Unraveling the Hidden Energetic Effects of Generational Trauma

Welcome to the Satiated Podcast, where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host, Stephanie Mara Fox, your Somatic Nutritional Counselor. Alexander Lowen has been a prominent figure in the field of somatics. He developed Bioenergetics, which is a technique to guide people back into their bodies. The basic principles are grounding, breathing, and vibration, and focuses on expanding the breath, moving freely in one's body, and expressing oneself fully. Out of this came the field of Bioresonance that works with the body's vibration and energy.

If you had told me about these fields before I discovered somatics, I probably would have met this all with a lot of skepticism. But, in my early twenties, I saw a network chiropractor. There is no cracking and the practitioner uses gentle, light touch that focuses on releasing stored tension in the spine. To this day, I still feel the effects of this and how my body re-learned what spinal alignment could feel like. So I enter into every modality out there with a lot of openness and curiosity to learn more. So when I connected with Shannon Salge and she had me on her podcast, I invited her to come on over and share her experience and work with bioresonance.

Shannon is a Functional Nutritionist and Bioresonance Practitioner who helps people heal their metabolism, hormones, and gut health through a blend of energetic and root-cause approaches. She’s the founder of The Wellness Paradigm and also the host of a top 100 podcast called The Wellness Paradigm Podcast After years of dealing with hormonal chaos, fatigue, autoimmune symptoms, digestive pain, and being offered only temporary solutions or medications, she knew there had to be a better way. That journey led her to blend the best of bioenergetic testing, nutritional science, functional labs, and nervous system healing into an approach that not only transformed her own health, but she has now helped hundreds of women reclaim their energy, balance their hormones, heal their metabolism, and feel at home in their bodies again. We chat about understanding bioenergetics and bioresonance, generational trauma, getting to know the body's communication, and daily practices and simple steps you can take to build resilience and regulation.

If you've been enjoying the Satiated Podcast and want to give back or connect further, check out all my affiliate links, join Satiated+ and be able to Ask Me Anything each month, or check out working with me 1:1 or in any of my programs. All links are in the show notes. Now, welcome Shannon! I am so glad that you're here and being able to connect with you again. You know, I was on your podcast, and you know I'll be re sharing that with my audience, and that now you get to come on and share your wisdom. And so, you know, I'm just excited to connect with you and your wisdom and would love for listeners who are new to you, for you to share a little bit around your background and how you got into the work that you're doing today.

Shannon Salge 03:26

Yeah. First of all, it was such a great conversation. Highly suggest you guys check it out. I know it's so fun to host these, but it's nice when your listeners can also hear, you know, your passion again. But yeah, so I am a functional nutritionist, and I'm also a bioresonance practitioner. And, you know, people have really never heard the latter. You know, I feel like so many people now are, you know, nutritionists or functional nutritionists. But, you know, I stepped into bioenergetics about a year plus ago, and I'll talk about that journey a little bit, but I grew up very active, you know, a professional athlete. I was a professional dancer. Studied kinesiology, sports medicine, was always into, like, the human body, and I wanted to originally be a sports medicine doctor and then or physical therapist. I was like, gosh, just something about being on like, proactive side versus the reactive side just sounded a lot better. Went to personal training, became a nutrition coach and personal trainer, which was great, very successful at that. But I was like, man, I just like, feel like I can't help people the way I really want to. And you know, I was booked for 12 hours a day. It was like, you got your one hour, and that was it with me. And that was fine and dandy. But I was, like, searching for more. And like, during this whole process of life and searching for more, I got very, very ill with, like, horrific gut issues, horrific hormone issues, cystic acne. And then what most people know me for is I went from like, winning a body building show during this time to being crippled, walking with a cane, unable to get out of bed. And within a month, you know, I put on so much inflammation, I felt absolutely horrible. I was tired all the time, and I, like, legitimately walked with cane, on five Aleve's a day just to get into work. And that kind of set me on a path of understanding that health really wasn't like just macros and calories in, calories out, and, you know, workouts and you know, all those things that a lot of people start off at and just dove into, like more functional healing and understanding the role gut health played into all of this. And nervous system work came a little later, but it was for, like, gut mineral based. So I got into functional lab testing. I started my own practice, and I really helped women, you know, dive into their gut and their hormone and their thyroid issues through functional lab testing and nutrition and and that was beautiful. And, you know, loved it. And about a year and a half ago, you know, like, you know, are your souls just missing something? You're like, gosh, I mean, I love doing this work, and I'm getting clients results. And this work was just so much deeper, and I was realizing the really deep impact role that nervous system plays into clients health journeys. And, you know, I brought in a somatic practitioner, I brought in a nervous system course, and that was beautiful, but it wasn't enough for me. I was like, you know, people were just checking off the boxes of the modules saying they did it, right? Like, okay, I attended the breath work session and what next? And I was seeing these clients that, just like, I couldn't shift no matter what protocol we did, no matter what kind of work we did. And I was like, there has to be something else out there. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know if it existed. That merged my kind of energy healing side with this very logical brain side of me. And that's when I found bioresonance, and I should say, re found, because, like, 20 years ago, my sister actually got incredibly ill, had to drop out of college. Nobody could figure out what was going on with her. We lived in LA, so there were a lot of alternative healing, you know, at the time, and that again, this was 20 years ago, so not super common. But in two sessions of doing bioresonance work, she was fine, went back to school, never had the issue again. So when I re found it from a friend who had been going through it and shared that she was doing it, she was so funny. She was like, Jenny, you're gonna think this is, like, really weird. And I was like, no, I don't think anything's weird at this point, right, like, and literally, like, intuitively, I was like, this is what I've been looking for. So I shifted my whole practice earlier this year to actually have that be my primary focus, rather than just, like, labs and things like that. Because I just saw not only the power that this had, the depth that we can, you know, change clients, and how quickly we can change them as well, while still being an integrity that I'm not a quick fix, you know, program. But if we can shift things quicker, let's do it, you know. And so that's kind of my very long and maybe not so short story short.

