066. Shake It Off: The Firefighter’s Way to Release Trauma [Part 2]

Can your body shake off trauma? Retired FDNY Captain Rob Cefoli returns to dive deep into the science and power of Trauma Release Exercises (TRE)—and how tremoring can help firefighters heal.

In this episode, we explore:

• How TRE taps into the body’s natural stress-release system
• The physical and emotional toll of the job
• Why “shaking” isn’t weakness—it’s recovery
• Teaching TRE to recruits, veterans, and skeptical crews
• How firefighters can reconnect with their emotions and improve long-term health

Whether you're new to TRE or ready to go deeper, this episode gives you real tools to feel better, move better, and stay in the fight longer.

Transcript

Rob: And you move up the chain, uh, quadriceps, uh, hip flexors, uh, posterior chain. And then we, we do like, we finish with a bri, uh, a bridge on the ground. And then we're in a position of rest, which is like a diamond shape. So you're on the ground for most session. After your warmups, and then there are interventions you do while you're tremoring.

So once you bring the tremor up out of the body, which is basically from the adductors, we use our adductors to stimulate a tremor with an isometric hole. You are, you're connecting to that mechanism. Once you've got it, you can manipulate your body around to try to transfer that tremor around the body.

And what we found as firefighters, that most of our attention is locked in our hips, in our pelvic region, our uh, region. And for us, we have a, like a 50 50 foot rope that we sit on in our right hip. And all our backs are jerked up. Like, because you're sitting like this in the rig and you're carrying this extra weight on, on one side, so your, your gate's a little outta whack.

Everything tightens up. So, uh, you know, we have like the belt. So everything's tight around here anyway, so I think that has a lot to do with what we see in our bodies. So a lot of our firefighters, they'll shake, but they won't get it past their hips. Like it won't travel past. So we look at like, the path of least resistance.

So when it hits resistance, it's gonna kind of stay there and, and tremor and try to relax that area. So then that layer is kind of lifted. So we're packing like an onion events, uh, worry, uh, stress arguments, and it's just compacting, right? Think about that. Just layer on, layer on layer. This mechanism from the inside out is gonna help to kind of shake out the, the shit you see to shake out the shit really.

So layer by layer and then all, sometimes you'll have like a, a huge like release like I had, so when I was training with Dr. Belli, you know, I'll leave from the front. I'll be the first guy on the ground with him. I'm no, I'm no, uh, pussy. I'm gonna shake the shit outta me, right? And I'm gonna, I want, I want as much.

And again, you can't think that, that now, it's not no session's, better or worse, it's just what your body needs at the time. But when I was going through the training, I'm like, I'm gonna really shake today, like I'm really gonna get it. You're like,

TJ: shake the most out of everyone.

Rob: yes.

TJ: gonna show them that I can shake.

Rob: that's, that's what we do. Like I'll show these guys I'm wanna do better, I'm gonna do better than everyone.

But it's not like that. Your body knows what it needs at the time. So for a few months I was getting relatively minor tremors. I was getting it in my legs and my hips, and a lot of people experienced this, especially when they first start TRE. They're not gonna be fully connected in their body or relaxed enough to let it happen. Very important.

TJ: So it's gotta come from within,

Rob: yeah. Well, we control chaos, We are control force. The first thing we do with every single, I'm telling you right now, tj, every single person goes. You know, I was trying to, I was trying to, or I started to feel it, and then I, I, I was gonna, and then it stopped. I'm like, no, you are getting in the way.

It's what's happening. You're trying to figure out how do I tremor better or worse, or stop it because it's, it's weird because I, it's not my, it's not you controlling it,

TJ: So let me make sure I'm getting this right. We, you are stimulating the body. You are getting to that point. 'cause you start talking about tremors, you start talking about shaking. You know, I go to certain exercises that I do that have, you know, they give you that little shake. Like when you're planking for a certain amount of time, you're like, oh god.

And you look like you're shivering. You guys are actually getting. To that point, and then you are so, like the mindfulness is so there, that like mind body connection is so there that once you start shaking, you're basically almost weaponizing these tremors to release that trauma. Am I, am I getting it right?

For the most part.

Rob: pretty much.

TJ: Okay.

Rob: Pretty much. Yeah. You're, you're, we, he's figured the way to use the myofascial system to bring this out of the body. And then once you have it again, 'cause we have it, we lo we lose it.

TJ: Of course.

