In this enlightening episode, we sit down with Cheda Mikic, a seasoned TRE (Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises) trainer and educator, whose work spans over 30 years across Europe, the US, and the UK. Cheda shares his journey from personal trauma to becoming a leading figure in the field of complementary therapy, including his expertise in craniosacral therapy and naturopathy. Delving into the innovative and educational aspects of TRE, particularly post-certification education, Cheda offers unique perspectives on the ongoing learning and exploration in TRE practices.
Listeners will be treated to an in-depth conversation about the importance of diaphragm work, the integration of primitive reflexes, and the holistic approach to healing and body awareness that Cheda promotes. From his olive farm in Italy, Cheda's passion for organic living and nature's teachings shines through, adding depth to his therapeutic approach. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the transformative power of TRE, the significance of body work in healing trauma, and the journey of continuous learning and teaching in the field of therapy.
Don't miss out on this captivating episode full of insights, personal stories, and practical advice for both practitioners and those seeking healing.
Key Highlights:
Links and Resources Mentioned:
In this enlightening episode, we sit down with Cheda Mikic, a seasoned TRE (Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises) trainer and educator, whose work spans over 30 years across Europe, the US, and the UK. Cheda shares his journey from personal trauma to becoming a leading figure in the field of complementary therapy, including his expertise in craniosacral therapy and naturopathy. Delving into the innovative and educational aspects of TRE, particularly post-certification education, Cheda offers unique perspectives on the ongoing learning and exploration in TRE practices.
Listeners will be treated to an in-depth conversation about the importance of diaphragm work, the integration of primitive reflexes, and the holistic approach to healing and body awareness that Cheda promotes. From his olive farm in Italy, Cheda's passion for organic living and nature's teachings shines through, adding depth to his therapeutic approach. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the transformative power of TRE, the significance of body work in healing trauma, and the journey of continuous learning and teaching in the field of therapy.
Don't miss out on this captivating episode full of insights, personal stories, and practical advice for both practitioners and those seeking healing.
Key Highlights:
Links and Resources Mentioned:
All right. good morning, everybody. I am sitting here in Boulder, Colorado as normal. And I have the big pleasure of having a conversation today with Cheda Mikic and Cheda is a TRE trainer, among other things I'll get to in a moment. And he's sometimes in the UK and he's sometimes in Italy. I think you're in Italy today. Is that true? Oh yeah, this is true. Okay. All right. Wonderful. so, Cheda, has been in the TRE world, tension and trauma releasing exercises for about the last 12 years or so as a trainer and educator. That's a big part of what we're going to be talking about today. but, additionally, he's been working in the field of complimentary. therapy, around Europe, the U S and the UK for the last 30 years, involved in, craniosacral therapy, and natural naturopathy. And we'll hear that whole story from Cheda in a moment. But, Cheda you've come on my radar most, most, in the last few years for doing a lot of really interesting and innovative education, especially post certification education for the TRE program. So basically after people become basic TRE providers, there's ongoing learning. And part of what I want to cover today is some of the very unique explorations that Cheda has been bringing to, the table of, ongoing education. So anyway, Cheda, it's such a pleasure having you here today. Thanks for joining the show. Thank you for having me. Very happy to be here. Great. and the 1st thing is, so you mentioned you're in Italy, so that I'm guessing you're on your farm. Is that right? That's correct. Yes. Tell us this is completely not TRE related, but tell us about you told me that you're on an olive farm and there's trees that are 600 years old. Give us a little picture of your farm. So we, those of us who are in the city, we can imagine being there with you. So yes, I'm, in, I live in south of Italy for most part of the year in Calabria, on the Mediterranean coast, looking towards Africa. and I, this, olive Grove, four hectares plus, I think there's about 12 acres. We got about 200 olive trees. Right and ancient, giants. These, grand dames as I called them, my great teachers as well. And yeah, currently I'm planting about, 800, almond trees and we got bergamot and yeah, it's a Mediterranean lifestyle and a nature all organic and yeah. wonderful. That's my life. Yes. I love it. Are you anywhere, are you near the Puglia region? So we on the other side, if you imagine Italy being a boot, so Puglia is a heel of Italy, of this boot, and we had a toe, just under the toe. I see. Okay. Okay. Sicilly but looking on the Ionian coast, looking towards Africa. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. about when was it maybe just before the pandemic I, Maria Alfaro, the other trainer, and she has some property in Puglia. And so I, I visited her there. This was maybe around 2018 or so. And, so next time in Italy, I'm going to go to the other side of the boot and come see your, Olive Grove. Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I do have a bed and breakfast as well. So I do have guests coming from all over the world anyway. It was the whole idea. Perfect. Sign me up. come as the whole family. Awesome. so anyway, Cheda you've been like you, like I said, you've been in, in the doing, embodiment work of different kinds for, over 30 years. I always like to hear the beginnings, like what kind of got, what are some of the early things that got you interested in that work? And then just tell us a little bit about your professional journey over these 30 years. exact date of my interest in, in, in body, in, in therapy, I really cannot, pinpoint. What I would like to say, what comes to mind, the earliest memories of my life were actually when I was four or five. Okay. I was sitting with my grandmother and she was a herbalist and a healer. and, I come, I was born in Serbia. Okay. and, we had a lot of, trauma and tragedy and wars and so on, and I had some murders and as assassinations in my family and my grandfather was killed. And, she was telling me these stories and, And so much pain was around my early childhood around this. So I, I believe that was already entering into the psychotherapeutic scene at that very early stage, trying to suit my grandmother's pain and, and all of the, experiences that she went through that deeply marked her, marked all of my family of origin, including me. So I think these early moments really. directed me towards later on in life, becoming more aware and, developing this desire to help others, helping myself and others. Sure. Sure. Yeah. So the later on, when I came to, I lived in Belgrade, I was an athlete. I went to, I was in, I was in the army as well. And then I went to. to London. And then in London, the whole different world opened for me of, different educational styles, different culture, different, view of perceiving world. And, and that's where my journey actually started as a matter of fact, it was triggered by my grandmother's death as well at this late 90, 94, 95. Yeah, where I start engaging consciously into studying, body work, massage, I was a personal trainer and, my connection with the body from athletic. Aspects. I was an MMA fighter as well. all of these emotional regulations, I would say that's how I emotionally regulated by fighting, in my early. Yeah. That's great. A good, time of life to do that. Yeah. And then later on, the different way of helping people rather than beating them up. Oh, that's wonderful. so it sounds was but was body work, so you're in London and then was was craniosacral therapy one of the first or, more, how did you hone in on the craniosacral therapy side of things? So initially it was personal training and massage and I came across this teacher and I started to study naturopathy and in my naturopathic education I came across this one of the guest teachers. She was a great craniosacral therapist in the UK. At the time and, she gave this intro course and, and I put my hands on someone and, and guided by her and I could feel things that I never felt in my life before. And I thought it's possible really to feel and to perceive within the human body and within myself. And that was really, pivotal moment that opened up different subtleties, and expression of human body that are not as obvious because all of my previous life experiences, education, sports, athletics, army, all of that's, was related to voluntary movements, becoming really strong, really hard, really a motor, goal oriented and here stepping into very different space. Where you are more receptive, I could say even feminine space, more kind of a receiving and perceiving. So that to me was really mind blowing and then, yeah, the journey started and when it was that, it was 99, I think something like that's interesting in 99. Yeah. It's funny kind of hearing you talk because I hear just a few, parallels in my own experience. I had been in martial arts and things like that. And somehow when I began body work, it wasn't in craniosacral therapy was more structural integration body work. but I had a similar experience where suddenly it was like, wow, there's, so much that can be sensed and perceived, through the hands and I felt like, every six months I thought, wow, and now I'm feeling this and now there's this and where does this end? And it reminds me a little bit, do you know, the visceral manipulation work? It's a Baral, the French osteopath Baral, and he has a really good quote, and I don't know the quote exactly, but he makes the comment that he said, people become expert, wine, sommeliers, and they can taste all of the subtlety of the terroir of the wine and, all, and, develop this very sophisticated palate. And he said. Why do you think it would be any different for the sense of touch that we could develop a sense of touch along just as much richness and specific. And so hearing what you're talking just reminded me of that, that perspective. Yeah, beautiful. Exactly. I think organism is so extraordinarily able and capable, and we really use very small percentage of our potential. And I think it's a, at least for me, a life learning, lifelong learning process because I keep opening and enveloping and, embracing so many different avenues of life that so much, there's so much richness out there, right? And, but all of that takes time, takes attention, takes engagement. it's important to under, to, feel what you are aligned with. and, in the different times of your life you will be aligned with different things. And I think we have to respect that and honor it and, do, but be careful not to be stuck in that space forever anyway. So Yeah, to totally. yeah, very much. So then, so you were, doing cranial sacral therapy and naturopathy for a period of time. How did, neurogenic tremoring, the TRE piece, how did that come onto your, your awareness? Okay. yeah, I fell in love with, with naturopathy, I, because I had a number of issues with my spine as an, as a young athlete and, and, in the army, I, had some injuries and, and that over years affected me that I could not actually move my head even, and I was, been athletes and all of that. and, part of, the treatment that's orthodox medicine would suggest would be surgery was surgery. And, somehow, when I went to the specialist and they said, we can't guarantee much success and all of these things. And at the time I had no idea about. alternative medicine and other complementary therapies that this was before 94 and then, came across someone, and then I, wow, this is really interesting. And actually number of people really helped me. And, and I was saying, I have to engage with this. This is really life changing. And, And the deeper I went, the more I liked this, this whole, space. so as a naturopath, I, advocated for healthy eating, dietary and lifestyle, healthy choices, movements, all of this stuff. And then learning craniosacral, and using some of the body work, because in naturopathy, we also, in particular school I studied with, we learned naturopathic and osteopathic manipulation as well. So I have a good background in that, but the subtle touch, the nervous system and the fluid body, I had no