#074 You Are Not Your Diagnosis – Lyn Del Mastro-Thomson, MA, CBP

0 (1s):
Welcome to the Soul Science Nutrition Podcast, where you’ll discover that when it comes to your health, you’re so much more powerful than you’ve been led to believe. And now your host, she’s a holistic nutrition and lifestyle coach, chef author, and Yogi, Christine Okezie.

Christine Okezie (22s):
Hello and welcome to the Soul Science Nutrition Podcast. I’m Christine Okezie. Thanks so much for listening. One of my favorite quotes is by internationally known mind, body medicine, authority, John Kabat-Zinn, and he says, no one can listen to your body for you to grow and heal. You have to take responsibility for listening to it yourself. Well, that’s the Clarion call on this podcast and in the coaching work that I do, because I know that our bodies are magnificent, filled with so much intelligence and they’re constantly communicating with us now, learning to tune in and deeply listen is really the key to stepping into our full potential.

Christine Okezie (1m 7s):
When it comes to creating the health and wellbeing that we desire while today’s special guest shares the her compelling personal journey of learning this life-changing lesson and truth. She’s Lynn Del Mastro Thompson. She’s a holistic practitioner with training and somatic psychology, body talk, energy medicine, therapeutic, yoga, and hypnotherapy. She is a best-selling Amazon author of you are not your diagnosis. A book that offers people suffering with chronic health conditions, hope, understanding and strategies to step into a whole new level of empowerment in their own healing journey.

Christine Okezie (1m 48s):
I can’t wait for you to listen to this uplifting conversation filled with so much inspiration and wisdom. And if you do like the podcast, I’d be grateful if you could leave a rating and review on apple podcast. And if you haven’t already hit that subscribe button, please do so it helps me keep the podcast growing. Thanks so much for listening and enjoy the episode. Hi Lynn, welcome to the podcast. So great to have you here today.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (2m 15s):
Yeah, thank you for having me. Awesome.

Christine Okezie (2m 18s):
So I would love if we could just dive in and if you could take us back to that time in your life, when that healthy 25 year old back in 2004, when her life was turned upside down.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (2m 29s):
Yes, for sure. So when I was 25, I was in grad school. I was pursuing a PhD in history. And as you said, you know, I thought saw myself as a pretty healthy young woman. And that year, that summer I had scheduled elective surgery. And so again, it was elective. So we’re not talking about something where, you know, you’re sick. I was going to have a breast reduction and I get the phone call the night before the surgery that nobody wants to get. And the phone call kind of went to the effect of, Hey, I got your pre-op blood work said the surgeon and something doesn’t look quite right. And he said, you know, before you panic completely, I want you to just drive back over to the hospital and have them run the lab again, because you know, sometimes things happen.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (3m 16s):
Mistakes can be made. So we want to make sure that this is really true before we cancel your surgery. So rush over to the hospital, get a phone call. Maybe I know an hour later after that, after they run the labs. And he said, yeah, I’m really sorry. It’s not a lab error. I can’t do surgery something. And basically all he left me with was something looks really off with your blood work, go see your primary doctor. You know, probably thinking it’s not his place, you know, or his expertise to tell me anything. But it kind of leaves you, you know, at a late night phone call going, I don’t know what’s what does this mean? Like what does he mean by off? Yes.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (3m 56s):
Yes. So down the rabbit hole, I go and I think I got to see my primary doctor the next day we will, of course ran more tests, more blood work. And I think a day or two later, I get the phone call from a doctor who I’ve never even met, which is highly odd. Right. Whoever gets a phone call from the doctor, you don’t know that was first for me. And he said, Hey Lynn, how are you doing? And I’m like, other than panic, like some strange doctor is randomly calling me now I have good news. I’m okay. And he said, okay, well, if you don’t have any symptoms, come see me and meet me. I’m at the hospital tomorrow.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (4m 38s):
And if you have symptoms come to the hospital immediately. Oh my goodness. And I was so, you know, looking back on it now I was shell shocked. I never even asked like, Hey, what kind of symptoms are we talking about here? I was just like, yes, absolutely. So I, you know, I hung up and I spent a night of just like, kind of being in panic of like, what should I even be worried about here? Oh my goodness, no symptoms, come on. So it’s the next morning we go to the hospital, I meet that doctor. And then he sends in another doctor and it starts, you know, the, the process of trying to figure out what’s going on.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (5m 18s):
He said, well, we think from all of these labs that we’ve seen that you’ve caught it off to veins that drain your liver. And I go, that’s not good. And he said, of course, that shouldn’t happen. So we need to figure out how to get them open and why did this happen? And so he sent in a hematologist to try and figure out that aspect of like, why did I clot and more tests doing an ultrasound, you know, all these things to try and, you know, visualize the problem. And then we got to the point a couple of days in, at the hospital I was at, it was a smaller town in California in Santa Barbara. And so they said, you know, we know what the problem is, at least with the liver, but we’ve never done this procedure that they have to open up the veins.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (6m 4s):
So we’re going to send you somewhere else where they’ve done this before. And I said, good. I don’t want to be the first, you know, they transferred me up to a hospital in San Francisco and had a procedure to reopen the veins of my liver. And then more process of trying to figure out the blood issue. Cause they hadn’t really made the determination yet. Yes. So about, I think this is maybe about 10 days, two weeks into the process. We finally get the meeting with the head of my team and he said, you know, we think we have the diagnosis for you. And he declared that. He thought it was chronic myelogenous leukemia at that time.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (6m 50s):
And as you can imagine, hearing the word leukemia at 25, you’re like terrified, you know, what, what does this mean immediately? My brain raced to a whole bunch of things like, do I need chemo? What am I going to need a bone marrow transplant? Like all of the things that you’ve heard about leukemia, you think, you know, does that apply to me? Yes. And he said, no, you don’t need chemo. No, you don’t need a bone marrow transplant. You’re going to go on this medication. That’s only been around for a few years. It was called Gleevec and it’s supposed to target basically whatever the genetic mutation that causes CML. Okay. So, you know, reeling from that news, you know, and he said, okay, well probably tomorrow we’ll release you from the hospital.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (7m 34s):
I was like, well, that’s a good thing. You know, I can get to the home, but my whole life was like, you know, turned upside down and shaken a bunch of times. Okay.

