Episode 446 Tracy Latz Non-Traditional Mental Health Solutions Transcript

This transcript is from episode 446 with guest Tracy Latz.

Scott DeLuzio: [00:00:00] Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast where we are focused on giving hope and strength to the entire military community. Whether you’re a veteran, active duty, guard, reserve, or a family member, this podcast will share inspirational stories and resources that are useful to you. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and now let’s get on with the show.

Hey everyone, welcome back to Drive On. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and today my guest is Dr. Tracy Latz. She is a cell biologist, a physician, integrative psychiatrist, metaphysician, holistic practitioner, and an Air Force kid. And in her 35 years of clinical experience in shifting lives, Dr. Latz has co authored five books on personal transformation, published seven scientific articles, and has been a speaker on an international level.

She has a deep understanding of non therapy, mental health, stress, and PTSD, [00:01:00] uh, and how these issues affect the military community. And in this episode, we’re going to talk, uh, about her unique and practical tips for managing mental health concerns. Um, but before we get into all of that, Dr. Ratz, uh, really great having you here.

Uh, thank you for joining me. Welcome to the show.

Tracy Latz: Scott, I’m thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for having me on Drive On.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah absolutely. Um, uh, before we kind of go any, any deeper, can you talk a little bit about your journey towards becoming, um, you know, kind of what you’re doing now? Uh, I’ve mentioned a whole bunch of things and I think for, for some people, I think any one of those things would have been pretty impressive, but then you start adding on all of these other things.

It’s like you, you kind of have your hands full. So, um, you’re going to bounce. Um, you know, specialties, um, kind of what got you to, you know, interest in, in this type of work and, and how did you get the path where you are today?[00:02:00]

Tracy Latz: Well, I’ve always been interested in what makes life work, what makes cells tick, what makes animals, plants do and be what it is they do in the world. Uh, I was always, uh, very interested in other people starting out. I was very quiet so much so that my father actually sat on his deathbed. He wondered if I was autistic.

I went, hmm, because I was very quiet. But even as a very young child, uh, growing up, I was born on an Air Force base. My dad and mom said I would wander off. I would just wander off and they would find me with some of the other soldiers just sort of looking at what they were doing and, uh, you know, it was just, uh, my way of being curious and that sort of led to where I am.

I loved animals. I thought at one point I’d be a vet as a [00:03:00] kid. And, uh, Ended up studying biology, then got very interested in cells, had the pleasure and joy of being able to work with electron microscopes and looking inside a cell, and to me, that was a whole world and began to see these. The miracle of what was inside each individual cell.

So I thought I would probably teach at a college level. So I went and was accepted to train towards my PhD in cell biology, and we were working in Immunobiology looking at malaria research. And, uh, I love that, but the fellow I was dating at the time and ended up later marrying signed me up to take a test and didn’t tell me and, and waited until I was, had tissue culture going on.

So I couldn’t, I couldn’t turn and go, what are you doing? I have my hands sitting there working with cell cultures [00:04:00] and he said, I signed you up for something. Hope you’re not mad. And I was like, what do you mean? He said a test. Then I thought. That’s a joke, right? This is not April Fool’s, and, uh, he said it was the MCAT, and I was like, what’s that?

He said it’s the Medical College Aptitude Test, and And I was like, isn’t that for going to med school? He said, yeah, I signed you up to take the test. And I said, well, when is it? And he said, five days. And then you get your money back?

Scott DeLuzio: I could

Tracy Latz: he said, no. So I said, okay. And I took the test and I did pretty well.

So suddenly I wrote up my research and. Worked that very quickly into a master’s degree instead of continuing in a PhD and we got married and went to med

Scott DeLuzio: Wow So it was almost like a, like sprung on you. Like it was not quite the path maybe that you had, but, um, but nonetheless, you, you went through that and [00:05:00] you, you went through, you know, a bunch of, uh, transformation, let’s just call it through your, your career. Right.

Yes

And I want to talk a little bit, you know, especially with the audience that we have on this show, we talk about, um, a lot of times mental health plays a big role in the, the things that people are going through.

Um, and you talk about some like non therapy mental health techniques. And can you tell us like how that differs from traditional therapy, uh, type types of things that people may go through?

Tracy Latz: Sure. Uh, when I went further into my training and I ended up deciding to go into psychiatry, which surprised me as much as anyone else initially, because I thought I’d go into family practice or something. And I was so drawn to psychiatry, couldn’t figure out why, until it suddenly hit me. That was the closest get to someone’s soul in Western medicine.

And In my work, in [00:06:00] my residency training, I did not want to just be a prescription monkey. I didn’t want to focus just on neurotransmitters. You know, I understand that. I’m very good when I have to look at medication. I wanted to do Psychotherapy as well and understand that and what made people tick from experiences and relationships.

So, from there, I did twice the required amount of psychotherapy training and ended up being drawn to work with a lot of people with trauma, with PTSD. Sometimes with dissociation, uh, connected with that. And what I found in my work was a lot of time I would have people come to me after I finished residency training and was out finally in private practice.