idea. It was mentioned in osteopathic medicine, but not really, at that time, I'm talking late nineties, really not deeply explored. Time went on. I, yeah, I learned more skill skills with this. However, around that time, also my first marriage in the UK broke up as well. And, it was very traumatic, very difficult. and, and, I went to psychotherapist trying to understand, my own role in this and, as you do, you blame the other, I had some awareness about my own, and all of these things. So after seven years of psychotherapy, I knew ins and outs of my family of origin. I've done family constellations, hundreds of done like, range of therapies of all kinds, room going back to shamanic journeys. I've really done. about 10 years of really deep in exploration because each therapy was really teaching something different than always bringing you deeper into your own in a layer that there are seem to be right. however, in my own behavior patterns, what I realized, even though cognitively and mentally, I could understand where some of my behavior comes from in my responses and so on. But if I'm pushed against the wall, if I'm threatened, my defense mechanism is so strong immediately. you push me 20, the, the, bite for minutes, I'm, go into the limbic system response. yeah, it was annoying because then I, would react. I wouldn't respond. And, today I teach a lot about reaction and response. The difference that makes the right, the space in between is the freedom. And most of us. Yeah, and so push to particular at the level of the boundary of your capacity, yeah, you go into the defense mechanism and some of us have can have a very ugly and over the top reactions. And that comes to my past and and. that was really not acceptable after a while because I lost one marriage, and, and, I had a number of relationships and, I do like human beings and, and how I came across, TRE friend of mine. it says, you should come to London at the time. I moved from London with my current wife to Italy. She's Italian. and, and I thought, gosh, this sounds weird. This shaking tremoring that, I'm not really sure about that. I know about the fluid body, about the stillness, and I've been doing a lot of meditation, but shaking. I respect him a lot. And I said, if you suggest, I'll, I'll try it. And that was the first course in London. And it was, about 40 of us from all around the world. And during the process, people were levitating, flying, and I'm like, oh my God, what the hell is going on here? Yep. Okay. I had no response. My, the only thing it was my right shoulder was just And, my, right arm was rotating internally. That's all I remember. Okay. I raised the hand to, ask one of the facilitators like, this is, it's not really working for me. I don't know what's going on. And, he says, no, but look, your, shoulder is more, look at the other people are flying around the room. I'm on some of that. And so he, says, no, stay with your system. Don't worry about others. Really frustrated and, so after that session, and I can't remember, I think it was the second session in, on the first day, they're asking any questions, any kind of feedback. And so I, raised, my hand and I was quite pissed off and I was ready to complain how this doesn't work right? And this was about to stand up. I remember that my right shoulder was broken skiing accident it didn't 30 years prior to that, and I totally, blocked that out of my awareness in my memory. And as I was rising to, to complain, I just sat down, put my head down and I shut up and I was, wow, this is powerful. So there was this, I immediately understand on a deeper level, how intelligent and powerful this process is. From 30 years ago that I totally have no memory of and obviously towards healing is starting to move though. But that was my first kind of, connection with TRE with, with this neurogenic trauma, this, involuntary spontaneous body response. And then that progressed, later on from in months and months of really my military system. I was doing TRE every single day for an hour, and a half. Oh, I have some, okay, good. I have, I was the same and I tell people that and they're horrified. So at least I have a buddy now. So, thank you. Yep. So I said, please don't do that. That's really not the way it should be done. Some of us overly, what's the words? some of us just push, push. Yeah. It doesn't mean it's the best way. Exactly. And until I actually injured myself. So I went into the, the spasm, my right shoulder could not handle it and my diaphragm, open in particular way. And I didn't know what to do with it. And I was at lost what to do and emotional turmoil. there was a complexity of events that happened that blocked me. And I was three months, didn't do any TRE. I went through a number of practitioners to help me out. And then I said, Oh, this is crap. I don't really like this. Therapy doesn't really work and all of these things forgetting the miracles that's provided for me for six months, right? And then I, I, went back and my journey never stopped since. So yeah, that's the, yeah, amazing. Amazing. So the, so somewhere along the way you thought not, so you did it actively, but then you, I assume you started working with other people. of course you became a provider and you started to, what did you discover as you started to introduce others, and bringing in the neurogenic tremor side of things? Was that an easy process, what was that exploration like for you in the early days? Okay. I, had a lot of confidence because prior to, starting TRE in 2010, I had about 15 years of, of therapeutic experience. So I wasn't really novice in, in therapeutic world. So I, however, there was, sought with the double blade there, because I, instead of really sticking and learning this modality fully and being more, curious and inquisitive, I assumed certain things at the very beginning. however, I did love it. what, it provided for me, what provided for others, I could see immediately that, you tried this modality and in the first session, you will see it's going to work for you or not. You will have some sense about it. And this is what, there's a lot of therapies. you have to go through number of sessions in order to, get some benefit. it's very rare in the first session you are, it can happen, it happened for craniosacral, but usually it does take for deeper patterns to shift. You need the number of sessions, right? But with