Discover Who You Are: Bringing Body & Mind Together With Somatic Coherence
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Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the Fighting Genius Podcast. I've got a really great guest today. Her name is Aina Bakbir. She's a mentor at KILOBY, this is hard to pronounce, K-I-L-O-B-Y, KILOBY.com.

We're going to talk about debunking mindfulness and talking about deep breathing. Deep breathing is the solution to anger and all kinds of other psychological tips and tools that Ines had to develop over her life to be able to, you know, function well in the world. I think you'll really like her story and you'll enjoy hearing from her. So welcome, Ines. Thanks for coming.

Thank you for having me. Yeah, my name is Ina. Though I'm used to being called Ina when I lived in Canada. Yeah, it was funny for the audience. I asked Ina about Prince Nation, everything except their first name, because I thought I had it, and I'm like...

Oh, well. Oh, good. Yeah. Well, you know, tell me a bit about your background and then we'll get into the topic. Well, my background is all over the place. Like I used to be, I lived in quite a few different countries in the world, but I started my career in creative problem solving and innovation management and worked in car industry in Munich. And I moved from project controls to procurement management and project management at international organizations. I even had...

diplomatic status. In my last project, I worked until 2013 when my health crashed. Then basically, you know, a perfect storm around, yeah, it was 2011, 12, yes, almost 13 years ago, became a catalyst for my own healing quest. My health crashed first and

I had several autoimmune reactions, urticarial vasculitis. Then I left that job that I was completely identified with. I became a mother in that time, moved to Canada from Europe. And yeah, lots of things happened in that time. And so that actually saved my life. So my

My body was screaming. Was it the trauma that saved your life? The physical problem saved you? Actually, what I didn't realize at the time is I needed this stop. My body was screaming at me because the patterns that I had were

relentlessly working nonstop. I was a complete workaholic. I was proud of the fact that I never slept. I was carrying it as a badge of honor that I only needed like three, four hours of sleep at night and I could go in. I was proud of the fact that I was in a very high profile leadership job. I

at a very young age as a woman, you know, in a male-dominated research and development environment, and that was able to, you know, what is it? I was thinking about the English expression. What is the English expression, by the way? I was thinking, like, you needed to have really thick skin to be able to stand your man in that environment. I don't know. Do you say it that way? Well, thick skin, yeah. The people that are attacked or you need to have that when you're in an environment where you're the, you know, maybe one of the only women

and all the guys are kind of maybe looking at you as maybe less competent or who knows. Yeah, well, I was basically negotiating agreements in an international environment often between many parties involved many millions of dollars. Oh, that's no big deal. People do that all the time. Yeah. And I

I don't know why you felt like that. And I was only 28 at the time, right? It was in Greenfield project management. The project was basically an agreement between several world parties. You know, the U.S. were involved and Europe with many countries and Russia, South Korea, Japan, India, and

You know, it was, I was in the middle of that. I'd always felt like I was in a fighter jet ready to push the button to, you know, in case I would crash, I would just fly out, right? Were you proud of yourself and all the things that you were able to accomplish back then? I was. I was very proud and I loved my job. And I also realized in many ways that I was repeating my childhood, which was very, and that

It's only I realized afterwards when I dove into trauma and into anger management and emotional repression work is that I was really good at managing crisis. And that's a skill that I learned from childhood growing up in a childhood home that was very unpredictable, very violent at times, a lot of crises to manage. And I was the oldest daughter with three younger brothers.

And I just, you know, I just kept in this state of high vigilance, even though I loved the job. And so my nervous system, you know, was basically constantly dysregulated. I would wake up with crises in Japan and I would go to bed, you know, teleconferencing with companies on the West Coast and in the U.S. and, you know, the domestic agency in Tennessee. So there was always crisis going on, which mimicked my childhood.

Yeah, I guess you were... When you were a parent, too, maybe you were like a rescue parent to...

I don't know, maybe they should have come out then. Or, you know, you don't have to speak about that. Yeah, it was kind of funny because the joke that I, you know, mentioned a lot after quitting my job was it was easier to manage a portfolio of $2 billion than managing two kids. Wow. Yeah. So, you know, in the end, you know, what happened at the time was also that I fell into this place where I sometimes refer to as the great numbness. And I...

