In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with my friend Tracy Holemeyer (Uncontrollably Me, host of the Other Way to See It podcast) to talk about healing and performance through nervous system flexibility, somatics, and self-awareness, especially with how much stress people are carrying right now. We dig into practical tools like orienting, grounding, the “starfish” drill, pendulation, and Tracy’s “core four” (soft eyes, relaxing the tongue, breath pacing for coherence, and soft knees), plus how posture and unconscious habits can shape mood and behavior. We also explore the value of community and coaching, how movement and sound (including humming, voo breath, and growling) can help regulate, and we finish with a thoughtful discussion on psychedelics, integration, and why support and discernment matter.
In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with my friend Tracy Holemeyer (Uncontrollably Me, host of the Other Way to See It podcast) to talk about healing and performance through nervous system flexibility, somatics, and self-awareness, especially with how much stress people are carrying right now.
We dig into practical tools like orienting, grounding, the “starfish” drill, pendulation, and Tracy’s “core four” (soft eyes, relaxing the tongue, breath pacing for coherence, and soft knees), plus how posture and unconscious habits can shape mood and behavior. We also explore the value of community and coaching, how movement and sound (including humming, voo breath, and growling) can help regulate, and we finish with a thoughtful discussion on psychedelics, integration, and why support and discernment matter.
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Flex Diet Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Mike T. Nelson. On this podcast, we talk about all things to increase muscle, increase performance, improve body composition, do all of it within a flexible framework without destroying your health. Today on the podcast, my good friend Tracy Holmeier, who is the creator of Uncontrolledly Me and the host of the Other Way to See It podcast.
And today we're talking about kind of the, her work at the intersection of healing, self-awareness, nervous system regulation, and a personal transformation. I was honored to meet Tracy at our friend Dee and Rick's wedding, and it was really cool, and one of those people I'm like, "Hey." We've stayed in touch since then, and I wanted to have her on the podcast here since this one is a little bit different than what we normally have.[00:01:00]
Reason I wanted to have her on is I think there's a lot of stress going on in the world right now. It always seems every year seems to become more stressful from world events, to politics, to economy, to environment, everything else going on, and like the, the old saying, you need to put your oxygen mask on first.
But a lot of people, one, may need a reminder to do that. I know I need that reminder myself on many days. And then two, what are some things to do actually about it? So that's what we're discussing today. And I think you'll really enjoy this one. It's a little bit, like I said, a little bit different than what we have before, but even if you're just a hardcore athlete, like taking time to down-regulate, do some of the drills she mentioned here, like even the, the starfish drill and other drills, I do find are helpful.
So one big thing I've done, uh, with clients more often now is to try [00:02:00] to get them to do some type of down-regulation after a stressful thing, which a lot of times is training. And then towards the end, we even talk about what are the roles of, uh, psychedelics and how do they play a part here. So I think you'll really enjoy this one.
As always, uh, give me your feedback. Always want to bring you guests that I think you will enjoy, and we had a great conversation here. Make sure to check out all of Tracy's stuff over at uncontrollablyme.com. We'll put her links to Instagram and, as I mentioned, her podcast. Another way to see it. If you want more stuff from me, make sure to hop onto the free newsletter.
Got daily stuff going out via the Fitness Insider newsletter. Try to make them as entertaining as possible and yet still bring you great information. So if you're not on it, uh, sign up to it below. And without further ado, here's my conversation with Tracy Hollmeyer.
Dr Mike T Nelson: how are you today, [00:03:00] Tracy? Welcome to the podcast.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah, thanks for having me on. I'm doing, I'm doing okay. I, I, uh, had a kind of a fuller morning and then, uh, able to take a little break between that last thing and, and coming on here. So got out in the... grateful for the sunshine and the, the birds chirping outside, even though there seems to be less of them, uh,
than there used to be. But, but yeah, I was able to ground and, and, uh, yeah, feel the, like that warmth, you know, that connecting back, uh, from, from some busyness. So yeah, how are you?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I'm good. We were down in South Padre for, what, five weeks just hanging out, working, got in a fair amount of kiteboarding, and, uh, Jody was able to ride upwind much more consistently this time, so that was pretty exciting.
And then, um, we had a little informal competition in Texas. We have a little device called the Woo device that measures, you know, distance and jump height and, you know, all these crazy metrics and stuff. So had a little [00:04:00] competition for people in Texas for the month of April, and I ended up getting- Interesting
third for total distance rode, which was fun. Wow. Um, yeah, so it was pretty fun. And didn't hit any PRs for jump height, but I had one at 23 feet up for almost four seconds, so that was pretty fun, and had a bunch over 20. So yeah, so overall was pretty happy with that. It was good times.
Tracey Holemeyer: That's awesome. It's all Greek to me, but sounds fun, so I'm glad you- Yeah
were able to enjoy it and also, uh, uh, you know, have some accomplishment in it as well. It's funny you mention you have a Woo device. You know, we're ta- talking about regulation and nervous system. Yeah. Uh, there's something we could joke as the Voo device, and the Voo breath is something that we can use-
to help support our nervous system, so good timing there. We can play with that.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Perfect.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And you mentioned you were outside. So what do you find is an effective practice for... You had mentioned grounding and being outside in nature and... 'Cause I think one of the issues, and I know I'm guilty of this too, like I [00:05:00] feel like- I'm better at the beginning of the day.
I'm getting better at the end of the day. My, my buddy Brian Grasso calls it kind of like bookends. Mm-hmm. Like, how you start your day, how you end your day. I've gotten better with starting my day over the last couple years. You know, ending sometimes is, "Oh, crap, it's too late. Just close your computer and get food and go to bed."
It's not- Cr- crash landings, right? Yeah. ... not always perfect. Yeah, the crash landing type thing.
Tracey Holemeyer: Slide- sliding in sideways, yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. But I've also been trying to work on smaller breaks during the day too. Um- Yeah ... so one, what are your thoughts on that? And two, I assume you're finding practical going outside, like even doing grounding, breathwork, anything in that area you find super useful.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah, I mean, first, you know, we have to contextualize that, with everything that's going on no matter what, to what degree you're impacted, everyone is being impacted. Like, we live in systems- Oh, for sure ... that are taking a toll on our, um, physical [00:06:00] bodies, our communities, all of those pieces. So we absolutely have to infuse.
I would love it if everybody had time to spend an hour a day meditating, doing breathwork. You know, I would love that. Sure. It's not realistic for a lot of people. Uh, it's not realistic every day for a lot of people. So, you know, uh, what we want to look at as far as the nervous system is ways to not... I, the goal for me is not regulation as in calm, but regulation as in flexibility within the nervous system to return to a place of less activation.
Again, that's not always realistic, but what can we do in these maybe micro ways, uh, resourcing ways to bring the body through the appropriate activation periods and then coming out of that and deactivating the system? So absolutely going outside. Orienting is one really important skill that [00:07:00] you can do anywhere, and it's using the senses to locate yourself, right?
This interoception is the internal experience. Exteroception is what's happening outside of us. Proprioception is kind of the space we take up. In, in in the environment we're in. And, and locating ourselves, orienting ourselves to the here and now is often a really effective way to kind of come out of wherever...
Our mind is typically 10 steps to 10 days ahead of where our body is at any given time, if not even further. And there isn't any likelihood at this pass that the systems that we live in that demand that of us are gonna relent in any way. So we have to kind of, for me, it's a great act of defiance to steal back five seconds or five minutes of my day and time.
And [00:08:00] orienting, placing ourselves in the right here, right now means we're not 10 days ahead. We're not in the next meeting. We're not in the next fight of our life kind of a thing. But we are right here, right now, and how can we do that even if we are in, uh, tumultuous times? Yeah, so orienting- Yeah ... is a super, super helpful one.
And again, using your senses, you can, you can notice what you hear. Uh, you can orient the eyes to something s- semi-pleasant or neutral and notice what happens on the inside. If I look over at, let's say, a sleeping puppy, my system can respond to that, uh, that feeling, "Oh, there's this, there's a cute little puppy over there," and then can kind of deactivate some of the material.
Um, grounding, you mentioned being able to feel the ground below you. Sometimes in the middle of the day I just have to starfish on the floor. I lay on the floor wherever I am. Not in a grocery store, necessarily. Listen, I don't put it [00:09:00] past me, you know? Hey, look at the starfish
Dr Mike T Nelson: in Target. I,
Tracey Holemeyer: I, I, don't put it past me.
Uh, but you know, just kind of spreading out, taking up space, letting the body... Uh, because what we're trying to do is bring more of the body's experience back online, and when we are often anxious or frantic or overly stressed or have a million things on our plate or there's a lot of challenges we tend to live in our head, maybe upper chest, and not the rest of the body.
So sometimes it can just be, "I've got toes still. I'm wiggling my toes. I've got legs still. I'm sitting on a chair where I'm supported," things like that. I could go on. I have hundreds of- Yeah, yeah ... of, uh, of ideas.
Dr Mike T Nelson: But would you say that's an a- awareness of being present and what do I sort of, lack of a better word, but generalization, feel right now?
Like, there's even practices that'll say, "Start at your feet," you know, "Work your way up," almost not like a progressive relaxation, but almost like a progressive [00:10:00] awareness type drill. Yeah. Okay, what do you feel in your knees? What do you feel here? What do you feel there? Mm-hmm. Is that kind of one of them, that kind of what you're thinking about?
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah, for sure. And, and a great one is to actually kind of exaggerate what's already there. A lot of times we don't even realize that our shoulders are hitched up- Yep ... until we exaggerate it and then we drop down. We're like, "Whoa, I didn't realize how much was there." Uh, same thing with our jaw. We can- Yep
of course, being mindful of the teeth, but you can kind of tense the jaw a little bit and let it go. Um, one of the better, b- what, from my understanding, you're the expert on this, but stretching, uh, like the neck and these thinner muscles of the neck isn't actually to go into the stretch but to reverse it and let it drop down, and that releases more of it than putting more strain on some of those thinner muscles.
But you know, we also have to focus on joints. We talked a little bit about this pre- pre-recording, but you know, the joints function as a separation of segments or parts of the body. And so a lot of times, [00:11:00] you know, there is a, a emphasis or a constriction or, um, maybe some sort of blocking in some of the joints, and it's actually not about the joint, but what's going on above or, or below the joint.
And then the, the, you know, working with releasing our joints and, and creating movement in the body releases a lot more what we would call coherence throughout the body. So these joints can actually work like gates that get stuck. Di- diaphragms are the same way, so gates of, of energy or emotion or injury, any of those things.
We want there to be a fluid flow, you know, throughout the body, but some of these points can get a little stuck or stored and
Dr Mike T Nelson: so- Yeah, I found the same thing with working with joints in terms of pain too. Mm-hmm. So I think the pain is just, it's more complicated than just really poor movement, but it's hard to have high levels of pain and really fluid movement at the same [00:12:00] time.
That's it. And if you get better movement quality, a lot of times your pain goes down. Yeah. And, you know, one of the systems I did in the past called Z-Health, their whole thing was, you know, targeting all the mechanoreceptors in primarily the, the joint space.
Tracey Holemeyer: Mm-hmm.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So I would explain to clients as if you're gonna create a robot and, you know, I can only put so many sensors on it, I'm gonna put them on the really bendy things, right?
I'm gonna put them in like the elbows- Right ... and your knees and your spine and, you know, things like that. And so- Yeah ... we know that getting a lot of that- There's a lot of more
Tracey Holemeyer: information ...
Dr Mike T Nelson: information coming back up, I think is a very underappreciated thing that looks kinda hippy-dippy, moving around, you know, doing whatever practice, but I think there's a lot of benefits that can come from that.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, one that comes to mind is kind of like an unfurling practice. Mm. So imagine like the, a fern leaf that like curls up at night and then kind of rolls back out, uh, to- Oh,
Dr Mike T Nelson: I like that ...
Tracey Holemeyer: receive more of the sunshine. Uh, you know, its leaves are more open to receive that sunshine. [00:13:00] So if we think about that opening up our bodies, kind of unfurling the body from these often tight, constricted positions, there's a lot right now in the science world, in the healing world of debate around does the body actually keep the score- Yeah
or is it in the brain, right? Is it, is it in your fascia or is it in your org- You know, there's a lot of conversation. But what we know to be true, regardless of where it's stored, where it originates from, is that it does display through the body. It is expressed through the tissue, through the bones, through the joints, through the organs, through the fascia.
