Retrain the Brain for Chronic Illness | Anxiety and Stress Relief, Immune Dysregulation, Nervous System Regulation, Food and Chemical Sensitivities, Mindbody Healing

In episode 61, I’m going to describe the personality traits that predispose to chronic illness. These include being a people-pleaser, caretaker, over-achiever, conflict-avoider, perfectionist, overly responsible, and other self-sacrificing and emotionally-repressive tendencies.
I will talk about my own understanding of habitual emotional, mental and behavioral responses, which is essentially what personality traits are, as well as the work of others who have published on this topic, including Dr. Gabor Maté, Lydia Temoshok, PhD, Lawrence LeShan, Dr. John Sarno, and Garry Flint, PhD.
In this episode I’ll discuss:
- The connections between early life trauma, the formation of the personality, and the impact on lifetime risk of chronic illness.
- The characteristics of the Type C personality and how it predisposes to chronic illness, including cancer, autoimmune diseases and ALS.
- How personality traits are formed, and the relationship between memory structures and habitual emotional coping styles.
- Why people learn to be compulsively self-sacrificing.
- The two primary human needs.
- The stress response (fight/flight/freeze) and how repressive emotional styles degrade our health by promoting the sympathetic dominant state.
- How emotional repression makes us more vulnerable to chronic infections, injuries and emotional stressors.
- How MAP can be helpful in changing patterns of emotional, mental and behavioral responses.
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t miss episode 52: MAP for Painful Memories which explains how resolving trauma memories lays the foundation for healing.
To learn more about the MAP Method and how it works, visit mapforhealth.us for our free courses. To schedule an Introductory MAP session please book online at MindReMAPforHealth.com

In episode 60, I’m going to describe the science, the biochemistry, behind mindbody medicine, and how working with the emotions has an impact on chronic illness. This is based on the groundbreaking work of Candace Pert, PhD as explained in her book, Molecules of Emotion.
By the end of this episode, I’d like for you to have a better understanding about: the molecules of emotion and their function, what happens when they are blocked, how that impact disease states and the value of emotion-releasing modalities, like MAP, in restoring the healthful flow of these important molecules.
In this episode I’ll discuss:
- Who Dr. Candace Pert was and why her work is important for understanding mindbody interactions.
- The role of receptors and molecules of emotion in the two-way flow of the psychosomatic network.
- The way cellular function is driven by the molecules of emotion, including all organs, endocrines, body parts and systems including the immune system and the nervous system.
- How Dr. Pert’s work led to the field of Psychoneuroimmunoendocrinology.
- How this system of communication has been evolutionarily conserved from primitive life forms to the most complex.
- Definition of mind as the flow of information between brain and body.
- Definition of health as the maintenance of homeostasis by the free flow of molecules of emotion.
- How emotions are epigenetic factors.
- The role of trauma in blocking the free flow of molecules of emotion.
- How you’ve experienced the impact of emotions on physiological function.
- The significance of personality types in predisposing us to certain diseases.
- How viruses use the same receptors as molecules of emotion, and why your emotional state affects the likelihood of getting sick, and the severity and duration of illness.
- Implications of Dr. Pert’s work on the AIDS virus for COVID long-haulers.
- How emotion-releasing modalities, like the MAP Method, work with the subconscious mind to release repressed emotions.
- The significance of early-life trauma in promoting a freeze response and how this results in a pattern of emotional repression.
- How MAP can be helpful in changing patterns of emotional response.
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t miss episode 56, MAP and Energy Medicine, with my client Cilla Whatcott, PhD, a classical homeopath, where we discuss her experience of the impact of MAP sessions on trauma, and the role of trauma in health.
To learn more about the MAP Method and how it works, visit mapforhealth.us for our free courses. To schedule an Introductory MAP session please book online at MindReMAPforHealth.com

