E18 - From Pediatric Oncology to TRE for All: A Nurse's Path Into Stewarding a Global Practice with Tanya Beard, MN, BN

In this episode, Alex sits down with Tanya Beard, MN, BN — Executive Director at TRE for All (TFA), the global nonprofit that has stewarded TRE certification trainings for nearly fifteen years. Tanya comes to this role through a career most people don't take a straight line through: pediatric oncology and bone marrow transplant nursing at twenty-two, ten years as a child and family psychiatric nurse practitioner, service in the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserves, consulting with schools and families, and — after the pandemic — a job at her local public library. Underneath all of it was one consistent instinct: bring the body into the room. Walking sessions with teenage clients, yoga, mindfulness, breath. Then a single optional after-hours class introduced her to TRE, and the trajectory bent again.

Tanya Beard, MN, BN, is the Executive Director at TRE for All (TFA), the global nonprofit overseeing TRE® certification trainings worldwide. Based in Washington State, she brings more than two decades of nursing and clinical experience to the role — beginning as a pediatric oncology nurse at Doernbecher Children's Hospital, later working for roughly a decade as a child and family psychiatric nurse practitioner, and serving with the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserves. She is a certified TRE® provider trained by the late Susan Shifman, and has consulted with schools, families, and treatment centers on body-based approaches to nervous system care. Learn more about TRE for All at treglobal.org.

⏱ KEY HIGHLIGHTS
00:00 — Welcome & Introductions: Alex with Tanya Beard, New Executive Director at TRE for All
02:30 — From Pediatric Oncology at 22 to Child & Family Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner
05:30 — Bringing the Body Into the Room: Walking Sessions, Yoga & Breath in Clinical Practice
07:30 — "Effervescence": Tanya's First TRE Session at a Yoga Calm Training with Lynea Gillen
10:00 — Down the Rabbit Hole: Discovering Dr. David Berceli and Training with Susan Shifman
14:00 — Kicked by a Horse: What Being a Patient Taught Her About Nursing
22:30 — Population Health, the Air National Guard, and a Pivot Toward Prevention
27:00 — Pandemic Reset: The Library Job and an Unexpected Phone Call
28:30 — A "Body Yes": Saying Yes to the TFA Board During a Time of Transition
33:00 — Three Pillars: Clarity, Conduct & Accessibility at TRE for All
36:00 — The Scope: ~95 Trainers, 65+ Countries, Thousands of Providers Worldwide
42:30 — Three Field Stories: NYC Firefighters, Missionary Sisters in Cameroon, and Mayan Villages in Guatemala
48:00 — TRE's "Flexible Skeleton": A Clear Shape That Travels Across Cultures
55:00 — Where the Research Is Heading: Denmark's MS Trial and New Studies from China
1:03:30 — A Stoplight, a Stranger, and Permission to Shake
1:10:00 — How Tremoring Supports Tanya Inside a Job with a Global Inbox
1:15:00 — Conflict as Part of Loving Well: Stepping In, Not Around
1:21:00 — Closing Reflections

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Neurogenic Integration Podcast, where we explore the incredible potential of neurogenic tremoring beyond the basics. I'm Alex Green.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

And I am Sebia Sung Shields. Together we'll be diving into how this natural innate process can be seen and applied across different professions, healing modalities, and in scientific research.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Whether you're a practitioner, a coach, a therapist, a body worker, or a researcher, this podcast is for you.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Join us as we uncover the science, share experiences, and explore how neurogenic integration is revolutionizing the way we approach stress, trauma, and well-being.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

So take a breath, get comfortable, and let's dive in. All right. Well, hello, everybody. I'm excited to be sitting down this afternoon with Tanya Beard. And Tanya is a TRE provider and also a nurse practitioner, and some other things she'll tell us about. Um, but most centrally to today's conversation, she is the current uh and somewhat new executive director of TRE for all, which is the uh global NGO or nonprofit organization that administers TRE um certification trainings. And those of you listeners to the podcast, Energenic Integration, you know, we talk a lot about Tremoring and TRE. And so TFA or TRE for all is the home of much of the activity that we see all around the world. So I feel very honored to um uh uh have Tanya on the show today. And what I'd really like to hear from Tanya is a lot about kind of her own personal story. Everybody has gotten drawn into energetic tremoring and TRE kind of usually for our own personal reasons. Um, and so I'm gonna I'm gonna want to know that sort of story from Tanya. But then also just kind of how in her in her role, central role within within the the uh TRE for all organization, what kind of work uh is happening now and what uh what sorts of opportunities are coming um as we uh collectively, you know, tremors around the world as we sort of shape this modality and and how it um works in today's world. So that's kind of what I'm hoping that we cover today. Tanya, thank you so much for taking time to sit down for a conversation.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Yeah, you're welcome. And thank you. It's um it's it's been fun to get to know you a little bit too, coming into this community and meeting so many wonderful people a little a little more deeply into the community. Yeah so absolutely yeah, I guess if we start with my story, I like you said, I was a nurse practitioner. Um I retired in from that career. I guess if I go back before that, I was a nurse, bedside nursing. So a lot of um very intense situations, uh, mostly in pediatrics. So families, um, a lot of crisis, a lot of, you know, it when when children are hurting, it really brings out the the best of us. And um it it's I I think you know, I've worked in adult medicine and I've worked in pediatric medicine. There are differences, there are differences. A lot of people would wonder, you know, uh, how do you do pediatrics? And I I thought often that pediatrics is so much, it's so much more um all-encompassing. You're really in the moment, really trying to focus on the child, you know, make sure that they're okay. And so it's um kind of like everything else in the room goes away.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Uh, and so, you know, starting there, and and and my first job was in pediatric oncology and bone marrow transplant.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

And I was young, I was 26.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Ian, because now you're in Oregon, is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 4:01

In Washington now, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Washington now, okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

That was in Oregon. So I um I got the one spot in my senior year. There was a clinical uh spot at Dornbecker Children's Hospital for Pediatric Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant. And I did, I I would say I did everything but beg, but I think I did beg for that spot. I would see my teacher on campus and I would cough, I'd walk by her and cough and be like, Pete's oncology. And she was like, I you're so annoying. You're so annoying. Um, but I did get it, and um then I was lucky enough to be employed there. And so I was 22, you know, working with children with cancer, children of all ages. You know, the youngest was three months, the oldest was obviously in their 20s, and then did some work with adults from there and kind of traveled around in nursing. Um, and then I was a child psychiatric, child and family psychiatric nurse practitioner for about 10 years. Okay, and um, all encompassing probably around 22, 25 years. Yep. Uh, did some work as a consultant and then um moved to Washington. And my nurse practitioner journey ended because we moved the year before COVID. And so I had, you know, when you we your licenses are state dependent, and there are some licenses that have like a multi-state pact, and I didn't have one of those.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

I'm looking at, you know, moving to a new state, getting the children. I had a I have two kids, right? They were, you know, middle school and early elementary school age. And I was like, nope, this isn't gonna happen. And I just, Alex, I just let it go. I let the licenses go. I let my RN license go. I let my nurse practitioner license go. And I just kind of hunkered around the family, so to speak. And I uh, you know, uh, I was a mom. I was just being a mom for a long time, which oddly is the hardest job I've ever had. Yeah. It's it's intense.

