Transformative Healing: Unveiling the Power of Somatic Experiencing with Brian D. Mahan | Ep. 046

In this transformative episode of MindHack, we have the privilege of diving deep into the world of healing and personal transformation with the exceptional guest, Brian D. Mahan, SEP. A highly skilled professional specializing in stress physiology and trauma renegotiation, Brian brings a unique perspective to the table, going beyond the confines of self-help books and talk therapy. With a focus on resolving fixated physiological states associated with trauma responses, he empowers individuals through Somatic Experiencing , a body-based approach that delves into the true nature of shock traumas and the trauma of shame. Join us as we explore Brian's profound insights from his book "I Cried All the Way to Happy Hour," where he provides a roadmap to profound healing and personal growth. Discover the transformative potential of Somatic Experiencing and practical tools that you can implement immediately to navigate your own healing journey. Get ready for an eye-opening discussion that will inspire you to embrace lasting healing and rediscover a fuller sense of self.

More on Brian D. Mahan
Website
Instagram
YouTube Channel
Facebook Page
I Cried All The Way To Happy Hour: What To Do When Self-Help Or Talk Therapy Haven’t Really Helped - Your Roadmap To Profound Healing And Personal Transformation

Books and other interesting mentions:
Focusing by Eugene T. Gendlin
Letting Go by David Hawkins
Somatic Experiencing International
Somatic Experiencing | Wiki
Dr. Peter Levine

Transcript

Brian Mahan: 0:00

Yes. A single, the flame of a single match can light up. The darkest warehouse, right? But what happens when that match goes out? That darkness is still

Cody: 0:13

hmm. Welcome back to Mind Hack. Today we have an exceptional guest joining us, Brian d Mahan, a somatic experiencing practitioner and author of the book, I cried all the Way to Happy Hour with his expertise in stress, physiology and trauma renegotiation. Brian has become a highly respected professional in personal transformation. His dedication to helping individuals overcome struggles and find profound healing sets him apart. Through his specialization in somatic experiencing therapy, Brian empowers others to address the root causes of their anxieties and break free from limiting patterns. His book serves as a transformative roadmap, guiding readers to understand trauma and shame while providing practical tools for immediate implementation. Brian's compassionate approach and unwavering dedication have led to life-changing experiences for his clients. Having faced my own share of hardships, including early childhood trauma, the loss of both my parents and numerous challenges throughout my youth as described in my book From Foster Care to Millionaire, I've learned a thing or two about overcoming adversity. If you're someone who's been through a tough event that's still bothering you. And if you've tried to talk it out or explore other options without success, then this conversation is for you. So without further ado, please welcome Brian Mahan. your, your book touched me in, in many ways it was eyeopening. You know, I've, I've read the book, the Body Keeps Score Before, which sort of introduced me to this theory that we can end up having memories that our body remembers, but cognitively we don't remember them. But I never really did anything beyond that. And so, your book, it really took that idea, but then it expanded upon that with some additional information about what Somatic experiencing is. So, I understand that the impetus for writing the book was based on a traumatic event that you had in your past. Would you mind expanding on that?

Brian Mahan: 2:38

On just the one?

Cody: 2:41

Uh, yeah, of course. There's always more than one. Okay.

Brian Mahan: 2:44

No, there was certainly, um, a seminal moment, which in my book, the title of that chapter where I describe this event is called The Best Thing that Ever Happened to me. And, um, ultimately, you know, I had spent my entire life trying to heal from developmental trauma, which certainly includes shame because shame is the underpinning of all developmental trauma. And I'd had my fair share of shock traumas. and I had tried everything, every pill, potion and powder. I'd sat at the foot of every guru and prayed and meditated and I'd meditated and you knowed myself into a stupor. I'd done everything that I could. and, um, you know, there was some headway along the way. some progress, but it didn't really seem to be long lasting. and I oftentimes just kind of fell back into old patterns and ways. And then in, December 21st, 2003, I was on the 10 freeway in Los Angeles. Very busy freeway, a few nights before Christmas, very busy time of year. And, I was hit by one of two cars were racing. one of the witnesses said that she thinks that the car that hit me was red, but it was going too fast to tell for sure. So my car would end over end, rolled three times across three lanes of traffic, slid on the driver's door 150 feet and crashed into a concrete wall. And, I detail that story. Um, You know, in, in that chapter. Um, but that was really a big turning point for me because after that, sometime after that, and I really can't even tell you how long it was after the event itself because it was, you know, that, that period of time is kind of still a bit of a fog for me. but I started having panic attacks and at first I, well, you know, I didn't know that there were panic attacks while in, except into hindsight. I thought it was either going crazy or I had become possessed. And in the mania of the experience of panic attacks, after. Several, several days of, you know, flopping around on the floor like a fish on a hot rock. I convinced myself the only logical conclusion was I had become possessed. And, I sought help from, my kind of first point in health. Dr. Connie O'Reilly and, um, asked her for a referral for an exorcist. And, and instead of sending me to an exorcist, she sent me to a somatic experiencing practitioner. And in three days, or three sessions, I should say, after three sessions, my panic attack stopped. And I haven't had one in 19, almost 20 years, or 20, almost 20 years. 21 years. Um, and, uh, within two weeks of that third session at the, you know, with the, you know, the end of my panic attacks, I was just like, I need to figure out what this voodoo is. I don't know what is happening in these sessions. I can't believe the impact that they've had. And so I, looked into the trainings and there happened to be one starting, in Santa Monica. You know, I lived in Hollywood, so, uh, you know, next town over. there was a training starting in two weeks. So, I was lucky to get in and, uh, that was the beginning of, of really a massive personal transformation.

Cody: 5:59

What happened during that transformation and how did it vary from all the other modalities that you had tried in the past?

