In this mind-shifting episode, Aoife McCormack shares her journey of overcoming chronic health issues by uncovering the mind-body connection. By focusing on rewiring her mind and body, Aoife experienced a remarkable transformation, and now dedicates herself to helping others discover the power of mind-body healing.
Discover more at AoifeMindBody.com
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Transcript
0:00:01
Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast. Today we are talking with Aoife McCormack. She helps highly sensitive intuitive women recover their health and energy. We're so glad to have you here, Aoife.
And looking forward to hearing all about what you're doing out there. So welcome to the show.
Thank you so much. It's so nice to connect with you, Jill. And just yeah, so nice to be here and I'm looking forward to sharing whatever wisdom, experience, tools that I have that might help someone that's struggling today.
Awesome. That is awesome. And you're joining us from Spain. I'm getting to be.
You know, around the world here.
Exactly. Yeah, I'm Irish. I'm from Ireland. But I'm in Majorca at the moment.
Very fun, very fun so.
Tell us a little bit.
About how you actually got.
Started in all of this.
What's your stop?
Yes, yes. So when I was a little girl, I was so sensitive, like, just crazy, crazy, sensitive. I could feel an empathic, so I could just feel everyone else's emotions. Or everything was very big. You know, feelings, light sensitivity. I was just very, very sensitive.
And and I could.
An intuitive you know, I could tell what was going on for other people very easily. And so it was like I was getting a lot of information processing, a lot more information than most people. And and I also from a really early age, like maybe three or four years old.
I started to complain of stomach problems.
And my then I had low immune system like I was getting sick very often. Then I started to get high fever. It's like my body was actually running a very high dangerously high temperature. But there was no infection. So I was. I was already having.
Health problems from a really young age.
And you know, my parents are uh doctors. My dad's a doctor. And so I had access to really great medical care and lots of different doctors and pediatricians. And my parents also really open. So they were taking me to holistic practitioners as well.
Different kinds of homeopathy and Chinese herbs and and allergy testing and all kinds of things. So I had, you know, access very privileged.
Access to all these things, yet the response that I got from everyone was.
Was very vague and or it was conflicting information or everyone thought something different, so we were really just, you know, at such a loss but.
You know, one thing that we looked at was food, you know, to blame food for the stomach problems. So I went off wheat and dairy, and I had intolerance testing done. And I went off sugar. I had, like, thrush and Candida problems. So they would say stop eating.
Sugar it's feeding the Candida and all these things so.
You know all of these things that are quite, uh, becoming quite popular right now to do. I was really practicing these from such a young age but.
I nothing was working. You know. I kept getting sicker. And when we moved, I was born in in London. And when we moved from London to Iowa.
And we at that Christmas and I know because of what I know, I now understand exactly why this happened, but the Christmas.
That we moved.
I was only seven years old and I got my fevers, my unexplained fevers went through the roof, and I was taken into hospital.
For like 7 days and the top pediatrician in Ireland ran these tests on me and when they.
Let me out of let me out of hospital. I forget what they say when they.
Let you go.
And that they decided that they actually put on my medical records, that I was mystery girl. And they told my parents that if I if they ignored it, that I would grow out of it and this.
This just this.
Just didn't happen obviously. So I went on to live my life and, you know, experienced, you know, a trauma or two, you know, that that typically happens to someone in a lifetime like bullying and. And, you know, I missed a lot of school because I was sick. And then.
When I got my period I got really severe period pain. Like really, really severe period pain. So again, I was back in the hospital getting my body scanned my all parts of me scanned and X-rayed and.
And the again, it was like inconclusive, you know.
She'll grow out of it. It's hormonal. I had acne all over my face. It's hormone. She'll grow out of it. It's so and.
All the.
While I just remember, you know, look, I just really wanted to know why like.
Why it's hormonal? But why like why were all these things happening to me? And I remember crying in the car at my dad. I'm like, you're a doctor. Like what? What are they teaching you all? Like, why? Why does no one know? Why can't no one tell me what's going on?
And UM.
Then I started. I kind of started self medicating. To be honest I was like, you know, in Ireland it's very common to be drinking alcohol and large in large amounts. And I found when I started drinking alcohol and and uh experimenting with recreational drugs.