SPEAKER_03 5:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

So we we did that, got through the pandemic, and um, you know, somewhere along that journey, I was realizing I don't want to say the limitations of psychiatric medication because I think that they are extremely helpful uh when they are. And I think it's a wonderful tool. I think, you know, sometimes I hear psychiatric providers say that um, you know, that that medication is the limitation. I think that maybe for me, it wasn't that I saw medication as limited. It's that it wasn't the fun, you know, it wasn't the most engaging and fun tool for me. I was good at it. Um, it's a pretty straightforward, methodical, evidence-based.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

You were a prescribed, like you prescribed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Yeah. Did counseling, um, did some uh, you know, basic mindfulness and just like the the regular suite of you know complimentary accessory adjacent, you know, how does it feel to just sit in silence and breathe for two minutes? Okay, you can't do that. All right, we that kind of helps you gauge where you're at. You know, two minutes of silence can really help people gauge where they're at um early in their in their adventures with with stress. So um I, you know, I started thinking about yoga and uh bringing yoga to kids, and I found a lot of people who were doing that. And you start adding tools to your kit, and that was really fun because I liked the movement piece. Um, I always would take my teenage clients out of the office. So they'd come in for their psychiatric event management, they'd come in for their counseling, we'd go for a walk.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

Because I bilateral, right? It just was I was such a body person from the start. So we would walk and then I found out that that was, you know, like an evidence-based practice. Yeah, exactly. So so just kind of intuitively following my body of work was into movement, yoga with kids, making it fun for them. And then um, I would have parents come in that wanted to do yoga to the kids, and I was terrified I was gonna hurt a parent because kids are bendy and kids are kids are limber, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I'm looking at adults, I was sweating and I was like, no, I can't do this. So then I learned to teach adults yoga, you know, in this very accessible, um, basic entry-level way, and and just to try to make space for families to move together. And um, so it was one of those trainings that my mentor had us uh at the end of the day, she gave us an optional, you know, it's just optional since you're here staying on the site if you want to try TRE. And I did, and I thought, why not? I literally thought, why not? I'm staying here, I may as well. And I'd never heard of it, I had no idea what it was. And so I I did this, the TRE exercises.

SPEAKER_03 8:34

Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

And I just remember like I like visceral memory, it's a visceral memory of laying on the floor and looking up at the ceiling and just thinking this like, what is this? This feeling of um, it was like a feeling of uh I've written this in before, people have probably read it if they you know ever read anything I've written, but effervescence, a little bit of effervescence. And it was a feeling of delight. And I thought, what the heck? And this is curiosity, right? This so booming with curiosity. And then I immediately was like, who came up with this? Like, you know, and so I started researching who would come up with it. And it's I'm very much um my spouse has always called me an omnivore, I'm voracious, you know, I've learned about something, I want to know more about it. I think we have that in common. And so I uh learned about David, learned about his story, and I thought, well, if if my experience is, you know, in all these stories, I just told you those little micro run through my my experience as a nurse, um so much pain, right? And so much nausea and so much suffering and stress and tension. And I thought, okay, so if the common factor is that after things happen, right, there there's the time for recovery and rest and reset. And that part was always really, really appealing to me. So, and how do we, you know, how do we coexist while we're in this, you know, and as somebody who's incredibly empathetic, um, also just that I think sincere desire to, you know, you're giving pain medications as a nurse, or literally giving pain medications sometimes when people are in pain. And sometimes, you know, there are moments I was in, Alex, where no matter what medication you we've maxed out what we can give.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah. Not not doing it.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Yeah, there's nothing else you can do. And and you're sitting, and then it's just you sitting with somebody uh very young, you know, yeah, who's in intense pain. And so I thought, okay, interesting, right? So these are all experiences. You kind of go out on this branch and then you come back to the trunk, and you go out on this branch and you come back to the trunk. And um, Tier uh is so accessible and it's so simple, and it doesn't require, you know, a specialty medication visit. And it's um something you can do when you're with people, it's something you can do when you're alone, you know. I you can do it in in the moment. I I've once you do the TRE, right? For for me at least, yeah, once I did the TRE um and had access to the tremor mechanism again, right? We like to call it the tremor mechanism, but just to my own innate ability to shake it off in the moment, I it's kind of kind of there.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

It's a part of you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, just interjecting it briefly, like, you know, this you know, you're talking about the the the environments that nurses are in. It's bringing me back, you know, before the pandemic, before I moved to Colorado and I was based in in Madison, Wisconsin, and um I was doing a mix of TRE and structural integration body work. And for about five years, it wasn't like all my clients were nurses, but like that was the category of person that I had the most. I was like, I just like want to support I I I went through this period where I learned um how just how much uh how you know some ways, I mean, of course, doctors, other everybody's got their own version of this, but but I just learned to uh how much um nurses are exposed to in terms of secondary stress, trauma, you know, the kind and especially, I mean, hearing about you know pediatric oncology, you know, this is that's heavy, that's heavy duty stuff. Um and and when I found TRE for a while I was on this mission where where I was where I was doing a lot of work with nurses in the UW health system, where as like to support where you know this was through invitation, but where where we and it was the nursing staff and related that were really valuing TRE. And you know, maybe they ultimately, you know, some of them became providers and used it in patient care, but just for the nurses themselves as a as a as a um a tool. And I'm just I'm remembering all this as I hear as I hear what you're saying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

Yeah, it's wild. You know, I think um nurses are like you said, like, you know, there's so many players in the field of the care and keeping of the humans, right? And all are it's like you said, all are relevant, all are important, all are, you know, vicariously taking on the stress and the trauma and the the the um you know and the mechanations of the system, the healthcare system, all of that. It's just very intense, right? And so, um, but you know, I got such an insight into nursing when I was a patient for the first time.

SPEAKER_03 13:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Okay, so I had been a nurse at such a young age. I hadn't had children yet, you know, I didn't have my children until I was in my 30s. And so, and I'm taking care of little babies. And so I, you know, in a lot of ways, that helped a lot because, you know, it's very procedural, it's very invasive. I mean, I always would tell people I'm up to you're up to your elbows sometimes in someone's suffering, right? And and it it's you're really in intimate space with people, yeah. Right. And and while trying to respect dignity and boundaries, all of this is such a fine balance of so many things. And and you know, and then uh I had the unfortunate experience of being kicked in the I think have I told you this right about how I got kicked in the face by a horse.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

You've alluded to it, the never where we had enough time for me to really understand this. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's continue.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

Well, I got yeah, uh I like challenging things, which we'll get to the the executive director role later. I like challenging things. Yeah, um, I uh you know, I like backpacking, I like skiing fast, and you know, I like doing all these grueling things. And I have a bad, I had a bad habit when I was young of picking horses that I had no business, you know, really riding working with, but it was just a thing I did. It was I really enjoyed it. And I I, you know, for a lot of years worked with a lot of horses that were, I don't know, maybe the word just um challenged, you know, they had challenges, various challenges. And this horse and I got along really well. But one day, it just a number of kind of a myriad of things happened that that's that just resulted in her uh pushing into my space and I pushed her back. I'm like, hey, hey. And she just shot forward and kicked me right in the face, right on the chin. And so I, yeah, yeah, there's a like normally it healthcare providers, you know, we I know so many ER doctors that would rather just like, you know, take care of something themselves at home than ever go into the ER. And I think a lot of nurses are that way too. You cannot, you can't self-care a broken jaw. You just cannot. And so I ended up going in, you know, uh, and then um had to ultimately go back in and get the jaw wired shut and all of that. And and um so I'm a you know, it's time to leave uh and go home. And I I couldn't, I was panicking because my jaw was wired shut and I woke up from the anesthesia in a not great, it was the panic, right? And I'd never had that experience before. So I was like, wow, this is different. Usually I wake up from anesthesia, giggling and cackling and telling jokes, and and that's much more what I'm used to, but I was panicked, and so um I ended up staying the night rather than going home because they had to put me back out a couple of times. And so I uh I, you know, I'm sitting there, and every single person that came in my room was like, first of all, it was very difficult for me to start walking to like, oh, the IV pole. I have to take that with me, right? How many times have I walked the Ivy pool? I just tried to walk away without the Ivy pole. And I'm like, wait a minute, this is very odd. Um, and whenever somebody came in to do anything at all, start an yeah, start an IV, anything at all, they would say, the nurse would say, Oh, did I hurt you? And I thought, oh, we have this job where we literally hurt people all day long while providing care, right? Uh not all of the time, but often, right? We're doing these these things that that harm. And so it was so interesting to see everybody so like flinchy that they might have hurt me. And I thought, you're fine, like you're taking care of me. And I realized the impact of that alone, right? Just seeing that that like hesitance to hurt people while taking care of them. And I thought, wow, what a weird um juxtaposition, you know. So that was that that gave me a big insight. So I I do, I think that the caretakers, the nurturers, the procedure, even even I've known some people who aren't very nurturing or caretaking in their nature, but they're really good at the procedural part or they're really into the anatomy or whatnot. And they're they're wonderful clinicians. And um I think that toll of being the person who's uh inflicting, you know, discomfort onto people, even just that alone. Yeah, I just thought in their bodies. Because like I said, it was, you know, what do we talk about in Tier E and a lot of body-based methods is the the tension, like the the shoulders coming up and the oh e, you know, the ah, the tension. So that was interesting. Um, and and that I don't know, it changed my perspective a little bit. That was interesting. The first time you're a patient, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Well, okay, so you you mentioned the you know, you your first your first Tieri exposure. You had no idea what it was. So I I'm guessing was that with with was that with Lania and Jim?

