00:00:08 Nazish: Welcome to sacred Harmony, where we explore healing through a spiritual, grounded and integrative lens. we are exploring the quiet truth that harmony doesn't begin in the mind. It begins in the body. I am your host and today I'm joined by Cindy. Cindy is the founder of the underlying answers in the creator of Electromagnetic Body Desensitization technique. A transformational healing system that supports body in releasing stored stress trauma so that it can return to its original design. In this conversation, we'll explore how unresolved stress lives in body and how safety becomes the doorway to healing and how we can begin listening to the body as an intelligent messenger rather than a problem to fix. Welcome to the show, Cindy.

00:00:59 Cindy Costley: Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm really excited for this conversation.

00:01:03 Nazish: Wonderful. So before we get into into the deeper layers of work, I'm curious when you first realized that your body wasn't reacting to danger but to unresolved stress, what shifted inside you?

00:01:18 Cindy Costley: Oh, that's a beautiful question. I'd say the most important thing is I started connecting with my body. So the shift was I was disconnected. I was so disconnected from my body beforehand. And once I started realizing that all my reactions were actually a signal, they were actually a message to me. I started connecting to myself in a beautiful way that I never even knew was possible.

00:01:45 Nazish: That sounds absolutely amazing, you know. Let's just stay with that for a moment. So many people believe that symptoms are purely physical, that if sometimes something shows up in body, it must be defect or malfunction. What do we misunderstand about the body when we think about it in that way?

00:02:05 Cindy Costley: Well, I think it's important to realize that when we think about trauma or stress, we often think about it from a psychological perspective. But the reality is trauma changes ourselves. Um, trauma is actually a biological event before it's a psychological event. It impacts us physically from the very second that the trauma happens or the Or as we're living in that chronic stress. So the mind experiences it, but the body has to survive it. And that survival always leaves a physiological imprint in our cells.

00:02:48 Nazish: That sounds amazing, you know? So it's like instead of a broken system, we are actually looking at a highly intelligent protection mechanism.

00:02:59 Cindy Costley: One hundred percent. Our body knows exactly what it's supposed to do in trauma. You know, the way that our body is designed is to activate survival biology, right? So in during a trauma, um, the biology kicks in, right? So by triggering the sympathetic nervous system, stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline and inflammatory signaling, you know, all of these responses are adaptive in the moment, and they're designed to keep us alive. It's beautiful. That's how you hear of somebody that just, you know, ran a mile to get away or had this superpower, you know, strength to save themselves or someone else. And that's because our bodies are designed to go into this, this stress, you know, survival response. The challenge is that the when the body doesn't correct itself back to its normal state, it tends to stay often in these hyper sensitive states, these survival states. And it can turn into long term patterns over the years. And so the key to remember is that our body is so brilliant, it does know how to bring us back to a state of homeostasis. We just have to understand what's happening and where our patterns have been created, what the underlying causes, so that we can ask our body and request it to do the right thing or to do the, the, the, the best thing, which is to heal itself.

00:04:35 Nazish: Absolutely. You know that. So when someone begins to see these symptoms as communication rather than attack. What changes in their healing process?

00:04:49 Cindy Costley: I would say that the what changes is the body starts corresponding and working together with your mind. So the moment you start understanding that your symptoms are messenger and messages for you, your body, you can start communicating and healing on its own. Now it takes practice. It takes deep communication and deep integration of practices. But overall, our body is part of us. It is the it's the next step. So we have our soul and then our body is where is what our soul chose to house in. Right? Our soul came here and said, I'm going to come to this beautiful earth and live in this physical, this biological, biological body. And we see those two as separate. But our body has the ability to heal because our soul knows what to do and knows how to direct it. What? So when we connect with it in a way where we start asking it, what is it trying to tell us? What do you need from me? And we start working in partnership with our body. That's when magic starts to happen and true healing can start to integrate.

00:06:09 Nazish: Absolutely. I couldn't agree more to it. You know, that shift from fear of listening? Fear to listening already feels like beginning of harmony?

00:06:22 Cindy Costley: Yes, absolutely. And it is the beginning of harmony because our body is just begging us to listen. If I think about all the allergic reactions that I had all those years, it was literally just my body saying, no me, feel me, experience me. Let me show you what I'm. What's hurting and what I'm trying to tell you. So it's it's it's an incredibly intelligent system that knows how to tell us what it needs. It's just learning how to listen. And when we do, that's when true harmony and true healing really start to take effect.

00:07:00 Nazish: Absolutely. You speak about stored stress and trauma living in the body. I'm curious, how does unresolved stress embedded itself physically, like what tends to happen in the body over time?

