When Everything Hurts: How Brain Retraining Restored My Life

Andrewu2019s Health Crisis Begins 0:00

When my next guest is an intuitive healer, a success coach, spiritual guide, and a close personal friend. Andrew DeGregorio is joining us today to share his remarkable healing journey through a complex set of health challenges. And while everyone's health challenge is unique, I know many people watching this will be able to relate to the challenges he faced trying to figure out what was at the root of his health concerns. He's also going to share some amazing healing modalities you discovered along the way. So Andrew, thanks for joining me.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Jason. Excited to be here with you. Yeah. You know, it's really interesting watching, you know, being a friend of yours, watching you kind of go through this journey, some, sort of from a distance. It was it was fascinating to kind of see how it all revealed itself. So maybe you can can kind of start me at the beginning of when your kind of health challenges emerged, what was going on and what was kind of the process as you discovered, ultimately, what was what was underlying it.

And so is there was this mystery, chronic illness that that appeared and I would say began about 2019, like some some, kind of the onset of certain symptoms, like pain in my body. There was there's kind of these strange risings that were happening and it really wasn't something that was impacting me the way I did when it was like at the height. So 2019, this started with just like a few little things here and there. And about 2019, I guess, I'm sorry, 2020. You know, right around right around the time Covid hit, I guess slammed with just wild symptoms, my body was just going crazy.

My immune system was going crazy. I started to experience symptoms, like my body being covered in hives daily. And it's not just like a little bit of hives. I mean, my body was covered and I started to develop strange allergies, became allergic to food, soaps, detergents. I became, like even hot water. Like, I would have strange breakouts that would cause issues with my skin, and even the sun. Right. The sun was causing problems. Exactly. Eventually I would. I was basically living a very restricted life. I couldn't be on the sun.

I couldn't, like, take normal showers, like, it was bizarre. This was just kind of this crazy. Crazy. How many, how many, how many foods were involved? There was probably a few at the beginning. And the did it increase as you as you went on? Yeah. So so at first I was, this is where it became kind of crazy because I didn't know what was causing these symptoms. Like, I had to, like, begin to restrict my life to, like, kind of slow things down to see, okay, the detergents are doing this. Yeah. Check water and then food.

I started realizing I was allergic to all these different foods, so I started restricting food. I started taking food down my diet, slowly reintroducing to see what it was. It almost everything was breaking me out. And when I say break off, I share a little bit more about the symptoms in a moment. But there was it was down to like, I ended up getting down to basically 2 or 3 foods, and I became miserable. I'm a foodie kind of guy. I like to eat, and food was a nightmare at eat stuff. And I would get hit with, you know, skin issues.

But it wasn't just like hives. It was burning like intense burning, like crawling sensations over my body. My feet were inflamed. I had neuroinflammation type symptoms like cognitive decline, kind of scary stuff. Like I would stutter and there was like shaking happening in my face constantly. And I was like, this is neurological. What's going on with my body? What's happening in my nervous system? There was, even like, I would have some food. I would, I'd go into like cognitive decline, like severe cognitive decline, memory issues and basic math.

And, you know, I share a story sometimes for example, of this, I was with my fiancé, we were playing a board game, and I'm just in a miserable state and my body's having all these issues, and I couldn't add up the basic math on a dice. And this started to scare me. Now this is at the peak. This is like 2020, 2021. I've gone 16 lots of doctors by now. I've gone through like trying to figure out what was happening and no answers like nothing. All the tests were showing I was fine and this was an added nightmare on top of it.

So walk me through some of the, you know, you went to some of the traditional doctors, right? You want to rule out things like cancer and you kind of did your standard wellness check, let's say. Right. But then you you went to integrative practitioners. We consulted a little bit. Right. Just in sharing ideas. And then you tried a bunch of therapies, right, to see what would work. So talk to talk to me about some of those things that you try just to. We can give people an understanding of, of how much money and time and energy you spent in trying to figure out what was going on.

This I talked to. Obviously, having you in my corner was great. You mean you were super supportive, giving me some directionality? I spoke to first. Obviously, you went traditional. Ran all the tests. You can have, multiple times speaking to my my doctor over and over again, trying to get answers. That was I kind of. I'm smiling right now just because they're like, they gave me the official word for eyes. I can't visit you to cure, I don't care. Yes. I'm like, thanks, I know I got this is this is a this is a constant thing, right?

Like I went in with the same thing with skin issues and they gave me this complex thing. Right. And it was like sebaceous or seborrheic dermatitis. And I'm like. And I looked it up right with the Latin means. And I'm like, wait, you just told me the same thing in Latin that I told you in English, and you're calling that a diagnosis.

Doctors, Tests, and Dead Ends 5:00

And that's as it was pretty terrible because it's like, I'm like, listen, I can't do basic math. I'm struggling with memory. I'm I'm having fatigue, chronic fatigue problems, massive pain. Like through my entire body, like fibromyalgia pain. People describe this as like floating pain, massive pain through my chest, problems with my digestion. It goes into problems with bowel movements. Like I, you know, I shared only a few like it kept stacking in. And this guy's telling me I have hives. I'm like, listen, something is going on, mate.

This is not just hives. Like he's like, go home. Takes advantage of like, okay, I take I've taken, like they give me what is it like, what's this like clear steroids and things like that. Right. Basically just suppress it. This is try to help. And you know what I did? I broke out worse. I took stuff for antihistamine, and I had massive amount of hives on my body. So I actually became even, like, medicines became an issue. So this guy's telling me to, you know, basically take these basic, basic steps, move forward this way. None of it, none of this helped me.

