HIListically Speaking with Hilary Russo

It's estimated that close to 60 million people in the United States are family caregivers, providing unpaid care to loved ones with health issues or disabilities. This number continues to rise. Family caregivers often face challenges balancing their own lives and major health problems of their own due to caregiving responsibilities. This makes their role increasingly critical yet often under-supported. As a lifelong family caregiver, Life Coach, Best-selling Author Deborah Greenhut offers advice on what it takes to be a rational caregiver. From non-negotiables to resources every family needs, this conversation is a must to let your mind meet your heart so you don't lose track of your life! CONNECT WITH DEBORAH ⁣ Grab the survival guide and 52 Nonnegotiables for caregivers⁣ https://www.deborahgreenhut.com ⁣ ⁣ GET DEBORAH'S BOOKS⁣ The Rational Caregiver (Amazon)⁣ https://amzn.to/3YnVqPu⁣ ⁣ The Hoarder's Wife (Amazon) ⁣ https://amzn.to/40qCkL0⁣ ⁣ SUBSCRIBE BRAIN CANDY NEWSLETTER⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/braincandy⁣ ⁣ WORK WITH HILARY ⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/havening⁣ ⁣ CONNECT WITH HILARY⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com⁣ https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilaryrusso⁣ https://www.instagram.com/hilaryrusso⁣ https://www.youtube.com/hilaryrusso⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/podcast⁣ ⁣ ⁣ MUSIC by Lipbone Redding⁣ https://www.lipbone.com/⁣

Does time really heal all wounds? The loss of a pet is a painful life experience. But healing comes in many forms including creativity and advocacy. That's Erica Messer's story. Her personal loss of her beloved cat Wolfgang took her on a journey to become a board-certified pet bereavement specialist and creator of Wolfie's Wish, a company that turned her pain into a purposeful mission. On this episode of HIListically Speaking, Erica opens up about how music, art and words of affirmation have helped thousands on their pet loss healing journey. Plus, why she's making the entire pet industry and workplaces see pet bereavement in an entirely different light.⁣ ⁣ CONNECT WITH ERICA & WOLFIE'S WISH⁣ https://wolfieswish.com/ @wolfies_wish⁣ (Get 10% off Grieving Cards with code: ELIZADOOLITTLE⁣ ⁣ PET BEREAVEMENT LEAVE PETITION⁣ https://www.change.org/p/pet-bereavement-leave-advocacy-petition⁣ ⁣ HILISTICALLY SPEAKING EPISODES MENTIONED: ⁣ Ep 151: Pet Loss: From Grief to Gratitude ⁣ Ep 155 Pet Lover's Stories: Voices of Love ⁣ ⁣ GET BRAIN CANDY DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX⁣ ⁣ (Scoop on guests, giveaways, events and more)⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/braincandy⁣ ⁣ CONNECT WITH HILARY⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com⁣ ⁣https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilaryrusso⁣ https://www.instagram.com/hilaryrusso⁣ https://www.youtube.com/hilaryrusso⁣

It's not every day you hear about a girl from the Bronx turning her apartment into a healing center. Especially one who served in the Air Force and was part of New York's finest, the NYPD. But after discovering Natalia Maldonado had breast cancer, she turned herself into a holistic wellness warrior and the rest is history. Join us for an inspiring conversation that will have you wanting to dig deep into the dirt and get to the roots of what's holding you back and weighing you down. Get sprouted and ready to find the light in the darkness to holistically heal and grow. ⁣ ⁣ KEY MOMENTS/CHAPTERS⁣ 00:00 Intro⁣ 03:41 Discovering Holistic Healing After Cancer⁣ 13:42 Bronx Tale: Finding light in the darkness⁣ 20:00 Spouting and healing⁣ 21:54: Institute for Integrative Nutrition⁣ 27:00 Fighting cancer with sprouts⁣ 32:05 Being of Service: From Air Force to NYPD⁣ 43:00 Patricia Moreno and the Intensati Legacy⁣ 57:00 Rapid Fire Game⁣ 59:28 Natalia Maldonado's takeaway for you⁣ 1:00:01 Hilary Russo's closing thoughts and info ⁣ ⁣ CONNECT WITH NATALIA ⁣ https://wellnesswarriormethod.com/⁣ https://www.instagram.com/iamwellnesswarrior⁣ ⁣ Grab Natalia's FREE Whole Food 5 Day Whole Food Recipe Reset ⁣ Intro to Sprouting Video Series⁣ ⁣ ⁣ BECOME A HEALTH COACH⁣ Try a Health Coach Training Program sample class from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) ⁣ https://sldr.page.link/4byd⁣ ⁣ Hilary's IIN referral will not only get you an inside peak to IIN for free, but a deep discount if you decide to enroll in any of the programs offered. ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ PODCAST EPISODE MENTION: ⁣ Depression to Detoxification with Joyce Rockwood (Episode 6)⁣ ⁣ ⁣ GET BRAIN CANDY DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX⁣ ⁣ (HIListically Speaking Podcasts, Events, Givewaways and More)⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/braincandy⁣ ⁣ JOIN ME AT ONE OF MY FREE EVENTS⁣ ⁣https://www.hilaryrusso.com/events⁣ ⁣ CONNECT WITH HILARY⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com⁣ ⁣ https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilaryrusso⁣ ⁣ https://www.instagram.com/hilaryrusso⁣ ⁣ https://www.youtube.com/hilaryrusso⁣

How can doing less help you achieve more? Dr. Zarya Rubin, a Harvard-educated doctor and functional medicine practitioner reveals her expert insights. You'll discover how simple steps can help you transform your hectic life and ease some of the pressure that comes from rigid schedules and fears of falling behind. Uncover the root cause of what could be causing an imbalanced life. How multitasking is setting you back on productivity more than you know. Why burnout more common in women than men. And what you can finally do to take back control with some simple shifts you can apply right now! Plus, Dr. Zarya shares her own "A-Ha" moment and how becoming a health coach supported her own healing journey from an autoimmune disease. Get the resources she uses everyday and flip the switch to take back your life. ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ KEY MOMENTS/CHAPTERS⁣ 00:06 Intro⁣ 04:32 Medical Doctor's Journey⁣ 05:00 The Masquerade: Is it Burnout? ⁣ 12:24 Managing Busy Minds and Tasks⁣ 13:12 Perimenopause & Menopause⁣ 14:00 The Impact of Burnout on Women⁣ 19:22 Navigating Stress and Burnout Boundaries⁣ 28:37 Stress vs Burnout⁣ 35:00 Autoimmune disease: How IIN helped to heal ⁣ 42:24 Embracing Balance and Self-Care⁣ 43:00 Institute for Integrative Nutrition ⁣ 38:23 Rapid Fire Game⁣ 40:00 Dr. Zarya takeaway for you⁣ 42:29 Hilary's closing thoughts and info ⁣ ⁣ CONNECT WITH DR ZARYA and grab her free Burnout to Balance toolkit on her website: https://www.drzarya.com⁣ https://www.instagram.com/drzaryarubin⁣ https://www.linkedin.com/in/drzaryarubin⁣ https://www.facebook.com/groups/268114707221770/⁣ ⁣ BECOME A HEALTH COACH⁣ Try a Health Coach Training Program sample class from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) https://sldr.page.link/4byd⁣ ⁣ Hilary's IIN referral will not only get you an inside peak to IIN for free, but a deep discount if you decide to enroll in any of the programs offered. ⁣ ⁣ GET BRAIN CANDY DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX⁣ ⁣ (HIListically Speaking Podcasts, Events, Givewaways and More)⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/braincandy⁣ ⁣ JOIN ME AT ONE OF MY FREE EVENTS⁣ ⁣https://www.hilaryrusso.com/events⁣ ⁣ CONNECT WITH HILARY⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com⁣ https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilaryrusso⁣⁣ https://www.instagram.com/hilaryrusso⁣ ⁣https://www.youtube.com/hilaryrusso⁣ https://www.facebook.com/hilisticallyspeaking⁣ ⁣https://www.tiktok.com/@hilisticallyspeaking⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/podcast⁣ Music by Lipbone Redding https://lipbone.com

If you have ever wondered what it takes to grab the attention of a podcast host or booking agent to share your message, this episode is for you. It's more than just building a powerful and personal brand. You need to turn heads of podcasts with honesty and authenticity. And if anyone knows this truth, it's Kimberly Spencer. This Communications Queen is an award-winning high-performance coach and trainer who knows a thing or two about getting guests booked. Join us as we uncover the secrets of effective storytelling and Kimberly reveals invaluable insights from her latest book on how to authentically connect with your audience, build genuine relationships and Make Every Podcast Want You! We dive deep into the challenges women face in sharing their stories, the importance of overcoming shame from your story, and how to communicate it with power! This episode is filled with practical wisdom, emotional depth, and the encouragement to turn your story into your greatest asset. KEY MOMENTS/CHAPTERS 00:00 Intro 01:10 Mastering the Art of Communication 06:54 The Perception of Perfection Hollywood 12:26 Forgiving My Father, His Fame, and Saving a Life 21:18 Finding Your Voice Through Storytelling 24:33 Book Hook and Writing Inspiration 27:14 Regret and Motivation in Writing 30:52 Podcasting and Authentic Storytelling 39:06 International Podcast Day Book Launch Celebration WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE⁣ Subscribe https://www.youtube.com/hilaryrusso⁣ Kimberly's Book is available now! https://amzn.to/47ObGxp (Amazon) "Make Every Podcast Want You: How to Be So Radically Interesting You'll Barely Keep from Interviewing Yourself." CONNECT WITH KIMBERLY https://www.communicationqueens.com https://crownyourself.com https://www.facebook.com/kimberlyspencer.crownyourself/ https://twitter.com/realkimspencer https://instagram.com/kimberly.spencer https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlyspencer-crownyourself GET BRAIN CANDY DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX⁣ (HIListically Speaking Podcasts, Events, Givewaways and More) https://www.hilaryrusso.com/braincandy ⁣⁣ JOIN ME AT ONE OF MY FREE EVENTS⁣ ⁣https://www.hilaryrusso.com/events ⁣⁣ CONNECT WITH HILARY⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilaryrusso https://www.instagram.com/hilaryrusso https://www.youtube.com/hilaryrusso⁣ https://www.facebook.com/hilisticallyspeaking ⁣https://www.tiktok.com/@hilisticallyspeaking https://www.hilaryrusso.com/podcast Music by Lipbone Redding https://lipbone.com

How can life after 65 be more fulfilling than ever before? Just ask inspiring entrepreneur and podcast host Ande Lyons, who launched multiple successful ventures in her 60s. Join us as we explore how the Renaissance Years can be more fulfilling by embracing aging, defying ageism, and discovering new passions. We discuss shifting from hustle culture to an intentional energy portfolio—focusing on meaningful pursuits and rest, inspired by movements like the Nap Ministry. We also highlight the value of intergenerational connections, elder planning, and the joy of staying active. This is an opportunity to celebrate aging with purpose, endless possibilities, and a mindset that the best days are ahead of us. ⁣ ⁣ KEY MOMENTS/CHAPTERS⁣ 00:00 Intro⁣ 00:06 Thriving After 65 4:31 Power of Aging ⁣ 18:54 Creating an Intentional Energy Portfolio 23:39 Intergenerational Connections ⁣ 36:00 Don't Retire. Rewire!⁣ 39:04 Navigating Elder Care⁣ 44:07 Rapid Fire⁣ 45:29 Ande Lyon's wisdom bomb⁣ 47:01 Hilary's Final Thoughts⁣ 48:00 Podcast Resources ⁣ WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE⁣ Subscribe https://www.youtube.com/hilaryrusso ⁣⁣ Book mentioned during this episode: Don't Retire, Rewire! By Jeri Sedlar & Rick Miners https://amzn.to/4gym8x8 (Amazon)⁣ ⁣ CONNECT WITH ANDE LYONS https://www.dontbecagedbyyourage.com/⁣ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andelyons/⁣ https://www.instagram.com/ande_lyons/ ⁣ ⁣ GET BRAIN CANDY DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/braincandy⁣⁣ ⁣ JOIN ME AT ONE OF MY FREE EVENTS⁣ ⁣https://www.hilaryrusso.com/events ⁣ CONNECT WITH HILARY⁣ https://www.instagram.com/hilaryrusso⁣ https://www.youtube.com/hilaryrusso⁣ https://www.facebook.com/hilisticallyspeaking⁣⁣ https://www.tiktok.com/@hilisticallyspeaking⁣ ⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/podcast⁣ ⁣ Music by Lipbone Redding https://lipbone.com⁣

Ever wondered how embracing your wild side can spark more joy and wisdom? HeatherAsh Amara can be your guide. That is, if you're willing. During this conversation with host Hilary Russo, HeatherAsh Amara shares her journey of self-discovery from Nepal to India with stories filled with laughter and insight to inspire us to explore self-trust and playfulness, no matter our age. It's such a big part of her journey, HeatherAsh wrote a book about it to encourage you to embrace your wild, willing, and wise. Tune in as shares her unique tools for balancing passion and flow, and hear about her personal experiences…including firewalking! This episode is all about igniting your inner spark and embracing the power of community. But also, what it takes to know when to paddle, when to rest, and when to jump naked into the river of life! ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ KEY MOMENTS/CHAPTERS⁣ 00:00 Intro⁣ 00:05 Discovering Inner Wisdom and Wildness⁣ 4:51 Growing up Around the World ⁣ 7:00 The Indian girl that changed her life⁣ 09:30 Spiritual Connection and Community ⁣ 15:00 Traveling book tour⁣ 16:37 The Importance of Play ⁣ 22:45 Rapid Fire⁣ 24:00 What's in a Name?⁣ 27:51 Guest's Final Thoughts⁣ 28:00 Hilary's Final Thoughts⁣ ⁣ ⁣ WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE⁣ Subscribe https://www.youtube.com/hilaryrusso ⁣ Grab a copy of "Wild, Willing and Wise: An Interactive Guide for When to Paddle, When to Rest, and When to Jump Naked into the River of Life"⁣ ⁣ Paperback https://amzn.to/3ze15yQ (Amazon)⁣ Kindle https://amzn.to/3z4PmTo (Amazon)⁣ ⁣ ⁣ CONNECT WITH HEATHERASH AMARA⁣ https://wildwillingwise.com⁣ https://www.instagram.com/heatherashamara⁣ https://www.facebook.com/heatherash.amara⁣ ⁣ ⁣ GET BRAIN CANDY DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/braincandy⁣⁣ ⁣ JOIN ME AT ONE OF MY FREE EVENTS⁣ ⁣https://www.hilaryrusso.com/events ⁣ CONNECT WITH HILARY⁣ https://www.instagram.com/hilaryrusso⁣ https://www.youtube.com/hilaryrusso⁣ https://www.facebook.com/hilisticallyspeaking⁣⁣ https://www.tiktok.com/@hilisticallyspeaking⁣ ⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/podcast⁣ ⁣ Music by Lipbone Redding https://lipbone.com⁣

Therapists have trauma too. If you don't believe that, Dr. Frank Anderson has a story for you and it happens to be his own. A respected leader in the trauma therapy and Internal Family Systems space, Frank Anderson's latest book is the memoir he never planned to write. But once the words and the music started to flow, "To Be Loved," painted a picture of a young boy's pain that became his purpose. It's a reminder that vulnerability and honesty pave the way for healing and compassion for those who hurt him and also freed him on so many levels. In this episode of the HIListically Speaking Podcast, you have a front seat inside a deep conversation that serves as a reminder: healing and love are possible for all.⁣ ⁣ ⁣ 00:00 Intro⁣ 01:40 Vulnerability in Memoir Writing ⁣ 02:10 Breaking the Us and Them Barrier⁣ 03:51 Truth and Compassion⁣ 12:35 The Healing Power of Music⁣ 20:43 Emotional Connection of Music⁣ 22:45 Forgiveness and Healing Process ⁣ 36:25 Casting the Movie⁣ 47:50 Rapid Fire game with Frank Anderson⁣ 48:22 Guest Dr. Frank Anderson shares final thoughts⁣ 48:48 Host Hilary Russo close and podcast info⁣ ⁣ ⁣ WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE⁣ Subscribe https://www.youtube.com/hilaryrusso⁣ ⁣ Grab a copy of "To Be Loved: A Story of Truth, Trauma, and Transformation"⁣ Audiobook: https://amzn.to/4cNRXi5 (Amazon)⁣ Paperback: https://amzn.to/3X4R3Ik (Amazon)⁣ ⁣ Other Books by Dr. Frank Anderson⁣ "Internal Family Systems Skills Training Manual: Trauma-Informed Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, PTSD & Substance Abuse"⁣ Kindle: https://amzn.to/3Mxk4ra (Amazon)⁣ ⁣ Transcending Trauma: Healing Complex PTSD with Internal Family Systems⁣ Kindle: https://amzn.to/4ecUsfd (Amazon)⁣ ⁣⁣ CONNECT WITH DR. FRANK ANDERSON⁣ https://www.frankandersonmd.com Instagram https://www.instagram.com/frank_andersonmd LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-anderson-654b1836 ⁣ GET BRAIN CANDY DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/braincandy ⁣ JOIN ME AT ONE OF MY FREE EVENTS⁣ ⁣https://www.hilaryrusso.com/events ⁣CONNECT WITH HILARY⁣ https://www.instagram.com/hilaryrusso https://www.youtube.com/hilaryrusso⁣ https://www.facebook.com/hilisticallyspeaking⁣ https://www.tiktok.com/@hilisticallyspeaking https://www.hilaryrusso.com/podcast Music by Lipbone Redding https://lipbone.com

