This month I am excited to share about Primal Trust, an online membership program and community for those recovering from chronic illness that offers a course, community, online somatic classes, mentorship, study groups and more — all under the premise that one of the primary root causes of chronic cluster conditions like Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), Mold Related Illness, Lyme Disease, Anxiety, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) Fibromyalgia (FMS) and Chronic Fatigue (CFS)/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) is a dysregulated nervous system and chronic stress response to trauma and environmental toxins. They address this maladaptive cellular danger response from both the top down (with brain retraining and modalities like EFT) and from the bottom up, with somatic practices and other approaches that allow the body to achieve long-term feelings of innate safety and “primal trust” in life.

Primal Trust offers 3 progressive levels on a monthly membership basis, at a cost of $96/month. The first is called Regulate™ and is their tier 1 offering, where you learn to consciously self-regulate your biology. In Level 1, you will receive brain retraining, body-based somatic practices, vagus nerve toning, polyvagal understanding and it’s trauma processing. Modules in Level 1 are released each week to help you pace yourself and not overwhelm the nervous system. You can finish Level 1 in two months time, but can take longer to digest and integrate the information (or retake the course) if you wish.

Level 2 is called Mentorship and is a 5-month program for doing the inner work of resolving resistance and trauma wounding. Level 2 is for those who want to heal lingering emotional triggers and trauma patterns using neuroplasticity, ‘parts work’ and trauma-informed healing practices.

Level 3 is a guide to help you in emerging back into the world with heart-led purpose. In this level, you take a deep dive into specialty topics like relationships, parenting, going back to work, and more. You will experience ongoing transformation through being resourced in community.

In addition to the coursework, you will have access to dozens of live classes each month, live Q&As with Primal Trust™ mentors, free study groups and practice meetups. a community forum for each level, and integration classes.

Primal Trust was created by Dr. Cathleen King, DPT, an expert on chronic illness, chronic trauma, relationship/attachment repair, and inner child healing. She has a doctoral-level education and training as a physical therapist, and many years of coaching others in wellness and lifestyle education.

Dr. Cat has been through her own heroine’s journey of spending nearly 2 decades of her life navigating through deep, debilitating illness and finally found her way out. She understands the experience of childhood trauma and long-term chronic illness patterns, first-hand. Born into deep trauma patterns and challenging family dynamics, Dr. Cat developed protective bodily stress responses as a result. She suffered for well over a decade with debilitating chronic infections and sensitivities that caused deep suffering (Lyme disease, mold, chronic fatigue, dysautonomia, etc.). She then learned how to activate her own mind-body self-healing by cultivating the embodiment of what she calls “Primal Trust”. 

Over 7,500 chronic illness sufferers have gone through the Primal Trust program. I just heard about this community a few days ago and went to the website to check it out. I was so impressed with what I found that I joined right away. Dr. Cat’s message really spoke to me. She asks if you are someone who goes from treatment to treatment, course to course, trying to fix and treat all your diagnoses, but never getting well. I saw myself in that description, and realized that I have come to feel like I am a hostage to my nervous system. Rather than having emotional mastery, I feel my emotions and my stress reactions control me, and honestly wreak havoc in my life.

Dr. Cat also says that getting diagnoses and doing treatments is perfectly fine, but it’s just not the only way to address chronic illness — and may not be the best way to address it, either. She says that once you balance the dysregulated nervous system, the body will start to heal itself. We are wired for homeostasis and the body is fully equipped to rest and repair, under normal circumstances. But for some of us, after experiencing a toxic injury or trauma, we get stuck in a stress loop and we cannot get out of it. Once we can address this chronic stress response, we will be more likely to heal from any treatments we do.

In some of her videos, Dr. Cat shares that she used to be “anti-brain retraining” and would get angry whenever her doctor would urge her to do a brain retraining program. She was very much against it, and avoided brain retraining programs for many years. Today, Primal Trust has helped many people who were brain retraining “fails” — those who had little or no success. She says this is because they address limbic system injury from both the top down and bottom up — not just with neurolinguistic programming (NLP) as the brain retraining programs are based on, but also through body practices that allow the nervous system to entrain to a feeling of safety and trust.

The last thing I wanted to share, as someone who has taken many online courses and been a part of many website communities — I was particularly impressed with the website design and functionality of the course software. It is beautifully designed and operates seamlessly. In addition, the Primal Trust instagram page has a ton of free information, including somatic practices in video format that you can practice along with. I encourage anyone who is still experiencing chronic environmentally-based illness to check out the website and social media to see if this might be a good fit for you.

I would love to hear from anyone who has been through this program and can share about their experience in the comment section below.

Primal Trust website

Primal Trust instagram