E15 - Finding Your Ground: Jonah Robins on TRE, Bioenergetics & Coming Home to Your Body

Host Alex Greene is joined by TRE provider and somatic coach Jonah Robins for a rich conversation about what it means to come home to your body. Jonah discovered TRE in his early twenties — introduced by his father, Dr. Eric Robins, during a particularly stressful season of life. His first tremoring session stopped him in his tracks: lying on the ground, legs finally still, he felt a wave of peace travel up his spine. It was the beginning of a 12-year practice that would shift not just his nervous system, but his entire relationship with himself. Together, Alex and Jonah trace that journey — from Jonah's early freeze physiology and the slow thaw that followed, to his certification and first experiences sharing TRE with others.
 
Jonah Robins is a TRE provider based out of Los Angeles CA. After discovering TRE in 2014, he spent several years being personally mentored by Dr David Berceli learning how to deepen the TRE process in his own body as well  as with clients. Today he works with folks from all over the world helping them to embody the tremor mechanism. His work also incorporates aspects of Bioenergetics, Reichian breathwork, and Pranic Healing. 

The goal of his work is to help clients release the emotional, physical and energetic components of their issues so they can restore balance to their body and nervous systems.
 
 
⏱ KEY HIGHLIGHTS
 
00:00 — Welcome & Introductions
01:46 — How Jonah Found TRE
03:59 — First Tremoring Session
05:23 — Early Practice & Obsession
07:19 — Thawing the Freeze Response
09:48 — Meditation Meets Somatic Work
13:51 — Meeting Dr. David Berceli
19:17 — Teaching TRE in College Days
21:51 — Three Years with Dr. Berceli
26:29 — TRE for "Normal People"
31:43 — Neo-Reichian Therapy Journey
36:08 — Body Armoring & Bio-Energetics
41:37 — Spirituality & Somatic Healing
46:24 — Highly Sensitive & Spiritual Beings
52:17 — Spreading TRE Worldwide
 
 
🔗 RESOURCES & LINKS MENTIONED
 
• Dr. David Berceli — Creator of TRE®: https://treglobal.org/ 
• Dr. Eric Robins — Pioneer in energy healing & energy psychology (Jonah's father)
• Alexander Lowen — Founder of Bioenergetic Analysis: https://bioenergetic-analysis.com
• Devaraj Sandberg — Bio-energetics & Reichian work on YouTube
• Jan Sultan — Rolfing practitioner, last student of Ida Rolf
• Deanna Hansen — Block Therapy (myofascial release): https://blocktherapy.com
• Morton Hershkowitz — Neo-Reichian therapist, student of Wilhelm Reich
• Jack Willis — Neo-Reichian Therapy for Home Use (book) https://reichiantherapy.info/book%20in%20pdf/Reich%20home%20Book.pdf 
• 📧 Connect with Jonah: jonahrobins@yahoo.com 
 
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🔗 Join our live weekly classes → https://neurogenic-integration.com/webshop/#classes 
🎓 Explore our Online TRE® Certification → https://neurogenic-integration.com/webshop/#cert 
 
📍 FIND US ONLINE
Neurogenic Integration: https://neurogenic-integration.com/ 
Instagram: @neurogenicintegration

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Neurogenic Integration Podcast, where we explore the incredible potential of neurogenic tremoring beyond the basics. I'm Alex Green. And I am Sebia Sunfields. 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. Whether you're a practitioner, a coach, a therapist, a body worker, or a researcher, this podcast is for you. 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. So take a breath, get comfortable, and let's dive in. All right. Hello, everybody. I am excited to sit down this afternoon with my friend and colleague Jonah Robbins. And Jonah is in the LA area and he's a TRE provider and coach, uh somatic coach working with TRE and other methods. And uh I feel like I go way back with you, Jonah, because um I think I think we first connected at an advanced training in Phoenix. Is that yeah, is that where we were? Yeah, Phoenix in maybe around 2015. Um I think you and I were kind of had both of we had sort of just recently done our certifications uh around that time. And um in any case, I've kept in touch with Jonah over the years. We've done some projects together, we've we've compared notes on the on the journey along the way. And um I asked Jonah if he would sit down and really just share his personal journey, because to me, so much of what this podcast is, is just hearing about different uh neurogenic tremoring enthusiasts. Sometimes it's people who aren't even facilitators, it's just their own personal practice. Um, very commonly it's a provider like yourself, Jonah. And and to me, the intention here is just to hear um what what makes this uh uh what brings this practice alive for everybody. And so I asked Jonah if we could hear his version of that story today, and he graciously agreed. So Jonah, thanks so much for taking time today. Thank you for the intro and for having me, man. It's uh we've known each other, I think we started in 2014. Yeah. Um so yeah, man, 12, almost 12 years. Yep. Crazy. Yep, yeah, time, time flies. Time flies. Um, I I always kind of like to start at the beginning. It's like um, you know, you you were almost like a teenager or something when you when you found TRE, right? So, so like how did how did it find you? You find it. You were doing a lot of uh EM EFT tapping at that particular time if I if memory serves. Uh, but you I think you had some some something drew you to TRE. And so yeah, could we just start there? Yeah, well, again, thank you for having me. And uh, you know, I I started all this stuff when I was young. I mean, I got into personal development at like 18, and I'm like the baby at all these seminars. And um, the first couple years for me was very cognitive based, so doing a lot of like tapping and NLP and hypnosis, and um, none of it really involved the body. And the driver for me, because I was so kind of enmeshed in this world of it's the mind, and you change the mind, the body follows, was um something I think a lot of viewers can relate to. Is I was in a relationship at the time, and relationships can bring up stuff, um, you know, stressors, anxiety, um, especially around, you know, conflict or relating. And at the time I was in a relationship that was causing me quite a bit of emotional turmoil. And um my dad, who some of you listeners may know, Dr. Eric Robbins, who's a pioneer in many ways, kind of in energy healing and trauma work and uh energy psychology, had discovered Dr. Berselli's initial book, which was like the revolutionary trauma release exercises. And um I came home one day and I'm like, dad, I'm like, can't sleep. I wake up in like night sweats because this relationship's just causing me a lot