How Trauma Is Secretly Keeping You Sick w/ Skye Gallagher
[00:00:00] Evan Transue:
Welcome to the health detective podcast by FDNthrive. We interview people who have dealt with the trickiest of health challenges but eventually learned to get well and stay well naturally. Now it’s time to hear from one of our detectives and learn how another health issue has been solved. We hope you enjoy the show.
Hey there folks, and welcome back to another episode of the health detective podcast by FDNthrive. My name is Evan Transue, AKA Detective Ev, and I will be your host for today’s show. Today we are joined by Skye Gallagher who will help us understand how trauma is secretly keeping you sick.
Welcome to the show Skye, let’s jump right into it. Tell me about your health history Skye?
[00:05:57] Skye Gallagher: Great question. Let me start by saying I used to be a health coach. I was actually more of a personal trainer that turned into a health coach because I realized it wasn’t just about fitness and some fitness professionals were actually destroying some people’s health.
That’s why I shifted more into health coaching. A lot of what I still do to this day still comes back down to health because it is one of my number one values. I’ve lost many people to their health battles and struggled with my own health a few different times. Health is one of my number one passions to help people with.
“Health is one of my number one passions to help people with.“
And I just noticed that a lot of it does come down to your health. And I’m going to dive much deeper into that. So to answer your question my mom was very health conscious. With my name being Skye a lot of people asked if she was a hippie. And I used to always say no, cause she’s like a modern hippie.
And then one time she was around, when someone asked that question, she’s like,
“Yeah, I’m a hippie”. I was like, oh, okay. So my mom is very health conscious and that’s why I brought up that hippie story because most hippies are into health. And. But my mom raised me on a very fast diet. We would go to a health food store in town and buy chips and chips was our convenience.
Instead of going to McDonald’s well, when I was a little kid, we would go get pancakes at McDonald’s, which now I haven’t eaten at McDonald’s 15 years, probably.
I think many of us grew up with our parents not understanding what true health was. Especially now there’s much information about seed oils, canola oil, and how harmful that is.
But back then, even my hippie mom didn’t know how harmful that was. So she would purchase chips. And here I was thinking that I was eating healthy chips, but really they weren’t. And that went on to me being more of a picky eater. And I even saw how my mom’s emotions led to her food choices. And my mom actually transformed her health and her fitness just two years ago.
“My mom is almost 70 and this is when she transformed her body again, and she lost 25 pounds.”
She would always love fitness and was health-conscious, but something wasn’t quite there. And it wasn’t until two years ago, now she’s almost 70 and this is when she transformed her body again. And she lost 25 pounds. I say all that to say that we were really conscious of our health, but we didn’t have it all figured out.
And a lot of my mom’s habits turn into my habits and long story short, I would see my mom emotionally eat sometimes. And that just kind of became my norm. Now I never per se had an eating disorder, but definitely, as I think many women can relate, food was definitely emotional. It was tied to emotions, as many things are.
And I notice a lot of my business coaching clients and even past personal training clients, those emotions, they drive our life. And what I want to say to all the health professionals out there is that if your client, I know the oat test is a big popular test that can uncover a lot of things. But if your client won’t give up Starbucks, because they’re emotionally attached to Starbucks, that’s the deeper root cause.
That’s the emotion that you need to deal with. Before saying, well you have all these pesticides and heavy metals in your body. It’s like, okay why? Oh, you’re addicted to Starbucks? Oh, you have your you’re fulfilling that joy and happiness by going to Starbucks every morning? Let’s unpack that more.
Why are you filling that void with Starbucks? Why is that your main joy? Not, not saying that you should, I mean, many health professionals would say cut out Starbucks. It’s probably the worst, most pesticide-filled coffee out there. And I know their kinds of milk aren’t the greatest, even not milk. That’s a whole nother rabbit hole that we can go down later.
Why Can’t They Give Up Their Coffee?
And their regular milk. Not great as well, but it’s really, why are they addicted to it? Why can’t they let it go? And then you start to ask, oh, why are you sad? And why are you suppressing your emotions with that sweet drink? And you think that that’s going to solve your numbness, that, that, that need to feel numb and that need to fill those voids?
My health journey I really started to unwrap it even six months ago. I unwrapped more of why I was the way that I was and why I made actions that I did. Why I took action on things that I knew I shouldn’t have been doing. Why I even was going to Starbucks. And I knew I shouldn’t go to Starbucks.
What Void Are They Trying to Fill?
For everyone listening, if it’s not Starbucks for your client or for you, maybe it’s something else that you’re filling that void with. I lost my dad at a young age. And as a seventh-grader, I didn’t want to feel it. And I didn’t want any of my fellow students to know that I didn’t want them to feel bad for me.
I didn’t tell anyone. No one in my school knew except for my closest friend. And then, unfortunately, four years later, she passed away. So my journey started with a lot of, and that’s when my health started to decline when it started to show the low energy and many other health struggles. I kind of was aware of this about four years ago when I really started to heal my health.
