But a nice la 6:30am For me just going to see Gen Z is available
there we go
week
it's time
we also talked about getting despondent
super Simple
okay so you
team
you're changing
yep so we have to make this much more efficient future
and I can't hear you I don't know what's going on there
sorry What would you say I just realized I didn't have my headphones
oh no no I can hear you
there we go that's better how are you? I'm
alright thanks I
thought it was tomorrow because on the invitation it says 20th But then I figured it too Is Melbourne time? Quite
possibly. It is the 20th here. Yes. 9223. We're here.
Sorry about that.
Sorry. These are the kinds of things that happen in our lives, right? Because life is busy and complicated. And time zones are a pain in the arse.
Yeah. Anyway, lovely to meet you.
Really glad you're here. It's a delight to meet you. And thank you so much for joining me and sorry to be like surprise.
Oh, no, no, it's good. It's good to be it's good to be beyond No. And I'm just glad I checked my messages.
I'm glad you did, too, you know, I would have still waffled on for hours by myself. And then I've done it another time. So it's all good. It's all good. But welcome, Lindsay. I'm so glad you're his best parent Indian I've met and I have been so excited to meet her because I've been watching her on her social media. And thinking wow, this lady sounds she feels like somebody I would be very attuned with aligned with intense bar work. And so I wondered both for myself and for the audience who are watching us, then do Would you be kind enough to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you.
I am South African living in Manchester in the UK. I nearly nine years sober. I had a problem with alcohol right from the word go right from when I was a teenager started drinking when I was about 12. And same old story. And it's reached its pinnacle when I was going through perimenopause, which I didn't know I didn't even know that perimenopause existed. But that was when I was at my absolute worst. And at that stage, I was running my own business or was a conference and training business. I was a single mum of an eight year old and my mum died had had died pretty recently and things Things weren't great, to be honest. And yeah, and then I actually I got to I developed the physical dependency as well as the psychological one had never been at that actual physical dependency point before where I had to drink in the morning. I've never been at that point. And that was, that was very frightening. And I was very ill. And I stopped drinking, I got a big, I just thought I my daughter was either going to find me dead, or I would need to sort myself out. And I tapered and stopped drinking. And, and then started studying nutrition so that I could support myself heal. And then from nutrition. I went and I didn't actually even then at that point, think about changing careers was only about about two thirds of the way through doing studying nutrition, and especially around the genetics and the gut and brain access. Yeah, oh my God. You know, there's so much there's so much that we can do to support ourselves physically. So, you know, when we're trying to recover, but not even only when we're trying to recover from it, to help us before we get to that point. Yeah. So that's what I did. And then I've gone, you know, each modality that I've found that has helped me, I have them studied. So now that now I'm studying Kundalini Yoga, because that's been my next thing that really helped me.
Can I say, Yeah, brilliant. I have made a promise to myself, because this morning, I am delivering the very last submission in my gavel. I've just done the year long, Gabor Ma Tei, compassionate inquiry training. And so my date to have all my submissions in is 3pm today. Wow. So of course I am being an ADHD human being.
I am amazing.
But I'll thank you, but I'm right up to the wire with it. And I promised myself this year and then see if you see me if I say anything that I'm going to do any more study, give you got yourself in a right old pickle. So promise myself, I'm going to do six months of integration with no further training. And I find that so hard because I'm so fascinated by things. I'm sure you're the same, but like Kundalini Kundalini Yoga, what a wonderful thing to do. And again, so much. So much of the compassionate inquiry work with Gabor Ma Tei is has a lady I don't know how familiar you are with it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm
familiar with this. So there's a lady
called Duran, who kind of created the course. And she's a kundalini yoga practitioner, that's her modality. And so that runs all the way through the program, too. So, it's so interesting, isn't it all these different connections in these things that we find? I think,
you know, because I was I was, you know, in the beginning, when I first when I, when I first started with with nutrition, I was thinking, well, this is it. This is the onset, as if everyone just ate well sorted out, they'd get health, support their neurotransmitters, it'll all be fine. And then, and then got it. And then it was actually maybe not, there's, there's a lot more to be done. And I find that that each as each year of sobriety goes and goes on, I find that there's more. It's like peeling the layers of an onion. And it's and it's just, I think it's brilliant. I think it's, that's why being sober is never boring, because there's just always something to be learned, learning about yourself. But then, like you, I need to, I need to, I need to stop after after the Kundalini yoga. I do.