Stephanie Mara 04:12

I love it. I always love all the details, because I find it just so fascinating our twists and our turns that we take on our journeys to get to where we're at today. And it does take a lot of deep listening, especially for those who are listening, who are also practitioners like, to find the work that you feel called to do. It is sometimes just starting anywhere and saying, okay, how does this land for me? And then keep checking in, and then you might build on that and shift and change. And I really hear that, and I did that too, where it was like, you know, you just keep listening. It's like, this is great, and I'm supporting people with this particular thing, but I don't know if this is quite what I'm called to do. So I'm curious if you could share more about bioresonance, and what is it? What can people, you know, expect from this work.

Shannon Salge 08:22

Yeah, I mean, when people hear that, they're like, oh, that sounds fun. What like, but like, what is it? It's an energy based, frequency based assessment that essentially uses your body's own frequencies, usually by a hair or saliva sample. We run it through our equipment, and it identifies imbalances on not only a physical level, you know, everybody wants to know if they have parasites, right? That's a big one, right now, like parasites, candida, heavy metals, things like that, right? But also on an emotional and energetic level, and that's one thing you just cannot see on traditional, not only traditional labs, but functional labs too, right? Is these, like deeper layers, and it's kind of like tuning a unique radio signal, like your body is broadcasting, and it's finding, like, where there's static. And instead of, like, again, a functional lab test, which people are familiar with that, you know, stool testing, urine testing, hair samples, whatever, there's probably 30 things that can ever show up. That's about it. That doesn't tell the full picture, right? You know, maybe 50, depending on what kind of lab versus, you know, we're testing somebody's, you know, hair, nail or saliva sample. We're testing it against 75,000 different frequencies. And there's a lot of stuff that comes up. And so that's kind of how we how I run the scans. So it's like, actually, I think something that usually hits home for people, because they're like, I just don't understand. Now, I'm like, it's quantum physics. Of course, I don't say that because I don't get it. But this all is rooted in science, which also my science brain likes, this is rooted in quantum physics. It's rooted in a very complex thing called quantum entanglement. The easiest way to understand it is, it's kind of just like tuning into your unique phone number too. Like, I'm calling it up. I'm seeing, like what it is. And so when I'm sending remote imprints, or what I'm doing imprinting, it's sending your body these signals to your unique body. And it's wild to understand, because it's hard logically to wrap our head around. But yeah, it's crazy. The results are crazy, like immediate too. Sometimes I've had clients across the United States who like, for an example, a friend got sick with, like, food really, really bad food poisoning, and she was texting me like I was doing a scan on her stomach. Obviously showed up great, like, showed up very prominently and very urgently, or I should say, acutely, sent her a remote scan, and literally, she went to sleep and she woke up an hour and she's like, I don't know what happened, but I feel like a ton better. She was like, you know, it's just like, what? It's crazy. So it kind of geeks me out.

Stephanie Mara 10:47

Yeah, I mean, I can totally nerd out on all sorts of different realms of how, you know, our body communicates certain things in different ways. And so I'm wondering, because you're like, oh, there's, like, all these things that we can find out and I'm curious what are kind of some of the things that you've seen in starting to use this over the past year that has really surprised you, that you felt like maybe the way you were practicing previously wasn't quite hitting on, I know even before we started recording, you were talking about how there doesn't always have to be a problem, and that sometimes we're always looking for a problem. So I just be curious to hear more.

Shannon Salge 11:23

Yeah, well, I'll go on that point, because I think that is important. You know, when I was doing traditional labs, most people, I mean, you can go do normal blood work because you want to optimize health, and you go and do that yearly, awesome, but they're going to tell you, like, this much of the problem, right? You know, very small amount. Then you dive into functional labs, and most people aren't going to invest, you know, the average lab is five to $600 if there isn't a problem, just to be like, this is fun. I mean, I probably would, because I'm just, you know, like that. But, you know, most people that's that's just not, not how it goes. You know, with bioresonance, one thing I love is I work with so many entrepreneurs. I work with so many people that are in the health industry, and there's just like, how can I just optimize my body a little bit more, or dive deeper into understanding what my body signals are trying to tell me that I don't know? And you know, that's the cool thing too. Is it's not always like, look at all these problems. There were always stuff to optimize in the body, right?

Stephanie Mara 12:14

Right. Yeah.

