In This Episode

• Hear Kendall's powerful story of overcoming debilitating mold and chemical sensitivities, after trying numerous other methods like DNRS, EMDR, neurofeedback, and hypnosis without lasting success
• Discover how advanced neural retraining with MAP provided a breakthrough, working directly with the subconscious mind to address deep-seated patterns.
• Learn about Kendall's remarkable shifts, including regaining the ability to sleep in her own bedroom, reintroduce new items with ease, and quicker adaptation to new environments when traveling

Show Notes

Welcome! In this powerful episode, host Madeleine Lowry, a neural retraining specialist, is joined by her client, Kendall, to describe her journey with mindbody healing for chemical sensitivities. Kendall shares her profound story of overcoming debilitating mold and chemical sensitivities that had limited her life for about 9 years.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• Kendall's Experience with Sensitivities: Discover how Kendall's sensitivities evolved to the point where she felt trapped and highly limited in her life. She experienced debilitating symptoms including brain fog, dizziness, dissociation, disequilibrium, insomnia, fear, and hypervigilance, and couldn't even sleep in her own bedroom. Her sensitivities made her react to new items, fabrics, and carpet, shrinking her world.

• The Struggle with Other Modalities: Kendall had tried numerous other brain retraining methods and healing modalities without lasting success, including EMDR, neurofeedback, allergy shots, mold specialists, detoxification protocols, hypnosis, and other brain retraining programs like DNRS. She intellectually understood her sensitivities were a nervous system association, but felt deeply stuck because subconscious patterns remained unshifted.

• The MAP Method: A Turning Point: Finding an advanced neural retraining approach called MAP   marked a significant turning point for Kendall. MAP offered a different approach that goes many layers deeper by working directly with the subconscious mind.

• How MAP Differs: Unlike repetitive scripts or affirmations found in some other methods, MAP is a process of allowing and holding space for what comes up from the subconscious. Sessions are guided by the practitioner, tapping into the wisdom of the body and mind without needing conscious clarity on specific traumas. It's not an effortful process, and the subconscious mind sets the pace, addressing patterns layer by layer.

• Kendall's Remarkable Shifts: After approximately 12 sessions over six months, Kendall experienced significant positive changes:

    ◦ A shift from hopelessness to stronger resolve and deeper understanding that sensitivities are a body-created association.

    ◦ Physical improvements including a surprising shift in skin sensitivities and resolution of chronic neck and back tension.

    ◦ Breakthroughs in reintroducing items: She can now sleep in her own room and bed, bring new items into her home, wear many more clothes, and is much less sensitive to synthetic fabrics and furniture.

    ◦ Faster adaptation to new environments when traveling.

    ◦ The speed at which her body reintroduces items skyrocketed, from months to as little as two days.

• A Beacon of Hope: Kendall's story is a powerful testament that subconscious programming is just programming and it can be changed. Her experience offers profound hope for anyone with multiple sensitivities, chronic symptoms, or those feeling stuck after trying other methods.

If you are feeling stuck in your healing journey,  please listen to this conversation and be inspired.  Learn more at TCNeuralRetraining.com

Full Transcript

Note: generated by AI, accuracy not guaranteed.

(Intro Music)

Welcome to the Flourish with Neural Retraining podcast. I'm your host, Madeleine Lowry, a neural retraining specialist who works with anxiety, sensitivities, and chronic symptoms and conditions.

In this episode, Kendall joins me to talk about mindbody healing for chemical sensitivities. Kendall came to see me after suffering with mold and chemical sensitivities for about 9 years. Her sensitivities had evolved to the point where she felt trapped and highly limited in her life. She couldn't buy new items for her home, reacted to fabrics and carpet, and eventually couldn't even sleep in her own bedroom. Kendall experienced debilitating symptoms including brain fog, dizziness, dissociation, disequilibrium, insomnia, fear, and hypervigilance.

What makes Kendall's story particularly powerful is that she had tried numerous other brain retraining methods and modalities without lasting success. These included EMDR, neuro feedback, allergy shots, a mold specialist, detoxification protocols, hypnosis and other brain retraining programs like DNRS. She knew intellectually that her sensitivities were a nervous system association, but the underlying issue was a subconscious pattern that other methods had not been able to shift, leaving her feeling deeply stuck and hopeless.

