In This Episode

• Mind-body healing with the MAP Method of advanced neural retraining.
• Dr. Kelly Halderman talks about how MAP sessions address chronic fatigue.
• Why Dr. Kelly believes that MAP sessions turn off the cell danger response and the implications for treating chronic illness.

Show Notes

Join me for episode 36 where we talk with Dr. Kelly Halderman, who holds two medical degrees in Family Practice and Naturopathic Medicine. She is co-author of The Thyroid Debacle with Dr. Eric Balcavage, a manuscript she was working on when we met and where she includes her thoughts on the benefits of the MAP Method for chronic conditions.

In this episode we discuss Dr. Kelly’s personal experiences with MAP sessions for chronic fatigue, deeper sleep and skin issues. Listen until the end to hear about how it feels to be in a MAP session and how long it takes to experience significant shifts.

In this episode we discuss: 

• Dr. Kelly’s journey from practicing physician to a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, chronic Lyme, chronic mold and chronic fatigue (CFS) which motivated her to retrain in naturopathic medicine and nutrition.
• The Cell Danger Response research by Dr. Robert Naviaux and how emotional trauma triggers fatigue at the cellular level.
• How Dr. Kelly heard of the MAP Method and why she decided to try it.
• How several MAP sessions helped Kelly overcome chronic fatigue, skin issues and improved her sleep and heart rate variability (HRV).
• How the MAP Method compares to other mind-body approaches, such as EMDR, EFT (tapping) or DNRS.
• Why Dr. Kelly refers patients to the MAP Method and how MAP resolved her chronic fatigue and acne.
• How we work with the subconscious mind during sessions and how the client experiences a session. Comparison to DNRS and neurofeedback.
• The origins of the MAP Method and why we call it a quantum leap over EMDR, tapping or talk therapy.
• Dr. Kelly describes her experience of MAP sessions.
• The 10 fitness factors described in her new book, The Thyroid Debacle and how these apply to managing complex chronic illness.

Don’t miss episode 29 where we interview Colette Streicher, licensed psychotherapist and founder of the MAP Method™, about the origins, applications and research behind the method.

To order Dr. Kelly Halderman’s new book, The Thyroid Debacle, visit Amazon.com or your favorite book seller.  To learn more, please follow Dr. Kelly Halderman and Dr. Eric Balcavage on Instagram.

Transcript

**Please note: Transcript created by AI, accuracy not guaranteed.**

[music]

Welcome to the Flourish with Functional Nutrition podcast.

I'm your host, Madeleine Lowry, founder of Twin Cities Nutritional Therapy and a MAP Method Practitioner, specializing in allergies and sensitivities, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, sleep issues, and infertility.

Join me for episode 36 where we talk with Dr. Kelly Halderman, who holds two medical degrees in family practice and naturopathic medicine. She is co-author of The Thyroid Debacle with Dr. Eric Balcavage, a manuscript she was working on when we met, and where she includes her thoughts on the benefits of the MAP Method for chronic conditions.

In this episode, we discuss Dr. Kelly's personal experiences with MAP sessions for chronic fatigue,

deeper sleep, and skin issues. Listen until the end to hear about how it feels to be in a MAP session, and how long it takes to experience significant shifts.

As always, we must disclaim that the information we share in the podcast is for educational purposes only. As MAP Method practitioners, we do not diagnose or treat disease, and we recommend working with a qualified practitioner.

Now, let's talk with Dr. Kelly!

Alright, so Kelly, welcome to the show. I'm really excited to have you here.

Thanks so much, Madeleine, and I am so excited to be here with you.

Yeah, and Kelly, I would love it if you could just start out by giving us a little bit about your background, because you have such a unique background and perspective. You have a journey that includes two medical degrees. Can you talk a little bit about how that all came about?

Absolutely. I graduated from medical school in 2007, which seems like a lifetime ago, but I worked in family practice, and was a medical doctor, and was loving my job. I scored in the 99% percentile for the US. I was just in the zone, and it was just matching symptoms with pills, and just doing a fantastic job. 

And every once in a while, get this feeling, I'd lay in bed at night thinking, "You know, am I really helping people?" Because the same people who had just treated and released, you know, they'd stay in the hospital, and we'd get them back on their feet, with chronic disease, they'd come back, they'd just come right back in.

And then, you know, you're in this club, right? You're in medicine, and everybody's patting you on the back, we're doing a really good job for a scribe.

And then one day, I started to have very serious neurological symptoms myself. I started to have...migraines. I was delivering a baby on call, and I got such a giant scotoma from this migraine. I never had migraines in my life. I couldn't even see to deliver this baby, and I had to step back and go, "Oh, I'm fine, and at the time, you know, I was in the medical world. I had access to the best neurologist in the world." And I was like, "Okay, we're going to get this figured out.

