Optimizing Your Energy And Achieving Peak Performance: Let's Dive Into Chinese Medicine And Acupuncture With Dr. Chloé Hom Bañales

Chinese medicine is rooted in ancient tradition and procedures first developed thousands of years ago. Aside from treating diseases, its ability to tap inner energies makes it truly unique, even by modern-day medical standards. Joining Yanet Borrego is Dr. Chloé Hom Bañales, Founder of Ascended Alchemy. She explains how she discovered Chinese medicine to eliminate negative thoughts and replenish inner energies after experiencing a panic attack herself. Dr. Chloé also describes the many benefits of acupuncture, particularly in accessing the nervous system and achieving harmony. She even talks about the difference between baggage and intuition, keeping an eye on your protein intake, and the power of the Pomodoro technique.

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Optimizing Your Energy And Achieving Peak Performance: Let's Dive Into Chinese Medicine And Acupuncture With Dr. Chloé Hom Bañales

In this episode, I am beyond excited because I have a very special guest that I admire and respect deeply, Dr. Chloe Bañales. Welcome to the show, Chloe. How are you doing?

I'm doing so well. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. We were chatting about how much has transpired in the last few months or so, and what we're excited about. I imagine we'll talk through some of that here as well.

A quick background for everyone in the audience. I had known Chloe through social media. Somehow we had connected on Instagram, but we met through Integrative NLP Coaching that Empowerment, Inc. company offers. I had the pleasure of being Chloe's mentor and coach as she was getting certified. After that, she has done so much more. I cannot wait to introduce her. As a Doctor of Chinese Medicine, Peak Performance Coach and trainer of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, NLP, Dr. Chloe is the Founder of Ascended Alchemy. It is dedicated to supporting purpose-driven leaders in embodying their next level of health and performance.

With years of clinical experience focused on how our mental and emotional health manifest through our physical body and vice versa, Dr. Chloe's work is dedicated to helping clients connect the strength of their mind to the wisdom of their body so they can finally end patterns of burnout and feel empowered in their health journey. When she is working with clients online and in person, Dr. Chloe incorporates Chinese Medicine, Esoteric Acupuncture, NLP, Mental Emotional Release, Hypnosis, Human Design, Gene Keys, and Quit Smoking in 60 minutes.

I'm sure at the end of this episode, we are going to tell you all about how to contact Dr. Chloe to assist her client's healing process at the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical levels. Dr. Chloe, I'm so proud that we are connected and we are here because as I said, I'm inspired by you. I see everything you are doing while supporting your community. I'm honored to have you on the show. Thank you, again.

Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

I always start the episode by asking every guest about their background. What is your background? What is your heritage? Were you born here or somewhere else? Tell us about it.

I was born and raised in San Diego. Most of my family is here in San Diego. It's where I'm coming from now. I grew up as an athlete. I think that this is a large part of what fueled my desire for growth, for getting better, and also for observing what makes the best players, the best people, and the best leaders the best. This fueled a lot of my learning or passion for learning. I'm a proud nerd. I love learning about academics, health, peak performance, even mindset and how our brain works. I love learning more about that so that I can utilize that for myself, and also share that with my clients and the people around me.

Long story short, right after college, I majored in Kinesiology at San Diego State. I experienced that same kind of drive. I was like, “I'm ready to go.” I thought I wanted to be a physical therapist or maybe an athletic trainer. I had that same ambition and drive, however, maybe some of your audience can resonate with the dark side of ambition where it was like, “Go and go,” all the time until I started to neglect my body. I tried to sleep for only two hours a night. A fun fact is we can survive longer without food and drinking water than we can without sleep.

I didn't know that.

I learned that the hard way. That ended up with confronting a panic attack that led to about 3 to 4 months of clinical depression where the body was like, “We need to chill out here.” The dark side of ambition allowed me to take a break, see what was important, and what was I chasing. Ultimately, this led to me meeting my first acupuncturist. I was in the process of weaning off prescription medication for depression, and I finally felt like I was able to rest.

The prescription was amazing as a bridge to help me get back to functioning and a baseline that was supportive of me and my goals. Through acupuncture, I started to feel more of myself again. The joy started to come back. I started to ask him, “How do you do what you do? What the heck are you doing?” This is interesting because, in Chinese medicine, he explained that the mind and the body are inseparable. I was like, “That makes sense.” Sometimes we know things and once someone else reflects that back to us, maybe you've had this experience too. It's not something new. It's one of those like, “Of course.”

We know them.

That was my experience and he mentioned, “It's going to be a tough academic career and it'll be so worth it if it's something you're excited about.” I tried a semester and four years later, I got my Master's. On the last day of my Master's class, I applied for the doctorate program because I knew that it would open more doors. While the mind-body connection or that mind-body conversation is so much more prominent now, even a few years ago, some people would still have a little bit of hesitations or reservations about it. I knew that title and that degree specifically would help to open more doors and offer a prestige that would help me share more about this research and the evidence of Chinese medicine that has been founded for over 3,000 years.

That is an amazing background. I love it because your story resonates with mine in a very different way. Honestly, our audience is all about that. They are seeking that fulfillment, their purpose, even though they may have success in some way. Success may be different for every person, but society perceives success in a different way that is sometimes very different from how we perceive it ourselves.

A panic attack in my journey was also one of my wake-up calls. To be honest with you, no one had ever talked to me about a panic attack. I didn't know what was happening. I thought I was dying because my left arm went to sleep. I remember thinking to myself, “If I die right now, I'm not happy with where I'm at in terms of career, fulfillment and finding myself.” Going back to this panic attack, which is a recurring theme here, what are the signs in your body and your mind that you’re having a panic attack?

