How Healing Happens

Cathleen King wishes to give special thanks to her team at Primal Trust™, and to Louise Pigott, for assisting with the design and editing of this ebook.

All content within is copyright of Cathleen King, DPT, and Primal Trust™ Academy & Community.

All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic or electronic processes. It may not be shared or otherwise copied for public or private use, other than for fair use as a brief quotation, without prior written permission from Primal Trust™.

Disclaimer:

NO MEDICAL ADVICE, DIAGNOSIS, OR TREATMENT.

Even though Cathleen King, DPT, is a Licensed Physical Therapist, she is not offering Physical Therapy services through this informational content or any of its Offerings, Information, Products and/or Services.

THIS EDUCATIONAL INFORMATION IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL ADVICE, DIAGNOSIS, TREATMENT, OR PREVENTION, OR FOR A PROFESSIONAL THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP.

You agree to use your own due diligence and judgment before applying any advice or recommendations made with this educational content, and you acknowledge that you take full responsibility for your health, life, and wellbeing, as well as the health, lives, and wellbeing of any dependents.

Welcome Message .......................................................................................

Introductory Statements ..........................................................................

Who Can Benefit From Nervous System Healing Practices? ............................................................................................................

Nervous System Dysregulation Quiz ...............................................

Part 1: The Science & Approach To Self-Healing

The Body as a Computer Analogy....................................................... So, What is Primal Trust™? ..................................................................... The Primal Trust™ Process .....................................................................

Testimonials

Chronic Unresolving Illness = Chronic Stress State and a Dysregulated Nervous System ............................................................. Introducing The Maladaptive Stress Response ........................

How We Heal: Combining Top Down and Bottom Up Approaches ........................................................................................................

The Power of Rewiring Your Brain ..............................

The Common Algorithm of Brain Retraining ............................

The Brain Retraining Sequence .......................................................... Why Brain Retraining Alone Often Isn’t Enough: My Personal Story ..................................................................................................

Self-Regulation Tool Number 3: Brain Retraining 101

Bottom-Up Somatic Practices .............................................................

Self-Regulation Tool Number 4: Pattern Interrupt and Somatic Environmental Orienting

“But I’ve tried other brain and nervous system tools before and I’m still dealing with symptoms. Why?” ..............

Part 2: The Primal Trust™ Healing Process

The Primal Trust™ Hero's Journey: The Roadmap to Transformation ................................................................................................

Candace Moss Healing Success Story and YouTube Link

Level 1: Regulate™ ........................................................................................ Results and Data From Regulate™ ..................................................

“How soon will I start to feel better?” .......................

Kelly Barber Healing Success Story and YouTube Link ......

Level 2: The Mentorship ............................................................................

Alyssa Shifrel Testimonial ........................................................................

Self-Regulation Tool Number 5: Befriending Scared Parts of You (includes guided somatic meditation audio)

Catherine Hyza Healing Success Story and YouTube Link

The Primal Trust™ Community: Members, Teachers and Live Classes ........................................................................................................

Level 3: Liberate ..............................................................................................

The Levels Summary ...................................................................................

How Does Primal Trust™ Compare to Other Programs?

What Sets Primal Trust™ Apart? ........................................................

Practicalities ......................................................................................................

Marla Hall Healing Success Story and YouTube Link ........... Monthly Membership Explained ........................................................

What People Are Saying About Primal Trust™ ........................ Closing Statement - Primal Trust™ Vision and Values ....... More About Cathleen King, Professional Background ....... Glossary

Yes, you can heal.

In this guide, we share with you: WHY you may be stuck with chronic symptoms, WHAT is happening from a scientific and mind-body perspective, and HOW healing happens through creating biochemical changes in the body and implementing brain and nervous system regulation practices.

Welcome,

I’m Cathleen King, DPT, Founder and CEO of Primal Trust™ Academy & Community, an online membership platform for nervous system regulation and brain retraining that helps people find freedom from chronic illness, pain, stress, and trauma.

I’ve personally walked the path of chronic illness (Lyme, mold toxicity, Chronic Fatigue, and more) with many debilitating symptoms, and felt completely overwhelmed with the fear that I might never return to a full and vibrant life. Like many of you, I went from doctor to doctor, piling up a staggering number of diagnoses and desperately trying treatments, many of which only made me feel worse. I became obsessed with the drive to fix myself, spending endless hours frantically researching and unable to concentrate on anything else in my life. I know painfully well the spiral of loneliness, anger, and deep despair that comes with being told there is no chance of fully healing.

But then I created a roadmap to guide me out of the dense fog of my illness and fear. I learned how to self-regulate my nervous system and, astoundingly, to experience true joy and calm even while I was still experiencing difficult symptoms and limitations. My nervous system started to change. My brain began to rewire. And I began to trust my body could heal.

Essentially, I discovered how to embody “primal trust,” the frequency of safety and connection, and I chose to let it ignite my body’s innate healing ability. I was amazed to experience symptom after symptom fall away as I continued to lean into these tools of self-regulation and trust, ultimately being rewarded with vibrant health and a life filled with joy and purpose. Now I am called as a guide to help others do the same: disarming the danger signal stored at a cellular level through heart-led rewiring of the nervous system.

Through my work in developing the Primal Trust™ platform, I have led thousands of people through their own hero’s journey of self-healing and self-discovery, empowering them with the tools needed to regulate their nervous system, but also to go inwards to find alignment with their True Self essence and emerge transformed.

I give a glimpse into my story to spark the flame of hope and trust that I so desperately needed when I was sick. The capacity, courage, and power to self-heal already exists in your heart—tinder ready for that spark. Please rest assured that there is a path out of chronic illness, pain, anxiety, trauma and suffering, and that you, too, have what it takes to heal. Now it’s time for you to choose to grow that glowing fire: to break free of the patterns that have kept you stuck in a chronic stress state, experience inner freedom, and reveal your true nature to the world. You are part of a vision to reveal the self-empowered path of healing! I invite you to learn these tools and join our loving community where we embrace nervous system coregulation on this path of healing and transformation.

Together we rise, together we fly. It’s time.

tohaveyourown immunesystemfight chronic“incurable”

tocalmanervoussystem thathasbeenstuckin traumaoranxietyfor years.

It’s possible It’s possible It’s possible

tofindthingsyouloveto doafteryearsoffeeling lost,sick,orhopeless.

Who Can Benefit From Nervous System Healing Practices?

The Primal Trust™ training program specializes in helping people find freedom from health conditions related to chronic stress and/or trauma, including:

Mental health: PTSD, anxiety, panic, depression, insomnia, relationship difficulties

Physical health: chronic pain conditions (e.g. fibromyalgia, interstitial cystitis, migraine), chronic fatigue (ME/CFS), longhaul Covid, burnout, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), autoimmune disorders, digestive issues, hormone imbalances

Immune system health: chronic Lyme disease, long-haul COVID, other viral/bacterial/parasitic infections

Environmental sensitivities: multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), mast cell/mold illness/chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS, MCAS), food sensitivities and allergies, environmental allergies, electromagnetic hypersensitivity

We do this by teaching tools of self-regulation, which means learning to bring the body into a state of balance and out of a habitual stress response, for optimal, natural healing.

Take the Nervous System Dysregulation Quiz

Not sure if what you’re experiencing can be helped by brain retraining and nervous system regulation? Take our quiz to find out!

1– Do you have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/M.E., Long Haul Covid, inflammation, or autoimmune activation? Y/N

2– Did you become unwell following a virus, bacterial infection, mold, or chemical exposure and haven’t felt well since? Y/N

3– Do you experience dysautonomia (heart rate/blood pressure irregularity issues, breathing dysregulation resulting in a fast pulse, feeling dizzy or faint upon standing, poor ability to adjust to hot or cold temperatures)? Y/N

4– Do you have brain fog, difficulty remembering things, or inability to concentrate? Y/N

5– Do you experience chronic pain and difficulty with pain processing? Y/N

6– Do you have digestive issues and/or food sensitivities? Y/N

7– Do you experience allergies, MCAS, histamine intolerance, or mold illness? Y/N

8– Do you have an increased sensitivity to chemicals, smells, light, EMF, sounds, touch? Y/N

9– Do you experience anxiety, panic, depression, dissociation, or depersonalization? Y/N

10– Do you have chronic sleep issues? Y/N

11– Have you experienced either a physical or emotional trauma that continues to feel unresolved despite working on it? Y/N

12– Have you tried multiple protocols, diets, and other therapies without successful alleviation of your chronic symptoms, anxiety, or stress? Y/N

13– Have you been told that you must have a mystery illness, or that there’s nothing wrong with you, or it must all be anxiety or psychosomatic? Y/N

14– Do you notice every sensation, symptom, or shift in your body? Y/N

15– Do you scan your body upon waking up in the morning and through the day for symptoms or what's wrong? Y/N

16– Are you internally focused with your attention trying to decide if your body is getting better, worse, or being triggered by something? Y/N

17– Do you track and record your symptoms and potential causes? Y/N

18– Do you notice symptoms when simply thinking of a triggering event? Y/N

19– Do you ruminate on the past, wishing you could change it, say it, or do it differently, unable to let the past go, or having memory flashbacks? Y/N

20– Do you rehearse future events over and over, obsessing over details about how you will handle the situation, whether you will feel well enough, and what might happen if you experience symptoms? Y/N

21– Do you experience regular negative inner self-dialogue? Y/N

22– Do you have issues with low energy, weakness, or become excessively exhausted or in more pain after physical activities? Y/N

23– Are you unable to take a break or relax, constantly feeling rushed, hyper-alert or very stressed? Y/N

24– Do you feel overwhelmed, immobilized, shut down, or hopeless? Y/N

25– Do you experience food restrictions? Or food obsession? Y/N

26– Do you experience emotional outbursts, mood swings, or cannot regulate your emotions? Y/N

27– Are you often judgmental, resentful, blaming, pointing out what others are doing TO you? Y/N

28– Do you research every symptom, diagnosis, or protocol? Y/N

29– Do you have very restrictive or excessive protocols you are trying to follow? Y/N

30– Are you obsessed with what is wrong with you and how to fix it? Y/N

WHAT’S YOUR SCORE? ____ / 30

Did you answer YES to 5 or more of the quiz questions? If so, there’s a very good chance that something often referred to as a limbic system impairment, or a dysregulated nervous system, is either creating or heavily influencing the manifestation of your unresolving symptoms and stress.

Intrigued to learn more? Read on for a full breakdown!

How can we help you?

If you’ve found Primal Trust™ and you’re reading this ebook right now, you’re probably struggling with either one or several of the following: chronic unresolving illness and/or pain, chronic stress and/or anxiety, and trauma.

Whether you’re early on in your journey to reclaim your health and vitality, or you’ve been in pursuit of these things for many years, you’ve probably recognized the modern-day healthcare system doesn’t hold the answers for resolving chronic conditions. In fact, much of our health care system could more accurately be called a sick care system when it comes to treating chronic illness. It’s kind of like a graveyard, full of diagnoses tombstones, all lined up and carved out with names and dates but not giving you any direction or hope that you can make it out of this place alive!

It’s the modern medical model to focus on treating symptoms rather than pursuing a deeper understanding of our complex mind, body, and brain connections.

PART 1: The Science And Approach Of Self-Healing

The Body As A Computer Analogy

Here at Primal Trust™, we approach things differently. We believe that addressing the mind-body connection through nervous system regulation and limbic system retraining can make a world of difference when it comes to reversing chronic conditions. Rather than believing symptoms are the result of your diagnoses, we find that many unresolving symptoms can be the result of a maladaptive stress response wreaking all sorts of havoc on the body’s systems and processes, and impaired mind-body communication keeping you from realizing at a deep level what your body needs to self-heal.

You can think of your body with chronic issues like having a sluggish computer, clogged up with old files, and running on an out-of-date operating system. At first, you try to work with what you’ve got, installing more programs, and downloading more files, but inevitably picking up more viruses. Until one day, that computer crashes. Each time you open a program, you encounter a problem (i.e. the build-up of toxins, pathogens, and inflammation because the brain-body stress signaling is limiting self-healing).

Nothing is running smoothly and all the computer’s energy is getting used up just powering on, let alone performing the tasks you need (i.e. your body’s energy is stuck and not detoxing, digesting, fighting infections, etc).

So what’s the solution to this?