I'm going to get back to health, and you know, call it a day."

Well, I didn't get back to health. I was diagnosed with MS. I was in my 20s. I had two young children, and I was basically told to go home and be with them. And it equated to a death sentence. And this was not okay for me.

I literally, you know, up into this point, medicine was everything to me. You know, my husband's a medical doctor as well. You know, everything that I'd work for in patients...the letters behind my name were worthless for me. And so I had to go back, and I got a naturopathic medical degree.

And I still use those principles to this day, because there's a reason why I'm alive. And what I feel here is because I didn't choose the road where the endpoint, we had no answers, you know, in medicine, diagnosis is like MS or idiopathic. And you know, that's Greek for, you know, we have no idea.

But, you know, we don't know why your brain's eating and attacking itself. But, you know, here's some steroids. Well, I just didn't resonate with me. And so, naturopathic medicine helped me use nutrition and detoxification, and really get back up on my feet.

And I will say that we're going to get into more, a little bit more of my story. But I had some residual symptoms. I actually was diagnosed with Lyme and Mold and a lot of nutritional deficiencies and things. And so, you know, I stepped from medicine to naturopathic medicine to try and, you know, really help my foundational health.

But there were some things that were still hanging out. I still had a quite a bit of fatigue.

A lot of emotional issues that I think, first of all, in medicine, I was never taught that emotional fitness mattered. I was really never taught that my body connection was strong enough to really keep someone from their ultimate health.

Well, so life is an evolution. Life is like we're here to learn, right? So, it was step by step.

And so, I was using the naturopathic principles, getting better. But there was just something that was holding me back. And I will say this is that I had tried everything.

I was completely open to EMDR, to brain tap, to just regular EFT tapping, EMDR, and then DNRS. You know, I literally leveled up and I wasn't afraid to look in Pandora's box and find out, you know,

where some of my emotional things that had happened or generational things that have, with that causing my fatigue.

But I really just hit a plateau where I still was living with chronic fatigue. I think one of the doctors, brilliant doctors, who helped me doctor Karen Verkota, she said to me, she's like, "Kelly, you have forgotten what it's like to live without fatigue. You've forgotten what it feels like to be in a body without fatigue."

So I think up until I met you in June, I was just living in this state that I thought was okay.

But, you know, after we started working together things dramatically changed. So that's kind of my story in a nutshell.

Yeah, wow. Thank you for sharing all of that. I haven't even heard of that. We've been working together for a few months. So I mean, it's nice to take this time and just really hear the whole story because people's stories are just so beautiful.

In some ways, I feel like, you know, there's a reason, right? There's a reason for all of these things. There's a reason you went through what you did. It took you on an evolution. You were in love with medicine. You learned everything that Western medicine had to offer you. And when it wasn't enough for you, you went on and you found more. And, you know, there are all these horizons that kind of have opened up to you and have led you, you know, on this wonderful journey. And you've recovered your health along the way.

So, you know, it's just a wonderful example of how, you know, doctor heal yourself can also help you to be that person to who can heal others with additional skills and insight than you had when you graduated and had that degree in your hand, right?

And I do say that in the book that we have coming out The Thyroid Debacle. I use the word emotional fitness because in this book, it's not just about thyroid. It's about recovering from chronic illness and how our fitness factors, emotional fitness is one, gut health, you know, habitual health, brain health, environmental health, they're all fitness factors that we just optimize, right? We just optimize because there was no one magic pill that really helped me. There was no one magical treatment. 

You know, people asked me like, how did you go from bedridden Kelly to literally 110% better? And I, you know, I do credit this last, this last huge jump that I've had. And that is all MAP therapy is all and I'm so excited and I, you know, I really like to share that in this podcast, but it was really just putting, putting all these fitness factors and making sure you're taking care of them because if you're, if you're taking care of your gut and you're taking all your right supplements and you're really up your diets, but if you're emotional health is a disaster then you're not seeing good results, right? And me either. 

In the practice that I have, I see people who have, who have seen everyone and, and they just think, you know, just this last week. This woman had seen, I mean, 20 practitioners and she's on a suitcase of supplements and she just couldn't understand why, you know, what, what it was going on and what I explained to her and I explained, you know, in this podcast is this concept called the cell danger response by Robert Naviaux, a paper written, I believe it was in 2014. Just groundbreaking in this paper, he talks about the cell danger response and what that is is that the mitochondria, so our little powerhouses of our cells. They can sense a decrease in electron flow.

So the decrease in electron flow can come from one disease infection. It can come from heavy metals. It can come from mold or it can come from an emotional trauma. Emotional trauma can be, it's subjective, right? It's completely subjective. One thing that would be a very emotional trauma on someone might not faze another person. But what happens is that the cell danger response is set off in the body.

