Master Your Menopause By Understanding Emotions

Eva Detko, PhD

Thank you so much. I’m so excited to connect with you and your viewers. Yeah, hopefully we’ll have a great conversation here and obviously deliver some value to everybody watching.

Sharon Stills, ND

Yes. I just learned before we came live that Dr. Eva spends most of her time. She’s Polish and lives over there and I’m going to go visit her maybe in a few months. I’m just so curious, like, how did you get started in getting a Ph.D. and learning about the emotions and really making this your life’s work? Was it something personal or just an interest, or how did that all come together?

Eva Detko, PhD

Yes, certainly. For me, it was very personal. I had a serious sort of birth trauma. And I do write about this in my book because it’s actually very relevant to the path I essentially have chosen. Then a lot of childhood trauma followed as well. So really, when I got to my teenage years, my twenties and really my health started taking the head because absolutely without any shadow of a doubt, as we will talk more about in this interview, if you have unresolved trauma, if you get triggered emotionally and really I became a bit of an emotional mess, to be honest. I know we’re talking menopause here, but really, obviously, when you’re a teenager and you have all these hormonal changes, then I can for sure say that I was very, very kind of hormonally unbalanced. A lot of it was to do with how much of an emotional mess I was. That really sort of first put me on the path of just generally natural medicine and wanting to  heal my body and my mind and I through over the years of mixed old so many different modalities, so many different things. But I actually had done to help myself and I’ve been able to heal from all sorts of things like Hashimoto’s thyroid diabetes. I had diagnosed chronic fatigue syndrome, and when I look back, I also had fibromyalgia. I didn’t have that diagnosed at the time. 

But really looking back, it’s obvious I had that as well and I was able to really successfully recover from all these conditions. I am now approaching 50 and I am actually have more vitality and I  thrive. To be honest, I’m in better health emotionally, mentally and physically than probably have been for most of my life. Interestingly, because we talking obviously about hormonal changes in later life and I am perimenopausal now, but I can tell you with ironing out all this emotional stuff and clearing all the emotional garbage and resolving the traumas that were haunting me, I have to say that now. Well, that also enables me to do is have a better balance within my autonomic nervous system. So we can touch on that because it’s so hugely important. Therefore that means that apart from the fact that I can see my cycle slowing down, I have literally no symptoms whatsoever, like no symptoms at all. I just know that things are starting to slow down. But other than that, I still have energy. I’m exercising most days. I’m just I’m not ready. My life is not affected. I don’t have the usual symptoms that come with these changes. So I’m hoping that if the viewers are not already totally sold on this idea of achieving emotional mastery and healing a traumas, but you will be at the end of this because without any shadow of a doubt, this is going to have such a huge impact on your hormonal balance, hormonal health overall.

Sharon Stills, ND

Yes, I love that because that’s a similar story to myself. I also am a little older than you, but I also went through my menopausal transition and had no symptoms, never had a hot flash. I love that you said that. So it’s like you have two women sitting here showing you it’s possible. It doesn’t have to be, suffering might be common, but it’s not normal. And dealing with the emotions is definitely always a huge piece. I’m just curious to ask you before we really dive in, you talked about clearing your childhood traumas. Is there anyone who doesn’t have childhood trauma or do we all have childhood trauma? What has been your experience?

Eva Detko, PhD

So for certain, I can say that anybody who has any health issues, iconic health issues and any sort of imbalances like the sort of imbalances that we are talking about because you’re quite right, just because a lot of people experience something doesn’t mean it’s normal. And what I would say to that is like whenever you see that this absolutely, I can guarantee that there is something unresolved there and it usually goes back to childhood. So obviously, I wouldn’t necessarily say that hundred percent of people have trauma, but from my perspective, everybody has something. It could be a bigger or a smaller piece of your puzzle in terms of your life and your health. But it’s always a piece. I honestly, all these years of working with this, I haven’t really seen anything to the contrary. So I would say I would echo what you just said, that pretty much everybody has got something. Unfortunately, a big, big, huge percentage of the population have quite a lot of unresolved trauma and certainly emotional baggage. Suddenly, all sorts of subconscious patterns, programs that are just simply not serving them. Not only are these patterns not serving them? Actually messing their physical health or messing them them up physically as well? Yeah.

