Christopher Maher

98 – Christopher Maher

===

Habits and health episode 98.

Welcome to another edition of habits and health. My guest today, Chris Maher, who is a former US Navy SEAL. And as a SEAL he endured, a lot of intense physical, mental, and emotional stress. And he learned how to combine the SEAL team mindset with modern stress resolution strategies. And taught himself to free his body, his mind, emotions, from pain, from tension, the emotional distortion. And we talk about that. What does he mean when he talks about modern stress resolution strategy. He talks a lot about balance. He learned traditional Chinese medical practices. He learned about the universal healing Tao system, from the Tao Te Ching. So we talk lot of about stress management, stress resolution. That’s all coming up in today’s episode with Chris Maher. If you enjoy this week’s show. Please do share it with someone who you feel would really get some value from some of the Information chris shares with us

[00:01:26] Tony Winyard: Habits and health. My guest today, Christopher Maher. How are you, Chris?

[00:01:31] Christopher Maher: Excellent, excellent, excellent. Just so the listeners know, we got a little bit of time to connect before, which was wonderful, so I’m happy to be here. I love your mission. I love where you come from, what you’re doing, and, impacting people’s lives in a positive direction is what brought us together.

So I’m here to serve powerfully. So any questions you have or any direction you want to go, I’m all game.

[00:01:54] Tony Winyard: Well, from what I know about you and obviously in the next 45 minutes, we’re gonna find out a lot more, but from what I know, there’s a lot to dig into. I guess the obvious place to start is you’re a former US Navy Seal. So tell us a little bit about that.

How did that all come about? Was that like an ambition from when you were small? What happened?

[00:02:13] Christopher Maher: No. What happened for me is, uh, I was in college and I went to a party and I drank a little too much. Like I had never had hard alcohol before, and there was vodka with mixed with orange juice, and to me it tastes like orange juice. And at the time I loved orange juice, so I just kept drinking and then, uh, my heart went into ventricular fibrillation, and then my heart stopped,

[00:02:44] Tony Winyard: Wow.

[00:02:45] Christopher Maher: and then I had to immediately be taken to the hospital.

When I woke up the next day, you know, I woke up in intensive care wondering, what, what am I doing here? And a friend came to pick me up. I said, I’m fine. . They were like, no, please stay. And I said, no, I’m fine.

Get my clothes. I was 18 years old. Yeah. And I went back to campus and then there was a note on my door that the president of the university wanted to see me.

So I went, knocked on his door, went in with him and he said, look, you know, based on your grades and based on your aptitude tests to get in, these two things don’t match. and with what happened to you last night, it seems like you don’t really wanna be here. And of course, in the beginning I was offended, right?

Like, who were you to tell me where I, I want to be? But then as I walked back to my dorm, I started thinking, because he said this one thing, he said, maybe we’re not challenging you enough. And I thought, you know, He’s right. I didn’t come to the university that I really wanted to go to. I went here to be loyal to my track coach and my swim coach, and I thought, yep, I need to find something more challenging.

So I moved back home and um, I started a business, right? It was it, it was called the Hogan King, a sandwich shop right next to an industrial. I did that for about five and a half, six months, and then all of a sudden, I remember waking up at four plus four o’clock in the morning, and when you’re that old and you’re getting up that early to go pick up cold cuts and bread and cheese in a town that’s like maybe 25 minutes away from where you live and then coming back, and that’s what you’re.

that’s what your life is gonna look like the rest of your life. After about five, six months, I was like, no, I’m, I’m, I’m done with this. And I gave the business to my business partner. I said, look, I don’t want to continue here, but I don’t want anything from you either. I wanted to slide out without any bit of obligation.

So I gave him the business. And then one of my buddy’s moms that I went to boarding school with in Milton Hershey and Hershey, Pennsylvania. Came and she picked me up on my birthday and she said, look, why don’t you come live with us until you figure it out? I went in the house, um, and I was there for about seven months.

In about month, was it month four, month five. I went down into the basement and there was a biannual SEAL team, SEAL training magazine. and I picked it up and on the cover was like seven boat crews…. A boat crews made up of seven guys and they’re all running down the beach with these telephone poles.

And I looked at that picture and I thought, these people are gonna challenge me. And look, everyone who goes into SEAL Teams has a different motivation, right? I wasn’t all like, I’m gonna be a Patriot and save the United States. No, that was not me. I was looking like, yeah, I, I definitely need to be challenged.

I was an athlete in high school that seemed like the perfect place. These people are gonna pay me to work out, great It was very different than I had imagined.

[00:06:05] Tony Winyard: Right.

[00:06:07] Christopher Maher: I had some idea somewhere between like an Olympic athlete and James Bond and, no, that’s not what it was about.

[00:06:15] Tony Winyard: So once you realized that was what you wanted to do, how easy or difficult was it to actually get in there?

[00:06:21] In the navy

—

[00:06:21] Christopher Maher: It was difficult because I went to a recruiter at the time when I went to the recruiter, I never did any investigation, right? I just went in all gung ho, ready to Go, and recruiter’s job is to put a certain amount of guys in every single program. and the special programs only a small percentage of guys get into and all the regular programs, they’ll throw anyone into there.