Rob: So kids that he noticed that children in those areas that he worked in would just spontaneously shake and then they'd be, they, then they would be fine afterwards and the people would be just stuck in this posture like this, you know, like that, that, uh, oh shit.

Posture,

TJ: Mm-hmm.

Rob: fuck ceiling's coming down on me.

TJ: Mm-hmm.

Rob: um,

TJ: Not quite fetal position, but you're kind of like curled up, ready for something. Yeah.

Rob: So that's not nothing. That's an autonomic response in the body. That's a, so all these muscles from the mass are down through the SOAs into your adductors are connected and that's what happens, right? And your shoulders protract and you walk around with that posture, right?

That forward head, right? Now it's even worse with, with these things, right? We're just like constantly down. So our whole structure gets like contorted in and tight. You're sitting a lot more, right? We're on the phones more. We have traumatic issues, we have stresses, we have finances, right? And everything's just compresses you.

And that's kind of what I was going through, where even though I could form oil and stretch, I just wasn't releasing it. I couldn't figure out how to get this to go away. And the only thing I, until that point that really made a difference was those little TRE sessions and I was like, wow, I added that again. Probably the only thing, but it was the main thing first. And then it was like, Hey, let's look at, because I had done phone roll, I do, I do stretch and yoga and like I do all that stuff. It just, that wasn't allowing, I, I think the body was so tight it wasn't allowing that to be effective enough to, to gimme relief.

And then when TRE was added, I started to do more of the other stuff. Like I was going away from traditionally what I normally would do, the habits, right? Uh, this type of training or this is over training as usual fitness unit, two, three workouts a day, you know, running with the probies, they gonna lift heavy and then too much on the body.

I'm, you know, mid forties. I'm not, not a superhero. So I have to start thinking smarter. And I think that longevity recovery, um, feeling better is where you get the most outta your workouts then. 'cause then if you feel better, you're able to read yourself more. And then you're able to say, okay, well today's definitely gonna be a resting.

I'm still pretty sore. I'm not gonna force something where I can just have to outwork myself also, because the TR has helped me to. Take the edge off a little where I'm not so adamant about it anymore. I'm not so jacked up and alpha about it. Like, I gotta work out. I gotta work out. Because that's how it was.

That was my outlet to handle stress. That was like, really it? I didn't, or I would drink because you have two options here. It's like you drink, which is traditionally accepted and, uh, supported and looked, look forward to like, Hey, the trip, this trip this day we're going out. Let's go. Like, and you always end up drunk and you always end up drunk.

And I think it's partly tradition, but it's partly that we get brought into the system, we start to experience these things and then it's like, all right, I don't wanna feel that anymore, so let me just hang out. Which is fun, right? So, and I also was in college and it wasn't help, it wasn't helping me like not do that.

So I had these, these tendencies to begin with, but I also was trying to be healthy, which was contradiction. So I lived that way for a long time and it took me until very recently to say, I don't, why do I need that? Like, why am I going to that? Like, because I feel like there's no other way, right? To just chill out.

So this has become a better replacement, but has also allowed me to stave off of the, those type of coping, me coping mechanisms where I don't, I feel like I don't need it as much. I have other things I can do and once I, once that feeling passes, I have more, uh, ability to choose, right? So I'm not saying you can't have a drink, I know that it does nothing good for me. I'm okay with that, but I might still have one socially like it. Or just because I want, 'cause I can, like, I, like I'm an

TJ: Right. You have that choice.

Rob: right? I'd rather not though. So I choose now more often not 'cause I don't, I wanna train, I wanna be in better shape now again, leaving work, uh, behind where it is. It kind of helps.

It is helping me reset a little bit and put my priorities in order. And my kids are young and I realize I really need to be here for them 'cause I'm watching the Fire Academy, 25 to 35 year olds come in and they've missed something in my eyes that should have been taken care of when they were younger. So as a father, it, it just seems like there are skill sets and tools that need to be taught and we can teach our first responders a lot of these things, including TRE, but we also have many more people outside of our department that really could use this. And I think that all that, they don't have as much chronic like stressors that build callousness.

Like driving to work, like my wife going to my firehouse to like my last tour was like, how do you drive? How do you drive here every day? I wanted to scream, 'cause you're in the BQE, the Brooklyn Queen of Respiratory, just dead stop four miles an hour every time you go to work for an hour, an hour and a half to go 13 miles. That's the only way to go there, right? So that back and forth is like callousness. You build. 'cause like if you didn't have that, you had a very easy life and you had a big event. Maybe you're not, maybe you're not there, right? So maybe that affects you deeper. So for, for us, in, in higher volume areas or maybe things that you see more, maybe you do build callousness, but it still affects your body.

