with Dr. David Mickel

Dr. Mickel shares why anxiety is not always fear, how suppressed emotions affect the nervous system, and how emotional stress stored in the body can create chronic fatigue symptoms, burnout symptoms, and psychosomatic illness patterns.

0:02 — Introduction

Mitch: All right, guys. Welcome back to the Rooted Conversations podcast. I’m your host, Mitch Webb. Today, I have a very special guest, Dr. David Mikkel. Um, I gota I had to give Dr. David Michl a little bit of grief on the on our warm-up call because the the first time I heard him speak on Railen’s podcast, shout out to Railen. I stayed up for the rest of the night going down rabbit  holes and and understanding everything he was saying and and uh was just super stoked because it’s very his take on someone that’s dealing with chronic symptoms like anxiety, fatigue, um autoimmune issues, mystery illness. It’s very different than what I’ve heard and it really resonated with me and the clients that I worked with. So I I had to get him on the show to pick  his brain. Uh so so Dr. Mkel, thank you so much for coming on, man. Welcome. Thank you very much.

Dr. Mickel: Good to see you. Pleasure to be here. And so tell tell everybody where you’re uh where you’re at, where you’re calling in from. I am calling from uh north of Scotland near Inesse where the Loch Ness monster comes from. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. I have. Is it real? I I’ve spoken to very credible witnesses, but I’ve never seen it myself. Yeah, that sounds really cool. When as a kid, I

Mitch: was actually really interested in that. I thought it was in I was thinking the Loch Ness monster. Yeah. And in the in the Great Lakes here in North America. Oh, they got one there as well. I think so. We got I mean I went to Chicago last year and it looks like you’re standing at the ocean  and then I guess it could make sense that that could be something there. Yeah. Well, and you’ve got a you’ve got places called Inesse, I think, in somewhere in the States. What’s it called again? in Veresse in Inesse. I don’t know. We We did a We did a geography challenge with the family a couple years ago and showed us that we all have no idea about geog geography and so so I’m not gonna I don’t think I’m a credible source to comment on that. Yeah. Well, me neither. Yeah. Anyway,  I know Scotland. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome welcome to the show, man. It’s good to have you. Thanks. Cheers. So, I wanted to start and kind of unpack the thing that grabbed my attention. And so, I’m sitting on the couch late at night and you were talking about the common myth about fatigue is that we need to rest more or avoid things to conserve our energy. And you were talking about how it’s not that at all that it’s completely different that it has to do with emotions. And I would love to start by unpacking that. So, so what do you think? Where’s fatigue coming from?

Dr. Mickel: Why do we get fatigue? Okay. So, um, and to be fair, I used to think that fatigue needed to be handled as if you had a certain amount of energy that you had to hold on to a bit. Yeah. But I I think that’s not true. I think your your body your physical body will let you know that it needs rest by using healthy tiredness not symptoms. So for me symptoms are always a sign that there is a what I call body emotion or feeling that is within you that’s seeking a response. So if I briefly explain to you uh how that how that looks. though. Um, if you imagine that your body has an extension out with it, and I don’t know what it is, but I think people start to be able to view it, it’s like a consciousness, an energetic field. Call it what you like. It all sounds very woowoo. And we still burn people in Scotland for being witches, by the way. Is that I believe it to be true. And I have no idea why I believe it so strongly. I think over the last 25 years I’ve just been convinced there is something more to physical body definitely has an energetic part of it that extends out with us and we’re not even aware it’s there obviously except if you imagine this things there so it could be an extension of your uh nervous system. So it’s like an energetic tendrils if you like but basically it acts in a way where it reads the energy of your life okay in that moment moment to moment it’s it’s feeling what it’s like to be you in that environment and for me so if you’re in a a room where there’s I don’t know an argument happening and you’re getting pulled into or something the energy changes and it creates a shift within you which that’s where feelings start. Yeah. Okay. So, feelings are nonlabeled uh kind of the start of what’s going to become an emotion. But it doesn’t become an emotion till it gets to your head and your head labels it. Anyway, this is probably too complicated. Very simply, when your energy shifts and you have a feeling, the feeling affects your physical body by activating it, getting it ready to be responded to. Yeah. To be expressed in some way and your actions, your words, your choices. Um, and that works very nicely. If you look at a young kid, kids are great. If you watch them about 2, three years old, they just spontaneously flow through life. They don’t give a [ __ ] about  anything. Oh, they go they go zero to 100 and back down to zero in 10 seconds. And the thing that takes them back from 100 is not symptoms. It’s not fatigue. It’s just something shifts and they go, I want to slow down. So, they’re responding to feeling. Unfortunately, that beautiful natural process is quashed in us from quite an early age. We’re made to go against our true feelings. We’re educated in things we don’t like. We’re not allowed to be the free spirit that we were born. Yes. And ultimately that all leads to one thing and that is suppression or dissociation from the feeling. So this feeling changes, activates you, gets every switches everything on. It’s like you’re plugged in. And what happens is your head tries to make sense of the feeling and it learns to label it as an emotion. So it goes I am angry. Yeah. It goes that’s anger. And then unfortunately what it does is it doesn’t then go well let’s just stay with anger. What can we do that’s constructive with this? It creates stories around it. Yes. They’re always doing that to me. I’m always the one getting into this is not my fault. Defend yourself and it just builds up inside you. It doesn’t get responded to constructively. So that produces symptoms. So symptoms are just a prolonged activation of your physical body and the more we suppress avoid the louder the volume gets turned up. Yeah. Cuz it just builds. It’s just caught in a loop and all physiologically I think it’s the hypothalammus just gets overwhelmed and it doesn’t switch off as it’s supposed to. So you get all the symptoms that are associated with what I call energy disorder. So you get fatigue, you get bowel upset, you get a hyperactive immune system that produces mcast and sensitivities, you get, you know, there’s a whole host of things. You get pain because your muscles are constantly ready and all of it uses up energy. So your energy just drops and that’s fatigue. So I I I talk about in metaphorical terms. So this thing I described about the energetic body, I just call it the body. And I say that when your body produces one of its emotions, and there only three that are important, okay, which we’ll come to in a minute. When it produces an emotion, it looks for you to respond honestly to it. If you don’t, then the emotions trapped inside. Then the body uses symptoms to bring your attention back to the emotion. So in other words, symptoms are just the body shouting a very simple in the- moment emotion at you over and over and over and over again. I look like I may have hypnotized you. Make a noise like a Make a noise like a chicken, Mitch.

