119: Understanding How Different Healing Tools Fit Together to Support Total Consciousness Healing with Karden Rabin & Jen Mann, Co-creators of CFS School

cfs.complete

[00:00:00] chazmith: Good day friends, and welcome to Our Power Is Within Podcast. I'm your host Chazmith, and my hope for this podcast is to inspire you to take your power back to realize that you're the healer that you've always been looking for. We are capable of healing in mind, in body, and in soul. 

Now, before we get started, With introducing our guest today, I did wanna let you know that today's episode is sponsored by Jeannie Kulwin Coaching.

Jeannie is a stress and mind body coach based in LA and if you are not familiar with her, you can actually go back and check out episode 95. Feeling Our Feelings with Jeannie. It was one of my favorites actually, because she does leave us with very simple and practical action steps that we can begin implementing in our life right away to make positive impact.

Jeannie spent over 16 years battling fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and a myriad of other chronic conditions that left her physically and mentally drained. She healed herself completely and is now obsessed with getting her clients fast results through her one-on-one mind, body and TMS coaching program.

This three month program gives clients the support, consistency, and accountability to increase stress, really stuck negative emotions, and finally heal their chronic. So the best part is that Jeannie offers a free 45 minute consult, 45 minutes, where together you can identify what's holding you back so that you can take your next steps for healing.

Just go to her website: jeanniekulwin.com . 

As far as today's episode, we are in for a treat because we don't just have one, but we have two guests that's double the awesome. Our guests today are Karden, Rabin and Jen Mann. Karden and Jen are the co-creators of the Chronic Fatigue School. And if you haven't heard of it yet, we're going to actually learn a little bit about it today and how and why it stands apart from the other programs that are available out there to help guide you on your self-healing journey. I honestly, So grateful that I got to chat with these two. They're amazing wise souls and we had so much fun chatting together and I felt like it was very informative and inspiring and I'm hopeful that you will feel the same way. 

[00:02:25] chazmith: We are going to hear about each of their healing journeys and how they actually were brought together, and then how they birthed the chronic fatigue school.

We're also gonna get practical tips on how to begin to take our healing journeys to the next level. Jen gives us an awesome book recommendation list and so much more you can learn more about Karden, Jen and the Chronic Fatigue school in the show notes, as well as there's a link in the show notes to learn more about the program specific to Chronic fatigue school.

And I hope you enjoy today's episode card. Karden and Jen, thank you both so much for being here with me today on the podcast. 

[00:03:04] Jen: Thank you so much for having us. 

[00:03:09] Karden: Very happy to be here. Thank you Chazmith.  

[00:03:14] chazmith: indeed. Yeah. I'm very excited to see where this conversation goes and just get a chance to learn more about both of you and chronic fatigue school.

I love to start out with having each of you share a little bit with the audience about your own healing and recovery journeys. And maybe after you both get a chance to do that, we could actually talk about how you ended up coming together and create the birth of chronic fatigue school. 

[00:03:44] Karden: Sounds like a good plan.

I'll try to be brief about, my background. I've been a body worker for going on 15 years now, and I used to say that for the first 10 years of my career, I worshiped the holy hallowed ground of structural and functional everything, right? That if I could get all of those things where they're supposed to be, and if I could get them moving correctly, a person wouldn't be in pain.

And for 10 years, that's how I practiced. And I was, quite successful. But there were lots of instances where putting the formula together didn't result in someone being out of pain. And that was very frustrating. And perhaps more frustrating was f throughout those 10 years of my career I was having frequent and acute bouts of low back pain that would get longer, that would last longer and be worse.

And despite throwing the raw thing, the myofascial, the cranial sacral, the controlled articular rotations, the Pilates at it, no matter what went in there it resurfaced after a while. And during one of the, during the most excruciating bout that was going on for five months, that not only was low back pain, but bilateral shooting pains into both calves of this ice pics were being jammed into my perennials and then occasional lightning storms of pain and my pelvis and my groin.

I found John Sarno's healing back pain on a friend's bookshelf, and I rolled my eyes at it, but picked it up anyway. And like you Chazmith, the book was like, ding ding. And remarkably within about a week of reading that book my pain vanished and it was extraordinary. And I wouldn't have believed it if it hadn't happened in my own body.

And that I went from, again, five months of agony to nearly nothing doing. Nothing except reading that book and having my mind changed about what the nature of my pain was. And then once that happened, I could no longer practice the way I'd been practicing for 10 years. Like I just, that was, it was just outrageous.

It would be like going back to the Stone Age to practice the way I was practicing structurally and functionally. And so I threw myself deeply into the TMS space. I studied with Charlie Merrill and Howard Shubiner and devoured everything I could. But along the way, although I was doing so much better, my pain would come back and I was simultaneously leaning into some more embodied emotional work. And especially since, John Sarno talks about how there's emotions underlying this stuff, I decided to engage in that directly. And I also started doing a professional training in somatic experiencing, which is a remarkable embodied trauma training.

And when I was able to tap into my non-verbal embodied consciousness and awareness really feel the visceral emotional aspects that were coupled with my pain presentation I was able to find a much more permanent and holistic and I'm just gonna call it human healing. And that's what I have basically been doing ever since.

Until I met, or, and then Jen and I fortuitously meeting a year and a half ago, and I'll let her take it from there. 

[00:07:05] Jen: Yes. I'll take it back to, I'll go backwards. I'll share my journey and then I'll go back to when I met Karden. But it was the best meet ever and I'm so happy that we did meet.

But I was a professional ballet dancer. I left home when I was really young. I was 12.5- 13. I was living in another country in Germany and I was dancing and as a professional athlete, I was doing 9- 10 hours every day being screamed at by my Russian, my Serbian, my German ballet instructors.

But I loved it. It was my life. I am hyper mobile. I have hyper mobile EDS at the time, obviously, I had no idea. I was just a very talented ballet dancer that could Do some really cool party tricks, . And and so I had a lot of injuries along the way, which got me really interested in, how to look at the body from a different perspective.

I was curious because I was like, wait a minute, I'm here before everyone else. And you'll hear my perfectionism creeping in already. But as if ballet wasn't enough and I'm doing so much, I'm working so hard and I'm always injured, like, why is this happening to me? Cuz everyone else is, 90% of ballet dancers are also hyper mobile.

