access. That, for me, is what health is. The embodiment of your full darkness and full light. When I hear any other definitions of health, I'm not interested. I've heard every definition. I've been a doctor for more than 12 years now. I'm tired of it. I go, for me, this is the highest level of health, embodying who you meant to be. Your soul. Your soul coming through. Because when you're full embodiment of dark and light, your soul comes out real hard. You're in your purpose, you're in your passion. You're living, serving humanity. That's. I mean, that's what's. That's not health. I don't know what it is. You might call it enlightenment. I call it health.

Yeah. And it's not even enlightenment. And I don't even like the word becoming or unveiling. It's simply remembering.

Remembering.

It's remembering who you are. So this is so important to me, and I really want people to take this away just in terms of understanding. So the way that I'm understanding, the way they're talking about these. These thoughts. Right. There are patterns or belief systems that we adopt from early childhood as a reflection to, you know, I need to do this to be loved. I need to do this to be safe. Mommy or daddy says, oh, you're a good girl or good boy. So that becomes the pattern that you adopt. So as we grow up, this ego, this intellect gets in the way. It's like constant chatter in our mind. But are you saying then the illness can really prevent us from going deeper when we buy into the story?

Yeah, the illness is. Is a gateway. The illness is our body telling us, you ain't right.

It's information.

It's information. It's not. You're not a Victim to your illness. Your body is way too smart for you to be a victim to your illness. The body creates illness for a reason, even cancer. And I know that's a hard pill to swallow, right? Like, how can we heal if we're, if we're victims, if we're not in line with our, if we're not understanding our body's here to communicate with us, to bring alignment to us, to say something is off, then. Then what are we doing? We're not victims to this reality. We have the power to change. We have the power to heal. So those thought processes happen early on. You know, if anyone could tune in, viewing or listening. It's like if you have an abusive father who's verbally abusive or even worse, physically abusive or sometimes even equally as worse, and let's say the mom was the, was receiving all of this abuse, right? For the first six years of your life, you ain't going to know what's happening. You're going to know that there's bad stuff happening. But you might cry, but you're not going to be able. Your ego is not going to be online enough where you have that autonomy to go, I am in relation to this, right? So you're just being a kid, right? So you might get those signals early on in your nervous system. This isn't safe. You might cry. But ultimately, as we hit around the age of seven, that ego comes online. So now I'm little Johnny in relation to this. So now you can decide. This is when all parents, this is when kids start going, I want to cross the street, street. I want to wear this outfit. I'm going to. They start individualizing their identity. That's not by mistake. We need that to go through this human experience. But the truth of the matter is, is that this abusive father, now you get to experience this father being angry, abusive, verbally painful, inflicting it on the mom. What happens when you become independently angry over something else? And you know that that emotion, you might not even call it anger as a kid or you might, you know that that energy, charge of emotion isn't safe because when dad does that, mom does this, and when mom does this, she disconnects from the family. And then I feel all alone. That's a problem. So now all of a sudden we know that that emotion or that energy, the emotion isn't safe to express. So guess what we do as kids, we don't do it. We hold it. And this is important for people to understand. We sacrifice our authentic expression for survivability It's a biological imperative we have as children. We need to survive because ultimately the signal to our system is if I become angry as a kid and express that I will not get food, I will die, right? We're not seven years old going, you know, my dad probably has a lot of generational trauma and my mom, you know, she doesn't really use her throat shock. We don't talk about, let me show.

Up in this way.

So let me show up in this way. What we do is as children we hold, we sacrifice, we do it for survivability. And we shame ourselves because a lot of the time we believe that we're.

The reason and we identify with those things growing up. And that becomes who we are and.

It becomes who we are. So with that shame that we live, it's one of the first emotions that we hold in as children is shame. You know, we used to be naked and now we have to wear clothes. You know, there's shame that we start living in. And that's probably the deepest emotion, I would say for most people. Absolutely scariest is, I would say anger. A lot of people are scared of anger, but shame is when they get to see that how in shame they've been living. But we hold these emotions and the crazy thing is that we begin to shape our identity as we get older, let's say in our teens. No, I don't really get angry. I'm just a sweet. Oh, little Johnny, he's so sweet. Or Johnny, now he's sweet, he's a sweet guy. Now he gets into. Now he, now he's in relationships, he's friend zoned all of a sudden because he's a sweet guy, he's a nice guy, but he's not in touch with what that part of his anger, right? That real charge. So now he becomes a people pleaser. Now he has no boundaries at all. And now he's low key, resentful. And now he's attracting people in his life who are angry. So why is Johnny got this girlfriend or this wife who's really shitty to him? That's not by mistake. The body and soul are attracting someone so they can finally express their own anger in a healing mechanism, in a healing way, right? So this is not by mistake, this is why angry people attract angry people. People pleasers attract angry people too. Because they are the scariest people. To me, they're the people who have a smile and I see so much pain behind their eyes and they're like, hey, is everything okay? And I'm like, is everything okay with you?

Right?

