[00:00:50] Luke Storey: First question for you is this: what is the most, or what was or is the most rewarding and challenging parts of being a foster [00:01:00] parent?

[00:01:01] Dr Aimie Apigian: Being a foster parent was nothing what I was expecting. I came in with the expectation that this was going to be a nurturing relationship that I would get to form with someone who needed love and was wanting that connection.

[00:01:20] Dr Aimie Apigian: And so the first real challenge that I experienced was that confusion on their part internally of, "I want it, but I'm also scared of it." And so the push-and-pull dynamics that I had never really experienced before in, in that type of setting, and so I d- I didn't know what to do with it at first, of I can see that you need me, and yet you intentionally hurt me.

[00:01:53] Dr Aimie Apigian: You intentionally push me away. And the behaviors that would come out of that were [00:02:00] very hard then to know what to do in a way that, how do I honor the bigger picture here and not damage you in some way because you're really just seeking that affirmation that I'm gonna be here no matter what, and yet I'm also able to keep myself and everyone else in the environment safe.

[00:02:24] Dr Aimie Apigian: So it was a lot of mind games that became the biggest obstacle of I don't actually know how to respond and what to do, knowing that I can see the reason beneath the behavior, but it doesn't change the fact that the behavior is still unsafe.

[00:02:42] Luke Storey: Mm, mm-hmm. Difficult to calibrate. Yeah. How old was the... He's a boy?

[00:02:49] Dr Aimie Apigian: Uh, Miguel was placed with me at age four. Okay. Mm-hmm. I had another foster child, but he was my, uh, longest foster child. Uh-huh. And then I adopted him.

[00:02:57] Luke Storey: Oh, really?

[00:02:58] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:59] Luke Storey: Wow.

[00:02:59] Dr Aimie Apigian: [00:03:00] Mm-hmm.

[00:03:00] Luke Storey: And what has been the most rewarding part of that? I'm fascinated by this because we, you know, we tried to have kids for a couple of years, and- Mm

[00:03:08] Luke Storey: it, it didn't... Yeah, it wasn't in God's plan, apparently.

[00:03:11] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm.

[00:03:11] Luke Storey: So that, of course, leads me into what other people do and you know- Mm-hmm ... for whatever reason they've chosen to- Mm-hmm ... or not been able to have kids, you know, fostering, adopting. It's not something I've given a lot of thought to, but it is, it is interesting.

[00:03:26] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah, I come from so much of, uh, this learned experience now that I've kind of collected as I grew up with a father who was adopted.

[00:03:37] Luke Storey: Oh, wow.

[00:03:38] Dr Aimie Apigian: Adopted at birth. And then started volunteering my time in the Big Brother Big Sister program, and babysitting foster children, and then becoming a foster parent myself, and then adopting from the foster care system.

[00:03:55] Dr Aimie Apigian: So, and then I started learning all of this attachment [00:04:00] parenting, and formed a nonprofit teaching other families through an experiential weekend camp that they would come to, what I had learned about how to actually facilitate that bonding and attachment with your children who've had attachment trauma of whatever kind.

[00:04:18] Luke Storey: Wow.

[00:04:19] Dr Aimie Apigian: And so being able to work with kids who had been adopted from all over the world, some of the toughest countries, China, Russia, Guatemala, and s- being able to see that process of the bonding and it developing over time, and how that unfolds for that child who has had these experiences of intense abandonment at a time when they were the most fragile, and so their whole nervous system organized around this principle of, "It's all up to me."

[00:04:55] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah. "

[00:04:55] Dr Aimie Apigian: No one is here for me. I've gotta fight to survive." [00:05:00] And thus they see you, me, their new parents, as someone else that they have to fight rather than someone else that's here to help. And again, coming back to my experience, that was the biggest challenge for me that I wasn't expecting. I thought, very naively, that they knew that they wanted-

[00:05:23] Luke Storey: Right.

[00:05:24] Dr Aimie Apigian: Connection-

[00:05:24] Luke Storey: Right,

[00:05:25] Dr Aimie Apigian: right ... nurture, love.

[00:05:27] Luke Storey: That they walk through the door and be like, "Yes, I'm home."

[00:05:29] Dr Aimie Apigian: Exactly.

[00:05:30] Luke Storey: Right.

[00:05:31] Dr Aimie Apigian: And to experience something very different, and then as I started my nonprofit, to be able to see, like, this is the majority of these children. This is a principle that is amongst those who've had these early life experiences, that it's something that it's so pre-verbal that they don't understand.

[00:05:54] Dr Aimie Apigian: They don't understand why they're reacting this way. They don't like what they're doing. They don't want to be this [00:06:00] person, but they can't seem to stop themselves from reacting this way. And so that was when I really started to understand the nervous system, and really got it through my thick skull that these behaviors are not choices.

[00:06:18] Dr Aimie Apigian: The thinking about what I did happens after you do it.

[00:06:23] Luke Storey: Yeah, yeah.

[00:06:24] Dr Aimie Apigian: N- not a pre-thought of, "Oh, this is what I'm going to do." And, and so you're working with a nervous system that is programmed to see the world in a certain way, see themselves in a certain way, and unless you have all of the pieces to really know how to reach that unconscious programming, your solutions will be based on cognitive approaches, which are going to be useless, 'cause there is no cognitive [00:07:00] process prior to the behavior.

[00:07:03] Luke Storey: Wow. Wow. Um, in, in terms of Neglect, abandonment, or at least feelings of abandonment that, um, you know, kids that end up in the foster care system or kids that are adopt, adopted. Um, I, I wonder, you know, I'm sure there's no way to measure this, but as someone, uh, who's been-- I've been sober for, you know, going on 30 years, spent, uh, many years and, you know, very closely, um, associated in 12-step groups and whatnot, and the number of people who were adopted was exponentially higher than in my outside life.

[00:07:44] Luke Storey: You know what I mean? Like, I met more people that had been adopted. I don't know about, you know, foster care, but definitely a lot of people admittedly and, you know, um, were able to acknowledge that core abandonment womb as-- womb, no pun intended, wound [00:08:00] as, um, you know, kind of at the roots of their addiction.

[00:08:03] Luke Storey: And the, the same goes for sexual trauma, physical trauma, psychological trauma. I mean, I personally, I, I'd be pressed to find a sober person amongst those I know or those that I've known that didn't have one of those things, adoption or trauma. I mean, really, I can't think of-- if I run through the, you know, dozen of my closest friends in recovery over the years, all of them had trauma for sure.

[00:08:29] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:30] Luke Storey: You know? So it seems like, uh, those of us that have those experiences really tend to navigate toward altered states. Uh, and you have a, you know, background in, uh, you know, on the clinical side of addiction recovery, so I'd love to hear your take on, you know, the intersection of those human issues.

[00:08:49] Dr Aimie Apigian: As I was raising Miguel, one thing became very clear If I did not help him get on a different path, he was either headed [00:09:00] straight for juvie hall or an addict, or both. Like, it was so clear in my mind, being able to watch what he did, how he perceived s- experiences and situations, and the manipulations that his brain would come up with for, "What is my solution right now?"

[00:09:25] Dr Aimie Apigian: And it was all around this aspect of avoidance. "I don't want to actually feel the sadness. I don't want to feel the grief of I don't know who my birth mom is." There was so much buried that has to stay buried, and so now the strategy becomes, "How do I just keep that shoved down? How do I keep redirecting that to something that feels better?"

[00:09:53] Dr Aimie Apigian: Even anger feels better to me than the sadness-

[00:09:58] Luke Storey: Yeah ...

[00:09:58] Dr Aimie Apigian: and the grief that feels like- It's [00:10:00] more

[00:10:00] Luke Storey: empowering.

[00:10:00] Dr Aimie Apigian: It's more empowering. Yeah. I feel more alive.

[00:10:02] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[00:10:03] Dr Aimie Apigian: And there's an aspect of agency that anger has that the trauma response, that freeze, that shutdown, the shame, the grief, all of that package, you lose your sense of agency in that state And so why would you want that?

[00:10:24] Dr Aimie Apigian: It feels much better to be in a place where I still have some control over my life when I have felt like I have no control. Everything has been done to me. Life has done this to me. I need to have something that I can do, and that's then where we look at what are the solutions then for me to be able to do something to keep this other stuff buried.

[00:10:52] Dr Aimie Apigian: And so much of that is what we would then label an addiction, and whether that is with a substance or exercise, work, [00:11:00] biohacking, like sex.

[00:11:04] Luke Storey: You wouldn't be talking to me, would you? I'm talking to me. I'm

[00:11:06] Dr Aimie Apigian: talking to myself here.

[00:11:09] Luke Storey: Exactly. I've been writing about all the, all the ways in which we can use different compulsive behaviors to avoid what we don't wanna feel.

[00:11:18] Luke Storey: That's it, the

[00:11:19] Dr Aimie Apigian: avoid.

[00:11:20] Luke Storey: It's, it's so funny. It's like the, the shell game, you know? It's like- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm ... or as, as they used to say, I, I learned this term in rehab, uh, switching seats in the Titanic, which I used to do a lot with different- Yeah ... substances, you know? Of course. One would get a little too out of control-

[00:11:34] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm,

[00:11:35] Luke Storey: mm-hmm

[00:11:35] Luke Storey: so I'd hop on another one, and then it would be even worse, you know? They say, "You can change seats, but the ship's still going down, Luke," you know? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So true. Mm. But th- that's the thing, though, that's, that's so insidious about these coping mechanisms is-

[00:11:46] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm ...

[00:11:47] Luke Storey: outside of, you know, substance abuse or gambling or, like, rampant sex addiction, i-i- it's much easier to stay functional.

[00:11:56] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yes.

[00:11:56] Luke Storey: And, and also the denial is much stronger, so I could- Yeah ... be really into [00:12:00] exercise or work or making money or taking supplements, biohacking, whatever, and it's like, it's easy to justify because, well, that's all good stuff.

[00:12:08] Dr Aimie Apigian: And you're praised for it. Exactly. And then

[00:12:09] Luke Storey: you get

[00:12:10] Dr Aimie Apigian: the comments, "Wow, you look good."

[00:12:11] Luke Storey: Exactly. And- And your life isn't going to spin out of control to the degree or at the w- at the rate at which, you know, using a substance would.

[00:12:21] Dr Aimie Apigian: Right.

[00:12:22] Luke Storey: It's, it's much more insidious.

[00:12:24] Dr Aimie Apigian: And yet the underlying physiology is still one that's based on fear. And so you take that person, and you take an addict, and sometimes because the addict is actually getting more relief, more moments of Relaxation.

[00:12:46] Dr Aimie Apigian: Their health is sometimes better than the person who is using other things that's not actually giving them-

[00:12:56] Luke Storey: Right ...

[00:12:56] Dr Aimie Apigian: the relief. That's funny. I would- I never

[00:12:58] Luke Storey: thought

[00:12:58] Dr Aimie Apigian: about that ... look at these [00:13:00] studies that looked at people who smoke, and smoking is bad for you, and it gives you lung cancer, and look at all of the health outcomes.

[00:13:10] Dr Aimie Apigian: And yet, I would look at people, would have them come into my clinic, and they'd been smoking their whole entire life since age 14, and they're 94 now. And I'm like, "Tell me, tell, tell me why you think you're still alive when you have smoked this song." And they're like, "Smoking actually is my safe place."

[00:13:32] Luke Storey: Right.

[00:13:33] Dr Aimie Apigian: And so it's not a simple binary, do this and you're gonna get this health outcome. You're really looking at what is the physiological state that has become your operating system for your body, and that is more important than any specific coping mechanism. Because the body can do so much repair if it is in that ventral vagal [00:14:00] parasympathetic state.

[00:14:01] Dr Aimie Apigian: But so many are not actually achieving that.

