The Beauty of Breathing by Airway Circle

49. The Currency of Appreciation with Caleb Davis

Renata Nehme, RDH, BSDH, COM® Season 1 Episode 5

Introducing Caleb Davis, the soothing touch behind the mic and your go-to Licensed Massage Therapist. With hands that work magic and a heart that's dedicated to wellness, Caleb is here to guide you through the world of relaxation and rejuvenation.

But Caleb's expertise goes beyond just the physical. With a deep understanding of anatomy, physiology, and the mind-body connection, he's able to offer insights that go straight to the core of your well-being. Whether you're looking to unwind after a long day or seeking relief from chronic pain, Caleb is here to help you find balance and harmony in both body and spirit.

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ABOUT OUR HOST:

Renata Nehme RDH, BSDH, COM® has been a Registered Dental Hygienist since 2010. In 2016, when she was introduced to the world of "Myofunctional Therapy" she immediately knew that was her calling, especially when she learned that it encapsulated many of her passions- breastfeeding, the import of early childhood development, and airway health.

In 2021 Renata founded Airway Circle with the intention of creating a collaborative and multidisciplinary group of like-minded health professionals who share the same passion for learning and giving in the dental health and airway space.

Myo Moves - Become a Patient: www.myo-moves.com


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At Airway Circle we offer a safe and supportive space for like-minded professionals to connect, collaborate and share information regarding airway-related issues and whole-body health.

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Speaker 1:

Hello, hello everybody, Welcome to the Beauty of Breathing podcast recording. I have my friend and colleague, Caleb Davis here with us today. Hey, Caleb.

Speaker 2:

Hello all.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for being with us today. Can you introduce yourself to our audience? Please Let everybody know where you live.

Speaker 2:

Sure. So my name is Caleb Caleb and I am an orthopedic massage therapist in the Savannah area. I'm currently practicing at Rise Health and Wellness here in Richmond Hill. Ultimately, I started right around 2011 doing the massage therapy. I was trained somewhat in physical therapy prior to that and I have been ever since chasing the point where all of it intersects the Western medicine with the Eastern medicine and how they can come together into one harmonious point. And so this is where I'm at now, as I have left the mainstream Western medical practice and have shifted now into this holistic, cash-based medical practice here at Rise. And I've been finding that, as I've been unfettered from the insurance model and given freedom to practice my art, that this other side, this more emotional, spiritual, energetic side of healing and the human, is beginning to become all the more apparent and unavoidable within treatment.

Speaker 1:

What made you start looking outside of your training for answers?

Speaker 2:

A perfectionist. At the end of the day, what I care about is, I guess, in the grand scheme of things, I want to leave the world with the biggest and best impact that I possibly can. And that trickles all the way down to every single moment, everything that I do, the words I speak. And so, as a practitioner, when I'm working with a patient, whatever obstacles that they have, whatever injuries or ailments, my goal has always been to not just make it better, but to make it the best I possibly can, has always been to not just make it better, but to make it the best I possibly can. And in doing so, every time that I have a new complication arise, it becomes I wouldn't say an obsession, but a passion of mine to dig deeper and to see well, what else can we do, what's another way? And even if something is working, can I do it more effectively? And so that's just kind of driven me into this point to explore the things that, more often than not, that's not what we're taught in school.

Speaker 1:

A hundred percent and I think that healthcare professionals who are working, you know, so closely with patients, especially this, manual therapies. There are just so many other things that we lack in our training that whenever we go into this world, we go wow. You know, it's not only about, um, the, the physical and the mechanical changes of things. There is so much about our physiology and what can change our physiology. Um, and you know, a lot of people are stuck in these emotions and the emotions by themselves kind of prevent you from getting help, prevent you from getting better. Have you encountered anything like that with some of your patients that they have tried everything and nothing works but it's because they are not open to change?

