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Transforming Pain into Progress: The Case for Holistic Care (feat. Sorin Schiller)
170 Plays8 months ago
***WARNING THIS EPISODE DISCUSSES SUICIDE***
In the compelling episode 'Transforming Pain into Progress: The Case for Holistic Care' of The Integrated Man Project podcast, host Travis Goodman engages with guest Sorin Schiller in a deep dive into converting life's adversities into steps toward personal growth. Schiller shares his resonant life story from foster child and troubled youth involved in crime to a beacon of hope as a 'professional best friend.' His unique approach to healing emphasizes holistic care - prioritizing nutrition, exercise, and sleep to foster an environment where vulnerability is welcomed, and real change can begin.
The conversation explores the necessity of creating challenges to incite action, the significance of human connections, and the interplay between stress, dopamine, and positive transformation. Schiller's philosophy isn't just about managing symptoms but deeply understands the importance of giving people agency in their journey of recovery, especially in the context of PTSD therapy. Economic realities and the structural biases in current health systems against comprehensive care approaches are critically examined.
Travis and Sorin emphasize the importance of hope, gratitude, and community in mental health and highlight the effectiveness of personalized care over profit-driven models. Sorin, who operates under @scisavage on social media, radiates authenticity and stresses the need for tangible action in both the mental health industry and personal healing journeys. Listeners are left with a sense of optimism and a call to embrace life's struggles as opportunities for profound self-discovery and self-improvement.
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Connect and Support SORIN:
Instagram: @scisavage
Web: www.scientificallysavage.com
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YouTube: Travis Goodman
Instagram: @integratedmanproject
Check out the Website: TBD
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Transcript
Introduction and Overcoming Adversity
00:00:00
Speaker
It's a big part of my messaging, which is your struggle is your superpower. The lower you are, the shittier circumstances are. I think the more opportunities you have to be amazing.
00:00:19
Speaker
Welcome everybody to this week's episode of the podcast. I'm very excited to have this guest on. And before we jump into the topic today, I first want to welcome the guests and the guest is Soren.
Soren's Background and Philosophy
00:00:30
Speaker
So, Soren, how are you doing?
00:00:32
Speaker
Well, first, thank you for having me. I'm doing pretty good. It's been a long couple of weeks, but excitingly busy. So I'm excited to be here as well because I know communicating with you, it's a, it's a comfortable one from what I'm, what I experienced by watching you. So I don't think this is going to be too stressful.
00:00:49
Speaker
Well, it's, I appreciate that. I'm glad it's not going to be stressful. Thank you for the confidence. And just so people know where, where are you calling in from right now? Okay. Currently I live in the UK. I'm originally born in Germany being raised.
00:01:04
Speaker
or grew up in Transylvania, so in the heart of Romania in the mountains. And I also lived in the United States in Norway before I moved to the UK about eight years ago. And nowadays, I do a bunch of stuff, one of them being a professional best friend online where I get to help people for a living, which is really awesome. And I know a professional best friend sounds strange. Everyone at least gets a smirk out of it. But I think it's a more genuine approach to the way I work with people.
00:01:33
Speaker
on one end, the life coach part of it, at times seems disingenuous.
00:01:41
Speaker
where my approach is we are in this together, I'm not better than you. I just might have a bit more experience in you and then we can work on this thing together.
Critique of Life Coaching Industry
00:01:50
Speaker
And it seemed initially started as a way of separating myself from an industry that I have my questions about. And now it has been a very efficient way in the way I approach working with people and the results that we're getting as a lot of the people that I work with,
00:02:08
Speaker
have gone through multiple you know conventional ways like therapy and so on and then they come to me because sometimes just a different more direct approach is more familiar to people.
00:02:22
Speaker
Yeah, and professional best friend, I like that. It's a good, like you said, you get a smirk. I smirked when you said that. But I think it's in hearing what you said resonates with me of not that I'm better, but, or however, I might have some different experience that might be able to benefit you and I'm walking alongside you. And I actually resonate with that even as a therapist that I'm not better than the clients I work with. That's at least my philosophy. Now you might maybe get a therapist who might think differently,
00:02:50
Speaker
I always see myself as a journeyer with, and I have skills and expertise I can help alongside, but I'm not the expert of that person's life. It's more of I'm kind of with them in their journey, a guide who might be able to like have a different perspective. So I totally resonate with that. I'm sure professional best friend might have less barriers than therapist.
00:03:09
Speaker
Well, it does and it doesn't at the same time. For me, the alternative coach, the one that doesn't necessarily need a four-year degree to become a life coach or a counselor in that way, I witnessed because I'm part of this industry and I see the round.
00:03:28
Speaker
The intent of the people that get into it gets murky at times because I observed a lot of them do not have control over their own lives. So they try to get control over someone else's lives in order to give them an illusion of control.
00:03:43
Speaker
And I think that is something extremely toxic because those individuals are vulnerable and now you're using them to give yourself some sort of sense of importance. So I think that's been the main reason why I was the professional best friend and not a life coach is because I met a bunch of people and I was like, okay, this is not who
Materialism vs. Authenticity
00:04:04
Speaker
I am. I'm just a normal person with a unique set of experiences. And that's how I want to approach
00:04:11
Speaker
I do not want to put myself as an unattainable a standard because that's what happens again with social media and a lot of people find that the customers to social media and they present this unattainable least unattainable from ninety percent of the people.