[00:14:06] Luke Storey: That's so interesting. So it's like the guy who's drinking a lot of alcohol or using opiates, the, the, the, the treatment is actually working for its intended purpose despite its known side effects, right? Right. Right. And obviously, those get worse- Right ... as the disease progresses, but i- i- it's actually satiating, uh, you know, those feelings, whereas someone who's really into jogging or something like it's not gonna hit the same way as some smack.

[00:14:36] Dr Aimie Apigian: You know what I mean? Yeah.

[00:14:37] Luke Storey: Therefore, you know, the underlying tension or dysregulation is, is, is less resolved than it would be if you hit it with something really, um, you know, much more powerful.

[00:14:47] Dr Aimie Apigian: And here's another layer to that.

[00:14:49] Luke Storey: That's so interesting.

[00:14:49] Dr Aimie Apigian: There's the idea of repression and suppression.

[00:14:54] Luke Storey: Hmm.

[00:14:55] Dr Aimie Apigian: And so when I am conscious of the traumas in my life, I'm conscious of the things [00:15:00] that I'm avoiding, that's gonna be suppression If I'm not even aware of it, it's so deeply buried with all of my coping mechanisms and the life that I've created that I'm not even aware that I'm burying it, that has more damage to our health than the person who is aware of it and knows that they're suppressing.

[00:15:23] Luke Storey: Really?

[00:15:24] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:25] Luke Storey: Interesting. I'm trying to think of examples in my own life. Okay, I got one. So, uh, my dad died last year.

[00:15:34] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm.

[00:15:35] Luke Storey: And, um, you know, we were super close.

[00:15:38] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm.

[00:15:38] Luke Storey: Lots of grief. Yeah. Learning how to handle that. Um, but I knew a, a bit about myself and the way I tick and the way-

[00:15:48] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm ...

[00:15:48] Luke Storey: humans process things like grief and other difficult emotions.

[00:15:52] Luke Storey: I really went head-on. You know, I went to the hospital, sat with him until he died. I mean, I re- did everything I could to just face [00:16:00] the whole thing with fierce presence, and I, I courageously, I'm, I'm proud of myself, I did a really good job with that, right?

[00:16:06] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah.

[00:16:07] Luke Storey: Felt what needed to be felt. Um, but over the course of time, because grief is such a mysterious dance, I'll think, "Oh, cool.

[00:16:18] Luke Storey: I faced everything. I'm done. Now I can just go on with my life." And out of the blue, it will just come out of nowhere. You know, I just have a cert- Not even a picture or anything. It's just, I don't know. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's him just going like, "Oh, you're not done. Remember me." And then, ah, the water works, right?

[00:16:34] Luke Storey: So I've noticed, despite my willingness to face that, when there's a lot of other stress in life, and I have a lot going on, I can feel myself like, "Eh, don't think about Dad right now. Don't look at the pictures." Like, we gotta set that aside until we're able to make time to really You know, sit with it, right?

[00:16:55] Luke Storey: So that would be an example of, uh, you know, not even being [00:17:00] self-critical, but just intentional sup- suppression,

[00:17:05] Luke Storey: right? Yeah. And it, it's not always bad. Whereas, like, whereas, like, repression would be just a complete denial that there was grief at all.

[00:17:09] Dr Aimie Apigian: Right.

[00:17:09] Luke Storey: Is that what you're saying?

[00:17:10] Dr Aimie Apigian: Exactly.

[00:17:11] Luke Storey: Okay. Okay.

[00:17:11] Dr Aimie Apigian: Exactly. So this is who I used to be, right? Like, oh, that should be nothing. I should be strong.

[00:17:18] Luke Storey: Mm.

[00:17:18] Dr Aimie Apigian: I should be able to go back to work and be fine.

[00:17:23] Dr Aimie Apigian: And so for me, the big wake-up moment was in 2014 when I went through my biggest grief. The adoption with Miguel failed, and I had to adopt him out to another family. Six years he was with me.

[00:17:38] Luke Storey: Whoa.

[00:17:39] Dr Aimie Apigian: And it was the biggest grief I had ever gone through. I did not have the skills to feel it, was present to the best degree possible for him, 'cause I wanted to help him through that transition and process with me [00:18:00] being as much of a support as I could.

[00:18:03] Dr Aimie Apigian: But it absolutely broke my heart And I am at the same time a third-year general surgery resident. And so the expectation is that I go back to work, and I'm working 12, 16-hour days every third night, working 30-hour shift, and it was assumed that I would be my normal self. And I did everything to do that, and yet one month later, I woke up, was so fatigued that I could not get out of bed, had to actually go on a medical leave.

[00:18:45] Dr Aimie Apigian: Figured it out. They diagnosed me with chronic fatigue syndrome, and then we discovered autoimmunity. So for me, that was the very clear connection between not feeling my grief, not actually [00:19:00] processing these life traumas actually do make me sick in a very real way. And now I've got this, and so that's actually how the idea of a biology of trauma came from that experience of, I don't know what to do with this.

[00:19:21] Dr Aimie Apigian: I understand the connection intellectually, and as a physician, as a, you know, biochemist researcher, boy, do I love the analysis.

[00:19:32] Luke Storey: Right. Right.

[00:19:33] Dr Aimie Apigian: I love the study of something. Right. Connecting all of these dots and being like, "Whoa. Wow, like, childhood stress and trauma really does create this." But then now, now that I am that person, now that I am that patient, I need answers.

[00:19:53] Dr Aimie Apigian: I need to know what to do because I need my life back. I need my health back. I need my career [00:20:00] back. And I was left with realizing that all of this understanding of how the pieces connect had not translated into, "And so here's your clear path forward to be able to do something about it."

[00:20:14] Luke Storey: Yes. Yes.

[00:20:15] Dr Aimie Apigian: So that's where I turned my focus first and foremost, just for myself, never thinking that I would leave the conventional medical model and teach this to others.

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[00:22:16] Luke Storey: That, that reminds me of the, the conundrum in, uh, in recovery where many of us get caught in the intellectual process of trying to figure out what's wrong with us and figure out within ourselves how to fix it when it's like the thing that created the problem is the thing that's trying to solve the problem.

[00:22:42] Luke Storey: It's a vicious cycle. It is brutal. My, my dad actually went through that. He was, um, you know, later in his life, he pursued spirituality, um, in a much more meaningful way. But, you know, he was someone that went to therapy for 30 years, and he was always trying to think his way out of these problems. And, [00:23:00] you know, not that I had anything on my dad, he had a lot of wisdom and I learned a lot from him, but one thing I was really able to help him with was like, "Dude, the problem you're trying to solve is so above the intellect, you can't even imagine.

[00:23:12] Luke Storey: This is a spiritual problem." That's-- I mean, for me, 'cause that's the only thing that could do it. But then the funny thing about that is And this is where your work comes in. I mean, I'm sure it comes in in a lot of ways, but, um, from what I've learned about your work, I haven't read your book yet 'cause I just got it as you arrived, but listened to some of your podcasts.

[00:23:31] Luke Storey: I'm like, "Oh, okay." So there's the, there's the limits of the intellect to solve a problem, especially if that created the problem, if you're someone that's caught in a lot of rumination and stuff, right? And then so many of us realize that and go, ah, boom, meditation, yoga, plant medicines, God, prayer, religion, right?

[00:23:50] Luke Storey: And we just go whoosh. We kind of jump out of the intellect to the superior solution, which of course, you know, consciousness is superior to all, whether you call it [00:24:00] God or not. But somewhere in the middle there, you also got a body that you're dealing with, the biology, right, of the trauma. And in my experience, no matter how many spiritual experiences or revelations I've had, none of them addressed my nervous system, with the exception of some really profound, you know, psychedelic experiences, which were sort of a combination of intellect, the nervous system, and spiritual experience, right?

[00:24:25] Luke Storey: So it's interesting. It's kind of, I'm kind of seeing now that there's, just to speak in g- very gross terms and broadly, there's, there's kind of three tiers there, right?

[00:24:35] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah.

[00:24:35] Luke Storey: And a lot of us kind of spin our wheels jumping back and forth without finding a way to integrate all of them, because you do have to have an intellectual understanding of how this stuff works and yourself, self-awareness and all that.

[00:24:48] Luke Storey: And you gotta address the body and the nervous system, learn how to feel safe within yourself. Mm-hmm. But then if the spiritual component's missing , you know, how do you really find-

[00:24:59] Dr Aimie Apigian: Your [00:25:00] purpose ...

[00:25:00] Luke Storey: yeah, purpose- Your meaning ... like a, a true grounding and, and- Yeah ... an anchor to- Yeah, a true home ... to what you're doing here and why we're all here, the big existential questions of life that also cause a lot of anxiety if you, if you can't come to some sort of a model of the universe and- Right

[00:25:14] Luke Storey: what this all means and who we are and why we're here, right?

[00:25:17] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah.

[00:25:17] Luke Storey: So

[00:25:18] Dr Aimie Apigian: carry on. I would add a fourth layer to that.

[00:25:20] Luke Storey: Give it to me all. I'm just putting this together on the spot. You know, I'm winging it.

[00:25:23] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and this is-

[00:25:24] Luke Storey: But I wa- I wanna learn from you.

[00:25:26] Dr Aimie Apigian: This is so fascinating to be able to see that, you know, what has so much existed in our models has been focused on the mind.

[00:25:35] Dr Aimie Apigian: And somehow, b- as humans, we think that our mind is the greatest thing, that is what makes us smart and above animals and and yet we have this Nervous system. Now, the nervous system that I'm referring to is separate from the central nervous system. Central [00:26:00] nervous system is gonna be what you're actually consciously aware of.

[00:26:02] Dr Aimie Apigian: You have this autonomic nervous system, and then you have the actual perceptions that it is receiving and giving off, and then that creates your operating system for your biology. And so I separate the soma, the somatic, the body, and its felt sense from the biology, like my immune system-

[00:26:31] Luke Storey: Ah,

[00:26:31] Dr Aimie Apigian: okay. Okay ... my digestive system-

[00:26:33] Luke Storey: Yeah, yeah, yeah

[00:26:33] Dr Aimie Apigian: cortisol, mitochondria, metabolism.

[00:26:36] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[00:26:37] Dr Aimie Apigian: Because I can create a felt sense of safety, but if I have lived for so long in fear and danger that my immune system is now in inflammation, that inflammation is going to be pulling my nervous system back into a state of danger because it's inflamed, and inflammation [00:27:00] is a sign of danger.

[00:27:02] Dr Aimie Apigian: So bringing in the spiritual, we still have mind, body or soma, and the biology. Mm-hmm.

[00:27:10] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:10] Dr Aimie Apigian: And those-- like, when we can wrap our minds around all of that or wrap our hands, whate- whatever, right? Where it's not just minds. When we can really integrate the healing path to layer in all of those, like, that's where the magic starts to happen, and there's just this flow that gets established rather than the stuckness that I'm sure you've seen so many people in when they're just addressing one of those

[00:27:43] Luke Storey: layers.

[00:27:43] Luke Storey: I don't see other people. It's like, look at the person in the mirror. Yeah, that, that motherfucker's stuck right there. Yeah, I mean, less so these days, thankfully,

[00:27:52] Dr Aimie Apigian: but yeah. Well, we are stuck because each one of those layers can keep a person stuck.

[00:27:56] Luke Storey: Totally. Well, here, here's... Okay, there's so many [00:28:00] ways I wanna approach this conversation, and forgive me for if I'm ever derailing, but I just, I love the ideas you're bringing forth here.

[00:28:07] Luke Storey: So there's kind of a, there's a, a catch 22 sort of boomerang effect, okay, that, that I see with people in this space, people that are into biohacking and spirituality and things like that, right? And, and I see it because I've gone through different cycles and patterns and things and have found some things are limiting and some are liberating, right?