Shannon Salge 12:16

But it's being able to fine tune on this energetic level that we've never been exposed to, and suddenly you don't realize that you've been maybe a little bit crabby or tired or worn down, or that you're carrying, like, these generational patterns. We have zero idea we're carrying. And when we're able to kind of move our body through it on an energetic level, we're like, wow, I just feel lighter. I feel less reactive. I feel like, calmer, more balanced. You know, whatever that is for the client. And that was never a quotation problem to address. It was just something that they suddenly feel good and now they feel even better, right? So that's definitely something that's been, you know, fun. I obviously work with a lot of complex health issues too, but I also work with the people that are just like, like, that's how I actually got into it is I was like, I'm just curious what's gonna come up. That's definitely not surprised me, but enlightened me. And then I think something that has actually surprised me a lot is how deep we can go into generational work, like generational traumas.

Stephanie Mara 13:12

That was exactly what I was just thinking of.

Shannon Salge 13:15

Was it?

Stephanie Mara 13:15

Literally, like just tuned into my brain I was thinking generational trauma.

Shannon Salge 13:21

Nice frequency word. It's, I mean, that's fascinating, because we can quantify it. And that's one thing again, like that logic brain, like, if you would have told me generational traumas was something I'd be talking about five years ago, I would have left, you know, or that I'd be meditating for 45 I would laugh at you. I'd be like, oh, five minutes, right? I'll give you five so, but now it's just, I understand that it plays a role in a client's health journey, on things that we have been carrying, that our body doesn't know how to move through, and we can't just, like out meditate it right? Or out breathwork it, sometimes breathwork can be stimulating, like that for some people, but, you know, that's been really fascinating, because we can see different lineages, like, you know, grandfather, maternal side, we can see different, you know, sons, daughter, brother energies. And, you know, different energies that are our body is holding on to. And so that's really interesting. And sometimes it hits really well with a client. Sometimes it's they don't really understand it. And that's okay. Like, hey, you if we have something like a brother energy coming up. I don't have a brother. Well, a lot of times this is, was there a male person in your life that acted like a brother to you? Could it be that your mom had a brother and somehow that impacted, you know, your energy, right? It goes so deep, and you don't even have to understand where it came from. You know, that's where these tinctures kind of come in, is we imprint different frequencies to allow your body to move through it too. So it's like my very logical clients to have a very hard time grasping that. So like, well, I have to figure out what it is. No, you don't, you're not gonna necessarily know why your aunt, paternal side is showing up. Like, and you don't need to. It's just interesting information. So that's really interesting. You know, I see a lot of childhood vaccinations is a big one. And this is not a debate either, either or but our body holds on to that a lot. And that's actually what happened to my sister. She was got very sick. It kind of activated a lot of her immune system. And the big thing for her was back in the early 90s, like, there was a lot of thermosol and mercury and things like that, her body, like, couldn't detox properly, and she was having really hard time. So I see that actually a lot with people, and so it's just helping that body remember how to, just, like, move through things a little bit better, and calm the immune system a little bit from that, you know, whether it's heavy metals, you know, immune activation that helps a lot that we're never going to see on a traditional lab. But probably the most fascinating thing is, I have two crazy stories I've told on a few podcasts about bee stings, and I see I've seen certain things around bee sting show up and only twice, and they both come with crazy stories of trauma, and it wasn't the actual bee sting, like, I don't know when that comes up. I'm like, it could be that they're allergic to bees, and that could be an immune response, right? Or it could be something else. And both of them were a very trauma response from one person being beaten because they yelled really loud and they got stung, and another person, they're like, brother almost died from being stung. So you're never going to be able to figure that out on a traditional lab. So those things have kind of rocked me a lot. You know? I'll see things like strep infections a lot that that's a big one. That people can't clear tooth infections is a really big one too. That just, you know, they've gotten to the desks, they don't know what's wrong, you know, we'll be able to see either there's a tooth kind of issue or it's linked to different meridians in the body. So, yeah, those are probably the ones that are just a little bit more off beat, like off the beaten road. I mean, I could talk about, like, you know, the sexy things, like Candida and, you know, a parasite. And don't get me wrong, those play a fact. Those play a role. But I do want to emphasize something on this. If you're constantly sick with stomach issues, bloating issues, you know you're doing all the right things. You've maybe healed your relationship with food. You're wanting to eat more of the foods you like, but your body's like, no, don't do that. I mean, we could talk a whole thing, whole podcast, on the balance between functional protocols, where you're trying to, like, heal the body, but also emotionally, when we've had maybe a dysregulated relationship with food too, like, finding this healthy balance healing really looks like but what happens a lot is, I see people develop really unhealthy relationships with food because they're chronically depriving themselves, because they don't feel good everything they eat reactivates a stomach issue, right? And there's a huge nervous system regulation issue with this. But you know, maybe there's a parasite issue that really is a problem that's causing the stomach to be so reactive, but the body frequency is so low, that's why we keep getting reinfected with all of these issues, right? And so a lot of times it comes back to this frequency issue. So yes, even though, if we do like a parasite cleanse, it helps you make feel better, comes back. And that's, you know, that's, again, it's our frequency is really low, and that's where, again, a lot of nervous system work comes in, you know, the mindset. But it's such a fine balance. I'm sure you deal with this a lot, right? Where it's like, you know, a lot of push and pull when we're healing that relationship with our body, mind and soul, right?

