there are two things that make the body sick. One is inflammation and the other is fear. And fear frequently precipitates inflammation. And inflammation frequently makes fear worse. So they work together hand in hand. when you're uncertain. Ask yourself, what would I do if I weren't afraid? And then you'll know exactly what to do. The important things for me and that I teach people are one, have a gratitude practice every single day, twice a day. Go through what you're grateful for. And it doesn't necessarily have to be anything huge. It can be your favorite purple dinosaur socks.

​Hello listeners and welcome back Our guest today is Dr. Margaret Cochran and Dr. Cochran, please introduce yourself.

Well, professionally, I'm Dr. Margaret Cochran, AKA, the relationship doctor across social media. have degrees in experience in clinical social work, clinical psychology, clinical hypnosis, metaphysics law, traditional psychology, transpersonal psychology, and wildlife, rehabilitation of all things. I've always

Hi.

in medicine with physicians, so that world is very comfortable to me and my professional biases that you cannot affect the body without affecting the mind, and you cannot affect the mind without affecting the body.

And that wraps it up for us today. There's nothing there to talk about.

Just rattle that all off. Yeah.

Wow. I should have asked for that ahead of time so that I could, break those down. Let's, let's start with, wildlife rehabilitation. Was that, what was that?

Yeah, wildlife rehabilitation. when I lived in the Midwest, I lived in a very rural community and, there were, you get a lot of, road kill and road injury kind of situations. And so, some of us were, allowed to by the Department of Wildlife, take in the animals and help rehab them and help them get well. So I've raised skunks and possums and foxes and snakes. I've done a few raptor, birds, allegedly cats, of course puppies. probably some other ones I haven't thought of, but I think skunks are my favorite.

Really.

They are adorable. They're so cute. And they're, they are an imprint species, so if you take care of them, you're their mom as far as they're concerned. So for a while I had all these little tiny skunks following me everywhere I went for fortunately, scent glands don't come in until a little later, so that's not too dangerous.

was the next question.

sweet animals. And actually, they can be box trains like cats.

Fascinating. wow, that's a, you know, it it, I grew up in the Midwest, south side of Chicago. So we had our, had some skunks around, you know, and basically you would notice 'em till there were road kill, and that's when they would, make their presence known. but I guess they don't, they're not in Georgia. Do you have them in California? This has nothing to do with the podcast really, but it's,

Yes

they live in California?

We

Okay.

in California. Yeah. and you know what? I went to Lake Forest High School, which is very close to where you lived.

so we have some similarities in our background, skunk wise, skunk wise. That's interesting. Yeah. I'm, I'm tempted may to ask you to run through that list again, but we'll, we will hit on some, several of those things as we go along.

Okay?

there was a, there was a metaphysics.

Mm-hmm.

tell us what that is For someone not knowledgeable about meta metaphysics.

There are not degrees available in it. So, metaphysics was self-study for me, I happen to be a big fan of traditional physics. what most people don't realize is in the world of traditional physics, they're always exploring the beyond the, the great question, the unknown, the whatever that is out there. Some people call it god, you know, the great mystery, whatever. And so physics often collides with metaphysics and metaphysics. Meta meaning larger is the idea that, yeah, there's something big out there and we don't quite get it. And, and what we study in metaphysics is the manifestation of those things. Like, for example, someone who has lost a loved one and all of a sudden they show up at the end of their bed one night. I've, I've worked with, I worked with a lovely, woman who, whose daughter had been. diagnosed, with diabetes. Her blood sugar came in at like 400, which is really bad. And so she was supposed to see her physician the next day to start her insulin and all. And she went to bed that night and at the foot of her bed, something pulled on her great toe and she woke up and she looked up and it was her uncle. And she said, uncle John. He said, yes. He said, don't worry, it's all a mistake. Everything will be fine. And then she said, but you're dead. said, I know honey, I love you. And then he just faded away. she woke up her husband and said, oh my god, uncle John just came to me and what am I gonna do? And da, da da da. And he said, you know, you've lost it. You have gone around the bend. No, there's no such thing as that kind of stuff. You need to go talk to somebody. So her doctor referred her to me and the next day, and it was an emergency. So I saw her and she said, do you think I'm crazy? I said, no. She said, well, what do you think I should do? well, I don't do shoulds, but my advice would be, repeat the blood test. What have you got to lose? So they did. And it was in fact a lab error. If they had gone based on those labs, they might have seriously injured, killed her. So that's an example of it also intersects with transpersonal psychology as well.

So the story you have with the, with the girl and the her uncle, what actually is that? can you explain it for someone that doesn't, that's never had any exposure to that.

