Healing Emotional Trauma
JJ Flizanes is an Empowerment Strategist teaching the benefits of healing emotional trauma and the Host of The Fit 2 Love Podcast Show. She is the Director of Invisible Fitness, an Amazon best-selling author of Fit 2 Love: How to Get Physically, Emotionally, and Spiritually Fit to Attract the Love of Your Life, and the author of
Knack Absolute Abs:
Routines for a Fit and Firm Core. She was named Best Personal Trainer in Los Angeles in 2007 by Elite Traveler Magazine.
JJ vividly reminds us that the word ‘fitness’ is not just about the state of one’s physical body, but also the factors that determine a person’s overall well-being.
And, for JJ, the key components in all these areas are ‘invisible’ — balanced support structures of nutrition, emotional centeredness, and health.
Intro 0:04
Recovery After Stroke podcast. Helping you go from where you are to where you’d rather be.
Transcription:
Bill 0:14
According to the website psych central emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, use, understand, and manage emotions in an effective and positive way. A high EQ helps individuals to communicate better reduce their anxiety, defuse conflict, improve relationships, empathize with others, and effectively overcome life’s challenges.
Bill 0:39
Our emotional intelligence affects the quality of our lives because it influences our behavior and relationships. EQ is synonymous with self-awareness because it enables us to live our lives with intention, purpose, and autonomy. Many of us move through life making important decisions based on our current circumstances. We may perceive them as being beyond their ability to change thus limiting our options and solutions.
Bill 1:05
Taking time to reflect and examining why we decide to do what we do enables us to lead to lead lives, determined by our conscious intentions rather than circumstances alone. Developing aq can greatly influence our success. Our personal situations and intelligence are factors as well. However, EQ can profoundly affect our choices by creating options we may not have otherwise imagined or considered to be possibilities. And now it’s on with the show.
Emotional Trauma Part 1
Bill 1:39
G’day everybody and welcome to another episode of the Recovery After Stroke podcast today I have awesome guests full of energy and vitality. With me, I have JJ Flizanes. She is an empowerment strategist and the host of the Fit to Love podcast show. She is the director of invisible fitness and an Amazon best-selling author of the Book fit to Love how to get physically, emotionally and spiritually fit to Attract the Love of your life the author of Nack Absolute ABS retains a fit and firm core she was named Best Personal Trainer in Los Angeles for 2007.
Bill 2:18
By Elite Traveler magazine. JJ vividly reminds us that the world that the word fitness is not just about the state of one’s physical body, but also the factors that determine a person’s overall well-being. And that’s why I wanted to talk to JJ and for JJ the key components in all these areas are invisible balance, support structures of nutrition, emotional centeredness, and help a favorite of journalists and the media for her depth of knowledge and vibrant personality.
Bill 2:50
JJ, a contributing expert for get active magazine has also been featured in many national magazines in the US not in Australia. Including shape fitness, Muscle, and Fitness. Her elegant bride and woman’s health as well as appeared on NBC CBS Fox 11 KTLA Hello, JJ.
JJ Flizanes 3:14
Hi, Bill. Well not yet for Australia we can change that though. I’m hoping that Australia call me.
Bill 3:21
I’m loving it. I’m loving it. We do have those magazines here as well fitness and Muscle and the common so we understand where they are and where you sort of fit into the whole fitness world. I’m curious were you always a fitness freak?
JJ Flizanes 3:40
No, no, I’ve been dancing since I was three. So I definitely have been active and I’ve used my body. But I would say I did not get into the gym until I was in college. It was probably sophomore year although I did graduate in three years. So I was only there for three years. So whatever that middle year now would be called weather.
JJ Flizanes 3:59
That’d be my sophomore, my junior. And it was because I didn’t want to work retail anymore. And a friend in retail said, Let’s go get a job at the gym. Now mind you, my boyfriend at the time was a gymnast. So he was really well defined and built very balanced musculature all over his body. And I was in musical theater school and I was dancing had been dancing my whole life. So I had strong muscular quads and calves, but a scrawny skinny little upper body, like I looked like a pair.
JJ Flizanes 4:26
And, I knew not that I cared that much about building muscle, so to speak, it was really about looking more balanced and feeling stronger. I mean, obviously, it wasn’t doing anything with my upper body. But I was yet doing all this with my legs tapping and ballet and jazz and all that good stuff. So that’s really when it started. I was probably a 19 maybe 19 or 20. Although it was like I took off running very quickly once I got in there and got certified and then became director of education for the New York sports club when I was 21. So like it wasn’t, I didn’t waste any time getting into the fitness industry.
Bill 5:05
So you look very youthful actually. How long have you actually now been in the industry?
JJ Flizanes 5:12
20 years? About 20 years. I’ve been in California for 17 in June, and I’ve been and I started Personal Training, maybe two years, two and a half years before I got here in New York. Right. 97 I got my first certification, I believe in 1996. So it’s been a little over 20 years or almost 20 years.
Bill 5:34
Yeah, somebody that’s been in the industry for such a long time would have a lot of broad knowledge plus a lot of really, you know, narrow and focused points of view about how to go about doing things, how different is what you’re doing today. 20 ideas later, as opposed to what you were doing, when you were 19 when it was let’s do everything and let’s do as much as we can. Have you found yourself evolving and changing The way that you go about fitness?
JJ Flizanes 6:04
It’s a great question. And I’d love to ask that I’ve actually a lot of male Fitness Trainers for the reason that like a sport, I could see how you would think the fitness industry is like a sport like you go into it in one way kind of full on and you take what you know. But to me, first of all, I’m not that person. I’m a person who is very inquisitive and inquires and wants to learn what I’m doing. In fact, I credit a lot of my passion to one of the trainers that I used to work with back in I mean, 1996 when I first got certified, you can get certified as a personal trainer.
JJ Flizanes 6:37
Without any science background, you can literally take a weekend course, sometimes online, never stepped foot in a gym, and become a certified personal trainer. Now, I didn’t do that I went I did a course. But the course that I took, taught me more about how not to get sued and more like the legal structures of business.
JJ Flizanes 6:54
And it was like a it was like a health class like a little bit about a lot of things. Alright, so now I’m certified. I will Walk into a gym and I see all this equipment. Now what? You didn’t teach me how to use the equipment. So I then started to ask questions. And I was trained by the manager on staff at the time 20 years ago, and I only remember what her background was if it was physical therapy or, but she taught me what the machines did.
JJ Flizanes 7:19
Maybe I don’t ever again, that’s really funny. I have no idea what she taught me in terms of like, was it I can’t I can’t tell now 20 years later, like, was it any good? I have no idea, no frame of reference. So I remember that she did teach me but then I put some clients on. And I remember thinking, so here’s the biggest change when you first start out and you really don’t have a lot of education. And the industry is that way.
JJ Flizanes 7:39
You don’t have to have a degree to become a personal trainer. And some people that have degrees even in something similar to where I sit right now, don’t know, a lot of the things that I think they should know. So it’s in terms of the sciences that are involved. It depends on who’s teaching the course. So I put a bunch of ladies on like a leg sled. I remember one of the physical therapist client trainers. Trey’s a trainer, and he is he was studying to be a physical therapist. He approached me and he’s like JJ, and he was really discreet about it.
JJ Flizanes 8:09
He’s like, come here. And he took me into the, into the office and he was like, Why did you put those ladies are that lady on that machine? Do you did you ask does she have any hip issues? And he started to ask me questions. And I was it was almost like, Oh my God, I’ve been found out someone found me out and I don’t know what I’m doing in every area. Oh my god, what’s gonna happen next?