Sharon Stills, ND

When you say trauma because it could you define what that means and what the listeners could be thinking about because I think we often think about “Capital T.” Well, I didn’t have trauma, I wasn’t sexually abused, I wasn’t hit. So could you go a little more into that? Because I agree with you 100% that I love the way you said it, because I always just say, like we all have trauma. I don’t think it’s avoidable. I have the honor and privilege to be very involved in my grandchildren’s life. They’re three in one right now. I’m always looking at like, okay, what happened? Is this going to send you to therapy? Is this going to be the trauma? Because sometimes it could be little things, too, then just the way we perceive it, correct?

Eva Detko, PhD

Yeah, In fact, most of the time. So parents, generally speaking, relax, okay? It’s going to happen. You cannot prevent it. This is part of life, okay? Somehow it’s part of life. We really as people, we do have enough resolve. Most people will be able to find the way through that. If it’s their path, they will heal it. If it’s not that problem, that probably won’t. But overall, I can say as a parent or grandparent, honestly, you mustn’t give yourself a hard time because the issue you are dealing with and that’s why you’re going to lose the battle every time, is that trauma is not an event. Trauma is a response. It’s very much it’s a perceived situation. So it’s perceived from the point of view of the child. This is going to be all considered. This is how it is perceived. So you could be absolutely creating the best possible environment. Quite honestly, if you read some of the work on attachment adaptations, on attachment styles, and if a child feels that their needs are satisfied and they’re safe, 30% of the time, they’re likely to attach securely. So what that means is basically they’re going to end up with far fewer hang ups and issues later down, down in law and down the line and later in life now. So really 30% of the time, so really parents and grandparents relax because you don’t need to get it right hundred percent of the time and it’s still going to be okay. But there is no way you can get it right 100% of the time. Like I said, one of the reasons for that is that you could think that to creating the best possible environment for your child or your grandchild. But if the child sees it from a different perspective, then you’re not to know that you can’t possibly be second guessing that all the time. That’s why we’ve got a problem, because sometimes you can for instance, you let’s say it’s a small baby and you presenting it with a puppy and the puppy goes and licks the baby’s face and you and gets the most adorable thing in the world. The child could think it’s absolutely horrible and it’s the most traumatic. Right?

Sharon Stills, ND

Right.

Eva Detko, PhD

So you have no way of always predicting and you if you were to live your life in that way, always sort of trying to second guess it, then quite honestly, you would be utterly stressed and you would have a miserable lot and it just wouldn’t do anybody any good. So absolutely, it’s totally true what you said. But at the same time when two people need to cut themselves some slack and just do their best and just know that’s where you need to do your best is observe your child or your grandchild. Be receptive, be as much as possible, kind of intuitively, energetically connected to their needs, and then you’ll be able to satisfy their needs in a perhaps better way than most other people. Because if you feel that your child maybe is a little bit more maybe a bit more sensitive or a little bit more maybe quote unquote needy with regards just care or attention or love or cuddles or kisses, then if you dismissive of that, that’s where you’re going to start creating problems. If you’re more receptive, then if the child just feels that, like I said, roughly 30% of the time their needs from their perspective are being satisfied at least somewhat, then you’re doing a good job, okay, you’re doing the best you can.

Sharon Stills, ND

So you hear that, ladies? It’s like permission granted to cut yourself some slack. We do that. We do the best we do. I have said to my boys for years even as they were growing up, I used to like I would say therapy, I’ll pay for therapy for life. Like whatever I’ve done to create, you need to go to therapy. I’ll help you out. I’ll cover it because it’s unavoidable. We’re going to do those things. I find now in my later years and as a grandparent, I’m more, as you were saying, like I’m more stable. I’ve worked through more of my stuff so I can be more present and receptive to my grandbabies. It’s just a process. It’s just a journey we take. Then the most important thing is to cut yourself some slack. We’re all human. No one’s perfect.