And this guy has a quota to meet every month. So I became a victim of his quota, so he didn’t give me the information that I needed. He could have given me a, what was called the DIVE Fair program. And a dive fair program means I would’ve went to bootcamp and straight to SEAL training, right? But instead he gave me this regular program with no school on it, and I end up basically wasting about 16 months of my life, because they sent me to a ship.

Look, I made some good friends. I had a nice time. I developed a wonderful relationship with a young lady there, and I made the most of it. But ultimately, I only went into the Navy to become a Navy SEAL. So I went through a process of taking physical exams, physiological exams, a piano two test, and I needed to have what are called performance evaluations.

And they needed to be at a certain level. And I wasn’t happy about being on the ship. So of course I wasn’t cooperating, right? I didn’t see the bigger picture. So my first set of evals wasn’t gonna be good enough to get in the SEAL training. And then one of the guys pulled me aside and said, look, I know you want to go to SEAL Training.

If you wanna go to SEAL training, this next six month eval, you have to be on point with everything. And I thought, okay, I’m gonna do that. But I didn’t, still didn’t really want to be there. So I send in my, something that says 1602 dash seven, uh, this formal request to go to SEAL Training with all of these tests, to Washington DC and these guys get a stack of these because this was the time of the movie Navy Seals with Charlie Sheen. Okay? I got my orders. right? But in the meantime, I was still wasting 16 months of my life, right?

[00:08:37] SEAL training

—

[00:08:37] Christopher Maher: So I get there and it’s full on, like the moment you get there, they don’t play around like suddenly you’re on the beach, you got sand all over you, they’re sticking you out in the cold ocean constantly.

And then you’re training basically from the time you get up till the time you get off work. It was good. It was good. I got there. I was not fit in the way that these guys are fit, right? I was always a good athlete. I was always fast, but I wasn’t fit and it took me a little while to kind of get my feet underneath me and then once I got my feet underneath me, it was okay.

right? Like the, the working out part and the camaraderie. I went to boarding school. So camaraderie and being part of a team, that felt really good to me. And I was young, you know what I mean? I had all this energy, like, what am I gonna do with this? And they put it to the test. They stretched me physically.

They stretched me mentally. They stretched me emotionally. They tested me spiritually. When I say spiritually, I mean my ethics, my morals, my values, my principles. Was I in alignment? with what their mission was. And, fortunate for me, I met a lovely young lady who made that whole experience really easy for me.

So other guys lived at SEAL training and on base military base. She had a house and I moved into her home right, we got the home together. But initially I moved into her place. And so when I wasn’t at SEAL training, I was away from that space i, was away from, from that vibe.

[00:10:08] Tony Winyard: Many of our audience is, there’s many in the states, but there’s also quite a few in Europe, and Britain and Australia and so on. Most people, I imagine outside of the US will have heard of the Navy Seals, but maybe aren’t so familiar with what is, what’s the difference between seals and just the regular Navy?

[00:10:24] The difference between SEALS and the navy

—

[00:10:24] Christopher Maher: Okay, so, A SEAL stands for Sea- s e a air A and land commando. And what that means is we can infiltrate and we can xFi, through the air or through the water or through the land, and we move around in very small units. So in a platoon, there’s 16 guys. And a platoon is made up of four fire teams.

And so we can go super small and our job is to do clandestine missions, right? To use the element of surprise and get in and get out without anyone even knowing that we were there, right? So, this unit was activated by President Kennedy. To take on clandestine missions. And so we have a top secret clearance and we move around the world, right?

Different situations. We go into, we have, you know, long hair and beards and we blend into the community. And the thing about being a Navy seal, which I feel was the most valuable for me, is we get the job done. Like it doesn’t matter what we’re tasked with, we’re gonna get the job done. And that’s the mindset that you get once you move through SEAL training. And so we’re coming in, we might enter through a submarine, right? We might dive in right through, this very special, product that we use called the Drug Alar five. Or we may take a boat in, we might take a speed boat in.

We may go in, enter through a military positioning ship. We may enter through a cruise ship, right? Like you never know how we’re gonna get into your country and we can come in through water. We can come through the land, crossing borders. Maybe we enter through Thailand and then, you know, we march across those borders to get into a different country.

Right. Or we may skydive in. Okay. So it, it really depends on the operation. It depends on the country, it depends on their defenses. But our job is to get behind enemy lines, undetected, carry out an operation, a mission, and then get home without anybody knowing that we were there.

[00:12:35] Tony Winyard: And so how long did you spend in the SEALS?

[00:12:37] Christopher Maher: I spent in that community. I spent six years,

the Navy total about almost eight years.

[00:12:46] Tony Winyard: why did you leave?

[00:12:48] Christopher Maher: I left because I was complete. I’m the type of person that once I learned something and I feel proficient at it now, if we’re doing the same thing again and again and again, it’s not that I’m bored, it’s that it’s time for me to move on,

and I got what I wanted out of that dynamic.

I, I’m the type of person, I like things to always be changing, and I got to understand that at a certain point, it was a fixed environment, right? And so in a certain way, my intellect and my passions were being limited because. in the SEAL teams, it’s a certain lifestyle. Like, you’re contributing a lot in order to be in that program, SEAL training and to be part of the SEAL teams.

