Stress is Gone Guest: Brett Cotter

Transformation with Tara

Stress is Gone - Guest: Brett Cotter

Tara Sutphen CHt & Jason D McKean CHt discuss Stress and PTSD with Brett Cotter - Author of "3 Keys to Managing PTSD"

www.stressisgone,com
www.tarainsight.com
www.jasondmckean.com

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Welcome to Transformations with Tara. Thisis Tara Sutton and my guest today is
Brett Carter, who is Stress IsGone and he has written a book about
PTSD and important matters in our societytoday. And thank you Brett for being
here talking about this today. AndJason d McKean, he is the voice

(00:27):
of over a million home recordings throughoutthe world. And thank you Jason for
being on the show today as well. Hi Tara, Hi Brett, Hey
everybody, thanks so much for havingme on. I'm really excited. Yeah.
So, anyway, so you wrotea book, tell me the book.
So in twenty fifteen, I publishedthe book The Three Keys to Managing

(00:51):
PTSD, and the three keys arelearn how to stop a stress reaction process,
the trauma and mad tate every day. And I dedicated that book to
my father, who was a marineVietnam veteran and also a New York City
firefighter. Wow. So nothing liketwo big things happening in his life all

(01:15):
his life to create a lot ofstress. Yeah, and he had a
ton of stress growing up. Unfortunately, my grandmother, his mom, died
by suicide when my father was fiveor six, and that kind of threw
the family into a tizzy after that. Then he went to Vietnam and on

(01:38):
the last couple of weeks of hisservice, his brother, his older brother,
passed away in a tragic car accident. And his older brother was like
his hero. Gary Cotter was hisname. He was a golden gloves boxer,
great athlete. The family at thattime was in Flushing, New York,
and my father flew home, buthe got back the day after his

(02:02):
funeral and burial. Then he hadto go back to Vietnam for two more
weeks, and he thought he wasdefinitely not coming back going back the second
time from everything that he saw.He had to leave the jungle once because
of infections. He had a strapnelfrom a booby trap that blew up on

(02:22):
his leg. Not to get toographic, but he was cutting it out
for like a week or so,but then the infection got so bad he
had to leave the jungle. Whenhe came back, his entire group was
gone. The entire group was gone, So he just felt by the time
he came back to Vietnam for thatsecond time, even though he was only

(02:43):
for a few weeks, he reallyfelt he was not gonna make it home
and he's going there or die.And a lot of his friends that I
met after my father passed away,you know, told me that when he
came back that second time, therewas something, you know, really different
and just like tweet. So Idedicated the book to my dad. My
father passed away in twenty fourteen.I cried for like six months and came

(03:12):
up with a new technique. I'mlike the guinea pig for all the techniques
that I teach people and share withpeople, but I came up with a
technique to reconnect with our loved onesthat have passed away and to help process
that pain. So once I wasusing that technique for a while, process
the pain, and then started writingthe book because I wanted to share really

(03:34):
good stress management tools with veterans thatwere kind of like my dad. You
know, he couldn't really use appsbecause he had huge hands and it just
felt like it wasn't natural to him. And a workbook anybody can use.
So the workbook is on Amazon.Veterans love it. I get a bunch
printed up when we do our retreatsand hand them out to the veterans that

(03:58):
are there at our retreats. Rightwow. So, but then he continued
to be a hero and man wentinto firefighting. I mean, that's interesting.
Then he just felt compelled that heneeded to, you know, be
a warrior kind of all his lifeand that you know, losing a mom
early, that's really and by herown hand, that's pretty sad. Yeah,

(04:24):
And right way, my father's fatherwas an alcoholic and that was super
difficult for all the kids to dealwith in the family. Coming back from
Vietnam, my father was trying outdifferent trades and then the fire department called
after he took the test. Hewent in and then he got sucked in

(04:48):
in the seventies and eighties into theNew York City firefighters kind of like party
circuit. Right, That's how hedealt with his pain and trauma. Before
he passed, he said, youknow, the absurd helps us deal with
the absurd. So he got suckedinto that like hurricane like so many of
you know, the guys that wereworking in the city then to escape their

(05:12):
pain, right, and that's wherehe found a relief. Right, So
he was self medicating, partying heavily. My mother divorced him when I was
six, and that's where my storystarts with stress and trauma. So his
was the work hard and then partyhard, like philosophy to just kind of

(05:35):
like work through his stress or justkind of keep it at bay. It
was kind of like the way hisenergy was such any of his friends will
tell you, and any of onethat was around him, he was kind
of like a one man band,full of jokes, full of life,

(05:57):
full of just funny stuff. However, there was still a lot of you
know, alcohol involved in that.The way he dealt with his stress was
three ways Budweiser mowing his lawn,which he did like three times a week
on a five acre property. AndI'm telling jokes, right, So if
you were on an eight hour carride with him, you'd be laughing the
whole way, right. So towardsthe end of his life, I would

(06:23):
say the last fifteen years we becamereally close. The last five years we
became super duper close. Where ifI was having a tough day, if
I was in family court, youknow, for my son, and I
just felt all alone and felt likeI was having a terrible day, he
would just call me out of theballue and say, son, I was

(06:43):
just feeling like you were having atough day. How are you doing,
so me and him started to reallyconnect on like an energetic level, which
was really I feel like healing forthe both of us. And yes,
so his life trajectory, his personalitywas almost like a lawnmower, like when
you started up and then you justreve it and it just goes. And

