Episode 176: Exploring Brain Rewiring to Manage Anxiety, Overwhelm & Exhaustion with Carly Lockman
Have you ever experienced a healing journey where a lot of the practices would be deemed metaphysical (eg, deep meditation, energy work, yoga, etc) but you didn’t know exactly why they worked?
Returning guest Carly Lockman has and in this episode, she’s back sharing her own “real people stories” on her experience with Brain Rewiring.
After birthing her third child in the middle of a pandemic, Carly found herself struggling with anxiety, overwhelm, and exhaustion that was taking her to dark places, triggering past trauma.
Out of sheer desperation, she turned to Brain Rewiring for help.
You’ll hear Carly share:
What is brain rewiring?
The psychological science behind brain rewiring
Her before, during, and after experience with brain rewiring
Listen to the Episode:
Mentioned in the Episode:
Episode 080: Getting Started with Herbs for Wellness, with Carly Lockman
Dynamic Neural Retraining System – Instructional Online Course
Connect with Carly Lockman:
Share the Episode:
“My world has gotten a lot bigger. It got really small there for a while and it’s expanded so much. I’ve been using physical interventions as well, but they didn’t really start to take off until I was able to get my limbic system calm enough until I was able to get in that parasympathetic state for a long enough time.
I mean I’m human. Every day isn’t all roses, but I definitely feel empowered in a way that I’ve never felt before. In my first healing journey, I was actually using a lot of brand rewiring tactics but didn’t know it. So I didn’t feel like I had this clear strategic plan that I could use. Now, having a roadmap and knowing that it’s always there for me if I have a bit of an off day is incredibly empowering.”
Read the Transcript:
Naomi Nakamura: Hello, my friends. And welcome back to the Live FAB Life Podcast. I'm your host Naomi Nakamura. And joining me today is my friend and returning guest Carly Lockman.
Carly is a fellow Integrative nNtrition Health Coach, as well as an Herbalist. She first joined me, gosh, I actually looked this up. She first joined me for an episode over two years ago. It doesn't even seem like it was that long ago, but she joined me back in Episode 080 on Getting Started with Herbs for Wellness.
Earlier this year, I did a Human Design reading with Carly and during our session, she shared with me how she had been practicing and studying brain rewiring. I was so intrigued by everything that she shared with me, that I invited her to come back to the show and to share her personal story, her real people story on her experience with it.
So you are going to hear Carly share what exactly is brain rewiring, and why she needed it, and why she sought it out. She's going to share the science behind it and really gives us a tactical view of how she learned to practice it, and what that daily practice looks like. And she gets really vulnerable and opens up and shares what difficulties it helped her with, and what life actually looks like now. Like I said, I found the whole topic to be fascinating, and I'm actually starting to learn it myself. So I want to thank Carly for coming back, and for opening up, and sharing some really personal information with us. So with that, let's get to the show.
Hello, my friend. Welcome back to the show.
Carly Lockman: Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here again.
Naomi Nakamura: I was this morning doing a little bit of prep for our chat today and I was like, "When was Carly last on the show?" It was over two years ago.
Carly Lockman: I know. I was thinking that as well. Totally different world we live in now.
Naomi Nakamura: I know. I was like, "This is probably a year ago." And then I realized, I'm like, "Oh wait, the whole last year happened. We probably shouldn't even count." But you were last on way back in episode 80. And you talked about just an introduction to herbs, because that's a specialty of yours as a health coach. We're here today to talk about something totally new and different. Before we get into that, for those who maybe haven't listened to episode 80 yet, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Carly Lockman: Yeah. So I am an integrative nutritionist and herbalist serving women. I primarily work with mothers. I am also a mom of three kids myself. I have an eight year old daughter, a four year old son, and a 10 month old son. And I live in San Diego, but I am formerly from Chicago.
Naomi Nakamura: So I was going to ask you what have you been up to since you were last on the show. But clearly, you now have a 10 month old son.
