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Excellent Executive Coaching: Growing Your Business and Enhancing Your Craft.
EEC 403: How the Mind/Body Connection Can Solve the Problems Therapy Couldn't, with Brian Alman
00:36:47
Dr. Brian Alman is the world's leading authority on accessing the unconscious mind for healing trauma, resolving stress, and activating inner wisdom. How can you heal trauma without going to therapy? How can we transform an inner critic into a...
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- [00:05]
A
We all want to get over our pain and trauma to become our best self. But trauma happens in the past experience and maybe we're not even conscious of it. So how much is the past experience influence are today's physical pain or emotional trauma? So let's ask Dr. Brian Allman. Welcome to the excellent executive coaching podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Katrina Birouse. And here tonight, today, wherever you are in the world, is Dr. Brian Alman. Welcome, Brian.
- [00:55]
B
Thank you very much, Dr. Katrina. I'm happy to be here. And before we get started, I just want to share with you and your viewers that I was watching your podcast to get a feeling about your interviewing your guests, how it all went. And I love them. They're intriguing, they're inspiring, and I felt motivated after watching them. And I went to Apple, gave you a five star review immediately. Thank you, all your viewers, all your listeners to give you a five star rating at Apple or Spotify, wherever they watch your podcast. Because there's only a handful of podcasters in the world that are actually contributing to the world to make it a better place, that are inspiring people, encouraging people, business, personal, both. So please give Dr. Katrina five star review. Take your time, it's worth it. I did it. I went on YouTube. Gave you some feedback there too. I love the YouTube videos. So I just want to start off by saying thank you and thank you for inviting me to be part of your podcast.
- [02:07]
A
Well, I want to thank you very much for the support. It is a passion. I've been doing it for 10 years and it's not a money making system. It's really a passion to have people share how they can help. You know, people, executives or leaders or simply anyone who needs it. So let's start. You know, how do you heal trauma, stress, anxiety without spending years in therapy?
- [02:34]
B
The first thing is to answer the assessment questions, which takes about 10 minutes. And the assessment is now in 100 countries. And I'm the original treatment solution founder of the assessment. It's called the Adverse childhood experiences assessment. Ace. Ace. And it asks 10 questions of what your life was like from birth to 18. Things like, did your parents have a separation, a divorce, was there alcoholism in the family? Very common but usually unspoken difficulties, stressors, traumas that more than half of all adults have been through. Almost most adults have had ACEs, adverse childhood experiences of their own. But certainly if they haven't, their parents did, their spouse, their partner, their co worker. So we're talking about everybody has been impacted by difficulties from childhood. And here's the thing about ACEs and assessing trauma stress difficulties is it's normal to go through these things. However, most people never resolve them and never treat them. So they go on integrating and aggravating and being a barrier or block that you don't even know, you're not even aware what's blocking you. It's from unresolved difficulties, not the difficulties themselves. But, but most people leave them unresolved because they don't know what to do about them. Oh, that happened when I was a kid. Why would that still be bothering me now? I'm an executive coach. How could that be still troubling me? That was bullying or sexual or difficult when I was seven. Come on, that was decades ago now. Well, time does not heal all wounds and you're just a older version of yourself, like rings of the tree. You still have that 6 year old in you and that 12 year old in you. And those things have to be healed and resolved for health and happiness, for success. It impacts everybody financially as well as emotionally, even, you know, physiologically. I mean, it's. These unresolved issues are connected to all of the chronic diseases, premature death. I mean, there's thousands of medical journal articles on this assessment. And that's where I came in at the very beginning is I'm the treatment solution expert and the partner of the person who invented this assessment.
- [05:13]
A
So. Which is fascinating. Congratulations for that. And let's say, okay, somebody had you get a questionnaire that between 1 and 18 they've had some traumatic experience and, and it's affecting how they see, it's a filter from which they see the world. So first of all, I guess my assumption is that from 1 to 18, it's a developmental year, so it has more impact than maybe later. But could you give us an example of someone that had something particular happen in their life during those first 18 years and how it sort of plays out in the workplace?
