Ep. 39: Brandy Gillmore – Healing Your Body Through the Power of Your Mind

00:00 – excerpt from the episode
00:51 – intro (listen to discover a little more about your host. Martin will tell you a new lesser-known fact about Dr. Maya)

01:27
Dr. Maya Novak:
I remember lying in the hospital back in 2012 when I received my diagnosis and prognosis. Neither of these two looked promising and by the words of my doctors I should have said goodbye to the life I had known thus far. It takes courage to follow that tiny voice within yourself when people around you are not optimistic about your outcome. So in a way I completely understand Brandy Gillmore when she heard “We can’t help you. You’ll never get better.” But she did. And so did I. And so many other people are doing this every single day. This interview that was recorded in 2019 as a part of my Mindful Injury Recovery World Summit is full of wisdom and advice that will help you, your loved ones, or perhaps your patients and clients as well. Please enjoy.

02:21
Dr. Maya Novak:
In this interview, I’m joined by Brandy Gillmore, who is a mind, body, and energy expert and she’s most well known for her discoveries in using the power of the mind to provide tangible results. The discoveries Brandy were a made were a result of her own devastating injury left her disabled and in extreme pain. After more than six years of research, Brandy was able to make a breakthrough discovery that not only led to a full recovery but also transformed her life. Since her recovery, Brandy has been helping others to achieve mind-blowing results. Today, she coaches top celebrities, entrepreneurs, Olympic athletes, CEOs, and groups worldwide in using their minds to transform their health and their lives. Brandy, thank you so much for being here.

03:08
Brandy Gillmore:
Maya, it is so wonderful to be here with you. Thank you for having me.

03:13
Dr. Maya Novak:
I’m so extremely excited about this because I know your story. I know about your discoveries, and I know that this interview is going to be so helpful to so many people. I briefly mentioned that you were injured. Can you share your story and how you actually became a mind, body, and energy expert?

03:37
Brandy Gillmore:
You know, I have to tell you that working with mind-body is probably the last thing that I would ever have thought that I would be doing, ever. I had been – I grew up very, very athletic. Martial arts – I mean the first time I went to the Junior Olympics I was like 12 and in martial arts and always had been competing at a national level and all of that. So I’d always been very, very physically fit. Then I was in network engineering. Basically, I got in an accident – technically, I had two. I had a car accident and then I also had a fall and my entire life, my entire world really changed. After my injury and after the accident, I just – you know – what do you do. You go to the doctor and then when they say there’s nothing they can do for you, of course, you say well, I’m going to find a different doctor with a different answer. So I went to find a different doctor with a different answer and that didn’t work. Every time, they would try something or say okay, well let’s try this or let’s try that or whatnot, but that didn’t end up working either. You just – my entire life really changed. So after going through that, you know, you go into such – at least me in my situation – I mean I was in so much pain. I was on morphine every day and just so many different medications, and yet still in pain. So I couldn’t sleep and I was frustrated, hurt, and fatigued and it just – it was a lot. So being like that for years on end with everybody saying that there’s nothing that they could do for you, it becomes a place of really feeling alone. I mean don’t get me wrong. I had wonderful people helping me and doing a lot of different things and helping me cook and get groceries and a lot of different things like that, but you’d feel so alone because you’re like in a situation and nobody can help you and your stuck and that’s your life. Then you start to watch your life pass you by and it’s like another year, and another year, and it’s like everybody else is living life and doing things and you’re not. It’s just – it drove me to want to figure it out. So that’s what got me into this whole mind-body expert – when I was looking at ways, typically I was looking, and I was of a conventional way of thinking. So once they said that there was nothing – like the doctors said that there was nothing they could do. I went to teams of doctors, so then I was in a room and I was in the hospital and I’d have like four or five doctors coming in to try figure out a plan. It was like I wasn’t giving up. I’m one of those people that if you don’t get the answer, ask a manager, ask the next level. So I did that, and I’d go find another specialist and another specialist and it just, you know, it didn’t work. So I did diet and supplements and all of that, and I ate through every single diet and fasts and cleanses, you name it. I tried that route, and that didn’t work and I was just hoping for some type of a cure, so it led to a whole journey.

07:03
Dr. Maya Novak:
This is - I think that so many people can now relate to you, because it’s true, and usually this is also advised, if you don’t like or if you’re not completely satisfied with one answer, seek a second opinion and fourth opinion, and then also …

07:20
Brandy Gillmore:
Keep going until you find the right answer, right! [laughs]

07:23
Dr. Maya Novak:
[laughs] Exactly. Your experience - which I know is also true for many people - is that even if you get the second opinion it might be okay. But for some people it’s just not, it doesn’t work, right.

07:40
Brandy Gillmore:
Exactly.

07:42
Dr. Maya Novak:
Yeah. So talking about pain, you mentioned that you were in extreme pain. So as far as I know you, you were diagnosed with CRPS. Can you talk about this? Because I know that there is also confusion in regards to that. So maybe it’s not really a good question to ask how do people know if they have CRPS - but what is your experience with that, and what did actually eventually help you with minimizing the pain?