(07:05):
I could remember, you know,sleeping over his house even as a young
kid at times, and he wouldjust pop up at six in the morning,
like literally jump out of bed andthen he was, you know,
off to the races. But againlater on in his life, when you
would go to his house, liketowards the last two or three years,
he would have like the ambient musicplaying. He would he actually started feeding

(07:27):
deer out of his hands. Threegeneration of deer would come over to him,
so he started feeding like first waslike a fawn, but then the
next year, a few years later, you know, they would have babies
and then so at one point therewas three generations, you know, eating
out of his hand. Probably thelast year that he passed, and one
of his really good firehouse buddies tooka beautiful picture of him doing that before

(07:50):
he passed. Oh that is that'sgreat. So I mean it's interesting,
isn't It's better light than never heopened his heart. You were able to
help him do that. So here'sthe story about me and my dad with
stress relief. So I remember,like it was yesterday. We were talking

(08:11):
on a Tuesday night, right,I was going in. I also did
a lot of coaching in my neighborhoodwith like youth sports, football, basketball,
things like that. We're going infor a coaches meeting and I was
in the parking lot before the meeting. I called him, supposed to be
testing out this new app that Iwas doing in twenty fourteen. It was

(08:31):
called PTSD free right and that appis still out today. And he wasn't
getting back to me. He waslike ducking me, and I needed it.
I really wanted his feedback to seelike what he liked about the app,
what was not good. And Ifinally got to hold him that Tuesday
night as I'm walking into this meetingand he's like, Bret, I feel
terrible. So so I've gotten backto you. He's like I just can't

(08:52):
use it. I'm like, what'sgoing on. He goes my hands like
I just I'm not an app guy, And I was like, Dad,
that's fun. I was like,why don't we just get to your PTSD
with coaching right? And I said, what am I doing this with any
veterans if the ones that are mostimportant to me are slipping through my fingers?

(09:13):
Right? Would you do a coachingsession with me? And he said,
are you sure you want to popthe liddle off this top? He
always thought his demons were too bigfor him, right, they were much
bigger than him. And I said, yeah, Dad, I'm serious,
I want to do this. Sothat was Tuesday night. He said,
okay, let's do the session onFriday. Long story short. The next

(09:35):
day, at twelve noon, whilehe was shopping for his wacky Wednesday barbecue
with two of his best friends.One was also a New York City firefighter
and an Air Force pilot and theother is an NYPD retired officer and a
Vietnam medic, so they would hangout every Wednesday. They were going shopping

(09:56):
for their barbecue and he has ableeding stroke in the center of his brain
and eleven days later we buried him. He was in a coma for nine
days and then we buried him.So we actually never got to do that
coaching session on that Friday, andthat to me was not only devastating,
because you know, I lost him. And I remember driving to the hospital

(10:22):
on one of the final days thathe was, you know, in the
coma. My mom was taking methere. We were on the Palisades Parkway
and it was in the fall,and the leaves were blowing and it was
almost like we were in a snowglobe. It was like a timeless moment.
Landslide was playing by Stevie Nicks,and she just and I was bawling,
and she said, Brett, theseare very old tears because when they

(10:46):
first got divorced, my father wasnot showing up for the visitations. But
he would call and he would sayhe's on his way, and then he
would never show up. And Iwas left on the stoop, just waiting,
you know, looking at every cargoing by, drying on the stoop,
and when my mother would come out, I would wipe my tears away
really quick and pretend I wasn't crying. So those tears that I was crying

(11:09):
when he passed were like unearthed frommy cellular memory from losing him the first
time. Right the lid, yourlid, that was my lid. Yeah,
And I did a ton of workon the inner child, stuff about
losing him, issues with my mom. But there's some things you're just not
going to get to until life triggersit in you. And that's you know

(11:33):
what happened there. And I wouldsay it was like eight years before he
passed. I asked him, Isaid, you know, Dad, why
would you miss some birthdays? Whydid you call and then not show up?
You know a lot? And hesaid, Brett, I drove by
a thousand times. I couldn't turnthe corner. I couldn't turn the corner
of the block. It was toopainful for him to turn the corner and

(11:58):
drive up and fail. The failureright of the marriage, of him coming
home to that house, of himnot being able to be there for us,
and he didn't have the inner strength, you know, And in that
moment, his demons did get thebest of him, you know, and
keep him for being there for usthe best he could have. Right,

(12:18):
but all things have a purpose,right, And him not being there for
me then is what actually brought meinto the healing work when I was twenty
seven, Right, learning, learningare coping skills? Yeah, well I
didn't really have any coping skills.I was an angry, jealous, rageful

(12:43):
maniac, so it wasn't really coping. So like the sadness from six to
nine, six to ten turned intoanger around fifteen, right, and I
was getting into a lot of altercationsin the street and queens. I had
football, which was a great outletfor my aggression. But with my relationships

(13:03):
with women from age fifteen to twentyseven, after around the eighteen month mark
into the relationship, jealousy would comeout like crazy and it would ruin one
relationship after the next. So whenI was living in California, outside of
the New York environment where trouble wouldjust seem to come to me, California

(13:24):
it was like if I got intotrouble there, it was like I had
to find it right. So theenvironment was a little bit more copasetic for
me to actually grow up into myself. So I got into meditation when I
was twenty seven and quickly realized thatpattern of jealousy and I was in another
relationship and I didn't want my jealousyto ruin it, So I fod can

