December 20, 2022 • 49 mins
This is a fascinating and important conversation with leadership coach and healer, Greg Wieting. Greg addresses the unique causative factors at play beneath pain, anxiety or depression - namely the unresolved trauma that causes inflammation, compromises immune function, stagnates emotion, fogs thought and creates hormonal imbalance.
Greg loves to work with leaders to help them to be vessels of healing within their organisations, starting with themselves.
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Music by Ian Hildebrand
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Arwen Bardsley (00:00):
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode
(00:03):
of the five star wellbeingPodcast. I'm delighted today to
be here with Greg Wieting. Greghelps leaders and entrepreneurs
heal anxiety, depression,chronic pain and trauma so they
can lead with bold andcourageous hearts. For 20 years,
Greg has helped hundreds ofclients reduce or eliminate
(00:26):
their dependence onantidepressants, anxiety, pain
and sleep medications. Headdresses the unique causative
factors that play beneath pain,namely the unresolved trauma
that causes inflammation,compromises immune function,
stagnates emotion, fogs,thought, and creates hormonal
(00:46):
imbalance. These are all justwonderful things that I love to
talk about. So I'm so pleased tohave you here today. Greg, I'd
love to start with just a bitabout you. Focusing on really
how you got to be doing whatyou're doing now is is the point
of of me asking about yourorigin story. So it doesn't need
(01:09):
to be anything that you don'twant to talk about. But just try
and help people to understandhow you came to be doing the
work that you are doing now?
Greg Wieting (01:18):
Sure, yeah. Well, first, thanks for having me.
And, yeah, my work today reallystems from my own journey,
healing my own chronic pain andanxiety and depression that, you
know, it took me years to reallyunderstand that unresolved
trauma was beneath all of mypain. So I've spent a lot of
time chasing and treating andsuppressing symptoms, you know,
(01:42):
I was just steps away from, youknow, a path of pain and symptom
management with medication, whenI was introduced to, you know,
an alternative. And I didn'treally understand the world of
healing. You know, that's nothow I was raised as a kid, when
I had chronic ear infections andstrep throat, I wanted nothing
(02:02):
more than to go to a doctor andtake a pill and feel better,
right. That's just how I wasraised. That's the world we
seemingly live in. So, you know,I thought the same would be true
for my chronic pain. And, youknow, we're taught in the world
of mental health, that chemicalimbalance is, often what's
driving anxiety and depression.
So I thought that well, then Iprobably need to treat a
(02:25):
chemical imbalance if I'm reallystruggling here. And then I was
introduced to energy medicine,by happenstance, I was living in
so much chronic pain at the timethat a friend who was a massage
therapist offered me a massage,which I actually turned it down
because physical pain was justtoo much our physical touch just
would have been too painful. Andshe introduced me to energy
(02:49):
medicine, which I had neverheard of that was a completely
foreign concept to me. But I wasopen, I was hungry for change,
and I wanted to feel better. Andso we started to experiment. And
within, you know, moments, Irealized I had found something I
didn't even know I was lookingfor. It was as if I had kind of
suspended or lifted up above mypain body that for my entire
(03:13):
life, you know, who I was, wasorganized around my pain, right?
My identity was organized aroundmy pain. So I didn't even know
who I was outside of that painuntil I had that experience.
And, and that was really eyeopening. And so that really
started a journey of explorationand healing to realize I don't
(03:36):
have to fight against pain, andI maybe don't even have to treat
pain. I need to work withpractices that helped me connect
to more of my essence. Right.
And years later in my studies, Icame to understand the concept
of innate wisdom. And innatewisdom was a term first
(03:58):
developed in chiropractic where,you know, if we have a paper
cut, there's an innate wisdom ora healing mechanism within
within us that orchestrates ahealing response. Right. It
sends platelets and proteins,and organizes all of these
biochemical processes to healthat paper cut. So I discovered
(04:20):
that really, healing is justreconnecting us to our innate
wisdom. It's not fightingagainst our pain. And when I
discovered that my whole worldchanged.
Arwen Bardsley (04:32):
I love that reconnect and healing is
reconnecting us to our latewisdom. That is just such a
beautiful way to put it. So justbefore I ask you my next
question, so then you mentionedyour studies. Can you just
briefly tell us what youstudied?
Greg Wieting (04:50):
Sure. So yeah, energy medicine was a whole
world of understanding Reiki.
The world of Reiki thenintroduced me to meditation. So
I then was in India for abouteight months and learning a lot
of somatic approaches tomeditation, you know, practices
that are designed to helprelease stored stress and
tension that stagnate in thebody, particularly trauma. And
(05:13):
so how do we release thisstagnation and the stress in the
body to really create more ofthe natural climate for a
meditative state, which, youknow, I would define as a
relaxed, alert awareness. Fromthere, when I came back to the
States, I started to study moreenergy medicine, a healthcare
system called Body Talk, which,yeah, is really far reaching and
(05:37):
helps to basically restructurehow the nervous system gets
short circuited because ofstress and trauma. So it helps
to reboot nervous systemawareness to restore
communication between all thedifferent parts of the body
tissues, cells, hormones,neurotransmitters, and whatnot.
And then that led me to theworld of trauma and
(06:01):
neuroscience. So I was alreadyteaching a lot of these
components. And one of mystudents this is about nine
years ago, was a therapist, andshe said, you know, you're
teaching trauma informedhealing. And at that point, I
didn't really have that thatterm trauma informed, I knew I
was healing my own trauma, but Iwas really on this kind of
(06:23):
intuitive path to heal myself.
And she said, You know, I'm aprofessor at the California
Institute of integral studies,and I teach the trauma course,
for the therapy program there,why don't you become a teacher's
assistant or become my teacher'sassistant and help the students
(06:43):
with mindfulness basedpractices. So that's where I
started to develop more of kindof the trauma and neuroscience
lens. Because I think it'sreally helpful to have, you
know, a baseline understandingof the brain and the body and
the nervous system to reallyhelp normalize what we might be
experiencing in terms of atrauma response in terms of how
(07:06):
you know, the brain, and thebody and the nervous system are
responded responding to adverseexperiences. So over the years,
I've kind of reverse engineeredhow I've kind of pieced together
all of these practices, youknow, for my own healing to
create, as practical andaccessible have a healing system
(07:28):
for others.
Arwen Bardsley (07:29):
Oh, okay. Cool.
Thank you for that. Yeah,that's, I will ask you more
about body talk. I, I thoughtthat that was like your system.
But you're saying that'ssomething you studied? And now
you teach? Is that right?
Greg Wieting (07:41):
Yeah, so So my system is Prisma Body Talk,
thing, I still practice with myone on one clients. And
certainly practicing Body Talkhas really helped inform how I
understand energy andconsciousness to function in the
body. Then, basically, how Iwork with my students, and what
(08:02):
I teach my students is how toapply kind of a knowledge base
from somatics, and mindfulnessand trauma and neuroscience and
how to apply that knowledge baseto the application and the
practice of Reiki. And so Idon't teach Body Talk, but what
i developed is Prisma
Arwen Bardsley (08:20):
Right, right, right. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I
think it's so cool. And so itkind of makes things more
accessible, perhaps to a wideraudience, when you can talk
about the science, you know,coming from that neuroscience
side as well. Because you know,a lot of people with energy
(08:41):
healing, you know, just thinkit's, you know, they just fail
to accept that scientific factthat everything is energy, and
we're all energy. And of course,if we're, you know, using and
directing energy to heal, thenthat's going to be beneficial.
But I think a lot of peoplestill feel that it's a very
woowoo kind of thing. But to beable to combine the two in a way
that people can understand is,is really great. So I'm so
(09:05):
pleased that you're out theredoing that.
