Radical Health Rebel
Welcome to the Radical Health Rebel Podcast, where Leigh, a renowned Functional Medicine Practitioner, CHEK Practitioner, CHEK Faculty Instructor, Active Release Techniques® Therapist, Emotion Code Practitioner, author, and podcast host, takes you on a journey to achieve optimal health, wellness, and happiness. With his extensive training and years of clinical experience, Leigh provides a truly holistic approach to health that has proven effective even when other methods have failed.
Join us every week for insightful discussions and expert interviews focusing on chronic pain, gut health, and skin health. Leigh's diverse background and passion for holistic healing brings you valuable knowledge and practical tips from leading experts in the field. Whether you're struggling with persistent health issues or simply looking to enhance your well-being, the Radical Health Rebel Podcast is your go-to resource for achieving a vibrant and healthy life. Tune in and start your journey to radical health today!
Radical Health Rebel
126 - Energy, Chakras & Managing Chronic Pain with Dr Mary Sanders
In the latest episode of the Radical Health Rebel Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Mary Sanders for a captivating discussion about Chakras, Energy Medicine, Endocrine Glands, the HPA Axis, and their profound connections to chronic pain.
We dive into how these systems influence each other and play a critical role in health and healing. If you're looking to understand the energetic and physiological aspects of chronic pain and uncover holistic strategies for relief, this episode is a must-listen. Stay tuned and expand your perspective on the mind-body connection and its role in well-being!
We discussed:
0:00
Chakras, Energy, Medicine, and Healing
4:23
Intuitive Healing and Chakra System
15:06
Chakras and Endocrine System Integration
34:34
Physical and Emotional Healing Through Chakras
50:42
Healing Chronic Pain Through Energy Work
1:01:00
Inherited Memories and Healing
You cand find Dr Mary @:
Website: https://www.drmarysanders.com/
Meditations: https://www.drmarysanders.com/meditations
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.maryesanders/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dr.maryesanders
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmaryesanders/
Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5ymiP83TP09OsTZI5cNXE3
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You can find Leigh @:
Leigh's website - https://www.bodychek.co.uk/
Leigh's books - https://www.bodychek.co.uk/books/
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And so what happens is that the purpose of the chakra system is to receive information that comes from the environment, comes and enters into the energy center. There is a spin in the vortex, and so that creates an assimilation process, and so what ends up happening is that the body will integrate this information coming into the energy center, essentially decide how they want to, what they want to keep.
Speaker 2:And then the response is the expression back out into the world. Welcome to the Radical Health Rebel podcast. I'm your host, lee Brandom. This work started for me several decades ago when I started to see the impact I could make on people, helping them to identify the root cause of their health problems that no doctor could figure out, including serious back, knee, shoulder and neck injuries, acne and eczema issues, severe gut health problems, even helping couples get pregnant after several IVF treatments had failed, and it really moves me to be able to help people in this way, and that is why I do what I do and why we have this show.
Speaker 2:In the latest episode of the Radical Health Rebel podcast, I sit down with Dr Mary Sanders for a captivating discussion about chakras, energy, medicine, endocrine glands and the HPA axis and their profound connections to chronic pain. We dive into how these systems influence each other and play a critical role in health and healing. If you're looking to understand the energetic and physiological aspects of chronic pain and uncover holistic strategies for relief, this episode episode is a must-listen. Stay tuned and expand your perspective on the mind-body connection and its role in well-being. Dr Mary Sanders, welcome to the Radical Health Rebel podcast.
Speaker 1:Thanks for coming on the show, oh thanks for having me, lee, it's my honor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's great to have you here. So, mary, to kick things off, could you share a little bit about your background, including your educational and professional background?
Speaker 1:Sure, sure, I'll just keep it as brief as possible because I have a little over 30 years underneath my belt. So I am a practicing chiropractor. I graduated from Logan College of Chiropractic back in 1994. From there, immediately, I went into being a self-employed businesswoman and I practiced for approximately I want to say, 22, 23 years, and at that time my husband and I moved internationally and moved to Ho Chi Minh City, vietnam, and then to Bogota, colombia, and then back to Europe. So we've been all over the place.
Speaker 1:But from my chiropractic training I realized that I knew the human body incredibly well, from the neck on down, and it motivated me to want to better understand what was happening in this space between the ears.
Speaker 1:That time in my life I was getting heavy into meditation and I was experiencing some pretty miraculous things and I really wanted to understand the neuroscience behind meditation. So that prompted me to go study with Dr Talbin Shahar in upstate New York and Lenox or I should say Lenox, massachusetts with the Whole being Institute where I received my certification in positive psychology. Then from there, as fate has it, you know, a couple of years passed and life happened and it prompted me to attend the Academy of Intuition Medicine, which is in Sausalito, California, and I spent a couple of years under the training of Dr Francesca McCartney and completed my master's in intuition medicine, which led me into the path of really fine-tuning my skills as a medical intuitive. So, lee, I guess you could say, today I'm holding space for others to really have an integrative approach with the mind, the body and the spirit. So that's where I am today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sounds like you've got quite a holistic approach, which is kind of where I'm coming from as well. What, just going back a little bit, I don't know, it's possibly not your number one passion these days, but what? What motivated you to become a chiropractor?