And this response is a primordial mechanism to help protect the host. It is completely normal. So if I am shopping at Target and I get a little virus, I know from the cart, well, actually maybe they're so sterile now. So maybe a different place I'm picking up a virus. My body will actually, it'll trigger a cell danger response, meaning red flag, red flag, we are under siege. We have to change metabolism.

We have to slow down thyroid hormone production. We have to slow down brain function. We have to get this person this host to get in bad so that they recover. Completely normal, completely normal. And then what happens is that when the virus is over and when immune system is taking care of it, we come out of the cell danger response. And we feel better and we're back and we're feeling that, but what happens in chronic disease and my hypothesis is that this emotional health that no one is addressing or trying to address the board.

We're doing the best we can is that we're stuck in the cell danger response. Our body still thinks we are under siege. Our body and our brain, the whole, you know, everything that we have, spiritual emotional bodily health is stuck in this response. And so what's difficult is that as practitioners, we see this every day, we see people who are stuck in the cell danger response, but it's difficult to get the body to think that it's okay to come out when you've been in it so long for things like chronic Lymee, chronic mold, chronic Epstein Barr, you know, these are the things where the body still thinks it needs to have all these resources downplayed.

So people have brain fog, their thyroid doesn't work, their gut health, you know, I brought up the article, I brought up, sorry, it says when this, when the CDR, cell danger response persists abnormally whole body metabolism and the gut microbiome are disturbed, the collective performance of the multiple organ system is impaired behaviors impaired in chronic disease results.

So, I'm lifting the cell danger response again. It's like once you, I've countless people who come from my health and they're like, I don't have Lyme disease anymore, you know, I don't have the spirochetes running through my blood, but I feel terrible, I feel terrible.

And I have a hypothesis and we're going to do some research on this now on that MAP therapy, I believe pulled me out of the cell danger response. So my body went, we're back just like I had had the flu and then the cell danger response turns off and you feel better. So I subjectively felt so much better even I dare I say even after the first session and I'm not trying to tell people it's going to work after the first session, but something completely rewired in my brain and I immediately felt that shift.

Yeah, wow, yeah, so okay, you took us a lot of places there. So, cell danger response again, very, very interesting research, done at Stanford, for the most part. And so this is you know, this is talking about the mitochondria, the powerhouse of our cells, the powerhouses of our cells and they what he discovered is that they have two modes, right? They're either doing what they're supposed to be doing, which is providing the fuel for the cell ATP production, blah, blah, blah, or in the face of a threat, they stop.

They kind of they put that fuel production on hold and they start signaling to the cells around them were under threat were under threat, you know, and they start they communicate so he called it like M1 and M2 is like two modes of, you know, of function and I mean, you know, I have a degree in biology and I went to a science high school, the Bronx High School of Science. Back when when I studied these things, no one ever talked about mitochondria having any other function.

You know, it was simple right it was just like, oh yeah, powerhouse of the cell so he was he first person here, at least that I know of that really discovered that there's these two functions, there's this dichotomy, there's this moving back and forth from producing producing energy and then also signaling and in that signaling function, you know. It's something that you know, we have to get the cells to come back to making energy again so I mean that's a really important insight now.

I think you've talked about lab tests that can be done around cell danger response, I know you also talked about your HRV and you know how that was affected, but maybe we should just take a little step back here. Talk about, you know, how, how you found the MAP Method because this is something that most people have never heard of and I mean kudos to you to for, you know, hearing something about it and then actually going and finding out more and trying.

Well, one of your previous clients, Cathy Moore, is my near and dear friend and I would pretty much, you know, do anything for Cathy right so Cathy and I are talking one day and probably May 2020 and you know talking to her about, I'm stuck Cathy. You know she's one of the most brilliant practitioners on the planet. Cathy and I have done everything. I have 10 letters after my name and I can't fix myself, you know, like what is going on? And so I'm listening and in my mind because I think I know everything I'm thinking, Cathy I've done all that. I've even done DNRS and for listeners, you know, Dynamic Neural Retraining System is very tedious. Like it's a lot of time and it's, it just takes a lot of time right so I'm like oh no one more of these but I'm very open I'm very open to the fact that yes something emotional something limbic could can be could be keeping me from not being 100% and so I'm listening and so really I'm probably just doing honest I call it you and I reached out for Cathy because I couldn't even think of another therapy. 

Really so this is not placebo effect I would tell people that I'm like not having a whole lot of expectation, it wasn't that I was against it wasn't it's just that you know when you get in this position I mean guys I am medical doctor and naturopathic doctor, a clinical nutrition doctorate but I live in this disease body and I understand how you feel I understand that when people say, oh have you tried this it's almost just like, oh you just kind of want to give up.