(13:45):
I ask how you were introduced tomeditation? Oh? Yeah, So one
night an ex girlfriend calls me middleof night, three o'clock in the morning.
She says, Brett, I knowwe haven't spoken a long time.
I'm just calling to tell you becauseI have an important intuitive message for you.
And she never said anything like thatbefore in our relationship. She said

(14:09):
that I'm guided to tell you thatyou need to learn how to meditate.
I was like, okay, that'sinteresting. You know. We talk for
a few more minutes, hung up, and then I just sort of was
weird that she called out of theblues. So I picked up a book
that I was reading. It wasabout technical remote viewing, which is kind

(14:30):
of like astral projection, but there'sa lot of technique involved. So the
chapter that I opened up to,which was the next chapter, it opens
up with saying you need to practicemeditation. I think it was cities meditation
before you can proceed in this book. So I was like, oh man,
this is wild. So she justcalls me out of the blue.
I open up the book and nowI'm like, now I can't go to

(14:52):
sleep. So I turned on theTV and for the first time of my
life, I see this guy Jolo'steam and he's going like this, you
have to learn how to meditate everyone. So it's three things in the middle
of the night. So that thatnight I went on the internet and found
a transcendental meditation retreat that was happeningthat weekend, like ten minutes from my

(15:16):
house, and I went to it. And that's when I learned how to
meditate in nineteen ninety nine. Soit was an ext girlfriend who led you
to that, who started the processanyway, and yeah, you like,
you know, took it up.Yeah. I felt like, you know,

(15:37):
I was a pretty thick headed personand like those three signs right after
one another in the middle of thenight, I was like, it's it's
an no brainer. I have todo this. Yeah, And it changed
my life, my life forever.There was an incredible experience on that Sunday,
on my first solo meditation in myhouse because in the Friday night all

(15:58):
day Saturday, they're guiding you throughthe meditation process, they give you your
mantra, and then Sunday morning,before you show up to the retreat center,
they want you to do one meditationon your own. And that one,
you know, totally changed my lifeforever. That really put me on
the path and solidified it. Whathappened I had like a quadruple out of

(16:21):
body experience, said I sat down. I was looking out a sliding glass
window looking over the pch I wasliving at Promontory Point at the time on
Jamboree, and closed my eyes andimmediately I had the viewpoint of above me
and my loft looking down at mybody. I was like, WHOA,

(16:44):
this is wild. And then therewas light coming from the right of me,
which was in the living room.So my body still seated inside on
the chair looking out the window,eyes closed, I have the person inspective
up top look over see the light, and then I go back into the

(17:04):
body. I move my consciousness andI go into the living room and what
I'm looking at in front of meis my body as a light body about
four and a half feet in theair parallel to the ground, looking up
like that, looking up at theceiling with like if you could imagine like
a thousand hula hoops of multicolored lightspinning in different directions, and it was

(17:26):
like unlocking and configuring. And Ijust remember just looking at this thing like
in amazement and in pure awe.And after a little while standing there with
my conscious looking at that, thenI went back to the chair from that

(17:48):
perspective, so the top perspective lookedover again and then came out of the
meditation, and that just totally changedeverything for me. That I felt was
like and anointing and awakening and likean introduction to my life body that part
of me. Yeah sounds beautiful.I mean, what an experience it was.

(18:11):
It was definitely you were you were. You were being led to change
your life for sure, thousand perone thousand percent. And when the signs
are that strong, I just continueto flock to it like a moth to
the flame, you know. Yeah, and so so and it led you

(18:34):
to do PTSD and stress is Gone. Yeah, and this is your company,
right, Stress is Gone is yourwebsite dot com? Okay, And
then you guys are having a summitin a couple weeks. So we have
a very special woman's retreat in twoweeks from February ninth to the fourteenth.

(18:56):
We're ending on Valentine's Day. Andwhat we do in these retreats, it's
a very special process of reopening theheart so you could actually unconditionally love all
the pain that is inside of yourbody physically, mentally, and emotionally.
And that is the pains that youexperience in the present moment. But more

(19:18):
importantly, we get to the innertrial issues from our family of origin.
So really what we're doing is goingback to those key relationships where we didn't
receive the love that we needed.Right, whether that's with our father or
with our mother, we go backand call in our higher self. So
whatever however the person refers to theirhigher self, their personal higher power,

(19:41):
we use that word. And whatI found is that when the pain,
when their sole pain is on thetable and we call in their higher power,
it actually holds the pain in achalice of unconditional self love until the
pain unlocks and releases from the cellsin your body and you actually feel it
really layers, until there's nothing leftbut open space where all the attention and

(20:03):
pain was. And then we usemeditation, movement, and dance to anchor
enjoy self confidence and inner peace throughoutthe week. So that's kind of like
our agenda at the retreat. Andwhere is the retreat going to be.
It's at the Himalayan Institute in Pennsylvania. It's about an hour and a half

(20:26):
west of New York City. Yeah, sounds fun. So you can find
all the information on your website.Yeah, so if you do, you
have stuff room for people to come. Yeah. So if you go to
Stressesgone dot com, you'll see likea little top batner up top it says
check out our new women's retreat fromFebruary ninth of the fourteenth. It also