Take a break.
Because you're always in learning anyway, aren't we? It's just it's so fascinating. And I love the like, when I, whenever I see you on social media, when I like your retreat looked amazing. I was like, I want to go on Lindsay's retreat that looks so beautiful. And the area that you were in it in England just looks so amazing. I'm originally from England as well and grew up in Africa, too. And so yeah, but it just it, it looks so fabulous. And you have so much knowledge there that I don't have at all. So I have no very little knowledge about in very layman's kind of knowledge about that health. I know what it is. I don't know very much about nutrition. Other than, you know, sort of the basic layman's stuff. I've been on my own Intuitive Eating journey. And I have studied to be a counselor in intuitive eating. But I've had disordered eating all my life, which I think is very common well for women, or let alone for women who struggled with our courts, often in a very common thread. And same with women who are divergent and have trauma. And so did edit. And the other part is genetics part, which I find fascinating as well. And there's the link between trauma and genetics. And, again, it's not my area of expertise. So that's one of the reasons I was like, Lindsay, can you come and talk to us about this stuff? Because I really don't know. Like, I know a little bit. But I don't know a lot. And I would love for you to share some of your findings learnings. I know obviously, you run a lot of great programs yourself. But would you be able to share a little bit about why those pieces were missing links for you?
What I mean
it's quite hard to even know where to start. I struggled with my mental health, right right from the beginning made looking back. No real anxiety. I started with IBS around about age eight or nine
low mood and
then as soon as I discovered Alcohol Alcohol at rady it made me feel better at stop that anxiety, that social anxiety, but it lifted my mood as well. And of course we know that eventually it stops doing that. But we keep chasing that that same feeling. And then as time went on with the amount that I was drinking and also smoking was very heavy smokehouse. And so that all affected my gut health as well. And I ended up picking up a parasite when I was traveling in my 20s which was bad. I was very ill for a very long time and just drank and drank and drank because I couldn't eat anything. That just seemed like the answer at the time. But anyway, all of us it was just all really interesting how just have absolutely the you know, just one thing triggered triggered another one. Another thing trying to take antidepressants, none of them working. And finally when I started studying nutrition, recognizing that having such terrible Gatorade right from the word go that was a sign of IBS can be well first of all I know from my genetics that's pretty much my gut health is not great, but it's also the high levels of anxiety which according to my my genetics, I am prone To protip and are very good at calming myself down. I'm high, high adrenaline, not good at calming myself down. Growing up in South Africa, I don't know, I don't know when you were there. But I mean, it was it was quite scary. It was, it was any noise at the night at night, and it was just on high alert a lot of the time, and a lot of, you know, just all that social injustice, being aware of that ornament. So all of these stress hormones all the time going going through through the body. And yes, you know, it is why South Africans drink so much. But yeah, but then looking at genetics and understanding why some of us are more prone to that reaction. I don't know what my the rest of it, I can kind of guess what my dad's were because he was very similar to me in that he was very anxious. And, yeah, I would, I would say definite things going on in his GABA on his GABA neurotransmitter to pathways which is what I've got to GABA is our calming neurotransmitter. And I would also say very high adrenaline, I don't know about the low mood. But when I look at my at my, at my genetics, I'm very much prone to having very low mood to the point you know, struggle with making serotonin in the first place. So
beans, can I take us back a little bit because I'm thinking I know some of this stuff, but it's quite high level for me even. And I was lucky enough to train under Jolene parks, and she introduced me to quite a lot of what you're talking about a quite lightweight, like touch way, talking about the different neurotransmitters, something to do with genes and that and for me, I'm like, I kind of know what Lindsey's talking about. But would you be able to just take a step back and explain that what for you What is that exploration of genes and knowing what your neurotransmitters are and things like that, because because I'm not quite as well versed in it as you.