Carly Lockman: Yeah. So I had a baby in 2020. That was a very unique experience. I can't say that I recommend it. We had already been in three months of quarantine when he was born. So it definitely posed some unique challenges, which I think I'll get into as we talk further.
But most recently, I have just been trying to get into the groove of being a mom of three. We're getting out a lot more now, which is really wonderful for everybody's sanity. Cut back a lot on my working hours. Like so many people in 2020, I feel like I was just hit with this jolt of insight. And I realized that the way I was working was not sustainable. And it was not in line with my values.
Of course, there was going to be a natural pause anyway with having a baby. I've really at this juncture taken a big setback from work. As cliche as it is, I was also really struck by how fleeting this time is with my kids being small. And I think I'd fallen into that familiar trap that so many women fall into, working mothers, where I was not feeling present at work. And I wasn't feeling present at home. And I was kind of feeling like I was failing in either place. The best move for me this point has been to just step back a lot. And fortunately, I've had the luxury to be able to do that without a tremendous amount of strain.
So that's what I'm doing. I'm just kind of taking some time to enjoy my family and work on my own health and healing. And I hope that when I get back in the swing of things with work, it'll be with very different perspective. And I will hopefully be able to achieve, I mean I feel like balance is ... I almost hate to use the word balance. It's so overused and it seems unattainable. But I hope to be able to achieve just a better sense of prioritization I guess that's more in line with my own values.
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah. And I think balance is relative, right? So it's going to mean different things to different people. So whatever that means to you. That's my perspective.
So earlier this year, I can't believe we're already in May. We're recording this in May, by the way [crosstalk 00:05:42]. But earlier this year, we dove a little bit into your human design chart. And through that conversation, you shared with me how you've been spending the past several months studying about, I don't know if it's new, so I'm going to say new to you I guess approach called brain rewiring. So that's what we're talking about today. I'd love to hear, what is it?
Carly Lockman: Okay. So yeah, I just hit, I'm almost at my I think eight month anniversary of brain rewiring. So that's really exciting. It feels really momentous that I've committed to this kind of a practice for so long. Essentially, it harnesses the power of neuroplasticity, which is the idea that from birth to death, the brain is totally changeable. And it harnesses this neuroplasticity in order to help us create the lives that we want.
The brain works in a use it or lose it fashion. Meaning what you focus on, what you spend the most time on, the brain then creates these complex neural networks around to reinforce because it's such a smart computer and it's such a servant for us that it says, "Hey. You're paying attention to this thing. So I therefore need to devote a lot of energy to this particular thing and making sure you can do this really well."
And it's kind of funny because I feel like in the new age community, you hear a lot of what you focus on expands. And people will throw shade at that. But there is actually neuroscience to back that up because the brain is designed to create neural networks around what you focus on.
You can imagine how that kind of neuroplasticity could either work in your favor or not. Right? Most people because they're operating in a relatively unconscious way. I mean most people, especially coming out of 2020, are operating from this primal sense of survival. Right. They're not very conscious of the things that they're focusing on. And the brain inherently has a negativity bias, and it has that to keep us safe, right? From that primal tiger that could come out at any minute and take our baby. Most people have created a system of neural networks that really aren't serving them and aren't helping them to create the life that they want.
So what brain rewiring does is it gives you this strategic roadmap to follow so that you can prune off those neural networks that aren't serving you and build new neural networks that are serving you and are helping you to create the life that you want.
Naomi Nakamura: I really like that. Because I feel like especially in the wellness world that we both are active in, there's this whole idea of woo-woo stuff out there. But to me, it's the mind body connection is an actual real thing that's backed by science. If you really study the brain, and the anatomy, and the body. So it's not this abstract thing, although in many ways, people talk about it that way. So this really brings it together.
Carly Lockman: Absolutely yeah. I've had referring to now is two healing journeys. And my first healing journey, physical healing journey, which is also a mental, emotional healing journey because I see them as very intertwined.