this more immediate, more, involuntary, more spontaneous, quite easy to believe. This, what is responding in this way and the ongoing result, it's quite beneficial and actually a long lasting. So I, did dive in and I, I combined source of craniosacral and then cause often what I found that's, adding some of the craniosacral work, it was beautifully complimentary, really benefiting. Obviously to this work. And, and with David Bercelli who's the founder, he, I spoke to him and I've done courses with him and he encouraged this. And I love this about David. He was, he averages this internal space initiative and whatever you bring to the table should be respected. And I really love that. And I teach now myself exactly that, yeah, you bring all of you to the table. Not even if you do TRE but you are bringing. Everything of who you are onto the table. yeah, that was, early beginnings. At the time, we were going fairly, as far as I remember, fairly gung ho and full on. It was about catharsis. It was about the strong process. It was about getting rid of trauma. And over the years, I actually had, number of times I failed, people did not like this. And I was like, what do you mean you don't like, this is amazing. But the system did not appreciate that. And I had the initially difficult time understanding why, but then you picked up that, you need to modify, then it's, not just what you do. It's about the space resources, self regulation, integration, all of these elements that we use now in TRE and in other therapeutic model. And then it's not just about shaking. It's the, yeah, wonderful. Yeah, no, I just, just to echo, that too was my, so I came in first as a structural integration body worker. And my, story with TRE was that, the first time I went through the 10 series of Rolfing. And then some went in as one of the series where they work in the rib cage, a little bit painful, a little bit tender, a little bit painful. And then I was laying on my back and my knees were up the way that we are in TRE and they were doing their work and my legs started shaking. My hips started quivering and it was a really big spontaneous. tremor response. And my, the rolfer said, okay, that's good. But they didn't know anything about it. I said, what is this? What is this response? and so that was just that was before I did any therapeutic work myself. But then about 10 years later. When I had become, I trained and I was working in structural integration, body work, and we always, when somebody is on the table, if they're on their back, we always have their knees drawn up. And so for that reason, because of that positioning, it made it more likely that once in a while, or even somewhat frequently, either a small or a more dynamic kind of a tremor would show up. In the, thing. So that was what got me curious. And then somebody led me to TRE and I said, ah, yeah, that's the thing that helps explain what's, what is this thing that's going on there. But that idea of, the openness within, Dr. Bercelli and the community, this idea, cause as soon as I met him and started, It's telling him how he said, Oh, I want to see how this fits together with this. And I'm doing this. And he said, great, keep going, learn as much as you can. And I think that's part of what has really, created, in aliveness in the global TRE community is that we've all had that sort of permission to find out for ourselves. What are the therapeutic possibilities, et cetera. Anyway, I'm getting on a tangent, but, I agree that's something that's really beneficial about how TRE is unfolding. and that, and what I want to hear more from you about how you've taken that. Yeah, so exactly. And this is the first time after, decades in therapeutic world and had some amazing teachers that I actually have a teacher who, I remember we had the big, a couple of big events happened, one in Cefalu in Italy, actually, it was this advanced training, and, trainers from everywhere came and, and, we went through these different processes and, and, developments and. And then in, in Vienna as well, we were working with 150, firefighters, special services, soldiers, all of that, and people full of questions, cause they were, these were early stages still. Yeah. And, I, cause I'm curious and I like to learn and, so I came with list of questions and, cause he looked at me and says, I don't know. And I'm thinking, what do you mean? You don't know. Top guy, you should know, like all of my teachers, they have always, they always have the answer, but he's, no, I don't really know. It was so intelligent and so inclusive that he gave me a, it was, I remember, I think that was 2014. He gave me one of the greatest stimuli to, to be me carry on what I'm doing and to engage with life in a more authentic way, because what I realized in that moment is that, no human being knows it all, a lot of us, lots of science and medical establishment in particularly, they pretend they know, really have this ability to, deliver, to present themselves. And they like, they do know, and they don't usually then they're not responsible for the consequences later on instead, having someone who would say genuinely intelligently, actually, I don't know. and to me, it's, it doesn't mean you're stupid. You simply don't know that answer. So that was really profound moment that I found, Permission for the first time in my life, that's, the teacher, senior teacher tells me something and, and it's okay. And he's okay with it. He's not pretending. It's not, winging it one way or the other, trying to mask the ignorance. It's just simplest. So to me, it was quite a spiritual moment as well, that you meet a human being that he's okay with who he is. And for me, that's really looking back. I always needed to know more. I never really knew enough, I don't know enough, pretending I'm okay. I have no issue. I'm trying to, you know but in the past you were expected to not to know it all. Cause Clients come to you, they pay you, they, you should be this, guy who knows, yeah, experts, And I'm an expert, the way I touch people and the way I work and the, I'm an expert, but I don't know it all, you have anywhere from, 25 to a hundred trillion cells. each one of them is a microcosm in itself. No one on the planet does know, how a single cell function. So let's stop pretending that we know it's all because if we do know it's all. we would have, better results in our medical