Sarah: Yes, yes. I was really blessed to know what I wanted to do from the time I left school. So, I, 17 years old, back in 1996. I enrolled into my diploma of nutrition, naturopathy at Nature Care College, and, you know, loved it, was so passionate about it, and got the opportunity to, at the same time whilst I was studying, to work with an amazing practitioner. I got an apprenticeship to work with her. And during this time of working with her, I was not only working with clients, working with patients, but I was exposed to the world of vibrational medicine, and the world of the mind-body connection. She was a very holistic practitioner. You know, some would say a little esoteric. And, you know, this was my first exposure into the power of the mind and the power of the energetic field, and the impact that it can have on a patient’s healing journey.

And this absolutely fascinated me. It really blew my mind. So, started a quest for me, I guess, in how could I integrate more of this into what I did as a naturopath, and how could I help other people to really understand the power of this, and how they can use it in their own lives to really take more control of their own health. And so, I looked around, and it was one of those things. You know, sometimes things pop into your path. Every person I met, every place I went, people were talking about this thing called kinesiology, and I was like, “Mm. Okay. This must be a sign for me. There’s gotta be something more in this for me.” So, went back to Nature Care, and, as you do, was just gonna study a weekend workshop or a couple of workshops. And three and a half years later, came out of a kinesiology diploma, with so much passion, because I had been continuing my professional practice during this time, and really started integrating what I was learning in my classes into what I was doing. And so, graduated from kinesiology, and really hit the ground running.

And, you know, in my practice was just so blown away with the results that I was seeing, and really, the impact that this was having on my patients’ lives, that this very quickly, for me, led into me teaching kinesiology, and me wanting to share this amazing modality with others. And so, had the opportunity to work for some of Sydney’s leading natural therapy colleges. You know, I taught for Nature Care. I taught for AC&T, ACKM, for about 15 years. And then, about five, six years ago, decided it was time to start my own college, to really take everything that I had learned from working with these fantastic colleges, and integrate that into my own pathway. And so, together with my beautiful colleague and dear friend, you know, we studied kinesiology together 20-plus years ago, Terese Mudgway, we have now developed The Nidana Collective, and, you know, we really have the honour of creating something really, really special together.

Andrew: Can I ask… You learned naturopathy first? Or…

Sarah: Yes.

Andrew: You learned about herbs and nutritional medicine first. Then integrating kinesiology into that, have you found, over the course of your career, that the more expert you become at kinesiology, the more you find there is a vibrational issue going on with patients? To ask the question in a more succinct way, in a more example way, an old practitioner who I greatly admired, Alan Profke, who unfortunately died a few years ago, 20, forgive me, 2020. Or 2019, forgive me. Alan told me… And he was a very well-respected practitioner of many decades. And he said, “The more I learn about vibrational qualities, the more I realize you must include that into your prescription.” It was quite daunting to me. Quite…

Sarah: A man of great wisdom, Andrew, by the sounds of things. But I believe the two are completely indivisible. You know, if you… What have science learned? That on the quantum level, you break us, and everything in our universe, you break herbs down beyond the subatomic level, you break the human body down beyond the subatomic level, you break a mineral down beyond the subatomic level, what do you find? Energy, vibration, resonance. So, I truly believe that all of the different modalities that we have are different levels of vibration. So, the more I learn as a kinesiologist and a mind-body practitioner, the more I learn that these aspects of self are completely indivisible. They’re completely integrated and connected. You know, our vibrational being is connected to our mind. Our mind is connected to our physical body. Our physical body is connected to the biochemistry. You know, in kinesiology, we use a term called the triangle of health, or the triad of health. And we say, obviously, there’s a physical, emotional, and biochemical aspect to us. And I guess the vibrational is the integration, is the connection between all of these. And in kinesiology, the model we use for the energetic is the traditional Chinese medical model of the acupuncture meridians.

