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Welcome to the Behind the Shield Podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on
the show Natural Healing Practitioner and Breathwork Coach Lisa Lee Lowe.
For many of us in uniform, buy in is an important element.
Whether it's strength and conditioning or mental health counseling, that person needs
to understand what we go through.
As you will hear, Lisa has an incredibly powerful story of overcoming her own alcoholism, her
journey through the 12 Steps program, finding holistic therapies that work for her and now
being a practitioner in her own clinic and also part of the Shatterproof program for
military and first responders.
Before we get to this incredibly powerful and important conversation, as I say every
week, please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the
show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for
others to find.
This is a free library of almost 900 episodes now, so all I ask in return is that you help
share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on
planet earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you Lisa Lee Lowe.
Enjoy.
Well Lisa, I want to start by saying firstly thank you to Sue who connected us and secondly
to welcome you onto the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Oh thank you, yes I'd like to thank Sue as well.
So we'll get to how you guys met.
It's a program that I've heard a lot of good things about so I'm glad that we're finally
going to get to hear from one of the voices from that program.
But first question, where on planet earth are we finding you today?
I am in Boynton Beach, Florida in the United States.
So I literally just had the chief of Boynton Beach Fire Department on, Hugh Bruder, just
a few weeks ago because they just went to what I would argue should be the industry
standard work week.
So they went from, they were at like a 48 hour work week, a lot of people work 56 plus
and they just went to a 42 so they get an extra 24 now between each of their shifts
which is absolutely groundbreaking I think when it comes to wellness in the first responder
profession.
Yes, yes for sure, for sure.
So I would have to start at the very beginning of your timeline based on your accent.
I know you're originally from Boynton so tell me where you were born and tell me a little
bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many civics.
Okay, so I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and my father worked for Pepsi Cola and my
mother was a HR administrator for Nazareth Hospital in Northeast Philadelphia and they
had five children.
I have four older brothers and myself and I'm the youngest of five and the only female.
So I was raised by a lot of men.
How was that dynamic?
I'm one of five, the oldest was my sister but she's four years older than me, eight
years younger than my youngest who are twins.
So and she left pretty early, you normally graduate school in England at 16, I think
she left right at that age and so it ended up being three brothers and my youngest sister
and she's not a tomboy but my god she had to kind of become feral pretty quickly to
keep up.
So what was your experience with all your brothers?
Yes, sort of the same, I had a lot of tomboy in me but they really did treat me like a
princess.
So I was always protected and shielded and even as a young adolescent, all of my brother's
friends were not allowed to ask me out, there was no crossing of those lines or anything
but yeah although I did want to always play in the games and go fishing with my brothers
and do all the boy stuff, there was a lot of girly stuff that was infused with that
as well.
Now what about sports?
What were you playing and which exercise were you doing when you were at the school age?
I wasn't doing any sports, I was watching on the sidelines.
My brother, the youngest of the boys, my brother Jeff was a soccer player so he played soccer
so there's a seven year gap between the boys and then finally I was born.
So there was a little bit of a gap so by the time Jeffrey was playing in middle school
and getting into high school, I was like what, seven or eight years old.
So yeah, there wasn't a lot of sports, there was a lot of sports for the boys but not so
much for myself.
So what was your outlet?
Were you a musician, art, was there anything else that you were kind of expressing yourself
through?
I would say it was a lot of stuff with makeup and girl stuff and hair stuff and me and my
girlfriends used to play with dolls and that kind of thing but I can't honestly, I cannot
remember a specific outlet like art or it was a lot of bike riding and going over each
other's houses and my girlfriends had outdoor pools and we used to go swimming in the summertime
and it was a lot of fun.
So what about from a career aspiration point of view?
Were you dreaming of becoming anything through high school?
Well, not exactly, I started, I picked up a drink, I started drinking early in probably
I would say freshman year of high school and that became, I guess if you want to talk about
an outlet, I think that became my outlet.
I started drinking at a young age and it wasn't a problem in the beginning, it was a lot of
hanging out and a lot of fun and a lot of house parties and just being a kid but as
I got older it progressively got worse and worse and by the time I was graduating high
school I would consider myself alcoholic at that point.
And then I went, tried to go to university and I went and I probably was in two years
and I just could not finish anything that I started.
So alcohol really got in the way when I was out of high school and as a young adult.
As this podcast has progressed and I've become more educated and listened to more and more
great people, the common denominator of the impact of childhood trauma on adulthood, especially
in uniform because it's so acute, we're like, oh, well you were in Afghanistan or you were
at that fire, that's why.
When you look back now with this mature lens, what were the elements that contributed to
your use of alcohol, especially to the point where it did become a level of alcoholism
as you reached adulthood?
I think that I'm not so sure that I had a specific point where I said, okay, this is
where my trauma is.
This is exactly why I'm drinking.
I don't really think it happened that way for me.
And this is just my belief, okay, is that my father's side of the family all came from
Ireland, all were very, very big drinkers.
So my childhood, although it was infused with a lot of protection and love and all that
stuff, there was a lot of drinking on my father's side of the family.
So we drank at weddings, we drank at funerals, we drank all the time.
So that was like a part of my culture.
So by the time I got to be 18, 19 years old and other women were like, or my girlfriends
were going off to college or they were getting married or whatever they were doing, I sort
of was still stuck in that paradigm and was finding it very difficult to get out.
So I don't think I could look back and say, okay, that is what caused trauma.
I think it was just ancestral trauma for me.
It was just being born in a family that there was just so much drinking, aunts, uncles,
you name it.
It was just a part of our family.
And my poor mother never had a drink in her life.
And she married my father into my father's family and then had five children and four
of those children were alcoholic.
So she really had a hard time understanding it or she didn't know what the heck was going
on.
It's a mental twist.
It's a mental condition.
It's not something that if you are alcoholic, this isn't, it has nothing to do with your
character, your morality as a person, who you are on the inside.
It has nothing to do with that.
I mean, studies have shown that you can, the physiology part is that you could just be
born with the addiction gene.
I mean, they haven't proven this.
There's no cure for addiction.
They haven't proven this, but studies show that if you are born into a family that has
this type of ancestral trauma with addiction, chances are that you have a high probability
of becoming an addict or an alcoholic yourself.
Yeah.
Well, it's interesting looking at it when there's the whole nature versus nurture conversation.
And again, the answer is yes.
It's both because as you said, if there's a multi-generational trauma and there's multi-generational
unhealthy coping mechanisms, then you're going to be exposed to that environment yourself.
But as we learn about epigenetics, there is a genetic change as well.
And there's some people that can pick up a drink and never have another one.
And there's people, many, many people that once they pick up one, that becomes 10 and
they can't stop themselves.
But I think the hope is that if you can address the trauma through epigenetics, you can also
turn it the other way and you can start breaking that cycle and positively affecting your children
and hopefully they won't experience this lineage of addiction that your ancestors did.
Yes.
And what's interesting too is my mother had four boys and myself and my eldest brother,
James, he's the only blue-eyed child and the rest of the children have green eyes and he's
the only child that was not alcohol.
Really?
Yes.
So I found that fascinating that possibly he just did not get the gene.
Now he inherited all the coping skills and he probably was the first one to notice like
this is not working in my life and he started to change at an early age.
The rest of us, not so much because we had that drink to mask what was going on.
He did not have a mask.
So he had to look at what was going on in his life.
Yeah.
Actually, I interviewed a Dutch model a while ago now and she put it perfectly.
She battled with alcoholism herself and she said, she had the realization like I have
to basically to use the street expression, I have to raw dog emotion and really feel
it.
Feel the highs, feel the lows.
But just like you said, or you just dull it.
You anesthetize yourself with alcohol.
Yes.
And I think that there's a lot of stigma attached to alcoholism and addiction is that they think
that some people think that it's almost like a dirty kind of illness.
Something's wrong with the person and it really doesn't have too much to do that because once
you put down a drink, once you take the drink and you put it down, who you are comes right
back quite quickly.
And then you're going to have to deal with all of the trauma or the coping skills that
don't work in your life.
They come bubbling up and then you have to address that and try to fix it to the best
of your ability with therapy and with spirituality and whatever works for you, honestly.
I literally was reflecting with my wife the other day because I've always, I've drank
quite habitually, often, but never ever.
If I get past about three, it's like that's my line and I have to kind of gate back or
whatever.
And so it's never drinking to forget.
It was never really drinking to sleep because if I don't drink, I sleep much better.