00:04:29
Speaker
And in a way, they create the problem that then they try to fix. I think it's one of those that I just went to an event last weekend and it's a major bio hacking event. And someone just asked me about infrared device that was quite expensive. And I was like, I don't think there's enough research and there's way cheaper things that you can do.
00:04:48
Speaker
Did I just lose a business opportunity? Definitely. But I would hate to be the person on social media that is making people feel like they're not enough. I think there's enough of those people out there.
00:05:02
Speaker
Yeah, I would hate to become that person to make someone feel not enough. Yeah, I don't think we need more of that, you're right. We don't need that at all. We need people to see that they have value and worth and that their humanness matters, not that they're not enough if they don't do this, this, this, this, this, but yeah, I agree.
00:05:21
Speaker
And so can you tell a little bit about what you're doing now being a professional best friend and helping people in
Transformation and Healing Journey
00:05:28
Speaker
their journey? Can you speak a little bit about how Sorin got here a bit about his journey through his own life and kind of he's now in a place of really helping other people in this way?
00:05:37
Speaker
So I'll try to keep the story as short as possible because it's a long story. I'm a kid who grew up without parents in foster care in a third world post-communist country. So survival was very tough.
00:05:52
Speaker
And that's where for some reason I was strong enough to survive where 90 something percent of my peers didn't. And that escalated into a life of, you know, crime. I've been a drug dealer and a criminal for over a decade. And that's even though I was successful in what I was doing, he ended up with me
00:06:15
Speaker
you know, in months, I would make about 20,000 a month. And that is when I decided I'm going to kill myself. And I went into the process. And I just truly processed it actually early on this year, that this is a very exclusive group of people that actually went through with the planning and the taking the actions. And I just woke up three days later, purely by chance, I'm not going to attach
00:06:43
Speaker
any divine intervention or anything to it it was just purely my body was strong enough to survive it and during those during that moment first it was hilarious because it was three o'clock in the morning when i first woke up and
00:06:58
Speaker
I giggle about the fact that it was completely dark and i was looking around the room and thinking is this an afterlife is this is there afterlife now like was i wrong all along and then i realized that as soon as the numbness my body and i could move and like oh no i think i'm just back and then i hit a new low i think being so depressed at a point of planning and acting on your suicide
00:07:22
Speaker
Low but then failing at that too is a different level and I was quite psychotic for about two weeks kind of homeless around London obviously the way I choose to try to kill myself was through an overdose and
00:07:38
Speaker
So that might have a chemical impact on how psychotic i was and the only way i managed to find or make peace with our failure is if i looked at it as a success. The fact that i did kill that person and that's where you know nowadays i talk online about being real.
00:07:59
Speaker
And for me, it's not a marketing thing. It was the promise I made for myself back then. The thing that got me to that point was that from a very early age, I had to create a character in order for me to survive.
00:08:15
Speaker
this whole like, I'm gonna hit first, I'm gonna be the first one who's violent, I will be the scariest thing in a room. It was a character that was created to defend me and I forgot who I was because that character was created at the age of nine or 10. So I had no idea who I was. And I think that that's been the journey since, or at least for those few years is trying to start over from scratch and figure out who I was.
00:08:42
Speaker
It was a bit confusing for everyone else around because when you meet the twenty five year old that doesn't know what the cv is trying to look for a job or because i was not part of the civilian world it did feel very strange going almost to the confusion of the teenage years at twenty five.
00:08:59
Speaker
of who am I as a person? And that's what I've been working on, even the long hair that a lot of people know me for. It started then as a way to make myself recognizable so I don't have the impulse of committing crime. And now it's something that's extremely close, it has a lot of meaning to me, it connects me to nature, but that was the goal, because I needed to add additional risks so I don't fall back on my old behaviors.
00:09:28
Speaker
Wow. And you said something that was a few things that are amazing. We've talked offline about this, so I got to hear a bit more about your story. And I think the main reason why I wanted you on is just you're really genuinely saying this. You're just authenticity and being who you are. But that came at really a journey and a cost throughout your life.
00:09:48
Speaker
and finding who you were and still finding it. I do believe to some degree, we're always kind of finding our journey that we're never really complete, that we're moving through life and trying to figure out who we are and what we're really about. But you mentioned something that I had to create this person for survival. Like I had to, in a way, disavow, disown who I was, my innocence, my child, who I was, because there was no safety. So I had to create this. I had to hit first, be violent first. I had to have this wall up. Can you speak more about that?
00:10:18
Speaker
I think it's what now I know it's common in people that deal with a lot of abuse and they create almost a different persona in order to, this is not happening to me. I'm not the one doing this. It's just, you know, where there was a joke that I was a sore and shiller and food and all of those, there were three different individuals that would live through me, but I needed this extremely because I went through, I got in trouble, obviously.
00:10:45
Speaker
When I was about 14, 15, and I went through a few days with hundreds of questions with a mental health care professional, I don't know exactly what that role was, but she said, I remember in translation, you are like a sociopath with good intentions.
00:11:04
Speaker
which for me didn't sound like a good thing back then. I now learned that that level of antisocial personality disorder that I developed, it was a way for me to numb all the feelings. So I do not have to deal with we deal with a pain on a daily basis. Because if you ask me for, you know, over 1015 years is that I would tell people I don't feel things.
00:11:30
Speaker
Now I know I was feeling things but just feeling everything all at once. So it's this constant noise and discomfort and I couldn't distinguish what's grief, what's pain, what's happiness. It was all happening at the same time.