Speaker 1:I love that question. So, Lee, I can honestly say and I'm not making this up I knew at the age of three that I was just kind of placed on this earth to have my hands on physical bodies. I was born hearing impaired and that left me with a 50% capacity, 50% of the normal hearing, and so I literally just kind of felt my way through the world. And when I say felt my way through the world, that means that I was utilizing information above and beyond the traditional five senses. I was developing an ability to receive and perceive the energy or information via clairsentience. And so I literally was being able to. I was training myself just due to the focus of survival in today's world.
Speaker 1:Because I couldn't hear. I wanted to feel what was happening in my environment. So I was picking up information about other places, people, things. You know how it is when you walk into a room and you can sense the vibe of the room. Well, that's the skill that I was fine tuning, as well as my hand, the psychometry. So I love touching things and I love touching people. And so at the age of three I knew I physically wanted to have my hands on physical bodies. So it started at the age of three, and then I just mainstreamed my education. My undergraduate degree was in chemistry and zoology, and then, three days after graduating with my undergraduate degree, I was sitting in chiropractic school. So I knew that I wanted to be in the medical field. I just had to fine tune. I had to really come to grips whether or not I wanted to be in a sick environment or if I wanted to be in a well environment, and so that's what led me to chiropractic school.
Speaker 2:Hmm, I mean, I know chiropractic is very popular in the US. What made you choose chiropractic?
Speaker 1:over, say, physical therapy or osteopathy, and that's another good question. Lee, I really appreciate this line of conversation. I was thinking about going into being a physical therapist and there were a couple of things that happened in my own personal experience. So I was spending a lot of time in happened in my own personal experience, so I was spending a lot of time in the hospital, in the PT department, learning how to do various different electrical modalities, hydrotherapy, the active modalities, and I witnessed, during the time when I was in high school working in the PT department, I witnessed several turnovers of the head of the department, and at that time there were several different competent women within the department, and even though they're by number, there were more females in the industry.
Speaker 1:Every time I saw the turnover in the head of the department, it went to a male, and so I wanted to be in a field in which there were a little bit more equality, if you will, and so, then, that was one component. The other component is that I really didn't like being in the hospital, so I knew that I still wanted to have my hands on people. I knew that I had a belief system that the body could heal itself, and so that's naturally what gravitated my decision to shift from my desire of being a physical therapist into being a chiropractor.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So how long were you a chiropractor before you started to go down the road of being a medical intuitive?
Speaker 1:Well, can I say that the entire time that I was working as a chiropractor, I was very cognitive of running a certain frequency and energy as I was supporting my patients, and so I worked in a kind of a semi-open treatment area where I had partitioned between the treatment bays, and I had four bays and I literally would go from one treatment room to the other treatment room, to the other, and it became a skill, like I knew that I was modulating my energy just a little bit above the person who was receiving the treatment, and what ended up happening was I was using my psychometry, which essentially is receiving information via my hands and my direct knowing as to how to approach the patient, and when I put my hands on patient, I went immediately to the area of pain, and so it then became oh, how did you know? How did? Did you know? How did you know that that's where I was hurting today? And so I was modulating my energy and working my intuition the entire time that I have my hands on chiropractic patients interesting.
Speaker 2:So you already kind of had a almost an innate ability for intuitive healing. But what made you then say, right, I actually want to go and study this.
Speaker 1:So, lee, at the time when I was practicing chiropractic, there was a school called Wake Point School of Energetic Healing and it was a branch off of Barbara Brennan.
Speaker 1:So Barbara Brennan is kind of an iconic woman in the for balancing energy systems. And then Dr Francesca McCartney was a pioneer in developing more of the intuitive side of intuition medicine. And so when there was a branch of Barbara Brennan School in Colorado Springs, I decided that I would embark upon that journey, that I would embark upon that journey, and so I must have been probably about 10 years into practice, maybe 12 years. And so I spent a couple of years working with that institute, fine tuning, and again I still at that time was working with my hands on patients, and so I was learning how to chelate the various different chakras, I was learning how to modulate my personal energy even more. So early on, you know, again you talk about the innate ability, and yes, I do feel blessed that I had an innate ability. But I also had some additional, you know, professional training to help support my skills and to develop my skills even further yeah, I'm familiar with, with barbara brennan.
Speaker 2:I've actually received therapy from someone that's been trained by barbara brennan, which was quite, quite interesting. Um it, it's interesting that there are there are some similarities between us because, you know, we both work hands-on on the body. So I studied sports and remedial massage therapy. I've studied active release techniques, which was devised by a chiropractor from Colorado Springs. I've been trained by Mike Leahy himself, who's absolutely amazing Colleague of mine, yeah, and he's a great guy as well Lovely, lovely man. And I've also studied energy medicine. So I've studied the body talk system. I've studied the emotion code. So we're kind of working in a similar way but just using different techniques. But I guess one of the things that we probably both do work with is the chakra system. So could you perhaps elaborate on how specific chakras are linked to certain endocrine glands and how this connection impacts emotional and physical pain?
