The Wisdom & Wellness Podcast with Dr. Rachel Hill

Unlocking Calm: The Somatic Breath & Touch Technique with Tammy Bratton

• Dr. Rachel Hill • Episode 7

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0:00 | 48:04

Burnout in nursing and caregiving is more than mental exhaustion—it’s a deep disconnection from your own body and soul. When exhaustion runs so deep you can’t even breathe freely, the usual advice to “just rest” or “talk it out” often falls short. You are not alone. 

In this episode of The Wisdom & Wellness Podcast, Dr. Rachel Hill welcomes Tammy Bratton, a former licensed therapist who courageously stepped beyond traditional talk therapy into the world of somatic healing and breathwork. 

Tammy shares her transformative journey, culminating in the creation of the Calm Technique—a hands-on method using breath and light touch to help release stored stress and trauma from the nervous system. 

Tammy’s message is clear and empowering: healing is already inside you. Your body is constantly communicating its needs, and learning to listen and respond is key to reclaiming your vitality. Whether you feel overwhelmed by years of carrying emotional and physical burdens, or you’re simply stuck in autopilot, this episode offers practical wisdom and gentle tools. 

Tammy also extends this healing beyond humans, applying the Calm Technique to support traumatized animals, reminding us that safety and healing are universal languages. 

In this episode, you’ll discover:

Why traditional talk therapy isn’t always enough to release trauma and stress

  • The science and soul behind the Calm Technique and how it works
  • How to start reconnecting with your body in manageable 1% shifts
  • The importance of breath and gentle touch in nervous system regulation
  • How healing extends beyond humans to animals through somatic communication

Connect with Tammy on LinkedIn
Email: ViveHealingCenter@gmail.com

Connect with Dr. Rachel:

SPEAKER_00

Hello. Hello. I'm Dr. Hill here for another episode of Wisdom and Wellness, where we bridge spirituality, science, and medicine together to give the community options for how to live better and to be their best divine selves. There are people in this world who walk so far into their own healing that they come out the other side with something extraordinary. Not just tools, but a language the body has always spoken, but few have been trained to hear. Today's guest is one of those people. Tammy began her career doing deep sacred work of a licensed marriage and family therapist and alcohol and drug counselor, sitting with people in the hardest seasons of their lives, holding space for grief, addiction, trauma, and the slow, courageous work of becoming whole again. For years, she was trained to believe that healing happened primarily through words, through the careful therapeutic conversations between two people in a room, but something kept calling her deeper. Thirteen years ago, Tammy made a bold, courageous pivot. She stepped beyond the traditional clinical model and into the world of somatic coaching and breathwork, dedicating her work to what she had come to know as the profound truth that the body is not just the place where we carry your pain, it is also the place where we are most capable of releasing it. Grounded in this belief, Tammy co-created the Calm Technique, C-A-L-M, a gentle hands-on somatic approach that uses directed breath and light intentional touch to release stored stress and trauma from the nervous system, guiding people back to a state of safety, balance, and inner calm. This is not abstract or theoretical. This is science meeting soul. This is what regulation actually feels like in the body. And then Tammy did something that I find truly extraordinary. She took this gift, this language of safety and presence, and she extended it beyond the human experience entirely. Tammy now applies the calm technique to support animals in releasing stress and restoring nervous system balance, honoring the profound, wordless connection between humans and the animals who share our lives. Because, as Tammy understands, safety is a universal language, and real healing has no spaces or no species limit. Not content to keep this work to herself, Tammy had also created a 14-week somatic hands-on training program, equipping other professionals, coaches, therapists, healers, and practitioners with the Calm Technique. She bridges science, intuition, and compassion. She works for the mind and the body. And today she is bringing all of this right here to the wisdom and wellness community. Please help me welcome Tambi.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much for having me on and allowing me to share about what we do. I have come across so many people that it's like they knew the words of what they needed to do or wanted to do. They knew the system, they'd heard it a thousand times, they could repeat it. And that's where I was like, something's just missing. It's beyond just having the ability to verbally state what was bothering them. It's what does this mean for our bodies and what does that mean for how we feel? And my work has just always been around like, how can I empower other people? How can I empower people to feel better, to be successful, to feel successful, to be creative, to really just fall back in passion with themselves and then the things that they love to do. And sometimes we need help figuring out what those things are because we've had so many things that have happened in life that kind of dim that down and make it hard to really access that internal fire.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. I talk to people all the time, and it was like I've got a treadmill in my house, and I haven't been able to get on it. I've got all this food that I meal prep every week, and I can't get myself to go in and eat the right things. And it's just there's so many things where we know what we should do, but it's blocking us from doing it. And sometimes it's as simple as the things I don't want to say. Somatic is simple. What you do is simple, but it just is it frees up so much. And it just seems like the human mind complicates it. Like, how can the breadth and the connection be that easy and that liberating and that freeing? So I'm gonna ask you some questions to delve deeper into your journey. So you had a full clinical career. What was the moment that realization or just the turning point that just had you go? There's more.

SPEAKER_01

Um, when I was working inside of a treatment program, and it was after I had my master's in marriage and family therapy, and I was running my own private practice. And in my private practice, I was adding different alternative tools for people. I had been studying different energy healing modalities and things like Qigong, and I was teaching people how to access their body, and then we would talk about stuff at the same time that they brought to the session. And I started to really notice the ones that were able to do both of them, where it's like they're talking about their emotions and the experiences that they had, plus they were able to access these body-based techniques, they were actually feeling better about their lives and started to be able to regulate their systems better. There were like stuff still happening, but they weren't as overwhelmed. And so then in the treatment program I was working in, I started to incorporate some things within some of the treatment groups that I was doing. And they were having fun. Like these people that had been through treatment 10 times were like, I'm hearing the same information in every program I go in, but they were also now all of a sudden being given a body-based support along with that information that they've heard a hundred times. And it didn't become like an autopilot. It was like their bodies were having different responses. And that's where my fire started moving, where I'm like, I really want to move into something where I'm not required to just do talking with them or just a specific set that of items that I had to get through. It's like I really wanted to be creative and empower each individual for what they were needing. And that's where I started really diving into the somatic world and breath work facilitation. And then I moved to a different state, Kansas, and I started with my partner developing the hands-on somatic work that we do and really like how do we communicate with people's bodies in a very gentle way that doesn't push them over a threshold, but supports them and allows their nervous system to have a different baseline and to be able to release some of the stored stress that they're carrying. Because we carry our stress around like a backpack sometimes. It's like, nope, I'm just gonna wear it and never put it down. And it gets exhausting. And those people that are in helping professions sometimes don't notice that for themselves, like, oh wow, this is my actual baseline of how stressed and how many burdens they're carrying, but not actually knowing that there's a different baseline that they could be in and they don't have to carry that burden around thinking about it. And it's like great at helping everybody else, but like our own bodies are like, oh my God, this backpack is so heavy, we have to put it down. So I found that developing the somatic technique that we developed really allowed people to let go of that stored stress. And with that stored stress, the body experiences trauma from that. And then how do you be able to just release that without having to hash through every single piece of what happened that created that stress and trauma? Sometimes the body just wants to be like, yeah, thank you for hearing me. And then it lets it go and we don't need to know the story behind it. Having the stories and therapeutic techniques are great and that works for some people, and sometimes it doesn't. And so this just offers an alternative of when those things aren't what our bodies are asking for, or we need something in addition to being able to talk about it. Let's empower a person's own body to really be able to regulate itself and really be able to have a full communication with the whole system.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. I'd love to see before and after pictures of people where they're carrying the backpack and not carrying the backpack because I talk to a lot of colleagues where they're like, why are my shoulders way up to my ears and that? And they don't realize how tense they are until they take a vacation, change a job, start meditating and doing yoga and all of those things. And all of a sudden they're like, wow, I was so puffy then. You get me now. Absolutely. When you moved into somatic work and breath work, what did you discover in the body that years of talk therapy simply couldn't reach?

SPEAKER_01

What I learned about the body is always communicating with us, it's always telling us what it needs, it's always asking for it. And when we aren't listening or feeling what our body is trying to communicate, it gets louder. And for me personally, when illness or a tragic thing happens, my system has fallen apart. Not looking at it like I'm broken and I need to fix my body, but acknowledging my body was trying to say, slow down, nurture, let yourself heal. And I may have missed that and then had a complete self-crisis of a health issue or something. You were being forced now to really slow down. And so I think with working with somatics, it's like our bodies are not trying to punish us. Our bodies are just communicating in the language that it knows how. And since I've been really embodying somatics and everything about listening to my body as a whole unit, it doesn't have to get so loud. Like I may have a headache, but it can go away fairly quickly. And I acknowledge, like, thank you, thank you, brain, thank you, head, thank you, shoulders, for acknowledging that I'm probably walking around like this, or I'm focusing on something too hard. I need to just soften and let my system relax. And when I acknowledge my system and then go into my own practices, my body doesn't have to check out for days on end anymore. It's okay, I get it. I can let it go. Now here's our baseline, here's how we can be present for people. And I don't need to exude that off onto just taking care of other people and not myself. So in turn, my goal is to teach people to do the same thing. Listen to what your bodies are communicating because it's a conversation that's happening all the time. And when we learn to have that deeper relationship with our body and our whole system, we just have so much richer outcomes going forward.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. I know that's what you teach. How can you encourage someone who feels like they've got like a mountain to move when it comes to re-establishing a relationship with their body? Like maybe a nurse who's been working night shifts and day shifts and swing shifts and overtime and multiple jobs and has kids and is going to grad school and everything, and feels like what you're saying is so far beyond reach and that there's no help for them.

SPEAKER_01

I practice the 1% all the time. Like, what is 1% of movement or what is 1% of acknowledgement? Because even when we are in like the biggest hole feeling, 1% is a potentially doable spot. I had my own health crisis, which took me out of all work. And my partner had a health crisis at the exact same time. And we literally had to just go into that survival mode of together, and it was 1% every day. Like today, I'm going to just take one deep breath and that was it. If that's all I can do, that's great. Today I'm going to do some sort of somatic holding, or I'm going to walk down the stairs and outside and go back in. Like it was just that 1% of something. And when we start to feel like we are doing just that little bitty breath, then the rest of the stuff just falls into place and it doesn't feel as overwhelming. But trying to manage all the different shifts and the responsibilities, it's exhausting. So that's where I'm like 1%, just 1%. What's 1%? And in all the grief work I do with people, I do the same thing. It's like, what's 1% that we can do? When I work with animals, because I work with animals in trauma, I will do 1% with them too. Like you're terrified to walk across the floor. All right, let's one step in front of you. Just can you come to me here? And that's it. And we get there and we ground and then we do another step and we just keep seeing where that new threshold line can be. But it's too much to try to do the whole thing. So it's like making it smaller. What is doable? What can we, what is tangible and doable that is simple and accessible right now.

SPEAKER_00

Now you've got me interested. How do you communicate with the pet to do that 1%? You can do it. Or how do you communicate that? Is it just telepathic or just it's both.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Animals hear like they everything you picture in your brain, animals can see and they understand that. And so it's really communicating with them and asking. I find the more we really speak out loud our full intent with the animal of can you just take one step and meet me here? Or there's some I've worked with that are so terrified of being touched, it's like, okay, I will not touch you. But what I need you to do is come from where you're standing right now and just go into this room. That's all I need you to do. You get a clear shot and really hold that truth. I'm not gonna try to reach out, even if they walk really close to me, even if they almost brush up on me. It's really what is your intention? You tell them what it is and then stick with it. And the more consistent that pattern is with them, the more that their bodies are like, yeah, if she says or she energetically is present and doing what she's doing, I don't have to worry that she's gonna cross that boundary. So they do it and they feel safe.

SPEAKER_00

It seemed like we should have another podcast just for pet therapy. We'll bring you back for sure. Yeah. So let's talk about the calm technique. Can you walk us through what calm stands for and what a session might look like with someone?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So calm stands for center, align, light, touch, and then modulate. So our goal with working with a person's body, and this is a hands-on approach, but meaning in person. So some of it is we physically will touch different spots on the body, and energy centers basically is the easiest way to explain that. But we also work on the energetic field of the body, and we also step away and give space to the body because every touch and every energetic interaction, the person on the table's body and my system are interacting with each other and they're getting information in their nervous system. So their nervous system needs time to process that information. And that's where we kind of set back and just let that happen and then work on it again. So really we want to center the body. So we work a lot around the center channel of the body. Let the body align itself, and that happens through the touch and through the breath. And so I would say it's like the system wants to shift and the system wants to move and let itself regulate and realign. And again, we do light touch, it's very light. It's either with the palm of the hand or one of the fingertips, but it's a very gentle, there's no pushing, there's no spine cracking or jarring motion. And then we modulate, meaning we make adjustments based on the information that their nervous systems and their bodies are giving us back. If somebody feels like their shoulders are up, we will potentially focus on those areas. Like, how can we soften this? How can we put breath here? How can we let the body rock lightly and then watch it just nicely flow back where it needs to go without having to do a lot of talking where we're saying, oh, I noticed that you have tightness in your shoulder, what's wrong? We don't do that at all. It's like, let's just send this nurturing breath that we can send, directing it into that area and working with that central channel of the body. And then the body will start to just regulate itself because it's getting the cues and it's getting the information. Because of the areas that we work with, when people are not having a session, they can still access those areas because the body remembers, oh, yeah, when we did that, my system flushed and it felt better. Or I felt more relaxed. And so we can place hands on different spots of the body across the chest or behind the head or the top of the head, different things like that. And people can utilize those spots to support them between sessions.

SPEAKER_00

Now, how much of this is the practitioner versus the actual person, client, doing the breathing? Is it, are you breathing into these areas or are they the client?

SPEAKER_01

Does all the breathing.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

I, as a facilitator, would direct that breath and say, focus here.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And perhaps breathe, explore breathing into this area and how that would feel. And noticing how your body wants to move or shift. Nothing is ever mandatory. If I tell someone, let's focus here and breathe in this area, it's really an invitation to do that. It's not required. Like we're never gonna force somebody. If someone said to me, I don't want to lay down on a table, I want to sit up the entire time. We would make adjustments, and that's where that modulation comes in. Make adjustments and do the session completely seated. So it's there's a system to it, but it's not such a strict system where it's like it has to be done this way and only this way. We make accommodations for people as they need. But what we do as facilitators is notice maybe where we need to touch the body and where we need to bring attention to the body, but the person is really doing their breathing. As a facilitator, it's our responsibility to really be very grounded, very centered ourselves and making sure like we're clear before we start working with someone.

SPEAKER_00

Understood. With that being said, this calm technique, was it something that has been derived over years of pure practice, or was it like just kind of downloaded, like with a thought or a vision or something like that? Yeah. I had a three, like Martin Luther King, and then all of a sudden they're like, I have it. I'm curious.

SPEAKER_01

I have been, as well as my partner, we have been like lifelong researchers and experimenters of different modalities. And what had happened about 13 years ago was I was like, okay, there's something missing in some of the experiences I've had. And it was one of the nights and I'd woken up and I do a lot of writing things in the middle of the night. Like I'll wake up and it's like, write this down. I need to get this on paper. I need to explain this or write it or figure out what this all means. And then I revisit it later. And one of the nights I was like, oh my gosh, we have the ability, him and I, together to really create that missing piece of being able to take people in a whole different direction that isn't available right now. And that's where that started. And because of my background being very ethics focused and very method focused and that therapy background, I wanted to make sure I had all the pieces. And like I didn't want to just throw this out there and so we were very protective. Like, this is how we expect ourselves to be. And this is how much internal work we expect ourselves for me to be able to touch somebody or me to be able to put my hands on somebody or be around somebody in a very sacred session type process. And so, like I said, over the last 13 years, like we hadn't taught anybody. It was literally just him and I doing sessions for people. And that was it. And it was a very, it was a very divinely guided like download of when it came about. And then we've continued to really just curate. It and uh deepen it and make it look like what it looks like now. And then we were like, we need to teach other people how to do what we do.

SPEAKER_00

What would be your standards for I would like to learn this? What is your standard for me as a provider, a practitioner to be able to work with someone?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think it's really important for someone to really be able to embody being completely without an agenda. Like it's not the facilitator's agenda to force a client to be or do a certain thing. It's important for a facilitator to really tend to their own self, work their own program, be able to be fully present and also in the program itself to learn it, be able to accept feedback of like where we can make adjustments and in some ways for a moment not learn the program through the lens of all their other stuff, but learn the program through a new lens. And then we can teach them to integrate anything else that they already have with what we do, but really just stepping out of it and just being really fully in the program. In the program itself, we have some workshops and different like embodiment activities and self-growth techniques and processes throughout the whole journey. So people are getting that support. And then I also a program, which is really about digging into yourself and finding like your inner passion, your inner excitement and your inner love for life. Anybody that's in our training program, we're offering a much more significant discount on that program. So if people want to really do a deep dive into themselves, they can do that program at a lower cost than what it would be if you took it independently as well. But I think just that ongoing, like continuing to add to your life toolbox because life happens so many times. And even if we have thousands and thousands of options, we sometimes just need that extra reframe. And then it's like, all right, where are we at now? And I think that as a facilitator, we always have to be in that always learning phase.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. It's exciting to hear you talk about this sort of thing because so many people, healthcare providers, nurses, doctors, walk away from the medicine model where you're attached to outcomes. Yeah. If they die, you fail. And there's another side to this. Maybe they feeled exactly where they were at, and the experience they had was exactly what they needed when you're attached to outcomes, or even in a Western medicine setting where you're blamed from the outcomes and lawsuits and moral injury and things. How would you speak to the healthcare provider who wants to start all over and do something?

SPEAKER_01

And do something like this. One thing I love about doing this kind of work is we as a facilitator are there to create space for people to step into that space. But it gets to be the person's choice on how deeply and how much that they step into it. But this work, it's creative and it's an amazing relationship that can happen with a client, but you don't have the pressure of that this is what the outcome has to be for this to be successful. Our responsibility is really just how can I model what it is to feel safe in my own body? And how can I model what it is to really feel empowered to change my emotional state, to nurture what I have needing to be nurtured? Like, how do I get to do that? And how can I do that? And then show up for a client from that embodied state. And then the clients get to be like, oh, I want to feel like that too. It's so much away from a sickness model or diagnosing something wrong with you model.

SPEAKER_00

You get it hit the nail on the head. It's it sounds like all roads lead back to you taking care of yourself so that you can do the mirror neuron thing and model it for other people so that they could be like, I want more of that. Right. And it's just, I've been a holistic nurse practitioner for 22 years. So for about 14 of those years, I was just gathering tools to make my patients' lives better. Right. They I wanted them to use this, use that. Guess what? I wasn't using for myself.

SPEAKER_01

I'm putting there.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, what can I do for them? What can I do for them while my life's falling apart, and it's just the house is on fire, and then you've got like this big water fountain in the middle of the house, and you don't really realize that you could put the fire out yourself, and I'm just like so focused on my patient.

SPEAKER_01

100%. And I did the same exact thing, and I'm like, oh wow, my life is on fire, and I had no idea. So now we just let people have their fiery passion and figure out what that means for them. And but we, yeah, it's it's 100% tend to me first and making sure I'm in the full present state and how I can move forward in the world with that.

SPEAKER_00

Awesome. So I want to talk about your animal work a little bit more because that's very intriguing. Even though I know humans, we're all animals in ways, we just have memory. Yeah. Everything, our nervous systems. And let me go back to the human being as far as like comparison to animal, our nervous system, the dysregulation, and how we don't realize how similar we are when we're in fight or flight and things like that. How can the calm technique really help people to recognize what state of emergency they're in so that they can feel safe in their environment?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So the calm technique for humans, because I do it for animals too, but the calm technique for humans, what that teaches their nervous system is they don't have to live in fight, flight, or freeze. And they recognize this doesn't feel like flowy. This feels weird. And they don't have to know exactly what it is, but it's okay, my body's feeling odd. And I didn't feel as calm as I did after my session. So their brains will start to be like, all right, let's check in. And then their systems are like, I need a breath, or I need to wiggle, or I need to move, or what tool did I learn after my session that I can access right now? And there's more of a realization of not living in that state of fight, flight, or freeze. It's more of, oh wow, I'm recognizing I'm going into that. And their systems can say quicker, like, should I be worried? Or it's, oh no, I don't need to be worried. I'm having just a stressed-out moment, self-nurture, and then they move along and it feels like a much easier state of being versus not having the awareness that this is the level of distress and stress that they're living in. It just shifts where that baseline is.

SPEAKER_00

Gotcha. That's pretty exciting because they're actually not on autopilot. They're like, okay, this is what's going on in my body, and they're not overreacting, and they're just talking through like it's a process and everything, and that self-awareness makes a big difference in thinking, waking up thinking something's wrong with you. I get people telling me my brain's broken, and they feel so guilty about just the body doing its job to try to protect you.

SPEAKER_01

100%.

SPEAKER_00

No, and it's just as far as like a relationship with your body, is there any any starting technique that you have that you would share with someone just to get to know their body for the first time if they've never connected in that way?

SPEAKER_01

One of the most powerful techniques people can start with is just having breath awareness, not trying to change it, not trying to do anything about it, but checking in and like running a scan on their body and just being like, wow, what is my breath doing right now? And just not just listen and feel it. And there's no judgment behind it, there's no anything, but we spend so much time just running through life and to-do lists and all these responsibilities. Like, how many times do we really just sit and listen to where we're at right now? And what naturally happens when we start that awareness is the body actually starts to soften. And then if it doesn't, asking yourself, what would it feel like if I let my body soften by one percent? Or what would it feel like if I just let out a sigh? Or a long exhale, and so we come at it with curiosity versus oh wow, my chest is tight, something's wrong with me, or I'm not doing it right. It's literally just noticing and being curious, or if I stretched my arms, what would that feel like? If I rocked my shoulders, what does that feel like? And just noticing. Because then all of a sudden our bodies are like, it wants to take a breath, it wants to feed with oxygen and release stuff that was holding on, or we don't notice. Like sometimes I do the same thing. I don't notice how tight my shoulders are. It's because I've been in work mode or focused, and I'm like, wow, my shoulders are tight. Oh, okay. What what if I just let myself soften a little? What if I breathed into my back a little? And then I'm fine. And it's like we just come at it from curiosity and from noticing without the judgment and without the story attached.

SPEAKER_00

I wish that we could put this feature on like Apple watches so that people aren't panicking. I'm in AFib now. I need to go to the screw room. Oh, it's doing H G on me. It's just and it just says it has a message soften. You should brilliant, interesting stuff. The more technology we have. What's interesting, more technology gives us more awareness. What is our O2 set? What is your heart rhythm? Things like that. But if it had those features, you know, I know my Apple Watch tells me to stand up. It's time to stand up. Yeah. And then it's like I can be like sitting, still doing my work, and then they'll say, Oh, you did a good job. Good job standing. I was like, I haven't even stood yet. Nothing beats your own awareness, your own consciousness to be able to organize and to be able to do the things that you need to do for yourself. And look at fact. How do animals respond to this technique and what does it look like?

SPEAKER_01

So the calm technique for animals and people is similar. Working with animals, I would say is probably easier in a sense because they're not coming at anything from a cognitive story standpoint or needing to know every single scientific reason. They don't ask, they don't care. But when I work with animals and do the hands-on work, they will notice the light touch, or I will need to start way off the body. I do a lot of work with trauma animals who like cannot be physically touched, or they are literally terrified and living in that state of, I will die if you look at me. So we have to kind of work with that and dance with that a little bit. Like, how do we bring their systems down to a state where they can hear new information and have a different experience? So I teach co-regulation, and this is where it's important for what people do for themselves, is if you really get yourself into a very regulated, settled state, you will impact and affect whoever is around you and whatever animal is around you without really having to think about it. And so a lot of times when I first start my work with an animal, the ones that are more scared or terrified or traumatized, I will just turn sideways and I will start to breathe. Just long deep exhales. And I really just focus on myself like grounding in the channel. And then I focus on them with all four paws on the ground. So they're nice and grounded and rooted. And that may be the first session, but most of the time I can go a little bit further and we can actually do some physical work where I do make different contacts on their body. It's very much the same places that I do when I work with a person. And they start to shift, their bodies start to move, and then they start to come and put their bodies in positions that they want me to touch next. Like they'll show me. And I had an interesting experience with someone's horse I was working with, you know, and they're big, like it's a little dangerous to be super close to a horse, especially when you don't know. And I went over and introduced myself to the horse. And when I started kind of working with them, they all of a sudden turned their body around so their like back end was facing me. And the owner at first was like, oh, they don't want to work with you. And I'm like, something's not right with the back right side. Like it just, I kept wanting to go over there, but I was like, I cannot touch that area. Like I will get kicked. And she went up and she touched the horse, and the whole back right leg was on fire hot. And it had tweaked a nerve that was affecting the whole system. Once we like acknowledge that, then the horse starts walking around and letting me do all the rest of the body. And within an hour, that back right leg was cooler to the touch. But at that moment when we started, it was very hot. And so we just had to keep working with the body. And she obviously followed up with her vet and whatever. And they had just said it was just something that was tweaked and just like on fire at that point. We just needed to move it. But we'd work like down the spine, we work with their hips, we work with their shoulders, the back of their head, like all the same areas. And they're alert and they're looking at you, and they're then all of a sudden they'll be passed out and snoring. I laugh because I have some that I call drive-by energetic sessions because they're running around the whole time. But it's they'll come by and I'll get like one swipe in, and then they walk off that way, and then they'll come back again for the next one. And then I have others that are literally like planted on my feet or back themselves right up into me, and I just work with them all in one quick system. So it looks a little different on an animal, but it's very much the same process to be able to do it. But with their owners, like I said, I teach that co-regulation, like them getting really subtle, their breath control, their understanding of what's happening within their own systems because pets are reflections of what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00

Can you tell me all the different animals that you've worked with?

SPEAKER_01

I have worked with dogs and cats. I've worked with a couple bunnies, I've worked with horses and donkeys and cows, and I have worked with various zoos with some of the primates and like the cheetahs and the tigers, a couple of them. So that's been really fun to get to be able to do that process. Obviously, those are all done at a distance, and there's no focus.

SPEAKER_00

And what are the differences that you've seen working with the cheetahs and the primates? Just having to work at a distance and them even coming to you to tell you we need you here for them. What would be the reasons they would call you for an animal depression?

SPEAKER_01

Anxiety ends up being a lot, or yeah, if they're feeling really depressed or just really struggling and not thriving in some way, but there's not really a medical explanation. Or sometimes when I go to zoos just visiting, I'll have the animals, it's like they see me and they'll come to me, like as close as they can. And then we just start to have the conversation at that point, which the primates are really fun for that because they will interact just like a person.

SPEAKER_00

I'm always curious about zoo animals out of their natural habitat and how do they feel? Are they homesick? Are they lonely? Do you ever pick up on any of that?

SPEAKER_01

It depends on the zoo. Around here, the zoo is great and they take amazing care of the animals. Like they're all very content. And but I have been to places where I'm like, oh my gosh, these animals are just not, they're not thriving and they're not heavy. And not that the people aren't trying, but they're just they're missing like that wild aspect or what's in their nature of like really wanting to engage in the activities that are like innately in them versus some of the animals are a little, I don't want to say domesticated, but they're less wild. They're still wild animals, but that's been their life. They haven't been taken from like the wild and put into the zoo setting. But yeah, it's just it's very different. And just I work a lot with rescue animals at shelters and different things like that. And they're all over the board as far as like, are they homesick for a previous owner? Is the shelter life hard for them or do they thrive in it? And that's they're all over with that from their aspect, but okay.

SPEAKER_00

That's a great question. I just was always curious about that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, some do some of them do a little bit. They just they want something more, and then others are really good at taking care of enriching their lives.

SPEAKER_00

What's been the most interesting animal case that you've had? Was it the horse, or was there any others that stand out?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I worked with an Egyptian dog, a balade. They're street dogs.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Her name was Hope. And she had been brutalized in Egypt. Like, literally did not want anyone touching her for years. And when I met her, her owner and I, we've become really close, almost like family, because Hope needed so much, but nobody could touch her. You could barely look at her. She wanted to bark all the time. Everything was dangerous. Like she just felt everything was dangerous. And we had to slowly work together where it was like, how do we get a leash on her? How do we get her to go outside on a leash and not gator roll and completely flip out? How do we help her work through this trauma? How do we teach her that touch does not mean you're going to be severely beaten, but that touch is loving and how to accept that loving touch. And what we had to do for her was create an anchor on her body. And we found one touch, it was the midline of the head that allowed her to she responded to that. And I had to try a few areas. But when I did that, it clicked for her. She leaned in a little bit. So when she would get stuck in trauma, we would touch that area and then she would move. And if we were like out walking and she would get over her threshold and stop and just couldn't move or couldn't think clearly, we'd touch that area and then we would go a couple more steps. And we did that incrementally for a long time. And now, years later, she cuddles in bed. She comes running to the door, leaping and crying to visit. And it's like from where that dog was the day I first met her to where she's at now, you would never know that she had the history that she had. But we had to teach her whole system how to understand what everybody's intention was that she came in contact with. And that was through somatic work and that was through self-regulation. If I was distracted in any way, the sessions did not work. I had to be very present with her. And so I think out of any animal that I worked with, she taught me the most and just really allowed me to also grow and really have to be creative because it's like she was probably the most severely abused case I've ever worked with.

SPEAKER_00

Wow. I smell a book coming on.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. It's yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Is it in the works? It is. Oh, okay. I was just gonna say this sounds very, very, very, very fascinating work, very much needed and everything. I think it's awesome because we're all connected. We're all connected, the animals and things like that. We're all connected and we all need each other and support each other, and we're all reflections of each other, which I think is so beautiful. If someone is listening right now, overwhelmed, disconnected from their body and running on empty, what is one small thing they can do today to come back to calm?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, this is funny, but it's one of those like cute little things that people remember. I always tell them, like, rock back and forth on your tailbone, and you just keep rocking back and forth, and then just take a breath out, and then a big breath in and a breath out, and just let your body wiggle and move and breathe, and then come back to your center and see how different your body feels.

SPEAKER_00

I feel like a radiation of energy.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So sometimes we just gotta wake it up a little bit, and then other times we have to slow it down. So it's not one way, and it's not I have to sit and do nothing because sometimes that's too much for people. All right, let's just wiggle and breathe and let's just feel that, and then sit with it and notice the difference. And it shifts and it changes whatever state you were in, just two seconds. Seconds ago.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. I know in Japanese acupressure, there's two points, sit bones, the 15s. And I remember when I first learned it, they were like, if you're ever in church and the preacher's boring, sit on your hands. Those spots. And then just shift back and forth. And I was like, okay, I ought to try that in church the next time. Yeah. Yeah. So it's funny how all of these things overlap, these points. And I know quantum healing, I work with someone who does quantum healing, and she's always constantly notice and thank your body, notice and thank your nervous system, notice and thank your organs and your talking the same thing. Notice. Thank you. Thank you, brain. Thank you, liver. Thank you for all those things. And I think gratitude just takes our energy up a notch. Okay. What is the one truth you most want every listener to carry with them from this conversation that we've had today?

SPEAKER_01

The one truth would be how powerful each individual is. And they have everything within their own system to really change and nurture their lives. And we just sometimes need a little help accessing that, but it's already in them.

SPEAKER_00

Beautiful. Beautiful. Can you share with the listeners in our community any programs that you have where they can contact you? And I'll also put links to the podcast too, so they can reach you. But do you have any programs coming up that you want to share with them as well?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we talked about the Calm Technique training program. That is coming up. That will start on May 4th. I have informational sessions randomly scheduled. If someone's interested in learning about how to learn that technique, I would say send me an email, vibe healingcenter at gmail.com, and just note in there that you're interested in the training program. And I will set up a discovery call to be able to run through what that would look like for them if they can't make it to one of the group sessions. The other thing I have, which it's a program that I really love, is the Spark Within program. And that's really doing a lot of work internally and finding that blueprint to really nurture your nervous system. It's a 12-week program. And just yeah, again, email directly and we can talk about that program. And just because someone reaches out with interest does not mean they're required to do anything. We can always have a deeper conversation. And then I do random other things that are a little bit less intensive containers where I'll do like weekly breath rig sessions or different group work. A lot of my work is online. Obviously, the somatic training, part of it's online, and then part of it is in person because we need to work on bodies. But yeah, if someone's just honestly feeling overwhelmed and is like, I don't really know where to start, I always tell people like, send me an email because I guarantee something that I do will work within wherever you're wanting to start at this point.

SPEAKER_00

Awesome. Thank you once again for being here with me. It's been wonderful catching up with you. I hope to see you quite often in the near future.

SPEAKER_01

I hope to see you as well. Thank you so much for having me on and allowing me to share about what we do. Thank you.