Eventually he started to write, you know, basically prescribe more test because I started losing massive amount of weight. He's like, you have skin issues, losing weight, ran cancer tests is I mean, moved around throughout all these different things. Switch doctors talk to feel the doctors. Not much help in Western medicine at all, to be honest. And I'm digging it and doing research because my life is crumbling. I'm financially losing money. I'm spending so much money. I'm I'm struggling to maintain my business.

In my practice, I work with people one on one, and I still do. And this was becoming extremely hard to function. I'm spending money, I'm losing income, and I'm working with naturopathic doctors. Did detoxes, ran all the, you know, is it heavy metals? Is it mold tested for mold in the house? Like went all these traditional routes that you would go to try to eliminate what it might be. You know, answers. Everything was clear. I did the detoxes. Anyway, as time went on, I eventually started other therapies.

I started tried, hyperbaric chambers. I did 60 of those 60 sessions of those. So I went pretty massive in that, like, I didn't know if I was helping. I was hoping it was. I didn't quite find much relief, but I just kept doing it. Every Monday I would do, acupuncture I saw so that the traditional healers like energetic healers, trauma work, integrating trauma, attachment, healing work. There was probably did some cranial sacral, I think on the right cranial sacral. Counter strain, which is, something I did it.

You're aware of the guy here? He's great. Was this guy Kyle this kind of strange? He's was so knowledgeable, and he knows the body really well. And he, you know, he was helping, but he was at a loss to, you know, these things barely alleviated any of the symptoms. And they just kept getting worse and worse. And I woke up every day afraid. I thought I was dying every single day. And I felt like it. And I looked and he looked like a. Yeah, I mean, it was it was fascinating to watch, right? I mean, what I'll say is, you know, knowing you, right, and having a close personal relationship and knowing your skills and your gifts, you know, for those watching, Andrew is very intuitive, right?

So this whole time he's going through this journey. Yes. He's listening to the experts. Right to what, what they're bringing. But underlying all of that, he's got an intuitive, kind of grasp of this. Right. So he's letting his intuition guide him to all these different therapies. Right. And and, obviously the mind comes in right. That never logic and in trying things. So there's that part too. But but there is I think and I would love for you to speak to this, but I had like a fundamental trust that you that you would figure it out.

Right. And, and it wasn't just like throwing it on you. I was doing whatever I could to kind of help point some directions and give you some ideas, but, there was a there was a trust that that you would get this resolved, that you would find your way. And I was actually kind of just watching to see what's he going to teach me in this process. What am I going to learn as he goes through this? So that's kind of how I was approaching it. How were you? What was your mental state like going through this?

I'm sure there was doubt. I'm sure there was some of these fears or this is only natural, but I would imagine that there's probably an intuitive, certainty or trust in this process as well. There is there's definitely a trust, and it's what you're summarizing it really well, I had many years ago, I had, an experience that we had to go into too many details, but I kind of expand it out, and it was what people call like a spiritual awakening. You know, I, I had this experience where it has left me with this underlying trust that I will be supported and I will figure things out.

And I have that natural kind of commitment within myself that I'm going to figure things out anyway. So at one level, there's this deep knowing and faith or trust in surrendering into knowing that I will be fine. I will figure this out. And this challenge is for me. It's an opportunity to grow. I'm going to I'm going to learn something, people around me or something at the time while that was there, because it's like there at the same time and simultaneously in tandem to that. There's like what is going on, like, this is scary.

I'm freaked out. And it did start to erode my like, kind of like my psyche or my, like the mental side of me here. I started to to feel scared, confused and lost and isolated. I became very isolated as well, because I learned from this journey that when you're experiencing this, not everybody understands. They're not going to grasp what you're going. And it's just you, right? Like there's lots of people that will help, no question. But like at the end of the day, like it's just you and you've got to have yourself, right.

This is the this is the challenge. I think that many of us and I've experienced something similar, totally different set of circumstances, but but similar in being lost and confused and not knowing where to go. And, this is where you kind of have to just dig your heels in and go like it's it's on me. Like, I got to do this. That's right. And I didn't give up. We kept moving forward and incredible listening, surrendering, meditating, doing all my practices. I do. And you know, I would say this is probably I've had a lot of challenges and that many of us have been, you know, I don't know anybody that had, you know, challenges.

But this was by far one of the most challenging experiences because of how isolated I felt, because of how restricted my life became. And when your life starts to shrink because of some chronic illness that nobody knows what's happening, it's a nightmare. And so simultaneously holding that, I know everything's going to be all right. But during it. Rough ride. Yeah, yeah. So when did the tide start to turn right. So I want to, you know, there's a, there's a light at the end of the tunnel here. And this, this interview is really to help give people hope and direction with some things that they may be challenging.

What was kind of that first daylight that you saw? What were some of these things that started to open up for you? This is someone mentioned to me that this has some resemblance to what's called mast cell activation syndrome, and maybe that was part of what I was experiencing, had some similarities, but there's some big differences. So I don't know if it was exactly that. That led me to, groups about mast cell, like I'm researching mast set, the mast cells in the body, learning about them, trying to figure out what's happening.

And I was led to some group that, you know, they were they were talking about mass activation and which is really interesting. I said really support group. And a lot of it is like restricting and open bleeding. And and this is common in the health world. Right. It's like, well, especially when we have immune challenges and we lose our immune regulation. The default is just to take everything away. Right. And and that can be beneficial for a time. And as you mentioned, it gets you stuck in this box and then you can't get out of it.

Right. Until I get to the real underlying factors of what's going on. I found out later on that the more I would restrict, the more of my body believe that things were, not safe or dangerous. Yeah, dangerous. It kept. I was, like, training myself. Yeah. You think things are? I'd say. And I became more allergic. And all my my symptoms were compounding, continuing to escalate, and I wasn't getting better no matter what I was doing. So, I learned later on restricting is not necessarily a good thing to do.