JJ Flizanes 8:34
And he put me on a machine he said, let me ask you what muscles are being worked here and what’s what actions are happening? And honestly, I did a guess and I guessed right. But I knew I guessed. So I was like, Okay, tell me what you know, help me How do I get more information and that’s when he turned me on to my very first certification, which was a national well, second certification. I was certified at that point.
JJ Flizanes 8:56
That one was bogus, but the second one was NASM. The National Academy of Sports Medicine at that time was run by different people than it is now that time, I mean, people who were in physical therapy school weren’t passing the beginner course. So that’s the course that I went through. And it blew me open in terms of my mind in terms of science because growing up, I never thought I really understood science.
JJ Flizanes 9:19
Because I wasn’t I was, I’m the theater student. I’m the communicator. I’m, the English person I was taking poetry and creative writing courses. And I dropped all my science and math in my senior year of high school because it bored me and I didn’t like it because it was abstract.
JJ Flizanes 9:34
And it didn’t mean anything to me. But here now I’m working with a body and I’m seeing science in my body. And it’s so clear, and it’s so easy, and I’m good at it. And now all of a sudden, I’m smart. And I was like wow, like my world just opened up. And so that little bit of science information really uncovered for me how much gym science guy gym science, that there is and how many trainers had no clue about the science of the body and how most people that are working out have no clue about what they’re doing in the gym.
JJ Flizanes 10:07
Once I started to really start to learn it opened my eyes so much that how I’m different now is back then it was it was a toe to toe ego thing. It was I wanted to show you how smart I was by what I knew because I knew you didn’t know it like the big guys with their weight belts. Like I wanted to just go right and go raw, like, just meet them testosterone-wise right in their face and be like you’re an idiot.
JJ Flizanes 10:33
You don’t know what you’re doing. Okay? Like, seriously. So now, of course, that’s not the right approach. And that was my own insecurities driving that right? Like I learned one thing, and I could prove that they were wrong. And I wanted to like to capitalize on that. So I don’t do that anymore. I’m much calmer about how I deliver my science and I don’t need to make anybody wrong for it, but through the years, I just keep learning more and more and so back to the question of like, how am I different too?
JJ Flizanes 11:00
When I first started learning, one of my instructors in NSM, was an ex Mr. Olympian. And he got up in the front of the room now at the time I was in my early 20s. And he said, I have 11 injuries, don’t do what I did. And I was like, okay, that’s all I needed to hear. I’m like, I won’t. Okay, you’re telling me don’t do stupid shit in the gym? Don’t, so I won’t. And that was all I needed to hear. And I took it very seriously because I saw that you can train and get injured or you can train and preserve your body. And the difference was science. You have to understand the sciences involved.
Emotional trauma Part 2
JJ Flizanes 11:38
And not many people do. Because, if you have a good body, it’s just you genetically look good. Or if you’re an athlete, you can get away with a lot of stuff. Nobody questions you. Yeah, and the average client doesn’t know any better. So what are they going to do? They don’t know the questions to ask you.
JJ Flizanes 11:56
They just know you look good. They want to look like you. Here’s my money. Work me out. And they don’t think about how their joints are deteriorating or how they’re wrecking their body over time. So I just continued, my education has not stopped. And it just continues. It’s just different subjects.
JJ Flizanes 12:13
So I went from when my brain was turned on. It went from biomechanics and anatomy to physiology, which took many years to really understand because nobody, I mean, thank God for some of the computer programs that could make things different colors, because once you start cutting into a muscle and breaking down the cell, it’s all like, if you can’t draw it, well, it all looks the same.
JJ Flizanes 12:35
I’m like, I can’t conceptualize this. I need color. So thank God for the atom program that made physiology easy to understand. Plus, it’s all electrical and chemical things that happen in the body, like there’s like so many transitions that happen from the first action potential which is electrical in your brain, and then the chemical and electrical reactions that happen till you get to muscle contraction like there’s a lot of stuff happening in the body that needs to be in place.
JJ Flizanes 12:59
And that’s the physiology Part and so we went to physiology and then physics like hello you have to understand physics. Yeah, I won’t digress but there are some funny stories about that. Okay, so physics how many people doing things that just say it like you’re like okay gravity pulls down.
JJ Flizanes 13:14
They don’t understand physics. Okay then we move to biochemistry so after getting sort of the anatomy physiology physics part then you move to physiology and you move to biochemistry, the food and how the food affects your body.
JJ Flizanes 13:26
And then once you get to the biochemistry then especially for where I am right now dealing with people it mostly in their 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s we’re looking at the hormonal and the metabolic degeneration of their body and what’s going on with them hormonally and neuro chemistry, right, your neurotransmitters.
JJ Flizanes 13:45
So we’re looking at brain chemistry as well as your hormones and so all of these different things play a big role. And then I haven’t even begun to talk about the psychology piece. There is a psychology piece, right? So all these different things are important when you consider your exercise your lifestyle, and your health, and they’re all integrated.
JJ Flizanes 14:07
And unfortunately in life because it’s easier for us to understand we compartmentalize. And we think well, I’ll just do this, but you don’t ever look at how it’s so attached to this, this, this, this, and this, and how do they all affect each other? I’m about the integration of all of it and seeing where it where’s the whole. What are you missing? What’s getting you stuck that you need to focus on? It’s gonna help the rest of this flow better.
Bill 14:28
Yeah, I, you’re talking my language. I love it. And I can relate. Yeah, I can relate. Because when I was going to the gym when I was 17 1819, there was no thought about anything else. It was just about looking a certain way. And I never actually ever got there because I wasn’t doing all the other little things that I needed to do to help me look that certain way that I think I needed to look. So and I didn’t realize why I wasn’t getting there.
Bill 14:55
And of course, I wasn’t doing what other people were doing to get to where they were so I wasn’t even asking, Hey, can I you know, for lack of a better example, your bicep is like this? But, you know, what are you doing differently? So I wasn’t trying to learn from people that have been down that path to get some understanding from the wiser, you know, gym junkie, so to speak, that was doing it for more years that was doing it properly.
Bill 15:20
And I wasn’t prepared to do the work, because it was all too hard, too much commitment. And what do you mean, I’ve got a slate more and what do you mean, I shouldn’t, you know, drink alcohol and all that kind of stuff? Come on. That’s all too hard. So, as I age, though, as I aged, I’m now I’m 42.
Bill 15:37
I understand that all the things that I’ve picked up over the years about health and wellness, which hasn’t been a lot until around the last four or five years, have shaped this new version of me that’s more supportive of me than I’ve ever been. I have not been this supportive of my body and my brain and my health and my well-being as much as I am now.
Bill 15:57
And it’s because I’ve done those things that are been taught as well, which is, take the brain if there’s something wrong with it, let’s put it over here. Let’s work out what’s wrong with the brain. And let’s try and fix the brain. You broke your foot, well, let’s take your foot, and let’s put it over here.
Bill 16:10
And let’s work out what went wrong with the foot. And let’s see if we can fix the foot. And they were ever said to me, Well, maybe what’s happening at your foot is connected to something that’s happening that you’re putting in your mouth, or not putting in an email. So that I asked that because I wanted to allow people that are listening and watching to get a feel for how evolution occurs, evolution in learning, and then what it is that you’ve got to offer.
Emotional Trauma Part 3
Bill 16:36
And not only just you and me at age 40 odd but what everyone has got to offer at age 40. Odd is far more holistic than they did when they were 20. And that’s because of their experiences. So experience matters. I’ve stuffed up my back going to the gym, doing squats, pulling a rotator cuff out and it was gone for two years and I couldn’t do anything with it.
