In This Episode

• Hear from my client, Nicki, about her experience with mind-body healing with the advanced neural retraining method known as the MAP Method. 
• How resolving mental and emotional stress can improve overall health, including autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto's Thyroiditis.
• Why Nicki feels MAP is simple and easy and would be helpful for many things from trauma healing, negative thought patterns, anxiety, and sleep issues to nail biting.

Show Notes

Join me for episode 76 where we hear from my client, Nicki, about her experiences with the MAP Method over a couple of months, and how MAP has helped her to overcome her anxiety, patterns of overthinking and worry, and the racing thoughts that kept her up at night. Hear how she was referred by her functional medicine practitioner, Dr. Eric Balcavage, and how MAP sessions compare to talk therapy, EMDR, and other neural retraining and vagal toning programs she has tried.

In this episode we discuss:

• How working with functional medicine protocols helped her symptoms, but took a toll on her mentally.
• How her health fell apart after getting COVID in 2020 and she felt stuck in fight or flight.
• What she was hoping to address in MAP sessions: anxiety, fight/flight, sleep, and an autoimmune thyroid condition.
• The benefits she has noticed since the first session: reduction in negative thought loops and anxiety, no more anxiety “burst” feeling in her chest, more mental space, improved sleep.
• How MAP has helped her health anxiety and her anxiety around her son and his health.
• How MAP can help to resolve the effects of childhood trauma, even if you’ve done a lot of therapy already.
• How the MAP Method helped Nicki to achieve clarity around important decisions and feel more at peace with our options.
• How long-standing behavior patterns, like nail biting, can change with MAP sessions.
• Why MAP is easier and gentler than EMDR or talk therapy, and why she felt that the effects were “almost immediate” and a lot less draining.
• When your body is stuck in fight or flight doing detoxes and taking supplements is not as effective as it could be.
• How negative emotions can arise after a session, and the self-care tools that are provided.
• How chronic illness can make your life feel smaller and more complicated, and how neural retraining can start to turn that around.
• How current life stressors that would have caused a flare of symptoms have not since she started MAP.
• How working at the mental and emotional level leads to improvements in physical health.
• How many functional medicine practitioners are focused on testing for viruses, mold and other physical causes, when mind-body healing may be what is needed.
• How she now sees the timeline of stressors had a lot to do with the cascade of symptoms she experienced.
• How we work with the subconscious mind to resolve food sensitivities.
• How anyone can benefit from MAP sessions and why she calls it “an easier, softer way of getting to where you want to be.”

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also enjoy hearing Dr. Kelly Halderman’s experiences with the MAP Method in episode 36, or my conversation with Dr. Eric Balcavage about MAP for thyroid function in episode 88 of the Thyroid Answers podcast.

To learn more about the MAP Method, please visit  MAPforHealth.us for our free courses and our MAP Programs. To schedule an Introductory MAP session please book online at  TCNeuralRetraining.com.

Full Transcript

Note: generated by AI, accuracy not guaranteed.

[music]

Welcome to The Flourish with Neural Retraining Podcast.

I'm your host, Madeleine Lowry, founder of Twin Cities Neural Retraining

in a certified MAP method practitioner specializing in anxiety,

sensitivities, and chronic symptoms and conditions.

Join me for episode 76, where we will hear from my client, Nikki,

about her experiences with the MAP method over a couple of months,

and how MAP has helped her to overcome her anxiety, patterns of overthinking and worry and

the racing thoughts that kept her up at night.

Here how she was referred by her functional medicine practitioner,

Dr. Eric Balkavage, and how MAP sessions compare to talk therapy,

EMDR, and other Neural Retraining and Vagal toning programs she has tried.

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.

Instead, we work with the mind to optimize health.

Now, let's hear from Nikki.

Well, Nikki, I would like to welcome you to my program.

Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of The Flourish

with Neural Retraining Podcast.

I'm very excited to have you describe some of your experiences,

you know, with the MAP method sessions.

So welcome, Nikki.

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.

Thanks for having me.

You have helped me so much in just a short period of time.

So I felt like I should join you and talk about it.

So other people can hear how helpful this really is.

So yeah, I'm happy to be here.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah.

So take me back to the beginning because I want to remember,

you know, exactly how you came to this work.

You know, most people have never heard of this method

called the MAP method of advanced neural retraining.

Who pointed you in this direction or how did you find it?

So I work with a doctor named Dr. Eric Balkovage.

I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

So I've been working with him for about a year now

to try to minimize my thyroid symptoms.

I am determined to no longer have autoimmune antibodies.

So it's been quite a journey.

And I've done a lot of different things with him,

with other functional medicine doctors, different protocols

and stuff like that.

And I am so close.

