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Surviving Iraq: A Soldier’s PTSD Battle with Nahum Vizakis - E90
25 Plays16 days ago
What happens when you survive war but can’t escape the battle inside your own mind?
How does a soldier heal from a lifetime of trauma?
Mental health is a cornerstone in our overall wellbeing, and a key piece in extending our healthspans. We all have our different challenges, and for some, that includes overcoming intensely traumatic experiences.
His early life was marked by instability, moving through foster homes, running with gangs, and experiencing periods of homelessness. Searching for direction, today's guest enlisted in the military and eventually found himself on the frontlines in Iraq. When he returned home, the war didn’t end. Like many soldiers, he was left facing PTSD and the long road of trying to understand - and heal from - the trauma that had shaped his life.
In this episode, we explore the step-by-step journey away from trauma and into his spiritual awakening. From overcoming PTSD, addiction, and identity struggles, to harnessing tools like somatic therapy, hormone optimization, and spiritual practices, our guest demonstrates how rebuilding from the inside leads to lasting vitality - physically and mentally.
Nahum Vizakis is an athlete, combat veteran, and healer whose life bridges strength and spirituality. A former U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal operator, his spiritual awakening began during a 2010 deployment to Baghdad. After leaving the military, he studied healing and human potential with shamans, biohackers, and spiritual mentors worldwide. A competitive bodybuilder with multiple NPC titles, Nahum now works as an entheogenic healer and coach, blending biohacking, plant medicine, and emotional healing. He has also authored two books, ‘The Biohacker’s Guide to Spiritual Bodybuilding’ and ‘The Indigo Flame’, where he shares his journey from war and trauma to awakening.
“When you're in that ego place, you're not present, you're distracted, you're creating these stories in your mind and you're amping up this anger so that you can push past your limits. And eventually, that's going to lead to injury.” - Nahum Vizakis
In this episode you will learn:
- How early life hardship and trauma shaped Nahum's drive for health and self-discovery.
- What role bodybuilding and hormone therapy played in his recovery from PTSD after military service.
- Why talk therapy sometimes falls short, and how somatic release and bodywork changed Nahum's healing process.
- The risks of seeking external validation in fitness, and the shift toward mindful and purposeful training.
- How plant medicine and spiritual exploration helped Nahum find deeper self-acceptance and guiding values.
- Practical tips for tuning into your body and finding balance between physical goals and inner growth.
Resources
- Connect with Nahum on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spiritual_bodybuilder
- Learn more about his work in Human Optimization: https://www.optimizinghuman.com
- Tune into his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SpiritualBodybuilder
This podcast was produced by the team at Zapods Podcast Agency:
https://www.zapods.com
Find the products, practices, and routines discussed on the Alively website:
https://alively.com
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
I had been in fight or flight my entire life.
Regulating the Nervous System
00:00:02
Speaker
I was finally learning to slow down. My nervous system was starting to get regulated. And as it was getting regulated, all this pent up survival emotional crap that was stuck in my tissue just started flying out of me. But because I had built up so much muscle and so much armor around it, that's why it was so dramatic.
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:25
Speaker
This is the Home of Healthspan podcast, where we profile health and wellness role models, sharing their stories and the tools, practices and routines they use to live a lively life.
00:00:39
Speaker
Now, welcome the Home Healthspan podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here, man. yeah I am excited to have you here and looking forward to our conversation. I have a lot of questions, but before I get into all of those, how would you describe
A Complex Personal History
00:00:54
Speaker
yourself?
00:00:54
Speaker
I would say that I am a lively renaissance man. Okay. i like it. Yeah. Just before we kicked off and this is probably doing you a disservice, I was saying, you know, you've kind of had these three different lives, these three different identities, but I mean, you, you've lived it before, so it's probably more than three, right? You probably had something before you entered the army that was your identity and and who you were. So could you, for those not familiar with your story, give us a little bit of your journey and kind of where you are now?
Challenging Childhood Experiences
00:01:28
Speaker
Absolutely. i you know, I feel like I've lived five lives in this lifetime, to be honest. um So when I was when I was growing up, I don't really remember the first seven years of my life, even still after all the experiences, thousands and thousands of ceremonies. I i can't be hypnotized either. I tried hypnosis. It didn't work on me.
00:01:46
Speaker
The memories had never came back, so I just learned to accept it and be okay with that, right? But from what I do remember, I was run away when I was a kid, and um i was afraid to go home. I had a stutter, just not really a ah healthy situation at home. So i was I would run away, get picked up by the cops, be brought back home, get grounded,
00:02:06
Speaker
you know, whatever, rinse and repeat for about three or four years until finally i ran away and I made it. I actually, i lived on, on the border of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. So I would run away to Rhode Island. So the cops couldn't get me when I was, i was 13 years old.
00:02:20
Speaker
And, um, so finally, I, uh, my friend's parents saw me one morning cause I was like, I went went to my friend's house for food. He was doing his paperwork in the morning and I hadn't eaten a couple days. So,
00:02:33
Speaker
ah They sat me down, right? And they talked to me and they're like, well, look, like you can't keep doing this. Like we need to help you out. So I was like, all right, I'll go into foster care. So I ain't going home. So I went to foster care, 13 and a half, 14 years old, somewhere around there.
00:02:48
Speaker
And ah I was in 17 foster homes between 14 18 ish. eighteen ish So that was that time of my life was a little bit of a blur. I dropped out of high school, even joined a gang.
