Transcript

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:00)

Welcome, Dr Jen Draper, to the podcast. It's a privilege to have you on the show. Welcome.

Dr Jen Draper | (00:07)

Thank you so much, Melanie. I appreciate the invitation.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:12)

For those who don't know who you are, would you like to explain what you do?

Dr Jen Draper | (00:18)

Sure, of course. So, two people who know me through my previous professional career I am Dr Jen Draper, and even those who now know me as a coach still tend to call me Dr Jen. However, I am no longer a registered medical practitioner. I was a registered medical practitioner for nearly 30 years. And during that time,

I helped many, many people into a state of complete dependency upon me as their trusted GP. And that is why in February or March of 2024, when I was myself in the grips of a diagnosed depression, but I would call it burnout, I walked away from my job as a medical practitioner.

And I took some time to heal, and I have come back, and now I work as a holistic transformation coach. So I put ex-medical doctor in the end of that because I am allowed to still use the title providing that I make it quite clear that I am no longer paying money to APRA and being a registered medical practitioner.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (01:39)

Right. But a few decades of doing that, it's an insight that a lot of us don't have. It's a great perspective. And having been a GP, you would have seen the whole spectrum of issues and transformations, seeing a bit of everything.

Dr Jen Draper | (01:57)

I certainly have. Probably issues would be correct, not too many transformations, although I did make a difference in a lot of people's lives, and it's been kind of an after-the-fact that that has been acknowledged. More so that I was appreciated more in my absence if any of the messages and things that I receive regularly are to be believed.

So yeah, that has been slightly bittersweet because I do admit that contributing to the burnout was a feeling of powerlessness in terms of actually making a difference in people's lives. Like really feeling as if they would keep in that roundabout of presenting back and forth through the gate. Yes, yes. And often with very similar complaints.

Even when we would seem as if, know, collaboratively together, which was how I like to work with my patients, we would be making a difference in the progress with their presenting problems. Unfortunately, there would be a relapse, as it were. And I mean, these are all very medical terms because of course I was indoctrinated from a very young age, as we all were, that, you know, the doctor knows best, trust your doctor.

And of course, back in 2019, I started thinking that perhaps I had been a little bit misguided in placing my faith in that system of indoctrination, which says that the doctor knows best and that we could keep ourselves healthy with checkups at the doctor. Because I recognise that that is actually a falsity. Mean, well, patients don't go to the doctor.

People seek out the doctor when they are sick. So, rather naively, I named my medical practice Wingham Wellbeing, and thinking that I would be able to keep people healthy and well from the perspective of a conventionally trained doctor, albeit with some integrative training, because I did self-fund my Continuing Professional Development, or CPD, as it's called.

I now like to call that acronym continuous farmer dependence.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (04:25)

Wow!

You were going to say you upskilled in meditating, but it was farmer dependence okay, what was going on, we'll start with that

Dr Jen Draper | (04:36)

Well, I don't know if your viewers will appreciate this, but something that perhaps most doctors won't actually share with you is that in order to satisfy the requirements for ongoing CPD, which stands for continuing professional development, and of course that's not specific to the health care, sorry, sickness industry, but it's now standard across all industries. But I want to blow the lid and lift the veil and share with you that if doctors want to take the easy route to satisfy their CPD, then the easiest way to do that is to attend sponsored evenings of

medical education or weekends perhaps, and once upon a time in the day, they used to be conferences overseas, but Medicines Australia put a stop to all of that, and these events are actually mostly free for the doctor, but they are paid for by someone. So, who do you think in the scheme of things would pay for doctors to be educated?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (05:47)

I was going to hope it's the broccoli industry, but please let us know who it actually is.

Dr Jen Draper | (05:52)

It is the pharmaceutical industry. So therefore that is the reason why I've changed the CPD acronym in my own little jaded perspective to say continuing pharma dependence. Because basically, if that was the sole format within which you would receive your continuing professional development, then if it was delivered by the pharmaceutical industry, what do you think we learned most about during those sessions?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (06:18)

Was it essentially

a sales pitch?

Dr Jen Draper | (06:22)

Basically, pretty much so. But it was gauged within teaching you protocols for how to manage various different conditions. And of course, an intricate part of the management would be the drugs that you would use. So most typically these sessions would be timed with the rollout of new products or perhaps existing products which had taken a dive in their sales and were still not quite of patent, so therefore there weren't generic versions of them flooding the market. And so these pharmaceutical reps would, in all good intentions, because they really truly felt that they are doing a service, but of course their KPIs, their key performance indicators, were number of prescriptions. Within that territory, the rep, the pharmaceutical rep, serviced. Therefore, by having as many doctors in that local area come along to an event, learn about this new drug, and therefore, because one of their peers would present to them and give case studies and examples of how you could use it, et cetera, then they would start writing prescriptions. So that was the underlying basis behind how we were educated as general practitioners.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (07:43)

Love to counter that with my experience as a patient of just seeing how perhaps that sort of thing could have been influencing things. So you were saying that you came to that realisation in 2019. In 2018, there were days when I was waiting to go see the OBGYN, and she would tell me Eat whatever you want. And

I would seriously sit at the hospital cafe having some sort of sugary drink at a sausage roll, cake, whatever was there. And then she was saying, We'll see how it goes. You might end up needing this Pitocin, whatever else. And it was basically just look at a graph, check how close we're getting to needing these pharmaceuticals. And I'm not telling anyone what to do with their medical decisions.