Maybe your audience is already getting to know you or maybe someone new here with both me and Yanet being trained in neuro-linguistic programming. One of the themes of NLP is perception is interpretation. In my experience and what I'm seeing in my work with other clients and clinically as well is that there is a mental, emotional and physical, even an energetic aspect perspective of what might be considered a panic attack. For me at a physical level, I wasn't fueling or taking care of my body enough. I shut down in a way because it ran out of resources pretty much. When we sleep, that's our opportunity to regenerate every single night. It’s like we plug in our phone to charge it back up, that's what sleep does for us.

It even activates a cool system. We don't have to get into the nitty-gritty, but it’s the glymphatic system that washes excess debris from our brains. It's like a car wash for your brain. You can imagine the effects of not sleeping or sleeping well on the mental and emotional bodies. If we're not getting that full regeneration or that car wash for our mind and body, how that would manifest mentally and emotionally? During sleep is where our emotions get integrated, as well as our learnings from the day.

When it comes to a panic attack, it was that sign. It was, "Let's pay attention to something right now.” For me, it was similar as well. It was that spiritual, mental and emotional wake-up call. It was an opportunity to see that something was out of alignment in a big way. There's a saying and I'm not sure who exactly quoted this but, “The body will talk in a whisper.” We'll get these little hints and if we continue to ignore them, bypass them or suppress them, the messages will continue to come. As a result of that, energetically, we could think about, “This panic attack, what weren't you listening to before this?” Maybe you get some clarity on that idea. They are preventable from a physical, mental, emotional and even energetic perspective.

In my case, I love the emphasis on sleep. To be honest, I was ignoring my gut. I was ignoring my values over and over. I knew that whatever I was doing wasn't making me happy. It wasn't making me fulfilled. I kept just thinking about it but I kept feeling like I was a victim of the circumstance. I couldn't do anything. That feeling of being powerless and feeling like that every single day is what builds up that energy in my body. My body said, “This is it,” and that's when I got into a panic attack. It was so interesting because I had never experienced something like that.

It is cool how we are all different. It seems for you, it was more physical in a way. For me, it was more of the mental and emotional component too. Thank you so much for sharing. You are a doctor of Chinese medicine. You initially studied Kinesiology. How was that transition? Even before the panic attack, what were you feeling in your gut? How did you know and how did you gain clarity on what the next step was for you?

It’s something that I think about when I look back on SDSU. That was over a decade. Leading up to that experience after graduating, there was always a little bit of like, “What's going to happen next,” at the end of every semester. It's still funny and crazy where we asked 18 or 17-year-olds to know exactly what they want to be doing with their lives. I was that person who didn't know what I wanted to do. I had some ideas. With that sense of clarity looking back in hindsight 20/20, I could see the common thread between now and then has been a sense of curiosity and a willingness to experiment.

That helped me through that evolution at SDSU where I wanted to be an athletic trainer. I knew that growing up as an athlete, I like sports. I like athletics. That sounds like it could be a good career, and then I had a class at SDSU where all we did was watch a film of different injuries happening on the field and how we were supposed to respond to them and I almost threw up. I was like, “That's a lot. How would I go on the rehab side?” I considered and was on the track to becoming a physical therapist, more so on the rehab side. I’m still working with athletes, helping others and that kind of thing.

Sleep regenerates the body every night. It's like plugging a phone to charge it back up.

Even at that point, I had some ideas about A) I wanted to help others and B) I needed to do work that I loved. During grad school and undergraduate school, I was working in the service industry. I was a server. I was a bartender. I was in the bar industry as a bottle service girl at one point too. It wasn’t the work that was necessary "a part of my purpose," and that was sustaining me so that I can continue to build on my purpose. I enjoyed it.

I loved talking to people. I loved the people I worked with so it was still enjoyable. I even looked at what I was doing that wasn't a part of my “purpose” to see, “What's another common thread here?” It's working with people. I'm not behind a desk. I'm on my feet. I'm moving. I have flexibility in my schedule. I was able to connect the dots and through that process, I was listening for those guttural, “I liked this. I'm excited about this.” When I would get those, I would then talk to trusted resources and friends, “This is what I'm excited about. Can you see me doing this?”

I was taking some of that reflection and seeing what spurs from that conversation. Tangibly over the course of many years, this has looked like thinking about who I want to work with, what problems I could help solve for them, and how I could help them solve those problems. That has evolved from after in grad school when I was in acupuncture school, I started coaching clients after having some phenomenal experiences with coaches myself, and then I started to love going to events.

I started to host my own events. I hosted entrepreneur and networking groups under the name The Pineapple Project. That evolved into hosting community events, specifically experiential cannabis dining series, where people would be able to learn more about the endocannabinoid system and see this plant medicine in a medicinal way. It then evolved to putting a pause and taking only one or two coaching clients while I studied for my board exams. I took on a job in LA where I lived for a couple of years.

After leaving that, I was always having this little bit of entrepreneurial fire like, “There's something more,” I then started my acupuncture practice in Santa Monica. That was mostly geared around acupuncture. It was all in-person clients. Finally, the timing worked out when I graduated from my doctorate program, and I finally had two weeks to attend the Master Practitioner Training for NLP, mental and emotional release, and hypnotherapy. That was a part of like, “This excites me. This is how I would love to support the people I'm working with. This is how it can support them.”

The NLP, hypnotherapy and mental and emotional release fit right in with those kinds of questions I was asking myself as I continued to evolve with that clarity knowing that it's not something that I was going to find. It was more something that would reveal itself as I continue to take action and empty out. Something I tell my clients a lot is the practice of emptying out so that there can be space for something to drop in.