And I was no longer willing to pay the cost of that. And I had a bigger vision for myself and before I went to SEAL training and when I was younger, I made up a bucket list before they called it a bucket list. And you know, SEAL training in the SEAL teams was on my bucket. but it wasn’t my and all, be all.

I knew I wanted to be a musician. I knew I wanted to be a motivational speaker. I knew I wanted to impact a lot of lives in a very big way. I knew I wanted to study medicine. You know, I had all these other things that I wanted to experience. I knew I wanted to take a shot at getting to the Olympic trials, being an athlete because, I knew I wanted to be a poet. that limited me and I decided, hey, okay, I think I’m, I’m complete. And what really made it complete for me was I wanted to transfer to SEAL team two, which was on the East coast and I was on the West coast of Seal Team five. And me and a guy, I won’t give his name, but um, we were gonna switch. What’s called duty stations and Seal Team two was gonna pay for all of his effects, his car, all of his clothes, all of his stuff to be shipped to California to take my position and Seal Team five wasn’t gonna do the same thing for me.

[00:15:03] Tony Winyard: right.

[00:15:03] Christopher Maher: And I thought, you know what? You’re gonna show up for this guy. , that’s unfair and inequitable to me. And if I get into a situation, I find that’s unfair and inequitable grossly. So. Then I usually remove myself from that environment. And I remember I got a call like, Hey, we don’t see you down at the team. I was like, and you won’t be seeing me. And I explained to my CO at the time, this is what happened. This is how I viewed it, and I’m moving on with my life.

[00:15:34] Tony Winyard: You come across as pretty, chilled now, quite calm, you’ve mentioned about how, you’re very spiritual and I’m wondering how different your mindset is now to how it was at that time when you were in the SEALS?.

[00:15:47] Intensity of being in the SEALS

—

[00:15:47] Christopher Maher: Uh, how would I say I was definitely intense, right? The thing about going through SEAL training in the SEAL teams is that your intensity ramps up, meaning like, you’re just, you’re, you’re, they have a saying in the courtyard when you enter in the SEAL training, it says The only easy day was yesterday. So, uh, from a healing perspective, you know, what does that.

It means that every day we’re going to pile on a little extra stress, right? And I was there for 20, 22 months. So imagine every day a little more stress for 22 months. And so by the time you get outta SEAL training, the amount of stress that you can handle is enormous.

So you’re always looking for a more intense dynamic, right? And so wherever I went, I drove fast. right? Like I needed things to be hard. I needed things to be fast. I needed things to be difficult in order for my body, my brain, and my nervous system to feel like I was calm, right? So now I was looking, manufacturing intensity in order to feel normal, and I didn’t know at the time that, well, that’s abnormal.

[00:17:05] Dealing with stress as a SEAL and afterwards

—

[00:17:05] Christopher Maher: And the only people who do that are people who are usually severely stressed.

[00:17:10] Tony Winyard: And it made me think when you said that about they’re piling on more stress all the time. Were they also teaching you stress management coping systems?

[00:17:18] Christopher Maher: No, no, no. There was,

[00:17:19] Tony Winyard: it wasn’t overwhelming.

[00:17:20] Christopher Maher: yeah. No, there was no stress management tool. The stress management tools in the SEAL teams was like promiscuity and alcohol. Right. , like, get up during the day, work hard, get your energy high. And then at night, you know, now look, not all guys were living the lifestyle that I was living, right?

Um, but I was very young and I got into, the way that they do things in the teams. And I didn’t know that I was drinking alcohol cuz I was attempting to manage my stress. I thought I was just drinking alcohol. Cuz it, was part of the party right? And there’s a saying when I was in SEAL training and the SEAL team’s like, we work hard, but we play harder.

[00:18:02] What stress does to the body

—

[00:18:02] Christopher Maher: And I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I was doing that. Meaning I didn’t know what the effect was gonna be on my body. I didn’t know what the effect was gonna be on my brain. And I had no idea what the effect was gonna be on my nervous system, cuz I never really thought about my nervous system.

Like obviously I thought about my brain because. When I was being raised in Pennsylvania, there were commercials all the time about don’t do drugs. It destroys your brain. Right. I knew alcohol was a drug, so I , I know about alcoholism. I come from a family of alcoholics. Okay. So I understood. that, but I didn’t understand the nervous system.

And at the time I thought the fitter I got and the harder that I worked, the better I was doing for my body. And I didn’t know, actually that was the opposite, right? Like the human body’s only meant to do so much intense activity. And once you go over that threshold of intense activity and you take it too far, it now creates what are called diminishing returns. And now you start doing damage to the body, right? You start wearing away your elbow. , right? You start wearing away at the soft tissue underneath your joints. You start experience stiffness in your back, limited range of motion in your neck, and this is happening a little bit every day, so you’re not aware that it’s actually happening cuz it’s only a little bit every day.

It’s these micro amounts of stress and tension and distortion that are coming into your body, brain, and nervous system at a physical. at a mental, at an emotional, and at an energetic, spiritual level. And in one day you end up with a problem and you don’t know where it came from.

[00:19:50] Tony Winyard: And so is that what happened? Was it after you left, did you have some sort

[00:19:53] Training as a semi professional athlete

—

[00:19:53] Christopher Maher: Yeah. After I left. Yeah, yeah, for sure. After I left, I, uh, I decided to take SEAL training, um, principles. and seal team principles into training as a semi-professional athlete. Right. You know, that was my goal. Get to the Olympic trials and, um, and make a career in track and field. And I was going to practice and in practice I was training like it was a race every single repitition.