I had this facade of always being strong and hiding my struggles behind a frozen smile, wanting to be seen as kind or reliable and not be a burden. But

So when I got really sick, you know, I needed to have this. I needed help to recover. And that's when I really hit a wall because I spent my life being chasing freedom or what I thought was freedom, but actually that was driven by the repression of hurt.

and a fair bit of varied anger. So that is what I got to learn, that an KI, emotional repression increase, or Killeby increase, which is the modality that I basically left all other psychotherapeutic modalities that I learned before behind.

What I found out is I had a lot of programming in my body that show up as hyper independent and that shows up as traits that society applaud. I like perfectionism, academic success, career, self-sufficiency, resourcefulness. But in the end, it's just programming in the body that says, leave me alone and I have to be alone.

And so just to rewind a bit, I studied different modalities when I got really sick and I struggled in my relationship with my husband back then. I've

I first became a holistic nutritionist and studied nutrition. And that was my first line of learning. I did a lot of modalities like homeopathy and part of naturopathic medicine courses. But then I got in touch with Gabor Mate and a lot of his trauma work and studied transpersonal psychology. And basically what I found when I was studying intergenerational trauma is that my health fell apart.

apart at the exact age when my mother's health fell apart. And I got curious, is it just genes or is there some pattern in trauma that we are repeating? And I found that it was patterns that we are repeating. And a lot of things shifted for me back then. A lot of things shifted, but then still I was able to, you know, feel better.

more emotions because one of the main things that I struggled with at the time was that I felt very robotic. And I felt a lot of shame around that, especially with my children. I felt shame around not being able to feel deep love for them. I felt shame and guilt that I wasn't able to be playful with my kids. I struggled with that. And that didn't shift at the time. And

What I learned, you know, like in early 21, 22, when I came across emotional repression inquiry, what I learned is that though I did do a lot of healing work, what was missing in all those healing modalities is the missing experience. So I want to explain that a little bit. I was mostly showing up as shut down or I could be angry. But what I

I wasn't able to feel was hurt and sad. And so what happens when we repress emotions as children is that we resort to emotions that feel safe for the nervous system. So emotional repression, I would like to dive into that a little bit more and then use myself as an example here. Well, quick analysis, my armchair analysis, I'm no psychologist, but did you

It just sounds like you weren't allowed to be anything but like a fixer. You know, even from the time you were a kid, you had to help your family and you said it was uncertain and you were hypervigilant. So then at your job too, you were constantly fixing. So I guess that's why you repressed everything is you just had to be on all the time and fix everything and you couldn't allow yourself to be you.

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Exactly. I didn't know what that would even meant to be me. So because from early childhood, like me, and I've been working with hundreds of clients, emotional repression is a mechanism that is built in its intelligence. It's a survival system that we adopt as children. We hold back our authentic emotions in order to stay connected to our primary caregivers. And we survive situations that feel overwhelming and

You can see, you know, everywhere around you when children have a tantrum, you know, we teach them to be quiet or, you know, we try to reason. But, you know, you know as well, you know, how successful it is to try to reason with a two-year-old that is just having a big fit. It doesn't work to say, just calm down, right? So I have three teenagers now, so it's a different time. But still, you know, yeah, reasoning with them is not easy. Yeah, but over time, we learn to repress.

repressed. We learn that if I'm getting really mad or having a fit, then mom won't love me or they will give me the silent treatment or they will send me to my room. We learn that who we are in a certain way is not acceptable. And so we hold back our authentic emotions in order to stay connected to our caregivers or in order to stay safe, to get love, to get approval, to get acknowledgement.

But that becomes, after a while, almost like our personality. And so what we often see as personality, like someone who is introverted or extroverted, you know, isn't really personality that is static. It is a conditioned pattern that we're forced to be in through emotional repression. And that is simply programming in the body, like the hyperindependence that I had was simply, and so that is actually an avoidant attachment.

It's simply programming that says, get away from me. I have to be alone. And so I learned in my family of upbringing that I cannot be weak. I have to be strong. I grew up with three brothers. I have to be strong, right? And I can never show them that I am vulnerable because I was already accused of being too sensitive. They shamed you when you were what they considered to be too sensitive. So that part of you

You had to push down and get rid of, I guess. Exactly. That part of me, I had to push down. So anger became more available for me, even though I also repressed anger. But I could still show up as powerful, which I did in my previous jobs. Right. And I could still be angry. And that is what we have seen. So that is.