Well, I'll tell you something. One of the tricky parts about this field that there's no linear measurement available. There's, there's no linear, application I can use to say this is what transpired and what we, what we rely on in this part of science is felt experience felt experience was, which is interestingly something I needed to defend in my dissertation when I, when I did that, which is a load of fun. If any of you're thinking you a PhD, ACEs, you'll really bring cookies. That's my advice felt experience, you know, I was challenged on that and I said, well, I, I asked the person during the challenge, I said, have you ever loved someone or loathed someone? well, yeah. I said, well, pick one. And they said, well, my grandma, I love my grandma. I said, oh, that's nice. Prove it. He said, well, I see her every Sunday and I eat her bad apple pie, and I don't tell her it's bad. And, you know, I, I send her cards and stuff. I get her Christmas presents. I said, yeah, could be a liar. could be someone out for her money. You could just be adhering to a social construct. You haven't proved anything and you can't. Which is I guess why they gave me the PhD, huh? 'cause I got that answer

Must have worked. That's right.

but the point was that, for, for her experience, she saw, felt and could hear this person, whether that was a projection of her unconscious, there's no way for us to say for sure. however, her, I don't, and usually in those experiences, only the person having the experience can see what they see. Sometimes it's a smell, sometimes it's just like a presence, a sense of a presence. it can be animals, it can be people. Sometimes there's a message, I've been waiting for some to show up and say, oh, the money's in the basement. Go down there, dig here. You know, but so far nobody's shown up like that. But, people have, and, and, but sometimes I will also say this, there are experiences where groups of people have, encountered something unseen or unmeasurable by, by linear terms. I had a case where. And there was a, a family and they lived in the south and they had this beautiful restored antebellum mansion. I mean, they really worked hard on it. And so the oldest daughter went away to college and she brought this guy home for Thanksgiving. nobody really liked him very much, but you know how that goes. Anyway, so they had a ghost in their house and the ghost would make itself known by, you know, moving things around and swinging chandeliers sometimes. But they just accepted it kind of as a family member. this guy comes in and they're sitting at the table. And so one of the other siblings said, oh, did you tell him about our ghost? And the guy says, the new boyfriend says there's no such thing as ghost. That's ridiculous. Oh, that was not the right thing to say. The chandeliers started to swing, dishes fell off the table. He literally ran out of the house. And would never talk to her again. That was the end of that relationship. So, that was the situation where a lot of people had that experience.

I, I don't know that I've spoke with anybody firsthand that has that kind of experience, and I find that really. Yeah, incredibly interesting. you, you said, again, talking about the, the girl, it, it could have been a manifestation of her subconscious, something

Good.

within her mind, but so on one side, if that is the case, that doesn't mean it's not, it didn't happen in her, if it happened in her head, it still happened. Right? I mean, it, she still got information from her uncle that was beyond the, information she'd been exposed to. So there's still something there.

Oh yeah. And I've worked with a, a lot of people who have had near death experiences and you know, what that was like and what they

right. Yeah.

and again, we don't have linear measurement for that other than I can tell you to a person of the hundreds of pers people that I've worked with that have had those kind of experiences, they don't come back the same. So there's a linear measurement for you. They do not come back the same person they were when they died. It's a very, very powerful thing and a wonderfully life affirming thing at the same time.

Really,

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

can you share a, can you, can you share a specific example or a story there? Is that appropriate?

absolutely. I'll change the details. So, you know,

Of course.

people's confidence. there was, a gentleman who was having a quadruple bypass coronary surgery, which is a big surgery do that. And they have to take veins from your legs and put it, you know, all that stuff. So it's a big complex surgery. And he was not a very nice man. He was not good to his wife and daughters and, his hobby was cock fighting. he was

Hmm. I.

not a very nice man anyway, just having this surgery and God bless him, be codes right there on the table, just shuts down. They did everything. They resus, they tried everything to resuscitate him and nothing worked. So they worked on him. I know about minutes, half hour flat line, nothing. So they put him on a gurney and they were gonna take him out. because obviously they had to tell the family and all that. Damned if he didn't sit up, sat right up on that gurney, just sat right up. And the surgeon who, who is a colleague of mine I've known for many years, he's been a surgeon for many. He had to change his scrubs. I mean, it freaked him out. 'cause he said that guy was dead. He had no brain activity, no heartbeat. He was cold. He was, he was turning gray. So anyway, they put him back in the table, they hook him back up. They finish the surgery normally after a surgery. I do hypnotic anesthesia in the operating room, by the way. So I'm pretty familiar with how they work. So, usually after a case like that, the anesthesiologist stays with the patient to make sure they come up out of the chemicals. And this guy had had two sets. Of anesthesia. 'cause they had to put him back under again. So we had a lot of stuff in him. So it took a good long while for him to come out of it. But he kept saying, Lily, Lily is the baby. Okay. And this, this time the anesthesiologist didn't stay. The surgeon stayed 'cause he was so freaked out. So he kept saying, there's no baby, sir. You just had a surgery. Wake up. He kept trying to give him. So finally he comes to, and the surgeon says, what happened? And he said, well, first can, can we check on the baby? He said, what baby? There's no baby. He said, what happened? He said, well, I came up outta my body and I was floating on the ceiling and I was watching all the things that you were doing to me. then I started to float away and I saw this big ball of light and I felt I had to go to the big ball of light. So the man began to describe the hospital he was floating through different sections of the, that he'd never seen before. And one of them was labor and delivery. And he described watching this woman laboring and he saw a little ball of light come out of the woman he thought, oh, the little ball of light's gonna come with me and go to the big ball. And then the mom said, Lily, Lily, don't leave me. And the little ball of light went back down to the mom. So then off he goes to the big ball of light, and when he gets there, there's his voice. And it's not a male voice, it's not a female voice. It just says, so what did you do with it? I hear that phrase a lot in these various cases. And basically he went through his life like a movie saw every minute of every day of every year he'd ever lived. And he not only felt it from his own perspective, he felt it from this perspective of the other people he was interacting with. Imagine that. So, it wasn't a very fun movie for him to go through. And then at the end, voice said, okay, you need to go back. more work for you to do. He said, oh, please, let me stay with you. He's, he talked about describing such love and warmth and he didn't wanna leave, but the voice says, no, you gotta go back. So the next thing he knew, he was slammed back in his body in a lot of pain, feeling pretty terrible. he says to the surgeon again, would you please just go check? So he goes, and he calls up labor and delivery. He says, hi, this is Dr. So-and-so, I know you're, this sounds crazy, but had any deliveries in the last few hours? Oh yes. Just one. it was touch and go, but baby Lily's. Okay, so then the guy says, can we send flowers? Now, this is not the guy. Yeah, is not how he was. So the, when he came back for his follow up, he was really struggling to reorient himself back into his life. And he said to the surgeon, you know, I, I, I don't know what to do. I don't know, I don't know how, I don't know what to do. So the surgeon says, well, I know this lady, you can go talk to her and chill, help you figure it out. So he came to talk to me and he said, you know, I, I don't know, doc, you gotta fix me. 'cause I, I cry at toilet paper commercials. Now I, all I wanna do is