Join me for episode 59 where we talk with my client, Joseph Ng, about his experience with the MAP Method for symptoms of autoimmunity and CFS. Hear about his experience with many other methods including: DNRS, EMDR, CFS coaching, talk therapy, EFT/tapping, as well as naturopathic and conventional medicine approaches.
Joe describes himself as a high sensitive person (HSP) with a significant trauma history and some OCD tendencies. Before he started to work with me, he had experience with the MAP Method through the MAP Coaching Institute’s programs, group sessions and individual sessions. He was even enrolled in the certification program to become a MAP Practitioner himself, but had to take a break to work on his own recovery, as you’ll hear him describe.
In this episode we discuss:
- His experience with the MAP Method and how he believed enough in the method to want to train as a MAP Practitioner.
- How he hit a rough patch over the summer and spent a couple of months in bed with severe symptoms.
- How he felt emotionally and physically before we started our sessions together: highly emotional and over reactive, fatigued, foggy, anxious/panicky, depressed, not believing in himself, with self-sabotage behaviors.
- Comparison of MAP to EMDR
- Attitude shifts he experienced as a result of MAP sessions for negative thought patterns, attitudes, addictions, and social anxiety.
- His understanding that recovery is not linear, and why setbacks are to be appreciated.
- What he’s learned from CFS coaching that helps him handle setbacks more calmly.
- The benefits he’s seen from MAP Method sessions and why he recommends MAP to others for stress, mental health, trauma healing, and understanding your own identity.
- All the things he has tried: psychotherapy, medications, meditation retreats, ayahuasca, acupuncture, acupressure, and more.
- His understanding of the mindbody, which comprises the nervous system, emotions and physical body.
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t miss episode 47, MAP for Immune Dysfunction, with my client Dawn, who discusses the benefits from MAP sessions for MCAS, histamine sensitivity, tinnitus, muscle tension, and hives.
To learn more about the MAP Method and how it works, visit mapforhealth.us. To schedule an Introductory MAP session please book online at MindReMAPforHealth.com

Join me for episode 58 where we talk with my fellow MAP Practitioner, Dr. Jenna Foster, about the MAP Method for sleep issues. Jenna has a PhD in Sociology and Social Psychology and she joins us from her office in Pahoa, on the Big Island of Hawaii.
We discuss her background and how she became a MAP practitioner, how she works with clients and how we can use the MAP Method to resolve sleep issues including: trouble falling asleep, interrupted sleep patterns, nightmares and bad dreams, waking in fear or panic, and insomnia.
In this episode we discuss:
- Her background and how she discovered the MAP Method.
- How she pursued coaching after 10 years as a scientist.
- How she heard about the MAP Method from reading Colette Streicher’s book, Abundance on Demand.
- Her training in various energy techniques, Soul-centered healing, and NLP.
- How 3 years of MAP have transformed her life.
- How she was able to stay calm through a separation and a very stressful construction project with MAP.
- How she works with clients who are mainly health professionals, coaches and healers.
- How she prepares for each MAP session, and what it’s like to be the practitioner.
- The importance of sleep and good sleep hygiene.
- The questions to consider if you are having sleep problems: what keeps you awake, when did it start, and what was happening in your life around that time that may have been stressful?
- The importance of creating a goal.
- Disrupted sleep or poor sleep patterns as self-sabotage behaviors.
- The approaches and procedures we can utilize in the MAP Method to address internal and external causes.
- The role of emotions like stress, overwhelm and anxiety on sleep patterns.
- The importance of focusing on the goal–what does life feel like when you’re well-rested?
To find out more about Dr. Jenna Foster and her practice, please visit: www.dr-jen-healing-work.com
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t miss episode 49, MAP for Thyroid Health, with my client Melissa, who discusses the benefits from MAP sessions for thyroid function, back pain, digestion, sleep and hair shedding.
To learn more about the MAP Method and how it works, visit mapforhealth.us, to find our free courses and MAP Program offerings.
To schedule an Introductory MAP session please schedule online at MindReMAPforHealth.com

Join me for episode 57 where we talk with my client, Geri Destasio, about the MAP Method for chronic pain and food, chemical and environmental sensitivities. She describes her experiences with the MAP for Sensitivities Program and how working with a program differs from live sessions over Zoom.
In this episode we discuss:
- How she heard about the MAP Method from her functional medicine provider.
- How live MAP sessions helped with chronic pain, anxiety, and thyroid imbalance.
- The importance of our thought processes in keeping us stuck and contributing to chronic symptoms.
- How sensitivities to food, chemicals, noise, and pets were running her life.
- How the emotion of fear underlies sensitivity symptoms.
- How she used the Program the first month pretty intensely for food sensitivities.
- How she did additional cycles of the Program for environmental sensitivities over 2 months.
- How her chemical sensitivities resolved on their own.
- The big moments when she realized she was free of sensitivities: eating croissants, being able to breathe at Fleet Farm and around Easter Lilies, and not having to take medicine before visiting friends with pets.
- The significance of negative thoughts and beliefs in sustaining sensitivity reactions.
- How the MAP Method is a holistic healing modality that connects mind, body and spirit.
If you enjoy this episode, don’t miss episode 38, MAP for Sensitivities, where I talk about the development of the MAP for Sensitivities Program and a case study.
To learn more about the MAP Method and how it works, visit mapforhealth.us, to find our free courses and MAP Program offerings. To schedule an Introductory MAP session please schedule online at MindReMAPforHealth.com