But when my co-coach did NLP with me it really uncovered even more that I was just suppressing that feeling. I didn’t actually go through the loss of my father and then my best friend. So and that’s what I’ve noticed being a coach myself, is that the things that we don’t go through, that we don’t allow ourselves to feel, and we don’t overcome and, and let go of certain emotions that we need to let go of.
It does tend to show up as health issues. Or if it’s not showing up as a health issue as a business or a life issue. And one of the biggest books that helped me was the book Letting Go by David Hawkins. Amazing book. I highly recommend that to anyone on their health journey or just their life journey.
And, that helped confirm to me. I never really sat with the loss of my father and then the loss of my best friend. And once I finally sat with that, things started to change. Now, of course, the tangible things like the use of the sauna really helped.
But even by being in the sauna, it was a space for me to let go. To practice, just sitting there and letting go. I mean, sweating is a form of letting go. It’s really ironic how the practices that health professionals teach they’re kind of symbolic of your life. And the sauna became my safe place. It was my place of relaxation. I met some people that don’t love the sauna, but to me, it is one of the most relaxing places ever.
It just relaxes my muscles and it’s a place that can just be. Another interesting point about the sauna was I used to. It was almost like losing my father, I felt like I had to make up for something. And I had to keep proving myself to the world. And the gym, I used to think that, oh, I just need to exercise and my health will get better and my energy will get better.
But when I gave myself that grace to just use a sauna for two months, that’s literally what I did. I, I stopped exercising because I was so sick. And I was lacking so much energy that I made a radical change and just used a sauna. I knew I needed to detox.
Detox for Body & Mind Using A Sauna
It’s funny, like detox, emotions, and detox also the toxins in my body. I would say toxic emotions are, are taught toxins. I was detoxing both my emotions and the toxins. And by giving myself that grace to not exercise for two months and just sweat it out. that was almost metaphorical that I didn’t have to try hard in life that I just got to be myself. That I just got to let go and be myself.
So many times we think that we have to charge hard to become our best self. But usually, it’s just about uncovering and letting go of things and then that uncovers your true self. It’s like nature. Nature naturally evolves and naturally grows. Sure a tree may take 10 years, 20 years longer to fully grow. But it does grow. You will grow as well. And of course, there will be things that you have to go through, just like a tree is often pounded by a hurricane. But you just keep going. And you just allow yourself to grow. The key is allowing yourself to grow as well and being open-minded and aware and asking questions. And being excited to grow.
But also it doesn’t have to be that hard. You’re going to grow. I love nature because it, it’s great proof of what we can be. And it’s a great reminder. Okay, yes the ocean is rough. Sometimes. Sometimes we may have rough days, but also the ocean is calm other days. Life is full of the ups and downs. I love nature as an analogy for our health, our life, our business, everything.
But by sitting in the sauna for two months, well, it wasn’t the solid two months. It was every day I would go in for 20, 25 minutes sometimes at the longest 30 minutes. In the sauna, just for reference, it was at that time when I was really sick, it was about 170 degrees Fahrenheit. At least on the thermometer outside of, like right in the sauna.
I did go in some saunas that were a little hotter after that, but I actually didn’t like that. That was, I felt like that was more harmful than good, but it was hot enough. And it was, this was just a dry sauna and it really helped me so much. It wasn’t an infrared sauna, it was just a dry sauna at LA fitness.
That sauna has so many great, I just am grateful for that sauna. if you don’t have access to an infrared sauna, even if you have access to a dry sauna, that’s something to be grateful. It really changed my life. And whether it’s the science of it or the emotional release of just giving myself that grace to just sit there and just be. Again, like half of the stuff that health professionals promote, I love it.
And we do need those tangibles. But half the time, I do wonder if it’s just because of the more emotional effect that it causes. Of course, there’s a tangible, like we are tangible beings. We have bodies, you can touch your body. You know, that that’s a tangible thing, but if there’s anything that listeners get from this, know, that much of it is attached to the emotional side of our being
[00:18:45] Evan Transue: There’s a ton to unpack there. Skye coming in hot. I love it. Well, the one easy thing to hit on right away is, I think. First of all, I love the sauna as well. And it’s funny that you do that LA fitness one, or did the LA fitness one because that’s exactly where I do it. And I was thinking, when you said sometimes they’re hotter, the one that I go to, they got that thing up to like 190 some days.
Forced Relaxation Time
And I’m like, holy cow. I think a nice balance there is good. But one of the things I love that you touched on with that specifically is it’s forced relaxation, time, sauna stuff aside. And the people that bring their phones and drive me crazy. Cause one, it’s actually pretty damaging to the phone. And second I’m like, dude, we get what you’re going to take 20 minutes today.
In the entire day, probably to actually just be isolated and do your own thing, and you’re still bringing your phone in. I’m like, come on. I think it is a very useful time to kind of detox in more ways than one that’s for sure.
[00:20:00] Skye Gallagher: The one thing I will say about the phone is I find it so interesting, the sauna because especially community saunas.
Sometimes you walk in and there’s a conversation that you don’t really want to be hearing, and sometimes it’s actually for your growth to, to help you let go of that conversation. Not let it affect you. Maybe they’re talking about something you don’t agree with.
