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MODULE 5
THE PSYCHOBIOLOGY OF DIGESTION
In Module 5, we’ll do a deep dive into the fascinating process that is … digestion. So get ready!
The digestive system is arguably one of the very most important systems in the human body, and an aspect of health that so many people unfortunately struggle with. Overcoming digestive challenges requires a truly holistic and integrative perspective, which you’ll discover throughout this comprehensive module.
Calling upon the fields of Eating Psychology and Mind Body Nutrition, you’ll discover the powerful relationship between our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs on our digestion – and digestive ailments. You’ll learn the key nutritional distinctions when it comes to working with digestion, and how to help clients make the changes that will catalyze digestive vitality. Importantly, you’ll learn about the enteric nervous system, the gastrointestinal immune system, food allergies, and the psycho-spiritual aspects of digestion.
Throughout Module 5, you’ll discover the key maps, tools, protocols, distinctions and techniques to support your clients in empowering their digestive process. Because digestive health = heightened overall vitality and well-being.
Additionally, we talk about common counselor traps to avoid on our journey to becoming skillful practitioners.
So let’s begin!
You’ll find Marc’s Module 5 Overview Video below, and then be sure to complete all your Module 5 videos, exercises, and quiz.
Overview Video
Greetings.
Once again, friends, Mark David here,
founder of the institute.
And so the work continues, the information continues,
and there's hopefully a lot more insights
and maybe some breakthroughs coming your way in this
next chunk of material.
So we are about to dive into digestion,
and I so love this topic.
I think it's one of my favorites.
Digestion is something we do every single day,
and when we do it well, life goes on,
we don't complain and everything is good.
And when our digestion is challenged,
it can be a nagging irritation that takes over our day
and perhaps takes over our life and something,
therefore that ought to be so natural.
So unobtrusive can become the focus
of our existence for many people
and drain our energy in a big way.
So my intention when it comes to digestion, as always,
is to expose you
to a different understanding than you've likely been taught
or that you've heard or seen before.
My intention is to shed a light on digestion that allows us
to get a deeper grasp on why things might go wrong
and how we might correct them,
course correct them in a more direct way, a practical way,
a thoughtful way, an empowering way.
So as usual, we're gonna take a mind-body nutrition
approach, a dynamic eating psychology approach.
You will certainly, uh, learn
what I believe are some great tools and techniques
and distinctions that can truly make a big difference
for those clients that you will see
who have digestive challenges.
Now, even for those clients that you're seeing
who think their digestion is just fine, the distinctions
and the tools that you'll be learning
and sharing with them can potentially,
potentially help you inspire them
to a whole new level when it comes to their digestion.
I'm convinced that the more we reach you
and I, the more we reach our digestive potential,
the more we can reach our personal
and our metabolic potential.
Additionally, we're gonna talk about some of the common
counselor traps, places where we as coaches, counselors,
practitioners might tend to get a little bit stuck.
Okay, but back to digestion. What a big topic.
What an important one. What a fascinating one.
I'd like to acknowledge right off the bat that
this is not an easy place to work.
There's a pretty vast array of digestive challenges.
Um, and those
with various digestive complaints can enlist the aid
of the best classic gastroenterologists.
They can go to a great functional medicine doctor
Who specializes in digestion.
They could spend a lot of time, energy,
and money doing all kinds of great strategies
with all kinds of interesting tests.
And still nobody finds anything wrong
or there's no digestive healing or there's no relief.
Many people who suffer with digestive complaints
are given a clean bill of health by their medical specialist
because oftentimes the standard tests that we,
the scientific we uses will indeed find nothing wrong.
So this simply reminds us by the way that digestive science
and health, like any field we can name,
is still evolving and growing.
There's no blame here, okay?
We're learning on the job as humans on planet earth.
Our job is to see if we can contribute
to the conversation in a good way,
to see if we can bring something new
and useful to the table when it comes to digestion
that can truly further the action.
So that's my intentions here.
The good news here is that I'm pretty confident
that you will be learning the kinds of distinctions
that can potentially make a big difference
with just about any kind of digestive client.
With that in mind, we're going to be applying many
of the mind-body nutrition tools
that we've already been learning
to the realm of digestive health.
You already have these tools in your toolkit.
For example, we already know that one
of the key distinctions around digestion is that when you
and I are in a stress response,
we are in some degree of digestive shutdown.
That's just the way the human organism is designed
and programmed from the most fundamental level of DNA.
So we cannot heal effectively from any digestion
related challenge
unless the body is in parasympathetic nervous system
dominance when eating
and even when not eating to a great degree,
to some consistency.
