RYAN WILLIAMSON 0:00
I had this limiting belief that I was never good enough, no matter what I did. And when I look back, I had a lot of evidence — a lot of experiences — that conditioned that into me. And so here I am pursuing degree after degree. I didn't have room on my walls for all this stuff that I collected — not to brag — but because I did it all to externalize. I thought this was going to fix my problem. There's nothing in the outside world that will make you happy. Only you can make yourself happy. It took that realization of releasing this past trauma. And all that's fixed after going through this.
JEN AKS 0:36
Welcome to the Wisdom From Within podcast. My name is Jen Aks, and I am your host. This is where mindset meets bodyset, where we access both so that we can make the most genuine, authentic, empowered impact on those we love and those we serve. Let's get started.
This is gonna be a great episode with Ryan Williamson. He's a neurologist, and he has inspired me and has been a teacher of my work, The Power of Gesture. He's really helped me connect the dots between why the hands have so much power in helping us shift how we feel and getting us back into alignment — to restore the confidence that we need to go lead our life the way we're meant to. So Ryan is gonna give us some insight. He's gonna share his story, his journey, his connection to the wisdom from within, and why he believes it's so deeply important. I am very, very excited and honored to share Ryan with you today. Okay, let's get started.
Oh my gosh, Ryan Williamson! I am so freaking honored, and I already love this conversation — and we haven't even had it yet. I'm so happy to know you. I'm just gonna do a quick intro about who you are.
Ryan Williamson is a board-certified neurologist and someone who I've come into connection with recently, who has not only validated my work but inspired me and taught me so much about it. His background is incredible. He's a proud Navy veteran and the owner and founder of Transcend Health, driven by passion — absolutely true — to make a broader impact. He empowers leaders and individuals to optimize their cognitive performance through evidence-based strategies that address brain fog — I think we can all relate to that — improving memory and overcoming cognitive overload.
There's so much more about you, and I really just want to allow you to speak and let everyone get to know who you are. Let me start with this question: what does wisdom from within mean to you? As a neurologist, you have so much to connect with around that. So I'm curious what your thoughts are.
RYAN WILLIAMSON 3:14
First off, Jen, happy to be here. So thank you for having me. And thanks for the intro. There are so many directions to go with this.
To me, I think of wisdom — or knowing, or memory, or knowledge, whatever you want to tag it to — as really having two main buckets, two main spheres. And I think most of us gravitate towards conscious wisdom: the things that we know, the things that we remember. We remember events from our childhood, we remember our education, we remember that two plus two equals four, or that Europe is a continent. These are all what are called explicit memories — consciously stored memories. And I think most of us operate in this world of accessing, utilizing, and relaying information to others via conversation, text, books, whatever it may be.
And that fundamentally ignores the implicit memories — the unconscious or subconscious memories that also exist in different parts of our brain. The conscious memories live in what we call the cortex — the big part up top, the gray squishy matter, if anyone's ever seen a picture of a brain. And the deeper structures — what are called the subcortical nuclei — and the limbic system, which your audience may have heard of, our emotional brain, so to speak — that's where more of these implicit or unconscious memories are stored.
It took me a very long time to understand the importance and relevance of these unconscious memories, or this wisdom, which I think has a lot to do with what you talk about, Jen — your body speaking, the power of gesture, this realm of movement-based healing and therapy. I suppressed a lot of unconscious memories. I think stress and trauma built into my nervous system from years of watching my own family members suffer from disease, losing family members, watching terrible things happen to people in my career in healthcare. And rather than deal with that or process it in a healthy way, I sort of stuffed it down and out of the way. I wrote about this in the anthology chapter — I don't know if you had a chance to read that, but anyone who has a chance, check that out.
Anyway, I'm going a few different directions here. But the paradigm I want everyone to think of is: conscious, high-level thinking memories — and then these unconscious or implicit emotional memories that we really need to learn to tap into, to listen to our bodies. And I'll pause there.