But all of these really are founded, I believe, everything is nested inside of the scientific understanding of quantum physics, that we, Andrew, we’re all just resonating blobs of vibration. And whether we’re giving a herb or whether we’re working with a meridian or whether we’re using acupuncture, or whatever it is we’re doing, using our nutritional products, it’s all just different levels of vibration, to help the body come back to a space of homeostasis, where it’s in the best position to heal itself. You know, none of us are healing our patients. We’re just all helping to give the body what it needs to be able to heal itself. And that’s what I love so much about kinesiology, is that we use biofeedback from the body. We use a modality called muscle testing. You know, you can test somebody else. You can learn to test yourself. And this enables us to plug into the bio-individual healing blueprint that all of us have. Because we could all have a similar or exactly the same set of symptoms, and presumably you could say, well, then we would all have the same treatment process. But in my experience, and I’m sure in your experience, and every practitioner listening or watching here today, would know that that is not the case, that each of us perhaps require different things. And, you know, when we use the term “biohack,” we’re really saying that we can tap into each individual being’s unique innate healing blueprint, and help them access what it is they need specifically, and in what order they need that, for the body to be able to heal itself.

Andrew: Now, you and I have spoken prior to this podcast, and I’ve explained my struggles that I’ve had with the energetic sort of approach to things. To give the example for our listeners, our viewers, is, I will always remember sitting next to this young lady in vibrational medicine class, in that, when I started naturopathy, God, many, many years ago. And we were laughing at the lecturer. We were guffawing, sniggering. Snidely, I might add. And, because we were saying, “Oh, we can’t believe in this.” But this young lady and I were talking, and she was about to get married. She was having a real struggle because she loved her dad so much, and she had a real connection to her family name. And her struggle was she didn’t wanna give up the family name. And I said, “Well, you can hyphenate it like I did.” And she was, still had this struggle. So, what happened was she was called up to the front of the class, to give a demonstration of kinesiology. And the lecturer,  asked her name. And I saw… And we were laughing. We were gonna show her up. And I saw her sternocleidomastoid muscle tensing like you wouldn’t believe, trying to resist, but there was no power in that answer. It was…like, I was shocked. I was like, “Hang on.” And yet, prior to that, you and I have spoken about this prior to that, I had seen a kinesiologist who had an agenda, and did the muscle testing, and you and I have spoken. She moved, instead of pushing down with just two or three fingers, she almost grabbed my wrist, and forced it down. So, there was an agenda there. Tell us about how you have to prepare yourself as a kinesiologist to be totally for service to your patients.

Sarah: Definitely. I mean, your mindset, your intention, as the facilitator of the process, is extremely important. My role as a kinesiologist is not to heal anyone, to fix anyone, to prove anything. I’m a conduit for that person’s body, to bring forward the information. And we really think of the body as part of the deep subconscious. Our body really is our subconscious mind. And so, it’s bringing forward from the unconscious self to the conscious mind the information needed, so that the client can choose to create change, and we can find the resources needed to create that change. So, the practitioner being impartial, the practitioner having no vested interest, even the interest of “I really want you to get better” is a vested interest. So, you know, one of the things we really focus on training our practitioners on in our sessions, in our classes, sorry, is neutrality, coming at each session from a space of neutrality. The only space I hold for my clients is a space of unconditional love, a space of open neutrality, for them to be able to get whatever it is they need to be able to move wherever it is they choose to move in their lives.

Andrew: It’s almost like kinesiology would be perfectly practiced by cats, because they don’t care.

Sarah: [crosstalk 00:12:49] Maybe that’s my next course.

Andrew: But take us through, if we’re dealing with the mind-gut connection, which is what we’re talking about today, obviously it’s got to do with the types of questions that you ask. You have to ask the correct question to get the correct information back. That’s biofeedback, right?