Christine Okezie (7m 46s):
So then you proceeded to have, I guess, sort of monthly treatments or monthly follow-up appointments while you were on.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (7m 55s):
Yes. Yes. I know. You’ve read my stories. I went back to, you know, the doctor who originally had been part of my case and part of the short story, I didn’t kind of say, as I was introducing it, he did the initial bone marrow biopsy or he tried to, so I had to go back to this doctor who had basically tortured me and told me that, oh, I’ll, you’ll feel in, it’s just a little bit of pressure while we do this procedure. And I did not feel just a little bit of pressure, needless to say it was excruciating and, and quite, you know, I couldn’t tolerate it. He had to stop.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (8m 35s):
So I’m set back to this guy and he’s my doctor. And we go to these appointments. I spent more time in the waiting room than I spent with him, which I know is not uncommon, crazy. He would spend about five minutes with me. He’d look at whatever labs he had had drawn. And he would say over probably after a few months, you know, oh, it looks like things are getting better. Like, it looks like this drug is working. And I started to actually like physically decline more. So it was this very strange experience of like, but you say I’m getting better, but actually like I, you know, started to turn into a human skeleton. Not because I wanted to, or was, you know, trying some fad diet because my body couldn’t maintain any weight.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (9m 20s):
And so when I would say to him, you know, Hey, Hey, you know, you say these labs are great, but I don’t feel well. Or when I would answer, like, how are you doing? And I’d say to him, I don’t feel well. He would go, well, you look great. And I was like, you’re lying to me. You know? Like when strangers on the street tell you, you don’t look good. You know, you’re in a bad, a bad way. Like don’t lie to someone and he would just write me off. And it was, it was three years of really dealing with him in that way. Not being heard, not being listened to trying to get actually a different specialist to see me because I was like, this guy is like, not listening.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (10m 1s):
I know this isn’t right. Couldn’t get a referral because of course, as we know, especially in the U S you got to get a referral for a specialist. In most cases, primary doctor had a high opinion of him. Cause they went to medical school together. It was like the best in town. And I’m like, this guy’s the best in town. We’re really screwed. Right.

Christine Okezie (10m 24s):
Ah, so frustrating. So hopeless. So negating, you know, of what was written, what you knew was going on with yourself,

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (10m 32s):
Right? Right. Yeah. I mean, when you look in the mirror and you don’t even really recognize herself anymore, because you’re just like skin and bones, you’re like, don’t tell me, I look healthy and I look good. Like listen to me and, and go, this is strange, you know, your labs look good, but your physical experience and you know, your body doesn’t look good. Like that, those two things do not add up. Right,

Christine Okezie (10m 56s):
Right, right. Treating a lab report versus treating the whole person slightly different.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (11m 2s):
Exactly. Yeah. I’m not a piece of paper that’s in front of you. That’s like, oh, this looks really good. He was more interested in the piece of paper. Then he was in the patient in front of him.

Christine Okezie (11m 14s):
So frustrating. Okay. Now what was the catalyst for you when you, you know, kind of hit a real dark spot here? I mean, three years of just invalidation, three years of, you know, physical, mental, emotional, you know, suffering, what was the catalyst for you to finally sort of dive into your own healing process?