Is that unusual?

well, he said, I, I, I, all I wanna do is hug my wife and daughter and, and the people I used to spend time with, they're not nice people. I, I don't wanna spend time with them anymore. He said, you gotta put me back. You gotta put me back. I said, you know, if you wanna go back to being a narcissistic jerk, you know how to do that on your own. you wanna learn how to be the guy you are, now that I can help you. So he did, he stayed and did some work with me, and now he's a, he's a construction guy, so he has his huge hands, like huge hands. He, volunteers at inner city hospitals and he massages crack babies. His little babies born addicted, and he holds them in his big hands. And the nurses love him 'cause when he walks in the room, everything quiets down. The

A presence? Yeah.

Everybody's calm. People just love to be in his presence. There's this beautiful light about him and he'll, he'll talk to the babies and say it's gonna be okay. I know, I know it's hard, but you're gonna feel better. They're gonna help you feel better. And he, they've got this big rocker the babies that are allowed out of the incubators. He rocks them and sings little songs and beautiful guy.

Thank you for sharing that. That's, an, an incredible story. And this is not one that you've heard fourth and fifth hand. This is one, you know, the doctor, you dealt with the man personally. You know the story.

Yep.

for, this is firsthand knowledge for our listeners. I don't quite cry at toilet paper commercials, but it, it's close. when you, when you mention the, the little light leaving and then turning around and going back, you, you almost had me there. I admit, I, I sometimes can be, on the, on the edge of those things. And what a great story.

What a great man.

it, it, it reminded me in the opposite direction of the story, not a story, but the, the case of, is it Henry Gage or Thomas Gage, the man who lost a big portion of his brain due to an industrial accident.

Mm-hmm.

His personality changed for the better. He became much, and for obvious reasons, there was a large portion of his brain had been destroyed.

Yes,

but this man came back different. So that leads us maybe more to what our listeners have tuned in for. I hope they find this of interest because I could talk about these things for a while. Maybe I should start up a different podcast as well.

that'd

but you said you met with this, it would be, you met with this individual. so if we could take this specific case and maybe broaden it. And he was having difficulty with the situation that he'd found himself in, and you said, you worked with him. Now you worked with him, includes. A lot of things, and I know you, you have a lot of therapy techniques, in your toolbox, I'm sure, from all your studies and all the work you've done. But, and your website, we'll plug this a little bit. You have a lot of things there for that people can find, resources and contact you for information and, and, psychological, psychological services. Can I say that, that applies to what I see there? so when you work with this person or when you work with someone, just give, can you tell us a little bit about your school of thought for therapy, what your primary approach is, and what a person might expect if they were going into therapy with you or with another psychotherapist or, or counselor.

Well, I don't know if I can speak for others. I'm a little

Not broadly, right.

as the saying goes outstanding in my field, right. I'm a little different. but one of the, the main things I ask people about is what are you afraid of? Because there are two things that make the body sick. One is inflammation and the other is fear. And fear frequently precipitates inflammation. And inflammation frequently makes fear worse. So they work together hand in hand. So I do energy psychology with people to reduce inflammation. And then, I will just ask him, tell me like, like this man. I said, what, what are you afraid of? And so immediately he, it, it, it, it gave him a door to walk through to say, I'm afraid, I dunno how to be myself. I, I'm afraid I don't know who I am, afraid. I don't know how to love. I mean, those were not things he knew how to explore before. Absolutely never think to. But once we laid out all those fears, I'd say, okay, pick one. Where do you wanna start? And then he would choose whatever he wanted to do and we'd go down that road. For the

What you mentioned, and I go ahead.

