Marla Miller 0:00

Welcome back to Open Minded Healing. Today's episode with my guest, Tim Thomas, focuses on how crucial sleep is to our health and specific actions we can all take to reduce the stress which prevents many of us from getting that essential rest that our bodies need. Tim will be sharing how his personal experience in the Australian military have given him powerful insights, which have allowed him to create a program that not only helps people in general reclaim their sleep, but has specific applications to helping military vets and first responders improve their health dramatically. Welcome, Tim.

Tim Thomas 0:42

Mala, so great to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Marla Miller 0:45

So before we dive into this topic and the importance of stress and sleep on our health, I do want the listeners to understand your background, your military background, and kind of what that entailed as far as being an athlete and how you dealt with sleep at that time.

Tim Thomas 1:05

Yeah. So I started my journey like a lot of Western people, push hard, grind, sleep for the dead. I was a professional uh athlete before I joined the special forces in the early days of mixed martial arts, but this was in the early, early days where um there was no money in it. And back then you could smoke in the bars. So you're going out into the ring to do this highly athletic activity, and there's you're coughing up half a lung. Um and I was 29 and a half, and they had this advert on TV saying, join the special forces, first time in Australia's history. They're recruiting from civilians population into special forces. Normally you had to spend two years in a regular infantry battalion before you could even apply. And I'm like, well, I'm 29 and a half. All the work that I put into being an athlete is not paying the bills, you know, there's there's no money in it. I I could only ever earn minimum wage. So I thought, well, you know, I wanted to start a family. Here's one way to, you know, give them the the life they they wanted to do. And I remember I swore in, you know, when you joined, and there was a part of me saying, Tim, you've got second doubts. And and for the first time ever, I was unsure if I wanted to do this or not. So special forces selection was was hard enough. And I had a lot of people telling me, Tim, you know, you're 29 and a half, you're 30, 30 was the maximum age. You're too old, don't bother. But I think because I grew up in the 70s, just getting your ass kicked every day was normal. It was just a Tuesday, you know. Um, and I also discovered that when people say you can't do something, that just means they can't do it. Uh, and I'm also dyslexic. So I I see things uniquely like I'd never been 30 before. And should I let other people tell me what I can and can't do at that particular age? Because you know, this is the first time we've been this age. Should we let others tell us what we can and can't do at this age? Well, no, and so I said I'm gonna go for this. And on the first week of my boot camp experience, I found out my then wife was pregnant. You had to do all this training to get to special forces selection. And I did the math, and my son was due to be born on selection, and they're saying, you know, Tim, this is special force of selection. You can see your son being born, or you can do selection, you can't do both. So there was not just physical duress, there was a lot of emotional duress. And if you're going to look at it chemically, a lot of cortisol was being burnt up, and too much cortisol for too long depreciates a lot of systems inside your body. And it doesn't happen quickly, it can happen as a slow sort of decline of percentage at a time. And the fatigue in the unit, I just noticed at about the three or four year mark, these guys would just have this faraway look in their eye, which we later find out was was adrenal fatigue, low testosterone because cortisol for two high drives your hormonal system into the dirt. And in 2011, it was February, I'm at rock bottom and I'm about to kill a man. My time in the special forces ended a year earlier, the government wasn't paying me, this would have been murder. And I'm in this situation about to murder a guy because everything in my life was falling apart. My then wife said, You need to see a psychologist. And I'm like, that makes no sense. Why would I want to speak to a complete stranger about stuff that I don't want to talk about? I don't trust this guy. And it was a hard thing talking to this guy, and I realized that I'd paid good money to sit in front of someone who wasn't just incompetent but completely apathetic.

Marla Miller 5:06

Can we go back a little bit? So when that moment came and you said, you know, you were enraged or you wanted to kill someone, what triggered that and where were you?

Tim Thomas 5:17

Yeah, so I was in this psychologist's office, and I just told him everything I saw in Afghanistan, my family breaking down, and he wasn't even paying attention. He was kind of looking at the roof. And once I sort of said it all, he kind of just looked down from the ceiling, snorted, and went, Oh, you think it was a problem with your mum and dad? Click. Okay. This guy says he's a healer, but he's harming people. In my start of disconnect, it made a lot of sense to remove him, made a lot of poetic sense to grab that psychology degree and feed it to him. And you know, I got a certain skill set. Once I set my mind to it, no one could have stopped me doing that. And I get out of my chair to do this, and this is where it gets a bit woo-woo. I felt like a hand pressure on my chest and the words, three words, never heard before. Red flag, Tim. And it was enough for me just to pause, right? And then this thought came through, Tim, you're the toughest mofo you know, and you are struggling in this system. Surely there's other people struggling too. And and I sat down, Marler, and that's when I saw them. I saw all these people to my left and my right looking in, not judging me, not condemning me, but they're just saying, Tim, if you can find a way forward for you, you can find a way forward for us. And something clicked in my head. I realized that it it wasn't the emotional pain I was in that was the problem, it was the loneliness, it was the disconnection that I was feeling that had me justifying all sorts of crazy things. Like I'm I'm about to murder this guy in my disconnected state. That made sense. But once all these people appeared left and right of me, that broke my isolation, sort of switched on my intelligence, and I could see things as it was. And I'm like, well, as God is my witness, I've got to find a way forward. Do I know how? No. But I have this feeling that if I if it takes me a week, a year, a decade, then that's the amount of time I'm gonna be able to save all these other people. Yeah.

Marla Miller 7:25

That's amazing, the whole story there. The psychologist being so disconnected from what you were sharing. And then that something came into your mind just before, you know, a violent act. So when you say that there were these people on the left and right of you, is that like in your mind you're picturing all the maybe vets, you know, or is this like a spiritual type of image in your mind?