Military Life and Identity Crisis
00:03:02
Speaker
And then um when I was later in the year, my 18th year, I actually finally I found myself homeless again and in a rough place. So I actually called my parents.
00:03:15
Speaker
for the first time a long time. i was like, look, I'm going to die. Because, you know, the winter in Massachusetts, it gets pretty damn cold out there. And I was on a park bench. I had nowhere to go, you know. So was like, I'm going to die out here. So can I come home?
00:03:28
Speaker
They were like, yeah, all right. So i went home. I got my GED and I got a job and I started working. And within three months, they were like, all right, look, you need to either you need go to college, go in the military or get an apartment. But, you know you can't stay here forever.
00:03:44
Speaker
All right. So not too long after that was when 9-11 hit and all my friends were joining up and talking about it I didn't know a whole lot about the military at the time. I just knew that I didn't like where I was living. I didn't like the i didn't even know who I was. I had no clue what I want to do with my life. So I was like, well, why not? Let's join the military.
00:04:03
Speaker
You know, nothing else to do. And I'm probably just going to get in a whole lot of trouble if I stay around here. So I joined the military. It's probably the best decision I ever made for me. And when I joined the military, I realized, hey, i'm I'm really good at that, at this athleticism thing.
00:04:17
Speaker
Right. I was excelling and it was easy for me and I loved it. It made me feel good about myself. The first time i i started to feel self-confidence. Right. So I joined the military and after a few years, you know, I got deployed once um to Cuba.
00:04:30
Speaker
a little disappointed than in that because all my friends were going to Afghanistan, you know, and, you know, when you join the military, they like they spice you up. they're like You know, you want to go overseas and get, you know, you know, get badges and, you know, kill bad guys and all this, you know, you know, oo- raw stuff.
00:04:45
Speaker
So i was like, well, I want to do something more. So I tried out for EOD, which is Explosive Origins Disposal, basically the bomb squad for the military. I passed all the prereqs and, you know, end up going to EOD school, graduated, taught my class and went right into a leadership position. And then I got deployed to Iraq in 09. And when I went to Iraq,
00:05:05
Speaker
And I came up, you know, in in school when I was working on all the problems, they try they mock it up the best they can to to to make it as realistic as possible. But you know you're not going to die, right?
00:05:17
Speaker
You know that you're not going to get blown up. There's so many safety precautions around it. And when I went to into combat and, you know, i ran my first mission and... There was the possibility that I could die. it it hit me in a such unexpected way. I didn't understand what was happening to me.
00:05:34
Speaker
My body had like physiological reactions to it. So that kind of shattered my identity, be honest. At that time, that was my first, I'd say, spiritual awakening. And that followed with, you know, sort of me realizing I had an existential crisis. I didn't know who I was. I realized that I didn't want to do this job for the rest of my life ah because I didn't really fully believe in it.
00:05:56
Speaker
And I had no idea how to get out of because now here I am. I figured this out three months into a 12 month deployment, which ended up being 18 months.
Struggling with PTSD and Finding Support
00:06:05
Speaker
So, ah so it got really bad over there. Mentally, I started getting really, really dark, started showing signs signs of PTSD, went to the doc, they just load you up on drugs and pills. And there was a point that I was on 16 different medications at once. And I was just walking around like a shell of a man. After I got back, I literally, I redeployed without a unit by myself back to the States after 18 months being gone.
00:06:28
Speaker
i didn't, I hadn't kept kept, I kept in touch with one person. Thank God. Right. But you the only the only other person I kept in touch with was my mother. And she really, you know, God bless her. She she helped ah get me through some of those really tough times.
00:06:42
Speaker
So I got back and moved in with this friend that I had. And i ended up having to to the ig and they did an investigation, found ah that my unit was doing some really shady stuff. And and so I finally I end up um going into a a they they were trying to just want to be discharged me.
00:07:00
Speaker
for like, and and they didn't even tell me what they were doing. So I ended up getting a medical discharge for PTSD. And I didn't even know, understand what pt PTSD was and stuff. So at that point, I decided I need to figure this out because now I'm going through this process where I'm on all these drugs and and ah going through all this therapy and I just don't really know who I am. And I feel very lost. I started searching for God and and in the ways you know around the military base and nothing was resonating with me at all.
00:07:30
Speaker
So I decided after a while, was like you know what, i'm I got off all the all the medications. It was just making me feel dead inside.
Bodybuilding and Physical Transformation
00:07:37
Speaker
And I wouldn't recommend anybody else do that because it's incredibly dangerous. But um but at that time my life, you know that's what I felt like I needed to do. And then honestly, I just i started i started getting ready for a bodybuilding competition.
00:07:48
Speaker
So why, why bodybuilding? Like, what was it that you identified? Cause did you do sports growing up? I did do sports growing up. Um, but I actually, I was kind of like, there was a short period of time in there where I was like pushed into, you know, doing all these sports and I didn't really enjoy them.
00:08:05
Speaker
So I actually, my very first competition was, was when I first got to Iraq, I was Mr. Todd G09. Yeah. yeah Yeah, Camp Taji in Baghdad. So when I first got to Iraq, I had one of my team members that was ah that that that stayed back in the States for a couple months for some legal stuff. So I was the standby crew for like two months.