Speaker 2:

so at the end, really one of the biggest pivotal moments has been right towards the edge of my physical therapy career. I had begun to recognize and a lot of it was coming in with reading into the concepts of breathing and how it affects our emotional state and the autonomic nervous system and all these things that we don't directly control begun to recognize more and more that there seems to be this emotional component to pain and to injuries, and so what has begun to naturally just present itself is a lot of these complications that aren't getting ready, are getting better immediately or relatively quickly. There's oftentimes an unrecognized and unaddressed emotional component, and so what's begun to be all the more apparent in each and every single session that I have with patients is this complete incapability to separate the physical from the emotional. And so we have a lot of times, if you look at the research now, they're even showing that low back pain, chronic low back pain, is not really effectively treated if you're not also treating something, say, like cognitive behavioral therapy or some kind of emotional involvement.

Speaker 2:

And so traditional medications and physical therapy, even massage and stuff like that, it doesn't necessarily address a lot of those root causes. But once you begin to bring in the emotional component, we recognize that a lot of our physical issues are actually manifestations of an internal struggle. We begin to kind of tap into some of the root cause issues and as much as I love to nerd out to the physiology and to the kinesiology of how things work, at the end of the day they can't always explain this root issue. And so diving into the emotional self and recognizing that primarily, our spines are literally a physical manifestation of our internal state, and you can think of people say, if you've ever, if you ask someone, what do you think of when you think of a happy dog, what do you see?

Speaker 2:

You see their tail wagging or when they're scared, tail tucks right, or if you think of someone who just won some kind of major award, how do you see them standing there All in a wreck? And how about if they've just been defeated or lost something that they love? They're down and defeated, and even beyond that, when's the last time you met someone like this? I'm depressed, or whatever it might be. And so what it's really come into is this unavoidable truth that our spines and our physical state are directly intertwined with, and arguably even created by, our internal state.

Speaker 1:

You know I absolutely love this talk. I can literally listen to you all day and I know that our listeners have so many questions. We are live, so you guys are welcome to send us some questions on the comments or on Instagram. I'm checking all of them as we go. We see so many patients, guys that try everything. I had a patient recently that you know has tried getting rid of mold, has tried acupuncture, has tried, my goodness, lyme disease treatment, all of these things gut health and it's just. They can never feel better.

Speaker 1:

And I am going to bring the Bible into this. You guys know my beliefs and I'm not trying to change anybody's beliefs here, but before Jesus cured anybody, he asked them do you want to be cured? Are you ready? So I do believe that people internally, they really have to want this, and I'm not talking about any patients, obviously, but there are so many people out there that are addicted to their problems. They're addicted to their issues.

Speaker 1:

It's easy to use it as an excuse because they get attention. You know and I'm not saying that people do this on purpose we are all flawed individuals, we are all broken, full of trauma from our past and our childhood, and these are just some coping mechanisms that people have and whenever you did not have any attention, whenever you're young and all of a sudden you got a condition and people are giving you attention. Subconsciously, you know you kind of want that attention. You know you don't want to be sick, of course, but there is that component that you really have to want to change and we see people try everything and nothing works. So if there's anybody out there listening and they might know somebody who is like that, what's the first step that you recommend, caleb? What should they look at? Because there's so many therapies out there, there are so many approaches. What are one of the first things that you recommend to somebody who has tried several different treatments and they are not finding good results with any of them?

Speaker 2:

That's a broad, broad reach.

Speaker 1:

I know, not specifically about a case, but is there something that you recommend?

Speaker 2:

Right? Well, that's exactly it. So, kind of the title of this right is the currency of appreciation. And so what does that even mean? Right, so we've got, we get money. That's currency. We can buy things with money.