What if you could transform your trauma into a source of hope and healing? A physician in the middle of a pandemic, who survived the earthquakes in Nepal, Dr. Christy Gibson realized the mounting rates of trauma showing up, but not being recognized. Her mess became her message when she launched the "TikTok Trauma Doc" and authored the "The Modern Trauma Toolkit", a book that is a must at your bedside. During this conversation, Christy shares profound insights on hope in trauma recovery and the hidden emotional toll on healthcare professionals. Discover the distinction between PTSD and normal responses to extraordinary situations. Explore innovative therapies like Havening and Tapping. Plus, the transformative power of community, cultural sensitivity, and the benefits of integrating Western medicine with functional approaches.⁣ ⁣ ⁣ CHAPTERS/KEY MOMENTS⁣ 00:00 Intro⁣ 05:27 Healing Through Havening Techniques ⁣ 10:29 Trauma Healing⁣ 14:46 Community Empowerment After Disaster ⁣ 19:48 Empowerment Through Self-Discovery ⁣ 25:37 Exploring Integrative Trauma Healing Methods⁣ 26:57 The Role of Antidepressants and Psychedelics ⁣ 38:31 Sharing Healing Skills on TikTok ⁣ 42:45 Connecting Through Healing and Collaboration ⁣ 43:00 Rapid Fire Game⁣ 45:16 The Modern Trauma Toolkit⁣ 47:00 Dr. Christy Gibson takeaway⁣ 48:00 Hilary Russo closing thoughts⁣ ⁣ ⁣ WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE⁣ Subscribe https://www.youtube.com/hilaryrusso⁣ ⁣ Grab a copy of "The Modern Trauma Toolkit"⁣ Paperback: https://amzn.to/3LeAW5z (Amazon)⁣ Audiobook: https://amzn.to/3y2cC3A (Amazon)⁣ Kindle: https://amzn.to/3xRBZoQ (Amazon)⁣ ⁣ ⁣ CONNECT WITH CHRISTY⁣ https://www.ChristineGibson.net⁣ https://www.tiktok.com/@tiktoktraumadoc⁣ https://www.youtube.com/@dr.christinegibson⁣ https://www.facebook.com/gibtrotterMD⁣ https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-gibson-md/⁣ https://www.instagram.com/moderntraumatoolkit/⁣ ⁣ GET BRAIN CANDY DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/braincandy⁣ ⁣ JOIN ME AT THE NEXT HAVENING HAPPY HOUR⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/events ⁣ ⁣ CONNECT WITH HILARY⁣ https://www.instagram.com/hilaryrusso⁣ https://www.youtube.com/hilaryrusso⁣ https://www.facebook.com/hilisticallyspeaking⁣ https://www.tiktok.com/@hilisticallyspeaking⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/podcast⁣ Music by Lipbone Redding https://lipbone.com/⁣ ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ FULL TRANSCRIPT⁣ 00:06 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ So many people do know what they need. If, given the resources to figure that out and that's why I love the work you're doing and why I created the modern trauma toolkit is to say these are some solutions to consider. I put 40 different activities in the book so that people could design their personal solution strategy to healing both self and systems. ⁣ ⁣ 00:29 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Without hope, trauma intensifies. Think about that just for a moment, how it feels in your body, how it resonates with you, and I want you to just consider what that is like to have no possibilities, no resolution, no solutions, no hope. And I think it's safe to say that we've all been there at some point or another. Whether it is something very big or even small, that feeling of not having the control can be very overwhelming. In fact, it's common for our beautiful brain to go to that place, to want to keep us safe, to go to the negative, and it's up to us to reel her back right. If you've been with me for a while HIListically Speaking journey, you know that, whether it is the podcast or the brain candy newsletter, social, the HUG it Out Collective, wherever you're tuning in, however, we're connected. You know that. I'm all about sharing the sweetest ways to be kind to your mind and creating that space for conversations, connections, and solutions. ⁣ ⁣ 01:33⁣ Hope, right, but I can't do it alone. I certainly cannot do it alone. That's why we need our tribe, our collective right, our community, and part of that is having people like Dr Christy Gibson joining me. She's part of that circle. She is not only a Havening Techniques practitioner. She is a family physician, a trauma therapist and author of the Modern Trauma Toolkit, which we're going to talk about, but also you've probably seen her as the TikTok trauma doc. Such a little like works really well, right. Well, christy, you offer such value. And when I read those words because those were your words that you said that it's now time to share what can be done to provide hope and solution focus, because without hope, trauma intensifies, it really hit me and I think we're really past due. ⁣ ⁣ 02:22 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ So, having you here to share your story, how you're helping, others and really talk about the book, which we will do is a gift, so thanks for being here. Well, thank you so much. What a beautiful intro Thanks, listen. ⁣ ⁣ 02:35 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ I have to say first of all it was so good to see you in person and have an opportunity to just give you a hug and spend some time with you during the Havening Conference which we just came back from in New York and you know there were a lot of people circling around getting to know you and your book that have maybe not met you before or were really touched, moved and inspired by the book or just what you're sharing and putting out there in the world. And I know that comes from what you've been through and I think that would be a really good place to start is to really have a better understanding of who Dr Gibson is, the TikTok trauma doc, and how you came into this work. ⁣ ⁣ 03:12 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ I think being the Dr Gibson part was actually a large part of the trauma that I didn't even know was sneaking up on me. So many others, like Lissa Rankin, a dear friend, have spoken about the trauma that's inherent in the work of being a physician, and we're not really taught to acknowledge it sufficiently. So, if I think about my origin story, while I really enjoyed being a hospital based doctor for 16 years, it took a lot out of me physically, emotionally, spiritually. Took a lot out of me physically, emotionally, spiritually. And it wasn't until I was out of that job that I recognized just how traumatic it is to like not just be up all night for 30 hours, ignoring the cues of hunger or, you know, sleep that your body is screaming at you, but also the vicarious suffering, the fact that somebody might die and then you have to go to the next room and somebody else is suffering in a different way, and we're not really taught how to process the very human feelings that we get when we're interacting with so much suffering. And that's one of the things that I needed to work on, and I'm still. It's a work in progress around my own healing, but it wasn't until I was caught in the earthquakes in Nepal in 2015,. ⁣ ⁣ 04:26⁣ That PTSD kind of came on my radar. I was experiencing not PTSD, which is the disorder when it's continuing for a prolonged time and it's unexpected. This was post traumatic symptoms that I was having related to shaking. So if there was a garage in the building that I was in and the garage was moving up and down, I could feel that in every single cell of my body. ⁣ ⁣ 04:54⁣ I did see a psychiatrist in Singapore. Luckily I had some insurance that was going to cover some medical visits and I said to him like, do I have PTSD? What's happening? I'm so hyper aware of everything around me. And he said, no, no, you're having a normal response to an abnormal situation and over time we'll see if this does linger beyond what's an expected amount of time. And fortunately for me, within the first two to three years the symptoms really faded and I had very few lingering symptoms. And the first time that I was exposed to Havening techniques I think I said this in the talk that I gave at our conference I processed the feeling of being in the earthquake and all of those vibratory senses that were stuck in my body and my nervous system and my very first demo experience of Havening those disappeared. So I had a very embodied, somatic experience of that, and the more techniques that I explored, the more that I was like people need to know this, physicians need to know this, all therapists need to know this. ⁣ ⁣ 06:02 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ But, like humans parents, teachers, dentists, realtors, people who work with the public, who might be facing their trauma in front of them and so that's become, uh, one of my new system level interventions that I'm really keen to work on yeah, and you know, when you spoke at the conference and it was really a gift to be on stage with you there, like I always love to surround myself with like minds and we're learning from each other, right, we're almost like a masterclass to each other in different ways. ⁣ ⁣ 06:36⁣ And you sharing your story and hitting on that point, that PTS, ptsd like a lot of people that aren't in the area that we're in or working in health or medicine, they compound everything and you mentioned that in your book actually about the DSM-5, you know that we're more than just a symptom, we're more than just a diagnosis and sometimes and I'm sure you hear this with patients and clients people go right to oh, I know I have this, oh, I know I have that, and then you become that thing and it's much more difficult to break that. ⁣ ⁣ 07:14⁣ Well, maybe not as difficult when you have amazing tools like Havening techniques, right, but you become this. It's like you label yourself right. You become this. It's like you label yourself right According to this out-of-date DSM-5 that we're still following and it has value, but in other ways, like we're giving people the simplicity of there are so many ways that you can heal and it begins within, just be honest be knowledgeable, yeah, so I wanted to explain what PTSD was so that I could uncover that box and explain it in a way that was really easy to understand. ⁣ ⁣ 07:51 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ We mentioned before we started recording just the main goal for me with the Modern Trauma Toolkit was to create something that was really accessible, Even though you know I'm a doctor and I actually have a doctorate, so I'm doctor, doctor. My goal is to get knowledge into people's hands in an easy way that's not going to stir up their nervous system too much. So I wanted to write a book that was both accessible from a health literacy perspective. You don't have to know big words. You know like psychoneuroimmunology, which is the study of exactly what Havening Techniques does and how it affects the mind-body. I wanted to explain this at a grade eight level of understanding and in a way that wasn't going to talk about the big things that might happen to you and really get your nervous system triggered. So, even though it might still activate some people, I think what differentiates the Modern Trauma Tool toolkit is it's a book that you can read comfortably and then go to sleep. That was really my goal. ⁣ ⁣ 08:53 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Doesn't trigger you. ⁣ ⁣ 08:55 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ Yeah, for it to feel like you're getting a hug at the same time that you're getting information, which was different. ⁣ ⁣ 09:02 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Well, you know I'm going to resonate with that. ⁣ ⁣ 09:04⁣ Yeah totally HUG it out. Having the ability to HUG it out with yourself, whatever that means to you, is really important. And if you're reading a pretty intense book at night, what do you think that's going to do to your subconscious mind? You know you're going to go into that place and constantly be thinking about it and it caused restless sleep. So being able to have something that you said is like a hug before you go to bed, a soothing technique that you can do right before you go to bed and people do like to read. I think that's beautiful. What caused you to go this route? To say I need a book, I need to write this. ⁣ ⁣ 09:41 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ I mean, ultimately it was my patients. I work currently I mean, I still do family practice, mostly at our refugee clinic, but I work also in trauma therapy with our refugees here in Calgary and I work in adult addictions. And then I have a really small group of people that I've been seeing for many years that I still see, who have what we call a high ACE score. So that's an adverse childhood experience score and it basically means they went through trauma in childhood and they need a really gentle guiding hand and a lot of them don't have access financially to mental health care that would be good for processing trauma. They can access, you know, some basic interventions for anxiety, but for trauma processing that can get quite expensive and in Canada at least, it's not always covered. So my goal was to work in equity deserving communities, because my entire career has been working in these communities that are often denied access, denied equity, denied safety, and so that was really important to me, that I was a resource, and one of the things that I noticed is a lot of patients would say, well, what book would you recommend? And I might come up with a few podcasts that I thought would be like reasonably safe to listen to. But I really wanted a book that was diverse in terms of cultural awareness and addressing the systemic factors that a lot of my patients face in terms of classism and racism and ableism and even the medical trauma that physicians like me can perpetuate, and I felt like if I wasn't addressing that and addressing the system level traumas that are imposed on people, then it's kind of like gaslighting and saying, oh, you are the only one having this problem, this is an individual thing and you know, because I also study systems and social innovation. It was really important for me to write a book that my patients could feel safe reading and that potential was there and that I was also looking at systemic causes and solutions of the trauma. So, while I definitely focus on the individual, the systems was a part of it. ⁣ ⁣ 11:54⁣ So the Modern Trauma Toolkit kind of came about in this amazing way. Actually, I was asked to write a book by publishers who had been following me on TikTok and they were listening to