And I was telling her, we've got drinks that I don't like in the fridge, like High Noons
or something, the seltzers that she likes.
We've got liquor in the cabinet that people have brought around.
It's not the taste that I like.
And not once in my life have I ever been like, well, I don't care.
I need alcohol.
So for me, it's a lot more embedded, I think, through my British culture and being raised
with wine with dinner and just that association because I can hit pause.
It will drag me in if I'm not careful.
Again, I think that's 14 years of shift work.
We drink on our days off to wind down, which in turn screws up your sleep.
So it's completely counterproductive.
But also, culture is a part of it.
And then you look at the fire service, you look at law enforcement.
We drink to celebrate.
We drink to commiserate.
And so that's one of the many layers.
Like you said, it's not just, oh, what's the thing?
It's what the combination of things are for you personally.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
It's interesting that you bring up the fire service because this weekend, Friday, Saturday
and Sunday, I was with the Indianapolis Fire Department doing breathwork with them.
And one of the gentlemen that I did breathwork, he said, listen, we want to take you out on
what they call like a fire run.
I've never been on a fire truck in my life.
And what a thrill.
For a civilian, I was like a kid.
It was just amazing to see the men and women and how they're trained and what they have
to do.
And it was just a thrill of a lifetime.
But I was with firemen all weekend this weekend.
Yeah, it's such a buzz.
And we get to do everything.
Like, you know, we say if it doesn't involve arresting someone, the fire service does everything
else in a fire slash EMS.
I mean, we don't normally do it combined, but it's, you know, I mean, what a skill
set, which is why it's interesting when people then transition out and they're like, oh,
what am I going to do now?
I was a firefighter.
Yes, you're a firefighter.
You have teamwork.
You have problem solving skills working under pressure.
There's this whole toolbox.
There's no one else on planet Earth that has the spectrum of skills that an American firefighter
has, especially in a busy station.
I saw that firsthand.
They took me on the truck.
I had to stay in the truck.
But when they pulled up, the sirens were going.
And within 90 seconds, these people were getting dressed at nighttime with no light and completely
in full garb jumping out of the truck.
And there was a cardiac arrest.
Somebody was it didn't turn out to be a cardiac arrest.
He was having a panic attack and he was sauced up.
That's what they told me.
Oh, he was sauced up and they got him out of the car.
But yeah, I just saw all that, there was a lot of organization in the chaos.
Even that call.
So imagine that they thought it was a fire and it was a false alarm or a cardiac arrest
and now it's anxiety.
Now you also have that if they woke up two in the morning, you have zero to a hundred
and then a hundred back to three.
You know what I mean?
So your stress is going up and down.
And I talk about this a lot and this includes breath.
If we go there and it is a fire, OK, well, now you've got this physical exertion.
You can offload the stress.
You are breathing hard.
Your blood is pumping hard.
But if you go and you were told it was a school shooting and then you get there and it was
firecrackers in the parking lot, you've got no offload.
And this is even more magnified in dispatch.
These poor people take the call.
Their heart rate goes through the roof, but they're sitting in a chair and they don't
even get to find out what happened next.
Yes.
I have done some breathwork therapy with dispatchers.
They have, you know, they believe it or not, they this is just my experience is they carry
a lot of guilt.
I don't know what it is specifically, but it seems like their guilt is so much higher.
They just feel so responsible because I guess because they're the first person, they're
the first person to get that call and to direct.
And if it doesn't go in a good way, you know, they just feel a lot of responsibility.
It's a very difficult job.
Well, I think we saw this in the pandemic, you know, when autonomy was taken away, that's
very detrimental to mental health.
And I'm sure there's a strong feeling of helplessness when yes, you are sending the help, but you
yourself are on the phone waiting because I've been at many times, you know, when we
get there, they say, okay, you can hang up now.
So they're waiting the whole time on the phone with this patient.
Sometimes they're alive when we get there.
Sometimes they're dead holding the phone when we get there, you know, I mean, and the dispatchers
hear all that.
Yes, yes, yes.
I'm glad I'm in the field than I'm in.
I said to them, I can't believe you guys run into burning buildings on purpose.
They were all laughing.
Yeah, it was a great experience.
Yeah, yeah.
It's so much fun, but this is why I fight for them.
They do incredible things.
So let's give them the environment that allows them to thrive, not fail.
Absolutely.
I saw it for myself for the first time.
So big shout out to the Indianapolis Fire Department for sure.
And that's how I met Sue.
Beautiful.
All right.
Well, you mentioned about, you know, struggling with alcoholism.
You talked about AA briefly.
So where was the lowest point that you found yourself and how were you able to kind of
claw yourself out and actually start looking for help?
Well, I'm what they call James struck sober.
I don't know if you've ever heard that term before, but okay, struck sober means I had
absolutely no intention of getting sober.
And one day I found myself at the 66 bus in Philadelphia, right by Frankfurt Avenue and
Knights Road, and I was waiting for a bar to open up called the City Line Tavern.
And it opened up at six o'clock in the morning.
And I was out all night partying with friends and it was like three thirty in the morning
and I knew that the City Line bar would open up at six.
So I somehow found myself sitting and waiting for that to open up.
And right across the street was a Philadelphia Inquirer newsstand.
And unbeknownst to myself, the person that owned that, his name was Joe Brown.
I could say his last name because God love him.
He's no longer with us, but he was one of the out, you know, an eight.
We used to call them AA angels and he owned this stand.
And I was waiting for the City Line bar to open up and he came out and he was like, hey,
how are you doing?
My name's Joe.
And I'm wondering why a young lady like yourself is waiting for a bar to open up at six o'clock
in the morning.
And I thought, oh my God, like this guy wants.
This is exactly what I thought.
Oh my God, this guy, he likes me.
He wants to date me.
I mean, you want to talk about an ego, right?
I am like half drunk at three o'clock in the morning and the ego's already starting.
And he had no intentions of that.
He was a good family man.
But in any case, he put the seed and he said, you know, you don't have to sit out here at
three, four o'clock in the morning.
And all of a sudden, a lot of bubbling up of the emotions.
Now I was intoxicated at the time, but there was something got in.
And just to make a whole very long story short, about six months later, I bumped into that
man again.
I was outside.
I didn't know this, but I was at another friend's house and he saw me and he came up to me and
he said to me, do you remember me?
And I said, no, I was intoxicated.
And he said, remember me?
My name's Jo.
I was at the, you know, standby.
He said, why don't you come to an AA meeting with me?
And at that particular time, I probably didn't eat in three or four days.
And he said, you know, there's an AA meeting right up the way here and they have donuts
and coffee and sandwiches.
And I thought donuts, coffee and sandwiches.
That really sounds good.
That's how I got sober with the idea of donuts, coffee and sandwiches.
He was just, he was an old, what they called an old timer at that time.
And he really had a lot of knowledge about, oh, I get, he saved my life.
A lot of knowledge about what alcoholism is and isn't.
And he was extremely capable of seeing the person and the illness separate.
Very capable.
He was very educated on alcoholism and he just sort of said, yeah, come on.
And I went to my first meeting and when I got to my first meeting, I thought I was at
the, what do you call them with the guys with the hats, with the tassels?
Lodge members.
Yes, yeah, lodges.
Yeah.
Like a gift of you.
That's where I thought I was.
I didn't even have any idea I was in an AA meeting.
And he just said, you know what, just sit down here and we're going to get you a cup
of coffee and you want a donut.
And I was like, okay.
And that's how it happened for me.
And in Alcoholics Anonymous, that's called struck sober.
I had absolutely no intention of getting sober, staying sober.
And from that day to this, which will be 31 years I haven't had a drink.
So it is upon the kindness of strangers in AA that have the ability to see you and then
see the illness that you have separate.
It is imperative that there is no judgment when you are dealing with another fellow alcoholic.
That you are able to see the illness separate from the person.
Because once you start mixing that judgment and opinion and ego take over.
So he said, yeah, I'm going to introduce you to my friend Mary.
He pulled me right off to the women and the women started getting in my ear.
And then one day led to the next day and they, you know, Mary had a gaggle of women and they
started picking me up.
And I caught, you know, there's a saying in AA, they became my AA kidnappers, which means
they just took me, put me in the car and I would have a thousand questions.
Well, where are we going?
What are we doing?
Well, where the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And they would say, oh yeah, we're going to take you out for pizza.
They lied to me.
They said, we're going to take you out for pizza.
And we're going to do, and I, okay.
And then I'd land up in a meeting of AA and I thought, well, you know, where's the pizza?
