Unleashing the Transformative Power of Emotion Code Healing

Brian Smith  0:00  
Close your eyes and imagine what are the things in life that causes the greatest pain, the things that bring us grief, or challenges, challenges designed to help us grow to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried. But what if, like a seed we've been planted, and having been planted would grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes, open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is grief to growth. And I am your host, Brian Smith. Hey there, welcome to another episode of grief to growth. I'm your host, Brian Smith. This is a place where we explore the depths of life, the mysteries of death, and a journey that connects them both. Whether this is your first time with this, or your value part of a growing community, I want to welcome you to another episode where we're talking about healing and understanding. In today's episode, we're going to delve into a topic that holds a lot of personal value for each of us. And that's the transformative power of self healing and emotional release. And this isn't just an academic discussion, it's a journey and understanding how we can unlock our inner potential to heal and grow. Even in the face of life's most daunting challenges. And I would say a lot of times its challenges actually force us to heal and grow. Our guest today is Jay chaton. Line See, I believe we got that close to correct. He's a beacon of hope and resilience. He's an Emotion Code practitioner, and his story is a testament to the human spirit's ability to overcome adversity. His experiences, especially during the challenging time, when his eldest daughter battled a chronic disease have given him profound insights into the dynamics of emotional and physical well healing. And his journey is more than a personal triumph. It's a roadmap for anybody seeking to navigate their own trials. With Jays guidance, we'll explore how to harness the Emotion Code, and other self healing techniques to transform our own traumas and strengthen into wisdom. This is an opportunity for you listener to learn to practice, and learn practical strategies for emotional healing. And again, insights into how physical health intertwines with our emotional state. So as we engage with Jay, you're gonna discover how to apply these principles in your own life, turning challenges into opportunities for growth and healing. And if you enjoyed this conversation, once it's over, please visit us at grief to growth.com/community to continue the conversation there. So with that, I want to welcome Jay to the podcast.

Jay Chanthalangsy  2:35  
Thank you for that awesome introduction. Happy to happy to be here. Right?

Brian Smith  2:39  
Yeah, I'm happy to have you here, too. You're what you do fits right into what we talked about here on grief to growth, and that's how do we, how do we grow? How do we take emotional challenges and grow? So I like to start with asking, How did you begin this journey? What made you decide to get into helping people with this with this topic?

Jay Chanthalangsy  2:59  
Very good question. So I had to, I had a lot to overcome myself emotionally, a lot of trauma. And I saw repeating cycles in my own life. And then a couple of catalysts happen to kind of wake me up even more, because that's what life does, right? It throws you these curveballs to make you wake up, and hopefully give you enough signs or enough Wake Up Calls to then give you the awareness to then want to change and transform. So add a couple of those. And the transformation was so profound, that I knew this was my life path was to help others because of the transformation that I've experienced myself, my wife, my kids, generational generationally, with, you know, all of my children, everyone that's connected to me, and then now with my current clients, so it's been an awesome journey. So far, something that I've never even thought that I would have got into, because I'm more of a tech guy. I'm a web designer by trade. So I was in, you know, corporate, you know, making making websites and marketing, digital marketing, and then all these things happened to kind of steer me into this direction. And now here I am, and it's been so fulfilling. You know, I feel so blessed and honored to be a part of other people's healing journeys to be their guide. And to help them you know, see the patterns and things that they can work on to truly transform. So that's how I got there. Yeah,

Brian Smith  4:50  
so if you wouldn't mind or what are some of those things that happened to you that kind of put you on this path without revealing anything too personal?