Is it getting a fancy new mouse or keyboard? Is it polishing the screen? Is it giving the computer a really good talking to, and just telling it to try harder? (e.g. trying new supplements/ protocols/etc.) No! You need to get to the root cause.

First, you might decide to run the diagnostics (more lab tests) to figure out what’s going wrong. You get a whole list of issues (new diagnoses). You go to the computer repair shop (more specialists), but right now, they’re overrun with broken-down machines, and you’ve heard they’ve got a reputation for patching up the problem only to keep you hooked in the system so you keep coming back. Intuitively, you know what you need to do. You find a clued-up tech wizard who shows you how to clear out the old software and upgrade it, update the operating system, and reboot your hard drive (rewire the brain and nervous system). No more patch-up jobs, no more downloads, and no more gadgets to do what your computer has been built to do on its own… The tech wizard shows you how you can solve the issues and keep your system running smoothly. They place the power firmly back in your hands.

This is what we teach you at Primal Trust™. While we’re not quite wizards, we’re here to guide you to the core of what’s powering your body—your brain and your nervous system—and we will show you how to clear out everything that’s preventing that very intelligent body system from functioning optimally.

The body is not dumb. It’s the super computer of all computers! If you can work with that intelligence by removing all the coding of fear, the infected malware, and the clutter of files you no longer need, your whole system comes back online, reboots, and clears out the trash at the same time!

So if you’re coming from a bleak landscape filled with lab tests, pills, platitudes, and invalidation, it would be understandable if you’ve been left feeling unheard and unsupported. But hopefully, you’re beginning to see that a more integrative, holistic, and empowering mind-body approach is out there; an approach that will rewire your brain and body so it can heal itself—and it works!

Somewhere in you, you know there’s truth in this. You know there’s more to you than chronic illness, stress and trauma, and you know there has to be a reality out there where you are healthy, free, and transformed. You don’t have to accept a multitude of chronic labels and limitations for the rest of your life. With the right support and balance of modalities, you can find your way out of this darkness and into the light.

Here at Primal Trust™, we’re going to shine a torch for you, until step by step, and glimmer by glimmer, you’re going to break out of the shadows and into the dawn of a bright new day.

So, are you ready to reboot and power up?

Let’s look at the next steps…

I know this seems too good to be true... that your own body can self-heal from infection, autoimmune, toxin exposure, and more...

My personal story was that I was VERY resistant to doing brain retraining and nervous system healing for over 10 years! Why? Because I did not believe that my condition could be helped by simple mind-body healing techniques. In fact, I would get quite upset if anyone would label my “actual infection and toxic exposures” as a mind-body illness.

You see, at the time I was really ill I still considered myself an expert in mind-body symptoms, as I worked for many years as a physical therapist treating chronic pain. I believed that pain was modulated by the brain and our emotions, but...

I was never taught the complex science of psychoneuroimmunology, or the science behind a chronic stress response resulting in impaired immune system modulation and poor detoxification leading to infection and toxin buildup. So I didn’t feel my health issues could be helped by the mindbody somatic techniques I used to teach my patients.

I also didn’t believe that resolving my trauma had anything to do with my Lyme disease and other issues. I was an unbeliever in everything I’m about to share with you.

For this reason, I know I had to REALLY be convinced of the science before I allowed myself to implement the practices I’ll be teaching you about. My rational brain needed proof that the limbic system and autonomic nervous system function are the cornerstones of unlocking self-healing from real infections and all of my other issues. So buckle up, as we will take a deep dive into the theory and principles of mind-body healing.

But first, a brief overview of the Primal Trust™ process I’ve created to help you through the journey of reversing your chronic symptoms...

So, what is Primal Trust™?

Primal Trust™ is an online platform and community for nervous system regulation and neural retraining. It’s here to help people find freedom from chronic illness, stress, and trauma. We teach you how to turn on your body’s self-healing mechanisms and give you the power to customize your practices. This is not a “one size fits all” approach or program. It is split into the Academy, for education, and the Community, which offers a range of live classes and opportunities for connection. There are three levels in the Primal Trust™ Academy, which we will break down in PART 2 of this guide:

The Primal Trust™ Process

There are going to be 5 steps to getting you from where you are now in your healing journey to where you want to be—healthy, vibrant, and able to self-regulate out of life’s stressors.

We build the foundation Step 1

We give you the tools Step 2

You apply the tools Step 3

You do the deeper inner self-healing work Step 4

You reemerge into the world transformed Step 5

Step 1

We build the foundation

First, we want to start by helping you understand the science behind your chronic illness, chronic pain, chronic stress, and trauma. To do this, we give you a comprehensive education in our Level 1 program, Regulate™, on the limbic system, the maladaptive stress response, the nervous system, Polyvagal Theory, and cell danger response. If you’re not familiar with these terms, you can flip through to our glossary right now for the definitions at the back of this guide. We’re also going to go into it all in bit more depth on the coming pages. Understanding the “why” behind what’s going on helps to get your psyche on board for implementing the tools and the new routines you will learn in our program, and helps you to prepare for the changes that are to come. We don’t bypass the science and ask you to blindly believe us. This isn’t faith healing, but it is about finding trust in your body and environment once again. Giving you the science provides a solid starting point to build from and lets your brain know that there’s method and sense behind these tools. It’s the first step in turning off the alarm in your limbic system.

We give you the tools Step 2

Once you have a firm understanding about what’s going on in your brain and nervous system when you experience chronic health issues and stress, we’re going to give you the tools you need to rewire your brain and consciously self-regulate your biology for optimal health. There are over 40 tools taught in Regulate™, including brain retraining (neuroplasticity) techniques, nervous system regulation exercises, and other holistic approaches such as vagus nerve stimulation and breathwork that address the root cause of your issues vs just chasing the symptoms. In this ebook, we give you a jump start with 5 powerful tools to begin the selfhealing process.

Step 3

You apply the tools with the support of our team and community

Now is the time for you to do your part and engage in a manageable daily routine designed to rewire your brain and regulate your nervous system. You will have the support of our team, live classes, the forum, Q&A sessions and study groups. You practice daily the proper sequencing of your tools for best results.

You do the deeper inner self-healing work

Step 4

After you’ve journeyed onwards with Level 1 Regulate™, we encourage you inwards through the optional deeper work in our Level 2 program, The Mentorship, especially if you have a trauma history. Through inner attachment repair (parts work, inquiry & somatic presencing), we’ll work on the relationship you have with yourself, others, and the world around you. We will really dive into the concept of developing what we call your Adult Main Personality to foster resilience and a sense of self and your purpose, unlocking deeper self-healing.

Step 5

You reemerge into the world transformed

Our community and mentoring process supports you not only in healing from chronic symptoms but also in rediscovering your True Self beyond the identity shaped by chronic illness, pain, stress, and trauma. We want you to embrace a joyful life where you are defined not by your suffering, but by your resilience and vitality. Our Level 3 offerings help support your ongoing lifestyle transformation.

Now you have the outline of our approach, we’d love to give you a bit more information on each of the 5 steps, giving you an overview of why you are stuck with chronic symptoms, and providing more understanding of the types of practices that help the body heal.

We’re going to:

A few testimonials of what the outcomes are by applying the Primal Trust™ roadmap of self-healing & transformation

“I’m 100% healed from 5 years of chronic pain!” - Kelly Barber

“The doctors said they would have to take out 80% of my colon because of severe colon inertia/digestive issues, now after Primal Trust™, I’m 100% healed in my digestive system!“ - Marla Hall

“I never wanted to leave the house since being sick, especially to eat. About 1.5 months ago I started walking every morning, I realized it was making a huge impact on my healing especially because I'm surrounded by beautiful nature. Tired or not, I’m going, and yesterday... I ran! I mean not just a little, I ran 5K! I had not run for about 3 years.” - Aline Robin

“During the first few months of Level 1, Regulate™, I used the tools and was able to reintroduce many of the foods that had been triggering for me. By the end of last summer, I had successfully integrated all the foods I used to love and eat into my diet and was doing so with almost no symptoms!” - Laura Hunt

“After 45+ years of illness, anxiety, etc, and 20+ years of trying every single healing modality I could find, my symptoms are about 90% gone (mold, CIRS, chronic fatigue, CPTSD, SIBO, and more).” - Candace Moss “I joined because I have been struggling with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for over 10 years. Since joining only 4 months ago my energy has nearly fully returned, I no longer have crashes and I can finally do nearly any activity I like without worrying about my energy crashing... Primal Trust™ has also helped me with the chronic pain that I’ve had for over 20 years. Most of the pain I used to feel has either disappeared or dissipated now. I also used to struggle with brain fog every day but now my cognition is clear and I am able to be socially engaged with people most of the time. -Jenny Naismith

We have taken over 8000 people through this process. See our testimonials page HERE

Next up: the science of why you get stuck in illness and the principles behind mind-body healing practices...

Awareness: The Science and Cause Behind Chronic Stress Conditions

Understanding what happens on a physiological level when someone is chronically stressed, has a toxin/pathogen exposure, or experiences trauma, and how it can lead to diverse health conditions, is a key first step in the self-healing journey. To increase awareness and help people feel empowered, in the Level 1 Regulate™ program we start with videos about the science of a maladaptive stress response and cell danger theory, drawing from the latest scientific research. We then explain in detail the scientific basis for each concept and tool as it is introduced throughout the Regulate™ modules, and we list many resources for those interested in learning more. This scientific knowledge provides a clear motivation for following the recommended daily practices. The scientific understanding also helps you develop a healthier, less fear-based relationship to your current symptoms and conditions, which helps you to start to self-heal.

To help kick-start your learning process, we cover some of the key concepts here in this ebook and explain how they relate to your chronic symptoms.

The Autonomic Nervous System’s Role in Chronic Illness, Pain, and Stress

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) has two branches: our sympathetic branch, which is like a gas pedal, and the parasympathetic branch, which is like a brake pedal. The body is always making subtle adjustments between the ‘gas and brake’ of our nervous system to respond to our internal and external environment appropriately.

It is normal and healthy to have a stress response (sympathetic “fight/flight/freeze”) activated. The problem is that sometimes that stress response becomes chronic or too extreme. The parasympathetic, often referred to as the “rest and digest” system, promotes relaxation and healing when it is in a balanced state. Heart rate and breathing slow down, and the body returns to calm. When things get too stressful for too long our body has an “emergency brake” where the parasympathetic nervous system activates in an extreme way to cause “shut down.”

The parasympathetic nervous system is controlled by the vagus nerve, which you will learn more about later. One of the first skills we teach in Primal Trust™ is to learn to “track your nervous system.” That means to be conscious of what autonomic state you are in currently, to determine if you need to help your body consciously slow down or sometimes even take action. This helps you become more of a partner with your nervous system by being able to consciously self-regulate your own biology.

In order to “track” your nervous system, we learn the predominate states of activation levels, which are outlined below:

Fight (Sympathetic Branch): Our “activate” and “go-towards” response: heart rate increases, breathing quickens, and energy is mobilized to deal with the threat.

Common traits: anxiety, anger, ambition, excitement, insomnia

Flight (Sympathetic Branch): Similar to “fight,” the body readies itself to go away/escape: heightened alertness, increased energy, and a readiness to flee from the perceived danger.

Common traits: anxiety, fear, upset, avoiding

Freeze/Immobilization (Combined/Sympathetic/ Parasympathetic Branches): This is like the gas and brake being on at the same time. In some situations, the body may enter a state of “freeze.” This can occur when the perceived threat is overwhelming, leading to a temporary paralysis or immobilization response. The body becomes still as a defense mechanism.

Common traits: overwhelm, dissociation, anxiety

Shut Down (Extreme Parasympathetic Collapse): In complete overwhelm and fear, the ANS response is to shut down (think full pressure on the brake pedal), which results in extreme exhaustion and lethargy and can feel like numbedout hopelessness.

When we are in chronic fight/flight/freeze/shutdown, our body has decreased ability to fight infections, has poor absorption of nutrients, has decreased ability to detoxify, and the result is chronic illness. Treatments do not work as well when our nervous system is stuck in these states. This is why learning to recognize and consciously self-regulate your nervous system is paramount.

The Polyvagal Ladder

A Helpful Tool To Track Your Nervous System

The above image is known as the Polyvagal Ladder, created by Deb Dana, to describe and understand the Polyvagal Theory coined by Steven Porges. The Polyvagal Theory provides a structure to explain how our autonomic nervous system works and describes three primary states of activation.