Eva Detko, PhD

Actually, to your point, I think you just made a very, very important point. When you work on your own issues, on your own unresolved stuff, on your own emotional triggers, you become more stable as an individual. Yes. You’re not so easily triggered and you’re not seeing everything and interpret everything through the prism of your own traumas. That way you can be a stable influence and basically something that is a constant and the stable in the child’s environment, that’s going to go a very, very long way for them not to have to develop all sorts of adaptations and all sorts of behavioral weirdness that comes with an unstable environment if they’re growing up. So the more people work on themselves, quite honestly, the more positive influence that they have on people around them, and that includes the children. 

Sharon Stills, ND

So an extra benefit, you get the healing yourself, but you can projected around to others. So hormones and emotions, what do you have to say? What is the internally linking the intersection of hormones and emotions? How do you view that? 

Eva Detko, PhD

So there’s absolutely no question that there is a number of different ways that we can look at it. 

But really, I hope that everybody watching this understands by now the human system is very complex. It’s not that here you argue over this and here you’ve got your pancreas and everything interacts together and that includes the mental processes, the emotional processes and even the energetic body that we have. So it’s a very complex system, but when it comes to just sort of simplifying that connection between the endocrine system and the emotional processes, you don’t have to look any further than the science of psychoneuroimmunology. Because for starters, this is a science that was first established in 1975, so it’s been around for a while. This emerged after two researchers showed that in young and that was connected to psychological processes and a subsequently many, many, many studies have been done. So now we have decades of research but basically this science explain how our psychological health and that includes the folds, beliefs, our emotions, because you go back and forth when you have, for instance, destructive thoughts, you immediately feel emotionally activated by it. So that goes back and forth. 

So overall, when I’m talking psychological have I’m talking about all these processes and it’s it’s explained the connection between that, between our immune function and between our endocrine system. Therefore, obviously a massive, massive impact on our physical health and our possible resistance to disease and that even. So when we talking about psychoneuroimmunology, we’re talking here about the interaction between the sympathetic and the some axis, those that sympathetic adrenal medullary axis, which involves the HPA that people may be familiar with, the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis and the sympathetic nervous system. Just put it simply, this science over the many decades that has been obviously around for and the many studies that have been done to show that if you have destructive sort of thought patterns and and emotions that are basically you’re dominated by emotions such as fear, anger, grief, toxic, shame, guilt. When you are dominated by those emotions. Because obviously, if we experience things in an acute sense and they come and go and we can clear all the hormonal residues from the system, that’s okay. But when we experience those things chronically, that’s quite a different thing. They can basically make us safe through those physiological connections. So that is one way in which we can make that connection. But people may have heard me before I did an interview event on the vagus nerve and autonomic nervous system regulation. Really you could also consider that from the point of view of the topic that we’re discussing here, because the vagus nerve, the 10th cranial nerve that really joins the brain to most vital organs and system that might move vital organs in the abdominal chest cavity will actually come into play here also, because when you’re thinking about the vagus connection to the liver. That’s the start. So in the liver, we’ve got the production of endocrine hormones, such as a 25 hydroxy vitamin D, Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 and other ones. We’ve got this hepatic metabolism of hormones. This includes steroid hormones it’s going to be very relevant to menopause. The different interplay of different hormones that we talking about when we’re talking about menopausal changes. If the vagus nerve is not online, if it doesn’t engage readily, then those metabolic processes will be disrupted. 

Then, of course, we also have the vagus nerve and the connection to the gut. So we’ve got pancreas, we’ve got hormones. So all of these I know we’re talking about menopause, but obviously overall hormonal imbalance, I mean, everything affects everything out as it’s not like we can just look at estrogen or progesterone or testosterone. We need to be looking at those things collectively. Again, if the vagus nerve is not in a good shape, which means that, that rest digest, detoxify and then heal response is not engaging readily, meaning that may be one moment you stress, but then the next moment is like, Oh, okay, I’ve let that go and I’m good. If you’re not able to switch into that parasympathetic rest digest detoxifying healing response really easily, then that means your autonomic nervous system is not in balance and your vagus nerve probably isn’t in good shape. I can tell you something, there’s going to be loads of different vagus nerve stimulation exercises that people recommend, things like gargling and cold showers and all of that and all of that is fine and great and I’m not negating it. What I’m saying is you can have all the cold showers, take as many cold showers that you like, but if you don’t sort out your emotional health and you ease the emotionally triggered, your vagus nerve function will never be good no matter how many cold showers you take. So you see, we do have real physiological connections in which we can explain this and that for sure, we need to look at emotions if we want a hormonal balance to be good.

