Episode 8
Hidden roadblocks to healing and lifestyle change with Dr. Nicki Giandomenico, ND, MSAOM, LAc
Have you ever felt like you were doing everything right, following all the instructions perfectly, but not getting the results you need? Today’s guest, Dr. Nicki Giandomenico, specializes in environmental medicine and chronic disease and she has some great insights as to why treatments may not be progressing as they “should.” Dr. Nicki asserts that everything you’re experiencing is a direct reflection of something you are energetically creating on the inside.
Your body creates responses to emotional triggers all throughout your life. Those can be retriggered later on subconsciously, resulting in symptoms that don’t respond to typical treatment. There can also be a fundamental imbalance in your internal energy that is keeping the healing blocked from you. If you’re still living with a subconscious story that you are not worthy of having a comfortable life, then you won’t.
In this episode, Dr. Nicki and I will talk about how necessary it is to balance your energies on all levels of our existence. The first step is to acknowledge how things are right now, and accept them. You can’t make change through resistance. All things heal together, just like all things shift out of balance together.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico is a licensed Naturopathic Physician and acupuncturist. She completed both her Doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine and Masters Degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine at Bastyr University in Seattle; completing her Chinese Medicine program in China.
Dr. Nicki specializes in environmental medicine, and chronic disease. She is also a gifted intuitive and energy healer. She practices in between Boulder, CO and Burlington, VT and offers telemedicine visits in select states.
You can learn more about Dr. Nicki on her website at https://www.windrivermedicine.com/ She practices in Boulder, CO and Burlington, VT and also offers telemedicine appointments.
If you’re looking for support in reaching your health goals, schedule a free 30-minute Coffee Talk here to see if we’re a good fit to work together.
Connect with me on Instagram @joliverwellness! DM me the words “Nutrition Edit” and I’ll add you to my close friends list, where I share exclusive content. You’ll be the first to know about upcoming programs and early access to my waitlist.
Music credit: Funk’d Up by Reaktor Productions
A Podcast Launch Bestie production
Transcript
Hey there, and welcome back to the nutrition edit.
Jeannie Oliver:Today is gonna be a really special episode.
Jeannie Oliver:I wanted to record this for those of you who feel like you're doing
Jeannie Oliver:everything right, but you just feel stuck and you're not seeing the results
Jeannie Oliver:or the breakthroughs that you want to in spite of, you know, feeling like
Jeannie Oliver:you're doing all the right things.
Jeannie Oliver:Maybe you're struggling with chronic illness and you've followed
Jeannie Oliver:your treatment plans to a T.
Jeannie Oliver:Your nutrition and fitness are dialed in, but maybe you're struggling with weight
Jeannie Oliver:loss, resistance, whatever that might be.
Jeannie Oliver:If you're feeling like there's just something stopping you from getting to
Jeannie Oliver:that next level, this episode is for you.
Jeannie Oliver:Today I'm going to be talking with Dr.
Jeannie Oliver:Nicki NDA Manko, who is a licensed naturopathic physician and acupunc.
Jeannie Oliver:Nikki completed both her doctorate in naturopathic medicine and her master's
Jeannie Oliver:degree in traditional Chinese medicine at BAE University here in Seattle.
Jeannie Oliver:She also completed her Chinese medicine program in China, which is pretty cool.
Jeannie Oliver:Dr.
Jeannie Oliver:Nikki specializes in environmental medicine and chronic disease, and she is
Jeannie Oliver:also a gifted intuitive and energy healer.
Jeannie Oliver:So I'm excited to talk about this.
Jeannie Oliver:She shares a lot of really great juicy information that I think is going to.
Jeannie Oliver:Super inspirational for you, so stick around and enjoy the show.
Jeannie Oliver:So, hey Nikki.
Jeannie Oliver:Welcome.
Jeannie Oliver:I'm so glad that you're here today.
Jeannie Oliver:I've been excited for this and I'm super looking forward to it.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Thank you.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Me too.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Thanks for having me.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:So I don't know how long we've known each other now.
Jeannie Oliver:It's probably 15 years, which is a little crazy to say that.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:But I'll never forget the first time that I met you, met you, the
Jeannie Oliver:first time I actually met you, you were doing your residency at Pastor
Jeannie Oliver:Clinic and I came in for my annual exam , which we all enjoy, so, Right.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:And you know, obviously we weren't chitchatting, but, you seemed cool enough.
Jeannie Oliver:And then like, not even a week later, I think , our mutual friend Brooke, Dr.
Jeannie Oliver:Brooke Whites, who also have on another episode, invited me to her birthday party.
Jeannie Oliver:And guess who I was seated across the table from?
Jeannie Oliver:But you I remember sitting there going, Oh, dear God.
Jeannie Oliver:Like, this is the woman that just gave me my annual exam.
Jeannie Oliver:I was mortified.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I wouldn't recognize that end anyway.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:. So you're saying
Jeannie Oliver:Yes.
Jeannie Oliver:And I kept thinking like, I hope she doesn't, I hope she doesn't recognize me.
Jeannie Oliver:Just
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:ridiculing
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:. Jeannie Oliver: Really awkward.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But I instantly adored you and we've been friends ever since.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So, And obviously, you know, Brooke explained to me, it's not a big deal.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's like, you know, a dentist seeing someone's teeth so.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:No big deal.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Anyway, , I'm so excited to have you because we, you know, we've worked
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:together before in a clinical setting.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I have seen firsthand just what an amazing doctor and practitioner that you are.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And so I really wanted to have you on to talk about, energetics and
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:mindsets and really address the issue around, you know, when someone feels
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:like, Hey, I'm doing everything right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:My nutrition is on point, my exercise is on point, or I'm following all my
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:doctor's protocol is exactly to a t.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Why aren't things changing?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Or why aren't they changing fast enough?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And so, You and I have been doing some of this work lately
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and talking about this a lot.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So I thought it was really, really, really crucial and exciting and
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:super interesting information that I wanted to share with everybody.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So, that said, tell me a little bit about your approach when you're dealing
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:with someone like this who, for example, you know, has been dealing with either
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:chronic illness for a long time, or in the context of the clients that I work with.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, maybe they are doing everything right, but for some reason they're
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:still experiencing, you know, weight loss, resistance you know, struggling
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:maybe with autoimmunity, sleep issues, hormonal issues, things like that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So what can those roadblocks kind of be that are sort of unseen?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah, I mean, I see that all the time really,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:especially in, the chronic illness world.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I mean, we see it in all, in all phases of health, really
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:in all phases of patient care.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But, It's markedly so apparent when you have patients who will go to
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:the ends of the earth for treatment.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:They'll go to do a specialty treatment in Germany, or get a special type of
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:IV or do hypothermic treatments, ozone treatments, you know, whatever it is.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:They might hear about, something in another country and someone else did this
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and they got well, so they then go and do it and hoping to get the same result and
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:they don't get the same result or mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, a myriad of different things like that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And I tell patients all the time, , you have to change what's on the inside first.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So you're constantly creating your entire world.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You're, you really are the master creator.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So whatever it is that you're experiencing, whether it's ill health or
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:particular symptom or anything in your day to day, something about how your life
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:runs or what you're encountering maybe at work or in relationship or whatever
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:it's directly a reflection of something that you are creating on the inside.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And so you can chase down, you know, I'm gonna change jobs.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I'm gonna get in a different relationship.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I'm going to use a different practitioner.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I'm gonna take a different supplement or do a different therapeutic.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But yet nothing really changes, right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You're, you get the same outcome only now you've got it with a different person
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:or you're in a different relationship, but that pattern is still there.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And the idea is really to look at.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We really kind of look at everything differently from the ground up.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So energetics come into play a lot, and a lot of times people wonder, you
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:know, what does that word actually mean?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And so, you know, I sort of say, Well, we are energy, we, you know,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:coming into the world of quantum meaning it's, we are beyond what you
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:can experience with your five senses.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, see you taste, feel here, et cetera.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So having said that, what does that really mean?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And if you look energetically at what really makes you up?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You are, the culmination of your thoughts, fears, beliefs the way that
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:you perceive the world, essentially.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So, Right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:If you have a particular health issue or something going on in
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:your life, it is, it's almost like.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Velcro, it's directly linked or related to some other aspect within you.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Some maybe deep-seated fear or malaligned belief or something you're carrying
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:from, from a past experience that you no longer wanna be bringing into
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:to your present time or your future.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So the, the real work is to, to excavate that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Excavate what part of me is creating this and where is this coming from and how
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:do I sort of unwind that and, and create the, the structure that is aligned with
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:the outcome that I want, so to speak.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So yes, certain treatments may create an outcome that you're
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:looking for, but you have to align yourself with that outcome first.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Then when you go do the treatment, you get the result that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That you're wanting.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But if you haven't aligned with that outcome, you're still aligned
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:to maybe the old story or the old energy, then all the treatments in
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:the world aren't gonna be able to bring you there, if that makes sense.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It does,
Jeannie Oliver:it does.
Jeannie Oliver:So kind of two questions within that.
Jeannie Oliver:First of all, I'd love to know a little background of how
Jeannie Oliver:you came into doing this work.
Jeannie Oliver:Either, you know, before or in addition to just practicing medicine
Jeannie Oliver:the way that you were before.
Jeannie Oliver:And then can you give us an example of, you know, let's say
Jeannie Oliver:I'm your, your patient, and I'm struggling with chronic fatigue or
Jeannie Oliver:headaches, let's just say headaches.
