E118 Heal your trauma through tapping with Melanie Yates EFT Neuro Coach | Trauma Healing Coach

Hey! What's up, Unbroken Nation! Hope that you're doing well, wherever you are in the world. Super excited to be back with you today for another episode with my guest Melanie Yates, who's a certified neuro coach, and best-selling author who specializes in addiction, PTSD, suicidal thoughts and divorce. This is going to be an absolutely incredible episode. Melanie, my friend, how are you today? What is going on in your world?

Melanie: Wow! Thank you. What a pleasure it is to be here. I'm just willing to help anyone who wants to listen, to heal from their past and I just appreciate everything that you stand for on this podcast. It just makes me happy that the world has a place to hear their story and to have tools.

Michael: Well, I'm super excited to have you here, and thank you for that. You know, what is my mission to in generational trauma in my lifetime, and I believe that we do that through education, through conversation, through talking, about the stuff, people are terrified to talk about because you cannot heal what you do not reveal. Melanie before we get started, we dive in can you tell us a little bit about your experience in your journey and what brought you to where you are today?

Melanie: Sure, I was in pain like what usually leads me to change is pain, right? So I was in a place where I was using alcohol and food and work as a way to escape what was really going on and you mentioned earlier, we have to acknowledge our pain or what's really going on with us, and I just in no way was going to do that and so I just pushed everything down and pretend I was fine. And I even think I fooled a lot of people, I kind of had that gift of being a chameleon, and just being who you wanted me to be, and it took its toll, and eventually I would just find myself if I was alone driving in my car home, I would start crying and I felt this deep despair, and it just caught up to me because I really believe that feelings end up going somewhere. We can't just keep pushing them down, they do catch up to us.

So I got it coach and she changed my life and this was after trying, the regular ways of trying to get rid of something, like therapy and acupuncture, and meditation, and yoga, I used all kinds of different searching self-help, listening to podcast, going to retreats, I was searching, searching, searching and I finally found a coach that introduced me to EFT tapping and at first, I really thought it was some kind of weird energy thing and I almost I even thought that it was against my religion. Yeah, and I really had to have a, let go of these close-minded beliefs that I had these false beliefs about what was really going on and I was hurting so bad, I was in so much pain, I actually was willing to try something different because I really had nowhere else to go.

Michael: Yeah. When I say that, I get that I definitely do. You know what's fascinating, I was on a plane from Portland to Thailand, and I actually was sitting next to a tapping expert, and we have this really interesting conversation about it. For those who don't know, and there are so many layers of this, we're going to dive into, I'm super excited about this. What is tapping? Let's create some context for people who are like, what is that?

Melanie: So there's so many definitions of what it is, but I'm just going to speak what I think is the easiest way to understand.

Tapping is a way to shift energy in our body, and you've discovered this and it's been on this podcast of how things get stuck inside of our body, and emotion gets stuck inside of our body and that trauma, and past events, and fear, gets stuck in our body, and its unconscious and then we as human beings we don't really want to go around telling everybody our problems or our past. And so we kind of, we try to hide it and these emotions actually get stuck energetically inside of our body, and so tapping helps shift the energy and so that there's more flow in our bodies and then it also calms down the central nervous system. So we're actually able to think more clearly and has been my favorite part of it because when I'm stressed, I'm using the back of my brain stem and that's the part where it's the fight or flight or freeze, right? And I was having so much trouble, knowing what the next step was to do, I even have ATD and that can also cause me to my mind, just shuts down when I feel an intense emotion, my brain stops, it literally just won't work. And so tapping has been this great healing for not only past events for me, but it actually helps my brain think better, and I'm able to solve problems, because I'm relaxed enough to let the right left side hemispheres of my brain, actually do what they're supposed to do.

Michael: What's the kind of practical usage? So for someone listening right now, and they're like, okay, I kind of understand the concept, but what does it really mean? How do we go a little bit deeper into this? Like, can you give us an example of how one would apply this to their life?