Okay, so when I'm saying For example, if I'm, if I'm working with a client, what
we would do is
to understand a little bit more about how their neurotransmitters are functioning. And this is after they've stopped drinking, because when we are drinking, then nothing is working anywhere. So it's only after when when people have stopped to say, after three months or so and things have settled down a little bit. And then I can understand a little bit more about what's going on with their hormones and with their neurotransmitters because they are completely linked. So we've got excitatory neurotransmitters, we've got climbing neurotransmitters, the excitatory ones are dopamine, dopamine, and adrenaline. And they are other ones. But these, these other ones are just the ones that are related to drinking really. And then the common ones are serotonin and GABA. And again, there are other ones, but these are the ones that I'm just going to talk about. When we, when we've been drinking a lot or taking any kind of stimulants, or then our dopamine no matter what is going to be completely hammered. Because it's those dopamine receptors that are being flooded all the time. So dopamine is our it's our neurotransmitter of motivation. And it makes us feel good. So that is one of the reasons why we will drink and then other people will drink to calm themselves down. And I see a combination, but I mainly see and I mainly see women who use alcohol to calm themselves down. So to help them manage their stressors to know to to because what alcohol does said that GABA is our calming neurotransmitter. what alcohol does is it if we've got issues with GABA, then what alcohol does is it attaches to the GABA receptors and it immediately comes a started immediately makes us feel feel better. But then what will happen is our brain will, too, because it's been flooded with a substance that is affecting our brain function. It will down regulate those neurotransmitters. So that to try and gain some kind of equilibrium. And then that's why the next morning we might I mean we could potentially have anxiety and then we our brain is going to tell us that the thing that is going to make us feel better is alcohol. So we're going to be thinking about alcohol Well, Dave, because our brain, those neural pathways have told us that that is what we have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I do find that, you know, someone has mentioned about about specific testing, you don't have to do, you don't have to have genetic testing to know whether you drink to calm your anxiety or whether you drink to calm your to help manage your stress, or whether you drink to keep yourself motivated. You know, you can figure that out at a later stage. When when things have calmed down a little bit. I mean, we've got to move on ADHD. So would your reducer, you know, you've got the dopamine issues going on? They're massive. Yeah,
yeah. Yeah. And
yes, dopamine is definitely my, my, my, my wanting drug of choice. And it was interesting. So grew up sort of in the 90s. I was I never really understood people smoking marijuana. I was like, I do it just to be part of the gang, but I never really understood it. I cocaine I mean, yeah. No one I'm like, why would you do that?
Whereas I never liked cocaine. The only thing I wanted it for was to enable me to drink more. Oh, yeah. And that was
a great benefit of cocaine. Yeah.
Yeah. But then what happens for most of us when we go through perimenopause, and our progesterone levels decline, and they will start dropping long before the estrogen starts fluctuating. So we will, we are more aware of the East what's going on with estrogen. And that's talked about a lot more, but it's actually the it's the progesterone that drops down so low. And that can have a massive impact on on women with their anxiety levels and their sleep. And that is when a lot of women might ramp up their alcohol intake. Because it calms us. And because it has a it has an immediate effect. There is a connection between GABA and progesterone, the metabolites of progesterone attached to the GABA receptors. So when our when our progesterone levels tank, then our GABA levels are affected. And that's why we might want to drink more. And of course, it helps us fall asleep. It doesn't improve our sleep now. In fact, it makes it worse, but it does. I mean, I've certainly drank loads to try and knock myself out. And I don't think
I, one of the things that happened to me when I hit her menopause, I actually started my anxiety. This is weird, right? My anxiety actually went down. And I started to be able to sleep. And how unusual is it? So I spent my whole life probably like you, having grown up in quite scary places, having the threat of you know, people potentially coming into your home and causing you harm, always an ever present kind of thing. And for some reason, some reason or other, when I kind of got to fortify
was like my body went in that way,
in that way, but most women I speak to is the opposite. Yes. They use it to sleep. Because the sleeping so bad. Sleep is so hard, because of all the worry. But yeah, who knows? You know, we're very complex beasts, aren't we? Yeah.
Yeah.
But what I what I do find is that is that for some women trying to like focusing on their dopamine levels on increasing their dopamine levels supporting those, it's not really what they need. When they stopped drinking, maybe yeah, for the first for the initial first few weeks, definitely, but not, but not necessarily on an ongoing basis. I know like with me, and I've got certain clients are high dopamine, that actually we need to work bringing it down.
Yes. Yes. Yeah,
it's fascinating and tell me about the gene connection. Tell me what the gene connection is with our neurotransmitters because I don't know that.