So I was like, what is going on here? So I was just very interested in does my anxiety have anything to do with my injuries? Does my history of trauma have anything? To do with my injuries, but I didn't really explore the path yet. So I became a Pilates instructor alongside being a ballet dancer.

And then I had a really career ending injury to my right ankle. So I had to stop ballet and I became a personal trainer, a functional coach in London, and I became a yoga instructor. I did lots of different functional movement courses. And then I decided to go back to university to be a physiotherapist because I was like, again, attracted to, but what is behind the reason why when we do this yoga pose or we do this kind of functional movement pattern, why does it hurt and why are you feeling that way?

And so I was always interested in like more, basically. So I went back to school. and I did biomedical sciences first because that was a prerequisite cuz all I had from my academic background was ballet, like languages, anatomy, history of dance, history of music. You can't go and study physio with that. So I had to do other stuff before that, but I loved it.

Like I'm a nerd, so it was fine. And I started to experience extreme anxiety when I went back to university. Like I had anxiety, a text when I was. A kid for various reasons that I might share depending on where the conversations go. But yeah, it was just never as bad as an adult. Then I started to experience pain in between my shoulder blades, my calf muscles, and my hips.

And I was like, I know everything. I feel like I know everything about movement. Like I am movement in person, . I should know exactly why I have pain here. What am I doing wrong? And I was like, maybe I'm sitting down for more hours. But we know that's bullshit. So basically at the peak of my, let's say university career, I was at the top of the class, believe it or not.

I was even class representative at the mature age of 27 years old. I was like, yeah, I'm gonna be class 

[00:10:51] Karden: rep. You don't have perfectionism and over functioning issues. Do you do ? 

[00:10:55] Jen: No, not at all.

Oh my god. And I was like, this is awesome. I was like really suffering obviously in my body. And I started to get these, which was new fevers and they would last for a month. And I genuinely thought for two years oh, I'm just the kind of person who gets a fever. And I, it was so weird how I like normalize that for myself.

I was like, oh, I just get fevers when I'm. And nobody else gets fevers when they're tired. That's not normal. And the fevers got worse and I got really ill in February three years ago I think. Yeah. And then I started experiencing really bad. pots, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, and then a bazillion other symptoms.

And then I crashed, and then I crashed harder, and then I crashed even harder. , I was really sick. And then I learned that, so initially the doctors were telling me that I that I had this mystery fatigue illness. They were like, we're not sure what it is. It could be, there's no root cause, like you're never gonna get your life back.

That's it. Anyway, I became really severely ill. I was bed bound and bear in mind like two months before I was teaching like 15 classes a week, seeing one-on-one clients, giving massages, teaching yoga, studying a full-time degree. Like I was super active and tired, but like super active. And two months later I couldn't get out of bed.

And that lasted for, I was bed bound for about a year. I did everything I could to try to heal. Nothing worked until I, I found the lightning process, which was amazing and it really helped me, but it just didn't quite work f fully, as in when I would go back into meeting people or like social circumstances or interacting with my parents who with whom I have, root cause connection to, in terms of my health and chronic illness I would just crash again.

I started. doing a lot around polyvagal work, learning everything I could about it. I did a few courses and that really helped me. And then here I am back to where Karden left off. . Remember when Karden what was that app called? Again, I was on it for 10 minutes, so I can't even remember.

What was it called again? Clubhouse. Oh my God. A clubhouse. Yeah. Thank you. . So I went on Clubhouse because I was like, Ooh, what like neuroscience geeky, nerdy rooms are in here that I can, share and listen. And I came across Karden's Room, which was with Charlie Merrill, and it was about pain.

I think it's called the Pain Guys or something. Was that, is that right? Karden?

[00:13:52] Karden: It was called ask the Pain Guys. 

[00:13:54] Jen: Ask the Pain Guys, and then I think on that particular day they were talking about. something that had to do with my direct experience, and I was like, Ooh, I wanna share my experience.

And so I shared about the brain retraining and everything. And then Karden reached out and then we shared where I was at. And I would say I was like, oscillating between 90% recovery to 50% recovery. 90%. 50%. And so with Karden, we did some somatic experiencing in her child work, me as his client.

And then we just got along really well and we found that through he, he became very interested in how I had recovered up until that moment with the brain retraining and other studies that I had done in neurolinguistic programming. Yes. . 

[00:14:49] Karden: Yeah, just that I'd never, this is the interesting thing I'd never heard of brain retraining.

It's interesting how these things play together, right? There's and Chazmith, I know that, this is, there's the TMS Sarno space right at large and all it's manifestations and then there's like the trauma space and somatic experiencing and a lot of it's various manifestations and, emotional work.

And then there was this blind spot when Jen, I believe when actually Jen first mentioned brain retraining to me, she mentioned it as if, of course I knew what it was. And I think for the first Session I played along with of course I know what that is,  And I had no idea.

Yeah I had no, no idea. And it was just it was refreshing to learn about. And again, I think that Jen and I quickly saw, wow how beautifully could these things have done the right way play together to help people reach the level of recovery that Jen was experiencing. 

[00:15:39] Jen: When you get to know the two kind of types of work there is, there are actually subtle differences that can really, like when you put these things together, it's like mind blowing.

If you look at the community of the brain retrains and they're so like structured and you have to do rounds and you have to repeat them, and you have to be really strict and you have to, pause, stop, interrupt, use, use the method. Repeat. And although that's extremely helpful, up to a certain point, the body is a huge element that's missing.

What, but why are we doing this? I heard someone the other day say the root cause of all chronic illness is autonomic nervous system dysregulation. And someone asked them, but what's the root cause of that? And they were like there isn't it's just dysregulated,

And actually, and I, and so the brain retraining helps you get to that point. But then you have to get to the before, like how did you get there? Like how did you dysregulate your nervous system? And that's when it goes into your childhood, into your emotions, into your past traumas, your pain, and et cetera, et cetera.

So there's These worlds that are Yes. Talking about the same thing, but also the top down and the bottom up work, which is also different parallel but different , if that makes sense.

[00:17:07] chazmith: Karden, you said that they work really well together when you put them together in the right way. I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit more on what that looks like.

