Upgrade Your Mind & Spine For Optimal Health

Summit Introduction and Speaker Welcome 0:00

- Alright everyone, welcome back to the Medicine of Mindset summit, I'm Jana Danielson, your host for this whole week, it really is like a mindset extravaganza if you go to any of those restaurants that have buffets, um I hope that throughout this week you're able to resonate with and really connect to the information and the amazing speakers that we have, you know, sharing their knowledge and not just their knowledge but their wisdom. And what I find is the difference between the two is you know, knowledge is the information that people know wisdom I find is the information that people live and that's what we're getting this week from all of our speakers.

And so I want to introduce you to Dr. Ryan Wohlfert. He is a certified chiropractic sport physician, a certified chiropractic biophysics physician, I like, I like this, his superpower is using specific spine and posture correction to help his patients resolve chronic pain disease and organ dysfunction. And I have a deeply rooted love for the world of chiropractic medicine and care simply because of what it's done for my family. He's also a certified mindset specialist. So this is a cool combination helping people retrain their mind, body connection for optimal health and performance With over 22 years of experience.

Dr. Ryan has helped thousands correct their mind and body and spine to break free from chronic pain, eliminate dependence on their broken system and make simple healthy pain free living possible and isn't that what all of us want so Dr. Ryan, thank you so much for being here with us at the medicine of mindset summit. - I appreciate it. This. You know, when I saw the title of this, I'm like, man, this is this is perfect for what we're going to be going through. And I just wanted to touch on something you said about essentially the wisdom is actually living what you know, and that's one of my core values is if you say I know it, I know it, but you're not living it. Do you really know it?

- It's absolutely true. So let's get into unpacking some of the wisdom that you have to share with us today. And let's just start, I'm gonna ask you what role does the mind and the brain and and see, let's touch on that because sometimes I think they're used interchangeably, which they're probably not the same. But what role does the mind slash brain play in the process of creating the chronic pain um or the fatigue or the suppressing of, of our immune system that I think so many people here at the summit or they know of people who are experiencing those um those situations in their own lives.

- Yeah. You know, when you talk about the mind brain, I sometimes use them interchangeably just for ease of use for people because you'll see at the end of this analogy that I'll give because it's my favorite analogy to describe essentially the threat that our brain slash mind feels and how that threat is put into one bucket and I'll use that as you know pun intended because it's called the threat threat or stress bucket analogy and you might have heard this before, Jonah but it bears repeating because we need to keep hearing this over and over again.

So the brain has one specific goal or one primary goal that the main thing that it wants to do is to keep you safe is its survival.

Mind, Brain, and the Threat Bucket Analogy 3:40

So what it does with all the information coming in from the outside and then inside of us, it evaluates those inputs will put them in one category these inputs and interprets those inputs on whether is it safe or is it unsafe and based on that interpretation it gives an output. Alright, we'll talk about what those outputs are and can be now with the outputs. So I like to keep things simple like that loop right there. We get an input, we get an interpretation for the from the brain and then we get an output based on what that interpretation is it to keep it simple? Is it safer?

Is it unsafe? Now if it is deemed safe? Well now it can go into this performance mode and but it also has basically another criteria is how much energy is it gonna waste or does it feel like it's gonna use and resources is it going to use to accomplish whatever that is. So let's get into this here. So you have these inputs, they come in and think about a bucket. All right, we have this bucket and we have one brain, one nervous system. So every time we get an input and it's a unsafe or it's deemed or perceived as unsafe or a threat and it feels like it needs to protect us well, it's like it's a drop in the bucket.

Alright, So we sleep poorly, we take a medication that doesn't do well. We, you know, a lot of lifestyle things, we eat a sugary, have a sugary diet or just one time it puts puts a drop in the bucket were in an accident. We have poor posture at work. We are looking at our phone and poor posture. We, you know have maybe an infection or poor immune system where we're exposed to something we're exposed to toxins. So now these threats, these stresses whether it's a physical stress, a chemical stress, a mental or emotional stress or threat, we can think about it like that goes into the bucket.

So now that bucket is filling up and I'm just giving this example because there are things and we'll get into this, especially the mindset portion of it, the four pillars that will go over on how to decrease the amount going in, how we can increase the threshold, but for now we'll just set the scene. So now we have these threats and stresses going and it's you know, there's an interplay between that and normally your body and your brain can handle that, you know, on a day to day basis. It can handle it.

But if that stress or threat level gets too high, if that water level gets too high, what your brain thinks is, if it gets to that top level, that it's going to die, that your brain is like, I can't, there's no way I can handle this. So what it does is it puts this fail safe. So about halfway, this is different for everybody. About halfway, two thirds of the way, you know, a third of the way up the bucket, there's this spout that comes off this valve, this, this failsafe this release. So if that stress and threat level gets too high at that level, well now it opens up and it doesn't let the stress out.