I wish I would have gotten my blood work done actually prior to talking

to you because I haven't had it checked since I started with you.

But I just felt like there was one piece that I was missing.

And I mentioned to him, I feel like I have some anxiety,

some stress that I've been kind of stuck in.

And he recommended you and the woman, I think Dr. Kelly,

he co-wrote a book with and she was a patient of yours.

I believe in his spoken about you.

And he said, look, it's worth a shot.

Give her a try.

She really helped Dr. Kelly.

And I really trust Dr. Eric.

He's been super, super helpful to me.

So whenever he suggested it, I thought, with the hack,

I'll give it a try.

I feel like whenever you lose your health,

you're almost willing to try anything.

And I had never even heard of MAP before.

I have done neural retraining.

I did a neural retraining program before,

but it was kind of a self-paced thing and it did help me.

But it didn't get there all the way.

So whenever he said it was kind of a neural retraining program,

but you work with a practitioner, I thought, OK,

let's give it a try.

And here we are. I'm so glad that I took the leap because this has been

honestly, I mean, I've been doing this now for, oh gosh,

maybe three or four years, really since COVID started,

I've been working with doctors trying to heal.

And everything that I've done has kind of chipped away,

but this has been the fastest.

It's an immediate result for me.

So I'm so grateful, you know, that he recommended it.

I'm so grateful to you because this has been so helpful to me.

Yeah, well, thank you for recapping that.

So you have been working with Dr. Eric Balcavage

on your thyroid health when he suggested coming to see me.

What were you hoping to resolve through doing MAP sessions?

So through working with Dr. Eric and other functional medicine

practitioners, I was able to lower my symptoms of my thyroid.

I used to be cold and have dry skin and all these other issues.

That has gone away, but I feel like doing all of these detoxes

and protocols and stuff really took a toll on me mentally.

And it kind of left me with like a baseline of anxiety

because I was constantly so focused and worried about my health

and my symptoms.

And is it time do I have to take my supplements and how much money

I'm spending on all of my supplements?

So I ended up with a lot of anxiety surrounding my health.

Almost like I had a little bit of PTSD just from...

I really had like a sudden onset of symptoms.

I had COVID back in 2020 and my health kind of fell apart right after that

and it was super traumatic.

So I was really like I said I was left with like this base level of anxiety.

I feel like I was just stuck in fight or flight and I could not get out of it.

I also had a lot of anxiety around my son.

I have, he just turned eight.

I have an eight year old son and ever since he was born I had anxiety

worrying about his health, just worry in general.

So I was really hoping to resolve that as well.

My sleep in the last few years has not been great.

Over time I had realized that I was waking up in the middle of the night

and then my brain would start going thinking about things.

So I was hoping that by working on my health anxiety, my anxiety around my son

I would be able to alleviate this and saw the other that I had been dealing with.

And I have, I sleep great, it's been great.

But yeah, I just, I think overall I just really felt like my life has been put on hold

since getting sick because my main focus has been trying to get back out of it.

I really watched my health fall apart.

I know a lot of doctors will say, you know, this is just, it is what it is.

You're going to have Hashimoto's for the rest of your life.

There's not really a cure for it.

But I watched step by step these different situations

that took my health away from me and I was really determined to get it back.

And I knew that there was a way.

So yeah, I just, I wanted my life to stop feeling like it was on pause.

So coming to you, it's crazy to me how little those things bother me anymore.

So yeah, I'm super, super grateful.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, so you talked about your thyroid function.

So you were hoping to resolve.

You said the symptoms were already better, but you wanted to resolve some of the anxiety

that you felt around it, this feeling of being stuck in fight or flight or sleep.

You know, we've only done five sessions.

I would say that we've mostly worked on things like anxiety.

I mean, things at a more emotional level, really.

You also mentioned, you know, having COVID in 2020 and how you saw your health decline

after that, right?

You really felt that that was a pivotal event.

And I think that was one of our first sessions because I've often found that

for someone with the story like yours,

there is a moment, there is a, you know, there may have been some ups and downs

with their health, let's say, but there is a point.

There is an event that is kind of the tipping point.

And after that, there is a significant decline in health.

And so to me, that is a sign, you know, I'm not, you know,

I'm not a functional medicine practitioner, right?

I just work with the mind, the subconscious mind, really.

So our emotions and our thoughts primarily.

And so I always look to that event, right?

That's kind of an important marker for me because it tells me that in some way

the subconscious mind is stuck and something around that event might be stuck

in a place of fear or worry, panic, terror, it could be guilt, it could be grief,

you know, it could be any number of things.

But there's a, there's something there that needs to be resolved.

Because as you said, that you described it very well.

You said, there's this kind of this big thing that happened.