Speaker 2:42-year-old Chris came to see me whilst training for his first marathon. Initially, chris wanted manual therapy on his calf muscles, which were taking a pounding from his long runs. I did recommend to Chris several times that he really needed a full exercise, nutrition and lifestyle program so he could complete the marathon in the quickest time and to minimize his likelihood of injury. However, six weeks from his first race, chris suffered a debilitating back injury that meant he was unable to walk and was devastated that all his hard work had gone down the drain. Chris hobbled into my treatment room the next day to see if we could salvage the situation. I suggested to Chris that he do what I recommended all along and if he did, he'd probably have a 50% chance of completing the marathon. So I've gave Chris a full physical assessment and then devised a comprehensive exercise, nutrition and lifestyle program and full credit to Chris. He gave it 100%, totally dedicating himself to the program.
Speaker 2:Days before the race, chris came to see me for a final tune-up and to ask whether I thought he was ready for the race. I suggested he start the race but to stop if he felt any back pain, as there will always be other races. I received a text message from Chris the afternoon of the race to say that he completed it in 3 hours 42 minutes and he had no pain and had little to no muscle soreness. Chris has since gone on to run multiple marathons in impressive times. So if you're suffering from back pain that's preventing you from doing something that you love. Why not arrange a consultation with me at wwwbodycheckcouk so I can show you what's causing the problem and how you can get back to performing at your best? Now back to the podcast, to performing at your best.
Speaker 1:Now back to the podcast, yeah, so before I go down that path, lee, if it's okay with you, I'd like to kind of talk about. I know many of your listeners have a foundational understanding as to what chakras are, but I'd like to cover just a basic anatomy 101 of chakra system, so better links in to the hormonal system and the blood flow and also the central nervous system. So for the sake of today's conversation, lee, I'd like to refer to the seven lower chakras, and essentially, a chakra is a energy center. The meaning of the word chakra literally means wheel, and this is not a new energy modality. This is something that has been around for years. I'm talking about, you know, even before the Vedic sciences, even before India and the yogis were practicing and talking about the energy centers and essentially the energy centers that I'm going to be referring to. As I mentioned, the seven lower ones are located and most intimately related to the physical body, and what you can honestly say is that an energy center, the chakra about an inch away from the physical body, will have approximately a diameter of about three inches. So think of a funnel, think of, you know, the funnel that you would use in your kitchen to pour a liquid into a bottle or to pour spices into a bottle, and we have a wide mouth opening of the funnel and then we have a very narrow spout to it and essentially, when we look at the anatomy of the chakra, we will see that about an inch away from the physical body, a circle that represents the opening of the energy center of approximately three inches.
Speaker 1:And so what happens is that the purpose of the chakra system is to receive information that comes from the environment, comes and enters into the energy center. There is a spin in the vortex, and so that creates an assimilation process, and so what ends up happening is that the body will integrate this information coming into the energy center, essentially decide how they want to, what they want to keep, and then the response is the expression back out into the world, and there's a lot that happens. So again I'll mention this, that the energy comes from the environment. It then comes in through the biofield or the auric field and through time and repetition. If energy is coming in through the environment, it can penetrate the boundaries of the energetic system, and if the boundary is compromised, lee, it will create a rip, a hole, a tear, a perforation. Somehow that boundary is violated and the energy coming from the environment eventually hits into the chakra system.
Speaker 1:And so what we have learned in modern day mysticism, that each of the chakras are intimately connected into an endocrine gland. And, lee, I know, and listeners, I understand you have the foundational knowledge of what an endocrine gland does. But let's just keep it simple and just say it regulates hormones, and so the endocrine gland is responsible for regulating hormones. Now we have many hormones I know you all know this above and beyond the sex hormones which we typically just think of when we talk about hormones. But then there is, once a hormone is produced, there is a chemical response. That chemical response then picks up within the circulatory system and it changes the chemistry within the physical body. So not only with each individual energy center do we have an endocrine gland that is associated with it in hormones, but you also have an area or a nerve plexus, and it's a highway of nerves that connect into that endocrine gland that then sends the signals via the central nervous system, and so those messages shoot up the spine and they integrate within the physical brain. And so there are various chemicals, neurotransmitters, neuropeptides that get released within the brain that create an emotional response.
Speaker 1:So if we look at the individual seven chakras, and I'd like to talk about the location specifically, and also the associated endocrine gland, and then I'm happy to come back and allude to the emotional components or the themes revolving around those energy centers, those energy centers. So take, for example, I talked about the seven lower main chakras. The first one is located deep within the pelvis, the pelvic bowl, and that first energy center is intimately connected with the adrenal system. The adrenal system, as you know, are responsible for the fight or flight mechanism, releasing hormones such as adrenaline, cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine. So those are some of the hormones secreted from the first energy center. The second energy center is located just below the belly button. Located just below the belly button, and within this space the endocrine gland in women will be ovaries and in men it will be the testes. So you get everything from estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, to name a few of the hormones responsible for the reproductive system. And that energy center is known as the sacral energy center, located just below the belly button.
Speaker 1:If you move up, Lee, into the space of the upper abdomen, the soft space just underneath the ribs and underneath the sternum and the xiphoid process, in that area we have what is known as the solar plexus, and that energy or the endocrine system located within that energy system is most intimately connected into the pancreas. Now, when I talk about the pancreas there's an enteric nervous system, so we know that the liver, the gallbladder, the spleen are also going to be affected, but the pancreas is the endocrine gland associated with the third chakra. The fourth chakra, which is located in midline, within the sternum, known as the heart center, that is most intimately connected into the thymus. And you know I know all of you listening understand that the thymus is active primarily within the first 18 years of life and then it becomes, it's present, it's still there, but it's just kind of underactive after that, once you're an adult.