Speaker 2:

Well, mentally speaking, energetically speaking, we I believe the brain has an average of 120 bits per second of information that it can process. So what is that? That's kind of our mental currency, if you will. So if you've got, any given moment, 120 bits to give, at the end of the day, what we're looking at now is that we've got a capacity. Where are we going to direct our attention or what are we appreciating? And so, when it comes to health and wellness, one of the biggest, I believe, misunderstandings in modern health industry is that we have this tendency to think of the physician as somebody that you go to, someone that's got the white coat and the degree and the knowledge of the answers, where these are very important. Actually, I think the position is that which resides inside of the patient and the people who are wearing the white coats, the people who are performing the practices and even giving the medications. We are facilitators of health.

Speaker 1:

We're facilitators of healing, but the true healing, it only comes from within. And so you know.

Speaker 2:

There's even that, that ugly word placebo. What does that even mean? It's this, this trying to invalidate your own innate capacity to heal.

Speaker 1:

I never thought about that. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly so we're. We're being conditioned into the state of dependence in modern medicine where you get to be on this more often than not. It's not about how do we get you off of it, it's here's your symptom and here's how you stay on it. And so the first line of defense when it comes to healing, I believe, is to learn to listen to your pain and not just feel it, to not ignore it, to not run from it, to not hide from it, but to recognize that your pain. It's the most ancient of languages. All of life shares this archaic language of pain, and so even plants now know they create subsonic clicking noises based off of how they're being damaged, to communicate threat to the surrounding plants. And so here we have, deep inside of us, this ancient wisdom that is the communication of pain. And if we can learn to listen to the pain, we get to this point now where we can begin to navigate the waters of healing and so say you've got back pain right. That's an easy thing to talk about. If you really begin to listen, you figure out well, when I do this, it hurts. When I do that, it hurts. Well, if you play with it, what if I do the opposite of that, is that better? And then you begin to whittle yourself into this point of finding that center of healing.

Speaker 2:

And from there, if you're really listening to your pain and you're really acknowledging the concept of the physicians inside of you, now when you're putting your eyes externally and you're looking for the people that do perform the treatment, you kind of have a bit more of an attuned ear. You can find the people. I don't, I don't, it could be your plumber. You know he's. He's been betting over a lot, treating a lot of pipes and everything. He probably knows a thing or two about back pain and guess what? He might be able to speak to your inner physician and say, hey, guess what, I put my leg up in this one way and I did this thing and it treated my back pain. That might answer to your problems. And so when it comes into the treatment realm, coming to licensed or just general practitioners, I think the real key is to find and pursue the practitioners that empower you, that gives the control to you as the patient, as the actual healer.

Speaker 1:

I absolutely love that. So why did you come up with this term? The currency of appreciation?

Speaker 2:

I had heard a good number of years ago, someone some talk maybe it was a TED talk, I don't know. They were talking about how we have 120 bits of processing power per second, and that's just really stuck with me. Because I'm analytical, I like to have divisible, dividable, understandable concepts and measurements. And so when I think of this reality that we've got a limited capacity, if we have an actual measurement, like a clear number, it's not just some fickle oh my thoughts or oh I'm thinking about. No, you, literally, you got to know. Now, this is divisible.

Speaker 2:

So how much of your energy are you inputting into X, Y or Z? And so you can go into your pain? Right, For those of us that are in chronic pain or severe pain, that really takes up a lot of your capacity to appreciate. And so here's an opportunity right, You've got this pain and it's distracting you from everything else you could possibly imagine your relationships, your work, your productivity, everything is diminishing as a result of this pain drawing your appreciation. And so here's the option, here's the question Do you cover it up, Do you ignore it?

Speaker 2:

Or, again, do you recognize that that pain is a message, that if you can interpret that message, it can lead you not only to a place where you've got less pain, but you're actually in a better center, because the meaning of the pain is that you're off center right. So how can you interpret that message of pain to bring you better to the back, to the more centered you, and in doing so, how does that amplify your capacity to affect not only your own life but the world around you? What can you learn from your pain and how can you bring that blessing to those around you? I kind of believe that pain is actually a measurement of hope or opportunity because, it's evidence that there's room for better.

Speaker 1:

What are some things that can take people out of their centered? What are?