08:15
Brandy Gillmore:
Well, yeah it wasn’t a fun experience, and everybody has a situation that’s probably different, but going through mine what happened – I had been given a whole list of ailments - spinal endplate fractures, nerve lesions, so it was that. Then there was extreme pain and so they were trying to figure out where it was radiating from and then after a while, basically, like it was a long list. There was spondylosis and a side joint inflammation. So I had a lot of different inflammation and different things going on. Then to try to control the pain I would go into nerve ablations. So I would have nerve ablations but then what would happen is after the nerve ablation, it might feel better for a short, very short period of time, if at all, then there would be even more pain. So much pain like you could just barely, barely touch, and there was extreme pain. So it wasn’t like a very quick process. It was like okay, well here’s the spinal endplate fractures and here’s this and here’s the nerve lesions, and let’s do this and why is it responding like this and what’s going on with this, and it was a process. Then because – I mean I went from – I’m about 5’8 and a half-5’9” somewhere in there. I haven’t measured in a while, but I was down to about 93 pounds, and my normal weight is like a size two, about 125. So I was down to 93 and then I was – I mean I had lost atrophy and all of that. So there was just a lot going on and the more muscle that I lost, every movement hurt. It was just a really, really bad spiral. Then I ended up with osteopenia, so the beginning stages of osteoporosis, so basically I didn’t move much. So with, without being weight bearing and all of that, it was the – a long road in the wrong direction, put it that way. So, you know, basically my physical therapist, Livnat, had the most amazing – she was the only one – like after everybody kept saying there’s nothing we can do for you. I would literally, before leaving the doctor’s office – I would – at first I could ask for a referral and they would be like, well fine, here’s a referral. Then after a while, they were like we don’t know who to refer you to. I would literally beg. I would be like there’s got to be somebody. I would have like these tears in my throat that I was just trying to hold back. I’d just be like there’s got to be something. You can just give up on life and give up on having a future and be like well, let’s do something else. I mean – so it was just like okay, I couldn’t swallow that. So I would ask for something and everybody just kind of really gave up. Like I finally – I was hoping for some type of new cutting cure or new research study or something like that and finally like it happened. I got a research study and I thought, oh my god, my dreams are coming true. My dream – like this is everything I hoped for. I went in and they like wheeled me in and got me all prepped for this procedure and all of this, and then the doctor said you’re not going to get better. It was just like it crushed me. So nobody really believed in it, but my physical therapist, Livnat, was always like okay, well let’s try to tape you. Let’s try to do this. What could be possible? What could blah, blah, blah. So she’s the one that actually figured out the CRPS, and then she was like well this is what’s going on. She had a long history of working with other people with CRPS. So I would say that you know, the universe, journey, however it works out. But I ended up working with her and she was the one person that was so actively really wanting to get me better. I felt like a lot of the rest of the medical community was like okay, well – like I got put on sustained like 24-hour time release morphine, and it was like they were trying to see what medications they could cocktail together to try to better help me to sustain lesser of a life. I didn’t want that, and other than that, it wasn’t working.

12:46
Dr. Maya Novak:
This is a really common story. It’s like, well, we don’t know how to help you and then you are basically on your own, and if you don’t have any answers, it can be just like, well then, this is basically how the rest of my life will be, living in pain.

13:04
Brandy Gillmore:
You know what, I think being on my own to figure it out was the best thing that could have possibly happened to me. I think back, and it’s like – because my injury was a bit more than seven years of my life. So like the last two years – to six years – after six years I got rid of my last cane, but it was just – six-seven or somewhere in there. But I had missed out on seven years of my life and it was just seven years of my life. I remember feeling like this. Like that was seven years of my life. And going you know what, what I learned, how I learned to use my mind and understand my mind and the way it changed my life, and the gift is going to make my entire future better. So on my own, while it wasn’t a great place that gave a great feeling at the time, learning to figure it out, learning to understand my mind, was life-changing. I would never want to go through that again, that experience. But the truth of it is, I wouldn’t take it back if could because of what I learned. I’m glad that I can say that and not just like well, I got a degree in nutrition, and you know what it’s like. It’s great being healthy and all that, but imagine if it was like – I mean I just missed out on seven years. It’s not those seven years, but what I learned and what I went through will – already has made my entire life better and will continue to do so and it’s life changing.

14:44
Dr. Maya Novak:
Exactly. I love this. Thank you for sharing. Many people right now will be wondering how can we actually minimize or potentially even eliminate pain with just the power of our minds? How does this work?

