Jan. 28, 2025

Unlocking Your Brain Tips from a Certified Brain Coach

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In this enlightening episode of the Living the Dream podcast, host Curveball sits down with certified brain coach and neuroencoding specialist, Domenica Staniewicz. Together, they explore the transformative power of neuroscience in rewiring the brain to overcome challenges such as anxiety, depression, and trauma. Domenica shares her personal journey and the revolutionary techniques she employs to help others reclaim their joy and clarity in life. Tune in to discover practical tips for optimizing your brain health, the importance of sleep, nutrition, and the right environment, as well as insights on how to take small, manageable steps towards achieving your goals.
Want to be a guest on Living the Dream with Curveball? Send Curtis Jackson a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1628631536976x919760049303001600

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome, um, to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. If you believe you can achieve cheap.

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> Domenica>Cheap.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today, I am joined by certified brain coach and neuroencoding specialist Domenica. Domenica has faced a lot of challenges in her life, including loss, grief, abusive relationships. But she's been able to bounce back. So we're gonna be talking to her about what a brain coach is and what she does and how she is helping make the world a better place. So, Domenica, thank you so much for joining me.

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> Curtis Jackson>Well, thank you so much for having me.

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> Domenica>It's absolute pleasure.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

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> Curtis Jackson>Absolutely. So, as you said, I'm a brain coach and an elite neuron coding specialist.

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> Curtis Jackson>And what it is, it's using neuroscience to rewire your brain permanently to the default behaviors that you want, so you don't experience trauma, so you don't experience memories from the past that are hunting you, so you don't freeze, so you don't experience anxiety, so you can get out of depression within weeks or days instead of months, so you can actually enjoy life, notice beautiful things and feel joy on daily basis. And those two things combined, one is a technique, one is science, are absolutely revolutionary.

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> Domenica>And they do not use medication, but.

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> Curtis Jackson>We do use blood work and other things. And it works for individuals as well as companies.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>You also are a certified brain coach and neuroencoding specialist. So explain to listeners what that is, what that means, and how you got those certifications.

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> Curtis Jackson>Absolutely. So a brain coach is a person, as I said, who does neuroscience. And we use brain knowledge about the brain based on studies and medicine. And because we understand what the brain does, we understand how information is connected in the brain, how it's wired, and we can change that for you so you don't experience anxiety, ptsd, depression, and other things. And when it comes to neuron coding, these are techniques that use neuroscience. They're practical exercises that we do of our clients.

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> Curtis Jackson>So, again, those things can be eliminated and you can default to your best behavior so you can achieve better results in sports, so you can choose better life partners, so you can have more clarity in your life. All, uh, of those things are based in neuroscience. And how do I get those certifications? So Amen University is run by Dr. Daniel Amen, double board certified neuropsychiatrist. And he created, um, a course that is extremely long, nine months and quite intensive and then you have follow up education and you learn about the brain and different networks and different parts of the brain and how do you coach using that knowledge. So you create a healthy brain. And Neuron Coding Institute was created by Dr. Joseph McClendon the third, who is a business partner of Tony Robbins about six years. And he is absolutely a phenomenal human being. And at the Neur Coding Institute he created neuron coding and that's his method using body brain connection to again work with people who are experiencing imposter syndrome, depression, self doubt, self loathing, overwhelm, all of those things. And um, Joseph McLendon is a PhD and he's a neuropsychologist and he's another great gentleman that trained me. And now for both of these gentlemen, I have a privilege of teaching others these methods and future coaches so they can go out and change the world as well.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All, uh, right. Well can you give us best practice tips on how to optimize our brains to live the life that we want?

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> Curtis Jackson>Well, that's a great question. And first thing, I'm going to be very boring. I'm going to say sleep.

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> Curtis Jackson>Uh, if you don't sleep enough, brain.

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> Domenica>Is unable to clear itself and fix itself, um, per se, cannot get rid of things that it doesn't need. And sleep is absolutely crucial because that's when you form memories. That's where you form, um, new neural pathways, so new behaviors, new beliefs are formed in your sleep because that's when the brain starts processing all the information that it gathered. So that would be number one. Number two, to optimize your brain you need to have the right fuel. And the right fuel can be measured by blood work.