Sharon Stills, ND

I couldn’t agree more. I do nerve express autonomic nervous system testing on patients and those who are chronically ill, I’ve never seen anyone who’s come in with an activated parasympathetic where there’s balance where they can because like you said, it’s super important you have to be able to go back and forth. You can’t just be resting and digesting if there’s something to be afraid of, you want to be afraid of it and run away. It’s just a matter of being able to switch and so you can heal if you’re stuck in sympathetic dominance, if your vagus nerve is not on board. I agree cold shower is a great humming and gargling. They’re all great. But if you don’t get to the root of what’s driving the stress, then they’ll only take you so far. So let’s talk about that emotional route and what do you mean? Where does this emotional toxicity come from? Are there certain emotions that you see more prevalent than others? What are some things that the listeners can start doing?

Eva Detko, PhD

Yes. So for sure, again, we definitely want to focus on chronically experienced emotions because emotions do have that purpose. So its emotion is there for a reason. Otherwise nothing in nature is just pointless. If it’s there, it’s there for something. So with anger, with God, boundaries, with fear, we’ve got survival ride with grief, we’ve got this letting go so we can actually move to the next stage, next phase of our lives. Usually. The issue arises if we experience things over and over and it becomes more of a chronic situation, which we often can desensitize to. I want to emphasize this because much of what people experiencing is really subconscious, okay? A lot of people don’t have enough self-awareness, unfortunately, to realize that they are absolutely triggered and they end up in fight flight or freeze response for majority of their waking hours and sometimes during their sleep as well. Really, we need to draw this line. So acute is fine. There’s a reason for it. So you feel it. As you said you move between the sympathetic and parasympathetic, but then with chronic, when people talk about emotions, they often, if anything, will observe the symptoms of emotional dysregulation. 

They will, for instance, say, “Oh yeah, okay, I do this negative self-talk. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I kind of recognize that I do that” Or they feel if you really quizzed them on this, they’ll say, “Yeah, no, I feel anxious, I feel worried, I feel undeserving. I feel like I need to desperately be in control. I kind of chase that kind of the control.” It’s just a constant urge of being in control. There’s frustration, this anger, those are all symptoms of envy, jealousy, over thinking. I’m being overly analytical living in your head rather than being connected to the body. That’s a problem in itself from the point of view of chronic illness, being critical of yourself, being critical of other people to the point of just being ridiculous about it, just everything’s always a criticism. That’s not a good sign. It’s a symptom of emotional toxicity, a feeling constantly victimized. Oh, gosh, that’s a big word, victimized feeling. 

Those ruminating thoughts always going over what was not being able to live in the present, because you always going over past events or past things that people said or did, which was 20 years ago, but you still remember it and going over it and it’s triggering you. All of those are really symptoms of emotional toxicity. When are we talking about the root cause? The most sort of obvious root cause that we’ve already touched on is unresolved trauma, because what’s going to happen within the nervous system and the brain when you experience something that from your perspective at a time is traumatic, not necessarily from anybody else’s perspective, from your perspective as a child or from any point in your life, of course, you can experience trauma.  What happens. Is it your brain and your nervous system gets put on red alert and there are certain processes and things that happen within your brain, specifically the amygdala, and you kind of become sort of alerted to anything that can repeat that same experience. We tend to code like every detail when we are in a traumatic situation, the brain really neurologically registers everything. Then even when you might not recognize this, but even when there’s something remotely resembling of the original situation, in terms of like PTSD, this could be the color of the sky or a certain sound or certain color. So there was the car crash and there was a red car passing by and then something every time a red car passes by, you feel activated. Most of the time people not necessarily registering that they’re not going to register that consciously, but that’s what happens neurologically. Everything is set on fire in your brain. This cascade of neurochemicals kind of unfolds. Before you know it, you are triggered and you’re feeling really angry or upset or sad or fearful. Trauma is a big one in terms of the root cause. Because of that, because of the cascade that it’s set. That the neurological pattern that then establishes and then you will go for the rest of your life unless you work specific on that and resolve it, which of course you can. 