15:01
Brandy Gillmore:
So when I was going through – so mentioned there was that study. There was the study, and leading up into that study I was like, you know, please don’t get the placebo, please don’t get the placebo, I want the real treatment. So then, I go in and when they said, you know, I couldn’t be part of the study because I wasn’t going to get better, I was so – I mean I was literally like what’s the point in living. Like I can’t live like this. This is torture. This is not – like put me out of misery, this is torture. Then I was laying there and I just wanted to give up and thought well, what about the placebo? We know that it works. So I had previously done network engineering operations. What I did all day was troubleshooting. I was troubleshooting circuits, networks, and different things like that. So if I knew that there was an answer that worked, I was like well, if I know that there’s an answer that works, how am I going to give up? Like that doesn’t make sense. I just need to figure out how and why and what’s making it work. So when I started looking at the mind, and I started looking at everything, I mean first and foremost and it was okay, the placebo. I tried to start believing I was already healed, which is funny because you hear people actually say that, they teach that. Believe you’re already healed and stuff like that. It’s absolute – that was something I tried that was not a good idea. And, if you think about it for a moment, if you’re familiar with open-label placebo, basically it’s been shown that even when the doctor and the patient both know it’s a placebo; it can still get results, so it’s not belief. But I started looking at all of this stuff and I was looking at amputees, going okay, wait. More than 80% of amputees still experience pain. I was like well great, so there’s an 80% chance that I could amputate my body and still have pain? And, of course, amputating my body is not a realistic thought, but I was a bit – trying to search for the answers – and a bit like frustrated and sure, like this doesn’t make any sense. I started looking at things like MPD – so multiple personality disorder. People who have – it’s been shown that people with multiple personality disorder can have different ailments and different pains when they’re in different personalities, or asthma in different personalities. You wait a second here, that doesn’t make sense. Then, so you hear in our spiritual communities and stuff like that or in mind-body healing, you hear that like illness is stored in the body. But wait a second, if somebody can have asthma in one personality, and not in another and all of that, you’re going well wait a second, that doesn’t make sense. So my logical mind just started breaking it down. Then I think I also had this big barrier of like, how realistically is my mind going to affect my physical body? When you start to think about it for a moment, the physical body isn’t so physical. I mean the physical body is made up of elements like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and all of these things. So you start to look at it and you go okay, of course, the mind can affect the physical body. So it became this unfoldment of really looking at it, and what found really sounds silly, but when we start to look at emotions, we can look at somebody’s who is embarrassed and their face turns red. Or an anxiety attack – racing heart, shortness of breath. Or sexual thoughts and emotions, sexual physical response depending, of course, on the gender but there a sexual physical response. Then you well, wait a second here, our emotions obviously affect our body. Then I started looking at things like how much do emotions really affect the body. I mean we know emotions affect the body, but then you think about being scared to death. Yep, it’s a real thing. You can be scared and actually die, okay, so intensely scared - or bored to death. So when you to look at these – or there’s the widowhood effect, or there’s failure to thrive. There’s all these different emotions that can affect the body to the point of death - scared to death, bored to death. I mean infants that don’t get enough love can actually die. So I’m going wait a second. If emotions can have this much impact on the physical body, what about all the other emotions. You start to look at things. Like if boredom can kill people, what about hurt, what about resentment, what about anger, what about fear, what about all of these different things? Now I had an accident, so of course, there was a part of me going, well I had an accident, none of this applies. But when I really started looking at it, it opened a lot of awareness. I think everything happens for a reason. So that’s what I started doing, was I started identifying – and I was going through it like with a very network engineer mindset going okay, well, all evidence is pointing in this direction, but I had an accident so I’m going to proceed but this kind of sounds stupid, but I have no other choice. So there was this – it was an unfoldment of going okay, well the more I study and the more I really, realize and take logic and build on this, it makes sense. So that’s where the journey led, which of course ended up changing my entire life. So what I did is I just I identified the specific emotions in my subconscious mind, and when I shifted them, my pain started to change. I was like well wait a second, so I can shift them and my pain changed. I was like wait a second here, so – and of course, it was a process. At first, I was – I’d shift them and then I’d get my pain gone and it could come back for some unknown reason. I didn’t know why and I was trying to figure it out. Today in my work, I’ll take people who have been in chronic pain for years, and show them how to shift in minutes to get rid of it. They go from a level eight of pain to nothing, or even sometimes under medical equipment, you can see it. Because a lot of people are like how can that happen in minutes when this person’s been in pain for 40 years from an accident, or from this, or from an injury, or whatever else, so I show it so people can actually see it under scans. But at the time when I was figuring this out and making these, you know, discovering what it is that needed to change and all of these things, I was still learning. So there was ups and downs and hit and missing, confusion and success, and, you know, the process.

21:56
Dr. Maya Novak:
And the rest is history because now you are living proof that the thing actually works. One of the things that is really interesting with your work, you use thermography for showing what is happening in the body. So can you talk a bit about this?

22:15
Brandy Gillmore:
Totally. So when I got better I thought okay, everybody’s going to think I’m crazy. Like how the mind is going to heal the physical body, especially because it’s – I mean my injury was 03, so I actually got – was like better in 2010, but going through all of this and stuff, like a lot of people around me weren’t so outside of the box thinkers. My family was even like looking at supplements when I was trying supplements and diet, they were like what’s wrong with you, are you nuts? Not in those exact words, but you know, the facial expressions said it all.

22:54
Dr. Maya Novak:
And then we’re talking again about emotions – the expressions on their faces and feelings and everything.