Sarah: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. It is. And I think, look, let’s come back and again look at it from the perspective of the quantum field. Because one of the most powerful electromagnetic, I’m gonna say, mechanisms involved in the quantum field is the human mind. So, you know, we have a saying, “Where focus goes, energy flows.” So, when we’re doing a kinesiology session, and, you know, whether it’s on the gut-brain connection, or whatever it is on, we’re always working with a context and outcome. We will call it a goal. It’s helping the client be focused on where it is they would rather be, what it is they would rather have in life, because we know, on the quantum level, we’ve all heard of the law of attraction. So, we’ll get patients coming in where they’re so fixated on their symptoms or on what’s wrong, or what’s not working for them in life, that that becomes their sole focus. And so, of course, it becomes bigger in their world, and their symptoms become exacerbated. So, the first thing we’re always doing is helping the client, first of all, think about, well, what it is they’d rather have in life, focusing on that, and then it’s almost like reverse engineering from there. What are all of the things, physical, emotional, and biochemical, that we need to help them create structure or create a strategy around, have tools or resources, shift energy, shift patterns, shift neurology in the subconscious mind, to help them be completely aligned with achieving that goal in their life?

And we know, everyone knows, the impact of the gut on the brain. And sometimes we can’t focus on what it is we’d rather have in life because we’re so entrenched in our perception of where we are currently, as I said, what’s not working, the symptoms we’re currently experiencing. And so, working first and foremost for me, as a practitioner, one of the first things that I will often put a lens on in sessions when helping the client work out what it is they need to get where they choose to go in their life is looking at this gut-brain connection. Because we know, how can you feel good, how can you start focusing on the positive things in life if your greatest serotonin-producing machine in your body is not functioning as it needs to be? So, you know, we really find that working on the gut, and working on the mind concurrently, is such a powerful way to help people achieve their outcomes. And you just notice that symptoms miraculously disappear in the process.

Andrew: Sarah, how do you find that kinesiology dovetails in with more, you know, physical-based therapies and orthodox testing, for instance?

Sarah: Yeah, great question. Again, coming back to, you know, the power of the mind. And, you know, the big thing I like to always think of is that, Andrew, nothing means anything until we give it a meaning. It’s just sound data, sight data, kinesthetic data, coming into our brain. And then our brain, based on our subconscious filters, these are our beliefs, our fears, you know, our families’ beliefs and fears, limiting decisions we’ve made at different points in our lives, society’s limiting decisions and fears. We then make that sensory data mean something. Now, whatever we make it mean is then what is fed into our body via the, we know the hypothalamus is the part of the brain that regulates our homeostasis. And so, if I grew up in a world, in a childhood where I made the world mean that it was a scary place, then incoming sensory data is going to be filtered through that. My hypothalamus is going to then talk to my pituitary gland, who’s going to tell my biochemistry how to regulate, to maintain inside of this belief structure that I have created.

So, I find that, you know, we can put all the greatest herbs, homeopathics, nutrition into the body, but if I’m still holding that mental framework, then it’s almost like, you know, putting your finger in a hole in a leaky boat. It’s only going to, we’re just gonna consistently be topping up, consistently be sustaining. But if we can get to the core of what is creating that belief, help the client realize that they have all the tools and resources they need to shift that old belief, and then work with some specific processes that we work with in our kinesiology sessions to transform that, we know, through our understanding now of neuroplasticity, that the brain can change itself, and it can change itself very rapidly. So, you know, when we can shift these old patterns and shift these old beliefs, then we find that the physical therapies that we are working with, the ingestive therapies, whatever other types of natural medicines, or Western medicines, then are integrated into the body from a much more powerful place, the body can come back to a place of homeostasis, and heal itself. So, they dovetail in with each other beautifully.

Andrew: Look, I totally get your point about enabling the body, or removing blockages in the psyche.

Sarah: Yeah.

Andrew: Does that translate to physical body? Yes, we know this. So, it seems to me that it’s sort of like helping the patient to remove a, is it an energetic blockage or an esoteric blockage? But that will enable the physical interventions to work better because there’s nothing impeding them. Is that correct?

Sarah: Correct. Absolutely.

Andrew: Right.