Melanie: Sure. So let's just say I wake up in the morning and I start feeling a little anxious about all the things that I need to do. You know, maybe the kitchen is still a mess from last night or I have all this appointment and how am I going to make it to that? And pick my kid up from school and have dinner ready by tonight? So right off the bat, our brain can start running like on that little hamster wheel and kind of get ahead of ourselves instead of being in the moment. And so I think all you have to do is kind of acknowledge, what is my brain telling me right now? And a lot of times, are brains lie to us. So my brain says, there's too much to do. I don't have enough time is soon as I can kind of feel that? Usually, I feel it in my body, I kind of feel it in my stomach, feels tight or almost nauseous and I can even feel it in my neck, I'll store my tension in my neck. And so it's like as soon as I wake up, I can kind of feel these muscles starting to get tight and I acknowledge. ‘Hey, there's something going on. I need to acknowledge. I need to honor my body and my feelings, they're trying to tell me something, they're giving me a signal.’

We run around as Americans with our heads cut off going from place to place to place to place and so what we need more of is that kind of the pause – button. The stop, pause, what is actually going on? Can I slow down enough to actually connect with there's something not quite right here? I'm feeling tense, and that makes us not be in the here and now it keeps us going forward. So the first step is actually acknowledging, there's something here, that could be better and we talk about mindset, right? So it's just mindset, that is driven by it, my mind fear or unbroken. You know, when we say think unbroken, we naturally go to a broken way of thinking and so we have agency to actually choose if we want to go the broken way or the Unbroken way. And I love that because it gives us an opportunity to be empowered that even though these events are happening, are even though in this moment, I'm feeling a certain way, I can acknowledge that and still be open to healing. So that's what I think the typical day of just, I still use it, I still I did this morning, I use it on a daily basis to track my emotions and I think a lot of us are shut down, so we may have traumas from the past that helped us just as a survival tactic, we have pushed down these emotions. And so this is an opportunity to kind of get connected again with what is our brain actually telling us because it does come from those thoughts, and then the feeling, and then the behavior, and so it really is in that order. So it's like okay, can I stop and pause, and what actually is my thinking telling me and how can I choose a more healing, a more calm, loving approach to my thinking, and this kind of, I call it fault thinking, it's like everything's negative. I'm just looking for what can go wrong and so that's the deeper part of like actually acknowledging where is my brain right now? Am I in fear? Am I in the broken part of my brain? Or I can choose this other side of things, there's always two sides to everything.

Michael: Yeah, such a valid point in. You know, I look at fear and I look at pain, I look at suffering, or look at these things, I go. These things are they can catapult us or they can hinder us and I think it's all about perception as wild as that sounds and as even far-fetched as it may sound and trust me when I say I'm a proponent of understanding how far-fetched that can be at times. There is a tremendous amount of value that can be had and looking at your life from a different perspective. One of the things you mentioned earlier that I really want to go deeper into because I think it's practical and I don't want people to miss it in this conversation is that you said, pain makes us pay attention, dive into that, because I really want to know what your thought process is around that and how we can leverage our pain to pay more attention to our lives.

Melanie: Absolutely! So I'm just going to be real honest and vulnerable right now. I am going through some really big changes. I'm retiring from working at the hospital to pursue full-time, my business as a speaker and author, and there is fear there and there's this natural state of thinking that tells me it's the end of the world or it tells me I'm not good enough and this is fear I don't really think it goes away, I think this is an ongoing journey of building this, beautiful relationship with ourselves. And for me, a God of my understanding, and so, I really believe that we need a higher power to help us with this because left to my own thinking, I have a really hard time and so believing that a power greater than myself, instead of going to fear going to faith, you can't see either one. And so I know what I feel like when I'm in fear and I know what I feel like when I believe that, there's something incredible out there that has my back that believes, I'm worthy of all the dreams and desires and passions I could possibly think of and wants to give me even more than that. And that, I mean, that gives me goosebumps, like, that's how I want to believe and train my brain rewires my brain, that is possible that there is something bigger than me and bigger than a human power that is for me. And that all things, even when it seems impossible, even when it's painful, and I feel like I can't go on anymore, look at all what I've been through, there is always hope, especially, when we can train our brain, because I really believe as a Neuro coach we have to train our brain to think differently. Otherwise, it just keeps going back to that natural state, the natural man of being afraid. You know, when I think of a caveman, what did they do? They hid in a cave because they were afraid.

