 and welcome to Taking Your Health Back on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Wendy Lo. Today on my show, we have Theo Sam, a U.S. combat veteran and PTSD survivor. The title of our talk today is The Triad of Transformation, Healing from Trauma. Today, I would like you to meet a combat veteran and a PTSD survivor who overcame his battle with the invisible wounds of war. What I would like you to take away from today's inspirational talk would be that you too can heal your mind, your body, and your soul from trauma with a triad of transformation. So let's give our aloha and mahalo to Theo Sam. Welcome Theo. Thank you, thanks Greg to be here, Ms. Wendy. Yes, so let's get started. Theo, please share with us a little bit about yourself and your background. Okay, so I'm a U.S. Army veteran and a current federal special agent with the U.S. Department of Defense. I have a top secret security clearance that's higher than the clouds. So what does that mean? That means I know whether or not we really went to the moon. What really crashed at Roswell? Who really shot JFK? Is Bigfoot real? And does the government have a time travel machine? Okay, I'm joking, but seriously though. Wow, you're a guy, you can watch it. Seriously though, I've been in every hotspot around the world since 1990, including Iraq and Afghanistan. I enjoyed serving with some of the finest warriors on the planet because warriors specialize in the art of war. However, let me make one thing perfectly clear, true warriors never pray for war, but that's our business. And therefore that's our place of duty when it, you know, regrettably erupts. And once called upon, warriors are not there to negotiate. They are there to employ violence as a means to an end. And that in and of itself implies a very certain mindset found in very few occupations. Sometimes I'm not sure civilians realize, Wendy, that combat really is a scary thing, unlike the movies or TV or video games. And all those scary combat makes you feel alive, but make no mistake, any innocence that you may have had prior to combat, that shatters into tiny pieces. A minute you first engage an enemy who is literally trying to kill you. And the worst part about combat really is seeing your brother's fall. Is, you know, contrast that with the fact you survive and you have a recipe for internal conflict, right? To this day, I'm tormented by hindsight. If only I had seen him get hit earlier. You know, if only I'd gotten to him quicker. If only I'd done something, anything different. See the camaraderie that's inherent to brothers and arms, it's the purest form, Wendy. And one we spend the rest of our life searching for, but we never quite find it again. Wow. You know, just hearing you speak about it and from your heart, I really feel impacted. And of course it's not even nearly what you experienced. So I wanna ask you, how did that affect you when you returned home from war? Oh, when I returned from combat, I was diagnosed with PTSD, right? But I flat out rejected the diagnosis. Like I rolled my eyes at the doctor and I said, I basically told him, hey, look, you've got the wrong guy. Because see, in my world back then PTSD, I thought was a sign of weakness. It simply meant I needed to cowboy up to suck it up and drive on. So I didn't tell a soul about what the doctor had told me. I didn't tell my wife, my kids, my parents. I mean, what would they think anyway? What would they say? They can't possibly understand. So here I am back in the world now living with my secret PTSD. And it was then I quickly realized that people cared more about cell phones and barbecues and fancy cars and parties and all games. And I no longer cared about those things. It really changed who I was, Wendy. Well, of course, if it didn't change someone, I couldn't understand that. But of course I would understand that it would change you in a very negative way. So your wife, did she notice something was different in you when you returned? Oh, yes. My wife took notice. My PTSD became increasingly worse. I was in a very dark place in my life. I mean, the nightmares, waking up in the middle of the night, out of breath, terrified. And she learned real quick not to touch me when I'm freaking out like that, right? Cause I almost hurt her at one time. Being in crowded places and having a panic attack, hearing that one sound that instantly takes you back to that hell that you endured. Anger issues, alcohol issues, relationship issues. All of it, Wendy, came to a head in October of 2015 when my wife said to me, hey, look, you're not the man I married. And I'm not sure I can live with you anymore. And that was a slap in the face. It was a wake up call for sure. And it did cause me to look in the mirror. And I didn't like what I saw, but I didn't know how to fix it, Wendy. Because I didn't understand what was going on in my brain. So then just a few years ago, I took a pistol and I placed it in my mouth. And Wendy, I came that close to pulling the trigger. I had it all planned out from the clothes I was wearing to the fact I would do it in a hotel. So my family didn't have to live in the place where I did it. And I also wrote a suicide note, apologizing to my wife and kids for not being strong. I was literally, I air squeeze on