00:11:49
Speaker
Obviously, one of the few ways to manage that was through self-medicating with drugs. I never really had an addiction problem, but I did use them in order to try to function like a normal person to a certain extent.
00:12:04
Speaker
yeah because it was so overwhelming right it just did it help quiet the noise a bit down that noise well now also i know i have ADHD and stuff like cocaine we're working like ADHD medication is the way i could focus and do like laptop work that i wouldn't be able to do otherwise so um
Transition from Pharmaceuticals to Coaching
00:12:22
Speaker
now with more information more things make sense for me i never looked at stimulants like cocaine at a party drug for me was i feel human drug and i can focus on stuff but obviously you know even the issue with like cocaine is not the cocaine is what is being cut with and even if i was the supplier you still get it from until it gets to europe it still gets at a certain level of purity
00:12:47
Speaker
That is, it's always going to cause some problems. I remember going to about 30,000 pounds worth of cocaine in six months. But yes, it was for me, the thing that made all the differences after the suicide. I don't want to call it a tent. It was successful in a way. I found someone that enabled me to focus on helping them because it feels unfair.
00:13:10
Speaker
what was happening to this person so rather than me focusing on all my noise i dedicated myself to giving this person the opportunity i never had and that is the first time i felt something and i was like oh okay this is new
00:13:26
Speaker
This is nice, I have you know, a warmth in my chest. So I want to help people. But obviously, in order for you to help people, it's your good intentions worthless. And I know in the age of social media, where everyone like I'm posting a black square, it means nothing.
00:13:46
Speaker
No one cares. Okay. Like if you actually want to help people, you have to put yourself in a position where you have something to give either a resources or knowledge or something. Yeah. Good intentions mean nothing. Or at least it's a good starting point. Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:01
Speaker
So I worked at developing myself as a person and figure out who I was. I ended up working in a pharmaceutical industry because someone told me I couldn't really. I was working in the office because the only job I could get as my first job was a minimum wage warehouse picker on a night shift. And then I kept getting promoted. I became the car manager.
00:14:24
Speaker
And then at that time, there was a lady that didn't like me very much, and she was trying to make me feel bad that her husband was working in this pharma company and all of these things, but because I never finished high school, I could never do it. And that was enough for me to, you know, oh, I have something to do now.
00:14:43
Speaker
in order for me to get my first job at his company i joined as a glorified cleaner by even to get that job you'll have to go to some some testing that i would do around engineering maths and english and i scored pretty well at those tests
00:14:57
Speaker
So when they were short on stuff and they needed to train a technician, they were like, we're looking for people who went to university, but we have this person in the building that has very high scores. And they called me again to do the tests again in case I cheated. And then I got my first opportunity. And within five years, I got promoted about six, seven times to the point where I was technical operations team leader in developmental and oncology medication.
00:15:22
Speaker
and i was managing people phds and as the kid who doesn't have the education and still a bit eccentric there was a bit of a pushback which i really can't come motivated me even more any gave me like i'm doing something that's supposed to help people because we developing.
00:15:39
Speaker
anti cancer medication should be but the closer i got to the rnd and the behind the scenes i noticed that's the interest was nowhere the line with mine it was all about making money where drugs i had the potential of helping people but they were not scalable they wouldn't even give them a shot.
00:16:01
Speaker
and drugs that they would make for no other reason but just to extend the IP for five more years and maintain exclusivity even if they're not planning to ever manufacture them. So I felt like a drug dealer again but this one, this time dishonest. I felt like it was more honest for me to sell cocaine because you're an adult and you know what you're buying but over here you have no idea what you're truly buying. You go with that level of trust to your doctor.
00:16:26
Speaker
So that is where what I'm doing now started in a way is like, I cannot do this, my mental health was starting to be affected, again, by feeling, you know, like a villain.
Social Media and Authenticity
00:16:36
Speaker
Even if my intents were right, I was so focused on my progression and proving people wrong that I was becoming part of a different problem. And I, I stepped away and around the same time, while I still had the job, I had people
00:16:52
Speaker
because i was a manager because i would recruit from multiple sites and other things i had a lot of people that would come to me for advice and i would get involved in a lot of people's lives and it was very i really enjoyed it at some point because of the reputation element the demand.
00:17:09
Speaker
put a bit of pressure on the supply and that's when i had to i'm gonna add a cost to it so people don't ask for my time for free for so long because i do not have the time to do it all the time and some people said yes and they got results and they recommended it and then it became a thing it was never intended for me to
00:17:33
Speaker
to be a coach is the demand was there and also it was fascinating for me to see that my results have increased as soon as people started paying because they're more excited about doing the work and they're more sad about showing up than something else free and that's around the same time when.
00:17:50
Speaker
I joined social media about two and a half years ago because of a severe panic attack because my partner tried to take a picture with me downstairs with me holding something, I didn't want my face in it. And a severe panic attack, I started crying and all of this. And at that point, I realized that I need to work on this because this is not normal. Yes, I understand. The last time I was in front of the camera when someone was telling me how to sit, I was being arrested, but still. Yeah.
00:18:15
Speaker
And that is when I challenged myself to take a picture of myself every day. And then my partner saw some of those photos. I'm like, you should post them. Like, I don't care. I don't want to be in social media. I don't care if I get attention. Yeah, I cared about talking about mental health. And yeah, that's when I started. I'm like, I'm going to post this video photo. I'm just going to write a caption.