Jay Chanthalangsy  4:58  
Oh, yeah. Um, So you mentioned in the introduction, you know, the first catalyst was my eldest daughter, who she was born with a rare genetic disorder, something that we never saw coming. It was kind of like a luck of the draw. I guess that's what her genetics doctor told us. Both my mother and I had no understanding of it, we became experienced in genetics after we had her understanding, you know, how things work and biologically, genetically, and that was probably the first thing that happened because we stayed in the NICU in Stanford, California, Stanford, Lucile Packard hospital for about a year and a half, that she was fighting for her life. And didn't know how that was gonna turn out. But luckily, you know, she got through it. She's 14. Now, if you see her, you wouldn't even you know, you can't even tell it what she had to go through in her early life. So that was part of the first catalyst that kind of woke me up to understand like, well, you know, things can just end quickly, and I was watching my child fight for her life, you know, and nothing really mattered to me at that point, I was in college, still, I was just still trying to get my bachelor's degree in San Francisco State, and I wasn't even thinking about school, I was traveling back and forth. You know, from Stanford, there are a lot of things, a lot of ups and downs. But luckily, you know, we had a lot of support. And it gave me the first understanding of how resilient we are, as humans, you know, as these human beings, the things that we can just fight through, even when we first come into this world, you know, on top of, you know, medical technology, and now the nurses and doctors who know their stuff, I mean, I feel so blessed to be a part of that. But even that, even that whole experience looking back, for her to go through that, or to be put in that specific hospital with the number two Doctor specifically, that understands her genetic disorder was like, what if she was born at a different hospital, two days after she was born her mother, with her intuitiveness thought that something was wrong with her, which proved correct, because two days later, we were transferred to Lucile Packard. And that's what we found out all this, you saying these are rare genetic disorder, it was called MMA methylmalonic acidemia. Basically, her body can't metabolize protein. So she's on a very low protein diet, you know, and, you know, if you don't have protein, it affects every part of your body. Right. So now she's very healthy. And so, like I mentioned, that's the first catalyst that kind of woke me up. And then the second one was meeting my wife. And a lot of things came with that as well. Because we were like polar opposites, emotionally. I was very closed off, I was very emotionally unavailable. PRTs I got all these traits and characteristics from my father was a huge part of my own childhood trauma. But back then I didn't make the connection with that. Sure, my behavior, my beliefs, everything I did my decisions by reactions, I just thought it was part of who I was. And then it was like, love it or leave it, right. Like, this is who I am never gonna change. And then me, my wife. And then that all changed, of course, because we were mirroring each other, the other things that we needed to work on. So she taught me vulnerability. He taught me empathy. She taught me sensitivity, somebody that I never really understood. I was a guy who suppressed his emotions easily. I didn't know how to feel I didn't know how to articulate. I didn't How to know how to, you know, be sensitive, even even with my children. I didn't know how to console them. When they were crying. I blamed them. I go to them. I shamed them. And it was just a repeating pattern, because that's what I was used to when I was I was never able to express anything, and if I did, I would get reprimanded. I would get guilted I was getting shamed, right. feelings were weak in our household so can talk about pity me cry, you know, I would get in trouble if I cried. So that behavior not understanding and transcending into my own parenting as a father. So, when I met my wife, she was kind of like the first one that said, Hey, you can't say that to your daughter. That's, that's mean. Like, you can't just tell her to stop crying when she's hurt. Right? And that didn't translate. It didn't make sense to me at all. And so I had to learn that I had to learn how to feel and connect, become more emotionally intelligent. It was so foreign to me, right? Like I, you know, I'm pretty sure a lot of the audience members can, you know, relate to this if you've grown up in a household like that, right. But it was nothing of my father's doing, because that's what he was used to. So he didn't know any better. But then at the time, when I was growing up, I didn't. I didn't make that connection either. Right. I was, it was very personal to me. And I was very resentful. A lot of anger, a lot of frustration. Like I said, suppressed emotions. And then when I got out of high school, it was I just exploded, I rebelled. Drugs and alcohol and just the life of just not caring, living on edge every single night, destroying my body, my mind, everyday, had no direction. And I was just let it all out. And but the downside I knew somebody had to give. And like I said, when I met my wife, she gave me that direction she gave me all the things I needed to work on. It was tough. But you know, we got through it. And now Now we're here. So those are the two major reasons why I then started to get on this path of healing and transformation for myself. Right? So So

Brian Smith  11:59  
was there a moment when you realize something's got to change? I mean, I know you said you had these couple of these couple of events. But you were you said, you're you're, you're our I guess we're a web developer. But now you're also coaching people. So what what caused you to say, Okay, this is what I want to do.

Jay Chanthalangsy  12:17  
I think the fulfillment of working with clients and seeing that transform, the feeling that I got, that was, you can't really explain it, when you work with people, and you see them change and transform in real time, the realizations that they get the light bulb moments that they have within themselves. It's magical, to say the least. And for me to be a part of that. It's almost like a higher calling, you can say, and a deeper connectedness with them, that is truly miraculous. And want to believe that, you know, things don't happen for a reason. For specific reasons. So when the person I come in contact with my clients, anyone you I mean, this is all divinely orchestrated, somehow, some way. And our message is, in this podcast is going to impact whoever is going to impact but we're here now. So I really never understood that until I started working, you know, with my clients and diving deep into my own transfer, transformation, and healing. Yeah. And then making that decision finally, you know, to become a coach was, like I said, the best one of the best decisions I made in my life.

Brian Smith  13:42  
What brought you to the understanding that everything is orchestrated? Is that something from your from your background? Or how did that how did that come about?

Jay Chanthalangsy  13:51  
Good question. You know, I was raised devout Buddhist. So we believe in reincarnation, you know, karma, right? All that stuff. My dad was, was a really devout Buddhist, he was a Buddhist, almost all his life, from nine years old, up until like, almost 40. Until yet he was forced out of the cloth to create his family, because they were going to prosecute him back then in, in his home country of Laos. So growing up, I was always around that. I was always around him, preaching about all these things of how things happen. And he has special reasons for why it happens. And all these different aspects of the the philosophy of Buddhism of how things are connected to each other. But don't ever take a serious you know, like, I was so angry at him most of the 1000s Yeah, whatever, right. Like I never really dive into my Spirituality around it for a long time, until those things happen until those two major events in my life happened, which put me down this path of self discovery of remembering, right? Because when you start to heal, you start to understand a lot more about yourself. You get more in touch and in tune with your history, your past, you know, the relationship that you have with your parents with yourself. You question your beliefs, your question of morals. And that's when things started to just click with me that I start to ask the most important questions like like, who am I? Why am I here? Like, what makes me happier? Why am I always angry? Why can I express my emotion? Why can I have a normal conversation without getting offended? And always defending myself? Why do I get triggered? But so all of that was a combination of about it led me here. And it led me to believe that, you know, all things happen for a specific reason. Because only when you look back, you then can connect the dots to everything. And I haven't, there isn't a time where I look back, and I wasn't able to connect the dots. And that profound moment that you really understand, it's like, the best way I can explain it is like when you make that connection, you're going at like Lightspeed into space, you know, that, like kind of Star Wars, like spinning, like, everything kind of slows down, and you're like, Whoa, you're, you're here and present. And now you see why it happened the way it happened, even all the bad stuff. Yeah. And it's this profound, intuitive knowing just resonates all over your body. And that's, that's pretty much how I believe that, you know, things happen. Yes, if we weren't raised,

Brian Smith  17:08  
I completely agree with you. I think that that shift, for me is probably one of the biggest shifts that I've made in my life is to understand that things happen for a reason that we don't always understand what the reason is. But they're just having that trust that there is a reason and ironically, for me, that understanding came after my daughter passed away. Up until that point, I was like, you know, it, maybe it's random, maybe there's, you know, some influence or whatever. But when I had to make sense of that event, and then I started looking back at all the other events, like you said, even the things we consider to be bad, we can start to kind of piece the puzzle together as we look backwards.