Jeannie Oliver:That's a good simple example to use.
Jeannie Oliver:No matter what I do, the headaches aren't going away.
Jeannie Oliver:What is the behavior language thoughts, et cetera, that I would be using in order to.
Jeannie Oliver:Call in, so to speak, the healing that I'm seeking versus if I'm not doing that,
Jeannie Oliver:if I'm just not changing internally, but expecting and hoping for the outcome
Jeannie Oliver:of, of getting rid of my headaches.
Jeannie Oliver:Does that
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:make sense?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So really what we're talking about with this work is, is patterns
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:that need to be restructured.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You could have an acute headache or an acute pain or acute something,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:you treat it, it goes away.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But when something sticks around or lingers like a pattern maybe you
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:got headaches as a kid or maybe you know, you are developing headaches
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:as part of entering menopause or aging or post a stressful situation
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and now they won't go away.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Or what, what have you, When it starts to form a pattern is when
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:we really wanna look at, well what are the energetics behind this?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So maybe, we'll we will, we'll take just one random one, maybe When you were a
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:kid or maybe you were in a, a different aspect of your life, maybe in your
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:twenties at your first job post-college or something, you started getting
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:headaches as a result of stress or as a result of something in your diet you
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:were eating, or maybe as a kid you were getting headaches when you were, you had
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:stress at home and that was one of the ways that your body sort of discharged
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:that energy and it presented for you.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That pattern is sort of ingrained in the body mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and the, whenever the body gets triggered in the same way to maybe you get stressed
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:in the same way, or you get abandoned in a partnership and you are abandoned as a
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:kid or you boss at work is playing a role that one of your parents played or an old
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:partnership played or something like that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That way the body discharged that energy showing up in that headache.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Presentation gets triggered and the body says, Alert, alert, alert.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That same triggers coming in and again, and goes back to that old roadway,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:is that pattern's already connected in the body, and it goes down that
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:road and it shows up the same way.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And if you don't have the awareness to draw that conclusion and make those
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:connections, you're gonna run down every treatment for a headache there is.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You're gonna take every, every supplement, cut out, everything on your diet, Sure.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Do all of this stuff.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:When in reality, it's linked in a much, you know, deeper way that you're gonna
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:have to really pull apart and take a look at in order to really heal.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And then, it is interesting.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I certainly came into this work later.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, I originally, when I was going through med school and, practice
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:post school, I really wanted to.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Work with athletes.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I had spent time living kind of a I would say high athletic output life
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and was really interested in, well, how do we optimize performance?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And what, what are we really capable of that's given all of the right
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:things, if all the conditions are met, what's the optimal performance
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:we can get out of ourselves?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And that always really fascinated me.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And then I finished school and was doing, I can't remember which, early
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:years of practice or, residency.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But I got really sick and so I went down the rabbit hole of going
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:from like super athlete to, I mean, through I think most of med school.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I was, I was still getting up at five in the morning for runs before, you know,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:getting, you know, to class for 8:00 AM being in class all day for my doctorate.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And then I would have an hour break and then I would show
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:back up for the night school.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And I was doing my masters in Chinese medicine at night.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Oh my gosh.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And I did that for, you know, years and years and years.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And weren't you running
Jeannie Oliver:like marathons or doing Ironmans or something like that?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:No, not Ironman.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I didn't even know about Ironman's then, but I lived.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And this sort of high octane place in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And so there were, there were a lot of high output kinds of things.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Big mountain runs and things like that, that I, I did a lot of.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So it, it really was just second nature to me to go, go, go like that all the time.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:, And I didn't really think anything of it.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:In fact, I, it's kind of how I fueled my life, you know, If I wasn't going
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:a million mile an hour, I, I didn't really know how to get outta bed in the
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:morning for anything less than that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:. But, you know, having said that, by the time I got outta school and
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:did all my board exams and got.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:going with practice and was really just trying to focus on being, you know,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:the best early young doctor I could.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I started to notice, whoa, you know, I'd always had this high output
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:life and all of a sudden I'm not, I don't have that same output anymore.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And you know, it was a real telltale sign when I would just get outta bed barely
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:in time to, to get to work or clinic and not, you know, not go for a run beforehand
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:or do a run after, or sometimes both.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So, long story short, I ended up getting pretty sick and spent a number of years.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Kind of doing the work that I do now with patients going down the
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:rabbit hole of trying to figure out what was wrong with me.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And back in the day, you know, no one really knew what Lyme disease was or mold
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:illness or any of those things, right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So I was really kind of shooting in the dark to, to figure out
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:what was going on with me.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And it really was a deep excavation of every aspect of myself that
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:really when it, spit me back out, changed the way I view everything.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So, the way I viewed medicine, the way I viewed health, the way I viewed myself,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:the way I viewed the world, everything just sort of got a a big makeover.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And I began to look at you know, my patients differently.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I wouldn't just see a symptom or an illness.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Or even the patient per se, the person I saw, the whole ecosystem.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:, you know, how are you interacting with the world and how do you feel about yourself?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And I started asking questions like, Well, on a scale of one to
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:10, what's your happiness level?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Where are you in terms of your life goals?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Where are you in terms of you know, all the boxes you wanna
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:check, you know, before you die?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:These sort of bigger questions really excavating what is
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:hidden underneath the surface.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And, and oftentimes hidden from the patient's awareness as well, you
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:know, wasn't just that they weren't, weren't hearing it because there
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:wasn't room for it in the medical.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:or the medical interview, they weren't sharing it with themselves.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:They weren't even asking themselves these questions anymore.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And in order to get myself, well, I had to touch on all the boxes.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It wasn't just about doing the right physical treatments for me, it was
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:really looking at those things and taking apart essentially my identity,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:who I thought I was, who I was as an athlete, as a successful person in life,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:as a person who's going after my goals.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:What are all the things that define who I am.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And at the end of the day when I lost my health or I would even say extreme
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:health, cuz I had sort of defined myself by that for a while mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I really had sort of a life crash.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Like, Oh my gosh, if I can't do these things or Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Who am I good at these things, Who am I, you know, do I have any worth at all?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:. And so it was really that sort of major excavation.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:is what, led to what I, do now and how I, see patients and, and,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and practice medicine to this day.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So it's, I can't really explain it in one, I wouldn't say
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:there's one reason or one thing.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It was more I sort of hit a wall and had to step back, and then it was just
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:uncovering layer after layer after layer until we were looking at the
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:absolute core of what needed to be.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I think that's
Jeannie Oliver:so powerful.
Jeannie Oliver:Thank you for sharing that story because oftentimes, probably all the
Jeannie Oliver:time, , except for the rare exception for someone like you, doctors do not
Jeannie Oliver:ask questions like this, and they usually don't have the bandwidth to take
Jeannie Oliver:the time to ask questions like this.
Jeannie Oliver:And if they do they may not have this level of awareness that these.
Jeannie Oliver:Different aspects of our lives.
Jeannie Oliver:You know, spirituality, relationships, all these different
Jeannie Oliver:things, our careers identity.
Jeannie Oliver:I think most doctors don't acknowledge those or understand
Jeannie Oliver:the effect that they have on our physical bodies and our health.
Jeannie Oliver:And you had told me once when we were talking that healing
Jeannie Oliver:is actually a physics equation.
Jeannie Oliver:So I'd love to know a little more about what you mean by that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know in physics, and I'm certainly not a physicist, so my, my physics examples
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:are coming from very rudimentary science here, but you know, the very basic
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:fundamental level going back to the.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Kind of science background that I have in physics, we really talk
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:about energy and energy systems.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And, and you really look at what goes into a system and what comes out of the system.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And if you wanna change what's coming out of the system, you have to change what
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:you're putting in and in very basic terms.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So for example, if you wanna get ice, you have to put water into the
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:system and cold into the system.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And if you are getting water outside on the other side of the system, if your,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:if your output is water and you want ice, well, you have to look at, well,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:are you putting in the right substrate?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yes.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Are you putting in the right conditions?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:In terms of temperature?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Oh no, my temperature might be too high.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I need to turn my temperature down.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:. So it really is, Looking at health the same way.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:What are we putting in?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Instead of saying, Oh, I'm getting the wrong thing out.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Something's wrong, something's broken, my system's broken,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I'm broken, my body's broken.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:The body is not broken.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:The body is, is perfect all the time.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Every, every aspect of what the body is doing is, is 100% what it should be doing.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So if you're getting, if your output out of the system is not what you
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:want, you have to look at what you're putting into the system and not just
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:write the system off as dysfunctional.
Jeannie Oliver:We're taught to do the opposite.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And you know, I always say too, it doesn't really matter.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:What you are treating the system with.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, you can treat the system in conventional medicine, maybe with a drug.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:If that's your choice and your symptoms go away, great.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:If that, if that makes you happy and that's your goal, fine.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:If you wanna do natural medicine and you treat with maybe a vitamin you're
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:deficient in or a food you need, great, and your symptoms go away and
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:you're happy with that result, great.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:They're all different ways of treating the same the same problem.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And you can, you know, different strokes for different folks,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:whatever speaks to you fine.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But at the end of the day, if you want true healing, if you want to actually
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:not cover anything up and absolutely what I call right, the energy.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So you're getting flow all the way through the system, the, the maximum flow you can
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:get with the best output possible, right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Then you have to look.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:All aspects of what, what is going into that system.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And a lot of those things we are not aware of.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We're not usually aware of our thought in any given moment in, in,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:in the subconscious or a deep-seated fear we may have of something.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, we kind of operate from this consciousness place, you know, our
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:thoughts that we think we sort of let our mind take the first front seat and our
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:intuition, or our body language or our, you know, heart communication, all of that
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:kind of, you know, goes in the back seat and we just sort of let the mind lead us.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And I tell people every day, you really can't believe anything.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:The mind says the mind lies all the time, . And yet here we give it all the permission
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:in the world, all power to run the
Jeannie Oliver:show.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:Do you think that's more of a Western problem?