[00:17:16] Karden: Yeah. I'd love to, and guess the first analogy I'll use to kind of address what you and Jen were both talking about is I have a saying that I actually got from my stepsister and I said, it's the saying is, the only thing I'm a fundamentalist about is not being a fundamentalist Yes. . Or I'm one could say I'm an extreme moderate.

And you know what I've noticed about our field is I like to think of it as a, an Olympic swimming pool, and there's lanes in this swimming pool and. each lane is dealing is like trying to teach people how to swim. And they've got a couple of strokes and they're effective, they're really helpful.

But they also like missing the forest for the trees. Not only do they not see the other lanes, but they don't realize that this isn't really about swimming. This is about understanding how water works. I know that might sound like really esoteric, but. It's about f swimming, it's about how does the water work regardless of what lane you're in.

And we wanna learn as many the ability to float on our back and tread water end strokes, end to swim, and to just know what makes the water get all wavy and what makes it calm down. And so my constitution and the way I feel and think is always to look for the most elemental aspects of how something is doing.

It’s how something is having its impact, and then seeing what the through lines are, what the commonalities between t m s, limbic system impairment, brain retraining, somatic experiencing work, how all these things play together. And when you pull apart the veneers of style or approach, that they're all working with the same physics.

Yes. And so inside that our overall method that Jen and I teach throughout our program as we. Weave together our form of brain retraining with polyvagal therapeutics and aspects of somatic experiencing and parts work. We call our process the total consciousness rewire. And we are not claiming to focus just on a limbic system or just on a neocortex or just on the vagus nerve.

I actually don't care about individually labeled parts because your brain nervous system and body does not segregate itself into such concepts as far as your brain and body are concerned. It is a unified experience of itself, an experience of consciousness, and that consciousness ranges from the actual narrative thoughts that we're aware of in our head.

The sensations in our body that we're aware of and not aware of the emotions that we're aware of, and not aware of the postures and behaviors that we're aware of and not aware of all of those things in our work. And John, correct me, but let's just say all of those aspects have equal weight and equal importance.

And although we teach them in sequence, like this is how we let, for example, work with the cognitive and narrative thought aspect of your brain and consciousness. And this is how we work with your embodied emotional experience. And this is how we work with, let's say visceral sensational stuff. We teach thing in segments cuz that's how people learn.

But ultimately,  our students understand the physics of the water. They understand how their total consciousness from top to bottom, bottom up, inside and out, how they work. And really ideally, and a so many of our students do this, is that they either make our methods their own, they make their own combination of style and ingredients that works really well for them.

And then ideally, because by the way, a big part of what we're doing is helping to heal an autonomic nervous system. And as I like to say, an autonomic nervous system is supposed to work correctly automatically, right? And so the idea that we need to forever be correcting it is actually not our goal.

Our goal is to support it so that it's mostly optimizing itself. And that's where our students get to. So total consciousness, rewire. 

[00:21:25] chazmith: I like this. I like this because, I was talking to another guest on the show just recently and we were talking about how some people do this thing program hopping, right?

They could just go from one to the next without really giving anything, like enough time where they at least can integrate and make some shifts in that regard. But we talked more importantly about how some people it's not, it's like quite opposite, right? They get so asphyxiated on it has to be this, that they'll just do this one thing for like years and years and they're not getting the results.

And we were talking about how maybe that's where at some point you have to be willing to look through a more holistic lens and realize it might be more than. you're doing in that one scope. What else is going on? 

[00:22:13] Karden: I wanna let Jen jump in, but all I'll say on that, and this is the rule of thumb of mine, if you are trying any approach in our space for 12 weeks without noticing significant results, stop doing it.

If you are trying any work in our space for 12 weeks and not noticing significant results, I say stop doing it. Or maybe work with someone wants to see if you're doing it right. But there's so many options, and being wed to a particular approach can be very limiting. Most of this stuff, as I like to say, when it works.

It's like a key fitting into a lock, and if the key fits, the lock turns. If it doesn't, you're like jiggling it and forcing it until it breaks. And yeah, it's not a one size fits all approach and people should be shopping around and making it their own rather than getting stuck in any one model.

[00:23:02] chazmith: I can relate , that perfectionistic tendency that can really drive you to keep doing it, right? Because you can say, oh, I must be doing it wrong. I must be doing it wrong. I'm not doing it good enough. I'm missing something. I've gotta try harder.

And that is heavy and there's a lot of pressure behind that, and that can really keep us stuck in that one frame of mind verse like, you. Realizing like, Hey, this isn't one size fits all. Like we think, oh, this person's getting better and they're doing it. I must be doing something wrong. And no it just means you're unique and you're different.

And that means your journey's gonna be unique and different. And that’s okay. 

[00:23:40] Jen: Yeah, I agree with everything you guys said, and I was gonna say the same as Karden actually. If it doesn't work, like if you don't see changes fairly soon, you either need support and it's not working or it's time to try something else.

And that's also okay. And what you just said about the perfectionism is actually something that we really cared about, like I really cared about to transmit in our program. You don't have to do this perfectly, you don't have to do this to a t, you don't have to do our brain retraining exactly how we show it.

You don't have to do it on the hour, every hour. This is your story on your body, on your brain, and it's different. to another person's. Yes. Our brains and our bodies work in a similar way, but not in exactly the same way. Our backgrounds are different, our traumas are different. And so it's totally okay to have a different experience when going into these programs, which is why we personally chose not to go for a prescriptive kind of execution of what we share, let's say.

It's really more about becoming the work rather than just repeating it, and if it doesn't work, repeating it again. And really, once you do it and it works, you don't have to do it anymore. I don't do any, I haven't done any brain retraining in a really long time. Like I, I don't need any of the work.

I couldn't get out of bed. I did the work. and now I'm okay. I'm actually, I'm more than Okay. I'm really well, and that's our goal as well. It's not this, never ending healing journey. It's okay to be arrived and then just keep expanding your knowledge keep growing, but it's okay to be arrived as well in a non-perfect way, that is so 

[00:25:25] chazmith: important because, you guys probably can attest to this, how many people in this community, myself included, get stuck where you, yeah. Where you feel like you have to do all these tools forever. You almost feel oh my God, I'm gonna, am I going to have to do this forever? And I felt the same way, but I think Karden, you had said it about the nervous system, like it's supposed to be automatic, not something that we have to regulate every day for the rest of our life. And I know I've had that question, do we ever get to a place where we don't have to sit here and use these tools every day to, because that can be like a full-time job and they always say create joy.