Jay Chanthalangsy  17:49  
Exactly. It's pretty profound. It's pretty miraculous how things work. And I think when we start to open up, you know, to these higher, you might call it vibrations, or the universe or your own spirituality or guidance, whatever it is, we then can start to see and experience more things. Because we're always being guided, that's another part of like, making these connections. On top of that, is we always were being guided in some way some form, right? Where there's by intuition, or like, just signs here and there. I think when I started to really experienced that, like, everything started to just shift. Everything was like in HD things people said the words I read on the surface music that was playing, you know, the, the, the emotions that I would feel in like random places and like, Wait, why am I feeling this? Or why am I experiencing this for another? Why did she just say that to me? When I really needed to hear it, you know, like, in a passing conversation, I'm like, I think I needed to hear that. Or this is definitely a sign. Right? When you're when you're open like that, I think the signs are everywhere, you know, but if you're not open, the only sign that you're gonna listen to is the one that's mostly like, catastrophic, you know, mostly, like in your face, like, oh my gosh, you know, like, it's a tragedy or it's a catastrophe, and then you wake up when you're awake, and you're fully in tune into these, you know, higher frequencies or vibrations. You're just like, I see, I got it, you know, and then comes a credit to the awareness, you know, and just the ability to flow and serve Under to life itself and all the experiences and situations that you're putting in. And then you're, you're here, you know, you're one with almost everything. That's a beautiful place to be.

Brian Smith  20:13  
So would you you mentioned you were raised as a Buddhist, would you describe yourself as a Buddhist now?

Jay Chanthalangsy  20:21  
No, I would, I would say I'm more spiritual. I do have a lot of my roots in Buddhism. Many times, I studied the chants and lived in a monastery, the whole the whole day. My wife, she's like, devout Catholic. So, you know, our, our two philosophies and religions fused. And just being with her, we started seeing there's a lot of commonalities in the things that we believe in, and how the things that we believe in make us feel, right. I mean, I would consider, I consider myself an honest, actually, I think there's, there's truth in, in every religion, I respect every religion. And I think religion and belief systems are there to help us and to help guide us to live a more righteous and beautiful life. Right, it's kind of like a template to follow. But in essence, to its it is just that, you know, like, it's just a template. Like, there's a, there's a part of religion, where you have to also discover for yourself, what is your truth, and your belief or your higher power, or whatever it is. And I think what I draw from, from being raised being Buddhist, you know, my dad would always say, like, you know, Buddha himself said, you know, like, my way is the way that I found myself. But don't follow me. You know, find your own truth. This is what I just did. And it worked for me. So I never forget what you know why he said that, you know, as I was growing up, learning how to meditate at five. I didn't want to do this at five to do it. Tell me about his story. Okay, this is so boring. I never understood this. Until now. We're now it's like, meditation is an integral part of my self care routine and daily life now, right? So, like I said, if you look back, it's like, you make those connections.

It's me.

Brian Smith  22:56  
Alright, we're back for a little little bit of a technical glitch there. We're talking about Buddhism and the philosophy of it. There's so many great things about Buddhism in terms of understanding your mind, things like meditation, or mindfulness, which I I'm kind of jealous that you know, you were taught that at an early age, because most a lot of us Westerners don't discover it until very, very late in life. And then we struggle with it, right? We're like, I can't stop my mind. But, but I agree, I love the idea that all religions have something good. I've studied lots of them at a kind of a superficial level. And there's, there's that core that they all have in common, that's really great. And then there's the stuff around the fringes that is like, yeah, maybe not so great.

Jay Chanthalangsy  23:42  
Exactly. And, you know, being raised in this type of philosophy to like, I guess it was part of the, our tenants of being Buddhist, because it was, you know, we're such a passive religion or philosophy, like, we, our, the core, the core belief in us is that we are our own doing, right. That's why we believe in karma. So our own fears that I don't mess up in this lifetime, because you will pay for it, it will come back to either in this lifetime or the next so I can always remember my dad, you know, telling me all the time, like, you know, better watch for you do you better watch me do to people, you might not experience it now, but you know, next day, you might come back at something else, you know, so that was always playing in the back of my mind. So, you know, I guess that was sort of like this underlying fear and understanding that I had, you know, and then when I started to really study the philosophy of religion and also being my wife, like, like you studying other religions, on a very sort of This level I started See, seeing a lot of patterns, you know, and making those distinctions in each one. Like I said, when you truly put everything into perspective with which religion is just there to help, to help guide us, to help us find our own truth and be connected to whatever higher power you believe in, because it's like a beacon for us to follow.

Brian Smith  25:31  
So tell me about the Emotion Code. I hadn't heard of that before, discusses with you. And so what is it? And how did you discover it?