And they said, oh yeah, after the meeting.
We're going to the pizza after the meeting.
Like they just didn't tell you because they knew that a person that was coming into Alcoholics
Anonymous for the first time was very ill.
I was really, I was a sick young lady and I had no idea how ill I was.
So they didn't answer a lot of questions.
They didn't do have a lot of explanation.
They just put me under their wing and drug me along.
And that's how AA works.
And that's why it's been working since 1935.
And now it's in 40 different countries with 40 different languages.
The big book is now published in 40 different countries.
I mean, it's amazing.
I think it's 3.6 million people worldwide that have recovered through AA.
I don't know any other program or organization that has those kinds of statistics that has
that big of a turnout that it works.
I mean, in my personal opinion, it's the biggest spiritual movement in the 20th century, honestly.
And it cost you a dollar.
A dollar in the basket.
And if you don't have it, don't steal it.
It's amazing to hear.
And I've heard so many, so many AA success stories.
I mean, incredible.
And even it's funny, I just about to go on a mini cruise with my son just for three days.
And we do a Royal Caribbean and every single cruise, every day they have a Friends of Bill
W meeting on the cruise even.
So that says how many people are, but I actually got to go to a meeting with one of my family
members who I think he's got three years sober now, life changing for him.
And it's amazing how evangelical people would come as well, not in a negative way, in a
purely positive way.
And so I went along with him to one of his meetings and it was incredible just seeing
the healing stories and seeing the support.
And when you talk about being led, it reminds me, and this is a completely different example,
but in CrossFit, if you can make it through the door of a CrossFit gym or any other gym,
then the instructors will lead you in.
You'll do the warmup.
You'll move the appropriate weight.
And when you're your first day, it might be a PVC pipe is all you're holding.
And then gradually, you'll find yourself being kind of going downstream in a positive way.
And it's that community and it seems like that's the same with what you're talking about.
What they built for us was simply trust, gave you a space that you felt comfortable enough
to start healing in.
Yes, absolutely.
They made you a part of, and there's so many beautiful sayings in Alcoholics Anonymous,
such like from Park Avenue to Park Bench, we will accept you and love you.
From jail to Yale, we will accept.
We don't care about your background, who you know, where you are in life, what your education
is, what your education isn't, your status.
We don't care about any of that.
What we care about is you getting better.
And that's why there's no last names.
That was the whole reason in the 1930s is because they wanted to stay anonymous, but
they also did not want to have last names because they did not want money, power and
prestige to influence the community and how we reach out to one another.
It's interesting paralleling that with the illicit drug addiction.
And I've had numerous people on here.
Another one that was amazing was Johann Hari, who wrote Chasing the Scream.
And what I've realized, and it's kind of ironic from a country that leans supposedly so deeply
into religion, yet seems very un, what's the right word, Jesus-like, Buddha-like, etc.
when it comes to viewing addiction.
You know, shuffling homeless people off to a different part of the city or saying that
Narcan's a waste of money on an addict.
And it seems again that the AA side, I know there's an NA as well, but that philosophy
is really what we need with addiction, which is looking, like you said, the human and the
addiction at two different things.
And Johann says the opposite of addiction is not sobriety.
The opposite of addiction is connection.
And that's exactly what you're finding.
Yes, that's 100% true.
It's not sobriety.
Because if we could just put down the drink, if it was about the booze, then the moment
that you put it down, you would never pick it up again.
So if you were allergic to strawberries and then you found out, oh my goodness, the strawberry
thing is killing me, you wouldn't eat strawberries anymore and you would just leave them alone.
Not with us.
So there's a mental twist that goes on that only the alcoholic knows about.
If you spot it, you got it type of thing.
And we can communicate with each other about putting the alcohol down and keeping it down.
And what makes people go back to drink again?
And it is that lack of connection.
Or the infiltration of the ego again, thinking that you can do it without people or that
you're better, whatever the ego tells you can lead you back to the original point where
you start drinking again.
So it's a whole personality change is really what happens.
But you have to sort of be crushed.
You have to really know in your innermost self that your way does not work.
And then after that, the healing can begin.
I remember reflecting on this a long time ago, years ago, how crazy it is if you ate
a bad Chinese one time and there was shrimp that were off and you're puking everywhere
and ill for 24 hours, you would probably not touch shrimp again for a long, long time.
But how many of us will drink, say, I'm never drinking again, throwing up all over the hotel
room or the bedroom, whatever it is, and then 24 hours later, Jones in for a drink again.
So the shrimp doesn't fill the void, but the alcohol fills a void.
That's the difference.
That's exactly right.
Yes.
There's a great speaker in Alcoholics Anonymous.
He's passed away, but he used to go all over the country and speak.
And his name was Sandy Beach, believe it or not.
He was a pilot in World War II and he was just a really great guy.
And one of his claims to fame was before he even picked up a drink, he felt this hole
in his soul, this part of himself that was just not connected.
And then when he joined the Air Force and he became a part of the guys and he started
drinking that connection was instantly made.
So for us, we don't feel connected before the drink, but the drink connects us and then
turns on us.
So we constantly think that if we drink again, we'll feel connected, but that's really not
the answer.
The answer is getting connected to oneself and then you can connect to others.
You have to learn that in your own experience.
You can't tell people about this.
This is an experiential journey.
You can guide them.
You can tell them your experience.
You can lend your hand.
You can do all that, but unless they can feel within themselves, there's little recovery
until they desire it for themselves.
We'll get into the buy-in of what you do now with the first responder profession, but I
think that's what makes Bill's story so powerful is that he himself was an alcoholic.
Yes.
And he was a veteran.
Yes, exactly.
Well, speaking of that, another area before we kind of progress through that really blew
my mind.
One of my friends who is a veteran and then he entered the fire service, he was an alcoholic
before joining the military.
And again, he had that community at first, you know, and then they came to, I think the
way he describes it, he went through boot camp and went through a green beret selection,
went through the training.
Once they got to the green beret side and they got at the other end, now all the screaming
and shouting and drilling was over and they got to just kind of relax.
Well, he slipped back into alcoholism again, was in it for a few years, ended up deciding
to join the fire service again.
He finds this community and about 10 years when the newness has really worn off, he slips
back into alcoholism.
And that's really right before his drop again was where I met him.
So I met him before and then I met him, you know, when he was in crisis.
And now he's, I think, four years sober, I think, amazing.
And he runs a CrossFit class called Recovery RX where they get, you know, recovering addicts,
you know, anyone who wants to really come and they all work out together.
But it was amazing because he said that one of the books to change his life was called,
oh my goodness, The Introvert's Edge.
And I had the author of that on here as well.
Wow.
And the author described how you define an introvert versus an extrovert.
He said it's where you draw your energy.
And so I kind of thought myself as kind of mid, I guess, you know, one foot on each side.
But he said, if you need to go home, you know, get away from crowds, just be present with
your dog, your wife, your child, whatever it is, and that's where you draw your energy,
you're an introvert.
And that's me.
Like I'm fine being around crowds.
But when I hit that wall, you'll turn around and I'm gone.
If you truly draw your energy from large crowds and you are actually an extrovert, which I
would argue is very, very few of us.
But we have this image, this facade that everyone else is the life of the party and we're the
ones that are anxious.
And so I think this is another unspoken element of alcoholism or alcohol use is that so many
of us drink so that we can slide into that social gathering rather than realizing that
without alcohol, most of us would actually be feeling the same way.
And that's okay.
Mm hmm.
So true.
I mean, I think it was Ernest Hemingway that said there's violence in the quiet.
So like your friend, you know, all that pump, all that stuff that we do to keep us busy
and that chaos and all that and keep us keeps us pumped.
And then once we settle down and it's just me and me, then, you know, a lot of things
come bubbling up.
And I think first responders, a lot of first, I see that in a lot of first responders for
sure.
Yeah.
Well, I think the thing about our profession, you just got a glimpse into it and this happened
with Chad, you know, it kept him busy.
It kept him occupied for 10 years.
And it's funny, the 10 year mark seems to be somewhat significant where we do, you know,
the fires aren't exciting anymore unless they're huge and as we're making entry to find, you
know, a trap child or something, most of them, we've seen them over and over again.
So there's this kind of, you know, it becomes less and less exciting.
And that's not that we're not learning and everyone, but we learned 100% on our first
day.
You know, we might learn 30% 10 years from now on that call.
So but you've got a lot of these and this was definitely the case with Chad, there was
childhood sexual abuse and all kinds of things.