But if you don’t, then there’s always going to be that neurochemical cascade and it’s going to happen over and over and over again. People who have fears and phobias will be familiar with the fact that no matter how much you go into, explain to yourself logically or rationally that you shouldn’t be feeling what you’re feeling. It goes out the window the moment you’re in the situation and you’re feeling it anyway. Before you know it, your emotions take over because of that neurological pattern that is now set. So of course, trauma is a big one, another root cause. That is something that a lot of people do underestimate, a woman underestimated. I would be on seriously, especially these days. I definitely be very, very switched on to that. If you’re a parent, is social engineering, the education system in the West overall, whether it is Europe or the United States or Canada, is, I should say, is in the tragic shape and the social conditioning and the social engineering and that kids to receive essentially mind control from the word go. I mean, I’m not kidding. 

I mean, I’ve studied this in a lot of depth. So that’s basically what we’re dealing with. Most parents are not even aware of that. So now your kid is being conditioned to be a victim, or an abuser or depending on the skin player, all of that. So this is massive because it really will. Not just traumatize kids in itself in a lot of cases, but will certainly set the tone for this child’s life and how they are able to achieve, how they are able to show up in the world, and so on. Also, don’t forget that they maybe more susceptible to subsequent traumatization because of that. In fact, each trauma, if not resolved, will make you more susceptible to subsequent trauma because of that sensitivity that now exists. That red alert that your brain and the nervous system is now is basically it’s got switched on right after the switch has been flipped. So then, of course, we’ve got we obviously underestimate just the everyday day to day pressure. So somebody that could be a big part of their emotional toxicity. It could be that socioeconomic situation, whatever. So that also is a root cause. However, oftentimes behind that is things like basically subconscious patterns that are just kind of maybe stopping. This is not across the board, but that’s what I’m saying. It’s a you can often see that people who maybe are not doing so well in whatever way in their lives, that will be limiting the beliefs behind that, because everything essentially is driven by our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. So obviously that’s a massive, massive root cause, but it’s not the ultimate good cause, because what contributes to the beliefs, It’s the other stuff that I said conditioning contributes and trauma contributes. Not just that because we mustn’t forget something really, really important. That is generational issues. Generational conditioning, generational patterns. We talking epigenetics here. We know that certain issues and traumas are coded in our DNA just because our grandparents or great great grandparents went through some hardship, we may now be tearing that little piece of it, and that will then determine how we respond to certain things, how quickly our parasympathetic engages or doesn’t. So there’s quite a lot of different layers here. If you have a symptom of getting anxious and you just saying, well, I’m just an anxious person. Nobody is just an anxious person. That’s not a thing. It’s something that has a reason, has a cause. Sometimes multiple causes. So I don’t want anybody to accept that, “Oh, I’m just a controlling person or I’m just over analytical or I’m just anxious on the have always been this way.” But that doesn’t mean you have to spend the rest of your life being this way. It’s up to you. The choice is up to you. All of these things can be resolved.

Sharon Stills, ND

All right. So I have so many questions. So what would your definition be of someone who has resolved these issues, Who’s done the work? How would they show up in the world?