So no matter what the causes
of your client's digestive issues might be,
unless they're able to train themselves
to become a slow eater, a relaxed eater,
unless they're able to train themselves to really drop in,
to breathe, to create parasympathetic nervous system
dominance during a meal, it will be very hard
for the digestive system to get where it needs to go.
Again, that's just how we're wired.
Even if your client is facing a digestive challenge
that has a sure fire organic cause such
as a parasite, you can give them the best medications,
the best herbs in the world,
the best anti-parasitics, whatever it is.
But generally speaking, you know this, the body can't heal
unless it's in a relaxation response.
That's when all maintenance, healing
and repair of body tissue happens.
Parasympathetic nervous system dominance,
that's just how we're designed.
So yes, so much of what makes
for a healthy digestion comes from the outside in,
meaning the foods that we take in, the foods we avoid,
the probiotic rich foods we consume,
maybe the herbal remedies for support
and more so outside in definitely affects digestion.
But at the same time, equally important.
Equally important, we must focus on digestion from the
inside out, meaning consciously
and deliberately creating the optimum state of digestion,
assimilation and elimination.
Once again, physiologic relaxation response.
So I'm gonna make a bit of a bold prediction and say that
after you go through this material
and learn about digestion, you will likely be able
to help a number of clients who previously have had a lot
of intervention for their digestive issues
and still haven't gotten where they want to go.
You're going to be able to help them in part
because we are essentially embracing the
science of the simple.
We're embracing simple biology, simple physiology,
the simple digestive science of how brain, body digestion,
assimilation, and elimination are all
fantastically connected.
You're gonna have in your toolkit, easy
to practice coaching techniques
that can make a beautiful improvement with your clients
and oftentimes in a short amount of time.
And once again, this is
where the whole confidence piece comes in.
By the way, you can see how confident I am about this
because I've used this, I've tried it.
You have to be with your client
as best you can in a confident way
and let them know in your words, in your thoughts,
your actions, your deeds, your demeanor, your energy.
Hey, we're trying a really great set of experiments here.
I'm pretty confident now.
It doesn't mean we're not gonna get a few things wrong,
of course, I don't want you to promise your client anything,
anything with a hundred percent certainty,
but you certainly have the right we, I have the right
to be inspirational, to be confident in the potential of
what you're offering your client.
That's important. Now, as always,
we're not just dealing with digestive issues
because every symptom, every disease,
every unwanted habit is always pointing
or often pointing to something else somewhere else.
Our symptoms are always directing us to walk
through a door and look around.
And this doorway just might lead
to some interesting places or not.
Every client's different.
So digestion
and the challenges of digestion is often raising its hand
and saying, Hey, uh, something's going wrong here.
There's a disturbance. The body's outta balance.
Something isn't working right,
something needs to be be looked at.
Here, it's kind of simple, my friends,
digestion gets our attention,
and for so many of us, depending on the intensity
of our challenge, it can get our attention in a big way.
Now, digestion might be telling our attention,
it might be getting our attention to ask us
to look at our diet, just straight up, look at your diet
and change the food that you eat.
No, I think that's fair. Digestion might be asking us
to look for food allergies.
Digestion could be asking us
to make certain nutritional course corrections.
That's very possible. Digestion might be asking us
to see if our gut ecology is disturbed or imbalanced.
It might be asking us to look at our use of antibiotics.
Quite the opposite of a probiotic.
Um, digestion might be asking us
to look at our toxic nutritional beliefs
because that can cause digestive issues.
Digestive issues might be asking us to look at our primary
stressors in life, whether it's relationship, family, love,
money, career, sexuality, spirituality, whatever it is,
and how these primary stressors might be impacting
digestive physiology.