But I did the first session with you, and right it's really hard to go from you know with EMDR you know you can feel the vibration something so it was like we're sitting on a Zoom call and you're talking to my super conscious and all these kind of new words for me but really my only

job was to just be present just be present and you don't have to think anything but I could see I could physically feel almost like crackling in in my brain. 

I can't even it's like little popcorn and I was like wow you know I this is doing something this is definitely doing something and I think I have this big emotional release and it's great because you're so wonderful and just feel comforting in that I didn't know you from Adam but I just felt like this is happening for my edification this is happening for my benefit and you know got off of our call and I remember walking over in my husband and he's like you look like a different person your your face you you just you look so different and I really I really didn't ask him too much but I can feel it I could just absolutely feel like a like some you know spark plug lit or you know the railhead come off physically felt better. 

I track everything I have an Oura ring, I use all kinds of devices, but I noticed my Heart Rate Variability went up and so that's objective data for me. Where it wasn't, "Oh I feel better," subjectively, it was I can prove that something happened neurologically. I started to get more deeper sort of sleep, you know, I just started to be able to handle stress better. I'm in process of doing another Dutch test, the dried urine assessment, for my cortisol to see more of these objective measures.

There there's a test called the Genie test where you can you could, it's a really high level test, and it's expensive and I really don't use it and I don't really encourage anybody to go out and get it because basically you're going to be able to tell if you're in the cell danger response or not because are you stuck in chronic fatigue are you stuck in this chronic disease. But that is something to where we might explore using that... as someone's in it someone does the Genie test to see if someone does MAP therapy they subjectively feel better and then we can have the objective objective measures in it.

So Kelly you've talked about doing a study on chronic fatigue and the MAP Method based on your experience with it which I think would be so interesting and I think you were also talking about the what is the test for the metabolites for the cell danger response?

The Genie test. 

Does the Genie test, so I mean for people who may have a baseline you know, that we may be able to do some MAP Method sessions for them and then check to see if there's a change. But like you said you know that you'll subjectively feel it. You don't need to wait for the lab test, but it's a nice confirmation validation.

People like us want data. People who who you know like are in the high level they want to say well you know where's your case study, right? And so I could I could care less that you know personally I just feel better and that's worth everything to have your health, and everything that be sleeping well, feeling well and be emotionally intact. But that's why you know we have two sides that we play with so we have to really quench the data lovers and I know we're going to get there.

So yeah so you know you talked a little bit about the other things that you tried, the other therapies and you know in particular you have tried therapies that were around the mind body connection, you know. Can you talk a little bit about that? Things that you tried and how this compares you know like for people who have maybe tried those as well? Like just some idea of where this fits into that space would be helpful. 

Right I think the first time that we we talked on the phone I was doing consultation with you and I had said you know I've done EFT I've done EMDR I firmly believe in the mind body connection you know. I've gotten some benefit from some of the things that I've done you know meditation

and I like a device called the brain tap. I love heart rate variability training you know all of this you make gains right but the gains weren't enough for me to to continue and they weren't you know because I'm busy I have three kids you know practicing all of these things. So I really wanted to kind of compare to the things that I've done, Well where do you see MAP? And you said MAP is like it's on steroids it works so much faster and quicker than some of the other training that I had that I had done and I'm like well that's great you know, that it really does. 

And then I had listened to the Colette Streicher interview that you did that was just a great foundation of kind of like where we're going with it so that was for me one of the the best things is that you don't have to buy more equipment, you know, buy more supplements. You don't, I

mean because we talked about this right before we started recording about how there's some sort of an addiction by people want a substance and they... And so like last week you know talking about the client I have with the suitcase of supplements and I said you know all how do you feel it and she's like I feel terrible. And I'm like well then obviously and I mean do you logically think, I very respectfully ask, do you logically think one more thing, one more dietary supplement, one more is going to really turn everything around for you? 

But if there's something still or with people where we talk about quantum fields and working on you know that it's sort of block for something, you know, something in our our human this that really would rather cling to like a new potion or lotion or you know something, rather than digging into the quantum field and maybe it's just fear of the unknown and at the point I was at it was I had put fear to the back seat because it was desperately it was you know I know there's something I have to explore. I have to be brave I have to make, you know, it was, it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to think that I don't have control over, you know, my body, you know, with supplements and things it was you know the physiological aspect. 

I like I say to people I refer to Madeleine all the time because I say, you know, I can get your blood... status back on I can you know I can fix your B vitamins and I know and help fill in ... foundation. I can help you optimize your gut, but what I just said about the cell danger response is that I have people who've been working on their gut quote unquote for 10 years and they're still trapped with this bad gut. Well what a cell danger response says if the danger response is turned on, your gut's never going to get better. It's just, you're just spinning your wheels. So when I did the MAP therapy again, it was something was so foundationally different after even the first session and I have worked so...chronic fatigue was my issue and I was completely convinced that it was still something I was missing physically.