Like living your life is healing too. But when you're caught up in, all these tools and constantly feeling like you need to, yeah, do your brain retraining still or do your nervous system regulation or do all these things, when do you have the time to actually also say yes to all the other fun stuff, the joy, the life, all those things.

I do feel like that is a very common theme in our community. And I love hearing you guys say that. It doesn't have to be that way. It sounds very hopeful. . 

[00:26:30] Karden: Yeah. It, and by the way, that needs to be part of what's taught in terms of aligning someone with their outcomes. Other people say I'm blunt and other people say I'm an asshole and I'm fine with all three. Jen earlier said that she heard someone in our, a leader in our space talk about how the root causes autonomic nervous system dysfunction. I'm positive that was a brain retrainer. And if you are claiming that the root causes autonomic nervous system dysfunction, but your system doesn't help an autonomic system work better automatically, then that's insane.

Like in and of itself, like just the proposition is insane. The idea that you need to top down manually, non autonomically, continuously interrupt an autonomic nervous system so that it's working better without having it auto automatically get better. Like I want everyone to hear like why that's insane.

And your autonomic nervous system and your brain like every other system in your body when given the right environment and support to heal. That's what it does. It heals. We cut ourselves, we get some inflammation, a scab, and the skin repairs itself. Your entire creature is designed when given the right opportunities, rest, hydration, lack of terror, lack of traumas maybe add some safety, some love connection, et cetera.

When those things are in place, the system starts to self-regulate in a better way. And I think that needs to be communicated from the outset that guys we're gonna be using these methods to in, from an SE perspective, what we're always trying to do that's somatic experiencing. I would summarize it as we are trying to implement the least amount of input, the least amount of coaching correction that we can possibly do to then allow someone's autonomic intrinsic nervous system to self correct and find a better homeostasis. And it happens over and over again cuz that's what that system wants to do when given the opportunity. And so if that's not happening for you, there's usually a bunch of reasons, but one of them could be that you are enrolled in a concept that you have to forever maintain this housekeeping.

And I think that's not a good place to start from. The second is that if you're just doing brain retraining and you are not getting to the traumatic origins of what created that dysregulation, and you're not working with those origins sufficiently, they will continuously cause this regulation that you have to correct from the top down.

And that's why having a trauma inform.  And that's literally not just trauma informed. Viscerally experienced, embodied brain retraining program or autonomic corrective program is critical because otherwise you will be doing that housekeeping for ever. And also the last thing is this level.

When you know that what you're doing is something that's the goal is this long-term correction, and that's like an auto and an automatic correction over time, knowing that's the premise from the outgo, I mean from the outset develops a level of trust a conscious and subconscious belief in self that helps that happen, right?

So if your belief is that I have to correct this forever, then that's what your brain and nervous system are gonna do. They're gonna rely on top-down correction forever. But if your belief and understanding is, oh, no, these correct. are going to allow me to spontaneously and autonomically expand my capacity and be healthy, then that's what's gonna happen.

[00:30:13] chazmith: Now do you think we need to be doing bottoms ups approach forever? Or is that same principles apply to that as well?

[00:30:19] Karden: No, same principles apply to that as well. And the only thing that I do wanna say here is that although Jen and I very rarely actually have to use our skills because our autonomic nervous systems and our capacity have expanded so much that we're just, we work appropriately under certain experiences of high levels of stress, are really high level emotional trigger.

Basically, those things are a combination thereof. Your autonomic nervous system's, capacity to self-regulate, maybe for a short term and temporarily dysregulated or compromised again, usually because of a perfect storm. It's oh, I got covid again. It was the holidays and me and my mom got into a fight and I had a crash for three or four days until I put it back together.

I think that's normal in this space if you've healed. But outside of those more critical circumstances both the top down and the bottom up work should be ongoing automatic and self corrective after, a real length of time of practicing. 12 weeks sorry three, three months, six months a year.

[00:31:23] chazmith: So this makes so much sense. Everything that you're saying, and I'm glad that there's people like you that are spreading this message now, because when you don't learn that at the beginning, you can end up spending years spinning in circles if you will. Not real, not understanding that is possible or wanting to believe it's possible, but not being able to figure out how to do it.

Because again, maybe you're spinning in circles around the same thing or not being open to trying other things, whether it's your. , like you said, brainer training over and over and over and not getting results or journaling over and over and not getting results. So it's good to know that there's absolutely evidence to support that people out there can absolutely get their nervous system regulated on its own without you constantly having to do tools, use tools or use modalities to do it on a regular, ongoing life sentence,

[00:32:17] Jen: Yes, absolutely. And it's so nice once you know the work, it's like I genuinely feel like I have a toolbox, after everything that I've been through. When I do experience a storm like Karden said I know that I'm okay. Like a, anything can happen. I know that I will be okay, which is really powerful.

And it can really get you through so much. And I actually wanted to say, cuz I think you touched upon the belief in this work as well earlier, and when you do have a belief and an understanding in this work, things can change really quickly. I was completely bed bound and, I started to understand that actually there was nothing to be afraid of, that it was just the state in my body that was creating a perfect storm of stress hormones, of mitochondrial temporary dysfunction and inability to, reproduce energy fast enough.

Really. And once I understood that, when I changed my state, I could just go out for a walk and be out of my bed without any fear. I started walking like the day after I learned this information after a year of being in bed and nothing working, like nothing. So I think when a program sets you up with the right kind of information for you to understand what's happening in your body and it is working like one, and when you understand the process, then.

It's very helpful and things move really quickly. Something that we find is really interesting is we have some doctors sometimes who join our program who have long covid or chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia. We had an anesthesiologist, we had a couple of PhD neuroscientists who, they've done years of studies, on their brain, on the nervous system, and they couldn't heal themselves.

