Episode 271 – Unstoppable Chronic Pain Expert with Elizabeth Kipp

Unstoppable Mindset

In 2014 Elizabeth Kipp started her own business to help people recover from stress and its associated pain, addiction and chronic pain. Elizabeth tells us at the outset how she became a victim of Chronic pain and suffered with it for forty years. Did you know that %25 of Americans experience Chronic pain. On our episode you will learn about chronic pain, physical pain and the differences between the two. As Elizabeth will describe most Western medicine-oriented doctors know little about chronic pain and simply prescribe drugs for it and tell patients that they need to learn to live with it. Elizabeth finally discovered a doctor who not only grew up in the West and studied Western medicine, but he also studied Eastern medicine and learned about the spiritual connections that could help eliminate what we call Chronic pain. Elizabeth is among the %94 of persons seen by this doctor who recovered from this issue. As I said earlier, Elizabeth now operates her own coaching business and helps many people deal with chronic pain, a lack of stress management and learning how to recover from addictions. Elizabeth gives many practical thoughts we all can use to better our lives. I leave it to her to take you on the journey this episode represents. About the Guest: Elizabeth Kipp is a Stress Management Specialist and Historical Trauma Specialist who uses Trauma-Trained and Yoga-Informed Addiction Recovery Coaching, Ancestral Clearing®, Compassionate Inquiry, and yoga to help people with their healing. Elizabeth healed from over 40 years of chronic pain, including anxiety, panic attacks, and addiction to prescribed opiate and benzodiazepine medication. She now works to help others achieve the same healing for themselves that she experienced directly from the work she teaches. She is the author of “The Way Through Chronic Pain: Tools to Reclaim Your Healing Power.” Elizabeth offers one-on-one and group sessions in stress and chronic pain management and addiction recovery, Ancestral Clearing® and Compassionate Inquiry, and trauma-informed yoga. You can find out more about Elizabeth at https://Elizabeth-Kipp.com Ways to connect with Elizabeth: Website https://Elizabeth-Kipp.com Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethKippStressManagement/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lizi.kipp/ LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethkipp/ YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@elizabethkipp9855/videos Amazon Author Page http://bit.ly/EKBooks Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/lizilynx/ Threads https://threads.net/@lizi.kipp Linktree: https://linktr.ee/elizabethkipp About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! 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Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hello again. I am your host, Michael Hingson, and you are listening to unstoppable mindset. And today we get to chat with Elizabeth Kipp. Elizabeth is a stress management specialist and historical management specialist, stress management specialist or trauma manager, I can't say it today, historical trauma management specialist. If I could talk, I'd be in good shape, everyone. But I want to thank you all for being here. And Elizabeth, I'd like to thank you for being here and putting up with me. We actually spent a little bit of time before we started the recording, talking about our old favorite movies like Blazing Saddles and Star Wars and Young Frankenstein, but we won't go there for this podcast, because we have probably more up to date and relevant things to do, don't we? Elizabeth, welcome to unstoppable mindset. Elizabeth Kipp ** 02:15 Thank you so much, Michael. It's my pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me as a guest. Well, you're Michael Hingson ** 02:20 welcome. Why don't we start, if you would by you telling us a little bit kind of about the early Elizabeth growing up and those kinds of things. It's always kind of fun to learn about the early years as it were. Elizabeth Kipp ** 02:33 Well, I actually don't remember that much about my childhood that was all that happy. I actually don't have happy memories. Really, my child other than I, I was, I liked animals and I spent I loved being with the horses and the ponies, right? So I that was fun, and I kind of like school, but my home life was challenging. My mother was a bipolar and an alcoholic and a ranger, so she I lived. I pretty much walked on eggshells, and their child abuse was not a thing back then. Was like, all that stuff was a secret. So I lived. I really grew up was a chronic pain suffer from the from the start? Michael Hingson ** 03:25 Well, tell me so. Did you go to college at some point? Elizabeth Kipp ** 03:28 Oh, yeah, yeah. I have a degree in plant science, yep. And I went, and I went to graduate school and studied environmental, environmental studies and and ecology and systematics, and I did a remote sensing as a plant person, yep. Michael Hingson ** 03:46 Oh, you're making this very difficult. Elizabeth, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask, did you ever see the Little Shop of Horrors? Elizabeth Kipp ** 03:54 No, I never actually saw that. You know about it, though? Oh, yeah, I know. Michael Hingson ** 03:58 I just never saw it. Feed me. Seymour, another man eating plant. Okay, enough. Well, so, so tell me a little bit about this whole we're so helpful. Tell me a little bit about this whole idea of chronic pain. What is chronic pain? Oh, yes, Elizabeth Kipp ** 04:15 chronic pain is any pain that's felt 15 days out of 30 for three months or more, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. The the body really can't tell the difference. The brain can't tell the difference between one kind of pain and another. It all sends the same signal to the brain. It hurts. So a a grief experience is, is, is, is just as powerful as a you know, a broken maybe a broken bone that that takes more than three months to heal, which usually doesn't, but an injury can sometimes conduct injury. There are injuries that take more than three months to heal, so the brain can't tell the difference between a broken bone and a broken heart. Michael Hingson ** 05:01 And they both manifest themselves in some way as what you view as true physical pain. Um, Elizabeth Kipp ** 05:09 well, the way to really distinguish, Michael Hingson ** 05:14 well, to first of all, for the person who doesn't really know the difference, is what I was thinking of. Elizabeth Kipp ** 05:18 I understand. It's, it's not that simple. I mean, you know, our emotions have, if we look at the at the mind, body, spirit system is an integrated system which, okay, purposes of this conversation, let's do that. Okay? Do the reductionist model that the