Deb Dana uses the Polyvagal Ladder exercise to help us imagine our nervous system as a ladder, with the ideal state of safety being at the top (ventral vagal), the sympathetic activation state in the middle, and dorsal vagal (extreme parasympathetic) shut down state at the bottom.

As you look at this ladder, do you recognize which rung you might be hanging out on most of the time?

Are you at the top (ventral vagal), feeling safe and connected and generally okay about life?

Are you in the middle (sympathetic), constantly rushing, feeling anxiety, or overly driven?

Or have you fallen to the bottom of the ladder (parasympathetic dorsal vagal) after having too much stress for too long where you simply cannot cope anymore?

Or maybe somewhere in between?

Now the task is, how do you move up the ladder to a state of calm, safety, and connection?

One of the key purposes of nervous system regulation is to be aware of what state your nervous system is in and then, if needed, have tools to help you shift your autonomic nervous system in to calm ventral vagal connection (top of the ladder).

Since the vagus nerve is the master regulator of the autonomic nervous system, we learn tools to target the function of the vagus nerve so that you have more capacity to move up the ladder after you have been in a stressed situation.

Ultimately, we want to be spending most of our time in a relaxed, calm, connected state (ventral vagal = parasympathetic), which allows the body to rest, heal, repair, digest, and detoxify. But we also need to teach the brain and body how to cope with all kinds of different stressors. Nervous system regulation is not about being calm all the time. It’s about being able to move between the different states of activation (move up and down the ladder) when needed, but not get stuck in a sympathetic or prolonged collapsed state.

We teach you this in Primal Trust™. We show you how to access the ventral vagal state for healing, and come out of stuck stress patterns that can be seen in chronically activated sympathetic, freeze, or shut down states.

In this ebook you will learn several tools to get started to help you be able to climb up that ladder to safety and connection (the ventral vagal autonomic state), which helps your body begin the process of self-healing (detoxifying and immune rebalancing).

©PrimalTrust™

Chronic Unresolving Illness

= Chronic Stress State and a Dysregulated Nervous System

When the body’s nervous system is stuck in a state of chronic stress for long enough, it is often called a “dysregulated nervous system.” It is here that we become vulnerable to developing chronic illness, and/or we become burnt out, startle easily, and can’t regulate ourselves emotionally.

Person A

Regulated Nervous System

Person B

Dysregulated Nervous System

Healthy Immune Response

Recovers from Infections

Detoxification Pathways Open

Weak Immune Response

Infections Become Chronic

Detoxification Pathways Sluggish

Chronic Illness/ Chronic Stress

The body’s nervous system is intimately connected with the brain, and in particular, receives stress signals from a part of the brain called the limbic system.

The Limbic System

Introducing the Maladaptive Stress

Response

You may have heard of the term “the maladaptive stress response” before. It refers to a state in which the body’s stress response system is chronically activated, such as we have been describing. This state has been shown to disrupt the body’s immune system, impair detoxification abilities, alter hormone levels, and contribute to inflammation; all factors in the development and progression of health conditions such as chronic fatigue, chronic pain conditions, autoimmune disorders, long-haul Covid, lasting infections, digestive issues, chemical and food sensitivities, anxiety and depression.

This state of nervous system dysregulation is often associated with overactivity in the limbic system of the brain, which is responsible for emotions, memory, and behavior. In order to self-heal, we must specifically target the limbic system of the brain to shift the biochemistry of the body and trigger a rest and digest state of activity. We target the limbic system with top-down practices such as brain retraining, inquiry, and mindfulness practices.

Let’s Summarize What You’ve

Learned So Far...

Chronic Stress + Toxin, Injury, or Pathogen Exposure results in:

Suppression of rest, digest and natural healing processes

Activation of the sympathetic nervous system protection responses

Decreased detoxification ability causing toxin build up and increased inflammation results.

– Often leads to diagnoses such as mold illness, chemical sensitivity, mast cell activation, heavy metal toxicity, etc.

Digestion slows, poor nutrient absorption

– Often leads to diagnosis of SIBO, irritable bowel syndrome, food allergies, autoimmune issues, etc.

Immune system dysregulation

– Excessive cytokine production, increased inflammation

– Immune over-reactivity to body/foods (autoimmune/ allergies)

– Under-reactive to pathogens: Lyme, co-infections, parasites, viral loads build up over time.

Autonomic nervous system dysregulation (impaired communication between the brain and body)

– Symptoms of dysautonomia result: heart rate and blood pressure irregularities, dizziness, long-haul Covid symptoms, intolerance to various stimuli, chronic pain, and more.

Chronic symptoms result when the brain and nervous system are stuck in heightened stress biochemistry. The body cannot rid itself of toxins and appropriately fight infections when in states of stress, protection, and fear, and treatments often have limited outcomes.

In fact, the body’s danger or protection response is on a cellular level. That’s why the theory of the Cell Danger Response is one of the missing links to explain mysterious, unresolving chronic illness.

Cell Danger Response (CDR)

Understanding CDR explains why nervous system healing practices ignite innate body intelligence (self-healing mechanisms) capable of reversing a myriad of chronic conditions!

This was the theory/science that really convinced me personally of the entire approach I’m about to teach you. It finally made sense why my body seemed “dumb” and unable to see pathogens or detoxify like “normal” people. My body was stuck in Cell Danger Response! And my history of emotional, physical, and chemical trauma had a lot do to with why I couldn’t self-regulate out of the danger response!

Once I understood this, then I became motivated to do all I could to come out of Cell Danger Response.

So what happens in our bodies when we become stuck in a maladaptive stress response, all the way down to within our cells? Cell Danger Response (CDR), is a concept introduced and researched by Professor Robert Naviaux (University of California, San Diego). The CDR is triggered when a cell encounters a chemical, physical, or microbial (e.g. viruses, bacteria) threat. Psychological trauma, particularly during childhood, can also activate the CDR, or give you the perfect set up to have this response become chronic and not turn off.

Infections

Physical Injury

Chemicals Toxins

Psychological Trauma

Essentially, CDR is the stress response at the cellular level, specifically involving the mitochondria.

Cells go into protection (CDR) against detected threats in the system.

This a normal response not meant to last for an ongoing time period. When it doesn’t turn off, we can get quite sick and have intolerance to treatments/supplements.

Are Your Cells (And Body) In Safety (Thriving), Or In Danger (Protection)?

Mitochondria inside the cell create energy to THRIVE (detoxify and absorb nutrients) when the cell signaling is in SAFETY and PURPOSE mode (parasympathetic activation state).

OR

Mitochondria create PROTECTION signals when the CDR signal is activated because of a threat detected, resulting in decreased detoxification and nutrient absorption intracellularly.

This ongoing CDR signalling at the intracellular, mitochondrial level is literally what can make you sick and toxic if the protection response doesn’t turn off! This is why nervous system regulation is crucial to reverse chronic illness. We need to help turn the “safety signals” back on at a cellular level.

A Basic Overview of the Science Behind the Protection Response

Naviaux explains that when a threat (like a pathogen or toxin exposure, physical injury, or trauma) is detected, mitochondria change cellular metabolism to protect the cell from further injury. Mitochondria decrease oxygen consumption and stiffen their membrane to limit the spread of pathogens, and they release antiviral/antibacterial chemicals and ATP from the cell.

Instead of being used as energy for living and supporting the organs, this extracellular ATP (eATP) acts as a warning messenger to other cells, rapidly spreading the ‘danger response’ throughout the body. A host of defense-related processes occur as a result, affecting metabolism, inflammation (increased release of cytokines and chemokines), immunity, microbiome, brain function, sleep patterns, and behavior. These CDR processes are fundamental to survival and are all part of a normal response to a perceived threat at the cellular level. They are universal, meaning that the same CDR is activated by many different types of threats (stress, toxins, pathogens, etc).

Normally, once the danger has been eliminated or perceived as gone, a choreographed sequence of anti-inflammatory and regenerative processes in the body is activated to reverse the CDR and heal (i.e. you have innate self-healing mechanisms when you come back into safety!). In some cases, however, the cells become stuck in this protective ‘danger phase’ and the body cannot complete the healing process; this is what is happening with chronic illness.

The body system remains over-responsive, even to harmless stimuli, causing an ongoing flood of eATP and keeping the body on high alert. This is why minute levels of mold and chemicals can make you feel very sick!

This state, termed an “ongoing cell danger response,” is often manifested as chronic illness.

It is abnormal when the CDR signal does not turn off. Why doesn’t it turn off? Being in a state of fear and stress is one reason, or having a history of trauma, which is why nervous system work is the key to unlocking self-healing.

“The war is over… back to growth and repair.”

SummaryofCDRtreatmentapproaches:

FunctionalMedicineapproach:

Openupdetoxpathways, eradicatepathogens,removetoxin exposures.

PrimalTrust™approach:

Turnoffthedangersignalinginthe brainandnervoussystemand improveself-regulationcapacities.

*In Primal Trust™ we support both integrative or functional medicine approaches as well as our nervous system approach to reversing CDR and chronic illness .

If the idea of your mitochondria being hunkered down in protection mode is overwhelming, remember that these little powerhouses are still producing energy (ATP), it is just that your energy is being diverted from pathways for living in order to communicate danger and protect the cells. In Primal Trust™ we teach you tools to help give your mitochondria the ‘all clear’ signal so they can increase energy production again and start to use ATP for healing and thriving. Bottom–up practices are particularly important because they can directly influence the functioning of the mitochondria located in cells throughout the whole body.

For instance, regularly stimulating the vagus nerve, including using the practices we introduce in Primal Trust™, has been shown to increase mitochondrial activity. In addition to these somatic practices, repeatedly directing our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors through top–down practices helps send clear messages from the brain all the way down to the mitochondria that we are okay now, and we are safe.

Expressive Writing/Journaling

Expressive writing is a powerful and well-researched tool for releasing stored emotions and easing the impact of chronic illness. It’s a gateway into our subconscious and helps to stop rumination and thought loops that keep us in sympathetic overdrive, with a limbic system that’s firing off alarm signals. It can help with:

Emotional Expression:

Writing allows you to express and release pent-up emotions, providing a form of emotional catharsis, and purging dense energy stuck in the body. This can be especially helpful for addressing longstanding or unresolved emotions.

Stress Reduction:

Expressive writing can help reduce stress by providing an outlet for emotions, breaking the cycle of chronic stress and its negative impact on physical health. There are dozens of research articles supporting the use of expressive writing as a helpful healing aid.

Identifying Triggers:

Regular journaling enables you to identify patterns in your emotions and potential triggers for stress or flare-ups of chronic illness. Recognizing these patterns empowers you to make proactive changes. This increased self-awareness can contribute to a better understanding of the emotional roots of chronic illness/pain/stress.

Becoming Aware Of Unconscious Danger Messaging:

This process allows the danger, fear, and stress messaging that you are often unconscious of to come out of you to be seen and let go. Think of it like purging the thought toxins in your body!

As a side note, this is an exercise I give my own teen child to help her process her emotions and have a safe space to vent.

Here’s the exercise:

Take a piece of paper or a notebook and set aside 2-15 minutes.

For a minute, close your eyes and settle into the present moment. Now ask yourself the following:

Do you believe that you have a mind-body connection regarding your symptoms? If your body could speak, what would it say to you? Or what would you want to say to God, life, spouse, parent, etc if you knew there would be no negative consequence?

Now simply write about anything that comes up. Do NOT self censor here! Write about anything and everything. This is the most important instruction. You want to become aware of the truth locked inside of you that may be keeping you in CDR and nervous system dysregulation.

After 2-15 minutes, stop the exercise and rip up everything you wrote and throw it away. This lets your subconscious know that it’s safe to purge and that no one will ever know.

Repeat daily and don’t be surprised if some of your chronic symptoms start to disappear as you release unexpressed stress thoughts and decrease bound-up emotional charges.

*research supporting: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/emotionaland-physical-health-benefits-of-expressive-writing/ED2976A61F5DE56B46F07A1CE9EA9F9F

What doctors & medical professionals are saying about Primal Trust™

“I specialize in treating unusually sensitive patients. Most of them have become sensitive because of their exposure to mold or Lyme or EMFs and I have been referring many of them for the Primal Trust™ program because of its efficacy in helping those patients to heal.”