Greg Wieting (09:08):
Well, that's a lot of Yeah, I think it's really
important to both democratizeand demystify healing, right, to
make it accessible. And for me,you know, energy medicine, what
I love about energy medicine,and Reiki I think how to make
that just easy to understand isif the body is a symphony
(09:30):
orchestra. And so when we'reexperiencing health, all the
different parts of the body, andthe mind and the spirit are
functioning as a team, and thatteam is making sweet music,
right? So every cell, everytissue, every muscle, every
emotion, every thought everyhormone is in constant
(09:50):
communication. And when we're inconstant communication, you
know, we're experiencingwholeness. And so there's a
musicality of being there's thisharmonic resonance. But what
happens with trauma and stressis the nervous system gets short
circuited, and thatcommunication starts to break
down. So the different parts ofthe body, mind and spirit are no
(10:11):
longer communicating with oneanother. So we start to feel
split and fragmented. And asthat communication starts to
break down, we start toexperience noise. And that noise
is presenting itself through oursymptoms through our pain
through our illness, right. Soinstead of trying to treat pain,
symptoms, illness or noise, whatwe want to do is restore the
(10:35):
communication between thedifferent parts. And as we do so
the noise starts to break up onits own. So that's how we
restore connection to our innatewisdom, and then our natural
capacity to be in harmony andbalance starts to rebound on its
own accord.
Arwen Bardsley (10:54):
Yeah, thank you for that. So then I found it
really interesting as well thatyou have taken this work into
the world of leadership.
Because, again, you know, youkind of think that your common
or garden corporate, you know,management type of person is
potentially not going to beparticularly open to this sort
(11:19):
of work. So I think it's sowonderful that you are going
down that intersection ofleadership and trauma that I
really don't think I've heardanyone else talk about this very
much at all. So how and why didyou get into this niche space in
healing?
Greg Wieting (11:43):
Sure. You know, I think, though, mental health is
really at the forefront of a lotof conversation, I think it's
really getting a lot ofattention culturally. And so I
think mental health in theworkplace is starting to gain
some recognition and attention.
And I think as leaders, we havea unique opportunity to either
(12:06):
perpetuate wounding and hurt andharm and trauma, or heal, you
know, wounding and hurt andtrauma. And in my before I was
in the world of healing, I was aleader in the nonprofit world.
And I, myself, had my own livedexperience of really leading
(12:28):
from a trauma response, right,and really showing up to do good
work in the world that I wasvery passionate about. And that
I, you know, it was very missiondriven. It was really built of
purpose, but lacked fulfillment,right, because my own trauma was
running the show. And that wasleading to tons of burnout and
emptiness. And I think we'reliving in a world where, you
(12:50):
know, trauma is and an invisibleepidemic. And, and yet, more and
more people are waking up to thefact that there's a great cost
to this, this wounding that'snot just taking place, you know,
individually, you know, I oftenthink that our own anxiety and
depression, excuse me, isactually a very healthy response
(13:13):
to an unhealthy environment. SoI think we, as leaders have a
unique opportunity to foster ahealthier environment, and one
that really centers, wellness,one that centers mental health.
And so I think it's important totake these conversations out of
just the confines of ourindividual life and bring it
(13:36):
more to public life, to helpremove the stigma that a lot of
folks are carrying, because,yeah, oftentimes, again, if
folks are treating a chemicalimbalance, the the message that
is happening there that is beingsignaled as that something is
wrong with the individual, sothen we'll treat the individuals
(13:57):
imbalance, but that imbalance isactually a healthy response to
something going on in theenvironment. So the more we can
have that conversation, the moreI think it removes the stigma
and the isolation that oftenbecomes kind of a barrier to
entry for folks to get thesupport and the healing care
(14:19):
that they deserve.
Arwen Bardsley (14:25):
So before we go any further, can you just
because, you know, you've saidthat we've got, you know, more
and more trauma going on. And Ithink it's partly that more and
more, it's being recognized astrauma. So can you just talk a
bit about what you mean whenyou're saying trauma?
Greg Wieting (14:48):
Sure. Yeah. I think trauma is really any lived
experience where we feelisolated alone, where we lack
safety and or support. You know,trauma's not just these really
bad things that happened to us.
Right, which a lot of folksidentify that, well, I don't
have trauma because I've notbeen on the receiving end of a
(15:10):
violent crime, or I've not beenabused, or I haven't been in a
war zone. I'm not displaced. I'mnot a refugee. But you know,
trauma can be too much too soon,or not enough for too long. So a
lot of folks who don't identifywith having trauma in early
(15:30):
development, probably likely didnot have reliable consistent
care. And in early development,that signals danger, right? If
we don't have reliableconsistent care, and there's no
guarantee that we're going toget our basic needs met, that
can signal quite literally lifeor death, right. So that sets us
(15:51):
up in this energy ofhypervigilance, where we then
need to either perform or hideparts of ourselves because
subconsciously, the message thatwe you know, are receiving is
that something must be bad orwrong with us if we're not
getting our needs met. So eventhough something fishy is
(16:11):
happening in the environment, weturn it on, or we turn the arrow
on ourselves and just make theassumption in early development
that something bad is happeningout here, because something's
wrong with us. Right? So thatsets up, you know, lifelong
patterning of hyper vigilance ofhustling for our own worth of
really this pedal to the metaldrive. And that's what I find
(16:35):
with a lot of the leaders I'mworking with, you know, they've
developed some level of success,but they're realizing it's
they've never been able to taketheir foot off the gas. And, you
know, that's, that's going todrain and deplete us, there's
going to be a cost to that. Andyou know that that burnout is
going to catch up with us.
Arwen Bardsley (16:57):
And when you said before that you were
leading in your, your previouswork in the not for profit
sector, you were leading from aplace of trauma. So, you know,
what did that look like? How didthat manifest? You know, do you
think that it made a differencefor the people that were working
with you?
Greg Wieting (17:18):
Sure. Yeah, looking back, I'm sure I was not
cultivating the psychologicalsafety and trust that today as a
leader that I know is possible.
Because I was not, I was notable to carry or contain that
within myself. Right. So I thinkto be a leader is to be a vessel
of healing and to regulate thecollective nervous system, but
(17:41):
if our nervous system hasn't yetlanded, you know, we're going to
lack any capacity to supportthat in our teams. Right. And so
it's kind of, you know, at thatpoint in my life, I was living
from the neck up, right. And so,when we lack our own capacity to
be in our own bodies, you know,we lack presence, and we lack
(18:07):
agency, so I wasn't fullysteeped within my power, which
is really a presence a capacityto be really present with myself
and with, you know, my team. Sothat has a caustic effect. And,
you know, a big piece ofunresolved trauma is, you know,
having yet to really process theemotional impact of
(18:30):
developmental needs, unmet needsto really lack capacity to
harness, you know, the power ofour emotion, which is often the
message beneath our emotion thatlongs to be communicated. So,
yeah, definitely lacked a lot ofcapacity, critical capacity in
terms of communication. And, andagain, I'm still in contact with
(18:54):
a lot of folks on my team then.
And to some degree, that waslike normal. This was like, you
know, a team of, you know, early20 somethings in this nonprofit
world and, you know, we're alljust kind of figuring out how to
how to human and how to adult.
But if we have, you know, if weare living in a culture that
(19:17):
fosters this level of emotionalintelligence and emotional
attunement, you know, we have agreat capacity to develop, you
know, teams of collaboration andconnection that really are
centering you know, humanity.
Arwen Bardsley (19:35):
And so how do we process the emotion that we need
to the emotion that's associatedwith trauma in order to you
know, bring bring the nervoussystem down to where you know,
ideally it should be most of thetime what is that where you say
you use the energy healing andother you know, mindfulness
(19:58):
kinds of techniques.