And so when we see things, for example, like posture, there ... I have a ... Like, my personal anecdote is, I'll tell on myself here, I've got trifocals. So I've got in the transition glasses, uh, never in my life did I think I would say I have- ... trifocals. Uh, but the top part of my glasses are for [00:14:00] further away, uh, mid glasses is, is mid-distance, and then the lower part of my glasses is, uh, for close up.
And I had noticed an uptick, uh, in my own a- like, anxiousness, feeling anxiety. I've had anxiety pretty much all my life for very appropriate reasons. And but I have, I've done enough work and enough healing to feel like I have a better sense of it. It's not in control of me anymore. Uh, but I noticed, like, this uptick.
This is a year and a half ago or so. And I was working with my practitioner, and I had just gotten these glasses, and I was, again, noticing, I'm like, "I'm not really sure. Of course, the world's on fire, bad things are happening, but what's, what's all of the sudden spiking this?" And she came over and she was like, "Why are, why are you looking at me with your head tilted back?"
Dr Mike T Nelson: Hmm. Yeah, yeah.
Tracey Holemeyer: And as soon as she said it, I was able to kind of [00:15:00] clock, right? When we think about our, the top of our head tilting back, the chin coming forward, that is a defensive strategy to move away from.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Tracey Holemeyer: That is- Like a
Dr Mike T Nelson: withdrawal ...
Tracey Holemeyer: it, it, it is. It's like, "Let me get out of here." This is the flea response.
Let me get up and out of the body. So, a- and, and for people that can't see this or listening to this, right, my hands kind of go up, my chin goes back. I'm trying to get away from whatever this thing is. Well, I wasn't... It wasn't something I was trying to get away from. I was trying to see clearer. Yeah. But it just so happened that that clear part pushed me into a posture which was impinging on my neck, which my body was reading as some sort of heightened awareness, threat, worry, get away from.
And if I'm constantly in that activation of flea, no wonder I was feeling more anxious, right? Hmm. So posture, w- all these arguments about where it's stored or, or, or where it comes from, but, but we do know that the body, it's, it's an afferent system, and that [00:16:00] 80% of what our body experiences is then sent up to the brain.
And so in this personal way, my posture was actually creating... Now, of course, I could also feel anxious about the state of the world, right? Yeah. But, but it was being exaggerated, exacerbated by this particular posture. So when we do practices like unfurling, for example, or starfishing and feeling supported, there is immediate feedback- From the body to the brain about the state of our overall wellbeing.
Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Related to that, do you find ... This is what I found with people with bifocals and even trifocals, I'll have them take their glasses off and do specific eye movements, head movements, and I'm basically doing the opposite of what they normally would be doing.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Right? Because by definition, your brain learns that in order to see something clearly, I either have to move my head down or I have to [00:17:00] move my eyes in this perfect position to see out of the bifocal portion.
To look far away, I've gotta look out this other portion of the glass. And I, I feel like a lot of times they get kind of stuck in those positions, for good reason because that's how they make clarity, you know, of the world. But you've sa- taken a lot of these eye movements, and now you've sort of segregated and regimented them into specific areas.
And, and I understand- Yeah ... why it happens in order to function, but- Mm-hmm ... just doing some opposite work for that. So just like if you sit all day, your hip flexor gets tight because it's, it's stuck in that shortened position all the time.
Tracey Holemeyer: Exactly. Exactly. And so, uh, but then how does that turn into a belief, a mood- Mm-hmm
a, a way of being? I, when I was much younger, I teenager, young, young person, I ha- was very large-chested, and that got me attention that I didn't particularly want or consent to or prefer. And so I had a [00:18:00] tendency to curl my shoulders forward and chest back. What does that position also tell you?
Either I'm scared or I'm sad or I'm, uh, maybe shameful or any of those other things. And so there's an influence of these different ways of doing things, where that was protective. Seeing is to create clarity. There's nothing wrong or defective there. It's just a strategy to try to- Yes ... get something or whatever.
And this is, the majority of my work is working with acknowledging the strategy- That was to try to get a need met, that turns into a skill, that turns into a habit, that turns into just how we are.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm. I like that. And kind of- Repeat that again for people who are listening.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what starts out as a strategy, we do it often enough, we get good at it.
It's a skill. We can defend ourselves, we can get our need met, we can see things clearly, we can protect ourselves, whatever. So the strategy becomes a skill, and then the skill, [00:19:00] we get really good at it, so we do it all the time, becomes just a habit. And then the habit becomes who we are, our personality, how we show up in the world.
And then the next thing you know is we're going, "Oh, that's just how I am," versus, "This is how I learned how to be to get a need met," or whatever. These would be conditioned tendencies uh, protective strategies, defensive, responsive, uh, all different, uh, w- word choices there to describe these different things.
Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Do you find that those along the way also tend to become more unconscious, and so we tend to lose awareness with them over time? And again, that's not a bad thing. There's a ton of stuff I don't wanna be conscious that my body is, is doing, but if I wanna change something, then I probably need a level of awareness to realize what I was actually doing, which was made unconscious because of the progression you just talked about.
Tracey Holemeyer: That's exactly it, right, because if we're unconscious to it, we can't do anything about what we don't, we d- can't-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Right ... know what you don't
Tracey Holemeyer: know.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Don't know what you don't know.
Tracey Holemeyer: And so that awareness is key and, [00:20:00] and I wasn't even aware that my, like, my head was tilted up. And this is something I watch for in my clients when they are talking, or if they're working on, let's say, a traumatic memory and their head is starting to tilt back.
That's my, that's my job, is to watch for those types of things and bring their chin, "Hey, can you bring your chin back down?" Because I want them to be with the material in a new way, not recreate the circumstances that left them with a traumatic imprint or memory. So, you know, it's, it's, like, wa- being aware of those things, 'cause we will repeat the same thing we've done and go, "What's wrong with me?
Why can't I just figure this out? Like, I'm just lazy," instead of, "Oh, there's a reason that, that, let's say maybe I was taught I have to be perfect. Well, I know that that's not realistic, so now I'm gonna procrastinate to avoid feeling imperfect." And then the procrastination turns like you're just lazy, you don't wanna do anything, et cetera.
It, it is a slippery slope into those, those ways that things happen. [00:21:00]
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I've often joked to my friends that, yes, I do a lot of the physiology in terms of the coaching and performance and stuff that I do, but at, like, the highest level you could just replace my title with just, like, awareness coach.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Because a lot of... I've realized the longer I do stuff, before I used to be, "Oh, this is what you need to do. You just gotta do this, this, or that." Yeah. And now with something simple as even, like, a nutrition log, a lot of times I'll be like, "Yeah, log everything you eat and drink for, you know, three to seven days.
We'll look at it," and I do look at it. I make all my notes, everything like that. In the past I would've just said, "Oh, you idiot, eat more broccoli," you know, or something like that. And now I'm like, "Hey, how about you look at this and tell me what are the top three things you notice? Again, I have some ideas.
I've reviewed it. I will help you through this process," but it's more effective once they can look. And a lot of times you have to do something different, 'cause even eating a lot of times becomes very weirdly conscious but yet unconscious. Yeah. And just the act of them logging it, even if it's not 100% [00:22:00] accurate, is trying to make them more conscious lev- more level of awareness.
And then when you have seven days to go back and reflect on, just like journaling or any other practice, you're like, "Oh, wow, I, I realized I don't eat many vegetables." Yeah. And these are the same people before would swear, "Oh, yeah, I eat vegetables all the time. Like, yesterday I had a pound of broccoli," and-
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
They're
Dr Mike T Nelson: not lying. They're just... That's what's in their head of what they think they're doing, and then when you, you have them go back and look at what their actual actions are, you know. And same thing with exercise. I would say, "Okay- If you're on your own, like do your exercise, film it, and then before you watch the film, write down, okay, what do you think you wanna change?
Mm-hmm. And then watch the video and see does your perception match reality? And obviously I'll give you some input on what I see, you know, doing it.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And I've just found that the whole process is much better and sticks better, and a lot of times they'll, they'll pick out stuff that I may not have picked out.
So it's like, "Oh, okay, why, why was that a thing for [00:23:00] you?" "Oh, you know, 'cause when I was a kid my parents told me I always had to finish my plate, and I can't leave any food, and people are starving in, you know, Ethiopia." And, you know, you get into all the little things that they were kind of unconscious about what was actually going on.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah. Absolutely. And I, I, I really feel like that it, the, it's the imprints of those things we don't realize until we- Yeah ... we track it, until we notice something like that. And, uh, you know, the, the mirror can be a real liar sometimes. I had an experience the other day where I, it was the opposite actually, that I was doing a workout and the visual in the mirror was actually better than I, than I was.
Hmm. I was like, "Oh, I didn't see myself from that perspe- I don't normally look at myself, you know?" Sure. My eyes are in the front of my body. I didn't see the side view in the same way. And, and so, but I think we have to take kind of it all in to perspective. And, and the demands on us right now capture our attention, [00:24:00] our energy, our awareness in such ways that it really does take effort to be able to do that, to call those things forward and out.
So, uh, yeah, I can, I can see that being helpful. And I also think there's an element of, uh, for example, working with a, a, a female client who w- we started tracking the pattern in her monthly cycle. The per- the times in the month that she felt on top of the world and all of those other things came out in the same weeks every single month.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Hmm.
Tracey Holemeyer: And then the other part of the cycle she was like, "Oh, when I feel bad, or when I feel down, or when..." It was, and it was like this binary of these weeks are good and these weeks are bad, rather than these are all just a part of the process-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm ...
Tracey Holemeyer: of your cycle. And instead of going, "I need to be more motivated, I need to push, I need to be more balanced, I need to be more even," I'm like, "Let's take a look at who...
not [00:25:00] just who benefits from you believing that, but how it's exploiting you-
...
Tracey Holemeyer: To believe there's something wrong because you don't want to maybe engage with as many people in this week of the month." who is that a problem for, right? And so we're looking at this, and she's like, "You know, it's actually kind of smart that my body, it, it's, it needs to recover.
It doesn't have as much energy to expend outwardly, and so I become kind of cranky or less wanting to be around people." Makes sense. Then I can be alone, and I can recover, and I've seen this as a problem. I've seen this as my emotions are all over the place. I've seen this as, you know, the, the stories that we're told about ourselves by a society that doesn't tolerate that or, or whatever.
So I really do. I think that there's the... We have to really look at the implication, the impacts of, of usually what someone else has told us about [00:26:00] ourselves or our bodies or how they're functioning.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and I think that's why even what you do and what other fitness coaches do and everything from psychology to everything in between is, I mean, that I think is, like, the huge benefit of having a coach.
Yeah. You know, I know a fair amount about grip training, but I still have a guy that I run all my stuff through because I know my own biases. I know what I'm supposed to do, and, you know- Yeah ... just having someone else be like, "Nope, that's dumb. You should be working on this, this, and this." Oh, oh, okay. Like-
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah
Dr Mike T Nelson: yep, he's 100% correct on that. I just, I don't wanna do that. That lift sucks, you know? And having this balance of yes, we're trying to make it an enjoyable process. Yes, we wanna have compliance, but getting the people to do the hard things that we know are gonna get them to the goal they want and providing them feedback and everything along the way so that they can get better at it as they do it.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah, I think, and that's, it's so funny. You know, it's always humbling to go into a case consultation with one of my mentors or even- Mm ... my [00:27:00] peers, you know, where they- Sure ... can just, "Hey, you know that like 101 thing we used to do when we started this work- ... 100 years ago? You might wanna try that." And I'm like, "Duh, why didn't- Oh, yeah
I try that?"
Dr Mike T Nelson: That's... You know? But
Tracey Holemeyer: that's, I mean, uh, for me, for ethical reasons, for, uh, bias reasons, for any of those reasons, there's something I'm missing here, you know? But I also, you know, wanna speak to the other side of that, is that it does take a community, it does take many people t- for us to do things well.