So you can't discount that. Yes, you're a human being no matter what. You know, nobody's a superhero here. I don't care if you've went through a million fires, you're carrying around stuff and you may not realize it, but you're still carrying around. It's gonna, IM impact your family like residue. You're gonna bring that home with you.

You're, you're not gonna be your best self, right? So I'm in this weird place, have the last year and a half where I was okay with leaving. 'cause I knew this mission was here. I've seen it with, we, we did our probies, uh, a few probie classes with CRE, introductions. They love it. A lot of veterans, um, still, it's new to them.

And it was very, it's hard to do with a big group too. Like you're trying to instruct people. It's a hundred kids on the ground. Shake over, shake it on the ground. It's a crazy sight. Really crazy sight. But we made it happen. We just said, you know, we're just gonna do it because we feel it's so valuable that it needs to be taught upfront.

Now, if that person has this skill for 20 years, if I had the skill in 2008, maybe I would've been a little different. I don't know. I can't go back and change it. But I realize that everything that you go through affects your body, which affects the way you feel. And it's not really how you're thinking about it, it's how you feel about it.

If I think about that far right now, there's less of a reaction in my body. But when I had to drill on it for two, two years, literally go around and talk about it and, and teach on how to use your may aid, your, uh, EAB, and like, tell this course guys. Read the report. Like that was you, you were, that was your fire.

I was like, that was the one for me. There was other ones and there was like random just EMS runs with kids, like things like that where it's not. Newspaper worthy, but it's just what you're seeing when you show up. One of my last one was when it was a poor guy, 25 years old, uh, got hit by a delivery van, got put under a semi, and we get there and it's just, his eyes were wide open, man.

It was just like, and he's like staring at me and it was probably like a month before I was done. I'm like, man, I just, I just don't wanna, I don't wanna see that anymore. I felt horrible. And now that I'm getting feeling back, it's another weird, there's a whole nother discussion on your, your, your emotions that come back through this process that you have to redefine.

So like, the empathy and the sadness that I feel for people now is much greater than it was throughout my career. Right. That got turned off. And I'd be, you know, you go on the run, you have this horrible situation, get back on a rig and it's like, ah, let's go. What are we gonna

TJ: Let's go get a pizza, right?

Rob: It's like, it's, it's crazy to talk about, but it's normal activity for us.

Right. So, you know, we get back there and my first thing was, he's a flag guy, man. He didn't do his job right. It was a, it was a very dark joke. And I'm like, man, I can't believe I just fucking said that. Still, I still am fucked up through this, right? This hope. Right. Do a better job. You get my, you know, that's the first stupid thing you think of.

And it's horrible to say out loud, but it's true. And I think we, we build this on honesty and we build it on authenticity and we're talking real shit. Nobody's perfect, nobody's a superhero. And I don't care if you're the saltiest guy in the world, there's some things that affect you. You're a human being and you're, you're your nervous system doesn't know the difference of, of where all your experiences, it's just gonna respond the same way.

Right. And it still responds the same way. I just have a tool now to shed it easier. And I have a method that I use and I incorporate with consistency and we teach it now. So, uh. Pairing it with other somatic methods, SMR, uh, structural work. Um, a lot of postural re realignment. Like looking at your Yeah, exactly right.

Like how your head sits, drains your energy. Right. If I'm sitting up versus I'm sitting slouch, I lose energy. This energy leaks in the body all over. There's muscles that don't work. 'cause your, your, your body, your gait changes when you have tension. So it might be pulling on one area, now you overcompensate another area, now you have a knee issue or a back issue or you know, you start to see these connections.

And I had injuries every year, back four years, foot plantar fascitis, knee, neck, where I was outta work for like three months. I couldn't even turn my head. And then that was the summer. And then the winter was my low back, which I thought I herniated a disc and I got bulging discs and all. Nothing where I, nothing too bad, right.

But I'm not perfect either anymore. And I realized there was a lot of issues in my body that. Came up and that they started to un unfurl a little bit, feel a little better, um, run a little easier, squat a little easier, feel a little better at home, more relaxed. Not as, not as much in a rush to get everything done in one day.

Like just weird things that were, I'm now excited about things. The first time I felt joy, I talk about this a lot. I had a day, probably a few months into TRE, it was in the summer. My sons are outside my, my two sons and one of 'em is in a bucket or like a bin, falls in his feet hanging up in the air. And I just, that sight made me laugh so hard that I felt it.