Stephanie Mara 18:07

Yeah, I appreciate that addition, and what I hear just kind of in the because I know sometimes when we start talking about concepts of energy and things like that, where some people are like, oh, yeah, totally get it can feel the energy from my own body. Can feel energy from other people's bodies, and other people are just like, I have no idea what you're talking about. So where I kind of think about it all is like our bodies inherit stories, just like when we are born, or we are even being created in our mother's womb, that our nervous system is shaped by the nervous system that we are growing in.

Shannon Salge 18:48

Yep.

Stephanie Mara 18:48

So if we can see it like that way, that it's just like there are things that get passed down from generation to generation through our bodies, and that our bodies are living in those stories. And then if we can change the story, like, if anyone has ever experienced, like, when you have certain like, internalized beliefs that feel like they're rigid and they're solid and they're not changing, it's like, okay, when we start maybe sometimes looking at those beliefs and more of a top down approach and addressing like, hey, could there be a different perspective here, or could we believe something different? And suddenly you're not as exhausted anymore when you start believing different things, and you're not as tired because the stress of that belief literally drains you operating every single day from that place of like a lack of safety. So that's where I kind of hear in maybe some of my somatic language, of what you're describing is that we're working with we want to use the word story or energy that your body has been inherited or given or cultivated through your life experiences. And you're working on changing the story, so that whatever symptom that you're navigating internally, the body feels like I always kind of explain we cannot heal when we don't feel safe. It has to start there. So if we change that, where you start feeling safer, almost every system in your body can start working more optimally.

Shannon Salge 20:23

100%. I mean, everything in your body, your organs, your cells, your hormones, they all carry an energetic signature. That's what we're picking up on bioresonance, right? Is those different energetic, you know, frequencies. But I think also a good word that you're trying to kind of get at is energetic residue of trauma, like there is this an emotional energetic residue of trauma that gets passed down through family lines, and it's not your fault, but you can do something about it, which is really empowering. But there's literally been studies on this. There's been studies in epigenetics showing that unprocessed trauma can alter gene expression, and that's fascinating, especially in the last 5, 10, years, where this has really become more of a conversation, and it's not quite so, woo, woo. It's fascinating to understand. So that's where energy medicine I love, is it can help release those inherited patterns so you're no longer carrying them, you know. And and also, for, you know, people who are wanting to have kids and things like that, you're not also bringing them down generations, you know, you can be the cycle breaker. And that always, literally gives me chills every time I talk about a podcast is like, you know, this is so much bigger, sometimes than just us. It's also like this, we're breaking generational patterns, both physically and mentally, which is really cool.

Stephanie Mara 21:31

Yeah. So after someone does the scan through, what you collect from them, what happens next?

Shannon Salge 21:39

So as far as like a protocol per se, you know, when someone well, first of all, it depends on what the client's goals are. Usually it's to feel better in some way or to optimize their health. And so we're taking the data and we're doing two things. One, we're doing something called imprinting, meaning I'm taking all of the frequencies, which usually I say a scan, but I've built out my software so advanced that usually I'm getting anywhere from two to 300 signatures at one session, and that session usually includes four to six scans, usually depending on the client. But there's always going to be like a root cause scan. So it's like, what at the root cause of what's going on, what's going, you know, what do we need to address? There's going to be something that addresses a little bit more on neurotransmitters, hormones, spine, teeth, you know, things that maybe didn't show up on that original scan, and then things that look at supplements. Does the body need supplements in the physical or just the energetic presence? Because a lot of times, one, people don't want to take supplements. But two, does the body need additional support outside of energy. If it doesn't, we just imprint that and send them on their way. But a lot of times, clients need a little bit more of the physical depending on what it is. And this could be something physically like mineral is a really big one for clients. But it could also be homeopathy. And it could be some homeopathic like flower remedies, which are really powerful for generational, you know, issues or trauma, nervous system work, right? But I don't, like, willy nilly give supplements. I mean, like, it's only what the body is positively resonating with, which is always fascinating from my functional brain too, because I'm like, I wouldn't have picked this at all, but the body is really resonating with this. And there has to be a deeper reason to right? And then I bring in my functional knowledge, and then I test certain things where I'm like, okay, this could be also an issue that I want to just dive into a little bit more. And then there's also always an emotional scan, too, and that's on its own, because that one's meaty, you know, and then from there, I kind of do, potentially some breakout scans, depending if a client's having a specific symptom, you know, a brain scan, maybe some more gut work if I want to dive deeper, you know, ice, additional eye work, if they're having kind of eye issues, joint pain, things like that. But I have like, 100 different scans built up for this. Tinnitus. I was just running one for a client with tinnitus, you know, it just depends. And then I also asked the body which one it needs most. And sometimes that surprises me, because sometimes it'll kind of pull something. I'm like, why did you why did you pull that? Why out of all of the things we could test, that's the one the body's resonating most with. And usually when I run the scan, it makes a lot of sense. I'm like, oh, wow. I didn't realize that this was trapped in this certain area, like pancreas, you know? And I was like, oh, this is really interesting. So anyways, from that data, we imprint into a custom tincture. So this is usually either an alcohol and water base, or collidal silver base, or it could be a cord, so it could be a patch smelling pad. So we're taking all those frequencies and we're putting it into a bottle. I call it like my genie in a bottle. And the reason we do that is because you want to take that energy, that specific energy and frequency, or that your body wants to bring you back into alignment. And we want to help the body remember how to bring it back into alignment. So when you take those twice a day, it's sending that energetic signatures, or to your body on how to balance. And then I give them, if they want to take a supplements, or if they're willing to, or if they come up, I give them, you know, the idea on that. And then I'm also giving them, kind of a wellness protocol based off of what's coming up. That could be like, hey, your body's really reactive just to oxalates. Gosh, it's a huge one for clients right now, we go down the emotional route, you know, I first start with, usually some, like, overarching goals on, like, what came up, then specifics on, you know, how to target things. And then usually the emotion scan I run, like I talked about last because that one tends to be heavy for some people and for some not, you know, and then we're talking about different kind of modalities that can help them further. You know, usually on the scans, I run something that the body would most likely respond really well to. So this could be something like EFT, emotion code, somatic work, you know, there's, I don't know, there's 15 or 20 different things. And if it resonates, I kind of talk to them about furthering this practice and, you know, talk about kind of next, next step in their wellness plan. You know, sometimes there's some basic stuff, like, hey, let's talk about blood sugar, right? That's a big one for most clients, especially, you know, people don't think they have a blood sugar issue. And I'm like, well, fact, you're crabby and crashing at three and tired and want chocolate all the time, isn't it's a literal physiological response. We gotta eat more protein, fiber, right? So we talk about some of those wellness habits as well. And that is just my scan only option. And then I have, like, a coaching option, where they coach with our functional nutritionists as well, if they want more accountability, more of that. You know, hands on attention, which I personally love my coaching programs, the scans are amazing, but like having that one to one attention is just like, it's really the game changer for people, it also helps feel less overwhelming. So, you know, that's kind of what we do over to the scans.