A lot of those individuals are sent into uniform.
They want to be the protector, you know, but also I think unconsciously they're seeking
that adrenaline because that totally consumes them until, like you said, there's that quiet.
It might be retirement, it might be an injury, it might be being fired or it might just be
a certain point in your career.
But just like you said, that's when all that stuff bubbles.
And then they say, oh, it's because you were at that car crash and it's not.
It's death by a thousand cuts.
It was all the other things that led up to that.
Amen to that.
But they don't understand that in the beginning.
I didn't understand it in the beginning, but I had a sponsor, her name was Sally Blatherwick,
God rest her soul.
She was one of the most influential women in my sobriety.
She sponsored me from year five to I think year 16.
And she used to say to me all the time, I didn't understand what this meant, but she
used to say to me all the time, you know, Lisa, you know what I call you?
I call you the busy.
You keep yourself nice and busy, don't you?
And I couldn't, I didn't grasp that for many years because after five years I was like,
oh, I got to go back to school.
I got to get my own business.
I have to, you know, ambition and money and power and prestige and I want my own this
and I want to do that.
And I all of these goals and blah, blah, blah, blah.
And she said, there's going to come a time when all that's accomplished and then you're
going to be looking at you once again.
And then maybe we can do the work.
And what they mean by the work in Alcoholics Anonymous is the spiritual work that's needed
in order for you to take a look at your own liabilities and your own assets and look within
to see what is it about myself that I constantly have to be busy, that I have to achieve, that
I have to.
Why can't I just sit and just be okay up here in the quiet?
And I mean, spiritual sages talk about this.
You know, I think in the Bible Christ said, if you can conquer the world, if you can conquer
yourself, you can conquer the world.
So conquering your own mind and your own thoughts and knowing what's wrong in your assets and
your liability is just imperative.
In my particular case, for staying sober, to be extremely self-aware and know how I
tick is very important to my sobriety.
Well you mentioned about chasing some of the things that we're told to chase by the outside
world, whether it's prestige, money, et cetera.
What industries did that take you into?
Well, after I got sober, I was in the jewelry business and I'm a gemologist by trade, so
that's what I did for a long time.
And then I figured, well, you know, now that I'm sober, a couple things need to happen.
I have to get married, that's one.
Next thing, I got to open up my own business, that's two.
I got to go back and do my studies, that's three.
You know, and who is going to say that they are not great goals?
They're goals, they're good goals to have.
But for Lisa, they were distractions of my own personal pain.
So I did all those things.
I opened my own business, I was the only female jeweler on Jewelers Row out of, in a very
Jewish era.
I'm the only Irish kid, Irish female in an all Jewish industry.
And I was the only female store owner out of 44 stores down there.
So I felt like that was an accomplishment and my business was doing well.
And I met somebody in Alcoholics Anonymous and I got married and I accomplished the things
that I set out to do.
And then once they were accomplished, I was like, okay, well, now what?
What am I going to do now?
What, what?
So there was like this, what they, what Sandy Beach calls the hole in the soul.
And I think that for me personally, it's always this lack of connection to God that will keep
me chasing my tail.
And I mean God in a very broad sense.
I'm not talking about religion whatsoever.
I'm just talking about a creative intelligence, a creative force that I can rely on and that
I trust.
And that took a long time for me to really trust in a power greater than myself.
And that probably was one of the biggest challenges in my sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous,
to not only find a God, but to rely on Him to trust that God.
So there's a saying in AA about trust, believing in God is like when you're at a carnival
and you see the guy on the tightrope that holds the pole and he goes over on the tightrope
and sometimes his foot slips out and the whole audience goes like, oh my God, he's going
to fall.
And then you think to yourself, well, he's done this 300 times.
I'm sure he's going to get to the other side.
That's called faith.
But trust is coming out of the bleachers and climbing right on top of that man's shoulders
and being there with him.
That's trust.
Like when you have skin in the game, that's more trust and that you can let that person
navigate your life when you're on the pole.
So it's a completely different experience to have faith and then to have trust in that
faith and trust in that higher power.
And that took me a long time, a long time.
And a lot of reading and a lot of going, you know, I went to Portugal and I sat with a
man named Mugee who was a spiritual teacher and I've done countless and countless and
countless of workshops and conventions.
I knocked on the door of Michael Sanger, who was the author of this Surrender Experiment.
And he had even more of a famous book.
I forget the book, but the Surrender Experiment was really pivotal for me.
And I knocked on his door and was just like, you know, can I sit with you?
Can I talk to you?
And me and a friend went to Portugal and we, you know, I was always seeking for something
spiritual within me and I had no idea, this will make me cry too, but I had no idea that
the love and the acceptance and the connection that I was always looking for outside myself,
I was looking for me the entire time.
It's so simple and it's so well hidden.
It's so well hidden.
I had to become my own best friend.
I had to feel the connection within myself and become whole and heal that part of myself
before I could really give it to another.
It's interesting.
I'm curious of your answer to this.
You did this, you know, literally global spiritual journey.
And one of my favorite people, I don't know if you ever came across him, but he lost his
life to leukemia sadly, but Wayne Dyer.
Oh.
Yeah.
So what I loved about Wayne was he would take all of ancient wisdom from the holy text to,
you know, ancient Greek philosophy.
I mean, all the things from literally every single country pretty much and basically extract
the common denominators, the real goodness, kindness, gratitude, empathy.
And so I had a real kind of aha moment because I've been exposed to Christianity specifically
and it just didn't resonate with me personally, especially when certain things like, you know,
God loves you all unless you're gay, of course, you know, and I'm like, okay, wait, what?
That just didn't for me personally, James Gearing, I'm like, that's not the God that
I know.
So realizing that a universal God, like you said, that a religious God that I see in nature
that I see in, you know, a newborn, the real miracle of life, realizing that you can make
your own version, that you can take a little bit of Buddhism, a little bit of Christianity,
a little bit of, you know, I had to change whatever it is.
And that's at the, you don't hear that very much that you don't have to go and conform
to a certain religion if it doesn't fit for you.
If it does beautiful, knock yourself out.
But I have a hybrid version and the tenants are all the same kindness, compassion, gratitude,
I mean, I like to say don't be a dick pretty much summarizes my religious, you know, philosophy.
That's awesome.
It's interesting that you bring up Wayne Dyer because there is, I don't know if you've ever
heard of Hay House Publication.
Yes, Louise Hay, is that right?
So she used to do these cruises while her publication did the cruise is called I Do
What It See.
I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but this was like maybe 15 years ago.
Maybe I don't know, a little less than that.
And she would have all the greats on these cruises like Cheryl Richardson and Eckhart
Tolle and Wayne Dyer and Carolyn Mace, all these very spiritual people on the cruises.
And then you would get to do their workshops while you're on the cruise.
Well, I went on a couple of them and I actually met Wayne Dyer and we were on an excursion
together and I said, you know, can we have dinner with you?
Can we sit at your table tonight?
So me and a friend of mine, we sat at his table and we were just sort of picking his
brain.
We only got about a half hour with him because everyone, everybody wanted he was promoting
a new book.
So everybody wanted to sit with him.
But you know, one of his claims to fame was, I forget the saying, if you change the way
that you look at things, the way that you look at things change.
That was, you know, like the Wayne Dyer quotation.
And he was just an amazing guy.
He was, I don't know if you know anything about his backstory of being a father of eight
children and he had a lot of tur, you know, he was also alcoholic, recovering alcoholic.
So yeah, so you're right.
I have been spiritually seeking probably since the day I got sober because I knew that there
was something about that that I just was kept, I was just really drawn to over and over and
over again.
Beautiful.
Yeah.
There's not very many people that recognize his name, which is a shame because I mean,
firstly, if I'd started this a few years earlier, you know, I would have loved to have got him
on.
But I mean, just absolutely pivotal to me.
And ironically, my previous wife had mentioned him because he was on Oprah one time.
She said, Oh, you go listen to this man.
And this that man, it ultimately prepared me spiritually and emotionally for the divorce
that would come a couple of years later.
There was infidelity and stuff.
And, you know, we're moved on remarried, you know, no regret.
But at that point, you know, his, his work absolutely gave me the tools to process the
trauma that I went through with my little boy and, you know, moving on as a single father.
So, you know, it's a shame that I can't thank him personally.
Yes, yes.
He was he helped many, including myself.
He helped many, many people, many people.
Yeah.