23:00
Brandy Gillmore:
Exactly. And now, they’re like well wait a second, it actually worked, what? But bingo. So as I was going through this and trying to figure it all out and working with it, my family was like okay, well wait a second. Then also let’s be honest, to take somebody out of pain in minutes using their mind sounds insane. Because I do speaking - like I’ll do keynotes and different things like that, and so I’ll do it from the stage. I’ll even take people from the audience who are experiencing pain and show them how to get rid of it. I thought okay, great. People in the audience are going to think oh, who’s the plant in here, like what did she plant or who did she plant in here, you know that sort of thing. I’m like okay. So that’s what made me start doing it under thermography. I was like okay, what is a good way to be able to show people where they can really see that there’s actual change taking place. That they’re not like – there’s a few reasons. So one of them was show people so they could see it and it would empower them. So that’s one thing. Another thing was that so often people here, oh, the pain’s all in your head, the pain’s all in your head and then feel like there’s something wrong with them. Like it’s their fault or their invalidated, or something like that. So the great thing is, is on the scan you can actually see physical pain. So you can see the big red spots and they can see like oh, okay it’s not just in my head. Because some people have that, where the doctors are like no, you shouldn’t have pain. So they say it’s in their head, and no, no, actually it’s showing up on a scan. It’s not just, you know. So that was a good way to also do it. It just, yeah.

24:46
Dr. Maya Novak:
And also the evidence for people to really see what is actually possible with their own eyes. The question here is, does it take a special kind of person to be able to do this? Or is this shifting energy possible for anyone or for everyone?

25:14
Brandy Gillmore:
Absolutely. We are amazing – which is fun. That’s part of the reason that like from the audience - I’ll take volunteers from the audience or even on classes that I teach. I’ll always take people – like I’ll take a random volunteer and just show them how to get out of pain and how to release it back to back to back. We’re all capable of it and what’s beautiful is this, is that we’re talking about shifting emotions and when we start to look at it for a moment, our thoughts and emotions help create our life. We can hear that we think about like Einstein, you know, imagination is the preview of life’s coming attractions, so that’s one way. Or even if we look at traditional psychology. In psychology, we’ve heard before that people will tend to marry people that are like their mother, or their father, or something like that. Or people have patterns of feeling criticized, or patterns of abuse, or patterns of a victim, or different things like that. So what’s genius is that when I went through and shifted the things that were bothering me in my mind, it changed my life. I consistently see that. It’s like our body is telling us the most important thing we need to know. It’s like hey, just so you know, you really should change this pattern. Like you need to change this pattern. Like it’s manifesting in your body and this is a pattern, this is an emotional pattern. Whether – for somebody it might be anger and let’s say the pattern’s going on and they’re continuously sabotaging jobs or relationships or loved ones or different things like that and maybe that’s like hey, you need to change this anger pattern because it’s ruining your life, or your career, or whatever it is. Or hey, you need to change this self-criticism pattern because you’re never going to really be who you want to be because you’re so busy criticizing yourself or whatever it is. What’s beautiful is that to create healing results, you have to create a real change. All too often in our culture, we’ll see somebody kind of like this. We have like – let’s say somebody has an anger issue. So they have this anger issue and when they get upset they punch holes in the wall, or get upset and break things, or whatever. Or test people out and then afterward they’ve got to apologize and everything else, right. So they go to anger management class, and then every time they get angry they go for a walk instead, or they take a few deep breaths. It’s good that their action changed, but their emotion never changed. So what I love about healing is that anybody can do it, but it does take authentic change. You take something that’s going on and you change it. The beautiful thing is, from that space, it becomes life-changing. Not only in the fact that you change an emotion and you change what you’re attracting or manifesting in your life, however you want to call it. If you want to call it “New Age” like attracting, or even – however you want to call it - psychology, or attracting certain situations or even we can talk about the subconscious mind. However, you want to put it. By shifting that emotion, it changes our lives and it’s a huge gift. So the way I see it is that with illness, or any injury, the body is trying to tell us the most important thing that we need to know. When we really look at it and resolve it, there’s a gift in it to make our lives better. It’s incredible and I see it over and over and over. So back to your question, can anybody do it? Absolutely, and that’s part of the reason that I demonstrate people being out of pain on every class that I teach or any speaking event and different things like that. I’ll take volunteers and I show them. It’s not like I select a certain volunteer, it’s whoever wants to raise their hand and volunteer. It’s beautiful. We’re incredible beings.

29:04
Dr. Maya Novak:
Mm-mm. So have you noticed with these emotions - have you noticed that some of them are stronger, if that means that they cause more pain than the other emotions that are not so strong, or is this completely specific to each individual? Meaning it doesn’t matter if the emotion for that person is the big emotion? Do you know what I mean?

29:30
Brandy Gillmore:
Yes. So a more intense emotion can cause more pain, but it doesn’t have to. It can be a subtle emotion and subtle in being subconscious. So in other words it depends, I would say, more on – so let’s say somebody’s walking around and they have a strong feeling of anxiety of something, at only a level three. Somebody else has hurt at a level eight. It really depends on the person, but there’s more to it also. It’s kind of like this.