Jay Chanthalangsy  25:39  
That question, so the Emotion Code is a energy healing technique that was developed by Dr. Bradley Nelson, to look them up. There's a book called the Emotion Code. So Dr. Bradley Nelson, he developed this energy healing technique, it was God given to him through, you know, having dreams or visions that he had. He's a chiropractor by trade. And when he got these downloads, he started to do these, these techniques on his patients. Because he saw that, you know, even being, you know, the chiropractor, so his patients kept coming back. So things weren't really working. So, as he started to practice on his patients, bizarre to see that everything is subconsciously, trapped inside of our bodies. And that's what emotions are, right? We're just being energy. And emotion is just energy in motion. And emotions make us who we are, make us experience life. And the drawback of emotions, though, that most people might not understand is, it's also a form of energy. So if that energy doesn't get purged through you, or doesn't move to you, because it needs motion to move through, it becomes trapped inside of our bodies. And that energy that becomes trapped, or those emotions that we suppress, it can then start to distort our physical body, our cells, or tissues, or muscles, or bones, it can manifest into these diseases or ailments. Because a lot of times, most people will start to experience these physical ailments or mental ailments. And then when they go to the doctor, the doctor can't give them the correct, you know, diagnosis. Like they say, Oh, you're fine. Like, we don't know what the cause is. But here's some, some, it's enough to ease the pain a little bit, right. So when he discovered the Emotion Code, he started to understand like, emotions have a very critical and important role on our overall health and well being. Right? For me, we found it because my wife went through postpartum depression, raging xiety, she was diagnosed with that after she had our son, Ezra. And it was one of the most scariest times of my life. I didn't know what to do was I was feeling very hopeless, very scared, because I'd never seen my wife that way, is a very bubbly, nurturing, loving, empathetic person. And for her to be, you know, depressed and you know, not even want to hold our child and play with our kids, you know, not wanting to come out of bed, always crying, I was really scared. I didn't know what to do. Until, you know, we took her to go see the doctor. And the doctor diagnosed her both have postpartum depression and rage. And I think after three weeks, the doctor was already prescribing her with antidepressants. And luckily, she was still mentally there. To tell me, she was like, I don't want to take these meds. I'm still breastfeeding my son. Like, I don't want to risk it, no matter what the percentage is that you know, might move through her body into the, into her milk supply, right? So she went on, she went on this, you know, research on Google and you know, social media, just like there has to be a better holistic way to do it. She's already that type of person. You know her so she just uses all natural products and stuff like that. It's just like there's got to be a way. So she came across this other practitioner on Instagram. She was promoting the book, the Emotion Code. And she just decides to buy it. So she buys this, she starts reading it, things started to make sense to her. And then she tells me, she's like, You need to read this book. She's like, I think it's gonna help you like, Whatever, whatever you need out to right now. Three days, I got the audio book, I went through it in three days. And something told me I was like, I think this is it. I think this is, this is what's going to help you. So the, the Emotion Code Book, Dr. Bradley Nelson teaches you how to release your own trapped emotions in your body. And it's by way of sway testing, right? Or muscle testing. Most of all, of our ailments, we have answers for within us. Right? It's trapped away in our deep, subconscious mind. And it's trapped all over our bodies as these like little energy balls. So we started to implement these techniques that we learned in the book on ourselves. So my wife and I did it on ourselves. And three months later, my wife is clear of all of her postpartum rage, depression anxiety, to the point where her doctors, like, what did you do? What happened? Like, you know, like, are the meds working? And, you know, she couldn't really tell the doctor, like, you know, about this energy work, you know, she felt like, she might not be receptive to it. So she's just, she was just saying, Oh, I mean, I'm doing a lot of mindfulness activities and meditating and stuff like that. And she was like, Well, seems like you're, you're fine. Now, you know, I mean, I guess, you know, I could take you off the meds and maybe go back to work. And so after seeing that transformation, that's what got us to become certified practitioners in the emotional core. So we use that with our coaching with our clients. And personally, myself, I've gone through a lot of my own energy work, and a lot of things came up with me by the trapped emotions that I've been suppressing for a long time. The things that I felt within myself when I did those releases was I can't even explain it even till this day, Brian, like, sometimes I work on my clients, and they tell me things that I'm, I'm still pinching myself, I'm still questioning like, is this real? Like, are they just? Are they just messing with me? Are they really feeling this, but they are, like, they're just, you know, they feel differently. They had these experiences that somewhere, like just, you can't even explain it, right. But it helps them, you know, they, they have this new awareness and new level of consciousness of the things that they've been holding on to. And when you really think about our human experience, you know, what do we remember most? Right, we remember how we felt most, the rest of it is details. But if you are feeling negative emotions based around the situation, which we call trauma, right? Like that energy is going to stay with you. So even when you talk about it, even when you remember, thoughts, or something triggers that, that memory, your body automatically reacts. And that's the trapped energy of that trauma, or that emotion that's been in your body for such a long time. So for us to release that there's different ways and Emotion Code is one of them. So there's three, three different codes that Dr. Brad Nelson has Emotion Code is one of them. And another one is called belief code. I'm sorry, I believe code and Body Code. So those are more comprehensive techniques to help you do the same things, but at least these trapped emotions.

Brian Smith  34:03  
So are there like exercises that you do there are something that someone works with you? How does that how does it actually work?