00:18:35
Speaker
And then some people enjoyed it. And then I'm like, I want to push myself out of my comfort zone even more. So I've done my first video, which was 23 seconds long, and it took me seven hours to record because I was hyperventilating. And then since then, my progression in this space has been around my personal
00:18:56
Speaker
growth around getting more comfortable pushing myself on my comfort zone. Like now on stage one, I'm more willing to overcome my crippling social anxiety and go to events and meet people like this. So I never looked at it as I want to get followers, I want to get this, this has been a side effect of me constantly doing the work.
Hope and Resilience
00:19:15
Speaker
And in a way, I'm really happy about it. Because some people I think I'm arrogant when I say I don't care about the compliments or the followers and I think
00:19:24
Speaker
But I think it's extremely healthy for me because that means I also don't care about the negative stuff that comes with it. It's just I need to focus on my actions and in my trip to Amsterdam last weekend, I actually realized why I hate modern art or a lot of it is that a lot of it is the artist puts himself as more important than the art itself.
00:19:48
Speaker
I think that's where art loses. The reason why art had meaning is because the meaning was attributed to it by chance because that person was trying to tell a story or whatever. Now people are trying to force that meaning. They're trying to force their own personality into stuff rather than it coming naturally.
00:20:05
Speaker
and it actually puts people off i think that's why a lot of the modern stories in movies tend to not be so successful anymore because it's just it's played playing safe and using the normal talking points and kind of just putting in there for validation rather than the excitement where i see myself as a content creator or whatever you want to call it as a medium of getting that information and that idea into the world
00:20:30
Speaker
It's not about me. And I think that is extremely liberating because it enables me to keep trying and failing and learning and playing this game without really getting distracted by the noise. Yeah. Yeah. And so you've had this journey growing up in foster and significant relationships, trauma, all these things and created this persona to survive.
00:20:56
Speaker
and found aggression to help you survive and drugs and all these things and drugs also helped you think. And so you just found a way to navigate that part of you, maybe that defensive piece kind of did die. And what you're telling me is that part that maybe you didn't need anymore, that part that was kind of the protector.
00:21:14
Speaker
And then things happened as well and other things that made you kind of question and go deeper. So, you know, I'm wondering with your healing piece of actually healing, what was like one or two things that really like helped you keep going or doing the work or what was something that was profound or that you think back of like, wow, that was really, yeah, that really, that part, what I did here or that person or what they did really helped me in my healing journey. Can you share something like that?
00:21:41
Speaker
I think the one I mentioned around having the first person, I guess the reason why I have a bee tattoo might be nerdy about it. But before, you know, in the early stages of our planet, we only had ferns and moss and it was kind of like green and brown. The reason why we have pops of color is because they're meant to attract pollinators. The existence of these pollinators is why we have color in the world. Right. And that's why my, you know,
00:22:07
Speaker
my bee tattoo and a lot of stuff around bees is that that celebration of those people that bring color, that bring meaning into my life. So there are and usually it is the individuals that I can impact their life in a positive way. And now my trauma and all of this, what could be a negative thing that can keep me behind.
00:22:29
Speaker
is something that has tremendous value and is actually helping me to push forward. And one of the reasons why I keep going forward is the implementation of responsibility. I think now I see myself responsible for the people around me or the people I work with or even the people that decided to take a moment of the day to click that follow button on social media platform.
00:22:57
Speaker
For me, that's not, I'm not more important because of that. Actually, it's a burden of responsibility. I use that because I find it easier to give up on myself knowing that there's people that.
00:23:10
Speaker
my rely on me. I'm not allowed to give up anymore. And when it comes to myself, I'm not gonna lie, I use being I'm quite petty. I think just because of my circumstances, and no one really gave me an opportunity or no one really believed that I could make anything of myself, you know,
00:23:31
Speaker
The only teacher I remember meeting that they knew me for, they were surprised to meet me because, oh, I thought you're going to be in prison. And I was like, I get it, but also such a big move. Right. Like, did you consider that the reason why I was that way is because of something else, but that's the first thing like, Oh, that's cool to see you. I thought you're going to be in prison. It was like that I tap into that.
00:23:54
Speaker
I tap into that and now I have, you know, it's a big part of my messaging, which is your struggle is your superpower. Like the lower you are, the shittier circumstances are, I think the more opportunities you have to be amazing. Because if we look at as a very simple example, if you have two people, one of them has 10 million, one of them has zero, both of them make a million, you're going to celebrate a person that makes their first million and you're going to hate the person that has now 11 million.
00:24:24
Speaker
So, and this is a big part of what I'm discovering now is the burden of privilege. I used to hate in a way of, you know, people with privilege because I didn't have any. And then I had the opportunity to work with them and being around them. And I realized they have a struggle that's hard to overcome because nothing they do is going to matter because of where they started from.
00:24:51
Speaker
And that is when I realized that my struggle is a privilege because I come from nothing, anything I do is impressive. And I get to be a winner way more often because of it. And the mentality of a winner, it does then impact your biology. You get higher testosterone, higher dopamine, serotonin, so you feel good about yourself. And then you can carry in this momentum and keep going.
00:25:20
Speaker
Yeah. Where someone does thoughts up here, you know, no matter what they do, they now kind of truly get the credit for it. And everyone's going to remind them that the reason why they did whatever is because you had that is money or whatever. And I think that is where a lot of our perspective that, you know, I hear mostly from the Western world that extremely, they come from privileged positions. You see people that they crave oppression. They are looking for oppression. They're almost willing to invent it.