Jeannie Oliver:I mean, as a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, like do
Jeannie Oliver:we see more awareness of that in traditional medicines or is it.
Jeannie Oliver:Problematic kind of across the board?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Well, certainly there's more awareness of.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, a hundred percent both, you know, different indigenous
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:cultures and the way they approach healing is, is along this way and,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and eastern cultures and, and eastern medicine and, and IIC medicine.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And, you know, these principles really have stood the test of time through,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:through many different modalities.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It really is the westernized aspect of quote unquote medicine and
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:what medicine means necessarily.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And even that is fairly new, fairly recent.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, the roots of medicine do come from nature,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:apathy, naturopathic medicine.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Also called German biological medicine, or German biological
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:medicine really did come from.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And, and that is sort of the, the natural aspect and the holistic
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:view of the patient, of the organism and the organism's environment is
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:originally how all medicine began.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But we've kind of compartmentalized and broken off of that and certainly
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:were more guilty of that in western culture than other cultures.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah,
Jeannie Oliver:yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:That's fascinating to me.
Jeannie Oliver:And I think we're starting now to grasp more as a society, the
Jeannie Oliver:interconnectedness of everything.
Jeannie Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Jeannie Oliver:, you know, I think of the person, the human body or health.
Jeannie Oliver:It's the same thing with agriculture, isn't it?
Jeannie Oliver:I mean, if the air is polluted, if the ground water is polluted,
Jeannie Oliver:if we're putting chemicals and things on the soil if microbes.
Jeannie Oliver:over abundant or missing.
Jeannie Oliver:I mean, there's all these different aspects that go into creating
Jeannie Oliver:a healthy crop, for example.
Jeannie Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Jeannie Oliver:, right?
Jeannie Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Jeannie Oliver:that has all of the vitamins and minerals and is nourishing and kind of, there
Jeannie Oliver:has to be this sort of optimal system.
Jeannie Oliver:And if that's not optimal over time it breaks down.
Jeannie Oliver:Right?
Jeannie Oliver:And I know, like I've had acupuncture work done before and that's
Jeannie Oliver:purely energetic stuff and mm-hmm.
Jeannie Oliver:, I used to think that was a bunch of woo woo before I got it to this sort of work.
Jeannie Oliver:And I thought, oh, I ended up having to go as an emergency fix for this back spasm.
Jeannie Oliver:I'd had, I'd never had acupuncture before and I couldn't get in to see
Jeannie Oliver:a chiropractor, which was the only solution I knew of at the time.
Jeannie Oliver:And so, you know, someone at one of those chiropractic offices said,
Jeannie Oliver:Look like a block down the hill from you is this acupuncturist.
Jeannie Oliver:She's wonderful.
Jeannie Oliver:Go see her.
Jeannie Oliver:So I quasimoto down the hill and thinking,
Jeannie Oliver:Dr. Nicki Giandomenico: What is this gonna do
Jeannie Oliver:for me?
Jeannie Oliver:You know, I'm in pain.
Jeannie Oliver:Like something's clearly out, something's wrong with my back.
Jeannie Oliver:Like, what's it gonna do?
Jeannie Oliver:And within moments like, you know, she had needles on me and cupping and whatever,
Jeannie Oliver:and by the time I got up off that table, it was like nothing had ever happened.
Jeannie Oliver:I was a hundred percent.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:You know, it was just incredible.
Jeannie Oliver:And I remember from that point just thinking like, oh wow,
Jeannie Oliver:there's so much more going on here.
Jeannie Oliver:And there's so much more to health and healing than I had ever
Jeannie Oliver:acknowledged or been aware of before.
Jeannie Oliver:And that was sort of one of the first things that piqued my
Jeannie Oliver:interest in, in natural healing and medicine because, you know, it's
Jeannie Oliver:just energy meridians and mm-hmm.
Jeannie Oliver:, her body's this amazing electrical system.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Nothing happens in the body without
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:the exchange of electrons.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's, it's fundamental to, to making ATP to the exchange of,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:things into and out of the cell.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I mean, basically we can't function.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That's a fundamental way the body works and cells operate.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So to not have a, the view of the body as an, as an energetic thing really is,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:is kind of ridiculous because at the end of the day, everything is just energy.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Cuz everything is really just a change of electrons.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So the more we understand that, you know, we start to learn that we can
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:induce that effect or reduce that effect in, in different aspects of the body.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And that we are, you know, a lot more things are at play affecting
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:ourselves on that level than, than we originally thought.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So if we talk about alignment, I, I kind of say to my patients all the time,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:you know, healing really is that who you are on, on all levels is aligned.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And so, you know, we kind of look at it as who I am at the greatest
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:expression of myself, my highest self, my best self, who I am, who
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I aspire to be in any given moment.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Not coming from a wounded place, not coming from an old programmed
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:thinking place or an old story pattern place, but just fully present in
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:the now, in the moment coming from the highest place possible, who
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I am on that level and who I am.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:In the physical, who I am in the mental, emotional level, my thinking my thoughts,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:my beliefs, the things that I hold on that level and my emotional level,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:meaning my how victim to my emotions am I, and, and do I let my emotions run me?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Or do I realize the gift and the ability to feel and that emotions are just a
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:feeling and I have to become that emotion?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Do I still hold who I am and, and not fall victim to any given emotion
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:that might, you know, be present for me in, in a particular situation?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So if you look at who you are on all these levels when they are all
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:aligned energy can flow and that right flow of energy and that healthy
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:movement of energy through the system.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:is essentially what is health.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So when someone is not healthy, we have to look at each of those layers,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:each of those levels, and excavate and restructure and maybe realign each of
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:those levels in order to come back into the system as a whole being balanced and,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and creating flow, if that makes sense.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah,
Jeannie Oliver:it does make sense and I think it's really empowering,
Jeannie Oliver:Dr. Nicki Giandomenico: that's the whole point, right?
Jeannie Oliver:Is you have the power no matter what level, no matter what story,
Jeannie Oliver:no matter what issue, no matter what circumstance, no matter what
Jeannie Oliver:symptom, everything comes back to you.
Jeannie Oliver:You know, a lot of, a lot of times people might say, Oh, well that's saying it's
Jeannie Oliver:my fault, or, or that saying, you know, I'm causing this in some negative way.
Jeannie Oliver:Really at the end of the day, that's putting the power to
Jeannie Oliver:change this back in your hands.
Jeannie Oliver:That's putting you back in the driver's seat.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:To say, Oh, it isn't this thing outside of myself, It's my relationship to
Jeannie Oliver:that thing and I have power over that.
Jeannie Oliver:Mm.
Jeannie Oliver:I have power to determine how things impact me and why I have power
Jeannie Oliver:to determine where my position is on each of these levels.
Jeannie Oliver:How aligned am I in each of these levels?
Jeannie Oliver:I can uncover where I may be out of alignment and I can recreate that
Jeannie Oliver:alignment and create that flow.
Jeannie Oliver:No one can can, no one is in charge of that.
Jeannie Oliver:No one can affect that.
Jeannie Oliver:If we don't give them power to do so.
Jeannie Oliver:So right.
Jeannie Oliver:In my view of it is, is very empowering.
Jeannie Oliver:And nine times outta 10, taking that power back is the biggest and
Jeannie Oliver:first fundamental step to reversing whatever health picture you have.
Jeannie Oliver:Whether it's a chronic patterned issue or it's an acute issue, Right.
Jeannie Oliver:How you approach it and looking at your relationship to it is fundamental
Jeannie Oliver:to healing it, to shifting it.
Jeannie Oliver:Awesome.
Jeannie Oliver:And if you can give us like a little example of something that would illustrate
Jeannie Oliver:the difference between that sort of, why is this happening to me, versus the how
Jeannie Oliver:am I responding to whatever is happening?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I just am moving into a new place and encountered
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:more more things in the first week than I would've predicted possible.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And after enough of those things kind of culminate and happen together,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:you definitely, you know, start to waiver a bit your commitment and,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and ability to really understand what is happening and to, and to, to
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:know kind of what, what's going on.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And so a thing, you know, you might start questioning things or you might
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:start looking at things differently.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And for, for me it was definitely spending a little bit of time like,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Oh my gosh, this is like the money pit and what did I get myself into?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, every layer I would uncover, there'd be five other layers underneath
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:that I would have to uncover.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:. So I stepped back for a minute and just sort of reassessed the, the
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:situation and really kind of tried to take in, you know, this moment here in
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:this space and all that's happening.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And I sort of restructured my relationship with it, you know,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:rather than, than thinking this was something that was happening to me.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I started to really see it as an opportunity for me to show up
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:differently and and what change can I bring about in doing that?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:How can I shift myself and then therefore see a shift in outcome by doing that?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And so, you know, at first it was sort of all these big things.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Oh, why did I have to, uncover, an old pipe and a leak and, Have to fix
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:a wall and all this kind of stuff.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But then it really, you know, when I started shifting my outlook and
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:really seeing the opportunity that was here for me I started to just see so
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:much grace everywhere that I looked.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And, you know, in a world, a post covid world where it's so difficult to
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:find someone with the ability to see you within a two month period, right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Or help you or materials aren't available or what have you.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I've just had such, I've just been very blessed to have things be kind of
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:flowing right along and, and solutions showing up and, and and kind of
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:changed the, the dynamic a little bit.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So I, I think there's always an opportunity for self reflection and self
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:excavation and Taking that ownership of how we are relating to something,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:our relationship with something.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And as we do that, maybe shift within ourselves we often will see
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:it bring about a, a change in, in our situation and our circumstance.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And that's still a hundred percent true with health as well.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And
Jeannie Oliver:After the work that we were doing together, we
Jeannie Oliver:just did one session together.