Jay Chanthalangsy  34:11  
So as a practitioner, everything is everything can be done. Virtually, we don't have to touch you. We connect directly to your subconscious mind by your consent. So if I were to do it to you, I would you know, ask you for your consent to see if I can, you know, tune in to your subconscious mind, because we're all connected energetically, right? It doesn't energy spends space and time. Yep. So I have clients like all over the world, right? So they could be in different countries, different regions or whatever. But once they give us consent, and we're able to connect with them, then that's when we asked questions and use muscle testing for so for me. I'm going to use my body as the tool once I connect to your subconscious mind to understand and identify the trapped emotions that are inside your body. And once I identify that, I can then release it just by pure intention. And once the release happens, a lot of, you know, our clients and people that have done this work, there's 1000s of practitioners worldwide. And a lot of people say the same thing, like when they get the emotions released, or you know, they get the energy working on them. Now they feel tingles, they get lightheaded, they have crazy dreams at night, they become very thirsty, because when you think about it, you have all this energy, you know, trapped inside your body, and then when it finally releases, your body is going to feel different, right? A lot of people feel lighter. You know, they have like, creative sparks, you know, a lot of people cry, you know, just just because they were never able to feel it, they were never able to let go of that trapped emotion. For example, for me, one of the most profound things that happened to me during this work on myself was I had I fully reconciled with my father. I fully forgave him. And I knew this, like, deep down inside, because when I was doing all this work, yeah, he had already passed in 2000 2009. Right. And we never had that closure. We never had that, you know, that talk or, you know, that. That connection, I mean, our relationship towards the end of his life was pretty good. You know, I was, we were talking and stuff like that we were amicable, we respected. But I was still feeling a lot of anger. So when I started to do the work, a lot of these emotions came up from your brain like resentment, bitterness, hatred, anger, you know, was feeling all these emotions in my abdomen, in my back and my shoulders. And then one day, when I was working on myself, I felt like this weight just lifted off my body. And as it was lifting, I started to cry. Like, profusely, like, my, I felt like my tears were shooting out of my eyes, like, wife was, there's like a huge occasion. I don't know what's happening, but, but I'm just feeling all of these emotions is overwhelming. And I don't know what I'm going through. And then everything made sense. Like everything just clicked until my everything was like, your dad was the way he was because of XYZ. He treated you this way because of XYZ. Right, like the veil of my anger and resentment and bitterness and hatred towards him just lifted away. And what was left with this was this light, very airy feeling of compassion, of like, unconditional love, and, you know, forgiveness, and gratitude. Like, for a whole week, I was so him, I was still crying for like, a whole week, feeling all these things and was journaling everything down everything that I was going through. And I really felt inside that I finally was able to just let all of that those trapped emotions, those negative emotions towards them just just go. And the dreams that I was having, like he was coming into my dreams, and we were having conversations and space Brian, like, it was like, like, I was there sitting with them. And he was like, asking me about my wife and my kids. And I was just like, yeah, and I was just aware, even my dreams, and I would wake up, you know, sweating and just like, heart pounding and like, what is going on? Like, I'm getting goosebumps just talking about? Yeah, it was it was just incredible. You know, so that experience was just, you know, I guess I couldn't explain it. But it was so real to me. And I truly believe that because of energy work. It allowed me to fully, you know, forgive him. And now that I talked about him and now that I you know, tell his stories, you know, to my kids, there's no there's no ill will there's no negative emotions. There's just all love and gratitude.

Brian Smith  39:56  
Now, I'm curious, did you when you were younger Do you know that you have these feelings that anger and resentment towards your father? Did you even know that you had them?

Jay Chanthalangsy  40:09  
Yes, because I was so fearful. And part of my fear, I did things that were very against his rules, and I got caught. For some of them, you know, he was very physically emotionally abusive. So when I got caught, you know, it was, it was lights out. It was like, you know, it was a bad day. So, and, you know, there's this connection between his upbringing, and then my upbringing. So we're first generation Asian immigrants to the United States. So he was well respected in his country, right? It comes to the States didn't know the language, you know, like, was on welfare, you know, trying to help his family and stuff like that. He, you know, he had a master's degree from India was useless, you know, in the States, because he didn't know the language. And so he went from speaking this high priority, you know, high value person, to being nobody working as a janitor at an adult education school, right in trying to learn the language. And when I think about him, and I put himself myself in his shoes, I'm like, that would have messed me up. It's a break. Yeah. And he and he had to, and he was the one that, you know, helped. My mom and my sister at the time escaped, you know, did not get killed during the war. Laotian, Viet Cong war, you know, the, they call it the silent war at the time. And so he, you know, even when I was born, I was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. And my mother didn't know if it was gonna make it or not until three months, right before I was born. And then three months after I was born, he was like, we're on a plane to the United States. That's where we're going to be saved. So his own trauma with all of that, but like I said, when I was younger, right now, and I was as I was growing up like that was, I didn't make any of those connections. It wasn't until I had that realization, and that experience, was when everything just clicked. Of course, he was abusive, because he didn't know emotional regulation. Of course, he's going to take it out on us, because he didn't know how to. He didn't have the tools, right. And being a monk his whole life, he had to detach from the emotions. He didn't know how to love. He didn't know how to be nurturing. He didn't know how to support emotionally. Like, he had to detach from all of that all his life, he was celibate, most of his life. And he comes here. And he's nobody, you know, that does something to you. Right? So I didn't get that. That's,

Brian Smith  43:15  
that's an incredible story. And you know, as you were sent me was saying earlier, raised Buddhists I was gonna ask, it's like, you think maybe his lack of emotion had to do with Buddha, because I don't I don't know a lot about Buddhism, but I know, it's kind of stereotypical. It's like, because you're trying to understand your mind and not react and all that and sometimes we can move from that to spiritual to bypassing, right? So it's like, then, therefore, I'm not going to have any emotions, I'm just going to be flat. And every every philosophy, every religion has its extremes, you know, and that could be an extreme that comes about with that. It's like, it's not good to express anything.