I'm sure you're not either, but there was, I was literally told to whatever I want with pretty much no hint. It was seriously a year or two afterwards that I was discovering things like gut health, and I had no idea. After I switched to my eating, I lost 20 kilos. I'm wondering, were you not seeing that many professional development days that were helping doctors to guide people to eat sensibly, get more rest, any of those lifestyle things?

Dr Jen Draper | (08:53)

Hmm. Hmm.

Well, yes, that is the interesting aspect of it because what we should eat and how we should move, et cetera, this sort of falls within the range of public health recommendations. So if I entertain and open the can of worms that is public health advice, one could very easily argue that there have been numerous examples of where the same sort of infiltration with regards to the education of doctors through Big Pharma has actually come into the field of public health education through Big Food. And so when we have a look at things like what is the healthy eating pyramid, which has at the top a very small amount of fats and refined sugars and then right down the bottom is the basis of your healthy eating, whole grains and cereals. We then look towards the history of where that healthy eating pyramid came from. And of course it has been sponsored by the cereal manufacturers and Kellogg's, and Sanitarium, and these big name brands that actually have got money to invest it in keeping the population in that paradigm wherein they are dependent and thinking that they are doing the best for themselves if they are basing their eating around that healthy food pyramid. So there are alternative versions of that and you know since we are in the instant information age where now you can you know have some kind of a hypothesis and then test it out by putting in a Google search or going into chat GPT or something like this. People generally come to health professionals with a degree of education that they have found themselves because they've used that natural curiosity that they have to go and put it into a computer to work out what's going on with themselves. You know, people are generally educated about gut health and things like that. And when they do become educated about this, then they do recognise that that infiltration of the public health message through vested interests, and I guess that sort of takes me to the point, wherein you know, I said about in 2019, in 2019 there was a well that they call it they called it a request for public opinion that was put forward by APRA

And in particular, ARPRA stands for Australian Health Practitioner Regulatory Authority, and with a big A and then all small letters. And they put forward that in 2019, and they sought expressions of interest from the public, that perhaps there should be one set of rules for doctors in particular who are just...

Dr Jen Draper | (12:21)

conventional doctors. They don't do anything that's outside of what's the mainstream approved methods of care. And then another set of rules for doctors who, in their practice, utilise other tools that they have actually self-funded their education and training within. So it was very interesting when you said you thought that I might have mentioned meditation. Well, I...

had to pay for my own training in meditation. I did not receive that as part of a free pharmaceutical-funded CPD event. I forked out and went along to training sessions, which were then delivered to us not as a group of just doctors but as a group of health practitioners. So naturopaths, chiropractors, homeopaths.

Osteopaths and all of these different subspecialties of healthcare, which had been deliberately ratted out of the physician's armamentarium. When you look at the history of it, it actually went back to the early part of the 20th century, and so when I

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (13:37)

What happened?

Dr Jen Draper | (13:38)

So there was a report called the Flexner Report, which some people may be familiar with. And Abram Flexner was commissioned to deliver a report to the Carnegie Institute in the early part of the 20th century. And the big name behind that was John D. Rockefeller, who, of course, was an oil magnate. And I'm not sure if you're aware, but the origin of pharmaceutical agents actually comes from byproducts of the petroleum industry. So what happened was that the Flexner report suggested that the way to train the most appropriate doctors for the population was to be teaching them that homeopathy, naturopathy, all of these alternative healing modalities, frequency medicine, etc.

They're all just quackery, and they needed to be discouraged actively because, well, let's face it, we're really talking about true healing. And the intention of the Flexina report was to breed a population that was so dependent upon doctors who quite clearly learned within their medical institutions, the pathology and the pharmacology of these drugs which would basically be nothing more than poisons with selected effects called the therapeutic effect, and the ones that we didn't like, guess what we call them? Side effects. So all drugs are poisons, and when towards the end of my medical career, people would ask for my opinion, and I would be coming out with things like, well, all drugs are poisons, you do realise that, don't you?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (15:18)

Side effects. Side effects.