Sarah: And for each person, it can be a little different, you know? For some people, sure, there might be a meridian that needs to be worked with, to allow the chi to flow [inaudible 00:19:49] well-versed in the power of acupuncture. And, you know, so we might need to shift some blockages in these energetic pathways, to allow the chi to flow, to allow the body to be in a space of homeostasis. For other people, it may be shifting a subconscious pattern. And I mentioned before that the subconscious mind, we truly believe a massive component of the subconscious mind is in the body. I mean, amazing doctors, like Dr. Bruce Lipton, Dr. Candice Pert, they’re proving, they’ve shown the mind-body connection. So, it’s not just theory any longer, but that we know the cytoplasm of the cell contains receptor sites that pick up the neuropeptides. You know, when we release emotions, we release neuropeptides. So, the cytoplasm of the cell has little receptor sites where these neuropeptides click into, and then the cell has a physiological defined reaction to those emotional molecules. So, if we can help the client, through whatever means are needed, to shift their emotional reaction to their perception of reality, then it starts to enable those cells, when they mitose and create daughter cells, it enables those daughter cells to be produced with a different, we could say a different mindset, a different brain, you know, and science is really proving now that the cytoplasm of the cell is the cell’s brain.

Andrew: Can we shift that permanently, though? Like, for instance, your, I mean, your positiveness just shines. You can tell that you are an innately positive person. But when you’re dealing with patients who come to see you, let’s say with an emotional issue, with physical manifestations. IBS is a classic, right?

Sarah: Yeah, yeah.

Andrew: So, when we’re talking about somebody that has an entrenched psychological behavior response to the world, as we were talking about earlier, do you find that you have to constantly nudge and re-engage with these patients, to say, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” until they finally go, “Oh, no, it’s okay. It’s okay?” What does that look like when you’re talking about therapy, and how long are we talking about to, you know, break old habits?

Sarah: Yeah, look, I mean, how long is a piece of string? Every person is so completely bio-individual. And it’s really not about telling anybody what they have to do. It’s about helping them be empowered with the information they need to choose that themselves. And so, you know, in all of our kinesiology sessions, clients will always leave with home reinforcement, you know, and this is, we’re muscle testing for all of this, to ask their body what it is they need to help them be in the best position to be able to choose the outcome that they want to move towards. So, for some clients, yes, it is a lot of education. It is a lot of helping them understand why it is they’ve created these patterns in their life, and then what it is they need to do to unwind that pattern, to help them move towards their goals, to move towards their chosen outcome. It’s not about me telling the client they have to believe in my model of the world. Doesn’t matter what their religious beliefs are or what their, you know, what their spiritual practices are or, you know, what their model of the world is. We’re always working inside of the client’s model of the world. But it’s really about helping them find their own unique formula.

And yes, education, educating them, really, about their subconscious mind, you know, because our subconscious mind, I keep talking about that, but that is really part of our primitive brain. It’s part of our survival mechanism. So, it’s helping them really understand that there is a difference between their neocortical thinking, their logical, problem-solving, creative, solution-focused thinking, versus their survival-based thinking. You know, we might also call this the chimp brain, you know. It’s about all of our basic human needs. And when we’re making decisions in life, when we’re constantly reacting to the world from our chimp brain, rather than pro-acting, and being able to create, from our conscious, solution-focused neocortical brain, you know, we tend to find then, we keep attracting these same old patterns. We keep repeating the same old survival patterns. And this is often where we see, you know, physiological disorders arise from, is this massive stress response that consistently happens when we are in survival mode.

You know, it’s like, as I said before, it’s like there’s a leak in the boat. And unless we help the person find what it is they need to plug that leak, and start to realize that if their chimp brain is consistently running the ship, if their chimp brain is consistently driving where they’re going, then it’s almost like this constant slow leak of cortisol. And we all know the long-term effects of cortisol. I mean, that’s really what 95% to 99% of the diseases we have today are chronic diseases, based on us living in this state of survival. And you can’t switch off survival until you switch off what we are making it mean in our brain, what we are making the world mean. And as I said, you know, that filtering that we have, our beliefs, our fears, our limiting decisions, if they are constantly telling us that we’re not good enough, that we’re not safe, that we can’t do it, that the world is dangerous, that others are out to get us, then no matter what we do from an ingestive therapy perspective, there is always going to be a returning to that space of survival, because what’s more important to the brain than survival?