Like, what's happening when inside it, you can feel that turmoil, the more sensitive and intuitive you are. So I say all of that to say, like, it's okay. It's okay. The identities we've created, we have different levels and different flavors of emotions that weren't allowed. Maybe one household, anger was very much so allowed, but maybe sadness wasn't. Maybe you're not allowed to be scared, right? Or maybe you're sexually repressed. Whether it's culturally, societally, parentally, we're all sexual beings, and a lot of women are really repressing their own true embodiment of their sexuality. They're really scared. That manifests in the womb with tons of menstrual issues, infertility. Like, I seen this woman come in. She was infertile for three years. She was about to do ivf. This was the last thing she did. She came to me, we did it, and a month and a half later, she got pregnant. I still have the email. I said, you better name your son Christian. But why? Because she had the energy of anger and sadness from something that happened in college that she never processed in her body that was in her womb, stuck, holding back, holding back, receiving, literally, her husband during sex. She was unconsciously closing her legs during sex and not even knowing it.

Oh, my gosh.

Do you see what I mean? Like, this is what I'm saying. This is what I'm saying. We give our body signals and we forgot. We've given it over 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago, and now we're living in it and so, so uncomfortable, and we don't know why. And now we have disease and we're like, what's happening?

Yeah.

See, there's a bigger picture to health that we're not talking about. And it's. And it's this approach.

There's so much to unpack there. And I'm so excited, you know, partially because I feel like I'm doing. We talked about this before the show. I feel like I'm doing my greatest healing now, separating from all of the. What I was trained and taught to do, and finally doing the work within, I think, also as women, to your point, where when I thought about this idea of safety, I would say that I would feel. I felt safe with my husband or, you know, I was relying on him to help me feel safe within my own body when I couldn't even feel safe in my own body. And the more that I uncovered. About a year ago, I started sharing with my clients that you know, the most consistent compliment that I've had since I was a little girl. Oh, Moni, you're so calming and soothing. Your voice is so calming and so soothing. And I'll never forget, I met this one energy worker and she's like, okay, so you seem really calming on the outside. Why are you ticking time bomb on the inside? In that moment, I was like, oh, my God, someone sees me. Like, someone really saw and felt. And then I realized, like, me being calming and soothing in my house growing up, that was a survival mechanism for me. Like, I had to be calming and soothing because the external environment was, like, kind of treacherous and a little bit scary. Right. So. And yet I feel like the deepest parts of my soul crave and long for the actual feeling or embodiment of calming and soothing. And to that point, and what I want to break down what you discussed is a lot of people will search for, okay, Dr. G will help me get to a moment in my childhood. I can't remember it. I don't really have any big trauma that happened. You know, I grew up in a safe house. I wasn't abused, I wasn't assaulted. We did fairly well. You know, I don't really have any trauma. So how do I. How do I deserve to, you know, to suffer? How can I identify with trauma? So, so do you want to break down trauma and what it means to people who've actually experienced it, who have specific moments versus trauma to the public, who it's like, well, no, I'm okay. But living in today's world, chances are you have some trauma.

Yeah. When we want to come back to that moment and remember, that's the ego. This isn't. This isn't a therapeutic practice in the sense of talking. We, our egos want to go, oh, yes. It was the moment when I was in front of the class and someone threw a tomato and hit me in the head. That's when I knew. That's when I wasn't meant to be fully. Yeah. Looking for the cause. Like I said, your body doesn't care about that. Your body also doesn't care if it was a big T trauma or a little T trauma. It only cares. Were you authentically expressed in that moment? And there's a culmination. Your body holds it. So let's say. Let's say I was molested as a kid. That's a big T trauma that's going to affect my sexual expression for a long time. Probably affect the way I show anger, probably affect my self worth. Right. Because I'm living in fear and sadness, all of these things. Okay. Or I can go through life having tons of little T traumas because I grew up in a household where I couldn't fully be myself and all my emotions weren't allowed. They say, hey, no, no, you can't. Like, you gotta. Boys don't cry or boys don't get angry. You just have to be very quiet and calm and soothing and grounded. Right?

Yeah.

Through all my life identifying like that, because I know my dad or mom was the one saying this, you're a good boy now. This means good boy. And then I go through my life being that. But all of a sudden, every single time in my life in junior high school and high school and college, where I didn't actually speak up in my true integrity of who I know myself to be deeper than my illusion of my identity, that's in itself going to fill up the bucket versus the one who's molested. But also after that, like, was still able to go through life without any other real big traumas. You know, they can still add up. At the end of the day, it's like, you know, you could fill up a bucket at the age of seven by 75%, or you could take 19 years to get to 75%. At the end of the day, your nervous system doesn't care. It only cares if it's holding. All of us can remember at least one time, maybe even in recent memory, where we didn't speak up. If you held back your own true dignity of who you are at the expense of wanting to not make someone else mad, then absolutely, you can almost guarantee you have done that with your emotions.

Right.

You have held in the moment you wanted to cry. You've held in the moment when you wanted to be like, no, that. Absolutely not. That's my boundary, and you're not going to talk to me that way. Whoa. Okay. What happened? Right? If even if you had a bunch of. That's my boundary. Don't talk to me. That ways in your life that's still traumatic to your nervous system.

Absolutely. It has to go somewhere.

It has to go somewhere. And kids live unfiltered. Kids live in integrity. Kids have more integrity than adults.

Absolutely right. Yeah.