(20:49):
has a weekend option, so youcould register for the five days which is
two ninety nine, or just aweekend Friday to Sunday for one for nine
and then you just get your accommodationsthrough the Himalayan Institute. The accommodations are
really affordable. It depends on thekind of room you want. They go
anywhere from like one hundred and fivedollars per night with food included, all

(21:11):
the way up to like I thinktwo seventy five, depending on you know,
the type of room you want.So there is room left because they
have the option of upgrading our retreatroom. Right so, right now we're
in a retreat space. They havemultiple spaces there. It's set on a
four hundred acre beautiful campus in theheart of the Pocono Mountains with like trails

(21:37):
everywhere. There's a waterfall deep intothe woods. We have a bonfire on
this place called the Sound of MusicHill where you're overlooking the mountains under the
stars and the moonlight. Yeah,it's a lot of fun. We get
some really heavy lifting done emotionally withall the emotional healing of like grief of
lost loved ones, overwhelmed from havingspecial needs children, relationships, ending financial

(22:03):
issues, you know, whatever yourstress is coming from. We have a
lot of you know, veterans thatcome, first responders, a lot of
caregivers come, people that are caringfor elderly parents. That's some complex issues
there if we actually had issues withthose parents as children and now they're continuing
to trigger us as we're caring forthem. So it's an amazing group that

(22:26):
comes. We really gel as agroup, even on the first night.
The first night we're closing out withmusic. It's going to be a Stevie
next night where we start out withlike an ambient initial start to the sound
and the movement. Then we goto an acoustic version of her music.
Then it's an original sound, andthen it's like a more of like a

(22:48):
bpm dance version of a few ofher songs, and it really brings out
so much joy, especially after thehealing happens, and it grounds it into
the body. It anchors that joyin so it's safe to be in the
body. One of our retreats afew years ago, there was a young
woman that had so much anxiety andso much pain. She was afraid to

(23:11):
talk, and in the dance sectionafter our first night, she started crying.
So I went over to her,I said, you know, what's
the matter, and she said thatI just never felt joy like this,
and she was actually crying tears ofjoy, and then she it's soaked in
and then she was able to moveand dance. So it is really it's

(23:33):
deep work. I know. It'smy soul's purpose to facilitate the energy,
and it's something that I really lovedoing. Yeah, sounds great, sounds
thank you. And so you youdo men's groups too, and then mixed
groups probably yes, the work aswell. Yeah, so the mixed groups

(23:53):
are really cool because you have amixture of men and women. You also
have a mixture of veterans, veterans, first responders, non first responders,
and no one knows who they arenormally, Like in a veterans group,
everyone starts off with, like,you know, I'm an army veteran.
I'm a marine veteran, you know, Navy, Air Force, and it's
like your identity. We don't getinto any of the identity stuff, any

(24:17):
of the story. We go rightinto the source of our pain. And
then everybody bonds because the people inthe retreat learn more about you in the
first night than most of your familymembers know or even your best friends.
And people just create this amazing bond. And it's the last day that I
usually say, how many veterans dowe have? Show a hands, and

(24:38):
then I hand out, you know, my workbook for the veterans. Everyone
else they get a retreat workbook thathas all the tools in there as well,
and it kind of sinks them intoour online membership because I teach four
times a week. My wife teachestwice a week, so each week we
have these twenty minute sessions happening throughoutthe week, and we have the recordings

(25:00):
inside the membership. So that's reallyhow people kind of like maintain that state
of empowerment and self confidence, innerpeace, and joy, because if they
don't maintain it, stress is suchthat the seas of anxiety just sucked you

(25:21):
out into the ocean. The waylife is a friend of mine put it
that life is like an escalator andyou're trying to walk up it, but
the escalator's coming down, and ifyou stand still, life just kind of
drags you down. So it's almostlike you got to put work into it.
So the membership is just twenty minutesa day. You go in,
you pick a meditation you want ora movement session you want, and it

(25:42):
really just you know, opens upthat sense of inner peace, the clarity
and the joy. Oh yeah,no, well I'm you know, I've
been a hypnotherapist for thirty five yearsnow, so I know exactly. I
mean, just to find that,you know, what is the magic key
to just release some of that guilt, shame, upsets. You know,

(26:07):
it's such as it sounds like yourdrink. Great work, it's really fun,
Thank you, it's my personality goestwo hundred miles away, and I
just really lock in to the moment, the collective higher power that is created
by everyone in the group showing up. And I'm a clarity in mpaths.

(26:27):
So the easiest way I describe actuallywhat I'm doing is it's like a triangle.
So we have the collective higher powerup top in the center. I
see it as like a ball light. That's one point in the triangle.
Then the back of my head,I hear the messages coming in here,
and then the person that I'm workingwith in the group is the other point
in the triangle. So I canactually see and feel the issue inside their

(26:49):
body that they're talking through. Andthen right when we get to the source
of the issue, their core coretrauma from their childhood, and we usually
get there in about three to fiveminutes through an intuitive line of questioning that
I've been in honing for twenty fiveyears. That's when I start to listen
to the messaging coming in that Ihear I say the words, and then

(27:11):
the individual repeats those words, andthen the tension releases from their body.
The cool thing is anyone that hassimilar trauma in the group, all of
their pain starts coming up, andthen everyone in the group starts doing those
affirmations together. And that's also howwe ground and gel in the group.
Energy. So I call it likehigher self affirmations or higher self mantras is