30:11
Dr. Maya Novak:
We'll continue in just a moment. I wanted to quickly jump in for two things. First, thank you for tuning in. And second, I’m sure you have at least one friend, colleague, or family member who would very much appreciate this episode. So share it with them and help us spread the word. Now let’s continue…

30:32
Brandy Gillmore:
We can see that emotions affect the physical body. We can see that. That’s obvious, okay. And, let’s be honest, somebody can feel negative emotions and it doesn’t mean they get sick. So how is that possible? So what happens, and that’s part of what I’ve figured out in going through my injury, is that emotions affect the body, but there are other key elements in the mind that are needed. So the best way to illustrate that is to say okay if you have cake – or I’m sorry, if you have flour, you can’t make a cake. But if have flour and you and in other ingredients, you can make a cake. So somebody can feel an emotion and it doesn’t mean they’re going to get sick, and it doesn’t mean they’re going to have an injury, and it doesn’t blah, blah, blah. But, if they add in a few other ingredients, now there’s trouble. Whether that’s from an accident, or like sometimes what can happen is that there’s already emotions that are there and maybe just one ingredient’s missing. Then they need to have an accident, or an injury or something happens before, or whatever, and it adds in that other ingredient, but then to unravel things, it’s a bit different. It’s funny because it’s both sides of a coin in that we’re overlooking emotions. Like we underestimate emotions. When we kind of start to look at it, we go what are we thinking, look at this, until we can see like well this just all makes sense. Okay, so there’s a simplicity to it that goes wow, we’ve really just been overlooking this, and as a culture, we’re burying our emotions. We’re eating them away. We’re drugging them. We’re avoiding them. Retail therapy – whatever it is to avoid our emotions and burying them in the subconscious mind like they don’t matter. So that’s one thing that we’re doing, is we’re really underestimating them. So we can look at it and we can see that. So there’s a simplicity in it and then there’s also a complexity in realizing okay, there’s certain combinations of emotions. And I wouldn’t say necessarily a complexity, but a lot of things that we’re doing with the mind aren’t effective methods. An easy way to see that is – I mean if you were to look around the world right now – like in 2016, suicide became the second leading cause of death for anybody ages 10-34 or something like that - the second leading cause of death, and the fourth leading cause of death from like 35-55 or similar in there. But for it to be a second and fourth leading cause of death for age groups for suicide, and to look at the world and go there’s over 300 million people that suffer from depression. We can’t say hey, we’re good at this. I mean people are on antidepressants. That’s going up, and up, and up, we can’t say we’re really good with the mind; the techniques that we use conventionally in our culture are good. So it’s like one part was really learning to understand what I needed to do. Then the next part was okay, how to do I – it was kind of like going through it because I was so like are you sure this is going like – it seems like illogical – it seems like. Then I was going okay, now how do I really make real change and what does that look like and what does that need to be. So there’s simplicity and there’s complexities about it.

33:54
Dr. Maya Novak:
Yes. I love what you shared and I lived this too. I had chronic pain, not for years, but I was suffering with chronic pain for seven-eight months. What I heard from the doctor and physiotherapists was, you’re not going to get better if you do not get steroid injections. For me, that did not feel like the right path to take. So if we’re talking about emotions, after everything coming full circle, and me thinking about what could be causing it, I realized that for me the emotion was fear. And the fear was causing the pain. What you describe here, I love it because I also experienced going from being in pain – number eight out of ten – to zero in 24 hours. So I love your work. I’m super excited about that. The question that I have is, would it be possible for us to do some kind of work, or to show people how to shift this energy, those emotions?