9:01 — Fear vs. Emotion

Mitch: I’m I’m going I’m I’m thinking about this and I’m thinking about how how this how these symptoms happen. Right? So, we got a hypothalamus that’s scanning for threats. It’s wanting to express

Dr. Mickel: itself. It’s it’s it’s had a shift in the body. But because where my mind goes is because we were taught, hey, you’re not allowed to express that emotion, we learned that that emotion is bad. And that’s where the story comes. So now now we’re looping in this story and instead of expressing what we’re feeling, we’re trying to fix it and figure out what’s wrong. Yeah. Well, one of one of the one of the stories is I cannot be I cannot let people know how I feel. So that’s one of the stories. But generally we the head’s fantastically clever and it one of its fall back secondary emotional states is to create fear or a sense of threat. So that’s what your nervous system is acting like. But in actual fact, fear is almost never present in your body unless you’re in danger. And that’s where the whole brain retraining community is is hanging their hat on fear and saying, you know, these symptoms are being created from fear. Yeah. You’re saying they’re being created by symptoms by being afraid to express that and instead shutting it down and that shutting it down is causing the symptoms. Not quite. So the fear the fear that h they they work on so well is fear about having symptoms. So indirectly it’s about the emotions but they

Mitch: don’t consciously know that. You don’t consciously know it. What’s what’s the disconnect there? Why

Dr. Mickel: don’t we consciously know it? Uh because as you go through this upbringing of gradual suppression and start to live in your head, which is a fear-based culture filled with [ __ ] stories, y is that you you don’t no one says to you, “Hang on a minute. Hang on a minute. Just take a pause. What do you  feel inside? What do you really feel?” Mhm. What what what’s underneath the fear? What’s underneath the symptoms? What is the feeling? And for me, if you were able to do that, and not many people can, you can describe it as sensations, but you you’re not uh kind of fluent in the language of what that feeling means. Is that it’s either going to be anger, unfair treatment towards you in that moment. Mhm. Or a wave of grief. Now, grief’s really interesting because the head labels it as sadness, but in actual fact, often the body is just using grief to shed an old energy. It’s basically just saying that story’s finished. I’ve heard you say it’s loss, not so much sadness. It’s

12:09 — Grief and Emotional Expression

Mitch: the energy no longer flowing. Is that what you’re saying? Well, it’s if you let it flow, then that’s

Dr. Mickel: great. But don’t try and over understand it. You might just suddenly now um women are very good at feeling it and just letting it happen. You know, especially they they have hormone changes that magnify the underlying emotion and make it much more palpable, whereas men don’t tend to. So they’ll just suddenly feel tearful and be tearful. And God help you if you ask them why. So that’s so that’s natural expression. And if someone is expressing that grief, they if they can get in touch with it, then they’re not going to get a symptom from it. But if someone if someone feels, let’s say, a guy that it’s it’s it’s not okay to be sad. And so that starts to come up and the story is Yeah. Or the belief is that’s not allowed. Boom. I’m going to suppress that. Yeah, exactly. The next thing my back’s hurting. Yeah. Or Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. My back’s hurting or I’ve got a headache or chest tight. It can be all sorts of things. I mean, for me, all the kind of chronic illnesses that are not energy disorder as such like chronic fatigue or any of these other ones that we work with, I do wonder whether much of our chronic disease is based on all of this.

Mitch: the fact that we’re not shown how to work with the energy of emotional feeling. I I agree and and I think I love to hear that because it’s so damn simple versus going to the doctor, taking labs, you know, your Epstein bar, your Lyme disease, your exposure, your heavy metals, you know, your vitamins that are out and and playing whack-a-ole and and treating which is just another avoidance

Dr. Mickel: of the emotion. Yeah. So it’s what I call they work they work downstream. So and they’re very very good. They’ve studied it for many hundreds of years. Medicine, you know, they can go into mass cells now and tell you what exactly is happening in there or but who cares? What can you do about it? They give you some poisonous drug to try and stop what it’s the mass cells telling you.  But the mass cell is only the messenger for the feeling that arose within you in the first place. And so we’re gonna we’re going to start fixing. And this is the brain retraining world. Dr. Sarno talks about all the Fs, fixing, forcing, figuring out, focusing, fearing. All that seems like that’s the avoidance as well. But we society rewards this because it feels productive. It feels like you’re doing something about it. Because as a society, we are not in touch with our feelings and we’re not taught how to express that. We’re taught to be good little boys and good little girls and shut the f up and sit over in the corner. Time out. Yeah, exactly. I hadve I I had I’ve had several clients, but I had one recently said, “So my body is like Buddha.” I said, “That’s exactly right.” Because so Buddha with a feeling would go, I am angry and that’s okay. Mhm. But your head goes, it tries to solve it as a problem. This is not okay. I’m angry. How dare I? This is not okay. What are they doing to make me angry? And it builds up build. They’re not going to love me  if I’m angry. They’re I’m going to rock the boat. Whatever that is. Yeah. What was I going to say? You made me think of something. Threat, right? Threat and fear has had way too much attention in this field, I believe. Yeah. And it makes sense because your head is a place that as a ne a knee-jerk reaction will produce fear about everything. It’s a protective mechanism that goes back to when we were hunted by dinosaurs or something. I don’t know. It’s just imprinted, right? But long before the fear arises, there’s lots of feelings that are happening moment to moment that are nothing to do with fear. In fact, you could say that fear is not a body emotion as such because if your if your body feels under threat, that means in danger, a threat to life, then it would produce a it produces the same idea. It produces a massive fightor-flight response, right? This this fight orflight response that is fatigue or chronic fatigue is not caused by fear. It’s caused by uh suppressed anger, grief, or boredom. Yeah. The body boredom

Mitch: was one that that caught my attention. And it’s like it almost gave me and a lot of the people  I worked with when I shared this information with them, permission to to live life again, you know, to get clear because I think what happens is is our life starts to get small because we avoid the things that we love. Because in the last 24 hours before the fatigue hit, we’re going to blame whatever it is that we were doing. Yeah. Exactly. So, at some point you you have to gently hopefully

Dr. Mickel: understand how energy works first of all and then gently challenge what does boredom really seek? It boredom seeks to be first of all accepted and allowed to be. I’m allowed to be bored.

Mitch: I never thought about it like that. That’s good. And then and then what you do is you go,

Dr. Mickel: now that I’m sitting in this feeling within my body of boredom, it doesn’t feel great. Therefore, I wonder if I follow boredom, it will naturally take you to an expanded state of feeling more alive. Mhm. So, you don’t need your head to work too hard at this. As much as possible, you want to keep your very clever brain out of it for the moment because it creates it. It goes boredom problem fix it. Yeah. I can’t do it. And then it goes I can’t do anything because I’ve got fatigue, right? Or symptoms. But if you follow what happened is the energy of life became dull. It created a shift in your body, activated your system, switched it all on, waiting for you to allow and accept boredom, and then gently act upon it. But you didn’t because we don’t cuz we don’t even recognize boredom most of the time is then you got symptoms and you missed your chance. So in Mikl therapy, what I do is I go, “No, no, it’s okay. expand your life and try and get symptoms in new environments because we need to create new experiences not force for force some outcome. No, no. Exactly. So I say do whatever you like to do and get symptoms and then apply this process which is when you get symptoms understand they are just a body communication. Okay? not not telling you that you’re [ __ ] and going to you know they’re there to tell you in simple terms your body has a feeling that it wants you to allow accept and respond to. So think of all times because you see the vicious cycle that happens. So if the predominant emotion is I am bored and not fulfilled. Mhm. If you then get symptoms because of it, you’re likely to do less. So you get even more bored. And now we’re now we’re stuck in a cycle and we can’t see out of that. Yeah. So a lot of what we do in at that stage in mikotherapy is say, well, you don’t need do anything,