Brian Mahan: 6:08

Well, you know, one, one thing that I think you had mentioned before that I wanted to expand on a little bit is, uh, the idea of. you know, the body keeping the score. Uh, we have implicit memory and sometimes we don't have the explicit memory per se. And that's one of the things that distinguishes trauma from most other, for lack of a better term, psychological maladies. Because I don't think trauma is a psychological disorder, it's a physiological condition. but what we know is that we can become traumatized in utero while we're, you know, in our mother's stomach, right? Or, you know, in the process of of, um, our initial stages of life, uh, we can become traumatized during the birth experience and we can become traumatized before we can think, reason and speak. And so if we can become traumatized before we can think and reason, then clearly it's not necessarily a psychological disorder. Now, that's not to say that in time. As we develop speech and we develop the ability to think and reason that there might be additional psychological components to it, like, what's wrong with me? I'm damaged beyond repair. I'm not like everybody else. You know? And then we can start getting into some more kind of psychological, um, um, disorganization and dysregulation, because of our belief systems, right? so it's just important to recognize that, trauma in and of itself is in initially and predominantly physiological because what happens is, is that whenever we are facing threat of any kind, whether the threat is perceived or real, our bodies have a natural instinctual threat response. And most people understand that in the context of freeze flight and fight. And so that's a lower brain function. So we have, you know, I'm gonna oversimplify this, but you know, we have a lower brain, a middle brain, a higher brain. We have right hemisphere and left hemisphere, and you know, the ways in which that whole system communicates. And then the lower brain predominantly is our early detection warning system. And that's where the mobilization for freeze flight and fight are. Uh, you know, it's determined that we're under threat and that the nervous system needs to be activated to respond to the threat. So energy flows into our arms and legs predominantly so away from our vital organs into our arms and legs so that we have the ability to fight or flee if necessary. There's also a couple of other, defense responses that people are talking about a lot more now, and that is, fain and fawn. so fawning is when we are trying to. Um, ingratiate ourselves, uh, with our attacker. Uh, you know, so it could be as simple as a child with parent and the child has done something wrong. The parent is disciplining them, perhaps over disciplining them, and the child is, you know, vying for, for, ease and grace by saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll never do it again. Right? Or through people pleasing and an effort to keep the parent from continuing to, uh, treat them in harsh ways. And then there's fein, which we see in different animals and insects, fish, mammals. And that is to pretend that you're dead. And so the system, the nervous system can actually collapse to such a point that it appears as though we're dead. And the value of that is, is that the predator needs the prey response. So if we, we can disengage the predator by shutting the system completely down and then the predator doesn't have that, um, drive to continue, the attack or the fight.

Cody: 10:22

I'm, I'm just really curious to, if we can dive into the various survival responses from Fain and Fawn and more or less, like how do they manifest in individuals? what kinds of experiences could possibly precipitate a feign or a fa response? I.

Brian Mahan: 10:41

Well, you know, absolutely anything because threat can be perceived, right. Um, in the trauma of shame threat can simply be someone raising their eyebrow or giving us a side eyeball glance. And that is enough communication that we've messed up or we're in trouble. And so our threat response is, instinctual. And then over time it becomes habituated. So if we are in an experience like a, home environment that isn't necessarily safe, we become habituated in our defense responses because we're in a constant state of hypervigilance and trying to fly under the radar and not rock the boat. And so we may learn how to fawn, how to be a people pleaser, to try to keep, whoever is most dangerous in our. Environment that's supposed to be the safest at home. Uh, we need to keep them on our, in our good graces or we need to remain in their good graces. And so we learn how to fawn over time and, and be a people pleaser. but let's break it down, uh, kind of in priority because I think that's really key. The first and best response facing threat of any kind, threat, perceived, or real, is to freeze because we're conserving energy and when we are still and quiet, we're hiding. There's the potential or the possibility that the predator or the threat may not see us or find us or be able to locate us any longer. And so the threat may pass on its own if at some point. So that's the best response. In any situation just to be still and quiet, it gives us time to assess the situation and to figure out whether or not the threat is real or perceived. And what might be the next best step if necessary. So the next best response would be to flee, to get away that conserves energy and it also reduces risk. The final response would be to fight because that increases the likelihood of injury and is the greatest expenditure of energy. The other two, fawn and feign, you know, fawn is more of an adaptive, threat response. And Fain happens when our system is completely overwhelmed and it just collapses in response to that.

Cody: 13:22

so we, we have these various responses to trauma in our past. what is somatic experiencing and how does that play into resolving this trauma?