You got sick with COVID, but then afterwards has been like a step by step

to go in and a feeling that you've been stuck in a fight or flight, which we know will hamper

all the healing functions of the body.

Knowing that you're sympathetic dominant, knowing that you're stuck in a place of fight or flight

or that you have very low tolerance to stress is definitely a sign, right?

That there is something going on in a subconscious mind, I like to call it subconscious sources of stress, that is impeding, you know, your body's natural ability to recover its health, right, to heal itself.

Because that's how we're designed, you know, our body is supposed to be able to heal itself.

So when it's not, you know, it's like, well, what are the blocks?

What are the barriers in the mind?

That's how I think the functional medicine practitioners that you've worked with

and that referred to me, they're working more on the physical level, you know, your diet,

your lifestyle, supplements, other kinds of protocols, you know, detoxing and things like that.

But I come out from just a different direction.

So I don't know, sometimes if it hasn't been explored, that can be like the missing piece, right?

Yeah.

So what benefits have you observed over the five sessions we've done since the beginning of the year?

It's so crazy because the last session we had was what just a couple of days ago.

Yeah.

And I was laughing because I came to you with all of these like big, heavy things that have been weighing on me for so long.

And this time I was like, I bite my nails.

Like, could you help me with that?

Because that's how much, like you've alleviated all these other things in my life.

So my one of my biggest symptoms of my anxiety was this weird burst feeling in my chest.

I would get this feeling.

It was almost just like a rush, a quick like two or three second burst.

That's the best way I can describe it in my chest.

And over time, I started to realize that it was anxiety.

And like I said, I feel like I was just had this base level of feeling like that.

Anytime my mind would go off in a different direction from what I was doing if I'm washing the dishes or driving or whatever.

I would always kind of drift off to think there's something wrong with me.

I need to fix it.

There's something wrong with my son. I need to fix him. There's this. There's that.

And then I would get this burst of anxiety in my chest.

And the first appointment that we had, we talked about my health anxiety surrounded my own health.

And I mean, I can remember sitting there.

I have to say I did not research MAP at all prior to doing this.

I listened to a podcast episode.

That was pretty much it.

I did not want to know. I went in with no expectations really because I feel like I've tried so many things that have not really moved the needle for me.

So I didn't want to get let down, right?

So I go into it.

And we start and you have me, you know, I sit in my comfy chair and you have me take some deep breaths.

And then I'm supposed to start thinking about this.

And I start thinking about my health and this, this loop that I've just been stuck in worrying about my symptoms.

And is it going to come back? That was a big thing for me because I had kind of gotten out of the symptoms for the most part.

But I had this anxiety that it was going to come back.

And I can remember in my mind with my eyes closed visualizing all of this.

And then as you are talking by the end of it, it was almost like I was watching myself on a TV screen.

Like it just became distant.

And I can remember in the beginning, you're like, you know, on a scale of one to ten, you always ask where you at.

And then by the end of it, I was like, I don't really feel anxiety about this.

And once the session was over, I thought, you know, okay, maybe this will last for a little bit.

And then it will come back. And it didn't come back.

So that has been amazing for me to not have to worry about that.

That first anxiety feeling I have not experienced since maybe since the second session,

because we did work on anxiety surrounding my son's health.

I've had that for eight years, pretty much since he was born.

I probably had postpartum anxiety after I had him that I never got help for.

I didn't even realize that I had it at the time and looking back.

I was not okay.

So that has been really amazing for me too.

I worry about him, of course, as his mom, but I don't have this constant stress, constant worry that something is wrong.

If he gets sick, I would always be really, really, really anxious, be very like on edge and alert.

And he got sick and I was fine.

And I didn't, you know, experience this cycle of almost insanity, truly of worrying.

So that's, it's been amazing, truly, it's been amazing.

Yeah.

So I think we started on February 1st, I think that was our first session.

So now it's April.

Hasn't been that long.

Not long at all.

It's been about three months.

So, yeah.

So you feel like the relief that you felt around the anxiety, kind of thought patterns and emotional patterns has held at least till now.

Yeah, it's been amazing.

And I, I was stuck in it for so long.

I can remember.

I think it was after our second session, whenever we worked on my son, hanging up with you from the Zoom call and sitting in the chair, just laughing because I was like, this is insane.

This is insane.

And because I would, I'm a cryer, as you know, whenever we would start our sessions, I would usually start explaining to you what I wanted to work on.

I would start crying.

And by the end of the session, I just felt so much peace.

And I had not felt that at all with my son, especially ever since he was born. I always felt like I think I told you that they always felt like there was something wrong.

And I could never figure it out.

And last summer, we found out that he had a heart condition that had never been diagnosed.

And he ended up having to have a heart procedure done, which was obviously very difficult to go through.