So the stress is gone. No, it's the signal to your body or whatever it is. It could be a physical signal or physical or mechanical signal. It could be a, you know, give examples a mental or emotional thing, a spiritual thing, the symptoms that we, that we feel is the result of that stress, that threat coming out in your brain trying to tell you, hey, there's something wrong over here. So this, so again, these symptoms that we could feel and that's why I put it all in one bucket because a emotional stress, like feeling sad for a long time.

Getting that anxiety and anxious type feeling that could cause a physical response as I'm sure, you know, your, you know, everybody's been hearing about on here and what you also teach Jana is these emotional mental things get stored up in our body and our brain and then it gets let out maybe as pain or stiffness or weakness or poor coordination or we feel like we're getting older fatigue, right? And it's, it's merely your, your brain mind body however you want to think about it, we'll stick to the brain analogy and nervous system trying to tell you, hey, there's something wrong here. So it could be a physical stress, a physical injury that could be causing an emotional response.

And I use the word response interchangeably with the symptom that you're feeling like I said under normal circumstances in a lower, you know, threat level, your, your brain and body is able to deal with that on a daily basis. But if we get too much and get overloaded, overburdened and we increase that water level or if we have that lower threshold to be able to handle that, which is, you know, poor resilience, then we're going to get more symptoms, whether it's a physical symptom whether it's the emotional response, whether it's even an infection in the poor immune system.

Like you said, like our immune systems are not robust, like they don't like the word should, but like they, they're built to be because of this bombardment with stress in our in our lives over time. So that's that is the threat bucket analogy and the great news is I mean we can increase our resilience. We can remove, we can try to avoid, do things to avoid these stressors and threats and also retrain our brain in our mind to not treat them as stresses, treat them as threats because a lot of these, they're not really threats to the survival of you or your brain, but that's how your brain and your mind is perceiving them.

So that's that's I love that analogy because instead of wondering why dang, why do I have this symptom and chasing the symptom and taking the medication. You know, I've had patients come into our office on 20 different medications and they're confused on why, you know, they have the symptoms that they do and it's and I have to take a step back and realize they're not in the position where I've been learning this over the last 20 some years. And it's I mean, even this was a new concept to me probably 10, 15 years ago because I was caught in that physical mode.

Like, okay, you have a physical problem. Okay, it's got to be a physical symptom that's to be coming from a physical cause. - So as I mean with my Pilates studio and my integrated health therapies clinic, I would hear that all the time. Right, is that or I would hear things like this? I tried, I tried one of your chiropractors and it doesn't, it didn't work like my back pain is still there, or it was good for 20, it was good for like three days and my back pain came back. Should I try a different chiro? Should I do?

And you know? And so it's this beautiful, almost like unwavering of the onion, right? It makes you wanna cry a little bit when you hear those things, because we become so conditioned to be like, oh, look at that advertisement for that pain medication. It now works for 12 hours. So I only need two in a day instead of three in a day. And so because we're so conditioned to chase the symptoms like you just mentioned or, you know, you'll hear people, the language they will use about, you know, getting healthy and it's as if it's like a destination point, right? I gotta get, if I just, if I just got over there, then everything would be great.

Just tell me how to get there, right. And so it becomes very outcomes based versus being a part of a process, right? Help us understand through your experience. What, how do we unravel? Maybe a little bit about those belief systems, um, so that we can go beyond the symptom unpack the physical, emotional spiritual part of well being so that people truly can live, you know, abundant full lives right up until their last breath on this earth. - You know, you touched on it right there and it's something that it's not flashy, it's not sexy and that's why sometimes it's not received until everything else has not failed. But you know, I've tried everything right, but it's getting back to the basics,

Process Over Outcome and Sustainable Healing 12:40

it's, it's the practice of actually doing the things or, or one finding out and being aware of who you are, you know, that whole who type thing and that's getting, I don't want to go too fast here, we'll get more into the do part with the with the four pillars that will go over. But it's, it's finding out who you are and unwavering that, but it's, you can't mention it again, one of the core values process over outcome instead of trying to get to the destination at all costs, because you can get to a pain free, you can take a bunch of ibuprofen or Tylenol and be pain free, but that doesn't mean it's going to open up the mind, open up your life, open up your health to that level that it can actually get to.

You might feel better short term, but is that a sustainable thing and that's what I meant to, I want to help people get sustainable health, sustainable pain free living. And I'm not saying you're never gonna have pain, I work out, I play basketball, I'm gonna have some level of pain or discomfort or soreness that doesn't mean it's going to limit what I do. But to go back to the threat bucket analogy. Well now I need to make sure I'm increasing my threshold with the physical chemical, mental aspects of my healthy living rather than just uh, I can't do it. No, there's ways to work around it and in getting into that, that process based it is a practice.

It's not a one time thing. I know I'm not getting into specifics here, but we'll get to them because most people need to hear this. They have to understand this is we look for that epiphany, but we look for that big aha moment. I've had them. That doesn't mean once you have that moment, okay, Everything is hunky dory. Everything is beautiful for the rest of your life. It might be for the next 12 hours, but there's work to be done. That is the next layer that you go into. And you know, you mentioned about trying different things going to a different chiropractor.