Brian Mahan: 13:33

Right. So what we wanna look at is, first of all, what's the difference between a stressful event and a traumatic event? in either case, what we're looking at is threat versus response. And so, when we face a threat and our nervous system, you know, our lower brain goes alert, alert, there's danger here. And ITM mobilizes the energy in the body and the nervous system to activate, to become aroused so that we can move into curling up into a tight little ball and hide or use our arms and legs to run as fast as we can away, or to use our arms and legs and our mouths and jaws to fight. If the threat passes or the event, you know, completes itself and our nervous system is able to settle. So if all that energy of arousal is or is able to organically and naturally unwind and discharge, and the system can reorganize and return to homeostasis or equilibrium or more resilience, then we consider that event stressful. If for any reason that arousal is unable to fully unwind, discharge, reorganize, and able and return to resilience or equilibrium, then we consider that event traumatic. So what we're looking at here obviously is neurobiology. So this is a, body based experience, and so in order to heal. Uh, disorganization and dysregulation in the body. We need to work with it somatically. And so many years ago, there was a research done by Dr. Eugene Lin at the University of Chicago, and for 20 years he was trying to figure out why some patients were getting better and others weren't. And he was looking at different types of therapy, Freudian, younging, gestalt, primal Scream, cognitive behavioral, et cetera. And he was also looking at, the therapists themselves, their ability to create safety and rapport and containment and apply their tools of the trade into their, and into the practical work. And what he determined after 20 years was the single most determining factor as to whether or not anybody gets better in any practice with any practitioner is based in the client's ability to feel sensations in their bodies, to then language those sensations appropriately. There's room for misinterpretation. Then once they're able to recognize these varying, various sensations and they're able to language those sensations, they attach the right emotion or affect of an emotion. So an emotion is an umbrella experience that we think of as anger and sadness and fear and vulnerability and shame. and then we have effects of those emotions like, an affect of anger would be annoyed or miffed or perturbed or disgusted, right? So these are all shades of gray of a primary emotion. So if we can feel those sensations, language them, attach the correct affect of an emotion or primary emotion, and then attach the right meaning around that emotion or the bel right belief to have regarding that emotion. So a lot of times we have beliefs that anger is bad and it doesn't serve me and it only gets me in trouble. Or when I express my anger, I get so much back that it's not in my best interest to have anger and express it. So we form all kinds of beliefs about our emotions. So Eugene Gendlin's work showed that the single most determining factor, if anybody's gonna get better at, at any time with anyone, any practice, the client has to be able to feel sensations, language them, and attach the right affect in meaning. Now that be begin. That was the beginning of the body mind connection in the therapeutic process. And then a few people, early on kind of, took this research and created techniques. That helped to, uh, and actually Eugene Jen Lin did as well. He wrote an amazing book called Focus or Focusing. and another one called The Felt Sense. and then Dr. Peter Levine, uh, originated somatic experiencing. And so somatic experiencing is a naturalistic approach to fully resolving, trauma. And the focus in somatic experiencing is the felt sense. So being able to work with the clients to help them feel the sensations in their bodies, to tolerate those sensations, to explore how to describe them, and the, the, you know, the meaning of it and the beliefs that we have around them. and in doing so, we're able to, in the therapeutic practice, help a client, uh, Get into a state of arousal that is tolerable, right? So we don't go to T zero and we don't focus a lot on the narrative. We may use the narrative, the story or the memory, just enough so that the client's nervous system starts to become expressive, right? So when you're having a memory, you have emotions connected to it, and you have feelings and sensations happening in your body. and so once the, the body kind of comes online when somebody's telling a story or, or their narrative, we drop the story a narrative and we shift the attention awareness into the body. And so, part of what I do is I help the client orient to the sensations in their bodies, to language those sensations, to slow the process down. Because what we wanna do is allow that amount of arousal that was there, that came from just that little bit of part of that story. There are arousal that's in the nervous system. the degree of that emotion. We wanna, we wanna allow that bit, that part of it to unwind and discharge or the system can reorganize and then we can go back to the story. But we have a different process in working with a story somatically as well. And that is oftentimes to take it out of order, take little bits and pieces because we don't, you know, part of the problem with traditional talk therapy and working with trauma is that it is narrative catharsis based. So the idea in traditional talk therapy is to get someone to tell their story beginning, middle, and end. And hopefully the client will, uh, identify and so deeply with the narrative or the memory that they'll have these big emotions, these cathartic experiences, and that. From a traditional talk therapy perspective, oftentimes it's kind of considered the holy grail of the therapeutic practice. they were able to connect to and feel these emotions and express them. But what can happen in retelling our narrative is we can retraumatize ourselves because the lower brain doesn't have the capacity to think and reason. And so it is perceiving it as happening again. And so oftentimes in telling our narrative, we're scratching the needle in the record even deeper. I don't know if you remember LPs and how sometimes they, they'd skip, you know, and the needle would get kind of stuck in this groove, right? And so when we retell our narrative, it's like the needle in the record gets stuck there and it digs that groove even deeper. and so, We wanna be very careful in working with traumatic experiences, not to overload the system because that can, set our old defense structures, you know, even deeper and, um, retraumatize ourselves. So, um, you know, we talk about, in a narrative, there's a T zero moment, like for my car wreck, there were two T zero moments. One when my car got hit by the other car and the other one when it hit the concrete wall. Right. So when I started working with my practitioner, we didn't, we didn't, I never told her my, the entire story. We worked a little bit at one piece at a time, and I, if I remember correctly, it was almost 20 years ago. We might have, I think, I think we even started with when did you know you were okay? When, do you recall what happened? When the help arrived? So she started working with me and the moments around the story that were the most resourceful. So I was still in the story, I was still in the experience. The charge was still there, but we put the attention and focus more on, initially more on when things, when I knew things were gonna be okay. And then we continued session after session. Taking another little bit, another little piece, but always out of order. And you know, we talk about working on the periphery of things as we move towards the T zero moment. So that way when and if we do need to go to the T zero moment, the system is more resilient. We have more tools and skills and resources, to be able to deal with that, that extreme moment. And. When we get there, oftentimes it's not as big as we had originally thought it was because we've already done so much work, um, to get the system more resilient and, the client more, settled, uh, so that we can go to those, more intense parts of the story.

Cody: 23:39

And so I know with somatic therapy, so it's about feeling into the sensations of the body and shifting your awareness to the body. And you also describe ideas of having a safe place to revert to. And that actually reminded me of EMDR therapy, which is something I've tried to do in the past where you have a finger or a line or a light moving left and right. And there is science that shows whenever you're moving your eye, your eyes laterally, it can actually help to rewire these portions of the brain. And I know even with emdr, you have a safe space to, to resort to, but I'm more curious about what is the difference with, say, EMDR and somatic experiencing? Is there any particular types of trauma or experiences that might. Allow you to be more suited towards one or the other.