Going as hard as you could all the time. I had one speed, 110%

right? Like,

Recovery

[00:20:36] Tony Winyard: wasn’t a part of what

[00:20:37] Christopher Maher: yeah, recovery wasn’t a part. I had no idea because I was so used to training like that, I didn’t realize that I had to treat my body more like a Lamborghini than then a Ford Mustang. right? You can’t just go out and run a Lamborghini the way you run a Ford Mustang.

If you do, your car’s gonna be on a shop. It’s gonna cost you a lot of money. Well, guess what? My car went into the shop and it cost me a lot of money cuz I had to hire a lot of naturopathic, uh, holistic healers in order to educate me and help, you know, put me back. So in the end, it cost me, not only did it cost me physically, physiologically, energetically, it cost me financially, and so I had to dedicate all my work and all the resources that were coming in to getting myself back to a state of relative homeostasis where I could explore the things that I really wanted to do with the potential that I had in a relative and a reflective manner.

That felt really good to me. and when you’re in pain, you know pain. When you’re in consistent chronic discomfort, it always has your attention, right? You can never get away from it. But still, I was running that seal training, seal team mindset, right? Do more, get more, be more. And that didn’t work out for me. I ran into limitations, right?

I had, you know, at the time I had a weaker immune system. And my immune system wasn’t happy with what was going on, and so it was attempting to give me signs and signals, and I ignored every signal, every bit of back stiffness, every bit of neck discomfort, every bit of hip pain, every bit of insomnia, every bit of emotional discomfort and awkwardness and social relationships.

I was ignoring all.

[00:22:41] Tony Winyard: And isn’t it because you were trained to ignore all of that essentially?

[00:22:45] Boarding school

—

[00:22:45] Christopher Maher: Uh, not trained by them. To do that, I was trained because I went through a lot of childhood trauma and I went to a boarding school at a very young age and a boarding school. In order to manage 1300 children, there has to be institutionalized rules and regulations in place, and so I learned there. Communicating my own desires, wants, and needs was impossible because you have two house parents attempting to take care of the needs of 16 children. And the house parents have been trained in a way to not show any favoritism. So when you have a lack of affection, when you’re getting a lack of attention, um, when you’re getting a lack of nurturing at a young age, and I went to boarding school when I was seven years old.

You know, it has an impact on you that tells you, look, you gotta figure out how to be a lone wolf and manage and self-soothe yourself. And so I was taught to be that way at a very young age. SEAL training in the SEAL teams, you know, the mindset and the principles there. It only amplified that because seeing seal training, seal teams, there’s no bitching. There’s no moaning, and there’s no complaining. I don’t remember ever hearing anyone bitch, moan and complain. So you become hardened in a certain way, right? And you create what your winning strategy is. And my winning strategy was to figure things out on my own, keep on a good face on the outside, even though I might be feeling discomfort on the inside.

Never let anyone in to that cavern.

[00:24:33] Tony Winyard: So once you’ve got the situation now where you’ve left the seals, the Olympics training didn’t work out. So where are you now? What’s

[00:24:40] Finding purpose

—

[00:24:40] Christopher Maher: So where am I am now is, I am working hardcore on removing massive amounts of structural tension, emotional distortion, psychological distortion, and physiological stress, right? And I’m devoted to this practice five, six hours a day for seven years, right? So the benefit of going to SEAL training SEAL teams is one, I knew how to compartmentalize.

I knew how to organize myself, and I knew how to stay disciplined to my ultimate goal and mission. once I realized how good I felt and that I could possibly feel better by removing even more tension, stress, and distortion, I went all in. I went all in on organic food, on fasting, On detoxing my body on removing physiological, structural, energetic, emotional stress, tension, and distortion, and once I got into that lane, I was uninterested in Anything else. And then once I got an opportunity to help others to do so, I was hooked. I found my niche, I found my meaning. I found my purpose. And when I looked back over my shoulder, everything that I went through in life suddenly made sense. And so being devoted and committed and loyal, and investigative and consistent.

[00:26:22] Introduction to the Healing Dao System and Chinese medicine

—

[00:26:22] Christopher Maher: It was very easy because now I was being who I was born and meant to be from my personal perspective. Right? All the moons, all the stars, they all came into their correct alignment. And then I was getting introduced to people who had been like Daoism Master Chiia, Monta Chiia in Thailand, who runs the Healing DAO system, the Universal Healing Dow system in Chiang Mai.

I got introduced to that work. I got introduced to Chinese medicine. I started getting introduced to people who were at, who were the very best in the world at what they did in terms of integration healing. Personal development. Now, I was devoted from sunup till sundown to myself and to others equally.

And so I, and I’ve been on this train for 22 years straight. You know, the one thing I go to a buddy of mine here in Los Angeles, three to four days a week to do some body work on me and, and to do some energy work and his name’s Terry, looks at me and I come in and, this happened this week, and he said, he reminded me.

[00:27:38] Studying stress

—

[00:27:38] Christopher Maher: He goes, you know what, the one thing I always get from you is total commitment. So me, I’ve been totally committed. I’ve put in a hundred thousand hours of practical research into the negative effects of distress. post-traumatic stress disorder, tension, distortion, toxicity, and I’m the world’s foremost authority in that field.