Tim Thomas 7:57

Well, good question because I came to this realization through my particular path, which is the veteran path, but it's not unique to veterans. The question that I ask people, the golden question I ask is like everyone's up against something, you know, and it doesn't matter if it's cancer, relationship, death, in my case, the veteran recovery space, whatever you're up against, the golden question is how many people do you think are up against what you're up against? And and don't just think about it, give it a number, like a tangible number. And my tangible number, I'm like, at least a million. And so when I saw a million people either side, it helped me see it. It doesn't matter how little my progress is, if I can make an inch of progress, I'm actually making a million inches of progress. And there's people I haven't even met yet, left and right of me, that are willing me on. And I had this feeling that they're gonna say, you know, we're so glad back in 2011 when you're about to kill this guy, that you saw us and you've made choices to move forward and not backwards. And I just put it to people wherever you are, whatever you're up against, you have the qualification. What you go through gives you the qualification to break the isolation for someone else. That's the first thing that is not seen on the spreadsheet. And the only one qualified to do it is you that has gone through, let's just say, cancer or a relationship or a death. And like I said, so my gift was going through that in the veteran space. So then I was qualified to then, you know, share my story, get others to share their story. And it's funny when someone's isolation is broken, I could see it in the group because I started running these programs. The jaw would kind of pop open and they'd say, I'm gonna keep it clean, but they'd go F bomb. I thought I was the only one, and they're just stunned. I thought I was the only one. And breaking that isolation is the first thing, but it can't stay there because the next thing is getting them out of fatigue. And we just noticed if we could do those two things, break the isolation, get them out of fatigue, this inner knowing came out of them. You know, their compass always knew where to go, but if it's buried under fatigue and loneliness, it's stuck. They can't even see it. And and this world loves it when you're fatigued and feeling isolated because it'll give you pills, alcohol, I just call it dopamine over dysfunction. And you're paying money to keep yourself dysfunctioning. So we had a goal of saving 40 veteran lives from suicide. If I achieved that, I would have died happy. You know, it was a lifetime goal. But that was achieved within 12 months because of those two things. There was nothing tying us to a formal structure, we just observed what worked, and I was smart enough that when I ran the programs, I'd always take data before and afterwards. This was the data representing that if they attended these groups, had their isolation broken, they did a group activity where they're, you know, outdoors in nature, sleep improved. You know, three to five hour group experience, sleep improved up to nine days. And we just noticed that if those two simple metrics, all the other measurements improved. And it's like there's so many things to treat the symptoms of fatigue and loneliness, but it unless you actually understand it, you're kind of slowing down their recovery, as I've experienced.

Marla Miller 11:48

There's so many important aspects of what you've been sharing. And one that stands out to me is that when you had that quick revelation, the red flag in that doctor's office where you felt like you were then connected to a larger group of people, how that switched something actually in your brain to make you think more rationally. Like just not feeling alone can have that kind of power is tremendous. And the fact that you realize that so quickly after and added that element to this program, realizing what a big factor that is. And obviously, you've helped a lot of the military vets, but this would be anyone, like you said, experiencing any health crisis. A lot of people do feel so isolated from their diseases or whatever they've been diagnosed with. So that's incredible that you found this one aspect that is ignored in conventional medicine. You know, when you go into the doctor, they're not talking about who do you live with and do you feel lonely? I don't remember anyone ever asking me anything like that when I was diagnosed with autoimmune disease. Like, you know, are you feeling isolated or did you have support at home? What an incredible, I guess, piece of the puzzle that has been missing in healthcare that you have really brought to the forefront here. And then the sleep aspect, like you said, when they can then get that sleep, which you're helping them do, how much that improves every aspect of their health from the mental to the physical. So what an incredible day that must have been in that doctor's office to turn everything around so dramatically. And then to go on and help, like you said, at least 40 vets from committing suicide is unbelievable.

Tim Thomas 13:54

I'm glad I'm living in the reality where I didn't kill the guy, you know. I'm sure in a bunch of other realities teams in jail right now, but it's a painful realization, it's not what we do so much that gives us value to others, it's what we've gone through. And going through those things, we would probably choose not to, but going through them, if I could put my veteran speaking again, uh, you might not think you're special, but I bet you've been through some shit. And our job is not to live in that, but to turn that shit into fertilizer. It's there to help you grow and to help everyone else grow. And you help other people stuck in the same place get through that and turn it into fertilizer so much quicker. Once you see that, the the last thing I wanted to experience ends up being the most valuable thing that I could offer others. And to be honest, it it gave me empathy for others. I possibly wouldn't have the same empathy for others had I not had that dark night of the soul. And I also observed when people are hurting and vulnerable, they've often been mucked around by supposed healers. And I when I say healers, I'm talking, you know, both mainstream and you know, non-mainstream. People are very vulnerable. Yeah, uh that sounds good. Shut up and take my money. Years go by, dollars leave your pocket, and you end up blaming yourself. And I had a lot of people come to me saying, Look, I tried to get healing, didn't help. In fact, it made it worse. I'm never doing that again. And it's really important to someone who's hurting and vulnerable to be in the presence of someone who's has got that authentic understanding, and they feel, oh, I can drop my guard now because this person's been there. And I'll just say this again so everyone's hearing it. Like, my blessing is I came to it through the veteran space. You could get this from a disease, you could get it from trauma, you could get it from a relationship, whatever that is that you've come through or you're up against that you're trying to get through, you are the person that gives others the most critical part of the healing process, that initial breaking of the isolation. And in the same breath of saying that, it can't just be left at breaking isolation. Veterans are really good at creating what I call these antisocial social groups, where it's so awesome connecting to other like-minded humans that have been through the same thing, and I can be myself around them for one hour a week, but I'm withdrawn for the for the rest of it. You know, so whenever I ran these groups, I always try to treat it like a trampoline. You go into it and you leave with more energy to bring who you are to the surface. So the people I work with, Marler, are the ones that see healing as the journey that's important, but it gets you to the start line of bringing your gifts into the world. The thing that makes you uniquely you, once your healing cycle is done, you get to the starting line of bringing your uniqueness into the world. That's what really fascinates me. And that's what I found fascinating about simply giving people quality sleep because they had these seeds of uniqueness and greatness in them. They're just laying dormant. It's really hard to flourish when you're fatigued, but when they're banking this good sleep, it's like these seeds just naturally flourish. And you don't know what's in there, you really don't. It wasn't because I was a breathwork guy or a sleep guy. I'm just my pattern recognition because of my dyslexia is in the top percentile. And I'm like, well, this seems to be the most impactful thing I could do for somebody for them to flourish, to bring their gifts into the world. Break the isolation, get them out of fatigue, and then you kind of stand back and watch the show. So it wasn't because I was those things, it was because I I just saw the simplicity of it and the accessibility of it, the naturalness of it, the immediacy of it. And you don't hear about this sort of stuff because there's not a lot of money to be made when people discover their own resources. You know, I wouldn't probably be here if I didn't have the empathy because I've been in that space and I lost six years of my life to pills when I said I couldn't sleep. So, as God is my witness, I'm never wanting to let anyone else go through that without being aware of some pretty potent, you know, options.