And, you know, we worked on that.

We worked on my anxiety surrounding that. And even that, I just feel at peace with.

It's really crazy. And I don't know, I don't, I understand what you're doing, but I don't entirely understand it.

And it's like, I don't even need to try to figure out what you're doing.

Yeah, it's crazy.

So I'm... relief that I feel truly as crazy. And I have also, we worked a little bit on sleep because my sleep had gotten better, but I was waking up in the middle of the night, having anxiety about not sleeping.

And then we worked on that a little bit and I sleep great now. And that was honestly one of my biggest remaining symptoms that I had whenever I came to you was my sleep was a disaster.

Really, I would be awake in the middle of the night for hours at a time.

And that's gone. I sleep through the night.

I wake up and I feel good.

Yeah, it's amazing. Truly, it's amazing.

So what I hear you saying is that, you know, on the emotional level, there's less anxiety in your life, just kind of baseline background level of anxiety that you might always like went to in the past.

Those thoughts or those concerns that kind of mental chatter and the anxiety that went with it is now very low or not present is that fair?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I can remember, I don't remember. It was very early on.

We started our session. You always say, you know, what have you noticed since our last session? And I feel like I just have so much more mental space.

I have been able to do silly things like clean my house in a way where I walk downstairs and I look at it and I feel like accomplished and I feel like my house looks nice and tidy.

And before I literally didn't even have the mental space to be able to do that.

And I don't work. My husband is super supportive of me and he said, you know, just take the last couple years and focus on trying to get better.

And some days I would get so frustrated with myself because I would be like, what did you do all day? You know, and now I feel like I just have my mind is not weighed down.

I think you described in one of our sessions like it was like I was standing in a room with all of these different doors and all the doors were closed and now I have this space where I can open some of these doors to let more into my life because before I just I couldn't handle it.

I remember a couple years ago, I was so wrapped in this loop of anxiety and fight or flight that even if my husband had a TV on too loud, it would give me this buzzing feeling in my body.

I was just so uncomfortable in my skin just because the TV was on too loud.

So yeah, it's it's crazy in such a short period of time because I've tried a lot of different things over the years and nothing has gotten this deep.

I feel like I have a sense of resolve like things are, you know, the things that we work on, I don't, it's not like you're removing the memory.

I still remember everything that I went through with my health. I still remember finding out about my son's heart and the day that he had his heart procedure but the negative side of it is not there anymore.

I feel so good to not have to feel that way anymore, you know, I'm so curious to see what my, my blood work looks like because I, I went through a lot of different things and like I said before I did do a little bit of neural retraining.

It was a lot of, it was like vagal toning and somatic movement and stuff like that that I did in this course and even just from that it moved the needle significantly on my blood work.

So I really feel like it's a lot in your mind, you know, and had you told me this two years ago, I would have been like it's not, you know, it's all these other things.

I really think there should be more of a focus on your mental health and you know, the things that have happened to you, even in the past we worked on a lot of stuff that has happened to me when I was a kid.

And I feel like that has, I just feel lighter, you know, it's really amazing.

Yeah, so yeah, so you've been kind of been describing some of the mental benefits that you've noticed as well, like this feeling of having more space, being able to appreciate the good things more, right.

Being able to entertain the idea of maybe doing some new things or taking you know, making some life decisions, right, that maybe we're on hold because you're kind of overwhelmed with just what was going on for you.

And it just wasn't possible, didn't feel possible.

Yeah, more of a feeling that you could take on more in life and enjoy your life more.

Yeah, it's like whenever you get sick, it feels like your life just gets smaller and smaller.

Yeah.

And you know, you're so focused on your symptoms and you know, you limit yourself with sleep like I go to I still go to bed early, but it's just because I love sleep.

But before it was like, I have to go to bed early, I have to do this.

I can't eat this. I can't do that. It's too much.

I think your life just gets so small and I don't feel that way anymore.

You know, there were other things that we worked on too.

Like I have always wondered whether or not I wanted to have another baby.

And this has been a big source of stress and anxiety for me.

And you helped me with that, you know, and I've realized through doing MAP that I don't want to have another child.

I had a really hard time after my son was born and I don't want to go through that again.

And I feel prior to doing MAP on it, it would make me really emotional even to think about all of that.

It was just so heavy.

And now I feel at peace with it. You know, I felt a little bit like almost like if I didn't have another child, it would be a failure for me because all of my friends have multiple children.

You just always seemed like that was the right thing to do.

That's what you were supposed to do.

And through doing MAP, I really have just found peace and the fact that I'm so happy and content with my son and the life that I have.

And I'm just, I'm ready to start living my life rather than letting all these different things hold me back.

Yeah, that's, that's lovely, right?