(27:37):
what's coming through, and you're literallycommanding the light through the area in your
body that's housing the tension. Andthen you're embracing it with that part of
you that's one with everything. Yeah, do you find that that there's a
mindset when working with veterans and allwhere there can be this warrior mindset where

(28:02):
one is uh, you know,their relationship with vulnerability because it's like I'm
a warrior demit, you know,so I'm supposed to like, you know,
not not feel pain. Where withyour techniques, do you feel like
you're able to bypass that identity sothat you can get to the core of

(28:25):
what is you know, at atyou know, they're the source of their
upset and and to allow for themto release it and not to to hold
on to it. Yeah, Soall we're doing is breaking that thick,
hardened layer of like cake, youknow that the ego is and the questions

(28:47):
really picked the lock to the backof the psyche. And you know,
I'll tell you that a lot ofthe veterans inside of our groups, they're
talking through the inner child stuff,the family of origin stuff, and it's
bypassing a lot of the combat trauma. Sometimes combat trauma comes up, but
mostly it's you know, deeper stufffrom childhood because that stuff kind of manifests

(29:11):
everything else. We've been through,and once we get to the core issues,
everything else that came after that kindof falls like Domino's. Once we
get to that initial, initial card, it's like a house of cards and
you pulled that one in the middle, and then it all just kind of
drops. And I remember my firstretreat that in nineteen ninety nine with my

(29:36):
first teacher. I was holding everythingin because you know, I'm a guy
born and raised in New York andQueens, was a football player, was
not into or didn't even understand howto communicate my emotions or be vulnerable or
why would I ever even want tobe vulnerable. All you ever wanted to
be was tough. So I heldeverything in and it was like creating this

(29:57):
immense pressure sides. So then onthe third day, on the Wednesday,
I laid down in the middle ofthe floor, opened my arms up and
just allowed the energy to work withme. And it felt like if you
ever remember those like cartoons where theGrandfather clock burst open and all the gears
and the springs pop out, That'swhat I felt for my stomach, my

(30:18):
soli plexus in my heart. Andthen I sat back in my seat and
then something even crazier happened. Itfelt like if it was like a big
warm gallon of cheese whiz pouring throughmy brain right and melting down everything in
my brain. And I asked thefacilitator what's happening, and he said,

(30:38):
don't worry, You're just going throughit just to melt down. You're melting
down all the old structures in yourbrain that you no longer need. And
it was like all the old neuronetsand all the defense mechanisms from everything,
I just let go in the middleof the circle. All that stuff was
just melting down. So what we'redoing is going below the defense mechanisms,

(31:03):
right. And there's times where weexpress the warrior energy. There's times where
we're getting up, stomping to music, hollering, sometimes even cursing. We're
exhuming this stuff from ourselves and fromour psyche and from our body, and
I never know what's going to comeup until it's we're in the moment in

(31:23):
the retreat, and yes, sowe use those moments to express it all
so that it's no longer trapped inthe back of the psyche or in the
body. And then once we dothat, we are calling in our own
divine essence, our own sweetness,and that's what we're breathing and receiving and
what starts to take root and westart to build that new structure in a

(31:47):
new way of being. Yeah,I love it. Yeah, it's reformation.
Yes, absolutely, absolutely love it. Yeah, because we have to
leave behind everything that's you know,hurt our feelings. And that's why I
think, like what you were saying, Jason about the combat over really in

(32:08):
childhood, your feelings are hurt.Whereas combat, you're trained to do something
and you just do it. Youknow, you're in chaos, it says,
chaos. You know, you don'thave time for failings, no time
for feelings in that. And Daddid that a lot, no time for
failings. And he was the youngestof seven. No, so there was

(32:29):
four in his family, and myaunt Pat was the youngest. He was
the second youngest. Yeah, andyou know with veterans, they're trained,
you know, through boot camp youcan't feel, because if you're in the
battlefield, you can't feel, youcan't. It's not a time to start
expressing your emotions, right, Theytrain you just to react immediately and move

(32:52):
through it. The problem is they'renever trained to now stop living that way.
Right. It's almost like taking aFerrari that runs on nitrus and it's
meant to go like on a twomile track and saying, Okay, now
you're going to drive a cross countryin that same Ferrari and you're gonna gun

(33:12):
it. You're going to put thepedal to the metal. So how far
would you get from New York ifyou're going to California like that? The
engine's going to blow, right,That's what's happening. So the way we
approach feelings and memories, we're notleaving anything behind. We bring it into
the fold and love the living,but Jesus out of it. We call

(33:35):
in so much unconditional love so thatthe tension and the pain and the memory
literally unlocks and releases from the memory, from the trauma in the back of
your mind, and from the tensioninside your body, until love is all
there is. That's the main goalof the work, to embrace all the
parts of us that we felt wasunlovable, to accept the unacceptable, forgive

(34:00):
the unforgivable, and ultimately just lovethe unlovable. Because we all have moments
of feelings like that when we wereyounger, where we felt isolated, neglected,
all alone and just in a worldof pain, you know, So
we go into that world, wedive into it and we turn it inside
out. Why people carry a lotof pain in their bodies, even they

(34:23):
like you know, hypnosis meditation canreally help lift that off because we're holding
just holding on to our woundings.It's crazy. The physical transformations are amazing.
There was a guy in our lastretreat, awesome guy. It was
a weekend retreat, had a canewith him the whole entire weekend and the

(34:46):
final dance on Sunday morning, rightbefore lunch and then we'll go home.
The final dance session, I decidedto make a playlist that was like really
you know, high energy, joyous, lot of fun. And this guy,
the only way I could describe thedancing was it was like uprocking.