Dr Jen Draper | (15:35)

And you've asked for my opinion. Well, opinions are like assholes, we've all got one. What makes mine smell any better than someone else's? And then the worst one that I felt like saying so often was you want to find out my lived experience after I'd clarified about opinion. I'd said, Look, I'm happy to give you my lived experience. My lived experience is that if the public health advice is this, perhaps we should start by doing completely the opposite, and we might be heading towards getting yourself out of that system of being completely disempowered as to your own capacity to heal. Because I mean we're all living, thinking beings, we can make decisions for ourselves, but the issue is that when you are feeling unwell and you move into that state of fear and you are seeking reassurance, number one, it's really great to have someone on your side. But I would encourage the people who are listening to this and view this afterwards to be very selective as to whom you choose to be on your side, and make sure that they are like-minded with you, and they recognise what your wishes are. If you are someone who is anti-drugs for whatever reason, if perhaps because you recognise that drugs are never going to heal you. They are only going to manipulate your body in a direction away from what your symptoms have been telling you that there's something out of balance here. So you put in something that's exogenous into that mix, thinking that you're healing. Well, no, you've just signed yourself up to patiently being a patient.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (17:25)

I'd like to really clarify that for a moment because you're saying that drugs will not heal us. And I am trying to very much make peace with everybody and make peace with the truth because I know that there are people out there who don't want an anti-pharmaceutical

message that could look like it's anti-medicine, anti-health, things like that. Especially, especially because I have to look like I'm making the right decision and we all do in a way. But at the same time, I know that if I get rest and eat the right things and have less stress, then suddenly my head is clearing up and I'm not getting that weird fuzzy feeling in my head. It's like when

Dr Jen Draper | (17:56)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:22)

The right things are happening. It's a step. And yet there are people who will say, take this particular drug that could do all these things. So, in terms of how you are framing this industry, what can we do to make sure that we are finding a peaceful response to these industries and really showing everybody the truth, essentially.

Dr Jen Draper | (18:56)

Sure. Well, the first thing that I would say is that the truth is a matter of perspective. And I feel like we are actually saying exactly the right thing. The thing, I apologise, not the right thing because right and wrong is actually a matter of perspective. And when you in a place of fear and you are looking for whatever solution is going to give you relief quickly,

That is the ideal patient to be attending a conventional healthcare practitioner because they are going to be seeking a quick fix, and let's face it, we have a system of six-minute medicine in Australia. The other thing that I'll pick up on is you used the words medicine and health interchangeably and I would very much argue that point.

So what is your definition of health? I think you hinted at it when you've had enough rest, and you've allowed yourself to de-stress, and you've eaten well, and you've woken yourself in from a great sleep, and you're feeling healthy. And so some people define health as the absence of dis-ease, and I deliberately am saying that as two words.

Some people say that it's no labels. And by the way, a label is just a diagnosis. So yes, we can, we can definitely go on to that. And so what I'm saying, and when I say drugs do not heal you, drugs mitigate the symptoms that your body gives forward when you present them in a certain perspective to

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (20:30)

I'd love to explore that by the way in a moment.

Dr Jen Draper | (20:51)

The listening prescriber. So there is a different way that you can consider a symptom that your body gives forth. And that different way is certainly not something that the majority of people within the health space, I use the term loosely, within the sickness industry, that is designed for quick fixes, reassurance, working out if it's normal.

Or if there is something that is life-threatening, because that is the one thing. I am not saying that we could live without doctors. I am just saying that there are many, many steps along the way that you, as an empowered individual who's going to be listening to this podcast, can take before you jump into the space of worrying about what is the pathology that is going on with me because

That's what the sickness healthcare professionals are designed to do: diagnose, pathologise, etc. There is a different way, and what that is, is to listen to your body as it gives you patterns as to what is going on. So, for example, when I was working as a doctor, I was 30 kilos heavier than I am now and every step that I took

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (22:14)

No!

Dr Jen Draper | (22:17)

was immense pain. So every single step on my feet, I was in agony and was very, very sad because of the pain that I was experiencing. Now the labels that were given to me, variously, were plantar fasciitis, okay, which some people call heel spurs, okay. Have you heard of heel spurs?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (22:37)

What's that?

Dr Jen Draper | (22:43)

Well it's basically a condition when the very underneath of your sole of your foot, which should be a supportive mechanism, is so inflamed as it's hooking onto the bone, it's kind of pulling on your bone with every step. And if that continues for a long period of time, then little bony spurs grow into that support to try and reinforce.

So I now recognise that energetically what nobody was saying to me and what I knew myself was you're too damn fat and heavy. Okay, that's one aspect, but as health professionals, we are indoctrinated to not insult the patient. To not tell the truth. Well, some do, some doctors do, and they're very blunt, and they come out and say Listen, you need to lose weight.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (23:26)

No, so you can't say it.