More integrity. Integrity is being in touch with who you are. And kids know themselves. They don't even need to put logic behind it. They just embody who they are. They don't need to go, I went on top of a mountain and meditated for 47 days and now I remember who I am. Yeah. Or I found myself. The truth of the matter is they depend on finding themselves. They were born, they're unfiltered, and they're embodying who they are moment to moment. Because they're so present.

Yeah.

We forgot how to be so present. So we can't even be present with our emotions. So in the moment when something happens, we don't even know we're holding it in because we're so used to doing it. So the truth of the matter is, is it requires a presence of your body. This is why everyone needs to be connecting to their body every single day. That means coming out of your head. I remember I had this client and she's like, okay, I'm going to take a dance class. I go, don't take a dance class. Because they're going to go 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and you're going to remember a routine. I said, close your eyes and start dancing from your womb. Move from your womb. Move. Let your body take over. You have. We have to learn how to turn off our brain and let our bodies take over whatever we're doing. Ironically, when we see that in a performance or a concert, even some guy dancing at a wedding, we're drawn to it. Why? Because when we move out of our own way and allow our bodies to express, our soul comes through.

Absolutely.

We call that the flow state. Right. So we need to be more in our own body's connection so we can allow our own true flow state to come. That's. That's what we're missing. That's what we're missing. And this bridges these disciplines because they're like, you need to meditate and you need to come out of your head. But it doesn't ask, why do you go in your head? The reason we go in our head is because we're protecting ourselves from all the pain we're holding in our body.

Yeah.

So once we break through that, or at least undust that bridge that has been so dusted up and shackled up, and we create that bridge from our head to our body, we can drop into our body. I have conversations with my girlfriend, I'll be like this. She'll say, well, how do you feel? And it took me so many years to know what I feel like. So many years. Like, what do you want to eat? It took me so many years to be like, well, what do you really want? What do I really want? I have to close my eyes, I have to put on noise canceling headphones. And then it take 10 minutes and then I'll be like, rice. You know, like, literally rice. That's it? It took you that long? But, like, but.

But.

But because I've created a bridge from my heart to my head. I know what I want. Right. And I know that I can abandon myself from what I want to please another.

This is so powerful.

You see what I mean?

Yeah.

So. So that's important, because guess what happens when we abandon ourselves to please another. That creates a seed of resentment and then more resentment, and then more resentment. And then all of a sudden, those are the people who all of a sudden, like, I thought things were going well. Why are you blowing up at me? Right? It's because. It's because you're not even mad at them person. You're mad at yourself, but you don't even know you're abandoning yourself. This is the important part. We have to know, what do we want? What do I want right now? If I'm in front of the aisle at Whole Foods and there's all these pastas, which one does my body want?

Isn't that the ultimate act of mindfulness? Like, even the term mindfulness these days, it's like, oh, you have to be mindful. It's something that you need to practice or a routine that you have to adhere to to be mindful. Mindfulness is simply acknowledging when the voice in your head is. Is wrong. When you're in reaction mode and you're reacting and you're trying to understand why you're stopping and learning. Like, that's evolution. That's growth. Right?

Yeah. If, if, if. I'll tell you the quickest way to be mindful. If you have a. That bridge from your head to your heart is connected, you will be able to drop in. Right. Like I said, anytime my girlfriend asks me a question, I'll have to like a real question. Like, like anything that has to do with emotions, I have to drop in and go, okay, yeah, this is true for me. I actually feel this. In the past, my head have been, like, trying to rationalize what does she want to hear? Or how do I say this? Or what's the best way? We live in our heads. It's not a way to live. So if you want to be mindful, you got to be able to feel your heart. Like, what does the heart want?

It's not thinking about what you want. It's feeling what you want.

Exactly. Exactly. If you can feel what you want, even if at the restaurant, you're looking at the menu and all the appetizers look good, which one does your heart want? What do you feel? Because your heart is talking for your body and your body's saying, I don't want spinach today. I want a corn tortilla. Right. Like what? A corn tortilla? No, my body wants it. It's going to bring it joy. Okay, then let's do it.

Absolutely. So I want to break down how people can do this. So when we think about, you know, I'm going to use meditation as a category because I teach a lot of people how to meditate and they say, I can't meditate. I can't get into my, my mind, my. It's crazy in there, right? And there's often this transition where, when we understand the craziness that often all of us do have in our mind, it's the ego, it's the intellect constantly criticizing. When you notice how often you are in judgment of yourself, you're constantly living every single day, notice how often you judge yourself and simply shifting the language around. Oh my, you know, not crazy. I'm noticing how often throughout the day I'm in judgment of myself. And then you realize, well, like, how does that feel? That sucks. Right? And I think that drives the, the desire and the want to change. Right. It's turning on the body's ability to heal. And I think, you know, we talk about this being something for men, but it's also for women because we became accustomed to living so much in our head and thinking about what we have to do to strategize, to. To get healthy, to do it all, to have it all. Even for myself, up until recently, it's just become very hard to embody my heart. Even though for me, like my biggest wake up call was my heart palpitations. Something vibrationally was off within my body. There was sadness and pain that I wasn't willing to deal with. My head was looking for the doctor, the Atkins diet, the protocol to go and do, but that only, you know, endured more suffering on my half. Right. So, you know, we think about what would be an easy takeaway for people. Do they need to see somebody who's trained in emotional trauma release? Can they start to do some sort of a practice themselves every day? Where do you start?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a good question. Because I'm not a gatekeeper for this type of healing. I want people to have access to it. And I always tell people, like, so I'll do these like big webinars free and I'll. It's called learning the language of the body. And we'll teach people how to get in their body sometimes. There's. Actually the last one we did, I had 170 people. There was at least 20 that said I had emotional release without even doing the emotional.