Naomi Nakamura: They are. They always are.
Carly Lockman: Yes, yes. But just to be clear, I have had physical manifestations in my body. So in my first healing journey, I was using a lot of practices that would really be deemed more metaphysical. Like deep meditation, 'energy work,' lots of yoga. Those things were instrumental in creating this internal shift that then seemed to allow the physical interventions to start working. When before, they hadn't been working. So I really started to see how healing happened from within.
But I didn't have any kind of science to explain what was happening. I mean, I shared my story a little bit. But just from the perspective of wanting to be looked at as a credible practitioner, I didn't do a ton of proselytizing my methods because I didn't know exactly why they worked. And it was seemingly metaphysical in nature. But going through the process of brain rewiring, and understanding how the brain functions, and how complex that function is, and how interconnected it is with how the body functions, I now understand why so many of these metaphysical practices work. I mean, science is just catching up to what people have been doing for millennia. I mean, we've had meditation and energy work in its various forums and prayer practices for thousands and thousands of years. Right? And we're just now understanding that actually creates changes in the brain.
Naomi Nakamura: So what led you to study this and to pursue it?
Carly Lockman: Sheer desperation, right? We have to have our back up against a wall to make a major change. I'm hoping that will not happen to me again in this lifetime. I feel that I've learned that lesson knock on wood.
Naomi Nakamura: It sounds like you're more equipped with tools to manage situations.
Carly Lockman: Yes, absolutely. But that has been a theme in my life of just needing real harsh redirections. And I'm working to consciously change that now. But basically after my son was born in June, leading up to his birth, I was already getting a little bit nervous. Because as I had mentioned, we had already been in quarantine for three months. Part of my specialty as a practitioner is working with women on a postpartum plan because postpartum is when so ... if women are going to have, if they have a predisposition to a physical or mental malady or both, it's probably going to show up postpartum because you're so incredibly depleted. The body is just very vulnerable.
Taking my own advice, I had this really wonderful postpartum plan. But of course, this postpartum plan was reliant on other people. Because you need your village, you need lots of support when you bring a child into the world, ideally for the best outcome anyway.
So I was already getting concerned when it was clear that we were still going to be in quarantine when he was bor., because I realized that parts of my postpartum plan were just not going to work. I was just not going to get those things. I wasn't going to have that level of support that I know is so key. I think we were all under such tremendous stress.
Naomi Nakamura: And back then, it was like there was still so much unknown between March and June. There was still so much unknown. Things were still trying to be figured out. So yeah, I can see.
Carly Lockman: Yeah. And then the process of having a baby is a lot of unknown too. And you have to do a lot of surrender to the unknown. And I think for me, it was just really this compounded situation of feeling so much external stress, and unknown, and uncertainty, along with the stress and uncertainty of bringing another life into the world. I started experiencing some health issues that were akin to things that I experienced years ago a few weeks prior to the birth. And that really threw me off my game because I was thinking here I am supposed to have this baby in a couple of weeks, and I am in no shape to have a baby with what was going on in my body.
And I got better before he was born, but not to where I wanted to be. I was still not in ideal shape to be having a baby. I was having a home birth, which I had had a very successful home birth with my middle son, a really beautiful home birth. So I knew how to do it. And I knew that my body could do it. I was grateful that unlike many women, I didn't have to worry about going into a hospital and not having anybody with me, and all of the difficulties that women were encountering in the hospital system. So that was of some relief. But I definitely think that I underestimated the amount of stress I was holding in my body and fear really.
I was able to have the home birth. The active labor was quite short, but the early labor was very long and it was actually very hard. Which was unusual. Usually early labor isn't difficult, but for me it almost felt like active labor. And I was just so exhausted. I felt like I didn't have the energy that the birth was requiring. And I felt like my head was not in the game at all. And then I kind of got in this what I now know through brain rewiring is a limbic system loop where my brain was actually looping over the concern that my body wasn't up to the task. I believe that limbic loop influences physiology. So my birth just kind of got harder the more I looped about it being hard, right?