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (11m 32s):
Yeah. So I actually had a huge other tragedy that happened about a year and a half later into this whole journey with my health and my best friend actually passed away very suddenly. She actually ironically or not. So ironically died of a blood clot after having her tonsils removed. So it hits so close to home. We were the same age, born 18 days apart. And you know, that was kind of the, like I knew, I think going through the treatment, like, yes, I can die. Like I kind of got that on one level, but then when you lose somebody, who’s your peer of a blood clot, you can kind of go, wow.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (12m 13s):
Like this is really real. This is scary.

Christine Okezie (12m 17s):
Frightening, frightening. You call it the cosmic two by four.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (12m 21s):
Yes. In the book I referred, you know, I kind of view them as two different ones. The first one getting sick, like wake up. And then the second one was almost like a second, like, okay. But you’re still doing all the things that made you miserable. You know, now, you know, her death was kind of like, well, are you going to keep living your life in this way that just, you know, denies what makes you happy or, or, you know, doing something that’s just pushing yourself down a path. You don’t want

Christine Okezie (12m 49s):
Say more about that.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (12m 51s):
Yeah. So I was in grad school, I was completely miserable. Like I was miserable probably from day one. And I spent kind of the first three years before I got sick, lying to myself about, you know, how it was supposed to be. And I was like, well, you know, you’re in grad school, it’s supposed to be hard. You’re supposed to be unhappy. You know, like all of these stupid, dumb beliefs that, you know, I don’t know where they came from, probably, you know, from some cultural conceptions about getting a PSE and you know, so every time my body tried to kind of give me some messages in that time period of, you know, Hey, you’re starting to get depression.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (13m 31s):
Hey, you’re, you’re dealing with anxiety. I’d be like, but it’s supposed to be that way. Like grad students, aren’t supposed to be happy. They’re not supposed to be relaxed and calm, like panic attacks. That that must be normal.

Christine Okezie (13m 44s):
Yes. Yes. Oh my gosh. So are you S are you drawing a conclusion? You know, were you able to sort of connect the dots for yourself and re retrospectively, you know,

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (13m 53s):
I mean, I definitely think so. Yeah. I think, you know, in that denying of my own truth for, you know, three years and just kind of saying, oh, I’m just going to keep doing something I hate because I don’t know what I want and that the not knowing was scarier to me at that time than the known horrible. So by denying that truth over and over and over again, my body just kind of kept getting louder and louder and then finally, you know, screamed, or I got the two by four up the side of the head, like, okay, well, there’s no other way to get your attention when you’re choosing a life that is not for you. And do you want to die miserable or do you want to make a new decision?

Christine Okezie (14m 35s):
Wow. That is profound. What a profound, you know, awakening insight, you know, reflection there. Okay. And you go, and you go into your book, you found some really powerful healing modalities. You know, some that, you know, resonated with you going as far back to when you were much younger, but then you sort of really added on in your path, you know, share a little bit about that. So biofeedback, somatic psychology, et cetera.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (15m 1s):
Yeah. So kind of the beginning of the, the journey was just going back to something I had tried when I was a teenager, which was biofeedback when I used it as a teenager, it was for migraine headaches. And then when I started using it in this time period, it was more because I was so anxious. Like I just, you know, every day was, you know, my nervous system was overloaded and I thought, well, you know, it helped me back then. Like maybe it could help me now. And yeah, it was empowering because I started to realize even just through, you know, my breath, I could learn how to start to regulate my system instead of just being at the mercy of, you know, everything happening that I had no control over, I could start to control my body in a way.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (15m 48s):
And then that just kind of started opening the door. You know, I had a moment in that session with that practitioner. And I was like, when I get better, I think I know what I want to do. Maybe it out, like maybe I want to be like her and help. And so then I kind of was like, okay, I’m going to leap out of this, this grad school program that I’m in. That I hate that I was stuck in for health insurance at a certain point, because, you know, before we had kind of the, the system we have now, where you can make some transitions, I was really stocked. So I got a job and I said, okay, I’m gonna, I, I want to work with people, but I have a history degree.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (16m 28s):
Like, what does that qualify me for? You know, so I jumped into a master’s program and started studying something called somatic psychology, which is a mind, body approach to psychology if you’ve never heard the term somatic before. And so I started pursuing that, knowing that I didn’t want to become like a talk therapist. I was pretty clear that that wasn’t my path that I really first wanted to start doing biofeedback. Yes. And then in that window, kind of after my friend’s death, when I went to that dark place of depression, I started therapy at that time. And the therapist had sent me to this class that was called yoga for healing.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (17m 8s):
And I still remember when she first brought it up, thinking like, this lady is crazy. She wants me to go to a yoga class. Like, I’m like, I’m exhausted. Like it’s right. Cause I, we seen yoga before, like in a gym, you know, with people doing strenuous activity. And I was like, he’s not, it’s like, what do you want me to stand on my head?