Join me for episode 56 where we talk with Cilla Whatcott, my client and Classical Homeopath, about the MAP Method and her experience with MAP sessions. Hear how she describes the impact it has on trauma and the role that trauma has in health. We discuss the MAP as an energy modality and applications for anxiety, PTSD, depression, fears and phobias.
In this episode we discuss:
- How Cilla's baseline sense of anxiety was reduced through MAP sessions.
- How meditation practice makes it easier to access the MAP Method.
- How, during MAP sessions, the images from childhood and past life experiences are served up by the subconscious mind revealing trauma “bubbles” and beliefs.
- The experience of a MAP session and how the practitioner and the client work together.
- How it can take a few sessions to understand the flow and the benefits of MAP. Increased anxiety at first can be a sign of resistance.
- How treating trauma memories also allows us to identify and replace negative beliefs that are holding us back.
- How contributors can be very small things that don’t appear to others as a trauma, but it has more to do with the individual’s perception.
- How MAP Practitioners connect with the client’s subconscious mind to identify priorities.
- How we follow the thread of the topic throughout the session and the element of trust necessary.
- The importance of individualized medicine and how interest in it has grown, along with Energy Modalities.
- Why working with the mind is essential for chronic conditions.
- The positive results in reduction of fear and anxiety around cancer.
- How she knows that something big has happened, that traumas have been released. - How we can reframe our experience of a traumatic event.
- How MAP is deceptively simple, yet the effects are deep. The instructions kick off a search in the subconscious mind.
- How people are layered and the emotions are the deepest layer. As we resolve layers of painful emotions, we start to see changes on mental, behavioral and physical levels.
- The concept of “Never well since…” as used in Homeopathy and MAP.
Don’t miss episode 33, MAP for Complex Chronic Conditions, where functional medicine practitioner, Cathy Moore, describes her experiences with the MAP Method and why she refers patients for sessions.
To learn more about the MAP Method and how it works, visit mapforhealth.us, where you’ll also find our MAP Program offerings.
Or, if you’d like to schedule a 60-minute Introductory MAP session please schedule online at MindReMAPforHealth.com

Join me for episode 55 where I will discuss how we use the MAP Method of advanced neural retraining to resolve long-standing patterns of anxiety. Hear about Alex and how generalized anxiety can be associated with gut issues. Listen to Carter’s experience of acute anxiety and how early life trauma can predispose us to panic attacks. We’ll also talk about Andy and how complex factors can promote anxiety including perfectionism, empath tendencies, and anxiety about anxiety.
In this episode we discuss:
- How emotional issues, like anxiety, can be linked to physical issues and even impact sleep.
- How anxiety patterns are tied to unconsciously-held fears.
- How frozen or repressed emotional memories exacerbate stressful situations in our current life.
- How early life trauma can predispose us to a “freeze” response to stressors.
- How the subconscious mind starts to reveal the associations during a session, including “big T” and “little t” traumas.
- Why emotional patterns may improve for a while and then come back, indicating that there are more roots to the pattern.
- Negative thoughts and beliefs reinforce emotions like anxiety and depression.
- Inner conflicts and personality traits, like perfectionism are other contributing factors.
- Trauma experiences can create behaviors: racing mind, hypervigilance, negative self-talk, etc. MAP sessions have impact at all levels: emotional, mental/behavioral and physical.
- Sometimes working with a painful memory in a MAP session will produce a shift in perspective that changes our relationship to the memory and our emotional response to similar situations.
Don’t miss episode 54 where my client Lea described her experiences with the MAP Method for anxiety and obsessive thoughts.
To learn more about the MAP Method and how it works, visit mapforhealth.us, where you’ll also find our MAP Program offerings. Or, if you’d like to schedule a 60-minute Introductory MAP session please visit MindReMAPforHealth.com