There's that saying, "It takes a village to raise a child." I've heard, "takes a village to support the parents who are trying to raise a child." And I think that this, y- you know, we need the same level of encouragement and withing when we're learning how to walk as when we're 80 years old.
But somewhere along the line, we've been conditioned to believe we should be able to do it alone, and that we should be able to figure out, and that there's a problem if we can't, when it actually is that is what's beautiful about coaching or getting support or working with somebody [00:28:00] individually, is that it sends the message to ourself that we matter enough to be supported in something.
And, and not to say that y- you don't feel like you matter if you do it on your own, but, but when we're struggling with belonging or feeling worthy or valuable or enough in a society that doesn't really prioritize that,
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm ...
Tracey Holemeyer: um, uh, it can be so nourishing, so beneficial just to have the consistent available support that's reliable, that is that is not, "Will you do this for me?
Be a good XYZ. Work hard enough," do any of those things, that, that you just get to show up and matter, and you get to be supported even if you weren't the best at whatever you had to do that day. And, and there is a communal miss, uh, for me it seems, I see a lot, in that [00:29:00] withing, that really does propel us to places that we're taught we have to get to alone.
Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, I like that. And I mean, I work a lot with fitness coaches, so I coach them on their own fitness.
And sometimes it's- difficult early on for them to even admit that they wanna pay someone a lot of money for coaching. 'Cause they're like, "Well, why am I, how am I gonna pay? I, like, I know what I'm doing.
I have the knowledge set." It's like, b- but are you doing it? Like, everybody has their own blind spots, and one of the little, God, I don't remember who I stole this from. I, I can't remember, but it was, it's the analogy I've used is that you can't read the label from inside the jar. That's it, yeah. Right? You can't, y- y- you know that it's there.
You know what you should be doing, but you, you- Yeah ... by definition, a blind spot is something you can't see.
Tracey Holemeyer: Oh.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And you're thinking about being supported too. Like, I have a whole a group I do mostly business stuff with for mentorships, and we meet, like, three times a year in a different location. And yeah, [00:30:00] I mean, it, a lot of the business information I get is, is great.
It's super useful. But I think the biggest thing, which was kind of a surprise to me, was like, oh, wow, I get to hang out with these people. They're all super cool. It's not a good- huge group. It's kinda real private. Like, it's not a open invitation to, to anyone. And these are people I would hang out with even if we weren't in a group.
And to go there- Yeah ... and to talk to them and realize, oh, shit, like, you're making, like, 2 or $4 million more a year than I am, but you have the same issue. Holy crap. Yeah. That's insane. Like, I didn't think that was possible. I thought when you hit a certain level, all your problems go away. Yeah. And you realize, no, it's not like that at all.
Tracey Holemeyer: Exactly. Yeah, I, I... A similar kind of analogy, you know, I'll say, "You know how they say you can't have your cake and eat it, too?" It used to make me mad. I'm like, "If I have my cake, I wanna eat it." But you can't physically have cake in your hand and have eaten it,
Dr Mike T Nelson: right?
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah. The, the, the way that I describe this for clients is, especially if I work with psychologists or family therapists- Mm-hmm
or, uh, other [00:31:00] coaches or whatever, is that you can't hold the container and be inside of the container.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, I like that. Yeah, yeah.
Tracey Holemeyer: So in the work that I do, right, I am in charge of holding a healthy, sturdy, reliable container while you get in the container to do the work that, that needs to be done kind of a thing.
But we can't do both of those positions at the same time, and we're not designed that way. We are interrelating beings, and, and this way that the, the hyper-independence of if I'm doing something wrong if I can't figure it out, w- we are designed with mirror neurons. We're designed- Yeah ... with this communal relating way of being.
We actually do need the feedback. It's not permission in the sense of you're not good enough to figure this out on your own. But if you go way, way, way back, anything I did in a small living community of 25 people would impact that entire [00:32:00] community. So we had to get uh, have that reflected back to us.
Hey, I wanna do this thing, and it's going to have an impact on my family, my friends, my close neighbors, whatever. How does everybody feel about this? And we're getting the support or the encouragement or the redirection in a way that is supportive of the whole. And so, you know, that, like we're, that's how we're designed to survive.
We rely on each other. We need each other. And so we get into these positions of, of very self-individuated. There's no return back to the communal table, and it makes it really hard to, to, to feel like, oh, I should be able to do this alone. We're, but we're not actually supposed to.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Do you feel like some of that's been hijacked by media, social media, that kind of stuff now?
'Cause I've, I've even caught myself doing this of like, "Oh, I put up this post and that was great. Oh, look at all these people who like it or didn't like it or whatever." And [00:33:00] 95% of the people I don't know. Yeah. And I find myself going, "Oh man, I should... Oh, I need to do more content in this area," even if it was something that I don't really wanna talk about or wasn't really my core area.
And then I sometimes, and I don't always catch myself, but sometimes I'm like, "Wait a minute, I don't know these people." Yeah. That it's not the core business thing. I'm not helping those people. But I- it's just human nature to wanna seek approval.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And it's a weird thing now that we're, and I, again, I'm guilty of this at times too, seeking approval of a bunch of weirdos we don't even know.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah. I
Dr Mike T Nelson: love
Tracey Holemeyer: the way
Dr Mike T Nelson: you're
Tracey Holemeyer: putting that, right? 'Cause it is, it, it's a slippery slope between, uh, being in reciprocal relationships with humans where the impact that, that we have is measured and noted- Mm-hmm ... and, and, and vice versa, to outsourcing our validation, outsourcing our- Right ... goodness, outsourcing [00:34:00] our right to be here, outsourcing, et cetera, you know, dignity, belonging, love, whatever.
And I, you know, for me there's another one I catch myself all the time telling on myself here, uh, is like I'll post something or I'll share something or I'll have the thought of something and I'll work on it, and a couple months later I'll see somebody with a huge platform talking about it. And- Yeah.
and they're getting thousands and thousands of likes. And I'm like, "See, I should've just put it out there. I sh- maybe should've run an ad on it. I shoulda done th-" And I'm thinking, I actually don't want a million followers. Right. I don't want what comes with that. I don't-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, yeah. ...
Tracey Holemeyer: want to be the, I don't, I, the, the, the celebrity move, the, the influencer.
That's not actually in alignment with who I am, and I have to catch it, you know, because, uh, I think that there's this falseness, a, a, a false belief or a perception of, of reward in that. But it actually only almost works. Because there are a bunch of people you don't know, it's not [00:35:00] rewarding. It's not feeding or fueling your actual life and vitality, right?
As it would be to, in, in a w- if I'm working with a couple or a one-on-one setting, and there is some sort of breakthrough. That is actual real feedback in a communal way, uh, which also has a shadow side to it. I think there's a lot of therapists out there- Sure ... that are that, that thrive off of their clients kind of needing them, which is not healthy.
Yeah. Uh, but, but th- we'll save that for another episode maybe. Um, but this way that you know, it tricks us. Like social media, for example, it can be kinda weaponized, tricks us into believing it's actually... This also happens in, in, um, you know, uh, like for young people that game a lot. Hmm. You know, where the...
I know fr- my son and I have had actually a lot of conversations about this, about the perception of creating community. Because you're talking with people, you're doing- Mm-hmm ... the things that you would do in a day-to-day, but you haven't left your room.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yep.
Tracey Holemeyer: You haven't gone outside. You [00:36:00] haven't shaken somebody's hand.
You haven't made eye contact, any of those pieces. So there's like this, this way that it only almost meets the needs that, that we are biologically wired for. Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And then in my, my own case, like I'd had a business platform many, many years ago where I worked with a business coach. I was paying an ungodly amount of money, and he overall was super, super helpful.
I'm glad I did it. But we kinda thought and I said, "Oh, I'm gonna do a membership site for people who wanna lose like the last 10 pounds," and it was kinda general fat loss information. And God, we spent a lot of money, had everything ready, had all the articles done, and then right before we were supposed to launch it I had this like existential crisis of like- Yeah
what if this does become popular? Like what if this actually works? 'Cause I do want it to work. Is this what I wanna be spending my time doing? Do I actually enjoy, for me personally, doing- Yeah ... telling Ethel, like, "Just eat more protein"? And [00:37:00] I realized over time, no, I don't. And then I'm like, "Oh my God, am I a bad human?"
Like, it's not that I don't want to help people, but I'd almost kinda convinced myself that the world needs me to do this and no one else can do it, which is completely false. Yeah. And I- Yeah ... I, I ended up pulling the plug on it, and it cost me tens of thousands of dollars. And-
Tracey Holemeyer: Oof ...
Dr Mike T Nelson: it was kind of an expensive mistake to realize, oh It should be a red flag that if I don't enjoy working with some aspect of some person or doing what I love doing just because, yeah, I wanna make my house payment, wanna get some money, that type of thing, that that should be a red flag.
And there's plenty of possibilities where you can do something to be financially successful and have it be something that you actually enjoy doing at the same, same time. But that was a- Yeah ...
Tracey Holemeyer: it
Dr Mike T Nelson: was a very expensive lesson to learn.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah. I was gonna say, you know, you said expensive mistake, but wow, like, I...
The w- word that came to me as you were saying it was like, deep [00:38:00] integrity.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm.
Tracey Holemeyer: You know? Oh, thank you. So, so maybe it is a lesson in, in aligning with values. And yes, an expensive one, of course.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, sure.
Tracey Holemeyer: I find this so true. You know, I see these, um, one-off kind of Instagram handles where they get really big, and they're selling this, like, $37 course, $37 course, 37...
People eat it up, eat it up, eat it up, eat it up, eat it up. And, and they have, like, this immense success. They are talking about all the wonderful things that they're doing, and they bought a new house, and they got out of debt, and it's all because they did this work, and you can do it, too, right? So they're selling all these things.
And I'm like, I have a million things like that. I could do a $10 course for this, a $30 course for that- Sure ... a $20 course for that. But what two things that I've n- I've watched over spans of time is that isn't m- my lane. My lane is not to create some digitized version for somebody to do on their own.
That is out of alignment with my values of the interpersonal, the communal, [00:39:00] the working together. It's coming back with we're supposed to be together in this, and we're supposed to shoulder these things together. And the other piece is that I've watched over time, and then mysteriously, like, six, eight, 12 months later, this person's like, "I had the worst year of my life."
Yeah. "I hid it from you guys all this..." And I'm like, hold on, you just told us that, that you bought all these new things, and six months later in reflection over that time that you were selling us all these $37 courses that are life-changing, you filed bankruptcy and got sued? I'm so confused as to what happened, you know?
So it, it's really... I, I think we have to have a lot of discernment and wisdom. And unfortunately, when people are hungry for connection, these things... That Gordon Neufeld talks a lot about this around attachment, is we find ourselves with a million things that only almost work.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm.
Tracey Holemeyer: And we can do certain things, for example, with weight loss.
You know, I've worked personally with and have [00:40:00] studied a ton around the relationship between early childhood ab- abuse, sexual abuse and trauma, and weight gain.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yep.
Tracey Holemeyer: So you have these people who can do this fad diet or this thing and have results, but if we're not working with the core material that says, "I'm unsafe in a smaller body"- then their, their, their protection mechanisms, back to what we talked about in the beginning, are going to win They're going to go back to that form of safety has to be first.
And if we feel unsafe here and that goes untended, it doesn't matter how much you can lose, gain, lose, gain, lose, gain, it will continue to be in that disruptive cycle, which ultimately leads, leads to more unwell-being. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and I've gotten better at kind of seeing those clients ahead of time where maybe 10, 15 years ago, I, again, I felt like, [00:41:00] well, I have somewhat of a skill set, I can probably help them, and every time I did, it was just, I realized, nah, I'm not really built for this.
You know, or my good buddy Jeb Stuart Johnson, I just send them to him. So if I do run across those people, which I don't get too many of them anymore just because the way I write and the purposely, the content I put out is not necessarily geared towards that 'cause I don't want- Yeah ... to attract those people 'cause it's not one of my core things I personally want to work with.
Tracey Holemeyer: Mm-hmm.