It didn't work. It didn't that again, there's, there's a lot of different therapies and just like how you mentioned, there's a smorgasbord, a uh, buffet of mindset strategies and solutions that people have, maybe mine resonates with you, but you have to actually give it an honest try and, I used to hate the word or using the word try. But because people would think try is okay, I'm gonna do it for a week and we'll see what I do, or even for like a day, I've done that too, but when I say honest, try it is giving it, you know, is for me it depends on your experience buck and where you are in that journey, whether it's with your physical, your mental health, your your mindset, your emotional health, it's a month, you know, for me, where I'm like, all right, I will decide if this is something brand new for me, I will try it for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks every day, just like maybe five minutes. And you'll see in these examples that I'll give or these these pillars of what those are, because most people want to take the easy way out, but who wouldn't want to take the easy way out or they think they think it's the easy way out by taking a medication or getting a surgery or getting the procedure done when it's not actually addressing the underlying causes or solutions that are needed to help one lower that stress level, lower the brain's perception of what that threat is, and also increasing your threshold to be able to handle in resilience.

We use the word resilience to handle the stresses that we're putting on our body. Hopefully that gets into a little bit answers your question because it's, you know, again, we'll get into the specifics here in a few minutes. - You know, and you know, it absolutely does and I think that maybe some of our audience members who are here, you know listening and learning from us today think, oh my gosh, you know, the two of you have it all figured out how you, you know, where, what is even the first step, but I just want to share quickly an experience I had this summer. So you know, not more than six months ago where I was dealing with some gut issues and a friend of mine was, we were out for dinner and she kind of noticed me like squirming in my seat, I didn't realize I was doing it and she said to me, your guts bothering you and I said, yeah, I guess it is right. Like it was just, you know, it was, it was unconscious that my behavior was, was expressing that my physical behavior and she said have you ever, and she's like a functional medicine um professional and she said, she said these words to me, which I just, she said, have you ever tried an elimination diet?

And I was like elimination and diet in my world do not, they don't like they repel each other. And then she said something to me, the next thing she said was Would you take 30 days to figure out how to start to heal your gut? And I was like whoa, okay, wait a minute, Have you ever tried an elimination diet and would you take 30 days which is a drop in the bucket to figure out how you could start to heal your gut, would you do it? And I was like like absolutely yes, and I did not honestly, you know what Dr. Ryan, that whole the 30 days have turned into eight months because I found out with crystal clear, just, you know, dialed in insight what triggers me, what doesn't where my gut loves to how and so what you're saying is exactly that it's not, what else can you add?

And I'm so busy, it's the reframe of the brain from, you know, do you want to just survive to do you just want to thrive? And so can you talk a little bit about, let's dive into your expertise on the spine and posture. Because I also think that people might have some beliefs from sitting in class, you know, where their teachers saying sit up straight or their grandmothers saying sit up straight and they end up in this military style posture that is forced. But help us understand the simplicity of, you know, a healthy functioning spine and optimal posture really how that impacts our health. And if someone is living with that technique, how do they start to unravel that? - Wow. Thanks so much for asking that I want to go back to your example of the elimination diet and give my experience with that because I was the same way this was I think in 2013 or 2014 and I was already eating

Gut Health, Elimination Diets, and Personal Reframing 19:40

a pretty, you know, good diet, but I was still having inflammatory foods. I grew up on milk and dairy, you know, my, my family's dairy farmers and aunts and uncles Godfather, you know, grandpa, so we had milk, I have one of four boys, we had milk every day of our lives growing up and I always equated that I was part of that marketing machine. That that's why I had strong bones, that's why healed so fast little, you know, Now looking back, I realized, well I was younger and I was active in doing other things, so that's why I was healing so fast. Anyway, I remember one day in my office, our health coach talking to me and and saying these words saying that and I already had accepted that gluten or wheat was not good for me.

It would like cause like headaches for me or, or migraines, that was one of my weak links. But when she said, you know dairy and you know, it's probably just as bad as, you know, wheat and sugar and this and I'm like, my belief system was like, my reaction was like, no way. Then I had a chance to think about it and talk to my wife and she had talked to my wife about it already too because my wife was having gut issues and like bloating when she would have dairy and we in that reframe, I love how you said that, that's the reframe. Would you take 30 days to find out if it's causing this gut issue in like, alright, I'm always up again.

I tried it for 30 days and like, um no headaches, no migraines because we just eliminate that, eliminate other common inflammatory uh ingredients and lo and behold your body actually heal. So that's again, I just wanted to bring that up because it's it's not like this was my whole life. I've been, you know, eating whole foods and no processed foods. No, it's been a relatively recent event, you know, the last 10 years. So yeah, I just wanted to add that. So now let's get into the whole posture. So now you're right. Work and I'll tell my girls to, you know, stand up straight, you know, one of my like, like all right, stand tall and yes, we can. I would rather have that.

Especially nowadays because not many people do that. I will risk them getting the military posture versus the slumped, high park infosys, the thoracic spine, tech posture, head forward posture. So, but you're right that think about this what controls every function of your body, The brain. And some people say, well, the gut and yeah, okay, got it, let's let's just, we'll say the brain if without a brain, you can't do anything, right? It controls all the functions of the body by sending the energy, the communication down through the spinal cord.