Brian Mahan: 24:30

first of all, let's, talk about this idea of a safe place, because that's paramount and working with trauma of any kind. and in real estate, there's the axiom. Location, location, location, and working with trauma. The Axiom is Resource, resource, resource. And in working with trauma, we don't just go into it and hang out there and stay there. We're constantly tight, we're constantly pendulating in and out of it. So we'll, you know, go into the story and then we'll come out of the story and help the client resource, which could be something in their environment. Or looking out the window. So something outside of themselves that gives them a sense of wellbeing or safety, calm peace or pleasantness. when appropriate, we can also find those internal resources, the places in our bodies that give us a sense of pleasure or ease or calm or peace. But for many people, especially initially, the body is just a shop of horrors and there may not be places within that feel safe or give any sense of resource. So it's a constant process of kind of moving in and out of the narrative and anchoring things in the resource. And when we get that arousal in the narrative, we penate out and spend some time, redirecting the attention awareness so that that arousal. Can have time to unwind and discharge, and when the client is resourced enough, we can use that process of paying attention to the arousal and notice how it's shifting and changing. That in and of itself can be a resource, right? But if being with the sensations or the memory, is challenging, then it can be then it can be, um, more, more stimulating. And we don't necessarily want that. So that's why we'll move out to an external resource, unless the client is able to tolerate, the experience that they're having. so as far as EMDR and somatic experiencing differences, go, from what I understand, there are practitioners in e EMDR who have taken a weekend training, somatic Experiencing is a three year training. Um, me personally, I think that there's, look, there's extraordinary, um, research, evidence-based research and, anecdotal testimony to the efficacy of e mdr. Personally, I don't wanna do anything to desensitize. My concern might be that although the symptoms have become less prevalent, it doesn't necessarily mean the root cause has fully healed and been addressed. And so if we desensitized around the narrative so that we're not feeling the charge of it anymore, does that necessarily mean that we're healed? And if there's more to heal, does that make it more difficult to access what needs to be accessed? Because the sentient experience has been desensitized.

Cody: 28:06

Hm. Hmm.

Brian Mahan: 28:07

I'm gonna take full responsibility. This is my own perception. I have no scientific researcher basis other than anecdotal from my own personal experience and from what I have heard from, clients who have come to me after emdr. Um, you know, and that comes from clients who have come to me after EMDR and said, wow, it was so amazing. It helped me so much, but I just got to a point where it just couldn't seem to. Go any further. And I've had some clients that have come to me and said, I tried e EMDR and I seem to make things worse. Um, you know, and a lot of that can also be, uh, you know, I hate to say it, but practitioner related, right? Because there are EMDR specialists who have done massive amounts of training and have, you know, many hours under their belt of, application. Uh, so, you know, there's a lot of variables, um, in there as to, as to the efficacy of anything, right? You could go to a somatic experiencing practitioner who, uh, May only use it periodically and in a very limited way because their main, modality is, uh, to work, narrative catharsis or in a more traditional talk therapy approach. Right. I'm a sematic experiencing purist in a sense. I'm not a licensed therapist. I use the technique as purely as I can. that's not to say that I haven't done, extensive, trainings in other areas as well. that certainly influence all of that. But, uh, I try as much as I can, to keep the client in the somatic realm. but we also have to recognize that the, uh, Client shows up with their own defenses that have been habituated over their entire lives. They have their own belief systems that have been, um, formed and, and held fervently their entire lives. Uh, uh, you know, you do, you do what you can. And if somebody's, you know, very, very, very intellectual, then that needs to be part of the process because their intellect is one of their resources. And so that might include a lot of psychological education and physiological education and education about neurobiology and neuroplasticity and things like that so that their higher brain fully grasps and understands what we're doing and will get out of the way and let us do the work.

Cody: 30:47

Earlier you mentioned this, I idea of having a cathartic experience with a somatic experiencing session is, uh, can you describe what is a typical somatic therapy session with one of your clients, and does it require this level of intensity of emotions in order for it to say, be done correctly or, or to help the client?

Brian Mahan: 31:10

in general with a sematic approach, we are trying to avoid a cathartic experience,

Cody: 31:17

Hmm.

Brian Mahan: 31:18

right? That's why we work on the periphery. We do little bit, little bit and piece at a time. We want just a little bit of charge in the system, a little bit of re reaction and response, and then we drop the narrative and we work with the level of arousal that is in the system. so we're trying to avoid big, cathartic, emotional moments. It's not to say that they don't happen. Now when they happen, we have to work with that in a bit of a different way because we want to be able to expand the banks of toleration that the client may have around having that emotion. And it can feel amazing to have a cathartic experience. Not to mention the fact that, at, in that moment our systems are flooded with our internal pharmacology, so we're getting endorphins and adrenaline and serotonin and you know, all these, all these chemicals. And so after a cathartic experience we can kind of feel a bit high from it and just, you know, like, wow, that was amazing. And I finally was able to, you know, feel my anger and express it. And, that feels so empowering. Um, so it's not to say that it is without value, but if it is simply feeling emotion and expressing it without. Allowing the system, the focus and attention to process the emotion and to truly be in it and with it, and feel it and break it down into its various sensations and, and pendulate in and out of it. Then it might just be, blowing steam out of the pressure cooker and then the valve closes again, and eventually the steam builds up again.

Cody: 33:06

Hmm.

Brian Mahan: 33:06

And so, you know, so I wanted to, I wanted to, to address that. So, um, in a typical somatic experiencing session, what, what makes it, well, what, what, what defines it more clearly and separates it most from traditional talk therapy is that it's not cogni, cognitively based, story based and catharsis based. Um, So in, in somatic experiencing, we always wanna start with resources. So like when I start a typical session, I often ask, what, if anything, do you remember about our last session? And how, if at all, has it played out over time? What I'm doing is I'm orienting the mind and the client, their intellect to recall the shifts and changes, that they experienced during the session, and then encouraging them session after session after session to keep in mind between sessions, tracking the shifts and changes in growth and evolution that they might be experiencing. So that in and of itself is resourcing. If I'm working with a first time client, I need to get a sense of what is resourcing to them, in traditional. You know, I teach a lot and I have assisted, two of the faculty members of the Somatic Experiencing Training Institute a few times. And, um, so I've taken the training many times. I've sat in rooms full of 40 and 50 and 60 PhD, uh, therapists of various stripes and, you know, 20, 30, 40 year long career veterans and all of that. And, um, you know, you can, see, uh, how difficult it can be for them initially to incorporate these ideas into their work because it is, So counter to what their experiences have been, and then in the dyad work, oftentimes they're having these huge experiences themselves because they're, we're working on our own stuff. And they're like, I thought I've dealt with all of this. I've, you know, 20 years I was in therapy and I did this and that, and I can't believe this is still here. And you know, the idea is, well, you, you may have talked about it and you may have reframed it, you may have, had some cathar cathartic experiences around it. But if there's still a charge here, there's still a charge here. It's still in the system. and so we need to work with it and a different way there.

