EP52 Healing your life WITHOUT traditional THERAPY

EPISODE 52

[0:00:13.4] KC: Welcome to another episode of The Business of Life Podcast. Keith Callahan, your host here and pumped up. Pumped up to share today’s episode with you and today we’re talking about healing your life without traditional therapy. And I guess I should start right here saying I am not a therapist, I’m not knocking therapists. I just want to share with you the story and the practical tools that I use to really clear up a lot of stuff to move through anxiety, to move through depression and to empower myself to not sit on the couch whining and complaining about my problem.

Again, I’m not saying do not work with a therapist, definitely not saying that. I’m not saying that this is any better, I’m just sharing with you the methods that I used to heal my own life and it was through going to therapy but it’s a little bit different than traditional therapy and I like to call it energy work. Actually the reason I really went with this title, I made a Facebook post and this is what the Facebook post read. It said:

“Would you like me to elaborate on the following in a podcast episode? I have a really close friend who is a therapist, we actually met when she was my therapist almost 15 years ago and she shared with me the following statement. It’s way easier and more effective for me to teach my clients energy and how to work with Energy rather than diving in to all this other traditional therapy stuff. When they learn energy and can distinguish if it’s good or bad, positive or negative, they then have the tools to work with both, they don’t need therapy anymore and they become empowered to take control of their lives.”

So I took her advice 15 years ago, ran with it, totally changed my life and when I had put that in a post, up on Facebook, we had a big response saying, “Yes, we want to hear more about this.” That is what we’re going to dive in to today and I want to start by just sharing my experience. A lot of you guys know my story if you don’t know the big part of this story it’s one of the previous episodes called Hitting Rock Bottom in the Big Easy. Keith Story.

So anyways, I want to really isolate the part when I realized that I needed a therapist and I realized that I needed help. What I was doing in my life and where I wanted to go on my life. I didn’t have the skills to get there and I needed help. I needed to get out of my own mind and I needed to — I didn’t know what I needed. I was having a bunch of panic attacks, I was having a bunch of anxiety, started getting depressed and the way that I talked with my now wife Amy about it and the traditional ways or traditional therapy, for some reason there was an intuitive part of me that just didn’t want to go that way.

So I wound up going to two traditional therapist and doing a session with each. Both, I didn’t really connect with. I felt like they were, not talking down to me, but I felt like I was a patient or something that they were there to like, I dunno, looking down a little bit. It’s hard to explain but I didn’t feel good in there and I didn’t want to take — I forget what the medicines were that they wanted to give me and again I have nothing about that. This is nothing against that.

This is really just the personal story, a personal choice of what worked for me. Anyways I went to both of those, it didn’t work out and then I wound up connecting with Shiva Lucido who is a licensed clinical social worker and the work that we did together, so right away I was like, “This is definitely the person for me.” The work that we had done together, she does what’s called family of origin healing, family of origin work.

What I want to focus on today is specifically the energy work and the things that I learned from working with her, the things that I still use in my life today and really want to just dive in and share my experiences with it. It’s really a six step system and the purpose of this was really tp empower you, it’s to help you to feel better, it’s to help you to think clearer. It’s to help you to regain your, really your personal power back.

There was a few different parts of the therapy that I’m not going to go in to today that we also did and maybe I can talk about that a little bit more in future episodes. But today we’re going to talk about the energy work and really shifting energy, moving energy, becoming happier, becoming more bright, more shiny, more confident, more enthusiastic and living a better life.

The first piece is really understanding energy. For the first step, it’s understanding in energy and I’m just going to go in to it how I see it, how I view it, how I understand it, what my definition of this word is. A lot of people will call it energy or they’ll call it positive energy or negative energy or the yin and the yang. It’s also called positive key or negative key. Prana or life force. whether it’s positive or negative, so it’s really this charge.

And we can also look at thoughts, our thoughts, our energy and our thoughts are either positive or negative. Every single thought that you’re having, the “I can’ts, I won’t, I shouldn’t”, it’s always like that, I don’t have a choice. That’s all negative. “I can do it, I’m willing,” there’s so many different positive words, positive thoughts, positive emotions.