Not only do I understand the mechanics of it better than any earth human on the planet, I’ve created all the solutions for those malalignments at a physical, at a mental, at an emotional, at a structural, at a psychological, and spiritual level. And so this Path SEAL training in the SEAL teams and training for the Olympic trials afforded me the opportunity to bump up against limiting beliefs that I created that were circulating around in society, that I applied to attempt to be successful and ended up failing miserably. And that failure allowed me to continue to look deeper into myself and to investigate further into how I could get some help, and that was a very vulnerable day. Imagine when you’re trained to be a lone wolf through the institutions that I was in, and when it’s unfavorable to to show other people your emotional vulnerability, that lone wolf train can only take you so far. and it took me to a place where my body was grinding down to a halt. It was grinding down to a halt, and so I took it as far as I could. I used all those things that were taught as a kid. Right. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. Right? Pain is the real gain push through everything. These limited mindsets that, look, I get it right.

[00:29:50] I come from a country of peasants

—

[00:29:50] Christopher Maher: I, I come from a country of peasants if, if we’re real honest, right? America’s made up of, of, of their ancestors come from countries where, they were at the bottom of the food chain. they had no choice, right? They had to grind it out every day just to be able to put some food on their plate, right?

And imagine an entire country, 350 million people of that stock. you come up with very limiting mindsets about reality because you don’t understand thriving mindsets because genetically and epigenetically, your predisposition is towards let’s just work harder. If we work harder and we give more, it’s all gonna work out.

And the truth is that’s not true. That’s not true at all. In fact, it’s a very limiting belief, right? It’s about understanding what you can manage. At a stress level. What’s actually correct for you as an individual rather than buying into fixed ideas and fixed principles. And so those fixed principles, they limited my ability to be successful in the places where I crave to experience success.

[00:31:04] Difference between stress management and stress resolution

—

[00:31:04] Tony Winyard: You mentioned there about stress. I’m wondering what is the difference between stress management and stress resolution? You, I heard you mention something along those lines when you were talking about stress.

[00:31:14] Christopher Maher: Okay, so there’s three lanes, right? The lane all the way to the left, which is the first lane, which is where I was at initially, was stress, ignorance.

I had no idea that there was, I remember in school them talking about eustress and distress, but I never actually applied it to myself. So, yeah, from a philosophical, uh, understanding, I understood there were these two versions of stress.

Yet beyond that, I was very ignorant. That’s where most humans are, right? They’re in the lane all the way to the left. Stress ignorance. The people who tune into you, are looking to find what I call positive stress management tools, right? So in stress management, there’s two lanes in stress management,

[00:32:00] Negative stress management tools

—

[00:32:00] Christopher Maher: there’s negative stress management tools, which would be nicotine, caffeine. Alcohol, refined sugars, pharmaceuticals, recreational drugs, and alcohol. Okay? Those are negative stress management tools. Now pile on excessive exercise, right? And, anything that’s too extreme is now a negative stress management tool, right? Dishonesty, negative stress management tool. Lying, negative stress management tool. Close-mindedness, negative stress management tool.

So not only does it affect you on a behavior level, it also affects you at a physiological, structural, and psychological and emotional level.

[00:32:46] Positive stress management tools

—

[00:32:46] Christopher Maher: So now if we shift into positive stress management tools, so if you follow what I was sharing with your listeners. I started out as stress ignorance. Then, I shifted into negative stress management tools. I took those as far as I could. And then I finally shifted into what are called positive stress management tools, right? A reduction in exercise, not excessive exercise, yoga, breath work, fasting detoxification, meditation. Now I’m using positive stress management tools. The challenge is this, is that positive stress management tools. They help you deal with what’s called your daily accumulated stress load, DASL right? They help you deal with that, but none of that addresses your lifetime accumulated stress. So lifetime accumulated stress is in the third lane, which is called stress resolution. And so what I have figured out and put together over the last 22 years is a system based on stress resolution, which means you can, I can anyone you know, can reduce their lifetime accumulated stress load and their daily stress load easily by 50%. And if you can reduce your lifetime accumulated stress load by 50%, you arrest the aging process. The aging process basically slows down. It stops, all right, so I will be 60 soon, all right? Most people see me in the street they would never know that. Okay, now, and I ran my engine hot. I ran my engine as hot as you can run without it completely blowing up. So when you’re using negative stress management tools, I get it, right. People are going to use what’s in their environment, right? And if you’re in stress ignorance, you’re definitely using negative stress management tools. But once you shift outta stress ignorance, and you’re in the know, now you start looking towards positive stress management tools. and then people get to a place of realizing this is great, yet this isn’t enough.

Because guess what? We live in a world that’s much more complex now. Right? Look at the internet, look at smartphones, look at computers. Look at how much time we spend on social media and communicating, connecting with people in that way, how much less face-to-face time that we have, exchanging ideas and love and affection and attention and connection with others.

All these factors add and make the stress load that we deal with on a daily basis much more complex and much higher. Right?

[00:35:32] Stress Resolution

—

[00:35:32] Christopher Maher: So now, Basically we have to move into stress resolution because the positive stress management tools aren’t enough to maintain a high state of homeostasis. And so stress management tools would be things like ma xing, ma xing is MA XING or ice-centric strength, or, using body of light, learning about transmutation and attunements, right?