of stress. He goes, Well, you I have this thing and you do some exercises and you shake. And I'm like kind of desperate, you know what I mean? I'm like, all right, well, what do I have to lose? So I do it and I'm lying on the ground, my legs are wailing. This is weird. Like, am I doing this? Is this doing me? But I distinctively remember, Alex, I laid my legs down flat at the end of that first tremor session, and I felt this peace in my body. It was this sensation that went like up my spine. And it was a sense of like, oh, I can relax, I'm okay. And then I went back that night. I remember I took my girlfriend out uh on a date in Marina Del Rey, and we were having a ton of conflict. And I remember going out and I was sharing this experience with her, and I felt so different in my body and my being. We started to relate differently. And I'm like, wow, like I mean, I was like on the cusp of breaking up, you know what I mean? And it just it 180 my whole being. Um and I was hooked. Wow. From that day, I have not looked back because I knew there was something in this for me. Wow. That's a pretty that's a pretty dramatic first session, you know, pretty, pretty good results. Um, I'm assuming, you know, with that kind of you know, that kind of um impact on session number one, I'm I'm assuming it wasn't that long before you did it again. And well, what was what was that early phase like for you? Did you do a lot of it? Did you did you do it solo? Did you did you go uh yeah, you know, what was that early stage like for you? So I always tell people, especially clients that I have, like I was kind of the poster child back in the day for like being dissociated. Like I would be like I was in college when I started all this. So I remember walking through campus and with that girlfriend at the time. And I was like so far out of my body that I would have these moments where I'd like snap back and be like, well, wait, I'm here. Like I just was not here. And um when I started, the thing that was so relevant for me was not only did it bring me into my body, but my energy level was very low. It started to unthaw this like life force that was just trapped in me. And when I started, I was doing this every day. I was hooked. It was like my new addiction. So I was like, I'd go to class and I'd be in the dorm, and I'd come back from class every afternoon and I'd lie on the ground and I would tremor. And at the end of every session, I would feel huge amounts of energy release. Yeah, and then I would feel like I'd come into my body, and it was this whole new experience that first month or so of learning how to walk around and feel my feet on the ground and feel kind of my own life force that was just kind of shut down. Um, so I went all in and then uh shortly after went through the certification program, and then subsequently you and I met a couple months later. So wow. So so would you if you look back on it, or maybe you even maybe you even thought of it this way at the time, but if you look back on it, I mean to me, your story sounds you know wonderful and amazing. I love people connecting to their life forces, you know, and I hear that, and it's like, okay, well, that sounds like somebody who, for whatever reason, had you know some freeze physiology and hadn't done anything to and then found a way to tap into that and went through I I call it oftentimes a thawing phase, a thawing of the freeze physiology. Does does that is that do you feel that that's kind of a process you went through? Is that fair to say? Or yes, and I've done that many times over the last 12 years of uh cycles of it. Of of unthawing. Um and this work, I mean, it kind of reminds me of when I read one of Alexander Lohan, the bioenergetic uh creator, one of his books, he talks about at 63 years old, he found more aliveness in his body, in his life than he did at 32 when he started the work. And I can only say, like, for me, doing this for 12 years and going through multiple unthawing episodes and cycles, I'm like, I feel better at 32 than at 20. Um because this work frees up so much life force stuff that's stuck in us. So it's been uh been a cool journey, and now I look back, I'm not the young guy anymore. You know what I mean? Uh we could help usher in the the the next generation. Yeah. Um yeah, I I love that comment of you know the ongoingness of it. I can I relate to that as well. Um maybe, maybe we'll circle back to that um that topic. Um what was it like? So, you know, you know, I'm not gonna repeat my story, but it's you know, there's some similarities, and to me, there's you know, it's so surprising and novel and interesting and cool. But you know, beside the besides for me, besides the physical experience and the newness and the novelty and the surprises of doing it, I I also to me when I found TRE, it also like opened up my mind to like a whole other world of you know neurobiology and concepts around stress and trauma that I wasn't wasn't aware of. I was really impressed by Dr. Perselli's personal journey and story. Like, so it was like it wasn't only what it did in my nervous system, I feel like my mind kind of opened up in that whole period as well. And I and so I wonder for you, like, you know, you decided to do the training, you you went in, you you trained with your group, you you connected with Dr. Perseli and become close with him over the years. Um what was yeah, was there any any opening for you kind of more at that knowledge level or worldview level? I was a active meditator uh at that time, but I did go through kind of like a phase of uh non-duality. It's like a form of spirituality where you kind of like at the end of the dissolution, there's not two, and it's kind of like it's kind of like Zen Buddhism, right? You get to the emptiness. And I remember I meditate in my dorm room, and I would go into these like states of dissolution, but it was kind of like a head thing. Like it didn't integrate into the body. And I would also notice that I would meditate and I'm like, oh, this is great. I'm I'm in peace, I'm in quietness. And I go out to the uh cafeteria, and I'm just kind of a wreck. You know what I mean? Like there's no integration. It was like, oh, I could do it on the uh on the bed in the dark, and then I go out into the world and you have to interact and relate, and you're like it all comes up. So I remember in those in those early days I would tremor, and for the first time in my life, silence or spaciousness was not just a head thing. Like for most of us, it's this thing that you kind of feel like up here, and then anything under your throat, you're kind of numb to. And TRE for me became this way to physicalize my meditations and to bring that