And it was probably the first time I felt it when I laughed. 'cause usually you laugh it off like it's not, it's surface level man. I laugh all the time and have so much fun, but it's all just bullshit for real. Most of the time. It's not really that, oh my God. Like I love my kids. That was so funny. That was a great moment.

And that touched me where I felt it in my heart and I said, holy shit, I haven't felt that. I can't even tell you if I ever felt that to be honest with you. Then the empathy, if, uh, like my neighbor's, um, uh, grandmother passed away, I was like, I feel you feel bad. I'm like, holy shit. Like I feel bad. Like, let me text, let me reach out to them.

Let me call this person. Like making the social connections again, back where I think for a long time I was just so siloed. Like I'd be working, I'd be worrying about so many things that I wasn't actually connecting with people anymore. And that started to come back as well. So I feel now that I'm a better person for it, whereas, um, before I just couldn't access it.

Right. So the access of your parasympathetic side of you that comes makes you that whole person again, redefines you. Now who are you now? 'cause I thought I knew who I was and I started to really reanalyze my part, my purpose, my priorities, like. Like what, what do I wanna do my, how does my life gonna, what's my life gonna look like?

Is it gonna be another 10 years of the fire service worrying about scheduling missing holidays and nights and weekends? Or do I have the actual ability here to get out? And it was like I had the ability to do it 'cause of my rank and, and it was able to stabilize my home life where I was like, you know what?

I'm gonna get all my time back and my kids are pro are more important and my wife is more important 'cause they've been taking the back seat for a long time. And even my daughter like, you know, it's hard enough with her part-time back and forth and scheduling. So it makes it easier for me to spend more time with my daughter one-on-one.

I can spend more time one-on-one with my kids. I can do it as a group. My wife, I can give her more time. 'cause she's been handling a lot of the stuff at home. And now, now that I'm build, you know, we're building this, this mission out, like we're traveling now and I'm like, there was no break in service. It was just like I retired on one day.

The next day I was in Kentucky. And we were training 15, uh, guys down there who heard a podcast and were looking at ways to help their members. And we had some really interesting and amazing feedback stories, um, breakthroughs with, with people that I never met before. And it was only because of things like this where you can, you can talk honestly about it.

We've done it here. It's valid. It works. We've, we've put a thousand people here through TER at least once we have full probe class at Terre Aware, we're building out our criteria awareness training, which is basically your level of understanding where you can practice this. 'cause it's a tool that you can learn and use.

You don't have to pay a subscription monthly to, to learn this. And I think a lot of people that try it without a provider, without the information that we can give them from our perspective, it makes it harder to access. They don't get it. It's weird. You know, we have guys that have, that are like 30 years on.

We have probies that have a couple months on, and everybody's had a positive experience, even the ones who are completely against why they're there.

TJ: Okay, so that is my question that you, you have experienced all the benefits. You have seen what's on the other side of taking that leap into, into TRE, but you come from a very traditional fire department that's, you know, FDNY, like it or not for you guys? We, we idolize everybody holds the entire fire service, certainly within the US and a lot of times throughout the world they hold it to the center of the FDNY.

So how do you get that buy-in from those salty dudes who are like, this is, this is not traditional fire department, this is not the shit that I signed up for. You're gonna make me shake and, and be emotional. Fuck this. How do you get that buy-in?

Rob: So authenticity. Um, I sh I, we sh I'm very candid about my stuff, you know, and I had, I had to be honest because for a long time I felt bad about feeling bad. And I realized that you cannot compare your stuff to someone else. It doesn't matter. It's just your perspective of all your events in your life.

So I used to go, well, I wasn't in the military and I never got blown up in a Humvee, so I really can't complain about it. I, I'm alive and I have, I'm grateful for all these things. But you can't discount this, that, that in those incidents. You can't discount that your body's gonna have a response that you're not controlling at the time.

It's just not the way it works. Your nervous system works subconsciously. So you can't like go, oh, this is a terrible situation. Let me think this through a little bit. Your body's going, holy fuck, tighten you up. And that's another layer. And it's, and it imprints and it, and then you shove it down. 'cause you can't really figure out how to, how to talk about it.