the trigger from just ending it, but I couldn't do it. And then, Ken, I was angry because I couldn't do it. And I knew that God placed my kids on my mind. And I saw the future where they would be just sad and confused and probably leading to their own dysfunction. So even though I couldn't do it in that moment though, when the enemy continued to whisper in my ear that I should do it, like for months. Well, that had to have been so very hard. I mean, just hearing it, I can feel the pain that you and I know your family must have been feeling it along your side as well. So suicide by our nation's heroes is a big problem because it happens daily and unnoticed. What have you learned in your journey about trauma and mental health? Well, I learned that there's three essential ingredients to being able to overcome trauma and to really flourish. So the importance of whole food nutrition to your body, particularly the brain, right? The power of a community, which is often underestimated and the importance of spirituality in your life that's also underestimated and it's often neglected. So as you can see, it's all about improving your physical, mental and spiritual health, right? I call this the triad of transformation. I will also have a small giveaway for y'all a little bit later on. So when we're stressed, okay, crack with me now guys, I'm gonna get a little scientific on you here per sec. So when we're stressed, signals from the hypothalamus reach the pitulatory gland, right? Which in turn tells the outer part or the cortex of our adrenal glands to secrete cortisol and other stress hormones. Cortisol helps us retain water. It raises our blood pressure. And guess what, it mobilizes sugar from ourselves, activating and nourishing us, stimulating our mental functioning, right? But high levels of cortisol, they destroy cells in the hippocampus. That's the part of our emotional brain that's crucial to memory and the regulation of stress. So it can also diminish our immune response. And over time, the adrenal gland of like chronically traumatized people, it may seem exhausted, unable to mobilize the appropriate response to new stress. You see how that's a problem? So also the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is a, it's the fuel good energizer that initially went up in response to the traumatic event. Well, that now declines as does the level of serotonin, which is, you know, a calming to calming. It's the calming drug, right? So all of the biological changes that stress bring, they can last a very long time for the duration of a war, for example, while being in an abusive relationship, coping with an ominous medical diagnosis and it's painful treatment, you see? And these responses, guess what? They can persist even when the actual trauma is long over. See, our brain may replay traumatic memories over and over again. And these memories can affect us, guess what? Just as profoundly as the original trauma and they can significantly prolong and compound its physical and emotional damage. So we may find ourselves chained to our past, you see? Repeating the stress or trauma forever. And for me, that's about when I began to feel that death was the only option. See, because isolation usually sets in by this time and isolation only deepens the biological and the psychological damage. And that can lead to heart disease, diabetes, immune disorders, cancer, alcoholism, all that stuff, all that bad stuff. And that's, guys, that's why we cannot allow ourselves to be isolated in this COVID restricted environment either. That's just simply not healthy. I was so unhealthy, Wendy. I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, just to name a few, but lucky for me, my wife had partnered with this company called the Juice Plus Company. And she convinced me to start taking the capsules that they sold. A salad in a capsule is how she described them, right? Nothing but plant powders from fruits, veggies, and berries. And so I did it, I took them. And my doctor was so impressed with my blood work. When I went to see him, that he told me, whatever you're doing, keep doing it. So I did and I realized I suddenly had more energy. So I started going for walks in my neighborhood. I wasn't at couch potato anymore. And then that led to me going into the gym. I got back into the gym. And guys, eight months later, I came off of all prescription medications for those illnesses. And I had lost almost 40 pounds. Give it up for plant powders, right? Yeah. I'm sure when you started eating those plant powders, it must have triggered something in your body, your own medicine chest in your body. And I bet you just started craving, even wanting to be more and more healthy and eating more and more healthy. Oh, is that correct? Yeah, that's absolutely correct. That what do they call it a metabolic reprogramming or something like that? Yeah, it does. It just changes. Wow. Well, your wife truly loves you and was just looking and searching for anything to bring her husband back. And thank you, Lord. And she found by eating his food and helping your body to get the right nourishment that it needed. What a blessing for you both, for your family, your marriage and everything else. Oh, absolutely. I'm so grateful. I'm so happy for you, Theo. So all of that is so fascinating, Theo. So I understand you mentioned you have something for our audience. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. So I know I threw out a lot of technical verbiage there about the brain, but it's really not that complicated. But nevertheless, I wanna give you a free reference to sort of help summarize some of this for you. So you have it for reference because it's so important. And when people understand what's going on in the brain, they stop blaming themselves or they stop blaming all those things that have nothing to do with what's going on. So just text the word transform to the number that you see there, 830-255-7405. And I'm gonna send you a reference that might come in handy for you or someone that you care about, right? You might be watching this in this one. You know, these things may not apply to you. Maybe you're mentally healthy, but maybe you know someone who's not. So this reference that I'm gonna give you is derived from a book that I read called the transformation, discovering wholeness and healing after trauma. It's written by a guy named James S. Gordon M.D. So even if you're watching the recording of this later on, you can still text that word and you'll still get the reference. Wow, I had it right fast. And like he said, if you need a reference, then please re-watch this video and you'll get all the information and take your time and make sure you get it correct. So well, thank you for that. You came through and then just are helping us with even more treasures. So thank you Theo for that. And I know that you often post on your social media about your tribe as you like to call them. How was or how has your tribe helped you on your healing journey? Oh boy, I tell you. So the tribe is the second part of the triad, right behind whole food nutrition and exercise, right? See, one of the things that happened when I came into this community was my nightmares began subsiding, my anger issues improved, my general mental state was getting much better. So this is when I realized the importance of community. For me, the community of Juice Plus, the individual distributors are some of the most amazing people on the planet. They're loving, caring, positive, encouraging ways. They were a godsend to me dealing with mental health issues. And you see Wendy from the beginning of creation, being alone was never the plan. Communities having meaningful relationships where we do life together by sharing, encouraging, serving, forgiving, and for me, chasing faithfully after God, right? Right. Community is where we can be our true selves with others. It's our safe place, right? It's our safe place where we can share our greatest accomplishments and joys, but as well as our darkest moments and failures. It's where we show up in each other's lives for the magnificent and the mundane, right? It's knowing and being known deeply. It's fighting the good fight and helping those around you fight it as well. So shortly after I embarked on my healing journey, I began attending wellness events with my Juice Plus truck. And let me tell you, their positivity was just contagious. I couldn't get enough into this day and I attend all types of events with my truck, whether it's a salad and a jar party and overnight oats party, kombucha one-on-one class, but it's not just wellness events either, Wendy. It's not just wellness events. We also join forces to go hand out food to veterans, to stuff stockings and send them to our active duty peeps overseas and to raise money for different causes. It doesn't matter to me what it is as long as I get to do it with my truck. Right. They have inspired me to serve in a variety of capacities. So for example, I organized a 5K to raise money for veterans battling PTSD. And with the help of my tribe, and we've been doing this every year since, last year was a virtual event because of COVID, but we still raised thousands of dollars. I co-founded a nonprofit with a member of my tribe designed to help Christian missionaries around the world with information and liaison services. I began working with the prison ministry in my church and then I became the director of safety at my church. And of course I became a staunch advocate for Juice Plus because I believe in the power of nutrition. I've seen what it's done for me and I wanna inspire healthy living around the world. I know if it helped me, it can help anyone. And whether or not you believe in God, Acts two of the Bible describes an awesome community. They ate together, prayed together. They had a great time together. Most days were filled with all in wonder by how God was moving in their midst. Generosity coursed through their veins as they shared all that they had with whomever was in need. They spent time every day together and worshiped God with other hearts. And every single day they welcomed new people into the faith. Now that's how to have community, right? Our busy lives, they may not allow us to have community as often as what the Bible depicts, but we can definitely experience all the same things they did and we should. We were never meant to fly solo on this earth. What does it look like for you doing life together? It can look like this, sharing a meal. Simple, working out together, pitching