Mitch: but what does that what would you like to do just to lift the energy up a little bit? If you didn’t have the symptom, what would you be interested in doing? Yeah. Yeah. Instead of instead of waiting for that symptom to improve, can we get excited about living our life and doing the things that we love if the symptom wasn’t there? And it’s almost like that creates a little peak into possibility

Dr. Mickel: ex now we got a different feeling coming in. I’m excited. I got the I got life force pulling a little bit and can I follow that impulse? Yeah. And it because and it depends at what stage. Some people have dreadful heavy heavy bad symptoms, you know, like bed bound. Oh, I did I did right here.

Mitch: I did myself. I mean, um when I started doing this work, I I mean uh six months ago, eight months ago, you know, this particular uh way of looking at things, I was in the bed and my thing in the  morning was can I just get up and go for a walk in the mornings and make that, you know, part of my routine because I love being in nature. I love moving and exercising and telling myself I can’t  do that until I wake up with energy one morning. Well, that’s it. If you wait till you have energy,

Dr. Mickel: you don’t get, right? You get energy from doing the thing that you love and showing yourself through a new experience that this is actually safe. Yeah. And I mean some if you were still in a bed bound state then the way to move the energy of boredom can be very small things. It can just be I’m not going to lie down. I’m going to try and sit a little bit up for 10 minutes just to get a different view of the room. That can be enough. Yeah. So, but I think the point I’ve understood over the years is that boredom doesn’t need to be solved. So, our head wants a problem, right? Solve. Yeah. Boredom is just an emotional state that will be there until it’s not. And it can come and go and come and go through the day and through in the middle of activities. So you might say um I’m walking in nature. Therefore I am not bored. But your body senses energy. It goes actually take a right here. I want to go up a little bit. I want to go uphill not walk on the flat. And it can be tiny things like that. And if you teach yourself to notice the feeling, you don’t get symptoms.

23:02 — Changing Your Relationship With Symptoms

Mitch: Okay. So, let me ask you this. If someone, you know, when we have trauma, when we have the  upbringing that says you can’t express yourself, and we have this belief that it’s not okay, and we’re we’re just not in touch with that, these feelings, what do you do to prepare someone to start to notice those sensations in the body that we call feelings? I I think that’s I think

Dr. Mickel: symptoms do it for you. Okay. So when people come with these uh let’s say the main ones fatigue and brain fog and I I say okay so but understand this that doesn’t need fixed unlike what I was trained to do as a doctor which was fix the symptoms you know the people come in say I don’t like feeling it make it go away so we poison them with some drug that does shoot that messenger but they get something else instead which is that instead we go right we’re going to change your relationship with symptoms. And the first understanding is it’s just my body using a language that I haven’t learned yet. Right. Mhm. But the first lesson in that language is it’s not telling me to rest. Yes. So, but we probably need someone to tell us that because it it makes sense. I’m so tired. I can’t open my eyes. I can’t get out of bed. I must need to lay on the couch for a week. Yeah. And sometimes you will want to lie down, but it has to be based on the feeling, not the symptom. Right?  So, so we change your relationship. You say, “Uh, right, my symptoms are getting worse. I’m feeling fatigued.” Instead of that immediate allowing the head to get into fear, I better lie down or I’m going to have a terrible crash. I’ll be in my bed for weeks. Yeah. Is to go, “No, wait. Shut up, head.” Yeah. I don’t believe, as you know, in retraining the brain. I think it’s too clever and it’s best just imagine it like uh what you call it white noise in the background and chats on. But if you drop your attention into your body by saying what is the emotion that my body is sending me right now that created this symptom then you get much closer to finding out the truth. And in therapy we just say look about your situation. Is there anything unfair happening towards you? Is somebody being unfair? Is there further demand put on you? Cuz that produces what the emotion becomes anger that family. It can be small annoyance all the way up to anger. If it’s not anger and you don’t sense something like a tearful sadness arising that you’re blocking, then in that moment, your body’s just saying the energy is flat. It’s dull. Mhm. Yeah. So, anything you can do to lift it a little bit will allow the symptoms to go down because you’re answering the emotion. And that can

Mitch: be so difficult. I I see myself like going on this wild goose chase of like, you know, getting a a microscope out and trying to understand that that’s where that’s the story. So that’s the  story of getting involved. Yeah. And the the the narrative that says I don’t know what’s going on in my body. But how do we get people to slow down and and notice that? Is it a set of questions?

Dr. Mickel: Is it like an exercise of orienting or Yeah. Well, it’s the first the first step in in my process is that when your symptoms increase, just take a moment, take a breath and say, “My symptoms are just emotions being shouted at me.” Yes. So, in this moment, which emotion makes most sense? Anger or boredom, lack of fulfillment? So, you’ve only got a 50/50 choice. If you’re by yourself and there’s no interaction, then it is highly likely to be my energy is flat because it’s nowhere to flow to. Mhm. You know, it’s like I need to expand even just a little bit. I can, you know, I haven’t sat in the living room for ages because of what fatigue did to me. Well,

Mitch: I’m going to go and sit in the living room and just see what happens to my symptoms. So you you use the symptoms as useful kind of barometer of how you’re doing. It’s like a good gauge. So instead of judging what we’re doing, oh, I should not be sitting here in this living room. I should not be doing this activity and bringing a bunch of shame, which I think is going to keep us in the loop even more because now I did something bad or I need to avoid something or I need to do something extra. That’s going to keep us in there. What we’re saying is, can we zoom out a little bit and go, what information is here? Can I take the label, the judgment of good or bad and say, what’s what information am I being given here? And then we’re almost it’s it’s like victim mentality versus empowerment and seeing our I see this as like seeing our body as a supercomput that it is and intelligent as it is. And so now we’re coming out of that shame a little bit and we’re listening and we’re learning to be with instead of going into this fix it mentality that again keeps us

Dr. Mickel: in the loop. Yeah. Exactly. Because the there’s certain emotions that the body never produces. It cannot produce a negative emotion about you. You got to come get in my head, dude. because it works on energy. So, and it you it could if you forced yourself to do something wrong based on a story in your head, there you go. Then you would feel sad about what you done. But it doesn’t produce guilt and shame. Yes. Guilt and shame are completely different narratives that have been created throughout your upbringing that you’re not good enough. And and I would I would  say shame and guilt. It’s not something that’s innate in humans. It’s something that’s given

29:20 — Shame, Guilt, and the Stories in Our Heads

Mitch: to us. Is that kind of what we’re talking about here? Oh yeah. It’s imprinted. It’s coded into  you. You’re always being told off and it makes you think, “Oh goodness, I’m not really a very nice person after.” And they’re the people that become not very nice people. And and and you’re  saying this is just a story. We shouldn’t even label it emotion. It’s a story that’s been given to us and we’ve been taking it hook, line, and sinker and believe in that. And so the the way out of that is just to to notice that, oh, I’m going back into that that program of I’m not enough and what’s underneath that. So, it’s just teaching people to use to use what’s happening here in the now and then to and to take the story and then go underneath it. Yeah. So you bypass it

Dr. Mickel: all. So rather than try to uh retrain or reprogram your brain to stop producing these things through 50 years of therapy. Just go actually I’m more interested what my body is feeling right now.