Well, let's touch on this first through the brain stem, through the spinal cord, all the through all the nerves to every single cell tissue and organ in your body. So that's how it should work. So there's this communication going on back and forth from the body to the brain, the brain to the body. Now, physically, if that is un interfere, there's no interference will now beautiful. Our body can heal but when we get into a poor posture and it can deform the spine which holds the spinal cord. Right?

Well now that spinal cord it's it's fragile, it's spongy, it's, you know, pliable but it can get stretched and pulled and and it's not like it's you know, slammed against the bone but it creates pressure changes, it creates stretching and tension on it. Well now a structure like that. So think about a rubber band. If you pull and stretch a rubber band, it's not relaxed, it's tense, it's tight. It's not very, you know, useful if you will. But now if we put some slack in it and that's what the good posture is putting slack in the spinal cord.

Well now those messages can flow freely and this this isn't just about pain, this is about the overall health. And there are studies that have been done showing that an increase in the, you know, the I'll use the big words, a hyper emphasis an increase in the thoracic emphasis your mid back, that slumped posture, you know, Yoni Whitten, you know, I'm sure that you know he we call that the posture prolapse syndrome, right? So what happens? The head goes forward? And that by itself has been shown to take up to 15 years off people's lives in that type of posture because it increases the so remember we talked about the bucket and or the brain's main goal is survival. The one a is to conserve energy.

We'll just in that respect if we're like this and not lined up against gravity. If our core of our body is not lined up against gravity, we're gonna be wasting a lot of energy, right? Because if we would take A bowling ball, let's say £15 again, just giving you examples here, everybody take a bowling ball or something or £15 weight and put it up against your body. And I hold that for a long period of time. But now the farther you take it out, what happens, you're not able your your body uses more energy.

It fights it. It creates also changes to help compensate for that and the body and the brain are masters of compensation. So it's going to find the path of least resistance.

Spine, Posture, and Nervous System Health 25:40

The path, the path of least energy To accomplish its goal. So if if it's out here like this every inch that it's forward adds 10 lbs of of weight or pressure onto your on your spine. So just with that little example, but I'm gonna give you another one, it's the breathing test. So head forward, getting that slump posture, take a breath in and a breath out and that's even do a range of motion or motion, you know, kind of look side to side up and down, tip your head in different directions. And then when you, you know, bring the head back, shoulders, back and relaxed, then take a deep breath in and out, move your head around head and neck. What's easier?

So one that what's interesting with these studies and when you are in that hyper focus, that slumped posture and if it's stuck like that is it wasn't because of, you know, pain or whatever, that it decreased the lifespan, it actually this is probably gonna blow your mind. It was shown to contribute to atherosclerosis. So, heart problems, which yeah, that's what they found. This is inspired journalists in the Journal of American uh Journal of Geriatric Gerontology Association. This was in the early 2000's and they've there's actually been six studies that have shown the same type of thing.

So I know that's not enough what people are talking about. And that's why I'm on a mission to help bring that out because when people hear chiropractic, what do you think of Jonah, what does everybody think of? I want to get my back cracked right, just like with your mindset, just like with those practices, it's not a one time thing and I'm not saying that the old stereotype of once I go to a chiropractor, I gotta keep going back. Well no you don't have to do anything. You just have to deal with the consequences of whatever you do or don't do. But back to this.

So just like pushing up so there's a different level or a different types of spinal correction, different types of chiropractic care. Like you mentioned in my bio, like using a specific exercises and protocol to help correct the structure of the spine because it's not just about muscle, it's about the ligaments that are holding the spinal bones together. And when we're in this slumped posture and it gradually gets that way, guess what? Those ligaments will get fibrotic, they'll get scarred, they'll you'll start to compensate because it wants to keep you healthy in any way that it knows how, even though it knows it's there's a shelf life on that.

So that spout it's starting to go down with that that that fail safe. So now we have to do something similar to what orthodontists due to the teeth, right? If your teeth are so structurally unsound out of place. Well pushing on the teeth once or once a week just you know here let me push on my teeth or go to the dentist and they push on your teeth. No there has to be something to hold them there for a certain period of time. So they learn that new position. It's very similar with what we do with the spine because there's a certain structure. And this gets back to your question about, you know, when we're told to just stand up straight and get that military posture because we we want curves in the spine.

We don't want the side curved like the scoliosis, but we want, all right, you made me bring this out. Okay. I wasn't planning on it, but it's it's right there for me to get we want a 40 degree again in general, a 30 to 40 degree curve in the neck. A balanced out 30 to 40 degree infosys in the mid back and then a lower dose is 30 to 40 degrees in the low back. That is a balanced posture. Ear, over the shoulder, over the hips, over the feet. Now, if that gets too excessive or in the military posture sometimes what happens? It gets too straight now.