I had people who had been in individual therapy, insight oriented therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, great [00:07:00] things, great for people. But Sometimes, continuing to have to tell that story over and over sort of brings you right back into that trauma. And so sometimes, with people, I’ve found that Thinking a bit out of the box and coming from a different approach to work on thoughts and emotions without the words, without going back through, uh, talking about all the details, which sometimes can be re traumatizing.

And ended up with a few experiences with people where I just, uh, felt pulled to understand more. What are some energetic approaches? What are some spiritual approaches? Not religious, but spiritual, uh, and ways to sort of think about Pop the bubble [00:08:00] of an emotion or an event that is sitting there in our system, in our body, that we’re really struggling to move through without being triggered constantly.

So when I think of non therapy approaches, I think of vibrational therapy. Medicine, I think of, uh, things that some people may have heard of, EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique, where you’re tapping on acupuncture energy meridians, or coming in with meditative approaches where it’s not focusing directly on the issue, it is Learning to be still, in a way, calming the mind chatter that can get going with anxiety and with trauma, uh, and being able to expand that heart field, uh, and we’ll talk a little bit more about that in a moment, but When we can do that, the anxiety decreases, the [00:09:00] mind chatter stops.

There are natural ways to get into this. So I talk to people about, uh, simple things like being in nature. You know, when we get into nature, usually that’s not frightening, you know, if that’s not part of your trigger. Being out among beautiful green areas, the colors. just come in and can be calming.

Different traditions. Uh, I trained in an ancient mystery school in addition to training in EFT and medical Qigong and various other modalities because again, I’m curious and I found different tools and techniques could come in where words and talking just got people to kind of close and be afraid again and shut down or have their mind chatter go too much.

So being in nature, being around animals, for some people, again, if [00:10:00] that’s not part of your trauma and triggering, uh, that’s why companion animals work. That’s why service animals work, because when people have been traumatized by other humans, sometimes human connection We can kind of want to back off on or be mistrustful of, but often we’re not when an animal is in the room or we have our pets in the room.

Dog or cat or whatever your pet is. Rabbit, whatever. When we look into their eyes, we just soften and that’s because we see their compassion and we have a love and compassion for them and it expands that heart field. Again, when we do that, our muscles relax, our mind chatter calms and it’s very helpful.

So That is a popular way that a lot of people have talked about animals. [00:11:00] Earthing is very helpful and that can be literally sitting on the earth, putting your bare feet on the earth, and You know, it can be calming by itself, but the surface of the earth constantly is releasing negative ions. It’s measurable.

Any area of inflammation in our body is positively charged. So when our skin is directly in contact with the earth, those ions will travel through our body to any positively charged area. Why is that important? Any area of inflammation from any cause in the body is positively charged. So those negative ions will go to the positive charge and neutralize it.

So areas of inflammation, pain, uh, any gut [00:12:00] inflammation will get neutralized and that’s important from a mental health standpoint because Most of our serotonin You know, we think, you know, we’re all interested in serotonin, the SSRIs, and all those meds that affect that in our brain, we think, oh, we have to focus here.

Well, most of our serotonin in our body is actually made around our gut, and if our gut is inflamed, We will not make as much serotonin, and those SSRIs, or serotonin specific reuptake inhibitors, are just that. They’re reuptake inhibitors. They don’t make us make more, they just help our brain see more by Not having us take back up the serotonin release in the synapse or the connections in the mood centers.

So if we can calm our [00:13:00] gut, we actually can make more of our serotonin, that feel good molecule. And when we can get into our heart, We will make more oxytocin, which helps us feel calmer, safer, connected, and both of those calm PTSD and anxiety, which is great. Uh, good night’s sleep. Uh, how can we do that?

Earthing helps improve your sleep. Uh, pretty quickly, just connecting with the earth. Uh, you can do it for free. Again, put your bare feet on the ground. But for some people, cause I work with some people who, you know, have some OCD and they’re like, I can’t put my feet on the ground, it’s too dirty, it’ll be terrible.

Uh, They make earthing or grounding mats, and the beauty of it is more and more people are making those, so they’re getting cheaper and cheaper. Uh, the cheapest I saw, I think, last holiday cycle, the end [00:14:00] of last year, was like 2, 000. Earthing mat for 28. So you could get one for you and your loved you and your pet.

There’s

Scott DeLuzio: one for

Tracy Latz: there’s a reason our dog will go out and dig a hole in the ground in the backyard and we’re screaming at them thinking they’re after some creature. They’re actually not. They’re clearing things away off of the earth and because you’ll see they’ll stop and they’ll just lay in and we’re like, oh, What are you doing?

The reason they do that is they are trying to get their skin next to the earth. to get that benefit of those negative ions to calm pain, to calm inflammation. It also lowers cortisol, which is the stress hormone, which is what is so in the height of our body when we’re in that fight or flight from stress or PTSD.

So those are some, some. Quick tools without me carrying [00:15:00] someone’s through something and also binaural beats You know our phones, you know, I know the one that is on like the iPhone I’m not sure as much because I’m an, I’m a Mac person. I’m an Apple person. I don’t stock or anything. But on the phones, you can get, download a binaural beat app and you can set those.

The beauty of it is when you put headphones on or earbuds with those and you turn it on, it will have settings where you can stimulate different areas of the brain. for calm, relaxation, stress, stress relief, uh, deep sleep. Uh, you can also tune it another way and it’s just, they’re on those apps. It’s fascinating and it works.