By the time he was born, I just felt so utterly exhausted. And typically, the midwives will come back the first several days to spend time with you and make sure everything's going okay. But of course, it was 2020 and they're having to take COVID precautions. And he was born and it was like, "Okay, well we'll see you over Zoom in three days." I'm a third time mom, so I'm relatively confident. But it was unsettling to have just had a baby and just be totally left, and know that my only contact was going to be over Zoom with my medical practitioners.
The first several days were of course a blur. And it turned out that he had tongue-tie, which my first daughter had had. And it was a terrible experience. So I had some trauma triggered around that, and I was having a PTSD reaction, which threw me into a physical flare where I was dealing with symptoms of the illness that I had dealt with years ago. And honestly, it was just so insanely overwhelming. I mean my health failing while having this new baby in the middle of a pandemic, I really thought this was it. I was not going to make it through this. And I didn't know if I wanted to make it through it, frankly. It was just really dark.
And I started having panic attacks that I just could not control. I had dealt with some panic in my twenties, so I had a decent toolbox for addressing it, but nothing was working. I was so desperate to help myself. And I knew I was at the crossroads where my only option was medication.
First of all, as I know you are, I'm very versed in the way SSRIs function and the implications they have on the body. And I know that in some cases, they can be helpful. But they can often cause a host of secondary problems. And they're very difficult to get off of. And they're essentially masking a problem. So it's like I was going to have to deal with this at some point. And again, I know that some people are helped by them for a period of time.
But in my case, because of the way my symptoms presented and the possible side effects of these drugs, I realized I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between what my symptoms were and what were potential side effects. And I didn't see myself being able to get better from this physical issue on those kinds of drugs. So they really didn't seem like an option to me.
I mean, I went through this for a solid four months. Yeah. Donovan was about four months when I started brain rewiring.
Naomi Nakamura: So October in the fall?
Carly Lockman: Yeah. Late October. Late October, I started.
Naomi Nakamura: Were you aware of it beforehand? Or how did it even come on your radar where you're like, "Maybe this can help me"?
Carly Lockman: So I had been in touch with, I don't know if you know Amanda from The Curious Coconut. She's in the holistic sphere. She's actually been dealing with long COVID. She and I were in touch just sort of as a support system over Voxer, because we were both going through these really harrowing experiences. And she said a friend of hers had mentioned brain rewiring to her as something to help. And she mentioned two programs. One was DNRS and the other was Gupta. DNRS stands for the Dynamic Neural Rehabilitation System. And she said, "Supposedly, you can just go on YouTube and kind of get a feel for either program, and decide what's right for you." She had told me that I don't know, probably in September. But I didn't really start looking into it until late October. And I didn't start practicing until early November. I chose DNRS because it just resonated with me more. Some people feel it's sort of militant. But at that time, that's what I needed. My limbic system, which is the area of the brain that's designed to protect you in a very primal sense, was in such overdrive, that I needed have a very clear roadmap for how to calm that limbic system and start creating new, healthier neural pathways.
And I was really confident that if I could get my limbic system under control, if I could get out of this prolonged state of fight or flight, that my body would start to heal itself. I was using a lot of physical interventions that I knew from past experience worked for me. But they weren't working because I was stuck in a limbic loop, I was stuck in fight or flight. That became the priority was getting out of fight or flight. And once I started researching DNRS and Gupta too, but DNRS is just what spoke to me. I felt confident that DNRS would be able to help me get my brain out of that loop.
Naomi Nakamura: I love that you recognized that you were in that state. Because I think a lot of people who maybe aren't as aware, they're in this state and they don't even realize they're in this state. And then to even know where to start.
Carly Lockman: Yeah. I mean, I'm fortunate that just being in this industry, I am very resourced. And I was actually surprised though once I started getting into brain rewiring, I'm like, "I can't believe that I've never learned about this previously." Perhaps I had heard about it and just not gone over my head because I wasn't feeling like I needed something like that.