Join me for episode 54 where we will talk to my client, Lea Pandolfi, about her experience with MAP sessions. Hear how she learned about the MAP Method from her functional medicine practitioner, and why she decided to try it for relationship OCD, and anxiety. Listen to her comparison of the MAP Method to EMDR, tapping and talk therapy and why she recommends MAP for “anyone experiencing anything.”
In this episode we discuss:
- Why Dr. Balcavage, a functional medicine expert in thyroid conditions, recommended MAP for her emotional stress.
- How Lea compares her experience with MAP sessions vs. EMDR, tapping and talk therapy.
- Why she describes MAP sessions as gentle and not overwhelming.
- How MAP sessions leave her feeling calm and less stressed.
- The after effects of a MAP session and how these may be more pronounced after sleep.
- How MAP sessions get to root causes in the subconscious mind.
- How different types of people experience MAP sessions.
- How the work she has done with Dr. Balcavage and MAP sessions has improved her hormonal balance.
- How the subconscious mind finds and neutralizes the small “t” and big “T” traumas related to the topic of the session.
- Why watching the 15-minute preparatory video before your first session is essential.
- Her advice to anyone who is curious to try the MAP Method.
Check out episode 36 with Dr. Kelly Halderman to hear more about the MAP Method for emotional stress. For more information about the MAP Method, applications for chronic health issues, or to schedule a your 60-minute Introductory MAP session please visit MindReMAPforHealth.com

Join me for episode 53 where we will talk to Frances Carney, my client from Australia. Hear how she learned about the MAP Method from her doctor, and why she decided to try it for low thyroid function, brain fog, muscle tension, and food sensitivities. Listen as she describes the emotional, mental and physical improvements she experienced even after the first session, and why she says: “Nothing else has given me similar results.”
In this episode we discuss:
- Why Dr. Balcavage, an expert in cellular hypothyroidism, suggested the MAP Method to her and the “dramatic” results she has noticed.
- The very remarkable results from her first session and how they lasted for a few weeks.
- How she’s been able to reduce her thyroid meds and feels more energetic than before after 8 sessions spread out over 6+ months.
- How all her thyroid symptoms have improved by 50-80% as a result of our sessions.
- The positive emotional and mental benefits from sessions: Feeling calmer and more relaxed and less reactive to negative situations, feeling more clear-headed after sessions, less brain fog.
- How the MAP for Sensitivities online self-paced program worked to address her food sensitivities and how she’s been able to reintroduce 70% of the foods she’d previously avoided.
- Despite the fact that she had not had any significant traumas, how working with painful memories helped. And how she now understands that unresolved emotions were a factor in her chronic symptoms.
- How she had tried everything–diet, meds, stress reduction, meditation, yoga, supplements, other modalities–for a year and a half with a thyroid specialist and finally decided to address emotional issues.
- How MAP is easier and quicker than talk therapy.
- Why Frances now believes that the mind is a factor in all chronic conditions and recommends the MAP Method for emotional and physical issues.
- Applications for MAP including anxiety, depression, trauma healing, unwanted behaviors, personality traits, attitudes, career or financial blocks and more.
Check out the Thyroid Answers Podcast, episode 88 to hear Dr. Balcavage, Dr. Halderman and I discuss the MAP Method for cellular hypothyroidism. For more information about the MAP Method, applications for chronic health issues, or to schedule a your 60-minute Introductory MAP session please visit MindReMAPforHealth.com

Join me for episode 52 where I will talk about using the MAP Method of advanced neural retraining to resolve painful emotional memories. We’ll hear about Nathan who was teased and humiliated for years at school, Patricia who was threatened at gunpoint, Ava who had experienced verbal and emotional abuse through childhood, and Mindy who felt rejected by her father and step-father.
In this episode we discuss:
- How unprocessed trauma is a significant, but unrecognized, source of stress.
- How painful memories, especially from childhood, shape the personality.
- How acute and ongoing traumas can be neutralized and greatly improve our ability to cope with a difficult situation.
- How emotional abuse in childhood can create negative self-talk patterns.
- How clearing painful memories around rejection can alleviate social anxiety.
- Why unresolved trauma memories continue to affect us subconsciously and impact our ability to heal.
- How treating intense emotional memories reduces the stress load, changes our response to stress and resolves the state of sympathetic dominance to accelerate healing.
Don’t miss episode 41 where my client Aaron describes his experiences around clearing painful emotional memories.
For more information about the MAP Method, applications for chronic health issues, or to schedule a your 60-minute Introductory session please visit MindReMAPforHealth.com