- [05:54]
B
Right. And it's interesting, Dr. Katrina, because it's actually birth to 18, because it happens right at the beginning for some people and later. Well, just to give you a personal example, Dr. Felitti is my collaborator and he is the one that created this assessment. Most people don't know or don't remember or don't want to remember some of the things they went through. So when they answer these 10 questions, which just takes a few minutes, there's a lot of ahas and oh, I didn't think that would ever affect me. I didn't think that would bother me. But, hmm, interesting. And what impact did it have on you at the time and decades later. So there's a real waking up that happens when people simply answer the questions. Dr. Felitti and I both really were and still are. We still meet Weekly even after 25 years, passionate about this. We had our own aces. When I was youngster, I was born missing part of my back, part of L4, part of L5. So I had chronic back pain. And anybody that has any kind of pain knows it's a full time job. It impacts you emotionally, mentally, what you can do or you can't do, whether it's sports or doing things, it becomes more than just physical. Of course, Dr. Felitti growing up had a very spine upbringing and that he had a roof over his head, food on the table, comfortable, happy. But his father was never around. His father was a physician like he. And so he was neglected. He really spent very little time other than after work. He'd say, you know, hi and you know, go back to work. And wasn't much there for his growing up years. And so neglect is an ace. Not having a parent around, dad that works too much, mother that's preoccupied with a sibling who maybe needs more attention than you. So neglect is an ace. And that was Dr. Felitti's. We both have shared our stories and done videos on this. Mine was the pain that became really clear was connected to emotional things as well and became very stressful.
- [08:14]
A
So how does it concretely play out in your adulthood and how did you overcome it in your case and in your partner's case?
- [08:22]
B
Okay, well, anybody that didn't get the attention that they really wanted from their parents knows what that's like. And that's a lot of your viewers, that's a lot of your coaches. Because I coach coaches, so I know it's very common. Usually there's one parent that was there, one parent that wasn't. Sometimes both weren't, Occasionally both were, but that's actually quite uncommon because parents have their lives and other kids and their parents and all of that. The way it plays out with neglect or not having a parent around is you definitely will become more introverted, you will definitely become more isolated and you will definitely have a concern that maybe people won't accept you or want you around. Maybe you don't fit in anywhere. You didn't fit in in your family, your own home. How are we going to fit in with the sports team? Oh, I won't even play sports. Or the orchestra. O. Oh, I won't even play the instrument. So there's a Real barrier to having a feeling of home or family in the classroom, on the sports team, with music, with your friends. So that's one way it manifests, usually for a lifetime. Fortunately, Dr. Flety and I work on our own aces and that's resolved and improved tremendously. Ran one of the most successful medical departments in all of kaiser Permanente for 30 years. So he really broke free and was a family person at work. Very much loved, appreciated, became a great father of his own with his own kids. So he resolved his ace and it really has turned out fantastic. But it was a problem for decades. My pain, emotional, physical, mental, born with that pain. Well, it's so limiting that you start to think about your limitations in every area. You have to really measure. Can I do that? Can I not do that? Will I be able to contribute? Will I really take away from. Will I be a good part, a bad part? So it just becomes part of your psyche of this pain. Am I going to be a pain to others? Am I going to cause pain? Am I going to be hurting more? So it becomes a bit of an recession and everyone that has pain knows this is true. And that's just one example of how it manifests. There's a lot of other examples. And of course now we've worked with hundreds of thousands of people.
- [10:57]
A
But how did you get over it and how did you be able to change your filter of how you see things?
- [11:04]
B
Well, thank you for asking that question because I was reading everything I could find about pain, pain control, pain help. And I did what people do. It was recommended I get surgery, back surgery, but it might cause more pain than less pain. They couldn't guarantee anything with back surgery.
- [11:24]
A
That's pretty insecuring.