Eva Detko, PhD

I learned that question, actually. The first thing that came to me immediately is resilience. So now we’re talking about the person who’s not. But not just when I’m talking about resilience, I’m talking physical resilience, mental resilience, emotional resilience, energetic resilience, which means how the energy is moving through your body and through your energy body and also spiritual resilience. So there are different layers when it comes to resilience, but now we’re talking about the person who is going through life completely and faced by any global event, no matter how scary the media is trying to obviously make it sound because they know that quite honestly, whatever comes, I can handle it. I’ve got enough resilience in the system. I’ve got enough ingenuity and the resilience to because and now I believe that I’m capable. I believe that I can handle whatever life throws at me. So with somebody who resolved all these things comes self-worth and comes belief in yourself and comes that confidence that, you know what? Life will always happen. But I will choose to respond in a positive way. I will use all my resource amassed to kind of keep going forward in the best positive way, no matter what is happening in the world, what’s happening around me. So and of course, a person who has a resolved all these things will have what we call the secure attachment, because you can shift even you initially have things like anxious attachment or avoidant attachment style. You can shift into a more secure attachment. So now we’re talking about the person who generally more secure, has better relationships, doesn’t interpret everything around them through the prism of their own emotional garbage. Quite honestly, which a lot of people do. So do they see the real stuff or do they see what their traumas are showing them? Because it’s almost like there’s a mirror and they’re being if they’re dealing if somebody is traumatized and they’re dealing with another person, it’s almost like a mirror is being held up to them and they may not like what they see. So they flip out and suddenly they’re victimized or they’re angry with the other person or whatever. But if they step out of victimhood and they reconsider it, usually just showing them what they still haven’t resolved within themselves. If I may literally have just one sort of wish for everybody watching is to have that consideration whenever you dealing with other people or even animals because animals can mirror for us as well, have that courage and also curiosity. The word is that we’re looking for curiosity to go, “Okay, so they just said this or they just did this and nine stunned me or I feel very angry. I feel really fearful.” What was it specifically about the situation on my baby, that tone of voice or whatever else, the words being sad or anything, the way in which the words were being said, etc., etc.. What was it specifically? I encourage everybody to have that curiosity. Don’t drop right into victimhood and go, “Oh, they’re doing this to me” Nobody’s doing anything to you. You choosing to have that emotional response. Yes, that emotional responses could be driven by traumas and other things. There is that neurochemical cascade that will just happen before you know it. But I already I’m encouraging people to step out of victimhood and really step into personal responsibility and curiosity about where your emotional responses are coming from.

Sharon Stills, ND

Yes, I think we’re so curious as children discovering the world. Then we lose that flavor of being curious. To invite curiosity back into your life about why I feel this way? Why am I reacting this way? It’s such a gift to give yourself and such a good place to open the door and start to step into this kind of work. So in following through with that, what do you. So first of all, like for those listening, like I’m sure everyone was like, yeah, I do that I’m in control. This is like not to make you feel bad again, but to say like, okay, here I’m curious too. Why am I doing that? Why do I consider myself an anxious person? Why do I have to control everything? So for someone who’s listening and going, yeah, I can relate to that. Oh gosh, I do do that. So then what are tools for them? What do you recommend? Are there any things that they could start right now? We talked about curiosity and then what is involved in like the work that you do to help. Because clearing your emotions and the energy, this is not like something that you do on a Friday evening. It’s so you could speak to that a little.

Eva Detko, PhD

Yeah, of course. But it’s quite honestly, it’s you asked me at the beginning how I got to do what I do and all this work that obviously I had to do at some point was absolutely the most valuable thing that I have ever done. I’ve never looked back. In fact, I always want to level up and level up and level up in terms of my consciousness of where my consciousness is, because we can grow and develop our entire lives and we should aspire to do that. You asked about the approach. Well, we could approach it from a number of angles, actually. So one would be, well what I kind of hear you, but I’m not quite ready to go deep with this stuff. By the way, there are methods and tools that we have that mean that you don’t have to be reliving any trauma. That’s really that’s the eighties approach to therapy. We don’t do that anymore. But even so, you may just not want to look too deeply at these things. Of course, ultimately, if you want to achieve true emotional mastery, then at some point you need to look a little bit deeper and have that curiosity and dip your toe in and make sure that maybe you’re doing it in a supportive environment, etc., etc.. Great. You have that when you have that support, it’s much easier and that’s fine. That’s why I have that in my community for that reason. I do have a community so that people can have that support and support each other. We kind of make sure that people are comfortable going deeper if they want to with the programs that I have. But I have a very extensive online program for covering what we said and far more. That’s deep. Okay. But I also appreciate that not everybody is ready to go deep right away. So if you thought, well you know what? If I was to go deep right now, I will completely fall apart. So I cannot do this. I need to just keep myself level for a while. That’s okay also. What then I would say to you is in which case, spent more time stabilizing the system. So if you in that category who’s thinking like, “Yeah, kind of what I need to do, but one, I’m not ready for it, second, I know that that would me quite a lot. In my life I just cannot afford to do that right now.” Then I would say I put more emphasis on the vagus nerve work, breathing, exercises, meditation, but rather than just go with cold showers, start doing some of some of these exercises that are also stabilizing emotionally, such as breathing practices, havening techniques, which I’m obviously the greatest fan of. 