Western medicine does the emotions actually have a physical sensation, right? And when I think about grief like, I'm, I'm just this week, we're we're remembering the 10 year anniversary of my niece's suicide, for instance. And I remember Monday, when that, when that anniversary came around the weight, I felt the physical weight of that and the heaviness of the as a sensation in the body. And it was, and it's not like I carried that for as a chronic pain thing, but it was, it was with me for a few hours for sure that day. So so that that emotional charge that I had expressed itself as as a physical that manifested physically as this weight, tension and tightness in my body 06:41 got it Elizabeth Kipp ** 06:44 so, so pain, chronic pain, can manifest as physical, emotional, emotional pain can journal over into physical. It's difficult to tell them the difference. You know, spiritual pain could be something like a grief experience, which also has its its corresponding body expression. Michael Hingson ** 07:06 Do most people feel chronic pain, or are they such that mostly they can learn to deal with and overcome? If that makes sense, I'm Elizabeth Kipp ** 07:17 going to back up. I hear what you're saying, and I'm going to back up for a minute and get Okay, zero in on what chronic pain is. So how chronic pain compared to acute pain? So we have a stress response in the body, and it's in the off position until we perceive a threat, and perceive a threat, or are threatened, and and then that stress response goes into the on position, in in in acute pain, the stress response goes in the off position, comes back, goes into the on position, comes back, into the off position, and it's back. It's in back and balance in chronic pain, the stress response goes under the on position. It gets stuck. Got it. So what does that mean? That means that we're the the that the nervous system is in this activated, hence, vigilant, hyper vigilant. Hyper vigilant state. And this is, this is very stressful for the body. It creates all kinds of, like a whole biochemical soup that the body has to handle. And it creates a lot of it can create a lot of disease. So it's, it's not, I'm not sure. It doesn't really answer your question, but it brings a little bit of light to what chronic pain is. Sure there are like the before covid, the National Institutes of Health estimated 25% of North America suffer from chronic pain across all socioeconomic measures, including children, and the World Health Organization estimated a fifth of the world. So it's this, and with that definition that I used, that's not a lot of people just think it's physical. It's not. It's this bigger thing, and I appreciate that. Yeah, it's the it's the mind, body, spirit system in this activated, chronically stressed state. Michael Hingson ** 09:27 And so let's, let's use the WHO definition, 25% or 20% is still a large number of people, and that's, and I understand that. But then, while it's chronic, typically, do people just consistently, continuously suffer from chronic pain, or does something happen such that. People are able to overcome it in at some point, or what Elizabeth Kipp ** 10:04 that depends on, that depends on their circumstances. For me, I suffered with chronic pain for 40 years before I found a doctor that actually understood what it was, and I all the doctors until the last one that I met, who were all Western doctors, as was the last one, but he was just differently trained. They all said you're gonna have to learn to live with it. And they gave me drugs to, like, numb it, but that which didn't really numb it, but that was so they, most of the doctors that I went to for all those years told me just deliberate, that they didn't know what to do about it. And I met 1000s and 1000s of other patients during that journey who were just living with chronic pain, the best by their wits. Michael Hingson ** 10:54 So using the United States definition of 25% most of them, if they went to a doctor regarding it, even though it was chronic pain and they weren't and it wasn't properly diagnosed, they were given drugs or other things like that. And so it was an ongoing constant thing for them. It didn't last for just some shorter period of time, like a few months, and then they figured out how to overcome it, but traditionally, it sounds like more people than not continuously live with it because they don't know how to deal with it. That's right, okay, all right. And that was what I was really trying to get to before I had understood what you were saying. But I appreciate the situation. Now, you said the last doctor, though that you dealt with was differently trained, and I would suspect that if I asked you which I will he had some Eastern medicine training. Elizabeth Kipp ** 11:55 He did and he was also a neurophysiologist, so he understood the changes in the brain that occur because of chronic pain and and so he had some special training that that like a family doctor or orthopedic doctor, or maybe even a neurologist, if he's not a neurophysiologist and kind of what the specialty is, they may not catch that. They might not have that training. This is an issue that we have with the western model. Michael Hingson ** 12:29 Well, the western model tends to not take into account the spiritual aspect of things as we know. Elizabeth Kipp ** 12:37 Oh, it's very reductionist, right? So I'll give you an example of how that works, just for the audience. You probably know this, but if you So, I had the one of the questions is like, Why did I have chronic pain? I didn't. It wasn't just emotional. I had a physical issue. I had a I broke my fifth lumbar and and a front to back, and it slipped forward into my pelvis, and I had a lot of surgery to try and and stabilize that and but my back never I just was I had this horribly sore back. Now what's interesting is, first of all, the doctors assumed I wouldn't heal that. That was their assumption. So I, you know, I felt like their assumption was wrong, but that's the model they were using. Me, such a thing was wrong. But here's the thing about reductionist that the reductionist view, if you saw, if you picked, if you found three patients that had X rays just like mine, you'd find patients that had three different symptoms, one that had pain all the time, one that had pain only when they were stressed, and one that didn't have any pain at all. How do you explain that? By just looking at the X ray, you can, you can, yeah, that's the issue. So doctors see my X ray, and they go, here are your opiates. But I don't have any pain. And I've been each one of those patients, by the way, different times in my life I've been each one of those, right? So there's something else going on there besides trouble in the spine. And so instead of assuming that I wasn't going to heal, which was an error in their in their model, they