00:07:15 Cindy Costley: It's important to remember that cells don't store memories. So when we have a trauma, those memories are stored in our brain. But they store our our cells store patterns. So these patterns of signaling, inflammation, energy use that reflect past experiences, they're always there. And so when and I'm going to give you an example, you can hear I'm a little bit plugged up right now. Right. This is because I noticed a pattern that my body was still going through, and I wanted to heal it. So I had this communication with my body. I noticed that every time I get hot and sweaty, the my mast cells still went into activation. They would activate. And what I did is I sat down and I just listened to my body and said, okay, what are you trying to tell me? Every time you activate, just because I get sweaty, because I used to love being in the sun, and now I haven't been able to in years. And this is one aspect that was still kind of lingering in my healing. So I decided it's really time to work on this this week. So I sat down and I asked my body, what are you trying to tell me? And what I realized is, over the years of so much, uh, survival living, living in this space of high intensity, high survival state. My body learned that activation is not safe. And when it used to, with everything that my body did, so anything that my body felt was a threat became unsafe, right? And so it would activate my mast cells. And that's how my body reacted all these years. Everybody's different. For some people it could be an activation of I have a client that's thyroid. I have another client that it's all in her muscles. I have another client that it goes straight to freeze shutdown depression. So how our body activates these stored patterns in our in our because of our traumas is very unique and different for each of us. That's what makes us all so beautiful. For me, it was all mast cell flare ups. So every single time I'd have an allergic reaction, it was really just my body saying, this is a threat. And I had been noticing this pattern. I live by the beach so it doesn't get really, really hot very often, but whenever I would get very overheated or start to sweat a lot, my mast cells were still acting up. So a few days ago, I sat in communication with my body and asked, what do you want me to know? And I saw that I'm still activating through sweat. So sweat is still a threat because for years and years and years I had massive rashes all over my body, so sweating was itchy and irritating, and any type of detox that came through my body agitated my skin. So my body saw sweating as a threat and it learned over time. Sweat is a threat. Let's not sweat. And so now that I'm sweating again, I'm noticing, oh wait, my body's doing the right thing and I'm detoxing properly. But I'm still have I still have this pattern of mast cell activation whenever I do sweat. So I went through this process and I retrain my brain and my body that I no longer have to see this as a threat. That activation is safe for me, that when my body gets activated. In other words, high heat, sweat, you know, um, any kind of feeling of insecurity, any type of heavy activation, I'm safe and it's okay. And my body knows how to do it normally. So I go through a four day release whenever I do these. And in those four days, my body retrains itself. So today's day four and I'm a little bit plugged. Yesterday I had a massive I had a pretty big mast cell flare up, which is my body letting go. It's like saying, okay, this is the last time we have to experience this pattern. And that's what happens when we release things. As our body says, we don't have to do this anymore. We're going to we know now that I don't need to be in this activation, in this threat stage, every time I I'm in activation of heat or sweating. So today I'm plugged up. Tomorrow it'll all be gone. It'll be fine. And I will never have this problem again. And I know that because of the experiences that I've had with all of my other healing journey. So how this relates to what we're talking about is these patterns of behavior are meant to protect us. Right. My body used to say, oh, no, you're sweating. Let's create a mast cell disorder so that you don't sweat anymore, or so you don't do the things that make you sweat because they're not safe, right? Exercise. When I went through this process, I cried a lot because I saw all the vacations that I went on, and I would get overheated and then and I was able to manage it. But it was a lot of management. It was a lot of, oh, where's the ice packs? And my husband helping me cool down and all the things that I had to do all these years. Every time I'm in a in a hot like a heated situation. And vacations. Hot vacations are my favorite type of vacation, so I got to see how stressful it was and how painful it was. And those are the trapped emotions, right? So as I'm going through this process for the last four days, I'm releasing those trapped emotions. I'm seeing those vacations, you know, a trip that I went on in Hawaii a couple years ago with my husband before going, I did these, this desensitization process to humanity so that I was no longer allergic to humid humidity. I did it to several things. I can't remember lotions that I could wear some sunscreen. So I actually cleared quite a few things before going on vacation. But the one thing that showed up consistently through that whole trip was whenever I'd start to sweat, I'd have this mast cell reaction still. So I got to see that in my process, and I could. I was literally seeing and having these visions of all these vacations for years, for over twenty, thirty years where I have these reactions and I'm constantly just in this management mode instead of truly just enjoying my vacation. So that's me letting go of those trapped emotions, right? So as I'm processing this in the last four days, every one of those, it would come up, I'd cry, I'd let it out of my body because we hold all that in, like I pretended that that vacation was great and it was great. It was great in a lot of ways. But that part wasn't great, right? So now I'm so excited because this week I'm clearing that, and I know that I can go on vacations now and not have to worry about this. So I hope that it kind of answered your your question in a story, but I hope that helped make sense a little bit.

00:14:15 Nazish: It did. It did made a lot of sense. I must agree. You know, it's like the body does not forget. Even when the mind moves on. The body holds on to the imprint.