JEN AKS 6:07
I love it so much. And I think that is such a nugget to really lean into — that conscious and subconscious distinction. If I'm hearing you correctly, the conscious is really connected to learning and concrete evidence that we lean on. And then the unconscious is really connected to the emotional experience. Am I hearing that?
RYAN WILLIAMSON 6:37
That's a great summary. Yes.
JEN AKS 6:39
Yeah. I'm curious about what you were saying related to you and your relationship to both — you said you stuffed it down. Can you talk about that, if that's all right? What was that like for you? How did it feel in your body, looking back now? Because you probably couldn't fully understand it at the time. And then how did you eventually come to the other side of that?
RYAN WILLIAMSON 7:05
Oh, for sure. Yeah. I unknowingly did this as a defense mechanism to keep myself moving forward. And what I didn't realize is that I had this limiting belief that I was never good enough, no matter what I did. When I look back, I had a lot of evidence — a lot of experiences — that had conditioned that into me.
And so the way I approached it — I mean, I always wanted to help people. There's no question that was an altruistic motive. I just wanted to try to get past that, or help others from suffering. That's why I chose a career in medicine. But even going through that path and process — you've got to be a straight-A or near straight-A student, you've got to pass your MCATs, get into medical school. And then in med school, you've got to do well, and you've got professors telling you how dumb and wrong you are all the time. It's a pretty long, difficult path, because that's the way many of these people were trained — it was beaten into their heads. If you don't get this right, people are going to die. Which is true, but I think there's also a constructive way to share that information.
And so here I am, pursuing degree after degree — certification, board certification, residency, teaching award, professorship. I don't have room on my walls for all of it that I collected. Not to brag, but because I did it all to externalize. I thought this was going to fix my problem: oh, surely if I get the next thing, I'll be fine. When looking back, how silly that sounds, because happiness comes from within. That's wisdom from within. There's nothing in the outside world that will make you happy. Only you can make yourself happy. And you've got to understand, know, and love yourself — give yourself permission to be who you are, meet yourself where you are, and continue to learn and work on things.
So to answer your question, Jen — it took me a long time to even identify that. It actually took a failing marriage. My wife was very unhappy with where we were because I wasn't meeting her basic needs. And in my egotistical doctor brain, I thought, oh, well, she's upset — clearly something's wrong with her. Let's go fix her. So we agreed to go to couples therapy, probably four or five years ago now. And after a couple of sessions, the therapist turned to me and said, "Guess what, Ryan? You're the problem." Which is a wonderful thing to hear when you think everything's fine.
And so through a very challenging process — difficult at the time, to actually go through and unpack these life stressors — it was hard, it was emotional, it was challenging, and worth every single step and every minute. Because that allowed me to open myself up more fully to people, to step into my role as a physician and now as a thought leader and published author who creates content to help a bigger audience. That's my passion: to help people live longer, healthier, more impactful lives.
And it took that realization — releasing this past trauma, reassociating these unconscious memories, this wisdom that was there but was really stressing me and my nervous system. I had constant anxiety and fear that something bad would happen. My sleep suffered as a result. And believe it or not, my blood pressure — as an otherwise young, healthy person — was higher than it should have been because of the constant stress. All of that is fixed after going through this.
JEN AKS 10:36
Wow. I mean, first of all, I'm just so grateful for your vulnerability. Your ability to show up so raw and so honest is incredible — such an example for all of us. I really appreciate your reflection on your own life and the journey that led you here. Thank you for that.
And I'm really curious about how that experience has informed how you listen to your body now. Do you have practices that you use? Is there a pause that gets inserted? What have you done to hold on to that integrity — that wisdom from within?