never asked the question, why isn't Elizabeth healing? Because their model precluded that. I That that was even possible. Just assume there wasn't the healing wasn't going to happen. Yeah, so that's a, that's a, just a challenging assumption to sit with when you're looking at Western doctors to try and give you an answer. Well, they can't actually accept. Dr Peter prescop, he gave me an answer and there, there are more integrated doctors now. Well so that there are some integrated pain management programs available to people. They're just kind of spread pretty thin. Michael Hingson ** 15:08 Yeah, I don't have an exact similar kind of situation, but my fifth guide dog, who was with me in the World Trade Center, Rozelle, had some back problems, and as she grow older, had some other issues. Our veterinarian, where we lived in Northern California, not only had Western training, but a lot of Eastern medicine training, and in fact, several times while he was our veterinarian, which was over a number of years, he traveled to learn more Eastern medicine, training like not directly related to you, necessarily, but acupuncture and other sorts of things. But he, but he greatly understood the Eastern philosophy and what it brought that traditional medicine in the West didn't, which was all just throw drugs at it, even that, and he would, he would prescribe some medications, but he also had a lot of other things that that he did that the average veterinarian would not do. Elizabeth Kipp ** 16:16 Yeah, I hear you. Michael Hingson ** 16:19 So what did Dr Prescott say to you that gave you a real clue that he's different? A Elizabeth Kipp ** 16:28 couple of things he he told me when my first conversation with him over the phone, he said to me, I can help you reset your stress response, and I never told him. All I told him was that I had been on opiates and benzodiazepines for 31 years, and, and I was and, and, and I was still hurting. I never told him I was having panic attacks. He knew, and my prescribing doctor didn't have any comment about any of that. So I knew right away when he said, I was like, I don't know who you are or where you've been all my life, but I'm coming to your program. Like, it's like, boom, if I could get away from these panic attacks, I'm your girl. It's like, and he never promised me that my pain would go away. He never promised that. He promised me that he could get off the he could hit me off the medication, and he promised me that he could reset my stress response and on his own. So Michael Hingson ** 17:30 he promised that he would try, which is really, you know, whether he said that directly or not tacitly, it was implied that at least he's going to try to do what he can, and he's got some thoughts. Elizabeth Kipp ** 17:44 Well, he had already taken 1000s of people through medical detox, and he had a 94% success rate in his pain management program. So what's like? He had proven a proven method, Michael Hingson ** 17:59 right? So what was it like going well, growing up, going through college and so on, and then getting out into the workforce. What was it like having chronic pain all that time? Elizabeth Kipp ** 18:14 Well, I got I was, I actually learned from the age of 14. I well prior to that, before my accident where I hurt my back, I was used to living with chronic pain from irritable bowel syndrome. I was used to that, so when I actually had the accident and broke that vertebrae and got up and walked away from the accident. I didn't have any idea that I'd hurt my I knew I'd I knew I had I bumped myself, and I knew it hurt, but it I didn't. It didn't occur to me that it was at that level because I could get up and walk away like I was able to walk. So I just hurt for a few weeks, and a lot. I hurt a lot for a couple of weeks, and then it kind of calmed down. So I was already my nervous system was already used to a very high level of pain, and for me, still in my nervous system, it gives you an idea of how the nervous system can can develop at a young age, under certain to react in certain ways. Because I had such a difficult childhood from zero to seven that when I got to be 14, I didn't even realize how badly I'd hurt myself. And even today, as a, you know, an older adult, I have a yoga practice. And I don't I my journey, my challenge is to, is to where's the line between, you know? Not enough is atrophy, and too much is injury. I don't know where the line is into injury. I'll go right over it and and then I realize I'm there. And I didn't even know there was a line like I it's very difficult for me to discern that. So my nervous system kind of got trained to ignore, uh, pain signals, right? And and my journey really has been to try and try and reset that so it's it took me more than my stress response is definitely back to balance that's a little different than the nervous system being, having, having a certain habit, when you get to this level of pain, ignore it, because you got to keep going. That habit was, that's a very different habit, and that's a behavioral that was how I survived in the world, pushed through. And that, that's, that's, that's a, that's a toxic way to live. Yeah, right. So, so that was, that was something I lived with. And then when I, when I got six credits short of finishing my Masters, I started the surgery on my back, and I never got back to finishing my master's looks like I was so close. I had my thesis done, and I just needed those six credits, couple of courses to take, boom, and I would have been done. And that that surgery just just took me down. So the universe kind of redirected my redirected me completely into a new field. So now I work in stress management instead of an environmental science management and environmental management, that was kind of what I was doing. I was doing environmental assessment, you know, as a plant specialist. So tell me Michael Hingson ** 21:56 a little bit about that. What that means and what you did, Elizabeth Kipp ** 21:59 if you would. Oh, yeah. So, so I was living, I'm in Kansas, still here in Lawrence, Kansas. And I was a, I was a, like a plant scientist, but I was also an environmental studies but from the plant end of it, and as a graduate student, I worked for the Kansas applied remote sensing program, which had a mandate from the Carter Administration at the time to take NASA's Landsat technology from the federal level down into local and state and local government level. So my job was to help implement that as a graduate student. And an example, give an example of what we did. There's a an eight there's an aquifer that that this spreads out in eight states. It's called the Ogallala Aquifer, right here in the Midwest, and it's used, it's a non renewable resource, and it's used by farmers to irrigate their crops, and because it's essentially, essentially a non renewable resource, NASA's