35:02
Brandy Gillmore:
So a few things. So let’s see. The best way – this is kind of the primary problem is that when we look at… the primary problem I would say is this, is that everybody wants to go into the negative. Like if we look at our culture, we’re always trying to get rid of the negative and get rid of the negative. The best way to think about it is if somebody’s depressed, what do they do? They go and they talk about the problem, and they talk more about the problem and talk more about the problem, okay. So when does the happy come in? When does the positive come in? So what happens is that we never really get the positive in. We don’t add it in. It’s kind of like this, you can meet who’s funny and you can meet somebody who’s kind or smart or who’s loving, or who’s caring or who’s – like people – like if you meet somebody who’s really, really heartfelt and sincere. Then you meet another person who’s happy, and they’re so funny, and another person who’s so vivacious and like just lives out loud. Notice, they all have positivity, but they’re positive patterns are different. It’s almost as though we can see somebody who’s kind and grateful and sincere and sweet, and somebody else could be quiet, and so sweet and so lovable, right. So the thing of it is, is that it’s almost like people expect that if they talk enough about the negative, this like happiness is going to jump right into their mind, or laughing is going jump right in. Oh, look you got rid of anger and kind just shows up, your sense humor just exploded. So what we need to look at – so this is a bit of the problem – is really to create the change is what we want to do is we do want to take the negative emotion and get rid of it. But we also – it’s easier to do when there’s positive emotion available, and it’s hard to do when there’s not. I mean imagine somebody who’s in a negative state who says all right, well I’m in a negative state but I see that criticism is my number one thing and so I’m going to work on getting rid of that, or I’m going to work on – like there’s no – and I’m over emphasizing. But if we’re depressed or we’re hurt and the fear of – like I would say that it is so much easier to get rid of the negative. It’s so powerful. It’s essential to start adding in the positive to be able to get rid of the negative. You can’t get rid of the negative and heal without first adding in the positive to some extent - a positive expectation, a positive emotion, a positive something. Even if we look at the awareness of seniors with pets live longer, men who are married have more longevity. So it really depends on where each person is at, but also it requires us to put in the positive. Now the problem is that people, a lot of times, are thinking positive. They go oh, I’ve been working on thinking positive or that happened, but I’m just going to be positive about it. So this is the thing is that there’s a part of me that always wants to give people exactly that. They go okay, well what is the negative emotion that’s causing it so then – and that’s what I do. Is I’ll help people identify a specific negative emotion a lot of the time. But from a negative mindset, if they go into the negative emotion from a negative mind space, they’re not really going to solve the problem, you know what I mean. So I would say for everybody, I would say at a minimum, decide what that positive is and don’t just think it. I would say the feeling is the first part. So I have a process and the first step of that process is getting a vision of your life. Because if you have something to look forward to, a positive vision to look forward to, then that right there is foundational to start creating the change. It takes more, but really starting to bring in the positive is what’s needed. It’s funny because time and time again, people always ask me and I’m saying okay, well what’s a positive vision? What’s the positive? What can we start bringing in? And all of the time they’re like no, but really, what’s the negative emotion? They want to go there. It’s like – it’s like this is the best way to describe it is if the refrigerator – if you need me to get rid of your refrigerator because it’s broken, but you don’t have a new one that’s better to come in, are you just going to be like well, I’m going to get rid of the refrigerator. Like if you’re getting by with the old one, you might keep it a little longer until like … So the point being is that they’re not going to get their mind to let go of something really authentically if they don’t put in the positive. If they don’t put some type of new positive in, their mind is not really wholeheartedly going to hear it. It’s not. So what happens is then they go well, what’s the negative? And then they get in the whirlwind of the negative. So what I love to do with people is I love to create rapid changes. So to me, it’s a combination of bringing the positive and getting rid of the negative and that’s the powerful combination. As a culture, we will underestimate the importance of the positive.

40:51
Dr. Maya Novak:
Yes, true. So it is important here that a person works with you one on one so that you can talk with them and basically create something personalized for them.

41:05
Brandy Gillmore:
Actually, well a lot of them are classes. I have video set classes, workshops and stuff like that. So a lot of times I work in groups – that is what I do. But I would say like if everybody going to start doing something, it would be like getting a vision. Like getting a vision of what you want your life to be and start believing it and bringing that feeling in. Or another thing that I love to have people do is to listen to a song, to get a song that makes them feel good, not just think good but feel good and purposely like bring those feelings in and really feel it. So whatever it is to start bringing the emotions in, and again, if we go back to thinking about the person who’s really sweet and soft-spoken, compared to somebody who’s got a sense of humor, compared to somebody who’s loving everything, or somebody who’s vivacious, like deciding what that positive feeling is. Because this is the other thing people do, they go I’m going to be more positive. I’m going to be grateful today. I’m going to be sweet today. I’m going to work on this. So they work on 50 different positive emotions and they never make it a habit. So then they’re not really feeling it. They’re not really programming in a new positive emotion. They’re not feeling it, and they’re not really getting it in genuinely. Does that make sense?

42:26
Dr. Maya Novak:
Absolutely. You went through the whole journey of discovering and uncovering things about yourself, so we are also talking about self-healing. The question is, why are so many people stuck when it comes to self-healing? What is your thinking about that?

42:50
Brandy Gillmore:
I would say there’s several reasons. I would say, first and foremost, overlooking emotions - overlooking the power of emotions. I would say that. I would say, you know, when I was going through my injury I started meditating and sending white light, and sending energy here and all of these things. Like everything from my engineer mind said to then looking outside the box, okay. Sending energy, doing all these things, and as I’m sending energy and calming and meditation and my house sounded like an ashram and all these things for years or trying to believe I was already healed. I mean I was like – to give context – I mean I was – I’m in the hall of fame of martial arts, right. So that tells you that when I say I’m going to do something I follow through and I do it because there’s a lot of self-discipline when it comes to martial arts or any type of being able to excel at a sport or anything like that, a lot of self-discipline and determination. So when I was doing this it was self-discipline and determination and focus. I was meditating, I was sending energy out, I was listening to – I mean I was doing it all for years. Believing I was already healed, and writing affirmations over, and over. I would say that part of the thing is that we overcomplicate things and we don’t effectively just implement what needs to be done. We don’t understand the mind and how to create real shifts. So just like with emotions, we don’t really authentically change them, I would say is another part. But I would say even there’s a part of me that actually doesn’t like meditation because unfortunately what happens, is like you’ll people all the time say I’m meditating to help quiet my mind. And what they’re doing really is, you know, a thought comes up and they let it go, and thought comes up and they let go. What they’re doing is they’re training their mind not to pay attention to what’s in their subconscious minds. In other words, like if somebody – if I’m quiet, if I was meditating to quiet my mind, and somebody else was meditating to quiet their mind, and somebody else was meditating to quiet their mind, what they’re doing is they’re trying to quiet the voice of their subconscious. Like somebody’s got a fear about this, or worried about work, or worried about family, or kids, or whatever. It’s different in each person’s mind. But you always need to meditate. They meditate to quiet their mind, and they’re training it to say ignore it, instead of seeing why that’s coming up and actually shift it. So what happens is it can become another form of burying what’s really going on. When we look at it for a moment, the subconscious mind is 90-95% of the brain cells. So what happens is we’re just – the best way to describe it is if you’ve ever driven somewhere before, like you’ve driven somewhere and you got to your destination and you were like oh, did I stop at all the red lights along the way? Have you ever done that before where you’re just on autopilot?