That I did feel some kind of like there like an edge was taken off life like a very tense part of me was kind of relieved. So I did that, participated in that for several years, but.
And and I felt poorly. You know, I didn't feel great all weekend drinking and partying so much, and I feel great. But at that time, I.
Blamed it on the.
Alcohol. So, but there I was then in my early 20s, I'm not feeling.
Good. I'm. I'm you know most. Most mostly during the week. I'm depressed.
I'm anxious. And then on the weekends I'm partying, so I decide I'm going to stop drinking and and partying and I'm going to get.
My life together.
I'm going to be healthy. I'm going to be happy. So I took to the to the, to the, to the, to the health world, right.
And I went the first thing, of course, was back to the elimination diet. You know, we sugar someone put me on a candida diet.
It and they said you have your you're riddled with Candida. So we're going to put you on this diet and in six months time, you know you're going to.
Be good to go and I thought, wow, in six months time, everything's going to be perfect.
And so I went on like the strict Candida diet.
Nothing. Nothing changed. You know, I just picked started to become very fearful of food and fearful of like what all this fungus was in my body and what it was.
Doing and.
And Fast forward six years later, after the first Candida diet, I was still unable to eat any sugar and.
Gluten. Any wheat like I was on these really strict diets. I was not any better. I was terrified of food. I was neurotic about my environment because anything at any time could kick off a flair. I've been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel.
I BS bladder syndrome. I had depression. I had anxiety.
And I am.
I basically experiencing some more traumatic events, a car crash, and a friend of mine took her own life.
I just hit.
Rock bottom like it was too much and I was barely able to hold down a job with all these symptoms and diagnosis and and diets and supplements and spending all my money going to healers and different therapists. And so.
I was really burnt out trying to get better. On the one hand and on the other hand I was really, really sick and no one in 30 years was able to help me so.
I just hit rock.
Bottom I was so scared and so depressed, I felt really suicidal and.
I had to apply for disability benefits in my early 30s. You know, all my friends are.
Getting married, having babies, going, traveling, going to festivals, just doing whatever version of life they're doing. And I was just slipping further and further away. My parents were my caretakers, essentially. And so.
It was pretty grim.
It's very, very grim.
The good news is I was lying in bed one day and my friend she sent me a link to this video. This doctor speaking about the mind body connection.
And my first like initial response was just to roll my eyes. You know, people are always giving me this unsolicited advice. I should do more yoga. I should breathe better, cold showers, whatever. And. And it was. It's really frustrating when you're trying and doing everything and and like nothing is really working.
So but there.
I was very desperate and really, really wanting my life back from this like I felt like my life had just been stolen, like my soul had been hijacked by this. These symptoms and this illness.
I wasn't listening to music anymore. I wasn't dancing.
I didn't eat.
Food and restaurants. I didn't, and I couldn't. I missed my best friend's wedding. I couldn't travel. I couldn't get out of bed, you know. So, anyway, there I am. I rolled over in the bed. I watched this, this talk, this like.
5 minute video on.
On the mind body connection, and for me this is the moment that everything changed because.
I realized the essentially like the biology of stress, and I realized that my nervous system.
Was connected to every nerve fiber in my body. Everything. So instead of having 99 different problems, mental health, physical health, stomach, wrist, bladders and everything being a separate issue with a separate medication and a separate therapist.
I suddenly just had one problem and that was I was in a state of chronic stress.
And then I only had to find one solution and that is how do I get out of this state of stress?
So immediately I was relieved of a huge, huge burden that I had these incurable problems that could never.
You know, be cured. And I could never recover from and they were mysterious. I was mystery girl.
Like explained problems like, I just felt like such a weirdo, you know, and.
Suddenly I so much weight was dropped from my from my shoulders and and I focused then on this one problem with this one solution and in just a matter of weeks when I dived into this process.
I walked to my local shop and I bought a packet of Mars bar ice creams and a six pack of Guinness.
Because you know, I have been living like a monk for over six years or more.
And I ate the.
Ice creams and I and I had some of the Guinness and I didn't have any IBS symptoms and I never did again.
So I healed 30 years of food intolerances IBS.
