with Joe Cusamano

Joe reveals how nervous system healing, neuroplasticity, mind body healing, acceptance, and letting go of symptom obsession became the turning point in his recovery. Instead of endlessly chasing treatments, he discovered a new path to chronic illness recovery through nervous system regulation and a deeper connection with life.

How He Healed Chronic Illness by Letting Go & Healing His Nervous System with Joe Cusamano

Introduction & Joe’s Story

Mitch
All right guys, welcome back to the rooted conversations podcast. I am your host Mitch Webb and today we got a very special guest. We got Joe Cusamano He is is it heel dot heel flip?

Joe
Yeah, it’s heel flip, but it’s here. Yeah.

Mitch
Yeah, it’s heel flip It’s all just one thing but well, tell us about it because since I’ve already botched it

Joe
Yeah, no, it’s you know, it kind of comes from my love of skateboarding. Honestly, I’ve been a skateboarder my entire life, but I also. Everything that I thought was going to help me heal was the exact opposite and it was like flipped So so it just kind of naturally kind of fit You know, I don’t know if you you were we were connected when I had my other business called the healing dudes with my my friend Josh He kind of left and split and then when when he left I needed a new name for the the company that I run and you know the coaching and support that I do and You know, I just kind of it just kind of came to me, honestly, and it just it made sense with everything being flipped on its head and like flipping the script on your healing journey to to be empowered on your healing journey versus in that victim mode and and so many different ways of going about healing that are completely opposite of what I thought and what a lot of people think, you know, is actually going to lead to healing. So that’s that’s where the name comes from. the people listening along cannot see the cheese out on my face. When you said it’s the exact opposite, because that’s been my experience too. Me and Joe have so much in common from our healing journeys. It’s kind of crazy as I’ve been diving in them. And that’s where I want to start. We’re going to go back. We’re going to talk about the things that helped and worked. We’re going to see what it’s like to flip it on its head and give you guys some takeaway action items. But I feel like we got to kind of start from the beginning. And what led to this to the symptoms? What was that like? What were you dealing with?

Joe
So I originally got sick back in 2005 when I was dealing with hundreds of symptoms. I was in college. I’m 42 years old now. So I’ve been dealing with this for like 20 years, 20 plus years, ups and downs of chronic illness and symptoms. And at that time, I didn’t know what was going on. I was seeing doctor after doctor and getting nowhere. At first, I tried to ignore everything that was going on. I came up, obviously, as a skater, as someone who was into sports a ton. So injuries, illness was never an issue. I’d never thought about it. If I got injured, I would like… You know skate or play sports hurt or if I got like a cold or a virus It was just like nothing but when I started getting like all of these uncomfortable scary symptoms like heart issues and you know terrible dpdr depersonalization Vertigo uh gut health issues I was getting like panic attacks and and all of these things and i’m like what is going on along with like crazy headaches and chronic fatigue and pain and all of this stuff I kept trying to ignore it and then it got to the point where I couldn’t ignore it. And then I was like worried that I was dying, you know? I had to basically… Stop going to school like drop out of college and I started seeing all these doctors and just kept getting the run around You know the run around like I’m not really sure Nothing’s really wrong Trying in at a Preston it this might be just psychosomatic all in your head blah blah blah and then You know eventually I started seeing other doctors are like alright I can kind of see something’s going on wrong with you neurologists and things like that and even heart doctors cuz like my heart was like great it would be like resting heart rate at like 120 and like, you know, my blood pressure would be like 160 over 120. And they’d be like, what, like, I don’t know what’s in it. So there was like a lot of signs where doctors are like, okay, there’s some stuff going wrong, but I don’t know. It could just be weird. And then eventually after like six, eight months of just like laying in bed, You know trying to feel better barely eating barely doing anything I eventually saw like a neurologist was like alright She ran the right lime tests and stuff like that and I got a positive Diagnosis, but she was just like I don’t I don’t know how to treat that. So good luck. Yeah and And that’s when I started seeing Lyme specialists. And I was like, oh, OK, I’m going to get better in like a few months now and I’ll just go back to school. Eureka, we found the magic bullet here. Yeah, exactly. That was like just the beginning of it, though. You know, so I like started antibiotics and I do remember like maybe within like the first month, I actually started feeling a little bit better. Like I actually started getting some energy and some symptoms started getting a little bit better. And I was like, oh, shit, maybe this is working.

Mitch
um and uh that just progress just halted and then do you think do you think like i know from my journey much later on i can observe this where if i had something that i thought would work it must be like a placebo type thing yeah i’d get really excited i’d benefit for like a week or two and then i the symptoms would come back and there’d be all this shame yeah i got excited about it do you think the the antibiotics were helping or do you think it was more of like a placebo type?

Joe
It could be just a placebo with what I know now I think it probably was part of it like you know I thought doctors were like hey take these it’s gonna help you you know that’s the thing it’s it’s a placebo it’s like okay yeah it is gonna help you it shifts your energy you stop focusing I stopped focusing on how bad I felt I stopped focusing on my symptoms and I was more optimistic and that possibly just led to a reduction of symptoms. And what I know now, it most likely was the case, but then, you know, yeah. Think about it, dude. You took the pressure off of yourself. Maybe you quit scanning so much. You started to be excited. Maybe you’re great and have some gratitude.

Mitch
Like all those things, that’s what we know does make us feel better.

Joe
Exactly. medical and we’ve been trained to trust the authorities and the doctors not trust our bodies. Yeah, exactly. And that’s that is truthfully. I think really what happened is is that I just yeah, I kind of let go a little bit and I trusted what was yeah. But then, you know, obviously that didn’t last.

Joe
And then I went down the rabbit holes like everyone does you know like you did like I did Like pretty much everyone with chronic illness you start going down the rabbit holes. It’s like, okay Well, I’m not getting better anymore. Maybe there’s something else or maybe I need to do a different combination of treatments and You know at that time, you know, the only answers were found Through like forums and like on the internet and then I’m only listening to people that are sick You know, I’m only talking to people that are sick. I’m only listening to people that are sick and and even doctors like, you know, they’re they’re not really giving me the best answers, even though I’m seeing some of the best like Lyme specialists in the world. They’re they’re just like throwing darts at a wall. And when things don’t, you know, resolve, they’re like, maybe it’s this and then maybe it’s that. And then you start going down. Oh, is it retroviruses? Is it mold? Is it do you have those, you know, the M .T .H .F .R. gene or do you have? Let’s look at let’s sync with your DNA and figure out what polymorphisms you have. Yeah. You know, just for that. Yeah, exactly. So then it was just I was getting the runaround then it was like Eastern medicine doctors and it was holistic practitioners and it was like, okay Let me try like, you know, these weird shamanic thing, you know, whatever was stuff up your butt. Take Yeah, exactly. Like yeah Lots of suppository stuff. Yeah I used to do coffee animals big time. Yeah, did you do crazy detoxes?

Mitch
Yeah, I did all these crazy detox protocols. I went to these wellness centers to do these IV drips of these detox protocols and spent thousands of dollars. They didn’t help one bit. Eventually, I wasn’t getting anywhere and I felt defeated.

Joe
This was years into my journey of these ups and downs of where I would start feeling maybe a little bit better and then it would just go nowhere. try something else and then it would just go nowhere. And yeah, then it was, I stumbled upon Joe Dispenza’s work, maybe around 2008, because he was in The Secret. I don’t know if you ever seen The Secret?

Mitch
Oh, yeah, man.

Joe
So that was like opened my eyes just a little bit to maybe there’s something that I’m not doing that I don’t even understand. And maybe there’s things that I’m doing that are keeping me sick. And that’s where I started with the mindset piece. I was like, holy shit, this opened my eyes. Maybe my mindset’s just been so negative. And it has been like it had been. I was sick for years. All I focused on was getting better and trying to heal and, you know, woe is me and victim mentality.

Joe
And, you know, I became a hypochondriac and stressed and worried about my symptoms all day and everything like that. And that was like the first thing that like made me awake to this type of feeling. I was like, there’s something here. It makes sense to me. I’m going to I’m going to dive into this a little bit more. And so that’s when I shifted my focus a little bit. I was still trying to treat Lyme. I was still seeing doctors. But I was kind of like half the time, all right, I’m going to do my journaling. I’m going to do my affirmations. Maybe I’m going to do some EFT. I’m going to do some visualization. I’m going to shift my mindset. And then the other half of time was like, I’m sick person. I need to go see this doctor. So it was like this wrestling in this tug of war. That was going on. It’s like I see in my head like these two identities. You know, you’re looking for answers. You want somebody, it almost, I wanted somebody to believe me that I was sick and understand how much pain I was in because before that, I just felt like shit and nobody believed me. And then now, so now I’ve got this identity and this diagnosis that I am attached to. And I’ve got this other part of me that’s like, hey, let go, you can heal your body, trust me. Um, and it feels like a kind of a tug of war. It is it’s a really tug of war and it’s something that I I struggle with I think everyone struggles with it until they finally There’s a point where you finally let go and break free and that was that was something that I had to go through It came, you know, maybe a year or so into doing some of this type of work I was spending all this time, you know, I was spending time like, you know meditating visualizing like but sitting at home doing this like I was I was living in my mom’s house. I dropped out of college. I wasn’t really doing anything. I wasn’t working. I was trying to heal. I was focusing on healing in multiple ways. I was seeing the doctors. I was going to the wellness centers, yet I was doing this mindset, mind -body work. I didn’t even know necessarily what I was doing at the time because… You know, it was like law of attraction manifestation stuff at that point. It wasn’t like there wasn’t like, hey, this is neuroplasticity. This is nervous system stuff. It was just like, hey, I know this is like energy. You know, I started diving into like the energy aspect of like your thoughts and your beliefs and all that. And it made sense, but I wasn’t really quite getting anywhere. It was like, it shifted my focus a bit and it helped me to feel better in ways about feeling sick. but I wasn’t really seeing all of this amazing improvement. And then eventually a couple things happened. Did the spinal fluid come up your spine and hit your brain? Oh no. Maybe I did. I don’t know.