It shuts down that communication from the brain to the body, the body of the brain and your body isn't going to be fully healthy, not just pain free but healthy. So the organs can actually function. Okay. - Well, I like that you just mentioned the organ piece because I think for a lot of people when they're thinking about chiropractic and like getting their back cracked or stories they hear in the news. They just think it's about the skeletal system. Like, I'm just getting my bones fixed and no one takes that next step to understand that, like, like lights on a Christmas tree, there's like all those, you know, all those little nerve endings that need to light up so that you can digest, you can eliminate, you can feel like they're like that is like the call center, right of of the body. And so, you know, when you help someone understand that, you know, even from my perspective, pelvic floor health and pelvic floor function definitely, you know, is impacted by that posture. And so you've mentioned a couple of times, you've dropped these little hints about the four pillars, can you let's start getting into that? I think we've set this beautiful foundation and I hope everyone is like kind of chomping at the bit ready to get like the juicy part of the, we've given you the what now, let's take let's take our audience through the four pillars so that they can start to understand what inspired actions can they be taking to shift their mindset and actually what can they do in their day to start to move to this beautiful place of increased immunity, less fatigue, less pain. - I love it because now we're getting into the mindset portion of it, remember our our actions and this is where a lot of self help gurus experts, they just stick with, okay, just think positive, just say affirmations well, hold on a second because if that worked, you know, everybody would be accomplishing everything that they would always do, there's something holding us back, there's something holding you back unless you've achieved everything that and you're completely happy with your health, your career, your relationships, everything in life, there is, there's these unconscious drivers that are driving our actions and behaviors.

So if we continue to just work on the actions and behaviors instead of addressing these unconscious subconscious drivers, I the mindset behind why we do what we do and correct that and become aware of that, then we're gonna have short term success at best, but we're not never going to get to the level that we want with our health, with our wealth, with our relationships, you know the big three, so we call them the four pillars, this is the, the certified mindset specialist training that I went through through, eliminate your limits, so I wanted to give a shout and plug to Brian Grasso and Carrie Campbell there, my mentors and O'Brien for 20 some years back in our strength and conditioning days, but he and his wife have created this beautiful proven you know, field tested system of these four pillars and these are the things that you can do every day to start retraining your, your brain to help you take the actions sustainably so you can achieve the lifestyle of life, the health that you want.

So number one start, it's called review your direction. So like we have talked about, the brain is geared to see things more likely as a threat or a negative thing rather than something that's, you know, positive. So we have to retrain our brain into more of a the default mode back into this positive portion of it. So review your direction is simply that is bringing our conscious awareness onto our goals throughout the day or actually at least at the beginning of the day, because this is where I want you to start. So review your direction, means this at the beginning of your day, you're gonna sit down pen and paper and I want you to write down what your one of your goals is, whatever that is. I wanna, you know, get out of pain.

I want to, we would like to frame it in the affirmative, um I want to be live healthy and live active. I want to be, I want to walk a mile right without pain. So what I want you to do is I want you to this sets up your day, so for five or 10 minutes you're gonna write down, okay, ask yourself these types of questions what matters most today, What's most important for me today to accomplish this goal? All right, And then you're going to write without interruption and you want it to come from a positive serving place, not because we're going to get to the other part here pillar number three. Alright, so don't we're going to learn what your languages that I already gave a preview for that but revered direction, it refocuses your brain and your mind onto what your goal is without judgment, without thinking, you're not gonna get it, but it just okay. The question is like, uh like I said, what matters most today, what what is most important today?

I write this in my journal, I did it this morning, so you're going to write that down another good questions are, why did I create this goal in the first place? I love that one because then you're, you're starting to get into that deep, deeper part of it, you know, how am I gonna feel when I actually achieve this goal? So whatever that is and you do that every day every specifically in the morning. I like people who started in the morning. Okay, so that's number one, review your direction, that will help you take the actions necessary to accomplish that goal.

Alright, number two, I'll do this one because these go together these book and each other it's called count your wins. So this is not, I mean it can be gratitude but count your wins or I even call it, find the evidence is at the end of your day. What did you do that lead you closer to that goal and it doesn't have to be, I accomplished that goal. It could be, I went out like if it is, I want to walk a mile without pain and right now you can barely get out of bed. So what is it today? I was able to get out of bed and make make lunch or breakfast for my kids, it doesn't matter if you went right back to bed, because now you're starting to again retrain those neural pathways to see the serving things, the positive things, the helpful things that you have done, instead of beating yourself up for the stuff that you're like left on your list that you haven't done. So bringing your, your brain and your mind back into more of a, again, a positive place. And I do love that example of being able to walk pain free for a mile when you're caught in bed, because I've had clients like that, I've had people, friends and colleagues like that and that's how they got started on this mindset journey as well on this mindset, these four pillars. So that's number two is count your wins.

So at the end of the day For 5-10 minutes just sit down and I, I like pen and paper or dictating it because the brain learns through repetition, we're constantly bombarding our brain and our mind with things that are unhelpful and conserving to it and thinking nothing of it. So now if we can either speak it or write it now, it's hearing it in triplicate when you think it, when you write it or say it and then when you hear it or see it and you can feel it. So writing all these things down little things, it doesn't have to be big things every time.