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Yeah, yeah, it was. Linea, it was at a yoga com for children, one of the trainings. And I I had stumbled into that because I, you know, I was trying to figure out how to help people just breathe. Because we can do medication and we can do counseling, but a lot of people that I was sitting with just couldn't breathe. And so I was like, well, what if we start to figure out how to combine these things and bring in the body? But yeah, it was linear.

unknown 18:46

Cool.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Yeah, it was wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Well, so once you had, you know, your first experience and it was so interesting, you know, interesting for you, and then you looked, what the heck is this thing? What what's what's sort of the like did it like you started doing it for yourself? Did you how soon between that and deciding you wanted to train in? Like what is that timeline like?

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Well, anytime that I experience something that this is gonna sound really funny, but that just feels like it lightens the human experience, right? As somebody who navigated my way to the level of being a nurse practitioner, right? That advanced advanced care, you know, um, I want to be able to share it. Right. It we're all, I think that all of us, if we can in community, try to lighten each other's loads as much as possible together, collectively, you know, just sharing any tools. And so I just wanted to share it immediately. Um, so like I said, I I have a habit of anytime that I find something new, I want to research the roots of it. I want to see, you know, what's it adjacent to, what informed it, where did it come from? I want to see the lineage of it, right? And so you could see um where David's very natural, Dr. Brisley's very natural curiosity, right? Of just observations in real time and getting curious about something and then you know, looking at that how that all influenced it. Just I was captivated by how he saw something, he got curious about it, and he created something so simple. And I thought, what a wonderful thing. So I felt like his story was good, you know, and I I got to know him a little bit through um, you know, reading about him, right? Watching some of his videos, and uh that that was enough for me to feel like okay, I want to I want to learn this. And then I found my way, my trainer was Susan Schiffman. So Susan trained me, and that was a wonderful experience. She was so um, you know, Susan's gone now, of course. She had this uh light in her eyes. She was very uh interesting woman. So I learned um her very gentle and um I want to say like just a very simple version of Terry, gentle and simple, nothing, you know, nothing added on, nothing exciting. But um what she said too was that you know, what you know, you you know this in your practice, right? Combining methods or sequencing methods with Terry, right, it it complements other things so well. And so Susan would say, you know, we we try in the TRE world to, you know, this is Tier E, this is not Tier E. If we're blending models or we're we're doing uh, you know, like a workshop, just being really clear. But she always was really clear with me that the mixing is where the fun begins, right? Because you can um have some fun with TRE. So I liked that because you know, I'd been already working with yoga with children and adults, mindfulness, vasana, you know, all the different things, medication, all the things you do when you're trying to prescribe medication, like diet and lifestyle and all that. It just was such a good compliment. So I it just fit right into the tool into what you were looking. That I already had. Yeah. And the the more people I met, you know, the more I mean Terry has attracted such an interesting community of people. I think really, really curious people, really um people who much like myself, right? Like, how do we do this together? How do we all do this together? So yeah, it just it just fit. It fit at the time. It was great.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Um and it's so so then was that after you moved to Washington and you had stopped being a nurse, or was this still when you were nursing?

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Still when I was a nurse, yeah, I was a nurse practitioner. Yeah, and and so then I had Alex, then I had this interesting um shift from psychiatry, strictly psychiatry, into like population health nursing, right?

SPEAKER_03 22:39

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Um, and in I we've talked too all along the way that I had been um in college when I was in nursing school, I was in ROTC. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Weren't you weren't you like National Guard or something like that?

SPEAKER_02 22:52

I was in the National Guard at first. Actually, it's a very weird story. I had a pilot slot. Okay. And I was thinking about being a pilot. And then I was thinking about, you know, can I be a pilot and a nurse? And people are like, well, you could, but and I was like, I could. If anyone could, it would be me. I would do it. Okay. Can't do it. I can't do that. So I gave the pilot slot because I wanted to stay at Dornbecker.

unknown 23:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

And with the I I love taking care of children's cancer. It was such a um wonderful time for me. So gave that up um during the at the very last minute, um, they opened up some Air National Guard slots. So I had given the pilot slot back and I waited till the last minute, so I couldn't get a nursing slot back. Um, so I got the Air National Guard spot as a nurse, um, did just like miss mission readiness, right? Keeping people ready to go to deploy wherever they would need to in the state. And then I shifted to the reserves, the Air Force reserves. Um, it was in Colorado, I was in Alaska, kind of all around. Uh, women's health, pediatrics, you know, just a few different things. But I loved that. And so then I was looking at like some of the experiences I had in the military, right? Where people have profound trauma from deployments or, you know, uh what people I think don't think about often is that we we I want to say that we elevate and therefore sometimes dehumanize veterans and military service people, right? We think of them as these characters and they're just people like us too, right? They are people. I was a people too, and all of the military members that I worked with and were friends with, right? A lot of us had our own issues separate from things that we accumulated through the military work that we did, right? Whether we were overseas or deployed or active duty or not.

SPEAKER_03 24:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

So it's a system. And so it lended really well to that too, right? To to my military friends, uh, the athletes, right? I mean, the military is so physical.

SPEAKER_03 24:46

You're doing so much weightlifting and accessing all the time.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

So it just it just touches on so many things. So that was that was lovely. So I started doing consultant work. So consultant work around like, okay, so yeah, I feel like because primary care has gotten so bogged down and um there's a lot of healthcare provider shortage areas that the things that used to happen, just teaching like basic self-care, basic preventative care, basic lifestyle care, is has become inaccessible because there's not necessarily time for it in the sessions anymore with your healthcare team. Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:24

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

And you you kind of can't bill for it, right? That the model shifted so significantly. Now, in some places you can, and and in some ways that you can, but you're kind of we're trying to hold on to like an archaic model, right? I was in medicine when the care shifted from preventative to tertiary. And so I thought, okay, that has fallen off. Um, I'm sitting here doing specialty medicine to try to get people to look at the basics and then add the specialty medicine in. So I just started focusing on the basics with people. Um, and then adding in things like Tieri and you know, different ways of communicating as families. And so I was working with schools, I was working with, I tried to go to the places where things were happening that were leading to kids coming into my office, right? Families, schools, treatment centers, etc. And so I started doing a lot of consultant work and I loved that work, helping teachers understand how to take a step back, you know, cover the heart, engage from a cortex place, right? Because teachers are overwhelmed too. And so really looking at all the industries that were kind of where kids go that are just beleaguered and burdened and exhausted and trying to help, you know, on that level as well. Yeah, and then we moved. So in Washington, um, you know, what what happened between leaving Oregon and leaving that consultant practice and that population health level and working in schools, coming to Washington, pandemic happened, right? And I'm working with my kids and learning about uh, you know, alternative education models during COVID and all of that, just like everybody was. Yeah. Trying to scramble and figure it out, trying to find our little COVID pods and bubbles and stay safe. And how do we figure this out? And what are we gonna do? And then um, you know, I didn't want to go back to medicine, not because I didn't love medicine. I loved the practice of medicine. But, you know, once you step away from that model and you take a significant time away from that model of going back in, first of all, there are a lot of barriers to re-entry, you know, a lot of barriers to re-entry, unfortunately. And so I thought, do I, you know, how bad do I want it? And I got a job at the library, Alex. I just went and got a job at the library. And so I was staying at the local library, the public library, and I loved it.

SPEAKER_03 27:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

So the community engagement team, you know, doing like um, oh, baby story times, family story times, you know, like the we are as a family.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

I have two young kids as a family who heavily leans into our local library for story time and all of the above. I I appreciate the people like you who put on the that that um those programs.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Yeah, it's so fun and so many different community events, and just you know, the thing too is that libraries have become um not just the place for books and research, but like the kind of like a town, like a public school.