People have other things like somewhat experiencing it, all sorts of things like that. And then as you mentioned, the spa. So just if you’re in that category, then put more emphasis first on building stability within your neurology and then you will be able to go deeper with some of these maybe other things that you need to work on and not be as uprooted by them. So that is a good strategy also. It just depends what works for people. I work with amazing technology as well, so that’s another option. To have technology help you as well, because it’s not like you don’t need to do any work at all and just go just like that. We deal with technology. Now, that’s not what I’m saying. But we do have amazing technology that can help you with vagus nerve stability, that can help you with emotional balance, that can help you even with some of those are more subtle layers and even those ancestral trauma. The technology I work with works at the level of ancestral trauma, because sometimes that’s the more elusive one for people. So they may not even have any access to any information as to their parents, grandparents that they may no longer be alive. Not that you need that information, but sometimes when you’re doing ancestral work, that is helpful. So we have technology that can help with that as well. There’s this lots and lots of options wherever people are in where what sort of they’re able or willing to do at this time, we can kind of tailor to their needs. I think that’s important because not everybody wants to take a deep dive into emotional work right away.

Sharon Stills, ND

Right. To me, it’s the journey of a lifetime. It’s peeling an onion. There’s always a new layer that you can get in touch with. I am curious what are havening techniques.

Eva Detko, PhD

Havening techniques is a psycho sensory modality. So it actually works directly on the amygdala. We mentioned the amygdala before and the fact that when you go through a traumatic experience, what actually ends up happening is that there are receptors on the surface or on the lateral amygdala that get kind of fixed in place, and then they can get very activated in the way that I describe with anything that even remotely resembles the original sensitizing event. With havening, because we apply touch to the skin in a certain way and that stimulates the nervous system to what to come down through accessing Delta wave. So it’s literally it was called at the beginning Delta wave techniques or amygdala differentiation techniques. So essentially what you’re doing is you acting directly on the amygdala and those receptors and you what we call is depotentiate. So we kind of taking those receptors apart so they no longer causing you any problems. So it’s an incredible technique. It can work very quickly, obviously, depending I mean, some people have very, very complex needs. It’s like you said, the onion, but on certain things, certain traumatic events Bom, bom, bom, 15 minutes and you will never be triggered by that event again. So yeah, it’s an incredible technique. I was so trained in a lot of different things. But this one, when I did my practitioner training, I started working with that. I loved it so much that I actually become a trainer, so I’m a trainer for Haven. That’s how much I love this. The nice thing about havening is also that it combines with other modalities. So it’s not one of those modalities that is strictly need to use that modality. It actually you can bring so many things into it, you can combine it with NLP, you can combine it with affirmations, you can combine it with visualization, you can combine it with a lot of different things. Then you have an even greater impact even with that.

Sharon Stills, ND

That’s amazing. There’s just so much so I want people to know where they can learn more. But I just want to remind listeners again, if you’re thinking what does this have to do with my hot flashes? I just want to bring it back full circle to this has everything to do and I host these summits because I’m so passionate about this time in our lives as women being timed where we just step into our power, where we are sharing our gifts and having amazing experiences and relationships and sex and all the things. If this is holding you back, you’re never going to reach your potential. I wanted Dr. Eva here to open the conversation for maybe it’s something you’ve been thinking about or maybe this is brand new to you, but that it become part of you as doctors, we have differential diagnoses. Someone comes in with an issue and we have a DDX. you know, is it because of A, B, C, D, or E? I’d love for everyone listening to have your emotions, emotional toxicity, trauma in your own DDX of what’s going on in your life. If you’re not where you want to be or experiencing what you want to experience, that you think about could this be contributing? Because obviously Dr. Eva has made it her life’s work. I can tell you after I think it’s 21 years now or 22 years in clinical practice with patients that this is always in my DDX and this is always showing up. So it I want you all to heal as deeply and profoundly as you can. This is got to be a piece of it, in my opinion. So where can they learn more about what you’re doing and check out what you have to offer?