Oftentimes, not always. Oftentimes a client's digestive challenge is indeed related to a key area of life challenge or life intensity, meaning relationship issues, money, career, search for meaning for purpose. Again, spirituality. Sexuality, my undigested past and a lot more. So once again, the good news is we have such a great task. You have such a great job because when your client comes into your practice, please as always be thankful that they have a digestive challenge. That's my first thought. I'm so glad you have a digestive challenge because I'm gonna now help my client walk through that doorway working with digestion. Think about it this way, is working with people in a very intimate way and intimacy is beautiful, where working with people in a way that really matters for them, digestion is very personal for a lot of people. Now, what I find with digestive issues is that oftentimes we get where we want to go quicker with our clients. We achieve more success in a shorter amount of time when we're working on different levels simultaneously. So of course, I'm going to look at what can be directly offending my client's, digestion in terms of their diet. Absolutely. It's one of the first things I do. Of course, I'm going to be looking at their eating speed, their level of stress, but I'm also going to be looking at their personal world. I'm going to be looking at their inner world. I'm wondering about it all. I'm gonna be looking at their social world. I'm gonna be looking at their relational world to see if there might be some action there. So as always, my friends, you and I were learning how to be great detectives. You're learning how to be a good sleuth. You're learning how to ask good questions. You are learning how to listen. We're learning on the job. That's okay. That's where the action is. Now remember my friends I mentioned, we're also gonna be covering some of the more common counselor traps, places where we tend as coaches and practitioners to sometimes fall into a little bit of a hole and lose our effectiveness. So I'm literally gonna go through a long list of places where we can potentially trip up. You know, here's the places where as a coach you might lose your power. Or here are the places where we as coaches tend to drain our energy. Here are some of the places where we can veer, of course, sometimes far of course, and then find ourselves becoming frustrated or drained, you know, in the professional role that we're in. You and I have to constantly learn and grow on the job. We have to constantly up our game. That's why this is such a great job. We have to see the little places, little places, or sometimes the not so little ones where we tend to not have a strong grip on our own confidence, on our sense of empowerment, on our sense of strength in the relationship between us and our client, and on a firm understanding of how to be a practical, effective, and results oriented coach. So we're gonna be learning some good skills. Lemme give you an example. Oftentimes our clients seem to really know what they want. Chances are, if you've been a client before, you kind of know what you want are, they might be maybe a little demanding. They think to themselves, Hey, paying this person, paying them money, I want a result. I wanna lose the weight when I wanna lose. It makes perfect sense, really. I feel the same way as a client or a patient oftentimes. And not only is our client paying money to get the result they want, uh, they tend to want that result yesterday. So clients, what I'm trying to say, oftentimes come to us with a lot of momentum. Oftentimes a lot of angst, maybe a little anger, maybe some intensity, because they probably spent money here and there and they didn't get what they want. And now they're coming to see you and they wanna lose their weight fast, or they wanna stop binge eating fast, or they want to fix their digestion fast, whatever it is, they want a fast result because that's what the world trains us. We want instant gratification. So here's what I'm saying, it's easy to get bullied by your client. It's easy to get bullied by our clients. It's easy for us to feel, oh my goodness, I have to give my client exactly what he or she wants. That's what I'm here for. I have to give you exactly what you want, Mr. Mr. Alein. Otherwise, I'm a terrible practitioner. I'm a loser, and I'm kind of be screwed because then I'm not gonna get any referrals because I didn't give you exactly what you want, and I'm a failure. And then it's easy for us to become pushovers with our client to become ineffective. We go on their ride, we get on their train, and we lose ourselves. This is a beginner mistake, by the way, and the result is that we're actually not very effective with our client. And it all becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because we're ineffective, because we're disempowered. So it's your job as a practitioner to stay in your body, to stay in your center, to be present. You are the mentor, you are the guide, first and foremost you. Yes, they are paying you for your smarts, your wisdom, your cleverness for you being a detective. So you have to be clear when you're sitting with your client, that first and foremost, your most important connection actually is with you and yourself, maybe even more important, you in a higher power or higher wisdom. You want to be clear about that. So even though your client's not technically trying to be a bully, it's their energy that's bullying you, you have to be clear, here's who I am. Here's what I represent, here's why I'm here. I'm here for my client's highest good. Yes, I'm here to help my client with their small goal, their immediate goal. But first and foremost, I'm here to help my client with their highest goal, whether they know it or not. When you know that, when you know that you're here to help your client with their highest goal, it's way, way easier, my friends, to not be bullied. It's way easier to not get pulled off your path because your practice is going to teach you how to be stronger. I mean this not only as a coach, but as a person. You have to have more of, um, an iron stomach in this way. You gotta have a strong digestion. You have to have more guts, so to speak, to pulverize and break down and assimilate some of the insecurities and bad habits and unhelpful demands that our clients can sometimes bring to the table. It's not like we're fighting with them, we're just metabolizing some of their nonsense. Because remember, your client is in stress and understandably so. They're in anxiety, they're in fear, they're in upset. You gotta understand that. I want to help them get present with themselves. I want to help my client see the places where they need to grow.