SPEAKER_03 28:10

Yeah, dead place show.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

So all my skill set kind of lent into that. And and so I'm sitting there with all these, you know, this whole story of Inteling, this eclectic set of skills and leading into um Linia called me and said, Tanya.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Yeah, well, so when was that? So locate us in time. So you get you got the somebody tapped on your shoulder in the form of a phone call.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

What yeah, it was so that was a year, it would be about a year and a half ago. I think it was like September.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

It feels like it was like two decades ago now.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Feels like it feels like I'm a hundred years old now. I feel like you and I have just met, but it's like when you meet under a we go way back, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Four weeks, yeah. It's uh it's been about a year and a half, and so that was. I mean, Linia, uh I had started helping Linia with her trainings.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

And just just so everybody knows, Lin Lanea Gillen is a TRE certification trainer, and also she runs the yoga, she and her husband, Jim, yoga calm, and based out of Portland, right? They're in Portland. Yeah, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

You know, for children. Anyway, yeah, yeah. Linia is a visionary, and and I think much like Dr. Burselli, you know, we meet people and they just have these great ideas and they kind of pave away. You know, using something like like as brilliant as yoga in the rural, you know, Oregon setting in schools at the time that she did was unheard of. And just bringing it in for kids was amazing. So I just I I love these people that are courageous and curious, and you know, how do we do this a little bit differently? And uh, you know, and then here we are, right? So Linia and I have always gotten along. Um, my my interest in pediatrics, I just I've really learned a lot from her over the years, and uh and Jim is just hilarious and such a I want to say like sophisticated um intentional person with how he teaches yoga to avoid injury and to increase the accessibility, right? The sort of you one of the things I'll never forget, I always hear in my mind is like bring raise the floor up, right? So, how do you raise the floor up? Like add blocks or things so that when you're trying to touch the floor, you're you know, you raise the floor, right? You and that fit in with um the model. Another person that I've always looked up to is Maria Montessori, the Montessori school model taught in a toddler classroom, a Montessori toddler classroom. Yeah, so just that make the work smaller. If it's too big, make it smaller, right? And and increase accessibility and and entry points. And I think that's that is my mindset overall is decrease barriers, increase entry points, right? So Linia's known all this about me. And and I I was thinking about being a trainer, I was thinking about thinking about being a trainer, and so I asked Linia, I said, you know, um, would it be possible to um kind of tag along a little bit and just sort of sort of learn, you know? Yeah, uh reiterative learning. I love like just listening to the same thing. You always get something new, right? And um yeah, so I was riding along, you know, mentoring a little bit, assistant teaching and and learning. And uh of course, during the pandemic, uh TRE training went online.

SPEAKER_03 31:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

And so I got to ride through that transition of help with that. And I know that um it was a scary time, it was an uncertain time, and it was wonderful. I think it surprised all of us how well it went. Yeah, you know, and I know different people have different perspectives on that, but for me, having been a part of that, it was amazing how um community can be created through the digital, you know, tools.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

No, I had the same wow, I can't believe how well this can work.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then doing Tierry with people remotely and and seeing what was possible was that was really interesting for me. You kind of learn, like, you know, what is humaning, right? I I was like, what is humaning? Wow. Um, so you know, then it's October, TFA, Tier E for All, we call it TFAs, was going through some things, and I was very blissfully unaware. I tend to kind of just stay to my own little circle. I always think these four people, these four walls, this dog, these two cats, that's that's my business, stay in my business. And so I was minding my business, and Linia said, you know, would you? And immediately I did this. Because anytime anyone says, would you like to be on a board? Oh my it's a nonprofit work is very, very, very um uh it for me, it's been intentional and purposeful and and intense. It's a lot of work. It's never just be on the board. So I laughed and I said, Lenny, uh, I said, you have brought so many things into my life that have changed my life for the better, that I will say yes. I said, if it was anyone but you, I would have said no, but I'm gonna say yes. And so and I I felt it in my body too, Alex. I'm one of those people, I'm almost 50. Like I know, like feel it in your body first and then answer. Don't just say no or yes, right? Just feel it in your body first and then answer. And it felt like a yes. And I don't know that I in my cortex agreed with this yes.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Okay, it was about a yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

Yeah, we're gonna try to yes. So so I knew that that was a path I was gonna go down. So I said yes. Um, and there was a little interim board that had been assembled to just sort of ride through uh a transition.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

Yeah, a transition. Yeah, the former executive director was leaving into kind of a new a new era got ushered in.

SPEAKER_02 33:47

Yeah, a time of uncertainty.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

So I did, I joined that that crew, and you know, we we sat on the boat, you know, we we saw, I mean, it was it's such an interesting, it was such an interesting thing because we didn't know, you know, we were joining to help. Um listen, it was so much listening to so many voices. And you know, we've talked about like what is the scope of TFA? It's the the the you know, certificating body, the um the uh you know nonprofit to increase access and decrease barriers to TRE around the globe. So it's it's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Yeah, well let's let's pause for a second because I think that that might be a good thing for just context for listeners, is like um like like let's just talk a little bit about TFA. Like when did it begin? Yeah, we don't need all the history, but just like the the like the the bullet points of TFA, how um what are what's its mission? So like what would be your what would be your elevator description of what TRE for all is and its work in the world?

SPEAKER_02 35:00

Yeah, I think that so I want to from what I know, from what I can tell, around 15 years ago, um right, Dr. Burselli started the nonprofit to just do that to increase access to TRE around the globe, right? To to to make TRE available. And um there was, I think Dr. Burselli was the director for a time. And then of course he travels all around. He always says he's he's taken TRE everywhere but Antarctica, right? And I think he's made jokes about that. And I would go there too. We need someone to invite him to McMurdo.

SPEAKER_03 35:31

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

So that um, you know, that was his work for a time. And then the director before me, of course, you know, she she went through, I think how long was she there? Eight to ten years.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Quite a while, not all, not as a director all that time.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and so you know, it's the there's a trainer community. Yeah, um, I think we're up to 95 trainers now.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

How many, how many countries?

SPEAKER_02 35:56

Oh, you know what? I haven't gotten to that yet. We're yeah, I haven't got to that part yet, but it's on my list. It's like how many countries, right? So it's many.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

I mean, it's at least I mean it's 65 plus that I'm confident it's 65 is a floor, but it's possible. I mean, you you know, I trained a few people in Iran this year, that might be a new country. I think you know, there's a there's a chance that uh we're we're pushing 70. We'll see.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

We should add it up.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

It's a beautiful. I think it's it's on my, you know, it's funny when you're a director, you start to kind of look at like all these silly things, like what metrics, you know, because those are the things you need to know when you're partnering with other organizations, like what do we do? What's the scope? What's the reach? What's the the right, all those things? And so yeah, that's one of the the inventories we need to do is which you know to really pin down which countries. And the other question is we don't, you know, we're not sure over the 15 years how many providers we have, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

We're in the multiple thousands of providers.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

Well, yeah, easily. That would be a good thing to know the minimum of. I mean, it's it's gotta be at least 5,000.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

That's that's a projected 5,000. Some people are in the maybe eight to 10,000 range, you know, their best guess. But um, you know, I try not to to pin the tail on the respect.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

Yeah, yeah. We don't we don't know with total confidence, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

Yeah, yeah, but multiple thousands of providers. And so, you know, as Dr. Burselli's goal was get Terry to as many people as possible, right? To everybody.

SPEAKER_03 37:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

And I think for a while there was a tagline of everybody and everybody, right? To make sure that the exercises are accessible for everybody. Because as we know, you know, when you look at different bodies, right, the exercises, we can modify them, we can make them more accessible. We can just set one or two exercises aside if we need to. If anything causes pain or discomfort, right, skip it, go to the next one. It's so they're easily modifiable. And so just getting it out to and and making it um, you know, I don't like the word owned, but it's the one that's coming to mind. So I'm gonna use it owned by the the people, right? So if you're in a a community, right? How do you make it all come to life for that king for them, right? Yeah. And how do you um, you know, depending on what the needs are, right? You could have uh I can think of different, like I've done a lot of um community outreach, right? And so in a day, groups I would go visit, you know, you would need to modify it. So I think that it's such a, you know, there's a we always talk about, you've heard me say this before, the flexible skeleton of like the core of like, yes, there's a scope of practice, yes, there are standards and and you know, there are guiding principles. And and TRE has a flexible skeleton. And I think that's one of the things sometimes um we we should talk about that at some point today because yeah, we will. Yeah, I I think we should get to that later, but it it has a shape. TRE has a shape, right? And it can take further shape depending on the context. And and that's that's the part I love about Tier E too, is because it's innate to mammals, right? To the Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Well, I mean, like, you know, I always like the comment, you know, I I've heard, you know, when I when I introduce TRE, and I it's like something that I always like to share is, you know, Dr. Bursett, you know, he had all the credentials in this as a you know, as a clinical social worker, you know, he could have made this a clinical-only modality exist, you know, for where psychotherapists are the people learning it. But you know, I've heard him say a number of times, you know, 80 to 90 percent of the global population doesn't have access to psychotherapy in the Western, you know, sort of form of that. 80 to 90 percent do not have access to that. Okay. So could this, you know, I think his vision, my understanding of his vision is could this be something that transcends, I mean it's used in psychotherapy, that's great, but but if it was restricted there, how far can it reach? Could this be uh could this be something that quite easy that that finds its way into into many more people's um bodies than than that? And so that that's always inspired me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:05

Yeah, I love that. Well, and the first thing that comes to mind too, having you know been in a field that was Western medicine modeled, right? Medication, all of that, the the um the DSM, you know, the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, right? All of that structure, while very helpful and valid, does not pertain to the whole world, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Like that those are constructs that don't don't have um cultural relevance in a lot of don't have universal applicability at all.