So in the modality that I am working with right now, KI, emotional repression inquiry, that was developed by Scott Killeby and Dan McClintock. We have seen that we can identify whether someone represses either big emotions like anger, power, like emotions and energies, like sexuality, or the more vulnerable emotions like hurt and sadness and grief and fear.

And our nervous system tends to default to emotions that it has learned to perceive as safer or it shuts down completely, which is also a safety mechanism. And that disconnection from our authentic emotions and our authentic selves then leads to strained relationships, to a sense of isolation, but fear.

For instance, in my case, like repressing hurt and sadness, the anger, if I focus on anger management sometimes and also with clients that I work with who repress the vulnerable emotions, but then that misses the point because anger is not problem. It's the repression of hurt that is the problem. It's the missing experience. So what can you do? All right. So I guess I don't need to give away everything, but what?

What are a couple of ways that you can identify or someone can identify in themselves or maybe in someone else that they're they get some strong emotions that are being repressed? Yeah, good question. So when you can show up with anger in your day to day life and you can express anger easily, but, you know,

it's harder for you to feel and express hurt and sadness. You might actually check if you have hurt and sadness repression. And those people that are more people-pleasing and tend to gravitate to always peace and love and kindness and compassion may actually weaponize those emotions unconsciously to stay safe and get love from those around them. What do you mean weapon? What would they do? What would this look like to someone that's

that doesn't have this training and just, you know, is experiencing it? What would they see or hear? From an anger perspective? Yeah, let's say from someone that they know that's, you know, emotionally repressed and the anger is coming out or like you said, they weaponize some of these other emotions. What does that look like in an interaction with that person?

Okay, yeah. So someone who represses hurt and sadness would use anger as a tool to control and to not feel those so vulnerable and not express that vulnerability. So...

For instance, in my case, it's easier to use myself as an example here. I struggled with overt displays of dominance, and anger was for me repressed too, but I would distance emotionally, right? I would draw affection to shield myself. I would dominate the narrative. So intelligence can be weaponized with a tendency to intellectualize everything, focus on compiling facts and proof to feel in control.

Right. So you can use condescension disguised as intellect, right? So masking defensiveness as confidence, using cleverness to maintain control. That is a tool that I often see as well. Interesting.

I don't know, maybe it's only happened now that you've worked with a lot of people, but now when you interact with people, is it as if you wear different glasses and you can see these things in people that may be hidden to others? Yeah, and it's actually irrelevant what I see because we have tools where people can detect things.

the contractions in their body that hold the frozen fear that trap the emotions in their body. And so we have several tools like the reverse inquiry and other tools where people can, through a repression test, can test in their body what emotions they repress and what is their dominant repression. So if you can show up as powerful and use anger in your day-to-day life, and you still are suffering, so we see we have it.

connected emotional repression with all kinds of suffering from even using a safer emotion a lot like anger. Someone has a real anger problem. We have seen very often that we can find coping mechanisms. We can breathe our anger away, look at it with a non-judgmental mindset. Yeah, there's so many things that we can do to control that, but actually we're not looking at the root cause because the root is buried hurt. It's not anger.

And so at times that I needed compassion the most, it wasn't available to me. And then I would just slide in a rabbit hole of shame and guilt, right? And regret.

We can manage the anger, but often it manifests if it's buried hurt that is at the root of the anger issues. It will manifest as something else because we haven't dealt with the emotional repression with the contractions in the body. It can manifest as compulsions. It can manifest as addiction, as anxiety, ADHD, depression. And we have seen through emotional repression inquiry that those resources, we call them actually resources,

dissolve when we dissolve the contractions in the body through repression inquiry. Well, can you maybe give an example? It's a little bit confusing. What's an example? I don't know. A simple example for people that are listening to do and to check themselves for one of these emotions or just maybe

Maybe what will come to their mind is a situation with somebody like, oh, so-and-so was acting like that. What can you say to people? Or what have you said in the past when people go, oh, I get it. Any helpful examples? Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking about how situations with my children used to trigger me. And I'm just thinking about a few clients too with children who can, you

you know, get very irritated and angry when their children mess up, keep their, you know, mess up their house or when they come home from school and, you know, just throw everything in the hallway and just go to their devices and,

And I would get angry, for instance, if this would happen with my children, you know. What I felt, like what I realized when doing inquiry is that there was a deficiency story that was running the show. Like deficiency stories that often show up is something like they don't care about me or unmet needs. So I don't feel supported when the kids do that or anything.