Bill 17:00
So to get you know, the right tricep size, put me out of action for two years, and I couldn’t use my shoulder in anything. I couldn’t use it at work, I couldn’t use it at home, I couldn’t use it at the gym. So it’s really important for people that are listening or watching understand that as we age, and do different things and try different things and learn from different ways we become wiser, more experienced, and just through, you know, trial and error, I think it’s really important. That’s why I wanted to ask because I wanted to know how you’ve evolved. And it sounds like you’ve evolved to that point where now you are somebody that people come to, for more than just I want to go to the gym and put on muscles, what else do they come to you for?
JJ Flizanes 17:45
So I actually am working with a client right now that I worked with for three or four years ago. And at the time, she just wanted to lose weight and sort of start to like exercise or get into a program. And then she went off to school and she came back and she hired me Again, and I said what’s different this time and she said, I want the whole thing.
JJ Flizanes 18:04
I recognize now that I have emotional eating and that my stress comes to me and I want the whole package. I want the psychological, the emotional, the physical, the whole thing. So now that’s not everybody. I wish it was everybody. Because it’s much more fun that way when I can approach somebody with a holistic toolbox and say, What goodies do we have in here for you that will actually help you? I the client this morning, who he likes to joke he lawyers, me.
JJ Flizanes 18:30
He said about his shoulder, my shoulder is bothering me and I said, I go Is it like a new one? Did you do something different recently as a probably He’s like, No, just that part of my show that I was telling you that you haven’t fixed yet. And I said because you don’t listen. So yeah, I mean, I know my limitations with different people that you know, I want another client who has back pain, and that back pain, I can tell you frickin 150% it’s emotional. But he’s a typical 60-year-old male who doesn’t want to deal with his emotion.
Bill 18:59
Listen to what JJ just said about people’s back pain which is emotional. Go figure it out, guys. It’s possible.
JJ Flizanes 19:09
Totally emotional. But I’ve been working with him for six years. And even though he’s not interested in dealing with those emotions or releasing them, or processing them, or doing anything that would alleviate them long term doesn’t have back pain right now, but it comes in it goes, but it comes when he gets triggered.
JJ Flizanes 19:24
And so he knows like, I’ll say, oh, what happened? And he’ll tell me rather than saying, Oh, I bent over wrong, he’ll say, Oh, it’s probably my brother, or my or my wife or right so he understands. So in six years, I’ve gotten to like, it used to drive me crazy because you know, I’d look at a problem and I’m like, let’s solve this puppy. Let’s not wait. What would you like if you knew what the problem was and how to solve it, why would you just do it?
JJ Flizanes 19:47
But some, but I understand why because you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, all that good stuff, habit. And to be quite honest, when it comes to those kinds of big emotions that people have stuffed down for so long. The reality evidence to really deal with it, it means your life has to change, and unless you’re ready to change and by the way, like with you and what happened to you and what’s happened to people who get cancer, people that have car x, like, like, if you are unwilling to take the hint along the way that life wants you to grow and move, then you will manifest some big reason that’s gonna say, You’re not listening.
JJ Flizanes 20:23
So I’m gonna pin you on the ground until you listen. Okay? And she’s you still don’t take the hint. That’s cool. That’s probably maybe your part of your journey, but like, but that you know, you’re gonna get that if you’re stubborn, you’re going to be backed up against the wall until you listen or until you are in a state that so I know you want to get in here. I want to do a quick story about a friend who had back pain and, and had back pain and he had visited me when I moved to California and he had to sleep on a board because his back hurts so bad.
JJ Flizanes 20:55
In fact, he got stranded here for a couple of months because he couldn’t sit on a plane and went to it. The doctor did x-rays, and they said oh, you have a pinched nerve, and it’s a degenerative disc and we need to do surgery. And somebody had presented him and I don’t have it here in front of me. But I’ve got a copy of the book, healing back pain by Dr. John Sarno. And he started to read the book and he interpreted it as saying that it was all in his head, he was like, screw that I have x-rays through the book away. So now we’re getting closer to the surgery.
Emotional Trauma Part 4
JJ Flizanes 21:23
I think the book came into his life one more time. Now he’s like, literally a day or two away from surgery. And the book came back into his life somehow he read it on a train. And when he got done with it, half of his back pain was gone, never had surgery, and now uses his back pain as his barometer for how well he’s dealing with his emotions.
JJ Flizanes 21:41
And, and I had him on my podcast show and I interviewed him years ago, really to help my family and friends who are in denial about their feelings and making their back pain. I thought if they could hear it from somebody else, maybe they listen so whatever. Yeah. So yeah, it’s it now. It doesn’t mean you don’t have structural issues, it doesn’t mean you can’t strengthen your muscles, it doesn’t mean many things about your digestion, about your posture about your you know, of course, but if it’s a physical issue, then a physical solution helps. If it’s not a physical problem, then all the physical solutions are not going to solve it long term or it’s gonna manifest in another way. So if you’re doing acupuncture, physical therapy, chiropractic that da da da, da, da and so not better, it’s probably not a physical issue.
Bill 22:27
Did you research me while you just before you when on
JJ Flizanes 22:32
I listened to your show, yeah, I was. Which is why you’re like, I haven’t taken care of myself this good. And last, since it left for like, well, let’s see what’s a wonder why you end up in the hospital. Because your brain and like, really? Yeah, because like, I mean, I know what you did before that, but I heard your show. So I know that you had like push you up against the wall and say, you better pay attention and you listened.
Bill 22:52
You’re the best. You’re the best. You know exactly what happened to me. So what happened to me for the people who haven’t caught up on those episodes that are listening and watching what happened? To me, it was I had three brain hemorrhages over three years. But the first one happened. At a time when I was working 16 hours a week, I wasn’t eating properly. I was smoking, I was drinking, I wasn’t sleeping enough.
Bill 23:12
I wasn’t dealing with my emotional challenges. I wasn’t dealing with any I wasn’t doing anything. I was just working. And I was a head case. And I used to describe myself as a head case. And I always used to do this kind of, you know, I hit stuff. And then one day my head goes, stuffing, I’m not coping with this shit anymore.
Bill 23:30
Here’s a little blade for you to deal with, to get out of your head to get connected to your body. I didn’t think about it that way at the time. Of course not. Because at the time I thought, Oh my God, my brain’s blade, you know, got to fix it. At the time. We went to the doctors, we did all those things. And then as I started to evolve and emerge, I started to realize that Oh my God, when I addressed that thing in therapy, this thing in my body went away.
Bill 23:57
I don’t know why it went away. And then I got curious then I started doing etc. And then I did the same thing with food because I realized when I was upset and causing that thing in my body and sugar, oh my god, the sugar and that upset and that feeling and that thought made it worse.
Bill 24:12
What happens if I take all that out and then I realized that I was in control of my own recovery, I wasn’t in control of getting into my head opening my head up and taking the blood vessel out, and cauterizing I wasn’t in control of that the doctors were in control of that thank God for them I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for them.
Bill 24:29
But I was in control of what happened after and whether I end up and I’m going to be a little bit crass or whether I end up in a few years’ time either or somebody else being able to toilet me or what my bum for me? And I didn’t want to be that person and I especially didn’t want to be the person who caused me to be in that situation. I would never forgive myself if I put myself in the hospital and I was the reason why it happened if God chose it well then so be it.