little tidbits from TikTok TraumaDoc and they thought, well, wow, wouldn't this be amazing in a book? And I thought, yeah, I have this book in my brain already and I sat down and wrote the outline that still stuck in the final version of the book in an afternoon, like I had this book in my head and once I flushed out the proposal, I mean there was a bidding war for the book. Lots of people were really interested in this particular view of toxic stress and this particular way of writing about it. So it was. It was so exciting. ⁣ ⁣ 12:38 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ That is exciting, and you know it's just sometimes having somebody else look at you and go. This is valuable Right else look at you and go. ⁣ ⁣ 12:45⁣ This is valuable, right? So I'm in the process of writing a book myself and submitting the proposals and hearing some really great feedback, because I think there is room for all of us to share with integrity, with authenticity, with knowledgeable factual information. But where I feel that your book is different from every other book that I have come into contact with is that what you just said about the inclusivity, the diversity and being that you have worked all over the world and dealt with those kind of cultures, the misrepresented, just cultures that need this, that might not be able to afford. This is level up, is level up and I have to say I connect with that fully because in my work, when I was working with CVS Health in Aetna, which is really a big company, two big companies here in the States we did a show on the social determinants of health, where we would travel to different areas around the country and focus on areas that could not afford a spa or wellness program or therapy and they were creating their own programs so that their communities were living healthy and well. ⁣ ⁣ 14:02⁣ And you see it firsthand, I know right. Doesn't it make you so exciting, like walking into food pantries and seeing a community getting together and doing a wellness project, and I'm like I was just giddy seeing this. It wasn't something I would normally see in my everyday. I don't live in that world Right, so something like this would be so beneficial the Modern Trauma Toolkit. For anybody that was just interested, maybe it's not the person that lives in that community, but somebody who's supporting them like I'm going to bring this to that community. This could be really helpful for them. You know, and it excites you to know that there are possibilities and solutions. So I appreciate you putting out something like that and taking that into account so somebody doesn't feel less than when they're presented with an issue, a problem, a trauma. ⁣ ⁣ 14:46 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ Yeah, and I think it took me some time because, you know, physicians are fixers, we're like, we think we are the brokers of solutions, and it took me some time to really understand that community knows their own solutions. ⁣ ⁣ 14:59⁣ So this was actually my first TED Talk right after the earthquake. Interestingly, I was asked to give a TED Talk and they they didn't tell me what to talk about, they just said well, what is the earthquake making you think about? I thought honestly that I was not the solution to the problem of the earthquakes in Nepal. And so you know, western savior types, we kind of rush into disaster zones and like, if you're with something like MSF and you've got the logistics and you, you've got the expertise to handle that, that's great. But I had an expectation of myself and others had an expectation of myself and others had an expectation of me that I would be really useful after an earthquake, and I wasn't. I just wanted to be rescued. And in the meantime, the Nepali community was ready, because they have earthquakes quite regularly. And so what I had witnessed was this like sense of shame in myself about like well, you're a doctor, you should be useful. You're a Western person, what's your role here? And in the meantime, witnessing these Nepali doctors in Patten, which was the hospital I was affiliated with, so organized, so committed and so equipped to with with low resources, they still did everything they could to do exactly what was needed after the earthquake. And as I watched that unfold and community would fashion up a tent where everybody who was unhoused, whose houses had fallen down in the Patton neighborhood, they would be under these giant tents and they would have communal bowls of rice being served to 50, 100 people and I just watched all of that happen, I thought, you know, community knows what it needs. So that's, you know, watching it. ⁣ ⁣ 16:34⁣ In an acute trauma, but also in chronic traumas, like when a community is facing resource scarcity, that's kind of imposed on them, that I always think of vulnerability as something that is created through the system and not intrinsic to that person, or definitely not that community. ⁣ ⁣ 16:50⁣ And there are so many solutions. So that's why I talked about things like asset-based community development and I taught people how to run a social innovation lab, because I actually did that at a healthcare center that I was working at and I thought what are the ways that we can ask community how to solve their own problems? We create an advisory council, we did digital storytelling projects. So many people do know what they need if given the resources to figure that out, and that's why I love the work you're doing and why I created the Modern Trauma Toolkit is to say these are some solutions to consider. I put 40 different activities in the book so that people could design their personal solution strategy to healing both self and systems. Put 40 different activities in the book so that people could design their personal solution strategy to healing both self and systems. ⁣ ⁣ 17:33 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Oh yeah, girl, I get it. This is why I love having people like you in my circle, because we learn from each other. Like I said, and I'm sitting here listening to you thinking the last thing a community wants is somebody to come in and tell them to change everything and take away part of what might be part of their culture. Right, totally Like ripping that away from them and saying this is how it's going to solve the problem. It's like you don't know me, you don't know the ancestral importance that goes on with how we do things and you see that so much like we can fix you. ⁣ ⁣ 18:06⁣ And, yes, there are elements that you can synergetically bring into a culture and see how it works for them. But when I see that those areas where it's just like rip out, this is a solution, it's like do you have any idea the value that this community has in themselves, the pride, even if it, even if their currency is not high as far as financially, their currency, and pride for who they are is you know, and I think it's really listening and as we talk more about inclusivity and diversity and how we can really work together to help each other in this global village, this blue marble. We live on. These conversations need to happen. ⁣ ⁣ 18:51 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ I love so much how you phrase that, Hilary, around that intrinsic value, and I think we talk so much about ancestral trauma and that's very real. And I do love the somatic technique. So in the book I have a chapter on Havening, a chapter on EFT tapping. So in the book I have a chapter on Havening, a chapter on EFT tapping, a chapter on tremoring, because these are really easy things to learn in the comfort of your home and definitely if you're dealing with trauma, you probably need some professional guidance so that you don't freeze or dissociate or flood or get overwhelmed. But these somatic tools should be taught in school. They should be taught to everybody. Tools should be taught in school. They should be taught to everybody. And just as we acknowledge and work on that subconscious ancestral trauma that sometimes is pre-verbal and body-based solutions are so much more helpful. I love also focusing on the value of ancestral wisdom and culture and so people don't think that it's adding to their vulnerability. It's also an intrinsic strength. Yeah, I just love how you phrase that. ⁣ ⁣ 19:53 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Well, I'll have to read back on what I said and watch this, because sometimes I just say things because I'm so passionate about it, which I'm sure you do too, but it just comes from such an authentic place. It really is about not us empowering anybody, not us healing anybody, but giving them the tools so that they're self-empowered. We don't want to own that, and I say this a lot, and I'm sure you do too. It's like the best thing that I could ever have from a client is them saying I don't think I need you anymore. ⁣ ⁣ 20:21⁣ I want that Comment, if you have another upset or issue or something else you want to talk about, but I don't want you to need me, right? I want you to know that you have everything you need right here and if you need additional assistance outside of what your own body and mind, the secret language that exists right here has, then we can come back and have another conversation, because we all need each other anyway, you know. So it's making it so simple and like even in the subtitle of the book, which is nurture your post-traumatic growth right With personalized solutions, your personalized your post-traumatic growth right and thinking about we're always on this growing journey, you know. ⁣ ⁣ 21:07 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ And thinking about. We're always on this growing journey, you know, and I think we are to some extent, but there are a lot of people who feel stuck, that they don't know the next steps to take, and so what I love is how many of us are putting out good information into the world that's free and accessible and anyone can find it. I didn't know these solutions. You know I had been a practicing physician for probably 18 years before I took a deep dive into trauma healing and I ended up getting certified in like a dozen different modalities, because I'm just a very innately curious person, and it's not that I don't use them in my practice I definitely do. But also part of what I love doing is sharing, and so I'll talk about Havening, but I'll also talk about my favorite processing technique is called accelerated resolution therapy, and it was the very first one I learned, and when I started doing it as a doctor, I started to recognize that I had patients who had terrible lung disease and they were always working to catch their breath and so much of it was actually obstructed breathing because they had a sense of suffocation and even like an energetic disruption in their breath cycle related to trauma. And once we processed trauma they breathed differently. I had another patient whose diabetes was totally out of control. Their A1c, which is a marker of sugar in their bloodstream, was up above 14, which is like twice as high as it should be. We did trauma processing together. They processed like one of the most heartbreaking traumas I've ever borne witness to and their A1c dropped in half and it's been almost normal since that time, and so much of it was this disconnection to their own body. So sometimes people can't find solutions on their own because they're either not wanting to acknowledge that their mind-body system is alive and functioning that's a safety mechanism is to dissociate and to disconnect from your own system. Part of establishing that safety was processing some of these big things that people went through. ⁣ ⁣ 23:10⁣ And once I started to recognize how far upstream this was. So upstream interventions are the ones that are more preventative and they're earlier and healing from trauma and healing your nervous system. State when your amygdalas are firing and telling you every single day that you're in danger. Well, that's exhausting and it's taking a lot of your energy and it's actually turning off your immune system and all of the parts of your body that are self-healing. ⁣ ⁣ 23:36⁣ So we help your Amy's your amygdalas and say like, hey, I don't think you're in danger anymore, or could you just learn the moments when you can be in a safe and connected nervous system state? Then all of these self-healing mechanisms kick in again, and once I saw that firsthand using accelerated resolution therapy, I was like, okay, wow, what else is there? And as a physician, this is one of the most important things I could be doing. So I mean, it was really exciting for me to witness that within my family practice. I just remember my first couple of years exploring this back in like 2017, 18, and the transformations I was seeing and thinking there's nothing more important than this. ⁣ ⁣ 24:25 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Yeah, yeah, and thinking there's nothing more important than this, yeah, yeah. And I want to ask you so many questions about how a medical doctor because, look, when you're dealing with Western med and you're taught a certain way, thinking about techniques and other possibilities outside of what has traditional Western med, there are some people that aren't going to gravitate to that. So I want to talk about that in a second, but I do want to remind folks the Modern Trauma Toolkit, dr Christy Gibson's book an amazing, put in your library, right, and we're going to have a link to this in the podcast notes for you to grab it. If you have already read the book would love to know what you think about it. Leave a comment, a, a review, a rating, anywhere that you're tuning in. If you are curious about how to get in touch with dr christie myself, I'm going to have all that in the podcast notes. ⁣ ⁣ 25:15⁣ And, of course, if this is touch, moved and inspired you in any way this conversation thus far, pay it forward. Let somebody else know about it. If you know somebody that's like oh, I know someone who's confronted with this, or I know someone that might want to bring these tools into their community, pay it forward my somebody that's like oh, I know someone who's confronted with this, or I know someone that might want to bring these tools into their community. Pay it forward, my friend. That's. The best way to build community in a collective is to let others know about it. So thank you for that. Doctor Christy Gibson I hear this a lot because I have a lot of doctors on the show. I've had traditional Western medicine doctors who are some of them are even leaving their practice because they feel kind of, you know, tied, mainly here in the States, especially going into functional medicine, integrative approaches because they're tied. What made you say aha, no, I gotta, I gotta look into this. ⁣ ⁣ 26:08 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ Well, and I think in Canada we have a little bit more leeway because we don't have, like, a health insurance company dictating how we manage our patients. ⁣ ⁣ 26:16⁣ So we we do have a little bit more freedom to explore and be flexible. I know a lot of people who are straddling integrative and Western techniques. I'm also in the lifestyle medicine community and I think a lot of that is so natural and intrinsically preventative. There is that exploration. So lots of physicians that I know are exploring and I like to think of myself as really straddling both worlds and hoping to bring them together because I don't think either of them has all of the answers right. So the more that we collect all of the different tools that are available, people will be able to personalize