The Mindset Shift

Joe
The Kundalini awakening type of deal that people talk about. I don’t know. I don’t think that was the case, but I turned it into that.

Mitch
And for the audience

Joe
a lot of good things from Joe where my OCD got into it is trying to create this massive event that I was waiting for this spontaneous healing,

Mitch
which kind of sounds like you’re very as I’m thinking about it and knowing a little bit about you is like you waiting for a cure for Lyme. Yeah, exactly. And the same thing that happens. It happens with people in this world, too, you know, whether it’s brain retraining, nervous system practices, everyone’s looking, you know, people shift from, OK, I’m not looking for that cure anymore in the form of a pill or a doctor, but I am looking for that magic program or that like you said that event that happens where it’s just like spontaneous remission or healing or maybe something that only takes a month or two or things like that and You know, a lot of people will lead you down down those that path to and even you know There’s some not well -meaning people in this space that that’s what they do to sell a program. It’s like, oh, I have the answers, you know, whatever. And for the listeners, it takes fucking time. Yeah, it takes time. Nobody wants to hear that. Yeah. I love, I hear Helmut talking about three years and I get people coming to me going, hey, I heard Helmut and he said three years, like, tell me something different. And part of that, what I tell people to kind of talk them off the ledge is a little bit. It’s like, hey, it’s not a death ride. Yeah, for three years and then you’re just magically well, yeah. Yeah, it’s like there’s little moments along the way, glimmers, whatever you want to call them, that let you know like, oh shit, I’m healing. And that’s where it’s so good to have someone that’s been there. And you don’t know if you hadn’t been there. But back to your story with like the whole identity thing. That seems like it’s like we find that identity. And then we’re like, oh, I got it. And we find our people. We got the doctors and the visits. And we’re really kind of cementing ourselves into stuckness. It’s like, because this is confirming my diagnosis. This is who I am. These are my people. This is how I’m going to get better. I heard you say one thing that I didn’t realize I had done as well, but like attaching ourselves to the Lyme group. Yeah. And then saying like, no, I used to go on a bunch of podcasts with Lime. I used to follow them on social media. I started unfollowing them. Talk about how the diagnosis can become our identity and how letting go of that. Yeah.

Identity, Diagnosis & Letting Go

Joe
That yeah ties into exactly why I wanted to kind of go with this too because there was like there were some big shifts on my journey that finally led me to heal and You know a big part of it was letting go Surrendering attachments to these labels and these diagnosis like I forget where I where i learned this but i started reading a lot of like more spiritual texts because i just my mind was awake to this so i started reading like you know the the power of now and like Eckhart Tolle you know books and you know those type of things and um i started recognizing that my i was still attached to the chronic illness Lyme disease and I was still holding on to it and there were still some behaviors that I was doing like again I was talking to my my sick friends my lime ease I was googling I was still searching on forums I was still identified and I would still like on my my social media feed at the time it was like Facebook and like my space or whatever just lime lime lime lime and uh you know that was unintentionally keeping me chained to the chronic illness. And I had this like this bubble that we live in. And that’s all we see and know. And so what would your body, your brain, your nervous system want to change if that’s all it is?

Mitch
Yeah, exactly. And I had this realization. I don’t know exactly. I mean, again, this was 2008, 2000. It’s probably 2009. At this point, I recognized I got to make some changes and divert my attention away from I’m a Lyme. I’m a sick person. I need to heal this to living better with the chronic illness and and focusing on more like healthy things that were going to lead me in the direction of health. I came across some texts on like psychology textbooks on like things like acceptance and commitment therapy, which is what I really subscribe to because back then there was nothing about the nervous system, brain retraining. It was psychology. It was, you know, how to overcome anxiety and depersonalization and these things. And I just use it for chronic illness as well. And it helped. But I But I realized, like you asked, like I realized that I was still identifying as a chronic illness person. And there was there was a huge shift that happened. It was like maybe a year, year and a half into kind of coexisting with trying to heal using pills, treatments, and then also diving into this type of mind, mind, body mindset work. You know, this Joe Dispenza type stuff. And I realized.

Joe
That I needed to I needed to to just let go and start living It was like kind of like this this mentality of like I’m tired of waiting around to live my life I’m tired of I was like I became fed up with myself with the chronic illness letting it control my daily actions and I made kind of like a vow to myself I was like I’m letting go of all of this. I’m getting out of all of the forums. I am Detaching i’m stopping i’m going to stop looking about it at this stuff and i’m going to start moving forward in life regardless Regardless if I heal if I don’t wherever i’m at with my life. I’ve realized these symptoms Are not going to kill me It was like three plus years at that point three four years at that point If they were going to kill me, they were going to kill me. They weren’t going to kill me. You know, so I might as well just get on with it, get on with life and redirect my attention and focus towards life and living again better with the chronic illness and symptoms. And that was the shift that ultimately led me to a full recovery. And that’s sort of the premise of like ACT acceptance commitment therapy is like, except where you’re at. Accept the situation as it is not that it’s gonna be this forever. But like this is you can’t control it like you You can’t you know, no matter how hard you try to get rid of it focus on it, you know kill treat whatever it’s like it’s there like you got to make peace with it and then Move forward just start living acting on values acting on life do the right things and just let go like letting go is such a big part of it and Ultimately, that’s yeah about a year or two after that.

Choosing to Live Again

Joe
I began to well I started making shifts early like right after that but about a year or two later I was like completely free of symptoms chronic illness back to living a full healthy life working uh getting my degree in college again and it was it was like the the chronic illness and lime was like a distant memory

Mitch
so for the listeners i want to pause right here because this is such a a big piece you know he calls it the shift that got him out of illness and he talks about how focusing on the illness uh like focusing on symptoms making healing all that we do That’s what’s keeping us stuck. It feels productive. It feels like, yeah man, I’m going to do the perfect diet. I’m going to take the perfect supplements. I’m going to have the perfect doctor. Somebody’s going to create a cure. I’m going to work my ass off. I’m going to push through. It’s funny how that kind of tracks back to sports as well. We kind of learned that early. Rub some dirt on it and keep going. But really the thing that allows us to heal… is going inside, instead of looking for something out here to heal me, you’re the medicine. It comes from inside. Everybody that I’ve interviewed on this podcast, and even myself, a year goes when this happened for me. I did the exact same thing. When I started, I was telling Joe before we hopped on, when I started this podcast, my deal with my business coach was to do 10 minutes of work a day. I started getting clear on what I wanted to do and got on with it. with the symptoms, crying, walking around the block for 10 minutes in the morning. Uh, you know, and then slowly, but surely the body starts getting better. But one thing I wanted to ask you about the letting go process. Um, what did that look like? Was it like, I’ve heard you say that you used your values and chose interest that you have, but was it like one thing at a time or did you just like white knuckle and let it let go all at once type of thing? It was one thing at a time what to let go up to yeah, it was one thing at a time and uh, it was White knuckling is not how it works This is where a lot of people get caught up to is is they think I am doing the i’m doing the right things and i’m moving forward in life, but they’re white knuckling Through it and so it really letting go surrender acceptance and all that stuff are are the key and the foundation of of moving forward as well, so um What that looked like for me was… redirecting my focus and attention, like I said, towards my values. So I created kind of like a routine for myself that would shift me out of that negative victim mindset mentality that I used to wake up. And, you know, as soon as I would wake up, body scanning, checking for symptoms, all of that, I was just like, I’m done with that. I’m done with that. When I started going in that direction, it was like, no, thanks. I’m going to focus my attention towards Whatever else the what the present moment? gratitude Just thinking about hobbies and activities that I want to do while I’m trying to heal so for me It was like a slow process over time. So At first I was I was like, let me just start living.