Michael: Yeah. I've had these moments in my life that I've had these experiences in which, you know, and I'm not religious, and my spiritual, Yes. Do I understand it? No, because I look up at the moon at the in night and I go. How is that even possible? And so in consideration that we could even be sitting here having this conversation right now, I go well, okay, maybe anything's possible. I don't know, but I do choose to believe this if you put energy and effort in your life, into the things that you want to create on a long enough time line they will come to pass, right?

One of the things that I really want to dive into here, is this idea about emotions because I agree with you. We do have the ability to retrain our brain. We know about neuroplasticity. We know about this idea of repetitive usage in the language that we have. We know about all these things that happen, but sometimes people really leverage emotions to be the thing that often becomes a scapegoat for possibility in their life. One of the things I'm curious about and you've said this before, is that emotions, they are good or bad and that feelings are signals. What do you mean by that?

Melanie: Well, our brain naturally doesn't want to feel bad. So when we say pain is our motivator, we're trying to get it motivates me to drink and eat and go shopping. So I don't have to think about it. I like to run away from those feelings that I consider bad and our brain literally categorizes everything into good and bad, it's like I lose my job, that's bad, I get a raise that's good. And the thing is all things work together for our good and you can see how now you can see that your past is actually helping millions of people, your goal is to reach the whole, internationally around the world, you have big goals of using what appeared to be horrible and painful and what we would categorize as that's bad and you've made good out of it. And so I believe all of us have the opportunity to make every single thing that happens work for us, and I believe the Universe is for us.

So even when it's seemingly and that's the key word there seemingly because our brain is programmed, you know fight or flight or rest, and it's programmed that way and so if we can look at emotions as signals that my emotion needs something instead of just being closed to this is bad, I need to run, this is okay. I'm gonna relax, we can actually dive deeper, and acknowledge. I'm feeling angry right now, and usually, I feel angry because I don't get my way. So anything that happens during the day that didn't go the way I planned. When I look at that and think, okay, I feel irked because I didn't get my way and my way is the best way, right? So I think that's the way it should go, but then when it doesn’t, it's when I take a look at what is my anger telling me? It's like, my anger is telling me I want to be acknowledged. My anger is telling me; I like it my way. What can I do next time when I don't get my way that would still be a way to acknowledge and honor the way I feel, because I think what happens is the other thing as men when I think you're taught, you know, don't cry and it's okay to be angry, but for a woman it's not a ladylike to be angry so that we have that to where society tells us; this is okay for you to feel, this isn't okay for you to feel? And so that adds to and my doing something, right, and it doesn't have to be right or wrong, it's a signal what does it mean? Kind of using like a question patterning of like what is this signal of being angry telling me? And what do I want to do with it next time or how am I going to honor my anger? Is there something I can do?

I remember this coach had me. Break bottles because I was angry and we came up. Well, what would feel good to my anger and it just came to me that breaking glass would feel good, and so I found a way to safely break some bottles that I could clean up. And it felt good, and it was like, it's just a way, it usually our emotions need to be released. And so EFT is another way to release them without, breaking glass, because I told myself I would never do that again because I did not like cleaning it up, so tapping is easier for me.

Michael: Yeah, and what a great analogy for life, right? We have to clean up the glasses that we break. And I think what's really fascinating about this is understanding. Yes, you can make meaning of the emotions that come once you get. I think a little bit closer into understanding who you are, understanding the emotional capacity, having a coach, having therapy, doing the work, the whole nine because if you would have told me what you just said 15 years ago, I'd be like you're out of your mind, like that makes no sense to me, right?  And I think there is a process for this to make a lot of sense you do have to do a bit of work around it. I think that's because trauma these events that have happened and the trauma that comes along with it, you know, those are triggers that are trapped in entangled inside of our emotions, right? How do you manage that? Where on the one hand, yes, you're like, okay. I can reframe this. I can create a change in the way that I process and make meaning of these things but I still feel so trapped or entangled inside of those traumatic events and experiences. How do you navigate that? How do you like start to reframe around that?