And then once they learned like a little bit of this information, they were like, but that challenges what I know about my body. How the struggle for them was more about accepting the reality of what was happening rather. just using the tools and seeing if they were gonna work. So I think it's really powerful when you get some evidence of the work and you're like, ah, yes, oh my gosh, it's working.

And then with evidence, you can move forward faster. It's always helpful to have that, which is why we always share wins and we encourage people to celebrate the smallest wins, because the smallest wins really help. What I'm doing is working like every single moment that is, you know, wider window of tolerance.

I walked a couple minutes more, or I did something that, that I couldn't do yesterday or a little bit less pain or because of a tool I used, celebrate it. It worked. And so that also helps the brain rather than look for what went wrong, look for what went right. We always look for what is going wrong in our bodies.

And when we start to look for what's going right. A lot can change in a short amount of time. 

[00:35:37] Karden: If I could add to that, Jen, cuz it's so important. I, it's a double-edged sword here in that the power of belief is, in my opinion, the most powerful healing mechanism. And at the same time in our space, it can somehow, it can sometimes have this toxic concept that people think is just mindset work.

And Jen and I both certainly know that's not true. For the listeners today I'd love you to consider belief or the evidence that Jen is talking about proof and celebrating small wins and establishing a new way of thinking as actually a very neurological development process like from childhood.

We all, as we are growing, Develop beliefs about ourselves, right? So if we went to that first, like T G I F dance and we got made fun of for dancing with our like, childlike joy, we would've been terrified and we would've instantly created a belief that we are not a good mover, that we're not cool, that people think we are.

They rejected us when we moved. And all of a sudden in that one fucking moment with that one belief that you created about yourself, you stopped dancing, you became a non mover, you became a wallflower at the party. In fact, where there were situations where you might have to dance, you got, might have become anxious or nervous.

I know there are people listening that can relate to. And that is an example of a belief not even reinforced over and over again. Just a belief established in one moment of fear and stress and hurt that then ricochets and rolls down your entire life. And so then when a physician hits you with what I call a a nocebo torpedo, they tell you have shitty mitochondria.

They tell you that your cartilage or your tendons suck and they're too bendy. Or they tell you can never do this again or that again. Or you have the belief that you were broken because of that. Just like my example with dancing when you were a kid, your entire brain nervous system and physiology will perform in lock step with your belief about yourself.

And We try to talk about looking at the proof, looking at the little wins, looking at the evidence, not so that you all of a sudden take a mindset leap of faith. Like so many influencers in our space want you to, it's because we want you to actually be able to take advantage of the benefits of building up a different belief system in a very primordial neurological and dev developmental way.

So it's not wishful thinking guys, it's changing belief based on evidence and experience so that your brain and body follow. And I hope that helps put it a bit into perspective for you and how powerful that can be. And a big component of CFS school, which is, our program is engaging with what we call limiting beliefs or the beliefs that might be not only undermining our healing, but undermining our life and our experience of ourselves. 

[00:38:50] chazmith: It’s so true. Yeah. Thank you. That's awesome. I actually, speaking of your program, I wanna ask a few questions about it for people listening who this might be new to. You guys have talked a lot about how our healing journeys are unique and that it's not a one size fits all, and yet you guys do offer actual programs.

So I'm wondering if within the framework of the program that you're offering, is it still designed in a way that allows it to really be unique to each individual or m. , each individual that does it can really make it their own. 

[00:39:25] Jen: We offer flexibility with what we share. There is a structure for for very important reasons.

When we go with brain retraining first what we're doing is we're really trying to interrupt those neural pathways that are taking over our mind and as a consequence our body. And then when we have regained a little bit of that window of tolerance, then we can go into the emotions, into the body, into the longer term health stuff.

But essentially When we share how to do our stuff, it's we give a lot of guidance, but we really invite the self healer to use the tools that we teach in a way that feels good. If this feels good, if it's right, repeat it and do it as we say. If it does not, it's okay to change it, it's okay to shift.

Generally we don't have too many people having this issue. I'm not gonna lie, I think because of how our program is outlined, this question actually doesn't come up too often. This isn't if something isn't working, they will say can I do this instead? Or, I've found a better way.

And that's perfectly fine for us, and we're happy for people to explore what works best on your body and on your brain. , 

[00:40:46] Karden: I think that part of our program does, that goes back to maybe the swimming analogy from the beginning is there are lots of ways to swim across a pool and we really help people understand how water works.

And then we offer them lots of different strokes and then we can say these are the ways, like some of the standard ways some of the options for how you can swim across this pool. But now that you know the strokes and you understand how water works, you make this your own. So that's why I think that adaptability, that responsiveness, that flexibility is largely built into the program cuz it isn't prescriptive.

I used to say that people would ask me if I was an instructor and I said no, because my definition of an instructor is a structure is like Simon says, right? Touch your toes, do this, do that. It's very monkey see, monkey do. Instructor to me has a the concept of obedience in it. Whereas a teacher, what a teacher does is they transmit knowledge in such a way that the person who receives it understands it so that they can use it however they wish.

And I really think that comes across in our program. 

[00:41:57] chazmith: I love that. Do you guys help people in your program who do have triggers albeit known or unknown? 

[00:42:00] Jen: Yes, absolutely. I think from actually day one, aside from physical triggers we, or emotional or we actually start by teaching you, how to understand what is happening around you and inside you, like from the second you wake up in the morning rather than, oh my gosh, I wake up and I'm in pain, or I wake up and I feel so, so tired.

Or I wake up and I have this experience. How can we just remove the experience, take away the experience for a moment and see what is behind that? What is happening in your mind? And. How are you constantly being triggered in a way that is causing a state of illness or pain or, and or pain when it comes to psycho-emotional triggers, we have our later modules are specific to that and like really help guide you through inner child work, through all the work that we teach in how to recognize a trigger and how to use it to your advantage.

Like how can I use a trigger as information? It's not harmful, it's nothing to be afraid of. It's information that I can transform into wisdom to help myself heal. We've been 

[00:43:34] chazmith: Talking a lot about belief and how powerful belief is. How do you help a client navigate if you get somebody who truly believes, or they believe that healing is possible and that some combination of these tools that you guys are teaching can really support them.