Chances are, by the way, that if you are being bullied by your client, you're probably being Bullied in other places in life. So yes, we're learning coaching skills for sure, but these are life skills, my friends, in a big way. So I'm going to remind you yet again that it's never about fixing your client. It's never about your riding off into the sunset because you fix their digestion once and for all. We are being respectful of life and doing our best to remember that we must continuously redefine success and be aware of all the small steps, the little things that we help our clients with that move them in the direction of a better and better digestion and of course, a better life. So this means it's about you participating in your client's journey in a meaningful way and being a mouthpiece for the wisdom of their body and the wisdom of the universe. It's all about me and you being a person in our client's life who's able to help them along their way. Maybe you are walking a few steps with them. Maybe you're walking 10 significant steps with them for a few months. I've had clients that I've worked with for years and years. The relationship itself will dictate what it wants if indeed we're listening. So whatever it is, in so many ways, it's not up to you. It's up to the wisdom of life. It's up to a higher power. So I'm always assuming that there's something far smarter than me that's operating in the relationship called me and my client. And when we allow for that wisdom, when you trust in it, then the magic starts to happen because you're marshaling the real forces that do the real work, and you're still gonna have to work. But life is going to guide us just a little more. So my friends here, we are dropping into yet more juicy work in this training. We've passed the halfway point. You've already learned so much, and oddly enough, there's a heck of a lot more to come. I wanna say, once again, congratulations on your tenacity, on your willingness for any of the transformations or successes you've already experienced. Thank you for your kind feedback you've been giving us. Thank you for how you've shown up and how you've participated for so many of the great questions that have come in. Thank you for finding your, your, your unique way of making this education working for you. So enjoy the new material, my friends, and I look forward to seeing you on the other side.
Oftentimes, not always. Oftentimes a client's digestive challenge is indeed related to a key area of life challenge or life intensity, meaning relationship issues, money, career, search for meaning for purpose. Again, spirituality. Sexuality, my undigested past and a lot more. So once again, the good news is we have such a great task. You have such a great job because when your client comes into your practice, please as always be thankful that they have a digestive challenge. That's my first thought. I'm so glad you have a digestive challenge because I'm gonna now help my client walk through that doorway working with digestion. Think about it this way, is working with people in a very intimate way and intimacy is beautiful, where working with people in a way that really matters for them, digestion is very personal for a lot of people. Now, what I find with digestive issues is that oftentimes we get where we want to go quicker with our clients. We achieve more success in a shorter amount of time when we're working on different levels simultaneously. So of course, I'm going to look at what can be directly offending my client's, digestion in terms of their diet. Absolutely. It's one of the first things I do. Of course, I'm going to be looking at their eating speed, their level of stress, but I'm also going to be looking at their personal world. I'm going to be looking at their inner world. I'm wondering about it all. I'm gonna be looking at their social world. I'm gonna be looking at their relational world to see if there might be some action there. So as always, my friends, you and I were learning how to be great detectives. You're learning how to be a good sleuth. You're learning how to ask good questions. You are learning how to listen. We're learning on the job. That's okay. That's where the action is. Now remember my friends I mentioned, we're also gonna be covering some of the more common counselor traps, places where we tend as coaches and practitioners to sometimes fall into a little bit of a hole and lose our effectiveness. So I'm literally gonna go through a long list of places where we can potentially trip up. You know, here's the places where as a coach you might lose your power. Or here are the places where we as coaches tend to drain our energy. Here are some of the places where we can veer, of course, sometimes far of course, and then find ourselves becoming frustrated or drained, you know, in the professional role that we're in. You and I have to constantly learn and grow on the job. We have to constantly up our game. That's why this is such a great job. We have to see the little places, little places, or sometimes the not so little ones where we tend to not have a strong grip on our own confidence, on our sense of empowerment, on our sense of strength in the relationship between us and our client, and on a firm understanding of how to be a practical, effective, and results oriented coach. So we're gonna be learning some good skills. Lemme give you an example. Oftentimes our clients seem to really know what they want. Chances are, if you've been a client before, you kind of know what you want are, they might be maybe a little demanding. They think to themselves, Hey, paying this person, paying them money, I want a result. I wanna lose the weight when I wanna lose. It makes perfect sense, really. I feel the same way as a client or a patient oftentimes. And not only is our client paying money to get the result they want, uh, they tend to want that result yesterday. So clients, what I'm trying to say, oftentimes come to us with a lot of momentum. Oftentimes a lot of angst, maybe a little anger, maybe some intensity, because they probably spent money here and there and they didn't get what they want. And