So, well, you have this kind of awakening now, this realization you're in this world
where you're very successful in the ways that we're told to be successful.
What's the shift next?
So well, I really had.
Okay, so I'm eight years sober now.
I'm married.
I have my own jewelry store in Philadelphia that's doing well.
We started coming out of the red into the black.
I'm making more money.
I moved to New Jersey.
I get this, you know, custom building this house.
The money's coming in.
I'm feeling good, you know, about myself.
But the marriage that I'm in is disintegrating because it was never really built on any kind
of foundation.
It was really built on need rather.
I didn't know who I was and I don't think he knew who he was and we sort of trauma bonded
if you know what that term means.
And it's almost like the universe is trying to catch your attention.
The universe will put you together with someone if you're unhealed to sort of say like, hey,
McFly, you got a problem here, McFly, because it keeps coming up.
You'll keep on bumping into the same lesson over and over and over again until it's healed.
That's just the way the universe works in my life.
So there was this trauma bond going on between him and I.
I wasn't really doing the work that I needed, but I didn't know that.
And either there was no blame.
And I remember specifically, I just bought a brand new Lexus, drove it out of the showroom
floor and I'm going and at the time I was living in New Jersey.
I was working in Philadelphia and I'm driving over the Benjamin Franklin Bridge.
And I thought, you know what, I wonder how I can get the airbag out of the steering wheel.
You know, maybe I just and one thing I know about suicidal ideations is that they come
out of nowhere, out of nowhere.
You're eating a grilled cheese sandwich and then all of a sudden you're like, you know
what, maybe I want to check out, you know.
And as I'm going over the bridge, it scared me that I started thinking like this.
I was like, what the hell is going on?
Because now I'm sober, right?
Financially doing better than I've ever done in my life.
I'm married, I have a beautiful home, live New Jersey.
I have like, if you looked on me, if you looked at me at eight or nine years sober, you would
have said, look, man, AA works.
Look at that woman.
She's got it all going on.
Right.
But inside I was dying.
I was dying.
The hole that I was trying to fill was getting wider and wider.
The more things of the outside that I was trying to put in, you know, the money, the
power, the prestige, the lake house, the vacations, the men, the relationships that I got to have,
I got to have, I got to have.
And I started really not wanting to live and not knowing why.
So one day I went to a meeting.
This is actually how me and my mentor really started to get close because she was sponsoring
me a couple of years then, but it was sort of surfacey.
She was celebrating 25 years and I went to her celebration and I was sitting there and
I went up to her after our celebration and I said, listen, Sally, I need to speak with
you.
I'm not really feeling that well, you know, I'm not.
And she just, she did one of these.
She said, Lisa, I already know what's going on with you.
And this is exactly what she did to me.
She goes, this is where the busy come from.
She goes, you know what?
I call you the busy chasing your tail, chasing your tail.
She said to me, are you done yet?
I said, am I, what do you mean?
Am I done yet?
She said, are you done yet?
Are you willing to do what's needed?
In this program to feel better about who you are.
I don't care about your store.
I don't care about your house.
I don't care about your car.
Care about your career.
I don't care about any of that.
I care about your soul and how you feel about you.
And you know, the water works instantly.
And she said to me, I want you to be at my house tomorrow at 12 o'clock on Lake Avenue.
I had already been through the steps and I had already been through the, and I was actually
sponsoring women.
I'd already been through the steps, already been through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I said, I already did that.
I already, you know, you're what you're asking me to do.
I've already done.
She said, you didn't, you didn't do anything.
So when I got there, she had a little makeup mirror on the kitchen table.
She pushed it over and she said, take a look, take a look in the mirror.
And I was, you know, at the time I was like, oh, you know, rolling my eyes like, oh, it's
what gurus do, you know.
Very judgmental and opinionated and full of self-arrogance and ignorance.
I had no idea.
And I looked in the mirror and she said to me, see, that's your problem, my dear.
You've been sober for a long time now.
Eight years, right?
So your problem is no longer booze.
Your problem is you.
And that really caught my attention.
And what they call that, what I was going through at that time, and I didn't know it,
was called a second surrender.
See, first when you come into AA is your first surrender.
You surrender the booze.
You surrender the ego to some extent.
You surrender, you know, having booze to totally take over your life.
You get your life back.
You get the things that you want in life.
And then once that's accomplished and you find out that that's not the answer, another
surrender needs to, another layer, another surrender needs to happen for you to really
understand what's going on with you.
And that's, I had a second surrender.
And then I was on, the trajectory of my life started to really change when I started to
seek spiritual help.
So what did that second chapter look like then?
So I went through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous again, and we started from scratch.
And you know, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, in my opinion, is like a living, breathing
piece of literature.
Because every time I read, even now today, when I take girls through the steps or through
the book, I'd be like, how did I not, I've been looking at this book for 30 years.
How did I not see that?
How did I not, how did that not resonate?
Because it jumps out and resonates with you at the time that it's supposed to resonate
with you.
And so we went through the book again.
I think it was like a four month, we did a big book study.
It was like four months.
And we went through that whole thing again.
And then I started sort of going out on my own and started reading a lot of spiritual
literature and going to a lot of, you know, knocking on doors.
I mean, I knocked on Michael Sanger's door, for Christ's sake, and you know, sort of
like, can I have lunch with you?
He was like, huh?
And I just started seeking and seeking and seeking until I started to feel better.
And I got a better understanding of what was going on with me.
And those suicidal ideations, those thoughts of ending my life dissipated.
It started getting less and getting less.
I was just, you know, Dr. Joe Dispenza, I don't know if you've ever heard of him.
He's one of the great teachers of today.
And he's all about Beth, actually.
Yeah, spiritual guy.
And so I started down that journey and I just ate it up.
Anything that I could read, anything that I could go to, cruises and conventions and,
you know, flying to different places to sit with different people, I did that.
So now you're exposed to the world of breath.
And it's funny because he's been mentioned, I asked for guest suggestions at the end and
he was literally mentioned the other day.
And I'm again, in that kind of Hay House world that I was in.
I remember him being kind of in that too, the kind of Gaia, you know, holistic world.
So walk me through now your journey into the world of breath work.
Okay.
So while this was all happening in my life, I have what they call, I had what they call
complex grief trauma, which means that people start dying one after the other and you can't
even get your head above water and then another person dies.
That is like you're either your family of origin or people that you love and care about.
And that's what started to happen.
I had a brother that passed away at four years sober and then I had a father who was going
through prostate cancer and then another brother that passed away shortly after that.
And then my father died and then my sponsor Sally died and then my cat, believe it or
not, of 18 years died and that was this when my cat went, oh, and people were, I'm sure
people were like her cat died and we have to, she may have to go into a rubber room,
you know.
And what I didn't understand, it was all of these traumas, this grief put together.
So I'm staying sober through all this.
You know, death after death after death after death, I'm staying sober and I'm making my
meetings and I'm raising my hand and I'm saying something's wrong with me and it ain't about
booze.
Somebody helped me but, and a person came up to me and said to me, you know, why don't
you try this breath work stuff?
And I just rolled my eyes.
What I really heard was, why don't you try a little yoga, young lady, you know.
And you know, I was like, oh, this is not happening.
So lo and behold, I had moved to Florida and that marriage ended, the marriage that I was
in New Jersey, it ended and I moved to Florida and there was a woman down here that was having
these breath work seminars but I was always open up to different things.
So thank God I was.
So I was like, you know what, you know, someone said to me, let's try this and I said, okay.
So I went over, she was having this in her living room and I was told to bring a blanket,
a pillow and an eye mask and to go over and ba ba ba.
So I did my very first breath work session and one session changed my entire life, changed
my entire life.
I left there without grief.
Now I don't know if that was a white light spiritual experience of what happened to me.
I'm not even sure what happened but I can tell you that I walked in there heavy and
extremely sad about all the losses and I left there probably 75% better in one session.
And believe it or not, as mystical as this is going to sound, when I was in the breath,
my brother Danny came to me, he was big in disco, you know, he was like Donnie Ontario
and he came to me in his disco outfit and I could see him vividly and he had a disco ball
on top of his head and I'm breathing.
And you know, if you, if you, dispensers work talks about how, you know, the pineal
blank gets opened up and universal consciousness can come in within, within your body when
you're breathing.
So you can have all these experiences and I'm having this experience.
My brother comes to me and he says to me, hey sis, what's all the hubbub about and all
this blither and crying.
I've been with you, you know, since the beginning of time.