I'm sorry. For the most part, people are troubled about relationship, which is why I'm the relationship doctor. It's either relationship with yourself or relationship with others, but they're both vitally important in your life.

Right. You mentioned just in that last section, energy psychology, which, I admit I am not familiar with. Can you give us some background on the phrase in, in the study of energy psychology

Sure. in allopathic medicine, which is what we practiced in the West, we've been really snobby. We've kind of

in the western, in, I'm sorry, for our listeners in the West as a, as opposed to Eastern medicine, Ayurvedic, whatever those things might be, but in Western medicine, not in the west of California.

that's correct. Yes. Western. Thank you for that clarification. Yes. In Western medicine, in general, it's called allopathic medicine and we've, we've had our head up our butts a little bit and been kind of snobby and said, yeah, you know, any indigenous practices, that's a lot of nonsense. Well, guess what? We did, we did some more research and found out that we were cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. That's not how it works. There are subtle meridians in the body that you can access with various techniques like acupuncture, acupuncture, emotional freedom technique, and various other things. The havening technique, 4, 7, 8, breathing all different kinds of ways to, to, access those energies and bring down your stress levels, your cortisol, which is your stress hormone. adrenaline, people who have high levels of adrenaline, their body wrecks, their blood pressure, their gastrointestinal system, and it's really bad. Please listen to this. It's really bad for your brain and that's why sleep is so important. 'cause that's when we do our housekeeping up there and, and we gotta, we gotta get all out as much nasty as we possibly can. It's also though. Else is cool about sleep. Can you tell? I love brains. I'm a serious brain person.

That's fantastic.

the other thing that's so cool about is you've probably had this experience at some time in your life where you had a problem and you just, you worked on it, worked on it, couldn't figure it out, and finally said, oh, forget it. I'll just take a nap. Or I'll just go to bed and you wake up and I know just what to do. And so not only is your brain cleaning itself, it's also allowing novel connections to be made neuronally so you can wake up and Oh, I see how the pieces fit now. And then problem solved. And many

Or the

in science and in literature have talked about they went to sleep and woke up and wrote a book or woke up and figured out how this or that formula worked.

so many songwriters, will say that, or, Our author, Peter Hollands re refers in his books on occasion to the shower aha. Moment, where you're engaged in a, maybe a mindless activity, but a beneficial activity, and then something you would been focused on earlier and couldn't find a solution for will suddenly click. That's what you're referring to, or two,

it is. And

and to some extent now you're talking about sleep, which is different, more involved, but

well, the, the brainwaves change in sleep, is a little different from the shower.

Right.

some slight variation there, but not the dramatic variation that

Okay.

But the thing that's interesting about what you said is we tend to think of ourselves as exclusively our prefrontal cortex. That's the part right here behind your forehead. That's our, where our executive functioning happens, our logic, our reason, all that jazz. And we tend to think of our, that's, that's our brain. That's how we think. There's a whole other world in there. A whole other world. And when you occupy the prefrontal cortex with a shower or maybe some mindless activity, all of a sudden you access that whole other world. And a lot of creativity can come from that and a lot of fun too.

would you say, is this tied into the flow state as well?

Absolutely. Flo I'm again, I'm glad you brought that up. Flo is, is, well, okay. Here's an example. I, work, as you know, with animals. I also work with emotional support animals in my practice. I, I've worked with them for many years and patients come to me, they have anxiety, depression or whatever, and they need a letter to justify having an emotional support animal. Okay. Well, I recently wrote one for an emotional support sneak. And this particular young man, his parent has died of cancer. he was going off away from home for the first time. He just had a really bad time with some self-destructive stuff, you know. So got him on an even keel and I wrote the letter to the school, and fortunately they said yes. So, that was, UCSC slug strong. That's their, mascot is the banana slug. So in

A slug, like a snail, like a, a snail without a shell slug.

in their mental health, department, they call it slug strong, you know, we're gonna. Do well So, she, she got that and not 48 hours later I got an email from, a, an organization that does education work for the American Bar Association, asking me to do a presentation on you guested, emotional support animals. That's how flow works. When you get into that space and you open yourself to that energy, it just comes to you,

Do you, is, so are you saying there's a connection between your flow state and others? That, that got you? a request for more information is, are those connected somehow?

we're all connected.

Okay. Okay. This is metaphysics again. Yeah.

Yeah. but physics, as we catch up with physics,

Yeah.

beginning to support that. The math is beginning to say, oh, yeah. There's not a whole lot of separation between things. And, you

Wow.

favorite example of that, quantum entanglement and people who say to me, I don't get quantum entanglement. I say, do you have a garden hose? That's, that's all you need to see because you can put it anywhere and you'll come back and it's in a knot,

Come back with a wrinkle in it.

or, or you have jewelry, put it anywhere and you'll come back. And it's, that's quantum entanglement for you. But it's also about how we are entangled in the quantum, how we are connected. And that's why when we make artificial delineations based on skin or religion or where you

Hmm.

born, it's a lie. It's a horrible lie. We are all one. And when any one of us' hurt, we are all injured. And when any one of us is made better, we are all healed.