Maybe you have to let go of the anger. The sauna to me is such a place of growth. And I do agree with you. That you shouldn’t be on your phone. But those of you that have brought it in there, I do challenge you to at least put it on the floor. I used to do that just cause I didn’t want to get a locker at LA fitness, but I was very conscious to not be on my phone when, and on the floor that it’s not as hot because heat rises.
It’s a little bit better for your phone, but also put your phone on airplane mode because I was listening to a podcast with Dr. Porter and he was talking about quantum entanglement and how he actually did a study where people have become attached to their phone, not just in an addictive way, but you are literally connected to your phone.
He did this study where the person was in a different room, but their phone was in the room next to them. They would send a text message to that phone and the person’s brain would light up because they knew they got a text message. He proved this. whether you, you may think listeners may think that’s a little too woo woo.
Look up quantum entanglement and look up Dr. Porter. Look up the podcast Best Night Ever. That’s where he spoke about this. Like when you go in the sauna, put it on airplane mode because this is an opportunity for your brain to totally just relax and not be attached to. And maybe even airplane mode sends those signals to you.
I’ve heard some stories that airplane mode is not completely off that they’re still tracking on your phone. So that, to me, that tells me that it’s not completely off. So maybe even turn your phone completely off.
[00:22:21] Evan Transue: You’re definitely. Well, that’s beyond interesting. I will look that up if nothing else and make sure we throw that in the show notes.
I’ll make a quick note to myself right here. That’s horrifying, especially considering I already have my concerns with artificial intelligence as it is. I hate this is such a, I don’t want to say a fad term, but you know, people throw around quantum physics. Like they know everything about it.
I’m not suggesting that you’re doing that by any means. I feel like I need to be careful when I say that I’m not suggesting that I know everything about it, but I do believe for a let’s call it quote, unquote, quantum reason that artificial intelligence is particularly dangerous. And to know that this is already happening, apparently, with the phone, it’s like, oh my goodness, that’s not optimal.
And with the airplane mode thing, you’re absolutely right. You also have to turn off location services even with the airplane mode off. And if you don’t believe this, I know. And by the way, that won’t sound too woo on this podcast, thankfully, we got some weirdos. But you can actually measure with the EMF meters next to the phone, turn the airplane mode on and then measure it and then turn location services off and then watch how much more drops down after you do that.
It’s pretty remarkable. So that’s kind of a crazy thing. Now I want to rewind here for a second and go back to something that you said in the beginning because this is so on par with the work that our practitioners do. This is a place where FDN is very focused on the lifestyle factors and emotional factors that go into one’s healing journey.
In my opinion, some of the best with analyzing the functional labs. But at the end of the day, we always say, this means nothing without the fundamentals. I just did a solo episode on this not long ago. And so you seem, especially with what I’ve seen, the bits of what I’ve seen with your coaching.
You’re very wise and in tune with this type of emotional stuff. When you’re talking about actually sitting, that was the words that you sitting with, the emotion of your father passing, or your friend passing, which by the way, for the audience, I knew there’s not one thing that you’ve said far that I knew. So clearly, we haven’t talked about the health stuff that much, actually. You and I are always talking about other things, I guess, so this has been great.
What does it mean to actually sit with an emotion? Because I even feel like for myself as someone who has been historically more emotionally closed off and has now thankfully welcomed that into his life, I still don’t even necessarily know what someone means when they say that. So what does that mean when you say sit with it?
What does it mean to actually sit with an emotion?
[00:25:00] Skye Gallagher: Great question. Acknowledge it, allow it, give yourself that grace, that this is a human emotion that you’re allowed to feel those feelings. That, to me, it meant unpacking. A lot more than just a death, but all survivor’s guilt, especially with then my best friend.
I’m going to honor my father right now. And, and that’s what it, oh, thank goodness my mom told me amazing, powerful stories of my father. And so I always had a great positive memory of him. In fact, the memories became very strong, only positive and I have to tell all the little details.
He was an incredible athlete. But when he was about 50, he was skiing down the mountain. Again, incredible athlete. I won’t go into all his accolades. Well, a paratrooper of the year, amazing skier, amazing tennis player, many amazing things. But at 50, he was still skiing like a young, very young man. And he was able to do backflips on skis down the mountain.
And he was still doing this at 50 and unfortunately just a fluke, he didn’t land correctly and he landed on his neck. And this was 35 years ago before I was born. And he was paralyzed for just two days, but he never was back to normal per se, in air quotes. he always had that pain. It was really painful.
This was before stem cells were known or even all of this emotional work. And some could relate why he was still proving himself to emotional work and why he attracted that into his life, unfortunately. But because he was, he was in much pain, he turned to alcohol. He was an alcoholic when I was a little kid.
And even with that because my mom reminded me all the amazing things about him and how amazing he was before I was even born I only have positive memories. But there was still a little bit of why couldn’t he figure it out? Why couldn’t he, why wasn’t his love for me strong enough that he could drop his addiction to alcohol?