Dr Jen Draper | (23:37)

But because perhaps because I was a doctor and my general practitioner wanted to support me and wanted to not disempower me, I knew myself that I was too heavy and I was attempting to lose weight, but I couldn't because I was working such long hours and restricting my exercise and being sedentary and every step hurt.

So as I would exercise more, I would get more pain. So it became a vicious cycle of avoiding the symptoms. knowing what I know now, energetically, feet, when you're putting your feet forward, I wasn't putting my best foot forward. The path that I was walking was not serving my higher self in my best intention. And when I stopped working,

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (24:21)

Literally.

Dr Jen Draper | (24:31)

That was when I started healing. That was when I started losing weight. That was when I could make time for myself. And I did have some interventions. I had some interventions while I was still working because I did think that I could change this feeling that I had that somehow, within this system, which was working by design to keep the patients in that pattern of giving away their power and trusting what I said and trusting that I was a caring individual who really wanted what was best for them. And I actually did, but think about it logically. A healed patient is no longer a patient.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:14)

You don't make money if someone doesn't need to fix something with you.

Dr Jen Draper | (25:17)

Exactly, and this is the essence of the sickness industry, especially when you look in countries where it's so driven by the diagnoses and the coding and the funding, which, guess what, that's Australia as well, and that, yeah, yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:37)

Let's, some time aside for that in this chat.

Dr Jen Draper | (25:40)

Yeah, yeah. So I became quite cynical, and that cynicism really doesn't sit naturally with the type of woman that I am. I am a caring individual. Really, I don't like to offend people, but I do like to challenge them, and the time that you have in a six-minute medicine consult, when people come with one problem and they just want a quick fix, they don't want to hear the energetics behind and how they might be able to fix the problem themselves. They just want you to fix, please.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:12)

I have a question there. So,

So we know that a GP appointment is pretty quick, and it sounds like that happens in other countries, as well as Australia, America, probably elsewhere as well. You said six minutes. I can't remember what time slot I normally get when I book a doctor, but are you saying your average chat was six minutes? And also, sorry, one other thing. Did people also not want the longer solution?

Dr Jen Draper | (26:41)

So, a couple of things. First of all, six-minute medicine is a term that came from the initiation of Medicare, which was perhaps before you were born. But back in the 80s, when Medicare first came in, it was touted that for an efficient business model, the average GP consult would be six minutes, which is just long enough to make the diagnosis, write the prescription and say, See you whenever.

So this is this reactive format of healthcare where you have a problem, you go to the doctor, you get it fixed, and then you go back, and you only go when you're sick. So as I mentioned, I had a very different model within my practice. I called it wing and wellbeing. I innocently thought that I could keep people healthy and well, but as I said, healthy, well people don't come to the doctor, even thinking that they'll just have a checkup. If you are assessing them within the paradigms of Western medicine and your definition of health is the absence of dis-ease, then our healthcare system is actually geared towards the chronic disease management problem. So it's recently been changed on the 1st of July. They apparently changed the system. I don't know, I'm not part of it anymore, but the Medicare funding model wherein we all pay a portion of our taxes so that there is this universal insurance system called Medicare, which funds the majority of general practice in Australia. And when you go to the doctor and you are bulk billed, what that means is that you are assigning that Medicare dollars that are associated with that item number, which represents the time that you spent in that consultation with that GP directly over to the doctor and the reason why it became six minutes is because the item number for a brief consultation, brief consultation is zero to five minutes. A standard consultation is six to 19 minutes. So that's a wide range, and you could do a standard consultation once that timer went over six minutes.

And that is where the six minute medicine came from in terms of that the standard item number, which is an item number 23, would be most efficient for the running of general practices, which are basically businesses, to be seeing and dealing with the patients and their problems and keeping them pigeonholed in this paradigm wherein it was an efficient way of doing business. And then what was your second question? Sorry.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (29:24)

The other thing you said that people didn't want the long-term solution. They wanted the quick fix. I'm sensing a bit of, what's the phrase? A bit of instant gratification going on there. What do you think was happening?

Dr Jen Draper | (29:29)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you heard me previously use the term codependency. So I do feel that and you also heard me say a healed patient is no longer a patient. So I believe that with the caring approach that I took to my patients, there was a certain number of them that would want to see me just even for a bit of reassurance without necessarily having a problem that they wanted to fix or they could well have had a hidden agenda, something that they felt too uncomfortable actually expressing to the GP and sometimes that problem was not physical, sometimes it would be emotional, sometimes it would have quite intricate layers to it which would take time to unravel and it was a rare

Someone that I saw, whom I met for the first time, who would give me their whole life story and kind of let it all out. But it became more common because the process that I had for the intake into new patients in my practice, when I was teaching, I had a registrar doctor, and I specifically gave the registrar a template for moving through the history, which would give me clues as to what may be the underlying reasons behind the patterns that would show up within that individual. Over time, what it led me to recognise was that somewhere between 90 and 95 % of presenting issues that people feel is of relevance to discuss with their general practitioner have actually got a root in the meanings that they have taken on board through the significant emotional experiences that they've had all through their life. And I'll say that again, it's the meanings that they have taken on board, and they keep telling themselves as a response to the significant emotional events that they have gone through in their life.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (31:51)

That line there, the word meaning, because I had sensed for a while that if there's something going on, maybe constant headaches, it's sometimes clear to even the most mainstream follower that if there are headaches for that long, maybe there could be something medical, or maybe there's a whole lot of stress. So we know that, but you're saying that there's a meaning assigned to these things.