You can use it for improving focus, so that’s pretty cool. There are also, just because I’m [00:16:00] throwing all the tools and tips, I’m trying to help folks out there.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

no, that’s great.

the

Tracy Latz: there are, uh, More studies lately looking at an old Chinese medicine herb, and it’s something that the father of Western medicine way back in Hermetic medicine times wrote about in their notes.

It’s something called Rhodiola rosea, R H O D I O L A and it’s space R O S E A. It, uh, is interesting because it’s derived, they use the root of it to, um, extract, uh, the compound of it. You can get it over the counter. They actually, I, I became aware of it more so about two years ago when we had all the ADD.

Medicine shortage and people were freaking out and calling me about their kids. What do I do? You know, I can’t focus like my child’s gonna fail school. [00:17:00] And so I started researching and I came across a study that compared Ritalin With, uh, it was a double blind placebo controlled study, Ritalin, uh, against a placebo against nine or ten different Chinese medicine herbs that happened to be noted over hundreds of years that it might help focus.

But there was one that really stood, that seemed to do very well with focus, but also seemed to help executive functioning. It also seemed to support mood and help with stress resilience. So I was fascinated, and I started, you know, with folks who were open to it. I said, you know, I’ve never used this before, but we can try it.

And, uh. Looked for the cleanest brands out there. I was really impressed with a brand that’s Gaia, is kind of cool because it means earth.

Scott DeLuzio: which

Tracy Latz: Again, I own no stock of any of this. [00:18:00] I just am curious and I’m always looking for tools. And it can be found even on that wonderful site that everyone got on ever since pandemic to order things off of.

Scott DeLuzio: the

Tracy Latz: And the interesting thing is now they’re actually doing a lot of studies with PTSD looking at rhodiola rosea for helping with that stress resilience and having a calm sort of focus. So I’m really intrigued by it and I in the last two years have used that with a lot of my patients have recommended it and, uh, Kind of impressed.

There’s a few people, there’s always, there’s always a few who say after they take it, you know, they’re like, oh, it really worked. I felt more irritable, but most people Uh, say it’s sort of like a calm focus, but their organizational, uh, abilities with [00:19:00] the executive functioning seems to be better. And it does help with their stress to make them be more centered, not as likely to be triggered by stress around them.

So that’s cool. Uh, how else can I intrigue you? Let’s see. I, I carry people, uh, through loving, compassionate benefactor meditation. That’s one of my top things I teach people. Uh, I can teach kids that or adults. The beauty of it is it helps us stay centered, calm, and not be afraid. as likely to be triggered by other people.

Uh, or situations. And it also is a good way to prepare us for giving talks like this, having difficult conversations with children or loved ones or with our boss [00:20:00] or whoever, uh, to just be able to truly speak from our heart because it’s the true meaning of having a heart to heart discussion means I’m in my heart and you’re in your heart.

Now, I can’t make you be in your heart, but if I’m in mine, I’m halfway there, and people hear you better, you can hear things from other people better as well. In fact, if we could go into certain, uh, legislative buildings and get everyone to do this, maybe we’d get more stuff done. I don’t know. Uh, just saying.

But it’s very, very simple. All you do is you bring to mind someone, and if you say, I don’t have that person, it could be a pet, but bring to mind someone or a pet that represents absolute unconditional love and compassion to you. So, If you [00:21:00] close your eyes and you bring to mind whoever that is, and they could be living or deceased, but I caution people, don’t bring to mind someone that you’re still grieving because the purpose of that is not to go to grief, it is to get into your heart.

So if you close your eyes and you picture whoever that is, as if they were standing in front of you right now. And look deeply into their eyes and feel their love and compassion flowing over to you. And allow yourself to receive it without judgment. If you feel you have to send love to them first, go ahead.

Still looking into their eyes, send your love. Sense it as this golden or pink or green light going over, surrounding their head and shoulders, and you’ll see them respond. www. podcast. com And now look even deeper into their eyes and sense the [00:22:00] absolute depth of their love and compassion flowing over to you and feel it continue to flow.

And usually by now, if not before, you will feel a sense of warmth or fullness in the center of your heart or the center of your chest. When you feel that you’re in your loving self and it’s impossible to be in your guilty, worried, anxious, angry, self deprecating, or any other self when we’re in our heart and our loving self.

Sense that your loving benefactor is still here in front of you. And now they’re still sending you love and compassion, but they begin to move around your left side. all the way around your shoulder until now they are standing or sitting behind your left shoulder still sending you love and compassion.

And if you’ve done this with eyes closed, [00:23:00] you won’t have to always do it with eyes closed, but if you’ve done that, when you sense that there, take a deep breath, release it, open your eyes, and you’ll still feel them. Now, doing just that is what I call the Loving Compassionate Benefactor Meditation. But the exercise, the exercise is cool.

Because what the exercise is, you do this. Pick a day. Could be tomorrow, could be today. You will do this and when you open your eyes, your loving benefactor is here and you feel yourself in your heart. Now you get up and you go about your day. Your loving benefactor is coming with you. If you’re, if you’re going to.