Mitch: That’s um one of my mentors. We would say we go through the body and do like a sematic tracking exercise just what’s we’re taking inventory. See what’s here. What stories pop up? What sensations happen? We’re combining the top down with the bottom up. And we’re going, “Oh, okay. I noticed my head’s hurting. What story do I have about that? And can I let that story go?” Like a like a Buddhist. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Floating down the river. And then let me come back to what’s going

Dr. Mickel: on in my body. Yeah. And it’s like the body has been waiting for that forever. That sensation’s been knocking at the door for 30 [ __ ] years. And we’ve been we we got taught to slam the

Mitch: door. Yeah. Exactly. And instead it’s And we think that’s what healing is, is fixing it and figuring

Dr. Mickel: it out. Meanwhile, the the messenger is there with the information that we’re looking for. And that’s where we say you are the medicine. Nobody’s going to open that door for you. You got to open that

Mitch: door. But we do it with people like you giving us the information and the ability to step outside of our little oursel a little bit and trust. And that is safety. If I can trust that I when I open that door and I talk to that messenger that it’s not going to hurt me, then then I’m building safety and selfrust. But we’ve been so used to thinking that the monster is behind that door and that we

Dr. Mickel: got to avoid it. Yeah. But now Well, exactly. And all that’s happening in your head. Yeah. It’s exhausting. Yeah. The body doesn’t feel fear about life unless there is danger danger to your

Mitch: life. And so it takes awareness and capacity to be able to go to hold two things at one time. to hold my yes, my body is screaming at me and the alarm bells are going off. But if I look around this room, I’m hanging out with Dr. Mickel and we’re having a good time. So like, which one

Dr. Mickel: is true? Well, both are true. And if I can hold both of those things without collapsing, then I build my ability to trust and build safety with this is just a messenger. It’s just a sensation.

32:42 — Fear, Safety, and Awareness

Mitch: that do you feel like over time through challenging those narratives and being

Dr. Mickel: meeting the body that the alarm gets turned down and that the symptoms needed? Yeah, it happens very quickly actually because um don’t focus on the don’t try and change narratives. Don’t try and change your head producing fear about symptoms mostly. Yeah. Mhm. Because as you go right there, I do feel symptoms now. It’s just your body shouting a bit louder. It’s turned the signal up. Mhm. If you go right, what is the emotion? Well, I’ve only got three to choose from. Is something making me angry? Uh am I feeling like I could if I wasn’t a tough macho man at the football game with my friends, would I be crying right now? So, that’s grief. And the other one is, has the energy just got a bit flat? Is this just a bit boring? So what it does is it means that you never have to focus on fear ever cuz it’s not there. Unless Unless somebody’s chasing you. Unless Yeah. Unless you’re in danger. Danger. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The only time and it’s not the right word. I’ve conventional or traditionally I’ve said there is anger, grief, body boredom and very very rarely fear. Yeah. But what I mean by fear is not actually fear. It’s more like the body just saying there’s missing information. This this picture is incomplete. I don’t know what will happen.

Mitch: And that’s and that’s so refreshing to hear that because in so many of these spaces you’ll hear people say you don’t have to even guess the emotion. You can label it as fear 99% of the time. Yeah. Then we’re then we’re then we’re then we’re dismissing uh the anger, the grief, and the boring. And we’re going to miss those signals if we’re just trying to lump everything  into fear. Yeah. It’s not fear, isn’t it? Like all these little booby traps. Yeah. That our society

Dr. Mickel: creates. Yeah, the thing I mean I completely understand it because the physiological changes with symptoms are a type of fight or flight. So we immediately associate that in the head with fear. Mhm. So it makes sense why they think it’s fear, but fear has nothing to do with the cause of it. Very very rarely are. For me it’s worry or concern or missing information from the body. It

Mitch: just says I don’t know. That’s so you’re saying the worry, the concern, the missing information,  that’s what would lump under fear, but it’s rarely that. Yeah. Very rarely. And that’s what I would

Dr. Mickel: call body fear or uncertainty or lack of clarity. There’s no clarity. It’s like if you if your head goes, I wonder what will happen tomorrow. And your body’s like, how the [ __ ] would I know? I It goes, I live here right now. I we’re nowhere near tomorrow. So, a lot of it is like that Buddhist tradition of being in the now, very zen, but it’s very difficult to do. You know,

Mitch: with these like I I was as we were kind of chatting on the way in or on our pre-call, I’m learning about the difference between, you know, dysregulation and sensitization. And I think I would say the difference is person’s been dis dysregulation is I had a bad night of sleep and I’m I’m off today, right? My emotions are heightened maybe. Yeah, the volume’s turned up today. But in a sensitized state, that volume’s been turned up for so long that everything is a threat and little things that would, you know, a bunny crossing my path is going to freak me out and I’m going to go down, you know, what does that mean about, you know, all these different  things. Do you treat the person who is sensitized different than the person who’s just dealing with

Dr. Mickel: some block emotions? No. Cuz the sensitized state is because of the activation because of anger, grief or boredom. So, okay. And it comes it’s just the nervous system becomes on a higher alert. But it nothing to do with fear. remember it just means that perhaps your body is containing more

Mitch: boredom. Okay. So, when I when I came into this work, yeah, I’m a dude, you know, we’re not as in touch with our emotions as some of the ladies are. And I remember feeling like my body was on fire and I had no way of understanding what that meant. And now over time of slowing that down, building the capacity to be with difficult sensations in my body, I would go, “Oh,  I’m feeling angry. I’m feeling sad. I’m feeling I never thought about the board one.” Yeah. But it’s what you’re saying is there’s just a it’s a lifetime of accumulation of not of suppressing emotions. And so I got this one for you, too. An analogy that I like that I’ve heard before is like trauma is like farts. Right. We if if we uh if we let it out all at once, we clear a room. Yeah. And uh if we if we uh if we hold it in, it hurts. So, we’re kind of talking about the hold it in, it hurts. And if we’ve been and if we’re if we’ve been holding that in for a long time. Yeah. Do you do you do little bits? Because we talk about titration in this work, you know, and and like