Logically was I not getting ....Iwas I not getting you know B12 you know something in I mean I would have probably if I wouldn't have met you I'd probably still be down this rabbit hole trying to chase things that weren't the foundation issue so after I had this appointment I felt this release in the chronic fatigue. I stopped taking a lot of the supplementation I was taking. I got to stop

doing all these extremely ... things and it was like just this weight that lifted off of me so that's where I talk about what I'm referring people to you and I'm continuing to work on all kinds of things with you, not just chronic fatigue, is that we're, you know, we're getting at the root cause the core. 

And it's not emotional health in everyone. I do not say your problem is emotional. I do not do that I know there's some well-meaning practitioners where it's like everybody have one, everybody has xyz. I'm not saying your problem is emotional fitness however I think that we're living in such a stressful time that it is worth a shot. 

So for me too I also started with with acne. I mean I'm old I don't need to have you know wrinkled

and replenished for that's the same time and I thought after I got such good results with chronic fatigue I thought you know what I tried everything for my skin. I have literally tried everything inside outside. This so like mental let's just let's just try you know skin and acne and we went through some, I mean the connections you make Madeleine, and it's unbelievable! It's still unbelievable but I have not, you know probably five six months now, my skin is perfect and I would have never in a million years thought that there was something emotionally driving that but it's at this point it must have been because it's gone. It's completely gone. But would I have ever thought that? No. And some other issues that I've had, it's like now I really am very open to exploring because of the the quickness of MAP and how it really helps rewire. 

And just to get into a little side track is that Madeleine gives a commands a MAP on the goal so when I'm starting to feel a little bit like of a pinch of the teeth or or something that's bothering me I will use the MAP on the goal and I subjectively fill out her and things other things will subjectively get better and so that those have been very helpful too for me.

Yeah so let's just talk a little bit about like what a MAP session is like because, you know, so we

were talking about kind of like the results but maybe I can just give a little bit of a preface for this and then you can talk about what it feels like as a client because I think that that is the missing piece. Like people cannot grasp what this would feel like, what it would be like to be in a session. 

So this is um so the MAP Method is a method that was developed by psychotherapists and experimental psychologists. It is not psychotherapy though, right. It is not psychotherapy, it is I would call it an advanced method of neural retraining. So we have the basic methods like DNRS, Dynamic Neural Retraining System, there's something called Gupta method which is another basic method and then you know there are many techniques, you know, like using intention or affirmations that are also kind of along the same lines, visualization and so forth. And the difference between those basic methods which are basically a set of mental exercises that you practice on yourself, right, and this is well well this is practitioner-directed. So there is a practitioner that is facilitating the session and helping you get the most out of your session. But what I what I want people to understand is that the practitioner is not doing something to you, right. 

So I mean very different from people think of bio like neurofeedback kinds of systems or sessions and that's you know you seeing in front of a computer you've got electrodes on your brain and they're trying to train you to you know to get into that alpha state or whatever to have certain brain waves, this is not that. This is very different from that it is very actually freeing, you know. You have your practitioner is on a Zoom video conference with you. You're not hooked up to any equipment. There is no equipment except you know accessibility to a video conference platform and you come to the session with your idea for what you want to work on. 

So you know for example, Kelly, you would come to a session maybe you'd have a couple of ideas like I maybe you want to work on this or this or this, you know, which one do you think would be good? and I would kind of muscle check myself and be like oh it's you know this topic feels like it would be a good one today. And so we would get going. The the topic that you choose organizes the session and during the session, once you've been initiated to the MAP Method which simply consists of watching a 15 minute video, and coming to your first session, the introductory session, we complete the initiation. Like the first 10 or 15 minutes, which is me talking to your subconscious mind. We do some preparatory steps, I kind of explain some things, and then we go into your subject and we start working with it. 

The practitioner is there to offer instructions to your subconscious mind so the method is very much around interfacing with the subconscious mind. So like my subconscious mind is connecting to your subconscious mind and and I'm verbally offering instructions to your subconscious mind for the purpose of achieving your goal for the session. Your subconscious mind, however, is the one doing the rewiring, so the practitioner is not doing anything to the client.

The practitioner is there to recognize the patterns offer instructions, appropriate instructions,

and then your brain does what your brain is going to do with those instructions, right. In some cases your brain is going to sit there like 'No, no not doing that today' you know. That's either it's

doesn't serve your highest good or it's just not the order that your super conscious wants things to be solved in. When we say super conscious that's just our word for the subconscious mind is just a semantic thing. So throughout the session it's just a kind of, it's an iterative process where the practitioner gets some input from you about, well you know okay you have this issue what does it feel like when you have the issue, right? How intense is that feeling for you and then based on the emotional signature of the issue we start to give instructions to the subconscious mind for neutralizing memories. 