Walk into the family room or go out in your car, go drive to work, go to the grocery store. Sense that your benefactor is here. You will feel when you have gotten into this monkey mind chatter and they’re gone. And what you can do is just stop, [00:24:00] close your eyes for a minute, picture them again, feel that.

They’ll come around again. Deep breath, open your eyes and keep going about your day. Now. I have a lot of people who go, Dr. Latz, you know, that sounds so silly. Those same people, I’ll say, you know, I’ll say, I’m just a nutty psychiatrist. Go ahead, go, go try it once. And they’ll come back and they’ll go, that was a weird thing.

Because, you know, now when I use this, you know, and I’m working with people, my co workers that I was kind of with at times, suddenly, I don’t take that personally and my co workers are saying, what’s going on? You’re more relaxed. You’re easier to approach. I feel like you hear us better. Also, people are able to parent or be in relationship and find I’m not as irritable [00:25:00] with my loved one.

Uh, I’ve had people come in and say, this is better than any marital therapy. Because when you can do that, you really change the whole energy. And you know, when I work with people, I help them understand, you know, we’re physical, but we also have what we call an etheric field, which is what also runs through the body.

That’s why acupuncture works. We have chi, life force, that runs through the body, permeates it, but also comes outside of the body, one to three inches. It’s the easiest to explain. We also then hold the energy of our emotions, our go to emotions around us, and when I work with people in person, I’d help them be able to feel where that is.

And then we also have a thought field around us, and this is why EFT, which I love, although a lot of people will say. [00:26:00] On NEFT is Emotional Freedom Technique, The Tapping Protocols, uh, the difficulty sometimes with that is you can open a keg of worms with that, you know, because you’ll be working and tapping on, on anxiety and suddenly you’ll recall or realize that it’s connected with something I’m really angry about, so you could be working on that and then suddenly have someone You know, your time with them is almost done and now they’re really angry and you can’t let them go out like that because you have to now work on it.

So, working with a Qigong, one of my Qigong masters and one of my clinical Qigong training modalities, uh, he taught us the Qigong emotional release technique. I love that. I used that even with a five year old with severe PTSD who had been left in a, in a crack house and saw all sorts of horrible things.

His parents ended [00:27:00] up in prison, and he was just so traumatized. And he came to me, and he was so young, he didn’t have words. So talk therapy was not going to work with him. He couldn’t sleep. Um, he couldn’t sit in school. In fact, he got sent to me because the teachers thought he had ADD and you know, his, he went, was living now with a great aunt who brought him in and said, you know, they say he has ADD.

He’s sitting in class and intermittently just doing this. And I’m like, Talking with him, and he’s talking with me, and sure enough, every once in a while, he just covers his head. And I just go, help me understand, what’s going on when you are doing this? He goes, the bad thoughts, the bad thoughts, the bad things come.

And I go, oh, is this things that happened before that suddenly are coming up? He’s like, yeah, yeah. I said, okay. I’m like, this kid does not have ADD, he has PTSD. And so I said, let me, let me. [00:28:00] Show you something. I said, right now with all that going on, are you kind of scared? He’s like, yeah. I said, okay. I didn’t have to ask him to rank that.

You know, we rank things in, in tapping. So what, what we do is just if someone’s got anxiety or anger, we say, how big is it? Zero to 10. Rank it. Now you forget about it. And then we have you tap But you’re saying, uh, the sound of these five Chinese characters, and if anyone out there speaks so sorry, because I don’t,

Scott DeLuzio: Chinese I’m

Tracy Latz: so I’m sure I’m saying this wrong, but the, the intention is, uh, that you’re tapping, unlike EFT where it’s constant, this you’re tapping on the syllable, and the sound is song, kong, tong, bing, shuanyu.

And that’s, that’s song, kong, tong, bing, chuan, yu. So that’s all you [00:29:00] have to know word wise. You don’t have to sit there and do even though and all this stuff. And you say and tap that anywhere from three to six times. Some would say three to nine. I kind of like the fact that you’re tapping with one hand, you have five fingers on the other, because some people are like, how do I keep up with like, well, here you go. Song, Kong, Tong, Bing, Shuan, Yu. Yeah, and you do it through each of these, and you’re tapping at the center, the crown, the Ba Wei, where we are connected to God, Source, Universe, whatever you understand that to be. So it’s, it’s through the crown. You’re tapping at third eye, if you will, where we do blessing rituals and many spiritual modalities, or the third eye, you know, for people who look at metaphysical and chakras.

So you do the same thing here, five, five times, because it’s easy. Then you go to the heart center. You do the same thing, [00:30:00] song, kong, tong, bing, shuan, yu, five times. And then you go two or three finger widths below the belly button. That’s lower dantian. So we’re going back. This is based on sort of primordial qigong.

It’s the four golden wheels, you know, that we, we got into the chakra system and talked about seven or 12 or whatever, but it was very simple. Originally was four golden wheels, crown, forehead, center of heart, below belly button. And then you take a deep breath, you release. And I’ve had like that child. It dropped his right away and I wasn’t sure he’d remember it.

He went home, came back two weeks later. And I mean, I was coming out of my office and having worked in the state hospital and things, you know, when people come flying at you fast, little bit of PTSD on your own, but I came out of [00:31:00] my office and he came flying at me and I was kind of like this, wrapped his arms around me.