Because that, I guess what you're describing, and you know, you're describing a decision in your personal life, but for, you know, for anyone who's listening, I mean, it could be any, any decision, right?

It could be a relationship decision. It could be a career decision, a financial decision, a health decision, right?

Should I have this procedure or should I do something else?

Sometimes these decisions loom so large in our mind, you know, that they kind of keep us stuck, especially when there's kind of this inner conflict or this kind of inner struggle that is going on.

And so with MAP sessions, we can help work through that in your subconscious mind and smooth out the frictions, maybe.

So that you can be more at peace and have more clarity and know just more clearly what it is you honestly want to do.

Yeah, almost like there's a jumble of different thoughts and opinions or whatever going on that keep you kind of locked into this place of indecision, and then when we can clear that, then suddenly the path forward is clearer.

Yeah, it's been, it's been a relief, you know, to be able to come to this decision. There's been a lot of, of what, what is, are we going to have another baby?

Do we need to buy a bigger house? Do we need to do this? You know, there's so much that goes along with adding a member to your family.

And it's always just been kind of like this. Is it going to happen? Is it not? It, it just feels, it feels like that was definitely one of the big pieces in my life that was kind of holding me back and making me feel stuck and not being able to just take the step to move on really and forward.

So yeah.

Maybe you can just talk a little bit about, you know, how the MAP method compares to other things that you've tried. I know that you've tried EMDR in the past.

And I think that that is a much more well known process. Most people don't realize that the MAP method is the next generation of those psychology techniques from the 1980s, including EMDR, which is I movement desensitization and reprogramming.

How would you, how would you compare it to some of the things you've tried in the past?

So the things that I've tried in the past, I've done talk therapy, I've done EDMR. I did the neural retraining, somatic, vagel toning course thing. And then I've done a bunch of detoxing and all of these other things have taken a very long time to work. I guess you could say they were draining even I mean, with talk therapy, it's beyond draining. If you're trying to work on something that is difficult.

I mean, I can just remember coming home and being completely exhausted, feeling like crap, truly. And even with EDMR, it was just a lot.

It was a lot mentally and I had to do multiple sessions of EDMR. And I feel like it definitely did help. I don't want to discredit any of these other things that I've done because they have helped, but not as deeply and as much as MAP helps.

And MAP is almost immediate. I feel like whenever I came to my second session and you were like, how's everything going? How you been feeling? And I'm like, well, I'm having anxiety about not having anxiety.

And you were like, just enjoy it, you know, because I kept feeling like this is obviously it's going to come back.

But, you know, all these other things that I've done this EDMR, I would have to go like weekly and do these EDMR sessions on the same topic over and over again trying to get to the core of it.

And like I said, I feel like it helped, but it just kind of like skimmed the surface. And MAP is so much easier, you know, rather than finishing a MAP session and feeling drained and exhausted and emotional.

And I feel like I'm drained when I was doing EDMR. I feel great. I feel so light. I feel like I just woke up from a nap and I feel, I mean, the anxiety and stress that I had surrounding the topic that we worked on has gone.

It's so fast. It's, it's crazy. I wish that I would have known about MAP a long time ago, you know, I feel like I've spent a lot of time and money doing other things and all these different protocols and stuff. And I also, I feel like whenever your body is stuck in fight or flight.

If you're trying to do these detoxes, heavy metals and parasites and all these things, if your body is stuck in this stress state, you can take $500 worth of supplements.

I don't think you're going to get anywhere. With MAP it's just been so easy and smooth and I mean, it's just, it's so nice, you know, to be able to come and talk to you for an hour and a half and do the session.

And then I walk away from it, feeling so at peace.

So MAP is so unique. There are so many different things out there. I don't think anything compares to MAP. I don't think that there's anything really. I guess EDMR or maybe...

But I've done it and it's still it doesn't feel the same. It really doesn't. I think MAP is is very special truly.

And I think anybody could benefit from it. I mean, we've worked on a lot of different things. We've worked on trauma from my past, my childhood. I lost my dad to suicide whenever I was a kid and I did a lot of talk therapy about that as a child.

And I really, I do feel like it works and I was kind of at peace with it, but we even did that. You know, you said to me, you know, it would might be worth it just to spend a little bit of time on it.

Even there, I feel like lighter. It really, I feel like can resolve any truly any issue that you have.

Because we've done so many things like my nail biting has gotten better.

It really has.

Yeah, I've had it for a long time. So yeah, yes, I can't I mean, I've always done that. I don't know if it's a nervous habit. If it's what I don't know, it's just always been this.

This habit that I've had.

And I thought like she's helped me so much with all of these other big, heavy things. Maybe she can help me with this. And we worked on it, not even for a whole session.