Andrew: Sarah, I’ve gotta say, this is intensely interesting to me. I’ve never had anybody explain kinesiology to me the way that you have, that brings in neurophysiology, and Dr. Bruce Lipton, nonetheless, somebody I greatly respect, to explain it.

Sarah: Oh, yes.

Andrew: Like, thank you so much. Can I ask you, you mentioned home reinforcement. Now, obviously, this is kind of, like, you know, you go to a physio, they’ll give you some exercises to do at home. So, this, it seems to me, to be really important in continuing therapy, continuing successive therapy, unblocking patients, and sort of removing blockages in patients’ behaviours. Tell us a little bit about home reinforcement. What sort of examples are there?

Sarah: Yeah, look, I’m a very results-driven practitioner. I think it’s bringing my scientific background, my scientific roots, in with the, I guess, the mind-body aspect of things. I’m really results-focused. I wanna make sure that my patients don’t just have a nice time in the clinic with me, but that they’re actually able to take the shifts that they make, they’re able to take the transitions that they make in the session, and live that, embed that as tangible results in their lives. So, that may be taking supplementation. That might be saying certain affirmations, to keep, you know, because we know, in the science of neuroplasticity, there are four steps to neuroplasticity. First, become aware a pattern is there. Secondly, interrupt that pattern. Thirdly, re-guide it where you choose for it to go. Fourthly, reinforce it. And often, an affirmation is a wonderful way to reinforce that new pathway, that new way of thinking, that new context, or framework for reality. You know, a saying we always use in our line of work is “Where focus goes, energy flows.” And, you know, one of the things that we know in the study of neuroscience is “Things that fire together, wire together.” So, the more activities we can give a client when they go home, to continue them on that pathway of not focusing on what they don’t have, not focusing on the lack, not focusing on what they fear, but keeping them aligned with what it is they’d rather have, where it is they would rather be, and really starting to realize the power of their mind in creating those results, it’s just so, so important.

But other things might be, you know, continuing to keep those energy pathways clear. It might be working with specific acupressure points, or it might be, oh, look, how long is a piece of string, again, I’m gonna say, Andrew, because the bio-individuality of the body could be hundreds of things. You know, our practitioners are trained in thousands of different techniques. So, it could be anything from, you know, inner child work through to, you know, microbiome work, through to working on the cranials, through to, you know, so many things, dermatomes, myotomes. You know, there are so many different things that a client could be working on, going back into their lives after a session, in their home reinforcement, so could be something as simple as drinking more water, you know?

Andrew: Well, it’s something we should be doing. Hang on.

Sarah: Oh, yeah. Shall we? Yes. I was just gonna say, we also focus a lot on the parasympathetic nervous system. So, I’m finding increasingly a lot of the home reinforcement I’m giving clients is to really support their resting, their resting state, their autonomic resting state being more in the parasympathetic state rather than sympathetic. So, this might be things like cold exposure, breath work. Even simple things like gargling have been found to be amazing for switching on the parasympathetic nervous system. So, yeah, these are often things that are foundations of empowering the client to keep themselves out of the chimp brain, and into their neocortical self, so they can actually be in a place of choice. You know, that’s what kinesiology is ultimately about, is helping people be in a place of choice, rather than reaction.

Andrew: This is intensely interesting, Sarah. Where can we find out more?

Sarah: Well, I have my website. You can go to sarahgilmourmayne.me. And also, I, as I said, I’m so passionate about helping more people have the power of kinesiology in their lives, because if we can all tap into ourselves, who knows how to heal you better than you? And so, this is why Terese and I are super passionate about getting out there and teaching as many people as we can, first of all, entry-level kinesiology courses. So, our college, thenidanacollective.com. We teach special interest courses. We have a great workshop, called our Kinesiology Self-Care Workshop, which is an online workshop where you can learn to self-test. You can learn a whole spectrum of techniques to be able to work on yourself, and on your friends and family, every day. I use it with my kids all the time. And I love it. Now I see my kids, I have an 8-year-old and an 11-year-old, and they use it all the time on themselves. I’m often seeing them self-testing, or finding out what acupoints they need to rub, or meridians they need to trace, or things they need to do. And this is also the first module in our professional training qualification. So, it’s a great way for people to kind of dip their toe in the water, and see what kinesiology has to offer them.