Dr Jen Draper | (32:15)

Yes,

yes. So I'll give you an example, and I was less well-resourced to deal with this when I was a medical doctor. So, subsequent to that, I haven't even spoken to you about what I do now, apart from saying that I'm a holistic transformation coach. So after I had my own period of healing and overcoming my excessive weight and my very painful feet

And also I was burnt out, so I had a degree of depression, and I was incredibly teary and sorry for myself and feeling disheartened and guilty for walking away from a successful medical thriving practice with lots and lots of patients, know, waiting lists of years long, et cetera, et cetera. I walked away from all of it because I put myself first.

But the lesson that I would like to draw upon is actually from a client who I spoke to just today. And her problem was that I knew about when I was a doctor, and I prescribed, I diagnosed tension headaches, migraines at that time, and I prescribed for her. And she was on medication. And I had stopped being a doctor, and she had gone to another doctor. And what had happened with the medication that had been prescribed, the dose had been increased and increased and increased, and was she getting any better? No, she wasn't. In fact, she was so unwell that when she had had her last holiday, she had actually ended up in the intensive care unit. Yeah, vomiting so severely.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (33:51)

Do you think that was partly in relation to or in response to the increase in medication?

Dr Jen Draper | (33:57)

It may have had something to do with it, but more so, what it had to do with it was nobody was actually addressing the root cause, and so she then said to me she was desperate, and I said I'm not a doctor anymore. I can't give you medical advice. I can't give you labels. Sorry diagnoses. I can't prescribe, but I can actually help you to change things to really transform, and what had turned out was that these chronic headaches were a representation physically of an internal mismatch in the stories that she was telling herself. And it turned out that she had two main areas of dysfunction in her relationship and in her workplace. And in her relationships, she was not asking for what she really needed.

She was just drawing into herself, and she was missing out on emotional connection, on feeling safe, on feeling honoured. And in her workplace, she was over-exerting herself. She was solving all of the micromanagement problems and feeling like the culture of the place was terrible, but she was powerless to fix it. And she was just so, so out of balance that every day without fail at a certain time she would get a headache, and it would persist, and she would, you know, take some time out, perhaps take some paracetamol, which by the way is a very bad thing to reach for easily. Well, because paracetamol is a very effective poison, and it has been one of the biggest marketing tricks that because of course

Drugs can't be marketed to the populace unless they're considered safe. You can buy them in Coles.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (35:53)

So what would it do to us really quickly, because I wanted to know what happened and whether this woman healed, but what does it happen?

Dr Jen Draper | (35:57)

Yes, well, she has healed. Well what happened what happens with paracetamol If someone takes wants to kill themselves wants to end their lives they take an overdose of paracetamol ⁓ then they will go into liver failure and die because what paracetamol does is it depletes this particular ⁓ amino acid in our body that is the precursor for glutathione and glutathione is kind of like our super fighter against oxidative stress which is like ⁓ what happens as an end result of chemical reactions in our body. So if you end up in the emergency department after you've taken an overdose of paracetamol, they give you the precursor amino acid, which, by the way, you can buy online, it's called NAC, N-acetylcysteine. It's an amazing antioxidant that peps you up.

I don't recommend taking that all the time, either, but all of these people who chronically take paracetamol are suppressing their glutathione, causing their liver to have to detoxify all of this extra paracetamol that they're taking and slowly poisoning themselves. So yes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (37:07)

You said liver. Hang on.

And of course, some people would take this after drinking too much.

Dr Jen Draper | (37:14)

Yes, of course. Yeah, so you can see the contradictions within it, but it's a quick fix. Okay. And in part, some of the detoxification processes that your body goes through actually make you feel unwell. So why not reduce the detoxification potential to make you feel better? And that's exactly what paracetamol does.

So that's the mechanism whereby it's working by depleting your glutathione that's actually helping you to detoxify and you know you've heard no pain no gain so yeah yeah so anyway yeah no she she wasn't she would only occasionally take the paracetamol mostly she would just go and sit and reflect but what's happened since we've been working together and we've been doing the transformation healing journey she has gradually with her gps awareness

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (37:50)

So that's what this woman was taking, and then what happened?