And he goes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I remember it. I remember it. And he’s like, buh, buh, buh. And he goes, the bad thoughts are gone. And his, This great aunt was there, and she was in tears, and I was, other patients are looking at me, and I’m trying not to cry in the waiting room, because it works so quickly.

I had another gentleman with significant PTSD, a huge guy, who was so angry, came in, I’m not sure what had triggered him, but he wanted to literally throw a chair out my window, and he could have. And I just said, sit down, you know, if you’re not going to leave, I said the doors, I’m not blocking the door, you can leave.

And he didn’t want to leave. He goes, I don’t know what to do. I just said, sit down and do what I do. There was no reason to ask him to rank it. It was above the 10. And I just had him repeat after me, and I carried him through each of the four spots, deep breath, release. And then I go, where’s the anger? And he sat there,[00:32:00]

and he looked, and he goes. It’s gone. I don’t even remember what I was angry about. I just started laughing. He goes, you hypnotized me. I’m just like, are you me? You know? Uh, so very quick to do.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And, and I think that, so these are a lot of really good examples of the different types of non traditional talk therapy type of, um, you know, uh, therapies that, that, you know, are, um, or maybe non therapy, but therapy, you know, kind of option, not, not talk therapy anyways, um, options that are available.

And, and to your point earlier, you were talking about how, um, you know, some people who go through traditional therapy, um, Where they have to talk about the traumatic incident that in and of itself is, it could be traumatizing to have to keep bringing that up over and over again. And if, um, you know, part of the reason why I wanted to have you on the [00:33:00] show is because I, I understand that like for a lot of people, you may not want to talk about your worst day over and over and over again to a therapist or to anybody for that matter.

And it just may not be something that’s in the cards for you, at least not right now. And. Uh, it doesn’t change the fact that you still need to do something with this. You still need to get help and be able to process and, um, you know, work through whatever it is that you’re going through. Um, and if you can’t talk about it for one reason or another, there are other things, and that’s, that was sort of the, the point of, of having you come on.

And, and I honestly, The point of, uh, this show is to be able to bring up these different approaches, um, that, that people can use because a lot of times when someone’s like, Oh, you need to go talk to somebody about Whatever it is that you’re going through. [00:34:00] Okay. Well, we just got, got over the fact that talking may not be the, the option for someone that may, that may send someone into a panic right there.

Just like, I don’t want to talk about this type of thing. Um, but they can go and see someone like yourself and. They may not have to say anything, um, you know, with regards to the, the trauma, obviously, you know, exchange pleasantries, that type of thing, but you know, they don’t, they don’t have to, they don’t have to go in and dive deep into whatever that trauma is and, and, and talk about the, the gruesome, gory details of whatever it is that they, they went through.

Um, they, they are, are, there are other ways that they can process through this and. Have, have things that they can take away to, um, you know, some of those things that you were talking about, um, you know, working on, uh, your gut health, working on, um, you know, the, the grounding, just, you know, going outside and sitting on the, on the grass or, [00:35:00] um, you know, whatever, just, you know, sitting, sitting there and just letting these things kind of, uh, help you.

Um, well, maybe it, it may seem like, okay, well, this isn’t going to help me Today right here and now because I don’t know whatever the their situation is, but you know, give it give it a chance Like you said earlier, what do you got to lose? You know, like none of this stuff is super invasive. It’s not you’re not taking Medications that are gonna go messing with your brain.

You’re not taking You know any sort of you’re not doing any sort of like surgery or so anything like invasive like that That’s gonna totally alter your body and in anything like that so It doesn’t hurt to, to give these things a try. And so. You, you give it a try, see, see whether it works for you or not.

And, you know, at the end of the day, the most that you, you could have lost is maybe just a little bit of your [00:36:00] time to go in and give it a try. Right. You know, I, I think that’s, that’s the, um, uh, the, the point of all this is that when, when you are in a situation that you need help, try things, try different things, if, if, If thing number one doesn’t work, try thing number two.

If thing number two doesn’t work, try thing number three. And if you got to this point and you’re, you’re, you’re sitting there thinking to yourself, man, I’ve tried everything, but then you’re, you’re listening to you and you’ve, you’ve named a bunch of different, uh, uh, things and you’re like, oh, I haven’t tried any of those.

Well, try those, you know, that, that’s kind of the natural progression here. And let’s get to that next step and, and try some of these things. Right. Um, but I think, uh, I’m actually just looking at, uh, you know, for the audio only listeners who are not seeing what I’m seeing right now, I’m looking behind you right now and you have the cover of your, your, uh, book there, the Bye Bye Self Sabotage.

Um, but a lot of times I think that’s [00:37:00] exactly what we end up doing is we get to this point where, I don’t know if it’s. We don’t want to help. We just don’t want to change. We, you know, I don’t know what it is, but, uh, you know, sometimes we get to that point where, uh, like we just get, I don’t know, maybe we’re stubborn and we just don’t do anything about it.

But, um, you know, I’d love to hear your, your thoughts on that and maybe tell us a little bit about the, uh, bye bye self sabotage as well.

