Introducing Dave Mccullar, Founder Of Inception, The World’s First Mental Health Gym
This interview was released on December 4, 2020.
How did you get started in the space of brain training and healing?
In 2001–2006 I was living in South Florida. At the time, I started to experience anxiety, which I wasn’t aware of. I’d heard about anxiety and stress before, but I didn’t know how that impacted me as a person. I was studying Anthony Robbins (known as Tony Robbins), and he was immersed in the mind-body connection and being able to change your mental state by changing your physiology. This became the paradigm shift for me because I started to understand that the mind and body are connected; they aren’t separated.
In 2005, I fell on my back while playing basketball. When I fell, I started having panic attacks that I didn’t understand until recent years. Most people don’t attribute physical injuries to their mental health, and neither did I. I moved back home in 2006, and in 2007, I discovered a neurotechnology called Brain Wave Optimization. I still had full-blown panic attacks, which lead to depression, insomnia, and a host of other issues. I truly wanted to find answers to my problems outside the traditional system: talk therapy and medication. Knowing about neuroplasticity and brain optimization fit my criterion at that time.
My dad and I flew out to Arizona to experience brain technology. In one day, my panic attacks dropped to 50%. I would have panic attacks around going out to eat and other social settings. This same day, I ate at a sit-down restaurant for the first time in over a year. We ended up bringing the neurotechnology back to Michigan and created our first company called the NeuroFitness Center. We used brain wave technology from 2007 until 2014. I kept adding tools onto the fold because I learned that the issues are in the tissues of the body. You need more than brain training because trauma is stored in the body.
What’s the body’s relationship with trauma, and why is it such a complicated aspect to grasp?
When you utilize the traditional medical system, and you have a physical injury, they don’t look at the mind. When you go to the therapist after a physical injury, they don’t look at the body. It’s a separation between the mind and the body within this system. Trauma isn’t limited to car accidents, shootings, and other major physical occurrences. Trauma is anything that’s overwhelming to your nervous system. As a society, we need to reframe our outlook on trauma. When the brain is up against an event or threat, the brain will go into a state of protection instinctively. It’s not about the event; it’s about the response in the brain and the body. Neurologically, the brain will go into a fight or flight response, and the body will expel adrenaline and cortisol to get you out of the way of the threat. When you don’t discharge the energy out of your body from an event, it becomes trauma that can last for an extended period of time inside of you.
Inception is the world’s first mental health gym. Was it daunting to be the first in such a capacity and the first in such a vast field like mental health?
Yes, because out of all the world’s problems, two main factors accompany those problems (Mental and emotional health). Everything stems from the mind. We live in a society that uses material gain to solve our mental and emotional issues. When people need to destress, they turn to specific coping mechanisms, so for the last 14 years and even now, it’s my job to help people understand what the real issues are. I want people to understand why they’re doing the things that they’re doing. We don’t ride horses anymore because we’ve found better ways to travel, so we must apply this same principle to our lives. We’re disconnected from our emotions. When people come into Inception, and we put them through our various systems, emotions come up, and people have to feel them, which can be a scary thing. But, when you have an awareness of your feelings and emotions, you’ll be better suited to move forward in life.
Our mental and emotional health is essential, but what are some things we can do to heal ourselves through diet and nutrition?
We need to look at the very basic things that the body needs and give it these things so it can be absorbed at a high level. We don’t need tons of vitamins and supplements to be healthy. Truthfully, many of the vitamins on the market are synthetic and don’t contain as much nutrition as we think. Also, the absorption level for many of these products is low (IE: Protein absorption — 30%). There are industries that are built off our ignorance, so I encourage everyone to take a mineral analysis test to see where they are in terms of their health and what they actually need to take. I’m not against vitamins, but I am against things that we as people don’t need. I even got rid of certain technology at Inception because it wasn’t needed anymore. Whatever I put out will be at the highest level because if it doesn’t have an impact, I won’t stand behind it.
To find out more about Inception, CLICK HERE.