NASA was into one of their arms within NASA wanted to know, when is the aquifer going to run out well? Somebody wanted to know that. And NASA came to us and said, can you develop a methodology so that we can actually answer that question? So I So, as the plant person, I had to my job was to contact all the county agents there's like, I don't know, 270 some county agents in that eight state area, and find out how many acres of every crop that's grown by all the farmers in that county. And then I took all those crops, and figured out when they're when they get irrigated, how much water that takes, all that kind of stuff. And we came up, ultimately, we we came up with an estimate that the aquifer would be tapped. We came up with the methodology for them to come to answer that question, yeah, so that was, that's an example of, Michael Hingson ** 24:24 did you get an answer, or did, Elizabeth Kipp ** 24:26 yeah, we did get an answer. We did not. We got an answer. And that was in 1980 the answer was 2040, the year 20. And Michael Hingson ** 24:34 why is it that it can't be renewed, or the moisture can't go down and replace what's used well, because Elizabeth Kipp ** 24:40 it's deep water, it's not, it's not us, it's not surface one. It's like a river. It's deep it's water that's been, that's accumulated over millions of years, yeah, not, it's not, it can't be replenished, really, with with annual rainfall. It doesn't work like that, right? It's a Geo, it's a Michael Hingson ** 24:59 geological. Yeah, no, I understand. So what will happen in 2040 has anybody, obviously, with NASA being concerned about that? And they come up with any other thoughts Elizabeth Kipp ** 25:09 that was then NASA's in that business anymore, but Well, Michael Hingson ** 25:15 somebody else, Elizabeth Kipp ** 25:16 the US Geological Survey, right, is interested in that the Water Resources department within the US Geological Survey is interested in that question. And I was just reading, I don't know I read a I read, or I keep my eye on that, on that information from time to time. And I think I just read, in the last probably six months, you have a kind of an interview about the farmers, and because there's, there was a, kind of a drought last year, so there was pressure on the aquifer. And anyway, I don't, you know, there's, we're going to run out of water. It's going to change. It's going to change this part of the world and the rest of the world that this part of the world feeds. It's just going to, you know, it's going to change things. Michael Hingson ** 26:02 And the problem is that if we don't figure out alternatives, that's going to be a crisis. I mean, there, there are probably those who say, well, Nikola Tesla said that we ought to be able to move rain clouds and redirect them and get more moisture and be more volitional about it, but nobody seems to want to take that seriously, assuming that Tesla was right. Elizabeth Kipp ** 26:27 Oh, I can't speak to that. I know. I mean, the USDA had been cloud seeding for years, but I can't really that's not my area. Well, Michael Hingson ** 26:37 it's, it's more than that. It's also having the clouds in the right place and the it's one of the things that that, apparently, Tesla was very concerned about and interested in. So I don't know where all of that has really gone, either, but I but I do know there are a lot of creative people out there, if given the opportunity to really address issues. But that's, of course, the real question, isn't it, how much are people allowed to or how much will people take things seriously? I'm sure there are people who are out there who would say that your your stuff is, is all bunk, and we're never going to run out of water, because it's been there for millions of years. But people, have interesting ways of viewing things, don't they? Oh, they do, yeah, it's like chronic pain. But, you know, and it's, it's one of those things that we, we do have to deal with, and we'll see what happens over time. I guess that's all we can really say. So why? So you said that the statistics generally are that about 25% of all people in the United States have chronic pain, so that's a quarter of the population. Any reason why, if we believe the numbers, and maybe there's no real good way to discuss this. But he said the World Health Organization said, basically 20% why the 5% difference? Oh, I Elizabeth Kipp ** 28:08 don't have no idea. Yeah, that's I mean, Michael Hingson ** 28:10 I could come up with all sorts of excuses, you and Elizabeth Kipp ** 28:13 I could, could theorize about that, but yeah, we could, Michael Hingson ** 28:16 and we would be just as right as anybody else. So it's okay. Elizabeth Kipp ** 28:22 I mean, I had my, I have my, my views on that, but I they're not really based in science. No, Michael Hingson ** 28:27 no. And I didn't know whether anybody had really studied it. And I just thought it was worth I didn't really Elizabeth Kipp ** 28:33 looked at that question. So maybe somebody has, and I just don't know about it. Michael Hingson ** 28:37 It'd be an interesting thing to see. I mean, clearly, there's a lot of stress right now in this country, and And there shall be for a while, and I think one and there are a lot of fears in this country. I'm getting ready to have my third book published, which is entitled to like a guide dog, true stories from a blind man and his dogs about being brave, overcoming adversity and walking in faith. And the idea behind it is that we can learn to control fear. I'm not going to ever say we'll just be able to not be afraid of anything, and I wouldn't want to, because I think that fear is a very powerful tool, but you can learn to control it and not let it overwhelm you. And that's that's the issue, and that's what live like a guide dog is all about. But too many people don't learn how to accomplish that skill, which is a challenge, of course. Elizabeth Kipp ** 29:34 Oh, that would be, I love that you said that. That seems to be a theme of my life these days, with my, you know, in my own practice, and in my and with my clients, because that fear is, you know, that's the part of us is trying to keep us safe and survive in the world. And it's a very healthy response, and we need it to stay safe. And, sure. And it can play havoc with us that you're talking about the mind. You're talking about finding a way to meet your resistance to when fear comes up for you. And I literally do that every morning I in my yoga practice, I put myself in a in a posture, or a, you know, a certain kind of meditation, or a practice of some kind that where my own ego comes in and, you know, presents itself and says you're not going to get past this because I'm doing this, like, Yeah, I'm going to stay here and just keep breathing, right? And so it's, it's, and the thing is, is that if you can face your fear and