Cody: 35:47

I actually have a, separate question, which is, so so we often have trauma that occurs in our past, some of which we can acutely remember, others of which say it's a, it's a trauma based on life circumstances that occurs over a decade. And so it's not just one specific event and say we have a bad habit, whether we're smoking, uh, Whether we're a, a workaholic, you know, I'm sure you've seen a lot of other various ways that clients actually use to distract themselves from the trauma. But often, I mean, is is every workaholic based in a traumatic experience or is there alternative, uh, I guess perspectives, uh, that could be causing this maladaptive behavior?

Brian Mahan: 36:35

Well, you know, I would, I would have to say I don't know whether or not workaholism is necessarily trauma based or a bad thing. There are some people I'd love my work. Right. I, I, um, you know, during covid, during lockdown, there was so much demand. There were so many people that were struggling that I started seeing 50 clients a week. Five zero. A normal practice is 12 to 14. I love my work. At the end of the day, I feel better the more clients I have because of the way that I work. when I'm not seeing clients, there's still so much work that I'm doing. Like for five years I've writing my book. So that was on top of seeing 50 clients a week. then there's shooting videos and social media and all of that. I love my work, and it's not, I, I don't think it's maladaptive.

Cody: 37:41

Hmm.

Brian Mahan: 37:42

I haven't always been a workaholic and I, you know, again, I wouldn't use the word, I wouldn't, I haven't always been so passionate about helping people. Even though prior to working as a somatic experiencing practitioner, I was a massage therapist. I was still in the healing realm, but I wasn't seeing 50 clients a week, and I wasn't driven to do it. And I had my limitations, you know, now just for whatever it's worth, I've gotten it down to 24. So I only have a double practice instead of a quadruple practice. but I'm still highly passionate and spend a great deal of my non face-to-face time with clients moving the agenda forward of my aspiration to help a million people. So it doesn't necessarily mean it's maladaptive, but I think what you're talking about is self-regulation, distraction, disconnection, which are defense responses. So I feel something I don't want to feel, so I, right. So in the book I talk about spiritual bypass, cognitive bypass and behavioral bypass. So workaholism might be behavioral bypass. It's a way of avoiding feeling what you're, what, what you're, what, you need to feel, um, a way of distracting yourself and gi and also having the sense of accomplishment and feeling like, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're powerful and moving mountains and, and making great strides, but then there may not be any balance in your life. Your relationships may suffer, your physical health may suffer, et cetera. So when it's out of kilter, when it is a way of avoidance, Of other areas of your life, then I think it's maladaptive. And can that come from your innate fingerprint of defense structures? Absolutely. So, for instance, when we look at developmental trauma, there are four main, what we call attachment styles. And one of them disorganized attachment comes from being in an environment growing up where our primary caretakers are also the source of our fear and pain. And as a child in a dangerous or hostile environment, we have to learn human behavior because we need to assess every nuance of a facial expression or body language, because sometimes we know that it's just a, a hair trigger and mom's gone off or dad's gonna hit the roof or whatever that is. And so we're having to really kind of assess. Um, the environment. and, you know, that could also be siblings. That doesn't, you know, we're not gonna blame, we're not, not gonna, you know, turn everything into blaming our parents. but, you know, we can be in these hostile environments and in disorganized attachment as adults, they have a tendency to be highly productive. They have a tendency to be very successful because they have learned at a very early age that they need to catastrophize the future, which means they have to anticipate everything that could go wrong so that they can have three or four contingency plans in place. And so apply that to business, and you've got a successful entrepreneur.

Cody: 40:59

you just, you literally just described me.

Brian Mahan: 41:03

Well, um, so, and you know, and you're not alone in that, right? Because I described you right. So that you know, you're, you're not, you're not a unicorn. Right. This is something that many, many, many, many people, um, you know, come from environments like this. but there are these, ways in which they have a tendency to present. Another thing about the disorganized attached adult is that they're constantly seeking clarity. So they have a tendency to be highly educated or highly street smart, or highly book smart, because they're always looking for the answers. They're trying to figure everything out. They also have a tendency to sit in the driveway waiting for all the lights to turn green before they back out and head on at the direction they need to go. So, it has, it's, it's a double-edged sword. and you know, there has been some research too that has, um, shown a, uh, a correlation between disorganized attachment and A D H D. because again, when we're looking at a lot of, Syndromes or diagnoses. What that is in western medicine is symptomatology. And so when a large enough group of people, display similar behaviors, then they name it and claim it and give it a, give them a diagnosis, right? but what I'm really curious about is if we stop looking at the symptoms and we dig deeper to find the root causes and we're able to put our attention and awareness there and have truly, healing experiences, then the symptoms fall away and the beliefs that we formed. As a result of these traumatic experiences, and you had mentioned something a a minute ago about something, you know, little things that happened over a long period of time is what I call death by a thousand paper cuts, which is, you know, kind of the, a great encapsulation of what shame is because it's just these, constant drip dripping out of these messages that we got, that there's something wrong with us. Right. Um, so, you know, we don't even have to know we're being traumatized. Right. It, we don't even realize sometimes it's so subtle because it is just this chipping away at the foundation of our, of ourselves. So when we have wounding experiences, whether they are big, massive experiences or tiny little microaggressions of death by a thousand paper cuts. As a result of that, we form beliefs. We formed beliefs about ourselves, we formed beliefs about others, the world at large, the location, the environment, the behaviors that were going on at the time. And those beliefs are self-perpetuating and they're seeking validation. And so beliefs drive behaviors, and so when beliefs are driving our behaviors, they become habitations. And when our beliefs are driving our behaviors that are habituated, it becomes our personality, it becomes our worldview. It becomes the ways that the, the habits and behaviors that we carry out on the regular. So if we can get out of the symptom chasing mode and heal the wounds, then we're actually also calling into question the validity of all of these old limiting beliefs. And if we can have reparative and corrective experiences in our present day, whether that's in the therapeutic. Relational field and the process of working with someone, or we have reparative and corrective experiences in our day-to-day lives where we have relationships with people that are kind and loving and supportive and, and magnanimous and generous and, and all of that. Then it can start calling into question the beliefs that we might have, um, that have been so long held and so habituated that people are scary and dangerous. So when we have enough reparative experiences in our present day, we have enough reparative experiences around our original wounds. All of that's calling into question. Those beliefs, those beliefs begin to fall away with those beliefs. Also, the behaviors fall away. The symptoms fall away, and I think that that's the, you know, the, the biggest problem for healing and. Our contemporary, um, time right now is that so much attention is placed on symptoms and the abolishment of symptoms, which, you know, and I know that pe people who who hear me that practice the mbr are gonna get mad that I say this. But, you know, if, if we're, if we're desensitizing the symptoms, does that mean that we're gonna lose access or, um, ignore what might still be rumbling under the surface that hasn't really been fully addressed? And so, you know, I, as much as I, I, I can, I wanna focus on the root causes and ultimately what, you know, in hindsight, over 20 years of doing this, what I've really kind of discovered is what I'm ultimately doing is helping people change their beliefs. I mean, yes, we're healing their trauma, but what really matters is that their beliefs are changing because nothing changes until our beliefs do. And we can't change our beliefs through mental gymnastics. We can't have recognize, oh, I've got this negative belief. I am ugly. Right? And then every time I look in the mirror, I'm gonna look in my, look at my eyes and say, I'm beautiful. That may have some impact over time, but something's gonna happen along the way That's gonna trigger that wounded part of you that came to believe early on that you were ugly because of whatever feedback and response you were getting from the outside world. And that belief is still there and it's gonna win.