Dr. Mickel: Yeah, great question. I can do too much. But now I’ll I’ll offer this as my understanding because it might challenge your thinking a little. So uh trauma is what trauma happens every time you shut off from the truth of your emotional feeling. That’s the backlog when we when the energ is flowing and we go nope. And that flows back in. Yeah. for safety or it feels too terrible to be true or whatever. You just shut the energy of the truth of the emotion. But here’s the great news. Trauma does not exist within the body. Mhm. Because it just moves on energetically to the next moment. Okay. So here’s how when So a lot of the people we treat have got very traumatic past. Yeah. So we never I never talk about them because I know I’m I I become more body like so. So I know the body’s never considered them again the next moments here. So their head has lots of stories, lots of narrative about it. But again, unhelpful because the head has this facility where it either goes into the uncertain future and creates [ __ ] there or it goes back into the past and applies filters and generalizes and deletes information, distorts things and basically just makes you suffer. I don’t know why it does it. I think it’s to protect you. But ultimately, it’s to create fear of recurrence of it. Yes. So the good news is that uh let’s say you go through a very traumatic instant that creates hurt which is sadness and anger 20 years ago and the emotions were blocked. That means that anything that happens today that creates hurt or anger which is lots of things. It can just be a look from the wife. Yeah. It’s that simple cuz energetically without the context the emotional content the same is that if you learn like in our process you just learn to uh accept allow it to be true and then choose a constructive response in that moment. You actually

Mitch: heal everything from the past energetically. So, so here this makes me think of uh Joe Despensza and he would say, “Hey, somebody asked me,”Hey, why are you such an asshole?” Where you go, well, 10 years ago, this person cut me off in traffic and I’ve been pissed about it ever since. And so that when that irritation, I’m reminded about that in my day-to-day life that’s triggering that whole cascade of blocked emotion. It’s not this. It’s not that you know that that cut off is living in my body. It’s that the energetic signature is still waiting to be expressed. Well,

Dr. Mickel: it’s always looking to be expressed. Okay. But the thing that’s stuck is your your clever mind has created lots of narratives that so it goes hurt and anger. I remember a time flashback flashback flashback or just this is just like the time and it builds it up. So this is why well you know yourself if people have got PTSD of any kind or any traumatic instance then they can be in therapy forever ever. But why leave the head to do that? You’re just you’re just digging

Mitch: you’re digging for something that doesn’t need to be dug up. No, it doesn’t. And I think the

42:12 — Why Beliefs Aren’t the Focus

Dr. Mickel: and this is where probably Mik therapy is quite a challenge is that it doesn’t I don’t I try not I try to validate the head and what it does but I don’t work with any of it [ __ ] So you

Mitch: don’t think it’s important to work with people’s beliefs? No. Okay. Interesting. Because that’s

Dr. Mickel: that’s just taking you on a wild goose chase. You almost are you then okay belief comes up let that go what’s happening in your body? Uh yeah so belief is ahead. The the body only gives you pure in that moment energetic feeling of what’s going on. And if you want to be healthy you just work with that. And a really interesting thing happens. all your beliefs and narratives about all the things that create negative patterns in your head, they just quieten down and something strange happens. You’re your mind starts to work with your body because now everything happens in relationship. Now they’re together instead of being disconnected. Yeah. So your head’s been in charge. I I like to say it was like the chef patron in the restaurant, you know, just in charge all the time. Yeah. And the body was the sue chef. Well, now they just change the roles and actually they switch. Your body becomes in charge and your head helps it manifest what it’s saying. A lot of guys come to me with this belief and and I am included in this as well um of you know I

Mitch: got to get this anger out. Yeah. And it’s like we come up with all these ways you know we can talk about you know feeling the the teeth like showing expressing this and we can do vu and ah and we can make these sounds and we can I was instructed to watch I believe it’s called the haka from the guys from New Zealand. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And I noticed I’ll give I’ll just give my example. So when I started to learn about this, I’m like, you know, see my eyes. I can Oh, that’s it. That’s I want to do that. And so you’re from New Zealand, aren’t you? So, so we we start to connect

Dr. Mickel: with that impulse and that emotion that’s been stored like, yes, I want to do this. Okay. So,  this is how it happened for me. I remember seeing the options and it was like, can you make a a a

Mitch: grit with your teeth and can you growl? And I’m like, that’s just that’s [ __ ] [ __ ] I’m not  ready. I would I need something more than that. And so the haka made sense to me. Like really getting into it. Now, here’s where I would call it in the past of belief. I started thinking, I’m afraid to do this to express this anger because I’m afraid the neighbors are going to hear it. I’m going to scare someone, right? And so I I work through that fear of that. and I’m in the mirror and I’m just and I have about the best hour and a half of my life and then it’s like my whole world came crashing down and it it was it took me back to like a young age where I now I would say I wasn’t allowed to be angry that wasn’t okay in my family and I remember thinking that night my wife’s out to get me like I was avoiding her and the next day I got sore throat

Dr. Mickel: And I was sick for like two weeks. What the hell is going on there? Well, now listen this really carefully. Okay, you there is not a reservoir of builtup emotions that need let go of. Okay, I like that. In fact, never let go of [ __ ] Don’t let go of anything. What do you mean? I mean that because you the thing your mind holds on to emotions. It stores the stories of them but it’s making up nonsense. Okay. If you if you imagine where all emotions stem from the body. So feelings first then thoughts. Okay. So they’re not stored as such in your body. They’re just constantly changing. They’re like the weather. Okay. You don’t need you don’t want to let them go. They’re just you can’t let them go. How can you let them go? They’re energy. What you do is allow them and you flow with them to what they’re seeking. And that would be kind of like reaching a peak activation that then is going to come back down. So you’re following that momentum. Well, in terms of somatic experience of it, you might feel it rising, right? But the actual activation, you don’t need to. As you get good at it, you just go, you know what? I feel like doing this. I feel like I don’t feel like doing this anymore. Like a child, you know, push the toy away and pick up the box that it  came in and have more fun with it. That they just feel it and do it. And and that expression that that following of the impulse is what helps us deactivate. It is the expression. Yeah. That it’s

Mitch: an action. We we took the action our body’s asking of us. Exactly. So if you apply that to anger,

Dr. Mickel: grief, boredom, lack of fulfillment, your symptoms are not needed anymore and you’ve

Mitch: not let go of anything. It almost sounds like you’re pushing a but instead of going into the, you know, library of how I respond to anger. It’s almost like you’re just pushing a button,

Dr. Mickel: allowing the anger button to be pushed and, you know, letting whatever is going to come up come  up. Yeah. Well, here’s the good news. Anger, the emotional signal, the feeling signal from does not need you to become angry. Okay, that’s interesting because when we say expression, I feel

Mitch: like I need to scream and yell and blow up. Yeah. I know what is that of what’s what you want to do

Dr. Mickel: is uh I call it the [ __ ] list. I get everyone to do it in micotherapy. You just like a list of all the big things, small things that are creating a sense of unfairness in your life today only today. Things that keep occurring, you know, uh like I don’t know who uh what would be one of mine?