And yet maybe after a significant amount of time, they're still feeling really dysregulated or they're still feeling like they have a high uptick of symptoms. How do you help them navigate a situation like that? 

[00:43:58] Karden: I think when those things happen, and they do happen to some self healers on this path, context is decisive here, but.

Often I think if someone has been doing the self-healing approach and they've just been doing training on their own, when someone's really reaching a a plateau, an impasse, a setback one of my first invitations to them is to work one-on-one with someone for even just one session or a handful of sessions to work with another person who's trained or has experience in the nervous system work, because they can often be seeing, they might seek because my dad used to say that it's easy to see the splinter in another person's eyes, but not the log in your own.

And so working with someone else for a short period of time can often be the magic trick to work past a certain impasse. That's if you're just doing it on. If someone has been working on this work for a while and they're still hitting plateaus despite working with a professional usually for me, I'm gonna look at two directions.

One is trauma. And that actually what might be going on here is a small portion of the people who participate in our program. And I think a a decent portion of the people who come into this work actually have significant developmental trauma. And if you have significant developmental trauma, the edifice, what that autonomic nervous system was built and grown in from utero has most likely been dysregulated forever and trying to impose regulation on it using.

A lot of the standard practices just isn't possible with the inherent amount of trauma-based dysregulation in that person, in which case a longer term support. Usually in my experience with a somatic experiencing practitioner, and often neurofeedback, can go a long way That's really focused on trauma and foundational, like we're talking, forget trying to make symptoms necessarily move.

Just getting a human being to have for a short period of time, an experience of safety in themselves, right? If that's not there at all, That's often where we need to start with folks that I would say they are resistant or having a lot of difficulty with this work, despite a lot of effort. So again, it's not that they're doing it wrong, it's not even that something's wrong with them, it's just the level of dysregulation is older and deeper and more complicated and just like a really complicated knot.

It's not that we don't know how to untie the knot, but if it's really complicated and dense and been there if you've ever tried to work out a lot a knot with that guys, with your fingers, it just takes longer and you need someone with a particular set of skills. I don't know if that was the answer you were looking for Chaz Smith and maybe the folks in those situations weren't happy with that answer either.

Jen might have a very different one, but that's that's my thoughts on that.

[00:46:54] chazmith:  I thought it was very thorough. can you, for everyone who's listening, explain cuz this term has come up many times in this conversation. Can you break down what somatic experiencing is for us?

[00:47:04] Karden: Yes. So Somatic experiencing is a professional clinical trauma approach or therapy developed by Peter Levine at his most famous book is called Waking the Tiger, healing Trauma And what Peter Levine started to discover as early as the seventies, and we all know this folks, but knowing this and learning how to actually work with it is a very different thing.

Is that trauma right? Doesn't respond very well to talk therapy cuz talk therapy engages with your neocortex, your cognitive spaces. , but people usually can't talk themselves out of a panic attack or a trauma response, right? If someone has, for example, been sexually assaulted and they've been in talk therapy for three years, if they're in a cafe and someone who looks like their assailant walks in and all of a sudden their heart starts to pound, they start to sweat they might faint.

All of those responses are happening in an autonomic nervous system that doesn't give a crap about language or how much you've talked through your trauma. And Peter Levine developed a method through essentially slowing things down, helping people to safely access the felt experience. Somatic experience.

Somatic means body feeling, right? The felt experience of the body because. Your autonomic nervous system. The way you access it, the way you understand what it's doing, the way you can relate to it is through your somatic experience, through things like muscle tension, quality of breath, whether you're bracing or wanna move.

The entire autonomic conversation is actually a somatic, visceral, embodied one. And over the last really 50 plus years, Peter Levine has developed the finest trauma training. There is in my opinion, in the opinion of many, and it helps people safely support their autonomic nervous systems in no longer carrying out trauma responses on loop or repeat in the face of triggers that now in the present, right?

Because most likely that person walking into the cafe is not their assailant. The person walking into the cafe is getting a latte. , right? And that person's auto autonomic nervous system needs to be helped to learn that's not an appropriate response anymore. That's what somatic experiencing is. And then especially in CFS school and in my work, just cuz you know, I care about the physics of the water, we can use so many of the principles and approaches of se to aid non-traumatic relearning of the autonomic nervous system.

Cuz some things like for example, being triggered let's say by a food or by an environmental sensitivity or by going to the gym, those are not necessarily we wouldn't call those trauma responses, but they're definitely embodied, inappropriate autonomic responses to an environment. And we can use the same techniques that we learn in somatic experiencing for trauma, for non-trauma based things in the nervous system.

And then of course, since trauma is part of what made us dysregulated, we teach people how to deploy those tools on themselves in the latter parts of CFS school. And we call that portion the self-directed trauma resolution model. 

[00:50:52] chazmith: Okay. So we can essentially use somatic experiencing on ourself versus needing to have somebody else to walk us or guide us through it?

[00:50:59] Karden: Totes 100%. Ah, awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So yes, the answer is yes, a hundred percent. Unless we reverse back to what I said, 10 minutes ago about treatment resistant folks, there are appropriate situations where working with a professional is really helpful. But Jen and I, part of the commitment of CFS school is that human beings are sovereign and have agency and are intelligent and have wisdom. And if they're making the choice to self-heal, then we should make all of these clinical, scientific, medical traditionally I'm not gonna say they're behind closed doors, but these techniques that were typically held within the context of professional and client right, or doctor and patient, that we wanna break down those barriers in a safe and respectful manner so that you as a human being can use these things on yourself because you're a sovereign adult.

And as long as we do it safely, no one should be keeping you from these. 

[00:52:06] chazmith: Yeah. I love that because I'm all about empowerment and I really, I say this often, but like we get disempowered when we first start going to doctors and we're taught from a young age that we need doctors or other people to heal us.

And then the sad thing is sometimes we do end up realizing that maybe it's not all physical and I don't need doctors. I, oh, I can use these other tools. But then we go with into that community and then it's still oh no, you need me in order to be able to do that though. You still need me and you can't do this on your own.

And I do think there's, oh my gosh, I know myself like, oh, having a coach for anything, right? Some of the greatest coaches in the world have coaches for something. That's how we get better. Cuz like you said, we. Have somebody else can just help us see sometimes our blind spots, they can support us and it's beautiful to have somebody there to be in your corner and guide you and support you and coach you.