[00:28:30] Luke Storey: Many of us

[00:28:30] Dr Aimie Apigian: Just that could be a conversation, liberating versus limiting.

[00:28:34] Luke Storey: Yeah. M- many of us, uh, I think whether we're conscious of it or not, if we don't feel at ease, we think we can take enough supplements or do enough biohacking that we're going to feel at ease. Like in other words, at ease meaning emotionally stable and centered and happy, right?

[00:28:53] Luke Storey: And, you know, then so we spend all this money, we put all this effort in, and we do all the things, and we find it [00:29:00] didn't work, right? Yet at the same time, if you're already compromised and you have a chronic condition, you know, or s- you know, autoimmune, Lyme, whatever, y- and you're sleeping like shit, you don't have the metabolic energy to go do the, you know, the somatic releasing or the whatever, right?

[00:29:22] Luke Storey: It's like y- y- you don't have the bandwidth to work on the emotional aspect of yourself and, you know, get in and dig up your trauma and deal with it because you're so depleted physically. And so it's like I think many of us, and I have been at mys- myself at times too, are, are caught in these kind of like chasing our tail vicious cycles.

[00:29:43] Luke Storey: And so I, I get from your work that, you know, and especially based on what you said, just kind of the four different layers, um, and again, I'm looking forward to diving into your book, but it seems what many of us are missing is kind of a systematic approach, right? Like, okay, it's gonna be different for each person, [00:30:00] but if we're so focused on the physical, w- it's easy to bypass all the, you know, emotional and spiritual work.

[00:30:09] Luke Storey: And if you're sick, how are you gonna get to that emotional, spiritual work, right? So what do you have to say about, of all of that? You know, the kind of the order of things, the sequence of things, having somewhat of a plan-

[00:30:21] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah ...

[00:30:21] Luke Storey: so that we don't skip anything or kind of waste our energy along the way. And I'll close with this.

[00:30:27] Luke Storey: I've observed, you know, in my sort of ex- extended community, people that listen to this show and people I interact with on social media, I get the sense that a lot of people have a l- lot of unresolved trauma Of whatever nature, and they are trying to biohack their way out of it. And I'm always telling them, I always tell them- They're

[00:30:49] Dr Aimie Apigian: just one cold plunge away.

[00:30:50] Luke Storey: Yeah, exactly. And I'm like, "I think you need to, you know, you need to forgive your dad. Let's start there and then do the red light." You know what I mean? So- ... my [00:31:00] approach is always, you know, the first thing is we, we gotta deal with our stuff. You know, that's it. And then the physical health is going to, you know, help you have the energy to keep doing that work.

[00:31:10] Luke Storey: But for me, that's, that's has to be the number one thing. Otherwise, I'm gonna waste a lot of time and money and really end up in the same place.

[00:31:17] Dr Aimie Apigian: So you started that by saying, "We're in a conundrum," and that's exactly what it is. Because all trauma healing requires energy, and if we have allowed a biology of trauma to go so far as to deplete our energy Then we don't have energy to invest in the process.

[00:31:39] Dr Aimie Apigian: Neuroplasticity is a process of energy. Rewiring, if you wanna use that word, the nervous system is a process that requires energy. And so we really do need to come back and look at that big picture so that I can see what am I doing at a mind level? How am I staying out of the stories of the [00:32:00] past that put me into that low energy state?

[00:32:03] Dr Aimie Apigian: Every single time I think about it, every single time I rehash that conversation or that relationship, it takes me to that place, to that inner state, so I need to stay out of the stories, and that's my mental work to do. Mm-hmm. Stay out of the stories of the past.

[00:32:16] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yes. Yes.

[00:32:17] Dr Aimie Apigian: It's about what experience am I creating for myself right now-

[00:32:21] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yep

[00:32:21] Dr Aimie Apigian: in this present moment? How can I be the person that I wanna be in this present moment? That's the mental work. The somatic work is going to be, and how do I make that be a felt sense? This is where it almost- Mm ... taps into the manifestation and energy world, where it's like our nervous system does have a vibration to it.

[00:32:43] Dr Aimie Apigian: Our nervous system does have a electrical circuit energy to it, and when it is in those states of fear, of a sense of danger, that's the vibration that it's going to be putting off. We are going to be pushing people away without e- even knowing that we're pushing people [00:33:00] away, simply because that's the vibration coming off of our nervous system.

[00:33:04] Dr Aimie Apigian: And so both for myself and for the other people around me, I've gotta make that become a felt sense. It can't just be something that I understand. Cannot be something that I biohack. It's a felt sense. And then addressing the biology. So as I looked at this and had to kind of put these pieces together for myself, what I've landed on, and I'm now rolling out in my courses and programs, so excited about this, it's this precision nervous system healing approach.

[00:33:39] Dr Aimie Apigian: How can we be so precise about what are the obstacles that are holding your nervous system back from the connection, from the liberation, from the opening up that it is designed to do? There's something that is continuing to give your nervous system a signal of danger [00:34:00] that makes it close up, makes it constrict.

[00:34:03] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:04] Dr Aimie Apigian: Protect, not connect. When we can know what that is for you, not, you know, for everybody. I w- a general protocol. No, no, no. We need to know it for your nervous system with your... everything about you, your life experiences, some of that somatic implicit memory, like when you see a picture of this or when you see this flower or when you smell that smell, what's the body response that you're having?

[00:34:33] Dr Aimie Apigian: Those are the somatic implicit memories. When we can map that all out and see what are the patterns showing up in your life, in your relationships, in your health, that's where stored trauma shows up. So I specifically look for a pattern of disconnection. Are you avoiding?

[00:34:49] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:50] Dr Aimie Apigian: Escaping, numbing, disconnecting from yourself, disconnecting from other people?

[00:34:56] Dr Aimie Apigian: Then there's also the idea of disruption of forward movement. We're designed [00:35:00] to flow in life, and so if we're stuck in any way, that's a sign of stored trauma. Depletion is the third pattern. I don't have the energy. Everything feels hard. Well, of course it feels hard when you're in protect mode, and so your body is saying, "We need to conserve all the energy that we do have."

[00:35:21] Dr Aimie Apigian: You have to learn how to be able to shift that operating state. Then there's dysregulation and disease as the other two patterns. But the idea is in that we can look at that and say, "What's the precise way to approach your healing?" Become, I call it precision, personalization, and then pacing. Those are the three Ps that are the core foundational principles that we need to approach.

[00:35:49] Dr Aimie Apigian: Pacing is critical because pacing is the idea that you have a current capacity. If we exceed that capacity in [00:36:00] whatever we're trying to do, whether that's biohacking or therapy or exercise, doesn't matter, if we exceed our current capacity, we actually tip the system into overwhelm So even a good thing can cause overwhelm when it's not met with your current capacity.

[00:36:22] Dr Aimie Apigian: So what if we could measure

[00:36:25] Luke Storey: I experience that sometimes with having too many friends

[00:36:30] Dr Aimie Apigian: Tell me more.

[00:36:31] Luke Storey: It's a good problem to have, but there's so many cool people here in Austin. Everyone wants to do things all the time. Right. I got lots of texts and phone calls- Mm-hmm ... and emails and five different SMS, you know, apps and stuff. I'm just like, "I love you guys, but damn." Yeah, I get overwhelmed from something good.

[00:36:48] Dr Aimie Apigian: From something good.

[00:36:49] Luke Storey: It's too, too much. Yeah. Like- Yeah ...

[00:36:51] Dr Aimie Apigian: you

[00:36:51] Luke Storey: know?

[00:36:51] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah.

[00:36:53] Luke Storey: Quality problem, but still.

[00:36:55] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm. So-

[00:36:56] Luke Storey: But it's, you know, as you said, it's dependent on capacity. So right now- Exactly ... 'cause I've [00:37:00] been working on a big project and stuff, my capacity is like, you know, maybe a notch below zero on most days.

[00:37:07] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So then one text, it's just like, "Oh my God. Mm-hmm. I can't deal with this right now." Mm-hmm,

[00:37:11] Dr Aimie Apigian: mm-hmm.

[00:37:11] Luke Storey: Right? So it's, a lot of it is, I think, of course, situational as we go through these seasons of life.

[00:37:15] Dr Aimie Apigian: Exactly, and that's what I would want people to know is being able to better assess their capacity every single day and throughout the day so that they can better create the life that is designed for their support and then growth.

[00:37:37] Dr Aimie Apigian: Because from a biology stan- trauma standpoint, the expansion, the growth can only safely be done when we're coming from a foundation of safety, security, and support. If we're missing that foundation and we try to grow, we fall into the abyss, we fall off the cliff. It's too much. And so the expansion, [00:38:00] the, all, all of the awesome, cool, cutting edge stuff is only going to be awesome, cool, and cutting edge for you if you've created that foundation of health, of flexibility, adaptability, regulation- Hmm

[00:38:16] Dr Aimie Apigian: so that it can be integrated on a l- layer that can support it.

[00:38:29] Luke Storey: Now, I'll admit magnesium's not the sexiest supplement in the world, but it is one of the most important. I've relied on Magnesium Breakthrough from BiOptimizers for years, and it's one of the few supplements I actually notice when I stop taking. Now, everyone knows magnesium's great for sleep, but beyond that, it helps you wake up more recovered and handle everyday stress with a little more grace.

[00:38:52] Luke Storey: But as I've learned over the past couple years, some chapters of life are more demanding than others. More travel, bigger projects, less [00:39:00] downtime, and so on. And that's exactly where the new Magnesium Breakthrough Advanced 10 comes in. Advanced 10 is designed for those times when life asks more of you. And here's how these guys crushed it.

[00:39:12] Luke Storey: They built on the original with 10 bioavailable forms of magnesium, then added vitamin B6 and ionic trace minerals to help your body absorb and use it more effectively. Now, the original Magnesium Breakthrough is still my foundation, but now BiOptimizers has truly taken that formula even further for the times when life goes to 11.

[00:39:32] Luke Storey: So this is probably a fit for you whether you're traveling more, working longer hours, or just under more stress. Advanced 10 gives your body the support it needs when it matters most. To get yourself stocked up, here's what you do. Go to bioptimizers.com/luke and use the code LUKE15 to save guess how much?

[00:39:50] Luke Storey: 15%. 'Cause when life levels up, your recovery has gotta level up with it. So hit up bi optimizers.com/luke, and you can also find that [00:40:00] link in the podcast show notes. Love it. If if, it makes me think of my, um... I've been on a real ice bath kick- Mm ... you know, for the past, I don't know, 15 years or something, but especially lately.

[00:40:18] Luke Storey: Uh, so I get in the ice bath, I don- I mean, I'm not exaggerating, probably 10 times a day, but just for a second, you know, just dip in and out, just refresh my brain and whatnot. But over the years, as I've introduced people to the ice bath that have never done it before, to see how their nervous system has a complete freaking nuclear- Meltdown?

[00:40:37] Luke Storey: meltdown. It's ex- and I'm not trying to say, oh, I'm, I'm badass. I'm, other people have capacities that I lack, you know, obviously in, in other ways, but that just handling cold is something I have a lot of capacity for. But if I took Jared here today and was like, "You're gonna jump in the ice bath 10 times today," it would, it could be problematic, right?

[00:40:58] Luke Storey: 'Cause his capacity for [00:41:00] that particular stressor is not- Yeah ... you know, on that level.

[00:41:04] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah. So let's ask a question then, like, what would be someone's capacity for grief? If their father passed away today What would be their honest capacity to feel it so they could move through it and not get stuck? I think, curious your thoughts, I think that most people don't have the capacity to feel some of these hard, uncomfortable feelings that life presents us with.