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> Domenica>So there are certain things you need to look at and that comes through food, what you eat is how your brain functions. And number three, I would say definitely choosing who you surround yourself with and what you focus on.

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> Domenica>Because the impulses and your life around you, if you keep experiencing the same thing, it will create without your even taking part in it, a belief and behavior because that's what you see and you believe them to be normal. So who you choose to spend your time with will impact your brain health and how you see the world. If you're around people who are always angry, or around people who are always frustrated or feel oppressed, or around people who are, um, let's say always complaining, this will influence how you see the world. There's no way of protecting yourself outside of taking yourself out of environment. And your environment is also music and things you watch and the news that you watch. I don't watch news at all. I read, um, short debriefs every day, what's happening in the world, but I don't watch the news. And there's a reason for that.

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> Domenica>News is based on tragedy, fear, and scaring us and presenting information.

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> Domenica>So they create emotions that are very impactful. But if you keep doing that to yourself, your brain will rewire itself and yourself start living in fear.

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> Domenica>So when it comes to basic things that I can tell you that are super important, those three things would be absolutely my key takeaways. What you eat, who you surround yourself with, and the sleep all.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Uh, right. Well, can you give us the definition of neural recording?

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> Domenica>The definition of neuron coding is the.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>I said it wrong. Sorry about that.

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> Domenica>That's okay. That's okay.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>It's.

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> Domenica>It's a new word created by Joseph. So, you know, most people never heard that word. So neuron coding is a, uh, technique which connects neuroscience, brain and your body to rewire your brain so you can default to your best behavior. That's the definition.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, the next question I have is, you know, a lot of listeners having anxiety, Right. And, you know, especially with everything going on, like you talked about the news, what's some best practice tips that you can give us to, you know, kind of help us either get rid of or lessen our anxieties?

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> Domenica>Absolutely. So anxiety is one of the predominant things I work with. And the good news is it takes about three months to get rid of it. So. And it doesn't require medication 90% of the time. First thing, when it comes to anxiety, we first need to recognize what triggers that. Second of all, interrupt the pattern in your brain. Now, before we go to any techniques, you will need to go and get your blood work done, because if you don't have enough iron, magnesium and ferritin in your blood, you will experience more anxiety or you will experience anxiety, period. It can be connected and heightened by lack of those things in your blood or not enough. It's not good enough. To be in the norm, you have to be optimum. And optimum is halfway up and halfway end up.

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> Domenica>Right? So it's magnesium, potassium, ferritin and iron. And if you don't have enough of them in your blood work and your bloodstream, your brain doesn't have the building blocks to stop anxiety. So that's the simplest thing you can do and you can tend. Then if you don't have enough of it, change it with a diet, or you can change it with supplements. That's up to you, of course. Always talk to your physician, because not everybody can take iron or magnesium. So make sure you speak with your physician. But those things are absolutely connected to you experiencing anxiety.

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> Domenica>Now, if that is all, okay, the next step is your brain, right? Because your brain creates anxiety. You don't create anxiety. You are the receiver of anxiety that your brain created. So one of the first things that we will do is we will learn how to prevent from escalating. And we use a stop technique for that. And I'm not going to teach you that over, um, the communication that we have right now.

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> Domenica>But it is a technique where you break the pattern of a thought. One of the simplest ways you can do it. If you're sitting, for example, and you feel the anxiety coming up, get up and go to a different room. What happens is you create something called scotoma in your brain, which is a blank spot. And that's your opportunity to put something else in there. So that would be number one. Anxiety, also, we have found, is something that was created by your brain, and it's usually a false belief. So discovering what you believe in is quite important. And people who have anxiety very often use more often than not words like everyone, everything, always, never. And that is inherently not true. There's nothing that's always, and there's nothing that never, and there's nothing like everyone and everything.

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> Curtis Jackson>Um, so your brain kind of creates.

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> Domenica>This rule that then triggers your certain feelings.

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> Domenica>And anxiety is also a part of your environment.