Also, holding that space until something drops in knowing that it's that action that typically creates clarity, and the lessons that usually come only as a result of taking action moving forward and following that curiosity. It has ultimately led to now and doing majorly or mostly coaching. For their breakthrough sessions, usually, people will fly in or drive depending on where they're coming in for the esoteric acupuncture part of the breakthrough session.

After you had your panic attack, what would you say was the lesson from there because there is always a lesson as we say in NLP?

The big lesson for me was that I was no good if I wasn't taking care of myself even if I had the biggest, grandest and most generous plan to take care of anyone else around me. It was the idea building off of it that time is a very valuable resource. Also energy, I will argue that it's even more valuable than time. The way that I like to put this is that I had a good amount of time. I was in between SDSU and pursuing what would be the path to becoming a physical therapist. There was a time when I was doing a lot with my time and I was making the most of my time, but what I was lacking was sustainable energy.

An example I give others is if someone has a week-long vacation and the coolest itinerary. They get there, they land on the plane, they step outside, they get to the hotel and check in, and they fall asleep because they're so exhausted. They have all the time. They've got the vacation planned out, yet if the energy is not there, then it's a very different experience.

If we don't have the resources physically, energetically, mentally or emotionally, it dilutes what we could do with that time. Something I'll remind my clients of is that energy can be our biggest asset or it can be our greatest liability. Cultivating that, honoring that, and listening to that is going to be such a paradigm shift. It's a different way of living truly.

We are going to tap more into energy when we talk about being energized, which is one of the biggest desires of my audience and a lot of people. I wanted to share my lesson too from that panic attack. Something that I learned from there was not to wait until I hit a crisis or rock bottom to make a change that is aligned with myself. I've learned that the hard way during that panic attack. Many people wait until they're against the wall to make a change. Sometimes you might be afraid of making any change, but you know that's the right thing, and that's the aligned step to take. For me, that was the biggest lesson.

I say the same to my clients. I try to be as proactive as I can listening to my gut and my energy and making that change out of joy and abundance rather than out of crisis and fear or everything else. I'm sure you identify with that because we all have been there. Thank you so much for explaining how you got into the clarity piece. For someone who is not familiar with Chinese medicine or acupuncture, how would you explain that field to someone who doesn't speak the language?

Chinese medicine has been around for over 3,000 years. It's timeless wisdom that is an entire medical system. This includes acupuncture, herbology, nutrition, and breathing exercises like qi gong or tai chi. It’s very philosophical as well. There was no separation between mind and body. They practiced and lived knowing that any kind of disharmony emotionally can cause injury to the internal organs. When I say cause injury to the internal organs, it might not mean it's directly harming the liver, but it's more so the organ system.

A great example could be if someone is thinking of a big meeting coming up, a big presentation or the date that they're going on with someone new, and their stomach begins to knot. This is an example of our emotions moving the qi in a specific way that would cause our physical body to knot. We feel it physically as well as emotionally and/or mentally. This was a beautiful thing there. I also like to describe Chinese medicine as a lens, an opportunity or a different approach to viewing reality.

I borrowed this from another physician who described Chinese medicine as a lens. It’s like observational biology. These theories were founded upon observing the nature around us and within us. Everything from Chinese medicine is an attempt to return us back to our natural way of being to prioritize optimal flow both within our body and with the energy around us as well. It's living seasonally, both seasons around us and within our own season of life, whether we are certain ages or going through specific things in our life, etc.

I love your explanation. If someone is like, “How do I even use what Chinese medicine is about in my day-to-day if I'm feeling this or that? I know acupuncture is one of them. In big buckets, what would that be? It’s like acupuncture, herbs or the environment.

The environment could be a good place to start off that conversation. Something neat about the health and wellness conversation nowadays is that it tends to be at the forefront. More and more people are paying attention to investing and learning about their health. The downside is that there tends to be a lot of noise and confusion like, “Is this good for me? I know I'm a bio-individual now. I appreciate how that conversation is more so common than not,” then it gets to, “What will work for me?”

Something about Chinese medicine in addition to bio-individuality is thinking about where you are. For example, Yanet is not in San Diego. She's in a different city. Something to consider would be the weather and the season around her. It’s taking that into consideration. An example would be if you are in Alaska or somewhere where it's cold, it wouldn't necessarily be the best place to have an acai bowl and a bunch of ice cream. It's cold on top of the cold.

The basic theory in Chinese medicine is if it’s too cool, you warm it up. When something is too hot, you cool it down. If something is more deficient or it's lacking in resources, how can we supplement that or add more resources there? If something is an excess, how do we tone that down? It's harmonizing yin and yang over and over again so that there is this harmony. What tends to happen whether it's illness or us not reaching our goals is that there is some kind of extremism going on. Maybe it's like, "I haven't changed up this thing over and over again." The reason why it might not be working is that you need to dial back a little bit and do something that might be the clinical opposite or try something new.

You mentioned your audience loves ideas, hacks and practices to increase energy. You mentioned sleep before. Sleep is probably something that everyone could take to another level even if you're sleeping well. One of the best practices I like to share with others because it's free and there is no cost is allowing yourself to give your eyes anywhere from about 20 and 30 minutes of morning sunlight within 30 minutes of waking. We are all in different time zones so it totally depends.

For most people, what happens is that we might wake up, stay inside, get ready for work, and then go to work in a car and then go to work. Even if we're working from home, we stay inside for most of the day and then get outside maybe around noon, which could be cool. However, what happens when you get outside within the first 30 minutes of waking, this allows the sunlight to lob into our eyes, which activates brain cells within our eyes. This sets off timers for different hormones and neurotransmitters to basically tell our body what time of day it is and to get all ready by that time for sleep way later. It sets off some tickers so that different hormones build up and it tells different neurotransmitters, “It's morning time. We're awake.”