Marla Miller 18:36

Yeah, some pretty potent options without all the side effects. And like you said, losing all those years of your life to, you know, being on maybe medication that dulls your senses, or I'm not sure what pills you were on or what it did, but I'm sure there were other repercussions to that.

Tim Thomas 18:56

Well, if I could speak to that with again my pattern recognition, our economy loves it when we're in a state of fatigue because it'll go great. I'll give you a short-term energy loan. I'll give you $1,000, but you've got to pay back $10,000. Okay. Here's a cart and a grog. That'll make you feel awesome. The next day you've got to pay back 10 grand and you're still further in debt. Well, let's just keep cycling this energy. And so when I'm working with people, I just say, look, think of your energy like money, how you invest, it's how you get it back. And it doesn't matter how much you start with, if you knew you had an investment that you invested $1 in and you got $1,000 back, well, then you'd you'd actually keep investing in that wonderful return. Everyone has their unique energy portfolio, the thing that they invest energy into that they get a lot back from. But a lot of people don't realize if we don't do this for ourselves, if we don't figure out our own unique energy signature, our own unique energy portfolio to invest in to then become a what I call energetic millionaire, then the world will go, no, don't look inside yourself. It's all out here. Just pay us money and we'll give you something real quick. So that's why when I sort of came out of that dark night, I'm like, well, I've I've got to start this conversation and not just find something that works, but make it accessible. And again, I only like breathwork because it's so freaking accessible. And once you know it, you've got it for the rest of your life. You know, there's little things you can do to help keep it regular and all that. But I also like it because it's a really disruptive technology in the way that once you access the power underneath your own skin, all that crap outside of you is seen for what it is, you know, a short-term energy loan that you have to pay back, you know, uh so much more. And I'm not making anything in this world wrong. Everything is there for our benefit, but the imbalance I was in and the lack of awareness of how to create balance had me drinking six to twelve beers before I could even speak to my then wife. And no one was saying, hey, here's another option, because there's bottlos everywhere, and the car just magically pulled into the front of it on the drive home.

Marla Miller 21:19

Because what was that you just said?

Tim Thomas 21:21

Well, it was it was funny, but the car would just magically park in front of the bottolo. In front of it? Did you have that term in the no bottle is is where you get your booze from. Oh, okay. All right. What would you call them? Like a liquor store. Liquor store. Okay. So the car would magically park in front of the liquor store. And I'm like, oh, look, this is just supposed to be, right? And again, so understanding how to change the estate from within your own resources makes a lot of this stuff redundant.

Marla Miller 21:53

Yeah, I do like how you emphasized a couple of things. One is we do have so Much power within ourselves. And people just don't know how to tap into it. But you're showing people through the program, which you will get into. But the other thing is, like you said, there are people out there that some of them are really great, really inspirational and knowledgeable and can really help people. But then there are those when you're in a desperate state that can take advantage of it, or that just maybe read books or went to school for like psychology or something, but they have not lived the experience. You know, it's just like people that go to a psychologist with trauma, but it's not a trauma-informed psychologist that they're dealing with. That makes a very big difference. So you're right. It is good to look for those people. And you can tell when they talk if they're being genuine, I think, about a lived experience. Like I can tell you've actually lived what you're talking about.

Tim Thomas 23:05

Well, and you know, Marl, I had to be in a very vulnerable position to realize we're not in an age of information. Information is seriously empowering. Once you have it, it's like boom. We're in an age of marketing, first six pages of Google, marketers. And the marketers are really good, you know, speaking those words inside your heart. Well, that's exactly what I want. And they'll give you a small taste of power or peace, but then, you know, years will go by, dollars will leave your pocket, and these people end up blaming themselves. And it's in some ways it's not the psychologists' fault in the way that they study really hard, eight, ten years to get their degree, but nobody tells them that the trauma goes down deeper than the words can reach. And when I'm talking to military folk, and they get what I'm saying, these psychologists train for eight to ten years to have a rifle that shoots 200 meters. They make it look amazing, they can say how well it shoots at 200 meters, but their targets are two kilometers away. And these guys are falling short. And if you say to a psychologist, listen, this is just not working, they'll just say how awesome they are and how long they've been training. So I'm interested, Marla, what modalities worked for you when you were uh looking?

Marla Miller 24:19

Well, I would say some of the main ones. One was diet, and it was not only eliminating like gluten and dairy and things, but it was eliminating sugar.

Tim Thomas 24:30

Yep.

Marla Miller 24:30

So that was huge to my mental health as well as physical health. It changed my brain chemistry, I would say. And the other thing was I was very much into meditation. So I was meditating every day, sometimes a couple of times a day. That was another tremendous help to me. And then, you know, I tried other things along the way, but those two stand out as the sort of top two initially when I started the process of finding ways to heal.

Tim Thomas 25:06

Yeah. And you you don't know how much things have got a hold on you until you get rid of them. Sugar is one of those things that has people more addicted than they know until they sign cutting it out. Yeah. Well done.