RYAN WILLIAMSON 11:44
Absolutely. So, Jen, one of the coolest things about the brain to me is that we optimize for whatever we train it for. What I mean by that is your brain is a giant supercomputer, and all it's doing is absorbing, filtering, and processing the inputs we give it. Therefore, if we continue to consume stressful content or put ourselves in stress-inducing situations — continuing to have arguments with loved ones, watching fear-mongering news, all of which we're exposed to every day — that's what the brain optimizes for.
And if you want some numbers: 50% of Americans report feeling chronic stress every single day. 75% report feeling stress sometime in the past month. And these are just the people who are aware of it and have the courage to say something about it. My personal experience is that it's almost everybody, based on the world we live in.
And the modern world is not congruent with our biology — which we can come back to. But to answer your question: the way we get around this is we change the inputs. And how do we do that? Well, today I went to the gym, as I often do — I try to move every day. Movement is wonderfully powerful in terms of helping us rewire our brain and keep our brains and bodies young and healthy. But I also sat in the sauna for about 20 minutes, which has some positive benefits for the brain and body. And I engaged in mindfulness and did a series of breathing techniques — breath work — that are known to help rewire the brain more toward retaining control. It activates what's called our dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In English, that's a part of the brain right here — right behind the forehead — that kind of literally is another language.
JEN AKS 13:39
It is so important to talk about because there are people out there who understand it — and I'm glad you translated it. Okay, keep going.
RYAN WILLIAMSON 13:45
So the big squishy part up top, right here behind the forehead — that's the thing. And this is where our higher-order, conscious memory functions live — not the implicit stuff, but it allows us to retain that higher-order function and maintain control when we're feeling stress.
Because if we do the opposite — if we don't engage in activity or exercise, don't practice mindfulness or breath work or yoga or meditation, pick your practice — all of these are effective and evidence-based. If we don't do that and we keep consuming the stressful stuff, we activate the fear centers in the deeper unconscious emotional brain. And we stay in a constant state of fight-or-flight. Most people don't even realize why.
As a result, we react to things. An email comes in that's unpleasant — boom. Fear centers triggered. Immediately, blood pressure and heart rate go up. A difficult conversation with a loved one — boom, same thing. And Jen, I think most people live in that world, just constantly reacting and trying to catch up rather than being in control.
And that's one of my principal challenges with the work I do at Transcend Health: getting people to identify that — and realize they can regain control. Because otherwise it just feels like one more thing to do. If we don't explore the wisdom from within, or the power of gesture, we don't really understand how important these things are for ourselves to actually engage in. And then it's like, oh my gosh, I've got 90,000 other things to do. How do I have time to add one more thing? I think most people are just stuck in that frame of mind because they're just reacting.
JEN AKS 15:29
Oh my gosh. That is incredible — that's a lot. First of all, what I love about this conversation is that you're bringing so much science and experience to these practices. You mentioned exercise, yoga, the power of gesture, meditation — and that is part of my mission, and that is why I have you here today: to really encourage and validate how important these practices are. Because a lot of people look at them as not so important, or woo-woo, or whatever they call it. But it's really, really substantial. There's so much behind it.
And I'm curious — I didn't even think we'd go into this so much today — but you did experience the power of gesture. You mentioned it alongside meditation, yoga, pilates, walking, running, all of it. I would love for you to share your experience with that — not to just pump it all up, but it was a very beautiful and transformative experience. I'd love for you to share about it and tie in what we're saying — how that practice can really activate paying attention to that wisdom from within and utilizing it.
RYAN WILLIAMSON 16:55
Absolutely. So, first off, I think your technique — the power of gesture — connects the emotional or unconscious memories to the conscious memories. And as an example of this, I still remember where I was sitting. We were in Mexico for my wife's birthday at a resort. And I bring that up — this was back in February, maybe six or eight months ago now, time flies. But my point is: I remember where I was sitting, I remember the view in front of me, and I remember how I felt. Because memory ties most strongly to our emotional centers — our limbic system. Smell is another one that really gets to the deeper brain structures as well.