Joe
Let me start redirecting my focus Let me start, you know, I was doing the right some of the right things now I was just like let me let go so I started The first thing I did, I was like, I got a part -time job delivering pizzas like eight hours a week just to see if I could do it. I was still dealing with all of the symptoms, but I was like, let me just see it. I got to start moving forward in life. Cool, I was able to do it. It sucked sometimes. I didn’t feel good sometimes, but I was able to do it. And then every time I did something like that, It was like my body would reward me as well. It was like I would show myself that I was capable of doing more than I realized and my body was like, oh yeah, you’re capable. And then it was just like these little steps forward where it was like, okay, let me take one college course at a community college now while working. Cool, I can do that too. Now let me take two and work at the same time. all right cool and all the while i’m kind of like reintegrating back into life seeing friends um engaging in hobbies again getting back into like little things that bring me joy all while you know i still have my my healing my healthy routine that is not it’s not focused on healing it’s just like all right i’m gonna do the right things for my body and i’m gonna let go and then it was just like all right wow this is all working i feel my body getting better yes i still have symptoms But the symptoms are more manageable. And honestly, I’ve learned to live with them better. Like they’re not keeping me chained to my bed or my couch anymore. And then I just started like, there was like these little leaps of faith, you know, where I was like, okay, I’m capable of doing what I’m doing. And that’s when I like signed back up for college full time. And then, you know, the first semester of college full time, I would have symptoms here and there. And some days it was a little bit more challenging. But when that happened, I didn’t freak out like I did in the past. It was like I stopped that freaking out process that we all do when we’re struggling with chronic illnesses. It’s like we just want to get rid of the symptoms. And it’s just like, all right, this is what it is. I’ve made this plan to just accept my situation as it is, as it comes. And that’s where I think a lot of people also struggle with the Acceptance piece or the allowing piece. It’s not a one -time thing It’s something you continually do and you just like you’re like, okay when you find yourself kind of Getting caught up and in stress and worry. It’s like okay come back to the present moment. This is okay This is okay as it is allow yourself to truly feel like shit like that’s what I would do but not let the feeling like shit control and dominate my focus and my thoughts and still move forward gently. Not white knuckle, just like, all right, okay, my body’s asking for a little bit more rest, but I’m still going to, you know, do some of the right things for me. I’m still going to live. I’m still going to coexist with my symptoms. I might rest a bit more. But it wasn’t like now I just, now I give myself a chance to just lay in bed and mope and commiserate. No, no, no, no. Like that wasn’t it. You know, that wasn’t the way either. It was like that balance, learning that balance of accept, surrender. and then still take little bits of action on those things. Do life with those symptoms. When we’re in that collapsed, sensitized, dysregulated, whatever you want to call it state, our capacity is just razor thin.

Acceptance, Capacity & New Experiences

Mitch
I know we both get a lot of questions about how do I increase my capacity and what you just outlined is the medicine. It’s not like some special exercise, right? It’s we heal through new experiences. Exactly. Not through force and hacking. You know, what I see in my mind as you’re describing this is almost like putting a penny in a jar. Right. Every day you get to vote for who you want to be. Right. And you got to do that with the symptoms and you want to get clear on what do I really care about? What’s what’s important to me? Exercise, being healthy, spending time with friends and family, being present. having fun today. How can I do those things with the symptoms? And it’s funny how all the biohacking and the quick fixes lead to fragility. They lead to a system that has no capacity. And the way you update the system and create capacity is doing new stuff and seeing Did you die? I think that’s an old CrossFit thing that we would say. It’s like, hey, the workout sucks today, but did you die? Like, no, I didn’t die. And every time the brain sees that, the brain’s used to you laying in bed and getting worse and worse and waiting for the, you know, you’re anticipating and you’re catastrophizing and you’re waking up and your whole body’s on fire. And so it’s interesting too, because I was thinking this as you’re talking, it’s like we use What we do when we’re in chronic illness is we learn how to scan our body and track really well. And we almost, that becomes kind of a superpower, but we have to, here comes your thing, flip it on its head because we can’t use it to fix ourselves anymore, but we can use our higher brain to observe our patterns and get really clear on how am I fixing? How am I forcing? How am I fighting? How am I fearing all these, you know, the John Sonno uh seven F’s or whatever because that awareness is a big part of the journey so is education and we have to build up enough education and awareness and do it enough that we get fucking sick and tired of it and we go all right i’m gonna do something different i’m gonna i’m gonna go live some waste today i’m gonna go for a walk i’m gonna get a part -time job and deliver some pizzas and every time you come home and don’t die that’s capacity exactly You show your body safety through action. You show your nervous system safety and healing through new experiences, through showing yourself. And there’s not a right formula for it, and there’s not a right or wrong way. And often sometimes it’s like little things at first. Like again, there were times when my nervous system was so shot, like going to the gym and doing a full workout routine was not possible, or going and putting myself like, at a concert or traveling, just like my nervous system was so fried I could barely watch TV. But it was like, OK, I’m going to show myself safety. I’m going to go on this walk. I’m going to go in the park, go to the park. I’m going to go talk to a friend or something like that. And it’s just like these little things like add up. You know, this is where a lot of people get caught up to. It’s like if I can’t be perfect with it, if I can’t do what I used to do right now, it’s not enough. So I’m just going to lay here. It’s like, no, you can always show your body. Safety and your nervous system safety through action in multiple ways Even if it is like you do want to start exercising, but you maybe you can’t do a full exercise routine Well, you can do a minute, you know, you can pick up a couple weights You can stretch you can do some like yoga or whatever or if like you’re scared to like leave your house I don’t you know, a lot of people become agoraphobic because of their symptoms You know, it’s like, oh, I can’t go see my friend. It’s like, but can you go take a walk down the street, you know, down the block and show your body a new experience and your nervous system and your brain a new experience that will then register that new experience as safety. And it goes hand in hand. It’s like that, you know, it’s you kind of the action comes first. healing comes second. You know, a lot of people want the other way around where it’s like, you know, I’ll do once my nervous system feels safe. And it’s like, your nervous system will start to feel safe after you start doing nervous system has never felt safe in your life. You think you’re going to click your fingers and yeah, exactly. My first capacity increase happened by accident. I had a buddy over. We were splitting wood. It was a Sunday football and I was cooking on the grill. And I said, Hey, you want to come over and hang out? And he said, yeah. I said, you want to get a workout in? And he said, yeah. I said, so when he got there, I said, cool, we’re going to be busting wood today. Now, what a good friend, right? Put him to work. But, uh, I set a timer for 15 minutes and we started busting wood and we’re having a good time.

Joe
I had just started, uh, my mentor, Irene Lyons, uh, smart body, smart mind program. And I was building capacity through you know, orienting and present moment type stuff. And that I’d probably been doing that for about a month. And, uh, I didn’t actually set the timer. I thought I did, but we, I looked down and I’d been 45 minutes and I froze and I was waiting for like a wave of panic or like fatigue that would usually hit me and it didn’t. And it’s like, Oh, so I created a new experience by accident. And I think that was kind of cool. Yeah and that’s usually what happens too with people is it’s you know you get those those experiences where you have to do something or um you try something and then your your body shows you like oh you were capable of it and it’s almost like this weird holy shit i didn’t think i was able to do this and i was able to do it just fine and Now I actually kind of feel better afterwards. It’s like You know your body rewards you with like these it’s like whether it’s endorphins or you know serotonin or real dopamine or whatever you kind of get that and I’ve had that experience so much in my journey where it was just like I don’t know if I’m capable of doing this at all. It feels kind of crazy that I’m even going to try this. And I would even give myself an out. If I can’t, I’ll turn around. I’ll just do it. I’ll leave or whatever. And then I would do some of these things, whether it was going and seeing friends or trying engaging in some physical activity, whether it was skateboarding, whether it was lifting weights again and just trying these things. And then I would do it, and I would start feeling better. And I’m like, this is weird. Like, I didn’t even know. It’s ass backwards than the effort and force that we learned. Yeah. Hacking and stuff like that. Exactly. And it wasn’t, and this is where, like, you know, we talked about it earlier. It’s like, it wasn’t white knuckling. It was like, looking at this is just like… I’m going to just try it as an experiment. That takes that white knuckling out of it versus I have to do this. It’s just I’m going to try. I’m going to see what it’s like. I’m going to see if I’m capable. And if I’m not, it’s OK to stop or it’s OK to not do it. But I’m just going to try. And when you shift the energy from I have to do this, it has to be perfect to just let me just see, let me just try. It takes that pressure off and then now it’s your body rewards you.

Taking the Pressure Off

Mitch
You know, and this is where I think a lot of people also miss that, that sort of nuance of, of sort of incremental training is like, how do I know I’m white knuckling? It’s like, are you pressuring yourself to have to have an expectation or have it be a certain way? Or are you just giving yourself some grace to just try and attempt and some of healing, I’m sure you experience this too, is failing. It’s like, you know, trying and you’re just like, it’s not today. But you don’t just give up there. You know, you’re just like, all right, I’ll go up in another tent another day. But the old way I used to do it was like putting a lot of pressure and force on myself, putting a lot of expectation, anticipation on it, getting very worked up. And then what didn’t happen, I would shame myself. And then also going on like scavenger hunt or and going down all these rabbit holes and very intellectual intellectualization like staying in my head about what’s going on thinking that felt productive and that was a lot of effort and that’s a lot of energy if you think about it right and what I tell people and this is something I had to learn the hard way you know first I got into trauma work big time and I thought oh I got a list of traumas brother like I got I got a hundred of them. Which one do you want to go at first? Let’s go at the hardest and the heaviest one. Really, that can kick your ass because you don’t have the capacity to sit in that type of stuff. That’s where a lot of therapy and modalities and people don’t understand sensitization, I would say. then now you’re just kind of throwing the kitchen sink at the nervous system and you’re reinforcing the OCD and you’re going way outside of capacity. And the thing that really helped me is like, dude, you don’t have to go looking for this stuff. The nervous system is the map. It gives you layups. There is no, I don’t come in with a list. That’s going back into the old pattern. That’s how you fix it.