Melanie: So those events become almost a part of us. We have events it kind of runs a program in our brain, so what happens is you have a traumatic event and your brain is now programmed with this event, and so when I think of something, I run it through my broken thinking because that's what happened to me and the program was instilled in my thinking and so it's natural for me to run my program of I'm afraid, you know, if I leave my full-time job and start my own business, I'm afraid. I'm going to be a loser without any money and it's because of past trauma experiences that are instilled in my brain that when I get a thought or a fear, it runs the program of my broken thinking. And so we literally, we have to rewire it to different thinking and that's why we get help because a lot of times we can't see our own broken thinking and that's why we can't do it alone. I don't know anyone who has been able to reprogram their broken thinking alone. We need each other and that's one of the reasons, I'm so passionate about being a coach, I want to pass on when someone passed on me, I want to teach what tools worked better than anything else and I want to help people, I want to get the information out there and that's what I think you're doing with your podcast, and your life is that you really want people to know there is a solution, there is hope.

Michael: Yeah, hundred percent. And I think more, I've heard this kind of frequently over the last couple of months, which is really fascinating about this idea of we teach what we ourselves needed to learn. And that's so much about what this is because I look at and I measure the reality that had I have these tools 15, 20, 25, 30 years ago my trajectory on life at certain phases, would have been much different. But also I recognize that like you can't change the past so I don't get hung up on it. Instead, my mission is very much like if we can create something, someone can hold onto the nay can be able to start to make this massive shift in their life, and that's what it's about, right? And that's a big part of what you're doing in your moving towards.

One of the things that I'm wondering about that, I'm curious when it comes to emotions and you briefly mention this earlier is that there's this idea of, like, neutralizing the emotions that we recall throughout these triggers of trauma. What does that actually mean? Because I'm fascinated by this, because we make meaning so much about good bad or the other. I love the idea of neutralizing them, but I'm also partly because of it conflicted is that a good thing or a bad thing would love for you to explain that a little bit more in depth?

Melanie: Okay, this is my favorite part. So what happens when we have a traumatic event is that the emotion kind of wraps around the facts and then it can distort what even happened because our thoughts and our feelings are really two different things, and the facts is different than what our feelings make it. So what happens is they get entangled and then we're triggered by even, something as simple as you know, my husband can say, I don't want you to go to the store by yourself and I can be immediately triggered that he's trying to control me from past experiences, and so that's not really the truth, that's not really the facts.

So what we have to do is separate that information from the feelings and so many times, we don't know how to track our emotions, we don't know what to do with our emotions, and this is a process of neutralizing them by kind of pulling them apart. So when I help somebody who's been through a traumatic experience, like a rape, what we do is we play the movie of what happened, and a lot of times, even just to protect myself, I don't want to hear, horrible stories of people's past and so a lot of times we do a movie where they don't even have to talk about it, they are just visualizing it and as soon as the trigger comes or the pain comes where the feeling comes, we stop and we tap and so it's like you're looking at it from in your mind this snapshot, like playing a movie and pausing the movie and looking at that picture and then determining what the feeling is when you look at that. And then we tap, and then what happens is because you're calming the central nervous system and you're releasing this energy that is stuck with the emotion and releasing at your body starts to naturally, calm, and let go of it and we create a safe place to let it go and we're honoring our body by it's okay to let it go. And what happens is you don't forget, you sound like you're going to have amnesia about it and it's not like I can look back at something horrific that's happened and say, oh it wasn't a bad thing that happened, it's not about that. It's about releasing the trigger, so that I'm neutral. What I mean by that is that I can see the facts like reading a history book. So it's more about, this is what happened, these are the facts and I'm not triggered by the pain of what's happened, and so that's what I mean by neutrality. It's really just this place of really realizing that all things can work together for my good and this is something that happened and I can use that if I'm not triggered, I can really use it for good because there's plenty of other people out there that have had an experience like that, there are no new problems. All the problems are out there and they're just repeated. And so that's why you're able to help so many people, it's because we get to share our experience and what we've been through can actually be a catalyst to help someone else heal and the triggers are just a signal. Oh that needs to be accommodated, that needs to be released, I can honor by body by acknowledging that I have something to clear, I have something to let go of and so specific traumas you want to isolate and do sessions to break them down and let them go, and by calming our bodies with tapping it's just this natural process and there's evidence, and scientific proof that tapping can shift that intensity of the feeling and the trigger that it's no longer there.