Bill 24:54
This wasn’t God’s doing it was my doing so thank you so much for saying what you say cuz I can relate to it. And part of why I do my podcast is the same reason you do it so that hopefully one day, one of my family members goes, I wonder what Bill talks about on that podcast?
JJ Flizanes 25:14
Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, good luck with that. I had a little bit of success with that. But the reality of it is the best way to help others is to just be an example of it.
Bill 25:23
Yeah, I know. So that’s what I’m doing. And people are contacting me from all over the place saying that I love the episodes, they can relate to that. And that’s what, that’s why I love doing this is because I want to make a difference. I want to change but I don’t want to force change or want to allow change to occur. And it sounds like you do the same thing. So if somebody comes back to you after six years, you might not have contacted them for X amount of years.
Bill 25:45
But the work that you did with them earlier, allows them to take their path, get to a point, and then if there was a value in what you offered, which they obviously were, then what that allows him to do is say you know what, I’m ready for the next step and it’s okay that it took six You should, it should be quicker. And that would be better. But it’s okay that it took six years. And now, you know, JJ helped me with the next thing.
Bill 26:08
And what I love about podcasts is that we get to share a piece of ourselves, we get to use it as a healing mechanism for ourselves because that’s why I use it. And we get to, you know, relate to other people, not just to ourselves anymore. Now I’m relating to everybody else. I’m making a difference. I’m helping people, and some of your episodes had really interesting headlines. And the best therapy for true healing is one of the episodes. Tell me about what is the best therapy for true healing, because that is an amazing thing.
JJ Flizanes 26:47
So the type of therapy is called EMDR eye movement desensitizing Reestablishment. So quickly, I’m gonna just go break down so people, whether you’re watching are listening understand when I talk about true healing. I have worked with therapists both as my clients as well as myself with therapists as well as training them and learning from them. And while I’m a big fan of therapy in general, I am not a fan of talk therapy only with no other tools. The reason is that our mind is divided into two sections conscious and subconscious.
JJ Flizanes 27:29
And your conscious mind that which you can hear that you can hear your thoughts that’s only 12% it’s not a lot 88% is subconscious which means the beliefs that you have learned since you were young the things that you have that’s happened to you, your traumas, your experiences, the interpretations that you’ve had about the things happening in the environment around you have all fed your subconscious mind and most of it was developed from the time you were born until you’re about 10 most of it now, throughout the time we have traumas that happened to us and trauma it is relative.
JJ Flizanes 28:02
Someone might say, well, I’ve never been raped. I’ve never been shot. I’ve never been attacked. Those are definitely traumas for sure. But being yelled at can be a trauma. Having best starving and not having food can be a trauma, having a car break down in the middle of nowhere and being scared and hearing sounds and that’s traumatic. So I don’t want anyone to minimize when I talk about trauma, or explain EMDR, and what it does.
JJ Flizanes 28:27
Now I have gotten to a point in my own understanding of psychology because like I said, I don’t study everything, and I am pretty smart. So I think and I do it on myself and I might test a guinea pig, right? I and I got to the point where I had done hypnosis, I got to the point where my conscious mind could not undo certain habitual patterns, feelings, and beliefs.
JJ Flizanes 28:52
And what EMDR was designed to do was designed to help trauma patients, mostly people with PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and mostly people coming from war or from situations where they were experiencing those kinds of very very high traumatic events.
JJ Flizanes 29:09
So imagine somebody coming back from war and having been shot or being shot at okay so imagine if in case for anyone that has never heard of gunfire or had a gun fired at you or never fired a gun imagine gunfire and then coming out of being in war where it’s fight or flight you’re gonna die every second and now you’re trying to integrate back into life and you hear a car backfire the backfire of that car sounds awful lot like a gunfire gunshot and so what’s gonna happen is that the trauma your brain, the nervous system has very it reacts, it’s in yourselves.
JJ Flizanes 29:44
It’s not conscious, you do not have any space or time to decide and interpret what that was because you’re already in fight or flight mode because of the traumatic experience but that’s about how it affected your nervous system. EMDR uses eye movement As well as pulses and sounds, there are a couple of different ways to do the therapy. And you do it with somebody else. By the way, you can’t do it by yourself.
JJ Flizanes 30:07
But there are ways to do it and then that eye movement sort of disconnects and creates a space between the nervous system and your body’s reaction. So that now when you hear the backfire after having EMDR for a certain amount of time, there’s a little space there where you get to interpret Oh, that was a car. Okay, body Calm down, and don’t go into that shock.
JJ Flizanes 30:29
Okay, so that’s EMDR is very powerful for some of the things that we can’t wrap our brains around and we are so triggered about and triggers are and while you can work them consciously, there’s a physical cellular component that also needs to be addressed for you to really be able to heal it and not continue repeating it.
Bill 30:52
Just for the people that listen and don’t know what EMDR is, what are the words mean? What is it? What’s the abbreviation
JJ Flizanes 31:00
Eye Movement Desensitizing Reestablishment. So that’s what EMDR stands for. And, and, and it’s part of a whole healing package, I’ve realized that a lot of traditional therapists, even therapists I’ve worked with, don’t necessarily believe in true healing they believe in. They believe in learning and creating different behaviors to set themselves up to not be triggered. And that’s different than healing.
JJ Flizanes 31:34
And so I really try to push people in my and I actually just finished writing my third book, like literally a week ago. So when that comes out, I talk about like, the difference between what true healing means which is you are different, in the same situation, you feel differently, react differently, and you should be at peace. If you have healing in that area, and be able to be an observer and not have Triggers, a lot of therapies are about changing behavior. So you avoid getting triggered, or you change behavior to get a different outcome, but you actually dance around the root cause and the issue you don’t actually ever make peace with or heal the deepest, deepest fear or issue.
Bill 32:19
Love it. And then I feel that what that encourages only by default because I went through therapy many, many years ago when I was in my mid-20s, when one of our family members at 31 died from cancer was really traumatic, and I didn’t realize for a number of years, so I went to therapy. What I found myself doing was then unfortunately, being encouraged, but that wasn’t the intention to avoid a situation so a confrontation with somebody that wasn’t full on or nuts, but it was just a no standing my ground kind of confrontation.
Bill 32:54
I would avoid that and then that didn’t work out for me because I didn’t get what I wanted and I didn’t express that. Myself, I avoided the situation and the feelings of that moment, but I didn’t get an outcome, I didn’t get a result. And It made me avoid, then take it to the next step, interacting with that person at any level. And then it’s kind of like, well, now I’ve removed myself, I don’t have that problem anymore.
Bill 33:19
But I don’t interact with anyone anymore. I don’t have any reason to call that person anymore. Because I never want to have the risk that something might be triggered when I have a confrontation and I don’t want to feel those feelings. Oh, God, I can’t do that. Because that’s not a nasty person. That’s just somebody who has a different point of view that I don’t agree with, that I haven’t learned to deal with yet. So, yeah, I found myself doing that for a little while and then had to overcome all of the avoiding situations because I was avoiding everything.
Bill 33:49
And then I had to get back into situations. When I got back into him, dealt with the emotion expressed myself, and did all those things. What I found was that next time exactly what you said in a different situation, sorry, in the same situation, my response was completely different. And that person was responding to me differently and going, that didn’t go as badly as I thought it would go. So we broke the cycle of the, you know, what caused each person to go down the path that they went. And now I was able to interact with people, the center ball was avoiding, in a much, much better way, in a much more calm way, in a loving way, you know, understanding why and we’re able to agree to disagree.