deeper level of stillness in my body and in my being. And, you know, I'm not the like, I'm not the kind of guy that's into reading all the philosophy of trauma and the the technical uh aspect of it. Like, I'm not that into that. Like, I'm kind of like, just teach me how to tremor, I'm gonna do it. You know what I mean? And like I will go deep and then I'll help others, but I'm not into like the theories, and it was hard for me getting through all the the books in the training program. So I wouldn't say that my mind was completely blown to that side of things, but just the experiential side of things, it it opened up a more grounded spiritual dimension and it opened up an ability for me to feel more. I think that was just the driving force in the beginning was I feel different. And I think for a lot of people, they just want to feel better. Like, you know what I mean? Like some people are kind of looking for the whole enlightenment thing where they they become one with the cosmos, but like if you think of like the state of the world, most people just want to feel better at the body. Most people don't know what it's like to feel or have calm or have safety. And when I work with my clients and you teach somebody how to tremor for the first time, and they lie their legs flat and they feel still and they feel connected and they feel more in themselves, it's like that's the experience or the indicator to them, huh? This shit works and I'm gonna keep doing it. And it's kind of a driving force for them to continue because they're not coming to you feeling great in their body. That's it. So I'm I'm kind of the guy, like I always just say, like, I'm just a normal dude and I know how to get your body to shake and you're gonna feel better. You know what I mean? Like, not a therapist. Um, I'm probably not the most regulated dude on the planet. I'm like, go to Alex if you want nervous system regulation. Like I have big capacity and I can get people in their body, and yeah. That's it, you know. So that's that's my specialty. Well, what but something about you, I I would say you're you're kind of the magnetic style because you're um uh because yeah, you know, you know, you have your other career, you know, you're you and but and you do this as a as a passion, um, you know, is and and um you don't advertise, you don't um and lots and lots of people find are are are are drawn to you. So tells me something about your about your how you approach this. So it's very cool. Yeah, I I was we were joking offline before this. I'm like, I don't I don't have a website, like you'll get my email at the bottom, like yeah, yeah. People find me. Um yeah, and yeah, I don't know. I just think like you meet people where they're at, and that was something, and I I'd love to hear your experience with uh David Braselli, but like yeah, when I met David for the first time, I'm like, oh my god, who is this guy? Like he's so human and so in it, and I mean when you meet people, like the average human being is not they're not they're not an embodiment of the human experience, and I don't say that like judgmentally, it's just like most people are not grounded and in touch with themselves. Yeah, and you meet this guy and you're like, whoa, he's a he's a complete embodiment of TRE, of what it's like to be human, of just a being on this planet that's like really fully in himself. And that was so inspiring for someone that like I think for me, most of my life I like couldn't be myself and I didn't feel comfortable in me. And it was like, whoa, like this is possible. I'm like, I want to be like that guy, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would say I yeah, I I agree. You know, there is something something like like you say, he's comfortable in himself. And to me, what I remember is um his complete and utter ability to connect with every with everybody, you know, and not not in, you know, you know you know people who are kind of like a like a used car salesman, okay. They know how to lay on the charm, right? That that not that at all. Just genuinely interested and and and even with a lot of people in a room with a lot going on, um, and even when he even when he had to be um, you know, sort of say no to something or or you know, sort of, you know, redirect things, you know, doing that with such a such a level of um yeah, of compassion, attunement, um, and and and and ease. So yeah, I saw so much about his his interpersonal abilities that to me were that came from his body. You know, his his body was in resonance with um certainly himself, without question, but then therefore he could he could be in resonance, accurate resonance. Uh, you know, so much of us, we know we kind of have our lenses and filters and barriers. And if you remove a lot of that, then you have a more accuracy with sort of you know how you're how you're meeting people. And I I really felt to that too. And I probably didn't have words for that, but I just sense I sensed that so much uh in David um in those early meetings. And it's like, you know, um Porgis had that, you know, during the COVID years, you know, there's that concept of um, you know, a super spreader event, you know, somebody would sneeze and a hundred people would get COVID or whatever. And so um during that era, Stephen Poor just said, you know, David, you're kind of like a super regulator. You know, most people are just pretty good at, you know, some people are pretty good at co-regulating with, you know, they're pretty, they're pretty relational. And you're like that times a hundred. For for whatever reason, you're just you're just your your ability to regulate and co-regulate with people is just at a an order of magnitude greater um than the average bear. So um I thought that was a nice way to put it too. Um yeah, I mean at some point I'm happy to share because I I've got a lot of stories because we did a lot of work together uh in the early years. Um I call them the early years of the journey, but yeah, um we'll get into that. But yeah, he he's a he's a very, very special being. And um I don't know if you're a basketball fan, but I remember I used to watch these Larry Bird documentaries growing up because like he was like my guy, even though I was like when I was in my early youth, like he already already retired. Retired, right, yeah. But I would watch all these old documentaries, and uh there was one and it had like Isaiah Thomas and Magic Johnson and all these guys, and then it's like there's only one Larry Bird, there'll never be another Larry, and I'm like, there's only one David Brusselli, there's never gonna be another David Brusselli. Um so I think it makes you appreciate who he is and what he's contributed