So I can recall and tell you about a traumatic experience and not, it's not heavy anymore, it's your neutral. It doesn't take away that something traumatic happened. It's just, I don't, it doesn't hold me back, you know what I'm saying? Like, the traumatic experience isn't holding me back, I can move forward and not play the victim because honestly, that's a hard one. A lot of my clients are, like, I've had this hard life. I'm a victim of hardship and we want to get out of that mindset because that doesn't get us our dreams.

Michael: Yeah. I agree. A hundred percent and I look at my life being its darkest. I look at these areas in which nothing was propelling me forward and I was blaming, I was playing the victim, I was looking at the world through this scope of, it's everyone else's fault that my life sucks. And that's a really like, I wish I could convey the power that comes when you recognize that's a mistruth and that you've told yourself that story which natively, it's super fair.

You know, I look at my life. My mom cut my finger off. I was homeless, I was obese. You know, all these things that happen, by any stretch of the imagination, should blame the world and then what you to understand is that's actually in your fucking way and the second you stop doing that. That's where I think you start to take power, right? For whatever the context of that means in a way that I would love to create practicality here. Is there a way that right now you and I could go through what tapping is? So that the people listening can apply this to their life in a way that they could see some sort of difference.

Melanie: Absolutely! So tapping, you can't do it wrong. So this is always comes up with my clients is like well, I don't know if I did it right or I don't understand or the intention of tapping is healing and that's all you need, you cannot do this wrong. There's so many great videos, you can YouTube tapping or EFT and you can find hundreds thousands, probably millions of different ways to do it and you can get the benefit. I love tapping because even a child can do it. It's easy. It's duplicatable, and just remember, you can't do it wrong. And so people will say, you know, I'm not getting a result, and so the reason why people don't get results is that they don't do it. So that's another reason you won't get results if you don't actually tap and sometimes I've been able to get a change with my clients in in minutes and minutes it can bring the intensity of a feeling down. So the first thing you want to do is isolate in a motion. So do you have an emotion you want to isolate?

Michael: Yeah, let's say anger. Let's say I'm angry about my boss. Ordinary, let's change. Let's go a little bit deeper. Let's say I'm angry about this experience I had with one of my parents when I was 14 years old.

 Melanie: Okay, so, the first thing that you want to do is isolate the event. And then you're going to take the emotion and that's just the anger and you're going to rate the intensity from 1 to 10. So this is probably the one of the most important parts of it because you want to have a tangible result, and so you want to have something that you can actually see change and that's going to make you a believer, right? When you see that. Okay, this is a real feeling I have and it's at this level and so what I have people do is actually write it on a piece of paper. What's the intensity from one to ten? Ten being the angriest and zero at peace not angry at all. So right now you can just think anybody can think of anything they're angry at whether it's happened in the past or you woke up this morning and the world just wasn't doing what you wanted and you feel angry about that. So you're going to rate the intensity 1 to 10. So, Michael, I'm gonna have you pick something you're angry at that. You can give kind of like an above 6 as the number.

Michael: Yeah. Let's say that this event is, I remember at 14 years old, this thing happened, let's call it an eight.

Melanie: Okay. Now, Michael is this actually an eight for you? Or do you want to choose something else? You don't even have to tell us what it is, but that there's an intensity around it that feels angry to you.

Michael: Yeah. No, it's an eight.