Using, shaking medicine I call Sha King. And using your Bestercize right, bester size would be, what I would call the best form of exercise because best stands for Bio Energetic, Self Transformational sequences. Like when you see people that are struggling with unresolved stress loads, the most important thing for you to understand is they eventually end up in some level of pain.

They either end up in emotional pain, which would be identified as hopelessness or depression, repression, or borderline behaviors. Right? Or they end up in physical pain, right? So, their gallbladder contracts and gives them a shooting pain that goes around to the right side of their back, or they got kidney stones or they got neck pain, or they have these debilitating menstrual cramps, so they get headaches, right?

So these are all these physical physiological pains, but then people have psychological pain. Okay. And when people are dealing with psychological pain, what do they lean on? They lean on addictive substances, right? And then you have people who have spiritual pain. What’s spiritual pain? A massive reduction in your energy, right?

[00:37:13] Lifetime Accumulated Stress

—

[00:37:13] Christopher Maher: You’re showing up and you’re being unethical, immoral, undervalued by yourself, and you are being overly critical. Okay, so every one of, these symptoms that people deal with in the world is all led back to their lifetime accumulated stress load. And so now we’re at a place in the world where everyone has access to information. Information that 30 years ago they never could have had access to unless they grew up with a library card or they come from a well-to-do wealthy family cuz people who had money had access to things that poor people didn’t. , right? And now the average Joe has access to breath work. You can get on the internet, you can, you know, you can circulate the microcosmic orbit on a video, on YouTube with master chia.

Like there’s all, there’s, all of this is available if you’re willing to put the time, the energy, and the effort in. But for me, the most important thing is the education. Because as we educate people about lifetime accumulated stress and what is my lifetime accumulated stress. That’s your genetic and epigenetic predisposition.

Okay? Plus the environment that you were raised in, meaning your parents, inner deficiencies, insecurities fears, and limiting beliefs that they projected into the environment that you were raised in. Was your environment, was it nurturing or was it punishing? again, was your environment that you were raised in, was it nurturing or was it punishing?

And then you have your compounded, accumulated lifetime stress, right? That adds to that on a daily level. So what I mean by that is this. So on Monday when you go to sleep, if your sleep isn’t effective enough, the stress of Monday moves into Tuesday. On Tuesday night, if your stress was less efficient, meaning you rolled around, you woke up, you went to urinate once or twice or three times, you got ineffective sleep, guess what?

Monday and Tuesday stress load now moves into Wednesday. Add that up over 40 years, right? And of course, a guy suddenly is at work and he has a heart attack. Of course he had a heart attack because he kept carrying his stress. His unresolved lifetime accumulated stress from one years old, plus his compounded daily stress for 40 years into the next day, every single day.

Of course, he’s gonna manage his daily stress with alcohol. It’s gonna go home at night. He’s gonna have a shot of whiskey and a couple beers because he’s attempting to feel

[00:40:01] Tony Winyard: normal.

[00:40:02] Christopher Maher: Right. People wanna reprieve from their anxiety. People wanna reprieve from their anger. People wanna reprieve from their debilitating fear.

People wanna reprieve from their chaotic, self-righteous perspectives and positions that they’re taking over society, their family, the company that they work for, and the people that they care about. People wanna reprieve from those states. And so what you would call. the negative stress management tools run rapid in our society.

[00:40:34] Hormetic stress

—

[00:40:34] Tony Winyard: What are your thoughts on hormetic stress? You know, things such as extreme temperature, like ice baths and saunas and various other hormetic stress.

[00:40:47] Christopher Maher: So someone who put their nervous system in like a, a high state of homeostasis and balance, uh, If I go into those states for too long, I can feel how they pull me out of balance

now. When I was out of balance and I went into those states, they kind of helped me feel more balanced. But when you are balanced, anything that’s too extreme pulls you outta balance.

When you’re outta balance, anything that’s really extreme can actually put you back into balance. And so if ice baths and extreme temperatures in terms of heat make you feel a lot better, that’s an indication that you’re severely outta balance in terms of your nervous system.

[00:41:33] Temperatures

—

[00:41:33] Christopher Maher: What I mean by that is, Every temperature’s tied to an emotion, right? So warm would be attached to what? Emotion.

Love, right? Cool. Would be attached to what? Emotion. Confidence. Right? Hot would be attached to what? Emotion. Anger.

Cold would be attached to what? Emotion. Fear. Boiling would be attached to rage, and then freezing would be attached to fright, right? So temperature has effect on emotions. And so look is an ice bath or 40 minutes in the sauna, is that much better than a shot of whiskey? a thousand times, right? I say use what’s in your environment to do whatever you can to maintain a high state of homeostasis. But if you need those things in order to feel normal and to feel good, it’s telling you, you’re already out of balance, at an extreme level. Okay? So, if you don’t have someone like me in your life, you don’t have access to Ma Xing or Bestercize, or Icentric strength or Ma Xing or body of light.

These are stress resolution tools. Then you’ve gotta find positive stress management tools and those things would be considered positive stress management tools. But none of those things will actually solve. right? Or reduce your lifetime accumulated stress. You actually have to go into the body. You have to remove the massive amount of accumulated tension.