00:08:26
Speaker
So I was like, right, I'm just going to go to the gym here and you know work out and you know eat and you know have a good time. And about a week, two weeks after I got in ah in country, one of the contractors comes up to me in the gym is like, hey,
00:08:38
Speaker
you're in pretty good shape. if If we throw a bodybuilding competition, would you compete in it? I was like, why not? Right? I got the time. And back then, all we had muscular Muscular Development Magazine and bodybuilding.com forums.
00:08:52
Speaker
That's all the information we had about bodybuilding. So um I was on those forums a lot, asking a lot of questions. and And All Natural did my first show in Iraq, All Natural. And ah and ah and I won the overall. yeah Actually, I think I'm the only one that actually dieted properly for it.
00:09:07
Speaker
Everybody else is like, it looked like they worked out, but they didn't actually condition themselves like, in, in like dry out and stuff. Right. But I did. And that was great. And you know, the, and the, the lady that set it up, she was, I have BB pro I'm working as a contractor over there.
00:09:21
Speaker
I'm sorry. She's an IBB judge. And she was like, you know, you really have a talent for this. And I, and I got the bug and I was like, all right, let's go. But then after that, that's when everything kind of crumbled around me. And ah so about a year, year, year, year and a half later,
00:09:35
Speaker
When I got back to the States, like, you know what, I'm going to go back to that. I'm just going to focus on my body. It's it's like a focus on something i can control, focus on something that makes me feel good.
00:09:46
Speaker
And honestly, I got off all these medications and I started taking testosterone. And within like three days, I felt like myself again. which really gave me more questions than answers. Cause I was like, well, what if all the stuff that the doctors are saying, like, you know, we're 15 years ago, we didn't know all the stuff that we know now. Right.
00:10:05
Speaker
Did you test your testosterone before? Like, do you know what it had gotten down to? I didn't know, but no, at that time I was just, I was just going with like, I was kind of desperate and i just was going on my intuition.
00:10:17
Speaker
So do you measure it now? Do you know kind of where you maintain it? yeah. Yeah. I measure everything now. A hundred percent. what What do you try to keep it at? ah Right around 1200. Okay. I like that's, that's about the cat. Anything, anything higher than that.
00:10:30
Speaker
And i start to get, um i would say short tempered. Okay. And, and then, and then it also affects my sleep a little bit. So, so as long as I keep it right around 1200, I feel that that's my sweet spot for getting great workouts, great rest and, and recovery. And how do you do it? Like what, what is your method for taking in testosterone, like frequency dosing?
00:10:54
Speaker
I like to do ah ah three three times a week at like ah smaller doses. So i take roughly 220 milligrams of tests a week.
00:11:04
Speaker
and ah And so Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I break it up into about 65 milligrams Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. okay I've tried like micro dosing it every day and just doing once a week and once every two weeks. And I find that three times a week is, again, my sweet spot. But that's kind of, you know, ah preference.
00:11:27
Speaker
Right. Everybody kind of, you know, um everybody's preference is a little bit different. And, you know, depending on your schedule and and, i you know, I don't really like being a pincushion, you know, a whole lot. So. It's and and especially if you're getting like peptides and and growth hormone or like any any other stuff, then yeah then you then can really be taking a lot of shots.
00:11:44
Speaker
A lot shots. Yeah. I mean, I could deep dive on the peptides and I'm just super curious and all that, but I don't want to derail the story. So you get back in you come off the meds, you because I hear the story a lot, like the the testosterone and hormone therapy in general for whether it's men or women. yeah And, you know, there's some response of, well, it's not natural, blah, blah, blah. But I mean, there's one side of, well, we're at a third of the testosterone of our grandparents. So there's already something unnatural happening going on.
00:12:15
Speaker
100% with all the toxins and microplastics and everything in our environment ah where where I mean, and and and I would venture to say that actually, like the pharmaceuticals are the problem.
00:12:27
Speaker
All the pharmaceuticals is what kills that all our natural stuff, right? It throws all of our biochemistry off. Well, and the unnatural argument of like surgeries, unnatural, all these things like what we advance, like now we have technology and we can do these things. So it's an area I'm really interested in Yeah.
00:12:44
Speaker
So sorry. All right. I and I think that there's a lot of evolution happening with the understanding of how these things work. So, you know, but back 15 years ago, this was way taboo. Right. So I had to hide all this stuff. And it was um it was it was very uncomfortable. But, um you know, I did it. And then I just started I just shifted my focus.
00:13:03
Speaker
Like all I was doing all day long was talking about my problems and and identifying, you know, how bad of a person I was and all these things through talk therapy that was just making me, it was like confirming I was broken.
00:13:16
Speaker
And as I've learned over the years and shifted my mindset, you know, I realized I'm not broken. I was fractured. My soul was fractured and I had to reintegrate all these parts of
Discovering Healing and Bodywork
00:13:26
Speaker
myself.
00:13:26
Speaker
Right. So got on testosterone. I started competing in shows and I was winning and I was feeling, i was feeling like myself again. And while I was going through this process of getting of military, there was guys dying around me and, and it was, ah it was, it was so sad and depressing to see.
00:13:46
Speaker
just like this thick maintenance process that was just, it, it felt like, like, you know, like ah kind of a version of like a concentration camp almost. Yeah. So I decided that I need to figure out what was going on in my head.
00:14:01
Speaker
i and i need to understand this PTSD. I need to know what's going on because I felt like a fraud, an imposter. Like I didn't know who I like. I was really at an existential crisis point in my life. So after i got out the military, finally, I moved to Arizona and I went to I went to ASU to study psychology.