Naomi Nakamura: So you evaluated both programs that were shared with you and you selected one. So what did that start look like?
Carly Lockman: Okay. So the way I started the DNRS online program, which is as far as I can tell is more or less just a taping of the in-person program. It's not particularly high tech or anything like that. So it's a series of lectures where it's basically talking about what neuroplasticity is, how brain rewiring works. They're really big into presenting the science to you so that your brain is then primed to understand how it works. And you're more apt to successfully complete the program.
Naomi Nakamura: That's how my brain operates is understanding okay, where does this come from? What is the background of it? So not everybody learns that way. But like you, that's the way I learn as well.
Carly Lockman: Yeah, absolutely. I think knowing the why is really key and important for a lot of people. So I really appreciated that. So that's probably the first 50% of the program. And then the second half is learning the actual practice.
And the core practice of DNRS specifically is called rounds. And it's essentially this process of having a short little chat with your brain, with your limbic system. You're engaging your prefrontal cortex, which is the intelligent, higher thinking center of the brain to talk to that primal center of the brain, the limbic system. And explain to it that, "You're actually totally safe. And I know that you may not feel safe. But in fact, in this moment, we are totally safe." And there's a particular script that you can use and modify to your needs specifically. And then from there, you go into a past memory that's really positive. And the idea of going into this past memory is that you're creating what's called dose chemistry. Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins, right? These are all the feel-good chemicals that the brain releases and that neuroscience now understands are incredibly healing. Both to our mental emotional being and the physical body. Because we are getting into that parasympathetic nervous system. We're getting into what's called a rest and repair.
And then you sit in that past memory for five to seven minutes. And then you go into a future visualization. And in the future visualization, typically what you're going to be doing is imagining yourself doing something that seems inaccessible to you right now.
So for me, I was housebound. A lot of my future visualizations would just be being able to take my kids out on my own. You really get the sensory qualities of that future. And again, you're trying to stimulate those hormones' dose chemistry. And you linger in that for about five to seven minutes as well. And then you come back to your center.
Naomi Nakamura: So just to clarify, you lead yourself through this exercise?
Carly Lockman: Yes.
Naomi Nakamura: And is this something you did on a daily basis, or multiple times a day, or as you felt that you needed? What did that practice look like for you?
Carly Lockman: So the recommendation is an hour of practice a day for at least six months.
Naomi Nakamura: Consecutive hour? Can you do 30 minute-
Carly Lockman: Nope. You can break it up. You can totally break it up. In the beginning, I was so incapacitated that I had nothing else to do anyway. So I was probably doing a couple of hours of practice a day. And I got plugged into some really wonderful groups. There's a huge network of WhatsApp groups that support brain retraining and DNRS specifically. And a lot of people do what's called buddy rounds. It's great for accountability. Well, it's great for two reasons. One is accountability. And the other is because we have these things called mirror neurons, where when the brain sees somebody else doing something, it receives some of the benefit of just watching that person do that positive thing essentially, or hearing in this case.
So you would get on the phone with somebody that wants to do a round, and you would listen to them do their round, and then they would listen to you do your round. So once I started doing buddy rounds, I think that really took my practice to the next level. It just felt really wonderful to have that extra support, and accountability, and to see so many people are working this right alongside me.
In addition to doing rounds, so typically, I try to do a morning round and an evening round. And I like to do buddy round. If I'm able to find a partner, I prefer to do buddy rounds.
Naomi Nakamura: And these are just random people who you just connect with in your groups?
Carly Lockman: Yeah. So there are specifically groups for finding buddies to do rounds with. And there's tons of people in the group. So more often than not, you can find somebody just on the fly.