[00:43:17] Limiting beliefs

—

[00:43:17] Christopher Maher: Here’s a very interesting, strain, line of energy to follow, right? Limiting beliefs, okay? Manifest fear. Fear, right, creates stress. Stress manifests this tension. Tension creates physiological, psychological and structural distortion. High levels of distortion create intermittent or chronic states of pain. And so when you go back over that chain of thought, you go back and you go, oh my God.

You mean the limiting belief is the issue? Okay. So for people who have less limiting beliefs, they have lives where they’re in a more thriving state. People who have limiting beliefs have lives where they’re more in a survival based state. So the prudent thing to do would be to do what, right? What? What sits directly in the middle of the limiting belief and the intermittent or chronic pain, physical, physiological, structural, systemic, energetic, and structural tension.

That sits right in the middle. If you reduce this, guess what? On this side, the pain gets reduced. On the opposite side, the limiting belief gets reduced. So what’s the prudent thing to do? What’s the prudent thing to become, more flexible? Right. Because when I’m more flexible, I’m more adaptable to the environment that I’m in.

When I am less flexible, I’m more rigid. now, rather than being able to adapt, I have to over adjust. Every time I over adjust my personality in order to produce a result, I lose an aspect of myself. So over adjusting, pull that off the table, over adapting, pull that off the table, and do yourself a favor and figure out how to get access to Bestercize. Right. And fortunate for you and your people. I have a few of my practitioners that live in the uk. Right?

[00:45:30] What do you mean by balance?

—

[00:45:30] Tony Winyard: We’re gonna dig into a minute to how people can find out more about you and your practitioners and so on, you talked about balance just now, so, what do you mean by balance?

[00:45:38] Christopher Maher: Balance for me is, there’s emotional balance, okay? And that means that I’m in a state of supreme neutrality. I add nothing. I take nothing away. I simply see things for what they are. And when I’m in neutrality, that removes me from excessive self-judgment and judging others. It removes me from excessive self-criticism and criticizing others.

It removes me from excessive self disapproval. And disapproving of others, and it removes me from being in an overly moralizing position. Whenever I’m judging, I’m criticizing, I’m disapproving, and I’m trapped in an overly moralizing position. I’m circulating the energy of spiritual anger through my body, and I’m competing with God. Meaning I’m competing with reality. I’m competing with the universal intelligence. Whatever happened in that moment is what is what was meant to happen. So when I’m in, in a great state of neutrality, yeah, I might miss my flight, but I realize that there’s a purpose behind it. And instead of puking all over the people at the airport,

I simply take ownership for my action or inaction, and I move into the lane that’s gonna get me to where I need to go next with the most efficient amount of time, energy, resources, and kindness. When I’m out of, when I’m in a state of emotional balance, my heart closes, right? Because now I shift into. of fight or flight, I shift into the protective mode.

I shift directly into an inappropriate stress state. Ultimately, an inappropriate stress state does what? It disallows me to receive love from others and to give love to others. Right? Why are we here? Why am I here? From my perspective, why are we here? Why am I here to give and experience unconditional states of love?

That would be divine love. And so when I am out of balance emotionally, I’m locked into a protective mode. When I get locked into a protective mode, what am I gonna be looking for? Negative stress management tools. Refined white sugar, refined brown sugar. What else am I gonna look for? I’m gonna look for fermented sugar, alcohol.

I’m gonna look for nicotine or caffeine, and those substances. Give you a reprieve from your protective mode, but as soon as you come off the high that they provide for you, you actually have more anxiety and stress because all of those substances are what are called angiogenics, meaning they’re anxiety causing agents. So when I’m in a state of emotional balance, I am out of an anxious state. And in that state, I can provide more consistent, deep, rich states of love to those around me. And inspiration.

[00:48:55] Tao Te Ching

—

[00:48:55] Tony Winyard: When you were describing balance, I recognize a lot of that from the Dao and I know that you talked about the Universal Healing Dao system. Tell me more about that. What is the Universal Healing Dao system?

[00:49:09] Christopher Maher: So the Daoists were basically monks, that decided to move into the mountains and to study, the human relationship with, with the universe. And in that process of that study, they discovered very specific techniques of breath. Techniques of circulating energy techniques of emotionally of using a concept called the inner smile, right?

Smiling into your organs, projecting happiness into your liver, projecting happiness into your spleen, projecting happiness into your pancreas, projecting happiness into your colon, projecting happiness into your lungs and your heart, and your kidneys, and your thymus, and your appendix. And by doing so and using these techniques, They found that they were more energized, they were more present.

They experienced less sickness. They were more alive. They became more intelligent. And so all the systems within the Daoist Healing Practice is to teach the individual how to become self-sufficient. And how to maintain an appropriate state of balance and how to be of service to those around you, through the concept of moving through the world with a compassionate heart.

[00:50:27] Tony Winyard: We are at 50 minutes already, Chris, and there’s so much more I would love to dive into, but we are running out of time, so we maybe we’ll have to have another episode or something,

[00:50:36] Christopher Maher: We have to, we, I’m, I’m into it, dude. I, uh, love your vibe, man. You know, you’re just, you’re grounded, you’re present, you’re very open. You give a lot of space in order for me to share. What I’ve discovered, what I feel is important and what I understand, that could be useful to your listeners. And I, hope they got a lot out of this.