00:14:18
Speaker
And while I was doing that, I was also competing in bodybuilding full time. And really, things were going pretty good for a while. and then And then I got to a point where, you know, college, like I found that certain certain classes I was doing, like I was fascinated by, but then other classes like math and history and all that stuff that that wasn't in the direction of that I wanted to learn. I just had a hard time focusing on it I just didn't care, man. I was was like, you know, this is stupid.
00:14:44
Speaker
and So so I actually um after about three years of college, ah i I dropped out of that and I decided to go to massage school. So I actually moved from Phoenix to Vegas and I went to massage school.
00:14:59
Speaker
And ah when I went to massage school, that I learned more about myself and that 14 month process than I did pretty much anything else anywhere else in my life. Because what happened was when you go to massage school,
00:15:14
Speaker
They teach you how to get into your beingness basically before you get to work on somebody. And every single day, it's it's practical application, right? You you you learn what you're going to do in the classroom and then you go in and you just work on each other for the second half of the day every single day.
00:15:27
Speaker
So we're slowing down. We're listening to, you know, meditation music and breathing deeply. We're regulating our nervous system. And after about two months of that, when I was in school, I started getting this really weird pain, this headache. it was a cluster headache that went from the back of my head the shot, to the back of my right eye.
00:15:45
Speaker
And this one day it got so bad in school. Like, and I was taking all this stuff like, you know, like painkillers and Excedrin and aspirin and nothing was helping. I was like going to ram my head into a wall.
00:15:57
Speaker
And my partner that day was like, hey, can i work on you? You know, see, maybe that'll help. So I was like, sure, please, I'll try anything. And as soon as, you know, um I laid down, he put his fingers in my CV4 joint, which is right here in the back of the head.
00:16:10
Speaker
It was like I shot up out of my body like I was having that like an acid flashback or something. And I felt like all these demons were trying to catch me or get at me. I didn't know if I was dying. I didn't know what the hell was going on. And my body apparently was flopping around like a fish. It looked like I was having a seizure. well And this went on for about two, two and a half hours. In front of 27 people ah ah in the class. So once I was finally done, like I i had tears pouring out of my eyes, my body felt like i hit by a truck. And mind you, I'm like 250 pounds at this time because I just just finished my last show in 2013. I'm 220 now.
00:16:44
Speaker
So I was 30 pounds bigger than I am now. And... ah And I talked to the the instructor. i was like, dude, what the hell is wrong with me? What just happened? What is going on here? And he actually started laughing, um which was comforting you know for me because I thought that I had a serious medical emergency.
00:17:01
Speaker
And he's like, brother, that was the most intense S.E.R. I've ever seen in my life. So. For your listeners that don't know, S-E-R is known as a somatoemotional release. So fascial unwinding. Basically, i had I had been in fight or flight my entire life, right?
00:17:17
Speaker
So I was finally learning slow down. My nervous system was starting to get regulated. And as it was getting regulated, all this pent up survival emotional crap that was stuck in my tissue just started flying out of me. But because I had built up so much muscle and so much armor around it,
00:17:37
Speaker
That's why it was so dramatic, right? Because all this muscle in my body had to shake violently like that to get out. And I was fascinated. I was like, oh, wow, what does this mean? And after all this happened, like, I didn't want to eat the same foods. i didn't want to be and around the same people. I broke up with my girlfriend. I was like, what's going on? I don't know who I am anymore again. So this is like my second identity crisis.
00:17:58
Speaker
So now i'm like, okay, well, because I kind of like bodybuilding. i feel like, i you know, I got out of the military, saved me from myself. If ah you know, I'd like to say that focus of that helped pull me out of that dark place that I was in.
00:18:15
Speaker
But eventually my identity became that. And when it did, I started seeking external validation and I started, you know, feeding into all this stuff in that bodybuilding world that was very unhealthy because it's bodybuilding, you know, a lot of addicts are addicted, are, are you know, come to that sport. It's a very fringe kind of sport, right?
00:18:35
Speaker
So after, ah after that experience, I really started shifting my focus on to doing body work. So I got it fascinated with the human body and the consciousness and what does this mean about my life and who am I and sort of feeling all these feelings that I'd never felt before.
00:18:48
Speaker
And I started manifesting these teachers, you know, through, ah you know, as clients that I'd be working on because I was I already knew the the human body really well. But now i was understanding at a whole different, more energetic and metaphysical
Personal Transformation through Ayahuasca
00:19:01
Speaker
level. Right. Right.
00:19:02
Speaker
So as I'm doing this and as i'm um I'm going through my journey of working on people and learning how to heal and connect in this different way, i started getting these like images, these visions in my mind as I'm working on people. And at first I didn't pay any mind to it.
00:19:17
Speaker
Yeah, whatever. You know, it's but just my imagination. But one day i was very very curious because it was a very clear image of a little girl getting you know getting into a car accident. in my mind when I was working on this girl was working on her lower back I've worked on her many times so I felt comfortable enough I was like hey I ask you a question it's like yeah it's like were you ever in a car accident a little girl and she looked at me like shocked like tears coming out of her eyes she's like oh my god I was literally felt like I was just reliving this car accident I had when was a little girl I cannot like how the hell did you know that and that shocked me too I was like what is this what is going on here what does this mean
00:19:54
Speaker
And ah so that, of course, like now I'm like, I'm going down a rabbit hole. Like, like, who who am I? What is all like, what it all have to do with life and with energy and and and who in who I am?