That makes so much sense. Do you walk out or do you have to look straight into the sun? Is there a difference here?

Finding an acupuncturist is like finding a coach. Looking for someone you can freely open to makes a huge difference throughout the session.

I highly recommend not looking directly at the sun.

That’s what my husband told me so I need to tell him, “Dr. Chloe told me you shouldn't be doing that.”

That’s why I like to say, allow the sunlight to lob into your eyes. When I say this, what I have is a picture that I share with my clients, what you could do is you can look straight out in the distance. You can look a little bit up into the left or the right of the sun, but never so much so that it hurts your eyes that you're looking directly at the source of the light. What you want to do is allow the photons or the light rays to lob into your eyes.

It’s as if you were to see little circles and bubbles almost enter your eyes. You could do that by stepping outside. I love to do a morning walk because that forward motion helps you move forward mentally and emotionally as well. It helps to move the energy. It's light and gentle. You don't have to go for a run. Most people would benefit from more so slow-liner activity in the mornings based on the go-go lifestyle that many of us live in.

What about acupuncture? I've always thought, “Should I try acupuncture?” I'm a little bit scared of those needles. I want you to clarify this and tell me the benefits because I want to try it.

I know an amazing acupuncturist in the Houston area. She is phenomenal. The needles, first and foremost, if you can imagine the hair that you have, some of them are maybe as thin as that or thinner. It's a very thin needle. It's going to be different from the hypodermic needles that you might see at the conventional doctor's office where you're getting shots, IVs or different things like that. It's different needles and the method of insertion is going to vary depending on how they're training you, what they're training you for, and the practitioner themselves.

For example, there are different thicknesses, practices, and things like that. Share with your acupuncturists, find a coach, and interview different ones to see how they resonate with you. Is this someone you can see yourself opening up to you or partnering with? It will make a difference so that you do feel comfortable throughout the session.

The actual process and experience of acupuncture were described by many as a very relaxing and calming experience. Why is this? Acupuncture directly taps into our nervous system so that specific neurotransmitters are released, specific receptors are activated, and those specific hormones are also regulated. When it comes to energy and that sense of peace, calm and balance, it helped me so much when I was first introduced to acupuncture. This can help on all fronts. We like to say that, and I imagine you've had this conversation with clients as well through mental and emotional release.

When the body is existing in more of a parasympathetic restoration state, that's where the healing gets upregulated. That's where healing is increased. This is where we also have more access to resources mentally and cognitively. Someone who is an entrepreneur or business owner, these are a lot of my clients whether it was in Santa Monica or here in San Diego because they wanted to be more creative. They wanted to improve their learning capacity. They wanted to improve their memory recall and essentially their performance. They knew that being able to train their body to feel more and more comfortable and more easily go into that parasympathetic state was going to give them an ROI in the business world in addition to the health side of things as well.

Whether it's for mental or emotional concerns of anxiety, stress, etc., acupuncture is very beneficial. More and more studies are also coming out about how it can help with a multitude of different things, whether it's fertility or digestive concerns. Even the side effects of cancer. Many different things can be helped with acupuncture and usually, it's a matter of finding the right practitioner because just like doctors, each of us will have our specialties. Each of us will have the things that we bring a lot of our passions into.

For example, I worked at an office or a clinic. I rent a room where my colleague specializes a little bit more in neural manipulation or manipulating our nerves so that the decrease in inflammation can be addressed that way. I've also got practitioners who specialize in more orthopedics like knee injuries, post-surgery or different things like that. There are going to be fertility specialists, almost everything that you could possibly think of working with the body approach versus the Band-Aid approach.

That's what I was going to ask you. It's all about the energetic centers. It’s tapping into those energetic centers in your body so you can tap into the energy that you're supposed to be, as you said about Chinese medicine.

What you need is that modern science is catching up with all of the evidence of Chinese medicine. While Chinese medicine was already treating things like viruses or fevers with acupuncture and/or herbs, what's super cool is to read these studies over and over as far as why this is happening. This makes sense because when you activate this specific point with acupuncture, this is what's happening at a neurochemical or a biochemical level. It's upregulating dopamine. Maybe it's decreasing different kinds of chemicals that would cause someone to feel or experience more pain and inflammation. It's downregulating the amount of inflammation that tends to be the root cause of many disorders, concerns, etc.

In terms of stabilizing because what I'm thinking is that the needle may be the trigger and what happens after is a response. What happens to the body after acupuncture when you decide not to have that needle anymore, but want to access the response? How does acupuncture balance out the body for you to naturally produce anything you need to produce in order to achieve that harmony?

I'll approach this from a couple of different aspects. For one, when it comes to the biochemical changes, this is going to be neat in the way that it's going to increase that parasympathetic activity so the healing continues to occur. Dr. Matt, the teacher who we both learned it from has cool teaching that I've learned from the health and healing paradigm. I appreciate the way he frames healing.

It's either increasing your inner state. You are doing things. You are doing specific actions and behaviors that are either increasing or decreasing health. Acupuncture is a part of creating that upward momentum towards the goals that you desire, health goals, performance goals, etc. This might be addressing the inflammation. This might be regulating the nervous system in a way that could tell your body, “It's safe to relax.”

I believe that was a big thing for me when I was first having my acupuncture experience back in the day when it was like my body forgot how to relax because I was in such a fight-or-flight, go-go-go state. That was my baseline. With each acupuncture session, I was able to move that baseline up a little bit more each time so that my new baseline was higher for being able to have a wider zone of resilience. From the energetic aspect, what happens from an esoteric acupuncture perspective is that with the needles themselves, we're utilizing them in a specific sequence and order to create sacred geometry across the body. This is going to help to align the energetic centers also known as chakras so that someone is able to find their center again. Chinese medicine has been described as a medicine to help someone return back to their center over and over again.