But the first part to this six step system is you understanding energy and understanding that energy rules everything, energy is going to determine whether you’re happy or sad, whether you’re empowered, whether you actually have physical energy. Whether you’re moving in the right direction, whether you’re moving closer to what you want or you’re moving further away from what you want.

But what we’re talking about here is energy, we’re talking about the movement of energy and when I was doing this work, one of the first things that was explained to me was for the next year, all we’re going to focus on is energy. Can you devote the next year, can you put the next year, the focus of energy above everything else? I did that for a year, totally changed my life. And again, what I’m sharing here with you is something that if you’re looking to improve your life, if you’re looking to live a happier, more empowered life, you’re going to have everything that you need to do right here.

I’m going to lay out the tools. If you’re driving down the road, this may be an episode you want to listen to again at a future time, pull over, take notes on it but this is again a six step process for moving that energy, for shifting that energy, how to shift from a disempowered spot to an empowered spot, how to shift from fear and anger and hopelessness into a spot of love and faith and belief and again empowerment. I love that word and I think that if there’s one word to describe what I’m teaching you today, it’s to empower yourself.

On energy a little bit more, you can be a person that sees things as the half glass full or half glass empty. If you believe that there’s a lot of strife in the world that there is all this wrong in the world and you focus on all those things and that’s where your mind is and that’s where your focus is and you believe that there’s hardships and you believe about all this victims and you focus on all of that then that is what’s going to show up over and over in your life.

Not that that stuff doesn’t exist in the world but if that’s what you focus on, if that’s where your energy is going, that’s what’s going to happen. If you think you’re a person of bad luck, that’s what you’re going to get. It goes the other way too. If you think you’re a person of good luck, if you believe that good things are always going to happen to you, if you focus on the positive in every single situation, right?

Here is the easiest way to know where your energy is; I want you to think about this because this one hurts. You get together with a friend, you get together with a spouse, your mother, your brother, your sister, your father, whoever it may be. What are the first things that you talk about when you bring up other people? Do you talk about all the good that’s being done or do you talk about things you don’t like, things you pick apart? Big one right? Starting to understand, that’s what I’m talking about when I’m talking about energy right?

It goes a lot deeper than that but what we’re talking about is the movement of that energy, we’re talking about moving the scales, flipping the scales so we have a lot more powerful, empowering positive energy coming into our lives than negative energy. So the first step in the six step process of understanding the movement of energy, of healing your life with energy is really just understanding that. Understanding what are we talking about when we talk about energy?

All right, the second step is understanding cords. Here is how I want to describe this to you. Understanding cords. You have these cords that are connected to you. Think about you, like you’re the main circuit breaker and it’s probably not the right word, I’m not like the electrician type guy. You’re like a big junction box — I don’t even know if that makes sense. You’ve got all these cords coming in right? You’re the center, you’re where everything’s plugging into.

You carry energy right? The more cords that you have plugged in to you, the more energy that you’re losing right? These cords could be positive cords but we also have a lot of negative cords and what I want to focus on right now is the negative cords that are plugged into us. The negative cords could be — here’s a real easy example. We had a parent who did something to us when we were younger and whenever that memory is recalled, it brings back a negative emotion right?

That’s a cord that’s connected to us and we have the cords that I’m talking about, it’s through all of the programming that has been done on to us that has come into our system from the life that we’ve lived so far. It could be through negative or positive experiences, it could be through things that you are — that was put in to your subconscious when you were very little. It could be through having — here’s another really clear one.

Let’s say that when you were in high school, you had a paper due in English and he did the paper and when you went through and did the paper, you had — you really messed up on it. You didn’t do too good and the teacher actually called you out in front of the class and was, mocking is probably a strong word, but highlighting the grammatical errors you had in your writing. That’s a massive cord that’s now connected to you and you have this belief, you have this thought, you have this thing attached to you that says you’re not good at this.