Joe
But if I can just learn, to just be with my body, not scan my body, be with it. The pattern will come up. Like for me, I had, my fatigue is so much better than it was. I don’t, I think the last time I experienced fatigue was maybe a month ago. And now that that has resolved, hopefully, I don’t know, it could come back. It really doesn’t matter to me anymore. Now I’ve got some gut stuff coming up and it’s like, I went into therapy yesterday and I said, you know what? I said it, you know, it swims like a fish. It looks like a fish. This is the same thing. And it’s so interesting because it’s like, I don’t know if symptoms continue to change as we heal, but it’s like the next priority comes up. And I like Helmet talks about this.

Mitch
I’m going to have him on the podcast saying about like all these apps are open and we got to close the app. So it’s almost like these alarms were going off in the background the whole time and we’re trying to fix them all at once. And now, can I slow down and just meet the moment? Meet what’s here. Trust my nervous system. Build safety through trust and meeting what is here instead of chasing some rabbit again. Exactly. And it also, like you said, it’s changing the meaning of what these symptoms are. Because a lot of people, and myself included, for years, is you assign a meeting unintentionally to the symptoms. oh for in the case of like Lyme disease and so I talk oh these my I have you know Lyme bacteria in my brain oh I have this going on or maybe it’s This is active or maybe my bartonella is flaring or whatever these are labels and meaning that you’re assigning to the symptoms and then even in the case of You know nervous system stuff people will sign a meaning to it.

Joe
Oh now, you know I’ve talked about this before like dysregulation and sensitization can also You can also assign a meaning and that can be another label and another crutch that keeps you stuck versus like, look, this is my body healing. This is my nervous system healing. And this is where a lot of people unintentionally assign these meanings to their symptoms. Oh, my nervous system sensitized or dysregulated. And this is why I have these symptoms. And now I need to tread lightly. I need to. It’s like we almost load the gun with information and then pointed at ourselves. Oh, I’m I’m in freeze. You know, I’m in I’m in dorsal right now. I’m in, you know, I’m in sensitization. I’m dysregulated. And it’s all saying I’m a victim and something’s wrong with me. Exactly. It’s a trap. I heard you do that post yesterday. It was really good. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it can all be a trap. There’s nothing wrong with having the awareness. I think sometimes it’s good to have the awareness. But I didn’t heal with the awareness of the nervous system the first time that I healed. Now I have tons more of awareness, and that’s great and all, but it doesn’t make a difference one iota if you’re gonna heal, if you have the awareness of like, I’m in freeze, or I’m in fight or flight, or I’m in fawn, or like you said. it all becomes something, another thing to blame. Oh, this is why I’m here. This is where I’m at. This is why my symptoms are this. And instead of… You know, doing that, it’s like, OK, this is where I’m at.

Freeze, Collapse & the Nervous System

Mitch
What is my body asking? What is my body needing right now? Not as what in my nervous system telling me to do, because the nervous system can tell you to do a certain thing. And this is where it will be loud and it can be urgent if the system telling you. And that’s how you can start to notice these patterns. But the but the wisdom that comes through, it’s soft into exactly. Exactly like your nervous system when you’re stuck in fight -or -flight is telling you, you know Fight flight so it’s gonna have all of these things and then you’re gonna get caught up in your head and and and want to do all the you know, what a what a piece and what a scan and body body scan and symptom check and Stress and worry and it’s like, okay. Well, this is what you actually need to do is calm yourself and recognize that your body just needs safety. And so I always like tell people, it’s like, you got to stop listening to your nervous system state and letting that drive your actions. You actually have to do the opposite truthfully, you know? So is it intuition? Or is it hypervigilance that’s talking?

Joe
Yeah, yeah. It’s easy to get those two confused and then you get all this information out on the Social media and stuff like that that’s reinforcing. Oh, you could just if you that’s all your feed is you pick your flavor of the day and you diagnose yourself a different way. Yeah, exactly Exactly. It’s information overload information overload and it actually is not what you need part of Healing is getting out of this brain You know that the thing is like I talk a lot of lot more about the spiritual and the more psychology aspects of healing, because I think that’s what I learned and what ultimately helped me. I didn’t learn from DNRS or these programs. I learned from psychology textbooks and these like spiritual textbooks. But like learning to get out of my brain and just back into my body, back into the present moment was… Some of the biggest things that I learned to heal and like a lot of people don’t want to hear that Do you mean like when you say out of your out of your head into your body? Were you having like relentless ruminating thoughts telling you to do something to tell like what it what was something that was super helpful for you?

Mitch
Yeah, so listening and their thoughts are on repeat. Yeah drop into the body. So this is where you recognize that you’re not your thoughts. This goes into the spiritual aspect and the psychology aspect of it, whether it’s, you know, you want to hear from someone like, you know, Buddha or whatever. This is like where I learned that, like, you’re not your thoughts, you know, they’re automatic thoughts. Now I know why they’re automatic they’re also often driven by your nervous system state, you know trying to protect you, right? So you’re not your thoughts you need to recognize that and from like a psychology lens This makes sense as well. Like you know your your brain thinks 50 ,000 thoughts a day and a lot of them are automatic based on your past programming and all these things So it’s not you can’t control your thoughts. So it’s just recognizing that these thoughts are Are there and they’re gonna pass they’re gonna come up It’s do you believe those thoughts and do you follow them down into a story about what it means? This is where like a lot of what I learned psychology wise really helped me. I mean, it’s even within like the ACT stuff that I talk about is, you know, you got to kind of step back and be that that sort of awareness. Like these thoughts are here and then not follow them, not follow them, because this is where a lot of people get caught up. These thoughts mean something. And then unconsciously follow them into this story about their symptoms, about what it means, and then they’re lost. In the thoughts, in the state, the thoughts are driving the state, the stage is driving the thoughts, and the only thing that you can do in that moment is detach from the thoughts. Not stop thinking. You cannot stop thinking. Stopping them is like making a river stop. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Joe
Yeah, this is where I don’t like… You know some of the brain retraining programs that tell you to like stop your thoughts like good luck with that They’re not that’s not going to happen.