But our guys that are, we had got, you know, our first couple people, uh, 25 year captain. Goes, I don't know what the fuck that was, but I feel amazing. Right? And I was like, holy shit. Then you have people that are, uh, we had our most recent one in the F-D-N-Y-I was able to come back. So I'm able, I'm actually so proud of this because leaving, I was worried about this falling apart because, you know, continuity is very tough and not everyone is at the level of our understanding.

So the people that, you know, my, the captain that took over it has to get trained up on it, right? We have some guys in the unit that train get trained, but we have all new people coming in and out of the, uh, that unit. So it can't be the only ones that know this. So we have peer support, we have counseling services, we have our EMS side.

Our EMS fitness trainers, uh, retiree groups that are, are kind of all involved in this awareness level. And it comes with guys that some guys have like 30 years and like 60 years old. And our last session at the Rock, I was able to, to be able to instruct there and help them out. And I don't know why I'm here.

Right. And I'm like, I know why you're here, because you are at the end of your career and it's another overtime, uh, workshop that you avail, it's available for you. And, uh, I'm pretty sure that's probably why originally, right. Somebody mentioned to this guy, but he was like, the cancer of the room. There was 24 people and 23 of them were all excited.

This guy was like, I hate everyone. I hate everyone. I don't know why I'm here. And first session, you know, we do two sessions in one day. We do 'em like two a trial, and then we do a secondary one. And we, and we couple it with some sleep information. We couple it with some information on cardiovascular health and, and things they can do for heart rate recovery.

And we do some, uh, foam rolling and some band work and some structure work so that you get a little taste of it. And that's, that's a glimpse of RT aware, which is a two day or a day and a half. Uh, workshop now that we're going around with. So it's a little bit more in our aware workshop, but it was, it was a first step in establishing something and that was brought through our professional development office that started, and it's a way for people to get, uh, better in their careers.

And the health part was TRE. So we build out this workshop and now we're on our fourth is our fourth one in three last year and the first one this year, and completely getting dead set against it. And after the second session, he had a better res a, a better response. 'cause now you're a little bit more connected.

Right. The warmups are working, you're getting into your body a little more and you get a little bit more pronounced, uh, tremor. And then a week later, uh, this, this past Tuesday we held, we hold, uh, a free one, like a free voluntary one for this TRE Aware, because now you have two sessions on the development providers.

You need one more. Usually one or two more. Three to four, three is average. Uh, that's what TRE recommends. So we went with their model and we said, right, you get three supervised sessions, you're now classified as theory where you can now practice safely at home and explore the mechanism. 'cause it's very safe.

It's not gonna hurt you. Uh, you can't really overdo it. It'll shut off on its own. If you try to like do it forever, it'll just stop. There's only a certain amount of work your nervous system can take before it shuts off. So I've tried it, it just, I just stopped it

TJ: Of course you tried it. You're like, you know what? I'm gonna do the most TRE out of everyone. Of course you did.

Rob: well, you have lead the way, right? So. I, I, I stand by that. So if I'm gonna teach anything to anyone, even the the kids I train my teenagers and my sons, I'm gonna look at what they need. I'm gonna try it, I'm gonna figure it out, and then I'm gonna go give best practices and what I found. 'cause that's all I can do.

It's only my perspective. I'm not the only person here. I have a team of guys that are, are working very hard on this and di very diligent on it. Um, we're grabbing people into our, into our community, our t our our tribe, our our TRE aware groups. And we're getting people that really have profound effects.

So this guy Jimmy, comes back on the free day. I go, holy shit, this guy showed up. 'cause I emailed a whole list of people. I got a list of over a hundred people that have tried it. And we're just trying to get 'em to that level where, hey, you can participate in our, our study once you're aware it is just basically doing TREA few times a week and a couple surveys.

We just want to get it in a group setting so we can propose it as research and maybe get some grant money for studies, get some researchers involved, get all the departments to look at it. 'cause again, we, we've established it here we're we went to Kentucky, now we're gonna Colorado, you know, we need some, some meat here.

And I feel like what we've done is we've made these, uh, we'll go teach it and you guys will come and be a part of this study with us because you are open to listening first. And you were open to trusting us that we had something that was very different, that was, uh, a bot, a tool that you can learn. Like it's not just, Hey, come talk about it forever.

Like, if you go to therapy, you don't leave. I'll see you next week. I'll see you. You know, they just want, they wanna rack up the dollars. Most of, none of everybody, like Sammy's great. Like the people that are FOA thinking they want to actually create change. Those are the people that we're trying to connect with.