Jeannie Oliver:Mm.
Jeannie Oliver:And I started just sort of writing some things down with the writing exercises
Jeannie Oliver:that you gave me and the first thing I did was sort of to change my thoughts
Jeannie Oliver:and speech around certain things.
Jeannie Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Jeannie Oliver:and There were a couple things I think that I'd mentioned to you
Jeannie Oliver:where I felt like there was a little bit of conflict or just different
Jeannie Oliver:viewpoints between my husband's and my mindset around certain things.
Jeannie Oliver:And within, you know, a matter of several days after doing this work myself and
Jeannie Oliver:not mentioning anything to him or asking him to do anything at all, I don't even
Jeannie Oliver:know that he was aware that we met.
Jeannie Oliver:Hmm.
Jeannie Oliver:He brought something up to me of his own volition that was something that I
Jeannie Oliver:had had, you know, some concerns about.
Jeannie Oliver:And it was just a complete 180 in his sort of attitude mindset about this.
Jeannie Oliver:And it was really cool.
Jeannie Oliver:Cause I said to you, I was like, Nicky, I don't know if this
Jeannie Oliver:has anything to do with that.
Jeannie Oliver:And you said, Well, yeah, it does.
Jeannie Oliver:But it was a really exciting thing because this sounds, I'm
Jeannie Oliver:sure to send people like woo woo.
Jeannie Oliver:But it really isn't.
Jeannie Oliver:I mean, like you say, it's, it's.
Jeannie Oliver:Physics, it's something that's very real, very scientific.
Jeannie Oliver:It's energy and everything is energy.
Jeannie Oliver:And so seeing this in my own life happen, it happened so quickly,
Jeannie Oliver:was really profound and exciting.
Jeannie Oliver:And you know, you explained to me that well yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:When you start doing the work on yourself, that it has a sort of ripple effect.
Jeannie Oliver:So I'd love for you to touch on, you know, the difference between the
Jeannie Oliver:energetic work that you're talking about and just, you know, manifestation
Jeannie Oliver:that we're hearing about lately.
Jeannie Oliver:Cuz I feel like this goes a lot deeper than that.
Jeannie Oliver:So is that something you can clarify?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Well I would say first of all,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:manifestation is, is a loaded word.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And it really is quite complex.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And I guess the simplest example I could give would be you might want
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:to create something or just want something so badly and you put out
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:maybe to the ethers or to to the universe or you know, I want X, Y, or Z.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And then, and then people often think, Well, if you're going to
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:manifest it, that just means you want it, believe you can have it,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and then it shows up, for example.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And, and really there's, we're just so complex.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We are, we are multi layered organisms here that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Nine times outta 10.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:The part of our consciousness that we're aware of is a small, very small part.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And that the greater part of us, for the most part, especially if we
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:haven't done much work on ourselves, is really the, the subconscious.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So, you know, we're kinda like icebergs, right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That part under, under the water is the greater part of the iceberg and is usually
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:for us, you know, the subconscious.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And the part of our consciousness that really is in conscious awareness
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:is that small part above the water.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So if you're trying to manifest or create with that small part above the water only,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And yet the bulk of you is still under the water, creating other things maybe in the
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:direction you're working against yourself, cuz you're only thinking of yourself
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:as the part of you that you can see or the part of you that's above the water.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And so the real work is really excavating that subconscious and taking a look at
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:it and bringing that into alignment with, oh, okay, so consciously I want this
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and I know I'm good enough and I know I can have this and I can create this, but
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:subconsciously I'm still living from this old story of not believing I'm worthy and
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:believing I can't have and, and yada yada.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And so all of this is working against me, but if I'm not aware of that, I'm just
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:putting this part that's conscious out and wondering why I'm not getting back what
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:it is that I think that I maybe should be.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So there's just a The principles are, are a bit complex and there's a lot going
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:on there, but at, at the end of the day, it really is about rather than maybe
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:judging or blaming why something isn't happening, you wanna approach it from the
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:aspect of well this is here for a reason.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:There's no question the outcome that is here is, is being created.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:. And so I have to find what are the parts of me, maybe conscious or
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:subconscious, that are creating this and shift them to align them to
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:what I actually want to be creating.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And, and it's, it's true in our health too.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, our, our body will show us if we are not looking or paying attention
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:or listening, our body will make us know that something is not aligned.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So you may, you know, you may be running marathons every single day
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and feeling great, and then all of a sudden, bam, something huge happens
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and the body's like, no, no more.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:. Well, that may have just happened for you in that moment, Right?
Jeannie Oliver:It's
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:been building up, holding for a really long time, and
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:you just have to been listening until the point where, you know, the body finally
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:said, I can't carry this for you anymore.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So, you know, I think, I don't know if I've answered your question.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We kind of went off on a tangent, but I I do think that No, you definitely did.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Sort of understanding those, those fundamental energetic, you know,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:principles and, and approaching with that sort of level of doing the
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:deeper excavation and, and unearthing of what is out of balance on all
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:of those levels of existence is, is how we really solve any, any issue,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:whether it's health or otherwise.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah,
Jeannie Oliver:no, that makes really good sense.
Jeannie Oliver:So, I'm curious, what would be some simple ways where people
Jeannie Oliver:could start to make shifts?
Jeannie Oliver:So for example, like I'm gonna make up a, a fictional client.
Jeannie Oliver:Let's say my fictional client has had a history of sexual abuse in
Jeannie Oliver:her, in her past, and she's you know, struggling with excess weight maybe
Jeannie Oliver:some other health issues and is just struggling to have a breakthrough.
Jeannie Oliver:Like what would be one of the simple ways she could just start to get unstuck?
Jeannie Oliver:Dr. Nicki Giandomenico: Well, it's simple ways.
Jeannie Oliver:That's very complex issue.
Jeannie Oliver:So, yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:Right.
Jeannie Oliver:I think probably the first one I would say is the first step is to stop
Jeannie Oliver:blaming yourself and looking at you or your body as doing something wrong.
Jeannie Oliver:Like coming from the approach of, look, this is where I am for whatever reasons,
Jeannie Oliver:whatever protective mechanisms, whatever is underneath the why of, of all of it.
Jeannie Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Jeannie Oliver:, this is where I am, and we first have to come to terms with the
Jeannie Oliver:now before we can change it.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:So if you are, whether you're overweight or you are in chronic
Jeannie Oliver:pain, or you are, you know, whatever it is, if you are on a health quest
Jeannie Oliver:to change where you are because you wanna be someplace different mm-hmm.
Jeannie Oliver:forget it.
Jeannie Oliver:You have to first learn to love where you are and accept where you
Jeannie Oliver:are before anything can change.
Jeannie Oliver:So you can't get to where you want to go.
Jeannie Oliver:In resistance, you have to come into acceptance.
Jeannie Oliver:And that means I have to accept all of what is here, all that.
Jeannie Oliver:I don't wanna see all that.
Jeannie Oliver:I don't wanna feel all that.
Jeannie Oliver:I don't wanna know about myself, about the world, about other people, about whomever.
Jeannie Oliver:And you know, I always say, you, you can't fix what you don't know is broken.
Jeannie Oliver:You can't, right?
Jeannie Oliver:You can't do the work when everything is buried.
Jeannie Oliver:And you're not aware of it.
Jeannie Oliver:So the, the first fundamental stuff is to come into awareness of
Jeannie Oliver:what is an acceptance of what is there before you change anything.
Jeannie Oliver:That's not an easy one.
Jeannie Oliver:Dr.
Jeannie Oliver:Nicki , that's not an easy one.
Jeannie Oliver:But I will say one thing that you said to me in our session together
Jeannie Oliver:that I felt was super helpful was you said, you know, stop looking at
Jeannie Oliver:things that's either good or bad.
Jeannie Oliver:It just is just the reality.
Jeannie Oliver:And that was really helpful because I was able to kind of step
Jeannie Oliver:back and, like you said, kind of release the judgment around it.
Jeannie Oliver:Because just those words, good and bad, they carry so much charge.
Jeannie Oliver:Right?
Jeannie Oliver:And sort of a similar yet dissimilar note, like I often tell my clients like,
Jeannie Oliver:stop saying I was good or I was bad.
Jeannie Oliver:When it comes to your food choices, like you just made the choice that
Jeannie Oliver:you made and maybe it served you well, maybe you didn't, but if you decide
Jeannie Oliver:it didn't serve you well, okay, well what would you do maybe differently,
Jeannie Oliver:like next time for yourself instead of beating yourself up over that choice?