46:08
Dr. Maya Novak:
Yes, and it’s so easy to do that.

46:11
Brandy Gillmore:
Yes. It is. When you’re like listening to music or you’re thinking about something or whatever, right. You get there and you’re like oh, I drove on autopilot, right. Or even if you’ve ever taught a kid to tie their shoes, and when you first did it and had to learn, like it was a focused thing. Now, you tie and you go oh – like if you had to stop and think about how to tie your shoes, you’re like what do I do? What was that bunny ears thing I learned as a kid? You know what I mean. [inaudible] So we do things on autopilot and what happens is people who meditate a long period of time, if they quiet their mind from what’s in their subconscious it starts doing it automatically for them. So they think they have a clear mind, and they feel initially more relaxed, but it doesn’t bring the healing. Like it kind of all gets steamed up, meditating, but it didn’t achieve healing. So it’s really about understanding the mind, and creating the real shift. So to answer the question, why do I think people aren’t getting even results, I think each person is different and I think that sometimes we get enamored or lost in the process and aren’t focused on what really needs to change and then what’s the best method to do that.

47:30
Dr. Maya Novak:
That makes sense. So since you have a long history of recovery, of healing, you might also have experienced some moments of being without any hope. If that was the case, or even if it was not, if right now there is someone listening to this and losing hope about their recovery, what would you say to that person?

47:56
Brandy Gillmore:
I would say you’re spot on in that hope is essential. What I noticed – I mean like even when I was – I went through periods of time where I was spending $1,000 a month in supplements or different things like that, or this diet, or that diet, and even though it didn’t work, it gave me hope. So as long as I had hope, I could stay afloat, and when I didn’t my mind would automatically start thinking of exit strategies, of how to no longer be a part of the physical world anymore ...

48:34
Dr. Maya Novak:
Mm-mm.

48:35
Brandy Gillmore:
… and I would spiral. So I think that cultivating and making sure that there’s hope every day is important. And then – I still remember that hope turned into like – because I kept hoping and kept trying and hoping, and trying, and I still remember the very moment where I was like oh my god, this is really going to happen and I’m really actually going to get better. I am really actually going to get my life back. And I didn’t get it back – I got it back, but better, a million times better. But I still remember that very, very moment. But keeping hope, real hope and knowing that you can do it. Knowing that – I mean if you even just simplify it and say look at we’re all these amazing results with the placebo. The mind, even if you don’t know how the mind somehow has the ability to heal the physical body and you can’t argue with that. We’ve been using the placebo. Everything is tested in the placebo. Conventional medicine, the traditional structure, uses the placebo consistently and gets consistent results. We can only say that proof shows you that the mind somehow has this physical ability. With that, that was the thing that kept me from like – when I first started shifting into it, it was like, you know, I could say it’s ridiculous. I could say it doesn’t make sense. I could say all these things, but the truth of it is, is it’s been proven over and over and over again. I don’t have to prove it works. I don’t have to prove it has the ability. There’s years of evidence that shows consistently that every single medication that’s on the market has been tested against the placebo. What were the placebo results? So instead of using the mind and the placebo for a really cool measuring device, it’s just going okay, why does it work? But I think that that key point, like keeping hope before that was an up and down, but when I looked at that it was like you know, I can’t argue with years and years and years of research, saying people are proving that the mind has the ability.

50:52
Dr. Maya Novak:
Yes. So what is your number one advice that you would give someone who is injured right now and healing?

51:00
Brandy Gillmore:
To get excited. Get excited and be willing to change, because when you do and you learn everything you can about your mind and how to use it effectively, it becomes life-changing. The very thing that I thought took away my entire life ended up giving me more life than I ever thought I could live. I would say get excited, get determined, get motivated. Don’t be lazy – and get excited.

51:32
Dr. Maya Novak:
Beautiful. I love this. We are also talking a bit about the future, but also all the things that we are sharing here on the Summit and that you are sharing are changing the course of healing. So my question for you is how do you see the future of healing from injuries?