I don't matter to them or I'm not important. And then we have seen that this story, and this is what actually most psychological modalities focus on, are those limiting beliefs, those identities, those deficiency stories, shadows. They are just there because it's safer to believe that I don't matter than access the buried anger and hurt.

of my childhood that I had to bury in frozen fear contractions in my body when I felt I didn't matter or that I felt ignored or that I couldn't express myself when needs were unmet when I was a child. Were you replaying your, like with your own kids, were you replaying how you were treated just not as strongly or...

Like what came from your childhood you believe that you would do with your own children? That you'd get upset at them if they weren't perfect or like what? How do you think it manifested? Good question. Yeah. I was raised by parents that were very strict and very controlling in ways. And so the way I played this out with my children is doing the exact opposite. I didn't have good boundaries with my children. I basically wanted to let them completely free. Yeah.

And then, of course, they would always cross the line, right? So because in the end, I did have boundaries, but I didn't want to give them because I didn't want to be that strict. But when they would cross it after a while, I felt my anger coming up of not being heard and not being seen as a child, right? And I kept progressing it and I kept basically building up that pressure like a pressure cooker. And then the lid flew off, right? Okay. What?

But that anger wasn't actually, that anger there was only there to protect myself from the hurt that I felt as a child and that I couldn't access. And so when I did emotional repression inquiry, what happened is that those stories fell away. So

I'm not getting triggered anymore. And I can just give boundaries from the beginning. And I can communicate clearly to my children what are my needs and what matters to me. And I realized I didn't even do that in the beginning. I didn't set those boundaries. So, of course, they would break them because I didn't express them in the first place.

And what happened with reversing heart repression is that I'm barely getting triggered. Those stories, believing that I'm not good enough and that my needs don't matter or I'm not important, those have no charge anymore in the body. Those are

Those are a way. So it's just incredible freedom that has come in its place because we have a communication. And my kids are 12 and the other one is turning 14 next week. And we have a fantastic relationship because we communicate everything together. That's really good. So is there a name for this type of therapy that Killeby offers, the Institute, or...?

What is it called? Is it in combination with CBD or other stuff? Again, what is it?

Yeah, that's a good question. It's not a therapy. It's a spiritual practice. And it is basically a toolkit. And it's providing very clear, sharp tools and a context and a language to dive underneath those identities, like I'm not good enough, and underneath patterns that create suffering, like anxiety, like depression, even chronic pain.

And it makes the unconscious programming that is stuck in the body, because no matter how mindful we can be around anger, when our amygdala is hijacked, you know, when you really are angry, that's when those tools don't really work. So with emotional repression inquiry, we make that unconscious programming conscious by aligning the mind and the body.

And that way we reverse emotional repression programs that are stuck in the body that keep the emotion stuck and trapped in frozen fear so that we can access, feel and express what we locked away long time ago. And a beautiful side effect that I've seen before when I was trained as a psychotherapist, we learned a lot about nervous system regulation. But dissolving emotional repression, what I found is that nervous system regulation is no longer needed.

because our emotions are the tools that the nervous system needs to regulate itself. So just as much as depression is not a lack of Prozac, nervous system dysregulation is not a lack of nervous system regulation tools.

So even though it helps to take space and to reflect instead of reloading when you feel angry, without dealing with the emotional repression that drives the anger, the safer emotion for hurt repressors, that drives disconnection in a relationship, without going to the emotional repression, we just stay triggered. We just

wait for the next trigger to happen or, you know, different kinds of suffering that show up in life, like chronic pain. Like for me, my autoimmune disease has completely resolved. And I also had this, yeah, cornea issues. My cornea was breaking down. And like, even though from...

a medical point of view, the ophthalmologist calls it a medical miracle. What I did was emotional repression inquiry. And I found a lot of programming in my eyes that I didn't want to see what was happening, which also explains the amnesia that was happening. And so I didn't want to see. And right now with the tools, I have a perfect vision and I'm

The health issues that I saw have reversed. And I've seen this with clients too, with all kinds of issues, including things like binge eating and yeah, depression, anxiety, and chronic pain. My migraines too have completely disappeared with this work. That's great. Well, I guess you don't have that, I don't know, struggle within yourself. You're letting out your emotions where you can. And so it's not building up and making you sick essentially, I guess, in plain English. So it seems like.