field. We see what's happening in the world now they're more ill un and unwell people. Yeah. And not, there are these solutions if we know it all, but we don't. So being more humble and being more real, I think that's a great way. Sorry I went on a tangent on that myself, but just beautiful tangent. No, that's, a perfect kind of a tangent. I love that. said. said. Yeah. let's be more real, honest. And, if someone comes to me with particular issue, I will try to help the person, my result, if I don't know what I'm doing or what I'm going to be honest about it. And I think to another human being into ourselves, to be honest, to be humble, real what's with our capacity. And I think that's it. And some people really love what I do. Other people really don't like my style and that's perfectly fine. I'm not here to please anyone. I'm just here to try to help offer my service and honor what I can do. And I think I teach this as well for everyone because we waste vast amount of energy trying to please others, trying to be something we are not. And TRE really helped me come back into my own power and sense who I am. And that's what I can do, and I'm not going to pretend to be something other than what I am. There's a great. all you can do it, it's yourself. Everyone else is taken, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Wow. Okay. I like it. I feel the energy. It's good energy. Good. Good. Good. Good comment there. let's what I'd love to hear about is. so you've really been exploring some interesting, angles, like I said, with the post certification, education. So things like developmental, perspective, reflex integration that you told me is a newer, interest of yours, you've done some detailed courses around, anatomy to understand the, some anatomical consideration. So give us what's just an overview of some of the, this, the education that you're offering these days. Okay. Let me just step back and, describe how this interest, which actually is continuation of what I mentioned about, yeah. and so my own process with TRE was amazing and, as I mentioned from my right shoulder moving only then few months later, my, diaphragm started to move and my upper body and my neck and it never stopped. But I had so much stored trauma in my system, physical, emotional, ancestral, you name it. I had it, it just took a while to, to, release. It took a while for me to reconnect with that. Because TRE I teach TRE as a process of releasing the tension, stress, and trauma from your system, but also to reconnecting with the parts of yourself that have been dissociated and abandoned during the trauma, experience sure, but this reconnection and release. It's not just about releasing. So connecting. Yeah, totally. 100%. Yep. so for me to reconnect with my diaphragm, it took a long time. And, and I had this amazingly powerful spasms, that's my whole upper body was really like contracting and this clenching that was raising my whole upper body. And it reminded me from my MMA fighting, from the military positions, from the deep pain I felt for loss in my life. And all of these things were really deep, kind of release and this reconnection with the deep, deeper parts and deeper emotional states. So what I, and I turned to other practitioners, but no one really knew what to do with the diaphragm. Okay. So I was like, so how do I do it? So I engaged with the craniosacral with osteopathic and naturopathic background that I had, and I start applying that on myself and low and behold. As soon as that often happens that you start learning stuff and that manifest in life, universe can send you the clients, right? So I've been swarmed clients with the diaphragm problems. I, then I said, okay, look, this is after a couple of years, I realized I need to, make, like more structured way of to deal with this and to work with this. And then I start to teach as well. So the diaphragm first. a workshop that I developed and, and starting to teach. And that connection with the cervical spine, with the nervous system, with the psoas with all of that, I, really today, I think if you know how to work with the diaphragm, 50% of your clients will have huge benefit from that. Yeah. It's off, the whole body to connect through the diaphragm, all the upper organs and lower organs. Actually, every move you make every breath you take is connected with the diaphragm without the diaphragm and how pressure is regulated in the body too. Yeah, exactly. So I really, and I believe we owe it to ourselves. You don't have to be a therapist. You should understand how your body's working to some extent, what you have is an extraordinary system. That's why I teach anatomy, but not this dry anatomy. I teach, experiential anatomy. Yeah. Experiential anatomy. Yeah. Yeah. You should know what you're doing. Yeah. where are you, in which kind of a space, in which system you actually exist, . so with your focus on, diaphragm, both in the teaching of the class, but also, working with clients where there's a diaphragmatic, disturbance or dysregulation. So in so one thing could be just, awareness. It could be, observing or understanding. There could be movements. I'm wondering, are there could be manual, approaches to, to, what are some of the kind of, tools or awarenesses that you that, in your view help, help people. expand the possibilities or restore, health to the diaphragm in a TREs context. The first thing is you should visually know how the diaphragm is, where it's positioned and how it behaves. Okay. So that's one of the things that I teach first, then I ask experientially for people to touch, to feel the diaphragm, to touch the diaphragm others, to understand the texture, the depth. Sometimes you will engage with the emotional content that often is stored within the diaphragm. So a lot of our emotions actually are, accumulated and stored in the diaphragm. And that's why often you can't release different emotions if your diaphragm is tight. Stuck. Yeah. Yeah. then, you've got this, expansion of so many breath workers. breath worker at doing this, this is great. I studied breath work for decades as well with some really renowned teachers, but if diaphragm doesn't move, no matter what strategy you use, yeah, you might be triggering some of the nuclei in your brainstem with particular breathing patterns, but you're not going to go deep. If your diaphragm is stuck, I guarantee you that. there is a lot