Dr Mike T Nelson: I'll just send them to him, and he's like, "Oh man, it's great." Like, he loves doing that kind of work. Perfect. Yeah. Like, you can take all of them. You're way better at it than I am. You like it. Like, here you go, man. Have crazy, you know, go crazy, and the person's gonna get a much better result, in all honesty- Yeah
working with him or someone like you or someone else who likes doing that work and has a much better skill set to do it than I am.
Tracey Holemeyer: I, I think that's, I mean, networking in that regard, I don't love, like, networking as far as, like, everybody meets at a- Right. Oh, that's
Dr Mike T Nelson: what's my worst fear ... you know,
Tracey Holemeyer: Philly meet on Tuesday afternoon or something.
Uh, but the networking where I have, like, a trusted [00:42:00] and reliable, uh, um, options for clients, you know, to, to create spaces for them to go if it's not a fit. That, that is, you know, that integrity piece, one of my, my core values is being in integrity and helping who I'm supposed to help. You help who you're supposed to help.
I'm not gonna be able to work with the people you're working with in the way that you are, and vice versa. So, so having that referral list is huge, uh, for me. And, and particularly because I work with individuals with a family of origin, you know, there's oftentimes where there's somebody a little bit too close in proximity to the person I'm working with that also wants or needs help that, you know, then I can also refer them out for, for different things.
So it, it really is, I think, um, that idea that we have to be everything for everyone is, is absolutely a scarcity mindset-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm ...
Tracey Holemeyer: rather than being really great for who we are. [00:43:00] And that's come in handy for me, especially if, you know, with what I do, anytime there is, um... Well, not anytime. There have been times where things got financially unstable in the world, and I actually got busier because people are like, "I need to, I need to handle this for once and for all," you know?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yep.
Tracey Holemeyer: Uh, but you know, anytime there's financial de- destabilizing in the world- we, we tend to cut things that aren't our mortgage or our grocery bill or our gas bill first. And so there's been times like that, and the thing that has really kept me from falling into the traps of maybe I just need to make this course or maybe I just need to do these things, is to be in abundance and, and say, I really can be so much for the people that I am working with And, and pouring the energy there and instead of trying to scatter it in a, in a scarce way, you know?
But we're all... There... I don't know a human alive, and I joke, uh, with colleagues and peers, you know, there's, there's this, [00:44:00] this percentage, right? There's, there's statistics that show that 60% of the population is, has secure attachment. I don't see them, right?
Dr Mike T Nelson: You know?
Tracey Holemeyer: So we joke about like, uh, you know, these, these people that haven't been traumatized.
So I, I try to not use too much hyperbole, but, but I don't know anybody who hasn't had something significant happen in their life that they were able, you know, where everybody was able to completely process through, to heal from, to not have lasting, lingering impacts or patterns or postures around. Everybody I know, and, and therapy talk aside, you know, is like, we, we all have things that we carry and that we're struggling with, and we all, particularly here in the United States, live within systems that, that are propagandized.
We're taught to believe that certain things are a certain way and it's good enough, but if you're comfortable when actually it's not quite safe, [00:45:00] you know, things like that. So, you know, there's, there's a lot of need in, in working with these, these pieces and taking the time, grounding ourselves.
A lot of people don't have time to ground themselves, so we have to do these micro experiences to resource ourselves as frequently as we can because we're often in a deficit. Like we were talking about, the end of the day, we're sliding into bed sideways- ... beat up and defeated. You know? And, and that's from...
I say that from a very privileged position.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Sure.
Tracey Holemeyer: So yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and, and even related to that from a business standpoint, I, I have lost track now f- of how many times you, you're like, "Oh, this client has to drop off because of this," or, "This person graduated," or I wasn't paying attention and realized, "Oh my God, three people are, are finishing up this month," or whatever, and you're looking at your income statement and you're like, "Oh, oh.
Oh man," like, "What am [00:46:00] I do- what am I doing," you know? Yeah.
Tracey Holemeyer: And
Dr Mike T Nelson: you're projecting out, you know, a couple weeks, couple months. Like, you, it's easy to kinda catastrophize like, "Oh my God, everything's gonna end. No one's gonna want my services." And literally almost every time that's happened, like, you just, you show up, you keep doing the work, and literally within days to a couple weeks I've had clients show up out of nowhere, "Oh, I'll pay cash for a full year.
That's great." You know, like multiple times that's, that's happened. Yeah. You know, whether that's- a spiritual thing, you know, God, universe, whatever. Mm-hmm. I'm Christian, so I would say God, but whatever viewpoint you have, it's- I think you kinda almost have to sort of trust that it's going to work and just keep doing the work, stay in your, not really your lane, but your, what you know is within integrity of yourself.
And it's, it's crazy how often it, it does actually work out. It
Tracey Holemeyer: really, it, I mean, and that's, what you just said is so real. I [00:47:00] don't know any solo or entrepreneurs that, that haven't experienced exactly that. And the language around it- Yeah, you talk to other people
Dr Mike T Nelson: and they're like, "Oh, I thought I was the only one who
Tracey Holemeyer: that
Dr Mike T Nelson: happened to."
Yeah.
Tracey Holemeyer: Totally. And, and even to the p- to the point too, reminding when I work with other coaches or therapists or, or whatever, you know, that we don't come here with these gifts and a price tag is attached to them. Money is a human construct. No other species on the pl- sure, some of them barter, and you can find like, you know- Right
crows will bring you little gifts and things like that, you know. Yeah. But, but we're the, we're the only species that lives under this imaginal thing called money. We all just agree to it, which is why we're locked into it. And so-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm ...
Tracey Holemeyer: y- you know, when we kind of separate that out or pull that out just a little bit, that we're here to do this thing, and if we, if we are a commitment to our soul's purpose, and, and, and that, that thing, it does find its way through and to us.
Now, some people might not do [00:48:00] it for their income.
Right? Some people might need to do a job so that they can be in their soul's purpose- Oh, totally ... and their passion and, and thrive in that. You know, I feel really like I didn't spend, the major- majority of my life was in the corporate world, and my employment life has been in the corporate world.
I'm, I'm evening the score now as I'm barreling through my 40s. Um, you know, I was like, oh my gosh, two years and a few months till I'm 50. Wow, it's sneaking up on me, you know? Uh, I'm okay with that. It's my son, he's- I'm like, oh, my, my son is 25. Oh my God. You know? That's a whole other thing. But you know, we, we, this same thing happens, where as you know, somebody can't come or stops coming or has completed enough of what they're doing and maybe they're gonna go to a more maintenance type of, of relationship.
Or, or they move on to another practitioner- Yeah ... that's really a good fit for them and where they're going in their life and what's next. And it can be that catastrophizing belief. But, you know, the, [00:49:00] that's, we're not, especially in what I consider being of service- This work is not here to serve me financially.
I'm here to serve with my offering in this work and what I have to do. And, and hopefully, right, in, in alignment, I will, I will be served in the ways that, that I need to be to survive, uh, on this, this journey. Now, I say that, right? I have accessibility options. I have a lot of free offerings, things like that, because I want to be accessible, and I don't believe you should have to get this kind of help only if you can afford it.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Tracey Holemeyer: I d- I don't... That's, that's a capitalistic uh, part that while I live in capitalism, I refuse to adopt in my own offering. Uh, but, but we are still s- we're swimming in. It's the air we breathe too. So there's, there's context for it. And I just choose... I am, I am [00:50:00] running my business in the way that I would hope to see in a, in a different dynamic, in a different structure of existence, and that would be like a gift economy or a service economy or, you know, things like that
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and I think, and I, I know you do this too of, like in my business, like segregating stuff that's just 100% free.
Like do... I hope people, like the newsletter I put out, the podcast, articles, all that stuff, like there's no charge for it. Yeah, I get your email address, whatever. You don't like me, unsubscribe. Fine. I don't care. Yeah,
Tracey Holemeyer: yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: You know? But it's just one way of just making distribution easier. That's right. Um, and for a while I was kinda like bitter looking around at other industries and I'm like, "My attorney doesn't put all his free advice all the time and stuff."
You know, like why, why is this a thing? Yeah. And then you realize, oh, okay, it's just a different level. Like I give out free advice, but it's also with sort of unattachment. Like I hope you take it, I hope you do the best, and [00:51:00] there's been people who've taken tons of free advice and done great. Great.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: But if you want the next level, you want it to be individualized, you want other things that are more personal, then how the economy works is it's gonna cost you more money, but that also makes it a way for me to figure out who is serious about doing the work. It's just one of the ways to equate that.
It's not the only way. Yeah. But it's a more convenient way of, okay, someone has actual skin in the game. They're giving their money, which was very hard-earned for them. They're probably serious about making a change. They're gonna do the things you recommend. You can have deeper conversations and things of that turn or two.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah. It, it... I, I have seen that be true, and then I've also seen it, you know, like you said, it probably, right? Right. It's definitely not- There's not a guarantee
Dr Mike T Nelson: at
Tracey Holemeyer: all. Not a guarantee at all. I've had people spend money with me and not show up. I'm like, "What, what are you doing?" What are you doing, bro?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Um,
Tracey Holemeyer: and I have had people who can't afford it do m- more committed work than others- Oh, for sure[00:52:00]
who can too. So, so I think it's dependent on the person, and I think it's the kind of work too. I can see how that functions better in what you offer. And, and in mine I do notice, right, the, the financial will... I say this to every client, financial wellbeing is a part of the overall wellbeing. I'm not gonna be helping you too much if I help you feel more flexibility in your nervous system and regulation, but now you're strapped with this credit card bill- Yep
that you'll never be able to pay back. You know? Uh, again, because of the times. If we lived in different times where there was actually a lot of accessibility and people could pay for rent and groceries in the same month even though they're going to work seven days a week, you know, that, that would...
it would be a, a different setup. And, and right now people really need the support to get through and, and this way that, you know, people show up to do this work to help carry them through. Oftentimes I feel, mm, I always [00:53:00] talk about this openly with clients, is that I don't oftentimes- This is true, and I wish it wasn't, that I could feel like I was not just triaging people to send them back out into battle.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm. Yeah, yeah.
Tracey Holemeyer: In, in what I do, you know, I have a ton of people with PTSD and C-PTSD, and the, the PTSD is post-traumatic stress disorder. Majority of people that I'm working with are still dealing with persistent-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm ...
Tracey Holemeyer: traumatic stress. It's ongoing. There isn't a break from it. There's no aftercare. This is how do we shore you up enough that you can slowly build the capacity to, to feel s- to be with somebody, be with, be supported, to have to go back out and face the same dragons again.
So it's, it's a complex system. It's complex times, and, um, these, these ways that we can help support our [00:54:00] bodies and our nervous systems, it, there's an impact even if you don't realize it. You might not feel that much different yesterday to today, but maybe you didn't growl at your neighbor when they told you to move your trash can.
You know, and if you did, I'm actually proud of you 'cause growling is another good release. I'll, I'll plug that, uh, to come back to you. But, you know, the, the way that we move in the world, the impact we have on one another, even with, if we're not realizing it, you know? So I think it's important, important work to do to work with our bodies in the collective body that we exist in.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. That was one of the questions I had is, like, I think it's similar to what I do is that by all means, if you've got some acute issues, you know, fitness related, whatever, air quotes, "We're gonna stop the bleeding. We're gonna do whatever we can to try to fix that issue," whatever it is.
However, my long-term goal is to build up your capacity overall.
Yeah. So not [00:55:00] only are you potentially modifying some of the stressors, like, yes, probably get better sleep, do those types of things, but can we do things to make you stronger, more resilient, more anti-fragile? Like, these things to allow your system to actually handle more stress because- Mm-hmm ... your future is probably not gonna get any less stressful.
If anything, it's probably gonna get more stressful, and so how do we put you in a better position to be able to, to handle that? And my understanding of your work is very similar and, like, how, what are some things people can kind of increase their overall capacity to handle more? Because it- it's like the either the downward spiral or the, the upward ascension, right?
You're- At some point, most people, once they realize they've stopped the bleeding, their capacity gets better, they'll just take on more. So it's this never-ending thing of like, "Okay, how do I get more capacity to do more of the things I, I want to do?" [00:56:00] Rarely have I ever met anyone who's like, "Oh, I'm good now.