I suppressed that. I didn’t allow myself to think that cause I wanted to choose that my father loved me so much. And I knew he did. I knew he did. But it, I had to go to those dark sides and consider, wow, yeah he chose alcoholism over me in a way. And then I gave him forgiveness, forgave myself, forgave him, forgave my mother.
It wasn’t until I allowed myself to remember that and to realize that, and then to forgive it, and then the healing started to happen. But for most of my life, I didn’t even go that far. I just told amazing stories about him and just remembered him for how amazing he was. But it wasn’t until I sat with a part of the reality that he allowed alcoholism to run his life in his last few years.
I have so much compassion. I understand why he did it again. He was very injured. He was in a lot of pain so I can forgive him for that. But for most of my life, I didn’t even go there. I didn’t even consider that. And then, because I knew how much of a high-performing performer he was. I had really high standards for my life.
Suvivors Guilt
And I felt like I had to prove myself in this world. And I had some survivor’s guilt. I thought, wow, well, my dad’s no longer here. And he, he had his life figured out and he was this incredible athlete and incredible businessman. He’s better off being here than me because I haven’t figured it out yet.
Meanwhile, I was in my early twenties, teenage years, even when I had these emotions. And they weren’t strong, but it took going there to acknowledge it and then forgive it. And then with my best friend, Casey, who I loved so much. And she was an incredible human. And there was a lot of survivor’s guilt because she lost her life when she was 16.
And I looked up to her so much. And , there was a lot of survivor’s guilt. Why am I alive and not her? Acknowledging that this is the shadow side, this is the shadow work that we all need to do. And it, by sitting with it, I mean, acknowledge the things that you haven’t allowed yourself to acknowledge.
Usually you aren’t even aware yet of those emotions and those thoughts. Usually we call it blind spots because you literally can’t see it, or you’re slightly aware, but you don’t know how to get out of that emotion. As I say a blind spot, it’s like, it’s tattooed under your nose, but your eyes are above your nose.
So you can’t even see under your nose. You physically can’t see it. Having outside support, having a coach is really valuable.
[00:31:07] Evan Transue: Okay I’m going to jump in there for a second and one, this, if I hadn’t already said it before, I know I did, but this definitely is not going the way that I thought it would. Thank you much for…
Thank you much for sharing this with us. Because this is…I see the internet leading to very overall positive trends. I know when I was a child and I was dealing with severe mental health issues, we didn’t talk about this stuff at all to the point where a doctor missed diagnosing me with panic attacks, right?
Lack of societal awareness
I mean, there was just a lack of societal awareness. And now even if there’s still plenty of stigma, I mean, you can go on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, whatever, and we could find more content than we could ever consume about mental health. And I find that, especially in the world that we’re lucky enough to be in Skye, there are more people focusing on this deeper work.
Like addressing these traumas and stuff. And your situation or situations, I suppose. They’re complicated. I mean, I can, as you’re saying this, I’m like, wow, like I didn’t even know the term survivors guilt. That’s probably something I’ve heard in my life, but never would have focused on because it wasn’t admittedly relevant to my life.
And I’m like thinking about it. I’m like, wow. There are like a million different things to look at here and a million different aspects. And it’s not that I want to have this completionist attitude about it by any means, but. And you know what, maybe everyone in this podcast that is listening to even myself yet, we have had our own versions of stuff that’s so dang severe that maybe it is complicated.
I guess, where I’m trying to learn more and figure this out even very personally is like, where does the line get drawn between sitting with emotions and dwelling on something in the past? And I don’t even want to use the, I mean, unless you want to, I don’t even want to use your situations personally as an example.
Where to draw the line between sitting with emotions and dwelling on something in the past?
Because it is, I mean, this is heavy stuff. This is deep stuff. We’re not even talking about the loss of a parent and a friend as an adult. We’re talking about as a kid. I mean, that’s about as tough as it can get in my opinion. Right? I can’t imagine what that is like to go through those things.
And so I guess I just never know when someone’s like, oh, I feel this for a breakup or feel this for a job loss or whatever, something that might not carry nearly the same weight as the stuff that you have mentioned far. How do we know when we’re just ruminating versus, okay I’ve actually let myself sit with this and I need to move on?
I need to keep moving forward. Is there a way to tell what that should I even have a completionist attitude with it? I’m open to any perspectives you have with that, for sure.
[00:33:42] Skye Gallagher: Love that question. That is amazing. I think we’re all on our own timelines. For me for many years, it might not have served me to go that deep.
But there became a point when it was almost, I was being too positive about it. And I, I think you have to be willing to see the solution and, and to see, and to let it go, to let, to let those emotions go. But for me, it was almost like until I acknowledged that, I was just going to continue being in my perfectionist ways.
I wouldn’t have said that I was always a perfectionist, but in certain areas, it was almost that need, to prove myself and to even be better for the ones that I lost. That slight survival. I would never call this survivor’s guilt five years ago. But being aware that, and of course I still live my life in honour of my dad and Casey, but there’s also a point when it was just dictating my life.