in financially to meet the need of a family, attending a sports activity of a friend's child, right? Sending an encouraging text to a friend after a hard day, what an awesome gesture, right? Offering a much needed hug to a devastated friend. Sometimes that's all they need. Their love languages touch, right? Traveling together, laughing so hard together until we cry, celebrating holidays together, showing up at the ER when a friend has an emergency, or just even just throwing a wedding shower for your friend's daughter, right? It's all of those things and more. And once we have our community, we can't walk away when things get uncomfortable or inconvenient, right? Because it will get that way, right? At some point, the community pushes through the adversity and hardship. Community stays the course and believes the best. What I love about our village is that we can share honestly. Many of us probably have friends, right? I'm gonna go out on a limb, but we often don't get very real in those friendships. We keep people at an arm's length because we don't want them to see the real us. The parts of us that are still ugly need a little bit of work because if they saw who we really are, they might disappear from our lives. Well, here's some truth for us, guys. Guess what? We all have issues. We all have issues. It's imperative we find that group with whom we can be honest with. That's the essence of our Juice Plus community, so I love them so much. So today, I know I can depend on my Juice Plus tribe to be there for me when I need them. My village has been key to my healing. They've been there in more ways than I can count to encourage me, to listen to me, to love on me unconditionally, and they have never, ever judged me, not for one second. Four days after I had a gun in my mouth, a member of this Juice Plus tribe invited me to church. Me, this dark, depressed, broken man, I would anyone want to invite me to their church, but she did, and I believe she did so because she was being obedient to God. She was calling. Another member of my tribe, Wendy, encouraged me to continue to verbalize my trauma because she knew there's healing in that. Another member sent me a DVD she thought would help me with my trauma all the way from Colorado. Without me asking, another one came up to me immediately after I first said and shared with them that I was dealing with PTSD and simply gave me a hug. A hug, I will never forget how it made me feel. I was struggling with demons inside. People, the power of one person can be amazing, but the power of a village, that's epic. Epic, oh, well in Hawaii, we have tribes that we call them Ohana, which means family. And so I truly can relate to that because we depend on our Ohana to get us through the ups and downs, especially of what we've been through in the last year. So while I feel, I think we all need a village or a tribe, like you call it. So you said that there were three things that helped you heal. Tell me about the third one now. Okay, spirituality. You see, for me, this is what turned it all around for good. I mean, permanently. Remember I told you how I was invited to church I ended up going. I figured I'd go see what they're telling the sheep these days, right? Because I didn't believe in God when she invited me. I didn't believe in God. So I went there to mock people, you know? How terrible does that sound? But I figured, I'm gonna just go check it out. And then when I got there, I sat in the far back left corner of the church. And it says, if the pastor knew I was in the crowd, because he started talking about guilt and shame, about believing we're not worthy of heaven. Wendy, these were all the things that I'd been dealing with. It was crazy. And I sat there in the far back left, right? And I just, I started to cry. And I mean that uncontrollable crying, right? That embarrassing uncontrollable crying. And I couldn't stop. And it just, it was everything that I had been dealing with just came to the surface, right? And then I was mad at myself because I started, you know, I was sitting there crying in public, right? Cause I'm a man, we shouldn't do that, right? Oh man. And then after the service was over, the lady who invited me, her name was Rachel. She saw me from the other side of the church and I see her coming over towards me. And she came up to me and she said, hey, you came to church. And I was like, yeah, you know, she didn't know what I was dealing with. She didn't know that I wasn't a believer, you know? And she asked me what I thought about the service. And I told her, I enjoyed it and I'd probably be back. And then Wendy, I went home, I went into my walk-in closet. I fell to my knees and I said, okay, God, I'm back. Tell me what to do. Because I don't know how to do this. I need help. I need you. And on one January, 2017, in the presence of my wife, parents, Rachel, other members of my tribe, I was baptized. You see, spirituality gives us a sense of peace and calm, even a sense of balance among the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of our life. Many spiritual traditions encourage, you know, participation in a community of like-minded people, spiritual fellowship, right? Which is attending church or a meditation group. They can all be sources of