Yeah, I want to own a plus here, because this is a very valuable lesson that it took me a long time to learn being a practitioner. But the more we view the world as dangerous, right, the more it compounds the underlying issue. Right. And we'll get to really why that is. But but it's very important lesson to learn. And it's we have to hold two truths at the same time. One is, is that, yes. This thing that I'm engaging with, whether it be a soap or a food, can inflame my body can create these symptoms.

But also not being so locked into this is a dangerous thing. And I've got to stay away because you just create this danger bubble around you. That's right. Yeah. It's eggs. Well, sound. Exactly. So after like, learning a little bit about this community and kind of talking about Marcel here and there with some people, I had somebody that I trusted and, he gave me some insight. I was like, this is I like the worse. And I remember I was a pleading to God and like, as, like, if anybody's listening, if anything's out there like angels, guides got whatever it is, gods or god, you know, it's just like somebody's like, on my knees, like somebody please help me.

Like I begged. And like, a few hours later, I got into a conversation with the guy and I felt like I got some an answer, like, literally got an answer. And it felt so real because it's like everything him, he said, listen, I was like a deep like, hey, pay attention to this guy and I pay attention to this guy because he's got good advice. And he mentioned his his fiancée or partner. I can't remember if his partner if I say he basically had something called mass activation syndrome, which I mentioned before, most of her life and did a program called Dynamic Neural Retraining System, and I was like, okay, let me look into this.

And I looked into a similar to something called a Gupta program. There's other programs like this. I tried Gupta by the way. I was already like, that was something else that tried and it just didn't stick. And I just I wasn't vibing with that one. I had just personally, and I think it's because I didn't have the testimonial that I got from this guy that I knew. And I'll just give a quick shout out to Gupta program because it's it's similar to dynamic power Training system. The RNs, showed a lot of same qualities.

I know Ashok Gupta, the founder, and they do great work. They have a lot of good testimonials as well. But there's for you this seem to be a big part was getting that confidence I needed that that's that's the point that I'm making here. Like this is a great program like Gupta program. And for some people it sticks for me.

Searching Through Therapies and Support 15:00

I have this, like stubborn side of me that I need to like, and it's beneficial at times. It's sometimes it can be not so beneficial, but it's like, hey, I need something to to proof in the pudding. Okay. Is this really going to work? Right. And I got that from this, this guy that really mentioned his partner that had successfully had mass activation for 16 years and restricted her life. She went through this and she's living a free life. I was like, okay, this is interesting. So I went and I started to I was like, I'm going to commit to this no matter what.

And it's a commitment. It's definitely a commitment. This program knows my name. Ignore retraining. And I was suffering sound lost. I was like, you know, I'm going to make this happen. I'm going to muster up everything in me. I'm going to go through it went through the program, and the program was very straightforward, really education. And she does it. And he does a great job of talking about what she calls Olympic injury. And she's basically had a brain injury. And she's, educating right now, more and more people on this.

And this opened my eyes to this might not be an immune dysfunction or a mystery illness. This could be this might be Olympic injury. And so and when you say limbic injury, just it so we're all clear. This could literally be a physical injury right? To the limbic system or it could be the perceptive reality trauma, PTSD. These are the things that honestly, every one of us goes through that our limbic system, our brain starts to modify or adjust or adapt to a certain reality. Right. And so what you're saying is this is a neurological, the root of it, what you're going through is neurological.

You may have some immune dysfunctions that are secondary or tertiary, but was underlying that was a brain based, issue that, again, could be caused by something physical or not. Yeah. And well said it. And the way she describes it is something similar. And she's, you know, she mentions like there's some of us while all of us have a line that we can eventually it we everyone's different on the line, but eventually we hit that line. And once you cross the line, the body and the system can get stuck, stuck in dysfunction and 2014, I had a pretty significant brain trauma.

I got hit in the head with a surfboard that somewhat didn't have a leash on their board. The board speared me in the back of the head and hit me so hard that my brain bounced. I ended up with three bleeds, my brain. So I had a pre traumatic brain injury in 2014 set me off on an amazing healing journey. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Shitty at the time. Yeah, but it was really amazing after, you know, I took it in stride, figured it out, but this was a pretty significant head injury.

Year and a half after that guy, someone rear ended me where I was on the highway, crashed into me, stopped in traffic and ended up with another concussion. So within a year and a half to two of severe head injuries. And it's worth noting just to kind of the timeline here. Right. So, 2014 head injury, year and a half later, another head injury. But then symptoms don't really start, you know, making themselves known for a few years or a few years later. Right. Which is why it's so hard to make these connections sometimes with any sort of, you know, traumatic brain injury, concussion, etc.

because this can happen when we're seven. It's going to happen or 18, or it could be repeatedly happen. You know, if you're a soccer player, a football player, a boxer, you know, whatever the case might be, or multiple accidents, these things can rear their heads ten years later. Right. And this is why it's so challenging because it's such a mystery, right? Like, why would anybody think that fives would be connected to something that happened ten years ago? Five years ago? Whatever it might be. Yeah.

And and animal connection from a really well where she said, you know, some people will have childhood trauma, brain injury and maybe toxic mold or toxic or someone may have toxic mold in their house and chemicals in the body, and it's just too much with what we're experiencing, life for the body and the brain and the nervous system, limbic system to actually process. So it gets stuck. And I got stuck in this, what we would call like limbic injury kind of state. And the reason why I knew this to be true is because when I did dynamic training, I went through this process and it's basically creating new neural pathways of a new operating system of health and well-being.

And there's an hour a day of this. And, like I said, it doesn't sound like much when you're doing it. It feels like a loss. But daily, the daily commitment to this is daily. And I didn't miss. I kept every day, hour, day and minimum to do it for six months. And then there's other things you're doing outside of the hour. So there's other things that go along with it. And you do these different movements and these different things that are basically creating new neural pathways of health and well-being for your body to get into a healing state.

And the way I like to view, it's like I had this old operating system, and I'm creating this new one while I'm on this kind of old operating system. And then eventually I jump over and I'm now operating from this brand new operating system of health and well-being. And what I noticed is I was doing dynamic and retraining. I did start to notice a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel here. I started to feel somewhat better, and it wasn't like it eliminated everything from it yet. But I started to be able to introduce more foods. Dynamic.

How retraining is going is what really taught me. Don't restrict restrict with like you stay restrictive and then you introduce within a range. You don't go outside your range like you do the program and explains all this, but it's basically exposure therapy while reading, while creating the new operating system. So I began to eat more foods, started introducing new things, and started feeling better. So this opened my eyes to limbic injury and how this could be easily connected to the brain trauma.

And I'm 99% sure that that brain injury, this brain injury, as I mentioned, and combined with some other things that I was going through in my life, just got me into this stuck state. Yeah. And so what you're describing here is, is that the brain is essentially, you know, once we tip over, right. And again, you mentioned a lot of different things. So this could be any number of stressors in our environment throughout our entire life. Right. And I know you had a, a pretty interesting childhood full of lots of challenges, with regard to, you know, trauma and that kind of thing.

So, you know, when we tip over, right, the brain basically just starts, it gets stuck in this operating mode of danger. Right? The world is dangerous and and when the brain does that, the entire system then responds, right. And so just like if you were to go up on stage and give a speech in front of, you know, 10,000 people, we'd all probably be a little nervous, right? So the system starts to get into this stress mode and when it gets stuck there. Right. And so when you're going through this noise process, you're retraining the brain.

And what's cool about is the cognitive process, right? So after you went through it, I also went through it as well to see what I could gain. And you're using a cognitive mind, right? You're using your mind to start to shift your beliefs and your reality. And when you do that, the body can then respond. So it's not just this mental process, right? When I just, you know, it's not reframing. Right? It's not kind of some of this basic stuff. It's it's a little bit deeper with respect to your specific issues.

And that retraining of the mind starts to grow. These new neural pathways related to safety, balance, rest and healing, right. Like that is, you know, when I when I went through that, I'm like, wow, this is it's really remarkable that somebody figured this out, like a process to actually create new brain circuitry. Right. Like that's what's called crazy. So it's not merely thoughts and beliefs that were changing. Those are the sort of starting point that that the software part that then starts to change the hardware.

That's right. Yeah. And it's through the understanding of neuroplasticity. Like we're basically using that understanding to cultivate health and well-being. And in the body, in the body. And and not only will, shift, you know, health and maybe these, you know, chronic illnesses, but it also starts to shift reality. Like, it's pretty amazing. So you can utilize the understanding, neuroplasticity, create realities, feel different in life, embody the reality you want to embody, and call it a reality you want to call.

So I'm a big, big, backer of that information, like being so true because I've had that experience over and over again. When I body something, I call it. And so when I use something like the concepts in dynamic or retraining it, I use it not only for health but also for reality creation. So it's it's very potent. It's very powerful. And it really opened my eyes to what I would call neuro hygiene. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. So that was kind of the crack. Right. So then you discovered something else.

So talk to me about the sort of next step that made a huge difference in your life. Yeah. So this next, next thing I discovered was like exceptional for me. It was like a game changer, you know, in dynamic retraining. Like, people started coming to me because I started to have some alleviation of symptoms and like people started asking me questions about it. And I we created this group where we would support supports and people with their health journey. And, I was happy to offer. Then someone came to that group and I, you know, was on a call with them and I gave them like my spiel about dynamic memory training, like the commitment it takes, like what you got to do, like really just being a like a, like a support for this person, really, like excitingly coaching them into like, you got this like backing them like really supporting.

And he ended up I think I don't know if he ended up doing dynamic training, but he came across this thing called set and he came back to me super excited. Like this guy was like shouting on the rooftops about this thing. And I'm like, okay, this is interesting. Like, I'm curious and like, let me go look into it. And at this point, I spent a lot of money on healers, different modalities like, you know, spending a fortune. And I didn't really wanna spend more money right now. I was just like, this is just.

And I'm pretty drained in that place, right? I just kind of felt fatigued. And I was like, all right, something. Give me those, like, you got to do this. And I kind of like, didn't go kicking and screaming, but like, I kind of resisted. I was like, I fine, whatever. And I like sometimes I do that I'll get the call and I'm like, just like begrudgingly, we'll listen. And I surrendered and I listened. I didn't give in to my fear and resistance about the money, you know, it's like, let's go do this.

Went to, this place in Costa mesa, Costa mesa, or north, like,

Discovering Limbic Injury and Neural Retraining 25:00

Southern California here, where I am, San Diego, about an hour north and, went to a Sarasota location, which just I don't know if I mention the name called Sarasota. And I went in and I didn't know much about it besides what I read. I'm laying in this chair and he said, basically, you know, close your eyes. This is like a brain mirroring technology. You're going to hear tones. It's going to support you with hearing. Your brain is going to hear itself, essentially, and it's going to see itself through these tones, make self-correction.

Wow, this is interesting. I'm laying there in this chair in the dark listening these tones. I'm like, how is this going to do anything? This is kind of ridiculous. Like, this is so passive. It's so it's like everything I've done is so active at this point in time and I'm laying then I was okay. I do my first couple sessions and the rest four days in a row. And so you do for up front four days in a row. So it's a little bit different depending on the person though. So I'm in there. And within four sessions I started to notice like I started feeling like the symptoms were reducing pretty drastically.

And at the same time I felt really bad. It was crazy. Like I felt terrible and great at the same time. This weird co-mingling of experiences and this is kind of can be natural for this process. So I went through these sessions and I went through this whole process, and 95% of my symptoms cleared up. And I'm like, this is crazy. This is wild technology. I was obviously blown away because this saved my life. Like, this is like I went from dynamic overtraining and which was helpful. And then it led me to this brain retraining and nervous system retraining that was called reset.

And it changed my life. And now you know the story. It was just so amazing that I started looking into the technology. I was like, I need to know what this tech is. I want to know about it. I want to bring it for to people in San Diego, for myself, for my clients. And within a year, I ended up investing into a franchise location because I found it was a franchise location with you, actually. And, we opened one here in San Diego. That's how I mean, I'm sharing that part of the story because I was that I'm like that excited about Sarasota because it's just like, this was amazing.

How did this thing do what it did? And then you and I uncovered that as we as time went on. Yeah, it's it's funny because watching you guys go through this. Right. I obviously then wanted to experiment with suspense and then find out more about this myself. But watching your recovery was wild, right? Because you were you were thin. You couldn't pale, like, just. There is no life force, right? And in you and I can see that you were getting that with the nurse. You had gotten better. I could see the excitement and the hope.

And then after Sarah set, make the body mass returned. That and the color to your skin and face returned. There was just more you could feel more lifeforce energy. Right? And so I was like, wow, this is really interesting because I'd never heard of it. Right? That was what was so shocking is I'd never heard of this thing. And being in the health world kind of prided myself on trying to find that, like all these cool things. And the reality with technology is that most technology's pretty good, right?

There's some really good things, right? Like red light therapies. Fantastic saunas or fantastic cold therapies. Good. But there are very few things that I've found, right. There's there's neurofeedback, which is also good technology but takes 40 something sessions usually to see results. There's lots of good stuff out there. I haven't really found something that was like game changers for people, right? Like that consistently. And so with you and this is a southern gentleman, and I think he shared that there's a handful of people. Right.

So I was like, this is this is fascinating. Right. And that's really how we we came to to invest in it and bring it one to San Diego because, you know, we both realized at that point how, how much of a of a difference this can make in people's lives who are truly stuck. Right. Because these are these are the tech people that I've worked with. As a practitioners similar story to you. Obviously every everybody's unique, but they all have this same story of like unstuck. I don't know what it is I'm getting multiple diagnoses.

Right. And there's no nobody seems to have the handle on what's really happening. Right. And so, this is one of those things and your journey, your process of discovering how much the brain is playing a role in all of this, as a sort of a root cause factor in people's health conditions really opened my eyes to this reality that there's definitely sometimes these immune challenges are primary. Right. And we can we can find some solutions there. And then sometimes they're secondary, right. And sometimes these other things that we're going through our secondary.

And so when we get to the brain and we start to remodel re rewire the brain, then the whole system starts to behave differently. Right. And this is what's so remarkable about this. And so we have a video to I want to I want to interject here, but maybe you can just kind of set this up right, and then we'll talk about it after, or why it's so interesting and how it plays a role into what we're talking about here. Yeah I love this video. This this goes back to my word neuro hygiene again. It's like it's just there's Sarah and Dynamic here.

Retraining really opened my eyes to the power of the hardware in the body the brain, the nervous system, the limbic system and how much choice we have. And every day we are actually conditioning our nervous system and our brains and our bodies with experiences. And we can consciously direct that, and we can choose what we want to feel and what we want to experience and dynamic. No retraining does that well with what they are kind of they introduce something called dose setting. You're basically visioning and bringing in like, dosing stands for dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin.

And what's the endorphins? You know, I feel that all the feel good. Right. So you're you can consciously do that. We have a lot of power to train in our systems. So when you when you understand that Sarah set and dynamic, her retraining is supporting basically creating a brand new operating system. Right. And the way we can see that and like in this video where how neuroplasticity play neuroplasticity at play here, it's like we a lot of us know how to ride a bike. Most people do, not everybody. So I want to be very mindful that.

But most people know how to ride a bike. And it's really complicated to ride a bike. We think it's so simple because we've learned as children to ride bikes and there's a lot going on. He does a great job of showing this and that behavior that once when we practice, practice, practice and eventually became behavior that we know how to we know how to actually ride a bike. It's set in our brain, in our bodies. It's like naturally we know how to do it. We can hop on a bike anytime. I haven't written a bike in a while, and then, like a year ago, I got an electric bike and it's a pedal.

It's one of those e-bikes and not fully electric. But then I knew how to ride. No problem. It's like so simple because it's wired in and those neurons fire together and they wired together and became a way of being in my system. Now, I like to apply that to how I feel every day and how I behave every day. These are creating neural pathways and neurons that are firing together. And it's basically how I'm experiencing reality. So we can change that, just like we can learn how to ride a different type of bike.

And he does that. He's showing how he learns a whole new type of bike and how it actually messes with his own neural pathways. Like the old behaviors actually begin to loosen and he forgets how to ride a bike. So the video will explain that. But I like to apply this to understanding neuroplasticity and play, and how we can actually use something like riding a bike, but apply it to the way we feel, how we experience reality, how we show up and our mood and our confidence. We can literally training confidence into our systems by using the concept of neuroplasticity.

So I use it for health. And Sara, that is also using it to train the body for relaxation and health and well-being. Same thing with dynamic training. But this video is a great video to show how it kind of operates on a daily basis. Hey, it's me Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day. You've heard people say it's just like riding a bike. Meaning it's really easy and you can't forget how to do it. Right. But I did something. I did something that damaged my mind. It happened on the streets of Amsterdam, and.

And I got really scared. Honestly, I can't ride a bike like you can anymore. Before I show you the video of what happened, I need to tell you the back story. Like many six year olds with the MacGyver mullet, I learned how to ride a bike when I was really young. I had learned a life skill, and I was really proud of it. Everything changed, though, when my friend Barney called me 25 years later. Where I work, the welders are geniuses and they like to play jokes on the engineers. He had a challenge for me.

He had built a special bicycle and he wanted me to try to ride it. He had only changed one thing. When he turned the handlebars to the left. The wheel goes to the right. When you turn it to the right, the wheel goes to the left. I thought this would be easy, so I hopped on the bike, ready to demonstrate how quickly I could conquer this. And here he is. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Dustin Sandlin. First attempt riding the bicycle, right. So faster than that. Yeah. I couldn't do it. You can see that I'm laughing, but I'm actually really frustrated.

In this moment, I had a really deep revelation. My thinking was in a rut. This bike revealed a very deep truth to me. I had the knowledge of how to operate the bike, but I did not have the understanding. Therefore, knowledge is not understanding. Look, I know you're probably thinking this is probably just an uncoordinated engineering. Can't do it. But that's not the case at all. The algorithm is associated with riding a bike in your brain. It's just that complicated. Think about it downwards. Force on the pedals.

Leaning your whole body. Pulling and pushing the handlebars. Gyroscopic precession in the wheels. Every single force is part of this algorithm. And if you change any one part, it affects the entire control system. I do not make definitive statements that often, but I'm telling you right now, you cannot ride this bicycle. You might think you can, but you can't. I know this because I'm often asked to speak at universities and conferences, and I take the bike with me. It's always the same. People think they're going to try some trick or they're just going to power through it.

It doesn't work. Your brain cannot handle this. For instance, this guy, I offered him $200 just to ride this bike ten feet across the stage. Everybody thought he could do only a minute up. No, you didn't understand. He didn't understand. So this way, it's like, So, like, whatever you real quickly, though, they help you keep your feet on or

Brain Retraining and the Backwards Bike Lesson 35:00

here, you move your way like you guys are all at least, you idiot. You, keep your feet on the pedal. Go! Don't ride off. You keep your feet on the handles. Yeah! All right, one more time. One more time. Okay. Once you have a rigid way of thinking in your head, sometimes you cannot change that. Even if you want to. So here's what I did. It was a personal challenge. I stayed out here in this driveway, and I practiced about five minutes every day. My neighbors made fun of me. I had many wrecks, but after eight months, this happened.

One day I couldn't ride the bike and the next day I could. It was like I could feel some kind of pathway in my brain that was now unlocked. It was really weird though. It's like there's this trail in my brain, but if I wasn't paying close enough attention to it, my brain would easily lose that neural path and jump back onto the old road. It was more familiar with any small distractions at all, like a cell phone ringing in my pocket would instantly throw my brain back to the old control algorithm and I would wreck, but at least I could ride it.

My son is the closest person to me genetically, and he's been riding a normal bike for three years. That's over half his life. I wanted to know how long it would take him to learn how to ride a backwards bike. So I told him if he learn how to ride a backwards bike, he could go with me to Australia and meet a real astronaut. Are you going to give up? No. Go ahead. This is how it starts. Look at this. This is such a big deal. Get up! You got it. Did you see his brain? Get it? So he. In how many weeks? We've been doing this?

Two weeks. In two weeks? He did something that took me eight months to do. Which demonstrates that a child has more neuroplasticity. Am I even saying that right than an adult? It's clear from this experiment that children have a much more plastic brain than adults. That's why the best time to learn a language is when you're a young child. All right, today's bike log. I can ride smooth. I can ride fast. I'm thinking the experiment is over. Okay, now I'm in Amsterdam, a city that has more bicycles than people.

The question is, can I ride a normal bike now? I mean, I have spent all this time unlearning how to ride a bike. If I go back and try to ride a normal one, will my brain mess up? So I've tweeted a smarter Every Day meetup, if you will. And I'm going to see if somebody brings a bicycle and I'm going to try to ride a normal bike. It's backwards. It's backwards. This was one of the most frustrating moments of my life. I had written a normal bike since I was six, but in this moment I couldn't do it anymore.

I had set out to prove that I could free my brain from a cognitive bias. But at this point, I'm pretty sure that all I proved is that I can only read designate that bias. So what you're not seeing is just a group of people here looking at me, looking at this strange American that can't ride a bike because they think I'm dumb. But I'm actually two levels deep into this because I've learned and unlearn. All right. After 20 minutes of making a fool out of myself, suddenly my brain clicked back into the old algorithm.

I can't explain it, but it happened in a very specific moment. Yeah, I bet. Oh. It clicked. Hold it clicked. I got it, I got it. Okay, there it is. There was the moment. Okay, I can ride a bike. I tried to explain this to the people around me and they just didn't get it. They thought I was faking the previous 20 minutes, and I couldn't get anybody to believe that. Look like I faked that, didn't it? This thing. I'm begging you not to. This is so weird. You're alive and it's full. You think I'm lying? No shit. I'm not lying.

I felt like the only person on the planet who had ever unlearned how to ride a bike, and I couldn't articulate it to anyone because everybody just knew that you can't forget how to ride a bike. Southern. Three things. From this experiment, I learned that welders are often smarter than engineers. I learned that knowledge does not equal understanding and I learned that truth is truth no matter what I think about it. So be very careful how you interpret things, because you're looking at the world with a bias, whether you think you are or not.

And Destin, you're getting smarter every day. Have a good one. Okay, so I love this video. It's when she showed it to me I'm like, oh my gosh, like this. This is such a great job of opening up these concepts. Right. And and I think what you can maybe expand upon here, what I took away was this guy unlearn took him a while to unlearn how to ride a bike and ride this new bike. Right. And then of course, he took a little bit of time to to relearn, the old way. But how this shows up in our lives. Right.

So I'm 43, and up to this point, I've basically been operating in a way. Right. And this is always changing and shifting. You know, there's there's things that are that are shifting. But most of us, especially if we're stuck in a chronic illness state, and this could be chronic pain, this could be immune dysfunctions. Right. This can be beliefs and mindset. It's all of these things are wrapped up in this whole concept. But it's this conditioning and it's this idea that we've been operating in the same realm of of reality.

Right. And that has lots of different branches and there's lots of things going on. But it's it's about shifting this realm. Right. And so for you, it was the brain is caught in this other realm of danger. And not enough. And we're dying and, you know, and so this whole thing was, was operating underneath. Right. And it's what's really interesting, I think about your case, which I love to talk to you about this is that you do a lot of this stuff on beliefs and mindset and embodied connection and, a lot of that work.

Right? So on the software side, you've got it nailed like few people I know. And yet the hardware, because because there's other influences in our physical reality, the hardware is caught and it's stuck. And so the shift that hardware we're going to need the, the neurons, those that hardware to start to fire together in a new way. Right. And that's what the that's where this sort of writing the backwards bicycle starts to apply is that we're now getting the hardware side of things starting to create these little new neural pathways that are so fragile and delicate at the beginning, because they're so new, just like learning a new habit.

And once they start to grow together, then we get a condition, that reality we gotta condition those, those neurons to continue to wire together in safety and balance, in relaxation and in healing. And it and what I love, especially about your case, is that again, it goes beyond just the software, the software is fantastic. It's very important. It cannot be left out. And the hardware seems to matter a great deal, especially when it comes to the physical aspects of health. So yeah, what would you what would you kind of add to that.

Yeah, there's we could talk about this for a very long time, that there's so much here to pull out that this video solidified my understanding that we have choice and how we condition ourselves. And maybe when we were younger, we didn't have that choice. And right when we're going through development, our systems are forming. When we're children and we're very plastic, as you can see, is son can learn much faster as a child how to learn the backwards bike. And we are really, influenced as children.

And not only that, a hardware is is our nervous system or everything's broken. And if we have struggles growing up, which a lot of people do and things can be harsh that our hardware is impacted, we actually need to work with the hardware, later in life to support what we may have missed and development through that, through the hardware growing in a healthy way, just for lack of a better word. So this showed me this taught me about neuro hygiene. Like I can consciously 20 minutes a day, for example, have a process to condition myself to create a whole new bike and the bike representing the way I'm showing up and being in life.

And if I create a whole different bike that I'm writing in my reality now, it's actually going to change my reality and it literally will change your reality. Like it will change. Call people in. It can bring in a new career, bring in a new way of showing up health wise, or the way you show up with your partner or call in a partner. So what you embody and how you feel is the reality you're creating genuinely. And this could be you can, you can, you can check this like, this is not something we need to believe.

If you really look at your life and how you feel and what's before you, you'll start to match it up. And we want to be careful not to feel like shame ourselves or beat ourselves up about that. That should be very empowering. And we can forgive ourselves, love ourselves, and begin to use something like I'm mentioning neuro hygiene and Yousef, like Sarah said, dynamic retraining. It's certain visualizations to embody feelings, to create healthy nervous systems, healthy limbic systems to work with pain, to eliminate pain, to support stuff like mast cell activation, chemical sensitivities.

It can go on and on and on. Like, I know people that have cured cancers through work that similar like through Joe dispenses word and things like this. We have access to this and what the so powerful. It's just takes committing to doing these things. Maybe ten minutes a day, 20 minutes a day, get a process and there's plenty of processes out there. But I've created processes that maybe one day I'll even share some of these processes that would be beneficial, that it can be simple and impactful, and it can literally change our lives.

And I'm so excited to share this because it change saved my life, and dynamic training was a big factor in helping me solidify the understanding of neuro hygiene, neuroplasticity, and how powerful it is to rewrite the hardware. And Sarah said, game changer. It's like, you know, I've gone through more sessions with it since we've opened it, and I feel better than I ever knew I could feel. I have more energy throughout the day, which I wake up feeling energized. I'm not, like really groggy and tired.

Like I used to be. And this is even before the head injury. I have energy sustained like afternoon. I'm like alive and active and I feel strong in my nervous system. I feel more relaxed in life. I feel less triggers, and I feel more spaciousness around triggers to be able to respond to life. And I really owe this to stuff like Sarah said, dynamic memory training and me for committing to to do these things and my daily practices. And it doesn't have to be a lot to make these changes. This guy did eight months, was it?

I can't ruin the videos at five minutes or 50. I can't remember five minutes a day or something. And he learned how to write a new bike. We can we can use that as a metaphor for writing different bikes in life in a way how we show up in life. Yeah, I love that. And what I, I think the big takeaway here is conditioning, right. Or reconditioning and, and and the reality is, is that you know, I want to recall actually, because a few minutes ago,

SET, Recovery, and Bringing the Technology Forward 45:00

you mentioned that you knew that this would be for your benefit, right? That there is that this is for you not not, you know, you know, like creating issues for you. And this is this is the reward on the other side, right? It's it's waking up to this level of reality. And for me to write, the journey that I've been on with health, it seems to be waking me up to this level of reality that we actually have more control over our destiny. Then I think we were conditioned to believe when we were younger.

Right. And the medical system, conditions of sleep, and even in the alternative space and the integrative practitioners, they are they're all great. And there's like something more powerful behind that. Right? And that's what's so crazy. And it's it's all just we're we're just in a state of ignorance. We just don't know. We don't know until we we realize how powerful we actually are. And I think, you know, pain is a chronic pain is something that I've experienced most of my life since I was 13. And I was ignorant to the reality of what was really underlying that.

Right? Because I was conditioned to believe that pain has a cause. Right? There's something going on in the physical reality that is creating pain. And the truth of the matter is, is and this is recent research has to back this up. 95% of chronic pain is is brain based. That's right. You know, and so we can actually retrain the, the pain signaling, that's happening from the brain. Right. And there's there's methods to do that. Right. So in what a couple of them I'll just give a couple because they may be helpful to ground this in.

You know, most of my life I've recognized that when pain is happening I've got to be careful of something. There's something dangerous happening. Right. And so it's not only a mental process, right, that, that we're aware of, but it's happening at a deeper subconscious level. And the body is actually wired as such. Right. So we're cautious. We can retrain that. We can disconnect the, the physical pain to the belief. Right. And so part of this sort of pain reprocessing is actually starting to just notice now that I'm sitting here and I'm not in pain.

So I can just notice the good feeling of the body while it's not in pain. So this is part of the practice is is building up that muscle of, oh, I actually feel good right now. Right. And same thing with food symptoms and anything else. It's like you start to recognize actually I have safety I'm okay. All right. And then the other side is, is that when the pain does start to trigger, you just notice it as objectively as possible. And it's sharp. It's stinging. It's hot. Interesting. Right. So you start to just recognize oh that's the reality.

But I'm actually okay. Right. So it's it's the dissolving of these all patterns of, of pain equals danger and threat and building out these new patterns of I feel good. Right. And it's not it's not a denying reality. So while the pain's here, I'm not going on. It's okay, I feel good, I feel good. I thought it hurt, you know, it's not that at all. It's. The reality is, is that, I'm. I'm just looking at things objectively. And when you start to do that, you start to build these muscles. Right. So this is, this is kind of the same thing, right.

With dynamic memory training system. And what Sarah sets doing is they're just building these new neural pathways that are, that are recognizing the reality of safety, balance and relaxation. That's right. They are beautiful I love that. Yeah, I and I'm a walking testimonial of that and including pain like I've had, I had massive amount of pain and I was able to retrain it. So everything I'm talking about with you, it's like it works. I've seen it with myself and many others. And when you use tools like Sarah's that and Dynamic Retraining and apply it by the the kind of neuro hygiene in your daily experience and not over complicated, keep it simple and learn ways to do that.

It changes life and health, finances, relationships, all the good things that you want. A chef like this is super supportive to do that, so applying these things daily makes a difference. Yeah, a huge difference. And again it's why we invested. And this is Sarah said as a franchise right. So we were actually looking at how how can we bring this. We want to buy this thing and get it here. But but it's a franchise, right? So we ended up opening a franchise which is a totally different path. And you and I were originally looking at that, even as we say to people, you know, we want to really bring this wild.

Yeah, that's that's the exciting thing. It's like there's a mission, like we want businesses to be successful, obviously to create income. That's important. So we can take care of ourselves, take care of other people. But that the core of everything I'm bringing forth and that I'm doing is like, I really want to support people with things that I've embodied and understood to be true and have worked, that can support people out of suffering, out of pain. All of these chronic illnesses are the stuckness.

And Sarah's that really is a part of that is part of that mission to support people. And I love it. I'm glad we were able to do that. Yeah, it's pretty wild seeing a few people come through after just a few sessions and they just break down and cry, right? That how they finally found the answer, right? And so, it's it's been a blessing to, to be able to kind of, bring this year and, and for those, you know, interested that might be looking at something like Sarah said, I think there's 50 or 60 around the US, which a couple internationally. Right.

So you may be able to find one, you know, relations now. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and this is backed by research. Right. So they have they've done a number of research on PTSD, on head injuries, on a variety of different things. And it's all in their sets website that you can check out. And there's 150,000 plus people that have gone through this. Right. So it's backed by the research. It's backed by, the client testimonials and everybody that's gone through. It's a very data driven technology. And what's cool about it is the parser.

So you don't have to do anything right. Like and for people like you and me and I'm sure a lot of people watching, that's like the last thing you want to do is another thing, right? And all that. So it's it's beautiful in that regard. So I, and I want to invite anybody that again, any of the locations around the country, definitely encourage you to go check it out. If you're interested in coming to our location here in Encinitas in Southern California. You know, you work with us specifically, and, we want to offer $300 off for anybody that comes in to see us.

And, you know, I'll and I'll be there and be able to sort of provide a little bit of a coaching and guidance for some of the other things that that you might be going through as well. So, again, we open this for as a mission driven business because, you know, it's one of the few things that I've seen, that can help people get unstuck from what they're going through. And again, it's fantastic for PTSD, fantastic for head injuries. The the founder of this technology was beaten over the head of the baseball bat, and he was an engineer.

And he figured out that he could create this thing. And so it's been around for 20 something years. They don't do a good job of marketing. But but we're trying to get the word out. But this amazing technology because it changes people's lives so dramatically. Yeah, it's change the brain, change the body. Right. It's like you use like that's the core of it. And so it does a fantastic job of that. And it's well said. Everything you just said is beautiful. Yeah, well I do I want to thank you for coming on and sharing your story.

And, you know, it takes a little bit of, of, of humility and, you know, just being open to share this type of thing. So I appreciate your vulnerability. And I know that your story will definitely, resonate with a lot of people watching this, so. Thank you. Yeah, I'm happy to hear that. Yeah. I'm such an honor to be here and now. Blessings to everybody on their journey. I get that it can be hard and can be complicated at times. And I, I totally understand that now being experiencing what I went through and how what I, what I got to experience.

And there's other side of it and, you know, I'm just holding my heart out to everybody and have compassion for everybody, but they're all moving through. So thank you for having me. I'm glad to share this with everybody.