SPEAKER_02 40:41

Yeah, yeah. But um when you bring in, you know, unfortunately, clinical language is pathologizing, not in the intent always, but in the impact, yes, right. It we are we have become a tertiary care illness treating medical system, right? There are many, many reasons that has happened over the years. Like I said, I was part of am old enough to have been part of medicine when we did paper charting, you know, and when we did, you know, preventative care before HMOs and all that, which is really I that's really funny to me. But it's true, right? And so I I saw the changes that happened in the medical field, and um, you know, I I can get really philosophical about all of that, but if we just stay focused on that, um this is just something that is it it's separate, right? It's separate from, and so we can superimpose, we can we can put layers over it, we can, we can uh shape it, we can we can add to it, we can construct it, we can, we can, you know, lens it, we can framework it. But really it is it is a you could do it without language, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:00

You can you can Yeah, well what when we get I mean maybe we're already into the topic we say we're gonna talk about later, but like like I was just in Honolulu, right? I was at the um IVAT conference, which is the Institute for Violence, abuse, and um uh and Trump. Okay, so it's a try it's gonna be going on 26 years in in Honolulu, but mostly social workers is the audience. It was kind of fun for me because I got to pick I I uh what I what I did is I really boned up on the research in a way that I haven't done recently. So I got much clearer about kind of the last several years of of uh research. But um, but the thing that I that was sort of the heart of um my presentation, what which was an introduction to TRE and how it can be used in various settings, is I worked as I is I chose three case studies that to me felt like examples of where we can show, in a sense, the flexibility of how TRE can be used. And the three the three case studies. One was working with the firefighters uh in the New York City uh fire department zone, who over the last several years became interested in and and then and there what we talked about is how the the model, the deployment model was to try to as much as possible let them do a peer-led model where they could be the ones to deliver it. Okay, so that's that would be one example. Uh the other example was with this um Catholic uh organization overseeing missions throughout Africa. Okay, so and bringing um, and how Mohammed Salah brought uh TRE into Cameroon to the missionary sisters of the Holy Rosary uh group. And in in 11 days, uh introduced TRE to something like 12 to 1300 people, people in in um uh clinics, uh uh colleges, staff, um hospitals, element the the the sisters, the missionary sisters themselves. So that was kind of what the second case. Study. And then the third one was a new one for me, which was an ongoing one, which is this there's a provider, uh, Terry provider Ryan Bemis. He's in New Mexico, and he has been part of a project in Guatemala working with uh um Mayan villagers, villages, uh Mayan-speaking villages who's who that whole re their area was uh went through a genocide in the 1990s. And um the way they've constructed their project, their address their uh and the that genocide has been largely unacknowledged, and then they also have gone through uh what they call an epistemicide, which was a new word for me, which basically means that their means of understanding their their indigenous medical model of healers, the plants that they grow, uh and their their healing systems, all of that was intentionally disrupted by the state uh as a way to uh as part of kind of the genocidal intent of of these uh things. Well, so in any case, um Ryan, the provider I referred to, has several times now um uh he's part of a team of people that do a community healthcare program that that actually connect to acupuncture. He's an acupuncturist and there's this whole other component. But he now recently started bringing in um TRE in the last several um visits. And and and what I really highlighted in this model, coming to something you're saying right now, is there were several examples of where um, yeah, they are they have translators, you know, there many of these people are speaking um, I mean, in Spanish, yes, but the the their Mayan language. But there were times when the translators weren't available. Well, did that stop them? No, they still they still continued to deliver uh so so this idea that um, of course, there's lots of times things that we want to share verbally, but can it's also something we can teach human to human and words words can diminish in there, you know, it's not always as important. And then to me, the most wonderful thing about their whole project is that they after everything was said and done, they spent a lot of time asking the the indigenous healers, because some of them are still there, how they understand and conceptualize tremoring and acupuncture, because they're working with both modalities, but well, how does it fit within their their own traditional worldview, Mayan worldview, and the and the the people that and they did 20 ethnographic um interviews because part of the scope of their project is to is sort of this cross-cultural piece. And again, in the spirit of so so to me, I I I so I especially honed in on that last example in my talk because um uh to me it was such a useful example of here um uh you know, tremoring exists has existed in lots of forms. You know, TR Dr. Braselli always says he didn't invent this, he just found one he saw it in his own scope in in and then developed his own methods. And then of course we learn that it is popped up in in it's probably existed in one form or another in all indigenous kind of contexts. So so so in any case, like the this idea, so you know, you're talking about there's a core of it, but then there's this adaptability, and uh that just sort of that's what I was trying to convey in this in this conversation.

SPEAKER_02 47:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's beautiful. I you know, when you talk about I have friends from many different indigenous um just regions and uh yeah, I being present while that recovery and healing is happening is I I I think it's one of the most important places to learn, right? Because there are and uh, you know, Terry, I I've talked to you before about how I think, and I think today when we were getting ready, you know, I had a crazy day and I was like, what do I really want to talk about? I think that when we talk about that example, right, of people who've experienced genocide and it and this epistemide, and of friends who are trying to reclaim bits of language that was lost. And you know, I have learned so much from those friends that has, you know, uh I have so much knowledge crammed in here and so much research, like I said. And when I set all of that aside, and I think about what I've learned from my indigenous friends, my Native American friends, right, people from all different cultures, the the way that we are with each other, right, when we set aside words, knowledge, ideas, um, hierarchies, right, all of that. Uh, the fact that we can find something like it's what Dr. Burselli said, right, that is innate to all humans, regardless of culture, right, regardless of um language, regardless of gender, you know, all the all the categories how we try to structure things up, if we take all those aside, is something that all of us are able to do, right? To just whew, like when the kids were little, I wasn't trying to teach my little kids to take a breath. I was like, take a foo, and they'd go phew. So we can all take a foo, right? We can all take a foo. Um, but that is such a uh a beautiful and uh I don't know what words to use, but it feels like a very rare privilege that not a lot of us get to be in those those type of settings. And so when you are able to be in a setting where reclaiming of lost practices is happening and you you get to listen, um I think I've talked to you what I was gonna say is the then we have this loud, fast-moving, noisy uh influencer world. And I do not want to talk bad about influencers because we set all the judgment aside.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

You're talking about sort of like the Instagram wellness space. Is that what you're thinking about?

SPEAKER_02 50:21

Yeah, all of it. Because I I think I was using the word earlier, like intersection of health care and wellness and you know, healing and um the appropriation and misappropriation, right, of indigenous and cultural practices. That's just there's so much going on because people have this vigor and this uh I want to say like almost desperation to like feel better, to heal, right? Which is like what I said. I want to bring in feeling better and spread that to us any moments we can find joy or warmth or delight, right?

SPEAKER_01 50:54

Like any moment good stuff when that can be shared.

SPEAKER_02 50:58

Yeah, yeah. So then we come around to this, this almost like frantic time point in time where so much is going on that is so difficult, right? And and uh, you know, dare I say, there are some really bad things happening right now, right? Very, very, very challenging and um and scary. It's a scary time, right? So then we're bringing in these gentle measures that I think have somewhat been a like like I think about Tier E specifically, and you know, with Tier E for all, our mission being to clarify to increase accessibility, to decrease barriers, to make sure this is safe and you know, scaffolded and and not overly rigid, and and just able to go where it needs to go and be where it needs to be, right? Um there is one experience, which is being in a setting right where this intense healing is happening and people from different cultures can do it without talking. And and the the the I don't know what percentage of language or uh of communication is longerable, right?