So those are the first two. - As I'm listening to you, it makes me realize and I hope gang those of you that are here watching this with with me is

The Four Mindset Pillars for Change 38:40

um, oftentimes the most simple strategies are the ones that have the ability to have the biggest impact. We have grown up over the past 20 years with, you know, the, we can ask a search engine, any question we want, we get these immediate, you know, we send someone a text and you're like, why hasn't he read it? Why hasn't he read it or you see that it's red and it's like, why isn't he responding? And so you make some really great points here, Dr. Ryan, just about taking the step back and kind of the old school mentality around this versus, you know, maybe using, there's, there's all kinds of apps, right that we can use to set our goals and they might look kind of flashy, but you know, an old school coil back notebook where you can put pen to paper and I think is very impactful and so let's get into, you kind of give us a little bit of a hint around pillar number three, let's get through pillar three and four. - Yeah. And I love what you said there, I don't know if you are reading my mind or feeling my energy?

But I like simple things I just I've responded, I've tried different apps but I've learned with me if it's locked away behind the lock screen or my phone or on a computer that it's you know, shut off, it's out of sight out of mind. Now I do use it for certain things like google docs, I'll put leading questions in with that same thing. Sometimes you need props need these props like these questions that I just gave you with, especially review your direction. Alright, so now number three and again these are in no particular order.

It's just it's it's like how I've been teaching them and doing them because actually number three is the one that I started off with when I first started it was learn your language which is number three and then count your wins over to like big ones that I started with. But if you're going to start with one, I would say start with count your wins because learn your language we take this is learning the it's basically your inner awareness, the inner dialogue that is going along in your head, the story that you're telling yourself about yourself or what you have accomplished your having accomplished and what what jogged my memory was this because there's basically four parts to this is okay, what are you saying to yourself or thinking?

All right, How are you feeling emotionally? How are you feeling physically and what are the behaviors you're using that are unserved to you. So like how you said when you were at dinner with your friend and you started moving around, you didn't even know you were doing it. It was an unconscious thing for a physical ailment that you didn't even know that you were doing. So now she brought it into your awareness. That's why coaches are so helpful, right? Because they can see things that you don't, they see the blind spots but learn your language is it's similar.

You can use this along with revere direction. Like in the morning, sit in a quiet place and just take inventory of okay, what am I telling myself, what are, what am I what am I thinking? What are my thoughts, what have I been saying to myself? Okay how am I feeling physically? Like when I'm if I'm if I'm anxious or if I'm let's go emotionally first. If I'm anxious or sad, what brings that out or what do I feel physically when I'm in that position and conversely when you're reviewing your direction in this positive light, where do you feel that? You know, do you feel like do you feel you know, do you feel your easier breathing?

Because like for me when I get if I get stressed or anxious or forward thinking too much in a negative light, my fingers will get cold and I just bring awareness to that, like, alright, we're in, don't get caught up in finding out, okay, why am I feeling this? Don't ask ask why, like, when you're counting your wins, when you're reviewing your direction and feeling good, ask why for those, why do I feel this good? But you know not, why do I feel bad? Because guess what your brain will do, it will start finding reasons of why you're why you feel bad and it's gonna keep giving you what you ask for.

- Do you think that from a habit building perspective, Would you go back to what you said earlier with these four pillars? Like is 30 days, You know, is that the good, honest try threshold and should someone try them all for 30 or do you start with one and then build and build and build? - Great question, I say seven days because this is something that's new to a lot of people and if you're going to start with one, start with counting your wins and you can, again, I say at night because that puts you in a unconscious and you're just, you're you're per separating your brain, your unconscious mind is lingering on that rather than okay, I gotta get lunch is ready, I gotta get ready for the next day and I got to check my phone and all this other stuff, it puts your brain into a better place, but you can do it throughout the day. I love that question.

I would say start off if this is something new. Start off with count your wins and do it for seven days, that doesn't mean stop after seven days. But by that time you're gonna start seeing and building momentum. If you find it as a chore though, where are you? Like, man? And this goes back to, we didn't even touch on this, like knowing where you are and how ready you are for whatever step you're about to take. And again, it's another brain thing where you want to argue for yourself and if the brain feels like it's too big of a jump, then it's not going to do it.

So make it as simple as possible. Don't, you know, have your journal or your notebook hidden away or wherever you're going to do it, have it out in the open, have it next to your bed, have it, you know, again, don't put it in a cupboard somewhere or a cabinet or a drawer because especially as you're learning it, so that's 12. If it's hard for you to come up, don't say I'm going to come up with 10 things that I did today, that'd be great. But if you're like crap, I only came up with five and your brain is like, yeah, you only came up with, you know, you came up with five and you have zero yesterday when you, when you started or you had one. So those are those the interplay that you need to play in, if you find yourself more learning your language and beat yourself up about it, not able to disassociate from, you know, those negative thoughts, then again, make it easier, make it simpler on you.