So Jimmy, you know, as mad as he was on the first day in the morning, by the end of this, the fourth session he did, had relief in his back full body tremors, uh, was able to acknowledge that it wasn't bullshit. And we were good with that 'cause we were busting his balls. Like, oh, what happened to the guy that was all mad at everybody?

You know, maybe it just, it, it took his edge off and he, his face changed. Um, and you could see people's, um, kind of aura shift. After a while and the stress level on it, the people carry in their face a, a really crazy story. And I'll give you one story from the training with Belli, and I posted it on our Instagram and I, and it's me basically crying on the floor, right?

So I had this profound release with the Dr. Belli that I'd never experienced all my sessions of TRE until that point, which really kind of shifted it into holy shit. I really under, I'm really starting to get this now because when I had that release in my diaphragm, which happened, the tremors traveled up past my hips now and got into my diaphragm, which is connected to, into your SOAs and goes up to your body.

And it's a big part of our, how we breathe. So many of our, our sessions, we do a little breathing exercise. Everyone is breathing like this, this, this sym, overly sympathetic, uh, all these muscles are getting overactive and, and reinforcing this negative feedback loop in the body. And we, we teach deep, slow breathing around the waist.

We, we try to stand the belly, right? We do these belly breaths. Which is the movement of the diaphragm, right? So when we have a frozen torso, uh, Ali explained to me is like, you know, your body's just stuck. It's frozen. Diaphragm is not pulsating. It's not safe. So when you're, when you're safe, like a, like a child, like a big belly, they breathe a big belly's out, right?

Ah, right. They're relaxed. That's a parasympathetic state that we should be living in. But we live in this sympathetic state where we're always on alert, always on high alert. Maybe, you know, if it's a fire, yeah, I'm gonna breathe like this. But if I'm like on some downtime where we come out, I should be chilled out.

I should be like that every day, all day, forever. You're just living in that state. So when he, when I had this release, what happened to me was it came up through my diaphragm. I felt this emotion. I didn't want to cry. He was there to help me. 'cause now everyone's sitting around me and there's a, in the video, typical fire department, right?

My bo, my buddy Anthony's just staring at me smiling I'm starting to cry on the, on the floor in front of him. And, uh, I was like, I wish the camera was like a little lower so it wouldn't show your face. But I think it had to be that way. 'cause that's how we are like, it's like, oh, look at this, this guy, what the fuck's going on here?

Right? 'cause this is my experience now. This is an outsider looking at me. He doesn't know really what's going on at the time. It's their initial training. And I, I had this emotion and I started to lose it. And I hid my face in shame. And I'm like, I'm like, I can't believe I'm, I'm crying. But he's like, just let it go.

Let it out. It's your diaphragm. You could be laughing or crying. It doesn't matter. Your diaphragm is moving. That's a good thing. So I learned that crying was a good thing, and I learned that I just need to let it out. And it, it passed. And the thought of that job was immediate to that feeling. And I go, I know what that was.

I know what that was. I don't know how I know it. I don't know what the fuck just happened to me. But that shit just came out of me. I'm still, I was 15 fucking years ago. Can. He's like You okay? I'm like, I'm good. I'm no quitter. Let's go. Let's keep, now we're, we're going further. And I had another little release and it was just a 9-year-old kid named Joey that it was a random time.

I'm working out on, in Staten Island and working on a detail, uh, as a fireman and, uh, medical guy gets lost getting there. 'cause it's a weird block. Get there, it takes a little delay to get there. Get up in there. The family's screaming and mom's screaming. Go up in the kid's room. He is got nebulizers. He's like, this kid's got issues, health issues.

Fucking, no. Cut his shirt, throw him on, get 'em on the ground that the pads on him, right? I'm like, and I'm a detail. So I'm, I'm charged up get him, you know, EMS gets there. We package him coming down the stairs, the dad's screaming. Joey, my Joey, my Joey, my Joey, and I fucking can't get it outta my head.

And the kid passed away, right? And then I had that happen to me again in the same session. It was like, boom, and then boom. And I'm like, holy shit. 'cause the fucking thought was there with that emotional rise up. So as I explained like your, your, your layers, and then you have these things that are packed away that you think you've got gotten over and your body gets to let it out.

Now we got a little choked up because I'm now thinking about ceremony and I'm like, wow, if thi really did work, why, why would I be feeling that? Right? But it's still, it's still an event in my life that I acknowledge and I let it go because it's not gonna ruin my life anymore. It's not gonna be something where I, I have to avoid it.