Speaker 2:

some things that can take people out of their center. Thank you for the clues. Well, you got injury. Of course, anything can happen, any kind of sudden impact, but really for most of us, more often than not, a lot of our pains whether it's physical, emotional, spiritual, it's hunger, pain, pain can come in many different states.

Speaker 2:

Very often it's a small accumulation over time, and so what can distract us is oftentimes a lack of proper prioritization, right, and so we begin to get too focused on a screen, on social media, on pursuing the dollar or pursuing that weight loss, and I believe that as we begin to get sidetracked, we begin to give our appreciation to the wrong things. And if you want to take that into a quick scenario, this is a common one that we think about weight loss, right, a lot of people are thinking about I want to get this ideal image, get this weight off. It's a valuable thing to have an ideal body weight is better for your metabolism, and so on and so forth. But here's the question is that your goal, right? So what I ask patients is is it really that weight loss is your goal? Because if that is, you know where do you stop it and how do you keep it.

Speaker 2:

I think the goal should be to find love self. Because if you can ultimately pursue the love of self, if you think of your inner child and you pursue falling head over heels in love with that child that is inside of you, what's the side effect? The side effect is, well, I'm going to choose to eat things that are better for this child. I'm going to become more active, I'm going to be, I'm going to become more playful. I want this kid to become alive inside of me. So you're moving more, you're eating better, you're getting involved with the social environment around you. You're probably going to bed at a better time. And guess what happens over time? Now you're losing weight, not because that's your goal, but that's the side effect of love.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, this is so good. I saw somebody say something on Instagram yesterday, one of those reels, and it was talking about when God gives you a child and you know we cannot even measure the love that we have for our child but God also gave you yourself. So we should treat ourselves like we treat our children. You know we should care for ourselves like we care for our children. We need to put ourselves in the top priority and love this body and love this being unconditionally. And yes, what are some things that you would do if you loved yourself as much as you love others Sometimes?

Speaker 2:

you got to recognize this. This is a temple Right. And when Jesus was asked what is the greatest of the commandments, what was his answer? His answer was you can summarize all of them into this one concept to love god and then to love your neighbor as yourself. Well, who's your neighbor in that story? That's everybody. That includes your children. Your children are not you, they're not superior to you. They are your neighbor. You need to whatever. Whoever it is that you love the most in your life. You need to cross-check that. And are you giving yourself that much love, right?

Speaker 2:

I think we oftentimes get so afraid in our culture of oh, I don't want to be selfish and I don't really know if that's really in at least our culture. In our day and age, I don't think self-love is too abundant. I think it's an absence. And so again, the more you can love yourself, the more you can love source, the more you can love yourself, the more you can love source, the more you can love God, who is love and who just showers love into you. You have this infinite love to give out to those around you. It's not this zero-sum game concept, it's maybe an oversimplification, but if you genuinely love yourself as deeply as you would love your own child. What goes wrong?

Speaker 1:

self as deeply as you would love your own child. I mean what goes wrong? I think that a lot of times we feel so guilty about doing things for ourselves because God forbid I take care of myself when there are so many others, you know, that need care, and it can be so superficial, as much as getting a haircut, as much as wearing an outfit that makes you feel good. You know how many of us think twice about oh, no, no, I'm not going to do that, because it's not a special day. I'm not going to wear that, I'm not going to put, you know, makeup on in the morning and take care of myself. And you know, because it's whatever I'm home, who cares? Even if you're home, you know, take care of yourself because we only have one day. We only have one day. Tomorrow doesn't exist. You know, if you think about it, tomorrow never arrives. It's always today, right, it is always.

Speaker 2:

Right and that's one of the big questions in all of this as well is because here we're talking about loving self, we're talking about taking care of your temple and giving appreciation to the things that matter, recognizing that, if you really dig into the concept, what is the temple? The temple is, in essence, is where the Most High lives, so the Most High resides inside of this. So taking care of this is and not only taking care of this is important, but accentuating it is important. And so my wife we had a social event we were supposed to go to last week. We went to and leading up to it, she was like I got to find a dress, I got to get this dress and you know, I got to find something that makes me look pretty and it hit me. That's the lie, you are beautiful.