to the planet, to the work. Um especially because like for me, I'll just show people how to tremor, and I'm like, at the end of the session, I'm like, this is yours. Like you could never call me back ever again. You know how to activate it. If you lie in the ground three days a week and tremor, and you look back in six months, your life is gonna change. That's it. Yeah. And you're still gonna have struggles. Like, I don't look at any of the somatic work as the the end all be all, and you're never gonna have issues. It's like it's gonna help you handle life great more gracefully. Yeah, more gracefully, it's probably the better way to say it. So okay. Well, so so all right, so let's come back to your early early. I like the early early years idea. So so you so you you certified, you're in college, or what, you know, maybe. And so I'm curious, did you did you start uh did you start working with a lot of people? Like did you work with a lot of your peers? Did you show a lot like like what was it, what was it like uh when you you know you're freshly certified? Uh did you go out there and spread spread this a lot with people? What was that like for you? Hmm, I've got to think back. I mean, there were there were definitely people that I would teach. Yeah. I think something I can appreciate with with anyone in life is when they find something that works and they stick with it, right? There's something valuable in someone's ability to stick with things. Because like in the early days, I would teach people and they would try it a couple times. And I mean, dude, the the the these people with 180. Like they were kids in college and they would like smoke weed to cope, and I'm like, try this thing, and they would tremor and they would like stop smoking weed for like a week, and then they would drop TRE and go back to the weed. And I'm like, wait, the TRE just like you know, mitigated your your weed addiction. And they're like, Oh yeah, I forgot. So, like in the early days, it wasn't like there was a lot of people that would stick with the work. Um, but I had clients, and um, you know, I didn't do nearly as much with it as I do now. Um, but you know, I definitely would do classes, and I remember uh my favorite story was there was this police officer I taught Tiari. He's like, this is this big six foot six African-American dude. I mean, his arm was as big as my thigh. He was big, and he had TMJ, and I remember I got him to tremor, and he gets up and he's like, Oh my god, my jaws like soft, and the TMJ like went and he's like, I feel so weird. And what he didn't realize was he was feeling relaxed for the first time in 30 years because he was in like the gang unit and they drive around all day, and they're like they're pulling these dudes off the street that are big, and you've got to pat them down. And a lot of the times you're driving through these alleyways, and it's not like like my day to day in business or your day to day doing sessions, it's like It's heavy stuff. So he felt relaxed and he was like, What what is this? And I just remember he was uh he was shocked at at A his TMJ went away, and he was also a little bit shocked that this is what it's like to feel relaxed. So that was kind of cool because I'm like 20, you know what I mean? I'm like a good school. Did you work with him more than once or was that a one and done? One and done. Yeah. One and done. Yeah. So yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Cool. Um Yeah, well, okay, so then how did so you started working with with David, and I think you know you've done quite a bit of personal work with him. Um, do you want to we share anything about that? Anything that was cool or this is yeah, this was so um doing math. 2017 I was like 23, and there were some circumstances that brought me to reconnect with David after training, and um he agreed that there was some kind of divine intervention here, but he he agreed to take me on as a client. And I remember the first session, because like most of these were virtual, but the first session we did, I remember going to uh lunch with a family friend, and I just felt so calm in my body, like I could feel a difference, and I'm like, okay, there's something here, and of course, I love the guy, so I said I'm gonna continue working with him, and he agreed to take me on, and we did about three years of work, and that was some of the richest times of my life because I was in pharma pharmaceutical sales at the time, and uh about a year and a half into my work with David, I somehow convinced him to give me the Arizona territory, and he lived in Arizona, so I would get to go out and do not only like in-person work with him, but I would like drag the trip out and do like a whole weekend or a work trip, make it a work trip. Yeah, make it a work trip, you know what I mean? It was just great. Yeah, and I mean those times were so deep because like nowadays, post-COVID, like I don't have an office. Like, if you work with me, you're gonna see me sitting here and you know what I mean? I'm gonna say, get on the ground and let me see your body head to toe. But um, you know, that in-person work for me, I mean, he was digging into my body and he would like I remember one session, he would step on my calves and hurt like hell, right? And he's he's working my calves, and I mean, just it would free up so much in my body. And it was kind of one of those things, like at the end of the three years, I was like, I got this. Like there was something in my being that changed at the end of those three years, and I was just like, okay, like I am, I can handle life. And when I started, I think I was not as functional nearly as I am now. I didn't have the level of capacity, and it was a journey because you know, like everyone comes to TRE and they're like, Okay, you shake, great, but there are deeper levels of the work when you're working with somebody in an ongoing kind of uh client therapist structure, so to speak, right? Where you start to look for where they're stuck in their body and you kind of attack that. So there were sessions like he would put me in these uncomfortable stretches because I was so locked up and it would hurt like hell, and I'd be in like uh like pigeon, which most people can do, but I was just like so locked up, he'd put me in pigeon and like I'm struggling to get into that deep stretch, and then we would tremor, he would work to release my body, or he put me over a foam roller on my chest one time, and I started to sob. And it was just this whole experience of going into the body, and I really think that is the stuff that makes you a good TRE provider, is to be able to work with somebody that takes you deeper in yourself. It's not how many books you read, it's not not how many degrees you have. Like I'm not a therapist, but it's the the deep work that helps you to go deep enough into yourself where then you can help other people. So, yeah, I mean, that was if someone's like, I'll give you a billion dollars to go back and like not have those three years, I'd say keep the money. So yeah. Did you did you graduate at those at the end of three years or was did COVID sort of represent a stopping point? Like what how did you how did you know when that phase was done? I got another job, so it took me out of Phoenix and then COVID hit. Yeah, I just went on to it was one of those things, like it kind of came. It was it was a little mini graduation, so to speak. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, those were the early days, and I mean to this day, I will do a lot of that stuff with my clients. Your clients, yeah. Um, you know, and there's times like I run my own business and I'm not like I'm not the most grounded or regulated dude all the time, and I don't have to be, but it's funny because I I will occasionally have an in-person client and I can turn it on again and I can get really refined and like um it's cool because that's not my day-to-day. My day-to-day is like fast-paced, cutthroat, business world. Um yeah, we're not we're not breathing and regulating. It's like, you know what I mean? Yeah, um, but because of the body work, I can handle that. Yeah. And I think that like, you know, my contribution to the work, I think at some point is is the body space for me as kind of an outsider, because I'm on my own island over here. The body work has become very trauma-informed, very regulated, but it's it's not marketed to either people that are just kind of normal people that want to feel better. It's kind of like if you have a lot of trauma and you've tried X, Y, and Z or talk therapy doesn't work, right? Then you may find SC or you may find TRE or you may find Rolfing. But like I think it's become so regulated that like we just need normal people to say, look, if you're stressed out and you're tense, lay on the ground and shake and you'll feel better. You know what I mean? It's not this thing where you've gotta feel every little sensation. It's just it's a way for people to over time become more grounded and have more capacity. And I like being, I don't want to say the bridge, but like I'm just a normal dude that teaches people how to shake. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, that's it. Like, I'm not always like feel the every little sensation in your body. It's like just shake. And yeah, um that's that what I love so much about how how David set up the certification program, you know, he has all this all the psychotherapy credentials. He could have made this something that lives only in the domain of psychotherapy if he'd wanted to. But he said, heck no, I'd rather work with plumbers and school teachers and carpenters, and yeah, I'll work with the therapists too, but they don't have any advantage. Yeah, um, and in some cases, they have a disadvantage because because the method is it it it's I you know, I I remind myself of the same thing. It's like it is as simple as you described, and and in the sense of it at the end of the day, can we turn activate the you know the neurogenic tremor mechanism and and support, follow it, deepen it? And then there's lots of nuance that goes into a long journey and enriching it, overcoming barriers fascially, psychological. So there's that there is a lot of complexity to it, but we also have to remember the the sh the simplicity. And I think you're speaking to that really well. And I think that's why David he says, give me the carpenters, the plumbers, the school teachers, these people, they're they're human, they know they're human, and they want to work with other humans. That's what this work is. It's funny. Uh I'm close friends with uh I call him the the OG Rolfer Jan Sultan, who the last remaining student of Ida Rolf. Ida. He lives in uh Manhattan Beach and he's got an office in Bedondo Beach. So I go twice a month and he digs into me, and um he'll even say, like, I mean, he's kind of like just the average Joe, uh, I don't remember his trade prior to getting into rolfing, but he was not like the intellectual therapist type. He was like some dude that was good with his hands and took on rolfing and just became so good. And he helps people because he's good with his hands and learned and studied the body. And that's the thing with TRE is this was designed for these people in these villages in Africa and Sudan, where David kind of discovered TRE, that don't have access to this day to therapists, to somatic work, to really anything, right? So he would fly in in these little airplanes and teach people how to shake. And I think because it has been taught to so many different therapists and body workers that we've added a lot to it, me included, but the bare bones is you just teach people how to shake, and you can put it in a regulated framework where they're in their kind of window of tolerance, but you just trust the tremor and stuff happens. That's it. So um it's cool, and I'm sure for you when you teach people like you just have a lot of normal people that want to learn this, and they feel better, and that's our contribution to society is right, you just help people feel better in their body and they will become better human beings, better parents, better kids, better, better people. So super cool. Um, okay, couple couple other threads to follow. So so one is um, yeah, so you know, I'm so I'm curious about your personal journey. You know, like I know, you know, by the way, I love Alexander Loewen's books. He's he's such a good, he's such a good um capturer of, you know, he did so many cool clinical sessions, and and I love you know, he is so his library is is awesome. And Al Loewen was a mentor to David, so it's a cool, um it's a cool thread there. But tell me, but you have done, um, despite your saying that you don't read books and this and that, I I know that that's not really true. And I know that you've you've really actually studied Reikian work and and you have followed an interesting path in your personal work. Tell us just a little bit about that, that uh that that your own, I guess I would call it your maturing and deepening uh in your somatic work to tell us about that journey. Yeah, so I kind of always look at this in phases, so I look at like my TRE phase was my foundation. Yeah. And with any client that walks in the door, I don't really dive into the deeper stuff until we get them to tremor. And that's kind of their foundation, right? You go to a doctor and