the things that work for them. So even though I haven't seen a lot of evidence that antidepressants are curative for PTSD, I've had some patients who really benefit from it. So even though I have a lot more tools in my toolkit than medications, I'm never going to say to a person oh, this can't work for you because that's not everyone's experience. So I love how, because we're recognizing in medicine that trauma. There is no single pill that's going to miraculously heal trauma. Although psychedelics do hold a lot of promise, we need this in an integrated way. I mean, a psychedelic medication, in my perspective, is not going to work if you just take it and you're in a room by yourself. Trauma, especially relational trauma, heals in relationships, and so the set and the setting in a therapeutic relationship surrounding the use of psychedelics is the factor, and so I think that's one of the reasons why the FDA kind of voicing concern over it is because, like, how do you manualize all of those safety mechanisms around it? ⁣ ⁣ 27:57⁣ I was taught in medical school try SSRIs or antidepressants for almost every you know psychiatric condition. For PTSD we're told to use blood pressure medications, so alpha blockers or beta blockers that change the way that your heart rate is beating and then perceived, so you don't necessarily have that body-based trigger for anxiety, and that could help with nightmares. It would help you potentially have a calm body as you're falling asleep and less likely to cue up those intrusive symptoms. That was all we had in our armamentarium. And then, in terms of therapy, I was told cognitive behavior therapy is the gold standard for almost everything, and I had a lot of unlearning to do. ⁣ ⁣ 28:45⁣ I think curiosity and humility are really, really important for all professionals to keep, and we're not always good at it. We're like well, this is what I was taught and this is what the evidence says. And I write a disclaimer really early in the chapter on Havening. And I actually felt a bit bad because Dr Ron Rudin was sitting on the chair next to me reading through my chapter because I'd gifted him a copy and I was like, oh, how's he going to feel? Because I said right in the first few paragraphs it doesn't have the level of randomized clinical trials or randomized control trial that I'm used to seeing as a medical doctor and yet it's one of the most effective treatments that I've been exposed to. So I wanted to be to put that out there and say, even though I am a scientist, I've got a doctor doctor behind my name. I'm also going to listen to my patients and see what's working and try to understand the neurophysiology. And that's what I love about what the Rudin's did. ⁣ ⁣ 29:43⁣ Is they really researched? What are the parts of the inner brain mechanisms that are being activated through the Havening techniques and what is the physiological basis about why these work? And I've started to research that around eye movement techniques like accelerated resolution therapy and brain spotting, deep brain reorienting there's a lot of different therapies where there's actually research into what's happening in your brainstem, and so part of why I love being a doctor who's using these body based, somatic, integrative, psycho sensory, all of these new techniques is I love exploring why they might be working and we're coming up with some not just theories, but even Ruth Lanius's lab in Ontario. She's a psychiatrist who does a lot of basic science research and she's using functional MRI imaging to show how different kinds of techniques are working in the treatment of trauma, so we're actually starting to see the scientific evidence of something that we clinically knew was working. This is such an exciting time, so exciting knew was working. ⁣ ⁣ 30:46 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ This is such an exciting time, so exciting and while you're talking about being there next to Dr Ron and having him read, that and it made me think, like what if someone picks up this book or somebody does Havening and tries it for the first time and they're willing to fund a study because they want? ⁣ ⁣ 31:05⁣ to know more and they've seen it Like just getting it out there is know you do that. This is such a nurturing, loving, effective technique and it's so simple, much like many of the others in the book as well. But for something like this, where I know and you know, I said this during my presentation you get the question, you get a lot is what's happening? Right? But fine, ask that question because I'd love to tell you what it is. ⁣ ⁣ 31:40 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ Or I'd love to share it with you, or I'd love to show you how it works. ⁣ ⁣ 31:45 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ I mean, I was at a car dealership yesterday having a one-to-one with one of my fellow business networking people and of course you know I'm learning about his business, he's learning about mine. He's like what is it? I was like how long you got. I'm like leave the door open, Don't worry what's going on around you. I can show you what this is in five minutes and let's see how you feel. It's that easy, right? So just being able to put it out there in the inquisitive curiosity of others who might be able to help put a modality like this next level, it's just keep talking about it, which brings me to TikTok trauma doc. Okay, Like that's a whole level up, and I know this is something that you, you, you started doing this during the pandemic, obviously right, Because we're all bored. ⁣ ⁣ 32:31 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ Well, and it was. It was a young person who encouraged me, so I have a couple of amazing young people in my life. ⁣ ⁣ 32:37⁣ I don't have biological kids, but there's a woman named Aishwarya that I met when she was in university and it started off as a mentorship relationship but it definitely deepened. We text almost daily now and one of the things that happened quite early in the pandemic. This was January 2021, when I joined, and she said you know, the way that you explain mental health concepts is really different. Like you have just a way of using language that I can really get what you're saying, whereas I've heard this concept before and I don't think I understood it in the same way. You need to get on TikTok. And so she taught me that I had to watch YouTube videos about how to TikTok, which is so meta when you think about it. So I joined, you know, january 2021. By the time, I had my book deal guessing that was a year later I had about 60,000 followers and then, like now, I have about 130,000. I mean, kate Truitt has a lot too. ⁣ ⁣ 33:32⁣ Like there's there's a few of us in the Havening community that are really trying to put this out there, and because TikTok is being targeted as a social media education platform in the states that may or may not survive. I am trying to upload more to Instagram and YouTube and my Facebook, so those would be under Christine or Christy Gibson MD. Some places I'm called Gibtrotter. My Facebook, uh, so those would be under Christine, christine or Christy Gibson MD. Um. Some places I'm called Gib trotter, uh, because I I travel so much, um so. So there, there are different platforms I'm using. All of them are um Christine. ⁣ ⁣ 34:13⁣ Gibsonnet is my um as my professional page, so you can track me down and we'll share all of that. ⁣ ⁣ 34:17 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ We'll share all that in the podcast notes so that you can get in touch with Dr Christy, but like they're going to find you anyway, well, and part of me worries that TikTok will be gone by the time. ⁣ ⁣ 34:25 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ This airs Like it does feel like a really real thing that they might take away from us, and I personally love that community. There's so many good mental health practitioners there mental health practitioners there and there is misinformation, but it's pretty easy to weed out. You can figure out both who's got credibility. But also, is the thing that they're sharing working for you? Is it actually helping heal your nervous system and learning to touch in and figure out which of the techniques are actually feeling good for you and how is your day going once you've learned these? And that's what I think is so special about Havening is people have such a body-based understanding of how it helps immediately after trying five minutes in a car dealership. ⁣ ⁣ 35:08 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Come on, exactly. It's like just give it a try. The first step is the hardest. It's stepping into the tension of saying well, all right, I got five minutes, let me see what she's doing on this old ticky-tock right or anything. And I came to the TikTok game a little later and that was okay. But because I feel like we all are sharing in some way, like you mentioned, dr Kate, yourself, the podcast is big for me, or Instagram, and it's really finding what works for you. So we're kind of infiltrating every possibility, you know, and then we'll like if things move around and things do go away and you know we've seen that happen with other social media sites we'll find our way and people will find us, you know it's just keeping authentic and putting out the content. ⁣ ⁣ 35:54⁣ But my big question is how does someone who has not done that you're watching all these videos on youtube, like you said? I mean, how much time did you invest in that? ⁣ ⁣ 36:04 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ yeah, I mean there was definitely a time investment to try to figure out what does the algorithm like, and I mean I had to watch a lot of tick tocks to see, well, what are the trending sounds and the trending themes and um. So I definitely did some of that. Like, my first videos that blew up were on trending sounds, that I was doing something kind of interesting based on that. So one of the early ones was kind of my journey through medicine and then learning how to be a trauma therapist, and I did that to music. And then my first video that really blew up was related to Havening. It was describing information. So it got like a million views. ⁣ ⁣ 36:41⁣ I didn't relate it to Havening in the video, I just wanted to share what informations were. ⁣ ⁣ 36:45⁣ But I learned this when I was studying the Havening techniques and so then after that video blew up, I was like OK, gosh, I got to tell people the origin story. So I had to explain like who actually came up with the formations and what the what ifs were and how I learned them in Havening training. And it's one of the things I like so much about the techniques is there is the body based practicing of, you know, the gentle brushing on the areas of your body that create calming delta, theta waves in the brain. And people are creating these amazing techniques to go along with it. And people are creating these amazing techniques to go along with it, and that's what I was trying to share in this integrative way at the conference is we are starting to just learn all of the amazing potential within these techniques, so using them with if formations or what if statements. Harry Pickens says that this plant seeds of possibility in the neural garden. I love how he describes that. ⁣ ⁣ 37:39 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ With his voice too. ⁣ ⁣ 37:40 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ Oh, I know. ⁣ ⁣ 37:42 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ You can listen to Harry all day. ⁣ ⁣ 37:43 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ Yeah. ⁣ ⁣ 37:44 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Fellow Havening practitioner, my friends. ⁣ ⁣ 37:46 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ Amazing human. And I like how you said voice, because voice is really important to me too. And so when I'm sharing on my TikTok channel, when I was reading the audio book at the Hachette offices in New York which was like the coolest week of my life I was really deliberate and saying, like, my voice has to feel safe enough. Because of polyvagal theory, we know that tone of voice and the way that you are moving your facial muscles actually makes a person's nervous system feel safer. So we can co-regulate through the mirror neurons in our brain that are saying, hey, is this person safe? And tone of voice makes a huge difference for that. So there was all of these factors that were important for me in terms of delivering the message. ⁣ ⁣ 38:31⁣ So when I'm on TikTok and I'm thinking, well, what is the thing that I want to share, sometimes I can get my tone of voice a little into that sympathetic fight and flight tone if I'm talking about the systems that are harming people. But when I'm giving those healing skills, I want people to really have an understanding right away. Oh, wow, my nervous system feels different. That's so exciting to be able to share. Oh, my nervous system feels different. ⁣ ⁣ 38:57 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ That's so exciting to be able to share Totally. And I had that moment thinking, oh, she was at the publisher's office recording the book, soothing yourself because of that whole Vegas nerve. And that's why we do the OM, that's why we sing Different ways that you can create that safety in your own body while you're sharing it with others. So it's like paying it forward in your own way while you're sharing it with others. So it's like paying it forward in your own way while you're reading your own book. I mean that must have been fascinating. ⁣ ⁣ 39:23 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ And I mean it's not just reading the book, because that was like, even though it was an amazing week, it was, it was just a week, but I find I don't feel as stressed at the end of my day. So a lot of my physician friends will say, like how can you listen to trauma stories all day? And like A I don't tend to encourage people giving me too many details about their trauma. That can strengthen the pathway towards those memories. But for me to do something like Havening or tapping along with my patients all day, like I'm doing this you know, 80% of the day I'm using one of those techniques during a session I feel so different. I feel so regulated and calm at the end of the day. So I feel like I'm processing a lot of my own nervous system dysregulation, from being present to suffering. That's not a skill that I learned as a physician and all of us need it. ⁣ ⁣ 40:16⁣ So, I'm trying so hard to get this book into health professionals hands to say like you're dealing with suffering all day, how are you managing that? Like, yeah, like, be gentle with yourself and learn something that will help your nervous system too, and then share it with all of your patients. ⁣ ⁣ 40:32 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Absolutely. I said that last year at the conference because you know, coming from the background as a journalist, the forgotten first responders were like the first ones on scene first ones to hear the story. ⁣ ⁣ 40:43⁣ We're taking in all that information just like if it's a patient or a client and you don't want to take that home with you, and then you're thinking you're just burned out or overwhelmed and it's like so much deeper. It's that secondary traumatic stress, right, the vicarious trauma. So understanding, okay, I've got a lot that's coming at me. I can self-regulate while I'm listening to this person. ⁣ ⁣ 41:08⁣ It actually allows them to mirror back and feel more comfortable knowing that you're not just sitting across from