Speaker 2:

That's the lie. You are beautiful. What we wear and what we put on is only there to accentuate that which is already within you, and so it's just not a problem that we do things for ourselves, that you go to the spa, that you take that money out to go to the gym, that you find a dress that makes you feel the truth that you already are. It doesn't create a fake image. No, the real image is that you are beautiful, that you're worthy of being loved amen to that.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh. Um, what are some of your driving beliefs?

Speaker 2:

so, ultimately, I believe that if we are to love ourselves like our neighbor, that puts us all in the same plane, the same plane of value, right? That if we are to go to that Genesis account, right, we are created in Mago day it's Latin for in the image of God, right. And so when you look at somebody and maybe they're struggling for whatever reason, or maybe they've got a belief system that's different from yours, it doesn't take away from the reality that they are a reflection of the same creator. And so my goal in life is to not play the game of division, but instead to play the game of how do we come together, how do we merge and it doesn't mean that we have to all become alike or the same but how do we take this environment with a multitude of belief systems and appearances and how do we begin to function as a cohesive unit? And really and truly, it's in my line of work.

Speaker 2:

A lot of that boils down to addressing pain, right. And if you can dig into that emotional and spiritual side of pain, you begin to find that a lot of these people like maybe they get resentment, maybe someone did something wrong, or maybe they resent themselves for not making some kind of decision. What is resentment other than the guilt of, maybe, anger, right? And so the question is, what is the answer to guilt? And that's grace. So how do you give grace in any given moment?

Speaker 2:

And so that philosophy that the physician resides in each and every person that I see and that when they're in pain, that's an indication that they're not in touch with that physician, right? And so how do we interject love and grace into that situation of pain and disconnection, so that they can then begin to see, because you can look up there all day If you want to try to find God. The cosmos are wonderfully beautiful, but again you brought up the Bible. So what happened when Jesus ascended? The apostles all stood around. We're looking up, and then the angel came down and says no, no, no, no, he's not out there, he's here, right. So to keep your eyes on the prize of what's here right now. And so again, it's the occurrence of appreciation Find that physician that resides inside of you, that is holding that child that is you, and find how you can encourage the other children around you to come out and play.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I'm getting goosebumps just hearing all of this. You know, when the woman touched Jesus' clothes and she was scared why Jesus didn't do anything, it was because she believed. Oh, this is so powerful when you start thinking about it. She believed, she knew it.

Speaker 2:

Oh, my goodness, goodness, the capacity is already here what is it? The capacity is already here a hundred percent.

Speaker 1:

So it seems to me like you've been through a lot in your life to get to um, all of these, you know, knowledge and understanding uh, looking, you know, know, stepping out of our profession and who we are, to look at these things a little bit different. What are some of the struggles that you've been through that landed you here?

Speaker 2:

As a child, I grew up in a lot of solitude. Whether there was chaos in my immediate household or chaos when I would go to school, I oftentimes didn't fit in. I've had a tendency throughout my life to never really feel like I belonged anywhere. And so my faith actually it's a large bit of what grew that faith is it was the only thing that felt consistent, the only thing that felt like no matter what I belonged and that I mattered.

Speaker 2:

And you know, I went through many years of that growing and growing and growing in stature and we got to the point where I began to speak to people. I would travel to different churches and colleges and high schools and middle schools and I'd speak little sermons, if you will, about the reality of following what you believe. And before I knew it, suddenly, two weeks before we had our first child, I started having doubts and this is the one thing in my life that I never thought would be taken from me began to slip. Ever thought would be taken from me began to slip and I fell into disbelief and it was just utter, an absolute shock. Again, like I said I, everything in my life before was either an element of chaos or something that would be taken from me at some point in time, and so I didn't trust good, because I thought that good could never stay.