[00:41:34] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:35] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think for me, with that one in particular, I'm thankfully, you know, I'm not a, a man who's really e- embarrassed about crying. I don't have, like, a macho thing about emotions. I have spent most of my life avoiding them, you know, but for different reasons, right? But I think with grief, for me, something that really helped [00:42:00] my capacity was having an amazing wife, right, with whom I feel completely safe and have absolute trust.

[00:42:08] Luke Storey: Um, and, and, and also just has a deep reservoir of compassion and empathy and is really able to hold the kind of space that grief like that needs. Would've been a much different experience, I think, if I were to, if I were trying to handle it on my own. You know, but just, it's like knowing there's someone there who loves you, isn't gonna leave, and also is healthy enough in their own emotional, uh, maturity that they're also not going to take it on-

[00:42:42] Dr Aimie Apigian: Exactly

[00:42:43] Luke Storey: either. Yeah. They know what's theirs and what's mine, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So it's like, can, they can be there for me without feeling a sense of responsibility or without having to sort of circle the drain of grief with me, right? They can just hold space and be in their own experience at the same [00:43:00] time, you know?

[00:43:00] Luke Storey: Like, that's a really beautiful dynamic to experience in a relationship. It's like you, someone's not running away because it's uncomfortable, because they know they can be with you in your discomfort without taking it on, right? So critical. So there's, there's a real safety in that, I think, for both people.

[00:43:16] Luke Storey: And also the one who's experiencing the grief or the feeling isn't having the codependent- Exactly ... expectation that that person needs to be having the same experience in order to, in order to be supporting or honoring-

[00:43:28] Dr Aimie Apigian: Right ...

[00:43:28] Luke Storey: of it either.

[00:43:29] Dr Aimie Apigian: And not afraid that I'm gonna pull them into my grief. Yeah.

[00:43:32] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[00:43:32] Luke Storey: 'Cause I

[00:43:32] Dr Aimie Apigian: don't wanna do that to them.

[00:43:33] Luke Storey: Yeah. I do that sometimes. I, I gotta be, like, at the end of my rope before I'll tell my wife

[00:43:39] Dr Aimie Apigian: what's

[00:43:40] Luke Storey: going on. I, 'cause I don't want her to, you know- Right, right ... take it on, you know, sometimes. Yeah. That just happened. I was really overwhelmed the other day, and I was like, "Ah, I'm not gonna say anything.

[00:43:46] Luke Storey: I got this. I got this," you know? This, like, lone wolf syndrome really bad. Um- Hmm ... hard to ask for help. And then finally I broke down and had such a meltdown that she was actually annoyed, you know? 'Cause she's just like, "Dude." "

[00:43:59] Dr Aimie Apigian: Why didn't you [00:44:00] just tell me this earlier?"

[00:44:00] Luke Storey: Yeah. "Why didn't you tell me?" And also, like, you're doing this to yourself, you know, kind of thing.

[00:44:05] Luke Storey: Annoyed in, you know, uh, the most supportive way, and it did snap me out of it, 'cause I was being a drama queen, you know? So tell me about, um, your thoughts on, you know, going back to the biology of trauma specifically. Take someone who is physically healthy but has a past of, you know, s- some sort of complex trauma, let's say, and then, you know, for no apparent reason, comes down with, you know, an autoimmune thing or what they think is Lyme or MS or, you know, a neurological thing, whatever it is, and starts to address it with the best of intentions on a purely physical level and just goes in circles and is never able to resolve it.

[00:44:50] Luke Storey: 'Cause I, I think I've seen that in, in some people, uh, in m- in my personal life and also just, you know, from afar. Like, hmm, I don't know. I don't think you're gonna, like, [00:45:00] biohack or functional medicine your way out of this one because it's like you look at someone who's doing all the right things and stays physically ill.

[00:45:09] Luke Storey: Like, there's gotta be some other underlying, um, you know, kind of cause there that's being missed. What's your take on that?

[00:45:18] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah, and, uh, I mean, this has been so many of my patients, so many of my patients, and I'm seeing this uprising in immune patterns that reflect a nervous system that's been in fear mode for most of their life.

[00:45:35] Dr Aimie Apigian: And so even the mast cell activation syndromes and all of the hypersensitivity, that is on the rise. So many more people are being able to identify, ugh, like, this is part of what's happening with me, and a lot of that involves a chronic Lyme or chronic other conditions, but then also the long-haul syndromes, not just COVID.

[00:45:58] Dr Aimie Apigian: I mean, we've had long-haul, [00:46:00] long-haul mold illness, long-haul viral syndromes, and those are on the rise. People get exposed to something, and they're just not able to recover, and they have flare-ups. They can recognize that the flare-ups somehow seem to be associated with stress in their life, but even when they use their mind to say, "That shouldn't stress me out.

[00:46:24] Dr Aimie Apigian: That's no longer going to stress me. I am making a decision. That is no longer going to stress me out," their body still seems to go into these reactions. And what we get to see is how much of this biology is, in a way, holding that memory. It's like the footprints are there And those don't go away with time.

[00:46:51] Dr Aimie Apigian: Time doesn't heal anything. In fact, it only accumulates the damage. And so maybe what started off as a [00:47:00] small imbalance in the immune system, whether mast cells, microglia, if you've had any kind of head injury or other... thyroid. I mean, thyroid is a big player in the metabolism changes that happen with stored trauma.

[00:47:16] Dr Aimie Apigian: But those are so small that they're not noticed. You don't notice it. It's easy to just say, "Oh, I'm more tired today," and drink an extra cup of coffee and not have any idea of what is actually underneath the surface. You go to your physician eventually, get labs because, okay, now I'm this tired every single day, or whatever the symptom is, and it's still not enough off for them to say, "Oh, here's a diagnosis."

[00:47:49] Dr Aimie Apigian: But it's these footprints that are showing up in our biology that are so predictable that this is what we can also use to measure the degree of stored trauma in a [00:48:00] body. It's like the burden that the body's bearing. We can measure this now. So much of it has to do with oxidative stress, toxins, mitochondrial inefficiency.

[00:48:13] Dr Aimie Apigian: These are the ways in which the footprints appear and are very clear that they are going to compromise your current capacity as well as then your emotional regulation because they're causing signals of danger to your nervous system. Even something as simple as a nutrient deficiency, right? Like, when we're running on stress for so long of our life, we are burning through magnesium.

[00:48:39] Dr Aimie Apigian: We're burning through zinc, B6. We're burning through these nutrients. Are we replacing them at the level that we're burning through them? No. Especially if you are doing any form of emotional eating, reaching for comfort foods. Like, those are not the foods that are gonna re- you know, replenish all of your deficiencies.

[00:48:59] Dr Aimie Apigian: And [00:49:00] so it, it just becomes this snowball effect that picks up speed, and so then you get the diagnosis. You get autoimmunity, maybe at 30, maybe at 50, and you're like, "What? Where did this come from?" It's been building all along. It's just finally broke to the surface. But no, it's been building from the first moment that you experienced that degree of survival overwhelm And your only option for surviving it was to just retreat within yourself and push through.

[00:49:39] Dr Aimie Apigian: It wasn't an option to open up and connect with someone and share that experience with someone else.

[00:49:47] Luke Storey: What's the difference between Day-to-day stress and stored trauma

[00:49:53] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm. I love this. The physiology is actually quite clear, [00:50:00] and you'll appreciate this because this is what you do. You intentionally create stress for your physiology in order to expand your capacity.

[00:50:10] Dr Aimie Apigian: That's what stress does for us. In fact, I use, uh the story of one of my patients, Kenneth, in my book to explain this. He was lifting weights. He was a veteran, and so he was going to the gym, lifting weights, and that's what lifting weights is. Lifting weights is I'm going to stress out my muscles so that I can grow my muscles.

[00:50:30] Dr Aimie Apigian: We can't grow without stress, so stress is not bad. It's just what happens when we go into that stress response? Are we completing it? Because growth happens with stress plus rest. Stress plus rest, and of course, we know that the rest is actually more important than the stress in order for that growth to happen.

[00:50:54] Dr Aimie Apigian: But what happens with if the body's gonna go into a trauma response is that it's not able [00:51:00] to have that full exhale after the inhale of this is stressful. Oh my goodness, what am I gonna do? It actually accelerates and exceeds that capacity to feel like you know what to do. You reach the point where you're in such high panic that you don't know what to do, and so your body, your nervous system essentially throws on the emergency brake and just says, "Well then, we're g- just gonna stop."

[00:51:25] Dr Aimie Apigian: And that's where the freeze response happens. People can feel that paralysis of oh my gosh, like, I don't know what... I don't, I, I can't believe what's just happening. It's the shock. The shock creates that freeze response. But in our physiology, that is the equivalent of having our foot on the gas pedal and the emergency brake on at the same time.

[00:51:49] Dr Aimie Apigian: That is unsustainable for our body. So our nervous system, in its amazing design, says, "Well, if I have the emergency brake on, I'm gonna take my foot off of the gas," which is the [00:52:00] sympathetic nervous system, the adrenaline. "Gonna take my foot off of that, and I'm gonna just put my foot on the brake." So now I have both the brake and the emergency brake on, and that's that full just kinda shut down, which becomes more of a chronic state the more times that your nervous system does that.

[00:52:18] Dr Aimie Apigian: The challenge for many people is that because that started to happen so early in life, that's all they know how to do. They don't know how to complete a stress response in a way that gives them the reset back to safety and the true rest that they need for growth. So they're experiencing a lot of stress, but then that stress just goes into overwhelm.

[00:52:43] Dr Aimie Apigian: It doesn't Go to rest

[00:52:46] Luke Storey: Right

[00:52:46] Dr Aimie Apigian: And so this is the pattern that-

[00:52:48] Luke Storey: It's like it needs a pulsing

[00:52:50] Dr Aimie Apigian: Exactly Right? We're supposed to breathe in- Yeah ... which is the equivalent of stress, right? Like breathe in is the stress, and then you're supposed to be able to breathe out Mm-hmm And what happens if you're never [00:53:00] able to breathe out?

[00:53:01] Dr Aimie Apigian: Well, you would die, and so what your nervous system does for you is it forces an exhale, but it forces the exhale by a, just a complete collapse, not because we're gonna rest and feel safe. It's because we've reached overwhelm, and now we're just gonna shut you down. That's the only way I can get you to stop.

[00:53:24] Dr Aimie Apigian: And then people are frustrated when their body is stopping them and not understanding why

[00:53:36] Luke Storey: I spent a long time adding healthy habits to my daily routine, but it wasn't until I started paying attention to what was really draining me that everything changed. Here's the short version of the story. Years ago, I lived under two massive cell towers in LA. No matter how clean I ate or how many health protocols I followed, my sleep was terrible, my nervous system was fried, and I felt awful.[00:54:00]

[00:54:00] Luke Storey: So that experience sent me down the rabbit hole of man-made EMFs and how to reduce their effects. And that's exactly when Leela Quantum became a key part of my strategy. Here at home, I use their Quantum Block to create a more coherent environment. And when I'm out and about in the world, I wear their Heal360 Capsule.

[00:54:19] Luke Storey: It's quantum charged with these little titanium spheres that generate a coherent field around the body. The result of that is that I get home feeling more like myself, especially after travel or long days in EMF-heavy environments, which heads up is any urban area. And when I'm flying or expecting higher exposure, I take it a step further.

[00:54:39] Luke Storey: That's where I add their EMF-blocking clothing. It shields against 99% of measurable wireless radiation. So if you don't wanna spend your life living in a Faraday cage and you wanna be healthy at the same time, here's what you do. Visit lukestory.com/LeelaQ. That's L-E-E-L-A-Q. And if you use the code [00:55:00] LUKE10, you're gonna get 10% off your first order.

[00:55:03] Luke Storey: Now, obviously, we can't avoid the modern world, but you can move through it with much more resilience, and that's why you wanna get over to lukestory.com/LeelaQ

[00:55:15] Luke Storey: So if what we're after, whether we know it or not, is homeostasis-

[00:55:22] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yes ...