Greg Wieting (20:00):
Absolutely, yeah, I think a big, I'd say the three
biggest benefits from energymedicine are just that helping
to regulate the nervous system,helping to calm the
cardiovascular system andhelping to strengthen immune
system function. And again, kindof coming back to that idea of
reconnecting to our innatewisdom. And breaking up that
(20:23):
noise. What happens is we becomemore established in our
wholeness. So we're not runningaround like a chicken with its
head cut off, right, we feellike we are established, and we
locate a sense of belongingwithin ourselves, which creates
a whole new baseline ofpresence, right? And yeah, I
(20:43):
think the mindfulness piecereally helps us to dissolve
identification with pain andwounding and the limitation of
our pain and wounding. So we canlive more in a place of
possibility. So that's helpingto reorient from pain to
possibility. So that's helpingus to kind of break free of our
(21:06):
negativity bias and thecatastrophizing, excuse me, of
you know, the mind that isalways scanning for worst case
scenarios. And I think asleaders, our job is to be aware
of worst case scenarios, butreally be scanning for best
cased possibilities.
Arwen Bardsley (21:24):
Oh, yeah, I love that. Thank you. So you
mentioned before the chemicalimbalance thing that is often
talked about in regards tomental health, or mental
illness, can you and I know thatthat you talk about the fact
(21:44):
that talking about chemicalimbalance is a lie. And you kind
of hinted at that before, butcan you go a bit more into that
for us?
Greg Wieting (21:53):
Sure. On and, you know, the fact that research
hasn't shown that chemicalimbalance actually causes mental
illness. But a lot of folks aretold that, you know, the
chemical imbalance they have iswhat is the primary contributing
factor to their anxiety or theirdepression. And so then they
(22:17):
are, you know, treating thechemical imbalance
Arwen Bardsley (22:20):
with chemicals!
Greg Wieting (22:21):
with medication.
And, again, I want toacknowledge that sometimes pain
and symptom management arenecessary. So I'm not here to
make anyone wrong, if that is,you know, the course they're on.
But I think it is important toacknowledge that, you know, what
are two big contributing factorsto anxiety and depression are
(22:45):
childhood attachment and trauma.
And we have amazing capacity toheal the imprints of childhood
trauma and to create more of asecure attachment. And when we
do, then symptoms like anxietyand depression can often clear
(23:08):
up. And you know, when we'reusing the word mental illness,
and, you know, I like to justkind of put a trauma informed
side note that what if even theterm mental illness is not
really the best term to use,because what if mental illness
is really just unresolvedtrauma, right, that mental
(23:29):
illness again, I think there'ssome stigma around that term,
which then can make anindividual suffering from
anxiety or, or depression, feellike something is wrong with
them, or to feel like they arebroken or to feel that they are
other when if we're experiencingunresolved trauma, you know,
(23:50):
that's, that's kind of just partof living in this messy world.
And that's nothing to be ashamedof, it's rather something to
acknowledge and then gather theright tools and support. And so
my concern is that a lot offolks who are treating chemical
(24:11):
imbalance with if canshortchange them from the
opportunity to actually getaccess to deeper healing support
to address attachment, woundingand trauma.
Arwen Bardsley (24:24):
And in your view, where does talk therapy
sit?
Greg Wieting (24:32):
You know, I think there is, again, I think there's
a time and a place foreverything, and therapy has been
a really critical component inmy healing. And there's just
some pain that we can't think ortalk our way through. And
there's a lot of therapy, a lotof therapists that actually
don't have a critical lens toactually work with trauma and a
(24:58):
lot of therapy that Isn'tsomatically oriented, meaning
it's not actually tending tosignals and messages and
emotions and lived experiencestored in the body. You know,
the conscious mind is like 5% ofwhat we believe, right? The
subconscious and the unconsciousmind is actually what we really
(25:22):
believe. And that's like 95% ofthe content that then is stored
in the tissues in the cells andin the body. So if we are
working to heal trauma, talkingour way through it alone,
without working on an somaticand or energetic approach to
(25:43):
actually tend to the needs ofthe body, and the brain and the
nervous system together, we cansometimes to be doing more harm
than good, we could be retraumatizing, or we can kind of
get caught in like, thinkingtalking round about without
actually addressing the woundingstored, you know, beneath the
(26:04):
surface.
Arwen Bardsley (26:06):
Yeah. And so, you in the intro, I talked about
how you've helped people withtheir dependence on medication.
And, you know, I know, you'vetalked through some of the ways
in which you might do that, butkind of what does that look like
(26:29):
in in the practical sense aswell? I'm assuming that people
are, you know, maybe graduallyworking their way out of that
dependence. Can you talk usthrough like an example of what
that would look like?
Greg Wieting (26:42):
Yeah, well, that's very individual. And that's
actually not on my guidance orsuggestion, that's more a side
effect of my work. So how I workis non diagnostic and non
prescriptive. So I don'tactually interfere with, you
know, any of the protocols ortreatment programs that my
(27:02):
clients are on in terms ofmedications and other
treatments. I have apsychiatrist who actually refers
patients to me, he reached outto me after one of his patients
no longer needed the medicationthat he had been prescribing her
for, you know, a period of time.
To his credit, instead of justthinking he misdiagnosed her. he
(27:24):
asked her, is there anythingyou're doing differently? And
she said, Yeah, I'm working withGreg. And, you know, to his
credit, he instead of brushingthat off, reached out to me, and
then we started off a series ofconversations where he got very
curious about my work. And, youknow, over the years has become,
(27:45):
you know, a really greatreferral partner, where he
refers patients to me with PTSD,complex trauma, because he
understands that while he can,again, help his patients, you
know, mitigate the effects ormitigate the symptoms, by
treating them medically, or withmedication, that there's deeper
(28:10):
healing that can take place. Andso he refers patients to me, and
my goal is to again, just helppeople get plugged into their
innate wisdom. So they restoretheir connection to their own
wholeness. And that process isunique for each individual. And
(28:30):
over time, you know, my clientswho come from, you know, this
psychiatrist, they continue tostay in treatment with the
psychiatrist, and he continuesto evaluate. And through his
evaluation, he will, you know,make suggestions to wean or
alter, wean off of or altermedications, and in many cases,
you know, help his patients comeoff those medications
(28:53):
altogether. Because they've donethe deeper healing work with me,
so they no longer no longer needto be dependent on these
medications.
Arwen Bardsley (29:04):
Yeah, amazing.
Thank you. So can you I'm sureyou'd like to talk a bit about
Prisma, and maybe more aboutBody Talk, just tell us a bit
more about that actual systemthat you've developed?
Greg Wieting (29:19):
Sure. Yeah. So with Prisma there is the trauma
and neuroscience roadmap, whichis delivered through an eight
module course that is, you know,people can explore at their own
time. And that is really, Ifound that I was on a path of
healing going to healers andtherapists for some time, and I
(29:43):
knew I was on the right track,but I didn't really know where I
was headed, or where I was. Andso, the trauma neuroscience
roadmap helps us to get ourbearings straight so we don't
have to travel on this healingpath blindfolded. And then the
seven Prisma pillars are theessential dropped pins on that
map so that we do know preciselywhere we are and where we're
(30:06):
headed. And those drop pinsreally take folks on a journey
from pain to purpose. So that'snervous system regulation,
embodiment, emotionalattunement, the emotional
intelligence, piece, and a senseof orientation to our values,
and that are less tethered tomotivation, which is fear based
(30:30):
and more tethered toinspiration, which is much more
aspirational. Right. So insteadof what we're motivated to get
away from, what are we inspiredto move towards, and I think
exploring that tension inhealing is really important, and
especially understanding ourvalues in relationship to
motivation and inspiration. Thefifth pillar is narration where
(30:52):
we really are flipping thescript on a lot of the
subconscious and the unconsciousbehaviors and beliefs that we
often have organized around painand wounding, and how we can
rewrite these narratives to helpexpand the aperture of the
vision we have for our lives andfor what's possible. And then
(31:13):
identity is the sixth pillar.
And identity is really shiftingthese fixed or rigid constructs
we hold about ourselves, again,often organized around our
wounding. So we can start toexperience ourselves from a
moment to moment awareness,which is really the birthplace
of innovation and creativity andvision. And then the final
(31:35):
pillar is impact. So reallyexploring purpose, but not from
a place that is extrinsic, lymotivated. I think a lot of I
think purpose has been abuzzword over the last decade.