keep stay on target, and keep facing that resistance that you feel you get through on the other side, and you've got, you know, you've got kind of a new place there. So you, you've you've increased your courage, you've hardened your resistance, resilience in the world. Well, Michael Hingson ** 31:18 what you learn is that fear is a very helpful thing, and I would be absolutely presumptuous and never say you shouldn't be afraid. I know that there are some people in this world whose nerve endings are such that they don't feel pain at all, and as a result, they don't have the option to deal with all the signals that pain, in some way, can bring and fear is the same sort of thing. I think that it would be ridiculous to say, Don't be afraid, but I do believe that you can control fear and that you can use it to help direct you, but you have to take the initiative to establish a mindset to do that, and that's what most of us don't do. We don't prepare. We don't learn how to prepare for different situations. And I talk a lot about being in the World Trade Center, of course, on September 11, and learned long before that day what to do in an emergency, and I spent a lot of time talking to people, talking to the fire department, talking to the Port Authority, police and others, and learning what to do in case of an emergency. And I also did it mainly because, well, it was survival. I wasn't going to rely on somebody reading signs to me because I'm not going to read signs, right? I'm not going to rely on somebody reading signs to me for a couple of reasons. One, there might not be anybody around, because a lot of times I'm in the office alone, and no one else is there, and and two, they might not be able to read the signs, because we might be in an environment where there's smoke or power failure and there's no light, so they couldn't read the signs anyway. And I was the leader of an office, so I had to take the responsibility of learning all I could about the complex and what to do in an emergency, and did that, and that established a mindset, as I realized much later, that said, if something happens, you know what to do. It was all about the preparation that made that possible. And I think that in dealing with learning to control fear, it's learning to prepare, it's learning to really talk to and with your mind and learning how to use that tool in a productive way. And that's something that most people don't do. They don't exercise their mind to learn to communicate with it and talk with it and learn like, How'd today go? Why was I afraid of this? What should I have done differently and develop the mind into the muscle that really has the strength that you should want it to have? Well, 10 Elizabeth Kipp ** 34:08 forward to that, I hear you loud and clear. I would refine your comment slightly. I have a slightly different perspective. It's not like that. I'm controlling fear. I'm controlling my reaction to it Michael Hingson ** 34:24 well, but yeah, and I appreciate that. But what that does is it puts you in control of the fear, and it helps you learn to use it as a very powerful tool on your side, rather than it blinding or paralyzing or overwhelming you and just taking control so you can't do anything. Elizabeth Kipp ** 34:50 Yes, and there are, when I teach Trauma Recovery, i. We look at the nervous system and how it's reacting, and so if I'm in a fight, flight or shut down mode, the nervous system reacting to some trigger in the environment, right there are tools I can bring to bear that can help me move out of that fight, flight or freeze or regulate it Michael Hingson ** 35:27 right now, that's really the issue. Right to regulate it or never let you really go into it, because you accept that you can deal with situations if you spend the time preparing and learning how to do it? Elizabeth Kipp ** 35:44 Yeah, I'm not going to say I, let me put it this way, I have a hair trigger starter response. There was a if there was a boom outside or a gunshot or something that went off outside my window, I jump. Yeah, that's a response, right? That's an activated that's the nervous system activated, right, right? However, I'm down from that in probably five seconds, okay? And that's the point. I know how to breathe, and that's because I've Michael Hingson ** 36:13 done the training. This is that's the point, exactly, right? Elizabeth Kipp ** 36:18 Taking me an hour or half a day in the past. Now it's five seconds Michael Hingson ** 36:24 well, and and the reality is, I think there are very few people among us who wouldn't jump if they heard that gunshot right outside their window, exactly. And so that's okay. Elizabeth Kipp ** 36:39 Our machineries operate, but it Michael Hingson ** 36:44 is then how we deal with it and how we have trained our minds to allow us to go. Wait a minute, what just happened? Oh, okay, that was a gunshot. I'm going to duck down here so somebody doesn't shoot at me, but I'm going to peek out the window see if I can see what's going on or whatever. I mean, you know, in my case, peeking out the window isn't going to do any good. Call 911, well, or I'd open the window and go stop the noise. I wouldn't do that, yes, but so I know Elizabeth Kipp ** 37:13 better, am I? We actually and live in a neighborhood where from time to time we hear gunshots, and last summer, there was, there were some gunshots in the neighborhood, and a policeman stopped by and knocked on my door and asked me if I'd heard gunshots. And I said, Yes. And I said, I don't like to bother you guys. He said, bother us. We want to hear we want you to call us when you hear that. So I learned, I got told Michael Hingson ** 37:39 we have been I live in an area where we have had gunshots. I haven't really heard them. My house is a as a new house, and so with the installation everything, it had to be a pretty close gunshot. But we had kids of a couple of months ago that just came at like, 10 o'clock at night, and they just pounded on my garage door, and then I didn't hear anything after that, and I listened, but I didn't hear anything. And it was the next day that I learned that they had done that to other people, and they were trying to break into garages. And what stopped them actually, I don't think it was my garage door. I think it was my front door, but I was not in the living room at the time. But what happened was having video cameras around the place. One of the kids saw that the doorbell camera was taking pictures of them, and it was kind of too late to avoid it, so they took off. Okay, there you go. And I have no problem with having those cameras around and but again, it's preparation. And mentally, I think all the time about what happens when somebody comes to my door and knocks on my door at 10 o'clock at night. I think about that sometimes, and very likely, if it's a knock, it could be a police