But my point is: you walked me through this exercise, and I can remember where I was sitting and how I was feeling because it truly activates these deeper memory centers. Our body codes these as something to hold on to and remember. A good example would be if you've ever experienced a traumatic event — a car accident, watching someone undergo something horrible. Most people can remember that vividly. That's because the brain gets such a strong signal: this is important, remember this. The same can be true for a very positive emotional memory — your first kiss, the first time you met your partner, something like that. Whereas if you asked any of us what we had for breakfast on September 16th of last year, there's just no way — unless it coincided with something important. Routine things just don't connect to those deeper implicit memory centers.
And the reason I'm walking everyone through this is because your process activates those centers. That's why I remember this session with you so vividly. I remember you asking me to talk about something I was feeling, something that was bothering me. And I had this almost fetal posture — doing this, kind of protecting myself from this past trauma that I was envisioning. And then as I was releasing it, opening up, arms out, looking up — I'm getting emotional just doing it now, because it's activating that emotional center.
So it's very powerful. That's a taste of it, anyway, in my own words.
JEN AKS 19:46
Yes. So just to recap — this brought in that memory, this was the release of it. And what happens in that is that it was about you using the power from within you to make that transformation happen. I guided you partly into it — now see yourself releasing, where will your gestures go, where will your hands go — but I'm curious if you remember how that transformation process felt. Yeah, go ahead.
RYAN WILLIAMSON 20:32
Yeah, sure. I mean, the holding on to the past, the sort of cringe or fearful situation I was in — versus yes, stepping into and allowing myself to transcend — maybe to use a familiar word — into the more open posture. And that's a journey I had already been through by the time you and I met, for sure. So it was almost like I could envision myself walking that path as you were guiding me through it.
But for somebody who's not been there, or hasn't had the opportunity to go through therapy or explore their past, or maybe they're still suppressing or dissociated from stressful or difficult events — I really think this could be another powerful technique to help people do that.
And just as another example of this: there's a psychotherapy technique called EMDR — eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. Again, neuroscientists and psychiatrists like to make big words bigger than are needed for simple ideas. But the concept is this: we know that when we go to sleep, memories are stored — specifically during REM sleep. REM stands for rapid eye movement. If you've ever observed someone in REM sleep, or even just Googled a video, their eyes move quite quickly — hence the name.
Well, a psychologist or psychiatrist discovered a technique where you walk a person who has experienced trauma through the process of recalling the memory, pausing them at set intervals, and having them follow a finger back and forth with their eyes while awake. This eye movement allows an individual to reprocess memories — so they no longer have to relive the traumatic experience, which activates the fear centers, causes flashbacks, avoidance behaviors, all the terrible circumstances that PTSD conveys. It fundamentally helps people move through or past a trauma.
And where I'm going with this is: that's a specific technique that happens to mimic memory formation. And I really think there's something to this gesture work — walking people through the old stress or trauma posture into a newer, healthier behavior, a newer vision of themselves. I think it's probably tapping into those same brain networks. That's my hypothesis anyway.
JEN AKS 23:19
I love that. And I'm curious — there is so much logical reasoning around all of this, and you've given the audience and me so much beautiful information. And in all of this, the power of gesture, the bodyset — which is the other half of mindset to me — I'm just curious, from your perspective: mindset, using the mind for logical reasoning and cognitive rationale, and then the bodyset piece, bringing the two together. How do you perceive that relationship?
RYAN WILLIAMSON 24:07
Yes. So there's a bidirectional relationship between the higher-order cognitive functions — our mindset — and these implicit or subconscious memories, i.e. our bodyset.
The deep nuclei — what's also called the basal ganglia — these structures store literal movement-related memories, motor memories. I see this with patients who have had a stroke. Often, long-standing high blood pressure leads to strokes in these areas because they're served by little tiny blood vessels. A small blood vessel can give up, or a little clot can block blood flow, and that area of the brain dies. The entire motor cortex — where all the movement sections live — can be completely healthy and intact, but these deeper memory structures, if they're knocked out, people can lose the ability to move.