But a lot of people are lookingfor purpose outside of
themselves. And I like to thinkthat I help folks mine the gold
of unresolved trauma, so theycan derive a sense of meaning,
(31:58):
purpose, place and significancefrom the inside out. So really
redefining mode, our purposefrom place of intrinsic
motivation. And really, thecultivation of healing states
and the power of presence. Sowhat if it's not so much what we
do, but who we are, and how wedo it. And, you know, and
(32:21):
there's studies that show thatpurpose is one of the core
pieces of resilience. So when welack a sense of purpose, it's
really hard to live in a placeof resilience. So those seven
Prisma pillars then kind of drawupon a lot of the somatic and
(32:43):
mindfulness based practices thatI teach throughout the course.
And then I actually offer guidedpractices for my students over a
year long period. So it's onething to learn these principles,
it's another thing to embodythem. And so and then from
there, the energy medicinecomponent is, yeah, a Reiki one,
(33:03):
two and three training thatfolks have access to over these
nine, one day retreats online.
And so folks can get go throughthe entire curriculum within
three months, but then have ayear access to the community.
Excuse me and I look at theenergy medicine is really the
(33:24):
vehicle we need for healing andlook if a somatic and the
mindfulness pieces is kind ofthe GPS. And they're paired with
the roadmap of the trauma andneuroscience to give folks a
really robust set of tools andpractices that are designed to
pair together. So people have ahealing practice for life.
Arwen Bardsley (33:43):
Oh, amazing. So do you is it like a live intake?
Or is it all online? So peoplecan do it anytime? And if so, do
they get any access to you, inperson?
Greg Wieting (33:59):
So yeah, the trauma and neuroscience roadmap
is an online course, that peoplehave forever access to the
somatic and mindfulness basedpractices are three guided
practices that I lead eachmonth, and then the energy
medicine, our nine one dayretreats that are online, but
(34:21):
you know, that I'm teachinglive, so folks have direct
access to me for those nine dayretreats over the entire year.
Once people go through thatentire process, then they've
kind of developed all of thepractices and tools. And then
from there I have in personevents that we then just kind of
(34:42):
get to play and play with allthe tools.
Arwen Bardsley (34:47):
Okay, so the in person events are for people who
have done the training already.
Greg Wieting (34:53):
Correct.
Arwen Bardsley (34:53):
Yeah. Okay. And then I think you mentioned you
see people, one on one as well.
Or, do you do that in person orjust online?
Greg Wieting (35:04):
Yeah, I have a select space to work with folks
one on one. And that's over anine or 12 month arc of
transformation. And all that'sonline. I work with clients over
the phone primarily. Yeah, allmy clients over the phone right
now, if some clients preferzoom, that's fine. But I
actually get just as good if notbetter results over the phone.
Arwen Bardsley (35:25):
Why do you think that is?
Greg Wieting (35:28):
You know, I'm working in the world of energy,
right. And so we, and everythingis energy even through the
physical body. But when I'm justworking on the phone, I'm just
tuning into the energetics. Andwhere, you know, the level of
attunement that createsconnection and safety for
healing repair, is reallythrough our presence, right. And
(35:51):
our presence permeates time andspace. So I am just as present
with you know, someone when I'mwith them in person, as I am
online or over the phone, I usedto work in the Yucatan
Peninsula, with Mayan shamans.
And when I would bring studentsto the Yucatan, they would
actually and we're doing healingwork on the students, they would
(36:13):
actually have us put a whitesheet over the student. So we're
not actually distracted by thephysical form, and we can work
directly with the energy body.
And so I think that's anotherpiece of it just not being
distracted by the physical, andjust connecting straight to
consciousness, straight toenergy, which, you know, is
(36:35):
really, at the heart ofeverything, you know, everything
is energy, everything isconsciousness. And so when we
affect change at that rootlevel, we can really catalyze a
lot of transformation, bothreally effortlessly, and rather
quickly.
Arwen Bardsley (36:52):
Yeah, and do you think with the phone versus
zoom, it's also about you know,it's that thing of like, you can
have a really good conversationwith your kid when you're
driving in the car, becauseyou're not actually looking at
each other.
Greg Wieting (37:07):
Yeah, I think just being able to drop in and just
be really present. And, I mean,gosh, I think we probably all
have so much zoom fatigue. Now.
Yes. Even if for folks thatdon't work with Zoom for a
living, we just have too muchscreen time, which is drains
eyes and the brain. You know,not looking at a screen I think
is a really great thing.
Arwen Bardsley (37:32):
Totally agree.
So is there any? Do you have anyyou know, specials or any, any
particular programs or anythingthat you wanted to, to mention
to people, anything that youoffer any freebies you have on
your website or anything likethat?
Greg Wieting (37:50):
Yeah, I have the seven Prisma pillars. And that's
a free guide. And that helpspeople to kind of go through a
journey of the seven Prismapillars to get a deeper feel for
the Arc of transformation thatis Prisma. And so folks that's
on my website, Gregwieting.com.
And I forget the back slash butfree download something along
(38:12):
those lines. Yeah. On the homepage.
Arwen Bardsley (38:16):
Okay. All right.
And, uh, you, you know, you'vegot this kind of niche with
leadership in the leadershipspace, but are you? You know, do
you work with people outside ofthat space? Are you specifically
seeking leaders to be yourclients?
Greg Wieting (38:35):
Yeah, people will self select. So folks who are
struggling with anxiety,depression, chronic pain, who
have an understanding that, youknow, emotion and trauma are,
you know, part of thisconglomeration of pain are very
much, you know, self selectingto work with me. A lot of health
(38:56):
care professionals also chooseto work with me to help address
the impacts of secondary traumaand to our caregiver fatigue,
who want to also just develop ahealing practice not only to
support themselves, but thenthat can be really applied in a
healthcare setting to providemore of a trauma informed
(39:19):
approach to healing.
Arwen Bardsley (39:20):
And did the psychiatrist who's your referral
partner? Has he done your actualtraining?
Greg Wieting (39:27):
No he hasn't.
Arwen Bardsley (39:28):
No. Okay.
Interesting. All right. Is thereanything else that you wanted to
let people know, Greg, before wefinish?
Greg Wieting (39:36):
You know, I think healing is a commitment to defy
odds. I think healing can be along and windy road. But what I
love about Prisma is, you know,the 20 years of traveling, you
know, from continent tocontinent, to piece together all
of these practices and tools andwisdoms hopefully makes it a
(40:00):
less long and a less windy roadfor others. And you know, the
body is designed to heal, wejust need the right tools, the
right support and the rightpractices to help it do its job.
And it's, you know, remarkablecapacity to heal is pretty awe
inspiring. So, you know, as muchas I help people heal trauma, my
(40:25):
goal is to really again, focuson connecting people to that
innate wisdom, which is really aplace of awe, which is a place
of inspiration, which is a placeof possibility. So if folks are
really looking for more freedom,more power, more aliveness, you
know, it all starts with a phoneconversation. We just kind of
(40:47):
discuss where you're at whereyou'd like to be, and if you
know, it's working together canbe a good fit for this journey.
Arwen Bardsley (40:55):
Okay, wonderful.
So you do it like a littleinitial chat before people have
to commit to working with you?
Is that what you're saying?
Greg Wieting (41:04):
Absolutely. Yes.
That's where we get to suss outif we would be, you know, I'm
all about win wins, right? Iwant to help people get better.
You know, I pride myself onresults. And if I think people
can get better resultselsewhere, I'm going to send
them elsewhere. And if I feelthat we can do really great work
and be compatible and healingwork together, then I'll invite
(41:26):
folks on board to work with me.
Arwen Bardsley (41:30):
Great, so it's so your website is
Gregwieting.com.
Greg Wieting (41:36):
Yes,
Arwen Bardsley (41:37):
yep. And the spelling of your surname is wi e
t i n g just so people know.
Hopefully, they'd find you ifthey spelt it a different way.
But just to let everybody knowthat so thank you so very much
for your time today. Greg, Ireally appreciate having you on.