officer. But how am I going to know that? So I've learned how to use my system so that I can talk to my doorbell camera and system to say who's there, or I can call the police and say someone's knocking on my door and claiming they're the police. Are they? Oh, good. But I've but I've thought about that, and I think about that because that's part of preparation, yeah, and that's okay and, and I think the closest we ever came to something in the middle of the night was we, my wife and I, this was, like three years ago. We heard a noise outside of our house, and it sounded like something hit something, and it was, it was a car. That was a woman driving a car, and she looked down at a cup of coffee just in time to hit a trailer, and it knocked the trailer up into our yard. And a couple minutes later, well, so we immediately called the police that something had happened, and I got dressed. It was 530 Darn I didn't get my full sleep. But then somebody came and knocked at the door, and they said it was Highway Patrol and and I verified it, and, you know, we went on. But it's, I think, with all of that, it's preparation, and it isn't so much well, what if this happens, or what if that happens? It's what do I do to prepare for different situations that might occur? So maybe it is a what if, but preparation is the important thing, and preparation can really help you learn to regulate how you deal with fear Exactly. Elizabeth Kipp ** 40:34 That's why I do my practice every day. Yeah. So, Michael Hingson ** 40:38 so when did you switch from plant science and environmental science and studies to stress management and and trauma and addiction recovery and so on? As Elizabeth Kipp ** 40:51 soon as I started the surgery, I started learning about stress management. But when was that? Oh, well, that would have been in, oh god. What was that? 1982 Michael Hingson ** 41:00 Oh my gosh. So you've been doing this a while. Well, I've Elizabeth Kipp ** 41:03 been that was, that was the school of hard knocks that I did, that I learned that the hard way. Well, yeah, and then 10 years ago, I actually went into business doing it. I mean, I felt like I had enough, I had enough kind of street cred and experience and wisdom to actually be able to bring the teaching to the world. So, so what is your company? Called Elizabeth KIPP, stress management limited. Michael Hingson ** 41:27 That works, Elizabeth Kipp ** 41:30 says it all. Michael Hingson ** 41:32 And Kip is k, i, p, p, correct, yeah. Stress Management limited, yep. Okay, there you go, folks. So, so tell me what you do and and how you operate, if you would. Elizabeth Kipp ** 41:45 Oh, I, I help people build resilience, kind of like we're talking about also, I help people calm their nervous systems down, which is this regulation you and I are talking about. I work with people that have this chronic pain distress response that's off out of balance. I help them bring it back to balance. And that includes, I include addiction recovery in that, because every addict I know chronic pain patient, first, I include trauma, trauma training in that as well, because every chronic pain patient I knew had unresolved trauma in their system. So I went to learn how to be trauma informed. So I include, I'm not a therapist, but I'm a great coach in that space. So I teach trauma informed yoga, and I teach the methods that you need to use to get the nervous system back into balance and train the mind into healthy habits so that, just like you and I are talking about, so that when the stresses come into our lives, we stay centered. Now we might be, we might be activated briefly, but we we, we come. We come back into regulation quickly. And those are the things I teach how to do that, because I had to learn how to do that myself. So it's like, you know, I got this. I can help people with this. Yeah, the other thing I do is, I help. I am an ancestor clearing teacher, ancestral clearing practitioner as well, which is a practice that helps us clear the effects of unresolved intergenerational trauma. It's like a slightly different the historical trauma specialty that I do is like, I work with collective trauma and historical trauma as well. Okay, Michael Hingson ** 43:55 so two questions. The first one is, you said you're a coach, not a therapist. What's the difference? Elizabeth Kipp ** 44:00 Well, therapist has a licensing by the state that they live in, and I don't have those things Michael Hingson ** 44:09 but, but there are a lot of coaches who are certified in one way or another. So, Elizabeth Kipp ** 44:12 oh well, yeah, yeah, I'm a certified yoga teacher. I'm I'm a recovery coach as well. So I went through training for that. And I've, I've had trauma training. I just and trauma informed yoga training, I just haven't and I've had lots of ancestor clearing, practitioner training. Those are things that that they don't have letters after your name. What Michael Hingson ** 44:38 I was told was that the basic difference is that a coach provides guidance and asks questions and really works to guide you to find the solution so they don't have the answers and they're not supposed to, whereas a therapist is a person. Because of the way they're trained, they do have more of an ability to be able to provide answers, so it isn't just asking questions. They may be also able to more directly suggest answers, because they're not really acting as just a guide or a counselor. They're supposed to provide more substantive information as well. Elizabeth Kipp ** 45:20 Okay, that's interesting. Michael Hingson ** 45:24 In a coaching course, Elizabeth Kipp ** 45:26 I say as a coach, I'm I support, like I'm very supportive of anyone who's also got a therapist. I do the day, kind of therapist they might see once a week, once every two weeks, or once a month. I'm there for the day to day. This is how you deal with life in between. This is like, that's what I do. So supportive of all other professionals in that space, which people need, practical What do I do now? Kind of stuff? Yeah, therapist and now, what do I do? I won't see her till next month. Michael Hingson ** 46:02 So that's where you come in, because you can say, well, let's talk about that. Tell me what, what you're thinking what, what is it you want to do? And and again, it's all about guidance and counseling more than anything else. Elizabeth Kipp ** 46:15 And I really prefer the Socratic method, where the where the client comes up with the own, their own, with their with their with they come up with the answer because then now they're looking now they're empowered. They're not looking to me for the answer. They're coming up with on their own. And so now they're walking away from an appointment with me or session with me feeling empowered, which is where I want them to be, which Michael Hingson ** 46:42 is where they should be, and that