Speaker 1:And then the fifth energy center is located within the throat, just right underneath the chin and the throat, and that is most intimately connected with the thyroid. So you have all the thyroid production hormones, so you have T3, t4, t7, you have all of those various different hormones that are secreted by the thyroid, most also connected with the cervical nerve plexus. And then in the forehead, above the eyebrows, in the center, is going to be the sixth chakra, which is responsible for clairvoyance, and the endocrine gland that's associated with the sixth chakra is the pineal gland, and I love the pineal gland. It's responsible for a light, dark sleep cycle. It's responsible for melatonin, oxytocin, things of that. Those are the hormones that are secreted within that area. I like the pineal because it sits in the midline. It's no bigger than the size of the pinky nail, I should say, and it looks like a pine cone, a tiny little baby pine cone. And the pineal is you know, you'll hear it in energy medicine as the endocrine gland that's regulating for various different areas of consciousness.
Speaker 1:So that's one of my favorites and then, the seventh chakra, located on the top of the head, is most intimately connected into the pituitary gland. And the pituitary gland is another gland that's in midline, it's just below the thalamus, and it is responsible. It's the mother of all regulating hormones. So it governs over the entire feedback cycle of the other endocrine systems. So there's a front portion of the pituitary and there's a back portion of the pituitary. So, lee, that's just kind of a brief bird's eye view of the location of the seven main chakras and the associated endocrine gland. Now, before I move on to talking about various different themes or emotions, do you have any questions?
Speaker 2:before I move on no no Carry on.
Speaker 1:You're doing great Carry on then. So then let's go back and refer to the various different themes. Okay, I'll give you an overarching theme behind each of the chakra systems or each of the seven lower chakras, and then I'll talk about how that might show up. Show up physically for our body and also show up according to life experiences. So the first chakra we talked about deep located within the pelvis, revolving around the adrenal system. The theme around this energy center is the basic survival Are your basic needs being met? And safety and security and being in alignment with one's overall purpose and moving away from scarcity and into the realm of abundance.
Speaker 1:The life experiences that may alter this energy center could be a divorce, it could be an abandonment issue, it could also look as bankruptcy, a loss of a job. Those are not being in a safe environment, being in a home in which there's abuse, whether it be mental or physical abuse. Those are some indicators that the first chakra may not be deeply rooted and grounded with the earth. So the physical issues you may find sciatic type issues. You may find knee issues or perhaps osteoarthritic changes within the ankle or the feet or plantar fasciitis. So the body regions that are connected with the first energy center are going to be the butt, hips, thighs, knees, calves, ankles and feet Varicosities. Those are kind of the things that when you see those presented within your office, you can often look to the emotional responses based upon those themes that we just talked about. So to really truly be like Lee I know you do this because you have the same background that I do this is that when you look at the body, you get to look at it from an integrative mind-body spirit and to intuit how you can be of service, always to the highest good of the patient. So if you notice chronic illnesses within these energy centers, so then as a practitioner, then it's your job. It's your job to ask the right questions to help get to the core root as to what the physical ailment or the emotional disturbance may be about.
Speaker 1:So the second energy center we talked about how it's related to the reproductive system, so the ovaries in women and the testes of men. This is an area in which you will find themes revolving around creativity, connecting with your deepest desires, your ability. Obviously it's your reproductive system, so what is it that you can create? So those are some of the themes, I guess I should say overarching themes of the second energy center. But then you get to look at some of the life experiences.
Speaker 1:This is an energy center I will talk about this because I think that most people are not aware of this and that is when you have a highly sensitive person, an HSP, somebody who, like I described, I was being raised, I was picking up the energies of other people and oftentimes, when you are a highly sensitive individual, you will or an empath, you will pick up the energy of other people and house it or hold it within the space of the second chakra, and so that compromises your ability to truly connect with self and connect with your own deepest desires.
Speaker 1:So the people, the arching over the things that you will see based upon life experiences, these are going to be possibly the children of alcoholics, of narcissistic parents, of critical parents. You will find people that have been sexually abused or perhaps have some reproductive dysregulation. Those are going to be that's going to show up in this energy space. So if you're having somebody who has chronic endometriosis or ovarian cyst, or you'll even see some kidney type issues in there sometimes and even lower intestinal issues in there as well Menstrual irregularities, difficulties conceiving, sexual dysfunction, premature ejaculation those are the physical things that you will see as a direct result of a compromised energy flow within the space of the second chakra. So I know this is a lot of information. So I'm happy to keep going through individual chakras if you wish yeah, yeah, keep going, it's great okay, all right.
