About This Episode
In this raw and powerful conversation, we explore what it takes to heal deep trauma, rewire the brain, and reclaim your life after severe injury. He shares: The awakening that comes after facing mortality and loss Why unresolved trauma keeps us stuck in old reactions and patterns His five-year journey of intensive trauma-focused meditation How reliving and analyzing triggers can help release them Working with world-renowned psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen for a SPECT brain scan The shocking moment the scan revealed a lifelong trauma pattern Surviving a 75-mph car crash, a brain injury, and permanent nerve damage The struggle with severe navigation problems — and the fight to retrain his mind A must-watch for anyone dealing with trauma, brain injury, or the desire to transform their mental health. Watch our new episode! https://youtu.be/cG3NLSWAzEk #TraumaRecovery #Neuroplasticity #BrainInjury #MentalHealth #HealingJourney #DanielAmen #SPECTScan #OvercomingTrauma #PTSD #Austinandmattpodcast #facts #podcast
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Full Transcript
as I think it's a I think it's a subconscious fear of dying which is natural but to not be exposed to it so to have once your parents pass or when someone one of your loved ones gets sick I think there is this often times an awakening moment for people when they realize oh I'm going to die too and you start looking around and all of a sudden the steam coming out of your coffee is pretty beautiful and the sun rising is really amazing and you look at everything different than you've ever looked at it before >> absolutely man you hit it on the But I think I think one of the things you have to do once you get to that phase of realization is normally you have a lot of traumas that you've like developed and then you got to start letting go of stuff and it's hard to let go of stuff because it's stuck inside of you. It's like it's in your nervous system. >> How do you I mean you're at a different you're you're a couple years older than us. How did you >> how do you let go of stuff cuz you strike me as a guy that's resilient. You bounce back. >> How do you keep that neuroplasticity? >> Yeah, it's it's you know it's a challenge and if I were to say it was so easy I'd be lying. It is a challenge just like for anybody else. You just have to be really dedicated and really really know within yourself that you want to tackle these things. You want to process this trauma out of your body. You want to acknowledge them. You want to become a better person. You want to become stronger. You want to reduce your triggers. It's a lifelong journey to do that. I spent a lot of time working on myself over the last I would say 5 years. I mean significant work more than I ever did before. >> How so? Well, uh, doing a lot of intensive meditation, not medit just not not just standard meditation, but meditation on the trauma. Meditation on the trauma links to the past. Finding out why did this trigger me? Analyzing it, researching it. Oh, this the person said this and because they said this, it linked me to something from when I was 8 years old. Now, what is that thing? Let's bring that back up. Let's relive it into consciousness. analyze it, process it, get over it, get past that. You know, I think a lot of the traumas that a lot of the triggers that people have are because they have unprocessed trauma >> and and they don't even realize that they're nothing but a walking reaction. >> Yeah. >> And but their reactions that they're giving out are based on things that could have happened a decade or two decades ago, maybe even more in some cases. >> And then I did um a lot of work with counselors and psychotherapists and psychiatrists. >> I went to Dr. Daniel Aemon, the number one psychiatrist in my opinion in the world. He does all the NFL CTEes and everything. And he did a spec scan of my brain. Uh the first spec scan, he saw a trauma pattern, a diamond. When you see the diamond on the spec scan, it means severe trauma growing up. And he read my brain like he was reading a book. He was read my whole life out of that scan. He knew everything that happened to me. I was like, this is crazy. >> When did you have this done? >> That was about 3 years ago. >> Whoa. >> Then he put me on this. I also had a brain injury from a car accident. I went through the front windshield. That's why this eye, this is a reconstructed eyelid. This is called a starburst. And I went through the front shield of a of a car doing 75 miles an hour on the highway. And I went over the car that we hit. >> How old were you >> at that time? I was like 22, I believe. And um got rushed to the hospital. They, you know, took the glass out from behind my eye and everything else and uh stitched up, did the star, and then it busted open again and they had to redo it. But um that that that sloshed my brain around in my skull and it created a dimple here that no blood flow was going to right here. This spot is actually still numb. There's no feeling here. Nerves got cut somehow from here. And uh he I was having severe navigation problems. This why I went to him. I I was getting lost in this house. >> Wow. >> I was getting lost in cars everywhere. If I would if I would drive I don't drive that much, but if I would drive somewhere, I would be lost. Um, and sometimes I drive 30, 40 mi out of the way. My brain would tell me I'm doing something right. I'm going somewhere right.