Jeannie Oliver:Like it just is, whatever it is, it's not good.
Jeannie Oliver:It's not bad.
Jeannie Oliver:Let the judgment go be in the moment.
Jeannie Oliver:You can always change things down the road, but like you say,
Jeannie Oliver:you know, you have to be aware.
Jeannie Oliver:You have to have some level of acceptance.
Jeannie Oliver:And we know too, just statistically that when people do have, let's use
Jeannie Oliver:weight loss as an example because it's such a common goal for people.
Jeannie Oliver:When people are more accepting of their bodies in the present moment as they
Jeannie Oliver:are, and they can establish some sort of self-love, appreciation, whatever that is,
Jeannie Oliver:acceptance where they are when they start, they are far more likely to reach their
Jeannie Oliver:goal and be successful down the road.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That's interesting.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I didn't know that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah, again, that kind of brings up the things that we're not aware of.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:, right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, and some of the fundamental principles too, of energy.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So for example, if you are constantly judging yourself or in this bad good idea,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:you sort of become addicted to, to both.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:, you're addicted to being bad.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And wrong cuz maybe that's only what you know.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And addicted to that idea of trying to become good, right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:, you're not, you're not good or bad for doing a good or bad thing.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And, and so a lot of times, you know, people are really surprised
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:to say, actually this has no reflection of you whatsoever.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Like, nobody cares.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Nobody cares.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So when you take away that aspect and you realize, Well, what am I, if I'm
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:not doing something to be good mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:or doing something to be bad, what if I take that away completely?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And that is go, who am I if I'm just floating in this abyss of nothingness?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And that's the, the first fundamental level of fear that we
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:start to get into is, is people.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Weren't realizing they were addicted to an identity, it didn't
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:even matter what identity it was.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I needed to get something and to see myself of something, even
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:if it was I'm bad or I'm good.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And when we took that away completely and they realized they didn't have
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:an identity at all that then they realized, Oh my gosh, this is so scary.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I had to attach to some level of calling myself something because deep down side,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I actually didn't know who I was at all.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And perhaps I was living what other people told me I was or yeah, yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It was reinforced that this is what I'm about or this is what's important
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:to me, or this is what I'm good at, so this is what I'm going to do.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:At the end of the day your identity is essentially made up.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You can be anything you wanna be in any given moment.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:so.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:At the end of the day looking at, well, who am I?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:What's important to me?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Not, not what am I living for other people or what was I told I should care about?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Or yeah, what did my boss say was good?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Or what's gonna get me this raise or what?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah, my kids want from me or my husband or my wife want from me.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But at the end, not sitting on
Jeannie Oliver:yourself.
Jeannie Oliver:. Dr. Nicki Giandomenico: Yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:At the end of the day, what am I about?
Jeannie Oliver:What's important to me and how do I want to show up?
Jeannie Oliver:And what if nobody cares?
Jeannie Oliver:What if absolutely nobody thinks twice about my being good or bad in this
Jeannie Oliver:moment about my eating the entire bag of potato chips or not about my
Jeannie Oliver:running those last three miles or not?
Jeannie Oliver:Or am I losing these last 10 pounds or not?
Jeannie Oliver:What if none of it matters?
Jeannie Oliver:And then people really start to uncover, Oh, I actually, that's really scary.
Jeannie Oliver:I want this to matter.
Jeannie Oliver:I wanna focus on this one problem because the bigger problem
Jeannie Oliver:underneath that, this is covering up, is where I really have fear.
Jeannie Oliver:Right.
Jeannie Oliver:Or pain or something that's mm-hmm.
Jeannie Oliver:being suppressed and that you're being distracted from, essentially.
Jeannie Oliver:Right.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:Well, and that leads me into my next question about relationships.
Jeannie Oliver:You know, I think that a really common challenge that people have,
Jeannie Oliver:who I work with is their social
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:circle
Jeannie Oliver:and the fear around losing their social life, losing
Jeannie Oliver:their group of friends because maybe their lifestyle is changing.
Jeannie Oliver:You know, I've had people say to me so many times, like, Well, you know, we go
Jeannie Oliver:on wine tasting trips and we you know, go to the bakery every morning on Sunday.
Jeannie Oliver:Not that you can never do those things, but the idea of them shifting
Jeannie Oliver:their lifestyle, where taking good care of their bodies, honoring their
Jeannie Oliver:bodies, eating a different way.
Jeannie Oliver:is somehow or possibly going to alienate them from their crew or their
Jeannie Oliver:group of people their support system.
Jeannie Oliver:And I think we have so much invested in that you know, just from
Jeannie Oliver:kind of a survival level, right?
Jeannie Oliver:, I mean, early man if we weren't in community would die probably.
Jeannie Oliver:You have to, you know, you rely on that social construct and that support
Jeannie Oliver:system to some degree just for survival.
Jeannie Oliver:But nowadays we don't necessarily need it so much for survival.
Jeannie Oliver:But I think there's still that sort of innate desire to belong,
Jeannie Oliver:to feel part of something.
Jeannie Oliver:And so I think that's genuine, you know, fear and block for a lot of
Jeannie Oliver:people that subconsciously if they think, Oh wait a minute, I'm not
Jeannie Oliver:gonna fit into this crowd anymore.
Jeannie Oliver:It prevents them from making the changes that they want and need to make in order
Jeannie Oliver:to get what they want for themselves and have the lives that they want.
Jeannie Oliver:So what would you tell somebody that's, that's concerned about that
Jeannie Oliver:or thinks, well, you know, what if my partner leaves me, , et cetera.
Jeannie Oliver:Oh,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Well, a couple of things.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:The first would be I think, I think we, one time we talked about this, I
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:said something along the lines of, of this but you either, you know, betray
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:the pattern or you betray yourself.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That's so powerful.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:If you're connected in a way, whether it's your friend group or you're intimate
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:relationship or what have you and, and you're connected in a way that is not
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:serving you, where you're having to betray yourself in order to be in this
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:dynamic, and you find that shifting, this will help you come to health,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:but you don't wanna give up this.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Particular connection or this particular way of being in the world.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So ultimately you're betraying yourself and making that choice.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:. So that would be the fundamental issue there, is that you would
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:be willing, you know, to do that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Whereas betray the pattern means, well, this pattern isn't serving me.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So I'm mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:, I'm gonna drop this because it's not aligned with my end goal, which
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:is my, you know, health and living in a way that is sustainable.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And either the pattern will shift and the people in my life will shift,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and the things that we do for fun will shift to align with that choice.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And I won't have to betray myself and I won't have to.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Give up something that's important to me in order to be with these people.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Either the people will shift and I'll get new people, or the pattern will
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:shift and we'll do something that's aligned with what works for me.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But at the end of the day, the, the outcome will be the same.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I will get to my goal of, of health and live in a way that is aligned.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And the people in my life will also be on that same trajectory with me.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:They will be aligned in the same way that that choice is aligned for me.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But if I'm, I'm gonna sacrifice that for the sake of an
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:attachment to a particular thing.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It is not good for me.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And that doesn't mean, you know, we get, we can enjoy life.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, It's right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Every once in a while that matters.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's what you do all the time.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Absolutely.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You're addict to eating ice cream every single day, and you have
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:a, and you're lactose intolerant, you're gonna have a health problem.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But that isn't to say that you've, you've dialed yourself in and all the
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:things that are Good and healthy for you.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And you, you can't do things that do create community for you and Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I mean that, there's nothing wrong with that at all, of course.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's simply making sure that you're doing it in a way that is
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:aligned with, with what is healthy and good and aligned for you.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And then your, you, you know, you build your relationships and your friend
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:group and your community on that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And in terms of relationships, Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, and, and you gave an example of this, but if there's an unhealthy
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:relationship pattern, you know, maybe it got created in the very beginning and
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:then you're in, in a relationship with someone many years and then down the
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:road, You don't want this pattern anymore.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You want the relationship.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But you realize, oh wait, I've been betraying myself in this way.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah, I don't wanna do that anymore.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But yet I'm afraid if I give this up, my relationship person won't
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:stick around, or my relationship won't handle this or my marriage.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:won't be affected by this.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And, and I think when we talked earlier, You know, we said something along the
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:lines of, well, when you heal you and you write that energy, and you create
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:that flow, that energy goes back into the relationship or into that dynamic.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Maybe it's a family dynamic or a, a intimate partnership.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And that gives the part that that other person is, was holding the
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:ability to change them as well.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's a gift, you know, when we heal ourselves, we really are giving a gift to
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:those around us and to the world that then they get the opportunity to, to continue
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:that writing of energy for them as well.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And neither they'll show up, Oh yeah, that, that works for me too, right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Like that that fits me better as well, and the entire relationship
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:evolves, or they won't.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And when you give that feedback to them, they get angrier, they blow up,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:or a fight ensues or what have you.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Well, that's the natural unfolding of that dynamic of energy.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That energy was not aligned and not flowing right, was contorted
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:in an unhealthy way and attached to, you know, unhealthy old
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:story things that needed to go.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And when you write it for yourself, and it went back into the dynamic, either
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:the family relationship or the marriage or what whatnot the part that that other
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:person was holding goes back to them.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And they have the opportunity to then look at themselves and
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:write their energy as well.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And either they show up with you or they don't.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And if they don't, you know, they may go.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But either way, you don't lose because you'll just call in the person that is
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:going to do that with you, that is going to align in the way that meets you that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's your destiny.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You can't, That's my feeling is physi.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's physics.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:When you create that energetic shift, you call in others on that same
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:trajectory and you either get the relationship you want, maybe it's with
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:a different person or the person that you're with shows up in the right way.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But the outcome is aligned with where you are going.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You can't not have that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, it, some could even say it's sort of in the stars already.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's your birthright.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And we are meant to, when we come here, we are not meant to suffer.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right, Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Of our life and then die.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We are meant to feel.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We are, we are such potent beings of energy that we have the capacity to
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:heal anything and everything and then create the extension of that healing.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Ourselves in everything that we touch, every, every community, relationship,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:et cetera, to bring that healing forward and to have an exponential result of, of
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:others healing on that same trajectory.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So it really is a gift in that sort of uncomfortable
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:edge that facilitates healing.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:When we meet that within ourselves and we show up for that, and we say,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Ah, this doesn't feel good for me.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know what?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I'm gonna do the right thing here.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I'm gonna no longer betray myself, or I'm gonna no longer suppress this.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Or I'm gonna finally look at this or heal this, or release this or let this go.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That healing action then trickles through for all the, all the people
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:that come next so all the other people in our lives, it impacts our kids, it
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:impacts our spouse, it impacts our, Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:The people we show up for every day.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And so it really is, you know, I I I always say heal yourself, heal the world.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That's, that's how you heal the world by healing yourself.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So you had a great example of that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, you made a change internally within yourself.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You had a decision point and you showed up, aligned with that decision point
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and the self-talk you used and the action you used and the way you aligned
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:yourself with that choice that you were making for yourself energetically.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And next thing you know, it was reflected back in you, in your
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:partnership and you had that expression come, come exponentially forward.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And that was because of work you had done, which you hadn't even
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:realized, Oh, wait a second.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:, I forgot I had, I forgot I even had to shift this.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I forgot I was ever not doing.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It just becomes this new, We sort of are born and new every minute.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We just don't realize we keep recreating what we don't change.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So if you want to create change, you simply get, you know, right now is
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:another opportunity from that minute ago.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And, and oh, and here's another one.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So it's this wonderful gift that we're given that we always have
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:these constant opportunities to show up differently and create change.