Speaker 2:

And so here I am now with the one and only thing that's ever stayed relevant and stayed within my reach. It's now vanishing. And so I went through a seven-year period without any direction, no spiritual anything. I didn't know what to believe, what to do, what to think, and then you get to this point, fast forward a handful of years, and some pretty incredible things happened, and we won't go into that. That'll take a long time to talk about. But, in short, I recognized that even in this day I still I struggle with belief and faith and what specifically to believe in and have faith in. But I I learned really two primary things, even though I didn't know what to believe, even though I didn't know, um, what to really specifically, what doctrine to put my faith in. No, there is this source, this god, that, and, and even if I didn't understand the totality of it, I put my trust in it and recognizing that that is almost like the core, the bedrock of the whole thing.

Speaker 2:

And so, when it comes to your personal healing, your back pain, neck pain, your numbness, your tingling, your, your chronic cough that's not going away, your sleep apnea, you know, you might not know what the right answer is, but you can trust that physician right, even if you can't put the name to it or the doctrine to it. If you give in to trust, you open the door for hope. And so when I fast forward through all of it, um, that was probably really been the primary struggle in my life is the loss of faith. And, and in the midst of that I've, you know, struggled um with work, trying to find relevance. Here I am doing alternative medicine, if you will, in a in an environment where people like to stick to traditional um, but the times are changing and I feel like there's a growing appreciation, the alternative ways and the fruits showing. I'm seeing life change, not just in my practice, but in practices such as yours as well, all around.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, 100%. It makes me so happy. Now, of course, covid was absolutely horrible, but I think that it really made people, um, you know, become their own advocates, start asking questions instead of just believing, um, you know everything that's told to them. And I feel like all of those. You know pandemic years, um, what was it? Three years, people really started um shifting. That's when the shift started to happen and people started searching for different things, understanding that there's so much more out there that we are not aware of. You know, in universities, in regular education, you know it's very black and white. They can't really go too much into all of these other things that you know that we're talking about here too. So I'm it makes me so happy that people are taking the stance and people are looking, and people are asking questions and they're searching, um. So what are some general um recommendations that you can give to some of our listeners, daily practices for them to do to increase their self-love and self-awareness?

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, non-coincidentally, it starts with breathing. That's the primary function of keeping this temple alive, you know, is every breath. And so shifting your appreciation to the value of your breath and not just the value of the breath itself but the quality of your breath right, and recognizing that, if you're, you might not even know it, but you might be hyperventilating a little bit and if you're doing that, you're offloading too much carbon, which means you're becoming out of the line to a non-good state, so you can start having numbness, tingling and pain and all these other issues. So just regulate your breathing, um, and if you begin to notice these emotional symptoms of anxiety and stress, again, redirect your appreciation to the breath it's the breath of life, you know and begin to work on learning. What does it mean to breathe with your diaphragm? What does it mean to slow your breath down, to take pauses, and that's something you can do.

Speaker 2:

When I was working in the hospital, there were patients that they couldn't even lift their head off of a pillow but for as long as they were conscious, I could take them through breathing exercises and you would see some changes in these patients that prior to having that concept of breathing brought, because it gives them a sense of some I've got control over this.

Speaker 2:

If nothing else, I can control my breath. And then the power of it is once you really begin to take advantage of that breathing, it begins to transform every aspect of you, from the metabolism of things to the chemistry of things, to just the way you feel and the way you can move. And then from there, as you begin to manifest a more balanced environment, from breathing right now, we can begin to move our bodies more as motion, as lotion, and the more that we move, ideally, the healthier our bodies are. If you look at the studies of the blue zones in the world, they've got two things in common it's movement and social connections, tight social connections. And so now you're able, you're breathing to, now you're moving right, and then, from moving, you can now begin to interact and move with those around you and you can begin to emphasize the width of life. And that's really one of the other most important things in all of this. We're not meant to do this in solitude, we're meant to be with one another.