And that's basically what we're doing. The method is about neutralizing the emotional pain around certain trauma memories from the past and when we do that it's almost like we are changing the operating system of the mind, right. So I like to compare them the subconscious mind to like a super computer, right? Every super computer has an operating system. Where does the operating system of a human being come from? It is downloaded in those first five to seven years of life. For the first five to seven years we're walking around in like delta, or theta brain waves. It's like a state of hypnosis. Everything that's going on around us everything that said everything we taste, feel, touch, experience, witness, it is all getting downloaded. This becomes the operating system of your mind and so there can be bugs in the operating system of your mind that later in life come back to haunt you and they aren't serving you anymore. 

With this method we can have the subconscious mind go back and find those memories and neutralize the emotional pain so that... It's the emotional intensity that prioritizes that memory in your operating system, right. It makes it, like puts it in the forefront, you know, it's prioritized to the top. And when we can neutralize that then it gets de-prioritized and it has...you still have the memory it may be an unconsciously held memory but the memory is still there it's just not so painful anymore. And that takes it, de-prioritizes it, and that means that you don't have to live out of it all the time. You didn't know maybe that you were living out of it but when we de-prioritize the memory or the set of memories, because with the MAP Method we work in clusters of memory, then you your subconscious mind is operating differently. 

And since your subconscious mind runs the body, yeah your subconscious mind runs the body, that's right. Logically I mean people don't grasp this, right, the subconscious mind is something that we kind of put to the side. We prize this conscious mind that thinks and is linear and you know it goes to school and it gets you your medical degree and all of this stuff, right, helps you do the crossword puzzle and helps you drive right? 

But it's the subconscious mind that is 90 to 95% of all our brain activity and before you got sick, you know, and you didn't have to think about your health that was thanks to your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is running all the physiological processes of the body so when your immune system is not working we should be saying, Now what's going on the subconscious mind that it's like that? It's not like helping me out here. Like subconscious mind you know how to do this, come on you know how to do this, you've been doing it all my life. Where are you today, you know? Where are you now, where have you been, what are you what are you what's going on in there, you know. We never think detox is not working. Why are these heavy metals building up in my system? The human animal has an amazing capacity for detoxification, would you not agree? 

I would agree yeah. 

And so when it's not happening, it's like okay subconscious mind what's going on? Why are you hanging on to this stuff? Why aren't we clearing it? What are you busy with, right? So we we don't think that way right and I think, you know, you talked about the fascination with physiological therapies or treatments and I think it's very much our culture, you know, our culture because Western medicine is so prized in this country. And even alternative medicine is much, it kind of follows the same line of thinking, that there's you know they aren't using the same prescription drugs they're using supplements but the idea is if there's something physiologically wrong with you we have to get it through physical means. We have to get at it through physiological approaches. So, this is very counter to that.

It's like no well if you try the physiological approaches and then there was no like fix for you then

you know we really should be thinking about what's going on in the subconscious mind right? And so that's where the MAP Method comes in. It is I feel like it you know you talked about our first

conversation the free consultation where we talked for 15 minutes and and I said to you well if you tried EFT if you've tried tapping if you've tried EMDR, you know this method the MAP Method grew out of those methods. Those were methods that were developed in the 1980s. They're not new. This method is about six years old and grew out of all of those findings from the 80s but it is so different now it is it almost cannot be compared to them anymore.

I think I told you I think I described it as to you as it's a quantum leap over EMDR and EFT and tapping. And I can't say that I know that myself because I'm not a psychotherapist, right, but like I said the Method was developed by psychotherapists with their insights and their, you know, training their expertise. And so it is their assessment that this is quantum leap over EMDR or EFT. I believe it because people who have come to me have said I've tried those things and it helped but it never really took care of the issue entirely. The MAP Method because we're working directly with the subconscious mind and the subconscious mind knows all of the connections I feel like we can get to the root causes of emotional issues a lot better, a lot more cleanly, a lot more completely with the MAP Method than is possible perhaps with some of those other methods, talk therapy included. 

So now I've just gone on a complete rant and I forgot where we were going, Kelly. 

Generally relevant important so many things you said I was like, Absolutely! I mean you know what really resonates for me is that the subconscious drives our health but yet for some reason we have a hard time accepting that. So when I was physically sitting during my session I really didn't hold that belief to be true, but what I did know is that I was going to be open and receptive to whatever was happening, right, what was going on. So for the listeners: it's important that you realize that you don't have to think with your prefrontal cortex thinking brain. You don't have to think through these things, because that's a different part of the neurology of what is happening so really when you know she talks about like the complex things in the inner interfacing, you really don't have to do anything you don't have to think of certain patterns. 