Wow.

Why look, that. That should. That should be a signal. And it's because all they needed to do is get out of their head, just go into their body in safety and feel. Those people, those people who had emotional release have been living so much of their lives not allowing themselves to feel. So the moment they just touched on feeling, then they start crying or they start yelling. Right? That's not even. We didn't even start the emotional release. A lot of you listening are there. So the most important thing. So when I do my rituals, I'll meditate. So that means I'll leave my body. Because I can. I can leave my body. I could dance with some ancestors and do that, all the, you know, shamanic stuff. But you can't just do that and not have a relationship with the body. You have to have relationship with spirit and the body equal amounts. Right. So when I hear someone say, or you see, I can't get in my head. There's too much going on in there. Whoa. What I hear is you're protected. You're very protected. If you have too much going on that you can't even sit and close your eyes and just calm your breath and meditate, then you are protecting a lot of pain on the inside.

Yeah.

So oftentimes people who go through emotional releases are better meditators, quote, unquote, because their mind is quiet.

Right.

See what I mean? So. So it's about people dropping into their body. That means you can go on YouTube. You can look up somatic meditations, somatic breathwork, something to get you out of your head into your body. And that's a practice you got to take days, weeks, months. Learning what it feels like. If you're not a feeler, you got to start learning how to feel. It's about. And then. And then outside of that, in your, you know, non meditative waking lives, actually checking in, putting an alarm on your phone even, and saying, I had to do this for a long time. I put alarm three times a day saying, how do you feel? Because I. I would be. I would be. It would be more like, how do you think? And I have to check in. How do I feel in this moment? Okay. I'm at this podcast and I'm feeling good and excited and just not even thinking about it. Feeling in my body. What does my Body feel. Sometimes it'd be like, I feel tense. Where do I feel tense? My belly. Oh, am I scared or am I angry? Because I know one of the two. Well, what. Let me close my eyes. Oh, whoa. I'm angry. Right like that. You're getting. I'm getting to those points in the day, feeling into what's true.

What's the power of that, though? So the power of doing that through the day instead of holding it off or. Oh, this Sunday, I'm going to practice my mindfulness practice and work on my emotional trauma release. What's the power of doing that throughout the day?

Because you can drop back in when you're like. Let's say. Let's say I'm at a convention and I feel really tight in my belly. And I know, because I've done enough somatic meditations into my body and connected to my body, I know where I hold tension and I know where I hold anger. It's usually on the upper right part of the belly, near the liver. I know if that's super tight and I tune in, I close my eyes and I drop into that tension. And I actually, like, meditate into the tension. Your body will show you what's happening. Happening. Your body will show. If you come into the tension where you're holding it, your body will tell you what you're holding. Sometimes it'll show you through an image. Sometimes you might hear a word. Sometimes you'll just release that emotion. So, okay, if I'm angry, I'm not at this convention. I can't have an emotion where it's here. I'm like, okay, but I'm going to go home and make sure I tune back into it and see where that goes. It might just go into, whoa, I'm starting to breathe hard. My face is getting red, my palms are getting sweaty, and I'm closing my fist. I'm angry, and then I release that emotion. You see what I mean?

As you're speaking, it just makes me think, like. And I hope the people listening hear this. Maybe healing doesn't have to be so hard. You know, when you can be fully embodied, it's not about looking. Your body can digest the foods that you give it. Yes. You know, a healthy diet is recommended, but, like, it will be able to handle those things. We think about achieving success and happiness, which is over there and the dream house over there and the perfect relationship over there. Whereas if we just embody those qualities within us, then all of a sudden we can kind of just relate to people and I know, like, even having this conversation, feeling the drop from head to heart, there's instantly more of, like an attunement to the other person, like desire to get to know and like being fully present in the conversation, which I just think that there's more power to living life from that state, 100%.

Because then it brings us true happiness and joy. We.

It's connection.

It's. We want to connect. We are made to connect. And if you're stuck with your emotions and your nervous system is preoccupied with that, you ain't going to be present. You can't. You can't connect. How many times people listening. How many times? And let's talk. I'll talk to the women. How many times have you don't see your partner cry? He don't cry really ever. But there's a moment that he. You actually feel him open up and he has tears coming down his eyes because he's talking about something really vulnerable. Do you know that feeling that as a woman that you get? I can't speak for women, but, like, I know the feeling as a man that I get. Right. Because. Because that's intimacy. And intimacy isn't just between partners. It's between friends, it's between co workers. We want connection through intimacy. It doesn't have to be sexual. We want connection through intimacy. And intimacy comes when you allow yourself to be who you are because you see yourself mirrored through me and I see myself mirrored through you. That's the connection. That's the intimacy. Right. So when we allow ourselves and we. We have this fundamental appreciation always. And it never turns off for people who are themselves. I go back to that person dancing at the wedding. If we see some guy dancing at the wedding and he is letting it out, he doesn't care how he looks. His. He loves dancing so much. But he was not gifted with the dance moves. He's got two left feet. But all of us know or have seen something like that.