Marla Miller 25:22

So I'm curious. After this experience you had, you realize there's an issue, and it's not just with you that so many others are experiencing this loneliness and the fatigue, which is affecting everything, mental and physical health. Where did you come up with the idea to like not only address the sleep issues, but bring in breathing techniques, the breath work? How did that come to you? And also addressing the loneliness. How'd you come up with a plan for that?

Tim Thomas 25:56

Sure, sure. Okay. Which one do you want me to address first? Because there's two different pathways there. There was the loneliness, but there's also the breath work. Which one do you want me to pull apart first?

Marla Miller 26:05

Maybe the loneliness first, and then we'll get into the specifics of the sleep.

Tim Thomas 26:11

Well, sure. So so it wasn't until I was in that space where I'm in that psychologist's office and I'm about to do something I'd probably regret that I saw the danger of being disconnected because at some point in our life we've all felt what it is to feel connected to another human. Like Marley, if you knew I had your back 100 freaking percent, without a word of a doubt, and I knew you had my back 100%, everything else becomes a very small detail. It's like this human superpower that once it's kicked in, man, bring it on. There's nothing we can't handle. Nothing we can't handle. But if that gets interrupted, if I'm feeling like it's just me in this world because the pain is blocking me from connecting to others, I don't know who to trust. I'm trying to protect the the small amount of energy I've got left. And the world occurs in two colors, safe or not safe. If that person taking from me, you know, you're always scanning for threat. So the loneliness I observed was broken by one thing, and that was an authentic conversation from someone who'd gone through what they've gone through. All right. And I need to emphasize this because a lot of people get this wrong. There's one thing to be in a situation, and there's all sorts of people giving all sorts of advice, and they're stuck in that situation, they haven't successfully come through it. The only advice I'd give people is listen to people who've gone through what you've gone through and are living an abundant life, the life that they really want to live, the life of their dreams. Okay, don't listen to the person who's in it, full of advice, loves the company. It's a very low ceiling. So in our own journeys, your ability to slingshot people towards where they want to get to is usually from a position of generosity, abundance, and you're in a position where you're giving your gifts into the world. So it was in that psychologist's office that I discovered the danger of loneliness and disconnection. But then when I created these groups where people in that specific situation would share their story, and I could have done it with any kind of groups, like I said, it could have been cancer or emotional trauma. This particular group were veterans, and when a veteran shared their story, we had these jaws popping open and guys going, F-bomb. I thought I was the only one. And you know, if you look at it from a headspace, you go from your amygdala, fight or flight, to prefrontal cortex where you can actually see things and think through things. And realizing that you couldn't leave it there, you had to get them out of fatigue. Otherwise, you're going to slide back into it. No energy, no options. We had to create a better energy investment. So, on the back of that, the most easily accessible energy connection I found was breath work. And I discovered it in two parts. One, when I was in the dirt of Afghanistan, and I was trained for fatigue, but in a war zone, it's not just the physical and mental fatigue. Every cell in your body's hurting, but then you know you've lost your mates, you've seen bits blown off others. Fatigue is just into a place you've never been before. And I'm like, what's the point? I'm gonna die in this crap hole. I've only got two cents worth of energy. What's the point? And then there's this part of me that said, Tim, if you've only got two cents worth of energy, you better invest that wisely. And so we never got anything you'd call sleep when you're outside the wire. But every now and then you could get horizontal in the dirt. And instead of just trying to shut my eyes and sleep, and this is where you could call it ancestral knowledge starts kicking in. Like when we go beyond our physical abilities, often I believe that ancestral knowledge starts coming through. Like we've got all this incredible stuff underneath our skin, but it it's like our world's so comfortable it never has a chance to come out. And in this place, this stuff came out, and that was picturing, you know, before trying to sleep, with the two cents of energy I had, I pictured a pinhole in my left thumb, and I just took a big snort of air, like I was breathing down my thumb. Okay, no one ever shown me that, but that didn't just feel good. When I kept doing it, my thumb turned into white light in my mind's eye. And then I pulled it through my pointer finger, and then I went to sleep. And instead of two cents worth of energy, I woke up with 20 cents, and that's when I'm like, oh, I don't know what this is, but this energy's like money. I'm investing it and I'm getting it back. So the next time I got horizontal, I had 20 cents worth of capital. I breathed into my thumb, pointer finger, index, ring, pinky, and they turn into white light. I woke up with two dollars. I'm like, okay, this is all I have in this situation. I can't work any harder, but I can sleep better. And that was literally the only thing I could be in control of. I was a private, I was paid to do what everyone else said, right? And it was interesting because when my energy level was low, I could only see life from my perspective. Life sucks, screw you. But then as my energy increased, my awareness increased, and I became aware that I'm in a team of men, and if they're having a bad day, I'm having a bad day. So I need to be in a position to pour into their cups so they can have a good day. Because even if I'm being really selfish, Marla, you know, who did I want around me when good times turned bad? Did I want fatigued, disconnected people, or rested and connected? So, you know, again, I'm pretty thick skinned. I had to go to that extreme to realize, yeah, when when the person next to you is stronger, you know, you're stronger. But it wasn't until I was going through my divorce that I understood the power of breath work. So fast forward, I'd finished in 2010 and I was having a divorce maybe 10 years later, during COVID, and you know, lost house, my home, money, regular access to kids, and I'm I'm sleeping on the couch of my parents' place. And there's a war zone going off in my head worse than Afghanistan, and you can bet at 2 a.m. I'm not sleeping. But the irony was, Marla, my brain knew that for me to create peace, I just needed to breathe. But I could not breathe, even though I knew this. And that's when I realized that your mind's like a garden, whatever your water grows. And I've been watering the weeds of stress and they were loving it. And these stress weeds, they don't just take over your head space. It's like eyeballs pop out of and they become sentient. They become aware of the choices you're making that feeds them. And in that moment, they were loving that I was stressed out, and they become hyper-aware of the things that would starve them. Okay, when I wanted to feed the positive part of my brain, they're like, Nut, we're taking food that belongs to them. We're going to feed ourselves. So I was locked down into this state, and I get up, I don't know, it was about 2 a.m. and I'm about to do pills, alcohol, self-harm. And I'm like, Tim, you can take one breath. And I'm looking at my left thumb, take one freaking breath, and I drove it into my chest, and I took this deep inhale, and it was like coming up from the bottom of the ocean. And I'm like, Well, this is working. Take two. I took two fingers, drove into my chest. This is working, take three, take four, get to five, get to ten. And then somewhere between breath 15 to 20, the chemical reaction took place because breath work isn't meditation, meditation is thoughts controlling thoughts. And I had a train wreck in my head, so that wasn't going to work then. But the chemical override is a bit like going to the side of your house and pulling the fuse box out, and the stress weeds got kicked out, and the rest of my brain kicked in to gear and said, Tim, this is working, don't stop. And it was in that moment where I had just the lowest of the low, and it actually worked. I'm like, surely there's other people stuck with their thoughts at 2 a.m., wanting a way out, looking for answers outside of them. And so I noticed that you know everyone breathes, but I needed it to be guided for me to get that medicinal response. So I started making these stupid recordings, like, hey Tim, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in. And it was simple stuff, but it was uh an external focus for my lungs to listen to, and then I could get to that medicinal dose, and then the bliss and the altered state, and the peace, and the power, and the reconnection, the anti-inflammatories. That's one thing I discovered about breath work. It's anti-inflammatory. I've got a lot of chronic injuries, and it was a massive help in that space. So I started sort of sharing these silly little voice tracks with my own voice on. And guys are saying, This is working, this is great, right? And it saved my life so many times having that button to push there at 2 a.m. So I woke up, hit that button, and the stress weeds were still there. The stress weeds are saying, you know, Tim, breath work is bullshit, it's not gonna work, don't do it. But I just hit that button and trusted the fact that, well, I understood the fact that our breath is older wiring than our thinking mind. We were breathing before we were thinking, before we were sentient and putting paintings on rock walls, you know. So giving people access, like this is like a five-star general, and your brain's like a private that just won't shut up. You know, you've got to pull out that five-star general and go, okay, you've got your place and it's not here right now. And and it doesn't want that, right? And I started running these workshops on army bases, and I got this email from a Louis colonel that said, Look, I didn't attend it, but I had all my sergeants coming up to me saying that was the first good night's sleep they had in three years, four years, five years. Um, and he thought it was awesome, but I'm like, that's terrible. How much damage is five years of not sleeping doing? And I'm always shocked at how society doesn't put any priority on good sleep. It almost rewards people. Oh, I've had two hours of sleep, had a coffee. What's your excuse? There's this sort of acceptance of poor sleep, and we're all in this sort of hypnosis of it's normal. But I say, you know, if you care about somebody, you you care about their sleep.