Whether it's Chinese medicine or something I'm learning as well as human design, these are both systems to help someone return back to their authority, their center, their heart, and their intuition. Truly, no matter what doctor you're working with, myself included, we don't know you as well as you know you. We simply get to be a guide and a reflection so that you can get to know yourself even better with various awareness tools, prompts, and contemplations for you to move through so that you feel more grounded in who you are. It’s creating that clarity so that you can connect to your purpose and express that in a way that feels authentic for you.

I want to try it out. You need to message me the details of the Houston acupuncturist because after I come back from my training, I'm going to be there. I'm going to try it out. I love trying things out. As you said, it’s trusting my experience. There are many methods to get to the same place and tap into your intuition and your purpose. I think it depends on each one of us to find the right one for us.

Let's talk a little bit about stress. A lot of the pain points of our audience are they're trying to balance work and family. They're trying to find their purpose and fulfillment. They have a scattered focus in terms of so many things that they're doing as you mentioned. What are some of the symptoms that you see in the body based on your experience in Chinese medicine and everything else related to stress? Based on your experience, what are the things that people struggle with the most to balance out or harmonize or everything else? Anything that may come to mind.

This is a big conversation. It’s something that I'm very passionate about, especially for this audience. The people who are growth-oriented and they're up to a lot of big things. It's an important conversation to have because according to the CDC, an estimated 90% of our healthcare spending goes towards mental health conditions and stress-related disorders. This is something that can be prevented and can be addressed. There are a couple of different perspectives to approach this idea and this experience of what is stress.

One would be, and this is perfect given your audience and what we both do as well, to consider our perception of stress. Are we getting clear on what that is? It doesn't have to be good or bad. It's getting clear how we are relating to that. As we mentioned before, if it's too much of something or not enough of something, that's where the trouble occurs. If we don't have enough stress, maybe we're not getting enough done.

Stress isn't necessarily bad. It can be the prerequisite to a flow state, which is where we feel our best and we are performing our best. However, if it's excessive stress where maybe someone is having trouble falling asleep at night because they're laying in bed, and all of a sudden they're feeling almost wired yet tired. It is a common phrase that I hear from clients and the people I work with. Maybe it's the afternoon crash. Maybe it's the waking up and there's no appetite because they're already in a state of like, “What do I need to do? It's such a big day. I have so much to do,” and these kinds of ideas.

With every yes that we say, we also need to say no.

The appetite shuts down because the parasympathetic rest and digesting part of our nervous system is shut down. They're already in a fight or flight as soon as they wake up. This might look like not being able to focus. They read a page in a book and they want to read, but they're not retaining the information. They have to go back and go back over and over again. They might notice themselves with a lower tolerance in their relationships. They might become a little bit more irritable with things that shouldn't necessarily be super irritating. They might snap with themselves or others. They know they didn't want to, it was just automatic.

It's like their resources are getting tapped because they got pushed towards the excess part. Instead of that happy medium, a happy version or a happy zone of stress might look like, “I'm in the gym. I know the stress is going to make me stronger. It's enough that I’m at my edge, but it's not pushing me over the edge.” It's the stress that allows you to focus on the task at hand, and be so present that you lose track of time. There's a sense of selflessness and it almost feels effortless after you move through that initial stress or that initial friction for that task at hand.

When it comes to managing that excessive stress, let's say someone has a lot on their plate and it's almost overwhelming. There are two things that I like to share. One of them, maybe you've shared with your audience before and this could be a refresher. Another way that people describe this from the literature is panoramic vision.

You open your vision by focusing on a point in the distance. You’re focusing on that one point and dilating your focus so that you see more possibilities. You see more to the right and the left, opening your vision physically. Also, mentally, you're opening your mind to more possibilities, allowing yourself to be even more present. This is a cool tool that they have studied and they are teaching this to those who have been diagnosed with ADHD to help them regain focus during specific moments of high stress or distraction.

It’s like zooming out. Even in negotiations, that's when the issues and the lack of focus are happening. You zoom out and see the bigger picture.

The other one is accessible as well. It can take anywhere from 3 to 10 seconds. Most of us have about 3 to 10 seconds every day, no matter what is going on. This would be two inhales through the nose and one exhale fully and completely through the mouth. What that specifically looks like is taking a deep inhale. At the top of your inhale, you take another inhale, and then you empty out fully and completely, emptying out your lungs entirely.

Some people might need a couple more after that initial one. The average of those physiological sizes tends to be 1 to 3. It will automatically revert or shift the body into that parasympathetic state. The reason for that is those specific neurons are activated which caused alveoli, these cool little almost like bubbles inside of our lungs to expand even more. With that long exhale, it causes the body to take excess carbon dioxide out of the bloodstream and be excreted through the air essentially being able to modulate your state and how you feel. It's utilizing the body to get access to the brain to where you are as far as focus goes, attention, intention and energy as well.

You reminded me of this meditation I'm doing from Dr. Dispenza. Even before the meditation, he does that breathwork that makes you hold the breath on the top for the longest time ever and then you exhale. I'm like, “Are we there yet? Am I going to die?” I love it because that was such a big reminder that we can do it. You don't need one hour to do this. You can do it in a few seconds as Chloe mentioned.

Try those out. Let us know how those support you so that you can be more present with the people around you, and your passions, and therefore change and shift your experience of life as well.