Christine Okezie (17m 30s):
Yes, yes, yes. Okay. And it was not quite,

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (17m 34s):
It was not quite that it was very much, you know, being on the floor or using props and very gentle, you know, just gentle movement, supported practices and postures, a lot of kind of visualization and meditation and breath work. Yup. That was not what I expected, but it was exactly what I needed. Really

Christine Okezie (17m 54s):
Beautiful. Beautiful. Yes, absolutely. Okay. So you go into your book and you talk about these healing modalities, how they helped you in your journey to heal, and then obviously lit up a path for you to be of service to folks, you know, who are going through very similar experiences with the chronic illness and challenge. You talk about something called trauma diagnosis in your book. And, you know, I, I would love for you to just share a little bit about, that’s a great term. It’s a great, you know, area of discussion that you’ve shed some light on through your own experience.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (18m 28s):
Yeah. So I really view, you know, whenever we get any big news like that, a cancer diagnosis and auto-immune diagnosis, whatever it is, it’s trauma, you know, your life went from being one thing that you pictured, you know, you’re going down a path and you’re like pursuing it. Even if like, for me, I was not really happy in that path. And all of a sudden it’s like, oh no, you know, you’re not you anymore. You are, you know, that’s, my book is titled you are the diagnosis. Like people start seeing you a different way. You know, I, I felt like I became like Lynn, the girl with leukemia or Lynn and the cancer patient instead of, you know, people just seeing me for who I was in the way I was before.

Christine Okezie (19m 13s):
Yes, yes. And impacts how we relate to ourselves. And why is that so important in, in your, in your journey? Like what did you notice that, you know, how you relating to yourself around this diagnosis?

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (19m 27s):
Yeah. I mean, it felt like parts of me were just kind of lost or buried, you know, because every conversation like, I still remember, you know, my friends from grad school, the conversations were so different from, you know, we used to have shared interests or would be talking about something in the program. And then all of a sudden it was like, how are you doing? You know, how are you feeling? How’s your treatment going? Like everybody just kind of pivots to focusing on that thinking, you know, that they’re being supportive, which I, I believe they’re trying to be right. But at the same time, you know, for many people, especially, you know, if you’re introverted or a private person, it’s like having everybody know, you know, what’s happening in your health, history is kind of intense.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (20m 12s):
And maybe you want to talk about something else, you know, you don’t want to be like, oh yeah. I went to the doctor yesterday and he was a real jerk and he didn’t listen to me. You know, he wanted to just be like talking about something that you are happy about or, or something positive.

Christine Okezie (20m 26s):
Right. Right. And that really gets in the way, you know, I find, you know, and it can be something as serious as a cancer diagnosis or an autoimmune diagnosis, or it can be something, you know, in a little bit more, you know, wider on, on, on the spectrum of depression or anxiety, you know, instead of, you know, having anxiety, you become anxious, you know, instead of having symptoms of depression, I am depressed. Right. And I think you do a good job in the work that you do, you know, in inviting people to maybe even just be, come a little bit more aware of the power of their words, power of their self-identification when it comes to these things, these unwanted health issues, right?

Christine Okezie (21m 12s):
Yes.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (21m 13s):
Yeah. Because it’s so, and it’s so easy, you know, easy to fall into that trap. That’s something that we can just become, you know, the, the cancer patient or the depressed person and how we use our words about that. You know, there’s not even as I talk about in the book, there’s not even really good alternatives to not identifying with it without, you know, having like a sentence that reads like a paragraph, you know, I have been diagnosed with X, but you know, I’m choosing to heal my body. Like, how do you say, you know, like the truth that yes, you currently are, you know, addressing a health issue, but that’s not like I am, you know, or I have even have feels like it has that ownership of like, or it owns you either way.

Christine Okezie (21m 59s):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, no, it’s really, it’s. I think that’s a very important and fundamental step, you know, when it comes to understanding what’s going on in our bodies, you know, and, and, and the story that we ultimately get to tell about it is really important. It’s it can make or break, I think, the, the optimal healing and facilitate that healing process. Right.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (22m 22s):
Yeah. You know, we need to learn to take back our own power. I quote that stood out with me a couple years ago. Maybe it’s even like four years ago that I heard of like how, you know, a diagnosis is kind of the modern version of a voodoo curse, right? Like you hear someone say it in a white coat with authority and, you know, it’s like, okay, now this is like, this is your reality. It just kind of collapses everything into that. You know, that one possibility of, you know, you, you have cancer. Okay. I’m the cancer patient now, you know, I can’t heal because I’m still in that identity