And such a short space of time with no supplements, not even therapy anything, just literally rewiring my, my mind and my body.
So that was.
Huge, huge, huge moment in my life as well. And from that moment on that I had the proof right. I wasn't like boom, **** cured. You know, I was really, really sick. So that was the moment I had this real solid proof.
I when I first read the information was the first moment. This makes sense to me. This makes total sense to me. Then I apply the process.
And I get such a dramatic result. So I'm like, OK, we're rolling with this now.
And from then then on it was a process of me finding the tools that that work for me to continue to use my nervous system to.
To allow my body to go into a state of healing and and rewire all these.
Problems all these physical manifestations of stress that I had rewire them so that my body could heal and my life. I could get my life back and I could really start to start to thrive in a way that I hadn't before.
So no power.
That is so powerful. I actually as you're talking it reminded me of someone else I spoke with not that long ago who was actually got science behind what you're talking about when your body gets into a state of stress.
And you're experiencing pain and discomfort in various parts.
After six months, it becomes chronic and your body.
'S that the.
Whatever was bothering you initially may already have dissipated, but your brain has been wired.
And your whole nervous system has been wired to keep sending you these signals. The panic signals that.
For no reason at all, you have to rewire.
It is so.
Fantastic that you are able to do this and that you're helping other people do this.
Yeah, it's so.
It's. Yeah, it's such an honor. I never thought, you know, I didn't. I didn't know the way out. So to have found the way out is just, like, amazing in itself. But then to be able to pass on this information and to help others is that is such a gift.
And yeah, like uh.
One of the doctors who kind of founded mind body medicine, he says like that.
The femur is the longest bone in.
The body and.
If the femur breaks, I don't know. He says. Either six weeks or six months, it's 6 something that it takes to heal, he said. Any pain that's gone on longer than that amount of time is learned neural pathway, pain, and that can be unlearned.
And so you can see that also with phantom leg pain. They say that when veterans from war or anyone who may have lost a limb, they can experience pain very real, very excruciating pain in the limb that's no longer there. So these.
Learned neural pathways, but for anyone who's listening, that's like, well, I don't have pain. I have.
An ulcer or a burning mouth, their itchy eyes or and, you know, I had IBS, but the nervous system. When you're in fight or flight, the stress mode your digestion isn't supposed to work. If you're if there's a bus about to crash.
You're not supposed to have all the, UM, energy in your stomach to digest.
Yes, and they say what happens is when the nervous system is in fighter flight, there's actually a mild oxygen deprivation. So when and in different people, you know, it's probably widespread the oxygen deprivation. But then it's more concentrated in different areas.
So if you.
If you're having a lot of depression or fatigue, there's like literally not enough oxygen getting to your brain for you to get the serotonin which is you're good.
And happy thoughts so.
Your oxytocin, which makes you feel connected and.
Loved and and makes you feel joy from music or puppies or whatever brings you joy and and if it's a migraine, there's like not enough oxygen getting to those arteries. It's like the and also the emotional center is synonymous with your pain center.
Uh, when you're in emotional distress, especially with the society that we're born into, where emotions have been taboo and not allowed. And so we.
But they're still going to happen. So it's socially, it's actually more. Yeah. So it's more socially acceptable to experience pain, especially I think. I mean, I can only speculate. But for men, you know, they often get back pain because, you know, it's more socially acceptable for them to say they have back pain.
Can someone support me then?
I have an emotion or I'm feeling emotional or sad or angry about something. And so for me I had a thought of emotions. I was so highly sensitive, you know, several different traumas and.
And the other thing is like I mentioned about the guys.
When we're born, we, our brains are little sponges and we we're to absorb information from the world around us and we're to absorb this information like download it like programs onto an operating system so that we then know how to operate going forward in life when we're like 7, they've all been like.
Settle on. They're running.
So the programs that I saw and I can only speak for myself really are, you know, I got a lot of programs that.
That that made me believe I was. I was not very worthy of a person and that I should. I should not make a false I should. And you know, when I was good, I like if I had a lot of good behaviors. I got praise. I got love for this and I didn't want to. If I was like maybe bad or.
Express too much. Maybe I stress that the people around me, so I learned to.
Like quieten all that down and you know, so we just. I learned all these mechanisms for, for living. I downloaded all these programs for living.
I believe I should be like a caretaker. I should be. Keep taking care of everyone around me and I felt guilty if I took care of myself.
All these all.
These programs that, that, that are like it's like having the these really outdated programs like the programs that go back as far as when typewriters were invented. But you're like a Mac Air 2023 and you roll these like really ancient old programs and you're trying.
And trying to run this this this system and it's just like there's just like smoke coming out. There's like system malfunction. Like everything's breaking down in the body cause it's just like it's just the programs coming up against your life force energy, that is, that is.
Far more advanced than these.
Antique antiquated programs that you have and men get different ones. Women get different ones, but I work with women because I understand the ones that women get more and because I have the lived experience and so really.
Starting to be able to identify what your unique health like stressors are, what, what outdated programs you're running. Some of us have really similar ones and you know and then others will be really unique to us and and starting to see that you know.
I used to think that I lost my programs 100%, I thought.
I'm just this like self sacrificing human that always like, always puts others 1st and.
Jumps to take care of anyone, anytime.
And just it doesn't make a farce and does what I'm told and all these things I thought that was my personality.
And then I start to see. Whoa.
Like the amount of resentment that's building up in me, the amount of anger and guilt and that's built that's generating in me all day is insane. And no wonder I'm sick. I'm burnt out and can't get out of bed and super angry at all these needs that I'm not even attending to myself.
I've always.
I need connection. I need love. I need support. I need to feel safe when I express myself. I need to express certain things and I was not doing any of that. So I'd learned to just.
You know, keeping this tiny little box so.
So it's really a journey of breaking out of that box, which can also be scary and it can also be a little bit stressful. So that's where the support and the guidance can be really, really helpful because.
You start to step out into unchartered territory. You know, starting to have conversation, awkward conversations you haven't had before, starting to use boundaries you never did before. Starting to say no when you never did before, or started to take breaks when you never did before. And all these things.
And feel quite scary at first, but when you they start to become your more normal lived experience, then you really start to feel more safe in this world, more capable, more empowered, more peace, less anger, resentment.
Guilt and that really helps for your nervous system to come out of fight or flight and start to regulate itself so the body can.
Can heal because the nervous system is.
To every part of your body.
Did you find that when you were going through this that your circle of friends changed?
Yes, lots of things changed. And one particular thing about my friendships is I used to have.
Thousands of friends.
And because I was very, I was obviously a bit trying to fill a void in myself and looking for connection.
And you know, I loved all those friends. I don't regret any of those friends friendships that I made. But I was out there just constantly making new friends. New friends had big circle of friends and.
No one neural, so I was I was exhausted and and so that has really dramatically changed. And I now have just a little handful of people who are really important to me and.
It's so much life is so much easier. You know, I was always letting people down. You know, it's impossible to keep that afloat. That system of so many friends. So, so many relationships. And I was always like letting people down. And I was trying to like the worst nightmare for people. Pleaser trying to manage that whole, that whole system.
And and then of course.
Lots of other things in my relationships changed as well. People definitely.
Fell away in different ways and and then you know, for me. I'm. I'm really glad. Like for me my family were really always very an important relationships to me. It's not the.
Same for everyone.
But it really meant the world to me to empower.
And here these relationships, these particular relationships from.
And so for me, I'm lucky that I get that going on this journey did actually do that. And I have a really rich relationship now with my parents and my brothers and my, my family and that that was so important to me.
And but and I didn't before you know, we were always fighting and there was just so, so much. Just different types of pain and patterns.
So. So for me that's sad and something I'm really proud of myself for. Sometimes when I'm, I'm like, what am I doing in life? Like, what's going on? You know, you have those moments. And and I always it's one of my biggest reminders. It's like well, look, look at these relationships, how beautiful they have performed when and I didn't I didn't know.
That would ever be possible.
At some at some points in.
My life.
It's interesting how once we become who we are.
Than our relationships with others changes. Sometimes it can be really great and fantastic, and other times people are just like I don't know who you are anymore and I'm I don't resonate with that frequency, but it wasn't really your frequency anyway. You were just holding this space for what you thought you were supposed to be.
And it.
It sends mixed signals to people.
I know that you hold workshops periodically for people to help them get.
Learn all of this stuff so you want to tell us a little bit.
About how those work.
Yeah. So.
The most mind blowing thing about the mind body connection and these tools is that it's really simple.
It's just not easy because it's a big kind of change and you really have to and learn how to implement.
These tools but.
It is super simple. I didn't interview recently. Doctor Dave Clark. He's one of he wrote a book in 1983 about stress, illness. Very beautiful. Incredible.
Man and doctor.
I was on his YouTube and we were chatting and he said if you know you're not a psychiatrist, I'm not a psychiatrist, but yet we can both help people with these with these problems. It's he was, he was really emphasizing that it's simple so and I believe in simple as a excuse me.
As a highly sensitive person that was stuck in fight or flight, it's like I don't want need more things, complicated things, right? I want simple and easy, so I'm all about the simple effective tools.
So on my work.
Jobs I teach my tools like it's no secret. I'm not like, you know, keeping everything to myself. But the same tools I use still use to this day to continue to heal that I healed my fibromyalgia, sleep problems, depression, anxiety.
And IBS.
And the same tools my paying clients use. It's just that I because me and my paying clients spend such a long time to get it. They get all this.
Training up in these.
Tools, but you can get them for free on my workshop.
And and yeah, I just. I teach these 3 golden keys, 3 golden rules of and this three-step process that you just once you can really grasp and really understand then you can use it to heal yourself from so many from so many different mental and physical.
And afflictions.
So what are the three steps?
So step one is always to it's new information, right? So we think about me when I met the, when I found that video, this was new information. So it's really.
And this is.
Going to start to deactivate your UM your symptoms because.
At the moment, if you have a symptom that's to say migraine, for instance, right, you have, you just say it's a neural network, right? Just say the symptom is a neural link.
And that in that migraine, when that migraine hits or it starting to hit, you have an emotional reaction to that, right. You're like.
Sad, you're scared.
And in the moment. And then you also have memories about the past you're like.
I remember that I couldn't go to my best friend's wedding because of this. Uh symptom.
I lost my job over this and all these emotional impacts. I missed a lot of school, all these different things.
And then you have to worry about the future. Like, am I going to be able to get through this day? Am I going to lose my job? Will I be able to go to work tomorrow? Will I be able to pick up my granny? Whatever. Right. So. And there's already. And there's so much more. And but already that's a huge amount of stress all firing up that right.
You need to learn how to start to interrupt that loop.
So at the moment you're actually contributing like you don't realize that you don't know and you're not bad or wrong for doing it. It's a normal.
Reaction, but at the moment you're there's a part of you that's contributing to all.
Of those symptoms.
So you need to learn with this new information and a few little tricks how to interrupt that.
Loop, so you start to kill.
It off.
It's just like you're gonna start to eventually kill that off.
Then there's another part to this, which is.
You know, often we're carrying around a huge amount of shame. Let's just say, as women in general, we're very shamed. We're extra brutally hard on ourselves.
We have a lot more fear as well. The fact that we can be in actual danger, a lot of the time, financial fear.
We're more vulnerable in this particular society and culture we live in, right? But then you throw into it.
Pains and illness and you know, not being able to contribute or look after I or do our daily tasks or whatever, right. And you don't want to be a burden to people. You feel like you're.
A burden to people.
There's a lot.
Of shame and guilt that comes with the symptoms which came first, the chicken or the egg? We don't know, but they're all feeding each other, right? And we have a very low, low self esteem and idea about who we are. I thought I was a terrible, awful person.
I was riddled with guilt from the past.
I was.
Brutally hard on.
Myself, and that's an that's an impossible internal environment to live in and it's going to be stressful and you're not going to feel safe and your nervous system's going to be lit. So you're going to need. So there's a bit of shifting. It's like from zero to hero. I call it you, you start to see.
You start to shift the vantage or the lens that you see yourself in and and and you can see that you can be truly proud.
Good. There are things that.
Can be truly proud of yourself, or so it's not a positive thinking. Fake it till you make IT system. It's shifting advantage so you can genuinely see that there's so much that you have to be proud.
Of yourself for.
And and so many gifts that you have that you're just not seeing right now.
And and then there is another part to this system, which is reengaging in, in, in your life. So in what lights you up and what brings you joy because?
Often when you have become consumed by a by symptoms, shame or guilt, anxiety, depression, you've you have started to stop participating in things that you love. So.
Like for instance, people with back pain might stop playing a.
Sport that they.
Love or they stop picking up their kids or puppies. Stop playing their the community cautious.
I stopped eating foods that I loved, stopped, stopped eating foods together with people, eating out, and then I stopped. You know, I stopped drinking and stopped doing, you know, socializing. So you can see you start to actually withdraw more from life than from yourself.
And then there's a huge you just you just got lost. Like, I stopped listening to music like you just get so lost in your fear and your symptoms and you. And so a massive part of that is coming back to you, is coming back to your soul and coming back to.
And pleasure and play, especially with women that are wracked with shame and guilt. We're just like.
Couldn't possibly, you know, do something good for ourselves. Couldn't possibly enjoy and pleasure just for the sake of pleasure, joy. Just for the sake of joy. It has to be. You know, it has to be an intention behind it all. So it's really shifting that because joy and pleasure and play and fun.
Are really important for regulating your nervous system and sending safety signals because.
You're not going to laugh and play.
When you're in fight or flight, so getting you back into that.
State and those activities is going to do the opposite of fight or flight, and it's going to start to relax your nervous system. You're going to send it messages of safety and and you'll feel like you have more purpose as well and connected to yourself. And then you start to get all your feel good chemicals back and start to.
Feel joy again. Feel like yourself again and and then it's just a process of rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat it over and over again. And I teach my clients is very, very in, in detail how to apply it to their different symptoms to their different circumstances, to their different lives.
And they get really good at their system and then they are trained up in self healing how to heal themselves, fully empowered, can the sky.
'S the limit.
That is so powerful and I.
I know from experience.
It does work, it changes your.
Whole life and outlook.
On how you're living your life so.
If, how do people get in touch with you? If they want to come to your workshop? If they want to just reach out and connect with you?
Yeah. So I do a lot of free calls. I love chatting with people. I do free health order calls.
Or there are I have the social media, I have my Instagram, I have the YouTube channel where I've interviewed many of these doctors and like.
Psychotherapist and many other people, just like you and I, who have healed themselves through these this kind of work. So super inspiring people. And then you have all the science of the doctors and everything. So it's a really good mix on YouTube.
So and I have then if you head over to my website, I usually UM have a link on my website if I have an upcoming free workshop and you can jump in there and register and come to my.
Next free workshop.
Or you can watch the replays of my workshop if you want to get in my.
Free Facebook group as well.
So there's lots of different ways that you we can connect and don't be a stranger come and say hi, I love to chat and.
I have loads of free resources, so if you just ask then I can point you in.
The right direction.
That's awesome. And we'll be sure to put all those notes in there or those links in the show notes below.
So, Aoife, what's the one thing you want the audience to take away from this conversation today?
Erm
You know.
There was a time and I.
Have this photo. I wish I could show it.
To you, but.
There was. There's this photo of me and I have no light in my eyes. You know, I just look.
And I only saw it recently and I couldn't believe.
You know, I was so scared and I was there was no hope for me back then. And and yeah, I just didn't. I just didn't know what to do. So if you're in a position like that and you.
You know, I just want to inspire you to reach out and to listen to success stories.
Listen to other people who have overcome all kinds of things. Doesn't have to be your exact illness, your exact circumstances, but people who have who have overcome really big adversities and take inspiration and just decide that you're going.
To do it too.
And be defiant.
In your actions and be relentless in your actions and and I just, I really believe the sky is the limit and and that you.
Can do it.
Not so powerful, and our brains are such amazing.
Creations they they're so powerful and we really can do anything.
If we have the right tools.
I'm so glad.
You're doing what you're doing. Thank.
So much for joining us today and sharing your incredible story and hope for people that are out there in pain. If you're in pain, really.
Look Aoife up
Well, thank you so much. It's been so beautiful connecting with you and and chatting with you all. And I look forward to connecting in the future.