way they're they're more apt to buy into it. Elizabeth Kipp ** 46:48 Yeah, they need, they need to be able to step into the to the power that lives within them. Michael Hingson ** 46:55 You guide them to find but they're the ones that have to find and adopt. Well, I open the door they have to walk through, right, exactly. Well, tell me about ancestral clearing. I have not really heard of that much, so I'd love to know more about that, how it works and so on. Elizabeth Kipp ** 47:12 Well, it's actually a spiritual practice, and it's based on the understanding that we come into this life with, from a sciency point of view, I'll say information in the system. And the system is where you're a programmer. So you'll understand this. The system is has got noise in it. So some of all the information is there to be used. Some of it's useful, and some of it's not so useful. And some of that is, what I mean, is noise in the system. And so some of the unuseful stuff is like, we come in with behaviors from our ancestors around worry, you know, which is we that can people drive people neurotic? Yeah, worry energy. Or maybe they've got a lot of grief energy. Maybe they're, you know, they have a tendency towards grief Michael Hingson ** 48:11 or addiction, talking about, like alcohol and things like that. Yeah, Elizabeth Kipp ** 48:15 absolutely. But that's not, um, that's more epigenetic, rather than genetic. They haven't found an actual gene that of addiction. It's an epigenetic, Michael Hingson ** 48:27 yeah, well, well, but it's also is to my father did that, my grandfather did that, and my my my mother did that. So obviously I should do that too Elizabeth Kipp ** 48:39 well. It's kind of like the disposition is there. It's up to us to choose whether we want to and it's kind of up to the environment, how we're reacting to the environment, right? If my parents are are reaching for a drink to help them deal with the stresses of the day. Because we have these mimic we have these mirror neurons in we mimic other people. We mimic what they do. That's what we do, right? So we're going to, we're going to pick that stuff up, but we know at some point we have to wake up and be conscious like, Michael Hingson ** 49:17 well, we should anyway, but yeah, hopefully, yeah. But anyway, continue with ancestral clearing. Elizabeth Kipp ** 49:23 Yeah. So, so ancestral clearing helps us release the effects of intergenerational that negative effects of intergenerational trauma, I put it that way, any kind of unhealthy charge from the past, which is why it works so well with my stress management work, where we're we're carrying a an unhealthy charge in the nervous system around or maybe a belief system that's that's got us that we're reactive to. Now the spiritual aspect is where. We're we're actually asking creator, God, energy, source, whatever you want to call that energy that created everything. We're asking it to come and come in on our behalf and help, help, help the client, release the the whatever they're carrying that's no longer needed, no longer serving them. So that's the spiritual aspect of it. Very interesting and powerful process. Very interesting. So I was very impressed with it when I first experienced it, not knowing what I was walking into at the time. And I, I noticed my own pain levels dropped significantly, and so did everybody else's in the room. And I was like, What is this modality? What is this what just happened here? I know, I know something happened. Can you measure it? Is can he repeat it? And does he teach it? And answer to all that was, well, they haven't been able to that many scientific studies done on it, but there's a lot of anecdotal stuff that tells us that that it's, it's very powerful. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't be bringing it. I wouldn't be taking, taking up my time and or anybody else's doing a process. I've been doing this for 10 years, doing a process that didn't work. Michael Hingson ** 51:22 Can you give me an example of of something that ancestral clearing can do something about, and then how you go about addressing the issue? Elizabeth Kipp ** 51:34 Well, I'll tell you what. I'll share with you a quick example. That the whole, that the whole everybody can can relate to, okay, one who's listening can just listen to this and see, see what their experience is, where everybody who's listening put your attention on your body. Notice what sensations you're feeling. You know, for instance, in sample, I can feel my back on the chair and my feet on the floor and and I've got a little bit of, I've got a little bit of tension in my for the front of my forehead, just a little bit, um, I probably give it a zero, a number from zero to 10 and intensity, and give it about a three, maybe. So I everybody, just notice whatever that is for you, and I want you to breathe normally as I and and as I say, as I, as I say this prayer, and we use the word forgive, meaning we're offering up that which no Lord serves us. We're asking creator to help us release that which no longer serves us. That's how we're using that word forgive. So I'm just going to go through this. I'm going to we're going to use the word Infinite Creator for the whatever all of this that we're in Infinite Creator, all that you are. Would you please help everyone listening to this and all of their relationships and all their ancestors and all of their relationships throughout all space, time, dimension, realms, lives, lifetimes and incarnations for all the hurts and wrongs ever done to them in thought, word or action, any hurts and wrongs they did to others, whether knowingly or unknowingly, and any hurts and wrongs they did to themselves, please help them all forgive and release each other. Help you all forgive yourselves, please and thank you. Okay, time, anytime anyone was abandoned, not supported, nourished and cherished the way they needed. Times they weren't able to love, support and cherish others the way they needed. Anytime they were out of integrity with one another or another out of integrity with you, please help you all. Forgive and release one another. Forgive and release yourselves. Find peace with one another and find peace with yourselves, please and thank you. I want you to do one more for all, war, Battle, Holocaust, genocide, persecution, Slavery and Justice of any kind, misuse of power, position, authority, politically, spiritually, medically or any other way. Please. Help all of you forgive each other. Help you all forgive yourselves for all that happened and all you made it mean anyone involved, directly or indirectly, please. And thank you, please. Thank you, please. And thank you. And just take a nice big breath in, let it out and notice how that feels, big or small. Michael Hingson ** 54:35 And I can tell that it helps. It's just different. It's pretty powerful. It