they give you the prescription and they put, you know, as needed, right? It's like, all right, TRE, three or four days a week as needed. Yeah. But then we can go deeper in the body. So um, a little bit after my time with David, I I was there's a guy on YouTube, Devarage Sandberg, who kind of teaches some bioenergetic Reikhan stuff. Really good guy. He's out of the UK. He's one of the few people that actually puts um a lot of content out on Raikan work and bioenergetics, because it's kind of a dying breed, right. Um, so I remember I did a couple virtual sessions with him, and it was like really cool. He's giving me these exercises, and they're like kind of weird, but you're like, all right. And one night I'm going down a YouTube rabbit hole, and I type in like Neo-Rikian therapy, and there's this older woman that pops up and it said something like, Is Neo-Rikian therapy for you? So I watch the video, and I have a little bit of like uh not a compulsive personality, but like when I'm into something, I am all in, right? So I watched the video and I'm completely obsessed with this chick. I'm like, who is she? I watch it again, I watch it again, and I missed the part where she said I do some sessions out of my house in Mount Washington, California. So uh on the third time I watched it, I'm like, Washington, where is that? So I Google it, it's 35 minutes down the street from me. So I email her, and I'm just like for three days obsessed, like, who is this gal? What is neo-Rikian work? Because you don't find much online. And she writes back and says that um, you know, I'm on I'm traveling to see family, I'll be back in a couple days. Come to a session Tuesday night at my house. So I go to her place one night and we do a session, and it completely opens me up. I mean, just it was a spiritual um experience in many ways. It was this thing that just it was something that I needed that was missing for me. And I did two and a half years of work with her once or twice a week, driving up to Mount Washington, and it's so different than TRE because this old woman would dig into you, man. She's digging into your jaw and she's opening your eyes like this and having you breathe. And I mean, it's really they're attacking the body. And it was one of those things where it showed me this different form of body work, and they really focus in the Raikan kind of lineages on these seven rings or seven segments of armor. So you have the eyes and the throat, you go down the body. Yeah, and you know, in that time period, kind of working with her and studying some other forms of Raikkian work that are still available. Um, I kind of started to put together that, you know, TRE is fantastic at downregulating and we trust the tremor, but there's a lot of work that can be done in opening these segments. Like, for example, the eyes. If the if the eye segments open, and you know, some days mind's more open than others, right? But you can let yourself out, right? I can let I can let myself out through my eyes, and I can let you in. And if that's blocked, it's like, okay, I can't, I can't let you in, I can't let me out. Um, so like I remember in the early days, working the eyes, and I'm like looking around and I'm like, whoa, like I can let life in a lot more. So I started to take that that aspect and element of the work and with clients starting to go through the segments. So TRE is kind of the foundation, and then learning to go through these segments and work everything from anger to we would do jaw work and shoulder work and and pounding and kicking. And the cool thing is, is once the tremor is integrated in somebody's body, when you start trying to force energy through a segment or through a I mean through a segment essentially, or an area that's constricted, a secondary tremor will happen, but it's not as much a down regulator, as much as it is, you are charging up the body to force energy through an armored segment, and the tremor will release the armoring, and then they will have a down regulation. So it's a little different than what we're used to, but it's it's added an element to the work of kind of like freeing up life force in people, yep, so that they're just more open. And I mean, as we know there's there's always uh the elements of the body have a psycho-emotional component, so like the arms, right? If my arms are stuck, I can't push you away or I can't pull towards. Oh, you and right? So you open that up, and then people go, Well, wait, I can go for what I want in life, I can set a boundary. So it's really cool work and it it fits hand in hand with with Thierry. Yeah. So yeah, very cool. Yeah. Have you done much? Not not under that name, no, but but it it's still but it resonates a lot with how I see things. Um, my the kind of the off branch of of structural integration body work that I did kind of came, you know, is Rolfing lineage, connected to Feldenkrais lineage, but then connected to some some um uh other work too. And there is a pretty strong element. I mean, I you know, I I've done all the digging, but connected to the you know, basically the idea of body armoring and and and uh releasing the and and I love what you're saying about the nuances of tremoring, the tremoring isn't always a discharge. Sometimes we're seeing it start to open up into a barrier in the body, which we could think of as a as a as a body armor. And the idea that that would that that would go away in like one, like I think sometimes people are impatient. It's like you if you have say, you know, body armoring, say in your chest, which is so common. I mean, lots of places are common. Okay. The idea that you know you're gonna work that once or twice and you're gonna have it's gonna be gone. To me, that's naive. You know, what I see more of with long-term TRE practice when the focus is, all right, we've done the basics, we've done the down regulation, we we we know the self-regulation. Now we're trying to use it as a way to open up more of ourselves. You know, I love your just your language around opening the eye gaze and things like that. But anyway, my idea is that a lot of things, and it's something I admire in you, is is you know, once you find something that's working for you, you you have the you you you commit to it and you have the consistency. You know, you drive down to that lady's house once or twice a week for two and a half years because it's because you know that it takes repetition to to truly get these sort of deep and lasting changes. So that that that really resonates a lot with my own experience. I don't always frame it in the same Reikian language, but it matches my views a lot. And I also think you said something profound. Um you get people to