Yeah.

There's two reactions. There's a head reaction that goes, look at that guy. He's making a fool out of himself. He must be so drunk. His wife must be so embarrassed. And then there's the heart one that goes, I want to dance with him.

I want to dance with him. Dance your heart out.

Yeah, dance your heart out. I want that. Right? Yeah, but that's. That's the ability to create intimacy. Because if we go to our heart, we move to the dance floor, we open up ourselves because of that person. Embodied an authenticity.

Yeah.

We connect to our authenticity. And oh my God, we feel so good. We're connected to the person. Doesn't have to be at a wedding, it could just be in conversation by the water cooler at work. Can we allow ourselves to truly start expressing who we are so we can remind other people of who they are? That's intimacy. And that for me is, I think it's the only initiative as human beings we have to come into this world, embody who we are and help others remind themselves who they are. Ironically, it all comes back to love. Ironically, it all comes back when we are fully in our authenticity. We are embodying our soul. And ironically, it is all in love however it looks for the person.

Yeah. So would you say, are any of the patients that you work with, are they scared to do the work with the unknowingness of what's on the other side?

Yeah.

Can I. You know, for me, I think a lot of the work that I've had to do is remembering who I was as a 4, 5 or 6 year old. Like I feel like I have to go back that far to really remember the version of myself that was the crazy dance guy on the dance floor. Like I remember being that free spirited. But growing up because of all the walls that I put up and I have to be a certain way and appear a certain way and go out into the world a certain way and act a certain way. And that became my belief system. Originally it felt really scary and maybe sad. Sad because like it's been such a long time since I remembered that little girl. Do you encounter patients like that?

Yeah, everyone, everyone goes, well, you talk about remembering who I was but like I don't remember who I was because when I was a kid it was so many years ago. The body doesn't follow linearity of time. It's always accessible and it's not even. It's about experiencing that remembrance.

Yeah.

It's not. When we say remember, we still think of it in a cognitive way. I remember where I parked my car outside of the mall, that it's not the same thing. It's experiencing it. So it's like imagine you haven't had gushers fruit snacks since 1994. Right?

Yeah.

But then I'm like, hey, check it out, Mona, I got some gushers for you. And you take a bite out of it and you're like, I remember gushers. It's that.

Yeah.

I'm not logically telling you. What does a gusher look like? What color is it? What was on the inside? Was it like watery? Or was it slimy? No, that's not remembering. It's experiential memory. So on the other side of those darker emotions that we have not allowed ourselves to express that are disproportionately big, on the other side of that is that remembrance of what your body needs to feel and express, what your soul wants to feel and express first. So whatever remembrance is on the other side will be first in line. Felt, that will be. Oh, my God, I'm so happy. I forgot what it feels like to be happy. Oh, my God. Is this what happiness feels like? I thought I was happy. Yeah. And now you're feeling it because it's flowing through your body. That's the same happiness that you were embodying as a kid. For me, a lot of that came. So there was a forgiveness piece once. I felt real, true fear and it flowed out of my body. I was able to feel forgiveness for the first time in a really long time. Then I was able to feel true sensuality. That came through. First time in a long time. The artistry piece was really big, and that actually mirrored a lot of my childhood. I forgot how much I love to just doodle. I forgot how much I love to paint. So last summer, I pretty much every single day did that. After an emotion, a release of shame.

Wow.

So I released shame, and then all of a sudden, this artist came out of me and the artist was me. As a kid, I didn't identify as artist. I was just being me. So all I did was paint clothes all summer, pictures, murals without any. Anything connected to it. I was just being me. And I remember there was a moment I was sitting Indian style, listening to music and like turning my head left and right, like, trying to, like, see it from different perspectives. And I was like, holy shit. I used to do this as a kid.

Wow.

I used to just move my head and look around and I felt so childlike. So it's not a matter of like, what did I do? Can I do more of that? As a kid, what did I do? Can I do more of that? It's really like, can I allow myself to remove those dark obstacles or feel and see those dark obstacles of me? To allow myself to experientially remember who I was and just embody it? It. It's an embodiment. It's not a memory. It's not a. It's not an aha moment. It's a. It's an embodiment moment.

Yeah. I have to say, you're going to be such a great dad, if you want kids.

I do.

So for the, the parents listening, I feel like the greatest gift has been reliving those aspects of creativity and being a kid through my kids eyes. And I'm also noticing that my kids really process their emotions quite differently. So my stuff son, he tends to be very in tune with people's emotions and wants to, you know, just understand what's going on. But then he's also the type of person who's like, you know what? I really feel like punching in a pillow. So we make that a practice. We punch into a pillow. I taught them how to scream into a pillow. And now he will just own when that has to happen. But something that I realized with my daughter the other day, I'm constantly saying, well, you have to get, you have to get it out of your body. You have to get it out of your body. And she looked at me and she said, well, mommy, no, I just, I need a minute. I was like, oh, okay. She's telling me she needs a minute. She doesn't want to experience it right now. And then sure enough, a couple minutes later we'll talk about it. And her perspective has shifted, her emotion has subsided a little bit and she's just like, she processed it on her own. Right. Instead of us dictating how they have to do something. So it's just been this great learning lesson for me.

