"Being isn't selfing — selfing is something we do to get something right. But if we approach life as though something is wrong, we become obsessed with what is right." (Quote from Dr. Michael Smith around 70 minutes in)

There's no way I can summarize this conversation!! You just have to lie down, press play, and soak in Dr. Michael Smith's incredible inspiration.

I know Michael from the podcast Primordial Dao, Present Dao, but he is also an internationally respected clinician, author, speaker, and professor. As a doctor, he combines Functional Medicine, Evolutionary Nutrition, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Meditation, Breathwork, and Qi Gong to support individuals with autoimmune conditions, complex trauma, and addiction. I copied this intro from his website, which you can find below.

What I can summarize is that we speak about something like this:

• Assessing clients

• Intimacy and wisdom

• The difference between knowledge and wisdom

• Not practical but practicable

• A bit of Aries combat and survivalism

• Boundaries and how to care for your energy and woundedness

• Trauma bonding

• The authors of the DSM

• The DSM in the context of an industrial process

• Mercury in Pisces, because interviewing Michael feels out of this world

• The need for four hours of silence — the hippocampus can grow back

• If you keep waking up in the middle of the night, it might mean you need more silence

• Anchoring your spirit

• Exploring PTSD from a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective (Qing Zhi Bing — Traumatic and Emotionally Disorienting Wounds)

• Recognizing capacities and limits

• The skill set needed for helping people

• Emotionally disorienting wounds

• Your state of being — the person's vibe

• Your story and your "why"

• What we are certain we need to do

• The scars we have as the tapestry of our soul

• Imitating the client to better feel what life is like for them

• Ancient languages with verbs — sharing in relation, in experience

• What the client thinks of the world

• Metaphors to understand a quality

• How we all orient toward meaning

• Adaptive capacity

• Why TCM doesn't really diagnose people

• Caring for clients' symptomatic well-being while also helping them heal themselves

• The Six F's — we explore fawning

• The universe finding the center

• Different PTSD expressions

• Treating the sense of self

• How maturing spiritually changes how you relate to your symptoms

• A wound in the stomach (gastric ulcer) and how to relate to that "stress place" metaphorically

• Neuroception

• The importance of bonding with others rather than shaming experiences

• When soothing your pain makes you feel isolated and deep in existential pain

• When life becomes a matter of just getting through the pain

• The distress caused by diagnostic labels

• Training the mind and heart

• The self as a date at the prom

• Behind spirit is soul — but what is it like? Reorienting ourselves from literal phenomena to mindful awareness

• A rite of passage to let your self go

• Coming to truth rather than bouncing between extremes

• How healing begins with grieving and ends with gratitude

I really hope you enjoy this as much as I do.

— Mannah

LINKS to find more on Dr. Michael Smith:

https://somadaoqigong.com/

Embodied Psychotherapy, Spiritual Recapitulation, and Traditional Chinese Medicine course:

https://somadaoqigong.com/embodied-psychotherapy-spiritual-recapitulation-and-traditional-chinese-medicine/

Connect with Michael online:

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/michaelsmithDr.TCM

[email protected]

Books (Kindle)

Qi Gong Book – Beginning Your Qi Gong Healing Journey

Returning to an Ancestral Diet

The podcast I know Dr. Michael Smith from - recommend it:

https://primordialdaopresentdao.podbean.com/

Mannahs website:

https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/