Christine Okezie (23m 2s):
And you, and you mentioned the keyword there possibility. Right. And it’s that, that sense of possibility that can get shut down quite effectively, you know, depending on who you’re interacting with, you know, at that time, you know, of, of intervention, you talk about, you know, the, the power of a healthcare practitioner, providers, projections, and their beliefs. They become very much a hindrance to that sense of possibility. And that’s absolutely key, isn’t it? In terms of feeling empowered, feeling sovereign,

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (23m 35s):
Right. If they’re kind of going off of, oh, well, I’ve only seen people with this diagnosis have, you know, this trajectory and they’re kind of like, well, here you go. You’re going down this path. That’s not really a nice path. You know, it’s not, it’s, it’s kind of again, creating that reality and what they tell you about what’s possible to can really narrow your focus instead of saying, okay, well, I’ve been given this diagnosis, but, you know, are there people that have healed from this? Are there people that have recovered, what have they done, you know, have taken a pill and, and lived with it, or did they start to go outside of the bounds of that system and say, what else can I do

Christine Okezie (24m 16s):
The important question to begin with? So you found a system of healing known as BodyTalk and you’ve done, you know, it was kind of the evolutionary process. And you’ve, you’ve even, I think even in 2021, you’re now you integrated another modality. If I’m not mistaken hypnotherapy, which, but I’d love for you to talk to you again, I know it’s been an evolution similar to my journey. You know, they’re not discrete systems appealing. They really build on each other. And I want to just kind of honor that, that process for you. Tell us about body talk.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (24m 46s):
Yeah. So body talk is a, an energy medicine system. That’s really interested in the story behind the symptoms. So, you know, you go to the doctor and they’re really just focused on the symptoms and they want to give you a diagnosis in the label. And we’re more interested in like, well, why, like, why do you have these symptoms? What is the body trying to communicate to you? So if you think of, you know, the image of an iceberg, the part of the iceberg above is kind of like the symptoms. And it’s the small part, right? When the part that’s below you, you know, and it’s diverse too, right? You could take something as simple as someone getting a headache and you could say, well, why does this person have a headache?

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (25m 27s):
Well, there’s a whole bunch of possibilities, right? Maybe they’re eating something that they have a sensitivity to. And, you know, they don’t know that they’re dehydrated. Maybe they’re stressed out. Maybe they’re dealing with trauma. Like you could just, you know, that’s probably four or five things you could probably list at least 20 possibilities. Why, why does that person have a headache? And maybe it’s not just one thing, maybe it’s two or three that add up. So, you know, when we start to get curious about that, and we get curious about like, you know, what is the body trying to communicate through this? What’s the story behind it. That’s where the shift can start to happen because you know, I’ve used symptoms really as our body just trying to communicate with us.

Christine Okezie (26m 10s):
So what does a session look like? You’re a body talk practitioner. What’s a typical session. Someone who comes in and says, let’s just start with that. I have chronic migraines.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (26m 19s):
Yeah. So, you know, typical processes of course, to do a little bit of a, a consultation, kind of finding out a little bit about what they know about the, you know, their headaches. Like when did they come on, do they know anything about, you know, oh, if I eat this thing, it tends to trigger it. And if they don’t, that’s totally fine. You know, we’re just kind of starting from a little bit of a basis of information, kind of an intake. And then we go into the actual session and the session now I work fully, just remotely with people I used to do both in-person and distance. So, you know, the distance work is the person’s in their own space, usually in their own bed or on the couch, just relaxing.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (26m 59s):
And I get quiet and I’m kind of tuning in intuitively to the story. So it’s a, we call it structured intuition. So there’s, there’s like a protocol chart, which is, I also like to call it a roadmap because it’s a nice analogy. And we’re kind of navigating that intuitively of like, you know, what area am I first drawn to when I’m looking at the story of migraine headaches? Oh, you know, here comes a food intolerance. Okay. And maybe it’s something they don’t even know because a lot of times we have sensitivities and intolerances and, you know, we don’t always know that they’re there. We just keep eating the thing and wondering why we don’t feel well.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (27m 39s):
So, you know, we’ll get to whatever the story is. Or maybe we’ll go to, you know, a traumatic event that happened to them at a certain age. And in that process, in the session, there’s different tools kind of built in to rebalance the body. So rebalancing the immune system so that, you know, say you’re allergic to dairy, like your body shouldn’t really have a strong reaction to dairy there’s reasons. I think scientifically, you know, that we might not want to be big dairy eaters, but your, your immune system shouldn’t have kind of this innate freak out when it’s introduced to certain foods. So we can kind of rebalance the immune system. If it was a trauma there’s ways to actually very quickly release the emotional charge.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (28m 22s):
So it’s not like kind of a memory eraser, like you’ll still remember what happened to you at when, you know, when you were five or whatever, but he can think about it without feeling that emotional charge that you felt in the moment. And then getting really activated. It’s like, oh, now I just kind of remember that thing happened to me when I was five. And you might say, I remember I was sad or I was anxious, but you don’t feel that sadness and that anxiety in the moment when you recall it.