In this episode, Kendall will share how finding this advanced neural retraining approach called MAP marked a turning point. We explore how MAP offered a different approach that goes many layers deeper by working directly with the subconscious mind. If you are someone who has multiple sensitivities, or if you are a highly sensitive person with chronic symptoms or conditions and you've tried other brain retraining methods and failed, or are feeling stuck, hopeless, or trapped, please listen. Kendall's experience offers a profound beacon of hope. Her story is a testament that subconscious programming is just programming and it can be changed. Let's dive in.

All right. So, welcome, welcome, Kendall. I'm so happy to have you join me for this conversation. You know, it is so I I'm always so grateful when people accept my invitation to come on to be a guest on my podcast. For every eight or 10 people that I ask to come and speak about their uh you know, what what gains they have realized through this map process, only one person says yes. So, it is I know it is rather rare for people to be willing to talk about their experience and so of course I am so so grateful that you are willing to take the time to have this conversation with me today.

So Kendall you came you found me because you were you were suffering with mold and chemical sensitivities for a long time about 9 years you had tried a number of other things including EMDR neuro feedback allergy shots and other brain retraining methods And then you found me in a Google search. Can you tell me what you know what life was like for you at that point, how your life had been impacted and also you know what you were looking to change by engaging in yet another method for retraining your brain.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And it's really powerful for me to be able to share all of this on a podcast because I've listened to so many podcast episodes of people sharing sharing success stories with different retraining programs or things that they've done. And I've always hoped and hoped and hoped one day that'll be me getting to share that something finally worked for me. So, it's really I think that's part of what makes me want to come on here and share is just to continue to be that beacon of hope for people.

But yeah, over the last 9 years, um I have dealt with um mold and chemical and kind of environmental sensitivities that seemed to kind of build and evolve over the years. And yeah, I so it's interesting that I found you through a Google search. Many of the things that I tried to, you know, heal, I remember exactly how I found them and where I was. But what's so funny is looking back on this, I don't exactly know Google, even what search terms I had put into Google. Um, I had I tried to look back in my search history to find it because I was like, how did I get here? It kind of feels like it was a bit serendipitous, which is really u powerful, too. But um, yeah, I found you through a Google search with just the right terms.

And I think what stuck out to me from your page is that it was it had all the right information I needed. You were someone who who worked specifically with sensitivities and allergies. It was through that kind of neural retraining, you know, mindset um or approach, but it was working with you directly in sessions. And I felt like I really needed someone to guide me through this process because I had tried so many different things. So, having someone to be supporting me um through it felt really powerful.

But to give you a sense maybe of where I was healthwise um and in my life at the time that I found you, I had kind of learned to live with these sensitivities. I felt lucky that they hadn't got to a point that I know some people get to where they feel like they have to move out of their homes and, you know, live in the desert and um some of these stories that you hear, but I did feel very limited.

I was at the point where I felt like I couldn't buy I was my sensitivities had gotten so kind of spiraled out that I couldn't buy certain new items for my house and furniture. Um you know, I was sensitive to certain chemicals and fabrics, so like I bought some new bed sheets and I couldn't use those and I was sensitive to carpet and carpet adhesive and it got to the point where I wasn't even able to sleep in my own bedroom at my house because I was reacting to that and so I after dealing with this for 9 years I had learned to kind of live with this but I I couldn't you know like can't live my life like this. Um so I had some hope still But I was definitely feeling pretty hopeless um after moving through all the many things I had tried and I can share what those are. But so anyway, it all kind of came together right when I needed it.

Yes. And so how would you describe what you were seeking to change? You know, um what was your life like that you knew you couldn't live this way anymore? and it became imperative that you try something else.

Yeah. Yeah. So, some of the symptoms that I would get would be like brain fog and kind of this like dizziness and dissociation and really just feeling um like disequilibrium and on edge and insomnia. And of course, it creates a lot of fear and hyper vigilance which adds to the cycle. Um you know I had done a lot of brain retraining work before this and so I had done my best to work on the conscious part of not rein reinforcing the fear around these items or around having sensitivities but there was still a subconscious association in my nervous system. And I knew this because things that I would think are non-toxic and healthy and organic that I felt like I could have in my environment would still affect me or things that I didn't even know were in my environment that I couldn't consciously know. I could feel my symptoms arise. And so it was this sense of, you know, I don't feel good physically. I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to feel so uneasy. I don't want to live a life where I'm so limited. I don't want to not be able, you know, be unable to sleep in my bedroom. It's becoming too widespread. I just um I'm going to make it my life's mission to heal this. I don't feel satisfied with li living this way. But yeah, I would say like the the brain fog was one of the physical symptoms that I just um it made it kind of unbearable to live this way.