Mitch: Oh, let me think of Well, no, like for for my partners, she’ll say, “Who left you left the

Dr. Mickel: toilet seat up again? Right. And I’m like, “Okay, so that’s on that’s on her [ __ ] list cuz I do that.” Yeah. Now, I had a client who worked out that was on her [ __ ] list. Every morning she got up. Her husband had been first and left the seat up and these little sprinkles of urine donation and she thought, “I’ve gone on it and for ages,” she said to me. I said, “Well, it just means the unfair energy is still sparking a feeling that becomes annoyance, anger.” But you don’t need to become angry. You just need to try and find a way to distance yourself from the unfairness or stop it. So, and that’s where you talk about vocalizing it or setting a boundary. Yeah. And what was the

Mitch: third one? that’s about uh putting your needs first and making sure you get a balanced variety of your needs met. Cuz I find myself when anger comes up, it’s almost like I don’t  know what to do with all of this. Well, do you know what’s triggered the anger in that moment?

Dr. Mickel: Some Yes, I can. Well, sometimes if you look at that thing, then allow yourself to feel annoyed because you you’re good at going somatic on it. Just notice where it is. But where do I

Mitch: feel it in my body? I feel my heart is racing. My chest is okay. So you sit with that and you

Dr. Mickel: go that’s anger and that is okay. Anger is okay. It just means I find that a little bit unfair. Now, instead of trying to change your beliefs and your thoughts about what makes it unfair, just find a way to allow that feeling to go back into the situation. So, whatever it is, just say, “Look, I wish I didn’t feel this way, but it really gets me. It makes me annoyed.” So,

50:56 — Applying the Process in Relationships

Mitch: that’s an example that I had that happened to me as I was preparing for this call. Your process really helped me. I want to give that example. So my wife and I, we had like it was nothing. It was just a it was a misunderstanding and like lack of communication. And both of us just reacted in a way that the other person didn’t like. Yeah. And so we we went to bed, we didn’t talk, woke up the next morning, and we’re just we’re going at it. And there was a I felt like I wasn’t heard and like I was dismissed. And that’s what that was what actually pissed me off. Yeah. But what pissed her off was my reaction to that. Yeah. So zooming out, which I was like, “Get out of here. What are you doing?” You know, and she didn’t like that. So I’m now I’m dismissing her. Um and she gets  pissed off. And so my mind went we we tried to talk about it. Didn’t work. So I I rationalized this with my mind and I go, “Okay, here’s what happening.” we both could soften our reactions, communicate better, and let’s resolve this. So, on the surface, that sounds like, hey,  good job there, buddy. But what I noticed last night as I’m preparing for your talk, and you uh you saved you redeemed yourself on the sleepless night here, um I go, “Oh.” And I couldn’t connect with her like I wanted to that night. It felt like there was a little bit of like pushing back. Yeah. Yeah. There’s a little energy. That makes sense. And when I was listening to your talk, I go,  “Oh, I didn’t get to say that I didn’t like the dismissing part that that is something that has been building up because it’s so subtle that it’s um it’s hard to see. It’s like death by a million cuts thing and it triggers being dismissed as a child by my Yeah. Yeah. Then your story starts of and so I I woke up I did I woke up at four o’clock in the morning like all this anxiety I had it yesterday I had about four different reasons for what that was. I had taken too much of something. I had done too much of you name it. And when I heard you talk, I’m going, “Oh.” Because I  remember you said that activation, that energy shift, that’s what it was. It was a shift in my body that was telling me to communicate to share vocally, to set whatever that that is. And it’s like I I I literally called her on the phone maybe two hours before we got on this call and I go,  “Hey, I’m going to try something.” You know how we had that conversation and we talked through it. I know it’s resolved. like there’s a piece that I need to talk to you about. And when  we talk through that, now the anxiety is gone. Yeah, great work. So, it doesn’t have to get my attention because I recognize my body is trying to communicate and I shared that with in a safe  place with my partner and we both go, “Yeah, I didn’t I know she didn’t mean that.” Um, but it’s like I just needed to share that to to resolve it. Yeah. Perfect. Now see what will happen. This is

Dr. Mickel: so at the moment it still created some activation that was beyond what a normal energy feeling shift can create. Mhm. So at the moment my if I get activated with something like that I maybe feel tense in my shoulders or something. I wouldn’t get anything too bad in the way of symptoms.

Mitch: Yeah. Whereas before I’d get IBS, headache and rashes and all sorts of stuff going on. is that

Dr. Mickel: you just start to notice it a bit earlier and say I started allowing myself to respond but then I was shut off. So you say yeah yeah but and then it becomes about the art of communication which is so important in relationships cuz basically we don’t have a complete energy match with anybody. Mhm. Cuz we’re we’re unique. So there’s always little mismatches in their energy that appear. And it’s the mismatch that creates the feeling shift, the activation. And if we’re not aware of those energetic differences or differences or what’s going on in our body,  and then we we go into our conditioning that says, yeah, you know, I got to please this person, make them happy, keep the peace. We end up walking on eggshells and and we end up with symptoms. And then we think that this person is the problem or I’m the problem. Yeah. But it all all this comes back to awareness. Yeah. It comes back Exactly. awareness and then acceptance of the that you have different energies and hopefully usually they work well together, but occasionally they  won’t. And that’s okay. It’s just an opportunity to practice the flow of emotion in your response.

Mitch: And it’s like I felt like too I had kind of two options here. It’s either prepare for the next incoming assault thing that’s going to piss me off. So now I’ve got this lowgrade activation and I’m hyper vigilant, you know, anticipating something bad happening. So I’m not looking at things clearly. I’m just looking for a moment to pounce and be right. Yeah. instead of just going,  “Hey,” and and it worked really well. It was just it was an easy conversation. It wasn’t as heated as the day before. Yeah. Yeah. I love her. I can I can hold the truth that I love her and she pissed me off. Yeah. Right. And I know she’s safe to to speak with us about. So if we can come at this from a way of I’m trying to repair the relationship and express myself so that we can repair well then this this just becomes another conversation and it has doesn’t have to be a

Dr. Mickel: threat and again it goes back to the stories that we’ve learned. Yeah. And because it’s interesting

Mitch: you still speak in terms of threat or safety. Mhm. As you get to know how the body works you never think in those terms. Help me with that then. What do you mean? So what is the threat? Your body is

Dr. Mickel: not feeling threat from exposing the emotion that has given you cuz it says well it thinks you’re marvelous. So it says if I send you a feeling you it’s not made up. It’s not something you’ve done wrong. It was created by energy. Therefore you’re not actually responsible for your feelings. you’re responsible for either holding them in or being true about them. So, you’re saying I’m

