Derek Wolfe with Justin Lascek
Justin is a medically retired Special Forces Medical Sergeant. When he stepped on an IED during his second combat deployment to Afghanistan, he lost both legs below the knee and his testicles.
On the podcast, Justin goes into depth about his experience in the US Army, where he worked as a Green Beret.
He shares stories from both his time in deployment and in training, describing the adrenaline rush from every experience—and the long-term effects of those experiences, of all types, on physical and mental health.
Holistic healing, Micro-dosing, and recovery from TBI
For ten years in the NFL, Derek constantly—*constantly—*hit his head against other players. Football was the medicine where he used his anger and rage to a purpose. Micro-dosing was helpful in the league for Derek to contain and put everything within him into focused energy.
Now, Derek uses a variety of holistic practices to address the effects of both the trauma in his body from football and the trauma from his entire life. Justin uses a number of holistic practices as well, and the two go into detail in each of the practices that have made a huge difference in their lives.
Justin and Derek both talk about the need for dissociation from traumatic experiences and how that dissociation can often permeate everyday life.
EMDR and Mental Health
Simulating REM sleep, EMDR is a scientifically proven treatment for PTSD, complex PTSD, and more. Derek recounts his journey with the treatment, how it opened up access for him to begin to heal from his childhood trauma and work toward forgiveness and letting go of the resentment he had toward his younger self.
Justin’s IED Injury and the long-term impacts
Near the end of the interview, Justin goes into detail about his IED injury and the support he got from his fellow soldiers. He shares the long-term effects of his injuries, losing relationships, entering anxiety, and depression. He speaks of his experience taking mood-altering substances to help him access and process his trauma and the physical and emotional path it took to get to a place of peace.
Enter Kelly, his dog, who he credits with saving his life.
“You have to take your energy and convert it into something else,” says Justin. “And I’ve learned that too. And when you don’t have legs, and you can’t squat or power clean, or hit people, or run, or hike, or ski, you have to find other ways to do that…I practice yoga, old-school yoga from the yoga sutras. Yoga is an awareness practice…and it’s generally building awareness so that you can observe what’s good and bad, that happens to you, and how it makes you feel, so that you can do something differently. It’s a practice that results in change. People naturally want to change because they do it.”
“Being successful in society is not the same thing as being alive and enjoying it.” – Justin Lascek