And if he did not come to me with the personality that he had in his life, I would have never
believed it was true.
And it felt like, I mean, I could smell his cologne.
It was bizarre what happened to me.
When I left there, I was like, oh, what, what, what I got to find out about this.
So a friend of mine, her name is Dr. Coleman.
She's a psychotherapist, wonderful psychotherapist.
And she said to me, oh yeah, I heard about this breath thing.
It's like in South Florida now.
You want to go with me?
And we started this journey together and then she found a woman in Arizona.
Her name is Carol Lampman, who did, she specialized in what they called integral breathwork therapy.
Now this is a little different because holotropic breath, what I first experienced was about
breathing in and out and having an experience.
For Carol's work was about trauma and about the inner child and about family of origin
and about how trauma and breath can be combined to release in a way that it does not cause
emotional pain.
Now I didn't know this at the time.
I found out this later.
So one thing led to another.
And Susie and I decided to join up for her level one class.
We flew to Arizona, we did all the work with Carol.
And as soon as I met Carol and I started to do this work with her and started to learn
about IBT therapy, I was like, oh my God, this is something.
And then she had her advanced courses and her master level courses and I just kept going
back, kept going back and getting more certifications and more.
Just learning more about the breath.
And then I ran into a friend of mine who knew the owner at FHE Health.
And my friend told the owner, listen, you have to meet this woman, Lisa Lowe.
She does this breathwork, blah, blah, blah.
So he said, okay, let's set it up.
So I met Sharif and I remember my first encounter with him.
He was like, so tell me, what do you do?
And I was like, well, I do breathwork.
He's like, well, we're all breathing here.
So you have to get a little bit more detailed than that.
So I tried to explain.
Now breathwork is, again, very experiential, very difficult to explain.
So I'm explaining to him and I'm explaining to him.
And basically after maybe 40 minutes of talking to him and explaining to him, he basically
said to me, listen, I'm not right.
I don't really understand what you do, but I can tell you this much.
Your passion about what you do.
Now that has me interested about how passionate you feel about this.
So how about we take you on, we give you like this trial run and we'll see what happens.
And I was like, okay, like out of nowhere.
And voila, I've been there ever since.
That was about six years ago.
And breathwork really took off.
I mean, I started taking blankets and pillows out of my car and it just kept getting bigger
and bigger and bigger.
And Sharif was kind enough to just almost like completely renovate a building just for
breathwork therapy because it works.
It works.
IBT therapy works.
And I've been there for six years now.
I've had, I mean, quite a spectrum of guests when it comes to breathwork in general.
Everyone from Patrick McCowan, who's big on the nasal breathing side and then Wim Hof.
I mean, he needs no introduction.
Belisa Vranich.
So different people, different methods, different kind of principles behind what they're even
trying to achieve.
Is it downregulation of nervous system?
Is it addressing trauma?
So talk to me about the specific techniques that you're doing.
And you talked about trauma.
What are the outcomes?
What is it that that person is, what does the journey look like?
I guess is what I'm trying to say for a person walking through the door to hopefully having
that 75% realization that you did.
Okay.
So I'm just going to talk about a case study that I did while I was at FHA.
There was a veteran there.
I can't give out his name, but his first name was Ted.
And Ted had three tours.
He was in Afghanistan twice and I believe Syria.
And he was, I'm not sure, but I think in Fallujah, which was one of the worst of the worst.
I met him and I started breathing with him.
Now integral breath work therapy is a circular breath.
Okay.
So you're breathing in and out through the mouth.
Okay.
No nasal breathing whatsoever in and out through the mouth.
And it's not hyperventilation without any pausing.
So when you're breathing, if you're closing your eyes and you can just imagine that circular
breath, it comes up and you just start this rhythm.
And I would say by five or six minutes into it, you're going to start to feel that your
lungs actually start breathing the body instead of the other way around.
You're laying on a mat or you're in a zero gravity chair and you're breathing.
Now when I met Teddy, I said to him, listen, how about if we breathe?
And he was very nervous, very nervous to even close his eyes was a big deal.
We were in a room and he started with the breath work.
Well, within three minutes he had such a reaction.
I mean, he was crying and sobbing and just could not stop the tears and just, you know,
on and on and on.
And I just sat with him and I didn't ask him too many questions.
I sort of just held his hand and he just saw probably for 20 minutes and once and his body
was, you know, we talk about the nervous system in the breath.
He was in fight and flight and freeze for so long and the hypervigilance was so embedded
in his cells that, you know, once the breath started hitting the nervous system, he was
releasing all of this.
And you know, if a clinical doctor was in that room, they probably would have been calling
911, but I knew what was going on with him.
I knew what was going on and he was just shaking and getting it out and shaking and I just
sat with him.
And after all this was done, I physically walked him out of my breath work studio.
I sat him down on the bench, got him some water and I said, just sit here until you're
okay and ba ba ba ba ba.
And I thought, wow, you know, this guy really, he's got a lot of stuff.
So the nursing came out, he had to be taken to do some, they had to do a biome or something
with him, I remember.
And I went out and I said, Teddy, we'll talk again as soon as you're done with this, I'm
going to come in and check on you.
So I remember prior to going to check on him, I thought, oh God, I hope he's okay.
Like, whoo, he had quite the experience, you know, like.
So when I talked to him, he said to me, when can I do it again?
And I was like, when can you?
Like he was slobbering, crying and like almost halfway puking and he was like, when can we
have another appointment?
And I was like, are you okay?
And he's like, oh no, I feel amazing.
I feel amazing.
What did you do?
I said, I didn't do anything.
The breath did it.
He's like, when can we do this again?
So make a long, long story short, I probably breathed with him probably about 12 different
individual sessions.
Now one of the greatest things that happened to him in Afghanistan was Afghanistan, I didn't
know any of this, but the veterans will know that they used to get their children to throw
grenades at the Humvees, okay?
The Afghanistan people and they would send like six or eight people, six or eight children
at and they would give some of these kids rocks and then they would give that one kid
a grenade.
Now the American troops knew about this because they were getting blown up.
So it was a big deal for and the Afghanistan people knew that it was a huge deal for American
soldiers to shoot a child.
So that's why they did this, unfortunately.
Anyway, the story goes is that there was about 10 people on Ted's Humvee and they would draw
straws in the morning because their particular job was to go out like recon, I think it's
called reconnaissance, going figure out like where the enemy is, write it all down, then
come back and then figure out a plan.
So they would draw straws in the morning, which one would eliminate a child if need
be.
Now at the time, Ted had children.
So the other guys were very apprehensive if he got the straw because they were afraid
that he would not be able to do it because it's such a horrendous, horrific thing to
do.
So lo and behold, he had to eliminate a target and she was 12 years old.
She was wearing a Hello Kitty backpack and they used to put these kids with C4 on their
back as well.
And he had eliminated a target.
He jumped off of his Humvee.
He ran over and found out that the target that he eliminated with the Hello Kitty backpack,
it just had pencils and papers.
So he had to live with this.
Now he told no one about this.
Only the guys on the Humvee knew about it.
And what happens in war like that is just not shared about.
I had no idea what veterans went through.
Not a clue until I started working at FHA.
So I'm breathing with him now and I'm breathing with him.
So first, the first release is the nervous system.
All that stuff is coming out.
All the sadness of everything that he has witnessed on his tours is coming out.
It's just a lot of crying, a lot of crying.
And what happened was the little girl came to him in his breath work.
I felt that he was grounded enough that we could call this little girl in, came into
the breath work and the little girl said to him, you know, I forgive you.
This had nothing to do with you.
This was all about, you know, other people's decisions.
Anyway, he had this conversation in his breath with this 12 year old child and she hugged
him and he's sobbing.
He's just sobbing and sobbing and sobbing.
When he comes out of the breath, he feels forgiven.
He can live with this.
He is totally changed.
He's totally changed.
Now has the memory been eliminated?
No, the memory is not eliminated.
He will always have the memory.
But what IBT therapy does, it takes out an activation of like a 12 down to a two.
And anybody can live with an activation level of two or a trigger point of only two.
You can live a happy life.
So that's what this does.
I mean, it's just amazing and it's holistic.
The only thing that we're doing here is breathing.
I can't even tell you how many times I get a, you know, a patient come to me and say,
what did you do to me?
I said, I didn't do anything.
I'm the guide.
I'm the person that navigates.
But the breath and the God does all the work.
So that's the long and short of my first real experience of how it can help first responders
and veterans.
It's an extremely powerful story.