Speaker 1:Um, so listeners, hang in there. Um, it's just a wealth of information, and I even said this to lee that the human body never, ever ceases to amaze me and I've been working with it, you know, hands-on for over 30 years, so each year feels like you know. I just want to dive into the rabbit hole as to you know how complex and beautiful the human body is. So the energy center, the third chakra, located just below the ribs or the upper abdomen we already talked about the pancreas, so I talked about the enteric nervous system. We'll allude to the body parts in just a moment. But I like talking about the third chakra because it's all about autonomy, individuality, sovereignty, your ability to be in control, your autonomous self. So these people that have compromised the energy flows perhaps have been. They experienced self-worthiness issues. They have difficulty asserting themselves. They perhaps have had a dominant person in their life, whether it be a parent or a spouse, that kind of indirectly controls them. They have insecurities. I already talked about their self-worthiness insecurities. I already talked about their self-worthiness. They are the people that possibly you know the helicopter parents, the parents that will finish their sentences for them, or reigned in a excessively dominant type home. They have people who exert a lot of control over them. So those are kind of some of the emotional components that you will see. The physical issue these are going to be the people that have issues, as I mentioned the liver, gallbladder, spleen, pancreas so they may have a compromised immune system. They may be experiencing dysfunction as far as the liver is concerned. Maybe there's a hepatitis or there's a bilirubin issue, maybe they have gallstones, gallbladder stones and perhaps they may have a white blood count. They have chronic infection. So those are some of the physical issues that you will see within the space of the third chakra.
Speaker 1:Now, when it comes to the fourth, everybody immediately thinks oh yeah, I've got this, I know this one. It's connected into the heart, it's connected into love and yes, that is true, but let's take it a little step deeper and that is love for self, compassion for self and others, and this is completely different. I do want to talk about this because some people confuse empathy for compassion, and they are completely two separate things. I talked about empathy being housed in the space of the second chakra and compassion is from this space of the heart center, and so when you are compassionate towards another person, it's just the opposite of empathy, where the person will receive the energy into their energetic body and hold it as their own. When you are compassionate, you hold a sacred space for the other person, coming from a state of neutrality, meaning that you can experience compassion for the other person, but you do not. You do not take that energy on as your own. So that's something really interesting to think about when it comes to the heart space. And the other thing is is that when you start to dig underneath and I know that we may talk about this, but there is forgiveness, self-forgiveness We've talked about underneath. That is an element of perfectionism. So, within the space of the heart, we know that we're talking about the overarching theme of love, but there's deeper layers that we can look at.
Speaker 1:When we see those emotional issues, when we see the physical area being compromised, we will see chronic lung issues, whether it be emphysema, whether it be asthma, bronchitis. You possibly may see breast issues, whether it be cystic breast or breast cancer cystic breast or breast cancer. You may see heart issues associated with congestive heart issues or arrhythmias. So those are some of the physical issues. I often see tightness between the shoulder blades themselves. You know the discomfort that people get between their shoulder blades. You know the discomfort that people get between their shoulder blades when you move up into the space of the fifth chakra, located within the throat. It's governed over their cervical nerve plexus.
Speaker 1:So we're talking about anything that connects the neck, shoulders, upper arms, elbows, lower arm, wrist and hand. So physically we're looking at, you know, whether it be a stiff neck issue, a degenerative disc issue, shoulder dysfunction, tendonitis of the elbow, carpal tunnel issues or arthritic hand, or again, you know anything that interferes with the nerve function coming from the neck. You will also see jaw issues and ear issues, hearing issues. The neck is connected into the thyroid but more intimately, the overarching theme is the authentic expression of self, how you use your voice to get your needs met within this world. And so when you see a compromised emotional, from an emotional standpoint, a compromised fifth chakra, you will feel you will find those people who can be in excess, they talk too loud or they are in deficiency, where they just don't speak up for themselves. You may find that they have a critical. These are the people that will live life to please others at the sake of their own happiness, like they will be quiet in a conversation because they're afraid of upsetting someone else who may be in the conversation.
Speaker 1:Because they're afraid of upsetting someone else who may be in the conversation. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of. I personally have worked a lot on my throat and, as I mentioned, I was born hearing impaired and you know, as fate has it, I had a couple of trampoline accidents, sports injuries, motor vehicle accidents. So I've seen my share of trauma within the neck itself and it is a critical area to work on, and I have thyroid issues.
Speaker 1:So I know this energy center very, very well. The sixth energy center, located in the forehead, is most intimately related to the pineal gland, and so when you see discordance within the sixth chakra, you're going to have those people who have a disruption within their sleep, their light-dark cycle. Maybe they gravitate towards being a night owl, maybe they have an inability to creatively imagine or they have a hyper sense of imagination and extensive visualization. These people can also be overanalyzing. They can be stuck within the linear aspects of the brain. They can be so far forward that they can't see the space for abstract thinking. So you may find eye issues, sinus issues, headaches, vision disturbances. You can. Those are the primary ones. Again, disturbances with sleep, that's obvious as well. And then the seventh. The seventh, what a beautiful energy center.
Speaker 1:We talked about its relationship with the pituitary gland itself, and because it's an overarching, I mean it sits on top of our head.