Marla Miller 37:12

I know there's such an over-emphasis on productivity that goes beyond, especially with all the new technology. It used to be like people would silence their phones, or no one would call the house after dinner time or later, like years ago. Yeah. And now it's like people are on call 24-7 and they're afraid to not pick up the phone. People feel like they have to be on all the time.

Tim Thomas 37:39

Yeah. And if you want to destroy somebody, destroy their sleep. We used to use it as a tactic in the special forces. We'd attack the enemy's sleep. We didn't know the science of it, but we we knew if we could take it out for three nights, it would mess them up better than a bullet. You know, so I I mean, I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I look at the pattern where the economy loves it when we're fatigued because we start believing that this crap outside of us is more important than what's inside of us. And that that stuff outside of us is going to do for us what our God-given right is inside of us. It's very easy to fall into the trap that what I do is important. What I do gives me importance. What I do has other people telling me I'm important. And if I'm not doing something, then I'm nothing. If I'm doing nothing, I am nothing. I am worthless, I am valueless. And and you know, when you've military tactics dictate you've got to find the enemy's center of gravity, whatever that is. It couldn't be something as simple as a good night's sleep. Once you off-center that, you've you're starting to win. And and you know, my observation around, especially around the poor sleep quality, it seems culturally accepted, is that the algorithms figured out that our center of gravity is our sense of self-worth. We want to feel valued, and it knows if it tells us that our value is determinant on things outside of our physical skin, it's gotcha. It has got you. And I want to share openly here because that switch never clicked for me until post-divorce when I lost house, home, money, kids, access, that I realized everything outside of my own skin I can't control. I mean, it's it's kind of obvious, but it was a realized fact. And then I'm like, well, if this thing here is the barrier between what I can control and what I can't control, well, guess what? We're gonna control what goes on underneath here. And this is where the seeking journey happens, that exploration around what is actually underneath our own skin, because most people treat their bodies just like a vehicle that carries their eyeballs around. You know, we have no idea, and this information is kind of hidden because once you know it, a lot of this stuff that is seemingly important gets made redundant really quickly. And and there's a lot of people out there that have been doing it for so long, they think it's normal. It would, it's very challenging to them for them to go, oh, actually, it's not my car that makes me special. But I've been doing this my whole life and I've been made to feel bad by other people that had better cars than me. And so now it's my identity, and don't tell me I'm not worth anything. So there's it wasn't until I had a complete breakdown that I was able to be present to the universal truth that inside of all of us there is this, some call it divine, but you could call it a few things: this peace, this power, this contentment, this um satisfaction that only we can give ourselves.

Marla Miller 41:01

Yeah, that is all so true. Well, when you were putting this program together and you were testing it out on these other military people, you were showing them, first of all, like community, right? You had them all in a room together. But how did you maintain that community? Like you said, it's great to talk to other people who've had similar experiences, but once you leave that place and you're no longer around them, how are they maintaining Yeah?