- [11:25]
B
Didn't want to do that. Exactly. I couldn't even imagine having more pain. So I didn't do that. I went to physical therapy. I tried the medications, I tried all of the different approaches. But I was reading. I'm a student, I love learning. And I kept reading about this person in Phoenix, Arizona, a medical doctor by the name of Milton Erickson. And he got into the field of pain control because he had polio as a teenager. And he wasn't supposed to make it through his teens. He was supposed to die in his teens. I met him when he was 75 and he had written a lot of books and a lot of articles. He was the world's expert in mind body healing and really was quite a guy. So I wrote him a handwritten letter and asked him if he would train me to help Myself and help other people. I told him my story, just as I told you and your viewers just now. Born missing part of my back, all that. And he wrote back to me, if I got a PhD in psychology or a medical degree, he will train me. So I wrote him back another handwritten letter. I really don't want to get a medical degree or a PhD in psychology. I really just want to learn how to help myself and help other people. Fortunately for me, he wrote me back another handwritten letter saying, if you get an MD or PhD, I will train you. So I moved from where I was in Massachusetts just finishing college to San Diego. I got into a master's and PhD program in psychology, traveled back and forth to Phoenix for four years, became a student. He helped me write my first book, which became very popular in many countries around the world.
- [13:06]
A
Help me tell the name. The title of the book title of.
- [13:09]
B
That book was called Self Hypnosis and Self Hypnosis because it's meditation with a purpose. So it's not just meditating, it's meditating with a specific purpose. For me, it was pain control. But as I wrote in the book, it's for sleep, it's for confidence, it's for basically everything from sports to parenting. So the book became very popular. In fact, it got me invited to a number of countries. But I became, because of my book, because my training with him, very experienced in mind body healing. Unfortunately for me, while I was studying with him, my mother, who was in her late 40s, got ALS. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. That's Lou Gehrig's disease. So she went from being vibrant at the peak of her life to basically falling apart and only made it for about another year and a half. And that was very traumatic for me. And it was the worst pain I had ever experienced emotionally, ever. Couldn't even imagine it. So he went from being my teacher, mentor, coach, to being my healer helper. And he really helped me get through that trauma. And I'll share with you, and I've written 15 books now about that whole mind body healing approach. And as a result of that training, in San Diego, I met Dr. Fletti, who was just beginning the ACE study, the adverse Childhood Experiences Study. And he loved what he had read and he really enjoyed my book, he enjoyed my teaching, my videos, and invited me to become the director and founder of the ACE Treatment Solution at Kaiser Permanente, which I did. And I was seeing patients with him. And so I went from my own pain to being a student to being a Collaborator to being a co author and went from Dr. Erickson to Dr. Felitti. So my healing process was inner and outer. It was the pain, it was the trauma, it was the healing solutions. I'm a big believer in how to's. I love simple techniques that really work.
- [15:30]
A
So let's stop there a second. You said you did meditation with a purpose, right? For our listeners, what can they take away concretely that they can start tomorrow? I know, of course that's a shortcut. But to say if they have pain, which I think any listener knows, people that are suffering from pain, physical pain, tell us just shortly what they can do, like meditation to help them.
- [15:57]
B
Okay, well, again, let's say meditation with a purpose because meditation alone will help you feel better while you're meditating and it's not going to help you with the pain itself.
- [16:10]
A
Right.
- [16:11]
B
That's a root issue. That's like an emotional pain, a physical, that's a root cause. You have to get to the root cause and do the healing and resolving of the root cause. The meditation is wonderful. And I do it all the time. And I've written books about it, taught in India, taught meditators how to go deeper into meditation. So I love the feel. Only about 15% of people meditate all the time. It's a small number. But to really get to the pain control, to get to your question, Dr. Katrina, you have to go to the pain in a sense, what you could take literally as an example, you actually have to meditate with the pain.
- [16:52]
A
You have just one more question. Don't mind. Look, they say what you focus on expands. You know, a lot of people say that, right? So if you're meditating and you focus with the pain or feeling the pain, don't you expand it? So that's.