00:25:50
Speaker
i've seen it you know in the past where i would talk to people about my circumstances and they really romanticize it like it's cool i'm like it's not cool at all but now i get it is because you feel very uncomfortable with your privilege and because you haven't earned it so it comes back to one of my big purpose pieces i think just because my circumstances were so
00:26:12
Speaker
bad compared to the average person, I think me being able to win and make something of this can provide a slither of hope for people that are going through hardship.
00:26:27
Speaker
And I think there's this fascinating experiment I've seen around pain tolerance, where they took some people through a questionnaire first, and then they give them electroshocks. And the questionnaire determined the order of people's pain tolerance levels. Okay, that questionnaire looked for hope. The more hope people had, the more resilience they were thinking because hope is essentially thinking that there's a chance of success and thinking that you can be part of that success.
00:26:54
Speaker
All right. So if someone with, you know, shitty circumstances like me can find a way to live a good life and have good relationships and have a positive impact on his community and the people around it should provide that slither of hope.
Collaborative Healing Approaches
00:27:13
Speaker
Because essentially, you know, even with my social media stuff, I said it before, I do it for the old version of myself that hoped I would meet someone like me that I would find familiar.
00:27:23
Speaker
I have scars, tattoos, muscles, all of these things that do not come. They're not common in the therapist world and no offense to you, but a young me would really struggle to take you seriously because you're so disconnected from where I come from. Sure.
00:27:43
Speaker
from the, you know, Eastern European gangs, the toxic masculine at its finest. Right. Come here, soft spoken with your degree and your, you know, nice language. I think you're trying to take a piss out of me. Right. So I immediately become defensive. True. Cause I'm not safe, right? I'm not, I'm not safe. Sure. And I think there are still people like me out there and those people could create amazing things.
00:28:09
Speaker
their lives if they are given the opportunity to do so. That's why I'm a professional best friend and I'm not anything fancy. I almost got myself into Oxbridge to study to become CBT and I realized why am I doing this? I don't want to become
00:28:26
Speaker
the thing that already exists. I want to become the thing that bridges people that do nothing to do something because that's something that's way more valuable. There's already enough therapists around and there's a lot of people that say you should go to therapy but no one's showing you what's the benefits of going to therapy especially as a man because this is something that was on my mind today as well.
00:28:54
Speaker
And that we are not equal. And I think the idea of equality is it's nice and equal opportunities is something that we should strive for. But we're not equal. And we will see these differences. You know, STEM industry is male dominated and a lot of the machines and the stuff they designed around men.
00:29:13
Speaker
And that's where women struggle to, even if they joined our world, they struggle to perform because the environment is not created for them. But that's one thing that people don't talk about because, you know, everyone's over-fixated on men. But there's two industries out there, or there's a set of industries that are female-dominated.
00:29:29
Speaker
which is the heel industries. Your education and health care are dominated by women and because of that intrinsic bias, it has been created for the benefit of women. That's why we see a drastic difference in education recently between men and women. We see a drastic difference in the efficiency of top therapy between men and women because men require, you know, in a lot of cases, something different.
00:29:59
Speaker
And that is where talk therapy and I've seen it, you know, even in women, a lot of times it's an incomplete, it's a necessary, but it's not the complete approach. It requires this holistic and depending on who you are as a person, a lot of people are not ready for talk therapy. And I figured out a way.
00:30:18
Speaker
you know, even with helping people when I used to sell MDMA. Because I realized when people's brains were filled with this happy chemicals, now I know it's serotonin and dopamine and they feel great. Yeah, priority becomes finding someone to tell them that they love them or to give them a hug or whatever. So as soon as they were happy, they were trying to make other people happy. I was like, Oh, there's hope for this apes. And they were also because MDMA is used clinically in treatment of PTSD enables people to open up and talk more.
00:30:48
Speaker
So I deconstructed that process without having to use chemical intervention. I'm like, okay, how can you get elevated levels of dopamine serotonin? Well, you have to get the basics done through behavior, nutrition, sleep, and all those things. So let's get the basic done, elevate this levels of neurotransmitters in people's brains in order for them to feel strong enough to open up.
00:31:12
Speaker
Because what that, you know, MDMA does to the brain with some PTSD, it enables them to go in a place that otherwise they're trying to avoid. That's the role of serotonin. And I guess if you, I can provide a, you know, that in a light version by creating
00:31:30
Speaker
good lifestyle behaviors that then you just feel stronger and more capable to deal because when you are extremely vulnerable to go there it's an extremely scary thing so you need to build the strength up so that's why depending on where that person is when i work with them sometimes i just go through let's fix your diet up let's go let's go to the gym let's try to implement morning routines
00:31:53
Speaker
create an environment for you to be able to then start talking about it, because I should I force it into you and become defensive. And we're not really making much progress. And I think that level of flexibility enables me to consistently get results with evil. And I talk to psychiatrists now and scientists because
00:32:15
Speaker
what are the benefits of having followers people want to talk to you which is very cool and a lot of people in the industry agree with me but to make the standard of care it's almost impossible because nutrition is such a big subject as a whole and doctors have limited or none
00:32:32
Speaker
uh none of that knowledge and that knowledge is constantly changing anyway and to be honest there's not one good diet for everyone you're gonna have to look at your genetics and your genes and your allergies and the things that you you know you absorb better or don't and
00:32:51
Speaker
You can start from somewhere, but you're going to have to make it your own, and that's a long process. Yeah. Extremely beneficial if you go through it, and it's life-changing, but it can't just be a drop that I follow this meal plan because that meal plan might work for, even if it just works for seven out of 10 people, if you're one of those three, it might not work for you because you have a genetic makeup or any
00:33:13
Speaker
anything like that. So that's where finding the right thing for you and having someone with enough knowledge and kind of to just keep you accountable, it becomes extremely beneficial for you to create an environment where you feel relaxed enough and safe enough to then become more vulnerable and start the journey of introspection. For me, it's way more brave for a person
00:33:39
Speaker
feel like things are not going well and start the journey of introspection knowing that the best case scenario is to find yourself guilty like that's that's a tough investigation where you're investigating yourself and hope you find yourself guilty because if you find yourself guilty you know the changes that you can do.