I'm just, eh, you know, uh..." It's always the, the next, the next thing, for better or worse.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, I, um, was in the auto industry for many, many, many years and, uh, something, you know, I, I joke about like, it doesn't matter if there's room in the tank if you put diesel in a gas-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. ... engine,
Tracey Holemeyer: right? If, if you make more room in your body and you're pouring in toxicity, then your capac- the capacity is a moot point at that point.
Yep. Uh, so to, to, to agree with what you're saying there. And there isn't, in the near future at least, probably the next few generations, real relief from some of the things that we're up against. And so we do have to, uh... A- I say this about, like, when I work with kids or my own son, like how do I fortify him without traumatizing him?
Yes. You know, how do I make him stronger without, m- without being, [00:57:00] you know, uh, a traumatic memory in his mind? And, you know, there is a lot of, you know, these... I, on my Instagram page I have Soma Sundays, and there's probably 15 or 20 free things where people can go in, and it's a, a resource that you can do.
I have something I... To, to move into some very specific things people could do to, to grow their capacity is something like called pendulation.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Hmm.
Tracey Holemeyer: I'm at capacity. I need to take a break, which we're not always afforded, to be able to come back to this. Rest is not a reward. Rest is a requirement so that you can show up.
You know? It's not something you get at the end of showing up. It's the thing you should do before. Yeah. Kind of like so rest, taking a break uh, pendulating. So when I'm working with clients, I might have them, if I notice, "Oh, we're in the heavy material right now. How's your body? Ooh, I'm, I'm noticing this pattern starting to happen.
Okay, let's find [00:58:00] something pleasant or neutral to look at, and can that be a little... There's a, a really beautiful blue thing over here." And it's like, "Oh, I love that color." Right? It's a slight disruption from the intensity for our body to go... It doesn't make the intensity go away. Yeah. It gives our body a brief respite from that intensity to take a breath, et cetera.
The core four that I have on my Instagram as well is, uh, to soften the eyes.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Hmm.
Tracey Holemeyer: If we, if you think about being in a state of activation, our eyes are usually either fixed or darting. So if we can soften the eyes, it sends the message to the body that it can relax a little bit. The tongue is another piece, right?
There's fascial threads from the tongue that run out through the arms, through the legs, entire body, so there's a cascade effect. The tongue also works kind of like a rudder. If you were to stick your tongue out right now, you can only go so far before your head has to go with it.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm.
Tracey Holemeyer: Right? So the majority of us, if I turn my tongue to the left, my [00:59:00] head goes left.
If I turn my tongue to the right, my head goes right. F- forward, I just said. What do you think happens when the tongue is pressed to the roof of the mouth all day? Everything in my neck, shoulders, jaw is up with it, right? So if we relax, fatten the tongue, flatten it in the bottom of the jaw, you might have to part the jaw slightly, and then let the tongue rest for 30 seconds in the bottom of your mouth.
And just notice. I have clients who call this their button, you know, and then they can just- It's like they push the button and everything goes s- s- s- down, you know, in their body. There is a cascade effect. The other thing is where our tongue is supposed to rest at the back of the front of the teeth or, or top, like, ridge of the mouth, but it's not supposed to be pressed.
So that some people are like, "But I thought that's where my tongue's supposed to be?" Not pressed. That's the, that's the difference. And we just do it for shorter periods of time, you know? If the, if we were running from a saber-toothed tiger, we would have to push the tongue to the roof of [01:00:00] the mouth so it wouldn't get bit by accident.
So when we release the tongue, that means there's no immediate eminent threat. And we hold that loosely in- Mm-hmm ... the systems and times we live in. The other one is the breath. Breath is a huge piece. There's all kinds of controversy about breathwork right now. You know, it's like something that is as
Dr Mike T Nelson: old- Seems like the next big thing.
Tracey Holemeyer: It's like, it's as old as, as, as humans, right?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yep.
Tracey Holemeyer: And it becomes, um, uh, you know, part of this capitalistic thing, uh, something that we can sell and bottle up and, and you're not doing it right, and you have to do it this way, and this is the only way to do it, and you only have to do this. All that nonsense.
But you know, if you, if you slow your breath to five and a half seconds, five and a half to six second ins and outs, you're bringing your, uh, breath into a coherent, uh, rhythm with the heart. And again, what does that signal to the body? If I'm breathing, if [01:01:00] I, if I can take the time to breathe, what does that mean is not happening?
Right? Most of us are real breath holders. A lot of us will hold at the bottom-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm. Interesting ... where,
Tracey Holemeyer: where we're, where we're like waiting to inhale kind of a thing.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Tracey Holemeyer: Other people
Dr Mike T Nelson: are over holding. And I see this in clients too. You see 'em breath hold, like I'll watch this in conversation patterns too, and all of a sudden you'll see 'em, and they'll...
Or they'll do weird sighs, or they'll do like this big inhale and kinda move away and- Yeah ...
Tracey Holemeyer: yeah. Yeah. Breath is a big, big deal. Like a whole, uh, topic there. And then the last of the core four is the knees. Hmm. So any time we're locking out the knees, there's this, that stiffening, that bracing that sends the signal in the body.
Now that might be useful in certain things, but to stay there all the time, particularly unnecessarily, uh, can, can send a signal. So we just kinda soften the knees. Uh, teaching yoga for years, I would soft knees. We're not locking the knees out here. [01:02:00] We need the body to be flexible, not become rigid, you know, in classes and, and e- that's, it's something people have to be...
Even just doing a yoga pose, they're like, "Oh, I didn't realize how hard my knee was pressing down," the toll that that takes on the joint. So, I, again, the, I've thousands of options. Uh, but, but if people were to take away, you know, the core four- uh, orienting movement is another really important practice.
We talked about joints. Uh, not performative dance, but moving with the impulses of the body. The thwarted impulses are actually what creates a lot of stagnation and stuck feelings, and it's... Yeah, it's not appropriate to walk down the street and just punch somebody in the face, for sure. Bad behavior.
But if I don't release that energy somewhere, then my elbow, shoulder, wrist, torso is taking on the, the withholding of that. The thwarting of that then gets locked in my body. Yeah. [01:03:00]
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. That's what I find exer- and obviously I'm an exercise physiologist, so I, I'm obviously gonna say exercise is so beneficial.
But- Mm-hmm ... I feel like for a lot of corporate clients I have, it's a high-stress job. They're tending to be at their computer. They're, they're all in front. They're hyper-focused with- Mm-hmm ... their eyes on a, a screen. And then at the end of the day, their body's like, "Oh, why am I, why am I, why am I so tired?"
And they're like, "You're telling me to exercise. What? You idiot, this is gonna make me feel worse." I'm like, "No, we're just... Yes, we need to modify. Yes, we don't want you to do four CrossFit sessions in the evening or, or whatever. But you need to recouple movement to the stress that you had during the day."
'Cause right now they're, they're decoupled, and I understand that because of the work environment and, and everything that goes on. But if you can't try to recouple them back to some degree, I just find that those people tend to be higher stress, worse HRV, poor breathing patterns. Their sleep gets disturbed.
They start having weird pain shit they can't figure out, like- [01:04:00] Totally ... because it, it, it, it has to go somewhere, and they have almost like no outlet of trying to recouple that stress to the movement because, you know, you go back to, um, what was it? Sa- one of Sapolsky's books, you know, the- Uh, what am I... Oh, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, that's what it was.
Tracey Holemeyer: Oh, yeah,
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah, yeah. Yeah. And he's awesome. I love him. But the- Yeah ... the whole premise is that, you know, animals, when they get stressed, they do a lot of movement, and then- Right ... the stressor is gone. They unfortunately didn't make it, or the stressor disappears, and so there's this reprieve. But stress is always managed by some kind of movement.
And as humans, we're really good at just kind of just decoupling that.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah, yeah, and, and dissociating, which is we- Yeah ... exist in a, in a state of dissociation. And, and urgency is another one. People that live- Mm ... urgently, you often find people very much in their front body or forward on their toes. You know?
Yes. And, and the urgency really is, again, I know I talk a lot about systems. For anybody listening that's exhausted by it, I'm sorry, but [01:05:00] not- No, I love it. Um, you know, uh, but, but urgency is a product of capitalism, of white-bodied supremacy, of the patriarchy. You know, there's, there's there is a, uh, somebody who benefits, and those who are put under the urgent microscope are, are exploited typically.
And, and when we look at this, sometimes all it takes is... I was working with somebody the other night who says urgent just felt like hooks pulling them forward. I just gotta go, I gotta do, I gotta push through, I gotta da-da-da-da. And I was like, "All right, just take 10 seconds and be where your spine is."
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm.
Tracey Holemeyer: And he was able to, like, come into his body and go, "Oh, whoa. Hold on. I can see the whole room." Right? Yep. There's a lot more option here. There's a lot more choice. We- we- to kinda telescope our experience. So it silos into this one thing when we just inhabit your back body. There's another one called one, two, three space where we go from thinking mind, one space, body feeling is two space, and then the vastness of the collective is three [01:06:00] space.
You can kind of go through anything you're up against in, in these ways and, and get a different perspective. Again, even if it's momentary, gives the body a break from the working theory that this urgency is my emergency.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm. I like that. That-
Tracey Holemeyer: And taking a pause there and going, "Actually, I can respond to this email tomorrow."
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Tracey Holemeyer: You know? And not drafting it at 3:00 AM kind of a thing, you know? 'Cause I know I'm g- hands up guilty for, for that of, you know, going through it. But getting into that- Yeah ... is another really important one. Like you're saying, I really appreciate that coupling yourself back to movement. Sound is another really important one.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm.
Tracey Holemeyer: To make sound, I, I joked in the beginning about the voo breath, and it's taking a big inhale- What
Dr Mike T Nelson: is that?
Tracey Holemeyer: So inhale in and then voo all the way out. With kids you would do moo 'cause it's like a cow, and then they think
Dr Mike T Nelson: it's
Tracey Holemeyer: funny. Sure. You know? Uh, but you inhale, big breath, and then voo it all the way out, and this, uh, works with the vagus nerve, vagal [01:07:00] toning, right?
We're creating sound. It creates a- Like
Dr Mike T Nelson: almost like a humming, like to stimulate
Tracey Holemeyer: the vagal nerve. It is. You can hum, you know. Mm-hmm. I do this... It's great on a plane because nobody else can actually hear you because of the white noise.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, yeah.
Tracey Holemeyer: So, so if you're getting nervous on a plane, if people have anxiety, I always say, like, "Try the voo breath," 'cause you can inhale, voo.
And it's kind of, you know, it'll tune me out 'cause Zoom's good about background noise and it thinks my voo sound is a- ... background noise. But you know, it really does help, uh, kind of bring us down. It actually works in both ways. It can help down regulate or deactivate the system, but it also can take us out of, like, a functional freeze and feel more aliveness again.
So that's a really good one. Humming works. The physiological sigh where you take a big breath in, top it off, and exhale out is another great reset. Uh, any sound. You know, I... The other day, another personal anecdote I, uh, was driving in the car, and I'm like, "I just need to scream," right? And I love car screaming.
It's one of my favorite places to- ... let it rip. And I go, and it, it [01:08:00] felt very- I don't know, anticlimactic. I was like, "I guess that wasn't what it was." The next morning I get up and I just turn my music on and I'm kind of in a funk, trying to shake it off, gotta get into the day, and Tina Turner comes on. And I start belting out What's Love Got to Do With It, and between the movement and the sound, it, it released me from whatever that was.
So if it's screaming Tina Turner at the top of lungs, do that instead is my advice, right? But sound is a really important one. And our, and our sound is also deeply connected to our sacral area, the womb hara space any kind of trauma, uh, in that area, sexual trauma or otherwise. Um, we lose our voice in this world a lot of times, and so bringing that back through sound can feel very dangerous and frightening, so start small, start with someone, that type of thing.
But all important.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, one of the stories I think about is... So one of my favorite bands is a band called Five Finger Death [01:09:00] Punch, and the lead singer, Ivan Moody, is very good at kind of doing the death metal growly, but he has a really nice, very good, uh, voice, but it is definitely more of an aggressive style performance.