SPEAKER_01 52:11

Yeah, right, a lot, right? Like most of right 80 for there, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 52:16

So we're there doing that work together, or we're over here using every term we can to get right, you know, what like to lend credibility, right?

SPEAKER_01 52:31

Or to to fit that evidence-based things into boxes and diagnoses and pathology.

SPEAKER_02 52:36

Like, right, so T Re is no good, and here's why. TRE is amazing, and here's why, right? Uh, this method is no good. Let me tell you why, you know, and so I think it's this teaching, um, selling, uh, promoting model that in itself isn't bad or good, it just is. Right. But those two experiences really kind of show you like where TRE can go, right? Into these very gentle places, into these very uh humble places, into these very um reverent places, right? And then there are people, you know, like we know like some of the well, you talked about um Muhammad doing his work with the right, with the music playing and bringing joy and laughter into it, because that's one of the reasons Linia and I would often she would have me come to workshops because I laugh during TRE. I start giggling, I get the giggles, and it's that diaphragm release where it's like go giggling and um you know, and I'm like, oh, here it comes. Oh no, this is gonna be a laughing day, right? And so it makes it less scary. So you're you're you're bringing right that look at the look at the breadth of the experiences, right? Like we can play Taylor Swift with teenagers and teach them to do it on the wall and just you know, we don't have to lay on the floor. We can, you know, you can modify it for the setting. And I think that's what I love about it is it's it can it can be what it needs to be because it's innate to each body, to each place, to each setting. So I I don't know. I there's something in there I can't quite articulate, but uh just walking through it with you, just the the visuals that I get, the exp of the different experiences, right? It's it's flexible.

SPEAKER_01 54:22

Well, okay, so that this this leads me to another curiosity that I have, right? Or I'd love to hear your thoughts. It's like what um I guess I would formulate the question this way. It's like um, in what ways are we already doing an awesome job? It's like, okay, we've got research that shows the TRE, we have heart, we have a randomized control trial that shows the TRE is helpful for multiple sclerosis. That is that's that's a that's an achievement. Um uh, you know, we've got firefighters in the United States using TRE with their probationer. That's an achievement, or that that's a that's a success. Um, I you know, I going back to the early 2000s, it's like, you know, I think of Dr. Brusselli as kind of a pied piper who just popped up, you know, was in Brazil and South Africa, you know, so the number of countries, Faroe Islands. I was excited once to be on a call where the the group from the I had never heard of the Faroe Islands, and there were a bunch of providers there. I was like, wow. So so like so that's another success. I mean, so we have we, you know, um these nuns are now using it, right? So and there's these are just the examples I know of. There's many, many, many others than that. So, so there's a lot of success. So I'm I'm curious for you. It's like if you if we look ahead for 10 years, it's like, well, what have we already done a really good job at? And like what what do you hope what what do you hope is true in 10 years that's not true today yet?

SPEAKER_02 55:48

Oh, that's a big question. Okay. If we think about what we're already doing well, yeah, we have I what and I think about we, you know, the organization itself, the nonprofit, is very, very small. It's just myself or two contractors, right? We have student intern.

SPEAKER_03 56:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:06

Um, and just trying to like handle the flow of communication, keep up with that. I think I have like 900 emails right now, Alex. Wow, you know, it's usually, and then I can get them down, and then it's so it's so much volume of yeah, I would just call it the mundane everyday of a nonprofit, right? Little t tricky things like the trademark or the how do we hold the intellectual property well? How do we, you know, people who want to try to bring it to a new area, right? So so if I have 900 emails, right, that's a sign that we are um there is a there's a uh a curiosity about Terry. There is a volume of interest and communication and there's a critical mass of action, totally, totally, yeah. And so, and that makes sense because again, it's it's an innate, organic, you know, method. So wonderful, right? And accessible, accessible, accessible. So um, so we're getting the message out there. And when I say we separate from just the little the little nonprofit skeleton crew that we have, the trainers and the providers, right? The the work is happening. And we have a lot of like a big online presence. We have lots of online, you know, we're doing that. Like, here's the YouTube, here's Dr. Berselli's YouTube, here's the the Instagram and the Facebook and those things, these little like digital vessels, but also the word of mouth, right? Just the word of mouth. And so TR is out there. I think we're doing that well, clearly. You know, it I think people often ponder that could be better. Things could always be better, things could always be worse, right? And I I I think it's it's out there.

SPEAKER_01 57:53

Um there's there's okay, there's two specific let me uh yeah, go ahead. You might have more to to answer, but I'm just gonna jump ahead. There's two groups that I wonder about. I haven't worked with these groups myself much. One of them you alluded to, which is children, and I know there's Linnea's an example, there's other things afoot.

SPEAKER_02 58:13

Um, we have Vera Vera's been working with children. She wrote the graphic novel, I think, for a book just came out.

SPEAKER_01 58:20

Right. Uh Spella and Katya in Slovenia. We did a pilot project. So, like, that's a zone. And then there's another is, but then the other end of the spectrum, like I sometimes think about like um in elder care environments. Yeah. Um, that's like that's like I think the lot could be happening. So, like those are two groups that I wonder if there's more. Um, you know, we are starting to see it more, you know, like the first responder community is that seems to be waking up. Yeah, yeah.

unknown 58:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:49

I think I think mill, I sometimes think that military could be more so I I had this big aha coming out of this IVAT conference a few weeks ago. My big aha was it's it's hard to describe this. On the one hand, I by doing this deep dive into the research, uh I on the one hand, I realized we're actually we're more solid in our in our small research base than I feared. Like it's sort of like the few studies we this, especially some of the more recent ones, are actually of quite a good standard. Yeah. So we're we're better than I feared in terms of kind of a solid evidence base, but we're not nearly as as matured as we need to be. So, like that that's a little bit that was a big take-home for me. And I I talked to Steve, you know, my my colleague in Norway. I said, Steve, like, you know, you and I are are not academics, we're not researchers, but we need to, we need to be part of this conversation. We need to see if we can partner with people and who are academically affiliated, if there's anything we can do to kind of kind of keep the momentum. Because when I think about really big applications, like I'm thinking, I was thinking about military because there are a lot of military at this conference. Yeah, and I talked to Dr. Braselli after he said, I Alex, I've done so many military things throughout the years, he sent me like a uh a list of all the ones you'd done, which was like 40 different presentations. And he said, but I was always invited in through the back door, never the front door. It was always a word of mouth thing. And if if we ever start getting invited into the front door, it's gonna be because of the maturing of the of the evidence, evidence. So that's like that's like so. Like when I think about a 10-year thing, it's like, okay, could we get some research? Um more, I mean, I'm like really proud of the research we do have. Yeah, definitely. But could like that could be 10x or 100x that. But so these are some of my own thoughts. But yeah, I want to know more about yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:46

It's been fun. So of course we have the research out of China now, right? Some of the reports just came out early this year. Um, and that's you know, without going into it too deeply, um, and people can look on the the um the YouTube channel, the TRE for all YouTube. And David Brusselli has um, or actually, I think those are on Dr.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:05

Burselli's YouTube channel, the um probably, or just going straight to the treglobal.org slash research. I mean, it's all it's all, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:14

Yep, yep, yep. And so looking at uh the work with people who are, if I remember right, in the hospital for uh with with mood disorder, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:23