Cody: 47:17

then the trauma supports that, that idea as well in the respect that when we tell ourselves something that we subconsciously don't believe it, it pushes that away and it just, it absolutely deflects saying, I feel great today. I feel happy. I look fantastic. You can't look fantastic if you really don't believe it.

Brian Mahan: 47:39

Right. and what happens too is what, you know, there's a, there's a, a new thought movement or perspective that when you have a negative thought, you just change it to a positive thought. Well, what does that do? That means that you now have internal conflict because you're holding two opposing thoughts. And yes, there is something to be said about the high, higher vibrational quality of positivity over negativity. Yes. A single, the flame of a single match can light up. The darkest warehouse, right? But what happens when that match goes out? That darkness is still

Cody: 48:22

hmm. Yeah.

Brian Mahan: 48:25

right? So we need to figure out how to open the windows and doors so the light can get in and fill the space so those negative thoughts don't, aren't, aren't as prevalent. But here's another thing about negative thoughts and negative beliefs. They're here to serve us. They have purpose, they have function. If we know how to meet them and greet them and work with them, we have two different kinds of thoughts. We have intrusive thoughts, and we have the ability to think. No one knows where intrusive thoughts come from. They just happen. Are they just happening? Or are they happening for us? Most people think they're happening to us, right? I have this negative thought. It's, you know, it's happening to me. I can't get out of this negative thought. It just keeps coming back. Well, maybe there's a power greater than us. Maybe there's a force. Maybe there's a, uh, something happening within, the construct of our mind. And I'm not talking our brain, but our mind. Our mind. The combination of our thoughts, our beliefs, our behaviors, our words, and our feelings, right? Our whole sense of self. Maybe there's something in there that is bringing these thoughts in over and over and over. Why? Because they need to be paid attention to what would happen if instead of just trying to change our negative thoughts into a positive thought. Creating cognitive dissonance. This internal dissonance, because we have two opposing thoughts. What would happen if this negative thought comes in and we catch it? And from the, from the place of observation, we go, wow, this thought keeps coming in. And when this thought keeps coming in, what it happens inside of me. What does it bring up inside of me? What are the feelings and emotions and, and perhaps memories, right? Because if we're, if we're willing to really be with the thought and let the thought take residency for some time, notice what starts to happen in your body. What sensations, what feelings, what emotions start to meet and match that thought. Let's lean in and get curious about what's coming up, feel what's happening. Notice. Is there anything old and familiar about the way that I'm feeling right now? And when you ask yourself that nine times out of 10, if you give it enough time, memories are gonna start to bubble up. And oftentimes these are the memories of the original wounding experiences, and now we have something to work with. So these negative, intrusive thoughts may be trying to be the sentinels to take us to where we need to go so that we can truly profoundly heal. So there isn't the need for that negative thought to keep screaming at us. Hey, pay attention. Pay attention. How about this? Can you feel this? Can we deal with this now? So there is a way to work with them and there's a, you know, and so I often say to my clients, even, you know, beyond just negative thoughts, but you know, they can be talking about experiences that they're having in their lives. and I ask, what would be different if you could think about what's happening right now that's happening for you and not to you?

Cody: 51:53

Right, because so often the, the negative beliefs and thoughts that we have, they're there for a reason. It's, it's our body's mechanism of, of applying pain to us, and pain is always an indicator of a problem. And so having that curious perspective I think allows us to be open to not only what is this feeling and emotion trying to tell me, but then it can allow us to put it to bed, say, thank you for being here. Often, what you reminded me of is a book called Letting Go by David Hawkins, who really describes a very similar idea in that we should be curious about our emotions or recognize them, accept them, invite them in, and then as a function of doing that, we can then let them go.

Brian Mahan: 52:40

yes. I'm always encouraging my clients to not try and to not do. But to get curious and willing and allow and see what if anything might happen. So when we move in the direction of, I want to let this go, we're already in the mindset of there's something wrong and we're already in the mindset of, I need to do something and I need to let this go. My curiosity is what if we were able to be with what is our thoughts and feelings and emotions and behaviors in a curious way, in a way that encourages the system to do what the system knows it needs to do. I don't have to let it go. It will let go. So I'm a bit more curious about having the organic experience of something occurring in a natural way than me trying to affect the neurobiology or the change or the, shift in the belief, et cetera. So I think that that can, ultimately is more powerful and more long lasting. sometimes a client will have an experience in a session and they wanna have that experience again.