I think that's all justwonderful food for thought for
(41:58):
everyone and totally resonateswith the work that I do as well.
So it's been great to talk toyou today.
Greg Wieting (42:08):
Thanks for having me. Arwen. It's been a pleasure.
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode
(00:03):
of the five star wellbeingPodcast. I'm delighted today to
be here with Greg Wieting. Greghelps leaders and entrepreneurs
heal anxiety, depression,chronic pain and trauma so they
can lead with bold andcourageous hearts. For 20 years,
Greg has helped hundreds ofclients reduce or eliminate
(00:26):
their dependence onantidepressants, anxiety, pain
and sleep medications. Headdresses the unique causative
factors that play beneath pain,namely the unresolved trauma
that causes inflammation,compromises immune function,
stagnates emotion, fogs,thought, and creates hormonal
(00:46):
imbalance. These are all justwonderful things that I love to
talk about. So I'm so pleased tohave you here today. Greg, I'd
love to start with just a bitabout you. Focusing on really
how you got to be doing whatyou're doing now is is the point
of of me asking about yourorigin story. So it doesn't need
(01:09):
to be anything that you don'twant to talk about. But just try
and help people to understandhow you came to be doing the
work that you are doing now?
Greg Wieting (01:18):
Sure, yeah. Well, first, thanks for having me.
And, yeah, my work today reallystems from my own journey,
healing my own chronic pain andanxiety and depression that, you
know, it took me years to reallyunderstand that unresolved
trauma was beneath all of mypain. So I've spent a lot of
time chasing and treating andsuppressing symptoms, you know,
(01:42):
I was just steps away from, youknow, a path of pain and symptom
management with medication, whenI was introduced to, you know,
an alternative. And I didn'treally understand the world of
healing. You know, that's nothow I was raised as a kid, when
I had chronic ear infections andstrep throat, I wanted nothing
(02:02):
more than to go to a doctor andtake a pill and feel better,
right. That's just how I wasraised. That's the world we
seemingly live in. So, you know,I thought the same would be true
for my chronic pain. And, youknow, we're taught in the world
of mental health, that chemicalimbalance is, often what's
driving anxiety and depression.
So I thought that well, then Iprobably need to treat a
(02:25):
chemical imbalance if I'm reallystruggling here. And then I was
introduced to energy medicine,by happenstance, I was living in
so much chronic pain at the timethat a friend who was a massage
therapist offered me a massage,which I actually turned it down
because physical pain was justtoo much our physical touch just
would have been too painful. Andshe introduced me to energy
(02:49):
medicine, which I had neverheard of that was a completely
foreign concept to me. But I wasopen, I was hungry for change,
and I wanted to feel better. Andso we started to experiment. And
within, you know, moments, Irealized I had found something I
didn't even know I was lookingfor. It was as if I had kind of
suspended or lifted up above mypain body that for my entire
(03:13):
life, you know, who I was, wasorganized around my pain, right?
My identity was organized aroundmy pain. So I didn't even know
who I was outside of that painuntil I had that experience.
And, and that was really eyeopening. And so that really
started a journey of explorationand healing to realize I don't
(03:36):
have to fight against pain, andI maybe don't even have to treat
pain. I need to work withpractices that helped me connect
to more of my essence. Right.
And years later in my studies, Icame to understand the concept
of innate wisdom. And innatewisdom was a term first
(03:58):
developed in chiropractic where,you know, if we have a paper
cut, there's an innate wisdom ora healing mechanism within
within us that orchestrates ahealing response. Right. It
sends platelets and proteins,and organizes all of these
biochemical processes to healthat paper cut. So I discovered
(04:20):
that really, healing is justreconnecting us to our innate
wisdom. It's not fightingagainst our pain. And when I
discovered that my whole worldchanged.
Arwen Bardsley (04:32):
I love that reconnect and healing is
reconnecting us to our latewisdom. That is just such a
beautiful way to put it. So justbefore I ask you my next
question, so then you mentionedyour studies. Can you just
briefly tell us what youstudied?
Greg Wieting (04:50):
Sure. So yeah, energy medicine was a whole
world of understanding Reiki.
The world of Reiki thenintroduced me to meditation. So
I then was in India for abouteight months and learning a lot
of somatic approaches tomeditation, you know, practices
that are designed to helprelease stored stress and
tension that stagnate in thebody, particularly trauma. And
(05:13):
so how do we release thisstagnation and the stress in the
body to really create more ofthe natural climate for a
meditative state, which, youknow, I would define as a
relaxed, alert awareness. Fromthere, when I came back to the
States, I started to study moreenergy medicine, a healthcare
system called Body Talk, which,yeah, is really far reaching and
(05:37):
helps to basically restructurehow the nervous system gets
short circuited because ofstress and trauma. So it helps
to reboot nervous systemawareness to restore
communication between all thedifferent parts of the body
tissues, cells, hormones,neurotransmitters, and whatnot.
And then that led me to theworld of trauma and
(06:01):
neuroscience. So I was alreadyteaching a lot of these
components. And one of mystudents this is about nine
years ago, was a therapist, andshe said, you know, you're
teaching trauma informedhealing. And at that point, I
didn't really have that thatterm trauma informed, I knew I
was healing my own trauma, but Iwas really on this kind of
(06:23):
intuitive path to heal myself.
And she said, You know, I'm aprofessor at the California
Institute of integral studies,and I teach the trauma course,
for the therapy program there,why don't you become a teacher's
assistant or become my teacher'sassistant and help the students
(06:43):
with mindfulness basedpractices. So that's where I
started to develop more of kindof the trauma and neuroscience
lens. Because I think it'sreally helpful to have, you
know, a baseline understandingof the brain and the body and
the nervous system to reallyhelp normalize what we might be
experiencing in terms of atrauma response in terms of how
(07:06):
you know, the brain, and thebody and the nervous system are
responded responding to adverseexperiences. So over the years,
I've kind of reverse engineeredhow I've kind of pieced together
all of these practices, youknow, for my own healing to
create, as practical andaccessible have a healing system
(07:28):
for others.
Arwen Bardsley (07:29):
Oh, okay. Cool.
Thank you for that. Yeah,that's, I will ask you more
about body talk. I, I thoughtthat that was like your system.
But you're saying that'ssomething you studied? And now
you teach? Is that right?
Greg Wieting (07:41):
Yeah, so So my system is Prisma Body Talk,
thing, I still practice with myone on one clients. And
certainly practicing Body Talkhas really helped inform how I
understand energy andconsciousness to function in the
body. Then, basically, how Iwork with my students, and what
(08:02):
I teach my students is how toapply kind of a knowledge base
from somatics, and mindfulnessand trauma and neuroscience and
how to apply that knowledge baseto the application and the
practice of Reiki. And so Idon't teach Body Talk, but what
i developed is Prisma
Arwen Bardsley (08:20):
Right, right, right. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I
think it's so cool. And so itkind of makes things more
accessible, perhaps to a wideraudience, when you can talk
about the science, you know,coming from that neuroscience
side as well. Because you know,a lot of people with energy
(08:41):
healing, you know, just thinkit's, you know, they just fail
to accept that scientific factthat everything is energy, and
we're all energy. And of course,if we're, you know, using and
directing energy to heal, thenthat's going to be beneficial.
But I think a lot of peoplestill feel that it's a very
woowoo kind of thing. But to beable to combine the two in a way
that people can understand is,is really great. So I'm so
(09:05):
pleased that you're out theredoing that.