– Dr. Neil Nathan, M.D., Now retired, Board Certified Family Physician, who combines his knowledge of conventional medicine with his extensive background in holistic medicine and pain management www.neilnathanmd.com

“So many people that I see in my telehealth functional medicine clinic have a dysregulated nervous system. Not only is this a result of many chronic health problems, it can continue to perpetuate symptoms if left unaddressed. I always recommend Primal Trust™ to my patients because they truly understand how to heal the nervous system and my patients always rave about how much better they feel after utilizing their tools.”

- Dr. Will Cole, leading functional medicine expert, IFMCP, DNM, DC, and author of Ketotarian, The Inflammation Spectrum, NYT-bestseller, Intuitive Fasting, and Gut Feelings www.drwillcole.com

"Even though we say in common parlance, 'the body tends to heal itself,' it doesn't do this particularly well when its locked in a chronic stress physiology that's running on autopilot. Dr. Cathleen King and her Primal Trust™ organization provide some of the best tools in the business for limbic system regulation, for getting out of this state, using both top-down and bottom-up approaches. She is bringing hope and healing to thousands of chronically ill individuals, and I wish this body of knowledge were being taught at every medical school."

- Eric B. Robins, MD, Urologist and Mind-Body Healing Expert, Co-author, Your Hands Can Heal You, and The Power of Prana www.drericrobins.com

“Dr. Cathleen King, DPT is one of those rare gems who is at the forefront of transforming human healthcare as we know it. Having been humbled herself through decades of debilitating chronic illness, she has developed true human kindness, where compassion runs deep into her core… In my opinion, this IS the prerequisite required to wield True Power; the kind of power that has the ability to transcend fear and rewrite human history. Her teachings are truly profound and her prolific body of work is not only forging new paths of thinking, but it is healing and awakening the leaders of tomorrow!”

– Dr. John Bergman, Chiropractor specializing in Human Anatomy, Physiology, Biomechanics and multiple Chiropractic Techniques www.bergmanchiropractic.com

“Primal Trust™ is a comprehensive limbic retraining program that has helped thousands of our Mast Cell 360's clients and community members. The emphasis on trauma-informed and somatic approaches has been instrumental for so many, including myself. The results I've seen make Primal Trust™ a phenomenal value for those recovering their health.”

- Beth O’Hara, Functional Naturopath at Mast Cell 360 Research Adviser at Nutrigenetic Research Institute www.mastcell360.com

“Primal Trust™ helps my protocols stick. The clients get more out of all programs and protocols when their nervous system is regulated and Dr. Cat is living proof of that!”

– Dr. Jessica Peatross, expert in the field of Lyme, parasites and the health hazards of mold, international keynote speaker, and functional medicine leader www.drjessmd.com

“Primal Trust™ is my go-to program for nervous system work because it’s the one that all my patients thank me for sending them to!"

– Dr. Jaban Moore, Functional Medicine Practitioner, Chiropractor www.drjabanmoore.com

Next: Top Down vs Bottom Up Therapy

Top Down BottomUp

Brain Retraining

Thought Pattern

Interrupt

Journaling

Emotional Freedom

Technique (although this could be a bit of both!)

Somatic Presencing

Orienting

Somatic Mindful Movement

Breathing Exercises

Yoga, dance, sound healing

Energy Medicine

BOTH are needed for regulation of the nervous system, along with inner work to develop what we call your “Adult Main Personality” — but more on this later!

You will see these terms mentioned on our website, platform, and across social media. In our opinion, combining top-down AND bottom-up tools is vital for getting good healing outcomes when it comes to nervous system health, and this is one of the things that sets Primal Trust™ apart. In Regulate™, we give you a wide variety of top-down and bottom-up tools, as well as vagus nerve stimulation exercises, to help strengthen the communication channel between the brain and body.

Because the vagus nerve is one of main controls of organ function and can be an on/off switch for health or illness, we start our healing protocol with with various forms of vagal toning exercises.

One of the key mechanisms tying together top–down and bottom–up approaches to self-healing is toning and stimulation of the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is the longest nerve in the body and helps control many important bodily functions, influencing heart rate, breathing, digestion, and the immune system. It is also involved in the body’s stress response system, where its job is to activate the parasympathetic nervous system (“rest and digest” response) and put a brake on the sympathetic nervous system (“fight or flight” response).

The vagus nerve transmits sensory information from the body to the brain (bottom-up signaling), such as information about heart rate, breathing and digestion.

The vagus nerve is crucial in the body’s ability to perceive internal bodily sensations and send messages back to the brain to regulate body function (interoceptive awareness). This is why the vagus nerve plays an important role in bottom–up practices, and why such practices are so important for developing a sense of inherent safety and calm in a self-healing protocol. The vagus nerve also sends signals from the brain to the body. In top–down brain retraining, for example, these fibers help you to consciously inform the body of your safety, leading to physiological changes such as reduced inflammation and increased energy.

EFFERENTFIBERS

Did You Know THE

VAGUS NERVE

ISMADE

AFFERENTFIBERS

FROMVISCERAL FIBERSTHAT COMMUNICATE THROUGH THEBODYIN THISWAY?

BRAIN TOBODY BODY TOBRAIN

ThisiswhyitisSOIMPORTANTto workonincreasingyourvagaltone aspartofanyhealingjourney,andto NOTjustfocusonmodalitiessuchas brainretraining,whichare"topdown"practices.Wemustinclude body-based,"bottom-up,”somatic practicestocommunicatesafetyin thebody,asthesepathwaysmake upthevastmajorityofthevisceral fibersinthevagusnerve.

Breathwork Practice

Vagal Toning Breath: Voo Breath

This breath is used to get the vagus nerve to almost ‘feed’ or nourish the organs with its connectivity.

Do this when feeling irritation, anger, fear, stress (Sympathetic Activation). This is another great tool to also do along with your kids of all ages, even toddlers.

Version 1 (to calm): Eyes open or closed. Hands on belly, inhale into lower abdomen, exhale slowly, and say in a low vibratory tone “vooooo.” The key is nice long exhales.

Repeat for 1-2 min. Then just rest and notice your body and environment for several moments.

Version 2 (to improve energy): Voo energy through teeth and eyes. Eyes open. Inhale into the lower abdomen, exhale and say “voo” while showing teeth and opening/closing your mouth, and trying to almost speak through your eyes. Feel the vibration in your face. This stimulates the ventral vagal pathways of facial connection, with smiles and happiness.

Repeat for 1-2 minutes.

“Voo” breath originators: Peter Levine, PhD and ancient Tibetan chants

HEART

Identity-InnerWork

BOTTOM-UP

Bodytobrain: Somatics/ Breath

TOP-DOWN

Braintobody: Neuroplasticity/ brainretraining

How We Heal: Combining Top–Down and Bottom–Up Approaches

Self-healing from a chronic stress response and the suffering caused by chronic health conditions has been demonstrated through the experiences of countless people, many of whom were once bedbound or severely debilitated.

Our experience is that it is important to consider both top–down and bottom–up approaches in this process. Top–down (brain to body) techniques involve working with the higherlevel processes of the brain, such as thoughts, beliefs, and emotions, to bring about calm. Bottom–up (body to brain) therapies, on the other hand, involve working with the body’s physical processes, movement, and physiological responses.

The Power of Rewiring Your Brain

What if you could hit a reset button in your brain (“reboot your computer”)? Well that is possible with limbic system retraining, aka brain retraining. This type of top–down approach is grounded in the concept of neuroplasticity, the idea that the brain constantly changes (rewires) in response to all new experiences, especially emotionally charged stimuli. You can think of the brain as a rehearsal machine. It often only outputs what it has memorized to do. But we can teach the brain to memorize new things to rehearse! In recent years, consciously self-directing neuroplasticity through “brain retraining” has become increasingly recognized as an important tool for selfhealing, especially for chronic health conditions. This involves consciously retraining the brain to change its memorized responses to stress, trauma, and pain, which can help to alleviate symptoms and promote healing. Essentially, brain retraining is the process of intentionally changing the way the brain responds by rewiring neural connections and pathways. The healing effects are profound for those with a variety of conditions as the practices help turn off CDR and create healing biochemical changes through conscious biohacking of your own limbic system!

On a practical level, brain retraining often means creating new, positive associations with perceived triggers and symptoms (like mold, chemicals, foods, hormone changes, etc), intentionally elevating one’s emotions despite the symptoms, by practicing visualization, inquiry, and/or mindful awareness regularly. The limbic system plays a critical role in brain retraining—by rewiring neural pathways through brain retraining techniques, the activity of the amygdala and overall limbic system can be calmed down even when triggers still exist in your body or environment, leading to improved emotional regulation, cognitive function, and decreased chronic symptoms.

This means that you can rewire and turn down the symptom response to a host of triggers that in the past made you feel sick!

Brain retraining is a foundational element in the daily practices taught in Primal Trust™. In Regulate™, we present and give examples of several options for including this technique, rather than insisting on a rigid protocol, so people can choose what feels most authentic for them. We teach you how to customize your brain retraining practices to address specific triggers and/or emotional wounding that is often the core issue behind your body symptoms.

The Common Algorithm of Brain Retraining

One of the main things we teach in Primal Trust™ is the how, the why, and the common principles behind every tool. This is so that you can customize each practice in the best way for YOU. Rather than jump from program to program to learn the latest variation of brain retraining, which is often just another twist of the same practice, we like to empower YOU to understand how to make your own version or make your own twists on our version.

After researching several neuroplasticity methods and memory consolidation practices, I have come to the conclusion of 3 common elements behind most brain retraining practices. Simply by implementing this sequence of steps, you are performing a brain retraining practice.

The Brain Retraining Sequence:

1st: Conscious recognition of habitual thoughts, feelings, or behaviors

2nd: Interrupting your automatic, habitual state and getting into the present moment

3rd: Creating new neural pathways with rehearsed mental messages, creative visualizations, focused mindful awareness, and elevated emotional states

That’s it! It's quite simple and anyone can do it.

The brain needs repetition to rewire, so the algorithm must be repeated in various ways to create new neural networks of associations and subsequent biochemical changes in the body.

The Primal Trust™ brain retraining method is called ABC Dimensional Shift© and we teach multiple ways of doing this practice in Level 1 of our Regulate™ program.

Why Brain Retraining Alone Often

Isn’t Enough – My Personal Story

When I first implemented brain retraining to self-heal in 2017, it was all the rage, and not much was mentioned about bottomup somatic practices for healing chronic Lyme, mold toxicity, etc. Fortunately, I knew a ton about somatic practices by being trained in them as a mind-body physical therapist. And my knowledge came in handy when brain retraining alone presented me with some roadblocks. I have since seen these same pitfalls in thousands of others who try to self-heal with brain retraining programs alone.

For me, when my limbic system started to calm down, it ironically also opened up ‘pandora’s box’ in my body. I started to actually feel sensations and emotions more because I was safe enough to feel into my body as I gained more regulation. I started to remember trauma and suppressed emotions and even rage started to surface. This is all normal, and it was an invitation by my body to come down into the heart of my stored stress and trauma. Brain retraining alone can be a good distraction technique to calm down, but it doesn’t fully address body-held trauma patterns. Many people use only brain retraining to calm down, or even recover, only to be triggered back into symptoms as the stored emotions in the body start to surface later on.

This is why somatic work, or bottom-up approaches, are included in our roadmap. These practices allowed me to discharge tension in the body and begin to resolve trauma patterning.

In my opinion, somatic body presencing and breathwork are lifelong skills to keep you grounded and able to process stress.

Brain Retraining 101

There are many ways to approach brain retraining. Some practices involve visualizing yourself in happy times or feeling calm and safe. Some approaches help you create a short-term distraction ‘fix,’ but I like to use the tool for a deeper purpose and there are many ways we do this in Primal Trust™.

I often ask my clients, “What are you rewiring towards? What do you truly want your brain to help you with? What needs to be addressed on a deep emotional level in your psyche with brain retraining?” If you don’t know what you truly want and how you want to live, then your brain might just rewire itself in circles.

A particular practice that was helpful for me early on, which was a more specific form of brain retraining that I created, was using this practice to help me get in touch with my needs and create the feeling that I was worthy of having them met.

I have found that one cause of chronic symptoms is because of unconscious stress and deep wounding that is unacknowledged and not felt. We can get so stuck in a protection response of ruminating about our symptoms and researching treatments, and our sole focus/need gets oriented onto getting the symptom to go away! All the while, deeper unmet needs of your wounded psyche/inner child get overlooked. This builds up a ton of emotional stress in the body system.