JJ Flizanes 34:28
Yeah, well, I think it’s true healing that’s necessary to overcome whatever it is you’re dealing with. And my latest book is about releasing weight and overcoming body shame. And we just want to keep giving lip service to emotional stuff or to understanding but nobody wants to do the work and the work doesn’t have to be doesn’t have to be painful. I mean, yes, there.
JJ Flizanes 34:49
You have to, you have to you have to feel it to heal it First of all, but besides that, it doesn’t have to, you know, it’s it’s almost like digging a weed out of a garden. You know, there’s a little bit of effort. Once you Get there and you take it out, then it’s not a problem anymore. Moving on to the next thing, like, people don’t know what freedom on the other side feels like.
JJ Flizanes 35:06
So they keep avoiding it, and then they stuffed down because that’s all they know. Because of the fear of Oh my god, what am I going to feel? How bad is it going to be? I don’t want to feel that let me avoid it. But then it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger for no real good reason. And yeah, so maybe you need to cry or break something.
JJ Flizanes 35:22
But guess what, once you get through that, just like the storm, it passes, and all of a sudden, you’re like, Oh, I’m free. And I’m fine. I’m empty. I have emptied my tank. I don’t feel so I don’t feel so full of negative emotions that are eating away at me. And that freedom is, you know, again, until you experience it. It’s hard to sell it. Yeah, people don’t understand.
Bill 35:40
Yeah, go for it, go for it, deal with your issues. However, you can release them and have an opportunity to experience what’s on the other side. Because it’s a wave of what’s on this side. And if you’ve been doing that for too long, right, JJ, you get used to that as being normal. The normal yeah come Oh my God, this state that I’m in it’s normal. That has always been whatever it doesn’t have to be that can be a new normal.
Bill 36:03
Let’s go for it. Let’s see what that new normal is designed to let things go and experience it. I’ve certainly benefited from it and in healing from brain hemorrhages and stroke, a lot of the work that you’re describing is really important for healing and recovering from brain hemorrhages, strokes, and any illness serious life-threatening illness really.
Bill 36:26
I want to know if we can touch on a little bit and we’ll go into a couple of other things that I want to touch on some of the other episodes and your book. I want to know have you ever worked with people who are recovering from physical conditions that as a result of brain or some other situation where they are not as able-bodied as ever and how do you deal with those people differently? Then you’re a technically able-bodied person.
JJ Flizanes 36:54
So I have I’ve worked with people who have had MS and some neurological conditions how I would approach that now when I have worked with some of those people that was prior to my, I’d say recently in the last couple of years extensive knowledge of neurotransmitters and biochemistry at a deeper level and a hormonal level.
JJ Flizanes 37:14
But what I do that a lot of people don’t know or understand till we like I show you I can’t really, I can tell you about it. But you’re, as I mentioned earlier, with physiology being a bunch of electrical and chemical transactions and exchanges that happen to the body as you think before you, you pick something up starts in your brain.
JJ Flizanes 37:35
So well what people don’t do with exercise and it’s so simple and I’m trying to like brand it but I can’t, it really has to be in person, you have to do it with me or over Skype. I can’t really talk about it. It won’t be as effective but it’s all I have on videos. You can contract your muscle with your brain. And I don’t work with anyone until you because your beard muscle only contracts because your brain told it to and within Each muscle, there are many groups of muscle fibers that are connected to, let’s say, a receptor site that then gets chemically induced by your nervous system that had to come from your impulse that happened at the brain.
Emotional trauma Part 3
JJ Flizanes 38:14
And there are lots of things that happen in between there. But when it comes to exercise, people don’t do the brain connection. They just tell you to do emotion. So you literally are thinking about something else or having a conversation and you’re moving your body around. And even with people who are like, just every bit everybody I worked with a brand new guy yesterday was a delight.
JJ Flizanes 38:34
He was a delightful man, who every time who has hasn’t exercised in many, many, many, many, many, many years. And I and I went through took me an hour to teach him seven exercises because I thoroughly connected his brain to his muscles, and only had him move from that muscle was no more 100% control and neurological connection.
JJ Flizanes 38:57
And he was like, I love this exercise. I love this. Exercise him because he felt his body in a way that he had in many, many years. But I do with everybody. And so what’s more, most important with anyone with a brain injury but everybody is to pause one more story. The 70-year-old client wanted to lose 50 pounds years ago, crooked, crooked, broken.
JJ Flizanes 39:19
Oh my gosh, a limp. I took a look one look at her and I’m like, oh, gosh, okay, we can’t even address the weight loss until we like to fix the table like you are a broken machine. We cannot make the machine work harder, it will keep breaking. We have to put you back together again. So I put her on the floor for the first two sessions and we did exercise on the floor.
JJ Flizanes 39:36
Now mind you, I’m in an industry and I don’t care about listening to those people because half of them are very educated anyway. But they would say to me, oh, that’s not functional training. Okay, first of all, the word function is if is getting something to work, it’s function. So to me, if it if it connects your brain to your body and turns a part of your body on that hasn’t worked in a long time that’s functional.
JJ Flizanes 39:57
Okay, yes. You’re never going to lift your leg in the way that we do in In life, that’s not the point. So I put this woman on the floor, and we did all these exercises that you’d never do in life. And in two sessions, she was walking better. She wasn’t limping. And she walked in the door and I said, Lee, How are you feeling? And she goes, I’m walking better. I said I see that. She’s like, did I build muscle in two sessions? I said, No, we turned it on.
JJ Flizanes 40:19
We use our brain to connect to the muscles around the areas where we had trauma that shut down to protect and to heal that never turned back on. Because they don’t let you turn them on with your brain. And we turn the back on. So now you have 20 or 30% more muscle than you’ve always had sitting there, but now it’s helping you walk. So for someone with a brain, that’s the first place you have to go is to see how strong of a connection you can get from your brain to your muscle.
JJ Flizanes 40:46
You don’t just do exercise, you don’t just move around. Because you’re already utilizing muscle fibers that are already well connected neurologically. The whole point of wanting to connect your body and strengthening that is to try to connect no muscles Try to move in a different way that your body isn’t used to stimulate parts of your brain but then to activate and turn on new muscles that are sitting there doing nothing for you, because you can have we all have plenty of those. Yeah, beautiful work.
Bill 41:13
I love it. So for the people listening and watching or wanting to share what I did to recover, it’s exactly what you said. So a lot of people who experience stroke will have left side or right side deficit and one of their hands may not move. So what I learned, which was not particularly useful for me was that there is an exercise where the therapists will get a mirror and I’ll get you to move the hand that works, but your brain in the mirror, because the mirror is opposite.
Bill 41:44
It sees the left hand moving, and it assumes that it’s made the left hand move. So the brain starts to do exactly what you said to switch on those pathways or ignite those pathways. That told the muscle on the other side of the body of the arm that’s not working about, hey, we moved it already because I saw it. So if I saw it, it’s got to be real.
Bill 42:08
This means now you need to kick in and get active and start doing stuff. So the challenge that I had was my left leg, I couldn’t use that. And we couldn’t get a mirror up to mimic that because it’s too big, etc. It’s too difficult. And before I actually had a month of rehabilitation, I had to wait two days to go from the hospital to the rehab hospital and to transition from surgery into a process that evaluated me to see what I was capable of doing with regards to walking, etc.
Bill 42:45
So as a two-day evaluation, I was born out of my brain stuck in my bed, and I couldn’t do any physical therapy and I remembered this exercise. So what I did is I imagined myself walking, I close my eyes, I meditated and I imagined myself Walking. And as I did that, I noticed that I was stepping a certain way my foot was landing a certain way I was getting certain feedback, all these things. And when it came time to walk, for people who are listening who have been through something or know somebody who’s been through something serious like this, what has happened at that time is certain neurons in the brain called mirror neurons pick that up and tell the rest of the body that this actually occurred, and therefore, you already have a reference point for it.