Tracy Latz: Yeah. What led me to finally putting the book Bye Bye Self Sabotage, Drop Your Baggage, Love Your Life together was after, uh, my, during my 35 years of clinical practice for the last 25 years, I’ve had this integrative approach, but what I’ve noticed is, uh, and teaching, uh, some intensive self sabotage.

shift your life seminars really to try and help people let go of the [00:38:00] core faulty beliefs. And so I started teaching and then I found someone else who was teaching similarly and we paired together to begin teaching. Dr. Marion Ross and I, we both worked on this book. Eventually after we saw people have such good effects from.

Looking at the core, what I call faulty beliefs or self sabotaging beliefs that everyone has to some degree. And sometimes we know we’re self sabotaging and it’s sort of a way of beating ourselves up, but sometimes we have no idea. So with that book or the course, what we do is we carry people through Each of these core faulty beliefs starts with, I’m unlovable.

And that can be such a simple, core, faulty belief that could be from being three years old and [00:39:00] having a younger sibling born. It could be that simple and silly. But we could think, you know, I was the queen or the prince of the universe, and then along came this other sibling. Sibling and now I’m chopped liver because the parents, know, that child’s crying and they’re like, go play because we got to take care of your brother or your sister.

But that can set a foundation subconsciously of this, I’m unlovable. And when you have bad experiences later in your life that lead to having PTSD or high stress, we can go back to, you know, Everything goes well for everyone else, but I’m unlucky, I’m unlovable, and this is my lot in my life. And so if you don’t go back and address that core belief that’s simmering in some way down below, you won’t shift the others, which the next is, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m.

bad or I have guilt and shame because nobody knows I kicked the dog when I was [00:40:00] five or nobody knows I stole the gum you know my sibling said I bet you can’t take that pack of gum when you’re like eight you know and you carried this along with you that if people knew the real me they’d run screaming from the room so we move through and we give people the core beliefs that get most people you into that energy that, that really sabotages them or makes them hold back and shut down their heart and, and creates more anxiety or a sense of lack and futility which can lead to depression for somebody.

So we go through these and we don’t just go and say, yeah everyone’s got this, you know, that’s it. That sucks, you know, and just kind of move to the next. We say this is why everyone’s got this to some degree. But then we come in and we give left brain and right brain intellectual emotional [00:41:00] approaches because we give a smorgasbord.

So you can come into that little buffet and go, I like that technique. I don’t like that one. I like this, I like that. So you can pick and choose your own way that suits your style that you’re more comfortable with. And we carry people through the issue of I’m abandoned, give them the tools, I’m powerless, I’m too angry, my heart’s too broken, uh, lack of self love.

Uh, the fear of the unknown, because a lot of people get stuck there. Once they work through everything else, they’re like, you know, the devil you know is better than the one you don’t know. You know?

Scott DeLuzio: Right

Tracy Latz: So, if I change, you know, change, especially with any trauma, you know, surprises aren’t good. You know, I’ve had a lot of people in these classes, or, or, or, who do these, uh, courses or we’ll sit here and I’ll try and carry them through Loving Benefactor.

And they’re like, you [00:42:00] know, like, close your eyes. You know, I’m not closing my eyes fully because you could trick me. You know, there could be a surprise, you know, something. So, yeah. So I’ll say, I get it, I’m gonna carry you through it, feel free not to close your eyes. But when you’re home alone, try it with your eyes closed, you’ll feel it goes deeper.

Uh, so we give people meditation, we give them tones, we talk about musical notes, because we know frequency, we know now. You know, other non, non verbal ways of dealing with things. We know red light therapy, you know, the infrared light near and far. can actually improve mood. Again, it can decrease inflammation in the gut.

It can also decrease inflammation in the brain. And we know light therapy outside, you know, sunlight, uh, can help with mood as well. So that’s because of frequency. And in ancient times, we used to [00:43:00] know this. I mean, in the hermetic medicine, we looked at hermetic causes of disease and hermetic cures. You know, I remember in medical school, we had to learn this.

Everyone who goes to medical school has to. It’s history of medicine. And I remember when we went through it, we were all like, hee hee hee hee, you know, just laughing because, you know, what dummies those people were, you know. Causes of disease. Thoughts could cause disease. Hee hee hee. And now we’re like, mind, body, medicine.

Yeah, you know. Uh, and we’re looking at frequencies now. Uh, so, you know. The tools that we give are in the book and and the books it’s it’s on Amazon It’s also, you know, if you’re like money’s tight, you can get it for like three bucks as a digital download We have the meditations in the book. We also have them if someone needs to hear them We also have a YouTube channel Uh, where for free, uh, Shift Your Life [00:44:00] TV, you can go there and, uh, we carry you through EFT, we do a demonstration video for EFT, so people, because we have the EFT tapping protocols also in the book for each of these issues with the core faulty beliefs of why I’m unlovable.

We took the top 15 out of like, 10. 20 years of teaching and being with 35 years of the patient. So we have a lot in there and people go, well, which one do I tap for? I’ve got, look down the list. And when you hit the one that makes you energetically want to throw up, that’s the one you tap for.

Scott DeLuzio: right there. Yeah,

Tracy Latz: right

the one.

That’s the one. Uh, you know, why not? And you know, it’s not going to hurt you. And it may just, Shift your life. It may just help you quite a bit, but we have, uh, the demonstration video. We did it for fear of public speaking. It’s the number three fear. First is death. Second is spiders. [00:45:00] Third is public speaking.