Jay Chanthalangsy  43:55  
Presently leads to suffering. Right, let me the tenant, you know, the the Four Noble Truths, my life is suffering, right? Love is suffering, it

Brian Smith  44:04  
will lead you to suffer.

Jay Chanthalangsy  44:07  
Exactly. And it's, and you're right, you know, when you when you look at those tenants in the philosophy for him, maybe my father, you know, healing anything, was probably causing him to suffer. And because he was alone and celibate most of his life. And then now he has to become a father, become a husband, raise kids, not to do any of that. But what Dad never changed my diaper never. We had we had nannies who were his nieces that came over with us, the United States, but they raised us. You know, he didn't really not to do anything. Yeah. So imagine his, you know, the experiences and the things he was telling themselves, you know, and he was like, My life wasn't supposed to be like this. Right? My life was supposed to end in the yellow robes. Because I asked them, I asked them one time I asked my mom, actually, and my mom was like, yeah, if, if his venerable didn't tell them to go save themselves and find a family, he would have died as a mom. Right? That's why he was so old, when when when he met my mother, it was really like 40, hidden 40. Right. So, you know, it was all those things that, like I said, finally made sense, to me to make me understand, like, wow, you know, most of our parents didn't have the tools to help them regulate that type of trauma, that type of experiences. And unfortunately, as their children, were the ones that have to endure all of that, but it's subconscious and unconscious. Right? Like, we don't we don't have, he didn't have all these tools. He didn't have the internet, he didn't know half there either. doesn't believe in therapy, or that stuff. Really, he was like, I'm just gonna shut it down, shut it off. And that's it.

Brian Smith  46:18  
So well, you're You're a beautiful example of a couple of things. One is, generally speaking, we can take our the trauma that we were we were passed by our parents, and we can, we could follow in their footsteps, or we can choose to do something completely different, which you clearly done. So congratulations to you for that. But the other thing is, I think it's a wonderful example of how it's never too late. Because sometimes people will say, well, it's too late, that person has passed on, we can never heal that relationship, and you've healed that relationship, even while your father was not with us physically anymore.

Jay Chanthalangsy  46:55  
Yep, exactly. And I wouldn't, you know, I would have believed, and he talked to me 510 years ago, I would have, I would have said the same thing, like, there was no closure, right? Because he's already past, right. But doing this type of work with energy, and going through my own experiences, I'm a firm believer that just because they're gone, doesn't mean you can't have the closure or the director, you know, be have reconciled with with each other. Because the energy is still there, you still have those memories, you still have those connections, they come to you and your dreams, you know, if they show you signs that they're still there, like my wife, you know, talks to him a lot. And she, she, she believes firmly believes, than I do to that, you know, he's like, one of our guides. And she says things to me, she talks to me about him, and I'm like, I never told you that. But wow, you know, and you know, he'll come in into my dreams and tell me things, and we'll have our conversations and like, he's just there, you know, so it's, it truly changes, you know, the perception and the way you think about these things, when you think about like, that opens you up to more more ways to connect beyond this physical reality, which is amazing.

Brian Smith  48:31  
Yeah, absolutely. And I truly believe that we are, we are energy, that's what we are. And the energy never dies. And you know, and we, and it's kind of circles back to something we said, you said at the very beginning, that everything happens for a reason. So if we, if we believe that even the quote negative things, that the role that your father played in your life was a role that that caused you to bring forth your resilience. And, and it's this beautiful story that you have now because of your father and I'm I'm impressed by the guy just for what you just told me. Sounds like a very impressive man.

Jay Chanthalangsy  49:10  
Yeah, it was. And every time I think about him now, like I said, you know, motions of gratitude and compassion and all the all the good things about him that I remember, you know, sticks with me, and the things that I teach my children in all those things in Gears of strict rules, the following the meditative guides and learning the history of the religion and philosophy still sticks with me. You know, no matter how much I hated it or hated him for that. And now when I when I'm in my meditation, like he always comes To my mind is the first thing that that pops up. Like, I was five, when he told me to sit, and don't move, and just close your eyes and relax. And don't try to do anything. Just sit there. Five. You know, sometimes my inner child comes up, I'm just sitting there, as I've said, in the meditation, you know, just seeing myself. And sometimes he comes into my meditation. Sometimes we have a conversation. Sometimes he tells me, he still tells me things, he's still teaching me things. You know it in that solitude in that silence? Yeah. And it was because of him. So, yeah,

Brian Smith  50:42  
it's a great example of how love never dies, that connection is could never be broken and can actually be healed. You know, at any time that we choose to heal, and to feel those feelings. I think that's really important thing that we're talking about here also, because, you know, we're off we're so often taught as, as men especially, it's always, it's always great to talk to a guy, because it's very rare, I get to talk to a guy, a lot of times are taught as men, you know, to suppress the emotions and men, I find a lot of times, we don't even know we have emotions. It's like, we don't even know that we're angry. We don't you know, my wife sometimes will say to me, why don't you answer it this way? And I'm like, What are you talking about? But it hurts, like I was raised in a family where we were taught not to express emotion. So a lot of times I have to really work on like, okay, yeah, I guess I was feeling that way.