Bill 43:28
So you might as well just get up and do it yourself anyway. Now, it’s not 100% because you still have to strengthen the signal from the leg to the brain. But it is the beginning of that process. It’s what started off the healing and the communication. So I just love that you said what you said because that’s exactly what I did.
Bill 43:47
And I didn’t know that you did that work and you didn’t know that that’s what I did. I love how aligned to be and I love how you’re taking your approach to healing to the floor and to To the brain and to the imagination and to a communication pathway rather than just getting them on there and making them push and make them push.
Bill 44:07
Because if somebody got me to stand up, and I didn’t know that I would be shitting myself that I’m going to fall over, that I’m going to hurt myself that I won’t be able to do it. And I would put myself in a stressed out sympathetic state, and I would not want to go down that path I would be doing, you know, the freezing up of the locking up, and I wouldn’t want to comply, whereas this way, how gentle is it to put a lady on the ground, and to just get her to think about the things that she needs to think about so she can activate those muscles is the safest, most amazing thing you can’t get sued for that.
JJ Flizanes 44:41
She was doing exercise and, you know, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve helped a lot of men with knee problems. And, I’ve helped a lot of women actually, one of my coaching programs before I started doing Skype training. I mean I’ve helped fix some knees over the phone, and with my videos in terms of good form and have them go back and look at the exercises, but, but it’s all the same process, it’s all the same principle of that you we all have motor patterns that we practice all the time, we’ve established pathways that our brain goes through.
JJ Flizanes 45:13
And when you get injured, those pathways shut down at those sites to protect so you can heal that tissue, but it won’t turn back on and then you compensate and create dysfunction. And whether it be an injury or someone has pain, or we’re just we’re looking to build muscle I treat everybody the same way you need to connect with your body and know exactly, exactly. And you need to be thinking in fact, if you really train well, it’s like meditation because you’re only thinking of the muscle that’s pulling in the direction you want it to pull and then moving the bones that are connected to that that’s it.
JJ Flizanes 45:48
So if you’re really training well and you have your brain on, then it’s a Zen state of being because you are inside your body you are in the moment and you really there are not too many people that I trust to be having a full-on conversation and really be in their bodies at the same time. I can do it but, you know, but really, because most people don’t visualize that strongly. Yeah, but I treat everybody the same.
Bill 46:11
Yeah. And they get distracted a little bit we’ll get distracted. Oh my god, the pain Oh my God, I’m gonna fall on my god, I can’t do it. They do all that type of stuff, right? So that’s right. I love that way. You said it’s like meditation focusing on that process on that skill. It’s like a meditation and so is it’s amazing. Your podcast is amazing. I’ve listed a couple of episodes and one of the other podcast episodes want to talk about is the biggest addiction we have.
JJ Flizanes 46:38
Technology.
Bill 46:41
No one wants to hear it. No one wants to hear it because they know they love the technology. Technology does amazing things and how could I be addicted to what I can do without it?
JJ Flizanes 46:51
Actually, you know what, I have my new book here. Since I’ve since we did that podcast. Obviously, it’s, I’ve written a book and I have a whole bunch of different So, I will go over with you what the biggest addiction we have is, but I do want to refer to my new book because there are also soft addictions and hard addictions. And that’s what people don’t understand is that they think that an addiction is just alcohol or drugs or food. And so people don’t take it seriously. And, or they want to blame it on the substance.
Emotional trauma Part 4
JJ Flizanes 47:19
Oh, it’s the substance. Oh, yeah. And then and then people want to congratulate everybody when they get off the substance. They’re like, Oh, you don’t? Oh, yeah, she’s not she’s an alcoholic. She’s recovered. She’s dry. And I’m like, so what’s she doing? Like? Did she heal that because here’s the thing? While there is a chemical component to hard addiction, it’s still the same alcoholic. Choosing to drink, to suppress an emotion is no different than a person picking up a bag of chips, a box of cookies, or a piece of chocolate.
JJ Flizanes 47:50
And it’s no different than you on your phone all day long. Not connecting with yourself or anybody else because you’re too busy scouring the internet or Facebook To see what’s going on because you just want to be distracted the biggest diction we have is that we spend more time being distracted than we do being our bodies and being in the moment we are constantly running away and filling our time busy Enos is a big addiction control is a huge are control issues of controlling things but and top in the biggest addiction at the top of the soft addictions would absolutely be technology.
JJ Flizanes 48:28
Absolutely. devices, always having a device in your hand and having your face down. Always trying to be connected when you’re really not connected, seeing what’s going on on Facebook or checking on your Twitter or whatever. reading the news watching television numbing out. Because it’s it’s acceptable. All soft addictions are seen as normal behavior. workaholism. That was yours, right? workaholism, and in, you know, food and control and business-like people that are really busy. People think oh, you must be really successful.
JJ Flizanes 48:59
No, that’s called I’m running from something, okay? If you don’t, you can’t sit with yourself long enough to feel what you’re feeling and allow life to just, you know, there’s a doing and a being and we’re human beings, not human doings. So that’s what ends up putting you in the ground faster or getting you into a place where you attract cancer or you’re so much toxic emotion inside of you that it turns into something physical as a disease in your body because you don’t ever release it or process it. You just hold it, and you’re running away from it, but you’re really not running away from it because it’s in you.
Emotional Trauma Part 5
JJ Flizanes 49:30
And then all of a sudden, it just manifests into something, you know, that’s gonna take you down. But yeah, so the biggest addiction we have on that podcast really is talking about technology. And, since that podcast, I would add a whole bunch of them and dizziness is one of them. And I’d want people to know that hard addictions, all addictions, all of them. Start with the impulse to stuff and to repress emotion. Doesn’t matter what it is. It all starts in the same way I don’t want to feel blank.
Bill 50:00
Yeah, beautiful. Well said, I agree with you before we get on to your podcast because I want to talk about that why it was put together, etc. I want to ask you about one other episode which was Which Greek goddess, you, JJ?
JJ Flizanes 50:19
You know, we did that show and Helen sorted out, you know, there’s a quiz that she has and she went through all of them and as she’s describing them going, Oh yeah, each one I’m like, Oh yeah, that’s and oh, yeah, I kind of did that too. And then we get to the next one I was like, how am I gonna? This is gonna sound funny, but I like to think of all of them.
JJ Flizanes 50:36
And she’s like, and she’s like, well, you might be, and of course if I tested and I was like, whatever it is, like a little bit of all of them. That was me. I’m like, Yeah, okay, great. You know, I mean, I have I definitely have you know, as we evolved, we were talking about everything that’s happened to you. It’s happened for a reason and it’s about growing as we age, and it’s really about the width. If you take the cues and you learn your lesson. Some people live 99 years some people have one year 99 times.
JJ Flizanes 51:08
If you’re taking the cue and you’re expanding, you’re growing and you’re learning and you’re taking life and you really like riding that wave in an exciting way, and not just repeating patterns and patterns, and numbing to avoid thinking or feeling about anything new or different, then then this stuff, just sort of, you know, you put on personalities, based on what stage of life you’re in and where you are. I mean, I’ve had the addiction to business, because that’s what I looked around and entrepreneurs and thought, that’s what I was supposed to do. I’m supposed to be busy, it means I’m successful. If I’m not busy, I’m doing something wrong.