Cody: 54:23

Hmm.

Brian Mahan: 54:24

And I often explain to them that if we're in the mindset of trying. To create the same experience, then we're not in the organic place where there might be a different experience that would be even better. So just like sometimes I'll have a client that says, you know, I'm at, I'm at, I'm at D, I'm at D and I need to get to Q. I just wanna get to Q. And I'm like, okay, well we could certainly try to get you in a straight line trajectory from D to Q, but what if you end up at L and it's better than Q or what if you're at Y and it's even better than Q. So let's get out of the way. And let and work with the system, the way the system works, and see where it will take us, because oftentimes that's much more profound and transformative.

Cody: 55:37

love that, uh, because I've, I, I know at least when it comes to, to psychedelic therapy, the intention is that you have to let the experience happen and have no judgements or. Or ideas of where you want to go. You have to just be open to the experience. And I feel like what you're saying here is, is much the same way in that our desire to control a specific outcome is very much similar to our desire to control our emotions and to resolve the emotions, and that's part of the problem. Rather, we need to be open to the experience wherever that takes us and leave the judgment and desires. Kind of aside is that correct what I'm hearing, hearing

Brian Mahan: 56:24

it's really difficult to push water, right? Um, but it's really easy to go with the flow, right? When we surrender and we lift our feet off the ground, when we let the water take us where it needs to take us, it's a hell of a better journey than fighting it, right? I think I can think of one time, I used to live on Maui many, many years ago, and there was a beach called Little Beach and it was, you know, great body surfing location. And, um, there was one time I was body surfing and this wave came along and it just slammed my body on the ocean floor and pushed me for yards, you know, just eating sand the whole way. Right. And I was fighting it and I, you know, I was like trying so hard to get off the bottom of the, you know, the ocean floor and get to the surface. And, and the wave was just too powerful. It was too strong. I, you know, I was humbled, you know, by this experience. Funny thing is, is that when I finally got spat out under, you know, close to shore, I stood up and I looked like Carrie at the prom. I had just, you know, blood coming all the way down my body and everyone started running away from me rather than coming to help because it was like, you know, you know, they thought maybe I had been attacked by a shark and they didn't wanna, they didn't wanna experience the same thing. Um, but yeah, you know, um, there healing. You said something a minute ago about pain, you know, that. And that, you know, it, it's true. We don't heal in our comfort zone. Healing occurs outside of our comfort zone. That means we're gonna be uncomfortable. I say in my book, you don't heal co cozied up on the couch with a cup of chamomile. And if we're uncomfortable, then we know we're kind of in the right place. And it's on the other side of the discomfort where, peace and ease and joyfulness, uh, you know, exists. But it doesn't, we can't get there through purely blissful experiences. But healing doesn't necessarily have to be painful. It doesn't have to be arduous. I wrote a book on trauma that I hope, I don't know if, if it happened with you, but, you know, I've had many people say that they laughed out loud. Reading this book right there, I infuse intentionally a lot of humor into a book on trauma because hu you know, um, humor and laughter is healing. And even in my sessions when I'm working with clients through oftentimes unimaginable and horrific experiences, it doesn't mean that there isn't time and space for levity and humor and grace. know, it doesn't have to be painful and arduous. Right. Uncomfortable, but not

Cody: 59:45

Hmm.

Brian Mahan: 59:45

painful. And that's also part of, you know, one of the principles of somatic experiencing is called titration. Tiny little bit, one little bit at a time, right? So we don't have to fall down into the rabbit hole, into the deepest, darkest casse and, and, and, you know, wallow around in the horrible. Memories and intensity of everything, right? We can touch the edge and the surface and come out, we can touch the edge and the surface of it and come back out, you know, so that we can manage and we can learn how to expand our banks of toleration. Because oftentimes by the time, um, you know, someone is seeking help, their banks of toleration have collapsed, which means, you know, we, you know, if our nervous system like Peter Levine, um, talks about, you know, our nervous systems being like a, a, a river, and so the water flowing through the river is contained by the banks, right? We can also look at the water in the river as being our emotion and our emotions are contained by the river banks. And so through a history of. You know, many death by a thousand paper cut experiences and shock traumas and that kind of thing. We've learned to shut down and manage and disconnect and distract and compartmentalize so that our banks of toleration have become quite limited and compressed, and we're living this tiny little emotional life. And so in working with trauma, we want to be able to learn how to lean in, get into that discomfort, tolerate it, and feel it, come out of it and go back into it. So that way in time we're expanding these banks of toleration. Because I don't know about you. I wanna have a massively expressive emotional life. I want my highs to be so high, and I know that if in order for my highs to be really high, I'm gonna have to have some really low lows. Because we live in a polarized universe. We have to, you know, we live in this polarity. We have to understand one thing to understand the other. And so the idea of this, the subjective that many healing modalities are, selling you in your email that, you know, do this and you are gonna be in bliss and peace and calm and relaxation and ease and grace and abundance for the rest of your life. After a while, if that's all there is, then there are no highs from there. You know, there's, you know, that in and of itself, it's like, you know, if you absolutely love your, you know, you know your, your tuna fish sandwich that you get at the, you know, your favorite deli in town and you just love that sandwich. Well imagine eating that three times a week every day for six months. It's not gonna be such a great sandwich anymore. We wanna be alive. Expressive?

Cody: 1:02:50

so the important part is to be comfortable with say, the low low, and, and that, that actually reminds me actually of SSRIs where they, it's, it's pretty common that if you're on an ssri, that you don't have that low low, but you also don't have that high, high. And so in some ways is somatic experiencing a, trying to allow you to either be comfortable with or having experienced, say, a low, low.