We've all in terms of our genetics, we've all got vulnerabilities and the ones that I look at in particular, they are the nervous system when so the brain health ones and and it's those particular pathways that I'm looking at the GABA the dopamine, serotonin mainly to try and understand where there could be any imbalances and then support those buyers and, and just to make, to make those neurotransmitters we need We need certain cofactors we need we need the building blocks. And some people have got, well, we've all got vulnerabilities on various steps. So it's identifying where those vulnerabilities are and how to how to support them. But again, you don't, you know, genetic testing is incredibly helpful. It's, but it's not, it's, it's not available, or it's not something that you want to do. There are other ways of, of supporting neurotransmitters and finding out, you know, what, you know, via symptoms, how to support them, because I don't want people to think that they will, that they have to have genetic testing, incredibly useful tool to help us know more about our genetics, but there's a lot that you can do, knowing about symptoms.
That's right. That's right. And I think, you know, even knowing kind of how you run in your day to day, healer, knowing for me, I know that I was always on the adrenaline, like a gentleman's like, I mean, like, all the time. I know that, right. That's how I've always been that as my home away from home, when you look at like the nervous system, that's always been my safe place, because that was the way that I could convince everybody that I was all under control.
And, Lindsey, you've done, you stopped drinking? You trained as a nutritionist, then what was your past play? And what happened next for you? What was your journey? How did you end up doing what you do now?
Well, I'm still working as a nutritional therapist. So that is my main modality. And, but I do genetic testing as part of that. And then the other thing that I do is transpersonal coaching, which is looking at hands on behavior, and, and the whole, the whole person. And that's and that is kind of what triggered the interest in the Kundalini so, so mainly the nutrition that I do. And
I know what non transpersonal coaching is, because I was lucky enough to have a supervisor when I finished my counseling training, who was a transpersonal, Counselor. And I was very lucky that I was able to write about it and know quite a lot about it. But would you be kind enough to explain what transpersonal therapy is? Well, essentially,
it's, and I'm not a therapist, I'm a coach. So I use that as part of the nutritional therapy when people are open to it. But it's looking at it's looking at mind, body and spirit is looking at the whole at the whole at the whole person. But what was your experience with is
just I mean, to me, it aligned with very much everything that I kind of, you know, how you come across things? And if there's so many things in therapy, right, that there's no real new news in therapy. In my experience. It's all like you reinvent tations of things that have gone before. And there's so much crossover. Oh, no worries, man. It's absolutely gorgeous to have you here. Thanks for contributing. Thanks for being part of it with me and Lindsey. But there's so many things that overlap. But for me things like internal family systems I love I love gamble mottos work, I'm very much into somatic experiencing, those are my sort of areas, but it's very much about the mind body connection. It's about spirituality. And for me, that was my experience of transpersonal as well. It was like, it's the whole thing. It's not the mind. We're not just working on the on the thoughts, you
know, and it's something that I that I was very nervous about for many years I've just completely avoided that you know, when you have to fill out those those what are those those wheels? Oh, yeah, of your, of how your life is and what needs work on spirituality was always no, you don't even want to go there. And the further I got along in my sobriety, the more I was thinking this there is a gaudy tackle this now I really do have to look at it. And of course I decided to study it while I was doing so.
Yeah, but it's, I just find it fascinating your your breadth of information and tell me about Kundalini for people who don't know what Kundalini is. What's Kundalini yoga as well.
So Kundalini is the it's
it's hard to describe it's a right it's one that a lot of people go oh my god, no. Has that.
So there's
there is there's there's movement, but there's also mudra and chanting and meditation. And and the movement can be very rapid, repetitive and not not that easy. There's a lot of there's a lot of work on the arms because it's there's a lot of stuff going on, up in the air. It works on on meridians it works on our chakras. It, I find it absolutely lovely, I've just, I found it, I find that it's more finely shifted a whole lot of stuff in me. And what it does do is that is that it changes our mood very quickly. So a lot of people who are have got histories of addiction or mental health issues are drawn to it, because it does change our mood very quickly. So you can have it do even just a half hour practice, or a 20 minute practice and feel completely different at the end of it. And I didn't I did other yoga for eight years or nine night well, since I've since I've got so but that was one of the things I did every day doing yoga. I've never done yoga before. But that was one of the things I did as my daily my morning routine was 15 minutes of yoga. And that did help. Help. But it wasn't the same thing. It didn't trigger such a such a shift. Yes. So that's that's why I love it. Yes,