Mitch
That feels like a ton of energy and resistance And so what’s the shift then if someone’s like struggling with that and they’re trying to stop the river with their hands Yep, how can they? Not stop them, but not follow them Presence man practices and presence honestly, and this is presence and acceptance go hand in hand This is where you know, you can do things to get you back into your body and there’s multiple Multiple ways to get back in your body. It can be physical things like you can do something physical Just think about you know, whenever you’re you’re playing sports You’re not stuck in your head man you are focused on the present moment you know and same with me like you’re focused on the task at hand obviously when you’re sick you can’t just go play a sport but you can do something a little bit physical whether that’s walking whether that’s stretching whether that’s yoga whether that’s she gone any of those things or you could go. be outside, sit in your yard, and do some orienting practices and breathing practices that pull you into the present moment. Out of your head, just focus on your external surroundings. You know, kind of label the external surroundings, like what you’re seeing, what you’re noticing. You’re orienting to safety by being present in the moment. You know, I can be here on this podcast. I could be nervous. I can have symptoms flaring. And if I look around, I’m safe and everything’s cool. Exactly. It’s like you’re pendulating between what’s uncomfortable and what feels safe, and then titrating that a little bit. And it’s like, not to make it go away, but to just, that’s a drop of safety. Exactly. When you’re present, You’re you’re you’re showing your body safety and it doesn’t mean you have to do it all the time. It’s hard This is a practice like anything else It’s your your brain is gonna want to pull you out of the present moment and let you try to get you to follow a story and Part of the practice of presence is like do I follow that or do I just say no? Thanks. I’m gonna come back to here and I’m gonna focus on what I’m doing This is like mindfulness, you know again like a lot of these programs like dnrs and all these things there’s so many other like whether it’s psychology teachers you know john kabat zinn Okay, he’s another one like og like John Sarno or all these people that talk about mindfulness for you know for overcoming Like chronic pain and chronic anxiety You know mental health issues and stuff like that And there’s a bunch of other people that talked about this for years decades before, you know DNRS ever existed or anything like that. So that’s where I you know, I I read a lot of that type of stuff and it really applied and it really helped me Come back and understand like oh this is this is actually what I need to do Not some crazy magical formula and trying to figure all out healing. It’s it’s it’s some of the most simple practices. It’s hard like we talked about because your brain and your body are in that heightened state, the alarms are going off, the symptoms are flying and everything is uncomfortable. But when you do something simple like coming back to the present moment and letting your thoughts just kind of go off on their own and just being the conscious observer, the witness of like, okay, these thoughts are going. Thanks brain, you know, that’s where you can kind of use like a, you know, a thing that I learned even from like ACT teachings is like, hey, thanks brain. I’m not, I’m not going to follow you down that path. I appreciate you trying to protect me, get me to follow this story. And then you just come back to focusing on the present moment, mindfulness activities, and these practices ultimately what build or what building safety. And like, like I said, there’s so many ways to do it, whether it’s physical. You know or whether it’s just simply doing these orienting practices. You can like sit there and just feel your body sitting where you are um focus on Being out in nature like I always tell people too I don’t know about you like It is so hard to heal in the four walls of your house because this is where you can get caught more up in in your brain And everything is so familiar That you know you need to be out Even if it’s in your front yard backyard I used to I used to lay in the front yard. Uh, when I, when I got really in, I still love trauma work. When I was in trauma work, but I was so sensitized that, um, that’s not what my system needed. I’m going to go back and talk a little bit about dysregulated sensitize in a minute, but I was getting blown out of my socks doing shock trauma work and early developmental trauma work when my system just needed to accept and allow. And I would just, that’s what I would do the whole world around me. Got dark. I don’t mean that metaphorically. I mean that literally, like the lights turned off and my system was so in collapse that all I could do, and that’s where if you’ve done too much trauma work, if you’re in this state, you’re just learning, maybe you don’t have a routine yet, going to the lane in the yard, grounding, earthing, drinking clean water, electrolytes, good food, watching funny movies, letting go of the healing process. It’s not doing more. Exactly. Honestly, dude, one of the best things that I did for my healing when I was in that collapsed nervous system state, I would just go to a park. I didn’t care if it was middle of winter, 30, 40 degrees out or it was hot out. I would just go there and I would sit at a park. in the grass for hours. Yeah, it was like one of the only things where I just shut out all technology or I would listen to like relaxing stuff or I would just be be present at the park. And that was like all I could do. You know, and that was some of the best things that I did for my nervous system early on was just that your nervous system likes boring. Yeah. Petitive shit. Not. But here’s the thing, too. This is the ultimate red pill this work is. Because you’re gonna wake up and see why you’re so damn dysregulated, sensitized. Well, it’s society and it’s created to control you, to put you in constant stress through stimulation, through lack, through victim mentality, poison food, poison water, over lights, fake lights, fake environments, bullshit, you gotta make money, you gotta be productive, social media, pharmaceuticals to… shut the symptoms up like it’s a it’s a motherfucker to see it all right and like that is why a big part of why your nervous system is dysregulated on top of whatever circumstances and conditioning that you have from childhood that’s telling you that you got to work harder and effort and put a lot of pressure on yourself um to heal and it’s like yeah dude sitting going to nature like our ancestors They didn’t work hard. They didn’t even exercise. You know, they had to go hunt food when they wanted to. They grew some food and they, you know, hopefully didn’t have to go to war, right? Like it was so much simpler. And now we have all this stimulation and I love, I just keep going back to that. It makes so much sense. The heel flip thing, because it’s like, yeah, flip it on its head, dude. Killing is not what you think it is. It actually is causing more dysregulation and sitting in the park is probably one of the best things you can do. Exactly. I tell all of like my clients and the people I work with, I’m like, dude, you need to get the hell outside like every day. Every day, you know, it’s going to be so healthy for you. It’s going to be some of the best things that you can do for your nervous system. Just being outside in nature. And I sound like a hippie, you know what I mean? Be a hippie, man. Be a hippie. Whatever that means. Going out in nature, so be it. You know what I mean? Like that’s one of the best things you can do. Exactly. Exactly. And yeah, I just, you know, it’s everyone wants to make healing complicated. It’s it really doesn’t. And I want to go back to what you were saying, too, because when you get these chronic illnesses and these symptoms, eventually you’re going to wake up. You know it’s gonna it forces you to wake the hell up to everything in life that is contributing to keeping you stuck in sick and you get a choice. Eventually to choose differently and that’s part of healing like instead of you know clicking on the news and watching all the things that are going wrong in the world it’s like you turn that off and you you know. talk to your neighbor, you know, because it actually makes your nervous system feel better. Like… Ventral vagal, baby, social engagement. That’s one of the best things that I can do for my nervous system. Being on the podcast and just talking about things I’m interested in, I thought I was like trying to get more information on how to heal and it ended up being just connecting with people that are like yourself that have been through what I’ve been through. And then realizing I just want to help people and ultimately let go of healing. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And so when your nervous system is so dysregulated, it’s like, you know, before you get sick, your nervous system is always kind of telling you, like giving you hints and clues through stress, through stress hormones and stuff like that. But we just kind of ignore the clues. But when you’re so sensitized, dysregulated, when all of your symptoms are in your face, you get like Window into like these little micro changes based off of what you what you think what you what? Actions you you know you do your beliefs your behaviors that give you clues is like not here or like yes go go in this direction so like you know, it’s people people don’t really pay attention to this, but it’s like you may be Working a job that is just draining Draining your energy and you’ll feel it when you’re working your job and like that could be part of like your healing as well as like All right. Well, this is like draining my nervous system energy and like making me feel worse Maybe it’s part of me exploring Something new it doesn’t mean you have to like quit your job and just go live in the woods But exploring something new and understand asking yourself like why is this draining me? Maybe it’s maybe I need to also set a boundary with my what my work, you know that I haven’t done You know and ask for help, you know, it might not just be leaving the job It might be like things like that. That’s what I’ve had to had to do is I’ve healed multiple times You know healed and relapsed multiple times. It’s like it’s it, you know requires some looking at all right This is making me feel like shit. You know, why not?

Capacity, Rest & Lifestyle

Stress, Relationships & Values

Joe
Why is this making me feel like shit from a uh, is it lime or is it mold or whatever but like This is making me feel like shit because i’m engaging with some like maybe some toxicity or not setting boundaries or maybe i’m having people pleasing or Maybe i’m just living out of alignment or maybe i’m putting like you said bad shit in my body. This is where I also, you know, I don’t just tell people to do a few silly practices and go back to their old life. I’m like, dude, you’re, you’re going to heal and create a new life that is going to support health for the rest of your life. And that does include nutrition. That does include movement. Like I don’t see people healing that just like do some brain retraining practices and go back to their old life. And if they do, they often end up relapsing. And that’s what I did. You know, I, I, I healed. Then I started going back to unhealthy lifestyle stress, not doing the right things for my body. And then obviously COVID four years ago is what caused me to relapse. And that’s where, um, it was like, Oh, okay. Like I have to start practicing a lot of the things that I preached. and did years prior that I forgot and shift my lifestyle again. You know, it’s not about going back. It’s about going forward in a healthier way and doing some of the right things, letting go of a lot of the wrong things. And that includes lifestyle practices and habits. Yeah, because and I totally agree. And when I echo you on. trauma and this type of nervous system dysregulation happens when we’re not congruent with ourself. And then all these survival responses get in. So we’re perfect, people pleasing, intellectualization, all or nothing, blah, blah, blah. And I agree with you too, that healing is about checking the boxes, if you will. Love a movement practice, love clean eating, love social engagement and friends and following um you know getting clear on values and doing things that you love and I get what I’ve even noticed in myself this is probably more a personal question um is like I was I had this story I think the first time I had anxiety, I worked with a coach and he brought me this thing that said I was gluten intolerant. He brought me a six pack of gluten -free beer. I used to grow hops and brew my own beer. Love beer. Love having beer with boys, right? Same, same. I like that more than getting drunk. I think I liked getting drunk in college. And now it’s like, I just want to have a couple beers with the guys. I love me a Guinness. And so he came to me and he said, hey, here’s your gluten -free beer. And I connected that with, this is why you have anxiety. And now I need to be perfect. So I went into perfect diet, perfect food, perfect routine, control, and then change. So I’d keep myself in this loop. And as I’m healing and coming out of that, I’m doing life again. And I’m having pizza, I’m having beer. It’s really more of like a… 80 -20 thing for me. I’m super dialed in and then I fuck off 20 % of the time and those beliefs that I gotta be perfect, they come up and I’ve learned that this last couple weeks, my system would just go into this construction because I’m not being perfect. Am I really hurting my body if I’m having a couple beers and then some pizza?

Alcohol, Coping & Intention

Mitch
And so the question is, how do we do these healthy routines without going back into the survival response of all or nothing, black or white, is that something you’ve experienced or dealt with?

Joe
Yeah, yeah, I’ve experienced it a lot too. I’ve experienced it a lot too. It’s a balance. And I think for me, it’s a shift out of fear into self love. So, you know, I was just like you. I love. Alcohol, you know, I love beer specifically and loves like whiskey not just to like get drunk But it was a it was a pleasure thing that I had and now you know it went overboard though as well when I when I kind of Wish was getting sick again, you know I was kind of engaging in behaviors that I knew were not loving to myself For me was when I was working back as like an art director and I was using like alcohol as like A distraction as a coping mechanism as something to do that I knew was not supporting my health overall So I don’t necessarily think like having a beer or anything like that is not is gonna make anyone sick But it’s also the energy and what you you come about it, you know, so You because because here’s the deal you can do things that are bringing you joy, but also Harming your body at the same time like I said like bringing out drinking alcohol. I was having fun I was drinking and having fun with my friends it was also harming my body at the same time because alcohol is a toxin and you know, I was Filling my body with poison, but I also I was also engaging in a lot of stressful behaviors. So it’s a kind of combination effect that happens with a lot of people. It’s not like, A, because you ate that pizza, it’s gonna make you sick, or you drink that alcohol, it’s gonna make you sick. It’s like, because you’re engaging in people -pleasing behaviors, plus you’re in that stressful environment. Plus you’re doing all of these, or you’re staying sedentary or you’re doing these toxic behaviors. Now you’re eating pizza plus drinking. It’s just like your cup finally overflows. And that’s the thing. It’s almost like you’re mashing. You’re using it as a tool to numb out and feel comfortable in an uncomfortable situation versus like meeting your body and expressing that. working with that energy sounds like it’s the intention behind it. It’s the intention behind it. Yeah.