00:14:27 Cindy Costley: Yes, one hundred percent. And we don't think it's impacting us. But it is every everything that we normalize. Because for me, I just normalize it. I even told myself and here I've healed everything, and I've even been saying, well, maybe it's just time for me to start doing cooler vacations. I started to just accept it as opposed to sit down and say, no, I don't want to accept it. I want to heal it. And healing it meant going back and looking at the pattern and the reason that that pattern was created. Um, so because my body held on to it, my body created this safety, this protective measure, and it was me learning, oh, I can actually heal this remembering, I can actually heal this. I don't have to have this be my story anymore.

00:15:12 Nazish: Absolutely. in your work with EB, how do you see this regulation show up across mental, emotional and physical and even spiritual levels.

00:15:25 Cindy Costley: Well, healing, full healing and teaching our body how to go back to this state, the space of homeostasis. Because with it we're not. Nothing's healing yourself outside of you. We're reminding your body how to heal itself. So we're reminding your body how to go back in and understand what the underlying causes are of all of the dysregulation that's happening in your life, whether it's mental, physical, emotional. So that starts with the with these six frequencies, which the first frequency is spirituality. Because we have to believe that there's something there's an innate ability for ourselves to heal. We have to believe that there's something bigger than us and bigger than what we can understand, and bigger than what we've been taught in life. And that comes with the spiritual spark. Start, stop. I mean part. So we start by really understanding and grasping the spiritual aspects of our body as a physical being and then energetic. It's so important to remember that everything is energy. We are all energy. Our words are energy, our thoughts are energy, emotions are energy. And so we have to really heal that and learn and understand that concept so that when we're doing it, we can, um, recognize that energy can also heal. It's not just it's not just something outside of ourselves. It's something that can actually help us heal. And then mentally and emotionally, physically and behaviorally, these are all the next steps of healing, right? So mentally, I used to believe I'm the girl allergic to the world or I want the allergy lottery. This was my thought process and mentally I was reinforcing that all the time with my thoughts. So when we look at how we're speaking to ourselves, what we're saying to ourselves, what we think about our dysfunction, all of that and that affects us as well. And then emotionally, you know, we're so disconnected from our emotions most of the time. And so it's really learning to bring our to allow ourselves to feel our emotions, to see them as something safe and beautiful and wonderful, not something that's a threat. And then physically is the next level because physical comes last. Our our physical biology is the last piece to kind of catch up with everything. And then once we've healed all that, we can heal the behaviors that have come up. Which are these patterns. Right. My body is in a has a pattern of, you know, believing that I'm that sweat was not safe. So these are the six frequencies of healing that are so important. And they come in a certain, you know, alignment for a reason so that we can truly heal and teach our body how to heal in itself. So, like for me, I heal myself. Now, what I just did in the last four days was I don't have to do an ebrt remedy anymore because I've learned over the years how to do it myself. And that's the goal of Ebrt is to remind your body how to heal itself so that eventually you don't need any remedies. You don't need anything. You're so connected with your body, you know how to do it yourself.

00:18:48 Nazish: Absolutely. It sounds like he it sounds like that the interconnectedness is so important. It it's never just in your head and it's never just in your body. It's a whole system experience.

00:19:01 Cindy Costley: Yes, one hundred percent. It's it. All of it. You know, we tend to compartmentalize them, but they're all working together all the time. And so when we want to truly heal and learn how to restore our our back, I call it back restoring the design. Right? When we our original design is health and wholeness and wellness and longevity and joy and peace. And then we have these things that happen in our lives that bring us out of balance in all six of those frequencies. And it's not just addressing one or two of them that brings us back to wholeness. It's addressing all of them because they all have been affected by the I call them the woo worldly hangups. W.H. and those, you know, worldly hangups create these this regulation in our body. And it's really being willing to look at all of it in order to help us heal.

00:20:02 Nazish: So, uh, Cindy, for our listeners who feel who feel called to explore your work more deeply. Where can they connect with you?

00:20:13 Cindy Costley: You can find me at the underlying answers. I am currently in the process of working solely with, like, my own personal, um, uh, client. Client load is full, but I am in the process of teaching others, uh, healers and spiritual, um, spiritual coaches how to use this process. So I have a certification program that, first of all, focuses on healing yourself and then helping to heal friends and family, and then moving on to healing clients and making money off of that. So it's a one year certification process, and that's the that's mainly what I have, um, offering that I'm offering right now is helping you heal and learn how to heal others.

00:20:58 Nazish: Absolutely. I will make sure to include all these details into the show notes. So a lot of people can connect through you and as you move through your evening, I invite you to notice your body not as a problem to solve, but as a sacred messengers. Perhaps ask gently, dear listeners, what would help me feel a little safe right now? Thank you so much for joining us in this conversation. This has been sacred Harmony. And listeners, if today's conversation resonated with you, share it with someone who may need it. Need this reminder? Until next time. May your body soften. Your spirit settles, and your healing unfold in safety.