Yeah, exactly.

But we also address the programming that is in the body. So we don't only empty the reservoirs of stored emotion. That's what people do with TRE or with somatic experiencing and emotional release. We actually look at the contractions in the body because what we have buried, what we have repressed doesn't show up as an emotion. It shows up as a contraction and we can detect it using emotional repression inquiry.

So we have finally found a way how we can get to the root of a lot of our suffering in our lives. And that's why I'm so passionate about it and why I didn't even pursue anymore my license in psychology because this is more powerful work than I've ever come across. So how do people search for it? What do they call it? How do they get it? Where do they go? Well, you can go to www.killeby.com.

So Scott Killeby and Dan McClintock have developed this modality. And so Killeby.com is the website where you can go and where you find blog articles, you find research, you find a community. We teach this modality to people through mentorship now. And that's why it's also not a therapy because we teach people to be self-sufficient. They can use these tools independently.

to free themselves whenever they get triggered, whenever they encounter suffering in their life, whether it's through compulsions, addictions, or distractions,

depression, they can use these tools to free themselves. So it's killaby.com. I can also give you information to put in the bio. Okay. No, no, that would be very good. So killaby.com. Okay. Where, I mean, so now you're free of sickness and all that. Is there anything missing? I mean, has this completely fixed you in your mind or are you still struggling with things or, you know, what?

I don't know what percentage of people that get this help still need help. And is there additional tools that are, uh, that are brought in over time or, or is it like, uh,

Yeah. So when people come to us, we usually start a mentorship track with them and they learn the tools to meet their own suffering. And so after a while, what is interesting is that I don't even mind when something happens. It just triggers a curiosity right away. Like, hey, what's happening? And I just use the tools to find

free myself from it. So whenever I'm upset, it's not anymore like, damn, you know, this is not going to change and what's happening. I'm not

I'm not angry for long anymore. When something happens, there is immediately this curiosity that comes like, hmm, what else is life asking me to look at? And I also found that the more I do this work, the more things fall into place and the less I mind things happening. And that's very freeing. Yeah, that's very good. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, you have an amazing story and it's really cool that this has helped you and it can help other people. So again, you said the resources. Any stories that come to mind? I know this is very private info for the clients you work with, but without names, maybe there's a... Is there a story that comes to mind that just amazed you with its power and its goodness and

A big change someone went to and they're really happy? Yeah. There are tons of stories. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Is there like one that comes to mind, one of your favorites?

Yeah, I was just thinking of this week, there was one client who came to me in September, especially for binge eating. And she has been using these tools since September, since we have been learning together. And she told me just yesterday that her relationship with food has changed entirely over the last year.

six weeks and she has even no urge anymore, nothing. So she really found through this work the anger that she had stored towards her parents, feeling often very helpless as a child. And she has been able to access those contractions in the body and dissolve them. And, you know,

I explained to her before that the suffering just disappears. It just dissolves. And it was sometimes really hard to put that into words because it's a truly somatic process. And she wasn't here. She was telling me just yesterday that she understands now what I meant, that her...

you know, it just dissolved. It's no longer there. She doesn't think about food anymore the same way. And that just, you know, that makes my heart smile the biggest smile. And so those stories, clearing them regularly, it's just, it just fuels my passion even more. Okay. Well, very good. Well, you know, thanks so much for coming on the podcast and I really appreciate your, you know, your,

I'm trying to conjugate the word brave into some other form that I don't want to use, but thank you for being brave. There we go. That's what I could say. Because you said you were a bit nervous, and I've done this so many times that I'm not nervous, but guests often are. So I really appreciate you breaking through that. I'm still coming. So thank you for being there. Thank you for having me. If you like this podcast, please click the link in the description to subscribe and review us on iTunes. Thank you.

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