But I also think it's so important that within that framework we're also empowered and reminded that we don't need that person. They're like an added bonus , like that. We still have everything innately that we need within us and the ability to utilize these tools. And I wanted to ask you something else about the school.

Speaking of getting coaching and being on your own doing it, I know you guys have three tiers. I was wondering for anyone who's listening, if you can give some insight or examples into who might find, say, tier one most supportive or in what situation might somebody really benefit from the the more all inclusive tier three of your program and Yeah, just if I’m listening, and I'm really interested in what you guys are offering. And I go to your website and I'm sitting there thinking, oh, which one's right for me? Like how might they be able to discern what is gonna be the best approach for them? 

[00:53:56] Jen: I think so. So first of all we're actually removing the plus version, which is the middle tier of the program, and we're replacing it with our lives.

So when we first launched CFS school, it was only live meaning working with Karden and I being coached by Karden and I in our weekly coaching containers where there are groups of 25 people. And we just go through the week and everyone gets to ask their questions to be coached by Karden and I, in neurolinguistic programming, in se, in the work that we.

Polyvagal therapeutics. And really that's extremely helpful for people who A, have the financial resources cuz it's a more expensive program and most importantly need a little bit more support, but also l community and want to work with Karden. And I, we created this program that would fit many different kinds of people.

And so some people like to learn being more supported and other people are happy to learn in a more self-guided way. So then the other one is the self-study, which is the basic program. And that one is really, if you feel called to do the work not necessarily on your own actually, because there's a lot, you'll be surprised we.

We have had more than 600 people now do our program in, in, in just a year. And these people have found ways to create huge community. Like our community is so big even outside of what we offer. And the people who are doing our program are really excited to have this community. That's what we really see.

Wow, what a supportive healing container. And I think because there's the, find your own way, but also follow what we share, self-heal. There's like this. Strong interaction that happens between the self healers. 

[00:56:01] Karden: I just wanted to add that one we the folks in the self-study group have just ran with it.

It's remarkable. And there's a Reddit community and there's a Facebook community that j Jen and I like. It's unofficial and that Jen and I don't moderate in it at all, but the self healers just do a beautiful job in there. And the other thing I wanted to say was about when Jen and I people were asking for a self-study and, we wanted to provide something like that it was accelerated by the fact that you, some of your listeners may know that Jen is a newly minted mama and she has a beautiful son named Leo.

And with going on maternity leave, we weren't gonna have the live. And we were excited to do the self-study, but I can say for myself, we were like, Is it gonna work, right? Is it going to work if Jen and I are not there to facilitate the weekly coaching calls? And a big, the reason why that was a concern is that we wanted successful outcomes for people.

And what we are absolutely thrilled to say is that now I think it's been about six months whereas we've had 125 people come through the live we've had over 500 people come through the self-study with absolutely remarkable, like heart leaping warming results. Jen and I will exchange messages with one each other when when like someone, one of our self-study will share a wonderful thing like the fact that they were able to make a birthday cake and have a birthday party with their young daughter or son for the first time in three years.

And Will, will share this with one another and not only be elated, but we'll be like, I just, it's so awesome that this is all working so well without us. That was a big learning for us and it's a testament to. what individuals are capable of when they really want to heal, when they're supported by that wonderful community of self healers.

And of course, our program clearly is very helpful. So I really do think that the two levels of programming comes down to learning style. I'm the kind of person that likes direct engagement from my teachers. I'm going to pay the premium to do that cuz it's how I wanna learn. It's how I'm the most motivated, it's how I'm the most accountable.

There are other people like my dad who can literally just pull the book off the shelf, teach it to him, teach it to himself, and he's good to go. And that's how I consider the differences between the two program. . 

[00:58:24] chazmith: Okay. That makes so much sense. Thank you so much for clarifying that.

While you guys don't personally offer a online community for the people who opt into the self-study, there have been some communities that are unofficial, but that are, have been built to support each other, correct.  

Okay. I love when my listeners have something tangible that they can walk away with from an episode.

I know that there's always going to be people out there who are not in a financial position to join programs or get a coach, so I would love if either of you could share maybe any tips or tricks or best practices that you've witnessed time and again, that you could convey to somebody out there listening that they could put into practice immediately that might yield them some results or get the ball rolling for them on their journey.

[00:59:19] Karden: I'll try to give something right now as like a tip that they can put into action, but if you're happy with me directing those of free resources, I have a bunch of somatic exercises and other things that could be helpful there. I have two ideas. One is to start, to start paying attention to the conversation you're having in your head.

You now I will talk about how if you had a speaker on your skull and people got to hear outside of your skull what you were talking about in your head or how you were talking to yourself, that most of the time that conversation would be, people would be like, oh my God, what a negative conversation and talk about shifting that and in, that's one idea.

The other one is to think psychologically instead of structurally. Those are always two of my favorites to give out as just. High level. 

[01:00:01] Jen: Yeah. I think also when you don't have the resources to pay for a program, there are some books that really can change someone's life and you can get them secondhand or Amazon or audiobook for a lot less, for a couple of dollars or something.

And they can really open your eyes to what this work is. And you and a lot of these books have these practices that you can do as well, that can really help shift your perspective. I think when you change the way that you understand what's happening within you, then you're, you are looking at a different experience.

chazmith: Yeah. Absolutely. What top three books would you recommend? 

Jen: So I really like in terms of the vagus nerve and practical exercises like the salamander, the half salamander, all these like eye exercises that really helped me with pots within, that I always give to my clients and that we share in our program as well is The Great Pain Deception by Steve Ozanich. That's a really good book. And it's it's a rewrite, a little bit of Healing Back Pain from John Sarno. But it's al there's also a so much info about the polyvagal theory and many different kinds of illnesses like from chronic fatigue to autoimmune disease to chronic pain.

And so really if like you feel included in the whole conversation, whether it's chronic migraine or allergies, so to say. And that really helps open your eyes. And then in terms of trauma, there's a few, but I really love When The Body Says No,  I really love The Body Keeps The Score. 