- [17:09]
B
Well, that's exactly right. What happens when you use self hypnosis, meditation, mindfulness, prayer, relaxation, guided imagery on the pain is the only technique that's really going to work is to become accepting of their pain. Everybody's aware of their pain. Well, that's no problem. It's becoming accepting of the pain. But here's the thing. It's not just acceptance. And we learned this in the ACE study and we learned this with coaching and we learned this with helping people help themselves. Themselves. It's not just acceptance. It's actually deeper than that. It's unconditional acceptance. Now you'll say to somebody and you, your response is actually quite typical. Well, if I accept my pain and I unconditionally accept my pain, Won't it get worse? Won't it get bigger? Because I'm giving it attention. I'm feeding it. Paradoxically, counterintuitively, it will do the exact opposite. It will relax, it will lessen. It may even completely disappear. Because what most people do when they give their pain attention, emotional, physical, mental, is they're very busy judging their pain. I need you to go away. I need you to stop. I don't want to feel you anymore. I want to get rid of you. You're not helping me. Why did I have pain? What did I do to deserve this? This mental, emotional, physical pain? You need to go away. I don't want you. So, yes, they're feeding it. Yes, they're giving it attention. It's negative attention. It's judgment. It's criticism. It's a perfectionistic approach, which, by the way, to your point, that will increase the pain dramatically. And everybody knows that when you judge your pain, it gets worse. When you criticize yourself, you become more difficult. Same with other people. When you judge other people, you criticize other people, they don't get better, they don't improve. They typically will get worse and resent you at the same time. So judgment and criticism, although that's a natural part of all of us, I oftentimes say that I call it a 15th row perspective of our life movie. That inner critic, inner judge has a lifetime membership. You couldn't get rid of it with a lobotomy. You can't drink enough drinks to get it to go away. You can't eat enough food to get it to go away. You can't take enough prescription medication or drugs of any kind. You cannot get rid of that inner Critic, inner judge, 15th row perspective of your movie. Whether it's about your physical pain or your coaching business or your money or yourself or your relationship, that is one of the biggest mistakes that happens in all of coaching and of all coaches is they actually try to get people to stop being negative and stop being critical. And actually, that just makes people more negative, more critical. And what I have found with thousands of people is do the opposite. Give it a voice, let it express, become accepting of it, become unconditionally accepting of it. And they're like, oh, what? But it'll get stronger. I mean, then, oh, my goodness gracious. And then they try it for a minute and they're like, wow, this is amazing. I feel more relaxed, and my inner critic actually helped me. I've been trying to get rid of that my whole life, My whole career. I've been Trying to help other people get rid of it. Wow, I was going down the wrong path with that one. Yes, that's true, you were.
- [21:01]
A
So in your case, you accepted the pain, you gave it a voice. And what was it telling you?
- [21:11]
B
I'm hurting, I'm unhappy, I don't know what to do. I feel helpless, I feel hopeless. And so with the acceptance, which is step two, after the awareness, the awareness is easy, but the acceptance opens your heart, it opens your mind. Acceptance opens up. Dr. Katrina, the most powerful pharmacy in the world is in between your ears. And when you have an open mind, you're tapping into billions of resources, potentially with all the branching and synapses, trillions of resources, much more powerful than any drug or any prescription is an open mind. And when you're accepting of pain, emotional, physical, work, money, you not only opening your mind, you're also opening your heart. And when you're open hearted and wholehearted, lots of new possibilities come to you, lots of new intuitions, lots of creative ideas. Judgment really squelches creativity and intuition. Acceptance expands. It opens it up. So it's the opposite of what most people think and what most people do. And so that acceptance made a world of difference. And then to your question about listening to the pain, you actually have to go a step further. You actually have to have a dialogue with the pain, an actual conversation. And this is an important distinction that most people don't understand. It's not two monologues where you're telling the pain what it should do. Okay, that's a 15th row critic perspective. The word should is a giveaway. Whenever you tell yourself or anybody else what they should do, you're in your own critic. And by the way, they're not going to listen to you and you're not going to listen to yourself either. So shoulds are not very effective. They're just part of the critic row and trying to get people to do what you think they should do and get you to do what you think you should do. Same with your pain. It's going to completely ignore your shoulds, so it's not too monologue. You should go away. You should stop bothering me. You should feel better. I do everything I can to help you and you're still there. Okay, get all that out and let's keep moving forward. And then same with your pain. Your pain may even be critical and judgmental. Well, you're not taking good enough care of me. You're not doing everything you could. Why don't you do that? Well, you know what to Do. Why don't you do it? So that has to be emptied out and released. Kind of like two people who are struggling. You got to let everybody have their stream of consciousness, have their say. Then you get to the monologue beyond to the dialogue where, okay, what can I do to show you that I support you? What can I do to show you I love you? Okay, back. Thank you for working so well for me all these years. I'm sorry if I've been ignoring you. If there's anything you're trying to tell me, I'm totally open right now. That's mind, body, communication. That's interactive. That's a dialogue. And then, of course, like acceptance. You really have to listen. You really have to be a very good listener. People need to learn how to listen to their bodies much better than they have. People need to learn. Coaches and people you are coaching need to learn how to listen. Just emotionally, mentally read body language, listen to your body, listen to your mind, listen to your feelings. A lot of listening that has to happen within ourselves because first things happen on the inside, then they happen on the outside, and so we really have to listen to ourselves, even if we don't want to hear it, and then get into that kind of supportive, accepting dialogue.