Yeah, 100%. Look, I know that when I have kids, I'm gonna be triggered as fuck. Right. And it's because they're gonna trigger the unhealed parts of me.

Absolutely.

But I also know that I'm not gonna take it out on them because I have the awareness that, whoa, what a gift my kid is doing. They're showing me how to be a better dad just by them being them.

Absolutely.

You know, and they're also reminding me of that childlike wonder and behavior and presence and love that they have to the capacity. I know that that's gonna happen. I don't know what it feels like to be a father yet. But I will say, especially in the mother daughter relationship, the daughter will mimic the mother.

Oh, yeah.

And they'll mimic the mother to the point where you won't even know. They'll mimic you energetically. Not just the things you say or the way you handle situations. They'll feel you again. Remember, children are the most intuitive, so they'll feel into how you move through things and deeply mimic you. Right. So it's not. Your son ain't mimicking you. Because I'm Sure. Your son doesn't see you all the time punching pillows.

Totally.

Right?

Yeah.

But right. So. So we just think about like, huh. The mother daughter relationship is one of the most sacred ones. It's really sacred.

Oh yeah.

Because this is the most. It is like you're handing the baton to the feminine, like true femininity.

Yeah.

So really, if you, if we have daughters. Mothers have a daughter out there. You got to get right fully with yourself. You, your daughter has to know that anger is okay in the household. Like, whoa, mom can get really angry. And guess what? That doesn't mean she's going to hurt me or scream at dad. That actually means that she's powerful. If they start associating healthy anger with healthy power, because it is, then they're going to be able to not ever abandon themselves in their own anger. And you're not going to raise a daughter who's a people pleaser. You're going to raise a daughter who has a heart, who shows up for their loved ones, but who will never not lay down her boundary and who will go, I'm a strong woman too.

God, I'm like almost crying. Yeah. Even with tears around my kids. Like, I let, I used to suck them back and go to the bathroom and stuff like that. Now I'll let them see me cry. Just like, you know what? I just feel like I need to let this out right now. I'm feeling a little bit sad and it's okay.

Yeah. Beautiful.

And yeah, that's been. I. You couldn't have nailed it any more perfectly. I just think that they're the greatest gifts and we have to use it as an opportunity to do the work now so that they don't. We don't pass the pack.

We're never going to be perfect, man. Like, you know, some people, like, I don't want to have kids because I'm still working on myself. I'm like, good that you're working on yourself and good that you have awareness and good. At least you're doing into the somatic sense and emotions. That's really important because you don't want to pass that generational stuff down to your kids. But even with kids, you will still get triggered by them. You're going to work through things. All you need is the awareness and knowing. I always have my default and that net of that high wire that I'm walking, that net is my ability to drop into my body, drop into my heart and feel what I need to feel. That on if you're lost, you. You come into your heart you come, into your body. Your body will tell you exactly what you need, and you'll have clarity and you'll know what you need to do. We always have a blueprint. We just don't know we have that blueprint. So now we're looking outside of us for the next talking head going, here are the five reasons why you're emotionally dysregulated.

Absolutely.

No, you know the reasons. That's not the five reasons. That's not your five reasons, you know, so this is why we have a responsibility. And guess what? It's free. It just takes a little bit of time. It's being. It's the feminine practice of being. We all need more feminine practice of being. We're like God, we're elite doers and we're adolescent beers. You know, you're. You're a more elite beer, right? Because you. That's part of your work. But people viewing, listening, like, come on, like it now, if this isn't a signal right now, you gotta come to your place to be. Begin to feel your heart. Begin to feel who you need to forgive. Begin to feel the anger. You need to feel the sadness, the guilt, the shame. All of that to be a more expanded version of who you are for not only yourself, but your future children or current children.

So shifting from doing to being, for expansion and deepest healing.

Your healing is not coming and doing. There's no other protocol you need to do. Like, it's crazy because 10 years ago I was a naturopathic doctor. We're always looking. I will say for healing, you have to be wanting to heal.

I agree.

Like, if. If the identity you created gets you the most amount of love, and let's say someone. Someone identity they created is always in being sick. There's always something wrong in my life. There's always something going wrong. I'm always either physically wrong or injured or I lost a job or I just had a breakup. If that energy that you've created in your life, because that's not a mistake, you're creating that energy. Yes. You're creating your sickness. If you're creating that energy. And you find that when people say, oh, my God, honey, is everything okay? I love you, how can I support you? That's what fills you up. You're not ready to heal until you see that as the energy that's not serving you. And there's an energy that is greater, that is more authentic, that is more unconditionally loving, that is more in purpose, that is less pathological, you're not going to heal. Because the receiving of love, even in the most skewed of ways, that little ounce of is there anything I could do for you that fills up your whole year? If that's more than what you don't know is there for you, then it's going to stay that way. So I will say you have to be at that point where you go, no, my life the way it is, the people I've attracted, the jobs I've created, the cycles that keep happening, I'm tired of it. And when you say, I'm tired of it and I'm done with it, then you're ready for a new place. And there's no right or wrong if your joy is in being in the state of misery.