Mitch
And understanding what actually fuels fuels health and healing. Like again, occasionally I have like a glass of wine. I was just in New York last week with my friend and we were at a wedding. I had a glass of wine then, but I didn’t have a glass of wine to get drunk. You know, a glass of wine because I’m like, hey, you know what? It’s my friend’s wedding. It’s not that big of a deal. There was no panic or stress over drinking a little bit. And like I said, it’s that energy of fear versus love. What I will say is, for a lot of people that are struggling with complete nervous system shutdown, I do tell people, you gotta cut the shit out for a while. Because I know for me, when I tried to drink, when my nervous system was like in collapse, it would just make me so much sicker. I feel you on that too, yeah.

Joe
And that wasn’t loving to my body at that time. That was actually almost like, again, a coping mechanism, a way to escape or check out. I want to escape these feelings, make them go away, even if it’s just for a little bit of time. And then for me, what would happen back then, because I quit drinking for many years. Like you said, it’s great to have a Guinness now, but I’d wake up at two o ‘clock in the morning, you know my I mean I would say neuroplastic symptoms too like I was afraid of this thing and I would Try to feel comfortable in like a social situation Maybe I felt like I didn’t belong because of my symptoms and so now I kind of goes into your example of stacking all of these stressors into making the glass of wine very stressful versus like It’s like unless I’m trying to disconnect versus I’m trying to connect. Yeah. Yeah Exactly.

Nutrition Without Fear

Mitch
What’s my intention here? Am I trying to like we went on vacation last week. My family’s wife, my wife’s family loves to drink and we got after it a couple nights. It was like so different because I connected with everybody individually. We had a good time. We laughed. We got along. Where is in the past years ago, I would be drinking to feel more comfortable for them not to get on my nerves or whatever I felt about cover up how I was feeling. And it is very different than what it used to be. Exactly. And that’s the difference. It’s the energy behind it. With everything healing wise, it’s the energy behind it. Are you healing from a lens of fear? Or are you doing it from a lens of love? And that’s the thing, even with diet, nutrition. I’m big on nutrition. I’m big on fueling the body in the right way. But you can have, and even Joe Dispenser said this, You can eat the perfect diet and still be just as sick, have all the gut issues, because a lot of people will do the perfect diet from a lens of fear. I have to do this to heal. If I don’t eat all of this perfect diet, I’m not going to heal. That energy will never help you heal.

Joe
But the way I look at diet and the way I look at nutrition is like, I’m going to fuel my body with the right stuff so that I live a long, healthy life because I enjoy feeling good in my body. And I actually, yeah. After 20 years of feeling like shit, you damn right. And I enjoy, when I eat something, it making me feel good versus making me feel bad. And this is what I was saying with nervous system dysregulation, chronic illness. Your body will tell you if this is supporting your healing or not. If I were to go eat some shitty fast food like I did in the past, I would be okay. It wouldn’t necessarily… derail my healing or whatever but I’m probably pretty sure it would make me feel like shit and yeah you’d get that quick dopamine hit from like all of the you know that they make their food chemically addictive so it’s gonna make you feel good while you’re while you’re eating it but then afterwards I probably feel sluggish I probably feel awful I probably feel a little bit worse it’s not like it would make me have a full -blown relapse and my body would probably be able to handle But I’m like, no, I would rather eat something that makes me feel good, that is going to support my health and healing. And not only that, you know, you know all this stuff, too. Like nutrition here in the US is just the worst, man. Like they poison the food to get people addicted, to make people sick and all of that. You know, I I don’t I don’t even come at it from a lens of fear, but there is just like look man There’s with everything that i’ve learned with my own health journey how how healing and health is so fragile and even which is what I learned getting my masters in nutrition just like how much lifestyle shifts diet nutrition really contribute to Poor lifestyle factors whether it’s like diabetes heart disease hypertension and cancers all of this stuff That’s stuff that I learned and it’s like truth in fact that I’m like It’s not just fear. It’s like look dude. I’m not I’m gonna I’m gonna put the right shit in my body to help my body heal and Occasional thing is like not a big deal. You know, it’s not a big deal It’s about being conscious and aware like of what is beneficial and then choosing more of that more of that. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree 100%. I mean, the perfection and control and then shaming, if I didn’t do that, was a big part of mine. And I think at either, I saw this really good post yesterday, it’s talking, Brian Johnson’s getting lit up right now on social media. I don’t know if you’re seeing it. You know what I’m talking about, Brian?

Mitch
No, I don’t know who Brian Johnson is. Tip of the spear. biohacker guy he looks like a damn vampire and thinks the Sun is bad and he got his biomarkers and all perfect and Go search for it when you go. Okay. I’ll look basically on one side is this crazy restriction and perfection on the other side is like gluttony and, you know, being drunk all the time and smoking weed all day long or, you know, eating fast food and all that. And I think it’s somewhere in the middle. And I think still middle is probably 80, 20 for me. I don’t remember the last time I had fast food, but I love a cold beer. I love I don’t know, what would be unhealthy? Maybe ice cream. Ice cream can be pretty gross in some ways, but it’s like, it all goes back to your values and your intention and what feels good. I think for me, it’s somewhere in the middle of balance, of enjoying your life and then using your values to reinforce that. I mean, using what we’ve learned over the years about nature. I mean, if you’re eating food on the outside of the grocery store or eating in a local farm, if you can grow it, you can kill it. Yep. That’s it. Drink some clean water, put some electrolytes in there, sleep, social engagement. I mean, it’s not that hard. It’s so simple. We become so disconnected from what we need. And I think, too, when we use our awareness of our nervous system to our advantage and we can really follow our impulse on what feels good and move away from what doesn’t and limit what doesn’t feel good, That’s the magic sauce. It’s like our superpower of scanning our body, of being so damn aware. It can be used as a good thing and letting go of that. Yeah, I agree. I agree. It’s letting go of the fear. Letting go of the fear and letting go of the hypervigilance around… you know symptom checking body scanning everyone does that it becomes an ingrained behavior especially when you’re chronically ill you have to let go of that but that doesn’t mean then now just you know uh live in the clouds and don’t pay attention to your body it’s you know it’s also your body’s giving you clues as to what what changes need to be made in life um and and listening to those and just doing the right things and it’s all the combination of that and then again letting go Letting go, you know, your body, your body. That’s one of the first things I talk about my clients about is like eating healthy, not some. Well, I guess we can have more of a specialized diet for somebody that’s really in symptoms. Yeah, it’s like, dude, I mean, eat good food, move your body, you know, hang out with friends. And but we’re just so disconnected from it. We don’t even know what to eat. And yeah, we have is. You know, it’s horrible, man. Exactly. Yeah, it is You know in some ways you can be grateful for and I’m grateful for the chronic illness and everything that happened because I I think like it stepped in in a way for me to make Yeah, it steps in a way for you to make some changes in your life like again before I got sick When I was 21, I smoked cigarettes, I drank four to five nights a week, like, you know, like, you know, drank a lot like to drunk blackout. I didn’t care about things in life. I engaged in so many toxic behaviors to myself and just like all of that stuff that, you know, the chronic illness comes and slaps you in the face and all the symptoms and it’s like, holy shit, I need to make some changes. And then you you make changes that are beneficial for yourself. And now Like I said, I’m more mindful. I care about things that I took for granted before I stopped, you know, doing the poor lifestyle things like drinking and smoking cigarettes, you know, obsessively and all of that stuff. And I stopped, you know, engaging all of those toxic traits and whatever. And it’s been a journey, but it’s been ultimately a journey that has led me to better health than I even thought I could get after all of these chronic symptoms. Like I’m 42 years old now and I feel no different than I did before I got sick, you know, and I’m like.

Balance, Values & Health

Joe
I thought that when I was 42, especially after having all of these chronic symptoms and this chronic illness, that my body would break down in all of these ways, especially when I was in the midst of the chronic illness and I felt like I was 80 years old. Having all of these symptoms, I was like, I don’t know how I’m ever going to get back to that. That was a big fear that I had all the time. What’s it going to be like when I get older if it sucks? If I’m at 25 years old and our timelines are pretty closely together. If I’m 40, if I feel like this much shit at 20, 25 years old, what is 40, 50, 60, 70? Am I gonna even make it?