Christine Okezie (28m 49s):
Excellent. Okay, great. Yeah. It’s a lot of rewiring and reprogramming techniques that go into that.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (28m 56s):
Yes. Just kind of helping the body basically to heal itself. So we use a little bit of just gentle tapping. It’s a little different than EFT tapping. Most people kind of have that initial question of like tapping, oh, is that EFT? It’s, it’s a little bit different. And you know, sometimes there’s visualization or, you know, breathing or eye movement work for some of the trauma to help shift things.

Christine Okezie (29m 19s):
Nice. Interesting. It seems to pull from a lot of, you know, ancient wisdom and healing, you know, traditions, Chinese medicine, I R Veda some Eastern healing going on there. Yeah.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (29m 35s):
Yes. Yeah. The founder of BodyTalk was, is a doctor of Chinese medicine as well as an acupuncturist. So he kind of has this like bringing in, you know, east and west. And then I think he went on to study a lot of yoga traditions and, you know, bringing the, the beauty of the system in my mind is how it brings all these different healing systems together in a way that’s accessible instead of just saying, oh, well you need to go see, you know, an acupuncturist for that and this for that. And, you know, go to yoga for that, to work on your shock Rez. Like they’re all, they’re all related. And I’ll sometimes someone needs more from one system than another. So it allows the body to kind of drive the bus.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (30m 16s):
If you will, of like, what does it want? What lens does it want to see this issue through?

Christine Okezie (30m 22s):
Oh, well said, well said, thank you. Okay. Yeah. That’s wonderful. So listening to our bodies, you know, and learning to tune into, you know, this, this thing called body wisdom, you know, which, which I love, you know, to, to do as well. How do you help people in your practice befriend their bodies? When as you probably know, from experience, many folks have really felt betrayed by their bodies. Almost like their bodies are not their ally in their health. What are some, I guess, stress strategies. You help people who say, what do you mean? My I’ve been at war with my body forever. My body’s betraying.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (31m 1s):
Right? Yeah. I mean, one of the first strategies is just like to have some education around, like, you know, your symptoms really are just communication from your body. You know, my always, I always joke. It’s like would be more convenient if we got a phone call or a text message from our body, you know, like immediately knowing. But unfortunately our body doesn’t know how to do that.

Christine Okezie (31m 24s):
That’s great. That’s great.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (31m 27s):
You know, the more we understand that it’s not, you know, our bodies don’t want us to feel miserable. They don’t want us to be in pain or suffer, but sometimes it’s like, that’s the only way that they can be like, Hey, there’s a problem here, you know? And you don’t seem to be paying attention. So I’m going to give you this pain or this symptom that kind of makes you go, Hmm, what’s going on? Like, why do I always have a stomach ache? Or why do I always have a headache?

Christine Okezie (31m 52s):
Yes. Okay. And how do you help people to start to tune into that listening?

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (31m 59s):
Yeah. So I like to just kind of teach sometimes a process. That’s very simple where, you know, if you have a symptom kind of like in meditation, you get a little bit quiet, get yourself centered. So, you know, go to a quiet place, do some nice breathing, try to let your mind just get more present to, you know, your body and the internal rather than, oh, I’ve got to go pick up the kids at four o’clock for a year. You’re focused on your to-do list, which is easy to do. And then starting to just ask some gentle questions of whatever the symptom or whatever area you’re curious about. So asking things like, you know, what is it that you want me to know, say, you know, if you have the headache, like, what does my head want me to know?

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (32m 41s):
Or my brain, you know, whatever you feel like is kind of the center of the problem. What does it need from me? Wow. And doing that, you know, I was sharing with somebody yesterday. It’s not going to always be like a fast, like the first time you do it. If you’ve never done it before. And you’ve been saying, you know, my body’s betrayed me, blah, blah, blah, for months or years, you might not get anything profound. The first time you do it, you might, you know, but the more you do it kind of like a practice, like a meditation, the more than your body will start to open up and be like, oh, I guess she’s doing this every day. Maybe she does want to get to hear what I have to say.

Christine Okezie (33m 21s):
Wonderful. So it is a practice, right? It’s, it’s, it’s, there’s some consistency because it’s a skill that, you know, we, we need to hone or re reactivate. Right, right.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (33m 33s):
Yeah. I think probably, you know, if you think about children, in some ways they are much more in tune with their bodies and they’re like, oh, you know, I’m thirsty. I better go get some water. And we’re like, why do I have a headache? Maybe I need a glass of water. Yeah.