of people from breathwork and teachers from breathwork are coming to me now for more of this. And so I think that this is such an important subject, not just for TRE, but you will see this so often spontaneously comes up to the forefront of the treatment, but for any other therapy that, I'm sure you dealt with so many diaphragms in your, practice functionality, the diaphragm has. So diaphragm is one. There was a first kind of a, building block in my, okay. In my . Yep. Good. Okay. Once I became aware of the diaphragm, then I went into the pelvis. So this phase saw us that we use in diaphragm, in, in area a lot that you Activate the psoas activate the vagus. That's how the respo neurogenic response gets triggered. So little we know the, of the connection of the psoas with the, the, psoas actually grows from embryologically grows from the teeth while from the thoracic spine through the diaphragm, penetrates the diaphragm, then all the abdominal cavity then goes through the pelvis and into the, lesser trochanter of the femur and on that pathway. you got the whole half of the universe there, you got your digestion, you got your elimination, you got your sexuality, you got, your emotional states, you got. So much there. if you've got your enteric nervous system, yeah, that is, is there. So no more, I believe as, a therapist, if you're touching someone's abdomen and someone's pelvis or they touched their own, you should see not superficially, but you should see in four dimensional state, what's happening in there. And then you can guide them. Through the meditative also, how about, if you go deeper into the, state, right? Like with craniosacral, when we work with the pelvis, you know that in craniosacral, 70% of pelvis is fluid systems, for example, right? So all the urogenital area actually is fascia and fluid system, and. for most people due to cultural conditioning through dysfunctional, eating, dysfunctional movements, dysfunctional sexuality, or lack of it, all of these things, that the fascia becomes rigid, the fluids don't become fluid, and then there is the cascade of issues and problems that we all suffer. Like, why would men you know, I have a prostate problem. it's, oh, after 40 or 50, you're ready. like I'm 55. I don't have a prostate problem, My father is 85. He doesn't have a prostate problem, And Really? And the women, we got the prolapses, we got injuries, we got the sexual dysfunction, we got bowel problems. All of that is because people don't really understand what's happening in that very particular part. And we always say, Oh, it's down there. It's this shame. Down there. Yeah. Yeah. Down there. So it stays in this darkness and this we need to bring a little, candle there, it takes just to light the whole room, bring some awareness and some light and move away from the shame and guilt and all of these things. And then just see a respect what is functional and neurologically anatomically. It's, gifted. We are gifted with some of these things. So we should not be ashamed of this, this, parts of us, right? Yeah, yeah, It's a lovely subject, but, just to, so my approach is really, anatomical, functional. emotional, social, all of that, everything, all these things intersect. Yep. Yep. It depends how you feel your body will respond. If I'm happy, my tissue is going to be more open and fluid. The hormonal state will flow differently. if I had, there would be a totally different, biochemical. feedback loop and so on. So we, cannot, we need to move from this, ancient medieval way of, my mind is here. My thoughts are there. My spirit is there. My body somewhere. It's all happening here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the, yeah. Beautiful, and then some, so this reflex integration and that came on my own and way more about it than I do, but there's, but it's been in my awareness maybe for the last only year or two. And I've seen a little bit that in the PT physical therapy world. Occupational therapy world. Sometimes it's this concept of retained reflexes or retex reflex integration. And there's, a very cool, physiotherapist in the United States and Massachusetts that I'm hoping to interview in the, in a few months time, who, who is opened me to that, understanding and how we might see that in TRE. But I'd love to hear how, You've been thinking about that what you've been learning and what are you teaching about that these days? Primitive reflexes yeah, we studied that but I only came across in a deeper and more direct context, in 2019, I think okay, so and this is through actually our mutual colleague, from Richmond Heath from Australia, he done some, interviews and work with Robert Melillo, and I, then I engaged more and start to study more and I had different resources on this and reason why, because I realized within me that there are some primitive reflexes that are still present and I really did not believe myself that's present. I was thinking there could be some other neurological thing going on for me here because my own response, to particular times in, when I'm very tired, very strong, My wife makes contact with part of my body like just stroking my arm or face or back I just go into this fetal position and for a grown up man to do that with such a sensitivity and it's a old response. That's a really fetal response of very early newborn response Sure. And so when I heard Robert Melillo talks about, in his research, and he's one of the greatest authorities on primitive reflexes in the world, and the great, professor from brain sciences, actually I'm studying with him now, the functional neuroanatomy, which is like amazing course. Yeah, which I'm holding there for dear life is just vast amount of amazing information that I want to implement because we do need to know more about a brain and anatomy in, in, more practical and simple terms, which can be done anyhow. So he claims that. Over 50 percent of all adults still have retained primitive reflexes and wow, that's really amazing because if you speak to any medic, any pediatrician, they would say that within 12 months, all primitive reflexes are completed. Matured, then postural reflexes, righteous responses, and some equilibrium responses will be more, more sophisticated movements, more complex movements will be developed and taking the place or laid down on top or, yeah, evolving through the primitive patterns. Yeah. Yeah. 12 months. You, you should