Andrew: Yeah. Explain to me, though, the…now, it’s N-I-D-A-N-A, is that correct? Nidana?

Sarah: Nidana. Yes. Nidana is…

Andrew: There’s a meaning behind that.

Sarah: There is. It’s an ancient Sanskrit word which means “cause for change.” So, you know, we often ask people, “What’s your nidana? What’s your cause for change?” Because I think all of us, you know, whether it’s health condition, or whatever it might be, something happens in life, we get to a point and then we realize there’s gotta be some sort of cause that then says it’s time for me to change. It’s like a catalyst. What is the thing that is going to make me move to that point in my life? You know, in quantum physics, they call it the bifurcation point. It’s like, you know, I’m chugging along this way, and then [vocalization 00:32:57] all of a sudden, I have a cause for change.

Andrew: Sarah, just continuing on from Dr. Bruce Lipton’s work, you know, he’s the father of epigenetics, but we’re talking about the gut-brain connection. Take us through how his work meshes, how it looks when we’re talking about kinesiology, gut-brain connection, and how it sort of blends into modern practice.

Sarah: Well, you know, as I mentioned before, that nothing means anything until we give it a meaning. And so, the framework of reality that we place around things has a massive impact on our epigenome, first and foremost. And we know that the microbiome is probably one of the biggest, apart from the mindset, is one of the biggest impacting factors on this epigenome. So, we know the epigenome is directly related to our health and our well-being on so many different levels. And so, the GI map, really, for me as a practitioner, has been such a game-changer, because it enables us to really pinpoint exactly where those imbalances are in the gut, and then what we need to specifically do to work with that. And I really find that the kinesiology is a wonderful way of being able to find the beliefs, the mindset that is directly impacting how the nutrition is landing, how the body is integrating or utilizing the nutrition, and the impact that this is having on the microflora.

You know, because I think we all know, we could all have gut dysbiosis going on, and all present with some similar, some different symptoms. And I just love the efficiency of the GI map in being able to pinpoint what each individual has out of balance. And then, as I mentioned before, in kinesiology, we’re always working in relation to something. So, now I can work in relation to these results from the GI map, and find what order and in what way that client needs to be supported on a biochemical level. And also, as you mentioned before, dovetailing that into what physical, emotional, and other biochemical aspects need to be addressed concurrently for those results to be most effective. You know, Dr. Lipton was one of the forefathers of knowing the impact of the mindset on everything in the body. So, I am just blown away at the results I see when we’re working concurrently on the mindset at the same time as working on the biochemistry. It’s really, truly phenomenal to see.

Andrew: Sarah, this is intensely interesting. Just quickly, where can we find out more? You’ve got your college, right?

Sarah: Yes. We’ve got our college, The Nidana Collective, where we do entry-level courses. So, if someone listening is interested in just coming in, finding a little bit more out about how they can use kinesiology for themselves, learn to self-test, we have a wonderful workshop called the Kinesiology Self-Care Workshop, 15-module online workshop, where they can learn to use kinesiology for themselves, their friends, and family. And this is also the first module in our professional qualification. So, if they do choose, they wanna go on and become a professional kinesiologist, this module is also included. Also, people, if they wanted to work with me as a practitioner, can go to my website, sarahgilmourmayne.me, and work with me as a private client through there.

Andrew: Sarah, it’s obvious to me, you can see your openness, and your intent to indeed help others to enact change that is gonna help them moving forward. So, thank you so much for taking us through what you do and how you share your expertise today, on “Wellness by Designs.” It’s been most interesting. It’s been great.

Sarah: Thank you so much for having me, Andrew. It’s always such a pleasure to speak with you.

Andrew: And thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We’ll have all the show notes for today’s episode and the other podcasts up on the Designs for Health website. I’m Andrew Whitfield-Cook. This is “Wellness by Designs.”