That just leaves me, kind of speechless. That's, that's very powerful. Thank you for that. we're, we're kind of on the bubble here, still on the edge of, and, and I hedge a few of my statements because I try to present what I feel is the viewpoint of our listeners. There're gonna be a lot of listeners out there who would've been like me when they were in their twenties and thirties that said. You know, metaphysics, you know, it's a bunch of, spiritualism or that kind of thing. I, I don't feel that way any longer. There's, I feel, there's obviously many things there that I've written off earlier that, I've probably shorted myself because I didn't learn about 'em at the time, and really in my mind still, I'm not gonna say that in my mind for a while would've been hypnosis and hypnotherapy. but these seem very closely, maybe they're not. Are they closely related, the, the concept of hypnotherapy and some of the work that we're doing and, and we, as we talk about metaphysics or is it, just not along those lines.

Well, you know what it is, it's really about our, our brain is back to brains again. Our brain is a, is a giant, switchboard

Okay.

it allows the body to function the way it does. And it is very closely connected to circuits in the gut

Right,

the heart. And there is constant interplay and conversation between those parts of ourselves. And so, we can have injury. for example, if you have a a, a big surgery, often people are very depressed after that. or, or you'll have a baby and, and you have postpartum, right? So you're,

right.

experience, affects everything that goes on about the way you think and feel and react to things. It's really important to know that. So if you, you, you can use hypnosis to help regulate some of those things. And, well, like, you know, I, I do hypnosis. I control your blood pressure, your breathing, your sense of pain, all that kind of stuff. And in fact, I was doing, I was doing a surgery and this guy, he was a police officer and someone had, ugh, shot off his kneecap. was awful. So we were, we were doing a pat ectomy and putting in a new joint. So I'm like keeping him. I am and we, and we always have a chemical anesthesia anesthesiologist on standby in case there's an emergency. So anyway, I'm talking to the guy in his ear, I'm saying, oh yeah, everyone's laughing because you're doing so well. And they're telling jokes 'cause the surgery's going well, and your body's so relaxed, you're already started healing. It's already beginning. New cells are formed. I'm doing all my thing. Right? All of a sudden the surgeon says, stop. Okay. thought, God, what have I done? He said, I, I said, is everything okay down there? of course I have a drape up here. I don't see him. says, getting very relaxed and I just needed you to stop for a minute refocus. And yeah, many people will say, well, you know, I'm not hypnotizable or I'm, I've never been hypnotized. But in fact, I guarantee you, you have. And here's a common example. Have you ever been in the car? And it's rainy a little bit and the windshield wipers are on. And they're going back and forth and back and forth, and all of a sudden it's your destination and you don't really remember how you got there. That's a level one trance. Now, of course, obviously there are deeper trances if I'm gonna control your perception of pain, right? That's not a level one trance, but, everyone has been in that, or, or maybe you've had a time when you just found yourself staring and just kinda shut down. That's, that's a little trance right there. So if you yourself in trance, you can remember things. you can also, help you relax and change the way you respond to an injury or a trauma, when you come to full waking consciousness again. I mean, there's all kinds of things that you can do with it if it's done well in the right hands.

So, you know, you say a, a level one trance or which we've experienced and haven't, maybe haven't recognized, but probably everyone has had that occur. Like I said, it's a great example with the, the windshield wipers. When I was taking driver's ed way back when, they called it highway hypnosis. I dunno if that's still the same term, but when you're driving for many miles,

Yep.

it, it is easy to, To come out of full alertness, but really what you're referring to is not so much that because what are you, are you letting your prefrontal cortex just take control of the obvious mechanics of keeping the car in the lane and then the rest of your brain or other parts of your brain are able to take over what's happening there?

actually, once you're hypothalamus, you're kind of, it's muscle memory. You're just driving with muscle memory. And you have, and one of the things I talk about when I use hypnosis with people is you can come to full waking consciousness anytime you want to. So you don't need to be concerned wherever we're going that you're gonna be stuck there. 'cause a lot of people are scared, well, if there's a fire, what if something happens? You know? And I reassure them, Nope, you come to full waking consciousness like that. Don't worry about it. right now though, maybe you'd just like to listen to my voice and follow along and we'll take a journey together.

I, I'm fascinated by, someone going into surgery through this process. Can you, can you go through a case? Just, just how do you prepare, what do your, how does it work? Is that. That's a really broad question, but there's too many there to,

It's a

to itemize.

Well, usually what I do is it, sometimes I'll do it, for childbirth, for example.

Okay.

I would have the mom come in, oh for a few weeks beforehand, get her used to trance what it feels like, what it sounds like. and I will often give her anchoring signals. Like for example, I will tell her when I squeeze your hand, you'll feel the deepest relaxation you've ever felt. Your muscles will relaxed and your body will feel amazing like you're floating on a cloud. So when she is starting to feel a lot of pain, I'll husband gear that signal and she can, know, relax again. So like that

I, Tell us where you would have a person practice self anchoring, if that's something you're, you, you've described or prescribed for other people. What it does when you would use it, what it is. Just for those of our listeners that might not be familiar with anchoring of, of, you know, the, the personal concept of anchoring like that.