So we did it for that one. Uh, we also have the video showing you how to do the Qigong emotional release. And for people who freak out and go, what are you saying in Chinese? What those? That sound, song, kong, tong, bing, shuan, yu, means, it means I open myself up and call in divine light Universal light to fill my body and remove any negativity Sealing me up perfectly calm balanced and centered.

That’s what that means So we have that video there too we also have You know, just because I’m that weird, we have, we play some singing crystal bowls where we’d say this is what we’re doing and then we’re quiet and all we do is play the bowls. That may sound funny but vibration and frequency rebalances energy centers in the body.

It won’t hurt you, [00:46:00] uh, and it may just help you. And, and the bowls that we play when Dr. Ross and I are playing them together, it’s the older video, kind of look. I look like I’m 20 years younger because I probably was. Uh, and, uh, it balances, balances you from bottom all the way up to top. And I had one fella who had experienced trauma in the work, workplace.

So someone devastated in front of him. Uh, And he couldn’t meditate. He had been doing Buddhist meditations and very centered, but after that, that trauma, he couldn’t, he couldn’t close his eyes long enough to do that because everything would just flash back. And I tried talking with him. He wanted to do talk therapy.

I’m like, I’m not sure this is it. And he was like, this is what I need. I was like, fine. Finally, one day he was so stuck. I said, would you come across the hall? to a meditation room I have over here, and I went, I [00:47:00] unlocked the door, and we walked in, and there were all these crystal balls, and he’s like, yeah, balls, and he’s like, yeah, man, holdin out on me, doc, you know, and I’m like, ah, I said, here, just stand in the middle of the room, and if this is too weird, just pretend never happened, you know, and I start playing these balls around him, and you could see him just kind of And he began to close his eyes.

And when I got to the bowl, as I’m just playing it, I’m like walking around him, like two feet all the way around him. When I got up to the heart bowl, tears just started coming down. And, uh, I said, what’s going on? He goes, this is good. This is good. I said, okay. So I kept going. And when I finished, he says, Teachers here, which is when he was doing his meditations years before he could picture what he was calling teacher.

It was probably his higher self. Uh, and he goes, he’s here, [00:48:00] he’s here. I said, tell you what. Feel free, you can just stay in here and meditate. He goes, no, I want to get home. I said, okay. I said, I know you haven’t paid. Don’t worry about that. We’ll worry about that. Next time you come in. I want you to just, we’re not talking, just go down, get in your car and I want you to meditate.

And that for him was a huge turning point. Uh, just the power of coming in and looking at portals for holistic health. that aren’t necessarily the traditional ways, but it really is based on the ancient wisdom back when, you know, it was physician, healer, priest. It really was mind, body, spirit, and all the timelines.

It’s not like a straight trajectory. It’s sort of like time is spiral and we can work right now on things that happened in the past, just By finding [00:49:00] that portal, that way of just sort of getting in and shifting something and it changes lots.

Scott DeLuzio: Well, and I think, I think this is great because there are so many different techniques that you’re talking about here. Um, you know, every, I won’t, you know, go through everything here, but you know, for, for the folks who are listening through this, um, there are so many different ways of dealing with the, the trauma, the pain, the, you know, whatever it is that you’ve gone through, um, And, and again, I just kind of want to reiterate this, like, just because you think you’ve tried everything or everything that you knew about up until this point, um, why wouldn’t you try something else?

Why wouldn’t you try something new? Even if it seems like, oh, that’s never going to work for me. You know, that, that’s, that’s so [00:50:00] far out there. And, you know, kind of like you were even saying that, you know, when you were in school, you were laughing at, at some of this type of stuff. Right. And. And some people might be listening to this episode right now and laughing about it as well, and like, this is never gonna work, you know, this, this is some, some crazy podcast I’m listening to, and you know, this stuff is never gonna work, but, um, I guess the point is, if you don’t give it a try, and, and when I say give it a try, I mean, like, go into it wanting it to work, you know, if you go into it, like, You know, I, I, I think this is a bunch of crap and I, you know, you go into it with that, that attitude, that mindset, um, you know, any benefits that you’re going to get out of it, um, you may that not be receptive to it and may not, may not work as well as it can, as if, you know, You were going into it with an open mind and saying, you know what, let, let’s give it a try.

You know, what, what does it hurt? Right. Um, and so I, I, I wanna encourage people who maybe are, [00:51:00] um, uh, hesitant or maybe even like you were laugh, laughing at some of this stuff. Um, to, to give it a try. Especially if you’re at that point where it’s like, I’ve tried everything and nothing is working for me.

I’ve tried traditional. Talk therapy, and that was more traumatic. I’ve tried different, you know, arts programs, and I’ve tried different, all these different things that are out there that just, none of these things worked, and, you know, where do I go, where do I turn, um, and I, I say this with all these other things that we talk about on this show, it’s like try something new, try something else, um, You know, and, and if this is one of those things, or, or, sorry, the things that we talked about today are, are, are some of those things that you haven’t tried yet, um, I, I think you owe it to yourself, your family, you know, folks around you to give it a try and see if maybe Maybe this does help you in whatever areas that you might be hurting in.