Every time you get in to that situation, you recall that right? The cords that are connected to us, some of them are like real thin extension cords and some of them are like these huge, massive, one foot thick cords that are just jammed right into us and they’re taking up all of our energy. When I was doing work with Shiva, this is what I was taught, I was taught about this stuff, we didn’t really go through the “sit on the couch” and it wasn’t that type of therapy.

There was a coach there but we went through this, she helped me to understand cords and she helped me to understand all the different ways that cords can be connected. Cords of guilt, cords of shame, cords of fear and I want you to think about all the different things in your life, what type of cords are connected into you. What type of phobias are connected into you, what type of fears are connected into you? What type of anger is connected in to you? That big cord.

Again, you can see it right? You can see how some of these cords are thicker than others, some of them don’t really take that much energy from you. Some of them take a ton of energy from you right? That’s the understanding of cords piece. The next piece I want you to understand, this is the third step, I want you to understand that at the core, when you were born, you didn’t have any of these cords connected to you. When you were born, you came into this world, this big, beautiful, bright, shiny light.

There is no negative when you’re born. There is no — you’re born with two fears, you’re born with a fear of loud noises and you’re born with a fear of falling. That’s it. Everything else has been programmed into you. Everything else is a cord that’s connected into you, it’s connected at your solar plexus. That’s where these all meet right? You are that big, beautiful, bright, shiny — that’s you. That divine essence, that innocence that is a new born child, that’s you, that’s how you came into this world.

The guilt, the shame, the fear, the anger, all of that stuff, all of that stuff got attached to you along the way. That isn’t you. That is not what you are at the core. I need you to understand that I need you to know that because this method that we’re getting into doesn’t work if you don’t believe that. But you’ve seen it right? Have you ever seen a baby that comes in with any of that? Shame, guilt, fears in addition to falling or loud noises, anger, resentment, guilt, you don’t have any of it. That’s how you came into this world.

Now step number four is understanding that you have the ability to cut the cords. I want you to think about that for a second. You came into this world, this beautiful divine being, you came into this world bright, shiny and you started to take these things on little by little. Some of them are cords that connected to you and they started off as this thin little cord and then they got bigger and bigger. As we replayed it in our mind, as the fear got bigger and bigger. As we let the anger manifest and grow inside of us.

Now we’ve got all these cords connected to us right now, draining our energy from living the big, beautiful, bold dream that we’re supposed to live. They’re sapping our energy but you have the ability to cut those cords. What do we mean by cutting the cords? When we look at it, the reason I love the cords analogy and looking at it — so remember, we started this episode saying that my therapist, one of her quotes to me was, “It’s easier for me to teach somebody energy work because it empowers them and they can move on with their life, than all of this other traditional therapies.”

For me, I like simple. I get confused easy, I don’t want it to be this big, huge complicated thing. I want it to be simple and something that I can do, I’ll work my ass of if I can understand it and if I can do it and if I can believe it. When I understood this stuff about energy and about cords. I could see it. I hope that you’re there and you’re listening and you can see it, you can see these cords that are connected into you. You can see this. Now I want you to start feeling and knowing, maybe not if you’re driving down the road because sometimes it could get a little overwhelming but know that you can now start to disconnect from those cords.

That’s all I’m going to say with step number four, I want you to know that you can start cutting the cords and step number five, I’m going to give you an actual how to with cutting the cords. It’s called racket work. This was — I remember when it was first described to me, it didn’t really make much sense, it was kind of like overwhelming and embarrassing but I’m going to teach it to you and this changed my life. So I want you to just visualize this. The way that racket work is done. I’m going to describe it exactly how we did it.

So we had a stool with a couple of blankets on top of the stool and the blankets were like strapped down. So picture a stool that’s like waist high and then a couple of blankets on top of it. Then we had a tennis racket and what racket work is, is you stand in front of the stool. The stool is probably two feet away from you and you have both feet parallel to each other like hip width distance apart and you hold the racket with two hands. Then you bring the racket up over your head and then you swing it down and you slap or slam the racket on to the stool.