00:33:57
Speaker
And I think that's the key, right? I love how you phrase that if you find yourself guilty, right? That's the opportunity to make the, cause then you know what you need to change to get better and then you're right. But that can be really hard for the ego to take that on, to admit. And you said a lot of things I would love to explore more, but I'm conscious at the time.
00:34:14
Speaker
But a couple things is one, it sounds like your methodology of helping people as the best friend is to kind of really one meet them where they are, but do other things in their life to create an environment to become vulnerable nutrition, diet, exercise, sleep, the other things that give them that, you know, kind of like you kind of
00:34:32
Speaker
took MDMA, like what's happening here? And how do I create that light version? I liked how you phrased that. How do I, what is that drug doing? And how do I create that naturally in a way to help people open up to begin the journey of introspection? Beautifully done. I love it. And clearly you're having great success in helping people doing that and meeting them where they are. And then you said something else. This is a curious question. You said, and I take no offense to this, by the way. I think it's great that you said it.
00:34:57
Speaker
You know, if you saw someone like me back then with my, I think you said my nice language and my- Yeah, you're self-spoken and nice.
00:35:04
Speaker
What could someone like me do to be more accessible to someone like you back then? Because right now it's different. You're in a different place now, back then. Because you said you saw a therapist back then. Yes, I think it's a tough one because as you know, you cannot help anyone that doesn't want to
Accountability and Personal Growth
00:35:21
Speaker
be helped. Right. So that's the first one. First, you have to get someone low enough. And most likely because of your tone and the way you present yourself, you might find that people find it easier to open up with you.
00:35:35
Speaker
But you also might find it that it might be harder for them to feel the pressure to do the working between sessions to actually make progress. And I think that is where you need to observe and make those decisions of when do I have to be more assertive with that person and go towards having smart goals and everything else.
00:35:57
Speaker
Because that person seems to want solutions first and a bit more direct approach. And when is appropriate for you to use words like energy? Because the word energy, unless you're part of the industry or we're already part of something that you have... Sure, that's going to be a turn off. That's, yeah, you're going to shut down. It sounds like some... Mystical, yeah. Mystical.
00:36:21
Speaker
and that is where i think it's a matter of observing the person and yes having people like me within your environment does increase credibility to a certain extent and i think that's because that's i am the bridge that's my role where it's similar to the event i get the normal person and explain how is this beneficial and like and because you trust me because you see the the benefits
00:36:47
Speaker
Right. So someone that struggles to open up or rather than, it's similar to how you deal with someone with addiction. You don't tell them to not take the drug. Right. You tell them what they have to gain on the other side or what they have to lose because depending on what you want that person to do, sometimes, you know, negative thought is extremely beneficial at generating dopamine. So if you want action, you're better off having a negative mindset than a positive one.
00:37:16
Speaker
because you got this. And I think this is one of the biggest mistakes that people do with social media or with their friends group. And I'm like, I'm going to do this. I'm like, yes, you can. And then they get the reward by being cheered on before they even started. So then there's no need for them to actually take the action.
00:37:34
Speaker
Yeah. Where from a biology point of view, it's way more beneficial to tell someone that doesn't believe you can do it. So then you have, you know, the adrenaline and focus and dopamine to get it done. Or if you're struggling to get, you know, to start working on something, you shouldn't think of the positives. You should do a negative meditation of all the negative things that can happen if you don't do this.
00:37:59
Speaker
And that's way more because how cortisol works, you raise stress, and then you get an adrenaline spike. And that's from neoprenephrine is what dopamine is being created. So you have to engage this natural biology. So you cannot be, if you're trying someone to do the actions, you can't be nice about it. You're going to have to create a certain level of discomfort and that's risky. That's where a professional best friend can do it. I'm more comfortable doing so because that's how I created my brand.
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah, but for you, you're going to have to, you know, peel some layers to make sure that you do not lose your license. But yes, making people feel a bit uncomfortable or be frustrated might be a way more efficient way for them to take the action.
00:38:43
Speaker
And as soon as they take the action and they see the positive feed value loop of them feeling better about themselves, they get the extra dopamine. They're very excited to come back and what's next. And that's one of the tricks, eye tricks, or approaches I do with people. I give something simple that can be applied and as soon as it gives them some results and then they feel like they have the decision to want to be held. I'm like, what's next? I'm like, oh, I got you now. Let's go. Let's have fun. Then they need to see some benefits.
00:39:12
Speaker
Yes. Well, it's the buy-in. They have to get that buy-in. Yeah. Otherwise, why would I do this? And I'm wondering if the connection of hope, because you mentioned hope earlier and we'll start to wrap up, is that as you challenge them, they get the success. What you get that dopamine hit because you accomplish something and it feels good. Because like, I did it. And then do you think that also helps instill some hope for them that they can find a path through this? So it's kind of like this balance of, you know, stress and. Well, arguably, one of the main parts of good mental health is agency.