now they're coming to see you and they wanna lose their weight fast, or they wanna stop binge eating fast, or they want to fix their digestion fast, whatever it is, they want a fast result because that's what the world trains us. We want instant gratification. So here's what I'm saying, it's easy to get bullied by your client. It's easy to get bullied by our clients. It's easy for us to feel, oh my goodness, I have to give my client exactly what he or she wants. That's what I'm here for. I have to give you exactly what you want, Mr. Mr. Alein. Otherwise, I'm a terrible practitioner. I'm a loser, and I'm kind of be screwed because then I'm not gonna get any referrals because I didn't give you exactly what you want, and I'm a failure. And then it's easy for us to become pushovers with our client to become ineffective. We go on their ride, we get on their train, and we lose ourselves. This is a beginner mistake, by the way, and the result is that we're actually not very effective with our client. And it all becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because we're ineffective, because we're disempowered. So it's your job as a practitioner to stay in your body, to stay in your center, to be present. You are the mentor, you are the guide, first and foremost you. Yes, they are paying you for your smarts, your wisdom, your cleverness for you being a detective. So you have to be clear when you're sitting with your client, that first and foremost, your most important connection actually is with you and yourself, maybe even more important, you in a higher power or higher wisdom. You want to be clear about that. So even though your client's not technically trying to be a bully, it's their energy that's bullying you, you have to be clear, here's who I am. Here's what I represent, here's why I'm here. I'm here for my client's highest good. Yes, I'm here to help my client with their small goal, their immediate goal. But first and foremost, I'm here to help my client with their highest goal, whether they know it or not. When you know that, when you know that you're here to help your client with their highest goal, it's way, way easier, my friends, to not be bullied. It's way easier to not get pulled off your path because your practice is going to teach you how to be stronger. I mean this not only as a coach, but as a person. You have to have more of, um, an iron stomach in this way. You gotta have a strong digestion. You have to have more guts, so to speak, to pulverize and break down and assimilate some of the insecurities and bad habits and unhelpful demands that our clients can sometimes bring to the table. It's not like we're fighting with them, we're just metabolizing some of their nonsense. Because remember, your client is in stress and understandably so. They're in anxiety, they're in fear, they're in upset. You gotta understand that. I want to help them get present with themselves. I want to help my client see the places where they need to grow.
Chances are, by the way, that if you are being bullied by your client, you're probably being Bullied in other places in life. So yes, we're learning coaching skills for sure, but these are life skills, my friends, in a big way. So I'm going to remind you yet again that it's never about fixing your client. It's never about your riding off into the sunset because you fix their digestion once and for all. We are being respectful of life and doing our best to remember that we must continuously redefine success and be aware of all the small steps, the little things that we help our clients with that move them in the direction of a better and better digestion and of course, a better life. So this means it's about you participating in your client's journey in a meaningful way and being a mouthpiece for the wisdom of their body and the wisdom of the universe. It's all about me and you being a person in our client's life who's able to help them along their way. Maybe you are walking a few steps with them. Maybe you're walking 10 significant steps with them for a few months. I've had clients that I've worked with for years and years. The relationship itself will dictate what it wants if indeed we're listening. So whatever it is, in so many ways, it's not up to you. It's up to the wisdom of life. It's up to a higher power. So I'm always assuming that there's something far smarter than me that's operating in the relationship called me and my client. And when we allow for that wisdom, when you trust in it, then the magic starts to happen because you're marshaling the real forces that do the real work, and you're still gonna have to work. But life is going to guide us just a little more. So my friends here, we are dropping into yet more juicy work in this training. We've passed the halfway point. You've already learned so much, and oddly enough, there's a heck of a lot more to come. I wanna say, once again, congratulations on your tenacity, on your willingness for any of the transformations or successes you've already experienced. Thank you for your kind feedback you've been giving us. Thank you for how you've shown up and how you've participated for so many of the great questions that have come in. Thank you for finding your, your, your unique way of making this education working for you. So enjoy the new material, my friends, and I look forward to seeing you on the other side.
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Checklist
MODULE 5
Use this checklist to track your progress for Module 5.
REQUIRED
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Click to track your progress for all module videos.
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OPTIONAL
- Read the supplemental materials, and complete all supplemental exercises.
- Read the Module 5 suggested reading books, & complete the corresponding reading list questions.
- Jump into our online community, and ask any questions about what you’re learning!
Course Materials
MODULE 5
Complete all learning sections for Module 5 by clicking through each of the course content links below.
SECTION 1
Digestion
SECTION 2
Counselor Traps
Journaling
Exercises
Supplemental
Materials