I also have noted uh in working with a lot of people with multiple sensitivities that for the person who develops multiple sensitivities there seems to be almost an acceleration and a compounding as we get older. The sensitivity reaction seems to gen normalize to more and more things and so life gets smaller and smaller. Um I mean I was this person myself and I can remember the the fear and the panic of realizing that every few months I was reacting to something new. You know the silicone earplugs I was using to swim. You know my ears would be like weeping and and you know uh scabbing over from that silicone exposure or I you know with the fall winter we eat a lot of butternut squash and I can remember peeling butternut squash and my hands were just breaking out in welts and you know just a terrible allergic reaction and I and it was like, What now? This too? You know and it was it was just each decade of as each decade of my life went by I was starting to recognize you know, this is starting to happen faster and faster and where is the end, you know?

Yeah.

What will I what will I be left able to eat or to do, right?

And that's this really scary feeling that obviously motivates a person to think I have to figure out the I have to get to the roots of this, you know?

Yes.

Before it completely controls my life.

Yes. Yes.

Yeah. That was my experience, too. I think the word I kept using when we first started working together was trapped. I just felt so trapped because similar to you, it felt like it started to be things that were so silly. Like I bought a new set of mixing bowls and I was like, if I can't have mixing bowls, a new set of mixing bowls in my kitchen, how is this going to work? You know, I want to move into different stages of my life. I want to have kids. I want Right. And I can't, you know, find a way to coexist with certain things, this just won't work. And so that of course brings up a sense of panic. Even when I know this is just a nervous system association, if I don't feel like I have a grasp of how to shift it in a timely and effective manner, there's only so much hope that can come.

Yes. And I remember when we started working together. It's about 6 months ago. I remember you saying like, do you think this can change? You know, do you do you think this is going to work? And I I mean, we had the free consultation and I heard your story and I was like, well, yes, this sounds like so many people that I've worked with. I believe that brain retraining, this type of advanced neural retraining where we work with the subconscious mind directly, definitely has the potential to work. Now, How fast it happens, you know, is is very hard for anyone to say, right? Because some these things can be quite complex or they can be simple. You know, some people are seeing shifts after just a handful of sessions, two, three sessions. Some people they need more like six or more sessions. And it's it's, you know, until we start working together, we we don't really know what the pace is going to be or how or when the breakthrough is going to come, which is why I've created a sensitivities program so that people can do more sessions on their own at a lower price point, right? So that they can leverage what we're doing in live sessions. But I wanted to have you talk a little bit about how this method of brain retraining because you had tried other methods, right, felt different or was different or maybe had a different approach. How would you how would you describe for people who or like, well, I've tried brain retraining before, you know, I've tried these programs before. I've tried EMDR before. How would you compare or, you know, what would you say is different about what we've done together?

Yeah. Yeah. So, and I'll share for a moment what I have tried and then I'll speak to what this looked like for me. But yeah, I tried everything from, you know, when when I first had these symptoms, which you know, seemed to be set off around the time of a mold exposure in 2016. But I tried everything from like allergy shots, um, and, you know, western medicine allergist to like a a mold specialist and a detox protocol and hypnosis and neuro feedback and DNRs and another brain retraining program and EMDR. And, you know, all of those things I think can be really helpful for for people. I don't want to discredit or take away from any of those healing modalities and I feel like for me those would have taken so you know potentially so much time and so many layers to get where I have gotten um with map. So what felt different about our work together is that you know I know I know on our first phone call in our consultation I said if I don't know exactly you know specific acute traumas or adverse childhood experiences that I have does can this still work for me because I was you know worried that you know if I don't know exactly what my perfect storm was and why exactly my nervous system had become so reactive. Can we still do this method? And you said yes, as long as you can connect to the emotions that you experience around all of this, we can start right there. And I think what what really worked about map for me is that since we're asking the superconscious or the subconscious to really do this work, I don't always need to have perfect cl clarity on what are the like emotional burdens or experiences that have impacted me. It's helpful to have a sense of them and to feel them, but the the mind and and the subconscious are helping you and I know where to go and what to work on and what my body has held on to over the years. So, it it feels like it goes so many layers deeper than any of those things I had tried in the past. Um, and it seems like we're able to use like the the wisdom of the body and the mind and the nervous system to guide us so that we cuz I think I needed I needed help with that because I I wasn't able to fully grasp why exactly my my body might have held on to certain experiences and things to kind of create this state in my body.