I have literally witnessed thousands of people have a profound shifting of symptoms with this practice alone, as it helps the brain find and locate deep emotional longings and brings them to the surface to be seen, heard, felt, and then met! It’s like an opening that happens deep in the nervous system and allows a well of built-up pressure to release. It's like the cells begin to breathe again when this practice is fully experienced, saying, “Thank you for feeling into what I truly, really need right now!”

The Practice - Visualizing Meeting Your Needs

In the morning close your eyes, take 3 deep breaths into your belly, and then ask yourself any of the following questions:

What need is my body asking me for (self care, exercise, dance, etc.)?

What can I do for myself that would feel like loving myself (e.g. make myself tea)?

What is the most important thing I can do today to feel more at ease when I go to bed tonight (get that project done, follow through on x, etc.)?

Now listen and notice what comes for the next minute. What you are doing here is getting your brain and body to tell you what it might need that you are not allowing yourself to take the time to feel.

Next, use your imagination to visualize following through with actions to meet the needs that you became aware of. Take 1-5 minutes to visualize all the details involved with the activity. Notice all the sensations—sound, touch, sight/color, taste, feelings. In fact, try to stir up the emotional satisfaction or feelings of self-love that might happen as you are meeting this need. The emotional experience is the most important part here as it is the emotions that are the strongest force creating neuronal rewiring changes. It can be hard to feel the emotions at first, but that’s okay—keep trying!

You can repeat this several times a day. You can also even think of a time in the past when your needs weren’t met and imagine you, or someone else, meeting those needs and how that would have felt. Why this works: this emotional experience can disarm the limbic system protection response because a sense of “I matter, I am okay, my needs are met” can flood the brain/body.

Bottom-Up Somatic Practices

Bottom–up therapies, often referred to as somatic awareness/presencing and movement practices, can help calm the nervous system and reduce physical symptoms, which can in turn lead to beneficial changes in thoughts and emotions. Somatic movement practices, such as qigong, yoga, and other gentle physical exercises and stretches are examples of bottom–up techniques used to promote relaxation and move energy through the body. These practices involve bringing awareness to the body and breath, which can help improve interoception, or the ability to sense and perceive internal bodily sensations.

This internal sensing ability can be particularly important for people with chronic health conditions, as it can help to increase awareness of the body and its needs, bring relaxation to an otherwise unconscious, contracted somatic body, and promote self-healing. Gentle presencing—through exercises to become fully present in one’s body and the surrounding environment—is a bottom-up practice that can serve as a gateway to slowly process trauma by helping people to feel safe within their body once again and allow stuck emotions and protective physiological reactions to discharge throughout the body. Again, also helping to turn off the ongoing CDR protection response.

Research has shown that somatic practices increase grey matter density in the brain, particularly in regions associated with emotional regulation and attention span, which circles back to top–down approaches (brain retraining). We guide you through several somatic presencing and somatic movement practices in Regulate™ and hold weekly live classes where you can do them with the support of a group.

Top–down and bottom–up practices target different aspects of the mind–body system and can work together as the body heals. A unique and key feature of Primal Trust™ is how it seamlessly weaves together these two approaches to create an integrative daily self-healing protocol.

Many people come to Primal Trust™ after months or even years of trying top–down brain retraining practices with limited success. Once they add the bottom–up components to their self-healing routine, they experience much more satisfying shifts and healing.

Pattern Interrupt & Somatic Environmental Orienting

This is a seemingly simple but profoundly effective start to both retraining your brain, and introducing somatics. What you are going to do is the following:

1– Every time you notice you are:

Ruminating on your symptoms

Worrying about your health

Being negative about how you’re feeling

Having the same fear-filled thoughts over and over

Catastrophising

Telling yourself or others repeated stories about your illness/stress/trauma

STOP. Pause. Take a breath. This is the pattern interrupt.

Next is environmental orienting.

2– Take your attention from the symptoms/stress/body and notice your environment. Notice where you are in this space, and relative to other things. If you’re sitting down, what do you feel? If you’re standing, can you feel your feet? What can you notice in the space, room, or environment that actually brings you some peace, interest, or joy? It can be something small or something big. A pet, a teacup, a piece of art, a bird, a tree, the sky.

Stop and really notice and put all your focus on this thing that is outside of you as if you have never seen it before. Can you perceive its beauty or uniqueness? Can you connect with it? Breathe into this experience for 30 seconds and notice your breath as you also notice the object outside of you.

Repeat this practice as often as needed to reorient to the present moment.

My wise therapist once said...

"Cathleen, I think 80% of your Lyme disease symptoms would go away if you would learn the tools of nervous system regulation."

I was SO angry. I replied:

"I think 80% of my nervous system symptoms are due to my Lyme disease!"

Why are many of your chronic symptoms due to your brain’s limbic system and nervous system processing and perception?

Well, your brain and nervous system are responsible for the majority of the sensory inputs/outputs and messages of alarm that you feel, rather than the actual toxin or pathogen in your body. Sure you have effects from the things in your body. But not every body is impacted the same by them. This is why nervous system healing has resulted in so many chronic illness recovery stories! Your brain regulates your pain and all sorts of other perceptions. What I’m saying is that how you feel physically is very dependent on your brain state and nervous system communication.

For example, did you know that people test positive for Lyme disease with no symptoms, the same for mold and other issues (parasites, heavy metals, etc.)? Why? Because their brain and body are not in a state of threat and sending messages of alarm to their conscious mind. Their prefrontal brain is more dominant than their emotional limbic brain, and their nervous system isn’t constantly sending danger messages back to the brain to be processed and interpreted.

*see this Swiss study on asymptomatic Lyme borreliosis in high-risk populations: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1988513/

I had vision issues, dizziness, blood pressure issues, neurological issues, digestive complaints, overstimulation issues, fatigue, and weird feelings all over my body. And the brain retraining and nervous system tools made a direct impact on all of my symptoms.

Now, I’m not saying your symptoms are “in your head,” rather I’m saying that your overall stress load of the body and the way your brain and body communicate contribute to the symptoms you are feeling and how the various issues you have actually manifest physically. This often makes people a little upset to feel that their symptoms might have a mindbody component. It can even feel invalidating after all the diagnoses and years of suffering. I hope that you can see that this could be encouraging news. There is a way out of your suffering even if you have the presence of pathogens and and toxins in the body. Thousands are finding relief using these methods, often without treatment! I was one of them. I didn’t directly treat Lyme disease, and I now test PCR negative for tick-borne illness. Turns out the body can fight infections on its own! I started to have symptom relief almost immediately when implementing nervous system practices.

“But I’ve tried other brain and nervous system tools before and I’m still dealing with symptoms. Why?”

Sure, many find relief within weeks of implementing these practices. Others have tried for much longer but still have symptoms. This can be disheartening, and so if that is you, let me explain how we approach things a bit differently and help you see blind spots that may be influencing your health, despite using rewiring tools.

Ultimately you have to feel innately safe/okay to have your body start to self-heal. What is in the way of that? Let’s explore...

1– Trauma: Those with significant trauma history, especially developmental/attachment trauma, often take longer to heal because the nervous system has been long-wired to be in chronic stress and doesn’t remember what regulation feels like. It can take deeper tools, such as those we teach in our Level 2 program, to process trauma and develop a healthy inner adult self to allow the nervous system to feel safe, maybe for the first time in your life. 1-on-1 Internal Family Systems work, Somatic Experiencing, and Emotional Freedom Technique are also helpful to combine with our program if this fits your background.

2– Relationship Stress: You can practice tools all day long but if you have dysfunctional or toxic relationships, your body is reacting to that with stress chemistry and that can be counterproductive to your healing. Relationship repair must also be a focus during your retraining journey.

3– Unconscious Beliefs/Secondary Gains: This is a triggering one to look at, but sometimes unconscious parts of us get our needs met, get validation, get love, and get support because we are sick. If we heal, these unconscious parts of us will lose their sense of love and validation for suffering. We explore this in our Level 2 Mentorship.

4– Fixing-Focus, Anxiety, Type-A Drive: Using many healing tools and programs. This is a common personality type that creates more stress chemistry trying to do the program perfectly, rather than getting calmer by using the tools.

5– Stuck in the Wired-Tired-Crash Loop: This means the energy you feel is adrenaline (fake energy) trying to pull you out of dorsal vagal shutdown (collapse), but then you do too much with the energy because you don’t know how to pace and stay calm while you experience the upsurge in energy! And then your nervous system immobilizes you again to prevent overwhelm. This is due to a lack of healthy ventral vagal safety while experiencing the energy and learning to pace yourself properly.

6– Structural Spinal Issues, Mineral Deficiency, Lack of Movement: These are all practical things to explore that do influence your autonomic state and can keep you in distress, inflammation, and poor mitochondrial health if not addressed properly.

I have recorded a 46 min class on this subject where I go into more detail. To watch this video, head here: Why Is It Taking Me So Long To Heal?

PART 2: The Primal Trust™ Healing Process

By now, you may be wondering how we help people with their healing journey from a practical level. That is what the second half of this ebook will dive into.

We’ve provided a good overview of the science, the theories, and the principles of how healing happens. We’ve shared several tools to help you get started regulating your own nervous system and to help unlock self-healing (we have one more tool in the following pages).

Please also take the time to learn about how we have created a program to help you every step of the way. Our program has been carefully curated to give you a specific sequence of education and tools. The sequence is of utmost importance in this process.

I learned the hard way that not every nervous system tool is appropriate in the beginning. I also learned that trying to directly treat my painful wounding and trauma patterns before having a good understanding of how to use nervous system tools was disastrous. It is for these reasons that I created a roadmap with various levels devoted to different focus points. I know that this work must be done with the greatest of care and the maximum amount of support.

A do-it-yourself, simplistic home course that focuses on only one methodology is usually not effective for complex illness issues. The healing process is multifaceted and requires in-depth education and training to help you ride the bumps of the journey; it requires support to avoid pitfalls and customize your practice. I learned what works and what doesn’t after working with thousands of chronic illness and stress sufferers over the years.

In the upcoming sections, you will learn how we take people through our process and the various components involved by combining our academy learning with online live community support.

I also want to say that I am not the only program out there. Maybe you don’t need a full program and this ebook and its science and tools will be enough for you to have the “ah-ha” of how to shift your symptoms. If so, then writing this ebook for you was worth it! I encourage everyone to feel into what path resonates for them and there’s more than one way to self-heal. Understanding the principles is all one needs to find their own unique way of healing.

For me though, I tried for years to heal alone. It didn’t work. It wasn’t until I connected with others who understood me and rewired my brain and nervous system alongside others that I finally felt like I did belong and I was able to even contribute to others' healing processes. I hope that our community helps you feel the same way. And for those that still want a “no-distraction zone” of learning, we offer that too by simply going through the online program at your own pace.

Up next... time to learn about what Primal Trust™ is all about!

The Primal Trust™ Hero's Journey: The

Roadmap to Transformation

Here’s how we structure our program...

Journey onwards

First:Awareness

Symptoms: Chronic Stress/Anxiety

Chronic Illness

Trauma Patterns Relationship/ Attachment Stress

Learn the Science of Nervous System

Dysregulation aka the Chronic Stress Response

Implement Nervous System Regulation Tools

Level 1: Regulate™

Tools Learned: - Brain Retraining - Somatics

- Polyvagal Mapping - Vagus Nerve Toning

-Breathwork

-Trauma Release

Top-down & Bottom-up

If there's no trauma history, Level 1 may be enough for you to emerge into the world again!

Journey inwards Journey outwards

The Hero's Journey

Level 2: The Primal Trust™ Mentorship

- Inner Attachment Wound Repair - Trauma Response Patterning - True Self Discovery

Level 3: Liberate

Living True Self Purpose and Values

Committed to being a self-regulated, powerful, compassionate adult that lives their True Purpose!

Everyone starts at the Level 1 program: Regulate™ where we first provide detailed information about the science behind how chronic stress or trauma can lead to a maladaptive stress response and many forms of chronic illness. This scientific understanding can be incredibly empowering and calming in itself and gets your psyche onboard for implementing the tools in the later modules.

We then explain and guide you through an approach to nervous system regulation that integrates top–down (brain to body) and bottom–up (body to brain) tools, helping the brain and body come into balance. We use tools to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the branch of the autonomic nervous system responsible for rest, relaxation, digestion, immune modulation, cellular repair, and detoxification. This results in decreased symptoms and improved biological function for a myriad of chronic health challenges, as well as mental and emotional relief.