And I didn’t give myself that grace to just be. The biggest thing that my dad and Casey taught me indirectly was to love myself wholeheartedly. In fact, that’s when you become, when that love for yourself, fuels your life, instead of it, driving you to prove something. And of course, other people with losses or other struggles or other, other traumas, even. It’s different emotions that they have to go through.
“We all have different emotions”
We all have different emotions. That’s why I love the book Letting Go. He goes over many different emotions. If you don’t relate to my story, I’m sure that book can help you uncover what emotions are, are holding you back. But I do agree there is a point when you have to let it go. But at that four years ago, and even six months ago, going deeper actually served me.
[00:36:15] Evan Transue: All right. I think that’s a great answer. I and you know me, I mean, literally, I’m talking to you now, you know, me personally. I do think more logically, and that’s my gift. And I need to open up to the other side of things as well.
There’s nothing inherently good or bad about that. And I sometimes look for very objective things in a world that might be more subjective or might not have these clear objective standards. Like, “Hey, we hit the revenue goal this month, right. It was 53% increase that we wanted to hit a 15% increase and we blew it out of the park”.
That is objectively correct, right? And it’s like trying to, or my attempt to look for these objective standards of like, “Alright, when is my emotional healing done”? You know, for this particular situation, which I can thankfully recognize sounds a little silly when I say it like this. I think as you’re talking, I’m like learning myself. I’m wondering many things, honestly, but one of the things and tell me what you think about this from a general perspective. Now, not necessarily talking about any specific emotional traumas.
I guess a way that we could see if emotional healing has truly been effective, let’s not call it done, but effective is how many, you know, self-sabotaging habits do you have in your life, right? Like, I guess that’s the objective thing. If you’re talking about emotional eating, like going somewhere that you knew didn’t serve you, or I constantly find myself, you know, overworking, or I know I shouldn’t go and have five, six drinks at the bar, but I go and have five or six drinks at the bar.
Self Sabotaging Roadblocks
Would that be fair to say that from a general perspective, now, if you keep falling into these self-sabotaging roadblocks, you know, at least in some area or areas of your life, you do need to be addressing this more emotional, deeper work.
[00:38:04] Skye Gallagher: I think that’s a great point. I just wouldn’t correlate the number of habits to that emotion.
And I think that’s normal for us to try and test it and, and make sure that it actually checks out and proves. I, I would just say they’re two different, it’s like you wouldn’t compare an apple to an orange. They’re just two different metric scales. The other thing that is proof to me is, I know you mentioned in the beginning we, we have talked about our shared or, you had mold poisoning as well. Right?
I lived, in college I lived in a home that had black mold. I didn’t know how bad it was at the time. And then three, four years after that. And this is when I found the sauna. I was living in a condo in Florida and there was mold in the air.
We couldn’t even see it. And I was wondering why my health was really suffering and why I would sleep 12 hours and still be exhausted. And then that’s when I found the sauna. But what has been proof for me once I finally dealt with those emotions is I’ve become much more resilient. It’s wild, how dealing with past, whether we call it traumas or microtraumas, cause they’re both very valid. By dealing with that and, and sitting with my emotions, but then also letting them go and taking action, I think that’s a key.
Sit with it, be aware, and then let it go. Hence the book Letting Go. But once I dealt with that, I’ve become so much more resilient. Mold is a big problem in Florida. I’ve heard and can even smell it in my car. In Florida when you turn off your air conditioner, you turn off your car and then the moisture in there can an air conditioner just sits in your air conditioner, and then you turn it on the next day and it’s pumping mold out into your car.
“My body has become more resilient to everything”
And I’m aware of that. I can smell it, but I just roll down my windows and I’ve told myself I’m more resilient to mold. But even before I realized that I was smelling mold in my car, I was more resilient. My body has become more resilient to everything. I mean, even, I probably shouldn’t go too far down the rabbit hole, but even viruses, pathogens. I’m just much stronger and healthier than I have been in many, many years.
That’s my proof is that I’m more resilient. And I even tell myself, “nope, I’m not going to let this mold affect me. I can smell it, but I’m just going to roll down the window, breathe some fresh air”. It’s kind of an inevitable problem in Florida and not just in your car, but also in homes. I’ve decided that I’m more resilient.
[00:41:13] Evan Transue: That makes sense. Well, this is how I always try to describe this for people because. There’s even in my own family, you know, my dad still to this day smokes two packs of cigarettes a day. And his health is objectively and subjectively better than the vast majority of Americans. And of course, we like to demonize one specific thing or point the finger at one specific thing.
Black Mold
And mold, especially black mold, that’s not a joke, right? That’s a major stressor. But we’ve seen this come up time and time again at FDN. So many people call us about this and they’re like, oh, I’m dealing with mold or whatever. And I’m not lessening that we got to work on that, right? And especially if you know it, hell-like let’s get away from it if we can.
Let’s remediate properly, if we can. But at the end of the day, if there’s probably poor language, but like a perfect human body, right? An untainted human body. It has the capacity to deal with X Y Z amount of stress. That is how we got to where we’re at guys. Remember there was a point where we were running around in the wild, doing our thing.