Christine Okezie (33m 49s):
That’s awesome. Yes. No great analogy for sure. In these days, you know, as we get older and older and busier and busier in this modern living, we live above the neck. As I like to say, really, it’s this disconnection, that’s, that’s a real problem. Cause it gets us off track. And as you said, you know, there’s a lot of information being provided all the time. So yes, it’s very useful. Yes. Maybe there’s a, so we talked a little bit about some conditions, but I’d love, maybe there’s a success story, a client’s sex story that maybe resonates or really touched your heart around the work that you do that you’d love to share.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (34m 23s):
Yeah, for sure. So one client and she and I are kind of still in contact. We kind of became friendly over time, working together. She came to me and she had an auto-immune disease. I’d never heard of one that actually attacked the brain. And when I found out how many medications she was on, it was probably about two and a half pages typed up on a computer. So a lot of medications and she also had like a seizure disorder as well. So she was taking some things know for that. And when we finished, I think she was only on her seizure medication and maybe one other medication, you know? And she worked with a doctor.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (35m 4s):
I always like to say, you know, I’m not taking people off of medications. I, you know, worked supporting the body and healing and then, you know, they can work with a doctor to say, okay, like, I don’t feel like I really need this anymore. Can we maybe try going off of it? Cause that’s not my scope of practice to absolutely take people off of medications, but it’s, it’s amazing to see, you know, and, and she still, when we’ve been in touch, it’s probably been at least two years now. She says, I’m still in remission from this auto-immune disease. You know, I, I feel like you are one that helped me get to that remission state and you know, maintain it. And she still uses all.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (35m 44s):
Cause I like to teach people a lot of tools as well, you know, for home care because it’s about empowerment too. Right. I don’t want people to always be dependent on me or other practitioners. It’s like, what can you do for you?

Christine Okezie (35m 56s):
It’s all about that. Yes. You know, that toolkit, right. You know, more options, you know, on the menu to, to work with what the body’s telling them. I love that. Yeah, exactly.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (36m 6s):
Exactly. So she uses her tools still and it’s just amazing to see.

Christine Okezie (36m 11s):
Yeah. And what a different approach. Right. The idea is, you know, when we know how the body works, to your point, we begin with education. That’s always a really useful entry point to understanding exactly what is the design of the mind and the body and the emotions and how does that work, right? Yes. And then we get, we are able to, you know, equip folks with different resources, different techniques, strategies. Well, that’s just a game changer, isn’t it? You know, for going forward, right?

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (36m 41s):
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I actually had another client who, it was very interesting cause she ended up in the same hospital I had been in and it was like, what are the odds? You know, she was a young young woman and you know, a little younger than I was when she got sick. And she has gone on now to just step into doing healing work and learning to do EFT and just like seeing that. But you know, just knowing that she was empowered through her healing rather than like, like I felt like I became, instead of just, you know, dependent on someone to, you know, I, I had one person that I was like, oh, you’re not the right client for me because she said, I just want to lay on your table. That was when I was still seeing people in person.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (37m 22s):
And I just want you to fix me because I want it to just feel good. And I’m like, God, that’s not, what’s really happening here. I’m not fixing anyone. I’m helping your body to heal and helping you to be in power to heal.

Christine Okezie (37m 35s):
Thank you. Absolutely. And you bring up a really beautiful, you know, realization around, you know, body talk and body wisdom, right. Is that all our symptoms, all our health challenges, unwanted, you know, health conditions at the end of the day, they are opportunities to heal and to heal deeper and to go deeper and to evolve deeper. I mean, in your, in our journey.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (38m 2s):
Yes. For sure. I mean, I am definitely not the same person. I was at 25. And if that hadn’t have happened, I don’t know, you know, you never know where you would be, but it definitely catalyzed something in an evolution. And you know, when things happen when other things arise or something comes back up that you think, oh, you know, I thought I addressed that and it was gone, oh, here it is. Again, it’s five years later. It’s like, maybe it’s an opportunity to heal at a deeper level. Like I had a colleague who talked about healing being kind of like a spiral. And so you’re at the same place, but you’re deeper within the spiral, you know? So it’s not like, oh, I failed and I’m back to square one.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (38m 43s):
It’s like, you’re, you’re deeper in that layer of the healing.

Christine Okezie (38m 47s):
Thank you. That’s I love that analogy. That’s really brilliant. And I think that’s such a, another kind of really important point because some of us can get into that blame thing, especially in the wellness space, I’m using wellness in air quotes because you know, we talk about, well, I’m just going to doing everything I can and want optimal health, optimal health. And then I get sick. I get this diagnosis. Oh, I must’ve failed. Right. This is there’s some, you know, oh, wow. I really didn’t meet the mark. Oh, I should have done more. And we tell a story that doesn’t exactly, you know, facilitate anything in that regard. Right.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (39m 21s):
I think positive or sometimes even in the work of, you know, law of attraction, it’s like, oh, well then you manifested that into your life. You were