Well, one of the things, is, let's take, let's take someone who has been doing, compulsive eating.

Great.

And unfortunately in my profession, we do not see that as a disorder.

It's just a weakness. I can't control my appetite.

But it's no different than any other addiction.

Right,

exactly the same. So, I, I would take that person and, and help them, encourage them to develop a little anchor about, okay, so when I have the urge to eat, not that I'm hungry, but I just have the urge to eat that I'll, my thumb and forefinger together and just sit and sit sit sit. then you do that for a period of time, usually I'll, I'll set, you know, like, to two minutes, something like that. you still want to eat because you're hungry, go eat. But in most cases, they're not hungry. And

right.

anchor them. Huh? Okay, I can relax because a lot of compulsive behavior, whether it's addiction to, porn for example, or, alcohol or other substances, there's not only the physical piece, but there's also, our hypothalamus is, you can't live without this. You are going to die. If you don't eat right now, you are going to die. If you don't, go masturbate right now. You are going to die if you don't do whatever it is, which isn't true, that part of your brain is, is an older part of your brain and so efficient that it can bypass the prefrontal cortex. So, no, no thinking is going on.

Mm.

Okay? And when that happens, you know, there's no judgment. and, and you, you lose the ability to problem solve.

It's, sorry, I'm not conversant enough with everything to, to keep it flowing smoothly in my head. The hypothalamus, a term that is, we talk come across frequently in this, in many other areas really, and a lot of reading. Is it lizard Brain? Is that the hypothalamus? Us.

well that's not quite the, the lister brain is really more about back here your amygdala is. That's your limbic system. Let me,

Okay. Okay.

a quick and dirty thumbnail sketch. Is that okay?

please.

Okay. So lemme get on camera here. This is my hand and, in the center here. Is the thalamus in the hypothalamus and something called the ventral te mental area. And that's where your dopamine is made hugely important 'cause there's only one place in the brain where that's made. Then this thing here, my thumb, that is where your, amygdala and your hippocampus live. Now, your amygdala is, the organ that sends out cortisol and also triggers your adrenal glands on top of your kidneys to send out adrenaline. The hippocampus, which doesn't look anything like a hippo by the way, is what's in charge of memory and learning. So has arranged it so that our nerve center, our fear center and our learning center are super closely co-located. And we'll, that will come it's more important to know where the tigers are than the strawberries, right? So you gotta, okay, so this fold in like this, this goes like that. And this is the gray crinkly part you're used to seeing. That's your cortex. And up here is where your, you know, again, your hypothalamus is in the center there. and then here where my fingernails are in the front, that's this part. That's your prefrontal cortex. So, way it's designed to work is your amygdala sends out a signal, danger, danger, something bad's gonna happen, right? so the message goes up and your prefrontal cortex says, okay, I'll check it out. So they send out the optics, they send out the hands, and we look around and we feel around, oh, stand down. No problem. It was a shadow. You know, it was a trick of the light. And so the amygdala says, oh, okay, so stands down. if you have anxiety disorder

Right.

or you have something like, bipolar disorder in, the manic phase, or you are schizophrenic and, and you're psychotic, you're full, of dopamine and adrenaline your pre-filing cortex is offline, and that's why crazy things happen. Does that make sense?

Yes, absolutely

So in the rest of us and a milder version, if we, if we, are anxious a lot or we worry a lot, our brain begins to develop connections such that it will bypass the prefrontal cortex. So when the prefrontal cortex finally catches up and says, oh, it's not as dangerous, fine, the media says, don't care. Don't care

right.

sending out chemicals. So the moral of the story is don't think with your thumb. You, you gotta be sure. You gotta be sure you got the whole mechanism going. But that's why never say this, please never say this. If you've got someone who's having a panic attack or, or they're being very anxious, don't say, calm down,

Just calm down.

don't say that because they're probably gonna deck you. It's really bad idea. 'cause of course, if they could do that, they would. But some of the energy psychology techniques that I teach help them when they are in that situation so that they can access their ability to calm themselves down again and perceive reality more accurately. That was a long story, but I hope that

No, that's, that is spot on. Thank you for that. yeah, the, the just calm down part, as you said, if they could, they would, it's just, it's like telling someone don't be afraid or you shouldn't feel that way.

yes. Oh,

those things are just incredible invalidator, and we tell ourselves that too. I shouldn't be afraid to do that. I, I should, you know, and I'm, I wrote this down because you said you don't do shoulds.

I'm so glad you brought that up.

Let's go into that.