Like we’re pretty resilient creatures, even if, you know, all it takes is like a grizzly bear to like kind of bite through us. And then that’s about that for that human being. But overall we’re actually quite resilient. There’s many things that we can handle. And so, if Skye, you’re doing all this other stuff, especially emotionally, and you’re not having that constant trigger, that drip of the cortisol, the stress response is activated from this emotional stuff.
I have no doubt in my mind that you’re more resilient to stuff like mold. I have no doubt in my mind that you’d be resilient, more resilient to going out and binge drinking or smoking cigarettes. We’re not recommending any of those things, but it is still. It’s easy to point the fingers. All of it needs to be looked at as in the category of stress and some are much heavier than others.
Major Trauma Followed by Major Diagnosis
And that’s why I think this is all too true for most of us. We all kind of know someone that seems to have gotten like a major diagnosis after a major trauma in their life, whether it was the loss of someone else. I can not tell you how many times I have interviewed people on this podcast were they had an auto-immune disease or cancer.
Yes, they killed it with lifestyle stuff, sure. But it was preceded not long ago by like the loss of someone they cared about. You know, or even a major career change. Like they lost everything that they ever worked for. An injury, whatever it might be. I’ll pause there for a second. I don’t want to go too much farther, but it is just one stressor I have no doubt that you’re more resilient to this and we all know the belief of the mind.
I mean, the placebo is a thing, like that’s a standard we use in medicine. So just using your mind to say that you’re more resilient. I think there’s many facets there that lead that to be being accurate in Florida. It’s such a shame as you know, I love traveling there, but every time I’m in an Airbnb, I gotta just be careful.
Cause I know it’s like the moldiest state, if I’m not mistaken.
[00:44:06] Skye Gallagher: Definitely. It’s just it’s the air is so moist. It’s humid and a natural spot for mold. And, and that’s when, and I’ll touch both on the tangible, but also the emotional. I’m glad you brought it back. You brought up both as well because we do live in a tangible world.
You can go out and touch something like things are real, but then your emotions are also real and they can really dictate your life as well. In fact, I’m glad you brought it up. My gluten intolerance really kicked in just a month after my dad passed. So it is very closely tied to your emotions and your life is very closely tied together.
And that’s all the proof that I needed was realizing, wow, my gluten intolerance happened right after my dad passed. This really does dictate our lives. Our emotions our, our traumas or microtraumas. They really do affect our lives and how we show up in our life. And I think the other key is to choose a powerful meaning.
I had always had that powerful meaning that my, my dad was a superhero in my mind, but it almost was to a fault. He was almost so much a superhero, that it was a crutch that I had to be a superhero as well. I think it’s a balance of being aware and unpacking your emotions, but choosing a powerful belief.
“I’m thinking as I’m relating this to things in my life.”
[00:45:37] Evan Transue: I’m thinking as I’m relating this to things in my life because I’m trying to. I guess that this is what I’m trying to get at. We all know that there’s a bunch of like high achievers, for example. And then you can kind of see the bad in their life.
Now I never want to take the route, and I don’t think for a second that you’re saying this, that all high achievers are automatically just hiding some type of trauma or dealing with something in an inappropriate way, right? It’s like, where does the line get drawn? And I think it does come from this place of, how are we operating?
Because I’m looking back and I always share this in like my mental health story. I don’t think you would have heard this ever, but and holy crap, I hope this girl never listens to any of my stuff. It’s been like eight years. She’s gonna think I’m like obsessed, but this, this first love that I had in my life. I lost that person.
I’m someone who never realized it until I recognized it over the last couple of years, similar to you, it seems that I’m actually a highly empathetic person. I’m very sensitive. You know, it’s not just all logic. That might be a gift that I have, but I used that gift to shut off what I considered a cruel world and injustices in the world that I felt powerless against.
One of the main wake up calls for me was when I was dealing with severe mental health issues and substance abuse problems. I always had in the back of my mind that this high school person I had been with for several years, I was going to marry them. But then I lost them. I went into a high performer mode that was not solely linked to this, but was highly linked to this idea that I need to prove something to her.
As you know, I’ll be the first to admit this. I hope this doesn’t sound rough for people out there. My idea was, this person needs to see me. I need to do something to be seen. And today you could look at certain things I do and say, “Well, are you still trying to do that”? Because in many ways I’m seen, right?
What’s shifted throughout the years as there’s been healing there, and thankfully I would consider that there are many things I work on that one I would consider pretty much good to go, which is I’m thankful for it. But it’s like, I operate from this state. I don’t mean to be cheesy, but I almost want to call it love and a love for what I’m doing and a service to others.
And I let that guide me if that happens to lead to a place of what others consider high achievement or being seen, that’s fine. But we all know the person that is just a cashier at the local store that makes everyone’s damn day because of how happy and positive they are. This is not a status thing per se.
I think it comes from the place that we’re operating with it from. Does that make sense? You resonate with that?
[00:48:15] Skye Gallagher: Definitely. Definitely. Thank you for sharing that because I think a lot of people can relate. And I’ll say this, our beliefs are what we choose and also everything is happening for us.