These are the same circuits involved in Parkinson's. When someone has a loss of dopamine-producing cells in the midbrain — where the brainstem connects to the brain — those neurons project to this same movement-memory area. And if anyone has a relative with Parkinson's, they have trouble moving, they get very stiff, their hands shake, they have tremors.
The reason I'm laying out this neuroanatomy is that these memories live in these deep brain structures and are fundamentally connected to our conscious ability to move. And this is an area of ongoing research that we're really just starting to tap into.
Another region — the cerebellum, in the back of the brain, which is kind of Latin for "little brain" because it looks like a small brain sitting on the back of the larger one. I was taught this was just a coordination organ. And in fact it does help with coordination. But we now know that memories are stored in the cerebellum. This is relatively new science — really only from the last decade or so — and I was not taught this in medical school or residency.
So my point, Jen, is that what you're doing activates all of these ancient, deep circuits — because these are the older parts of our brains that we share with what I'll reluctantly call more primitive animals. I hate to even say that, because I think we've grossly underestimated the level of conscious perception of the average animal — but that's maybe a conversation for another time.
But we share these structures with other animals. Whereas the ability to build computers, have podcasts, fly planes — that's all our cortex, the newer part up top. And these ancient memories that encode this wisdom — wisdom from within — I think this relationship is something you're really starting to explore and tap into, which I find fascinating.
JEN AKS 27:39
So beautiful. I love that. Thank you so much. I'm listening to you and thinking: you are the epitome of wisdom from within — in the brain, right? The brain holds so much. And what I love — for anyone listening — is to really connect to the agency and the power within us. There is so much we can do and exercise in our mind, according to you, to activate that wisdom and let it drop into our bodies even more. There's such a significant relationship between the two. And to not just think our way through life, but to really merge the body and the mind together to bring that wisdom outward.
You've explained so much. We have a few minutes left. I'm curious — in simple terms — about what I just framed: bringing those two together, being able to tap into that wisdom. Because sometimes the brain can feel so overwhelming with all of the scientific terms. But really accessing that part of ourselves — what would you say?
RYAN WILLIAMSON 29:14
Yes. And first, I think the term you were looking for when describing my ability to say all these things is: nerd. So, yes.
JEN AKS 29:21
In the best way — I don't even know, really. That gets to my thing about labels. That's not a bad connotation. I think you're just brilliant and accessible and just an awesome human — but you can call yourself a nerd if you want.
RYAN WILLIAMSON 29:36
Thank you. I'll take nerd.
So — what can we do? A handful of evidence-based practices. I think one or perhaps two of the most powerful are meditation and breath work. There are all different types of both. But we know both allow us to bring awareness to our minds and bodies — we can focus on just our breathing, or our muscles contracting and moving, or just sitting still, or an object. There are so many ways around this.
But when we do this — and I want everyone to really take this point home — you're not just feeling good in the moment, or just breathing to breathe. We now know this has a fundamental impact on the actual brain structure itself and the relationships between neurons. So, for example, before all of you started listening to this recording, your brain existed in one state. After listening to me and Jen talk, or after your next conversation with somebody at work, your brain is dynamic — it will continue to change. Those connections between neurons — called synapses — continue to change. That process is called neuroplasticity.
And when you engage in meditation, breath work, and particular types of exercise, that engages neuroplasticity to help you tap into brain networks that keep you more calm, more collected — to release some of that fear and not be as prone to that fearful state in the future.
And again, this has massive impacts not just on how we feel, but on lowering stress hormones, lowering heart rate and blood pressure — which we know correlate with a longer, healthier lifespan — and lowering the risk of chronic disease, which can lead to problems like heart attacks, strokes, and dementia.