I can speak on it. It did happen. But also what happened was my body was able, I saw my body release these things and I can't explain it further than that. When I had these certain moments in TRE where, um, that deadlift day with that multiple alarm, I had a session probably three or four months ago where my hands went into deadlift. And my back got super, super warm, my low back all, and that thought of that day, that lift where I put 10 pounds on instead of five, where I was like, this is my goal. I went 10 heavy and I went, it was just a hard lift. It wasn't, I wasn't, didn't pop anything, but I knew I fucked up that day and I was like, Ooh, that's, that's why my back hurts.

But it was just probably the straw that broke my back 'cause it was everything else on. And then that was, that was it. That was the one that put me over the edge where it fucking broke me. And I go, man, and my body went into this and it got warm. I'm like, oh, deadlift day. And the, the whole thought of that morning, 7:00 AM lifting heavy deadlifts and then going to a, b, c as a battalion chief and then going to the five seven Battalion and catching the third alarm and then running around like a maniac for three hours outside of my element, uh, emotional, you know, worrying about guys, worrying about collapse, worrying about this.

And I'm like, okay, that's gone now. I felt it come in my body. I felt my body going there. We had people that played hockey, their arms, going to that, holding the stick stance, shaking on the ground. Guys with, uh, neck injuries or heads are going crazy, right? 'cause it goes to where your trauma, I had p tear, my whole chest started to go crazy once I broke through, then I had started having weeks of upper body shaking, chest popping, pop, pop, pop, pop.

And I had atrophy here. And, and now that I, I'm training again. It's connected again. I'm building back tissue, which is the craziest thing. 'cause I've been very self-conscious for 20 years since I tore it off the bone that it was like lopsided. I had lopsided boobs, you know, like, and I'm like, I can't take, I hate taking my shirt off.

And it's, I got a scar and I got like this little hole here. And, and then after this process, it start, I started to feel like, damn, this is getting tissue again. I feel the difference now. Like it reconnects your muscle tissue from your like nervous system. Ultimately, it's reconnecting you back together again.

In my opinion and my experience, that's all I can testify to. And everyone else is testifying to weird shit that they're noticing. And if you do it consistently enough, you'll start to come into that process of everything starts to get redefined, your feelings come back. So now you gotta interpret them again differently.

Like, is it excitement or anxiety? Am I happy or am I just laughing? Am I, you know, this is really making me sad. I'm, and I can't even watch sad stuff on tv. And I'm like, uh, get welled up again. I'm like, oh, you pussy.

TJ: Dude, this is fascinating. And

Rob: It's wild.

TJ: so I had the conversation with Joyce Ani. He's the one who put me in touch with you, and he's the one that I interviewed. I don't even know how many, like 15, 20 episodes ago about this stuff. And there was something like, I kept looking at him as we're recording and he's talking, he's telling me all these things.

He's talking about the trauma release. I'm like, what? Like I can't, I can't place it. And talking to you, it's the same thing. And I think I nailed it. I think it's that authenticity that kind of scares me, if that makes sense, because it's that like, I'm looking at you guys and you're talking about the, the traumatic experiences and you're talking about being vulnerable and being open.

And here I am thinking that like, you know, my talk therapy and all those things are working. I'm like, all right, this is fine. This is fine. Everything, but I'm looking at you guys. I'm like, oh fuck. I don't think it's working as well as I thought. I think there might be a couple more layers of that onion that need to get peeled and, and it's, it's equal parts, like I said, fascinating and terrifying.

Rob: Well, you know, to, to address it is, uh, the first step. Like I, you have to know that things a affect you. Okay? You can't go around thinking, I'm good, I'm tough, I'm, I'm this, I'm the best fireman, or, or a first responder or a police officer and I, I can handle anything. 'cause you have handled a ton of shit.

Just because you've done it doesn't mean it didn't affect your,

TJ: Right.

Rob: right? We have one body, we, we have to take care of it. Um, realizing that your, your nervous system and your muscle system and your my fascial system can really be impacted through what we deal with and just overall chronic stress.

And that can lead to inflammation and, uh, depression and coping. So let's not do that. Let's work on the actual tools, right? I. Um, one, getting back to just one crazy thing is that talking about your change, how you change. Right. So my eye color changed after that session with Dr. Belli. So the, to the, so much so that he said it to me that day and when I got home, he's like, your wife's gonna say something to you.