Yeah. Yes. So that's helpful, right? That through this process and so in a just to explain, right, for people who have never experienced this before in a MAP session, we pick we we select a topic that we are going to be working with. Typically these sessions are 90 minutes long. We do them over Zoom. Uh And we are tapping into it's a it's a method for tapping into the subconscious mind for really harnessing the power of the subconscious mind which knows all of the patterns and you know sensitivities are patterns right it's a reaction pattern you know this apple used to be able to eat it no problem and now you take a bite out of the apple and your lips start to itch right just like that's a kind of a typical sensitivity reaction people might experience and be able to relate to. So that is a pattern, right? A pattern that has changed. You didn't want it to change, but it did change. Suddenly apples now make you your mouth itch and you don't know why. You don't know why this started. You don't know why it changed. But there are there is some some experiences, some associations, some memory structures uh in in the subconscious mind and the mind knows its own patterns. And so we can we can utilize the power of the subconscious mind to find and neutralize or break down right the pattern itself so that you can either you can be free of the pattern or you can establish a different pattern. So in each session we are endeavoring to resolve another layer because often you know if we've had these ities for a long time or we have many sensitivities. There can be many reasons why it was created and many reinforcements over time and so it's like strata you know I kind of think it is like strata like layers and layers and layers and we just have to start going one layer at a time and so that's why I'm saying that for some people three sessions and they're noticing a change other people six sessions other people more right because we don't know how many strata there are and we don't know um what kind of resistance there might be to letting them letting letting that go right letting that pattern go this is something I very often see with for example chronic chronic illness or chronic conditions uh we identify so much with something that that itself can be a source of resistance so even you know even people who say well I've tried hypnosis right that's supposed to work with the sub conscious mind. And yet that didn't it didn't flip the switch for me. Is this going to be any different? You know, I'm not a hypnotherapist. I can't speak to that modality, but I but I do know that uh having had clients who are hypnotherapists that they see this work as being quite different because we are uncovering and also changing, fixing, I guess you could say. It's this process of like things coming up to the surface that e either we can recognize and release or we can make changes to. It's an iterative approach and it it does seem to get to levels that maybe are not as easily done um with some of the other methods, you know, that people have tried before. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And um of course coming into this you know, I was like, "Okay, well, if this can be cleared in three sessions, that would be amazing." And I was so eager and um I I didn't you never set that expectation up, but just knowing that it can work so quickly for people. I have, who wouldn't want that? But I it took more sessions than that for me to start feeling the shifts that I had been longing to feel. But you were really helpful and help helping me understand that it really needs to come layer by layer by layer at the body's own pace. Um, and so and I think that helped. It was validating and it makes sense now for me to see that, you know, it it did take me several sessions to start feeling the momentum. But that makes sense. Get, you know, why some of these other modalities are really didn't move the needle cuz I think for my body and for my nervous system. It it was buried pretty pretty deeply. Like there was there's been many layers we'd have we've had to peel back in order to um see the patterns start to break up. Um so I remember you'd say brick by brick and I that really helped me. I was like yes, it's just brick by brick. Um and it that truly is how the process has worked for me.

You mentioned DNRS which is um it is a method uh that many of my clients have tried before they come and find me. Um it is a method that that I learned that I used in myself that I taught in workshops simplified version of it and it informs a lot of what I understand about you know the lyic system and how it works and you know the whole or brain science I guess you could say behind the pattern this kind of self-reinforcing pattern that is a sensitivity cycle a lot of people try DNRS they do it for months they do it for years and maybe they see maybe they have some wins right at the beginning but then they kind of plateau or maybe they have some gains and then they kind of lose them and I I tell people You know, because there are a lot of there's a lot that is said about, you know, you just have to stick with it. You have to keep doing it. You have to keep repeating repeating repeating the scripts and the visualizations and the affirmations and for an it's an hour a day, every day for months and years, uh, to make the, you know, to break down the pattern, to make the sensitivity reaction go away. And I I tell people, you know, I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't stick with it that long, right? I I would say If you aren't seeing shifts in 4 to 6 weeks, then you need something more, right? That is a clear sign that you need something more because you know when I taught this method and I would teach a group of people about 70% 70 to 75% would do well just with that what I call what I now understand to be a basic method of neural retraining. Right? It's it's almost like we are hammering in our intention, right? to to be done with with these sensitivities, with these reactions, with these symptoms. You know, we're telling our mind over and over again, don't send the signal anymore. You know, visualizing what life would be like if you know, we were free of all the sensitivities. But it's very very repetitive and very very I don't know. It it doesn't get at the root causes. For some people, it is enough to get them back on track, you know, to But for other people, 25 to 30% of the population, I would say in my estimation, and this tends to be the more the people that have the more significant history of trauma, it just isn't enough. You know, there are too many humps and bumps in the road to just lay down a new road on top and be like, "Yeah, we're done with this, right? Just stop. Just put it away. Just, you know, end it. We don't want this anymore." It it's it's almost badgering. you know, the the nervous system and the subconscious. And for some people, that's they don't respond well to that.