tremor and it downregulates. So, like why I kind of say TRE is the foundation is because most people are typically overcharged, right? And or they're kind of numb. So we all know that TRE is either going to downregulate you or kind of unfreeze you and bring you back into some sort of feeling or sense of self. Yeah. And I mean, back to my initial days of being just checked out and not like feeling myself, um, or having any sense of self, it it was the thing that kind of said, Oh, okay, like this is you. You don't have to be in a fight or flight response all day, every day, supercharged. Um but you can feel grounded and alive, and from that kind of grounded alive space, then we go deeper. That's where I kind of see the Rikian work, the bioenergetic work, some of the other work that I do with people, and I'm not a bioenergetic therapist, but most people I work with will get like a stool. Um most people I work with will get uh Deanna Hansen uh block therapy, which is a myofascial release tool. And we kind of combine the myofascial release with uh Rikien and the bioenergetics, and we help people just kind of come alive and themselves, but you can't do that until they have some sense of I'm safe, I'm not in fight or flight, I'm okay. So that that's where TRE is very vital. Yeah, yeah, makes a lot of sense. Um you know, I I in the the times I've connected with you over the years, I know that you know, part of your drive part of your driving influence of you know connecting to your body, as you said earlier, yeah, we want to resolve our suffering, we want to become comfortable in our bodies, you know, those are sort of like the the basic needs. But but I I I know of you as a person who's who's quite spiritually interested and curious and and somebody who um you know has been a seeker in that way. And I wonder if you could speak to how somatic work in general, TRE specifically, or in connection with the Reiki and bioenergetics, what what how do you how do you look at at this from a spiritual growth lens? That's a good question. So as someone who has been into many of the different spiritual communities, um I think there's a lot of people that are bypassing these days. That's the first thing, right? Um and usually it's like you have a lifetime of trauma and you feel like shit. We're just gonna say it how it is, right? And then you find some meditation or some technique, and it's or or there's some promise of living in bliss all day, and you do a practice and you may experience kind of some disconnect from the body, and you go up and you're like, whoa, this feels so good. I'm I'm I'm quiet, I'm free. But the issue is is that you usually come back, right? And you have to then somehow sort out the stuff in you, or you're doing a practice that opens up a ton of kind of I mean, I call it spiritual energy, but energy coming down from your you know, your crown chakra from above, and that acts like fertilizer, right? And fertilizer doesn't just fertilize all the good qualities, it fertilizes all the stuff in you that's that's locked up and contracted, including a lot of the unconscious repressed material. So for me, the path has been this delicate balance of okay, I do a practice that opens me up, I go up or I leave, or I or I disidentify with this body, but then I come back and usually I either have to integrate that life. Or that thing in the body, or it's gonna show me where I'm stuck because it's gonna butt up against some old unconscious feeling. So a lot of the people, surprisingly, that I work with, and I do this group on every Thursday, it's essentially a group of people from a spiritual community that I'm a part of. They're very powerful energy beings. Um, but every Thursday it's about dissolving blockages in the body so that they can go higher on their spiritual journey without getting pulled down by all their stuff. So I'm I'm a huge proponent of as one advances on their spiritual journey, whatever that is, they have to work out the repressed unconscious material in their psyche and their personality to enough of a degree that they can handle more and more light without it either butting up against some unconscious trauma or some blockage in them that's essentially going to pull them down. So that's the thing. It's kind of like uh David would always say you can go to any dimension you want as long as both feet are on the ground. And it's true, right? As long as we can be somewhat grounded in the world, we can access a higher state, then come back, bring it back into our body, and integrate that higher state into the world, into the people around us, into our being. So, um, yeah, I mean, I think this work, especially like uh in one of the Reikian books, it was Jack Willis's Neo-Rikian book for home use. You see a spiralized staircase going up into the heavens, and it's this little thing of like, oh, if you open up all these energy centers, it's a way for the kundalini energy to go up. So it's like I think I think some of these early body workers kind of knew that there's a spiritual component. Yeah. Um but yeah, I mean, is that kind of along the lines of your viewpoint on this, or what what do you think? Yeah, I mean, my my first response is wow, what a what a great answer. Um, what a complete answer, you know, and in in framing it in your language. Um yeah, I it matches a lot of what I of what I a lot of what I believe. Um, you know, that intersection. Um I'm trying, I yeah, I don't think I have anything to add. I think that was a really beautiful description. Yeah. Well, I will also say that um I know I know several people and I've worked with them that are just these profound, profound energy beings. I mean, uh profound, that's all I'm gonna say. And sometimes people that are so spiritually open or the energy worlds are so real, there's some early trauma, they may be kind of on the the character analysis uh chart more schizoid or or disassociated, and it gives them great ability to kind of be in the inner worlds and and out, right? But um, I've also seen with people that are very over-energetically sensitive. Yep. Like they walk into a room and they can pick up on every thought form, and right. When you get them in their body, they become less sensitive, and it's actually easier for them to say, where do I end and turn it on, turn it off. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, I I totally agree with the hypers and that idea of um, yes, I I I had the same journey with my client work, where it's like working with some people who, you know, I I think you know, at one stage of my life, I was, you know, I can't pretty spiritually open. I've you know, I've I've I've met some unique individuals, you know, um in lots of domains. So enough to, you know, my my my story was always that I was this, you know, kind of uh physics, you know, kind of not believing in any spirituality stuff. And then my mind was kind of blown when I when I met a particular spiritual teacher who just basically just was a just could demonstrate palpably that everything I thought that was true about the universe was not was not accurate. So so but despite that, I still um, you know, a little skeptical of like, you know, things like um you know being psychic and things like that. Well, anyway, I had this one client, amazing person, who um uh who you know, we did TRE and it matches your description to a T. And I've had many clients of this category where very significant trauma, um, you know, young, you know, kinds of stuff, and remarkable, you know, the remarkable human capacities to survive and and still thrive. And uh this one person's just you know, her ability to um just pull things, you know, uh completely dispelled any doubts that I had that that somebody could um be, you know, um connecting at that level consistently. So in any case, um you're right. I think that one aspect of trauma for some people can mean just getting them away the hell out of their bodies. Um and uh and oftentimes they have a lot of physical maladies, like this woman that I'm talking about, like persistent 24-7 headache was uh uh, and then extreme sensitivities to mold and chemicals and all that kind of thing. So a quite dysregulated body, but an extremely robust um spiritual life, uh sense of connection to the universe, the world, other people. Um, and uh, but for her, using TRE mostly and body work, it was TRE and body work. It was exactly what you're describing. She had, and it was very, she hated it. She hated feeling what's in here. No, I want to go out there. But she she stuck with it and confronted what was sort of here at the at the physical body level, and and long term that was very useful for her. It was very grounding, and she didn't lose her ability to be uh the insanely um connected spiritual being that she was. She didn't really she didn't lose that, but she had another option, which was being at home in the body, you know, two feet planted. And so I've been through that process with with you know with many people. And so I really agree with that language that somebody can be, you know, have a lot of amazing talents, abilities, connection, meaning, and then they're and but then the journey of coming back home into the body can be a really powerful one. And I think that that is kind of our job, if people are into that kind of spiritual realm, right? You have to go up and you have to bring it back. Yeah. And it's like uh if you can't bring it back and then be of somehow service to other people or make a positive impact, who cares what you see in the inner worlds is useless. You know what I mean? Like there's people that, oh, I see, I have messages, and it's like, I mean, I I met people in my early days on the journey and no knock, but I'm waiting for the download. I got the download, but they couldn't take the insight of the download and do anything with it. So, you know, that's where somatic work is such a thing, is that it gives you groundedness and connection to yourself so that you can go into the world. And I remember watching a video, there was a student of Wilhelm Reich, Morton Herschkowitz, and he's uh he was a therapist, and he was doing therapy up to like 101 in Pennsylvania. And he was interviewed in the 70s, and he was saying that there were a lot of his clients that would come back to him after a couple years of work and they would say, Thank you for doing this work with me because I'm a better father, I'm a better husband, I'm a better wife, I'm a better mother, I'm a better daughter. I'm I'm going to impact this next generation of my kids in a positive way because I'm more open and more regulated and more I don't want to say functional, but like their personalities were integrated as such that they could become a better human being. And that is what this is about. Is somehow we work through enough of our stuff that we can either be of better service to other people or be a better human being in our world. And the world needs this work now more than anything. Yeah. And uh yeah, we have to do we have to propagate the work. Yeah, we have to propagate the work, we have to spread it. Here, here. Yeah, yeah, well said. Well said. Um, brother, I feel like this is exactly the conversation I was hoping hoping to have. Thank you. Thank you so much for the deep, the deep sharing and reflecting, and it's really, really an honor to hear your your your how you carry the work. Thank you. I'm uh honored to be on your podcast. I'm I'm in my own world over here. Like I said, people find me, but yeah, no, I'm I uh I've been able to watch your work from afar, and I think it's beautiful that you're taking this work and making it accessible to people through your online platforms and obviously through your team and your one-on-ones, and um I'm sure there'll be ways we can collaborate to to spread it more. But um yeah, I just I think I I really think the world needs this work, and I think um I'll say it like this. As someone who was not for many years, I didn't have a ton of capacity, I wasn't the most functional guy. I don't know your story, at some point we'll talk. But like I think for a lot of us that are in this work, it gives you more energy and it frees up your life force and you become more functional and you have capacity. And then the question is do you spend the rest of your life and sit on your ass with the functionality and capacity and help no one, or do you move your ass and go spread this stuff and help other people? And um, I think that you know, this is something that we really do need to spread and get out there because it helps people, and I think as our capacity keeps its keeps expanding, we can make a huge impact on the world. And um, you know, in my eyes, everybody in the world should be tremoring. Yep. So yeah, let's do it. 100% agree. Yeah, let's definitely do it. Um well, Jonah, thank you so much. Yeah, we will so we will put your email address or anything to y'all. So we'll at least we'll put there'll at least be one way for somebody to find you. Um anybody who wants to. And uh we'll set up a call. So we'll put that in there. So that wonderful. Um perfect. Thank you so much, man. Appreciate it, brother. Thank you. Yeah. That's it for today's episode. We hope you found inspiration and new insights into the power of neurogenic droning. 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. 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.