Christine Okezie (39m 29s):
So negative.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (39m 30s):
Like I don’t, I mean, I do believe, you know, to some degree in law of attraction, but I can see how some people use it in a way that can be very disempowering and blaming to people. You know, you created this for yourself instead of, you know, maybe that was just something that was going to happen and maybe it’s for their own journey and their evolution rather than

Christine Okezie (39m 54s):
That’s right. That’s right. So, Lynn, what does your self care look like these days? I like to ask folks, you know, who’ve been on incredible journeys, like your own, what are your non-negotiables? You know,

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (40m 5s):
Non-negotiables definitely exercise to start the day, most days, you know, like at least I aim for six days a week to have some movement in my body. And also usually some sort of meditation or doing some sort of hypnosis work to really do a little bit of, you know, internal, quiet time for my mind to really connect also to more of the, you know, the spirit and the higher consciousness aspects. Those are kind of my two must haves to start my day.

Christine Okezie (40m 40s):
Yes. Beautiful. And I’d just love for you to share why are they non-negotiable

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (40m 45s):
I noticed such a difference if I do them and I, and I don’t do them, especially like the exercise has always been sort of the easier one for me to stay consistent with. And the meditation one is it’s interesting how it kind of comes and goes then for awhile, I had a story about, oh, it was so consistent before I met my husband and he moved in and then I didn’t have my own space anymore, which is a ridiculous story. Like why, why do you need to live alone to meditate?

Christine Okezie (41m 14s):
Oh, brilliant. Thank you. That’s awesome. Okay. And you know, I have to ask you, you’ve said quite a, you’ve shared quite a bit about, you know, the, the limitations of our op our modern Western system, you know, but at the end of the day, if you could change one thing about our current healthcare, what would that be like in your world and Lynn’s world? What does healthcare look like

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (41m 39s):
In my world? It’s about empowering people to understand. We have a lot more control than that system leads us to believe I’m super big in geeking, out on things like epigenetics and how we can actually control when genes are turning on and off by the choices we make. You know, it’s not necessarily, you’re sitting in some crazy meditation and you’re manipulating your genes, but, you know, choosing what you eat choosing, if you move your body or you don’t choosing products that don’t have as much toxin, you know, burden that is being put on your body, all of those things can empower you to take charge of your health. Whereas, you know, the Western system just wants to say, oh, it’s your, you know, it’s your genes.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (42m 21s):
You can’t do anything.

Christine Okezie (42m 22s):
It’s part of aging. Exactly.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (42m 24s):
Or, oh, too bad cancer runs in your family. Hope you don’t get it.

Christine Okezie (42m 28s):
That’s right. That’s right. Awesome. I love it. Okay. And if I could ask you what’s then maybe this is a similar question. You know, what keeps you inspired in these very challenging times?

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (42m 40s):
I think knowing that, you know, as some of our systems are being challenged, there’s also the possibility for evolution right now. More people are waking up to, oh, Hey, this isn’t the only way, like maybe there’s other people out there that can help me, or maybe I don’t want to just be told, you know, this is how you take care of your health in a one size fits all way. You know, what can I do to empower myself and, you know, use the time, like, you know, if you’re stuck at home, well, you can still find ways to exercise. You can still meditate. You can still do things to reduce your stress.

Christine Okezie (43m 17s):
Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s great. Yeah. There’s definitely a grand invitation and I think people are at an accelerated pace, you know, unprecedented, accelerated pace, waking up, you know, to wanting more knowing there’s more. And we certainly have leveled the playing field information-wise, you know, in terms of having access to all this wonderful knowledge and wisdom, right. With folks like yourself, is there anything else Lynn, maybe that I didn’t know enough to ask that you’d like to share with our listeners?

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (43m 47s):
I don’t think so. I think you did a great job of asking the questions, having read the book, I’m sure helps guide to give a deeper insight into where you wanted to guide things.

Christine Okezie (43m 57s):
Awesome. Great. Well, we’ll make sure to put all that information and other, is there any things best special, maybe you want to call attention on your website too, that you know, folks can get an idea to opportunity to work with you to learn more about your, your services.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (44m 12s):
Yeah, definitely. So I offer a, both a free consultation. If you just have some questions and you want to chat right now, I also offer an introductory session at a special price point. So I typically don’t do just one off sessions, but I, because most people have no idea what body talk is and how I work sometimes. Nice to be able to dip your toe in and not go, oh, I have to commit to, you know, months of working together without any clue of what I’m going to experience this.

Christine Okezie (44m 41s):
Excellent. Well, I’ll make sure to clear all those links in the show notes and thank you so much for your time. Thank you for being the light and the healing force you are in the world. It’s been wonderful to have you on the show.

Lyn Del Mastro Thomson (44m 52s):
Well, thank you so much for having me.

Christine Okezie (44m 54s):
Okay. Take care.