Dr Jen Draper | (38:08)

been reducing down her medication. She's been literally doing the inner work and clearing these trapped emotions and clearing out these limiting beliefs that have kept her locked in this pattern, and she's rebalanced and recalibrated, and in the last week, she's had one headache instead of daily headaches. So I think that's a win, and I was incredibly overjoyed to be speaking with her today in our coaching session.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:37)

That's amazing. Are you saying that people's relational or emotional issues can be manifesting physically?

Dr Jen Draper | (38:48)

I'm saying exactly that. I am saying that your body keeps the score. So when you have significant emotional events in your upbringing, if the events that happened for you at that time were too painful for your conscious memory to keep they get pushed down into your subconscious, and the equivalent of your subconscious is the body, and there's a book by Bessel van der Koek called Body Keeps the Score. And this is the basis of trauma-informed practice that people like Gabor Mate and Dr Russell Kennedy, and all of these people around the world are starting to bring to the awareness of common people that when your body is giving you signals, it does not necessarily mean you need to go to a doctor, and I'm here to reaffirm that. I'm here to say that I use tools. There's one tool in particular that I use and I have no affiliation with this at all but this is a book that's called The Secret Language of the Body by Inna Segal and that was suggested to me back in the very early stages of my healing as I was breaking away and slowly recognising that being a medical doctor, i.e glorified drug pusher, was not my in my highest self's best interest, I started having some Bowen therapy. Are you familiar with Bowen therapy?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (40:16)

feels like the word is familiar, but let's explain it to those who don't know.

Dr Jen Draper | (40:21)

Well I don't know that much about it apart from the fact that it really helped me but it's a very gentle body work modality of healing wherein by indicating the areas of your body in which you feel symptoms with a pressure release technique the little trigger points dissolve and that's then backed up by the therapist suggesting some self-care habits like you were hinting at. Good rest, good hydration, some gentle exercises and then my Bowen therapist suggested that book to me, and in this book, if you have a symptom that's in a particular part of your body, then you can look it up and it will speak about some repressed or stored emotions that can actually be resulting in symptoms in that particular body part. Would you like to have a go? Have you got any kind of symptom that troubles you?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (41:18)

any symptom at all. Look, right now, right now it's different than weeks ago and I had plenty of anoxototes but right now my back is feeling just a bit stuck because I've been sitting a bit. Yes, in the middle, so along the spine just above the desk.

Dr Jen Draper | (41:20)

Yeah, well, I can always say yeah.

Yeah?

Whereabouts in your back? In the middle or in the lower back?

Mm-hmm. So the thoracic spine, would you say? Yeah, so the thoracic spine is sort of like from above your bra, where your bra sits, sort of there, and above that, then that would be your lumbar spine. So I'll just look up lumbar spine 110 109 to 110, and then the idea with this is you know, as I was saying, I believe truth is a matter of perspective.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (41:43)

I guess. Okay, I'd say it's below that.

Dr Jen Draper | (42:07)

So you take with what resonates with you, and you don't take it as gospel. But in the lumbar spine, if it's just below where your briar is, that might be, say, L1 or L2. Those are just L1, which is like the first lumbar vertebra, second lumbar vertebra, anatomically. So L1 says, and just see if any of this resonates with you, feeling poisoned by resentment, stagnation and unresolved issues from the past.

Your thoughts and words don't align with your actions, leading to feelings of confusion, depression, criticism and sadness. In order to heal, you need to forgive, move forward and begin to take positive action. On a physical level, you may experience constipation, colitis, diarrhoea and hernias. Does any of that resonate?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (42:55)

Most of it, except the constipation, diarrhea and hernias.

Dr Jen Draper | (42:59)

Wow, well, isn't that great because it says on a physical level, you may experience or you may not. Yeah yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (43:04)

Yes, of course. No, no.

I mean, no one needs to hear about how my gut has been going lately. That's its own journey. But I'd say, okay. I just wasn't going to admit to a few of those things in a recording.

Dr Jen Draper | (43:16)

Yeah, pretty amazing, hey. Yeah, and shallow.

That's okay, there was an awful lot of them in there. So do you want me to read L2 in case we're a little high? I'll read L2. Feeling like there is little or no choice, a sense of giving up, too much focus on the outside world and what you're not getting, rather than on your inner strengths. You need to deal with your childhood pain and low self-esteem. Feeling powerless regarding your situation and pushing yourself over your limit. Any of that resonate?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (43:29)

Okay.

Okay, yes, and I just wanted to say before anyone shrugs this off as a fortune cookie, this is so accurate that it's like this book had listened in on my phone calls because I don't keep a journal, but seriously.