Yeah. Seen him live a bunch of times. Great band. And he told this story of when his daughter was younger, uh, it was the first time he ever took her out on tour. I think she might've been eight or something like that. And he finishes his set, you know, and he, he goes over to the side, and his daughter's, like, crying.
And he's like, "Oh my God," like, you know, "What, what, what, what's going on?" And, and she's like, "Daddy, why, why are you so mad? What's going on?" She was completely confused because she had never- Yeah ... seen him in that setting. And he's like, "I never really raised my voice with her. I'm very calm." Oh, the sweetness
Tracey Holemeyer: of that, you
Dr Mike T Nelson: know?
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: You know, and he realized, he goes, "Oh my God, what did I just do? I didn't give her any context or anything." I- you know, he's been performing most of his entire life. He didn't... He's like, "I just didn't think about what was going on." [01:10:00]
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And then the second part to that is interesting too, is you, you interview a lot of musicians, and especially more extreme music and stuff.
Most of them when they're not on stage are, like, the coolest, like, chill, like, super quiet people, like, you'll almost ever meet. And I, I don't remember who asked him this question. They're like- Well, the music you play is so loud and extreme, like why are you so chill all the time? And he's like, "I get to go out on stage and yell and scream my heart out for like an hour and a half and get everything out of me."
Like, "Ah, the rest of the day is easy."
Tracey Holemeyer: Easy. Cake. Absolutely. Uh, speaking of growling, that is another one. I think it's, uh, Andrew Huberman, uh, which there isn't very many people out in the world that you couldn't have something negative about. We'll leave that to the side for a second. For sure. He has a really, really great episode.
Uh, a lot of them are very, very informative, uh, episodes, but the, the one on the vagus nerve is, is really great. Um, and he talks a lot about that... Uh, I don't remember what, what words he used, but it sounds to me like a low growl.
Dr Mike T Nelson: [01:11:00] Mm.
Tracey Holemeyer: And as a perimenopausal woman, uh, I'm becoming more feral by the minute.
So I really ap- I really appreciated the invitation to growl more, uh, 'cause I was doing it anyways. Um, it's very effective if somebody's standing too close to you or whatever.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Um,
Tracey Holemeyer: uh, but, but that low growl. So it would be like taking an inbrea- Actually, let me see if I can turn my original sound on so you could hear this just for a moment.
Oh, yeah. But it's a big inhale, and then
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, interesting.
Tracey Holemeyer: So it's like in the, in the back of the throat kind of, Yeah ... growl. Not like the snarling growl, you know?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Right,
Tracey Holemeyer: right. But that low kind of like gremlin-y, almost gargling kind of growl, uh, with mouth closed that actually is really effective at, at down-regulating our systems as well.
So just, they're just popping into my head now, so you have to cut me off, [01:12:00] Dr. Mike.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, no. No, that's, that's great. And where my brain goes to, there's another band called Slaughter to Prevail. Uh, the lead singer, guy's name is Alex Terrible, he's originally from Russia. He does this very low kind of like, it sounds like a gator growl as like part of his vocals.
Tracey Holemeyer: That's it.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And the first time I heard it I was like, "What the hell?" Because it's such a, a very different sound you wouldn't expect, especially as like a vocal kind of de- delivery.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Um, and it's, yeah, super interesting, you know, that there's all these different styles and then you, you wonder looking at their kind of personality as an outsider, did they get into this because they realized that this was one way of doing it almost as a career, but made out of like self-regulation?
Like does-
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah ...
Dr Mike T Nelson: is he aware that maybe this is a way he's regulating his nervous system? He also seems like a, a super calm, well-spoken guy, but also does like bare knuckle fighting and all sorts of crazy shit, you [01:13:00] know? I think
Tracey Holemeyer: there's a method in this over here.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Tracey Holemeyer: Uh, uh, like I really do. And, and I agree.
You know, I was talking to my son about, uh, you know, I talk to him about all these things, and he is, um, special education aide in- Oh, nice ... a school, so he works with moderate to severe sped kids. And, and, uh, you know, he was joking. He was like, "It's funny, all of my... a, a lot of the kids, especially non-verbal, have this growl to them."
Mm. And I was like, "You know, I think it's really effective." Look at animals. Look at wildlife. Yeah. You know? Where is the growl effective, you know? Uh, but, but I told him, I said, you know, it would be a really cool experiment to try co-regulating with the growl. If we, if you had a room of people-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah
Tracey Holemeyer: growling, what would that feel like? You know, if you had this child who doesn't have another way to express safely, and, and you not only permit them and encourage them to do that, but you do it, if you get with them in it, you're deactivating your system, they're deactivating their system. I [01:14:00] don't see a, a, a bad way out of this, you know?
Yeah,
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah.
Tracey Holemeyer: So I do, I think that there's, there's... it's, I would, I would bet that the majority of these, the, the outcomes of that type of expression are very, very healthy and, and contributing to their wellbeing. Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Very interesting.
Tracey Holemeyer: Get it all- Yeah ... out in the mosh pit, you know?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, yeah. Well, even just-
the energy you see at concerts and stuff like that, and I... I mean, I know for myself, like, just being able to go into my garage, turning up music pretty loud, probably annoying the neighbors, cops only showed up once. But, you know, like, just that there's something where even now, like, I, I generally will turn my phone off.
I still use CDs most of the time when I'm here or at the gym. I have these large headphones and-
...
Dr Mike T Nelson: There's just something about giving yourself that permission of time to do movement. It is beneficial for you. And I've noticed the times that I have the hardest time getting into it, I have a very hard time picking the right music.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And I've [01:15:00] noticed other days where it goes well, I'll just look and be like, "Yep, that's the one I wanna listen to right now." And then it- Yeah ... there's something that you just intuitively kinda know what matches what you, you wanna do. And for a while I was probably, like, over cognizant of it and trying to figure it out, and now it's like, eh, it's, better is better, right?
If this is what I wanna listen to now- Just trust the
Tracey Holemeyer: process ...
Dr Mike T Nelson: great. This is what I'm gonna do, you know?
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah. Just trust the process. Yeah. And I think that, you know, this, all of this is, like you said, you know, getting some time back, uh, turning off resisting. You know, these are... I, I often tell my clients, "Healing is a great act of defiance."
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm.
Tracey Holemeyer: I like that. Even though prioritizing ourselves is a great act of defiance, I can't take down these machines myself, but my act of defiance and encouraging others in that act of defiance feels, a lot of times, like the, the, the resistance that I need to feel supported so that, that I can resist in bigger ways.[01:16:00]
You know, healing for me is a great act of defiance. The things that happened in my life that, that, I'm not exaggerating at all here, could have or maybe should have killed me and didn't, I don't know a better way to be in my vitality than, than healing and prioritizing that. And I don't mean healing as in, like, it has to be your full-time job.
But, but it is a constant... It's not, there's no there there. It is a constant journey of, yes, I have healed from specific things, but I have to heal every day to be able to keep going, to keep showing up, to keep, uh, contributing and reciprocating, uh, with life, to life, in life, et cetera. And, and it is a great act of defiance to Let intuition pick your CD and rock out and get back in your body and care for yourself in that way.
Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. [01:17:00] And especially having another form of movement outlets that can combine movement and even, like, social interactions. Again, I mean, I could turn anything into a pitch for kiteboarding, but one of the, my big pitches to people is that it's hard. No one learns it really fast. You're gonna have to put in a lot of time and effort.
You're going to get humbled routinely. That's just part of it. But you also have these pure moments where you're just, like, riding across on the board, you're just using the power of the kite, or you're doing a jump and, you know, you're 20 feet in the air, and you're not really thinking about anything else in the world.
Like, you get those brief seconds of just, you know, whether it's a flow state or whatever it is, of just being in the moment. But you're almost forced to because if you're not, like, really bad shit happens to you.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So it's sort of a way to, to create those experiences. It's kind of you're alone when you're doing it, but yet you're out there with other [01:18:00] people.
You have to usually get someone to help you launch, someone to land. Other people know what it's like to have bad shit happen, so most of the time they're super helpful if anything happens.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So you have this sort of built-in smaller community because they all kind of understand the thing you're doing.
And I've heard the same thing about, you know, different sports, you know, Brazilian jujitsu, mixed martial arts, you know, all that kind of stuff. Rock climbing
Tracey Holemeyer: is another one. Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Rock climbing, exactly the same idea. Yeah. Someone... You're the only one doing it, but yet if you're using, you know, ropes, someone else is actually there to support you.
They fuck up, like, really high consequences happen, you know?
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So I think doing those things are underrated by society because it just looks like, oh, it's just a recreation. You're out just having fun. And like, well, yeah, of course, yes. But I think there's so many other benefits to those types of things that's hard to explain until people ac- actually experience it.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah. Yeah. And however you can do that,
Dr Mike T Nelson: you know, whatever. Yeah. And there's [01:19:00] multiple ways to do that. Those are just some examples, right?
Tracey Holemeyer: Exactly. Exactly. And, and I do. I think that it's, that's more- You know, there's technologies involved, advancements, whatever, but that is more true to our animal body-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yes
Tracey Holemeyer: than sitting at a computer all day or, you know, having to do hard labor every day or fending for your life every day. You know, our, our inherent animal nature, I, I say a lot and, and I don't mean to be diminishing or, or minimizing in any way. Like, we're supposed to be picking berries.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Tracey Holemeyer: Foraging for mushrooms, right?
That's the extent of our day is, like, feeding ourselves, making sure we're sheltered, whatever. It, it, it's not supposed to be this... M- and I don't say this like it's, it's supposed to be easy, 'cause I think a lot of life can be hard and complex, and, and that we shouldn't just think, "Oh, it's only good if it's easy."
But this unnecessary levels of, [01:20:00] of diminishment of our life, you know? And, and those, those pieces I feel like are way more in alignment with our animal body and what we're, our bodies are organized to do.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Do you think there's... My belief is that there's something about the optionality of choosing to do hard things that are also controlled.
Like, I have this weird thing where I'll do, you know, if I'm home, do cold water immersion or do some high intensity exercise. Like, stuff I don't want to do, but I always feel better afterwards. And I sometimes also feel like paradoxically we have so much other forms of stressors, but not as many physical stressors.
Again, there's this kinda mismatch in that my life- Yeah ... physically is almost too easy that I actually have to choose to do some of these harder things in a controlled fashion to make sure that I'm still improving and I can handle more difficult things. And I do think that the... I'd be interested in your opinion.[01:21:00]
Do you think that crosses over to the psychological side? 'Cause my bias is yes, and I think that's also underappreciated.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah. A- and, and this is, you know, the, the debate around stress is not that stress is actually inherently bad, it's the belief that the stress is bad that causes- Right,
Dr Mike T Nelson: which is a big part of it, yeah
Tracey Holemeyer: you know, where, where healthy stress... I think the systems we live in are very unhealthy stress. Yes. I think they're very unnecessary stress. But absolutely psychologically, developmentally it requires some challenge. You don't learn things if, if you're not challenged to remember, et cetera. I don't think we have to be traumatized to learn.
The people that wanna- Oh,
Dr Mike T Nelson: I agree with that ... say, "
Tracey Holemeyer: Oh, well that's your soul's contract," or- Oof ... "Maybe you needed to learn that," I'm like, "Look, if you tell me that my son had to suffer in order to learn, you better be far enough away that I can't-"
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. ... 'cause then
Tracey Holemeyer: I'll ask you what you did to d- Yeah, yeah ... that
Dr Mike T Nelson: must
Tracey Holemeyer: have been what you deserved, right?
Uh, no. I, I'm a, I'm mostly, mostly non-violent person, in
Dr Mike T Nelson: [01:22:00] asterisk,
Tracey Holemeyer: right? Mostly.
Dr Mike T Nelson: There's
Tracey Holemeyer: an asterisk there. But, but it does take... I don't think that we have to be traumatized to develop mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and there is a level of, of, uh, challenge that must be reckoned with, approached, et cetera, uh, to, to help us develop in that way.
N- no different than, than building muscle in any other part of the body. These, it's like the emotional muscle, it's those types of things. And when we're looking at in somatic experiencing it would be called, like, a- an energy well or a capacity well, where, you know, we start out, especially after trauma, with a very narrow window- of capacity.