Greg Wieting (09:08):
Well, that's a lot of Yeah, I think it's really
important to both democratizeand demystify healing, right, to
make it accessible. And for me,you know, energy medicine, what
I love about energy medicine,and Reiki I think how to make
that just easy to understand isif the body is a symphony
(09:30):
orchestra. And so when we'reexperiencing health, all the
different parts of the body, andthe mind and the spirit are
functioning as a team, and thatteam is making sweet music,
right? So every cell, everytissue, every muscle, every
emotion, every thought everyhormone is in constant
(09:50):
communication. And when we're inconstant communication, you
know, we're experiencingwholeness. And so there's a
musicality of being there's thisharmonic resonance. But what
happens with trauma and stressis the nervous system gets short
circuited, and thatcommunication starts to break
down. So the different parts ofthe body, mind and spirit are no
(10:11):
longer communicating with oneanother. So we start to feel
split and fragmented. And asthat communication starts to
break down, we start toexperience noise. And that noise
is presenting itself through oursymptoms through our pain
through our illness, right. Soinstead of trying to treat pain,
symptoms, illness or noise, whatwe want to do is restore the
(10:35):
communication between thedifferent parts. And as we do so
the noise starts to break up onits own. So that's how we
restore connection to our innatewisdom, and then our natural
capacity to be in harmony andbalance starts to rebound on its
own accord.
Arwen Bardsley (10:54):
Yeah, thank you for that. So then I found it
really interesting as well thatyou have taken this work into
the world of leadership.
Because, again, you know, youkind of think that your common
or garden corporate, you know,management type of person is
potentially not going to beparticularly open to this sort
(11:19):
of work. So I think it's sowonderful that you are going
down that intersection ofleadership and trauma that I
really don't think I've heardanyone else talk about this very
much at all. So how and why didyou get into this niche space in
healing?
Greg Wieting (11:43):
Sure. You know, I think, though, mental health is
really at the forefront of a lotof conversation, I think it's
really getting a lot ofattention culturally. And so I
think mental health in theworkplace is starting to gain
some recognition and attention.
And I think as leaders, we havea unique opportunity to either
(12:06):
perpetuate wounding and hurt andharm and trauma, or heal, you
know, wounding and hurt andtrauma. And in my before I was
in the world of healing, I was aleader in the nonprofit world.
And I, myself, had my own livedexperience of really leading
(12:28):
from a trauma response, right,and really showing up to do good
work in the world that I wasvery passionate about. And that
I, you know, it was very missiondriven. It was really built of
purpose, but lacked fulfillment,right, because my own trauma was
running the show. And that wasleading to tons of burnout and
emptiness. And I think we'reliving in a world where, you
(12:50):
know, trauma is and an invisibleepidemic. And, and yet, more and
more people are waking up to thefact that there's a great cost
to this, this wounding that'snot just taking place, you know,
individually, you know, I oftenthink that our own anxiety and
depression, excuse me, isactually a very healthy response
(13:13):
to an unhealthy environment. SoI think we, as leaders have a
unique opportunity to foster ahealthier environment, and one
that really centers, wellness,one that centers mental health.
And so I think it's important totake these conversations out of
just the confines of ourindividual life and bring it
(13:36):
more to public life, to helpremove the stigma that a lot of
folks are carrying, because,yeah, oftentimes, again, if
folks are treating a chemicalimbalance, the the message that
is happening there that is beingsignaled as that something is
wrong with the individual, sothen we'll treat the individuals
(13:57):
imbalance, but that imbalance isactually a healthy response to
something going on in theenvironment. So the more we can
have that conversation, the moreI think it removes the stigma
and the isolation that oftenbecomes kind of a barrier to
entry for folks to get thesupport and the healing care
(14:19):
that they deserve.
Arwen Bardsley (14:25):
So before we go any further, can you just
because, you know, you've saidthat we've got, you know, more
and more trauma going on. And Ithink it's partly that more and
more, it's being recognized astrauma. So can you just talk a
bit about what you mean whenyou're saying trauma?
Greg Wieting (14:48):
Sure. Yeah. I think trauma is really any lived
experience where we feelisolated alone, where we lack
safety and or support. You know,trauma's not just these really
bad things that happened to us.
Right, which a lot of folksidentify that, well, I don't
have trauma because I've notbeen on the receiving end of a
(15:10):
violent crime, or I've not beenabused, or I haven't been in a
war zone. I'm not displaced. I'mnot a refugee. But you know,
trauma can be too much too soon,or not enough for too long. So a
lot of folks who don't identifywith having trauma in early
(15:30):
development, probably likely didnot have reliable consistent
care. And in early development,that signals danger, right? If
we don't have reliableconsistent care, and there's no
guarantee that we're going toget our basic needs met, that
can signal quite literally lifeor death, right. So that sets us
(15:51):
up in this energy ofhypervigilance, where we then
need to either perform or hideparts of ourselves because
subconsciously, the message thatwe you know, are receiving is
that something must be bad orwrong with us if we're not
getting our needs met. So eventhough something fishy is
(16:11):
happening in the environment, weturn it on, or we turn the arrow
on ourselves and just make theassumption in early development
that something bad is happeningout here, because something's
wrong with us. Right? So thatsets up, you know, lifelong
patterning of hyper vigilance ofhustling for our own worth of
really this pedal to the metaldrive. And that's what I find
(16:35):
with a lot of the leaders I'mworking with, you know, they've
developed some level of success,but they're realizing it's
they've never been able to taketheir foot off the gas. And, you
know, that's, that's going todrain and deplete us, there's
going to be a cost to that. Andyou know that that burnout is
going to catch up with us.
Arwen Bardsley (16:57):
And when you said before that you were
leading in your, your previouswork in the not for profit
sector, you were leading from aplace of trauma. So, you know,
what did that look like? How didthat manifest? You know, do you
think that it made a differencefor the people that were working
with you?
Greg Wieting (17:18):
Sure. Yeah, looking back, I'm sure I was not
cultivating the psychologicalsafety and trust that today as a
leader that I know is possible.
Because I was not, I was notable to carry or contain that
within myself. Right. So I thinkto be a leader is to be a vessel
of healing and to regulate thecollective nervous system, but
(17:41):
if our nervous system hasn't yetlanded, you know, we're going to
lack any capacity to supportthat in our teams. Right. And so
it's kind of, you know, at thatpoint in my life, I was living
from the neck up, right. And so,when we lack our own capacity to
be in our own bodies, you know,we lack presence, and we lack
(18:07):
agency, so I wasn't fullysteeped within my power, which
is really a presence a capacityto be really present with myself
and with, you know, my team. Sothat has a caustic effect. And,
you know, a big piece ofunresolved trauma is, you know,
having yet to really process theemotional impact of
(18:30):
developmental needs, unmet needsto really lack capacity to
harness, you know, the power ofour emotion, which is often the
message beneath our emotion thatlongs to be communicated. So,
yeah, definitely lacked a lot ofcapacity, critical capacity in
terms of communication. And, andagain, I'm still in contact with
(18:54):
a lot of folks on my team then.
And to some degree, that waslike normal. This was like, you
know, a team of, you know, early20 somethings in this nonprofit
world and, you know, we're alljust kind of figuring out how to
how to human and how to adult.
But if we have, you know, if weare living in a culture that
(19:17):
fosters this level of emotionalintelligence and emotional
attunement, you know, we have agreat capacity to develop, you
know, teams of collaboration andconnection that really are
centering you know, humanity.
Arwen Bardsley (19:35):
And so how do we process the emotion that we need
to the emotion that's associatedwith trauma in order to you
know, bring bring the nervoussystem down to where you know,
ideally it should be most of thetime what is that where you say
you use the energy healing andother you know, mindfulness
(19:58):
kinds of techniques.
Greg Wieting (20:00):
Absolutely, yeah, I think a big, I'd say the three
biggest benefits from energymedicine are just that helping
to regulate the nervous system,helping to calm the
cardiovascular system andhelping to strengthen immune
system function. And again, kindof coming back to that idea of
reconnecting to our innatewisdom. And breaking up that
(20:23):
noise. What happens is we becomemore established in our
wholeness. So we're not runningaround like a chicken with its
head cut off, right, we feellike we are established, and we
locate a sense of belongingwithin ourselves, which creates
a whole new baseline ofpresence, right? And yeah, I
(20:43):
think the mindfulness piecereally helps us to dissolve
identification with pain andwounding and the limitation of
our pain and wounding. So we canlive more in a place of
possibility. So that's helpingto reorient from pain to
possibility. So that's helpingus to kind of break free of our
(21:06):
negativity bias and thecatastrophizing, excuse me, of
you know, the mind that isalways scanning for worst case
scenarios. And I think asleaders, our job is to be aware
of worst case scenarios, butreally be scanning for best
cased possibilities.