Tim Thomas 41:33

That is such a potent question because uh what you're speaking to there is a lot of people they say, I want to make a big amount of difference in this particular area. They might and they think that making a big amount of money, doing a big event, getting all these people together and having this great time and everyone's awesome on the day, but then a week later, what's changed? You know? I've made a million dollars for charity. What's changed? So so I I created this unit of measurement being military. Um, it's an acronym. It's three P's, and I and I kind of say everything I do has to pass my P test, right? Um, so everything I do has to be powerful, positive, but the last P is most important, permanent. So what you're talking about is permanency. What happens when you're not there? And do you remember um me talking about that email from that Louis Colonel saying that I'd helped his guys get their first good night's sleep in up to five years? He said something there that made me realize I was failing. He said, It was good when you're there, but what have you got when you're not there? And I'm like, Oh, I've just failed my P test. I am not permanent. And if we say that we're healers, we can't just care about people today. We've got to care about them tomorrow, next week, the next year. This is why healers are so rare, because they know they're human, their energy is not enough for two people. But what they've got mastery of is a connection to something super powerful, and they will connect you to that powerful thing in far less time than what it took them to. So the twofold answer was these programs that I set up then dovetailed into programs outside of the space. So if I was running uh a freediving program where people would breathe and go underwater, then it would be opened up to joining free diving organizations outside of that space. If I was running uh a men's group, that'd be made presents to other men's groups that they could go into. And with the breath work, when that Louis Colonel said, Well, what have you got when you're not there? I withdrew from public life. For about two years, spent over fifty grand creating the Breathwork Embed app, which it's just a piece of technology. And it's not the high tech part of the equation. What it gets you access to is the highest tech inside your own lungs regularly. And you know, like Uber Eats, you just hit a button and you get it straight away. So this is this is how this works. You just tell it when you want to sleep, and then it gets Ubered in at that exact moment, and you just, you know, tap and press play. So that has been my best attempts at permanency, at giving people access to this powerful thing.

Marla Miller 44:40

So you have an app that's called Breath Work in Bed. And so when when someone does want to sleep and they're unable to, they can just tap the app and hear these breathing techniques that they follow. Is that it? And then also, is it through the app where they're connected to other groups that they can continue to speak to other people going through the same thing?

Tim Thomas 45:03

Yeah, sure, sure. So the the work I did in the veteran charities, um, we would connect them to other external sources. It gives me much joy that over 10 years ago, these courses that I ran, these guys are still doing free diving courses and all that other stuff, and they're proliferating, you know, in their own separate areas. The app, it's unique because it doesn't just give you breath work to turn your bed into a cloud, and it can literally do that for you tonight. It in the morning, there's breath work to help get you out of bed. And I found that quite a game changer because I'm so used to waking up feeling tired, physical pains from preventable injuries. Veterans often call it vultures on the bedhead, like negative thoughts ready to dive into your head. And I noticed if I lost the first five minutes of the day with these negative stuff in my head, then I've lost the day. So I'm like, well, if I can just have some, you know, press a button, Uber Eats positivity fed in at that critical moment. I'm gonna win the first five minutes, I'm gonna win the day. And you remember how I said the healing journey gets to a point where you're like, I want to give my gifts into the world generously because I'm in touch with an abundant source. Well, I've noticed that generosity is one way to double the current energy you're feeling. So it's one thing to wake up with breath work and your feet hit the ground with you connected to your body, not like carrying all this stuck energy. Um, and within the app, there's another option where if you okay, you put the good energy into your body, let's put the good energy into your mind. So there's affirmations to be said in the mirror. And I was so resistant to that because I'm like, that's just so stupid. But doing it myself, I couldn't ignore the power of it. If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid. So for those people who want it, they can have I just use the term another Uber Eats thing where you're just getting that positivity fed into you while you're in that really critical stage of wakening. But within that wake-up routine, you've connected to your body, you've connected to your mind. I always ask, do you want to double the energy and connection you're currently feeling? Consider the possibility that you connecting to yourself is only half the connection. Connecting outside of yourself with an act of generosity can double your energy. It's amazingly simple. Like you could literally send three words to a friend, good morning, Mala. That's it. Send that to a few friends for no reason whatsoever. That is so simple and yet such a powerful act of generosity, where you're actually getting outside of yourself. You know, I would love to have someone say, Good morning, Tim, just as a text. So let's be the type of person that does for others. And it's funny, all this goodness, peace, power, it almost gets activated. It feels like it's sitting behind us on a rope. And when we give it to others, it pulls through to us as well. And so within the Breathworking Bed app, once people start going, man, I'm feeling really good, I'm banking this sleep, and they're in a space where I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna double this. I'm actually gonna do an act of generosity. So we actually have a generosity news wall, and I call it a news wall because you don't often get a lot of good news on the news. And I'm like, wouldn't it be nice to have a positive news feed? You know, Tom from Texas took his neighbor's bins in, that sort of stuff. What'd you say? Like on the generosity news wall, you can see things like oh, you know, Tom from Texas took his neighbors' bins in. You know, what's neither bins in? Neighbors, neighbors, you know, the neighbors? Oh, maybe my Aussie accent didn't do it justice.

Marla Miller 49:01

The neighbors' bins in the garbage cans. Yeah. Got it. Well, that's so interesting what you said about the affirmations, like how it seems so silly at first. But when you think about it, how many people look in the mirror and give a negative sort of affirmation? I mean, you're doing it anyway. So it may as well be positive instead of negative. And then the other thing, I love how you have that ability for people to share their acts of generosity, because there's been studies done about acts of kindness and how it affects not only the person that's receiving it, but the person who's doing it and also the person that's observing it. So if people are reading these other acts of kindness, even on the app wall, that's affecting them as well. Not to mention inspiring people to do more of those things. I love it.