00:20:08
Speaker
So not too long after that was when I found ayahuasca. And when I sat with ayahuasca, that was, I'd say, probably the next big identity shift in my life. Because when I sat with ayahuasca, that was the first time I ever felt the frequency of love, like true unconditional love.
00:20:29
Speaker
I felt at home in myself. And that's like what I had been searching for, i felt my entire life, right? So now that opened a whole new can of worms, because now I realized, wow, okay, so everything that I thought was love before this was something else. It wasn't love.
00:20:47
Speaker
And so now I started you know down that path of what did all that mean? what if If it wasn't love, what was attachment? It was connected to rejection, shame and guilt and all these emotional components.
00:21:00
Speaker
So as I started going through this part of my journey, I really started to dig into all of my trauma and understanding my relationship to my mother and abandonment rejection issues and my relationship relationship to my father and my stepfather and, you know, like running away and, and my stuttering and and all these different components to where I came from that I didn't understand.
00:21:23
Speaker
and that, know, started I started to connect dots to my training, to my habits and patterns and behaviors and thought processes and and just ways of being in the world.
00:21:34
Speaker
And I went i went down, i went through about a 10 year long process of thousands and thousands of ceremonies working with many different medicines.
Exploring Personal Fears
00:21:46
Speaker
um Like i said, like I tried hypnotherapy, but I couldn't be hypnotized. and And even that I was like, well, why can't I be hypnotized?
00:21:52
Speaker
Is there something wrong with me? or does that mean that there's something right with me? Like what's going on here? Right. um You know, I've, I've come to a lot of conclusions, ah but really most of all, I fully come to accept myself through through these processes. and and And I realized that throughout my whole life, in order to be able to really discover these parts of myself, it's really all about been about facing my fears and learning how to understand what these fears are trying to teach me.
00:22:20
Speaker
And that fear is my teacher is not an enemy. It's part of me that is unknown. So we fear the unknown. Right. So that first time back in back in Iraq, when i when I came into that situation with the IED, that was my first face off with the fear of death.
00:22:38
Speaker
Right. And it was so this fear was so deeply embedded in my system that it just it it fractured the what fragile egoic identity that I had.
00:22:50
Speaker
Can I ask a little on this? This is maybe more existential and I don't know if there's a single right answer, but I'd be really curious your take on it. um but don This, this balance of pure love and acceptance of the wholeness of us as we are as a whole being and that love with the,
00:23:14
Speaker
ability and desire for continuous growth and improvement. And how do you balance? so And I don't think it's balanced, but how do you hold those kind of two opposite ideas in your head at the same time?
00:23:29
Speaker
Cause you need both to be true, right? Like as a species, we can't just stop and settle. we We'd never keep going. That's what drives us. We need a purpose to keep going. Right. Right. At the same time, we need a comfort and equanimity of this,
00:23:42
Speaker
I am this beautiful, whole, loved and loving being as I am. Absolutely. But I also feel like we're in a time right now where human beings as a species are evolving.
00:23:54
Speaker
Right. the the the The frequency, but the vibration of our our collective of the collective consciousness is rising. And as we're rising, we're discovering deeper, deeper layers of ourselves.
00:24:05
Speaker
Right. So it's kind of a constant process. it's ah and And that process is also oscillation. So it's like a three dimensional, you know, movement trying to keep everything um intact without going too out of balance.
00:24:19
Speaker
ah So for me, I've made it my life purpose in my mission, really in my career, to help and support other people that are going through different facets of the same kind of thing.
Mission to Help Others
00:24:30
Speaker
Right. And I mean, there's, there's, there's no, um there's a lot of work out there. Let's just put it that way. All right, because I mean, as a lot of people are coming into the understanding and realization of how they've been suppressing and avoiding and distracting and um and, you know, doing things for you know purposes that are outside of alignment of a pure whole heart.
00:24:52
Speaker
All those things are coming into, you know, a deeper understanding. And we're all responding and reacting to it in different way. And this is really where dis-ease comes from.
00:25:03
Speaker
Right. So even, so even for me, i find that like, being optimized as far as like my, my physical health and wellness, I still like to push the envelope. I want to be, you know, jacked, but I also want to be healthy and and there's a fine line, right? Like you can try to take it too far, maybe start taking too much stuff, maybe like, you know, training too much over training, getting your head or or trying to accomplish some kind of goal. I'm 47 years old at this point.
00:25:33
Speaker
And, um, you know, like, It's not like I was when I was, you know, 37. thirty seven My body responds differently. so Finding the balance and the acceptance while still trying to attain more, um it it is it's a it's a practice. It's not something that is stationary. It's something that is constantly, it's like an amoeba. It's always evolving. It's always growing.
00:25:56
Speaker
Because I feel that really like us as human beings, we're all we're meant to always evolve and grow and learn. And then we take what we learn and we share it with the world. And that's what we're really meant to do, like at the very core.
00:26:08
Speaker
I think that we're coming into a new time of um like performance enhancement of health and wellness of even just healing ah um modalities, frequency.
Future of Health Practices
00:26:21
Speaker
i I really feel at the end of the day, frequency and vibration healing is, is, is going to be what the new state of healthcare care is because when we're, when we're finally open enough to receive it The frequency, like we're vibrational beings, right? So the frequency, we align, it like if you align a certain frequency with a cancer cell, it'll kill that cancer cell.