Something that I want to pick your brain on, this is something that I am working with you on, is balancing the doing and being energy. Sometimes I am like, “Let's go.” People think I don't rest, but I do rest. I watch TV every now and then. Sometimes for me, it's hard to tap into that being energy. When I tap fully into that being energy, I lose the momentum of the doing. Maybe energetically, I need to get a lesson here. What are your thoughts in regards to balancing and harmonizing the being and doing, and when to fully embrace being and step back from doing? I'm sure this is an individual thing, but I would love to pick your brain since you're so knowledgeable in this mind-body connection area.

I appreciate that because it's such a big question. I believe that I'm still practicing that as well. When it comes to how each of us is practicing it, it's going to be at different levels. Not to say one is above or below any of that, it's just different levels. When it comes to the being and the doing energy, something I like to share with my clients is to think of the being energy as an energetic signature. Anything that you are doing, how do you want to show up to that? What kind of person do you want to be as you do what you are doing? This is in the middle of the doing. This is the aspect where you can harmonize the two.

While you might be doing a lot, who do you want to be as you're doing that? What kind of emotional energetic signature do you want to bring to those activities? We do have some of those days that are packed with meetings, client sessions or whatever it might be. Setting an intention at the beginning of the day can make a big difference because then you get to get clear on who you are being as you are doing all these things.

The other aspect to that would be as high achievers and growth-oriented people, having white space in your calendar can be so helpful. For example, what this might look like would be scheduling in your Google Calendar white space or if I'm looking to be more creative, I block out time for a little creative cocoon. This means airplane mode is on and there's an intention at the beginning, but there's not so much an agenda. I might want specific questions asked and answered to myself.

For example, the last time, it felt super delicious. I created a creative cocoon for six hours on a Sunday. Airplane mode went on. I jotted down some big questions that I was grappling with. Some things that I knew that at the level of consciousness where I was then I had some ideas, but they weren't landing with me as the answers to these questions. I wanted to be able to create and hold the space for essentially me to have revealed or download those answers for those questions, whether it was, “What kind of course do I want to create? When do I want to create it? Who was it for? How do I want to pivot my business at this certain time that I was doing this creative cocoon?”

What was so neat was I had all these intentions to go through this course. I was putting off creating the course. I read the specific book I was putting off. What I ended up doing was a Dr. Joe Dispenza meditation. It was one of his 90-minute meditations. I sat down, went into meditation and all of the answers dropped into my conscious mind. I didn't need to watch the course, read the book, etc. It was even more vivid and even clearer than I likely could have obtained if I had sat down and had more input coming in from an external source versus tapping into my own clarity, creating the space to listen for my own gut and intuition to be guided by what some might describe as my higher self.

When you're in those activities, it might look like checking in on who I want to be right now. Who am I being right now? Is this in alignment with how I want to be showing up? Is this the energetic signature that I want to leave after I'm complete with this task? Planning ahead, it might look like creating that white space. I remember that same Sunday. I got a text from a friend. “Can you do acupuncture for this? I can't share their name. You're going to have to sign NDA.” I'm like, “Oh my goodness.” I was like, “I'm sorry. I have plans. Can I share a referral with you?”

You have boundaries. You are like, “This is my space right now.”

It's big. The question might serve some of your audience and it's something I keep coming back to. It’s with every yes that we say, what are we also needing to say no to? It was like this was a big yes for myself, but if I said yes to that other opportunity, it could have been cool. It could have been a resume-builder or whatever it might be. This yes that I needed to say was much bigger. It was not so much louder. It was just deeper and it was more resonant too.

It's being able to distinguish that as a practice over and over because I imagine that your audience can think of times when the yes was louder, but it maybe wasn't as resonant. It was more urgent but it wasn't important yes. That would take them maybe faster or in a way that was more in alignment with their values and where they were to where they want to go.

I think that's beautiful. I'm asking you to be honest, these past few years have been crazy. I transitioned from my corporate job to entrepreneurship. Three very close relatives passed away for the first time in my life. It was a shock and then I had a miscarriage. I had a breakthrough session the day of the miscarriage, which I rescheduled until the next day. After that, I had another breakthrough session.

I've been doing and going and I've been feeling this call to go slower, step back, and have this time to tap into that being energy without any hurry of wanting or achieving. That's why I started listening to Dr. Joe Dispenza because I got this call to tap into the energy. Sometimes in entrepreneurship, you get this feeling of pursuing and I feel that I needed to balance that out with being. Sometimes it can be a lot, as I'm sure you know. I appreciate your input here.

It's so interesting that it is the time of late summer right now. In Chinese medicine, there is almost an “extra season” between summer and fall called late summer. Late summer is related to the earth element. There are five elements in Chinese medicine, fire, earth, metal, water and wood. The earth element is about digestion. It is comprised of the spleen and stomach. It's ruling the digestion. Energetically, we can think about how we are digesting and assimilating all the lessons that we've accumulated from the previous season or the previous years.

This is where Chinese medicine theories come to play in our everyday life. When it comes to slowing down seasonally, this is for anyone. Where we are maybe not in Australia right now because they're going into different seasons but with late summer specifically, what lessons are we needing to digest? Remembering that we are in this infinitely intelligent body. I say that as a means of, “When I get this lesson, by this time I'm going to do this versus I'm open to listening and not being on anyone else's agenda, but my own and my body's agenda.” Because it's picking up more signals than we can perceive consciously. With that call to slow down and whatever that looks like for each of us, it's that courage truly in a go-go-go world.

Baggage does not promote wholeness. It is not positive learning. On the other hand, intuition is about keeping you safe emotionally, mentally, and physically.

If you slow down, it makes the biggest difference because it's truly radical to say, “Can we push this meeting back? I need some time to be right now. A lot is going on right now and I got to trust my gut.” More and more as we get to lean in that way, it will normalize that kind of conversation. We’d be able to support each other and be able to make decisions from a place of alignment and from a place of, “I'm listening to my authority, my center right now. By me doing so, it's super cool because I know when you do that, I'm going to respect that even more so too.”