someone in a Freudian way on a couch being like, tell me your feelings, you're part of the process with them. Like, hey, I'm human too. I got feelings, I got, I got a nervous system that's out of whack every once in a while. I hear you, right, and they just want to be heard. We want to be heard. So, on that note, love everything we're sharing. We're going to put it all in the podcast notes. ⁣ ⁣ 41:30⁣ Again, the modern trauma toolkit You're going to find it because I'm going to share it with you. Also, dr Christy on TikTok so much that you can do to find Christy and bring her into your toolkit as well with what she's sharing. So we'll share all that. But I want to have a little fun with you before we go, because this is where, if you ever listened to my podcast, you know this is coming. If you haven't, you're in for a treat. So I play a game called Rapid Fire, where I have written down words that you've said and I throw them out at you and I want you to come back with the first word that comes to mind. ⁣ ⁣ 42:05 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ No problem, let's do it. ⁣ ⁣ 42:06 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Oh, I know You're like ready for this. Okay, here we go. Relationships. ⁣ ⁣ 42:12 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ People. ⁣ ⁣ 42:14 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Safety. ⁣ ⁣ 42:16 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ Calm. ⁣ ⁣ 42:18 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Toolkit. ⁣ ⁣ 42:18 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ I know it's two words exciting growth potential earthquake, I want to say shook me well, that's okay, vicarious healing trauma opportunity. ⁣ ⁣ 42:37 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Healing, trauma, opportunity, tiktok. ⁣ ⁣ 42:40 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ Fun. ⁣ ⁣ 42:42 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Are you having fun on it? ⁣ ⁣ 42:43 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ I do yeah, absolutely. ⁣ ⁣ 42:45 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Look, I found you on there and I didn't even know you were a Havity practitioner back when you first did it, because we don't know everybody, even though we're a small group. There's only like a thousand of us. At that time there probably were six, seven hundred. But even at that point I'm like how does this lady know all about Havening? And then I was like, oh, that makes sense and I love that. I was like you just kind of like hi-fi in the screen, you know. So thank you for everything you're putting out there and just everything you're doing and creating this beautiful book and everything that you are doing to help people on their healing journey. I imagine we'll probably have some opportunities to connect and collaborate in the future, because I so align with everything you're doing and it would be a gift to do that in the future. But I want to ask you if there's anything you want to leave with those who are tuning in. ⁣ ⁣ 43:32 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ Just the way that you started the session. Let's finish with hope. A lot of people feel like this is who I am kind of. What you said earlier is this I am defined by the trauma that I've been through. That is not necessarily your story. You can always change your story and I think there are so many pathways towards that possibility for folks and I just encourage them to explore the paths that are feeling right for them, Because the path can lead to tremendous amounts of healing and I believe that's possible for all people. ⁣ ⁣ 44:07 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Yes, and you know that was one word I never put in the rapid fire. What do you feel when you hear the word? ⁣ ⁣ 44:14 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ hope the word hope, yeah, magic. I feel like some of the things that I've been able to study and I feel so grateful to know it After finishing a session with somebody, that I can see the neuroplasticity happening in real time and their brain is rewiring. It feels magical, and I've had patients use that word and it's just the most uh, wonderful experience. Um, and you're right, it's. It's watching them heal themselves. ⁣ ⁣ 44:42 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ It's magic it's like a silent hi-fi, like you're part of the process, but you're just happy. Somebody else is joyfully present and able to just live their lives well, optimally, you know, or has a new tool to do so. It's a good feeling. ⁣ ⁣ 45:01 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ It is a good day for a good day when that happens. ⁣ ⁣ 45:04 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Yeah, thank you, christy, it was a pleasure Thank you for being here. ⁣ ⁣ 45:09 - Dr. Christy Gibson (Guest)⁣ Oh, thank you so much. That was an amazing conversation, Hilary. It's so great to spend more time with you. ⁣ ⁣ 45:16 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ If this conversation aligned with you in any way, I want you to do us a solid over here at HIListically Speaking. Pay it forward, share it with others who might find value too, and just by leaving a rating and review wherever you tune in, it gives others a chance to find this podcast and conversations like this. The Modern Trauma Toolkit. My friend, this book is a must, and I put a link in the podcast notes so that you can grab a copy. Start trying out some of these amazing approaches. See what Dr Christy Gibson has to say. You can also find links to connect with her on whatever social media platform you choose, and you heard us talk about Havening. I talk about it a lot, but it was wonderful to talk about it with Christy and how you can be a part of the journey to put active emotional well-being in your own hands. If you're interested, there is a link and you can HUG it Out with you can with me and see if Havening aligns with you. Plus, you can come to one of my free Havening happy hours that I host every month, a supportive online event where you not only get to learn how to do Havening or continue to do it if you've been doing it already, but you have me as your guide during the experience. It's a wonderful way to do a little Q&A, a little discussion and lots of loving Havening. You can also join the free Hug it Out Collective that is my Facebook group. It is a supportive, safe space where others just like you are on the path to becoming, or continuing to be, a happy and healthy HIListically Speaking, , is edited by 2 market media, with music by Lipbone Redding and supported and listened to by you. ⁣ ⁣ 46:55⁣ So, thank you. There is always hope. That's what I want to leave. So, thank you. There is always hope. That's what I want to leave you with today. There's always hope and as long as you've got me as your guide and me by your side, I will make sure that you always remember that I love you, I believe in you and I'm sending hugs your way. Be well. ⁣

I have sleep apnea. I also had major jaw surgery at 15. Are they connected? If I had a Magic 8 Ball, it would likely say, "All signs point to Yes". And so would one pioneer in holistic dentistry by the name of Dr. Claire Stagg. ⁣ Through my personal journey of trauma and jaw surgery, we highlight the limitations of conventional solutions like CPAP and oral appliances, underscoring the need for a comprehensive, whole-body approach. Dr. Stagg shares invaluable insights into the interconnectedness of our body's systems, focusing on non-surgical solutions for TMJ, clenching, grinding, sleep apnea, and airway disorders. ⁣ This is about building your symphony of specialists who focus on the root cause, not just the diagnosis. It's the conversation I wish my parents and I had over 35 years ago when I sat in the dentist's chair. Today, I hope it serves as a guide for anyone struggling to find answers. And for parents, let it offer a new kind of hope for your kids to leave you better informed when it comes to your dental health and overall well-being.⁣ ⁣⁣ Grab a copy of Dr. Stagg's book, "Smile: It's All Connected" ⁣ Hardcover: https://amzn.to/3XLYm9X (Amazon)⁣ ⁣ Share storytime about proper dental health with her children's book "Captain IFBI" ⁣https://amzn.to/4cipP7l (Amazon)⁣ ⁣ Get the Daily Dental Protocol Checklist.⁣ https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/sl/Y4V5mXB⁣⁣ CONNECT WITH DR STAGG ⁣ https://healthconnectionsdentistry.com/⁣ https://www.instagram.com/SmileProDentist⁣ https://www.facebook.com/SmileProDentist⁣ ⁣ ⁣HEALING IN YOUR HANDS. HAVENING WITH HILARY⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/havening⁣ ⁣ CONNECT WITH HILARY⁣ https://www.hilaryrusso.com/podcast⁣ https://www.instagram.com/hilaryrusso https://www.facebook.com/HIListicallySpeaking/⁣ https://www.facebook.com/groups/hugitoutcollective/⁣ https://x.com/hilaryrusso⁣ https://www.tiktok.com/@hilisticallyspeaking⁣ Music by Lipbone Redding https://lipbone.com/⁣ FULL TRANSCRIPT ALSO ON PODCAST WEBSITE⁣ ⁣ ⁣ 00:06 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ Think about all the systems that are shut down because you can't breathe right? The oral appliance isn't going to fix it. The CPAP is definitely not going to fix it, because what's going to happen is the body is going to acclimatize or get used to that level of band-aiding and then it's like okay, you know what it is. The little Dutch boy with his finger came to mind with a dam. So you put one finger here and then you put one finger here, and then you put one finger here and you put one finger, and then you're not gonna have enough fingers or toes, and then the dam's gonna break. And it's exactly the same concept. ⁣ ⁣ 00:40 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Okay, my friends, One of the reasons I went into the work that I do is it was an effort to heal my own trauma and, as a result of that, from having TMJ my whole life, from having jaw surgery when I was a teenager and not knowing really how to heal and not getting the right kind of support after that surgery, I wanted to know what I could do to heal later in life, because we really never stop healing, right? You hear me talk about that all the time and it's really how Havening came into my life. It was the first time I was ever Havened was on the trauma from my surgery years later. But what we're learning is that it's all connected. Everything from head to toe. It's all connected. Everything from head to toe, it's all connected. ⁣ ⁣ 01:32⁣ So when I was introduced to Dr Claire Stagg, a holistic dentist who believes in the whole body approach thank you so much I knew that her story and her method would resonate with so many others, because I've had these conversations with so many Dr Stagg about TMJ, jaw issues, clenching, grinding, stress and the problems that happen after the breathing, the sleep apnea, and it's such a common problem. So when you came into my space, when I was introduced to you by a client who you introduced me to, I knew that you were the right person to talk about this, to share the journey, to share possibilities, and I am so grateful that you are here. ⁣ ⁣ 02:12 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ Well, thank you, thank you, and I think it would be good to, if it's okay with you, to answer your questions and your journey, because I think you went through the whole gamut of from the start out the gate to the journey itself. So the first thing I'd like to add is that surgery is a massive undertaking and, unfortunately, one of the things because you and I have talked before this is that, without stepping on too many toes and being politically correct, it would be wise to figure out why orthognathic surgery is being done. A lot of times people are having their jaws move forward without understanding how the whole concepts work, and a lot of times some things can be done, so a lot and some can be done non-surgically. You just don't know what. You don't know until you know it. So surgery is a end-all, be-all concept and if you have a broken bone, it's a good time to put things together. ⁣ ⁣ 03:20⁣ But the head, the cranium, all these things keep moving all the time. I have a skull here with sutures. I mean this is just the top part, if you will, this is the front. The head you can tell Fred moves a lot too with me. Then this is the part that I work with and this is what I tell everybody, this is what I do right this part and right this part, and then this part. All right, but not as crooked. But what happened is you had your surgery to go ahead and to fix something that might have been fixable without it actually having to have the surgery. So here we go. I'm trying to put it all together for you and showing us us on YouTube. ⁣ ⁣ 04:04 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ We are on YouTube in case anybody wants to watch the video rather than just listen. It is on YouTube. ⁣ ⁣ 04:10 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ Right. So what I'm trying to say basically is that if you approach and saying that you need jaw surgery, please educate yourself more before you go down that rabbit hole, because it makes us a lot harder for us who are coming in behind to work on, to have arch expansion or arch development or airway issues to resolve them, if we're trying to move bone when you have screws tying them in. That's all I'm trying to say. So I interjected very early on. I'm sorry, but that's where I think. If you start off the gate that way and I think, unfortunately your issues, if I may say so, continued and stemmed from the actual surgery. They were trying to do one thing, but you ended up with a lot of other things. So that's where we have to weigh the pros and the cons, right. ⁣ ⁣ 04:59 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Absolutely. ⁣ ⁣ 04:59 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ Very delicate. ⁣ ⁣ 05:00 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Yeah, and it's something that you know. Back in the 80s, when this surgery was done, I was 15 years old. What was known about it? It was pretty much a younger surgery. The surgery itself was hours, the healing process was eight to 10 weeks with a jaw wired shut, and just you know. If this is triggering to anyone, I just want to preface that we're going to go there, that this surgery was not a minor surgery that you're doing in a dental office. I had a doctor that dealt with the face, I had an orthodontist, I had a dentist. It was like this team. And even after the surgery, a year later, I had follow-up surgery and I told myself. I said this has got to be it Like there can't be more than this because it was very traumatic. And this has got to be it Like this, there can't be more than this, because it was very traumatic. And the years following, because I was still growing, there was movement still happening, obviously, right. ⁣ ⁣ 05:55 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ So, and at 15, you're not finished growing. And that's the other thing to girls and boys grow differently. Girls can grow, still continue growing, sometimes up to 18, sometimes maybe even 21. Boys start later, but they can continue growing. I have a friend of my former husband who was continuing to grow tall at 29 plus. So everybody's different, but 15 is very young to do that. ⁣ ⁣ 06:19 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ It was young. It was a decision I had to make. ⁣ ⁣ 06:21 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ We could start a column of pros and cons there, Hihillary, of things that could go really really well and