It's so sad because when you hear of war, you know, World War II and prior, usually
the enemy had a uniform on this.
They were doing, you know, some kind of black ops stuff.
And so you knew who the bad guys or girls were, you know, through your eyes.
Obviously they were probably thinking the same thing about you.
But then you have Vietnam moving forward to Afghanistan, you know, and Iraq, where we're
asking arguably almost children themselves to make these life or death decisions where
it sounds like early on they were received as peacemakers and, you know, driving out
the Taliban, Al Qaeda, whoever it is.
But as we stay longer and longer, we create more and more enemies.
And some of these boys and girls are brainwashed by whoever they're being raised by amongst
the other beautiful Afghan people that are just being oppressed themselves.
And now you've got this horrendous environment that collateral damage is just going to happen.
And then you now have men and women come home carrying that shame and that guilt, you know,
the ones that literally just reacted and did what they were trained to do.
But an innocent person got killed in the process.
Yes, yes.
And if I can be a part of that healing, it's one of the greatest honors.
So tell me about the Shadowproof program as a whole, because there's quite a few firefighters
I know that have raved about it.
Obviously, too, is one of them.
So you know, you're doing this one element of breath work.
Talk to me about the program and kind of paint the picture of what someone would find being
an inpatient there.
Well, Shadowproof is one of the most amazing programs.
I mean, we have really unbelievable people that work there.
Sharif, who owns FHE Health, and a gentleman named Jeff Weinstein, they collaborated on
the first responder program in its infancy, and it has just grown and grown and grown.
And now we have all kinds of modalities.
We have Annalee Moody, who is the EMDR specialist.
Also another trauma modality.
We have the bio bed with Sue Cunningham.
She runs, she does that.
Just getting the patients to relax enough to even know that they even have breath to
start with the breath.
And Dr. Ananda, who is the director of the Shadowproof program, and Ray and Arthur and
all of these people, and Victoria, who these therapists that really know the deal.
I mean, Ray was a PJ for 21 years.
Pete was a Marine.
Well, once a Marine, always a Marine, he would correct me to say.
But there, he was in the Marines for eight years.
I mean, these people come already with their own set of skills.
So when you have first responders coming in, they know the deal.
You know, like a Marine doesn't necessarily have to like, they know the job of the firefighter.
It doesn't have to be exactly the same job.
But the mission focus is where they collab.
You know, both like a police officer and a firefighter and a Marine, they all are mission
focused.
They all have that same job, but differently.
You know what I'm trying to say.
So the Shadowproof program helps them, one of the biggest things that I say helps them
is to differentiate the difference between their career trauma, their childhood trauma,
and their alcoholism.
Because a lot of men come in and they're like, oh, well, the reason I drink is because I
don't sleep.
The reason I drink is because, you know, I was sexually harmed at eight.
The reason I drink is because of, you know, I was at a pediatric call.
The reason I drink, well, no, let's back up here because we have to look at your alcoholism
at eight.
It's completely different now.
Maybe in the beginning, it was the reason that you drank because of the sleeping issue.
But now alcoholism is a progressive illness.
So now we're at the point, we're drinking whether we're at work or not, whether we're
taking calls or not, whether we, you know, it's a progressive illness.
And once you were pickled, no more cucumber.
That's just the way it is, right?
So the Shadowproof program, we have this ability to say, okay, well, let's take a look at this
first.
And then once we can take a look at the alcoholism, then we can take a look at the career trauma
or the childhood trauma, whatever comes up first.
And we do the breath work and the EMDR.
So they have a sense of relief and they can sort of, it's sort of like the Shadowproof
program.
If you had in the palm of your hand, sugar and salt, just looking at it, you're not going
to know the difference.
But this program has the ability to sort of weed things out very carefully with a lot
of compassion, with a lot of these great therapists and clinic, the clinical team is top notch.
And also the outreach.
I mean, the, I can't say, I mean, I can't say enough about it, but the outreach program
with Craig and Sunny and Jeff, I mean, these guys, they're on the front lines.
They're getting the people that say, they're the first contact of Shadowproof.
We need help.
Can you help us?
And as they come, the clinical team can get in there and do the work.
I can't believe I even forgot to mention Dr. Bishop, who is the neuro.
The neuro specifically for TBI and for people that can't sleep and for anxiety and depression
is just unbelievable, unbelievable.
And Dr. Dogris has done work with Dr. Joe Dispenza in California.
And Dr. Joe and Dr. Dogris, I believe, were able to collaborate and make this machine,
I'm not really versed on neuro, but to make a specific machine for the neuro in FHE to
help the first responders to show them, you know, a brain mapping.
Okay, this is what we got here.
You know, this is where your hypervigilance is.
This is where your depression lies.
This is what we're going to work on.
This is the protocol that we're going to give you.
And Dr. Bishop is the one who does all and works with them.
So I mean, think about that combination.
You have the neuro.
You have the clinical team.
You have the EMDR.
You have breath work.
You have all of these modalities.
And then we have, you know, the facilitators like Pete, he'll get them all together and
do volleyball and do boot camp there now.
I mean, it's just an amazing, amazing, I can't say enough about it.
I love where I work and what I do there.
I really do.
It's an honor to work there.
What about when people leave the facility?
Because what I found in some of these, you know, like we have the union has a mental
health center in the Northeast.
And I know that, you know, I've had quite a few people tell me, yeah, it was good while
we were there.
But then we went home to the same problems that we left before.
No one had really prepped our family.
And so a lot of them kind of fell back into previous behaviors.
But then you look at AA and obviously the meetings are the reason that you keep that
community.
So what is that element after these people kind of transition out of the facility?
Well what's interesting is that you, it's funny that you just meant the family because
the family is really important.
Just recently, a month ago, the clinical team hired a woman named Ivana who is now doing
family therapy with the first responders loved ones while they're there.
Is that amazing?
She is now like on a Zoom call with these husbands and wives, mothers, brothers, you
know, people that are part of the family and she's giving them an education.
Okay, this is what is happening to your loved one.
This is what to expect when they come home.
Let's talk about even their issues, like what, you know, everything that you've been through
living with this person that has an alcohol problem or PTSD.
It may not even be alcohol.
It may just be strictly PTSD or anxiety disorders.
Like let's talk about what we need to do for you so when your loved one comes home, there's
more cohesiveness in the family so they have a better idea.
But also too, I'm really glad that you brought that up because our caseworkers work really,
really hard like Jen and Michael.
They lay out this protocol.
All right, this is what you're going to do when you go home.
Okay.
We got this set up for you.
We have this appointment, you know, your therapist or your IOP.
We want you to go.
You can go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or if you don't feel comfortable going there,
there's another meeting called Badges and Bottles.
There's strictly for first responders and it's run the AA way.
Okay.
Because a lot of these guys, they say things like, Lisa, I don't want to be in Alcoholics
Anonymous and be sitting next to a guy I just locked up a year ago.
That doesn't feel good to me.
Okay.
So they made a specific protocol for people that have to be in Alcoholics Anonymous that
need AA but are first responders.
So it's called Badges and Bottles.
So they have a couple of them in New Jersey.
It's pretty big in New Jersey but it's starting to feather out in the East side.
Now here's the thing.
When you have a broken arm, okay, and you go into any kind of hospital and you say,
listen, you know, I got my arm broken here and they wrap it in a cast and they say, all
right, listen, come back.
You're going to have to do physical therapy.
You know, you're going to have to do all this and then in six weeks we take it off and you're
good.
Okay.
When you come down to FHE, every single clinical member is saying to them, this is not a hospital
where you broke your arm.
This is a place where we are just the mirror.
We hold the mirror up to you and we say, you look inside of the mirror and you see what's
going on with you.
Now, now that you know that you have these issues, what are you going to do about them?
Because this is a lifelong process.
This isn't going to get my arm fixed and I'm all good now.
So when you leave, if you do not do the protocol or you do not do what's necessary, it's only
a matter of time.
I mean, we're dealing with alcoholism here.
This is one of the strongest, most, it's an illness that tells you you don't have an illness,
that you're good now.
I'm good.
I went to Shatterproof.
I stopped drinking.
I dealt with my trauma.
I had a little of this and a little of that and I'm good now.
And they go back into the same environment.
You have to have some kind of safety net when you get out, whether that's badges and badges
or excuse me, badges and bottles or alcoholics synonymous or celebrate recovery or smart
recovery or the Buddhist recovery.
I mean, there's a plethora of things that they can go to.