Melanie: Okay. All right. So we're going to write that number, number eight, and I'm going to think of something that I'm kind of angry about too. So then there's a setup statement. So there's this place on the side of your hand, on your pinky finger, by the palm, we call it; the karate chop point because it's kind of like (Iyeah) place that you would, you know, hit a board and in the center, so it's right there on the side of your hand and you just lightly tap. And the thing is that I've learned is that let's say; you don't want to tap maybe it hurts to tap certain places on your body, you can do it soft or you can just visualize you can get a result either way, and remember our intention is healing and you cannot do this wrong. Now, they've found some things that are make it more effective and so we tap on the side on the karate chop point and we give a setup statement. So Michael, what would you rather feel then angry?

Michael: Happiness.

Melanie: Okay, so we're going to say even though I feel angry. I honor my feelings and I accept how I feel and then we're going to kind of do that one more time.

So even though I feel angry, I honor my feelings and accept how I feel. Even though I feel angry about this situation, I honor my feelings and I accept how I feel. Now, we're going to move to the top of your head. So on the top of your head, you just tap anger, I feel angry. Then you're going to tap on the top of your eyebrow and I want you to think about how it feels to be angry. Do you feel it somewhere in your body? Do you feel tension in your neck? Then you're going to move to the side of your eye. I feel angry. You're going to top below your eye and as you tap your going to say this feeling of anger, this feeling of anger. You can repeat after me or you can just listen as you tap. And then what I do is I make a see with my hand and I tap above, my lip and below my lip. So it's kind of like right below your nose, you can tap just below your nose and you can tap below your mouth but I feel like it's two points that you can tap with a C and get two points at the same time. So you get to go a little faster. So as you're tapping there, you're going to say, I feel so angry and the more that you can actually keep tapping and recall what you're angry about. So really thinking about how my parents made me mad, and exactly what they did, that made me mad and that I wish I didn't have to go through it. I didn't wish I didn't have to go through this experience. You're really pulling up the emotion. We're going to move to our collarbone so you can feel collar bones, and you can tap with two fingers across your top, your collarbones or you can just tap in the center. So as you're tapping your recalling this anger, and the more you can think about the feeling and pull up the negative part, the better because that's how we're actually acknowledging and honoring how we feel, and then we we'll get into the positive. So we first have to acknowledge, where we are. And I think that's very powerful to acknowledge and honor the signal, our body is giving. So as you tap on your collarbone, think of where the anger feels inside your body, where the tension is. If it feels like even clint clasping your fist, think about what your anger needs, the next place we're going to tap is under your armpit on the side of your body. So usually, I have to lift my arm up to get to the side part of my body, right? Under my armpit and I just used my whole hand, it just kind of tap underneath there.

So I'm thinking about this anger, how it feels in my body, I make acknowledging it. And I'm really accepting it and the more that we can feel something, the more we're acknowledging it. And then even I've had patients where it's like. Oh, I'm so angry. It's like, you really want to get into it. So as you tap on your head, it's like you can make facial expressions of what anger looks like, and really tapping into, I'm angry!  You know, and you can even say it in your tone of voice. I’m angry… You know, really bringing up this negative emotion. So angry as you tap on the top of your head. Now, we're going to shift. It's okay to have my feelings as you tap on the top of your eye, by your eyebrow, it's okay to have my feelings, it's okay to be angry. Then we're going to move to the side of our eye. My anger is a signal, as you tap think about what your anger wants. And a lot of times things will come to your mind as you tap, and we ask questions. Then you're going to top below your eye, consider what it would feel like to be happy even in this moment. If I was to look back at that experience and choose being happy, even though, it doesn't feel good. Okay. Now, we're going to tap around our mouth, with a C or below your nose and below your lip. It's okay to release this anger, and as you tap on your collarbone. We're going to say; I release my anger, and as your continuing to tap on your collarbone. I want you to visualize the anger leaving, releasing, letting go of it, like holding your clit, holding your hand closed and just watching it. As you open your fist watching the anger just vanish. I honor the signal anger gives me. You're going to tap under your arm by your armpit. I honor my feelings even anger, it's safe to be angry.