And in addition to that, a big part of the practice is catching what are called pops, or pathways, neural pathways of the past. So these old ways of thinking that have been so ingrained that are detrimental to your health and healing and to getting into that parasympathetic mode. You learn to stop them in their tracks and redirect. And ideally, if it's something really significant that you really feel like you're in a limbic system loop about, you would actually do a round right then to get the brain out of that think state, out of the limbic state, and into parasympathetic.
Naomi Nakamura: I feel like we're at time where a lot of us are realizing or really questioning what has been conditioned to me and what is my actual truth. And a lot of things we need to be reparented with. And I feel like this is a great tool that can help someone through that process.
Carly Lockman: Yes. You bring up re-parenting. I think it's really important because one thing I will say that is important to understand about a program like DNRS, DNRS is strictly designed to calm the limbic system and get you out of fight or flight. It isn't designed to address deep-seated trauma that might truly need addressing. For some people, they might get stuck in DNRS at a certain point because they have deep-seated trauma that needs to be addressed, that isn't being addressed. Right?
What I found to be the best combination of healing modalities is to get the limbic system calm through a system like DNRS or Gupta. And it could take you months to do that depending on, I mean everybody has a different level of limbic system dysfunction.
Naomi Nakamura: That was going to be my next question to you is what is, I don't want to say typical timeline because I understand that everyone's timeline is different. But what would you say that looks like?
Carly Lockman: Well, I can tell you about my experience specifically. And actually, what's interesting is I started because I didn't know about brain rewiring at first when I was having these issues, the first thing I started doing because I recognized that I had a PTSD response that put me into this physical flare.
The first thing I started doing was somatic trauma therapy, which I think is really wonderful. Somatic trauma therapy is essentially the, it's based on the idea that trauma is stored in the body. There's actually a physical imprint that's made in the nervous system. So you use physical movement practices to then release that trauma. I think it's an incredible practice.
But at the time I started doing it, I found myself actually getting worse. And I was like, "What is going on? I'm addressing the trauma." It was frustrating. And what I later learned was my limbic system was not stable enough to handle that trauma work.
So I think it's interesting because right now in the holistic community, doing your shadow work and doing your trauma work is really hot. But a lot of people don't have the limbic system stability to really be able to handle it. So ideally, you're doing some kind of brain rewiring practice to get the limbic system calm. And once you feel that your limbic system is relatively stable, you can start more safely integrating some of this trauma work because you know how to stop your brain from getting in a loop about it and get back into dose chemistry.
I think the pitfall of trauma work for people without a stable limbic system, even a somatic process which is so wonderful. You might have a lot of release. But then that familiar, primal brain kicks in. And it starts fixating, and obsessing, and looping. And that's where you're not going to get better. So you have to be able to harness that primal center of the brain and know how to stop a loop in its tracks and move into a different state of neurochemistry I think for trauma work to be really successful.
Naomi Nakamura: I love that. Because I'm always very open about trying different approaches and trying different things. And I'm not wanting to get stuck on one thing. I think this is the only way you can heal yourself or whatever it is you're trying to do, right? It's like the same way with diets. I'm not stuck on one. There's different things that's going to help different people at different points in your life. Something else might have helped you back then. And then at this point in your life, this is what helped you now. So I really like how you found something in addition to the tools you already had to add to your healing toolkit.
Carly Lockman: Yes, absolutely. And this point in my journey, I'm connected with a lot of other they're called neural retrainers, people practicing brain rewiring. And the people that I see that are most successful are doing some combination of brain rewiring and emotional release through somatics is really popular in the brain wiring community. There's also something that I just started doing that I really enjoy called JournalSpeak. It was created by this woman Nicole Sachs. She was an apprentice of Dr. John Sarno, who-
Naomi Nakamura: I read his book.
Carly Lockman: Did you? Okay.
Naomi Nakamura: I read his book back in 2012 when I was injured.