And yeah, I mean, I literally I haven't, I haven't done it since.

It's crazy. I'm sure a lot of different things work for a lot of different people, but for me, I really feel like MAP was this missing piece to the puzzle.

And I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that feel stock and feel like they are treading in water, like they have done so many things and spent so much money and done all of the things.

And they still are not where they want to be. And I really feel like, you know, it's worth a shot to try MAP.

Because even after one session, I was convinced, convinced that this was what I was missing. I felt so much different after, after one time with you.

So, yeah, it really, I don't know that you can even compare MAP to anything. Truly, it's amazing.

Yeah, I hear that over and over again. You know, I'm not, I'm not trained in psychotherapy. You know, I'm not, I'm not trained in psychology.

I'm trained in the MAP method, which was developed by psychotherapists and experimental psychologists.

And so a lot of the terminology that we use is related, you know, to that we talk about parts, which is kind of a metaphor for aspects of your personality.

But really, I think what we are trying to do in every session is just really harness the power of your subconscious mind to effect the healing that is needed.

While things like EFT or tapping, you know, require that we tap on certain acupressure points or like, and you are requires this kind of bilateral stimulation while we recall the painful memory or whatever.

That's why I say this is like the next generation, right? We have learned that the subconscious mind can do all of this itself and much, much gentler, much deeper, much faster.

The subconscious mind, of course, is aware of all of the connections.

You know, so you may be focusing on a memory of something that causes you anxiety today, but it's finding connections.

Things you've experienced in your life.

And you don't have to consciously know what those are.

Yeah, yeah.

I did one session where you were doing, I think, muscle testing and you were like, did so I keep getting age seven did something happen to you when you were seven and I was like, I have no idea.

And you still were able to use MAP on that, you know, and I don't even know what it could have been and it was still you were still able to work with that.

So it's amazing, truly.

And I have like what I'm in a session with you and I'm thinking about this, whatever we're working on.

Initially, especially for those big heavy things that we worked on, I was usually crying, you know, with my eyes closed, thinking about it and my whole body is tense.

As you're talking and speaking to my subconscious, I literally can feel my muscles relaxing and I can feel myself feeling more at ease.

It's crazy, you know, and that is not anything that happens during EDMR or talk therapy.

I feel like, you know, when you're in the session, you may feel better because you're with therapist and they're guiding you and helping you, but then you leave and I feel like it was always, you know, right back staring at you in the face.

It takes so much time, you know.

But yeah, I feel like MAP just works.

It goes deep way deeper than anything else for sure.

Yeah, and I mean, most people feel like it's pretty easy, you know, it's pretty easy to engage with it.

All you really need to be able to do is identify an issue you want to work on.

Close your eyes, breathe slowly, deeply and gently and just just listen.

I mean, you don't have to focus on what I'm saying.

I'm talking to your subconscious mind, right? You know, you don't have to worry yourself about what I'm saying, but it's just like being open to whatever instructions I am providing for your subconscious mind and, you know, I do think people experience this work differently. For another person it might have taken twice as many sessions to achieve what you've achieved in five, but I think that's really about each person's subconscious mind and what what pace, you know, it feels is safe and comfortable for you.

As I tell people, your subconscious mind is in control in every session.

I'm here to guide. I'm here to offer some suggestions and your subconscious mind is going to run with that to the extent that it feels is appropriate for you.

So, you know, people do experience MAP sessions differently and I'm going to remind you that after the first session, you, I think you told me that you felt kind of agitated for about an and a half afterwards.

Can you talk a little bit about that? 

Yeah, I just remember feeling, yeah, agitated, I think is the best way to describe it.

And you gave me MAP instructions that I could do on myself.

And I was still skeptical, you know, and I'm like, OK, so I'm, I'm going to do this to myself now and it's enough to work.

I'll see, you know, so I did it and I read the instructions and I sat there and then afterwards it was gone and I felt better and I was like, this is so wild.

It is so wild. And that was I experienced that just in the first session after every other session, I felt fine.

I do, you also give the audio files and I do listen to those from time to time, but yeah, that self, what, what do you call that?

MAP on the Go. 

Yeah, that was crazy because I was still so skeptical, you know, I'm like, OK, what is this going to work and it did.

And I felt better after doing it. Yeah, it was crazy.

So I mean, I do want people to know that it is possible. I mean, this happens rarely, probably in less than 5% of sessions, but it's possible that, you know, something might still be unresolved post session, but you are being given tools, you know, from the very first session.

I'm providing you with tools so that you have a way to support yourself, you know, until we can see each other again.

We've probably had sessions maybe like every other week, right? Once every other week. So, yeah, I mean, so there's a bit of time there and I don't want people to be uncomfortable or experience something that, you know, that they, you know, that they don't want to.