So that's a great question. I would say for these start with one for seven days. - As you were speaking about counting your wins, it made me realize that even counting them and then, you know, and then celebrating, because I think that's one thing that we do not do enough and you know, in our house, I mean you're the dad of three girls. I'm the mom of three boys and we do, we make this into a dialogue actually. And so we talk about our wins for the and it's become such a habit in our house that even sometimes the boys like it's reversed, they'll say to me, hey mom, what were your wind today? And I'm like, okay, this is great, right? Because at 17, 19 and 21 years old, I didn't have, you know where they are now when I was their age, I didn't have that awareness of what, you know, what were my, what were my wins today? So, you know, celebrating them in a way of dialoguing with someone around you or you know, some maybe someone that you just comes to mind that you can even just text back and forth, right? I know some people cringe at the word like accountability and the other c word commitment? Yet?

If you can be, I always say to my clients that moments create momentum, you want to get this momentum but you're like oh I just can't like yeah but did you have a moment and then did you add another moment? It's like a mathematical equation that when you have moments they turn into momentum. So I love how you frame them. - I love that moments create momentum. Yes, Beautiful. And that's you know, it's funny you skipped over the fourth pillar into the fifth. It's called fifth pillorying, which is is talking to each other, we weren't even gonna talk about that is oh jesus is uh you know, counting your wins with somebody else, reviewing your direction with somebody else, after you both had your time to do it. So yeah, that's interesting that you you're already inherently doing that and that's beautiful.

But yes, the fourth pillar is I guess you could call it, you know, it's called imagine your outcome. So it would be people, it would be something that familiar with people more. Maybe I don't like the word affirmations because sometimes your brain doesn't believe the statements that you're giving to it, But it is priming imagining your outcome is like the 30,000 ft view of like what you want for your life, what your inspiration we call inspiration statements within this mindset system is what are the what are the things that you want in your life?

Okay, whether it's with your health, with your relationships with your career, wealth, whatever it is, again, we're going back to the goals. So the review your direction is more like that daily reflection on the goals, imagine your outcome is like the impact or the, or the 30,000 ft view of what you want for your life. Now this one was tough for me and I'll be honest still is, especially if we get into the day to day life and we don't make a conscious effort to imagine what we want and what we're working for it.

It can be harder. But the funny thing is is people are like a mad, I don't know how to imagine, how do I imagine that? It's like, hold on a second most of the time we're imagining negative things on serving things day after day, we're imagining things that haven't happened, but we're imagining that they are going to happen. So no, you do know how to imagine, we just have to kind of shift it into the imagination, theater imagination. Like we call, I call, you know, imagine your outcome imagination theater because how you can do it is you make think about what you want or what you want to accomplish and make like a 5 to 12th second movie trailer or movie clip in your mind of how that works of you accomplishing it, of the feelings that you have when you accomplish it, What is it going to feel like with everybody there uh and I'm going to use my, you know, my mentors example because he gives a great example of it of of he's gonna win world, he's a power lifter, he's only been power lifting for like two years, he's like 49 years old and I'm using this just because he explains it so perfectly, he imagines that him standing up on the stage in 2027 lifting like doing his dead lift and you know, setting the, you know, his feet in doing all this preparation for it and he does that on a daily basis.

He imagines it now in the beginning and I'll take this back. Just everybody is, it might be hard for you to do that, right? Because you don't know if it's a new thing, you might, you don't know how to do it or how it feels forced. So you can always tie it to some sort of anchor, like a piece of music, a piece of clothing, a smell to where that brings you back to like gives you that emotion, it's called emotional priming because the emotion is, is key with, imagine your outcome and making it real.

So if there's a song that, you know, you just get emotional with, you know, imagine using with that song playing in the background, you know, I'm a big Rocky fan, so anything, you know, Rocky Balboa related, oh boy, I get do stuff with that. So imagine your outcome, create this 5 to 12th movie in the beginning, you'll probably have to make it conscious as far as set aside time to do it. But then throughout your day, while you're in the shower, washing your hair while you're brushing your teeth again, it's 10 seconds a minute, 37 whatever it is throughout your driving to a event again, your imagine your outcome instead of imagining somebody cutting you off in traffic. So that's, that's it.

- You know, um, you made me think back to, so we have Kevin Ellis, the bone coach on this summit as well. And I saw him speak at a conference this fall last fall I guess. And he said something that was brilliant and it just landed for me. He, he was talking about his business. So it was, it was a session on business, right? And he was telling us all of his goals of his business as if they had already happened. Like he's like, we're going to grow to this, we're gonna impact, right? And he said these things in my mind, these things have already happened, time is just time just has to catch up.

Personal Practices and Closing Remarks 52:20

And I was like, oh my gosh, like I love that because it is hard, I think sometimes to think, you know, into the future in a positive way. But when he added that anchor of time just needs to catch up like this has happened, already decided this has happened and when, as I was hearing you speak, I'm like, that's the perfect overlay to that for people who are just really struggling with, I can't even think about Saturday, never mind 2027. So I just wanted to bring that up. - Exactly. I love how you said that because yeah, that's what imagine your outcome is is this has already happened.