Yeah.

But it's getting you love, even in the most distorted of ways. And you're happy with that and you're comfortable with it. That's all your dignity as a human being. Ain't no one else going to change that for you. But know that there's. Oh my God, a much more fruitful way of being.

And even if you don't know how to get there, it's simply the acknowledgement of, I'm ready for a new reality. I'm ready to step into love. I'm ready to try on what that feels like. And I'm sure a lot of the people who are going to listen to this are like, well, you know, where's the data? Where's the science? And you talked a little bit in your practice, how you're seeing these healings taking place. And thankfully now there is data out there to show there's people with cancer who do go through spontaneous remission, right? Like, what's the difference? People who have. Who are diagnosed with autoimmune disease. And then it just goes away. So would you say that emotional trauma release is a really big component to this in the future of medicine?

100%.

And can we pray for that?

Yeah. Yeah, we can. The data that people. For people who want to read, you can look at the whole field of psychoneuroimmunology, the way the thoughts affect the nervous system, which affects your immune system. Now, remember, thoughts oftentimes are arising from your emotional repression. If your emotional repression is informing your body that I'm not safe, then your thoughts are going to be validating that I'm not safe. Right? Because once you create ease in your body and you feel less contraction, you feel like, oh, my God, is this what it means to be a human? Guess what? Your thoughts are going to be in alignment with, with that you're gonna be like a lot easier in your mind. So the contraction, I believe first comes the contraction of the body, the holding. Downstream comes contraction of the mind. Down downstream comes contraction in the physical disease. Right. We start seeing the physical disease. So it's the emotional repression, emotional contraction in the body, mental and then physical. So we look at psychoneuroimmunology. It should actually be called emotional psychoneuroimmunology. Right. So but for those who want to look it up. Yeah, Psycho immunology you can see. Yes, absolutely. How does this work? Well, your brain's connected to everything, right. And it's connected to your gut. And your gut informs your nervous system. Your nervous system always is going to inform your immune system. There's a gut brain access, but also the microbiome is informing the immune. And again, if it's a state of inflammation caused by the immune system that's going to affect your hormones and your heart. And your heart. Yeah. So every, every, everything. And that's where we talk about the vagus nerve. And I do a lot about this in my course. That's the one that runs everywhere. The nerve that runs a cranial nerve running through your brain. It touches your, your heart, your lungs, your digestive system. Right. Your liver, your almost all your intestines. Right. And it's pretty wild that there's this one nerve that actually causes parasympathetic resiliency. It's the thing that brings you back into that parasympathetic mode. So if you are having a stressful event, whether or you ran a sprint, what's the thing that brings you back into your heart beating slower? Is that vagus nerve? Same thing. If your boss comes and yells at you, what's the thing at bringing you back to your heart beating back your vagus nerve? A lot of you out there don't have that resiliency and you stay up and all of a sudden you stay in a state of stress all day from a stressor. So if you don't have vagus nerve resiliency and this bringing it to the tangible science, there's many reasons why, not the least of which being emotional repression. Henceforth, why we measure heart rate variability with my students is because that's the measure of your vagus nerve resiliency. So if your vagus nerve is strong, it has that robust resiliency, then you're able to come back to I am safe, the vagus nerves. Basically job is saying I am safe evolutionarily So I find one of the, the three biggest things for vagus nerve health are sleep, proper sleep walking and activity walks really help your heart rate variability number and emotional release.

All three, all three, all free.

All free. And three, all three are free. Right. You know, don't get me wrapping now. Yeah, but all free, right. So it's incredible that we have access to free stuff. You know, you can measure it with even now they have online things. You can put your thumb on the camera, you can get a ring. I have the Oura ring, I'm not wearing it right now. But we can do all those things and actually build our vagus nerve resiliency. Hopefully one day I believe they can have devices for all these things. Yeah, hopefully one day I would love for to do an emotional release on someone and there's electrodes on their head and electrodes on their heart and there's dee dee, dee dee dee dee dee dee. But they have noise canceling headphones so they don't hear any of it. And we're going through the process and we're measuring it. You know, that'd be beautiful. It'd be beautiful to have randomized controlled trials, peer reviewed studies. And this is a standard of care in psychology, in psychiatry, probably far from it. Because it breaks down the model of you need serotonin, right? Or you need. Right, you need serotonin inhibitors or something like that. With any medication that. Listen, I'm not gonna tell you not to take medication. But none of those are answers for the way your life is. It's not, it's not. None of those are answers. You're not going through depression because you don't have enough serotonin. You're going through depression because there's a lot of pieces to this puzzle that have to do with your vagus nerve to that have to do with inflammation, that have to do with your gut and not the least of which being have to do with how much emotion you're repressing. The state of rigidity in your nervous system is going to be deeply connected to depression. Deeply.

You know what an eye opening experience to be able to leave the doctor, whether you've been given a diagnosis or clinically, they find some imbalance in your blood lab. Simply asking the question, if the body's connected, how else can I help my body heal right? And taking those actions. And this is where I pray. The future of medicine embodies eastern and western practices. There has to be integration because despite the data and all the science that we can get a lot of These are practices that have been practiced for thousands and thousands of years. Have you studied Ayurveda or TCM or anything?