(35:06):
If you're familiar with like breakdancing,up rocking is like when you're standing up,
there's floor moves, power moves,top rocking, up rocking, whatever
you want to call it. Sohe was actually doing top rocking or up
rocking from like the eighties with nocane, this huge smile on his face,
and I looked at him like,do you see yourself? Do you

(35:28):
see what you're doing? And hewas like, I might regret it tomorrow,
but right now I feel amazing.And I just almost started crying tears
of joy when I saw that,because literally the entire retreat was with a
cane and a big limb. Andthis is what happens, I feel when
we embrace the pain, we callin the unconditional love that we're made of,

(35:52):
like our own divine essence, andthen we throw in the layers of
joy on top of that. Withthe movement and the music. It's almost
like if you're trying to water yourgarden and the hoses crimped and the water
is just stripping out, and thenyou uncrimp it and now you can slowly,
enjoyably spray the entire garden with yourthumb on the top of the hose

(36:15):
and then like a little rainbow appearsin the midst It is such a beautiful,
beautiful experience when people reconnect with it, because you see the light in
their eyes, the smiles, thefaces change, and there's physical transformations all
the time because we're just energy,you know, love it, that's true.

(36:37):
We are energy. Yeah, Andone of the things I just want
to share is a lot of timeswill people ask me because a lot of
times we're working with mantras and affirmationsand they're like, you know, what's
your core mantra that you live by? And my whole life since getting into
this is like just letting go ofidentity. Letting go of identity. The

(36:58):
one thing that I hold onto isall I am his life force energy and
also I am eternal. Those twothings, those are the things that I
build my like center column of myidentity with all I am is life force
energy and I am eternal. Soit kind of puts me into relationship with

(37:19):
the mind and the body right right, love It is that what it says
on your business card. So funnyit was supposed to so many years ago.
Yeah, did you bring up areally cool story? So many years
ago, I wanted to kill myself. I actually wanted to die my son.
I was losing him in a familycourt battle with my son's mother and

(37:44):
he was about three at the time. And my next relationship, which I
was in for about a year,maybe year and a half, we were
breaking up in the same week.So I was like, I lost him.
I lost her, and after beinglike in a week of depression,
I was in the shower and likeI want to die, and then I
heard this voice, this huge,loud voice from like sixty feet above and

(38:05):
behind me said you are eternal.And all of my stress literally went down
my body and down the drain,and I was like, what the hell
was that? So that's actually whatI wanted to put on the card,
which was a three step stress reliefexercise which is now called stressed upper breathwork.
So anytime you get stressed, youtouch the tension, you breathe deep
and slow, and once per breathyou silently say I'm okay. But the

(38:28):
original mantra was I am eternal.But I figured that would be a hard
spoon of medicine to serve in,like Corporate America, because I was doing
corporate classes at that time and stufflike that. So I wanted to make
it like, you know, cheeseburgersand apple pie. You know, I'm
okay, is easier to digest,and it works, it's good, So
it's good. Yeah. Yeah,But I love internal yes, And so

(38:53):
with meditating and stuff like that,the easiest way that I found that I
share meditating is just you know,closing your eyes, laying down on your
back, placing one hand on yourheart, one hand in a belly button,
and once per breath, silently sayingI'm okay. That disengages your body's
fighter flight reaction, Your emotions calm, your mind becomes clear, and then

(39:15):
if you go to the I'm eternalaffirmation once per breath. Now, the
meditation takes a whole new birth takesa whole new put you in a whole
different frame. And I encourage peopleto play with that. Try that.
Yeah, so did you did youhave a sixty foot high shower? No?

(39:36):
No, it was an enclosed standup shower and a really cool apartment.
It actually had a steam shower thatwas the only one I ever had
in my entire life. Was supercool, like little shower, but it
was enclosed in glass, and Iheard it like a megaphone. It was
like something that was undeniable and itwas super loud. Yeah, I felt
like it was almost like something thatwas in my DNA, Like if I

(40:00):
ever seriously had that thought, thiswas the pre program reaction that was just
gonna go boom just to like snapme out of it, you know,
but to come to you at thatmoment though, Yeah, that's what I
mean. Yeah, I felt likeit was like a pre programmed thing that
was in like locked inside my soulcode or somewhere that was like, if

(40:20):
I get there in this lifetime,that's what's going to happen, That's what
I'm going to hear. Because itwas like immediate right after the thought.
It was almost like in music ifyou're side chaining something, if you're producing
music, and it's like you're connectingthis new sound to another sound and it
happens every time you hear that sound. That's kind of like what it felt
like because it was just like rightthere and I never heard anything that loud
or that prominent like that since then. Yeah, isn't it interesting? I

(40:46):
mean, just what comes comes throughfor us? You know the magic?
I mean, because you've had somereally great epiphanies, you know, great
spirit guides. You have great spiritguide so it's you know, you're you
need to work on the planet.They're not going to let you out of
it. The I'm surrendering to it. The spirit guides are an amazing topic.