“Our beliefs are what we choose and everything is happening for us.”
Especially if you choose that belief that everything is happening for us, then it can turn out really well for all of us. That probably happened to you to show you what you like to be seen as. Clearly, you want to be seen as this high performer. I think I would assume from what I’ve seen as an educated health professional, and that you’re a true professional.
And maybe you actually needed that experience to be, to show yourself what you really cared about. Can I ask you when you were in that relationship, did you even know you wanted to study with FDN and study health? And did you even know your purpose?
Did you know your purpose?
[00:49:22] Evan Transue: Oh my God. No. This was a all in the range of like, I don’t know, 14 or 15 to 19. And I always had this side of me that again, I never would have looked at it then, but that didn’t fit in, in what I consider a positive way.
Like it wasn’t an adult thing, because I know for, I mean, plenty of people marry someone that they dated in high school. But it was like, for me, I understood even at that age, no matter how messed up my actions were, I knew I didn’t want to sleep around, that didn’t resonate with me spiritually. I knew that I was committed to one person.
I liked that kind of stuff. And no, I was so Skye unrecognizably lost to the individual that you’ve met in person. Obviously our friend group, we’re very lucky because we continue to progress. Even at the lowest level of development that you’ve met me is not even comparable. You wouldn’t, there was nothing, there was no purpose.
There was no guidance. There was no, “this is where I’m going”. It was a survival every single day of how do I deal with these problems, mental health issues, primarily, that I don’t want to deal with and address. And that I don’t even fully understand. It was day by day substances, stuff like that. There was no thought for the future or what I want.
[00:50:30] Skye Gallagher: Thank you for sharing. I think we can all relate. And like you mentioned in the beginning that completionist and feeling like we need all the answers to be a hundred percent, like, we need to know exactly why this is working or that’s not working.
Nothing is Good or Bad!
One of our friends actually talks about how nothing’s good or bad. It’s what we decide is good. We only think that something’s good because that’s what society or our parents have taught us is good. Even that breakup, could now I think we can both see that it was probably good for you. And we don’t have to know exactly why, but even when I’m business coaching my clients, especially in their money mindset and the abundance that they’re bringing in. Usually, they’re struggling because they need to go through a lesson. And then once they’ve shifted their emotions and how they see the world, the money starts to come in. It’s not usually, and yet it’s tangible, I love both the tangible business skills, but also the emotional it’s the same thing.
And that’s why I shifted from being a health coach to a business coach. I’m still passionate about both because it’s interconnected, it’s both the tangible, but it’s all our emotions and they really do dictate our life, but it doesn’t always mean one is right or wrong. It’s just what you make of.
[00:51:59] Evan Transue: Absolutely. And that’s what I want to jump into now. And we don’t have to fly through this because I talked a little more than I’d like to. However long it takes to explain this is fine, you know, you moved into this business coaching side of things. I think even in the world of business, maybe it’s just because of the bubble that I live in. But I think even in the world of business, a lot more people are seeing the benefit to the stuff that you’re talking about in terms of bringing in income and money and doing in an ethical way. It’s beautiful, nothing wrong with making money, if you’re helping other people and doing this.
Yet it’s like the most talented people in the world sometimes seem stuck. It’s ironic to me, the law, I love studying like intelligence. I love that branch of psychology and some of the most brilliant individuals I have ever met, and you could say objectively if we’re talking IQ, they’re making like nothing. They are making nothing despite their best efforts. You said to me before we got on the podcast that you do take this holistic approach with the people that you work within business as well. Is a lot of your coaching doing very similar things to what we’re talking about today, but instead of overcoming a health hurdle, we’re actually overcoming like a money mindset hurdle.
Teaching Business Holistically
[00:53:11] Skye Gallagher: Yes. I would say it’s a balance of both though. It’s both because I’m fascinated by sales copy and words and etymology. That was one of my favorite classes in college was etymology, the study of words, and the study of each root and part of the word. And how that dictates how we show up in this life.
I teach I business coach holistically. I look at all parts of the person just like holistic health professionals would look at all parts of the person. I look at all parts of the person and their business and look at them both together and separately and combine them. And, and it is a lot about the emotions because if someone doesn’t feel.
This gets brought up a lot. If someone doesn’t feel worthy, I’m sure we’re all sick of hearing that one, but it really does affect how you show up subconsciously unconsciously and consciously. If someone doesn’t feel like they deserve a high ticket client, they will self-sabotage that they don’t get that high ticket client.
That’s definitely a huge part of my coaching, but it so is the tangible side, because just like a tree, you can touch a tree it’s really there and all of the marketing and the sales copy and the finances and how you craft an offer and how you speak and how you promote yourself and the energy it’s, it really does matter.
And I’ve seen some people where once they craft an offer, that makes sense that customers actually can make sense out of, then their emotions can start to change. it is intertwined. it’s not just the emotions that I help with. It’s all the tangible business skills as well.