And so for them, you know, it's necessary to start to excavate layer by layer like we were saying before to allow, you know, whatever whatever that is that needs to come up, that needs to be acknowledged, that needs to be seen or that needs to be

neutralized to do so.

And yeah, and and it is a process. Right. So this is not about repeating scripts and affirmations. It's not about practicing practicing practicing. You know there there isn't it is not I would say it's not an effortful process.

Yeah.

Um you know except that you're doing reintroductions on your own between sessions. It is more of a process of allowing holding kind of respecting

you know what whatever comes up. You know both the clients and and the practitioner I often tell clients during a session, this is not a time for you to figure it out. You've been trying to do that for so long and if you could do that, you would have done it already,

right?

This this when we talk about the subconscious mind, it's not a logical mind. It is an associative mind, you know, and it associates things that you would never think were related to each other.

And you just have to let things bubble up and just observe. You're your only job is to sit there with your eyes closed, breathing slowly, deeply, and gently hearing what I'm saying, and just observe what's coming up. Just like in a meditation, you know, where you're watching that thought come in, and you're like, "Oh, there's this thought. Oh, yes. Okay, and I can let it go." Just like a cloud in the sky, but it's I I see it. You know, it's like that. You're just allowing things to come up. And for some people, a lot of things come up. For some people, not so many things come up. For some people, it's about memories and thoughts and words and people for other people it's more a feeling in their body but whatever that is it's important not to push it down and be like no I don't want to think about that no I don't want to go there no I don't want to recognize I don't want to feel that if we are doing that in a map session then you're defeating the purpose right this is a time for your subconscious mind to start revealing itself and we just need to hold space for that and respect it and and like oh okay I didn't I had no idea idea that was there, but here it is,

you know, now let's deal with it.

Yeah.

So, maybe you can talk a little bit about what that process was like for you.

I was so relieved that this took a different format than the typical brain retraining. Not that I don't think there's a time and place for the scripts and the, you know, I've gained certain things from that method, but um I was so relieved that get to sit back and be and allow. Um, and the way that like you said, it seems that everyone experiences MAP differently. And the way that I found I experienced MAP was um, as we would ask my body and brain and my superconscious to come up with things, I'd really feel things in my body. So, I'd get a lot of somatic or kinetic sensations. So, like um, you know, a tension in my neck or a feeling of something weighing on my stomach or my chest or a even, you know, that that gripping in my arm that we worked on for so long. And these aren't always symptoms that are my number one things I'm experiencing around my sensitivities, but almost felt like they are my body's way of letting me know what was they were like our entry points into the into my emotional world and I think some other people experience more like visualizations and memories with map. Um so you know that's what I was expecting at first and I was like why aren't I getting these memories? But I started to realize yeah I just got to go with whatever is coming up and as we'd follow it we would really unlock some huge shifts and What I started, I think, realizing through this work is that um and and I've known that I'm a pretty sensitive person, you know, like I identify as a, you know, HSP or highly sensitive person. And I think because of that, my body and brain have just held on to a lot of different experiences and emotions. And it has just seemed like I've needed to have something like this to allow me to let go of things that I don't always know why. why or how I've held on to them. But in a map session for me, as we are working on a a theme, um as we're working on a sensation, as we're working on a on a memory, I can sometimes feel this. Um I feel like I'm in a very deep meditative state. And I know that because my eyes will be closed for so long and I'm never bored. It's like I go I go somewhere very it's like I think I've called a tunnel with you. Just feels like a little bit of a a this kind of relaxed, deep zone where I'm still very attuned to everything going on, but I'm content to just sit there peacefully. And um I can feel shifts and sensations move throughout my body as we ask the superconscious to work through different steps. And I'll I'll never forget one of our sessions. We were working on a memory where I had gotten injured as a kid. And I it was like an injury that affected my um tailbone and and my like back and neck a bit that had kind of randomly come to my mind during one of our sessions. And that's something that you know MAP will do, right? It'll kind of bring up an association. And as we worked on that, asking my body to kind of release and work through that memory, it I it almost felt like yeah, I could feel in my body. It's so hard to describe it. But I could feel my body like just this sensation of a shift. It felt like a wheel moving inside of me. And that's when I really started to sense, oh wow, this is um this is really powerful. Um so hopefully that's not a too long-winded of a way to describe what my experience of MAP is.

