Our guest for this week is Dr. Espen Hjalmby, a wellness educator, business strategist, speaker, ‘conscious business’ consultant and an official Australia’s Ninja Warrior.
Dr. Espen comes from Norway, but he has moved to Australia in order to pursue his academic career. Over the years he’s acquired degrees in degrees in DipPhysEd for Teaching, HIVE, BApp Sci and MClinChiro RMIT. In 2009, he became a fully qualified Doctor of Chiropractic. His journey then led to him on the path of co-founding Bonfire Health Group, which is now the largest hot yoga and well-being studios in Australasia and is helping over 5000 people each week. Having worked with over 10 000 patients, he decided to retire from clinical practice in 2015. From then on his career focused on speaking, researching and teaching the science, art, and philosophy of wellness, longevity, detox, weight loss, muscle and fitness, personal power and personal development, mindset, spirituality as well as the powerful principles of business and wealth mastery. He is using his personal as well as academic experience to help people who wish to take their business and finance to a whole new level. Dr. Espen’s website is offering a range of programs and products for improving your business and health, as well as personal, group and VIP coaching sessions.
In 2006 he suffered from very serious injuries which he managed to come back from through what can only be demonstrated the sheer power of human will. After a long and demanding period of rehabilitation, he was able to bring his body from the brink of doom to a state of such physical wellness. All of his endeavors reached new heights with him becoming an official Australian Ninja Warrior. You can watch his incredible run here!
Connect with Dr. Espen:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drespenhjalmby/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-espen-hjalmby-356aab37/
- Website: https://www.drespen.com
Dr. Espen’s Story of Inspired Evolution
Espen’s heartbreaking origin story begins far in the snowy parts of Norway and starts to take an unpredictable turn somewhere around the age of 8. One night, Espen woke up to found his brother passed away in his bed. Two years later, he welcomed a sister into the family, yet she was also preparing for a difficult journey of her own as she was born with a disability. In years to come, he and his family have been dealing with an incredible amount of adversity.
“When we experience hardship, it’s very easy to blame, it’s very easy to not see how it’s happening for us as a part of our spiritual contract, as I believe.” – Dr. Espen Hjalmby
It’s hard to imagine how in the whole scenario, knowing what we know now, that his struggles weren’t even close to dimming down. In his youth, he’s used alcohol and drugs as a way of coping and in 2006 he found himself as a student in Melbourne, Australia. One day, on his way to work, he lost control of his bike as he slid into some gravel on the side of the road. He was thrown into the air and he ended up fracturing his both legs and breaking his pelvis.
Espen was taken to a hospital where he had metal pins and rods placed into his body in a doctor’s attempt to put him back together. Sadly, he caught a multiresistant bacterial infection as a result of poor sanitation conditions of the hospital at the time. He was put on a range of very strong antibiotics which caused his healthy gut bacteria levels to go down rapidly, and he ended up losing 15kg in just 3 months.
“When you are in the deepest pit of the pain of your life, in that essence your purpose is revealed.” – Dr. Espen Hjalmby
Haunted by a threat of losing his right leg due to infection, Espen realized that his salvation was up to him and no one else. He ripped out the IV from his arm and from then on embarked on a personal healing journey.
He drew strength from his 12 years of experience as a wellness trainer and nutritionist. Relying heavily on organic nutrition and superfoods, meditation, essential nutrient supplementation, detox, prayer, mindset, and my daily exercise regime, all while falling in and out of consciousness. After an excruciating 3-week period, Espen managed to beat the infection all on his own, true dedication and will, and the techniques he used became a foundation for his some of many programs he is offering to the world today.
‘Unlearning’: Rejecting the Conditioned and Limiting Beliefs
“It’s not so much what we have to learn it’s what we have to unlearn.” – Dr. Espen Hjalmby
A huge part of Dr. Espen’s personal journey is being able to ‘unlearn’ what you’ve previously been conditioned to believe it is so. The whole portion of knowing when to take another path was crucial for his rehabilitation process. If he weren’t able to take destiny into his own two hands, who knows what would have happened with his infection, his body, and his life in the end. He points out that 95% of what we have already said to ourselves today, we’re likely to repeat the next day. The essence of transformation is actually making a conscious decision for changing a portion of this 95% each day, bit by bit. The end result is living a life without conditioned and limiting beliefs.
Dr. Espen highlights the role of a coach in the process of ridding ourselves from limiting beliefs. A coach will have an unbiased perspective which will inevitably allow them to contribute to your journey with precise information that might be needed at a single moment, challenging your current state while providing support for shifting towards a new one.
“If you don’t have a coach you will not be able to see it clearly, and if you can’t see it clearly, you’ll keep recreating those patterns over and over again.” – Dr. Espen Hjalmby
Dr. Epsen’s Message of Inspired Evolution
“When there’s a challenge, know that you’ve attracted this as a spiritual being, that this is a part of your soul contract, that you’ve asked for this. And step up and take responsibility and change the question from ‘Why is this happening to me?’ to ‘How might this be happening for me?’ and you transform in an instant. That is the end of suffering.” – Dr. Espen Hjalmby
Exploring and learning from the hero’s journeys of amazing individuals is something that we get to experience weekly on our podcast. Still, Dr. Espen’s journey is uniquely mesmerizing and harrowing at the same time. Both aspects of his story are intertwined in a majestic artwork that we call life and all we can do as art lovers, is to try and find meaning for improving our own lives first so that maybe we can one day help others as well. Dr. Espen has learned how to help himself and he has managed to rebuild himself both spiritually and physically in a way in the style of a real-life 6 million dollar man. He has reached deep into himself to find strength, courage, and guidance and he is urging all of us to do the very same:
“You have the truth inside you. You have the vision inside you. Find your truth, live your truth, love your truth and everything will open.” – Dr. Espen Hjalmby