Tim Thomas 50:04

It's always shocking how powerful these things are that cost you nothing. You know, it's your breath, it's your words. And and like you said, if we're not putting positive stuff in our minds, often I don't want to assume, but I am automatically putting negative stuff in there. So I have to be really clean on putting positive stuff in there. And I know I'm not I'm not lazy, but if there's an easier way to do something, I'll do it, and especially in the mornings. So if I've got an easy way to connect to my breath, if I've got an easy way to say my affirmations, it's like you literally your consciousness, instead of getting bombarded with negativity, you're on this positive train track that is just bit by bit, and and so many times, even though I'm the founder of it, so many times I'm like, this is BS, it's not gonna work, this is BS, it's not gonna work, and I'm and I'm breathing and I'm moving and I'm removing the stuck energy, but percentage by percentage by percentage, I'm like, wow, man, this works. And I think my blessing is sometimes I get really low and I have to find things that really work in that state of lowness, and the accessibility is key because the world we currently live in, um, I call it the economy of dysfunction, they're really good at giving instant satisfaction. Okay. So I'm hungry, yeah, you can have terrible takeaway food at the click of a finger. You know, the healthy options are there, but they take time. So again, what I like about breathwork, it's a quick, easy win that matches the speed of you know the consumer society that we're currently in.

Marla Miller 51:54

That's great. And I agree with you that the morning is so important because I've done it both ways. I've gone to my phone and watched the horrible news first thing, and it's so easy to get addicted to that. And then the rest of the day, not only is it not as good, but it goes by too quickly without accomplishing as much. Whereas when I've started it with the more meditative stuff, or I listen to some things that are more like affirmations and start your day with that, you're right, it sets the tone for the whole day. And then I feel better and I feel more productive and it just goes completely different. Just those first 15 minutes of my day, depending on how I start it.

Tim Thomas 52:40

Yeah. Yeah. And if we can create an ease of access for people, then it just happens a whole lot easier. If I have to do something hard to get the good stuff, it's a bit of a higher bar. And, you know, people are fatigued because they've already tried really hard and they don't want to remember I have to do six things before I go to sleep. No. The joy of this process isn't just getting a good night's sleep, isn't just waking up and you've got a positive experience. It is your gifts get brought into the world. And I can get people to consider that if you're feeling slow, low, flat, your gifts aren't coming out. In fact, you're protecting what's left. And there's no holding ground here. You're either, you know, flourishing or retreating. And I encourage people to think about all the things you'd like to flourish in. And it's not about working harder towards them. It's about developing your own peace and power, your own rest and restoration. So when I'm working with my corporates and they're like sleep when you're dead, because that's their culture, I say think of performance like a pyramid. Top of the pyramid, you know, you're achieving what you want in the world, making money, achieving goals, building buildings, whatever it is. But the bottom of the pyramid, which is much larger, is your rest, recovery, and healing art forms. Okay. And if you want to destroy someone, destroy the bottom of the pyramid. If you want to say you're over the hill at 30, then ignore the bottom of the pyramid. If you want to keep performing through your lifespan and not age like everyone else's ages, pay attention to the bottom of the pyramid. It looks nothing like the top, and the top looks nothing like the bottom, but done right, you are in a lot more joyful whole state, not reacting, not being in balance and having to pour dopamine over dysfunction. Better quality rest gives better quality performance. Better quality performance creates better quality rest. Once people understand that they aren't given a set of lungs, they were given a medicine cabinet with a lot of different shelves, and they can alter their state accordingly. If they want to punch through the afternoon, there's a breathwork technique that makes you feel better than caffeine. If they want to get better sleep, there's a breathwork technique for that. If I'm working with high school students, there's a breathwork technique that drops their cortisol and brings their thinking mind into gear when they're, you know, doing their exams. But once you have this access, the person who gave it to you is kind of automatically redundant. And most people, most marketers never want that. So this is why it's rare to get really powerful information because once you've got that, you've got it for the rest of your life, you know?

Marla Miller 55:25

Mm-hmm. Well, that is amazing that you're doing this for people and sharing such a wealth of information like this. Because you truly are coming from a place of wanting to help people, knowing how much it really saved you. So, what are some stories you might have of people that have been helped by this app and the information?

Tim Thomas 55:47

Well, yeah, look, my LinkedIn's blowing up right now because I had a had a guy, someone's quite up in the veteran space. He had a watch that measured his sleep, and he was not getting any quality sleep at all. And now, after working with me for a short period, um his numbers are off the charts. But the most obvious one was a guy who um who I'd known for a few years, and he thought it was so normal that he never mentioned to me that he was an insomniac. And for 38 years, he wasn't sleeping properly. His name was Chris. And I prescribed him some breath work, and I said, You do this and uh let's circle up again in a week. Uh eight days later, I checked in. He says, Tim, the only time I didn't sleep all the way through was when the dog was barking and it woke me up. That was the first time in 38 years he had slept all the way through, and the only thing he did different was breathwork. Natural, inbuilt, organic, immediate relief. And now this guy is he he's uh an older guy, he's over, he's over 60. Now he's actually training to become the world's fastest six-year-old triathlete, you know, in the seniors division. Um he actually ended up becoming my business partner as well. So that's kind of the the impact when people access their own medicine. The only thing I do with the Breathwork Inbed app is show you how to create your breath and get it to a medicinal level. Okay, so you know, everyone breathes and you can take a few deep breaths, but if it's a bit like let's just say you've got a headache and you want to take a panodol and you need to take two panodol, well, if you just lick it and put it down, you're not going to get any benefit. You do need to be guided into a certain medicinal state to create that effect on your body, as I've experienced it.

Marla Miller 57:48

That's so fascinating. What about people that were or are vets that were struggling because of something like PTSD? Do you have a story of someone like that that it really helped and really helped their depression or anxiety as a side effect?

Tim Thomas 58:09

Well, like I mentioned, one or two guys a week in the first year of doing this would come up and go, you know, do you remember that conversation? Do you remember that event? And I'm like, Yeah, I guess, you know, because I I did a lot. And he goes, Well, after that one conversation, I had everything I needed to in the car to kill myself, and I chose not to. That was happening once, sometimes twice a week. Speaking to exact terms, like I didn't have the metrics in place to measure, let's say someone's you know, depressed or you know, PDSD and the percentage of which they recovered, but I can honestly say this they would reach out to me years after the event and say, Tim, I'm now doing this, this, this, serving my community, doing this, this, this, I've got full-time employment, I've got a family. You know, my my daughter and I have got a great relationship. So there's there's all these things that really happened, but could I honestly quantify what was transformed? All I can say was there was something not working, and then it was working. And these people had what they needed inside of them to make it work, and all I did was just pulled away the things that were stopping their inner knowing coming out, which was loneliness, fatigue. And they then moved into these much more happy lives. Of course, I've got a a lot of testimonials and all that sort of stuff, but to give exact data on you know mental health and PDSD, I I don't have access to that.