Arwen Bardsley (21:24):
Oh, yeah, I love that. Thank you. So you
mentioned before the chemicalimbalance thing that is often
talked about in regards tomental health, or mental
illness, can you and I know thatthat you talk about the fact
(21:44):
that talking about chemicalimbalance is a lie. And you kind
of hinted at that before, butcan you go a bit more into that
for us?
Greg Wieting (21:53):
Sure. On and, you know, the fact that research
hasn't shown that chemicalimbalance actually causes mental
illness. But a lot of folks aretold that, you know, the
chemical imbalance they have iswhat is the primary contributing
factor to their anxiety or theirdepression. And so then they
(22:17):
are, you know, treating thechemical imbalance
Arwen Bardsley (22:20):
with chemicals!
Greg Wieting (22:21):
with medication.
And, again, I want toacknowledge that sometimes pain
and symptom management arenecessary. So I'm not here to
make anyone wrong, if that is,you know, the course they're on.
But I think it is important toacknowledge that, you know, what
are two big contributing factorsto anxiety and depression are
(22:45):
childhood attachment and trauma.
And we have amazing capacity toheal the imprints of childhood
trauma and to create more of asecure attachment. And when we
do, then symptoms like anxietyand depression can often clear
(23:08):
up. And you know, when we'reusing the word mental illness,
and, you know, I like to justkind of put a trauma informed
side note that what if even theterm mental illness is not
really the best term to use,because what if mental illness
is really just unresolvedtrauma, right, that mental
(23:29):
illness again, I think there'ssome stigma around that term,
which then can make anindividual suffering from
anxiety or, or depression, feellike something is wrong with
them, or to feel like they arebroken or to feel that they are
other when if we're experiencingunresolved trauma, you know,
(23:50):
that's, that's kind of just partof living in this messy world.
And that's nothing to be ashamedof, it's rather something to
acknowledge and then gather theright tools and support. And so
my concern is that a lot offolks who are treating chemical
(24:11):
imbalance with if canshortchange them from the
opportunity to actually getaccess to deeper healing support
to address attachment, woundingand trauma.
Arwen Bardsley (24:24):
And in your view, where does talk therapy
sit?
Greg Wieting (24:32):
You know, I think there is, again, I think there's
a time and a place foreverything, and therapy has been
a really critical component inmy healing. And there's just
some pain that we can't think ortalk our way through. And
there's a lot of therapy, a lotof therapists that actually
don't have a critical lens toactually work with trauma and a
(24:58):
lot of therapy that Isn'tsomatically oriented, meaning
it's not actually tending tosignals and messages and
emotions and lived experiencestored in the body. You know,
the conscious mind is like 5% ofwhat we believe, right? The
subconscious and the unconsciousmind is actually what we really
(25:22):
believe. And that's like 95% ofthe content that then is stored
in the tissues in the cells andin the body. So if we are
working to heal trauma, talkingour way through it alone,
without working on an somaticand or energetic approach to
(25:43):
actually tend to the needs ofthe body, and the brain and the
nervous system together, we cansometimes to be doing more harm
than good, we could be retraumatizing, or we can kind of
get caught in like, thinkingtalking round about without
actually addressing the woundingstored, you know, beneath the
(26:04):
surface.
Arwen Bardsley (26:06):
Yeah. And so, you in the intro, I talked about
how you've helped people withtheir dependence on medication.
And, you know, I know, you'vetalked through some of the ways
in which you might do that, butkind of what does that look like
(26:29):
in in the practical sense aswell? I'm assuming that people
are, you know, maybe graduallyworking their way out of that
dependence. Can you talk usthrough like an example of what
that would look like?
Greg Wieting (26:42):
Yeah, well, that's very individual. And that's
actually not on my guidance orsuggestion, that's more a side
effect of my work. So how I workis non diagnostic and non
prescriptive. So I don'tactually interfere with, you
know, any of the protocols ortreatment programs that my
(27:02):
clients are on in terms ofmedications and other
treatments. I have apsychiatrist who actually refers
patients to me, he reached outto me after one of his patients
no longer needed the medicationthat he had been prescribing her
for, you know, a period of time.
To his credit, instead of justthinking he misdiagnosed her. he
(27:24):
asked her, is there anythingyou're doing differently? And
she said, Yeah, I'm working withGreg. And, you know, to his
credit, he instead of brushingthat off, reached out to me, and
then we started off a series ofconversations where he got very
curious about my work. And, youknow, over the years has become,
(27:45):
you know, a really greatreferral partner, where he
refers patients to me with PTSD,complex trauma, because he
understands that while he can,again, help his patients, you
know, mitigate the effects ormitigate the symptoms, by
treating them medically, or withmedication, that there's deeper
(28:10):
healing that can take place. Andso he refers patients to me, and
my goal is to again, just helppeople get plugged into their
innate wisdom. So they restoretheir connection to their own
wholeness. And that process isunique for each individual. And
(28:30):
over time, you know, my clientswho come from, you know, this
psychiatrist, they continue tostay in treatment with the
psychiatrist, and he continuesto evaluate. And through his
evaluation, he will, you know,make suggestions to wean or
alter, wean off of or altermedications, and in many cases,
you know, help his patients comeoff those medications
(28:53):
altogether. Because they've donethe deeper healing work with me,
so they no longer no longer needto be dependent on these
medications.
Arwen Bardsley (29:04):
Yeah, amazing.
Thank you. So can you I'm sureyou'd like to talk a bit about
Prisma, and maybe more aboutBody Talk, just tell us a bit
more about that actual systemthat you've developed?
Greg Wieting (29:19):
Sure. Yeah. So with Prisma there is the trauma
and neuroscience roadmap, whichis delivered through an eight
module course that is, you know,people can explore at their own
time. And that is really, Ifound that I was on a path of
healing going to healers andtherapists for some time, and I
(29:43):
knew I was on the right track,but I didn't really know where I
was headed, or where I was. Andso, the trauma neuroscience
roadmap helps us to get ourbearings straight so we don't
have to travel on this healingpath blindfolded. And then the
seven Prisma pillars are theessential dropped pins on that
map so that we do know preciselywhere we are and where we're
(30:06):
headed. And those drop pinsreally take folks on a journey
from pain to purpose. So that'snervous system regulation,
embodiment, emotionalattunement, the emotional
intelligence, piece, and a senseof orientation to our values,
and that are less tethered tomotivation, which is fear based
(30:30):
and more tethered toinspiration, which is much more
aspirational. Right. So insteadof what we're motivated to get
away from, what are we inspiredto move towards, and I think
exploring that tension inhealing is really important, and
especially understanding ourvalues in relationship to
motivation and inspiration. Thefifth pillar is narration where
(30:52):
we really are flipping thescript on a lot of the
subconscious and the unconsciousbehaviors and beliefs that we
often have organized around painand wounding, and how we can
rewrite these narratives to helpexpand the aperture of the
vision we have for our lives andfor what's possible. And then
(31:13):
identity is the sixth pillar.
And identity is really shiftingthese fixed or rigid constructs
we hold about ourselves, again,often organized around our
wounding. So we can start toexperience ourselves from a
moment to moment awareness,which is really the birthplace
of innovation and creativity andvision. And then the final
(31:35):
pillar is impact. So reallyexploring purpose, but not from
a place that is extrinsic, lymotivated. I think a lot of I
think purpose has been abuzzword over the last decade.