51:55
Brandy Gillmore:
To be 100% honest, it’s a tough question and the reason being is this – is that we have – I feel like we have a race with technology. I feel like we need to learn how to use our minds to heal our body because it also changes our life, like with this depression. When we start to look at depression, we start to look at for a moment and we realize that people are depressed. They’re not happy. We have these shootings. We have different things going on. Like what if, for a moment, everybody had to be happy. What if everybody had to learn how to use their mind? What would our world look like? We look at that and it’s so exciting. You think about it for a moment and that’s a picture, you go wow. If people, if each individual starts to understand how to use their mind from that space, and you really change and you really feel happy and you really get rid of the negative, and you really shift – your life really does shift. It’s incredible. This is what’s fun, is I’ve even been – like people always want to do research on my mind and things like that because I can feel what other people feel. So part of the reason that I’ve been able to demonstrate such quick results is because I can feel what other people are feeling. So I can just tap into what the emotion is to help them shift it. So people always want to study my mind in different things. I’ve ended up with electrodes on my head for various reasons and whatnot. And that’s the way I’ve been able to also demonstrate really quick results. But some of these studies I was in a room and an adjacent room had a photon beam – so it was a photon beam to like a photon counter, which showed out of this beam how many counters, or how many photons would get to the end. What I was doing from the side room that I was locked in was using my mind to influence it. So they had like a timer where it said okay, go for five minutes. Okay, stop for a few minutes. Okay, go for five minutes. It was some – I don’t remember what the exact time was and I didn’t have my cell phone because I couldn’t have anything on me, so I don’t know what the exact time was but I had a green light and voice that said go, and one that said stop. So either way, my mind was influencing the photons. You could see from the photon counter after it was done when I’m using my mind, when I’m not, when I’m using my mind, when I’m not. You could see the difference. That’s because our minds all have the ability to influence things around us. So the point being is that it’s exciting the idea of all of us using our minds to heal our body, to change our lives, to make it a new way of being. When we look at it for a moment, some people will call it prayer healing, some people call it stress affects the body, some people call metaphysics, or quantum physics - or whatever you want to call it. The thing of it is that – like if you talk to a doctor and they say stress affects the body, they go oh, absolutely. Prayer healing, they’d be like oh, that’s stupid. Sure, that’s just all in your mind. Metaphysics, quantum physics, it’s all in your mind. But it’s all the same thing. We’re all using the mind. So either way, the point being it’s a lifted world. It’s absolutely beautiful and that’s one vision. Then there’s the technology that’s going to try to somehow interfere with something or other where people don’t have to get happier, and don’t have to do anything. Then it goes – there’s going to be some type of effort to try to do something – and I know that there’s certain places that are trying to put chips into people’s brains and different things like that. Which is all fun, and then we can all be remoted controlled drones or something. I mean it’s crazy when you look at it. So my hope is that each individual starts taking action and that’s part of the reason like I said, I never thought that this could be something that I would be doing. But when lift happiness, when lift consciousness, when we do that we change our health, we change our lives, and it’s incredible. So try to do it without – or just take – that’s part of the problem – if you look at even people on opioids. I mean the suicide rate, the addiction rate, all of these things are just adding up. Life expectancy has gone down for the last three years in a row, not only in the US, but there’s been some other countries where it’s declined also. So I’d say that there’s a few things. I do see it going here where we need to start using our mind. I think it’s the most beautiful thing ever. I think it’s up to each one of us to create the change, to own that change, to implement it, to really do it, and reap the rewards of it.

56:49
Dr. Maya Novak:
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing this, Brandy. I would absolutely love to talk to you even more, but time flies really fast and we are coming slowly to the end. I do have one last, a bit more of a fun question.

57:04
Brandy Gillmore:
Okay.

57:04
Dr. Maya Novak:
If you were stuck on a desert island with a fresh injury and you could bring only one thing with you that would help you heal perfectly, amazingly well, what would that thing be?

57:19
Brandy Gillmore:
And I have like water and everything?

57:21
Dr. Maya Novak:
Thinking out of the box, there is no wrong answer.

57:25
Brandy Gillmore:
Okay, well as long as I have water, because I’m not – let’s be honest, if I don’t have food and water on a deserted island I can use my mind all I want, but I’m going to need some food and water. Other than that, I think that as long as I have a connection to the universe and my mind, I don’t need anything. Other than going why did I manifest being all alone on a deserted island, and what do I need to change and changing that!

57:53
Dr. Maya Novak:
Beautiful. I love this answer. Brandy, where can people find more about you?

58:00
Brandy Gillmore:
They can go to my website at brandygillmore.com. Brandy is with a y, and Gillmore is with two l’s. So brandygillmore.com.

58:09
Dr. Maya Novak:
Perfect. Brandy, I so enjoyed this conversation and I know it’s changing lives around the world. Thank you so much for being here.

58:18
Brandy Gillmore:
Maya, I love what you’re doing in helping to get this out. It’s wonderful and making a difference in the world. It’s exciting when we look at where we’re going if we all just start, each person just really starts creating a change, so it’s up to all of us. So not only do I love what you’re doing, but I love that people are at a place in life where they’re ready to take in and grow and have consciousness about it and expand. So it’s everybody here also that’s watching this, I have so much respect and I understand the journey, and I think it’s just impressive. So thank you for having me.

58:58
Dr. Maya Novak:
This wraps up today’s episode with Brandy Gillmore. If you haven’t done it yet, subscribe to the podcast Mindful Injury Recovery Talks on whatever platform you’re using to tune in, and share this episode with your loved ones – it really can change someone’s life. To access show notes, links, and transcript, of today’s talk go to mayanovak.com/podcast. To learn more about The Mindful Injury Recovery Method visit my website mayanovak.com and find my book Heal Beyond Expectations on Amazon. Until next time – keep evolving, blooming, and healing.