Yeah. No, that's perfect. Perfect. Thank you. Yes, because I do think people do experience sessions differently and that's perfectly okay, right? We're each very unique individuals um with a unique set of experiences and a unique way of processing things too, right? But seasoned practitioners know, learn how to work with whatever is coming up for you, you know? So whatever that feedback is from you and even if there's no feedback, we we we learn how to to continue with the session because we're also using our intuition really to help guide the session as well. So even if you aren't able to report anything and I do have you know a few clients like that they just nothing to report we can figure out where to go next. The practitioner is is reading you in a way

that I think is also different from

these other modalities um because you're getting a little more help

from the practitioner. in terms of helping you figure out what is what is this about where do we need to go next?

Yeah.

What thread do we need to be following in this session?

Yeah.

And even what topic what topic do we work on today?

Yeah.

And I really needed that. Yeah. I really needed that. And I think that's why EMDR you I think it's one of the reasons EMDR wasn't working for me around this issue is because I didn't always know exactly how to describe what it is that I needed to be working on. So, being able to work with the sensations in my body and being able to have you help guide me, you know, collaboratively and using kind of both our intuition felt like it really made this possible.

Yeah. And so, And we aren't done, right? Um, we've been working together about six months. You've done about 12 sessions. You also did uh you did the sensitivities program for maybe a month. And you can talk about the difference between our live sessions and and that, but you found that you weren't really a program person, which is perfectly okay. I mean, I I create the programs for people who would like that opportunity to work with things more on their own, but not everyone's a program person. Some people just need that one the one- on-one attention, deal with all the specific and unique aspects of you and just, you know, uh, delve deeper, deeper, deeper. So, that's fine. But, yeah, we've done about 12 sessions. And so, what would you say are the positive changes you have observed from this?

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I'm excited because since we last talked, there's been even more things that I've been able to integrate into my life. So, I have a whole list that I've been eager to update you on. So around the the you know I had I felt you know some light emotional and mental shifts early on. Number one I think just working on on that hopelessness feeling in the beginning was really important for me. Um and um just an overall kind of lightness that I'd start to feel emotionally some an important shift in the beginning to mentally was feeling just stronger resolve and like this deeper understanding that this is truly an association that my body has created, which is something that I've known for years. I've known ever since I found DNRS way back in the day, kind of like 2 years into this journey, I guess. But it's almost like I needed to under I needed to know that on a deeper level. So that was something that was helpful in the beginning. Around the third session, it kind of I had a surprising physical shift where I've always had really sensitive skin, especially to ear piercings and different um you know, metals. And that randomly shifted and I was like, well, it could be coincidental, but you know, something feels different very quickly about that. And then I I think as we were peeling back the layers, I want to say maybe it was around like session 7, 8, 9 where I really started to feel a shift in, you know, th those like the ability to have some of the items I had been sensitive to in my environment. I think around session six or seven, we had actually worked on this tension that I get in my back and my neck and that really shifted and has gone away ever since. sense and it was kind of related to maybe some emotions around hypervigilance. But around session 8 is when I had a breakthrough with being able to have certain objects or spaces in my environment and introduce them with ease. I had been working on trying to reintroduce items for such a long time and I felt like well clearly there's something I'm doing wrong in these other brain retraining programs or otherwise where I just I could sometimes get myself to reintroduce to something, but it would take so long and so much work or certain things and not other things. But around session eight, I would I finally felt, oh, this is what it's supposed to feel like when you reintroduce something where you can sense, oh, just after a few times of being willing to have that item in my environment, I'm okay. And so, I can sleep in my own room now, in my own bed now. Now I'm sleeping a lot better. I've been able to bring a bunch of, you know, new items into my home, those mixing bowls that I mentioned, and much less sensitive to synthetic fabrics and and I can wear a lot more clothing, you know, and then items of furniture that would bug me. And um if I travel, I adjust to those environments a bit. faster um than it used to take me. And I feel like between sessions 10, 11, and now 12, the speed at which my body will reintroduce items has just skyrocketed.