Jay Chanthalangsy  51:33  
Yeah, I mean, we didn't go on another hour about this, but I just want to touch on this. Because it's this is very near and dear to me, when we talk about emotions, and being in relationships with my wife. She had a turn for me, is like, you're emotionally disabled. I was like, Yeah, I didn't know. Like I said, how to feel what to say. And when I would, then when I would say something, it would just come out as anger, as defensiveness as, you know, very, very condescending tone, or blaming her and gaslighting her all the time, right? Like, that was my MO. Or if it got too bad, I would just walk away. That's like a form of emotional abuse. I was just like, again, this amount. I wouldn't call her I wouldn't, you know, say anything, I wouldn't tell her like, Oh, we're gonna have another conversation about nothing. It was just out. That was my behavior. And one time, you know, after we had our first daughter, like, she was ready to leave me. Because I didn't call I was out for like, two weeks, you know, almost three weeks. And I didn't talk to her. Like I gave him the silent treatment. And, you know, she literally call my sister was I don't know where your brother is, but he hasn't come back. I'm putting all his stuff out in the, in the, in the street, I guess over. And luckily, I call that night came back that night. And you know, we had a conversation about it. She's still healing from that today, because it was very traumatic. And when I look back at, you know, those moments, you know, it was very, I mean, I look back myself, I'm like, Dan, you were a death in German. Like, you, you, you were so mean, you are. So this and that. And at that time, like I said, we are so unaware, because we've identify with that behave with those behaviors for such a long time. That if we go against that, it will go against our pride and ego. And as men, you know, we're so masculine. Like, we don't want we never want to be wrong. We never want to feel that. So we had to say part exterior. But it was harder for me to be soft, and articulate and have empathy. Like what I had to learn when Brian when I tell you I had to learn, to have emotions and to feel I really had to I told my wife, I was like, You need to dumb it down for me. Like when you're when you're feeling something or when you when you want me to do something when you're feeling some type of way. Like, talk to me like I'm five years old. What am I supposed to be doing? Am I supposed to give you a hug? Am I supposed to listen? Am I not supposed to help you fix it like, and I was reading books I was watching. I was listening to podcasts and watching videos, everything I can do, because it got to a point in time where like, we were fighting so much, and I was so exhausted just from fighting for arguing every single day, not knowing that we were just pushing each other's buttons because we didn't know how to write our own triggers, right, right. And then one day, it was just like, I can't do like this. I love this woman, I can't see myself without her. But dammit, I cannot go, we can just fight every day. Yeah, like, you know, it was draining emotionally. And I didn't even know that. I mean, I was so tired. And I was working like, you know, around the clock. And I was just like, This can't be my life. Right? And so, you know, like I said, meeting her was one of those like, wake up call moments. And then when I finally figured it out, you know, I literally asked her, like, you need to help me feel like how do you do it? What do you say? What are the questions that you ask yourself? Like, how does it feel in your body? Because, you know, when I would feel before when I would feel something, it would come up to a certain point, and then boom, suppress, suppress, suppress, and then gone, right? Like, your, your body gets tense, you know, you feel like tightness in your chest or your diaphragm. And then and that's it. So you, you don't even let yourself regulate, or you don't, I didn't even let myself feel anything. I was so numb. But even that numbness and emptiness is still a feeling. So most guys don't understand, right? Like, what we're so conditioned in that behavior that becomes our normal. Yeah, so yeah,

Brian Smith  56:35  
just that was really, really super important. I want to I want to, because you know, I can relate so much to you. My father was raised in the fundamentalist Christian church. And I remember when I was in my 20s, or 30s, I found this book called Wild at Heart by John Eldridge, who is a Christian guy who wrote about the the wounds that fathers give to sons, unintentional wounds, and I read this book, and it just really grabbed me and resonated with it. So I was so excited to get to give it to my father, and I gave it to him. And he goes, I don't read books. And my father is a very literate man. He reads the Bible, like every day, he reads newspapers, he would do to crossword puzzles, he reads magazines, but he doesn't read books. So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna give it to him on audio. So I gave it to him on audio. It still didn't listen to it, you know, but I wanted to make that connection with him. So I understand what you're saying. But I think it's also really important. I heard something very recently said instead of asking what's wrong with somebody asked, What happened to them? When it comes to your father, when it comes to you know, it's so it's like, what happened in you and I even it's like, when I was a kid, and I remember I would just go into counseling was in my 30s or 40s. And I was telling my counselor about my upbringing. She's like, well, that's just not right. Your parents never told you. They love you. They never said they were proud of you. They ever hugged you. Well, no, they didn't hug me but that's okay. That's just like, No, that's not okay. So sometimes people look at people like us and our wives. Were fortunate to hang in, hang in there. My wife, Sanger three for 33 years. I still learning. But I'm like, Yeah, but this is the, this is what I was, I was at my house. You know, we didn't express emotion. We didn't hug each other. Just like, why don't you ever hug me? I'm like, you know, it's not. It's not like I'm trying to get back here. But nobody ever hugged me. Right,

Jay Chanthalangsy  58:19  
right. Oh, my God. We have there's a lot of parallels there. And that kind of put me back into this into the girls. specific memories of my my wife, when you say like, Oh, we don't hug each other. I was never physically affectionate. Wow, I too, like she would always get mad. Especially when I'm laughing at myself. Like when you think about yourself, you're like, you were actually like that you were you a piece of work, right? Like, where she would be like crying about something because she you know, she's very emotional, right? But everything. Like she's very in touch. He's a hypersensitive person, when things happen to her like she feels. And I think deep down inside when I would see her feeling like that. And it came easily to her like, a part of me like maybe the my shadow part was like, how come I can't do that. I can't just let go and like, and then like, I would get upset. Great. I would get like, very defensive and that would trigger me and my own work that I needed to do. So I didn't know how to even like give her any type of physical affection even in those moments when she was feeling sad. Like when I tell you Brown when I told her, You need to dumb it down for me. I was literally writing down protocols like when she's crying number one, you sit next to her. Number two, put your arm around her number three hugger you know, before done We'll say nothing, just yet. Until she calms down. I wrote everything step by step like that's how, that's how conditioned I was of like not feeling and connecting, and not empathizing with, right?