Stephanie Mara 26:31

It makes me think of a book I read literally forever ago that kind of probably started some of my love for this work. Now, I think it was called, like The Body Speaks. I think it was maybe by Deb someone. It might be Deb Shapiro, but I can't quite remember. Still have it on my bookshelf somewhere, but she literally goes through every single body part and talks about how what that body part could be saying. And that's what this makes me think of, is how wild it is to imagine that we don't necessarily have to understand like, why my eyeball, why my ears, like, why my elbow. We don't have to understand why it's showing up in this body part. It is interesting to get curious about it, sure, but that, oh, that every way that your body is just telling you something, instead of saying it like, you know, I know we were talking about earlier, before we recorded of like, how much you know wellness marketing is like, markets us our problems and says, I have the answer that just keeps us perpetuated in fear that I haven't found, like the rootiest root, that I'm trying to heal here. There must be a deeper root. There's got to be an even deeper root, and kind of keeps people stuck on this hamster wheel of there's got to be something else. There's got to be something else that actually, just like continues to perpetuate the distance from the body, rather than coming into my body is telling me something. And if your friend came to you and was like, I really need to talk to you, you wouldn't be like, wait, let me get to the root problem of your problem before you even share with me what you have to say, you'd be like, oh, like, let's sit down. Talk to me. I'm here for you. I want to hear you out and how much we're not taught how to do that, of that, every symptom, every ping, every pain, every something, you don't have to always understand why it's happening, but it is communicating something, and we also don't always have to figure out what that something is. Do you want to add that? You know, like, some days, your body just has a little something that flares up and you're like, okay, so my body's talking to me today. I'm going to show up for it the best I can and but there's so much of that panic that we learn to respond to these things of, oh, there must be a problem, that something is happening today.

Shannon Salge 28:54

Yeah, that's a big one, man. I mean, it's just I'm like, right in the middle of this, because a lot of times I love figuring out the quotation, root cause, but I like refuse to name my program. I think I love all my friends that are practitioners stuff, but I can't tell you every single one's program is called the root cause something. And I'm like, but the root cause is actually not the stool test. You know, the root cause really isn't even the potassium imbalance, maybe, maybe again, you know, it's where our body, why is our body holding on to so much damn stress all the time, right? You know? Why is it so depleted, right? And so, you know, I love that on one end, but it, it is hard, and it is, I talked to some of my clients on this who have seen incredible results, but aren't quite where they want, right? And it's like, what's the next step? What? And I was like, this is actually keeping you stuck. Like, I know we've seen beautiful results and we've done the functional protocols, but sometimes health isn't about finding what the next problem that there is or the next way to optimize. You know? It's can we just be really grateful and present with where we're at right now? And allow our body to just feel safe and not like it needs to do something else to fix it, because you're not broken, you know. And so, you know, that is a hard shift, especially for my clients who have, again, really complex health issues, you know, where they're stuck in that mindset of like there's always going to be a problem, or if I don't fix it, it's going to go back to where I was, you know, that's tough.