A little bit in school we learned.

Yeah, right. And yet, you know, a lot of these practitioners where they don't look at the labs, and yet they'll look at your eyes, your tongue, listen to your heart rate and stuff like that, and they'll be able to tell you exactly what's wrong before you get the labs back.

Let me tell you something. I have a major respect. I know less about Ayurveda, more about Chinese medicine. I have a major respect for Chinese medicine. Both, first of all, have stood the test of time. But when I hear about how Chinese medicine looks at emotions and I had someone on my podcast talking about the respective emotions and wearing Chinese medicine almost exactly mirrors what I've seen in emotional release. Almost exactly. There's like one or two organs or areas that are a little different, but, man, they're. They know some things. Ayurveda, man, they know some things. Right. Like, especially when we talk about constitutions and they really start pinpointing. Yeah. We have like, these archetypal energies inside of us that. Yeah. Where there's billions of people right around, but. But we're all different as well. Yeah. So, yeah, major respect. And let's see if they ever meet. I don't think so. Because if, when we're looking at a standardized care drug model, they ain't going to be a drug that's going to give you an emotional release. No one's going to capitalize. And that's. That's. That's a sucky part for corporations or pharmaceutical industry, but the great part for us, that we don't have to take medicine to come back to our healing.

You are the medicine.

You are. This is what I tell my people.

You are the medicine.

I tell them. You are the medicine. I tell them. I tell them that they are their own remedy.

Yeah. My greatest healing. And again, like I know, I escaped to an ashram. I stopped the diets, the protocols, and I really had to lose the label. As somebody who was diagnosed with a heart condition and just be fully embodied to deal with the emotions that were coming up through the practices of Ayurveda and yoga and being in nature, submersed in nature, and all of a sudden, my body healed. Right. And even though today a lot of us can't escape to an ashram or to, you know, whatever, retreat, a lot of the things that you've talked about today you can do in your home.

Yeah.

In your bedroom, in your backyard. Like, they're that accessible and attainable. So I really just am in awe. I'm in awe of you and the work that you're doing. My heart is just so opened up by this. How can people find more about your courses and what you're doing?

Oh, yeah. So the website is docgonzalez.com. instagram is. Oh, my God. What is my Instagram? Dr. Dr. Gonzalez. D O C T O R dot. G O N Z A L E Z. Dr. Gonzalez. And what else? I'm not dancing on TikTok, but I'm on there.

I tune in to watch you dance.

Under Dr. Doc Gonzalez. Yeah, I mean, that. That those are the major things. The courses will be on Elm Health. Www.elm.health. okay, so all emotional stuff is Elm. There's some on Doc Gonzalez, but that's all around Heal Thyself Podcast.

Got it. We'll link out to everything.

Yeah, well, yeah, check out the show notes. But yeah, I mean, look like if. Thank you for giving me a platform to talk about the stuff that I'm really passionate about. And I'm really happy that you're sort of tuning in to that stuff too. And I believe there's like, this collective shift. There's a collective of people going, ugh, I'm so tired of all of this. Like, there's got to be more. And I'm really happy to be leading this awareness for people to become more empowered in it. And one of the biggest joys that I found unexpectedly is teaching people all this stuff. Because now I'm like, okay, you're an educator. I want to educate. I want to help millions of people, but I ain't gonna see millions of people, but I'm gonna train hundreds of thousands of people to see millions of people. So I'm like, whoa, that's amazing. So I just love teaching this stuff. I love it. And I thank everyone for viewing, listening today and opening their hearts and receiving this information. I hope it resonated.

Oh, yeah. This is what I think. It's. People like you really inspired a lot of this. It's the wisdom within that we need to just bring to light and make it cool and accessible the way that you are. So before we wrap up, I want to do some rapid fire questions that we do with everyone.

Let's go.

You ready? How do you think people are making healing and health too complicated?

Looking outside of them, what is your.

Favorite ancient healing remedy?

Feet on the ground.

Earth Earthing. If you had to pick something about Modern medicine that excites you, what would it be?

The prospect of. Oh, my God. Not much, to be honest. Ancient medicine. Yeah. But like, look, look, look, look. Modern medicine. What excites me is I. I would say something in cancer, but I don't think we do cancer the right way. Anything that has to do with emergency medicine, if I get hit by a car, I'll survive. Whatever advances that are going on in emergency medicine, shout out to them.

Absolutely. Time and a place.

Time and a place.

Yeah. What are the top three things that we can start doing right now to optimize our health?

Learn how to get into the body. Create a new relationship with nature where you get out of your head and experience nature for what it is. Really tune in and be present with nature and look at someone in your life that you truly love fall into your heart and then tell them you love them and see how they receive it differently.

If you could leave our listeners with just one takeaway that you're most passionate about right now, what would it be?

You are the medicine. Ain't no one else going to tell you how to heal. You know the way. You know how to heal. It's in your blueprint, in your body.

Pass the word. Just say yes. Follow the breadcrumbs.

Follow the breadcrumbs. Exactly.

I adore you. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Anna.