And it takes being with that material in healthy ways where we go, "Ooh, there's the material," like I mentioned, kind of pendulating into something less bad, and we can stretch there, and then the muscle's a little more flexible to be in that greater space. Now, if you overdo it and blow yourself out of your body- [01:23:00] Yeah
I don't know, by doing-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Eustress versus distress.
Tracey Holemeyer: Exactly. You know, uh, uh, but, but we can continue to help grow that. Uh, again, whatever ends up in your capacity well you have to be mindful of, too. When it's just toxic flow, then your window's gonna close back up. But we can use that healthy stress to, to...
We don't wanna re-traumatize, we don't wanna reenact previous experience, but we want to develop a skill set that we didn't have that made it inherently traumatic before. So psychologically speaking, you know, it's not-- trauma isn't always what happens, it's what happens inside of us, what's left inside of us, particularly without safe access or ability or companionship through processing And so if, let's say, something catastrophic happens and we don't know how to deal with it, we haven't developed the skills yet for that, we go back and work with, [01:24:00] as a more mature, hopefully ripened adult, better skills, d- better development.
We work through processing, resourcing, et cetera, to expand those things. We revisit that and we can imagine different outcomes. We can have uh, like protective strategies. A good example of this is I was working with somebody and they said, "I'm just afraid they're gonna pull the rug out from underneath me."
And I said, "Okay, l- let's take that analogy. I know they're not actually gonna pull the rug." "But let's just think about this for a second. What could you, as a full-grown human right now, do if somebody grabbed the edge of the rug that you were standing on?" And they were like, "Oh, well, I could jump." I was like, "Cool.
What else?" "Oh, I could step off." "Cool. What else?" And then I got this smirk on my face 'cause I knew that they were gonna get to the thing that came to my mind first as a fighter. She, "I, I could just kick them in the face while they're down there." Yeah. And I was like, "Yeah."
Dr Mike T Nelson: Right?
Tracey Holemeyer: And it reworked, oh, I have different skills now.
I can't [01:25:00] change the past, but developmentally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, physiologically, I have new and different skills now as an act of defiance and healing, and I don't have to do any of that the same way again, you know? And that's really what healing is, is about, and, and developing that, you know, to your point, like growing those muscles.
Developing that skill, growing the capacity, yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Do you think that's why psychedelics are so... I mean, they're early, it's still early data, but especially with some type of, whether it's cognitive behavioral therapy or some type of therapy at the same time, not just, "I took a bunch of mushrooms and went to a concert."
Like, that's a- Fun Friday night kind of thing, you know ... different thing, right? That early on when I was reading the research, I kept thinking that because of the increased neuroplasticity, you're rewiring sort of the, the trauma or the thing. And then now as of late, I'm starting to think that, I think that is possible, but I think, and [01:26:00] especially listening to people who've done this and the people have done, you know, psychedelics in different ways, there's very much the feeling that is very hard to explain unless you've done it that, oh, that thing didn't really change, but I feel like it's p- a part of me and I know why and I can deal with it now.
And it's hard to explain that it's much more of a, a sensation. Like, you, you may report the same things, but the internal feeling is, like, completely different. If that makes any sense.
Tracey Holemeyer: It does. Uh, in my experience, it is- Uh, one of the benefits is that it almost-- it doesn't remove the resistance or blocks to whatever is next for you- Right
in that feeling, in that sensory experience, but it, it almost, like, kind of circumvents it. It's like these [01:27:00] things that we have built in, these defensive strategies, these postures, these patterns, are almost offline to the degree that because you're in this altered state, you can access maybe what would've come next or what is my next step or process in this way.
And again, it doesn't mean the strategies go away, it doesn't mean that any of the material changes, but there is a different way of relating to it without those conditioned tendencies blocking the path. So I-I'm with you. I, I don't want to see this legalized until stuff that people are doing 30 years to life for is decriminalized you know?
Oh, yeah. That's a lot of things. And one of the words, I don't want a guy that, you know, had a dime bag of weed doing 30 years in jail.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I know.
Tracey Holemeyer: Right? Like, disproportionately, especially for melanated bodies. But, like, this way that, that I think there really is a lot of this, especially plant [01:28:00] medicines-
Can be such a valuable, accessible resource and tool to helping alleviate what isn't natural that got implanted or implemented in our systems as a r-result of harm, neglect, trauma, et cetera. So I can actually absolutely see uh, pathways for that within the context of, of working with trained, educated, experienced facilitators.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yep.
Tracey Holemeyer: No offense to anybody named Bob, but I don't wanna work with Shaman Bob who put the shaman. You know what I mean? I don't-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, yeah. There's a lot of Bobs out there.
Tracey Holemeyer: I don't want... Uh, right. It's, I, I don't want this, you know, kind of person that's never been into in any kind of indigenous or indigeneity spaces, uh, decolonized of this, you know, kind of capitalistic structures, et [01:29:00] cetera you know, to have healthy access to it in the ways that it was created, formed in nature, for nature, as nature.
Yeah. But I, I, I don't run the world, so I probably won't get my, my request. Yeah. But
Dr Mike T Nelson: I get it.
Tracey Holemeyer: But that's my, my hope is that people can have access to it in very healthy ways, even if it is in a medical setting- Yes ... but with proper attuned, you know, so those habitual responses are not in the way.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
And anyone who's, if you've done psychedelics or plant medicines, even a couple experiences at a high dose, which I've done five glasses in ayahuasca in Costa Rica, and that'll definitely make you look at stuff a little bit differently. Yeah. But you also then realize, ooh, the experience I had was amazing.
It was great. Danielle was there, and it was, it was amazing. It was not easy, but definitely extremely useful.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: But you also have a little bit of appreciation on a small scale of, [01:30:00] wow, if this was not controlled in the way that it was, like the stuff that I saw, this shit could've gone so horribly wrong at the same
Tracey Holemeyer: time.
So hor- so dangerous. So dangerous. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that, you know, to each their own, right? For sure. Do whatever you need to do if it's not causing someone el- like, you have all the rights to do what you wanna do until it impinges on someone else, right?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yep.
Tracey Holemeyer: Feel free. Have fun. Uh, and there does need to be, particularly in a traumatized society, right?
One of my favorite quotes is, is, uh, "It's no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a sick society."
Dr Mike T Nelson: Hmm. I like that.
Tracey Holemeyer: And so we don't want to be practicing something as valuable and potent as what the Earth offers us to be well in a way to Band-Aid the atrocities and abuses and brutalities, uh, of systems of oppression and harm and so on and so forth.
That's the thing that I'm really afraid of, is this is gonna become a [01:31:00] Band-Aid. Just like, hey, when I was, you know, i- in an, uh, a relationship with my abuser I had a lot of anxiety. Uh, well, of course I did. You put me on a medication for the anxiety and it didn't deal with the domestic violence issues.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yep.
Tracey Holemeyer: You know? That's the thing that I, I, I just really wanna caution people to. And also, that the plant medicine is not responsible for your results. It is an aid, an assist, a help to get these habitual patterns volume down so that what's in you can proceed and go through. A lot of people outsource, "Oh, it's the medicine that's doing this," and that's not true.
You have it in you, and in reciprocal, healthy systems and societies, you would have the community to not be desolate in the, in the healing process alone. So yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And that's my big thing, is for God sakes, do your research. You probably can't over-research it that much. Talk to people who've been there.
Get a good recommendation. And then- [01:32:00] Just budget some time on the back end because you don't really know what you'll find. Like I've had some people who are like, "Yeah, I think there's some stuff in my past. Ah, I'm just gonna go do this in this dude's apartment this weekend." I'm like, "You may be all of a sudden very conscious of some shit that you're not prepared to, to deal with.
You don't have the support structure. You don't have the professionals to walk you through, and it's kinda like you're opening Pandora's box, and-"
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah. "...
Dr Mike T Nelson: you might be better to leave that closed for right now." You know? This may not be the time.
Tracey Holemeyer: There is, you know, there's a brilliance to a system that, that can compartmentalize or, or create a complex and put it away or, or, uh, you know, I have a lot of clients that I work with who simply don't, and I'm using air quotes here, "remember" their childhoods.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Sure.
Tracey Holemeyer: I, I-- if I throw them back into- Oof ... if I force them back into remembering the things that their body has protected them against, their mind has protected them against, it would just be a re-traumatization. Yep. And that's exactly what [01:33:00] you're speaking to. You gotta be really careful with, with these things.
And, you know, I am in Southern California, so it's the common experience of going out to Joshua Tree or do it, you know, down to, to the border, any of these other things Mexicali, you know, all these things to, to, to, um, do it in these ways that really is not supportive or conducive to ongoing health and wellbeing.
So, so be mindful. D- like you said, a great advice, do your research, and make sure that, that, that... A lot of people don't even know the concept of integration or metabolization.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Tracey Holemeyer: You know, the, the taking the medicine is like eating the food. After the medicine is how your body metabolizes it. What's it gonna keep?
What's it gonna get rid of? How's it using it for fuel? How could it be harmful? You know, the, the, the plant isn't poisonous to you until you eat it. The snake isn't poisonous to you until it bites you. You know? So it's, it's, it's being [01:34:00] mindful of like how do we take care of ourselves so that what's coming in can be metabolized by our bodies.
Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And I think it's, it's super interesting, but again, it's, I think it was Tim Ferriss who said it's, you're kinda like, it's kinda like you're doing psychic neurosurgery. Yeah. You know, like in the hands of a really good surgeon, if you got something that's bad, like it can be amazing. In the hands of someone who's not real well prepared, not the best set and setting, there's no integration afterwards, there's, you know, probably not a good idea.
And we all know people who have done multiple plant medicine ceremonies, and ironically, one person I'm thinking of, got the same message in the last four, which to me is just crazy. Yeah. Eh, but she still hasn't taken action on it. Right. And I'm like, "Do you think the 17th one is gonna be the thing that solves it for you?"
Like I, I'm guessing not. That's
Tracey Holemeyer: right. That's right. That's right. Yeah. I have people, you know, that will say, "Oh, I, you know, [01:35:00] this, this amethyst crystal I was carrying with me for years and years and years, and it's just not working anymore." I'm like, "The crystal's looking at you like lady," like the moon, you know?
Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: It's
Tracey Holemeyer: like, "Stop blaming me for your earthly problems," you know? Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: But
Tracey Holemeyer: it's, it's taking in, integrating, and metabolizing. What does this thing make me feel? How does it help me embody? How does it-- what does the, the quality of this thing creating or helping me to look at building or developing in me?
And that's ... We don't get that training, so I'm not blaming anyone for that.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, yeah. I
Tracey Holemeyer: think that it is to take a look at none of this, you can't outsource it either.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, it makes me think of the Alan Watts quote of like, "Once you get the message, hang up the phone."
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah . You know, it's
Dr Mike T Nelson: like- I love that
you got the message, like you gotta do the work now. Like there, there's no-
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah ...
Dr Mike T Nelson: and just like anything in life, there's, there isn't really a lot of shortcuts, and that's what my fear is that people look at this as the shortcut, and I view it as, again, back to awareness of, yep, you probably have a place of higher neuroplasticity so you probably can make greater [01:36:00] changes than you made before- Mm-hmm
but now that you know whatever it was, what do you do with it? It's not gonna do all the doing for you. Like you're still gonna have to do the work on the back end. Like that's just not gonna change.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah. Absolutely, and, and when you look at it, like the chemical components, not necessarily plant medicines but actual, you know, chemically based medicinal what's the word?
Psychedelics. Uh, those are altered states, right? So yes, you have this different experience in the altered state. How do you bring that back into your, your regular state and, and then use that information, et cetera? So, you know, the, the plant medicines are, I, I believe live in you. I believe if you like take mushrooms, that the mushrooms are informing you for the rest of your life.
You don't have to take them every single day, right? The, the medicine has been infused in your body. Uh, but something that is chemically created, that, that is something that's an [01:37:00] altered state, a place to go, take that information, and then how do we bring it back and apply it to life either way. Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Love it. Uh, last two questions, be respectful of your time.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: You mentioned The Body Keeps the Score, obviously, book by Bessel van der Kolk, which I really like. Again, not an easy read. I, I keep coming back to it 'cause I got about halfway through and I'm like, "Bro, I gotta put this book down for a little while.