00:26:44
Speaker
Right. We just and and right now, like the the technology is already out there. It just hasn't gone mainstream yet. But I think it will probably in the next couple of years. But you see these um these also the these new performance enhancing drugs that are coming out there. There's there's ah there's two drugs out there. I have a really hard time saying their names to move a grab or or or something like that.
00:27:07
Speaker
um ah But they they are myostatin inhibitors. So they can act. it's It's basically like taking the governor off of an engine so that I can just you can just go. It'll grow like your muscle will just grow.
00:27:19
Speaker
But is it specific to muscle or is you popping in? and If you have a cancerous cell, is it going to put it on hyperdrive to that is exactly my question about it? um Because if if you if you can't specify it to a skeletal muscle cell, then you're going to have a lot of problems.
00:27:37
Speaker
mean, that's the fear even with HGH or TB4 or something too, right? Of like, hey, it puts a hyperdrive, like it's going to grow. But if you have' you're unaware that you maybe have a tumor, it could make that grow and could be a problem.
00:27:48
Speaker
It can, but well, HGH, um it's i I think there's a little bit of fear around that. But but especially as we get older, like if you're over 40, if you're just taking one or two IU to bring your levels up to you know high normal, you're not going to be in the range where you're going to potentiate cancer growth.
00:28:05
Speaker
Right. Like your IGF one levels have to be well above normal and you can get those tested as well. Because again, you know, the aging, you know, um the aging component to all the toxins and all the crap that's in our bodies. Detoxification is not a, we should do that. It's a, we have to do that.
00:28:21
Speaker
it it It is, it is a requirement right now with all the stuff that we're we're being bombarded with. Right. yeah, detoxification and trying to do as many natural things as possible to, to, to, to keep the biochemistry as optimal as possible.
00:28:37
Speaker
ah It's it's right now. It's not, it's not very easy, but I'm, I'm, but I'm actually like a pre, I like HGH. I do. um And, ah and like, if you're, if you're abusing it, if you're taking way too much, then, then yes, you have a ah high profinity. Like, especially if you're in a chronically inflamed state,
00:28:54
Speaker
then you know you're going to be creating trouble. and And that's the unhealthy and scary side of bodybuilding. that's also why I think real like ah not many bodybuilders keep bodybuilding after like 40.
00:29:05
Speaker
You don't see many people out there. And it's even scary about how many guys are dying these days. These kids in this new generation, they're taking two, three, four times the amount of stuff that you know we were taking. was taking 15 years ago.
00:29:19
Speaker
It's crazy. You don't need that much. sos and And when you do that, it hyper strengthens the ego. Right. So it pulls you out of your heart and you lose that heart, mind coherence.
00:29:32
Speaker
And that actually creates narcissism. It creates social sociopathy. It creates a disconnection from humanity. i'd I'd love to dig in there because I think a lot of people not in it. So actually, the gym that I have in Bermuda that I go to, it's a lot of bodybuilders and the the coaches there and just like wonderful people.
00:29:50
Speaker
um But I think a lot of people from the outside, like it's this meathead look or it's a super vanity. It's a superficial thing. But great your new book puts this whole new spin on it, right? The Biohacker's Guide to Spiritual Bodybuilding. And what you were just talking about is this disconnect. If you allow it to become that,
00:30:09
Speaker
It can be that. It's it's like any weapon. Like AI is not good or bad. It's a tool that can be used for good or bad. It's the intention behind and how you employ it. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So can you talk a little bit about why you thought this was an important book to share with the world and the lesson that you learned that you're saying, hey, others really need to to hear this?
Transition to Mindful Fitness
00:30:33
Speaker
So I went through the whole process of doing it the unhealthy way. getting messed up by it and then learning how to do it the healthy way. Right. And um I see a lot of people out there, especially nowadays with social media and the, the, the impact of these young kids have on the pressure and stress of trying to attain this, this look, this idea of what they think they want to be.
00:30:57
Speaker
ah It's, it's, it's very, it's a lot of temptation out there. And a lot of, a lot of kids in this younger generation too, They're they come from, you know, broken families like there's a lot of broken families out there, especially fathers, not the homes.
00:31:14
Speaker
So they really don't have guidance. Their guidance is the world. And that's a really big problem. Right. So we can take this to being the hero's journey in a healthy way.
00:31:24
Speaker
Right. when When we learn how how to do the fundamentals first, you got to get the discipline into getting in the gym and training your body, understanding the biomechanics, the physiology and the anatomy, and also understand why you're going in there to doing what you're doing. If you're like for me, when I really started getting serious at it into lifting, it was because, you know, I caught my girlfriend at the time, like banging a friend of mine.
00:31:50
Speaker
And, you know, i was like, I'm gonna get her back. I'm gonna get jacked and I'm gonna get her jealous. And then she's not going to be able to get me and blah, blah, blah, blah. And that was just so immature. Right. But, but at least that, that gave my broken heart the motivation to do what I had to do. But over time I learned just how unhealthy that was. Right.
00:32:07
Speaker
So, It's the intention behind what you're doing and why you're doing it. ah That is the really the most important factor that will drive your decision making process.
00:32:19
Speaker
So you see, you see in the gym, like you can tell the way, and I'm more specifically talking about men right now, right? Like the lat zillas in the gym, right? The guys walking around with their lats flared or they're very stiff, right? And they're just never happy. They're all, you know, looking really angry or they grunt and, you know, and they get real loud in the gym.