Speaker 1:It's where energy enters, where the spirit enters, and so this is our space in which we can connect with all that exist. So perhaps you were raised in a really black and white environment where there was a right and a wrong and that there was no gray area. You'll find distortions within the energy center, or perhaps this energy center can be displaced by those who are looking to have a spiritual bypass, where they just want to bypass the physical body and they want to be in the spiritual domain, and they may be people that have difficulty in landing with their two feet on the physical ground to manifest. Maybe they have compromised belief systems in a higher power. These individuals are again. They are very narrow-minded. Or, again, there's excess and deficiencies within each and every individual, in each and every individual energy center. So, as I'm sharing this, on a polar opposite, all of these things can exist. So, being able to connect with all that exists and surrounded to trust in that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just a question that came up whilst you were speaking and I know this is kind of debated, so some people would say that if you're in physical pain, yeah, you might need to look at the chakra system and see what's going on. But it could be. You was in jujitsu. Someone snapped your ankle right. What's your view on that? Is it it was just a physical accident, or was there some energy within the first chakra that almost created the incident? What's what's your view on that? Hey there, rebels, I have got something very special to share with you today. Did you know that every month, I release an exclusive no punches pulled episode? Hey there, Rebels, I have got something very special to share with you today. Did you know that every month, I release an exclusive no Punches Pulled episode? These are conversations you won't hear anywhere else, with incredible, sometimes controversial guests who expose hidden truths, challenge corruption and bring you to actionable steps to take charge of your health.
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Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate you asking this question, and it is debatable. I still to this day because I am in the industry that I'm in. Accidents do happen, there is no doubt about it. Trauma does happen, but in my world, the way I view the boundaries of the energetic field that surround our physical body, that something had to have happened that violated those boundaries in order to enter into the area of the body where the trauma or the accident happened. So you know, I know this can get a little loopy because it's like oh, I stubbed my toe, okay, so why did I stub my toe? I wasn't grounded, I wasn't connected to my feet, I was not embodied. Yes, yes, all those things were true and you accidentally ran into the corner of your bedpost. I mean, it happens, but it does.
Speaker 2:From this, this lens, it brings the accountability back to self, opposed to being in a victim mentality yeah, yeah, I mean in you know, in the, in the, in the czech philosophy, there's something called the pain teacher, right? So whenever you have a pain or even a symptom of any kind, you always need to consider okay, what, what's this trying to teach me, right? So you know, it might be, watch where you're going, that could be, that could be one. Don't bump into things, or, or it, or it could be. You know, my back's hurting, uh, am I sitting down too much? Am I not moving enough? Or could it be there's not enough creativity in my life, right? So you've got to look for the answer. So, kind of moving on from that, in your experience, how does healing through energy medicine help to rebalance the chakras and, in turn, restore harmony to the hpa axis and the central nervous system?
Speaker 1:yeah. So let's break down the hpa axis a little bit, um, so that is a stress active response, right? Um? And again, pain is a stressor to the physical body. And I guess one thing I want to say to you and all the listeners in that I know that if you're listening to this, to this podcast, and you, you've lived through chronic pain.
Speaker 1:I'm not trying to make light of chronic pain. I think it is debilitating, I think I think pain does weird things to people, it it changes your entire disposition. So I feel you, I'm really sorry that you're dealing with pain. I'm not trying to take a light approach to it, but what I know about the physical, emotional and energetic body is that the stress activation response, or the HPA axis, as Lee was talking about, we already kind of talked about this. So we have the hypothalamic, pituitary, adrenal axis and this is a feedback cycle from an endocrine perspective. You know that the hypothalamus is in the brain, you know the pituitary is in the brain and the adrenals sit on top of the kidneys, and so what ends up happening is a chemical response, a negative feedback cycle that perpetuates that chronic pain cycle. And so when you see that chronic pain over long periods of time, you're going to find that the adrenals get compromised, that the immune system gets compromised and the metabolic system gets compromised.
Speaker 1:So we talked about the overarching themes of the chakra system. So when I see chronic pain, there's not really any chakra system that is not affected. They're all affected because pain affects the autonomic nervous system. And so when we're stuck in an autonomic nervous system that is dysregulated, we're typically leaning into a sympathetic dominance within the physical body. So your body lives within a chronic fight or flight type situation. You're revved up, you're on defense. So we will see distortion that affects typically the lower three chakras. We talked about one, two and three. Those are most intimately connected to the physical body. Chakra number four is a transitional chakra that takes from the physical to the spiritual. Five, six and seven are in the higher domains. Those are also affected as well. So even though we talk about the HPA axis and we think about the energy centers, you know specific for those endocrine glands, know that there's not a chakra that's not negatively impacted. I know I'm using double negatives here, but your whole system goes out of whack when you live in chronic pain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the HP axis, as you're saying, is heavily involved in any kind of pain because it's a stress to the system and that is because it's linked to the central nervous system, is linking to the whole chakra system. So, based on that, what? What is kind of if someone's in pain? What would be your approach to dealing with that?
Speaker 2:I first met Amelia at a health club where I was hosting an event offering back screenings to the members. The first thing I noticed about Amelia was a dullness in her eyes, which I later realized was due to extreme pain. I noticed that she was unable to turn her head and had to turn her whole body if she wanted to look in a different direction. Amelia informed me that she had a history of repeated shoulder and neck pain for the last two years and was diagnosed with spinal stenosis at C45, c56 and C67, and a stenosis is a blockage which, in Amelia's case, was in the spinal canal of her neck, irritating her spinal cord. She had extreme tenderness over her neck and trapezius muscles on both sides and she suffered from severe neck pain continuously.