[00:55:23] Luke Storey: and a feeling of being safe-

[00:55:25] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yes ...

[00:55:26] Luke Storey: in our own body, in our own experience, and so many of us reach for things outside of ourselves, myself included to this day, every day, in some way or another, it's like, I, I've experienced, as I've gotten a little bit better at creating that sense of safety within myself, the things that I would normally be drawn to that are outside of myself, they kind of lose their appeal.

[00:55:59] Luke Storey: They, they're not quite [00:56:00] as sticky, right? I might have the idea, like, oh, I need to go on Twitter, and like, and then it's like, eh, actually, I feel pretty good, you know? Um, so it's, it seems like a lot of these distractions and coping mechanisms, you know, aren't in and of themselves bad. It's not like there's nothing wrong with looking at social media and watching some cute puppy videos or whatever you're into, or conspiracy theories in my case.

[00:56:23] Luke Storey: That really wreck my nervous system, by the way. Uh, you know, it's, it's not that it's, as you said, binary. It's not, oh, this is good, that's bad. It's just- Exactly ... wow, what, what if we... Not what if, but we can, and this is, you know, some of what you teach, I know, is like, wow, what if, you know, we can really learn how to create this sense of safety within ourselves, and then life becomes much more open.

[00:56:49] Luke Storey: We don't have to have so many kind of self-imposed restrictions of like, oh, I better not eat the ice cream, or I better not be on social media. It's like, well, I can if I want, and if I don't want to, I don't. Right? There's much more [00:57:00] agency in that, but I think that agency is much harder to get to if you don't have the kind of internal nervous system agency.

[00:57:07] Luke Storey: Am I kind of on point with your model there?

[00:57:10] Dr Aimie Apigian: How would you- Yeah, so I'll, I'll ask you a few questions, 'cause where I love to lead people then is being able to see everything as a tool.

[00:57:17] Luke Storey: Okay.

[00:57:18] Dr Aimie Apigian: Everything is, is a tool. So what is something that you enjoy doing most days?

[00:57:25] Luke Storey: Um, in what, with what goal?

[00:57:28] Dr Aimie Apigian: Does not matter.

[00:57:29] Luke Storey: Um, I mean, oh my God, there's so many things. Yeah. If I don't have to make a living, I would just, I'd just be self-caring nonstop, you know?

[00:57:38] Dr Aimie Apigian: Do you have coffee every day?

[00:57:40] Luke Storey: No. No.

[00:57:41] Dr Aimie Apigian: No. Um- Okay. So let's take your ice baths. You definitely have been doing that.

[00:57:44] Luke Storey: That, I mean, that's- Okay ... non-negotiable every single day.

[00:57:47] Dr Aimie Apigian: Okay. Yeah. So let's just use that.

[00:57:48] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[00:57:48] Dr Aimie Apigian: The question that I ask people is, whatever it is, ice cream- Ice

[00:57:54] Luke Storey: cream or ice

[00:57:54] Dr Aimie Apigian: bath ... movie, Twitter, ice baths, whatever it is, how is it helping you in that [00:58:00] moment? What are you reaching for that to accomplish what? Yeah. And for the ice baths, I mean, I think I know the answer, but- Yeah

[00:58:09] Dr Aimie Apigian: I'll let you share.

[00:58:10] Luke Storey: To me, it's, um, it's like a pattern interrupter. Yeah. It's a, it's a change in gears. It's just, it's a reset,

[00:58:17] Dr Aimie Apigian: right? It's like- It's a reset, yeah ...

[00:58:18] Luke Storey: I'm in one lane. Right. I jump in some cold water, I get out, and oh shit, I'm in a different lane now, right? Yeah. It's like a, yeah, it's like a pivot kind

[00:58:26] Dr Aimie Apigian: of a thing.

[00:58:26] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm. It helps me pivot.

[00:58:27] Luke Storey: Throughout the day,

[00:58:28] Dr Aimie Apigian: yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Could you accomplish that pivot a different way?

[00:58:34] Luke Storey: Right

[00:58:35] Dr Aimie Apigian: You, you c- could. I mean, it might take longer, it might-

[00:58:39] Luke Storey: Yeah ...

[00:58:40] Dr Aimie Apigian: you know, but, but you could

[00:58:42] Luke Storey: Could and-

[00:58:43] Dr Aimie Apigian: You

[00:58:43] Luke Storey: could ... do

[00:58:44] Dr Aimie Apigian: And do

[00:58:45] Luke Storey: But I think without any external crutches, it's not as reliable.

[00:58:54] Dr Aimie Apigian: Sure.

[00:58:55] Dr Aimie Apigian: Makes

[00:58:55] Luke Storey: a perfect sense And it, and it takes a little more- It does ... effort It takes more effort- Time ... more time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So then we get to[00:59:00]

[00:59:00] Dr Aimie Apigian: ask, well then, if now that I know that this is why I'm using this, this is how I'm using this tool, it's, it's a tool to pivot me. Is this tool and how I use it right now, if we were deciding to do it right now, is this aligned with who I wanna be in the world? What makes me proud of myself? Those are the questions that got me to finally be able to stop the emotional eating.

[00:59:30] Dr Aimie Apigian: No judgment. You can still emotionally eat if you really want to, Amy. The brownie's right in front of you.

[00:59:35] Luke Storey: Mm, brownies.

[00:59:37] Dr Aimie Apigian: What are you trying to accomplish with this brownie? You don't wanna feel lonely right now. Yeah, that makes sense. Loneliness is a awful feeling. I get that. I get that you don't wanna feel lonely right now.

[00:59:51] Dr Aimie Apigian: So this brownie would help you to not feel lonely right now? Correct. Okay. Is eating this brownie to not feel lonely aligned with who [01:00:00] you want to be in the world right now? Ah, that's not feeling aligned. Okay. What are the, what other tools do we have to help us navigate this feeling of loneliness right now?

[01:00:15] Dr Aimie Apigian: And that's when things open up, options open up, and we see nothing as good or bad. It's just, how is this helping me right now? And is this aligned with who I really wanna be?

[01:00:30] Luke Storey: So you're zooming out and looking more at the greater context-

[01:00:35] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yes ...

[01:00:36] Luke Storey: than the content within it. Right. Like, whatever the behavior is.

[01:00:39] Luke Storey: Eh. Right. Like, not getting caught in the minutiae, but just kind of- Right ... let's give a meta-analysis of this situation real quick.

[01:00:45] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah.

[01:00:45] Luke Storey: Right? And look at it- Yeah ... from a neutral-

[01:00:48] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm ...

[01:00:48] Luke Storey: non-judgmental- Mm-hmm ... place, 'cause obviously that's self-defeating if we're beating ourselves up and we feel shame underneath the loneliness, then, you know, if we s-

[01:00:56] Dr Aimie Apigian: Right, let's add shame to the loneliness now.

[01:00:58] Luke Storey: Yeah. Then eventually we end up at the [01:01:00] very bottom, you know? And

[01:01:00] Dr Aimie Apigian: now it's the whole pan of brownies, not just one.

[01:01:02] Luke Storey: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I like-

[01:01:05] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah, so- Yeah ... you know, being able to get curious about, what am I trying to avoid right now? What do I not want to feel right now? I don't wanna feel stuck. I don't wanna feel tired.

[01:01:17] Dr Aimie Apigian: I don't wanna feel whatever it is. Those, that's really helpful information for me to be able to learn how to navigate my nervous system better in a way that's more aligned with who I actually wanna be in the world than if I don't have that information, and I'm just going through my day, and I'm doing things that are unconsciously helping shift my state.

[01:01:40] Dr Aimie Apigian: Give me a pivot. Give me some dopamine. Give me some serotonin now. And I have no idea that I'm doing it 'cause I'm not actually asking these kinds of questions. How is this helping you right now? What are you trying to not feel right now? Not saying that that's bad to not feel that. Sometimes that's good.

[01:01:57] Dr Aimie Apigian: I feel tired, I need to do a podcast [01:02:00] interview with Luke. Okay, we can't feel tired right now. Then what do I need to do? So again, just being able to stay out of that good, bad. I find that the rigidity thinking is so much a result of trauma.

[01:02:14] Luke Storey: Yeah. Yeah.

[01:02:16] Dr Aimie Apigian: And being able to have curiosity.

[01:02:19] Luke Storey: Uh, in my own experience, that self-awareness and self-honesty, self-compassion is really important.

[01:02:29] Luke Storey: As for those of us that are wired toward habituating to anything and everything that changes your state, whether it's, like, a good or healthy or positive thing, that awareness piece is, um, is really crucial 'cause it's, it's so easy to beat yourself up with perfectionism.

[01:02:47] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm.

[01:02:48] Luke Storey: Like I'm... You know, I chew the, the hell out of this coca leaf every day, especially when I'm, like, in a writing situation where f- you know, it demands focus, and I'll see myself, like, beating myself up for it because I, [01:03:00] I don't like feeling dependent on something outside of myself, and it, it doesn't feel like real sobriety.

[01:03:06] Luke Storey: Not that it doesn't get you high, but it's just like, I shouldn't need anything, you know? It's like this grandiose expectation I have on myself. Oh, I should just be able to just meditate, drink water, eat steak, and live my life, and it's like, well, that'd be nice, but I, I don't know if I'm that guy. I s- I seem to be someone who likes to tinker a lot, you know?

[01:03:25] Luke Storey: So there's been this battle within myself, um, over the years of, of learning how to just go, "Dude, you're a tinkerer." Like, you just... It's in your nature, you know? Someone else might, oh, they'd have a little coca leaf every four years. That's nice. I'm on a hike in Peru. I'm like, no, I'm at my desk pounding a kilo a week.

[01:03:44] Luke Storey: You know what I mean? It's like-

[01:03:45] Dr Aimie Apigian: Exactly, but even with that, right? Like, can we, can we understand that we go through phases of life. We take on a project. We feel like it's a project that we're supposed to do. We've gotta show up in a big way for that. [01:04:00] That requires a very specific state. That's not the state of drinking a margarita on a beach in the Caribbean.

[01:04:06] Dr Aimie Apigian: Like-

[01:04:06] Luke Storey: Word ...

[01:04:07] Dr Aimie Apigian: so you have taken on this enormous project

[01:04:13] Luke Storey: Trying to solve the human condition

[01:04:14] Dr Aimie Apigian: Trying to solve the human condition

[01:04:16] Luke Storey: Loneliness, separation. Of

[01:04:18] Dr Aimie Apigian: loneliness

[01:04:18] Luke Storey: If I ever write a book again, it's gonna, it's gonna be about, like, you know- ... how to design a great table or some- you know.

[01:04:23] Dr Aimie Apigian: Puppies.

[01:04:24] Luke Storey: Yeah. It's gonna be something very inert.

[01:04:26] Luke Storey: How

[01:04:26] Dr Aimie Apigian: to love a puppy.

[01:04:27] Luke Storey: Superficial, yeah.

[01:04:30] Dr Aimie Apigian: And so that-

[01:04:31] Luke Storey: How to take a proper ice bath. There

[01:04:32] Dr Aimie Apigian: you go.

[01:04:33] Dr Aimie Apigian: That, that level of work requires a certain level of intensity, and so what you're doing is you're just creating the level of intensity that you need in order to show up in the way that you need to, knowing that this is unsustainable.

[01:04:48] Dr Aimie Apigian: You're not gonna do this the rest of your life.

[01:04:50] Luke Storey: That's the key.

[01:04:50] Dr Aimie Apigian: But exa- for this phase, that's exactly what you need to do.

[01:04:55] Luke Storey: That's the key. I texted my buddy Cal Callahan this morning, and I said, "Man, I gotta quit this shit. This [01:05:00] is ridiculous." After I finish the book. After you finish the book.