Jeannie Oliver:And I think, you know, I always tell people, Look,
Jeannie Oliver:if nothing changes, nothing changes.
Jeannie Oliver:. Right?
Jeannie Oliver:And it can be, it can feel insecure and scary initially, but I think if we can
Jeannie Oliver:look at these things instead of trying to hold on with a death grip to whatever we
Jeannie Oliver:have that's comfortable because our, you know, our nervous systems on a base level,
Jeannie Oliver:like new and different, can feel scary.
Jeannie Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Jeannie Oliver:and threatening to some degree.
Jeannie Oliver:But if we can look at it differently, instead of going, Oh, I don't
Jeannie Oliver:wanna lose this relationship.
Jeannie Oliver:And instead go, you know, why am I hanging onto this?
Jeannie Oliver:Like, maybe there's a new relationship either with this
Jeannie Oliver:person or with somebody else.
Jeannie Oliver:Like, why am I holding myself back from the optimal situation, the
Jeannie Oliver:optimal health or the optimal you know, relationships, careers, level of fitness.
Jeannie Oliver:It's kind of like you're just putting so many limitations on what's possible
Jeannie Oliver:for you by hanging on to what is mm-hmm.
Jeannie Oliver:. And I think it's a natural kind of human reaction to wanna hang
Jeannie Oliver:on or just maintain status quo.
Jeannie Oliver:It feels safe to some degree.
Jeannie Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Jeannie Oliver:, but you know, it's, once we can step out of that and acknowledge possibility
Jeannie Oliver:and I think just shifting that way of thinking it a little bit, going, well,
Jeannie Oliver:there could be more, it could be better.
Jeannie Oliver:What am I holding myself back
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:from?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And I think that's the fundamental of, of mindset, right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mindset really is Not so much about the outcome that you want.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:The outcome is really just a side effect.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mindset is how do I show up in every moment?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:What's my relationship to this situation or to this moment, or
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:to this issue, or to this person or what have you, or to myself.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And just creating, you know, constantly excavating, creating that continued
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:awareness of the present moment.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That's one of the reasons why I do give writing homework.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And sort of journaling exercises to do.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:The word journaling freaks everybody out and everyone's like,
Jeannie Oliver:Oh my God, that was me.
Jeannie Oliver:I hate it.
Jeannie Oliver:I'm like, I'm not a
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:journaler.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I hate journaling.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Don't make me journal . And then I do it, and I like, I journaled and it worked.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:essentially we hate journaling and I always say to my patients,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:you know, you're not the only one.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You think you're the only one.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Everybody hates it.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And the reason is because Journaling is the way that, that we sort of
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:force ourselves to look at ande.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:The present moment and, and how we are showing up and what we're doing.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We become mindful in the moment.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Most of us want to tune out and just go on autopilot.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Like, I wanna come in from work, sit down, eat these potato chips and watch
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:the show and, and completely, you know, numb out for a while and then we look
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:down in the bag of chips is totally gone.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And we're three shows then, and we haven't gotten off the
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:couch and, and what have you.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And
Jeannie Oliver:we didn't even enjoy the chips for real
Jeannie Oliver:cause you're so checked out.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:at the end of the day, and I think I've given you this example
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:before to shift this pattern.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You don't force yourself to only have five chips or force yourself to eat
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:something healthier, not have any chips or whatever, you know, being
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:in that resistance where you have to punish yourself and fail mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and all that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:The answer really is you just shut off the TV and, and what that, what
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:that means is you just become mindful.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You become present.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You eat all the chips you want, but sit in full awareness
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:of every single one of them.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Taste every right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Feel every chip.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You're not gonna be able to have more than a serving of, or a handful of that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You won't be able to eat the whole bag when you do that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:. So it really is just journaling is our way of reestablishing that capacity to
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:be mindful because we're so tuned out.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We've gotten in a habit that mindfulness, that continued
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:presence and awareness is too much.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's overwork.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:, it's exhausting.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I can't, I can't be aware of everything all the time, why I'm
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:doing things, why I'm thinking things.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's too much.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And ultimately that's just a belief.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's not actually.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:The more aware we become, the more things shift in a line on their own.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Because we, we gave it the light of day, we gave it conscious awareness.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It had to shift.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:The only way things work against us is when we suppress them,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:when we're not looking at them.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But when we actually witness it and become aware of it, we can't
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:keep doing the things that harm us.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It goes against our, it goes against our dna, it goes against our biology.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So really just bringing things up into awareness and creating that
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:mindfulness on a regular basis is the fundamental step of change.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You'll, you know, patients always say to me at first, it's like pulling
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:teeth and they don't wanna do it.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And they sit down and nothing comes out.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And I always tell them, Well, you did it.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It doesn't matter that nothing came out.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You, you gave yourself the commitment and you showed up and you, and you
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:sat down and, and gave time to that commitment you made to yourself.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Of course, nothing's gonna come up at first because, Everything follows energy.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Energy follows patterns.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So you've had the pattern of suppression for so Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And the first time you sit down and give it the ability to come up that
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:direction's not gonna just change direction and start going upward now.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:After it's been downward for most of your life, you're gonna have
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:to sit in anticipation of that for days and days and maybe even weeks
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:until finally the body says, Oh wait, we're not suppressing anymore.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We're unearthing.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We are creating awareness.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We can go and shift this into upward momentum.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And inevitably what always happens is next thing you know, Oh wait, you
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:know, I always make them commit to either 10 or 15 minutes, and that's it.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Even if nothing comes out at the end of that time, you get up, you leave, you've
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:done, you can check it off, job well done.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And ultimately that 15 minutes turns into 20, turns into 30, turns into
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:an hour, turns into can't stop.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Writing, turns into light and just turns into, Oh, my marriage is better.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Oh, I got divorced, left.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That guy got found, the man of my dreams, or woman of my dreams, or, yeah, changed
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:my job or started working for myself.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Or next thing you know, the health issue they came in with.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:They don't even mention cuz they forgot they even had it because
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:so many changes took place.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:They realized, oh wait, my whole life was sick.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Not just my body, not just the sick.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:How I was showing up was sick.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:How I was thinking about myself was sick, how I was perceiving my world
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:was sick or the world was sick.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And so when you start to take all that into account and develop
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:awareness and develop compassion and acceptance, you start to then become
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:in relationship with these things differently instead of in resistance.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You're allowing, you're able to see, you're able to show up, you're able to,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:you know, begin the process of, of moving.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and ultimately healing.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So all things heal together.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Just like all things became out of balance together.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah, I think that's just so exciting and liberating.
Jeannie Oliver:, you know, and I can relate to that sitting down feeling like I got nothing.
Jeannie Oliver:Nothing's coming to mind.
Jeannie Oliver:Like I, I don't know.
Jeannie Oliver:I don't know what the hell to do right now.
Jeannie Oliver:Like I'm just gonna sit here and spin out and whatever.
Jeannie Oliver:Dr. Nicki Giandomenico: and with the journal.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:And it does eventually start to bubble to the
Jeannie Oliver:surface and just making that little effort and kind of letting go of
Jeannie Oliver:the stories I was telling myself.