Mitch
Yeah, exactly. Thought the same thing I like I’m you know I’m like out here going to the skate park at 42 after 20 years of dealing with Chronic illness still being able skateboard like I’m in my you know 20s and I’m like I didn’t even think I was possible like so the human body really is a Miraculous healing machine incapable of healing from all of these things I’ve seen so many people go from like being bed down on their deathbed to like living better than they did before they got sick. I was in the bed five days a week a year ago. Yeah. You know, it’s insane. And I was trying so hard and I let that stuff go. Here’s a question before we go into talking about your community and how you help people. I have one last kind of question. Kind of like an unpack thing. And it’s going back to it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot as I have gotten more into I mean, dude, I’ve been in all the spaces, right? Lately I’ve found more of the brain retraining stuff and I’ve blended that into what I do. I like you, I don’t love all of it, but the accepting and the allowing, that’s it. Do what you love, follow, get your, the things that you believe in what I’m trying to say, get your values and start doing life again, right? And accept and allow symptoms. But going back to the conversation about dysregulation and sensitization, I see the way that we approach in different ways and then it changes in season is what I’m thinking. I’m just curious what your thoughts. You don’t have to agree with me, obviously. Yeah. But I think they’re very similar, sensitization and dysregulation. I think sensitization needs to be treated a little bit differently, in the beginning especially, because if we try to go do trauma work, to regulate our nervous system. That’s going to reinforce all the OCD and it’s going to be outside of capacity. It’s going to blow you out of your socks. And what I ended up doing was shaming myself of why am I not getting better. Okay. And so at that time, what really, which I’ve heard your routine of some of it. And I certainly had a routine as well. When I was sensitized, I let go trying to heal trauma. And I went into my routine. What am I? I’ll go walk in the morning. I would do now practices.

Dysregulation & Sensitization

Joe
I would learn to take my somatic background and I’d express what’s in my body. And that built safety. I started to trust what’s going on. And now I’ve got to this place. And this is only six months, a year later where I feel like routines. Before I say this, when we’re sensitized, routine is pivotal. When we move, maybe I would say I’m 80 % out of sensitization right now. 75, something like that. It almost becomes the routine becomes the OCD thing. To me, it feels like I’m giving a lot of time to sensations. I’m still trying to fix myself. And I think the final boss is to let go. And what I teach my clients is, yeah, when symptoms come back and they’re tough, maybe we do do a little bit of symptom stuff. Maybe I do work with a client in a session and we do brain stuff. We work with the beliefs. We work with the sensations. We go into the body and that’s a process. But it feels like the more I do that, the more I focus on a symptom instead of just letting it be there and doing my life, it reinforces it. How do you feel about routines and letting go as you process? Made more progress with this. Yeah. Well, I want to go back to the first thing about the dysregulation and sensitization.

Mitch
You know, I’m friends with some of the people that really kind of that really talk about sensitization. I honestly, it logically all makes sense and everything like that. But we don’t heal through logic. So you can know all the things that you want to know and and feel like this is what you do to heal. I don’t think there’s there’s truthfully a difference with either of them. And I don’t think that there’s a difference in healing with, you know, going through the lens of either of them. I don’t think I don’t. I don’t look at trauma in the same way that people do. And again, I’m not a therapist. I’m not a psychologist. I’ve worked with a lot of therapists. I actually have someone that’s in my group that is a very well -known therapist. But I look at trauma from a different lens. And I don’t know if you know of like Dr. Gabor Mate. You know him?

Joe
Oh, yeah. Yeah, so trauma is not there to be figured out. It’s there to be felt. So, um, regardless of where you say, did you say not figured out to be felt?

Mitch
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, a lot of people think, and this is why I don’t agree with a lot of like the brain retraining practices and programs is because they, there’s a layer of like, you know, trauma work that they want to want to do. And it’s, they, they want to come at it from a, the lens of being in your head. Whereas someone like Dr. Gabor Maté and a lot of people, um struggle with is feeling feeling the sensations of you know in your body and processing them and letting them naturally release over time and when you’re highly in that dysregulated state what you’re what is usually i think coming to the surface is a lot of that repressed Trauma now is finally but it’s so freaking loud and it’s already all what it’s doing is just asking you Can you just allow this to be there feel it release it and move forward and that’s what I that’s truly what I believe in I don’t think it’s there to be figured out of like going into the past and like, this is what’s going, this is what happens. Yeah, re -traumatizing yourself. I don’t agree with that. What I needed to do is I needed to allow myself to feel. Just allow myself to feel. When I would, you know, when I would feel anger, anxiety. Depression when I was very young I wouldn’t allow myself to feel that you know I would suppress it and what I needed to do was when it came up is Allow myself to feel it and not judge it or shame myself or thinking that needs to be gone and feel it from like a Somatic sense and this is different than body scanning for symptoms and fearing symptoms, but like when anxiety arises, you know sometimes Not always, but sometimes you need to just feel the sensations, whether it’s the knots in the stomach and just let them be there. This is where accept and allow and all of that stuff works. And that’s the same thing, whether it’s…

Feeling Instead of Fixing

Joe
dysregulation or sensitization, I think that’s been a big part of my journey in actually healing and getting past it.

Mitch
And that’s when I talk about accepting and allowing and all that stuff. That’s part of it. It’s like going into the body, out of the brain, into the body, feeling what needs to be felt and trusting that the body has the wisdom to release it over time and it does on its own. It’s hard work, though. It’s not comfortable. It is hard. It takes capacity. It takes capacity. It takes capacity, and it takes just allowing yourself to give yourself some space to feel this stuff. When we can trust the wave of activation as it comes up, and we find out that it’s like a two -minute ride, if I can just be with my body, I think what I did for a long time, so I love what you’re saying, is that activation would start to come up and all this knowledge would kick in and go, what do I do with this? It would feel really scary. And I heard stories about horrible shit happening when trauma started moving, right? And it’s almost like I would resist. that natural movement, and it would go back into the system, which I think feels worse than, well, way worse than letting it go, but almost worse than the symptom where we started. And I learned that if I can just, I learned this from Simona. Do you know Simona?

Joe
Yeah, yeah. She helped me like, yeah, just be with it. Like, it’s almost like you just go into some inner child work type stuff. And like, you’re like, hey, I know this sucks. I’m right here with you, brother. Yeah. I’m not going anywhere. And when I did that, it’s like the first time I hit that peak and move through the other side. And it’s like, oh my God, I got to come back in to a window of tolerance. I got to deactivate whatever was moving. I don’t need to figure it out. I don’t need to do it perfect. I don’t need to know what to do. But if I can just follow my body and my impulse and let it express itself, let the tears come. Let the shaking come. Let the good and fucking piss come. Yeah. That’s what it wants. It’s not we don’t need I love what you’re saying because so easy to go big. Let me go to page 35 where it says what happens when my body starts shaking. Well, yeah, that’s what happened for Lisa. Right. But like this is mentioned his body and this is part of accepting allowing leads to self -trust. Exactly. Let the body complete whatever shit it wants to bring up. Exactly. And that’s the healing journey in a nutshell. This is where you don’t have to go into inner child healing. The body’s gonna express, especially as your capacity builds and as you do all these things, the body’s gonna express trauma through the body. And this is where you’re gonna get triggered. Stress is gonna come up and you’re gonna get triggered. And now it’s just like, all right, now I understand that this is… this is what’s going on and that’s it. I don’t need to figure it out. I just need to feel it, allow it to be here, move through it in a better way versus judge, shame, suppress, all of these things. And that’s what I think like part of the thing that I’ve learned more actually this so part of like, you know, getting that relapse after after COVID was that was this layer of healing that although I did, it was part of my healing. when I was sick the first time with chronic Lyme I and I allowed myself to feel somatically and all of this stuff. I didn’t really quite understand it and I didn’t I think I still would occasionally like suppress and all of that stuff or just ignore just ignore and now this time around I’m like okay this is what still kind of going in my own in my body these triggers are coming up, you know for a reason it’s not because I did something wrong or there’s something wrong with my body. It’s just like these things come up because there’s, there is trauma stored in the body, in the nervous system. And, um, it’s just about now handling it in a, in a different way when it comes up, not shaming myself being terrified of it. Yeah. And that’s the difference. You know, that’s what I, that’s sort of what I feel. But going back to your original question, I kind of forget what we were talking about. There’s something about letting go or whatever. Oh no, routines. And towards the end, do we maintain a routine that we do every day? Do we do it when they come up? Is there a period, is there a time to let go of healing? I feel like that’s the final boss. This is a question that I don’t really kind of know the correct answer to, and what I will say is I still do a routine every single day that is beneficial for me, but I don’t do it to try to heal myself. I do it because it’s, like I said, it’s acting through self -love. So every day, and I’ve done this for years, You know, I meditate every day. I do things like heart -brain coherence meditations every day. I do visualization. I do movement practices. I have my journal that I write in every day, gratitude and affirmations and all that stuff. But if I miss it, it’s not like, hey, I beat myself up or anything like that. And I just think it’s something that is beneficial for me every day. Because here’s what I will say. Don’t need to do these routines really. I mean honestly, I live a normal life but life happens and and things happen in life and We can always go back into that automatic default program that is hardwired and pretty much all humans and it’s that stress fear loop that can can always happen if something Tread tragic, you know trauma happens in your life. You can get caught up in depression You know anxiety fear worry panic and all of these things and in that negativity bias in your brain, which is like Again, why is this happening?