Eva Detko, PhD

Yeah. I love what you just said. Absolutely. What I actually wanted to add to the tools that could start somebodies journey is that I developed this really extensive emotional toxicity questionnaire. It includes the original ACS questions, but it goes way, way beyond that because that was so limited really good as it was. It was very, very limited, let’s face it. So I developed this big questionnaire that is just people can just access that on my website if they want to and then score. That starts the journey of self awareness of what are you with this and perhaps how big a piece of the puzzle that is for you, which feeds into what you just said really Well. So, dr-eva.com is the place already and it just kind of branches off into all of those areas. But basically my focus is psychoenergetic health. So anything to do with emotional, psychological and also the energetic side of being. So the energy flow through the system of course is highly relevant to all of this that we discussing also. So I collectively call it psychoenergetic healing. So that’s where to connect with me. I’ve got lots of resources that can get people started. So I invite you to come over.

Sharon Stills, ND

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Yeah. I always say often it’s the invisible toxins or issues that are at the root of what’s going on. We are light beings, we are energetic beings, we are energy. We forget that because we live we get stuck in this physical plane and we only what we can see. So you can’t necessarily see the acupuncture meridian or the energy flowing through you. Unless you’re focused on learning how to activate that and be able to see those kind of things. We forget. It’s like WiFi, we talk about toxins, like we talk about mercury because you can see it in your mouth, but you can’t necessarily see the WiFi. So it’s very convenient to forget that these things are affecting us. The emotions, the energetics, these are all affecting us. To me, it’s part of the human condition, but it’s also part of the human journey. It can be a very enlightening and even fun. It’s not always fun, but it can be very helpful and exciting to learn these things about yourself and to put the pieces and to watch yourself blossom and realize, Oh yeah, that doesn’t trigger me anymore. Like the Dr. Eva said, I can see the red card. It doesn’t send me to outer space and stress and so a lot of it is perception and how you look at it. If you look at like you’re here in this human body, having the human experience and this is part of the experience to learn. I think at this point in our lives, we’ve had enough life and now it’s time to take our power back. Again, I’m just so happy that you were here because this is such a subject that I’m so passionate about and just want more women to have access to on their hormonal journey.

Eva Detko, PhD

Yeah, and you know, why go down those rabbit holes and go round and round in circle and sort of do circles round yourself because you chasing that one thing and you really focused on bringing this hormone into balance and this targeting this toxin and the other toxin when there are things behind it that will drive it for you anyway. Unless you clear what’s behind it, you will always be chasing those things and you always be going down those rabbit holes. So to me personally, it doesn’t really make any sense to do that because I draw that kind of go further upstream things that and then other things will just fall into place. So many people have so many different symptoms of vagus dysfunction and they go and chase after each one rather than you see what I mean? The vagus nerve isn’t even the ultimate root cause. There’s things that are further and further back, including obviously the energetics and the ancestral stuff and all of that. So absolutely I think that’s wonderful what you’re doing, Sharon.

Sharon Stills, ND

Yeah, I work a lot with women and I balance their hormones and I’m an expert in bioidentical hormone replacement and I love that. It’s very satisfying. They feel great. But like, when someone does this kind of work, it’s like a whole celebration. It’s like, yes, you’re like having a win for your soul, for your humanity, for your journey. I feel like that’s what we’re here to do. So, yes. So. Okay, big love fest going on here. Well, thank you again so much for being here. Thank you, everyone. I would just say obviously, go check out Dr. Eva’s website. Listen to this again. Did you get triggered when you heard some of what we had to say? Are you still here or did you get triggered and you’ve already turned it off. But, when we get triggered rather than going no and pushing away, go back to that curious, oh, I wonder why I got triggered. Listen to this interview again and again and again until something shifts for you. So that’s what I’ve got to say. So thank you again, everyone, Dr. Eva and audience for being here and for being a part of the summit and for being open to this window and this part of the healing journey.

Eva Detko, PhD

Thank you so much for having me.

Sharon Stills, ND

You’re so welcome.