Okay. So, are we talking about days, hours?

Yeah. Right now it feels like two days. And they're not, you know, they're not awful days. I can, you know, I just kind of persist through maybe an initial symptom and and then I'm okay. And that's a huge change. Whereas like in the past, I could maybe try to reintroduce like a a sweater that was causing a reaction for me, but it would take like maybe a month. It's just like and I could only do it with certain things and not other things and so this is it's real attraction for me.

Yeah. And that's lovely because as you said, you know, you can see a different future for yourself, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes. So I remember when we first started working together, you were like, but really can we change these, you know, can we change this? Will will this be effective for the for these sensitivity reactions? And I thought, well, yes, these are just patterns in your brain. Like I I believe this because of you know what I seen in the work that I do. But I understand for the person who's living under that that I don't know just feeling controlled, right?

Um by these these reactions and almost like these rigid rules that our brain has for us about like what's safe and what's not safe, right? It can feel like, well, this is just me now, you know, especially when it's gone on for a long time, right? This has been happening for nine years. This is just me now and I I've been living this like so long. I don't actually I I'm really questioning whether this could ever change, right?

Kind of where you were when we started working together. And you know, thank you for being able to kind of start to trust in the process. And I I do remember that at some point you kind of you were coming to sessions and you were like, I I think I I believe now. I believe now that this can change.

It wasn't like you'd gotten all the way to your goal. yet. You're still not quite there yet, but something had changed in you and you knew on some level

that this is programming and this programming can change.

Yeah.

And if I'm willing to just stick with the process, we will get there. You know, it took longer than maybe you would have liked it to take, right?

You know, me too, right? I I'm always happy to see, you know, when people are starting to feel shifts early on but you know we have to honor your system and the pace that it is setting for us. So you know I always like to explain to people your subconscious mind is in control every session your subconscious mind sets the pace. I the practitioner is not doing something to you. The practitioner cannot force a change that your mind body is not willing to accept yet. And it's it's just telling us it's necessary for me to take, you know, I can't let go of this yet because of this and this and this and this, right?

This is basically what dictates the the the flow of our session. This,

it's almost like we're asking the question again and again.

Yeah.

Do you feel safe now around these items? You know, and your body is your body mind is like it's it's still grappling with this, right? It's a pattern that's been there for so long. And it's it just it needs to be visited a few times, several times for it to start to recognize that you are safe in the presence of whatever.

And that um you don't need to have those reactions. And one of the reactions was that you couldn't sleep, right?

Yeah. So when you said you're able to sleep in your in your own room, which is of course a positive, since you were reacting to things in your room, but also that you're able to sleep better

despite introductions of new things like that. That's so important also.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. It really was layer by layer and honoring that, you know, I I think we had even kind of worked on things that I might have taken on that weren't even mine, emotions, experiences, um And so it felt like we had to go at the pace that my body would would allow.

Yes. I think you know you mentioned before that you you see yourself as a sensitive person that you feel that you fit the definition of a highly sensitive person and 95% of my clients are in that. You know they're sensitive, they're empathic, they're intuitive, they're highly sensitive, whatever. And I do feel like sensitive people are just more more prone to take on things that aren't their own. You know, we take on other people's feelings or we take on patterns and responses that we see or we just take on things that aren't ours. And that is a factor that I often that I often see. And again, like I feel like that's a like it's just one like little maybe not little but one thing that can come up in a map session that I think is just one of many things that we've explored in our sessions that aren't really touched upon by some of these other methods that you've described trying before.

I do feel like with MAP sessions, there's a lot of ground that we cover, a lot of factors that we explore or or that come up in sessions, I should say, that reveal themselves. And again, it's all part of untangling, right? This like very complex and deep deeply knotted underpinning of the the whole sensitivity reaction process which we could put under the the label of you know fear feeling you know safe safety and lack of safety right could be the general theme here but but whatever that is that contributes to that you know it's like unpeeling it one layer one strand at a time until we get to a place where we can respond differently. So is is this a process that you would recommend to other people. For what reasons and and why?