Brian Smith  1:00:14  
I think I think we come in with that emotional intelligence, but it's conditioned out of us, like us, you use the word condition, I guess, you agree, is conditioned out of us. Because I remember being a little kid and I was a very sensitive child, and my parents would say to me, O'Brien is a sensitive one. But then and not intentionally, but they just kind of pushed that out of me. And even just that, it just, I think Brian's sensitive, like, that's not good. Don't be sensitive. Okay, got it. Don't be sensitive.

Jay Chanthalangsy  1:00:46  
Exactly. I totally agree with that, too. Because when I, when I started to look back at my own childhood, I was the creative, more sensitive, you know, kid, and my, my father wanted me to be, you know, the academic likes to go, you know, go getter, you know, Asian family, like they want their, their sons, they are the only son, right? They want their sons to be like, doctors and lawyers and doctors. Yeah. And he was, he was highly educated. So he wanted me to, you know, become highly educated. And I just wasn't me, right? I was, I was more like, passive and just flowy. Like, like my mother. Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure that made him even more, you know, kind of harsh and rigid with me. But as you know, in that type of environment, and that type of upbringing, like you said, it gets, it gets conditioned out of you. Because, I mean, I knew that my behaviors. I know, you felt this way, too, I'm pretty sure you did. But even in those moments of like, me being triggered and behaving that way, and not knowing what to do and, you know, calling my wife out just because she's crying and stuff like that. And like, after that after I would go through all that and do that stuff to her. Like, I would feel guilty. Like I knew that she was wrong. You know, I knew I was like, anything, right? But then my ego and my pride or whatever it was, it's like, Nah, you didn't do anything wrong. Right. It's okay. Just go back and make it seem like you didn't do nothing happened. Don't even talk about. Yeah, you know, like, just sweep it under the rug. Yeah, yeah. Well, he did that. You know, she was like, we're just not gonna talk about it. We're just not gonna, like, just have any closure. And like, what we're good now? Yeah.

Brian Smith  1:02:44  
Why do we need? Yeah, well, yeah. Okay. Well, I can do my own therapy session here. But yeah, that's one of the things I'm still learning. And I was really proud of myself, like yesterday because I went to my wife and I apologize for something that because I woke up in the morning, I, what I said to her last night, I shouldn't have said, I can let it go and see, you know, she because normally she holds on to it, right? So I'm like, see if she holds on to it. And then my other side of me was like, but you should just apologize, because you know, you were wrong. And I actually did, so. I was proud of myself. They're

Jay Chanthalangsy  1:03:13  
awesome. That's the first step. Yeah. Brian, like I would never apologize for anything like my apology was like gaslighting her. Yeah, to make it seem like it was partisan, or you feel that way, too. Yeah. Sorry. You feel it? Well, yeah. So like, went like, like you said, when you can't really deeply connect and empathize and hold yourself accountable. You'll do everything to like, push it off of you to like, blame the other person. And I had a PhD in that. Right. And I knew, I mean, even now, when we talk, my wife and I talk about our first years of marriage, you know, we've been at it for almost 10 years, you know, married like seven, like our first five years and relationship. very tumultuous, you know? And like I said, she always left me that time. And even if she did, I would have it even if she did it, I was I'd be sitting here and telling you, Brian, I deserved it, man. I was, I would want to be with myself in a relationship with me back then. Like, there's no way you know, it's like, until you go on that journey until you start to understand and heal. I think that's why it's so important to do this work, what you're doing now, you know, having that. That will to like, work on yourself. And when I talk to my clients about this, and I share my stories, I'm like, you know, if you were to talk to me, by 10 years ago, you wouldn't believe the type of person that I was.

Brian Smith  1:04:49  
Yeah. It's just like, and that's and that's why you're so qualified to do this work. Because because of the work that you've done yourself. Well, Jay, I could I could talk to you for a lot longer. We we need to wrap up I want to say it's been such a pleasure getting to know you. Tell people how they can reach you and how people can work with you.

Jay Chanthalangsy  1:05:06  
Of course, you can go to my website, it's www dot j Chantel lang c.com. This changed my whole name, J y, and then my whole last name, Chantel lacey.com. I have some free resources there you can check into, there's a couple of assessments you can take if you're ready to start the healing journey. I have a healing journey assessment that can tell you exactly where you are on your healing journey. It's modeled after my own personal journey, where we first become aware, we accept we take action, we start to heal and understand that we're doing the work in the fourth step of actualization. And then the final step is getting back to your authentic self remembering who you are underneath all of that. trauma and suffering, right? You're, we're all there, we just have all these things on top of us that we need to work through. So that's the healing journey. And I firmly I firmly believe that, you know, the initial path to start healing is to self care. You really have to understand how to take care of ourselves, you know, how to ask the important questions, looking in the mirror, you know, asking those questions like who am i right? So there's those free free resources there. And I'm also taking on new coaching clients and you can book a session or book a call free call on my website there as well. And that's open to everybody.

Brian Smith  1:06:36  
Awesome. Jay. Thanks again for doing this and I know it's late for you this evening. Appreciate you doing it. Have it Have a good night.

Jay Chanthalangsy  1:06:43  
Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai