• Redefining Trauma: Trauma is not just major events like war or abuse. It is anything the body processes as traumatic, even small moments like losing a toy as a child.
• The Body Keeps Score: Unprocessed trauma remains in the body and does not leave on its own. It affects livelihood, relationships, and social function.
• Nervous System Link: Unprocessed trauma keeps the nervous system in a chronic "fight, flight, freeze, or fawn" state, leading to a constant flood of cortisol and adrenaline. Over time, this manifests as illness (autoimmune conditions, IBS, chronic fatigue, mystery pain).
• Identity Connection: After trauma, people often unconsciously adopt negative "I am" statements (e.g., "I am hopeless") that become their core identity.
• Repression as Survival: The nervous system encapsulates trauma and stores it in the body (liver, shoulders, etc.) to allow survival.
• The Healing Path: Moving from survival to coaching involves three steps: Acknowledge, Accept, and Appreciate. It requires releasing trapped emotions, often through breathwork and imagination.
• Responsibility: While you didn't cause the traumatic event, you are responsible for your response to it. You created the internal weight, so you have the power to uncreate it.

Quotes & Gems:

• "Trauma is anything your body processes as trauma."
• "The body keeps score."
• "Unprocessed trauma remains in the body. It doesn't leave of its own accord."
• "You didn't create the problem, but you created the problem because of your response to the situation. You've got to take responsibility for it."
• "It's not an age thing, it's a work thing."

Mindset Shifts / Reframes:

• From "Big T" to "Little t": You don't have to have a "major" trauma for your body to be impacted. Small experiences can be just as impactful if the body processed them as traumatic.
• From Thinking to Feeling: Healing isn't just about changing your thoughts. It’s about releasing the trapped energy from the nervous system. If you only change your thinking, you'll still react when triggered.
• From Victim to Creator: You may not have caused the event, but you created the ongoing internal response. Taking ownership of that response is the key to releasing it.

Key Teaching Points (bullet points):

• Energy is Cellular: Energy comes from the cells in your body. If you want more energy, you need to understand how your cells work.
• The 32 vs. 2 Units of Energy: The body has a 20-step process to get 2 units of energy from glucose and water. A separate 8-step process, powered by oxygen, takes those 2 units and turns them into 32 units of energy. Without proper oxygen (breathing), you are stuck with the low-energy output.
• The "Mud House" Analogy: Nutrition is not the primary source of energy, but it is the building material for new cells. If you eat poorly (low nutritional value), you build "defective" cells that can’t produce energy efficiently.
• The "Garbage Room" Analogy: Toxins that the body can’t eliminate are stored in fat cells. This buildup is the root of many health issues, and the body needs a detox period (a change in lifestyle) to clear it out.
• The Overworked Pancreas: Processed sugar, without its natural fiber, causes blood sugar spikes, forcing the pancreas to work overtime. Eventually, it can "quit," leading to conditions like diabetes.

Quotes & Gems:

• "If your lungs are not working at optimal level, unfortunately, we're not going to get this level of energy."
• "Think about your body as the house you live in."
• "When the glucose is wrapped up in the fiber, it acts as a slow release agent. It doesn’t harm your pancreas."
• "Your pancreas will quit on you."
• "They do not have your best interest at heart. They are not concerned about your health. What they are concerned about is the money that they will make from the food products that they put on the shelf."

Mindset Shifts / Reframes:

• From: "I need more energy, so I should eat more sugar or drink coffee."
  • To: "I need to get more oxygen into my cells so I can unlock the 32-unit powerhouse of energy."
• From: "Eating is about getting energy right now."
  • To: "Eating is about giving my body the right building materials so it can create high-functioning cells for tomorrow and next week."
• From: "Toxins are only what I eat."
  • To: "My body is a system that can store toxins if I don't give it a chance to eliminate them. I need to be intentional about the four processes of elimination (breath, skin, urine, feces)."

The Most Important Law of Health Health in general rests on a few fundamental principles, laws if you will. One of those laws is to breathe clean, fresh air. We know that if we're breathing in carbon dioxide, that's poison. If we're breathing in polluted air, we can poison ourselves from the inside out.

So it's really important for us to breathe good air. Clean air. Good oxygen. And it's important for us to learn how to use our lungs and lung capacity.

I've talked about this quite a few times in recent sessions, but the average person by the time they've reached 50 has lost a significant percentage of lung capacity. It's actually 40%. By the time the average person turns 70, they've lost around 60% of lung capacity.

Think about how vital lungs are. It hit me just last week, how vital breathing and breathwork actually is to the sustaining of life. There are studies that tell us we can go three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, and three weeks without food. That's the general average lifespan of a person. Three minutes, three days, three weeks.

Nothing—and I mean nothing—trumps oxygen. Nothing trumps air and breathing. The activity of breathing is so fundamental to life that it's a necessity. Deep sea divers must breathe. Even the people who can hold their breath the longest still need and require breath. We all do.

Breathing Is Automatic, But We Forget The truth is that we don't have to think about breathing. It's unconscious. It's like growing hair or growing fingernails. It's like our cells replicating themselves. It happens automatically below the level of conscious thought.

But here's the thing. Have you ever forgotten to breathe? I remember a mother whose child came over in such distress that the mother listened for a moment and then said, "Breathe. You need to breathe." The child's face was red, crying, all their energy and effort was in this dramatic scene. And they forgot to breathe.

When we're in distress, when we're dealing with something, when we're uptight, we can actually forget to breathe. Not that we're forgetting to do it entirely, it's just that our attention is so focused elsewhere that breathing becomes optional. But the trouble is, it's not optional. It's three minutes.

I've seen women in labour hold their breath. They go into a high level of distress, and they forget to breathe. I've seen people who are afraid seize up and stop breathing altogether.

So I want to get this idea through to you: breathing is fundamentally important. Yet in times of stress, when we're distracted, when we're heavily focused on something, when we're shocked, when we're dealing with extreme emotions, one of the first things that can go is the regularity of our breathing.

The Power of Belly Breathing Now, as I breathe in, you'll notice something. My shoulders aren't moving. Some people, when they first start doing breathwork, breathe in and their shoulders come up to their ears. That's incorrect. Every time your shoulders move, you're shortening your diaphragm. Your lungs can't expand the way they need to.

My encouragement is to do belly breathing. Breathe in and push the stomach out. Keep the shoulders in place. Practice diaphragmatic breathing. Just think of it as belly breathing. The belly goes out the way a baby breathes. When you see a newborn sleeping, the shoulders and arms don't move. The belly does.The Power of Belly Breathing Now, as I breathe in, you'll notice something. My shoulders aren't moving. Some people, when they first start doing breathwork, breathe in and their shoulders come up to their ears. That's incorrect. Every time your shoulders move, you're shortening your diaphragm. Your lungs can't expand the way they need to.

My encouragement is to do belly breathing.