This is a little bit heavy," but like really well done. Yeah. Um, where do you believe, air quote, "memories" are, are stored? Do you think it's like a, a neural construct? Do you actually think it's in the fascia? Do you think it's in the tissue? I'm, I'm just super curious. And again, there's no right or wrong answer to this at all.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah. No, it is, it's very ... It- for me, it's super fascinating, uh, to, to watch the discourse on this because I don't think any of us could know. Right.
Dr Mike T Nelson: I
Tracey Holemeyer: don't think we are evolved enough to understand it on a, on a greater concept. My- I go more meta. Mm. I go, I'm, [01:38:00] I'm the ocean in a drop of water and I return to the ocean, you know, that kind of a thing.
Uh, so I feel like it's more of a collective experience. I think that, you know, if you've ever walked past somebody who's extremely sad and you feel, "Wow, that like hit me like a ton of bricks," or, or the way that, oh, you might say, "Oh, I haven't said, seen so-and-so in a while," and then they call you the next day.
Mm-hmm. I think there's a deeper interconnected piece that we these- The brains as we use them are limited to understanding. And I don't mean this even just, like, on a spiritual level. I mean the connectivity of energetic beings, right? That we have a heartbeat that is sending out, uh, energy, et cetera, uh, on that, that m- more scientific way.
Uh, I think that it's a culmination of things. I think that it's not an either/or or a singular place. I think that there is... It's an informing [01:39:00] system. So if I say, "Where do you notice that in your body?" Much like if, let's say, somebody comes to me and they're like, "Oh, I had this terrible dream." You know, we break it down.
The, the psyche is just using an image that might be quite frightening to you, but it's using an image to represent something. Mm-hmm. So if I feel something in my body, right? It's, it's, it's very well known that, that we quote, unquote store our grief in our lungs. Mm?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Hmm.
Tracey Holemeyer: But i- we could also argue that if we take a deep breath to let out a wail, that has to come from our lungs because it's the only place that oxygen goes in and out of besides our cells throughout the body, which is respiration.
Sure. So, so in the moment that we're feeling that, is it the placement of the wail, of the cry, of the despair? Is it actually that the tissues are containing the residue of what we would call grief? How is that experienced individually? I have some people who come in, and they carry a [01:40:00] lot in their shoulders.
People come in, carry a lot in their hips. S- so for me, it's, it's, it's a more holistic view that it's not just... I think that the circuitry, the ele- uh, the electronic part of the body, the brain itself, is the firing and wiring of things, and that's how we make sense of stuff. I think that the psyche- uh, soul, the mind if you will.
Mm, I would say if you were to introduce yourself to somebody, we typically would, most people go, "Hi, I'm Tracy," and, and I might put my hand to my chest.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm.
Tracey Holemeyer: Right? That's a thought, but it's the, the expression of myself is in my chest. So I like to take a more global approach to, to where things are or how they're stored or held.
I don't think that we can say it's just brain circuitry, because I can tell you when I've, you know, missed my, my dog that passed or my best friend that passed or, or anybody [01:41:00] else, there is a guttural place in my body that feels it.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm. You
Tracey Holemeyer: know? Same with excitement or warmth or joy or sensuality. You know, like, y- when you get turned on, it's not all in your brain, you know?
And when you feel relieved by something, it's not all in your brain. But I can't say that we could do it without the brain. If the brain- Right ... wasn't functioning, we wouldn't have that sensorial translator, if you will. So, but, but a lot of the, of our experience is, is afferent, where it's from the body up to the brain for translation.
So for me, I see it as a more global experience.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. One of the phrases I like I got from Doug Heal does this system called Be Activated, um, is the brain is in the body and the body is in the brain, or the mind is in the body, the body's in the mind. Got it. Like, they're so interconnected between both of them back and forth that, um, you just, it's...
We can't even think our way around to try to separate them, and the, the more we learn, like, [01:42:00] I can't remember the name of the book, but their argument is that maybe the body is informing the brain, not the other way around, right? Yeah. That your heart rate goes up first, and then your brain detects the increase in heart rate, so it was actually your heart responding to the system before your brain, and your brain is now perceiving it later, which we then interpret as this, the thing of excitement or whatever it was.
So it's-
Tracey Holemeyer: 100% true.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
Tracey Holemeyer: And same thing goes, like, if y- you know, you, you, you don't think, "I need a drink of water," you get thirsty first.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Right.
Tracey Holemeyer: You know? Uh, I don't think, I m- I don't go, "Oh, you know what? It's 4:00. I should probably go to the bathroom." It's, "Oh, shit, I gotta pee." You know? Mm-hmm. And the, the feeling is there.
Same thing with hunger or any, any other thing. So, uh, I think, I think that's absolutely spot on. Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Awesome. Last question. Um- Yeah ... what would be your top four things for people listening to be like, you know, "Hey, we're living in a pretty stressful world. We got some stress going on." What would be, like, your top kind of four things they should not necessarily do, but consider or, [01:43:00] or things that would be helpful for them?
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah. Uh, the first two that popped into my head was, like, connect, so be in community. Express, so, uh, uh, you know, whatever, it's movement or sound or self-touch or any of these practices, like the expression of what we're feeling to get it moving. Uh, I think normalizing, uh, accepting what is rather than labeling everything as problematic or defective or any of those things.
What would be the fourth thing?
I don't know. The four things that are coming. Yeah. Connect, express, and, and, um, normalize are the, are the things that are, that are coming in. Uh, you know, slow down maybe would be- Mm-hmm. Sure ... slow down would be first to be able to do any of those other ones. Yeah. Give yourself
Dr Mike T Nelson: permission to slow down.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah. But it, it feels like, um, yeah, this way that- We, we really do have to consider that it's a, it's a whole [01:44:00] organism, and that it's a whole organism existing amongst other organisms, including the Earth as organism. And, and when we come back to that again and again and again and again there's always a way through.
There's always something holding us. There's always a way to, to, to meet it be with it, even, even the most brutal and atrocious. Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Awesome. That's so great. Thank you so much. Where can people- I'm
Tracey Holemeyer: curious what yours are. What, what are your four things for people?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, if I were to say, I would say one would be give yourself permission.
Mm,
Tracey Holemeyer: permission.
Dr Mike T Nelson: You know, two would be pay attention to your breath and maybe shoulders position, that type of thing. Three would be find some type of recreation that you enjoy. Like, you're not doing exercise for the sake of improvement. You're just doing some movement to have fun, whether it's skateboarding, dancing, surfing.
Obviously, I would pick if you can be in a semi-unpredictable environment, I think it's better from a, [01:45:00] a brain development standpoint, that type of thing. And the last thing would be just some conscious coupling of movement to stress again. And because you're, you're not gonna be able to control all the stressors or even your interpretation of them, nor should you all the time.
Mm. But to re-regulate yourself to... That may be some higher intensity exercise, modern , whatever, just to kind of re- recouple those back together.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah. Fourth one kind of came as you were-
Dr Mike T Nelson: Sure ...
Tracey Holemeyer: talking about it. I would say, uh, be with your grief.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm.
Tracey Holemeyer: Connect with grief. That's, again, a whole other episode probably, but I, I believe, uh, a lot of what ails us is unprocessed grief.
And so making room. Uh, there's something called disenfranchised grief where it's like it's not appropriate. There's not room for it, and I think one of the backlogs is carrying grief particularly alone.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm. I like that.
Tracey Holemeyer: So yeah. Not to, not to l- you know, [01:46:00] land us in, in too heavy- Yeah,
Dr Mike T Nelson: that's all right ... of a spot.
Tracey Holemeyer: But welcome to, welcome to, uh, Embodied Somatics, right? Uh, but I really appreciate the conversation. It's gone all over the place, which is really, really- Yeah, we've gone everywhere. ... really cool. So, uh, grateful. Good, good to always be with you too, Mike, so thanks for having me on.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and thank you so much.
And I know you're in San Diego, is that right? California?
Tracey Holemeyer: Southern California. I'm in, uh, Orange County. Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Orange County, okay.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So where can people find you in person if they wanna do work for you? And I know you've got a lot of stuff on Instagram, and you've got some other stuff, uh, online too.
Tracey Holemeyer: Yeah.
So, um, I see people all over virtually, and then if you're in- Oh, cool. Great ... yeah, if you're in Southern California, I do have a office space in La Habra. But you can find me at... My website is uncontrollablyme.com. Instagram, I think Instagram's the only- Only social media I really have, I mean, like, I have a YouTube and Reddit and something- Yeah, I've only seen Instagram,
Dr Mike T Nelson: so
but
Tracey Holemeyer: I'm not very inclusive. Yeah. I used to, I, I tried the ticky-tocky. Uh, [01:47:00] too old- Ugh ... for that, I think. And, uh, I, Facebook was just so, uh, toxic. I had to get off- Yeah. ... off of there. Felt like I was just climbing into the goo every time I opened it up. Uh, but Instagram is embodiedsomatics, is the, is the handle there.
I run a, a, a grief group once a month. I have, uh, all kinds of, you know, free offerings on the Instagram page. Things like that. So yeah, anybody, reach out. I'm happy to chat, connect, all the things. I do a lot of you know, local volunteering, organizing, things like that. And then also virtually with other big groups as well.
But it's all about kind of the intersection of, of somatics and transformative or social justice is kind of m- my lane, where none of what's happening to us individually is not also systemic.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm.
Tracey Holemeyer: Right? And so we have to kind of deconstruct a lot of these [01:48:00] pieces if we wanna try to heal. And I'd say my not-so-secret agenda in the healing world is, uh, not-so-secret secret agenda is that I, I do want everybody to heal, but I mostly want you to heal so that it ripples out, and that we, we move from a sick society to a well society.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. So individuals who are better can take better actions to create a better society all around, so other people will get the benefit at the same time also. So you- Yeah ... then it's, you're, you're doing the upward ascension, stop the downward spiral. That's
Tracey Holemeyer: right. That's right. We punch up, we heal each other.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yep.
Tracey Holemeyer: You know? That's kinda, that's kinda my, my thing. But yeah. And, and d- take care of each other. Go gently. It's, it's not, not easy out there right now. And while we are, are, are more privileged and protected as a society because, you know, o- our, [01:49:00] our land is not, um... Well, in some places it is a war zone right now.
I won't say that. But, but the, the slow drip, the constant exhaustion of things that are happening is, is notable as well, you know? It's a different type of violence. Uh, but it's violence all the same, so really just take care of yourselves and each other.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I would highly encourage everyone to check out all your, your great stuff and online.
And, uh, thank you so much for all your time and sharing all your wisdom today. I really appreciate it. It's been great.
Tracey Holemeyer: Me too, Mike. Thanks so much. Have a great, have a great, uh, rest of your day.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. We really appreciate it. Huge thanks to Tracy for coming on the podcast and sharing all her wonderful knowledge with us. We've got all of her info there below, so please reach out to her if there's anything [01:50:00] she can do to help you or like she said, a lot of her sessions are virtual now, but she does some in-person work also.
Make sure to check out her podcast and Instagram and everything else. So big thanks to her. Always enjoy talking to her and learning tons of new stuff. If you want more stuff from me, check out the Fitness Insider podcast, I should say the Fitness Insider newsletter actually, that goes with the podcast here on the Flex Diet podcast.
Go down below. Deliver cool, interesting stuff in an entertaining way to your inbox, uh, daily. Uh, you'll also get some cool stuff I've been working on that I don't deliver to the public sometimes ever, or if I do, it's sometimes very late. So any stuff that we have will go out there first. I had a, last week sent out an exclusive write-up I'm working on on the peptide.
So I just sent it to everybody [01:51:00] on the newsletter so they can enjoy it first before everyone else, and that one did not go out anywhere publicly. So if you want all the cool insider info, go to that below. As always, thank you so much for listening to the podcast. We really appreciate it. If you have time to give us the old thumbs up, the likes, the downloads, even if you have 10, 20 seconds to leave us a review on iTunes and Spotify, goes a huge way to helping the podcast.
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See ya.
It was a great number. I don't care what you say. I thought it was dumb. Maybe you're right.
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