Brian Mahan: 1:03:22

Well, yes. It's be, it's learning how to become more, um, How to embrace more, uh, whatever, emotion or feeling or experience that we're going through. Right. I'll say to clients all the time, it's not about the details and circumstances of your life, it's about who you are and how you show up in them. Right? So I'll give you an example. I've been doing this work for a little over 20 years. You would think after 20 years that, you know, I would have no trauma and pain and struggling strife in my life, right? I went through a really rough spot. Okay. I moved to Mexico in a relationship with somebody from Mexico. Um, we had a group, you know, we had our first year here and then I was, we were in a house where I had a lease option to buy it. And a three months after being in, I was sent an email by the owner saying, you need to be out in three weeks. So I lose this house that I was, you know, it worked out fine, but you know, at the time, very, I mean, the woman and her son's stormed the house, slept in my guest suite for three nights, like refused to leave. The police were there six times. It was a crazy experience. Then I had three weeks to find a new place to live. Pack, unpack. Three days later, after unpacking, my partner left. Three days later, my brother died. Two months later, I almost died. Two months later, my best friend at 40 years old died. So I went through this six month period of just one thing after the next, right? And my friends were like, Brian, how are you doing? How could, well, you know, so much has been going on. And I'm like, I'm glad I'm a stressing trauma specialist. I've got tools and skills and game, but it ain't easy. And I'm in it, and I'm staying in it, and I'm gonna feel all of this. Right? And then the relationship, you know, it, it was like six months I took to process the loss of that relationship. My friends were like, good god, Brian, give it up, block, delete, move on. And I was like, no, I wanna feel this. I want to go through all of this. I want to heal my part. What, what is, what do I have? You know, what, what's my responsibility? What's my ownership? And the relational dynamic stuff that happened. I wanna heal this cuz I don't wanna go through, I don't wanna end up in the next relationship with the same dynamics going on. So I had to become willing to be in the pain, in the heartache, in the discomfort, in the betrayal, in the loss of trust and all of that. And take my time with it six or seven months.

Cody: 1:06:31

Hmm,

Brian Mahan: 1:06:32

And I practiced the tools and I leaned in and I felt it. And I allowed myself to have emotion and I'm so glad that I didn't listen to my friends and I took the time that I needed to take.

Cody: 1:06:47

So often I think there are high performing athletes, business people, even successful authors that. Really dive into their field or become really good at what they do as a function of an unresolved trauma. Uh, I mean, you, you have Elon Musk who is interviewed, and one thing that that's forever in my mind is when somebody asked, that must be great to be you. And he's like, oh, no, you, you don't want to be me. and in some ways you can tell that, that his, his desire for success is, is rooted in a trauma. And I think that it occurs to so many people around the world that it doesn't matter how successful you are, there's a, a possibility that your ambition and motivation and drive comes from some kind of traumatic event in your past.

Brian Mahan: 1:07:37

Absolutely. In fact, there is a correlation between thrill seekers and high performance, whether that's in sports or business or whatever. Um, you know, with a traumatic history, absolutely.

Cody: 1:07:53

So the idea with somatic experiencing is that if, you can't change your past, but you can change your relationship to it. And

Brian Mahan: 1:08:03

Beautifully said. Where did I, I I think I read that in a book somewhere.

Cody: 1:08:07

Yeah, I, I, I definitely did on page 1 68,

Brian Mahan: 1:08:13

Yeah, So, um, you know, I say in the book, our reality is our past, the present moment is not our reality in the sense that in the present moment, very few people are a hundred percent present. So in the present moment, there's part of us that's, you know, dealing with our past. There's part of us that's projected into the future. We're so hyper-focused on one thing that we're not even aware of our environment. And so our reality is kind of skewed. But when something happens, The moment it hits the rear view mirror, like as soon as I finish the sentence that I'm speaking right now, period, now that's part of my past. It exists, it's real. And it can't be changed. I can't take it back. I can apologize about it. I can reword it. I can, you know, say take two and, and start over. But it still exists and it's real. So our past is our reality and it cannot be changed, but we can revisit it. We can see what charge we're still carrying and holding. as a result of these past experiences, we can explore that in real time, in this present moment and help the system, you know, unwind, discharge, and reorganized and return to homeostasis. we can, in the process, call into question our beliefs, uh, in the process, start shifting and changing our behaviors, uh, because, you know, beliefs drive behaviors. So when our beliefs change, our behaviors are gonna change. Um, so there's a lot that we can do with our past, but we can't change anything about it. And so, when we can recognize that we also can move into a place of acceptance and surrender, and, from our present stance, willingly turn around, look back, lean in. Get curious, willing to feel and explore and see where it might take us.

Cody: 1:10:31

Hm.

Brian Mahan: 1:10:32

And in, Now granted it's work and it's in intentional, but when we could thank you. But when we can be, when we can be in a, a, a place of curiosity and willingness, without trying to push the water and instead be in the flow, we'll often end up onshore. And just like my experience in Maui, I ended up on shore, but I was bloody and beaten along the way. And had I been able to do, as most surfers know, to do surrender, look for the light and push, you know, just. Just aim for, aim for the light on the surface of the water, and that's all you can do. But if you're, if you fight it, you're going to get, you're gonna get beaten in the process. Right. And we don't wanna be, we don't wanna, we don't want to beat ourselves up or be beaten down in the process of our own healing.

Cody: 1:11:35

So effectively what, what doesn't kill you will make you stronger if you resolve the part that almost killed you

Brian Mahan: 1:11:44

Yeah, I mean, like, you know, again, I don't know what page that's from, but in my book, you know, I say that, you know, when we break a bone, it knits, toge, knits back together. And where it gets back together, it's the stronger, strongest part of the bone. Right. And then we also have stress fractures, right? So through repetition of constantly getting, this huge amount of stress, that bone, the structure of it changes to become stronger. And so we need to, at times, seek out and become willing to feel the discomfort because if we are able to, and we have skill and game and tools and the right kind of support, we will come out on the other side. We will end up on shore. And the beach that we end up on, or the shore that we end up on, may be a completely different kind of paradise than the one we left when we first got in the water.

Cody: 1:12:53

and of course they can always read your book named I cried all the way to happy Hour. What to do in self-help or Talk Therapy hasn't really helped. Your roadmap to profound healing and personal transformation. Brian Mahan, thank you for being on the podcast today