That's so beautiful and such a great reminder that everyone needs to listen at this moment. I want to be respectful of your time. I wanted to check in. What about being energized? I have so many clients that wished to wake up energized and go through the day tapping into this energy. As we know, energy cannot be created or destroyed. It is transformed. I see this all the time in my coaching sessions. Sometimes I may not be super energized, but when I leave I'm like, “I love what I do. I love life.” What are some practices or foods? What are some things that we can all do to be more energized?

When it comes to some lifestyle shifts that maybe someone can implement straight away, you or maybe some of your audience have already heard of the Pomodoro technique. You're working anywhere from 45 minutes to maybe 90 minutes. If this is new to you, I highly recommend starting in about 45 minutes because it's 45 minutes of focus work and anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes of a break. Our brain goes into more of a hypnotic trance after 90 minutes. Ninety minutes is the most ideal for the long-term work/focus segment.

When it comes to that, a way to take this to the next level would be during that break to move/change your physical position. If you can imagine someone is at their desk, maybe they're on Zoom and they did their 40 minutes. Maybe they did their 90 minutes. It's getting up out of that position and doing something else. The bonus point is if you go outside and allowed the sun to lob into your eyes, ground or whatever it is. Allowing yourself to shift physical positions so that not only your mind, but your body gets rest.

Some people like to even do even two minutes of closing their eyes and allowing themselves to give a suggestion to their mind, “I want to integrate all the lessons, all the skills, and everything that I did. I want to release any stress or any energy from this task, and before going into the next task, set a new intention. That way it prevents the buildup of anything from task to task. Getting it built up so at the end of the day, instead of clearing the last task, the energy from that, anything you took on, you're only clearing the last 90 minutes or the last couple of hours versus the last eight hours of work.

Having those clearing and then setting your intention tasks could take a couple of minutes, but it is a game changer. Moving your body and resetting the intention for each task on the physical aspect as well. Something I like to emphasize is the importance of ensuring that you are getting enough physical resources. What that looks like is are you eating enough protein to sustain your lifestyle?

Most people are surprised to see how much protein they are not eating when they start tracking this. With clients, I have them start off just for a week. No changes. Just track how much protein they are consuming. Protein would be from ideally whole food sources and many of them are surprised to see that maybe it's anywhere from 40 to 60 grams. Yes, protein is so important for building and repairing our muscles and tissues. It's also important for our immune system. If we look at the marker, if I were to run a stool test, for example, for a client and look at their secretory IgA marker. IgA stands for secretory immunoglobulin, which is a protein.

Our immune system is built on proteins. We need those resources to have that resiliency physically as well. That's going to be important and if someone is more active and they are an entrepreneur, I'm going to ask them to make sure that this is there. Whether that looks like smaller meals throughout the day, every 4 to 6 hours, if they aren't someone who wants to eat a lot for three meals, maybe it looks like 4 or 5 meals so that they are hitting their protein count. That might look like on average, about a gram of protein for every pound of lean muscle mass. You could round up because the scale doesn't always give you the full story so you aren't sure exactly how much muscle mass.

It's your muscle mass and not your whole body weight.

On average, this might be anywhere from 70 to 100 grams of protein per day for the average person. Most people feel and notice the shifts when they start to increase their protein. They might even notice their appetite for other things like carbohydrates, which is super-duper important, especially for high-performing entrepreneurs and business owners. Their appetite for the more starchy stuff might decrease because the increase in theirs is tiny at each meal. There's something called a protein synthesis theory. It is essentially this theory that we will continue to eat until our protein needs are met, which is why many people overeat because we're not eating enough protein.

The protein aspect is a huge one and the other aspect with that would be the other macronutrient, which would be carbohydrates which are so important. It's our fastest source of glucose or energy for our brain specifically. For example, I was having this conversation with a student at the Trainers Training for NLP. He was out of it. I was like, “When was your last meal?” He's like, “It was a while ago and I'm doing keto.” I was like, “Maybe for this training, would you be open to experimenting with having carbs more often so that you have that quick hit of energy for your brain?”

Specifically, pair it with fiber, fat or protein so it's not only the carb by itself to balance the blood sugar levels, but pair it with something so that your brain, as we're soaking up all of this content, we're doing a lot of learning. We're doing a lot of processing creativity-wise. Especially in those conference situations, having protein and carbohydrates is going to be so helpful for sustaining energy so that you can get the most out of your training, so you can learn and perform better, and be present with everyone else around you.

I have the last question and then we are going into the rapid-fire question. I did an episode on this topic and it's one that I'm super passionate about. I would love to get your perspective on this. How do you distinguish between intuition and baggage? Think about it and brainstorm and see each other's perspectives. We are nerds. We love talking about these things, but I think it's beneficial for everyone else.

Let's talk through this conversation. It's an important one and when I think about emotional baggage, I think about how when our responses to the situation or the event are proportionate to what's happening, it's going to be emotional baggage. There's something else deeper going on and something else to resolve so that we can respond appropriately. It's not to say that no one will experience grief, anger and sadness in the future. It's a matter of whether it is experiencing grief, anger or sadness for this event. A lot of the previous other events where the emotions weren't resolved, weren't processed, especially if emotions are energy in motion.

When it comes to that, the tangible example that comes to mind would be something that happens and then you hear a voice in your head that's not so ecological. It's not promoting wholeness. It's not from a place of congruency in alignment with your values. It might be like, “I should never try anything new because I'm bad at everything.” That's not your intuition. That's baggage and it’s very extreme. It's not promoting wholeness. It's not positive guidance for yourself and the future/present at hand. The intuition is going to be more positive. It's going to be about keeping yourself safe, whether that's safe emotionally, mentally or physically.