Dr Jen Draper | (44:05)

So you can see why, when my Bowen therapist suggested and loaned me the book, I went out and bought my own copy, and I found it in Big W. So I was pretty impressed. Yeah, and the thing is, there are so many resources out there on the internet that are free. You just need to be curious and to know where to look. And I guess my main message is to say to people that

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (44:18)

Easy to get.

Dr Jen Draper | (44:33)

Stepping into the fear and outsourcing your power is really rarely going to be in your best interest when you are dealing with something that is chronic. When you are dealing with something that is acute even then listening to your body and noticing patterns of when the physical or the emotional symptom happens or even when you get triggered. Do you know what getting triggered means?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (45:01)

My understanding is that something in the moment is prompting a response that we would have had to something else years ago.

Dr Jen Draper | (45:11)

That is a great description, a really good description. Another way to think about it is that you momentarily lose control of your conscious brain because your prefrontal cortex, in that very instant, actually does go offline because your amygdala is firing, and the amygdala is part of the limbic brain system, very close to the brain stem, which is the basis of the autonomic nervous system which we are different from all mammals in that it's only us and apes that have this big wiggly cortex up the top. But that primitive fight or flight, or the opposite, the brakes, rest and digest, the accelerator or the brakes, one or the other is going on. So going through life continuously with your foot on the accelerator, not allowing the pauses, well, you're run out of fuel, aren't you?

And that's the autonomic nervous system being overstimulated. And at whatever time it was in the past, when that experience that you had was so painful, your consciousness didn't want to keep it in memory. As children, we have this amazingly protective response, which is the trauma centres of the brain, of which the amygdala is the primary one, which packages that away such that consciously you won't be continuously reminded of that memory. But when you are triggered your ego takes a little break and it feels like the experience and the emotion maybe with some scattered fragments is actually happening right then and there and straight away you go into the fight-or-flight freeze-forn response. And it can be incredibly difficult to then rationalise your way out of that, the way to bring yourself back into some parasympathetic, put the brakes on, is your breath. So, your breath you can consciously control, and the majority of the time it is under unconscious control. So always remember that when you are triggered, a long, slow exhale will bring the brakes back on and allow some time for your prefrontal cortex to come back online, and then you can recognise that that feeling that you get in your body is almost exactly the same every single time that it happens. So don't feel that you need to give in to that amygdala fear-based response when you are triggered if you remember that you can breathe.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (47:57)

wondering, first of all, I'm wondering if there's any possibility that we can't stop it like we're so controlled sometimes. So that's the first question. I'm bundling the questions too much. I'm wondering, sometimes are we, okay, I'll bundle them. So firstly, are we sometimes so controlled and not even observing that the switch has been made? And also the frame of reference

Dr Jen Draper | (48:11)

Mmm, that's okay.

Correct.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (48:27)

That I have, and I've made an art out of saying things without saying it. I think that my most dysfunctional, extremely close friendships involved almost constant dialogue or close to it. And it was like a part of the brain was constantly going because when you're doing writing or talking and all this constant verbal, I'm wondering, I'm wondering if you're saying that we can switch off some of the triggers by actually putting on the mental breaks. So not talking, talking, talking, talking as much as I love talking between into these conversations. But do you think that we can switch off the brain and switch off the triggers when we step back from all of the dialogue for a moment?

Dr Jen Draper | (49:13)

I would actually say probably not because you can, of course, receive a trigger verbally, but the reality is that our external communication and the meaning that we communicate with each other, probably only seven per cent of that comes from the words that we say. The vast majority of communication comes through our physiology

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (49:16)

Okay.

Dr Jen Draper | (49:41)

And our tonality, and then it's seven per cent that's actually our words. So our brain is an amazing organ that processes 11 billion bits per second of information and you know even the fastest of our speakers of people who speak can only speak at about a hundred words per minute.

So that even and writing and typing, that's a pretty fast writer or typist to give 100 words per minute. So, yet your thoughts, you can be the self-talk is going at about 400 words per minute. So therefore to get those words out, you're only using about 25 % of your brain function. And then the meaning itself comes from the words in only an even smaller part of that. So,

Yes, you can be triggered, but once the triggering is happening, to try and use the conscious brain, the neocortex, the wiggly bit up the top to pause the triggering is almost impossible because the fear centres have taken over, the trauma centres and as I mentioned, there's only two halves of the autonomic nervous system. You've got your sympathetic nervous system, which is your fight, flight, freeze, flop, fawn, the protective, short-lived responses that are designed to get you out of danger.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (51:08)

What were those last ones? Because for a while, we were only talking about fight or flight. What are the other ones?

Dr Jen Draper | (51:10)

Fight. Yeah, yeah.