[01:05:03] Dr Aimie Apigian: Right.

[01:05:04] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[01:05:04] Luke Storey: But I will. You know, I will, because I don't... As I said, I don't like... I just don't like being so habituated around something.

[01:05:12] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah.

[01:05:12] Luke Storey: But the self-awareness, self-honesty, having compassion and patience with yourself, crucial, as we've been talking about. I think it's a little bit sometimes a slippery slope because that f- especially for addicts, I'm always thinking through the frame for addicts.

[01:05:27] Luke Storey: It's true. It's like, whoa, it's real easy to slip over into denial.

[01:05:31] Dr Aimie Apigian: Easy to be on that edge.

[01:05:33] Luke Storey: You know what I'm saying? Uh-huh. River of denial is right there. I got my canoe. I'm like, "Oh, I got the tip of the canoe." Let me

[01:05:38] Dr Aimie Apigian: lean over the edge,

[01:05:40] Luke Storey: look at it. Yeah, now I'm in the middle of the damn Nile, you know? So it's, it's, it's tricky, I think, you know, for someone who's-

[01:05:47] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yes

[01:05:47] Luke Storey: you know, I don't know, has-

[01:05:49] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yes ...

[01:05:50] Luke Storey: less time or experience in really being honest with themselves- Yes ... and facing-

[01:05:54] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yes ...

[01:05:54] Luke Storey: you know, those, those kind of truths. Uh, it's real easy to become self-delusional, and I know [01:06:00] that- Mm-hmm ... because I- Mm-hmm ... you know, was self-delusional- Mm-hmm ... as a full-time job for about 20 years.

[01:06:05] Luke Storey: So-

[01:06:05] Dr Aimie Apigian: And, and that's exactly why you can't use your mind.

[01:06:08] Luke Storey: Right.

[01:06:09] Dr Aimie Apigian: Because it's the mind that has become self-delusional.

[01:06:13] Luke Storey: Yes. Yes. Uh, talk to me about some of your, you know, your program. I, I, I, I feel badly. I mean, obviously we're gonna put, by the way, the show notes, you guys, are lukestory.com/dramaie. A-I... Sorry, A-M-I-E.

[01:06:34] Luke Storey: When we do these podcasts, we, you know, kind of go around and around and things get a bit, um, uh, what's the word, you know, like inspiring, but maybe ambiguous to some people. It's like, "Okay, okay, I get it. What do I do?" You know? So let's maybe land the plane and people can, you know, get your book and, you know, join you in your program.

[01:06:54] Luke Storey: What are some of the things you've found as someone who, you know, and that when you went through that trauma in [01:07:00] 2014 or wherever it was, you had this physical meltdown, which of course was a gift in disguise because it led you to your work, and now you're gonna change millions of lives. We love those stories, but, you know, like, what are some of the concrete practices or tools?

[01:07:13] Luke Storey: Like, how do you work with your body, your breath? Like, what are you doing to create that sense of safety within yourself that makes you less susceptible to, you know, avoidance and numbing and all those other things?

[01:07:26] Dr Aimie Apigian: I see five core skills that humans need to learn.

[01:07:31] Luke Storey: Cool. If they- That's what I was looking for.

[01:07:33] Luke Storey: Give me the five steps and we're out of here. You got it.

[01:07:36] Dr Aimie Apigian: They are skills, Luke. Okay. Not steps.

[01:07:40] Luke Storey: Ah, shit They're skills Steps you can complete and be done with, right?

[01:07:43] Dr Aimie Apigian: Which means that you're always reinforcing these skills on deeper and deeper layers.

[01:07:48] Luke Storey: Oh, man. Come on. Just fix us, Dr. Amy.

[01:07:52] Dr Aimie Apigian: Um, uh, I haven't come up with the magic pill yet.

[01:07:55] Luke Storey: Okay.

[01:07:55] Dr Aimie Apigian: I

[01:07:55] Dr Aimie Apigian: know.

[01:07:56] Luke Storey: Well, let me know when you do. I

[01:07:56] Dr Aimie Apigian: know, big disappointment.

[01:07:57] Luke Storey: You got my number.

[01:07:58] Dr Aimie Apigian: Right. [01:08:00] Isn't that what we all want? We still want that magic pill for everything. So the five core skills are, first let's just start with can I feel? Can I feel? And the more that I can learn how to feel, the more that then I can be present, the more that I can ride the waves of those feelings and not bury and stuff within all of the consequences.

[01:08:26] Dr Aimie Apigian: So can I feel is one of those core skills. Can I shift my state? When I notice myself overwhelmed, can I actually shift my state in the moment to feeling safer? If I notice that I'm stressed and anxious and hypervigilant, and it's not the right time to be stressed, hypervigilant, then can I shift my state to feeling safer?

[01:08:54] Dr Aimie Apigian: Not next week when I see my therapist, like right now.

[01:08:57] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm.

[01:08:57] Dr Aimie Apigian: In the moment.

[01:08:58] Luke Storey: Real time.

[01:08:58] Dr Aimie Apigian: Have those skills.

[01:08:59] Luke Storey: And, and, [01:09:00] um, endogenously,

[01:09:03] Dr Aimie Apigian: right? Yes.

[01:09:05] Luke Storey: Yes. Can I sit in a chair- Sure, yeah ... and change my state?

[01:09:09] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah, because my- '

[01:09:11] Luke Storey: Cause there's a million ways you can reach outside of yourself to change your state

[01:09:14] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yes, and I see those ways as not shifting actually to safer, but they're inducing a numbed out state.

[01:09:21] Luke Storey: Mm. Mm-hmm.

[01:09:22] Dr Aimie Apigian: That's not shifting to safer. Mm-hmm. That's actually shifting into a trauma physiology where I'm just shut down, numbed out.

[01:09:31] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm.

[01:09:33] Dr Aimie Apigian: Then let's look at the skill of can I track my nervous system? Meaning can I notice where it is right now? Can I notice my anxiety levels rising? Can I notice that I'm at the edge and about to fall over into overwhelm?

[01:09:51] Dr Aimie Apigian: Can I notice what it actually feels like to shift it into feeling safer so that I can know that I'm being successful when I go to shift my [01:10:00] state? Most people have no idea what the three states feel like, and thus they don't f- feel confident in their ability to shift their state endogenously by themselves.

[01:10:13] Dr Aimie Apigian: Then we look at can I pace? Again, we've talked about this. Can I... Just going back to grief, for example, since it's a universal feeling that we all will experience in life. There are moments when tapping into that grief, looking at the picture of your father would be too much. It would open up too much, and it's not the right time.

[01:10:36] Dr Aimie Apigian: I don't have the current capacity for that.

[01:10:37] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[01:10:38] Dr Aimie Apigian: Recognizing that and pacing that is a fantastic thing. That's not avoiding. That's deciding pacing is what will help me be able to come back to it when I have the capacity A lot of people don't know how to pace. They're doing too much too fast.

[01:10:57] Luke Storey: Uh, right.

[01:10:58] Dr Aimie Apigian: And then they have [01:11:00] setbacks-

[01:11:00] Luke Storey: I see this a lot in the- ... and

[01:11:01] Dr Aimie Apigian: wonder why ...

[01:11:02] Luke Storey: in the psychedelic-

[01:11:03] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yes ...

[01:11:03] Luke Storey: space, right?

[01:11:04] Dr Aimie Apigian: This is, this is- Too much too soon, right? ... the principle that's being forgotten in the psychedelic space right now. Yeah,

[01:11:09] Luke Storey: yeah.

[01:11:09] Dr Aimie Apigian: The capacity issue. Yeah. Not just emotional capacity, though that's a big one, right?

[01:11:14] Dr Aimie Apigian: Like, do you actually have the emotional capacity to see what you're gonna see when you go on this journey?

[01:11:19] Luke Storey: Yeah, yeah.

[01:11:20] Dr Aimie Apigian: Let's build your capacity first, and then these experiences are that expansion built on a foundation of safety, both emotional safety, but also biological safety. If you've got toxins, if you've got nutrient deficiencies, that's what your nervous system is measuring your capacity by, and it's gonna look at this big grief and say, "We don't have enough magnesium to feel that," because it takes so much of our energy to feel that, and if we don't have what it takes to make the energy, our body's gonna say, "We're gonna shut down instead."

[01:11:56] Dr Aimie Apigian: The fifth core skill, then, really comes as a result of those [01:12:00] four, and that is can I choose? We've talked about this. Can I choose a different response than what I would've done before? And that's, for me, these questions that I get to ask. Is this aligned with who I want to be? Even if I've always done it this way, even if I've always gone out biking in order to get out my anger in a relationship.

[01:12:25] Dr Aimie Apigian: Great thing, right? Biking, exercising. Is this aligned with who I want to be and how I want to be in relationships and learn to communicate? Do I wanna escape every time? Those are the aspects, then, the skills of choosing a different response because I've created a space between the trigger and my behavior.

[01:12:48] Dr Aimie Apigian: Until I learn to create that space, I'm not gonna choose anything different. So I see these as the core skills that every human being who wants to be resilient [01:13:00] should learn. And then I became an addiction medicine physician.

[01:13:06] Luke Storey: Oh, God. Oh, you did that afterward? I

[01:13:09] Dr Aimie Apigian: left surgery.

[01:13:10] Luke Storey: We gotta do another podcast. We just talk about what it's like to work in a detox center.

[01:13:16] Dr Aimie Apigian: I left surgery because I wanted to study trauma in the body. Okay. And I felt there would be no better patients to teach me this- Got

[01:13:23] Luke Storey: that right ...

[01:13:24] Dr Aimie Apigian: than addiction medicine patients. And I got to work with nervous systems that are so sensitive That the wind would make them use

[01:13:37] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm ...

[01:13:37] Dr Aimie Apigian: would make them relapse because they didn't have the capacity.

[01:13:40] Dr Aimie Apigian: They didn't have any skills. So many of them had learned to use from a very early age. That's all they knew how to cope with life. And so here I, as the great physician, come in and detox them. You're done. You're fixed. You're clean. Hate that word, by the way. [01:14:00] Good luck. Send them out the door, and my gosh, within a week they'd be back Uh, what's wrong with you, right?

[01:14:10] Dr Aimie Apigian: Or what am I doing wrong that I'm not preparing you? I'm not actually helping you live a different life. And that's when I realized that if I could help this population actually learn to feel their feelings, I could help anyone.

[01:14:30] Luke Storey: 100%. I would say anyone, anyone in a clinical role that is able to get through to addicts- Yeah

[01:14:39] Luke Storey: you can get through to anyone. Anyone. There's no skulls thicker than addicts and alcoholics. Yes.

[01:14:45] Dr Aimie Apigian: So that's what I did. Wow. I started to use everything that I had applied to myself, 'cause I was just N of 1 at this point. Yes, I'd gotten my health back, reversed my autoimmunity, but I'm N of 1. Now let me take it to [01:15:00] this group of people and see if it still works.

[01:15:03] Dr Aimie Apigian: And what I found that more than anything else helped them the fastest was somatic work two-minute exercises that I could teach them in clinic with me, but it gave them the agency That they could create a feeling of being safe enough in the moment, because if they didn't have that, they're gonna reach for the tool that they've always used- Yeah

[01:15:33] Dr Aimie Apigian: to feel safe enough.

[01:15:34] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[01:15:35] Dr Aimie Apigian: And that more than anything else, more than any other supplement, more than any other medication, more than any other diet, was what helped them change the fastest. Now, did they need other things? Of course they needed other things. We needed to bring in parts work. We needed to bring in the biology repair.

[01:15:53] Dr Aimie Apigian: All the layers still needed to exist, but the first layer that I found was the somatic layer. [01:16:00] And so now in my programs, that's where I start people. I say, "I'm gonna take you into attachment. I'm gonna take you into grief. I'm gonna take you into the freeze response. I'm gonna take you into your stress physiology and letting go.