For those who feel they need more, in Level 2, which we call The Mentorship, we guide you through the deeper inner work of addressing emotional wounding, trauma patterns, and unconscious resistance. This part of the transformational journey involves befriending, re-patterning, and integrating the emotional wounding and lifestyle habits that are the original triggers of your stress response. Level 2 leads you back to your essence, helping you remember how to live a life you love, based on your values and passions.

Level 3 - Liberate offers ongoing support and transformation within the community—the outward part of the hero’s healing journey where we support you in bringing your transformed self back into the world.

“I am beyond grateful for the Regulate™ program. After 45+ years of illness and anxiety, and 20+ years of trying every single healing modality I could find, I am finally coming home to myself. Not only are my symptoms about 90% gone, I have a new, tender, trusting relationship with myself and my body. I always had a deep sense (it felt like a dream) that life could be so much easier, more peaceful and enjoyable. And now I’m finally experiencing that on a daily basis”

– Candace Moss

Watch her Primal Trust™ Success Story HERE!

nervous system provide you with the strongest foundation for your healing journey. When I was on my own journey of transformation, I gained deep intuitive understanding of the mind–body connection in chronic illness and incorporated tools and principles offered by various thought leaders and programs. I found myself thinking, through the entire journey of becoming a master 2022, after more than three years in the making. It includes information about the science behind chronic illnesses, brain retraining, polyvagal understanding, vagus nerve toning, neurology exercises, and trauma processing, all woven together in a streamlined, effective way.

I have based much of my teaching process on the foundational principles of both Polyvagal Theory and Cell Danger Response theory, and the program is taught through a trauma-informed lens to the best of my current understanding. Awareness of trauma-induced behaviors and responses is an important part of the program, as resolving chronic illness involves attending not only to your brain and vagus nerve function but also to your inner wounding. We help you to understand why you might have bumps along the journey of transformation, why past trauma sometimes surfaces as you start to heal, and what to do about it. Primal Trust Regulate™ helps you find an innate sense of safety within your body—regardless of what’s going on in your environment or what sensations you’re experiencing at the time. It is this sense of cultivated safety and selfregulation that helps your symptoms resolve on their own.

Regulate™ comprises seven online modules (30 hours of watch time in total) that you work through in a self-paced way. We generally recommend taking 1–2 weeks per module, which means 2–4 months for the whole program. Modules are sequentially unlocked at a pace of one module per week, which is for the important purpose of pacing, integration, and building nervous system capacity. We provide specific guidelines on which tool to use when and how your daily brain–body neural retraining routine can be set up. We offer many options for customization, emphasizing that you should focus on the tools that feel good and work well for you (not a rigid or one-size-fits-all approach).

Each of the modules comes with a downloadable workbook outlining the key concepts and giving detailed written instructions for the recommended exercises. In addition, we offer plenty of live classes to help you implement the program.

Level 1 Regulate™ Program Outline

Introduction: Overview

Module 1: Understanding the science of stress and how it relates to chronic health conditions

Module 2: Polyvagal Theory and mapping the nervous system

Module 3: Vagus nerve toning principles and exercises

Module 4: ABC Dimensional Shift© brain retraining (top–down AND bottom-up approach)

Module 5: Somatic awareness, presencing, and movement (bottom–up approaches)

Module 6: Trauma healing principles and breathwork

Module 7: Putting it all together and next steps

Live Level 1 Integration Classes: Support To Help You Through

Alongside the pre-recorded material, we regularly run Regulate™ Integration Classes and Q&As, with myself and other mentors, which are live and open to everyone in our community at no extra cost. Integration Classes help to summarize each module and make sure you have a full understanding of the material.

Whatsortofresultshavewe seensofarfromthosewho havetaken

Regulate™?

Someofourfavoriteoutcomesare:

Thosewhoself-identifiedasLow Functionalityimprovedbyan averageof87%after3monthsof Regulate™

*Indicatingyouarenevertoosicktoheal!

Allparticipantswhousedthetools taughtfor6monthsimprovedby andaverageof60%

*Thelongeryoupracticethebettertheoutcomes.

Lymesufferersimprovedbyan averageof51%injust3months

*Yes,eveninfectioncanbeimprovedbynervoussystem practicesalone! Infact,Lymesufferershadsomeofthe highestoutcomesofall!

Data gathered from entry and exit surveys of members who completed Level 1 Regulate™.

“Three and a half months ago I was housebound and often bedbound. The last 5 days in a row I've gone on hour long walks. I'm getting reacquainted with joy and making friends with my body for the first time in my life. Thank you so much Primal Trust™ for helping me come back home to myself.”

– Fox M

commitment. Daily practices for Regulate™ generally include a combination of brain retraining, exercises to tone the vagus nerve, somatic presencing and movement, and breathwork. We recommend 30–60 minutes per day (more if needed) of applying these tools, ideally split throughout the day to support nervous system regulation by balancing periods of activity and rest. We offer suggestions of how these practices could be integrated into your routine, but there is no rigid daily regimen, and we encourage you to be creative and tailor the practices to your needs.

If you decide to go through the Primal Trust™ Level 2 Mentorship, there are short written exercises and journaling prompts that we recommend you complete to get the most out of the lessons.

“When Will I Start to Feel Better?”

This is a question where a realistic answer is needed, one without false promises or seductive marketing, as is often the case with healing programs. The time needed to heal nervous system dysregulation depends on how deep your set point is for experiencing resistance to life, your history of trauma and/or illness, the amount of cellular distress/toxicity present, and the strength of the support systems in your life.

That being said, with dedication, we believe everyone can experience significant improvement over several weeks to months, regardless of how many limiting factors are at play. Many people report significant changes in the first few weeks! But improvement is not tied to doing the tools alone.

Simply doing the practices, but not changing a stress-filled lifestyle, will likely result in shifts in your overall stress response but with slower healing.

The practices are meant to help you re-pattern your entire way of interacting with your life. When this holistic approach is truly embraced, people often report a drastic reduction in symptoms (indicating significant changes in brain activity) within 3–6 months of practicing self-regulation neuroplasticity exercises. See our amazing testimonials and results HERE.

From a practical perspective, plan on taking 2–4 months to complete the Level 1 Regulate™ program (learning the tools) and several months to continue practicing the tools.

Focus on Transformation Rather Than Fixing

Unlike many other programs where you “stop” old thought patterns and behaviors, redirecting to mood elevation and positivity alone, the foundational brain retraining practice in Primal Trust™ involves first bringing conscious awareness to your nervous system activation state, thought patterns and behaviors, with an attitude of compassion and acceptance; then moving on to breathwork and presencing/orienting; and finally a choice/ creation element where you learn to rewire and intend to act in a way aligned with your adult True Self while embracing/ integrating the parts of you that are still wounded or protective. In other words, you do this work not to simply get rid of symptoms, but to discover and cultivate a deeper relationship to your own heart and soul.

We feel that this approach centered on transformation and selfpresencing helps you move away from a perspective of always needing to fix or control aspects of your life (e.g. symptoms, relationships). Instead, you become more able to focus on being present and accepting of your current situation while creating a life you love that is guided by your true values, irrespective of any imperfections inside you or in your surroundings.

This approach results in a shift away from fear of symptoms and instead a focus on living. This is another key of self-healing.

“Physically, when I started this program I couldn't walk or stand for more than 10 seconds at a time. These physical restrictions shrunk my life so dramatically. Emotionally, I felt so scared, confused, angry, and embarrassed about what was happening to me. Chronic pain had become my identity (5 years of dealing with symptoms). Over the course of Primal Trust™

Level 1 Regulate™ program (only a 2.5-month period!) I saw slow but steady improvements in my physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Regulate™ taught me how to be embodied and made me realize I'd gone my whole life dissociated from my body. I had profound, spiritual moments of healing finding my true self through embodiment. I am 100% physically healed now but much more importantly, I am spiritually transformed and on the most beautiful path that I will continue on for the rest of my life.”

– Kelly Barber

Watch her Primal Trust™ Success Story HERE!

Level 2: The Mentorship

I believe it is essential to know what your values are, who you want to be, and how to honor your true needs, beyond just being free from symptoms, to truly heal. It is by losing touch with these aspects of ourselves that we often get stuck in a stress response for years, and this is what leads to illness in the first place.

While some people may already have a strong sense of these aspects and only need Level 1 Regulate™, the Level 2 Mentorship is offered as a more advanced program for nervous system healing and transformation. In the Mentorship, we help you to heal inner attachment wounding (known as “parts work”), re-pattern trauma responses, and experience a deep self-knowing called Adult Main Personality development. In this process, the goal is to remodel memories, emotions, beliefs, and behaviors to integrate the past with the present in a healthy way that further regulates your nervous system and also helps reveal your True Self identity – that person you want to be when you feel free of limitations.

The Mentorship emphasizes “two-point awareness” training, to develop both cognitive flexibility and increase awareness of what you want and what you don’t want, so you can consciously choose how to live rather than unconsciously being ruled by habits.

Essentially, the Mentorship teaches you to deeply embody an innate sense of safety, move past your unconscious resistance to self-healing and your inner protective responses, and live a life you love.

We have both a simplified and comprehensive Level 2 program. The 2023 simplified version includes 10 core classes with Q&As and brain rewiring attunements*. We also offer live integration classes ongoing and study groups to assist you through this process.

All of the core classes contain evidence-based neuroscience and somatic awareness principles. We provide a workbook for each class, summarizing key concepts and providing journaling prompts and other written exercises. Level 1 must be completed before starting Level 2, to ensure that all participants have a solid understanding of those concepts and plenty of practice with the tools to regulate their nervous system. As stated earlier, working through deeper wounding and trauma without adequate nervous system healing practice can cause adverse effects. For this reason, we require Level 1 to be completed before Level 2. It would be best if you planned on taking at least 3-6 months to work through the Level 2 material.

* In Primal Trust™, a brain rewiring attunement is Cathleen King’s unique mix of guided meditation, memory repatterning, somatic embodiment, visualization, and connection with the “Superconscious” field of intelligence. Its purpose is to help merge neural pathways of resistance with those of your True Self, to help you consciously choose how you want to live. It’s one of the most powerful aspects of the Primal Trust™ process that often results in decreasing unconscious resistance to change and sets our advanced program apart from any other programs out there.

Level 2 The Mentorship Outline

Introduction: The Adult Main Personality and Parts Creation

Class 1: Inner Identity Awareness and Judgment

Class 2: True Self Discovery Process

Class 3: Standing in Your Values—There’s Nothing to Fix

Class 4: Daily Structure Sheet

Class 5: Inner Conflict Resolution Process

Class 6: Embracing Your Power of Creation and Vision Quest

Class 7: Divine Neutrality Process and Level 3 Brain Retraining

Class 8: Living Primal Trust™ and Re-patterning the Past

Class 9: Self-Generating Primal Trust™ Frequency—The Antidote

“After struggling to heal from chronic Lyme, coinfections and mold toxicity for 3 years, I was recommended to "rewire and calm my nervous system" from a functional doctor of mine. I felt resistance at first because I wanted the easier fix where I could take certain supplements or be on a detox protocol and be done... but little did I know, this is what would change my life completely. I felt a new excitement to learn and "attend school,” as I'd tell my friends, by implementing Primal Trust™ into my routine each day. It became the highlight of my day to learn more about why I felt and acted the way I did and to use the tools and exercises provided to rewire my nervous system.

I truly feel like I've come back home to myself. The amount of support and live calls you can get on each week where you feel a part of a community with other individuals on the same path as you made me feel seen. But what I love the most is that Cathleen King breaks down the program into very easy to digest bite-sized chunks and you'll have an exact plan of action of what to do next.”

– Alyssa Shifrel

Befriending Scared Parts of You

Our Level 2 program helps you to find the inner resourcing to be able to hold space for the parts of you that have very charged emotional states. In fact, it is in the capacity to stay consciously present and engaged whilst at the same time “feeling the feels” of what emotions and sensations have been trapped inside of you, that allows trauma healing to occur. This multifaceted awareness state means the prefrontal cortex region of your brain is active while also not being “hijacked” by the limbic survival brain state that is active as well. The prefrontal state is referred to as an “Adult Main Personality” brain state, and the activated emotional state is often referred to as a “wounded part activation.”