Speaker 2:Amelia informed me that she'd been advised that spinal surgery was the only option, but the surgery came with great risks, including potential paralysis and no guarantee of success, which made Amelia fearful of the surgery. In addition to this, amelia suffered from continuous exhaustion, painful intestinal gas and bloating, even though she felt she was following a healthy diet. After a thorough evaluation, I designed Amelia a corrective exercise, nutrition and lifestyle plan, plus. I referred her to a new chiropractor for specific adjustments to her neck. After following the plan religiously, amelia is much stronger and much more flexible than she's ever been before and no longer suffers from repeated neck pain and has full range of motion in her neck. Amelia also reported that her energy was maximized and that she no longer suffers from the gripping stomach pains that had dominated her life for a very long time. If you're suffering like Amelia was and you'd like to find out more about getting to the root cause of your pain, go to wwwbodycheckcouk that's B-O-D-Y-C-H-E-Kcouk to request your consultation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So I loved how you paraphrased or rephrased what I was attempting to communicate. I love the simplicity of how you outlined that, just to recap for us and then for the listeners, of how you outlined that just to recap for us and then for the listeners. So if we know that the central nervous system is in a state of dysfunction and we know that pain, chronic pain, changes your disposition, there's a couple of things to take into consideration. Consideration your spirit. Follow me here.
Speaker 1:Your spirit, your essence, your energy comes through the crown chakra, the seventh chakra, if you are in, and the idea is to allow the spirit to be fully embodied within your human home. That's the idea, that's the goal for all of us that are practicing energy medicine, and what I have witnessed is that when people live in chronic pain, they go up and out energetically out of their body and they bubble out kind of like a hanging cartoon quibuna that hangs above the head, and they spend more time in the outer dimensions, opposed to being physically embodied within their human home. Why would a spirit want to live in a home that's in chronic pain? It's our natural instinct to want to lean away from pain. It's counterintuitive to lean into it. And so, in the process, when I'm holding space for another beautiful human who has been in chronic pain, the first step I get to do is to reintroduce the spirit to his or her or their human home. So we bring them back into the physical body by utilizing grounding techniques and opening and strengthening the first chakra, so that we can then deepen our trust.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's a lot of betrayal that happens with people in chronic pain. They feel like their body has betrayed them. So, again, you know, we get to develop a loving and intimate relationship from the spiritual into the physical. That's the first thing I do. And then the second thing is that once I can get the person to really be embodied in connecting, you know, with their, with their butt, thighs, knees, ankles and feet, and really sinking into the human home, then I start to guide the person to reconnect with their life force, energy, so that they can regain a sense of self and a sense of vitality.
Speaker 1:Those experiencing chronic pain, I'm here to tell you they don't feel like themselves. It's not that, you know, they have the absence of the capital S-E-L-F Self what is self? Because it's been so long since they felt normal and so whatever normalcy is for that person. So if we can get their life force, energy, that personal vivifying signature running a little bit stronger within their human home, they have a, you know, like a more of a skip in their step. They have a more recognition of who they are and then that helps them to fill their biofield and to strengthen their boundaries and to repair their boundaries to prevent a further environmental invasion, if you will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, interesting. So do you still do chiropractic work, or do you work predominantly just at the energetic level?
Speaker 1:I still do both. So, lee, had you asked me three years ago if I would ever have a brick-and-mortar space for me to do chiropractic, I would have been. No, I don't think so. I think that that part of my life has transitioned. But since landing here in Boulder, I have a very small boutique office in which it's just myself and I greet patients and we spend more time with patients one-on-one, and so most everybody that enters into my office has a very they have an awareness as to the multifaceted dimensions in which I hold space for the physical body. So I can no longer say I'm just doing physical, manual manipulation. I run energy in all of my hands-on work. So I have a part-time. I do some three half days or three mornings out of the week. I have my hands-on patients and the rest of the time I'm holding space, whether it be in my physical office or I am working with people internationally remotely. Then I do my energy work or my medical intuition via remote work.
Speaker 2:Interesting and do you or have you worked with people with fibromyalgia?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Can you tell us a little bit about maybe? Obviously I don't need to share any names, but maybe just explain an experience that someone's had working with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lee, I want to say, unfortunately, I think, fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome some of these diagnoses are just kind of a waste basket bin for physicians, meaning that when they can't truly diagnose something, then they're going to put a label on it, because most people who are really heavily inundated into the medical model or the allopathic model, they're looking for a label. And so when you say, hey, mary, do you hold space for people that have chronic pain or fibromyalgia? Yes, but I'm holding space for the person, not the label nor the disease. So it's no different, like what I was just talking about, I still am holding space for them to ground and to become embodied and to strengthen their, their boundaries and to increase their vitality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I can think of a patient who came to me with a, a rare blood disorder, and so, again, you know, I healing opportunity and her cancer markers went down. Am I going to sit here and say I cure cancers? No, no, no, no. That's not what I'm going to say. I'm saying that I hold space for the individual as they present themselves to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, gotcha, so I'm going to come back at you a little bit. So someone that has a diagnosis of could be fibromyalgia, could be polymyalgia, it could be sciatic arthritis. Now, obviously causation can be varied, but I think my experience suggests that they're all very much gut health related. So to me that would be your third chakra, right. So does that, does that fit kind of, without being prescriptive, how you might work with someone with that kind of diagnosis, that you might think, okay, there could well be something going on with the third chakra here. And I mean, obviously, if you're working intuitively, the intuition is going to tell you right. But would that be, if you like, a conscious thought with that label that it could well be a third chakra problem?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and I agree with you that the gut-brain barrier and the lack of balance of the microbiomes can definitely be a causative agent, and if I really sense that that was the distortion, then I would be referring them to you and your area of expertise. I personally would be going right into the anger and the unresolved rage interesting, interesting.