00:32:39
Speaker
Those those guys are just completely stuck in a rigid their energy and their ego. Right. They're they're they're doing it to get a reaction from the external environment and they react and or respond as almost a lifestyle.
00:32:57
Speaker
Whereas and and so they usually they they train from a place of anger, from a place of self punishment, like, ah you know, like the the the whole alpha you know thing or like, you know, like, you know, no days off, bro. Or, you know, being being big and tough. Man, that's just played out, dude.
00:33:15
Speaker
Like that is that is not healthy. that is ah like That comes from self-loathing and and and that comes from self-inflicted. you know you're You're basically beating yourself up and putting a pride or and ah like a dignifying component to it, thinking that you're doing something that is ah disciplined and you know like um worthy of something.
00:33:35
Speaker
It's very similar to like um how we've been conditioned to think patriotism is like being a martyr or being sacrificed. right I disagree with that 100%. You know, I think that my philosophy in the gym now is it's more meditative.
00:33:51
Speaker
It's more like okay, when I'm training, i personally, i go slow. I go intense. I match my breath with my movement to optimize the Bohr effect. i I, calculate tuning into my body, what my body needs for my rest periods.
00:34:04
Speaker
I stretch. I D I decompress, like hanging upside down. I make sure that like, you know, I do my cold plunges. i do my infrared sauna ah either before or after I do a little bit of cardio. Right.
00:34:16
Speaker
Um, And I can tell if my body tells me you need to break. I honor it. I listen to it. I give it good quality nutrients, you know, um as often as I can. And i listen to my body and I allow my body to tell me what it needs.
00:34:31
Speaker
And when you're listening to your body and you're able to do that, you'll find you're able to sustain and maintain a good quality physique for a long period of time. Well, this is true beyond bodybuilding, right? I mean, this is a mindfulness lifestyle of would you rather be mindful and present in your body, in your breath, in your mind and living your life as you are here and fully being here Or have your mind somewhere else and fighting dragons that may have been from when you were a child or that real or you imagine in the future versus just being here for now, like just the being of it.
00:35:10
Speaker
Exactly. Because how you do one thing is how you do everything, right? So with that being said, the the person that's doing the ego lifting, like they're also doing that in other areas of their life as well. And they're never happy.
00:35:23
Speaker
But you're never and and I'm not saying happiness is ah is the goal of life. I feel like authenticity is the most efficient way to be in life.
00:35:35
Speaker
Right. Acknowledging your truth and then walking that truth in presence. Right. So when you're in that ego place, you're not present. You're distracted. You're creating these stories in your mind and and you're and you're amping up this anger, you know, so that you can, you know, push past your limits. And eventually that's going to lead to injury. It's going to lead to burnout.
00:35:56
Speaker
It's going to lead to addiction. It's going to lead to, you know, all all other kinds of maybe even PTSD. Right. Or but all bad things. Right. The body is not meant to sustain that kind of that kind of punishment.
00:36:08
Speaker
Right. I mean, really, ah honestly, like a really great example of that is Ronnie Coleman. Right. I mean, he he did that and and he says he doesn't you know regret it. And but, you know, he was eight time Mr. Olympian. and I feel like he did make a bit of a conscious decision to do that.
00:36:24
Speaker
And he was the best in the world, you know, in ah for his generation. And because he accomplished so much now, he's accepted how his body is right But you know for 99.9% of the population outside of that, um that is detrimental to living a fulfilling life.
00:36:45
Speaker
It is a legitimate question. I have this conversation a lot with parents. right So if you look at the top, top, top, right what did Tiger Woods' dad do to him? And what was his childhood like to become Tiger Woods?
00:36:58
Speaker
Andre Agassi, if you read open his biography ah and what Steffi Graf and what Andre Agassi went through his kids and what their parents said, but none of them do it to their own kids. Like, yes, that got them to the best.
00:37:12
Speaker
but they're not happy. That did not ever lead to any fulfillment. And as a parent, you maybe, if you've never achieved that, you think, Oh, this is going to be great for their lives. But none none of them want that for their kids. Like I'd be surprised if Michael Phelps pushing his kids to do what he did, right? That guy, after every Olympics would get depressed. It it is a hard, hard life.
00:37:34
Speaker
And if you you watch the last dance with Michael Jordan, you see it. Like we got to see beautiful, beautiful basketball, but he's not happy. right And what do you want from your life?
00:37:46
Speaker
And it's like you said, very, very few people really want all that sacrifice because you get through it all. And don't think it gets you to the destination you may have imagined. No, it's it's I feel like it's really just a a a perpetual trauma response.
00:38:01
Speaker
Right. So eventually you got to get to a point where you're like, all right, I need to look at this. I need to I need to feel this. I need to experience it. I need to understand.
Shared Human Struggles
00:38:09
Speaker
You know, ah like eventually you see the loops, you see, you see the patterns going through in your life.
00:38:14
Speaker
And if you're constantly chasing that carrot on stick, right, but you never get it. What am I doing wrong here? Or I got all this money, like, you know, rock stars, you know, celebrities and stuff. A lot these celebrities, I mean, they've been that world. i mean, you want to talk about being dark, right? Right.
00:38:33
Speaker
and ah And I've actually worked with a lot of people behind the scenes, like, you know, um yeah ah in those worlds. And when it comes down to it, everyone is really dealing with the same thing on different levels.