And if anyone is interesting in somatic experiencing Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma is a great it's a great way to understand how to begin to, understand how you might wanna do that work on yourself. And then I really also love in terms of like emotional work, inner child work looking at your wounds from the past.

It's a really popular book, so most people probably know it already, but How to do the Work by Nicole Lepera. It is a really good book. It has so many actionable steps. And you might be wondering like, but how does my attachment style with my mom relate to my chronic fatigue or My chronic lower back pain.

It does. So doing that kind of work, the emotional work, the attachment, healing those core wounds is really life changing. I know you said top three books, I could keep going for another like 20 minutes with books that I find it really helpful, but essentially also inner child work. Anything around either the internal family systems model or I studied the neurolinguistic programming model (NLP) of parts work.

So that's where My background would be, but any book around that is also gonna be super helpful. Like when you understand that anxiety is not just your brain having, a glitch and just you always having this experience in your body and that anxiety is actually a part of you that's trying to keep you safe, that anxiety is in your life as a coping mechanism.

It's trying to help you. And when you can experience that, it really changes the response in your body. The fear, the alarm goes down and so the interceptive message going back up to the brain is so different. And so our mind doesn't have to make this meaning anymore of what is this uncomfortable feeling in my body that I don't understand.

It's oh, I'm beginning to understand what this might be. and so I don't have to I don't have to make meaning in this really frantic way when we experience anxiety, et cetera, et cetera. . 

[01:04:05] chazmith: I love that. Thank you so much. These are great. These are great. This is great resources. I really appreciate it.

Yeah. I have one more question for you guys. I could ask like a ton more questions, but out of respect for time here, I'm gonna ask my final question that I ask everybody. . And that question is, if you were told that you could only share one message with the world for the rest of your life, what would you want your parting message to be?

[01:04:28] Jen: Okay. So I'm sure Karden has something really elaborate, thought out in five different steps. So I'll let you work out your steps, Karden, while I think the biggest thing for me was understanding that I know you said this earlier, but that's actually one of my biggest messages that we have everything within us already because so many ti I share this so much, with my clients, even in moments where they have doubt about their journey and just going back to, you have everything you need inside you, we just need to pick out those resources and you've got it.

It's all there. I think it's so empowering and it was. Such a huge important message for my personal healing journey to really grasp that concept like, wow, I have everything I need inside me. And I can heal. And yeah, I think that's what it would be. Awesome. Thank you. 

[01:05:24] Karden: Contrary to Jen's assumptions that I know exactly what I wanna say, that's a tall order.

I think what I wanna leave with is we'll often say in this work, whose mind is it? Whose brain is it? Whose nervous system is it? Whose body is it? We usually think of ourselves as these structural, functional, basically like people think of themselves, they don't actually say this, but the way they look at themselves is as the tin man.

They think of themselves as the Tin Man, that there's some like 19th century steam punk. Weird mechanical thing and that they have mechanical problems. That is sometimes the case. It is sometimes the case, especially when you've been hit by a bus or shot or fallen down steps or even in the case where you have an infection.

But the vast majority of the time you are not just some steampunk tin man mechanism. You are the most advanced biological conscious computer android thing ever invented by nature or God, whatever you believe and what informs your health and what your physiology is doing more than anything else is the quality of the information and experience that android consciousness, biological computer AI on two legs is.

consciously and unconsciously thinking and experiencing. And so the reason why such remarkable work happens when you start engaging with your nervous system, but most importantly, the content of the information, cuz that's really what dysregulation is. Dysregulation is the nervous system and the physiology responding to its perception of information internally and externally that's either making this remarkable human being that you are work well or not well.

Trauma is damaged at an early age or later in life to the fundamental ability of your brain to interpret information and how to respond to it. And when you start thinking about all of your health and wellness, plus the way your life is going from that perspective. From the quality of information, the ghost inside the machine rather than the nuts and bolts, your entire fucking life will change and you'll be capable of amazing things.

[01:07:57] chazmith: Love it. Thank you. Thank you guys both for being here and be willing to share a little bit of your own personal stories and share with everyone about your program, the Chronic Fatigue School, which I will say just because I know we actually didn't get into this, but for everyone who's listening, you do not need to have chronic fatigue to benefit from chronic fatigue school.

It is for a wide variety of illness and pain, right?

[01:08:23] Karden: Correct. Thank you. Chazmith. Absolutely correct.

[01:08:25] chazmith: I just wanted people to be clear about that. Cuz when I first heard the name, I thought it was only for chronic fatigue, but it is absolutely not. If you were listening to this, it means that you probably have something going on within your body, otherwise you would not be listening to my podcast.

And so it's probably for you. Yeah. With that said, I just wanna say, yeah, thank you guys. You're awesome. I think you're both super wise. I feel like between the two of you, you are so well-versed in every capacity of the mind, body and healing and I'm really excited about what you guys are doing and what you've put together to offer the community.

And I just, I really look forward to the future and seeing what transpires from this collaboration that you guys have created. 

Jen: Thank you so much. It was so special to be on your podcast. We're a fan. Thank you. Yeah. 

[01:09:13] Karden: Chazmith, thank you. This was delightful. And we really appreciate you being one of the voices in the space to yeah, help people find their power within.  

[01:09:22] chazmith: that is a wrap.

My hope for today and every day is that after you listen to an episode from our powers Within You walk away, more inspired, more hopeful, and more prepared for your healing, please remember to help me spread the message by clicking subscribe, by liking the podcast, by leaving a review and share, share it with a friend, share it with a family member, and share it on your social media.

All right, so I want you to do something today for yourself. For you. I want you to do one thing that brings you joy. One thing. That's it. That's my only challenge to you. Not tomorrow. Not the next day, not even all week. I hope you do bring yourself joy all week long, but. If you could just start with today, say right now, think to yourself, what could I do that makes me feel a lot of joy?

And listen, there's always something we can do. Whether or not you are outliving your life normal, whether or not you're at work, whether or not you're bed bound in some capacity, there's a way to express and experience joy. Maybe smile, but you could lay in bed and visualize doing that thing and still get those feel good emotions  rising up to the surface.

Just play with it. Imagine, figure it out. Be with it. Ask yourself what could bring me joy today? And then I hope you do it. 

And as always, until next time, make this week great.