[01:16:12] Dr Aimie Apigian: I'm gonna take you into all of these aspects of your nervous system so that we can use this precision approach, even get data from your wearables, from your labs, from your patterns. Gonna look at it all, help you learn how to navigate your nervous system differently, but I cannot take you there until you learn these foundational skills.

[01:16:31] Dr Aimie Apigian: 'Cause otherwise, I'm throwing you into the deep end."

[01:16:34] Luke Storey: Yeah. "

[01:16:35] Dr Aimie Apigian: You may make it. You may not. But I need to teach you how to swim."

[01:16:40] Luke Storey: That makes so much sense. What a great, um, you know, test group. Yeah, you really went for the, the, the hardest one there. But that, you know, that makes a lot of sense 'cause it's like, you know, I was thinking back in my, uh, earliest sobriety what a basket case I was.

[01:16:59] Luke Storey: Exactly. I mean, [01:17:00] just like-

[01:17:01] Dr Aimie Apigian: Raw ...

[01:17:01] Luke Storey: zero life skills. Yeah. Yes I started really young. Mm-hmm. I mean, just not only self-regulation, right, life skills, but just, like, how to park your car without getting a ticket, how to open a bank account you know? Just-

[01:17:13] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yes ...

[01:17:14] Luke Storey: didn't know how to adult in the world whatsoever. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

[01:17:16] Luke Storey: Which, of course, compounded all of the stress of, you know- Of course ... and, you know, buried of all, all the childhood trauma and all that. But it, it's interesting. Um, I just, you know, have this vision of, and maybe it's exist or it's being built, but, you know, a model of recovery or treatment center, sober living, whatever it is, where, you know, obviously the 12 steps are the most effective treatment that has ever existed, at least in recorded history that I'm aware of.

[01:17:43] Luke Storey: Um, and the way I see that is the unity and the fellowship, the human connection, right?

[01:17:50] Dr Aimie Apigian: The community, the connection.

[01:17:50] Luke Storey: And the, the unconditional love-

[01:17:53] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm ...

[01:17:53] Luke Storey: in those rooms- Yep ... is the most powerful love and the most powerful thing in existence, [01:18:00] right? And it's concentrated when you get a room full of people that have no ulterior motive other than to save their own ass, and they learn that the way they do that is by saving someone else's ass, right?

[01:18:08] Luke Storey: So it's like you have this self-contained unit of love, which is great, and then you have The, the literature and the principles, which to me, you know, obviously are spiritual in their nature, but have a lot to do with the science of mind. They're very metaphysical. It's like, wow, this thing is really centered in the mind.

[01:18:27] Luke Storey: Addiction is a, to me, is a mental illness 100%, right? W- and there's no way to, to refute that because you can take an addict or an alcoholic and get the chemicals out of their system, and they are just as nuts the next day as they were on it. You know what I mean?

[01:18:45] Dr Aimie Apigian: As a m- addiction medicine physician, I can attest to

[01:18:47] Luke Storey: that.

[01:18:47] Luke Storey: Can you ... Okay, you can attest to that? Yeah.

[01:18:48] Dr Aimie Apigian: In fact, they may be even more so. Worse,

[01:18:51] Luke Storey: 100%. Yes. It's like I, I, I wrote about it in my book. I said, "You know, when I got sober, it was like I'd had a migraine [01:19:00] my whole life-

[01:19:00] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah ...

[01:19:01] Luke Storey: and I've been taking aspirin, and it worked for a while, and then I started to have a lot of side effects where, like, the side effects were worse than the headache.

[01:19:07] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yes.

[01:19:08] Luke Storey: So, okay, well, I'm gonna stop taking the aspirin. The headache is worse than ever. You know, that kind of thing, right? So Okay, al- so you, you have this, this fellowship, the unity, the human connection, the love. You have an understanding of kind of what makes you tick, character defects, the way your mind works, your perception, all those things that you're addressing in the steps, in those principles.

[01:19:30] Luke Storey: Learning how to be honest with yourself, being willing, coming to believe in a power greater than yourself, all the things, making amends, writing a list of all the shit that's wrong with you, right? Prayer, meditation, all of that. Beautiful, effective, but it has nothing to do with the nervous system. There's no body in that model at all.

[01:19:47] Luke Storey: It's true. It's true. And meanwhile, the body is the thing that's been dragged through- Yeah ... the meat grinder of addiction-

[01:19:54] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah ...

[01:19:54] Luke Storey: your whole, you know, for the whole journey. So I-

[01:19:57] Dr Aimie Apigian: And it creates a ceiling effect in your capacity.

[01:19:59] Luke Storey: [01:20:00] 100%. Mm-hmm. 100%. So I, I love that idea and I, you know, I'm really excited about your work and bringing that, that piece in.

[01:20:10] Luke Storey: You know, another one that's been really interesting for me is over the past, I don't know how many years it's been, eight years or something, much less so these days, it's, it's much less frequent, but when I discovered I could, um, safely and effectively work with plant medicines as someone in recovery, oh my God, it opened a whole new world to me.

[01:20:28] Luke Storey: And, and that's really how I was able to get to the deeper traumas that I, I couldn't get with step work or therapy or any of the other things I tried. They were just too deep. I c- I literally could not access them. I could talk about them, could analyze them, I could write about them, inventory about them till the cows come home.

[01:20:44] Luke Storey: I could not break the patterns because I couldn't get to the wounds.

[01:20:48] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah.

[01:20:49] Luke Storey: You know?

[01:20:50] Dr Aimie Apigian: I think that's what surprises so many people, certainly surprised me, was this idea of we know what to do. We know that we need to feel our feelings, so then why don't we just feel our feelings? [01:21:00]

[01:21:00] Luke Storey: Right.

[01:21:01] Dr Aimie Apigian: Right? And it's actually, our work is to make it safe to feel the feelings.

[01:21:06] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yes. That's the work that we have to do.

[01:21:08] Luke Storey: Yes.

[01:21:08] Dr Aimie Apigian: Not to feel the feelings, to make it safe-

[01:21:11] Luke Storey: Right ...

[01:21:11] Dr Aimie Apigian: to feel the feelings.

[01:21:12] Luke Storey: And this is, like, those somatic exercises-

[01:21:15] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yes ...

[01:21:15] Luke Storey: you're teaching-

[01:21:16] Dr Aimie Apigian: The

[01:21:16] Luke Storey: somatic- ...

[01:21:18] Dr Aimie Apigian: clients, right? ...

[01:21:18] Luke Storey: the pacing. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

[01:21:19] Dr Aimie Apigian: The plant medicine, these are all tools. Mm-hmm. Just speaking of we have options for tools for how to actually practically make it safe for that buried stuff to be seen.

[01:21:33] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[01:21:33] Dr Aimie Apigian: To surface.

[01:21:35] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[01:21:35] Dr Aimie Apigian: It's gonna stay hidden until we've created the safety for it.

[01:21:40] Luke Storey: You got that right. It ain't going away. That, it's so funny you mention, like, time. You know, time doesn't heal wounds or something you said earlier, and it's like, oh my God. With trauma, in my experience- It gets worse over time Reinforces

[01:21:55] Dr Aimie Apigian: it

[01:21:55] Luke Storey: Yeah Mm-hmm 'Cause then, you know, all the things you do to keep numbing, masking, [01:22:00] hiding, running, avoiding, whatever, it's like all those things we're doing to get back to that place of centeredness compound the problem that we're trying to deal with in the first place, you know?

[01:22:11] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[01:22:11] Dr Aimie Apigian: That's neuroplasticity for you. Neuroplasticity works both ways.

[01:22:14] Luke Storey: Oh,

[01:22:15] Dr Aimie Apigian: right. It's not always positive neuroplasticity. Right It's also... It's going to reinforce and form those neural pathways for anything that we repeatedly do.

[01:22:25] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm.

[01:22:26] Dr Aimie Apigian: Even our coping mechanisms, our means of escaping. It's going to say, "Oh, that's how we need to live?

[01:22:32] Dr Aimie Apigian: Okay, got it. I'll program it in. You don't even n- need to think about it in the future. I'll just do it automatically for you

[01:22:44] Luke Storey: I used to think burnout was just the price you had to pay for being productive. Then I found something that helps me stay focused for as long as I need without feeling smoked afterward. It's called NuCalm. It uses a neuroacoustic software to help shift out of fight or flight and into deep [01:23:00] recovery in like ten minutes.

[01:23:01] Luke Storey: And the cool thing is, there's no gadgets to buy or haul around. You just throw on headphones, open the app, and within minutes you start to downshift or upshift if that's what you're looking for. I've been busy writing a book for the past couple years, and it's one of the most mentally demanding things I've ever done.

[01:23:16] Luke Storey: I'm talking hours and hours of deep focus, revisiting old memories, and organizing a ton of ideas. So before I start a writing session, I'll use one of their Flow State tracks to get me into zen. Then I'll lock in with a Focus track for the next few hours of writing. And I'll tell you what, my wife can attest to this.

[01:23:33] Luke Storey: When I have those headphones on, it's literally impossible to distract me. I'm like a machine. Then afterward, I'll use Recharge or Rescue to help my brain and body recover from hours of intense work. Just twenty minutes of that feels like a full nervous system reset, and NuCalm science supports that. I highly recommend you check out NuCalm, and here's how you do it.

[01:23:55] Luke Storey: Go to lukestory.com/nucalm to start your free seven-day trial. That's [01:24:00] free seven-day trial, folks. You'll also save fifteen percent off your subscription. So whether you need better sleep, sharper focus, or a fast reset, NuCalm has a track for it. And again, here's the link, lukestory.com/nucalm. That's N-U-C-A-L-M to get that fifteen percent off.

[01:24:18] Luke Storey: And whether or not you buy it, I highly recommend you at least give yourself seven days for free

[01:24:26] Luke Storey: What became of Miguel?

[01:24:29] Dr Aimie Apigian: Oh, speaking of grief. I stayed in contact with him for several years, but it was important for me that I respect and honor his new mother, and so all communication went through her.

[01:24:44] Dr Aimie Apigian: Hmm.

[01:24:45] Dr Aimie Apigian: And I know that starting around age 16, he started to have some issues again. He had gotten to a really good place, and then started to identify with more of his birth family, and they were in a [01:25:00] gang, and substance use.

[01:25:02] Dr Aimie Apigian: And since then, I've lost contact with him, and I'm waiting. Waiting-

[01:25:10] Luke Storey: Well, I- ... for

[01:25:10] Dr Aimie Apigian: the day ...

[01:25:11] Luke Storey: I pray that, that, that, uh, that happens in a way that's The highest good for all of you

[01:25:18] Dr Aimie Apigian: I feel so sorry

[01:25:18] Luke Storey: Yeah, it's gotta be really tough.

[01:25:20] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm.

[01:25:21] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[01:25:21] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm

[01:25:21] Luke Storey: Thank you for your willingness to- Mm. -share about that. Mm-hmm. You know, it's a vulnerable, vulnerable thing, I'm sure.

[01:25:27] Dr Aimie Apigian: Life is hard. For everyone, in different ways.

[01:25:31] Luke Storey: It's no joke, man. Earth school is a bitch. I mean, I'll just, like... I say this to Allison all the time, you know, just, you know, something happens, something doesn't happen, I'm just like, "Dude, seriously? Like, can we get a break?" You know, just like, "Let me just skate through one summer-" Right.

[01:25:47] Luke Storey: Exactly "... without any shit happening," you know?

[01:25:50] Dr Aimie Apigian: Exactly. I didn't, I didn't- I mean, if you- ... want to sign up for the school of hard knocks. Is there a way to-

[01:25:54] Luke Storey: Totally ...