[00:55:04] Evan Transue: Do you have any like, to the degree that you’re able to, I guess it’s less private than health stuff, but I normally, obviously for those that, listen, I normally only talk about health, client transformations, but I think this is deeply linked to health that do you have like a client testimonial and specifically to keep it appropriate here?
Since we are talking about business now, a client testimonial where maybe they had to do more work on that emotional or mindset side than maybe your average client and like what happened before and then what happened after they started working with you?
Mindset & Money
[00:55:36] Skye Gallagher: I’ve had clients who didn’t really believe in themselves and then once they’ve cracked the code on that, on their beliefs, They sold a $15,000 corporate wellness program to a company.
Before that, they were really struggling to even sell a $2,000 corporate wellness program. Now, some people may say, oh my gosh $15K that’s a lot of money, but it’s all about perspective. And if you never want to sell a $15K corporate wellness program, that’s totally fine. It’s about getting clear on what you believe is needed and how you can really help people.
I would challenge you kind of. As a listener, you kind of shut down to a high ticket price. Ask yourself why? Maybe you were sold something that wasn’t actually great for you. Maybe that created a belief in you. That high ticket is bad. The only bad people, people that are trying to steal from you or make your life worse are selling you high-ticket, but that’s not true.
And it doesn’t have to be true. Again, we get to choose our beliefs and you could very well have an amazing program that could change someone’s life. One of my clients was saying yesterday, she sold a mid to high-ticket program to a woman who was bedridden. If she hadn’t sold that program, this woman would have still been bedridden and never gotten to the root cause of her problem.
Once you hear that perspective, high-ticket can truly be serving. And once you really see that your services are of high service, then everything can change.
[00:57:21] Evan Transue: Well Skye. I commented the other day, you know, we were talking on Instagram or whatever. I’m like, you seem really sharp. And I do, I stand by that completely. But there’s another, you have genuine wisdom that cannot be faked.
You can fake intelligence, you can memorize some facts. It’s funny how many people, because I just nerd out on facts will be like, oh, if you’re super smart, I’m like, dude, like when you look at it 30 times, it’s not that hard to figure it out. Right. But you can’t fake wisdom. In my opinion. It’s even hard to regurgitate the exact same words that someone else might be saying and say it with the same energy.
It is just cool to have had you on and be listening to someone that has done probably more work already than I would say, well, over 95, 98% of people, our age have done. Possibly even most people in general. And I know it’s not a competition, but it’s still a testament. I think that’s really amazing.
And this guys, when we did this, I thought we were going to talk about mold. What did we spend? Like three minutes doing that. This was amazing. Totally cool. Skye, where can people find you? And I know just again, we’re clear guys. She’s only offering stuff technically for a business now, but I mean, we have practitioners that listen, I’d love to shout you out.
Where can they find you if they’re interested in talking to you.
Where You Can Find Skye
[00:58:35] Skye Gallagher: The easiest place is Instagram, it’s @SKYEGALLAGHER You can just DM me. I’d love it. If you DM me and that’s where I’m at.
And I have a website: https://www.onlinecoachingagency.com/alignedbizstrategy
[00:58:50] Evan Transue: Cool, of course, folks we’ll have that in the show notes and Skye, you are technically a former quote unquote health professional.
I got to finish it up with the signature question on the FDNthrive podcast here. And it’s not a trick one, don’t worry. But the question is if Skye had a magic wand and you could get every single person in this world to do one thing for their health or get them to stop doing one thing, what is that one thing you’d get them to do?
[00:59:20] Skye Gallagher: Wow, great question. I mean, sauna and sit with it. Just be. Slow down for a few seconds. Get in the sauna, allow that space to be where you slow down.
[00:59:40] Evan Transue: Man, I will forever be grateful to be able to do this show for you all and bring you these guests. These people are incredible. Skye, thank you much for coming on and just being real.
And like so many of our guests, they just get on here, man, and pour their hearts out. And it kind of goes with my favorite quote and I’m not going to say the whole thing and what we’re excited for you guys completely, but a part of it. And you’ve probably heard this before is as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give permission for others to do the same as we are liberated from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others.
I think today’s episode was a perfect, perfect example of that. And not to mention. That health tip at the end. I think one other person has maybe mentioned the sauna as the one thing that they would get everyone in this world to do for their health. But my goodness, I will never be looking at the sauna the same again. You know, that’s definitely going to be a different experience now. And I hope that you guys that are bringing your phones in there, first of all, ruining your technology. But second of all, ruining some time for peace. Give it a break, put it in the locker, put it on airplane mode or on the floor, like Skye said. That was really smart by the way, right? Heat rises. Put it on the floor.
Never have thought about that with it, but she’s a pretty sharp tack. If you guys like the information that we are sharing, please be kind as to leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. And if you do, we would love ya even more than we already do. I’m looking forward to talking to you guys again soon, and thank you once more to Skye for getting on here and just being as real as real can be.
I hope that you guys check her out. I know that she’s not necessarily a health professional, so to speak anymore. But maybe someone out there could use her services. That’s why I had her shouted out regardless, and I hope someone gets benefit from that. I will talk to you guys again soon. Take care.