be standing upright and most of these primitive reflexes will have that function of maturing your ability to raise your head, to rotate, to orient, to, have a defense mechanism, boundary engagement, the boundary and the orientation. supporting your spine and your feet, all of that. And once that is developed, when you start walking, assumption is that all is fine. However, we know that's not the case for the range of reasons. One of them is for example, what's if in the, womb, for example, because you got one of the main reflexes that is a paralysis reflex. Should be, matured by the time you are born, but for a lot of people, that's not the case. And, what if, your mother has particular emergency during the, pregnancy? You know how many, cause I worked with the, pregnant women and babies for four years exclusively, cause I studied the, that during that period. My own children were born at that time and I really dived to understand more and more. And, a lot of women have a lot of challenges during pregnancies, so it would be normal that some of the residues of particular shock trauma difficulty the mother experiences during pregnancy will be passed onto the baby, and it could be during some of these motor developmental, sensory developmental stages of the brain and the body and so on, right? What's the common sense in reality? We see that's exactly what is happening. Then when you're out of the womb, first of all, you're the birth. Often it's very traumatic for all of us. Like the very few beings I think have experienced really pleasurable birth. They came into life and it was, Oh, it was all, it's all lovely. That includes mothers giving birth, babies coming out. facilitated number of births as well, including my, both of my children. But what happens after that? Do babies recover from that birth? my, my own children, one shoulder was broken to one of them, what happened? the other child that the nose was flat because of the position in, in, in the, journey through the, canal and all of that. If you dropped, if you fell over, if you were left for too long, if you weren't fed, when you were hungry, if you were too cold, if you were soiled, so range of experiences. Even if you had the best parents in the world, it's nearly impossible. All of our needs to be fulfilled. that will have a residue in the system somewhere. how if the children, babies were neglected, abused, or violated in some way, certainly in the developmental stages, that will have effect on, how you, form you, how you develop. In this work, we need to understand also that the brain develops, you know how brain develops? It doesn't develop through someone talking to you or to learning mathematics or language or something. It develops through movement, right? So the formation of, all parts of the brain, it's movement. Yeah. That's what babies do. They move that the more movement you have, the more functional and correct movement and connection you have that the better development of the brain will be. If there is a lack of movement or inappropriate movement, that also will have consequences. And we see this. The, power of the blueprint of, human being that carries on into this evolution and development, and we became functional, most of us. But all of us have particular, the weak link there is, there could be genetic, could be epigenetics. And through this, the early development. There is a potential lack of corrective development that can affect us later on, in a range of not just in the movement way that you might be, your motor functions might not be as best your, the muscle development or tone of the muscles or emotional states. Now we know that if certain reflexes are not properly developed, you might have a high blood pressure, you might have a blood sugar issues, you might have a depression, fatigue, microbiome will be affected, hypersensitivity to touch to this range, and it's so much beautiful work done by a number of great authorities that is amazing. Thank you. under the radar for many practitioners. So once I start that in the realizing in my own life, how powerful some of the interventions can be, they changed my whole state. and what I've noticed in TRE, we do our movements, what you described earlier, how position of your legs, for example. So butterfly position, that's the position that most fetuses in the womb take. So that is the withdrawal. the fear paralysis reflex is being, completed by going into this position by cross legs. Yeah. All cultures in the world, ancient cultures use cross legged position. It's a natural position, but also comes from the womb. Most babies. Most fetuses in the womb are positioned in this, either with the feet together or cross. Also, this position, when we cross arms, when we hug ourselves, that's, now in scans, you see so many children or fetuses are in that position. Yeah. So it's. It's only natural to actually repeat that position if there is some dysfunction. So I was like, wow, this is fairly simple. I do this in TRE all the time. And what I realized that for some of us who have retained primitive reflexes, they have not fully completed, this is my own TRE that some of us. really benefit from TRE massively because there are people who try TRE and they're like, okay, but nothing special. This is nice. I feel okay. But not, and for some of us it's wow, this is what I've been waiting for. This is what my body's been needing. Yeah, totally. No, I really connect and I'm not going to say that's 100 percent of the time, but I believe high percentage of time is that some of us who have retained primitive reflexes, we really benefit from TRE. So I decided to really go on that journey and bravely, engage and learn more and teach more and learn more and teach more. In this and also practically to apply so you can do TRE or any other therapy, really, and apply few movements, few positions of your extremities using the mouth using the orientation, just mimicking some of the reflexes because they have over 72 primitive reflexes, yeah, about 10 of them that state they get retained. So learn about 10. And the reflexes is not a huge deal, and I think, it can be really helpful to, to know that. Wow. Yeah. super cool. yeah. and I want to respect our time too. So, maybe we should draw things to a close, but I love hearing about that exploration. What's a, so your website TRE centers, C E N T R E, the British spelling, dot com, I