things that we might want to wait because they might cause problems later on, right? ⁣ ⁣ 06:32 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ But this is also something that you have a lot of younger patients and I know that there are moms and dads out there that listen that this might not be for them, specifically someone who's in my age range, but perhaps their child has breathing issues or they are dealing with. You know, I had the malocclusion, I had a protruded lower jaw and it was causing a lot of lockjaw and pain and discomfort and to go to that extreme after braces. I imagine that's not the approach this day and age, because there's more science, there's been more development, so it's also to give parents an understanding of information that they're getting about holistic dentistry and other possibilities before taking that approach with their children even. ⁣ ⁣ 07:19 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ All right, so let's go ahead about and talk. Interject also because you had four premolars extracted correct? ⁣ ⁣ 07:27 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Yes, I think you're talking about the wisdom teeth. No, no, no, oh no. ⁣ ⁣ 07:32 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ The 18 year old molar right. We, in theory, have 32 teeth, all right. Unfortunately, and I'm just so we're. We're going to talk about all the not to do things all right, to put it in quotes for air, quotes for those who are listening there are a lot of things that and I'm not bashing orthodontists, please don't get me wrong, I'm not. I do orthodontics too, so that's not the issue. There's different ways of doing things all right. That's not the issue. There's different ways of doing things All right. One of them and if you, if you read or you know of Western Price, western Price talked about nutrition, about airway, of growing, of growing arches. All right, your head, your neck. So basically we're back to this again All right. ⁣ ⁣ 08:21⁣ And unfortunately, what happens is that when you have the jaw joint like this, all right, this is this is, think of it this way, like this, and then like that, when you translate, okay, what happens? A lot of times? You end up with a jaw disorder or joint disorder if this whole part, this maxilla, this part, is not developed enough and it sounds to me like what you had was an underdeveloped upper arch right. So, unfortunately, a lot of times, people say, oh, this one, they think that this is the normal one. And then this is too far forward, the lower jaw is too far forward, and that's why you end up having all these issues. Let's go ahead and let's take teeth out and bring the jaw back. Well, you've just created a joint problem, a TM joint, temporal mandibular joint problem, because now you shove the joint back, the jaw back. So now you see the cascade of events and this is what I was trying to say the cascade of events, of all the not to do so. First of all, figure out why you need surgery, what has happened, and then all the not to do so. You can't compound a problem with another, causing causative problem that will create another set of problems. ⁣ ⁣ 09:48⁣ So the first thing that you want to do is you want to be able to develop the arches and figure out which one truly is underdeveloped, because nine times out of ten, it's not necessary that the lower jaw is too far forward. Most of the time it's because the upper arch is not developed enough. And so, in order to balance them, conventional orthodontics go ahead and say let's take teeth out to make more room. Well, there's just so much. Think of a garage. This is my favorite analogy that I use. All right, think of a garage and let's say you have a 20 by 20 by 24, four walls that are 20 feet long, right? So it's a square, okay. And you say you're going to make more room and you decide to take four feet off in the length of each side of the garage. Will you have a bigger or a smaller? ⁣ ⁣ 10:45 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ garage. You're not going to have a lot of space for those cars, that's for sure, correct. But you have a smaller garage, right, right, and it's exactly the same thing with the mouth, all right. ⁣ ⁣ 10:55 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ So think too, now that you have on top of that garage, you have another room, all right, which is the nose. The nose, if you will, is a hollow space, all right. But the floor of the nose is the roof of the mouth, which you've just made smaller. What are you doing to the nasal passages? It's the same exact thing. Now you've brought the jaws up and back, you've made the garage or the box smaller. You've made the nasal passages smaller. Now you've brought everything back. What's back here? It's the tube that the airway is. So you start breathing through the nose, and the tube continues from the nose down to the throat. ⁣ ⁣ 11:43 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ And again, I just want to mention to folks if folks are actually listening and they want to see what Dr Stagg is talking about, you can go ahead and find this podcast episode on youtubecom slash Hilary Russo. You'll see all the podcast episodes there to watch as well, if you want to do that. ⁣ ⁣ 11:58 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ So, if you go ahead, when you think about it, this is a person laying down, but this is the best picture that I can have right now to where we need to breathe through our nose. A lot of people breathe through their mouths, but, no matter what, if you lay back and everything closes up, then you have OSA or obstructive sleep apnea. So, basically, what I'm trying to say is the rabbit hole started by, probably, the diagnosis of lack of airway or lack of space, and so that's where it would be important to go ahead and to determine what type of space do you want? Which space are you trying to open up? The nasal passage or the oropharyngeal passageway? An oral mouth? Pharynx is the back, where the throat is. So in your case, it sounds to me like they wanted to go ahead and to move your jaw so that you can have straight teeth, right. ⁣ ⁣ 12:54 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ That was part of it, and also I was getting a lot of pain and jaw aches. So they broke it, set it back and I don't know if I truly remember everything because I was a kid. You know you think you're getting braces, retainers, it's all to straighten your teeth. That's it, day is done, perfect teeth and you're happy. But there were more issues I was dealing with and that is where I am now, 35 years later, where the problems have become the obstructive sleep apnea movement and wondering where does one go next when you have years in between and other issues are now coming up. ⁣ ⁣ 13:32 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ Right. So the rabbit hole you're down at the bottom of the rabbit hole, right? Okay? So we're not going to cry over spilt milk, because it is what it is, it's done. But now you're aware that there are issues that you have to deal with. Okay, so then the goal is to figure out how we can get you out of the rabbit hole by reverse engineering what has occurred. So, basically, now you're going to address your airway, you're going to address your jaw joints, you're going to address your bite and you're going to address your nasal passages both going to address your nasal passages, both upper and lower. That's the airway, all, right. So this is where you mentioned that you were talking with um sleep doctors. Okay, that's one part of the orchestra. If you will, all right, then you're going to talk with dentists. That's the other part of the team, if you will, the orchestra. ⁣ ⁣ 14:22⁣ I like to say that patients are the music. You either have harmony or cac. Say that patients are the music. You either have harmony or cacophony. It's a French term. You either have chaos or you have health, right. So the whole idea now is to figure out who's going to be in charge of trying to figure out what's wrong, what happened where you are now, because we can't reverse engineer everything to. If you have screws in there, per se, all right, but the whole idea is to figure out what can we do to either see what we can ameliorate or make better and or stop from getting worse. So that's the interesting part is that's where you really need to figure out where you are now. ⁣ ⁣ 15:02⁣ If you do have an airway issue, to what intensity is the airway issue an issue? Those of you who do not know anything about sleep apnea we have either a sleep test, a home sleep test, to where you can take a little apparatus. Home Dentists, we're not allowed to diagnose sleep apnea, but we can treat it with oral appliances. So mild to moderate sleep apnea we can treat with an oral appliance. Severe sleep apnea is supposed to be treated. Standard of the gold, standard of care is with a CPAP machine, which stands for continuous positive air pressure. It's like a reverse blow dryer mower back up your nose or your mouth, right. So if you consider that you have an issue, then we need to figure out what your index or your indices are. So, again, a lot of this is on my website, healthconnectionsdentistrycom, where you can read up on the sleep screenings. Again, we cannot diagnose sleep apnea, but we can treat it with an oral appliance. ⁣ ⁣ 16:07⁣ Mild to moderate sleep apnea, usually at normal. Zero to five. Your indices are normal. Five to 15, it's mild sleep apnea, 15 to 30, it's moderate and over 30 is severe. Now, those are just the standard of care, the norms and the indices and who cares right. All you really need, as a patient, to know is whether I can breathe or not. Please, let me breathe or not. Let me help me breathe. So if you go ahead and you consider them, that's why you can have a home sleep test and we do home sleep test, because it helps me figure out as a dentist, because I can treat a functional breathing disorder that is in my wheelhouse. But I cannot treat sleep apnea without it being diagnosed by a physician. So if you have officially been diagnosed as you have Hilary with by a physician for sleep apnea, then that's where, too, you need to find yourself a doctor, dentist, who is versed in this type of care. So then you need to figure out where you're going to go from there. ⁣ ⁣ 17:18 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ And I think that's the thing, and I've talked to other people and I know folks are tuning into this episode of HIListically Speaking with Dr Claire Stagg. Just to remind you, we will put that information on the website. We will put everything about the healthconnectionscom dentistry. Also her book that we're going to talk about that just came out. That's doing very well. And the questions I've been hearing from some who have been in these forums are are you know if you've been diagnosed with moderate sleep apnea? Like myself, I've also been through this traumatic TMJ surgery. I'm 35 years in. I know there are little plates in my mouth from the initial surgery and I've been given a referral to see an ENT, a referral to see a pulmonologist, a referral to see a speech pathologist. But then there's the airway side and then there's go find a dentist and it can be very overwhelming, like where to go first right. ⁣ ⁣ 18:12⁣ And I think that's the similar question I hear from folks. ⁣ ⁣ 18:15 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ Where do I go first? Right, and that's where I said the orchestra, all right. So I like to think that a doctor like myself, a dentist, who sees the medical side as well as the oral dental side, we and I liken it to the conductor of the orchestra the orchestra, the parts, the wind, the pipes, the drums, the bass, the, whatever the strings, whatever, all the different parts, if you will are all the different doctors, if you will, who are doctors, if you will, who are going to partake in making music. The patient is the one who is the music, and you either are going to have that harmony where everything just falls into place and that everything works well and you're healthy, all right or you have everybody throw something at the wall and expecting something to stick right. That's putting it pump up politely. So the goal is to get the bullseye the first time if you fail to plan to plan to fail, right, right. And so the goal now is someone like myself and we we talked about this is we got to figure out where you are exactly in this point in time. It didn't really matter so much anymore now, because you've had that surgery and that changes and has changed you forever. But where are you now? What are the building blocks that we can use now to move forward? Interject here for the parents and for those who are asking yeah, but this doesn't pertain to me. Well, we can work with children With the AFT systems. ⁣ ⁣ 19:50⁣ Dr Nordstrom has come up with systems to work with neonates. You can do the tie releases. You can start as from the newborns on. The whole idea is to breathe properly. Once you breathe properly, as in, you have proper tongue position and then you have proper nasal breathing, then you set yourself up for success, right. ⁣ ⁣ 20:10⁣ Unfortunately, with a modern diet and with the way that things are going nowadays, unfortunately things retract a lot and you don't have that room and you end up with disorders and you went through what you went through. Okay, so if we go ahead and we have that conductor I circled back now to the music all right, if you go ahead and you have a team, somebody's got to know what the right hand's doing. Somebody has to know what the left hand's doing, but together we make sure that we're all on board with the same ultimate goal, which would be to get you to breathe again properly. What I heard you say is that you went to see an ENT and they have their own wheelhouse, they have their own tools, they have their own tests, they have their own. We got to do this. This is it, this is my way, or the highway right I? ⁣ ⁣ 21:01 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ haven't actually gone to the ENT yet. I have a referral right because I'm like I want to go the right route before somebody starts telling me oh, you need this, this and this. I did consult with one dentist who said you need a CPAP, and I'm like you don't even know what you're talking about. ⁣ ⁣ 21:17 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ That's the weekend course. ⁣ ⁣ 21:20 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Right, that's the oh, I heard sleep apnea. I'm not a sleep dentist, I don't even deal with this stuff, but I've heard this is the best route to go. I don't want to hear, I've heard. I want to know what is good for me, because it's bio individuality. This is what I've been through. So I'm in this place. Where do I go to the ENT first? Do I go to the pulmonologist first? Do I go to a dentist who deals with, who is specializes in airway and TMJ? You know that's and sleep apnea, which obviously falls under that. ⁣ ⁣ 21:52 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ So one of the things you need to be aware of is the American Dental Association does not recognize these as specialties, unfortunately. I think that will change my practice. I have an emphasis in treating sleep apnea, tmj disorders, head, neck, facial pain. So that is one thing that you can be aware of. The second thing is a lot of us who do this have had many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many hours of extra training. It's just not a weekend course. ⁣ ⁣ 22:26⁣ I mean, I've been doing this for nearly 20 plus years to this intensity and it's a process I keep learning. I mean, I'm still going through a residency for pediatrics right now and it's a lot that I know, but now I'm learning to fine tune and I'm going. I can deep dive a little bit more for certain things that I have been able to do, because it's same old, same old. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, as we say in French. The more it changes, the more it's the same. So there's a lot of different things but, like you said, I like that bio individuality. So everybody's different but everybody's the same. It's just you can't use one cookie cutter technique, but we're all humans and that's where it's all connected. ⁣ ⁣ 23:10⁣ So we're circling back to how it's all connected. And if you have somebody who understands how it's all connected, that's when they could guide the ENT to say hey, you know what? This is what I suspect I use the word very underlined, bold caps suspect. I suspect, for example, she has a nasal valve collapse. I suspect, for example, she has a deviated septum. I suspect she has sinus issues. I suspect that she has pharyngeal obstruction. Could you please verify for me? Could there be upper airway resistance syndrome? I suspect that she may be having obstructive events. You might even have central apneic events, we don't know. So that's where you get somebody who understands as a dentist. All right, cause we're the best ones, and this is what floors me and I'm just going to put something for hooah, hooah for my team, my team, all right, this is what we do all day long. We're in the mouth. We see this stuff day in, day out. ⁣ ⁣ 24:17⁣ What bothers me is that they don't train dentists nowadays to read the signs of obstructive C-papnea and or airway disorders. That's going to change. That's all in the book, by the way. Every single sign you could think of is in the book. But I think that's what needs to be changed. It should be common sense that it's not drill, fill and build, it's actually determine what you see, that it's not normal. ⁣ ⁣ 24:43⁣ So I would hear patients tell me entire lives they've had these tore eyes. They look like little mushrooms at the bottom of their jaws or one on the roof of their mouth, on their palate. Or my dentist told me that was normal. No normal for whom? All right, I digress. So, anyhow, what happens is if you have a team conductor, then the dentist who understands this, who is more versed in this knowledge, can go ahead and say okay, then this ENT, could you please help me accomplish X, y, z. If you have a sleep doctor, all right. You don't want to get lost in the rabbit hole of medicine, right, because that's the other thing too. You can very easily get lost in that rabbit hole, all right. ⁣ ⁣ 25:29⁣ So, you want to stay with those of us, because your mouth, your head, your neck is this, is our wheelhouse. Ent is air, nose and throat. All right, sleep. They're the physicians. They're the ones that are going to. Yes, they prescribe the CPAP. Yes, they're the ones that are going to diagnose it. But at the end of the day it they're the ones they're going to diagnose it, but we're at the end of the day, it's still the dentist that's going to do the appliance for you. ⁣ ⁣ 25:50⁣ one way or the other, it's going to be something in your mouth right right and I prefer to go that route it bugs me that now you have physicians who are doing oral appliances. It's like, okay, you won't let us diagnose something that we deal with, okay, yes, yes, there's the medical, the physical aspect, the insurance part, blah, blah, blah, blah, of sleep apnea. Yes, there's a lot of pathophysiology that needs to be dealt with by a physician. Get that, get that, but don't go make an oral appliance for my patient. You don't know what you're dealing with, you don't know how to make it, you don't know what position to do it and you certainly don't know how to put it into the way they breathe better, and you don't know how to check it and you don't know where you're putting that jaw joint. So, yeah, that that kind of bugs me a lot. ⁣ ⁣ 26:33 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Sorry, I think that's part of the reason why now share. This is an open space. If you want to drop an F bomb, you can. I don't mind. ⁣ ⁣ 26:41 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ I can say it in French, but I could say it in French. ⁣ ⁣ 26:49 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Yes, right, you can French your way out of this. So I, my thing is and I've thought this, but from talking to you, from talking to others in the field that even though I've been given referrals, I've been holding off on filling those referrals because I'm like I think that's just a doctor telling me this is what's normal and this is how we normally protocol this. My gut tells me that it's somebody who deals with this face all the time and that moves into the next things like how do you find that sleep dentist? How do you find a dentist who is experienced or emphasizes work in that area and know that you're getting someone who's good and isn't just going to say, hey, we're going to, we'll get you fixed up with an orthodontist and now you're going to get a palate expander or now we're going to do the surgery over? Because that's a fear that I've run into as well as one that I have on my own. ⁣ ⁣ 27:43 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ Right, I wouldn't go there yet if I were you. Okay, just stop Whenever you hear surgery again, just let's think this over, all right. So let me give you some of my feedback too. Right, there was a sleep course, all right, and I thought, okay, cool, I'll go ahead and I'll go, I'll support the symptom. Nobody's talking about causes, and that bugs me to high end. And there was a children's neurologist in a very, very prestigious hospital Boston I think it is who said yes, said yes, I mean it's all fine and good. Because they said, oh, don't worry about it, you know. And then she said no, no, no, I think she has a point. ⁣ ⁣ 28:34⁣ Yes, so the thing that is that, all right, if you go ahead, you think about all the systems that are shut down because you can't breathe. Right, the order appliance isn't going to fix it, the c-pap is definitely not going to fix it, because what's going to happen is the body's going to acclimatize or get used to that level of band-aiding. And then it's like okay, you know what it is, the little dutch boy with his finger came to mind with a dab. So you put one finger here and then you put one finger here, and then you put one finger here and then you put one finger here and you put one finger and then you're not gonna have enough fingers or toes and then the dam's gonna break. And it's exactly the same concept, because if you go ahead and you the the concept of an oral appliance okay to come back again and I'm showing the picture to mount moderate c, pap. Yeah, it's called a mandibular advancement device, or MAD for short, right, okay, well, what does that do? It brings the lower jaw forward. Why? Because the tongue is attached to the front of the lower jaw. So you bring the lower jaw forward. All right, so that's the mandibular advancement device. Well, how far are you going to be able to break the jaw out of socket? Eventually? No, because if you don't address the root cause, you're going to have inflammation. ⁣ ⁣ 29:55⁣ So that airway that's already restricted, be it because of diet, because of environment, because of whatever. You have large tonsils which are supposed to be there as buckets to hold whatever pathogens or whatever bugs that are in the air or that you're eating, or whatever. They're the engines that are holding the foot down, if you will, the soles, whichever. They're the ones that protect you so things don't go to your lungs, but eventually they get overwhelmed, and that's when your airway is so closed up by these massive tonsils. And then again let's take them out. Surgery to remove tonsils. All right, did that too? All right. ⁣ ⁣ 30:34⁣ So I know I'm jumping everywhere right now, but I'm trying to go by the anatomy. If you'll follow, there's a process to my reasoning here. So the dentist will say say okay, let's do a manageable advancement device for mild to moderate sleep apnea, but that's not treating the root cause. All right. The sleep doctor will say you need a CPAP because it's severe sleep apnea. But that's not also treating the root cause. ⁣ ⁣ 31:05⁣ Because somewhere along the line, if you don't have a nasal what we could call a patent nasal passage or passageway to get air through your nose, all right then. And or if you're doing a CPAP to push air down your mouth which you should be breathing in your mouth anyhow then you're still not getting the air, the quality of air you need. As a sidekick, just so you know, when you breathe through your nose, you actually develop nitric oxide. It's a gas, all right that you develop. You create it. As a human, we create nitric oxide in our sinuses. When you don't nose breathe, you're not getting your nitric oxide, which means that your vessels are getting hotter faster, you age faster. All right, none of that's going to happen with a CPAP and none of that's going to happen with the appliance, because three months down the road there's just so much that you could advancement that you can do. There's just so much titration with a level of pressurization with a CPAP that you can do, and eventually you're back to square one. ⁣ ⁣ 32:10⁣ Okay, well then now let's do orthognathic surgery to bring your jaws forward. And then that's when you have another issue, because now you're locked in. So let's tie back that in. With the anatomy, remember I showed you, and for those of you who can't see, the skull is not fixed. There's lots and lots and lots and lots of little sutures. That's why I was saying there's dozens and dozens and dozens of bones, but they're all connected, and the cranium, the housing of the cranium, but there's lots of them underneath, all right, under the skull, all right. So what happens is all these bones actually pulse. That's called the cranial sacral rhythm. All right, that's where cranial sacral therapy would be really good. That's where you unfortunately have issues because you have screws holding your face. Your facial plates are held together, right, so we're trying to go through all the systems and the scenarios here. ⁣ ⁣ 33:08⁣ An ideal person who hasn't had surgery can have all these little bones changed. Because they're not fused together. They are not fused together. They are not fused together. What did you hear me say? They're not fused together, they are not fused together. So if anybody says that you cannot expand your palate because you're over nine run, it's not true. I expanded, I've done an arch expansion on an 83 year old all right. ⁣ ⁣ 33:41 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ I actually had a conversation with a dentist who told me that women they're finding and tell me if what your thought is on this the palate of a woman actually is able to expand for much longer than we originally thought years wise like it, and maybe I'm saying this wrong, but she even had a palate expander in the top and she's in her 50s. So I'm curious, I mean, is that an approach to try? So can I guy it's a human period. Anyone can. Anyone. Okay. ⁣ ⁣ 34:11 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ A human can have. Now I don't know if there's going to be a sex differentiation for the progression of the of the treatment. The treatment I don't know, but any human can have their arches expanded, short of having a disorder of one sort or the other, but in general you can have the arches expanding because the bones are not fused. Right, it's not here, it's here. Let's talk about why you can develop a palatal expansion and growth. All right, this is a totally misunderstood concept. All right, remember we talked about the roof of the mouth is the floor of the nose, and this is magnetic. So bear with me, that's why it was all all catawanka earlier on. So in here you have what we call the nasal passages and you have a thing called turbinates, right? So if you look at it, there's little windmills in here. So you have anterior, middle and posterior nasal passages too, and here you have what we call the sinus, the maxillary sinuses. Here you have the frontal sinuses, all right, okay. ⁣ ⁣ 35:14⁣ So how arch expansion works? And this is why you do slow. Slow is good what you do. Remember this is magnetic, so it might be a little hard for me to do. You go ahead, you do a little bit. All right, you do a little bit and then you wait, then that goes ahead and creates bone. Then you do a little bit, then it creates bone, you do a little bit and it creates bone and so, slowly but surely, you've created the arch that is wider, because it happens in the middle. All right, if you go too fast, what happens is you end up having extrusion of the teeth, or the flaring of the teeth and or what we call the buckle plate perforations, which is what the orthodontist freaked out about. You're going to flare out the teeth because you're going too fast. ⁣ ⁣ 36:07 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Well, how long does something like that take normally? What is that process? ⁣ ⁣ 36:11 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ They do what the orthodontist usually do, what they call rapid palatal expansion. Slow is the best thing. Do a little bit grow bone. Do a little bit grow bone. Do a little bit grow bone. Do a little bit grow bone. Guess what happens, unless you have a septal spur which acts like a handcuff to hold that nasal passage, that septum tied up to another bone on the side. If you don't have a septal spur, that deviated septum just lines right down. That's what happened with me and I was in my fifties I was over 55 when I did mine. If you go ahead and you do slowly, you can expand an arch. Now there's a school out there that says let's do it in a month and then we wait six months. I'd say okay. That to me sounds so wrong and this is my humble opinion, for each time I'm giving you anything. These are my humble opinions and what I've learned and what I've read and my interpretation of everything. ⁣ ⁣ 37:13⁣ Okay, of course, but if you're going to go ahead and you're going to go like zip and then wait, go ahead and you're going to go like zip and then wait, all right. The big fallacy with that is you zipped and you waited six months and that space, in theory, is supposed to grow bone. Uh-uh, it fills up with collagen. That is why, when you go too fast and kids or whom on whom, no matter what age, if you go too fast, you end up with a ton of relapse. So, slow, a little bit grow bone, a little bit grow bone, a little bit grow bone, a little bit grow bone. ⁣ ⁣ 37:49 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Now you have success now, this is just one approach. Right, the palette expansion is just one approach okay, that's the transverse approach. ⁣ ⁣ 37:58 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ So if you're doing this in 3d, you have to think your garage right, because you have width, you have depth and then you have length. Well, it's the same thing. This is the width. The transverse effect is the width. All right, now we have the sagittal aspect, which is from the side, so that's where two to for example, if I'm not mistaken that your issues came from, is that if you look at my profile and they said that this part of you was there, but this part of you was too far forward, so I'm going to exaggerate now, like that, right? ⁣ ⁣ 38:36 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ That's