00:38:46
Speaker
So to create a lifestyle where, yes, you push yourself, you're disciplined, you have structure. But when you're doing what makes you feel alive inside, and then you share that aliveness with the world,
00:39:01
Speaker
And because when you find that place within yourself, it's everybody is looking for that place. So just by being able to share that place with others, that gives people hope, that gives people motivation, you know, excitement.
00:39:17
Speaker
And through the process of their own internal work, which really all this is, it is the internal work. So as within, so without, everything that we do inside, you know, ends up showing on the outside.
00:39:31
Speaker
And a lot of people become depressed or unhappy something because they're chasing egoic ideas of what they think they want. But what they're really doing is getting further and further away from their heart's desire because there's a wound there. There's some pain there. There's some heartache there. And it's too painful to break open, to look at, to see, to feel.
00:39:51
Speaker
Right. So that is really that's where I kind of found, you know, plant medicine really helped me. get by, a move through all the heartache and all the, all the abandonment and all the rejection, all like the, the protection that I had in my heart and allowed me to crack that open and to be brutally, brutally honest with myself.
00:40:13
Speaker
And as i continue to do that, I found that I have a a gift, which is why I wrote my other book, The Indigo Flame. um During one of my Iboga journeys, I became an indigo flame.
00:40:27
Speaker
was zipping around the universe and I understood reincarnation and the whole, like why we come to earth and what we're meant to learn and what our our souls are, you know, infinite. And that really,
00:40:41
Speaker
shed a whole new light on the understanding of humanness, of just being human. Right. And so that's where I like to share that gift. Now I'm, I'm, I am by no means, you know, I'm a quite imperfect being myself. You know, we all are right. I'm every day i have to, you know, at work and, and, and, and my life's not perfect exactly where I want to be. But a lot of that is about acceptance and surrender. Right. And my faith is very strong.
00:41:11
Speaker
Right. And having that faith allows me to stave off, right. the any kind of fear that tries to take over. Right. and and and And at the very, you know, at the spiritual level, we're all in ah in a very, I think it's pretty obvious to everyone right now, we're in the spiritual battle, you know, for for for our souls.
00:41:32
Speaker
And there's there's love and there's fear. Right. And everything is really kind of divided with like all of our fears, you know, all of our attachments, all of our distractions, fantasies, ah delusions, illusions, all those things.
00:41:47
Speaker
You know, when things when the when the when the feeling of going into love, if we don't believe that we can access it or get there. then we can fall into those loops and paths. The good thing is you can always, you, as long as you're alive, as long as you're still going, you still have an opportunity to come back and try again, come back and try again, come back and try again.
00:42:08
Speaker
And you just keep going. You do not stop. You do not give up. Yeah. There's, there's only one finish line in this life. In this life. Right. Yeah. But yeah, the the whole idea of energy this is a conversation I have with
Embracing Positive Energy
00:42:21
Speaker
kids all the time. My kids, friends, kids, maybe I shouldn't, but like, what happens when you die?
00:42:25
Speaker
Like, well, why do you assume you die? Like, you know, every particle has been in the universe was here from the beginning is going to be here to the end and it's constantly cycling through it. So why, why do you think you would die? Like what, what is our energies just constantly flowing?
00:42:39
Speaker
And it's, uh, it's a it's a thing This is where i do think there's something with planned medicine on the ability to pull back the veil.
00:42:50
Speaker
yeah um There's a book from the guy who wrote Why Buddhism is True, who also wrote, I think, The the Case Against Reality. And it's what we see isn't real. It's what we see we've been ah evolved to see for survival.
00:43:05
Speaker
And it's true for every species. And why every species sees totally different ways, but it's not real. And there's something to, when you say, hey, I was this indigo flame and I can see through and the connectivity and everything through it of like, it starts to peel back the veil and we see, whoa, this interconnectedness, this energy feels that you are me. I am you. I am this bird. I am this toad. It thing.
00:43:25
Speaker
one Yeah, it's a, it is the definition of living a lively life, right? Like to have that positive energy flowing in when you're doing it, you're sharing it with others, you're receiving it from others, you become a light and a force for good and a multiplying effect. And that, that really is a testament and speaks to the work you're doing and have done. And so you were saying like your purpose now is really help other people with this. You you have the books, you mentioned the Indigo Flame, you mentioned the Biohacker's Guide to Spiritual Bodybuilding.
00:44:01
Speaker
Where else can our listeners find you, learn more about you and and maybe get coaching or help from you on their own journey? Yeah, absolutely. yeah So you can go to my ah website, optimizinghuman.com or spiritualbodybuilder.com.
00:44:17
Speaker
ah My Instagram, i'm im I'm pretty active on there. It's spiritual underscore bodybuilder. And I've got a YouTube channel too that I'm on there sometimes, that's spiritual bodybuilder. Just look up spiritual bodybuilder. You'll find me.
00:44:29
Speaker
And my books are also on Amazon too. Fantastic. No, this, this has been a great conversation. i know there are a lot of other avenues I could have gone and definitely wanted to at times, but maybe we'll have to do a round two at some point.
00:44:41
Speaker
Yeah, it was a pleasure and honor speaking with you, man. It was a great conversation. Thank you for joining us on today's episode of the home of health span podcast. And remember, you can always find the products, practices, and routines mentioned by today's guests, as well as many other health span role models on a lively.com.
00:44:57
Speaker
Enjoy a lively day.