Speaker 2:

And so, when you're in pain, when you're struggling, when you're doubting, whatever it might be, the biggest strength in humanity is to be with one another and to be vulnerable with one another. And so pursuing breath, pursuing movement, allowing that breathing and movement to then bring you around others, and then from there, you can just love yourself. Well, what does that mean? Start choosing maybe, diets you at the very least think are better for you, and not out of obligation, but out of love. It's a totally different thing. This is not guilt anymore, this is a pursuit of passion, and from that moment there's no real specific answers. It's pretty simple. It's take care of the temple with nutrients that you need, and breathe and move, and then you will likely find the direction into what you need to be doing next. It could be a particular exercise set. It could be any number of things, wow.

Speaker 1:

It could be any number of things. Wow, I want to. Actually, before we finish today, because we're getting to our time, I want to talk a little bit about what you do, because I've been to a massage therapist it's not the same thing. I've been to a chiropractor it's not the same thing. What exactly is orthopedic massage?

Speaker 2:

So, technically, orthopedic massage is actually my highest massage certification, through a man named James Wieslowski. He travels internationally teaching people in orthopedic massage and a significant bit of what I do has been influenced by that. And the mindset is it's almost like a hybrid between a massage therapist and a chiropractor. Massage therapists can't do fast maneuvers to manipulate joints. It's outside of our scope of practice. But there's this little gray area where we can the way I like to describe it, we can massage joints, and it's not about getting in there and rubbing it with your fingers, it's about intentionally and gracefully creating movement, where you actually massage the joint surfaces with the bones themselves, if you will. So that's a large bit of my foundation. And then I really have gone deep into the concept of neurology and even the psychological impacts of things and spiritual, the psychological impacts of things and spiritual. So it's this, it's this like funnel, if you will, of of everything you could possibly imagine, um, kind of funneling into this one product where, uh, it's kind of my, my biggest thing, that I want to restore motion and I want to increase that innate capacity for healing. And so what does that look like?

Speaker 2:

Someone comes in with pain. What's my goal? For one. I don't want to create more pain.

Speaker 2:

I believe that healing takes place in what's called the parasympathetic nervous state, or the rest and digest. So if what I do to listen to your pain and figure out what is your body telling me, what is it trying to ask for? And oftentimes it's as simple as if you can't bend forward and touch your toes, well, you might have one vertebrae that's been rotated forward a little bit too far. So now, when you bend because it's misaligned, it's now the surface are contacting. So what I do is like a seesaw I just gently apply pressure over here and make it even again and then call you to move. And what does that do? Not only now is your pain gone as you're moving because we've made an even spine, but we're actually reinstilling neurological trust. I don't like the word stretch.

Speaker 2:

The tendency is we like to think that we want to force change, but that's not really necessary. More often than not, you've either got something mechanically in the way that needs to be repositioned, or swelling that needs to go down, or you've got neurological distrust. So why, if we've got something mechanically in the way, or if we've got the nervous system fighting the movement, why do we think that forcing it is going to make it better. Instead, what do we reposition? How do we get rid of the inflammation? How do we regain neurological trust? And that alone, if you regain the trust of movement, your brain's going to allow those muscles, the tone, to drop down and for you to go further into the movement. And so the short of it is I'm a massage therapist that doesn't use lotion, rarely at all, typically fully clothed, and I'm trying to gently re-navigate the joints, the neurology and the muscles in your body to facilitate that movement that's necessary for health, and, in the process of doing so, talking about these deeper emotional, spiritual components to our pain and our limiting factors.

Speaker 1:

Where can people find one of you?