Some of you guys are probably getting freaked out right now listening. You’ve rigged the racket down on to the stool, once the racket hits the stool, started off by just giving a “Huh, huh,” like from your stomach. This part wasn’t really tough for me but for a lot of people, one of the things that’s been taken from us, one of the cords that it’s connected to us is our voice is taken, our voice is taken away. When we get that, “Huh” from the core when we’re hitting it. We’re bringing the racket down, hitting “huh“ and that just sort of gets you into it.

Then there is a four step process to racket work. Before I went to the four step process, another way that I started doing this that worked way better for me was I actually have a punching bag at my house. Instead of doing the racket work, I would do it like I would hit the punching bag and every — I wouldn’t like hit it really fast but I would do it kind of the motion I would with the racket work and I would either hit, like punch “huh”, or kick “huh”. You can do that also, you can do it that way.

I just like that more, I like hitting a bag more and it felt more — it was even more empowering to me than just doing the racket. Another thing, I hesitate to mention this because here is what most people do is they default to this piece but I want you to know it’s not as powerful. The other thing is you can do this in your head. Say you’re flying on an airplane or you’re driving down the road, you can do this whole process in your head, you can visualize this process.

The first step of racket work is — sorry, it’s a five step process for racket work. The first step is you just start with that, you’re lined up, the racket’s going over your head and you’re hitting “huh”. The second step is what I call, you want to tell the energy off. Whatever that cord is that’s connected to you, maybe it was a parent who used to hit you or maybe it was even — let’s give a simple example. It was a parent who didn’t know how to show love.

That’s a very common one in our world right now, especially in North America and the United States, you had a parent that didn’t know how to show love. You start by just saying like, I want to be very specific, like tell it off. “FU, I needed you to be there, you weren’t there for me, you mother F’er.” Do this in a space that you feel safe and I want you to let it fly, like really let it fly. Let all the words fly, let the anger fly.

You’re not hurting somebody else but you need to get that anger out that’s inside of you and when you have to tap into the emotional body when you’re doing this. Because when you tap into that emotional body, that’s when it gets out, that’s when the energy moves, that’s when we’re going to allow the cord to get cut, that’s when the cord is going to get smaller and smaller, and it’s going to get less and less powerful.

The first step is the, “huh, huh”. The second step is telling it off. This is simple, just write that down, tell it off, you’ll figure it out. The third step is you no longer have the right to. You no longer have the right to take my energy and you’re doing this all while you’re hitting right? One hit is one thought. You bring the racket over your head, “You no longer have the right to take my energy. I will not let you take my power, I will not let you do that to me anymore,” get it? So, “No longer will not, fighting it.”

The fourth step is you are disconnecting you’re cutting the cord and with this cutting the cord, just think about it. Again, let’s say that it was someone that did not love you and you lost all this power, you spent all this time, “I am no longer going to do that, you no longer are able to take my power. I’m cutting this cord, I’m separating from it, I am not giving you my energy anymore. I am not giving you my power anymore. The more emotion behind it, the more conviction behind it and you can get angry here. Like get angry, do it, cut it. Empower yourself, that’s what we’re doing with this process, empowering ourselves.

The fifth step is affirmations. “I am powerful, I am in my power, I am.” So strong “I am” statements. “I am a warrior. I am independent, I can stand on my own two feet, I am empowered.” You’re going to have to play with this a little bit the first time. Here’s the deal. Some of these cords are thicker than others, some of this cords, you’re going to have to go to battle with over and over. But each time, it’s going to get smaller, it’s like chopping down a big tree right? You go through, you go through this five step process, you took a couple of big chunks out.

And eventually you keep chopping away. Time and intensity when you sit down to take your notes, write that piece down, the amount of time you spend doing this in the intensity you put in to it, going to directly reflect the proportion of the freedom, of the empowerment that comes back to you. So real quick, let’s just recap that. Racket work is starting with, you’ve got your basic setup, you start with your “huh, huh”, then you’re telling it off, then you’re telling it no longer has the right, then you’re disconnecting, cutting the cord right? Then you go to your affirmations.