00:39:42
Speaker
So you're giving person agency or allowing them to have it. And as soon as they feel they have agency, they get excited. And then, you know, gratitude and agency are a company sin of good mental health.
00:39:58
Speaker
And then you teach them to be excited and grateful about the negative things that can happen in life because of the follow-up dopamine that comes with it and focus on like look at your life every time i can look at my life when something bad happens right i'm.
00:40:14
Speaker
I'm bracing for a while and subconsciously I'm laughing and some people okay because I know that I will be better after this because now I'm frustrated I have something to prove and I'm excited to use this additional focus and dopamine to overcome and become better so now when something bad happens my perception is no longer all poor me and it's like let's fucking go
00:40:39
Speaker
Yeah, I have something you cannot, you know, this level of, okay, you've, I'm, I have something to prove and tapping into that as a energy source is extremely helpful. And it's not just all, you know,
00:40:55
Speaker
rainbows and sunshine, sometimes you're gonna have to read some things. But then, because of how biology works, you tend to get the, you know, happy chemicals as a reward. Like, oh, I feel great about this. Maybe I should have been to the pain part anymore. I'm like, Oh, well, and then again, oh, you, the way I help people deal with panic attacks,
00:41:18
Speaker
One of the very simple practices is the cold shower because I'm like, hey, we can look at dopamine and all these things. But what the benefit of cold shower is, you get to have practice lobby style of panic attacks. You go into the cold and you get familiar with regulating your breathing and your heart rate. And you'll see that when you get stressed or feel that a panic attack is coming to your life,
00:41:42
Speaker
you practice this on a daily basis, you know how to calm yourself. And it becomes like, oh, yeah, I was feeling at work. I'm like, I know exactly where to go and how to focus on my breath and so on. I'm like, Oh, what's next? Oh, I have this other issue. How can I deal with this? And again, it's just that listening to the person and I think for me and the first kind of interaction, I don't want them to like me too much.
Choosing the Right Support
00:42:06
Speaker
I want them to just want to have something to prove. And then that's enough. If they take the action and then see the feedback, they are mine. And then it's way easier than trying to provide a best case scenario. I'm like, we can look. I'm like, okay.
00:42:23
Speaker
you know, you can stay obese, but I'm sure that you know, your daughter would like to have you at your graduate graduation, I don't think you're gonna make it. Right. So you know, you do that, it's fine, you can continue drinking and doing whatever you want. But the reality is, you know, we can explain how this will affect you in many ways. And just try for a week, I'm like, oh, I can't do it. Just try for a week. If if you can't do it, it's for every time you demand that level of like,
00:42:48
Speaker
And they're like, fuck you bearded guy, I'll prove to you. I'm like, oh, and I'm like weigh yourself. Oh, I'm like four kilos. Well, that's mostly water weight. So it hasn't lost that much fat, but it's definitely possible. You say in 10 years, you can't do anything about it. A week, you managed to do something about it. What's this? Yeah. Right. And immediately now they have something to prove. And that's where the more aggressive, assertive interaction and more action based.
00:43:15
Speaker
And as soon as people get a bit more comfortable and they have this excitement of, you know, brain chemicals, they do exactly what they want you to do in terms of they start opening up about the traumas, the childhood. It just creeps into the conversation because now they are excited because they have the momentum and they're excited to finally deal with this again. And that's where
00:43:39
Speaker
They tend to then make a lot of this progress with a psychology as well. Yeah. And it becomes this dance. And if they don't feel ready, then you can play with something else. Yeah. As long as we make in progress. And I think that's the mind, body, spirit approach I have.
00:43:59
Speaker
Because the mind is intelligence and mental health you either learn something or you learn from your mistakes more or the body is look after your health and the spirit is not it's purely your relationships.
00:44:11
Speaker
because arguably is one of the most important elements of human nature. Well, and in your case, in your story, part of your healing journey was a human, the relationship was helping somebody else. And it still does to this day. It's the most important part of, where do you get motivation from? Motivation is for amateurs. I have a responsibility and it's so liberating in a way. That pressure, it's like a weighted blanket that makes me feel more comfortable with discomfort.
00:44:41
Speaker
one final question as we go and I could talk to you for so much more longer but a couple things I think you know one I do I see and you could I'm curious your thoughts quickly like a yes or no what you think but I think there's something to say about collapse you know in our field of healers is
00:44:57
Speaker
collaboration with different types of healers is it's not just and I say this by the way with my clients like hey I might you might need more than just me there are other things that you can benefit from from someone else with different expertise and so it's finding a group of people that can help you on your journey and I think there's some need of collaboration with like certain type of coaches or in your case best friends with maybe
00:45:20
Speaker
a trained clinician. I think there's a time and place depending on the person. If we're all trying to help this world, how do we work with each other versus against each other as healers? Because you see that out there. It's like, well, I'm this and forget them, forget them. And I think it's more about as a team and we're bridging gaps together. What a world we could can create and build if we actually work together. I think one is crucial because one of my approaches, I have an initial consultation with everyone.
00:45:49
Speaker
And in that initial consultation, we decide, both of us, if we would be a good match to work together, which I know puts a video on like, no, I will refuse people. If I don't think I'm one qualified, I don't think your intentions or whatever.