exactly what it was like, right. ⁣ ⁣ 38:38 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ It wasn't that this was too far forward. It can be, but in reality it's that this was underdeveloped. So that's the side view, or the sagittal view. Nine times out of 10, if you have an airway issue, it's because you're overclosed, and then you need height, and that's when we can go ahead and do height. Interestingly enough, oral appliances the same one that they advocate to go ahead and do the mandible advancement devices the same thing. There's two things that they do. When they're doing a sleep appliance, what are they? Protraction vertical, but they're doing the protraction with the lower jaw only and vertical. They're putting the special amount of vertical or the height into the appliances. ⁣ ⁣ 39:27 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Acrylic Now there's a lot of information that we're sharing with folks. I'm taking in a lot of information. I do want to mention real quick that Dr Stack has a new book that just came out, called Smile. It's all connected whole health through balance. I'm going to put a link on there in the podcast notes, rather to grab that book, because this is really something that was written for the everyday person to understand. It's not like reading a medical guide or anything like that. ⁣ ⁣ 39:56⁣ You will be able to go to an upset or an issue that you might be confronted with, learn more about it because, as we were saying before, what gets measured gets managed. But also we have to be our own healthcare advocates and then find the right kind of people to support you, because obviously you can't fix the problem yourself, but you can support yourself in that. And also I know you have a children's book and that's Captain IFBI. I in that. And also I know you have a children's book and that's Captain IFBI. I love that Right encouraging good oral hygiene habits, which, by the way, that ties in with the download that you're offering as well, which is the dental protocol checklist, and I love that. We're going to put all that in the podcast notes so that folks that are tuning in or if they're watching on YouTube because you know you're showing us some fun stuff on visual they'll have the option to either listen to this anywhere we have podcasts and also on YouTube. ⁣ ⁣ 40:46⁣ But, on that note, if you feel that this podcast episode with Dr Claire Staggs inspiring you anyway, touches you anyway, if you know anyone who might be confronted with any of these upsets whether it's sleep apnea, whether it is TMJ or any kind of upset that you might be dealing with, the dental side of your life, or even breathing this is something you can pass along to somebody, share it, let them have the knowledge and make a decision where they want to go next, because we definitely are sharing some really good information here and I really appreciate it. ⁣ ⁣ 41:18⁣ Dr Sags, I know we're talking a lot about my upset, but I know there are other people out there that are dealing with the sleep issues, the sleep apnea, the breathing, the grinding, the bruxing, and wanting to change the holistic approach to dentistry. You're just a normal person, sweetie. I'm just like everybody else. I know I am, and it's one of the reasons why I do this show, because many of the things that I'm facing or have seen with clients is something I want to talk about so that I can make this a vessel for others to get answers or at least find something that they could take away from this and hopefully make a choice that helps them become a happy and healthy grownup, you know. ⁣ ⁣ 42:03 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ So let's talk about the book. This book was written. It's taken me 10 years to get it out here. All right, this book was written for the average lay person. It's a conversation from one mom to all the other moms who have asked me questions. ⁣ ⁣ 42:21⁣ All these years I've been practicing. I graduated in 1982. So I've been at this for a long time. I came to this country in 87. So I was not of American training per se, so I have had different training. I'm also very outside the box thinker and I like to ask why? So why do you want me to do it this way? Give me a reason why I should do it that way. ⁣ ⁣ 42:47⁣ So the whole idea was to understand that, yes, why are these patients getting better? Why is there cacophony? Why is there not harmony? Why do they have all these issues all the time that they haven't had resolution for and that I have not been able to finger point. That's when I went down my training what's going on? What's going on, what's going on. ⁣ ⁣ 43:10⁣ So the book's goal is to go ahead and to change the demand. Because my what? To educate the demand, if you will, because the more people are educated in this is the more they'll understand what's actually going on. It's for you to be your own advocate in your own choices. Just like Hilary at 15 did not know any better or any know what to do or not not to do, her mom or parents didn't know, because they followed their, the advice of their physicians, which is okay, don't get me wrong. You know, but why don't you find out? If you go ahead and you're playing a game of poker, wouldn't it be nice to know your hand instead of playing blind? You know what I mean. ⁣ ⁣ 43:58⁣ So this, this book, has the entire deck in it. This is what I'm trying to say. It's written with you for everything, everything that Hilary and I have talked about, and I think one if you have the book, you will see anything about airway, you'll see about joints, you'll see about teeth, you'll see about muscles, you'll see about nerves, how it used to be, how it is and what the connections are structural, chemical, mechanical, functional, emotional, spiritual, because we're all one. And then in the future, where I think dentistry should and could be. But I think and I know that if we change the demand, the supply will have to change, because the more the moms and the dads and all of us understand how this is connected. They're going to have to teach doctors how to connect the dots too. So that was the goal of this book is to change the way dentistry is perceived and experienced in the world and then change the world for a healthier, better place people to be healthy so they don't have to suffer like a Hilary. ⁣ ⁣ 45:04 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Yeah, I so needed. I wish my parents had this back in the 80s when I had this surgery, even though it was different back then. We've progressed, we've gotten better, we're more knowledgeable, we have more tools available to us and science and approaches, but it's here now and if my what is the saying? Someday your story can be somebody else's survival guide. I use that one a lot. I know that's Brene Brown. ⁣ ⁣ 45:26 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ That's a good one, yeah. ⁣ ⁣ 45:27 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Yeah, and I'm hoping that this next stage of my own journey is much less invasive and more productive. It's finding ways. So having conversations with doctors like yourself, people who practice more of a holistic and whole body approach and aren't really running right to surgeries and appliances and everything that might not be the best plan, you know. It's constructing the plan building the house and realizing what size garage is really going to fit and what kind of cars do you have for that garage. ⁣ ⁣ 46:03 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ Right, because there's different appliances too, so there's different arrows in your quiver, because you want to shoot for the bullseye every time, right, and that's that's where I did all that additional training. It's like, okay, okay, so we have a joint issue. Well, well, let's deal with a joint, but then you can't disconnect the tongue and the space that the tongue holds. And then, okay, so now I do tie releases. So, and not everybody's going to practice the way that I practice this. ⁣ ⁣ 46:33⁣ This is my passion, though, and you talked about your survival journey. My daughter fell and hit her chin when she was three and a half, and that's where she hit her chin, which automatically put her jaw joints up and back, got her disc displaced. So here I am searching for answers back in 2003, 2004. And that's where I ended up. So, yes, I was doing the chemical aspect, where we were mercury free, we were doing all the nutrition, everything. But then it's like, how do I fix my child, how do I get her to not be in pain too? And so that's where it's like, okay, let's do this, let's figure out how we can make this happen. And so that was my journey to go ahead and to put that together for all the other parents who would have these questions. ⁣ ⁣ 47:22 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Yeah, and interestingly enough, here you are, a dentist, being confronted with something that you think, oh, I have the answers because I'm a dentist At least it happened to a dentist's daughter and you're looking for the approaches that are going to help her heal and live her best life the best way possible. ⁣ ⁣ 47:39 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ So you know, it makes me laugh too. I guess I'm getting very spicy today. I like spicy, dr Staggs Very spicy. So I remember I had this 83,. He's 90-something now, but he was clearly apneic. I mean his lips were blue, all right, his he had no airway, really, really bad. And so I told, I told him you know why don't you do a sleep screening? No, no, no, my doctor blah, blah, blah. So I went ahead and I said okay, ask your doctor to go ahead and send you to lab and have a sleep test. So he goes ahead and he tells his physician that and his physician says what does she know? She's just a dentist, yeah. ⁣ ⁣ 48:29 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Aye, aye, aye, aye, aye. I wish we could all just get along and work together. So anyhow, that's my two cents again. ⁣ ⁣ 48:38 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ So don't read a book by its cover and look for somebody who understands how it's all connected and there's going to be more of us. There are more of us, it's just you don't know where to find them. ⁣ ⁣ 48:49 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ So what I want to do real quick in closing, I usually do a game with all of my guests, and what I've been doing is I pull you're going to have a little fun and what I've been doing is I pull you're going to have a little fun. This is what we do here. Not everything's so serious. I'm going to throw out a word, something you said today, and I want you to come back with the first word that comes to mind. Just a quick word association game. ⁣ ⁣ 49:08⁣ I already want to say happy. Say happy as much as you want. But if I say the word holistic, what's the first word that comes to mind? Body, jaw, oh God, pain, palate, growth, airway, life, dentist, happy. ⁣ ⁣ 49:28 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ Smile, beautiful Happy. ⁣ ⁣ 49:30 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ Beautiful. Love that. I love that you focus on the word happy. Just be your own healthcare advocate. You know we don't, we don't have to throw out a name. There are a number of things out there that are good and there are a number of things out there that are not so good, and you have to be your own healthcare advocate to make that choice. ⁣ ⁣ 49:47 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ And things can work different strokes for different folks. I mean it could be the best thing, anything could be the best thing for anybody. It's just that sometimes, when you don't know any different, you wish that had you known, had I known. Had I known, had I known I wouldn't have done it this way that's kind of where I am. ⁣ ⁣ 50:06 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ I wish I knew at 15. So I'm hoping that what you shared, I know we'll have more conversations because I'm on a route where I'm going to be looking for approaches uh, because unfortunately we're not in the same area, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't hop a flight to come down to Florida, by the way, no, you still can. I can, I can, but I'm gonna. I know you have a tight schedule, a lot of people to talk to, everybody is. You're in high demand, dr Stagg, and for good reason, and I'm just so grateful to have you here. ⁣ ⁣ 50:35 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ I am eternally grateful to you interviewers, because you have platforms that you can spread the word to the world, because you're the ones, basically, that are going to change. I'm just, I'm just flotsam on the ripple of the of the thing you know. I'm just like, hey, go this way, go this way, go this way. ⁣ ⁣ 50:55 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ We're all in it together as you said, it's all connected, we're all connected. So if we can do anything to help others, that's what we're here for and I'm just so grateful for you. Thank you so much. Thank you too. ⁣ ⁣ 51:06 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ And thank you for having me. And so, on a one little note, I was like this is my last little saying in the book, which has lots of little life lessons. My one is that you're not a drop in the ocean, you're the entire ocean in a drop. So blessings, Hilhillary, I love you. Thank you so much. ⁣ ⁣ 51:24 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ I love you too. Thank you for being part of the ripple. ⁣ ⁣ 51:28 - Dr. Claire Stagg (Guest)⁣ Thank you. ⁣ ⁣ 51:29 - Hilary Russo (Host)⁣ I know we unpacked a lot, I know there's a lot going on here with Dr Stagg, but for good reason and we are not done. Next, I want you to grab a copy of Dr Stagg's book Smile it's all connected whole health through balance, plus her children's book that she has Captain IFBI, as well as her checklist to download for daily dental protocol. All of this is in the podcast notes and, if anything resonated with you that we shared here on the show, if you were touched, moved and inspired by our conversation, if you have more questions, dr Stagg is actually holding a Q&A online on Wednesday, july 17th, at 7 pm Eastern time. It's a really great chance to connect with her again, maybe follow up on some of the things we talked about, or if you have your own questions, and get to the root of your dental journey no pun intended with that one and you can get some more knowledge, because knowledge is power. Right, what gets measured gets managed. So be your own healthcare advocate. ⁣ ⁣ 52:30⁣ First, and you know I share a lot about my havening journey, how it has been a big part of my chronic pain. My TMJ and I want to offer you the opportunity to try Havening and see if it works for you. This is a really wonderful way to overcome fears. If you have a fear of going to the dentist or the doctor or even managing chronic pain, or maybe you just wanted to self-soothe, to self-regulate, for daily self-care, it's a wonderful tool to put in your toolbox and I'd be happy to have a conversation with you and see if it's right for you. A link to connect with me is also in the podcast notes. ⁣ ⁣ 53:07⁣ HIListically Speaking is edited by 2MarketMedia with music by Lipo Redding, and I know you tune in week after week because you want answers, you want to find ways to be a happy and healthy grownup, and I'm here for you and I just want you to know that those traumas that you're turning into triumphs, they're happening, they're in motion and I am proud of you. I believe in you, I love you and I will see you soon. Be well. ⁣