Marla Miller 59:45

No, you answered that perfectly. I mean, that's all you need are those testimonials of people that were feeling so lost beforehand and then transformed their lives. That's amazing. So I have three questions I like to ask. Yeah. When someone's gone through some difficult things and come out the other side, like you have. When you were going through the most difficult times when you lost everything, or right before you went to the psychologist's office, what was the biggest obstacle, do you think, to you?

Tim Thomas 1:00:22

In getting healing?

Marla Miller 1:00:24

Yeah, like when you were in the process of then trying to heal yourself.

Tim Thomas 1:00:30

Got it.

Marla Miller 1:00:30

Yeah.

Tim Thomas 1:00:31

I can answer that very succinctly. Uh, you know how guys don't like stopping and asking for directions? Because that means we don't know something. So let's build upon that. There's certain ways of being which make you think that if I'm weak, I'll let the team down. And I'll die before I let the team down. And asking for help makes me look weak. And I don't want to let the team down. And we kind of kill ourselves and impact everyone around us by having this belief that we don't even know we have that yeah, asking for help means you're weak. And we're gonna let others down. We have to be the strong one. So that was the main obstacle, the idea that asking for help. It was too scary to comprehend that I could be the one letting my team down, I could be the one letting my family down, I could be the one causing pain to my family. You know, I'll I'll die before I let anything happen to my family, but you know, it's a hell of a pill.

Marla Miller 1:01:39

Well, what was the biggest lesson you learned along the way?

Tim Thomas 1:01:43

Done right, all the shit we go through is meant to be for fertilizer. We're not supposed to stay in it. It's the biggest blessing, even though you sometimes wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy. The biggest blessing is to be put through those low moments where you've just been you just have to admit I can't do this. I got nothing. My strength is not enough, my wisdom's not enough. And in that place, magic can happen. Things come out of nowhere, and I think people get to that place through modeling behavior of others. They get to that place a lot quicker when they've got people to model, oh, that person was gentle, then vulnerable, and he had a breakthrough. That's a lot more impactful than trying to get there on your own, you know.

Marla Miller 1:02:40

What was the kindest thing someone did for you during that time?

Tim Thomas 1:02:45

A kindred spirit once had a conversation with me that made me feel incredibly valued. And I didn't know it at the time, that she was the head of a particular research organization. It was Gallipoli Medical Research Organization, uh, and it's quite a big thing in Australia. We created tools for veterans that actually work. Now, I didn't know that at the time, but she just held that space with me, and that just cracks something inside of me like it's like everything's gonna be okay. You know, the power of a stranger, I guess, was what really landed with me. The power of a stranger and was so great not to be like famous because strangers are super powerful, and that was the gift within the gift. Now, I'd actually since gone on, me and a team of people raised $1.3 million in charity for Gallipoli Medical Research, along with uh another chosen charity, but all that happened on the back of this one stranger looking at me and holding a really clean space. And something filled that space that was completely unexpected and incredibly rewarding. And it cost them nothing, you know.

Marla Miller 1:04:03

So, do you mean she held the space like to listen to your story and listen to you?

Tim Thomas 1:04:08

No, no, no. It was a conversation where she just held no judgment. She was just having a conversation, no judgment as a stranger. And I sensed it and it was palpable, and it'd been years since I'd had that.

Marla Miller 1:04:21

Yeah, sometimes the most powerful moments do come from strangers, that there's no expectation on either side, and you can just have a genuine, heartfelt moment. So, where can people find you or find this app? And is there any last thing you want to share with people to give them whether it's hope or inspiration or a healing tip?

Tim Thomas 1:04:46

Sure. Well, to answer your first question, I have social media, but the world doesn't need more social media. Okay, if you do want to reach out, sure, breathwork in bed, that's across the range. Um, I often work with leaders who want to create spaces for their people. I'm a designer of a performance standard in Australia, which has the success standard of sleep. But for those people that say, look, I just want a better night's sleep tonight, simply get out your phone and put in breath work in bed in your app store. Breath work, one word, in bed. Gift for everyone today. There's a 28-day free period. Hit that button. You can trial it for 28 days, no expense. You just tell it when you want to sleep, when you want to wake up, we take care of the rest. Because tired people don't want to remember six things. And what I'd love to leave people with is consider your 2026 with quality sleep. Consider the goals you want to achieve with quality sleep. Consider how long you want to live with quality sleep. Sleep is the soil from which everything grows. And all those dormant seeds of greatness and uniqueness that are inside of a person naturally flourish. And that's the exciting part. Sleep is just the stepping stone into that flourishing. And that's what brings me the greatest joy because when people start flourishing because of good quality sleep, not from grinding away, you start seeing colors you've never seen before. And it's amazing to be around.

Marla Miller 1:06:14

Great note to end on. I appreciate you being on here and giving not just hope for people, especially the vets. And we didn't really get into first responders, but first responders as well that go through a lot of different traumas, but also for people in general. There's so many insomniacs out there. So to know that there might be hope for them and to not only enhance their sleep, but to enhance their health and their vitality. You know, we're all living longer, I guess, these days, but we want to live it with vitality and in the best shape we can be in. So I just think you have brought a tremendous wealth of information and insight and lots of inspiration. So I appreciate you being here.

Tim Thomas 1:07:04

Mala, thank you for holding such wonderful, gentle, feminine space. And I get the feeling that it it wasn't just a good experience for us to have this conversation. I feel like it's doing good outside of this. And I I really want to acknowledge all those people that really listened. Because, you know, at the end of this, there's probably people that go, nah, whatever. But then there's those people that go, you know what? There's something here. Let's look into this. And the goal is to flourish. And it's so wonderful to be in the presence of that.