Let's go into that. Indeed. Okay. shoulds are shame words. Shame words should supposed to, to. it suggests that there's some magical bar that if only we

Hmm

that then we're gonna, we're gonna be okay, but there's no bar. We

mm-hmm.

bar. So what you have to do, first of all, is take those words out of your vocabulary and throw them away replace them with want. Need and demand. an example. 'cause people say, oh, come on, doctor C, that can't be that powerful. It's one little word I use shit all the time. I said, okay, we'll try this. You got some dirty laundry, most of us do. And you say, I should do my laundry. won't do it. You'll not do it. do anything but that. However, if you say, yeah, I need to do some laundry, you'll throw it in the machine, maybe stream a movie when the thing goes off, put it in the dryer, finish the movie laundry done. So the difference between being shamed into something and owning that has importance to you, makes all the difference in the world in terms of your ability to function, feel good about yourself, and frankly, get things done. V Floggings will continue until morale improves, does not do the trick.

And this, you know, as you were saying that, this ties into child rearing,

Oh yeah.

a a lot in my opinion, and maybe, I don't wanna say in my experience to make it sound like I was, I was raised this way, but, I think a lot of children are, are parents try to shame a child into doing something because they, they should for some magical reason. but that's, it's probably not the best way to present that, to, you know, the, they're logical, functioning and all that are limited. So there's things there that you have to do. But, that whole shaming process is, is used a lot. probably throughout all our lives and we don't recognize it as much as we should and do what we can to eliminate it.

Did you hear that? You just said should.

We should. That's right.

it is. See? See how prevalent it is. Okay, so let's talk about

See, that's how good you are. You, you pulled that out of the sentence just like that because you've practiced this.

what I do.

I should be better at that. It

so, remorse is when you feel badly for doing something, you've, you've done something wrong, you've made a mistake. Okay? Shame implies that you are a mistake. You're fundamentally flawed. If only you were the

Wow.

of person, you would do this or that. So it's a very destructive, horrible word, and it's just, you gotta get rid of it. It's a bad, bad, bad thing. However, let's say you've got a kid and, they got into an argument with another kid, which happens all the time. And, so you go in and see this squabble going on and say, you know, what's going on? And, the, the victim in the story says, well, he was mean to me and he did this and that. I said, oh, well, why was he mean to you? Well. Well, I took his truck. Oh, I see.

Ah, you got it.

So then I would say, instead of shame on you, go over there and say you're sorry. I would say, Hmm. How do you suppose he feels about that? Probably not good. Well, how's his face look over there. How's he, does he, does he look happy or sad? What do you think? He looks kind of sad. Okay, well how about we go over and talk to him about that and pretty soon, of course they're best of friends and that, and that's the end of the story. But basically what you've taught that child is a lot about compassionate conflict solution.

Now that is so strong and I think I'm, I'm probably interrupting you here 'cause I think you had probably some follow on comments there, but I would frequently find myself saying, you shouldn't have done that. Right? I took his truck. Well, you shouldn't have done that. That doesn't mean anything to a child or to an employee or to a spouse. It doesn't matter what age we're talking about. You shouldn't have, it's just, I'm just keeping more shame on you. But the, the concept of saying, okay, you took his truck. I'm not saying that's good or bad, I just want you to look at him and see what that. If what effect your actions had on that person, and then you can decide internally where that falls.

Yeah. I'll have to tell you, when I was teaching years ago, one of the things I loved more than anything else, because of course, you know, you can look up anything, you can read a book about anything, but who you become as a person everything. And I had this little girl and I got her when she was in the second grade. She couldn't read a word, could not read everybody giving up on her. And so I realized that instead of a visual learner or an auditory learner, she was what's called a tactical kinesthetic learner. So she had to feel things to learn them. we started making all these, three by five cards, and every time she'd learn a new word, we'd write it in glue and then put glitter on it.

Oh, nice.

she had this,

I.

little box she carried with her everywhere, with all these words, right? So we would play, word games, and of course, part of teaching kids is you teach 'em how to win. You teach 'em how to lose, right? You do both. And so sometimes I would lose a game very badly. I may cry when I tell you the story. one day I, I made sure that I lost badly. And I said, oh, I didn't do a good job at all. I, I didn't, I don't know my words. And I, I did not do a good job at all. So she's packing the cards back in the box and she says, Ms. Cochran, worry. You can take the carts home this weekend and practice, and I know when you come back on Monday you'll be able to win the game. Oh, there I can die happy now.

Hmm.

cause she can always learn words and she will. She went on to be a very successful person. But it was the empathy, it was the compassion, it was the reassurance you can be successful, which is the opposite of shame, which is there's no way you can be successful. What is wrong with you? You shouldn't do that versus, okay, so, Hmm. Are you happy with that choice? Is it taking you closer to or further away from where you want to be? That's a really important question to ask yourself all the

you're an author, you're a published author, I believe, and we haven't talked about your book at all. Can you tell us, about your book and, or books if you have them?