Speaker 2:So obviously I know from from chinese, traditional chinese medicine, that you know the liver is the natural organ of anger and that is again within the region of the third chakra. Why is it? Why do you say anger when it comes to those things?
Speaker 1:I think about some of the patients that I've treated and you look at them energetically. Look at them energetically and if you're dealing with rheumatism or you can see trapped or stagnated, like, it takes so much energy to hold all that anger and rage within their physical body and that kind of adds to the negative feedback cycle from the HPApa axis and it just takes so much energy to hold that. In that that um distortion shows up as anger and rage yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of quizzing you because, uh, it's kind of it kind of runs through my family those kind of conditions on one side of my family, through the women. Yes, yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? So there could be some, you know, family history that hasn't been resolved somewhere along the line, because I'm sure it's more than you know environmental, because there's people within the family that don't live anywhere near near each other but yet they're still suffering from the same kind of symptoms.
Speaker 1:so I wonder if it's, you know, possibly even heredity, you know, inherited anger yes, yes, I was waiting for you to go there, lee, and this is a tough conversation because when we think about okay, so we started this conversation. So let me give you a little bit of background as to how memories are stored within the physical body, within the space of the cerebellum, which is the hindbrain within the brain, and oftentimes we can talk about memories. We can talk about memories this lifetime. We can talk about how some of the memories get stored within the tissues of the body somatically. So you've got trapped emotions within the tissues of the body. You can have memories of and again this is going to stretch the belief system of some of the listeners but you can have past life memories. You can have genetic memories. So those are memories that are coded within your DNA and just given the proper environment this lifetime, you could and potentially do have an expressive tendency towards that gene and potentially do have an expressive tendency towards that gene. You can have memories. Let's say you're part of a collective group. So my family background comes from the Germanic region of Europe and so I know that there's a lot of history and baggage and emotions that come from that region. So I know I have the capacity of storing that within my own tissues, and then you have bigger and karmic and more universal memories as well.
Speaker 1:But to keep it back to the example that you introduced, and that is hey, I've got women in my life, not only in this current generation but previous generations, ancestors that all have an expression of this physical disorder or this disease. And in your situation you talked about the joint, the chronic fatigue, rheumatism, things of that nature, and so and I'm saying, oh yeah, well, that's suppressed anger and rage, and I would say, and it typically follows down the women's lineage, and again, this could be debatable. As to the chromosomal expression, the X chromosome, I'm not sure I see that. I see that a lot within my practice, and so in order to get to the core root of a person's anger or rage this lifetime, I get to clear stuff that has happened before this lifetime and it is amazing. I wish I could remember the exact number, but if you go back, like 12 generations, you're looking at over a thousand different people that make up your genetic expression today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, amazing stuff, amazing. So I know, I know we're a little bit pushed for time, so before we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to add?
Speaker 1:Oh goodness, I could talk about I clearly, clearly, the human physical body never ceases to amaze me, and when you add in the emotional, energetic and spiritual, the complex organism that we become is so fascinating to me I am sure listeners, you can tell that this is like an area of passion for me. So, wow, it's just such an honor. It's an honor to witness and to learn and to grow and to develop over time. So I just really appreciate the opportunity to be here today, Lee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been great having you here. So what's next for you? What have you got in the pipeline?
Speaker 1:having you here. So what's next for you? What have you got in the pipeline? Well, one of the things that I'm currently working on is I do believe that, as a practitioner of serving people over 30 years, there are things that I do and hold space for that have yet to be scientifically proven. So I host a podcast called Energy energy medicine where we talk about all things that align the mind, body and spirit. The purpose, the motivation behind that podcast when I started it, over 100 episodes ago, was just to educate people that there are modalities out there that are incredibly effective. So, um, my moving forward. I am holding space for the evolution of energy medicine, because that is the future of medicine period, and it's not something that is new age. It's kind of going backwards to the origin of how we lived in our human bodies within the human planet, being connected into spirituality and honoring all that exists outside of our physical body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fantastic. And where can people find you online?
Speaker 1:My website, my website, um, well, first, before I talk about my website, um, again, it's my honor to be here and I want to gift everyone an opportunity to learn some of the basic meditations of grounding, of neutral separations, and then to bring themselves into present time consciousness. So if you go to my website, which is wwwdrmarysanderscom drmarysanderscom, I invite you to download your free gift so that you can start the process of embodying more of your human home. So my website will also show opportunities for one-on-one healings, and I also do a monthly group healing to help maximize the somatic intelligence that resides within all of us. So my website, the best place to stay in the now.
Speaker 2:Fantastic, Mary. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your knowledge. I'm actually going to say thank you so much for your passion as well. It's just come across so strong in this session. Just thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1:Again, Lee. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you, so thank you for showing up in your essence as well reference as well, my pleasure.
Speaker 2:So that's all from Mary and me for this week, but don't forget to join me same time, same place next week on the Radical Health Rebel podcast. Thanks for tuning in, remember to give the show a rating and a review and I'll see you next time.