Mitch: still looking at the responses from my body as something wrong or bad. Yeah. Or might be uh you

Dr. Mickel: know something you might it’s the head. It’s just the So, that’s just something to notice. Oh, I’m  going back into that story that this is something that’s wrong or bad and that okay, what’s

Mitch: underneath that? I think I think that comes from talking about safety and coming to the conclusion that as a child I didn’t know what safety felt like and it’s almost like learning a new language

Dr. Mickel: at almost 40 years old. Yeah, I’m I’m sure that’s right. And probably when you were a younger child, things aren’t as safe. So there is much more likely to be a danger signal rather than fear. But now that you’re a kickass grown fullg grown man, there’s very little to be scared of. So would

Mitch: that be a story that we’ve been telling ourself as well? I think a lot of it is in the language,

Dr. Mickel: isn’t it? When you’ve when you’ve got an energy disorder of any type, it be fatigue linked or anxiety or any of those things, then the language is always verged on the fear language because it was believed that it is still believed that is linked to our head. Mhm. You know,

Mitch: like we spoke about earlier that brain training is about remove the fear, but you don’t respond

Dr. Mickel: to it or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. I I find the best way to deal and I’ve always found  the best way to deal with that fear is say, “Of course you’re scared of getting symptoms. They’re horrible.” But as you respond to symptoms by translating them into the true causitative emotion and allow that to be expressed, then you are then in charge of whether your symptoms continue,

Mitch: go up, or go away. It sounds like Jedi Knight training. It’s trying to It’s like It’s like, “Hey, Dr. Mkel is gonna teach you how to translate and be aware of and express these complex emotions that you’ve turned into something bad or wrong or to be feared and see that these are actually an intelligent uh deeper system of awareness that can really be in your favor. And it’s interesting how not being able to express the thing that makes us human, our life force energy is what gives us

Dr. Mickel: illness. Yeah. Cuz otherwise what a wasted journey. And and the crazy thing is the more you zoom out, that’s what society is meant to do is to control us by keeping us in fear, thinking that our natural human impulses are wrong and to be squashed. And then instead of listening here,

Mitch: we’re taught, oh, all the answers are out here in the supplement, in the diet, in the Yeah. Yeah. You know, the protocol and we’re just that was made for 20 years. And it’s like it feels kind of woo woo or like a magic trick to go no no no no no all that wisdom is inside of you. That power

Dr. Mickel: is inside of you. You just got to learn how to interpret it. Absolutely. And it is a huge shift, isn’t it, for people to get used to to not having their head as the power center controlling intelligence. There’s a lot to give up to go. If I work with energy and that’s my body’s job, if I focus in on it and allow that to guide me, life’s beautiful. I don’t have to perform or get

Mitch: it perfect or please anyone else. I just got to be me. That sounds like authenticity to me. Yeah,

Dr. Mickel: absolutely. It it empowers your authentic self. Yeah. And it will never shut up. It doesn’t go away. You know, the body doesn’t go, “Oh, well, tried my best. There was symptoms simply didn’t even listen to this. It just turns up the volume till you do nothing.” And that’s where chronic disease people feel like they’re chron when they try to figure out and fix things and they get worse, they think their body is broken. But we need we need education and awareness to be to go,

Mitch: “No, no, no, that’s wrong.” No, I Well, you saw I did that interview on Railwinds about uh you can’t fix what’s not broken, right? But we have to we have to show people that it’s not broken. And damn, these symptoms are so bad that you’re going to have to do a lot of  educating to convince me that I’m not broken. Yeah. I feel broken, therefore I am broken.

Dr. Mickel: Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. Because your feeling is not translated. Your symptoms are not telling you you’re broken. They’re telling you that you’re not expressing the true nature of your feelings.

Mitch: And then so wow. I I’ve I’ve seen as I’ve learned this work, I’ve seen myself it’s like almost going on more of a wild goose trace trying to understand how to express the  feelings. But the way you describe it makes it sound like it’s so much more simpler than that.

Dr. Mickel: Yeah. Well, I think the expression, so it’s not just verbal. Yes. Some in fact, I could treat people who can’t communicate. I would just get them to act out their feelings. Oh, that’s good. I like that. So, basically, it’s about it’s just my three simple keys. So, you either need to put up a boundary around some unfairness because you do not need to accept it. It’s just take no more [ __ ] basically. Yeah. Uh allow yourself to allow the energetic shift of grief when it feels like it. It’s just like a snake shedding an old skin. That’s all it is. And the other thing is stop living small lives. Mhm. Moment to moment. You know, we all have to do things we don’t want to do. Mhm. But we allow yourself to be bored while you’re doing it and then after it listen to the feeling and do something that fulfills you. In this example with my wife from the other day,

Mitch: I felt that anger when she left and I remember going to my library bank of how do I deal with this? And I’m, you know, I’m squeezing my hand and I like hit my hand on the ground and it felt like, oh, that’s enough. And it it discharged it a little bit. And that’s where I was able to send her this text message that was Yeah. But I I missed that like, hey, there’s this one thing that you didn’t talk about that needs to be vocalized. So, it’s allowing it’s one that’s noticing what am I feeling in my body? Oh, I I think that feels like anger. Okay, let me allow that to be here and accept that yes, a part of me is feeling angry right now. And then what’s that anger want to do?

Dr. Mickel: But it’s so easy to go back into the story of what’s appropriate. Well, what the anger wants you to do is uh bring attention to the people involved to a sense of unfairness that you’ve just realized because anger always means unfairness. Yeah. You could you could even say to your wife, um, uh, can you help me out here? I need to just speak freely and hear what you have to say. I’m I’m not clear on what it is about. There’s something feels unfair to me and I’m sure to you, too. So, why don’t we look towards working out what’s unfair for both of us? I love that because then

Mitch: it takes the judgment of it felt like I said this to her and thank God she doesn’t listen listen to this podcast because you know she would it’s like it’s like I noticed what we were doing is we wanted the other person to be wrong and us to be right and we wanted an apology but if we can meet this from a little bit more awareness and go both of us uh feel something’s unresolved here we feel like something’s unfair let’s give each other both an opportunity to say what’s fair. Then we take the victim and the blaming and the judgment out of it and we can have a productive conversation where it’s back to information and how do we deal with this information instead of somebody’s got

Dr. Mickel: to go to jail for this. Yeah. Well, it’s right. I quite often use because it’s all harmonics because it’s energy. I say, well, in that moment you’re playing an A chord and I’m playing a G chord, right? And that’s completely all right. It’s just that that moment they didn’t go well together. So let’s work out why they didn’t go well. And that makes sense because most of this is what I the

Mitch: more I do this work and the more I’m able to be aware and understand a little bit more. It seems  like our arguments are we are thinking we’re having the exact same frustration. Yeah. Good. She’s playing an A chord and I’m playing a G chord, but it’s the same lyrics. Yeah. Nice. Like it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Use it. Use it. I’m going to use that. Let me run. Just make sure

Dr. Mickel: you send the royalties to Yeah, that’s right. Royalties all coming to you. I know, man. Well,

1:07:16 — Mickel Therapy and Course Offerings

Mitch: dude, I’m going to stop us here because I mean, this is awesome. And I’m sure you and I could  go on and on. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you. And I’m sure folks are wondering, you know, what is this this Mickel therapy and and where do we tell us about your course? Tell us about  your offerings and how can people find you, get in touch with you? Uh, well, it’s ww.micotherapy.com.