The more vocal you are with this, the better. When I did it, a lot of times I know you all listening it’s like, “Oh my god, can I really do this?” When I first started doing this, I would wait till nobody was home and then I would turn the radio on loud in my house and I would do it at my house. I did it on my bed, it was funny too. I had like an old bed. I remember old dust coming up everywhere and I remember feeling so self-conscious thinking people were listening or whatnot but yeah, it’s how I did it and then I would do it in my mind.

And then once I got to the punching bag I really loved that. I was also comfortable with it and I was comfortable using my voice and it doesn’t have to be this big, crazy scream but it’s like a deep powerful voice. Like a “huh, huh”, you know? You would hear somebody hitting a punching bag in the gym or something like that. All right, so again, we’re talking about the six steps to moving energy. First was understanding energy, second was understanding cords, third was understanding that you are light at the core, you come into this world as a divine human being. Fourth was understanding you had the power to cut the cords, fifth was the racket work and showing you exactly how to do that.

Now the sixth thing for the movement of energy. So we’ve got the cord cutting piece, the racket work right? That’s like an ongoing thing. That’s like you’re digging in, you’re looking at the cords that are connected to you and you’re chipping away at that. That’s not like, you are going to feel good right away, you’ll feel really good right away. But that’s something you want to continue to do, that’s going to make you more and more empowered, it’s going to disconnect more and more from you. All right, you get that right?

The sixth piece is what I call fighting the dark side and what I look at this as, if you can’t — like you’re in a down mood right? You’re in a fearful space or a depressed space or an anxious space and you can’t even figure out why. So you can’t go through the cord cutting process right? You don’t even know it. The way that I look at this is literally like there’s this demon or this energy attached to me and I don’t look at it like it’s the devil or anything like that. That doesn’t work for me.

I just look at it like it’s this sci-fi nasty M’n F’in demon that’s like trying to get to me, like I am this light being and this is nasty M and F’in demon that’s trying to get to me and trying to take my power. Literally the way that I would look at it is like it was this battle and I would have a sword and I’m the light and some great movies just as a side note like Lord of the Rings, Kill Bill, awesome movies. Any movies like that go through this that really depict light and darkness because that’s what we’re talking about right now.

We’re talking about energy, we’re talking about the movement of energy, you are light at the core. When you feel off, when you feel that like your mind’s just racing and you can’t control it, shifting into, there’s like this energy that’s attacking you and you’re fighting it off the way, I fought it off like I had this big sword and I used to swing it and it will be punching and kicking and it’s all in my mind. I would do this all in my mind and I would beat that F’er up until it stopped coming.

Sometimes it would just keep coming and coming. You can do this while you’re sitting there driving down the road, you can do this while you’re sitting like dealing with your kids, you can do this while you’re in a meeting. I want to share a piece with this because I know that a lot of people are like, “That sounds crazy, I’m never going to do that.” Is that crazy or is sitting there, letting that negative energy get you lower and lower lower and lower and more and more disempowered and more and more wimpy and more and more fearful and more of not being in your power being able to live the life you want to live?

Are you willing to let go of your ego? Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? What I just outlined here, you do it with 100%. You’re going to be happy. You’re going to be empowered. You’re going to take your personal power back. So I’m going to end there. I’d love to hear your feedback on this, send me a Facebook message, you guys know how to get in touch with me.

Get in touch with me anyway, if you have any questions, I’d love to hear your questions. But we’re talking about the movement of energy. My life now is created around the movement of energy, which way’s the energy going right? It’s always going up or down and it’s never staying stagnant. Energy doesn’t stay stagnant. Which way is your energy going right now? Do the work to move it.

All right, have a beautiful day, see you on the next episode.

[0:32:32] ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to the Business of Life Podcast. Apply what you learn today and you’ll be one step closer to creating the life you love to live.

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