And it took her about two hours where I'm, I think I was wiping the counter down. She's freaking staring at me like, like from over here. I'm just like, why? What are you looking at? She's like, your eyes are bluer. Now I have hazel eyes and now they're like more blue. I'm sure you can see 'em now, but they, they got bluer after that one day, which in my interpretation is that the windows of the salt get, things get imprint in the body, so maybe that it gets through your eyes what you see.

And now that changes something in there. And then when it gets released, it kind of goes back to like a clearer state maybe. But I saw that with the guy Jimmy's face like the morning to like the afternoon. Like he looked different. Like, so you could start note, you actually start noticing people's, um, demeanor.

And their posture and how open they are discussion or like how engaging they are in their energy. So which goes back to that little bit of that spiritual stuff, uh, with Dr. Pelli where it's not, it's a modality where you, you're vibrating. So I think that you're just kind of raising somebody's energy by releasing this stuff that's kind of bogging you down. And that's how I feel. I feel like I am able to convey this to people now because I have released it. I've gone through the, I'm like ahead in the path. And I'm just saying if you try it, like you try it, you'll like it, like you try it, you'll feel it like you don't know. 'cause you don't know once you've gone through a session with a good provider, again, not everybody's the same and not, and a lot of providers in TRE cannot reach the first responding community there.

I've gotten a ton of messages from people and even Dr. Elli has proclaimed it like, you guys have hit so many people with this, it's. Unparalleled in the TRE community at this point. 'cause it's like one to one. Like, I hire, you hired me as your somatic heal and I'll give you the TRE. I'm doing 30 at a clip, you know, let's go because it's, it's a, he's even said it's so simple to do it once you got it and then you, once you got it, it's like, it's like riding a bike.

If I gotta go shake, I feel I have to shake, I feel I need it. I don't do it every day. I'll do it like once or twice a week now. Um, but it's just like, you can like sense it. You can like, you know when you need to do it, you, you get a great response. You feel better afterwards. It helps you with your sleep.

It helps you with your, and you can't really put your finger on it, right? 'cause like, science is, and, and research is kind of like varied. But if we come up with these protocols for ourselves, then we're not going to that therapist right now. Maybe we get better first in our bodies and then we can go talk about it.

Yeah, so it's like a pa. You can combine these things where maybe the first step is just addressing the body trauma, the feeling you have, the anxiety, reconnecting your emotions so you can process things, right? And now you can kind of think more clearly. You can have better conversations with that, that cognitive behavioral therapist or somebody who's not sitting in your shoes and you won't get mad at them and say, go fuck yourself.

Like you don't know what I'm talking shit about. 'cause I've talked to so many people that said the same thing. They're like, I just got so much, so much more mad because they're not getting it because you're trying to explain it to them, but they haven't walked it. Just like, I'm trying to explain TRE to you and you haven't shaken yet. And once you do it, you be like,

TJ: Oh, oh,

Rob: get it. Right. And then you learn it, you get, you're comfortable with it. We show you all different ways to, uh, intervene, which is how to manipulate your tremor or entice it to travel through those areas of tension, right? So it's, if it hits a wall, maybe we can do an intervention to maybe make it shift a little bit further in the pelvis and up the body in the chain.

TJ: that's the part that. That has most of my attention. Being able to sort of harness that energy and take it throughout your body, because when you started explaining the warmup, I, there was a meditation app that I used for just to, just to fall asleep years ago. I forget Andrew something, Andrew, I forget.

It wasn't humor, man. It was, this was pre huberman days. This is, I'm talking like 2009, 2010, but this dude like, I guess big in the meditation world would have you basically take stock of your whole body. He's like, Hey, feel your head, feel your jaw. Relax it, right? And, and going down and basically just feeling everything.

And by the time that I would get to my hips, I'd be asleep, bro. Like I would be, I'm like, all right, I feel my fingers and like out like dead to the world. And. So I've always been fascinated by that ability to, to focus the energy and the thought into a place in my body. And now that you're telling me, we can take that and harness it and almost pinpoint in a certain way the issues that's, um,

Rob: It's

TJ: appealing.

Yeah. That's the, you know, because, because, well, the, the follow up question that I had for you is that you've talked about your back, you've talked about your pec. Are you, at this point, now that you have these skills, are you going basically through and saying, all right, I had, you know, neck issues, let's try to harness that energy and move it in that direction, or does it come automatically and what do you think the end state is gonna be like?

There's gonna come a point that you go through your entire body pretty much, and for lack of better term, you've shaken all that shit off. What next

Rob: Well, I. The life, life goes on. Right. And the shit, the shit doesn't end.