I got a lot out of this and I really appreciate you holding space here today.

[00:51:03] Tony Winyard: I’m sure people will have. So before we, we do finish, there’s a question I ask all of my guests, which is about a book that’s really moved you, does anything come to

[00:51:11] Christopher Maher: mind?

Yeah. You know, one of the books that first moved me was a book called Mutant Message Down Under.

[00:51:18] Tony Winyard: Okay.

Okay

[00:51:18] Christopher Maher: And, uh, it’s a wonderful story about a woman who lives United States and moves to Australia. I don’t want to tell any more than that, but she works with these aboriginal children who have been outcast in society, and she teaches them how to build window screens to keep the bugs out. And she’s gonna get recognition by an aboriginal tribe for the positive impact that she’s had on these children. And it’s her journey of understanding, the bigger picture and the ancient ways of the aboriginals. And it’s very powerful. It’s very moving. And you know, that was a book. allowed me to start thinking way outside of the box of what I was raised under, cuz I was raised under traditional, western medicine practices.

Right? And, uh, that book opened my eyes to a much more natural perspective of even understanding that things were possible in a way that I couldn’t imagine at that time. And that was a motivating factor. And I used to suggest that to everyone I ever met. You need to read this book.

[00:52:31] Tony Winyard: How long ago was it you first read

[00:52:32] Christopher Maher: that?

I read that book in 1998.

[00:52:36] Tony Winyard: So it’s quite a while.

[00:52:37] Christopher Maher: Yeah, so that’s quite a.

[00:52:39] Tony Winyard: Well, Chris, if people wanna find out more about you and, your website, social media, whatever, where would they go?

[00:52:45] Christopher Maher: Easily. If you’re gonna go, if you’re an Instagram person, you go to TBI Potential. If you’re into Facebook, you look for true body Intelligence. If you want to go to the net and go directly to my website, you go to truebodyintelligence.com. And then when you get to True Body Intelligence, if you wanna get ahold of me, the first thing you do is you email us at support@truebodyintelligence.com and then my assistant will send you a one sheet of the steps that you have to follow, the hoops you have to jump through, what’s required in order for us to get on the phone and have a conversation to see how I could help you. If you’re interested in that way. When you get to the website. For me, I think the most important thing when you get there, do do a little bit of reading. I have a bunch of other podcasts that I’ve been on in interviews that I’ve done with other people, but the most important thing really is to order the book.

My book is called Free For Life, a US Navy Seals Path to Inner Freedom and Outer Peace. And once you read the book, every chapter, the Here’s what I hear from the people who read the book to tell me, oh my God, I read your book. I couldn’t put it down. I didn’t eat that day. I didn’t sleep that night. They kept reading because it resonated with them, cuz I get real, I get super honest and I give you a profound education and today it’s a very powerful investment. So that’s my suggestion.

[00:54:14] Tony Winyard: I’m sure some will go and, explore and, and read the book. And just before we finish, Chris, is there a quotation that resonates with you for any reason.

[00:54:23] Christopher Maher: Yeah, yeah. There is. The one that comes across my mind again and again, and again and again is Mahatma Gandhi, be the change you wish to see in the world. And for me, the reason why that’s important is because I understand the concept of oneness. And what that means is all nervous systems vibrate to the highest functioning nervous system in the collective field.

If we brought a hundred clocks from all around your neighborhood into your apartment, within three days, all those clocks would be ticking to the same clock cuz they would’ve found the master clock. And so when you begin to master yourself, when you be, when you get into supreme alignment in your body, your brain, and your nervous system, you are changing the world.

By allowing others to orientate to that high state of function, that high state of neutrality that you’re in, which gives them direct access to inner peace, emotional groundedness, a quiet mind, and a comfortable body. So if I’m gonna spend my time, energy, and effort impacting the world, the prudent thing for me to do with my discoveries, is to put time, energy, and effort, and spend resources every week in aligning myself to a greater state of function, because that allows me to be the change that I wish to see.

[00:55:48] Tony Winyard: Chris. I love the quote and thank you for everything you’ve, shared with us. All the information, the knowledge, the wisdom. It’s been great. Thank you.

[00:55:56] Christopher Maher: Thank you. It’s been awesome. I, I love sharing, you know, I’m really good at. What I do is in terms of an inventor, an healer, but ultimately the thing that I’m the best at is teaching and inspiring. And so you’ve given me an opportunity to come here and educate and teach and inspire and hopefully, people will walk away and take a little bit of a risk, right, and to their benefit. And I would love that.

[00:56:20] Tony Winyard: Thank you. Cheers, Chris.

Next week is episode 99 of habits and health with Tom Glaser, who. Is a licensed psychologist and life coach with over 35 years of experience. He’s also a best selling author and yoga instructor. He has a book called Full Heart living- conversations with the happiest people. I know, which is sold really well on Amazon and whether counseling writing or teaching his passion for helping people to live their best lives is what he really enjoys. So that’s next week’s episode 99 with Tom Glaser. And again, if you know anyone who would get some value from the stress resolution techniques that Chris Maher talks about in this week’s episode, please do share the episode with them. And hope you have a fantastic week and a great start to 2023.