Well, there are actually several, but, my favorite, well one of them is what are you afraid of? you know, fears, big topic. another one is, Nagi and the Secrets of the Universe. And it's about a young man who, won't do what he loves 'cause he's so afraid of failing, that he goes out and

Hmm.

else in the world. And then all of a sudden one day he realizes, well, this is silly. he goes off and pursues his dream. And then the last one, which is my favorite of the three, is, Sylvia and the Magic Power Sticks. And it's a story about, a princess and she lives in a castle with her family, and she likes to see the magic that's all around us. And she's always inviting her family to see the magic with her. And they're always saying, Sylvia, Sylvia, Sylvia, what's to become of you? is ridiculous. Okay, finally she meets a lot of magical creatures. And basically they say, okay, here's some power sticks. These are gonna keep you safe, but the thing you have to remember is you can't other people see what they're not ready to see. So disappears, and Sylvia basically goes back and tries to get her family to see all this wonderful magic, they still won't do it, but she and her other friends and her magic powers sticks live happily ever after. So the point of that is create our own world. We make the world we live in with our thoughts and our feelings, and the things we repeat and the words that we choose create realities. And that is the most powerful thing I know to tell you other than to give you this question when you're uncertain. Ask yourself, what would I do if I weren't afraid? And then you'll know exactly what to do.

I think you just answered my, my last question of the podcast generally is, what, what would be a parting, piece of advice that you would give and that, that sounds like, that might have been it. let me ask one final question and then

don't think with your thumb.

don't think with your thumb, yes, that's not, that's a good, a reminder, but what we covered already. So, Dr. Margaret Cochran, the website is just that dr cochran.com, no spaces, no underscores or anything. A lot of information there on the Reese on, what services are available, how to contact you, what else can we find on your website. Is there anything else that we should point out?

not really, just kind of who I am, what I do and, and what options there are for you. I like to, I like to work with people. the nice thing about, the internet is that now I work with people all over the world

Oh, do you? Okay.

which is really fun. It's so fun. And, the other thing is because I use the title coach, then I'm not limited by, you know, like when I, if, if I'm, I'm a licensed clinical social worker, but I can only do that in the bounds of California

Right.

unfortunately we don't have reciprocal licensing in the United States. So you have to get licensed in each state, which is

Each state. Yeah.

anyway, that's the rule. So, but coaching I can do anywhere.

Okay.

So anywhere anybody is in the world, I can do coaching with them and it is such an honor and so much fun. I love what I do.

It, is fascinating. You have such a great insight. Somebody. So many pieces of wisdom, I would imagine you are a fantastic, a fantastic life coach if anybody's looking for a clinical licensed clinical psychologist to be their life coach.

Social Mm-hmm.

okay. Thank you. Sorry for the,

Sorry,

that I,

Gotta say it right.

okay. It's important, and I don't know enough about it to, to even get it pronounced correctly. I also noticed that one of the first, blog posts you refer to is that on your page at the moment at least, is the Enneagram, which I'd hope to talk about, but, maybe in a future episode. and so many other things I think that we could discuss. But, here's my second and final question since we've answered the last one already, and then we'll be done. I wrap up the podcast with a, a mention of Stephen Covey's book, the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, and I ask our guests, what do they find in their personal lives that they would, that they consider the non-negotiables, that make them, the person they are. And, and I'm not asking for a seven, but do you have, do you have a handful of things? I have a feeling you, you'd probably meditate, or do some mindfulness practices. p perhaps you are, have certain physical activities you do, or, or certain things that from day to day in your morning stack, as we were discussed in a previous episode, that you would share with our listeners that they should consider or that have proven efficacy for, for people in their own self-development process.

Well, I teach something called Urban Gorilla Meditation, and I call it that because, because it's, most of us don't have time to sit for an hour, an hour and a half, you know, so it's, it's an abbreviated process, but, The important things for me and that I teach people are one, have a gratitude practice every single day, twice a day. Go through what you're grateful for. And it doesn't necessarily have to be anything huge. It can be your favorite purple dinosaur socks. Just, I'm, I'm so happy and grateful I have these socks. I'm so happy and grateful I got to be on your podcast. I'm so happy and grateful that you're such a lovely man. I'm so happy and grateful for all the people that we're reaching today. You know, that kind of thing. Now, what we know, again, we're back to brains. If you practice that over about 28 days, you literally rewire your brain. You become more resilient, your sleep improves, you have more frustration, tolerance, lots of good things. another one is, my work, my work is a spiritual practice for me. It's about giving back to the universe, and I consider it a sacred honor and a great joy. So my work is part of my pleasure. And then being with animals, of course,

Okay,

is a great joy. and also, absolutely physical exercise and eating foods that don't have names you can't pronounce in 'em.

there's more than five ingredients. Don't eat it right? Is that what they say?

Yeah.

An amazing conversation. Dr. Cochrane, thank you so much for your time. listeners, Dr. Margaret Cochrane. You can, check out her website at Dr. Cochrane, C-O-C-H-R-A-N, dr cochran.com. and Dr. Margaret, I hope, I, I hope you've enjoyed this session as much as I have because it's been very enlightening. There's so many things I think we could talk about. Perhaps we can, have a follow up episode, after some time has passed and, maybe our listeners have some questions that they want to drop in and we can refer to them later on.

I'd be delighted. Thank you so much. It was so much

Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. and that wraps up our episode for today. Thank you for joining us and we'll see you next week.