So MAP on the Go is just a simple, like basically one sentence instruction that you can give yourself once you've had the introductory session.

Once you've been initiated to the MAP method and then the MAP audio files are a little short audio files that I've made for my clients so that they have something that they can use if they are feeling pain or they're trouble sleeping or there's an emotion that's come up for them that feels uncomfortable.

It's just a little bit of help that you can use in between sessions. 

Yeah, they work too, you know, those audio files they work also, you know, I've been, I felt anxious about.

I don't even know what, you know, and I would throw that on with headphones and by the end of it, I would feel super calm.

And I can remember, I forget which session it was or what, but I said, you know, I'm worried about it coming back. I'm worried.

I've always hated feeling out of control and with my health and everything and my son with his heart, all these things were just I felt out of control.

And, you know, I was worried that my issues were going to come back and you just reminded me, you know, that that's okay.

I just do another MAP session and work on it because you know that it works, you know, that it alleviates this whatever the issue is that you have, we can just do another MAP session on it.

And I thought, huh, so simple, but you're right, you know, I think, I think a lot of people that have chronic illness that wants to fix it or trying to fix it, maybe don't know how.

And you just get so you, we complicate things in our minds because it just feels complicated, you know, and MAP just seems to simplify it without without me even having to figure out how to simplify.

I really, I don't know how to describe it to someone truly unless they've done it and experienced a session, but yeah, I mean, if you ask my husband, like I am an overthinker, I will spiral, that's what he tells me you're spiraling.

And yeah, without me even having to try to figure it out, it is accomplished for me through a MAP session. And that's been amazing because for years I've spent researching and reading and googling and going on these Facebook pages and these support groups and trying to figure out what all these symptoms mean and what all this is.

And then I come here and I talk to you and it's just, it's so simple, you know, I don't know how else to describe it. 

And has your husband noticed the difference?

He has, yep, he says it all the time I can tell a difference and you know, actually, I think I've convinced him to do a couple of MAP sessions with you as well.

He's like insanely busy with his work schedule, but he wants to try to figure out where he can squeeze in a couple sessions because I said to him, this is, it's so, it's amazing.

And he has done EDMR, he's done traumatic things happen to him in the past. He has PTSD.

And I really feel like it would benefit him a lot too. And I think, initially, he was like, what is this? What are you doing?

You know, but he supports me always through any of these wacky things that I have tried in the past. So, you know, I said it's a therapy, you know, it's like EDMR.

And he was like, you know, go for it. And now he's seen how much less stressed I am. He even commented because we got a puppy recently, which was one of those things that I said, you know, my son and my husband have always wanted a puppy.

And for me, it was always way too overwhelming to even entertain the idea of, of having a dog.

And now we have one. And he has even said to me, you know, this would have thrown you for a loop.

Potty training a dog. I live in Pittsburgh and it has literally rained every day almost since we got this dog.

So potty training, a dog that does not want to go outside in the rain is stressful and frustrating.

And he was like, this would have thrown you for an absolute loop. You would have had some sort of flare, you know, of your symptoms in the past. And I haven't.

So, yeah, he's on board for sure. He's noticed.

And so, you know, would you recommend MAP? I guess you just answered this question. 

Would you recommend the MAP method to others? And for what reasons? You know, I mean, you came to see me because of physical issues, right?

Chronic health issues. But we haven't really been working with that. We've been working with more of the emotional, the mental level, right?

Because what I have found is that for chronic health issues, by working on an emotional and mental level, we can have an effect eventually, right?

It does seem to take the cumulative effect of a number of sessions, but we can have an effect on the physical level.

Because in some way, the emotional and mental patterns, right, are kind of keeping you in this holding pattern of not healing.

So when we can start to resolve those, then suddenly, healing becomes much more possible. We optimize your body's healing capabilities.

So you don't have your thyroid numbers back yet. You don't know what's happened there, but I'll be very curious to hear.

I know. I know. I'm excited to get that done.

Yeah. So would you recommend this method and, you know, for whom or for what reason?

I would recommend it to anybody truly. I mean, like I said before, I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that were in the same spot that I was in, haven't tried so many other things.

You know, and feeling like there's just this missing piece that I can't figure out in a lot of functional medicine doctors will say, let's do more testing.

You must have some kind of virus or bacteria or maybe you have mold in your house or maybe it's this or maybe it's that, you know, and then you go again on like this spiral.

So if there's someone out there that feels like, you know, they've been working on those kind of things for such a long time and, and they're still having symptoms or they're still not totally better, I would recommend MAP.

I mean, I would recommend for anybody, not even someone that has a chronic illness, you know, or an autoimmune issue like me, just someone that has went through something and it doesn't have to be something super traumatic.