But a lot of people are lookingfor purpose outside of
themselves. And I like to thinkthat I help folks mine the gold
of unresolved trauma, so theycan derive a sense of meaning,
(31:58):
purpose, place and significancefrom the inside out. So really
redefining mode, our purposefrom place of intrinsic
motivation. And really, thecultivation of healing states
and the power of presence. Sowhat if it's not so much what we
do, but who we are, and how wedo it. And, you know, and
(32:21):
there's studies that show thatpurpose is one of the core
pieces of resilience. So when welack a sense of purpose, it's
really hard to live in a placeof resilience. So those seven
Prisma pillars then kind of drawupon a lot of the somatic and
(32:43):
mindfulness based practices thatI teach throughout the course.
And then I actually offer guidedpractices for my students over a
year long period. So it's onething to learn these principles,
it's another thing to embodythem. And so and then from
there, the energy medicinecomponent is, yeah, a Reiki one,
(33:03):
two and three training thatfolks have access to over these
nine, one day retreats online.
And so folks can get go throughthe entire curriculum within
three months, but then have ayear access to the community.
Excuse me and I look at theenergy medicine is really the
(33:24):
vehicle we need for healing andlook if a somatic and the
mindfulness pieces is kind ofthe GPS. And they're paired with
the roadmap of the trauma andneuroscience to give folks a
really robust set of tools andpractices that are designed to
pair together. So people have ahealing practice for life.
Arwen Bardsley (33:43):
Oh, amazing. So do you is it like a live intake?
Or is it all online? So peoplecan do it anytime? And if so, do
they get any access to you, inperson?
Greg Wieting (33:59):
So yeah, the trauma and neuroscience roadmap
is an online course, that peoplehave forever access to the
somatic and mindfulness basedpractices are three guided
practices that I lead eachmonth, and then the energy
medicine, our nine one dayretreats that are online, but
(34:21):
you know, that I'm teachinglive, so folks have direct
access to me for those nine dayretreats over the entire year.
Once people go through thatentire process, then they've
kind of developed all of thepractices and tools. And then
from there I have in personevents that we then just kind of
(34:42):
get to play and play with allthe tools.
Arwen Bardsley (34:47):
Okay, so the in person events are for people who
have done the training already.
Greg Wieting (34:53):
Correct.
Arwen Bardsley (34:53):
Yeah. Okay. And then I think you mentioned you
see people, one on one as well.
Or, do you do that in person orjust online?
Greg Wieting (35:04):
Yeah, I have a select space to work with folks
one on one. And that's over anine or 12 month arc of
transformation. And all that'sonline. I work with clients over
the phone primarily. Yeah, allmy clients over the phone right
now, if some clients preferzoom, that's fine. But I
actually get just as good if notbetter results over the phone.
Arwen Bardsley (35:25):
Why do you think that is?
Greg Wieting (35:28):
You know, I'm working in the world of energy,
right. And so we, and everythingis energy even through the
physical body. But when I'm justworking on the phone, I'm just
tuning into the energetics. Andwhere, you know, the level of
attunement that createsconnection and safety for
healing repair, is reallythrough our presence, right. And
(35:51):
our presence permeates time andspace. So I am just as present
with you know, someone when I'mwith them in person, as I am
online or over the phone, I usedto work in the Yucatan
Peninsula, with Mayan shamans.
And when I would bring studentsto the Yucatan, they would
actually and we're doing healingwork on the students, they would
(36:13):
actually have us put a whitesheet over the student. So we're
not actually distracted by thephysical form, and we can work
directly with the energy body.
And so I think that's anotherpiece of it just not being
distracted by the physical, andjust connecting straight to
consciousness, straight toenergy, which, you know, is
(36:35):
really, at the heart ofeverything, you know, everything
is energy, everything isconsciousness. And so when we
affect change at that rootlevel, we can really catalyze a
lot of transformation, bothreally effortlessly, and rather
quickly.
Arwen Bardsley (36:52):
Yeah, and do you think with the phone versus
zoom, it's also about you know,it's that thing of like, you can
have a really good conversationwith your kid when you're
driving in the car, becauseyou're not actually looking at
each other.
Greg Wieting (37:07):
Yeah, I think just being able to drop in and just
be really present. And, I mean,gosh, I think we probably all
have so much zoom fatigue. Now.
Yes. Even if for folks thatdon't work with Zoom for a
living, we just have too muchscreen time, which is drains
eyes and the brain. You know,not looking at a screen I think
is a really great thing.
Arwen Bardsley (37:32):
Totally agree.
So is there any? Do you have anyyou know, specials or any, any
particular programs or anythingthat you wanted to, to mention
to people, anything that youoffer any freebies you have on
your website or anything likethat?
Greg Wieting (37:50):
Yeah, I have the seven Prisma pillars. And that's
a free guide. And that helpspeople to kind of go through a
journey of the seven Prismapillars to get a deeper feel for
the Arc of transformation thatis Prisma. And so folks that's
on my website, Gregwieting.com.
And I forget the back slash butfree download something along
(38:12):
those lines. Yeah. On the homepage.
Arwen Bardsley (38:16):
Okay. All right.
And, uh, you, you know, you'vegot this kind of niche with
leadership in the leadershipspace, but are you? You know, do
you work with people outside ofthat space? Are you specifically
seeking leaders to be yourclients?
Greg Wieting (38:35):
Yeah, people will self select. So folks who are
struggling with anxiety,depression, chronic pain, who
have an understanding that, youknow, emotion and trauma are,
you know, part of thisconglomeration of pain are very
much, you know, self selectingto work with me. A lot of health
(38:56):
care professionals also chooseto work with me to help address
the impacts of secondary traumaand to our caregiver fatigue,
who want to also just develop ahealing practice not only to
support themselves, but thenthat can be really applied in a
healthcare setting to providemore of a trauma informed
(39:19):
approach to healing.
Arwen Bardsley (39:20):
And did the psychiatrist who's your referral
partner? Has he done your actualtraining?
Greg Wieting (39:27):
No he hasn't.
Arwen Bardsley (39:28):
No. Okay.
Interesting. All right. Is thereanything else that you wanted to
let people know, Greg, before wefinish?
Greg Wieting (39:36):
You know, I think healing is a commitment to defy
odds. I think healing can be along and windy road. But what I
love about Prisma is, you know,the 20 years of traveling, you
know, from continent tocontinent, to piece together all
of these practices and tools andwisdoms hopefully makes it a
(40:00):
less long and a less windy roadfor others. And you know, the
body is designed to heal, wejust need the right tools, the
right support and the rightpractices to help it do its job.
And it's, you know, remarkablecapacity to heal is pretty awe
inspiring. So, you know, as muchas I help people heal trauma, my
(40:25):
goal is to really again, focuson connecting people to that
innate wisdom, which is really aplace of awe, which is a place
of inspiration, which is a placeof possibility. So if folks are
really looking for more freedom,more power, more aliveness, you
know, it all starts with a phoneconversation. We just kind of
(40:47):
discuss where you're at whereyou'd like to be, and if you
know, it's working together canbe a good fit for this journey.
Arwen Bardsley (40:55):
Okay, wonderful.
So you do it like a littleinitial chat before people have
to commit to working with you?
Is that what you're saying?
Greg Wieting (41:04):
Absolutely. Yes.
That's where we get to suss outif we would be, you know, I'm
all about win wins, right? Iwant to help people get better.
You know, I pride myself onresults. And if I think people
can get better resultselsewhere, I'm going to send
them elsewhere. And if I feelthat we can do really great work
and be compatible and healingwork together, then I'll invite
(41:26):
folks on board to work with me.
Arwen Bardsley (41:30):
Great, so it's so your website is
Gregwieting.com.
Greg Wieting (41:36):
Yes,
Arwen Bardsley (41:37):
yep. And the spelling of your surname is wi e
t i n g just so people know.
Hopefully, they'd find you ifthey spelt it a different way.
But just to let everybody knowthat so thank you so very much
for your time today. Greg, Ireally appreciate having you on.
I think that's all justwonderful food for thought for
(41:58):
everyone and totally resonateswith the work that I do as well.
So it's been great to talk toyou today.
Greg Wieting (42:08):
Thanks for having me. Arwen. It's been a pleasure.
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