is, it is and and, you know, again, it comes back down to taking the time to do something, to redirect what we address, or what we what we don't address, and redirect some of the stress and some of the. The things that we may or may not know that are bothering us, but it is all about taking some steps to start to deal with that. Elizabeth Kipp ** 55:08 That's right, that's right. That's so important because it's a this is why I deal with historical trauma and collective trauma, because it's in the field we're feeling it anyway. Why not? We're experiencing the energies of it. Why not, you know? Why not name it and deal with it? Because it's going to help us again, build resilience. Michael Hingson ** 55:34 What are some shifts in you've had in your your mind, and specifically in your mindset that made your feelings unstoppable going forward. Well, that's Elizabeth Kipp ** 55:49 a great question. Um, I actually, I have to say that the thing that has been a pattern over my life for me that switches me from the I can't do this to Hell, yeah, I could do this. Is my connection to oneness, because it's in my sense of separation, my ego, sense of separation, that I'm not a part of where the fear thrives, but when I remember that I'm connected into all the all it is, and I'm just the creators moving through me, just like it's moving through everything that Is that that just amplifies everything and creates a power that that I couldn't even, I can't even fathom the power there, so I don't do it alone. That's the difference, if that makes sense, it does. Michael Hingson ** 56:54 What does an unstoppable mindset mean to you in regards to stress management? As Elizabeth Kipp ** 56:58 I said, what it means is, whatever the resistance is that's in front of me, I have the capacity to face it now. I may be activated like a stress. I might have that, that star response for a moment, but that, that that ability to face my own resistance, my which is the fear, my ability to face that, and my willingness to face it, and my practice of facing it, that's that's the thing that gives me the leverage and the momentum to the staying power. We call that staying power in the yoga that's called staying power right there. That's what gives it to me. Michael Hingson ** 57:50 Got it? Well, tell me what are some kind of last thoughts that you might have for anyone listening to this, who may be feeling some of the issues that we've talked about or who may be looking for solutions. What kind of advice might you have for people Elizabeth Kipp ** 58:06 ask for help. You don't have to do this alone. Really important. You you even talked about it in terms of your your your preparation. How many different people did you go to for guidance, right? We can't do this thing alone, and we're not alone where we don't want to buy into the illusion that we are. So asking for help is, is, is important, and the other thing is, which is kind of the opposites. And we're looking outward for help, right? But we're also respected. Understand that the the greatest healer in your life, lives within you. So you want to, you want to recognize that doctors can set a bonus stitch up a wound, but they can't tell the body how to heal. Only the body knows how to do that. So get that straight in your mind, or where the where the healing power truly is. Yeah, those are the two things that I that I that I always like to end my my presentations with you. Michael Hingson ** 59:03 The reality is, we are the best things for ourselves, if we really take the time to look and listen. As I tell people, and I used to always say I was my own worst critic when I would listen to speeches of that I had recorded and so on. And over the last year, I've learned bad thing to say, the more appropriate thing to say is, I'm my own best teacher, because really only I can teach me, and only I can teach me if I'm open and willing to learn. And that involves asking for help, that involves interacting with other people, but I have to take the steps to make it happen Elizabeth Kipp ** 59:40 exactly, so they can open the door, but we have to walk through. We Michael Hingson ** 59:44 have to walk through. That's exactly right. Well, I want to thank you, Elizabeth again, for being here and again, tell people how they can reach out to you. Elizabeth Kipp ** 59:54 Oh, great. Thank you so much, Michael, you can reach me at my website, which is Elizabeth with. Dash, and then Kip, k, i, p, p, like Peter pan.com you can put the dash in between my first and last name, Elizabeth dash, kip.com all my social media, lots of free resources, and you can book a session. All that stuff is available right up on the website. You can book a free introductory, 15 minute call with me, just to kind of see if we're a good fit. And thank you very much. Michael Hingson ** 1:00:26 Well, cool. Well, and I want to thank you all for listening. I hope that you found this informative and helpful. We all face stress, and there's nothing wrong with asking people for guidance and dealing with stress. It is important to do that, and Elizabeth might very well be a person who could help so I hope that you'll reach out to her. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear your thoughts about today, what you think of this podcast and your your opinions. You're welcome to email me. Michael, H, I m, I C, H, A, E, L, H, I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, I, B, e.com, or go to our podcast page, www, dot Michael hingson.com/podcast, so it's m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, S o, n.com/podcast, wherever you're listening, please give us a five star rating. I would really value it. I know we all appreciate it. It's what helps keep us going. So I'm asking for your help to give us a five star rating. And if you know anyone else who ought to be a guest and Elizabeth you as well, please don't hesitate to introduce and we will definitely talk with anyone. I believe everyone has stories to tell and we want to hear them, so please always feel free to introduce us, all of you out there listening, if you need a speaker to come and talk about motivation and inspirational kinds of things, or any of the things that we've discussed today, please feel free to reach out to me. You can do that with the email address I gave you or emailing me at speaker at Michael hingson com. Love to hear from you, and always look forward to finding opportunities to speak and motivate and inspire. I've been doing that ever since September 11, 2001 and as I love to tell people, selling life and philosophy is a whole lot more fun than selling computer hardware. So thanks very much. And Elizabeth, one last time, I want to thank you for being here again today. Elizabeth Kipp ** 1:02:27 Thank you so much, Michael. **Michael Hingson ** 1:02:34 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.