Stephanie Mara 30:23

Yeah. I mean, you're beautifully just pointing to and you said it earlier, of how powerful this journey is in that we're healing generational trauma, but that when we keep looking for the next answer and the next answer and the next answer, it's kind of keeping us stuck in that trauma response. And sometimes it's first having to integrate what you have done and like you said, like, when you even start to see progress, there is kind of this, I don't know if you want to call it like consumerist or capitalist, or whatever you want to call it like thing that gets awoken in us, of like, there's always something more that I could be doing, rather than is what you've done and even what you've explored, where you're like, well, you're feeling better. Why does there have to be an even better after that? Because we all live in bodies that aren't going to feel 100% every single day for the rest of our lives. I'm wondering, like, how you've navigated that with those that you've worked with, where you're like, but look where you came from, and you're doing so well now. But then this thing comes up of like, but there must be a better beyond the better I'm at now.

Shannon Salge 31:34

Yeah, everybody's really different in this. A lot of it is pulling back to gratitude. You know, people forget about that. Maybe they start their practice when they're first, early on, you know, doing it, and then they forget about it because they don't think it works, or it's, you know, whatever it might be. And it's like pulling back into that state of gratitude again, because studies have literally shown that gratitude does rewire your brain, you know. And so it's like finding the small things throughout the day, you can be really excited about what your body is capable of doing, but don't forget also be grateful for where you're at now. And I think we forget about that. And then just, I mean, deep question asking, you know, what is it you feel is still going on? Why do you feel the need to, you know, fix this? Where did this come from? And then that's a big one. It's, where did this come from? And they're like, well, from this, when I got diagnosed here, like, keep going, right? And you know, you can, like, get back to childhood, or inner child, whatever you want to, kind of, we won't go down that rabbit hole, right? And so it's like trying to figure out where this dysfunction or where this anxiety came from, right? And just constantly reminding them, too, sometimes things are normal, like it's if you have a client that has severe gut issues, right, that suddenly has a gut flare up, it can freak you out. It can freak you out that you're going backwards, that everything's going to go back to tech, you know? And I get it because I've been there too, and it's reminding people, too, that certain things are normal. It's okay to have a bad day. It's good to have a bad week if we keep having issues. Okay, let's dive into that. But half of the battle for so many clients is just reminding them that their body is okay, and it's also built to respond to things, right? You know, if you get an infection, it's built to heal that, right? You know, if you get a cut, it knows what to do and it knows how to heal that one, like your body knows what to do. We just sometimes have to give it the space to do that. And every time we freak out over a little gut, we're deepening that wound deeper, right? And so it's just reminding our body, like, hey, doesn't have to be like that, right? So that's probably, I mean, something I constantly have to remind clients on, yeah. And also just reminding them that this is a journey they've been through the journey, but the past journey isn't also the future journey. You know, with bioenergetics, bioresonance work, I I love it because it is peeling away a layer of an onion. You know, you don't just usually do one scan. Everything's fine and dandy. You're good to go sometimes, but oftentimes, it's peeling away this layer, because the more you uncover, the more deeper we can get into the work. And that's a beautiful thing to an extent, right? And that's where I differ from practitioners, is some people just want to sell scan, scan. I'm not that person. I'm like, let your body do its thing, give it time, give it space, then come back. And if we want to keep unpacking this, we can, but if I keep just telling you things are wrong, we need to do this scan and that scan and this scan, you're going to constantly feel like there's always going to be something wrong, and it's never ending rat pull, and then you feel like, well, this work is not working, because I'm still not healed, or there's still more problems. We're gonna there's always gonna be problems, if we live for them. And so, you know, it's just reminding them that, hey, we've done this work that's been beautiful, but you know, it also our body can heal in the state too, like you've done a lot of the work, let's enjoy that. So...

Stephanie Mara 34:43

I love those pieces I really do. And just the reminder that I see this a lot with those that I work with as well, that when like, patterns of binge eating or emotional eating start to bubble up again, there can be this really big fear that it's like, oh no, like, am I going to be back in it again, where this is going to be lasting for weeks and months and months at a time, and how scary that is. So I actually really appreciate you bringing that piece in, and that, like when we do have symptoms, when we've done so much work, there can be immense fear, and like you said, slowing down to take that pause to connect, to show yourself that you're not in the same space you were last time, and to start getting curious and asking yourself questions, just to kind of see like I am not where I was. This may feel familiar, but this is not the same situation that I am going through.

Shannon Salge 35:37

I love that like this feels familiar and I'm a different person, and that's what people it's they're so quick to discredit themselves all of the time, you know, and especially clients that have worked with us for a while, sometimes, you see, you know, you have to remind us like you are not the same person, not only physiologically, but mentally. And you know, I understand why you feel like it's very felt like I understand why you feel that way, and let's figure out how we can move through this, because you have the tools. You know what to do. You're right. I do, you know. And it's like, wow, that's a really empowering feeling, but it's scary. Yeah, when that trigger comes up, and I tell clients, is, it's not necessarily that you never have these triggers, it's that your body knows how to move through them quicker now, right? And we don't get stuck in the same trauma loop, whatever you want to call it, that we used to, right? We can move through things more quickly. And that's a really cool thing, like I hear that all the time. You know, with stress, it's a big one I literally got right before this. Somebody is like, she's freaking out about all of these lymphatic issues and all these things are happening. And I'm like, I need to remind you again. Remind you again that our nervous system plays a big role in this, like we can keep chasing all of these other protocols, all of it. And then she's like, well, it sounds easy, but I can't quit my job. It's not about quitting my job. It's about how resilient our body can be to stress, and it's small things every day that we do to train our body to not be in that constant state, right? Sure, it'd be easier if we all quit our jobs and we, like, you know, didn't have to worry about stress. But that's, it's not about never being stressed. It's not about never having a stomach issue. It's not ever not having a bad thought around food. It's not about never having these things. It's, it's moving through them, and knowing our body is strong and resilient enough to trust ourselves to move through these, you know, all this stuff easier.