Jeannie Oliver:Hating to journal.
Jeannie Oliver:You know, it's so funny cuz it's pretty hypocritical of me.
Jeannie Oliver:I mean, I'm always telling my clients like, stop saying you hate cooking.
Jeannie Oliver:Like the more you say you hate cooking, the more miserable cooking will be
Jeannie Oliver:like start to say something different.
Jeannie Oliver:Like, yeah, you know, you do my favorite act, favorite activity,
Jeannie Oliver:but I'm just gonna put some music on and zen out and I'm just gonna cook
Jeannie Oliver:I don't hate it, it just is.
Jeannie Oliver:And so I kind of had to step back and go, All right Jeanie,
Jeannie Oliver:like put your shit together.
Jeannie Oliver:Like this is not a big deal.
Jeannie Oliver:Like just sit here with it.
Jeannie Oliver:Just see what happens.
Jeannie Oliver:Just try it.
Jeannie Oliver:Stop telling yourself you can't journal, you hate to journal and just
Jeannie Oliver:get over it and just see what happens.
Jeannie Oliver:And it definitely got easier.
Jeannie Oliver:I mean, I won't lie, I don't do it consistently, but I
Jeannie Oliver:definitely notice a shift.
Jeannie Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Jeannie Oliver:when I do it.
Jeannie Oliver:So.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And he goes, Well, that goes back to mindset too, right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And to what we said earlier about not believing everything the
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:mind tells you because Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:If the mind tells you, you hate cooking, you're gonna hate cooking.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:If the mind tells you, you can't journal, you're, you're
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:not gonna be able to journal.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:At the end of the day you wanna change your story, you wanna change
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:your health, change your mind yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And you simply start saying, Well, I can do.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I don't have to be a gourmet chef, but I can prepare food for myself.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And I can, you know, usually when we say we hate cooking or we say we hate
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:writing, we say we hate whatever.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's because we don't really know how to do it.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And it's frustrating.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We're always late and we're hungry and we haven't, we don't know what to make.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That's what we hate.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Someone said, You're gonna make this, this is how you're gonna do it.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:This is all your ingredients.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Follow this 1, 2, 3, done.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And it was easy and it tasted great.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We would love it.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And so you just have to make it be Exactly.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Well, set yourself up for success.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Get a bunch of recipes you think you can make.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Get things that you think you'd like to eat.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Start small, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So it's the same with that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's the same with any change.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's, it's the same with creating mindfulness, period.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I even tell patients with meditation, you have to sit down
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and meditate for an hour every day.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:In fact, I know plenty of people that have meditated for an hour
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:a day for years and still are.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Total jerks to, to keep life for the rest of the 23 hours.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So yeah, it's sort of like, what good is that about?
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:Not accomplishing
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:the goal about being effective in your
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:thinking and thinking in a way that is aligned with your goals and setting
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:yourself up for success and managing that fear and managing that mind
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and that story you tell yourself.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And the secret thoughts you know, underneath the surface of the water,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:pulling that, all that stuff up, giving it the light of day, taking a look at it and,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and just really rolling up your sleeves and saying, Okay, this piece is good.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:This can stay, this is aligned with my goal of health.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:This piece is not, this piece is not mine.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:This piece comes from some other person's other story, some other time.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:This needs to family baggage, whatever.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So how do I forgive, Let go and rearrange this in order to
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:turn it into something that is.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:aligned with where I want, you know, where I wanna be and what I wanna create.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Whether it's a belief or a self-talk pattern, or a habit that's,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:that's not aligned with a girl.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:What, you know, whatever
Jeannie Oliver:it is.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:And this is an aside, but I think it's an important thing to touch on.
Jeannie Oliver:You know, use, use the word forgive.
Jeannie Oliver:And I think often people, especially if they've been, you know, harmed, feel
Jeannie Oliver:like forgiveness is letting someone off the hook on some sort of cosmic level.
Jeannie Oliver:But really we're the ones that we're letting off the hook with that.
Jeannie Oliver:When we can release that and forgiveness that we're hanging onto
Jeannie Oliver:for whatever reason, I think that that can be a real block to our healing
Jeannie Oliver:as well if we're hanging onto that.
Jeannie Oliver:And when we can, you know, release any of that and bring that compassion piece in
Jeannie Oliver:and just know like, humans are complex.
Jeannie Oliver:It doesn't justify what someone did, but hanging onto it is really just harming us.
Jeannie Oliver:Right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It sort of brings up the idea of attachment in general.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:, right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:If you're not forgiving, you're still attached to the wound.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You're still attached to the, to the thing that was done and that
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:was not good point or what have you.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And so then you're still attached to the identity of being the victim of something.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So there's so much that goes into forgiving or not forgiving.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's sort of like, am I willing to let go of the victim hat?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Am I willing to let go of this is the reason why this, am I willing to
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:let go of all of this and just say, Well, none of that really matters.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:All that matters is right now, and that I have the capacity to be whatever it
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:is that I wanna create in the right now.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:If I'm afraid to do that or I don't wanna do that, sometimes it's easier for me to
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:use something that happened in the past to say, Well, I can't because of X, Y, or Z.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And so maybe attached to.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:. And when I fully release and let go of that the other, the other aspect when
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:we, when we bring the idea of energy into this is we realize whatever we're
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:attached to, we're giving energy to.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So it's wearing that like a badge, right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So I'm giving energy to this person as a perpetrator.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:to me, and this person is preventing me from doing something
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:or this, I can't forgive myself.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So I'm, you know, attached to this story of, of me doing something
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:bad or being bad or, or Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Should have done something else or what have you.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:At the end of the day, when we forgive, when we let go, when we
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:release all that attachment, all that we get back is our energy.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We get back off.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And that's what gives us the ability to, to then go and recreate something else.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Cuz we have our energy back.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We can now do that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We can forge a new thought, we can create a new habit.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We can maybe put some energy into the possibilities of possibly creating
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:a, a meal, possibly creating.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:a journal entry because we've gotten our energy back from all those things that,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:that we were attached to keeping the same.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:In any given moment, in all moments, we're always creating all the time.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:If we're not creating anything new, then all we're doing is
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:recreating where we've already been.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Then that's, you know, a, a big drain on our energy.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So if you wanna bring all of who you are into the present moment to create
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:something new, you have to let go of all that baggage you were carrying.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Because you can't create something new and hold on to everything
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:you used to be at the same time.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:They don't, Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:They're not aligned.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yep.
Jeannie Oliver:And I think that that's just a beautiful way too, to, like you
Jeannie Oliver:say, not give energy, to not give power to that person, that thing that happened.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Exactly.
Jeannie Oliver:Right.
Jeannie Oliver:It, it's kind of an amazing sort of energetic giving at the finger and
Jeannie Oliver:being like, You're not gonna stop me.
Jeannie Oliver:It's not gonna hold me back anymore.
Jeannie Oliver:I'm letting it go.
Jeannie Oliver:Exactly.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:It's not who I am.
Jeannie Oliver:Something that happened is not who I am.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:In fact, no one and no thing has that power over us.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:When we're, when we're held to something like that, we are doing that to ourselves.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We're imprisoning ourselves.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But when we free ourselves, whatever person's story, situation, incident,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:et cetera, can't impact us because we've disconnected from it.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We've taken our energy back from it.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:We're already off creating something new.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's, it's impossible.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It goes against the laws of energy.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It goes against the laws of nature.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So it really is, and, and we're only ones that have the power to.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:No one can, can pigeonhole you there.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:No one can label you there.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:No one can hold your energy there.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That's all you.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That's all you that has the capacity to do that and undo that, to create
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:that right, and uncreate that and choose to create something else.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I always tell my patients, you know, if you get in the car and you keep your head
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:turned behind you looking behind you over your shoulder, where are you gonna go?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You're gonna crash.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yep.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Or you're gonna only be able to drive in a circle all the time.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:, you have to turn your head forward and be looking ahead to get anywhere.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You could have the nicest car, you be driving the nicest part on the planet
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and not go anywhere because your head is, is turned over your shoulder.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Soon as you release that and you get the right vision, then you know you
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:can have the, by the same token, the crappiest car and get, go wherever
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:you want because that's what you see.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah, I love that.
Jeannie Oliver:And that's a real, just what's the word I'm looking for?
Jeannie Oliver:It's kind of a basic concept that if you're looking at something
Jeannie Oliver:and you're driving a car, you will tend to steer towards that thing.
Jeannie Oliver:same thing if you've ever ridden a skateboard or it, or surfed wherever
Jeannie Oliver:your body turns to face, like that's the direction that you're gonna go to.
Jeannie Oliver:So it's the same concept,
Jeannie Oliver:, Dr. Nicki Giandomenico: Right, Right.
Jeannie Oliver:Another, yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:Another analogy I like to use, I used to be a river guide, so, but you're right.
Jeannie Oliver:Whether you're on snow or on water, wherever you are again, using the laws
Jeannie Oliver:of, of physics essentially, and energy.
Jeannie Oliver:If you are running a river and you see an obstacle and you focus on
Jeannie Oliver:that obstacle and keep your eye on that obstacle while you think you're
Jeannie Oliver:paddling around that obstacle, you will go right into the obstacle
Jeannie Oliver:that you wanna do is find the way.
Jeannie Oliver:So you read the water and you see the root, and you keep your focus on the way
Jeannie Oliver:through that and not on the obstacle.