So fight and flight you get. Freeze means to just put the ball. So think eagle spies a little bit of prey. Well, it doesn't want a dead prey. So you freeze, and the eagle thinks you're dead. So that's the freeze response. Flop is just another version of the freeze, but literally to go limp. Yeah. Or fawn. Now fawn is

Very interesting one, but think about idolising someone.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (51:47)

Gosh, are you saying that putting someone on a pedestal is a trigger response? My goodness. There we are. And this is why the podcast is everybody's therapy. Right.

Dr Jen Draper | (51:52)

Can be a trauma response. Yes. Yes.

Yes, yes. So that's the sympathetic, okay. And then the parasympathetic is the rest and digest. So that's the pause. That's the sacred pause before action. That's the grace before you eat.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (52:03)

My god.

Dr Jen Draper | (52:21)

That's the feeling that you get when there's joy and when your body floods with you know these beautiful hormones that put you into that space of just deep joy and satisfaction. So that Zen bliss cannot exist when you are pushing the accelerator.

So, to find the balance between the two of you. Now I'm not saying that we don't need to push the accelerator because, of course, having a degree of nerves or stress, like not all stress is bad. Stress engenders performance. Stress allows you to achieve your best, and it's the balance of allowing yourself the rest after the performance.

That will keep you in the ability to regulate between those two autonomic emotional states. So a great thing is a lot of my learnings from this whole area of neuroscience comes from a very good friend of mine. I mentioned his name before, who is a neuroscientist and author of a book that's called Anxiety RX, Dr. Russell Kennedy. And he speaks about a game that he used to play with his daughter when she was little that would cultivate the ability to go from those extremes of the accelerator into the brake. And that was called the sea monster, where she would go to him sea monster, and then she would run and he would chase her around the house. And there'd be lots of lily excitement, excitement, you know, that's the flight. And then finally, she would allow herself to be caught, and there would be a big cuddle at the end. And there was all of that joy. So it's that self-regulation from the extreme to the relaxed and that's very much part of Eastern practices like Qigong, where it's all very parasympathetic, and then all of a sudden you go ha and then come back to the peace. doing these things consciously can actually help us with our own self-regulation. So you were asking about stopping the triggers. There are various self-help strategies that I have learned since stopping from the nine to five, well actually it was eight to six grind of being a doctor, being on call 24 seven. I mean, it really wasn't in my highest self-spaced interest. And I look back on that now and I'm just so grateful that I recognised it before I was too old to, well, you're never too old, but before I came to the end of my career.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (55:06)

And the reason is that you went back to your own burnout. And, and one thing I really wanted to ask you, and we will get more time to talk another time because you're teaching so much about everything. ⁓ lot of health practitioners or health therapists of various sorts are becoming burned out. And I'm seeing a trend.

I've never been a health professional of any sort, but even some of the earliest guests on this show talked about a similar thing: burnout working in the health industry. So, for those who do want to keep trying to make that world a better place as much as they can or however they can, do you have any suggestions for those who need to get a bit more self-care when they are still in that world?

Dr Jen Draper | (55:58)

Yeah, yeah, that is a really good question, and the first thing is to pay attention to your own intuition and don't be railroaded into doing things that go against your gut instinct. So if it doesn't pass the sniff test, then it doesn't pass the sniff test, and if you are feeling like the pattern of care that you are giving is disingenuous with what your heart is telling you and you continue to not listen to your heart, then you will end up in the burnt out pile because honoring our values is the way for us to reach the basic five human needs of feeling safe and getting control, being challenged and feeling like change is a good thing, feeling like you matter. You've got to be in alignment with your values, having love and connection and that soul expansion and contribution, which we can achieve only when we have met all of those preceding needs. So listen to your gut, trust yourself, and remember what I said about opinions.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (57:13)

Yes, there will always be more opinions, especially one thing I've seen on the recipient and in the healthcare land is that every specialist, every person, I'm guessing you probably saw that even every doctor will have a different opinion about every.

Dr Jen Draper | (57:28)

Truth is a matter of perspective, and in fact, what you see, what you perceive out there in the world, is actually what you project. This natural law, law of attraction, law of reciprocity, this is the essence. You know I was attracted to you purely because you needed to hear what I had to say. So don't discount your own power because society will have you stripped of it. I mean, you've probably heard of calcification of the pineal gland. Or is that another topic for another day?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (58:07)

Let's delve into that a lot soon. We definitely are you okay to do a part two soon?

Dr Jen Draper | (58:10)

Sure.

I would be more than happy to do a part two, Melanie. I would be delighted. And you can stack the questions up. Well, considering this is the first time that you met me, I'm sure that you've got lots of interesting questions. And I would be happy to do a part two.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (58:20)

Hope you have a great

I'm so glad I have a whole list of questions for next time. Jen, thank you so much. I think we'll keep learning from you all the time. You're bridging the gap between the two different sides of health. Thank you.

Dr Jen Draper | (58:42)

You are welcome. Thank you for having me.