00:46:02
Speaker
I'm not going to lose my job satisfaction because you just want to talk to me for whatever reason. And sometimes I do not feel that I'm the right person for you and I can recommend someone else. And another rule I have that I see people react very confused is that I do not allow people to respond in the first 24 hours of the first session if they want to continue to work together or not.
00:46:27
Speaker
we do not talk in the first 24 hours you do it you go you sleep and then you come back with a clear mind because a lot of people get emotional people cry you know how it is i'm like i do not want you to make a decision under the rest and i think that makes people first it's like oh i'm like but then they're extremely happy about the
00:46:49
Speaker
I'm like, I have the free because finding the right therapist or the coach or whatever to work with, it is a bit like
Economic Challenges in Healing Industries
00:46:55
Speaker
dating. You need to find the right person for you. And I think having a relationship with other people within the heal space is incredibly important, because especially you get to know them as a person. And as you listen to someone, you can recommend someone better. I have
00:47:14
Speaker
some other individuals that I work with and their coaches as well. And they're like, oh, this person, I think might need you. I think this person just needs a fitness coach and you'll be a better person at doing this. But I think that is very idealistic and sounds nice. But I think it's also a place of privilege because in the state of the economy nowadays, a lot of people will step away from healing to just survive.
00:47:42
Speaker
So there's a certain level of scarcity, so people become a bit more aggressive around just being able to pay their bills. From my perspective, because I mostly do this for job satisfaction because I don't see that scalable and I want to make it possible for normal people to work with me, I have different businesses that I try to run in order to survive. And this enables me to have this privilege of saying no to someone or trying to recommend it to someone else.
00:48:11
Speaker
So I think it's great and I think more people should do it, but also understand why more people don't do it because of the reality of I need to pay bills. So I'm just gonna, I'm sure I'll figure out the way to help this person. Even if I don't feel 100% I'm the right person, I can't afford losing too many customers, essentially, or more than too many clients.
00:48:33
Speaker
So I agree on paper, but applying it is similar to socialism. Communism sounds great on paper, but it's very hard to apply in real life because humans are humans. That's where the theory falls, right? But I also think that creating a hub
00:48:54
Speaker
of a handful of individuals that with different skill sets and different approaches, and when someone comes in, they get to select or be advised what's the right person for what they're doing. I think, yes, I think more people should be able to do that. I think more clinics that offer, or more people that offer therapy should also have a nutritionist on board and a fitness trainer on board.
00:49:20
Speaker
and really be able to provide a full experience. But again, we need to make sure that is possible from an economic point of view for most people because I'm not going to lie and say that it's idealistic. Most people don't get to be in a position that I am to be so stubborn. Even if I need the money, I'm not going to pick someone up that I don't think I'm the right fit for and I recognize someone else.
00:49:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's so true. It's not easy to answer, right? There's like ideals behind it and what we would like and the reality and the layers and the context. And there's a lot
Where to Find Soren Online
00:49:57
Speaker
there. And to close up final thing, where can we find Sorin? Where can people find you? Sorin is Sci Savage online on Instagram. It's short from Scientific Savage, which is my website as well. I think if you look for professional best friend, I'm one of a few people that does this.
00:50:14
Speaker
We find on social media, I'm trying to appear to more events. We're running some more in-person events as well. We'll come up with what we're doing, trying to bring people together.
00:50:23
Speaker
in person. I think in the next event that we're doing, it's about showing up and speaking up. So we do, you know, a lot of people struggle with speaking up, especially in public work. So we have someone that specializes in this to come here and kind of just help people find their voice. Because when it comes to, you know, one of this is one of the struggles, mostly women, but even men nowadays that their professional career is being stunted because they can't be assertive enough to speak their mind. So
00:50:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think, you know, even if I think it's called calm club, it's, you know, between the movement medicine arena does and the speak up, all of those things are very uncomfortable in a moment. But you that can provide you calm long term. And I think that is where you can provide and also a way to forge real relationships, because most people nowadays don't really have friends, they have drinking bodies.
00:51:18
Speaker
And whatever friends they have, they're from university or whatever, because most people create real relationships around vulnerability and adversity. And if you just meet with people for fun stuff, for drinks and meals and games, you do not get to create genuine relationships because this overcoming adverse inner vulnerabilities are a necessary part of it.
00:51:40
Speaker
So if I can create a common adversity and everyone having to be vulnerable because of the thing that they are trying to do to improve themselves, and then there's multiple people around with the same intentions also increases the probability of you meeting someone with similar value systems to you and actually making a friend. So yeah, there's a lot of that.
00:52:02
Speaker
Yeah, and I'm excited for you. I think, you know, with the work you're doing, you know, you're going to reach people I can never reach. And I think that's actually a beautiful thing and a needed thing that you get to touch, you know, in a way, people's souls that I can never get close to because we need different people to help different people in different spaces. And we need that kind of that spectrum to really reach different peoples in different areas. And so I think
00:52:26
Speaker
I think you're doing amazing work and another reason why I want you on the show is just because of what you're doing and the people you're helping and your story and how you're taking suffering and making it a challenge and finding purpose and meaning and navigating this. It's so needed to be heard in this world. So I thank you, Soren, for your time. And if you guys want to find what he's doing, all this stuff's going to be in the description. It's going to be clickable. It's all going to be there to find his work. But keep doing what you're doing. Blessings to you, Soren. And man, thank you so much for coming on Talk It.