Jeannie Oliver:Yeah.
Jeannie Oliver:And if all you see is the way, then that's what you're gonna get.
Jeannie Oliver:The flow of water's gonna take you right to where you wanna go
Jeannie Oliver:because that's what you have set your awareness on and vision toward.
Jeannie Oliver:You've let go of the rock, you've let go of the tree, You're not attached to that.
Jeannie Oliver:You forgave it, called your energy back.
Jeannie Oliver:And now you've set your sights on the way.
Jeannie Oliver:So when you're standing at the top of the mountain looking down, or you're,
Jeannie Oliver:or you're putting in the water, looking down a rapid, what do you look for?
Jeannie Oliver:You, you look for your line, you find your line, and that's
Jeannie Oliver:what you keep your eye on.
Jeannie Oliver:If you keep your eye on the tree or you gonna go into a tree,
Jeannie Oliver:well, if you keep your eye on the rock, you're gonna flip on a rock.
Jeannie Oliver:But so it's the same, it's the same principle with health, right?
Jeannie Oliver:And with mindset.
Jeannie Oliver:That's why it's such a buzzword.
Jeannie Oliver:But really it's just how you live life.
Jeannie Oliver:. It's how you do anything if you have a word for it or know
Jeannie Oliver:that that's what you're doing.
Jeannie Oliver:But you, you certainly are applying that when you do any of these recreational
Jeannie Oliver:things or any of these other things.
Jeannie Oliver:So why wouldn't you apply that in, in, you know, your food or your lifestyle
Jeannie Oliver:choices or your health choices or Right.
Jeannie Oliver:Heal.
Jeannie Oliver:Well, I think too that something, you know, that's
Jeannie Oliver:really important to remember and this idea too, that we may need guidance
Jeannie Oliver:to get started on these changes.
Jeannie Oliver:Like, yes, it's up to us, but if we have no idea where to start, you know, and
Jeannie Oliver:food and cooking, it's a great example because I think a lot of people feel that.
Jeannie Oliver:Well, there's plenty of information out there about nutrition
Jeannie Oliver:and fitness and wellness.
Jeannie Oliver:Like I should just be able to figure it out.
Jeannie Oliver:And it's like, well yeah, but that all takes energy and we have finite energy.
Jeannie Oliver:And if your energy is, you know, spent on career and children and other things
Jeannie Oliver:that are going on and you don't know where to start, getting that help
Jeannie Oliver:or support initially to get started or to get some guidance on that can
Jeannie Oliver:make all the difference in the world.
Jeannie Oliver:And you know, one of the things that you said to me when we spoke last
Jeannie Oliver:was that it, you know, it kind of takes a team for people often we're
Jeannie Oliver:addressing complex health issues or trying to really shift the trajectory
Jeannie Oliver:of our lives and we often do need support in different areas to do that.
Jeannie Oliver:So I'm wondering if you expand a little bit on that, because I know
Jeannie Oliver:when I first was talking to you about this, I was like, well, wow, you know,
Jeannie Oliver:if it's all just about energetics, like do we actually like need.
Jeannie Oliver:You know, if we can heal this way, do we actually need doctors and
Jeannie Oliver:do we need coaches and therapists?
Jeannie Oliver:Like, and you said well, absolutely.
Jeannie Oliver:So tell me a little more about that.
Jeannie Oliver:Cause I thought that that was really interesting
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and helpful.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Well, I mean, I, I sort of think of it as a healing team.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's kind of like if you wanted to be an athlete and achieve a, a big goal like one
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:of your athletic goals, you would get a coach and you would get a trainer and you
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:would get, you know, all of these people to support you on that, on that goal.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And it's really the, the same with your health, you know.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I think that you have to do the work.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:There's no question we each have to be the, the architect for our own
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:design, but there are a myriad of ways.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:To get to that goal and you find those that you align with, that
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:help you with that aspect that you need help with at that time.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And that will change.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, it's a work in progress.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:It's a moving organism.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So maybe you need someone at first to help you get started with cooking
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:or help you get started with a weight training program, or help
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:you get started with maybe medical help or assessment or treatments
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:that are aligned with that goal.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But over time you learn and you say, Oh yeah, I know these are some
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:maybe herbs and supplements and, and vitamins or dietary things,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:considerations that I need to kind of be on in order to, to be my, my best.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I know that I tend.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Burn through B vitamins or I, you know, if I have b6, my, I don't have any PMs or
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:you know, if I have my vitamin D I don't get any you know, pain and discomfort
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:with lifting or, you know, whatever.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So you may learn these things.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Then over time the level that you're performing or the level that you're
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:feeling, or your health now you want upgraded to something else, you wanna
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:say, Oh, well I lost that weight.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I'm pretty fit, My hormones look good, I feel great, but now I
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:wanna go train for a marathon.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Or now I wanna go and learn Indian cooking.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Or, you know, like, whatever your next goal is.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So I think it's really important to know, you know, it's always just a
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:snapshot in time and finding your, your.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Team support.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You might gravitate toward acupuncture, You might gravitate toward a therapist.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You might gravitate toward doing some deep, you know, shamonic energy work.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You might gravitate toward an IRV practitioner, you know, whatever it is.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You might go to a chiropractor someone else might opt for a different
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:intervention at the end of the day.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I think it's our job as practitioners to just be one of the spokes of the wheel.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:As a physician, I tend to sort of be the, the architect of the whole plan, right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So I offer all the options and say, Well, what suits you?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You can do it this way, you can do it this way, you can use this
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:modality, you can use this one.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:This is our end goal for this aspect of your health, and these
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:are the ways we can approach it.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Which one aligns with you or which one would you like to bring in?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And then, you know, as we keep checking in, that that changes.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:But I do think it's a team effort.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I do think not one person, not one practitioner, not one therapist,
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:not one anything, can do it all.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Same with a patient.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, you're, you shouldn't put your, the pressure necessarily on
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:yourself that you should just know how to do all these things, right?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:That ask for help, you know, get help and, and learn and grow and evolve
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and, and then seek the next thing.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And I also believe there's some sort of guidance there too.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:You know, we sort of bump into or find our way through oh, I heard about this.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Or, Oh, someone in yoga class mentioned this, or , it always happens.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I'll say, Well, have you ever done this?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And they'll say, Oh, someone there just the other day said that to me.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Sort of the universe opens up when we start asking the right questions
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and putting out the right intentions.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:The universe kind of shows up and helps us along.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:All we have to do is kind of heed the, the little messages and show up.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Sort
Jeannie Oliver:of that concept of when the student is ready,
Jeannie Oliver:the teacher will appear.
Jeannie Oliver:Right.
Jeannie Oliver:I found that to be so, so true in my life.
Jeannie Oliver:Yes.
Jeannie Oliver:Like in, you know, and then once something's sort of in your
Jeannie Oliver:peripheral vision, like you start seeing it everywhere, things will
Jeannie Oliver:come up over and over and you'll get these repeated confirmations
Jeannie Oliver:or messages, which is really cool.
Jeannie Oliver:I think an exciting, because then it's just confirmation
Jeannie Oliver:that I'm on the right path.
Jeannie Oliver:Things are gonna shift, things are changing, and.
Jeannie Oliver:It's a little easier to be more, just to show up more and be mm-hmm.
Jeannie Oliver:more consistent or dedicated.
Jeannie Oliver:So, so this has been amazing and I so appreciate you taking the time to talk
Jeannie Oliver:about this because I, and you know, you know, I've already sent people
Jeannie Oliver:your way just because I feel like it's a wonderful place to start for people
Jeannie Oliver:to kind of understand these concepts, start to unlock the deeper stuff.
Jeannie Oliver:Because as we become aware, then we know more specifically like,
Jeannie Oliver:what do we need to address?
Jeannie Oliver:Where do I need that specific support?
Jeannie Oliver:Who do I need in my team?
Jeannie Oliver:And you know, like we were just talking about, you might have better radar for
Jeannie Oliver:the people that should be on your team and the people who shouldn't because you're
Jeannie Oliver:more aware of where you're headed and what you want, you know to call in there.
Jeannie Oliver:So tell us where people can find you, Nikki, and how they can work with you.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:My website, Wind River Medicine,
Jeannie Oliver:I'll put it in the show notes too, so, Okay.
Jeannie Oliver:You guys don't have to remember this.
Jeannie Oliver:I'll put it , whatever it is, it'll be in there
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:and I'm currently located in two places sort
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:of Boulder, Colorado and Burlington, or South Burlington, Vermont, where
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:I'm in the process of setting up a practice back east because I think
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:post Covid, a lot of people have, have experienced similar to me, which is
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:family Ill health and, and ailing and aging parents and things like that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Mm, Yeah, I can relate to that.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Yeah, so I'm a little bit in transition trying to get things started out
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:east, but we'll be going back and and forth to Boulder, Colorado.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:And I also do telemedicine and work with a variety of locations.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:So you can get in touch through the website and learn more that way.
Jeannie Oliver:Awesome.
Jeannie Oliver:Cool.
Jeannie Oliver:Well, anything else that's last minute?
Jeannie Oliver:You wanna add any thoughts or tips for
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:people?
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Well I hoped, I hope this was helpful and, and maybe it sparked a little
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:a little light deep inside somewhere that is helping to offer some new
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:avenues for healing and exploration and, and growth and it was so fun.
Dr. Nicki Giandomenico:Thank you for having me.