And when we contract our muscles — resistance training in particular — we know this releases a class of signaling molecules called cytokines, and specifically myokines. Myo meaning muscle. These signaling molecules travel from the muscles through the bloodstream, cross the blood-brain barrier, and enter the brain. That helps with neuroplasticity, nerve growth factor, BDNF, and all these different neurotransmitters that help maintain those connections and keep our brains younger.
So again, the science is catching up to what's been anecdotal or ancient wisdom — maybe more Eastern philosophies that have been popular for so long. We're now starting to understand why these things work.
JEN AKS 32:11
Ugh, I love it so much. Before we go, I want to give you a second to talk about your book. And I'm curious — do you bring in your personal life experiences around everything we talked about at the beginning of this conversation? Because I think that's so beautiful and so relatable.
RYAN WILLIAMSON 32:35
Thank you for the opportunity, Jen. So, first off, very, very happy that this is out in the world. This is The Incredible Brain — my new book. We launched last month and hit bestseller, which I'm very pleased to share. And Jen was actually there on launch day, which was very exciting — we got to attend an event together, which was very special.
And I am even more pleased to hear the feedback that people have already been able to positively change their lives by the information in the book. These are conversations I've had with my patients my entire medical career. Now that I've been able to delve more into this literature, really hone in on what the evidence tells us works, and see more people implement it — that just fires me up and makes me so happy.
The basic outline of the book: I get people to focus on their purpose, their why, their meaning in life. Then I go into some detail on how the brain and body work, and what can go wrong and why most of us end up there. And then the whole second half of the book covers a lot of what we've been talking about today — and more — on how we can live longer, healthier lives and create more impact in the world.
And as I mentioned at the start of our conversation — my desire to go into medicine was shaped by trauma and loss. That is very much in the book. My personal experience, my personal mission, my early life, some recent events that were very difficult to get through — all of it informs why I'm doing this. I'm basically turning away from what I thought would be a 30- or 40-year career in clinical medicine, in a clinic or a hospital, to do this. This experience has had such a profound impact on me and on how I want to help people. And I just think it's going to create a bigger impact and make a more meaningful difference for the people who read it — and then for the people they go out and serve.
JEN AKS 34:29
Incredible. Where can people find you?
RYAN WILLIAMSON 34:32
So the book is available on Amazon — that's probably the easiest place to find it. Just search The Incredible Brain and it should be the first one to show up. Our website is transcendhealthgroup.com, which gets you to everything Transcend Health.
And actually, Jen — for your audience — we literally just launched this within the last week: we now have a free Facebook group. I'll have to give you the link. But I have what I call the Brain Foundation. I've distilled all of this — all the pillars of evidence-based medicine that get us longer lifespan, health span, mindfulness, all of it — into what I call the Brain Protocol. BRAIN is five letters, each one representing one of these pillars. I've created a free course for everyone. No strings attached. You just get into the Facebook group. We do have to let you in because I want to keep out people who don't want to be there — so you just send us a little note and we'll click accept. But yeah, that's available for everyone now. Short, bite-sized videos, five to seven minutes each. Please share that with your audience and we'll get you the link.
JEN AKS 35:35
Oh, please do! That sounds incredible. I love that. And are they all there, or do they drop over time?
RYAN WILLIAMSON 35:42
They're all there — it's just a course people can go through.
JEN AKS 35:45
I love it. Fantastic. Oh my gosh, Ryan, thank you so much for being here. You are just a breath of knowledge and inspiration, and I'm so glad to know you. Thank you for this conversation.
RYAN WILLIAMSON 35:59
Likewise, Jen. It's always a pleasure.
JEN AKS 36:01
All right, see you next week for Wisdom From Within. If something in this conversation spoke to you, don't keep it to yourself — send it to someone who might need that message too. You can also send me a comment, because I would love to know what it is that landed for you. But most importantly, take a moment to pause and listen to what it is that resonated — because that's where your real guidance system lives. The one you can trust. The one you can rely on.