Carly Lockman: Yeah. Yeah. So he is credited with coming up with the idea that the body actually will manifest emotional trauma essentially. So Nicole Sachs was an apprentice of his for years. And when he passed, she took over his practice. And he had always had patients do expressive writing, but she really fleshed it out quite a bit more into a very specific practice. In her practice, you're basically spending 20 minutes just ... and she has particular prompts you can use too. But getting out the most venomous, nasty, raw feelings that you have that aren't necessarily true. But it's the feeling that just needs to be expressed.
I find often, I don't want to go over 20 minutes. But she recommends after you do that practice that you do a loving kindness meditation. And for me, I'll actually do a DNRS round. But the reason she's recommending that is so that people don't do the practice and then get into a limbic loop. She just maybe doesn't have that vocabulary for it. But that's the reasoning. That's one of the tools I use for emotional release.
Over time, I've learned to differentiate between what is my limbic system, the prime area of the brain just kind of spewing nonsense at me that I just need to shut down. And what is truly an emotion that I'm going to need to express in some kind of way?
And when I recognize an emotion that is going to need to be expressed, usually I'll do one of two things. If I'm in a place where I can somatically express it through my body, like if I'm just hanging out at home, I will kind of feel into it in my body and just kind of let it move through, and let any organic movements that my body feels led to engage in. I'll just let that kind of happen until it comes to a natural stop. Or I'll literally speak to that limbic part of my brain and I'll say, "Okay, I hear you. I see you. And we're going to do journal speak about this leader."
And it's interesting because the limbic system, it could also be related to as the inner child. So it's much like speaking to a child where maybe if you can imagine at a fancy dinner, the child acting out. And if you just told that child over and over, "Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet." What's going to happen? The child's going to get louder. But instead, if you could take the child aside and say, "I understand where you're coming from. I get it. And we'll talk about this when we get home. I'm going to make some special time for you." That's essentially what I'm telling this part of my brain that needs to express this important thing. So even just that will kind of bring me into a more parasympathetic state until I can do that release work.
But again, this in my opinion is something, the somatic work, any kind of emotional release I think for a lot of people that are in major limbic dysfunction, it's got to come later. It's got to come after you calm the limbic system down for long enough. Because you have to be able to stop that loop from happening. And not just cognitively either. You have to have the central nervous system to really handle it.
Naomi Nakamura: It's very empowering.
Carly Lockman: It really is. It's incredibly empowering. I think it's a missing link in a lot of holistic arenas.
Naomi Nakamura: So clearly, it's had a tremendous impact on you. So what is your outlook now? Is things feeling better? I mean clearly it is, but share with us. What does that look like now?
Carly Lockman: I am being completely transparent. I'm not where exactly where I want to be. But I would say probably 85% of the way there.
Naomi Nakamura: So not in sheer desperate mode.
Carly Lockman: No. No, no, no. Even three months ago, I was not able to take my kids out on my own. I could take the older ones out one at a time, but I just didn't feel like I could handle having them all with me together. I didn't feel like I had the physical stamina for that. I also didn't trust my limbic system to be able to be calm enough to help support that physical stamina. I had never taken the baby out until he was nine months old, which is wild to think about.
Naomi Nakamura: That is wild to think about. The first nine months of his life was in the home.
Carly Lockman: Pretty much. And my husband would take him out sometimes. But me personally, I did not feel like I could leave the house with him, that I had the physical capacity to do that. So now, I'm able to take all my kids out really with no problem. I'm, as it's been safer to do, I've been able to engage in social activities with some of our friends here, which is so incredible.
Naomi Nakamura: Things we will never take for granted again.
Carly Lockman: Right. Totally. Totally. Yeah. In general, my world has gotten a lot bigger. It got really small there for a while. And it's expanded so much. And I have been using physical interventions as well, but they didn't really start to take off until I was able to get my limbic system calm enough. Until I was able to get in that parasympathetic state for a long enough time.