Your intuition might sound more so like guidance. I was going to say a guidance grandmother idea. It's something that's going to have more reverence and more rapport with you. Depending on what the baggage is, it might seem like the baggage is more important than where you're at. Is it positive? Is it guiding yourself to a result that wouldn't be ecological and good for yourself, for others and the collective? Is it something that's maybe only good for yourself or maybe only good for someone else and not even yourself?

That’s exactly what I mentioned in the episode. I also mentioned that intuition all of the time is out of love. Something that you want to move towards, and baggage is more out of fear and scarcity. It is usually moving away from. What I can think of was a few years back, I was not enjoying the work I was having. I honestly tried to leave and transition into entrepreneurship and that didn't work out. My motivation was that I hated this. I wanted to leave this place. Not because I had a bigger vision or something that I was working towards. I didn't even have a plan.

When I transitioned voluntarily, I loved the corporate job that I had. I loved the community, but it was more of an aspiration. It’s something that I loved and I was working toward. As we conclude, we are going to do rapid-fire questions. You are going to tell everyone how to contact you if they're interested. I know you finished your Quit Smoking Training so you can give a little blurb about it. I know you're working on that. I think that would be super meaningful. Are you ready? What's your favorite book?

One of my most recommended books and one that came to mind because I shared about it in my newsletter was The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. I read it about 1 to 2 times a year as a check-in. It describes four different zones and I'll describe two of the zones that have been a topic of conversation. There's the zone of excellence and the zone of genius. The zone of genius is where you thrive. This is what could be where someone feels their best. They're performing their best. It's like they're living and expressing their purpose and their most authentic self.

The zone of excellence is where they're doing great work. It’s tricky in a way where it can be very seductive because they're good at what they're doing, yet there's something missing, whether it's the fulfillment or a sense of purpose. They know there's a little bit of a gap there and The Big Leap is from your zone of excellence to the zone of genius.

That's so meaningful and that's exactly what we are doing here in this show. I need to read this book. I am a book lover and a nerd. I'm going to check it out. Describe yourself in one word. The first one that comes to mind.

The first one that comes to mind is resilient.

What is your favorite part of being an entrepreneur?

In this day and age, we must always keep what's important, important.

My favorite part about being an entrepreneur is the opportunity to contribute in a way that feels good and it's a win-win-win situation. It’s like what we mentioned before. It is creating clarity on who I want to work with, how I could help them with the specific problems or obstacles they're facing, and how I want to do that. It’s embracing entrepreneurship in a creative, fulfilling and fun way.

What is the most challenging part?

The most challenging part would be how it also gets to be a mirror of where our next opportunity for growth is.

Our last question is what is the best piece of advice someone has ever given to you?

In this day and age, as entrepreneurs, as partners, as friends or whatever it may be, it's keeping what's important important. As many of your audience know, you also talk about values. Being able to live in a way that is in alignment with our values can be the difference that makes the difference.

That’s beautiful. I'm so happy that we got to talk and catch up. We are sharing this with our communities. We are going to create so much value because you have an immense wealth of knowledge, experience and information. I'm sure everyone is going to enjoy this episode. Thank you so much for joining Dr. Chloe. How can our audience reach out to you and find you? Tell us all of your information.

Thank you so much for this opportunity. It's always such a joy to connect with you and chat with you. I always learn from you as well. I love helping entrepreneurs and business owners to end patterns of self-sabotage or burnout like smoking or things like insomnia or those silly stories of I'm never good enough. I’m doing this to help them experience more peak performance.

I'm most active on Instagram. I'm @Dr.ChloeHom on Instagram. My website is ChloeHom.com. There's more information on all my offerings. I love chatting with others on Instagram. Screenshot this episode and send us both a hello. I would love to hear more about what you've learned and how each of us could contribute as well. Thank you so much for having me on here. It's always a joy to share time and space with you, Yanet.

Thank you so much, Dr. Chloe. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. We'll see you again on another episode of the show. See you soon. Bye-bye.

Important Links

• Dr. Chloe Bañales
• Integrative NLP Coaching
• The Big Leap
• @Dr.ChloeHom - Instagram
• https://Calendly.com/yanetbcoaching/clarity-call
• Clarity Booster - 3 Questions Framework (ybcoaching.com
• https://www.YBCoaching.com/wellness5minsroutine
• https://www.Facebook.com/yanetbcoachinghttps://www.instagram.com/yanetbcoaching/
• https://www.Instagram.com/yanetbcoaching/
• https://www.LinkedIn.com/company/yanet-borrego-coaching/?viewAsMember=true
• https://www.YouTube.com/channel/UCqxL829o0Vk-QdY12F-GgMw

About Dr. Chloe Hom Bañales

As a Doctor of Chinese Medicine, Peak Performance Coach, and Trainer of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), Dr. Chloé is the founder of Ascended Alchemy – dedicated to supporting purpose-driven leaders in embodying their next level of health and performance.

With years of clinical experience focused on how our mental and emotional health manifests through our physical body (and vice versa), Dr. Chloé’s work is dedicated to helping clients connect the strength of their mind to the wisdom of their body so that they can finally end patterns of burnout and feel empowered in their health journey.

When she is working with clients online and in person, Dr. Chloé incorporates Chinese Medicine, Esoteric Acupuncture, NLP, Mental Emotional Release®, Hypnosis, Human Design, Gene Keys, and “Quit Smoking in 60 minutes” sessions to assist her clients’ healing process at the spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical levels.