And and how does TRE affect the other one is um dyads, parents and yeah, that one that's a randomized controlled trial that they haven't they haven't published the results yet. Um but exactly, yeah. Parent teen parent dyads. That'll be a really interesting one.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Having the parents tremor, yeah, having children. Yeah, yeah. I mean, uh there's nothing, there's nothing, yeah, uh that's an audacious claim, but I want to say, I'm gonna say it anyway. There's there's not much that's more trust stressful than watching your child suffer.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so I think that, you know, if it alleviates stress in the parent, right? That's good for the kids. I think that's amazing. So yeah, I I think there's a lot of um, and and you know, research uh creates opportunities for more questions, right? Findings that the researchers really do a good job of like, but what about if we turn it this way? And what if we look at it this way? So I think you're right that once that ball gets rolling, it's rolling. And so that's gonna keep going. You know, we have the the research in Denmark, like you said, have Denmark and other places about multiple sclerosis. And um, you know, the other thing too, like, yes, with children, uh, children are such a precious uh population, right? Because uh we know studying with kids, that's a whole different level. And so just normalizing it for children, you know, what Dr. Burselli has really pushed is just normalizing it for kids. This is normal. This is something you can do because kids don't have the years and years and years of defense mechanisms like we do, right? Speaking for myself, I mean I'm almost 50, right? I have five decades of defense mechanisms. I had to really chip away at my jobs to be able to tremor effectively. And of course, as a TRE provider, right? You're helping other people bring their tremor along, and then you're like, have this like can't let go all the way. Gotta get myself there, right? And and like when I can get into a good tremor, then I know I'm not being a hypocrite and I'm doing my work, right? But it's such a dynamic process. And so, you know, you talk about bringing it into schools, schools are very productive, right? Um, but there have has been Terry in some schools. Um, there uh, you know, hospital settings. I mean, there's so many places, but really also just bringing youth into right, like student interns. I was like, bring students in, right? Bring college kids in, bring um youth uh ambassadors, like try this out. You know, I I think just strewing it about as something that's available, and kids are they'll look at it if they're curious, they'll do it. If they're not, they will not. And you can't, you know, it's like let them have the autonomous. Yeah, yeah. For and even if you just, you know, like I think about all the things that I could show my kids, you know, here's 14 things you can do to feel better. Well, maybe they're 27 before they decide they're gonna use one of those, but they've seen it before. Right. Yeah, they've seen me tremor, they've seen the dog lay down next to me while I tremor, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:22

They they so you're you're normalizing it, like a big piece of it with kids is normalizing it and then introducing it, you know, into settings when it's when you're well then, or say let's say you let's say, I don't know, your kids are somebody, let's say they see it, but they you know, whatever, they're not they're not they're not taking it in. But like, okay, the first time they're in a minor fender bender and they and their body shakes or they're with somebody who goes through a crisis and they're seeing the the phenomenon in the wild in in action. Well, they're gonna know what it is, they're gonna have some references towards exactly that alone is a big um that alone benefit, in my view.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:58

Yeah, yeah. Just you know, I find too. I told Dr. Brasilli a story once where I almost got hit by a car in my car. I was just out of stoplight in a car going like within a couple of feet of my car. Hits and I just got out, and the man was a little shocked, shaky. And he started to shock a little, he started to shake a little, and I just said, Oh, yeah, good. Your body's trying to take care of that. You can shake that off. And he just did a very vigorous shake, and then he was like, Oh, but it was interesting, like just giving permission, just giving permission from another person outside of you to be like, Oh, good, you can shake it off. And then I didn't say a word about TRE or tremoring. I just said, Okay, here's my number. If you need a witness, I gotta get through this light before they close it because I gotta pick my kid up from school and I zoomed away, you know. Um, so just even stuff like that. So, yeah, for kids, you know, it just makes sense. Yeah, um, you you talk about the military. Absolutely. I think that you know, military bearing is a part of the job. You learn to lock it up, right? The kids say lock in now. Well, the military like lock. And I'm like, we could lock out a little, we could lock out a little. Like so I think you're right there. And then um the one thing I'm thinking of right now that's per very pertinent is because of all of the um global tensions and and things that are going on, right? The geopolitical issues that are going on, the the um, you know, without getting too deeply into that, in the time we have left, there is a massive increase and spike in legitimate, right, like war trauma. And you know, that's where Dr. Burselli founded this medical, right? Was in those settings. So we look at like the clinical aspects and the research, and we look at the military, and we look at the kids, and then we look at that what's going on globally right now is where this came from. And so we have, you know, at TRE for all, one of the things that we look at is, you know, if we look at like, you know, using corporate words like pillars, we have the pillar that is making sure that there is a scope and ethics and conduct guidelines for this method because it is so versatile, right? Like what it, what is it? What is it? Where is it? What is it not? You know, why is it bad? Why is it good? All that so our clarity, we have our clarity pillar, yeah, and and and our conduct pillar. And then we have our um, right, the increasing accessibility. And some of that is trying to get into partnerships where we can, there are a lot of TRE trainers and providers who are very, very, very um embedded in humanitarian work, right? Disaster relief, um, going into places. I've I've heard a couple different trainers use the words, the places no one likes to go, right? Going into the places no one likes to go. And we've you've you know, I've talked about some of the projects that are going on out there. Um and so being able to some of these TRE trainers are doing that work uh pro bono. You've done a ton of pro bono work to just try to help people get through increase accessibility. Um, you know, I think that if we can partner with some uh adjacent or you know, um mission-aligned kind of organizations, right? Like we're all gonna have to respond to what's happening right now. And we're gonna have to respond together because what is happening is big. And so I think about all of these subcultures where you know people can benefit and just the massive trauma that's happening, you know, and I could go into many examples, but we're all watching the news right now, you know, and so I think that if we can make it available to the people who could benefit it from it, you know, and we talk about like in the moment of the acute trauma isn't necessarily a time to say, here's a new method, you know, right, right. Because there is a lot of shock and there is a lot of um displacement and there's a lot of um loss right now, a lot of grief. But you know, letting people know it's out there, right? And and that there are people who will bring it, right? And that's where when people say to me, like, you know, what's the role of TRE? I'm like, what uh wherever there is um a larger uh need, I don't know what words to use, but larger need for response than a few therapists can go and do, right? Because that therapy model, uh you've probably heard the stories, doesn't always work when you go to to respond to massive places where there's been casualties, things like genocide. Therapy is therapy is a wonderful tool. I have survived because of my counselors over the years. Like that's one part of my team. Yeah, but I think about you know, the the there are not enough therapists to meet the need that is going to be emerging here soon. And so, so, so novel, I don't even want to say novel because Terry's been around a long time, but but body-based and and simple methods like Terry, I think there's just going to be a natural evolution, right? And so this has been a nice time for Terry for all to get things a little more structured, yeah, not overly structured, create more, you know, pathways and and you know, um meet some of the capacity. It's just been really interesting to see it grow on its own, right? So I think about the programs you've talked about with the firefighters, right? The or the the fire departments, um, you know, more kids getting exposed to it, right? It's it's just sort of evolving on its own, despite what you know. It's funny when you said the research, you're like, Oh, I was surprised. I'm like, the influencers got to you too.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:29

They're like, no, no, no, no, the academics got to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:33

That's yeah, the academics got to you. So it I think there is um, it's just an evolving body of work, just like any other body of work, you know, it's not it's not no one's perfect, nothing's perfect, but it is it's something that's that's been here a long time and and is very um accessible, you know, accessible, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:51

Okay, closing, closing, closing topic or question. How um how does tremoring, I mean you've alluded to this, but how is tremoring supporting you now in your in your in your role? You've got a big job, you know, as this organizational lead.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:06

Uh, but yeah, how what tell us what your I Alex, I'm gonna be honest, like having you know, having um the ability to tremor, I couldn't shut my tremoring down if I tried now. It just very organically comes in and I'll say to people, I am tremoring right now, right? I just I'm tremoring right now, right? And and it it it moves through, and and this is so interesting. I I'm at risk of using like I'm a writer, so get really wordy with things, but um, in this really elegant way, like I I think I've even messaged you after some like, whoa, I just had a vigorous tremor, right? Like a vigorous, but it's like one leg just let the steam off, you know, or or I think about times when I've been presenting and maybe there is I I love working with skeptics because skeptics keep us honest, right? As long as they don't blockade, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:02

If they're not if it's in good faith, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:05

Yeah, good faith skepticism, right? Amazing. Um, and so if there's a skeptic in the room that's maybe not aligning with the rest of the, you know, the room or whatever. And so you get a little nervous, maybe nervous isn't the right word. You get a little um curious, right? You get these activations around like, what am I gonna do now? I can just tremor and it just puts all that noise aside. Yeah, right. You know, I'm you I've talked with you about some of the things I'm going through in my life, right? Being a parent to two teenagers, one that's getting ready to go to college, um, being married for 24 years, right? Like in a relationship for 24 years, like the the tremor, it just helps me. I and I think David said this in one of his last letters to us, decreases the physiological noise when I can just be. And this is a hard job. You know, you look at being responsible personally responsible for 900 emails. My kids are like, what? That's horrible. And I'm like, yeah, it's pretty horrible. Or I'll have like a hundred unanswered texts, you know. I just look at it and I'm like, all right, we can do a couple at a time. You know, it just helps me stay in reality rather than sucked away into this disreality where it's like, I can't answer 108 texts or 900 messages, but I can do a few at a time and I can ask for help, right? And and just staying steady and um remembering to do my self-care, right? Because otherwise these structures do they tighten us up, they protect us, and then we're in a turtle shell and we're like, oh yeah, I forgot that I can, you know, reach out. Um, it's also made me braver. I'm gonna be honest, because like you remember when I met you, right? I called you and I said, Hey, Alex, can I tell that story? Do you think that's yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:50

Yeah, yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:51

Okay, so you know, you hear in a global community where we don't never get to meet each other, you hear myths, you hear legends, you hear stories. And I have consistently in my life learned that if something is set shared with me about someone, the best thing I can do is call that person and say, hey, I heard this thing about you. What tell me all about it? And so I called you, right? It it makes it no big deal to call someone and say, not so and so sad, because I don't want you know create turmoil, turbulent, but but to just be human to human. Say, tell me, tell me more, tell me about this. I'm curious, you know, and just it dissipates a lot of not just the physiological noise inside of me, the stress that is innate to having such a a big, you know, uh responsibility and and uh um tasked with such an interesting role.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:43

Um it it's well well well so let wait, but let me ask you directly. So so like because you're saying you know it's helped to bravery. And so it sounds like you're I mean, you know, your job intrinsically is you know, because of so many people and blah blah blah blah blah, lots of, you know, there's you know, you part of your job is to engage with conflict where we're a global community, yes, conflict is there, but so it's sounding to me like maybe tremoring, like you're more able to just sort of step into or face conflict is yeah, more readily. Is that is that okay?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:18

A lot of times this is such a good ending point because I don't know if I've told you this before, but I have you know, you learn these little things about yourself and they become your sound bites, right? One of my sound bites is that you know conflict is hard. Uh there, I I have met a lot of people who describe themselves as conflict avoidant because it is difficult, right? Right for me, conflict um has always been a piece of loving well. Okay, because if I am I I I have a big heart, I have thick skin most of the time, but I have a very soft, very big heart. Okay. And to see as a person who is highly empathetic, who cares very much, who is a natural-born nurturer, who has been in the caring fields, the medicine fields for for a couple decades plus, and now has landed here, right? Um, if I can't step into conflict wisely, thoughtfully, with care, with intention, um, and and say, you know, find the yes and find the no's, find the yeses and find the no's. And really, um, you know, I think we've talked about this before, any kind of governance that has to happen at Tierry for All, might I was in the military, right? Unless you have gone so far over that there's, you know, we can't like if you've broken laws, you've broken laws, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:42

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:42

If you are struggling or there's something going on where it that requires director type behavior, it's just opportunities to grow and learn, right? So, so governance really is like people talk about discipline, you know, with your parent, right? Discipline is becoming disciplined, becoming, you know, more in integrity, more in congruence with your values, more clear, more more of everything you want to be, right? And it's really hard to be human. So I think that um what I found is that, yeah, dairy, the the tremor, right? The tremor mechanism, the way I've been able to integrate, the number of tools I've used, the number of tools I've used has all come together to allow me to, yes, step into those tents or or conflicted places uh um and try to make the best decisions that I am able to, and they, you know, to be wrong sometimes, to say I am happy to acknowledge when I'm wrong, right? So it's also given me that security, that flexibility, yeah, flexibility, security, like we're all learning together, right? I don't know more or less necessarily than any person that I'm sitting across from, but to be able to do what I'm tasked with doing, right? Which is directing, I guess, which really is this giant collaborative way with so many people, um, to just move with as much wisdom and you know, humor and grace as I can. And uh yeah, conflict, conflict is important to be able to navigate, you know. And I talk about dynamic tension, the muscles push against each other to move. Yeah, conflict is a dynamic tension that can move us forward, but if we ignore it, right, it that it's it's it creates some problems. And I sometimes you got to ignore it, you know, sometimes you don't. So I yeah, I think that's a good a good point that you raise raise.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:35

Yeah, that's just certainly what I mean in the you know, whatever it's been three, five months, however long I have been um connecting with you and you know, and some of us in or in and around um whatever, you know, just at least it's adjacent to how TFA is developing. And that has just really come across to me as you're you're you're a person who's you know, you've come into um playing a leadership role in a time of transition. And so, and so you're you're part of you and not only you, but with the board and everybody. It's a it's a period of creating, trying to create clarity after a period where there was less clarity. So but but something that I have just um observed is that you on the one hand, there's times that are they're tough aspects of your job. Um and like you you seem to have a strong value, but like not just being a tough leader, you're trying to be a you are a human leader. And what I suspect is that because you stay connected to your body, you stay connected to your nervous system, you tremor and you bring in all these other tools, it's it feels to me like that's that's how you do that, that's how you handle the uh vicissitudes of of the heavier part of your work, but but with presence and care and a big heart and tough skin when you need it and all that stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:56

Yeah, it feels true. It feels true. Yeah, it's it's funny to think that I have ended up here. People ask me, like, what's your job? And I'm like, hold on, it's very complicated to explain. And also I never intended to be here. And I am shocked, I'm as shocked as anyone else that I'm here, right? Like I had no intention. I literally thought I was gonna just go to the library and kind of, you know, I still go to the library and do the story times and stuff. I kept that job because I love it, but I had no intention of landing in a position or a role like this. And it's been so interesting to see that, you know, I think sometimes this is like you, we could get really into philosophy about it, but what is your purpose, right? And you think about all the things that I've gone through, the different experiences I've had, the intensity. Betsy, the the board president and I will often look at each other because Betsy's um retired uh first responder, right? And has is a Terry trainer now in in North Carolina. And so Betsy and I look at each other and be like, okay, the stuff she has seen and the stuff I have seen, right? This is not any of that. Like we can just slow down and really think it through because sometimes, you know, the intensity will peak and it's like, okay, wait, hold on. You know, there's no blood. There's no, so everyone's breathing. Okay, we're okay, you know, and hopefully it stays that way. But um, you know, it it's it's not anywhere I ever intended to be, you know, but here I am. And so to be able to have that perspective too, of like, you know, the like the experiences I've gone through in the past are, you know, they're very valuable in keeping perspective in this role.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:31

And uh, you know, we have a duty to the public to really describe what TRE is and what it's not, to make it more accessible to as many people that want it. And um, yeah, I'm here for that. I'm here for that. I I love this method and I I I'm falling in love with the community, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:48

Oh my gosh. Well, Tanya, thank you. I mean, thank you so much for just the you know, kind of a deep dive of just kind of both where you've been professionally and how that just feeds into um how you're how you're um uh working working in this field. Um and just you know, thank you for your service. I mean, you know, now you're in a paid role role, but you know, uh based on when I see messages coming in, I have I have the hunch you're you're you're working far, far above and beyond your your allocated hours, and certainly during your interim board period. So, you know, just the um yeah, just how you've uh stepped into this has been impressive for me to see. And I and I appreciate it as somebody in the in the TRE world. Appreciate your service with it. So thank you. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:36

I get a lot of really sweet feedback. Um, and it's I tell people that um every affirmation counts and every um you know kind email I've gotten is just it's just wind in the sails, you know. And I'm I'm old enough to know better than to try to be a martyr.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:51

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:51

I mean, there's just no like this is this is important work, it it requires patience and diligence and groundedness, and the community is very affirming. And so, you know, we're we're getting there, I think one step at a time. And and uh yeah, I don't know. It's good.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:07

Very cool. Awesome. Well, let's is this a place we can land?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:10

Awesome. All right, thanks, Tanya.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:13

Yeah, thank you. That's it for today's episode. We hope you found inspiration and new insights into the power of neurogenic drone rate.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:22

If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to subscribe, share, and leave a review. It really helps us reach more people interested in this transformative work.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:32

And if you want to dive deeper, connect with us or to learn more about our sessions, courses, and upcoming trainings, head over to neurogenicintegration.com.