[01:25:55] Dr Aimie Apigian: un-enroll?

[01:25:56] Luke Storey: 100%. I mean, it's like, even, even if you, [01:26:00] you know, are pretty good at f- mm, not letting the things in the world, you know, the drama- Sure ... of the world affect you- Yeah

[01:26:07] Luke Storey: of which you have no control over- No control ... right? But it's like, um, even if you're just in your own personal life, and you have a good life, and good friends, and good family, and you're happy, and everything's going well, that's even hard.

[01:26:18] Dr Aimie Apigian: That's even

[01:26:19] Luke Storey: hard. You know? But, like, when the world is nuts-

[01:26:21] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yes ...

[01:26:22] Luke Storey: and run by a bunch of parasites, m- murderous- How can

[01:26:26] Dr Aimie Apigian: you feel safe?

[01:26:26] Luke Storey: murderous demons, like, control the entire world, it's like, okay, leaving that aside, you just dealing with your own life is hard, but if you're kind of aware of what's going on in the world, and you're trying to make a difference, and you're living your own life, and you have your own interpersonal relationships, man, it's a lot, dude.

[01:26:43] Luke Storey: We weren't, we weren't, like, designed for this much stimuli, this much- Conflict ... stress, pressure.

[01:26:50] Dr Aimie Apigian: And this much disruption in our life.

[01:26:52] Luke Storey: Right.

[01:26:53] Dr Aimie Apigian: Right? Like, we were designed to be born and live in the same community, in the same tribe. [01:27:00] It's not even the world that we live in nowadays.

[01:27:02] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[01:27:03] Dr Aimie Apigian: There's so much disruption and loss.

[01:27:07] Luke Storey: It's gnarly.

[01:27:08] Dr Aimie Apigian: But then you're writing the book about it, so

[01:27:10] Luke Storey: we're good. I mean, we're, you know... We gotta, we gotta hand it to ourselves, those of us- Yeah ... that signed up to come here during this time. I mean-

[01:27:17] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah ...

[01:27:18] Luke Storey: it takes a real spiritual warrior to voluntarily agree to this curriculum, you know?

[01:27:25] Dr Aimie Apigian: And how much more important than to have those check-ins, and am I aligned with what I think my purpose is?

[01:27:33] Dr Aimie Apigian: Am I aligned with my calling? Am I proud of who I am and who I am becoming still?

[01:27:42] Luke Storey: Yeah. Good questions. All right, last question for you. Who have been three teachers or teachings that have influenced your life and who you are today?

[01:27:52] Dr Aimie Apigian: Ah. One of the first ones that I came across was Tian Dayton. Maybe you know her [01:28:00] writings.

[01:28:00] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah, not familiar. I discovered her, uh, her writings when I started attending, uh, 12 step meetings in Recovery Al-Anon, and I didn't understand why I related so much to these people, 'cause I don't have substance use in my family. And then I discovered the writings of Dr. Tian Dayton. She's written so many books now, I can't...

[01:28:20] Dr Aimie Apigian: I mean, she's even still coming out with more books. But her focus has been on the adult child of alcoholics.

[01:28:26] Luke Storey: Oh, okay.

[01:28:26] Dr Aimie Apigian: She wrote a fantastic book called Emotional Sobriety. Talking about being exposed to all of your defects.

[01:28:36] Dr Aimie Apigian: It's

[01:28:36] Dr Aimie Apigian: like- Yeah.

[01:28:36] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah ... oh. Oh, is that what I'm supposed to be like? Yeah, I'm not, I'm not anything like that.

[01:28:41] Dr Aimie Apigian: Okay, I've

[01:28:41] Dr Aimie Apigian: got some work to do. So she was the first one that really opened my eyes to some of my inner world that I had completely been unaware of. Yeah. The next one for me would've been Gabor Mate. Oh, yeah. In 2014, came across his book, When the Body Says No, and I was like, "That's my [01:29:00] body."

[01:29:02] Luke Storey: My body's saying, "Hell no."

[01:29:04] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah. Yeah. So h- we're now friends, and he wrote the forward to my book.

[01:29:08] Luke Storey: Oh, that's amazing. Which is

[01:29:10] Dr Aimie Apigian: so meaningful. Full circle for me.

[01:29:12] Luke Storey: Wow, that's beautiful. He's a, he's such a cool guy.

[01:29:15] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah.

[01:29:15] Luke Storey: I reached out to, to, uh, his... I mean, we only met once on Zoom to do a podcast, and I reached out, um, you know, to his, his people to see if I could get an endorsement, and I was like, "Ah, it's a long shot.

[01:29:24] Luke Storey: They'll never do it." They, they emailed me right back and they're like, "Oh, he totally would, but he's, he's on his own book deadline right now." I was like- Yeah ... "Wow, that's so nice that they would even..." I felt it was- Right?

[01:29:33] Dr Aimie Apigian: That

[01:29:33] Luke Storey: you even got a response ... nice that they even you know, that they even replied. I was like- Yeah

[01:29:36] Luke Storey: ah, it was a long shot, you know? Yeah. It's not like someone I know. So that's amazing. Good for you.

[01:29:41] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm.

[01:29:41] Luke Storey: Yeah, he's, I mean, his work is incredible.

[01:29:44] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah. Words just can't express the, the depth to his knowledge, embodied knowledge-

[01:29:54] Luke Storey: Yeah ...

[01:29:54] Dr Aimie Apigian: given his life experiences.

[01:29:55] Luke Storey: He's a deep guy, man.

[01:29:57] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm.

[01:29:57] Luke Storey: He's a deep guy.

[01:29:58] Luke Storey: Yeah. And I was so bummed I, when [01:30:00] we did our interview, you know, he lives in Canada or something, so we had to do it on Zoom. And I mean, it was great, but I was like, "Oh, man." I mean, it was, if it was that awesome on Zoom- ... if sh- if he was sitting right here, man, we would've had a really good time. Yeah. It was, it was really sweet.

[01:30:14] Luke Storey: At the end of that, it was one of, one of the most meaningful moments in the 10 years of doing this podcast. When we were all done recording, I said, "Okay. Well, thank you so much, Doctor. You know, it's nice to meet you on Zoom. It's always awkward." And he goes, "Wait, hang on, Luke. Hang on. I wanna tell you something."

[01:30:27] Luke Storey: And he said, um, to, to paraphrase, he said, "I just wanna tell you how refreshing and inspiring it is to be interviewed by someone who's really done the work

[01:30:44] Luke Storey: I don't know why. Coming from him, it just hit me. I, my people tell me that all the time, you know, friends and stuff, but I just, I respect him so much, um-

[01:30:51] Dr Aimie Apigian: Exactly, 'cause you see that in him as well, right? Yeah, totally. Like, he's done the work.

[01:30:55] Luke Storey: Totally, 100%. It's just, you know, someone like this, that big of a heart and a brain at the [01:31:00] same time, which is a rare s- a, a rare combination- It is

[01:31:03] Luke Storey: of attributes, you know? Yeah. And it's like, wow. And it's, it's difficult to see yourself sometimes in, in terms of giving oneself credit and acknowledgement for the progress you made. Sometimes it does take someone from outside to go, "Oh, wait, yeah. Wow, I, I have done some stuff here." So anyway, I digress. Um, just a shout-out to, uh, Gabor Mate.

[01:31:23] Luke Storey: Yeah, that was a really meaningful moment to me. Yeah.

[01:31:28] Dr Aimie Apigian: Third one

[01:31:28] Luke Storey: Yeah, here's your third. Batter up

[01:31:33] Dr Aimie Apigian: Since I can only pick one, I am going to go with, um, Dr. Jeffrey Bland. He is another one that has heart and science, and what I have most appreciated about his science is how he's really brought in the neuro-immuno-metabolic, like, the [01:32:00] cutting edge aspects of those interconnected fields.

[01:32:04] Dr Aimie Apigian: Not siloed at all, but able to actually put in and communicate that big picture in a way that still makes my brain neurons just zap every time. And so, uh, such a leader in the space. I mean, developed functional medicine.

[01:32:22] Luke Storey: Oh, wow. Okay.

[01:32:22] Dr Aimie Apigian: We owe functional medicine to Dr. Jeffrey Bland.

[01:32:25] Luke Storey: Oh, really?

[01:32:25] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yes.

[01:32:26] Luke Storey: Oh, he's a OG, huh?

[01:32:27] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah.

[01:32:27] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. I've not heard of him or the other woman you, you mentioned earlier. Mm-hmm. We'll put those in the show notes-

[01:32:32] Dr Aimie Apigian: Yeah ...

[01:32:33] Luke Storey: uh, so people can check them out. Yeah, I love, uh-- I definitely wanna look into the, the first one, that emotional sobriety. There's a-

[01:32:39] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm ...

[01:32:40] Luke Storey: there's a piece, um, that Bill Wilson wrote in one of the, um, adjunct AA books- Mm-hmm

[01:32:47] Luke Storey: o- on emotional sobriety that I discovered, unfortunately, quite a few years into sobriety . But it really illuminated a lot for me. Yeah. I mean, it changed my entire approach, you know, to, to recovery that, uh, [01:33:00] yeah, the, the mental and emotional sobriety- Mm-hmm ... being foundational because without that, you're gonna fall apart and end up losing your physical sobriety, you know?

[01:33:08] Dr Aimie Apigian: Exactly.

[01:33:08] Luke Storey: He wrote it, I think, when he was, like, 23 years sober. Yeah. And he was still suffering from depression, and so-

[01:33:13] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm ...

[01:33:13] Luke Storey: yeah, it was short, but really- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm ... you know, had a lot of potency. So that's a term. Yeah. When you said that term, I was like, "Ooh, I gotta get that book," you know?

[01:33:20] Dr Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah, fantastic book.

[01:33:21] Luke Storey: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for, for joining me. Um, amazing conversation. I love your work. I love your approach to what you do. Mm-hmm. You got a great vibe, a lot of knowledge. You're one of those people, I would say, that's got, you know, high intellect and also high amount of love, energy, and positivity, which are, you know, my favorite qualities in people, especially when you can get them together.

[01:33:42] Luke Storey: So it's been a real pleasure.

[01:33:44] Dr Aimie Apigian: Well, thank you. I feel very honored to be able to go into these deep places with you and explore these topics and in a curious way now.

[01:33:53] Luke Storey: All right, everyone. Go out and buy her book. It's gonna be in the show notes.[01:34:00]

[01:34:01] Luke Storey: All right, family, thanks for tuning in to The Lifestylist and making me part of your day. Now for a quick reality check. If social media pulled the plug on me tomorrow, how would we stay connected? I've been battling the Chinese Communist Party for years as they keep banning me on TikTok, and you never know how the tide might shift with Instagram or YouTube either.

[01:34:20] Luke Storey: One wrong word and the algorithm can shut you down. That's why I've been proactive. I'm doubling down on email as one of my most reliable long-term channels of communication. But there's one new twist. Instead of me blasting the same content to everyone on my email list, now you get to choose exactly what shows up in your inbox and what doesn't.

[01:34:41] Luke Storey: So whether it's biohacking, truth, wellness, spirituality, or my uncut take on current events, whatever lights you up the most is what you'll get. So I highly recommend you get to lukestory.com/privatehouse, set your preferences, and enjoy a content stream based on your most important interests. There's no [01:35:00] middleman, no algorithm, no censorship, and no spam.

[01:35:03] Luke Storey: It's where I can speak freely and share what I actually think, and no one but you and me decides what gets seen. So again, that's lukestory.com/privatehouse, where you can enjoy a tailored experience with bonus content you won't get anywhere else. And there's no need to even memorize that link or save it for later.

[01:35:22] Luke Storey: You're gonna see it right in this episode description on your podcast app. So hit it before you quit it, and I'll see you all in my private house

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