Speaker 2:

Right, so well, this is the question I'm considering actually creating a CEU course. I'm still refining my art and hopefully I will never stop. This is only something that will grow, and ideally this is something I can even teach spouses. A lot of what I do is actually really simple. It's just a simple gentle repositioning and then calling to movement. So it's less about finding what I can do specifically and going back to that original course where finding the practitioners that that put the power back to you and want to help you to navigate your own waters. You and want to help you to navigate your own waters. Um, orthopedic massage, if you want, you can go to um. I think it's called the center for pain management. Uh, with James Wazlowski, you can find people who have been trained in similar techniques. Um, that's probably going to be close, uh to to what I do. Um, but really, at the end of the day, the magic is in the patient, and so it's finding the people that enliven that capacity for your ability to heal.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh. Anything else you would like to share before we go?

Speaker 2:

You did bring up something, actually, because I believe in looking at the big picture as best we can. And you mentioned COVID a moment ago, um and when I say this, I usually say this with the intent of catching people off guard but I think 50 to a hundred years from now, we're going to look back and recognize that COVID was the best thing that's happened to us. At the end of the day, covid is the great till. What COVID did, wherever it came from, whoever's behind what or not, or not, I don't care about all that.

Speaker 2:

The truth is that what COVID did is that it came in as a till and it broke apart the hardened topsoil of an undeserved trust in all of our systems. And so now people put all their appreciation prior to COVID in all of our systems. And so now people put all their appreciation prior to COVID in all these systems that well, look at the trends Obesity was going, cardiovascular disease was going up, disease of consciousness has been on the rise. So is it really working? No, it's not been working.

Speaker 2:

What did COVID do? Well, it disrupted the flow of trust. And now, as the soil has been tilled by COVID right, we have the capacity now to redirect our appreciation what else might work. And, in the grand scheme of things, the way that I look at all of this is I believe that one of the most important things we can do is to have a philosophy that fuels optimism, and so, to me, if you look at the history of everything, as far back as you can go to the stars, or to our earth, or different civilizations every thing that is beautiful came first from something that was chaotic.

Speaker 2:

And it's almost as if pain and chaos is the birthing pain of beauty and somehow, in some miraculous way in the fabric of the universe is this pattern that's been woven. That beauty comes from chaos, and it only increases. It only increases. And so wherever you're at in your state of pain, whether it's physical or emotional or a combination thereof, or whatever it is I want to encourage you to really listen to that pain and really pay attention to all of history, not just the short-sighted history that the news media wants to tell you, but to really look at the grand scheme of things and see that it's through the pain that tomorrow's beauty arises.

Speaker 1:

Wow, seriously, guys, every single time I see Caleb, he blows my mind. I can literally listen to you all day, and every time I talk to you, it's something else, it's something new. So you never stop growing, and I'm so appreciative of that. You're always searching and you're always finding. So thank you, thank you. Thank you for sharing with all of us the beauty that rises inside of all of us. So, oh my goodness, guys, if you want to get in touch with Caleb, share with everybody, either email or website information or your Instagram.

Speaker 2:

So, depending on where things go, I may end up opening my own business. As of current, though, I am with Rise, and for the foreseeable future we'll be with Rise Health in Richmond Hill, georgia. Our phone number is 912-445-4950. Aside from that, if maybe this grows, if our number changes, I intend on keeping one primary email, so that's going to be Caleb Davis, spelled like my name there at the bottom, so it's CalebDavisWellness at gmailcom. And you can forward me questions and whatever it might be, we can go from there.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh. Thank you so much, everybody. If you have more questions, please get in touch with Caleb. I hope to see you soon. I got to come see you for a treatment.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for what you do, Renata. I appreciate it. Thank you for your time.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much. Everybody, have a wonderful day. Next week we're going to have another incredible speaker with us, another guest. So every Tuesday at noon, maya Moves goes live on Instagram, and then the following week this is posted on our podcast, the beauty of breathing. If you're not following us yet, please go right now to your podcast platform. It can be apple, it can be spotify. Follow our show, give us a review, uh, so we can help spread the word about all things breathing. Thank you so much, caleb thank you all right, bye-bye, bye.

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