Relapse, Long COVID & the Stress Bucket

Mitch
What is going wrong with me all of this stuff? So i’m not saying that I do this so so that if things come up, you know i’m prepared for it, but I do it because you know It’s an act of self -love. It’s giving myself time every day where I do things that are beneficial for my mental health, my physical health, my spiritual health, and my overall emotional well -being. And I do it because I care about myself.

Joe
I want to support my body, and I don’t want to… Again, we can get caught up into that negativity all throughout the day if we’re sometimes not careful. And so that’s why I do it. I don’t ever tell anyone that there’s like, oh my god, you got to do this for the rest of your life or you’re going to relapse or whatever. I don’t know. I wish I had an answer for you. I don’t think anyone knows. I think everyone’s made up in a different way. Some people, you know, need these type of things. And it’s almost like how they’re hardwired. You know, again, like some people almost structure to their structure is good for them. I don’t like structure for me is is good. But I also need like flexibility within that structure. Spontaneous. I can’t say it’s spontaneous. Exactly. So like every day my routine is just a little bit different. You know, I do some of the same things. But I give myself flexibility within it to change. And if I go on vacation or if I, you know, I’m doing something or I’m busy and if I miss, you know, a day or I’m really loose with it for a week or two, it’s it’s whatever. I just come I just I’ve built this foundation that I always come back to the things that are beneficial for me. And so that’s what I try to get people to do. But what I will say is, you know, especially early on. You know, people really struggle with this because it’s it’s these routines, you know, you have to build up that habit. And now, like now that I’ve built up that habit because I’ve been doing it for years and it didn’t take years to do. It didn’t take me doing it for years to have built up that habit. Like within a few months, I’ve built up that habit that it’s just like it’s like brushing my teeth. You know, it’s like taking a shower where I don’t ever feel resistance to doing it. Sometimes early on, you feel resistance to doing it. But it’s not because it’s not It’s you don’t it’s not good for you or anything. It’s because it’s foreign. So it’s like doing anything new, you know, until you build that like routine, it’s going to feel uncomfortable and you’re there is going to be resistance. But once you kind of. work through that resistance and build up new habits, then you don’t have it anymore. There’s never a time where I’m just like, oh, I don’t want to do this meditation. And if you did, you could give yourself permission to pick it up, put it down, to change it. There’s something different. I think that’s what I hear is like, you’ve found things that are supportive to you, that aren’t fixing, that aren’t dependent on your well -being. But things that give you energy, give you life. I have things that I do like that as well. And it’s like, instead of holding ourselves hostage, pointing a gun to our head and saying you do this or die. It’s like, I like this shit. Yeah, I like it too. Like after this, you know, it’s sunny out here. I’m going to go probably to the beach. I’m gonna do probably like a quick little heart, brain, and coherence meditation, read a book, listen to some music, and it’s all because I like to do it. It’s not because I don’t, or it’s because I feel like if I don’t do it, I’m gonna be sick again. It’s just like I like to do it. It’s energy giving, so. It’s helpful to say that as someone like, I feel like I’m a little bit behind you and looking up and going like, hey man, like. Not that I’m behind you, that sounds negative, but you’re looking forward to someone who’s made a lot of progress and I’ve seen what’s possible with this work in a year and somebody that’s been doing it.

What Healing Really Looks Like

Mitch
How long have you been doing it? I know you’ve been doing it for 20 years, but I’m saying this more… Yes, so… I did it for years when I first got better and then I let it go, all go, and I was healthy for many years.

Joe
When I relapsed with long COVID, so that was beginning of 2021. It probably took me like six months or whatever to get back into this work. So I guess I’ve been doing it for like three, three and a half years now. But I will say, the first The first year, like from when I started to a year after that, my life was completely changed. And I always tell people that I work with or that join my class or whatever to not look like a month from now when they start or even three months, but look a year. Because that’s real hard. Yeah, I call it the Amazon Prime of healing like we won’t Yeah, but a year is Realistic it’s realistic like kind of I don’t know if you were saying helmet said like three years but like Maybe but I will say if but I will say in a year if you start And this time next year, if you started something today when you listen to this and you’re consistent for a year, not through force and fear and fixing like, again, some of these other programs will get you to do, but through the lens of acceptance, surrender and all that, and shifting your lifestyle, a year from today, you could be in a completely different state. When I relapsed with long COVID, And I was bettering and sick, couldn’t work, you know, and was struggling just to get through a day. A year from that time when I started, I was back to working full -time. I was back at the gym three to four times a week. I was again, engaging in all the hobbies that I wanted to do, skateboarding, going and seeing friends, concerts. I still had symptoms. Didn’t mean all of my symptoms were completely gone. Symptoms were way more manageable and it wasn’t… Um just pushing through I actually had joy again. I had happiness I was able to live life now I still had went through the ups and downs and there were times where I was like, oh this is This is a rough week, you know But it wasn’t like I wasn’t capable of handling it or it made me had to like lay in bed It was just like I just had to manage the symptoms of manage my response to the symptoms Yeah, yeah, that’s how we judge healing guys. Yeah Not necessarily the symptoms getting better, but how am I responding to it when I play?

Mitch
Yeah, exactly. Yep, yep. This has been incredible chatting to you. Kind of funny thing for you to know is I had this kind of similar thing. It was lime, mold, heavy metals, metabolic issues, some improvement, starting to come out of the woods, and then a car accident, long haul COVID three years in a row. Geez. And so I would get like my, I could not eat after the front went down to 140 pounds. My gut was just like, I think long haul COVID to me feels more like, kind of like we were talking about lime. I think it just added a lot to my stress bucket and put me into a collapsed state. And every time I would heal for that for three years, it would be something else. Um, and our timelines are so close. It’s hilarious. So it’s always great connecting with another dude, especially doing this work and who’s overcome so much and now helping other people.

Heal Club & Support

Mitch
Um, before we hop off, tell us, tell us about your community, your program and how people can find you.

Joe
Yeah, so Heelflip, like I said, is my program. It’s sort of my passion for doing what I do. So I have my main program, which is called Heal Club, and I work with people all over the world. We have between 30 and 40 people in the class right now. And it’s a true community and group program. So for people that are trying to heal, doing this work, you’re often left on your own. You might have a community, but it’s not really a community. The one thing that I wanted to create was an actual community where people get to know one another, where I’m actively involved in helping people and getting people to the other side of chronic illness and where people aren’t alone.

Joe
And I teach all of these principles of things that we talk about, ACT, acceptance, surrender, and then lifestyle shifts. And it’s all within the lens of nervous system practices and all that. So I teach people that have done over, I don’t even know, 500 Zoom calls over the last three plus years. And it’s not like the other Zoom group coaching things where it’s like Q &A. That’s not how I run it. Every Zoom call that I do is completely different. We do interactive practices and activities. People are able to ask questions and I will answer I talk on a specific topic every call that is different I kind of take pulse of where the group is at Sometimes I’m talking specifically like on acceptance practices and acceptance. Sometimes it’s on overcoming fear Sometimes it’s like on visualization or diet or movement or whatever and every call has been different It has we also have, you know private whatsapp chat where people engage talk every day, accountability partners, all of that.

Joe
So that’s my main thing. And then I work with people one -on -one within the community and then select a few. people that are outside of the community. I’ll do one -on -ones with. And then I have free support. I have my free nervous system guide, which you can get on my website, heal -flip. It’s H -E -A -L -flip .com. Again, it’s just a quick little guide that can get you started on nervous system healing that gives you a simple routine. that you can start today. And then I have more in depth guides, my heel flip manual, which is a more in depth guide surrounded around. ACT and lifestyle changes, and then I have my gut health guide for people that are really struggling with gut health that does talk about more in depth about nutrition, diet, recipes, and all of that stuff that can help you. So I have multi levels of support. I make it all really cost effective and affordable, man. I don’t know about you. The one thing that really pisses me off is there are like millionaires in this space, bro, that are making so much money off of people and charging a fortune and really not providing much healing. It’s just they just they got a marketing team and a marketing. Yeah, it’s they just they just sold a sold a dream and had a good marketing team and business coach. And, you know, that really bothers me. So I want to see people see people heal, you know, with having multi layers of affordable, you know, programs and support. So Um, that’s about it, man. Uh, I uh, if you guys have any questions, you know, i’m active on instagram tiktok youtube all heel flip, um Different on most platforms. I think it’s underscore heel flip on youtube heel dash flip on uh Or it’s heel dash flip on youtube underscore heel flip on instagram and then heel dash flip on on tiktok Those are probably the three places I’m most active.

Mitch
Right on, brother. Well, dude, thank you so much. It’s been fun chatting with you, sharing your journey of pain to purpose and getting that out there, trying to help people. I love that. We will definitely put your information, links to your website and program, social media links in the show notes. And people have made it this far. Thank you so much. Please give us a follow, a like. Leave us questions and comments below. Me and Joe will pop in. He’ll be tagged on here. Joe, thanks so much for coming on, brother. It’s been quite a pleasure to talk to my brother from another mother, it feels like.

Joe
Yeah. Appreciate you having me, man. I feel like we could have talked for 10 more hours on this stuff.

Mitch
Oh, dude. I had to cut it off. We’ll definitely do a round two and three and keep supporting each other in any way we can, man. Thanks so much for coming on. Bye bye to everybody else. Peace everyone. Thanks.