It's a foregone conclusion of whatever that that goal is. Like for me, it's a foregone conclusion that I will, you know, I'm trying to reframe this in a way that medications and drugs is not in it, but I'm going to live healthy and active pain free without any, you know, pharmaceuticals my entire life, I've already put that in my head, you know, like where I'm living, like if I have an injury for example, I might need a short term, like if I tear my knee up, like I did 10 years ago and I had to have reconstructive surgery on my knee, guess what? I tried it without it, but I did it for a short period of time, but I've already put that in my brain in my mind.

Yes, I totally on board with that. - So good, so good. So I have two more questions for you, I want to know and, and you probably have like, you know, lead the witness a little bit on these two already, so in your area of expertise, what do you think is not being talked about enough. - Man, I think we talked about two of them, didn't we is posture and spine and how they're intricately related to your overall health, not just um again, not just pain, this, this takes practice to understand, and so yes, that is number one and number two is how are we have unconscious drivers, these stories that we keep telling ourselves over and over and in the back of our head and maybe there's things that have happened to us that we equate as negative and they're driving our inactions are behaviors that we're taking now, so now we want to bring those into the light through these four pillars to these mindset practices and retrain our brain, retrain our mind in the opposite direction, in reframing the meaning of that story, okay, You know, we're not even getting into trauma because we don't want to bring all this attention and all this, you know, awareness into our trauma, because sometimes that just creates more of the neural programming, but we, if it comes up as we go, you know, if we unlayer these things like of where this came from, why it happened great, but we don't have to intentionally seek out why it, why it is by doing these four pillars, these four pillar mindset practices, it more than likely you're going to keep on leery and like you said at the beginning Jana, it's it's not a destination, it's your health is not okay.

I'm there, I don't have to do this stuff anymore. No, we will adapt. - And I think that it's um it can't outright be bought either, you just can't go and buy your health. And so and that really comes from, you know, one of my mentors Joseph Pilates, you know, he talked about even like he, you know, physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness. Breath is the first and the last act of and somewhere in the middle we forget it. And so really it it anchors into the vision of this whole week, is that reminding people that we do have the ability, the power that you know the wherewithal to go within and hell and as as a fundamental part of who we are as human beings and you know, Mother Earth has provided us with different kinds of medicines and ways that we can heal, even just grounded, getting our feet on her with art, hands on a tree has tremendous healing potential.

And so I mean you've done such a fantastic job of walking us through the four pillars and obviously you're living, you're practicing what you preach. Is there anything else with this last question around, you know, any nuances around your personal practices that you would like to leave our audience with? - What I do is again, I do mine in the morning, like the mindset practices well, can I review my direction, learn my language in the morning before anybody's up? You know, I do that every day. I sometimes change the spot that I do it just to freshen it up because if the brain perceives it as a chore or boring or not getting a lot out of it, we just need to change the location if you will sometimes.

So right now where I'm doing it is the love seat, I think it's called in the corner because I don't sit there really for anything else. So that is my like journaling spot in the past. It's been on this red chair back there, but it's in my office. So sometimes I don't like to always do it there. I can just, it doesn't have to be a completely different room. It just, you know, just to freshen it up somewhat. So that's what I do mind there, I can for my posture and physical health. Just these little cues that I give myself. Man, you know, once it becomes like a habit, you don't need discipline for it anymore, right? It's just something that, you know, bringing the shoulders back and this might sound weird, but when I'm taking a shower and I'm, for some reason, when I'm soaping up my hands, it's just a signal to me, all right shoulders back and these reminders that just keep going.

So that's again, it's woven in throughout my day of the mindset practices of my posture and spine practices as well as my nutrition and fitness and all the other good healthy living practices. - Amazing, So good. And so Dr. Ryan, if there are people here watching and I know that they're gonna want to connect with you, where's the best place for them to learn more about you or where would you direct them? - Send them, I want them to go to my main website. It's DrWohlfert.com. I know it's probably not the best for people to spell, but D. R W.

O H. There's that H and L F E R T dot com. You can also find me on Facebook and I have a Facebook group that you're welcome to join. It's free. It's called be your own guarantee for your health in your life because that's my thing that I wanna help people say B Y. O G. Be your own guarantee. - That is good. That is so good. This, you know what like I feel like we were in a time warp. I mean, and I feel like we could have, we could talk for another hour or two on this. And so I just want to thank you for how authentically you've shown up and how you've taken, you know, 22 plus years of your expertise and broken it down into bite sized digested digestible pieces. And I think that's really important is, you know, when we have these amazing experts on to be able to gift very, you know, simple, easy to, for people to understand what what do I need to do to make this happen as step number one. And so I feel like that mission has been accomplished like rocky at the top of the stairs right in, you know, that infamous part of of the movie.

Yeah, this this this felt really good and I'm excited that there's gonna be people that are going to be impacted um physically, emotionally and spiritually by what they've learned here today. And yeah, just from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for saying yes to this little project of mine. It does, it means the world to me. - Thank you for having me. - Alright everyone. So with that we're gonna wrap this episode and we will see you back here with another amazing speaker in just a moment.