So one more time on your karate, chop point. I honor my feelings and I'm open to being happy. I honor my feelings and I'm open to being happy. I honor my feelings and I'm open to feeling happy. And then what I'm going to have you do is gently, stop tapping, and take a deep breath in, blow it out, nice and slow. And then we're going to go back to our number from 1 to 10. What's the intensity of that anger when I think of that specific situation? And would you like to share with us Michael when your number is?

Michael: Yeah, it's much lower. I would call it like a two.

Melanie: Okay, that's awesome. And you know Michael your kind of experience with being connected and letting things go and that is awesome. Of course, that's awesome! And what we want everyone to know, is that any movement in the direction towards zero, is it means it's working and I guess that's what I want to leave people with that even. I mean, that was only a couple minutes that was literate and I was trying to explain as we were going along, but usually, you know, two rounds of those points can bring down, a number one or two, that is moving in the right direction.

Now, I do want to say that, sometimes, it could stay the same and or it could go up which both are signals that were on to something. You know, I've had where we've tapped on a traumatic experience and they're like, I was at a 7 now, I'm out of 10, which means we have the opportunity to actually, we've gotten to the heart of the trigger and it's actually exciting for me when someone says it's gone up because that means let's just stick with this and we're going to just keep doing the round because that means we really have it.

We really have the core of what we need to release and that's that's the good news guys, you know, because once we don't have those triggers we can start thinking with a healed mind, you know, we can we really can think unbroken and that's the beauty of it. And so I just wanted to let people know that, sometimes, when people stay the same, it's because we haven't gotten into the emotion, like we protect ourselves. If we have an emotion or we have something that's going on, we don't really maybe we don't want to feel anger, like for me like, as a woman. I've been taught that it, I shouldn't be angry and so I might not even call it anger, I might call it something else and it might not connect because I don't even know how to articulate what it is that's really going on, but as you tap your mind will feel more safe to let you think more clearly to, it will be more open your brain, will feel safe to let go of some of these things it's been trying to protect you from.

Michael: Yeah. And first and foremost, thank you for that. That was really powerful and practical. I will say this; from a contextual standpoint going through this in the way that we did is definitely practical but I think that working with someone like you who can be there and guide you through that process singularly, around that specific event will carry so much more weight and that's been my experience, right? While you can watch the Youtube videos, you can read the book, you can do all those things, there's nothing better in my opinion than doing this, with a practitioner, somebody can help guide you through this start to finish. So super practical, amazing exercise. And thank you so much for teaching that to The Unbroken Nation audience today. Before I ask you, my last question is, can you tell everyone where they can find you?

Melanie: Absolutely! So, I wrote a book last year called happy joyous and free, love your life no matter what, no matter what signals are out there, right? And so my webpage is happyjoyousandfree.org

Michael: Awesome. And of course, we will put all of the links and all the everything in the show notes if you want to go and learn more from Melanie, which I highly recommend. Melanie, my friend, thank you so much for being here, has been such an incredible incredible episode with you today. My last question for you, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Melanie: What it means to me is a daily reprieve of unbroken because every day I wake up with a brain that wants to kill me basically, it's wants to keep me safe and that's its job. And I am constantly every day having to start over to choose a better way of thinking. So my natural state is Broken and the hope is we have free agency that were able to choose something different, and that's what I believe you have done, you've been through a lot and you have these goals of clearly, I want to use my agency, and my choice and choose something different I don't have to remain broken. And even as much as I know is, as much as I've learned as much as I've practiced this skill, I have to remember that, it's easy for my brain to go to that broken thinking, and I want healed thinking and so think unbroken is a daily reprieve for me where I have to make a deliberate choice, to be free of that broken mind that wants to keep me the same. And we all know that learning and growing, we can't stay the same, that's not the goal, the goal is to move forward. And so, I just hope that this reaches, as many people as possible, that they know, that they are empowered to choose to Think Unbroken.

Michael: Amazing, my friend. Thank you so much for being here. Such a phenomenal conversation. We will have to do this again.

Unbroken Nation, thank you so much for listening as usual.

Please like, subscribe, comment, leave a review, tell a friend.

And Until Next Time.

My friends, Be Unbroken.

-I'll see you.