believe. are all of your courses, we'll, include that in the show notes here. Is that the, where should people go to see, which courses you have, what's upcoming, things like that. Yeah. TRE center. com is my main website. Okay. and yeah, you go on the calendar page and all the courses are there. I still need to update my, second part of this year. but yeah, my, I'm, teaching, TRE online, TRE anatomy, okay. course starting in about three weeks. then I've got modules going on. I'm, teaching, eight developmental stages. that course years ago when they, actually worked, we started with the primitive reflexes as well. I was at the time diving deeper because I studied with Bessel van der Kolk, Gabor Maté and Stephen Porges in 2017. That was intensive in, in, in London. Gabor Mate particularly, I went deeper into some of the, developmental, stages that, certain patterns and emotions that we often express come from really ancient past, our own personal early, early development. And so I revisited Eric Erickson's work, and I, included that because it was incredibly helpful. And it is a psychological aspect that describes different emotional states being developed at different stages of your life. So from zero to 18 months trust. It's one of the main emotions that is developed and when you have people who come in, they don't trust anyone and they don't trust their wife or husband or anyone, And so when you come back to early stages, you open this whole amazing things and you see a really big transformation if you do that through the body. So personal work on myself, but also on so many of my clients. That I said, gosh, I need to teach this. This is really useful. So I, teach that basically it take small groups because it should be intimate. It brings, can go and bring a lot people go through. Yeah. Yeah. So I, introduce people to the, to the theoretical part of it, and then I take them through the, body. Yeah. So we revisit. early emotions and patterns. and so I'm, it's been 30 and now, and I'm really like that cause it's, that's, over four months, every two weeks we do that course, body reading, I'm doing body reading as well. So I, a lot of practitioners, particularly psychologists and psychotherapists, they, They're not quite hands on and when, they see Bodhi, they don't see exactly what I see. Was, I seen thousands. I worked with over 60, 000 people in my career. it's, and to me, it's an open book and, I love bodies and, and not in the way of judging, but just really appreciating, complexity of it. Yeah. So I say something, okay, and ask the question, Oh, so you, do you have this button happening? Oh, how'd you know that? and so people think, you're magical, you're some wizard, you're not, you just have extra skill. As you said earlier on, you need to develop the skill like Baret, mentioned. Yeah. So a lot of people ask and I, so I teach them how to actually look at the body from the feet up and what they can do, what kind of intervention sometimes can be applied depending on the, on the shape, on the structure, on functionality of different bodies. So that's, then I do primitive reflexes in July and I do all of the courses. I do a hybrid. So I do in person because I love in person work a lot, but not everyone will travel from us or from other countries. We can, so I do this online as well. And we record the sessions and, and. for next year, then, yeah, I've got Denmark, for next year, I will, for this year in October, I will be teaching also pelvis and psoas in London, and online, and potentially there might be another. workshop at, later on November, December, but these are few workshops that I'm, focusing on. good. Well I hope, so you're already bringing a lot of depth and I love how you're willing to take the, the, some, the, some of your newer areas of learning and, learn, earlier you said, learn, teach, learn, teach. And that, that, that's, that seems like a good way to do things. And, I, I hope you're, I, my, my feeling as I watch your courses grow is it's it's like a, it's like a snowball gathering, more snow. I hope for the next few decades, I'm going to keep an eye on your, teaching career here because it's, it definitely seems to be gathering steam. Yeah. Thank you. I, yeah, thanks to maybe that authentic support from, from, David Bercelli and, and a few other people. You I think we all have our space in this world and you find your own niche and you honor that. And, yeah, I like what I do. I, one of my spiritual teachers, Gurdjieff, I'm not sure if you heard of him. Yeah, sure. It's the, I just was telling somebody, you're Gurdjieff, the, I was just telling a client yesterday. This is a funny thing. I don't, where up until a few months ago, I only loosely knew Gurdjieff, but then in the last maybe month, five or six times it keeps coming up. And I told my client yesterday, she mentioned, Oh, and I was studying Gurdjieff and this and that. And so today you're bringing it up. So there's something, something funny about that. So he was in the spiritual teacher in, late 1800s, early 1900s, and, and one of the things that I really take from his teaching and that really sunk deep into, me is, he said, you need to learn, about life, about any subject. But don't wait till you become an expert in order to teach. How you're going to become an expert is through teaching. don't be like an amateur and not know anything about things. But a lot of people, what I noticed as well, and I was one of them, I waited till I reached this really high level of knowing everything about the subject before I'm going to teach. But it might take a few decades or a few lifetimes, really. So you, as you would say, in order to become expert, you need to teach the subject, which means you might not know everything about it. You will have a good solid base. And the thing is that a lot of your students will challenge you and ask difficult questions. And as teachers, we really shouldn't be, should be humble and actually facing the adversity and embrace the question, Yeah, as Sally says, I don't know, but I'll find out for you some of these questioning and you develop as a teacher and subject develops, and then you become even greater expert. So that's a, one of the philosophies I apply in my work and I love that. let's end on that, that powerful note. but so Cheda, thank you so much. This has been a real pleasure, Alex. Thank you. It was a great pleasure to be here.