I love this because we were talking to begin with you said you don't have to go back to memories that really hurt we don't have to go digging in like with you know cognitive talk therapy we don't have to go digging. You're superconscious will go find those those strings you know. Like I feel like it's almost like the superconscious is just waiting to be instructed to grab that piece of yarn and then once it grabs it knows exactly how to follow it, where to go, how to rewire it, and it does it without me consciously, Kelly, with my you know with my brain. I don't I didn't have to do anything and it's amazing it's very freeing. 

It's very you know it really reminds me is that you know our bodies 24/7 are are fighting and crying to help us have perfect health. We sometimes get in the way of that or we have beliefs that we need to find a practitioner to do this, to find you know some sort of like medication or supplement or something. Where it's like all I did during my session is I just let it happen and I didn't have to physically you know think. Things would come up and we would talk about it but I didn't have to go into all these details. It's just that it took the suggestions it from the practitioner and it just ran with them and I completely could feel like rewiring and I could feel the difference in physiological health.

Yeah so maybe that's where we're going: What does it feel like from the client's perspective? What does the session feel like? So you would come with your idea about what you wanted to work on. I would ask you how does it make you feel or what are the emotions around that and and that that's really all we needed to get started right? And so the instructions that are provided by the practitioner, you know, the client is sitting there with their eyes closed. Can you talk a little bit about that? 

Like what how relaxed or how does that feel when we begin the session? We take some deep breaths and we center ourselves and just get into more you know primal parasympathetic state, where we're just trying to relax. And really kind of just making sure that you know that you're just comfortable sitting and close my eyes and I just listen to what you're saying. We have a topic that we're going to work on. I would just say this is that sometimes when I'm going to do a session I'm not quite sure what topic but then we'll you know muscle test for a topic. And then that'll work and it'll lead us down a path where the superconscious wants us to go. And so things that I didn't even think were relevant, that's so amazing because you just don't have to work so hard. Your brain, your super conscious is ready and it just wants those instructions to really just get on that train. 

So I just sit comfortably and you ask for my permission to communicate with my super conscious. Again it's just a really nice time to kind of let go and then sometimes when I'm closing my eyes I'll be quietly processing and I'll just be seeing lots of different colors and things are moving. And I'm almost like probably in more of a dazed state and it's just like a meditative state. And you know really I could just feel reorganization and it's again I'm not trying to do anything. I'm not

trying. I'm just sitting back and I'm letting the system that really knows what it it needs to do

and how to do it with the MAP commands and things I'm letting it just do it. 

Yeah and so some people experience it as ...some people really don't have a visual any any kind of visual they're sitting there quietly, their eyes are closed they're relaxing they're listening to me talk to their subconscious mind, but it's just going over their head. It's not something you need to take on with your conscious mind and and do something. No you're just maybe holding on to a memory that you know uh we talked about or that came up for you and um focusing on that and your subconscious mind is showing you things. I mean it may show you things. It may be that a memory pops up for you or you may have an image, a word, a thought. 

Some people may have...I had a lot of neck pain. I mean you were talking like the first time it was like all of a sudden it was like this excruciating, I mean it wasn't excruciating it was tolerable, but I was like whoa oh my gosh my and then so you honed in on that and started to talk me through some things and then I was just like it was like released. It was just like you know it was gone and I do have that where I get like my solar plexus gets really tight. We talk about that and then you um you know, we talk about what comes up for memories or feelings or things and then I can just feel the release.

Yeah. And so that's the iterative process, right, so during a period where your subconscious

mind is processing an instruction things may be happening, right. So you may feel physiological

things--a tightness, a congestion, a pain, something--or a memory pops up for you or whatever. Your subconscious mind is showing you some of the things that are connected and then at the end of the processing; so I can tell when you're processing, I can tell when you're done, I can tell

if you're stuck and you need some help. Then when you're done with those instructions I ask you: So did anything come up for you? Did you have a thought, did you have a memory, did you

have a body sensation, did you have a word come to mind, or an image? 

And people are different in how they experience and what they report. some people are like you know I was just uh just really relaxed and that's all. That's okay. I will just follow my own intuition about what needs to happen next. But where there is feedback that kind of helps us figure out where what the next step is, right? So, the session kind of unfolds like that. It's just you know a series of these iterations until we get to the point that we feel like the session is complete right?

Yeah.

And I mean do you feel like you you know what the results of the session are at the end of the session or is it something that unfolds for you? 

Both um usually I can feel it subjectively um something usually feels better. You know I've talked to people who've done sessions and they say oh I really didn't get the result until um you know 24 hours after so I think it really varies. I think it's like what topic came up and um you know how how really your body is going to take that information and and do with it what it wants to do. I literally always have a lot of trust in that my body and my super consciousness know

what is good for me and so I try to like hang my hat that's why when I come into a session

very open.