I mean look, I'm human. Every day isn't all roses. But I definitely feel empowered in a way that I have never felt before. Because as I mentioned in my first healing journey, I was using actually a lot of brand rewiring tactics, but I didn't know it. So I didn't feel like I had this clear strategic plan that I could use. So now, having that roadmap and knowing that that's always there for me that if I had a bit of an off day, I just need to come back to this map because this works is incredibly empowering.
Naomi Nakamura: What I also think is empowering is that, so a lot of the things that we would do for self-care over the past 14 months, we have not been able to do, right? Physically, I would get a massage at the gym every month. I would see my acupuncturist, which I've done virtually. All of these things that required in-person assistance and support for our healing, we've either had to modify somehow and haven't been able to do. This is something that you can do entirely contained within yourself. Even having to live in and shut down in quarantine, that's not something that you've had to modify or you're still able to do it in full practice for yourself.
Carly Lockman: Yes. No, that's such a great point. It really is something that it's a tool that it requires I guess little from the outside. It's very much an internal practice. And that being said, again, there's a wonderful community of people also doing this. When you want to connect, as long as you have an internet connection, you can do that. Which is really, really fantastic. But yes, I think it really puts people back in the driver's seat. And I know so many people that deal with chronic, physical, or mental health issues, they have this fundamental sense of disempowerment. Because they've probably turned their power as we're conditioned to do, turned their power over to practitioners that haven't been able to help them. So they get into this place of hopelessness and desperation. And to have something that allows them to find their power again and find their confidence again, I mean that's priceless. And again, I really feel that the physical healing, because most people that come to DNRS or Gupta have a physical health issue they're trying to deal with. Some people, it's just anxiety, depression, or trauma. But most people-
Naomi Nakamura: But then all of those things also have physical impact. Is it anxiety, or you can't sleep. You still deal with all of these things on a daily basis. So you took yourself through this as a person in need of healing. Is this something you're now offering to clients, or do you plan to in the future? What are your thoughts there?
Carly Lockman: Yeah. So when I get back into my practice, at this point with this knowledge, I can't not integrate these things into my practice in some way. I don't yet know what that's going to look like. So at this point, I'm just pointing people to the resources that I've used. But I would like to create some kind of a system that encompasses in a holistic way both the brain rewiring and the emotional release. I don't know exactly how that will look for my clients. I'm still working on my healing too. So that's the type of priority. And like I said, just reestablishing this connection with my family right now. But I do know that it will become part of my practice when I'm ready for it.
Naomi Nakamura: Well when that happens, how can people connect with you?
Carly Lockman: So you can find me on Instagram @carlylockman, C-A-R-L-Y L-O-C-K-M-A-N. And I don't share as much as I used to, but I'm still on there pretty frequently. And you can find links to everything else from there to my website, email, etc.
Naomi Nakamura: I'll link to that in the show notes. Thank you for coming on, and being so open, and sharing about your journey and your experiences. I'm so curious to learn more about this because I have always been my curiosity about how do I get myself out of fight or flight? Like a good night's sleep, which I feel like for me, I got a good night's sleep. But compared to other people, my sleep is [inaudible 00:41:33].
Carly Lockman: Yeah. And I think what's really cool about these modalities too is that once you move past the point of desperation, right? And you've solved a lot of these major problems that are impeding just your daily life, then you can move on to thinking about, "Hey, how do I want to optimize my life? How do I want to optimize my relationships? How do I want to optimize my career?"
Naomi Nakamura: So you're not just surviving, you're actually thriving.
Carly Lockman: Exactly. So there's so many applications for this practice.
Naomi Nakamura: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me.
Carly Lockman: Thank you for having me. It's been wonderful.
Naomi Nakamura is a Health x Human Design coach who’s creating a healthier society through aligned energy.
She blends a bespoke mix of Functional Nutrition and Human Design to help others shift into alignment to leverage and correctly manage their energy to support their body, mind, and spirit.
She believes that when we embrace our authenticity and lean into our bio-individuality, we naturally live a life of freedom, empowerment, and optimal health.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
Connect with Naomi on: Instagram
| Pinterest