it's an there's something very for me, my eight my tool a little bit like that is ecstatic dance. I love ecstatic dance for similar reasons in that you're moving your body, it's, you know, for me, it's the best way for me to process and deal with emotions and things like that, and just really get them through my body. And get some really amazing insights as well, from my intuition. I think anything where we move our body, and it's connected to our breath, and it's connected to us being in
presence. So to ourselves,
is always going to be a helpful tool, and then you just find which one works for you to you. But you're absolutely right. Kundalini is very well regarded in the community, of people recovering from having problematic, problematic uses of substances or any kinds of behavior as a coping mechanism to manage our experience of the world. And
one of the things that I found with it was that I tried other forms of, I've tried meditating over the years to try and bring that sense of calmness. And that I wasn't just wasn't able to, to do it. It was that is very much as you would know very much a trauma response to any form of breath work I couldn't do it was just, it was too much for me. But whereas with Kundalini for some reason, I've been able to do it and to go deeper and deeper. Now, I can happily sit and meditate without hat without doing the Yoga, you know, that's I'm not I'm very drawn to being still. And that is because of, you know, the process I've been going through Kundalini kicked it off for me,
I know, we are due to finish, but I just love what you just said there, it just sparked because this whole idea that the personality is such that we are incredibly busy people and we can't be still because it's boring. And I wondered if I was just listening to what you were saying about the use of the busy mind and not being able to meditate and needing to find a different way to do it, which is new for me. I've had to play around with so many different things as well, to find my, my thing, but I wonder if there's something because what you were saying it's a trauma response, right? That that that needing to just constantly, you know, having every you know, being being still is a terrifying prospect in a body that doesn't feel safe to be in. Yeah. And that's so understanding the Bible and so much of the people that I come across this experience of themselves. Could you talk a little bit about that? Because you sound like you have a bit of experience and knowledge around that as well.
Personal experience? Absolutely. I mean, I could never even do savasana at the end of at the end of year of you okay, it was just not it was not possible. But yes, with clients as well. But then,
so you know that, but it is it is very common,
not being able to do it and to tell people that that's what they need to do. You have to try, you have to meditate. That's not going to work really I don't think but there are other ways I met it, you know, just walking Sunni. Looking at the trees, listening to the birds, that's meditating. There are other ways of doing it. It doesn't have to be sitting still sitting down sitting still.
Yeah, yeah. I totally agree. I
love chanting. That's one of my favorite ones I love I love doing that. And I also find that going for a swim in the sea. For me, I'm lucky enough to live by the sea. And that, for me is one of my most precious pieces of meditation when I can actually kind of ground and be like that, again, surrendering to the, to what I'm in, like in the vastness of it. And just being aware of what's happening around me and feeling the sensations on my skin. And, you know, that's been a really powerful tool for me with meditation. But as you say, I think people think meditation is like sitting in a corner on a, on a block and not moving for 20 minutes. But like you say, it doesn't have to be that at all. But even just five minutes of walking meditation can really transform our ability to manage our
busy minds. That's been my experience. Absolutely.
I used to use every minute that I had to listen to podcasts to learning, learning, learning. And it was such a relief. It was about 18 months ago, when I said to myself, no more gas. And I'm walking, you know, just walking with nothing. Well, you're and
headed me on. And that's it. I am just starting that journey. And I'm finding it hideously uncomfortable, as you can probably imagine.
No, I love it. Yeah, no, I love it, I wouldn't I wouldn't do it any other way. I will occasionally listen to a podcast when I'm walking. But otherwise, I saved them from my car. And and then you know, when becomes much more discerning. And what one does is to
say, the inputs are so important. I'm getting I know we've run over and I wanted to thank you so much, Lindsay, I have just loved talking to you. I would love to talk to you more. I think I think what you're doing is fascinating. I think you add such an amazing dimension to this work. That's really important. And I could learn so much from you. So thank you for agreeing to come and talk in my space with the people that by him. I'm connecting with and for offering your wisdom. And yes, would you be kind enough? Because I'm sure there will be people from the UK, especially at this time. And also here is what how can people find you? What can what what's your offerings? What's
what's Linda,
you can find me share on Instagram recovery, nutrition at recovery and nutrition? Or my website is recovery high for nutrition.co.uk.
Yeah, you offer one to one work you do one to one and I do work. Yes, great work as well. Amazing. Oh, well. It's just been such a pleasure to meet you, Lindsay. I really and it's interesting. The amount of similarities there are in our experience growing up as well. I'd love to talk about and talk
to you again. I'm so sorry about being such a such a Mexican joining you earlier honestly.
So don't even worry about it. It doesn't matter at all. You're here and that's all that matters. And such a delight and such a wealth of wisdom. So thank you. I really appreciate having
you here. Gemma, thank you for inviting me. Take care
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