Stephanie Mara 37:23

Yeah, you're pointing to a kind of, like, misconception in nervous system work that is also out there, of that you should get to a place where you're always calm and moving through things in this like Buddha, like sereneness, and that's just not the goal. And just like, yeah, we're going to move in and out of stress and relaxation all day, every day. And it's like, can we actually build our body's capacity more to move in and out of these things so that you can face stress, like stress that happens at work or home or family, because there are stressful things we experience every single day, but it doesn't feel the same way, because your body has more capacity and resiliency to move through those things.

Shannon Salge 38:11

Yeah, resiliency. That's a good word, because, I mean, you know, again, kind of linking it back to many of my clients, it's like when they used to get stressed, their whole body would flare, right? They might not be able to walk. Maybe their eczema flares up, you know. Maybe their stomach just is suddenly super bloated, or their legs are swollen, and it's like, you know, and that was maybe just like, one thing that your husband said wrong, right, wasn't even, like, a big deal, or co worker said something right, and that was just enough. Now it's like, hey, you can get on a full blown flight. Don't, don't, don't suggest, but suddenly it's like, hey, you moved through that, and your body didn't get impacted at all, right? Your brain, it's like, I feel seen, I know what to do. I'm moving through that. It doesn't mean it can't affect us emotionally. But suddenly the body isn't like so triggered by all of it, and that's like, a beautiful thing too, when we heal, is that people don't realize that beautiful relationship with our body and how we can move things, you know, even under stressful circumstances that are maybe out of our control.

Stephanie Mara 39:09

Yeah, yeah, I am a little curious, just because so many people here struggle sometimes in their relationship with food. And just like briefly, I'm just wondering what you've seen maybe on scans, if people have come to you around, like, patterns of binge eating or emotional eating, and like, what kinds of things you've maybe seen in a scan. Just curious, and if not, that's totally fine. If, like, that's not the predominant person that has been coming to you.

Shannon Salge 39:39

It isn't, but I think it's also that a lot of people aren't as open to talking about it always, you know, they maybe come in to my world because of said gut issue, hormone issue, right? And if they're in our full coaching, we go a lot deeper into that too, because so many women struggle with with this pattern, probably under the emotional scan is usually where I would see stuff, and there actually is stuff related to binge eating. I also have to be very careful on how I support things, because it can turn diagnostic.

Stephanie Mara 40:11

Yeah. We're not diagnosing anyone. This is unique to you and your body. Like, this is what this work is about, is it has to be individualized. I totally get that.

Shannon Salge 40:21

Yes, it's like, you know, I always start my scan, my stuff like, hey, this is not diagnostic. This is meant to be informative, you know, educational. But because I can't technically, you know, but I can ask some leading questions about their relationship with food, you know, it depends how much time I have to and how much is going on transparently, and if it's their first time with me or not, you know, sometimes on the second time, we're able to dive a little bit more. But it has come up when I'm looking at their skin and seeing different organ systems, like, like, liver is a big one for people. I mean, almost everybody has some sort of sluggish liver going on, you know. And while we can relate it to our food quality, we can relate it to certain toxins in our environment and our food and our shots and our, you know, lifestyle, whatever it is that kind of burdens that, you know, your liver is also very much tied to anger. And lungs, I'll see a lot of lung stuff too. People are like, well, I don't have any lung issues, so sometimes I'll maybe this is a light bulb moment for you. But a lot of people who maybe struggle with this also have problems with like asthma or allergies or things like that, because the lungs hold grief. And so sometimes when I'm opening up those patterns of, like, yeah, you know, why could this be coming up? You know, I know you don't have allergies, or, you know, asthma or things like that, or coughing, but like, you know, is there something that could be triggering us, right? And sometimes that'll open up the door to to other things that I can ask more leading questions to. So I'd probably say, like, those would be the areas I would see a little bit more patterns that would allude to this, like, your kind of work.

Stephanie Mara 41:53

Yeah, yeah. No. Thanks for sharing that. And I totally get it like it is individualized. And, you know, as we move towards wrapping up, you know, something I always like to offer people a baby step in, you know, where they can explore supporting themselves. And what I really hear is one, like, people just need to come do a scan with you if they want to, like, do this work with you. But one thing that you mentioned was, like, we need to start the practices that we can do every single day that can start to build that resiliency. And I'm wondering maybe some baby step that you can offer of, what do you kind of maybe support people with in starting to do those practices? What are the practices that you often recommend that we can start to, kind of like, build our capacity to navigate more of that stress in life?