Dr. Mickel: Uh, that’s the website. I’ve got a YouTube channel. It’s got quite a few videos on it. I think they’re nice and short. Yeah. Um, so at the moment I provide it’s a core course of me. I’ve created videos with a bit of text and basically it’s just to change your relationship with symptoms until they stop. Yeah, they don’t they’re only needed until you’re at back in a better relationship with how your body communicates. So, the course does that. It’s about 12 modules. You just you purchase the course, you can have it on a free app, and if you want some coaching with it, I’ve got some good coaches. So the packages are uh you just get the course it’s called self treatment or there’s essential that comes with two coaching sessions or premium which has seven sessions and they’re all kind of flexible and they’re all they’re very well priced. We’re not out to rob you and we do discounts and also I’ve set up a vitality foundation actually last week. Oh

Mitch: cool. What’s that? I if people are struggling financially but still want the treatment,

Dr. Mickel: they can apply and I’ve already got some donors that you can donate to through the Michel therapy

Mitch: website or apply to it for funding. Yeah, I think it’s awesome. I mean, this work should be more accessible. I know those of us that are doing this work, we we need to get paid as well. Um yeah, it it’s just uh the more information the the more that this information can be reached by people, the more accessible. I think that’s amazing. So So good on you, man. That’s awesome. Thanks. And

Dr. Mickel: the the YouTubes have got pretty much the whole process in it, but not as structured because then

Mitch: I wouldn’t need a course, would I? That’s where I’ve been getting all the information I did is  is through the the videos. They’re fantastic. Um, I’m sending them to my clients all the time and getting messages back like, “Hey, I went I I had anxiety today and I I went to the gym. I left there and it felt better.” And it’s like, “Damn, dude.” Like, maybe you’re you’re you’re working  doing something you love. Imagine what happens. That life force energy comes back and you Well,

Dr. Mickel: that person really understood my key phrase, which is anxiety is not caused by fear. It’s caused by blocked emotions. is caused by uh unexpressed anger or boredom. Um, real quick,

1:10:17 — Results and Recovery

Mitch: last question. Everybody wants to hear this. What type of uh what type of results do people see  working with the course and what type of timeline do you see? Like how quickly did things move or or what do Yeah. What kind of results? Yeah. I Well, I don’t count I don’t count like we used

Dr. Mickel: to do. So, I I expect 100% recovery. Mhm. So, and I mean that I mean if someone gets the course, we do everything we can even if they can’t afford it to make sure they complete it cuz there’s no reason it works for everyone cuz and it’s not complicated and as you know it’s so not heady and there’s no specific things you need to do. You just live differently. Yeah. So I would say 100% but I I don’t keep figures for it. I just know that we don’t get anyone saying this is not working. Um, and the other key point is it doesn’t take long. So, it takes as long I mean if you’re very severely affected bed bound to getting up can take any length of time cuz that’s the nature of rebuilding your life from that position, you know. Mhm. Um, which sounds like you did really quickly but that doesn’t always happen. So for me physiologically your hypothalammus can go from overwhelmed to not overwhelmed in the blink of an eye. And some people do that you know I get crazy stuff like I’ve got this old book that I wrote about my original theory which is downloadable for free in the website and it get people writing saying I read your book my symptoms have stopped and I’m like the hell does that happen? But something just clicked in them

Mitch: and I think what think that’s like the the the brain, the nervous system feels safe or is there an expression or a letting go of energy from education? Well, there you go. You see, Mitch,

Dr. Mickel: that’s you back to your safety and your letting go. Neither of which I think are relevant. I think what happens is they read it and they think, okay, oh, my body communicates and if I don’t listen, it produces symptoms. So if I go back to being true to my feelings, then my symptoms will stop. And I think they just do it. But presumably their lives are not complicated by a job they don’t really enjoy doing or a relationship that’s not as good as yours and your wife. You can share this

Mitch: bit. Yeah. Well, okay. So, my my big takeaway is let those stories go about safety and and letting go of this uh activation that I’m carrying around that feels like a threat and then to to really just focus on what emotion is coming up here and what’s it want to do? Yeah. So, absolutely except

Dr. Mickel: don’t try and let go of anything. Just it’ll it’ll stop naturally. It’s it’ll just become old. So the old stories will stop because they’re no longer relevant to how you’re existing in your world. So instead of letting go of this to create safety, just express it. Just be true. So yeah, you don’t need to let go of anything. Don’t because the minute you put in a I need to do this to get

Mitch: better, you put pressure on yourself. Yes. That’s actually now we’re getting into my personal story because that’s something I’ve been working on with my therapist is she comes in and she goes, “Man,  you’re working hard, dude.” You know, and you’re putting all this pressure on myself. You’re like this, too. And so, we’re trying to go from doing all of these things to heal to just be you. And we would go round and round and round me going, “Well, how do you do that?” You know, and then now

Dr. Mickel: you’re back into the doing like what do you want to do? Yeah. What you can do is choose one day in the week to begin with and forget about it all and just get up and even if you’ve got symptoms, what do you feel like doing underneath? Mhm. And keep checking in and check that when you start doing something, when does that feeling change to want to do something else? And now we get to apply your work. And then you’re just feeling. Mhm. Not thinking. Yeah. It sounds like It sounds like

Mitch: permanently being on vacation. That’s where the symptoms get better in the beginning, right? Like,  oh, I woke up and did what I wanted to do and imagine that the symptoms go away. Well, I think

Dr. Mickel: what can happen is regardless of having a job you don’t particularly like, every day you should go about it with truth feeling. And then even when you’re in your working life, it’s like a holiday.

Mitch: I love it. You’re taking a holiday from your brain. Yeah. I mean that’s uh that’s where most of us have learned to spend most of our time and we’re we’re we’re trying to think our way to outcomes which is just perpetuating the cycle. It’s only important what’s happening right now. Like my stomach’s rumbling. Well, I guess that’s that’s a good signal that it’s time to get off.  Yeah. Well, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed speaking to you, Mitch. Thank you. Oh, this has been great, man. Thank you so much. Um thank you to the listeners if you made it this far. Um, give  us a like, give us a follow, leave us a question or comment below. We love answering those. And Dr. Michael, thank you again for coming on. We’ll have to do a round two. It sounds like this was  eye opening and a lot of fun. Good. Let’s do that. All right, Mitch. All right. Bye. Bye.