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> Domenica>Usually we, um, very often feel anxious because we want to be understood, we want to be loved. And then we go, what if they don't like me? Okay, so what if. And there is very, um, cute, um, set of questions that we teach for the beginners.

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> Domenica>And the set of question goes, is it true? Whatever you're thinking, is it really true?

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> Domenica>What evidence do I have that it's not true? And who would I be and how would I act if I wouldn't have this thought? And those four questions allow you to stop spiraling out of control. Um, another thing you can do for anxiety is warm up your hands. Anytime you have anxiety, anxiety, your hands will or feet will get colder.

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> Domenica>To change that and to stimulate the brain to, kind of, um, stop, you know, going that direction is warming your hands or feet up. It will get a signal and it will send the blood and, um, it will send the blood and starts pumping to your hands and feet, which will prevent from again spiraling out of control. Now those are little tiny tips, and obviously it's not like it's going to fix everything.

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> Domenica>Anxiety, anxiety, um, you know, one of the things you can do, for example, to calm down your nervous system is to swing. Yes, adults should be swinging on a swing, 10 minutes a day. It's not going to cure you per se, but it's going to help your nervous system to come down. You don't remember, but when you are in a womb of your mom, when, and your mom will confirm this when, you know, she would start walking and moving, obviously her belly started swinging. And then kids stop kicking and moving around and they fall asle they relax. And that is a swinging motion that is programmed into your brain. We can use that, what you already have to your benefit.

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> Domenica>And again, this is not a cure, but it's one of many things you can do to lower the stress and anxiety. I hope this was helpful.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Yes, it was absolutely very helpful. So, uh, another question I have is, you know, people talk about goals and taking small steps at a time instead of big ones. But you talk about being small to obtain success instead of taking massive action.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>So explain to listeners what that means.

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> Domenica>Absolutely. There's um, a book that I wrote called the Magic of Dreaming Big, Acting Small and Achieving Success. And there is a very big difference between acting and um, taking action, massive action and activity. And activity is something that is small that you do every day and it creates a compounding effect. What happens, very often people have big dreams and then they decide to do a revolution. Nothing in a biological sense can be a revolution. Even we evolved and it's an evolution. The process of change is slow. And when there's too much change, we have events like extinction of dinosaurs.

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> Curtis Jackson>So your brain is not designed for revolution.

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> Domenica>Unless it's a life saving short spurt of the moment. Then it collects all the energy it has and it goes. But it can go only for a very short period of time to say, save its life per se.

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> Curtis Jackson>And then it has to rest and.

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> Domenica>Relax and then the old habits come back.

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> Domenica>So the idea is, and this is based on science, that you choose small tiny activities like walking 10 minutes a day. That's it. You said, I'm gonna lose weight. Don't say, I'm gonna go to the gym seven days a week. If you've never been to the gym, gym start with 10 minutes a day. And when that feels easy and comfortable, go to 15 or 20. And maybe when you're at 40, go, okay, I'm gonna now switch it up. And one day a week I'm gonna go to the gym and the Rest days. I'm gonna be walking 30 minutes. The small changes allow your body to process the change and create a habit. Because you as a human, you are, and who you are, where you are in life, you are a collection of habits that is created by your brain. Until now, until you realized those habits were not created by you, they were created outside of you because of life. And what brain does. Now, being aware of that, you can create your own habits and create a different sum, um, of activities. So if you're, for example, not, um, doing well financially, if your habit is going to Starbucks every day and buying a coffee for seven bucks, one of the small habits might be, instead of getting rid of all the coffee from Starbucks, say, I'm just gonna go five days a week instead of seven days a week. And when that becomes comfortable, then you bring it down and bring it down. So it's small, tiny actions. Um, yes, we can survive, you know, this massive action plan and changing everything. But that is a short spur. And then you go back to your old habits, you again. Your creation of your habits. Where you are in life is what you've been doing consistently, and this is the result you're getting. So if you change what you do consistently, and those are small actions like brushing your teeth, that's why most likely you have most of your teeth, because you have been brushing your teeth every day, twice a day. I guarantee you that people who do not do that most likely don't have older teeth. Now, that might not be the only reason, but it is so important what you do on the daily basis. How much TV you watch, how much do you exercise, how much do you study? Notice that people who have achieved a lot, they mainly talk about books. They don't talk about TV shows. Their habit is reading. Their habit is learning. Their habit is not watching tv. And I don't care what skin color that is an old continent. You are on tiny habits because we're all humans and we all have the same brain create your reality and who you are now.