(41:12):
I just want to share a quickstory with that. So in one
of their treats last year, therewas a woman that could see, you
know, and she was an intuitivehealer, but she never saw beings.
She said she saw three light beingsaround me the entire weekend. There was
one tall one behind me too,off to the side, about half to

(41:37):
three quarters the size of the onebehind me. At one point one of
the side ones came out and wasin front of me on one knee with
a hand open like that. Andthen at another time the tall one put
one hand up all the way up, spread its legs and turned into a
triangle of light. So she wasseeing things the whole weekend. And she's

(42:00):
actually a testimonial on the website,so I think you could see what she
wrote on the retreats page if youscroll down that There was another woman that
a few years back. She wasat one of our Omegga retreats, and
she was also an intuitive healer,and she's like, you know, you

(42:21):
have a lot of help here,right, And I was like, yeah,
So there's always been like someone thatcan sense energy and see energy that
you know, I've always known thereis a ton of help because at certain
times this is also something cool thatone of them said, I got when
I get silent. There's certain timeswe're doing the mantras and I'll get silent

(42:44):
for like fifteen to twenty five secondsbecause I'm feeling something shift energetically. But
she actually saw the beings shift theirformation in the room, and I didn't
know that was happening. I justfelt energetically like I to sit for a
moment and wait till I get thenext the next message. So I just

(43:06):
waiting, you know. And ifyou're not okay with being in a moment
and just waiting and just sitting therein front of a group of people without
saying anything, the blabbing kind ofcuts the energy flow. So I just
have to like sink into it andsurrender to it. So really, I'm
just a conduit in these retreats,and I don't know what's going to happen

(43:30):
next. You know. I tryto plan, but the plan never happens.
I just surrender once we get intothe room, I just surrender to
what is going to be. Yeah, yeah, you have kind of set
plan, but it goes all overthe place. Yes, yeah, I
love that. Actually, yeah,it's like a backup plan, you know.
Have it in an index card inmy pocket. But it is surrendering

(43:53):
to the moment, to the present, because that's where we connect with with
the that the cosmos anyway, isin the present. That's where the source
comes through for me in the work, you know, just being in the
moment and then really asking the personthe question desire of what they want to

(44:15):
let go of. That's where likethe magic happens once we get to what
their soul has just been screaming tolet go of, you know, what
they really really want to let goof or what they want, you know,
after the group has gone through theletting go phase, which takes like
the first fifty to sixty five percentof the retreat, then we start getting

(44:36):
into what do we want? Andthat's like the icing on the cake when
we can start to embody what wereally want and thank spirit as we got
it yesterday. So now the universereally needs to play catch up with our
brain and the way we're interacting withthe universe. We often talk about flipping
the energetics of it, flipping themagnetics of how we're attracting what we are

(45:00):
tracking. Yeah, so it's wetry to play with some of that,
you know, that part of theenergy too. Well, it's about being
vulnerable, you know. And sosometimes being in that vulnerable state, you
know, you attract you're still tryingto be open, you know, and
and and have experiences risk, youknow, and people don't make good choices

(45:24):
even if they you know, theythey don't have maybe sometimes a consequences type
of insight within them. You know, they they they decide to go ahead
and take these choices, and youknow, all the red flags are there,
but they go. They want toThey just want it at the time.

(45:46):
You know, whatever it is thaton there there is making them feel
good on you know, that outerlevel. It's not even just even the
inner level. It's the outer levels. And the vulnerability is the key.
You know. I'm so glad youbrought that up. The vulnerability is the
key. And you know, likeI said, coming from a guy from

(46:07):
Queen's that you know, my fatherwas out of the house when I was
six that I remember pushing the duelover to the bathroom sink to practice making
a frown because I wanted to looktough in the street because at that point
I was the oldest male in thehouse, which is like a joke.
I was six, my brother wasfour, mom was raising us, but
out there it was my role toprotect him and to also protect myself.

(46:29):
So to be tough. That waslike my identity, you know, growing
up. And there was times afterI was fifteen that I decided if anyone
was in like a three foot radius, and they looked like that had a
big problem with me. I washitting first. That's how scared I was,
right, And there was really goodreasons for that, getting it,

(46:51):
getting beat up when I was reallyyoung, and you know, things like
that to defend myself. But myfirst teacher said something to me that I
never forgot. He said, Brett, your true strength is in your vulnerability,
and that was like, you knowwhat I mean? Like I never,
well, there could ever be strengthin vulnerability, but from experiencing this

(47:15):
work, the vulnerability comes from thefeeling and being empathic and really opening up
to the feeling. And then it'slike when you're starting to really feel the
love and the center of your being, then you know you are it.
You know. It's like when wewere born and we were like looking at
our parents are like, oh,they're the source of the love, but
no, it's it's within us.We are the love machine, you know.