social support, which may provide a sense of belonging, security and community. It's important, strong relationships have been proven to increase well-being and bolster life expectancy even. Which is perhaps why one study found a strong association between church attendance and improved health, mood and well-being. So don't get me wrong, you know, I wanna paint the wrong picture, don't get me wrong. After I was saved, it wasn't like I lived happily ever after. No, but I have lived peacefully ever since. There's still struggle in my life, but spirituality helps you find meaning in your day-to-day struggle in your painful experiences, right? It also helps to realize and understand that failure is just a part of our human experience on this earth and that we're not alone, remember that. We're not alone in our struggle. Well, first of all, a shout out to Rachel for extending a hand in your time of need. And I'm sure you're not the first and I'm sure you're not gonna be the last, but we all need a Rachel in our life who would just be bold enough to see the hurt and the pain and just offer them a hand. And it's the Lord's hand that will continue to heal you. So thank you to Rachel. And again, how many of us feel what you felt and what you were going through when they first come to a church and they feel guilty and they feel like, oh no, he sees me and oh no, he knows how I'm feeling and oh no, this whole sermon is about me. And it happens to us all at one point or another when we're ready to hear it. So thank the Lord that you are there ever present and ready to receive a touch of healing. So congratulations to you for being so obedient I should say and for being so obedient to carry out the message of what you were purposed for and that is not to just receive it and experience it but for you to go out and share it. And I know you're one busy, busy man that goes all over the nation sharing. So hats off to you and kudos to you and continue doing this. That was an incredible story Theo and I just so grateful that you're sharing all of these insights with us. Is there anything else you would like to share with us before we start to close? Well, just remember for all your viewers out there the trite of transformation includes whole food nutrition and getting up and moving. That's how you start to counter the effects that stress, trauma, anxiety, depression have had on your body. For me, it was juice plus that helped. But whatever you choose make sure it, number one, it makes it easy for you to flood your body with the nutrition from a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and berries that has an NSF certification. Okay, that's important. That way you can be confident what they say is in their product is actually the truth. So find yourself a village of like-minded people to do life with. We're not meant to do life alone, remember that? Let them love you unconditionally. Men, let them love you unconditionally and encourage you always. Okay, together with your village you too can embark on a mission to start a revolution of grace in one life at a time. And finally, do yourself a favor. I've been to some form of spirituality. This is what brings the trite of transformation together and finds it for good. Okay, for me, it was Jesus who set me on a path that brought me right here, right now, in this moment. As your hope dealer, I am found people who find people. I am saved people who serve people. I am changed people who change people. And if I am, you can be too. Why? Because this issue is just that important. So why not you? Why not you? You know, I wanna speak in one question. I wanna just really quickly touch upon how has COVID impacted the vets that you are working with daily? Oh, Wendy, it's impacted them tremendously. I mean, I work with Project Healing Heroes. I'm a small group facilitator there. We have a Thursday night meeting on Zoom, that's called Make the Connection. And it's called Make the Connection for a reason because we have found that it's so important for people not to be isolated. And this COVID environment has just wreaked havoc on our veterans who are dealing with PTSD, further isolating them on the help that they need. You know, the devil's just having a field day with COVID. So we're trying to break that paradigm. We're trying to serve those veterans who need the help, not just veterans, first responders, even spouses of people dealing with PTSD have come into the group. So that's what we're doing to help them out. Wow, amazing. So this is Theo's website where you can go to, and from there you can also connect to his social media accounts, his Facebook page, and it's full of great information related to brain health, nutrition, and even trauma. So please, please check it out. Once again, Theo, mahalo for serving your country, our country, and mahalo for fighting this battle of invisible wounds of war. So right now we don't have to say goodbye for now. You've been watching Taking Your Health Back on Think Tech of Hawaii. Today we've been visiting with Theo, Sam, US Combat Veteran, and PTSD survivor. Thanks for participating Theo, and mahalo to all of our viewers for watching. I'm Wendy Lo. We'll be back in two weeks with another edition of Taking Your Health Back. Mahalo Theo and Aloha.