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> Domenica>So looking at your habits, making small changes and then celebrating, see if you keep punishing yourself, your brain will start refusing to do things. But if it feels good, and I'm going to go, since this is an adult conversation, um, if sex would not feel good, we will die out as a species, period.

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> Domenica>So we do things because they feel good. We don't do things because they feel bad. Unless then if we do, then we need some help.

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> Domenica>But in general, we are designed to look for pleasure. So you need to make those tasks and habits and little tiny behaviors.

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> Domenica>Pleasurable. So celebrate and don't go, oh, yeah, I did great. That doesn't work. Celebrate like you were a little kid. Jump up and down. If you're a man and you watch sports and you scream for that team and you go, yeah, go. We're awesome. We? What we?

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> Domenica>You haven't moved your finger. You're sitting your four letters on that freaking couch, aren't you?

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> Domenica>You haven't practiced every day, night and day. There's no we. It's day one.

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> Domenica>But you celebrate them like this is you by proxy, right? So what if you could celebrate like this for you with little tiny things that you achieve? Yes, it will feel weird, but guess what? It works. And it's free.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

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> Curtis Jackson>I would invite listeners just to follow me.

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> Domenica>There are so many things that are happening. I was just featured, uh, on Chatting with Chelsea on Fox 26 and, uh, Fox Soul. And it's a Great interview. About 10 minutes. We're talking about brain health and how to get rid of anxiety. And I'm showing some other exercises.

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> Domenica>There's, um, the book that you can purchase. And I'm taking part in so many podcasts and doing workshops and webinars. So if you follow me, you'll be in the loop. Um, if you're on LinkedIn, then you can, um, sign up for a newsletter that has a lot more science in it. If you are a person that loves Facebook or Instagram, there's information there in small videos and YouTube videos where you can literally take what I teach and put into practice, and I guarantee your life will get better. And that information is absolutely free. So to, to be honest, it's.

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> Domenica>I do so many things that if you're looking to grow, you will always find something in my content.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>So we can keep up with everything that you're up to, though, at your contact info.

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> Domenica>Absolutely. So on Facebook, Instagram, um, YouTube and LinkedIn, you can find me under a handle your brain coach D.

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> Domenica>And you can find me your brain coachd on Instagram, Facebook. My website is yourbraincoachd.com and these are the places that it's the easiest to find. And if you're in Houston, you know, I run around, I can be found no problem. The website has a lot of information. YouTube has loads of videos which you can learn from. Um, same Instagram and Facebook. So I'm inviting you to participate in all the initiatives that we do.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Close this out with some final thoughts. Maybe if there was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

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> Domenica>You know what? It's not about not feeling. It's not about being numb.

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> Domenica>But it's about creating and regulating yourself and feeling things in a range that's acceptable to you. And it's not hunting you down where it doesn't get you in trouble when you blow up or scream or shut down. Feeling angry is okay.

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> Domenica>Feeling sad is okay. Feeling depressed is okay.

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> Domenica>Feeling ecstatic is okay. The question is, how high and how low do you go?

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> Domenica>And life will throw curveballs at you no matter how much you work on you. It's how you handle it creates the quality of your life and life is exactly what you dare to make it. And fortune favors the bold.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All, uh, right. Your brain coach d.com that's the website, correct?

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> Domenica>Yes it is.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All uh right. So ladies and gentlemen, be sure to check out everything that Dominica's up to. Check out our content Follow Rate Review Share this episode to as many people as possible. Jump on your favorite podcast app Share the show Follow Leave us a Review if you have any guest suggestions or suggestions about the show. Any Feedback Curtis Jackson 1978 ATT Net is the place to send them. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Domenica, thank you for all that you do. And thank you for joining us.

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> Domenica>Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>For more information on the Living the Dream podcast, visit www.djcurveball.com until next time, stay focused. Focus on Living the Dream. Dream.