- [25:12]
A
Okay, the supporting, accepting dialogue. What does that sound like?
- [25:16]
B
Thank you for working so well for me all these years. Emotional, mind, body. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You've been so helpful. I'm sorry, emotions, mind, body, that I've been ignoring you. I'm busy. I'm trying to make a living. I'm working, I'm going, I'm always doing stuff. How do I stop and listen? I'm sorry if I've been ignoring you. If there's anything you are trying to tell me, mind, body, emotions, pain, anything you're trying to tell me, anything at all that you'd like to. To tell me, I'm totally open right now. And then you listen and you listen with acceptance. And it's amazing what happens in that kind of dialogue where there's acceptance with this caring, reassurance, trust, support. Just like relationships, when the mood is supportive, reassuring, encouraging, caring, loving, it's amazing what comes out as opposed to when you're in a conversation or relationship with somebody else and it's judgmental and critical and negative. It's amazing what doesn't come out. I mean, people don't really want to talk. If that's the mood, we don't want to talk with ourselves. Is that the mood?
- [26:38]
A
Yeah. So you've given us A very nice vision of the body, mind. And now let's go to the executives who are very, very stressed.
- [26:49]
B
Right.
- [26:50]
A
And I'm sure you go under the stress to find out. So comment on that, please.
- [26:56]
B
Right. Well, the first thing is we have to help people find out about what the root cause of their stress is. Because really, I hear people, coaches all the time tell me that they're stressed about their workload or about they. Too much to do, not enough time, all of that. Well, it's not always just about now. Sometimes it goes back to. Well, I ask people, when did you first start to feel stressed out? How old were you? Why then? Why not two years earlier, two years later, what was happening in your life at the time? And they'll usually say, you know, maybe when they're in grade school or maybe high school or college or at their first job, whatever it was. So we have to find out what the roots of the stress are by asking very supportive questions like at what age or at what job or in what situation did it first start? Why then? Because that's going to have a ripple effect to why they're so stressed now. So even though it's true, people are really stressed now, maybe more than ever, you still want to know when it all began. Because if you. It's like gardening. If you're out in your garden in these weeds, if you cut the weeds at the top, just cut them off, like with a scissors, you're cutting off the behavior. Okay, I'm smoking, I'm drinking, I'm eating. You're just cutting off the top of the weed. The weed just keeps growing back. If you cut the weed off at the stem, which are your thoughts, I'm just so stressed. I'm so. I don't know what to do. I'm not sleeping. I'm not doing my best work. I need more clients, I need more money. I don't know what to do. And you cut the weed off at the stem. The thoughts, the weed just grows back. You have to get the weed out by the roots so that it won't grow back. And that's emotional, that's historical. That's who you are. That's the way you've developed. It's the emotional you so your emotions, how you feel historically as well as now. Feed your thoughts. The stem. Think, think, think. Oh, go. Why am I so negative? Why? No. So negative? Because I'm feeling unhappy, I'm feeling stressed. I'm feeling like I don't have control of my life. And then it goes into the behavior. Why am I over drinking? Why am I overeating? Why am I over smoking? So we have to get to the root cause which is almost always emotional, it's always in the present, but it usually has a history and it'll make a world of difference right away. When people resolve the history or the root of why they're stressed could be because of their parents were stressed about money and that's the environment they grew up in and they just tried to block it out and work hard and go make money and you know, do well and prove that they could be successful. And you know, so often the traumas and difficulties of parents growing up, particularly about money issues, turn into the, the kid and then the grown up sized kid and the adults issues. They think, oh, I just want to be successful, I just want to do everything I can, I want to do the best I can. And they're running, they're running. And a lot of people I meet the most successful people in the world, from billionaires to people that are CEOs that run companies and they have it all on the outside, houses, cars, travel, everything. And they are empty and stressed and unhappy on the inside because they never resolved. Why they work so hard, why they push so hard, why they do all that well, they don't want to stop and feel what they feel. And they don't even want to deal with their dad's issues about money or their mom being so unhappy. They don't want to deal with that. They run, run, run work and inner ends up the same place when they're 60 as they were when they were 14. Even though on the outside that person has everything. How could that person not be happy? Are you kidding me? Yeah.
- [31:08]
A
So I can't resist asking this question because I deal with very bright but difficult leaders. What? Of course I'm giving you a question out of context, so I know that's very difficult to answer with any precision, but your experience of the leaders that are have high IQ but very low EQ emotional intelligence or interpersonal sensitivity. That's for our listeners to know what I mean by eq. So what do you think is the cause of that? I mean insights. I'm not. You can't. Not a cause and effect, but it.
- [31:50]
B
Really comes from the family. It really, that's the root of it is the family dynamic. The parents, usually the parents had a low emotional quotient. Emotionally they were either absent or they didn't deal with their issues or they were too busy trying to create a life that was better. Than their parents had for their kids. So a lot of times it's out of very good intentions. But all of that low EQ comes from the family and the higher IQ may come from the family and the lifestyle because the person had more opportunities to read and go to the library and learn. I don't think it's genetic. It's lifestyle for the most part. So it's family for, you know, our best qualities come from our families and our most difficult qualities come from our families. That's a very simple answer and it's true. That's what we hear from people that are really struggling. I just wish I was born into a different family. We hear that all the time. And it's very rare that kids are raised with two parents that are both very supportive and reassuring. It does happen, but it's rare. Usually there's one parent that's a little bit more critical and a perfectionist and the other parent might be reassuring, or you might have two parents that were both more needing you to do better, try harder, keep trying harder. And so you really never felt safe or grounded with who you are. You always felt you had to keep trying. And that's a lot of people. The answer to your question is family. That's where it comes from.
- [33:31]
A
Up, right?
- [33:32]
B
Yes.
- [33:33]
A
So unfortunately, we're coming to the end of our podcast. Where can people get a hold of you?
- [33:39]
B
Well, from watching your podcast, I realize how generous you are, how much you give away. So it's amazing to me. I saw so many of them, so I wanted to match you and do the same thing. So I want to give all of your viewers two free gifts, not one. I want to give your viewers a toolbox for exactly what we're talking about right now. That's very practical, very hands on, immediately helpful as well as long term. And I want to give them a deep dive into how to resolve the issues that may be holding them back and so they can go to Instagram and look me up. Dr. Allman, D R A L M A N and type in the name of your podcast. And when they type in the name.
- [34:33]
A
Of your podcast, excellent executive coaching.
- [34:37]
B
And that is linked to at Dr. Allman, Dr. Almond, I will immediately get them access to those two free gifts that I am making available to your high achieving professionals who feel good mentally, physically, emotionally, but overwhelmed at times and are open to learning very practical science back clinically proven techniques with thousands of coaches from all around the world. And they're going to be available to your viewers, your listeners.
- [35:13]
A
So the outcome of the gift. Yes, is what so that the listeners know, right?
- [35:19]
B
More confidence, more self reliance, more self understanding and a skill set to deal with difficult people, difficult situations, their own difficult mind, thoughts, mindsets, their own emotional difficulties. So very practical tools for how to deal better with yourself and deal better with others. Which of course manifests in how you're doing financially and in your business. Because as we agreed earlier, first things happen on the inside, then they happen on the outside.
- [35:59]
A
Well, thank you very much, Dr. Brian Almond, for this interesting conversation and for the gifts. Thank you on behalf of all the listeners. Hope to see you again soon.
- [36:10]
B
Look Forward to it. Dr. Katrina, thank you so much for having me on your podcast. Very enjoyable.
- [36:15]
A
Thank you.
- [36:18]
C
Thank you for listening to the Excellent Executive Coaching Podcast. You can subscribe to all Future podcasts@excellent executivecoaching.com join us each Wednesday to learn more about the latest trends in leadership techniques and bring your coaching to the next level. To learn more about Dr. Burris CEO mastermind, use the contact form@excellentexecutivecoaching.com.