JJ Flizanes 51:38
And then I realized that that was not the law of attraction. And I was not leveraging the universe and the energy that I have available access to to actually create really amazing wonderful things that have a life of their own. So once I started to really get honest about that, even though I believe this one thing, I wasn’t really practicing it, then I could sit back and go Okay, so So now I’m a little bit of all of them. But before I was Athena, and before that I, you know, I was all different ones, because of where I was in my stage of growth and learning.
Bill 52:08
Yeah, what’s really important for people to know is that they can grow, they can adapt, they can change, they can let go of old behaviors, and they don’t have to stick to them for the rest of their lives. And they can also say, you know what, that way that I was being or doing that was not for me. Now, in this version of my life and who I become, I can let that go. So big deal I don’t want to be that person anymore. It doesn’t change who I am deep down in my heart.
Emotional Trauma Part 6
Bill 52:31
It just changes the way I act and the feedback that I get because of that so that’s all good. Your podcast though, is called Fit to Love. So we’ve spoken about a lot of things but now we’re talking about fit to love and love comes up in a couple of different things that you have done in the past including your your book, so what spirit to love about because what do you mean pizza love, like what is that?
JJ Flizanes 52:58
So back when I hired it manager that was like you need to I’d had back absolute abs. So that book is a book that it’s right here. It’s a brand. It’s like the Dummies and Idiot series, right? And so knack was not my brand, I was hired to write this book. I didn’t want to write this book. Actually, I actually was trying to get them to do something different. So this is it’s a really beautiful picture book. That was a pain in the butt to write I hated writing it but it’s a beautiful thing. And I do love it but it’s not a book you read. It’s a book you kind of like to utilize as a tool.
JJ Flizanes 53:30
And, it represents the fitness industry. For me it represents that I care what your abs look like, I don’t care what your abs look like, I don’t care what my abs look like sometimes, right? It’s Are you like, that’s not the point. I’m not that person who’s gonna say you’re you have a good body, therefore your life works and you’re happy. Half the time if the more perfect you think you seem to put on in the world. I’m going to say oh, what are you hiding? That’s what happens to me now.
JJ Flizanes 53:56
So Fits a Love was the first version and then The updated version is about the relationship you have with, this self-care industry. That it’s really there are two, there’s two. I don’t wanna say paths. And I’m not gonna say emotion. But I’m gonna say there are two impulses that we act on fear and love.
JJ Flizanes 54:23
We’re either heading in the direction of fear or we’re heading in the direction of love with everything, right? So part of that addiction conversation can be, you’re coming from a fearful place when you’re having fear, you do the addiction because if you were in a place of love, you wouldn’t need to suppress that. So when it comes to exercise, what I bring that’s different is I still want you to exercise I still want you to be healthy and strong if you want to be healthy and strong.
JJ Flizanes 54:45
But I want you to come from a place where you love yourself because that’s how you attract other good things as well as results and keep it sustainable. How many times can you walk into a gym and feel the insecurity you feel about people who hate being there? They’re only there because they think they need to look better or else no one will love them.
Emotional Trauma Part 7
JJ Flizanes 55:07
Or they’re abusing and punishing themselves for something they think they did or eight wrong. That’s it, that energy in the fitness industry is what I repel, like a rebel and I repel, right? I don’t like it and I wanted to start changing it and, at the time, the manager said, Well, can you write something about fitness and love? And I thought to myself, well, that’s kind of my story. I mean, I met my husband.
JJ Flizanes 55:31
I mean, I met him and then it like when he came back in and like, we were like, Oh, I’m gonna marry you. Wow. Like on our second date that I’ll happen when I couldn’t I literally, I didn’t need him. And I really was probably the place where I couldn’t have been happier. I mean, I could have taken a little bit more money at the time and been like, that’s nice. But I was getting all my needs met. I was having a great time I was fulfilled, I was full. I was happy. I was peaceful.
JJ Flizanes 55:55
I was authentically doing and just being I wasn’t needing and I wasn’t. And I wasn’t hating myself and I wasn’t you know, so. So when it came to like singles and relationships and how your self-care plays into that, that’s how fifth love was born. It was you can utilize your self-care to love yourself. And you can get to the place where you will attract more when you don’t need it. You’re just wanting that person to make you feel love, but you can make yourself feel the love right now.
JJ Flizanes 56:24
And in fact, you all attract that person a lot faster if you versus if you need something. So that’s really how Philip was born, was a manager asked me about it, but then I realized that was my story because I had been looking to write that next book. Like, what’s my story? Because some people, you know, like, I had never lost 100 pounds. I didn’t have some disease that I came back from, you know, I’m like, I’ve kind of been like, what’s my story? Yeah. And when he said that, I was like, Oh, my story was, I was happy. And I was giving it all to myself. And because of that, I attracted the perfect partner for me, but it was because I was taking care of myself in a way that came from Love. So that’s how fit to love was born.
Bill 57:02
Yeah, that’s nice and at the website fittolove.tv you’ve renamed the days of the week.
JJ Flizanes 57:09
Okay, so the book, so the book came first, and then the podcast came. Okay, the podcast. Sorry, this is the updated version podcast that came after that. And, and because I’d already opened up, you know, I now went, I took like fitness out of the fitness category, and I’ve now stuck it in relationships. Alright, so now that I’ve sort of made this leap, and I’m taking people with me, the next question is, well, what else is included in that?
JJ Flizanes 57:33
And now I’ve just opened up this umbrella of things I can talk about that I think are important for holistic health, living, and healing. And so the show isn’t about being single and dating, although Sexy Saturdays is about that. But now and because I can’t fit it all in one thing. It’s not just exercise. It’s the whole package. It’s the exercise. It’s the diet and the eating. It’s the medicine, alternative medicine. It’s the psychology piece.
JJ Flizanes 57:58
It’s the spirituality It’s the relationship piece. So I was driving after I thought I ought to do the podcast and I got an I thought I’m going to do six days a week because I knew the different days and what they needed to be. And then I like getting inspired. And I pulled over and I wrote movement Monday, Tasty Tuesday, wellness, Wednesday, thoughtful Thursday, freedom Friday, sexy Saturday, and boom, there it was.
Emotional Trauma Part 7
JJ Flizanes 58:21
And so now I have an outlet that you get to choose what you like and don’t like, if you don’t, if you just want to do one of them, you just listen to one day or watch one. So I got video and audio. It’s a six-day week show. And it was my way of putting out all the information under one umbrella that I think is necessary for true holistic results with your body as well as happiness, peace, and relationships in your life.
Bill 58:47
I think that the way that you’ve renamed the days of the week is amazing because that takes away Monday being the worst day of the week. It takes away Wednesday being hump day, the day that we just want to get to so that we can get to the weekend. And it renames them, it gives them more value than just a day we have to get to to get beyond that so that we can get to the weekend. And the fact that Saturdays can be sexy.
Bill 59:17
Well, that’s just brilliant. When we got to the end of the week, we did all the things that we had to do for everybody. So now we can do something for ourselves and make us feel great about ourselves and make us feel great about you know, going out and connecting with other people and doing whatever you want to do. To feel sexy about it doesn’t mean you have to dress in a certain way but you just have to feel on the inside. It’s about how you feel internally.
Bill 59:40
And movement. Monday’s is such a beautiful way to get beyond the weekend and continue moving. So thanks, you know well done for doing that. I just love it because so many people have associated so many terrible things with Monday, so many terrible things with Wednesday, and I really look forward to To Friday and Fridays, the only day of the week that we should be alive and awake because it’s the end of the week. Yeah.
Bill 1:00:06
And I can see that every day, you know when I go into offices and talk to people like, how’s your day? So Ah, that is great. It’s Friday. Oh my god. Come on, guys. So there are another six days of the week that can be great if you so choose to think to have the mindset that you can make them great and be great. And have a great experience rather than just the day of the week.
Emotional Trauma Part 8
Bill 1:00:26
We want to get towards you know, so well done for doing that. I think it’s a very beautiful, creative way to change what people think So guys if you’ve had if you’ve enjoyed this episode of the podcast if you’ve enjoyed JJ’s energy and her amazing words of wisdom, do us a favor, go along and give this particular episode of the podcast a five-star review. If you have seen it on YouTube, hit the like button. And JJ if people want to connect with you or find out more about you, where do they go?
JJ Flizanes 1:00:57
Well, I think the best place to go right now. would be to JJ flow Zane calm and the reason is that I have taken this six-day week podcast and now given each day of the week its own show. So movement Mondays is now smart exercise. Tasty Tuesdays are now easy paleo gluten and dairy-free cooking wellness Wednesdays so they also exist. But this way people can really pick and choose which subject matter they like the best if you want the whole kit and caboodle to come over to fit to love. If you only want to cook and learn how to make paleo gluten-dairy-free meals that are easy and delicious. If you want to watch videos then you go to that show.
JJ Flizanes 1:01:36
So that this way you get to pick whichever calls to you the most. It’s hilarious to me which show is doing the best now that I’ve divided them into their own single shows. It’s not something I never would have guessed that is doing the best I would have assumed this day of the week in this day that week would have been the most popular and I’m totally wrong. So I’m really happy I’m doing this experiment to see in real numbers by dividing them into their own channels which one is the most popular so far? Can you share?
JJ Flizanes 1:02:04
Yes, it’s Freedom Fridays, which is now spirit, purpose, and energy. My spirit purpose and energy show is by far kicking butt number-wise on all the rest of the shows. Now, granted, the Good at the smart exercise podcast is not up yet. And then my Thoughtful Thursday show is becoming the emotional side of wellness. That is not upbeat either. But the other four days of the week are up as their own show. And in spirit, purpose, and energy went up first. So I granted that it’s got a head start, but it is by far the most popular show of the new branded shows.
Bill 1:02:35
I think you’re doing great work. If you can inspire somebody spiritually to shift and change their spirit. I think then it’s one of the key components to changing the rest of their well being their brain, their heart, they got their body, their joints, their eyes, everything about it. So that’s why I think they’re people are attracted to what they’re going to get the most leverage from you The shortest amount of time they just don’t know it.
JJ Flizanes 1:03:03
That’s good. I didn’t think about that. It’s really the spirit part is your is the electricity of your body. It’s that it’s that impulse. It’s that cheat in Chinese medicine. It’s the energy. It’s the unmeasurable unseeable, you know, stuff that makes the difference between a body that’s breathing in a body. That’s not if anyone’s ever watched anyone pass, you see that?
JJ Flizanes 1:03:26
You know, it’s still a body, but you can tell, but there’s no spirit in there. And that spirit, which we can’t measure, I mean, we can but nobody really puts it in a bottle and says here, here’s some spirit, right? But it’s like that breath of life really is if you’re not if you don’t know what you believe. And you don’t ever question that.
JJ Flizanes 1:03:44
I mean, you have blood, we all have beliefs. But when you start to really understand what your beliefs are, it gives you so much information about how you act in the world and what you attract, and how you experience yourself and your feelings. So it’s a good point that probably is the biggest bang for your buck in terms of changing someone’s life.
Bill 1:04:00
Yeah, I know that when I changed my view on the woo-woo stuff, and it’s not that I changed my view, it’s I allowed my true view to be expressed because I suppressed it. Because if I told my mates about, you know, how I meditate and other kinds of what, what’s wrong with you, you know, so I was afraid to do that. Because blokes men in Australia, we’re not supposed to do that. They’re probably not supposed to do that on any part of the planet.
Bill 1:04:25
But, you know, when I started doing that, what I started noticing is that those people didn’t actually become distant, actually became closer, they actually I was able to have more meaningful connections and communications with them and that was able to enliven my insides, you know, that spirit part of me and it was able for me to express myself in a different way and cry, and be afraid and be vulnerable and you know, apologize.
Bill 1:04:56
So, I love it. I love it. We could talk for But I could actually have you on here for the next five hours because I just love everything that you say and do and the way that you go about things. I’m sure by the time we get through the five hours, there’ll be stuff I didn’t like, but I’d rather not find out. Just thank you for making yourself available. I really appreciate it. And I wish you all the success and I’m just going to continue to follow your work. And I’ll encourage people who I think are going to be attracted to the way that you go about things to check it out as well.
Emotional Trauma Part 9
JJ Flizanes 1:05:30
Bill, thank you and obviously thank you for the work that you’re doing and the journey that you share with others because you had to hit against the wall in order to get you know, but that’s where we all are. We all have it in different ways. And so thank you for your courage to speak out about that because as especially as a male and like I said an Australian male, that’s, that can be scary. And so congratulations and keep being a light bear because the more that you open up and share with others, the more you give them permission to do the same. So without you, other people would never take that Next step. So thank you for the work you’re doing.
Bill 1:06:02
My pleasure. Thanks. Well, once again, thanks for listening, everybody. I really do appreciate it. This episode of the transatlantic podcast was brought to you by the website, billgasiamis.com. It’s where you can find out more about my recovery from three brain hemorrhages and brain surgery, where you can make a booking for a Skype coaching session, use using the online calendar.
Bill 1:06:25
It’s where you can find links to my YouTube channel information on coaching packages and details of my latest projects. Now speaking on my latest project, if you are somebody that has experienced a brain injury caused by a stroke, or cares for someone that has had a stroke and want to hear from you, the reason I want to hear from you is to find out what your experience was like after you left the hospital and went home.
Bill 1:06:49
If you will like me going home after a stroke was not easy. You probably had a lot of unanswered questions you may have felt like you had no influence on your long-term. health and well-being. You may have felt that there were a lot of services that you needed to access. But you didn’t know how. I recently met a 62-year-old man that asked his neurologist if there were certain foods he should avoid after a brain injury, or begin to consume to help his brain recover.
Bill 1:07:20
His neurologist time certainly is well-meaning but possibly misinformed in this area said no, he said that food will not make a difference. Well, that is not necessarily correct. And these are the types of things that I would like to clarify for people recovering from brain injury. So I’m putting together a program that supports stroke survivors to create the best environment for the brain to heal after a stroke. And this is where I need you.
Bill 1:07:47
Tell me what you wanted to know, after the stroke but didn’t find out. I’m currently interviewing people about their stroke recovery journey, and learning where the gaps in healthcare were and that is what my 10-step program will address everybody that I interview will get full access to the entire online course which will be ready in the last few months of 2017 or early 2018. Enjoy a lovely day.
Intro 1:08:15
The presenters and special guests of this podcast intend to provide accurate and helpful information to their listeners. These podcasts can not take into consideration individual circumstances and are not intended to be a substitute for independent medical advice from a qualified health professional. You should always seek advice from a qualified health professional before acting on any of the information provided by any of the Recovery After Stroke podcasts.
This has been a production of http://recoveryafterstroke.com Check out our page on Facebook and start a conversation by leaving a comment https://www.instagram.com/recoveryafterstroke/ Subscribe to the show on iTunes and check us out on Twitter.
You can find out more about the work that JJ does at www.jjflizanes.com & www.fit2love.tv