Shannon Salge 42:35

It's probably three or four. And if you're listening and they're basic, maybe you need to hear it, because basic is also good. Box breathing is my one of my favorites. I know there's so many different breath patterns, but it's just something people can remember. It's easy, and you don't have to go like in a separate room in the dark to do it. You can do it at your office chair. Nobody even really has to know you're doing it. But, you know, breathing in through the nose, holding for four, or exhaling or holding for four, exhaling for four or holding for you know that's really simple. You can't tell me you don't have time to do it. You breathe every day, every second. So I hope so. So, you know, deepening that and just, you know that just signals to the brain. Hey, let's shift out of the sympathetic, you know, to this parasympathetic, rest, digest, right? That's a simple practice. Stillness is a big one. Is like understanding stillness, recognizing stillness. This was a big one for me too, like that. I had a really hard time with this. I was like, go, go, go, go, go. Still am, but it's like challenging. And I do say challenge because sometimes it is a challenge is to find moments of stillness. And it just like anything, you build up a resilience to being okay with stillness, because your body probably might not find that safe, you know, just like, hey, can we close our eyes? It's not a meditation, right? Sometimes people don't like that word. Just, can we close our eyes and take some deep, cleansing breaths and not think about our to do list, not think about our phone, you know, just for a few minutes, and then suddenly, can we do a minute longer the next day, and a minute longer the next day, right? And just that signals to our body, it's okay to slow down. It's okay to feel, yeah, those moments of stillness. Now I crave it, like I legitimately crave, like I could do 30 minutes, 45 minutes, where I'm just, like, breathing. But if you would have told me that two, three years ago, five minutes, I'd be so antsy, like I'd be like, running, I literally would, like, love meditation, because I would be like, perfect. This is a chance to go through my to do list, like, so I get it, you know, but it's like, again, it's like, draining that muscle that it's okay to slow down. The reason you don't like it is not because you don't get it's because your brain doesn't feel safe doing it. And then more on like my functional lens is just like this sounds so drink your damn water like we're all little dehydrated. Cucumbers here, alright, and put some minerals in it, right? Have some nice filtered water and put some minerals in it, because I can guarantee when your body is most people are dehydrated and very depleted in their minerals and stress and mineral depletion goes really hand in hand, but just that alone can help your body feel more safe and more energized and less crabby. So when you feel those things, everything in life gets a little bit easier and better and balancing your blood sugar. You know, those are really simple ones that literally improve your entire quality of life, just in mood and stress and just literally everything. So those would probably be my four little tips.

Stephanie Mara 45:24

I love those. And you know what? I know that you prefaced it with this sounds simple, but it's not. If it was so simple, we would all be doing it all day, every day. We would be like, of course, I need to drink enough water. Of course, I need to take time to slow down and breathe. And so even like, of course, I need to take a minute to just like, stare at the sky and be still and not do anything at all. These things, while in description are so simple, are so difficult to do. So I actually love that you're naming these things because they're free and anyone can do it at any point in day, and they're very just available to any person. And it sometimes is those tiny little practices that do start to shift things in such a profound way.

Shannon Salge 46:10

Absolutely, people get so stuck on all of the fancy, whatever it is, fancy, detoxes, fancy, even fancy nervous system, you know, rewiring work and it's like, but are we doing these basic work? And if you're not, let's remind you to do it. So many of my clients are so type A, so go getter, and I love them because I am them too. And it's like, we feel like it's not enough. This can't be the answer. It has to be something else. And sometimes it is, but a lot of times it's like, hey, it's always going to come back to a lot of these core things. And once we nail those, you know, and nail them the right way, right? I mean, I think 90% of our clients are like, I'm doing check, check, check. And then when we're actually auditing, it's like, okay, 10 ounces of water day actually isn't enough water, right? Or, you know, 10 grams of protein for a day, you know, it's not quite enough, right? And so it's like, yes, you're doing them. Let's optimize it a little bit more so that we can just get our body working so much better for us and not against us.

Stephanie Mara 47:06

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom and your cool work today. And I'm wondering how individuals can keep in touch with you.

Shannon Salge 47:15

Yeah, my Instagram or Facebook. Shannon Salge, S, A, L, G, E, that on Facebook and Instagram, feel free to message me or send me a voice message. I like, really love voice messages. I know some people don't think it's weird, but, like, I find them very personal. I love to hear where clients are at. The wellnessparadigm.com is my website. So you can learn a lot more about what we do, bioresonance testing, functional health coaching, how we blend them together. See if it's for you something you want to learn more about. Go to the FAQs. And I also have a top 100 podcast called The Wellness Paradigm as well. So we talk a lot about shifting the paradigm for women's health, emotionally, physically, emotionally or energetically. So go check that out too. It's free.

Stephanie Mara 47:54

Awesome. I will put all of those links in the show notes and just thank you so much again for being here.

Shannon Salge 48:00

Thank you for having me. This is great conversation.

Stephanie Mara 48:02

Yeah, I completely agree. And to everyone that is listening, if you took away any insights or any aha moments, email me at support, at Stephaniemara.com anytime. I would love to hear them. And I hope you all have a satiating and safety producing rest of the day. Bye!

Keep in touch with Shannon:

Website: https://www.thewellnessparadigm.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shannon.salge/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shannon.salge/

Free Facebook Group: https://bit.ly/TWP_Free_Group