I'm like this is what I think we're gonna start with but like I'm gonna be completely open to anything and everything that that pops up because I know that it's for a purpose. 

Yeah yeah no that's great yeah and I also want to make sure that we say here that you know there

may not be a recognizable shift for every session. Sometimes we're, I mean something is happening at every session, you know, that is definitely true however sometimes we're doing fundamental work and you know multiple sessions will be needed. So maybe when we're doing foundational work you're not really noticing a significant shift. 

Early shifts tend to be emotional, then mental, and then the physical ones kind of lag, right. They just... that's kind of the order in which they were created too so you know first it's the emotional then it's like the mental habit and then it's like the physical manifestation in the body. and so going backwards it kind of unwinds in the same order. I know I have many people that they need three four five sessions before they really notice start noticing some significant shifts and that's you know that's all fine. I mean every session that we do as I like to say is resolving subconscious stressors.

So yeah all right the disclaimer is that you know we can't resolve a heart attack. There are definitely, you know, this doesn't replace your medical doctors all that and you've never it that's not even the same plan so there's a big role for allopathic medicine...we never want to say like oh I'm having you know a stroke I need to do to MAP. Go to your doctor.

Yes right of course! But what I will say is that if you have had a stroke or you have had a heart attack and there are you know those are traumatic things and so if there is a feeling that this traumatic memory still haunts you, it's keeping you from sleeping, or you just feel you've just been feeling like you're in that stress response afterwards and you want to try the MAP Method to see if you can resolve some of the aftermath of the big surgery. You know the big health trauma um the MAP Method can be a very nice adjunct therapy for those purposes. 

Yeah so okay I would love to have you talk about your book. You mentioned the title at the beginning can you just say what it is again and and just let us know when we can expect it, and what it's about, who is it for? 

The title is The Thyroid Debacle. I wrote it um I'm actually a co-author with doctor

Eric Balcavage. He is the world's foremost expert on everything on thyroid health. I mean

there are a lot of people that struggle, I struggle myself with Hashimoto's thyroiditis and

really what the book is about, it's about how there's an epidemic of thyroid disease and that

allopathic medicine ...is really just covering it up with drugs. The real ticket to health is again optimizing fitness factors and it doesn't replace you know medical advice and things like that but people are frustrated when you go into the doctor and your thyroid's off and then they just give you Synthroid, you know, synthetic T4 and it's like but why, right?

But now you know that I've met you and I've been doing the MAP therapy, that's a part of the book now. In the emotional fitness it's that super conscious is driving your health right so you know you can do everything's and thousands of dollars on gut health and all these thyroid supplements and that and you're not going to get anywhere sometimes. It's where we need to really work on um that fitness factor more so this book isn't just for people with thyroid issues. It could be you know you're just struggling with just chronic fatigue too you know. In the book part three is a manual to optimize the the 10 fitness factors.

So we're excited it got a little bit delayed because of COVID, but you can follow myself or doctor

Eric on Instagram: just Doctor Kelly Halderman and Doctor Eric Balcavage. And the book should be able to be ordered probably mid-February on Amazon or where ever books are sold.

Wow fabulous yeah. So it sounds like it would be a really great resource for anyone with complex chronic conditions. 

Yeah yeah because often it's like ball of wax and it you know it includes the thyroid

and other hormonal imbalances but they're in chronic fatigue but there's you know it can be

different features to it. 

Yeah fantastic. Yeah so um Kelly, it's been wonderful having you on the show. I really appreciate the time that you took to come and chat with me today.

Oh, I'm so over the moon excited about how MAP has completely changed my life. I mean of all the therapies, all the money I've ever spent on anything that has had the most significant

impact on my life. I'm just happy to have met you and happy to share my story and just

hope that people, as esoteric as MAP sounds, that people would give it a chance because it's amazing!

Yeah, thanks Kelly.

Thank you for joining us for the Flourish with Functional Nutrition podcast. Please listen again

and remember to follow us and leave a review on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or Stitcher.

To order Dr. Kelly Halderman's new book, The Thyroid Debacle, please visit amazon.com or your favorite bookseller. To learn more about the MAP Method, visit MindReMAPforHealth.com. 

Until the next time be well and flourish.

Content of this podcast copyright 2021 by Twin Cities Nutritional Therapy. Music by Barbara Benn.

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Learn more

• Listen to more Flourish with Neural Retraining podcast episodes.
• Learn more about the MAP Method and How it Works
• Watch the Frequently Asked Questions videos.
• How the MAP Method effectively heals trauma.
• Check out our free course on the MAP Method and how it is used for mind-body healing