(47:37):
And we're always creating reality. Thisis something that I've been working with
the last couple of years, LikeI feel like human beings are creating more
and more stress in the world becausewell, number one, we're over triggered,
we're over anxious. We were nevertaught how to let go of stress.
We have a carpet of our ancestralkarma that lays over our soul when

(47:59):
we're born into these bios, Sowe have a lot going against us.
But I feel really the key tobreaking through it is expression, right and
then connecting with or higher power tocommand it to shine light through the tension
and the pain. And when youdo that, you actually feel it come

(48:19):
into your body again, when youmerge that core pain with the light through
the power of the spoken word.You could actually just say, great Spirit,
Holy Spirit, Source, whatever youwant to say, Universe, shine
light through all the sadness in myheart. Unlock it and release it from
the inside out right now. Andwhen you say that and you start breathing
into it, embracing the emotion withyour breath and your touch, you feel

(48:43):
these layers start to come off andpeel back like an onion. So that's
really what I like doing in theretreats as well, is teaching people how
to talk to spirit, how toconnect the spirit, and how to work
with it, because that's really howI got my start in this, because
after my first retreat, I camehome and started doing the work naturally in
nineteen ninety nine with myself and alsowith my girlfriend at the time, and

(49:05):
I was like, I can't believethis works, you know, like it's
all right there, you know,because our bodies respond to the words we're
saying. It supports us without anyament. That's why it's important to be,
you know, speak positively. Iknow people you know will say, oh,
that's just hogwash, you know,and it's like, no, no,

(49:30):
no, it's not, you know, programming our brain every second like
Bruce Lee. Yep, Bruce leaveinstead, he goes, don't even joke
around about saying anything bad about yourselfbecause your subconscious doesn't know the difference.
Your body does not know the difference. So I think there's some saying somewhere
in the Bible. I stink withthe Bible. I don't not really like

(49:52):
learning, but I have sworn somewherein there it says, you know,
as a person thinketh in their heart, so they something like that, and
for me, like the stuff inthe heart. It's like those core beliefs
that stem from our traumas, fromour childhood, those core beliefs about who
we believe we are in the world. If we could just let some of

(50:12):
those go and embody what we trulyare, then we could start to manifest
automatically what we really want. Andthat's what I'm really focused on working with
now in my life. We createda technique called the Belief Embodyment technique.
We did an online workshop on itabout nine months ago. It was amazing,

(50:34):
but it actually unearths all the corebeliefs that are fighting against what your
soul wants to do this lifetime onthis planet. It's almost like the wrapping
covering up your soul's gift. Sowe find out what you want to do,
what you feel your gift is,what you would love to do in
this planet, and then we releaseall the core beliefs and fears that are

(50:57):
impeding that, and then we bodythe core beliefs that are automatically going to
manifest it for you. And it'samazing. Once you link up the heart,
the subconscious mind and the universe justkind of clicks in. It kind
of creates this manifesting machine because wealready are manifesting machines. Just typically we're
unconsciously manifesting ninety percent of all thestress that we see in our lives.

(51:22):
So this kind of like reverses thatand flips the energetics of that. Yeah,
like it love it our powerful process, right yeah. Yeah, and
the beauty of it when you're inthe moment with the energy of it,
it's almost just like art because yousee colors, you feel things. It's
almost just like creating art in thehuman experience on a beautiful, beautiful canvas.

(51:45):
You know, that is each oneof our lives. So it's almost
like you become the artist. Youbecome the lead actor, the lead actress,
the director, the writer, thecasting director, because we already are
all those things. It's just doingit consciously now, Okay, So I
want everybody to be able to findyou. So it's Brettcotter dot com right,

(52:10):
Stress is Gone dot Com is thebest place to get me. Yeah.
So we have the membership there,we have private coaching, we have
are awesome retreats there. We havea masterclass there with twenty two videos that
teach you how to stop your ownstress, how to release anxiety in minutes,
and how to process and release thepain that is inside your original traumatic

(52:32):
memories. So it's videos that guideyou through that. And a marine good
buddy of mine now that has beento many many of our retreats. He
was doing the master class and inthe Trauma Recovery module he wrote a really
cool comment. He said, youknow, I thought I was doing this
masterclass and you know, learning somethings and taking some quizzes, and then

(52:57):
all of a sudden, I realizeI'm actually healing myself because you're actually doing
a session inside the master class,so you're actually touching and you're getting to
taste your own mastery in the masterclass. So it's a really cool experience,
especially for people that have a lotof stress and anxiety. It's kind
of a way to break free.Love it, Love it. So you're

(53:19):
going to do a seminar a retreatfrom the ninth. Did you say to
the fourteenth or thirty? Yes?Yeah, So the ninth is a Friday,
February ninth at the Himalayan Institute.That's when we're starting. We have
our Stevie Nick's music Night. We'regoing to be doing a lott of healing
and end up with a really greatmusic sets can be a lot of it's

(53:40):
going to be a magical way tokick off the retreat. There's an option
for you to attend the retreat justfor the weekend if you can't stay the
entire five days, which brings usright up to Valentine's Day on Wednesday.
And my goal is that everyone leavesthe retreat that stays for the entire week
with a complempletely renewed falling in lovewith themselves. So no matter who they

(54:05):
go home to on Valentine's Day atdinner, no matter who's there, no
matter what those people do, orif there's no one there, you are
in love with you. And thatis the purpose of bringing that retreat right
up to Valentine's Day. Beautiful.Thanks. Yeah, and you can find
Jason. Jason is at Jason dMcKean dot com. Right and I'm at

(54:29):
Tara Insight dot com. And yeah, thank you for being on the show
today, Brett. Thank you,Brett. I learned a lot. It's
wonderful. Thank you so much forhaving me on the questions were awesome and
the connection between the three of uswas great. I'm really grateful for you
know, you both having me on. Thank you, so bye everybody.

(54:50):
Thank you for listening.