This is a tool to get a glimpse of that approach and help you begin the process of what is often referred to as “parts integration” or “inner attachment repair.”

Now, if this tool feels too challenging, that is normal and simply means you have to grow your nervous system's capacity to be with difficult emotional states. If this is the case for you, we would recommend you practice the first 4 tools or take part in our Level 1 program for several weeks and then come back to this tool. For this reason, we have a Level 2 program—so that we can address trauma patterns AFTER we have good basic nervous system regulation skills in place. The earlier tools we taught you in this ebook help you keep your prefrontal cortex engaged (Adult Main Personality development) while discharging stress in a more gentle way.

We have also included a link to a guided audio that is a more expanded version of this practice. You can listen to this guided presencing practice HERE.

When you feel flooded by emotion, especially scary feelings or sensations, this would be a time to try this practice once you have a basic capacity to self-regulate. IF you are not ready to “feel the feels” then we recommend to use one of the earlier tools we described, or some of the other tools from our Level 1 Regulate™ program.

Think of the whole goal of this practice being the same as a comforting and self-regulated mother or father holding their scared child who is afraid of the “monsters under their bed.”

The child feels the monsters are a real threat right now, but the stable, calm adult knows that what the child needs most is to be seen, heard, understood and loved without judgment. If the parent acts just as afraid as the child, then it is impossible for the child to feel safe. The goal is for the parent to listen and perceive the true needs of the inner child/wounded parts of you, rather than sending messages to your inner child and body that they are broken and need to be fixed. Instead, it's about witnessing and sending the signals that you are not afraid and can relax around the emotions or sensations, which creates a powerful regulation effect in the body.

How to Practice Getting to Know (Making Neural Connections) with the Scared Parts of You:

1– Find a sense of present moment self by first breathing into your heart, noticing your feet on the floor, and looking around the room. State to yourself “I am here now. I can feel the feels and be with scared parts of me. I am willing to just be with the upset or alarm that has been with me for some time now.“

2– Look inward now, and find a familiar feeling of fear, upset, alarm, OR a symptom that scares you or that is uncomfortable. Be willing to meet it with the part of you that is present and all grown up. Become the curious observer of this feeling, this symptom or sensation. This part of you, a healthy inner adult, has an infinite capacity to hold space for these feelings and sensations.

3– The key is to not want to fix the feeling, not want to change the sensations, and not have any resistance. If you can be willing to just feel it, be with it, listen for 1-5 minutes while simply breathing and relaxing into your heart or the area of upset. This presence is your primal trust, and it turns off the alarm signal in your brain and body over time. This is what selfregulation is.

4– From an allowing, witnessing, curious state of presence, be willing to ask about your scared inner child (part of you), or symptomatic areas of the body... “What needs do you have? How am I not showing up for myself and my true needs? Or... what is my body asking me to do to bring in more vitality?”

5– Now do your best to fully RELAX around all the sensations and emotions that you feel, like you are surrounding the charged energy with a comforting hug. You might feel both the pain and the soothing comfort at the same time. That is called “2-point awareness,” and that is the goal of the inner attachment repair work that we do in Level 2 of Primal Trust™.

Again, this practice is not about searching for how to fix your body, how to change someone else, or how to prove you have been wronged. It’s about witnessing yourself, validating yourself, and showing up for yourself by meeting more of your needs. This 2-point connection allows deep suppressed energy to be released from the body, allowing more self-healing to occur over time.

“I am a different person! Not only have I healed and sent ’my’ autoimmune condition (Hashimotos) into remission (no more symptoms or antibodies) but I am also hugely resilient, happy 95% of the time, and no longer drown in trauma reactions from cPTSD. I am back working, traveling, and meeting friends and even facing challenging contact situations, like meeting my mother for the first time in 2 years or burying a loved one. I can handle everything and stay healthy and with tons of inner peace. My outcomes from Primal Trust™ after only a handful of months are: - emotional stabilitysymptom-free! - Hashimoto in remission - insulin resistance reversed - resilience in a thousand ways - living a normal life - regained capability to work - saved my relationship - happy 95% of the time - completely changed biochemistry.”

– Catherine Hyza

Watch her Primal Trust™ Success Story HERE!

Community is at the heart of Primal Trust™, providing a great deal of encouragement & accountability.

Our vibrant community embodies the collective energy of likeminded individuals who embrace the spirit of our motto, “together we rise, together we fly.” In all three levels of the program, we support each other through access to an engaging forum, community live classes for understanding and integrating all the tools and academy teachings, peer-led study groups, mentor-led Experiential Journey Groups and the possibility of one-on-one coaching with Primal Trust™ mentors.

These opportunities for co-regulation help to ensure that you feel guided and held with love every step of the journey, providing a nourishing environment for healing. There is also ample support for private self-study, if that is your preference. We invite you to join our ever-growing community!

...Healing and Regulating Together!

Vibrant Community

The community element of Primal Trust™ is something we take immense pride in. Every weekday you can turn up online to join in activities to help self-regulate the nervous system. We support each other in guided practices using the tools, movement classes (e.g. dance, qigong), somatic sessions, sound healing classes, study groups, and an engaging forum. While many other programs only offer material beyond the basic lessons at an additional cost, in Primal Trust™ the live community classes and groups, as well as access to an extensive video library of recorded sessions, are all part of the monthly membership.

We have designed our teaching approach to reenforce this strong sense of community. While we have taken great care to present the material in a way that is highly professional and clearly structured, we hope to also convey our own humanity and lifelong journey of transformation, as well as our love and compassion for all our community members.

This aspect really comes alive in the Q&A sessions, along with the many weekday offerings, where participants can interact directly with the leaders.

Some

of the Primal Trust™ leaders!

Befriending Ourselves Elevate & Regulate™ Somatic Discovery Q&As & Brain Rewiring Attunements Meet with the Mentors Expansion & Integration Live Community Classes You Can Join During The Week:

Myself and the other leaders share stories and learning experiences from our own healing journeys and from our lives today, modeling openness and vulnerability to the community. In the live classes and Q&As, I openly share real life challenges that I still face and how I navigate through them, because I want to be real and show that transformation is a lifelong process that continues beyond healing the body from symptoms. I believe these personal interactions are incredibly supportive and set Primal Trust™ apart from many other leading programs.

Example of a Community Class Schedule

Level 3 Topics:

Relationships

Boundaries

Attachment Wounding and Repair

Deep Dive Exploration into Somatics, Self Inquiry, and Level

2 Concepts (including “Divine Neutrality“)

Going Back To Work/Finding Meaningful Work

Transforming Challenging Emotions: Shame, Unworthiness, Victimization

Mindfulness and Ongoing Daily Practices to Cultivate

Awareness

The Levels Summary

Regulate™—Level 1: Awareness and understanding of the science behind chronic stress conditions.

Top–down and bottom–up tools to consciously self-regulate the nervous system and handle stress with greater ease. Knowledge of Cell Danger Response theory, Polyvagal Theory, vagus nerve toning, functional neurology exercises, somatics, breathwork, brain retraining, and basic trauma patterning awareness.

Plan on taking 2–4 months to complete the Level 1 material.

The Mentorship—Level 2: Inner work of attachment repair, resolution of trauma wounding and resistance to living a life you love, and True Self discovery.

Plan on taking 3–6 months to complete the Level 2 material.

Liberate—Level 3: Ongoing transformation and support in community, with a focus on values-based living and reemerging into the world.

Deep-dive experiential containers (each 6–8 weeks) covering boundaries, relationships, acceptance of your physical body, going back to work, deepening your mindfulness practices, and more.

HOWDOWECOMPARETOOTHER PROGRAMSOUTTHERE?

Brain Retraining ProgramWhat You Get VS

Brainretraining

Primal Trust™What You Get

Brainretraining

Vagusnervestimulation techniques

Breathwork

TraumaWork

FunctionalNeurology Exercises Somaticpractices

Focusondevelopingyour TrueSelfIdentity

PartsWork/Dissolving UnconsciousResistance

+LIVEDAILYNERVOUSSYSTEMREGULATIONSUPPORT&STUDYGROUPS

What Sets Primal Trust™ Apart From Other Programs?

Primal Trust™ is not just another online program— it’s a movement, it’s a community, it’s a frequency.

Comprehensive Platform

I was a wayshower in 2019 by creating a neuroplasticity program that integrates both top–down and bottom–up approaches: brain retraining, somatics, polyvagal theory, vagus nerve toning, inner attachment repair, subconscious attunements, and breathwork (2019 Creating Calm® and the 2020 Primal Trust™ Mentorship). I then carefully studied the effects of this combination over three years to create a new and even more comprehensive, integrative healing model (Level 1 Regulate™) where the concepts and tools are woven together seamlessly and with a particular sequencing.

Other leading neuroplasticity programs are all excellent in what they offer but are often primarily top–down brain retraining programs with a limited set of tools. I saw this lack of somatic and trauma processing components and confusion in the sequencing of tools in the standard neuroplasticity methodology as a blind spot. My background as a mind–body physical therapist taught me that healing needs to occur on a body level, not just in the brain, for full resolution.

On the other hand, there are programs that focus on somatic practices alone, without fully harnessing the power of neuroplasticity through brain retraining techniques. With Regulate™ you are basically getting multiple programs in one. This offers huge savings in time, mental effort, and cost compared with working through each of these modalities separately.

Finally, the inner work we guide you through in Levels 2 and 3 make the Primal Trust™ platform even more comprehensive, covering aspects that are often completely overlooked in other leading programs.

We believe this is one of the most holistic and effective programs currently available to help reverse chronic health conditions.

Practicalities

Primal Trust™ is a membership platform, meaning that you pay monthly and can cancel or resume at any time. There’s also an annual membership option, which is better value if you plan to spend a year with us. Our platform is accessible from your computer or smartphone, so long as you have connection to the internet.

After completing Level 1 Regulate™, joining Level 2, and subsequently Level 3, is a personal choice, but offers an incredible opportunity for growth along your healing journey. We believe what we offer is both extremely comprehensive and of great value-for-money given the depth and breadth of education and support we provide. Some people move through the entire Level 1 program in 2 months, which means a lower overall fee compared with other programs that charge a flat rate.

Marla Hall was suffering for years with colonic inertia, fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue, Epstein-Barr, rheumatoid arthritis, insomnia, brain fog, and depression before starting Primal Trust™. This amazing woman was told that 80% of her colon needed to be removed, and as a last-ditch effort, she reluctantly tried Primal Trust™ to heal her nervous system, because her doctor encouraged her to give it a try. And guess what? It worked! She's off medications and feeling better than she has in years as her chronic pain and chronic fatigue are also resolving. She is a true seeker of freedom and has lifted herself out of victim programming and taken radical responsibility for her life and health. Marla describes:

"Just after the 1st month with Primal

Trust™

I could already tell a

difference.

I

had my first surgery back in 2012 and my chronic illnesses and autoimmune diseases started in 2015. You

know how it is... every doctor “diagnosing” you with something. More labels… more prescriptions. Until Primal Trust™! Know this is all resolvable by creating new neural pathways!"

– Marla Hall

Watch her Primal Trust™ Success Story HERE!

Monthly Membership Details

Billed monthly at $96, cancel anytime

Access to the Academy* and Community Regulate™ is drip-released at a rate of one module per week over 7 weeks, as pacing of this material is very important. Watch why

Online forum to post questions, often answered by Primal Trust™ mentors and graduates, and engage in discussions with other members

ecorded videos of lessons and Q&As taught by Cathleen King, DPT and other experts to watch on

Access to live community classes throughout the week including 20-min Brain-Body Neural Reset (BBNR) classes 4 days per week, Elevate & Regulate™ classes weekly, Befriending Yourself, Meet with the Mentors, Somatic Discovery, sound healing, journaling, self-inquiry, and other focus

Detailed, downloadable workbooks outlining the material and journaling prompts/exercises

Optional peer-led Study Groups available to join with other community members

Library of 300+ hours of videos to browse, featuring brain rewiring attunements, meditations, and interviews on a range of topics including managing CFS, sleep disturbance and incremental training

Our Primal Trust™ mentors have a wide range of expertise and are here to support you 1-1 with anything from the program, as well as establishing your daily practice and overcoming any stumbling blocks. They are all experts in brain retraining/neuroplasticity, nervous system regulation and the Primal Trust™ material. Mentors are trained and certified through Primal Trust™ and they charge a separate hourly rate. You may book with them on the Primal Trust™ platform after you join us. Our mentors have dealt with and resolved numerous issues and conditions from doing nervous system regulation work themselves, and all speak from hard-earned

Our Primal Trust™ mentors also offer a reduced price fee compared to 1-1 for small groups that explore both the core Level 1 & 2 content as well as specific focus group options such as recovery from mold, digestive healing, anxiety/fear issues, and more. They meet over 4 to 12 weeks depending on topic.