If they don't go to them, it's just a matter of time, in my opinion.
And for the gentlemen and the ladies that just come in for PTSD, that they don't have
the addiction issues, they need therapy.
Therapy isn't a one and done.
You don't go a couple of times and you're like, oh, I got it all figured out.
As you know, therapy takes time and patience and compassion.
So when they leave, they need to continue with their therapy or whatever they need to
do in order to get better, stay better and become the person that they want to be.
So aftercare is hugely important.
Absolutely.
I want to put one thing to you and then we'll go to some closing questions.
But you mentioned about the people that work there now that are PJs and Marines.
And this is a big thing in our profession collectively, it's just buy-in.
And I've sat there while people from a fitness background have come in and they're like,
oh, you're going to do is sit on the Swiss ball and stretch these bands.
And you're just watching going, you have no idea what we even do for a living, do you?
And the same with nutrition and even mental health.
And a lot of horror stories, so many horror stories of when someone in crisis has finally
worked up the courage and they sit in front of the wrong counselor.
And what scares me is those are the stories I've heard.
How many do we not get to hear because that was the last straw for that person.
And they walked out realizing, thinking that they were completely broken, no one could
help them because that counselor just burst into tears or told me to get out.
And then they ended up complete in suicide.
So how do you yourself not being in uniform prior get buy-in from these men and women
that come into your doors?
I just have this ability to meet them where they're at and love them without any judgment.
I know this is going to sound as corny as it gets, but James, love is the answer.
And if you have somebody who's really listening, really listening, there's no greater gift.
And that's my gift, that I have the ability to do that.
And I never get tired of it.
I never get tired of it.
I don't know what it is.
I never get tired of just loving these men and women up.
I almost feel like it's an honor to be with them.
I mean, we're talking about firemen and police officers and veterans that give their life
for our community.
I had no idea how much they gave until I started working in the Shatterproof program.
So for me to sit and listen and be able to breathe and show compassion and love to these
folks, it's more of an honor than it is anything else.
When you go to work and you don't feel like it's a job, you know you're in the right
business.
I couldn't agree more.
Yeah.
Beautiful.
All right.
Well, I want to throw some quick closing questions at you before I let you go.
The first one I love to ask, and you've already mentioned obviously the big book and then
Surrender Experiment as well.
Are there any other books that you love to recommend?
Okay.
Yes.
All right.
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.
The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck.
The Surrender Experiment by Michael Sanger.
Let's see.
What else?
The Power of Now by- Eckhart Tolle.
Eckhart Tolle, yes.
The Good Earth by Eckhart Tolle as well.
The Five Love Languages by Hendrix Harvell.
Harvell, I believe it is.
A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson.
Anything by Dr. Wayne Dyer.
Anything.
Absolutely.
Yes, it was just absolutely amazing.
Those are just the ones that are off the top of my head, but I think that's enough.
That's a lot.
Yeah, that's plenty of reading for people.
Yeah.
I don't think Wayne Dyer wrote a bad book.
I really don't.
So what about films and documentaries?
Any of those that you love?
Oh, God, there's so many.
But I would say, I mean, I like anything to do with recovery.
I remember the Sandra Bullock movie.
I think it was called Thirteen Days.
My Name is Bill Wilson.
That's another one that was really good.
There's a couple recovery films.
I can't remember the names of them, but I remember watching them.
And really, they do a really good job of understanding the alcoholic because it's very puzzling.
Like you're a family member and you think to yourself, if you know this is bad for you,
why the hell are you doing it?
And Al-Anon family groups, huge.
ACOA, which is the Adult Children of Alcoholics, huge program.
It's imperative for the families to understand what they're dealing with.
I mean, I always use this analogy.
I say, listen, if your loved one, let's just say, God forbid they had, I don't know, neuroblastoma,
rare cancer.
You would be on the internet like a crazy person trying to find out what to do.
Best doctor, blah, blah, blah.
You wouldn't just wonder and say, like, why are you doing that?
No, you would get involved.
So that's what Al-Anon family groups is about.
If your loved one has a problem with addiction, you find out, find out what they have.
Al-Anon can help you.
You just made me think of another analogy because I mean, I've talked a lot about the
broken brain, especially when it comes to suicide.
You know, like how could they be so selfish?
How could they be so cowardly?
And you listen to people that have been there over and over and over again and you hear
basically two things.
Of course, the want for suffering to end.
But the other thing that seems to be far less discussed is that feeling of burdensome, that
guilt and shame.
Like if I wasn't here anymore, my family would be better off.
And that, of course, to a healthy brain makes no sense whatsoever.
But at that moment, that person believes.
And so that really reframes suicide to selfless and courageous at that moment, at that time.
But it's funny because just when you're talking about the broken arm, another analogy, when
we run on patients with very low blood sugar, they're acting completely inappropriately.
You know, they're belligerent, they're violent, they're whatever.
And it's like shouting at the hypoglycemic going, what's wrong with you?
Stop behaving that way when what they need is sugar.
And it's the same kind of thing.
Yes.
Get them some orange juice.
Exactly.
Orange juice is the answer, along with love.
Yes.
Love and compassion is the answer.
Is the answer.
100%.
All right.
Well, we've mentioned a lot of great people.
Is there a person that you recommend to come on this podcast as a guest to speak to the
first responders, military and associated professions of the world?
Okay.
Ray McDaniel is my colleague at FHA.
He is 21 years a PJ.
And he, Ray, has this uncanny ability to hard nose and hug them all at the same time.
So he gives it to him straight and he loves them as he's given.
He's just, he really knows what he's doing.
And a lot of people in the first and in the Shatterproof program really love and admire
him because he's got a way of really connecting with the clients.
Really connecting with the clients.
And he knows what he's talking about.
He's been there.
Yeah, that would be amazing.
And it's funny that the PJs, I've had a few of them on the show.
If there was a branch of the military or a specialty within the military that really
mirrors the firefighter paramedic closest, it's the PJ.
They do the ropes.
They wait for a call and then have to react.
Obviously, they're doing the advanced medicine.
So it's all the things.
It's a military version of what we do here.
So there's a lot of cross-pollination and then you add in obviously now what he's doing
at Shatterproof.
I think that'd be an incredible conversation.
So if you're able to help, let's make that happen.
Absolutely.
I'll make sure it happens.
I'll tell him.
Thank you.
All right.
Well, then the very last question, which is interesting for you, before we go to where
people can find all the different places, what do you do to decompress?
I'm assuming breath work is part of it.
Yes.
I breathe a lot and I go to Alcoholics Anonymous and that is my spiritual work.
I do breath work for myself as well.
I have a friend, her name is, I did say Dr. Coleman.
We exchange.
You know how massage therapists do that?
They exchange massages.
Well, Susie and I, we exchange breath.
So she'll breathe with me because it's really, it's much better to do it with the facilitator
that's sitting by you that can guide you and ask the questions that you need to be asked
when you're breathing.
And then when, you know, I'll do a session with her, she'll do a session with me and
we do that.
And I go to AA and I have my family and friends too.
So I have a wonderful life.
I'm really blessed.
I'm very blessed.
Fantastic.
All right.
So then where can people find FHE and the Shatterproof program and then where else can
they find you and your work?
Okay.
So FHE has a website, FHE health.
You can just Google that in a minute and it'll pop up and there's an admissions, a whole
department in admissions.
So they can just call if they need the help.
And my particular website is called Breathing Out Trauma with 1T, breathingout, O-U-T-T-R-A-U-M-A.com.
So if somebody just is not, it doesn't have an addiction problem or doesn't suffer from
PTSD and you're just a regular old person that needs a break, breath work is great.
Breath work is great for humanity.
I mean, I don't know how else to say it, but if they want a session, they can go there
as well.
I think that's it.
Was that your questions?
Yep.
That was it.
Well, I want to thank you so much.
Again, thank you to Sue for connecting us, but not only just walking us through the kind
of breath work side and the therapy side, but even walking us through your own personal
journey.
As, oh my God, what's her name, Brene Brown talks about a lot, I think vulnerability truly
is the courage that we need.
And especially, I would argue more so even with our men or our women in male dominated
professions like the uniformed services, we need to have that vulnerability put front
and center again.
And when someone is brave enough to storytell on their own challenges and their own struggles,
I think it really creates that buy-in that we were talking about earlier.
So I want to thank you so, so much for that and for coming on the Behind the Shield podcast
today.
Oh, James, thank you so much.
This was such a pleasure and I feel so honored.
Thank you.