Um, [00:52:00] you know, and, um, I, I, I just, I don’t see the, I don’t see the downside to giving it a try, you know? Um, and that, and that’s, yeah, go ahead.

Tracy Latz: often, I often tell suspend your belief just, just for five minutes, you know, feel free. You can keep one foot in that belief, but bring the other foot. Let’s kind of let it. Kind of be out here just for a minute. You know, what if that crazy woman said she’s done this for 35 years? Yeah, what if what if this could work and just open it up and give give something a try?

Because it really can be the one thing that begins to The Shift for Things to Change. Uh, we do have, uh, on ShiftYourLife. com, we do have some articles on PTSD. We have lots of articles that have been there for years, but also links that will get you [00:53:00] to, to, uh, You know some of these different tools and and we try and and give away a lot because my crazy plan I’m 63 now is uh, I figure I have 37 more years to help transform Consciousness as much as possible on this earth school planet and I feel like this is earth school And when we transform our own sabotaging or faulty beliefs about our own self, things change and they don’t just change for us, they change for people around us and we become that bright light that other people see as this trail of light that I’ll try as well to follow this.

And so we begin to just pass things on to one another by example or by teaching someone else. And that’s my evil plan is, you know, to become useless. If I can help enough [00:54:00] people get this, they’ll pass it on. And I just kind of sit back and go, yeah, I’ve done my job.

Scott DeLuzio: So that’s your evil plan,

Tracy Latz: It

Scott DeLuzio: way to take over the world, right?

is

well, you know, honestly, that’s what, that’s what I, I tell people about this show. Um, you know, I, I started the show a little over five years ago, five and a half years ago or so. And, um, I started it because of, you know, hearing about the, the veteran suicide rates and you know, just how many people were struggling and, um, you know, oftentimes they’re struggling by themselves.

They, they’ve isolated themselves. They don’t know how to reach out to other people. They don’t know that there are other, you know, people out there. Programs available outside of the VA, um, you know, they, maybe they have a distrust for the VA or whatever it is that they, they have going on. And, and unfortunately, a lot of times they end up, end up going down that path.

And, and so I wanted to start the show to help those And tell people all the time, like. I, [00:55:00] I look at, I don’t really look at the statistics, like how many people listen to each episode, because quite frankly, I want it to be zero. I want this to be, like, a non issue anymore, and I don’t want anyone to listen to this anymore.

Uh, I, I don’t, I don’t want to have to keep doing this. If, if I, if, but as long as there’s people still out there still hurting, still struggling, still, you know, Trying to figure out how to, how to make it through, uh, then, then there’s still a place for it. And, um, you know, unfortunately, you know, I, I’m just one, one person.

Um, but I bring on a lot of people like yourself who have different, uh, different ways of, of dealing with things. And, um, you know, maybe one of those things is going to click with one of those people. And that’s, that’s my goal. That’s my hope. And if we can, we can tackle one person at a time. Um, you know, hopefully we, we tackle some more, but if we, if we, Help just one person at a time with, with something like this.

And I think, you know, we’ve done our job, but you know, for the same, same purpose that you were just talking about, you know, I, I [00:56:00] hope I don’t have to keep doing this, but, um, you know, in the meantime. Here I am and uh, you know, not, not going anywhere anytime soon, unfortunately. So, um, but with that, um, you did mention your website shiftyourlife.

com. You have a bunch of, you know, articles and things like that for people who are maybe a little hesitant, maybe on the fence a little bit about. Some of this stuff, they might be able to go check that out and I’ll put a link to that in the show notes and, um, you know, we’ll, we’ll get people over there to, to find out a little bit more information about this.

Uh, anything else that you want to share with, with the listeners before we wrap up here?

Tracy Latz: Uh, just, uh, there is help out there. And, uh, you know, we’re here and lots of tools and techniques. And I really thank Scott for being here, for being here, for all the people out there, because, you know, the veterans have, you know, They’ve done so much for our country and then the [00:57:00] service that they’ve done, it’s, it’s time that they allow themselves to receive as well.

And I know sometimes people can become embittered and things and when we get hard, we’re kind of like this, we’re like this, it would take a love bomb to get through to someone. It’s like you have a fortress. So, you know, again. Just allow yourself to open, be in a safe place, allow yourself to open up and try some of these tools and some other things that I’m sure that Scott has had people come in and, and relate.

But, uh, you know, God love you all. I mean, really, really, uh, just surrounding you all in love and light for whatever healing it is that you need or desire.

Scott DeLuzio: Awesome. Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate you taking the time to come on the show, sharing a little bit about your background, a little bit about the types of work that you do. Obviously, we probably could have gone on for hours talking [00:58:00] about some of this stuff, but, um, you know, for, for interest of time, you know, I’ll, I’ll send folks over to your, your website and they can find out more information, uh, if, if any of this stuff, uh, resonated with them and hopefully they can get the, the help, the resources, uh, that they’re looking for.

So thank you again for taking the time to come on.

Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to support the show, please check out Scott’s book, Surviving Son on Amazon. All of the sales from that book go directly back into this podcast and work to help veterans in need. You can also follow the Drive On Podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and wherever you listen to podcasts.