You know, I mean, we worked on my dad's suicide all the way to me, biting my nails. You know, it doesn't have to be some kind of big, crazy traumatic life event.

And also I wish that I would have known about this earlier on because like I said in the beginning, I watched my health fall apart and I watched all of these symptoms kind of tumble down on top of each other.

Right before I got COVID, I went through something super, super, super stressful with family and it definitely took a toll on me mentally and then I got COVID and then on top of COVID and this massive stress or that I had just went through, then I was stressed about COVID.

What's going to happen? Are we going to be locked inside forever? Are we going to be affected financially for how long are we going to be affected financially? All of these different things.

And I wish that I would have known about MAP earlier on because if I would have looked at the whole picture, I would have been able to see that stress and anxiety and these mental weights had a lot to do with this cascade of things that had happened to me.

But yeah, I mean, I would recommend MAP to anybody truly because it can help with anything. For me, it has helped me with any issue, bigger, small that I have had.

And I'm excited to work with you on dairy sensitivity. Hopefully we can do that in our next session. I find that is amazing and crazy that you can help people with that too. So I'm looking forward to doing that as well.

Yeah, yeah, that's where I started.

You know, neural retraining for allergies and sensitivities, so I was a nutritional therapy practitioner. That was the kind of sensitivity is was the kind of thing I was seeing a lot of and my client tell.

And they weren't really that interested in taking all these foods out of their diet. They were like, how do I get rid of this? I was like, I don't know.

You see how I, if I can figure this out, I learned a basic method of neural retraining. It was helpful, but not in all situations. I thought I need something more than that and I found this.

And you know, I think to just to simply answer your question, I mean, sensitivity is really it's a pattern in the subconscious mind, right? At one time you could eat these things and you're fine.

And then something happened and your danger sensing part of your brain started to regard this food group or whatever as a threat.

So now it is calling for a response from your immune system.

And saying, whoa, dairy, not okay, nope, won't have it, right? It has inappropriately identified a food substance, something that should be benign, as something that is a threat, right?

And the brain, of course, runs the immune system.

The brain is the boss of the immune system. And so when the brain says we have a threat, then the immune system goes into action, cause our symptoms.

So when we can deprogram the subconscious mind around that and then this can take more than one session, right?

This is usually multiple session thing, but when we can deprogram that, then we can gradually reintroduce the food substance and just continuing to consciously tell ourselves, this is, this is food.

All foods are nourishing and healthy for me, right? Like reinforcing the positive outlook we want to have on this thing that we want to build tolerance for, right?

Because in a way, when you have a sensitivity or sensitivity reaction, it's like some part of your subconscious mind has lost its tolerance for this.

It's like, no.

And you have, we have to gradually reintroduce the, you know, deprogram and then start reintroducing the food item or whatever it is.

It may be dust, you know, for a different person or pollen or pet dander, it might be fragrances or some chemicals, maybe something else.

For some people, it's, you know, heat, it's sunlight, it's sounds. I mean, people can become sensitive to anything.

But it's all about what is going on the subconscious mind. So that is what brought me to this, to this, yeah.

Then I realized I had a tool that could be applied much more generally, right?

It can address things on the emotional level, mental level and the physical level, but that is kind of the order, I think, of the improvements, right? 

First we start to see things improve on an emotional level, then we start to see the mental patterns, start to shift change.

And then we start to see improvements on a physical level.

Yeah, I'm excited to try to try the sensitivity part of it because I've done a AIP, you know, the autoimmune protocol (diet), and that's not fun.

So if there's like an easier softer way, which I feel like truly that's what MAP is for almost everything, is just an easier softer way of getting to where you want to be.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it for sure. I feel like with AIP, whenever I was doing AIP, I was in such a heightened state of symptoms that it was for sure helpful with AIP, if someone is not familiar with it, you cut out a lot of, a lot of foods.

You're pretty limited with what you can eat and I almost feel like it just gets you to this baseline removes a lot of inflammation so that you can heal in different aspects if you're doing, you know, a protocol of supplements or something like that.

I think it frees up more of your body space to be able to do that.

I don't necessarily know if for me it got rid of sensitivities, but it did. I mean, I felt better while I was doing it, but it's not fun.

So, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, I don't see why it why MAP wouldn't help me without if it's helped me with all of these other gigantic things that have been weighing on me.

I don't see why it wouldn't work without to so yeah, I'm excited.

Well, thank you so much, Nikki. It's been a real pleasure to have this conversation with you and I really appreciate you taking your time to talk with us today.

Or yeah, thank you so much for having my appreciate it.

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.

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Content of this podcast, copyright 2024 by Twin Cities Neural Retraining, Music by Barbara Benn.

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