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I definitely would recommend it to to people. You know, I it seems like it can be helpful for so many things. You know, I personally would recommend it to anyone who has allergies and sensitivities that don't seem to be responding to other things. But, you know, even for traumatic memories for emotional issues for for highly sensitive people or empaths that feel like they've stored a lot and but of course yeah I think about the people in this world with chronic health issues that don't seem to resolve and I think that this method is so powerful you know I think you have to have an open mind coming into this and have to be at the point where you're able to understand and or maybe not understand but just be open to the fact that um our nervous systems and our immune systems and all the other systems in our physical body are impacted by our nervous system and our emotional body. And so coming in with some openness to that I think can be helpful. But sometimes the process itself helps open I'm sure people's minds to that. But I think it could be so beneficial for so many people. And so anyone who's feeling stuck in their healing journey, it's something to try. It's something to see if it can get you somewhere. I feel like I I I believed so deeply that that this could be something that could help me. But after having so many experiences where a brain retraining program didn't get me to where I needed to go, it started to just feel like this discrepancy between like I I so deeply see the nervous system role in this but I can't get my nervous system to move and I think that's why I felt so stuck and so what even before I started to feel the results just doing MAP helped me start to feel like oh I know my nervous system can shift because I feel us doing it in the sessions.

I think it really help that discrepancy start to shift. So yes, I would recommend it to anyone.

Yes. And and I think you know hearing you say this again, right? I think often where we start with map sessions is working exactly on that like that resistance, right? That feeling of helplessness or hopelessness, that feeling that nothing and no one can help me. I'm my body is betraying me or I'm running out of time, right? These these very common thoughts that people with chronic conditions have, chronic symptoms, sensitivities, whatever, have um that keeps them in a in a stuck place, a place of not even they're not even willing to hope anymore because they've their hopes have been crushed too many times.

And I completely understand that. But even just working on that, right,

in set you free in a way so that you can move forward. Right? Because

when you're in that trapped trapped, stuck, hopeless, powerless uh place, it's like you're sitting in the bottom of a hole or the bottom of a well and you cannot

figure out how to get out.

Yeah.

And even though people may be offering you like, oh, have you thought of this? Have you tried this? Have you heard about this? Have you tried listened to this podcast? This book this practitioner whatever it just feels overwhelming like I cannot try one more thing right?

yeah

I hear this so often you know I even in the free consultations that I do you know so many people are in that place because they have hoped and you know not had their hopes be rewarded and they've gone through the cycle so many times and they've invested their resources and their time And it's almost like being paralyzed, you know? I can't even imagine trying something else. And yeah. So, so that alone, right, will keep you stuck right there because if we aren't willing to try something new, we aren't willing to try again, right?

Yeah.

I think the saying is "Try try again."

When we aren't even willing to try again, we just feel too lost and too hopeless.

Even just working on that mindset Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. I'm so grateful to myself that I tried again because of course I felt that way. Yeah. On that initial phone call with you where I was like, am I really going to put myself out there to get the rug pulled out from underneath me again? And I don't know what higher power helped me just push through, but yeah, I'm just I'm so glad I did. even if it's just to work on that mindset, you know, even if that's all even if that's the only thing I gained, it would have felt worth it. So, I'm just Yeah, I'm so grateful for MAP. Yeah, it's changed my life really. And I'm like, I can't wait to use it on all the other things I'll ever need I'll ever need it for as well. And yes, yes, still layers to go for me around the sensitivities, but yeah. It's just it's really changed everything for me.

That's fantastic. Thank you so much, Kendall. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today and share your story and all of your insights. And this has just been a wonderful conversation. I think a lot of people will benefit a lot from hearing your story.

Thank you so much, Madeleine. I so appreciate you and I'm so excited to get to share. So

lovely. Thank you.

Thanks for joining us for the Flourish with Neural Retraining podcast. Please listen again and remember to follow us and leave a review on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, or Pandora. Check out our free courses about the MAP method and all of our MAP programs, including the thyroid healing program at map forhealth. us or schedule your introductory MAP session at tc neural retraining.com. Until the next time, be well and flourish. Content of this podcast copyright 2025 by Twin Cities Neural Retraining. Music by Barbara Benn.

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