What people

You’ve made it to the end of our guidebook!

We hope this has given you a thorough introduction to brainretraining and nervous system regulation, and the power it holds to totally transform lives. To close, we‘d like to share with you our vision and values. Do you resonate?

Primal Trust™ Vision:

To empower people worldwide to embody the frequency of Primal Trust™ (i.e. inherent safety and trust in life itself), discover their True Self, break ancestral patterns and societal programming. We want to teach self-regulation and True Self discovery to create global healing of trauma, chronic stress, and illness cycles.

Primal Trust™ Values:

TRUST = integrity, honesty, authenticity, safety

1. COLLABORATION = community with common purpose, open communication, support, respect

2. TRANSFORMATION = change, expansion, awakening, letting go of old paradigms

3. ABUNDANCE = vitality, prosperity, gratitude for all we have, able to celebrate the success of others

5.

4. SERVICE = giving back to the world, helping lead/guide others, giving and receiving and moving beyond scarcity mindset

Whether you join our community or your path takes you elsewhere, your journey towards self-regulation, optimal wellbeing and heart-centered connection could start right here.

With love, Dr. Cathleen King, DPT & the Primal Trust™ Team

More About Cathleen King, DPT

Cathleen King is an educator and guide in chronic illness, trauma, relationship/attachment repair, and inner child healing. Her background includes doctoral-level education and training as a physical therapist combined with many years of coaching others in wellness and lifestyle optimization. She has been on her own personal journey, navigating through debilitating illness for nearly two decades and finally found her freedom.

Cathleen was born into deep trauma patterns and challenging family dynamics and developed protective bodily stress responses as a result, with chronic health conditions (Lyme disease and co-infections, mold illness, chronic fatigue, dysautonomia, PTSD and more) that caused deep suffering and ultimately left her mainly housebound and unable to work and mother her children. She regained her vitality though a combination of neuroplasticity-based methods, somatic embodiment practices, an understanding of her unconscious inner conflicts and trauma patterns, and self-discovery. Essentially, she learned how to activate her own mind–body self-healing by cultivating the embodiment of what she calls “primal trust.”

You can watch Cathleen King speak about her full story right here.

Professional Background

Cathleen graduated with a doctorate degree in physical therapy from Pacific University in 2003, then moved onto postgraduate training in orthopedic manual therapy and a specialization in somatic movement and chronic pain/injury conditions*. Her professional training also incorporated principles from Hanna Somatics, The Sarno Method, and other mind–body connection practices.

Cathleen’s continuing education has focused primarily on neuroplasticity-based self-healing methods, the neurophysiology of trauma and attachment, emotional regulation practices, mindfulness training, memory reconsolidation, and breathwork. She is a certified PSYCH-K facilitator and transformational life coach, and she is currently completing her Holistic Health Practicioner (HHP) training.

*In Primal Trust™, Cathleen King, DPT does not give physical therapy advice or treatment. Instead, she offers wellness and lifestyle education and practices while using her knowledge as a physical therapist to weave scientific principles into her approach.

Glossary of Terms

Adult Main Personality

A phrase Cathleen King uses to describe the brain state that she had to create in order to send messages of regulation to her limbic system. This brain state is your truest identity in the human sense— the physiological, prefrontal brain state of a healthy inner adult. This particular brain state is a whole brain state. It’s not a hijacked emotional state or unconscious parts. It’s a whole brain state where you become aware of your inner wounded aspects and stress response, but you are also aware from a rational perspective. This particular brain state is a physiological brain state of healthy brain function. It is also the gateway to what Cathleen King believes is the True Self Essence—our ability to connect with a higher sense of self. In this whole brain state, our brain firing pattern has access to higher consciousness, to be able to make decisions in times of stress, rather than our limbic consciousness.

Amygdala

The amygdala is a small, almond-shaped structure in the brain's temporal lobe. It's crucial for processing emotions, especially fear and danger, and plays a key role in our response to perceive threat. As part of the limbic system, it regulates reactions to stress and emotions.

Attunement

Simply a form of rewiring/neuroplasticity called “memory reconsolidation.” It’s a more effective, efficient form of brain rewiring. It is self-directed through energetically being present with two internal experiences at the same time. It works by the principle of “neurons that fire together, wire together.”

The focus is on the deep integration of parts and our main personality, re-patterning our past perceptions that have negative emotional associations, and decreasing the unconscious resistance to living life fully.

Attunements are gentle and easy, and are done by connecting to the superconscious field of information that we all have access to in our consciousness. Most importantly, your own higher self is the one running the show. Cathleen King is simply giving suggestions and helping you to get into a space of neuroplastic repatterning of your past.

There are many examples of brain rewiring attunements for free on the Primal Trust™ YouTube channel.

Autonomic nervous system

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is a division of the peripheral nervous system that controls involuntary bodily functions. It regulates processes such as heart rate, digestion, respiratory rate, pupillary response, and sexual arousal. The ANS has two main branches: the sympathetic nervous system, which activates the "fight or flight" response, and the parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes the "rest and digest" state. Together, these branches help maintain internal balance and respond to external stimuli to ensure the body functions optimally.

Bottom–up approach

Involves working with the body's physical processes, such as the nervous system and physiological responses. We include practices such as somatics, breathwork, and vagus nerve stimulation in this category.

Brain retraining

Refers to the process of changing neural pathways in the brain through various techniques and exercises. The underlying idea is that the brain is adaptable and can be modified to improve not only its function, but the function of the whole body and nervous system.

Cell Danger Response

The Cell Danger Response (CDR) is a concept in cellular biology proposed by Dr. Robert Naviaux. It describes a set of protective measures and changes that cells undergo in response to stress, threat, or danger. The idea behind the Cell Danger Response is that cells, when faced with various stressors such as infection, toxins, or injury, activate a defense mechanism aimed at promoting survival and maintaining cellular integrity.

Interoception

The sense that allows an individual to perceive and understand the internal state of their body. It involves sensing signals and information from within the body, such as those related to heartbeat, breathing, hunger, thirst, temperature, and other physiological processes. Interoception plays a crucial role in maintaining homeostasis—the body's internal balance—and in guiding behavior based on internal signals.

Limbic System

A complex network of structures within the brain that is involved in various functions, including emotions, memory, and certain aspects of behavior. It is sometimes referred to as the "emotional brain" due to its central role in emotional responses and regulation. The limbic system is not a distinct anatomical entity but rather a collection of

interconnected brain regions that work together to coordinate different aspects of emotional and cognitive processing. It includes the hypothalamus, hippocampus, and amygdala.

Maladaptive stress response

Refers to an individual’s habitual, often automatic, chronic stress response in the brain and nervous system. Maladaptive patterns develop as a way for the brain and nervous system to cope and survive with fear, anxiety and trauma, but are not optimal for health and wellbeing. The result of a maladaptive stress response is a dysregulated nervous system and overactive limbic system.

Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity, also known as brain plasticity or neural plasticity, is the ability of the brain to re-organize and adapt by forming new neural connections throughout life. This process involves the structural and functional changes in the brain's neural networks, including the strengthening or weakening of existing synapses (connections between neurons) and the formation of new synapses.

Parts Work/Internal Family Systems (IFS)

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a therapeutic approach that falls under the broader category of parts work. Developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz, IFS is based on the idea that individuals have different "parts" within themselves, each with its own unique characteristics, emotions, and functions. These parts often emerge as a way for individuals to cope with various life experiences and challenges. The goal of Internal Family Systems therapy is to help individuals explore, understand, and integrate these different parts in order to promote inner harmony and well-being.

Polyvagal Theory

Polyvagal Theory is a framework developed by Dr. Stephen Porges that provides insights into the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and its role in shaping our physiological responses to stress, social interactions, and emotional experiences. The theory highlights the evolutionary development of the vagus nerve and its branches, emphasizing their influence on the body's responses to environmental cues and the regulation of social engagement.

Key concepts within polyvagal theory include:

1- Autonomic Nervous System (ANS): The autonomic nervous system is responsible for regulating involuntary bodily functions, such as heart rate, respiratory rate, and digestion. It consists of two main branches: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS).

2- Vagus Nerve: The vagus nerve is a major component of the parasympathetic nervous system and plays a crucial role in regulating the body's internal organs. The vagus nerve has two main branches: the ventral vagus (linked to social engagement and communication) and the dorsal vagus (linked to immobilization and shutdown responses).

3- Social Engagement System: According to Polyvagal Theory, the ventral vagus nerve is associated with the social engagement system. When this system is activated, individuals are more likely to engage in social interactions, experience feelings of safety, and display facial expressions that promote connection.

4- Fight-Flight-Freeze Responses: The sympathetic nervous system, often associated with the fight-or-flight response, is activated in situations of perceived threat or danger. In contrast, the dorsal vagus is associated with immobilization and shutdown responses, such as freezing or dissociation.

Polyvagal Theory suggests that the autonomic nervous system does not operate as a simple on-off switch between the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches. Instead, it involves a hierarchical organization where the ventral vagus nerve supports social engagement and adaptive responses, while the dorsal vagus and sympathetic systems are recruited in response to increased levels of perceived threat.

Somatics

Somatics refers to a field of study and practice that involves the integration of the mind and body in the exploration of personal experience, movement, and awareness. The term "somatic" comes from the Greek word "soma," which means the living body in its wholeness. Somatics encompasses various approaches aimed at understanding and improving the connection between the body, mind, and overall well-being.

Key aspects of somatics include:

1- Embodiment: Somatic practices emphasize the experience of being present in one's body. This involves developing awareness of bodily sensations, movements, and the felt sense of experience in the present moment.

2- Mind-Body Connection: Somatics recognizes the interconnectedness of the mind and body, emphasizing that mental and emotional states are expressed and experienced through the body. The way we move, breathe, and hold tension can reflect our emotional and psychological states.

3- Movement Practices: Many somatic practices incorporate movement as a means of exploring and improving the mind-body connection. These may include mindful movement, dance, yoga, Feldenkrais Method, and other movement therapies.

4- Body Awareness and Sensation: Somatic education often involves cultivating awareness of bodily sensations and exploring the sensations associated with different movements, postures, and emotions.

5- Trauma-Informed Approaches: Somatics is frequently applied in trauma-informed care, recognizing that trauma can be stored in the body and impact overall well-being. Somatic therapies aim to address and release tension, stress, and trauma held in the body.

6- Self-Regulation: Somatic practices often include techniques for self-regulation, helping individuals manage stress, anxiety, and other emotional states through mindful attention to bodily sensations and movement.

Top-down approach

Involves working with the higher-level processes of the brain, such as thoughts, beliefs, and emotions, to bring about calm and feed this feeling to the rest of the body. Brain retraining, ThoughtPattern Interrupt, and journaling are some examples.

True Self

Represents the core, unchanging, and compassionate essence of an individual. It is considered the true and whole self that can provide guidance and healing to the various parts. We also refer to this in Level 2 of Primal Trust™ as the Adult Main Personality.

Vagus Nerve

Also known as the tenth cranial nerve, the vagus nerve is a major component of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). It is the longest cranial nerve and plays a crucial role in regulating various bodily functions, including heart rate, digestion, and respiratory rate. The vagus nerve is a key player in the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the "rest and digest" response.

Would you like more information to see if the Primal Trust™ membership is right for you?

You can:

– Book a free discovery call with us by clicking here

– Head to our website to read our detailed FAQs

– Join Cathleen King’s free 3 Day Resiliency Course

– Download our free material: Lyme Disease Mini Course Webinar and ebook Brain Retraining, Somatics & Vagus Nerve Stimulation ebook

You entered this portal just to ‘feel better’... But you emerged focused on being the TRUE YOU.

You awakened to your true nature, your values, your inherent sense of safety and connection.

“And so the hero, both heartbroken and heart-awakened, brings their healing, skills and

understanding to others.”

Thisheroisyou.

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www.cathleenking.simplero.com/page/379954